"It's good...isn't it great...isn't it swell..."

I know what you're probably thinking.  Alright here comes another Priya post and she's about to let loose on all this stupid job stuff that's been happening to her.  Well I've been dwelling too much on that the last few days so instead I am just going to talk about my trip to Chicago.

I went to Chicago for 3 days with my mom, Anumasi (my mom's sister) and Auntie (my aunt on my dad's side).  We went to shop for clothes and jewelry for the wedding.  There is a street right outside of the downtown area that is seriously like little India.  All along it were Pakistani, Israeli, and Indian stores, restaurants and beauty parlors.  We spent two days just on this Devon Ave.  It was...an experience.

I loved the clothes and I loved hanging with my family (especially Auntie who I haven't spent time with in a while).  But...it was tiring and the bargaining...ohhhh the bargaining.  I just don't like it.

Either way, we had some good laughs.  We must've stuck out like a sore thumb because we would come into stores and the employee would say "oh I see you walking up and down for the last 2 days.  You look like you're all rush rush."

Here are some pictures from my very Indian Chicago weekend:

Freezer section at Patel Brothers, the Indian grocery store

Chutney Bar

The result of our shopping trip

On the last day we made it to the city.  This was my first time to Chicago.  I really wish we had more time to do stuff around there but we were all so tired by that point anyways.  We got to walk around the river area.  Chicago is beautiful! I definitely need to go back!

It was so overcast that we weren't able to go up to the Willis Tower.

It was a little chilly.  These are my family members in their neutral colored sweaters.

Hehe...I love this picture.

We ended the trip with some Chicago deep dish pizza....soooo good.  Awesome ending before flying back home.

"In my room...in your room"

Some of you may remember the Great Shower Leak of 2010 that occurred a few months ago. If not, it was...well, a shower leak...that messed up the carpet of my room and the family room. It also cause the vanity in my bathroom to somewhat fall apart from the dampness.

Since then, we have been working to renovate these areas. We got wood put into the family room. We also got new carpet in my room and replaced the mirror and vanity in my bathroom.

While our insurance gave us enough money to replace my pepto bismo pink 80s furniture, we decided to keep it and save the money for the future house that Ojas and I will have someday. Working with what we had, we painted both the room and the bathroom.

I've had this idea to have a giant tree on my wall and got excited when I saw there are companies that make vinyl wall stickers of what I wanted. Unfortunately, these stickers were like 70 bucks. I took the much cheaper route and decided to paint it myself.

Tree Wall

Finally hung up the lamp I made in undergrad.

The bathroom

LOVE LOVE LOVE my little corner of the house.  Perfect for reading Harry Potter and taking naps :)

"And so...Priya waits, Priya waits, Priya waits...."

It's been over two months since my last post...whoopsies.

I stopped for a long time because I never wanted this blog to become an obligation. I didn't wanna have to feel like I HAD to post on it every once in a while. But I think I'm ready to come back to it because I need some kind of venting ground. Besides, there is only so much you can share with people through facebook statuses.

So what has happened in the last two months...hmmm...
Well Ojas is here and situated. He's now the pharmacy manager of the CVS that most of my family goes to. He's liking it here. We're still unsure of where we will end up after we get married but for now Naples it is.

The job searching is getting extremely frustrating. More than anything the thing that discourages me is that no one seems to want to follow up after an interview. I call several times and email but I keep feeling like people are blowing me off. I know I'm doing my part but how much more can I do? Even a "no" would suffice but in every case (there have been maybe 8 opportunities at this point) I have been forced to play the waiting game. Grr.

Unlike job hunting, wedding planning is going well. Pretty much have all the major things covered. Next up is food...which is the part Ojas is really excited about :) I feel like I'm productive when I plan for this wedding. Generally I think of myself as a really lazy person but then I have these moments when I love to be organized and love having to stay on top of things. It's those times that make me realize that I need some purpose. More than money, I need a job to feel useful again.

I have been using downtime to work out. Since school ended last year, I've lost about 17 pounds. Crazy...doesn't even feel like that much. I guess it has been really gradual. I've been spinning and going to these weight lifting classes but once it gets a little cooler I want to start running again. I actually really like running. It's just making it off my couch and outside that's the hard part hah.

Alright well that's that for now. I will do another post tomorrow...and I promise not to complain so much.

Heeeeeey

What is up with this summer?  All year I have had to try to plan things to do...and now!  I don't have a single free weekend!

And once again I've fallen behind on blogging.  I still need to post pics of my Kansas-Florida drive along with other events that have happened.

I'm going to Atlanta and South Carolina tomorrow for about a week.  But mark my words...when I come back I will get back to blogging.

For now I'll leave you with a song of the day.   I've recently fallen in love with Vampire Weekend.  I love their song "Giving Up the Gun".  And just when you think it couldn't get better...who should appear in the video but Joe Jonas and....Jake Gyllenhall (sigh).

