Well, I tried. This past week, after much thinking, I decided it was time to try even harder at making friends in Milwaukee. Part of me doesn't see why I should bother, since I am getting out of here as fast as possible next spring/summer. In the meantime, however, it's just me, Paul, and Rick. Just like the last 3 years. Yay. It gets really lonely thinking that I only have 2 friends in Milwaukee, and they both moved here from Michigan with me. I especially want a female friend. I find myself telling Paul about fashion stuff or craft things, and I know he doesn't care. He tries, but sometimes it would really be nice to go shopping at Joann's fabric store with a female instead of having Paul wait in the car or stand next to me in the store awkwardly. It's impossible to meet anyone at work. I am an adjunct professor: I go in, teach in a random classroom, and go home. I don't have an office. I don't even know where the history department is. I don't know what other teachers look like. I only know my boss, and that doesn't count.
Anyway, this week I tried to think of some places where I could meet some new friends. I thought about what I liked, and came up with gardening. However, apparently Milwaukee isn't as passionate about gardening and herbs as me. (Another reason I cannot WAIT til we move to South Carolina: they LOVE herbs down there). I tried finding groups to join in the Milwaukee area that center on gardening somehow. Maybe I'm not good with google, but all I found was one older ladies' gardening group that meets in Whitefish Bay. According to their website, they are most likely rich ladies that stay at home in their pretty mansions and have a rather exclusive gardening club to deal with after their charity meetings. Or whatever it is rich ladies do. Anyway, it was clear from their website that you can't just come to a meeting. You need to be invited. So scratch out that idea. Then, I found a place called Sweet Water Organics. It is an aquaponics urban farm and they needed volunteers. So I decided that on Friday, I would go to their meeting and volunteer and meet like-minded gardeners. Yay! Then, Paul found an ad on Craigslist about a free Gardening Seed Exchange thing on Saturday. According to the ad, everyone with extra seeds or bulbs or divided plants can come to this exchange and trade seeds/etc. with each other. The only rule was that all trading had to be free. I was super excited. I was determined to use this opportunity to meet fellow-gardeners and maybe give blog information out to them or something (I have a gardening blog). In addition, Paul and I decided to just go to this particular church (that has a terrible website) and hope that there would be a young adults/couples sunday-school type thing. So there it was. THREE days to try to meet new people. How could anything go wrong?
Well, actually, it all went wrong:
Friday:
*I went to the orientation. I went inside the building's store, expecting to find fresh produce that would make me smile. I even brought a grocery list so that I could support them and get fresh veggies. Imagine my disappointment when I walked into an empty-ish room with a bunch of t-shirts and 1 grocery bag full of tomatoes and 1 plastic container of sprouts. How could this be a store for a farm? Where were the products? During the orientation, it became clear that they only really grow lettuce and sprouts, which they mainly sell to local restaurants. They needed volunteers to come in and cut lettuce and clean it and put it in packages or they needed carpenters to make more aquaponic frames. That was it. I did not feel passionate about being a lettuce factory worker. I wanted to join a group of people passionate about farming, NOT factory type work to make a profit! Blegh. So I left feeling rather sad. There weren't even many people in that building to try to make friends with! I counted three workers. All guys. So that attempt was a FAIL.
Saturday:
*I convinced Paul to take me to the Seed Exchange because it was in a part of town that makes me nervous. On the drive there, it started raining pretty hard. I didn't think anything of it, but when we got to the location, there was nothing there. A few abandoned stands. So apparently it was cancelled due to rain. How tragic. This one is probably not Milwaukee's fault but rather Mother Natures... So that attempt was a FAIL.
Sunday:
*We forced our shy-selves to go to the church. We got there a bit early, always great for the awkwardly shy couple. Right. We shyly walked up to the welcome desk where we were not talked to by anyone. We found the room number for a young adult/couples group. We shyly walked into the room. There was one lady in there. We awkwardly talked to the one lady for a few minutes and she suggested we sit at one of the tables. There were three tables. We decided rather boldly to sit at the same table as this lady. Others walked in the room and sat at the other tables. At the last minute, a visiting missionary couple sat next to us. So it was the lady, us, and two visiting people at our table. That was all. We never talked to the other table full of people who clearly knew each other. We did the lesson. We awkwardly got up and left. Blegh. So I can pretty much consider that attempt a FAIL as well. We decided we should try (desperately) to be optimistic and we are going to try that church group again next week. But we will arrive JUST in time or even a little late so it's not so bad (hopefully).
So, I tried to meet people all weekend long and nothing worked. It's really hard to keep trying when things like that happen. I think I will clear away the disappointment from this weekend now by watching football all day long with Paul and Rick. Just like old times. Yay.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Whew...what a summer!
It's been forever since I last posted anything. That's what happens when summer is busy and fun! :) Also, I've been spending a lot of my time working on a new blog all about herbs and gardening, so that took up a lot of my 'computer time' for the day.
