While I'm up here at the cottage in NH for almost a month, Dan was only able to come up for a long weekend this year because of his clinic schedule. Last Thursday I drove down to Manchester to pick him up at the airport. It is normally about a 2 hour drive but it took me over 2 1/2 hours because there was really heavy rain. Some of the time it was very hard to see the road, and everybody was creeping along, nobody wanting to pass because it was easier to see the tail lights of the car ahead of you than it was to see the paint stripes on the road. When I was almost to the airport, my mom called to say that there were flash flood warnings in Meredeth and Laconia (which I'd driven through) and after I picked Dan up, my mom called again to say that there were road closures, roads washed out, and that one family's car had been swept away in the water and a 7 year old girl died. Yikes!

We drove home via a more easterly route that avoided the flooded areas.

Yesterday, Dan and I picked blueberries down by the dock and I made blueberry pancakes. This morning, even though it was raining, Dan put on a slicker and went and picked more so I could make pancakes again today--he loves blueberries. It's been raining so much here that while we did get to go out on the boat, and we got to take the kayaks out, we never did get to go swimming while he was here :(

Today we went back to Manchester to drop him off for his flight home. We left around 11am, and his flight was supposed to depart at 2:15. There were delays developing and his flight was listed as being about an hour and a half late when we got to the airport, so he ran in to check his suitcase, then we went out to have lunch at Uno's a few miles away. After that we hit up a Starbuck's so he could get a latte, then we sat in the cell phone waiting lot (free) at the airport talking and keeping tabs on the flight status. When I finally left him there it was about 4:45 and still no idea when his flight was leaving. It had still not left Columbus, OH, where it was originating, and it still had to go to Newark, NJ before coming to New Hampshire! I talked to him on the phone when I was about halfway home and he had managed to get a seat on a different flight to Cleveland that was originally a much later flight, but was in fact going to be departing over two hours before "his" flight was. I don't know what time "his" flight eventually left, but he did get on the other flight and got home ok.

I will be driving home with Dominic on the 21st, most likely.

This evening I talked to my friend Emily from back at KSU. She is a photography and printmaking major and is an excellent photographer. I asked her if she'd do the photos for the wedding (paid of course) and she said she would. This is awesome because I'd much rather have someone with an art background and who knows me personally and knows my tastes. When Rob and I got married our photographer ended up sucking really bad. There were even photos where he cut the tops off of peoples' heads!

Wow. Wedding planning. This is exciting stuff!

Dan asked me to marry him tonight. We went out on the boat to watch the sunset from the middle of the lake. We took some cucumber sandwiches, cheese and crackers, and a bottle of wine. It was a lovely evening, sitting out on the lake with the anchor down on the boat, chatting and nibbling. Then Dan said "the sun is setting!" and had me come up to the other end of the boat with him to watch the sunset.

And he asked me to marry him.

OMG OMG OMG OMG!

Yeah ok so I sound like a little girl, I know, but I'm so excited! I texted Rob right away, then after we got back to the cottage I texted everybody else. I talked to my mom on the phone.

I'm engaged!!!

Today I laughed at Dan.

I laughed a lot. I may have even fallen over laughing. His CPAP machine arrrived today, you see. A lot of people in his family have sleep apnea, and he is showing signs of it. His insurance does not cover any kind of sleep disorders, and the sleep study is thousands of dollars. His doctor was willing to write an Rx for the machine, however, since there really isn't any harm in using it even if you don't have sleep apnea. So he will try the machine and see if it helps.

So he puts on the mask to try it out. He looks like an elephant. Except funnier than an elephant. I giggled a lot.

Then this evening we had a fair amount to drink, then went out and sat in the hammock and watched the fireworks, which was really, really nice. After we came back in, we watched a very small amount of tv and then Dan went to bed. I went in to tuck him in and he put the mask on and hooked up the machine. Then he attached the hose to the clip at the top of his head.

