Last night, while I was laying on my bed, I had one cat curled up behind my legs, and one cat curled up next to my chest. It was so sweet. I could watch them sleep all day.
Then one reached over and tried to claw my face, but I’m sure she did it out of love.
Last weekend, Scott and I took a mini-vacation to Atlanta! We also met up with Jeff and his friend Doug (because apparently Scott and I alone aren’t a good enough reason to travel to Atlanta for), and we did a lot of really cool stuff.
We arrived on Saturday and went to dinner at a place called The Vortex, which was pretty neat. I had been sick all day, so I didn’t really get to enjoy any of the food, but I heard it was awesome. Doug got some kind of burger that looked like a heart attack waiting to happen.
It was the Double Coronary Burger: two fried eggs, four slices of American cheese, five slices of bacon, and instead of a bun, two grilled cheese sandwiches. Sick.
Sunday we started off at the Georgia Aquarium, which was really cool. I took a lot of bad iPhone pictures because I can’t work my camera well in low light, but you get the gist.
BFFs.
Jellies
Super poignant and stuff.
Up next was the WORLD OF COKE, which I am a big fan of.
Scott, Jeff & Samuel T. Coca-Cola
There was a serious amount of cheesiness here. We had to sit through TWO seriously lame movies, but at least one of them had moving chairs and was in 3D. I was really excited about the tasting room, which was kind of disappointing. They had fountains set up that had different kinds of soda from all of the different continents, and about 98% of them were TERRIBLE. Thankfully, they had a normal Coke tasting fountain, so that I could cleanse my delicate palette (but seriously, I had to get that taste out of my mouth).
The premiere of A Charlie Brown Crimmus was sponsered by Coke.
Coke Pop-Art
Monday, Scott and I were on our own, so we went to take a tour of the CNN World Headquarters. I would not recommend it. It was seriously boring and dumb and you don’t even see anything cool, unless you like looking at office cubicles for an hour. BUT, the food court has a Taco Bell, a Moe’s and a Don Juan’s Mexican Cantina. So you have taco options. (This isn’t really a redeeming quality, but I just wanted to point that out because it’s ridiculous.)
And on the home we had this:
Mmm.
Lexington barbecue. Heavenly.
So, things I learned on this trip:
This morning was just an epic failure, but I’m trying really hard to look at it this way:
I’m trying really, REALLY hard to look at it this way. It’s kind of working. Kinda.
Not really.
This piece of paper represents four years of hard work, challenges, determination, hesitation, amusement, disappointment, bravery, timidity, confusion, curiosity, indifference, encouragement, enthusiasm, extreme apathy, exasperation, stress, optimism, pessimism, excitement, exhaustion, restlessness, stress, happiness, and so many amazing opportunities and experiences.
I’m so grateful.
I’m sorry I haven’t done as well with this as I had intended. It’s hard to remember to blog everyday, but hopefully I’ll get back into the swing of it. (But was I actually ever in the swing of it?).
This moment was Monday evening when we were driving back from Atlanta. The sky was cloudy and it was starting to drizzle a bit, and it was also getting dark anyway and people were starting to turn their headlights on. We were snug in my car with the heat on, holding hands and listening to oldies on my iPod.
Well, it was a nice moment for me, at least. I’m sure Scott wasn’t too thrilled about driving in the rain, squished into a VW Beetle. But I digress.
image via flickr
image via flickr
Last night when Scott and I were driving back from Greensboro, I was talking to him about some of the useless talents that I have, such as having a ridiculous WPM score and knowing all of the capitals to all of the countries in the world. I’m particularly proud of the latter, but the problem is that it never comes up. It’s pretty helpful when it comes to trivia, but no one ever wants to know what the capital of Palau is. Also, a lot of people really don’t care.
So, after I expressed my disappointment about this, Scott immediately started drilling me about world capitals. It was awesome. I really appreciate that he indulges me with stupid things like that, and that he recognizes my need to show-off occasionally, because I’m too self-conscious to do it in public. We’re also both giant nerds.
I also had so so so much fun hanging out with Ricky in Greensboro! It was nice to sit and catch up, and I had also kind of missed UNCG. I even wandered around the first floor of the Graham for a little bit because I’m weird.
I think that for the most part, yesterday was just one big nice moment.
I am very easily bothered by things, and I spend an unnecessary amount of time focusing on things that irritate me or make me angry, which doesn’t do any good for anyone, especially me.
I think the most common advice for this is to just focus on the good things and not dwell on the bad, which is advice that I’ve always heard and never followed. But recently I’ve started trying this, and it really does work! My mood has been awesome for the past few days (even though I have a pesky cold).
I have also been carrying around a teeny notebook and writing down little moments that made me feel good, so that I can go back and read them when I get irritated about something. I’ve also been collecting pictures that make me happy and I’ve made a little album of them that I’ve put on my phone, which has also been pretty helpful (though kind of distracting while at work).
Another thing I’m going to start doing is posting one nice moment from my day, everyday. Starting today. And also maybe a picture that has made me happy. And I initially meant to post this last night, so here’s yesterday’s nice moment:
While I was at work, “The Boxer” by Simon & Garfunkel came on the radio, which is my favorite song. It’s always so exciting to me when a song I love comes on the radio, because as Scott’s friend Chris has said, it’s so awesome to know that thousands of other people are listening to this song at the same time as me, and maybe someone else out there is also having a little moment.
image via flickr
Last night Scott and I went to the last Durham Bulls home game of the year during the playoffs, and even though I sat shivering in the rain for three hours, this was the best baseball game I’ve ever been to. This article on Bull City Rising hits the nail on the head for me:
So, unlike the baseball neophyte of past seasons, I’ve come to Bulls games of late with a greater focus on the action on the field than I might have in years past. Not that I still fully understand the game — but then, who ever does? Isn’t that part of its weird fascination?