Hmm...where to start? Here's a basic summary of my whole summer:
June:
*left for Michigan the day after Paul was done teaching. Stayed in Michigan for a whole week and saw all of our family members and plenty of friends. If I remember correctly, this was when Paul's sister was in a sidewalk chalk competition in Byron Center, so we walked through their adorable little town to see all the cool art. I love how tiny Byron Center is! I hope our future home is in a small town or in the country...
*Then we left for South Carolina with our friends Rick and Kyle. Our boat trailer broke in Kentucky at around 5am, which was quite an annoying adventure. :) In South Carolina, we visited Beaufort, Hilton Head, and Savannah for two weeks. We went fishing for red fish and shark. It was a pretty good time.
July:
*We went back to Milwaukee for two weeks. While there, Paul painted most of the outside of our house (just a little bit more to do!), I worked on gardening, and we did other fixing up jobs around the house to get it ready to put up for sale.
*We then left for Michigan again. We spent THREE weeks in a row in Michigan at this time: 1st week: we spent some nights out at Gun Lake to see camping friends and family, and we saw other family members and friends, and Paul painted his parents' house for some nice cash. 2nd week: We went on our traditional trip to Young State Park on Lake Charlevoix. It was okay, not as good as past years, but always fun! We played lots of volleyball, went fishing, and played some board games. 3rd week: We saw more family and friends, including Cindy and Joe, who are moving Far Away, and we went to Fenn Valley Vineyards Winery (my favorite wine!), and went to a wedding.
August:
*By the second week of August, we were back in Milwaukee. We continued to work on the house, including spray painting the fridge in our kitchen white so that it wasn't so yellow/70s looking, and working on sanding the basement steps and staining them (WAY harder than we thought because the steps had some nasty glue on them that was difficult to get out). I bought and planted more herbs and I did more research on herbs.
*My little brother Jim and his fiance' Becky came to Milwaukee to see us and her brother, who lives in the area as well. It was great having them around for a week! We played plenty of games and ate good food.
Now, I am in the process of drying herbs for the winter. This is harder than I thought. The problem is, the plants are all beautiful and healthy right now, but if I don't dry them now, their taste/medicinal value will decline. So I have to go through the pain of cutting down healthy plants over and over again. It's very difficult. I can only do a few per day before I get too depressed.
I am also working on my quilt, and I am getting closer: only 30 more squares to go! Blegh. Once the squares are done, I am sure my passion for sewing the quilt will come back too...I hope so at least. The two problems that I came across with my new quilting hobby: (1) I HATE changing the spools and bobbins of thread. I don't know if it's my sewing machine or because I have problems with technology, but it always takes me at least 1 hour to finally have the new thread ready to go. And much swearing happens in that 1 hour, which is odd because I don't usually swear. But when you keep reading the manual and doing things EXACTLY like the manual says and it still won't work, it gets frustrating. So every time I need to put more thread on my machine, I stop working on my quilt for about 3 weeks because I don't want to try rethreading it again... (2) Sewing at my sewing machine hurts my neck. I think I need a shorter chair, but I am too Dutch to buy one. I can only sew for about 1 hour before my neck is so sore that I get a headache and I usually have to take a shower for the pain. Sewing shouldn't hurt!
Hmm...what else have we been up to? We are getting more and more excited about moving to South Carolina. We wish we could move now. But we are probably putting our house up for sale later this fall, so the excitement from that should hopefully help. Also, I got this exciting news from a teaching associate about a job at MATC, a Milwaukee Community College that I have always wanted to work at (they pay AMAZING). So I applied for the job and had references and vocal support from this teaching associate, who works there and has good connections. 30 minutes after I applied online, they called me and told me to fix something on my application. I figured this was all great news that really hinted that I would get the job. However, currently, I have not heard from them again. I am not sure what happened. But God knows what He is doing in my life. But that was a crazy two day adventure, where I was certain that I would be teaching two more history courses this semester and I only would have had three days to prepare for them! Yikes! Maybe it's a good thing I didn't have to go through all of that stress. In the meantime, I teach the 'same ole same ole' so that means that I don't have much to prepare. It also means that I will probably have plenty of time on my hands this fall. I am currently looking at volunteering at a local urban farm. It would be fun and it would allow me to garden during the fall when my plants would be starting to die (that is, the ones that I don't cut down for drying). It's a hydroponics garden and it's indoors, so they are open all year round. AND they use fish to fertilize their products and sell those as well. So I could be surrounded by fish and plants. Sounds like heaven. :)
Other than that, here are some things that I am looking forward to:
*Going to a Scottish Highland Festival with Rick and Julie
*Having Julie come visit! (EEK!)
