Alright...Q&A time. Are you ready? I'm ready. It's a gorgeous day here in Boston and the good feelings are gushing out of every pore.

First up, a bunch of questions from Amy at That Fresh Feeling...

What is your favorite thing to do in your spare time?

Definitely hanging out with Nathan or baking of some sort. I also knit and I claim to sew although I haven't done much of the latter in a few years. I also really love Farmer's Markets with fierce passion and exploring new cities (when it isn't cold out!).

What is one item that you have that you cannot live without?

Let's see...my electric toothbrush? I love it so much. It makes my teeth always feel like I just came back from the dentist. Oh, and my straightener and my Vineyard Vines lazy pants. So, um, I bombed that one thing business. Let's stick with the toothbrush. I really want a fancy rechargeable one, but for now my rinky dink grocery store one will have to do.

What is one thing you want people to know about you?

Hmm...one thing again. You're bleeding me, Amy. I'm hoping that many things are readily apparent about me, so I'll share something that people may not notice, but would be great if they knew. I am not shy and I love engaging with groups of people, but I'm really an introvert. It upsets me to no end when people classify introverts as shy, quiet people. It's simply not true. I don't think I would ever be described as shy or quiet, BUT I do need to have time alone to recharge after being around groups of people. I sort of feel as if I'm still recharging from constantly being around and "on" around people for four years of college. It's great. My energy definitely comes from being alone. That said, I have trained myself to pick up energy from crowds that I am trying to engage in some way. Public speaking is my thing, y'all. I love presentations. I love being in charge of groups.

If you could do anything in this world, what would it be?

This one was easy. I would live in a cute house down the street from a Farmer's Market, have 4 babies, eat a completely whole foods diet and scrap/scrounge my way to a gorgeous house. My fantasy involves a garage with many cans of paint. Or, I would like to run a food co-op or own a bed and breakfast. Mostly though I want the cute house and the ability to play and bake all day long.

What is your favorite song and why?

Wow. I have favorites in so many categories. Let's see. My favorite workout song is Don't Leave Me This Way by Thelma Houston because it makes me smile no matter what, I was listening to it when I completed my first 10-minute mile (yes, I am the slowest runner EVER) and it was played over and over and over again during Ladies of the Lake 2007 which was an annual girls getaway college so it reminds me of some of my favorite people and all the laughing we did. My favorite hymn is Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing and while I love the lyrics, I also love how sticky the tune is. A Mighty Fortress is right up there too, although that song makes me cry. My favorite recent release is Chicken Fried by the Zac Brown Band because it sums up the South so nicely that I played it over and over and over again and told Nathan I wanted to move Home. Yes, capital H, Home. And, I would be remiss if I didn't add in I Feel Home by O.A.R. because no song takes me immediately back to the wonders of my college days. Somehow that one song instantly recalls the Triple Sombrero Fiesta, teddy bear passes, crush parties, ditching studying to get coffee in Ramsey and sitting around Bruegger's with the girls from my sorority. I'm pretty sure I didn't listen to that song during any of these events, but O.A.R. hits the nail on the head in that one. Love it.

Alright, Alicia, my friend in real life who has a secret blog squirreled away somewhere asks:

What's one thing you want to tell everyone that no one has ever asked you?

It really irks me when people say "If you don't like the weather, wait and a few hours and it will change" OR " is the only place where if you don't like the weather you can wait a few hours and it will change." Listen, y'all, the weather changes kind of a lot for everybody. Yes, winter weather changes do certainly happen more in NC than in, say, Boston--BUT it doesn't mean they don't happen. For instance, today it is 60 degrees here and then tomorrow it will snow. There. That is cold, hard proof that you shouldn't say Blahblahblah is the only place where this happens. I know--it's a cute thing to say. I've even said it before. And maybe the weather doesn't change too much when you aren't relatively near an ocean. I wouldn't know. God willing, I will never live more than 5 hours away from an ocean. Living inland is one of the most depressing things I've ever considered. Nathan thinks this is because I always need an escape plan. Anyway, even in Eastern Europe, y'all, the weather FLUCTUATED. So, um, that's what I want to tell you. I hate that statement. Please feel free to disregard my feelings. It's really not that big of a deal, but it is the first thing that came to mind. I don't know why.

