Valentines and Palentines

Jon and I are super non-traditional about Valentine’s Day. I’ve never been a big fan of V-Day, though this year I was a lot less cynical about it. Since Jon and I are always doing stuff together, Valentine’s Day just seems like any other day to us. Of course, that’s a personal thing, and I hope other people had fun doing whatever they do on Valentine’s Day.

We decided to ignore the commercials that said we were horrible people if we didn’t buy our significant other flowers/jewelry/a giant teddy bear. Instead, we chose things we actually wanted. Jon got some gaming supplies (play mat and sleeves for MtG) and I’m going to treat myself next weekend to some spa type things while he’s out of town (manicure time).

We did the whole Palentine’s Day thing. Jon went the game store, and I got together with the normal crew for some hang time and a Twitter party, which also included a fun Twitter conversation with my brother-in-law.

On Saturday, Jon and I chilled, then hijacked Terry’s boys and took them to see The LEGO Movie with us. All four of us liked it. It was a really fun movie, and the kids are always well behaved, so no worries there. There were so many kids in the theater, but we knew that going in, so it wasn’t obnoxious. We didn’t mind the child chatter during the movie.

Today we hit the gym, went out to eat at Longhorn’s, and went to gaming. I shared it on Twitter, but not FB or the blog – I logged a half hour on the elliptical machine last week. It’s been several years since I’ve been able to do that, so I felt super accomplished. I only logged 20 today before shifting to one of the other machines, but logging anything more than a few minutes on the elliptical is a pretty big thing for me.

The weekend was relaxing, but as always, I’m sad that Sunday night means returning to the work week. Going to shower and read myself to sleep in preparation for whatever Monday’s going to through at me.

A.

 

Snow Days, Reader Problems, and Our Anniversary

Yesterday, I had a legitimate snow day off work. At the time, it seemed pretty cool, other than the fact that it snowed all day and we were stuck at home. I managed to get some work done from home, but going in today (after a four hour delay to recover and shovel out of the white stuff) was rough. That day off threw me for a loop, messed with my deadlines, and gave me a stack of work that needed immediate attention. So yeah, great in theory, not so great in practice.

Having said that, having the day off did give me the chance to completely devour Cress like I wanted to, and devour I did. Was it good? Heck yeah, it was good. I’m so contrary though. I wanted to read it all in one sitting, and then I did, and now I wish I would have made it last longer because I loved it so much. In hindsight, I should have stretched the fun out over a few days. But every time I told myself to do that, I couldn’t put it down. Reader problems, man. Also, now I have to wait for the fourth book, but at least I’ll have an excuse to re-read the series before that one comes out (like I really need an excuse. Whatever. I do what I want!).

Today was our four-year wedding anniversary. Go Team Us! We didn’t do anything celebratory other than get dinner at Subway, but to be honest, we never need a reason to do things together. We don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day either. However, as may have become apparent for anyone who’s read this blog long enough, we often randomly decide we need to have a nice dinner out together, or we’ll go walking together, or we’ll take a trip together….the theme is that we do a lot together for no other reason than we have a blast, and I’m completely okay with that.

We made it to the gym, which was a challenge because I really didn’t want to go. My back has been sore for a few days, and the cold makes me want to hibernate. I’m always glad afterwards, though. I started an audiobook to listen to when I walk and when I’m taking it easy at the gym (thanks, Humble Bundle). I’ll do a review when I’m done, but it’s making me a little uncomfortable. It’s creepy, yet I almost think it’s supposed to also be slightly romantic? I’m intrigued.

I’ve also decided to go ahead and start revising an older writing project, one that is actually one of my favorites. I send the first draft for an alpha reading and will start doing active revisions once the feedback is in. Trying not to do too much stuff at once since I don’t want to burn out on revising, but it feels good to move these projects along.

Other things accomplished today: watched some Coursera videos, started organizing and packing the back room, and finished my grocery list.

Now time for some well deserved sleep.

A.

Writing, Gaming, and Packing

It was another cold Sunday, and even though the temperature said it was ten degrees higher than it was yesterday, it was still uncomfortable. It did, however, give us a good excuse to stay in almost all day, and sometimes that’s a good thing to do. That’s not to say we didn’t venture out at all. I was hungry enough this morning to make a quick breakfast run to pick up donuts for breakfast. They sounded really good, but I need to remember that all I ever need is about a half donut to stop the craving. Donuts aren’t actually my favorite thing in the world.

I used most of the morning to up my Nanowrimo word count and play around on the internet. I’ve started playing Candy Crush Saga on FB. Such a time waster, but I like the fact that you have to stop when you run out of lives. I’m currently stuck on a level, but I’ll just keep playing until I get it. For me, it’s just kind of a nice zone-out activity.

