Thursday, October 30, 2008

So true...

Kelly:
Shoot I forgot to have my snack. Oh well.
Live and learn I always say
‎‎Geoff:
lol
you do not always say that!
Kelly:
Hahahahahaha
I was hoping you didn't notice.
‎‎Geoff:
normally you dwell on it for a week
and then live and learn
‎‎Kelly:
HAHAHAHA
‎‎Geoff:
but then come back to it for an hour or two every day!

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

A new low for society

Certified Pre-Owned Massage Chairs. I'm all for reusing and helping the environment, but still. Scary.

Pool

I love the pool. I always have - I took my first swimming lessons when I was 6 months old. Okay, so they may not have been swimming lessons so much as it was moms and their kids in the pool teaching them that water exists. But I attribute that to my love for water. I took all of the levels of Red Cross swimming lessons. I was a lifeguard. I was on a swim team. I even have the broad shoulders of a swimmer - the shoulders that made the butterfly the first race I ever won. Anyway, my swim last night was great. I just feel so at home in the water. I wondered why I don't just be a swimmer instead of a "runner", but it's just so much less convenient... you can run anywhere, anytime... finding a pool is much more difficult. But I love it all the same, and it's excellent cross training.

In VERY exciting news, our H2C team is in for 2009! Our check was cashed this morning, and although I haven't received official word from the race organization yet, I have full confidence that they wouldn't cash our check if we weren't in. VERY EXCITING.

Nelson DeMille (my favorite author) has a new book out today! It's called The Gate House, and it's a sequel to The Gold Coast, which strangely enough I have never read. As of today he has published 15 books, and I think I've read 8 of them (I think I own all that I've read). I'm reading The Gold Coast right now, it's very good so far! I will go to Costco later this week to get The Gate House. I'm SO excited. I love Nelson DeMille books. I started in 1997 with Plum Island (I read it my sophomore year of high school over Christmas break while in Colorado). I have read every one of his books that has come out since then - 4 of the 6 have John Corey as the main character. John Corey is HILARIOUS. And I've gone back in time to 3 books he wrote before Plum Island, but there are a few I've missed (including The Gold Coast which I'm reading now), so I guess I have some fun reading ahead!

Monday, October 27, 2008

An excellent weekend! :)

This weekend was fantastic! :)

Friday we ended up at work late and then didn't feel like the swim we had planned - especially since the weather was so beautiful! So we opted to use our cross-training day for a walk outside instead. We did that and had a calzone for dinner. After that I decided to start a closet cleaning out project. Normally this would be super fun and I would make a big mess in the project, but with the whole house-on-the-market thing, I had to be more contained about it. Of course, it was still really fun! Geoff was on our bed watching TV or a movie or something, and I brought out an armload of clothes and dumped it on the bed next to him. He said "should I be afraid?" and I said "yes!" My plan was to take ALL of the clothes off the top shelf of the closet and put them on the bed, then be particular about what went back in (and send the rest to Goodwill). The top shelf has mostly sweaters/fleeces/cardigans/sweatshirts, plus a few workout clothes and all of my tank tops. So back and forth from the closet I went, dumping more and more clothes in a big mound next to Geoff. It was very entertaining. Then I went through the pile, refolded and re-organized everything into piles - heavy sweaters, light sweaters, cardigans, fleeces, sweatshirt, zippy thingies (like sweatshirts that have a zipper... hoodies I guess, but it seems like they didn't all have hoods!). Geoff doesn't have as many sweaters / sweatshirts so his didn't get organized, just put on the shelf in 2 piles. Then my tank tops got put in 2 piles, no real organization there either. And quite a few items to Goodwill. :) We had to run EARLY in the morning, so I stopped there and cleaned up everything. I love organizing. Oh, and I also pondered the fact that I hang my hanging tops in order by color but my folded tops are by category. That seems weird to me, and I wondered if I should change one or the other but Geoff said they are okay (well duh, of course HE said it was okay). I am a firm believer in having a system that works for the user, so I'm not going to change it even though it seems slightly weird. Maybe if we move.