Anonymous (btw--who are you???) want to know:

How is the NY job/apartment search going?

Thank you for inquiring, Anonymous. I would say it's going really well. We're actually going back up tomorrow to look at more apartments. The one we looked at before is taking about 1,500 weeks to process our application and we're now thinking Manhattan may be the ticket anyway. Also, the job search is going great. Hopefully I'll be able to share more about that at a future date.

Which college did you go to?

The great University of North Carolina at Asheville. Everyone up here, and I mean EVERYONE, thinks I went to UNC Chapel Hill. I let it slide. Apparently it's a hard concept. My boss actually once asked me how trying it was to go to college four hours away from the main campus. Um, we're a separate school with a different focus. Anyway, I loved it. I have lots of school pride, but I had a rough first year. ROUGH. I met some great people, joined a fabulous sorority and was deeply involved in a number of student orgs. I went there freshman year to be a drama major and stayed in the drama department for three sort of terrible semesters. I can't blame it all on the drama department though. Nathan and I had a rough time for a while (Yes, we did somehow end up at the same college after high school. It wasn't planned. Trust me.) and, like all freshmen, I went through lots of relationship changes with my friends. Unlike all freshmen, I also had a TERRIBLE roommate situation my first semester. Needless to say, the police had to get involved. Anyway, I emerged stronger and I have a very interesting relationship with my alma mater, I think. I made one of my best, best, best friends there, but our relationship really only began to really deepen senior year. I have a lot of pride for the things I did, but I think I got to know some staff members too well and unfortunately lost a great deal of respect for them in the process. I am still quite close to a number of the faculty though and I think they are stand-up people. So, um, how's that for a long answer?

What is your current job title and what job are you trying for in NYC?

I currently am a receptionist, but I, thankfully, have more responsibilities than answering the phone. I also work with accounting and give primary admin support to two people. In NYC, I decided I would try for anything that sounded interesting. I have a good amount of event planning experience for my college internship and I also have a good amount of experience in food and clothing retail, so I was sticking to those four categories: admin, events, food and clothing retail. We'll see what happens!

Does the job search there seem frustrating because of the economy?

You know, I'm going to tell you honestly: No. Not really at all. I think job searches are frustrating and there are certainly less jobs out there, but I haven't been focusing on it. New York has definitely been hit hard in the past year, but I'm trying not to focus on that. Instead, I'm focusing on the fact that people always quit or move away or vacate jobs for some reason or another and I have a really solid resume, I think. Fortunately, I'm not pigeon-holed into one area or field, but I also have experience from working a highly-respected and demanding company and I have lots of internship experience. One thing that I continue to be amazed by the power of the network. People talk a lot about networking, but seeing it in action is amazing. The people at my current company have really helped me out a lot in that respect. Most everyone here has some New York connection and people are so willing to help out other people. Sometimes, I am amazed at how juvenille adults act in an office setting, but at other times I am just humbled and amazed by people's willingness to do kind things for each other with no expectations except that you would help them out if you could. It's beautiful. So, I don't have a job yet, but so far the search has been as great as a job search can be.

Barefoot in the Park asks:

What's your favorite place in NC?

Well, I can't pick one, so let's go with my favorite places.

I love Lake Junaluska, NC. My family vacationed here when I was younger and the most pivotal summer of my life so far was spent there.

Waterrock Knob off the Blue Ridge Parkway is another of my favorite places. The first summer I lived at the LJ (see above), we would go watch the sunset and play Frisbee a few times a week. Usually, it's pretty cloudy, but when the clouds lift, it is indescribably beautiful.

