An excerise in living in the moment

Last weekend my friend from home came to visit for about a day. Jenny and I have been friends since we met during a round on 'let's play house' in our Kindergarten class. Sometime later on, we married best friends. She was here last weekend just long enough for me to remember exactly how much I miss her. Which is a lot. The last week I have been missing my best girl friends. I am missing my BFF who just got a puppy that I would really like to play with. And another friend who just had her third baby (a boy!). And another friend who is going through some tough stuff. And another who just bought a new house.

I was lucky enough to have an awesome high school experience, with an awesome group of friends I am tight with still. And almost all of my awesome friends have moved back home to the PNW in the last year. Oh, and I guess we miss our families too...

Husband tells me I just have to imagine that they are gathering more and more people for our epic coming home party, which will happen sometime in the next decade (c'mon breast cancer, get your cure on!).

So I decided I needed to focus on being here in North Carolina. We are starting our fourth year here and we have discovered a few great things. Including (but not limited to)

•  That it is warm in the Fall. That Fall is actually a season! It has been over 70 on my birthday, which is late November, for the last three years.
• Friends! Like those we go to quiz night with! This girl, Kate, is one of our faves.

• That the state fair in the south is the best seven-dollar people watching you will ever have
• That I feel fit and in shape! In the PNW you aren't fit unless you have run a 5k, hiked a mountain, and gone for a light kayak ride during your lunch break
• That there are eccentric people everywhere, like this guy, with a large unicorn (yup) on his car.

• That the ocean has the capability of being WARM!
• College basketball! If you weren't a fan before, you are now. You have NO choice.
• Carolina soccer. Go Heels!

Mia Hamm and Frank Lampard (not really, but still, Go Lamps!)

• The academic opportunities we have had
• And let's face it, if I hadn't come to North Carolina, I wouldn't have gone to Kibera. And as we know, I kinda enjoyed that.
• That a man will run across a parking lot to hold a door for you. 

So we are enjoying our time here as much as we can, learning about new places and new people and livin it up every once in a while.

Thesis update: 18,045 words later, first draft is submitted. Now we wait for the red-pen-massacre to begin.
Blog update: Husband, not a fan of blogging, made me promise I would not name him on this blog. He chose the nick name "husband" for himself, creatively enough.