Moving on to Baltimore

In case anyone missed it, we're ditching Nashville and moving to Baltimore! I got a job as the Emerging Technologies Librarian at Towson University. We are really excited to be moving to a bigger city with tons to do and see. Plus I'll have a tenure track faculty position which has a lot of benefits (and also makes me feel important). We're moving next Monday (June 30th) to the Hampden neighborhood. We got a rowhouse there and will even have our own front and back yard- very exciting! The neighborhood seems safe with a ton of things to do (at least in comparison to Nashville) and we'll be near the lightrail and only about 4 miles from downtown. I'll also only be about 5 miles from my work. We are also excited to be on the east coast where everything is so close. DC is only 45 minutes, so I'm sure we'll being going to the museums there quite often! So now we are looking for a job for Darren, although he may continue to do some freelance for his current employer.

For anyone who didn't get to see pictures from our wedding they are here: http://flickr.com/photos/kittycar/sets/72157605078347994/ The wedding went great, it was wonderful to see some many people. We'll be having a party back in Mpls August 9th at Boom Island. I'll be sending invitations in the next couple weeks. Our honeymoon in Mexico was amazing, although I managed to gain 5 lbs from all of the amazing food and drink!

More to come soon... from Baltimore!

Wedding soon

We got our marriage license today, guess it's really happening! 17 days to go!

Wow, I've been really bad about updating this thing! A lot has happened since the last time I wrote. Over Thanksgiving our friend Matthew came up from Floria which was a ton of fun. Here's a picture of us at our local hotdog stand named "I Dream of Weinie" We did a lot of eating, drinking and resting, it was a great visit.


My birthday was soon after and I wrangled together some of my new friends as well as several people from work and had a little party at our house. I am now officially in my late 20s... sad.


Next was Christmas. We took a trip down to Darren's sister's house in Augusta, Georgia, about six hours from here. It was actually are second trip into the "deep south," (we had a short trip to Alabama earlier this year) but it was still surprising how incredibly different it is from the north. I've never heard "have a blessed day" so many times. I mean Nashville is in the south, but it's not the deep south, and there is definitely a difference. We had a good time though visiting Laurie, Dimitri and their kids Audrey and Artem. Olive was happy too because they had a fenced in backyard to run around in. We pretty much did a lot of relaxing, but I did bring a gingerbread house to construct, but it pretty much fell apart while we were making it. On our way back from Augusta we stopped back in Atlanta for the day to do a little Ikea and Trader Joe's shopping. Atlanta seemed like a great city; it was nice to be back in an urban area, Nashville sometimes doesn't feel much like a city, but more of a giant small town. It was nice to stock up on Trader Joe's food too!


Soon after Christmas we had a few other visitors. Our friend Spencer came to visit from NYC and we did a ton of sight seeing, more than I had done since we moved here. One thing we did that was a ton of fun was go to the Jack Daniel's Distillery. Laura and Michael also came to visit on their way down to Houston. So all of us were together for New Year's Eve. We all went over to my friend Janie's house to toast to 2008. Soon after the new year we all headed home early as Michael and Laura had to leave early the next morning.

Two weeks later I was off to Washington DC to meet my friend Marcus for a long weekend. We had a lot of fun! Marcus lives in Providence and we decided to meet half way for some sightseeing and fun. We did so much walking and sight seeing, I think I wore my shoes out. We both had never been there before so we tried to cram as much in as possible, but we still had a great time.

So now I am finally guest free back in Nashville desperately trying to save every cent for the wedding, so there's a lot of crock pot cooking at our house! I can't believe the wedding is in only 3 months! We still have so much to do and so much to buy. We are hoping to get a lot back from taxes to help us out. It's amazing how much a wedding can cost even when it's small. We're getting really excited though. I am so looking forward to seeing many of you here in Nashville. We will be having a party back in Minnesota (at my dad's house) sometime this summer- I'll update when we know.

Work is pretty good, although pretty stressful. I'm still learning a ton, but sometimes its a little overwhelming. We'll see what happens. Darren's job is really stressful right now too. He's had to stay late almost every night because of a few publications that are coming out soon, but he's also getting great experience and lots of new stuff for his portfolio.

Ok that's it for now, I promise to try to update more, but as you can tell, we're very busy!

