First day as a housewife.

Since I've been married, we've never needed more than one car for our household. Actually, dealing with more than one car in San Francisco or Washington D.C. can be quite the pain (especially if you don't have a garage space!). Because I will be spending the fall back in D.C., Mr. TPG and I decided to try to make it with only one car in Carson this summer. However, you pretty much need to drive everywhere around here! So I am Mr. TPG's official chauffeur for the next few months.

After I dropped Mr. TPG off at work this morning, I was hoping it would be a busy day - my first as a housewife. The cable guy came this morning and we're officially wired in to the net (thank goodness...internet access is like a drug, and my blackberry was not satisfying enough!). I was hoping our moving container would get dropped off today, as sitting on the floor all the time has quickly gotten old, but alas, it will not arrive until tomorrow. Tonight we are checking out a dining set from Craigslist, which will hopefully work out -- and that means chairs! A place to sit!

Though I guess we do have chairs right now...

Welcome to our living room.

We actually had only one camp chair when we arrived, and after a day of guilt-tripping the husband that he had his comfy camp chair and I had the uncomfy step stool, he bought me a $9.99 camp chair from Wal-Mart. Definitely not as nice as our couch though, which I can't wait to unpack tomorrow.

So my first day as a housewife has been pretty uneventful. I've accomplished only: (1) paying the cable guy, and (2) watching hulu. I'd better go finish a few errands before picking Mr. TPG up from work so I can cross a few more items off my to do list. Otherwise I will have seriously failed on housewife day #1!

Outdoor adventures.

Today Mr. TPG wanted to go exploring on his last day before starting his new job. First, we drove out to Lake Tahoe. It took us all of 12 minutes from our house to where we could see the lake from the highway, and about 30 minutes to the main drag in South Tahoe. Pretty snazzy. We attempted to read at Nevada Beach State Park, but after an hour in the cold winds blowing in from the lake we decided to search for warmer territory (though I did actually fall asleep in that freezing wind...). Looking forward to more trips out to the lake during the summer and to the ski resorts in the winter (25 minutes door-to-door to Heavenly? Delicious.).

Beautiful Lake Tahoe

Then, after a couple hours at our local Starbucks where Mr. TPG finished some reading before his first day of work, we took a drive down a small road we spotted from Highway 50 on the way back from the lake. We discovered a group of rock climbers scaling some rocks no more than 10 minutes from our house. Mr. TPG and I had been saying that those rocks looked pretty sweet for climbing when we saw them from the highway. We were obviously not the first people to think that! It's been a while since I've been climbing (and I've only gone indoor), and I'm definitely a beginner. Maybe I'll get some more experience out here in Carson and even attempt some outdoor climbs. It looked like a lot of fun.

Dinosaur Rock, just south of Carson.

We also saw some sweet running/biking trails in a canyon near our house. When we were out here house hunting a few weeks ago we also saw a couple unloading a kayak down by the river. The outdoor fun abounds here in Northern Nevada! Fun, fun, fun. Now if only we had all the right gear. Last time we were in my favorite store, I started looking at the kayaks and Mr. TPG almost had a heart attack. I may be spending Mr. TPG's money before he makes it!

Remembrance.

Happy Memorial Day to all, and a special thank you to those who have served our country through military service. (And thank you to my brother, who served in the Army before, during, and after 9/11 and now continues to serve the veteran community as a civilian!)

Being Berkeley grown, you would think I would be a complete pacifist. While I am opposed to violence for the sake of violence, I think that history has shown that as there have been unjust wars, so have there been wars fought for just and important reasons. When we look at civil wars going on around the world today and throughout history, do we condemn fighting for the purpose of attaining equality or freedom? Both on the macro level of war and on the micro level of civil conflict, sometimes we discover that protecting the values we cherish the most means that we make sacrifices to accomplish that -- both in setting aside our desire for peace, and also putting our lives on the line.

So on this day, I remember and celebrate all the veterans and troops, especially those who gave their lives for the cause of freedom.

Happy Memorial Day.

With the cold, there is silence.

