Happy (almost) Thanksgiving!

When 2pm rolls around today, I'll be heading out to begin my holiday! Almost a week off of work...... yay! This afternoon I'm going to be doing the 10 mile run I missed last weekend. I'm pretty intimidated, it's the greatest mileage I have ever tackled, but I'm trying to be smart about it. I am spending the morning hydrating... lots and lots of water. Then I'll stop in a few minutes so that I am not sloshy or crampy this afternoon. I mapped out my route online, and it's going to take me through my neighborhood, up to Rice to do a loop around the outside of campus, and winding back through the neighborhood. We'll see how this goes.

D and I are headed up to the greater Dallas area tomorrow to spend Thanksgiving with his family. I'm excited to see them and getaway from Houston for a few days. It will be my first Thanksgiving away from my family, so I'm curious to see how they do it. I don't think I have any cooking duties, so maybe I'll just sit back and eat and eat and..... eat :).

I may or may not post anything while I'm gone, so if not, I hope everyone has a happy, safe, wonderful thanksgiving.... there is a lot to be thankful for even in difficult times, and I hope we all focus on the good things in our lives.

Opa!

This weekend was the Greek festival. Friday night I enjoyed the festival as an overeating, boozing visitor, Saturday I morphed into a Greek pizza making volunteer. I ate so much food this weekend. Between D and I, we ate about a million souvlaki (beef tenderloin marinaded in goodness and served on a stick), Lokumades (donut hole looking things with a hot honey glaze and powdered sugar), pastizio (a Greek pasta dish with meat), Greek salad (greek salad), gyro (thin slices of lamb/beef with veggies and a cucumber yogurt sauce), rice pudding (duh), and much more. I butchered the spelling on some of that stuff, so please forgive me :).

We met up with one of D's buddies from work on Friday, ate and drank at the festival, and then went to a bar in midtown. Saturday I missed my 10 mile run from overindulgence the night before, but we still woke up fairly early to be the the festival at 10. I was on my feet for the better part of 8 hours making pizzas, which was actually pretty fun. It was a good group in the booth, and I felt kind of like a short order cook. We assembled the pizzas, and then they went through a conveyor belt oven, which took about 3 minutes. There was definitely some back-up at points, because the kids preferred pizza over some of the other food, so it made us a popular booth. We finally left after dark and took our tired bones home.

I have a new found respect for anyone in a job where you are on your feet all day. My back was throbbing, my knees hurt, my arms were tired..... I was sore all over. I'm actually glad I missed my run, because there is no way I could have run 10 miles and then stayed on my feet all day. I'm going to make up my run tomorrow afternoon when I get off of work early for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Sunday we were slow to get moving in the morning, but we spent all day going from furniture store to furniture store looking for a new couch. We went by our new place and took measurements, and we found a pretty awesome chocolate brown leather couch. It's incredibly comfortable, and we got a really good deal. I LOVE buying stuff for the home, so it was an exciting day for me. We finished our long day of shopping at Pappas Burger, and then went to Swirll for some frozen yogurt. I crashed so hard last night, and now I'm just trying to make it a day and a half till my holiday begins!

Tuesday night ritual

Every Tuesday night, I come home, go for a run, shower, and cook dinner. We eat dinner, and then we sit down to watch Eli Stone at 9pm. D and I LOVE Eli Stone. It's one of those shows we started watching on a whim last season, and we both connected with it. It's somewhat rare that D and I agree on television choices (he'd prefer to watch CNBC while I love the trashy, scandalous, horribleness of reality tv). We both look forward to this show, and it has become out Tuesday night ritual to cuddle on the couch and watch it. I like having small things in life that I can count on :).

Last night I decided to work on speeding things up, so I ran my first mile at a pace that was more than 3 minutes faster than normal. Of course, this meant I had to stop and walk for a bit afterwards, but it was good to know I had it in me. I need to work on endurance, but I also need to keep working somewhat on speed. Every once in a while. Occasionally :).

Tonight is more running, dinner, and Top Chef!!!!!!! That is one of those shows D isn't dying to watch with me, but I love, love, love it! Saturday is going to be insanity with a 10 mile run at 6am, volunteering at the Greek festival starting at 10am (come out and join us!!!), and a birthday party for one of D's buddies Saturday night. I'm going to be a limp ragdoll by the end of the evening, but on the upside, next week is a day and a half work week, and then D and I are headed to Frisco to spend Thanksgiving with his family. I love Thanksgiving. Love, love love it :).