To see lots more pictures visit: www.flickr.com/kittycar

I was thinking today that it seems crazy that we've been here four months. In some ways, like in regards to my job, it feels like I've been here at least a year, but in other ways, like our social life, it feels like we just got here. I still miss everyone in Minneapolis a ton and am feeling a bit homesick. Nashville is getting better though, I am starting to really appreciate things about Nashville that don't happen in Minneapolis like being able to go out and almost always count on seeing just about the most amazing band you've ever seen in your life for about $5. Nashville definetely is music city. Some bands I've seen recently include Phil Hummer and Tecumpseh Two (http://www.philhummer.com/), Parachute Musical (http://www.myspace.com/parachutemusical), Howlies (http://www.myspace.com/thehowlies) and the Hotpipes (http://www.hotpipesmusic.com/). David, one of our good friends down here is the guitarist for the Hotpipes and actually will be playing in our wedding ceremony- what a nice guy! We've also hire the Phil Hummer band to play at our reception.

Talking about wedding plans, we been doing a lot of them lateley. It's amazing how fast everything adds up. This weekend we went out and bought my wedding dress, I am so excited, it's beautiful. I really feel incredibly lucky to have Darren and be able to plan such a wonderful wedding. Although we are doing it cheaply, I think we are including just about everything that is important to us, plus we're going on a fancy honeymoon! Doing all this of course takes saving lots of money. As of right now, we are in saving mode for the next six months. No extra expenses for us! Macaroni and Cheese and pasta will most likely be in our future!

Things are good all around, although I haven't met a ton of people here, the people I have met are really great. My job is going well, although I can't say it's stress free. I am learning a ton and picking up additional responsibilities all of the time. I am really hoping that I get hired on after my two years, this job is really an amazing opportunity. Eskind (the library I work at) really is the front runner as far a medical libraries go and I am so excited to be a part of it. I really am starting to feel like I am a part of something important, it's not just a job, it's really important to the future of medical information.

Things are good for Darren too. I think his job is going fairly well although I know he is often bored. It's the kind of job where he is either unbelievably busy or has nothing to do. Unfortunetely, his next really busy time will fall right over my birthday, hopefully we'll be able to do something!

I make no promises to write again really soon, but I will continue to write. Please write to me, I'd love to hear from my friends back in Minneapolis!

Well I guess it's been a whole month since I posted, so much for weekly updates! I guess we've just kind of fallen into some what of normalcy- living in our routine. Things are good. My job is crazy, I feel like I must be taking up at least 10% more of my brain with medical knowledge! I have learned so much! I met with my director last week and she said that as long as I keep up my great work, they will keep me on for the second year of the fellowship (I was only guaranteed work for a year) and then possibly hire me on. I really hope it all works out because I really like the work and the people at the library. Even if I don't get hired on, it sounds like I will get to stay for another year, which in addition to more experience, also relieves some stress about moving again. Darren's job is going well, even though he has been working a lot lately. He just brought his first publication to press at his job, which is really nice looking and will look good in a portfolio.

Wedding plans are coming along. We've put a deposit down for our reception location at Estel Gallery in Nashville and have a great honeymoon planned! Darren's parents gave us a week of their timeshare points, so we get to go to a fancy resort in Mexico and just have to pay for the 'inclusive' aspect of the resort! Very exciting!

I'm taking a knitting class at school which is taking up a lot of my time, but I'll try and update more often.

Hope to see you all soon!

Sorry I am so bad at updating. The last few weeks have been quite crazy. So yes, Darren and I got engaged! We went out for a fancy dinner, got ice cream and then went for a walk in the park. Nashville has an actual life size replica of the Parthenon, so we went there and played battleship (like what we did on one of our first dates). Darren then gave me a box with a compass in it engraved with our kareoke song, Jackson and asked me to marry him! It was so great. The next day, we went and picked out the ring. Pictures of the ring and the compass are http://www.flickr.com/photos/kittycar/ We aren't really sure what we are going to do for the wedding yet. Something small, either here or in New Orleans probably in April or May.

Other news- my job has been very busy lately. I am learning tons and tons and working a lot. I have basically gone through about three months training in three weeks! They are really pushing me a ton, which is good. I really want to stay on at least through the fellowship and hopefully get hired on. The job is really interesting and I appreciate the learning and growing atmosphere they provide. Also, everyone is soooo nice. Really much better than Hill, which was really pretty clickie. I started working on the desk this week and had a searching verficiation (basically a test of my skills). Things are exciting!

Those things are really keeping me busy now, but I am looking forward to hanging out with Terah (an Nashvillian I met in Minneapolis), who is back in Nashville. It will be nice to start to make friends. Tuesday Darren and I are going to the Rufus Wainwright and Neko Case concert at the Ryman Auditorium. I'm excited to see Neko Case in such a historic place.

More to come! I hope that some of you can come down and visit!

Carissa

Engagement

Quick update- We're engaged!! More to come.