Houses, Shots, and Chicken Casserole

It's always hard to come back to your blog when you haven't written anything in a month. I've missed talking about so many things that it simply seems overwhelming.

Weight Loss

As punishment for losing the Weight Loss Contest to Ryan, I took Maggie out and did the dishes for an entire week. It wasn't as bad as I expected it to be (plus, I think my awesome boyfriend was secretly loading and unloading the dishwasher while I was at work).

Maggie loved all the attention I was giving her.

The other thing Ryan won from our contest was a dinner made from scratch from me. Well, I'm not the best chef on earth (I tried to cook a whole chicken for Valentine's Day, and it ended up raw and inedible). So Ryan picked something pretty fool-proof: a chicken broccoli casserole.

Yummmm...

I was doing good losing weight up until this past week. Three of my college roommates visited this past weekend, so I ate (and drank) WAY too many calories.

Shots! At a dance club Saturday night.

Then, to make matters worse, I got a nasty cold which kept me inside with a food-filled pity-party for a few days. Ouch. But, I should be back on track soon.

Moving

We got notice in the mail that we needed to renew our apartment lease by March 24th. Ryan said, "You know... we don't HAVE to stay here." I had never given it even a moment's thought... but that was all it took to have me scouring Craigslist for new places to live. We love our current apartment... but we wish we were closer to downtown and the bike path. There is NO good place for me to ride my bike around here, and it takes a good 20-25 minutes for us to get from here to downtown.

We saw a total of 7 rental homes in a 2-week period. We have decided on an old duplex in the heart of downtown. It's an area filled with young professional couples with dogs (perfect). Our new place has 3 bedrooms and 1 bath (ouch) and is only 3 city blocks from the bike path (woohoo!).


Our lease isn't up until the end of May, but we get the keys to our new place mid-April, and we are very excited to move.

Half Marathon Training

Despite my week off from running, my overall training is going well. I am up to 4 miles, and the runs are pretty much a breeze. I do wish the weather would cooperate a little bit better. We had a few days with temperatures above 60, but this week has been chilly and rainy. My biggest struggle in training is motivation and time. I would MUCH rather sit and watch an hour of television than go run for an hour. Bleh.

Other

• I bought aero bars! I'll give a full review once I get them installed and try them out, but I'm very excited.
• Earlier this month, Ryan and I celebrated 2 years of dating.

The beautiful roses Ryan gave me.

• I dreamed the other night that I was doing an Ironman, then running a 10k the next day. I was going to pick up my registration packet, and it didn't hit me until then that it might be a REALLY bad idea... especially since I didn't even train for the Ironman! Woops. Good thing I'm smarter than that in real life.

I hope everyone is doing well. I am going to try to blog more in the near future, but I can't make any promises. We have a busy month coming up... and an exciting move to prepare for!

TGIF Photo Friday

It's a little late, but I here are my photos!

They are obviously from Halloween.



My college roommates came to visit...



We got ridiculous...



Good times had by all.

Speaking of good times, I'm going to write a REAL post... tommorrow! I bet you're all just peeing yourself with excitement.

Get ready!

Labor Day Weekend

Friday

• Got off work at 3pm (yay!).
• Took Maggie to the dog park.
• Saw a dog fight and a guy's hand get bitten.
• Grilled some chicken.
• Watched Traffic.

Saturday

• Drove to Cincinnati.
• Checked into the hotel and got ready for the wedding.
• Realized the wedding wasn't for another 2 hours, got undressed and went to Rock Bottom for food.
• Got redressed and left for the wedding.
• Got lost (because I didn't bring directions, and Ryan's iPhone was taking us to the wrong place).
• Frantically drove back into town and made it to the 6:30 wedding by 6:28pm.
• Beautiful wedding. Fun reception.
  

The bride, Kim (my roommate from college), and I

Me and my other college roommates, Megan and Katie (who were bridesmaids)

• I had 2 chardonnays and 3 rum and cokes (more than I've drank in ages)
• Ryan drove me and my 2 roommates back to the hotel where we all promptly passed out.

Sunday

• Delicious (but noisy) breakfast at Waffle House in Kentucky.
• Stop at my favorite store, IKEA, on the way home.
• Long drive back to Indiana.
• Set up our new IKEA bedroom.
  

Duvet cover, bed skirt, and ottoman (for Maggie to sleep on) all new.

• Laziness, laziness, laziness.
• Bought over $100 in groceries.
  
• Watched Atonement.

Monday

• Laziness, laziness, laziness.
• Went to see Inglorious Basterds.

