Thursday, December 30, 2010

We're famous...well not really, but this is pretty cool :)

The Gainesville Sun, the main newspaper were Nate and I USED to live~ that was weird to say,~wrote a story about our upcoming Guyana adventure. Pretty cool huh? Check it out!

Friday, December 17, 2010

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Thanks to you!


After 2 years of talking, planning, waiting, hoop-jumping, and more talking…. our plan to go to the Peace Corps is becoming a reality. Ilana and I like to talk about this change as more of a 90 degree turn than a pause. But the turn happens so slowly it can sneak up on you.


Until a few days ago it didn’t really feel real. Sharing the news with friends and family was exciting; their reactions overwhelmingly positive and supportive. Resigning from my job was a bit harder, I think because when I moved here in 2005 I didn’t know anyone or anything about teaching. I hesitated on the steps up to my office, I think because resigning meant giving up something I worked so hard to build. Even though it took ten times longer than I thought it would, it was cathartic to be putting things in boxes and selling everything. “Sometimes our things can end up owning us” I told myself… several deep breaths later everything we decided to keep was in 6 boxes bound for my parents’ storage unit. “Psshhh… this isn’t so hard,” I thought. Sneaky little turn.


But on Thanksgiving weekend a little crack started to show itself. Our friends Jon, Noemi, and Cat had decided to join us at my parents for Thanksgiving. It was epic… my family went all out: 2 huge trays of lobster, crab claws, and shrimp, cheese balls as big as your face, homemade cookies, 16 lbs of turk-ular glory, all the trimmings, then more trimmings. We were practically paralyzed with happiness the whole time. None of us even wanted to leave each other’s company to go to the bathroom, much less bed. Even after all the food I think I lost a pound or two from all the laughter. But something felt different… the Publix commercial (the one with the grandma baking the cake) left me misty-eyed; I didn’t check my email or phone once in 4 days; I got emotional when my brother left for NC even though I know I’m going to see him for Christmas. “What the hell,” I thought. Turned a little more.

Now, a few weeks later and only a little more than a day left in Gainesville I have an overwhelming feeling that skydivers must get right before they jump out of the plane. We’re really excited, a little scared… but not as much as I though we’d be. I think that’s because of how much support we feel from our family, friends, co-workers, even people we didn’t expect. If I had a nickel for all the times that Ilana or I have said how lucky we feel and how incredibly much we’ve learned from our community…. I’d have a sh-t ton of nickels. Thank you all so much!


P.S. I promise to make my future posts less sappy :)

Monday, December 6, 2010

We've been robbed! Well not really, we just sold it all.

We did it! We sold every single thing we owned in 9 hrs this past Saturday and it felt GREAT! (Can you sense the sarcasm?) It was actually really hard. Well...the selling part wasn't hard, considering we had about 100 people come in and out of our condo handing us money quicker than we could say "sold." Every time we would turn around we realized something else was gone, so the day was a bit of a blur. The hardest part was tagging all of our items for a fraction of a fraction of what we bought it for. For example, let say we bought a gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous dress for $150 one year, we probably would have sold it for $4. Just $4, and I only wore it twice!!!! Yes, this actually happened if you can't tell by now.

So this is how it all went down....The night before our sale we had Nate's mother, Karen, come up and help us tag and organize all of our stuff. She was an incredible help and I seriously don't think we could have done it with out her. It was a rough night. I slept about 2 hrs, I didn't eat anything for about 32 hrs (well...I probably drank my body weight in coffee), I cried probably twice and almost had a melt down, but "gosh darn it" we did it! I can honestly say that I am at peace with it all, OK you got me, I am not totally at peace with it yet, but I am getting there. I have probably vacuumed my floors 7 times since the sale just because I feel a bit violated having so many people walk in and out of my house and touch everything I own and then practically steal it! When you sell something for 25 cents you feel like you have been robbed. Seriously, you do. Anyway, we made some good money and now we will be taking that money and trying to buy all the items we need to be "Americanized" while in the Peace Corps. Funny how even when we try to embrace a new lifestyle and culture we still want to live at a certain comfort level. Oh well...

Needless to say,we slept in our empty apartment last night on our aero bed in the living room floor next to a candle. Our bedroom is now acting like a staging room for all of our Peace Corps luggage. It's nicely laid out on the floor and organized. Oh how I LOVE being organized. So, even though I slept pretty uncomfortably (it's weird sleeping on the floor in your own place; you almost feel like a stranger), I feel like my life just became uncluttered and extremely simple and that feeling is quite wonderful. For the next 10 days we will be "practicing" what our life will be like for the next two years. Eek! And I know what I am about to say will sound cheesy, but some day Nate and I will honestly be able to say that we "lived on just love." Many people say they don't need anything but each other, well we are truly about to find out, and to be honest it's a really exciting feeling.

Till next time!