Tales of a Tree-Hugging Attorney

I keep wanting to update the blog.

And then I get really overwhelmed because there are so many things that I haven't blogged about. DH and I had a great Christmas vacation. We went back to home state and got to catch up with friends and family. We went on an amazing snowmobiling trip with friends and toasted to the new year while sitting in a hot tub in the middle of the mountains.

Then we had really nice birthdays. We went to Chicago to see "Book of Mormon" (fantastic, in case you didn't know) and then took an extended weekend to Charlottesville, VA.

But all the trips were overshadowed by some big news.

Namely, this:





OMG.

We knew in Chicago, so DH took a picture of our bean in front of "the bean."





So blessed. So excited. So scared. So...sick.

I spent the first SIXTEEN weeks of the pregnancy throwing up. Baby does not like sweets. Learned that the hard way. (Let's just say that after hurling up a cupcake, you lose the desire to indulge.)

But seeing this made it worth it:





Little he/she is 12 weeks old in that photo. Pretty amazing.

We shared the news with our families via Charlotte:





After we confirmed that we were having a baby and not, in fact, going to be buying a puppy, people were very happy for us. And it made it seem much more real to get to share it all with them.

I am 18 1/2 weeks now. Due on September 20th. Until recently, I thought I was sort of in the "in between stage." I didn't look pregnant - but I looked a little, well, chubby. But, in the last week or so, I "popped." In a big way. So much so (apparently) that a senior-level attorney at work asked me if I was positive I wasn't having twins. AWESOME. I am trying (and sort of failing) to have a sense of humor about all of it. But what is the matter with people?¹ (And yes, there is only one baby in there. And he/she is worth this. For sure.)





The sign says "18 weeks" - and, since I was unwilling to brave the cherry blossom crowds again this year, this neighborhood specimen did just fine. :)

This afternoon, we got Charlotte in on the action:





Man, I love that dog.

We don't find out gender until Friday - but, in the interim, I have been doing by best buying gender-neutral clothes:





And, thanks to some very generous moms, cousins and friends, I have a slew of maternity clothes. (My quickly growing tummy and I appreciate your generosity!)





I'm not going to blog about fruit.² Or whether my wedding rings still fit. If I do, I'll end up stressing out about missing a week (or ten) and then this blog will officially phase out. I'm keeping the news off of Facebook. Instead, I am going to try to stay in the moment. I am so grateful that I will get to be someone's mother. I was so scared that maybe I couldn't be. And as much as the woman inside of me wants all of her cute clothes to fit, I am going to embrace my changing shape as a sign that something really miraculous is going on. I have a lifetime to diet and exercise. For now, I have mint M&Ms and grapefruit juice. Bliss.


¹So far, I'm more alarmed with how other parts of the body grow during this process. Just saying.[↩]

²According to the fruit gods, baby measures somewhere between the size of a sweet potato (18 weeks) and a mango (19 weeks). The mangoes I just bought are markedly smaller than a sweet potato. By week 20, baby grows to the size of a...banana. Say what? Maybe it's because I shop at Whole Foods too much, but our bananas are teeny. More plaintainish than anything else. So my sizing references are all messed up. I get confused too easily to play along.[↩]

So that means I should update about Thanksgiving, right?

Ha.

I should just accept that this blog has become a series of monthly update posts. To be fair, a lot of the day-to-day stuff that I would desperately like to blog about is off limits. For good reason. I get it. But...it's limiting. Fear not, however, because I have several ridiculous posts in store dealing with hot topics like: aggressive hair removal; spin class for people with normal butts; picking up strangers when you're lonely; and getting through the bar method class when you haven't touched your toes since sixth grade. All coming up. Get excited.

In the interim...turkey-but-not-really-turkey-because-DH-and-I-are-doing-the-"Eat to Live"-diet...day post.

First and foremost, my mom came out to visit us again. This is year number two - so I am officially declaring it a tradition. Well, at least until we get back to home state. But I digress.