Mr. TPG and I are sitting in our empty living room in camp chairs, both wearing our down jackets zipped high on our necks, computers on laps. When the temperatures in Carson City are supposed to be in the 70s or 80s by this time of year, we are stubbornly refusing to turn on the heat as it creeps into the 40s and 30s. However, the snow last night and the hail today threatens our resolve. Shall we endure and stay strong? We will have to see how desperate the cold night makes us.

One of the things I'm having a hard time getting used to in our new house, and new city, is the quietness of this place. Being in a house with space between us and the neighbors is a new thing for me. The first day we were here I tossed a suitcase onto the floor with a bang, and then immediately tensed up wondering if I had disturbed the neighbors above or below...but wait, there are no neighbors above or below us anymore! In fact, it gets so quiet in our house that it's hard to tell if I'm in Carson City or in a backcountry hut. After growing up in a city, and particularly after living in dense urban cities for the past six years, it's unnerving not to hear cars zip by, voices out on the street, or even a distant emergency siren. The noise of the city has become my white noise, and the quietness of this small city (town, to me) leaves me feeling uneasy, like this is the quiet before the storm or that there is something lurking out there in the dark quiet (creepy!). I suppose some might enjoy the peaceful silence of this place, and maybe I will eventually enjoy it myself, but for now it keeps me on edge with every bird chirp and gust of wind causing me to jump a bit.

Endless winter.

Yesterday afternoon my body finally decided it had enough of my crazy schedule. I haven't had much time off in the last six weeks or so - between finals, house hunting in Nevada, graduations and family visits, and packing and moving, rest has been hard to come by. So I finally got sick and have been sleeping a lot in between our search for certain appliances and furniture and cleaning a bit in our new house.

After my afternoon nap today, I looked out the window and rubbed my eyes. Snow? Really? The little white flakes soon turned into bigger white, wet flakes. We're supposed to get 1-4 inches by tomorrow mid-day. Too bad just about all of my winter clothes are in our moving container. I was sadly misinformed when I packed shorts and tank tops in the car for our hot Nevada summer!

Our new neighbors are both ski instructors at two of the local resorts. I've heard that some of the Tahoe resorts will close after Monday, but some (i.e. Alpine Meadows, my childhood haunt) are planning to re-open for July 4th weekend because there is just that much snow. If only my snowboard wasn't in our moving container along with my snow clothes, this could have been an interesting Memorial Day ski weekend!

In other parts of the world...

Nick Kristof of the New York Times is a journalist I admire. I was pleasantly surprised to see that he recently accompanied International Justice Mission (IJM) on a brothel raid in India and wrote about it in the paper. Check it out. Leave some thoughts. I've heard a wide range of praise and criticism of IJM's so-called "raid and rescue" method and other aspects of IJM's work. As a former IJM volunteer in Africa, I personally have a lot of respect for the organization and their desire to save people, especially women and children, from the inhumanity of evil people.

Starbucks welcomes me.

Good morning, blog world.

Our house is still empty and internet-less, since our moving container won't arrive until after the long weekend and the cable guy also won't come until Tuesday, so our neighborhood Starbucks is our current internet provider. Apparently, though, they knew I was coming:

The question of the day.

Waking up this morning in Carson City, I didn't want to get out of our (inflatable) bed. Instead, I huddled down under my three blankets and kept saying to Mr. TPG, "it's so cold out there!" Looking out the window, the nearby mountains are still snowcapped. I guess I haven't felt 50 degree weather in a while. I've heard it's about 90 degrees and humid in D.C. and I can't decide which one I'd rather have. Where is the perfect 70 degree and sunny weather?

Now that graduations have passed and the long drive is over, I'm now just anxious to settle into our new house, get everything set up, and start studying for the (dreaded) bar exam. Usually a long weekend would be a chance to catch up with friends, clean the house, or spend some time out and about in D.C. This Memorial Day weekend, we don't have much to do -- just shopping for a few things before our stuff arrives from D.C. We don't know a single other person in Carson City, aside from our landlord and Mr. TPG's new boss. I guess we will just have to find some hiking trails? Otherwise, I may be so bored out of my mind we might just need to drive down to San Francisco...

Home.

We made it to Carson City.

Exhausted. More updates to come tomorrow.

Home.

Almost to the finish.

Well, we did it. We survived our "big" driving day.

