Sunday, July 27, 2008

Countdown

Tomorrow is my third last Monday of work... three more weeks, three more weeks. I feel somewhat refreshed after these last five days off, so I'm hoping to go back in there tomorrow morning and just rock it out for the next three weeks. My life is about to change greatly, but it's all in good way (other than perhaps the severe lack of sleep and sanity I'm anticipating) and I can't help but be excited, terrified, intrigued and unsure, all at once. Giving up a full-time paycheck seems a little crazy to the practical side of me, but it also seems like a testament to my belief in myself, my ambition to truly love life and not just live it, and my faith that God has a plan and that I'm listening to Him and following it.

Three more weeks of work, a week of work in the rowing office, a week in Hilton Head with Gearry, Chris & Hillary (Yay!!! Friends, beach, food, drinks, dancing and more beach!) and then GRAD SCHOOL & COACHING AT THE DIVISION ONE LEVEL. Crazy.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

2-4 Fun

My 24th birthday rocked! Perfect weather for a day on the lake with Dad and Gearry. We spent most of the day relaxing and tubing. Gearry and I are both black and blue from tubing (seriously, hardcore bruising) but it was so much fun. Gearry took a couple awesomely bad spills I wish I would have captured on camera! And I somehow managed to lose my bikini bottoms on one spill, but I caught them on one ankle, thankfully. Haha! We coated ourselves in 30 SPF but somehow still managed to get burnt. Gearry is, once again, a lobster.

When we got back we took the dogs down to the water to swim (and discovered that Bailey can't swim) and then ordered in pizza for dinner. A great, chill way to wind down after a long day in the sun.


Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Happy Almost Birthday to Me!

Tomorrow is the big 2-4, but since I won't be at work tomorrow (or Thursday or Friday... yay for mini-vacays because I have so much vacation time!) my co-workers celebrated the event today. My department rocks... I actually will be sad to leave them in another three weeks or so.

They made strawberry shortcakes with angel food cake, berries and homemade whipped cream. Delicious! Although I have to be semi-careful with how much sugar I eat (or risk passing out), I kind of blew caution to the wind today and enjoyed a couple big, tasty servings. So worth it. Yum! They also made me THE coolest birthday card ever. Brandon, one of the new people in the department, is a Photoshop whiz, and -- although my name is spelled incorrectly (something I'm pretty used to) -- created this little masterpiece:

I love it!! It was a birthday/good luck with coaching at IU combo card. And, yes, that's all my department co-workers behind me in the boat and in the water. I'm not a card person, so I was rather impressed with their originality.

On another good note, I took a break from work this morning to run over to Assembly Hall and take my NCAA coaches complaince exam and... I passed. 100% actually. (That was a combination of bragging and slight disbelief on my part.) Whew! I don't have anything to study for until classes begin on Sept. 2nd. Thank goodness!

Birthday action tomorrow includes Gearry, Dad and I boating and tubing at the lake, and probably ordering in pizza in the evening. Low-key, but just how I like it :)

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Sigh of Relief.

Gearry and I finally broke down and bought plane tickets to Hilton Head this morning. We're cramming in a vacation between my graduate orientation on Monday, August 25th and my rowing responsibilities and starting classes on Tuesday, September 2nd. We've been really pumped about the vacation, but dreading (DREADING... All caps gets the degree of dread across a little better) the 12-13 hour drive. That takes up two whole days of a vacation that's short anyway, not to mention that I HATE driving/riding after so many 10+ road trips for rowing. So, flying it is. I feel like I can now think about enjoying our relaxing getaway, rather than just thinking about getting there and getting back. Fantastic. Worth every penny!

Monday, July 14, 2008

Happy Birthday, Frankie!

Sunday marked a happy day in the Young family: Mom’s birthday! I won’t say how old she is for fear of retribution, although I think age is something you should be proud of! (We’ll see if I say that 20 years from now.) Maybe she wouldn’t care if I said… but I’m not taking any chances.

Gearry had to work, as usual, so Mom, Dad, Josh and I trekked down to Louisville to have dinner on the river at King Fish. It was a sunny, slightly breezy, gorgeous day, perfect for eating out on the deck and watching the river traffic and downtown Louisville.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Can Summer Please Just Stay Around Forever?

Well, no news can really top that of my last post (thanks to everyone who sent "congrats") but I thought I'd just write a small update to appease those who log on regularly and are saddened so often to find that I have not updated.

