Halfway!!!

Well, it’s been a few weeks since I made the big move to MI. So far, things are looking up. Of course, there were those nightmarish days at the beginning (must…change…hotel, you thought you were closing tomorrow? WRONG!, and a lot of lonesome), but things have really picked up. Work is awesome, even though I don’t have a ton to do yet, I really love what I’m going to be doing. I use a Mac at work, which has been a bit of an adjustment, but it’s not too bad now. Actually, (shhh don’t tell my apple-hating dad) I kind of love the Mac. It’s so much more intuitive that my PC ever was. Not to mention snazzy-looking. Yes, I’m a sucker for packaging.

A few adventures- I met up with some of Dan’s medschool acquaintances (friends? I don’t know) and had a blast. I actually ended up seeing some of them three out of four nights last week- talk about getting my social contact! I went to see Star Trek in the theater, super fun (yes, I went alone- no, it’s not as lonely as it sounds). I have been trying to get back into my running regimen, but it’s hard when I don’t know exactly where to run. Eh. I’ll sort it out.

Mostly, I am exhausted. I had forgotten what a toll a 40 hour work week can take (I know, woe is me) on a person. I actually worked 43 hours last week so that I can take this Friday off. My work schedule goes something like this: Week 1- M-Th I work 8-5, 8-4 on Friday. Week 2- M-Th I work 8-5, Friday off. Pretty sweet to get every other Friday off, right? Eventually I’ll work 7-4, but until there’s more stuff for me to do, it doesn’t make a lot of sense for me to come in so early.

So, about my job. I’m a Research Specialist developing tailored health interventions. My best analogy is basically I have a blank puzzle with pre-cut pieces. I have to paint the picture (one piece at a time) and then put the puzzle together. Essentially I use a computer program and programming logic to display particular content for particular people. This means that any one sentence has to fit seamlessly with a multitude of other possible sentences. It’s challenging in a good way. The office dynamic is pretty fun, too. There are a few of us research folks who have backgrounds in public health (specifically health education). We’re pretty normal, but definitely more on the touchy-feely side of things. Then there are 8-10 computer guys (yep, all men) who are responsible for developing and debugging the tailoring software in addition to helping us make the program do what we want it to. They are pretty normal as well, but definitely more to the analytical, stereotypical computer programmer side of things. This leads to some pretty hilarious interactions where the health ed people don’t understand how to make the program do something and some poor, sacrificial tech guy has to come to our offices and try to explain it to us- without using any computer jargon of course. None of this is helped by the fact that programming language isn’t exactly intuitive to people that haven’t been using it for years. (For example, why would typing “span” mean that you bring things together…?) But nonetheless, here we are and by and large everyone is really patient with everyone else. I still find this hilarious because I haven’t been the confused person yet. My day will come.

The Michigan Left and other oddities…

I sincerely doubt that anyone is still reading this, but on the off chance that someone is, or just for my own amusement, here I am.

I have noticed a few Michigan-isms in the few days I’ve been here. The most unfortunate is the “Michigan Left,” which is essentially a traffic design created by the devil and specifically designed to get me lost and/or confused. Basically, the Michigan Left means that you can’t turn left at an intersection, instead you must drive through the intersection and flip a U-ie in a special U-ie flipping lane (which has no traffic light to help you). Just to confuse the issue further, the U-ie flipping lanes (basically hard to see left turns across a median), come in pairs- one for each direction of traffic. Of course, I can’t ever tell which U-ie flipping lane I’m supposed to use, causing any number of almost-accidents where I turn into the wrong U-ie lane. These things kill me.

Another oddity is the Michigan accent. I didn’t think the accent was that strong here, but I can’t understand anything people are saying to me. Worse still, I apparently have enough of a Southern accent that people can’t understand me either. I had to go to the hospital earlier to get my “blue card” (more on that later) and it took forever because the desk lady and I couldn’t understand each other- it didn’t help that she spoke “teen” on top of it. For example. “Gemme ur sosh.” “Excuse me?” “Y-o-u-r sosh.” “What’s a sosh?” “Y-o-u-r s-o-c-i-a-l s-e-c-u-r-i-t-y n-u-m-b-e-r.” “Oh.”

