I Didn't Die, I'm Just Bad at Blogging

Well, hello! James and I are currently in Asheville, NC. It’s been about a month since my last post. Turns out that balancing a 40-hour work week with driving, planning, actually seeing a city, and visiting with loved ones is harder than I thought. So I’m here to tell you that I didn’t die, I just haven’t prioritized blogging and sharing my life as much as I would have liked to. It’s called ~ * living in the moment * ~

So, let’s start from the beginning, shall we?

After leaving Milwaukee and crying for about an hour in the car (that was me, James was driving), we headed straight to Bloomington, Indiana to visit James’s parents. It’s about a 5.5 hour drive and we left at 5:40 in the morning. I highly recommend doing this if you’re planning on driving through Chicago. We had no traffic and I was S H O C K E D.

We spent a week and a half in Bloomington, which has become a place of peace for me. Whenever we’re there, we can expect some awesome home-cooked vegetarian meals from his mom, Kate, and plenty of walks in nature. I looked through James’s high school yearbook and found a quote that said “I love spring in Bloomington. It’s such a happening place. Summer is no exception.” -senior, James Martino. And you know what, I think that’s pretty dang true.

We spent Easter with his family and had an amazing brunch with mimosas, tofu frittata, hard boiled eggs, babka, vegan kielbasa, ćwikła (girl, you know I had to Google that and copy and paste it), and spanakopita. If you can’t tell, he’s part Polish, part Greek. It was all fantastic and I tried some new foods! It was very different from a typical Easter in the Butler household, which mostly consists of lots of kids running around, ham, lamb, and lamb cake. I FaceTimed my family which of course made me miss them and our chaotic holidays but it was nice to have a change of pace.

We spent a good chunk of our time in Bloomington trying to help Marine acclimate to her new temporary home and introduce her to Kate and Steve’s two cats. She doesn’t like them. At this point, I believe she still gets her own room where she seems content and gets to explore the house when the boys are behind closed doors to minimize the hissing and meowing. I’ve never heard her make more noise than I did during that week. I’m still hopeful that they’ll be buddies by the time we’re done with our trip.

Leaving Bloomington was probably just as difficult as leaving Milwaukee. There were lots of tears. I think the crying for me is a mix of excitement, gratitude for our families, knowing that it’s going to be a while before we see them, and a feeling of finality as we close a chapter and start a new one. I just feel so dang lucky.

I do wish I took more pictures.

James and Marine

My Easter brunch

A nature walk at Leonard Springs

Our drive from Milwaukee to Bloomington. She’s a trooper.