Ohhhhhh wow. You guys… I’m pretty sure I’ve gotten less sleep in the last 8 days than I normally do in a few days’ time. So… I’m not sure I’m rested enough to even be blogging or functioning at this point, but I’m running on such a high since arriving home from the What If Conference in the Dominican Republic that I’ve completely stopped worrying what anybody thinks of me (well, that’s a result of the conference and not my lack of sleep, I suppose).
So here I am anyway… telling you about our weekend! (And happy to be back writing, because I’ve missed it so!)
I arrived back late Friday afternoon from the conference feeling like a totally different person. James picked Lauren and I up from the airport with a rental car since ours is still broken down (we were waiting to make a decision on fixing it until we did our research and both James and I were in the same country…haha). We dropped Lauren off and headed home for a quick shower and then out to dinner to catch up on all we’d missed about each other’s worlds while I was gone. I basically talked J’s ear off for a good 2+ hours.
(Yes, that’s a basket of fries bigger than J’s head… haha!)
Afterwards we headed home to relax and laid down to sleep around midnight, only to find out that Gary had gone into surgery for an emergency appendectomy and Lauren was sitting in the hospital alone while her love was being operated on in another room. She insisted she was fine and that she could handle this alone…. but that’s not okay in our book – so James and I headed out to support our friends and keep Lauren company until around 4/4:30am when Gary got out of surgery.
When we knew Gary was okay and Lauren could be with him – we headed home and crashed like no other until around noon (I may have also fallen asleep at the hospital and drooled all over myself… so hot, right?!… but we won’t mention that ;)), which was followed by more car rental/buying research and craziness, and then replying to emails for about 4-5 hours since I hadn’t had internet all week in the Dominican and had some serious catching up to do.
I wanted to blog about my trip and the entire experience at some point this weekend but I couldn’t quite wrap my head around all of it – so James and I watched Beasts of the Southern Wild instead (SO GOOD) and he tucked me in and headed off to the gym to meet-up with a friend for a late night workout (he’s crazy, I know). 😉
I haven’t slept that hard in a while. Seriously. It was insane. Chloe normally wakes me up throughout the night because she has this weird… “I must cuddle up your back/legs. Oh wait, I’m hot, I need out of these covers!! Let me out! Oh wait, it’s cold up here… let me under the covers!” cycle that makes me want to pull my hair out… but this time either she didn’t do it – or I was so tired I never woke up to her moving around. Anyway – I finally woke around 5:30am to find James home from the gym and being a total crazy person watching a marathon of The Walking Dead on TV. I asked him to please come to bed, but since I’m the worst person at falling back asleep in the world – I laid in bed realizing I couldn’t fall asleep and got on my phone. (Why?!) An hour or so later James was finally able to peel himself away from the show and showed up in our room to ask me to go to breakfast with him – at 6:30am. (Who are we?!)
Because I’m apparently now a spontaneous person (?!?!) I said – Sure! and rolled my tired body out of bed to head to Stella’s Diner with James bright and early. (Which, may I just say – that heading to brunch early on a Sunday in Chicago is the Best.Thing.Ever because nobody else is there! No lines. No noise. Just good food, cozy atmosphere, and diner food goodness.) We ate an obscene amount, talked & talked, and headed home for a nap (since it was only 9am at this point and James had yet to sleep, and I had only had 5-6 hours of sleep).
Eventually we woke (a little better rested, but not really – if I’m being honest)… I got crabby and realized I needed some ‘me time’ at the gym to burn off some steam. I haven’t been there in almost 3 weeks so my body was craving some movement…. and I was right. I felt 100% better when I got home with some food from Trader Joe’s in hand for dinner. The rest of the night we sipped on wine and watched the new episode of The Walking Dead (AHH!! SO GOOD), and now here I am. At a loss about how to tell you about What If, but certain I must take the time to figure it out tomorrow. (I write my blog posts the night before, in case you haven’t figured out…)
This weekend was full of catching up with James and doing our best to catch up on sleep as well. I couldn’t stop thinking about the conference, but at the same time didn’t feel ready to share it all with you guys. I realize this probably all sounds crazy to you – but it was such an emotionally amazing/exhausting week that I needed some time to process and be selfish about it all for a bit. My goal is to figure it all out today (or at least enough to write about) and share with you all tomorrow.
So — basically I apologize for this random weekend summary blog – but I promise I’ll have more to share with you soon! Thanks so much for your patience and I promise (I hope) it’ll be worth the wait. In the meantime, just know that it was all good enough (AMAZING enough, if I’m being honest) that I already signed James and I up for What If 2014! (Yes – he must come with next time!)
See you all tomorrow with the best summary I can wrap my mind around. Promise. xoxo.
In the meantime, the world’s tiniest sneak peek…
That’s right – a freaking double rainbow over the ocean while all of us were hanging out on the beach on the last day! Right?! I think it’s a sign, I’m just saying. Amazing. <3
