Mike and I have both spent the last week with some sort of icky stomach bug. I'm not really up on how he's been dealing with it-- he's a plebe summer detailer, so I know he's trying to take it easy, but I also know that that's pretty much impossible because his job for the next couple weeks is literally to run around and scream at the plebes.
I have been unwilling to venture more than a few seconds trip away from a toilet for most of the past week, so running, needless to say, has not been an option. Also, since my sum total of food I've eaten in the past week= about four pieces of toast, three cups of jello, and 3 spoonfuls of applesauce I haven't had a whole lot of energy to expend on running. Most of my calorie intake is coming from gatorade and gingerale.
Well, okay, there was that half of a chicken ceaser wrap when I THOUGHT I was feeling better... but it only served to reinforce that I was in error when I THOUGHT I was feeling better. Thanks, stomach, for showing me who's boss.
I'm in Chicago now for the Schreiber Family Slugfest... it's the annual family softball game that my mom's side of the family puts together every year. I'm pretty sure I'm too weak to swing a bat, so I will not be an asset to my team. I got stuck in BWI for about six hours yesterday-- a big flight delay due to a 10 minute thunderstorm. No joke. It was not cool, and then I was stuck on an airplane for 3 hours. It could not have been a more miserable way to spend a day when your stomach is upset. It completely wiped me out, and now I'm in my favorite city and I'm stuck on my sister's couch because I'm too tired to do anything. But I have managed to get 2 pieces of toast in today without too much trouble... so maybe we're on the up and up? Guess we'll find out in a few hours.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Saturday, July 24, 2010
40 degrees of seperation
My ideal running temperature is somewhere in the upper fifties, maybe to the mid sixties. But today was 40 degrees warmer than that. At 5:00 AM. No joke. The ONLY good thing about today's run was that at least it wasn't 23 miles. Everything else about today's run straight up sucked. I knew it was going to be hot, and since a 14 mile run typically takes me about 2 and a half hours, I knew I had to start EARLY so that I could finish before it got wretchedly hot.
This plan is good, in theory, except that it was already wretchedly hot when my alarm rang at 3:45 this morning. I didn't actually hear it until 4:15, and it took me a few minutes to get mobilized-- first I ate a bagel (yummy carbs!) and then got dressed. And I don't want to get too indelicate here, but before any length run, I like to spend some time in the bathroom. I consider it a preventative measure... I don't like the idea of pooping my pants while I'm running. But sometimes even my preventative measure doesn't really help. (This is an amazingly common phenomenon among long distance runners. You get any number of us together-- whether it's 2 or 20-- and sooner than is probably appropriate, the conversation turns to how you deal with a big poo in the middle of a big run. You sort of get over the awkwardness of that after the first few times.) So I like to run with steady access to a bathroom, and the easiest way to do this is to run in a loop where I know of a good bathroom, a good water fountain, and if I'm lucky, a place to store a couple energy bars and bottles of Powerade. The UMBC campus is about a mile away from my apartment, so on most days I run there, around their 2 mile loop. I know where there's a clean bathroom and the building is usually open, and the water in that water fountain is SUPER cold. So on my short runs during the week, this is pretty ideal. But on the weekend the bathroom is usually locked. Plus, one full mile of this two mile loop is uphill. This also means that one mile of it is downhill, but somehow the downhill never seems as steep as the uphill.
So I like to run around the Yard at the Naval Academy. They have two good distance loops-- an "outer" is about 4 miles, and an "inner" is about 3. Plus there are a couple of measured one mile loops, so it's really not hard to run around any particular distance you need, and that's what I did today. I parked about a mile away, ran to the Yard, and ran three outers, and then ran back to my car. Sounds so simple, right?
