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!

Happy Halloween!

It's Halloween again, and this year it falls on a Friday, which is always fun. I remember how hard it was as a little kid to get excited about going out trick-or-treating, and then the letdown of having to go to school the next day. I know a lot of people have wild and crazy Halloween plans involving drunk escapades and skimpy costumes, but my plans are a bit more tame this year. My sister is coming over to my mom's house with her three kids (ages 2, 4, and 6), and Uncle D and I are taking them trick-or-treating while my mom and sister stay behind and prepare dinner, hand out candy, and drink wine. We did this last year, and it was actually SO much fun. I love getting to see how excited the kids get, how cool they think it is that Uncle D is taking them out, and how they carefully filter through their candy, separating the good from the bad, trying to trade with one another, and figuring out how to gorge on as much as they can before their mom takes it away for the night.

Tomorrow morning is another 6am long run (7 miles this Saturday), so that is a small part of my tame Halloween plans. I was forced to miss last weekend's long run because of work, and I'll be forced to miss next weekend's as well. I've gotten back on track with my weekly runs this week, but I still feel like I have a long way to go, and a lot to make up. I'm going to try my hardest to stick with the program as best I can from now till marathon day. Life comes up, but I need to make this a priority. The fundraising has been the easy part for me. People have been so incredibly generous, but I need to remember the commitment that I made to follow through by taking on this challenge and doing more than just asking people for money. I want to be a living example of the good that comes from their donations. Not only am I back in good health, but I'm attempting to get in the best shape of my life, motivated by wanting to do better and be more in my post-cancer life.

I'll turn off those musings for a while. Needless to say, I've been getting down on myself lately for letting myself slack. I just need to keep remembering why I am doing this, and no matter how hard it might seem, it's nothing compared to what I have been through.

Anyway, Sunday is a joint birthday party for nephew Charlie (who just turned 5), and niece Ann-Marie (who turns 3 in November). Uncle D and I have some birthday gift shopping to do. It's tough getting stuff for kids who seem to have every toy known to man. Maybe we'll just end up getting the fun toys we want, and then making excuses to go over there and play with them :).

Sleep Deprived

Honestly, the one week of my brief work career that I really need sleep.... and it's not going so well.

D and I are taking care of my mom's dog since she is out of town for a couple of days. Fine, Lucy is quite adorable, but also very needy. She normally sleeps on my mother's bed, basically on top of her. She craves human contact and gets scared of everything, including the dark. Well, last night she fell asleep downstairs and woke up around 2am. She proceeded to start barking and howling from downstairs in an effort to get someones attention. This woke me from an already restless sleep (I'm dreaming of work). I think both D and I tried to ignore it, until it became unignorable (not a word, but I'm making it one!). I went to the top of the stairs and began yelling at her to come up, which she eventually did, and she finally shut up.

Unfortunately, I was wide awake after that. D fell back to sleep, but I went to the other room with my computer to watch tv online and try to make myself tired again. It did not work. It's now 9:25am, and I have been awake since 2am. Tomorrow morning I'll be up at 6am to set up for our Sunday walk, and Sunday I have to wake up at 3:30am to arrive at 4:45am. Sigh. Sweet, sweet sleep, you will be out of my reach until next week.

I'm doing alright otherwise, the weather is starting to cool down, and it's pretty exciting. It means another mild Texas winter is almost upon us, Halloween is coming up, Thanksgiving after that, and then Christmas! This year D and I are spending Thanksgiving with his family and Christmas with mine, since we are beginning the tradition of flip flopping it every year. And then..... it's going to be time for the half-marathon! It blows my mind that it's so close. I ran for the first time in the chill last night (I can't quite call it cold, but it was chilly). It was an interesting experience. My throat got very dry and slightly pained, so I need to adapt.

It's a busy day in the office, so I'd better get to it!

A weekend on my own

Anyone who knows D and I know that we generally spend most of our time together, especially on weekends, since life can get really busy during the week. However, this weekend he came home on Friday night and said a few of his buddies were planning on driving down to NOLA to gamble, drink, and engage in various other boy behavior. I was invited along, but I had things on my calendar, and plus, I would have been the one girl in the middle of a sausage-fest, which wouldn't have been fun for me, and it probably would have tempered the mood for the gentlemen. So, he took off for a trip without me, and I got to spend the weekend on my own.

Don't get me wrong, I love spending time with D. I planning on marrying him, so clearly I consider him worthy of my time. But it was SOOOOOO nice to be able to do what I wanted without having to take someone else into consideration. Friday night was pretty chill for me, since I was supposed to run 6 miles on Saturday morning. Well, somewhere Friday night, my stomach decided it had different plans for me, so the Saturday morning run didn't happen. I spent the day in bed watching the Sex and the City movie, as well as other girly shows that D won't watch with me, and it was awesome. I rallied enough to go to the Dynamos game Saturday night with a group. It was an awesome game, Dynamos won, and somehow I ended up at the 'quis till 2 am. Ooops!

Sunday morning I slept in, lounged in bed for a while, read a book, watched more tv, and basically vegetated. D returned home Sunday evening with presents for me from NOLA, and it was so good to see him. I rarely get the chance to actually miss him since we are always together, but it's a nice reminder of how much I love this man and enjoy and count on his presence in my life.

This week is going to be insanity. My organization is holding one of their fall walk fundraisers this weekend, so I'm going to be working from today through Halloween without a day off. I get tired just thinking about it, but hopefully everything will go smoothly.

I have lots of other things I have wanted to post about including the Presidential Debates, Sarah Palin on SNL, Mark Wahlberg talking to animals, and my newfound love of Paul Mitchell Skinny Serum, but the saltmines are calling me!

The aftermath

I feel like I have been operating at half speed this week. Last weekend was definitely tough. It was very hard to say goodbye to my yia yia, and it hit me a lot harder than I expected. By the time Saturday night rolled around, I could barely keep my head up, I was so mentally and physically exhausted. I slept for about 12 hours that night, and it was that kind of dreamless sleep. I think I woke up in the same position I had fallen asleep in.

I've been getting back on my running schedule. Note to self: deviating from running schedule means intense pain and suffering when you get back on. These runs that were becoming easier for me in weeks prior have turned into tortuous exercises. It's kind of getting me down, but I keep trying to remind myself that I just have to stick with it, stay on schedule, and it will get better. This weekend we have an 8 mile run, and it's scaring me crapless. I'm trying not to psych myself out, because that just makes things worse, but I'm still terrified. I just don't want to feel like I am failing.

In totally shallow hair news, My hair has gotten to the point where I can straighten it and wear it down without a headband. This feels like a huge victory for me. I'm even able to kind of pull it into the world's tinest ponytail when I run, with the aid of a running headband, and 5,000 bobby pins. Kind of exciting!