Venturing Out

I've been in DC for the last week with 3 of my friends. I had a BLAST!!

We got to do so much stuff, a lot of which most people don't get to do. My friend has a congressman in her family so we got to have a guided tour through the tunnels and other hidden places in the Capitol that you wouldn't see otherwise. We hung out in his office for a while and just chatted. He was also able to get us an internal tour of the White House and Pentagon, which were both amazing!! We did all the other "normal" stuff; monuments, statues, memorials, the National Cathedral, Arlington cemetery, etc. I don't think I've ever done so much walking in my entire life. I have a pretty high tolerance for pain, but my feet hurt so bad on the second day I was almost in tears once we got back to the hotel.

It's probably a good thing we walked like 100 miles because I ate nothing but junk food while we were there! I had more pizza and hamburgers in the past 6 days than I have in the past 6 months probably! Hopefully I didn't do too much damage. I've been doing Jenny Craig this summer and I don't want to have to re-lose the same weight.

I'm glad to be back home! I'm glad to have my own bed and bathroom, rather than having to share with 3 others. It was quite an experience. There were times that we laughed so hard we were crying, and rode back in silence because we were all a little crabby.

My goal while I was there was to be "in the moment". I didn't want to spend my vacation caught up in my head, worrying about things I can't control or things that aren't even occurring anytime soon. I wanted to be happy with what I was doing and try to stay positive, even when I was sleep deprived, hungry or both. I also wanted to be a more genuine me. A lot of times when I'm in a group, I tend to become a wallflower and let others guide the decisions, conversations, etc. Instead of always doing that, if I had something I wanted to say or suggest, I did. There were times that I still fell into old habits (confrontation avoiding, playing peacekeeper, etc) but since those weren't my specific goals I wasn't hard on myself for not challenging them.

All in all, it was an amazing trip! DC is now my absolute favorite American vacation! If you haven't been, go!!! :)

3 comments:

Finding Pam said...
July 18, 2011 at 7:31 AM

I sm so happy that you are living again. You sound very positive and full of life. I 've enjoyed catching up on your blog and seeing how much progress you have made.

Stay connected.

A Mother Always said...
July 18, 2011 at 9:50 PM

Breaks are good, they take us away from the usual and give us new moments for warming memories.

Clueless said...
July 20, 2011 at 10:12 AM

Wow!! I wish that I could of had your DC trip. One for my bucket list.