Right. Except that when I arrived at 5:30, it was already like 84 degrees, and with the humidity, it felt like 90. One of the most brutal things about humidity is that it completely invalidates the function of sweat. We sweat to eliminate water when we're overheated, and when this sweat evaporates, it's supposed to have a cooling effect. I'm certain this must work in places other than the east coast... but I've rarely been able to experience it, because most of my summers have been spent in the swamplands of Virginia and Maryland. It blows my mind that when settlers first came to America, places like Williamsburg and Annapolis were among the first to be settled. There was no central air conditioning back then! I want to know what idiot disembarked from his ship, put the flag in for Britain, and said, "This is it, boys! We have arrived at our destination. Take a good look around, because we are making history. And while we're at it, lets set up permanent colonies here so that people can suffer for GENERATIONS." They must have arrived during winter. Although I will say that it does help explain how they mistook what we now know to be America as the West Indies. If it was hot and muggy outside, they were probably like, "Oh! Bullseye!"
Anyhow, I was pretty sure I was going to die on my run today. I stopped at every water fountain I could, and I actually stepped into air conditioned buildings every so often just to use them as my own personal cooling stations-- usually I would stay in just long enough for my face to go from tomato red to a normal shade of post-exertion pinkish.
The first few miles I ran were before the sun was really up-- it was lightening up outside by the time I started running, but definitely not dawn yet. But by the time I finished, the sun was beating down in full force. It was pretty terrible and I just wanted to melt into the pavement. Around mile 4 or 5, I got to run through the sprinklers, though. That was nice. I had to stop and walk a little more often than I would have liked, and with all the stopping in AC buildings, the run took way longer than I would have liked-- it took just over three hours. But I did it, and I didn't pass out, and I can nap all afternoon if I like.
It was kind of interesting to see plebe summer in action. I think this is the first time I've actually been on the yard DURING plebe summer, except last 4th of July when they weren't doing plebey things anyways. I got to see the Detailers leading PEP, and it was kind of fun to listen to them run in cadence-- I can definitely see how that sort of keeps you going... I wish someone had been doing a cadence next to me the whole time! Maybe I would have been able to keep better pace.
This plan is good, in theory, except that it was already wretchedly hot when my alarm rang at 3:45 this morning. I didn't actually hear it until 4:15, and it took me a few minutes to get mobilized-- first I ate a bagel (yummy carbs!) and then got dressed. And I don't want to get too indelicate here, but before any length run, I like to spend some time in the bathroom. I consider it a preventative measure... I don't like the idea of pooping my pants while I'm running. But sometimes even my preventative measure doesn't really help. (This is an amazingly common phenomenon among long distance runners. You get any number of us together-- whether it's 2 or 20-- and sooner than is probably appropriate, the conversation turns to how you deal with a big poo in the middle of a big run. You sort of get over the awkwardness of that after the first few times.) So I like to run with steady access to a bathroom, and the easiest way to do this is to run in a loop where I know of a good bathroom, a good water fountain, and if I'm lucky, a place to store a couple energy bars and bottles of Powerade. The UMBC campus is about a mile away from my apartment, so on most days I run there, around their 2 mile loop. I know where there's a clean bathroom and the building is usually open, and the water in that water fountain is SUPER cold. So on my short runs during the week, this is pretty ideal. But on the weekend the bathroom is usually locked. Plus, one full mile of this two mile loop is uphill. This also means that one mile of it is downhill, but somehow the downhill never seems as steep as the uphill.
So I like to run around the Yard at the Naval Academy. They have two good distance loops-- an "outer" is about 4 miles, and an "inner" is about 3. Plus there are a couple of measured one mile loops, so it's really not hard to run around any particular distance you need, and that's what I did today. I parked about a mile away, ran to the Yard, and ran three outers, and then ran back to my car. Sounds so simple, right?
