Beautiful spring!

Spring is here and it is gorgeous!! We had record breaking highs in the 80s this week and today it topped off in the 70s before a cold front came in and brought us down to a sunny 65ish. I am loving it!

Everything is going so well right now. I've been having a lot of fun hanging out with new friends and old friends and have been staying up too late and drinking too much. :) I'm working on that! We had a shorter run today, and after next weekend's 22, it's officially taper time until the race May 2. Work is going to get crazy starting next week, but that's ok. We've got a great show coming up and I like the craziness of installation. In the middle of it, I'll head to STL for my college reunion and then the next weekend to Cincy to run my marathon. And then it will be May! I've got a wedding coming up at the end of May, and lots of other fun stuff.

I might have something exciting brewing, but it's too soon to talk about it. Let's just say things are good. :)

Tomorrow I'm heading up to my brother Dave's house for Easter dinner with the family. I'm excited that my sister Laura will be here, up from NC, for the weekend. It should be a good time!

Happy Easter to those of you to celebrate it, Happy Passover to those of you who celebrated that, and happy spring to everyone!

Nice weekend

I had a very nice weekend this weekend. The weather was GORGEOUS. Sunny and highs in the low 70s. How could I not have a good weekend? :) After my long run yesterday morning, I just puttered around the house and was productive. I cleaned out my closet and dressers and switched over to cold weather stuff. I have a pile of clothes to donate (although I could probably stand to get rid of more!). Then today I cleaned and organized my office so I can actually find things! I still need to weed through more stuff (I have a major backlog of magazines!), but I now know where everything is, which is so nice. I think I was starting to get stressed out just from the mess!

I also went to the gym today ( which was so hard to do, considering how gorgeous it was outside!) to lift weights. That's two whole weeks of weights. Hopefully this week I will add in either spinning or yoga.

not too much else going on in my neck of the woods. Lots of cooking, so I realllllly need to update that other blog. Maybe the 2 blog idea wasn't the smartest. :) Really, it's just a place for me to file recipes!

I still haven't showered since going to the gym, so I think I'll do that and then cook some dinner.

Oh, and I wanted to give a quick CONGRATULATIONS to my friend Melissa who got married this past week. I saw some pics on Facebook and it looked absolutely beautiful!!!

Web site

I'm trying to make myself work on my wedding coordinating website. I really just need to work on the overall scheme of it. I'm thinking of doing a color scheme with gray in it, maybe purple and gray. Seems kinda current. If you know of any cute websites, please feel free to point me to them for inspiration. :)

Not much else here. It's getting much cooler here now and definitely feels like fall. I'm going to have to reorganize my closet and dressers soon so that I can actually find my warmer clothes.

I had my first treadmill run of the season this morning. It was super windy, dark, potentially rainy, and kinda chilly, so I headed to the gym. I do hate the treadmill. But it was nice to compare to my runs there months ago and realize I've definitely gotten faster. My calf was bugging me a little bit so I'm debating now whether to run in the morning or take the day off. I'm leaning towards the latter. :)

I got Martha Stewart Weddings today. I subscribed because it was free, don't go getting any ideas. I love that magazine though. It is great inspiration. I flipped through it for over an hour and still have more. Love it.

Happy Monday!

last weekend of September

Well, yesterday was pretty rainy and dreary but today was pretty gorgeous once the morning was over. It's a huge reminder that it's actually fall now!

This weekend was pretty low key. I ran yesterday morning and did pretty much nothing until we went to a party to watch the football game. I'll confess that I barely watched any of it. :) Then we got some Vietnamese food for dinner and watched the latest James Bond movie. It was pretty good.

Today I tried to sleep in a bit and then really didn't do much. Grocery shopped, laundry, walked the dogs for a long walk, went for an easy run. Todd made delicious beer can chicken on the grill - yum! it turned out even better than we imagined. I made some delicious potatoes to go with it- just cut up some potatoes from the CSA and tossed them in olive oil, salt, pepper, and fresh rosemary, put them in some foil packets and tossed them on the grill. So easy and very tasty.