When she was here, we did some stuff.

First, we saw the Rogers and Hammerstein version of Cinderella. My mom loves Rogers and Hammerstein, which means that I grew up humming right along. I saw the ad for the show on a metro bus and immediately bought tickets. The show was at a quaint community theater and there were about a dozen little girls there decked out in poofy dresses. It was pretty awesome.



For the main event, I made a purely vegan feast. This is weird because I've never been vegan. And, current diet aside, I wouldn't classify myself as such. I love sushi. And milk. And you know, non-vegan things. But DH and I have been on this health kick for a little bit - so I indulged. You know, just to see if it was possible. I ended up making pumpkin curry soup, a "meat" loaf, cranberry spinach with pine nuts, sweet potato and apple casserole, zucchini/carrot muffins, and a DELICIOUS gluten-free (and vegan?!) pumpkin pie. It was actually really really good. Even DH liked it. (Although, if we're being honest, I am pretty sure it didn't make up for the fact that we didn't have Stove Top Stuffing.)



I also picked up a bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau. Apparently I am the last person in the world to hear about this seasonal wine. It is released annually (always around turkey day) and is intended to be enjoyed within the year of its release. (For its $15 price tag, it was worth it!)

To burn calories enjoy the great outdoors, DH and I also took her to see Great Falls Park. Even though we missed the gorgeous leaves, we had some decent weather and got to explore for a bit with the bulldog. I remember when I lived in the Vermont how amazing the sky was. You could see the milky way with naked eyes. The sky was like an astronomy book. I always feel better when I remember that nature is everywhere. (Even in cramped cities.)



We were able to round out the vacation with a trip to the Symphony of Lights. I suspect this drive-through lights display is very appealing to young children, but the lights in home state have ruined me as far as light displays go. Where are the displays of jumping animals? And tunnels of lights? And cocoa? I mean, what is this? Fortunately, we were able to find a station playing Christmas music that we belted out to get more in the spirit.



It was a good trip. And I am so so SO happy to be going back home for Christmas.

Cavedogs everywhere unite.

i guess blogging bimonthly is kind of my thing.

i am sitting at home after a surprise day off work - waiting for the lovely hurricane to show up and take away our power. in the meantime, i have spent hours online shopping (about to get my first pair of boots!) and wishing that i would have given in to my sweet tooth and stocked up on candy before every freaking store shut down. ce la vie.

to distract myself, an update:

a couple weeks ago i went to the PostSecret play in bethesda. i have read the PostSecret blog for years and have always wanted to go to an event. PostSecret started when a normal(ish) guy decided to invite people to send him postcards with their secrets written on them. the idea was that, by sharing their secret anonymously with a total stranger, they could free themselves of the secret. then, by posting a select bunch of the received secrets online each week, all of the blog's readers could see that they weren't alone. that - no matter how crazy the secret - someone else has thought it, too. this expanded into several worldwide movements. particularly when one reader sent in a postcard voicing their intent to jump off the golden gate bridge. within 24 hours, 20,000 people had signed up for a Facebook group called "please don't jump." articles like this asked whether a site like PostSecret could actually save a life.

the secrets range from serious to hysterical. and, without fail, i always feel a little bit less alone after i curl up on a sunday morning and read the new entries. one of my favorite secrets was shared:





the play version of PostSecret set some of the secrets to music - and gave voices to the secrets that had been sent in. there was an incredible scene where frank (the original founder of PS) played voicemails that people have sent in - telling him that it was the last time they got to hear that person speak. it was emotional. but awesome. because i always save voicemails. (and, just so you know, phone companies will make you a hard copy of any voicemail or answering machine you'd like saved. i wish i had done that with my grandpa.)

anyway, it was awesome. frank invited audience members to write down their own secrets. so i did. and it was kind of liberating. even though it wasn't read out loud, it felt nice just to get it out there. before we left, i snagged a photo of frank (of course). in my life, he's a real celebrity, you know?





