Weekends. What we all look forward to after a long week at our desks. A time to relax, catch up on the DVR and some sleep. I will say that my weekend plans usually consist of sleeping until about 8:30 (that's all I can muster these days. I feel old), grocery shopping and going out for a nice dinner or two. This weekend was different. A series of girl's night outs and restaurant week dinners had my liver asking the question, "WHYYYYY? I thought we were over this stage of your life????? We have been doing so well these past couple of years..." Not to mention the homemade ravioli and about 2 pounds of chocolate I consumed over the course of the weekend. Bloody Mary's at 2 pm on Saturday, why not?
All of this added together equals Kristin feeling about 20 pounds heavier than normal today. I don't think I can get used to this lifestyle..... I need a treadmill, stat. What did you do this weekend? This past weekend I went on a journey. It wasn't a long one, but it took me back over 200 years. No I did not rent the delorean from Michael J Fox... Abby and I took a 45 minute metro ride into DC to the National Archives to do something I have ALWAYS wanted to do. Find out my family history. Yes, I am a huge nerd, and yes I was obsessed with the show "Who Do You Think Your Are?" on NBC that tracked down celebrities family trees. Did you know Sarah Jessica Parker's ancestor was accused of being a witch in Salem, Massachusets? Hocus Pocus anyone? Well, for me the part of my family that has been the most mysterious is the one that actually bears my last name, Foringer. You may have guessed that yes, this is a very German name and that yes my roots lie in Pennsylvania. See this man in the picture above standing next to the lamp post? That is my great great grandfather, Newton Hiram Foringer. That was all my grandmother could tell me about him. That and who he was married to, Lucy Mae, and that he worked for the electric company in New Cumberland, WV.
And so my journey began... As soon as I logged in at the archives, I found information about Newton. Everything from his marriage license, his WWI draft card to his death certificate. Which led me to his father, Hiram Foringer, born in 1831! I began to slowly creep back through the census records, finding Hiram in different locations almost every 10 years. Can I just tell you there are about 4,000 different ways I have seen the name Hiram Foringer spelled? This was not an easy task... After 4 hours I had come to a halt. He had disappeared in the 1850 census! Where was he? What was he doing? Abby suggested Aliens, and I almost believed her. I was just about to give up when there he was, listed as Hyram Loringer. #fail. As of right now, I am trying to confirm my suspicions about Hiram's father and possibly his grandfather, my great, great, great, great, great grandfather... HOW INSANE IS THAT?!?! AM I THE ONLY WHO THINKS THAT IS AWESOME? Is that a yes? Well, anyways, for those interested I am continuing my search to connect my family together and I am so excited to finally check this off my bucket list! Anyone else out there doing family history research? No? Still the only one? So, loyal followers, you may have noticed there have been some changes to my blog in recent days. It is true, the blog is changing, but only slightly. I am so thrilled with my progress I made on my 24 before 24 goals! I did so many amazing things and got to experience new places, foods and people! However, I sometimes felt like my blog was ruling me, instead of me ruling the blog. With school and work it got tough to find time to do a lot of the things on my list, and I found myself waking up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat after dreaming about a blog consuming my soul! Ok, not really, but you get the picture.. So here it is, the new blog! Well, I should say new blog format. It is going to really be a blog of Lists on Life. One that I can manipulate and have grow with me. As I said to my roommate, it is a "living breathing document... like the Constitution!" (Yes, I am a huge nerd). As you can see there are different categories that my lists fall under: The Recipe Box: I enjoyed learning how to cook with all sorts of new things last year, and I want to continue to expand my horizons! Therefore, this list contains all the recipes that I want to try, many being very challenging. Hopefully as time goes on, I will find more and more things to add to this list and maybe some of you can give me tips and tricks before hand! Get Crafty: I love love love crafts! Love them! I think it all goes back to when my Mom used to scrapbook my brother and I's entire lives. She used to go to these scrapbooking parties with her girlfriends (mostly they gossiped about their husbands, kids, neighbors...etc) and my friends and I would watch as they crafted these beautiful pages. I can still remember my first scrapbook, I think it resembled an ink blot test, but I have evolved! And I have decided to take on even more crafting ideas! Save those Michael's coupons! Packing List: This blog is two parts. The first is a list of all the places that I really, truly, desperately need to see! However, there is a catch. My friend Liana has a saying, you can't say you have been to a place until you have a unique, cultural experience there. Whether that is eating roasted pig at a luau or bungee jumping in Interlaken, I will have a cultural experience at all of these locations. You will also notice that I have an America the Beautiful tab. This is for my trusty National Park Passport booklet! I have already knocked a few off of there, thanks to Liana, and I am ready for more! 100 Bags of Popcorn will stay. It is my soul. It is my passion and was my first ever blog! I am continuing my mission for all 100 movies, and I promise I will write the reviews on the ones I am missing!
