I have spent most of my life thinking I was an introvert. What furthered this thought process was how Nashville had become increasingly crowded each year I lived there, over the past 19 years.

It got to the point where I felt anger and rage at even the thought of having to do anything in downtown Nashville:

The traffic, the $50 parking, the drunken tourists riding pedal taverns while thinking they look cool, the fact that you can’t walk without strangers bumping into you. It made me feel invisible and detached; like I was Rob Thomas in the music video for Matchbox Twenty’s “Bent”.

To some, downtown Nashville may sound exciting and attractive, but to me, it made me believe that “I don’t do well in crowds” and even that “I don’t like to have fun.”

But now that I have moved back to Fort Payne, Alabama, I now realize the fundamental issue:

I am actually one of the most extroverted people around!

It’s not that I am introverted- it’s that I require meaningful relationships and in-depth conversations with people, on a daily basis.

I had a fever… and the solution wasn’t more cowbell.

The solution was to move to a smaller town where everyone knows everybody; or at least we all seem to know each other through a family member, through the church, or through the school.

My new “quiet life” is getting even quieter with each passing week that we further our way to the very bottom of the house renovations list.

A couple of weeks ago was monumentous. It marked the first time we were able to park both of our cars in our garage (due to the moving boxes finally being fully unpacked). Coincidentally, it also was the first week that I was able to successfully fit all of our garbage in the one bin we are provided (due to us finally getting rid of all those moving boxes).

These are little victories that I certainly celebrate.

This past weekend was a big deal for me too. It was the first Saturday where we didn’t have to recruit help from family to work on any kind of home renovation.

Despite us living just a few miles from a state park, the weather was a bit swampy and on the verge of rain. So it wasn’t a good day for a hike.

Instead, I pitched a brilliant (and equally stupid) idea to my brother-in-law, Andrew:

He had just played and beat the Super Nintendo game Super Mario World for the first time over the past few weeks. As for myself, I grew up playing the game and had beaten it multiple times all the way through; however, I hadn’t played it in at least a decade.

So I said, “Let’s do a side-by-side tournament to see who can get the furthest before we decide to stop.”

To ensure there were no distractions of other responsibilities, we set up shop at my parents’ house in their bonus room above the garage.

We made it an hour and 50 minutes before A) our eyes started hurting from straining at the TV screens and B) my mom began making lunch for us downstairs. Like Yogi Bear and Boo Boo floating through the air, making their way to unsupervised picnic baskets, we at that point shut down the fun factory in the name of food.

And that… is the right way to spend a Saturday.