Wednesday, June 30, 2010

The Sis!

My sister came to visit me!

We made squash sandwiches.

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And talked about weddings. (Hers, obviously.)

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And snuggled with pupdog.

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And met some of hubby’s co-workers out a bar – but only talked to each other and Jamie. (Oops.)

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And talked about how much fun it will be when she moves to Winston-Salem permanently.

Just kidding.

But wouldn’t that be nice?

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Morning Glory

 

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Satisfy us in the morning with Your steadfast love, so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. – Psalm 90:14

(5:30 am sky, no photoshop required.)

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Jessie’s Girls

Beautiful setting, best friends, delicious wine, cheese and fig plate, and chickens.  Just another winocation.

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To be honest, I could do without the chickens.  But other than that, it was the makings of a perfect wino weekend.  We all convened in Charlottesville, where Jess and Charlie will be getting married in October, to celebrate our future bride-to-be. 

We visited King Vineyard, which is where their reception will take place.  Gorgeous.

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Then we spent the rest of the afternoon at two of our favorites from previous visits, Veritas Vineyard and Blue Mountain Brewery, sampling the finest they had to offer!

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Veritas’ newest addition, the chickens wandering the yard, was a surprise.  I guess I am a city girl, because I did not know what to make of those chickens getting so close to us!

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We wrapped up the day with dinner with Jess’s family at Bang, a tapas restaurant.  I’ve visited Jess probably about eight times since she moved to Charlottesville in 2004, and I can say this for certain about that town: if you are a foodie, you will not be a disappointed.  (Fortunately, we had started the day out with a brisk 4 mile run through the hilly streets of Cville – which I hope help mitigated some of the damage!) 

My favorite event of the weekend was giving Jess her wino wedding gift.  I mentioned in a previous post how Jess is my “matched case” – we have many shared hobbies and passions.  One of those shared passions is documenting every single second of our life with pictures.  I know Jess has been dying for a digital SLR for a few years, and the winos went in together to give her one to capture all the exciting events leading up to her big day.  The look on her face when she opened it – delight, then shock, and then it sorta looked like someone punched her in the stomach, she started crying so hard! – was so priceless.  It made me so happy that we all know each other so well to know how to truly delight and surprise each other!  (Maybe she’ll be inspired to start a blog with all the pics she’ll soon be taking… hmm…)

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It was a perfect weekend of time with my girlfriends, with delicious food, spent in one of the most beautiful parts of our country, celebrating the happiness of one of my favorite people.  To say my life is rich is an understatement. 

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Just In Case You’re Wondering….

40 balloons don’t fit very easily into a CR-V.

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Especially when you have an anxious Sheltie in the front seat.

Today was the last day of class for one of my groups at WFU.  Together, they lost a combined total of 909 pounds!  Amazing.  I don’t talk too much about work on here (see: dooced, see: HIPAA), but I just have to say it’s pretty amazing to go to work every day and be part of a program where people show up every day to try and better themselves. 

I often get bogged down in the day-to-day there, but days like today – graduation day – help me remember what it’s all about. 

“Life is change.  Growth is optional.  Choose wisely.” – Karen Kaiser Clark (Motivational Speaker)

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Another Saturday Night, And I Ain’t Got Nobody

Matt was working last night, so I downloaded the movie Valentine's Day to watch while I folded laundry and cleaned. I thought that it would be a nice way to “treat” myself, considering my lame-o Saturday night plans. (Don’t take that as a complaint; what makes me a perfect match for an emergency medicine resident is that one weekend night out, one weekend night in is my idea of perfect balance.) Anyways... I digress. The movie? Have any of you seen it? Other than it having lots of my favorite actors in it, the plot/stories were really weak. Like a watered down Love Actually. The only part where I truly laughed out loud was at the end there's an outtake of Julia Roberts in a car, and the driver says to her as they pass by, "Rodeo Dr? You ever shopped there?" and she goes "Once. Big Mistake. Big. Huge."

Oh Julia. You are a keeper. (Anyone else psyched about her playing Liz Gilbert in upcoming "Eat, Pray, Love" movie?)

Friday night, we attended end of the year party at our friend Anne and Locke’s house. End of the year for both teacher-Anne and the first year interns. To the rest of us suckers, summer doesn’t mean anything except relief from the heat in the office air conditioner. I brought my camera, but somewhere between mainlining artichoke dip and bringing back my old school flip cup skills, I forgot to bring it out. Jamie was walking around with hers, so I'll just send you on over to her post. (Eventually, we're just going to come up with a schedule as to who is in charge of documenting and blogging our mutual events.)

