ups, downs and in betweens.

up side of today: 

- I booked our hotel for girls weekend/the wedding and it’s actually ON the beach and within walking distance to anywhere we might want to go. 

- I actually ran! I have been so busy that my training has taken the back seat this week and that has been frustrating. 

 

down side of today: 

- I ate sour milk and didn’t realize it till I was done with my cereal. I knew something tasted funny but was in such a hurry that I didn’t stop to inspect the milk. Ugh. 

 

in between:

- Tomorrow will be spent baking/pricing for the yard sale and then Saturday is the big day. I’m very nervous and excited, but super stressed about it all. Wish me luck. 

 

Happy Friday (tomorrow) everyone! I’m off to go read some more of my book! yay  

short and sweet

This is gonna be the quick monday updates, because despite it actually being tuesday it really feels like a monday. (I have a feeling my whole week will be thrown off by this change in days.)

 

Yesterday H and I spent pretty much the entire day working on TNT stuff. We decided on a bake sale/yard sale fundraiser for saturday, which I’m both incredibly intimidated and excited about. I think a bake sale will be fun and I like baking, so double yay. I wanna make it sorta like a party in our yard too, complete with balloons and music. We made fliers for the yard sale and just general fliers explaining our cause and have been walking around the neighborhood. It is so scary walking up to peoples houses and asking for money. Plus most people aren’t very receptive. One house actually yelled at us to “GO AWAY!” as their dog barked ferociously at us. Do you realize how scared I am of dogs? This was not a pleasant experience for me. Point is, hopefully the yard/bake sale will bring in some good money and at least get people aware of what we’re doing and perhaps donate money down the line. I think we need to come up with more fundraisers ASAP, because that’s how we’re going to make it to our goal. 

 

We also started a facebook group as a way of keeping people updated with our progress. In theory people will read the messages and maybe it’ll guilt them into helping/participating. Who knows. 

 

Didn’t go to training today and I was so disappointed about that, but I didn’t make it home till nearly 6pm and the session was at 6:30pm in Clearwater which is 40 minutes away. So if you do the math, it’s not my fault I couldn’t make it. Blah. There is a local training group on Thursday though and HOPEFULLY tomorrow we’ll make it out for a run… in between you know baking dough and pricing yard sale stuff…. 

 

I’d like to say a big THANK YOU to A-aloni for pimping my cause out to her friends on her blog and such. Her support and help mean so much to me. I just hope that I don’t let anyone down. I really want to achieve my goal and make it all the way! 

Jax Beach :)

Donate to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society! YAY! It’s the cool thing to do and we all know peer pressure is a hard thing to resist! JUST DO IT. 

Almost a year ago to the day I was in a fender bender and then a few days later I went to jax to celebrate memorial day with my friends. This year has played out to be eerily similar. 

 

Friday I both opened and closed at work and since on Fridays we’re open till 6pm, an hour later than usual, it means that Fridays are generally unbearably long. I had already decided to leave for Orlando straight from work and just brave rush hour traffic. So after being at work for 11 hours, I headed out on the road for Orlando. I was starving and needed a bit of a caffeine rush so I thought that some chickfila might be a good snack. As I was on the exit ramp waiting to turn on to 38th Ave talking to my parents I feel this crash and the sounds of cars hitting each other… “AHHHHH ACCCIDEEENTTTT!” I screamed that into the phone in complete shock. This girl who was also exiting the highway apparently didn’t see my bright blue car at a complete stop at the bottom of the exit ramp as I was waiting to turn and thought it might be a pleasurable experience to crash into me. JOY. We pulled off the highway and inspected the damage as I called the cops. Since no one was hurt and we weren’t blocking the traffic it took the cops around 45 minutes to get to the scene. That meant 45 minutes of awkwardly looking at the cars, damage and making forced chit chat. I really didn’t have much to say to this girl. She just ran into my car as I’m trying to get some food and preventing me from getting to Orlando on time, so yeah, I didn’t really want to play nice and become friends. Thankfully my car only has cosmetic damage. The frame is bent and my trunk is no longer air tight, but it drives and since I wasn’t at fault my insurance company should pay for and fix the damages. I just hate how beat up my car looks. My hood already looked askew from my own fender bender and then the dimple/dent on my trunk from H running the car into a tree and now this addition to my trunk, ugh, my car needs some serious love. 

