Hey, guys. Another week… Another busy week has passed, and we’re finally up to the point where things start getting crazy around here. It has just hit me that the next time I blog I will have ended my job here in Columbus, traveled to Europe for the first time, moved to D.C., and started a new job a long time in the making. Consider this my apology in advance for not blogging the next three Saturdays; as you can see, I’ll be a tad busy. ;) (I’ll still try to blog irregularly and keep you all updated. :)

This last week has been hectic in its own way. I had a work collaborator fly into town and stay with me in my apartment. We had a very productive week at work, hopefully turning out a few papers within the next few months. I wish I could contribute more to them- I’m excited to see how they turn out! Plus, I’ve made a new friend. She was very sweet, and I am glad we got to spend a lot of time together.

Thankfully, it appears that I am not the world’s worst hostess, as I did not pass on the terrible viral sickness I am still suffering from to my visitor! However, being sick this full week has not been a pleasant experience- especially with long practices for England. I lost my voice completely on Wednesday, but praise God that it has recovered enough for me to sing at our last concert tomorrow. I am super excited and hope that everything goes smoothly tomorrow! As long as I have a voice that stays in tune and on pitch, I’m happy. :)

After tomorrow, things turn into a blur of packing, traveling, touring, singing, more traveling, packing, moving, unpacking, and working. Prayers and encouragement notes are much appreciated over the next 3 weeks! Going into this, I’ve had a few personal thoughts and goals:

• I want to be open to growth as a person- to not be afraid to try new things, to meet new people, to strive for new goals and to dream new dreams I’ve never thought possible. I want to be open to change- and actually do it.

• Still with that, I want to remain firmly grounded as me. There’s a quote out there that says that you can be a good version of other people, but you can only be the best at being you. I want to be the best me that I can be.
  

• I want to continue to be strong in my faith and continue to grow into a deeper knowledge of God. I pray that my future will include a wonderful church family that leads us together into a greater love for God.

• I want to continue the close relationships that I have made over the last 8 years. I want to keep being a close friend of you guys, reach back out to my UK friends, continue keeping in touch with my Vandy friends, further my Columbus relationships, and be open to new friends in DC. I love all of you dearly, and I don’t ever see my life without you all in it.

• Lastly, and somewhat controversially, I don’t want to lose my faith in people. I know this partially comes from me being an optimist, but I do truly believe that we need to see the good in others. Yes, people are human, and we all fail miserably at times, and we hurt those around us purposefully and unknowingly.  Even through all of that, past the lies, deceit, pain, and ugliness… There must be something good. Why? Because God originally created us to do his work, and he saw that it was good.
  I love that good, and I am excited to work toward that good in Washington, D.C.

Here’s to the next 3 weeks- May they be as wonderful for you as they will be for me.

With much love,

Amber

NeedToBreathe – “Feet, Don’t Fail Me Now”

Mumford & Sons – “The Wolf”

Hey guys! Rachael here with your kinda weekly update with what's happening in BG/my life! Over the Fourth of July weekend, I got to go visit John in Alabama and while there, we when to Mellow Mushroom with some of his commanding officers and co-workers/other army people that he works with. That was fun and not as awkward as I thought it would be-- yay! I think one of John's favorite things to do is to introduce me as his girlfriend; and for the second time I heard, "we've heard all about you" what are you saying about me John? What things??
Anyway. From AL, we then went down to Gulf Shores to celebrate the 4th and got to go swimming in the ocean which was more fun then I remembered it being. PSA: John's a derp. I also drank a bucket of alcohol. Like, I ordered a drink thinking that it was just a cute name, but no. They brought out a kid-sized bucket--the kind you make sandcastles out of--and it was filled with an alcoholic beverage. I'm just a but proud to say that John only helped me out a little. :P

When I got back from that trip on Tuesday, I had absolutely nothing to do. The only time I was scheduled to work was the following Monday (and even that day I didn't work because they closed for inventory), so I woke up, pinned on Pinterest, watched the tiniest bit of Downtown Abbey with my dad (who's been binge watching it for the past week), and played one of my older brother's old computer game.
After a week of that, I realized Amy should be back, so I messaged her with WeChat and then she called, and then I was able to see her/hang out with her most of this Monday. According to her, she got back around midnight Friday night and spent the next couple of days sleeping and readjusting to this timezone.
So things have been picking up around here: Amy's back, I'm scheduled to work more days in the next 2 weeks, and today I just interviewed for a (paid) internship position at Fruit of the Loom. Weee!

