The Nard Dogs

round 2

2012-01-12T07:15:00.000-08:00

So... I'm going to do another marathon.

I swore up and down that I'd be a one and done person but the woman's pain forgettal clause* has gotten to me and thoughts of running 26.2 again have crept up in my mind for awhile now.

*The woman's pain forgettal clause is the thing that automatically represses a woman's memories of pain. We have to have it or else every woman would probably just have one kid. Unless of course you are one of those people that sits down on the toilet to go and has an unexpected baby, like on that freaky TLC show. Either way, the forgettal clause has allowed me to forget that the marathon and training were pretty darn painful.

Also, I'm stubborn and now that I am in better shape (dare I say the best shape of my life at 30?), I'd like to actually run the marathon instead of tooting along at my previously snail's pace. Ideally, I'd like to shave about 45 minutes off of my previous PR (5:44:00) to end up finishing in under 5 hours.

One of my co-workers signed up and Adam's company is paying for it so there is really no time like the present, amiright?

If you're down, there will be copious brunch eating and drinking after the race on April 15th here in Dallas. It might not be as scenic as Chicago but I don't think I have it in me to travel for a marathon. There's something comforting about being able to sleep the night before in your own bed and take the epic post-race nap in the same spot.

the Sundry meme

2012-01-05T11:00:00.000-08:00

This year-end recap quiz is pretty much an internet staple. I'm tackling it for the first time. Here goes nothing:

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?

Moved back to Texas, which I've done before but this move was so much more complicated because it involved moving another person. Related: had paid movers for the first time. On the awesome side of things, we adopted a dog, I was a matron of honor in a wedding, I saw a therapist and did yoga teacher training. On the decidedly crappier side of things, we listed the condo, fired a realtor and worked with a relocation company to re-list it (and it's still, sadly, on the market).

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? 

I didn't make resolutions but I did make more of a to-do list. The one that sticks out to me the most was that I had written down "Start looking into yoga school and possibly start training". I never imagined that life would take me to the point of registering in May.

This year, I have a lot of lofty goals that include being in a management position by March and having 3 permanent classes at 3 different/gyms and studios. I'm well on my way to both of those things. I'm also going to PR a full marathon and knock 22 minutes off my Half Marathon PR to finish in under two hours. I have some fundraising goals related to the MS 150 that we're riding in May. It's going to be a busy Spring.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? 

Yes and no. I mean, no one that we see on a fairly regular basis but two of my old friends had babies this year. Congrats Sheila and Mary Emma!

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Adam's grandma passed away in November, which was pretty sad because the funeral was at a time when I couldn't go.

5. What countries did you visit?
Unbelievably, this is the first year since 2007 when I don't have anything to add to the list. The last time I left the US was in November 2010. Bummer.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?

I already feel like I'm on the way to having the stability that my 2011 so completely lacked. It's only January 5th, so that is fabulous. I feel like I spent the first 9 months of the year being stressed about our eventual move to Texas and then the last 3 months with a lot of job insecurity. Things are looking up!

7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

September 5th. The day we moved here. September 6th, when Adam and I walked into a car dealership and walked out with a brand new car, which we then drove to the pound and met Higgins for the first time. Everything else this year is almost trivial to those two life-changing days. I'll always remember this as a good Christmas though. It was just good and peaceful.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? 

The biggest achievement of this year was probably Adam's. He got a great job here in Dallas after a long search and a few interviews/offers that just didn't pan out. He rolled with the disappointments and grew as a person from the entire experience. For me, it was definitely August 7th, when I passed my tests and officially became a 200-HR registered yoga teacher.

9. What was your biggest failure?

I definitely sucked as a person for pretty much the first four months of the year. I was either unemployed or totally miserable in my job and mired in some pretty deep grief that I didn't know how to get out of. I'm thankful that my family was supportive and eventually pushed me toward therapy. It was huge.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

I almost waxed on about how I've been relatively healthy except for a freak summer sinus infection, except then I remembered that I had the bulging discs from hell in my lumbar spine and was pretty much sidelined for a few months from my normal routine.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

Well, we did have to pay for his adoption fee and then we spend money on the little sucker all the time so the winner is, obviously, HIGGINS. He's been the best swipe of the ole credit card of 2011. Runner up is definitely the Santa Fe. I never thought I'd be able to drive a brand new car in my life, it was just really exciting. I love that car, despite the recent NorthPark parking garage run in where I injured her.

12. Where did most of your money go?

The mortgage/related fees, moving (although we did get help with a lot of that), Higgins, rent, car payments, teacher training and related yoga memberships and now my lululemon wardrobe is currently the main money suck.

13. What did you get really excited about?

Moving, teaching yoga, my job, running with our awesome running group.

14. What song will always remind you of 2011?

Probably anything by Adele, Mumford and Sons and LMFAO. I'm obsessed with Party Rock Anthem and I'm Sexy and I Know It. Don't hate.

15. Compared to this time last year, are you: 

– happier or sadder? um. Dumb question. Obviously, exponentially happier.
– thinner or fatter? Just a titchy-poo thinner. Only because I was a real fatass at this time last year.
– richer or poorer? Depending on how you look at things, both richer and poorer.

16. What do you wish you’d done more of? 

Travel. We sucked at that this year.

17. What do you wish you’d done less of? 

Being sad and/or stressed about things I can't change. Watching TV. Being unemployed (almost 3 months-ish in 2011). Putting things off instead of just living life- I think the stability thing will help with that this year.

18. How did you spend Christmas?

In San Antonio for two whirlwind days. I'll have to plan a little bit better for next year. It was good though, I had all the food I could handle, tons of great family time and I got everything I wanted and a little bit more.

19. What was your favorite TV program?

Probably the Today Show, sadly. I love drinking my coffee and hanging out with Matt, Ann, Al and Natalie. And also making fun of the stories they do on Twitter.

20. What were your favorite books of the year?

I sucked at reading this year. It was on my to-do list and I really dropped the ball. My favorite book was definitely Yoga and the Path of the Urban Mystic, which was one of the required texts for teacher training. I started reading it at a time when I had just been going to therapy and figuring out that I was holding on to all of these attachments to feelings and things in my life for really obnoxious amounts of time. There were parts when it was really yoga-spiritually and kind of overwhelming but mostly it was easy to understand and grasp the concepts and then actually apply them to the things I was going through in life.

21. What was your favorite music from this year? 

I'm a total tool but I love having XM in the Santa Fe. I love cranking up BPM (the techno-ish gay club music channel) when I'm driving around in Dallas insanity.

22. What were your favorite films of the year?

I always suck about movies, I just don't have the patience but Adam and I did go and see Moneyball at the theater together, which I really liked.

23. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I turned 30 this year. Adam took me to a fabulous night before dinner at Fearing's at the Ritz Carlton, where we pretended we totally belonged instead of being the crazy misfits that we were. We both took the actual day off and spent it Christmas shopping, which turned out to be really fun.

24. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

The obvious answer would have been moving back to Texas at the first of the year, instead of being in Chicago for another totally craptastic winter (complete with a fabulous-while-it-happened-but-the-aftermath-was-awful blizzard). But I can't say I'd change anything that happened this year. Looking back on it now, everything happened exactly the way it was supposed to.

25. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?

Yoga clothes 24/7. It's comfortable and I LOVE IT. I'm a yoga teacher, it works for me.

26. What kept you sane?

Twitter- I started using right at the first of the year during a big weight loss challenge started by my fabulous friend, Jennie (which holycrap I totally needed at the time). The people I follow range from celebrities to fellow weight-loss people that I've never even met and it's been a constant source of laughter, venting, etc. It's kind of like Facebook without all the sugar-coating that people do over there. 27. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011. 

I learned how to get over my sadness when the bad things in life happen. I think it finally hit me that things do just happen to people, good things, sucky things, all kinds of things. I had to learn that there are lots of things in life that I can control, but the most important thing is controlling my attitude toward all the things that happen. It was a lesson in letting go of all of the attachments that I had to various events and emotions, something that I probably already knew but I needed a big reminder of that this year.

and this is why you should set goals.

2011-12-20T09:28:00.000-08:00

In October, we were riding in the car, which at the time was HORRIFICALLY uncomfortable for me because sitting hurt my low back so badly. I was in treatment at the chiropractor and miserable about it. I told Adam that my goal was to get better by my birthday (Dec. 5th) because I didn't want to start year 30 with a hurty back.

He told me I was crazy and that setting a goal like that wasn't smart because I can't control my body and the healing process.

Obviously, I told him I thought that was dumb. But at the time, I didn't have any reasoning behind it. Now, after rehabilitating to the point where I think I'm at about 98% (every now and then I'll feel a little twinge but it's nothing like the 24 hour a day pain I was having for so long), I can say that he was completely and unequivocally wrong.

The body responds when you have a goal and a timeline. My goal was in such a tight timeline that it convinced me to seek out physical therapy and find doctors and a PT that were more in line with my body philosophy, rather than wasting thousands of dollars getting "stretched out" on a chiropractic table. It helped me to get back into my yoga practice and to use it in more of a healing way. I'm no medical professional but I think a lot of pain is your mind's reaction to what the body is feeling. By taking a more proactive approach to the pain and healing, it was much easier to deal with and eventually recover. If I hadn't set my own timeline and goal, I'd probably still be visiting the chiropractor three times a week and feeling miserable.

Even if December 5th had come and gone and I were still having issues, it would have been okay! It's fine to occasionally not meet a goal. The point is to strive for the impossible and to dream big. No offense, husband, but I'm glad that I didn't let you discourage me in this case. Having a positive attitude and my own deadline was precisely what I needed.

out with the old and in with the new

2011-12-19T09:18:00.000-08:00

I've been awful about visiting this space lately! It's been busy- I have been extremely full-time lately, teaching extra classes and picking up extra hours all over the place- and fitting in half marathon training (we have about a month and 10 days until our half in Austin), blogging, reading blogs and other free time pursuits have gone by the wayside. My yoga practice is very heavily neglected right now. But it's good. It's awesome to look down at my watch and see that it's already December 19th. I'd rather time fly by than to be bored.

I've been goal coached by several people lately, which is really fun and I think anyone can be a goal coach. Sometimes you just need someone else to read what you put down on paper and have them tell you that they know you can dream a little bit bigger. It's encouraging and I'm also learning that it's ok to not meet some of my goals on my timeline, the just writing it down and then taking the act of "going for it" is part of the bigger picture.

For 2012:

I will run a half marathon in under 2:00. I figured out that I'd need to be a little under 9:15 miles to do so, which I think is in my reach. Just finding the time to train hard for it is going to be the challenge.

I will develop my yoga practice enough to hold peacock pose (see picture in a previous post, it's redonkulous) for five breaths.

I will be a key leader on the leadership team at work. This was a really tough one for me, I am really scared about the money handling and closing/opening the store but I know that I'll be trained to do so before the time actually comes to do it on my own. Why not see where I can go in my career for now?
I will find another place to teach yoga and add another class to my week.

I will either run another full marathon or complete a Crossfit on ramp program, which will also tie into my goal to lose weight/inches. If I do the marathon, my plan would be to attend Crossfit WODs twice a week for cross training. I don't want to do the Paleo diet, but I do want to modify what I'm eating because I don't think it's working for me.

I will plan an awesome vacation for Adam and I.*

I will say yes to more and just DO things in 2012.*

*The last two are a little ambiguous still but after reviewing 2011, I feel like I spent a big portion of the year saying no to things. We spent the first 6-7 months of the year saying no because we had no idea when or if a job offer would come and if we'd be moving from Chicago. The rest of the year was spent in so much transition that we said no to a few more things (both big and small) and I was concerned about money when I wasn't working for so long. We will hopefully continue to have job stability for 2012 and we both work hard enough to take a nice vacation. When I look back at this year, I have no regrets and I am really grateful that I said yes to the biggest thing I did this year (yoga teacher training) but even that severely limited me for most of the summer and didn't allow me to do as much outside of it as I would have liked to. Having Higgins has also given us some pause in doing a few things here in Dallas. We've been putting him in daycare more often so I want to make it my goal to not let having a dog limit us in the new year.

maybe this year will be better than the last

2011-12-04T09:32:00.000-08:00

I always loved the song "A Long December" by the Counting Crows even though it's kind of depressing and mellow. This morning I am having a tough time remembering that this year is better than the last. Grief has a funny way of sneaking up on you at times and since yesterday ended up being a bit of a disaster, I'm having a really hard time remembering why I didn't just buy plane tickets to run the half marathon in Las Vegas with part of our running group. I know I didn't want to spend the money but it probably would have been a way better way to spend my birthday and today. Ug. I hate looking back and having regret over decisions.

Three hundred and sixty five days ago, I was waiting for the phone call from my dad to tell me that my precious Grandmother had passed away. The night before had been a really fitful night of sleep because when we talked before bed, he had told me it would be soon. It wasn't long after the sun came up that the call came and I'm not sure if he said much more than "She's gone". Adam and I packed our things, headed to O'Hare and were in San Antonio in time for dinner. I remember walking into the restaurant to a big table of our family and realizing that she wasn't ever going to be sitting at the table with us again. Despite it being awful at times, a lot of our family came down from Boston and so many of my friends showed up to the services to support me.

My nanny job in Chicago had ended right before all of this and I remember feeling so awful, I had nothing to return to. I knew I wouldn't find a job during the holidays but my dad made me leave San Antonio, which was the best decision for both of our sanity. We could have easily sat around all day wallowing in grief. She was such a key person in both of our lives, for our entire lives, that it was incredibly difficult to imagine going on without that. Even today, I really can't believe it's been an entire year. On the one hand, it seems like only yesterday that we sat across from her at her dining room table but on the other, it feels like so much has happened that she wasn't here for.

It's not a maybe, it's definitely this year is better than the last. I had no direction in my life last year and I was sitting in the middle of some really heavy depression. This year, I know where my outlets are to release my feelings and I can write a post like this (shedding a few tears, of course) but it won't drag down my entire day. Just typing these words is a sort of therapy for me. I can sit here this morning, have my own personal remembrance and be sad, for just a little while. My grandmother was not the type of person who would let me sit and be wallowing for very long.

We didn't do any family readings at her services, which was a good thing, since the pastor called up all the grandchildren (not part of the plan, GAH!) at the rosary (was it a rosary? I can't even remember now) just after I'd had my moment where I just lost my shit. There is no better way to put it, I was sitting with my cousins, Adam, mom and brother since my dad was with all his brothers and sisters and Grandpa in the front row and I just had a meltdown and then, not two seconds later, the pastor calls all of us up. I'm at least 99% sure that I had snot and tears everywhere when we had to go up there (I almost didn't go, seriously, it was that bad). So all of that to say that even though I wanted to read something, it's almost certain that I wouldn't have been able to get through it. If I had read something, my first choice would have been the e.e. cummings poem:

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

After the service, I went up to her casket with the poem on a cell phone to read it to her in my own

personal moment. It ended up being better that way, I think. And the story of how awful I was when

we had to go up in front of everyone is a funny memory for me. If she were still around, that is

definitely something that we would have laughed about together, in one of those "remember when..."

stories. Before we moved here, I knew I wanted to have a part of the poem up in our house. I ordered it

in August, and finally remembered to get a frame for it last week and Adam put it up on Friday night

right by my side of the bed. I do always carry her heart with me, not just today, on this solemn

anniversary, but always.

feeling thankful

2011-11-29T09:46:00.000-08:00

Obviously, I'm about a week late for the obligatory blog post but we had a wild Thanksgiving week. Adam's grandma passed away and we were scheduled to have company from Tuesday-Saturday. I was still working and teaching one of my classes and our week was a little wild when he left for Illinois for the funeral and getting to and from on Thanksgiving weekend was an adventure for him for sure. I still think I need to catch up on sleep from the whole thing.

We Turkey Trotted on Thanksgiving with my mom and cousin (and Mom walked Higgins).

As a real registrant, he got a bandana.

The day dawned cold and super foggy. Higg Man got to have his first DART ride.

Adam and I ran the 8 miler, which meant that we dodged the INSANE QUANTITIES OF PEOPLE that were not running for the first 2.5 miles and then enjoyed the heck out of the middle miles. It ended up being super hilly since we ran over two bridges over the Trinity River that have some decent incline. It was fun. My goal was to finish in 1:15 but we ended up crossing the finish line about a minute later than that. According to the Garmin it was about 8.2 miles. RANT: IT IS SUPER HARD TO MEET YOUR TIME GOALS WHEN THE RACE IS LONGER THAN ADVERTISED. But still, we ran all sub-10:00 miles, which was a major feat considering the crowds. I'll have to think long and hard about doing that one again because it was a little disorganized for my personal taste.

We had a great Thanksgiving meal with some extended family and friends. I made some S'mores bars that I found on Pinterest that were so easy and delicious. A new dessert tradition, to be sure. I had a fabulous pedicure on Friday morning before work with my mom, cousin and uncle. Mom and Uncle left after I went to work on Friday so I ended up having a great bonding weekend with my cousin. I'm so thankful that we had that opportunity and that both of us are in a place in our lives to realize that the past isn't a bad thing, but more like what makes our current relationship special. Without getting into too much detail, we had a lot of family drama growing up but it makes me enjoy her company lots more now. We were leaving the Katy Trail Ice House together on Friday night when I felt someone grab my butt (which was a CRAZY thing, considering it's not like I know tons of people in Dallas yet). I turned out to be one of my co-workers.

Speaking of said co-workers, my job is going awesome. It was worth it to stay home for the holiday weekend to work because on Saturday night they asked me to stay after the season, which is awesome and exciting and gives me a great deal of relief for the rest of December. Adam and I went to dinner to celebrate that last night and we were talking about how much we have to be thankful here. We both have jobs we love, we adore sweet Higgins, we're so much happier in our new apartment with all of the space (we can even get a bigger tree for next year when they go on sale!) and we love Dallas life and the outdoor opportunities we have year-round here. We're running faster than we ever thought ourselves capable of with our run group that is endless fun, I love teaching my yoga classes and he's plugging along with golf lessons, practice time at the driving range and man dates at the golf course.

Life is just good. I have no desire to change anything about our current situation, well, I'd like to make it where Higgins had a little less separation anxiety but we're working on it. My birthday is in less than a week and with it being such a "big" number in the figurative sense, I am feeling a little more reflective than usual. Last December 4th, my grandmother passed away the day before I turned 29. While it was expected and a relief in a sense that she was no longer suffering, it changed me as a person and made me someone that I didn't like for several months. I was so angry, bitter, sad, frustrated and I took a lot of those negative emotions out on Adam. The great Texas job search and condo mess made things even more stressful and difficult. When I think back on where I was a year ago and even seven months ago, it's a night and day different situation from today. I'm thankful for my family that they were bold enough to tell me I needed therapy and I'm happy that I went and that God was able to teach me through it. I finally did what I'd been intending to do for about a year and did yoga teacher training over the summer, and while living a more yogic lifestyle is something that I still have lots to work on, I learned a little bit more about chilling out through that experience. The people I met were worth all the time and money spent on the training alone. It's funny that it took me until the last few months that we were in Chicago to really find my own community and my own place. The transition here to Dallas has been as close to perfect as I could have dreamed it. I have been teaching since our second week here- what a gift! Finding other work was not as difficult as job hunting for me has been in the past. I'm blessed to have jobs that I truly enjoy and co-workers that I want to be around. Adam has found a place where he can be successful and grow and he found out last week just how much his co-workers here care about his well-being- they went above and beyond when Grandma passed. We have much to be thankful for, too much for one day a year or one blog post.

a little of this, a little of that...

