My Personal Rantings

May 8, 2008 - 5K for Work Charity

2008-05-08T19:03:00.003-06:00

I know, I know, I haven't been so good keeping up my running blog. I had several races last month that I didn't write about. The most notable was a week and a half ago, I completed the Cherry Creek Sneak with my running buddy, Stef. We did the 5-miler, and somehow I hurt my left Achilles tendon. I really didn't want to stop running to let it heal, but my body knew better. About that time, I also came down with a bad sore throat and couldn't work out. I swam (badly) a couple times this week, but today was my first run since the Cherry Creek Sneak.

Since it was my first run in a while, I wasn't expecting much - just hopefully under 30 minutes (BTW - my personal record for a 5K is 28:42, set at the Boulder Earth Day 5K). I chatted with my friend Mike, who was hoping for 25 minutes, only since he hadn't run in a year. WTF??? I don't run for 2 weeks and just hope for 30, how can guys just run fast without any training? :-P

Anyway....we get to the starting line about 10 minutes early. There is probably only half of the people there as last year (my team was the biggest team AGAIN this year!) and dark storm clouds were creeping over the foothills. I'm wearing a tank top and running skort, along with electronics strapped to all over my body - heart rate monitor, Garmin, iPod.... They start a long list of announcements while everyone is getting antsy to start and hopefully beat the storm. Finally we start - and go immediately down a steep hill. It's short, though, and the first 1.5 miles is mostly uphill, although gradually. I race along at my normal pace, trying to keep it under 9:30 min/mile. I ended up walking at the top of the last hill, after my heart rate monitor started complaining that my heart was going to explode.

About half way through, it started thundering. A mile later, I started seeing lightning strikes ahead of me. Obviously I wasn't the fastest person in the race, but there were still plenty of people behind me, and I was beginning to wonder about the conductivity of those poor people and their wet clothes. Yes, by this time it was sprinkling, and it was cold! I made it to the finish line in 28:44, two seconds slower than my PR! At first I was a little bummed about that, but remember - I haven't been running in almost two weeks! Plus, this was a much hillier course than I've ever run.

At the finish line, it was raining pretty good, so I ran back up to the starting line and shelter. I stood in the doorway of our workout facility for about 10 minutes, talking to some other members of my team, when a few of the slower people walked in - Stef included. She was bragging about her time - 38 minutes (her previous 5K PR was 45 minutes, so that was a pretty good improvement). I found out about a half hour later that it was because the last 7 or so people were forced to stop and take buses back to the starting line to prevent any lightning-related deaths.

We walked back to our building in the cold rain, changed, and finally had lunch. Although last year's race was much better (freebie-wise and weather-wise) I still enjoyed this race. It's nice to know I can go so long without running and still be decent at it. I also received a healthy dose of happy hormones, which is making me want to run again! This Saturday is a 10K in Highlands Ranch, which I now think I'll do. Why not? Even if I end up walking part of it, at least I'm getting a workout!

April 12th - Highlands Ranch Run Series #2

2008-04-12T12:57:00.003-06:00

Today Stef and I ran in the HRRS Heritage/Adventure 5K & 10K. I signed up for the 10K - my first. A couple weeks ago, I ran 6.2 miles on the treadmill, and my legs were killing me for days! Then, this past Monday, just when I was feeling well enough to start running again, I flew out to the east coast for work. My coworkers and I walked around the Mall area for about 2 hours one night, and the next I took advantage of the Marriott's awesome gym and ran about 3 miles on the treadmill. But since the trip was on my company's dime, I also took advantage of the per diem and ate big desserts and unhealthy meals (fish and chips - yummy!). I flew back late Thursday night, slept 4 hours, went to work on Friday, and felt fat and sluggish. So my goal for this race was to survive and hopefully beat an hour and 15 minutes.

Stef and I arrived at the location 45 minutes before race time. We joined the long line standing in the cold wind to get our bibs and goody bags. The Joint Juice truck was there again handing out free bottles and $1.00 off coupons. We grabbed several of each - they are good, and only 10 calories! Then we sat in our car for about 20 minutes to warm up. About 5 minutes before the 10K start time, I got in line. Then they delayed the start for 10 minutes, enough time to get cold again. I did get to talk to a lady next to me about her Garmin. I've been wanting a Garmin Forerunner 350, which tracks your speed, altitude, course, and has a heartrate monitor. She had a 250 and was telling me how great they are. Now I know what I'm getting with my stimulus refund! :)

Finally it started.... The first couple of miles were only a little hilly through neighborhoods and bike paths, and I didn't push it too hard, so it took me about 18:40 to finish the first two. The third mile was the worst. It was almost entirely uphill. I had to take a couple walk breaks, but I had already planned to so it didn't upset me. At the top of the hill, instead of handing out water, they had orange Gatorade. It really hit the spot! I met Stef at about mile 3.5, or about mile 1.5 for the 5Kers. The trail was fairly level for a while and along a dirt trail. It had snowed yesterday and the day before, so we were hitting patches of ice and snow, but the worst was the muddy dirt trail. It would stick to my shoes and make my feet really heavy. My ankles were also starting to hurt (yes, I desperately need new running shoes!). But then, soon after the mile 4 marker, I came around a bend and saw a long downhill section! I flew down it, pushing myself as much as I could while still catching my breath from the previous mile's hill. I finished the fifth mile in less than 8 minutes! It leveled off at mile marker 5, but I felt so awesome that I kept a fairly decent pace for the next mile, even up some small hills.

My worst section of any race is that last little bit - the last 0.1 miles of a 5K (3.1 miles) or the last 0.2 miles of a 10K (6.2 miles). For that last 0.2 miles, they rerouted us through the parking lot then across the snow-covered grass, up a hill, then along the sidewalk to the finish. I was struggling, trying to make that final push but also trying not to slip in the wet, icy grass. But I did it! They ripped the tag off my bib and cut my timing chip off, and I walked off with Stef, only then remembering to stop my stopwatch. It was at about 58:30 - meaning I finished in less than an hour! The race results haven't been posted yet, so I don't know for sure. We knew we weren't going to get any prizes (hey, you gotta be honest with yourself, lol) so we grabbed a couple more Joint Juices, a couple bottles of tea, and took off.

I accidentally signed up for another 10K tomorrow in Boulder. I'm feeling pretty good right now (about 4 hours removed from today's 10K) so we'll see tomorrow morning if I want to switch to the 5K or try the 10K again. As of now, I'm leaning towards the 10K. Next weekend we have two 5K's. I haven't set a goal yet, but maybe it'll be for less than 28:30....

First, a little history

2008-04-12T12:37:00.002-06:00

Before I start posting race reports, many of you (since I'm sure there are "many" of you out there reading this) may wonder why I started running. So I'll start in the beginning....

My memories of running in my younger years were not fond ones. My nickname in kindergarten was "Putt-putt" because I was so slow. I dreaded the mile runs for the presidential fitness test. The only one I remember was during my one year in high school, I completed the mile in a lazy 14:08. A friend of mine, Amy, competed in cross country in high school, which completely baffled me. Who would run for fun, for sport? I would be the one eating crappy food for lunch because it made me happy, while she ate fairly healthy (for a high schooler) because she said she didn't want to go through life fat.

My own desire not to go through life fat hit about 4 years ago, and I have since lost 50 pounds. But I didn't really start running until around 3 years ago. My friend Kelly and I used to be so excited about running 4 minutes straight, then 6, then - a whole mile! I started running outside, both on my own and with a coworker who braved snakes with me on trails near the South Platte river once a week. The farthest we ever went was about 5 miles at a leisurely pace.

Even though I started to enjoy running, I still didn't stick with it very well. I'd go to the gym every day for two weeks, then not go for a month. It's hard to stay in good running condition like that! Then I injured my ankle in flag football last fall and didn't run again for almost 4 months. Surprisingly, I picked it up again pretty easily.

Around that time, my friend Stef decided she wanted to run the 30th Bolder Boulder for her 30th birthday. She's walked in it almost every year since the beginning but finally wanted to run it all. I had a lot of stress in my life when she told me that, and since running has always been a fairly good stress reliever for me, I agreed to do it with her and even try to do a half-marathon later in the year. So as part of our training, we are running races every weekend, sometimes twice a weekend. I had only run two 5K's before, both last summer, and both in more than 30 minutes.

Our first 5K of the year was the Highlands Ranch St. Paddy's Day 5K. My goal was less than 30 minutes - and I did it, completing in 29:36! We got an awesome long sleeved shirt that day that I've worn in every race since. Our next race was really more of a baseline training run in Boulder, a 4-miler where they also take your mile splits. Since I had been on vacation and hadn't run since the previous week's 5K, my goal was less than 45 minutes. I surprised myself, completing in 37:50! My fastest mile was the first one at 9:13, and my slowest was the third mile at 9:53. I blame that on stopping at a water station.

Last weekend we signed up for a 5K in downtown Denver, which afterwards made us realize we should think about which races we are signing up for instead of just doing it to run. This one, which I suppose is a good cause but not one I'm really passionate about, was called the Human Rights Torch Relay. Sure, I'm all for human rights. But this was really protesting the Olympics in China. According to Paige, who we ended up run/walking with, this race was rather large in other cities, but in Denver only about 30 people showed up. Stef, Paige, and I stayed together and we finished in about 46 minutes. Stef and I were going to do a 4-mile race hosted by the Rocky Mountain Road Runners the next day in the same location, but she came down with a cold and stomach ache, so we rested.

So there is my history as of yesterday with running. I will post today's race report in a new post....

I'm back!

2008-04-05T14:55:00.004-06:00

After almost a 2-year hiatus, I'm returning to blogging. Why? Because everyone else is! :)

Ok, not really. One of my favorite blogs is one about a girl who lost half her body weight and posts mostly about weight loss and all things related. Right now she is training for a half marathon, which consumes most of her posts. So I thought, I've taken up running as my new hobby and would like to run a half, maybe I should start blogging again, too! I'm hoping maybe it'll give me the motivation I need to continue running, and it's also a good way to keep track of my workouts and how much I'm running. The latter reason is the main reason I'm doing this. It'll be like my running diary. With a few colorful posts intermixed, occasionally.

This is it...

2006-09-16T10:22:00.000-06:00

After being online for a couple years (or however long it's been), I decided to remove my blog from the internet. I don't really have a reason other than I can never really think of anything interesting to say, and the point of my blog wasn't supposed to just be "what I did on my boring Sunday afternoon." I just wanted to let any readers I may have out there know before I suddenly removed it. To any readers I have, thanks for reading and posting comments. You're the reason I stayed posting this long! So long!

Someday I'll appreciate it...

2006-09-09T18:13:00.000-06:00

But right now it's a bit irritating...and I guess funny at the same time. The other day I was buying my ski pass when the lady asked if I wanted the teen or adult pass. The stinginess in me wanted to say the teen (it was a hundred bucks less!) but I was honest. She thought I was no older than 18! Then last night at a dive bar, a guy who had been talking to me for like an hour finally asked how old I was. When I asked how old he thought I was, at first he just kept saying, "Young...really young..." then finally said "19 or 20." Um...I guess the fact we had to show ID to get into the bar didn't cross his mind.

The Dilemma...

2006-08-31T15:42:00.000-06:00

...apply for a job on a different program that may lead to my dream job but will probably require really long hours for a while with me not knowing at all what I'm doing, or stay at my current job which is now super busy but I know what I'm doing and am finally feeling like I'm contributing and am happier than I've ever been on this program??? If I apply for and get this new job, I will be leaving my current group short staffed and with very little knowledge on what I've been working on lately (I think the new lead would have a short learning curve, but he would have to do all the work himself). OR...I could wait a year, see my current project through, and hope that the other program will still be hiring and have things better defined. I'm so not good at making decisions...

Cross one off the list...

2006-08-13T09:59:00.000-06:00

A few weeks ago I hit my quarter-life crisis. So what did I do?? I went skydiving!!! Yes, me, who is afraid to take any risks at all purposely jumped out of a perfectly good airplane with a guy strapped to my back. It was so awesome! I really want to do it again, this time knowing that it's ok not to be able to breathe during freefall. That was the scariest part for me, I amazingly never even thought about the parachute not opening. Now, so that there's proof, let me see if I can insert a picture... Woohoo!!! :-) Maybe I'll take my little sister skydiving for her high school graduation next spring...you know, instead of buying her needed stuff for college.

