A Year in Review

That's right friends - I have now officially lived in CT for an entire year. A lot has changed since we pulled up in Mark Rauckhorst's driveway at 1:00 AM a year ago. For one thing, we were able to close on/move into our own house (luckily within about three days - I am not good at living in other people's houses and my kitties did not like living in the laundry room).

Some highlights of our year:

Finding/Moving In To Our House
We almost didn't get this house and if we hadn't, I honestly don't know that I could have moved here. We had a terrible experience with our realtor - she didn't want to show us anything in New London and we hated everything in our price range in Groton, Gales Ferry, Mystic, and all the other "desirable" places she showed us. I found our house online, had to fight with her to see it, had to fight with her more to get her to write up the offer, and then we almost lost it due to her stalling. A battle hard fought with a great reward.

Noe in front of our new house shortly after we closed

New York Trips
I'll never love NYC the way I love Chicago, but I'll also never complain about having it a (shorter) train ride away. The unexpected perk of moving out here was discovering that Noe's work badge got us into the major museums for free. So far we've hit the American Museum of Natural History (impressive but overwhelming), the Museum of Modern Art (adored it), and my personal favorite, the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The great thing about getting in free and being so close is we can leave before we get burned out because we can always come back...although I can hardly imagine getting burned out on the Met.

Van Goh at the MOMA

Egyptian Awesomeness at the Met

Skiing in Vermont
Yes, we only went twice and yes, one of those days was completely warm and awful, but I can not possibly ignore the fact that in the same time it would take to drive to Boyne or Nub's Nob from Ypsi you can get to real mountains from New London. Noe and I were even able to take a bus from a local ski shop and get discounted tickets. Sure, it's no Colorado but I wouldn't know because I've never been out west anyway. Hopefully this year I can make Noe like skiing a little more and we can go more often.

I was trying to show Noe how to "snowplow."
He was more interested in taking pictures.

Making Awesome Friends
It was rough going here for a little while. Once the rush of moving and getting the unpacked was over, Noe and I suddenly found ourselves in a strange town with no friends, no hobbies, and it was more or less the dead of winter. Luckily, around this time we met and started hanging out with the people who would form our core group of friends here. Even better for me, my new friends got just as excited about wine, food, and books as I did. Now I had people to go to restaurants and wine tastings with and who told me where the fabulous Book Barn was located. The nights were suddenly filled with darts playing, rugby games and dinner/theme parties. Like getting the house, hooking up with this group was a real turning point.

Classing it up for the Gatsby Party (best party of the summer)

The Trifecta/Manfecta dinner party

Martha's Vineyard
This is pretty much directly related to the last item, because if we hadn't made friends with the awesome John and Katie, I am not sure that Noe and I ever would have made it out to Martha's Vineyard. But we jumped at the chance to go when Katie invited us (along with Amanda, Kevin, Mini, Doyle, Chad and Sarah) to spend a weekend at her family's house with her and John. I was absolutely enchanted by Martha's Vineyard and I only saw one small portion of it. I can't wait to go back. And although the setting (funky old house, beautiful beaches) was amazing, it was the company that really made the trip. It was our first vacation with our Connecticut friends and hopefully not the last.

The group at Katie's Vineyard house

Of course, there were many other good things about this year in addition to the ones above - great shows and movies at the Garde, for example; seeing concerts at the Dodge Music Center and the MGM Grand (yay Killers!); and volunteering at the aquarium. These are just some of the major highlights and the ones that stick out in my mind as definitive "maybe I don't hate it here" points. I'm still getting used to life on the East Coast, but I have to tell you that September 12, 2008 is gearing up to be a much better day than September 12, 2007.

Modern Marvels

It's been longer than I usually go without posting, but my cousin Katie was here this weekend so I was busy being a good hostess. Thank you for your patience (all eight of you who regularly read this blog, that is).

The good news about Katie visiting - other than the fact that she is my cousin and she is awesome - is that she's an art student, so it gave us a good excuse to head in to New York City and hit a major museum. One of the (few) perks about Noe being relocated out here is that we can actually take advantage of that corporate membership to places like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History, and - in this case - the Museum of Modern Art.


We took a 10:55 train into Grand Central and hit the MoMA around 1:30-2:00 (stopping along the way at Rockefeller Center and St. Patrick's Cathedral). We split up and agreed to meet in a couple hours so that we could see what we each were interested in and so Katie could hang out at certain pieces and sketch.

Noe and I headed up to the fourth and fifth floors, which house paintings and sculpture. We took our time to make our way through the airy and open galleries. The MoMA is a great space with plenty of room to spread out. Even for a Saturday afternoon, it didn't seem crowded - at least not until we hit the fifth floor gallery where the Van Goghs are kept. It was a little congested around Starry Night.


You can walk right up to most of the art at the MoMA and really examine it at close range, which is great because so many of the modern works play with texture and different mediums. It's pretty cool to stand (almost) nose-to-canvas with a Jackson Pollock and find the objects embedded in the paint.

There was an awesome exhibit on the sixtrh floor, Design and the Elastic Mind. Noe referred to this exhibit as "science art" which is not innaccurate. If you are in the NYC area, try and check it out.

Here are some highlights of the trip - sorry if the photos are of somewhat poor quality; no flash photography in the MoMA. A camera isn't really going to do them justice anyway.









These were, of course, just some of many. We stuck to floors four, five, and six, but definitely plan to head back soon to check out the prints and photographs - and the sculpture garden when it gets warm. I may struggle with my feelings for Connecticut, but I do love being so close to New York.