2011-11-17T06:39:00.000-08:00

So I kind of met(ish) Owen Wilson the other night. It was a quiet Monday night at the mall and he happened into our store and bought a few things. SUPER nice guy. When he was telling us about a branch of our company in Maui and using a bunch of fun Hawaiian words, I felt like I was in the scene in Zoolander when they are at Hansel's house and he's telling them about hiking and smoking peyote in various exotic locales. We were all so geeked out about it, like a bunch of Mary Katherine Gallaghers with sweaty pits and red faces talking to him. And after he left, we thought of about 20 funny things we could have said or done but I think we just kept it classy and hopefully didn't annoy him completely. But really, such a nice guy and really cool when another guest was totally making a tool of himself by annoyingly trying to talk to him.

***

We went for a speed run last night. Adam was hoarding the Garmin, which I realized that I've become pretty dependent on lately. I am always pushing my limits when it comes to pacing (especially during speed runs) so I really have no concept of my pace because I'm going as fast as my lungs and/or legs will let me. I had really high hopes of doing 3 sub-9:00 miles but it was not to be. I have to learn to slow down during the first mile to leave a little in the tank for the last two. I think I have it in me, it's just going to take a little more work. We've been stockpiling Best Buy gift cards for awhile so we ordered a Garmin for me when we got home for only about $70. It's going to be lime green (YES!) and I'm hoping that it comes in before the Turkey Trot by a miracle of shipping. If you want to be a better runner, the Garmin is a life changer.

***

My back is progressing along nicely, which makes me want to say nanny-nanny-boo-boo to Adam. I told him awhile back that my goal was to be healthy again by my birthday (Dec. 5th) and he told me that it's crazy to set goals like that. I think not, good sir! I do best when functioning on a deadline. I will be better by the start of Year 30, thankyouverymuch, because there is no other option for me. I'm doing so well in PT that I only have to go once a week now! (thank goodness because PT is NOT cheap)

***

Speaking of the big 3-0, I'm leaving the plans completely up to Adam. It's on a Monday and he's taking the day off. The only thing I really want to do is go to the REI garage sale and try a new restaurant. I'm feeling a little more anti-climatic about the whole thing, because for the most part, I'm pretty satisfied with life right now. There isn't anything that I'd change for me or us right now, I'm doing exactly what I want and enjoying the heck out of being in Dallas. My weekends are full but full in a good way.

***

I started teaching a new class on Tuesday nights. I have a LOT of work to do because it's with students that have never practiced yoga before and I am used to teaching people that know where to go when I cue them into Warrior II. I'm thinking I'll just break down everything even further, I just hope that the people that came to the first class aren't completely scared away by yoga. I'm definitely stepping out of my comfort zone but it will be worth it if I can introduce one person to something that I really love.

go forth and be daring

2011-11-14T08:05:00.000-08:00

I've been running off and on for awhile now. When we had to run in college for our PE class credits, I remember feeling so accomplished after running 1.5 miles. At that point, there was no thought in my mind that I'd ever run any distances of note. In fact, I have a distinctive memory of thinking that Ashley was completely off her rocker when I heard her talking about marathon running at the KD house. Despite the fact that I finally got over my issues and fears with distance running (and I have to say, there's nothing like running a marathon to train your mind that middle distance running is not that bad), I've never really made serious time goals for myself. I've always been content to run 11+ minute miles and be satisfied with that, telling myself that I have a breathing handicap.

I'm not sure if it was our purchase of a Garmin GPS watch or the fact that we've been doing a lot more races this fall or my new co-workers or a perfect storm of all of the above, but for the first time in my life, I've wanted to get faster and actually started taking the necessary steps to make that happen. Everyone says that to run faster you have to practice running faster. I've actually started doing "speed runs" (which my speed run pace would be a joke to most people but I'm trying) and my training plan for the 3M Half in January is to run a longer run each week and a shorter speed run, probably a 5K distance.

When I trained for the marathon, I thought that putting down all of the miles would just automatically make me faster but lots of slow miles means lots of slow miles come race day. I had time goals in mind but I never put in the time and effort to come anywhere near meeting them. This time I'm setting some audacious goals and I'm going to do my best to get there.

5K: under 27:00, previous PR 28:11*
10K: under 58:00, previous PR 1:00:35
Half Marathon: under 2:00, previous PR 2:22:00
I'm sure there will be other distances out there, including the 8 mile run we're doing on Thanksgiving, in which case my goal will be to maintain between a 9:30/9:45 minute mile pace. My goal for the Turkey Trot is 1:15:00, which is pretty daring for me!

*my 5K PR is based on gun time, not my actual chip time. BOO.

My goal is to hit all of those time goals at some point in my 30th year but my target race for the half marathon is next years 13.1 Race in Dallas at the end of October. The 10K PR comes from Saturday's race, which I think might have been my first ever 10K! According to the Garmin, it was a tiny bit longer than 6.2 miles but I underestimated what pace I'd need to maintain. I feel like I left a little bit on the table there so I know what I need to work on for next time. I was under 10 minute miles for all 6, which is a HUGE accomplishment for me but I forgot that .2 miles should theoretically take 2 minutes and I couldn't quite make it to the finish in under an hour, which was my goal.

I also want to be more vocal about my goals and hold myself accountable, which is why I'm posting them here. I'm not totally sure that a sub-2 half is going to be a realistic thing for me but I'm going to work awfully hard to make it happen by next October.

finding our new normal

2011-11-11T06:37:00.000-08:00

It's been awhile since I last posted (and we won't even mention how long it's been since my co-blogger posted). There isn't too terribly much to update. I finally started working a bit more so I've been busy with that and with trying a ton of different workouts with my new co-workers. I've spent the vast majority of the last two weeks being incredibly sore because I've been doing physical therapy for the decrepit back that involves a ton of core work and I've tried a barre class (achy calves for days), 2 CrossFit WODs, a new Yin Yoga class, Piloxing and a session on the Pilates megaformer and a class at a crazy power yoga place that reminded me of where I got certified because of it's intensity. It's been a blast pushing some limits for myself because I've also been fitting in runs into all of that because I'm doing a 10K on Saturday morning. My runs are getting faster when I've pushed myself (AWESOME!) and I'm basically just enjoying life right now. I start teaching a beginning yoga class next week at one of the local YMCAs and I'm really pumped to hopefully change some lives like my first YMCA yoga instructors did for me. It's good times here in the Nard Dog world.

The littlest Nard Dog Dictator, or terrorist as Adam calls him instead of terrier, has had a few funny stories lately. We went down to San Antonio last weekend to celebrate my brother's birthday (for me, that involved two AMAZING giant bowls of chopped brisket topped by my favorite sauce from Bill Miller's BBQ) with a crazy 50+ person party. My dad and uncle had a gigantasaurus bar-be-que made last year that sits on a trailer bed and has more outdoor cooking contraptions on it than I can detail here. Basically imagine a commercial kitchen on wheels. Adam got to golf and drink scotch and cook and eat Chris Madrid's burgers and tons of bbq and smoke cigars so he was a happy camper. Higgins hung out with the other two dogs and proved that he is the troublemaking ringleader as he managed to escape from the backyard, not once but twice. On Friday night, my dad and his girlfriend returned home to find him out in the street and on Sunday, just before leaving, I came home to grab Higgins and found him and Milo in the neighbor to the back's yard. They had found the one rotten board in the fence and somehow squeezed through it but neither of them would come back meaning that the neighbor and I had to finagle them over the fence. Higgins ended up with a little scrape on his thigh and a cut on his neck from it and he had a bath immediately upon returning to Dallas. He's INSANE.

Speaking of times that Higgins has been insane, the two escape attempts didn't convince Adam that he can't be trusted so on Wednesday morning I was instructed (against my better judgment) to leave Higgins out in the house while I went to my PT session. It's only about 6 blocks from us so I was gone for a maximum of 1 hour and 5 minutes. I got home and saw that he'd managed to push open the doors to both bedrooms and when I got into ours, I saw what looked like paper on the floor. Upon further inspection, I realized it was our blinds. He completely destroyed the ones in our bedroom because they are low enough to the floor and then climbed on the couches and ripped the two sets in the living room but only two little blades on eat set so we basically get to replace them for nothing. Thanks, Dog. Needless to say, he's back to full-time crating so he'll be safe from chewing the universe and destroying our home when we're gone. I worry more about him ingesting harmful things than the actual destruction, by the way.

So other than working on the little dictator's separation-anxiety, we're just hanging loose and adjusting to our new schedules and our comfortable little life here. After the 10K this weekend, we'll be in full training mode as we run an 8 mile Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day and a half marathon in January. I've set some time-related goals for myself for the first time and I'm going to do my best to push myself!

goal setting

2011-11-02T06:25:00.000-07:00

I was lucky enough to attend a small goal-setting workshop yesterday. It's nice to be coached and to get reminders of what audacious goals will look like. We set some goals this summer before we moved (including the infamous try to eat 19/21 meals a week at home, which is SO challenging) but this is a great time for me to both revisit those and look toward the future. Looking at what we set out to do, most of that has been accomplished. We made the big move to Dallas, which was goal #1 for more than a year and pretty much took over our lives for awhile. I finally got over myself and my fears and got certified to teach yoga. Finding teaching jobs has been a process but it's going very smoothly. I've been teaching a regular class since we moved here and will start a new one in two weeks. I have another couple of places where I can substitute teach and attend classes for free. I have my "dream job" working at a yoga/running store and interacting with amazing athletes and people on a daily basis. Adam loves his new job. Personally, we're exactly where we want to be right now and there's not much I want to change. I hadn't really thought about it until we had a brief discussion last night about the Law of Attraction, meaning that we put all these goals on paper together and actively worked toward them and achieved them. It's not by just magic or even just hard work that got us here, it was setting goals and being brave enough to actually take the steps to make them happen. Instead of just saying that we're happy where we are, this is as good a time as any to look ahead and make goals for the future. In our workshop, we're guided to make a 10 year vision and work our way down from 10 year goals to 5 year to 1 year. Making the 10 year vision is HARD! I had and still have to sit down to really process and think about what I envision my life, our life together like 10 years from now. I have nine more days to get my goals honed down and ready to post in the store so this post is mostly just a chance for me to brainstorm a bit more and marinate on my goals.

Fitness/Health:
-Obviously, this one is on EVERY damn goal sheet I make in some form but I still (always) want to lose weight. I am at the tip tippy top of the healthy weight range for my height and that is, quite frankly, unacceptable. My problem with this goal is that I don't have a clear direction to get there and I need to think about the steps that I'm going to take to lose the weight and still maintain some moderation in my life and diet.
-Since my back issues started, I've been running more because it's been a pain-free way for me to exercise. I also have some great company with our Running to Drink group and Adam's company pays for both of us to do a race a month if we choose. I've been getting faster and I want to continue that and learn to sustain the speed over longer distances. My previous PR in a half marathon is 2:22:00. I want to run a sub-2 hour half in the next year. Also, I want to do a sprint tri before the next five years is over.
-Yoga: I want to continue practicing but also to grow. I want to do an advanced class and/or workshop at least once per quarter and I want to learn to hold peacock pose for a minute. In 10 years, I definitely still see myself actively teaching. I think the ideal number while also being there for my family would be five classes per week.

Mayurasana (peacock pose) via Yoga Journal.

Career:

-My goals here are just all over the place! 10 years is a LONG TIME FROM NOW and I have a feeling our life will look very different now. At times, I think that I want to consider homeschooling our kids (part of this is based on the personal goal to buy an older home and rehab it, staying in Dallas proper where public schools may not be our best option and I think I can 100% give my kids a better education at home than sending them to private school, just based on my own personal experience at private school as a kid). Other times, when I think about that, it sounds so foreign and crunchy-granola-mom-ish to me that I'm so not sure where I want to go with all of this.

-I do want to be teaching yoga and hopefully working at least part-time when we have kids. I want to be there for our kids and be active in their lives (field trips, classes, activities, sports, etc.) but I also want to be there for myself by having some time outside of the home and bringing in some income.

-In ten years, I want to be able to teach the classes I want, when I want at the premier studios and gyms in the area. I don't think I ever want to own my own studio, but I'd love to be a yoga director or group fitness director.

Personal:

-In ten years, I'd love to have a kid or maybe two. This is an area where I really have trouble envisioning the future because it's so foreign from where we are now. Higgins is plenty of responsibility (and money suck) for now!

-I hope we will be in a position to purchase an existing older or historical home and remodel it to our taste and make it our perfect functional home. This has been a goal that we've been tweaking and has changed based on where we are living in Dallas right now. I always thought that we'd move to the suburbs and get a big house but we've come to the realization together that maybe we don't want that after all. Neither of us wants to commute in the traditional sense.

-I want to be able to continue to travel. My list of places that I want to visit is always growing at a much more rapid rate than I cross things off the list.

-I hope we always have at least one dog in our home. Higgins has changed my life and brightens every day. I want my kids to grow up with family pets from the time we bring them home from the hospital. I want to continue to pursue adoption and rescue of our dogs.

It's always harder than it looks to start to process goals and look ahead at the future, especially because I'm quite satisfied with where I am. But I didn't end up here by accident, it took setting the goals and working toward them. If I want to end up at my 10 year vision, it will take more of the same goal-setting and goal-attaining.

honor your body

2011-10-28T12:26:00.000-07:00

Yoga teachers love to use that phrase, "honor your body", quite often during classes. It can mean a variety of things, usually the teacher will say it after they've taught several levels of a posture and it is a gesture toward taking the level that you are best suited for instead of pushing yourself toward injury or pain. I've been struggling with how to write this post because, in all honesty, I struggle with honoring my body in so many ways. During teacher training, I somehow lost my way and did pretty much the opposite of any honoring. I got competitive with my classmates, my teachers and most of all myself and quit listening to the signals of pain. I thought if I tried a little harder, folded over a little deeper, that somehow I'd heal myself. Instead of backing off when things were painful, I pushed myself further into some pretty painful injuries that have affected the entire backside of my body (and into the front side of my right hip) since July. It took me way too long to ask for help or listen to my internal signals. But despite that it's been a hard lesson to learn, it's been valuable. It makes me a better and more understanding teacher; it has taught me to slooooooow down in many ways; it's given me the opportunity to get back into my running more than I probably would have; I've learned to appreciate my healthy body so much more. I've always been a big race crier but now it means even more to me since I had a brief experience of being limited in what I could do with my body. I'm thankful to have this vessel that does almost everything I ask of it and I have to learn to treat it even better.

I've been getting better about exercising after not doing much during chiropractic treatments. That part has always come more easily for me. Once I get going, the feeling of movement and the yoga buzz or runner's high is alluring and it's not that hard for me to get with the program. I've completely modified the way that I practice yoga to be more gentle to my entire body, but most especially my back. But the area in which I always struggle is my food consumption. I do not honor my body by paying attention to what I fuel it with or listening to my body's signals that it's full. I bought a huge bag of gummy bears this week and ate a bowl of them yesterday. I constantly battle with food and I've been spending too much time at the grocery store while hungry (see the above gummy bear purchase). I have to quit making excuses and stop pretending that a steady diet of cheese, bread, candy and beer will help me get further into the healthy weight range for my body (I mean, I exercise for a living, there is NO excuse to be in the top of that range). I like fruits and vegetables, I just need to incorporate them more into my diet and work harder to make that the basis for everything. I don't believe in low-fat foods as a general rule, since they often compensate with sodium or chemicals, but I can't continue to always over-slather everything with real butter and cheese. I am tired of constantly battling between a 10 pound range. I hate having "fat clothes" in my closet just in case. I want to feel good about my weight 90% of the time, as opposed to the 10% of the time that I do now. I want to look at pictures and think "I look happy" instead of "I looked like that?".

I read a post from another blogger yesterday that struck a chord with me. I'll spend obscene amounts of money on yoga clothes or running/biking gear, yet I don't care to spend the time and money necessary to work the best foods into our diet. I have no excuse for that. Why spend the money on great clothing that performs well for the outside of my body and not spend the money on foods that not only please me but fuel me in the best possible ways on the inside?

It's time I finally took the time to truly honor my body, in all the ways that it means.

let me update ya

2011-10-25T06:40:00.000-07:00

I've stopped going to the chiropractor. It's been a week now with no chiropractic related treatments. My neck is just now starting to feel back to normal (did I ever mention that she had this odd fascination with my neck- WHICH IS JUST FINE thankyouverymuch!), my back is still sore-ish but I can sit without feeling awful and that is more than I can say when I was getting "treated". I was having trouble even finding comfortability when I was sleeping at night and that was never a problem until I started going to the chiro. Funny how none of those ominous signs were the real reason I stopped going. I just didn't want to pay the bajillion dollars and follow her treatment plan that went until MARCH! MARCH? WHAT! Um, NO!

When I got her "plan" and saw the way-too-high number to pay on the bottom (and also, you should know that this shockingly high number only went through my 2011 treatments and we'd have to start paying again in January for those treatments until MARCH!), I started calling around to physical therapy places. Turns out PT is also a gigantic pain in my butt. I had to visit with my primary care doctor, which I suppose was ok since I needed to find one anyway and I like the lady I met with, just to get a script for PT. The place she wants to send me to took 3 business days to finally call me back and they can't even get me in for my initial evaluation for another week (the first place wanted me to wait even longer). I can't even imagine the grotesque amount of money it's going to cost and our new insurance here in Texas just plain sucks. (I'll save my rant about high deductible insurance and how it totally punishes people with minor issues and basically gives you good coverage only when you've had a ridiculous chronic problem for ages for another day.) But my hope with PT is that they say it should only take me 8 sessions, or about 4 weeks, to complete whatever plan we agree upon and if I haven't seen results, we'll move on to something else (probably meeting with a surgeon and I pretty much refuse to have back surgery for this, I'd rather just live with nagging pain). It's not treatment until MARCH! so I'm happy with trying this route for now. Plus, PT is more active, meaning that I'll be doing some exercises to get the area around my problem stronger and maybe even get "worked on" which I'm hoping means a massage. We'll see.

AND... I would just like to CLARIFY for all the people who think they are my doctors. My injury is opposite of what happens to most people. I don't feel any pain when I'm standing, walking or running. I have been guided to be doing backbending exercises for low back strength. My injury is from over stretching during forward folding (like putting my face against my shins when either standing or sitting with legs extended). So everything going on with me is pretty much the opposite of what all your other friends with bulging discs have had to do. Until someone tells me I can't, I'll be running as much as I can. It is the one time I feel no pain and when I mentally don't feel old, decrepit and defeated (which is totally the opposite of my normal attitude toward running). Not being able to do yoga full-time has been very difficult for my psyche. The studio used to be the one place where I felt strong and good at what I was doing and not having that right now has not been easy for me, mentally.

I did break the chiropractor's rules yesterday and went to yoga. My primary care doctor said I'm smart enough to listen to my body and take it easy. It's extremely difficult for me to not take everything to the ultimate maximum of my capabilities, but I felt SO DARN GOOD when my class was over yesterday that it's worth the mental effort I have to put forth to restrain myself during class. My back is a little tight but it's more sore from the yoga class and a run Adam and I went on last night. It's the first time in a LONG TIME that my body has been sore in a good way, not in pain. I'll wait to see what my PT thinks after my evaluation next Monday and modify what I'm doing from there.

On an awesome note, we ran the Uptown 5 miler on Saturday. It was a great course through uptown and downtown Dallas. I finished in 52:16, which is less than 11 minute miles and that always makes me happy. Adam rocked the race in 45:38 and we both finished 12th place in our respective divisions.

It was a great race and they were giving out grapefruit flavored La Croix at the finish. I have a new obsession. You should get some before I buy the grocery store out. And yes, I am a race marketer's dream.

the anatomy of a run

2011-10-20T10:16:00.000-07:00

Adam runs with our Garmin so all of these are approximate guesses.