Speaking of my little sister, her and my folks just left after spending a week out here with Stacy and I. We spent a few days in Yellowstone and the Grand Teton area then did a little driving tour of the Oregon Trail on the way back to Denver. And I'm also proud to report that my sister Bonnie is, as of today, 13 weeks 6 days pregnant! :-)

Hmmpfttt

2006-07-27T22:42:00.000-06:00

Yeah, that about describes my day. It was one of those days where I just can't stand the people I'm working with and can't wait to leave for the day. Luckily it is a Thursday before an off-Friday. Hopefully by Monday I'll feel better and be ready to go back to work. At least something happened tonight that made me feel better. And then tomorrow - Water World!

Remember Ken Jennings, the guy who won all that money on Jeopardy? I found a link to his blog, and it's hilarious. His geniusness and dry humor totally remind me of my friend Carl (speaking of, if you're reading this, Carl, update your blog!). A few weeks ago he posted a satirical letter to Jeopardy, part of which talked about how Alex Trebek is really a robot and how they need to change the colors and theme of the game. Apparently that made some people upset enough to get CNN on the case. They wrote an article about it, and later that day his blog and message boards were shut down due to excessive bandwidth. I still haven't checked out the message boards, but I'm sure they're pretty funny as well.

Happy Birthday to Me!

2006-07-09T11:41:00.000-06:00

I'm turning 25 this week. In the past, I've always hated when people complain about their birthdays and how old they are and how everything is going downhill, etc, etc, etc. I absolutely never thought I'd be one of them. But as this birthday comes closer, I'm realizing that I'm getting older and how so not ready I am for it. I keep thinking about all the things I thought I'd have accomplished by now. And although it's only 25, I'm no longer in my early 20's, I'm in my mid-to-late 20s, where people expect you to finally grow up, settle down, and be an adult. It's a little scary. Even though a lot of my friends are older and still have as much fun as I do or more, I feel like this is it, this is what the rest of my life is going to be - get up early, go to the same job every day, come home and do housework, watch TV, sleep, and repeat. Ugh...I promise, I'll be back to normal in about a week, it's just hitting me right now. At least I'm throwing myself one heck of a party to celebrate! ;)

Ok, so I know we need rain...but this weekend I was going to get in so much bike riding, and every time I get ready to go it starts to rain again! GRRRR!!!!!! Great...so while I was typing that, I noticed the wrinkles on my hands. I'm so old!!!! LOL Ok, that's enough. I'll go upstairs and ride my exercise bike and pretend I'm outside...

My Bike and Me

2006-06-18T19:51:00.000-06:00

I did it, I finally bought a new mountain bike. For the first few days, I rode it every day and couldn't get enough. Then a week after I bought it, I took it out on the hottest day of the year (it was 102) in a headwind. It was only 12 miles, but my legs were totally fried after that. After a couple days off, I tortured them again by going on an eight mile hike. After getting my bike, I dropped about 5 pounds right away since all I'd do after work was bike then go to bed. But since my torturous ride and hike, I've been telling myself it's ok to eat more since I'm working out more. Add a BBQ and a night on the town on top of that, and viola, welcome back 5 Pounds. Now that I've satisfied my socializing obligations for the next year, I think I can get back on track and lose those pesky 10 pounds. Oh, how I love my new bike! :-)

I guess I should also give an update on my kitty. After a grim diagnosis from the vet and $150 later, the very next day Athena started improving and now is her normal old self. I have no idea what was wrong with her. The vet did prescribe antibiotics with the hope it would work (after I refused to spend the money to get an ultrasound and x-rays) so maybe that helped. I was totally ready to just put her to sleep, as sick as she looked. It's a good thing I didn't!

Sick Kitty

2006-05-23T14:48:00.000-06:00

I came home from work early today to find out that Athena hasn't been herself today. Stacy said she's been throwing up and not eating and sitting in front of the water bowl all day today. I noticed on Monday that she wasn't too active, but that's not abnormal for her. So I'm taking her to the vet for the first time ever. I'm a little worried about what it's going to cost me, since my budget this month is pretty much maxxed after my trip to Kansas. And I'm worried that if she's really sick and it's going to cost a lot of money, I'm going to end up having to make the decision to put her down. I know it's premature to think about that now, but I'm a little worried. I just feel really bad for her, she looks so sick. :( Another 40 minutes to the vet...

Budgeting for WHAT???

2006-04-29T14:14:00.000-06:00

As part of my big budgeting/saving money craze, I've been reading a lot of forums and articles about personal finance and frugality. On this one forum, a guy posted all of his info (income, fixed expenses, debts, etc) so people could help him figure out his budget and how much he could save. On his fixed expenses, he listed $60/month for weed. Seriously...budgeting for an illegal drug? At first I didn't know what he was talking about, I thought maybe he paid someone to weed his garden or something (yes, I'm a bit naive). Plus this guy lives with his girlfriend, who lives with her parents, so he doesn't have rent to pay. Talk about a real winner! ;)

Woohoo!!

2006-03-31T16:55:00.000-07:00

I just paid off my student loan!!! I'm so excited! Most of the money came from my tax refund and the rest from a little extra money I've been making at work. But the first debt of my debt snowball is gone! I've been working now on my budget, and after looking at it I think I need to buckle down a bit more so I can pay off my car early, but I'm on my way! It feels so great. Now I just need to keep it up. Yay! :-)

Almost Spring!

2006-03-15T05:40:00.000-07:00

Five days to spring, yay! I didn't get to enjoy the winter quite as much as I had hoped (meaning, I didn't get to ski much) but I'm ready for the warm weather. As part of my new budget, I quit the gym, so I'm really looking forward to getting out on some trails and such.

Some things have happened since my last post. First, my grandpa had a second surgery just a week or so after my last post to repair the incision to his stomach, and was unable to pull through. A few days after the surgery, he was still unable to breathe on his own, so my dad and his siblings made the hard choice to take him off the ventilator. I do have to say, seeing him laying there in the casket completely pain free made me feel so relieved. He just looked so peaceful and happy. He had color again in his face, not the gray ashen color he had before (it's amazing what makeup can do, lol!). And he was retaining so much water toward the end that he looked like he'd lost about 30 pounds. Yes, it was very sad and I miss him so much already. But I know that he was ready to go, and now his pain is gone.

The day after my grandpa's funeral, my dad had his gall bladder removed. Talk about everything happening at once! His gall bladder so was badly infected that he ended up having to stay in the hospital for a few days, but he seems better now.

Things are going pretty well now. I'm on this new budget to hopefully get my student loan and car paid off in a year, but it's already starting to hurt. I keep looking around my house thinking of all the stuff I want to do. I just need to keep telling myself that in a year I'll have all this extra money to do it. So as long as life doesn't happen, I should be ok! ;)

Whew...

2006-02-15T17:54:00.000-07:00

This last week has been one that I hope not to repeat again soon...which could actually happen (well, part of it). First, I heard the terrible news last Thursday that my little sis had miscarried. It's so awful that people out there are purposely killing their unborn children when my sis and her husband who really want children just lost one. She's doing ok considering, but she probably just hasn't had a whole lot of time to think about it. Friday, my grandpa was readmitted to the hospital due to a perforated colon. He had surgery Saturday morning, and although he came out of the surgery ok, his heart stopped while they were bringing him out of the anesthetics. They were able to bring him back, and when my dad and his sister asked if he wanted to keep fighting or give up, he made it clear he wanted to keep fighting. But it didn't look good, so my older sis and I drove home Saturday night.

We spent all day Sunday at the hospital. Grandpa had a breathing tube in so he couldn't talk, but we took turns sitting around his bedside holding his hand. Sometimes when I was holding his hand and he would squeeze it, it felt like he was comforting us, not the other way around. Monday they took the tube out so he could talk, and the first thing he wanted to do was get up because he said that was the only way he could get better. We told him that his oldest daughter was driving in from Alabama, so he fought to stay awake so he could see her. We said a rosary with him before she arrived (one of the three he usually says daily!). Later on, he was getting so tired and was in a lot of pain, so he would holler out to try to get the nurses. It was so hard to see him like that. They had to sedate him to help him sleep that night.

Tuesday he really wasn't much better, and we didn't stay at the hospital too long because he needed to rest. My aunts decided to list him as a "Do Not resuscitate" since he was in so much pain and his heart was in such bad shape (he has a living will which also states that). I was doing ok until I heard them say that, and then one of my aunts hugged me and I started bawling. She tried to comfort me and said she knew he was like a second dad to me since I spent so much time on the farm with him. It really hit me then that he was going to die. But I just have to think about him and how much pain he's in and how he was always content with dying.

Today we came back to Colorado. Grandpa is still hanging in there, but we couldn't just sit around waiting for him to die. And who knows, he's pulled through before, maybe he will again. I hate not being there for him, but there isn't much I can do. He knows I was there, and that makes he feel better. It was a really draining week, and I know someday (be it soon or not) I'll have to go through it again. I guess you can just never really be prepared for these things. And I can't imagine what it's going to be like when it's my own parents...I don't even want to think about that...

Downer Day

2006-01-30T19:23:00.000-07:00

Today has been kind of a downer. I figured it was coming soon - usually I'll have a string of good days, and then BAM! a bad one. So I should have been expecting it, but that doesn't make it any easier when it does happen. I just hate the feeling that I was so close to something, and then find out that I may not have been all that close at all. That may sound kind of cryptic, but it's about as much detail as I want to give. I hate admitting that this has that much power over me to make me so sad. It's one thing I'm working on, it's just going slow.

Work is going pretty good, on the other hand. Yes, I'm working really long hours and don't take many days off, but I think it'll pay off in the long run. And it's only for a couple months, and I'm really excited about what I'm doing. That's probably what is keeping me from going insane with these crazy hours. I'm learning a lot of new stuff and am excited to teach others about it.

My poor kitty Phoebe has been in heat the last week or so (yes, I know I need to get her fixed, someday). She would walk around the house all day and night with this horrible meow that would keep us awake at night, and she was very affectionate, always wanting to be pet. I felt sorry for her...and even empathized with her a bit! ;) But luckily it's over now, I can finally sleep through the night, at least until she gets lonely again. :-)

I'm going to head to bed early, I didn't get much sleep last night. I hope this post made some sense...if not, just blame it on my lack of sleep. God bless!

Starting to get burned out...

2006-01-20T15:49:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven't been good at updating this. I've just been working mucho hours, so by the time I get home the last thing I feel like doing is sitting in front of a computer. My email has been going unchecked, all my friends blogs have been going unread... I haven't updated my actual website in a while, and the pictures from my snowshoeing trip are still on my camera (I usually have those downloaded and on my site within a day!). These next few days are going to be killer again, but things should calm down after that. So hopefully I'll be on more later.

Since work has been so busy, not much else has been going on in my life. I haven't even been skiing in several weeks, which is one of my favorite hobbies. It did snow here yesterday, and I was going to go sledding but couldn't find a group to go with. That, and the snow was heavy and wet and there wasn't a whole lot of it. So it probably wouldn't have been fun anyway. Next week on one of my days off I'm going with some coworkers snowshoeing again. Maybe I'll also go skiing. One of my female friends at work and I are already planning a Loser Valentine's Day Party, so that's something to look foward to, lol. We had a co-ed one last year, we went out to eat then saw the movie "Hitch." Both of us were hoping this year would be different, but it wasn't meant to be. So we can hang out and still have fun. Plus, Theology on Tap starts the Friday after Valentine's Day so we can at least go socialize and have fun with that.

Ok, I gotta get to work. Take care, my faithful readers! :-)

I'm back

2006-01-11T18:16:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've written. I just didn't have a whole lot to talk about. Things have been going ok. I was really hoping that my time off from work would refresh me, but it really didn't. I came back to work as upset as I was before, but luckily I'm doing kind of a side rotation away from my normal group so it's a bit better. I see them just a couple times a week and am actually missing them now! So in a way, being back at work has actually refreshed me instead of being away...for several reasons...lol.

Oh, and for the big news...my little sis, the one who got married last August, is pregnant! Her baby is due in July. I had to wait to post it until she told the rest of the family. I also found out that a good friend of mine and his wife are expecting. It's just so weird. I feel like my entire life is just go to work, go to the gym, go home, sleep, and occasionally go out with friends while all these people are having big, exciting lives and stuff. I guess I've just hit a little lull, but it'll pass.