the weekend after that, the hubs and i took flying lessons with the washington international flight academy. (i know, right?!) we got a groupon for a cool 65% off, so we figured hey, what could go wrong? because personally, i love doing super dangerous things for a discount. who doesn't?

fortunately, it was actually really fun. and we lived! the flight instructor sat up front with each one of us as we practiced taking off, flying, and landing (while the other one sat in the backseat snapping pictures and praying). we each got to pilot a ~20 minute flight. it was pretty awesome. the plane's interior space was equivalent to a smart car, so i took a pic for size reference. i know it's pretty irrational (since the chances of me screwing something up are probably greater with a larger plane) but i would have liked it if the plane was just a wee bit larger.





i felt less scared shitless official in my headphones.





and we got some decent view-while-we-try-not-to-crash pics:





finally, last weekend i got to hang out with a good friend and go to another wine and painting class at blush-n-brush. bad news was that i drank too much wine¹ and had a lopsided martini glass. good news was that it was fun to see her and hang out.





then next day, we were able to explore occoquan regional park. puppy had a great time. and it was wonderful to take advantage of the new england colors.





fall is shaping up to be pretty awesome. the only thing that will make it better is if the hurricane takes it easy on us and i can wrangle some boots over my "athletic" calves. fingers (and cankles) crossed.

¹this was brought on by the fact that, just hours earlier, i got smacked in the face with a bathroom stall door. long story. hilarious, actually. but, with a bandaid (and then a nice scab) over the center of my nose, i felt a little like owen wilson and nelly's love child. wine was all i had to bring humor to the situation, you know?[↩]

UPDATE: sandy knocked out our power for about 10 hours, but we are already back up and running. feeling incredibly blessed. nyc was not quite as fortunate. i read this article and got a glimpse of the damage. prayers going out for a quick recovery.

i, like almost everyone i know, suffered through the 90 minute debate on wednesday.

it was treacherous. mostly because mitt romney looked like he was on uppers - and obama looked like he was on downers. so, together, it seemed like kind of a mess. Facebook immediately blew up with postings about the infamous cut-funding-for-pbs comment and liberals everywhere started mourning what they perceived to be a giant loss. (for a biased, yet hilarious (and quite accurate) summation of the events, check out this article.)

from that article, my favorite line:

"Liberals were not happy with the fact that Obama didn't open the debate by saying "47%. Car elevator. Legitimate rape. Corporations are people. Where are your tax returns? War on women." (drops mic, walks offstage)"

it's kind of true, right? we thrive on our differences. we want them known.

i'm just getting frustrated because (like in every election) politicians spend 99% of their time digging into their opponent and only about 1% of their time telling the american people what they plan to do to "fix" it. i think we'd get a lot further if people shelved their egos for a second and could just be honest. if you support tax cuts for the wealthy, say so. don't sugar coat it. don't deny it. just own up to it. if you support welfare, say so. just...say what you stand for.

worry less about big bird and more about wall street. worry less about tax returns and more about what the plan for the next four years is going to be. lay off the negative advertising and shoot some of that money toward the national deficit. be less of a politician and more of a human being.

last month, DH and i went to greece! we never went on a graduation-from-law-school-trip and got too busy and preoccupied with taking the bar, moving, and retaking the bar to ever go on a celebratory trip. then we had an anniversary. and we didn't really have time to celebrate. so we decided to do something awesome. and it didn't disappoint. it was everything i hoped it would be. we went to athens, mykonos and santorini. i designed my first photo book so i wouldn't forget all the things we saw. i'm excited to share it with our parents.

here are a couple of my favorite pics:


we were bored and excited to fly!

view from our balcony in athens

view from our hotel in mykonos

santorini

i wish i had the money, time and resources to travel all the time. this was the first trip i have ever taken where every second wasn't planned. and there is some fun to be had in spontaneity. for sure. we rented cars and drove to secluded beaches. i got over myself enough to put on a bathing suit and swim in the aegean sea. it actually felt like a real celebration. to celebrate being done with the dumb bar exam. and law school. and it felt nice to start concentration on us again. i loved every minute of our trip.

