It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!  But first things first – hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend!  Whether you were visiting family, hosting, or just enjoying a relaxing weekend at home, I hope it was great.  Hubby and I just returned from my parents’ place in upstate New York and it was quite the whirlwind weekend.  I ran in the local Turkey Trot, met my high school BFF’s baby for the first time (TOO cute) and squeezed in time with two aunts, three grandparents, one brother and three friends.  Yowsa – busy weekend.  Here are some highlights…

Table at my mom’s house all set for Thanksgiving dinner.  Gobble, gobble.

My brother whipped up homemade New England clam chowder with clams he harvested himself from the Great Salt Pond on Block Island. 

Look at my handsome husband waiting patiently for Thanksgiving noms!

Black Friday fun – meeting up with my favorite aunt in Saratoga Springs for lunch.  Joc, your mom says hi!  Lunch with my aunt and tea with hubby’s aunt was better than shopping any day.

And the fun continued on Friday evening when hubby and I met up with our friend Seth for dinner out and a jaunt through the holiday lights in Albany’s Washington Park.  This is a holiday tradition that Seth and I started ten years ago – WOW – when we were juniors at Cornell, and hubby joined us for the first time in 2005 (our first holiday season as a married couple).  Dinner and lights in the park with Seth is something hubby and I look forward to all year long and it’s always a blast.  We talk and laugh like old friends should, and it never seems as though we live 300 miles apart.  Luv ya, Seth!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend!

How was everyone’s Thanksgiving?  Did you stuff yourselves silly with Tofurkey and mashed potatoes?  And pie?  Can’t forget about the pie!  Did you see a cornucopia and dive for cover because you’re still scared of them after reading The Hunger Games?  Did you put shoe buckles on anything and pass it off as Pilgrim?

And in between the Tofurkey-eating and shoe-buckling… did you spend some time reflecting on what you’re thankful for?  Sometimes I forget to do that, I’ll be honest with you.  It’s terribly easy to take things for granted.  And while I try not to take the big stuff for granted – like my marriage and my home – it can be easy to forget about the slightly smaller, but still important, things.  For instance, sometimes it’s too easy to get caught up in the fact that there is a Whole Foods employee blocking my access to the organic bell peppers and get frustrated… when what I really should be thinking is about how lucky I am to have access to a nice grocery store and enough greenbacks to buy organic bell peppers if I want them.  Or I’ll think, “Wow, it’s such a beautiful day.  Can’t believe I have to sit in an office all day.”  When I really should think, “Wow, it’s such a beautiful day.  Can’t believe I get to look at that beautiful blue sky and take my lunchtime walk down Embassy Row – how lucky am I?”

Yeah, I have it pretty good.  You probably do, too.  Are there things about my life that I’d like to change?  Sure.  Is everything perfect?  H-E-double-hockey-sticks NO.  But that doesn’t mean I can’t be grateful for all the good stuff I do have going on, and count my blessings every day.  I always try to do that.  Sometimes I’m pretty good at it.  Sometimes I’m not.

Well, I’ve decided to take this counting blessings thing to a new level.  And I figured the day after Thanksgiving was as good a day as any to start.  What am I going to do?  I’m going to jump on the gratitude journal bandwagon.  I have friends who keep gratitude journals, and I’ve always thought it seemed like such a heartwarming, life-affirming practice.  And you know what?  I could really stand to spend more time appreciating and less time complaining.  Hey, I’m not saying I’ll ever stop sweating the small stuff completely.  I probably never will.  But I can find three things a day that I can be grateful for.

Yep, them’s the rules.  Three things, per day, that’s it.  They can be big things – like, “I’m grateful to be married to such a funny, smart, and sweet guy.”  Fact.  Or small things – like, “I’m grateful that my iPod spontaneously started working again.”  Or even really obvious things – like, “I’m grateful for Mariage Freres tea.”  As long as I can think of three things to be grateful for each day, I’ll be in pretty good shape.

