Life Lately

Wow. Lots has happened. Nothing much has happened. Anyway, a quick synopsis:

1. China doesn't have reliable formula and I'm not paying double for imports. So, we breastfeed because it was always my intention to do so and because, practically, I don't have another option. And I have had way more than my fair share of clogged ducts and persistent low grade mastitis. Like, it took me three and a half hours and over 50 warm compresses to manhandle and bruise the bejesus out of myself to unclog over 15 ducts the first time. And I've had 7 more bouts (Every 10 days. Reliably.) since then. It's connected to a nasty case of thrush for both me and Violet. Email if anyone wants to talk boobs. I'm sure this will be the legacy of my time nursing. It's been pretty time consuming and a really big energy suck. Like, aside from smiles and playing, pretty all-consuming, neglect the house, eat meals we ordered in because I don't have time to cook time and energy suck.

2. My mom spent a total of 83 days with us. I could not be more grateful for her help managing the house and the dog. More than that, what a gift it was to spend so much amazing time together. The companionship and encouragement working through clogs and baby blues and shouting across the apartment to enjoy Violet's first legitimate smiles together was so special. My dad joined us for a week before they headed back to the States and seeing my parents loving on my daughter was pretty amazing.

3. In a whirlwind of good timing and lucky breaks, we found a new apartment on our first day of searching. We wanted to move out of the Higher Education District (Students! Everywhere!) which is really far from everything we wanted to be near, like friends and any sort of decent restaurants and groceries. The place we found is enormous, right in the location we were targeting, and has a tremendous view of Jinji Lake. The dog loves pacing through all the rooms, the cat is still finding creative hiding spots because there's actually square footage to explore, and we're enjoying the first dishwasher that we've ever had (unheard of over here!). 

4. My kid finally fits into her cloth diapers and, as of four short weeks ago, is out of newborn clothes and into the 0-3 month stuff (she's 3.5 months now). I'm really glad we're using cloth- she's a master at peeing into the fresh diaper before it's even on. And disposables means a lot of waste and cloth means simply adding a wasted diaper to the wash. Getting out of newborn sizes means her adorable rompers fit properly. As do many of the frickin' adorable clothes I purchased second hand from a friend who is having a little boy for #2. 

5. I'm making friends!! Of my very own! It almost always happens that I meet people through Rob and find my place in the group dynamic that way. It's weird and wonderful to make friends without a connection to whatever Rob is doing. 

6. Violet hates being on her belly, so her arms aren't pushing up at tummy time, but good gravy, her little legs and neck are very strong! Play time is so much fun since she loves to give soggy open mouth kisses every time you lean her in for a little smooch. We prop her tiny feet in our laps and let her straighten out and then lean her in again and again for sloppy kisses. She grins like a goon. And it's my favorite.

I miss blogging enormously, but it's just not practical lately. Slow and unreliable laptop (which WILL be replaced before 2014 ends, dangit), full hands, squirmy kid, and managing my shitty milk flow are all factors, but mostly, its just that I can't do diddly on this slow internet. And Instagram doesn't require my VPN, so keep up with us over there (@katebmcclure)! Oh, yeah, and I'm in non-clothes/ no-clothes 80% of my time. So, no blog material to speak of. Shall we try for once a week? Ha! Such lofty goals.

How I Spent July

Well, hello, dear friends! I wrote a little note to you all yesterday to tell you that we've successfully made it to Suzhou, China. Today is our fourth full day in the city and we're finally feeling a little more adjusted to the time zone, have the essentials handled for our new apartment, and have been able to order and accurately pay for several meals. Big successes, all around!

Starting July 30, we moved out of our sweet apartment in Houston and drove our last few belongings that would be placed in storage (favorite dishes, good knives, artwork, etc) along with our four large suitcases for the flight to China in a trailer behind the Jeep. We took two days to get up to Ohio, stopping along the way to spend the night with a dear friend from grade school who is living in Missouri. A visit and the stopping point couldn't have been more refreshing.

We spent three weeks with family and friends in Ohio and used our time to the fullest! Half-way through, my sister was married in a stunning and perfectly simple ceremony along Lake Michigan, and I was so grateful to be able to take part in her bridal shower, last minute preparations, rehearsal dinner, meet and greet time with her husband's family, and a little bit of family vacation time in the rented house after they took off to honeymoon. (I'm pretty sure I owe you all a thorough post, the wedding was beyond perfect).

