Accountability in the Blogosphere

This post mainly serves one purpose.  If I tell you all my goal, I will be held to reaching it.  I want to run a half marathon.  Eventually, I would like to run a whole marathon.  Right now though, I have begun to focus my efforts on training for the Snickers Marathon Energy Bar Half Marathon in Albany, GA on March 5, 2011.  I made my 14 week training schedule loosely based on the Marathon Rookie website.  I put the information onto a calendar to track where I'm supposed to be and what I've actually done.  I used this fun website to create my first couple running routes. 

Then, on Monday, I snapped a few pictures and headed to the gym (because the sky looked like rain any moment) to begin my first day of real conditioning.  Devin came with me because he also plans to run March 5.  It's been a couple months since I've run although I've remained active and have lost 10.4 pounds in the time since I last ran.  It. kicked. my. butt.  I did just over two miles, and my lungs were on fire.  Thankfully, today was my cross-training day, which means some relaxing and energizing yoga.  However, I have learned that while I can read all I want on the internet, I need some advice. 

For those of you who have done distance running (or even know someone who has) what words of wisdom can you pass on?  Also, I need new shoes before the race, but what other gear is essential?  Or, what is just good to have?

Frigidaire

**Discalimer: I wrote this post on November 10th but didn't post it because my camera wasn't near me.  Now, my fridge is empty except some spoiled leftovers that we didn't get to eat before leaving town for Thanksgiving.  I want this fridge again but have to work and spend money to get it...sigh...

I love it when my fridge is clean.  I love it even better when it is clean and filled with delicious foods.  Especially when many of the items were on sale!  Notice the hummus, feta cheese, completely full produce drawers, yogurt, and orange juice.  Yum!!!

My Gratitudes

Instead of doing a post every day on something I am grateful for, or else updating my facebook status with it daily, I decided I would pay attention to the little moments and thoughts throughout this month.  Then, I would add them to this post to publish it later.  So, here goes!

1. When we cook something delicious, I can smell it everywhere in the house.  Even a toasted bagel makes my bathroom smell wonderful.  For this, our house is the perfect size.

2. My husband and I laugh all the time about nothing in particular.  I absolutely love being goofy and love when we come up with new inside jokes.  (i.e. Brian Reagan-like mispairing of words)

3. Our love seat is awesome.  Not that I still don't love the couch we bought the week before getting married (after opening a few cards and cashing the checks early), it's just that this new love seat is, well, new.  And it's deep and soft and just a little bit fuzzy.

4. Call me strange, but I really like helping my husband study.  This month, he's been doing his neuropsych unit, which is what I know like the back of my hand.  So, I have had a lot of opportunities to help him.  I also pretended to be a patient so that he could practice for his physical exam practical, but that's another story involving him beating my elbows with a brush trying to test my reflexes.

5. With my new benefits as an MCGHealth employee, I was able to get 24 pairs of contacts for $14.  This means I will actually follow the doctors orders and change them every 2 weeks instead of once a month.

6. Devin and I share a taste for orange tictacs.  We can split a box and eat them all in one sitting.  Weird, I know, but I enjoy the little "likes" that we share.  However, we do disagree over whether or not they are candy.  It makes for a good debate from time to time.

7. We have some really awesome friends.  They inspire us in ways too varied and complex to describe.  Having so many wonderful people in our lives is truly a blessing.  We used to wonder if it would be more difficult to make friends when we were married, but that has definitely not proven to be the case.

8. Tissue boxes are fun.  It's the perfect way to liven up my desk at work.  About a week before Thanksgiving, I put out my "Polar Bear Swim Club" holographic box after using up my fun Halloween one.  Thank you Puffs!

9. Picture texts are wonderful.  There is something so neat about being able to connect with my sisters visually on an almost daily basis.  We send each other pics when trying to decide between two items at the store or determining if an article of clothing is really worth the price on the tag.  We also trade pics of little things like our slippers, class notes, dogs, weather, beautiful views, food, outfits, pimples, injuries, etc.

10. Blue always goes to bed at the same time as me.  On the occasion that Devin stays up later than us, Blue gets to sleep on the bed for a while.  It's strange how hard he works sometimes to act like a human, but it's also very amusing to see him lay with his head on Devin's pillow like it's the most natural thing in the world.

I doubt I will spend much time on the computer tomorrow, so I wanted to make sure I had the opportunity to share this.  While there are many more things that did not make this list, these are just a few inspired by my everyday life throughout the past couple weeks.  Tomorrow, my day will be filled with family, food, and beautiful weather!  I hope your day will be just as wonderful...Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!!

