On the Move ... Again!

No, no, I'm not cross-country bound again. Thankfully. I am, however, in the process of moving closer to work - holla!

Kid you not, this is, essentially, the view from my new digs. Just move me over a few blocks and a little lower on the hill (closer to the water). I'm really excited about this for several reasons (most of which you'll say duh, I would be too!)

• My commute is now 5 miles. Why is this exciting? Because my previous one was 52 miles (one-way) and some days, would take me upwards of 2 hours to do. Hooray Southern California traffic.
• If I'm smart and on the ball, I can take the student shuttle to campus (re: no driving my own car during the week? Win!)
• I look at that. Every morning. 
• With a 15 minute commute, now I'll get to actually get up and run, or gym, or do whatever I like before I head to work. Wait, you mean actually start running and training like a normal person again? Count me in!

Despite the long drive, I'm so very grateful for my parents for supporting the notion that I would hang with them for about six months. I had have some financial recovery to do, and I got a significant portion of that done with their gracious welcome back into their home - not every day a 28-year-old moves back in, let alone wants to. More on that later though, because I've been working hard to make that a reality and am super proud of how far I've come with my financial goals (and still have more to do).

But at any rate, I've been here since Monday, and despite travelling again this weekend, am looking forward to settling in a little bit more. Molly will be coming back with me on Sunday after my second trip to... 

Phoenix!

Yep, that's right... back in the desert state again. This weekend, I'm there for our mid-year sorority board meeting. While I wish we could have combined it with the shenanigans of last weekend, I'm more glad we didn't, even though it means two weekends on the road instead of laying on my couch. Such is life. This weekend will be a lot more relaxed, combine with a little adventure on Mill Ave, and I'm actually quite looking forward to it again. 

Here's to weekend adventures in the same city x 2. And moving closer to work! And looking at the harbor every morning. < content sigh >

What was your longest commute ever? 

Dear Monday...

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Dear Monday, Though not a terrible start to the day, it's been rough. Long day ahead! But it's exciting because it involves volunteering at this:

I haven't really listened to country consistently in years... but I'm pretty excited.

Dear NEB, Thanks for an amazing weekend. I am so excited to be serving with such an amazing group of women and really hope I can live up to the expectations and hopes that have been set up for me and my position! You all are wonderful and fill my heart immensely.

Dear Nashville, Though I had all of 48 hours with you, you seem like a truly awesome city and I can't wait to come back and visit for real. Country Music Hall of Fame was neat, Vanderbilt seemed to be mostly under construction, and Broadway seems like a good time. There will be more visits in our future, don't you worry.

Dear Fall Semester, You are going to be amazing. And busy. And outstanding. I've got trips to LA, Pittsburgh/DC, Austin, Detroit, Austin again and Orlando. Exciting times ahead and I cannot wait! Slash... am looking for extra funds. Ideas, anyone?

Dear Lucy, I love you. I know I haven't been around, really, in like eight years and I'm so thankful mom and dad took care of you the way they did. I know you're better, off playing with Sadie again... I just wish I got to say good-bye. Love you, my original fur-ball!

Dear Life, Let's settle down a little bit and make it easier, mkay? Too much emotional and life stress really takes a toll on the desire to get out of bed and go running. I need help, thanks.

Dear Monday...

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 Dear Monday, Today you welcome back our students to UGA and the start of what looks to be a mostly gorgeous week! Thanks for starting it off on a great note!

Dear (Last) Saturday, Thanks for providing probably the best weather ever for us to go tubing. Rains went away, sunshine, breeze, and best of all... no sunburns. Victory! What a great day, minus losing my driver's license (you win some, you lose some).

[source]

Dear NEB sisters, I am so excited for Nashville this weekend! First fall meeting, first time in Nashville, what a glorious weekend it shall be!

Dear Amazon, All the love to you in the world for making the Garmin Forerunner 110 the Deal of the Day. It was as if you knew that I've been lusting over it and saving up for it for months and was just waiting for the right time (and a few more bucks, but I can make that up). So, as of approximate shipping day Wednesday, I'm the proud new owner of a Garmin! Finally. 

Dear Wine and Dine Half Marathon training plan, Once Sunday rolls around and you begin, prepare to be owned. I will rock you. And I will be victorious! (Insert battle hymn music here)

Have a lovely week, all!

Not Four Years, But For Life

On the Thursday afternoon of our National Convention, we learned that one of our sisters, Jennifer, had passed away. Jennifer was an alum of our Arizona State chapter and lived in St. Louis. I'd never met her. But her passing shook me -- she is a sister. I was shaken in a way that only makes me wonder how much of a mess I would be if it was one of my own chapter's alums; or worse, a sister from my pledge class; a sister from other chapters I've gotten know, gotten to work with. Sisters I've bonded with over running, concerts and traveling; sisters I've met once or see a few times a year.