I lost it. I think I started crying I was laughing so hard. The effect was something like this:


Fortunately he was laughing at least as hard. I really hope the machine works for him. He's been having so much trouble getting restful sleep.

It was a year ago today that we arrived in Cleveland in the big truck with all of my stuff in it. Dan and I have been living together now for one year. Note that neither of us has killed the other. This bodes well for our future together, I'd say.

:)

We celebrated by opening a bottle of wine and sitting out on the screened porch watching lightning bugs and eating cheese & crackers and grapes. It was very nice until Cory jumped onto the table, which has a glass top, which his weight disbalanced. I managed to grab the glass and push it back into place, saving the plate and Dan's glass, but the (empty) wine bottle and my glass (not empty!!!) were not so fortunate. The bottle didn't break, but the glass became many sparkly fragments on the floor.

So we got to end our romantic evening by sweeping, vacuuming, and wet-vac'ing the floor. Alas.

So this is my last week of classes. Next week is finals, then I'm done for the semester. Yesterday I had my final review in painting. The teacher pretty much had negative things to say about all of my work. His biggest criticism was that all of my work was "took dark" and "dull" but whatever. My sense of aesthetics tends toward overall dark images with concentrated, small areas of brighter light. That's what I like. That's not what he likes. We're going to have to agree to disagree. It would be one thing if his criticism served as a guide to help me become a better painter of the style I want to paint, but everything he says is either so vague as to be worthless, or is an attempt to change my style to something he likes. Not helpful. I'm new to painting. I have a lot to learn. I'd love to have a mentor who could truly help me become better. But what I have, essentially, is someone who says "I don't lilke your painting of a starscape, because there isn't enough sunlight in it" or "I don't like your landscape painting because it needs more sofas" or "I don't like your portrait because you haven't painted in a refrigerator"... it's pointless.

Anyway, this weekend Dan came home from his month-long internship in Arizona. He drove for four days, with the last day being Sunday. Dominic and I left Sunday morning to drive 3+ hours to Dayton, where we met Dan coming the other way. We arrived within minutes of each other. Can we plan or what? Anyway we did that so that we could see the musical Spamalot (the Monty Python thing). It was hilarious. There were one or two numbers that I didn't care for (the 'not dead yet' part dragged on a bit long, for example) but overall it was really well done and very funny. We had a great time, then drove home caravan style. We stopped at a very strange Thai restaurant in Columbus for dinner. The tofu looked like little slices of bread. It had the weirdest texture I've ever seen. It tasted good, though.

I put in my petition for residency last week but I'm extremely nervous. There is a thing that says that some types of financial aid awarded in one state will make you ineligible to be a resident in another state for that time period. I was living in Cleveland last summer and fall, but my classes last fall were online from a school in Georgia, and so my financial aid was from Georgia. That may mean that I can't be considered a resident until next spring. Which will essentially mean that I can't go to school again until next spring. The tuition alone comes to about a thousand dollars more than my Pell grant, subsidized loans, and unsubsidized loans combined. Which means that I'd still have to come up with money for tuition, plus have no money at all for things like...oh...rent, food, gas, bills, etc. My mom's not in a position to help much with school right now because the roof came off of the cottage in NH during a wind storm and she's having to spend a crapload of money on fixing that, and things were tight with her to begin with.

So that's fairly scary. It also means that if I can't go to school in the fall, I forfeit the art merit scholarship that I won, because you have to take 12 credits in the fall and 12 in the spring to qualify for it.

In case anyone lives in Cleveland and wants to see the sculpture that I was up all night finishing, here is the info:
Friday March 28, 8-10pm, right after the student show reception*
1009 Gallery (Former Raw & Co.) at 1009 Kenilworth in Tremont. It's also part of the Tremont Art Walk on Friday April 11 from 6-10pm if you can't make it to the reception but want to see the exhibition.

