This post is probably going to be sappy and drawn out and a little over-indulgent. But I want to write it down now, when I remember it, when I'm still overwhelmed in the best way and still in awe of what all happened.

So, if you aren't into those things, I don't blame you, you can click clack away.

Buuuuuut if you are into those things, please make yourself comfy.

John and I were blessed to spend the whole week before our wedding to be with our families, finish final details, and sleep in. It was awesome.

Hannah threw a perfect Bachelorette party which included wine, underwear, fries, brownies, popcorn, and a mouse. Perfect.

The rehearsal was Friday and apparently we picked readings that weren't actually approved...whoops. We thought we pulled them from a Catholic website but we were wrong. But, our priest, Fr. Holdren, called the chancery and got them okay-ed...so there you go.

Besides that, there were no snags, no problems, no issues. Unless there were and I just didn't hear about them. And then we got married.

our teammates, Maya and Leanne

old farts reading by a vineyard

Mendocino coast

Mendocino coast

redwoods

Sacramento Cathedral

Wine tasting at Duckhorn

 We had a wine tasting and it made me realize that I know nothing about wine. Just that I like it and I like it red.

The Oh Hello's in Sacramento

 The Oh Hello's are potentially my favorite band and we saw them live in Sacramentooooo. It was such a gift. In October we saw that they were doing a West Coast tour and we thought, there's no way we would be able to see them. But, oh, we did. And they were amazing. You know when you go and see a band you really love and you are so nervous they are going to be terrible live, or they won't sound good, or they will be jerks and snobs, or they will sound different?

None of that was true. They were humble and gracious and crazy talented.

we got new books for ourselves before our flight out

Inn-N-Out is my favorite

Every experience we had was amazing and we wanted to call it quits because how could it get better? But it always got better. We are so blessed. Then we drove home on Saturday night and when we got home our apartment was arranged, unpacked, and beautifully decorated. Our teammates (and some students) had a key, let themselves in, and spent the day organizing a-TLC-Hoarders-episode level of chaos into HGTV level beauty.

I cried like a baby. It's amazing and such a beautiful gift.

Anyway, that's what happened. It was so great. Let me gush a little bit more.
But not right now.

Thanks for reading, y'all.

Can we just talk about this watch? Please ignore my weird hand shape and how pale and translucent my skin is...look at the waaaatch. It's black and floral! It's amazing. It's got a huge face. It's got Roman numerals, which is my only issue with it. I most of missed the day we learned about roman numerals in school. But, I will figure it out.

Also I'm getting married Saturday. SAT. UR. DAY.

I'm pretty chill about it. Maybe too chill?

Please say prayers and send good vibes to my mom who is less chill.

You guys are great.

Did you guys know that my friend Hannah is famous? CRAZY. For nostalgia's sake here is an old pic of us in our youth.





She tagged me for some kind of something (and I love those) so here we goooooo!



1. If you were any TV character, who would you be and why?
Question, can I be Jimmy Fallon? I feel like he has the best job. Sit at a desk, talk to famous people, play ridiculous games, make funny jokes, hang out with the Roots. I pick Jimmy Fallon

 
2. What are you really really good at? Like, your superpower if you were a superhero...
I'm pretty dang good at making pancakes. And fried eggs. So breakfast. My super power is breakfast. Which is pretty important, the most important meal of the day. I don't know how I would harness that power and translate it into saving the world buuut...I could make it work.
  3. What got you into blogging? How did you feel about it when you started?
I had a Livejournal (what) and I loved being able to type out my feelings and what happened during the day and post it for an anonymous audience. It was easier than physically writing in a journal all the time. Then I graduated to tumblr and then Marc Barnes became really popular and Hannah and I thought, we could do that. So we did. I felt only a little weird about it and then I got over it because I love writing. For any reason. Then I wanted to start my own (boring) daily(ish) blog and here we are!
  4. What's your favorite quote? 
Uggggggh. Okay.

Biblical: And the Word became Flesh and dwelt among us.

Literary: "And then her heart changed, or at least she understood it; and the winter passed, and the sun shone upon her.” J.R.R. Tolkien, Return of the King

Movie: "This is my hat now" --Hot Rod

Badass: The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach is --Flannery O'Connor 
  5. How often do you do the laundry? Dishes? Other household chores?
Geez. Okay, I do laundry like maybe once a week. I have a lot of underwear and I'm a dirty grunge 90s child and wear my clothes multiple times before I wash them.