But what shook me in the best way possible is how much our small, albeit nation-wide, organization came together. Tears from women (like me) who had never met her, who felt the pain of her chapter's members who had to break the news to the eighty of us at our business meeting. Tears because she was still one of us -- she is one of us. And, better yet, bless the ways of social media, creating an online group in which we all wore our letters in some form or another on the Monday following, the day of her services. I was astonished, in the best way possible, of how much sisters were struck by Jennifer's death. Photos from south Texas, from Phoenix, from Boston and Georgia, all deeply touched and in some ways affected by losing our sister.

Letters around the country. [source]

I cried most of Convention. I cried when I got the Facebook message about Jennifer, I cried harder when our National President broke the news. I cried in the song workshop, and I cried at our alumnae induction (where we also posthumously inducted Jennifer). It wasn't only over our loss that I cried, but that, as one sister pointed out, I'd been away from Convention for five years. Though I've stayed active by serving in a few volunteer roles and staying in touch with local chapters whenever I move, being at Convention just confirms everything I've loved about this organization: it's where I belong. For the women I've met and bonded with before, it was like we never missed a beat; for the women I met for the first time, it took a five-minute conversation to build a connection and feel like it had always been there. It made me feel like a five-year absence was no big deal and that I'd been there in spirit all these years prior. What a feeling.

Thanks, SLC!

I'd have plenty of thoughts about my trip to Salt Lake and our convention, but I'm still overwhelmed by a surreal sense of pride and love for my organization. I will tell folks very proudly that I credit OPhiA with keeping me at NAU and firmly believe I would have transferred institutions without her. Through her, I've met some of my best friends, running buddies, concert goers, and constant source of support and gratitude. I'm forever grateful for the fact that I stumbled upon that table at freshman orientation...

Texas State love with our new colony's delegates!

This is what I mean about  belonging. These girls are from my chapter, but until this week I didn't know them. I don't think you could tell that by this photo, could you?

2012 Convention attendees.

Serving as the Vice President for Membership already means the world to me and I really haven't even started yet! I love this organization and hope to continue bringing about great things. Thank you to all my sisters for a wonderful four days, more memories, friends, and Facebook notifications. And thanks for entrusting this position to me!

#reverbbroads11: Giving Back

I'm participating in #ReverbBroads11, a month of blog prompts promised to be silly and reflective. Today's prompt: Is volunteering something you do regularly? If yes where do you volunteer? If not, why not?

 I smile very wide at this question. But it also forces me to stop and think about the truth: the truth is, I did regularly volunteer. Do I regularly still? No, but I take the opportunity when I can. Here's my explanation:


My first semester of college I joined a sorority. I had decided, or thought, early on that Panhellenic wasn't for me and that I just wanted something more low-key. At my freshman orientation, wayyyy back in the corner, was the table for Omega Phi Alpha, National Service Sorority. For some reason, they just stood out and I feel like I clicked. So anyway, pledge process, activation in February, and from then on it was history. Our sorority focuses on six areas of service - the community at large, the sisters of the sorority, university community, the nations of the world, President's project (a new topic each year, ranging from education to breast cancer) and mental health. Six projects a semester, which provided me more than a few opportunities to do things around NAU and Flagstaff - sure, it ranged from a campus trash clean-up to holding a Senior Prom at the retirement community in town, to Relay for Life and doing drunk-driving presentations with the local police at area high schools. But there were so many opportunities just to get out there.

Working the 2005 NAU Homecoming parade!

During grad school, all I could talk about was wanting to do more. As is the case with so many, I spent all my time on my assistantship and classwork and didn't give myself the chance to keep doing things. Live, learn.  The same continued into my first professional position though - as a hall director with regular 40+ weeks, it was hard to be able to commit 10 hours a month to the humane society or some other local cause. 

And here I am today, in a position where 95% of my weekends are mine, and I have time to do things I love - like volunteering and serving my community again. In October, I volunteered and worked the Athens Half Marathon, serving as part of the kick-off crew and helped take down the whole starting gates. I signed up to work with the Athens Area Humane Society, and despite that not going as planned, am waiting to hear back from  another local county's humane society to continue work with them. I also regularly look for opportunities through Hands on Northeast Georgia for things to do - it's a great way to meet people, especially since I'm still so new here!

And, true to nature, I still volunteer with my sorority. I participate in projects with my local chapters when I am able, but have spent my almost-6-years since graduation regularly taking up national or regional positions, aiming to still give back to the sorority that gave me so much. As some may know, and as lots don't know, I give full credit to my sorority for keeping me at NAU and helping me graduate from there; that was the connection I had longed for, and though it took awhile to realized I'd found it, my organization is my everything!