Right. Except that when I arrived at 5:30, it was already like 84 degrees, and with the humidity, it felt like 90. One of the most brutal things about humidity is that it completely invalidates the function of sweat. We sweat to eliminate water when we're overheated, and when this sweat evaporates, it's supposed to have a cooling effect. I'm certain this must work in places other than the east coast... but I've rarely been able to experience it, because most of my summers have been spent in the swamplands of Virginia and Maryland. It blows my mind that when settlers first came to America, places like Williamsburg and Annapolis were among the first to be settled. There was no central air conditioning back then! I want to know what idiot disembarked from his ship, put the flag in for Britain, and said, "This is it, boys! We have arrived at our destination. Take a good look around, because we are making history. And while we're at it, lets set up permanent colonies here so that people can suffer for GENERATIONS." They must have arrived during winter. Although I will say that it does help explain how they mistook what we now know to be America as the West Indies. If it was hot and muggy outside, they were probably like, "Oh! Bullseye!"
Anyhow, I was pretty sure I was going to die on my run today. I stopped at every water fountain I could, and I actually stepped into air conditioned buildings every so often just to use them as my own personal cooling stations-- usually I would stay in just long enough for my face to go from tomato red to a normal shade of post-exertion pinkish.
The first few miles I ran were before the sun was really up-- it was lightening up outside by the time I started running, but definitely not dawn yet. But by the time I finished, the sun was beating down in full force. It was pretty terrible and I just wanted to melt into the pavement. Around mile 4 or 5, I got to run through the sprinklers, though. That was nice. I had to stop and walk a little more often than I would have liked, and with all the stopping in AC buildings, the run took way longer than I would have liked-- it took just over three hours. But I did it, and I didn't pass out, and I can nap all afternoon if I like.
It was kind of interesting to see plebe summer in action. I think this is the first time I've actually been on the yard DURING plebe summer, except last 4th of July when they weren't doing plebey things anyways. I got to see the Detailers leading PEP, and it was kind of fun to listen to them run in cadence-- I can definitely see how that sort of keeps you going... I wish someone had been doing a cadence next to me the whole time! Maybe I would have been able to keep better pace.
Monday, July 12, 2010
As promised...
...an update about all my goings-on last week!
On Saturday, I met my mom in Richmond on my way down to Williamsburg, and got fitted for my wedding dress, and then registered for wedding gifts. I'm pretty sure Mom had a lot more fun with that than I did, but I was SO glad to have her there, because I sure don't know what sort of stuff you need when you're married!
Sunday was the 4th, so we had wings and peach cobbler for dinner, and then Mom, Mike and I went to Colonial Williamsburg to watch the fireworks!
Then the rest of the days sort of run together in my mind (you know how it is when you're on vacation!) but we got a LOT of stuff done for the wedding-- selected a bridesmaid dress, which cemented my color choice, figured out favors, got an idea of what the save-the-dates and invitations should look like, figured out the flowers (although now we need to find another florist... our first choice needs to be at her grandson's graduation that day, which was a little bit of a blow!) and we got a lot of the little details hammered out! It was a whirlwind of busy-ness. But my biggest project for the week was my handmade checkerboards! We're operating on the idea that the wedding will have a "southern" theme-- colored parasols for the bridesmaid photos, mint juleps as the signature drink, cocktails on the sprawling veranda, a really awesome band for entertainment and dancing, etc. (No hoop skirts.) But the venue won't let us hammer croquet wickets into their lawn... which blows my mind because they WILL let us place 150 chairs there... I feel like the wickets will do way less damage than the chair legs, but that's not really my call. So I decided to place checkerboards on the tables on the porch for people to play during the cocktail hour. My friend Melinda suggested that if I spend some time making the checkerboards, they'll probably turn out WAY cuter than the cheapo ones at Wal-Mart (she was right) and way less expensive than the really fancy ones online. (And she was right again. That law degree is really working for her!) So I got the guys at Home Depot to cut up some plywood for me, and I bought some acrylic paint and paint tape, and painstakingly measured 8 by 8 squares and taped them off for painting. I couldn't have been happier with the result, and I am SO excited about the checkerboards. I'm not a crafty person at all... so this was a pretty big deal for me.
I ordered checkers online from a small wood products manufacturer in Maine, and they're really cute! I'm going to be spray painting them later this week, and I can't wait to have that step done too and see the whole thing together!