Yesterday around 3:00 p.m.: I realize that I'm not going to fit a bike ride in and I email Adam to see if he wants to run 5 slow miles on the Katy Trail for a tune-up as we are racing a 5 miler this weekend.

Mile 0: When we start talking about distance and turn around points, Adam lets me know that it "hurts his hips and knees" to run as slow as me so he'll be going on ahead. He'll let me know where the turn around point is when we pass each other on the out and back. GRRRREAT.

Mile .3: I have taken off ahead of him because it takes him nine years to put on all of his running equipment and we all know he'll pass me at the beginning anyway.

Mile .5: I can no longer see him in the distance. Boo. I am slow.

Mile 1: Ok, I've been running for a little longer than 10 minutes so surely I have made it a mile. 1 down, only 4 to go. I've got this.

Mile 1.2: I see a girl I recognize from somewhere and spend the next few minutes trying to figure out where I know her from. Was it high school? College? The sorority? I never figure this out despite passing by her again on the way back. Maybe high school? I vaguely remember not liking her all that much then and wonder if I'd like her now.

Mile 1.5: Finally get my breathing under control. I feel like I am running very fast (spoiler alert: I'm not). This is one of those brief moments in a run where I feel like I own this run and could go on forever.

Mile 2ish: Pass Katy Trail Ice House. Internally curse the smokers on their patio. Seriously? YUCK. Think for awhile how awesome the trail is and how nice it is to be surrounded by a community of bikers, bladers, runners and walkers. Also see a million cute dogs out for their evening walk.

Mile 2.3: See Adam and he tells me to just go all the way to the end of the trail and turn around at the American Airlines Center entrance where there are two silver posts.

Mile 2.5: See the AAC, the silver posts and turn it around. Look at watch, 26 minutes, which is a little slower than I want to be running. Proceed to climb hill and take sip of water from my Camelback and then almost choke. Have trouble getting breathing back for the next couple of minutes.

Mile 3: This is where things get really tough. My legs start screaming at me more than my lungs and I realize that I haven't run a distance of note since the last 5K, which was October 1st. Start feeling angry at myself for not running more since it's not bringing me any back pain and I was feeling so good about my running during the last race. Spend some time in a general malaise. Feel myself slipping into a slower pace but not really able to do anything about it. This isn't going to be an out and back with a negative split (running the second half faster than the first).

Mile 3.3: See probably the third black cat on the trail and start wondering if there is a feral cat problem in Uptown Dallas.

Mile 3.5: Think about how awesome Dallas is. See some of the same people over and over since Katy Trail is so short, you have to turn around at the end points a couple of times to put in any serious mileage. Look for Troy Aikman, who is supposedly a trail regular. Think about dinner. Think about wanting to finish ASAP. Think about how happy I am that my back isn't hurting!

Mile 4: COMPLETELY MISJUDGE where I am and think I've crossed over the last main street and pick up my pace for what I think is the home stretch. It's getting darker so every time I see a streetlight I think I'm coming to the end. Luckily, Tom Petty's "Running Down a Dream" comes on (BEST RUNNING SONG EVER) and I keep pushing despite thinking "I should be done now. I should be done now." over and over in my head.

Mile 4.5: TOTALLY cursing the fact that I've never ran this route before. Looking for Adam around every tree and every corner. Pushing through all of the pain in my legs and starting to wheeze pretty bad. Actually, I think I might have been wheezing since mile 1. I don't think there was any need for me to say "on your left" to the three people I passed, I'm sure they heard me coming.

Mile 4.9: See Adam, practically jump for joy. He meets me at the stopping point.

Mile 5: Turn off heart rate monitor and spend the next few minutes being pissed off that it took me 56 minutes to run 5 miles. I so desperately want to be a little faster but it might just be time to accept what I can do and be happy and proud of that. Spend the next few minutes hacking up a lung and wheezing like a smoker with emphysema. Complain about feeling decrepit but deep down, feel good that I can go and throw down a solid five miles after not running (and mostly slothing around with my back problems) for the last 18 days. Know that I can get better and will get better about running again. Secretly hope that it's a tad bit warmer on race day because my lungs much prefer it.

photo dump

2011-10-19T14:12:00.000-07:00

While uploading photos from my camera the other night during our post-things-on-Craigslist project (anyone need a TIVO? or super contemporary dining for two set?), I came across a bunch of photos from the recent past that I hadn't done anything with. So without further adieu, a few photographic moments from the last couple of months:

This disaster scene is the only picture I ended up with from our going away party at the world-famous Higgins Tavern.

A craptastic photo I took on our first night as Dallas residents on the rooftop of The Bone in Deep Ellum. We keep meaning to go back and we need to!

Higgins' big day getting rescued from the pound.

Can you tell he was a little skittish?

Or maybe just overjoyed at being relatively free.

This was about two seconds before I made the ill-fated decision to roll down my window. (He totally jumped out and ran back toward the pound. I guess the pound is better than a home where you get abused though.)

Addison Oktoberfest. I had to ride the swings. SO SO FUN!

WHEEEEE!

Our neighborhood is filled with quite a bit of random art and sculptures. There are several sets of giant (like 3 stories high) robots with these silver chicks. Adam had a seat on one.

happy anniversary

2011-10-16T09:57:00.000-07:00

One year down, one million more to go (because, obviously, we're gonna live forever).

It's been a roller coaster but I think where we've ended up is right where we're supposed to be.

adventures with higgins

2011-10-15T07:43:00.000-07:00

At lunch with Jennie the other day, I was telling a couple of Higgins stories and she suggested that they are "blog worthy" so here goes.

Unfortunately for this first one, I didn't have the foresight to take any pictures at the event. Dog rescues are a close cause to my heart, even more so after our experience at the pound and our good luck with Higgins. I follow Whole Foods on Facebook and Twitter and saw that they were hosting an adoption event and that for $7 they would bathe your dog. Higgins is not really a fan of baths and they can be a process for us, so I figured that donating some money and having him get a nice bath that we didn't have to participate in sounded like a pretty good deal.

Obviously, since this was at Whole Foods, it was no ordinary bath. They had baby pools set up in a tent in the parking lot. The dogs that were bathed before Higg Man were two little yorkies with their posh princess owner. It was hilarious. He was bathed in "gourmet" shampoo and even got aromatherapy behind his ears. His parting gifts were treats, a fancy dog meal to eat there and one to take home.

This chicken-brown rice- veggie combo was one of the many choices that included quinoa and lamb. I'm almost tempted to take a bite of it myself, it's probably better than most things I cook for Adam and myself. (Don't worry, I won't, that's gross.)

His other latest escapade was attending Camp Bow Wow. We need a place to overnight board him when we go out of town for shorter periods of time (it's not really worth it to drive him down to San Antonio for just a weekend). To attend Camp, you have to bring the dog in for a minimum of a three hour "interview". I seriously felt like I was taking a child to preschool. I dropped him off on Wednesday morning and they said he was welcome to stay all day if I liked and since I had lunch, errands and a chiropractor appointment, I figured it would be good for him. Plus, it had been raining all night into the morning and I figured he'd do well to run off his energy with the other pups all day.

When I returned to pick him up, they gave me this:

It may be a titch too small to read but it's his first day "report card", complete with a hilarious picture where he is just about to jump up and get the camera girl's treat. He passed his camp interview and made friends with dogs named Fausto and Jackson. HILARIOUS! Adam put his report card on the fridge because we are totally ridiculous like that.

He also got to take professional pictures with my friend, Kate, of Kate Gavos Photography two weekends ago for our Christmas Cards. He's living a posh existence, my friends. Two months ago, he was just a Pound Dog but now he gets to live as the main Nard Dog.

the state fair

2011-10-14T07:40:00.000-07:00

Despite the fact that both of us are native Texans and spent more than half of our lives here in the great state, neither Adam nor I had ever made the trip to Big D for the annual State Fair. Seeing as how the trip is only one DART stop away from our humble abode, we felt that a visit was pretty much mandatory. Admission is RIDICULOUS ($16?) so we went on Wednesday night and were able to score our tickets for only $2 and a donation to the Kroger Can Drive.

Obviously, we visited Big Tex. He talks in a rather creepy voice and told us really random things like having clean hands while eating is very important (to which I said that I couldn't believe he wasn't advertising for So-and-So anti-bacterial handwash placed in strategic locations around the fair, but no, it was just a really odd PSA).

Fletcher's Corny Dogs. Duh. Do people go to the State Fair and not get one? Although, next year, I'll try the Jalapeno/Cheese one. I just felt it was important to have the original experience this first time.

This "walking taco" was Adam's Favorite. He's so lucky that I did my State Fair research and found out what the supposed best items were via the Dallas Observer blog. This was Nacho Cheese Doritos (sadly, they were out of Flame flavor) with taco fixins piled all over them straight into the bag. It was not walkable at all, rather messy in fact, but we both enjoyed it. I'll have to remember that idea because Doritos would probably make a rather glorious base for nachos. Sadly, the lettuce and tomatoes make this hands down the healthiest food we dined on during our visit.

Fried Oreos. Adam was still feeling hungry as we were making our journey around the Cotton Bowl in a vain search for the award-winning Deep Fried Salsa. We were choosing at this booth between Fried Snickers and Fried Oreos, so I told Adam to ask the lady working the booth what her pick would be. She did not steer us wrong seeing as how there were four Oreos in an order. DELICIOUS.

Still searching for Fried Salsa, we took an unpictured visit to the Wine Garden area and sampled the State Fair special wine and visited with a lovely man from Fall Creek Vineyards, where I have participated in a grape stomp (random childhood Jen fact).

The nightly parade came around right after we toured a few of the animal visits. I LOVE PARADES. Adam has never been to Fiesta in San Antonio and I'm determined to change this and do it up right come April.

We walked all over the entire fair with nary a Fried Salsa sighting. I asked some people if they had seen it and they handed us a map that was probably more confusing than aimlessly wandering. We went back to the general vicinity of where the map claimed the salsa was and had to ask at another booth. Turns out Deep Fried Salsa hides at the "Taste of Cuba" booth. ODD. I was so happy to finally taste the goodness that I completely forgot to snap a picture. Just know that it was in fact, a salsa ball made with tortilla chips and fried with queso for dipping. I want to go back before the fair closes next week just to get more of it.

We searched for a funnel cake that was only 11 coupons (most were 12) and several of the booths had different pricing on various items. We stumbled upon the Deep Fried Cookie Dough booth and Adam was sold. In retrospect, this was a good thing, because I was able to pawn 2 out of the 3 dough balls off on him instead of dominating half of a funnel cake.

For the record, the Oreos were way better.

I want to go back, but Adam claims that his stomach can't handle another night of eating like that. LAME!

road to recovery

2011-10-13T12:04:00.000-07:00

So after my cute little "I'm going to get my attitude right" post on Monday, I proceeded to be in a foul, cranky mood. I wasn't feeling any relief. At my appointment with the chiropractor that afternoon, I told her I was feeling the same, if not worse, and they made me an appointment for an MRI on Tuesday evening. I wasn't exactly happy about that but I was interested in getting some answers. I have this knot to the right of my lumbar spine and I've been thinking since July, when I started feeling the pain, that it was cancerous or something awful. I am my mother's daughter, "worst case scenario" might as well be one of my middle names.

And the MRI itself, those things suck. Why did no one tell me? The form that I had to fill out had me all upset and nervous because I have a permanent retainer and I was afraid the magnets would pull my face into the machine. And the machine itself is GIGANTOR and crazy looking. When I saw the tiny chute that I had to fit into, it did freak me out a little bit. I'm not claustrophobic, but it was freaky. How do obese people get in those things? Once I got in and we got going with the loud picture taking, it almost started sounding musical to me and I would zone out into a very savasana-like state. Before I knew it, the tech came over the speaker and said we only had one more picture to take and that it would be two minutes. Adam said I was back in the room for over 30 minutes but luckily it didn't feel that way.

When I got to the chiro yesterday, she said she had my MRI reports in (a day early, when does that happen?) and that she was going to call another doctor quickly and then we'd talk about it (so OBVIOUSLY my mind went to OH MY GOD she's calling the ONCOLOGIST and I'm going to die). She was just double checking with the doctor that made the report to make sure she was understanding it all. I am an idiot.

We talked about the report, I have two bulging discs, just as she originally suspected, that are becoming more inflamed/aggravated when I do forward folding in yoga. I have some options for recovery but my first choice is to try her decompression table, which basically involves me strapping in, face down on a table that uses pulleys and the dropping of the ends of the tables to pull me apart while my back is in extension (a slight backbend). It sounds dramatic but it actually felt FABULOUS. Of course, the table work isn't covered by insurance (but steroid shots into my spine are partially covered, because THIS is what is wrong with our health care system and America loves to treat things the most invasive way possible instead of allowing the body to heal itself with some assistance and a little bit of work on my part, WTH). But this is not the time or place for my 8,000 word diatribe about all the things wrong with health care in America.

So, long story short, I did my treatments yesterday, spent the evening walking around at the State Fair (instead of sitting down, which is more painful for me) and felt better than I have in a LONG time. I taught a class of VERY beginning students today so I did more yoga than I have in weeks (but taking it extremely slow and very easy on myself) and it felt good for the first time in a long time. I'm not supposed to do yoga right now and I plan to take that seriously, but it did feel good mentally to know that I am slowly working on this healing process and that one day, I'll be able to enjoy my practice again.

This whole thing is, unfortunately, very much my fault. I put a ton of pressure on myself to finish my certification in 8.5 weeks and put pressure on myself to take poses more extremely than my body needs. One of my favorite instructors in Chicago always said "Go where you go" when we were in particularly tough postures and I need to remember that and go where my body wants to go, not putting my face on my shins just because I think that will make me a better yoga teacher and better person. I'm not as good as a teacher now because I am limited, but even that challenge is teaching me to hone my words and describe more vividly what I want my students to do. I will grow from this mostly because I'll learn what yoga really is; it is not competition with myself or anyone else. It's just "going where I go" and learning to accept that for what it is. Now that I know I don't have some flesh eating blob living inside of me (the knot is nothing to worry about and lots of people have them- the pain I feel more so on that side of my body is because one of the discs is bulging toward the right), it's much easier to feel comfortable about where I'm headed. I am looking forward to learning how to take care of my spine. I'll be a better teacher to others when this is all over because I know now just how infinitely precious my mobility is!

the wedding that was, part 3

2011-10-13T07:50:00.000-07:00

After riding up on the boat, we joined our cocktail hour about 30 minutes in. If I'm totally honest, the next hour or so was really stressful for me! We were pulled in about 100 directions during the cocktail hour trying to see as many people as we could. When we finally went inside for dinner, I was so anxious about greeting everyone (I've been to too many weddings where I never saw the bride and groom) that I wasn't even hungry. While the coordinator, caterer and DJ were coordinating the buffet (Mexican food, of course, this was a very San Antonio event, after all), Adam and I were served and I think I told him he had less than 10 minutes to eat.

Somehow, we made it to every table and I think and hope we saw everyone. When I looked around and saw full plates in front of everyone, I started to relax again and enjoy the night. When it was all over, our only complaint was that it went by too fast...

Adam's groomsmen gift was custom Chuck Taylors in colors that represent the guys sports teams. In order L-R: Bayern Munich, University of New Mexico, Virginia Tech, Chicago Blackhawks, Chicago Bears, Chicago Cubs, Green Bay Packers, LA Lakers. (not pictured: my dad, whose colors were green and blue because he supports no sports teams and was lame and had to go back to the hotel because he forgot his speech and to change shoes- he was a hot mess).

Cake cutting and there was no face smooshing at this wedding, just for your information. Notice the original Lane Stadium (Virginia Tech) plan was scrapped post-Blackhawks Stanley Cup win. Our friend, Brooke, made the epic 16 layers for Adam as our wedding gift.

After a particularly funny moment in a best man's toast...

Our first dance as husband and wife was spent mostly by Adam stepping on my dress, but lovely nonetheless, because we chose a funny song (Whatever It Is, by Zac Brown Band).

My dad and I relived our awesome moment on the football field with a fabulous rendition of My Girl.

Adam and his mom cried and danced to Josh Groban (which thankfully our DJ tastefully edited the six minute song, You Raise Me Up) and I don't think there were many dry eyes in the house. I can't remember where I was during this because it was super awkward and I didn't know were I "should" have been. From this photographic evidence, it appears I am talking to my brother.

Despite my dislike for it, "Shout" was my mom's #1 request and I had to acquiesce so the oldies would have something to dance to.

My brother and his girlfriend, who was also a bridesmaid and one of my besties from college. He calls this his "cutting a rug" picture.

These are our two awesome friends that ended up marrying each other last June. Good times.

This was the last dance of the night (Sweet Home Chicago- Blues Brothers Version) and we still had a packed dance floor. We had the best guests on the planet and even my sweet Grandmother made it all the way to the end of the night, at a huge surprise to all of us.

We left in a blaze of glory and crushed up cascarones (confetti eggs, yet another San Antonio tradition).

Being the World Champion Wedding-ers that we were, we made it to Pat O'Brien's for a bit of the after party, although I'm still upset that we missed the drinking from the Stanley Cup that took place shortly after our departure.

We wouldn't have done it any other way. It was perfect and it was so representative of our personalities. Our wedding party was amazing (even with one at 8.5 months pregnant) and we had a blast dancing the night away with our rockin' families and closest friends. The only thing that makes me sad about it is that we live so far away from so many of our guests (now and then) and we'll never have the opportunity to have them all in one room again, well, at least until our 10 year vow renewal. Vegas, anyone?

*all photos, except for the last one, which was my own, are by the lovely Caitlin Hudnall of Caitlin's Creations Photography

the wedding that was, part 2

2011-10-12T06:59:00.000-07:00

Texas weather can be notoriously crazy but we couldn't have asked for better on 10/16/10. I want to say the high/low was something like 80/60, which was just perfect to not need a jacket, nor be sitting in a sweat pile. It was worth the 14 month wait to get married in the fall.

Our ceremony was VERY short, which was just fine with Adam and I. An old family friend and former pastor at my church was our officiant and he basically let us choose the flow, the style, the readings, music, etc. and it was very much "us". As on any wedding day, it wasn't without a couple of kinks (including a missing marriage license, whoops!) but nothing that we had to worry about. It was perfect in my eyes.

Mini snafu: My mother (bright blue) had trouble lighting her portion of the "unity candle" so my mother-in-law came back up to help her. This is especially funny since I had asked my mom at the rehearsal to practice lighting it and she refused. HMMM... my dad and I were wondering what could possibly be taking so long!

The look on her face is so TYPICAL Nancy. And hilariously appropriate. Better not to be able to light the candle rather than one of us faceplant. Thanks for taking one for the team, Mom.

This is quite possibly one of the coolest pictures we got of the day. The photographer's assistant shot it from the balcony.

Go time for Dad and me! He managed to keep it together during our walk down the aisle. I'm 99% sure I walked way too fast.

AND we're married! After what was probably a 10 minute ceremony. You're welcome, guests.

From there, we traveled downtown and the wedding party got on a river barge to ride from our hotel to the reception site. This was hands down the best thing we did and when the venue coordinator mentioned the possibility to my dad, it pretty much sold him on the place. We even got to ride through the Arneson River Theater during a rather rowdy Tejano concert. Ballers.

Cocktail hour, complete with mariachis, was being held on the 3rd floor balcony of the International Center on the San Antonio Riverwalk. As we started to pull up, the announcement was made that we were coming via riverbarge. It was awesome to see our guests lined up along the balcony.

The boat ride was perfect. While I claimed all along that it wasn't a big deal if the weather foiled our plans, in retrospect, it was such an unforgettable part of our day. Ironically, it was probably the cheapest part of the day!

