Thanksgiving in Michigan

2009 Update

Greetings from the ‘burgh! As of January 2010, we’ve been in Pittsburgh for 18 months. We’re enjoying life here, and not just because both the Stillers and the Pens had banner years.

Ryan: The big story for me in 2009 was being able to continue teaching. I had a nice adjunct gig at LaRoche College in the spring, but found out mid-summer that they were slashing the department budget and eliminating all adjunct positions. Then, just a few weeks later, Allegheny County Community College called me (I had apparently entered myself into their database when we moved here — I had completely forgotten about it) and asked if I could teach Photography 1 and 2 starting in the fall. Photography was myfirst love in the art world, so I was more than happy to accept. It has gone very well, and I am returning this spring. I’ve also found a good home as a ‘utility musician’ at our church, where I play guitar, bass and occasionally percussion as needed. I’ve found a lot of great bike rides up and down the hills in Pittsburgh, and may do a little racing again in 2010. And, of course, we have our dogs to keep me company when Hillary works longer hours; I’ve become a big fan of Cesar Milan and now consider him to be one of our finest modern-day philosophers.


Hillary: I’m now half-way through with my internal medicine residency, which feels great! The program continues to be a good fit. I’m constantly challenged and humbled by illness, medicine, and our “sickness” care system. I’ve decided to pursue geriatrics and palliative care medicine (each are one year fellowships) and health outcomes research related to critical issues that face older adults at the end of life, especially with respect to transitions in care (i.e. the countless difficulties related to care in multiple settings by multiple providers). Personally, we’ve gotten more used to how each month’s schedule can be very different, and learning to make the most of my time “off”. I definitely miss not being able to travel as freely, but Ryan and the dogs are always happy to hang out with me. We have favorite post-call “breakfast” places and multiple parks that we enjoy walking in.

OTHER 2009 HIGHLIGHTS
10 days in Wichita, spending time with Ryan’s family, including Lori, who was home from her first year of teaching history in Kazakhstan.
Adopting Mika from a local foster organization when he was 6 months old. It’s been great to see the dogs living well together.
An updated bathroom, remodeled basement, and freshly painted rooms. Ryan had a productive summer!
Clinical research courses over the summer, which were great for what I learned, but also for the schedule and chance to join my family in Monterey Bay, CA to celebrate my grandmother’s 85th birthday.

Spring in Pittsburgh

Winter has passed and Spring is here in Pittsburgh. It actually feels like summer, with temps in the mid-80s. The first third of 2009 has gone quite well for us. My intern year is nearly over, with just two months remaining. With each passing month in Pittsburgh, we find ourselves enjoying this city more and more. Ryan has one more week of his 2nd semester of teaching Intro to Illustrator, Graphic design for interior design majors, and screen printing. Things have gone well. We hope they'll offer him another contract for the fall.

Current highlights and recent happenings include:
Remodeling our bathroom from "band-aid" pink toilet and tub, hideous wall paper, and forgetable vanity to sleek, Euro-style with the help of IKEA fixtures, Ryan's color sense, and the handy-man help of our new friend, Bill Capcara.





Enjoying Sadie (14 mos, 57 pounds) and Mika (11 months, 30 pounds) - here are their "beauty" shots, taken while Ryan was taking an eBay picture.


Exploring Pittsburgh with Ryan's parents and celebrating our first Easter at our church, Jonah's Call. Ryan is enjoying playing with the worship band, and I like that it meets in the evenings, so I can make it most weeks. http://www.jonahscall.com/



Planning for our (garage) rooftop garden (the sunniest and safest place on our property) - this is the view from our upstairs window.

Mika Joins the Pack

We have a new pack member as of about two weeks ago. His name is Mika, and he is a true "Heinz 57" dog, as they say around here -- your guess is as good as ours as to what breeds he represents. He was abandoned at six weeks of age, and he is now 8 months old after spending a long time in a nice foster home.















He is getting along well with his big sister Sadie, and learning lots of obedience commands. He is not the social debutante that Sadie is, but once he gets to know you he will sit right on your lap and wait for some ear scratching. We like him!

Steelers' Country

Yep, we live in Steelers' Country. This city loves their football. No longer do we see "Go Badgers" on Madison buses, now we see "Go Steelers!"

Christmas came a little early for Sadie. We fashioned a new collar for her. The yellow helps us spot her among other medium-sized black dogs at the dog park or Camp Bow Wow, places she loves to play at. Ryan also recently saw some dogs who had fashionable Old Navy jackets (for only $7) to help keep warm. With a little help from Google, I found a simple dog coat pattern, and now Sadie has a new coat (it cost us $11, but at least I made it in the US). It's reversible yellow and black. Don't worry, we won't often walk her around with the yellow side out, but we do hope it'll help against the winter wind. We're glad Sadie can show her true Steelers colors.

