I've been on a sort of internet hiatus. Work has been crazy, my mental state has been less than stable, and I just needed to take my free time and just dedicate it to getting back in a good space before the quarter started. My classes start tonight, I am starting to get back on top of my life, and I am ready to rejoin the blogosphere.
Giant burritos - Last weekend I headed home for my grandpa's 80th birthday celebration. My aunt, Marianne, drove up with my mom on Friday and, as we swung into Chambana, we met my sister at Fiesta Cafe and I ate an enormous steak burrito with refried beans and spanish rice and some of the best margaritas you can get. Starting off a weekend home with a full belly and good company was spiritually warming.
Farmer's market - Saturday morning we got up early and headed to the local Farmer's Market where my aunt, Jodi's, toffee booth of awesome is. The atmosphere is always great, we see tons of people we know, and we get super tasty breakfasts from local businesses.
Cooking competitions - Speaking of the toffee booth, they're hosting an awesome recipe competition that I'm competing in. I think I've got a winner (as long as I get it shipped in time).
Family day - The rest of the day was filled with more family than you could possibly handle. There was a local cake/punch open house at the church, a family dinner out at my uncle's lake house, and wine and board games out at my aunt's school house that lasted well into the wee sma's. It was an amazing day full of hugs and love, babies, and tons of laughter. Seeing my mom's godmother, my grandfather's sisters from Tennessee, my bff-since-birth, and everyone's little ones is just an amazing way to spend the day.
New babies - My cousin, Tiffany, just had a baby four weeks ago and Tyler is the cutest, cuddliest little baby. It definitely made my afternoon to carry him around and get to know him on Saturday.
Cards Against Humanity - When I said wine and board games, what I meant was wine and Cards Against Humanity. I never seem to get tired of this game no matter how many times I've read those hilarious, dirty answers. However, the best part was my mother having to look up what "bukkake" was in order to play a card and my cousin, who is old enough that this was surprising, asked if she could trade in a card because she didn't know what "road head" was. Love my fam.
Brussel sprouts - I cannot get enough brussel sprouts in my diet. Seriously. It is insanely depressing to me that I can typically not find very good ones for all of the summer months. However, my grocery shopping trip on Sunday was most productive and I had happy happy veggie tummy all night last night.
Ladies night - After a day full of snotty undergrads, I seriously earned a ladies night. Thankfully I had one scheduled Tuesday night. Much thanks to Makena for hosting and providing fabulously boozy warm cider, Hiro and Rachel for the snuggles, and Steph for the facial and introduction to Arbonne, I'm a little in love with everything we tried that night.
Back on schedule - As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, I've been a bit off all summer. I haven't been exercising or meditating or eating properly or cleaning my house or taking care of myself particularly well. I finally feel like I've started to get back to myself a little over the past couple of weeks. I've been avoiding my video games and taking time to read, I gave my house a serious fall cleaning and reorganization, I got some good food in the house and have been actually cooking dinners, I've been getting in nightly sit-ups and push-ups and face-washing and flossing. I'm feeling a lot better and less hectic in my brain and it's nice to just breathe again. Now time to get off this extra weight I picked up. :)
No papers - Today I got my syllabus for my Thursday night Psychopathology course and it informs me that my grade is 50% weekly quizzes and 50% final exam. I test extremely well and I learn better from lectures and regular testing. I hate writing research papers with a fiery passion. Don't know what my Saturday course is going to entail yet but I'm glad I've dodged the bullet on at least one class worth of papers this quarter.
