Funemployment

I don't want to write a recap about the weekend just yet because I am still recovering and I am sad that it is over. It involved seeing all of my favorite people, a concert, and an all-out Disney costume party, though, so get excited for that post. I feel like I get so spoiled every weekend I visit up there, even when the traffic makes me never want to drive again.

In returning to the 'new normal' of what my summer has become, I am enjoying the pros and cons of what Josh framed for me as "Funemployment": a term I have latched onto because it makes it sound better than it is.

My Funemployment involves 4 main components: babysitting 2 young boys on Mondays and Wednesdays, teaching yoga, continuing GA tasks, and job applications. I am learning so much in each of these positions.

Babysitting: I had no experience babysitting boys prior to this summer. I grew up with two younger sisters and had no idea what I was getting myself into, but I learned very quickly some basic rules. 1) When in doubt, make explosion sounds. 2) Just let them tie you up sometimes. 3) I'm always the bad guy.....The only rule I have for the boys every day is "No lying". They break it every day mostly in the form of "Mommy always lets us ______!" No, I found out, Mommy does not let them have cookies for breakfast, have two sweets a day, play soccer in the house, etc.

Yoga & GA: I have greatly enjoyed my return to teaching yoga (3 times a week!), making my own playlists, and being forced to take out time for myself to be mindful. It really does make a difference and I believe works to combat some of the I-have-no-idea-where-my-life-is-going anxiety. They have also started phasing me out at my previous GA which included putting up the names of the new people who are going to start in the Fall. To ease me through the transition, they left my name on the office white board, and I greatly appreciate that.

Job Applications: Having gone through the lull and uncertainty of not having a job upon graduation before, I knew what to expect. I don't handle change well, and so I knew that patience and perseverance would have to become my new best friends. Still, I've developed a blurb to use for the dreaded "So what are you planning on doing now?" question. I'm "searching for jobs in the nonprofit, counseling, or higher education fields within the DC Metro Area." My lease ends at the end of July so if I do not have a job by then, I will find a new base of operation either at home or somewhere else convenient from which to keep persevering and patiencing.

My youngest sister who also just graduated (from undergrad) is also going through the job search process. She has started blogging here: http://kimhutcheson.blogspot.com/ and is clearly the more talented and artsy of us sisters.

Okay since I need a picture for this post, I will leave you one of how Rupert has been enjoying my funemployment.

Ridiculous.

Weekends do not get better. Fact.

After dropping off Sam for his flight last Tuesday morning, I finished a major work assignment and headed back to Williamsburg that night. I also found out that I had an interview in DC Friday afternoon. The plan was to leave Friday morning, but then I realized I would need a place to put my stuff during the day so I really needed to go up Thursday evening. I realized this Thursday afternoon. If there is anything that brings out Stressy Kelsey, it is last-minute changes in plans. The only thing that kept me calm enough to get everything together in 2 hours was the fact that I was bringing Cheese Shop with me (bread ends and house dressing) and I knew this would make some WM alums very happy.

On my drive up, I only lost about $15.00 trying to work the metro station that would allow me to park overnight. Even though 'multi-day parking' was labeled with sharpie on white copy paper taped in front of parking spaces, I will say that the metro hotline person I talked to was very nice. Upon arriving in NOVA, I was blessed with an invitation into the very exclusive fort that I had heard so much about. The fort is better than anything I've ever created in my childhood. There are rules to provide just the right amount of structure. There is ambience. There is amazing food courtesy of Steph. Then we added Star trek and Clone High. I missed the fort as soon as I left.

Friday was interview day so I spent the morning preparing and, of course, got there 45 min. early. Thankfully, there was a coffee shop close by that I hung out in until it had reached the perfect clearly-early-but-not-too-creepy time of arrival. Interview went well and afterwards, since Mike and I had plans to host Steph and Micah over for dinner, I went to whole foods to pick up the ingredients of a recipe Noah had sent me online.

Main Course: Quinoa Stir-Fry with Vegetables and Chicken! The more cilantro, the better. I highly recommend trying this recipe when you're in the mood for something light and healthy with a lot of flavor:

http://www.handletheheat.com/2010/03/quinoa-stir-fry-with-vegetables-chicken.html


Dessert: I don't know what it's called, but Steph created something with egg yolks, sugar, marsala, dark chocolate, and cream that tasted like heaven. Very rich, but a perfectly easy dessert. Here is something similar I found from Alton Brown minus the chocolate and cream melted together and stirred in:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/zabaglione-recipe/index.html

Saturday, I showed Mike where his gym was and then was embarrassed in a push-up contest. We also went suit shopping and to the zoo. I felt a LOT of pressure going suit shopping with Mike since he normally goes with no less than 3 people, but had so much fun. I even took some pictures. This one is my favorite:

Taking this mission VERY seriously.

