2009 in mini-review

In the year 2009, I:

• enjoyed three weddings (one of which was my brother's)
• ran three miles along the cliffs twice or thrice a week
• visited family in the Midwest and on the East Coast
• stayed gluten-free and stopped taking antibiotics
• celebrated the first birthday of my only niece, Lila
• enjoyed my sister's company four times over the course of three months

• hoped for the safety of all our troops abroad (including my brother-in-law this summer and my cousin right now)
• loved one brother's wedding (John) and congratulated the other (David) on his first anniversary
• celebrated Jesse's/my sixth wedding anniversary
• enjoyed two backpacking trips with Jesse (one to a place we'd never been before!)

• prayed for everyone's health (especially Grandmother and Granddad - they had a tough year)
• walked 50 miles in three days after raising about $3,000 toward a world free of MS. I also gave a speech and led the candle ceremony.
• experienced three blackened toenails but didn't lose any (though Jana lost one - yuck!)
• made acquaintances into friends, friends into great friends, long-time friends into fresh friends, both at work and at play
• made a video about Mom
• moved a household, two cats and a tree halfway across the country and sadly said "see you later" to many friends
• changed jobs within the National MS Society (lucky me!)
• had my first Christmas alone without family (except Jesse of course)

... and started this blog and kept it up! Though I reserve the right to add to this post at anytime even if I eventually have to take "mini" out of the title.

quiet christmas

We were scheduled to fly to the Midwest to visit my mom and grandparents this weekend, but the winter weather there prevented us from doing so. We spent Christmas eve and day at home, cooking and eating. I did some gluten-free baking for the first time and generally things turned out good! A little stir-crazy by now though after being home too long.

Denver food

When we woke up in our new house with our airbed, TV and cats, we had no internet access and no real knowledge of the area. We did have about 12 phone books (thank goodness, right?!), however I found the yellow pages to be useless; maybe I just don’t know how to work them. After trying for hours to find a place that would deliver, we got in the car and stumbled upon an amazing Little India restaurant near our house. Our friend Nick had never had Indian before but he liked it – the cute waitress might have had something to do with that…

Since then we’ve been exploring our area one restaurant at a time. After two attempts we rediscovered a yummy Mexican place – third time’s a charm – which we used to frequent when we lived in Denver before. Saturday night we tried Sushi Den on a friend’s recommendation and it was awesome! Expensive, but great environment, food, drinks, etc. We’ve been to one Thai place that was good, but slow service and not many vegetarian options. I have two recommendations for Thai from colleagues on which that I need to act.

Mouth is watering… Indian or sushi tonight?

new job

After unpacking my clothes on Sunday, I started at the office Monday morning. I don’t have many work clothes because 1) we wore jeans/casual at the chapter and the home office is business casual, and 2) since I last wore business attire I have lost some weight as a result of giving up gluten so all my old clothes are too big (good problem to have!). Remind me to share later if you’re interested my gluten-intolerant adventure. My colleagues from the chapter went in on a big gift card for me before I left Anyway, work. My first challenge is our social media strategy. I’ve been searching for and reviewing case studies… and not finding one to use as a text book. I looked through Forbes Top 200 Charities (health classification) and surveyed those similar to us. The beauty of it is that we (nonprofits, the Society, folks like me in the space today) get to be the pioneers.

I have always been fanatical about succeeding in structured environments (school, work). Given that my mom’s life has been stolen away from her by multiple sclerosis (and she’s been stolen from us – my grandparents, aunt/uncle, siblings, niece) and that I am privileged to work at the National MS Society (and recently the home office!), I am now officially obsessive.

On a related note I registered and started my Karin's Kids team for the three-day 50-mile Challenge Walk in Southern California September 2010.

first week in Denver

In an empty house. We went out to eat for every meal. No internet access. Olive did a lot of night singing – what a weirdo – which involves wandering around and howling (which in an empty house with hardwood floors = echo). We saw A Christmas Carol in 3D. Waited for our stuff to show up which it did on Saturday at noon! Though we’re still surrounded by boxes, it’s nice to have our STUFF. Though I am now certain that we have twice too much stuff… since many of the boxes are staying packed up in the garage or under beds.

Our cats LOVE the heat vent in the living room. We put their little fleece beds in front of it, but somehow one continuously gets pushed aside. Then they fight over the bed that’s still right in front of the vent. They’re very serious about meeting their “heat session” quota each day.

getting to Denver

After Jesse accidentally rolled my finger up in his Jeep window (I was trying to get Christopher’s needles tucked in) in the parking lot of Taco Bell/lunch/restroom stop, we kept on our journey. Jesse said the cats were fine as long as he didn’t make any noise at all. We had drugged them at ¼ pill each – half what the vet recommended. You could see the effects in Casey’s eyes… I listened to my book on CD – which reminds me I need to mail it back to the Carlsbad library. We drove all day (eight hours) and talked on our walkie talkies a bit until the batteries died. We spent the night in Flagstaff with Olive under the bed and Casey hissing at her. It was cold, like 7. Degrees. Nice to be on a real bed though.