Let the gratitude begin.

Ahhhhhhh.  That weekend was SO needed.  After a trans-Atlantic flight got us into DC at 4:00 p.m. Eastern time last Sunday and we were at the office bright and early Monday morning for a full week of work, hubby and I were ready for a low-key couple of days with no obligations or plans.  And that’s exactly what we got.  Hit. The. Spot.

Want to see what a low-key weekend looks like through my eyes?

Mariage Freres tea in my new mug from Harrods.

First “fire” of the year.

Sweaty interval workout on the treadmill.

A mysterious craft project.  Come around on Wednesday for a special post revealing what I made for Sherry and Katie‘s second Pinterest challenge!

And last but not least, plenty of this.

Happy days.

So, this happens to lots of people, but it turns out it’s pretty darn hard to wrap your mind around it when it happens to you.

 I turned thirty.

 Aaaaaaaaaaah!  Actually, it wasn’t that bad.  I had the distractions of England (Cornwall, to be specific) to take my mind off the moment when the needle officially ticked from 29 to 30.  That’s sort of why I planned my trip for mid-October instead of my preferred travel month (September).  To be honest, I wasn’t sure how I would handle it.  Now that it’s behind me, I think I did about as well as could be expected.  I spent the day hiking along the beautiful cliffside South West Coast Path near St. Ives in England, enjoyed a bottle of wine with hubby and had a delicious dinner at a beachside restaurant.

This whole 30 thing is way too new for me to have a real take on it.  I don’t really feel any different at 30 than I did at 29.  Although I am making more of an effort to remember my night creme.  It’s a process.

One thing I did reflect on was how different my life is now from what it was the last time I entered a new decade.  When I turned 20… I lived in half a room in my sorority house in upstate New York.  My roommates included my little sis, a very large teddy bear (hers), and a very small teddy bear (mine).  I was a junior in college, majoring in Industrial and Labor Relations and trying to figure out where the future was taking me.  Corporate law?  Human resources management?  Political consulting?  Jail for acts of civil disobedience?  I had a brand new adorable boyfriend and I was completely crazy for him.  (Readers – I married him.  But not until I was 23.)  My hobbies included singing R.E.M. songs into my hairbrush and making up stupid nicknames for the various campus dining halls and libraries I frequented.  Life was good.

Nowadays… I live in a four bedroom house in northern Virginia, which is the second home I have owned.  My roommate is that adorable boyfriend I had just acquired at age 20, only now he’s my adorable husband of six years.  After some time spent “paying my dues,” I am finally working in my dream job, so I have a pretty good sense of what I’d like my future career to look like – progressing up the ladder at my current firm sounds just about perfect to me.  Hobbies include yoga, hiking, reading, and… um… singing R.E.M. songs into my hairbrush.  Life IS good.

At 20, I had big goals and plans for things I wanted to accomplish that decade.  And for the most part, I checked the boxes I wanted to check.  I graduated from college, moved to D.C. (a city I’d always wanted to call home) and went to law school.  I got married.  Graduated law school, passed the Bar and got my first “big girl job” as an attorney.  Left that job after two years for a brighter future in private practice.  Bought a condo, sold a condo, bought a house.  Went to Europe not once, but three times (and a few other places too).  You could say it was an eventful decade.

Looking ahead to the new decade… I don’t have nearly as many big-time goals and plans.  With relatively few exceptions, I mostly just want things to stay the same.  I want to stay at the same firm and in the same house.  I want to continue loving that sweet guy I married more every day.  I do have one big goal for my 30s, but I’m not ready to go public with it – you’ll all hear about it when the time is right.  But for the most part, I don’t have a long list of “things I want to accomplish in my 30s.”  When I look back at my 20s, I got quite a lot done…  Right now, I just want to take some time to enjoy being where and who I am today.