In Raleigh, Cameron Village and Fred Fletcher Park hold big pieces of my heart. I have so many great memories in both places.

I'm also quite fond of the Fort Fisher Beach because that's where Nathan and I would always go when we took beach day trips.

If you had one day where you could be anywhere and not have an agenda, where would you go and how would you spend it?

My first thought is that I would head to France, but that seems a bit silly for one day, doesn't it? Although I do love walking around France. The best part is definitely lunch. Give me a baguette with dijon, brie, lettuce and tomato any day and I'm a happy camper. Bonus if it is lavender mustard. Mmm. Okay, thinking about this sandwich made me realize that maybe it's not silly to go back for a day. I would take in a musee of some sort (preferably archaeological) and definitely eat a croissant at some point. Then, I would somehow make it to Point Sublime to watch the sunset. Watching the sunset disappear behind the canyon is one of my most treasured memories. Even better, by the time we made it up there, it was so dim that we couldn't take pictures. It's just a memory for Nathan, my in-laws and me. I'm glad we got to share that together. That said, I think I'd like to see it again.

Laura asked how the job search was going, but also asked:

When are you moving?

Soon. That's the best answer I have. We have house guests until March 16, but every day after that is fair game. Hopefully by the end of next week I will be able to name a day. We're waiting to hear about a few things.

So, this was great, y'all. Thanks for all the questions!

I am, apparently, the only person in the world that has no desire to read the Twilight books or see the movie or anything like that. I suppose I should say the only person in blog world--I actually don't know anyone in real life who has read them.

I have, however, read the back of them many times. This is what I do on the T. Yes, I am that girl. The back was so terribly cheesy that I couldn't possibly read that book and, y'all, my literature standards are NOT HIGH.** Anyway, I feel like I should use the cheesy setup to inspire this post.

There are three things I know are true:

1. I've got too much non-blog stuff going on in my life to blog.

2. I love those random question posts other people put up from time to time.

3. I know that you secretly love them too and want to ask me questions.

So, yes, here's your chance. Anything you want to ask. Shoot me the question. You can also email them to me at nathanandrachelann AT gmail DOT COM if you are so inclined. I'll do a post where I answer them.

**No offense if you love Twilight. Maybe someday on a beach in the future, I'll knock them all out and know what all the fuss was about. I still respect you. Promise.

Sorry for all of unexpected long absences. The truth of the matter is that there is just too, too, too much to do in such a short time. I will probably not be around very much for the next 6 weeks or so. I am still reading everything y'all are writing, but I'm sadly not commenting too much or writing much of my own.

We've had a whirlwind two weeks and we have at least 5 more weeks of whirlwind to come. We have houseguests March 3-15. No, I'm not even kidding. Yes, I am tired already. Thanks for asking.

I'm heading down to NC this weekend and I'm so excited to see Roommate BFF get married and hang out with the people who get me the most and catch up with all my sorority sisters at alum brunch and to drink tea with my Mama and sit around and talk to my Daddy. North Carolina, for me, is soul refreshing. I'm looking forward to it.

We did find a place we really liked in New York and we're waiting to hear back about whether or not we've gotten it. To quote Michael Scott, I'm not superstitious, but I am a little stitious. I don't want to talk too much about it until we know it's ours. Here's a hint: it is in the same neighborhood in New York where Miranda and Steve lived on Sex and the City. Can anyone guess the nabe? No prizes or anything--just fun.

I caught up with an old friend in New York last week and it was wonderful. We missed three years out of each other's lives, but we dropped back into our friendship pretty quickly. I'm glad I'll be living near her again. We also may or may not have consumed three Crumbs cupcakes between the two of us. No, we did not eat dinner that night. Yes, it was amazing.

So that's the story, Morning Glory. I'm sparse for good reasons and I apologize, but hopefully more exciting adventures will be coming your way soon courtesy of the soon-to-be BFFs in Brooklyn.