I finished it at 9:15 this morning, 10 minutes later than I usually leave the house for school. I have art history at 9:45 and we had an exam today. I studied for about 20 minutes a couple of nights ago. I think I did ok, though. I was too busy finishing the piece to eat anything for breakfast. I was too distracted to realize that I hadn't put on shoes and socks, but was just wearing my Crocs that I'd slipped on to carry stuff to my car in the garage (concrete floors are cold!) and had also neglected to put on my coat. I realized this when I got out of my car at the school and stepped out into the below 30° and lightly snowing weather conditions. Oops.

After I took the test (I had to write a 4 page essay...gah!) I went to the art building. I had two paintings and the sculpture to unload from my car, so I parked on the sidewalk with my hazard lights on :) Anyway, I went inside with my sculpture and Irena (my sculpture professor, who is awesome) was in her office. I showed her the piece and held my breath. I was so worried that she was going to say "err... now that I see it in person I think it's lame" or something. The other 12 pieces in the exhibition are works she chose after seeing them in person--she accepted my piece sight-unseen, having only a vague description and an even vaguer sketch, and knowing I hadn't started it yet and had only 4 days to get it done. I was so nervous. Anyway, she said it was beautiful and she loved it, and she called the student aide in to look at it, so I guess that's a yay for me! That made it worth it.

After I unloaded and then reparked my car, I had to go to painting class, but thankfully it was a critique day and so we got out early. Irena had said I should not come to sculpture class but should go home and sleep instead. So I left the school at around noon instead of ~4 like I usually do. Unfortunately, having forced myself to stay awake all night and the adrenalin of panicked and rushed work, plus the brain-kicked-in-to-high-gear (this was a very tricky piece to make work, and I had to invent and build some tools and stuff as I went just to make it work) thing... and then there's the 4-shots-of-espresso hazelnut latte that I made for myself somewhere around 6am... well, I can't make myself "turn off" to fall asleep. I'm drinking a glass of wine while I answer email and such, then I'm going to try again.

Dan leaves tonight to drive to Tucson for a month. He is doing and externship at the VA hospital there, and will be staying at my mom's house for all of April. He is leaving tonight, probably right from the gallery. *sniffle*


5-8pm in the CSU art gallery (2307 Chester Ave), public also welcome

Saturday night we went to see a band play at a bar, which was mostly fun. Unfortunately the night ended with neither Dan nor I getting much sleep as the result of another one of our spectacular miscommunication problems. I swear, most of our fights are the result of miscommunication rather than something real. It's sort of like living in an episode of Laverne & Shirley or something.

Anyway, the point is that Sunday we were both very tired. Also, my back was killing me and late in the afternoon I really wanted to take a bath and then lie down. A week or so ago we turned up the hot water heater and I hadn't had a bath since then. We turned it up because there was always exactly enough hot water to fill the tub to the perfect level... with warm water. Not hot water. Just before it would get full enough, the hot water would run out and it would start pouring cold water into the tub, and unless you catch it exactly when it happens, it cools off the whole bathful. If you did catch it, you had however long it took for the water to cool off, and then you were done, because there was no more hot water to re-heat with.

I like long soaking baths. I like to take a book and a glass of wine and see how wrinkly I can get. So we turned up the temperature on the water heater. I figure if the water is hotter, I'd need less of it to get the bath full to a good temperature. Maybe I'd even have enough hot water left to get a warm-up or two, even.

Well, it didn't work out that way. The bath was warmish when I got in. I wanted to soak anyway, because I had been really stressed out and I needed it. So I read my book and was comfortable for a little while. Then the water got to that lukewarm stage where you're actually cold, trying to figure out how to submerge your knees to maximize warmth, etc. I held out as long as I possibly could, then I tried the hot tap, hoping against hope that it had been long enough for the heater to generate a little more hot water. There was a trickle of warm, then it went cold. Damn.