I'm going to go work on my scrapbooks and then go to bed, I have several long days coming up. More later.

Merry Christmas!

2005-12-23T14:32:00.000-07:00

I probably won't get to post for a little while, so I'll say Merry Christmas now. I'm so ready for this long break from work, people were really starting to irritate me. Hopefully things will be better when I get back. But now I have to hit the road...so Merry Christmas and I hope you all have a safe holiday!

Prayers needed...

2005-12-16T09:55:00.000-07:00

Please offer up a prayer for my grandpa. He had surgery yesterday to remove a bowel obstruction. He woke up quickly, but was in a lot of pain and basically had to beg the nurses to give him more pain killers (he'd used up his allotted dosage too soon). He's 90 years old, so not necessarily in the best condition to recover from an operation. So please say a prayer for him! Thanks!

Good Times

2005-12-13T19:47:00.000-07:00

Last Friday Kelly and I met up with a couple of my college friends and some of their friends. It was a lot of fun, for a moment it made me miss college a bit (although I never did any of that stuff in college, so it shouldn't). Seven of us ended up staying in one hotel room, and while a couple of the guys were wrestling with Kelly and I to make us stay (instead of driving an hour home), we made quite a bit of noise. The next morning we realized just how thin the walls were after we heard the neighbor sneeze. While marveling at how we hadn't gotten in trouble the night before, there was a knock at the door - the manager, who chewed us out for being so loud. When he came back later to make sure we hadn't broken anything, he kind of laughed about it but told us to be quieter next time. We all felt so bad, we were just in the moment and forgot where we were. So if any of our neighbors happen to be reading this, we deeply apologize!

After driving back home, though, I realized how much I love my life right now. After college, I was so afraid I wouldn't have such an awesome group of friends, and I figured it was all downhill from there. Now I realize that although those friends were great, we've all moved on and I've found even better friends (in a different way). There are so many people around here I care about a lot, and I don't want to go back to college. I don't want to go back to my old life. Sure, there are things I wish would happen in my life right now, but I'm enjoying the ride. I love it here and I love life! :-) Wow, that's cheesy...but true.

Zima!

2005-12-07T18:51:00.000-07:00

It's frickin' cold here! (In case you don't know, zima means "cold" or something similar in Czech) This morning Denver reached a new record for the lowest high temperature, 3 degrees! My sister's car wouldn't start, and after we jumped it and let it run a while, the battery still wouldn't hold a charge. So we went to Wal-Mart to get a new one, and there was a huge line of people waiting to have their batteries checked out and/or replaced. It was kind of funny, the mechanic seemed so surprised that us, being silly girls and all, picked out our own battery and were going to install it ourselves...especially when there were some manly looking guys waiting in line to get theirs replaced by a mechanic. I love doing that. :-)

So since we had to do that, I missed the Holy Day Mass tonight. Tomorrow is a Holy Day of Obligation, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. I always wanted to get married on that day...I guess it won't be happening this year, lol. Luckily there's another Mass tomorrow evening. I think tonight I'm going to just cuddle up with a book and go to sleep early. It's too darn cold to do anything else!

Isn't today great?

2005-12-03T14:56:00.000-07:00

A great day, an end to a fabulous week. Isn't life grand? :)
That's all I have...just wanted to share. :)

The First of Many

2005-12-02T16:34:00.000-07:00

Christmas parties, that is. (And NO, I'm not calling them Holiday Parties...GRRR!!) My group from work is getting together tonight for dinner and a white elephant-type gift exchange. Most of the gifts for this party are serious, but I already know of some gag gifts. Should be pretty funny... I also bought a new skirt to wear, so people will get to see my white, bruised legs. I don't know what happened, maybe it's from the cats walking on me, but there are little bruises all over my legs. Looks pretty funny.

I'm also excited about a couple college friends that are coming to town for a wedding next weekend. Kelly and I are going to drive up to Fort Collins and hang out with them for a little bit. One of them I haven't seen in over a year, and the other I haven't seen for almost two...which was 35 pounds and several inches of hair ago! I'm so glad to still be in contact with most of my college friends, it's just sad we can't get together more often.

Ok, off to prepare for the party. Oh, and expect a major announcement around the first of the year! :-)

Happy Thanksgiving!

2005-11-24T21:40:00.000-07:00

The First Annual Loser Thanksgiving Party (LTP) went very well. There were five of us losers total - me, my sister, Steve and Meredith, and a coworker named Adam. For the five of us, we had two turkeys (one roasted, one deep-fried), mashed potatoes, gravy, yams, four pies, pasta salad, rolls, stuffing, and lots of pop and cheap Kool-Aid. We ate around 12:45 (which is apparently really early for the people around here, but late for my sister and I) then sat around watching football and talking and playing with the kitty for a little while. As it turns out, tomorrow is a big moving day for the LTP attendees. Steve and Meredith are moving into their new house, and Adam is moving to his new townhome. So the LTP officially broke up around 4 pm so they could go finish packing.

I volunteered to help Steve and Meredith move, but they said they have enough people helping so I don't have to come unless I'm bored. So I've been thinking about what I'm going to do tomorrow. I first thought about going shopping, not necessarily to buy anything but to witness first-hand the mad crowds. After perusing the online circulars for Wal-Mart and Home Depot, I think I'll sleep in instead. I think I might tackle the stupid flower borders in the kitchen and main floor bathroom and get them ready to paint. I still need to figure out a color. It's also supposed to be a fairly nice day, so maybe I'll go hiking or something. It'd be nice to go skiing again, but I'm on call for work. It sucks to be the only one of my friends either not with family or not working/busy tomorrow.

Waiting...

2005-11-19T09:21:00.000-07:00

It's 9:30, and the painters still aren't here yet. I figured either I'd try to sleep in and they'd wake me up, or I'd get up early and they'd be really late. It's looking like the latter is coming true. I woke up at 5:00 this morning completely wide awake, so I got up. Hey, that's still sleeping in an hour for me! I've already worked out and cleaned a bit. Hopefully the painters will get here sometime before lunch, I volunteered to help a coworker and his wife paint their new house around 1:00.

So in my last post, which I posted in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep, I said I was having an awesome week. I was...until later that day when I actually had to go to work. I was SO tired and just felt sick most of the day. I'm sure everyone thought I was being an a$$ because I was in such a bad mood. The good news is I think I'm finally recovered from the night shift. I guess I'm just getting old. ;-)

Insomnia

2005-11-17T00:28:00.000-07:00

The bad thing about pulling a graveyard shift in the middle of the week is getting back on a sleep schedule so that you can still get all your hours in. So after working on Tuesday night, I only slept until 11 a.m. and went back into work for a couple hours. By 5:30, I was so tired I went to bed. Now it's 12:30 a.m. on Thursday morning and I can't sleep anymore. I guess I'll try to get a couple more hours and then just screw it and go into work. At least I only have to work about 7 hours tomorrow.

As I mentioned in my last post, I went to see Warren Miller's "Higher Ground" over the weekend. It wasn't as good as last year's film, but it still put me in the mood to go skiing...which I was going to do on Saturday until my HOA's painters decided we had to be home to open the door for them so they could finish painting. So I guess I'm going Sunday now. Early season skiing is kind of crappy, so I'm not too upset. I'm just a little mad at the painters.

Besides not being able to sleep tonight, my week has been going fabulous. I love good weeks. The only thing that sucks is I haven't been able to work out much (yes, I'm a running junkie now), but that's ok. The really great part about exercising is all the happy hormones it releases...and I have plenty of those this week. So here's to life!! :-)

Running!

2005-11-09T18:47:00.000-07:00

I'm so glad I discovered running. It's been so much fun the last few days, I'm so glad that the weather has stayed mild enough to get outside. Yesterday I ran some unpaved trails in a state park with a guy from work, and today I went farther on my normal trail than ever before and even went to the gym afterwards! I'm actually starting to think about dropping my gym membership, and when it's too hot or cold to run outside, I can just use the small gym at work. That way I can also keep working on muscle.

I went to the theater last Sunday and saw Phantom of the Opera with a coworker. It's the first time I've been to the theater as well as the first time I've seen that musical. Both experiences were good, it's fun to actually go to a live play and people watch, and the show was great. The special effects were amazing. I'm going to another event this weekend, the Warren Miller film downtown Denver. About 12 of us are going to the show and then going out to eat afterwards. Should be fun...at least it'll get me excited for skiing!!

End of the Season

2005-11-04T18:22:00.000-07:00

My flag football season ended last night with...what else, a loss. We finished completely winless...woohoo!! :-) Actually, as nice as it would have been to win a game, I had a blast just playing. Last night's game was against a team consisting of a lot of my team's friends, but it ended up being a little rough. The QB on the opposing team bit clear through his lip, my friend Kelly (also on other team) twisted her ankle pretty badly, a guy on my team hurt his knee, and another aggravated a muscle injury he received a few days before in a competitive league team. Now it's all over. I guess it's time to gear up for volleyball!

So I started a new workout routine - running. Gasp! Yes, I said I'm starting to run. And not just on the treadmill, but outside also!!! At my boss's Halloween party last weekend, there was a female marine there who was in really, really good shape, very toned and thin. I asked our mutual friend how she maintains herself, and he said she runs and runs and runs. So now I've started running on a trail by my house, and whenever I feel like quitting, I just think of how I want to be like her. Ok, so I know that I can't get all of her...um...assets by running, but I know it's the best way to get in shape and lose the rest of my weight. And now that I've started doing it, it's actually kind of fun! I'm dreading when the weather finally turns cold and I have to use a treadmill because I absolutely love running outside. Now I guess I should spend the money on good running shoes.

Well, I have to work a late shift tonight, so I guess I better go get ready. Yay, overtime!

Kansas Trip

2005-10-24T17:21:00.000-06:00

I went back to Kansas to visit the 'rents over the weekend. I had a good time and got to see the fall colors, which I love. The best thing about being out there during the fall is you get all the colors; you have the reds in the milo, the browns in the harvested milo and corn and dead grass, the yellows of the trees, and then the brilliant green of wheat. It's so great. I was also able to hang out with my family and play with my new niece and see my grandparents. But the thing about this trip that was so different from all the others was...I couldn't wait to come back to Colorado. Yes, that's coming from me, Miss Always-Homesick-for-Kansas-and-no-place-is-better. I missed Colorado. I missed the weather and the mountains and especially all my friends. I missed my football game. I missed my kitties. I guess I am now a true Coloradoan. This is really my home now.

Now that I'm back...it's time to get back on track with maintaining/losing weight and keeping my budget. I think I gained like 10 pounds when I was at home. Whenever I go anywhere, I throw healthy eating into the wind, which I should also work on. Now that I'm back, though, I really have to crack down and start working out more. In the last two weeks, even when I was here, I only worked out twice. Surprisingly today when I worked out, I ran for a while (well, a while for me - 10 minutes). I'm trying to up my running time slowly so maybe someday I could run a half-marathon or something (whoa, did I just say that???). Then I biked for 20 minutes and called it a day. It'll take me a bit to get back on track.

With the budget...I'm going to try to keep my entertainment spending to less than 60 bucks a week. That includes any going out to eat, alcohol, movies, fun stuff. My grocery budget (which usually includes household items) is 30-40 bucks. I've been really bad with that one lately. Now that I really see my bank account draining, it's obvious I need to do something and I'm hoping it'll stick this time. I can do it....I can do it....I can do it.... :)

Darn Bar-fighting...

2005-10-07T14:02:00.000-06:00

Ok, so I didn't get it bar-fighting. But I do have my first black eye today. Yesterday my flag football team kept up our perfect record by losing our 5th game. Before the game while we were practicing, my teammate who was rushing against me elbowed (or punched?) me just below my left eye. This morning it's swollen and a little purple. I haven't tried putting my contacts in yet, hopefully in about an hour I'll be able to. Another teammate hurt her finger after she ran into me, and I have a sore collarbone from that. I was also knocked down a couple times, one of them after I was hit from behind on my calf, so my right calf and hip are sore. Doesn't this sound like so much fun? Don't all of you wish you could join my team? ;) Actually, I am having a blast. I love this time of year...football is by far my favorite sport!!

Oh, the horror!!