For us, while winter has come to Pittsburgh, we hope it won't last as long as it did in Wisconsin. Ryan is in the final stretch of teaching his two sections of freshmen Photoshop. He's also gearing up for the three new courses he'll teach next semester. I had three lovely weeks doing an outpatient rotation in Rheumatology and am now doing two weeks of night coverage at the hospital. Before doing this, I didn't realize that the night interns are actually at the hospital more (6PM-7AM) than when we work during the day (7 AM- 6PM). I hope the coming week of nights goes very quickly, and am looking forward to having my parents here next weekend.

LUPS

LUPS = Lawrenceville United Progressive Supper. LUPS is an annual highlight of our new neighborhood. It started about 10 years ago as a small group of neighbors who wanted to see each others' houses as they were doing massive remodeling to their turn of the century row houses. Since then it has grown to be over 100 people, and is quite the event. This year's dinner was this past Saturday on a beautiful fall night. We started out with appetizers at a Middle Eastern-styled coffee shop down the hill from us, and then all moved in well-coordinated fashion to different homes for soup, salad, and entree courses with groups of 8-10 other Lawrencevillians (my term!). I was amazed at how well coordinated it was, and glad too, since I volunteered to help coordinate next year's LUPS without even having experienced this one yet.

We hosted a soup course, and while our house wasn't decked out with festive fall decor, we didn't splurge on expensive wine (or any alcohol at all), and Ryan and I were somewhat under-dressed, we still had a great time. I made a no-fail Annabel soup, we had yummy hot apple cider, and even Sadie did ok in her crate with all the commotion. We love our neighborhood and that it has cool stuff like this that helps us get to know our neighbors.

And now for a cute Sadie picture:
She loves peanut butter. One of our neighbors even gave us an "empty" peanut butter container.

"Look, ma! No paws!"

Salmon Fishing in Michigan

Had a great trip to the Lum's fishing cabin in NW Michigan! We caught 5 fish apiece over three days, all between 12 and 16 pounds . . . they really put up a fight. Now we have lots of fresh fish to eat. Mmmmm

Kitchen Complete

The kitchen is done, except for a few finishing touches. We're quite happy with how it turned out. Now it's time to start cooking again . . .

Serious Sadie

How could you not love this dog?

Life and kitchen in progress

We've had a full couple of weeks. I'm almost done with my first clinical rotation. I've been doing Cardiology, which has been interesting, humbling, and overall a good experience. I appreciate that the teaching faculty involved in my residency program value patient care, teaching, and teamwork. My schedule has taken some getting used to, being on call at the hospital overnight every fourth night, but a post-call nap goes a long way and we're doing well. I'm starting to think about research and exploring mentors within the areas of Geriatrics, Health Disparities, and/or Palliative Care.

We're continuing to settle into life in Pittsburgh. Ryan has now removed a lot of the carpet upstairs, including in the guest room, hallway and stairs. We still can't understand why it was the fashion to cover beautiful hardwood with carpet. We're also beginning our kitchen remodeling project. Here are pictures from when we bought the house:


We have about half of the IKEA cabinets assembled and installed and are beginning to remove the old cabinets. By Tuesday, we'll pull out the rest of the cabinets and have 3 weeks without a kitchen faucet while we wait for the countertop to be fabricated. It'll be great to have the kitchen finished by the end of August. We're excited about how it'll look and function.

While I work, Ryan's been training, walking and playing with Sadie (we have a favorite dog park that she loves to run at), making art and volunteering at a print-making organization, and playing music with the small emergent Episcopal church that we've been going to called Three Nails (http://www.threenails.org/). We enjoy that it's focused on community, liturgy, and is only two weeks from our house. Hopefully, we'll be able to join a cell group on a semi-regular basis in the next few weeks.

Burr and Natalie, good friends from Madison, are in town visiting for a few days this week. It's been a great visit and excuse to see more things here in Pittsburgh. They went to the Carnegie Museum of Art, and then we went to the Zoo (and saw the baby tiger) and to the Mattress Factory, an art museum with large installation pieces.

Sadie, Brooms and Bekalu

Sadie continues to get bigger and smarter (although not always at the same rate). One of her current obsessions is the broom, or anything with bristles. "Broom War" is a favorite game pictured here.




















She loves people, although small children need to be brave around her, as she sometimes "loves" them flat on the ground. Bekalu seems to be fine with her, though.

Pittsburgh Zoo

We've been enjoying our zoo membership -- this time I brought a camera along and snapped some of the more photogenic animals. We have guest passes, if anyone wants to come and see for themselves!

New Fence

The Days are hard-working, joyful troopers! In what may have been Pittsburgh's hottest days of the summer, the five of us put up a beautiful new white picket fence for Sadie. Ryan's parents and sister explored Pittsburgh with us as we made three trips to two different Home Depots, dug post holes, painted, measured twice and cut once to put up the fence - all in very hot, sunny, and humid days. The results are grand, and seem to be enjoyed by Sadie as well.


Beyond the physical labor, we enjoyed trying more eateries, a good visit to a new-to-us church on Sunday, and the Pittsburgh Zoo and Aquarium. The PGH Zoo and Aquarium is excellent and very close. We look forward to using our membership and guest passes with anyone who visits.

