What’s up, friends.
So, after I somewhat unceremoniously ditched you all almost a month ago now, I think I’m finally in a place where I can get back into this, at least for the moment. A fair amount of my life is still in flux (actually, in an almost-hit-my-actual-breaking-point turn of events, my life is in even more flux now than it was when I left off), but the flux feels ever-so-slightly under control. If nothing else, I think I can dedicate time to this again for right now, so here goes.
I’ve done things of varying degrees of interest over the past three weeks, including:
Watching the Olympic Marathon Trials, which basically felt like Christmas to me. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I would enjoy watching people run for 2+ hours, but the Trials were so fun to watch. I love watching Boston, but this was so much better, knowing Americans would definitely win, and having at least basic familiarity with most of the main contenders prior to the event.
Ordering pizza from Dimo’s. I realize this seems like it isn’t all that eventful of an occasion, but this was only the second time in my entire life I’ve ordered delivery, and the first time said delivery included pizza. Plus it was basically the only exciting thing that happened to me all of Valentine’s Day weekend, which makes for a sad but true commentary on my life.
Taking three SoulCycle classes. Speaking of things I never dreamed I’d enjoy, right before I took my blog break, Target x SoulCycle stopped in Chicago, bringing with it free SoulCycle classes. I went to one of the Sunday classes and received a comp class at the new SoulCycle Southport location that just opened a month or so ago. When I redeemed my free class, the SoulCycle staff gave me another voucher for another free class, since it was my first time riding, at least in an official setting. I honestly really enjoyed all three classes. I suppose I’ve sort of been in the right emotional mindset to get a lot out of something like SoulCycle recently, but I was shocked by how much I liked all three classes. I’ve taken spin twice before and never cared for it, and even though there were aspects of the spinning at SoulCycle I didn’t like (namely, that I found the seats to be quite uncomfortable and always had a sore butt for days after), there were FAR more aspects that I did like. I never felt bored, which was always my #1 complaint in other spin classes. In fact, I always felt like the 45 minutes flew by. But I think what I liked the most was the choreography. Considering that I’ve chosen to take dance time and time again for three and a half years, I guess it really shouldn’t be that surprising that I loved that a fair portion of the class involved pedaling and moving to the beat of the (deafeningly loud) music. I had a lot of preconceived notions about SoulCycle based on my previous studio fitness experiences, and was happy to find out I was wrong. Of course, this isn’t something I’ll probably keep up, at least not regularly (unless there are a bunch of you out there interested in making routine $30 donations to the Bethany Enjoys SoulCycle Fund), but I’m glad I got to go three times.
I spontaneously decided to take a cross-country train trip.
This is at least two blog posts in and of itself, but when one of my Stuffs turned sour, I said, “Fine then! I’m going on vacation!” I had wanted to visit my sister in Jackson, Mississippi for a while, and decided last year that I needed to take a February vacation to escape the soul-crushing perma-grey and cold that is late winter in Chicago. So south I went, to the land of warmth and sunshine! I spent slightly less than 24 hours in New Orleans, then headed up to Jackson for two days before returning to Chicago.
That’s the highlight reel of my life lately. I’m back to work today (boo 😦 ), but look forward to telling you all about my trip very soon, and catching up on your blogs 🙂