We took a vacation at home this weekend.

Life gets a little crazy sometimes, and my family is particularly bad about taking the lake for granted when things get busy. So when I got this new job, we decided to cancel our annual beach trip and spend a weekend fully soaking up our home and appreciating just how lucky we are to live on the water year-round. We stayed home, hung out together, ate seafood, took a billion pictures, boated everywhere, got in the pool, and sat outside for hours.

  

On Saturday, Sean and Rob set up an old projector and a sheet outside and we watched the Olympics under the stars. Summer nights, fireflies, and a homemade outdoor theater: this is what dreams are made of. 

Hope you had a beautiful weekend, too. Happy Monday!

Happy First Day of The Olympics! I shared this post on Busy Girl earlier this summer, but now that the Olympics are really about to kick off, I thought it fitting for me to once again share this, one of the most bizarre experiences of my life.

Back in high school, I was quite the swimmer. Two practices and probably five or six meals a day, a few times a week in the weight room, and working my ass off in the pool and the gym all led to one huge meet, which my team and I would prepare for with extra enthusiasm as we threw away our razors for several months, growing out our leg hair in hopes that the extra drag would make us even a millisecond faster on race day.

This story begins after Michael Phelps had just been to his first Olympics, in 2004. He's from Maryland, if you didn't know, and he used to swim for the North Baltimore Aquatic Club, which is the pool where our aforementioned biggest meet of the year used to be held. We were all pumped, because he was on the heat sheet for several races at this year's meet.

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Let me tell you a little bit about warm-up pools--basically, they're a necessary evil at swim meets. They're over-crowded and anxiety-fueled and hard to move in, but hey, ya gotta warm up. I was in the warm-up pool in Baltimore that year, getting ready for my 200 breast stroke, when suddenly, someone ran over me. At this point, everyone has shaved pretty much any existing body hair off, so after my slippery legs came around and kicked this person's bigger, just as slippery leg, I turned around to say, "Sorry, man!" and was surprised to see Michael Phelps looking right at me with a little bit of disgust on his face.

I had just kicked Michael Phelps right in the leg.

"Oh! Sorry about that!" I panted, treading water in our lane, wondering if now was a bad time to ask him to sign my cap or my arm or my face or whatever. But in that moment, he wasn't interested in signing an autograph or talking to me or really doing anything else but swim. And then he solved the dilemma of the warm-up pool:

"If you'd just keep going, we wouldn't have to stop."

Gee, thanks Michael. I had no idea you were so revolutionary in your thinking.

Either way, I still met up with him later and got him to sign a couple shirts.

I've been seeing this post around a bit lately, and I liked it. I had planned to write one for you today, and then sort of changed my mind, and then my friend Jenna sent me and the girls an email saying that those were actually her posting plans for Thursday, and she would like us to please join her. So here we are.

I like to think that I keep things real on this blog, and seriously--I try to. But there are a lot of random things about me that just don't fit into my everyday posting, and so you might not know them. So here we are...again.

If you really knew me, 

...you'd know that I am such a morning person. I love going to bed early and I love nothing more than waking up with the sun, drinking a cup of coffee, and looking out the window before the day begins.

...you'd know that I say I'm done with my master's degree because I finished my thesis, but really, I still have to edit a bibliographic essay and I'm just so tired of the whole thing that I felt like I needed a little break.

...you'd know just how much this new job means to me. I had no idea what I was going to end up doing for what feels like a very long time now, and now I have this desk and these co-workers and this responsibility that I care so much about already.

...you'd know how good I can be at holding a grudge, and how hard I try not to. In high school and the beginning of college, I could really write someone off without even thinking twice about it. Now, I try to let go in a way that's a lot less severe, which seems to work out better for everyone.

...you'd know how much I love to run. CrossFit was fun. It's not really fitting into my schedule anymore. And that feels okay to me. I am so excited to make time for running again.

...you'd know that I am a very anxious person sometimes. I have lots of irrational fears that don't feel so irrational to me.

...you'd know that sushi is still my favorite food, Paleo or not. It reminds me of being in high school, having lunch with my friends, caramel lattes, and getting my nails done.

...you'd know that I absolutely cannot keep my bedroom organized for long.

...you'd know that fall is my favorite season and that after July 4th, I start to hallucinate that the air is getting cooler and smells like leaves until October comes. I wear jeans before it's appropriate and start to sweat, upset that it's only August.

...you'd know just how quirky I am. I talk in weird voices and laugh all the time and I am always hungry.

What about you?