I do dishes ALL THE TIME. I hate dishes in the sink, near the sink, etc. 

Other chores I do when I see how gross it looks. Like, oh, spiderwebs in the corners? Let's get those. Enough hair to make a wig from the bathroom floor? Time to sweep. You get the picture. 
  6. What's your guilty pleasure? 
 Taylor Swift's new album. Not proud.

   7. Do you like to take naps? How often do you get to nap?
Naps are my love language. I studied Spanish Language and Culture in college and I'm 100% on board with siestas. If I could, I would nap everyday. Now it depends on the week and how busy we are with ministry. Being a FOCUS missionary rocks because our hours are so weird that we often have afternoon hours free (since students are in class) AKA prime nap time.
  8. What's your favorite alcoholic drink? 
I like alcohol brown, my wine red, and my beer stout-y. I don't do clear alcohol. If I had to pick one, I would pick whiskey. If I had to pick more than that I would pick Maker's Mark.

9. What time do you usually go to bed? Are you a night owl or a morning person?
I like to be in bed around 11pm. If I had it my way I would be in bed at 9pm. I used to be a night owl but now my body protests that behavior in a very aggressive sort of way. John is a night owl and most college students are night people so I try really hard to stay up. Hence, napping.
  10. Do you vote/get into political things? What interests you the most about politics?
I need to get into political things. I normally wait until something really bad happens before I get involved in politics. So, that's not responsible. 

A priest friend just posted this on his facebook: I am too old to be paying this little attention to the national political scene, and yet too young to be this violently disenchanted by it.

I relate to that strongly.

Thanks for tagging me, Hannah!

Do you ever realize how much you need to do...for example, pack for your week at home/wedding, pack up all of your belongs so you can move after said wedding, solve all the stupids problems with said wedding, figure out what kind of black hole swallowed half of our wedding invitations in the mail, grovel to those who didn't receive one, ask if they still want to come even though it's only 10 days away, do you actual job, prep for Bible study, field many questions about your future, eat food, sleep...

but then you just drink coffee and eat brownies and watch Youtube videos? Am I an adult? How do I become an actual adult?

I'm actually pretty okay. I always get nervous people who I know in real life will read my blog and tell my mom that I'm losing my cool over here. Don't tell my mom! I'm fine.

I just need to make a to-do list, drink 3 more cups of coffee, and finish off that tray of brownies.

Whew. Thanks for listening.

I'm getting married in two weeks and this is how I feel:

That's all. Have a great Saturday/Sunday depending on your time zone.

Friends, I wrote a blog post on my other blog that I share with Hannah.

You should shimmy on over there and read it, if you'd like. It's about John Paul and how I was angsty about him for a long time.

Thanks! Happy Feast day of St. John Paul the Great!

one of us, one of us

As many of you know I am getting married real soon. I promise I won't dedicate every post to that, but I can't promise that quite yet.

So we were also looking for an apartment because married people like to live together. But Berkeley is legit the worst for apartment hunting. We applied to maaaaaany different places, were beat out on all occasions, lost a lot of money to pay for application fees (maybe not constitutional) and mostly just got our hopes up.

The good news (whew) is that the apartment John lives in now is perfectly fine. Just over-priced. And very small. Like really small.

But it's not a studio, so it has walls, which is a lot better than a lot of our options out here.

So get excited for this blog to become me attempting to make a teeeny apartment more homey.

I should probably get my own show on HGTV. Something to think about.

Thanks for your prayers and support.

Cook time sweet potatoes

Basically a million years. Why does it take so long to cook them? Do they take a million more hours than normal potatoes? Or am I just that impatient when it comes to that delicious orange tuber?

What is kombucha?

A mushroom that hippies eat. No gracias.

Bed bug bites

We don't have them. Whew, PTL.
 

Is it illegal to shoot people with air soft guns?

I didn't actually google this...like I started typing it but then...you know, I didn't want incriminating evidence. We live on Greek row and last night some punks were partying in our alley way, directly beneath our window, at 2am. So, I was just wondering.

