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J&M

14 Jun
I’m just not sure where to start, blog readers.  I feel like we’ve been apart for so long and much has happened …
Let’s start with s’mores.  
I met favorite friends, Joel and Melissa, in Black River Falls on Thursday evening for dinner at Culver’s.
Then we both drove the two and half hours back to our respective homes.
Joke.
Then we drove to the bat cave, aka my family’s cabin hidden in the woods.  The grand plan was to stay for two nights, sandwiched between a trip to America’s largest waterpark, Noah’s Ark.  Our plans were changed and, in a funny way, saved by this crazy weather.  Being so sickly hot earlier in the week led to temperatures in the sixties by the end of the week.  While this foiled our waterpark plans [65 degrees and possible thunderstorms was not ideal for water slides and wave pools] it made for wonderful cabin weather.  Cool night, perfect for campfires, and huddling in a sleeping bag.
And s’mores.
We still went to Wisconsin Dells on Friday but without our suits.  We explored, tasted cheese, and shopped at the outlet mall instead.  It was still a top-notch day, even if it didn’t include sunscreen and lifeguards.  [Lesson learned: The Dells is still a tourist trap.  My dad was right.  Even the Bavarian village was marketed as a joke.  Glockenspiel splocenspeeel.]
It was great to spend this time with J & M because come Sunday night [after we both drove back to the Cities in round-about ways] after our friend’s, Paige, ordination, we had to say goodbye.  Like the for real kind.  It’s beyond a doubt in my mind that we will meet again but the question remains when.  Because these friends, originally from WA and ID, are on their way home and to be soonly serving a congregation in Montana.  I’ll be in southeastern Minnesota.  Sad.  
These are my rapping friends, if I need remind you.  Before I left St.Paul the first time [a la two weeks ago] I was treated to another rap.  About me.  By J & M.  [“your wit is the shit/I can’t believe I just said it/you quote perfectly as your mind races through shows and movies so seamlessly/the expressions on your face/well they can’t be replaced/so get up and dance so endlessly/you drive and you sing and you do your thing/the people you meet/it’s been quite a treat/you are a great friend/may this never end”]  I don’t rap.  Or sing.  But I hope J & M know that I think they’re beyond pretty neat.  A great team and awesome friends.  And I hope they send me their new address pronto.  Because while I’m not musical, I can be a good penpal.  
In short and in lieu of painful conclusion, know that tearful goodbyes were said but with the confidence that this will never end.  
ps goodbyes suck.

Hello.

9 Jun
Hello.  You’ve reached the voicemail of Lindsay. 
I’ll be out of the office until Monday morning.* 
Please leave a message** and I’ll return to blogging as soon as possible. 
Have a happy day and a great forever!***
* Where am I off to until Monday morning?  Two nights at the cabin [no wireless there – no electricity!] with Joel and Melissa, perhaps a day trip to Wisconsin Dells [though perhaps a bit chilly for a waterpark day?], and then onto the Cities where the main attraction is Paige’s ordination at Luther on Sunday evening! 
** Comment.
*** I designed and ordered tshirts for a senior week activity at seminary.  I was put into contact with the tshirt point person for Luther at a specific company.  I left this specific person a few messages as we played phone tag back and forth.  How did his personal voicemail message end?  In an overly enthusiastic voice, “Have a great forrr-ever!”  It made me giggle every time.  What else about him made me giggle?  His name was Rocky.  Exactly.

moving again.

1 Jun

Moving.  The story of my life.

I’m taking a packing break.  My room is nearly empty, yet still amazingly messy.  My collection of kitchen goods have been packed up and sent home.  Things of mine still hang on the living room wall, but I fear they may not actually fit in my car.  The car is already nearly filled to the brim, and there’s still more.  If this quart ziploc bag filled with fridge magnets is any indication or if it is in any way proportionate to my other belongings, I have too much stuff.  Ugh.  [Like my “chillin’ with my gnomies” magnet?  I have two – orange and blue.  Favorites.]

I went out with friends last night.  For the last time.  Because I move today.  Today.  There was clinking of glasses, laughing, and hugs galore.  As I said goodbye to each friend, I couldn’t quite do it without a “See you soon!” attached.  And actually, with lots of my friends, that is the case.  I’ll be back to Luther in a few weeks for a friend’s ordination on campus [and to take home the rest of my things].  Joel, Melissa, and I have plans for a Noah’s Ark day [Noah’s Ark.  America’s largest waterpark.  WI Dells.], coupled maybe with a sleepover at the cabin.  There are other ordinations, the Cities are close, and roadtrips to friends’ new places.
But be warned, faithful blog reader.  As I return to live at home, the blog always seems to suffer.  Wireless internet in our house we have not, and to blog on our home desktop is not convenient.  [#macsnobbery]  Stay patiently tuned for my summer adventures in completing the to-do lists my mom gives me, macaron attempts, and party planning for Emma’s graduation but likely not everyday updates.  Thanks for sticking with me, friend.

two lists.