 

Anyway you would think that the accident would have somehow filled my bad driving situation quota, but NOOO…. One exit from my destination I got stuck in traffic behind someone else’s accident and then I had to drive the last leg of the trip in heavy rain on a seriously neglected/under construction road with a trunk that no longer water tight. Yeah, someone loves me. At least I arrived alive. 

 

Jax beach was definitely worth the drive. It was such a fun day spent with some awesome friends. We got to the beach around 10am and wandered around the beach just walking and taking pictures until about noonish. We headed to Angies Subs for lunch where we met up with T and devoured our delicious subs and peruvian sauce. We also played this silly game at lunch where you named three objects and have to figure out who they related back to…. My cup, the boars head, the leopard print surfboard… I think we drove the boys nuts because they were the only ones not in on the secret and it truly is a frustrating game if you don’t know what the trick to it is. After lunch we made our way back to the beach where we laid out for a few hours. The weather held out and didn’t rain on us, which is fantastic. Not so fantastic was the guy feeding the seagulls 5 ft away from us, the chanting religious parade going up and down the beach and a few sketchy people stopping and asking for directions to the closest boat dock. Once the beach got boring we headed over to a mexican restaurant on the beach and hung out there hydrating ourselves, taking refuge from the sun and enjoying some quesadillas. J actually joined us for that portion of the day and it was great catching up with him. Hopefully we can hang out again the next time I make it up to Jax. Anyway, after food we took a few more pictures and then headed back to Orlando and then I drove back to St. Pete. I definitely cherish days like this. I think they ended up some of my fondest memories. Some how the crazyness of driving there and back on the same day makes you want to enjoy your time at the destination, usually jax, more than if you had more time to spend there. I’m totally looking forward to the wedding/4th of July trip.  Especially since A and C are joining me to make it a girl’s weekend. Now we just need to book the hotel, which is slightly complicated because of it being the 4th of july. C’est la vie. 

 

Today has been spent being mostly lazy. Getting some things done, but mostly recovering from my lack of sleep from the past few days. Tomorrow will be filled with TNT craziness, running and hopefully beach and shopping. I still need to get more work clothes and since there are so many sales, it’s a good time to do that. 

 

Oh and I haven’t mentioned it, but the Grey’s season finale was WONDERFUL. Simply perfect. I can’t wait for the fall. I have high hopes that Grey’s will return to it’s original wonderfulness. 

fundraising anxiety…

Team in Training 

 

I’m starting to have a lot of anxiety in regards to the fundraising aspect of things. I sent out probably close to 400 letters on facebook, email and to work people and I have received a grand total of THREE donations. In all honesty, I didn’t expect to get a lot of donations from the letters, but it’s still completely disappointing. I have had several people tell me they’d give me money, but until it’s in my hand I’m not counting on anything. I knew going into this that I was going to have to rely heavily on the generous donations of strangers but $4000 from absolute strangers is a lot to ask. Then you have the fact that H and I are doing this together, so in reality it’s more like $8000 from strangers. Ack. 

 

The plan for tomorrow is for H and I to write our joint letter and mail it out to mutual family/friends. We’re also arranging a yard sale for next Saturday, which hopefully will bring some sort of profit. I want to put the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society banners on the front of the house to draw attention to the cause and perhaps if people decide not to buy anything they’ll still donate. I might also make it a mini-bake sale and have cupcakes/cookies for sale as well. I need to bounce the idea off people and see if it sounds like a winner. I think we might also try and do another yard sale towards the end of the summer since I know A is moving and will probably/hopefully have crap she doesn’t want any longer. 