I got to hang out with the aforementioned Melinda, who is spending the summer at home studying for the bar. It sounds like the suckiest way ever to spend a summer, but I've never seen anyone so motivated to get finished with something!
I also got to have a nice dinner with some friends from high school! Tiffany and Jacob have been dating since right around the time Mike and I got together. They both went to Elon and are still going strong. They're back in Williamsburg, and they're actually waiting to hear if Jacob will get selected to enter the Navy, so we had plenty to talk about.
Anyways, today I went back to work. It was fine, but busy because I was playing catch-up from being out all week. But still... what a bummer to have a nice week off and then be thrown right back into the swing of things! They should make a rule that on your first day back from vacation, you should get to just stay in vacation mode and not have to go to any meetings and just kind of check a few emails while you get back into the swing of things. But instead, I spent 10 and a half hours chained to my desk trying to get everything done that needed to get done. Oh well... at least it will all still be there tomorrow, too!
On Saturday, I met my mom in Richmond on my way down to Williamsburg, and got fitted for my wedding dress, and then registered for wedding gifts. I'm pretty sure Mom had a lot more fun with that than I did, but I was SO glad to have her there, because I sure don't know what sort of stuff you need when you're married!
Sunday was the 4th, so we had wings and peach cobbler for dinner, and then Mom, Mike and I went to Colonial Williamsburg to watch the fireworks!
Then the rest of the days sort of run together in my mind (you know how it is when you're on vacation!) but we got a LOT of stuff done for the wedding-- selected a bridesmaid dress, which cemented my color choice, figured out favors, got an idea of what the save-the-dates and invitations should look like, figured out the flowers (although now we need to find another florist... our first choice needs to be at her grandson's graduation that day, which was a little bit of a blow!) and we got a lot of the little details hammered out! It was a whirlwind of busy-ness. But my biggest project for the week was my handmade checkerboards! We're operating on the idea that the wedding will have a "southern" theme-- colored parasols for the bridesmaid photos, mint juleps as the signature drink, cocktails on the sprawling veranda, a really awesome band for entertainment and dancing, etc. (No hoop skirts.) But the venue won't let us hammer croquet wickets into their lawn... which blows my mind because they WILL let us place 150 chairs there... I feel like the wickets will do way less damage than the chair legs, but that's not really my call. So I decided to place checkerboards on the tables on the porch for people to play during the cocktail hour. My friend Melinda suggested that if I spend some time making the checkerboards, they'll probably turn out WAY cuter than the cheapo ones at Wal-Mart (she was right) and way less expensive than the really fancy ones online. (And she was right again. That law degree is really working for her!) So I got the guys at Home Depot to cut up some plywood for me, and I bought some acrylic paint and paint tape, and painstakingly measured 8 by 8 squares and taped them off for painting. I couldn't have been happier with the result, and I am SO excited about the checkerboards. I'm not a crafty person at all... so this was a pretty big deal for me.
I ordered checkers online from a small wood products manufacturer in Maine, and they're really cute! I'm going to be spray painting them later this week, and I can't wait to have that step done too and see the whole thing together!
I got to hang out with the aforementioned Melinda, who is spending the summer at home studying for the bar. It sounds like the suckiest way ever to spend a summer, but I've never seen anyone so motivated to get finished with something!
I also got to have a nice dinner with some friends from high school! Tiffany and Jacob have been dating since right around the time Mike and I got together. They both went to Elon and are still going strong. They're back in Williamsburg, and they're actually waiting to hear if Jacob will get selected to enter the Navy, so we had plenty to talk about.
Anyways, today I went back to work. It was fine, but busy because I was playing catch-up from being out all week. But still... what a bummer to have a nice week off and then be thrown right back into the swing of things! They should make a rule that on your first day back from vacation, you should get to just stay in vacation mode and not have to go to any meetings and just kind of check a few emails while you get back into the swing of things. But instead, I spent 10 and a half hours chained to my desk trying to get everything done that needed to get done. Oh well... at least it will all still be there tomorrow, too!
