summer roundup!

[serpenvirens]

SO i was thinking about how in may or so i wrote my summer plans on my facebook thingy:

"First of all, I'll be working...but otherwise: visit the beach lots of times, go to Maine with Nina, road trip with the girls?!, Lake Placid BBQ festival with Chris, learn CSS, crochet lots of stuff, make lots of ice cream, try new recipes, bike ride lots"

IRONICALLY, (yeahhh...) i didn't do any of those. lol. well, except for work but you know, kind of a given with rent and all. but i did try new recipes! i just realized that. not really intentionally though.

but i have to say, i did have a great summer, although way too short. there are some things i would change but good stuff first! :)

things i did this summer

• moved into my first apartment!
  
• started my food blog
  
• watched chris graduate :D
  
• started blogging again
  
• visited leah in seattle!! i almost forgot this one, it seems like ages ago! i bought the plane tickets myself, arranged the thing, and stayed with leah and her family for 5 days. i was SO HAPPY. i actually think i never blogged about it! i've always wanted to go to seattle, and leah became one of my best friends this year, so the timing was perfect. :) it was so exhilarating to decide to do something like this and just do it. :D
  
• got back into harry potter!
  
• started reading again (although my reading velocity (? right word? i don't know. i'm not the physics major...) only really picked up during my 2 weeks of vacation at home
  
• got a tan! woo!
  
• finally did yoga with my aunt, and chris
  
• went to saratoga for the 4th of july with chris, met up with janelle and her family there.
  
• went to saratoga again with chris, for the BBQ festival (missed most of it though, oops). got some delicious gelato and enjoyed ourselves walking around :)
  
• watched old movies!
  
• visited nina at omega :D
  
• explored the troy area a little more with chris :D. went to the farmer's market lots, went up to grafton a few times, and discovered le marche vert gelato (yum) and moxie's ice cream (beautiful drive!).
  
• started living more naturally. i'm slowly introducing changes into my lifestyle. i've been drinking more water and tea, paying attention to my body right away when i'm thirsty and whatnot instead of ignoring it. my next step is to introduce much more fresh produce into my diet (i'm good at this, but my problem is keeping a constant source of fresh produce in my house. i get lazy once it runs out.), as well as reading and exercising more. i'd really like to start getting to bed earlier but it's hard during the school year.
  
• strengthened my relationship with chris :D
  
• stopped using the computer too much, except for at work of course (that's actually what helped!)
  
• realized who my real friends are (nothing too cryptic or anything! no falling outs really, i just realized that sometimes you outgrow your friends (whether it's only for a short time span or not, i'm still waiting to see how that plays out), and it's ok.
  
• stocked up on stuff for the school year!
• edy's fruit bars
  
• kashi cereal
  
• bread
  
• jam (lol)(we made our own)
  
• salsa
  
• pasta
  
• other stuff i can't remember :P. made a lot of pizza with chris. :D
  
  anyway, if i had to do anything differently this summer, it'd be to work less. but bills had to be paid, so that would've been hard to do. i love the feeling of being independent - i wouldn't want to make my parents pay rent the whole summer while i had the opportunity to be working. so even though i would've loved to maybe, take off the month of august, it's not very realistic.
  
  however, it really helped me realize that i will always (or for a long time, anyway) look at summer as not only a break from work and school, but as a chance to relax, and kind of re-group (reset myself, really) before doing it all over again. i really think i'd love to be a teacher (not just for the summers off!). definitely not middle or high school aged, i don't think. i had great teachers for 3rd and 5th grade, so i think i'd want something around there. maybe (maybe) kindergarten, but it seems like dealing with just the parents alone would be a bit much.
  
  ANYWAY. what i wanted to say was that i really don't regret working in the long run, which is what i was hoping for. but i know better now. really, i think the only thing i regret this summer is letting so many little fights about the apartment affect chris and i so much, but at the same time, we've never shared a living space before so it was something we needed to realize and work through ourselves (as painful as it was!). i wish i had had the time to visit friends some more, but i don't think there's a whole lot i could have done differently to make that happen - weekends were really busy this summer (that's a good thing!), and working during the week limits the amount of time i have to do stuff, obviously.
  
  that's it for now! i'm gonna get out of here. i have the opportunity to leave early and i'm taking it :D