So here I am, 30, and strangely okay with it.  I have a great job, good friends, a house I love and a husband I’m still completely crazy about.  I have no idea what the next 10 years holds, and I’m sure it will bring its own set of challenges.  But I think (hope) I’m up to them.  I want to meet each day with a sense of joy and purpose.  The past 10 years has been a lot of work – lots of studying, planning, grinding, and striving to get the life I now lead.  Now, I think… it’s time to enjoy.

…clicked my heels three times, and now I’m home.  That’s right, kids, I snuck off to England for the past two weeks. Did ya miss me?  I hope not – I did my best to keep you all entertained while I was away.  Speaking of which… I’m sorry for being a bit vague about the dates of my trip, but since I’ve posted pics of my home on the blog I wanted to keep my exact travel plans close to the vest for security reasons.  I’m not nearly a big enough blogger to need it, but you can’t be too cautious.  So I scheduled posts to go up in my absence and I’ve been having a fabulous time road-tripping around England for most of October.  Boom!

I’ll have plenty of details and pictures to share with you, I promise.  Hubby and I packed an epic amount into two weeks in England (and Wales, if we’re being technical, but we just day-tripped there) and I have a TON of fun experiences to report on.  All in good time, though!  First, I need to kick the jet lag and edit some photos.  Posts this week might be a little light on the content side while I regroup and recover, but I’ll try to keep to the MTRF posting schedule.

It’s good to be home!

But I don’t feel fine about my all-time favorite band breaking up.  I don’t usually post on Wednesdays, and I’m obviously in deep mourning, but I don’t think it would be right to let this day pass without paying tribute to the glory of R.E.M.

Goodbye, R.E.M.  Thanks for all of the memories.

Thanks for being my home-away-from-home during my foreign exchange student days, whenever I needed a little good old Southern rock to ease the occasional bout of homesickness.

Thanks for providing the soundtrack to my high school years… and my college years.

Thanks for giving me the greatest party trick I’ll ever have (memorizing the lyrics to “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It” – yes, all of them).

Thanks for “Find The River.”  That song defined me at 17.  Still does.

Thanks for letting me get all riled up and rock out to “Ignoreland,” “Talk About The Passion,” “Exhuming McCarthy,” and so many more politijams.

Thanks for “New Adventures In Hi-Fi.”  Some people probably didn’t get that album, but I love it.

Thanks for “Strange Currencies.”  You totally wrote that for me, right?

Thanks for getting me through breakups, growing pains, and general weirdness.

Thanks for “Green Grow The Rushes.”  Good one, guys.

Thanks for being there while I grew up.  Love you forever.

September 1, 2001 – September 1, 2011… and on and on and on forever.

Hubby and I met during the summer of 2001 at a youth politics conference.  I was going into my junior year at Cornell and he was about to start his third year at Cornell Law.  I remember over the course of the conference thinking that he was cute, but not giving him too much thought beyond that.  I assumed that he had a girlfriend (most cute guys I met did) and that even if he didn’t, he wouldn’t be interested in dating an undergrad.  Plus, one of my friends had a crush on him, and I wasn’t about to step on any toes – so I put him out of my mind.  In August of 2001, the first week back at school, I had an email from him.  We hadn’t exchanged email addresses specifically, so he had gone to the trouble of looking back through conference-related emails to find my contact information.  He suggested lunch and I was totally on board, once I remembered who he was.  (Told you I put him out of my mind.) 

For our first date, we met up at noon in the outside seating area of Collegetown Bagels – the handiest meeting spot on campus even if you weren’t eating there – and walked to a barely off-campus restaurant called Aladdin’s.  I was pretty sure it was a date, although I entertained the possibility that he just wanted me to set him up with my friend, who was still crushing on him.  But he asked me out for a second date while we were still on the first date, which was a good sign according to Cosmo Girl.  It was a bit awkward, actually – he suggested we go out and “grab a drink” and I had to remind him that I was 19.  I’m not sure which one of us was more embarrassed by that revelation.  Hubs bounced back quickly and suggested a party and I was glad to agree… and to see that my dorky inability to get into a bar (being 19, fake ID-less, and looking like I was 14) was not a deal-breaker.  After the party, sometime in the wee hours of September 1, 2001, we kissed.  And I was sure that he wasn’t interested in my friend.  (By the way, I ran the relationship by her and she graciously told me he was all mine.)