Once I had my house all spiffy and my laundry all folded, it was crafty time up in the Cline house. (Seriously, guys, I am just OUT OF CONTROL and wild.) I saw this post and decided to try my hand at it. So I spent the wee hours of Saturday night cutting up an old tee-shirt and glue-glunning. (Haven’t sewn to a shirt yet; will post pictures when it’s complete.) To say my husband was shocked when he called at the end of his shift (midnight) and I was still up is an understatement. It was a fortunate surprise though, as we had nothing as far as good eats in the house, so I put away my glue gun and whipped up some late-night quesadillas for the good doc. See what I mean? Best EM wife ever.

From flip cup Friday night to crafting with my snoring doggy Saturday night. That, my friends, is balance.

Oh, and footnote… speaking of crafts: I know I posted this on Facebook, but I don’t think I posted it here yet. This was my other project from our sewing night. Anne had brought this cute swirly orange and white fabric. I cut shapes out from it, and just free-handed them on with the sewing machine on to a T-shirt that had been in my goodwill pile. I was really happy with how it turned out. Pardon the dorky self-timer pics.

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Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Jess + Charlie

Jess and I met each other in the spring of 2003 at Wake Forest, but it wasn't until about a year later that we discovered how many interests we shared, such as running (including a love affair for the exact same sneakers, Asisics Gel Nimbus), photography, wine and epidemiology/public health. All of these similarities lead us to dub one another "matched case." (For those of you who don't share a passion for public health stats, a matched case is basically a set of people you can use to stand in for one another in research trials because of the number of shared similarities they have.)

After graduating Wake, we became closer than ever and shared the challenges, dreams and funny moments of single girls going through grad school and trying to create our dream public health careers. Along the way, we've both acquired a few degrees (me-two, Jess-seven? eight? twelve?), a few running blisters, and more than a few tales of less than perfect suitors.

When Jess met Charles, we (the "winos") had a hunch that this was it. Jess's happiness was evident, and her stories about their relationship made all of us excited that our best friend had met her matched case. After they had been dating for awhile, we began crossing our fingers that we'd be getting some exciting "news" soon.

In typical Jess fashion, I got a voicemail from her one day last fall. "Hey Megs, it's Jess. I just wanted to let you know I'm engaged. Gimme a call when you can."

I squealed. I shrieked. I jumped up and down. I could hear Jess's smile through the phone, and pressed her to tell me every detail of the engagement. I then I forced myself into her life even more by telling her I was showing up with my camera to document one of my absolute favorite couple's love story. Here are some pictures from their engagement photo shoot, taken in early May.

I think you'll see for yourself why I love this couple so very much. Even just looking at these pictures, you can tell they genuinely enjoy being in the presence of one another. Their wedding is set for October 30th, 2010 and will take place at a vineyard outside the beautiful city they met and reside in, Charlottesville, VA.











I love the sunlight in this last pic... and of course, those 2 very well loved doggies, Ivy and Ada.

~ Best wishes, Jess + Charlie! 10.30.10 ~




Monday, June 7, 2010

Drive Until the Map Turns Blue

Right now, I am sitting in an office with no windows, updating a credit card expense report and listening to what I am pretty sure is a dentist drill on steroids, although I am told it is a wet vac because there is a leak in our office roof and the room next door has a squishy carpet. Eww.

So on THAT "Happy Monday" note, I thought I'd go look at pictures from last weekend on the lake. It's been my experience that being near or on water is pretty much an instant dose of happy, with no chance of overdose or nasty side effects. I can be laying on the beach with the sun glinting off an ocean nearby, sipping coffee on a porch overlooking a still lake, laying on the front of a boat getting spritzed by the choppy spray or, my most recent discovery, being tugged along with behind a said boat holding on to a rope for dear life with my feet hooked together on a board. And I'm happy. Judging from everyone else these pics, I think the universal vote on this situation would be: "Me too."

These are all from Memorial Day at Cherokee Lake (Tennessee), where our wonderful friends Zac and Jamie took us under their lake-living wings and adopted us for the weekend.















Ok, maybe everyone doesn't love the water quite like we do.... Gus looks like he's perfectly happy being land-locked.

For now, I'll put some Jimmy Buffett on my playlist, pretend the wet vac is the sound of the boat motor, and put on my sunglasses to protect me from the glow of the UV lights. Until next time, Lake.

What about you? Do you have a favorite beach, lake, pond, blow up baby pool in the backyard that blisses you out just to be nearby?

All you really need this time of year
Is a pair of shades and an ice cold beer
And a place to sit somewhere near
The water...

- Brad Paisley, Water