We spent a rainy Saturday hosting an open house get together and a really great group of friends and extended family made the effort to come spend the day with us to catch up and say farewell for a while. In the age of Facebook, it sure is easy to check in on people, but there's truly nothing like spending time together. Other highlights of our time in Ohio included nephew visits, godson and best friend playtime, acquainting my doggy to life at my parents (we hope to bring both the beagle and our cat over in a few months), visiting and re-getting-to-know-time with my brother, who is now a big bad 18 year old adult, and a haircut from my favorite long-time stylist (nothing drastic, just took 3 scraggly inches off the ends and shaped it up, but I received exactly ZERO good haircuts in 4 years in Houston, so this was a big highlight).

In my focus to spend time with family, I preeetty much spent all three weeks in 6 articles of clothing, not including dresses for special events. Here's a little rundown of how I looked for the entirety of July:

Hope you all have had a good month (I've sort of been reading along with my favorite blogs, but I've been pretty technologically disconnected for a while).

Catch up with you all soon!

Graduation Season and a Sister Visit

Highlights since we last spoke:

Rob's mom and dad were in town for 2 1/2 glorious days to celebrate graduation with us! We ate well, we drank better (his mom is a very discriminating red wine drinker and his dad is a lager buff). We had crazy big storms on Friday morning and overnight, but it cleared up before Saturday morning graduation. We had to muck our way through a swamp to get to seats on the lawn, but the ceremony was outside and the bright blue sky was gorgeous! Rob and his two best buddies got a "Ta Da!" style horn-quintet chord played for each of them during the Friday Doctoral Hooding Ceremony (epic), and that was topped by getting to high-five Neil DeGrasse Tyson, who was the commencement speaker, as they walked across the graduation stage (epic-er).

The three graduates hosted a BBQ in our friends' backyard for only our families and their main composition professors and it was nothing short of the perfect way to celebrate their hard work and accomplishments. They're all such laid back guys and so family oriented; anything else, like a dinner out, wouldn't have felt like the right conclusion to their four years together. Spending time with the other two guys' families was a real treat. Oh, and the plethora of grilled dinner options was pretty much the best.

My sister got engaged a few months ago and they plan to wed before we depart for China. Since they had lived in China and Hong Kong before their move back to the States, they wanted to find a way to incude their friends from all over on their special day, even if they're halfway around the world. So, in the tradition of Chinese FuXi (wished for luck and prosperity), she wants to send out red hanging tags that friends and far away family can write notes on and they'll all be tied to a cord at the wedding. With my arsenal of cutting mats and exacto blades, I volunteered to work on the project. And then she got really sad that she wasn't able to work on wedding projects alongside sisters. So, a ticket was booked with miles and less than 48 hours later, she was hanging out in my living room. I got sister time! I got to spend time talking, giggling, crying, and getting excited about the next year for each of us with my sister standing in the same room as me! And she got over 250 red mat board hangtags to include in mailings to her friends. And, now, I wouldn't be at all shocked if she showed up in Phoenix to work on invitations with our other sister.

My dainty little cat also got hold of a gecko and ate him. That was thrilling.

This week was not at all what I expected, but the mix of good and bad (uugh, work is getting tricky with end-of-the-school-year-grant-reporting) makes me tired and happy.

Whirlwind Week

Pants: Zara...Blouse: thrifted...Cardigan: Target...Shoes: Naturalizer

It's been a wild week and getting more nuts! We sold our Honda Fit on Tuesday (I cried. It was such a good car), and went to see my friend's dress rehearsal of Chinglish, which was an excellent play. A friend from Arizona was in town visiting his parents, so we went to dinner last night and ate a disgusting amount of sushi. We've been packing and selling things like crazy after we posted a bunch of things in the university's online advertisement forum. Poor Rob has spent two days doing nothing but answer questions like "Yes, it's a pretty standard crock pot. No, that tall shelf can't be shortened. Sure, you can come look at it, but it has to be before Friday at 10."

And that's because Friday afternoon is his Doctoral Hooding Ceremony. And Saturday at the buttcrack of dawn is Graduation. Which, by the way, might get rained out, so each candidate only gets two tickets for the Field House, and our group includes a spouse and two parents. (Oh, yeah, and Rob's parents are arriving tonight!) Bromance's family is here too, and his cousin is joining the group, so if we can't weasel our way into any extra tickets, his mom and I are going to spend our morning watching the televised version and drinking mimosas together. I sure would love to see them graduate since I'm so sick of student-hood, but spending time that way isn't a terrible alternative.

So, I'll see you all next week! Maybe. There's been a lot of friend time each evening, lots of arrangements to make, but at least we're getting it all done earlier than later. Phew, I'm overwhelmed and exhausted already!

