Milwaukee?!

This past weekend I spent some time in Milwaukee.  The point of this visit was to spend some time with Jason.  Why Milwaukee you may be asking yourselves?  Because we had already met up in Madison and wanted to experience another city that is between Valpo, IN and the Twin Cities.  (This picture is a view driving down Michigan St. in Downtown Milwaukee.) 

I had been to the Milwaukee area before and mostly remembered a few hours of sitting on the shore of Lake Michigan sinking my feet into the soft sand, while staring out at the vast body of water, unable to see land on the other side.  Oh it was wonderful. 

I was able to experience this joy again, without the sinking my feet in the sand part (it was way too cold for that) last weekend.  I also kind of fell in love with the downtown area.  As we walked around Wisconsin Street Friday evening, there was a great picture op, which sadly I missed out on because I decided to leave my camera in the car.  While walking around downtown we stopped at the mall there and I bought a funky dress at T.J. Maxx which my friend Virginia Berry would be so proud of.  I didn't get a picture of that either.  Sorry.  Anyway, I found myself continuously telling Jason that I wouldn't mind him getting a call in Milwaukee, which I never in a million years thought I would say.  But then again, I've done a lot of things in life that I thought I'd never do.  So the lesson of this story kids is never say never. 

Next stop, Memorial Day weekend, Valpo, IN and maybe Chicago!  I think it would be kind of fun to go to all the major mid-western cities.  That means from now until the end of August we need to go to Chicago and Detroit for sure.  Sweet!  Bring on the travel!  As for now, Milwaukee has a special place in my heart and not just because it has many breweries that one can tour and get free samples. ;) 

Enough of my incoherent rambling; I have to get to bed.  I have a meeting with my adviser at 9am tomorrow and we all know I am not a morning person.  Peace out for now!

Goals are a good thing to have...Update

Every year I come up with a list of goals for myself.  I do thing to keep life interesting and to give myself something to work towards.  I do this because I am a planner and if I have nothing to plan towards, I have a hard time getting myself to do anything.  It makes be feel useful and gives me a purpose in life.  Goals are a good thing to have.  I don't by into the New Year's resolution bit.  You make a resolution, often times you break it, at least I do.  Things like dieting, losing weight, the most common resolutions are good, but it is so easy to fall flat on your face after a few months.  This is not always the case though.  Good friends of mine, Doug Johnson and Theresa Jacobson have been very successful in their endeavors to get healthier, lose weight and keep it off.  Three cheers for them and everyone else I know working towards the same goal.  Notice, I used goal instead of resolution.

Anyway, my goals for this year are and continue to be as follows:

Goals:
1) Finish paying off bad debt, or almost all bad debt
2) Plan wedding with Jason and Get married
3) Spend more time with family in the area
4) Be better about staying in touch with family and friends
5) Be more adventurous, don't say never
6) Find solutions to my academic predicament including passing German exam before Fall semester.

I like to give myself goals that I can work on over time, that allow me to improve myself daily.  I always struggle with goals like 3 and 4.  I do the best I can, but I sometimes feel like I am not doing enough.  It is hard when many of my friends are far away and I can not see them face to face.  Thank God for facebook so I can facebook stalk all of you at least once a week to find out how you are doing.  Sadly, I find myself very busy with school and work that phone calls do not happen very often.  I am working on that. 


As for the more concrete goals 1, 2, and 6, things are going very smoothly.  I have one more credit card to pay down, which will take some time but I should be done by the end of the year.  Wedding plans are coming along as well.  We have the church and reception areas booked, as well as the DJ.  I am meeting with the person we want to do our photography on Saturday and we have picked out some of the music for the wedding, but not all of it.  And today I am sending out the first part of our Save the Date cards so people can, well, save the date.  As for goal 6, I posted in my last blog that I passed the French language exam and have been officially switched into the Chruch History MTh program.  So now I can start working on my thesis proposal, finish my independent study I have this spring, petition for a previous class to be counted as Church History so I will be done with class work by the end of this semester and start researching and writing my thesis.  All my concrete goals are going amazingly well. 


It is the self-improvement goals that I am working on daily.  I will never be perfect at these things and I will drive myself crazy trying to be, or thinking that I can be.  But goals of self improvement are never a bad thing.  Goals are a good thing to have.