Wednesday, June 4, 2014

A Few of My Favorite Things: Spring 2014

Although school is out for the summer, work is actually pretty stressful right now because of a new role I'm taking on. More about that later. For now, I need to revel in the glory that was Spring 2014 outside of work.

In April, my aunt was in town for a conference, so my mom flew in to spend time with us both! We had dinner on Broadway, saw a show at the Grand Ole Opry (my first!), and they helped me redecorate my bedroom and do a few projects around my place. It was a short visit, but it gave me something to look forward to during the week. Does it surprise anyone that Deb travels with her staple gun?

At the end of April, I completed my second half marathon. Very intentionally, I only told a few people that I was training, so it was a bit of a surprise to even my family. The idea was born out of some serious reflection around New Years. As I was thinking about my "resolutions", I realized that I often make resolutions simply because it's tradition. With the best of intentions, I pick some overly vague or painfully specific goal that I know I'll never actually meet, and feel guilty when I ultimately don't follow through. This year, I knew what I wanted for myself was just a healthier lifestyle physically and emotionally: better work/life balance, healthier eating habits, fulfilling relationships, and to just feel healthier than I did in 2013. I don't actually know what possessed me to make a half marathon part of that goal because I didn't have the best experience my first time around, but I started training the first of January (so cliche, I know). In addition, I made cooking/eating healthier a priority and become more intentional about balancing my work obligations and my personal life.

What's crazy is that I actually enjoyed both training for and running the half marathon this time around - that's some serious growth from a few summers ago. And I know the reason - I was doing it for myself, and I wasn't accountable to anyone else. That's why I didn't tell anyone that I was running except for a few close friends in Nashville, who noticed I was going to the gym a lot more often. In fact, even those friends didn't know I was running for sure until the day before - I told them I was only running it if I felt like it the morning of the race. I wanted to run because I wanted to, not because people expected me to. Training for the race gave me a reason to leave work at a reasonable hour, to take time to enjoy the beautiful weather on the weekends, and gave me a sense of accomplishment and progress that was never evaluated by anyone else. It was my thing. One of my other friends was also training, and it was helpful to have someone else to motivate me, but at the end of the day I was committed to it for myself and only myself. Race day turned out to be a beautiful day weather-wise, and I even shaved 12 minutes off my last time. Two of my good friends from work came to the finish line to cheer us on, and I was proud to cross knowing how hard I had worked to get there.

A lot of fun things have happened in May. Cinco de Mayo was a bit of a let down, seeing as how all the Mexican restaurants had ridiculously long waits (we should have seen that coming), but the six of us had our own celebration at one of my friends' places instead. This picture is pretty typical of us:

A few of us also hit the Pedal Tavern one weekend to celebrate another friend's birthday. The Pedal Tavern is basically a bar on wheels, with a driver to steer you through downtown traffic as you and 10 of your friends pedal your hearts out to make the vehicle move approximately 4 miles per hour. If you think about it too much, you realize that you are actually paying to pedal your own way around town and drink your own beer, but it was a blast nonetheless. Following that adventure, I took my second shot at kareoke and enjoyed every second of it.

Memorial Day weekend, I went to Cincinnati to see a very dear friend from Teach for America get married. It was fun to catch up with some friends I haven't seen since we left North Carolina, and the wedding and the bride were absolutely beautiful.

This past weekend we celebrated kids being gone for the summer with two fun events: Brew at the Zoo and our end of year staff party. Brew at the Zoo is a craft beer festival at the Nashville Zoo, yet both years I have gone I haven't seen more than one or two animals. This year it rained on and off, but it is still one of my favorite Nashville events.

Shockingly, I have no pictures from the staff party, even though it's one of the few times all year we leave our teacher cardigans behind and actually get dressed up. Our leadership team put on a great party, renting out space from a local coffee shop, providing some great food, drinks, and even presents. A group of us went out on the town afterwards - it was the perfect way to celebrate another great year and two months with no kiddos :).

This Sunday, we had our last Sunday night dinner with the regular Happy Hour crew - one of our Original Six is moving back to Chicago to be closer to her family. It was the first time in a while that we had had a normal Sunday night dinner, and it was bittersweet. Tomorrow will be our last official day of work for this school year, so it will be a tough day of goodbyes.

This week at work has been mostly focused on reflecting on this past year and thinking about what lessons we've learned that we can apply to next school year. As I said earlier, I'm transitioning into a new role, which has made this week a little more stressful than normal. Look out for details about that new role as soon as I have a chance to breathe again.

Things to look forward to: my cousin visiting Nashville, going home for a baptism and to see some very important people, and summer time in general. Stay tuned!

Happy Wednesday!

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