…
Sure, there’s a great energy to a sold-out, packed DBAP — but it’s the energy of humanity, not strictly of baseball.
Last night’s crowd might have squeezed into the old DAP, though it would have been a tight fit.
But it was a pretty hard-core baseball crowd.
The best kind.
Sometimes, addition-by-subtraction really does work.
Click the link above to read the rest of the article, because it’s great. It’s like the words were taken right out of my mouth.
The reason that I’ve been disinterested in baseball games here is because most of the crowd was as well. But when you remove the people who are just there because they got free tickets through the company (I’m guilty of this), the people who are bored and have nothing better to do (I’m guilty of this), and the people with kids just looking for something family-friendly (I’m not guilty of this), you’re left with the people who are really there for baseball, and it’s their excitement that makes these games worth going to. I’m disappointed that it took me until the last game of the season to find this out.
It makes me sad to think of this stadium sitting there empty for the next seven months, partly because I want more of that excitement, but also because the end of the baseball season means summer is over. The end of summer always breaks my heart. Fireflies are gone, blackberries are going out of season, Friday night fireworks across the street are over, and I can no longer wear white pants if I feel the need to (I never have, but I like having the option). I’ve been grasping desperately to it for the past few weeks, and even though it’s not technically fall yet, yesterday just felt like the end. Last baseball game, last time blackberry will be the Flavor of the Day at Goodberry’s, dreary weather. I’m already getting a cold.
I used to hate this time of year because of going back to school, but this year it was especially depressing because this was the best summer of my LIFE. I graduated from college, finally turned my too-long distance relationship into a live-in one by moving into a pretty sweet loft with Scott and our two kitties, got MARRIED and had fun with all of my friends and family in one place, went on a fabulous road trip, and got a full-time job, amongst other things. It’s been perfect and I don’t want it to end.
I’m starting to get a little excited about fall, though. There’s some cool stuff going on, like the state fair and Halloween and Thanksgiving and my birthday. And FOOTBALL. The excitement I felt last night at the Bulls game is how I feel every time I go to a live football game, so there’s that.
I know summer is just a season. I know the life I live during the summer is the same one I live during the fall, winter and spring. But still, I’m already counting down the days until June 21st.
(277. Sigh.)
Scott turned 30 exactly a week ago! I figured I’d wait until all of the fun was over to blog about it, and then I got lazy. But here we are now!
Last Wednesday I took Scott out to dinner at Four Square, and you can see my Yelp review of it here. It was still fun to look nice and go somewhere fancy, but seriously, my cheesecake was the size of a silver dollar.
Afterwards we tried to go to Bull McCabe’s downtown, but it was the kind of crowded where there wasn’t anywhere to sit, but there weren’t enough people standing around to not feel awkward doing so. Then we tried to go to Whiskey, but I’m not old enough! You have to be 23! I thought I had gotten past the part of my life where I wasn’t allowed into bars, but I guess I was wrong. We ended up going back to our apartment and drinking from our own private bar (a pack of PBR in the fridge).
Thursday we had Scott’s FAMILY party. We had dinner at Tyler’s Taproom (where I never seem to order the right thing) and then opened presents at Meema’s. Scott got some barbecue books, including one on North Carolina barbecue that I covet (even though it’s pretty much mine since it’s his), and some clothes. I also got him a cake:
The origin of this joke is here.
Friday night was DATE NIGHT. We had dinner at Ted’s Montana Grill near Southpoint, and it was surprisingly really good! We thought it was going to be a generic sit-down burger place, but nope! My burger was tasty and the strawberry shortcake was HEAVEN.
We spent a while after that shopping around for a dress for me, which is always hard. The biggest problem I have with shopping for clothes is a) I have no patience for it, and b) I’m picky. My taste is pretty simple: I like classic things with very few details. So you’d think I’d have a pretty easy time shopping, but for some reason every store needs to add weird, trendy details to everything. All I wanted was a classic LBD, but all of the black dresses I found had patent leather belts, ruffles, sequins, etc. No luck.
We also saw “District 9″, which neither of us liked. He didn’t like it because he thought too hard about the plot, and I didn’t like it because I hate every movie I’ve ever seen that involves aliens (with the exception of “E.T.”).
Saturday we went to Crabtree to look at more dresses, and I finally found one! And I followed all of the rules from “What Not to Wear” when I picked it. It’s pretty!:
NOTE: That is not me.
I later wore it to my friend Savannah’s wedding, which was very beautiful even though there were dueling shotguns in the background during the entire ceremony. Scott and I both looked pretty foxy, but unfortunately there are no pictures of us (that I’m aware of). :(
Monday we went and saw some baseball with Britney and Bryan! I got some awesome tickets for us through work, and we got an EXCLUSIVE PASS into the MVP club, where we got a free hot dog and beer and an Evan Longoria figurine. Pretty exciting. We also watched baseball and ate sundaes in little baseball hats and I got Scott a happy birthday shout out on the video board, but it was only up there for about 5 seconds, so I didn’t get a picture. But it did happen and I was pretty pleased with myself.
Yesterday we got our wedding pictures in the mail!! They’re beautiful. We chose the perfect photographers and many thanks to Britney for the recommendation! I’ve put a few of them on Facebook, but there were 606 pictures total, so I’m going to try to put all of them on my Flickr account and I’ll post a link when they’re up.
Gah, I had so much fun! Can we have a wedding every week?
