That Time We Lived in Louisville

 It's almost been three years since we moved to Louisville! 😭 Here's some of the things that have happened since we returned to Michigan. We bought a house! It's mostly great! I realized how much I freaking love buffets. I miss them. I miss them so much. I temporarily left Atria, worked at a different senior living place doing activities instead of care, then returned to Atria to do activities instead of care.  I started running. Weird, right? Iris is exactly the same. Joey's been working from home since March 2020. I started watching every Tom Hanks movie in order and have been documenting his yelling in each movie here: Tea and Tom Hanks Joey needs a liver transplant and I'm going to start documenting it here: Toss a Coin For a Liver

2020 has been one heck of a year. Everything feels wonky and I vacillate between wanting to scream at everyone and wanting to sob every couple hours. However, I would like to draw your attention to a man who deserves some recognition for the perseverance he's exhibited over the last several months. Some of you have been loyal to him for many years. Others have only recently been introduced, but are quickly impressed with the way he thinks. Recently, he has faced seemingly insurmountable obstacles. He's had to deal with ridiculous outbursts of uncontrolled emotion. He's had to fix so many things and it feels like the list just keeps on growing. Personally, the more I learn about him, the more I'm impressed and I find myself wondering if there's anything he can't do. So what if he sometimes slurs his words?  He's my husband and he's all the best parts of Tim Taylor and Al Borland combined. 😎💜

Note from 12.28.19 I've been dreading posting this final entry for fear of coming across as a complaining, Michigan-hating whiner (which is mostly accurate), but  a surprising number of people --and not just people related to me-- have asked when the next post is coming out. Thank you for your kindness and encouragement as I document this weird, fun 11 months in Louisville. I wrote the blog primarily for me, but I'm glad it's been enjoyed by other people too. August 8 - September 30 (and a bonus summary to wrap it all up) The Facts The last several months have gone by unbelievably fast. While in Louisville, I kept excellent records of places we went and thoughts I had in a note app on my phone. Mid-August meant starting to plan for our next step (our default plan): returning to Michigan. Finding an apartment, putting in my notice at work, starting to repack, and rushing through the rest of our Kentucky bucket list took up a lot of my detailed note taking time. Here...

June 15 - August 7 The Facts Last post I mentioned working towards earning an Urban Bourbon T shirt (by visiting a certain amount of local eateries). I'm absurdly delighted to report that I not only earned that one, but I also got one from Red Cross for donating platelets and have another one on the way from Trek for completing 100 miles on my bike in July. I find t-shirts incredibly motivating. I tried Kroger's grocery pick up for the first time and loved it enough to do it again. It's helped me pinpoint exactly what it is about grocery shopping that I hate. Turns out, it's physically going into the store that ruins it for me. I enjoy putting together the list and scouring for coupons. I know that's a mundane update, but THIS IS WHERE I'M AT IN MY LIFE. Also, Joey and I were disproportionately excited about adding a trailer hitch to my car and buying a new bike rack for it. We celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary on June 21 by going to a fancy Italian ...

May 2 - June 14 The Facts The Kentucky Derby has come and gone. We "celebrated" it by seeing Avengers: Endgame and eating at Taziki's Mediterranean Cafe . The jokes on us though because we ended up missing the most controversial Derby in history. We did try a traditional derby food (the Atria version of Kentucky Hot Brown ). Also, Derby weekend started the trend of Joey taking me to work on the weekends I'm scheduled. It's nice for me to be chauffeured and nice for him to have a reason to leave work at a specific time if he gets called in. "Uh yeah... I'd love to help you test that thing we already did 700 times, but I gotta pick up my wife at 3:00 so... you might have to do it without me." My mom graduated! We did a quick trip to Grand Rapids to watch her commencement. It's never long enough, but it was a fun day and a half. She worked hard on her classes (and was the textbook example of an overachiever) and I'm very proud. ...

March 9- May 1 *Who knew you could celebrate a 2 minute event for 3 weeks? It's Derby season, ya'll! The Facts Ashley came to visit! I  knew we were going to have a good time based on the music that was playing ("Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley and "All Star" by Smash Mouth in case anyone was wondering) when we got brunch at Wild Eggs (our fave). We checked out a thrift store and while there magically found a book I'd been on the hunt for. The exchange went a little something like this-- Katie: *rambles on and on about my technique for scouring used book stores* Ashley: *listens patiently* Katie: I really wish I could find the fourth book of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series. I feel like it's not popular enough to be anywhere and I'll just have to buy a used copy online or something. *about 30 seconds go by* Ashley: You mean this one? *holds up THE EXACT BOOK I WAS JUST WHINING ABOUT* We also found a great children's book t...

January 28 - March 8 The Facts AND WHEN I LOGGED IN TO FINISH, MY WORK WAS GONE. Now, I'm mad. 😡😣 Here's the shorter version... with mostly pictures since I don't remember all the words I originally used. 😢😭 Our dear friend and summertime travel companion, Lisa, came to visit for a weekend. Whenever we're together, there's baked goods, little free libraries, coffee, and LOTS of walking. Sometimes there's tattoos involved too, but not on this trip. We checked out several local shops-- and this confirmed for me, once again, that we currently live in a pretty cool area. Coffee at Please and Thank You. Wandering Joe Ley's Antiques. Eating a delicious strawberry pastry at Quills Coffee. We ditched Lisa twice while she was visiting to do things that we already had planned. 😬 (She's probably our most flexible and independent friend. Everyone needs a Lisa). One night, it was to see the Louisville Orchestra perform Star Wars Liv...