1,120 miles. 17 hours and 10 minutes on the road. We encountered rain and wind, road construction, and bunnies crossing the road. We crossed from Central Time to Mountain Time to Pacific Time. And we set foot in four states (Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada).

Mr. TPG did the bulk to the driving today, though I took over in Little America, WY and drove all the way to West Wendover, NV without a single stop. Yes, I conquered the Utah highway, with its curves, extra lanes on the freeway through Salt Lake City, and the mundane scenery of the salt flats. The gas light came on just as I hit the Bonneville Salt Flats and I breathed a sigh of relief. I don't think I saw a gas station for the preceding 70 miles or so.

We have a few more hours to go tomorrow to reach Carson City. It has been quite the journey and I can't wait to get there. I can only take fast food and caffeine binges, the standard fare for long road trips, and confinement to one seat for so long.

Next time I log in, it will be from our new home city!

Grand ol' Midwest.

We made it to Lincoln, NE tonight. About to head to bed so we can do another 7:00am start tomorrow.

Sustenance
Breakfast: continental at the Comfort Inn we stayed at last night
Lunch: Taco Bell (both yum and ugh at the same time)
Dinner: splurge at Cracker Barrel

I also survived driving through a major storm this afternoon. The sunny Iowa skies turned into swirly dark madness. Then a torrential downpour and winds, leaving me with about 10 feet of visibility. Numerous cars were pulled to the shoulder with emergency flashers on. I was the crazy city girl trailing a big truck's rear lights until I made it safely to the other side, with sore hands from gripping the steering wheel so tightly. While I was pretty terrified, I think it may have scared Mr. TPG even more! But his little wife made it through...and we got a free car wash. Good thing those storms didn't turn into tornado warnings until we were clear on the other side of Iowa.

Surviving the highway.

Life is a highway, I wanna ride it all night long.

Mr. TPG and I haven’t been on a road trip in a long time. Three years ago, we drove from San Francisco to Washington D.C. over the course of three weeks or so. Instead of barreling through the Midwest as we are doing this time, we took our time, visiting family in Oregon, backpacking in Montana (Glacier) and Wyoming (Tetons), spending a couple of days in Chicago, and attending a wedding in Michigan. We carefully planned the trip – target destinations, NPR podcasts, and a cooler of snacks and drinks. We camped out in our tent until I couldn’t take it anymore and needed a hot shower and a bed (usually no more than one night at a time). For this trip, our departure from D.C. was hurried and much less organized. Mr. TPG starts his new job just after the Memorial Day weekend, thus we are trying to get to Carson City as soon as possible so we can settle in a bit before that happens. Plus, we are both supposed to be studying for the bar exam (yikes), which probably won’t begin until we’re set up in our new home.

I graduated from law school on Sunday afternoon. It was bittersweet, saying farewell to friends but finding closure to an arduous three years. For Mr. TPG, who graduated last Sunday, his farewell to D.C. is much more final. For me, I will be back in the city for the fall semester to finish my joint masters degree in international affairs. While I may be less sad about our departure since I will return in a few months, it does feel like I will never have the same D.C. life again.

Yesterday morning, we sped through the final cleaning, packing, and throwing away of things from our apartment. Our moving container got picked up. And then, without a real travel plan, we hit the open road. Well, not the open road until we got out of Maryland. Thank you, D.C. metro traffic.

Mr. TPG and I have been enriching our minds with NPR since we left, with brief breaks for some country tunes and a hip hop dance party in the car. Without podcasts, we’ve even listened to some of the NPR shows twice as we’ve headed West across the states and the stations broadcast the same shows at consecutive times (James Cohen on Goldman Sachs was really interesting). I’m typing this blog as we cross from Indiana into Illinois, as Mr. TPG navigates the roads and dodges the crazy trucks. After logging almost 12 hours of driving time, I’m starting to get bored and stir crazy. I’ve settled for keeping a log the money we’ve spent on gas (including the price per gallon at each stop and the miles per gallon we’ve been averaging), reading every sign we pass (love those “Keep Alert” signs in Pennsylvania – if you’re not alert, would you really be reading the signs?), and hedging our bets for the best snack breaks (Red Burrito at this rest stop versus the possibility of a DQ up ahead).

