Weekend Recap: Finding my Groove

Happy Monday! This was a great weekend, and I felt like I really started finding my groove with balancing all the many things going on in my life.

I headed to San Francisco for work on Thursday, and flew back on Friday night. However, instead of arriving solo at the airport and then driving home for a quiet night by myself… Adam and I timed our flights so we’d both land in Denver at about the same time and get to head home together! I’ve never had anyone meet me at the airport when I got home from a trip, and it felt so special to have him there. Basically, our own little Marshmallow-and-Lilypad moment (even though I contend that we’re really more of a Chandler-and-Monica couple).

The best part of meeting up was that Adam’s flight was a few minutes delayed, so I was actually able to surprise him by telling him that I was going ahead to get the car and pick him up at the front of the terminal… while I actually waited right at the door to the jetway so that I could see him the second he was off the plane. He had his headphones on and wasn’t paying attention to his surroundings at all when he walked off the jetway, and for a moment I wondered if I’d have to go chasing him through the terminal yelling “Wait, Adam! It’s me!” But at the last second before he passed me, Adam’s eyes caught mine and widened in surprise before we both went in for a huge hug. I was so excited to have successfully pulled that surprise meeting off 🙂

Since we were both subject to TSA and therefore neither of us could bring each other a six-pack, we headed to a brewery straight from the airport. (What can I say, we are resourceful!) Our choice of venue was an amazing southern soul food placed in Lafayette called The Post Brewing Company, which has incredible fried chicken and biscuits. Even after a leisurely dinner, though, we were still were able to get to bed fairly early on Friday night. With our busy Saturday, that ended up being a really good thing!

I had thought we’d sleep late on Saturday, and intentionally kept the day pretty flexible, but we knew that we wanted to go hiking and also spend some time running errands and doing work around the house. When we woke up at 7am, I figured we could be hiking by 8am and done in time for a noontime lunch… maybe we’d even hit some garage sales. But the mountain I chose for us to hike, Bear Peak, is one that I have done multiple times and yet always underestimate – so it wasn’t until 2:30pm that we finally made it back to our car and were able to go find lunch at 3pm.

After a really fun night out in Boulder with my friends on Saturday night, Adam and I spent the untypically-rainy Sunday having brunch at a great spot in Denver with his family, and then finally doing those chores around my house. We ended the weekend with some great relaxing that also took advantage of the fruits of our Adam’s labor: lounging around on the couch with wine watching my newly-mounted TV.

All in all, the weekend was a perfect blend of the things I love to do – but it wasn’t so packed as to be overwhelming. I had the fun date with Adam on Friday night, an amazing mountain hike on Saturday (exercise + views all rolled into one!), some much-needed time catching up with friends on Saturday night, and then a Sunday focused on home and family. This perfect balance isn’t something I’m going to be able to achieve every weekend, but I’m thrilled that I was able to make it work so well this weekend, and I’m hoping to use that as a template for weekends to come. In particular, this was my first hiking trip of the year, and I had kind of forgotten how much I love making that a part of my regular routine. Hopefully the weather will be nice enough for me to do Green Mountain next weekend!

The one downside of such a great weekend? How bummed I was when it was over. As much as I loved how sweet Adam was to help me out with all the little things I need to do to turn my house into a home, it also made me really sad to think that he’s now back in Arizona and I’ll only get to see him one night in the next ten days 🙁 Long distance dating is really hard, and I wish more than anything that we were both in the same place. It’s tough to balance seeing Adam as much as possible with also getting time in Colorado to see my friends, explore the mountains, and of course, get things done around the house. Every weekend we spend together is amazing, but the leaving is really bittersweet.

Luckily, this morning found me on a flight to Los Angeles for an amazing new career opportunity – so between that and all of Adam’s cute “I miss you” messages to me, my week got off to a good start. Just to be clear, the new opportunity with my current company – I’m not quitting or anything! There are definitely pros and cons to working for a large firm, but one great perk is having hundreds of different roles/responsibilities so that you can constantly be getting new experiences and learning new things. As you all know, that’s something I love doing! In this case, I’m really excited to try out a new role that makes use of a lot of my strengths while also content-wise being something I’m incredibly passionate about – it’s basically my dream job of a lifetime. I’m out in California for the week to test ou the role, and I’m really hoping it all works out so that this can be integrated with my regular client service work as a regular thing. Fingers crossed!