Next up is the blue and yellow/gold/maize thing. Everything is divided up into the “blue” and the “maize/yellow/gold.” So I have a “blue” hospital card and a “yellow” employee id (the oddest part is that these things are neither blue nor yellow). I have a “blue” parking pass (basically a hunting license for a mere $600/year) but can upgrade to a “gold” parking pass (measely $1400 but you have a guaranteed spot). Again, neither of these are actually blue or gold.

In addition to adjusting to these weirdnesses, I’m trying to get used to being here by myself. It’s been a pretty lonely weekend and it’s very strange to be in a place where I only know the names of about four people and don’t know anyone I would call a friend. All of that will improve, I know, but it makes for some rough days right now.

On the plus side, Dan and I bought a house! YAY!!! It’s the cutest little house, with a redone kitchen, open living room/kitchen area, remodeled downstairs bath, and a fully fenced backyard with a two car garage. I’m in love with it. Unfortunately, the current owners will be living there until May 31, so I’m still in my glorious one-room efficiency.

I promise a more cheerful post next time- this weekend seems to be for wallowing.

Catch Up

It’s been about three months (two and a half, really) since my last post. Sorry! There’s a very good reason I wasn’t posting- the job I had been doing was incredibly intense, involving child abuse victims, and it was all I could think about, but really wasn’t allowed to write about it. Basically, it was a job where I felt like I was making a big difference in someone’s life, but it broke my heart everyday.

Anyway, I’m done with that now and have moved on to yet another adventure. I am now living in Ann Arbor, in a hotel room, getting ready to start my new job and close on our new house.

I spent last week packing up my stuff in Roanoke. It was a weird thing because Dan’s staying behind for another month. Basically, we had to divide up our stuff, which gets kind of tricky-for example, who takes the toothbrush charger? (The answer is Dan)

Anyway, I drove to Ann Arbor on Monday- it took about 10 hours. The drive through Virginia and West Virginia was beautiful- lots of tunnels through mountains, etc… The worst part of that leg of the trip was that there are a bunch of toll roads…and I didn’t have any money. The first toll booth took all the change I had in my wallet (a whopping $.86) instead of the normal $1.25. Then I had to find a place to pull off and hit an ATM. I ended up in Tamarack Craft Center, WVa. It was a seedy little craft-mart with lots of poorly-carved hobby horses and pottery lamps. After attracting a great deal of attention by simply walking into the center (a customer?!) I managed to find the ATM and provoke the ire of all the workers because I didn’t buy anything. This was actually kind of a fun diversion.

The fun stopped once I got to Ohio- the worst state in the union. I hate their license plates (that cursive Ohio!) and the entire state is flat. All the roads are straight. You just drive and drive and drive. I started longing to be locked in a padded room just so I could bounce off the walls in circles, hollering “I’m turning!!! I’m turning!!!” The worst part of all is that I was on the Ohio turnpike, it’s basically like the DC metro- you buy a ticket and you get charged based on how far you travel. This mean’s there are no exits. They have “travel centers” which are like mini-malls with burger joints and a gas station. The roads have periodic turn outs, but you’re only allowed to be in the turn out for a few minutes. It’s like a long, straight road from hell.

Anyway, I arrived in Ann Arbor, checked into my hotel, and got cornered by four mangy looking fellows in the hallway. It’s a long and not very happy story, so I’ll just gloss over it and say that I got freaked and checked out of my hotel and into a different one.

Tuesday, I spent all day on the phone trying to get our mortgage straightened out. Somehow, despite the fact that I had been calling and emailing our broker weekly to make sure she had everything she needed, the broker hadn’t asked us for some info on our landlords, informatino that it was very difficult for me to get from Ann Arbor. Then, at five on Tuesday she told us we couldn’t close when we expected to because we couldn’t close more than 60 days before Dan started work. Why she hadn’t raised this issue in the six weeks before our close date, I’ll never know. Too bad that Dan already had a plane ticket for our original closing date.