Home Improvement, Part 1 of ?

Our house was built in 1950. We bought it from the daughter of the first owners. Her mother lived here until she was in her 90s, only moving out a few years ago. When we first saw the house, we were really excited about the space and the original wood. We were less excited about the plethora of window coverings, the glass chandelier, and the carpet, which left a continuous musty smell.

Last week, we pulled up the dining and living room carpeting, replaced the light fixture, removed the window drapes, added new window valances, and generally spruced the place up. Here's how our dining room changed:

And our living room:

We're very pleased and enjoying our "updated" rooms. Now if only the air condition can be serviced to help us with Pittsburgh's near record high temps of 90+ with humidity. It's been a heat wave here!

Graduation pics

It's been three weeks since graduation. It feels like longer with the efforts of setting up life here in Pittsburgh. However, it's never too late to share pictures. It was so nice to enjoy graduation weekend with my side of the family.I was honored to have my dad serve as my escort at the official graduation ceremony.


My grandmother looks and is 83 years young. I'm grateful that she could make the trips both to Madison and Pittsburgh. Her help in packing, unpacking, cooking, sewing, etc was much appreciated! Here we are on our Lawrenceville front porch.

On the Web Again... from Pittsburgh!

Yay! We have internet in Lawrenceville, the location of our new Pittsburgh house.

We've had a very good week! Ryan drove a very full 26-foot Penske truck and trailer from Madison to Pittsburgh over two days. We made it for our closing with time to spare. We were met by my mom and grandmother, as well as some new and old friends, who helped unload our truck, which was a huge help.

Our first week has been full of good connections for Ryan, unpacking and settling in, and exploring new restaurants and places to walk Sadie. My mom and grandmother were a great help to have as we settled in. We're very happy with our house. We've pulled up two rooms worth of carpet to reveal nicely finished hardwood floors underneath, removed lots of old drapes and replaced a few light fixtures. The place feels more like our own each day. Pictures are soon to come.

Tonight is Sadie's first Obedience class and we continue to hear of good church communities that we're interested in learning more about. Ryan's family will be here over the next week to help us explore Pittsburgh and continue making the house our own.

Fun times in Madison

Our last weeks in Madison have been very good. Graduation last Friday was a great time to celebrate with my family. We've enjoyed seeing friends and eating at our fave places. Moving is a lot of work, but we've had great help and time to get things done.

We are also enjoying Sadie, who's now nearly 4 months old. She seems bigger every day and may almost be half her adult weight. She's all puppy, which means she loves to lick, chew, and play. She recently discovered the garden hose. Given her interest in it, we think we can train her to water the yard.

Thankfully, she's also learning some things, including walking on a lease, sitting before being petted, and shaking with both paws. We can't wait until she's better at coming when called and being less rough when playing with other dogs. She's a social dog and has enjoyed our outings to hang out with friends and their dogs.

Ryan did a 10 mile time trial race this morning, with a very long and steep climb. I'm glad I didn't miss the picture because the pain on his face is evident. Our friends, the Gartlands, hosted a farewell open house for us today. We're thankful for this great time to see so many friends and have their help in teaching Sadie to be a good dog. Now it's time to rest, as Sadie is already doing:

Pig and Puppy Playdate

See the video that Kriss shot of Sadie and the piglet greeting each other:

At the farm

One of the things I'll miss in Madison is the Community Supported Agriculture we were part of last year. It's run by great folks who have become friends, Kriss and Shannon Marion. We took Sadie out to their homestead last night where Ryan tuned up their bikes, I helped herd the sheep and goats to a new place to graze, and Sadie loved exploring and meeting all of the animals. Here's Sadie meeting one of the new calves. The horses and larger cows were quite intrigued with Sadie, following her around as we walked near them. They would have gotten much closer had they been able to. Sadie wasn't so sure...Piggy Lou, the mama pig, recently had a litter of pigs. One of them had some trouble immediately after birth and is now being raised inside. Sadie thought she was quite interesting. It looks like Napster 2.0 is telling Sadie a secret...We had a great time and will miss being able to go out to their place to help and hang out!

First Bike Ride

Despite the fact that Pittsburgh has some serious hills, including Canton Ave, the unofficial steepest street in the world with a 37% grade (see a crazy cyclist here: http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1344/1403140318_9f138eb6cb_o.jpg), Ryan is committed to cycling all around the city - rain, snow or shine - just ask about the "snow pig".

To this end, he has also researched and purchased a pretty blue, 25 lb trailer to pull with his mountain bike. We plan to use it to take Sadie to the dog park, bring veggies back from the farmers' market, or run errands (obviously, not all at the same time). Here is Sadie enjoying her first ride around the block. The carrier is intended for dogs (or cargo, but not kids) and comes with a leash attachment.You'd think she thought we were going really fast, but how fast can Ryan pull a 25 pound trailer with a 25 pound moving dog?

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