we used to joke and it felt like home

my heart is beating up into my throat.

i just pumped my way through 100 squats to the beat of "beware the dog" by the griswolds. fun little beat, hook is really fun to drop the f-bomb on. 

getting through 50 squats was pretty easy. around 75, i had to stop and take a moment to dance it out cause my quads started seizing up.  from 76 until 95, i stopped every few counts to do a fun little jig and mix it up until i made it to 100.  and right now i feel like i'll never do another squat again, but who am i kidding.  totes will attempt this again... just not this week.

anywho!

it's finally vacation week!

our best and most recent bff picture(?)

vanessa and i will be heading down to durham, north carolina for halloween and a few days of foodie adventures. lots of beer, burgers (veggie for me), and delightfully hip lattes to be had.  i have been in desperate need of a vacation since the last one which, ironically enough, was spent in durham, as well!

juan and i drove the full eight hours down on the day after last christmas. we ran into one of my old college floormates at a rest stop in virginia - what are the odds! - and then spent most of the trip holed up in the hotel while we juggled rental cars in the wake of juan's transmission chip blowing itself to bits. 

this was all right after i'd ended my time in eighth grade.  the kids didn't know that i wasn't coming back and i was really in no mental state to tell them.  being in that classroom was a traumatic experience for me, so much so that i swung back and forth from being down to my lowest of lows to the heights of idealistic optimism - i could start up a small business doing something i loved!  just like that, the world was going to be my oyster, damn it. nevermind the shock of "failing" at the one thing i knew i was born to do. there was enough guacamole and netflix being streamed in the room to make anything seem possible!

this crazy new dream coalesced in the span of one afternoon.  i'd done my research on durham's hot spots before we made our way down through te mid-atlantic states, but nothing would prepare me for stepping into cocoa cinnamon for the first time. this place is one of my favorite little coffee joints on earth. housed in what used to be an auto garage in the manufacturing district of downtown bull city, cocoa cinnamon has the charm of any upscale gourmet cafe in brooklyn, but it's ten times cooler.  they can open the garage doors on a nice day!  it's also a really dog-friendly place, so we saw a ton of people camping out with their pooches and enjoying a latte.  

inside the shop

their menu is chock full of combos that i'd never tasted before, and there's certainly a ton that you'd never ever see in a starbucks or dd.  that singular experience of stepping in, waiting in line, and ordering - and the incomparably delicious villa rica latte that stands as the best caffeinated beverage i've ever had in my short year of coffee-drinkery - changed my perspective.  yes, certain parts of life were sucking a whole lot, but here i was, entertaining another big career change.  i dream pretty big most of the time. and even though i didn't pursue that avenue (as of yet), that trip to durham definitely shook me up when i needed a good throttling. desperately needed to come out of my insular slump and the celestial juxtaposition of the villa rica and getting stuck in the mall parking parking lot and consuming 2lbs of whole food guac (sooooo much vitamin e) just combined to strike the right chord, maybe my major fourth.

so here it is, the squats-and-pre-vacation-post, hijacked by cocoa cinnamon.

soon...

the aforementioned villa rica latte.

next week: VACATION! and maybe an announcement of some big life news!