I wasn't going to do it.

So.

Keep about your Saturday, people!

Y'all.
I'm getting married in 52 days.

This is how I feel about it:



But food can't help me make decisions. So here are some things I need some advice about.

How should I wear my hair?

Wedding favors? What are some nice ones? I'm fine with DIY because, to be honest, I could recruit a bunch of wonderful college women to help me out (win event, amirite?). But nothing too ridiculous.

What do you get bridesmaids?

Mother-of-the-groom gift?

What's the one thing people always forget?

Advice?

Thanks y'all.

Hannah has mentioned multiple times that she doesn't know what Berkeley looks like and would like me to send her photos.

That sounds like a lot of work. Also I don't want to stand out and take photos because people will know that I'm new and it will ruin my street cred.

So instead I'm taking y'all on a digital tour oooooooh

Using pictures from google.

Professional.


This is what our chapel looks like. Nobody likes it. Well, few people like it. Our chaplains compare it to the Flinstones. It was designed to look like a tomb so...check.

Pro: you are never sweaty.


This is my favorite coffee shop!

Orrrrrr this one

Sacks is great, you can sit on coffee bean sacks. Also the guy who runs it is hilarious and they play the best music. Strada is busy so it's only good when you go at like 8am...so...

Obviously these are the important things about Berkeley.


My favorite cheap eats is El Burro Picante and they have this weird little burro outside. Anyway, like I said, these are the important things.



Here's a beautiful scenic picture that someone else took. But it's pretty legit. The clock tower is the Campanile in the middle of campus. It's great. It has bells and plays music (not the Harry Potter theme so UNL's got them beat there).

And of course the bay and the Golden Gate bridge, which I can sometimes see from the top of our hill on a clear day (it's always foggy).

There you go! A free tour! It's really beautiful here. And full of stone cold weirdos but I love that about it.

Thanks for all your prayers. You are in mine as well.

Bad news first: we didn't get that apartment either.

Wah wah so sad. Ugh. Pity party.

Okay, now that we've moved on.

We saw the Avett Brothers this weekend. WHAT.

It was pretty stinkin' legit. Brandi Carlile opened and she was legit and then my heart exploded because I love the Avett Brothers.

Sorry for my weird melancholy post yesterday, friends. Sometimes you just get a case of the Mondays on a Thursday. But now my roommate is singing "That's Amore" and our apartment is clean and tomorrow I'm seeing the Avett Brothers.

Ahhhh.

But today at 3pm West Coast time John and I are viewing another apartment, with applications in hand, checks prepared to be written, references prepped and ready, etc, etc, etc.

So please pray for us. Every time we look at an apartment or fill out an application I shave 5 years off my life and get a stomach ulcer. John's ever the optimist which is great because I am Queen of the Pessimists. That doesn't look like a word but firefox seems to be okay with it.

I know people around the country are wigging out about how cold it is so send it this way! I literally have no idea how I'm going to handle a winter without snow. I can hear all you warm-weather-lovers hissing at me and I get it. But I'm just saying.

Thanks. I hope y'all have a great Friday!

Do you ever have a day where you just can't.

Like, nothing bad happened or whatever but you just feel bleeeeeeeh. Or meeeeeeeeh. Or blech. Or blurgh.

I feel that. I feel all of that.

I definitely ate dairy. And probably fructose. Sometimes I get a liiiiiittle bold and I eat things I probably shouldn't because I feel invincible. I'm not.

Anyway here are some things I found online while being a little bit dead.

This is my new desktop. Thanks, Buzzfeed and Andy.

Gilmore Girls is going to be on Netflix, so I should probably get Netflix again.

Our wedding invites are officially out in the mail. So if any of you want to make the final decisions, I would love that.

Things to be decided still:
1. Reception music....
2. Readings. All of them
3. Something else...
4. Probably something else.

As you can see, I'm a veeeery focused bride-to-be.

Sorry this post hasn't lived up to the usual peppy/snappy/energizing self.