Saturday morning we got up at the obscene hour of 6:30 AM. Not that 6:30 is so early for a weekday or anything, but who gets up at 6:30 just to go for a run? Ew. I ate some oatmeal and waited a bit, and we set out for a 4-miler at 7 AM. Geoff was out of control!! He really showed the run who was boss. After the run he said it was the first time he felt like he was really a runner… he just kept pushing himself a little further. I had a not-so-good run… I NEVER run well early in the morning, so that was expected for me. Mid-afternoon is my preferred running time (I think because I’ve had a chance to be eating and moving around all day so my body is just more warmed up). But we got it done! After that we went to the pumpkin patch with our friends Rick and Tiffany – they picked us up and we got the pumpkins, then ate lunch at Helvetia Tavern. Then we came back to our house just in time to see that Northwestern LOST this weekend. Sad sad day. We carved super cute pumpkins… well, everyone else did, I just picked out the seeds and baked pumpkin seeds. Then we got a call that someone was going to come to our house to look at it Sunday – PRAISE! After that we headed to Rick and Tiffany’s apartment for the OSU / Penn State game. Tiffany’s a Big Ten girl like me (OSU graduate) so we had lots of fun. They made a delicious cilantro/jalapeƱo dip and fed us pizza, wine, chocolate and other delicious things. We like them. ;-) Sadly, OSU lost too, so Tiffany felt my pain. After that we headed home – it’d been a looong day. I think I fell asleep in approximately 7 seconds.

Yesterday we went to church at 9 AM (we are becoming morning people or something). After that we went to Geoff’s parent’s house for lunch – his mom made us French dips and French fries. Yum! We watched about half the Nascar race and then headed home to get stuff done! Since we were coming from his parent’s house, we went to DSW Shoes (they live WAY closer than we do to it). I know several people who have had bad experiences there (mainly stemming from their poopy return policy) but I braved it anyway. I haven’t been since I lived in Chicago and it was AWESOME! They had a giant selection and reasonable prices. I was very pleased and I got three pairs of shoes. I was planning on 3 pairs, so that was fine… I haven’t bought new shoes (except for running shoes) since May of 2006. Yes. Two and a half years. I know I am a freak. I found the three pairs I was looking for in about an hour. After that we went to Costco for bananas, peanut butter, and socks. I needed new socks to go with my new shoes. When we came home we found the realtor had actually left a card – PRAISE! Half of the people who’ve called to say they wanted to come look at our house haven’t actually come in and this was the first one who left a card so we knew they’d been there! FINALLY! (our realtor can tell us later on if the people came based on if anyone opened up the lock box to get our key, but leaving a business card is immediate notification) Then I worked on Closet Project Part II. I got rid of 12 pairs of shoes of mine and 1 pair of Geoff’s – that made room for my 3 new pairs and to move some from our downstairs closet upstairs. Now I think pretty much all of our shoes are in our master bedroom closet. (Geoff has probably 10 pairs total and I have probably 25 pairs total including a whole bunch of flip-flops… we are not really shoe people – although I’m going to start making an effort to actually WEAR all of the shoes I have instead of just the same pair EVERY DAY) I went through my hanging clothes and got rid of a bunch of them – I also used up a bunch of shopping bags that I have been “collecting” since I moved to Oregon 4 years ago. I always save them because they seem useful but never know what to do with them – they were PERFECT for all of the shoes/sweaters/shirts I need to take to Goodwill. I filled probably 12 shopping bags with stuff for Goodwill, yay! Then we went to the gym where Geoff ran into an old friend he went to high school with and then we went to Red Robin for dinner. I unloaded the dishwasher and folded a load of laundry and I think that was about it.

Wow. I just wrote a blog on organizing my closet. I’m sorry friends! And I also need to take a lesson on proper use of ( ). I write a lot of sentences that are just ( ) with no other punctuation! I’m sure you noticed already, astute people that you are.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

3 reasons today is a good day!

