Embracing My Inner Old Person

I would like to introduce you all to a friend of mine:

This is my shopping cart. Yes, I have an old lady shopping cart at age 23. And I think it's awesome! I haven't come up with a name for it yet, since I'm apparently not creative at all when it comes to making up names for anything (watch out, future offspring). But Shopping Cart makes my life so much easier! If I don't have a car to go grocery shopping, it's a life saver. Even if I do have the car, Shopping Cart will still help me carry everything upstairs. Still think I'm weird? Let me see YOU lug four bags of groceries (including a gallon of milk) across a parking lot full of maniacs, then play Frogger crossing Rockville Pike, then walk back to your apartment, go up the elevator 11 flights, and around the corner to the very end of the hall. I bet you would wish you had Shopping Cart with you, too.

And that is the only part of my life that even slightly resembles being an old person..........

Okay, who am I kidding? There are actually several parts of my life that make my loved ones wonder, and sometimes make myself wonder, if I am actually 90 years old.

As many of you know, I'm a pretty active person. I love being on the move, trying new things, being around people, and I'm finally getting some semblance of a social life back now that I'm living on my own. I'm even starting the process (yes, it's turning out to be a bit of a process) of signing up for Events and Adventures, the singles activity slash dating club (well hello, Future Husband, you look rather dashing in your hiking/kayaking/skydiving/happy hour attire). But I'm all about balance in life, and sometimes you just need to take a little break from all the crazy hustle and bustle. For me, sometimes that means doing things ever-so-slightly differently than the average 23-year old.

Take right now, for example. As I write this post (actually, as I've written just about all of my posts), my Pandora station of choice is the Frank Sinatra station. I LOVE Frank Sinatra and all those crooners from back in the day. There's even a Frank Sinatra station that normally plays in the lobby of my apartment building, making it incredibly difficult to leave for work in the mornings. Instead I just want to curl up with a book in the comfy chairs in the lounge and bask in those wonderful sounds.

I also love drinking tea in the evenings. I'm drinking a cup right now in fact, a scrumptiously soothing cup of Earl Grey tea. And yes, for those that are going to point out the obvious, I realize that this blog is called Heather's Coffee Break and not Tea Break. Get over it. If I actually managed to write in the morning I would be drinking coffee. I love them both!

That's not so bad, right? Frank Sinatra and tea? I actually know several people that enjoy both of those things!

But wait, there's more...

Sometimes I would love to just be sitting in a rocking chair, on a porch, overlooking some gorgeous landscape, wrapped in a blanket AND sipping tea (or coffee). Any one of these could totally be me when I'm actually an old person:

And aside from relaxing, what about my mini panic attacks when I'm up past 11 on a work night? It's ok to worry about that, right, getting a good night's sleep? Totally normal...

I feel like I could go on and on, but 11 PM is approaching faster and faster and I'm already starting to get a little antsy. But let's face it, there's a part of me that's just an old person at heart. But you know what? I'm totally OK with that. I have fun in life, but I enjoy my down time as well. So rather than trying to fight my inner old person, I'm just going laugh at it and embrace it.

Side note for my worrisome loved ones: I promise I don't actually play Frogger on Rockville Pike. I'm a good girl and use the crosswalk (although let's be real, even that can be like Frogger sometimes)!!!

Side note 2: when I did an image search on Google for a clock showing 11:00, all of the pictures that came up were showing other times. Really, Google? Really?




Frank Sinatra photo from imdb.com. 
Tea photo from http://www.loosetealeaf.com/blog/
Rocking chair cartoons from http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/r/rocking_chair.asp