I heart PA!

Dear friends,
I sincerely apologize for not blogging.
I'm going to make a fair attempt to catch you up on the week.
Love you,
Katie

Mom and I left for our most epic road trip of all time on Monday. We drove through Texas (for hours) and Arkansas in pelting rain (unbelievable, I know!), and made it to Nashville, Tennessee to spend the night. Nashville is a fascinating city, but I didn't get to see nearly enough of it. But Tennessee, oh Tennessee, I am in love. Green, flourishing, beautiful, and home of Jack Daniels. I know, you scoff, I rarely drink whiskey, but it does hold a fond place in my heart for the time that preceeds my 23rd birthday. I will be back to Tennessee.

It should be noted that I selected out listening choice for the road trip: Barbara Kingsolver's Vegetable, Animal, Miracle. You must read it. Must. Must read. Even better, listen to it. Kingsolver's voice is soft and poetic, and her husband's and daughter's voices truly add character to their included essays. I want to eat locally! I want to raise chickens! I even want to cut their cotton-pickin' heads off! Then eat them! A paradigm shift happens when things we typically see as "disgusting" and "nasty," like decapitating and plucking chickens or turkey sex, seem like extraordinary events I am completely missing out upon and I no longer want to be deprived of the joys related to growing, raising, and preparing my own food. Locavores don't seem so "loco" any more. In fact, Matthew and I are committed to weekly trips on Fridays to the Farmers Market and we're going on the 2009 Farm Tour to visit our local farms and inquire about how to purchase some meat locally. Yum! Not to mention, that seriously-- the Amish guy who sold me eggs is really attractive. It's a little strange, I realize, but he is... well... .gorgeous. No lie, ladies. My mom, Matthew, & Ben ALL agreed.

What did we get at the farmers market? This delicious spread of veggies:
The bag has zucchini cheese bread in it. We also bought a shoo-fly pie, which is a little like a brown sugar Pop-tart, but improved. I also bought eggs, a jar of jalepenos, and some rasberry-chipotle preserves. Yes, I found a sweet woman who likes her food spicy (she was a teacher, too!).

Fortunately for Ms. Kingsolver, Mom and I didn't go loco on her and show up at her farm. Humorously enough, we did drive right through the town in Virginia where her mailing address is located. We considered a detour, but can you imagine what we would say if we just drove on up there? It would not have been pretty. But the countryside certainly was!

To be honest, the drive through the rest of Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland was fairly boring. We stopped in Gettysburg, PA, for the night-- we had to visit three different hotels to finally find a room. But the one we ended up in had a jacuzzi tub, and I enjoyed the best bubble bath of my life. The bubbles rose up above my head, and I couldn't stop giggling from shear joy. Truly movie-star like.

We toured Hershey's Chocolate World. It was pretty darn silly. These ladies gave us a tour of the chocolate making process:Come visit me, and I'll take you! It's silly, but we had a good time.

The Good Stuff: State College
Matthew and I get along well, and have already been very productive. We even built our own bathtub, since our apartment didn't come with one. Isn't he great?

OK, yes, we do actually have a bathtub. We just broke out the silliness while creating our first artistic piece for the living space since our apartment didn't come with LIGHTS. Whoever built this place also had a lamp factory and needed to ensure they could keep the lamp factory in business. To really stick it to the man, we created our own light source. We found a vase and a crummy stained lampshade at the Goodwill and created a very lovely lamp.

HAHA- WE STUCK IT TO YA, LAMP-MAN!

Oh yes, we've stayed busy. Matthew has the kitchen organized beautifully, and we've been hunting furniture and working on the living room. We grabbed some more FREE lamps off the curb today and finally have the lighting situated for our living area.

In addition to fighting the lamp factory, we've also managed to

plant some herbs,

create an original piece of art,


and cook a few good meals.

All in a week's work.

I'm sure I've broken all rules of appropriate blog-length, so for those of you still reading, I'll post again soon (tomorrow, hopefully) with some real stories from the week.

Oh, and I hear you guys in Texas got a cold front. Congratulations!