Funkadelic

It’s Friday! Yippee! And it’s also supposed to be sunny and 75 in Wisconsin today and since I need to take advantage of every last moment of nice weather before 6 months of make-your-snot freeze temperatures descend, I’m recycling a post from early June, where I decided to finally introduce myself to all y’all. Hope you don’t mind. Next week I’ll show a Before and After of one of the guest bedrooms and take you on a tour of parent’s farm, which is my own personal Eden. Have a great weekend!

Monday, June 9, 2008
FUNK

I’m in one.

It’s 6:00 at night and I could leave my desk to go home, but I don’t want to go back there. I don’t want to be reminded of all the work there is to do. I’d rather keep my fingers moving on the keyboard and chat with you. So, I thought I’d introduce myself.

This is me when I remodel:

Specifically, this is me after filling 48 garbage bags by hand with old blown-in insulation. Oddly, that sort of work does little for a girl’s looks.

You already know I occasionally skip showers and changing my clothes when working on my house, as you can tell from the photo above. You might also know that, although I embrace getting dirty, I love high heels and usually don’t leave my house without makeup on.

Here’s what I look like when I bathe and am moments away from eating a delicious pecan pie:

You’ll understand why I’m posing with a pie in just a minute.

You know my name is Liz and that I’m married to a guy named Joey. But did you know that we’ve known each other since we were in 6th grade? We began dating 2 months before going to college in different states (he went to Indiana University and I went to UW-Madison). I could never find anyone else who made me laugh so hard or was quite so genuinely himself, and I found that combination irresistible. Plus, he’s cute. We’ve been married for 4 years, and I’ve known most of his best friends for as long as I’ve know him, making them like brothers to me.

You might also already know that I have no sense of balance, but do you know that I grew up in the suburbs of Wisconsin, 20 minutes away from Milwaukee? Or that I still live in Wisconsin, but now I’m 45 minutes away from the city and only 2 minutes away from mile after mile of farmland? I find beauty, peace and calm in the sticks, but I cannot find nightlife, Thai food or diversity. And this bothers me.

You probably don’t know that I’m quietly passionate about many things, and vocally passionate about just a few. I am passionate about food. I work full-time writing for cooking magazines (and occasionally a gardening publication) and frequently pinch myself because it’s such a good gig. I am endlessly curious about new flavors and how things taste, which causes me to eat off of just about anyone’s plate.

This is me after finding a tailgater at a baseball game who would share his chicken wings with me.

I am equally passionate about historic preservation, which is why I worked at historical societies for several years. I have happily spent hours staring at the vacant windows, rotting porches and crumbling walls of old abandoned buildings, searching for a hint of the people who once brought them to life.

I also love writing, because it makes me feel good when I do it. Which is why I’m doing it right now. I guess it’s always been ‘my thing’ – the one thing I knew I could do and I always suspected that I might be a little bit better at it than the average Joe.

And I bet you didn’t realize that I get ornery when I can’t go outside and this caused me to get a degree in horticulture, which I briefly put to good use. It’s been a completely random career path, but I believe that’s how mine was meant to be.

I am 29-years-old and 30 is coming at me much like I imagine an out-of-control vehicle would. It races toward me and I’m all wide-eyed, anticipating the impact and feeling shocked that it’s actually about to happen. I’m sure at some point in your life, whether you were turning 30, 40 or 50, you could relate.

I have a handful of very close girlfriends, a few of which I consider to be my sisters. They don’t read this blog, but I get why they don’t. Let’s just say they aren’t the hammer and nails type. But they are some of the strongest women I know. We’ve been through so much together that I consider my relationship with them almost sacred.

I also want you to know that I think about you when I write these posts, but I promise it’s not in a weird creepy way. I get so excited when any and all of you visit. I wonder who you are, if you relate or connect to what I’m writing about, if the subject matter is helpful to you, and I’m often concerned that my lame sense of humor can’t always be deciphered. We will probably never meet, but if we did, I like to think we could quickly find something in common.

I hope you don’t mind that I took this blog off the home remodeling path it’s been on, but our house and it’s never-ending face lift is at the same time the biggest and smallest part of my life, depending on how you look at it.

I’m optimistic that this funk if just the 24-hour kind. My posts will resume their home remodeling nature shortly. In the meantime, thank you for reading and for your comments.

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