END WEEKEND.

Overall, a good one. It's been ages since I've had a long weekend. I usually don't get petty holidays off (or major ones for that matter!). I have less than TWO weeks until my next race. UGH. I'm definitely not ready for this. Plus, just yesterday, I caught wind of a triathlon at my alma mater, the University of Dayton. What?! REALLY? I'm SO there. It's October 4th, and now I'm wishing I hadn't signed up for the one 2 weeks from now. Oh well. I'm not going to let regrets prevent me from doing my best at this race.

TGIF Photo Friday

(Theme courtesy our guest host, Diana.)

I'm sure everyone has heard about the pirates who are holding that guy captive in Somalia.

Well, I have a message for those pirates...

You're ruining it for the rest of us! Being a pirate is supposed to be cool and fun. Pirates hang around with parrots and drink a lot of rum. Why do you have to go and KIDNAP someone? Way to be lame, pirates.

So in honor (or disgrace) of them, I present you with photos from college of me dressed as a (cool) pirate...



__________________________


My training has been going decently. After setting my new 1/4 marathon goal, I realized I need to seriously vamp up the mileage. Yesterday, I ran 3 1/2 miles at a slow pace (slower than I even realized... cause it took me 41:34 to complete). It's hard to tell myself not to worry about time right now. I'm not used to that.

I have a 10K training schedule that I'm using to get ready for the marathon. I'll be increasing my mileage by about 1/2 a mile each week until I get to 6 1/2. The only thing I'm unsure about is how to incorporate my triathlon training into my marathon training. I don't want to do all this running and have it negatively affect my biking and swimming progress (or lack there of).

TGIF Photo Friday

(Theme courtesy Nikemom.)

I have always loved animals. One of the things that excites me most about getting a new job and a new apartment is that I can finally get a dog. I'm absolutely obsessed with the idea.

Not being able to have a dog over the past few years just meant I had to get my pet-fix by other means.

Sophomore year in college, we got fish...



After that, I bought a mouse...



Then my roommate got a garter snake that we were all afraid of...



Junior year, my roommate bought two dwarf hamsters. They then proceeded to have babies (and then the babies had babies). We ended up with somewhere around 25 hamsters...



Senior year, my roommate's chihuahua spent quite a few weeks at our house...



After college, I bought another dwarf hamster...



After he died, I was left with the Wisconsin wildlife...



Of course, every time I pass a pet store, I can't help but stop in and play with the puppies...



I hope everyone is having a good day. I expect a long work day ahead because of March Madness (last night, they couldn't leave until 1:30am). I keep reminding myself... overtime.overtime.overtime.overtime. MONEY!

Roommate Reunion

We had a GREAT weekend.

In a nutshell: deep dish pizza, shopping the mag mile, dinner at a BYOB, drinking in wrigleyville, throwing up all night (my roommate, not me!), second city, mexican food, dancing downtown, 80's night, spanish television, cab ride, cab ride, cab ride.







It was SO nice to have Saturday off work. I hope everyone had as great a weekend as I did!

TGIF Photo Friday

(Theme courtesy Nikemom.)

I haven't seen my college roommates in almost a year.



We're going to paint the town red! (Thanks for the lovely cliche, Ted!)

TGIF Photo Friday

(Theme courtesy Nikemom)

When I went to college (the University of Dayton), we had an annual trip to Daytona in May that EVERYONE went on. Our school typically rented out 4 hotels on the Daytona strip, but the first hotel was the coveted one because that's where the deck party and free beer was.

Students would sleep outside in the middle of February to get a room in the first hotel. The school eventually deemed this "dangerous." The alternative? Having us all line up behind some caution tape and then yelling "GO!" and whoever got there first got the room.

BRILLIANT.



Long story short... I was in that mob. I was named the designated "runner" for my group. I dropped my paperwork about 2 seconds into the race, had to go back for it, where I was trampled in the mud and ended up with a broken finger.

That wasn't the worst of it, though. One girl lost a tooth. One kid broke his leg.

And if you're wondering, I DID get us our room in the first hotel. I'm just THAT fast!

My 5 Best Halloween Costumes

I went to the Y the other day and ran on the treadmill. When I was finished, I came out and found myself in the middle of a YMCA Halloween event. This involved lots of small children dressed up and ready to trick-or-treat (where? around the building? I dunno).

I saw Batman hanging out with Robin and Spiderman.

I saw 2 groovy 70s chicks who came seperately, but dressed exactly the same (how embarrassing for them!). I couldn't help but wonder if these 6-year-olds even knew what they were dressed as.