Finally, Unlisted. I have a special place in my heart for this blog, mostly because it can be whatever I want it to be! There are always those things that you have always wanted to do, but don't really "fit" on any list, or even things you never knew were on your list until you did them! This is what this part of the blog will be. A place with no structure. So if I haven't lost you by now, there is an overview of my new blog :) I hope you all enjoy it! Last night my girls took me out on the town to celebrate my birthday! Abby made me a sash to wear and a sunflower birthday cake! How cute is that!?!?!?
It was seriously an amazing night, and we had a blast trying different drinks and ended up dancing the night away! Needless to say, my body is still recovering. I am definitely not that 21 year old college student anymore... I am loving my new stripped shirt with elbow patches! Do you have a shirt with elbow patches?
Shirt: Banana Republic SURPRISE! I am taking a road trip this weekend!
Where am I going?!? Who am I going with? We will see! On Thanksgiving I have started taking family photos to be used for our Christmas cards. When I do this, I usually have my brother be my test shot, you know, just to make sure the lighting is right. Enjoying his holiday cheer drink Model Brooke decides to join the photo shoot Ok, things just got really weird... But we clean up nicely.. Sometimes... :)
I hope you all had a fabulous Thanksgiving with your families! I just returned to Annapolis yesterday and have a feeling it will be tough to get back into the swing of work and school again. This Thanksgiving was especially exciting because I made something that I had never made before, pecan pie. Pecan pie is one of my favorite Thanksgiving desserts, but we rarely have it since it is not one my mom cares for. So I took it upon myself to make this pie this year. I love cooking/taking pictures in my mother's kitchen because of these awesome windows. So much light! Every year my mom collects all the seasonal magazines to pick out what the menu will be for Thanksgiving. This year, my pie came from Cooking Light. Which means I can eat 6 pieces right? This pie was easy and not easy to make. The one drawback was how many ingredients there were. After this amazing labor of love, my first pie did not look so hot. But, as they say, "try, try, try again!" So here is the final result on the second, perfect, pie! It was definitely delicious and worth making a second one to get it right!
I hope you all and an amazing holiday weekend! There is the to do list, the grocery list, the bucket list, the if I only had one more hour in the day list, and somewhere among these lists the most important thing falls off...me.
For the past two years I have been struggling with chronic nausea. It isn't something that I have really publicized to very many people, mostly because I don't usually like to put my troubles on other people or sound like a complainer. However, recently my nausea became so bad that I would start gagging out of the blue. For a long time I had suspected that a medication I was taking was the cause of it all, but I had been putting off going to a doctor. The one time I had brought it up to a previous doctor, I was dismissed that it was nothing. But almost everytime I would eat something, I would feel sick. It was terrible. It made me miss important events, and not enjoy what I was doing in the moment. It made me so upset that it would often make me depressed to the point where I wouldn't want to do anything. After crying for multiple days on end about how I felt, I finally did something about it. I went to my current doctor with these issues and basically just told her I had it and needed answers. It wasn't normal whatever was going on, and it needed to end. She took my complaints very seriously and did tests and took me off my medication. As of right now, she hasn't found anything serous, and thinks my medication may have caused me to develop acid reflux. I started on some medication to help with the nausea for a couple days, and after a few I felt so much better I could stop taking it. Now, I am feeling a lot better and am just taking it day by day with the medication. Life lesson? You may have a million lists, but make sure you are on top of them all. |