Imperceptible Smile

1. Beach

2. Wedding

3. Chocolate coffee

4. Birthday Dinner

5. Think myself silly

That's a list of things I did today.

That's funny because she took one meaning of the word "tuning..."

Amazing dinner with old friends tonight.  After a long week of wondering if this place will ever feel like home again, it's nice to laugh myself silly over a glass milk bottle.

This is a picture from last night.

Thanks for tuning in.

...See what I did there?

Human Again

 Going to see Ingrid, because that is something I can't do enough.

Finished my MAT thesis proposal an hour ago.

Have a new life-plan possibility brewing in my mind.

Am apparently into sentence fragments today.

Turning Page

I want to live like this dance feels.

As per chapter six in Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project, I am making a resolution for a one sentence blog every day in August.

If you haven't read this book, 

drop what you're doing

and Do it Now.

I feel as though this is the perfect way for me to catch a thousand fleeting memories.  Even though I'm cheating and today's entry is going to be a lot more than a sentence.

Meet Nelly.  It's love at first strum.

Who lives in this sad, lonely place? 

Remember when it was once the cutest apartment in the mill?  

Full of love, laughter, and admittedly some gas.  

I'm not emotionally prepared to write what I really feel

about leaving Harrisonburg behind...

(I tried, though.)

So, for now. Thank you.

No place has ever felt as much like home.

Updates, downdates... all-around dates.

Apparently my roommates have had a semester-long running joke about the potentiality of me being a spy because they never know where I am or what I'm doing.  And that doesn't surprise me, because I rarely know where I am these days either.

I spent a few weeks in Virginia Beach where I'll be student teaching in the second grade this fall.  Whenever I am home, I fall in love.  I see myself in an apartment by the beach or in Ghent, close to my family, my brother and sister in law.  I don't know, I don't know where I'll end up... but I know I'll have a puppy.

Currently I'm in Harrisonburg, taking summer classes and watching more MadMen than any person should.  It's lovely albeit bittersweet.  I am so keenly aware of the finite nature of this summer.  August first, I leave Harrisonburg for the last time.  Man I'm gonna miss those $17 grocery bills, farmers markets, $1 mimosas at the Nile... and that's just Harrisonburg.  I've already grown to miss so much of JMU.  

--Alright.  That's enough of this love letter to this city.

I went to four weddings in four weeks:

Each wedding was beautiful in its own way, and each intensely personal and valuable to me.  Weddings are such a interesting form of personal expression, and I loved that I could feel each couple and their personalities in each of their respective big days.

It's also so crazy to think that 3 of these four couples are my age.  I'll let that factoid linger, I'm not yer prepared for any sort of commentary on it.

A summer reads update:  I've just finished Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, and I'm contemplating a restart of Game of Thrones.  What are you guys reading?

Shout-Out to the Myriad People Involved in Making Me Literate

Because I'm working on this project and at first I was like:

So eventually I thought I'd START the research.

And then I was like.

So then I thought maybe I needed a fresh perspective.

And then I was all:

Conditions are deteriorating.

A Fitter Foot

My brother is a personal trainer, and he'll tell you:

It's important. It's the only one you get. It's your body.

When I leave my body on the back burner, when I choose fritters over fruits and veggies, it wears down on every part of me. This is something I know to be incontrovertibly true And yet... sometimes it's still so hard to make that choice. To get up and get moving. To make food with micronutrients and not in the microwave.

This has been on my mind for a thousand reasons, including but not limited to: The lack of energy I recognize in myself when I am not treating my body right; the motivation I struggle to find to make myself get moving; and documentaries like Food Inc. which brought to light the dangers in not knowing what we are eating, & Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead which has inspired me to start juicer shopping. Ohheyyy Amazon!

Also, a friend of mine writes an AWESOME health blog and her most recent post is about juicing. Interestingly, she was also inspired by watching Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. Netflix, man. It brings people together!

If anyone has insight into the exciting world of juicer shopping, let's chat. Because I don't really know what I'm doing... and Amazon Reviews are no substitute for good friends.

Secondly, I've started CrossFit training. And by "started," I mean "went-this-morning-and-loved-it." A friend of mine from my grad program swears by this strength and conditioning method. If you're not familiar with it, get on youtube. And then try it.... because it seems to me like the kind of fitness program everyone should have time to do.

Obviously... this means I need new shoes:

Alright, alright... I'm quieting my inner, consumer-driven mind. The truth is: You don't need to buy anything to start being more fit. You only need to make the decision, that's where it starts. And I'm making the decision now.