Swing
We celebrated our very first anniversary at the Round Barn Farm in Red Wing, Minnesota.
Mykala is demonstrating the rope swing on the idyllic, perfectly groomed grounds.
We celebrated our very first anniversary at the Round Barn Farm in Red Wing, Minnesota.
Mykala is demonstrating the rope swing on the idyllic, perfectly groomed grounds.
This is the original Round Barn, namesake of the farm we stayed at.
Mykala is holding a gift basket sent by her sister, Kourtni. This is looking east from Round Barn Farm.
I can’t believe that this was over a year ago. And yet, here I am, catching up on posting pictures and writing about this just now. Here’s what I wrote on Jónsi’s website about this concert:
This show completely blew me away! I expected seeing Jonsi live to be one of the greatest shows I’ve seen and I was still left without words. The drummer was amazing and the show was terrifyingly beautiful. I won’t forget this show. Takk!
We got up this morning and saw part of the royal wedding extravaganza. We both have the day off, and celebrating with a little view into another world was a fun way to start. After dying Easter Eggs late last night, we headed off to the grocery store to buy some British food (crumpets, Earl Grey tea).
Mykala, after recently graduating from her 200 hour instructor training at Core Power, is now (almost) certified to teach yoga. By summing up the whole experience in one sentence, I fail to describe the amount of energy required to get through the training. As Mykala was gone for many nights and weekends, I did my best to be supportive, but I got a chance to actually help when her class of budding instructors was required to bring in a novice and teach a class. I was the novice.
Mykala’s trying to decide what job she wants to do. While I have lived comfortably inside the four walls of dentistry, shutting out the frighteningly wide world of possibility, Mykala has been looking for the right fit for her. She’s whip smart and interested in many things… which makes it hard. I can relate: I love coding, but would never want to do it for a job. Mykala loves dance, but doesn’t always want to do that for a job. What’s more, we both have complicated ideals around work:
In the past few weeks, I’ve had some very near misses with some very bad things.
(Almost) Bike Death
Seymour Avenue winds down a very steep hill as it approaches Franklin Avenue. At the intersection between the two, there’s a blind intersection controlled by a stoplight. In the winter, I come down this hill on my bike and turn left onto Franklin. 99% of the time, the light is red and I slow to a stop, but I’ve made it through on a couple of green lights in the past.
Mykala: “Is that guy doing Tai Chi?”
Alex: “No, he’s tying his shoe. He’s doing Shoe Chi.”
Mykala: “You mean Tai Shoe.”
Alex: “You always think up the funny ones; I was so close!”
Mykala began waving her arms wildly around while we were sitting on the couch this afternoon. I declared she was a “Brownian motion machine”.
The milk is turning to slush in the fridge, which is odd, because the kitchen itself has been over 80°F for the majority of the day. Is the cause high humidity? Mykala has been pounding through a tremendous amount of end-of-semester work, and is currently right in the middle of another paper. Her perseverance amazes me. I can’t offer her much, other than moral support and shoulder massages. And (apparently) very cold milk.
Things I love right now:
Fountains are amazing!
Hi, Mykala!
At the AMAZING Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria, a few blocks from our hotel in Chicago.
Today I cleaned all the moldy grout lines in our shower with Soft Scrub® and a toothbrush. Mykala made sure I took off my sweatpants (my only pair) before I bleached them along with the grout. Today I swept the tree pieces off of our deck. We sat outside, soaking in the perfect temperature and filtered sun. Today I saw a woman taking a walk with an IV while smoking. I then worked out for 2½ hours — this means that I am finally getting back into legs, which brings me joy. Today, Mykala and I had a wonderful day.
I really really love my wife. When she pulls up the dashboard on her computer, there is a fruitcake widget. 3 years ago, she downloaded it in honor of her computer’s first Christmas. We had been interacting with the dashboard widgets, including the whoopee cushion one, and we sat there for a few minutes trying to click the right part of this fruitcake-in-profile. Then, we realized that the fruitcake doesn’t do anything. It just sits there. Like a fruitcake. A big, heavy, dense fruitcake… that never expires. So that’s sitting there, and every time I see it, I’m happy.
As of 5 minutes ago, I turned in my final case study for physical evaluation II, and I am DONE WITH THE MOST DIFFICULT YEAR OF DENTAL SCHOOL. WOOOOOO!
Never thought I’d get here, frankly. And yet, it’s a beautiful 68° in May, I’m on break for a few weeks until I start in clinic, and life is grand.
Mykala and I finally managed to attend our first ethnic Wednesday event (that’s the Dan-Ryan-Emily trip to a local non-crappy non-american restaurant) yesterday, and it was a complete success. Halfway through dinner, as the subject turned to marriage, Mykala turned to look at me and asked “Am I nicer to you now than I was when we were dating?” I guess I was a little surprised at the question, but without hesitation answered “yes, definitely”. We had fun dating, but marriage seems a lot better. That reminds me of this quote from a recent “Room for Debate” discussion at the New York Times called For Women, Redefining Marriage Material:
Mykala knows that, every single time I open a bottle of tap water that has been sealed for a while, I’ll comment how “isn’t it interesting that it smells like chlorine, it must have reached equilibrium between the chlorine in the water and the chlorine in the air.” Every single time.
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