Anyway, all signs point to closing tomorrow, so hopefully everything will work out.  I keep watching those HGTV house-buying shows thinking about how easy they make it look- it’s all a lie!  This has been super stressful, I may have lost days off my life and at least half of my hair…

Fortunately, I have this really awesome job to look forward to.  I’ll be a Health Behavior Research Specialist for the University of Michigan- basically doing tailored health intervention research (translation: I’ll be helping people change their health behaviors for the better).  Anyway, it’s the job I’ve always wanted, the people are amazing, and the work environment is phenomenal.  I have a flexible schedule (every other Friday off), an office with a window (overlooking a beautiful parking deck), and unlimited hot tea while I’m at work.  Hooray!  I’m nervous because there’s a lot of responsibility and I’ll be in charge of a lot of stuff, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out.

I’ll write more later about life in Michigan.  I’m still just freaking out about the fact that I’m in Michigan.  I’ll leave you with this tidbit- it’s my favorite Ann Arbor thing this week: http://www.urban-fairies.com/  (If you have kids, your kids will like this especially)

Sick as a dog…

This post is going to be heavy on the doggie bodily functions, so if that’s not your bag, please feel free to stop reading.
Poor Nina has had a rough few days. Friday night she started having diarrhea- I mean, major. I ended up scrubbing the basement floor more than once because I didn’t get her outside fast enough. Dan, of course, was on call (and getting to sleep quite a lot, I might add). I spent most of the night running the dog outside. Poor baby. We thought it was just a virus or something she ate. I called our vet to find out what we needed to do and they said to give her a bland diet and that would stop her up pretty quickly. Saturday, the diarrhea continued-every hour or so- and she threw up the rice and chicken I was trying to feed her. We kept trying with the bland diet and she stopped having diarrhea about 3, but you could tell she was just miserable. She couldn’t lie down for more than a minute or two and would just whine and cry for minutes on end. Saturday night, she went out every hour or so. Things got particularly interesting when she refused to come inside (she doesn’t need a leash to go out). I ended up hauling her back in (a long walk, up hill, dragging a 65 pound dog- I thought I was going to have a heart attack).

By Sunday morning she was in even worse shape- listless, whimpering, refusing to eat, vomiting blood and still having major diarrhea-so I called the emergency vet. They asked us to bring her in and they admitted her to give her IV fluids and do some tests. Dan and I went home and slept for a few hours. Unfortunately, I was too worried about the dog to get any good sleep, but I at least got a few hours of restless shut eye.
Sunday evening, I went to pick the dog up. The receptionist (after not helping me for an hour) shoved some medicine at me, muttered something about hook worms, and sent me home with a dog who seemed a little better.
Within thirty minutes of getting home, the dog had diarrhea again. We couldn’t tell if it was bloody or not. I called the emergency vet back. They said to give her a bland diet, that was all that would stop the diarrhea. I told them she still wouldn’t eat (apparently she had eaten for them- why didn’t they send me home with the meds that made her stomach feel better so she could eat for me???). They said, well, keep offering food. She had diarrhea every hour and was freaking out. She couldn’t lie down, just wandered around the house trying to climb through windows and get outside. She looked really bad.

I took the 10-2:30am shift, taking her out every 30 minutes, letting her sniff for about 20 minutes, then have her diarrhea episode and bring her back in for 30 more minutes of wandering.
Dan got up at 2:30 and I went to bed. He turned out the lights in the guest room and lay down on the floor with her to see if he could soothe her to sleep (she had slept maybe 3 hours in the previous 2 days). No dice. He took little power naps, dressed in his coat and hat so he could take her out quickly, on the floor next to the twin bed she had claimed in the guest room.
At 6:30 I got up so we could give Nina her dewormer (a liquid you squirt in her mouth with a syringe). I ended up spraying dewormer all over Dan. Nina really, really didn’t want anything in her stomach and clamped her jaws shut. Dan pried them open about 3mm and I squirted the stuff in there. She spit half of it out again. Frustrated and covered in dewormer, we tried on last time and got the whole dose down (this involved me clamping her jaws shut right after I squirted). The dog wouldn’t even look at me for about 15 minutes after this ordeal. I was dead to her.