Next up: Party Time (and the last in this fabulous little series, I promise)

the wedding that was, part 1

2011-10-11T06:59:00.000-07:00

We (ahem, I suppose it's only me these days because Adam doesn't want to come here and tell our three readers (hi, Mom!) how happy he is to be in Texas) started writing in this space during a difficult time in our journey that brought us here to Dallas. I am so happy I revisited blogger because it's been fun to already look back and see the wide range of emotions that we went through. I can't imagine how funny it will be to read the early angst-y entries in 5 or 10 years.

When I stopped blogging before, it was mostly because I had pigeon-holed myself into writing about running and my charity walk, which I wanted to take a break from. But also because I had no work life to speak of (as I would not have discussed the family that I nannied for online) and I spent most of the remainder of my time bouncing back and forth from Chicago to San Antonio to spend time with my ailing grandmother and do all of our wedding planning. While I adored reading wedding blogs, I didn't want to blog the step-by-step particulars of our wedding beforehand. I still have no regrets about that. I have a fantastic album made by our wonderful photographer and 150+ guests to reminisce about it with.

But, as our first anniversary rapidly approaches, it seems appropriate to remember what was the best day of my life so far. And if I'm quite honest, I'm not sure what could approach it, as I don't think the days of my potential children's births will be quite the same awesome party. Please excuse the fact that I broke the posts up. I realize that is one of the most annoying things a blogger could do but I want to do the day justice.

Part 1 is pre-wedding:

Adam and the guys got dressed in the fellowship hall of my childhood church.

Some poker may have happened, not sure how Presbyterians feel about gambling...

For us ladies, getting dressed was SLIGHTLY more of a project. Getting my dress tight enough was a THING requiring many people.

I always thought the Bride's Room at church was so regal and I'm not sure I ever imagined that it would be me getting ready in it one day. (Also, not sure that I was prepared for not being able to put on my own shoes and garter, HA!)

We did a "First Look", which took some convincing on my part because Adam wasn't originally on board. In retrospect, it was 100% the best decision we made. It made us both much more relaxed and we only needed about 10 family pictures after the ceremony.

It also afforded us time to walk across the street to take pictures in front of this doozy of a mural, that I've heard my photographer made famous by having a huge canvas print of this shot in her office. I've seen it pop up with other couples on her blog. It's very San Antonio, which was what we were going for.

With our entire wedding party, they were all great sports and we couldn't have asked for a better posse to stand with us and they were all the life of the party at the reception.

Next up: ceremony and travel to the reception.

closing up shop on the pity party

2011-10-10T08:08:00.000-07:00

My back is still jacked. The chiropractor thinks I have a herniated disc in my lumbar spine (low back- L4 if you want to get particular, due to my symptom of wrap around pain in my glutes and the front of my hip).

I have had two treatments at the chiropractor and since Friday, I've been faithfully icing it at least three times a day. The icing part may not sound like much, but I have this thing where I really hate to ice anything due to an unfortunate skin burn incident during the marathon training, where Adam told me to quit being a wimp and I ended up with a faint discoloration on my right leg to this day. I've been banned from practicing yoga, which does affect the way that I teach somewhat, for the time being. I have three (expensive) treatments on the docket for this week. But the worst of it is that I'm not feeling any relief yet. My x-rays came out fine, there was a tiny white spot on the vertebrae where she thinks I'm having the issue that is a little arthritic looking but nothing that we shouldn't be able to correct. After two more weeks of treatment, I'd have to have an MRI for a closer look at everything if I haven't felt any improvement. I won't think about that happening yet, because it a. ties my stomach in knots and b. it's not going to be necessary. I will feel better soon.

It's been a difficult and emotional process for me. I don't like being limited in my mobility but I also am in either sharp pain or discomfort about 70% of the day, especially when sitting down. I can't seem to find a single seated position that feels right. I feel awful for anyone who has chronic spinal pain, it's AWFUL. I spent several days having a personal pity party and luckily Pinkberry is a drive from the house so I have been too lazy to actually go there despite lots of whining that I want it.

Having this giant pity party hasn't done anything for me. It's actually really stupid. I am young and healthy and my body will heal itself if I am patient and give it time. I have nothing to feel sorry for myself about. We are here in Texas, where the temps are still in the 80s everyday instead of inching our way toward the long, hard winter. I have hardly opened our coat closet (and we actually HAVE a coat closet)! We are celebrating our first anniversary this weekend and even though we've had some crummy things happen this year, overall, I can look back and say that our relationship is the best it's ever been and we've strengthened our marriage by dealing with hardships together. I am doing EXACTLY what I want to do as far as my own work, I have my dream jobs and I'm getting to spread my passion and love for yoga and running all around. We have friends all over this area who've opened their homes to us and come to visit ours. We have enough room in our home to properly host our families. We have Higgins who is the dearest soul of a dog. We are happy and feeling truly satisfied with our lives. Just ask Adam about his life here and he will tell you he loves his job and that he can play golf or go to the driving range several times a week (he'll also tell you that he's getting better at golf, ha!). I have a little thing going on in my back but it hasn't limited every activity for me, I can still do anything that doesn't involve a lot of bending over. I will be fine and I firmly believe that once I get my mind behind it, I'll start to feel better. It's been easy to think about the large birthday I have in another month and a half and think of myself as old and decrepit, but that's not the right attitude to have to fix this problem. Consider this pity party OVER.

the saddest race ever

2011-10-04T06:46:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, the Running to Drink posse met up (minus a couple, BOO!) for the Vineyard Run in Grapevine. Spoiler alert: we all falsely assumed that it was a 5K.

It was GORGEOUS WEATHER, I was wearing my long-sleeved thumbholes running shirt for goodness sake! I had been biking and Bikraming all week and taking Higgins out for mini-runs so I felt good about my "training" progress since the week before. I wanted to run hard and see where that took me. Unfortunately, I can't remember my exact 5K PR from a race two Februarys ago in San Antonio but I think it was something like 29:20. My goal is to one day finish under 29:00, which would be lightening speed for this old tortoise.

I love the small races here, it's so much easier to run faster when you aren't weaving in and out of, oh, 35,000 other people (ahem, Shamrock Shuffle) and I started out with a decent pace. I felt really good on all the hills and just kept pushing my pace as fast as I could without ralphing or having breathing problems. When we got to the end, I looked down at my heart rate monitor and realized that I was hauling some serious butt. I crossed the finish line at less than 26 minutes, but I just knew that there was no way I'd actually ran quite that fast. My time from the week before was over 31 minutes! I saw Adam and at this point I had a couple of tears happening. Running that hard always makes me feel a rush of conflicting emotions: disappointment that I gave it my all and was still slow, appreciation that my body can run at all, etc. I think my first out of breath words to him were something to the effect of "there was no way that was a full 5K, right?" and he said that the announcer was apologizing to everyone because the race was only about 2.75ish miles instead of the 3.1. He said that the lead cyclist made a wrong turn on the course somewhere so we got a little bit shorted. I was so disappointed because I was still running pretty close to PR pace, and either way, I would have most likely broke 30:00, which is always an accomplishment for me. What a bummer!

Our next 5K on the schedule is 10/29 so I guess I'll go for the new PR then, but this one was a little bit of a heartbreaker. Luckily the Mimi's Cafe Strawberry Lemonade Mimosas that I had with brunch smoothed over the disappointment.

everything hurts

2011-10-03T06:46:00.000-07:00

I'm taking three days completely off of exercise, which for my life here in Dallas is pretty drastic. I've been on the move pretty much since we landed here but my problems that originated in my low back, caused issues with my glutes and have moved back to my low back aren't getting any better. I got on my bike yesterday morning and it didn't feel good. I rode to White Rock and pretty much rode right back home because I couldn't ever get comfortable.

I have these knots-like objects in my low back and they are KILLING me right now. I can't even sit in a hard backed chair without feeling a bit of discomfort but I'm in a great deal of pain anytime I lift. I've tried every remedy that I can think of on my own but the time has come for me to breakdown and visit the chiropractor. I'm not looking forward to it because I'm angry at myself for "letting this happen" and I'm mad that my body won't heal itself. And also, doctors of any kind make me marginally uncomfortable and I hate spending the money on it. I hope they just prescribe me with needing lots of massages, ha!

So, Higgins and I are taking our rest days and going on a mini-vacation to San Antonio. He's super excited to meed his Uncle Milo Dog. I'm super interested to see how he deals with a four hour car ride. No bikes, no running, no Bikram and I'll come back 10 pounds heavier from overindulgence on bean and cheese tacos :)

update on the restaurant situation

2011-09-30T16:21:00.000-07:00

I mentioned somewhere that it's one of our goals or intentions for our time here in our apartment to eat 19/21 meals at home (or prepared at home) a week, translated to eating out only twice a week. I knew it would be crazy hard for us for a number of reasons: we are social people, I occasionally get bored with grocery shopping and/or cooking, I'm obsessed with Groupons and Living Social deals and we're in a new place surrounded by places we haven't tried yet and want to. If I had to grade us for last week, I'd give us a B+. And I should also mention that some of Adam's travel schedule necessitates meals at restaurants but he's reimbursed for those so we're not counting that and he is making an effort to take his lunch even when traveling when the opportunity is there.

We had brunch with our running peeps after the 5K. These may get lumped into the "doesn't count category" going forward. I mean, running makes anything ok, right? No? Shoot. But it was brunch, which is never all that expensive!

On Saturday night, we finally used some AMC passes that I was given two Christmases ago to see Moneyball. We wanted to go to the theater (that's in a mall) early to make sure it didn't sell out since it was opening weekend. Neither of us were hungry before we left so we ended up at PF Chang's during the hour and a half we had to kill before the movie. On the plus side, we passed over the prix fixe menu that would have been way too much food to split two appetizers and an entree. It ended up being perfect. On the not-cost-effective side, we each had a beer (but they were so cheap for an awesome local microbrew!) which I wasn't planning. We did, however, see a free movie (apparently a $22 value these days) and smuggled in our own treats so no money was wasted on the insane concessions. HOLY MOLY movies are expensive even here.

On Sunday night, I had book club so that was my third meal out of the week. Oops. But I kind of feel like it's important to get out and meet people (and maybe actually read the book next month, sorry guys) and it was BYOB so my Trader Joe's Vinho Verde came in very handy, thank you Mr. Movers for making sure it got here safely. I only ate half of my dinner and brought the rest home for Adam to snack on and take for lunch on Monday so getting 3ish meals out of one restaurant entree and salad isn't too bad.

Like I said, it wasn't a perfect effort but it was a B+ in my book. I might have to modify the original goal to 3 meals out a week, which would end up being one social occasion, one fitness related meal out (after running, biking or yogaing with a group) and one date night. Either way, it's still a vast improvement over where we were in Chicago, where we could easily convince each other to go out to eat any given night of the week.

the battle royale

2011-09-30T14:50:00.000-07:00

Is royale even a word? Spell checker is picking at me about it but I mean it the way that the burger is talked about in Pulp Fiction. As in, a large war that is taking place in our home.

As I've mentioned before, Higgins came from who-knows-what kind of situation, but seeing as how we did not get him from Paws In the City, his life must have been worse than the dog that Tara Harper rescued on Most Eligible Dallas (sidenote: if you aren't watching, you should be. It's stereotypical Dallas-ism at it's finest. I love it, Adam hates it, it's awesome reality TV). But the fact that he was removed from his prior life by Dallas Animal Services and that they warned us he was taken from abuse signals to me that he was living some bad times. The four months he spent in the pound were probably pretty crappy too. As much as we love seeing the fun parts of his personality emerge, we're also seeing some bad habits that need to be broken as he comes out of his shell.

We are crate training him for now, which I feel is safer since he tends to like to chew things all the time and things that he shouldn't be chewing when he's unsupervised. I also think it's just good for him to have a little den of his own that keeps him safe when we're not home or overnight. Sometimes he'll whine or bark a bit when we are leaving the house but he's never been noisy at night, so of course, on Wednesday night as we turned into bed and got him settled in his "cratey" (yes, I'm a tool and call it that), I had to open my big mouth and remark to Adam how great it was that he never whines at night. Fast forward five minutes and cue the whining from Higgins over on stage right. I was anti-happy about this latest development. This continued off and on for most of the night and he'd knock it off when I got all stern-voicy with him and told him to stop. Adam uses his amazing powers of heaviest sleep on the planet to ignore it but it definitely disturbs me and keeps me up. Last night was more of the same at about 3:00 a.m. and I finally pushed the crate into the living room but I could still hear his whining. Since we had a rainstorm last night and everyone knows dogs are usually to prissy to take care of their business in the rain, I took him out for a quick potty break just to be sure. I did put him back in the crate as soon as we got back in the house. I refuse to lose this little battle I have on my hands. I laid down on the couch to catch up on the 4 a.m. traffic reports and continued to encourage him not to whine.

I feel like Higgins is perfect training for our potential future as parents to an actual human. He's just testing his limits, as I tried to explain to Adam the other day. Adam thinks that one day Higgins will just go get in his crate as soon as we tell him to, I argue that he's just like a kid and kids are very rarely excited about going down for a nap and we'll probably be picking him up and bringing him over to his crate for the rest of his days. This battle is sort of my way of letting Higgins "cry it out" and I want to be the boss of this relationship. When I say crate, it means: settle down and get in your crate and let me sleep, darn DOG! We both hope that one day he'll be at a point where he can just get in his bed and go down for the night, but now is not the time as he's still a bit confused as to his days and nights and when it's appropriate to want to play. We also have a strict "no getting on the beds" policy in the Nard Dog house that applies to all non-humans and I know that he'll jump up to lay with us in the night if we let him roam freely about our room.

As you can see, we've been very confused as to when it's play time since Mr. Higgy has been like this for 99.9% of today:

Some days he's more of a terror than a terrier. We still have some work to do with the whole training of the dog business, but at least we have potty training down, right?

(great... why did I open my mouth, tomorrow's blog post will probably be about all the accidents Higgins has in the house today)

being kind of "eh" at everything

2011-09-27T09:21:00.000-07:00

I have a wide variety of pursuits that I enjoy that include yoga, running, biking, walking and other more adventurous things when I can (skiing, water skiing, swimming, TRX, Pilates, weight training, etc.). I'm not particularly good at any of them, even yoga. You know the saying, "those who can't do, teach". That's me. I will most likely never be able to bend my body in some of the ways that advanced yogis can and some of the arm balances are just a little bit out of my reach. We won't even discuss my evil nemesis, handstand. I think I'm about average at it and I just happened to learn how to use my words to guide others to be able to do yoga themselves. And then there's running. It's equally fun and torture for me. I love it but I more accurately shuffle or scoot rather than what most people would define as running. I am slow and I've come to terms with that. Same with biking. I don't really like the hunched over stance of a traditional road bike and eventually sold the one I had in favor of a hybrid or commuter bike. It's fine for what I do, which is not racing, but more accurately could be described as leisurely riding. I am mediocre at almost everything that I do for fitness fun but I'm completely fine with that. It means that I can be a part of the various communities. I love the yoga community and even the more rigid and competitive Bikram yoga group. I enjoy running and catching up with my friends at the finish line after they've smoked me in a race. I get amped up when the wind is blowing in my face as I ride my bike and I can be a stereotypical snarky cyclist with the best of them (although, that is much less of a problem on the trails here in Dallas but to the lovely people that use the Lakefront Path in Chicago: the little yellow line in the middle works just like a regular road. Stay on your side and everyone stays safe)(and also, I think that lots of cyclists are misunderstood. Turn down your music and get some self-awareness of what's going on around you when you're using a mixed-use trail).

Being just "eh" at a variety of pursuits gives me the opportunity to be a well-rounded "athlete (ha!) and means that I meet a wide range of people that enjoy, and may happen to be gifted at, some really cool things. It also keeps me from ever feeling totally burned out, which doing yoga so intensively almost did for me this summer. It was nice to take a break from it when we moved. It took me a long time to want to put on my running shoes after the marathon. For now, maintaining a balance between everything and not concentrating too hard on any one thing is what is working for me. One day, I'm going to do a triathlon, which I'm sure will bring me an entirely new group of people to chase during races. I'll probably finish in the middle to the back of the pack but as long as I'm having fun doing it, it's worth it.

now i'm just irritated

2011-09-26T15:01:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of Dallas haters out there. They say stupid things like "there is no nice outdoor space in Dallas" or "it's too pretentious". Yes, there are pretentious people (see: Most Eligible Dallas for their hangout spots). There are areas of town that are full of the types of people that get all dressed up and dolled up to go out for drinks, not that I care about that type of thing, it's just not my scene. I don't care what you are wearing (unless it's cute and cheap and you want to tell me about it) or whose name is on your bag or how much make-up you can pile on your face. It's not for me. That scene exists here but it does everywhere (ahem, River North in Chicago, blech). We've been lucky to find our little pocket of what works for us and it's been great so far.

Today I took an epic bike ride from our place in Deep Ellum, found the Santa Fe Trail and spent the next two-ish hours getting lost on the trails around White Rock Lake. It's not the same as the Lakefront Path, but it's also not as crowded. The only thing that bugged me was the people in their cars that didn't obey the flashing signs that told them they needed to yield to me on the Santa Fe Trail, but that happens everywhere. However, I have a big mouth and I'm not afraid to tell the men with their window down that slowed down to stare at me on my bike that they should have yielded to me and that they can take a picture of my sweaty hot mess because it would last longer. But that's neither here nor there, there is plenty of outdoor awesomeness in Dallas but very few people are using it. There's amazing natural beauty to be able to forget you are in the middle of a huge city as you ride on a trail surrounded by trees and just when you think you might have made a wrong turn and headed to the country, you catch a glimpse of the skyline that I so adore (it's even prettier at night coming from the west, by the way). It's not Millenium Park or Lincoln Park, but White Rock is beautiful in its own way, mostly because I feel like it's the best kept secret anywhere when we go there.

This is a crappy iPhone picture of dead grass and you can still see how nice it was today!

So, Dallas haters, you irritate me! There's plenty of awesome out there if you are willing to turn off the Cowboys game, get off the couch and explore it. If the fancy bars and restaurants aren't your scene, don't go there! There are plenty of local small-business restaurants to support that don't have a dress code.

***
Enough of that. We're back in a running groove. I love that most of the 5Ks we've looked into are on a Saturday. Even before we left Chicago, we'd transitioned into having low-key Friday nights so it's not a big deal for us to eat at home, watch Dateline and go to bed early for a race the next morning. We ran a 5K that ended at a brewery last weekend and we're running one through a winery this weekend. I suppose this is fitting for our posse, "Team Running to Drink". It's bloggers, twitter people and two of my sorority sisters from college. I think we need to recruit more dudes because right now I think there are six ladies and Adam, but he's a good sport because he's faster than five out of six of us and he's pushing himself to some really great running times.

I pilfered this from our Facebook group page. Y'all, life is treating us pretty good right now.

bark park drama

2011-09-22T08:18:00.000-07:00

We've taken Higgins to our neighborhood dog park three times now. After the first time I remember thinking that it was better if both Adam and I took him. The first two times we took him he was a little bit skittish to go in and even last night, he had his tail between his legs when the first couple of bigger dogs came up to him. I don't think he'd end up in any trouble but he did come from first an abusive home and then the pound so we still don't know how he'll react in any given situation. Especially after last night, I have a strong feeling that the dog park is a total crapshoot, since it's a completely different crowd of dogs and owners every day.