 

So yeah, if you know me in real life and have stuff you don’t want anymore… donate it to my cause! 

 

I also want to wander around the neighborhood passing out letters/information to see if we can get any donations that way. I guess my biggest problem is just putting all my ideas into action. So as Nike would say… JUST DO IT. (cliche I know, but it’s so TRUE.)

 

 

Fundraising aside, the training needs to start picking up. I didn’t run today. I could make excuses and say I was too tired and whatnot, which is true, but when it comes down to it, I just didn’t run. Tomorrow will be a different story. I want to make it to the beach and maybe run ON the beach. Orrrrr maybe drive to a different spot on the beach and run the whole run on the beach. Although that idea is not as appealing because of the whole gas prices being so ridiculously high issue… 

 

I should probably make some training goals. So let’s see.. 

For the week of May 26th-June 1st:

* Run a minimum of 4 times, ideally 5 times. 

* Make it to TNT training, which will mean some hill work

* Run at least 5 miles twice. 

* Start to be more conscious of what I’m consuming and work to make it healthier. 

 

 

I realized the other day that I never cared much about daylight savings, except for that wonderful fall back extra hour of sleep … but this year I’m going to be sad to set my clock back because it’ll mean an hour less of daylight in the evenings for running. I just need to make the most of my precious daylight this summer/fall. And maybe I guess I’m selfishly glad that GW shortened the length of fall daylight savings and we’ll be able to resume longer evenings earlier in the spring. So +1 for GW. Haha.  

A little bit of this and a little bit of that…

T-minus one hour till Grey’s Anatomy season finale! A TWO hour season finale! I’m all sorts of excited. I want to get all packed and get this written before it starts so I can snuggle in my bed and watch it. I’m a little sad that it’s from 9-11 and not 8-10, because I wanted to be asleep by 10, but so be it. Anyway, I need to type fast. 

 

Training wise it’s been a good week. Ran by myself Sunday and did 3.5 miles. Then Monday H and I ran/walked for 3 miles, with about 2 miles running and 1 of walking. Since she’s still recovering from her wisdom teeth we had to go easy. Tuesday we walked. Then Wednesday I ran as she rode the bike next to me. So overall a fair amount of activity. I really wanted to run in the rain but the rain keeps evading me. Instead it’s been “disgusting out” as H would say. Hopefully I’ll be able to do a long run either Sunday or Monday or at least run both days. 

 

Yesterday on the run as we were making our way back down the TI bridge we passed this extremely creepy 10 year old. He looked like a wannabe gangsta version of Where’s Waldo. Like he had on blue jeans, a red and white stripped polo and then a sideways tilted baseball cap. As H passed him he gave her this trying to be smooth head nod and then had this super goofy grin. Then he did the same thing as I passed. I just wanted to laugh so hard. Seriously. This kid was like 10! Thinking he was hot stuff. And yet he was gross and creepy. H said “he’s the type of kid that’s going to grow up to be a pedophile or something.” 

 

K asked me today how I fend off the bugs since I’m always running at dusk and I told her that i’s because I run so fast they can’t catch me. I crack myself up. I’m totally the slowest runner ever.

 

I love tomatoes. I think my addiction to them is slightly sick and twisted. I’ve had tomatoes with moose pasta and cheese for dinner three nights this week and I still am craving more of it.  

 

You know what really irritates me? The fact that American Idol is news worthy. For this entire American Idol season the Today Show has reported on whoever was voted off/did poorly/sang awesome the next morning. I mean, come on! Don’t we have more umm, important things to cover on our news programs. I’ll give them covering the winner as a new item, but seriously, every stinkin’ episode doesn’t need coverage. 