Now I'm drinking a glass of wine and deciding whether or not to run to Target. :)

Happy Labor Day weekend!

Wow, I can't believe it's Labor Day weekend. (I feel like I start every post with a similar statement...) The weather is GORGEOUS here. Not too hot, sunny, light breeze. Really beautiful weather.

Partly because of that, I had a really great 20-mile run yesterday. I started early (6 am) with a small group and then joined the main group after 6 miles, so we were done by about 9:30 instead of the 10:30 ish time they would all finish at. I felt really good yesterday, despite some lingering pain I've been having on my foot/ankle area (which flared up horribly on Thursday). I even finished really strong, with a 9 minute mile up the hill to finish! Hopefully this bodes well for the marathon... I also had a great speed workout on Wednesday, feeling strong and good. We shall see...

I think Todd and I are going to bbq today. I love barbecuing and eating outside and I haven't done nearly enough of it this year. not sure exactly what we'll have yet...

Work is very busy right now. I'm super excited though that last week went so well that I don't have to work today. and tomorrow should be a light day, going in at 10 and hopefully only staying a few hours. We're less than 2 weeks from the big opening and this coming week is going to be a busy, stressful, productive one.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

September?

I cannot believe it's already September. But you know what? It actually feels like it! It's very cool in the mornings this week. Like sweatshirt and pants to walk the dogs cool.

We went to a Clippers game last night - so fun! The new park is pretty nice and even though we got standing room only "seats," it was easy to see the action and it felt like we were very close. The food and drink is crazy overpriced, but everything else was great.

I'm about to head into crazy busy at work. We're going to start opening up crates of art work today. Hopefully everything will go smoothly!

Random

Sorry I haven't been posting as much. I seem to always think of it when I'm at work, and I really don't think it's a good idea to be posting at work. :)

The weather has been weirdly cool here. It's kind of nice but sometimes it's actually too cool. It's been fabulous running weather though. And since I am getting full-swing into marathon training, that's a good thing.

The CSA has been giving us prolific vegetables (see my other blog) and we've been trying lots of new fun recipes.

Todd and I went up to Lake Erie for a brief visit last weekend. It was very short but fun to get away. My favorite part is always stopping at the winery on the way up. :) (surprise, surprise)

The dogs have actually been showing some improvement lately. We had a really great walk the other day and they've been pretty good. Now if we just get Abbey to stop barking at the cats when she even hears a peep out of them through the basement door...

Gorgeous Day!

Today was so beautiful in Columbus. Sunny all afternoon after a cloudy morning, with a nice breeze and low humidity. Yay! I went for a long run this morning and, while warm, it wasn't too bad. It was much better than last weekend.

Shannon and Matt's wedding was super fun on Friday. The weather was so cooperative and I think everything turned out great. Everyone seemed to be having a great time.

The garage sale kind of tanked. We didn't sell as much as we'd hoped and only made a bit over $200. Oh well. We've got everything else boxed up and ready to get donated somewhere. We just want to get it out of the house now.

The Bar Mitzvah last night went very well too. I was SO tired by the end though. I could barely wait to get home and go to bed. I got to just run and relax and get stuff done around the house today though, so it was lovely.

I hope everyone else had a great weekend!

i didn't know humid

omg, the run this morning SUCKED. Remember that humidity from yesterday? It sure as heck didn't go away overnight. That was 11 miles of sheer torture. Thank goodness for Susan, otherwise my a$$ would have been taking an awful lot of walk breaks. It was hot, humid, and gross. It was our first really gross run of the season, plus some of us have been spending more time unpacking that pounding the pavement. I should get back to the basement....

humidity and marathon time!

i just walked the dogs for about 20 minutes and wanted to die because it was so humid out. it's 10:00 at night!! what the heck?!

I must apologize to my three devoted readers for slacking on the blogging. I always think about posting when I'm at work, and I feel like it's probably not good form to post at work. I'll try to get a bit better.

Ironically, I've actually started a second blog. I decided to start one solely about the food and drink, called ColYUMbus. :) It will have all of my CSA reports, restaurant reviews, recipes, etc. We'll see, I may get bored of both. :) ha!