My Glorious Weekend

Sometimes, there is a weekend that stands out as wonderful because it is so very different than the rest.  When I was younger, this was usually a weekend when something really exciting happened--like going to the zoo.  In college, it might have been a weekend where I either went out of town or a friend came into town.  This one, though was so different, because there was nothing, I repeat, nothing that we had to do.  And that has not happened in a long, long time.  So, we made the most of it, and it went something like this:

* Leave work early on Friday because I had stayed late the day before.  Spend that extra time laughing and relaxing with my husband and my dog.  (Friday afternoons have always been my favorite time of the week.)
* Then, we went out to dinner and a movie with friends.  Yes, we saw Harry Potter 7 part 1.  It was awesome.  While there was some unnecessary-ness added in that I didn't like, I felt it was the best movie they had come out with in a while.
* Saturday morning we slept in.  When we woke up, we laid in bed and talked.  Blue got to come up and snuggle with us, too.  I think I'd slept between 9 and 10 hours.
* I stayed in my pajamas until sometime around 2 or 3 in the afternoon.  After showering, we grabbed a late lunch/early dinner at Cracker Barrel and then went to Sam's Club and Target.  When we got home, I changed out of my jeans and put on sweatpants.  (The jeans were on maybe 4 hours...maybe.)
* After church on Sunday, we both came home and once more got comfortable.  (Sweat pants or pajamas for both of us!)  We ate an oven pizza and watched something out of our DVR together.  It was the only tv we really watched all weekend. 
* We ended up going outside to our nice, grassy backyard and playing with our dog.  Devin then tossed a little more grass seed around before his daily watering. (He had gotten dressed, I hadn't.)
* By evening time, I decided to put on some real clothes.  We took Blue on our usually 3 mile walking route while discussing evolution, environmentalism, military, real estate, people, plants, history, animals, foster care, and a bunch of other topics.

To make this all much shorter, my weekend was wonderful, restful, and very much needed.  With some much time in lounging clothes, it pretty much had to be.  Now, I just have a 3 day workweek before all the Thanksgiving festivities.  I hope your weekend was just as great!!

Be The Match

I am now a registered bone marrow donor.  Today, there was a multi location registration drive all over Augusta and the surrounding area sponsored by "Be The Match," the national bone marrow donor program.  It was being done in honor of a young boy with leukemia who started his treatment at MCG Children's Hospital.  He is now at St. Jude's after receiving his third bone marrow transplant.  I have come to enjoy reading the updates in his story that his father posts.  He and his family are very inspirational.  So, I signed up.  A couple cheek swabs and a sticker later, I am on my way to potentially saving a life.  I realize that the process can be very painful, but I figure that me being in a little pain is better than someone else dying.  Thanks to advancements in the process, too, it has become substantially less painful and invasive than in earlier days of bone marrow transplants.  If you would like to register as well, please visit http://www.marrow.org/.  From this site, you can either find a registration drive near you, or order a free kit with the swabs and a postage paid envelope to send them back.   I urge you to visit the website, learn more about it, and find out if you can  be the match!!

A Little Queasy

I know that Devin is going to be a doctor.  In fact, he was working on this goal as long as I've known him.  He took his MCATs just a few days before our first date.  I accompanied him on his interviews.  I photographed him being given his white coat.  I have helped him study for almost three semesters of school so far.  I am in the Medical Wives Club.  I work with one of his professors.  I should know that he is truely in medical school.  I don't think it hit home, though, until this came through his email.

What's that, you ask?  It is the proposed schedule for his third year rotations.  YIKES!!!  We talk about his rotations as in, "won't it be nice when you don't have to sit in class all day anymore?" or "won't it be nice if my abulatory care rotation is at MCG so that we can work together?"  But, nothing makes it more real than this chart.  I look at it, and I remember all the other wives talking about how their husbands were never home during this rotation or that one.  Pretty much, the only ones I haven't heard that about were the two week intersession slot and a couple of the electives.  For someone who is used to spending a lot of time with her husband, the idea of almost never seeing him is a little bit frightening.

In addition to the lovely chart, the email was filled with phrases such as "switched the lottery system to an automated system" and "marriage preference - definition and options."  The idea of us having less control than in the past is scary as is the idea that there could potentially not be any marriage preference given.  Then, Devin would be all over the state for rotations, not just in the Augusta area, and I would see him even less.  Of course, I know that this is all in the process of him getting to his doctor goal, but I just don't know that I relly thought the details through quite so much until now.  That is why I am a little bit queasy today...

(P.S. After writing this but before posting it, I talked to one of my sisters who reminded me that I can look at the bright side by being greatful that my husband will at least be around some unlike the wives whose husbands are in Iraq.  Or, I could not have a wonderful husband at all.  So I am greatful...just still a little concerned...)

What would you do-OO-oo?

Most of you have probably heard of the Carnival Splendor by this point.  If you haven't, it's the cruise ship that is currently being towed back to shore in off the coast of California after a fire in the engine room left the ship stranded.  Now, the passengers are eating spam and pop tarts while appreciating the restored toilet functions instead of dining at delicious buffets and taking in evening shows.  If it hadn't been for the US Navy, they wouldn't even have this much, though.
With our cruise approaching in 143 days, this news story has definitely peaked my interest.   It got us talking about what we would have done if we had been on this ship.  Of course, the Oasis of the Seas is much newer than the Carnival Splendor.  And, we prefer Royal Caribbean to Carnival.  But, it was a freak accident, so I guess it could have happened to anyone.  We like to think that we would have made the best of the situation, appreciated the good story we had to tell when we got home, and enjoyed the compensation cruise that we were given.  But, we can only guess.  What do you think you would do?