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Long run #2
I woke up at 5 this morning, relieved to hear that it was pouring outside. I figured I'd catch a few more Z's to let the rain die down-- I figured it would be great-- the rain would cool things off AND I'd get 30 minutes of snoozing in. FALSE. It was about 1,000 degrees outside, and all the rain really did was just make everything REALLY humid, like running 12 miles through a tropical jungle. But I survived, and now I'm tired and sore and just resting for the rest of the day and doing nothing at all.
Mike said he only made it about 10 miles (wimp) and he got caught in a downpour. I would have really really loved a downpour! I was just as drenched with sweat and humidity, but without the benefit of a refreshing rain... How nasty.
Also, there was a really ginormous bug in the kitchen today. No joke, it must have been an inch and a half or two inches long. It was a big ugly beetle and the cat was batting it around. My dad kept asking me what I was going to do when Mike is thousands of miles away on a boat and there's a bug in the house. Duh, that's why I'd get a cat. Or one of those bug vacuums. Although to be fair, this bug would definitely have been too big for one of those vacuums, and it was so big that the cat couldn't do anything with it but bat it around-- it was too big for him to kill. Plus, its exoskeleton gave it an unfair advantage. So I guess that's when I'll call the Orkin man... Ain't no way I'm dealing with that monster on my own!
I'm pretty sure the fucker looked like this:
http://bugguide.net/node/view/30114
Gross, right? Only, it was the size of the cat's face. Poor Buster, he never stood a chance. But good job to him for finding the nasty thing. I'm alone in my parents house until I head back to Baltimore tomorrow, so I'm a little paranoid that it had friends. I'm keeping my feet off the ground as much as possible.
More on our week's activities later on! Now it's time for a nap!
Mike said he only made it about 10 miles (wimp) and he got caught in a downpour. I would have really really loved a downpour! I was just as drenched with sweat and humidity, but without the benefit of a refreshing rain... How nasty.
Also, there was a really ginormous bug in the kitchen today. No joke, it must have been an inch and a half or two inches long. It was a big ugly beetle and the cat was batting it around. My dad kept asking me what I was going to do when Mike is thousands of miles away on a boat and there's a bug in the house. Duh, that's why I'd get a cat. Or one of those bug vacuums. Although to be fair, this bug would definitely have been too big for one of those vacuums, and it was so big that the cat couldn't do anything with it but bat it around-- it was too big for him to kill. Plus, its exoskeleton gave it an unfair advantage. So I guess that's when I'll call the Orkin man... Ain't no way I'm dealing with that monster on my own!
I'm pretty sure the fucker looked like this:
http://bugguide.net/node/view/30114
Gross, right? Only, it was the size of the cat's face. Poor Buster, he never stood a chance. But good job to him for finding the nasty thing. I'm alone in my parents house until I head back to Baltimore tomorrow, so I'm a little paranoid that it had friends. I'm keeping my feet off the ground as much as possible.
More on our week's activities later on! Now it's time for a nap!
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Ahhh, home!
Well, yesterday's run was a total breeze! Especially when we compare it to last year's Day 1. Part of the reason was probably the weather-- yesterday was cool and gorgeous, which just makes it about 1,000 times easier to keep running. But we're also in better shape. There was only one little snafu-- the bathroom on the route was locked up. (Sometimes when you're running, you GOTTA go. I'm sure you understand what I'm talking about.) Fortunately, no major issues other than that-- no one had to resort to using the woods, no one tripped and fell, and our biggest obstacle was a really big stretch of sidewalk that the resident geese have clearly been using as a toilet. (Probably because the bathroom is locked.)
So here's how our training program works:
It's eighteen weeks long, and we have one "long" run each week. That's our Saturday run. I like Saturday because then you have the whole weekend to recover if it was particularly brutal. Also, when you do it on Sunday, you just spend all day Saturday dreading it, and it sort of ruins your weekend.