Luckily, our Higgy wasn't in any type of incident but there was a bigger dog that started playing rough with a smaller dog. I'm of the opinion that the smaller dog was sort of antagonizing the bigger dog but Adam disagrees. Either way, the main thing that was clear was that the owner of the smaller dog should have separated his dog from the bigger one long before it escalated to what it did. The little guy wasn't hurt but the big dog did take it from playing to a possible bad situation. Personally, I don't let Higgins play bite us, I don't want him to think it's ok to put his teeth on anyone (or any dog) even if he's only playing. I don't even like him to snap at the other dogs, although we think he just likes to get other pups to chase him around the park so he can run. When they first started playing, I assumed that they were both owned by the same person since the owner of the big dog was the only one that was being proactive in trying to keep them separated and playing safe. The bottom line for me was that both owners were partially at fault. The little tiff that their dogs ended up in could have been prevented if they had both been involved in separating their dogs sooner. The owner of the small dog yelled at the owner of the large dog and created a bit of a scene with some choice words that I don't think are ok to be yelled in public. I think it was a 50/50 situation of responsibility on both owners. Mostly it was just awkward for everyone there and a little bit sad because I think it could have and should have been prevented.

It was a good lesson to learn since Higgins does like to almost "tease" other dogs to be chased around. I feel even more strongly now that it's important that both of us take him so we can each be watching closely to make sure he's having safe interactions. Even once we get to know his personality at the park even better, a new dog could show up and end up fighting with him.

Despite the whole thing being rather sad, it was almost humorous because the bark park reminds me so much of taking kids to a regular park or playground. There's always going to be jerky parents who don't feel it's necessary to take responsibility and playground drama, I suppose.

This is usually how Higgins can be found after running his little heart out at the dog park. How did we ever live without this cute little dude?

post fruiting

2011-09-20T09:06:00.000-07:00

I went back to Bikram for the first time yesterday post-fruit cleansing. The difference was enough to tell me that there is no way that I can subsist on fruit alone. I had mentioned last week that with some modifications, I'd consider doing the fruit feast again. After yesterday, I won't even think of it. I went to the noon class after eating a homemade bean and cheese taco, a banana and my signature morning coffee with chocolate milk. I can't lie to you and tell you I felt amazing or anything, Bikram is still a serious test of the will but I didn't feel like passing out once and I was able to at least attempt both sets of all 26 postures. This was a stark contrast to last week where I didn't feel like I could get through the first breathing exercise without fainting or throwing up and spent a large portion of the standing postures hunched over and trying to breathe through my nausea and dizziness.

So, no more fruit cleanses for me. The feeling of not being bloated was lovely and all, but not worth the moodiness and non-ability to partake in any athletic pursuits. Thankfully, Adam was out of town so Higgins was the only one here to deal with my cranky, hungry attitude.

I am trucking along with my goal to eat 19 out of the 21 "meals" of the week at home. I don't exactly eat three square meals a day, but for the sake of simplicity, that's how I'm defining it. It's not going to be easy to only eat out twice a week but I'm going to work hard at it because it will be both physically and financially healthy for me. We already have a post-5K brunch planned for Saturday but I've planned out our meals for every night of this week with some goodies so that I won't be completely tempted. It's hard living in a new place and seeing restaurants around every corner that we'd like to try, as well as some favorites we have already discovered, but it's an exercise in self-control that I need at this point in time. It hasn't stopped me from stockpiling Dallas groupons to restaurants though.

***

In other random updates, we found the neighborhood bark park over the weekend and we've taken Higgins there the past two nights. It's been good for him in a number of ways, mainly because the only time he really barks is around other dogs when we're walking him. Hopefully the park will help him to socialize a little more and relax around other dogs. Watching him run around without a leash like a total maniac is hilarious. He was moving at a much slower clip on our walk home from the park last night and he's hardly moved this morning save for occasionally crawling on my lap to nap. It a perfect way to expend his energy if he'll be home alone for awhile during the day.

We also found the White Rock Trail over the weekend so I am hoping we'll be able to take a nice ride there on Sunday afternoon. This will be our first weekend in Dallas without company visiting or moving in related tasks to complete. I'm looking forward to more exploring, hopefully of the two-wheeled variety.

the skyline

2011-09-16T12:01:00.000-07:00

One of my gripes about Dallas is that we live 15 miles in any direction from the nearest Costco. I happen to like their roasted chickens and they are way cheaper than anyone else on quite a few of our staple items around the house. If there was one within 2 miles of us in Chicago, why can't there be a closer one here? But I enjoyed the scenic route as I went to what their website claims is my closest location in Duncanville today. I was driving north up 35E into Dallas, a route I have taken more times than I can remember, all my life from San Antonio up to Big D. This afternoon, the skyline took my breath away and gave me goosebumps. I always loved Chicago's skyline but it wasn't mine, if that makes any sense at all. I lived there for three years of borrowing the city life and borrowing a place that wasn't fully mine and never would be. I'm a Texan, born and bred. There is something beautiful about our urban sprawl (there is plenty of that in Illinois, I can assure you) and something precious about a place that moves at a quick city pace but also takes the time to slow down. I'm noticing that things aren't open as long of hours as they are in Chicago, the bars aren't hopping at 10 a.m. and that's ok. Places close on Sundays for family, fellowship and of course, football. I feel more at home here in a place that melts together the urban life that I so enjoy and the slower pace of the South. This is my spot and it feels so good to be in an area where the urban movement and revitalization is still in it's beginning stages. We're in a place where we can finally grow as a family and as individuals both in literal terms and in the more abstract. Our neighborhood has it's gritty spots and moments but my three years in the big city prepared me for it and hardened me against things that other Texans may scoff at. I even think the homeless people that hang out down the street are friendlier. When I came up the highway and saw the many buildings with familiar names that I grew up with, I knew for sure that this is the place I've been waiting to be for a long time now. This skyline feels like my own.

fruit feast: day 3

2011-09-15T06:40:00.000-07:00

I made it roughly 72 hours into the fruit feast before it broke me. If I ever attempt it again, I'll do several things differently. I had two left over avocados from last week that finally ripened and I bought four more on Monday that never really ripened up. You need lots of ripe avocados (the bigger the better) and bananas or other higher calorie fruits to survive this. By yesterday afternoon, I was sick of feeling like crap in Bikram class and I was feeling a general malaise because I was waiting for news that I didn't get until later in the evening so I caved and had a half a bowl of Trader Joe's mac and cheese. It was SO GOOD. I ended up needing to go to another yoga class last night at the studio I'll be teaching at and I was sick of feeling like I couldn't make it through. My other big mistake was that Adam and I had a very light dinner early on Sunday night before he left. I think I would have been better served if I had loaded up a little bit more before starting the fast. Either way, I made it from about 5:30 on Sunday until a little after 4:30 yesterday.

I never had the feelings of "lightness" that I've read in other people's accounts of the feast. I mostly just felt moody. I'm glad I did it because it was a good reminder that I should be building my meals around fruits and vegetables and working on my portion control. Things get out of hand when you're eating at restaurants or hotel breakfasts for every meal. It was a good way to reset my body and I definitely feel a little less bloated and puffy. I weighed myself at the beginning but I don't know that I care to weigh myself today, I'm sure I dropped a couple of pounds but I imagine that it was mostly water weight.

Yesterday's eats:

7:00 a.m. - pear and plum

9:30 - Bikram class (again, felt like complete and total crap)

12:30 p.m. - avocado

4:30 - came home from running errands and was so moody and frustrated and couldn't imagine shoveling another fruit in my mouth, 1/2 bowl of mac and cheese

6:00 - yoga

7:45 - had a little more of the mac n cheese leftovers, maybe another 1/4 of the batch? I ended up throwing some out, which for me was a big deal since I have been known to sit down and demolish a whole bowl. I figured it was best to take it easy as I was coming off the fast

This morning:

8:00 a.m. - my usual coffee and chocolate milk combo and IT WAS SO GOOD

I'm not a huge fan of limiting or restricting myself in my diet because it never works. Despite the way I felt, I was pleasantly surprised to see relatively little weight gain on the scale before this started so it leads me to believe that I was making some semi-decent choices when we were eating out. I could have done better but it's a start. I have all my kitchen stuff back now so Adam and I should be able to eat at home or prepared at home (one of our goals is to eat at home for 19/21 meals a week, we'll see) more often.

fruit feast: day 2

2011-09-13T18:15:00.000-07:00

Today the fruit experiment felt an awful lot more like a fast than a feast. I'm ready to have something dairy and HOLY MOSES did I ever feel terrible today without coffee. I made the mistake of buying Diet Dr. Pepper yesterday and it was tempting me something fierce all day. Higgins and I did not have the best day with his training and I realized that I've done very little this week beside working with him. I have stuff that I need to do tomorrow so I'm hoping I don't feel weak in my yoga class, hungry and frustrated all day again.

8:00 a.m. - cantaloupe and grapes, tea

9:45 a.m. - a crazy hodge podge fruit mess that I ground up in the Magic Bullet. I think it had watermelon, grapes, a tangelo and strawberries in it.

*this is where I made a crucial mistake and didn't eat anything else before Bikram*

12:00 - Bikram, which was better than yesterday but it was still what I would consider a poor showing

2:00 - avocado with homemade salsa (we had this left over from the weekend and I'm not sure that cilantro, onions or garlic are permitted but I didn't really care)

5:30 - avocado with salsa and watermelon (odd combo but it was good)

8:15 - at least one glass of tea and more grapes, the grapes have been in a bowl in the fridge so I've been grabbing a couple at a time for most of the day

Just one more day... I have no idea what I'm going to eat when I break the fast but I'm equal parts looking forward to it and equal parts nervous to see how my body reacts. If you were wondering, all of my bathroom breaks have been normal for me. I eat about 9,000 pounds of beans in a normal week so I think my body is used to the high fiber content. I know this is a concern for people considering a fruit feast and the only thing that has changed is that I constantly feel a twinge of hunger in the pit of my stomach (that only my sweet, sweet carbs can fill, I fear) and I have a constantly full bladder. However, I'm not sure that I could ever do this at work. We had a pasta dinner at the apartments tonight and I couldn't stay or else I might have lost my mind around all the food. Seeing co-workers eating things other than fruit would probably make me go insane.

fruit feast: day one

2011-09-12T18:25:00.000-07:00

The move was crazy! It ended up being a long process since they took all of our stuff on August 29th. Even before that, we had stopped buying food for the house so we wouldn't have to throw a ton of stuff away. When we got the second realtors at the end of July, they wanted us to reduce our stuff in the kitchen by about half, again. I hardly had anything left pot/pan/appliance-wise left to cook with so we gave up on that too. Basically, we've been eating junk food and at restaurants for the better part of two months. Ug.

I haven't been practicing yoga as regularly since my classes ended and all of this has meant weight increases, but more so inches increase and decreased muscles. I read about the Baron Baptiste (he's a famous yoga guru for Power Yoga) and his "fruit feast" that is at the end of his book, 40 Days to Personal Revolution, last year and always thought it sounded really interesting. It's basically a "cleanse" or "fast", except you only eat fruit and drink water or tea for three days. Since Adam was leaving for work training last night, I figured there is no time like the present to do it.

Everything I've read said that the first day was horrible. It hasn't been that bad (so far, it's only 8:15) with the exception of the 90 minute inferno of a Bikram class that I went to this afternoon but Bikram yoga challenges me to the extreme when I'm not doing a cleanse so I'm kind of writing that off. I did have a headache developing but I had a couple of glasses of tea after dinner and I'm feeling fine right now. I do feel a twinge of hunger but I'll probably go and snack on some more stuff.

Today I've eaten:

7:00 a.m. - banana and some watermelon

8:00ish - tea and a little more watermelon

10:30 - avocado

12:00-1:30 - almost died during Bikram (seriously, I felt faint during the breathing exercise at the beginning so you can imagine how the rest of the 90 minutes went and I don't blame it on the food because it was my first Bikram in a year and those classes are INSANE)

3:00 - after running errands, devoured a peach, some strawberries and more watermelon

4:45 - avocado, cucumber and tomato salad (I *may* have cheated because I put salt, pepper and balsamic vinegar on it but I figure I really need the salt after so much sweat and vinegar is really grapes, is it not?)

6:45 - bowl of cantaloupe and grapes and I attempted to eat a tangelo that I bought because this was supposed to challenge me to try some new fruits

7:00 - two cups of tea because I was chilly

8:30 - as soon as I'm done here, I'll be having a pluot and maybe some grapes

Tomorrow, I might head up to Central Market or Whole Foods to find some figs. They didn't have any at the grocery store I hit up today (Sunflower Farmers Market, which is an entirely different post because I am in love). I used to eat figs with my little friend at my nanny job and I always forget that I like them. I also have a green pepper and I think I'm going to make some guacamole to eat with a spoon for my "dinner".

The hardest part has been craving something warm and comforting since Adam is out of town and I normally use that as an excuse to eat like garbage. The commercials for pizza are seriously killing me (we got cable today- yes!) so most of this is mental, in my opinion. I'll report back tomorrow with Day 2.

millions of fruities, fruities for me.

millions of fruities, I wish they were free.

meet mr. higgins

2011-09-12T18:08:00.000-07:00

One of the (far too many) items on our unofficial "to do when we move to Texas list" that was part of our self-torture during the job hunt process was to get a dog. As you might remember from my previous experience volunteering at the animal shelter for karma yoga in Chicago, I fell in love with a small chihuahua mix that luckily was adopted to a different family. I was already 99% sure that I wanted to go the rescue route, as we were not interested in a puppy, but that experience solidified it for me. We were kind of stupid (again with the self-torture) and did a little bit of research before we moved down here but I started really looking at dogs when I was on my urban campout at Heather's house. I found three that I was interested in inquiring about, two that were from private rescue groups and one from Dallas Animal Services (that I'd later find out was the pound). One of the rescues called us on Adam's number fairly quickly but the other sent me the snarkiest email about how they prefer people that aren't in apartments. I was semi-snarky in my reply back but not nearly as rude as I wanted to be because of Adam's guidance. I just don't appreciate the judgment, as we live in a place that is almost twice as large as our condo in Chicago and people up there have HUGE dogs in tiny places. But haters gonna hate.

Anyhoo, we ended up finishing the car buying process rather quickly on Tuesday because I am pretty darn decisive when I want to be and we happened to be in the neighborhood of Dallas Animal Services so I convinced Adam to go have a look. It seems like it's a relatively new facility so it didn't look too bad when we pulled up. However, I realized almost immediately upon entering that this was going to be a completely different experience than the posh private shelter I volunteered with in Chicago. The dog I had seen online was called "Woody" on their website but the lady at the front desk had us sign in and said to go and look around for him.

I have never seen anything as sad as what we saw when we went to find him. Thankfully, he was being kept in a nicer room with just one other dog (although there were three in his room on the day we picked him up) and he was close to the door we came in. One of the workers came and leashed him for us but their play yard was being cleaned so we just hung out with him for a few minutes in an empty room. When I volunteered, I kind of thought it was ridiculous that they wanted the 20 of us to basically just play with the animals for three hours but seeing the way he reacted to being alone with us in the room put it all together for me. By spending time with the dogs in Chicago, they were hopefully more receptive to people coming to potentially adopt them. Before we went into the room, we had to walk through what Adam called "the gauntlet", which was this totally insane room with cages and holding pens and more barking than I've ever heard in my life. Little "Woody" didn't make a peep but he was so incredibly shy when we went in the room. We just kept reaching our hands out so that he'd get used to our scent. He was kind of yucky so we just pet him and talked him a lot. We'd seen a couple of cuties around but there was something about this one that touched me, mostly because he seemed so fearful. We did know that he was removed from his home situation because of animal cruelty but he never lashed out at us and by the time we left, he'd warmed up to us a bit.

We talked to the lady in charge, filled out the application and agreed that we'd come and see him each day that week to see how he reacted to us. They wouldn't hold him for us but the front desk lady told us that he'd been there since May and she wasn't concerned that he'd go anywhere that week. We also found out that he'd reached his allotted time in the adoption unit and would eventually be taken to the place at the pound where doggies go that haven't been adopted and I'm going to pretend that I don't know what happens there (so spay and neuter your pets, y'all. Bob Barker's orders).

We drove back on Wednesday and got to be with him loose in the play yard. He was so stinkin' cute and we knew he was our dog and made arrangements to pick him up the next day and take him to the hotel that night. Our hotel was awesome and pet friendly. Originally, we didn't want to bring him into two new environments in two days, but in hindsight, I'm so glad that we did. It was a small place where we learned a lot about each other that night.

On Thursday, we picked him up and despite the fact that he had a mini-freakout and jumped out of the car in the parking lot of the pound, we took him to the hotel, got him all bathed and went on our first family walk together. We had a yoga thing that night and he did just fine in our room in his crate. We named him Higgins, after our local neighborhood tavern, not just because it's the best bar in Chicago, but because it was, at least to me, a representation of our neighborhood. We knew the owner, his son and quite a few of the bartenders. It's everything you could imagine in a Midwestern dive bar, complete with an AWESOME jukebox and standard random old dude regulars that show up every day. It was more like our living room since there was always room for everyone and always cold beer.

Higgins has taken to life with us pretty darn well. He's a 23 lb. terrier mix and in good health according to our vet. He had a few accidents in the apartment on Friday but has been fine since the hoopla and craziness of moving has been over. He hardly barks or gives us any trouble and watching his personality develop as the days go by has been really fun. I just look at him when he's curled up sleeping and pray that he never remembers his past lives in his abusive home or at the pound. I hope we will be all he ever knows as he ages and spends his life with us. I feel so blessed that we found him and that he's adjusting well to us and our new home.

Higgy rocked his visit to the vet!

Sweet nametag and street legal Dallas pet license.

Blackhawks collar!

Passed out with Adam

Higgins tonight after two walks around Deep Ellum and playing all around the house.

the dps sucks

2011-09-07T14:43:00.000-07:00

We spent four hours in the DPS office today getting new Texas driver's licenses. You'd think that after all that we'd actually walk out with the new license (like in Illinois) but NO. This is the one area that Texas does horribly and needs improvement. The DPS is so stupid that they even have comment cards as you walk out the door. You better believe I grabbed one and I can't wait to fill it out and mail it in. Also, I am SO thankful that we won't have to go back for quite some time because they allow renewals online. It was a long morning and I got more salty to Adam than I'd care to admit. While we were waiting for his license, I took a little walk across the street to Lowe's to use our USPS moving coupon and got some organizational necessities and a couple of goodies that Adam will need for charcoal grilling (Reason #10,204 that we moved here. Everyone knows charcoal tastes better).

We're also going back on our word because we went back to the pound to play with Higgins today and we can't leave him there again. We got the documents from our apartment complex that we'll need and picked up the rest of the stuff we'll need for him for tomorrow. The hotel is totally pet friendly so we'll go and get him tomorrow afternoon. YAY! I'm afraid to post pictures and jinx it but I'm sure I'll have a million from tomorrow. We're going to celebrate like it's his second birthday and he might even get a special treat!

happy dallas!

2011-09-06T19:20:00.000-07:00

We made it after the longest and most annoying flight ever. There was a family of INSANITY sitting right behind us and it just reinforced my belief that every single human should be forced to purchase a seat on the aircraft. It's an unpopular opinion, but it's a safety issue first and foremost, and it would also prevent some of these people that should NEVER have been allowed to procreate in the first place from affording to be able to fly. My seat got headbutted more times than I care to remember.

But stepping off the plane in Dallas, into what has been the best weather here in months, makes the entire journey worth it. It felt like coming home. The crappy flight reinforces why we came here, so that we won't have to take our potential kiddos on flights all the time just to see their family.

We had a great dinner with friends in downtown Grapevine and headed to Dallas to check into our hotel. They picked us up from the airport with the Civic we had shipped from Colorado that Adam bought from his brother. It felt so odd to be driving around in our very own car together! We drove around and I found what will probably be my grocery store for most of our staple items (Sunflower Famers Market or as I will call it Dallas' best kept secret). We went to Deep Ellum (our new 'hood) and had a beer on a rooftop of a bar. The bar is dog friendly and the bartender and his patrons were great. They welcomed us to the neighborhood with a ton of to-go menus to their favorite places and restaurant recommendations. That friendliness to strangers, right there, is why we moved to back home to Texas.