After a productive suit shopping outing, we went to the zoo, but, unfortunately, I wimped out after the elephants, and needed froyo stat. Plus, we learned that Selena was in town and that meant a trip to Silver Springs later that night. We watched basketball and ate applecake and saw the greatest lego collection known to mankind. After babysitting, I hated legos and thought they were every mother's worst nightmare. Now I've seen their true potential. 

The next morning, Mike and I met up with Kelly, Alex, and Jake for what was a very successful brunch. These kids know how to brunch out, but I think this was one of our better brunches by far. We all had bottomless mimosas, talked jobs and mutual friends, and even started brainstorming for the New Years reunion. That is productivity. There were many deets tweeted and a few instagrams:

"How much does a hipster weigh? An instagram!"

Finally, to complete an epic weekend, I finished my first viewing of The Room, as well as the special features interview with Tommy Wiseau. I will have to watch this movie at least 5 more times before I'm able to fully reflect on it. Good news: I've already got most of the audience responses down. Bad news: Apparently there will be no more live stagings of it. 

I am back in Williamsburg and ready to rest and get back to work after two amazing weekends with friends.

I will leave you with a few of my favorite The Room quotes: 

"I FEEL LIKE I'M SITTING ON AN ATOMIC BOMB WAITING FOR IT TO GO OFF." "Me too."

"Leave your stupid comments in your pocket!"

"I miss you. I just saw you. What are you talking about?"

But I do miss DC already.

Sam Visits!

The past two weekends have been such a blur, but they were both so amazing that I think each deserves a separate post.

First two weekends ago, on Friday night, Wendy and I got into the city at the same time as like 2 tornados. Yay. But we both still managed to go out and meet up with people at Sara and Davia's new place which is adorable. Highlights of the night include BSB covers, homemade cornbread, seven layer dip, and being introduced to Cards Against Humanity.

On Saturday, my pen pal Sam and I finally met for the first time. Sam and I became pen pals during a 7th grade Civics project. Pen pals were the cool thing to do at least for a couple of weeks until everyone else stopped writing to their pen pals. Sam and I were unaware pen pals stopped being cool so we just kept writing to each other.....for 13 years. We sent pictures and presents, told stories about pets and relationships and family, and saw each other through graduations, moves, breakups, and jobs. When facebook became 'a thing' sometime during college, Sam and I switched to communicating more online.  He told me last year that he was thinking of playing rugby in the U.S. for a little while and, of course, I was a huge fan of this idea.

He actually did plan a visit and came to the States to play rugby in Cincinnati in March. This was the middle of my last semester of my Master's so I didn't even have time to think about planning a visit until after graduation. Sam bought his tickets to DC as a last stop on his way home back to New Zealand for early June. Last Saturday, my roommate Wendy and I went to pick him up at Dulles without any real plan except for to do all of the touristy things we could fit into one day.

We were all running on little sleep. Sam running on less, which is why he has the Red Bull.

After checking Sam into his hotel, we met up with Mike, who showed us around to all of the monuments, memorials, museums, and The White House. Then we proceeded to collect Josh, Sara, Noah, and Kim on our tour which I am grateful for because, if I didn't have all of these knowledgeable people along, I would have just had to make up pieces of our history for Sam. Later that evening, we decided against showing Sam Americanized versions of 'meat pies' and went back to Mike's place for pizza and beer (almost as American as it gets).

Sunday, Mike, his roommate, and I went back to the cutest little crepe place we had gone the day before and were each handed like 8 different samples of gelato. Each flavor was apparently better than the flavor before somehow. I like this crepe place. The Sam met up with us and him and I left the city to head back to Williamsburg after collecting Wendy. Sunday night a bunch of us introduced Sam to the delis, Mug Night, and to cheese fries: there you have Williamsburg nightlife.