 

As you guys can probably guess, there’s a lot going on in my life right now, so this will be just a quick “what’s going on in the life of Amber” or WGOItLoA blog. Let’s begin!

1)      Choir rehearsals! Lots of ‘em! I’m practicing every day to get ready for England and to build up my vocal stamina. We’re doing 8 different services over the course of 6 days, with 3 on the last Sunday there. We have practice twice a week, and we are giving a final “Farewell” concert the Sunday before we leave. It’s a good thing I love to sing!

2)      ENGLAND! I’m getting quite excited to travel across the pond. :D It should make for a great summer vacation. Our main stops will be Cambridge, Lincoln, and York. York is the one that I may be the most excited about. I had a friend from church show me pictures of the cathedral there, and oh my goodness it’s GORGEOUS. :D

3)      Moving! I have secured an apartment outside of DC in VA and am working on organizing movers (not paying for them = Amazing). Besides that, I’ve got an idea of what renters insurance to buy, what cable service to contact, and the dates I’m moving. Things should settle more in the next week or so.

4)      Furniture…. I BOUGHT A COUCH! I FEEL SO GROWN UP! ;) Granted, I bought it now, so I have to move it, but it should be worth it (got it on sale on Wayfair). <--- Look! Pretty (and formal, but why can’t a 22yo own a pretty/formal/comfy couch? :)

5)      Work! I have about a week and a half left of work, but nothing is slowing yet. We’re having a visiting postdoc come and do some work in our lab this week, and I’m hosting her in my apartment. Hopefully everything will go smoothly. She seems nice :)

That’s the quick update… I’ve got to go start cleaning, lol. Love you guys! Have a great week!

 Amber

PS- I ordered the Hank Green Cover Album in the 2014 P4A and just got it a couple days ago… This is on it, and it is fantasticly Hank, especially the rap part. Plus, he covers “Wrecking Ball,” and it’s hilarious. As soon as someone puts it up on YouTube, I’ll share. :)

“Shake It Off” – Hank Green

Hello from Question Thursday! All the questions come from Amber, so thanks, Twin!


Tell us more about the Workaway program- how do you get matched with a family/choose a family and contact them about what they want you to do?

            Basically, how it works: You sign up and create a profile on workaway.info telling a bit about yourself and maybe what sort of work you’re interested in. You pay for a year/ 2 year subscription, which is about $30 (a great value, because that’s pretty much the cost of one or two nights in a hostel, so it really pays for itself). So once you’ve joined the site and created your profile, hosts can contact you or you can contact them. You can look through the site without a subscription, but you can’t contact anyone unless you’ve signed up. The way this one (our first workaway!) worked was that the mother of the family contacted us to see if we’d like to come. Others, we’ve sent the first message. It all depends on what you’re looking for and what they’re looking for. Some apparently have really intense skype interviews and applications, but we got lucky enough to be offered a great placement with a great family without even asking! So, as far as getting matched with a family: there’s no matchmaker. It’s just who you or the families want to reach out to. Then you can communicate with them over emails/on-site messaging to learn more about the work that they want you to do and the logistics of getting to their house and etc. Because they obviously don’t list the address on the site for security reasons, although most of the hosts’ profiles do include pictures and detailed descriptions of the work required. I’m pretty sure many hosts are more than happy to pick you up from the nearest bus or train station like ours did. They’re super nice!

What sorts of jobs have you all been doing- setting up for/attending an opera concert sounds really cool!

Our first week was mostly spent gardening, i.e. pulling weeds in a really big, really cool walled garden. If you’ve read The Secret Garden, just imagine that. Okay, maybe a little less whimsical, but still very cool. And speaking of “cool,” it’s actually been really nice out, so it wasn’t hot and miserable to be outside among the plants. However, we did run into some adversaries like stinging nettles. They feel like a jellyfish sting, only it kind of lasts several hours. It doesn’t hurt a lot…but it hurts enough. After a bit it just tingles. They’re harmless, really, but they were EVERYWHERE! Waiting to jump out at you when you least expect them!

After a few days of gardening, we finished the walled garden and the greenhouse and hauled the weeds away in a wheelbarrow. Then we cleaned and painted a bathroom and hallway and a few doors, which has taken about a week and a half. It’s looking really nice. Both the garden and the painting have given us a nice sense of accomplishment. It’s great to see the before and after of something you’ve worked really hard on, and since my dad is a painter, I feel extra cool to be like him.