A Sense of Belonging

I need to get better about updating this, like seriously. But for now, it's all fun reminiscing on some of the cool things I've done here.

I think the best part, or at least a comforting part, of being the TLC for OPA chapters here is that when I really need it, I know I have sisters around -- they're bound to be doing a service project, having activation, or doing something that I can get involved with. A few weeks ago, I was on Facebook (naturally) and saw a comment on an alumni group's page about a Founder's Day celebration that the chapter at Kennesaw State was having. Naturally, I invited myself and asked if I could come. So off I went, after an afternoon in Atlanta, headed up to Kennesaw to visit a whole bunch of sisters I've never met/seen in my life. Fun!

I was getting lost around the building when I found another young woman in heels walking and asked how on earth I got into this building. She showed me the way and asked, "Are you by chance here for Founder's Day?" After a smile and a yes, we introduced ourselves and I think I very much surprised her when I said I was from a chapter far, far away. And then we entered, she floated around saying hi to folks and I went and found the host who I'd been talking to all week. I stood in line for food, awkwardly looking around to see if I knew any faces (I didn't). And then sat a table in the corner because I wasn't sure where else to butt in. And then, bless her, Thi told me to get up and go sit at a table "with people!", which prompted a few girls to turn around and tell me to come sit with them. And then it flowed from there.

Three of the founding mothers shared the story of how Alpha Zeta chapter came to be (one I'd never known, so that was cool) and a few sisters shared items they wanted to put in the chapter time capsule (neat idea). And then after bit of silence, I decided to go up and say something (for the record, Thi had asked me if I wanted to earlier in the week, I just didn't think I had anything to say). How awkward is it to go talk to 40 women you've never met? Awkward. Even for me. But I thanked them -- for celebrating their five years, for celebrating every year, for keeping their alumni involved, as I come from a chapter where it's often the work of the particular alum to stay in the loop. And, mostly importantly, after a few strange minutes, making me (the alum outsider) feel like I belonged there. It was that reminder that, as we always say and sing, our sisters are there. And I felt like they were there for me at that moment, and that I was no longer an outsider just strolling in to check out their event. What a feeling!

Thanks Alpha Zeta, for a great evening!

Everyone! The founding mothers are in front, holding a photo from their chapter installation ceremony. And then as you go up the staircase, it gets younger by pledge class. Oldies in front! (Fun fact, I'm technically the oldest of them all by year! Haha!)

All the alums in attendance. <3

Birthday!

(So like I said, I'm just going to catch you up on life... so sorry for all the severe back-dating) I'm officially past the quarter-of-a-century mark! Shenanigans, I tell ya. Being in a new town is difficult, especially having only been here for six weeks by the time my birthday rolled around. But, lucky for me, it turned out alright!

My actual birthday was Saturday, but we'll go in order of the weekend's events. Friday I invited some co-workers to go out to dinner, truthfully uncertain of how many and who would actually go, but there were about ten of us in total, which was awesome. We went to this awesome local pizza chain, Mellow Mushroom (yummm) and had a fabulous LASAGNA PIZZA. That's right, lasagna pizza. Amazing. This place is delicious and I will MOST certainly be back. So I had the intentions of hanging with a new friend, Roxy, and checking out the downtown Athens scene but by the time we got out of dinner (11:30!), I was already so tired that I didn't really care. Happy birthday to me, old lady!

Saturday was what turned out to be my sorority's local District Rally. Much like I did in Texas, I'm serving as a regional advisor, if you will, for the chapters of my sorority out here (at Auburn University, Kennesaw State, Georgia Tech and Georgia Southern). Each year, they're required to have a district retreat, which this year happened to be how I got to spend my birthday. Truth be told, it was great. We went camping up at Lake Lanier (feel free to MapQuest, or search Flowery Branch, Georgia; also home of the Atlanta Falcons' training center) and had a great afternoon and morning of s'mores, camping adventures, and sisterly fun. Molly came with me, for her first official camping trip (I mostly brought her because of the lake, truth be told) and we had a great time! I think Molly was really confused with all that was going on, but saw the water and felt right at home... you know how she is.

I mean.. you can't beat this for a birthday view, right?

Happy camper at the lake!

Cuddle time with the pupster.

She initially was VERY uncertain about this whole tent thing.

So all in all, had a great weekend. Met some new sisters, had some s'mores, and they had even made me a cake and sang happy birthday to me! Love. It was good times. Got home late Sunday morning, crashed, cleaned, grocery shopped... you know, the super exciting things 26-year-olds do on their birthday weekends!