1. I gave blood today! Giving blood always puts me in a good mood - even though they somehow overbooked the blood drive (I think that's a GOOD thing) and my appointment took me an hour and 45 minutes. I don't know what I love about it... perhaps the pink bandage at the end, or it could be the cookie and the excuse not to workout for the day. What's not to love? (P.S. - boys, you get a CHOICE of bandage... so you can go for a manly blue or green, you don't have to get pink. But pink is obviously the best choice)

2. Whenever I'm training for a half marathon and am traveling at the same time, I always seem to be able to recruit people to run oddly long distances with me. 2 years ago I was scheduled for a 9 miler the same weekend as a retreat I was going to. Somehow there ended up being FIVE PEOPLE (2 training for a marathon, another training for a half, me, and a guy who I think wanted to impress one of the girls) who were willing to get up at 6:00 AM and run for 2 hours through Cannon Beach. When we strolled into breakfast around 8:30 everyone else on the retreat gave us looks of insanity - understandably! This year, half marathon training takes me to a distance of 10 miles two days after Christmas. Already, Geoff (who is doing the half with me), my sister (who has always been a runner), and my friend Erin from college (running a half the week after I am) have agreed to a 10 miler with me in Dallas. SWEET! :) I love sharing the misery.

3. It's Geoff's birthday! Yaaay for birthdays. :)

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Why couldn't I have said FOXTROT?

We went to the gym tonight after work, and it was stinkin' HOT!!! It was a high of about 75 here today, and I guess the gym wasn't expecting that, so the AC wasn't on as much as it should have been. Not to mention the treadmills are UPSTAIRS which makes it even hotter. I thought it was just me, but Geoff and my other friend who was there (who was walking, not running) both confirmed it was stifling. So we cut our run short and went on to lifting - which was the reason we were there in the first place (the half marathon training schedule calls for one day of running AND lifting, that day was today this week. We decided to run at the gym despite the nice weather so that we could just lift while we were there too). That part went quite well. :)

I have been working on organizing all of my music on iTunes. It is a long tedious process... and I get through about one letter of the alphabet a night, if I'm lucky. Tonight I was reporting my progress to Geoff, and it went like this:
Me: "I got through F tonight"
Geoff: "Wow, X??"
M: "No, F. As in Fooey."
G: "That's P-H."
M: "Oh."

The man has a point. Who spells phooey FOOEY??? And better yet, who gives FOOEY as an example for the letter F??? I'm a freak.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Life

So last night I got in the pool about 8 PM. May have been 8:01 or 8:02, but as I started swimming I noted 8:00. I swam 20 laps (500 yards) and took a break. I looked up at the clock and it said roughly 8:12 or 8:13. I was disappointed because I normally swim 500 yards in 10 minutes, so I was swimming a little slowly. So I swam my second set (again 500 yards) a little harder. I took a break and looked up at the clock - GONE! Seriously, the clock was gone. I thought "Am I looking at the wrong wall? Did I get turned around in the pool somehow? Am I hallucinating? Was there an earthquake while I was swimming?" I've been swimming in this pool for 2.5 years and never had such an issue before. Upon further review (approximately .8 second later) I saw a janitor on a ladder holding the clock. He reached up to put it back on the wall - and it said 8:12 or 8:13!!!! UGH!!!! All of that work and I have no idea if I was faster or not. I realized that I had left for the gym about 7:35, so the clock was probably originally 10 minutes fast and he was just setting it back, but it was very funny. Then I swam my third set and was excited to just be done, so I never did check the clock after that one. Oh well. :) Maybe next time!

This morning I went down to the cafe at work to get some coffee and a bowl for my oatmeal. I was holding the coffee in one hand and the bowl and spoon in the other. I have no idea what I was doing, but all of the sudden - CRASH! The bowl slips out of my hand and crashes into a thousand pieces all over the cafe floor. Thank goodness nothing was in it and that I get to work early so the cafe wasn't super busy. Embarssing though. :) I commented at the time "well at least now I have something good to blog about today".