Beaches and Ballgames

Okay, so last Friday, I got a little ahead of myself when I chattered about the baseball game. And I never posted a photo of the weekend in Galveston. So, here we go.

It's been a yearly tradition to join the head of the composition department for a celebratory weekend away with all the composer students. This year, we all piled into a house south of Galveston. I've ripped on Galveston before for being too touristy and for not having nice beaches. But, dang, if you get out of the city a little ways, the sand is light and fluffy, wide beaches, and quiet. A little overcast and a bit chilly, but we got some good tennis golf going down on the beach, card games and giggling, and tons of opportunity to watch some cut-throat beer pong. I enjoyed myself immensely!

Thursday through Sunday, we were able to score cheap seats to see all four Detroit Tigers' games against the Houston Astros (charmingly known as the Last-ros. They're not very good). Rob has been a Tigers' fan since he was in the womb (no joke, he was born days after the last time they won the World Series) and he and his dad have been long-distance radio and online tracking the seasons together since we moved away from northern Ohio. And the Astros juuuuust switched leagues, so they came to town to play a series for the first time since we've been down south. Needless to say, we were really excited about it!

I spent the beginning of every game hovering around the 3rd base fence, hoping to get my favorite player, Austin Jackson, to sign my ball cap. I'll be honest, I have a big crush on the guy, but it sure doesn't hurt that he's a pretty potent center fielder. Dude can run and can catch some really impressive fly balls.

No luck on a signature, but he did turn and wave once when the kid next to me yelled his name. I would say "Close enough" but I really thought I had a chance at a pitty autograph since I was down there every day. Tough luck. Also, Sunday's game was pitched by Justin Verlander (widely reconized as the best pitcher of any team right now) and we were less than 200 feet from his warm up before the game. Rob did a little fan-boy dance. Can't say I blame him.

This is when he turned to acknowledge the little boy.

Oh, hey, Justin Verlander. No biggie, we're 200 feet away from the MLB MVP of 2012.

Nice sneer.

Other highlights: Bromance came to all four games with us and purchased a refillable popcorn tub for $10 the first game. We refilled that bad boy for free the rest of the series. Brilliant. Little Roo was in town for a visit from L.A. and we got to spend all of Saturday with her. Such a treat! Our buddy also made a strange face in every photo I snapped of him. It's a series of photographs I'm proud to have. Aaaaand, on Sunday's game, Rob was accosted by the Astros' mascot for being a Tigers fan. He was made to tie the mascot's shoe, and then the mascot flipped his Astros jersey over Rob's head to cover the Detroit Tigers "D" shirt. No joke, it was 3 minutes full of pretty absurd interaction with an enormous green muppet. The Little League kids a few rows behind us were cackling, they loved it!

Memphis Meet Up

Nice face, Rob.

My brother is as cool as Elvis in the 50's. Just look at this dude.

Meeting up in Memphis has been an annual highlight-of-the-year for three years now. I love that my family is super independent, travel and live all over the place. But, it sure is nice to have formed a tradition of driving 20 hours round trip to meet up halfway with my parents and brother during our shared birthday season. I hate my birthday, really, its a yearly reminder of another year passing and not having personally accomplished anything of substance on my goal list. No kids. No home ownership. Jobs which might be perfectly interesting, but pay peanuts while I'm the crappiest breadwinner-for-two in the history of time. With Rob in school foreverandeveramen (HA! Can't complain about that one anymore!), I've shoved a lot of intentions to the background.

But, I share the day with this kid. Nope, not kid. He's 18 now. And that makes the day less about marking my next year of perceived inadequacy and more about celebrating family and all of the cool things this guy is going to get himself into for the next year. I love spending the time with the coolest people in my life, I love that, as a newly minted adult, my brother is okay with being a goober with me. I love visits like this where there's no agenda or rush to see and do, that I got the "hang out and play cards, it's time well spent" gene. And I love that I picked a spouse who cheerfully joins in the absurdity.

And, the trip itself: Chilly Saturday. Awesome dive diner breakfast with seriously good hashbrowns. Creeper drive-by of Elvis' house before Graceland. Gibson Guitar factory tour (did you know they have a guy who belt sands the proper shape of the necks by FEEL?!). We aaaalmost went to a monster truck rally at the arena. Central BBQ. Power shopping to properly hipster-ify my brother. Beers, potato chips, Euchre card gaming, long video chats with my sissy in Phoenix. Bright Sunday. Tennis golf in a little park. Lazy lunch of soul food and sweet tea.

Sigh, next time I see my family, brother will be graduating high school. Creepy.

Family Visit

Happy New Year! I can't tell you guys all the goodies yet, but 2013 is going to be a really, really good one!