How do you survive long road trips? I need ideas. For my sanity. Please.

Road Trip, Day 2.

We left D.C. at about 4:30pm yesterday after a scramble to finish cleaning our apartment, packing up the car, and returning our cable gear to Comcast. My wonderful parents and grandma, in town for my law school graduation, pitched in to help us get some final cleaning done. Did I feel bad that my little grandma was cleaning our dirty toilet? Yes. Did I try to get her to sit down instead? Yes. But are Chinese grandmothers resolute and hard working to a fault? Absolutely. Thank you, my sweet grandma from Hawaii!

Mr. TPG and I turned over our keys and began the long 2,600+ mile journey to Carson City. We made it to Austintown, OH last night and were treated to lightning shows as we headed into the Midwestern state. With just over 900 miles on the agenda today, we started Day 2 of driving with Mountain Dew (Mr. TPG) and Diet Coke (me)...at 7:00am.

The familiar I-80 sign, which goes all the way to San Francisco, is my reminder that we are indeed heading back West.

Here's to another day of safe driving!

Fare the well, Washington D.C.

We hope to be back again soon.

Doing some final cleaning, and then let the road trip begin!

Reduce, reuse, recycle.

Move countdown: 6 days until we leave D.C.

I'm an organizer and a list-maker. Sometimes it drives Mr. TPG crazy, but I'd like to think there are benefits to my insanity. I have a three-page moving checklist that I've compiled from my previous moving checklist (San Francisco to D.C.), suggested lists online (I like Martha Stewart's list), and tasks specific to our own move (e.g. a permit for our moving container, required by D.C.).

The list includes "Services to Set Up: (1) power/electricity, (2) gas, (3) water/sewer, (4) cable/internet, (5) garbage/recycling."

I've added contact information to our checklist for each of the companies that handle these utilities for our new Carson City home. Except I came across one problem: there is no recycling pick up in our new neighborhood! As soon as I pulled up the information on the web, I yelled incredulously to Mr. TPG in the next room. No recycling pick up?! How can that be possible?!

There has been recycling pick up in every place I've lived except for Tokyo and Lusaka. And I've been recycling as long as I can remember. Growing up in a smallish liberal city with a hippie bent across the Bay from San Francisco (name that city for a gold star!), the mantra of "reduce, reuse, recycle" was taught to us at a young age. I remember sorting cans from glass from paper for collection. Single-sort recycling, which doesn't require that the recyclable items be separated by type, followed not long after and I can barely remember the last time (not counting my overseas homes) where a bright blue recycling bin didn't join the green or brown trash bin on the curbside.

Just another difference between my previous homes and my (very near) future home, I suppose. Protecting the environment even in simple ways like recycling is so important (soapbox, please). I'm reminded of that every time I am out in our beautiful national parks and protected lands. It has been so easy with curbside recycling, I hope that I can keep it up when I have to sort my recyclables and drive them to a collection site!

A little bit country.

I have to admit that for a city-bred Asian-American chick, I love me some country music.

Sugarland, in particular, is one band I can always "rock out" to.

The whole world could change in a minute
Just one kiss could stop it spinning
We could think it through
But I don't want to, if you don't want to

Bang for your buck.

I'm a pretty huge HGTV fan, and this week we were in Carson City for my own version of House Hunters.

We've been looking online at places to rent pretty much since Mr. TPG accepted the job. The rental prices in Carson City had me jumping up and down with joy like a kid in a candy store. [I won't even start talking about home prices (to buy) at this point because they are so low compared to what I'm used to that I was tempted just to buy a place instead of going the rental route!] Growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area (just across the Bay from the city itself), I've always had a skewed perception of housing prices. A 3 bedroom house could easily sell for over $500,000. My roommate and I used to pay $2100 per month for our (admittedly awesome) 2-bedroom apartment in San Francisco. And in Washington D.C., Mr. TPG and I paid $1400 and $1600 a month for the one-bedroom apartments we called home during the past three years. We've never lived in a house (as opposed to an apartment) together since getting married!