because we were out of our minds wanted to, we attended a wedding the weekend after we got back from greece in michigan. the bonus here was (a) scoring wicked cheap tickets because dc is actually kind of close, (b) going to grand rapids, where i have never been and (c) seeing old friends from houston that now call michigan home.


this woman is one of the best parts of law school

we went to yates cider mill in rochester hills, michigan and ate the absolute best donuts i have ever tasted whilst drinking delectable fresh cider

we had fun. but now we're tired and taking it easy. we met friends from law school for dinner at birch at barley. i dined with new meetup friends (don't judge) at proof. spent a fair amount of time on the couch catching up on breaking bad and suits. the usual. lots of dc fun awaits.<sup>1

1</sup>i should clarify what i do not consider "fun." a friend from work and i went to jaleo, which is a pretty swanky (and delicious!) tapas place in chinatown. after drinking way too much and almost bursting eating, we headed to the bathroom. well...this bathroom was unique because the area under the sinks was open in between the men's and women's bathrooms (so you could, for some bizarre reason) see dudes' feet. ordinarily, this would be a little quirky, but is not patently offensive. but on the day we were there? a guy was lying on the floor staring into our bathroom while screaming about how badly he needed to "projectile vomit." kid you not. in fact, his banter went something like, "sorry ladies, but i have to f*&$ing projectile vomit the s*&! out of myself." figuring that perhaps we weren't appropriately following his train of thought, he went on to explain that "it's because of f%^&ing law school." he literally screamed, "i now do cocaine and xanax!!! and i have to f&*%ing VOMIT." and in an instant i almost felt like i could relate. law school is no joke.[↩]

my blog has been abandoned.

i keep wanting to update but then i think about how many things i haven't updated about and i get overwhelmed and decide to stop blogging. but then i remember how much i like blogging. and how much i miss it. so here is a subpar update and a somewhat genuine promise to update a wee bit more frequently going forward.

mom 1

way back in july my mom came out to stay with us for a couple weeks. we went and did touristy things around dc like visit the Old Post Office Pavillion and eat at Old Ebbitt Grill. i scored a living social deal and we were able to take a champagne tour of the mansion on o street, which is this crazy mansion filled with obscure antiques, celebrity paraphernalia, and secret doors (that sometimes led to secret wine cellars!).

we also headed up to baltimore and went on a high speed boat tour, which was awesome. i'm not even into history (ha! understatement of the decade), but i still liked seeing the landmark buoy that marks the spot where francis scott key penned the Star-Spangled Banner while being held captive by the british during the war of 1812.

at my mom's request, we also went to colonial williamsburg, which transported me right back to my eighth grade "exploring dc" field trip. i was a lot less into the history reenactments and a lot more into this bizarre salt spa we found. you essentially nap in a chair that is sitting in a giant pile of salt for an hour. apparently it has wondrous effects. i can't speak to the effects, but i can attest to the fact that it was one of the best naps of my life.

it was fun to get away with my mom. and fun to have her here. we stayed at the smithfield station hotel in smithfield, va. it was in a quaint little town known for its ham (seriously) and it was lush and green and didn't feel like dc at all. we had to take the jamestown ferry just to get to it. it was awesome.

tim and kenny

a new friend and i went to see the brothers of the sun tour (featuring kenny chesney and tim mcgraw). LOVE. my friend is from ireland so it was her first american country experience. for anyone that has been to a country concert, you know that it can be a little more trashcan punch than champagne, so i'm sure it was memorable for her. i should have bought her cowboy boots and a teeny tiny skirt. then she would have felt like she fit in better.



mom 2

DH's mom came to visit in august. it was awesome having her here. she had never been to dc before so we did cliche tourist things. we took another night tour of the dc monuments, which was still awesome to me. i stood in the exact spot where martin luther king delivered his "i have a dream" speech, which was pretty incredible. sometimes living in dc is pretty awesome.