31 May
Things I will miss about the Cities [in no particular order]:
1. Fancy bakeries with macarons.  [I finally tried a real one this morning with Joel and Melissa.  “Real” meaning one I didn’t make.  It gives direction to my macaron adventures.]
2. Random adventures with MN friends.  Like the nine of us who saw Bridesmaids last night at 9:45.  
3. Friends who play geeky games with me.  [New Carcassonne game!  New Carcassonne game!]
4. Discovering fun, unique new places in the Cities.  [Gems like the Riverside Theater, Wilde Roast Cafe, and cute stores like Patina.]
5. Museums.
6. Consistent proximity of Target.  Rosedale Mall.  A great JoAnne Fabrics.
7. Walking about campus.

8. Downtowns.
9. Community education courses.

10. Walks around lakes.

11. The seminary neighborhood. [The post office on Como, the Bibilot, Finnish Bistro, and Park Service.]

12. Friends who quote Friends and other movies with familiarity and general awesomeness.

13. Miss M and her family.  Family dinners in Stillwater.

14. to be continued …

Things I will not miss about the Cities [in no particular order]:
1. Children screaming outside my window.
2. An apartment without air conditioning.
3. Traffic.
4. Lack of stars and prevalence of pavement.  
5. um.  um.  [please note which list is longer]

the 411 on 5/29.

30 May
It was a long, wonderful weekend that began on Saturday with the arrival of my mom and sister for a picnic on the lawn of the Bockman dorm on campus.  We ate in the sunshine with my friend, Cassie, and her parents, and then meeted and greeted the CYF staff.  A group photo was taken on the steps of Bockman.  [My sister had my camera and took some great shots.]  Grandma and Grandpa Danielson arrived in time for baccalaureate – a communion service – in a tent as it poured outside and Grandma’s chair got wet. 
After baccalaureate, we ran off to my apartment where my awesome family helped me lift, move, and load boxes and a bed into their vehicles.  Truth is, I haven’t completely moved in the last five years – meaning some of my things had always remained in storage somewhere – and now that I finally have to completely move, I have a lot of stuff.  It’s actually quite frightening.  Between mom’s car, Grandma and Grandpa Danielson’s car, later a car of Aunt Peggy’s and a few bags and boxes into the back of Reilly’s van, a dent was made in getting my things from MN to WI.  [But I still have work to do.  Packing.  Loading.  I procrastinate by blogging.  And by going to the movies later with my friends.  Eh.]  We went to one of my favorite places for dinner – Big Bowl Chinese and Thai – and all settled in for the night with the family staying at a local hotel.  

Sunday was the day!  The family and I – with additions of Karen and Mark from Stillwater, and M. and her parents – had brunch at a local restaurant.  The food was delicious and we were able to entertain ourselves with boots of crayons and the white paper that covered the tables.

From the restaurant, we moved onto Central Lutheran in Minneapolis for the ceremony.  It was a fun service. Clapping, yelling “Amen!” and grinning ear to ear as Joel rapped his speech on behalf of the students.  I couldn’t help but smile after I walked up the steps and across the platform to receive my diploma and master’s hood.  I loved my hood – it felt so great around my neck.  [I think it looked pretty good on me too!]  Four years of class and work completed and symbolized in the master’s hood.  Truth of the matter is that we use the hoods for the ceremony and then must return them after photos.  I wanted to keep the hood and not give it back so I could wear it around the house.  *sad face.*
We took many a photo with the robe, the hood, and the diploma.  It was a mess of searching for family and friends in the chaos outside of the doors of the church, but once we found each other, hugs were given and photographs taken.  Watch the slideshow.  *giddy face.*

My family made off for home right after the ceremony.  I grabbed an ice coffee, stared at my diploma with a goofy grin, and had pizza with pal, James, who was visiting.  More friends and I met at Mannings, the unofficial seminary bar, to celebrate further.  To simply sit at home last night would have seemed far too anti-climatic.
It was a great weekend of celebration with friends and family alike.  With graduation behind me, it’s onto serious packing with hopes of moving home on Wednesday.  Two words: too soon.

the latest.

24 May
Sleep is low.  Stress of moving increasing.  Emotions are draining.

Creativity for the blog is pretty low.  Please accept another stories-told-through-my-iphone-camera post.