2005-10-04T18:09:00.000-06:00

My beloved Packers have fallen to 0-4 for the first time since the late 1980's. But before getting too sad, I remember that their last three games have been so close, losing them by a combined score of only 6 points. They will prevails...oh, yes...they will prevail.

Well, at least my flag football team is as good as the Packers. My new team, the Maginot Line, has also started out 0-4. For those of you who may have read my "soapbox" on my website last year, you will remember that my team then, the Orange Crush, only lost one game and won the championship. The captain of that team decided to go to the competitive league where there are no rules that girls have to participate. Thus, he swiftly eliminated all of the girls, except for his fiance of course, from the team with a "sorry, but I don't need you" email. Two other people from my team (including one of the guys who didn't want to go competitive) and I joined a brand new team that was mostly composed of new hires. Yes, we suck, but I'm having much more fun this year. Last year, if I missed the QB's flag or let a rusher by, I was pretty much made to feel that I brought the whole team down. This year, although we'd like to win, we just go out and have fun and not worry about winning or losing. I even go out for passes sometimes and am something other than a rusher on defense. Woohoo!! ;)

Fall again

2005-09-26T20:11:00.000-06:00

I apologize for my lack of posting. Lately, the last thing I want to do when I get home from work is play on the internet. Moving the computer back downstairs has also made it easier to forget. Why get off the couch and walk downstairs when I can watch CSI or Smallville reruns? ;)

I did get off the couch long enough this weekend to go aspen viewing. Kelly, Heath, and I drove over Guanella Pass (finally!), which is supposed to be the best aspen viewing around. After seeing it for myself, I disagree. Yes, it's beautiful and all, but the road was very crowded and I didn't think it was all that great. Last year Heath and I drove up Rollins Pass, which was 100 times better and much less crowded. But now Guanella is another pass I can cross off my list.

A few weekends ago my parents came down for vacation. We ended up driving around down in southwestern Colorado. It was so much fun, and the San Juan mountains quickly because my favorite area in CO. I don't think I'd want to live in those areas (like Silverton or Ouray); I like isolation, but that is almost too much isolation. We also drove up the Alpine Tunnel road, an old narrow gauge railroad bed that led to the first tunnel under the continental divide. It was barely wide enough for one car and very rough. My focus must be an SUV in disguise, lol. I did have to get new tires after that affair, but they were on their last legs anyway, lol.

Here's my laziness again...It's not even 8:30, and I'm ready for bed. Until next time...

He's Just Not That Into You...

2005-09-06T17:59:00.000-06:00

A couple of weeks ago while I was working out, I saw the Oprah episode where she interviewed Greg Behrendt, co-author of "He's Just Not That Into You." A friend and I have been talking about it recently, and while she was home over Labor Day weekend, she read through her sister's copy. Today she came back to work saying how great and true it was and how I should read it even though I probably wouldn't like certain parts because it would open my eyes (ok...so maybe it's time I realize this certain person just isn't that into me, but I can't...or won't).

So after work, I go to both Barnes & Noble and Borders trying to find this book (just to read in the store, not to buy), but all I can find is some pocket reference guide. You know, just in case you're on a date or you meet a guy in a bar, you can tell him to hold on a second so you can check your guide and see if this former consultant for "Sex and the City" thinks he digs you or not. That's the kind of person I'd trust for advice. I read a couple pages and decided it was stupid, so I gave up.

At home, I did a quick internet search and came up with this excerpt from chapter one: http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/excerpts/2004-09-08-hes-just_x.htm After reading the excerpt, I'm really, really glad I didn't buy it; it's just silly and petty. What it basically said to me was that men can't control themselves, if they feel the slightest bit sexually attracted to someone, they'll ask her out, because obviously sexual attraction is the only thing that matters in a relationship. Apparently men never think about anything else, like if the girl is single or not, if it's appropriate to date a coworker, if he's been burned and needs to take things slow the next time, etc. I admit some of the things are true. For example, I prefer the man to do the asking out and chasing as the book suggests. And yes, maybe if the guy was burned two years ago and still hasn't asked you out, it's probably not a good sign, but I still think the book is flawed, or the first chapter at least. Maybe it's just because those aren't the kind of guys I'm after. I do prefer to be good friends first so that you know each other before taking the next step, but according to the book, if he hasn't asked me out in like the first month of us knowing each other, he's not into me. Oh, well. Maybe I'm refusing to see the truth, maybe I'm right. Who knows. But I think I'm right. :-)

Kitty Update

2005-09-05T12:38:00.000-06:00

The day after my last post, I decided to just throw the kitties together and let them work things out. There was a little swatting by Athena, but the new cat just thought she was playing. After a day or so of sniffing each other and watching each other's every move, they're doing fine. I named the new one Phoebe, that's the Titan of the moon. She's so friendly, she'll crawl on you when you're sitting on the couch, and at the slightest bit of attention she'll purr like crazy. She also wakes me up occasionally at night to be petted. Athena seems to be getting used to her, although sometimes she'll be sitting watching Phoebe and you can totally tell she's disgusted by Phoebe's juvenile behavior. It's so funny. I'm so glad it's working out, I would have hated to get rid of either of them.

Oh! I bought my Colorado Pass yesterday! It's a season ski pass to A-Basin, Breckenridge, and Keystone with some days at Vail and Beaver Creek. I've never been to any of those resorts before, so I'm excited. Two months to ski season! :)

Kitty #2

2005-08-29T17:09:00.000-06:00

No, I promise I'm not turning into a cat lady. But when a friend at work told me her daughter had a cat that she had to get rid of and then showed me the picture, I was sold. She's so cute, and probably about 8 months so very playful. I tried introducing her to my old cat, but that didn't go so well. Now I have to do the slow route: let them get used to each other's scent by swapping them between rooms, keep the door slightly open so they can smell each other but not claw at each other, and then go for the kill. I really hope it works out, the new kitten is slow friendly. They named her Angel, but I think I'm going to change it and go with the greek god theme (the other one is Athena). Yay!! :)

Success!

2005-08-28T14:46:00.000-06:00

My computer is now in the basement! Saturday night I put the trim around the walls and then started arranging things down here. I'm getting a loveseat and two chairs from Stef, so I arranged that to go around where I'll have a TV. I decided not to get cable down here (probably, at least for winter) but I'll put the DVD/VCR as well as the stereo down here. That means once I get a TV I'll have to swap entertainment centers. So one end of the room is the entertainment area and the other end is the office. Today I moved out a book shelf and filled it up (wow, I have lots of books) and also went through the storage room and pulled out a bunch of pictures I'll eventually hang up. It looks so good! :)

Then the morbid me... I've been watching all this coverage about Hurricane Katrina all day. Earlier they were talking about people in Mississippi and Alabama probably losing their crops due to the amount of rainfall they were expecting. That really makes me sad; they're struggling to get by in the first place, and then something this devastating happens. But the disaster freak in me is really excited (well, excited may not be the right word for it...) to see what happens to New Orleans. Last year when I think Ivan almost hit it directly, I really wanted to see how bad the flooding was and if it was really going to be as bad as they made it sound. Now it's about to happen. I know so many people are going to lose their homes and livelihoods...but I'm curious.

Bad Day Already...

2005-08-26T06:28:00.000-06:00

...and it's only 6:30 a.m. One of my functions (well, my group's function) is to be a liaison between a group of people who are off-site and our people here. My group alternates carrying an on-call pager so we can continue with this function (and for other stuff) 24/7. My week ended yesterday, but I had my backup take it from me for one night, so I kept it for him until today. Of course that means I'll get paged...what was I thinking? So it goes off at 5:30 this morning. I call them, they give me an acronym and tell me to call the person in charge of that, who they admit is probably really obscure. I can't find it in my phone book, so I come in to work and look it up in the acronym spreadsheet. Nothing. I call them back, they give me two names. So I spend some time calling people (probably waking them up), calling back the people who paged me, and finally just getting someone to volunteer to come in and see what the heck they're talking about. Oh, and in the course of the calling, I find out that I misunderstood the acronyms...who knew A and E sounded so much alike when you just get out of bed in the morning? I'm sure everyone now thinks I'm an idiot. This is the second time I've gotten paged where something like this happened (not the misunderstanding part, but just something that makes them think I'm an idiot). Grrr... So now I don't really need to be here, but I figured I'd stay another half hour or so in case they need something else. And I'm sure they're going to talk to my boss on Monday and tell them how stupid I am and he should fire me, blah, blah, blah. What a good way to start the three-day weekend. Jeff, next time I volunteer to keep the pager an extra day for you, remind me of this story and do anything you have to to take it away. Oh, wait. There won't be a next time.

Ok, the person I thought was coming in just called and tried to get out of it. The people who paged me gave me two names, his and another guy who is on vacation. They specifically said those two people, not the second guy's backup, not anyone else. So I tried to tell him that, he sounded really irritated and then said fine, he'd come in. I'm sorry, I'm doing my best!!! Grrrr!

Friday Night

2005-08-22T18:36:00.000-06:00

Kelly, Stef, and I went out Friday night. Kelly and Stef were in a "Men are bastards, but lets find some cute ones to hit on" mood, and I was their DD. Kelly broke up with her boyfriend the night before, and Friday would have been Stef's 11 year wedding anniversary, so they were kind of justified to feel that way. We started at Croc's in downtown Denver, which is a bar/restaurant with a dance floor. We were standing around with our drinks when this guy walks by, taps me on the shoulder, and says, "You're one of those shy girls, aren't you?" I didn't really hear what he said, so Kelly answered, "Yeah, she is." He said "that's cute" or something then walked away. A few minutes later, he walked back over, grabbed my hand, and made me go dance with him. He was fairly good-looking, but he admitted he was a marketing major and could usually get what he wanted. So after about 20 minutes of dancing, I walked back to Kelly and Stef.

We stayed for another or so, then went to Polyester's. I really like Polyester's, it has a 70's floor, and 80's floor, and a current music floor. Toward the end of the night, Kelly and I were on the 70's floor when a guy asked me to dance. We danced a few songs then sat down to talk. He seemed like a really nice guy and gave me his phone number at the end of the night. Then him and the guy Stef met walked us to our car. I haven't called him yet and don't think I'm going to. I'm not really into going out with guys I meet at bars (ok, so this is the first time this has happened, lol). It did make me feel good to have guys tell me I was cute, and as many times as they said I had a nice smile, I could be a walking advertisement for Invisalign. Both Kelly and Stef had fun, but Kelly still thinks men are bastards. She got hit on by a guy who was there on a date with another girl!!

I discovered one thing on this night out - I'm getting old. I much prefer to be the DD (in fact, the smell of some of the alcohol my friends were drinking was kind of nauseating), and I'd also rather go out to a place where I can sit and talk to friends or play pool or something. Dancing is fun, but it seems like more of a contest to see which girl can dress the sluttiest and which guy can "hump" dance with the most girls. It's just too fake.

More work on the Shag Room

2005-08-17T19:30:00.000-06:00

My basement floor is now black...well, most of it. I waffled back and forth between gray/silver and black, and after my horrible day yesterday I felt black was more appropriate. Today was a much better day...and luckily, the black still looks cool. :-) I have all of it painted except for the corner I stood the couch up in, but I still need to do a couple more layers. The end is in sight!!!

Finally back to the basement...

2005-08-14T14:23:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I finally started working on my basement again. I wiped the walls down with a damp sponge to remove the drywall dust, then I mopped the floor several times and even used the sponge to hand-clean it. Then on a whim I picked a lavendar color for the walls and primed them and put on one coat of paint. I was a little worried because the color was light and looked like a little kids barbie room, but it turned out really well! I put the second coat on today and am now painting the trim white. The next step is to figure out what color I want to paint the concrete floor. I'm not sure I want to go black anymore, because it's already pretty dark down there (only one of the overhead lights is working, though). I want to put white Christmas lights up in the floor studs and then hang black fabric under that to give the illusion of stars, so that's already a lot of black. I'm going to try to finish the floor this week so I can start moving stuff back in there this weekend and finally get the computer out of the kitchen! So any paint color ideas would be greatly appreciated...