we also visited the national botanic gardens. i had only been there once (to escape the heat during the 4th of the july when i was interning here) so it was nice to actually stop and look at things. and see crazy stuff like this:

wahahaha.

moms and country music are great. update 2 coming up.

ever since the bar ordeal wrapped up, i haven't talked about it much.

it became this completely encapsulating time suck that enveloped all of my interests.
in fact, if i'm being honest, the brain fog is just now starting to lift. a little.
the job is ok. not as tantalizing as i'd like it to be. but i think that's mostly because being a real grown-up isn't like being a kardashian. (dammit.)

i have a lot to update on - but i wanted to do a blog post about bar prep. (for those of you not interested in studying tactics, disregard this entry. and rest assured that i will resume blogging again one day.)

especially now.

because most people that read this (aside from my family - LOVE YOU!) got to this blog after googling "failed the bar" or something along those lines. i've also been getting questions about what worked for me. and what you should do if it's close to go-time and you still feel like you know, well, nothing.

i will make this as short as possible. because it's not like you have time to read (or care about) long blog posts when you're studying.

here goes:

when i graduated i was bombarded with representatives from barbri. they were everywhere. i was absolutely 100% convinced that i had to take barbri to pass. because it's what everyone does. in fact, barbri is facing a lawsuit that deals with their massive (and, according to some, a somewhat suspect) hold on the market. but, hold or not, barbri has tremendous pull. every bar hopeful knows that the bar is graded on a curve. and every bar taker wants to ride it out to pass. so, logically, it makes sense to know what everyone else is going to know. and if everyone else takes barbri? well then you should, too. right?

i thought so.

and, to be fair, i came really close to passing. 2 points is ridiculous. my regrade was even more ridiculous. but a fail is a fail. and it's another 6 months.

barbri wasn't the best fit for me. the program jumps around from subject to subject and provides extremely limited feedback. the amount of information thrown at you is unbelievable. and, quite frankly, impossible. which is probably why the virtual professors remind you at every turn that you need not memorize everything, you just have to memorize "enough." queue anxiety. because i wanted to know it all. and i went way, way, WAY overboard. i made outlines from outlines from outlines. i made 8 billion flashcards. and i tried to know it all. (note: and i didn't even do everything they told me to! i never cracked the mini outlines and focused almost exclusively on the state-specific lecture book.)

but guess what? no matter how many times i spewed on about armadillos eating tacos from texas (?!?!), it never made sense to me.

i also bought into their guesses about what types of essays to expect. and they were totally and utterly WRONG. was this my fault? oh yeah.

so ok. what should i have done?

if i could go back to 3L year leading up to graduation, and was trying to pass the freaking FIRST time, what would i do? or what would i do if it was nearing d-day and i wanted to stop hating myself feel even jokingly ok?

1) honestly, i don't think i could have departed from a mass bar prep provider out of the gate. the masses provided a security blanket that i thought i needed. but if i did it over, i probably would have gone with a company that offers a REFUND if you fail. barbri lets you retake the course. but this is sort of lose/lose since it didn't work the first time.*

2) once i saw the mass amount of stuff that was expected of me, i should have freaked out, read blogs (not freaking Facebook), and scoured the internet for shorter outlines.

3) for UBE jurisdictions (or for the MBE/MEE portion of the bar) i should have relied almost exclusively on outlines from law preps. i heard about this company from posts like this from a fellow repeat taker in the blogosphere. the service was expensive. and time-consuming. and effective. i worked with john one-on-one (via Skype) once a week. i signed up for 20 hours, so i got a complimentary subscription to adaptibar, which only uses REAL past bar questions (not that i didn't love the clarity that the overly long and unrealistic barbri questions provided). unlike expecting me to tackle the paced program, john set out a timeline for me and divided up everything i needed to do on a daily basis. he understood that i was working full time and therefore couldn't devote 8+ hours a day. (and seriously, even if i wasn't working, i don't think anyone can stay focused that much?!) he drilled me on essays. harped on me about formatting. made me do over 1,000 MBE questions. and my score the second time? was over 20 points higher than the first attempt. and got my name on a pass list in 2 states.

