It's about time I updated...

On Sunday morning, at a bright and early (and probably highly unpleasant) 5 am, I'll be hitting the road and making the trek back to Searcy. According to Google Maps, it's 962 miles, taking about 15 hours and 33 minutes...we'll see how accurate that time is when I get there.

Despite not actually having enough money for gas at the moment (hopefully serving tomorrow morning at Stone Soup will grant me some good tips), I'm really looking forward to the trip. It's been a long few months, with work seemingly taking up every free moment of my time. Granted, it could be a lot worse if I were sitting behind a desk in a cubicle working M-F at a 9-5 job, but sometimes it does get monotonous, even in the restaurant world.

There's not a whole lot new going on in my life. I did a brief stint as a line cook at Stone Soup, and although I was really enjoying it, cooking 55-85 meals to order by myself during a shift was a bit on the stressful/exhausting side, so I'm back to full-time as a server. I do feel as if I learned a lot of really valuable information while I was cooking, so now I'm pretty confident when it comes to maneuvering around a kitchen and whipping up a semi-gourmet meal with a scantly stocked pantry.

Tonight I learned the secrets of opening a bottle of champagne (I had a table purchase one and as we're a "fine dining" establishment, I had to do a proper wine presentation at the table); hold the cork and push down while turning the bottle slowly. Miraculously, my first time opening a bottle of champagne didn't leave me covered with the fizzy drink or a black eye (which I was fully expecting). It's amazing the things you can learn in the restaurant industry.

Stone Soup also serves as a regularly changing art gallery. When we have no artists to display work, we collaborate and choose a theme and all the workers and any of our artist friends produce work to hang on the wall. This past month's theme was trees and I painted four tiny wood blocks with simple white birch trees on a green/blue gradient background and detailed them with pen and ink. I had a lady comment to me how much she loved them and when I told her I'd painted them, she asked if she could buy them. I of course said yes, and we agreed on a price of $75. I'm still a bit flabbergasted that I sold four tiny pieces of wood for that much, but hey, it's art, right? A few weeks later I had another table comment on them and after they found out I'd painted and already sold them, they inquired about having me do a similar commissioned piece for the same price. Makes me wonder why I haven't quit work and become a full-time artist...haha....although, Shepherdstown is kind of a rich yuppie town full of older people who have nothing better to do with their money.

Alright folks...there's your update...someday I will be better at keeping up this poor excuse for a blog!

April Fools pranks never get old...

So this might have been one of the the funnest and effortless pranks I've ever pulled on anyone. For less than 24 hours I had my Facebook page saying I was married and displaying the photo that I posted on here as my profile picture. My blog also feeds to my Facebook notes, so people were able to read and comment on this post there as well.

I had quite a few frantic wall-posts exclaiming "What???" and "Wow, um, congratulations!!!" or other similar things. It was definitely entertaining to keep checking back to see how the reactions progressed. Somewhere in the middle of the night, the general public began to sniff out an April Fools joke and I was called on my bluff. But hey, it was fun while it lasted, right?

Anyway, no worries folks, I would NEVER up and get married to someone I've been dating less than two months! Yeesh! So yes, I've been dating someone, but no, I'm not anywhere close to getting hitched, nor will I be anytime soon...so rest easy everyone...no crazy eloping yet.

I think I need to renew my resolution to keep up with my blog from now on. Yes, I think that's a great idea.

Honeymoon in Greece...here I come!!!

I'm married...eeeee!

another year older

I was definitely planning on being a lot better about keeping up with my blog, but the weeks just flew by and I continued to be lazy in my updating. I could promise that this will be the last time, but we all know that's not true.

I've been in Shepherdstown, WV for about a month now, and I'm absolutely enamored with it. It's such a beautiful and quaint European-esque town with so much character...how could I not love a place like this?

I live above a bakery, which I also work at, and my other job is at a tiny little restaurant that serves mainly organic and very gourmet dishes. They just put out a new menu (it changes with the seasons) and the owner/head chef added an entrée called "Athens" just for me. It's great how personal my job there is. I've really gotten to spend a lot of quality time in the kitchen, soaking up whatever I can from the cooks.

Last week was my birthday. I'm the ripe age of 23 now, which doesn't seem very epic at all, but I realized that I do feel quite accomplished for my age. Not in the way of success job-wise or anything, but in the way of achieving my goals in life. If things continue the way they are now, hopefully by the time I'm 33 I'll feel exactly the same way about my life.



Instead of a big hokey outing for my birthday, I kept a fairly low profile, which was great. I worked in the morning at the bakery (where they surprised me with a tiny German chocolate cake) and came home in the afternoon to a bathroom decked out with all the trimmings for a relaxing bubble bath, courtesy of my lovely roommate Ashley. The tub was surrounded by candles, with a kettle of hot water waiting for me to brew my choice of tea, accompanied by a platter of goodies ranging from raisins to lavender cupcakes. I couldn't have been happier to come home to that.



I soaked for quite some time in pure bliss, relaxing as the tension left my body. I even nodded off for a moment or two, and probably would've taken a short nap in there if I hadn't been awakened by the smell of burning hair. I reached up and snuffed out the flames, only to be left with a small chunk of blackened strands in my palm. The damage wasn't horrible, and after I brushed it out, there was no noticeable indicator of my short time ablaze. The next bath I take will most assuredly be accompanied by candles at the foot of the bathtub.



The rest of my day was spent in preparation and then in enjoyment of a beautiful Greek dinner that Joel and Ashley cooked. I managed to convince Ashley to try her hand at Moussaka (one of my favorite Greek dishes), which turned out even better than some of the times I'd had it in Greece, so hats off to her. The evening was topped off with a spiced Masala chai cake, decorated with my name written in Greek.



