Here, Fishy Fishy Fishy

Eric and Charlotte and I spent the weekend at my in-laws cabin up near Ottertail (the cabin itself is on Walker Lake). The weather was pretty decent, we played some lawn games, went fishing, had a couple of bonfires, and just hung out enjoying a relaxing weekend. Charlotte did great with her grandparents, so hopefully now they'll be able to babysit her more (last time they tried she cried the whole 2 hours).

I went fishing quite a bit more than I ever have before, and actually enjoyed it a lot. Plus, I caught 2 fish worth keeping, which is very exciting for me. And a lot of fish we just threw back in, which was fun anyway. I don't really care what I catch as long as I'm catching something! I used to hate fishing, mostly because I didn't have the patience (not catching fish can be BORING) and I hated touching worms and fish. Now I have a husband who does the gross parts for me, and I have more patience to sit out on a boat or the end of a dock with a pole in the water waiting for something to bite. I don't know much about how to catch certain kinds of fish, but I'm actually learning a little and I figure if I put something on the end of my line and stick it in the water eventually something will bite it. That, and I just trust the other people with me to know more than I do. It's worked out for me so far! I don't like the taste of fish either, but nobody seems to mind. I did at least try the fish I caught, but only ate 2 bites before I gave up and went back to the rest of my food. Luckily Eric will eat fish and so will his parents so I don't feel too bad about not eating what I catch.

I'm excited to go fishing with my side of the family when we take our week long family vacation later this summer. Hopefully we'll have some good luck catching stuff. Unfortunately, neither of us actually owns our own fishing pole, so if the cabins we're renting don't have any we'll have to remedy that problem some other way. I'm sure we'll figure something out by August!

Finally getting around to writing...

I feel like I need to put something up here simply for the sake of posting since it has been so long. Of course, I do actually have something to write about, I just haven't gotten around to it. I have a new job! I have been hired as the senior high youth minister at a parish in Roseville. I'm really excited about it. They haven't had a youth minister in a year, so I basically get to/have to start the whole program from scratch, which is really exciting. I know it will be a big challenge but I'm really looking forward to it. I have so many ideas, and I really enjoy working with high schoolers, so I think this will be a good position for me. I start in a couple of weeks, but I'm already making a list in my head (and will be writing it down soon enough) of things I need to do once I actually start working. Top of the list: get volunteers! Based on what my boss has told me, there are a lot of people really excited about building a new youth group, so I hope that means I will have an abundance of volunteers.

Is it Thursday already?

Time has been flying by this week. I feel like I haven't had any time to get anything done. I also feel like most of what has been happening is not worth writing about. This weekend I have commencement for my Master's degree, so even though I've had my diploma for months now, I'm still walking. It should be good, I guess. I only have one of my classmates graduating with me, and then a handful of other students from the other programs offered at the School of Divinity, and then the rest of St. Thomas' graduate programs. So I'll only know one other person, but at least I had a couple of classes with her and she's not a total stranger to me. It's a little disappointing though, I know last year about 4 or 5 students who had all been in the program graduated together, and I'm sure that was really nice for them, but most of the people in I had in classes were part time or in the seminary so they're not graduating with me. Still, I guess it will be nice to have the formal ceremony recognizing my achievement. I put in a lot of work and even if it's really just Eric (and maybe my parents) it will still be nice to have that acknowledged. Plus, I'm sure I'll get to see a lot of my professors and that will be nice, they can finally meet my daughter and I can catch up with them a little bit too.

Also this weekend is a possible bonfire (if it doesn't rain) and my oldest brother's 30th birthday party. Almost every weekend from now until the end of summer is already jam packed with plans. Eric and I have 3 weddings that we'll be attending (and 2 that we won't), a weekend at his parent's cabin, hopefully a weekend in Chicago to visit family, a few birthdays (including Eric's, which is basically a national holiday the way we celebrate it), the Novak family camping trip, and a week at Lake Mary. Plus I am probably joining a coed soccer league with some friends from high school, and I am going to be volunteering one evening a week at my former place of employment, Holy Rosary, teaching ESL. It's going to be a crazy busy summer, but since most of this stuff is freely chosen and fun, I'm still really looking forward to it!

Gardening with Allergies

Gardening with allergies is pretty near impossible, or at least down right uncomfortable. I don't have a house, so how can I have a garden, you might ask. Well, we are fortunate enough to have a balcony at our current apartment and so we are hanging up some plants and using planters for others. We are using a topsy-turvey tomato hanger so we prepared that over the weekend, and bought a hanging strawberry plant too. We have a topsy turvey strawberry hanger but we'd have to buy at least 15 plants for it and that's a lot of dough. It was way more economical to buy the hanging plant, and at least if nothing grows we're not out that much money and we can just get all (rather than some) of our strawberries at the store.