Cooler Scooter

The other night we went out and I happened to run into a spinning instructor from my gym.  This was the first time I had seen her outside of the gym so we chatted for a bit and then she showed me something I have never seen in my life-- a cooler scooter.

It's a cooler...on wheels.  Motorized wheels.

I just stared in awe and just then she said "You have to take a ride before you go in [to the bar]". My face said "Oh umm...alright" but my insides were screaming "OMG CAN I CAN I?!?!"

It was a pretty smooth ride.  Thanks to Erika and her trusty iPhone, we were able to document this joyous occasion.

Action shot!

Kansas to Florida: St.Louis

Our first pit stop after leaving Kansas City was in St. Louis.  I have always wanted to go the arch, especially when I learned that you could ride up to the top of it.

What excited me even more is that the vehicles we rode up in were these tiny little pods that were designed in the 60s.  One little space fit five people for a 5 minute ride up to the top of the arch.

We was squished.

We got to know our fellow pod riders in those 5 minutes.  The two people sitting across from us were a couple from outside of Orlando.  They just happened to be in town visiting family.  The other guy was a guy in his 60s and when we asked him what he does he said "I'm a full time RVer".  All he does is ride around the country in his RV.  Imagine that life.

Anyways...knowing my luck I started getting a cough and cold right when we left Kansas.  When we got the to the top, I started getting shaky.  My cold combined with the height was making me feel super light headed.  So we walked around a bit and headed back down after a few minutes.  But not without getting some shots of downtown St. Louis first.  So glad we made this stop!

Since St.Louis was only about 3 hours away from Kansas City, we decided to head on. We passed through Illinois (got some therapeutic hot chocolate) and stopped for the night in Kentucky. Poor Ojas did all the driving. What a sport.

Kansas to Florida: Kansas

It's official.  My Kansas boy is now a Florida boy.  We've been home for a few days now.  I have to say, it is going to take some adjustment to get used to him living here.  Not in a bad way...just in a different way.  Two weeks ago, we had been in our usual situation of leading our own lives and seeing eachother every 6 weeks or so.  Big change...but I am so happy we finally made it happen.

My mom and I went to Kansas on the 12th.  My mom finally got the chance to meet Ojas's parents. Ojas's brother, Udi, surprised us by flying in from Pennsylvania so she got a chance to meet him too.

My mom also had the chance to see some parts of Kansas...parts that I had seen when I went there last year.  We went to downtown Lawrence and had a beer at Ojas's favorite brewery, Freestate.  He was pretty sad about leaving this place.

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We showed my mom around the Plaza and had our first Sampat-Patel family dinner at a Mexican restaurant there.

 I took this picture when we were leaving the restaurant and I thought it was just so cute!

While we had the families together, we thought it'd be nice to have a little mini engagement. So we got dressed up and took some pictures at the Sampat house.

Ojas's family gave me a few gifts for our engagement.  I could see that Ojas definitely had a hand in it because all the clothes and such were teal.  What a good guy for remembering my favorite color!

We only stayed in Kansas for a day a half.  On the 14th, we started our road trip back to Florida with some awesome stops along the way.  To be continued!

Song of the Day

Kings of Leon is starting to become a favorite band of mine. Apart from being pretty to look at, the singer has a really cool voice. I wasn't crazy about this band at first because their songs are very different from the singles they've released (especially "Use Somebody"). But now I LOVE THEM! I even got my mom into them (them and Snow Patrol being her favorite bands right now). Common interest in music usually leads to us listening to YouTube videos...and me breaking out in random dance parties in the living room. Whatevs.

Annnnyyywaaaaaays. This is "Closer".

"I find a map and draw a straight line, over rivers, farms and statelines..."

In just two weeks my mom and I will be flying to Kansas City. The parents are finally gonna meet! It gets me a little nervous but I'm sure everything will go great.

Ojas is going to show my mom and I around the places where he's hung out for the last 6 years. Then my mom will fly back home. And Ojas and I will start our driving trek down to Florida. I can't believe it's time for him to move here. I'm definitely ready for it but it still hasn't hit me yet. He will be going from living 1000 miles away from me to 3 miles!

As you can see from the map above, we will be hitting a few cities on our way down. With any roadtrip, it's nice to stop along the way and have a little fun. We still have to work out the details of the trip but as of now we're planning on going to the arch in St. Louis, seeing the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, doing some miscellaneous fun stuff in Chattanooga, and going to the Coke Factory in Atlanta. Depending on our timing, we may make a pit stop in Tampa before we get all the way back to Naples.

Oh how nice it'll be to just be able to hang out and not have to worry about who is going to fly where!

Song of the Day

When my mom and I were driving to Estero to meet up with my uncle, I decided that a good way to start off the night was to listen to a really good CD on the highest volume that we could tolerate it.  There's something so awesome about driving on the highway and singing to a really good song.  I mean...I'm sure the two glasses of wine I had consumed before the trip contributed to the good mood I was in.  But nevertheless...this is a great song.



(Jessica Szempruch, if you read this blog...this song ALWAYS reminds me of you)