Pseudo Single

Big catch up update:
I can almost mark one month on the Calendar since Joey left for school. Which surprisingly has flown by! He is pretty busy in his classes, but he is liking them pretty well I think. He worked in a team for the first couple weeks and now he will be in more regular classes. While he has been grinding out case studies and other business schooly things I have been busy. busy. busy. My life has basically consisted of house sitting, packing and deep cleaning my old apartment, moving into my new apartment, girls nights, my cat, working at j.crew, and volunteering at the museum.The house that I am "sitting" is AMAZING. It requires its own post. Here are some pics of my life lately...

Move out: Joey's "man cave" after I spent a WHOLE DAY cleaning this thing out. He is really good at accumulating things. Our apartment is so bare. It's so sad I have loved this place, and our landlords are super sad too. We are their favorite tennants...I'm their favorite tennant ;)

 Move in: I am slowly but surely getting things moved into my new apartment. It is kinda hard moving much with a mini, but I just take a car load a day and call it good. It is actually nice not having it be one crazy moving day like most students in Madison. Since my landlords are just the most amazing people ever they are letting me have my apartment until the end of the month. Unlike the rest of campus where August 15th (also known as hippie christmas) is the day where everyone moves. The city is filled with U-hauls, foreigners who don't know how to navigate through downtown Madison, scared freshman, and lots and lots of junk on the curb. -hence hippie christmas. I'll show you my little apartment when it is all settled into. By little I am not exaggerating...not sure how I am going to fit a bed in there...I'll worry about that later. My mom and lil bro Johnny come to town tomorrow (sooooo excited!) and we are going to get me a little futon or something to squeeze into my closet. I mean bedroom.

Girls night: Full Moon 5k with the j.crew girls. I did surprisingly well considering I have not been running much lately. Made me so excited that I registered for a 10k this October. Running is good!

Cat: Ethel and I snuggle a lot. I feel bad because I am not living at my apartment for a couple weeks so she gets lonely. I try to make up for it by rubbing her belly extra and give her all sorts of lovins.

Work: j.crew is a really hard place to be at right now. They have their new fall collection in and it is pure torture to control myself to not just max out my credit card five times over buying everything in the store. Need to find more monies...I considered selling my eggs because you can get paid really if you go to a good school, but its a little too invasive for just wanting to buy some clothes. Guess that's why it is good mommy is coming to town tomorrow huh mom???

Volunteer: I Volunteer at the Chazen's (UW's art musuem) print and drawing studies room a couple of hours a week. It is great getting the experience of working in a museum, handling art, and working with some of the most fun people ever. If  I can get a job just like this place when I graduate I will be set for life. 

Cat: I took Ethel to the vet for some vaccination updates, and she was classified level 4 (out of 5) in the overweight category. I have a chubby kitty! She doesn't like to exercise and she hates toys. Oh boy does she love to eat though! I have a cat that mooches more than a dog. Not even exaggerating. Sometimes she has moments of wanting to attack things so I let her have it so she can get that cardio  going. Work it Ethel!

House Sitting: Preview of the house I am house sitting. Just wait til you see the inside.

House Sitting: This is Roxy. She's a big hound dog that barks loud, and has a heart of gold.

Girls Night: Bronte and I went out on the town...

...60's style.

Volunteer: I love the prints in the print room. We have thousands! I need to get an exact number because it is pretty amazing how many we have. Lots of cool Japanese prints that I LOVE. My mom is going to get a tour of the print room tomorrow. I'm going to show her some of my favorite German expressionism stuff and maybe sneak in a little Shunga print just to add a shock factor to the tour ;)... Google it if you dare.

Girls Night:Bronte introduced me to one of the best movies ever. I am recommending to all you ladies out there to watch A Room with a View. It is also a book so read it too. The movie stays true to the book according to Bronte. The story is adorable, and they cast the most beautiful men...British men... Your welcome.

Cat: We are basically two best friends that anyone could ever have.

Girls Night: well technically boys were here too, but it was mostly the gigi girls. Cherie the owner of the Madison Gigi's turned 50 last week! We all went out for pizza to celebrate. She hates cake (but loves cupcakes?...) so we had cherry pie from Hubbard Ave Diner (best pies eva) for dessert. I love Cherie so much! She is so sweet, and is really funny after a couple martinis and whatever was in that shot was the waiter gave her for her birthday.

Girls Night: Went out to eat with my friend Julie to the Irish pub called Brocach. It was super duper delish. I tried bangers and mash for the first time which surprisingly I loved! I normally wouldn't order something like this because I don't like processed meats, especially sausage. However I decided to be a true midwesterner and enjoy some pre heart disease for dinner lol. I am glad I did, one of the best things I have ever tasted.

