Living Offline

 So much to catch up on! Just wanted to make a quick post and update:
Mom and Johnny came to visit
Finished house sitting
Moved out
Moved in
No internet...yet...hence why no posts, instagrams, facebooking, blog reading, life, my data plan is maxed.
Supporting local coffee shops to use their wi-fi
cleaning my new house...men lived there before us and I'm surprised this place hasn't been condemned by the city as uninhabitable. Grossness to the extreme.
Antrhopologie candles make life in a dirty old house enjoyable.
Last weekend of summer before school starts.

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.

Ballgowns

Ballgowns: British Glamour Since 1950 / Exhibitions & Galleries / Happenings / V&A Channel

My friend introduced me to this museum's website, and I cannot believe that I had no idea of its existence until today...sort of embarrassed as an art history student :/ I am in love with this British Glamour Since 1950 exhibition. Someone get me plane tickets to London please??? Thanks.

1 week down.

23 more to go.

First week of Joey being gone really hasn't been too much of a change. After this week is over it will be the longest we have been apart :( We are both keeping nice and busy though so I don't think we will notice the separation too much. Joey started school yesterday and has a decent amount of homework to do...He is already hating having homework again haha. Sucker. Welcome to my life! He is able to ride his bike from the apartment to school which will be nice ALL YEAR ROUND woot! He had school pictures taken which by how he posed on our skype date last night they will probably end up looking like this

After his first day of what they call "immersion" he went bowling with his classmates. From Joey's observation it is looking like business school kinda revolves around drinking. The bowling party had buckets and buckets of beer. He said there will be cocktail parties and gatherings at bars a plenty scheduled in these next couple years. Lucky for Joey he will know how to look the part from his experience of watching Madmen.

This weekend I am excited because I get to house sit for someone in my ward and watch their dog. It will be nice to have a canine in my life again because I miss my Gertie! Also their house is absolutely awesome so it will be a nice change of scenery from my sad apartment with only an air mattress and a swivel chair to label as furniture.

Gertie is adjusting to the new place pretty well Joey says. She has a dog walker come during the day while Joey is at school for 12 hrs a day during immersion. Joey has found a couple dog parks, none that are up to par of Madison's dog parks, but they will get the job done. One even has a swimming hole of some sort. Gertie had no interest in that though.

From both Joey and Gertie the verdict is that Houston is H-O-T. Glad I am up north until Houston cools down some!

Minor Adjustments

Joey left around 6:15am on Tuesday. I cried a little, but was pretty ok for the rest of the day after he left. It just felt like he was at work. It still feels like that on day 3 of him being gone. I am thinking give me a couple weeks and then I will start to feel the reality that he isn't just at work. Hopefully by then I will be in my new apartment filled with college girls to keep me distracted.

So far living totally alone hasn't been bad at all. On Tuesday it felt so weird to say yes to going out for coffee (no I didn't get coffee) with my friend after working in the museum. I didn't have anyone to go home to! I felt so out of place for a little bit not telling anyone that I would be home later, or worrying about getting home to take out the dog...It was kinda nice.

My girl Bront ë(blogger doesn't like how her name is spelled, but yes like the author) has been taking good care of me. After chilling at Michelangelo's we went fencing! super fun. We are going to be taking lessons once a week at some neighborhood center by campus. Yeah we will probably go to the Olympics someday in the sport. 

The only downside to being all alone in a ground floor apartment is it gets SCARY. The cat doesn't help either with her random spaz out run around the apartment episodes. I can't tell if someone is going to murder me or it is just Ethel having a crazy cat moment. Last night was the scariest. It was around 12:30 and I was getting ready for bed. I started psyching myself out like I have been every night since Joey left. I thought about our windows and how I wasn't sure if they were all locked. I started checking when one was unlocked. It is the window that Joey has used a couple times to break into our place when we accidentally locked ourselves out. Well I came to realize that window is broken and won't lock. I went into Katniss mode. I tried to find anything to bar the window shut, but our house had nothing. My next plan was to utilize my Home Alone skills and find random sharp objects to place at the bottom of the window. That way when my murderer came he would hurt his feet when getting inside. I realized that probably wasn't going to do much to save me so I grabbed the biggest sharpest knife in the kitchen and wedged it between my scriptures so I wouldn't accidentally slice myself in the middle of the night, but I had an easy access weapon for when my murderer came. While laying in bed freaking myself out I realized that I was waiting for someone to come kill me...which is ridiculous I know. I said a prayer and youtubed MOTAB until I fell asleep around 2:00am. 

 Joey arrived in Houston yesterday afternoon. The apartment is getting settled, Joey found a dog park for Gerite (with a swimming hole!), and school starts next week for my man. This semester will fly by so fast! Miss him like crazy though.