At 7:30am on Monday, I called our regular vet and they told me to bring her in. Dan went to work for his first day on a new rotation- I pity the patients he saw with so little sleep.
At the vet’s office, Nina just lay on the floor, crying and shaking. The vet examined her and said she was in a lot of pain and was very dehydrated. Nina had hookworms (which attach to her intestines and suck blood) which were causing the bloody diarrhea. The vomiting was likely due to the acid in her stomach and it was bloody because she had ulcerated something in all of her GI distress.

The vet admitted her to take x-rays, give her fluids, pain meds, injectable Pepcid, and an antibiotic with a charming side effect of severe constipation (to stop the diarrhea). I went home to try to rest, but couldn’t sleep. The vet was wonderful. She called to tell me the results of all the tests. Nina wasn’t anemic. There weren’t any foreigh bodies in her stomach on x-ray. She did however have a major amount of buck shot in her, according to the x-ray. Just another piece of her unknown history- she got shot at some point, who knew?
An hour later the vet called to say she had thrown up blood again. Thirty minutes after that, she called to say that she had a “diarrhea explosion of blood and water.” I was beyond worried. Nothing they gave her seemed to make her any better. The vet said she had never seen a dog get this sick from hookworms and she did a bunch of other tests to make sure it wasn’t something else.

All the other tests came back negative. At about 2:30 the vet called to tell us that we could pick Nina up at 5:30 for the night and that we should bring her back the next day (that’s Tuesday morning) for another day of fluids.

When I picked her up, it was like she was back to normal. They left her IV catheter in arm and wrapped it up with an adorable pink bandage. Nina couldn’t walk real well with the wrapped arm, but she had started eating. We fed her prescription canned dog food and turkey baby food. She ate it all. Then she slept, and slept, and slept. She ate again and then slept all night.

A funny anecdote- Dan went down to the basement last night and found another spot where she’d had an accident Monday morning. He tried to clean it up with bleach. He spilled bleach all over the floor and then had to mop it up to dilute it. I found him with a t-shirt tied around his face, like a molotov cocktail throwing youth, mopping the basement at 10pm.

The dog is back at the vet’s until noon today- getting her electrolytes checked and being observed. But she is so much better. We woke up to a weird sound this morning, went into the kitchen, and found the dog furiously licking her food bowl trying to get every last morsel of the stinky canned dog food. Dan gave her some more food and she ate most of it right up. The vet called a few minutes ago and said we should all pop some champagne- she wasn’t sure Nina would make it through the day yesterday. She also said that she only occasionally met dogs as sweet as Nina and all the folks there had worked really hard to pull her through because “the world needs dogs like that in it.” Apparently one of the techs even spent her breaks sitting in the pen with Nina, petting her and trying to get her to eat.

I am so relieved. I will probably sleep like the dead tonight. I am so tired and can finally relax a little. Nina isn’t out of the woods yet- we have one more day of deworming and then we have to see if everything has cleared up. If all goes well, I think I’ll be baking a big batch of cookies for Nina to take to the vet’s office. They worked really hard for her.

Happy New Year!