Monday, October 20, 2008

Fun weekend!

Had a super fun weekend - I wasn't feeling the best so I didn't know how it would go, but it ended up turning out really fun! Friday night we went to a local coffeehouse to see my coworker's son play the piano. He is extremely talented and it was a lot of fun. Plus I'd never been to that coffee shop before and it was a really nice place, so I think we'll be back in the future. Great atmosphere! After that we went to a pub to hang out.... we played cards and talked for a long time.

The next morning I slept until 9:30... oops! We watched Northwestern beat Purdue in the homecoming game which was tons of fun.

Sunday we ran the Run Like Hell 5K in Portland. It was my first 5K - isn't that weird? I have run 2 Hood to Coasts, 2 10Ks, and a half marathon - but never raced in the 5K distance before. It felt so short! It went by really quickly but was a lot of fun.

Yesterday also marked Day 1 of Week 1 of Half Marathon training - Geoff, Patrick, and I are all going to run the Rock 'N' Roll Arizona Half Marathon in January. At least I think we are (Patrick is already signed up). The registration fee goes up the middle of next month so assuming we are on track training-wise, Geoff and I will sign up then. The race is in 13 weeks... we are well positioned for the training plan I'm going to use (the same one that I loosely based my last half marathon training on, although this time I'm going to follow it a little more closely). Today is Day 2 - cross training. :) I'm planning on 30 minutes in the pool tonight (which feels so short, normally I spend 55 minutes in the pool, so this is great)! Geoff's going to basketball for his cross training (he plays every Monday night with men from church). SOOO excited!

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

I've been tagged. :)

I have read people's blogs in which they've been tagged for months, and never been tagged myself. But now I've been tagged by Marisa, so here we go!

1. do you like blue cheese salad dressing? Yes but not necessarily on a salad – but I LOVE it on buffalo wings, fries, etc. Probably not as much as ranch though.
2. do you own a gun? No.
3. what's your favorite drink at starbucks? Grande caramel frappucino (although it varies slightly by season).
4. what do you prefer to drink in the morning? Water, and on the weekdays I usually have one cup of coffee.
5. do you do push ups? Sporadically.
6. what's your favorite piece of jewelry? I don’t know… my wedding ring?
7. favorite hobby? Running at the moment… but it changes practically weekly.
8. do you have a.d.d.? No.
9. what's one trait that you hate about yourself? Lack of dedication.
10. name 3 thoughts at this exact moment: My knees hurt but I’m looking forward to running tonight anyway, I’m getting annoyed with people at work for not showing up to something they were supposed to come to at 10:30, and I’m glad to be blogging.
11. name 4 drinks you regularly drink. Water, coffee, wine, and Diet Coke. That’s pretty much in order of how often I drink them. Although I easily drink more water than the other 3 combined – probably 2 or 3x really!
12. current worry right now? No worries.
13. current hate right now? People who call to say they’re going to come look at our house and then don’t.
14. favorite place to be? Bed.
15. do you like to travel? Yes.
16. what color shirt are you wearing? Grey with a black hoodie over it.
17. do you like sleeping on satin sheets? I don’t really think I ever have.
18. can you whistle? To a tune? No.
19. favorite color? Pink.
20. if you could would you be a pirate? No. That’s weird.
21. what song do you sing in the shower? Well I rarely sing in the shower but if I do it’s usually a worship song, mainly because they have easy choruses.
22. favorite girl's name? Off the top of my head, Catherine, although I don’t know that I’d necessarily name a child that.
23. favorite boy's name? Tyler? Again off the top of my head. I have thought of a few good ones in the past month or so and need to start keeping a list somewhere. Just in case.
24. what's in your pocket right now? My Amex.
25. favorite bedsheets as a child? Some ridiculous black ones with green and teal stripes on them (from my teen years). I loved them but when I got to college I had some lavender ones and realized that it was oddly easier to sleep on light colored sheets. I would never use dark sheets again (although they are still in “my bedroom” at my parent’s house, so I use them ~once a year).
26. worst injury? I fell off my bike in first grade and the whole left side of my face was one giant scab. It was very disgusting looking. The teacher (Miss Messina) told all of the other kids in the class to basically avoid me… so that they didn’t cause me any more injury.
27. do you love where you live? Most of the time.
28. how many TVs do you have in your house? Two that we use. Two older ones that we don’t use – they’re in guest bedrooms and not hooked up to cable or anything, but could be used for watching a DVD. Heck, one of them even has a VCR hooked up to it!29. who is your loudest friend? Addy.
30. how many pets do you have? None.
31. does someone have a crush on you? Who knows!
32. what is your favorite book? Plum Island by Nelson DeMille. But really, any of his books, especially if John Corey is the main character.
33. what's your favorite candy? Reeses Peanut Butter cups
34. favorite sports team? Northwestern football!!!!!!
35. what was the first thing you thought of when you woke up? I had a bad dream last night and I can’t remember what it was.