Well, we got my sister married off last weekend. It was a really stressful week, but it turned out really well. Not as many people showed up for the rehearsal dinner and the wedding as we were expecting, so we had a lot of food and cake left over. I also bought four 30-packs of beer for the dance, and we probably had about 3 left over. I donated them to my new brother-in-law and his brother. My DJ'ing went very well except for when the best man showed his true asshole self and messed up the CD's. That combined with everything else that was going on pushed me over the edge and I started bawling. Harold, the groom, saw me and finally got me to tell him what was wrong (I hated crying in front of him, he was supposed to be enjoying the day). So he had some words with the best man, who later apologized. I didn't like him in the first place, and that only proved why. Oh, and I also surprised Bonnie and Harold by putting flower petals on their bed and the floor leading to their bedroom (their house is right behind the hall we had the dance in). :-)

Being at home for a week made me realize how much I miss Kansas. We drove around with the windows open and you could really smell the milo growing, the alfalfa flowering, and the dirt being plowed. That's pretty cheesy, I know, but I really miss that. I'm kind of jealous of my sister for getting to stay there and be close to our parents and the rest of the family. If there were more jobs around there, I would probably move back in a heartbeat. I'm sure the really nice weather we had (mild temperatures and low humidity) aided in making me homesick. The day after the wedding, my last full day there, it finally got hot and really humid, making me remember one of the reasons I like Colorado. But I still do miss Kansas.

T minus 2 days...

2005-08-04T17:38:00.000-06:00

...until my sister's wedding! Yes, I'm back here in Kansas (meaning I survived my backpacking trip, but more on that later). I haven't been on the internet much because it's dialup and I'm too impatient. Plus, this is a vacation, and I don't really want to work much on the computer. Most things are pretty well planned for the wedding, but there are some small things (such as inviting people to the rehearsal!) that Bonnie hasn't really done. Whenever we bring these things up, she either says "Whatever" or "It'll work out." Grrr!!! No, it won't just work out! But it isn't my wedding so I guess if things go wrong, they go wrong. I tried to help out. The only thing I really have left to do is finish getting the songs in order and burning CD's. We're getting the reception/dance hall tonight, so I'm going to try out the stereo.

Another perk of being at home - field corn! I love corn on the cob, and since moving to Colorado I haven't been able to eat much. Sure, you can buy sweet corn on the cob at the store, but it's too expensive for one, and secondly I actually prefer the more hearty field corn, especially when it's almost too done to eat. It's free because I can just go out into a field and pick it, and it fills me up so much faster.

Ok, for the backpacking trip. We drove for about 5 hours to the Flat Tops region north of Rifle, CO, car camped one night (with the three guys and me in one tent, talk about crowded!), then hiked the six miles in the next day. I was fine until the last mile or so. It was getting hot and I was pretty dehydrated, so I was suffering. After we set up camp, I layed outside and took a nap while the others fished. Another couple joined us later that night and we had some trout and other food and smores. Saturday, two of the guys (Rod and Todd) and I hiked about 10 miles while Jeff and his friends fished. When we got back to camp around 2, I took another nap and we had another slow night around the fire. Sunday morning we got up early and left camp around 8:30. We made it back to the truck by around 11:30 then drove into Meeker and had a nice big hamburger with french fries. Of course, since we were driving back to Denver on I-70 on a Sunday afternoon, we got stuck in traffic. It took about two hours to get from just west of the Eisenhower tunnel to Idaho Springs. It was a really good trip, though, and I think I'd be up for going again sometime!

Camping!

2005-07-28T12:11:00.000-06:00

In less than 2 hours, I will be departing on my first ever backpacking/camping trip. I've been camping a couple times before, once at the Grand Canyon (car camping) and once in Missouri at a place with sinks, bathrooms, and showers and along side about 500 of my closest friends. So this is the first "real" camping experience I'll be having. My pack is pretty much packed, and it's about 40 pounds! I didn't think I had that much, but I cleaned out most of the stuff I didn't need. So wish me luck!

Me as DJ

2005-07-27T17:27:00.000-06:00

First, the good news: the space shuttle launched!! Woohoo!!!

Now, the thing that's been really pissing me off all day. In a week and a half, my little sister is getting married. She's in school, he just finished, and neither of the families have a lot of money. It's a small wedding, just about 100-125 or so people actually invited and a few more are expected to come to the reception and dance. So instead of paying $500-$1000 on a DJ, they asked if I could make some mixed CD's of all my music and play them. I've been working on this for a while, but just realized that with my camping trip that is coming up tomorrow through Sunday and with us leaving for home on Monday, I don't have much more time to look for music. So I posted on our "flea market" at work to get suggestions of fun, fast songs to play (I have plenty of nice, slow songs).

Most people replied with good suggestions that I can actually use. However, one person who I guess is a DJ on the side sent me this long email about how there's more to DJ'ing than just having fun songs. Like what to do if a music approach isn't working, interacting with the crowd, who the audience is, what kind of games I'm going to play, and on and on. Then he asked where I was going to get the equipment and said "surely you aren't going to use a boom box, right??" He said that when you download music from Wal-Mart or iTunes, it has a clause that you can't use it in a public performance, and that if you are going to do this, you have to have some kind of license and pay a fee. First, I'm not going to go out of my way to play games and teach people dances - if they don't know how to chicken dance, they're either socially incompentent or can just watch the rest of us. Second, so I can't play any of my music in front of people? I can only hope that he means I can't do it and get paid (which I'm not). If that's true, then you can never play any of your CD's at parties or gatherings of friends.

I emailed him back, being polite and thanking him for the info. I said it's a pretty low-key affair and they don't have much money and some more stuff that I can't remember. He wrote back and said he appreciates the money position, but doesn't think I should promote my idea of a budget performance on the flea market. What??? All I did was ask for song suggestions. He said if people think they can cut corners by doing their own music and still have a first-class event, they're WRONG. I'm not expecting a first class event, this is mainly just a social gathering (plus, the actual wedding is the important part, anyway). He goes on to say there's so much to think about like how often slow songs should be played, how much big band, oldies, etc, which songs are danceable, do I have spare cables and microphones (which I'm not having) and speakers, etc, what am I going to do when drunks yell that the music sucks, and on and on. He then tells me I'm completely retarded by saying "I'll bet you were just gonna put together something ahead of time and just let it play, right?...................good luck!" What a jerk. GRRRRR!!!!

Everyone that I've showed that to so far has agreed with my perspective. I understand that by not having a DJ we're not going to have the best performance out there, but we're really just out there to have fun and celebrate the wedding, not show everyone how much money we have by throwing a first-class wedding dance for like 100 people. And yes, if they had more money I'm sure they would want to hire a DJ and have it be a bit more professional. But they don't.

Wow...in the midst of typing that, I had a salesman come to my door to try to sell me cleaner. First, he asked if my mom or dad was here. I should have just said no, but I said I'm the owner. He said I looked 17!!! And then when I didn't want to buy anything, he went on to ask me out! How weird...a bit flattering, but no. lol

Three Day Weekends

2005-07-18T16:07:00.000-06:00

I love my job. I love that it allows me to take a Friday off every other week. I love living in Colorado so that I have stuff to do on those three-day weekends. This past weekend was so awesome. Friday morning I went on a bike ride, which is totally making me want a new bike (my current one is a cheap walmart one and the brakes are sketchy). Then some friends took me out to brunch for my birthday. The rest of the day I bummed and painted, which I also love (mostly the bumming part). Saturday, like I mentioned in the previous post, I hiked Gray's Peak again. We left even earlier this time (it was me, Kelly, her bf Dan, and our friend Dave) but had to park on the road because there were so many people there. About 2 miles up the trail, it splits, one fork taking you over a place called the Knife's Edge, which is pretty technical. I absolutely refused to go on that trail, and Kelly volunteered to go with me up the old, boring trail. Dave insisted on going that way (it takes you up to Torrey's first), and Dan hemmed and hawed for a while, finally decided after about 15 minutes to go with Dave. Because of the huge number of people on the trail, Kelly and I went much slower than last time. However, because we were going slower and not exerting ourselves as much, we didn't take nearly as many breaks as before. We arrived at the top of Gray's by 10 am, making it in only 2.5 hours. We sat there for a half hour (it was so warm and nice this time, not windy and cold like the last time) then called the boys. They had just summitted Torrey's. We decided to descend the saddle and meet them in the middle. Then we rested some more, crossed a snowfield where I fell on my butt, soaked our feet in a glacial pond (very, very cold, but exhilarating!!) then headed out. That evening a bunch of friends came over for Cranium and a BBQ. They all said they liked the red wall, so hopefully they weren't lying. Sunday after church, Kelly and I went to Six Flags and hung out in the water park. It was a lot of fun! I love water. I really want to go white water rafting again this summer. Wow, some of the things I love nowadays I would never have considered doing two years ago! That evening after a two hour nap, Kelly, Stacy, and I saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

So that's my diary of the weekend, which I'm sure none of you even care about, lol. I guess the takeaway is that I love Colorado and the outdoors and my friends. After this weekend, how could I even consider going back to school and giving them up for the next 4 years??? :)

The Second Time

2005-07-16T05:04:00.000-06:00

It's about 5 a.m., and I'm getting ready to meet some friends for my second trip up Gray's Peak. This time, we are going to try to summit Torrey's as well. I'm drinking my normal cup of coffee, but I'm hoping it's not going to affect me too adversely. There is a bathroom at the bottom of the trail, and then it's wide open all the way to the top (i.e., no trees to hide behind). Last time I practically ran the last mile to get to the toilet (some girls ahead of us couldn't even wait that long, lol), but at least now I know what I'm up against. Therefore, the ONLY thing I had today was coffee, not my usual milk and water.

Yesterday I painted a wall in my living room red (finally!). I really like it, it makes the room look totally different. In a way, it kind of looks like I killed someone and smeared their blood all over the wall, lol. I guess we'll see the true reaction when my friends come over for a BBQ tonight.

Happy Birthday to Me!!!!

2005-07-13T19:53:00.000-06:00

Yes, today is my birthday. It was a pretty good day. My group at work took me out to lunch, one of them brought me a cake, and they gave me a card and some mints I'm addicted to. Another group of friends is taking me out to brunch Friday. The only sad thing was that they didn't launch the shuttle. I really hoped the return to flight mission would occur on my birthday. But, as several friends pointed out, it's better to have it delayed than have it explode on my birthday. I don't want to remember today as the day the space/shuttle program ceased to exist.

I've been slowly fixing up my house over the last several weeks. I finally painted all the bedroom and bathroom doors (a total of five), and they look 100% better, especially with the new door knobs. I also replaced the cheasy knobs on the kitchen cabinets. The old ones were white with little flowers painted on them, the new ones are silver and much prettier. I haven't replaced the hinges yet, that'll come a little later. I also fixed the main floor toilet. Having a functional powder room makes the place seem much less ghetto! The next plan is to finally finish working on the basement. I had planned on doing a beach theme, but after seeing some space posters on sale in King Soopers, I reverted back to my original plan of a space theme. My sister laughed at me and said she knew I would go back to the space idea.

So for my birthday present to myself, I just got back from spending several hundred dollars on camping equipment...and all I really got was a sleeping bag and mattress (well, also a tent, but a cheap Wal-Mart one). I want to use the gear for backpacking, also, so I splurged and got a lightweight sleeping bag that packs down quite a bit with a good Thermarest mattress. I'm borrowing a backpacking tent from a friend for my trip the end of July, but I needed one for my trip this weekend (he's using the one I'm borrowing this weekend) so I just bought a cheap one. Next year I'll spend the money for the tent.