Ok, so it’s been a few weeks since I updated the blog. Sorry. Also, apologies for not having a single picture of Christmas or New Year’s to share- I swear I carried my camera everywhere, I just never got it out. The best laid plans…
So it’s been a busy busy busy time in Barr house. Dan and I went home for Christmas. He got a whole week off- which was totally amazing and much more than we expected going in to this year. Christmas was wonderful. We saw family from all over (mostly because we traveled all over) and got to spend some quality time with people we haven’t seen in awhile. The schedule went a little something like this: Saturday the 20th: I arrive in Durham. Sunday the 21st: I head to Fair Play (near the SC/GA border) with mom and dad to see my mom’s side of the family. It is 8+ hours in the car that day. Monday the 22nd: Dan arrives in Durham, we go to a dinner party. Tuesday the 23rd: We go to Hartsville to see my dad’s side of the family. 6 hours in the car. Wednesday the 24th: I make Stollen and we do Christmas with my parents- complete with Beef Wellington, prosciutto, pistachio, and pomegranate salads. Oh, and did I mention the warm chocolate souffle cakes with peppermint ice cream? Heavenly. Christmas Day: We go to Dan’s family’s, play with my cutie pie nephew Nick (who seems somewhat unsure of what to make of me) Friday the 26th: Dan leaves for Florida. I am supposed to go to SC- AGAIN- but it turns out we don’t have to (long story that’s not particularly interesting for the blog). So, I hang out at home while Dan sees his extended family. Sunday the 28th: I pick Dan up from the airport and we drive, separately, back to Roanoke.
It was a whirlwind. By the end of the week I was pretty sure I never wanted to travel again. However, it’s tough to get folks together and it is nice to see family. It seems that Christmas is the best (only?) time to get all the aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents in the same place. Why is that? Whatever happened to the family reunion at the beach in July? Much more my scene…
Anyway, all of this is probably tainted by the week I’ve had. After a busy Christmas vacation, I had trainings at work on Monday and Tuesday. Now, most trainings I’ve been to are things like “How to access the network” or “How to use powerpoint,” which aren’t really thought provoking or mentally intense. Not so with this training. I have learned about child restraints, self-defense (in case you walk in on a domestic violence situation and get threatened with murder, as one caseworker was), and communication skills for working with kids who disabilities that prevent them from distinguishing between right and wrong. It was something else. I’m pretty sure I’m not qualified to do half of the things they were teaching me. Even scarier, I’m pretty sure half the people in the room were less qualified than me (judging by their comments). So, that out of the way, I have been working on the assessments for the kids in the new wraparound program- which rolls out on Monday. Yes, Monday, and we still don’t have an assessment, which actually turns out to be ok because they don’t have enough staff to run the program yet. You’d think, with the economy in the toilet and people out of work, that more folks would be applying for these jobs. Nope.
Anyway, so I’ve been diddling with the assessments- but haven’t gotten much done because it’s been New Year’s and Dan’s had time off. Since we didn’t see each other much (one on one, I mean) at Christmas, I have been spending time with him. Yep- it’s been a little insane. Especially when for the last month, the biggest concern I’ve had when I woke up in the morning was which book I wanted to read that day.
Ok- enough catch up- the real point of this post is to wish you all a Happy New Year!
I love New Year’s- it’s so much fun to reflect on the past year (leaving out the bad parts) and think about where you’re going the next year. I even like (*gasp*) making resolutions. So what if I don’t actually achieve most of the them, for a little while it gives me a goal to reach and I usually accomplish some things. So, in the spirit of the New Year, I’m sharing my resolutions, in no particular order.
- Watch less TV. Hey, I’ve been unemployed and the DVR is so tempting.
- Work out 5 days/week for at least an hour. I usually do this, but not always and would like to be more consistent. Also, I’ll probably never have this much time for exercise again, so I might as well make the best of it.
- Lose 10 pounds. Yep, the fridge is just as enticing as the TV. Alas.
- Learn to throw a football. Turns out I can catch one, but if I have to throw the thing more than 10 feet, I’m screwed. My dad taught me to throw a baseball. At shorter distances, I can shoot a basketball (no three pointers for me, but layups and short jumpers are ok), but I’ve never been able to throw a football. There’s no time like the present.

I’ll probably come up with a few more before bed (I like the “make a million resolutions and you’re likely to achieve at least one or two” strategy), but that’s it for now. Good night!