Keep it real.

eating: so much kale. You guys. My teammates are so healthy and I'm lazy so I just eat what they put in front of me. Most of which is kale.  

drinking: Water and water and water. Also coffee. And wine.  

listening to: The Brilliance. I highly recommend. It's moody and artsy and calming and about Our Lord. It's legit.  

watching: I'm watching Leanne hang art up on the walls. I do not have a gift in spacial awareness and being aware of what to hang up where. But Leanne kills it. Our house looks like a home.  

reading: Scripture #nerd. Gospel of John, Isaiah, Corinthians.  

wearing: Sweatpants and a hoodie, which is never my get up, but Tuesday has been rowdy.  

realizing: How incredibly blessed I am. So sappy. Let's not dwell on it or I might cry.  

working on: I made some art today, that was pretty fun. I also submitted an article to Eye of the Tiber (hilarious). So today was pretty artistic. Also a Bible Study.  

enduring: Okay, I dig Berkeley. But I get so sweaty in the afternoon. Like, it's chili-dogs in the morning and the evening and then I'm roasting in the afternoon.  

smelling: It smells like wood stain and some weird burning tool because Leanne is making art like it's her job.  

sewing: Sewing? I don't sew. Hannah so made this list.

wanting: To go to bed. Roommates are great but they keep me awake waaaay longer than I intend to.  

disliking: How smelly my feet get after wearing my birks.  

cheering for: AVETT BROS CONCERT ON SATURDAY

I woke up earlier than I normally do this morning which has allowed me to drink two cups of coffee instead of my normal, self control induce, one cup.

And because of that second cup my mind is firing 12380x faster than usual.

1. This morning I decided that my greatest fear is not spiders or sharks, but that spicy pepper seeds will someone get onto my hands and then those hands will get into my eyes and I will be blind. I was making toast and the toaster was next to a carton of jalapeños on our counter and I literally thought, is there a chance for cross-contamination?

2. Did you know that if you hold down a letter key on a Mac you can add accents to letters? Whãt? This would have been helpful to know in all my years of studying Spanish and having to insert a symbol every stinkin' time.

3. As a human being, sometimes I read/hear things in the news (aka on Facebook...ugh le sad) and I just get really down. Like, what the heck can I do about ISIS? How can I actually help ethical medical research? How can I assist in the fight against pornography and creeps distributing naked pictures of celebrities?

4. But redemption is real. Holy Martyrs of the Middle East, pray for us.

5. I met with an amazing student yesterday from Japan. She did her undergrad at MIT and is now getting her PhD here at Berkeley. She converted at MIT, her family did not approve and basically ignores her new found religion, and she has never met another Japanese Christian. Never. Ever.

6. Basically my job is inspiring and it has already been such a gift to me. I'm grateful for this entire blogging community, for every Catholic community, for our Church. I'm grateful for a lot of things.

Phew. Have a great Wednesday, you guys. You're in my prayers

In middle school Spanish class we would sing a song about the days of the week.

Fun fact: the week starts with lunes (Monday) because common sense. Things I get irrationally passioante about: why do our weeks start with Sunday? Why can I never remember that my week starts with Sunday?

Anyway, the song began with lunes and then miercoles, jueves, etc. And each name would get a note higher until the very end, domingo. And for whatever reason my class would scream DOMINNNNNNNNGO in the highest voice possible.

Sundays make me wax nostalgic about middle school Spanish apparently.

But, seriously, Happy Sunday y'all.

You know when you move and you feel like the first couple of days you are just treading water? Just trying to keep your head above the waves?

Well I finally feel like...maybe...I'm past that point. I mean, I'm sure I will feel it again BUT now all my stuff is (basically) put away and I have groceries in my cabinet and I've finally met some students.

Praise the Lord.

Exciting CA news in 3 bullet points!

1. At 3:20am there was a magnitude 6.1 earthquake in Northern CA! You guys! It was crazy. I've never experienced an earthquake before so it was nuts. My teammates share a room so we all woke up and waited until it was over and nothing feel over or off the walls. Literally the only damage is that our floor lamp tipped over (but didn't fall)...but also it's old and jankey so that may have happened before.

But pray for Northern Cal, especially the Napa area because it was rowdy up there; fallen furniture, fires in trailer parks, no electricity, etc.

2. So John and I are getting married in November which means our teammate Carlos needed to find a new roommate. And today there was 2 (two) people who got in contact with him about living with him. A great problem to have.

While he figured that out, John and I hip hopped over to padmapper and began to hunker down on our own apt search.