Gray's Peak

2005-06-27T19:58:00.000-06:00

Jeff (a coworker), Kelly, Heath, and I were planning on going for a hike on Sunday morning up to Cataract Lake. It was going to be a 10 mile round trip with 2300 feet or so of elevation gain. Saturday night, Jeff copped out to do homework, so I thought hmmm...why not do something a little easier...like climb a 14er? Somehow I talked Heath and Kelly into going, and we got up early Sunday morning and headed west to Gray's Peak. Gray's is just a few miles south of I-70, just west of Georgetown, CO, so it's a pretty popular trail. It's also supposed to be one of the easiest, and most people cross the saddle and summit Torrey's Peak also. We figured since this was our first one and we weren't sure how we'd feel, we'd start with just Gray's. We got there about 7:30 to an almost full parking lot and headed up. The first two miles of the four mile trail (you start at around 11,000 feet altitude) have a fairly gentle upward slope, which really helped me get acclimated to the altitude. At about the halfway point, the trail starts getting steeper. There were still a lot of snow patches, which were a little tricky to traverse. We (or at least me) had to stop at first every 100 feet or so, then every 50 feet, then about every 20 feet to catch our breaths and rest our legs. It wasn't so much that we were out of breath from exertion, it was just the simple lack of air. After we stopped, about five seconds later I was breathing normally. We finally reached the summit around 10:20, so it took just under 3 hours to go the four miles (and, more importantly, the 3040 feet in elevation gain). At the top, we ate, rested (behind some rocks, out of the cold wind), and took pictures. There were two people there when we got there, and soon after about 5 more showed up. That group decided to go on to Torrey's, which is about a half mile away but a 500 foot elevation drop then a 500 foot elevation gain. By then, it was starting to get really cloudy and windy, and we weren't too prepared for a snowstorm, so we took off. Going down was MUCH faster, although much harder on the knees. We passed many more people going up, even one that Kelly and I worked with, and ran into some sleet. Closer to the bottom the sun came out again, and I was able to take off my hoody and get some sun on my arms. We got back to the parking lot about 12:30. On the way back to Denver, we stopped at a really slow Starbucks to reward ourselves. I think I might be up for doing a 14er again, now that I know I can. There's nothing like the feeling of success when you finally summit. :)

So that was another first. That weekend was just full of firsts for me! Now, if I had worn the bikini on the 14er hike....lol.

Six Flags

2005-06-25T16:38:00.000-06:00

My friend Kelly and I decided to go to Six Flags in Denver today. We bought season passes and had yet to use them, so today seemed perfect. It was also a big day for me, with two firsts. The first "first" happened this morning before going to the park. We were hoping to make the water park a big part of the day, so I had to finally break down and buy a suit. Last night I went to Kohl's with the intention of looking for a bathing suit, but an hour and $100 later, as I was walking to my car, I realized I totally forgot to look. They were just having way too great of sales, lol. Anyway, this morning I went to Target to look. I knew I probably wanted a tankini, and the bottoms would have to be the skirt kind. I found the bottoms, but there really weren't any black tops that I liked. So I took a chance...and tried on a bikini top...and to my surprise, it actually looked decent! It's the first bikini I've owned in about 15 years.

So onto the park... after working out and eating, we got to the park around 12:30. We stood in line to get our season passes, we stood in line to get through the gate, we stood in line for the lockers, we stood in line briefly for the bathrooms before deciding to wait, and we stood in line for the only two rides we ended up going on. After the second water ride, it was getting cloudy and cool, so we decided to go over to the roller coaster part of the park. Here's where the second "first" comes in. I walked around with just my shorts and the bikini top. Yes, that's a big deal to me. Being in the water park was okay because there were plenty of other people who looked way worse than me in a bikini, but in the regular part of the park, most people were wearing normal clothes. I got some dippin' dots (mmmm....) and Kelly got a coke and we walked around looking for rides. Unfortunately, it was starting to rain and thunder, so lot of the rides were shut down. The ones that weren't had horrible lines, so we decided to call it a day and go home. Next time we're getting there when they open at 10.

More House Work

2005-06-04T10:48:00.000-06:00

The end is in sight for my basement work! My dad and sisters came out last weekend, and we framed and put up drywall in the basement. Yesterday, my friend Mike came over and helped me tape and put the first coat of mud up. After a few more coats, I'll be ready to prime the walls, and then the fun begins. I've decided to paint a beach theme on the walls and floor (since we're about as far from a beach as we can be!). I'm not too good of a painter, so I've recruited a few people to help out. Hopefully it'll turn out great!

Athena is doing better. We bought her some expensive toys, but she prefers to play with the plastic rings that hold the lids on milk jugs. Sometimes she'll just get a wild hair and run up and down the stairs over and over. She's also starting to sleep in my bed more. Her favorite thing is hair. She'll try to lay on our heads when we're laying on the couch and knead our heads with her claws. Since she's not declawed, that hurts a bit. She's also warming up to visitors more, she only hides for a few hours before coming down to check them out instead of all day. I think she needs a playmate, though. Maybe I'll have to get a kitten... :)

House Work

2005-05-18T20:44:00.000-06:00

Now that my Kansas trip is over, I finally have time to work on the house. I tour up the carpet in the basement today and am now working out getting the tack strip unglued. My dad is coming in a week and a half to help me finish the walls, so I want to have the floor ready by then. When the walls are in, I'm going to paint the floor. I'm still working on what exactly I'm going to paint on it. I was thinking of some kind of spacey scene, but I'm not very artistic. Maybe I'll just do squares or diamonds or something. Then I'll start painting the bedrooms and living rooms. Depending on how much money I have left, I'll see about tiling the kitchen. I'd like to tile the entry way and main floor bathroom, but that will have to wait until later. This is so much fun. :) Oh! And I got a cat a couple weeks ago! I named her Athena. She hasn't been fixed or declawed, and I'm not sure I really want to spend the money to get that done. For the most part she's nice, but she still gets a little spooked at new people and whenever you make a fast move. Last night I woke up when she walked across my legs, but usually she sleeps in Stacy's room. I guess that's what I get for leaving a few days after we got her and being gone 5 days.

Great Week!

2005-05-05T17:16:00.000-06:00

It's been such a great week. First I finished this project at work that I was a little worried about. Then I finished school (although the outcome of that isn't the A I wanted). Then...I got promoted! So my housewarming party tonight is going to be a huge celebration. :)

It's Over!!!

2005-05-03T20:10:00.000-06:00

We did our presentation today, so I'm finally done with classes!!! I have all these plans...read, cook, paint, hike, sleep.... It's going to be so great. Yay!!!

Time to put up the Christmas Tree?

2005-04-30T16:14:00.000-06:00

Today started out nice. I went to work out at 6:30 a.m. and the sun was shining and the sky was clear. The foothills were so pretty with the frost on the trees. Then I came back to my house and holed myself up in the basement to work on my homework. When I emerged about 3:30, it was snowing fairly hard. Great... Tomorrow is the first day of May, and it's snowing outside. I was putting off getting better tires for my car until next fall, and now I'm regretting it. It is getting me in the mood for Christmas, though. Maybe I should decorate just for fun...

Summer's coming...I hope

2005-04-29T20:05:00.000-06:00

It's April 29th...that's right, two days away from May. So why did I wake up to freezing rain and snow and have to scrape a sheet of ice off my car??? I really don't mind the winter. I mean, I love skiing and watching it snow and stuff, but I don't like it when it interferes with my summer. I guess it is a good thing, though. Now this weekend I won't be tempted to go out hiking or something, I'll want to stay inside and finish my paper.

Next Tuesday is the day, the last day of my class and the last day I'll be in school for a while. Yay!!! Then I can finally start unpacking and making my house my own. And I can start devoting more time to working out so I can be in shape for Bonnie's wedding. Oh, and for our program celebration at work, which is in June. I have to look good for that, after I looked so terrible at the one last year.

Mmm....candy

2005-04-27T18:23:00.000-06:00

Talk about a diet-busting day... Tomorrow is the Take Your Kid to Work day, or as it's known where I work, Young Minds at Work day. My program is sponsoring an Edible Satellite workshop. So today I spent over 3 hours helping stuff goodies into their bags. Hot tamales, marshmallows (both big and small), peanut M&M's, jelly beans, Twizzlers, Reese's mini peanut butter cups...it was like open grazing. Plus, when we were done (we stuffed almost 400 bags), we had a ton of candy left over. There's half a big bag of peanut M&M's waiting for me in my cube tomorrow. And I also broke down and went to the cafeteria for a breakfast sandwich this morning. I've been working late and then coming home right away to work on school, so I haven't been able to work out much. Tomorrow is going to be a bad day on the scale...

Habemus Papam!

2005-04-19T17:25:00.000-06:00

Ok, so I know that title will have been way overused by now, but I don't care. We have a pope! It's so weird, I still see John Paul II as pope and will for a while. So this other guy calling himself Pope Benedict XVI is a little hard to get used to. I'm so glad the area I work in gets Fox News. My friend Stefanie paged me right when they said white smoke was coming out of the chimney so I wouldn't miss anything. We were talking about who we thought it would be, I said I didn't think it would be Ratzinger (although I like him) and said I thought it would be someone we didn't know. But I also said that I thought he was going to name himself Benedict (I didn't know what number we were up to) because of the Malachy prophesies. And then he did! So that was kind of cool. It was just so cool to be a part of this historical moment.

I better get started on my homework....bleh.

Need Help

2005-04-15T05:51:00.000-06:00

My sister has asked me to be the DJ for her wedding dance. I have a lot of songs on my computer, but most of them are country and aren't really "fun" dance songs. So...if any of you have suggestions, please post a comment with it. I'm gathering a list and then I'm going to go to itunes.com or something similar to preview and maybe buy them (I'm too paranoid to use the free file-sharing programs anymore!). Thanks for your help!

Sorry for the long absence

2005-04-13T18:20:00.000-06:00

A lot has happened in the last few weeks, but most importantly...I moved!!! My sister and I moved into my new place about a week and a half ago, and didn't have internet for about a week. We unpacked the basics, but we still want to paint and I have some plans for the basement, so we're waiting until that's done to completely finish unpacking. I have a lot of work to do in school, so once that's over on May 3rd, I'll be ready to get started on the "remodeling."

Last weekend (Sunday) we got about 16 inches of heavy, wet snow. The only time I went out that day was to go to church, and getting home with my little car and it's crappy tires was very difficult in the slush. The snow even broke my antenna off. The mall that Stacy works in was closed that day, so luckily she didn't have to go in. Monday morning was a little hairy getting to work, but I made it. I passed a lot of cars that should have been better in the snow than mine that were in the ditch. Sometimes I'm glad that my car sucks so much in the snow, at least I take it slow and don't get overconfident and end up in the ditch.

And as all of you know, Pope John Paul II died, on the day that I moved. On Divine Mercy Sunday, the Sunday after he died, I went to mass at the cathedral in Denver. It was overflowing, and we barely got there in time to get seats. The following Wednesday was the actual memorial Mass, so I drove down there for that. I got there only 15 minutes before it started, had trouble finding a parking spot, and ended up standing in the back. It was so beautiful, it made me wish that all churches looked and felt like that. At the end of Mass, Archbishop Chaput mentioned how Cardinal Stafford (formally the archbishop of Denver) thought it was amazing how much the mourners in Rome clapped for JPII, so the entire cathedral broke out in applause for about 5 minutes. I had to choke back my tears at that point. I really hope the Holy Spirit guides the cardinals in the conclave to pick someone like JPII who will uphold the church's teachings and be a guide for all of us.

I'm supposed to be watching one of my lectures right now, and this entry is getting long, so I better go. Until next time!

I'm a homeowner!

2005-03-31T06:01:00.000-07:00

I finally closed on my townhome this week and am now officially a homeowner. I have already started moving stuff in and cleaning up the house, and on Saturday the rest of the stuff will be moved in. That means two more nights of sleeping in the same bedroom as my sister...and then freedom! :) Oh, and I can't forget the people who helped me move the big sleeper sofa in last night, John and Steve. Now we just need to see if we can get the other couch downstairs...

Powder

2005-03-22T21:21:00.000-07:00

I went skiing both days last weekend, probably my last of the season. Heath and I went to Copper on Saturday and Winter Park on Sunday. Both places had just received a lot of snow, so there was a lot of powder. Most people like powder days, which was evident in the long lift lines. I, however, had never skied a true powder day before. My first time down on a green where no one had skied before, I went to turn...and just kept turning until I hit the ground. It wasn't bad, the snow was soft and I wasn't going fast at all so it was actually a fun fall. Soon after I decided I wanted to experience it all this season, so we went on the back side to the bowls. Keep in mind that I only started skiing blues a few weeks ago, and bowls are almost always all blacks with bumps. Well, we didn't end up skiing much back there, but later on we went up to this other bowl that looked half-way decent, even though it was a black. It was not groomed, but I thought I could do it. The snow was pretty much skied out, so there were just clumps of loose heavy snow, almost like moguls. I managed to get down, but it took a while and I didn't go fast at all. That was an interesting day, we ended up leaving early because I was so tired.

