I like where we are here

I had a good day. This morning, I slept in and got up around nine. I cleaned up around the house and ran important errands -- the post office, the library. I came back, grabbed my books and headed over to the new organic deli across the street from our house. Had a great basic bagel with chive cream cheese and studied the rest of the morning away.

This afternoon I settled in to work on my wedding scrapbook, do a little more cleaning, write some thank you notes and study some more. Leftover pizza and salad made for a great dinner. I chatted with my mom and Meg, and saw a picture of my dad's brand new puppy (super cute). Then, out of nowhere, I had some sort of desire to go on a run. Before it passed, I threw on my running clothes and jogged out of the house.

I've never been a really natural runner. I love the social aspects of running, and even some of the competitive aspects of it. But I'm not big on running just for the fun of it, so it's pretty rare that I run on my own -- either I can't find the motivation, or the time, or I'm not in shape enough. But today it happened: I went on a 30 minute run, and it was all fun. Maybe it was finding my ipod shuffle buried in a drawer and stocking it with good running music, or maybe it was the weather. I'm not going to question it. But now I'm going to stretch a bit!

Make me a mnemonic

I have been studying for the bar exam for a few weeks now, and one of the things it involves the most is mnemonics. Some are phrases like "I put five bucks down" for injunctions (inadequate legal remedy, property right/protected interest, feasibility of enforcement, balancing interests and defenses). Some are words, like the PAW for service of process: personal, adobe or waiver services are adequate.

All of these mnemonics have been given to us by professors. I'm trying to develop a few for other subjects, where the professors don't use mnemonics. But this one is bugging me: I need one for sixteen letters. It could be either a phrase with each word starting with a different of the sixteen letters, a phrase where each letter stands for one of the sixteen letters, or a really long word.

Anyone out there bored, and want to help? The letters are: cfieidadhcelcgip (in alphabetical order, aeecccddfghiiilp).

(In case you are curious, those are the sixteen items that qualify as collateral: consumer goods, farm products, inventory, equipment, instruments, documents, accounts, deposit accounts, health care insurance receivables, chattel paper, electronic chattel paper, letter of credit right, commercial tort claims, general intangibles, investment property, and proceeds.)

Success!

This weekend is my first in town in six weeks... it's actually nice to have a couple of wide open days where I can study and watch tv until I fall asleep, rather than pack up, lug my books onto a plane, fly across the country and fly back just before Monday morning's class.

Yesterday, I celebrated by going to see Waitress with Mer and Alex. It was pretty cheesy, but also pretty cute. It was worth the $5 student ticket price. It was in my long list of movies to see, which also includes Knocked Up, You Kill Me, After the Wedding, and Ratatouille.

Then this morning, Alison, Jackie and I completed the Solstice 5K in Northville! We were very faithful in our training for the first few weeks, but as bar studying started to take over my life, I got worse about meeting them for our regular runs. However, this morning we came together again and successfully completed the whole thing with no walking. Doug and Matt (Alison's boyfriend and Jackie's husband, respectively) cheered us on to a fast finish.

Where is my Matt, you ask? Well, my Matt took off yesterday morning for his bachelor party in Vegas. He's as excited as he gets - he was grinning when I dropped him off at the airport. The last time he called, he was down a little money, but happy to be among his friends and the city he loves to visit.

Now I'm going to relax in front of one of my favorite guilty pleasures -- old Dawson's Creek DVDs, checked out of the library by Matt for me -- and work on learning Contracts, Property and Constitutional Law. Hope y'all are having similarly lovely days.

Off to the West Coast... again

It's time for our second wedding of the year. Our first was Bethany and Eric's (though I attended on my own) in Cedar Falls a few weeks ago... now Matt and I are off to Seattle to see our dear friends Mary and Jeremy get married. It's a quick trip on the heels of my quick trip last weekend to Las Vegas. I feel like my body just got used to the East Coast and now I'm flying it back to the West Coast again. Man, I am sure a wimp about jet lag.

A picture of last weekend's fun with some of my favorite college friends:

Terrific times

My weekend in Chicago was an incredible success. Matt and I arrived late Thursday night and spent some time hanging out with Meg in her brand new apartment (she moved in a mere day earlier). We lucked out finding a terrific parking spot right outside her building... of course, when we went out to feed the meter the next morning at eight, we discovered that it served as a rush hour tow zone between seven and nine a.m. on weekdays. Oops. The car was gone and I spent an entire afternoon trying to get it back. Special thanks to my dad, who took time out of his business trip to fax a letter in saying that it was actually okay for me to pick up the car.

While Matt lunched with one firm and interviewed with another, I had lunch with a few people from my own law firm and caught up on the office scoop. That evening, our friends trickled into town: my Notre Dame friend Erin from Champaign took the train in that afternoon, my high school friend Bethany drove in from Iowa, and my ND friend Kate flew in from DC. Matt's sisters also arrived that night, and while he went out to dinner with his older sister, I hung out with Meg, Erin, Kate and Bethany. We ate frozen pizza and drank wine until late into the night. It was very fun -- I was a little nervous because while most of them know one another, they aren't good friends, and you know how girls can be awkward when they're stuck together for a long period of time and they don't know each other well. Luckily, my nerves were totally unnecessary, and as far as I could tell, we all got on like houses (or a small village?) on fire.

The next morning the five of us, plus Matt's sisters, went out for breakfast at the Best. Restaurant. Ever. (The Bongo Room.) As usual, it was delicious, especially my oreo banana pancakes. Then us girls primped quickly and headed over to ND friend Emily's home for my afternoon shower. The shower was totally wonderful. My many bridesmaids put so much thought and work into every little detail: delicious food, including my favorite of all foods (bacon). Tea for everyone in china cups. The favors were lovely tea bags, and the game prizes were flowers planted into small yellow teapots. I was overwhelmed by all of it - and the volume of presents we received! Our whole trunk was filled when we left.


Emily is on the left, Meg is on the right, and I am in the middle. Em is nine months pregnant with a baby boy and is due any day!

My mom drove out for the shower. Isn't that wonderful? The few who hadn't met her were shccked at how much we looked alike.

Later that night, a gaggle of us went out bachelorette partying. We had dinner at Giordano's and then hit a number of Clark Street bars, getting free drinks and hoots and hollers along the way. We tried to take pictures outside of the bars we frequented - this is one.

Left to right: Kelly, Chrissy, Tricia, Adrienne, me, Erin, Meg, Amy, Kate, Bethany, Carrie, Heather.

Em's baby shower was the next day (planned by Erin). It was great to relax with everyone, and Tricia even brought her youngest child. I got to hold him a lot which was fun. I know I'm not ready for one myself, but I am excited that my friends are starting to have them... it means I have a baby to play with for awhile, then give back!

All in all, it was a completely amazing weekend. Thanks to all those involved ;-)