Monday, (because I had to babysit), Wendy took Sam on a tour of Colonial Williamsburg and The Outlets. He came back with like 5 bags of stuff after his trip, including chocolates for Wendy and I thanking us for hosting him. Unfortunately, I had to take Sam home that night since his flight was the next morning and I committed the unforgivable sin of not taking him to The Cheese Shop before leaving Williamsburg. He had just eaten though! And we got Chick-Fil-A on the drive up!

Tuesday, I talked my sister into coming with me and Sam to the airport. Traffic was crazy and a great reminder why I never want to be a NOVA commuter, but we got there with plenty of time to snap a pen pal picture!

Goodbyes outside of Dulles.

Now to begin planning my trip to New Zealand:)

Wulia Wedding Weekend: Highlights and Recap

It is hard for me to put this weekend into words. Will is one of my dearest friends from William and Mary. Julia has become one of my closest girl friends. This was also my first wedding of a close friend that I've had the chance to attend. It was absolutely gorgeous and perfect.

I obviously tweeted the deets all weekend (Cohen says he is glad I take that role so seriously), but here are some highlights from the four days. Trying to rank them in chronological order.

• The Drive Up. Kylie, Cohen, Stephen, and I left Williamsburg around 4:30 (about an hour after we had planned) and the boys had a boat to catch for Will's pirate ship bachelor party. Stephen had to provide the pirate costume (complete with parrot) so us getting there on time was crucial. Our GPS estimated we would get to Baltimore right as the ship was leaving dock. Somehow on a Memorial Day weekend Friday, during rush hour, having no clue where we were going, we arrive with a half hour to spare. And Kylie and I had to drive through Baltimore to find the hotel as the two most anxious drivers in the world. We found THE LAST parking spot in the parking garage of our hotel. #wuliaweddingmiracle

• The Bachelorette Party. The only girls I knew prior to the bachelorette party were Kylie, Kelly, and Julia. But as soon as we arrived, we got to know each other very well very quickly. There were private shopping experiences, slushies, dancing, and I became instant best friends with Jane, Sladky's girl friend who I met for the first time that night. Kelly and I took a picture with a 'sassy' face that instantly became a hit on facebook. It was almost the most embarrassing picture of me I've ever seen. Kelly did an amazing job organizing the bachelorette party!

• Team Dragon Elite. Because we were not in the wedding party, Kylie, Mike, Jane, and I decided to get dinner at the Inner Harbor. We walked so many places to find seafood, but decided on sushi because we were starving. Afterwards, we rented dragon paddle boats, tweeted the deets (and Mike got so excited about the hashtags he was coming up with.) Then we got Rita's (even though we whined to Mike that it did not count as real ice cream) and watched kiddies played in the fountains on our walk home.

Mike and Jane and Kylie at dinner

• Wedding Day! Kelly and I ate breakfast in the hotel and caught up on all of the important things. We rode a charter bus to the beautiful country outside of Baltimore to the Bleser home. There was the most delicious appetizers and then catering from a food truck! I had an amazing veggie burger. Even though it took hours of annoying the DJ, he finally played "Call Me Maybe". #wuliaweddingmiracle

Waiting for the ceremony to begin!

• Home. Now the summer officially begins. It will take at least a week of recovering from the wedding weekend, but it was so great to spend time with the people I call my chosen family.

K&K and Return to Running

Saturday, my mom threw a graduation party for my sister and I. Even though my sister swears otherwise, I promise I knew nothing of this party until like a week or two before graduation. It was my mom's first time making a facebook event and, despite inviting friends of mine who had since moved across the country, she did pretty well! The food was amazing and I was grateful for an intimate gathering of friends and family since I was still over small talk and crowds from the previous weekend. At some point during catching up/gossiping with everyone poolside, I made Lo get a twitter and found out she now runs!!! We've come so far from our varsity cheerleading days. I promised to do a race with her soon.

Speaking of running, Sunday was supposed to be my return to running after a hiatus during finals. A good friend, Stephanie, from the counseling program was unable to run the 8k she signed up for this weekend so I volunteered to run for her. We did the Christmastown Dash in December together and she joked I would run a better time for her. Ha. She did not know I had not run in almost 3 weeks. Another detail: we did not know the race was on Saturday instead of Sunday which I found out after waking up early on Sunday morning and seeing tweets wishing the half marathoners good luck. While I realized it was probably best that I didn't try to race after not training, I was too stubborn to let a good playlist and my cute new tank top from Wulia go to waste so I logged an easy 6 miles instead.