Sunday we took the Ski Train (www.skitrain.com) up to Winter Park. We started out in the Vasquez Ridge area that we both really love (except for the long flat stretch at the bottom). They are blues, but usually groomed, and they're not packed at all. The first couple runs I was okay, then we hit an ungroomed trail that had the big clumps of heavy snow. I was going pretty fast and saw the bumps ahead of me. Knowing I would never be able to turn or stop, I pointed my skis downhill and tried to go between them. Bad idea... I fell, one of my skis flew off, and I rolled like 30 feet down the hill. Some nice skier came up behind me and picked up my lost ski so I wouldn't have to hike back up to get it. It didn't hurt (except for the cold snow grating against my face) so it was actually kind of a fun fall. Later on we were on the Mary Jane Trail (my second venture to that side of the mountain) and I fell again, except this time I also lost one of my poles. A cute snowboarder picked it up and brought it to me and made sure I was okay. That one hurt a little more. Needless to say, I didn't ski much after that. It didn't hit me until Sunday night, when I noticed it was painful to move my neck. By now it's a little better, but it still hurts to turn my head to back out of a parking spot. And that's not to mention the bruises on my arms and legs. I guess next year I'll just have to work extra hard to get better at skiing powder!

Less than a week until closing. It's all hitting me, and I'm getting pretty stressed. Luckily my family is all coming up this weekend, they can distract me. I just have to keep thinking...in a week and a half, I get my own bedroom and bathroom. That's enough to make me want to keep on truckin'!

T - 3 weeks...

2005-03-08T18:59:00.000-07:00

...until I close on my townhome! I'm getting really excited, I wish I wouldn't have waited so long to close. I can't wait to have my own bathroom and bedroom again. Privacy!! Yay!

I went skiing again last Saturday at Copper. It was so much fun. Heath and I got there before the first lift opened, warmed up on greens, then went to blues. We did some hard stuff, but it was great. I fell once, right at the end when I was tired. I was ten feet from the bottom of the last run. But if you fall, that means you're pushing yourself, right?! :) I'm probably going to go both days this weekend and both next weekend and then call it quits for the season. My family is coming up the week after that (Easter weekend) and then I move the following weekend. By then, it's April and the snow usually sucks by then.

It's official...

2005-02-28T19:46:00.000-07:00

...I'm hooked on working out. I had to break down and upgrade my 24 Hour Fitness membership to the regular membership instead of the 4 days-a-week pass I had. I've been alternating arms and legs (after, of course, doing 15-30 minutes of cardio) and now I'm adding abs and back. My friend Kelly is my slave driver, and after working out with her last Saturday my abs hurt like a sow. Laughing even hurts. But, man, I better look good in that bridesmaid's dress!!

Everything with the house is going well so far. I had the inspection last week, and the current owner is doing almost everything we asked. I finally met my broker today and got all the loan paperwork taken care of. The appraisal was last week. I've even started packing! Right now I'm working on getting condo insurance and probably new car insurance at the same company. Less than a month and we're in! Yay!

Another entry

2005-02-23T17:21:00.000-07:00

I also wanted to share this link to an article called "Subversive Virginity." It's a good article and reflects why I am choosing to wait until I'm married to lose that title. It's long, but full of info.

Not again! :-)

2005-02-23T17:11:00.000-07:00

A friend has a link on her blog to the Gender Genie. You copy and paste some of your own text into it, and it tells you whether it thinks you are a man or woman. So I copied my previous entry (Decisions) and this is what the scores were:

Female Score: 442 Male Score: 562
The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male!

AHH!!!! This is not the first time people have thought I was a guy. But most of the time it's because they've seen me from behind and my hair was up and I had a farmer coat on. It gives you key masculine and feminine words that it uses for the score. Apparently "is" and "the" are masculine. So women, don't use them anymore!!! After putting that entry in, I saw it says it works best on posts of more than 500 words, so I went back and used the "When will it end" post (it's 439 words). It finally got it right:

Female Score: 902 Male Score: 536
The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: female!

I guess it's just confused about my gender.
Here's the link: http://www.bookblog.net/gender/genie.html

Decisions...

2005-02-17T20:41:00.000-07:00

This week has been so full of decisions. I had to make two of the biggest decisions in my life right now within the last two days. First, I'm nearing the end of the rotation program that I'm in and have to decide on a permanent position (well, permanent is relative in this business). I finally decided yesterday to stay with the group that I'm in now. I'll probably take one more rotation before coming back to stay, but it's pretty much final. It's such a relief to have that decision made, now I feel like I can finally start my career. Second, I had to decide if I wanted to get a house. As you know from the previous post, I made an offer on Tuesday. Yesterday they countered, so I countered back, and...they accepted!!! The price was almost exactly what I had hoped to get a place for. My closing date is the end of March, and I think I'm going to talk to my apartment complex to see if it's possible to get out of my lease early. If not, it's not a huge deal. It's only a few weeks rent that I'd be paying extra. Today has been an awesome day! Actually, the entire week has been stressful and awesome at the same time.

I did it!!

2005-02-15T19:12:00.000-07:00

I put an offer on a townhome!! I'm all giddy now, partly from excitement and partly from nerves. Now that I found what I want, all the work finally begins! I'll probably meet with my lender tomorrow afternoon and get him what he needs. I need to set up a time for an inspector to come soon. All this stuff that has to be done...so much for all my vacation hours! But I really like the place. It was two floors plus a basement. On the second floor are two master bedrooms (which is great, because I'm tired of sharing a bathroom with my sister!) and the laundry area. The main floor has the kitchen, the living room (with nice hardwood floors), and a half bath. There is one mostly finished room in the basement and one unfinished room. The finished one could probably be another living room or office area, and the unfinished room could become a guest room. There are a few things I would fix eventually, like new carpets in the bedrooms, new linoleum in the kitchen, and new paint, but it's definitely livable right away. I'll probably close at the end of March, that way I'll have about a month to get moved and clean this apartment up. I'm so happy! :-)

When will it end...

2005-02-10T02:36:00.000-07:00

I'm working right now...it's 2:37 a.m. I'm getting tired of these night shifts. Saturday night will be my last one, and it can't come soon enough. I didn't mind at first, but after working nights for the past almost 2 weeks (with no time off), it's starting to get old. I miss sleeping at night and miss talking to my work friends during the day. On the bright side, I have gotten rather proficient at writing emails. I think my typing skills have improved to about 150 words per minute. Ok, maybe not that much...

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent. It may sound weird, but Lent is probably my favorite time of the liturgical year, even moreso than Christmas. I'm giving up pop. I've done that in the past, but I usually indulged on Sundays. This time I'm giving it up the whole time. So far the caffeine withdrawal hasn't been bad, but that's probably because I had two cups of coffee. I'm also going to try to work out at least every day that I have my 24 Hour Fitness pass, but on the off days I'm going to try to run on the treadmill at my apartment's small gym. I did legs yesterday and a couple arm exercises (since I missed Monday, which is my arm day). My thighs are really feeling it. I also had volleyball last night. It was definitely an off night for me, but I haven't touched a volleyball in two weeks so I forgive myself.

I'm going to look at townhomes on Friday...yay! I need to get on the ball with the lender, though, and get all the info I need for that. I don't want to find the perfect place and not have the loan paperwork ready. It'd be nice to have it by the time my parents come at the end of March, but then I'll end up paying double rent since my lease isn't up until the end of April. It'll work out.

We have Fox News on here at work, and there's a stupid Valentine's Day commercial for Vermont Teddy Bear that is starting to annoy the crap out of me. It has a bunch of girls oohing and ahhing over some stupid $70 teddy bear and talking about how they can't wait to give their men their presents. And no, I'm not just bitter because I won't be receiving anything for Valentine's Day. I have a nice singles party planned out for Monday night. We're all going out to eat and then going to watch the movie "Hitch." But that's besides the point. Vermont Teddy Bear commercials are stupid.

Work

2005-02-05T19:22:00.000-07:00

I've been working nights the last few days, and will probably do so all next week. It's kind of slow at night. I did learn how to play Hearts, and I beat everyone. :) I've gone through about 5 magazines, talked with my friend Kelly all about how to flirt and whatnot, and looked at townhomes on the internet. Tonight should be interesting, I'm pretty much out of things to do. There's only so many pictures of boy bands you can hang on your guy friend's cube. :)

I did talk to a realtor and lender last week. The lender was really nice and said I'd have no trouble qualifying for the loan I would like. The realtor sent me some links to condos and townhomes that are at or a little above my price range. Hopefully I can go look at them early next week. I'm more excited now, since my lender is so nice and since I have good enough credit to get a good loan. After seeing what my friend Stefanie went though trying to get her house and hearing all the stories from the lenders she talked to, I was a little nervous. Hopefully it'll all go well. I just need to stop dragging my feet and get on this. I have to tell the office I'm moving out by the end of the month, and I would like to have a place by then.

Speaking of houses, I need to show my sister the properties my realtor sent me. So have a good night!

A Blue Day

2005-01-30T18:58:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Heath and I rode the ski train from downtown Denver up to Winter Park and skied all day. I was feeling more comfortable since I had just skied the day before, so we skied greens in the morning, and after lunch we headed up to some blues. We went back to the Vasquez Ridge area, which is usually not busy because most people don't know how to get there. When Kelly and I went skiing, we did one blue back there called Stagecoach, so even though I thought that was really steep I decided to try it out. We talked to people at the lift who said that one was the easiest, so I felt okay. Then we got to the area where Stagecoach branches off...and it's closed. I thought that one was pretty hard, so I was a little worried. As it turns out, Stagecoach seemed to be the hardest of them all (or maybe I was just feeling more confident). It was so much fun...I'm now a blue skier! It opens up so much more of the mountain, and it's only a matter of time before I turn black!

Last night after skiing, my intramural volleyball team and some other friends went downtown to play pool. It was a lot of fun, and I had a revelation. I'm not ready to share that with the world yet, but it made me really happy and I haven't been able to stop smiling or thinking about it all day. This weekend has been one of those weekends...it has been full of fun and adventure, and it's made me feel like my life is going exactly the way it should be. So I'm so happy!! :-)

Gyms, again

2005-01-28T20:26:00.000-07:00

I had a nice day of skiing today, and I thought I'd end it with going to the gym and meeting for the first time with my personal trainer. I'm not paying for one, I'm just getting the complimentary sessions for signing up. I know I'm not in the best shape, especially my upper body, but I thought he'd at least commend me for losing 30 pounds. Instead, I left feeling fat and helpless. The guy was nice, it wasn't really his fault. After I found out my body fat percentage and stuff, I felt like losing the 30 pounds did nothing. He kept telling me that I needed to do weights and stuff for my upper body, which I know and which is one of the main reasons why I joined. But he basically made it sound like no matter how much I try myself or have other people help me, I'm never going to get better unless I have a personal trainer. I think that's a bunch of crap. A coworker of mine has been working out for a long time and is pretty buff, and he said he'd help me. The trainer said I can't follow his routine or have him help me since he isn't certified, but it'll still help and it costs a lot less. So now I think I'm going to go to bed and wallow in self pity. The only good part that came out of it was that I apparently have pretty buff legs, even though I think they're still fat. Oh, well. The trainer must be right.

Gyms

2005-01-25T08:34:00.000-07:00

I joined 24 hour fitness yesterday. I sent out a feeler at work to see if they offered us discounts and to see how much everyone else was paying. Most people said they paid less (a lot less, in most cases) than $30/month, and their initiation fee was waived. One person said that she joined just a couple months ago and they no longer offered us a disount and it was almost $40/month. So I went in last night with the intention on not spending any more than $30/month, and fighting with them until they gave me what I wanted. Well, I found out that indeed, the last girl was correct and they wouldn't offer me anything lower. So finally I just signed up for the four-day-a-week pass, which was still $27/month and I can only go Mon/Wed/Fri/Sun. That's probably better, anyway, because it'll give me a strict time when I can go, and then on the other days and the weekend I can go do stuff outside. Stupid big corporations...Grrr.

Saving Babies

2005-01-22T19:47:00.000-07:00

Today is the 32nd Anniversary of Roe v. Wade. I participated in the National March for Life the last two years I was in college, and that was an awesome experience (so I guess I can say I protested something while in college, lol). Today Heath and I went downtown to commemorate the anniversary. We went to Mass at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception at noon. I love that cathedral. I wish all churches were built that way, it's so beautiful and traditional and reverent. I also love how they use so much incense during Mass. Archbishop Charles Chaput celebrated Mass. He's so great, and he's always reaching out to the younger crowd. After Mass, we walked two blocks to the capitol building and attended the rally. It wasn't as nice or fired-up as the national one, but it was still good. We marched around a couple of the media places and ended up at the Knights of Columbus hall for hot chocolate and donuts. I hope next year I can go to the national one again. This year probably would have been bad anyway due to the weather! Hopefully, there won't be too many more of these. The sooner we stop killing innocent children in their mothers' wombs, the better our nation and the world will be.