Then we have three shorter runs-- most weeks they are six, eight and six miles, respectively.
We have two rest days, and ours are Thursday and Sunday, making Sunday the one morning I week that I don't set an alarm.
And then the day before the long run, we do a shorter run-- usually about 4 miles, done easily and slowly to get your muscles limbered up. This is also the run that is the most likely to get skipped.
The long runs get progressively longer each week, but about every 3rd week is a "step-down" week, to keep your body in shape but also give it a break. The short runs are also going to be shorter these weeks.
So this is our schedule for this week:
Saturday: 10 miles (done!)
Sunday: rest
Monday: 6 miles
Tuesday: 8 miles
Wednesday: 6 miles
Thursday: rest
Friday: 4 miles
And then next Saturday is a 12 mile run, and other than that the schedule is identical. The following Saturday will be a six mile run, and that week will also be accordingly shorter because that's our first step-down week.
Enough business talk. Yesterday after the run, we packed up our cars and headed down to Virginia. Mike stopped in Quantico for a graduation party-- his roommate at USNA did an exchange program at Air Force last semester, so in return, Mike's room had an Air Force cadet living with them. Jason was a really awesome guy, and something cool about him is that, rather than going into the Air Force, he REALLY wants to cross-commission into the Marine Corps. This is possible to do, but apparently very difficult. So he went to Officer Candidate School in Quantico this summer, graduated yesterday, and Mike stopped in to congratulate him. I continued to head on down to Richmond, where I have placed a deposit an all-too-expensive bridal gown. I got sized for it and chose the color yesterday, and the official order will be placed on Tuesday! But I got to try it on again and I still LOVE it! Even mom liked it this time. (Haha last time she wasn't convinced that it was the dress for me.)
I think that since our wedding is still 11 months away, and since we made all of the biggest decisions regarding it when it was still between 18 and 16 months away, she keeps thinking that we're going to change our minds about all of this stuff that we've already put down hefty deposits for, but that's not how I roll... once a decision has been made, it's pretty rare that I waver. UNTIL that decision is made, I am a horrible, flaky, wavery person. So far I haven't come to regret a single decision, and ESPECIALLY not the dress. Although I do wish I could have gotten a better price on it. But as my friend Heather says, "It's a wedding dress. It's SUPPOSED to be too expensive." And I guess there is some truth to that-- you're in this thing for about seven hours. Even if you get lucky and buy, say, an $600 dollar dress... plus another few hundred dollars worth of alterations... you're spending more than $100 an hour for your dress. That's ridiculous, because I won't even buy a $100 dress that I know I would wear all the time. But I've spent WAY more than $100 an hour to wear a wedding gown. The wedding industry is a pretty stupid money-sucking machine. But so far, this is my one indulgence because everything else I'm paying for isn't really for me-- it's for bridesmaids, or the guests, or whatever. (Not to mention that all of those purchases have come in within my budget!) And since the wedding dress is the thing that I looked forward to most, even when I was a little girl (okay, maybe also the cake! When I was five my birthday cake was a shocking-pink 3 layer wedding cake... no joke!) I figured, whatever... buy the one you love even if it's more than you originally planned on spending.
But still! Ridiculous, and I got suckered, just like all those stupid women shopping at Kleinfeld's on Say Yes to the Dress. I hate that show just because of brides like me who bother to even try dresses on when they're outside the budget, and then fall in love with them.
After the dress fitting, Mom and I went to Crate and Barrel, Macy's, and Bed, Bath & Beyond to register for gifts. Mom has been BEGGING me to let her come with me to do this, ever since I got engaged. Since I have no idea how many plates married people need, or how many forks are suitable, I was more than happy to indulge her. I would have had no idea what I was doing if she hadn't been there to help, and I probably would have registered for hammock, which I don't need, and forgotten to get pots and pans, which I DO need... But the BB&B people were AWESOME! They sent a person around the store with me-- which meant that I didn't get to use the stun-gun myself there, but she also made a lot of good recommendations and was very very helpful and wonderful and awesome. So thanks to Lisa from the BB&B in Richmond! You were a huge help, even though I know you'll never in a million years see this blog!
