Saturday, July 23, 2011

Happy Birthday to me and more ...

Happy birthday to me (a couple days late) ... wait, that means I'm 25 now. WHAT?! How the heck did that happen and how do I make it stop? I don't know if I like this growing-up thing! I LIKE being a Toys-R-Us kid. lol. I actually woke up with that jingle stuck in my head on my birthday. I had a nice little giggle before rolling over and re-setting my alarm for an hour later.

I was in a strange mood Wednesday. I wasn't exactly HAPPY, but I could call it almost-content (except for my paper stress, of course). It was one of those days where I was always waiting for the next "thing", but when it came, I just shook it off and smiled. I took off from campus right after lunch (I seriously don't know how I used to sit locked up in my tiny office all day) and went over to Farnsworth Metropark for my run, silently cursing myself the entire drive for not running that morning when it was a BIT cooler. Holy frijoles, Batman, was it hot ... and I made the mistake of not realizing how much of that trail is exposed. Yes, a large chunk of it is well-shaded (Jessie likey), but there were a couple large areas that didn't have a drop of shade and those KILLED my average pace. Anyway ... I knew it was about 3 miles from the Roche de Bout shelterhouse to the river overlook at Bend View. Silly me, I decided I was going to push myself (IN THAT HEAT?!) and go all the way down and back, all 6 miles of it. My average paced sucked a big one, but I did it. At least I had some eye candy on the first 2 miles of my run back to Roche de Bout. :) I challenged myself on the way back by re-setting my Garmin and saying I was going to beat my time from my run/walk out to Bend View. Maybe someday I'll be able to run all the way down to Providence and back, but it isn't going to be any time soon, and I'll just enjoy where I am for now. Oh, and I'm REALLY appreciating that metroparks has drinking fountains and bathrooms installed as often as they do along that towpath. lol. My water bottle was DRY by the time I got to Bend View.

After my run (and sitting in the air-conditioned car and guzzling water and gatorade until I cooled off a bit), had to book it home to shower and eat something. My friend Sarah was having a Pure Romance party last night (look it up if you don't already know). It was an entertaining evening. lol

After the "shenanigans" (and if ANYONE mentions the rest of the quote associated with that word, I'l pistol-whip them myself. lol), I stopped at the store to pick up some of my favorites ... Barefoot Moscato, Lonz Pink Catawba Wine (they don't have Heineman's and Anderson's was already closed, damnit ... at least they still use Bass Islands grapes :) ), a TINY carrot cake, dark chocolate with raspberry filling ... and my Brite Crawlers! I, of course, cracked open the moscato right away and took it straight up to my room with my carrot cake and enjoyed curling up in bed watching Pride & Prejudice. That, along with talking to Kyle online, made it a pretty good evening. As usual, Kyle was the first one to wish me happy birthday ON my birthday. It's a strange friendship we have, but I'm ok with that. I'm glad we've been able to stay friends. There are times when we're the only ones who understand each other's twisted-ness. lol.

My actual birthday was pretty quiet. I woke up early and went into campus. I worked until around 2pm and didn't see ANYONE. Around 2, I decided I'd had enough for the day and stopped to pick up Chipotle for lunch and took it out to Providence Dam to eat. I ended up spending a couple hours out there, just wandering, watching the individual waves roll over the dam, and reading bits and pieces of my book. I'm reading Emma now since I never finished it the first time I picked it up. I was surprised how many people were coming and going at the dam since it was so hot out. We were supposed to break a record, but I never heard if we actually did or not. I finally got tired of the crowd of people and wandered down-river to Farnsworth and the Roche de Bout shelter house again. I hung out there until it was time to head to the mall for my movie, mostly stomping around out in the river. You would think being out in the river on a super-hot day would be refreshing but that sure wasn't the case. The river was like bathwater all through the rapids.

I took myself to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. Since I missed the showing that I had originally planned on, I saw it in "Real 3D". It was worth the couple extra dollars. It was too early to head home after the movie so I just wandered around the mall, enjoying the evening, texting and laughing with N. I'm a sucker for feeding ducks and fish, so I spent a little while over at the steps. There was a little girl I found hilarious. She was trying to get the ducks to eat out of her hand and would get furious when the fish got to a scrap of bread before the ducks did.

Since my brother gave me his Borders gift card as a part of my birthday present, that was the first place I went to yesterday (Friday) morning. Man, that place was a zoo. For all their crap about going out of business and needing to sell everything, the deals really weren't all that great. I ended up buying myself another book about running I've been hearing about I Run, Therefore I Am - Nuts. I'll add it to my pile. lol. I also picked up a new romance book, which of course I ended up starting the second I got home (that's 3 books in progress now ... yikes), and some more molskine notebooks. I seriously love those things. They are seriously the most perfect little notebooks.

I have 4.95 more miles until my goal distance for my birthday week. And it is looking like I may be doing it on the treadmill. The heat and the sudden, crazy thunderstorms are enough of an incentive to risk some shin soreness tomorrow. The storm this morning woke me up several times this morning, not an easy task when I was up so late battling my sinus attack (ugh).

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