Peanut Butter Cups

2005-01-18T18:37:00.000-07:00

I think I found my weakness. Free Candy. Especially free Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. My boss has a cup of the mini ones sitting on his desk, so it's so easy to just go in his office to talk to him and grab a couple. Or three. Or four. Repeating this three or four or five times a day. Since they're free and small, they don't make me feel like I'm ingesting any calories at all. So for all of you out there who want to sabotage my diet, there's how to do it. :)

I went skiing again yesterday (I had a free pass to Copper). One of the people I skied with was a girl from Italy. She gave me a few pointers on how to turn and how to hold my poles, so I think I'm doing better now. I don't know when I'll go next, but I'm looking forward to practicing some more!

The next few weeks at work are going to be crazy. I'm hoping for major overtime so I can put enough money away for possible house repairs or a washer and dryer, but the downside is I won't be at home as much (or able to ski as much!!). So all you faithful readers, don't fret if I don't update this for a while. I should be able to do it at work during downtime, but you never know.

Another Semester

2005-01-15T13:48:00.000-07:00

My second class, Rocket Propulsion, toward my master's started last week. I received the first CD of the class in the mail yesterday. Last semester I chose to get videos, but this year I wanted DVD's because they are smaller to store. Unfortunately, it is a CD instead of a DVD, so it won't play in my DVD player. I could have chosen to just watch the class online, but I wanted a DVD so I wouldn't be tempted to play on the internet while I was watching. So you can guess what I'm going right now.... I might have to call and get my media changed to VHS to avoid this. I'm hoping this class will be easy for me. I took rocket as an undergrad, so hopefully this will mainly be a refresher course.

My friend Kelly and I went skiing yesterday at Winter Park. It was so much fun! I actually went down some blues, too. The great thing was that there wasn't too many people there, so I could take my time going down. I'm probably going to take Monday off and go skiing with Heath and his family and friends at Copper. Oh, that reminds me, I need to look for my free Copper pass. After we got back from skiing, Kelly and I went and saw In Good Company. If anyone wants to see that movie, read no further!! Spoilers will exist! Anyway, we were all prepared to watch a nice romantic movie and go home depressed because men like Topher Grace's character don't exist. It was a really funny movie, and then the end happened. He didn't end up with the girl! True, she was like 18 and in college and he was 26, but still! They built us up for a happy ending and then it was just over with no resolution whatsoever! I hate movies like that. So instead of going home depressed because my life isn't like a movie, I went home depressed because I spent 10 bucks on a movie with a stupid ending. Grrr!!!!

Ok, I better get back to watching my lecture.

The Biggest Loser

2005-01-11T20:40:00.000-07:00

The Biggest Loser finale was just on. I said in my last post that that show usually gets me motivated to work out. Today I worked over 12 hours, so I wasn't much in the mood, but I did get on my bike for 10 minutes and do some weights and crunches for another 10. Wow, I just looked back at my previous posts and saw that I talk about working out and losing weight a lot. I guess it's true that I think about it a lot. I started a "diet" last May, which was really just watching what I ate and working out, something I should do all the time. I started on a 1200 calorie a day diet, which quickly turned into about 1350. Eating only 1200 was hard!! But it worked, I lost 20 pounds in two months, before I leveled out. I'm currently down about 25 pounds total, so although I'm happy that I lost all that weight, I'm kind of mad at myself for not working harder during the last 6 months to keep that going. A friend at work started a diet, so that motivated me to pick it up again. I'm so competitive, which in this case is good. I'd like to lose another 20 pounds, but if I could just get in good shape and be healthy that would be good, too. It's too bad I lost the 25 pounds, now I can't be on The Biggest Loser II. :-) Or wait, I could gain it all back....hoho's, here I come!! :-)

Budgeting

2005-01-04T20:44:00.000-07:00

I've decided to start budgeting. I'm not doing too bad now, but I want to be able to take out a larger mortage when I get a townhome and be able to afford it. I thought I was doing good, and then I realized I forgot my car payment. So now I'm making -9 dollars a month. But that's not including the money I'm taking out for savings, so I'm really ok. I'm going to have to keep track of the money that I spend on gas, groceries, etc. every month so I know the accurate numbers to put. Right now I'm just estimating. I'm trying to get Stacy on a budget, too, but it's not working too well. She's resisting my attempts. But never fear, soon she will be in my controlling grasp. :-)

It's snowing. That's good, I guess, because we need the moisture and the snow for skiing, but I don't particularly car to drive on it. That goes back to my childhood in Kansas when whenever it snowed we would be stuck at home for days. The snowplow doesn't typically go down gravel roads where only one family lives right away, that's not their priority. And even when they did, it was usually blowing so it filled in again anyway. Here they do a good job plowing, but that's because I live in the city. So it's not so bad.

The Biggest Loser was on tonight. That usually motivates me, and I usually ride my bike for the hour that it's on. Tonight I was talking on the phone too much, so I didn't get to do it. I feel bad, I'm supposed to be recording my workout hours for this thing I'm doing with a group at work, and the last few weeks have sucked - 15 minutes or less. But that's because I haven't been able to ski or hike much lately. It'll all change soon. And it's weird, I weighed myself tonight and I weigh less than I did this morning, without even working out. Hopefully I'll be able to handle picking up this diet again as well as being on a budget at the same time. No sweat! ;-)

First Post of New Year

2005-01-03T18:19:00.000-07:00

I've been out of town for the last week, visiting family back in Kansas. My Christmas was good, except for the part where I got sick. On the Monday after Christmas I got a bad cold, and I'm still using an unusual amount of Puffs a day. But it's getting better, so I can't complain. I saw a lot of my family on both sides. On the Sunday after Christmas we got together on my mom's side, and on New Year's we got together on my dad's side. It was so nice back home, we took walks several times without needing a jacket. That doesn't make for a normal Christmas, though, so it didn't really feel like it. But I still enjoyed the break. And then I started off my new year driving back yesterday and getting my first ever speeding ticket. I wasn't speeding under normal circumstances, but apparently it was road construction and I wasn't paying much attention. Oh, well, at least it's not more than $150, so I don't have to report it to security!

Over break we tried on different bridesmaids dresses for my sister Bonnie's wedding, which will probably occur next August. I was expecting to have to pay around $100, but the ones Bonnie wants are $160-$180!! Plus, they're strapless, so now I'm going to have to get my arms in shape, and just get in shape in general so I don't look so gross. I guess since this is the time everyone makes their resolutions, I should join them about losing weight. The bad thing is, now the gyms are going to be packed and there won't be any good deals to join professional gyms, so I'll have to do it myself. I have an exercise bike, so I guess I should use it. If this resolution goes as good as the other one I made today, I'm going to be in trouble. This morning I walked into work with the intention of cutting back on pop. By 2 p.m., I was working on my third one. But I haven't had any since then, so I guess I can start by not drinking any at home.

I better get working on the Christmas pictures to post on the website. I haven't had any new ones in a while!

Mechanics

2004-12-22T10:59:00.000-07:00

I hate going to car mechanics here, even if I'm just getting my oil changed. I know a fair amount about cars and machinery, but I always feel like they think I'm stupid and I feel like they're always trying to screw me. My friend Stefanie has a mechanic, though, that she likes a lot and seems like a good guy. So when my sister called me at work yesterday to tell me that her car was making a scratchy noise when she turned right, I called him. We took her car in about 3:30 yesterday (we took two cars in case we had to leave her car there to get worked on) and had him drive it around. He pulled it into the shop, had it in for a few minutes, drove it out and told us it was ready. She had a tumbleweed stuck in her wheel well. It was so stupid, and he was just laughing because it was funny, but now I feel like he thinks I'm stupid. I hope I don't need to get my car worked on ever again. But he seems like a nice guy, so I guess I'd go back to him.

Working Nights

2004-12-16T00:17:00.000-07:00

I'm working nights again this week. The time seems to go much faster when I do, at least when I'm not sitting around craving sleep. There are two other guys working with me, so at least I have some interesting people to talk to. I think tonight will be the hardest since I'm just now getting my sleep schedule on the right track. Saturday night might be a little hard, too, since I just decided to go skiing. But it'll be worth it. And then next weekend I get to drive home!!! Yay! This time working nights I didn't bring a bunch of food in like I did last time. Last time it just felt like since it was night I should be eating a lot, just like when I stayed at the design lab late at school. But this time I'm going to try to eat an actual meal around 3:00 or 4:00, or if I don't get hungry I can just eat after I wake up.

I think I've pretty much decided to take a class next semester. Andrea and Swen, the two people who were taking the class with me this semester, were thinking about taking Rocket Propulsion. I was thinking about taking Space Life Sciences, but I guess I could wait and get that next fall (this spring it's only offered via the library courses, not live) so we can still study together. I took rocket as an undergrad, but I didn't learn a whole lot and it's always good to have a refresher.

I suppose I should get back to work. It's really hoppin' in here, they may need me.....not.

Lazy nights again

2004-12-14T06:16:00.000-07:00

Last night when I was getting out of my car after driving home, I realized I forgot my school bag at work. I stopped for a second, thinking about driving back and getting it, when I remembered that I don't have any homework to do!! It was such a great feeling. When I got home, Stacy and I went to the library then went shopping, and got back to our apartment around 6:00 p.m. I ate supper, and when it was about 7:00, I realized I had nothing else to do and could go to bed if I wanted. I felt a little lazy going to bed at 7:00, so I read (ah, reading books, what a lost art!) for an hour, talked to my dad for 15 minutes, then went to bed. It was so awesome! These next few weeks are going to be great. Except now I have to decide what class I should probably take next semester. School sucks.

The end is near...

2004-12-10T15:44:00.000-07:00

So much for writing more in my soapbox/blog by having it online. This last week has been so hectic, and next week isn't looking too much better. I did homework 4 nights this week, and I have a final exam due next Monday and a homework due next Thursday. So this weekend is looking like great fun! I'm actually going to work about four hours tomorrow and then work on the exam for the rest of the weekend. The people I do homework with want to have the homework done by Monday as well, but I don't think that'll happen for me. But it doesn't matter...the end is near!!! I'm so happy to be done with class. I haven't decided if I want to take another class next semester, since I haven't really decided if I really want to get my masters. I miss my free time!

Overtime Pay!

2004-12-04T15:59:00.000-07:00

My back is so sore. I went in to work today to help clean out a bunch of old filing cabinets and safes in a building that is going to be remodeled. It wasn't hard work, but I stood for most of the day, and standing on concrete all day does not do good things to my back. We had to take out all of the old files, remove any paperclips or metal fasteners (except staples) from the documents, tear off any metal fasteners on folders, and put them all in boxes to destroy. There were also tons of old magnetic media that had to be gone through and boxed up. Today was the fourth day they've done this, and they said they're still probably going to do it one more day. It's not that fun, but it's overtime pay. I worked 7.5 hours today, and hopefully I'll be able to work the next time they do it. I still need to pay for my stupid brakes on my car.

Tomorrow I'm going to help my friend Stefanie unload all her stuff into her new house. I'm so jealous...I want my own place. I think I'm going to start looking in January or February. My current lease runs out at the end of April, so I'd like to have my own place by then. I'm thinking the only thing I can afford right now is a townhome, which isn't so bad. I don't know if I'm really ready to have to worry about a roof, yard, etc. right now. I just hope I can find a decent one in this area, I really like the southwest part of Littleton.

I think I'm going to go veg on the couch and let my back rest. And maybe take a nice hot bath. And drink some pepperminty hot chocolate. Mmmm.....

The First Post...

2004-12-02T23:50:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the blog of Kimberly Splichal!

I've decided to change my soapbox into a blog hosted by a different...um...host so that I can update it from anywhere and not have to open FrontPage to do it. This should be a lot easier to update, therefore I should update more often. Also, readers can also post replies. I probably don't have a lot of readers, but it would be nice to hear from you if you do read this! Right now I just feel like I'm firing thoughts into the ether.

Oh, you can also email me at prolife4000@yahoo.com