2012: so this was january and february

I am wrapping up the year I spent living entirely in Cambodia with a year in review chronicle of some of the best days from each month.

Or, rather, a chronicle of the events that occurred in the first sixth of this past year, as recorded by my phone and/or planner.  Because if it wasn't saved that way, I've probably forgotten the details, which may be for the better.

So, let's begin.

January.

January was pretty special. There was a lot of overthinking of my future hopes, but it started out tranquilly enough, with me excited for the year to come.  I drank some water too fast and put too much faith into some terrible chocolate, and even tried to prove to my husband that I had more internet friends than I actually do. Otherwise known as, the first time I've had to admit publicly that I was wrong.  It was a tense day in our marriage, that was.  I wrote an ode to my coozy, and modeled for the world my new couture for Cambodia.  I got really deep and stuff when I realized I have found a new time and space for my crazy thinkings that I used to do in the shower: doing laundry.  I even tried to bring my vlogging days backed, but that petered out quickly.  I always seem to want to do them only when I've had time to properly dress and prettify myself, and I always seem to not want to put energy into doing that when I shower three times a day. So there's that.

In other news, I learned that I know how raise one eyebrow higher than the other, but actually have no idea how I did it. Also, Chris ate a beetle.  It was slimy, yet satisfying.  I'm making that up, I have no idea what it was like.  It seemed crunchy?!

 We discovered Topher's innate ability to kill large jumping spiders. He goes to great lengths to ensure my safety.  I document his heroics.  It's a tough job, but someone's gotta do it.

 And at the end of the month, we made our first trip to Northern Cambodia to see Libby, drink Coca Cola out of mason jars, and experience our first bout of site placement envy.

February.

 It got really hot and dry in February.  Remembering that, I am now appropriately not looking forward to February.  I wrote a little letter to Topher explaining to him why I don't think he's my soul mate, and I shared the joy that is Khmer music video watching with each of you.  You're still so welcome.

Chris and I went a wedding, and we found mayonnaise in our town.  We weren't smart enough to purchase any mayonnaise (in Phnom Penh) for another ten months, when Topher discovered that we could easily make these delicious tomato and egg and a little bit of mayo sandwiches.

 Cambodia had about twenty holidays. Or three, but I'd lost count by February.

I baked real cookies and real brownies in a real oven for the real first time in six real months.  

 I drank my first Mountain Dew in many, many months and took a picture documenting it wherein I had unfortunate arm-skin-to-body-pressage and produced an arm-is-larger-that-my-neck look that no girl would love.

 And I attended one of my final Peace Corps trainings until my end of service conference this May, and an international TESOL conference in Phnom Penh the following weekend. It was riveting.

.......

I'll be back with March through December in coming hours, as my OCD-like tendencies will have me dividing these little reflections into four separate posts as to have a nice even number of written posts in 2012 to close out the year.

And now you know that about me.