So, these crazies were here for a nice long weekend. And I'm so grateful for all the family time we were able to pack in. We had a fire in the chiminea and said goodbye to the hideously neon orange tee that was My Guy's first swiped article of clothing from my family (big darn deal to have a gifted hand-me-down shirt from my dad when we were dating in high school) and my family got to know our neighbors and their pups. We went to the Menil Collection and my mom got to ogle the amazing collection of artifacts and art. We ate Lucky Burger (our favorite local burger place where the blue cheese burger is heaven on earth and you can order a side of fried rice and the owner knows us on the phone by voice and asks if we want to do a take-out order of "the usual") and Thai Pepper (where the green curry is magically spicy with a deep, slow heat that makes you sniffle like mad). There was a round of tennis ball golf (played on campus with a cooler of beer in tow). My dad was king of the beautiful sailing shot, perfectly in line with the target, only to be gobbled up by a column, a tree, an archway. I kind of couldn't believe how horrible his luck was in beaming light posts and tree limbs. We even hit up Valhalla, the on-campus grad bar that serves $.95 beers, a weekly tradition for us that I'm so glad my dad got to experience with us. My brother and I got lots of snuggling time in, we snacked our way through the weekend, my dad got to experience lots more of our lives here (mom and brother were here a few summers ago). I'm so happy we spent so much and such good connecting time together.

And, to you all- I haven't been active in the blogging community for the last week or so, but I've been reading all of your goodies and have been really enjoying and have been very inspired by the loving family posts, the joyful celebration posts, the insightful resolution posts, the cheerful and hopeful greeting of the New Year. I treasure this community, I so enjoy and appreciate the friendships I've formed with some of you and look forward to what the next year has in store!

XOXO

Merry, Merry!

Okay, okay, I'm a day late. Merriest Christmas to you all and your darling families! Christmas eve, we did my family's make-a-gift exchange via webcam with the whole group- us in Houston, my sister in Hong Kong, and rest of the gang at my aunt and uncles' in New Mexico! The highlight of the exchange was the gift created by my mom for my dad- over 30 years worth of family funnies and quotes assembled with photos from the family archives in a bound book. She and I had a riot talking through all the goodies over the phone. Then Christmas morning rolled around. We had a lovely day- breakfast (waffles and homemade lemon curd!) with our neighbors, complete with coffee with a dash of cinnamon and the Christmas Story on loop. And an afternoon and evening with our friends, along with so much food we nearly exploded. So much love, time well spent with people near and dear.

We also gave a family photo a shot. A little squirrely, a little dog yawn, a little cat eye contact avoidance. Not as bad as our last Christmas on our own back in 2008- my merry little gift to you all!

Sister Visit

Pants: Gap Slim Cropped...Sweater: Target...Scarf: mystery asian textile...Shoes: Circa Joan and David

Heeey, who has two thumbs and ran out of time to take photos last Friday? This guuuuy. Sorry for the crappy light, terrible background and awful framing, I just really liked the sweater and scarf combo.

So, my sister was here and we packed a lot of good stuff in over the course of a short 18 hour trip. We visited the Orange Show and I was able to introduce her to some of the lovely board members who are currently working on mosaics for the memory wall in a new park next door. We ate at my favorite burger place- Lucky Burger (we didn't decide to go for a side of fried rice, though). We re-switched my silly lamp after the rocker switch crapped out. We left my sickie husband (the clinic doc told him his tests showed that he really, really, really has the flu) to rest and went to friend day where, shocker of not-at-all-shockers, she fit right into the ridiculous humor of our friends. And this morning, we got doughnuts and kolaches, sipped on coffee and caught up, and wrapped up the visit with a trip to the Rothko Chapel and Menil Collection. Goooood use of our time together.

I'm up and away early to help herd kiddos in and out of the University's Opera House for a special field trip! It's so much fun to see them all excited and engaged by a pretty darn "traditional" art form. Keep your fingers crossed that I get a few good photos!

Family Time

I have no photo to post today... It's been a pretty packed week, my husband came back to town sick and pathetic, I strolled into work and faced a stolen laptop incident (not any of our active work computers, thank goodness, just an older laptop in need of repair... the criminal is gonna be mad when they find out). And I spent my evening avoiding my laptop, eating crappy lo mein and snuggling my blanket-wrapped dog, so there's that excuse. Anyway, I'm also excited and distracted since my sister is coming into town tomorrow! From Phoenix! The only loser member of my family who still hasn't seen our Houston home in 3 1/2 years! (Of course, this is giving my dad credit for his Sunday at 5:00 pm arrival and Monday at 8:30 departure a few years ago... we still managed to do dinner with my Guy and Bromance and see a friend's string quartet play at a gallery... not bad for an 18 hour visit.) We're going to eat at all my favorite restaurants, walk around our neighborhood, hang out with our Houston buddies since there's already a friend day Saturday going on. So, this sister visit comes right on the heels of my guy getting to see my other sister. So we can giggle and see pictures and be jealous of that visit together. Aaaand, my mom called earlier in the week to inform me that their hotel is booked- they are officially spending three nights in town after Christmas on their way back from NM to OH. Big, fat, family win this month.