Y'all, I have all kinds of cake batter and frosting coming into my life soon. Last night was Alicia's first cake decorating class and it was fabulous. Except for the fact that I need to go buy a Sam's Club amount of shortening and confectioner's sugar to make it through the next month, I am beyond excited. I also can't wait for the class to end and to put my new skills to the test making cakes and frosting that don't include Crisco or chemically food coloring. That's doable, right? Of course it is!

Still, for class I'll follow all the non-perishable frosting rules and I bought blue, pink and green gels to use in my frosting. Hopefully we won't have a repeat of that last time I colored frosting and turned everyone's mouth blue on Pref Night.

So the real adventure really began after we left class. Last night was wonderful--warm (I didn't wear a coat!) and foggy. We left Michael's excited about cakes, excited about warm air and excited about increasing our non-job-related skills.

Too much excitement sort of got us into trouble. You know, we've made the drive from Michael's to my apartment 3 or 4 times now. We've NEVER done it correctly. Oh, and yes, we do have directions. We always have directions. Apparently we also have terrible memories. Last time we attempted this drive, we wound up in Revere. Oh, and then underneath the Tobin Bridge by THE DOCKS! That was beyond scary.

True story: last night was scarier. So we're trucking along, getting increasingly lost (seriously--it's this one roundabout that is so confusing and we always take the wrong turn and both of us are terrible at getting places without getting lost) and we finally see some signs for Boston. We decide to follow those signs which spits us into a tunnel. Awesome. We decided to exit the tunnel at South Station because, surely, we're smart enough to get home from downtown, right? Um. Not so much.

Alicia comments that she doesn't know what South Station looks like from the outside and I tell her not to worry about it because I do. Um, whoops! While we're having this discussion, we pass not one, but two, DO NOT ENTER signs and drive into the bus terminal of South Station! So we pretty much start hyperventilating, praying that transit police won't be too upset, praying that we don't hit any buses and, eventually, it all works out. We take some scary turns and we're spit back out into downtown.

Now, the problem is that we're back where we started: somewhere downtown and we can't see the Pru. Oh yeah, this is how we get around. Find the Pru, find your house. We do, however, see Chinatown and know that if we can make it through Chinatown we'll be back in the right part of town. Only problem is--two girls in a car with no locks in Chinatown at 10 pm on a foggy night? Um, not a good idea. But, you know, because we're stupid, we do it anyway and we make it out alright. One sketchy red light later and we're by Copley. Hoorah we think--we know Copley.

Oh yeah, it keeps getting worse. From Copley we ended up following the E branch of the Green Line. NOT OKAY. The E line swerves off from all the others and we're slowly getting deeper and deeper into a neighborhood that we probably wouldn't visit the day let alone at night! Thankfully, we didn't really realize how unsafe we were until we were almost out of there. Sketchtastic.

Somehow we finally made it back downtown to what we knew. And then somehow we made it Comm Ave. and then somehow we made it to my apartment. Pretty terrifying, man. Pretty terrifying.

Well, I keep disappearing for days at a time, don't I?

The thing is that my days have found a new rhythm that unfortunately leaves little room for writing here. You see, I'm too busy writing cover letters and searching for jobs and apartments.

I was in quite the Funk (yes, with a capital F) all weekend long. You know on last week's episode of The Office when Andy says he is battling crippling despair and depression and he's going to win? Well, it wasn't quite that extreme, but by last night I decided that I was going to win.

The first major boost I had was talking to my Daddy on Saturday. He's one of the smartest people I know and I love that he tells it like it is. Case in point? Sometimes you just need to get a job and learn from it even if it's not exactly what you want to do.

Second boost? Yesterday at church there was a guest speaker--Justin Masterson of the Red Sox. His scripture choice? Jeremiah 29. I'm sure you've seen this verse cross-stitched about a million times on various things. "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Well, can we talk about how much I love that second part? A hope and a future. That's really all I want these days. To feel like it's going to all work out.