I really couldn't have asked for a better birthday, especially for being in such a new place. I'm really looking forward to the coming months as I get to know this place and its people better.

What goes up...

So I've been absolutely horrendous at updating my blog in the past few weeks. I'll go ahead and blame it on the fact that I've been knee deep in all that comes with moving to a new place, getting settled in and finding jobs.

Despite those excuses, an update is long overdue, so here I am...updating at last.

I'm officially a West Virginia resident, voter's registration card and all. It took a few days to get all of those official things out of the way, but while I was doing so, I managed to land two jobs, score an amazing apartment (conveniently located above one of the jobs and about thirty feet from the other one) and settle into a nice routine that makes me feel as if I've been here for years.

Despite being fairly well settled into our new apartment, we're lacking quite a few essentials in the way of furniture. To remedy this, Ashley (my lovely roommate), her fiancé Joel and I decided a trip to Ikea was in order. As we were preparing to pile into Joel's truck, I felt a distinct "plop" on the top of my head. Telling myself it was just an acorn, I instinctively grabbed at my head and realized that it was, actually, a fresh batch of bird poop that had landed so precisely in my carefully parted hair.

Screaming in horror, I held out my hand covered in poop and started jumping around yelling "Ew ew ew ew ew!" in an embarrassingly girly display of disgust. I'm not proud, but in my defense, the bird poop was not the usual white goo, but a ruddy brown mess not unlike apple butter. We retreated to Joel's apartment, where I meticulously picked the gunk from my strands and soaped it up with shampoo until I was certain each and every speck was removed.

Attempting to leave for a second time, we ran for the truck, covering our heads for fear that the birds would want another go at it and aim for all three of us this time around. We did make it out safely and poop-free, and later, as we were enjoying our plates of Swedish Meatballs with Lingonberries, we came up with all sorts of deep and meaningful explanations for the bird pooping on me. They might have been a bit far-fetched, but we all got a laugh.

I have a lot more to update about, specifically my new apartment and jobs, but I'll do that in the next few days as to not overload you all in one post.

Getting back into the groove

I've been busy filling my time with getting back into the groove of my American life and spending as much time as possible at Midnight Oil.

When I wasn't warming my spot on the couch at Midnight Oil in the past few weeks, I was busy buying a car, editing photos, and taking photos.

Yesterday, I was lucky enough to photograph Nate and Erin Copeland's week-old baby girl, Kate Copeland. I'm fairly certain that baby photography is now my new favorite kind of portrait photography.



I'm sure after a few more sessions I'd get tired of that too, but hey, I like it right now, so that's all that matters!

My epic return

So, I guess it's about time that I officially reveal the fact that I'm back in The States. I arrived in New York City last Friday (Nov 30) and stayed with some friends until Monday when I took a train down to Philly and stayed with JCliff through Thursday. I made it back to Searcy last night and was biting at the bit to reveal myself, but only managed two surprise visits before it was too late to go knocking on anyone else's door, so the rest had to wait until today.

I've known I was leaving Greece for close to a month now, so the anticipation has been building for quite some time. I was determined to keep it a secret and made a point to only inform those that just had to know (like my mom, who would have started to get suspicious had she believed I was still just hanging out and being a jobless bum in Greece).

A huge element lending to the glory of my epic surprise return was the fact that I was coming back just in time to participate in the annual Christmas tree stealing out of Renee Lewis' office. Dustin Vyers has always been my partner in crime, and the first year (2005) started out as a war of tree snatching between the Student Publications Office and the Student Life Office. I, of course, immediately sold out and stole the Stud Pub's tree, showing my allegiance to Dustin and his cause.

Last year definitely raised the bar, as Dustin had accepted a job at Pepperdine and now lived in California. I connived as always, and stole the tree to send it off to Dustin at Pepperdine, who glady received it and later brought it back in person on a surprise visit to Searcy. During this visit, he and I secretly infiltrated Renee's apartment and stole her home Christmas tree, replacing it with the small one from her office with an attached Polaroid photo of us swiping the tree. Her reaction was priceless, as she had not expected Dustin to be in Searcy.

This year though, oh, this year would be good. I was living in Greece, and as far as anyone knew, wouldn't be coming back for quite some time. Our planning started weeks ahead, and since Dustin now lives in Texas, we had two outside recruits (Corey McEntyre and Nick May) vow their allegiance and scope out the tree situation. This morning was go-time, and as I sat in Corey's office (ironically enough, the Student Life office...he has Dustin's old job) in excited anticipation, plan after plan to lure Renee from her office failed, as she had a deadline to meet and would not leave for anything.

Stumped, and not wanting to stay in hiding much longer, Corey and I called and consulted Dustin, who decided that we should just rush in and grab it in plain sight. Agreeing, Corey pulled out a video camera and we headed out for the mission.

(*side note* As we were attempting to leave the Student Life office unnoticed, my friend Scott Light spotted me and as I started to run he ran after me yelling, "You can't just do that...you can't just come back and not tell anyone!!!!!! You CAN'T!!!" It was hilarious and wonderful and by far the best reaction I've had.)

After we escaped from Scott's scene-causing yells, we retrieved Corey's car and parked it next to the exit closest to Renee's office. Corey led the way, video camera in hand, and stepped into Renee's office. She was slightly confused and just about to inquire as to what he was doing when I dashed in, swiped her tree and high-tailed it out before she'd had a chance to even process what had happened. The rest was a blur, but I vaguely remember hearing her yell, "Wait...what? CHELSEA!?!?!!?!?!" before we busted out the door and hopped into Corey's car for our quick getaway.



This year's tree stealing shenanigans may never be topped.