To be fair, the person I was waiting for earlier when I started this blog DID show up right after I answered that question and came through in a big way!

I tag Patrick. Because I think he should start a blog!

Monday, October 13, 2008

Progress

Making progress on three main fronts:

1. Running! 7 or so weeks ago I started out running .5 miles. I increased half a mile a week (yes I know you're only supposed to increase by 10% each week....) and now I'm ready for a 5K on Sunday.

2. Picture storage! Remember how in the past several months I have promised you pictures on several occasions? And said that I wanted to start taking more pictures but needed to come up with an organization system first? Well I did that over the weekend so now I can start taking more pictures AND posting them to my blog. My goal is going to be a weekly picture update.

3. Goal setting! I have never been a big "personal goal setter" but I decided to start. I made daily goals, weekly goals, monthly goals, quarterly goals, yearly goals, and long term and/or undefined goals. The goals are in 5 big categories (career & education, family & relationship, health & fitness, personal growth / interest / recreation / leisure, and time & money management / organization / home). Then there are subcategories (for example in personal growth / interest / recreation / leisure there are 4 subcategories - recreation/hobbies/leisure, community service / stewardship, creative, and spiritual) and goals for each of the sub categories in the different time frames (not every subcategory has a goal for every time period... I'm not *that* crazy!). Anyway it's a giant matrix - 14x20 (cells in Excel). But I love it and I already feel more productive and well rounded even in just the couple of weeks since I've implemented it. I've already added and deleted a few things since I started - this is a work in progress. :) I've also already failed at a few things but I've also accomplished a ton and made steps toward some of the longer term goals. In the future I may think about posting some goals on the blog and giving a monthly state of the union... we'll see how it goes.

Sunday, October 05, 2008

Quick again...

Okay, so first of all I know I had a mistake on my last blog about grammar - embarassing! And no, I didn't edit it so if you didn't catch it you can go back and laugh at my expense. I was in a rush which is absolutely no excuse... I would criticize others and say that if you don't have time to write well don't write at all. So all it is is me being an idiot!

Anyway, my sister and I were talking tonight about our Thanksgiving plans. She's going to be here for Thanksgiving and is going to join me, Geoff, and Momlie on A Wine Country Thanksgiving. This will be our 3rd Thanksgiving going - our first with anyone else besides the 3 of us! So I said "oh, cool, you can meet my friend Thistle-Man". She said "What is that?" I said "Thistle Wines... it's a winery that I really like." "What??" "Thistle Man... Jon Jennison... he's the winemaker at Thistle Wines". "But what's a fransisleman?"

HAHAHAHAHA - when I said "you can meet my friend Thistle-Man" she heard "you can be my fransisleman".

"What's a fransisleman and why would I want to be that?"

I have nothing else to say... laughing too darn hard!!! :)