Advice for a successful marriage

I was working out this morning when an older gentleman tapped me on the elbow. I took my headphones off and he said, “I just want to lay a little advice on you.”
I said, “Certainly” while actually thinking that I was doing circuits and really wanted to get back to my workout.
The older man goes on to tell that today is his 60th wedding anniversary and says that he wants to tell me the secret to successful relationships. I nod encouragingly, then he says,
“Fear. My wife is the meanest woman on the planet and I’m too afraid to try anything or start fights. She’d win.”

There you have it, ladies. Crack the whip.

Kroger, my personal hell… revisited

So, I must confess, the grocery store was not as bad as I made it out to be. Me? Overly dramatic? Never.

Dan did come out and help me carry the groceries in, however. Perhaps that made the difference.

Kroger, my personal hell

It’s no secret that I hate grocery shopping. This week we have a particularly long list because I’m making Christmas cookies and Dan is going back on a busy rotation (meaning he needs lots of snacks and lunch stuff). I have had to divide the list into sections (meat, dairy, cereals, chips/nuts, etc…) just to keep things straight. I have already railed to Dan about everything I hate about the store this morning. In an act of self-defense, Dan suggests that I should write about it, rather than blowing my stack at him. So here goes.

You might wonder what I hate about the grocery store. For many people it’s a world of possibilities- every aisle holding a new dinner experiment or meal maker. Not me. The misery begins for me the moment I walk in the door. I should explain that I feel a little claustrophobic in places with tall shelves, so I am always anxious to get the whole process over with- hence all the hurrying you will read about shortly. But, enough set up, here’s my grocery store nightmare.

First, I walk into the produce section where inevitably someone has parked their cart in front of the zucchini I need while they chat with their friend for 45 minutes. So, I move on to the apples, and there are 500 kinds, all different prices. Thus the price comparison begins. I worry over balancing my favorite flavors with the price. As you might suspect, I always like the most expensive thing best, so I have an internal battle over whether the Honey Crisp apples are worth an extra $.99/pound over the Red Delicious. The nightmare continues in the meat section (in my grocery store the meat and produce are together, cause putting raw meat next to food you eat without cooking seems like a good plan), where I have to dig around to find the lean ground turkey or ground chicken. I guess everyone else in America wants their meat to be full fat with skin on, so I end up digging through bins of frozen animal parts- chicken necks, hearts, and livers are particularly disturbing to me. After surviving the produce and the meat, I enter the aisles. My trouble with the aisles is that I am impatient. There is always a little old lady (or five) puttering along at a snail’s pace. I always know just what I’m looking for and where to find it, but I can never maneuver around the old bat to get there. I don’t know if she can’t hear me rolling behind her or if she just doesn’t care, but I always think that a Grocery Cart Derby wouldn’t be such a bad thing at this point.

So after I’ve successfully put all of my items in the cart, showing great restraint by not cart-slamming any small children with the “shopper in training” buggies, I get to the checkout line. This part is usually ok, except that they always say, “Oh, do you want us to use your bags?” No. I just brought 15 reusable grocery bags from home for fun. Give me a plastic bag instead. Sheesh.

I go to my car- it is probably raining, snowing, sleeting, or freezing cold outside at this point even though it was 60 degrees when I went in the store. I load everything in the trunk, taking great care to align the bags so they won’t dump their contents on the ride home. I close the trunk, wait for the passing car to splash, then put the cart away.

I drive home, then go to get the bags out of the trunk. Despite my best efforts everything has spilled out into the trunk, so I crawl around for awhile, retrieving the escaped lemons (or whatever), then load up my arms to go inside. I hate making two trips (remember how patient I am?) so I carry all of the bags loaded on my two arms. Somehow Dan always manages to not be home when I get back from the store, so the door is always locked. Unfortunately, I can’t lift my arms to open it, much less unlock it. I put half the bags down to deal with the door, spilling the lemons all over again in the process. Eventually I take the bags in two trips. Worst of all- having gotten everything in the house, I’m still not done. I have to put everything away- usually requiring a fridge clean out in the process to make room. By the time I’m finished, I should feel relieved, but no, I just know I have to go through the whole rigamarole next week. Grumble.

