first mother's day

Very slowly we're starting to realize how drastically different our lives are going to be in just a few short months.  Beginning an MBA program is one thing, but starting that program at the same time as welcoming your first baby to the world is something else entirely.  Two will become three and one on one time will be a scarce commodity.

With that in mind, Mr. F and I went on a staycation for Mother's Day this year.  Taking advantage of one of the few free weekends we have left before the baby comes, we hightailed it to Lake Lanier for a few hours of sun, floating, and togetherness.

It reminded me so much of some of our adventures in Cyprus.  Whenever we had a free Saturday, we would hop in our trusty little Mazda Familia and drive all over the island until we found a place that suited us.  My belly has been limiting distance and ramblings, but we still found a perfect spot for the day.  We talked, Mr. F napped and read.  Me?  I floated.  For hours I floated in a chilly lake, embracing the fleeting sensation of weightlessness and an ache free body.

This will sound very, very cheesy, but the best part of the day was just being with Mr. F.  We know our time is limited now and seem to be savouring it more than ever.  To have a day to just be was bliss.  To leisurely find moments for conversation, to laugh over things only we find funny, to feed a mutual hankering for Mexican food.  To do what we wanted and do it together was such a sweet, wonderful gift.

candler lake

At the very last minute, Mr. F and I ended up with a Sunday free. No visitors.  No welcome weekends at school.  No work.  We were finally able to visit our new church congregation (it changed with the move) and for an oft desired but seldom possible Sunday afternoon walk.

Mr. F has been going for walks in the evenings after work, exploring routes to and around his new campus.  One such adventure took him to the trails around Candler Lake, a trek he had been eager to share with me.  

I say this often, but one of my favorite aspects of life in Atlanta is how nature is everywhere.  My love affair with trees is constantly nourished in this area.  The forestation is so thick, the hills so rolling, that very often you forget you are in the heart of the city.  The tall trunks and hillsides absorb all sound other than rustling leaves and the chirping of birds.  I knew this about Atlanta before our Sunday jaunt but was still surprised by the wilderness I was presented with.  

There is a trail around the lake itself, but shooting off from it are the most enticing, Robert Frostian paths to discover.  I lamented my diminishing bladder and energy reserves, as I normally would have spent the day trying to learn my way through those woods.  

All in all, it was a very Anne-like day.  Mr. F presented me with my very own Lake of Shining Waters here in the city.  I made friends with new trees and wildflowers.  We daydreamed of picnics on the grassy glens with our little girl when she comes.  

Now it's Monday and real life is calling.  Deadlines and to-do lists loom menacingly.  But behind all the gloom of Monday are the tickles of a chilly spring Sunday afternoon, giggling by the shores of a lake with my best friend when worries didn't touch us for a few blissful hours.

sawnee mountain

To begin this, you need to know that we are not outdoorsy people.  Do we love nature? Yes.  Do we joke about going camping? Yes.  Do we go camping?  No.  We walk to McDonald's and get a $1 ice cream cone.  We're urban creatures that like trees surrounding us.

That said, with summer in full swing, we've both been craving some extracurriculars that don't involve the GMAT, planning our future, doctors, work, or the GMAT.  Mainly the GMAT.  That sucker takes up a lot of free time, man!  Anyway, before I got back from Florida, I asked my cute husband if we could go hiking over the weekend, to which he nearly screamed in my ear (we were on the phone..), "YES!"  A few google searches on his part, a plane ride, and a quick car trip to Forsyth County, and we found ourselves at Sawnee Mountain.  It was morning.  The sun was shining, the trees were thick, the birds singing.  It was idyllic.

Until we realized that our "hike" was a few walking sticks and rock climbs away from being a bonafide lost-in-nature hiking experience.  Guys!  It was intense!  The round trip to the top of the mountain was maybe four miles.  Not terribly long.  I can do four miles pretty easily.  But this?  This was the most hardcore four miles I've done since I was training for rugby and kept running for fear of brutal tackles.  It was all sunshine and daisies (or shade and moss, given our forested surroundings..) until the path started winding at a steep grade up the side of the hill.  I'm pretty sure everyone else knew secret paths or something, because no one was sweating like we were.  No one.  We checked everyone that passed us for heavy breathing and sweat stains.  We were the only culprits.  So that really could say more about us being out of shape than the intensity of the trail....

