Tag Archives: parties

As you know by now, I’ve had major reason to celebrate. And last weekend, I definitely took part in my fair share of celebrating.

It all started around the morning of Friday, April 15th right before I was about to head out the door for work. In my experience, it’s never a good idea to check email the moment before I need to leave, because more often than not, I get sucked into the “world of Gmail”/twitter/blog checking and the like. But bad habits die hard, and I decided to check it anyway.

In my inbox the first email I saw was from the student affairs director over at UNC. Excitement started to build in my chest (okay, and maybe a little bit of fear and anxiety…). Then my eyes glanced over to the subject line, because I was a little stunned that this email was actually sitting in my inbox.

I thought to myself, “OMG could it really be…??”

Instead of immediately opening the email, my impatient self glanced over to the subject line to see if I could get any more hints as to what the email was about. (I know I know, I should’ve just immediately read the e-mail, but I think my fingers were frozen and forgot how to move the mouse to open the actual the email. I mean, I’ve only been waiting for this moment since 2007. No big deal, right?). For those of you not familiar with Gmail, there’s a setting you can activate that allows you to see a “glimpse” of the first few lines of text in any email.

Well, here is what that “glimpse” read …

“Congratulations! Let me be among the first to welcome you into the 2011 cohort…”

jfdksjfksjfdkjfsdlkjfdkljfsJKFDJSJFDKSJFSD!!!!!!!!!!!

Yep, that’s all I saw before I started screaming/laughing/crying and jumping up and down… and then my fingers unfroze and I managed to open up the email (while still jumping up and down and screaming). I got halfway through reading before I G-chatted Ryan and shared the news. Next thing I knew, my phone was ringing and he was calling me.

I don’t think I spoke a word of English (see gibberish above…)  in between my tears of joy and happiness, but he’s good at translating my excited gibberish (he’s had 2.5 years of practice now) and sent along his congratulations (and laughed at me, of course). Needless to say, I was 5 minutes late to work but BEAMING the entire day! And then when Ryan got home from work later that evening, he treated me out to dinner at Pinkey’s Westside Grill! (If you’re in Charlotte, go eat here…they are the ones who used to run The Penguin!).

Pinky's Westside Grill

Yes, I am a cheeseball and sported Carolina blue

And then we went to Best Buy and I bought myself a new camera. I figured I deserved to splurge after all of that hard work (and I was in the market for a new camera anyway, so what better time to treat myself than after some good news?!).

And cookies. Ryan surprised me with deeelicious triple chocolate chunk cookies! And they were heavenly 

Triple chocolate... Quadruple yum!

Get in my belly!

Saturday rolled around and we continued the celebration by relaxing all day and doing anything and everything that our little hearts desired. Not a single text book was cracked, and the TI-83 calculator remained safely in it’s case. In fact, that was the case for the entire weekend. We went out for dinner at Dilworth Neighborhood Bar and Grille (I freakin’ loooove that place!) and then we returned home to get ready for part two of the night.

Dilworth Neighborhood Grille

We're quickly becoming regulars

Thanks to a Groupon, we had a lot of fun with the menu

I’ve met some pretty awesome people through this little blog, and had plans to meet up Ensley and Alyssa for a celebratory night out on the town!

These girls are waaaay fun, and we spent the whole night dancing up a storm.

me, Alyssa's two besties from college, Alyssa, and Ensley!

Rockin' out

We even ran into one of the interns who worked with me at the Y 1.5 years ago when I first started my financial development position.

Haaaaalarious. Looks like the Y taught him well

Blurry. How appropriate…

The boy

Too much fun.

Some of Ryan’s co-workers ended up joining us after they got out of the Bobcats game. Seriously love them. It’s like one big family. (Sad that I didn’t get any pictures of them, but I’m betting good money they’re sitting in cube-land right now reading this and sighing a a big sigh of relief…).  But yes, it was such a fun (and needed!) night out!!

Oh, and just a little disclaimer: I might be a public health educator… but I’m by no means perfect. Yes I drink, and yes, sometimes it’s a little bit too much. But I also have plenty of nights out where I don’t drink and have just as much fun… so if you feel the need to point out how ironic it is that I celebrated the good news of getting into a master of public health program in this way,  you’d just be preaching’ to the choir.

So as a health educator, I’d like to share some words of wisdom:

-Drink in moderation.

-Always have a designated driver.

-Strength in numbers

According to the CDC, binge drinking corresponds to a pattern of drinking 5 or more drinks on a single occasion for men or 4 or more drinks on a single occasion for women, generally within about 2 hours.

Done done and done.

So let’s recap: please be responsible and do as I say…not as I do.

Tonight should be yet another fun night of celebrations! Today is Caitlin’s birthday, as well as Michelle and Lori’s… and Kelly’s birthday is later this week, too! And to top that off, Nicole got engaged this past Friday , and Lori got engaged over the weekend! Holy batman, that’s a lot to celebrate!

Have you had anything to celebrate recently?! Anything in the future you’re working hard towards that you can’t wait to celebrate?! I can’t wait to celebrate my upcoming MARATHON this weekend!!!! I can’t believe it’s almost go-time!