Cold weather changes everything

This morning it was probably somewhere around 40ish degrees when I woke up at 5am to meet my group for our 8 mile run. I put on my favorite Nike shorts, Team in Training shirt, and I threw on one of D's big long sleeved shirts for warmth. I honestly thought this would be okay, because it would warm up some as we ran, my body would heat up, and I'd be wishing to shed layers along the way if I dressed too warmly.

Well, I was wrong.

The sun did come out as we were running, and it probably did warm up slightly. However, it stayed pretty darn cold, and not only was it cold, but it was quite windy. The top half of my body was doing alright. It took some getting used to breathing in the cold air, and my nose was running and my eyes were watering, but it was manageable. What was going on in the lower half of my body was much harder to deal with.

Ever since chemo, I've had some problems with circulation. I frequently get numbness in my hands and feet, but it generally goes away pretty quickly as long as I apply some heat. Well, I didn't count on my legs going numb. From my hip flexor down to my knees, my quads were lifeless. It felt like I was running while carrying a ton of dead weight. It was the ODDEST sensation, but it served as a wake up call that cooler conditions mean dressing differently.

Post-run, we had our honored teammate breakfast, and as one of the teammates, I stuck around for a while after my run. It was actually really nice, I got to meet some more of my teammates, tell them a little bit more about me, and it made me all the more committed to what I was doing. D stopped by the breakfast to support me and meet some people, and I introduced him as they guy who doesn't kill me when the alarm goes off at 5am on Saturday mornings :).

After the breakfast, I immediately dragged myself over to Academy to invest in a pair of dryfit running pants. I have so long resisted anything tight, clingy, and long, but I finally realize why people wear them! I am going to be running in January, and I won't make it through 13 miles with dead legs. I also invested in some gloves, since one of the coaches had to loan me hers during the breakfast since my hands had lost all feeling, and a headband that also covers my ears. I think I have covered all the parts of me that tend to freeze up, so hopefully next weekend's run (if it is cold) will be a lot easier.

Not sure what's on the agenda tonight, but I can't seem to make myself leave bed right now. Saturday afternoons have become deliciously lazy. I come home from running, take a bath, put on pajamas, and crawl back into bed. Today I've been watching tv, sometimes I read, and sometimes I fall right back to sleep. I think a nap might be in order next.....

My new obsessions

My new obsessions are happily very economical. I have really gotten into talk radio and podcasts. I listen to 740 ktrh on the way home from work everyday. It's interesting, that station definitely has a conservative slant, and sometimes I'm astounded by the things I hear (yes, that one was for you, Sean Hannity). Mostly I tune in for the Michael Berry show which starts at 5pm, which is generally when I get off of work. He's a conservative, but is willing to take a look at the other side, and I can respect that. He had me in stitches with his FEMA bashing after hurricane Ike. I would definitely put myself in the moderate to liberal category, but I think in order to believe what I believe, I need to know what the other side's take is as well.

Along the same lines of talk radio, I'm really into downloading podcasts for free to listen to while I run. For some reason, they keep me distracted more easily than music. Maybe it's because I can get new ones every day and not deal with any repeats. I've been listening to a bunch of health and nutrition related podcasts. I figure that it doesn't hurt to listen to talk about being healthy while I'm running and trying to be healthy. Extra motivation, I guess.

My day off has been fabulous so far, and I plan to continue on the path of laziness and do-nothingness :).

I got caught!

I'm not really much of a shopper. I like new things, but I hate shopping, so I infrequently get new clothes unless my mother and sister go out shopping and bring me home some goodies.

