Sunday Fun Day

Happy three-day weekend!  I know it goes without saying, but I'm going to say it anyways: three day weekends rock.  That extra 24 hours gives me just enough time to get a lot of stuff done while actually getting a chance to chill out and relax or do something really fun.

To that end, this weekend has been awesome.  On Saturday, Brandon and I went zip-lining up by the Maryland/Virginia/West Virginia border, and it was incredibly cool.  I'd always wanted to go zip-lining (I'm from Colorado, and my Dad - who goes rafting and mountain biking and zip-lining like a champ - has amassed about a bajillion more adventure sports cool points than I have), so when I saw an offer pop up on LivingSocial, I snapped it up right away.

This isn't me, but it's a photo of the place we went (from the newspaper Leesburg Today).

It had never occurred to me to be nervous about it, even though I'm not such a fan of heights - so all was well until it was my turn to climb up onto the platform.  Suddenly my nerves kicked in: I looked down and got butterflies, and I started wondering what, exactly, I'd been thinking when I'd emailed Brandon a few weeks ago saying "Dude!  Let's go zip-lining!  How cool does this sound?"

As the guide clipped me into the zip line, I could feel my palms getting sweaty in the gloves.  Clearly, I thought to myself, I'd temporarily taken leave of my senses when I'd decided this would be a great idea.  But there was no backing out now, and I told myself I needed to power through the nerves and get on with it already.

A few seconds later, I was flying through the air.  About 3 seconds in, my nervousness disappeared.  I hadn't been crazy, after all -- it was, in fact, incredibly fun.  As we drove home, Brandon and I agreed that we were really glad we'd done it; it was great to get out of the city, and it was awesome to do something so outside the bounds of our normal routine.

After a fairly awesome Saturday, today my dear friend Christie and I met up for an art journaling get-together in downtown DC.  I know it sounds campy to a lot of people, but I love stuff like this.  I've always loved making collages, and I have a few of my collages scattered throughout our apartment.

I especially love art journaling because, for me at least, it involves goal setting, inspiration, and creativity, which are three of my favorite things.  I love setting new goals for myself and using creativity as a means of motivating myself to achieve them.  Using art as a way of inspiring me to achieve my goals makes me incredibly happy, and I find that I'm more likely to keep working towards a goal if I have a visual reminder of what I want to do.

Now that it's Sunday night and I don't have to be at work tomorrow (*insert happy dance here!*), I plan to take advantage of the cool weather tomorrow by taking a long run outside, drinking at lest one giant mug of Trader Joe's Pumpkin Spice Rooibos, cooking, and catching up on our DVR recordings while relaxing with Brandon.  Long weekends and vacations are the only contexts in which Mondays are even remotely okay, and this long-weekend Monday seems like it'll be particularly lovely.

Yeeeeeeesss.  Mama likey.

I know it's Thanksgiving weekend up in Canada, so if I have any Canadian readers, I hope you're all having a lovely holiday -- and to those of us in 'Merica who get Columbus Day off, have an awesome extra day of R&R!