Here’s what’s been going down:

Friday night was scheduled to be drive-in on campus night.  We hired a projectionist to show a movie on the backside of our library building while we sat on blankets, enjoyed the spring weather, and ate cotton candy.  That, unfortunately, so did not happen.  Weather forced us to move the movie inside but we still ate cotton candy, made ourselves in a rented cotton candy machine that sat on the table next to the root beer keg.  Paige and I [in matching yellow] show off our sugar-twirling skills above [in matching blue].

After the weather moved us inside on Friday night for that senior week movie event, we were thwarted by the weather again on Sunday.  We planned a Run Away 5k for seniors – a run/walk at a park just a few blocks from campus followed by a cookout.  The threat of more rain and thunder [and it turns out – tornado watches] caused us to reschedule.  That, however, did not mean we didn’t raise our heartbeats.  A bunch of us gathered at our school’s gym for a group work-out session.  As the tornado sirens went off, it was fortunate that the gym was in the basement.  We were also fortunate ‘toys’ were found for entertainment. Like workout apparatus turned into catapult.  [It takes little to entertain us, folks.] [The group workout was followed by a cotton candy party in my apartment.  We had lots of floss sugar to use before I had to return the rented machine on Monday.]

Melissa has a sewing machine.  I know enough about sewing to throw a few pieces of fabric together.  Lessons ensued.  By the end of the night, we had figured out how to wind a bobbin, how to use the knee-thinga-ma-gig to raise the presser foot, and how to sew an infinity scarf.  [It’s harder than one would think.  Really.]  Sewing success.  
Not photographed but please include the following activities to the list of reasons why I have not been an attentive blogger of late: lunch at ikea.  moa trip.  mannings.  wine tasting at a professor’s house.  [won by friends and I at a silent auction]  movie/snl viewing.  savoy inn pizza for the first time.  debating of graduation attire.  rhubarb sauce.  not packing.

I’ll miss you.

23 May
I’ve been absent.  Don’t hate me.
Senior week has thrown me for a loop.  A loop of lots of fun, an odd schedule, and an inability to ever remember what day it actually is.  Monday, right?  Right.
As graduation looms less than one week away, I fear I’m becoming more sad than anything.  I’m trying to squeeze everything in before that day comes, but I know I’m missing things.  And as soon as I move, I’ll miss people.
I’ve been seeing friends nearly every day of the past week and a half.  As we depart at the end of the nights, I’ve gotten into the habit of saying, in a funny way, “I’ll miss you,” knowing that the chances of me seeing them within the next twenty-four hours are pretty good.  It’s my version of a sentimental silly joke.  But soon it will be reality.
I said another goodbye today.  I drove to Stillwater for lunch with Denise, my BFF from my Trinity days.  Denise is one of my Stillwater ‘moms,’ a former coworker who calls me “Linnie” and spoils me with lunch and awesome cookie pans at my birthday.  Here we are, full of sweat and concrete dust as we put roofs on houses with 90 Trinity youth in Mexico in 2008, the trip when we became official BFFs:

We went out to The Green Room in downtown Stillwater to catch up and talk about what’s next for both of us.  Denise is moving to southern IL in a matter of months to join her husband who recently moved there for work.  It’s her last week at Trinity, but I hope not our last chance to see each other.  With her moving to southern IL and me moving to who knows where after a few months in WI, the chances of us catching up again in person may be slim.  I’ll miss her.
Luckily, we have facebook.  And pinterest.  We will send each other messages.  But still this move seems so much more final than other ones I’ve made.  In the past, I’d always known I was coming back to somewhere.  I’m not coming back to the Cities in the near future, and Denise is leaving too.
I’m not sure how else to sum up this blog post and these feelings but with an ‘ugh.’
Ugh.

photos from last night.

20 May
It’s like the website ‘texts from last night’ but these are my photos and they are most likely much less offensive.  Here’s my Thursday, as told through my Instagram photo app:

I completed The Hunger Games series on the patio at Starbucks over a grande-iced-white-chocolate-non-fat-no-whip-mocha yesterday.  I wasn’t overly impressed with the last half of the last book, but I will say that I was content with the very end.  I will also say that it’s a good thing I was outside and wearing sunglasses because there were a few tears shed.  If this ever blows up like Twilight [casting for the movies has already begun], I’m totally Team Peeta.  I want a Peeta.  I mourned the ending of the series yesterday; it’s sad to know that something that has become a part of me in the last week is over.  The grief has happened and I think I’m ready to move on.  Time for a new book!  *claps hands*

Library game night was last night as a part of the senior week festivities.  The library was opened for us and we played games in the reference room for four hours, using our outside voices, eating sandwiches, and ignoring the books that surrounded us.  Four of us began a game of Settlers that consumed our entire time at game night.  Wooten to another three hour game of cities, settlements, and roads!