Sunday morning we got up early and drugged the cats at ½ pill each. The slept much more soundly than the day before as we drove all the way to Denver, about 12 hours. It was beautiful coming up I-25 through Colorado as the sun was setting. Our property manager met us at our new house, we signed papers, brought the cats in, unloaded the cars and parked them in our new garage, blew up the airbed and went to sleep. In the morning there was snow on the ground! And it was still coming down.

leaving the beach cottage

We walked down to the water (a whole block) and while we were standing there watching the sunset I really struggled to be present. Up to that point I had felt ‘in control’ of our situation, whether or not I really was. But Olive acting so strange… and the empty house… and the impending finality of it all became overwhelming and I shed some tears. Definitely not my best sunset in OB.

I went to my dad’s to return his van and say my goodbyes, then Debbie picked me up and we went to Leia’s for dinner. Lyn was there with little Hannah and then Sarah joined us with Thai food. It was a fun evening spent drinking wine and hearing about Sarah’s recent trip to Japan. And just chatting. Oh and eating strawberries with whipped cream which might be my favorite food in the entire world. Bummer that Jana couldn’t make it, but we’ll stay in touch! Keep telling myself that…

That night we didn’t sleep much on our camping airbed in an empty house. Olive wandered and howled/sang the WHOLE night. In the morning we still had so much to do! Stuff to finish packing, cram it all in the cars, drug the cats, clean up! Jason stopped over to say goodbye… Christopher (our live Christmas tree) was a source of stress; we wanted to bring him along. We got him the first year we were married when he was only 18 inches tall. Now he’s over six feet and they wouldn’t put him on the moving truck. It was either leave him behind or Jesse would have to fit him in the Jeep!

We were both upset about leaving our home of nearly seven years, our friends and family, really our life as we know it. And we were unable to comfort one another. So we locked up, hung the keys on the fence, got in our respective vehicles and drove away. Weird not to be able to talk through our feelings since we were in separate cars, but maybe good since I didn’t have anything comforting to say. Jesse had Christopher and two yowling cats to keep him occupied, and I had my thoughts.

excerpt from Iraq

Excerpt from a recent email update from my cousin Eric who’s in Basra, Iraq, with the Army.

We are out in the middle of nowhere, and when I say nowhere, I mean nowhere. The land is basically flat dirt as far as you can see no vegetation except for a tree or two planted near a house. The only thing that breaks up the horizon is either bunkers here on base that were built to protect planes but were bombed by us in 1991/2003 or oil refineries in the distance. I guess this is the heart of the Iraqi oil fields, people claim that you can dig down no more than 20 feet and hit oil. Everywhere you look, you can see the flames of them burning off the gas from these refineries. It gives off a really eerie glow at night, especially if there is fog since everything has kind of an orange tint to it. Where we live is right next to where the Iraqis live so I interact with my counterparts and the Iraqi Soldiers on a daily basis.


We work with an Iraqi Brigade, which has a few hundred Soldiers. For our team, I am the primary instructor for much of the training because of my experiences and what not. The training part can be very challenging but is also very rewarding. The Iraqis are more than excited to be trained and want to do well and grasp every aspect of what you are teaching. I’m actually learning a lot since it is one thing to train someone who speaks your language and has a basic understanding of what is going on but completely different trying to get someone to grasp a concept that is completely foreign to them, all the while saying it in terms that the interrupter knows how to translate. Also, many of these Soldiers have been actively fighting for the past six years so hard to say what they are doing is wrong since if it was completely wrong, they would be dead. Instead, just trying to expose them to a different way of doing something, a way that might more efficient. Often, when I pose a question in class, they answer with something that I would never think of but is still acceptable. For example, I was teaching them a surveillance class last week and one asked why you don’t just hang out on the street corner all day watching a suspect’s house instead of attempting to build a hide site and not be seen. This is something that we, as American with our looks, lack of language skills, etc, would never be able to pull off but would be no issue for them.


Thank you all for all the love and support that I (and especially my family) have received. I am truly enjoying myself and am glad that I volunteered to come back over and do this mission. I hope all is good wherever you are and if I don’t talk to you before hand, please have a wonderful holiday season and a great New Year.

Take Care,
Eric

And an Esquire story about him from last Feb.

packing for Denver

Apologies for my temporary disappearance but WE MOVED. Obviously we found a place to live and a way to get our stuff here. Here's how it happened:

We started packing as soon as we knew we were moving, and then were surrounded by boxes for more than a month. We had a 'going away' party the Saturday after Thanksgiving that was great - but man is it SO hard to say goodbye to people?! I've been so focused on getting here to Denver that I forgot temporarily how sad it was going to be. More on that later. We had a great Thanksgiving with Jesse's parents - going to miss being so close to them!

I worked Monday and Tuesday after Thanksgiving which was tough because I had so much to do before I left - it didn't all get done, unfortunately. I hope Jessica is okay back there.

Wednesday the 2nd we had all our cars plus some borrowed cars blocking off 70 feet of curb for the moving truck, so we couldn't drive anywhere. We rode our bikes to breakfast and pretended to be on vacation. Then we packed like crazy. Thursday morning the moving truck came and I watched them load. The cats spent the entire day in their little carriers/kennels, poor things. When we finally let them out, Olive (total spook) was acting SO weird. She was constantly looking for a way to escape the house. It was completely unlike her and really freaked me out.

We were determined to see our last sunset as O-Becians. We walked down to the cliffs...