Alright, so it probably wasn't that bad.  I told you we weren't outdoorsy people!  Thing is, we loved it.  The whole two hours that felt like Day 1 in the Arena in the Hunger Games.  (I swear we heard cannons announcing deaths...) It was beautiful and such a good experience for us.  No phone calls, no texting, hardly any photos because I had to focus on not tripping on rocks.  We had great conversation and kept one another going.  By the end, we smelled horrific, but were smiling and feeling like woodsmen.   We now have a goal to find a new trail around here every other week or so.  GMAT, be darned! We will make the most of this summer, steep hills and all!

The High Museum of Art

For my birthday I got one of the coolest gifts ever, an annual pass to the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.  Now I can just come and go from it when I feel like without worrying about making the most of my day ticket.  I stopped by one day after work for about an hour and had the time of my life.  

The museum just opened a new exhibit, Dream Cars, highlighting 19 concept cars and the revolutionary design they inspired.  As a Detroit girl, car exhibits are nothing new to me.  Car exhibits in an art museum?  Totally brilliant!  I didn't spend as much time in here as I wanted to because it was PACKED, but I fully plan on going back to sketch angles, curves, and wheel wells. 

My heart and eyes also dwelt on the contemporary art and Africa mask exhibits.  The tribal motifs and bold lines drew me in.  My own work is very light, airy, and often intricate.  It fascinates me how I so often focus on clean, minimalistic characteristics in the work of others.  Must be the Scandinavian in me...

Anyway, the day at the High was a complete success and I can't wait to go back soon!

mystery trip

For our anniversary, Mr. F kidnapped me this last weekend and took me to Savannah, a city we both absolutely fell in love with last summer.  We popped in and out of shops, lingered in squares dripping with spanish moss, and walked for as long as we could.  Then we popped by Paula Deen's restaurant, gorged ourselves on butter, then walked some more.  There's something so magical about Savannah.  It's like stepping back in time and experiencing the American South as I've always imagined it.  A glass of lemonade or sweet tea seem like essentials, along with rocking chairs and sundresses.  I daydreamed of future gardens and got ideas for our current "patio" space, included a lush potted garden. We enjoyed the memories of Cyprus conjured by bougainvilleas dotting the city.

My favorite part of the weekend was two whole, uninterrupted days of time with Mr. F.  No work, no phone calls, no GMAT books, no tutors, no Etsy shops, no paintbrushes or moving boxes.  Just the two of us.  Lots of talking followed by quiet moments followed by raucous laughter and my favorite pair of smiling blue eyes.  It was a wonderful surprise and the perfect way to celebrate us!

snowmageddon

We're in the middle of another winter storm and I'm home reflecting on how a few short weeks after Atlanta was totally crippled by an inch of snow.  Today we're facing ice, which could be much, much worse, but the snow of two weeks ago was an adventure...

.....

It was a Tuesday morning like any other, with Mr. F and I both driving into the city for work.  The skies were clear with the threat of clouds on the horizon.  On the radio, the meteorologists prophesied the storm of the century.  Sturdy Midwestern stock that we are, we did not believe such dooms-dayers.

At 10, after only a few hours of work, reports of snow trickled in and a few schools that had not closed yet announced early closings.  My boss quickly grabbed her belongings and told me to call Mr. F and vacate the city as soon as possible.  We left around noon, confident that we were beating traffic.

We got home at 5.

I kid you not.  The snow amassed to an inch or snow, but the real crisis emerged from every commuter, of which there are many, evacuating at the same time.  Our trip home from downtown should usually only take us an hour or so.  Max.  It took us that long just to get on the freeway.  It was crazy!

The snow was beautiful and a real treat after being without it while in Cyprus.  But after four and a half hours in the car, avoiding death and standstills, we felt a lot like this...

source

Last weekend it was warm and sunny.  Go figure! No more ice, no more snow...  Such a strange place this Atlanta...

(To all you Midwesterners, I know how ridiculous this story sounds as you are literally buried in snow.  Hang in there! Spring is coming!  Soon?)

moving in!

I write this on the day we found out we were leaving Cyprus, exactly a year ago.  If you have seen that year, I'd really like to know where it's gone!  I was working all last week and through the weekend, so Mr. F moved us in with the help of some friends from church.  Though I had seen a similar unit, I had not seen our new home until Sunday evening after Mr. F picked me up.  We dropped off a few more boxes and I took in my surroundings.  It instantly felt so different from the unit I had seen due to the chaos and I initially panicked.  But now?  Now I'm loving it!

I've been spending the week trying to dig through boxes that have been packed for a year at the minimum.  Weeding through memories and making sense of the chaos has been my agenda.  Slowly, but surely, things are coming together.