One fun thing I did today was write down all of my training runs on a calendar. I'm officially into training for the Chicago Marathon! I've not been doing a good job of tracking my runs, which I need to do in order to stay on top of the training. It's starting to feel real now! On that note, I should probably think about getting to bed pretty soon since I have a long run in the morning. Have a great weekend!

Rain rain go away

I'm happy it's spring and it's finally warming up but this rain is gross. My dogs hate going out in the rain which means I have to drag them out there in order to do their business and I'm lucky if I can keep them out there long enough to do it.

But, on a happy note, Todd and I leave for vacation on Thursday!!! Woohooo! So excited. And the weather is supposed to be gorgeous out in the bay area. Yay! Now I have to figure out what to pack. :)

Weekend

I feel like I've been slacking on my blogging. I guess I really am boring. :)

Yesterday I had a great run, despite getting what seemed like a cold (but maybe was just allergies?) on Friday. I did 13.1 miles, including our hill loop. Not too bad! Especially considering I only ran ONE day last week. My quad was bugging me so I took it easy. I think that helped with yesterday.

Last night Todd and I went out to dinner at Rosendale's for our anniversary. It was delicious. I got beets and goat cheese for an appetizer, a delicious salad and then salmon for the entree. The salmon had a tomato glaze and came on top of white asparagus and cauliflower puree and also had some little croutons of polenta. It was very good. Todd got a seared duck breast appetizer, a different salad, and scallops in cioppino sauce for the entree. His salad was really delicious. It had a bacon truffle vinaigrette that really made the frisee interesting. It was such a different taste. We had a great alvarinho to go with it, recommended by Rosendales' great sommelier Chris Dillman. His wonderful wife Lisa (with whom I used to work at Willies) waited on us. It was a great dinner! Oh, and we finished it off with a cheese plate instead of a sweet dessert.

At home, I made a little nightcap drink of Godiva liqueur with some raspberry liqueur from Clear Creek Distillery in Portland, which Todd and I picked up last summer. I'm not sure if that is already a drink, but if not, it should be! It was sooooo good. The Clear Creek liqueur is so good. It just takes like raspberries, not like sickly sweet fake raspberry alcohol.

And then this morning, Todd and I went out to brunch. So decadent! We went to Sage American Bistro, which we've heard has a good brunch. It was great and actually shockingly inexpensive. We both got the smoked salmon BLT which came with a delicious spinach salad. It had a great sweet peppery vinaigrette and had some green beans, red onion slices, grape tomatoes and croutons on it. Only $10 each! My only complaint was the home fries/hash browns/whatever they called them. They were deep fried and didn't have a lot of flavor. Not worth the $3 or the calories. We didn't order it, but you can also get a full carafe of mimosas (or bellinis or whatever) for only $15!! That's a whole bottle of champagne! What a steal.

Hmm, I think that about does it. The weather has been fabulously warm (quite a change from last year - this weekend in 2008 was the blizzard!!) so I think I'll take out my dogs for the thousandth time. :)

False eyelashes, anyone?

I feel like all I've been blogging about lately is the weather. :) It has been crazy, but still. Enough is enough. I'm still going to post this though.

I went running yesterday morning before my hip hop dance class, mostly because I wanted to get it out of the way. It warmed up quite a bit later, but if I waited, I would have still been running at 1:00. So, even though it was about 0 degrees when I left the house (and by weather.com's account, -11 windchill), I toughed it out. I only made it a little over 8 miles instead of my planned 10, because it was soooo cold, and really tough going through the snow and ice still on the trail. It was a lot like running in sand, that was how much snow there still was. Every footstep kind of slid a little bit. I am very sore today, as I'm sure I was using all sorts of different muscles.

But my main reason for posting about this is to post this picture. It really cracks me up. I had to stop running for a minute about 35 minutes in because my water had frozen, so I had to unscrew the cap to get any liquid. I knew my breath was freezing somewhere on my face, because I could see it out of the corners of my eyes. I just couldn't tell where. I had my cell phone with me for emergency purposes, so I snapped a pic. I look like a freaking lunatic!