This morning we woke up with one task on our minds: to buy car number two. We've spent the past month or so researching it so we had narrowed it down to two dealerships and two potential car models. The preferred dealership was our first stop and they made the decision easy for us by only having one of the 2011 models (this is model year end clearance, after all) left. Adam test drove it and we made the decision to buy in less than an hour. We each had overactive imaginations about how awful the experience would be and that it would take all day. We got to the dealership a little before 10 and it was just a little bit after noon that we drove away in the new car. They did try to sell us on a bunch of stuff, but it wasn't high pressure or dramatic.

Then we took the Civic to Best Buy to have a Bluetooth put in it so when Adam has long drives to the coal plants, he'll be able to talk handsfree. We also picked up the Dyson we ordered last week (YES!).

Conveniently, the Best Buy was one exit away from Dallas Animal Services, or the pound. I've never seen anything like it. There were SO many sad little pups and we found the one we had found on their website. He came from an abused home and has been at the pound since May. We were in a private room with him for awhile and he's so shy but after he realized we were just there to love on him a bit, he was fine with us. I think it's going to take a bit of time and effort to kind of rehab him into a new lifestyle where he'll be a huge focus in our lives and we'd never hurt him. We're naming him Higgins, not because it was our favorite bar in Chicago, but because it was basically our living room since we didn't have enough space in the condo to actually have people over. We're going to go and visit with him every day this week to check up on him and hope we grow on him. As hard as it is and will be to leave him each day, I think we both feel that giving him a fresh start in our new place is better than having him at the hotel in our tiny room that is already full of stuff.

We got the Civic state inspected, washed and detailed so that we can get it's permanent license plates tomorrow. We finally had the expected happen and we were pulled over by the Dallas PD for not having plates, despite the fact that the temporary plate clearly says on it that you only have to have it in the vehicle at all times. Luckily, we were on the way back to the hotel when that happened so we just left it here all night and drove the new car around. I had the worst idea ever and we decided to drive the 10 miles to Costco in rush hour traffic to look for a dog bed that, of course, they didn't have. We picked up a couple of things at Petsmart for Mr. Higgy before heading back to Deep Ellum to try out our bartender friend's pizza recommendation. It was a great way to end our busy day by having a slice of thin crust and a Shiner Light. It feels so good to be home and we haven't even settled into our place yet!

working on myself again

2011-09-05T14:00:00.000-07:00

As this posts, we'll be in route to Dallas!

This move has been really hard on my body. I still have a lingering low back thing that I frequently tweak. As soon as we get settled in, I plan to get a massage and possibly visit a chiropractor to get it worked out. I want to be able to practice yoga, run and bike without pain again. I'm not sure how exactly that I tweaked it but it needs to get fixed. Because of that, I've been working out a lot less. However, when I say this has been hard on my body, I mostly mean my food intake. It's been AWFUL lately. We've had so many "last times" at places and so many different going away lunches, dinners, happy hours and nights out. Not to mention that we haven't had a fully stocked fridge and kitchen since we switched realtors in July. I can't remember the last time we made a proper meal at home together. It's been fun but I am looking forward to having my kitchen set up and being more in control over my food intake. We'll have five nights in a hotel in Dallas (and potentially more, depending on how the moving snafu situation works itself out) and then I'm ready to start our new beginning with fresh groceries and some meal plans. I've been flagging tons of recipes in my google reader and for the first time since we put the condo on the market in March, I'll have my full kitchen arsenal to work with.

Having our stuff, being unpacked and working on getting settled cannot come soon enough! My body is carrying around way too many extra pounds right now (again, why do I always do this to myself?) and I'm ready to start working on it in earnest.

urban campout

2011-09-04T10:29:00.000-07:00

I've been continuing my transient "urban campout" status at our friend Heather's house all weekend, which has meant a very comfortable bed to sleep in. We both like to sleep surrounded by pillows so it's working out well.

On Friday morning, I had just woken up and my phone started ringing. The number showing was the number for my contact at the movers. He called me often before the move just to confirm details so I didn't think too much of it at first. It was after I answered that I realized that the last person you want to hear from when your stuff is in transit is the movers. He informed me that the truck that was supposed to pick up our stuff from Chicago had broken down and wasn't able to be fixed and that our stuff wouldn't be picked up from here until the 8th. Unfortunately, our stuff is due to arrive in Dallas on the 9th. The way that this works is that because we don't have enough stuff to fill an entire 18-wheeler, our stuff has to be routed with several other shipments from Illinois to Texas. It could possibly end up riding in several different trucks and routing through other cities, which is why it was scheduled to take two weeks.

I was a little (ok, a lot) perturbed because we could have had our stuff this entire week, it's basically been sitting in a storage unit in the Chicago suburbs all this time. And also, if the moving company knew about this a week in advance, how come there wasn't enough time to fix the problem? Adam spent the weekend in a wedding in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico so I was trying to deal with the logistics of this with the moving company, the relocation company and the HR rep at his new company. Luckily, he was able to help me on his layover between flights, but I was still really stressed to be doing this at a time when he was out of the country. We were told we'd be eligible for a delay claim but the amount of money per day is not what I think we deserve since we've already been without our stuff for so long. Of course, with this being a holiday weekend, I knew we'd probably not hear from anyone or get any type of resolution to the problem until Tuesday.

Late in the afternoon on Friday, I heard back from the movers and the relocation company and there is an off chance that they would have been able to load our stuff on a different truck this weekend, depending on the size of the shipment already in the truck. If it ended up making it on that truck, we'll still have everything in time for move in day, so my fingers are crossed that they were able to squeeze our stuff on. Just as I figured, we won't know the outcome until Tuesday morning.

My urban campout has been great because I'm not sitting alone in the empty condo. I've been distracted enough to not worry about the moving issues, although this morning I remembered that we have to buy a car on Tuesday. AHHHH!

Last Day

2011-09-01T13:15:00.000-07:00

So today was my last day at S&L and I just finished my exit interview. After 5 years I will miss this place, but mostly I will miss the people. Today has been weird because I have been sad that it's my last day. I have worked with a lot of great people that I will miss. However, after going to my exit interview and talking about some of things I don't like has made today a bit easier. In a way today feels like the last day of high school. You're going to miss your teachers and a lot of your friends, some of which you will never see again. However, you know that going to your college of choice will be a better place for you and you're excited, nervous, etc. but are ready for the challenge. So for me, I am going to college again, this time I made sure to choose the promise land.

See y'all in Texas.

last day

2011-09-01T07:18:00.000-07:00

The one thing I didn't plan for when I started this blog and wanted to document this move was the long period of time that we are essentially homeless. We do own the condo still and are "living" there for all intents and purposes, however, we're not spending any time there beyond sleeping on the godforsaken air mattress because we have no furniture to sit on, no TVs to watch and no internet from which to blog from. My intention was to be able to run each morning and still have time to get to work early enough to sit and have breakfast and blog. I figured out quickly that I'd have to get up way too early for my comfort since I'm not sleeping so well on the mattress so that plan was scratched. I ended up blogging on Tuesday during my lunch break. I'm hoping we can get the internet situation figured out when we get to Dallas, since the La Quinta Uptown will be our home for the first 5 days. At least I'll be sleeping in a real bed- cheers to that!

Anyhoodles, it's been an interesting week. I've been feeling a lot of emotions all up and down the spectrum from happy to sad. Today is my last day at work and I've been feeling surprisingly sad about that. Despite the utter boredom that I felt most days, it's been a good experience and I've worked with some fun people that have been very supportive of my goals to get yoga certified. I'm going to miss it a little bit more than I originally thought I would. It's a comfortable place to go and a place where I feel relatively at home.

I'm feeling very apprehensive about the logistical aspects of the move. All of our stuff could be in Timbuktu for all we know at this point. I'm worried that it won't arrive on the ninth, which is Adam's last business day before work. I really want to have the apartment set up as well as possible because I know that it will bring him some comfort when he's starting his new job. We've taken care of as many of the details that we can but we still have to buy a car on Tuesday, which makes me pretty nervous. I'm hoping we find something that we'll be happy with and will make a great family car for many years to come. Adam is going to Mexico early tomorrow morning and we're not planning for him to use the international plans on his phone so it will be the longest time we'll ever have gone without being able to talk to each other. Even longer than my days of international flying with United. I've never been "that girl" but I really hope he makes it home all in one piece. This trip is just another piece of the logistical puzzle and I'll be happy when it's over. There is only a little more than twelve hours from the time he gets back to Chicago until our flight leaves for Dallas and given my airline background, my mind has worked through every possible scenario that means he doesn't get back in time.

I'm also feeling nervous about the emotional aspects of the move. It's going to take some time for me to find a job and I am worried about that process. It's also going to take some time for both of us to adjust and make new friends at work and in life. That part of it scares me a little bit because I feel like it will be my fault if Adam ends up hating life in Dallas. I highly doubt that either of us won't like it, there are so many things we're looking forward to but sometimes I have irrational fears about things.

I'm thankful that we've been using this space to record our thoughts. I truly can't remember how I felt when I came here or moved to DC. I know that I must have had some worries or fears, but I don't recall. It's funny how time has a way of erasing so much of the rawness of emotions and pain. I must have been slightly worried! Both times, I loaded everything into my SUV and drove for hours away from my family and my home by myself. There must have been some irrational fears, after all in DC, we had never even laid eyes on the area or our apartment until we got there. At least from this time, I'll have a place to go back and remember how this felt. At least this time, I'm going with my best friend and partner in this life and we're headed toward family and home. There will be a period of adjustment and transition that won't be easy to get through, but I think that the rewards will be worth the risks we are taking.

(and if I'm being totally honest, I'm also a little worried about getting all of the stuff that we kept here into the bags we have to take it home in- the two of us are going to be a disaster when Sally and Kevin meet us at DFW on Monday with about 10 bags between us!)

Last day at work = cake for everyone!

moving day

2011-08-30T13:11:00.000-07:00

Yesterday the movers came. I was stressed beyond belief. We'd already done some of the stuff we needed to: pulled the TV off the wall mount in the living room, packed what we thought we'd need for the two weeks we're in transient living status, cleaned out a lot of food in the cabinets/fridge/freezer, etc. I woke up at 4:30 in the morning and started watching the news. I think I nodded off around 6:00. I was actually alone in our bed because Adam has had a pretty bad cough for a few days and he was on the couch hacking up a lung. On Sunday we realized that the friends that were storing our recliner (that the second realtors made us get rid of) were still out of town so that involved some drama with getting the key to their place and a Zipcar truck to haul the chair home in. OY. Adam went and got the car and woke me up and we went to get the chair. I was exhausted and nervous and feeling a general malaise. We had a great weekend that I'll probably write about tomorrow and I wasn't happy that it was over. And Dunkin Donuts drive through had 10,000 cars in line so we didn't stop for coffee, which did not make for a happy morning all around.

My view from our bedroom windowsill after our room had been emptied. Sad. But not that sad. You can't fit a queen sized bed in there.

I swept up dust bunnies and my hair all afternoon. I shed like an animal. It's a miracle that I'm not bald by now. I also like having the windows open at every chance I get, which creates a dust bunny farm in our house on a regular basis. Getting behind the furniture was an entirely new ballgame of dust and fuzz balls. I probably swept each room 10 times and there are still flying bunnies around our house (and the windows are still open- win for Chicago August).

I wish I had taken a picture of what happened next, which was the mover strapping this chair (of the aforementioned recliner drama fame) onto his back and carrying it down the stairs. It was amazing. I also think we'll be saying goodbye to small khaki couch in Dallas. It's going to look ridiculous in our new living room (small couch in a ginormous room, it's the opposite of fat guy in a little coat).

This was taken at about 4:30 as they were loading the last of the stuff from our storage unit that we rented when the condo first went on the market. Good bye stuff. And also, HOLY GARAGE SALE when we move. Somehow we have accumulated too many things as a casualty of having our condo on the market for so long. I'm sure we bought duplicates of things we had in storage.

This is in a box awaiting me when we get there. I only buy the finest at Trader Joe's. Amazing flavored (but not too sweet or unnatural) sparkling water, $3.99 bottled vinho verde wine, THE BEST SHAVE GEL ON THE PLANET and cheap peanut butter. WORD.

The day was (as evidenced by my early wake up in panic) a very rough one for me. I'm such a control freak and it really bothered me to have someone else packing up my stuff. I am afraid it will be disorganized when we get there. Also, I never got to have that cathartic, GET RID OF EVERYTHING packing phase in this move. I'm going to go through everything in Dallas, which will be nice as I'll have a great deal more space to work with. I'm serious about having a garage sale though because I felt like a hoarder with all our stuff filling that truck. But I also felt like a total jerk as I watched other people pack our stuff. I realize that's what they were hired to do but it was hard for me in a control freak way and an "I feel like a ridiculous pretty pretty princess right now" kind of way.

I also felt pulled in too many directions at various points in the day. Sure, there were down times when I was able to sit and read or play on my phone but there were also times when both movers and the man from the separate crating company were all needing my attention to various matters. It was just a lot to handle. I never ate lunch for several reasons but mostly because I was never hungry enough to do anything about it. I'm learning that stress either causes me to be ravenously hungry and overeat or sometimes in cases like yesterday's, I have the complete opposite reaction to either forget about or have an aversion to food.

We made up for the fact I skipped lunch by eating at the adorable Italian place where we had our first date. The weather has been amazing over the past couple of days (although I hear we'll be sent on our merry little way with some more heat and humidity) and we sat outside. It was crazy to think that we hadn't been back since that first date and all that has happened between us since then. It was a great place to celebrate another new beginning since when we went there three years ago, we were also celebrating a new beginning, we just didn't know it at the time.

Moving Day

2011-08-29T08:14:00.001-07:00

So it turns out I, Adam, am not the best blogger. It has been sometime since I have written here, but I am back now. So I have put in my 2 weeks at work, we found a place to live in Dallas, and just had our going away party. Today the movers are here, and I can't help but think back to when I was 16 and we picked up and moved from Houston to Chicago. That moved obviously changed the course of my life as I'm sure this one will too. Although I am feeling a bit anxious about all this I am excited to get to Dallas. It is weird to finally be here on moving day and feel anxious after wanting this for so long now, I guess that just how life works. These past few days and weeks have been very hard to see so many of our friends and know our time is limited and coming to an end. I know I will see most of them again, but it will just be different, as are all things. I have been so afraid and scared of big changes for most of my life, but I think I am finally embarrassing this one. It probably helps to have an amazing wife to get through it with. Thats probably the biggest comfort to know that I am not alone in this change. I wasn't alone in the last one either, but you know when you're a teenager you think your parents are to blame for everything and I was not happy about leaving Houston. While I am not exactly happy to be leaving Chicago, I know in the long run it is the best move for my family. I hope I will be blessed with as many great people in my life in Dallas as I had in Chicago. Chicago will always be my favorite city and some of my favorite people will still live there long after I am gone and I will miss them dearly.

So today on moving day I would like to say thank you to the City that made me feel like an adult, houses my favorite sports team, some of my closest friends call home, and of course, the City where I meet my wife. I will always hold a special place in my heart for the City and my friends who call it home. Thank you for the memories.

an ode to a city and it's people

2011-08-27T05:47:00.001-07:00

I was so deep in thought this morning about this very post that I got on the wrong train and ended up joy riding around the Loop. I suppose it's fitting since I was thinking about this city and it's people and all that it's meant to me over the past three years. I have changed just. so. much. in the three years that I've been here, probably more so than any other point in my life, with the exception of maybe ages 0-3. I came here on what was really a whim, driving all night from Virginia in a caravan with my roommate across Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana. I'll never forget taking the Skyway into Chicago around 8 o'clock the next morning and knowing that I was about to embark on my next great adventure. I've had a lot of great adventures in my life and I'm sure that Dallas will be the next fun chapter, but despite the fact that this move was completely instigated by me, I'm feeling a bit of trepidation as we spend our final days here in Illinois. Before we got married, I made it fairly clear to Adam that I wanted to return to Texas someday. As much as I have enjoyed being a true urbanite, I don't see a future for us and a potential family in the heart of the city. The burbs of Chicago just don't hold any promise for me, personally, since we have zero family here and I'm not interested in Adam taking a 45 minute to an hour train ride in for work every day (also, the record breaking winters that I have survived didn't exactly help the cause). I like to say that we outgrew our condo the moment I moved in, there is very little in the way of closet storage and the kitchen is entirely dysfunctional for us to ever have people over for a proper dinner. The search for a job in Texas for Adam was a long process full of anticipation, a bit of heartbreak and stress. I firmly believe that the best opportunity presented itself by the grace of God, so we are headed to the state we were both born in to hopefully raise a family (not anytime soon) and carve out a good life for ourselves. The happy reasons for our move (family, friends, cheaper and BIGGER living space, cars) don't make it any easier to leave this life behind. So here is my thanks to the city that gave me so many gifts and to the people that made the stay so much more than pleasant...

To Chicago: I got precisely what I was looking for when I came here, the opportunity to live a truly urban life. I loved my little neighborhood off the Blue Line and reliable transportation to get me to and from work (I'm looking at you, DC. Frankly, your transit options sucked). I was able to afford a pleasant life on my own and I had the chance to see a few different places of the country and the world, just by being based here.

To United Airlines: There aren't many companies that allow their employees to freely move from base location on their own personal whims. I was also lucky to have the gift of travel throughout my stay here so that my family was never too far away from me. Also, I've had the best health benefits ever while I lived in Illinois and I highly doubt I'll ever see insurance as amazing as what I've had for little cost to me.

To My Roommates: These two faithful and brave people came here with me, despite the fact that we knew very few people here. I'm so thankful for our Thanksgiving dinner we all shared while we lived in our little apartment in Logan Square, it will always be one of my favorite memories of my time spent here.

To Crossroads Public House: Despite the fact that I really don't care for the food, it's a decent bar and home of the Hokies in Chicago. It will always hold a special place in my heart for being the place that completely changed the course of so many lives, all because my dear friend dragged me there. Two strong marriages resulted from one football party.

To Our Friends Here (that can be found at Butch McGuire's on summer Sundays): It took me a really long time to find friends that I could call my own here in the city, since I was basically absorbed into Adam's friend groups. Despite the fact that you may have known Adam a little longer than you've known me, I appreciate that you have accepted me with open arms in the good times and bad. Given some of my experiences here, it means more to me than you might know. I will miss each one of you every time we turn on a Bears or Blackhawks game.

It's been a crazy ride. I've known happiness that I never knew existed but I've also had complete moments of despair. Every time and feeling has taught me valuable lessons that I'm grateful to have learned. Getting on the plane to Dallas on Labor Day is turning out to be more bittersweet than I thought it would be.

working on some of the finishing touches

2011-08-23T05:57:00.000-07:00

Man, yesterday ended up being a little craptastic. I stupidly scheduled a doctors appointment and dentist appointment before work and neither of them went as planned. I'm fine but it was just a lot to deal with all in one morning and I came about as close as I've ever been to getting hit by a car as I was walking to the dentist. I'm not going to miss the frenetic city drivers in Chicago! Work was fine but my dad got stuck here in Chicago for the second day in a row, so I stressed out about that for no reason. Then my stupid passport finally came and my old one wasn't in it. I had just hurt my hand opening some mail so there was a small meltdown involved because my old passport not only has some very expensive visas in it that don't expire for another 9+ years but all of my memories from trips with United that I took, essentially, by myself. I have no one to sit and remember those times with so my passport was (and is) very important to me. I've been told from several people that they mail it separately so I'm hoping I'll see it in the next couple of weeks.

