Well hello DC!!!

I've wanted to live and work in Washington DC since I was 8 years old. Unfortunately, I neither live there nor work there. I'm getting closer, but I just don't see myself being able to afford DC's cost of living any time soon.

So, when I head down to DC, I act like a total tourist.

I mean, stop-in-the-middle-of-the-road and take a picture tourist.


Yeah, I'm a dork like that. DEAL with IT!!!

It's alright, I get my best friend in the touristy action. She took a picture post-race with the Washington Monument.


Hopefully, the hubs and I will make a few more trips down to DC in the next few months. I can't believe I ran the Cherry Blossom 10 miler and only saw TWO blooming cherry trees!!! That makes me the anti-tourist because I didn't get a single picture of the trees. Crazy talk!

On a plus note, I finished the race way faster than I hoped/intended. I had barely been running and somehow managed to average sub 9 minute miles. Not crazy fast, but a heck of a lot faster than I thought I would run for 10 miles. Now, I need to do the same for a half-marathon and I'll be happy.

Craziness (Part Deux!)

I swear to goodness I haven't been hit by a bus.

Or, a train (which is more likely given my daily commute).

I've just been living my life. The somewhat carefree life of a 27 year old. Oh who am I kidding, I'm stressed out like crazy, but haven't fun while doing it.

In a nutshell my daily routine goes something like this:

5:40am wake up, shower, eat breakfast, get ready for work

6:30am leave for work

7:13am smooch hubs goodbye when he drops me off at the train station

7:48am get off train and walk to work

8:00am to 4:40pm the daily gig at work. The thing I love and happens to pay me so I can buy shiny stuff*

4:58pm catch the train home

5:31pm smooch the hubs and frantically listen to the traffic report

6:05-6:45pm get home sometime in this time frame. I'll stay it again, "I HATE rush hour traffic!!!"

So from 6:45pm to 10:30pm I get to cook dinner, walk a pooch, possibly go for a run, sit down and watch some tv, call friends, and try to do as many errands as possible because the last thing I want to do on a Saturday afternoon is clean the bathroom!!!

Oh wait, Monday nights I play in a softball league, so those nights are different. Crap, Thursdays I play in a kickball league, which means I'm anti-routine on Thursdays as well.

I love my job, but it does irk me that the mere thought of hitting the snooze button in the morning paralyzes me with such a fear that I'm worried the entire axis of my day would be so far shifted I wouldn't be able to function anywhere near normal. Craziness indeed!

Add into all this the fun times that I'm running again and the hubs and I are seriously starting to look at homes because our lease is up in a few months and that doesn't leave much time for free time.

Honestly, what I'm saying is that when I come home from work the last thing I want to do is plop down in front of my computer. Thus, my blogging lifestyle has taken quite the hit. It sucks because I've been doing fun stuff: baking new recipes, sewing new things, visiting interesting places, and drinking quite a bit of wine :)

But, here is my pledge to start blogging at LEAST twice a week. Although, I'm out of town for work for two of the next three weeks, but whatever. I can do it!

Don't abandon me, I promise I'll get back on track. I've got some cool things to share in the next few weeks, so keep checking back for updates.



*Shiny things is what my boss calls fun, but not always tiny, indulges. It's funny because every Monday she'll go, "get anything shiny this weekend?" Sometimes it's a cool electronic (hello iMac!) and sometimes it's new clothes (guilty as charged).

I know what I'm dressing up as for Halloween!

A tired runner!!!

I took a major leap of faith today and signed up for my first marathon! EEEECK!!!

So, on October 31st I'll be trudging around Washington, D.C. in the Marine Corps Marathon. Parental units- you have 206 days of notice to plan a trip to D.C. You know the hubs isn't going to remember to take pictures, so you're going to have to witness this one for yourselves.

Registration started this afternoon at 12pm Eastern Time and at 1pm over 8,500 people had already signed up. At 2pm there were over 13,000 registrants. So I quickly signed up before the race sold out. I kept telling myself that I had to run a half-marathon in under 2 hours in order to run a full marathon, but I won't be running another half until the end of May and there's no way I'd get into MCM if I waited until then.

I bit the proverbial bullet and signed up. Eeeck! I really need to start running and running more often. I'm running the DC Cherry Blossom 10-miler this weekend and I'm already nervous about that race. Due to the insane amount of snow Balitmore received and my crazy work schedule in February, I just started running again in March. I don't recommend getting in somewhat shape to run 10 miles in just a few short weeks. This weekend's race is going to be slow, but I just don't want to get hurt. Plus I'm going to try to enjoy the view of all the pretty cherry blossoms (if tomorrow night's thunderstorms don't completely ruin them). I'm going to focus on speed for my other summer races.

Three things I know I'll be doing this spring and summer:
1. Joining a gym- I don't want to and I loathe the gym, but I'm going to need to do a lot of weight lifting and cross training to pull this off.

2. Buying a bicycle- This is two-fold: I can cross train outside and the hubs can accompany me on long runs. I think it's a good idea to have someone with me because I do have asthma and I'm prone to tripping over random curbs.

3. Joining a running group- you know the expression, "it takes a village to raise a child." Well, it's going to take a lot of people to get my butt to run 26.2 miles!


Runners- any and all recommendations and pieces of advice would be greatly appreciated. Seriously, I'll listen to just about anything besides running barefoot because I'm that person who would step on a piece of glass two seconds down the street.

Spring has sprung!

Of course it's 90 degrees in Baltimore today, so it's a bit redundant to say that "Spring has sprung."

I'm fearful that we jumped straight from winter weather to summer weather and I want to stop and smell all the pretty spring flowers.

Over the weekend the hubs and I stopped by the Baltimore Conservatory and followed the yellow brick road through their Wizard of Oz display. It was pretty cool and an excellent way to stop and smell the tulips :)

"You're taking your wife where?!?!?!"

Was what met my hubs at work last Friday. See, my hubs, brother, and brother-in-law were discussing at work their game plan for our paintball adventure planned for the following day (yes, all three guys work together). Of course, one of my husband's co-workers were a bit surprised that I was going paintballing.

Turns out the whole thing was my idea!!!

See, a saw something on Groupon and just had to do it! Join for free if you want. You never know what you'll find.




Ouch!!!


Next Year's Christmas card perhaps?





You can't see me!


I'm out!!!
My three Amigos!








It turns out that running around like a crazy person and shooting people with small paintballs is actually a lot of fun. We're definitely going back again. :)