Sometimes six months feels like an eternity. Sometimes it feels like no time has past at all. And sometimes it moves at just the right speed. Our first six months have marriage have been absolutely great. We've learned so much more about each other, learned to live together under one roof, and had a lot of fun. I can only hope the next however many years are just as wonderful. We even busted out our wedding video to freshen our minds of that day so long ago. (Video shot by Don Schmith and edited by Yours Truly)
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Some people watch TV, play video games, or click around YouTube for hours. I am a unique breed. I look at houses for sale. I somehow stumbled upon the idea of doing this five years ago - shortly after securing my first job in Joplin, Mo. I knew I didn't want to live there forever, let alone even two years. I knew I wouldn't buy a house there, but it was just so exciting to plan out my future. I've gone in spurts over the past five years of looking and not looking. Lately though, it's been turned to full throttle. Lucas and I are very serious about buying a house in the near future. I even convinced him to go to our first open houses.
The first house (pictured on the left) is just north of the Ingersoll district. I really like this area of town. It's close to I-235 and downtown but still convenient to West Des Moines. It's nearly 100 years old but well kept. Unfortunately, the space was weirdly divided upstairs. Lucas isn't sold on buying an older home, but I love them. I am still open to buying a newer home, which is why we looked at the second house (pictured on the right). Being built in the '80s, the Urbandale abode has a nice split level design, a great deck, and a lovely wooded backyard. Lucas fell in love. It wasn't perfect though, and we really aren't looking to buy until February/March. Maybe it's too early for the open houses. I don't want to keep breaking his poor little heart. My heart as gone through dozens of crushes over the years and knows there are many great houses out there for us to James Hart. That was my junior high school. How do you remember your junior high days? I remember braces, cheerleading, breaking my ankle, awkward school dances, acne, playing the clarinet, and crazy sleepovers. It's because of these fond memories I wanted to get involved with the junior high kids at my church. Another church member started up some events for our 5-8th graders, and I jumped on board. Saturday night we had our first event at Val Lanes in West Des Moines. Some of the kids knew each other and some didn't. I forgot how silly this age group is. Almost nothing they did made sense to me so I had to channel my 12-year-old self. I think it worked at least a bit because I was laughing with them by the end of the night. I even came up with our sweet name: Team Rolling Cheetos. While I want to have fun, I also hope I can be a positive role model for them. Junior high isn't a fond time for everyone. If I can help one kid get through a bit easier or have some fun memories, I'll have succeeded.
I give my dad trouble all the time about golfing too much. I know, I know, for many people there isn't such a thing as too much golf. I, on the other hand, disagree. I can claim golfing three games in my life. I may have quit in the middle of one of them. I don't like doing things I'm not good at; golf being one of them. However, I decided to get over myself for one day to participate in my company's annual golf outing at Willow Creek Golf Course. I'm glad I did because it was a beautiful day to be out of the office, and my teammates weren't that much better than me. We tied for last place out of 17 teams. Not great, but I managed to keep my cool, have fun, and not get frustrated with how much I suck. The water balloons may have helped a bit too. It's become tradition to buy water balloons to attack other teams. Each balloon costs 50 cents, which goes to Special Olympics Iowa. We raised about $200! Thanks Two Rivers for treating us to a lovely day! I love that Des Moines really gets behind the holidays. Well, at least the holidays that revolve around drinking like St. Patty's Day and Oktoberfest. Thursday at noon the latter holiday kicked off with a Taste of Oktoberfest. Held at Capital Square on 5th and Walnut, the Taste offered $1 brats to the first 200 people and $3 brats for everyone after that. A few co-workers and I walked over from our office and arrived at 12:30. Apparently 200 people beat us there because my brat was $3 and luke-warm. But now, the place was dead. About a dozen downtown workers sat sporadically around the atrium as the Polka Club of Iowa slowly spun around the middle. The star was an 80+ year old woman, pictured to the left, who didn't miss a step. So if you really, really love brats and polka music, this is a must attend event.
I like to think I know what's going on in my community. Sure, I've only been here 3.5 years and keeping tabs on what 500,000 people are doing isn't easy, but you gotta try. That's why I attended the Young Professionals Connection Volunteerism Fair at Jasper Winery Tuesday night. About 25 non-profits set up tables around the winery to talk to people about their organizations and ways to get involved. I'd heard of most of them, all of them in fact, except one: Dream Team Des Moines.