 

I broke my heel yesterday. Totally annoying and depressing. It got stuck in a doorway on my lunch break, which meant I had to spend the remainder of the work day standing on a nail (since I had pulled off the little rubber padding at the bottom of the heal). I took them to the shoe repair people today though, so Monday they should be all better.

 

When I came home from work today my mom asked me, “why are you home so early?” and in a totally straight face I told her that I had quit and walked out. Then followed up with “you think I’m kidding, but I’m really not.” Her face was priceless. She was both shocked and terrified that I might be telling the truth. I was in fact lying, but the though has totally crossed my mind. I guess that’s the price I pay for choosing a post-college job that I purposely wouldn’t love. Now I need to put the second part of my plan into action. That being, since I don’t love my job, get my butt into action for finding and getting into a grad school that I WILL love. That’s my summer goal. Take the GRE and had a score I’m satisfied with. And find and narrow down the grad schools I want to go to, therefore the fall can be all about applying and getting whatever I need together. Oh and maybe I should contact American Stage. Yeaaaah. 

 

This girl walked up to me at work today and says: 

“So you graduated?”

I was like “uhhh, yeah? A year ago?” 

She proceeded to ask if I was ::insert random name here::’s daughter. Again I answered with a confused no. I took her transaction and when I saw her name it clicked. Her dad works with my dad. I know who she is! I don’t know if we’ve ever met before, but she apparently knows who I am. It was just so strange. A random person walks up to you and asks if you’ve graduated. So funny. 

 

Okay. I think that’s all for now and duh, Grey’s is on. I’m peacing out. 

Randomosity …

Last night there was a mosquito roaming around my room right before bedtime… I think at some point during the night it managed to sneak its way under my covers and proceed to bite my legs and feet. Ugh. I remember waking in the middle of the night and having this fear that I was getting bitten up and sure enough I’ve been itching all day. Lovely. 

 

Yesterday before heading out for my run I asked H if she wanted to join me and she declined due to her mouth. So I suggested she ride the bike next to me, but that wouldn’t work out because my bike tires are flat. My next suggestion was she drive along next to me and she says, “yeah! I can turn up the music really loud and it’ll be your own rock and roll marathon!” 

If only. It’d be pretty amusing. And much better than having the ear buds get sweaty and fall outta my ears. 

 

So then today I found this on my running forums and I thought it was equally amusing.

 

Peanut butter and ice cream is so delicious. Yumm. I know it probably sounds disgusting, but trust me. Try it. It truly is a wonderful combination of flavors. 

 

Donate to help save lives!!!

Excitement :)

“Running is the greatest metaphor for life, because you get out of it what you put into it.”
- Oprah Winfrey

I really like that quote. I found it on someone else’s running blog.

I just wanted to say that I’m totally looking forward to football season again. I was looking around my car for some old mixes and stumbled upon a few from football season with football titles and it just got me excited.

Also tomorrow is monday night tv! Best night of TV just because so many awesome guilty pleasure tv shows come on in one night. Greek, Gossip Girl, One Tree Hill, Jon and Kate Plus 8. Hooray for tivo.

Hopefully H and I will go for a run and then do the usual eat dinner and watch gossip girl. I kinda like that routine.

Weekend Recap

So one of my bestest friends told me that my blog has been added to the list of sites she checks daily. I think that makes me a rockstar. Woot.

I woke up at 5:30am on Saturday morning for the TNT training run/pot luck/fundraising clinic. I checked my e-mail because I’m obsessive about things like that and I was so shocked and excited. I had received a donation overnight! From someone I had classes with in college but haven’t really spoken with since graduating. It just totally made my day. The fact that she took time to read my letter and to donate just reaffirms my belief that there are good/decent people out there. So exciting.

The training session was good. It was at Ft. Desoto and it was slightly surreal driving out there in the darkness, but seeing the sun rise was awesome. I walked instead of running because H was still recovering from her surgery and she wasn’t allowed to run yet and wanted company. I do wish I had run, but regardless, being outside and getting fresh air is always nice. The pot luck was also good… but there was probably way too much food. We ended up leaving after the fundraising clinic because I had to get home and shower to go to the bridal shower.