Keeping myself super busy is making time away from Joey fly. It still sucks majorly not having someone...a human (thanks roxy) to sleep next to. Or when little funny things happen or other random things pop up that I can't just share with him right away. I miss cooking him dinner (even if its a frozen pizza most of the time lol) and watching our favorite shows together. I want to go to the movies so bad, but don't want to go with out him. As much fun as I have at girls nights with my favorite ladies, I miss my Joey, my best friend. I will keep living it up being Pseudo Single though and have the best final semester of college ever.

Birthday Recap

My birthday was a good day yesterday. As simple as it was, I think it was my favorite birthday in a long time. I started the day waking up at 5 so I could finish my mountain of reading for my rhetoric of religion class. Treated myself to driving to school instead of sweating in 90 degree heat (before 9:00!) on my bike. After class I headed home, had some lunch, and headed off to work. After work was over it felt more like a birthday. I cam home to some lovely flowers from my sweetheart!

I was feeling creative and hyper so I made a headband out of my bouquet and posed Lana del Rey style. The flowers were just going to wilt and die anyways so why not make a sweet crown out of them?

See? Just need longer hair and serious eyeliner and you won't know who is who.

After I played with my roses, I opened my present from my sister in law jojo (Jonessa). She got me an amazing cookbook that I can't wait to try! It is super natural every day. Jojo says all the recipes she has tried are amazing so I can't wait to get cookin! My pinterest recipes will have to be put on hold for a bit :) Speaking of which I made my birthday cake from a pinterest recipe. I made triple lemon blueberry cake with lemon curd filling and lemon buttercream frosting. LEMON. It was super tasty and fresh. perfect cake for summer. Gotta give props to joey for letting me make a cake that definitely wouldn't be his first pick. I baked it the night before my birthday since I was going to be so busy yesterday. I was baking a cake a midnight, and anyone who knows me knows my brain stops functioning properly after a certain hour. Well I was making the cake just fine. Took a pic.

I thought it was funny how thick the batter was, but I had made cakes with thick batters and didn't think much of it. So I popped in in the oven and felt so proud of myself for making a tasty cake. Then I noticed 4 oval shaped brown things sitting in a cardboard carton. sweating...(it's really hot here) Yeah. forgot the eggs. Soo after the cake had been in the oven for 10 minutes I frantically snatched it out, slopped the semi cooked mess back into the bowl and folded in the eggs that I whipped together like I was folding chocolate chips into cookie dough. I was sure that this cake was screwed, but lo and behold it turned out great still! I wrapped it up and saved it for my birthday so I could frost it.

Joey and I went to dinner at the old fashioned which is THE restaurant to go to if you want traditional wisconsin food. it was delicious. I have always wanted to eat here since we moved, but it has always been so busy that we just end up going somewhere else. Last night though the wait wasn't too bad and we got our sconnie eats on.

Joey got the no.30 which was high cholesterol in a bun. grass fed beef burger, all natural bacon, local cheddar cheese, and a fried egg (which I'm sure was also cage free/natural feed/no corn standard stuff). it would have had fried onions too but we know how joey feels about onions.

burgers make joey happy

rar!! get in muh face!

the inside of the restaurant is cool too. it's filled with old vintage wisconsin stuff...and lots of loud people who think yelling is proper restaurant vernacular.

I had the macaroni and cheese which was bubbly and oozy creaminess, with little puddles of melted butter when it was placed in front of me...by the end of our dinner it was solid...yeah there's no fat in here.

what is a traditional wisconsin meal though with out cheese curds and ranch? this restaurant has the best curds in madison. hands down...now where is my lipitor and sweat pants?

we had a lovely dinner and I love this picture. despite joey's deformed hand haha.

after dinner we went back home and just hung out together. which might sound boring, but it was perfect to me. I just wanted to relax with my family and watch a movie on netflix while stuffing my face with cake. This is the inside of my cake after I sliced it in half. soo tasty.

before I sliced my (mini) cake I dressed it with pink sprinkles, 23 candles, and made joey and the cat sing happy birthday to me...gertie was hiding under the couch. she gets a little moody when the attention isn't all on her.

kitty wasn't too sure about the candles so she was squirmy

It was a perfect birthday! I loved just being with my joey and keeping it simple. It is funny the older you get the less hyped up you want to be about your birthday. Last night while I was falling asleep I was thinking of things I wanted to do in this next year:
1. graduate college
2. get a job/internship at an art gallery or auction house
3. fit into a pair of jeans that I had in high school.
4. get back into yoga
5. be more spontaneous
6. be more organized
7. be a better homemaker (cleaning, decorating, wifey things)
8. be a better wife to joey
9. read more books (good books. ie the classics)
10. learn a language (german or french)
11. become a better writer
12.apply to graduate school???