On the bright side, the mail I hurt my hand opening was my pictures that I ordered (mpix.com, get the metallic paper) that I took in our new neighborhood. There are lots of eclectic signs all over Deep Ellum that I took pictures of for the "wall art" in our new bedroom. The pictures came out really great and I'm excited to get some frames for them and put them up.

In less than two weeks, we'll be in Dallas. Two weeks from today, we'll probably be sitting at a car dealership buying a car for me/us. Depending on financing, we're even considering the idea of getting a brand new car, which completely freaks me out because I have never imagined getting a new car off the lot. I remember when my mom got one and how STINKING cool it was (we were always a used car family). So yeah, even though the idea of dealerships and haggling and used vs. new and financing totally freaks me out, I'm excited about the prospect of driving off the lot with a new (or new to us) car. We want it to be our family car for a long time so this is a big decision!

Two weeks from Friday, we'll get to move into the new apartment. I can't believe it's sneaking up on us. We have done almost all that was on our bucket list and I'm feeling like this has been a good way to close this chapter on our lives. I'm going to really miss a lot of our friends and I'm going to miss being able to watch all of our favorite Chicago sports with our core group of pals. I know we'll end up meeting (and we already have quite a few) awesome friends in Dallas, but the good byes will be tough.

It's been an amazing three years for me. I did something that I always dreamed of doing: living in the city, sans car, and surviving some crazy winters. I was thinking back yesterday to what drew me here to Chicago as opposed to staying in the DC area and I'm so thankful that I'm not afraid of change or of taking huge leaps. I came here only knowing my two flight attendant roommates and I'm so thankful that the three of us jumped into this together. It's changed all of our lives, for the better. I would never have met Adam if I had stayed in Washington and I don't want to think about what my life would have been like. I'm thankful to United for making the DC flight attendant base so incredibly difficult to deal with that we came here to live the city life. Things in Chicago haven't always been easy but it's been a great experience and I've learned some important lessons in my time here. It's hard to believe that we'll be flying away for the last time as residents in a few short days.

dallas updates

2011-08-19T06:01:00.000-07:00

We got back yesterday from our little mini-vacation slash business trip to Dallas to find an apartment. Adam and I had been researching apartments for weeks and we created a binder with 20 properties to check out, organized by area. Our preference was to try to find something near the DART light rail so that Adam could ride the train downtown on his days in the office instead of paying potentially $100+ a month to park in a garage. I wasn't sure exactly how that would work, in my personal experience, public transit in the south is not convenient. We headed to the apartments/area that we were considering to be our first choice as soon as we got our rental car and were pleasantly surprised to see that the DART stations were a stone's throw away on either side of the complex. Once we went inside, did a tour of the model unit (which was the same floorplan as we'd be getting) and saw the property as a whole, we were almost sold. The fact that we were quoted a price that was about $200 less than what we had seen online was a huge selling point.

The unit had everything on our checklist, except for a fireplace, which we were willing to give up to have a first floor apartment. There is a parking garage for us right outside the door to our unit and a pool in the other direction. We went and looked at probably 7 other apartments and I think we drove by 18 out of the original 20 complexes in our binder, only skipping the ones that were nowhere near the DART rail or buses. As you can imagine, some of the complexes were only worth a drive by. Pictures on a website can be made to look much more attractive than the reality. It was crazy though, we never saw anything as nice or as new as the first place so we went back again on Monday to look at it for a second time and went back to the neighborhood at night with some friends to see what it was like. On Tuesday morning, we drove back to the complex, parked and rode the train downtown to see what it would be like for Adam. It was only 15 minutes total, which basically cuts Adam's commute in half. We went inside and signed our lease on the spot.

Since we took care of most of our business before noon on Tuesday (this included heading to Lowe's to choose our accent wall paint colors, that will be on the walls when we move in, YES! and going to the Dallas County Tax Assessors office to get temporary Texas plates for the car being shipped from Colorado), we had the rest of our trip to basically "vacation".

We drove ALL over Dallas, I had a VERY impromptu job interview, we ate and drank to our hearts content, we walked as much as we could physically stand in the heat and we drove around and got really acclimated to our neighborhood and new city. We even had time to drive to Ft Worth for some exploration, a movie and dinner with some friends. It was a great trip and there were several points when all we could do was look at each other and realize that this was the opportunity that God had planned for us. There were so many disappointments along the way in the job search, but Adam working in downtown Dallas and the two of us living in such an eclectic neighborhood was what was meant for us. It was such a comforting feeling to be sitting there and know that we were "coming home" despite the fact that neither of us has ever lived in the DFW area. There is something special about being from Texas and living in Texas and I can't wait to be a part of that attitude again. I'm excited to be proud of where I live. It will be the perfect mix for us of urban and suburban. There are several yoga studios that I can walk or ride my bike to. We can still walk to cafes, restaurants and bars. We walked the Katy Trail on Wednesday and both of us fell in love with it a little bit. We'll just have to wait until the temperatures drop a tiny bit to be able to get those longer runs and rides in. All of this is just a few miles away from quite a few of our friends and just a four hour drive from my family. We spend probably 6-7 hours in transit to get back to Texas via air at this point so even in traffic, we're making a much quicker trip. I'm so thankful.

happy friday

2011-08-12T05:43:00.000-07:00

with most of my yoga posse at our graduation party!

bucket list progress

2011-08-11T06:34:00.000-07:00

You may notice that some items have been removed and/or modified. We might have been a teensy bit too ambitious.

Greektown we plan to do this on Friday night with my in-laws
Kuma’s Corner getting up early to do this on Sat morning to avoid the lines
CHECK Revolution Brewing
CHECK Sol del Sur/Whirlaway
Rock-It River North brunch
CHECK Trinity
Schoolyard Wednesday night post-moving day treat
CHECK Redmond’s Thursday
CHECK Cheesie’s
CHECK Park Grille outside
Tango Sur I've been told that this is happening, planned by Adam
CHECK Piece
Watch the sun rise over the lake bright and early on Sunday morning!
Show / Brew-n-View at the Vic
CHECK Higgins see also: our GOING AWAY PARTAY!
Wrigleyville Street Fest Saturday night with my fav street fest band!
Late night for Blues at B.L.U.E.S, Kingstone Mines, or Buddy Guys
Little Italy for Italian Ice possibly Friday night if we aren't overstuffed with Greek food
CHECK Yoga on the Beach or Park
Sapori Trattoria the plan is to eat here on our last night in town
Movie in Grant Park
CHECK RJ Grunts
CHECK Scooter’s
Q’Dobes downtown

quick updates

2011-08-11T06:27:00.000-07:00

One would think that now that I'm done with yoga school, that I'd have boundless time and energy to write on this here bloggity blog. I taught the full hour class to my partner on Saturday and on Sunday we had our final exam (HOLY LONG- 12 or so pages of short answers/essays) and we did round robin teaching. It was a truly amazing transformation to see just how much each of my classmates had grown as teachers and people over our 9 short weeks together. It was a beautiful experience and despite the fact that 20 people taught the various sections of the class, I actually enjoyed my practice that day and felt in the moment instead of my usual distracted. We had a graduation party and a mini-after party at a dive bar and the rest is history.

I'm so thankful that I did my training now but MAN, I am thankful it's over, too!

I've been feeling downright awful this week, my allergies this summer have been worse than I can ever remember. I also haven't found the right combination of medication to make me feel semi-functional. The saddest thing is that the weather is downright glorious right now but I have little to no interest in being outside, although we have shut off the A/C and have all the windows open. I pinky promise, I will do my best to bring some cool breezes to Texas on Monday.

Speaking of that, my spare time has been filled with apartment research and getting everything organized for our trip to Big D on Monday. We only have until Thursday to find a place and get everything completely set up. My obsessive self has been printing out everything I can get my hands on (floorplans, printable brochures) and making a checklist of our must have and very much want items so we can make the most educated decision possible. Dallas is HUGE and it's kind of overwhelming to realize the world is our oyster here. The cost of living is so much lower that there are very few properties that are completely out of reach to us (mostly because they are luxury or in a trendy location). I can't remember if I've mentioned it before but Adam is inheriting a car from his family and organized the shipping from Colorado Springs (where his brother has been using it) to Dallas. Some great friends of ours are going to take delivery of it and grab us from the airport when we move down on Labor Day so we'll have at least one car.

We also started doing some preliminary research on dogs and an SUV for me, despite my warnings to Adam that I don't do well with finding something I like and not moving on it right away. True to form, we found the BEST deal on a Hyundai Santa Fe with more of the add-ons than I'd even need and hardly any miles on it. I slept on it one night and we decided we owe it to ourselves to at least inquire about it. We haven't heard anything back but it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if it's already gone. Our dog search (which has been mostly Adam's so far, I cannot bear to read some of the stories without wanting that dog RIGHT NOW) hasn't been going quite as well. Adam inquired about two dogs but neither of them are house trained. I think that will be our issue if we don't get a dog from a shelter because most of the foster homes let the dogs run in and out of the backyard through dog doors and that won't be an option for us. I assume we'll go to the shelter/pound situation that first week and see what we can find. Knowing me as well as I do, there will be some little guy/gal that will speak to me and I won't be able to leave without it.

Adam is putting in his two weeks notice at work today. He didn't intend for it to be so late in the game but all of his bosses have been on vacation at various points in the last month. One of them is still out now but the big boss of his group returns today. I know this has been a source of anxiety and worry for him so I'm glad he can finally move the roadblock out of the way and concentrate on wrapping up his time there. Next week with our Dallas trip, we're each only working one day and then the following two weeks are only four day work weeks for me. After today, I only have ten more days at work. WOW! I was hoping to do a bit of subbing for yoga classes but the time is clearly slipping away from me.

We'll know a great deal more details about how everything is going to flow for us in this move once we have an apartment and a for real move in date next week. If we are able to move in on the day after Labor Day, the movers will be here the following Wednesday to take all of our stuff! I can't believe that in less than a month, we'll be Texas residents again.

brain dump for a Thursday

2011-08-04T06:22:00.000-07:00

I am so sleepy this morning that I can't really form a coherent sentence so here are the ton of thoughts rolling through my head:

Last night I found out that I've already hit the required hours for certification!!! I figured it would take me until the last day on Sunday but I had a couple of miscalculations that were cleared up for me so I've already hit. GLORIOUS.
Also last night, our lecture was called "The Business of Yoga". It was very informative and I have a to do list a mile long of things I need to do to get ready to hopefully find some places to teach in Dallas.
I need to renew my CPR certification because most places I teach will expect and require that. However, Chicagoland Red Cross isn't offering anymore classes this year. CPR certification reminds me an awful lot about yoga teacher certification. It's hard to tell if what you company you plan to get certified by is acceptable because there are so many choices out there. Why can't the Red Cross and American Heart Association come up with one dual certification?
We officially re-hit the market yesterday. We're having an Open House on Sunday that will probably tell us quite a bit about what we're facing here. We re-listed with, yet again, a lower price.
Apartment hunting in Dallas is our bright side anecdote to the depressing selling of the house. I think we'll be able to find exactly what we want for relatively what we want to pay. I'm so giddy thinking about having an outdoor space, access to a pool, a kitchen and living space big enough to host people, a nicer home office space and so many more things.
I can't believe that a month from now I'll be driving in my own car again. That is SO freaky since it's been more than 3 years since I owned a car (and had a car payment and "I own a car" car insurance- yucky). I am happy that I'll be able to much more easily grocery shop again!
Yesterday was my last rush hour commute. I have to leave work an hour and a half early to make it to classes on Wednesdays and Fridays. I'm so thankful to not endure the stampede from all directions that was my experience. I work above the huge commuter train to the suburbs and beyond terminal downtown, so making my way 6ish blocks over to the regular public transit trains was like swimming upstream. And the people that commute out of Union Station are all business all the time, you should see some of them running and pushing people to catch their trains. My own personal train often got so crowded after my stop and the next that we were no longer able to admit passengers. It was wild. I won't miss it.
I'm going to be done with classes on Sunday!! I've had this crazy urge to do something rebellious like dying purple streaks in my hair (no tattoos though, Mom). But I'm not sure how well that will go over at my current job or when I'm looking for places to teach in Dallas. I'll just buy some much needed new yoga clothes so I can look stylin' while I'm teaching. And I have some stuff that has just gotten abused this summer during my intense practicing schedule.
I'm SO excited to start running again. I didn't realize how much I missed it. I'll also be able to go back to TRX on Tuesday. I need to do some research and find some half marathons to run while it's nice in Texas this winter. I'm thinking maybe White Rock on the day before my 30th birthday. How awesome would it be if I took my training seriously and PR'ed on the day before such a milestone b-day?
Thank goodness it's Thursday. I have a lot of studying to do for our exams this week but it's such a nice feeling to be almost done. I would say that I'm so happy to get my life back but we have so many things going on in the next month with our move and trying to accomplish our Chicago Bucket List that I don't think things are going to slow down for a minute.
Happy Thursday! The week is almost over!

holy moly, it's august

2011-08-01T05:28:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's August 1st. We have just a hair more than a month left in Chicago. Wow. And in other news...

I made it through the weekend that I was dreading. It's amazing how easily it is to come completely full circle. I learned just so. much. cool. stuff. Enough weird new age-y living and healing stuff to fill 10 blog posts. Those will wait for other times but just prepare your self to get totally blown away. It's really amazing how the yogic traditions can work their way right into the Christian beliefs that I've had from birth. But I have a lifetime to do more research and then talk about what I've learned and what it means to me personally. Today I just want to tell you about the weekend as a whole.

On Friday, I was in a super bad place. I woke up feeling sucky for so many reasons but my overactive mind had worked itself into a lather over the worry that I was going to be hot and miserable for the whole weekend. I had a fairly average day at work but because I was so upset over other things, I turned it into a bad day. Our weekend was being held at a studio that is only about a mile away from work (however, a long drive from home) so on my walk there Friday night, I called Adam and pretty much just lost it. I was still crying when I rode the elevator up to the studio.

As soon as I stepped off the elevator, I saw one of the teachers I know that was taking an advanced training and her group was meeting up with ours for the yoga spirituality lectures. She promised me that we wouldn't be too hot and that the weekend was really cool. And deep down, I knew that if I just took a chill pill, the weekend would be awesome and that I would have the opportunity to learn a great deal. My mind is hard to reason with when it becomes attached to an idea (the idea that I was going to overheat and feel claustrophobic) and it took a lot of convincing by her and others to let go of my worry about the whole situation and to open my mind and heart to new things.

We started the weekend with a really cool chant that basically translates from Sanskit to English as "May all beings every where be happy and free and may my words, thoughts and actions contribute to that in some way." Can I tell you how much I love the Sanskrit language? It's so flowy and succinct and just fun to let the words roll off out of your mouth. I love all the Sanskrit posture names and I love chanting in Sanskrit because in my mind, it's like singing an easy, more memorizable (you like that word? me too) version of a church hymn. And to me, there's not a lot more that is beautiful musically than 90ish people singing together. We did a lot of really cool chants over the weekend.

Life is teaching me so many lessons right now, including the very important one from the weekend, which I take as to loosen up sometimes. It was hot at times in the room, but it was never unbearable or something I couldn't handle. It was a long weekend and at a studio far away and out of my comfort zones, but I had someone to drive me there or take me home every day. Adam worked really hard on the condo all weekend and we did a bunch of errands and work together when I got home on Saturday. When things need to get done, we can work together as a team to make it happen. All the things I was so upset, worried and worked up about ended up being fine and it wasn't hard to tackle each thing as it came.

One key thing that I took away from our lecture on Friday night was the idea of doing a gratitude journal. When Adam and I were at Target on Saturday night, I bought myself a composition book and told him about what I was going to do and asked if he wanted to do it too. Basically, what we plan to do is write down a few things each day that we're grateful for. One of the girls in class on Friday said she's been doing hers for 6 years! That is amazing discipline. From doing it for the past two days, I will say it's hard. It's very hard to limit yourself on only writing down three things! But I want this to be a sustainable habit for both of us, so it has to be a five minutes or less type of thing. Each day, I've found myself reflecting on probably 10-20 things that I could write down and that's only thinking off the top of my head and not really going through my day and making a true inventory. The point of it, for me at least, is to identify and realize each day that I have more to be thankful for than to curse in my life.

It's nice to have a moment in time (even if you are being kind of forced) to sit down for awhile, learn some new things and reflect on what you already have and what you can give of yourself to others. I knew the weekend would be a valuable tool for me, I just had a lot of trouble getting over the personal humps I created for myself.

I got this picture from my friend Lisa's Facebook. Despite our complaints about having to go so far away from home for all our classes this weekend, we were rewarded with this as our view:

Chicago downtown skyline from the south

getting my mojo back

2011-07-30T12:00:00.000-07:00

I'm off on my spiritual weekend, working on my yoga juju. Say a little prayer for me that I'm not freaking out about all of the things we have going on in our little life right now and that I'm able to pray and meditate and quiet my mind a bit. Hopefully I'm busy journaling and working through the many feelings and emotions I've been struggling with lately. I'm going to work on something powerful I read in one of our books: I can't control the pain that happens to me in my life, but I can control my level of suffering brought on by the pain. I don't have to suffer so much if I actively choose to suffer less. Obviously, this is way easier said than done, but it's something to work on.

rough

2011-07-28T19:03:00.000-07:00

I feel like I'm working 3 jobs right now and doing none of them well. My regular 35ish hours a week job downtown, my yoga training and condo stager. I came home from an 8.5 hour work day tonight and started packing the condo for the second time this year. The only reason that I've stopped to sit down and write this now is that I've completely filled the four boxes that Adam brought home for me. Our closets are practically empty. I have no idea how I'm going to figure out what to do in the kitchen since the realtors want our main "pantry" storage piece gone, but that will have to be for Saturday night or Sunday since I have no where to pack anything. I have no idea where to put the things we use for cooking. I have a feeling we'll be eating a lot more sandwiches and things that don't require a lot of utensils, pots, pans or appliances. For someone who likes to cook, this is so incredibly difficult for me.

Must keep my eyes on the prize, which will be bigger closets and a bigger kitchen in Dallas. But oh this is and will be so rough.

I should have gone to yoga tonight but my butt was bugging me quite a bit on the walk home and as I've been reaching, bending, folding and packing. I am also exhausted from a long day of work and classes yesterday. I got home from class a little before 10:30 and by the time we crawled into bed it started thunderstorming like crazy and every time we'd start to fall asleep there'd be another loud crack of thunder. I have no idea how late we were actually up but I think it was well after Leno was over and the TV had switched off.

Adam left for Springfield, Illinois tonight (thank goodness for free last minute airfare, we are so lucky) to see one of his grandmas. She's not doing well, which is very sad. I enjoy her company quite a bit and I know Adam has always felt close to her. I'm thankful and blessed to have him by my side, these past couple of years have been trying on us in the grandparent illness department. I'm glad that he'll have the opportunity to visit with her and hopefully have a bit of one-on-one time.

It's been a long week and I'm hoping that my very long weekend of yoga (this weekend we focus entirely on spirituality and they call it our "juju weekend") recharges me instead of drains me. We have a lot of work to do before we can put the condo back on the market next week. I'm overwhelmed and afraid of what is to come regarding the sale of the condo. It's been a really rough week.

i had a bad day

2011-07-27T06:05:00.000-07:00

Yesterday sucked.

I took the day off work, so in theory, it should have been an awesome day. I had plans to go to two yoga classes during mid-day, but after the first one, I was in a lot of pain. It was taught by one of my favorite instructors and she told me to go home and get some balance. I've been having a lot of pain in my right glutes for a couple of weeks now. It will fade away and then I'll go to a class and push too hard one time and it comes roaring back. Sometimes it's so bad that it hurts even to sit. I keep forgetting how much I'm putting my body through on a daily basis this summer. Accruing about 120ish hours of practicing straight yoga is a lot to do in 9-10 weeks. I skipped the second class and came home and promptly put way too much Bengay on my bum. I thought that it was actually burning my skin the pain was so intense. Moral of the story: go easy on the topical pain relievers!