Anyways, after registering, I drove the rest of the way home to Williamsburg, where a delicious dinner was waiting for me. I love it here, with the badly behaved cats and fully stocked fridge. :)
Okay, I'm going to go and enjoy the fourth today, and I hope you all do the same!
So here's how our training program works:
It's eighteen weeks long, and we have one "long" run each week. That's our Saturday run. I like Saturday because then you have the whole weekend to recover if it was particularly brutal. Also, when you do it on Sunday, you just spend all day Saturday dreading it, and it sort of ruins your weekend.
Then we have three shorter runs-- most weeks they are six, eight and six miles, respectively.
We have two rest days, and ours are Thursday and Sunday, making Sunday the one morning I week that I don't set an alarm.
And then the day before the long run, we do a shorter run-- usually about 4 miles, done easily and slowly to get your muscles limbered up. This is also the run that is the most likely to get skipped.
The long runs get progressively longer each week, but about every 3rd week is a "step-down" week, to keep your body in shape but also give it a break. The short runs are also going to be shorter these weeks.
So this is our schedule for this week:
Saturday: 10 miles (done!)
Sunday: rest
Monday: 6 miles
Tuesday: 8 miles
Wednesday: 6 miles
Thursday: rest
Friday: 4 miles
And then next Saturday is a 12 mile run, and other than that the schedule is identical. The following Saturday will be a six mile run, and that week will also be accordingly shorter because that's our first step-down week.
Enough business talk. Yesterday after the run, we packed up our cars and headed down to Virginia. Mike stopped in Quantico for a graduation party-- his roommate at USNA did an exchange program at Air Force last semester, so in return, Mike's room had an Air Force cadet living with them. Jason was a really awesome guy, and something cool about him is that, rather than going into the Air Force, he REALLY wants to cross-commission into the Marine Corps. This is possible to do, but apparently very difficult. So he went to Officer Candidate School in Quantico this summer, graduated yesterday, and Mike stopped in to congratulate him. I continued to head on down to Richmond, where I have placed a deposit an all-too-expensive bridal gown. I got sized for it and chose the color yesterday, and the official order will be placed on Tuesday! But I got to try it on again and I still LOVE it! Even mom liked it this time. (Haha last time she wasn't convinced that it was the dress for me.)
I think that since our wedding is still 11 months away, and since we made all of the biggest decisions regarding it when it was still between 18 and 16 months away, she keeps thinking that we're going to change our minds about all of this stuff that we've already put down hefty deposits for, but that's not how I roll... once a decision has been made, it's pretty rare that I waver. UNTIL that decision is made, I am a horrible, flaky, wavery person. So far I haven't come to regret a single decision, and ESPECIALLY not the dress. Although I do wish I could have gotten a better price on it. But as my friend Heather says, "It's a wedding dress. It's SUPPOSED to be too expensive." And I guess there is some truth to that-- you're in this thing for about seven hours. Even if you get lucky and buy, say, an $600 dollar dress... plus another few hundred dollars worth of alterations... you're spending more than $100 an hour for your dress. That's ridiculous, because I won't even buy a $100 dress that I know I would wear all the time. But I've spent WAY more than $100 an hour to wear a wedding gown. The wedding industry is a pretty stupid money-sucking machine. But so far, this is my one indulgence because everything else I'm paying for isn't really for me-- it's for bridesmaids, or the guests, or whatever. (Not to mention that all of those purchases have come in within my budget!) And since the wedding dress is the thing that I looked forward to most, even when I was a little girl (okay, maybe also the cake! When I was five my birthday cake was a shocking-pink 3 layer wedding cake... no joke!) I figured, whatever... buy the one you love even if it's more than you originally planned on spending.