*Having Paul's parents visit
*Having Rick's brothers visit
*Having my parents visit
In case you can't tell, it's gonna be a crazy month! :)
Hmm...where to start? Here's a basic summary of my whole summer:
June:
*left for Michigan the day after Paul was done teaching. Stayed in Michigan for a whole week and saw all of our family members and plenty of friends. If I remember correctly, this was when Paul's sister was in a sidewalk chalk competition in Byron Center, so we walked through their adorable little town to see all the cool art. I love how tiny Byron Center is! I hope our future home is in a small town or in the country...
*Then we left for South Carolina with our friends Rick and Kyle. Our boat trailer broke in Kentucky at around 5am, which was quite an annoying adventure. :) In South Carolina, we visited Beaufort, Hilton Head, and Savannah for two weeks. We went fishing for red fish and shark. It was a pretty good time.
July:
*We went back to Milwaukee for two weeks. While there, Paul painted most of the outside of our house (just a little bit more to do!), I worked on gardening, and we did other fixing up jobs around the house to get it ready to put up for sale.
*We then left for Michigan again. We spent THREE weeks in a row in Michigan at this time: 1st week: we spent some nights out at Gun Lake to see camping friends and family, and we saw other family members and friends, and Paul painted his parents' house for some nice cash. 2nd week: We went on our traditional trip to Young State Park on Lake Charlevoix. It was okay, not as good as past years, but always fun! We played lots of volleyball, went fishing, and played some board games. 3rd week: We saw more family and friends, including Cindy and Joe, who are moving Far Away, and we went to Fenn Valley Vineyards Winery (my favorite wine!), and went to a wedding.
August:
*By the second week of August, we were back in Milwaukee. We continued to work on the house, including spray painting the fridge in our kitchen white so that it wasn't so yellow/70s looking, and working on sanding the basement steps and staining them (WAY harder than we thought because the steps had some nasty glue on them that was difficult to get out). I bought and planted more herbs and I did more research on herbs.
*My little brother Jim and his fiance' Becky came to Milwaukee to see us and her brother, who lives in the area as well. It was great having them around for a week! We played plenty of games and ate good food.
Now, I am in the process of drying herbs for the winter. This is harder than I thought. The problem is, the plants are all beautiful and healthy right now, but if I don't dry them now, their taste/medicinal value will decline. So I have to go through the pain of cutting down healthy plants over and over again. It's very difficult. I can only do a few per day before I get too depressed.
I am also working on my quilt, and I am getting closer: only 30 more squares to go! Blegh. Once the squares are done, I am sure my passion for sewing the quilt will come back too...I hope so at least. The two problems that I came across with my new quilting hobby: (1) I HATE changing the spools and bobbins of thread. I don't know if it's my sewing machine or because I have problems with technology, but it always takes me at least 1 hour to finally have the new thread ready to go. And much swearing happens in that 1 hour, which is odd because I don't usually swear. But when you keep reading the manual and doing things EXACTLY like the manual says and it still won't work, it gets frustrating. So every time I need to put more thread on my machine, I stop working on my quilt for about 3 weeks because I don't want to try rethreading it again... (2) Sewing at my sewing machine hurts my neck. I think I need a shorter chair, but I am too Dutch to buy one. I can only sew for about 1 hour before my neck is so sore that I get a headache and I usually have to take a shower for the pain. Sewing shouldn't hurt!
Hmm...what else have we been up to? We are getting more and more excited about moving to South Carolina. We wish we could move now. But we are probably putting our house up for sale later this fall, so the excitement from that should hopefully help. Also, I got this exciting news from a teaching associate about a job at MATC, a Milwaukee Community College that I have always wanted to work at (they pay AMAZING). So I applied for the job and had references and vocal support from this teaching associate, who works there and has good connections. 30 minutes after I applied online, they called me and told me to fix something on my application. I figured this was all great news that really hinted that I would get the job. However, currently, I have not heard from them again. I am not sure what happened. But God knows what He is doing in my life. But that was a crazy two day adventure, where I was certain that I would be teaching two more history courses this semester and I only would have had three days to prepare for them! Yikes! Maybe it's a good thing I didn't have to go through all of that stress. In the meantime, I teach the 'same ole same ole' so that means that I don't have much to prepare. It also means that I will probably have plenty of time on my hands this fall. I am currently looking at volunteering at a local urban farm. It would be fun and it would allow me to garden during the fall when my plants would be starting to die (that is, the ones that I don't cut down for drying). It's a hydroponics garden and it's indoors, so they are open all year round. AND they use fish to fertilize their products and sell those as well. So I could be surrounded by fish and plants. Sounds like heaven. :)
Other than that, here are some things that I am looking forward to:
*Going to a Scottish Highland Festival with Rick and Julie
*Having Julie come visit! (EEK!)
*Having Paul's parents visit
*Having Rick's brothers visit
*Having my parents visit
In case you can't tell, it's gonna be a crazy month! :)
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