This post should really be titled, "Hey robbers!  Want a detailed inventory of everything I own? Here ya go!" because of the number of pictures.  As I keep finding treasures new (apparently we had a floor lamp hidden in our long-term storage) and old (family heirloom tea kettle), I want to document it all.  There have been moments of tears, especially as I opened my handmade baskets from Cyprus and sewing materials belonging to my Nana.  Memories I cherish have been waiting for me in these boxes, just waiting to be found again.

Included in this scavenger hunts were a plethora of llama rugs from Mr. F's time in Peru (finally figured out what to do with those!!) and his childhood boy scout uniform.  It reminded me of how much I still have to learn about my husband and how grateful I am for our time together.

Believe it or not, this is some SERIOUS progress!  By this point I could not only see the floor but the far wall AND I was able to move the sofa around.

The apartment is small, but just what we need.  For the first time we have an en suite bathroom, which feels rather glamorous, even if the finishes are not.  The kitchen is small, but functional, with a new stove (that can hold a turkey!) and new fridge.  It's been freshly painted and there are new carpets coverings the living and bed rooms.

I'm not going to lie, the closet is turning into one of my favorite spots in the flat.  Not because I have a lot of clothes (though I'm sure I have more than I need..) but because it has these glorious hardwood floors!  I'm sure those hardwoods are running throughout the apartment and were it not for the new carpet, I would be asking to rip everything up and bask in the wood.  On top of that, the closet is huge and is going to offer some much needed storage potential to our new home.

We have yet to spend a night in our new home.  Crazy, right?  But a blessing also.  The kitchen is totally bombarded with boxes still and our mattress rests against the wall as I search for our sheets. I know we have sheets, I just don't know what box they are in... It's like a grown-up version of "Where's Waldo?"

The living room is starting to come together, much to the chagrin of our tiny dining nook.  I have big plans for this tiny apartment.  The first of which is throwing out empty boxes and making a drop at Goodwill.  We've got some serious shelving operations going on to meet some much needed storage demands.  Lighting options, maybe a hand-painted drop cloth rug or two, and there might even be paint on the walls..still deciding on that one.  What do you think?  What colors would you use?  There's definitely some furniture overhauling to be done and the task of kitchen storage...oh, the kitchen storage.  That one is going to take some serious imagination.

If you're as riveted by this journey as I am, be sure to follow along on Instagram (@seewhatiseablog).  I'm posting pretty regularly when I'm at the apartment.

my father dwelt in a tent

Mr. F and I have been crazy focused on our finances since our move to Atlanta.  Not that we've ever been bad at spending our money, we just haven't been as good at it as we could have been.  In Cyprus, we were totally strapped.  People thought we were crazy and joking, but we weren't.  It took some serious ingenuity and lots of homemade everything to keep us in the black.  Mr. F's new job is offering us some very welcome financial security after a year of unemployment and a couple hard years of scraping by.  We thought when we got here, we would want to live in a nicer place.  More amenities, closer to the center, nice appliances, etc., etc.  We've earned it. We told ourselves.  So we looked.  And looked.  And looked.  And ya know what?  We really weren't happy with what we were seeing.

No, that's not true.  We loved some of the options.  Downtown high rise with views of the sunset that made my the hairs on the back of my neck stand up on end.  Or the darling one-bedroom with a sunroom and a view of the trees just outside the Perimeter.  Those were the homes of daydreams.  They technically fit inside of our budget and met the qualifications for the lifestyle we thought we were after, but something was wanting.  We weren't willing to spend as much as the landlords were asking.

One afternoon when I was in the city running errands, I got horribly lost and end up driving past an apartment complex that listed vacancies.  It was nothing special.  In fact, I was initially embarrassed pulling into the parking lot.  What would people think of me pulling in here with my nice Volkswagen? Vanity, thy name is foolish.  I stepped into the leasing office and made some inquiries.  The rent was well below our set budget and the availability seemed promising.  A few days later, Mr. F and I went back to check out a one-bedroom. 

For the first time in our house hunt, we agreed on an apartment.  It felt like home.  And the strange thing is, it met very few of the qualifications we thought were so important to us.  It's only a one-bedroom.  Itty bitty kitchen.  Wall unit AC, not central.  No washer/dryer hook-ups.  Carpet, not hardwoods.  No gym.  No brunch for tenants on Sunday morning.  But it had a great price. Great layout.  And a great feel.

