This year

Two weeks ago a post showed up on our company intranet touting Beginner's French class offered during lunch on Wednesdays.

I leapt at the chance. I interact with folks from France more often than not and I think it would be enjoyable to converse with them in their native tongue (however terrible my accent may, at first, be). My work buddy and I signed up and ventured to our introduction class...along with 40 others! This class has become quite popular, it seems!

The instructor is an employee here as well and chooses to do this as a hobby of sorts because he loves languages so much. The man is a linguist with an incredible ear and a gift for accents. Whenever someone mentioned their native language (which spanned the globe, mind you) he would respond in their tongue and convincingly!

It didn't take but a few minutes for the mouth of "that girl" to open wide and command the room to her attention. Granted, I used to be this girl. I used to obnoxiously own the room and feel that my question was important, mine was the one to be focused on, I was needing to show off.

Then I grew up and realized how foolish my behavior was.

Let's just say, it was very good I was in the back of a full room and she was not within earshot. I hated to be so negative towards a woman I'd never met before but honestly...shut yer yapper! We were all there to learn what the coming year (yes, an entire year of class once a week) would bring us. You are not alone in this room with the instructor, so hush!

It always seems the qualities in others that bother you more than anything else are the ones you see within yourself and absolutely loathe beyond measure.

But I digress from my originial intention of taking this class. I decided earlier this month that this year was my Europe year, my year of travel. What better way to encourage this than immersing myself in learning a new language and dreaming of trips to be taken? I want to dance a jig in Ireland and draw down a pint in Scotland. I want to climb the Eiffel Tower and venture down the Thames River. Big Ben's chimes are calling me from across the pond and my feet are craving to pound the pavement of every plaza I can find.

Now to find a travel buddy...


*None of these photos are mine. :-)

Happy birthday to me!

It's 2012, a brand new year filled with entirely new experiences.

To get things started properly, I decided to host my first ever housewarming party coupled with my 27th birthday and it was a smashing combination.

I prepped the invite, gathered the invited and then got excited! My first housewarming! My first home! I was beyond excited to have my friends over to break this house in and let it know how awesome its tenant was.

People trickled in over the hours and with each one my smile grew bigger, my jubilant thoughts bubbling over into every conversation. I saw friends from long ago and from a blip of time in my lifeline. It's amazing to think that though I only spent six months at a job, I picked up more than a few friends that I'll keep for as long as I can. Good people come at you from all over and you've got to be ready to catch them as they pass!

I wandered around the house with each new person as they came and introduced them. I detailed how I knew them but after awhile I realized that this was a terrible way to truly explain a friendship. Yes, I know her from college but that doesn't tell you that we both like to read and play dominoes and that when we all get together in our little crew we spend more than half the time laughing uproariously at a smorgasbord of topics.

Or how about my solo representative from middle and high-school days? At first I said she was a friend from high school and then it turned into "I've known her since 6th grade", but using either phrase short shrifts the relationship. It doesn't say how I called her parents Mom and Dad. Nor does it recall the nights of musical movies and splitting the parts, "You be Judas, I'll be Jesus." Or how we valued each other so much that despite two break-ups I thought would each last our lifetime, we're mended. And we get on great. My mom was right when she said we'd always be friends.

Mom's are always so right!

I've had the discussion with her before regarding introducing someone as "a friend from high school" or "band friends" because that only defines how you know one another. Just because you knew someone in high school does that mean you know them as an adult? We all change so dramatically throughout our lives and not all relationships make it through. Some come out the other side stronger and more resilient and they will last a lifetime.

Those are the friends I surround myself with now. I've picked them up over the years, either from the college music building I only frequented because my friend was there or from an audit I was only on a few months. You never know how these friends of different groups, different sides of your own personality, will meld when you bring them together but based on last night I realize I've surrounded myself with people like  me. They are warm, inviting, kind and welcoming (which I am some of the time, promise).

They make themselves at home. They serve themselves and chat with new folks. They sit for an hour talking excitedly over who knows what and they mingle in the doorway half-way in the kitchen giggling over chocolate milk liquor (and it really does taste like chocolate milk). They don't reminisce but rather create entirely new memories and connections beginning from nothing more than that they both know me.

I am eternally grateful to my family and my amazing friends. I've found true winners, again like myself ;-), and plan to keep them as I forge my way forward in life. Having my house filled to the brim with chatter, laughter and clinking glasses filled me just as well. Great people aren't always as hard to find as one may think.

This birthday was absolutely one of my very best and I have everyone to thank!