Today the weather has been cloudy and looked like it was going to rain all day, but in reality it only rained for like 5 minutes around 1pm. I hate how it never rains anymore! I did end up running around 7ish and it was still bloody humid (80%) and hot (around 85ish degrees) seriously, running in Florida in the summers are not for the weak. I’m looking forward to when I can go running in the rain. I think it’d be more refreshing than the straight humidity.

The bridal shower was fun and extremely well done. The made of honor did a great job of arranging and setting up the whole thing. We played some how well do you know the bride type games and hung out and then opened presents. I don’t have any desire to get married anytime soon, but it reminded me of the fact that weddings are a lot of fun. I’m looking forward to the actual wedding this summer.

Afterwards C and I went to International Plaza and wandered around and shopped a little. It was nice catching up with her. I do miss her terribly and wish that we talked more frequently. I think that I’ll get a chance to see her more in the upcoming months though. And she suggested that maybe I go to Tallahassee for my birthday, which would be awesome. I need to eat my way through Tallahassee again. Haha. Too bad The Main Ingredient closed down. Such a shame.

Hrm, what else? I cleaned my room. Sort of. I mainly just got all the clothes put away. I’m such a slacker. I took my tax refund to the bank. Hopefully my new computer will become a reality in the near future. I replied to the girls e-mails. Yep. Not a lot of productivity today, but I DID catch up on sleep.

Okie dokie. I’m outta here. Hopefully this week will bring some interesting things. Last week sure was a change from mundane.

Just sayin…

I’m waking up at 5:30am tomorrow. That’s EARLIER than I have to wake up on the days I have to open for work. I’m getting up to go to a TNT training run. I’ll probably be getting up that early every saturday for the next 6 months. But it’s all good because I’m doing this for a good cause. I’m helping cure cancer and save lives. You too can save lives and I can spare you the pain of waking up so early… just donate $5.00 to my TNT fundraising page! yay! 

 

In all seriousness (not that my previous paragraph wasn’t a genuine plea for money, but…. ) I’m exhausted but looking forward to the run. I’ve never been to a potluck at 7am. Should be an interesting experience. I’m bringing muffins: apple cinnamon and chocolate chip. I’ll report back what other kinds of food were at this shindig later on… But I’m off to shower and SLEEP. I think my bed is feeling neglected. I haven’t spent a Saturday night at home in 3 weeks. Yikes! 

“a little weird”

Neighbor: Hey, how are you?

H: A little weird.

 

Best Response. The neighbor had no idea to respond. In her defense, H is a bit hopped up on drugs from her wisdom teeth surgery… but it was funny nonetheless. 

 

Work is burning me out. I’m not overwhelmed per-say… but tired of being constantly on the go. Trying to get everything done before it’s deadline and not getting help from others. I can’t wait for the weekend… and in a few weeks my time off. It’s going to be much needed. 

I should have gone running after work. It probably would have made me feel better about things, but I didn’t. Hrm. I guess I’ll just run at the pot luck and maybe sunday. 

 

I’m looking forward to the next few weeks, but also tired thinking about them… I have my weeks through the first week of july planned out and that’s so not like me. I also really need to clean my room. Since I’ve been going to Orlando every weekend my room has just kind of exploded on itself. Tomorrow night maybe I’ll tackle it. Or sunday. 

 

Someone that I went to middle school with came into the bank today with a kid. That freaks me out. People my age having children is scary. I am NOWHERE near ready to have a child of my own. I’d love to borrow one for a few hours, but not one for keeps. Scary. I don’t think I can handle any of my friends having kids just yet either. There is just too much to do before kids… and I’m still too selfish. I need to go to school and to travel and become more grounded and mature. 

 

Happy almost Friday everyone! Wake me at 6:15pm.