A Seat of Love

When we bought a house, we realized we didn't have enough furniture.  Actually, we knew that when we got married and lived in a large house for our first summer together.  We were only there for three months, though.  But, we moved into a rental when we first came to Augusta and had enough furniture for that house.  Then, when we left our rental and moved to our home, we found a need (and want) for more. Now, seven months later, we finally began looking around about a week ago.  Additional seating for our fairly bare living room was the first order of business.  It turns out I am a picky furniture person.  We looked online for ideas and went to several stores.  At one, we found something we liked, but it was not available in the color we wanted.  At another, the colors were right, but the styles were wrong.  We eventually made our way to Weinberger's Outlet on Friday, which is awesome.  We found several love seats there that we liked and could work in our room.  We actually had choices!  We made a selection and picked it up today. 

Now, we are in love...with each other and our seat for two!

Now, we have to decide what we want next...a new rug, end tables, or an entertainment center/tv stand.  Any thoughts?

12 Reasons to Love My Life

#1 - Our cruise leaves in 152 days.  If it left in 2 days it might seem even better.  But, I am really, really, really enjoying the planning and the countdown.  We get to have discussions on the virtues of doing a wave jet tour over parasailing and whether or not we should have a cupcake from the Cupcake Cupboard every day of the cruise or only some days.  So I'm okay with it being 152 days away.

#2 - We have a big bowl of leftover Halloween candy.  It's not as much as we had left over last year, but it mostly all Reese's and Kitkats.  After loosing a hard fought 9 pounds, I don't need that much candy to make me gain it back, though.  So that's why it's good that I don't have as much as last year.

#3 - It's November.  Of course, it's November for everyone, but we have lots of fun things planned.  We have the Alzheimer's Walk, a trip to Atlanta, lots of church events, a progressive dinner for MSA, Thanksgiving, and a trip to Albany.  Plus, daylight savings time ends, and we'll get an extra hour of sleep!

#4 - Christmas is only 54 days away.  I actually listened to one Christmas song last night.  It was mostly because I had just received my free download of the Veggie Tales Incredible Singing Christmas Tree album, but I loved it.  I'll probably wait a couple weeks until I make the music a habit, though.  Unless I'm shopping for gifts...or wrapping presents...or just feel like it...

#5 - Our utility bills were AWESOME this month.  Seriously, we have managed not to turn on our heat in the mornings yet.  It's pretty darn cold when we wake up but soooo worth the savings.  We had planned to try to make it halfway through October without the heat and are now just trying to see how long we can go before turning it on.  We also never need the air conditioner any more.  And, our water usage was half what it was this summer!!

#6 - We have a porch swing.  When we were dating and just married, we had plenty of access to a porch swing.  Then, we moved to Augusta and had almost a year without one.  Now, the weather is perfect in the evening for us to sit out on our swing and talk and talk and talk.  I. Love. It.

#7 - Blue is the most entertaining dog there every was, and he is ours.  We rarely get through a movie or a tv show without having to pause it to watch something adorable he is doing.  Right now, he loves catching flies.  I hope to be able to catch it on camera soon.

#8 - There is grass in our back yard.  Sure, probably everyone reading this has grass in their backyard, but we didn't a month ago.  After the grass grew and then stopped and then grew and then died a little, it is finally enough to call a lawn.  Granted, it is not a super think or super plush lawn...yet.  But, it is well on its way and is looking fantastic.

#9 - My wonderful husband did all the dishes today.  After falling behind with our crazy Halloween weekend (think cupcakes + multi-colored jell-o cups + everything else we used), our sink was full.  We planned to do them together yesterday but kept finding better things to do.  So, he did them all before I got home from work.  And, he cleaned other parts of the house too.  Like I said, he is wonderful.

#10 - Amazon.com is entering you in a drawing for a $100,000 shopping spree just for adding an item to a wish list.  How easy is that?!  I love to shop on Amazon and am especially good at picking out things to buy.  Because it's a wish list, I can add and subtract all I want, too.  I currently have 3 different lists going, I think (what I want for Christmas, what I'm buying others for Christmas, what I want to maybe buy someday).  Every week that you add an item between now and Christmas, your name gets entered in again.  Awesome.

#11 - My pants were too big when I put them on this morning, and I had just taken them out of the dryer.  (see #2)  They weren't just big in the waist, though.  They actually look big on me.  When I wore them for the first day at my new job in June, they were a little tight.  I'm happy.

#12 - Devin discovered today that I have an unopened box of Chocolate Cheerios.  I had completely forgotten.  While he teased me about it, I am excited!  It's almost as cool as finding money in a pocket of clothes you haven't worn in a while.  And, if you didn't know, it's one of the best cereals ever made.