But possibly my favorite job has been cleaning out the river. So there’s a nice little mill river thing that runs alongside the house and flows into a larger river somewhere. But there are tons of weeds and muck in it that must be cleaned out each year…which means that I got to get into knee deep water and mud and get all squishy and dirty and rake out the mud and junk. I feel down on my butt a couple of times, which was hilarious because I was trying so hard to keep my balance despite the mud sucking me in like quicksand. Basically, I enjoy any task where I get to play in water and relive my early days of making mud pies.

Then, of course, my other favorite job was setting up for the opera and serving drinks at the interval. It was an opera and musical theatre concert performed by a lovely singer named Norah King, and all the proceeds went to the local parish church. It was a really nice day (such a blessing between two rainy days!), so the concert was outside on a raised area of the ground with a stone wall along it, which is apparently called a ha-ha! To set up, we took bales of straw and arranged them in rows, colosseum-style. It was funny because when we came back later for the concert, people had started filling in seats from the back, just like in church, as the parson joked.

I'm also incredibly jealous you've been horseback riding over there... Tell me more about the horses!

            There are four horses: Kruger, Lily, Charlie, and Cheeky (who’s really only a pony and looks like a majestic baby unicorn). Only she’s NOT a majestic baby unicorn because if she were, I would be able to tame her! Alas, having no horseshoes, she refused to walk on the gravel path, thus running me into every thorn bush and tree along the sides, or into the crops. Not that it wasn’t a fun ride. But Cheeky was, well, cheeky. Also, we had a grand adventure where 3 out of 4 riders ended up falling off our horses!

Lastly, what have you all been taking with you from place to place- luggage wise? Has it been hard to commute, or has it gotten easier?

            What have we been taking? EVERYTHING. We packed for a year. EVERYTHING. Giant flippin’ suitcases. EVERYTHING. AWFUL! Luckily, tomorrow we’re going to the post office to mail a suitcase home full of half of my stuff and half of Jill’s. It will be a glorious day when I rid myself of Bilbo Baggins (That’s the name of my suitcase. Get it? BAGgins? Cause it’s a suitcase. And because it reluctantly comes along on adventures). I’ve been fortunate enough to have some courteous human beings help me carry the suitcase up various staircases along the way, but on the whole, it’s been a lot to lug around. I’m thrilled to see it go. Also, Jill’s suitcase, named ‘Taire (after Grantaire, but also because its handle was torn), was broken from the beginning. She got a nice new one, which she christened Thor, because it is worthy. Ah, suitcases…. I predict that travel will be much happier without them.

And is there anything I can bring you from the USA? :)


NO! NO MORE! PLEASE NO MORE STUFF! Hehe, but thanks for offering! No, wait, I lied! Kraft Mac & Cheese! My precious….Oh, and maybe a Snickers and/or a KitKat. They have them here, but we need to compare them, because they somehow taste different from American ones.


(PS: was that enough questions?)

Yes, thank you, Amber! <3

Until next week,
A.B.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a young woman residing in a large, ivy-covered 18th century farmhouse with a family who discuss laws of succession and the proper way to cross one’s ankles MUST be living in a period drama! Well, call me Lizzie Bennett because here I am!

For those of you who are understandably confused, allow me to explain. There’s a site called Workaway where you can sign up to be able to contact families looking for workers. You stay in a home for free and get meals for free in exchange for doing odd jobs around the house: jobs, in our case, like painting and gardening. This is our first Workaway experience, and it’s amazing so far! Like I said, we’re staying in a house that’s been in the family since 1775, I believe. It’s huge and beautiful, with miles of farmland to roam around on.

The family is magnificent. There’s the father: a farmer who’s witty and feisty and has an opinion on everything, often with sweeping generalizations. He’s straight out of a Jane Austen novel. There’s the mother, an artist who pulls off a bohemian-yet-upper-class look. Picture Meryl Streep with hair that’s more golden. She’s fun, easy going, and classy. There’s the older son, who farms along with his father. He’s cheery and helpful and makes a person feel at ease in his presence. Then there’s the younger son, nicknamed Bear (funny because there are two dogs around here also named Bear, which probably gets confusing). He’s intelligent and a talented musician, about to start school at Trinity College. The family wouldn’t be complete without their three energetic dogs who never hesitate to jump up in the nearest available lap! They’re a wonderful bunch!

The house and the farm are beautiful, and we’ve been introduced to lots of family members. We’ve been to the family parish church which meets only every fortnight. We had tea in the drawing room at a cousin’s lovely estate. We set up for, then attended, an opera concert outdoors at the same cousin’s farm. We’ve been horseback riding and fallen off runaway horses. We’ve played table tennis by the light of the setting sun. We’ve cleaned out the river/moat that flows around the mill house and gotten acquainted with a lovely Spanish girl who’s also staying in the house. It has been, without a doubt, one of the best choices we’ve made on this trip, and I’m looking forward to another week here.