Awkward 8k Playlist: (awkward because I don't typically run to a lot of acoustic covers)
"Not Ready to Make Nice" -Dixie Chicks
"Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" -U2
"Lover in Japan"(acoustic version) - Coldplay
"Breakdown"-Mae
"Empty House" -Paper Route
"Every Teardrop is a Waterfall"(cover) -Boyce Avenue 
"A Thousand Miles"(cover) -Boyce Avenue
"Rise Above 1" -Reeve Carney ft. Bono, The Edge
"Eyes Open"-Taylor Swift
"Peponi" (African/Piano/Cello cover of Coldplay's Paradise (yes, this exists)) -ThePianoGuy (I've linked to it here in case you are curious: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cgovv8jWETM )


I timed it perfectly to look like I was simply cooling down after running the half marathon:) An ambulance headed towards the course also passed me on my run and I realize how glad I was that I had not run the half. Note: I have immense respect for everyone who ran that half this year. It KILLS. Half of the course is on the colonial parkway which is mostly hills and just brutal. (I ran it last year after having mono in February and only having run 8 miles as my max. I was definitely out of commission for like 3 days after.) After saying all of that, Stephanie and I have vowed to both run the half next year in May. And I know she will hold me to this.

Btw, Stephanie blogs here: http://graceandaplum.blogspot.com/. She's highly entertaining, a badass, and an incredible mom.

Missing the 8k on Saturday just made me ever more hungry for my next race now that I have a life again and have realized how out of shape with running I am. I am contemplating the Richmond ColorMeRad 5k in July with Lo and the VA Beach Rock and Roll Half in September (flat course!), but am still shopping around. Once I decide on a race, I'll try to come up with a more concrete training plan, but until then I'm trying to stick to my half hour every other day routine.

Where to now?

On Sunday (also Mother's Day), I graduated with my M.Ed. in Community Counseling from The College of William and Mary's School of Education. When I look back on the past two years of my life in this program and how much we went through as a cohort, I am so grateful for all of the friends and family who supported me and were rooting for me, even sometimes without me knowing.

The weekend was a crazy one.

Friday night, Kim and I went to see the band Horse Feathers in concert in D.C. and they were amazing. (We also got Chipotle with Mike beforehand. I'm going to say I'm a huge fan of the brown rice.) That same night, we drove back to Fredericksburg because Kim had to graduate at 9am in the morning! 

Saturday, I would not wake up a second earlier than I had to, even for mimosas Kim was having. So, yeah, super tired. One cappuccino and a trek to campus later, I was Kim's official photographer during her graduation ceremony. After an hour of ceremony and 2 hours of reading EVERY name of EVERY graduate, and after running into plenty of people from Rapp, Kim and I met up with the rest of our present family (mom, stepdad, grandma) for lunch. I then drove back to Williamsburg to meet up with Mike and Kelly who were down for WM's graduation. Alex, Kylie, and Cohen also made a surprise visit and we feasted on cupcakes and champagne.

Sunday! Graduation Day! Breakfast at Aromas (same place Kel and I ate the morning of our undergraduate graduation) was quiche and fruit that I ate in like .5 seconds because I was late for the walk across campus. Please, breakfast is the most important meal of the day and everyone knows the walk doesn't actually begin until like 15 min. after line-up.

Mike & I after he and Kelly and Alex found me on the walk across campus.

After waiting like half an hour in the same place in Crim Dell back-up (everyone pauses to take picture on the Crim dell and we were going to be late), we made an executive decision as a group to be rebels and bypass the Crim Dell. Best decision ever: because we actually made it in time for the big ceremony! Even with Gates and Lehrer speaking, I still think Taylor Reveley stole the show. He always does. After the small ceremony in the School of Education courtyard, I finally received my diploma, and got to see friends and family. After an amazing lunch/dinner with my mom and Kim and saying goodbye to everyone, I couldn't believe the day was over.

I came home to this present from Wulia in the mail which made me feel incredibly grateful to have such wonderful friends who cheer me on in whatever I'm doing.

Now it's been a day and a half since graduation and the panic of "Where to now?" is starting to set in. Well I really want a job. And I really want this job not to be in Williamsburg. It would be extra cool if this job was in the Washington DC Metro area. Because I'm such a pro at the metro system now, it'd be a shame to waste that skill. I'll keep you posted on the details of my upcoming life changes. Until then....