We had gaming later in the evening, then we made it to the gym where I did another ten minutes on the elliptical. We did a short workout due to knee issues for both Jon and I, but twenty minutes is better than none at all (my first ten was spent warming up on the sit-stepper).  After grabbing Subway for dinner, we came home and packed for St. Louis. It’s freezing in the apartment even though the heat has been going, so I’m ready for a hot shower and some sleepy time under about four blankets.

The goal for tomorrow is to get as many Nanowrimo words written as I can, make it to the gym, and finish getting stuff ready for the trip. I’m hoping that the trip isn’t this cold, especially since we want to visit the zoo. Yeah, I know…I’m taking a chance by going on a vacation in November. Still going to do it though. And that reminds me…another thing on the to-do list: find some gloves.

Don’t let Monday get you down!

A.

 

Vacation Kick Off

As of 4:30pm yesterday, I’m officially on vacation!

Last night was another late one. After chilling at the Szel Tower for horror movie night, I was feeling pretty sleepy. I picked Jon up from the game store and we headed over to the Forsh house to hang with Rylee for the weekend.

“I am the coolest dog in the world. Seriously.”

Though sleeping in was an option, my mind decided it wanted to wake up at 6:30 and not go back to sleep. So I got up, made a cup of coffee, and worked on my Nanowrimo project. I kicked out about 2,000 words before deciding it might be fun to take a walk around the neighborhood. In all the times we’ve stayed to pet sit, I’ve never taken advantage of the sidewalks around the neighborhood. It would figure I’d decide to finally do it when it was bitterly cold outside.  

After I finished the walk and showered, it was really hard to get motivated to go back out in the cold. Originally, we’d planned on going geocaching, but the temperature wasn’t very motivating, so we decided to stick with indoor activities. We might have opted to just stay at the house, but we had some things to do in preparation for the trip, so we ventured out, starting things off with a  late breakfast/early lunch at IHOP.

IHOP is always so good in theory, but I’m consistently disappointed with something, usually the service. Today wasn’t horrible, though. My fruit wasn’t as fresh as I’d hoped, but my soup and sandwich made up for it.

We headed to the Jiffy Lube for an oil change and the Flint Hills Discovery Center to see the current art exhibit. We attempted to figure out something else to do, but we ended up coming back to the house, where I played on Pinterest, deciding it was okay to use some of the day to accomplish nothing.

I climbed these by choice. Thirty two steps without getting winded. Win.

Later in the evening, we went out for a gym trip. I was hungry but didn’t want to eat dinner before going to the gym, so we opted for a hot cocoa and a shared bagel for some pre-workout fuel at Hastings. The gym, when we got there, was pretty quiet, so I took the opportunity to do something I’ve been talking about for awhile now: I did the elliptical. I forgot how much I love that machine. The last time I tried it, I barely eeked out five minutes. This time I made it to ten, and it was a fast ten. I stopped at the ten minute mark in an effort to not overdo it. However, several years ago when I’d worked my way up to the elliptical, I started with ten minutes and was kicking it up to a half hour within a month. I’m not sure if that’s going to happen this time, but I’m going to try. That ten minutes felt like the best gym session I’ve had in a long time, which means I need to step it up to make my workouts count when I’m there. Here’s to hoping I’m back in elliptical shape because I really do enjoy it, and unlike my recumbent stepper, every gym I’ve ever been to or seen has an elliptical.

We finished the night off with a catch-up session of American Horror Story: Coven. There are no words. The show just keeps getting weirder and more disturbing and I love every minute of it.

Tomorrow is supposed to be about five degrees warmer. No definitive plans except our Pathfinder game, and gaming is always subject to change. I think we’re just going to play it by ear and roll with our Sunday.

Have a great weekend!

A.

New Glasses and Olive Garden

I got sidetracked last night with my current knitting project and went to bed without posting. However, not much of note happened. The day went by really fast for a Monday. I think the highlight was probably free dinner from our gym. It was member appreciation day, so they brought in Cox Bros. BBQ for dinner.

Yes, you read that right. Tasty BBQ. At the gym. But in all honesty, it wasn’t anything unhealthy. It was carbs and protein, and it was good to eat right after a workout.

Today wasn’t as fast, but I got a lot accomplished at work. My new glasses came in today, so we swung by and picked those up. They’re pretty similar to my old ones in how they look, but the non-glare coating is pretty boss, and night driving was really easy tonight.

The gym was next. With the weather getting cold, I think we’ll be there more. Which means if I want to do more jogging, I’ll have to make friends with the treadmill. Not sure how I feel about that.

We had another geocache event tonight, this one a dinner at Olive Garden to celebrate 11/12/13, which is really just a good excuse to have an event. I think Jon and I had only been to this OG once before, so this was kind of a treat for us.

There were a lot of cachers there, and I’m pretty sure we got told by management to quiet down. I’d planned for an entree, but they let us do the soup/salad/breadstick thing for dinner, so we happily did that. The chicken gnocchi soup was so good!

It was late when we got home, so I just showered and am now getting ready to settle in with some pre-sleep reading.

Until tomorrow…

A.

Friday’s Delayed Grind

I didn’t get yesterday’s post up because we didn’t get home until about 2 in the morning, and I wasn’t feeling hardcore enough to post a blog that late. It was a good day though, so I’ll give it its own belated post before getting to Saturday’s adventure.

Work stress was low yesterday. I was given the office recognition by another co-worker and asked to do a special project to help with the office costume idea for Halloween. I don’t do costumes. It’s always fun in theory, but I’ve never been able to pull off a good one, and let’s face it…I’m lazy. I have no ambition to prepare and dress up in a possibly uncomfortable costume. I’m okay with helping out. I’m going to keep this project a secret until Halloween so as not to ruin the costume surprise. I picked up the supplies for the project during lunch and have already started on it. Now I just have to make time to finish it.

Jon and I went to Hastings after work to buy new headphones for him before going to the gym. The headphones he picked up broke almost right away, so we had to go back and return them.  I’ve theorized a thing called Hastings Law: one can’t go to Hastings without something going wrong. This stretches to things like certain drinks or food not being available or the bathroom not working. In true form, Hastings Law didn’t let us down (even though I do realize this one should be blamed on the company that makes the headphones, but it still seems fitting).

From there, we went to Terry and Erica’s for gaming. We got a late start, using the first few hours to visit. I did some knitting and we ordered dinner. The game was fun.  This one is Jon’s fourth edition DnD campaign. Our party solved a puzzle, beat up some giant bugs, and took a secret passage to a room where we had to fight some big bads. They almost killed our entire party. There was a good chunk of time where we pretty much figured we’d all be rolling new characters before the next session. But we managed to survive and can now take our current characters with us to the next adventure.

Besides having a late game night, we decided to try to find a cache in the area before heading home. We had no luck. There were a few late night muggles around, including a group of girls who asked if we were looking for something. I just said we were goofing around and that seemed to appease them. I suppose we could have told them what we were doing, but they were staggering a bit. It could have turned into a long, weird, conversation.  We might go back to that one some early Sunday morning, but I think we need the daylight to give it a good go.

We finally got home and crashed out, deciding to set a later alarm instead of the super early one we generally set for weekend adventures.

A.

Cuisine Adventures and Car Napping

It’s not too late yet, but I’m already tired. I’m not home, though. Jon is gaming tonight, so I’m blogging on the phone before taking a little nap in the car while I wait.

Stress level at work today: holding at a solid 7 (10 is the highest).

After work, I went to dinner at Coco Bolo’s with work friends. There was good conversation, decent food, and nice sangria. I don’t drink much, but I like sangria, so I iced it up and drank it down. The food was okay, a little different than I’m used to, but still palatable. It was fairly spicy, but I survived.

We called it an early night, so I decided to go to the gym. This was supposed to be a rest night, so I took it easy, going low speed and low resistance for about an hour. In that time, I finished The Serpent and the Rainbow and most of Can’t Hardly Wait.

I think that’s all I got for tonight. Tomorrow night is a walk night, and I think I’ll do a zombie mission without the chases to see how I’m doing with regular walking endurance.

A.

Knitting and Being Second-to-Find

Wednesday continued the trend of craziness at work, and I think today I may have lost a little bit of sanity. I still survived, still trucked along, but man…it was a challenge. I did fit a walk in on my break, but I opted to go get a free roast beef sandwich from Arby’s for lunch, which meant lazy times chilling in the car.

At the gym, I kicked butt on a 30 minute workout and finally managed to trigger a zombie chase on my cardio machine. Not going to lie though, I had to really move it to get away from the zombies, pushing much faster than I do when I’m walking. I think I’m going to keep doing missions during both the gym and during our walking workouts to keep building up endurance and to continue the story (especially because we’re only at the beginning of Season 1, and the Season 2 finale just came out).

Just a side note on exercise: one of my current goals is to take our steps without using the rail. Our apartment is on the second story, and we have to go up a flight of stairs to get to the first floor before the second flight to get to our place. When we first started living here, I had to take the stairs one at a time (one foot up, bring the other one to join , and so on). Eventually I could climb the stairs “normally” while holding the railing, which usually ended up with me pulling myself up rather than using my legs. Now I’m getting comfortable just walking up them. Strangely, it’s easier to do without using the railing. Going down the stairs is another matter entirely. My knee issues don’t allow me to comfortably descend, so I still have to do the one-and-join method with the railing. But hey…small victories.