The specs on the place we're leaving:
Washington D.C. 1-bedroom, 1-bathroom basement apartment in a Capitol Hill rowhouse. Best price (quite low) for the prime location near Eastern Market on a quiet block with friendly neighbors. Not much light - it is a basement - but it quite large at about 800 square feet. Included an approximately 5' x 5' outdoor brick patio space. Older apartment without many updates. $1400 per month.

The front door of our basement apartment.

Mr. TPG flew out to Carson City a few days before me (I was still taking my last law school exams) and narrowed the options down to the top three - so it really was like the actual House Hunters show. We toured the different neighborhoods in Carson City so I could get a feel for each of them. It didn't take too long, as it only takes 15 minutes to drive from the south end of the city to the north end of the city. By lunchtime, we had narrowed the options to two. One had location going for it - the neighborhood seemed less transitional and maybe a little safer - but the other had more space and a stunning interior. But in moving to a brand new city, I knew that we had to go with the gut instinct on the neighborhoods until we figured out more about our new hometown.

The specs on the place we're moving to:
Cute little Carson City 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom single family home, about 1050 square feet. Good location near stores and a ten minute door-to-door drive from Mr. TPG's new job. Largest kitchen I've ever had with granite countertops, clean and mostly updated home. Two car garage. Large backyard with a cement brick patio area and space for me to have a vegetable garden. A lot of windows and great light, with views of the mountains. $950 per month.

Our first HOUSE! (albeit a rental)

Not too shabby of a deal! There are definitely benefits in going from a big, popular city with high cost-of-living to a small city with low cost-of-living - more bang for your buck. We will definitely miss our place on Capitol Hill, as I love the Eastern Market neighborhood with its classic brick rowhouses and sidewalks. But our new city offers us tons of space and relaxed "country" living. I saw some cute little antique stores on the main street and can't wait to check out some of the historic buildings downtown. One of the landlords we met called me a "city girl" but told me that Carson City offers a great community and he was certain I'd like it (eventually). I don't doubt it, and now I can't wait to settle into our new home.

What?! No cupcakes?!

A few days ago we were over at our friends' apartment for dinner and games. Our upcoming move came up in the conversation, of course. I began to tell our friends about how I've been researching Carson City online (mostly on awesome Yelp) since I haven't yet been there. That's when I blurted out the remark.

They don't even have a cupcake shop there!

Mr. TPG's palm immediately went to his forehead and he shook his head in embarrassment. I admit, it did sound more trivial spoken out loud than it did inside my head. But the more I thought about it, the more depth I found in my words.

Cupcakes have become an icon of the trendy yuppie crowd. In cities where young people have good paying jobs (purchasing power), an epicurean love, and a taste for trends, cupcake shops are all the rage.

When I lived in San Francisco, the cupcake trend was just hitting the city after coming to glory in New York (Magnolia Bakery) and Los Angeles (Sprinkles Cupcakes). I was never much into cupcakes, or sweets for that matter, but one of my dear friends was an addict and used to bring me treats from Citizen Cake, Miette, and Kara's Cupcakes. I turned to trusty Yelp today, and found a zillion hits for cupcakeries, most of which I've never heard of after leaving San Francisco in 2008. In Washington D.C., the trend also continues to grow with places like Georgetown Cupcake and Hello Cupcake, and the aforementioned Sprinkles Cupcakes recently found a home here in the District as well.

Where else but in a city of young people with discretionary income could you have three cupcake shops on one road (M Street in Georgetown), and still see people standing in a block-long line for cupcakes? (Georgetown Cupcake, whose infamous line was even featured in the Washington Post). Not to mention these cupcakes typically sell for $3 - $4 a pop/few minutes of satisfaction. The fact that Carson City doesn't have a single cupcake shop only highlights what I think will be serious differences between where I have lived in the past and my soon-to-be home. Whether these differences are for the better or the worse, however, is yet to be determined.

Delicious Red Velvet cupcakes from Auntie Em's Kitchen (Los Angeles), from yelp.com

[Again, for the record and to try to lessen Mr. TPG's embarrassment, I'm not a huge cupcake fan and I do not consider cupcakes a necessity in life. I've probably bought cupcakes twice in the three years of living in D.C., and once was because I had a groupon. But if you are stuffing a red velvet treat piled high with cream cheese frosting into your mouth right now, I don't judge - they are delicious!]