We were pretty much inseparable from that first kiss on.  By December, we were very serious.  In January, he met my family.  In March, I met his.  By April, the relationship had started to feel quite urgent, since he would be graduating and I had one more year of undergrad left, and then was planning to go to law school.  We knew that we were looking at a year or more – probably more – of long-distance.  I had no idea what to expect, except that I knew I hated being without him.  He graduated in May of 2002 and left campus while I still had a few days to pack myself up.  I threw myself down on my bed in the sorority house and cried all night because I didn’t see how I could wait three weeks until I visited him.

I didn’t wait three weeks to see him again, as it happened.  Two weeks after our tearful goodbyes (well, I was tearful – he was stoic), hubby arrived unexpectedly at the house of some of my friends.  I love surprises, so I was pretty psyched.  We went out for a special dinner at the restaurant we’d visited on the first night we met, during that summer conference in my hometown, and then we wandered around the city.  We ended up in a little garden near the office where I was serving my summer internship and hubby dropped down on one knee.  You can probably imagine my shock.  We had only been dating eight months, but we both knew we had found what we were looking for.  I said yes.

I went back to school that fall excited to tell my friends about our engagement.  In November of 2002, hubby drove the three hours to campus, picked me up and drove us both to New York City, where we bought an engagement ring.  Back at school, I announced my engagement to my sorority in a special ceremony and got busy showing off my newly-sparkly left hand.  Meanwhile, I was studying for the LSAT and preparing law school applications.  Hubby and I decided that I would move to Washington, D.C., and he would follow me as soon as he could.  I graduated from Cornell and started a new life at GW Law, and hubby arrived in town a year later.  The two years of long-distance engagement were brutal, but we never second-guessed our commitment.  Once hubby was officially in the D.C. area, we started planning our wedding.

The wedding was one area where I insisted on taking my time.  I wanted the perfect day, a day that would reflect our personalities, and I was willing to wait for it.  We were engaged for over a year before we set the date: August 13, 2005.  By the time our wedding day arrived, we had been engaged for three years.  I still remember our wedding day like it was yesterday.  Giggling with my bridesmaids while we did our makeup, hubby and I repeating hybrid wedding vows that we had customized to reflect our different denominations, riding to the reception site with the entire wedding party, dancing to Norah Jones and congratulating my grandparents on celebrating their 57th anniversary that day… so many moments.  I loved every second.

After the wedding and honeymoon in the Bahamas, it was back to reality for me.  I finished law school and hubby proudly stood up when spouses were recognized at my graduation.  I started working for the government, and then eventually moved on to my dream job in private practice.  Hubby and I bought a condo, then we sold the condo and bought a house.  We traveled all over the world – to California, Mexico, Canada, England, Scotland, and France – and took some trips closer to home to keep life interesting between adventures.  We celebrated six years of marriage.

Before I met hubby, I didn’t think there was any way I could put up with someone for ten years.  But it didn’t take long for me to realize that this was a guy who would never bore me.  I knew we would never run out of things to talk or laugh about.  I knew there would always be another adventure right around the corner with him.  On our first date, we discussed Altoids and our siblings.  I have no idea how many dates there have been since then, but we’re still not hurting for conversation topics.  Ten years later, he still cracks me up.  Ten years later, I still sneak glances out of the corner of my eye when he’s driving because he’s so handsome at that angle.  Ten years later, he’s still my best friend.

Those first months in 2001 and 2002 were great.  I wouldn’t trade that getting-to-know-you time for anything.  But I can honestly say that it’s better on this side.  Ten years in is such a fun place to be.  We have memories now.  We have inside jokes, too.  But we also have plans – another trip to England, for one.  And after that, who knows?  The only thing I can say for sure is that on September 1, 2021, when we mark 20 years together, we’ll still be going strong.