But I was desperate. I called for Dan and asked him if he could possibly put a pot of water on the stove and when it got hot, pour it in the tub. That's how they did it in the old days, after all. He agreed to do it. It took a little while, but he brought in a really big pot of hot water and it warmed the tub up quite a bit. I got some more reading in and was actually relaxing. It gave me enough time for the hot water heater to make some kind of hot water, so I heated up the tub the best I could and was finally about to give up and throw in the towel (not literally) when in comes Dan with another pot of water! He'd gotten it quite a bit hotter than the previous one, too, so it got the tub really warm. It was wonderful. I snuggled down into the water and warmed up and read some more and when I got out I felt so much better. My back didn't hurt anymore! I didn't feel like a wound-up ball of stress!

Anyway, it made me feel really special and loved that he was willing to go to the effort not only of getting me the hot water in the first place, but also getting the second pot without being asked and all that. He's awesome.

Dominic's awesome, too. He brought the space heater in for me. Oh, and the other day I was wearing a new shirt for the first time. I picked Dominic up from the civic center (he goes there after school) and we went to the store... he complimented me on my shirt. I didn't say anything, either. He noticed on his own that it was a new shirt. He's going to make some girl very happy some day.

When I went into the bedroom there was a teddy bear on my pillow with a heart shaped box, inside which were dark chocolate truffles. There was also a really sweet card and a bar of 85% cocoa dark chocolate. YUM! (Earlier today I'd left a stuffed puppy, a card, and a heart-shaped box of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups on Dan's desk.) We'll be doing something celebratory tomorrow night (tonight, actually, since it's officially Friday now...) but it was sweet to get that today :)

Dan's been in Iowa since Thursday night for an APMSA meeting, but he's coming home tonight. His flight arrives at about 10pm, but he sent me a text message earlier saying he had gotten a seat on the earlier flight, that arrives around 6pm. So apparently they got on the plane but the bathroom didn't work and there was something broken that meant that, in his words, they had to "reboot the plane" to fix. Except it didn't fix it, and so they had to get off the plane and wait in the terminal. The last message I got from him was that he was probably going to be on the original late flight after all. That sucks :(

We still have a couple of inches of snow on the ground here. It's supposed to get up to 40 tomorrow, and 42 the next day. I hope that isn't enough to melt our snow! Should be cold again by Wednesday though, with more snow possible. Yay! The only thing I don't like about the snow is that the deer don't come around as much. In fact I've only seen them once since we got back from our holiday trip. I know they do still come by, because they leave tracks across the yard in the snow, but they don't hang out in the yard like they usually do, so I don't see them. I miss my deers! *pout*

Oh yeah, there is one other thing I don't like about the snow, indirectly. I don't like all the salt on my car.

Me: I have a headache [insert whining and whimpering here]
Dan: *comes over, looks at me intently* I think I can see why you have a headache.
Me: I have a zit, right?
Dan: Yeah.
Me: Well you'd better get it--it's probably putting pressure on my brain.
Dan: I'm glad you see it my way. It is much easier this way.
Me: What, you mean without having to hold me down and stuff?
Dan: Exactly.

At least we're both like this. I don't know what it is about popping zits, but it's addictive. It's nice to be with someone who understands.

So on July 11 Dan took the first part of his board exams (part 1 comes after your second year) and has since been waiting to hear if he passed. They said it can take up to 6 weeks to get scores back. Last week some of his classmates got theirs, so he has been anxiously checking the mailbox for a few days. So today it came, and he passed! He doesn't know exactly how well he did because all they tell you is you passed or you failed, they don't give you an actual score. Anyway, this is a huge relief. He was a little worried because with us moving and all that he didn't really have a chance to study much before he took the exam.

So that's a big yay, and one more milestone passed on the journey to becoming Dr. Dan.