Gearry and I have taken up tennis, one of the few sports I've never really played but wanted to for a long time. Gearry loves racquetball, so he's also been wanting to give tennis a try. Suiting, since we live at a golf and tennis resort. Gearry bought me a racket for my upcoming birthday (it's pink and brown, for breast cancer awareness, and a portion of the proceeds go to breast cancer research... I love it!) and we got in our first match on Wednesday. We pretty much... stunk? I mean, I guess we didn't play too horribly considering we were both novice. But we played again Thursday evening with much better results. (i.e. some sense of hand-eye coordination). I can't remember the score, but I do know that Gearry won in 3 sets. Today, after I returned from volunteering at the animal shelter, we managed to cram in 2 sets before Gearry had to leave for work. He won the first set 6-2, and I won the second 6-3. So that means that tomorrow morning we have a tennis date so that we can play the third and final set and determine the winner of the match (hopefully me). We really need to stop adding additional fun sports to our lives, as it is growing increasingly difficult to decide if we want to go swim, run, bike, kayak, golf or, now, play tennis. Guess that's a good problem to have: options.

Hmm... not much else to report on. I've been sleeping most of the day since Gearry left for work, although I should have been working on research for my professor and studying for the NCAA compliance exam that I have to take on Tuesday, July 22nd. And, as we all know from recent experiences with the IU men's basketball team, knowing your NCAA compliance rules is pretty darn important. I have to get an 80% on the test, but it is an open book exam, so I'm not too stressed about it. But a little. Because I stress about everything (duh)... the curse of being a perfectionist/over-achiever. Oh, well... I needed a semi-lazy day (minus the volunteering and tennis).

Oh, I almost forgot... our vacation has finally been confirmed! Hillary and her husband Chris were making the reservations, so we've been waiting patiently. We are, for sure now, going to Hilton Head from Tues., August 26th through Sunday, August 31st. We've never been to Hilton Head, but Chris has and loved it, so suggested it for a couples' vacation. I have grad school orientation on Monday, August 25th, or we'd be leaving much earlier. Then I start grad school on Tues., September 2nd. So, basically, we're cramming this vacay into the absolutely smallest hole of vacancy I will have available for some time. But Hill's in grad school (master's of social work) at Ohio State, so it's hard to work around both of our schedules.

I'm really looking forward to the time away, however. Although I know my mind will be racing 100 miles an hour with all the thinking about the upcoming year, I hope I can sit back and relax a bit and charge up my batteries for the next 9 months or so. We're planning on lots of beach time, relaxing in the sun, biking, eating, tennis, kayaking, etc.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Celebration!

Thought I'd bring back the retro picture (dang, I don't even remember my hair being that long!) in honor of this fabulous, awesome, exciting, celebratory day. I, Stacey Young-Caudell, received some exciting news on Monday and wanted to wait to share it with everyone until it was made official and I signed my contract today.

I am the new graduate assistant coach of Indiana University Women's Varsity Rowing. Yep, COACH! As the G.A. coach I will be helping with the day-to-day administrative activities of the program as well as coaching at the varsity and novice levels for the upcoming 2008-2009 school year, while I am earning my certification and master's degree in elementary education.

SO... it's going to be an INSANE year (I will need lots of hugs and prayers, and some dog-sitters, I'm sure) with a full load of graduate classes AND a coaching assistantship, but I couldn't be happier. My four years of rowing were tough, but they were also some of the best of my life. I would venture to say that I learned much more from my rowing experiences than I did from my in-classroom experiences during my four years as an undergrad, and I'm happy to be able to give back to the program in this way. Plus, it pays for all of my tuition, fees and books, which just sweetens the deal.

I'm pumped to get started. I'll be at AuthorHouse until Aug. 15th and then will fully assume my new role. It's gonna be a long -- but good -- year, kiddos. I was always kind of sad that not many of my friends and family came to my races throughout my four years of rowing, so hopefully I can drag some people out to watch the Hoosiers as we head into what is hopefully a very proud and productive season.

You can read the official announcement here:

http://iuhoosiers.cstv.com/sports/w-rowing/spec-rel/070908aaa.html

Monday, July 7, 2008

GREAT Weekend.

Fourth of July 2008 officially ROCKED. It was a lot of time in the car (7 hrs. there, 7 hrs. back) but it was well worth the time and the incredibly sore back (sitting in the car for long periods of time inflames my back issues like WHAT).

