My week in numerous sentences, bordering on a little too many.

Since I usually fill my blog of heavy, somewhat melodromatic posts, I feel it necessary to share with you all about my past week and how incredibly blown away I have been by it all. Please, read on. I hope you don't get too bored with all my gushing:

Do you all remember this? That was back in January that I discovered my potential new love, and before that I had been filling my friends and coworker's ears full of my desires to have my very own Mac. And as I am usually rather obsessive and neurotic about expressing my wishes, I no doubt did this particular wish of mine great justice by successfully making everyone roll their eyes every single time I mentioned it. Well, apparently, they had had enough.

In case any of you don't know me, you should know one thing: I am all about my birthday. It's not just one day for me, it's an entire month dedicated to just my birth. Really, I feel like everyone should make the biggest deal as possible about their birthdays. It is the only day (or in my case, month) out of the year that can be dedicated just to you. There's no need to be modest about it, I say live it up. You might want to start out with a birthday week, then work it up to the birthday month. A birthday year would be taking it to far, I mean, that's rather selfish, don't you think? There are a few other billion people to take into account. For me, this year so far has been no exception. In fact, it's been the opposite of an exception. (Hmm...what is that exactly? An inception?) It not even close to my birthday, it's still two weeks away in fact, but I already feel like I've had two birthdays. Thursday I came into work to a vase of sunflowers and a note that read, "Happy Birthday Month, (heart) T." T shares my affection for celebrating the birthdays to a T (ha!), so she tends to go all out at the sake of others as well. But sunflowers 3 weeks before my birthday, she took it up a notch, and I quite enjoyed it. I sat under the towering sunflowers as my sister called to have lunch with me a bit early that day. I thought nothing of it, she's often doing that. We had an unsuccessful lunch at the french place that others refer to as Au Bon Pain; me: The French Place whose name I refuse to say so I don't sound like the idiot American it makes me feel like. We head back about quarter of so she can say hi to T and J, on the way she makes a strange phone call to her husband but some weird person answers and she thinks she has the wrong number, but then it turned out to be his secretary. I'm still clueless at this point. We walk into the hallway and the door is shut and the lights are off, I express worry to my sister, wondering what happened. We open the door and all my coworkers and even friends not from Brown are standing all around, balloons, streamers, and good food surrounding. I was completely shocked. I would've been content with just that, happy that people had made an effort to celebrate my birthday early, in what is completely my style. I thought that was it, I was ready to eat and chat with my friends. But there were requests to open the present I planned on saving until everyone was gone so I wouldn't have to be watched. I opened just the end of it, and saw the beautiful two word name: "Mac mini." I was in shock. No way is that really a computer wrapped in the shiny purple paper, no way did I just see that correctly. Surely it was just the box. I continued unwrapping, and it was indeed a Mac mini. And the tears started flowing. And folks, they didn't stop for about another hour. I couldn't believe this many people had cared that much about me to put their hard-earned money into getting me something I had always wanted. Never in my life would I have expected this, I will forever be blown away when I think about how incredibly special and loved they made me feel with that one act of kindness and thought. Everytime I turn my comptuer on, I'm reminded that I am one lucky individual that has been blessed with the people in her life, in so many ways. I'm especially grateful to T, not only for this incredibly thoughtful act, but for being a constant in my life, and for being a wonderful, amazing, gratious friend that I am so lucky to have forced to be my friend. Ah, sometimes I'm proud of my skills of persuation.

And folks, this is not the end of it. In addition to this lovely unexpected surprise on Thursday, I also threw a little BBQ out at my house this weekend. It was appropriately dubbed, a "country shindig." And that it was. People came out, sangria was made, a fire was built, and food was consumed. It couldn't have been any better. I loved everyone there, and was so thankful they made the "trek" out to my house to enjoy the fresh air and the company of one another. It was pretty much the first party I had thrown on my own without the help of roommates, and not on that, but it was the first successful party I had ever thrown. I couldn't have been happier with the turn out. There were constant comments about how much colder it was way out in Foster compared to the city (only 20 miles east fo there, but you would think I live in a whole other country). Later in the evening, Took had managed to wrap himself entirely around my friend M's ankles and caused him to fall down. (Finally, our little trick had been mastered! Nice work, Took, nice work.) The best was feeding my friends, and them overwhelming me with compliments and requests for more. Nothing in this world makes me happier then feeding people and them loving my creation. If possible, cooking is kind of my art, and it's one of the few things in this world that I claim to not be all that bad at. So when I can witness a group of people enjoying what I put time into, I'm not sure I could get happier. I didn't want the night to end, I wanted people around my fire permanently, and laughter and conversations heard from my house on a more constant basis. It was lonely there last night, my house was too empty and Took was too bored with just me.

In addition to all of this, I've been keeping something from you. Kind of intentionally, actually. As you may have noted, I tend to jinx myself with talking about someone special here, so I've purposely been keeping it to myself. Although, I think I may have hinted towards it now that I'm thinking (here, in fact)...but I've been hanging out with someone new who really makes me smile and continues to surprise me. His intelligence is inspiring, and the similarities and connections between us are still being uncovered. More on this to come.

Overall, I have lately been amazed at how life throws things at you when you least expect it. For me, it was my trip to DC and the feelings and motivation that came from it, including a desire to move there. Since this experience, all these things have happened in my life that has made me re-evaluate my eagerness to move away from Rhode Island. People have come into my life that already held a love of this city, and have made me realize what it was I was looking past, and simply because of unsettled feelings I had of refusual of this actually becoming my home. The past week has reminded me of the friends I have made here and how much I love them all, and don't want to leave them simply because of stubborn reasons that I can't rightly justify. I'm not saying I'm ready to settle, as I'm not sure I'll ever be ready for that, but I am planning on sticking around for a little while longer at least. This city is special, and the people I have met in it, even more so. And I think that is one of the little pleasures of life, the realization that something of greater force is throwing what you want the least back into your life in pleasant little reminders. That maybe what you want, is already what you have, but for some reason, you just can't see it. This whole idea of life's little ironies is one of the many things in this world that continue to amaze me...

...that, and my inability to express myself accurately. I think the next book I need to read is a Thesaurus. Here are some pictures of the surprise party, and my reaction to the unexpected gift that is now threatening my relationships with actual human beings because I love it so much: