Lurkers Come Out of Lurkdom!

Hello to all my new friends and followers!  Welcome!  I'm so glad that you've all joined me.  Really, I do appreciate all of you who read and comment (or just read) regularly.  Knowing that other people, other than my mother, are reading is a really great feeling.  Blogging has been such a great outlet for me and has definitely helped to keep me on a healthy path.  I thought it might be good to share my story for those of you who are new (or for those that need a refresher).  And I have a small challenge for you at the end.

I began blogging almost two years ago (blog-iversary next week, celebration with giveaways to come!).  Soon after I started blogging I got engaged and began training for my first triathlon.  The start of triathlon training for me signified the beginning of my running regularly.  I was a swimmer in high school and desperately needed some consistent activity in my life after trying to help start a rowing team in college.  In August of 2009 I completed my first triathlon and I was hooked.  Through training I also lost about 20 pounds.

Returning to school that fall also began the return of the weight, although I continued to run.  In fact, I realized that running is something I really enjoy.  This was the first time I ever ran throughout the winter months.  In the summer of 2010, I completed triathlon #2 and #3.  I also got married (pictures HERE, HERE, & HERE)!  Unfortunately, I let my wedding and my honeymoon derail me from healthy living.  And honestly, I didn't get my act together until very recently.  I am now back at Weight Watchers and proud to say that I am exercising regularly.  I set some lofty goals for 2011, but I know I'll get there.  Especially with all the support I get from the blog world.

I am looking forward to graduating in May with a degree in chemistry and I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a full time position.  My husband, Patrick, and I are currently living in Maine while I finish school and are originally from New Hampshire.  Not only do I love running and training for triathlons, I also love to read, crochet, and scrapbook.

So for you newbies, welcome!  To those that have been around for awhile, thank you for returning.  I leave you with a small challenge/favor.  Would you all leave a comment and let me know you're here?  Tell me about yourself or ask me a question you'd like me to answer on the blog.  I know you're out there!

2010: A Year In Review

And what a year it has been!  So many wonderful things happened that it all just flew right by.  Here are some of the highlights:

• I took an awesome trip to San Fransisco with my mom in March.
• I spent much of the year planning my wedding.
• Healthy High 5K in April.
• Patrick and I celebrated 4 years of dating.
• Finished triathlon #2 in May and #3 in June.
• Patrick graduated college in May.
• Had an amazing bridal shower in May.
• Participated in a trail race series.  Week 1, Week 3,
• Hollis Fast 5K in June.
• Got married in July.  Pictures HERE, HERE, HERE.
• We moved into our first apartment by ourselves.
• Travelled to Kansas City for a conference.
• Picked up my crocheting again.
• Had a wonderful holiday season surrounded by loved ones.

2010 turned out to be quite the year.  I know I'm looking forward to all the things to come in 2011.  What are you looking forward to in 2011?  Stay tuned for my goals for 2011 tomorrow.

Home

Ah, yes, the semester has finally come to an end.  All my exams are done, papers are turned in, and I am feeling great!  I travelled back to NH with a friend yesterday and I'm at work today.  I know, here I am with a break and I'm working!  Well, I feel very lucky that I have a job during the summers and breaks that pays well.  Plus it's really not too strenous and the money is nice, so it's not so bad.  And as an added bonus, I came into work today to find a new computer at my work station!  Yay!  It's actually probably a hand-me-down from my coworker, but it's new to me and it's a million times faster than the old one.  The only real downer to being back in NH is that Patrick had to stay behind in ME and continue to work until he can come home for a few days at Christmas.  His birthday is this Sunday and I'm bummed I had to miss it.  But I took him to see Lewis Black two weeks ago, so he's all set in the gift department.

Anyway, after work today I am going for a run.  I swear!  Someone needs to keep me honest here...  I'm so looking forward to having the time to exercise!  And in NH there is currently no snow on the ground so I only need to battle the cold.  By the way, did you see my guest post on winter running tips?  Then later, I'm getting together with an awesome group of ladies whom I haven't seen since October.  I'm looking forward to relaxing and catching up with them.

What are your plans for the weekend?

Social Networking

Like many people, I'm a member of Facebook.  I really enjoy it and it's allowed me to stay in touch with many friends who have gone on to cooler things in life, as well as reconnect with some pretty neat people.  I'm a little bit of an addict and I'm known to frequent the site.  What can I say, it's a great way to procrastinate.

Last week I got my first friend request from a student.  I declined the request and let him know that as a general rule, I won't accept friend requests from students.  Now, I don't feel that I have anything to hide on my Facebook account in particular, but I do feel that there needs to be a line drawn between my personal life and my professional life.  And while I'm only a TA, I still think it would be inappropriate to be Facebook friends with my students.

I get the sense that a lot of people wouldn't see this as an issue.  What do you think?  I feel like who you are friends with on Facebook affects what you post.  For example, I can't be as open as I'd like because I'm friends with my mom on Facebook.  Ok, so that last example isn't a good one because I don't have anything to hide from my mom (hi mom!), but you get the idea.  I don't think I would want to be Facebook friends with my boss or my thesis advisor.  At some point you need some privacy.

Do you limit who you are "friends" with on social networking sites?  Where do you draw the line?

Current Obsessions

1.  The Office

I love this show.  Seriously.  Patrick and I are currently working our way through the entire show, starting with season one, on Netflix.  I've seen a lot of episodes, by I'm trying to get caught up on the story line that runs through the show.  Someone once told me that they don't like The Office because Michael's office manner is crude and unrealistic.  Um, that's kind of the whole point of the show.  Everything they do is entirely ridiculous.  Besides, it's one of the few television shows that make me laugh out loud.

2.  Netflix

My next obsession is our new subscription to Netflix.  We were trying to live off Redbox alone, but unfortunately we were finding that every time we went to rent something they didn't have anything we wanted to watch.  The greatest part of this subscription is that Patrick has an XBox 360, so we're able to watch movies instantly.  Needless to say, we've been watching a lot of movies.  It's nice to have it there when you decide you want to watch a movie at the last minute and don't want to run to the video store.

3.  My Vacuum

This probably sounds entirely silly, but I am in love with this thing.  You would be too if this were your vacuum cleaner:

No, I did not pay full price.  It was hugely on sale and we had gift cards from our wedding so we didn't technically pay anything for it.  What is super impressive about it is that we don't even really have carpet, but this thing still works on our tile floors.  I don't really care to sweep or mop, so I generally just vacuum the floors.  I love it so much I don't even let Patrick use it.  Not that he really minds...

Summer Let Down

Honestly, I've been feeling a little blue this weekend.  I really wasn't sure why, so I began wracking my brain for possible reasons.  Then it came to me.  This summer was just so fun and full of excitement that the arrival of fall is a big let down.

I mean, it started with Patrick graduating from college.  Then came the onslaught of wedding-related events.  There was my shower, the rehearsal dinner, the wedding itself, and our uber-relaxing honeymoon.  Toss in a triathlon or two and moving into a new place, and that's about all the excitement one summer can handle!

It's been hard to get back into a normal routine.  And to make matters worse, this is the most stressful start to a semester I've ever had.  I come home exhausted, but still have more work to do.  When I wake up the next morning I'm still tired even though I've gotten more than eight hours of sleep.  It makes it tough to fit in exercising, although I think it more important than ever because it will probably improve my mood a lot!

The other thing that struck today was that we live in an area where the most exciting place to shop is Target.  Don't get me wrong, I love me a good Target trip, but sometimes I just crave a Crate and Barrel.  Sometimes I miss having Boston close enough that we can make a little day trip out of it.  Getting back to the slower pace of Maine takes some getting used to.  This fact also confirms that Maine is not the place where we hope to ultimately settle down.

I've been looking for a bit of a pick me up.  Unfortunately, I usually turn to retail therapy, which isn't so great when you're on a limited budget.  So, what's your favorite pick-me-up?  What do you do when you're feeling down?  Any tips are greatly appreciated!  Happy Monday!

The New Digs

Patrick and I are finally in our own place.  It's nice to have a space to call our own and not have other people (parents, resident assistants, etc.) telling us what we can't do.  We are technically still in university housing, which is nice because it's affordable, but it's family housing so we are off campus.  Luckily, we're only off campus by about a 1/2 mile and there's a bike path that runs out back that drops you right onto campus.  I've been commuting by bike and it's been working out good, for both our budget and the environment.  So yay for that!  We only have one car, so we'll have to see how that works out when the weather gets yucky.  In the meantime, Patrick is still looking for work, so it's not a problem.  (Side note - Patrick has an interview on Monday, so good vibes please!)  So I figured that I'd give you a tour of the new place.  Don't worry, it will be quick because it's small!
So here's the bedroom.  Love that bed!

And here's the bathroom.  We lucked out on the blue wall color.  Matches our shower curtain and towels perfectly.

Sorry the next one is sideways, but you get the idea!

 

And here's the kitchen, in all it's glory.

Notice how the fridge is positioned in that last picture.  When the door to the fridge is open you can't get into the bedroom.  Haha...  And finally, our living room:

There was only so much we could do with such a small space, but we made it work!  I'm looking forward to our apartment-warming party next weekend.  Hope everyone is having a nice Labor Day!

Worst. Blogger. Ever.

Well, I think I can say that I've officially had a blogger FAIL!  I have been slacking and I'm sorry!  I never really realized how much time and energy goes into planning and recouperating from a wedding.  I was doing good at reading your blogs, but now I've even let that slip.  Really, I'm going to try hard to redeem myself here.  So here's what I've been up to:

1. Changing my name - this is quite the process in and of itself.  I'm almost done though...I think.  Having the new last name is a little wierd, but I'm getting used to it.
2. This past weekend we moved a ton of stuff into our new apartment.  We don't start officially living there for another week and a half, but it feels good to be mostly moved in.  Thank goodness all our stuff fit!  Although Patrick and I lived together last year, this is the first apartment that is just ours.  We're really looking forward to it!
3. Not exerrcising - I've fallen off the bandwagon and desperately need to get back on.  I've been trying to be careful with my food, but I need to get back to my routine.  I've really only exercised a handful of times since the wedding.  It's going to be tough, but I need to do it!  Motivation, please!
4. And I've been busy orgainzing wedding pictures.  So as a reward, here are a few more of my favorites:

Things I Live Without

After my last post, I get a comment about how I don't have AC.  Well, really, AC is one of many things that is not available at my parent's house.  I'm going to share the list because a) I really love people's reactions to this and b) as an example that sometimes the things we think we "need" we could live without.

Lets start with the air conditioning because it's freaking hot out and sometimes I do wish we had it.  However, we live in New England and it would really only be useful a few weeks of the year, which really isn't worth it, in my parent's opinion.  And really, you get used to the heat after awhile.  We do use fans a lot and we get by.

We also do not have cable TV.  How do we live, you ask?  Well, we do have an antenna on the roof and because we are close enough to Boston, we do get the major networks.  For not having cable, we have a pretty good selection.  I think we started out not having cable because my parents couldn't afford it.  But then I think it grew into a realization that we didn't need it.  My brother and I were busy with school and sports and we spent a lot of free time playing outside.  My family was on the go on the weekends and we didn't really watch TV all that much.  And when we did want to mix things up, we rented a movie.  Besides, we could always go to my grandparents house to get a Spongebob fix.  I might have resented not having cable growing up, but I appreciate it now.  TV is addicting and if you're a little kid you don't need it anyway.  Kids should be playing outside and being kids, not glued to the tube.

Up until about 6 months ago, we still had dial up internet.  Ok, this one was a huge pain.  We didn't even have dial up until about 6 or 7 years ago when I insisted that I needed it to get my homework done, which was true.  I hated dial up internet.  But I suppose my brother and I ended up avoiding the internet because it was a colossal pain to use and again, that probably wasn't a bad thing.  It probably kept us from getting into a lot of trouble.

Finally, and probably most shocking, is that we do not have a microwave.  Gasp!  That's right, no microwave.  I told this to a kid when I was in high school and he looked so shocked.  He asked me how we cooked?  Um?!?!  We heat up leftovers in that thing called an oven.  And my father uses the stove to make a home cooked meal every night.  Obviously his family didn't use the stove much.  Trust me, we get by without it.  We make popcorn on the stove and we rarely have leftovers to heat up anyway.  I think we had one once for a couple weeks, but we never used it.  I have one when I'm up at school, and sure it's convenient, but I don't need it.

So that's the list.  Think of all the money my parents have saved by not having these things over the years.  Do you think you could give up any of these things for a week?  A month?  I challenge you to give it a try!  I'll bet you'll be surprised by the results.

A Love List

I've seen a lot of these in blog land lately and since I have nothing better to do while I'm working than mull over what I would put on mine, I thought I'd share.

1.  I love my fiance (duh!).  I feel so lucky to have found someone who loves me for who I am.  I feel like I get to marry my best friend, which is super cool.  I also love the fact that he respects me enough to tell me when I'm wrong or I'm being ridiculous.  In many ways he balances me out.  It just works.

2.  I also love my family very much.  I feel very blessed that I have good relationships with my parents and my brother.  We all get along and enjoy spending time together.  Don't get me wrong, we still get on each others nerves, but ultimately we all love each other.  It's just nice.

3.  I love that I have a job.  This is however, different than me saying I love my job.  The reality is that my current job is rather boring and monotonous, but I have a job, and for that I am thankful.  It pays my bills and even affords me a few luxuries.

4.  I love my seamstress.  She worked some serious magic on my wedding dress.  For new readers, you can see pictures of it HERE.  I have my last fitting in a month and then the hem will be done and so will the straps. 

5.  I am loving the fact that I won Beth's giveaway.  That made my day.

6.  I'm loving that today is Friday and this weekend is a 3 day weekend.  I am looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow!

Ok, so the last three are a little superficial, but it's what I'm loving right now.  What are you loving right now?

4 Years of Carly & Patrick

That's right, Patrick and I have been together 4 years today.  We're heading out to Bar Harbor for the night to celebrate, but I thought I'd leave you with some fun pictures of us through the years.  It's kind of fun to see how much we've changed (or not changed).  Sorry there are so many!  It was hard to pick.

Ok, the first one is from our school trip to Montreal.  This is just before we started dating:

 My junior prom:

His senior prom:

The end of the summer just before Patrick left for college.  We were at the aquarium:

My senior prom:

My graduation.  Boy was I glad that I was leaving for college!

My freshman year and Patrick's sophomore year we took a trip with some friends to Canada:

My birthday my sophomore year and Patrick's junior year:

The night we got engaged at the Boston Symphony:

At the U2 concert at Gilette Stadium:

At Patrick's last Symphonic Band concert:

All Over the Place

I'm going to warn you ahead of time: this post is going to be all over the place.  So many things to share!

First, I got confirmation from the National Collegiate Honors Council that my poster has been accepted to the fall conference.  Yay!  This will be my third year in a row attending this conference.  I love traveling to these and this year's is in Kansas City, MO.  The first year I went it was in San Antonio, TX:

 And last year is was in Washington, DC:

I just love having the opportunity to travel, especially when I don't have to pay for much of it.  Besides, I wouldn't be able to afford it any other way so I really try to take advantage of the opportunities that are presented to me.

The negative part of my day was comprised of two different things.  The first was that I TA a general chemistry lab on Wednesdays.  I co-teach with another TA and it's pretty functional.  She's been grading all the lab reports because she's the grad student, but she asked me to do this week's, which was no big deal.  However, once I got down to reading them, I was beyond shocked.  I guess this was a dose of reality.  I just couldn't believe some of the crap the students handed in.  I don't mean to be hard, but some of it was just awful.  I think the thing that bothered me the most was that it seems some of them just don't take pride in their work.  So we had to have a little chat today about what is expected of them when doing a lab report.  I felt bad because they're all good kids, but some of them need to develop the skills to write lab reports for their upper level classes.  I figure it's better they get one bad grade in gen chem than to get more bad grades down the road.  I don't like giving out bad grades, but I know it's what they earned, not what I decided to give them.  But that doesn't make me feel any less like the bad guy.

The icing on the cake today was that I lost my MaineCard on the walk back to my apartment.  Oh yeah, my MaineCard is the key to my apartment and all my roommates are gone right now.  Great.  I retraced my steps and couldn't find it.  I had to get a replacement.  That cost $15.  An awfully expensive piece of plastic indeed.  Then I had to get it reprogrammed to gain access to my apartment.  Once I got in I checked my email to find one waiting that said some girl had found it in the Chemistry building and had it with her.  Too late.  Oh well.  Now I have a nice, new, expensive, shiny piece of plastic.

Three Things Thursday

1.  Patrick finally found a wedding band he likes!  Yay!  It has been a long search.  Too long.  He was surprisingly picky about it, but I was ok with that.  I felt he deserved to be picky about it and find something he really liked.  After all he did supply me with a beautiful engagement ring.  I felt the least I could so was make sure he had an equally handsome wedding band.  Here's a picture of it (sorry it's no the best):

2.  Tonight is the Symphonic Band concert.  Patrick is the principle saxophone player in the band.  And tonight it extra special.  Tonight is his last official concert in his undergraduate career.  I say official because Symphonic Band will go on tour next week and perform at a couple places around the state, but this is the last on-campus concert.  It is also special because Patrick won the solo competition and it the featured soloist this evening.  I'm just so proud of him.  I can't wait to hear his piece!  He is such a phenomenal player.

3.  Today, instead of working out, I had a lunch date with a friend.  Honestly, I don't hang out with my friends very often so it was a nice treat.  And really, most of my friends are people that Patrick had become friends with during his first year of school.  I don't really have a bunch of friends that I guess I would say are "exclusive" to me, if you get what I'm saying.  I definitely feel like I need more social time outside of just hanging with Patrick or my roommates.

Positives and Negatives

How this post is going to work: for every negative thing I say, I have to say something positive.  I don't want to seem like I complain too much.

Negative:  Kind of a gray day.  We had a few showers this evening and it has brought out those big gross earthworms onto the sidewalks.  Yuk!
Positive:  The weather has been improving overall, which I am so thankful for.  Come on summer!

Negative:  Lots of things going on right now.  The end of semester working is starting to pile on and there's a lot of stress from all the things that come after the wedding (getting insurance, an apartment, jobs, bills, etc.).
Positive:  I'm thankful I have running and exercising as an outlet.  It gives me time to think and process.

Negative:  Eating healthy is hard because I have no will power.
Positive:  It means my wedding dress will fit!

Negative:  I'm broke.
Positive:  It makes me so much more thankful for what I do have.  I think it's a humbling experience to be a little poor sometimes.  And I did get the call today that I officially have my summer job for another summer.  Again, bring on summer!

What doesn't kill us makes us stronger, right?

Pet Peeves

I'm not sure why, but I've been collecting a list of my pet peeves in my head for the last few days.  It must be the rainy weather.  I decided I'd share.

1. People who text on their phones while walking or driving - Seriously, it can't wait?  Texting and driving is just dangerous.  But texting and walking is just annoying.  I watch these people weave around as the walk and stare at their phones.  It just looks silly.  Besides, they could probably just call the person and say what they need to say in about 2 minutes as opposed to the 10 minute texting conversation they're having.
2. Groups of people who walk two or three abreast on the sidewalk and make no room for you when you're coming from the other direction - This drives me crazy.  Like, you can't see me coming?  Half the time I end up walking in the road or mud because people can't step behind their friends for the 15 seconds it takes me to pass.
3. People who feel entitled - My roommate has this problem.  He feels that his parents should buy him a car because he crashed his first one or that his parents should pay his college tuition and bring him groceries.  Don't get me wrong, my parents help me out and I'm very grateful, but I don't expect them to do any of it.  This kid has never worked a job in his life, hence the problem.  It's just kind of pitiful and he's in for quite the wake up call.
4. People with out a sense of humor - I had to chat with the head of the math department yesterday.  Besides the fact that he wasn't even nice to me, he had no sense of humor.  It's just not worth it to be that serious all the time.  Lighten up.  Laugh a little.  Personally, I love to laugh and have a good time.  And guess what?  I still work hard and get everything done that I need to.
5. Mud season - here in Maine we don't have spring.  We have mud season.  It sucks.  Last week, I fell into the mud.  Not pretty.  And to make it worse, we were teased with one nice week of warmer weather and the spring flowers started coming up.  Then it got cold and the frost killed all the flowers.  Bummer.

Three Things Thursay - Mail's Here!

One of my favorite things ever is mail!  I love sending it and I love getting it even more.  So I was really excited to come back after two weeks in NH to find my mailbox full of stuff and to have 3 packages waiting.  So today I'm going to share 3 of the cool things I got.

1.  Recently, Erica hosted an Inperspire towel giveaway and I won!  I love winning!  And here's the towel:

I've taken it to the gym already and it was by my side while I did my workout video.  It's nice and soft and I love the inspirational message.  There are other great towels.  You can find them here.

2.  Recently Genesis and her pal went to Vegas.  She had a contest of who could guess where she was going and I won that too!  The prize was a t-shirt from Vegas.  I love the color and can't wait to wear it in this beautiful spring weather we're having.  I have to wash it first though.

3.  And the final package I got contained some super nerdy mail.  I recently became a member of the American Chemical Society because we're reinstating our student chapter here in Maine.  And since I referred another member to ACS I got this sweet thank-you gift:

That's right.  I got a periodic table of elements throw blanket.  For those of you who didn't know, I'm a chemistry major.  I love nerdy things such as this blanket.  I even have spice jars that look like the periodic table of elements.  So if you ever see anything nerdy and think of me, please feel free to send it my way!

Home

Well, after two weeks of being in NH, I am happily back in Maine.  I rained for most of the ride up, which kind of sucked, but I wasn't driving and I was traveling with other people, which always helps to pass the time.  I've also been looking forward to coming back because I knew I would have a lot of mail waiting for me.  Can I just say that I LOVE mail?  Like, a little too much.  I've got some great stuff to review and other things to share as well as my San Fransisco recap that I'm planning on doing tomorrow!

It just feels good to be back in my own space.  I'm really starting to get accustomed to being on my own and it's hard for me to go home where I now have to live be someone else's rules again.  It's hard to bounce between two worlds like that.  To go from making your own rules to having someone else make them for you is not an easy transition.  Not having Patrick around doesn't make it any easier. 

Granted, we have spent a lot of time apart during our relationship.  He's a year older so he went off to college while I was finishing my senior year of high school.  It was really tough to be apart all the time, but we stuck it out and we made it.  And I'm so glad we did.  But I still hate being apart for anything longer than a week.  I just suck at it.  I'll be the first to admit that I start getting really grumpy when we're apart.  As soon as we're together again, my mood improves by 100%.  That's how I know that home for me is really wherever he is.  We're going to be living in a tiny apartment without a lot of money to spare, but I don't care.  I'm just looking forward to having a place we can truly call our own; home.

Three Things Thursday

1.  I'm back safe and sound from San Fransisco.  My mom and I had a great trip, but I'm happy to be home.  I took tons of pictures and I plan on getting them organized and doing a recap post on that.  I will say that we saw a TON of stuff in the four days that we were there!  We did a lot of driving around the city and just seeing what there is to see.  I would say that my favorite part was the trolley car ride!

2.  I have been getting a lot of wedding stuff done while I've been home over the last two weeks.  I'm glad I'm getting this stuff done now because it puts me in so much better a place when the end of my semester rolls around.  However, because I've been using my afternoons after work to do wedding stuff and visit family, I haven't had much time for exercise.  I'm looking forward to going back to Maine so I can get back into my exercise routine.

3.  While in San Fransisco, I discovered that I have seasonal allergies.  It was spring out there already and the whole time I was there I was sneezing and blowing my nose.  Now that I'm home, I'm fine.  However, wehn spring hits here, I think I'm going to need to start taking something.  Any good suggestions?  I've never had seasonal allergies before so I'm a bit at a loss as to what I should do.

Tuesday Ramblings

Hello friends!  Sorry I've been a little MIA, but I've been busy the past few days, I assure you.  Here's what I've been up to:

1. I've recently been in touch with some folks about doing a review on the blog.  If you cook or bake, own a home bars (lucky!), or what not, you should stay tuned.  Their cookware website is also phenomenal.  I could seriously go nuts!
2. We has great success get mother-of-the-bride and mother-of-the-groom dresses on Saturday.  I'm going to save pictures for a big wedding related post after I've done a few more things.
3. My future mother-in-law also informed me of the rehearsal dinner plans.  Again, more details later, but let me just say that it sure is going to be one big party weekend!
4. I'm starting to pack for my San Fransisco trip on Thursday.  I'm starting to get really excited.
5. I finished reading Dan Brown's newest book, The Lost Symbol.  I don't know that I've discussed how much I love to read on this blog, but let me just say that I stayed up until 2:30am on Saturday night finishing the book.  I don't often get the chance to sit and read when I'm at school.
6. I should admit that I have not been exercsising regularly since I've gotten home.  There are just so many wedding things I want to get done while I'm here that I'm having a hard time making time.  I know I should make more of an effort.
7. I've had a bit of a sore throat since yesterday morning and I'm hoping that it stays away!  I don't want to be sick on my trip to San Fran.  I'm going either way though.  Tough cookies to the other people on the plane (I'm so nice, aren't I?).  We paid a lot of money for these plane tickets and I'm way too excited to miss this trip!

Hope everyone's week is off to good start.  I promise better posts to come!

Three Things Thursday

This seems to be pretty popular in blog land, so I'm going to give it a whirl!

1.  Today I feel like an 80 year old.  I found my first gray hair (yikes!) and my knee has been all tight and sore ever since the weather went crappy.  Never mind that Patrick and I already go to bed around 9pm.

2.  When you walk by someone on the street, is just a smile enough to acknowledge someone you know?  I say Hi to people when I pass by and no one ever says anything back.  I think it's kind of weird.  I'm just trying to be friendly.

3.  I only have one class tomorrow and then I'm headed home for break.  I'm really excited.  I plan on getting a bunch of wedding related things done.  And my mom are traveling to San Fransisco a week from today!  So many exciting things coming up!