Equinox

Today is, officially, the first day of spring. Thankfully, Mother Nature happily obliged. The sun is shining, the grass is green, the sky is blue and the construction hammers in my neighborhood are going double-time. I feel like doing something crazy to welcome spring. Maybe I’ll pack up my turtlenecks!

Yesterday I was walking through Wake Forest’s quad to take something to the post office. It’s a weird thing, to walk around my old campus. I still expectantly look around, as if at any minute I might see a familiar face – a roommate, a sorority sister, a classmate. The people are strangers to me now (and look absurdly young, I might mention) but the scene was exactly the same as any First Sunny Friday I could recall: people spilling out of the balconies in Poteat, Frisbees being tossed on the quad, girls in big sunglasses, jean skirts and sorority jerseys laying on blankets with the false premise of trying to do some reading. For a moment it made me nostalgic – I longed to go back to a place and time when most all of my favorite people lived within a 1-mile radius and our worries centered around crafting the perfect Away Message, but as I headed on to my lovely home, my eager puppy dog and my handsome hubby my sense of contentment with this time and place returned, and all that remained was a grateful feeling for the experiences and where they have taken me.

We had some friends over last night for the first official cookout of the warm weather season. I love so many things about this time of year, but one of my favorites is group cookouts. We had our friends Anne + Locke and Kate + Charlie over, after Matt and Locke finished up an afternoon on the nearby links. It felt so luxurious to be able to sit outside on the deck with just a light cardigan on, enjoying good food, wine and company. I will refrain from discussing the ensuing Catchphrase games, but suffice it to say, the girls will redeem themselves next time.

Speaking of gratitude, I didn’t get my Thankful Thursday posts up two weeks in a row… and it’s not because I’m not thankful! I called my sister, the English teacher, to ask her if she could come up with any synonyms for thankful that started with S so I could do a spin-off for Saturday. Nothing we came up with seemed to have the right ring to it.

Here’s what we had come up with: Satisfied Saturday. Serene Saturday. Sincere Saturday. Sagacious Saturday. Surreptitious Saturday. (Which does not mean thankful by any stretch of the imagination, but I liked the way it rolled off my tongue and I tried to convince her that Saturday was usurping Thursday's role, and therefore the name fit.) Serendipitous Saturday. Seriously So Blessed Saturday. (I really lobbied hard for that one, but since Katie didn’t get the reference, I figured most others wouldn’t either.)

We couldn’t come up with anything. Anyone have a good suggestion? (Suggestive Saturday? Hmmm.)

Regardless, I am thankful, it is Saturday and here is a list. Enjoy.

• The sun, the warm weather, the just-in-time arrival of Spring.
• The arrival into this world of sweet Madelyn Jane, and the health of her momma Katie
• Finalized plans for Winocation – my trip to Wine Country with my college girlfriends. Less than 2 weeks til departure!
• Waking up to no alarm today
• My hard-working hubby, who not only had to wake up to an alarm, but had to go to work after said alarm went off. Boo.
• My Aunt Jennifer, who is celebrating a birthday today. She deserves to have a day as beautiful and lovely as she is.
• The opportunity to do a public speaking gig this week to a phenomenal group of people
• Heather and her HTML capabilities and her excitement and willingness to try and figure out my blog-puzzle
• Running. I have missed it, and it feels good to be back doing something I love.
• And on that note, health. 3 months now. Countdown restarted, and I intend to break my 3 year record this time.
• OH and on that note, my doctor. He called me to follow up on a question I had left his nurse, and took a good ten minutes to talk to me about some questions I had, and even sent me some abstracts that have yet to be published. Anyone who thinks the health care system is broken should remember that a system can be broken, but the people within the system can do a pretty good job at holding the pieces together. (I include my hubby in this – I think going to work in an emergency room every day is the epitome of seeing the broken system, but he just puts his head down and works hard to do what he’s there to do.)
• And on the note of the research abstracts… Jess! I am so thankful for her great experiences in her career, her recently published journal article that I totally did not understand the topic of but I am proud of anyways, passing her comp exams AND her plans for post-doc stuff. Watch out world, this girl is going to be doing big stuff in cancer research. Go Nurse Jessie K!
• My Aunt B’s new blog which is about 75% food/organics/health and 25% musings and observations, and makes me adore her even more than I already do. Go ahead and read it: http://www.swymathecove.com/
• Randomly catching “Only Want to Be With You” (by Hootie) on the radio on my way home from work yesterday. That song instantly transports me back to dating Matt, to one of my favorite dates – a Hootie/BTE concert in Raleigh, and to our wedding day. It’s the song that always reminds me of what an awesome and wonderful thing it is to love and be loved.
• Target’s wine selection. Surprised to find it is pretty darn good.
• A coaching session I had on Friday – it never fails that anytime I coach this one woman (which is about once a month), I learn from her more than I think she learns from me. Or at the very least, it’s mutual. I swear the things that come out of my mouth when I’m coaching her are exactly the things I need to be remembering or paying attention to myself. God’s timing is perfect, ya’ll.
• Blueberry crumb bars from Smitten Kitchen. Butter, sugar, berries. Yum. (Thanks, Heath!)
• My mom and her always available, never bored of me, listening ears.
• My Buddy boy. He had a good week. Won’t say more or I’ll jinx it.
• That I could probably keep on typing this list the rest of the afternoon, but a homemade frappe and some book editing on the book porch await me instead.

And I will leave you with this, my usual gratuitous doggy pic, and the hopes that Spring has found you where ever you may be reading this from.

Pitiful is the new cute.