Whew! Its been a whirlwind of a couple months. Let me back up.
In November we were lucky to attend the wedding of one of D's closest friends. It was a beautiful wedding, full of love and laughter, and one happy couple :) It was really special to be there with them as they took that step (leap?).
Thanksgiving was spent it in AZ with family and friends, and was pretty low key for both of us. I was able to make it over to D's Thanksgiving dinner as well as my own, which means it was the first big holiday (that we both celebrate) that we've spent together during the entire time we've been together. Go us!
Once December hit I got super busy with school. I was pretty busy this semester with 5 classes, (my program is considered full time at 3), but during finals was the only time it was overwhelming. And oh, was it overwhelming! I had finals to take, papers to write, projects to complete, etc etc etc. I basically locked myself in the house for a week and a half, but I got it all done! And I did well, too: I earned a 4.0 this semester!
After the semester ended I got busy preparing for Christmas! I always spend it with my family, and my family always hosts a big dinner for our friends on Christmas Eve. I headed to my dad's house a few days before and spent a lovely week in AZ hanging out with my fam, spending time with friends, and soaking up the sun. When it started to rain I hopped in the car and headed back to CA, which brings us to the present...
Along the way we had some very exciting things happen: we finally got a dog! We both really love Goldendoodles, but couldn't understand the associated price tag. We scoured craigslist for weeks and finally found our girl. She's about a year old and the sweetest, happiest thing on the face of this earth. She is also SUCH a dog: she loves car rides, bones, chasing her tail belly rubs, and rolling around on the carpet. We're constantly entertained by her antics and just love her. Otherwise we've just been settling into the house and trying to make it our home. Its difficult with how busy we both are but we're making (slow) progress!
Friday, December 31, 2010
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Tri Report
So it wasn't "next week" as promised, but I'm here with the details of the tri!
I took off work early on the Friday before. I had a little time to get my stuff together and headed down to catch the ferry to Catalina. In all honesty this was the most stressful part of the weekend, I was SO worried I was going to leave something important at home.
At the ferry I met up with my friend/training buddy Christina, her boyfriend, and their friends. The ferry over was relaxing and the sunset was absolutely breathtaking. We got in around 7, lugged our stuff to condo we rented for the weekend, and headed to pick up our packets.
We decided to catch a cab for the mile or so, which turned out to be a great decision. There was this giant hill on the way, and we saw so many people struggling to make it up. At packet pick up there was also a course orientation, where they informed us that we would be riding our bikes up the hill the next morning. Grrreat.
We headed out to dinner shortly thereafter. We had reservations at some fancy Grille on the island, but after being told we would have to wait, despite the reservation, and after the bartender was super snotty we decided to go elsewhere. We ended up at a fun Italian place overlooking the harbor. The portions were huge - hello carbo loading! - and the wine was delicious. After we filled our bellies we headed back to the condo, relaxed, and began preparing for the next morning!
Part 2: Race Day! Coming soon :)
I took off work early on the Friday before. I had a little time to get my stuff together and headed down to catch the ferry to Catalina. In all honesty this was the most stressful part of the weekend, I was SO worried I was going to leave something important at home.
At the ferry I met up with my friend/training buddy Christina, her boyfriend, and their friends. The ferry over was relaxing and the sunset was absolutely breathtaking. We got in around 7, lugged our stuff to condo we rented for the weekend, and headed to pick up our packets.
We decided to catch a cab for the mile or so, which turned out to be a great decision. There was this giant hill on the way, and we saw so many people struggling to make it up. At packet pick up there was also a course orientation, where they informed us that we would be riding our bikes up the hill the next morning. Grrreat.
We headed out to dinner shortly thereafter. We had reservations at some fancy Grille on the island, but after being told we would have to wait, despite the reservation, and after the bartender was super snotty we decided to go elsewhere. We ended up at a fun Italian place overlooking the harbor. The portions were huge - hello carbo loading! - and the wine was delicious. After we filled our bellies we headed back to the condo, relaxed, and began preparing for the next morning!
Part 2: Race Day! Coming soon :)
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Triathlon!
Tomorrow I will get up, go to work, just like normal. Then I’ll come home. And then I drive to Long Beach. None of this is out of the ordinary.
Except tomorrow I will get on a boat instead of go to class. I’ll go to Catalina Island. I’ll spend the night. And Saturday morning I will get up and I will race in a triathlon.
I’m feeling relatively good about my preparation. Between work and school I didn’t get in as much training as I would have liked, but I did enough. I think. I guess I’ll find out for sure in a few days! I was able to average one of each workout a week. I can do each of the events at race distance, and I even had brick workouts where I did two events back-to-back. Right now my goals are to finish, to not be last, and to have fun. And maybe even finish in the top 50% of my age group. Under 2 hours. And look hot in a wetsuit J
I’m not nervous. Yet. I’m sure I won’t sleep on Friday night. But right now I am feeling mostly excited for the challenge.
I’ll be back next week with a race report and results!
Monday, October 18, 2010
Busy Busy
I. Am. Busy.
I've been busy in my life. I've played a college sport. I've gone to school full time and worked full time simultaneously. I've always been the kind of person who thrives on having absolutely no free time. But this time is a whole 'nother ball game, people.
Work is super fantastic. I found the greatest job - I'm nannying for this cute little family. They have 2 adorable boys, ages 5 and 2, and I seriously spend most of my days playing legos and riding bikes. I even get some homework done during nap time! Its amazing.
I've been busy in my life. I've played a college sport. I've gone to school full time and worked full time simultaneously. I've always been the kind of person who thrives on having absolutely no free time. But this time is a whole 'nother ball game, people.