Now, to catch you all up on where we were leading up to this, here’s a little rundown of our previous travels:

1.       England and Wales with our friends Suzanne and Daniel and their three sons.

2.       A week in London

3.       Dublin, Ireland…for like a month…sort of working, sort of not…along with a day trip to Galway and the Cliffs of Moher with Shelby

4.       A quick few days in Cork, Ireland

5.       Edinburgh, Scotland---which is AMAZING!

6.       Back to London for a weekend of theatre ;)

7.       Amsterdam with Shelby. BOOM! CLAP!

8.       Back to London, but only for one night, then a long day/night of traveling by bus all the way to Dublin. Then to Carlow, Ireland, where we were met by our Workaway family! And here we are!

9.       Next up: house sitting near Brighton, England with a cat! J

10.   And then…Going to Lincoln, England to see Amber and her fantabulous choir perform in Amber’s debut trip to England!!!! :D

After that, literally God only knows! Jill’s mom is coming for a European adventure in August. Aside from that, we’re just figuring it out as we go along. Sorry I haven’t blogged in so long. I really am. There’s no excuse; I’ve neglected you all. But hopefully I’ll be back on schedule this Thursday. As such, I’d love it if you’d fill the comments with any questions you may have about anything and everything on this entire trip or about any of the locations we’ve visited. Please, please, please ask away! I know we haven’t given you much consistent blogging to go on, so now’s your chance to satisfy your curiosity (plus, having questions to answer will help me have something to blog about).

I really love you guys, and it’s been great reading your blogs! Talk to you on Thursday!

-Anna Beth

Hi everyone!

As it has been quite a busy week (and busy holiday weekend currently), I am not doing a full blog post, but I did want to wish everyone a Happy Independence Day!! Hope you're enjoying celebrating on and off the continent :D

Love and fireworks,
Amber

PS- This is the song and performance that I always think of on Independence Day... Ah, American Idol. How I miss the older-you.

Carrie Underwood- "Independence Day"

So, recently I watched this Vlogbrothers video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfchH1a6XMU in which Hank shared fifteen (though at my count 14) of his favorite feelings in the world. And they were interesting, and I agreed with him, but at the end of the video he said this:

“John, I'm gonna be honest, I found this video surprisingly hard to make. Even in a little corner of the internet that we inhabit that is a very open and honest and authentic place. It was difficult to just share things that I like. I don't know why. If it's self-consciousness or if it's like I'm afraid that I'm bragging that I, like, enjoy things in my life, which is, why would you feel that way? I don't know. Apparently it's more fun to complain than to appreciate but probably not better for a person or the world in the long term.”

This has been nagging at me for a while. Why is it, exactly, that we find it easier to complain about the stuff that is bothering us than to share the happiness that we feel with others? So here’s my experiment, sharing 15 of my most favorite feelings, and we’ll see how I feel after.

• When you slowly wake up in the morning without an alarm clock, sunshine softly hitting your face, birds singing outside, and you know- for a brief instant- that you couldn’t be happier than that moment

• When suddenly things just start going right for you- Ex: Within the last couple of weeks, a stranger gave me a bouquet of roses, I found out I’m moving to DC, and I went to Nashville last weekend for a wedding of one of my favorite people from college. All of these things have contributed to a pleasant happy buzzy feeling that has lifted me up for days. :)

• When two people are so connected that you feel like you could be the same person

• When you’re trying to solve a really hard problem, and you have to try lots of different solutions and think critically about how you can solve it- and then you solve it and you get the satisfaction of knowing you figured out a pretty cool solution. I love that.

• That feeling when you’ve just told someone you love them and like them and they say that they love you and they like you too

• When you’re reading a book and you’re so into it that you feel like you are the main character

• Seeing a close friend after being apart for a really long time and reconnecting like the time and space apart never happened

• Being happy just because your friend is happy. :) I think that is a really undervalued feeling- rejoicing because someone else had something go right for them.

• Closely related to ^^, being happy for no reason at all

• Getting a secret out in the open that you’ve deliberately hidden for a long time and you can finally share it with someone and they tell you that they love you and that you’re ok- it’s normal to make mistakes and mess up and be human

• When someone tells you that they find you attractive- physically or mentally or in whatever fashion- but just that they are attracted to you in that way. That is a pretty powerful feeling.

• Smelling the first spring flowers that pop out of seemingly nowhere. They’re always so sweet.

