Phew!

The whirlwind of changes has officially descended on upon our short branch of the McCullough family; though we're beginning to see the eye of the storm. Where to begin!?

First, I'll apologize. I'm currently working on pirated internet and connection is 'poor' at best, so I'm not able to upload pictures (Oooo, I'm such a bad kid!!).

This past Monday, on Memorial Day, John graduated from Yale. It was awesome, and I'm so proud I don't really know how to describe it. I cried like a little girl! (Twice!) It by no means was the easiest 3 years of my life; though it wasn't as bad as I was warned it would be by the people I met when I first got here. He worked really hard for this, and it shows. John was honored with the Edward C. Cole Memorial Award, voted on by his fellow students; and the 8 members of his class were all recipients of the Pierre Andre Salim Memorial Award in memory of our friend who passed away in Oct 2007. I PROMISE that later this week there'll be a post dedicated to graduation (with pictures).

There was little time to relax and celebrate, though, because John had a thesis to finish and we had to MOVE! That's right - is our copious free time this week we had to pack the rest of our apartment, clean like fiends, and rally the troops to carry our stuff.

But first: my bowling team won the league championships! Yippie (I know...big deal!). So I HAD to take time off from packing and working and celebrating to go the the big fancy award ceremony (not really) and get my championship patch!?! PATCH!? Where the little trophy with the man on it? Whatever - no time to complain, I have a move to do!

Back to our regularly schedule hectic life. Yesterday morning we started around 9 and had a great group of friends show up. It was warm and sunny and couldn't have been a better day for a move - John even described yesterday as "fun". We had plenty of time, and had the truck back by 2!

So here's the plan: we're moving to NYC in 2 months, so we're not unpacking most of our stuff here; and I also have 2 friends storing random stuff at the beach house as well - which means everyone was worried that we wouldn't all fit. Well, good new. Everything fit and we only have 5 or 6 boxes left to unpack and we're DONE until August.

PHEW!

It's been a crazy week. Wrap into that a little cold and a touch of heat stroke yesterday and I feel like I just won a prize fight; but the point is we WON the fight. The beach house is AWESOME (though Sammy and Stella might disagree with me at the moment). The kitchen is huge, the living room big enough for a double twister game (almost), and the best part? Long Island Sound is less than 1/2 a block away! When I get out of my car I smell salt water. I went down to the beach for a walk today and there was no one else there. :D

John leaves in 2 weeks for the summer; but we're going to enjoy our time here together while we can... and then in a few weeks the storm picks up again when we start looking for our place in NYC! For now, a little break from the crazy to enjoy the sea gulls and having a kitchen big enough to cook in.

Congratulations Adam!

We've headed north this weekend to join John's family in celebration. Adam, John's younger brother, graduated yesterday from Sterling College; one of the smallest colleges in the country. They have a working farm, draft horses, graduated 14 people this year, and they promote an amazing sense of community. Everywhere we went yesterday we heard how much they love Adam and what a contribution he's been to their lives. It was great to hear (especially since we feel the same way!)



We had a great day - it started off with lunch in the dining hall/meeting room/biggest space on campus. Unfortunately, it started to pour and most of the days activities were outside. What to do? Why, a Ping Pong tournament, of course!



The rain cleared and we thought we were safe. We headed down to the barns and half-way there the sky opened up again. We dove for cover in a shed and listened as the hail slammed down on the tin roof. Finally it seemed like it would hold off for a bit and we made our way to the farm.

Being spring, there were a lot of baby animals; despite our efforts, Mary T and I couldn't convince her dad that he should want a baby goat. Then Adam introduced us to the draft horses.


Commencement was a lot of fun, and a great celebration of how different this place is from your average college. I spent the day feeling like I understood why Adam loved this place so much - they're his kind of people.

Adam was elected by the Class of 2009 to be one of two speakers at graduation. His speech was fantastic, and so ADAM! I did my best to capture it on my dinky camera (sorry for the pauses, it was saving...) and you can hear his own words about why he loves Sterling.

The Sterling College Class of 2009

Bought Boxes Yesterday

The packing frenzy is off to a slow start in the McCullough household. We're a whopping 5 boxes in and it's mostly books. For our first 3 years together we moved a LOT: the longest we were in one place was 9 months during the school year and the shortest was a matter of weeks while company housing was being prepped at a theatre. So it's a little odd to have been here for 2 years and now have to un-trench ourselves.

I'm also enjoying the realization that I've been making little promises to myself about this move. I'll sort stuff and actually label all the boxes. I'll throw things away. Man - I never knew throwing stuff away could feel so GOOD! Being that we've been together since both of us lived in dorm rooms we have a lot of junk that was collected as we got our first few apartments: shelves from good will, a shoddy DVD rack we use to hold plays, a mix of chairs and other furniture hand-me-downs. Now that we'll both have jobs and we're planning on buying real big-kid furnishings they're all going to Mr. Dumpster.

My favorite so far was heaving the bookshelf. It's been broken for 3 years and the top warped from a bad plant-sitter while we were on our honeymoon. Ugly doesn't being to describe. All of its contents went into a box and it went away - and I felt a great sense of relief and accomplishment:

This is really happening. We're really going to move to New York. I'm really going to work from home and take some acting classes. John's really going to have his dream job.

I'd forgotten in our 2 years in this place and our 3 years in New Haven, that moving isn't just about taking your stuff somewhere else. It's about new beginnings and possibilities. And I am so completely ready for ours.