Friday, May 21, 2010

And That Was April. And, Ok, Most of May...

Once upon a time, I posted on this blog all the time about the things I was doing.  Do you remember?  I vaguely do.

The irony is that I started this blog as a means of "scrapbooking" our life, and then when we are actually busy doing all these fun things... I run out of time to blog about them.  Sooooo annoying when REAL LIFE gets in the way of online life, right?  Right.  Oh yea, and then my hard drive crashed and took with it most of April's pictures and draft posts.  So there's that. 

I took a vote at Bunko last night as to whether I should back track and catch up and just cut my losses and start from today.  The general consensus was that white Bordeaux is very strange, but quite delicious. 

Oops, wrong poll.  The general consensus was to cut my losses and start today.  The systematic side of me doesn't like this.  I finish every book I start, I go down the to do list in the order I wrote it, and I once in high school I forced myself to wear every article of clothing in my closet once before I repeated anything.  I don't like the idea of skipping April and half of May; it truthfully feels a little bit like it didn't happen.

Go ahead and schedule that blogging intervention sometime soon.  In the meantime, I'll just quasi update on what happened between my last post, my hard-drive crash and today. 

I traveled safely home from Napa.  I went to a coaching seminar in Durham with my bestie, Heather. My parents visited.  We visited Matt's parents.  I went to my first car race ever, at Bowman Gray.  A week later, I went to my second car race.  This time I brought ear plugs.


Lauren + I at Bowman


Jamie and I put two dogs in one car and hoped for the best on a 3 hour car trip.  The best happened, and our reward was a day of floating on boat on Cherokee Lake, catching up on magazines, each other's lives and maybe even a little sleep.  We probably shouldn't mention our husbands were working 30-hour shifts that weekend. 


The Captain + Her First Mate


I went to Charlottesville to take engagements pictures of my friend Jess and her fiancee Charlie.  I climbed up on benches, laid in a field of buttercups, got bug bitten and sweaty as I wrestled with a 7 lb telephoto lens and loved every stinking second of it.  The pictures came out amazing, 99% due to my fun and beautiful subjects. 


<3 Jess + Charlie <3

I ran the Race for the Cure 5k with five of my girlfriends - Lauren, Jamie, Anne, Akanksha and Crystal - and 11,000 other girls (and boys) dressed head to toe in pink, celebrating survivors, remembering loved ones and clamoring for free Dannon yogurt and SunChips at the end.  For the first mile, I prayed for myself - to get up the hill.  The rest was flat and downhill and I allowed my mind to wander to a grad school friend who was diagnosed in her 20s.  I've run that race four times now, since I met E in grad school, and every time her continued and future health is the prayer I carry through those 3 miles.  Two of my girl friends were running their first 5k, and my favorite race part of the race was the smiles on their face at the finish line.


Jamie's Pre-Race Pink Carbo Load Party

My husband had a well-earned week long vacation in the middle of May, and used the time off to diligently apply himself to mastering the use of a few specific tools well-loved by most physicians: the driver, the putter, and the 8 iron.  Believe it or not, knowing he was on vacation was relaxing for me as well - it's hard to watch your spouse work day after day after day with few breaks in between!  Hitting snooze at 5:00 am is not nearly so sweet when the garage door is going down and your husband is on his way to work.  (That's why I get up immediately when he leaves and don't allow myself one more second in the nice cozy.. mwafh... waht... zzzZZ....)  Oops, where was I?

Vacation!  The end of his vacation week we traveled down to Myrtle Beach to visit my friend Kim where we all overdid it on sun, peel 'n eat shrimp and well, sun.  Despite using SPF 55, I still have two very pink bright feet a week later.  Totally worth it though, there's no place on Earth that makes me happier than the beach. 

And then! And THEN!  The culmination of all this frenzied activity (I swear there was at least one Saturday night in the middle of all this that Matt was on call and I stayed home and Swiffered and read Cooking Light to my lil hearts content)... I had a birthday.  My actual birthDAY was kind of blase, in the way that they are once you stop having theme birthday parties and/or feeling the need to prove yourself worthy of your friend's bar tabs... it was pretty much just a regular Sunday, I just so happened to be a smidge older.  We went to church, cleaned the house, walked the dog, and I took the liberty of allowing myself a nice 2 hour no reason nap.  Matt picked up dinner from 6th & Vine, and we watched Celebrity Apprentice... and that was my birthday. 

But despite the actual day being as typical as could be, my friends and family made me feel so special and loved on my birthday.   Cards with sweet thoughts, texts from far away friends and facebook messages kept popping up, reminding me that people were thinking of me.  And have you ever received a gift where you felt like the receipient just knew you?  That they listened to what you talked about, paid attention to what you liked, or cared about who you were?  I won't go into detail because that feels a little weird, (and also, hi potential robbers?  I don't have anything worth stealing.  And I've never posted pictures of my house on this blog so just... go away...)  But suffice it to say, there's a few people in my life who have set the bar high for their next birthday or Christmas gift!  So, even though I may have been near-huffing Scrubbing Bubbles shower cleaner on my actual birthday, I felt like one happy, lucky, blessed little girl.


Happy Birthday to ME!  (Please ignore the post-work out hair.)

So I've had a week to get used to being 28, and it's working out pretty good so far.  I truly promise to try and do better to keep this updated, and that's really more for my sake than for yours (okay it's for your sake too, Mom.  And you too, Dad-in-law.)  And well, I guess with that, on to the next adventure!


 
Living The Good Life Ain't For Sissies





4 comments:

Jamie said...

Well now I feel that I have to update my blog. I liked that you were behind...it made me feel better about my blog. That's why my fav feature is backdate feature.

Dog Hair in my Coffee said...

Could you make me a photo album of all your Buddy pictures, you know, for his great aunt? I love your blog, love all your words, your photos, your life. And then, you post Buddy's picture last, and everything else you've done, just flies right out the window. I am in love with your dog.

k. said...

Excellent recap, I think.

And that engagement photo is lovely. Where are the rest?!

Is your external drive really dead? Can someone go in, dig around, & save the photos? I think I'd die if that happened. On my list of things to do is triple back up all of my photos. Seriously. (Costco has really great, massive, inexpensive drives right now.)

Meg said...

Fortunately it wasn't my external hard drive... I had April's pics on my computer and hadn't backed 'em up yet (eeek!) when it went. New lesson: don't delete pics from camera card until they are officially on ex-hard drive.

I'll post more of the e-pics, too. :)