Nathan wisely pointed out that being married and having each other is certainly being given a hope and a future. We'll call this boost 2.5.

Boost number three came in the form of a podcast I had sent to me by a friend. You can check it out here. It is about 45 minutes long and she speaks from the point of view of a business person, specifically in the venture capital field, but I think the lessons are great for everyone. She said something that my father often talks about (see boost number one) which is that your career lies at the intersection of your skills, your passions and the market. He puts it in terms of your skills, passions and the world's need, but the idea is much the same.

It was so great to have all of these things laid out on the table at one time for me to look at. I certainly felt a renewed vigor today in my job hunt. I hope that all of you who are also looking can take a cue from Andy and resolve to win this battle and know that your hope and future is out there.

Passing notes

Dear New York City apartment owners,
Please don't label your Craigslist ad has "has photos" if the only photo you include is of a lighting fixture. Thanks.


Dear Rachel Ann,
Don't change your resume to get an admin position. It will just mean you gave up on your dreams.



Dear really classy apartment listing in Chelsea,
Please don't be too good to be true. You look too good to be true.



Dear company that owns the buildings on the next block over,
Please shovel the sidewalks when it snows. Seriously.



Dear Uggs,
You are ugly as homemade sin. Thanks for keeping my feet warm.



Dear flip-flops,
I miss you. I promise we'll be together again soon.



Dear prospective NYC employers,
Please give me a job. Thanks.

A few days ago, I posted one of those silly 25 random things about me on Facebook. (Side note about Facebook--are we Facebook friends? Want to be?) Anyway, two of the things I listed were:

22. My clothes are terribly outdated and I am a walking fashion disaster. Winter is the worst since I haven't bought a new sweater in the past 5 years except for a lovely turtleneck from H&M that makes me feel like a million bucks.

23. Shoes are especially hard for me. I carry my running shoes with me so that I can go to the gym after work and I hate having to have special commuting shoes, so I always wear my Danskos or my Uggs all day long. I'm so over my shoes, but I also can't justify carrying around 3 pairs of shoes with me everyday.

Then, in an email to a friend the other day, I wrote:
I think for so long I've had so many people around me that I'm really learning how great it is to not be so scheduled or surrounded by people and am finally able to breathe a little. College was intense. People were everywhere and I felt like I had to always be "on" so to speak. Now, here in Boston, I can really relax and focus on me and it is awesome. I love that I am finally working out regularly and can spend my time thinking and dreaming, but not doing.

And then, this morning SCB (one of the best swap partners EVER who sent me a book about cupcakes AND a book about dessert places in NYC) posted about doing things for herself such as buying fresh flowers, going to the tanning bed and getting manicures.

So "me time" and things that make me feel good have been on my mind at least three times this weekend and today I actually did something about it.

I carried three pairs of shoes with me to work today. To commute, I wore my ever-faithful Danskos. Once I got to work, I put on my black boots. I don't often wear my favorite dresses and skirts because they only go with my black boots in winter and said boots are not commute-friendly. Now, I look great for the day. My third pair of shoes represents the ultimate in me time. My running shoes are waiting for 5:00 to roll around so that we can go the gym to put in a few miles.

(Side note--You know how you can't trust the calorie count on cardio machines? For instance, it will say that you burned 400 calories, but really you probably burned closer to 300. Can you trust the distance on machines? If it says 4 miles, did you really run 3 miles?)

Tonight when I get home I am going to make another batch of roasted chickpeas because I love them so. So does Amy! And then, I think I am going to apply some self-tanner. Yup. In February.

In the next four weeks, I will travel to NC for my college roommate's wedding, host my in-laws for 6 days (they are sleeping on our living room floor!), find an apartment in NYC and apply for thousands (ok, probably tens) of jobs and then, hopefully, interview. I've got a full month ahead, so I deserve to do things that make me feel good, yes?