This organization had not one, not two, but four very enthusiastic dedicated volunteers manning their table. They gave Lucas and I great information about how they change teenagers' lives one pedal at a time. Each year in March they round up 50 or so at-risk teens to start training for RAGBRAI. If the teen finishes RAGBRAI, they get to keep the bike, helmet and gear they were decked out with from Bike World. It sounds like a great way to get kids active, set a goal, put in the work and accomplish their goal. Volunteers can sign up to be mentors - training with the kids weekly, chaperoning events, being good examples, and building lasting relationships. There are other opportunities too, like video and photography, administrative needs, and of course, monetary donations are always welcomed. Even though I've got three sprint triathlons under my belt, I'm not sure I can commit to tackling RAGBRAI. Lucas was more than excited though since he's done RAGBRAI. He signed up for their mailing list and looks forward to the possibility of getting involved next spring. It will never cease to amaze me how many awesome things are going on in our community. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to check in with the 499,996 other people in Des Moines... I love free stuff. Free movies at the park, free parking on the weekends, winning tickets to go to a concert for free. I love free stuff which is why I don't like to complain about it. However, the past few weeks at work have been rough. See, we get free unlimited coffee at the office, which I love... usually. Out of the 6-8 flavors of coffee we brew, I only like one. So when we ran out of the Colombian a few weeks ago, we've been brewing all the bad coffee that no one likes. So instead of feeling really bad for complaining about how not good something free is, I decided to take matters into my own hands.
I picked up this Bolthouse Farms drink at the local gourmet grocer aka Aldi. It has only 130 calories, 7 grams of protein and 30% of your daily value of calcium. Sounded too good to taste good. I was wrong. It is deliciously sweet - almost too sweet for me that early in the morning. But it was a much needed change that I enjoyed. Sometimes, especially in the morning, it's the little things. All day long (or at least part of the day) I dream about owning my own home. I search for my dream house online more than I will admit. Yesterday, I was prompted to drive by one which is just about a mile from my condo. This Urbandale neighborhood north of Meredith and in between 72nd and Merle Hay Road is very curvy, and I haven't been on many of the roads before. After being disappointed by this home upon seeing it in person, I set on my way back home. I randomly took a right here and a left there when I came to a stop sign. I looked for traffic to my left but instead of seeing any approaching cars, I saw a sign warning of a turtle crossing. I did a double take. A turtle crossing? In Urbandale? If I was still a reporter, I'd do some digging to get to the bottom of this. But as a regular citizen, I'll just laugh in bewilderment. No longer can I say I've never seen a turtle crossing.
It was a football weekend. Within 18 hours of catching a high school football game under the lights on a Friday night in Marengo, Iowa, I was camped back in the bleachers. This time I was in the bleachers at the very nice North Central College stadium some 6 hours away in Naperville, Ill. Lucas' brother is the O line coach for the Wisconsin - Stout Blue Devils. To support my little, I mean younger brother-in-law (he's 6'8), we paid the whopping $6/ticket to sit in beautiful 70 degree weather and eat popcorn. My sister actually got in free because they stopped selling tickets by half-time when she arrived. Can't beat that! It's so hard to believe the pros play on the same size field as this one. The field seems so huge on TV yet so small in person. Unfortunately the Blue Devils did not pull out the W. Turns out the North Central Cardinals are ranked 6th in the nation. Can you blame them? Even though my team didn't win, it was still a fun experience for my first D3 game. Lucas' parents and uncle were there as well as my parents, brother, sister and niece. Since our families live 6 hours away, it was really nice to get them together for a bit. Can't wait for my next Blue Devils game to get that W... High school football games were a big part of my life 10 or so years ago. Being captain of the cheerleading squad, makes football, and basketball, a top priority. That was fine by me; I have always enjoyed football. In fact, I was seriously thinking about going out for the football team my freshman year, but my dad wouldn't let me. Sexist. This weekend I got to channel my younger years. Lucas and I stopped by his cousin's football game in Marengo, Iowa. The Iowa Valley Tigers were down 2-6 when we arrived in the second quarter. It was a deficit they would not come back from. Seeing small town high school football is a far cry from my beloved Mizzou Tigers and Chicago Bears. Regardless, it was still fun to be in the atmosphere and to support family, of course. While I wasn't surprised by the caliber of play, I was surprised to see the Tigers had a pretty respectable "stadium" for being so small. But then again, for many communities, football is life. I'm glad I got to be a little part of that Friday night. |