Feelin' 23

Historically, my even-number birthdays have been the rough ones. 

Fat face, drugged birthday Jesye vs. All healed, regular Jesye
Extra attractive with the fat face, right?

On my second birthday, I was stung on the eyelid by a bee; for my fourth, I had the chicken pox; my sixth was made eventful by stepping on a beehive and getting stung 16 times. Lately I've been thinking that the tough birthdays have been it's switched to the odd-numbered ones. The 21st was interesting (long story best saved for another time), and this year I rang in age 23 with a fat face, an all liquid/soft foods diet, and a bottle of pain pills. The one and only week of the summer where there wasn't some big, set in advance plan or a weekend out of town was the week of my birthday. So that's when my wisdom teeth were removed. Not really... I actually had them out the day before, but still! My sympathetic parents got me an ice cream cake and my mama made a batch of mashed potatoes- if I could only eat two things for days, those are the things to eat.

I love New Years, birthdays, the start of a new school year... any fresh start where I can set goals for the next phase of life. And start a new planner! This is a big one, because it's going to be such a huge year, full of changes.

1. I am moving to a land far, far away
2. It'll be the first time in 18 years where I won't be a student starting a new school year
3. But I'll be a teacher starting a new school year!
4. I won't be home for Thanksgiving for the first time ever :(
5. I can no longer sing "I don't know about you, but I'm feelin' 22!" and be honest about it. 
6. I'm all listed out from lesson planning but needless to say, 23 is a big year!

But really, I just want to grab a brownie and do one of these! 

This is so random, one of the things people always tell me after learning that I'm moving to Italy is,

"Oh my gosh, all that pizza and pasta? You're going to come back so fat!" 

My dad jokes that I'll be the Pillsbury dough girl. I'm always just like, "Noooo, with all that city walking and such I'll be fine! I'll just have to be really careful!" 

Replace hamburgers with spaghetti.

Because anyone who knows what a carb lover I am knows that there will be no dieting whatsoever going on, and that, "Being really careful" will look more like Patrick.

So I guess #7 on the above list should actually be "I'm going to get very fat from delicious Italian food and embrace my deliciously large and in charge Buddha belly. Ommmm/Yummmmm."