What a strange week it's been. I'm so glad to have my Guy home, even if he's a snot faucet. I don't usually miss him when he's on trips, but this one was different. I'm just happy to jump out of that funk with a sister visit.

Back in Town and Linking Up

Jeans: Gap Always Skinny...Tank: J Crew...Cardigan: Target...Scarf: thrifted...Shoes: Nine West Outlet...Earrings: Banana Republic

Three points of business today:
1. Marion is hosting another Trend of the Month Link Up: Pattern Mixing. Participate? Yes, please. (In stripes, floral and leopard. I'm clearly an overachiever.) And you can join, too! Links can get added for several more days.
2. Elaine put out a call on Twitter a while ago for guest posts... and I can't believe she let me have a go at it! What an honor to be in the Clothed Much guest line-up! Take a peek at my tips and tricks for dressing in high heat and humidity.
3. Pleated Poppy What I Wore Wednesday... of course I'm on board!

Okay, 4. Just thought I should share that I cried like a faucet on five separate occasions yesterday while I said goodbye to my family. And I'm not even ashamed. My nose was still puffy and red even after I made my way through security after holding my dad's hand for a while in the ticketing area. And then I cried again in the bathroom. My family is awesome, I miss them all like mad and 5 days wasn't enough real time together. It was amazingly well-used time together, but it wasn't enough.

So, a here's a mish-mash of photos from the family weekend.

MIA... For Two Darn Good Reasons

I'm still up in Ohio for the family visit and parties (I've consumed my weight in cheeseball and crackers, fruit salad, shrimp cocktail... I don't need to tell you about the rest) and we are packing really meaningful visits in with aunts and uncles and the couple of friends who are probably stuck with us for life.

There's also some of this going on, which is awesome:

The Big Darn Deal of today is that style chameleon Sarah over at Just Take a Bow is in the midst of presenting a series she's calling "JTAB University" and asked me to contribute a "lesson" on Effortless Style. Aaaand it's probably not what you were expecting. If you aren't already following her blog, you'll really be missing out on 1. A consistantly fun stream of stories 2. An enormously helpful series to help guide your wardrobe and styling habits and 3. Drool-worthy daily looks ranging from Glam Rocker to Thrift Goddess Chic. Yeah, it's really good stuff.

So, come on over and check out my little nuggets of fashion wisdom (that's the most ridiculous thing I've written in a long time) and join Sarah for the of the series (Don't miss her shopping tips, they were absolutely amazing and endlessly helpful. And Color Theory?! A girl after my own heart). And pleeeeease keep checking in on this amazing resource because a few of our favorite bloggers are already tapped to contribute, too (I'm looking at you, Audrey and Kristine... Can't wait!).

Road Trip, the Second Half

In chronological order: 

Our 5-extra-hours-but-totally-worth-it detour to Yellowstone, including Old Faithful and Prismatic Geyser Springs (mineral/ microbe affected to render the bright turquoise and electric orange). A little bonus: we saw a bison on the roadside and jury's out on whether or not we saw a pair of moose or deer in a far field.

A feet-up view of Boss Lady's house up in northern Idaho. No wonder she spends summers up there. There's nothing better than good, usable outdoor space. (PS- my mom and I play a game where we snap a photo of our Chaco sandals in front of the awesome place we are and send it back and forth. I'm winning so far, but that's only because my mom is forgetful.)

Day Trip: We came across a roadside stop that featured a view of the Kootenai Falls and a Swinging Bridge suspended 50+ feet above them. My Guy, the music nerd we all know and love recorded the water for possible use in an electro-acoustic musical composition. I jumped perilously on the bridge. Old growth cedar grove with absolutely amazing giant cedars. (They're over 400 years old!) Beautiful scenery and wonderful exploring with my husband. 

We flew home yesterday and specifically booked the long inconvenient layover in Phoenix juuust in case my sister was free to leave work a touch early and meet up. She did. And we got to see the house she bought last fall and the pup she adopted shortly after. I can't even tell you how full my heart is because we got this visit in.