It looks like I have little feathers on my lashes. :) I'm sure the few other crazies I saw out there got a good laugh on my behalf.

Snow Angel

Kid at heart that I am, after I finished shoveling my walk, I made a snow angel. :) I tried to take a photo of it, but it didn't turn out through the screened window. I felt endless satisfaction in doing it though. Especially after my shoveling job. It's a straight sidewalk but my path looks more like the board of chutes and ladders.

Cross Your Fingers...

Since I technically work for a university, I always dare to dream that I could some day get a snow day. Well, if my dream is ever going to come true, it's tonight. We're supposed to get up to 6 inches of snow and ice. Of course we all know the forecasts are frequently wrong, but it has been snowing for a few hours already. And the school actually sent out a notice about where to find closure information, which they almost never do. Granted, they were quick to say that nothing was cancelled yet, but still. :) Plus our HR person sent out something with information about if we close as well. I feel like a dorky little kid, but I am SO hoping for a snow day!!!! So, cross your fingers for me! :)

Why Yes, it can get colder

When I took the ladies out this morning, it was -12, wind chill of -28. YOWZA! Those poor dogs did NOT want to go out. Last night Abbey even cried for a second when we were out. They both tried to do the paw-in-the-air hopping thing. Sad but cute.

F-ing Cold

When I took the ladies out this morning before heading to the gym (that's 3 days in a row running before work, thankyouverymuch!), it was -1. Without a wind chill. That is what I call "f-ing cold." Seriously, could it get any colder? Oh wait, yes, apparently it can, because it's supposed to be even colder tonight. BRRRRRRRRRR. I dressed up like the michelin man to come into work today - ski gloves and the whole 9 yards. :) Oh, and I even had to scrape the INSIDE of my windshield after being at the gym. But the snow is gorgeous. :)

Stay warm out there!!

Snowfall

I wanted to post this last night, but I was tired and went straight to bed. It snowed while I was out last night, maybe an inch or so. But because it was a Sunday evening, there wasn't a lot of traffic, and the snow was just beautiful. It sparkled like glitter as I drove along, and if I hadn't felt it myself, I might have thought it was fake department store prop snow. It was that kind of pretty snow. And the lack of cars meant that even the streets were still white. I just love the purity of fresh, untouched, glittering snow. It always makes me feel like a kid again, and happy. And no one else was outside, so it was like my own private world. Even the sounds were muted because of the thin layer covering everything. I hate the cold because I'm always freezing but snow like that puts a smile on my face. We're due to get more of it over the next few days, so I hope it's as pretty as this was!

Winter Storm 2009?

I love how the forecasters always make a much bigger deal out of everything than it really is. And I fall for it EVERY time!!! They were forecasting this winter storm today - rain, snow, freezing rain, the works. I was so worried about it - I thought running on the trail in ice would be awful, and what if the gym even closed? So I actually went to the gym last night and ran on the dreadmill, even though running at the end of the day makes my stomach upset. I could only make it 6 miles, I felt so nauseous. So it really wasn't that bad this morning. I ended up driving to the gym and running another 6, to try to make up for the crappy run last night. It was freezing raining right when I would have been running outside, but I think it would have been preferable running in that with my friends than slogging away on the tready. Oh well, it's done, and I got 12 miles in.

On that note, our coaches tell us that if you run a distance over 24 hours, it's pretty much the same as running it at once. I don't believe it. While the end of my 6 today did feel a bit more like being at the end of 12 than at the end of 6, it was not nearly the same as running 12 nonstop. I'm no expert, but I'm unconvinced. That said, I think sometimes it's ok to do and it's definitely better than not running.

I need to try to be productive today. I kind of just want to laze around, so it's going to be rough. I think I'll start by washing some dishes and putting away some laundry, and go from there. And shower at some point. I still have 6 miles of gym sweat on me. :) I need to make a few lists and phone calls for the wedding I'm coordinating next month, and maybe cook a little or something. If the crap ever stops falling outside, I'll take the ladies out too. They hate the rain though.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!