• Smelling my shower gel (Man, I love The Body Shop. I strongly endorse their Lemon and Strawberry flavors.)

• Starting a new book. I just get so excited to go into another world and escape my reality for a little while :) [A+++++ rating this week for The Selection series by Kiera Cass- I just read the first trilogy of them in about ~12 hours and loved them so much! Many thanks to Sara for the recommendation!]

• Moving to a new place and seeing who you become in a new situation. I’ve now had a little bit of experience with this, and while there are aspects I dread, I love the idea that- if I wanted- I could reinvent myself a la Gatsby and become a new version of me. I do think I become a new version of me everytime I move and meet new people- but isn’t that what part of what life’s about? Discovering all the sharp edges, the hidden scary bits, the beautiful pieces, and the deep intense feelings that all make you you?
  
  

Result: So, at least for me, this wasn’t difficult at all. I liked sharing these feelings with you guys… and even if we had the general public reading our blogs, I wouldn’t care about them learning this stuff about me. Like I said, I feel like this is what being human is about… Of course, I am a generally optimistic and happy, energetic person. What do you guys think? Is it harder for you to share the good rather than the bad?

With love and happy feelings,

Amber

PS- As I mentioned above, I’m really sorry I didn’t get to blog last week… Going down to Nashville on Saturday and then back up Sunday kind of consumed my life. ;) But with lots of fun!

Mumford & Sons- “Believe”

And only one other person has posted anything in the past week. Like seriously! I thought the point of the blog was to keep in touch with everyone since we’re all in so many different places. So how ironic is it when the two people who are still in Kentucky are the only ones posting anything…

But I digress. In actually important news, the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage throughout the country today, which is, you know, preeeeetty cool. I’ve never really understood why it has to be such a big deal- if you do have religious oppositions to marrying someone of the same sex, just don’t do it. But don’t force your beliefs onto other people- there’s nothing either biblical or Christ-like about that.

The rest of today’s news was less cheerful- a memorial service for one of the murdered church members in Charleston and three terrorist attacks were a sobering reminder that much is still wrong with the world.

Then JKR announced that a new play, “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” is going to come out in London next summer, which is exciting. Jake and I kinda really hope we can go as part of our honeymoon, but we shall see.

Aaaaand that’s all I have to say about that. I would love to hear from more of you this week! You know, about your lives, and adventures, and feelings, and stuff. Sooooo…

Bye now!

Love,

Sara

Hiya guys!
Just a few things of note have happened in the past week for me. I turned 23 and spent most of my birthday weekend with John who came back to KY on Friday and left again on Monday. Because my dad was out of town for my birt--I mean, Father's Day, we're going out to eat tomorrow for a belated Father's Day celebration. My other big news is that KF sent me a job offer on Friday as well....but I turned them down. I made two pro/con lists: one for going to NY and another for staying in BG and it was pretty favorable toward staying here...even though NY Fashion Week was a hefty point in NYC's favor.

Other things that happened include: joining a gym (*high fives Sara* look at us being all healthy-ish), starting work at Bluetique, trying not to buy all the clothes while working, and starting season 4 of Grey's Anatomy (so many episodes...).

Hello from home! I totally meant to blog last week, but you can rest assured that it wouldn’t have been a very interesting one at least- I slept in every morning, read an entire series a book a day, and joined a gym with Jake. The book series was The Selection, which I’ve actually wanted to read for a couple of years now, and it was really good- I couldn’t put it down- but there were also a couple of things that frustrated me, but I won’t go into detail since I don’t know how many of you have read/are planning to read it.

The gym actually hasn’t been so bad. It’s even kind of fun! And, you know, healthy, so that’s always good. But this week I haven’t really been to the gym- I’ve been visiting home, as I mentioned. I’ve been hanging out with my family as well as some of Jake’s friends. Two of them have babies, and one has a toddler, so you can imagine how much fun I’ve been having :) Obviously, I also enjoy spending time with Jake’s friends. Butttttt babies! Oh my goodness you guys, so cute!

And you should already know that I’ve been doing some shopping this week as well. The wedding is still a year away, so I’m not really planning to buy a dress anytime soon, but it was still really fun to start trying them on and getting an idea of what I liked. It would have been nice if you all were around to come with me, but as it is my mom, sister, and mamaw all came, and we had a good girls’ day out :) There are only a couple of dress shops here in town, but we’re planning to take a couple of trips, maybe later in the summer, to look elsewhere, so be on the lookout!

So that’s my boring life :) I hope everyone’s enjoying themselves, and I’ll talk to you all next week.

Love,

Sara