Dairyland Day 1 -- Sunday, May 6, 2007

Wisconsin...how shall I describe thee? Cheesy comes to mind. Anywho, I arrived at the new house on Saturday night around 9:30 or something. It was weird. I got out of the truck and my mom was waiting to give me a hug. Then right away she whisked me inside to give me a tour. It's a great place. It's really nice; just what they wanted - two bedrooms, two bathrooms, laundry room, and a greatroom with an eat-in kitchen, living room, and dining area (all on the same floor). Oh, and a 2 car garage that is so small it won't even fit my dad's truck. Sorry Daddio! And the best part is my room -- the full basement underneath it all. Well, for the summer I get to stay in the "guest room" which is cool, but after that my stuff is being demoted to the land below. It's alright though, because I'll be up at school. And hopefully when I come home for my first break, they'll have the hot tub in the basement by then. That's right, i said hot tub.

After the tour, I ate some food and then set myself up on the couch for the night. I slept for a long time - 9 hours, I think - which brings us to the official start of Day 1 in Dairyland.


Sunday morning I got up after my mom came out into the living room and said "what was that beeping noise?" "Oh," i said. "I forgot I set my alarm." Actually, I didn't even hear it the first two times it went off. Oops. Breakfast was sweet after an hour of searching for the frying pan. We had pancakes and bacon. I love pancakes.
Then we went to church at St. Anne's. Mass was at 10:15am and we left the house a little before 10 because my dad likes to be early. Wait, no. He doesn't like to be late. (Trust me, there's a difference.) And we were there at 10:05am. Apparently, they don't live that far away from the church.

Okay, let me tell you about St. Anne's. The building is beautiful. My mom said it reminded her of Frank Lloyd Wright, but I don't know where she gets that from. Anywho, we walk through the doors, both of which are held open for us by younger boys, about 10 I'd say, both wearing name tags. That's cute, I think to myself. And they both say hello. Even cuter. Then we get inside. I look around and it occurs to me that EVERYONE is wearing a name tag. And not one you get at parties that you haphazardly write your own name on, oh no. These are printed, laminated, and put on cords that are worn like necklaces. And they're all kept on a table in folders organized by last name. You know, so you don't have to worry about leaving your identity at home on Sunday mornings. In a way, the name tag thing is cool. Everyone knows everyone else's name and if you forget someone's name they never have to know. All you have to do is read their tag and hope they didn't see you!

Everyone was so friendly too. When my parents and I sat down, this girl in front of us, "Becky" I read on her name tag (I forgot her last name, but when I see her again, I can just read it), introduced herself, welcomed us and started asking us a bunch of questions.

"Are you new here or just visiting?"
"We just moved here, but we know the area. We moved from down by Antioch."
"Oh, okay! I know the area. Are you in school here?"
"No, I'm in college. I'm just here for the summer."
"Wow. You're home already? Isn't that early? Well, I guess not. I just had some friends
graduate this weekend. Where do you go to school?"
"Northern Michigan University, in the U.P."
"Oh, cool! I graduated out in Portland not too long ago. It's on the west coast, but it's pretty
much the same."
cue music
"It was nice meeting you!"
"You too."

Their music was AWESOME. Their choir was at least 25 strong and they had percussion. You don't realize what percussion does to music until you put it back in. It really livened up some songs. Oh, and they sang ALL THE VERSES OF EVERY SONG. I was a fan.

This is weird, but cool. The priest's homily was all about new things and change. He started with "think of something new in your life." I thought, Um, this whole past semester. Especially the past month. Oh, and the new house I just came from. He went on to say that as humans, "we don't like change, but Jesus gives us the grace, patience, and strength to do just that." I thought about this more during the day and it is so true. Change is what we do, whether we see it or not. It's how we live. So thank the Lord for all he has given you and for what he has done to see you through the changes in your life. You couldn't have done it alone.

After church, we came back to the house and I changed into what I still lovingly call "play clothes" so I could do some stuff around the house. But, alas, I didn't do much. I talked to Cat online (thank you!) and checked my email. Then I put something away here, something there, and waited for my mom to go shopping - I still needed some things for Vienna. (Countdown: 5 days. OMG.) We ran to Kohl's and got some Khakis, solid color t-shirts, socks, a belt, and some black slides.

When we came out of Kohl's, my mom wanted some coffee so she drove through McDonalds. She pulled up to the speaker and pointed to a pretty little waterfall next to me - That's random - but actually, it separated the TWO speakers that this McDonalds had.

"This McDonalds has two speaker things?"
"Yes it does."
"That's weird."
"More and more McDonalds are doing that now to make the drive thru faster."
"Wisconsin's messed up."
"No it's not. They're advanced."
"Ha. You're funny, Mutti."

Now, there's one thing wrong with this situation - making the drive thru faster. Is that really necessary? Is it even possible? It didn't seem faster to me. If anything, it seems like it would be more dangerous. Which car goes first if they're both done ordering at the same time? I predict some fender-benders and hefty law suits in the future, but that's just my opinion.

Back to important matters, we still have some shopping to do.
Also on the "to do list" this week before I leave:
1) talk to my neighbor (at the old house) about work this summer
2) go to the bank (i hate money)
3) finish getting stuff i need for Vienna
4) double, triple, and quadruple check my stuff for Vienna (i would keep going, but i don't
know the correct word that comes after quadruple)
5) dinner at Grandma's
And I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff. I'll think of it later. Hopefully.

We came back to the house after shopping and Mutti (Mutti = my mom) started dinner. It took a while because we had meatloaf and baked sweet potatoes. It was so yummy. Pay attention here, Bridget! Ten minutes before dinner, I decided that I couldn't wait any longer and ate the 2 left-over pancakes and 2 pieces of bacon. Then for dinner, I proceeded to eat 2 slices of meatloaf, a sweet potato, and a salad. I can just hear you now, "Well done!" I knew you'd be proud.

After my scrumdiddliumptious dinner, we put some more stuff away while LOTR was on the little tv my daddio bought for the kitchen/greatroom. It's a flatscreen and it's mounted on an arm on the side of the cabinet so it swivels. It's pretty sweet. Then Mutti lit a fire. My P's have a sweet fire place here. It's not gas or electric, but it burns cans of fuel and actually sounds like a crackling fire. And what happens when you curl up on a comfy couch in front of a fire? Yeah, I fell asleep in 15 minutes. I was out. And I mean out, down for the count, out. I didn't hear anything until my mom said, "okay katy-kate, time for bed." I don't even know how long we'd been sitting there. I guess I was tired, but I didn't know from what. Stress maybe. I didn't want to leave Marquette. But that's another blog in itself. Maybe I'll write that later, maybe not.

Change can suck. It's not easy and we can't do it by ourselves. We just have to remember that we're not alone and that no matter what may change around us, the most important things in our hearts stay the same.