Last Wednesday when we were driving down to Cochran, we were still north of Atlanta proper, driving south on I-75. We passed one of those big overhead electronic signs that reports accidents, traffic conditions, and the ocassional Amber Alert. We noticed this one was such an alert. It said to watch for a "white U-Haul truck" with AZ tags AA1(something). Dan asked "aren't U-Haul trucks usually orange?" and we started musing on that. Just then, Dan noticed a U-Haul truck to our right, and said "would that qualify as white?" I looked over. It was white and orange, as all U-Haul trucks I've seen are. "Maybe," I said. The truck pulled forward and I could see its license plate. "Did that sign say Arizona plates? Because that truck has AZ tags..." We tried to remember the sign. AZ tags, but we could only remember the first few digits of the plate... AA1 something...sure enough, this truck had AA1 then some more numbers. There was a man driving, with a kid sitting right next to him. And by right next to him I mean like squished up against him, not sitting in the passenger seat.

Dan gets out his cell phone and calls 911 to ask about the Amber Alert, but the operator says that "they've already been found, thanks." Huh. Ok. Maybe they should change the signs, then. A while later we came to another of the signs (still showing the information) and saw that the last numbers of the tag in the sign indeed did not match the truck we'd seen, but wow, what a coincidence, huh?

Dan drove down last Sunday night from Ohio. He told me he might or might not drive straight through. If he did, it would put him at my house after 6am. When I woke up Sunday night some time after 5am and hadn't gotten a call saying "hey, I'm stopping to sleep" I figured it meant he'd driven straight through, and it was very hard for me to get back to sleep, since I knew he'd show up soon. I did doze off eventually, but woke up when he walked into my room. It was great to see him, even if it was only for a few minutes before he collapsed and slept.

Tuesday night we went to the Roger Waters concert. It was the same show we saw last September, and once again it was awesome. The first half was a bunch of old Pink Floyd stuff, with a couple Waters solo pieces. Then an intermission, then the entirety of Dark Side of the Moon. The encore was Vera/Bring The Boys Back Home and Comfortably Numb. It was great. It was at an indoor venue this time, so they didn't release the huge inflatable pig like they do at the outdoor shows.

Wednesday we drove down to Cochran, Georgia to visit some of Dan's family. While we were there we stopped to take photos of a house that his family once owned... it's been vacant and crumbling for years and years now, but it was once a gorgeous mansion. There was apparently difficulty selling it to someone who wanted to restore it, but eventually the city bought it, intending to make it a government building (city hall? I don't remember) but the mayor in charge of that died, and the new mayor sold it to a developer who is going to tear it down and put up a Walgreens. So sad. We also stopped at his family's old cemetery. It was interesting to see all the old headstones, with dates from the Revolutionary War and so on. So many of them died in their 30s and 40s--it was eerie. It was also a sort of interesting puzzle to figure out who was related to who and how. We figured out that one 20 year old woman had probably died in childbirth (her infant was buried next to her) and her husband, already much older than she was, was buried nearby, having outlived her by several decades.

Thursday we went on a bike ride--Dan, Dan's mom, Dominic, and me--for 18 miles on the Silver Comet Trail. Dominic fell twice but kept going. Thursday evening we went out to dinner with a bunch of Dan's family.

Friday we stayed home.

Saturday we tidied up the house (which was a mess of boxes--I've been going through all the stuff I have stored in the garage, deciding what I want to move and what I want to get rid of) in preparation for company. At 3pm we hosted a small get-together of several online friends. Dan's brother also came. geobabe1 and unclebill35 (and the little dudes) brought a grill and food, drink, and merriment ensued.

Sunday was the end of a busy week. Dan packed his stuff. We packed Dominic for his summer travels. We loaded up Dan's car with all of both of their stuff--as well as all three bikes, which were still there from Thursday--and Dan drove off with Dominic. They stopped in Chattanooga, TN to check out the inclined railway, but the line was too long so they drove to the top in the car, and checked out the battlefields. After that, they drove up to northern Tennessee, where my dad and his family live. That's where they are now. Tomorrow Dan will head off alone the rest of the way to Ohio, while Dominic stays with his grandparents for several weeks, before flying to see his dad.