Whew, I feel better.

Prop 8 – The Musical

Hilarious take on Prop 8 by Jack Black, Allison Janney, Margaret Cho, Sarah Chalke, and yes, Neil Patrick Harris. Enjoy!

more about "Prop 8 – The Musical", posted with vodpod

Turkey and Basketball- a perfect pair

Happy belated Thanksgiving!  It’s been a whirlwind of a week here.  My parents arrived on Wednesday with their dog, Lucy (a black lab, more on that later).  We had Carrburritos style fish tacos for dinner and then hung out in the living room for awhile.  My parents were staying at a bed and breakfast but Lucy was staying with us.  Mom and dad headed off for the night and Dan and I proceeded to tuck Lucy in.  Originally we had planned to put Lucy in the guest room (she is a guest after all) but she refused to go in there.  Then we thought, “maybe she wants to sleep with the pack,” and we tried to put her in our room.  Nope.  No dice.  Next up was the study- she actually went into that room, but seemed awfully panicky in there.  Finally, I put her pillow in the dining room and she was, at last, happy.

The next morning I woke up, only to realize that I hadn’t put the turkey in the brine the night before like I was supposed to.  This was to be my first turkey (previously, I had just been a mooch, eating the turkey and sides that others made).  So, I scrambled out of bed, wrangled two dogs, and got the turkey submerged in a trash bag full of salt, brown sugar, veg stock, allspice, pepper, and crystallized ginger.  Mom and dad got there and we got to cooking.  Well, mom and I did.  Dan was revelling in his first day off in a long time and chose not to shave or shower on T-day.  Really, he hasn’t shaved in a week.  He’s beginning to look a bit grizzly.

Back to the food.  Mom and I made some pretty tasty food, if I do say so myself.  We had turkey, sweet potato souffle, haricot vert with a mustard, pomegranate, and goat cheese dressing, cranberry stuff, dressing, and yeast rolls (Dan’s favorite Thanksgiving tradition).  I had gotten a giant turkey (16 pounds) thinking that we might get some last minute company.  No extra company means that Dan and I have been eating turkey sandwiches nonstop.  It was fabulous. Only downside was that we didn’t get to see Dan’s family at all over the holiday.  Dan’s schedule makes it hard for us to travel and an adorable one-year old makes it hard for Dan’s sister and brother-in-law to travel.  We had to settle for just wishing we could get together this year- our fingers are crossed that things will work out better for Christmas.  But, like I said, it was wonderful to spend some time with my family, see Dan a little bit more, and eat the best sweet potatoes I’ve ever had (seriously, they were really good). Here are some photos:

And then, as if family time and turkey sandwiches weren’t enough, I drug two of my Roanoke friends to UNC to watch the UNC vs UNC-Asheville basketball game on Sunday.  We actually went down on Saturday night, which let me hang out with Mel, Carey, and Christine for a bit on Saturday.  A side note, we went to this new bar called Crunkleton’s (yes, that is actually someone’s last name- they have a kid and named him Montgomery Crunkleton).  It was quite nice and I highly recommend it.  Back to the story. We wandered around Durham and Chapel Hill during the day on Sunday, in really crappy weather, then ate at the Med Deli (oh, how I’ve missed you!).  Finally, we made our way back to the Dean Dome and watched the Tarheels absolutely dominate UNC- Asheville.  Sadly, Tyler did not play (or even warm-up for that matter), but it was fun to watch some of the walk-ons score some points.  After the game, we trucked back to Roanoke.  The only bad part is that one friend, Dave, got pretty sick on the way home (for the record, it was NOT my driving- he has a little flu).  Anyway, I got to hang out with Christine and Daniel at the game- it was so much fun to be back at UNC.  I had forgotten how much I missed it- if that makes any sense.