4) if tutoring was cost-prohibitive, i should have still bought the outlines from law preps (above), perhaps signed up for adaptibar (above), and probably bought a used copy of this book.

what was my strategy?

1) using law prep's outlines, i made flash cards. for everything. and i went through them about a billion times. only this time i HAD SOMEONE ELSE read them to me. instead of twitching in the basement hyped up on caffeine after another restless night reading them to myself (like during round 1), i had someone else do it. it was like being cold-called 300 times a night. but it actually made me say it out loud. and understand it. (i also had about 1/10 the amount of flash cards since i was basing them off much shorter outlines, which helped.)

2) right before the test, i read VERY condensed versions of the outlines that i bought from law preps that i had created while studying and got down to about 45 flash cards that i didn't know. i skimmed through the strategies & tactics book (mentioned above) and remembered some of it. i skipped town and stayed in a nice hotel so that people would stop telling me it was going to be ok. and then i did NOTHING for 24 hours before the test. at all.

so, my advice (IN A NUTSHELL):
* Get short outlines from a trusted source (i liked law preps, as described above).
* Rely almost exclusively on the shorter outlines (that you buy today or that you make based on Barbri - but don't keep going back to 100+ page outlines)
* Make flash cards of all the key points. include some things you know. (it helps after you get 10 wrong to get a few right.)
* Do 30+ MBE problems a night. Preferably real ones.
* Outline an essay or two every night. Remember to write "at issue is XYZ" in every. freaking. one of them. for every. single. issue. you get a point just for saying what's going on. i didn't do this on round 1. that was really really costly, since it might have resulted in a pass.
* Once you feel pseudo ok with things (you'll never feel even close to 100%), do a full length practice test. note where you need to improve. don't light your books on fire if you have to improve in everything.
* Narrow down the flash card piles to the concepts you routinely miss. Explain the concepts to your boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife/sister/brother/friend/coworker/dog/wall so that they understand it. use crazy and inappropriate hypotheticals to drill the point home (I learned all of my FSA/fee simple/remainder BS using the Kardashians. i still remember it.)
* Calm down. Take a couple nights off. Drink wine.
* Remember that the majority of the world doesn't care if you pass. And that somehow, the world keeps spinning. I let this test take a good year away from me. I questioned myself at every turn and wondered if I could ever be an attorney. I'm still not totally over it. But things get better. They just do.

GOOD LUCK!

PS: the jfk bs doesn't make anyone feel better. read my archives under "bar exam" and see how a normal person deals with failing. you're not alone in feeling the way you do right now. promise.

*if you are doing barbri now (or loved it - and sing its praises), it can be a good program. for many people, it is. and lots and lots of people pass with it. on the first try. so it's 100% possible. i just wanted an alternative.

today i got to do something i have wanted to do for forever.

JURY DUTY.

and here's the thing. i'm not even being sarcastic. i have always wanted to get called in to sit in on a juicy trial and make history. a tiny part of me realized that this was, shall we say, a wee bit unrealistic. if i was being honest with myself, i think i knew that my experience in court would be a little less law and order, and a little more judge judy. but you know what? i didn't care. bring it.

maybe it's because i'm a fake lawyer. and by "fake" - i mean i don't litigate. much to the chagrin of my loved ones, i have little (if any?) transferable skills. i have a very targeted practice area with limited real-world applicability. my sister-in-law had a traffic court question and i literally told her to hire a lawyer. it's kind of sad, really.

so maybe this is why i thought jury duty would be so &*$!#@ bada$$. i could see how the other half lives. because come on everyone knows that public defenders lead glamorous lives (note: heavy sarcasm here). i mean, i watched "raising the bar" on cable tv - and i feel like it can't be all that bad. what, with only 1 case a week and coworkers that look like zach morris from saved by the bell. people, there is a lot to be jealous of!

