Big Move. Big Dig. Big Year. 2009

I'm constantly reminded that I'd be nothing if not for my friends.

1). We've done it - we've moved to Charles Village (or the Abell Community, depending on who you ask).
With the help of our lovely awesome amazing strong energetic friends, we have moved into our new house, and as soon as we actually get the paperwork over with, I'm going to really consider breathing. (yes, I'm aware most people settle on a house before they move into it... but that's apparently not how it rolls with us. Thanks, Bank of America. Thanks.)

2). Luckily, we got to escape all this "adult" nonsense, and the piles of cardboard boxes forming castle walls in every room of our new house, and drive to PA this weekend for the umpteenth annual big dig, in a place called Eatonia... which probably isn't on the roadmap in your glovebox.
The big dig is a college reunion of sorts, in which friends drive from hours away to dig a big old hole, for the purpose of getting sweaty together and perhaps just to prove the ground is still solid matter which can be moved, and that friends are still in touch and available to each other and aren't in the business of becoming too serious about themselves... and for the purpose of reminding ourselves that not everything has to have a purpose. Also for the purpose of eating and drinking and singing and swimming and hugging each other a few extra times for all the rest of the year when we don't get to see each other because we live far apart. It's so good to see your friends and be outdoors and forget about everything else for a couple days... good with the slightly odd feeling one develops the first full day home alone & working, semi-back-to-normal. This particular explosion of happiness only comes once a year, and sometimes I think that there just might not be anyone more wonderful than all of these good people we've already found. How did we get so lucky? I wonder this more often than I'll care to admit on a blog.