Summer of Excitement: Promotion, facing fears, and Sunday Funday - [a case of the summer]

So the purpose of the Summer of Excitement is to make sure I avoid taking the easy road and make sure I go out and find some excitement.  Hey, I'm 31 years old.  A lot of my friends are getting married, ARE married, or even have kids.  It's harder to find people to go out, and frankly after a long week it's awfully easy to just decide to stay in and watch some TV or a movie.  But you know what?  I'm not ready to give up on trying to have fun every weekend.  And that's why we have the Summer of Excitement.

Then again, it's still not entirely easy to follow through on that mission.  This week, for example, I had several friends go away.  And several others who didn't feel like doing anything.  So it wasn't an entirely exciting weekend, not necessarily by my own fault.  But it was a significant week nonetheless.  First and foremost, I got a promotion at work and it was my first official week in my new role (this was the purpose behind my "Countdown to July" graphic a couple of weeks back)!  I've been in the same workplace for the past five years and while my position hasn't been entirely defined, it wasn't exactly where I wanted to be.  Then a couple of months ago, one of the girls from my office (whose job was more in line with my interests) decided to leave and so I interviewed for her job.  It was a TOUGH and LONG process, but the ending was happy.  For the month of June I was essentially doing both jobs, but this week I finally got to (mostly) devote my time to my new position.  And it's going to be an exciting month, professionally speaking.  I'm going to have a lot of new responsibilities and there's definite room for growth.  Good stuff!

The Summer of Excitement isn't only about fun, though.  It's also about doing things that scare you.  And I tried to do that as well.  There was a personally troubling situation going on and while I was nervous to do so, I attempted to confront it.  The matter is not resolved -- and honestly, it probably didn't get better either -- but I did face it.  This will likely continue to be a challenge, but it's a challenge I'm set to face.

And don't worry folks.  While I'm being all vague above, I'm not dying or anything.

The week wasn't devoid of fun, though.  The greatest adventure came today, actually.  My niece was at my aunt's pool, so I decided to go there for a swim (and to finally solidify a nice summer tan!)  Since the day was so beautiful, the crowd kept growing and growing.  And by late afternoon, we had a floating table in the pool and we decided to play some beer pong.  My cousin and I dominated the table with 6 straight victories!  It was a really, really fun way to end a rather uneventful holiday weekend.