Game night ended and I offered Sarah and Paige a ride down the hill to our apartment buildings.  We got in the car – it’s 10pm at this point – and we realize it’s too early for bed.  We car dance for a few minutes and then text jD to tell him we’re coming to get him and Lauren, our former competition in Settlers at the library.  He invited us up to their apartment where we waited outside of their door in folding chairs in a row.  It was hilarious at the time; I think we were quite slap happy.  It’s also difficult to take a self-photo with an iphone – evidence above.

Once inside, we learned how to tie a bowtie [above], watched an episode of Friends [Paige had never seen a full episode before!], and ate ice cream sandwiches.  We left around 1:30, making it another 2am night for this girl.  I think that’s just becoming my new schedule for the next week; it’s starting to feel natural to stay up so late.  The minute I have to start getting up before 9 it’s going to bite me in the butt …

dance party.

19 May
Let me begin by saying that I love all this play with no work.  With many of my friends, this will be the last chance I have to hang out with them so take advantage of it I will.  I have now been up until at least 2am the last four nights – granted, one of those nights it was for laundry purposes – and have been having much enjoyable time with people and [the introvert adds] myself.  Like yesterday.  I took a Lindsay afternoon and walked about Como Lake a couple times, drank a latte and read outside at a coffee shop.  I cannot convey the all sorts of perfect that was.  The Lindsay afternoon was followed by an evening of potluck and dance party.  Though I will try, pretty sure I can’t completely explain how awesome that was either.
We ate our potluck supper outside on the green grass and once we were filled with deliciousness, the camp games began.  leg wrestling.  elbow tag.  chicken, cowboy, conqueror.  trust falls.  my grandma’s big fat toe. 
awesomeness.
leg wrestling.  crazy.  [I promised no facebook exposure.  blog is fair game?]
chicken!
Paige would not crack during my grandma’s big fat toe.  Would not one bit!

The pure awesome-sauce nature of the night continued at J & M’s apartment for – that’s right – a dance party.

My friends and I in college would often think, “Let’s have a dorm room dance party!”  But we’d never really dance.  Or we’d dance for two songs and then get distracted and do something else.  [Squirrel!]  I went to this dance party, certain that we would have fun but never could have guessed that we would actually dance.  For three hours.  Three solid sweaty hours.  [We did our best to heat up the room, trying to make the indoor thermometer read 80 degree.  That was the goal.  We had to settle for 77.9 just after 1am.]
[most likely living on a prayer.  can you tell?]
dry ice.  don’t touch!
This dance party was awesome.  It was like the best wedding reception dances that I’ve been to but there were only seven of us, we were in an apartment living room, and no one had gotten married hours earlier.  There was brie baked in a bread bowl.  There was wine.  There was dry ice.  [Joel bought dry ice for the party!  I don’t think I can say awesome any more than I already have – the limit is three – but if I could, *insert here*]  There was even a friend visiting from New York.  [See what I did there?]
And there was Gaga.  Justin.  Instructional dancing for Katy Perry’s Firework.  We whipped out the Chris Brown Forever wedding song in peel-the-banana fashion, each of us cruising down the aisle.  Bon Jovi.  Britney and Boyz II Men.

a bit creepy.  a bit cool.  these guys were in the zone and crazy dancers.
As we were hydrating during a dance break [kinda like this], Sarah asks me, “Why didn’t we become friends earlier?”  Good question.  But I’m glad we’re friends now and so glad the seven of us partied it up dance-party style last night.  This last semester has been a blast of new friends, new experiences in fun, and – I’m going to say it – awesomeness.
  
I declare the need for a dance party encore.

mosaicing.

18 May
Way back yonder in October, I bought a groupon to attend a mosaic class at Mercury Mosaics in Minneapolis.  I bought two actually – one for me and one for Sara.  Cassie bought one as well and later I discover that Erin [a college friend of one of my high school friends/blogger at growing up gaffney] also had a date with ceramic tiles and grout coming up.  And so the fellowship of the mosaic class was formed.
We started with dinner on the patio at Psycho Suzi’s [ahh, patios.] and then made our way to class where we dug through bins of tiles on the ’tile buffet,’ organized, reworked, and finally used an adhesive with texture like cream cheese to make our work permanent, all while navigating interactions with the incredibly awkward instructor and incredibly rude fellow classmates.  Grouting was sent home with us, the final step to be done after the adhesive cures for at least a full day.  Here are our [nearly] final [still grout-less] products:

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