Carlos took a picture because it was "Sooooo cute".

And then he asked what a garbage disposal was and we rocked his world.

Do you ever have those weeks (months) where the last thing you are able to comprehend is what day of the week it is? Seriously, I don't know why this has been such a struggle but my days all run together and about 50% of them are Mondays.

My teammate Carlos is pretty much one of my favorite human beings in the whole world. He's hilarious and insightful and brilliant and also sometimes just waaaaay too gullible. While we were in Napa I asked him to take some egg shells out to the compost pile and I was met with the blankest of all stares.

"What...?"
"The compost pile...?"
"..."
 "Carlos, the compost pile?"
"What is that?"

 It literally took forever for him to get to the actual question.

Other things that are hard, what is a plus-one, and the difference between lemons and limes.

Later he asked when we would grind up the compost pile to make dirt.

Berkeley is amazing because the people here are straight up weird. They say whatever, wear whatever, do whatever. This poses some problems as missionaries, but it also makes getting dressed in the morning really easy because no one cares.

We had dinner with our Newman Center priests last night and, because we are near wine country, we had some wine. It was CVS wine, but still.

Specifically, it was Menage a Trois wine. It's a mighty unfortunate name because the wine itself is pretty good for cheap wine, but a sketchy name. Anyway, Fr. Al who is literally almost 100 years old (93) looked at the bottle of wine, turned to Carlos and said, "That's a pretty sexy name for wine." And then he laughed and laughed.
And we nervously laughed.

Will you guys pray for us? Missionary life is hard and trying to do everything at the start of the semester is pretty overwhelming.

I also accidentally spilled the beans to John that I have a blog. He wasn't aware of it. Whoops. So now I need to zip back into the archives and make sure there isn't anything embarrassing about him written on it before he finds it. If y'all find something, holler at me.
 

I knew there would be a lot of perks to moving to Berkeley and being a missionary here.

1. I would be with John. That's the main one.
2. Berkeley is a cool place.
3. Our offsite retreats and planning weekends take place in Napa Valley.

Game changer.

It takes a lot of get FOCUS onto a campus, but it takes even more effort to get it into a diocese or a state that's new. Getting FOCUS to CA took literally 15 years. One of the main reasons why there are even missionaries out here is because of Judy Barrett.

Judy and her late husband Jim own a winery called Chateau Montelena. In 1976 there was a wine tasting in Paris, now called "The Judgement of Paris" and no American wine had ever won the competition, or taken seriously, but the Barrett's entered their chardonnay and it won a blind taste test and won the whole dang thing. They basically put Napa on the map. Also there is a movie about it, which is grossly fictionalized says Judy.

Anyway, they are amazing people. They love FOCUS and Judy is our Berkeley Mom. She has a sweatshirt to prove it.


She just loves us. And we are so grateful since we don't know a lot of people out here and we are desperately missing our family and friends. It was such a gift to be in a home and not a barely unpacked apartment.

She gave us strength for the journey and I am so grateful.

Stoic black-and-white dad shot.

With the matriarch

Okay let's just jump right in! Sorry I haven't been blogging. I basically started this blog so I could better document all the changes that are happening in my life so when big changes started happening...I stopped blogging.

Whoops!

So, good news...

I made it to Berkeley!

This is what we packed:



Yikes. John and I for sure don't have that much stuff on our own. However, apparently, when you get married you need to have furniture to, like, use. So we packed a queen size bed (wooooot) and some dressers and a kitchen table and chairs etc.

And all the sweet bridal shower gifts!

But it all went right into storage because we decided (begrudgingly) to wait to use our sick stuff until after we are married. Only eighty-some days until we are united, Crock Pot.

Here are some photos I snagged while driving for 23849237 hours through NE, WY, UT, and into CA.
Also if you follow me on instagram you've seen most of these, sorry not too sorry.

Salt flats in UT, c-r-a-z-y

Driving for s-o-m-a-n-y-h-o-u-r-s

Sierra Nevada Mountains

But now the whole team is here and it's great. I'll update you all on even more exciting details (I'm sure you can't wait) and post some thought provoking questions like; what the butt is kombucha and why is everyone drinking it here?

kids these days

Left side, by the blue flag, maybe the only Asian kid?

SIX