so, as juror #96, i hustled this morning (even though i was (and still am) fighting some sort of late-acting swine flu)) to get to the jury room. i willingly passed my germs on to my fellow cross sectioners and sat anxiously. what would my case be? mass murder?

several hours later i was hoping for even a trip and fall case.

hours after that? i would have settled for a vanilla speeding case.

after 8 hours of NEVER BEING CALLED? i was raging.

where was the excitement? the thrill? had i really just rubbed my nose raw with cheap municipal toilet paper just to be told to go home?

yes.

but the day was not without its lessons. namely that you don't want to get convicted of anything. ever. because the cross section of peers that you're constitutionally entitled to? is kind of scary.

guy behind me snored (literally) the entire time we were in the room.

girl to the left of me draped her nasty feet all over the chairs in front of her and picked at callouses.

guy in front of me (with a wedding ring) kept telling this (much!) younger girl how gorgeous her hair was. guy next to me listened to ICP so loudly that he might as well not have even bothered with the headphones. although i must admit that it gave me some satisfaction to hear this throughout the afternoon:

**** the west coast, and **** everybody on the east
Eat **** and die, or **** off at least

i hear ya, ICP. i now have 3 years until i can be called again. everyone else was rejoicing. i felt sad. good news is that i hope to move again in the next year or so - so my chances will renew.

anyone know if it's true that lawyers are basically automatically recused anyway? that would be heart breaking.

so i guess it's been awhile.

i feel pathetic saying this, but i haven't had much to talk about since the bar wrapped up. it's weird how enveloped in bar misery i was. i still feel like i'm recovering. but i will officially be sworn in to state #2 this week - so i can finally let go of all the bar drama. except for the recurring nightmares, since i have a feeling those stick around forever?

anyway, the last month or so has been pretty good, actually.

i got sworn into home state and made DH take an obligatory photo in front of the flag with me.



while in home state, i saw amazing sunsets that made me unbearably homesick nostalgic.



i went to a wedding.



dh and i stopped on our drive home and stood in the same place we stood 5 years ago when we got married. it was pretty sappy.



a few days later, we went to an awesome chalk festival. it was especially impressive since it got rained out the night before the competition and all of the artists just drew everything again.



i got to hang out with my family and we all took an obscenely priced evening carriage ride through downtown. everyone laughed a lot because i almost fell out. i guess that happens when you cram everyone into a carriage designed to carry 4 people?



then, after a great trip to home state, dh and i came home. and did nothing for a couple weeks. then we went to the borgata in atlantic city to see jim gaffigan. we laughed about hot pockets and being pale. then we hit the beach and forgot sunscreen.¹



then, since i am obsessed we were already down there, i forced my sort-of-excited-but-afraid-to-admit-it hubs to visit the jersey shore. i we paid money to ride above the boardwalk and shamelessly take pictures of the jersey shore house relax.



i saw danny merk (he's the head honcho at the shore store and boss to the jersey shore crew) in action as he made my "t-shirt time" t-shirt. even though i know, deep down, that i should be ashamed of myself for supporting the franchise, i freaking love it.²



after we got back, we survived a pretty crappy power outage in the middle of summer in dc. no bueno.

but...a few days later we got to watch fireworks from the roof of my sister-in-law's apartment building, which offered a pretty choice view of the washington monument. i then proceeded to curse my iPhone for not miraculously getting stellar photos.

and then...i resumed work at agency.

and i have been fantasizing about buying a hot air balloon and offering rides to tourists instead of being a lawyer.³ unless there's an exam. then i'm out.

¹nothing like a peeling scalp that makes you look like you have horrific dandruff. awesome.[↩]
²snooki makes $250K an episode. the world is an unjust place.[↩]
³DH and i met a guy that did this on our honeymoon. he said he makes more cruising over tuscany in a balloon than he made as a finance guy in the UK. true story.[↩]