Saturday we spent the day in Virginia. After a quick trip to the Eastern Market, we headed out to a barbecue being held by one of my law school professors for the 100+ members of my section, plus significant others. We actually had a really good time (imagine that!), and it reminded me of some of the more positive aspects of law school that I need to be thankful for. It's not all professors who would take on hosting 150 hungry people in their homes and thus burn up a Saturday afternoon. We talked with several people and got our bellies full.
After that, we drove further west to an area we're strongly considering moving to next year. It would be exponentially closer to where Matt works, about the same distance from my school, a little bit cheaper, quite a bit bigger, and quite likely lots safer. All tempting factors, given that we are fed up with the crime, choking on the bills, tired of commuting, and according to Matt, too big to live in our current apartment. While I/we initially suffered some angst about the idea of being part of the "white flight" out of the city, and leaving behind all the glorious diversity and opportunity and culture we were heralding so excitedly just two short months ago, I've realized that we also have to be realistic. If I ask myself what have been the two biggest detractors to our happiness in the past two months (which are admittedly slight--on the whole, we couldn't be better), it would have to be the crime and the commute. By all accounts, just about anywhere in Virginia is safer than the southeast side of DC, and Matt's 1.5 hour commute would turn into more like 20 minutes. That means more sleeping in, more cooking in the evenings, more time to do the things that matter to us--including head back into DC for events we're really interested in--as opposed to time spent jostling with other people on a train. And, insanely enough, buried somewhere in the midst of our desire to move someplace a little bit safer and more stable is the bizarre, absurd, and totally unforeseen notion that all of a sudden we can *ahem* maybe kind of sort of consider the possibility that we might not NOT have kids someday. OK, I've said it... moving on...
Today I worked from 8-3:30, which was really kind of nice. I'd offered to work evenings but they asked if I could come in for first shift, which starts at 7am...which is really kind of prohibitively early when we're coming from so far away. (The hospital is yet another thing we'd be closer to if we moved to Virginny.) So I hedged a little bit and they said "Well, what about 8?" SOLD. So I'm actually picking up a few more such shifts later in the month. It's nice because I get to come home when it's still light and have dinner with Matt and wind down a little bit, as opposed to when we get home after midnight if I work 2nd shift. While I get a lot of incredulous comments about working while going to law school, and I'll admit it eats into my ability to flop on the couch for hours before I do my homework, which would admittedly be nice, the financial benefits and the ability to feel like I almost know what I'm doing at something are a huge motivator for me.
Work today was busy but good, and then it was home to make our long-awaited lasagna pizza--which came out really good, but holy crap,
that is one filling meal. We are stuffed like sausages. OK, we may or may not have filled up while it was cooking on homemade bruschetta (Matt adapted his famous pizza crust 
recipe into an amazing herby bread which we then dipped into a concoction of diced tomatoes, olive oil, freshly ground pepper and basil) and our first bottle of wine in a good long time. After that and a thick, doughy, tasty slice of lasagna pizza each, we were practically comatose on the couch, and each of us with a fair amount of homework to get through yet. We managed to slog through it, but it's about 9:30 and boy, I'm ready for bed any minute.
After that, we drove further west to an area we're strongly considering moving to next year. It would be exponentially closer to where Matt works, about the same distance from my school, a little bit cheaper, quite a bit bigger, and quite likely lots safer. All tempting factors, given that we are fed up with the crime, choking on the bills, tired of commuting, and according to Matt, too big to live in our current apartment. While I/we initially suffered some angst about the idea of being part of the "white flight" out of the city, and leaving behind all the glorious diversity and opportunity and culture we were heralding so excitedly just two short months ago, I've realized that we also have to be realistic. If I ask myself what have been the two biggest detractors to our happiness in the past two months (which are admittedly slight--on the whole, we couldn't be better), it would have to be the crime and the commute. By all accounts, just about anywhere in Virginia is safer than the southeast side of DC, and Matt's 1.5 hour commute would turn into more like 20 minutes. That means more sleeping in, more cooking in the evenings, more time to do the things that matter to us--including head back into DC for events we're really interested in--as opposed to time spent jostling with other people on a train. And, insanely enough, buried somewhere in the midst of our desire to move someplace a little bit safer and more stable is the bizarre, absurd, and totally unforeseen notion that all of a sudden we can *ahem* maybe kind of sort of consider the possibility that we might not NOT have kids someday. OK, I've said it... moving on...
Today I worked from 8-3:30, which was really kind of nice. I'd offered to work evenings but they asked if I could come in for first shift, which starts at 7am...which is really kind of prohibitively early when we're coming from so far away. (The hospital is yet another thing we'd be closer to if we moved to Virginny.) So I hedged a little bit and they said "Well, what about 8?" SOLD. So I'm actually picking up a few more such shifts later in the month. It's nice because I get to come home when it's still light and have dinner with Matt and wind down a little bit, as opposed to when we get home after midnight if I work 2nd shift. While I get a lot of incredulous comments about working while going to law school, and I'll admit it eats into my ability to flop on the couch for hours before I do my homework, which would admittedly be nice, the financial benefits and the ability to feel like I almost know what I'm doing at something are a huge motivator for me.
Work today was busy but good, and then it was home to make our long-awaited lasagna pizza--which came out really good, but holy crap,
that is one filling meal. We are stuffed like sausages. OK, we may or may not have filled up while it was cooking on homemade bruschetta (Matt adapted his famous pizza crust 
recipe into an amazing herby bread which we then dipped into a concoction of diced tomatoes, olive oil, freshly ground pepper and basil) and our first bottle of wine in a good long time. After that and a thick, doughy, tasty slice of lasagna pizza each, we were practically comatose on the couch, and each of us with a fair amount of homework to get through yet. We managed to slog through it, but it's about 9:30 and boy, I'm ready for bed any minute.
1 comment:
So, why were we not treated to the recipe for lasagna pizza???
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