A few weeks ago, I was reading in the scriptures and pondering over our quest to be more financially savvy and the, as we called it, Rat's Nest apartment.  In 1 Nephi in the Book of Mormon, Nephi tells us that he and his brothers followed their father, Lehi into the wilderness surrounding Jerusalem.  Lehi was the prophet and under the guidance of the Lord had taken his family outside the city walls to protect them and to preserve the fullness of the Gospel.  In 2:15 I read, "And my father dwelt in a tent."  That's it.  The whole verse.  And it hit me with the force of the lengthiest sermon.  If a prophet could leave his home and live in a tent, you sure as heck can live in the Rat's Nest for a year or so.  It was true.  I could.  From my religious upbringing I have learned the value of self-reliance and the importance of living within your means.  The Lord told Lehi to live in a tent.  He is asking us to live more frugally.

And so now, we're moving to the Rat's Nest.  I'm not sure we will ever call it anything else.  No, there weren't really rats.  I am so excited about this move, I can't even tell you!  We both are!  To be saving so much money, to be living in closer proximity to both of our jobs.  Our church community will be incredibly diverse, as will our neighborhood.  We will be doing what God asks of us so that we can be ready for the future, not just the right now.  And that is worth so much more than protecting my precious vanity.

ruminations on daily life

photo by me: mounds of ironing after months of neglect made for a lovely Downton Abbey marathon.

......

"What if we live in a dive for a few months until we find something we can afford?"  And just like that we were both laughing.  A really exhausting day of house hunting, errand running, and work diffused in a statement of genius or pure insanity.  I drove Mr. F to the office so I could meet him for lunch and scope out a loft downtown.  We daydreamed over downtown living, hashed out our budget, and walked away laughing.  Dreams and reality don't always mix.  But somehow as the day plodded on and we looked at more units, each nicer and more expensive than the last, we started creating new dreams.  Less desirable housing in an area we like.  Not even remotely close to what we had imagined for our start in Atlanta.

So we went to dinner, splitting a quesadilla and queso, still laughing over our misadventure.  The house hunt that had taxed us extremely at first had turned into a form of merriment.  We laughed over our options.  The world may be our oyster, but we can only afford a can of salty sardines.  

We drove home that night, still laughing, and increasingly hopeful for whatever our future may be.  Making the most of our salty reality and joyfully plotting how to turn it into a salt palace.  As we laughed and sang off-key to Christmas music, I marveled at the man I married.  Rather than getting disgruntled, he sees the opportunity for adventure.  He dreams big and carries me along with him when I tend to get stuck in the mud of everyday life.  The day had been rough and confusing, but at the end of it, all I cared about was how happy I was to have Mr. F sitting next to me.  The perfect end to a mildly ridiculous day.

.....

Even with him working, it's rare that Mr. F wakes up before me.  When he does, it means a meeting at the office is beckoning and away he must go.  Braving Atlanta traffic at any hour is no easy feat, but especially in the morning while the many spokes of the metro pinwheel funnel downtown.   Coming to a standstill is customary and from our current home outside the perimeter, a generous  but taxing hour and a half must be given to ensure timely arrival.  So away Mr. F goes, stealthily departing, unaware that as soon as he leaves, I can no longer sleep.  The house feels different without him and I am left with the stillness of dawn for my companion.  I sit on the sofa, braving consciousness, and watch through the window as the sky shifts from darkness to light. Groggily, I greet the day and prepare for whatever work lays ahead of me and decide that whatever it is can most assuredly be done in pajamas.  By the time I convince myself to get moving, the sun is just above the horizon and Mr. F is on the phone, checking in and reporting back on his meeting.  He is infused back into our home and I am at peace.

.....

Mr. F worked late last night catching up on a project.  Normally he comes in after the long commute exhausted and wanting quiet time.  Not last night.  He lasted a half hour by himself before asking me to climb into bed with him.  We lay there giggling and talking together.  No worries about the future, money, or The Great Unknown.  Just a late night laughing session.  Such a blessed relief after a solid year of stress and tension.  I don't know what we spoke of as I kept getting distracted by my husband's big, blue eyes.  They're the same color as mine, an anomaly we have yet to explain.  When smiling, he has a tendency to squint in a way that makes him look like the world tallest Asian.  But when I make him happy, his eyes are bright and clear.  I love that I can make him that happy and that his eyes only dance like that for me.  He is always at his handsomest at moments like that.  Day old stubble, which for most men is a week of growth, ruffled hair and shirt, and eyes as blue and bold as the deep blue sea.