We decided to get protein shakes for dinner, figuring we’d have a light snack later in the evening. I went for the shake of the month, the Candy Bar Craving. I have no idea why I haven’t tried that one before. Seriously. I’m going to have to find more excuses to drink my gym’s protein shakes.

We decided to grab a nearby geocache before heading back to Wamego. It was a busy time of day, but the cache was in a relatively out of the way location, or so we thought. When we parked to get it, I noticed some people sitting and walking nearby. I stayed in the car and let Jon go look for it while I kept watch, figuring I’d warn him if anyone started showing “interest.” No one did. We were ignored and Jon found the prize.

I brought him home, grabbed my knitting, and went to knit night at The Wicked Stitch, where I met my friend, V,  and visited with another woman from Topeka who was joining the group for the first time. I hadn’t been there in months, so it was nice to get back into the groove of knitting and visiting. I tend to be quiet when I’m there, not because I’m not enjoying myself, but because most everyone there already has a previous friendship, and I need to ease into those types of situations. Tonight felt different because not only did I know someone else, I was also able to meet someone else who felt “new” and feel on even ground with her. I always have fun at knit night, but tonight was especially good.

I came home with the plan to sit down, blog, shower, and sleep. But when I got home, I saw an email that a new geocache had been hidden nearby.  Jon and I have yet to be a first-to-find (FTF), so we thought this would be a good chance to go out and try to win that title.  Like crazy, spontaneous kids, we went back out and drove to the geocache spot. We found it right away. Unfortunately, we weren’t the FTF. One other cacher had gotten there a half hour before us. It was a little disappointing, but at the same time, being the second-to-find felt pretty legit, and it was actually fun to drop everything and run out to hunt.

Now it’s way later than I expected to be up, and I still need to shower and finish packing for the weekend. I’m still planning to update the blog over the weekend, but it might be short posts until we get home, depending on internet connection and timing. Tomorrow after work, we’re heading to Rose Hill to spend the night with the in-laws. Friday morning, we’re geocaching the area until Drew and his friend get out of school, and then the four of us are heading to OKC for the MtG Sealed Tournament. For my OKC friends, I don’t think I’m going to have time for any socializing. We’re getting in later on Friday, will be at the convention center all day Saturday, and then will be leaving early on Sunday…unless one of us makes it to day 2, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

On that note, I’m tired…so peace out.

A.

 

 

Goodbye, September…

The last day of the month came and went. One part of my brain feels like September went on forever, while another part can’t believe it’s gone already. It was a busy month, and even though it had its rewards, I feel like I can breathe a sigh of relief now that it’s over.

After a frustrating work day, Jon and I went to the gym. I tried some new settings to make Zombies Run work on my machine, but still no dice. It was a good workout, though. I think I need to start changing it up between music and movies depending on how long of a workout I’m putting in.

We decided to skip the store and get Subway for dinner. While we were eating, I suggested we go grab a geocache, because I obviously didn’t get enough of it this past weekend. Jon was on board, so we went and grabbed one that we’ve passed many times. I don’t even remember why we put off getting it in the first place, but it was super quick and easy.

At home, we cleaned out the car to prepare for OKC. We have two passengers, Drew and a friend of his, so we need to make trunk and seat space. We accomplished a little of that tonight.

My plan for when we got inside was to put laundry away and start packing. But that hasn’t happened. I’m feeling tired, and I wanted to get this post done before I crashed out. I’m thinking of resting my eyes for a little bit, then getting up and doing it. Or procrastinating until tomorrow.

Either way works for me.

A.

Finally Friday and Unplanned Events

I was hoping for a mellow day today at work. It didn’t happen. It wasn’t intense, but I was given a low dose of stress fairly early in the day. It didn’t help that I woke up not feeling well, the side effect from what may have been bad yogurt.

Things were better by the end of the day. Jon and I went to the gym, and after I dropped him off for Friday Night Magic, I went over to Terry and Erica’s place to hang with the kids while they covered Aggiefest.

Kids in general kind of scare me, but I like these ones. They’re sweet and well behaved. We ordered pizza, and I attempted to teach all of them to knit. Only one of them seemed to like it, though another one figured out some creative uses for a knitting needle and some yarn.

Jon showed up later. We got home late, but we’re still planning our geocache day tomorrow before we both go hang with the kids again. Our RPG game for Sunday was canceled, so the plan is to find more Manhattan caches that day.

Currently looking at 6 hours of sleep before GeoTrek: Mission to Break 100 happens. Good night!

A.