But still! Ridiculous, and I got suckered, just like all those stupid women shopping at Kleinfeld's on Say Yes to the Dress. I hate that show just because of brides like me who bother to even try dresses on when they're outside the budget, and then fall in love with them.
After the dress fitting, Mom and I went to Crate and Barrel, Macy's, and Bed, Bath & Beyond to register for gifts. Mom has been BEGGING me to let her come with me to do this, ever since I got engaged. Since I have no idea how many plates married people need, or how many forks are suitable, I was more than happy to indulge her. I would have had no idea what I was doing if she hadn't been there to help, and I probably would have registered for hammock, which I don't need, and forgotten to get pots and pans, which I DO need... But the BB&B people were AWESOME! They sent a person around the store with me-- which meant that I didn't get to use the stun-gun myself there, but she also made a lot of good recommendations and was very very helpful and wonderful and awesome. So thanks to Lisa from the BB&B in Richmond! You were a huge help, even though I know you'll never in a million years see this blog!
Anyways, after registering, I drove the rest of the way home to Williamsburg, where a delicious dinner was waiting for me. I love it here, with the badly behaved cats and fully stocked fridge. :)
Okay, I'm going to go and enjoy the fourth today, and I hope you all do the same!
Saturday, July 3, 2010
And so it begins...
Marathon training officially begins today! And what am I doing instead of running? ...Blogging. Brilliant.
Mike is super pissed that I got him up this early, but we have to be on the road to Williamsburg by ten, so we gotta start running early in the AM to beat the heat and get ready for our trip. I'm officially on vacation for the rest of the week-- my boss actually had to sit me down and have a talk with me about how I shouldn't check email while I'm away, blah blah. I get it, I shouldn't work on vacation. But I'll seriously get about 80 emails a day while I'm out, so I'd honestly much rather sort through them once a day than sort through hundreds of them when I return! But other than that, I am a FREE woman! Huzzah! I'm spending the week at home at my parent's house, doing a lot of wedding planning stuff. My mom has been telling me since Mike and I got engaged how important this week is, so when I asked her a few days ago what sort of things she had in mind, she mentioned that she'd "really like to go blueberry picking." Alright, Mom, but I thought we had SO much to do for the wedding! (In the interest of full disclosure, I have honestly no idea how to plan a wedding or what it is that we are supposed to do. Fortunately she sent me a very detailed email yesterday about hunting for invitations, make-up artist, etc.)
Okay, we're off to run. I sort of ran out of body glide, so hopefully the blisters don't come out in full force-- I already got a weensy one yesterday. I'm long overdue for new running shoes, so that's another project for this week. We will keep you posted on the success of our run today!
Mike is super pissed that I got him up this early, but we have to be on the road to Williamsburg by ten, so we gotta start running early in the AM to beat the heat and get ready for our trip. I'm officially on vacation for the rest of the week-- my boss actually had to sit me down and have a talk with me about how I shouldn't check email while I'm away, blah blah. I get it, I shouldn't work on vacation. But I'll seriously get about 80 emails a day while I'm out, so I'd honestly much rather sort through them once a day than sort through hundreds of them when I return! But other than that, I am a FREE woman! Huzzah! I'm spending the week at home at my parent's house, doing a lot of wedding planning stuff. My mom has been telling me since Mike and I got engaged how important this week is, so when I asked her a few days ago what sort of things she had in mind, she mentioned that she'd "really like to go blueberry picking." Alright, Mom, but I thought we had SO much to do for the wedding! (In the interest of full disclosure, I have honestly no idea how to plan a wedding or what it is that we are supposed to do. Fortunately she sent me a very detailed email yesterday about hunting for invitations, make-up artist, etc.)
Okay, we're off to run. I sort of ran out of body glide, so hopefully the blisters don't come out in full force-- I already got a weensy one yesterday. I'm long overdue for new running shoes, so that's another project for this week. We will keep you posted on the success of our run today!
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