Please don't lose all respect for me after I mention Britney Spears

I'm in a sentimental mood. This probably has more to do with my sentimental personality than the fact that I'm blogging while staring blissfully at our Christmas tree, watching Madeline giggle at Tigger and sipping hot chocolate. Well, those things probably have something to do with it as well.

And, if I'm being honest, it also has to do with flipping through the 200+ college-era pictures Bridget, a lovely Linden Lady, just posted on Facebook.

Some days, I feel just like Nicholas Cage in The Family Man, minus being a millionaire, career-driven man part. Especially not the man part.

Just sometimes it's like I went to sleep as a self-centered, fun-loving college student and woke up as a wife, mother, homeowner and coupon-clipper. Hopefully, I'm still fun-loving but I know I'm sadly still self-centered. (Marriage and motherhood is chipping away at it, just not fast enough.)

This is not a negative thing, for sure. Just sometimes surreal.

While looking at picture after crazy picture, it seems like those times were yesterday and yet a lifetime away at the same time.

Exhibit A: The Muncie edition of Crossroads (yes, I am Britney Spears). We did really love this movie. I am 100 percent not being sarcastic about this. I believe we even did karaoke with hair brushes to the songs.

Exhibit B: The night I was kidnapped, taken to three states in one night, fell asleep in the car, didn't wake up when my friends drew on my face with yellow highlighter, ate at a Waffle House at 4 a.m., wondered why I kept getting weird looks and realized I had yellow highlighter all over my face. Fantastic.

Exhibit C: Mom! Dad! Look! See, I really did study. And I promise, my roomies were totally not a distraction. Ever. (Note all the books stacked on the hamster cage. This picture is also proof that I lived with a rodent and a clever, escape-able rodent at that.)

Looking at all the pictures and remembering all those late nights filled with Ricker's runs studying, it's hard to remember how I went from this:


... to this.

I'm sure some of you are thinking, "Geez, lighten up. You only graduated three and a half years ago."

But that's another reason for all this wondering. How can life change so quickly and so much in such a short amount of time?

If all of this sounds like Negative Nancy, please know I'm really not pining to re-live my college years or that I wish I wasn't where I am now. There's no other version of my life I'd rather be living than now. Period.

Just wondering what I'll look like in another three and a half years. At the rate I'm going, I'm gonna guess hair in a braided bun and a long denim skirt.