Early on Friday I headed to Columbus, Ohio to meet up with Stebby and her cousin, Alicia. I stretched my legs and we grabbed some brunch at my favorite Columbus eatery, Northstar, with Hillary and Chris and then hopped back in the car for the 3 hr. drive to Wampler's Lake in Michigan, the site of Stebby's parents' lakehouse. I had been once before, for my bachelorette party, but this was the first time I had been in-season, and the first time with the extended Stebbins family. It was a blast! Stebby's parents are amazing (and know how to party) and her brother, cousins Alicia and Josh, and Josh's girlfriend, Missy, were all great. Below is a pic of the house from the end of their dock, taken on the night of the 4th. The little glowing things are luminaries that their whole section of the lake lights every year on the 4th. That evening we all hopped on their boat and went out to the middle of the lake to watch the fireworks people from various houses were setting off all over the lake. I couldn't believe these were private firework shows; many of them rivaled public shows in small communities.

We spent most of the weekend playing in the water, eating great food, playing Wii (I rocked at tennis, was OK at bowling and accidentally punched Stebby's brother in the head for real when we were boxing) and playing old-fashioned greats like charades. "Playing" seems to be the common theme.

Above are Stebby and Missy playing Wii. Not sure what game. I'm pretty sure this was a posed picture.


Above is the view from the bedroom I shared with Stebby and Alicia.

And above is the view from the back porch.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Toasty

Today was a glorious 85 degrees and Gearry and I spent much of it out on the boat with my (newly retired) dad. Sunny, sunny, sunny! Gearry, once again, looks like a lobster. You think he would have learned his lesson by now, right? SPF 4 does nothing for you, Gearry! And the sun was pretty intense. My nose is a little bit red, but I am otherwise unscathed. Gearry, however, is sitting here in his robe after being slathered with after-sun aloe gel. Silly Gearry. Nevertheless, the day was beautiful and it was fun being on the lake, rather than just looking at it all the time. I also discovered that I apparently have a great fear of geese. I was, to my credit, bitten on the foot by a goose when I was little. But the geese that would not leave us alone today caused me to curl up on the floor of the boat and hide myself under a towel. I just knew one of them was going to hop in the boat and try to eat my toes. Did you know that geese hiss? And have these big, nasty tongues? They hiss like snakes and stick their creepy tongues out at you. What's not to be afraid of?

I suppose I should do a quick run-down of Days #2 & #3 of our anniversary celebration, since I never updated. A super quick run-down. Had brunch in Nashville on Sunday afternoon, check into our cabin and relaxed for awhile before getting ready for dinner. Went to Bloomington for the Bloomington Slow Food dinner, a fundraising event for the Blooming Slow Foods Movement. The 7-course dinner was AMAZING and we got to sit with some really, really cool people who have done a lot for Bloomington through the years. We lucked out with an awesome table... we were the youngest by decades, but the conversation flowed freely. Unfortunately, so did the champagne and wine. Therefore, at the end of the 5-hour dinner, we found ourselves unable to drive back to Brown County to our cabin! Responsibility got the best of us and we ended up taking a cab back to our condo and crashing. In the morning Gearry had to drive back to Brown County just to pick up our stuff from the cabin we only spent about 3 hours in. That was the crappy part of the weekend. A little drama, and not exactly how we planned to spend our 1 year anniversary. But, it's over, and we're looking to plan a big trip for next year's to make up for it...

On Day #3, that Monday, after Gearry and I finally got over our dramatic evening the night before and made peace, we ended up playing 18 holes of golf here at Eagle Pointe, the first time we've played the course even though we've lived here since last June. We are both pretty crappy golfers, but it was a good time nonetheless. And by "crappy" I mean that we didn't even figure our scores at the end and we definitely cheated on a couple holes. (Whose idea was it to put water traps right where you tee off???)

I probably won't be writing for several days, just a warning. Tomorrow I have to work and then in the evening Gearry and I are going out with his friend Tim and his girlfriend Jessica for dinner and drinks and such. Tim and Jess are moving to California very soon :(

Gearry has to work all July 4th weekend (the pitfalls of a resort) so I am going to be enjoying Friday, Saturday and Sunday at Stebby's parents' lakehouse in Michigan (The Irish Hills area, about an hour and a half west of Detroit). I'm meeting her in Columbus, Ohio on Friday afternoon, we're grabbing some lunch with Hillary and then it's up to Michigan to chill and party all weekend! I looooove Stebby's family (so much fun) and their lakehouse is really cool (same place where we went for my bachelorette party) and I can't wait! Wish Gearry could join...