Meanwhile I'm back here alone again. It seems so quiet after such an action-packed week.

So I spent four amazing days in Cleveland, giddy like a little kid at Christmas over the more than a foot of snow that fell while I was there. I *love* snow. I can't help it. I loved it when I lived in northern VA, and I love it now that I live where I don't get any. We spent a lot of time driving through the Cuyahoga Valley National Park on Saturday--I got a lot of pictures and some videos of deer in the snow. You can see all the pictures I took in my Easter 2007 gallery.

I feel a little bit guilty, though... a lot of the local Cleveland people were really complaining about the snow and all that. I figured it wouldn't be that big a deal when I ordered it, since I was only going to be there for a few days, but aparently some people kind of resented it. I must say I do like that new feature on weather.com, even if it does have the potential to cause problems. Sorry if it messed up anyone's plans.

Up north, that is. Yes, it's official. Dan and I have decided that the next step in this relationship is that Dominic and I will move to Cleveland over the summer. We'll all get a place together (Dan's apartment is way too small for 3 people and 2 cats) and begin living together as a family. The general idea here is that this is eventually leading to a permanent situation, but we aren't making any "official decisions" yet. We think that's what we want, but since most of our relationship has been via "long distance" relationship, we think it only prudent that we have some time living in a more realistic, daily interaction before making any sort of "official decision". Dominic is very excited, both about having the whole fresh start in a new location thing, and about living with Dan. He really looks up to Dan (which I think is great, since I feel Dan is an excellent role model).

My biggest decision now is on what to do with the house. I could sell it, but the market is shit right now for selling. I'm more inclined to try to rent out the house, at least for a few years until the market improves. Regardless, I'm very excited about the whole idea of living in Cleveland. I've liked what I've seen of the town, and if things with Dan and I work out, it's likely that I'm going to live in Georgia for most of the rest of my life... which means that this is sort of my last chance for living somewhere with actual winters, where it actually SNOWS. I will enjoy the climate, even if it's only for a few years.

Far more important is the idea of living *with Dan*... an idea that fills me with more joy than I can express. I just think we're *right* for each other. Fundamentally right.

On Wednesday Dan's mom (Joyce) came over. Dan obviously didn't bring his bike with him from Cleveland for the week, so she had loaded her bike and Dan's dad's bike (and his scary old helmet hehehe) into their truck and we loaded my bike and Dominic's into the truck, then the four of us drove to the Paulding Chamber of Commerce trailhead on the Silver Comet Trail and set out on a bike ride together.

At about mile 6 or so, Dominic's tire went off the edge of the paved trail and he fell. He scraped up his knee pretty badly and his palms a little bit. We were all sort of holding our breath because Dominic isn't exactly known for handling difficult physical situations very well. In fact, we were all fairly impressed he'd made it 6 miles in the first place, injury aside. He tends to balk at things like that. But we cleaned it off, bandaged it, and encouraged him to get back on his bike, and he did!

I was thinking it was likely we'd turn around pretty soon, because at 6 miles out, that is already a 12 mile round trip ride for a kid who isn't exactly athletic; but hearing us discussing the Brushy Mountain Tunnel, he said he wanted to go all the way there. We knew it was ~20 mile round trip--it is exactly the same bike ride that we did last July when we rented the tandem bikes with Dan's brothers...

...and so we went for it. Dominic made it all the way to the tunnel and all the way back. He was complaining about his butt hurting at the end, but then, we all were. The ride was over 3 hours long (Dominic's bike isn't very fast). I was so proud of him for making it so far!

By the end of the ride we were all so cold... I'd debated and then decided against wearing my lightweight jacket on the ride, and was regretting that decision for most of the ride, but especially at the end. Almost the whole trail is in the shade, and some of it is cut into rock (it used to be a railroad) and really really chilly.



*Click for more pictures*--I had fun taking pictures while riding. Some of them while not looking, even!