She Does Better

Emilie Burke

SF + Veteran’s Day Weekend at West Point

// Personal

Reading Time: 3 minutes

I’m about 2 weeks behind on recapping life right now, but that’s because there has been so much life going on lately and I am loving it.

I was in San Francisco for a work thing at the top of the month and by sheer coincidence I got the amazing chance to hang out with my friends Claire and Dylan. These are two of the most brilliant data minds I’ve gotten the pleasure to interact with, and I am so grateful to have them as professional colleagues and as friends.

Long before I had planned to go to SF, we had a planned a weekend back at West Point for the Army football game over Veteran’s Day weekend. A group of C’s friends rented a house and celebrated like it was 100th night all over again.

Having spent the last 3 years living in the South, I WAS NOT PREPARED FOR THE COLD. I tried really really hard to be layered enough- I had leggings under my jeans and five layers under my jersey (I’m not that fluffy- I just have a lot of clothes on!) but I was still cold. Lucky for me, everyone we were there with also lives south of the Mason-Dixon, so at half-time we were all over the cold. Army was up enough that we figured they’d win and were comfortable walking away. We explored the campus, watched a guy propose at Trophy Point, and reminisced on old times.

That night, we got the chance to watch Jason Casterlin and The Hillbilly Parade perform. This is one of our fave fave faaaavorite cover bands. JCB performed at our wedding, so seeing him was really nice. At the end of the show, he called us up on stage and invited us to sing Family Tradition with him. Shoutout to Newburgh Brewing Company for letting us have a great time.

We’re a lot older than the last time we were in this part of the woods. I think the last time we were at USMA was for Casey’s graduation in 2015.

At the end of the four day weekend, we flew back home. The weather was a great reminder at why I never want to live in the Northeast again. Sure, you can take the girl out of New Jersey, and you can never take the Jersey out of the girl, but you can never make me want to shovel snow.

That time in the Northeast made us want a nice warm bowl of chili. A simple dinner worth its weight in deliciousness/gold.

A bowl of chili can seem like such a little thing, but I think that’s the whole point. It’s not the big things. It’s the little ones. It’s the chili, the singing with friends, and the riffing with other friends.

New Home, Settled-ish

// Personal

Reading Time: 2 minutes

On the list of things I’m insane for doing, please add “voluntarily moving while my husband is deployed” near the top.

When we found out we were going to stay in Savannah for a bit longer (much welcome news!), we decided we were over apartment living. In the last bit of C’s deployment, I found us a new place to live. We went from renting a 2BR/2BA apartment to renting a 3 BR/2.5BA house with a garage and yard! We’re only 5 minutes away from where we used to live, so we didn’t have to learn a new part of town. And, the best part, it’s only $40 more a month in rent.

All in all, it’s about $100 more per month in rent. Moving to a bigger home means changes on insurance, electric, and revisiting utilities. Of course, the house felt like a place we were moving into, until it was set up.

There was something about these shelves that just seemed to bring everything together for me. I asked C to put these up over leave, and I’m so grateful he did. I think I bought these on Amazon a bit ago, but when we decided to move I never put them up.

Maybe it’s because we’ve never had shelved like this before, but I really do love what the shelves add to the room. Also, wish me luck on keeping this plant alive. I have a murderous black thumb.

I do like what it did to this living room space.

New house is Bo approved.

Homecoming, Staycation, Halloween

// Life Lately

Reading Time: 2 minutes

No apologies for the radio silence. The times have been busy and great.

My sweet, sweet friend Claire sent me this wonderful keychain. Seven months ago, I authored the first commit to our SQL Style Guide. 

GROUP BY 1
ORDER BY 1, 2 DESC

Claire is an incredible human and a wonderful reminder that it takes a village to build a career.

GUESS WHO IS BACK?! Another deployment in the books. I am so glad to have C home. 💖💖💖

Thankfully, we are done moving. This is what the current desk set up looks like. Lately 6 ft has felt small, though. I’m looking to extend the desk into an L Shape. After chatting with a couple carpenters, I’ve learned this is the sort of thing I need a cabinet maker for, but I’m not having the best luck finding someone.

I’m also keeping my eyes peeled for desks with more counter space (less storage fine), but I don’t like the cramped countertop space that I’ve had since moving to 3 monitors.

