HAPPY 30th BIRTHDAY JTT

You're the only one of my celebrity childhood crushes still alive (RIP Jonathan Brandis, RIP Brad Renfro), so there is a lot of force behind that happy birthday.

My new favorite activity

CONTRA DANCING.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNx6t7VZe9o&feature=related

They offer this once a month where I live! You dance up and down lines, so while technically you have a partner, you will actually dance with every person in the line. There was a man celebrating his 83rd birthday at the dance I went to on Friday night. He danced up and down the line as well as anybody.

Another reason I like it is because it reminds me of the Yule Ball in The Goblet of Fire. This also happens to be the one scene I've seen the most of the Harry Potter movies, because somehow, every time ABC Family is having their marathon (so, pretty much every weekend), Tim turns it on right as the dance scene begins. Which is fine with me, because I love the dance scene. But I love contra dancing more.

Anniversary

Apparently the father of modern Southern cuisine has a restaurant in Chapel Hill. So we went there for our anniversary.

the hello-humidity hair

the we-just-moved-and-I'm-a-chill-guy scruff

It was delicious. But North Carolina barbeque is always disappointing to me. Even when it's prepared in the tradition of the father of modern Southern cuisine.

But maybe I'm just missing Wilmington.

The Trauma of Moving

First of all, I'm thankful for parents who realize their adult children need help moving, and continually offer to help us move our stuff. So, thanks David, who flew out to North Carolina to help us move, and thanks Dad, who offered to fly out and help enough times I felt fully confident we would somehow make it three hours northwest to Chapel Hill. It really made me feel loved.

So that was the good part.

The bad part was how far away our future apartment was, and how there were so many steps so we couldn't use a dolly. The bad part was also the truck wasn't big enough so we had to make two trips. And then, how the first night in Chapel Hill, Tim got a migraine, and how the second through seventh night, he had a severe case of the hives. The bad part was how heavy our desk is, and how my book addiction got out of control in grad school, and how all of those things went to the third floor.

I don't want to dwell on these bad things, because ultimately they weren't that bad. I just want to document them, so the next time I move and I think, "Jeez, the last move was so much easier," God can strike me with lightning.

Wedding Season

Since the last post, I have attended three weddings in three different states. And since today is my third anniversary, let me give three reasons I love weddings.

1) Meeting the family. In this day and age, people don't live close by their parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc. I love watching the families my friends came from and seeing the personality genes they can't outrun. If it's a family member's wedding, well then, I just like being around my family.

2) Dressing up. I love dressing up for a good occasion. I'm very thankful we live in a more casual society than our grandparents did, but I sometimes miss seeing people in their Sunday Best (which now is usually jeans and a polo shirt. Unless you go to a church for old souls, which we did in Wilmington. We were the casual people because Tim did not wear a tie and I did not wear a suit jacket.). I think I'm going to start hosting formal dinners where we will eat hamburgers in heels.

3) Cutting loose. I love to dance, but I'm not very good at it. Yet I feel that at weddings all the dancing is supposed to be bad anyways, so you might as well hop your heart out to "Cotton Eyed Joe." When weddings don't have dancing, it's still a blast because there is more conversation and it's so easy to tell everyone how happy you are to be there, how much you love everyone and the world, and it's all true. Usually abundantly saying such sentimental things in normal conversations comes across as cheesy, but at a wedding, cut loose and let them fly.

Of course, there are deeper reasons I love weddings, and I didn't even mention wedding cake, which is one of my top loves in life. I know a lot of my generation doesn't see the point in marriage, which makes me  sad (and not because I don't get to come to the reception).

Also, I barely took any pictures at these weddings I went to. At the last one, I didn't take a single picture all weekend. I think I go through picture taking mood-swings.

I often find myself wondering if there is any stage in life where you don't have to make the hard, uncomfortable decisions. I can't wait until my life is made up of decisions like which aqua aerobics class to attend, or whether I should read a fiction or a nonfiction book next. I'd guess that stage in life isn't worry-free either, but it's the dream I hold onto.

Also in this dream, the Oxford comma still exists. (I don't care about Pluto. That can remain un-planeted in my opinion.)

Wedding Weekend!