10 Things I'll Miss About You

There's something about the number 10. When you're learning to count, you often learn up to 10 first. Mostly because eleven and twelve are weird and the teens suck, or at least that's what I think about. It's also easy to count to 10, because most people have ten fingers/ten toes. Ten is a pretty decent number. 
Now there are a few things I don't like about 10. The metric system is base 10 and awesome. It WORKS. But other things aren't. A week isn't 10 days, it's 7 (why?). An hour isn't 100 minutes, it's 60. 10 minutes should be 1/10 of an hour. Just make it longer! It would make sense. Everything should function around 10's. If I were empress in ancient Greek or Roman times, I would've made that a thing. I can't do it now, no one likes someone who tries to take over the world (here's looking at you, Putin.) but it would be a great idea. 

Anyway, I've been thinking about 10 a lot. Just a couple days ago I was thinking I had 10 days left here. That suddenly got cut WAY short, but that's another story. My POC thinks I'm coming back 10 days after I leave. That's also another story, and I don't yet know the ending. 

 Anyway, I wanted to wrap up the round, since I'm leaving so soon, with 10 things I've loved about Round 2.

1. Harmony Hollow: You showed me nature, peace, love, and memories. Thanks for giving me the cutest street name I'll probably ever have the joy of being a resident of. 
2. Front Royal: Your town is quaint, cute, and your welcome signs are lovely. There's not much else here but at least you have a Starbucks. You know your priorities, and I appreciate that.
3. Rappahannock Cellars: If I had known beforehand of the magic you would introduce me to, I wouldn't have believed it.
4. Valerie Hill: The sweetest people, the best rooms, great wine, and so much love.
5.  Union Jacks: Because sometimes all you need is a good beer and a hockey game.
6. The Daily Grind: My weekly visits to this coffee shop were more than coffee, I became attached to the people, my favorite chair, and the 20 minutes of peace. 
7. Sunrises and Sunsets: Almost daily I have had the pleasure of witnessing the most gorgeous skies I've ever seen, and often I've witnessed both in one day. There's nothing here that's prettier than the sunrise over the Shenandoah Valley. Well, maybe the sunset. I'm not sure.
8. Snow: At first, the excitement of a snow day bears resemblance to what you felt as a school child, crossing your fingers in your pajamas and staying home with Mom all day. ...Until they call YOU Mom and you've been snowed in for 5 days in a row. Just kidding, it's not easy, but I have many fond memories. Thanks, team. :)
9. Lack of WiFi. Did a 20-something, internet-loving blogger just add "Lack of WiFi" to a "10 Things I Loved" list?! Yes. Yes, she did. Because limited access to the outside world taught me a whole lot about myself, people, and other ways to communicate. I learned about a few things I had been missing, and a lot about what I love.
10. Deployment Branch: Thanks for the best office environment, staff, location, and a million other positive things about this work place. You're all incredible humans.

Round two was a roller coaster. I've learned, I've grown (not physically), I've changed, I've laughed, I've cried, and I've fallen in love. This place is magical, beautiful, and amazing in more ways than I can describe.

I know I'll be back here eventually, but the real question is: Am I going to be gone for 10 days, or am I saying goodbye for 10 weeks?

I'll miss you, Virginia.

Traditions: Can you create them?

Every family has traditions, and as we reflect upon our lives we often easily recall moments centered around these traditions, whether they be holidays, summer events, school vacation weeks, weekends... anything that was routine that we could count on happening often enough for us to remember to do it, but not too often so that we get tired of it. For some, these are things like what to eat on birthdays, or watching a movie on Sundays, or having spaghetti on Wednesdays. For my family, traditions include turkey for breakfast on Thanksgiving (and for dinner) and turkey for breakfast on Christmas. We went to the fair every year but I don't know if that was tradition, habit, or just a way to spend our long weekend. Now, I'm not sure if this is how it happened, but forgive me. I think I was eleven or twelve at the time, so my pre-teen brain was a little funky. Sometime in my late years of elementary school (I think 6th? I think I was 12?) a little cafe opened up in our town. We got up ridiculously early and went before my sisters had to go to school. They were in the middle & high school so we probably left around 6:30. And then we did this, every single Friday. Friday became "Coffee Day." There were times I moaned and groaned about waking up to go sit in a cafe with my sisters, and there were times I couldn't get there fast enough to get a chocolate chip muffin and a chocolate milk. There were times I was just too damn tired to get out of bed that early. But honestly, I loved it. And even in my senior year, my mom and I would take two cars (I needed mine after school, she had to work and I had practice, a game, or work) and we would go get coffee or breakfast (by that time, our little cafe had closed and another reopened, and we usually just went to Dunkin Donuts or a little diner instead) and enjoyed our coffee together. Sometimes it was rushed, but we still made the effort, and I'll never forget those coffee days.

Every family has traditions. As I reflect upon my year, I don't have many memories centered around these types of moments. Right now, I find myself in a new family that was just built. It wasn't built on love and marriage and the joining of two families and a bunch of babies, we weren't friends who decided to move in together, and we didn't find each other on Craigslist. We were sort of thrown into a house together and told to get along and play nice; I was told to make sure everyone gets along and plays nice, and goes to work on time. We don't have traditions yet. It's hard to establish traditions, they're usually something you're born into, and it's especially difficult to establish traditions when you're just trying to establish common ground. But perhaps one can help the other. What do nine 18-25 year olds have in common? They all like coffee. They all hate Mondays. We all have to get up early. So I decided to make the best of it with coffee. We are now leaving our house 20 minutes early every Monday to stop at the Dunkin Donuts that we pass on the way to work for our own little Coffee Day, to help make everyone's week begin with a treat. Hopefully this little tradition will stick with us through the end of the program, and help be the creator of some fond memories for my teammates. It's not an original idea (Thanks, Mom!) but I'm hoping that it will have a positive outcome.