Life update

Happy April!

I've been thinking long and hard about what to post recently, because two things have given me blogger's block:

1) My camera battery charger has run away, leaving me no carmera and a dreath of pictures to post...and thus 90% of my inspiration zapped, and

2) If I am being honest, I have been pretty boring lately.

Perhaps it is a blah start to the year for me, but this quarter's been full of bookwormish reading, working on the weekends, and spending quality time with S. I experienced fewer winter dolldrums this year than last, thanks to a rejuvenating trip to Colorado for snowboarding in the Rockies, visits with my GYC friends, and trips for work that kept me on a plane as I kicked off my 27th year of life.

I suppose March has slowed me down the most, with no flights out anywhere, just as what little winter we had faded away the snowboarding season and much of my desk work wrapped up nicely. But here, for what it's worth, are some of my March life updates:

I got promoted. Since I was 15, I wanted to work in the field I now work in, doing the kind of work I do. It sounds crazy, but before I took a big vacation that year (international, multi-week), I wrote down a prayer that I said every night I was traveling that summer, asking God to make possible - through scholarships and perseverance - the opportunity to do what I get to do now. This promotion is seriously the icing on the cake concerning a trajectory I began over a decade ago to improve the health and lives of others through research and prevention. I'll never be done growing in my vocation, but this was a pretty beautiful fulfillment of my hopes and dreams all this time.

I paid off my car. Don't let people tell you it can't be done. At first I had no money, and no plan. But I researched every car sold in America for under thirty-thousand dollars. I lived on an entry-level salary (no raise from said promotion as of yet), and saved for nearly a full year straight with a strict budget without allowances for new clothes, eating out, or anything but bills and emergenices. I paid over 50% cash upfront, and refused to finance long term. I paid it off 6 months early, and now instead of a depreciating asset I own interest on, I have a working vehicle with a 9.5 year warranty, and a place to live should my amazing, prayer-answered dream job fall through and I'm forced to become a wondering songstress. 

My cat turned 3 years old. I am not a young, vibrant woman afraid to blog about how much she adores her cat. Or about how much of her relationship with her boyfriend, co-workers, family and friends revolves around discussing or amusing said cat. O's a gem of an individual - crazy, swipy, meowing, and we learned this year, a bit of a freak for a can of Starkist tuna (his birthday "cake" for the big 0-3). People might not understand it, but this cat is my child, I am his mother, and I'm so happy he joined the S&D family as a little tike nearly two years ago and that we get to call him ours.

I'm running again (kind of). I ran last week. I think it was my second time in the gym this entire year, and certainly the first time I've gotten serious about my physical fitness since my 10K back in October 2011. The snowboarding season allows me to knock off 3 hours of excercise a day, two to four days a week easy, without a shred of the normal discipline required to get me on the treadmill or the running trails. But alas, there is no snow, there are no excuses, and so I'm starting to log the miles again. In the otherwise stagnant travel month of March, at least my feet are keeping a move on.

So that's me. For now. I hope your March was full of fruit, and that your April is even fruitier, as I hope mine will be. And that for all that is good and pure in this world, I find my camera battery charger sometime soon!