It's been a while

Hey folks,
Kinda forgot about blogging after finals finished up. My brain went into summer vacay mode in more things than just school I guess. Finals finished up great and I got great grades too! Super excited about that. Now I just have 3 classes this summer (german history, rhetoric of religion, and scandinavian history) and fall semester and I am after taking way too long GRADUATED!

Summer is kicking off this weekend like anywhere else in America. One thing that is unique to Madison though is the World's Largest Bratfest. It is a pretty big deal around here. They light the capital "mustard yellow" in honor of it...People like their brats out here. Joey and I went the past two years but don't really feel like going this year....I don't like brats. Guess I will never be a true Sconnie lol.

As far as the Platers go I am starting to pack us up. By that I mean I have been posting stuff on craigslist like it is my job. We are selling everything! Except for a couple small things that can fit in Joey's car. It feels awesome getting rid of everything and simplifying our life. I just can't believe how much crap we took with us from Utah all the way to Wisconsin. Maybe since we were still newly weds we felt guilty of getting rid of so many wedding gifts, but it feels so good to de-junk! I wish we had done this sooner. We had so many things that had never even been opened in the 3.5 years we have been married!

Sorry that there isn't much to report here but it is kinda nice to have things be calm for a bit so we can enjoy the last 66 (give or take) days left together.

Have a happy memorial day weekend everyone! Joey and I are probably going to launch a couple rockets Joey built in celebration for it. Pictures to come! Oh and good luck to all the Madison Marathon runners this weekend!

Sunday Funday

Happy Blessed Sabbath brothers and sisters. haha jk. Days like today are my favorite...minus the fact that I need to type two papers and study for a test....ya I need to get on that soon. It is a favorite though because it is a stormy day! I love rainstorms, and in Madison we get really good ones. The kind of storms that stop the speaker in church and all the little kids are like "OOHHHH!" after a ginormous thunder clap. I love the dark gray sky and its contrast to the vivid green flora. It makes the house so cozy to me. To add to the coziness theme I put some vanilla in an oven safe bowl in the oven at 300 (thank you pinterest) to make the house smell delicious...then I got real and made some knock you naked brownies (again thank you pinterest). They are in the oven as I type, and cannot wait to nibble on their chocolatey caramelicious faces.

 Yesterday was Cinco De Mayo! To celebrate I made cilantro lime chicken tacos which were so EASY and TASTY. What could be better right? It was just 3lbs BS (boneless-skinless) chicken breasts, 16oz salsa, two limes, 1 packet taco seasoning, mix all up in the crock pot and cook on low for 6-8hrs. We loved them. Hated the tortillas I bought, but at least the meat was good.

Freddy food plate got a bean fro, rice beard, and taco ears.

I used cilantro and tomatoes from the farmer's market to make some mean pico. mmm.

So I mentioned in my last post that yesterday was also Mifflin. What is Mifflin you ask? One of the biggest parties of the year in Madison like around 20k people big. It isn't a party that necessarily supports our morals, so we didn't go,  but I find it entertainng to see how excited everyone gets for it...and the drunk facebook messaging/status updates that follow from my friends ;)

Mifflin is a block party held every year on the first weekend in May. Originally it was a war protest in the 70s but now is an excuse to let loose and get really drunk. This year there was drama with the Mifflin party because it fell on the same day  as Cinco de Mayo. The party's theme combined the two celebrations, and of course people got offended (someone always does). It ended up being that the Dean of UW sent out a really awkward video telling students not to go to the party. That opened pandora's box. If you go on Youtube you will find a bunch of videos making fun of the deans video with dubstep remixes, memes from movies, etc. I just find it hilarious. This was my favorite meme

The whole situation just makes me laugh, because this stuff is from another planet compared to what student life is like back in Provo at BYU. It is so funny how opposite these two schools are. I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to go to the party just a tinsy bit, but whatcha gonna do. Back to studying!

a green first day of spring

Happy official first day of spring my friends!
I don't know about you guys, but at least in Madison it has felt a lot more like summer and not too springy. Which is unseasonable, insane, unsettling, even scary. I say scary because if it is like this now we will either A: have a scorching hot summer. B: have snow in July. C. just have gorgeous weather forever?!I don't like to think about early spring here. It is mostly cold, wet, and above all else GREY (gray?)meh I like the looks of grey. more fancy). The snow is still melting, it is all gross from dirt and junk, and just not fun. I would show some pictures of Madison in March, but the only photos I have of us in March are from when we were in Spain.Unlike the negative descriptions of March Maddness in Madison, our view for a few weeks was enjoyably like this :) Naranjas.Alhambra was probably my favorite place. So amazing! We walked around the gigantic palace and gardens for hours. Afterwards we had a lovely lunch of pancetta sandwiches at a cafe on a cliff. Then we walked down, down, down the mountain to downtown and walked some more. Lots of walking.