Today we planted everything in the planters. One has seedlings of some flowers, one has actual seeds (that's sortof an experimental one, if it doesn't turn out the garden gnome that's sitting in it right now will be very sad and lonely), one has some herbs, and the last one is another tomato plant that my dad gave us. So hopefully we'll have a beautiful looking balcony with some flowers and food. But allergy season makes doing all of this very difficult. About 10 minutes after finishing up my eyes were very red and itchy and I swear I could feel them swelling up. Part of the problem is we took a walk earlier tonight and then sat outside grilling at the communal grill/picnic area our apartment has set up, so my exposure to allergens was already greater than most days, and then being in direct proximity with plants was just the final straw. At least our "garden" is all set up, and now I can just water and wait for everything to grow and enjoy my beautiful plants and soon enough some delicious strawberries and some salad with my own tomatoes!

Go figure

I haven't written a new post in so long, so of course when I actually have the time and inclination to do so (last night), Blogger decides it is going to shut down. Then when I miraculously find time earlier today to write, it's still down. Now, most of my ideas have been pushed out of my brain by other, more important things. Or at least more timely things. Oh well, it happens. And since I have a small amount of time now, I can finally write what I wanted to, what I remember anyway.

My original post was just going to be about these spiders that were in my bathtub this week. On Tuesday morning I get in the shower, turn on the faucet, and before I can start the spray I see movement, and there is one of the biggest daddy-long-legs I've ever seen in my entire life crawling along the edge of the curtain. I'm not kidding, I think the legs were as long as my hand. It was awful. And pretty much ruined my whole shower. On Wednesday when I get in to take a shower I have almost forgotten it but I'm not that forgetful so I look around the tub and don't see anything. I've got my hair all lathered up with shampoo and turn my head to start rinsing it out when all of a sudden I see another, slightly smaller spider crawling on the wall. I think it was the wife of the giant one. To confirm that fact, in case you are thinking it is simply coincidental, when I went to give Charlotte her bath I grabbed her tub and there on the bottom of it was an even smaller spider. That's right, it was their baby spider. 3 spiders in 2 days. At least they got progressively smaller, not progressively bigger. It really seemed like a spider family was living in my bathroom this week. Well, not anymore.

Mother's Day

Today was my first Mother's Day. My first real one anyway--I was pregnant on Mother's Day last year if you want to count that. This is the first one that I actually have a child. It was pretty good. We went out to a nice lunch at Green Mill, which was a good choice because they weren't doing a Mother's Day brunch so it wasn't actually that busy, and Charlotte was really well-behaved so we were actually able to have a nice meal at a restaurant without any real big issues. They messed up Eric's order but then gave it to us for free so it turned out ok. Eric and Charlotte gave me nice chairs for our balcony, which was the perfect gift. Now we don't have to use our camping chairs to sit out on our balcony this summer! They also gave me a little wall decoration, some planters, an awesome purple watering can, and a small gnome to put in our little balcony garden which I will now be able to start. I may not have a house yet, but I am going to do some gardening anyway! It was a really nice way to spend my first Mother's Day, and was exactly what I wanted--some time with my two favorite people, the reasons I'm a mother to begin with.

If Only I Wasn't So Dependent On the Internet

I am very frustrated with our internet provider. We're basically stuck with what we have, and if we want internet and tv we can't really switch--there just aren't a lot of options for people living in an apartment building. Anyway, we've had a lot of problems recently and have had to call every month for the past 3 or 4 months to get things fixed with our bill, and finally we decided to change our internet speed to a slower speed to try to save some money. They told us we could always upgrade to the next highest option for only a slight increase so we figured we would try that if the current speed was too slow. Which it is. We called tonight to get the middle speed at the middle price (not quite what we were originally paying, but not quite as fast as that either. But still better than the slowest/cheapest option). However, the people we talked to basically told us no, it wasn't an option, and that technically we shouldn't have been given the price we are paying for the service we are getting anyway. If we wanted to cancel and wait 60 days though, we could become "new" customers again (or something like that) and get an even better deal than we are getting right now for the faster internet. I think that is ridiculous. What is even more annoying is that it seems like every time we call they tell us something different. Different people offer different deals, and some people don't offer any and try to screw you over, and even just calling to tell them they screwed up a bill turns into a big hassle. There is so little consistency with this internet provider (probably not just them, but our only experience has been with this one) and it has caused so many problems. Like I said, we can't easily or cheaply switch, however, because options are much more limited when you live in an apartment. Just one more reason I'm looking forward to having a house someday.

Allergies Part 2

Apparently I spoke too soon. Yesterday my eyes started itching a little. Today they are itching more. Tomorrow, who knows? I think the cooler, wetter weather kept my allergies at bay but now that it is sunny and warm I think they are going to come on full force. Bummer.