Feel Good Friday

We are off to a wedding this weekend, I am sure it will be beautiful. And I am sure that this will not happen...



And here's for all my favorite scientists...

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.

You decide...

Are we cuter....

As SIXTH graders?

Or as TWENTY SIX year olds?

Either way, I think we are looking good.

Feel Good Friday

In honor of Halloween...

Impressive and Unimpressive: Session Four

Impressive:

1. This couple! Talk about til death do you part! They were married 72-years and died holding hands. I sometimes think about what Marty and I will be 72 years from now, besides old and wrinkly. Can you imagine how your conversations go at that point?I can imagine starting every sentence with "Have I told you about the time I ...." and then getting a "Yes. Only a million times. No, really. A million. We have been together SEVENTY TWO YEARS".

2.My jet-setting family! My dad is off somewhere in the Grand Canyon with three of his buds, out of cell range for two weeks (hm...should I be worried?) and my bro-in-law just left to live in Paris for a few years. Poor him.

3. My bestie Jenny! She is a first year surgical intern (NBD. Real people's translation: Grey's anatomy, what what?) and is coming out here for no more than 31 hours to go to a wedding of a college bud of hers.

Her hubby is BFFs bros with mine

Unimpressive:

1. My iPhone picture taking ability. That's prego Mia Hamm speaking at the halftime of the Heels soccer game last week, can't you tell?



2. Herman Cain, the flavor of the week of the Repubs. He said this: "Don't blame Wall Street. Don't blame the big banks. If you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself." Did someone replace your brain with a extra large peperoni pizza with extra cheese? (OH! SNAP! GODFATHER PIZZA JOKE!)

3. Thesis-eating-my-life-blinders I have on that keep me from seeing the real world. Soon you and I will be reconnected, in all your unemployment bringing glory. Ugh.

Traditional Medicine

Today is day four of a nasty stomach flu. Husband has been a total champ, went to the store twice for Gaterade, Saltines, and chicken noodle soup.

But when that wasn't fitting the bill, I called up Mama and she reminded me of the old traditional medicine of my childhood. Gaurenteed to cure any ills.

Cinnamon toast. My mom had a small brown glass bottle that had a mixture of cinnamon sugar in it that we basically only used when my sister and I were sick when we were little.

Usually the conversation went like this:

You know what's good for the flu?
Cinnamon toast.

You know what will help with that cold?
Cinnamon toast.

You know what will help you feel better about that big test in biology tomorrow?
Cinnamon toast.

You know what will help you get over not getting that part in the fifth grade play?
Cinnamon toast.

Satisfaction guaranteed. (and for the record, I would have rocked as Mary Poppins. Pretty much altered the course of my life).