Work is super fantastic. I found the greatest job - I'm nannying for this cute little family. They have 2 adorable boys, ages 5 and 2, and I seriously spend most of my days playing legos and riding bikes. I even get some homework done during nap time! Its amazing.
School is going really well. So far. I’m doing really well on keeping on top of assignments and readings, and I’ve had 3 midterms and done well on all of them. I can’t say the material is hard/easy, its just something I’m genuinely interested in. We are just getting to the point in the semester that we are getting bombarded with midterms and papers and assignments etc etc etc. (Sidenote: tomorrow we’ll be halfway through the semester. Holy shnikes.) But hopefully I can continue to stay on top of things and make it out the next 8 weeks alive!
My triathlon is in LESS than 3 weeks now – yikes! I took last week off, but otherwise I have been pretty consistently getting in at least 1 of each workout a week. I’m able to do all of the race distances already except for the swim, so I have some work to do the next few weeks, but I think between a little more practice and a little endorphin kick on race day that I will be just fine. I’m so excited about this new challenge and I’m already thinking ahead to what my next race will be! I’m debating between just running or sticking with the tri stuff – but I think I’ll wait and see how Nov 6th goes before I make any decisions!
However – I am looking at doing a half marathon in January, and maybe (BIG maybe) a full in March. And an Olympic or international distance tri at some point in 2011. I am fully on my way to becoming one of THOSE annoying race people. Especially once I finish school!
And, hey. I’ve been thinking it, so I’m going to come out and say it. I want to run the Boston Marathon. And I don’t want to do it because I’m raising money for cancer or something – who does that? No. I want to qualify for the Boston Marathon. Which means I need to run TWO marathons in under 3 hours, 40 minutes. That’s roughly 7:15 a mile. My fastest race pace so far is about 8:30. For a 10k. I have a LOT of work to do.
OK, it’s time for bed, before I make any more ridiculous proclamations. To end on a good note: I started to write a paper and all I did was type the section headings before I got distracted by this post. Sounds like a good night’s work to me!
Friday, September 17, 2010
Friday, August 20, 2010
My House is Scary
My house intimidates me.
It could be the huge financial responsibility, the weight we will drag along for the next 30 (!) years. It could be amount of space we now have, and now have to clean. It could be knowing that this is it, all our eggs are in one basket, all we've got is each other and these walls. Or it could be the firsts.
Yes, the firsts. This week has been full of them: first night, first shower, first meal, etc etc. And there are many more to come. And I feel like each of these firsts sets the tone for the next stage in our lives. For example, I baked my first cake in my new oven on Thursday. It came out sub-par. What does this mean for the hundreds of cakes I will bake here over the course of time? Will they all be cursed? Or can I break the first curse?
Whats worse is, that, in the grand scheme of things, the cake is pretty irrelevant. What about our first fight? Our first party? Our first hanky-panky? What if they all suck? I can't be condemned to a life of bad fights, lame parties, and sub-par sex just because the first time in the house was terrible.
So, I've been going out of my way to make sure our firsts, however trivial, are good firsts. We had our first guests and had fun. We ate our first meal and it tasted delicious. We mowed the lawn for the first time and nobody lost any appendages. So far, so good.
It could be the huge financial responsibility, the weight we will drag along for the next 30 (!) years. It could be amount of space we now have, and now have to clean. It could be knowing that this is it, all our eggs are in one basket, all we've got is each other and these walls. Or it could be the firsts.
Yes, the firsts. This week has been full of them: first night, first shower, first meal, etc etc. And there are many more to come. And I feel like each of these firsts sets the tone for the next stage in our lives. For example, I baked my first cake in my new oven on Thursday. It came out sub-par. What does this mean for the hundreds of cakes I will bake here over the course of time? Will they all be cursed? Or can I break the first curse?
Whats worse is, that, in the grand scheme of things, the cake is pretty irrelevant. What about our first fight? Our first party? Our first hanky-panky? What if they all suck? I can't be condemned to a life of bad fights, lame parties, and sub-par sex just because the first time in the house was terrible.
So, I've been going out of my way to make sure our firsts, however trivial, are good firsts. We had our first guests and had fun. We ate our first meal and it tasted delicious. We mowed the lawn for the first time and nobody lost any appendages. So far, so good.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
We're In!
Yesterday was the big day - moving day.
During the last week we packed up most of our stuff and shuttled it between the apartment and the house. When the movers came Saturday morning there was very little left to do - they picked up the big stuff and we were on our way. The whole move took less than three hours and was about as painless as it could be.
After the furniture was moved we started unpacking, and we've been doing nothing else for the last twenty four hours. Ugh. But its starting to come together - clothes are in the closet, pots and pans have homes in the cabinets. So far our biggest problem has been that we have too much space! We went from 700 sq ft to almost 1200 so filling out that extra 500 feet is no easy task. But we are making progress.
Pictures to come once its less of a mess!
During the last week we packed up most of our stuff and shuttled it between the apartment and the house. When the movers came Saturday morning there was very little left to do - they picked up the big stuff and we were on our way. The whole move took less than three hours and was about as painless as it could be.
After the furniture was moved we started unpacking, and we've been doing nothing else for the last twenty four hours. Ugh. But its starting to come together - clothes are in the closet, pots and pans have homes in the cabinets. So far our biggest problem has been that we have too much space! We went from 700 sq ft to almost 1200 so filling out that extra 500 feet is no easy task. But we are making progress.
Pictures to come once its less of a mess!
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