I impromptu decided to dye my hair. It did not go well. We’re still working on it.

Happy Halloween from Flo from Progressive and Jake from State Farm!

October Wish List

// Life Lately

Reading Time: < 1 minute

ZERO TRAVEL and loooooots of exciting things happening this month.

October Wish List:

  • Finally get to a Ghost Tour
  • Move without murdering anyone
  • Finish Starting Strength Book
  • Take vacation from work and savor an amazing staycation
  • READ

Summer Wish List –> Fall Wish List Rollover:

  • Ghost Tour
  • Prohibition Museum
  • Weekend totally unplugged
  • Fresh flowers once a week for a month
  • New hiking trail

Cool things that happened in September:

Picture: I finally finished stitching the background on my Savannah ornament. I now understand why the instructions said to do that first. Lesson learned. Just the pink house and the white flower to go. (Remember how I was supposed to finish this in July?)

My Quickest Trip to Brazil Yet

// Life Lately

Reading Time: 4 minutes

After a couple of days up North for GitLab Commit in Brooklyn, I flew out to Brazil last week for what is most definitely my fastest trip there ever.

I really went back and forth on what was the appropriate amount of time for this visit to family, but in the end I settled on a week-ish away from home, 12 days total, as the appropriate amount of time. I couldn’t think of this trip to Brazil in a silo because that’s not what it was- it was a trip that followed a trip that took me away from home. I needed to look at the whole picture. I’m so glad I did.

I knew I was going to go to Brazil, so the flight in itself was essentially a sunk cost. That mindset made it much easier to justify that I did the right thing.

I landed in Brazil on Thursday and my family immediately started celebrating. My mom, aunt, and cousin also landed on this day. Another cousin and his wife had come from Germany earlier in the week. It was a nice way to catch up with folks we don’t always get the chance to catch up with without there being the overwhelming pressure of all the family there.

Friday, I spent most of the day working. Thank goodness for solid wifi!

Saturday was my grandmother’s 80th birthday party, and the whole reason we were all in town! Slowly, more and more family tricked in. Another aunt and her boyfriend, my sister and her boyfriend, loads and loads of cousins!

It was so great to be there to welcome everyone and see so many familiar faces, many whom I haven’t seen in years.

By the time lunch came around, there were almost 40 people there! I am always in shock at how well my Dinha handles a crowd.

Folks from all over Brazil, some as far as 12 hours by car came to celebrate my grandmother! And we kicked off the party long before the party!

The party itself was amazing. In a lot of ways, it was a mini-wedding, haha. All-in-all, I think there were over 150 people there celebrating my Vo Zica! Here are all but one of my Lima cousins, who unfortunately couldn’t attend. My grandmother also has three beautiful great-grandchildren, who were fast asleep by the time we took this picture.

Of the 7 cousins in this picture, 4 of us live outside Brazil, 3 are engineers, 1 is a doctor, and we’re all pretty well-traveled. For my Vó, for whom leaving the farm to move to the “city” was a big deal, I’d say we’ve done that legacy pretty well.

Sunday, we kept the party going! We rented a party hall and continued celebrating my grandmother, but also enjoying each other’s company! Even the most recently I’ve seen any of these folks was my wedding almost a year ago!

After half the folks who hung around on Sunday left, we decided to take a group picture. Hopefully this helps paint a picture of the sense of just how many folks there were!

Eventually, our rental ended and we went back to my aunt’s home where we, unsurprisingly, kept drinking.

By Sunday evening more people were heading back to their homes. Monday, I spent the day working, while a couple folks went sightseeing to Aparecida, the Sacred Basilica of Brazil.

Monday night, my last night in Brazil, concluded with the remnants of folks headed to a pizzeria. I wanted a Brazilian hot dog!

A Brasilian hot dog is a hot dog but topped with requeijão (like cream cheese), corn, little french fry sticks, raisins, green sauce, cheese, ketchup, and deliciousness. All of this and you get the cardiac arrest in 20 years for free! (Jk, kinda?)

I couldn’t totally resist the pizza, though, and opted for a slice of desert pizza- banana with condensed milk and cinnamon! These is the food that I’m here for!!

Tuesday morning, I worked for a bit before my uncle drove me to Rio so I could fly home.

Traveling is amazing, but there’s something special about coming home.