This trait is a positive one considering D and I are in super saving mode. We want to cut spending and focus on putting money away for our future. In order to accomplish that goal, we have cut back in various ways including bringing our lunch to work, eating out less, enjoying wine nights at home instead of going out, and putting the kibosh on gratuitous shopping. Well..... I got caught this morning. :(

The one store that is my major downfall is Target. It's a store that I frequently enter because I need necessities such as toiletries and groceries, and I sometimes find myself gazing at cute, cheap clothing. A couple of weeks ago I gave into my desires and bought a cute dress that is work appropriate as well as "going out" appropriate for under $30. I thought this was a great deal, so I took it home, hung it in my closet, and conveniently forgot to tell D. :)

Well, this morning I put on my cute dress, thinking he will never notice. Oh, no, he noticed. Somehow my fiance has a photographic memory when it comes to my wardrobe, and he immediately asked me where I got the dress, how long I'd had it, etc. I cracked under the pressure and admitted that I had been..... gulp..... shopping. Luckily, D was cool about it, but I'm back in super saver mode now. Sometimes I forget that I'm combining my life and my finances and I have to think about more than just myself. Just a little self-revelation for the day :).

And things calm down

My organization had our second walk this weekend, and it was crazy and zooey, but it went pretty well. I am quite glad to be done, though, because it means life around here is going to calm down a bit. It also means no more 3:30am wake up calls for a while.

An unfortunate consequence of the walk and being on my feet, running around for 8 hours was some serious tweaking of my back. I have had lower back problems for years, and the problems flair up when I am on my feet for an extended period of time, particularly when I am under stress. My plan yesterday was to go for my long run, but I decided in the interest of not permanently inflicting damage to my body, I would take the day off, rest and recuperate. A day did me good, and while I have some mild pain, I think I am alright for my run this evening.

Friday night my co-workers and I congregated for dinner at my co-worker AS's apartment. She made us a delicious meal of grilled beef in a honey ginger marinade, twice baked sweet potatoes, asparagus, and a pound cake recipe from cooking light. It was awesome, and we went through several bottles of wine. I'm very pleased that we were all able to wake up a mere few hours later and be on the ball at walk :). D and I also found out on Friday that we have been approved for our new apartment! We are going to be moving into a rather swank high rise apartment building. When we began our apartment search, we didn't anticipate it leading us to this kind of place, but we went looking on a whim, and we both fell in love. It is a pretty sweet place with lots of amenities, and we have an incredible 31st floor view. We'll be moving in January, so if you are my friend, expect me to beg for moving help :).

I spent yesterday being lazy. D and I went out for brunch, and then took a look over at Linens and Things. They are going out of business within the next couple of months, so we got a few odds and ends for the new place. I continued with laziness for the rest of the day.

Today is Monday, but we have tomorrow off from work (yay!). So, I'm slowly trying to get back into the groove of things. We are all pretty tired around here, but happy the walk went so well.

Elections, weddings, and running

It's election day! I love it, one because I find it pretty exciting, especially considering what a huge, hyped election this will be, and secondly, because I am so ready for it to be over. Politics has dominated all news coverage over the past year, with the exception of the economy. I think America is tired of hearing it, tired of hearing negative campaigning, and ready for a new leader. I'll be watching election coverage tonight, courtesy of the "liberal elite media". ;) D forgot to change his registration to Houston, so he's actually driving to Austin this afternoon to cast his vote. I find this devotion to the political process very sexy :).

Weddings! My very dear friend, E, just got engaged, and she and I have been chitter chattering about weddings and engaged people stuff all over the place. It's very fun to have a friend going through this with you at the same time. D and I have just started wedding planning, and it's kind of a daunting process. It's also hard to agree on everything. We are trying to keep the numbers down, but with his list and my list alone, the numbers have already exploded. This does not include my parents and his parents. We are going to have to do some major paring down, because weddings are expensive! Wedding dress hunting online is one of my new favorite hobbies. I am not going to officially start looking until I get to the size I would like to be as a bride, which I'm hoping will be in the spring. But, I have a feeling it's going to take a while to find the right dress, so I'm going to start early.

Finally, running! This past Saturday was a 7 mile run, and I would venture to say it was the best run yet. It wasn't perfect, but I do sense my progress. It was dark for most of our run, but since the time change, we should be getting more light on our runs from now on. The only problem was the mosquitoes. Even when it gets a little cooler in Houston, we still have to contend with the humidity. Last night I did my 30 minute Monday run, and it went really well. I was able to complete the whole 30 minutes without too much trouble. Running is still not "easy" and I don't know that it ever will be for me, but it's getting "easier".

Now back to work, and waiting for the end of the day and election night!