I saw a pirate cheerleader and couldn't figure out what on earth that is.

And I saw tons of adults dressed up as runners and weightlifters (a joke... HA! Get it?!).

I think the winner was a baby dressed up as a lion. Awwwwwwwww.

As for me, you all know what I'm going as for Halloween this year. Ooo... maybe I'll even dress up for work that day!

So all this got me to thinking about past costumes... which ones worked and which ones didn't. So I present you with my 5 BEST halloween costumes (in no particular order)...

1) Poison Ivy

My senior year in college, my nerdy friends dressed up as superheros. Since there are very few cool women superheros (and Wonder Woman was taken), I went as a villain... Batman's sexy rival known as Poison Ivy. It was a great costume because I was actually able to pull it off (you have NO IDEA how hard it is to find all those green clothes!).



Plus I spray-dyed my hair red (which I actually got a lot of compliments on).


2) Dinosaur

In preschool, I borrowed a totally sweet costume from some family friends. When all the other girls were going as princesses (seriously... like, ALL of them), I came dressed in a full-body dinosaur costume with a tail that was about as long as I was tall. I have to say... they really just don't make costumes like this anymore. I think this was some major foreshadowing to my out-of-the-box costume choices in the future.

3) Strongbad

In case you don't know who Strongbad is, he's a character from a website (a sign of the times, right?).

It's kind of nerd-chic to know who he is, so I knew my college classmates and friends would appreciate it. My costume was totally handmade and thrown together in a week (and I couldn't find any boxing gloves, so I just stuffed some red mittens).

Through all the sweatiness of the night, I had SO many people come and take a photograph with me (who knew face paint could be that recognizable!).


4) Egyptian

It's a pretty ordinary costume, but my mom and I went all out. In sixth grade, our entire class had an "Egyptian Day." I had one of the best 3 costumes in our entire grade. I was drapped in gold lamay with a snake wrapped around my arm, gold sandals, and a necklace shaped into a scarab. If you peek into the spare bedroom closet at my parents house, you'll find it still hanging in there.

5) Duffman

This is definitely my favorite costume of all time. Being an avid Simpsons fan, I couldn't believe this idea had never come to me before.


I worked on the costume for MONTHS before Halloween. All the clothes were bought at Walmart. What makes me most proud was my ingenuity... I had no white boots, so I covered my black boots with white stockings. I had no Duff beer cans, so I spraypainted regular cans and covered them in Duff stickers. Even my cape was velcrowed on in case any drunk college kids decided to pull on it.



So I hope that's gotten all of you in the Halloween spirit (with all these Christmas decorations popping up in stores, it's important we sit back and remember it's only October).

College Flashbacks

I have always been really close with my roommates. I lived with the same two girls for the first three years of college. After that, I lived with 5 girls in the world's smallest and most roach infested ghetto house on earth (I'm not saying the house is ghetto... that's just what we call the student neighborhood at my school).

And through all that, you tend to develop a pretty deep bond.

Except for one.

She was one of my best friends when we made the decision to live together. But over a course of a few months, things came between us (mostly a boy), and by the time fall, and move-in day came, we were barely speaking.

Barely speaking turned into not speaking which turned into being intentionally mean to eachother.

We lived like that for an entire year, and then we graduated.

Now, of course I'm not the type of person to find happiness in this situation, but I'm also not the type of person to make the effort to fix it (I don't like confrontation or when someone says "we need to talk").

Time passes and I figured it would always go down in the books as just "one of those things." I figured I would remember her and perhaps remember the good times we had fondly, but I would also never be able to forget what she did to me.

But then...

One average day, I log into my email, and there is a message from her.

I didn't even read it for about an hour. I was too nervous about what it would say... I don't like these things being rehashed.

So when I finally took a look, I found out it was an apology. A very long, seemingly sincere apology for everything that went down during that year and the months leading up to it.

And now that message has sat in my Inbox for almost a month. I keep meaning to write her back, but I'm not quite sure what to say.

I penned a rough draft and let our other 4 roommates read it (they are also not on speaking terms with her). I wanted to come across as grateful, yet I didn't want to convey any sort of apology on my half. But I was told I was being too nice... saying things like "I hope all is well with you."

I want to write back something, because I don't want her to think I'm ignoring the message (I appreciate what that must've taken for her). However, I don't necessarily want to restart our friendship (so I can't give her that idea in my wording).

Has anyone been in this situation before? Any advice?