It wasn't always sunny in Spain we had lots of rainy days. You shouldn't feel bad for us though. We pushed through it and somehow had a good time.Whoever said the rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain, has apparently never been to Barcelona in March.

Moving on from Spain before my withdrawals become too hard to bear, Spring in Madison is wonderful this year! I celebrated all things green according to Madison's standards while walking around campus today. I grabbed a green tea frap from starbs for a quick snack before lecture. Watched some protesters sporting their giant metal peace symbols protesting the war while a local band rocked out. Madison doesn't mess around when it comes to practicing your civil rights. Our protesters always put on a good show! Need further example? Look up the protests last year with gov. walker.

Yup I sported all things green for a lovely first day of spring. Green frap, green protests, and green rainboots! Just need some more sun on those albino legs and things here will be just dandy!

Speaking of green we had a great St. Patrick's day. I made Joey rainbow pancakes with green eggs and milk. While I had a green smoothie (remember that sugar fast thing?)
I made Irish soda bread (no raisins or currents) which I ate too fast to get a photo of, but made an extremely delicious grilled cheese sandwich with Dubliner Irish white cheddar cheese for dinner.

Sunday was to be the closing ceremony of Irish celebratory feasting, I made a Guiness and steak Irish stew pot pie. Didn't read the recipe all the way through (which has never happened before?...) and started the stew too late to be able to eat that night. So tonight we are having it since I was on campus til 9 last night. It is Jaimie Oliver's recipe I will let you know how it is after tonight!After a big day of St. Paddies partying we were hungover...from luck of the Irish fun! Joey got this while we were all in our spots on the bed. Which is green...hmm I am sensing a theme here ;)

Hope your Irish festivities were great and that your first day of spring is fresh!

Madison Metro

Good Friday everyone. Does this image relate to you?
It did me too.

I remember in Elementary school you weren't cool unless you rode the bus. It was the best part of the school day riding the bus with your pals goofing around. Our bus even had a cheer when we passed the house with a hummer-don't ask my how I remember that. We felt so cool too when we could be late for class to do a bus fire drill, the principle would catch us as we jumped off the back of the bus. Then a time came when the bus was NOT COOL. It became a topic of total avoidance, a forgotten friend. Pubic transportation was never an option I considered for transportation in my life. I have one memory of riding a public bus. I was with my grandma who lived in Rose Park and we took it to go to the Disney store at Crossroads mall. The End.

When we moved to Madison I saw that public transportation/ riding your bike is a very easy and common thing. There are a million bike paths or lanes that can get you anywhere you want to go. I started riding my bike to school everyday and it is probably my favorite thing to do in Madison. As the semester progressed the air got colder. Snowflakes started to fall, and I remembered that this place is a an arctic wasteland from december-march. In the winter lots of people still ride their bikes (crazies), but I couldn't weather such a feat. -15 degrees with wind, snow, sleet, ice? NO THANK YOU.

winter cycling in Madison looks a little less like this.... ...and a LOT more like this.

I didn't want to drive to campus because that would mean spending 5-10 bucks a day on parking (con of a downtown campus). I decided to get a bus pass (which was free. perk of being a student). I was terrified. I had never ridden on a bus all by myself before! What kind of people rode the bus? What if I get on the wrong bus and end up God knows where? What if someone falls asleep on me? Do you see the sorts of anxiety arise when such audacious things like public transportation have to be considered? I had to put my big girl panties on and get things figured out. I started using maps on my ipod touch in bus mode. It tells me what routes to take, and when the bus comes etc. aka amazingness. Once I started riding the bus I realized it is a piece of cake, and actually really fun! Most of the people on the bus are just students like me, but there are also the cute old ladies, creepers, obese folks in their scooter chairs. Classy. I got a creeper photo bombing in this pic. I will let you know if i am lucky enough to get my scooter chair guy.So riding the bus isn't this glamorous, but it saves me tons of money on parking and gas. I am helping the environment by reducing my driving, and I get to see cute parts of town that I would normally bypass in my commute.

When I ride I feel like this....
...but look more like this-rockin the headphones and listening to my jams!

If you are scared of buses like I was I say give it a try! It could make a fun date night to take the bus into town. Like the saying goes, "getting there is half the fun".Now if we could please get more double deckers in the US that would be great!