Happy ten years, friend of my heart.

When I was growing up, the summer camp I attended had a policy that all campers had to observe daily “Me Time” for an hour or so.  We were supposed to use that time to write home, write in journals, read, braid friendship bracelets – basically, to do whatever we wanted to do, so long as it was quiet.  I think “Me Time” was more for the counselors than the girls.  I know that my group of friends always hated it.  I would usually read, but the fact was “Me Time” – ironically – had the effect of cutting into what my friends and I really wanted to be doing, which was sailing.  Why should we waste even a moment of good breeze sitting in our tents?  But no matter how much we grumbled, our counselors enforced “Me Time” – like I said, probably because they themselves needed some quiet after a morning of supervising a bunch of teenagers pushing each other off boats and shrieking in triumph.

Now that I’m an adult (according to the government, anyway), I cherish my personal time.  I even still call it “Me Time.”  (Old camp habits die hard.)  It’s much scarcer these days, which makes it that much more precious.  Between making lunches, getting ready for the day, commuting 50 minutes to work, working a 10+ hour day, commuting 50 minutes home, making dinner, and cleaning up, there are many weekdays that go by where I don’t get nearly as much “Me Time” as I’d like.  I try to snatch a few minutes here and there for myself – 15 minutes of meditation to start the day, for instance, or a few Sun Salutations when I get home – even on the busiest days.  On weekends, when I have more time, I like to luxuriate in whole stretches of afternoon to myself.  I love the feeling of having nowhere to report to, no demands on my time, and being able to just putter around and not worry about anything except for what is going to make me happiest in the moment.  Hubby and I are into the stage of marriage where we don’t have to be glued to each other’s sides all the time – we still cherish our together time, but we can each pursue our separate interests without feeling guilty.  So I can leave him to his own devices (which usually take the form of a video game) and do something just for me.

Lately, my “Me Time” has consisted of…

…Reading… I’ve always been hip to the joys of sinking into a good book.  I can curl up with a book and a pot of tea and be deliriously happy for an afternoon, or longer.  At least until the tea runs out.

…French study… Hubby got me Rosetta Stone for our anniversary, since I’ve been wanting to learn French for ages (and especially since our epic trip to France).  I loooooooooove it.  I try to put in a little time with Rosetta Stone at least 4-5 times per week and to practice by speaking in between computer sessions.  (Of course, I’m the only aspiring Francophone in the house, so that means a lot of time spent talking to myself.  Fortunately, hubby is used to my strange habits and doesn’t bat an eye when I meander about saying things like “Le ciel est bleu.”)  I’ve always loved languages and I’m madly in love with French – I just wish I started studying it in college instead of continuing with German and then dropping it after one semester!  Most people probably wouldn’t find language study particularly relaxing, but it’s perfect for me.

…Yoga… I’ve been logging mat time a bit more recently, as part of a quest to get my groove back and kick aside some frustrating personal stuff.  I love the feeling of being all stretched out and limbered up after a good practice.  I enjoy class but lately I’ve been making yoga part of my “Me Time” and just doing whatever poses come into my head.  It’s a new approach for me and I’m having a great deal of fun.

…Music… I’ve played the piano since I was 5, the violin since I was 9, and the cello for the past several years.  Very few things relax me like sitting down with an instrument.  Lately it’s been the cello more than anything, but I’m hoping that soon I’ll have the time to coordinate the logistics for moving my piano from my parents’ place in New York to my home in Virginia.  I miss my piano!  In the meantime, I’ve been spending quality time with my cello and Herr Mozart.

…Running… This is a classic, but something I haven’t done in awhile.  After my half marathon, I took some time to recover and lost my running groove a bit.  I need to get back into it, though.  There’s nothing like a good run to boost my energy and clear my head at the same time. 

How do you spend your Me Time?