We met with two realtors and mostly I just sat there feeling stupid on so many levels. Lots of the things we did to stage the place weren't the best ideas. We have another huge pile of work to do and probably several more boxes to put in storage. We only have two closets (and let's be real, it's more like one and a quarter real closets because they are so small). We used to have them totally full to the brim and when we originally hit the market, we downscaled a ton. Both realtors thought we needed to put away another half of the stuff that's currently in them. Which basically means, we'll each get to keep a couple of outfits to work in and a couple of things to play in. Everything else has to go somewhere and our storage locker in the basement and our extra storage unit we rented are almost full. Our kitchen has a butcher block that we use as basically our pantry and there's a drawer where we keep all our silverware. That also must go. I have no idea where we'll put our silverware! That's a basic need!! WHAT???!!! (I am obviously extremely upset about the silverware. It's just my thing I'm choosing to harp on.) Mostly I just felt dumb because we made so many mistakes during this process of trying to sell the place. I still harbor huge worries that the illusive buyer for a place like this doesn't exist anymore because the banks have tightened up financing (rightly so!). I'm afraid we'll do all of these things and again have no results. I'm not sure I have the words to express how disheartening this has been for me.

It's just extremely frustrating. I don't have any words to say how angry I am about all of it and I don't know how to not be angry and to not take it out on Adam. And all of this is happening right when Adam has an out-of-town trip planned and I have my huge weekend of 20 hours of classes and my final exams the next weekend. It's the worst timing possible to have to re-overhaul the house. And it makes me beyond angry because we've already been living on eggshells without a ton of our stuff for four months. My patience has completely worn thin and to find out we still have a huge to-do list of things to fix, buy and do is maddening.

Mostly, I just need to pray on, meditate with and just work out all of the anger I'm feeling. Adam is not the place to unload my frustrations and I want to get better about not doing that. This has just been the most challenging process for us. I've let it bother me way more than it should but I can't help but feeling in the back of my mind that this condo is going to prevent us from moving to Dallas and following our dreams.

just as usual

2011-07-25T06:06:00.000-07:00

Everything
Changes in this world
But flowers will open
Each Spring
Just as usual.

Japanese folk Zen

We were asked to memorize a quote for training yesterday and this is the one I picked. It actually came from one of our texts that I don't particularly care for, but the quote spoke to me since we have been/are going through/will encounter so many changes since we got married in October. I've lost sight of the fact that there are many things in life that bring continuity a few times. I think it's a reminder for me to not let my world get rocked so much because there are still so many things that happen just as they should.

I'm admittedly not a "quote person" and it was hard for me to work in my quote and what it means to me in my teaching (although, I will admit they gave me one of the "surrender poses" where everyone is basically laying in a tough stretch (half pigeon if you know what that is) and I had a decent opportunity to talk about it). It was hard because I followed an especially poignant moment where one of my fellow trainees talked about her quote during the half pigeon series and I felt kind of inadequate.

Bottom line is that yesterday was hard. We had to be at the studio at 8:00. Not having to be at work until 10:00 has spoiled me, it's not that I sleep in but I'm used to having space in the morning to do some of the things I don't have time to do at night. Because we were teaching to each other, it meant that we were basically practicing yoga, the same sequences over and over, from 8:00-11:30 in the morning and again from 1:30-4:00, with an advanced class sandwiched in between. My back is aching and my right glutes that have been bothering on and off for weeks have flared up big time (here's a random tip, just enjoy your yoga sometimes and don't be like me and always looking to feel some sort of sensation and push your body past it's limits). I wasn't called on to teach until the very end of the afternoon so it was a long day of being kind of nervous and wondering which section I would teach. It was also our last day of teaching clinic, which makes me sad and a little nervous. I will miss getting the feedback and the opportunity to improve. While I'm very happy to be so close to finishing the program, I am extremely apprehensive about what my next steps will be while we're still here in Chicago. I'm not looking forward to not having the distraction of 20 hours of classes a week while we're still trying to sell the condo and get our situation sorted out.

Because even though it seems like everything is changing, there are still so many things that will happen just as usual...

fifteen days and forty-nine hours

2011-07-23T05:19:00.000-07:00

I have only 15 days until the formal end of my classes. I have 48.75 more hours to earn by then. Luckily, we have three intensive 8 hour days between now and the end so I should have no problem getting to the hours I need. It's just hard to be standing at the bottom of this mountain and looking ahead to what I need to accomplish in a short amount of time. All of this is kind of silly pressure that I'm putting on myself to finish but I want to be done with the certification as soon as possible so that I can hopefully continue to substitute teach at work between now and our move.

In relation to the move, I have so much anxiety that the condo won't sell and we won't be able to go to Dallas for some reason. It's been a rough mental battle for me this week. I know what I should be working toward feeling but my mind isn't cooperating with me and I have spent a lot of time anguishing over things that I have no control over and worrying about things that aren't going to happen. What a waste! Things are good. We finally got the condo off the market yesterday after tons of unnecessary trauma! We'll be hearing from two potential realtors soon and we both have high hopes that re-listing with a bigger company will help draw more traffic in and someone will take a shine to this place. Again, why do I worry about things I can't control? What I can control is working diligently on my 49 more hours.

hiccups

2011-07-22T06:03:00.000-07:00

Ironically, I had a pretty bad case of the hiccups last night on the way home from dinner and we were having a good laugh about that. One of my friends from San Antonio was in town for work and he took us and our friend Heather out to a really fun dinner in Boystown. I'm so glad we got to do that, it was another thing that I hadn't put on the bucket list but still wanted to do. I didn't take any pictures though.

Sadly, we're having a few more hiccups with the condo sale/realty switch that are not really bloggable. Just know that it's been really stressful and upsetting. I feel like I came into this home sale with a fairly realistic attitude. And by realistic, I kind of mean pessimistic. I know that for me personally, this is not a home I would buy and I feel like I can identify all of our weaknesses that people pick on (size, non-existant kitchen, very small living space due to the weird layout, etc.). However, numbers don't lie and when I look in our price range in our neighborhood, there are no other two bedroom units on the market. Everything else is a one bedroom and priced higher than us. It doesn't explain why we've had such a small amount of traffic. We're stretched to the limit and priced as low as we can go, which I believe is an aggressive price and we just need a realtor that is on board with that and will move this unit. Due to some money, potential contract and other issues, we're still on the market with our original realtor as of this morning. At this point, the time is every bit as important as the money and it has both Adam and I tied up in knots.

It's hard to celebrate a big move that we've been working towards for almost a year when the details aren't falling into place. We're in a rough spot and I wouldn't wish this home sale on my enemies. I've learned so many valuable lessons. We'll never buy again without a very sizable down payment. I want to know we have the security of having a great deal of equity put in from the start in case we ever see property values plummet again. Our next place will provide us with room to go, rather than being a place we outgrew from the moment I moved in. It will have entertaining space so that we don't have to go out to eat to see our friends. This is all going to be quite a few years down the road so we can have time to recover from this both financially and mentally. I'm totally ok with being renters for the time being. I'm ready for this skewed version of the American Dream (in our case nightmare) to be over.

off the market

2011-07-21T05:56:00.000-07:00

When I started posting here and intended to document our long journey home to Texas, I had no idea the condo would end up being such a debacle. I knew it wouldn't be easy to sell but I also never imagined it would be this darn hard. We worked hard to get it ready to sell; we have been diligent about keeping it clean and ready for the few showings and open houses we have had; we dropped our price twice to what is essentially a "short sale" price level. None of it has worked so far, obviously, as I'm still sitting here and we've had no offers to date.

On Monday, Adam passed all the background and drug checks and was cleared for hire by his new company. He had a call with our "relocation consultant" from the company hired by his new company yesterday (did you know there were such things as relocation companies and/or consultants? yeah, me neither). In order to receive the generous realtor benefits they are willing to provide, we would have to ask our realtor to release our listing and go with a new realtor. Adam met with our realtor last night while I was in class* to do that. So, I believe as of today, we are off the market. I am not 100% sure where we go from here but I think we'll end up meeting with two potential realtors selected by the company here. For some reason, everyone is still positive and upbeat about us selling the place and being able to move in September, despite the fact that it's only about 40 days away! I am trying to remember all my yogic teachings and to remember that I can't control the pain I feel, but I surely can control the extra suffering I inflict on myself about this. It's out of my hands and while it may be painful to deal with at times, I don't have to suffer for it. It's only a condo and it will soon be gone from our lives, to be immortalized only here at Nard Dogs so we can remember how crazy a time this was!

*class... oh yes! this is a little post-script to my heatwave post from yesterday. I had class last night from 6:00-10:30 and let me preface some of this by saying that I am in HOT YOGA teacher training. I frequently practice for 75 minutes in a room heated to 103-105F with 40% humidity. I am used to sweating my face off on a fairly regular basis (i.e. 6-10 hours a week). Last night we had a hot class before our lecture hours and I have never been so overheated in my life. I had to take a moment in child's pose and I never have to do that because of the heat. After class, our instructor told us that she had never turned on the heat in the room, it was all us and the heat from outside that made the class so warm. After an uber quick short shower, we were back in the same (unheated, yet inferno-like) room from 7:30-10:30. And all of this was after riding in the train from work that was so crowded, I have no idea if the AC was on because I was working up a fabulous butt sweat on my seat. In summary, I was basically without air conditioning in 112 heat index with some sort of Houston-like humidity reading from 5:00 when I left work til about 10:45 after I walked home. I think I'll be JUST FINE when we move.

(and yes, I am getting a little bitter about people thinking it's funny to discourage us because of the weather)

excessive heat warning

2011-07-20T06:37:00.000-07:00

Just a little public service announcement for everyone who likes to give us a hard time about moving back home to Texas and how darn hot we're going to be...

For the rest of the week, our temps here in Chicago are almost as high as you're experiencing in Texas although, you have to remember the same lake breeze that brings us bone chilling winter wind drops off TONS of Houston-style humidity in the summer. It was 43% in the A/C'ed yoga studio I was in on Monday afternoon. We're under excessive heat warning and they do that here because so many places aren't air conditioned. Imagine that, Texans! Everywhere you go, it's probably a nice 68 inside. Here, many places don't have that because we only need it for a couple of months a year. They have to go around and do well checks on people that don't have air conditioning to make sure they aren't stuck in their apartments dying (mainly elderly).

Also, food for thought... here, I walk 5 blocks from our condo to the train. These aren't little cute downtown blocks like back home, they are real city blocks. I'm usually drenched with sweat and sucking on my Nalgene water bottle by the time I reach the platform. Then I get on the train which is only sometimes air conditioned and if it's crowded, no amount of A/C matters anyway. I get off downtown and walk six blocks to work (one of these blocks is the Sears Tower block just so you can get an idea of how long a block is here in Chicago). I can almost guarantee that I won't be walking that far unless it's for an exercise based reason in Dallas. I'll be getting into my car and turning up the air conditioning to my desired level and I won't be sharing my car with up to 100 other people.

So, for those who like to send us the weather forecast and ask us if we're sure, just look up the average temps in Chicago from December to May and remember that, yes! WE ARE TOTALLY SURE about this. Thanks!

our chicago bucket list

2011-07-20T06:25:00.000-07:00

1. Girl & Goat
2. Greektown
3. Kuma’s Corner (Kristin Geiger wants to go too)
CHECK 4. Revolution Brewing
CHECK 5. Sol del Sur/Whirlaway
6. Spiaggia
7. Rock-It River North
8. Trinity
9. Schoolyard Wednesday night
CHECK 10. Redmond’s Thursday
11. Cheesie’s
CHECK 12. Park Grille outside
13. Tango Sur
14. Piece
15. Watch the sun rise over the lake
16. Show / Brew-n-View at the Vic
17. Higgins- DUH!
18. Wrigleyville Street Fest
19. Late night for Blues at B.L.U.E.S, Kingstone Mines, or Buddy Guys
21. Modern Wing of the Art Institute
22. Little Italy for Italian Ice
CHECK 23. Yoga on the Beach or Park
24. One last comedy show- Second City
25. Sapori Trattoria
26. Mil-e-wakee for a Brew Crew Game
27. Movie in Grant Park
28. Oven Grinders

#23

#12

changing my point of focus

2011-07-18T06:00:00.000-07:00

changing my point of focus

When I started yoga teacher training, or "yoga school" as Adam and I affectionately call it, I had an attitude that now disappoints me a little. I guess to be fair to myself, there were quite a few of my classmates that already knew each other or were really close with some of our instructors. I don't know if it was internal jealousy of that or my natural tendency to want to fit in immediately too, but I was really skeptical of quite a few of them. Everyone comes from different and unique backgrounds and surprisingly, as we've continued on, there has been very little competition. I think most of us realize that there are TONS of teaching jobs available and we all have different plans and places we plan to take this certification.

I was reading one of my classmate's blogs and her initial reaction was so different than mine. She had nothing but good things to say about everyone! I was whining in a prior post about how everyone was still in college, had all this free time that I don't have, and that they are all young and I didn't think I'd end up making any friends at all.

It's all about my gaze on a situation, my point of focus. I took the narrow view, the negative one, instead of looking at this as an opportunity to never feel alone in my practice. We read in our first book of the program about spiritual partners. I'm lucky that Adam comes with me to yoga quite a bit and we do feel a connection to each other before and after class. I forgot that this intense program would give me 20 other spiritual partners and kindred spirits. I didn't think about the support and love we'd get from all of our instructors. I wasn't able to see that I'd always have a familiar face to look to in the studio and a room full of people to motivate and inspire me when I didn't feel like dragging myself to the 8th class of the week. I had no idea I'd find people that would pray for me when I was feeling all those feelings about the dog. I didn't allow myself to look at the blessings and only saw people that already knew each other and seemingly didn't like me.

What a valuable learning experience it's been! In a way, it's been a microcosm of my entire Chicago experience. I came here living one of what I lovingly refer to as one of my "past lives" and I have only a couple of relics of what that meant for me left in my current life. It's been 99% great changes but none of them easy. I have walked into rooms of people that all knew Adam and each other and didn't know me. Sometimes it was an easy fit, other times not so much. I do want to take what I've been able to learn about myself through this and carry a more positive point of focus into my next life. I used to think that there is a limit on your life of how many good friends you'll be blessed with and that I must have reached mine. Luckily, God has proven me wrong. There are no limits except the ones I choose to place on myself.

Either way, I have no idea how things will end when we're done with our initial training program. I know quite a few people will continue on for another 4 weeks, I would love to take that journey with them if we end up staying in Chicago slightly longer than we originally thought we would (see: condo issues). If not, Adam and I can take the free community classes that they'll be teaching. I'd love to be in the room to support them all. If I'm not able to continue the journey, I do hope that at least through Facebook I can hear about how they are all doing, what they end up teaching and be a supportive force. I know I'll need the same in return. At the very least, they've taught me that there is always room in life for more friends and that first impressions don't always mean everything.

struggles

2011-07-17T18:32:00.000-07:00

I just finished week 6 of 9 in my teacher training program. I'm SO happy that time is ticking by and that it's almost over. Working 35ish hours a week and doing 25 hours of school is wearing me thin. I'm having less and less time to do the things I want to do and I miss that. I know that it will all be worth it in the end but I'm going to be excited when the end gets here. The only unfortunate thing is that the next two weekends of class are even more intensive and we'll be spending even more time in the studio. While I love my time there, I also love free time and time to spend with Adam and our other friends. I'm looking forward to going back to my personal yoga practice that is on my terms, not because I'm working crazy hard to accrue hours. My perfectionism has me wanting to be ahead of everything and everyone. I want to finish my 200 hours and be ready for certification on August 7th, the day the program officially ends.

The condo has me freaked out. We keep dropping our price and then inexplicably seeing less and less people coming through. I think we might be missing the window of time in the city where buyers are actively looking. Most people don't buy or shop for properties during the winter because the weather is so terrible. It's incredibly frustrating to make big sacrifices and see even less results. We should be getting hooked up with the relocation company soon and I am equally interested and afraid of what they advice they will have for us. I get very nervous that this opportunity will pass us by if we can't figure out how to sell this house. We can't afford to pay for it and any type of housing in Dallas at the same time. Renting is a really bad option for us because we'd still be subsidizing the mortgage every month and we'd lose a lot of the relocation benefits offered to us by the new company. When you're already going to lose a significant chunk of money, it becomes even harder to turn down any assistance offered. The housing market just crushes me. I have no interest in buying any sort of real estate for many years in the future. This experience has been worse than I thought it would be and I was pretty darn pessimistic when we started out.

Overall, I shouldn't complain. Things are good. We have each other. We're both healthy and active. The condo is just a bump in the road and I'll be done with my classes and certified before I know it. It's just been a hard, full and stressful few weeks.

little update

2011-07-14T06:58:00.000-07:00

My little canine friend went to his new home last night. I was pretty torn up about it all day yesterday. I'm not sure why but visiting the shelter and meeting the little guy brought up a lot of feelings in me. A little sadness, a lot of grief and even some worry about the future, our future. It was just one of those days. I set my intention in my yoga class to think about the animals we met and ended up having a little cry out in savasana at the end of class. Luckily, it was so hot and humid that it probably just appeared to be sweat. One of the girls in my class had to put down her family cat yesterday. It was a day to think about and remember the animals of the world.

I'm so happy for and at peace about the little guy. If the people loved him enough to make sure they got back to adopt him yesterday, it gives me the faith that they will love him as much as Adam and I would have. I know our little friend is waiting for us in a shelter in Dallas and we'll be there soon enough to bring him to a loving home.

gut wrenching

2011-07-13T06:56:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to feel that life is less about timing and the illusive "perfect timing" and more about taking opportunities when they cross my path. It's not that I think I should just wait for things to happen to me, but I think I want to open my eyes to messages that I might have overlooked in the past.

For some backstory, I have been begging Adam to get a dog since we were dating for about a month (I think I had him convinced way back when but I was the one to back down since I was still flying the friendly skies and that would have been a lot to put on him). (Also, I was 100% convinced we were eventually going to get married so breaking up and figuring out the dog situation never crossed my mind...anyhoo). We've gone back and forth about this about 100 times over the past three years. We've had different "deadlines" that have come and gone and one or the other of us has always been the so-called voice of reason in waiting to adopt a dog. I should mention that we are totally sure we will find a rescue as we aren't particularly interested in starting with a puppy. I also believe that there are way too many dogs out there looking for their forever homes to get a dog from a breeder.

Fast forwarding through all of that to yesterday... as part of teacher training, we were assigned to do a Karma Yoga project and do some volunteer work in the community to give back. Karma Yoga is a pretty big part of most training programs and lots of studios do projects with their members on a regular basis. The one that our group leaders set up was at the local animal shelter. On a totally random note, I realized that I am, in fact, quite allergic to cats. I was in the cat rooms for about 2 minutes before the sneezing started and I didn't even touch any of them. But OH! the baby kittens. So cute, but I digress. Our main job for the 2.5 hours we were there was to just socialize with the animals. This is a seriously posh and awesome animal shelter, y'all. It's totally cage free and the animals live in this immaculately clean rooms waiting for someone to take them home. It was a blast! My partner and I spent the first two hours having the time of our lives with the dogs mainly since she has a bit of a cat allergy too. I saw quite a few cuties that I wouldn't have minded taking home but they all had various "things" about them that wouldn't make for a good fit, like needing to stay with the dog from their previous family, etc.

The last dog we made our way around to was new to the shelter. They claimed he was a chihuahua but I think he had to be at least part terrier. He was exactly the same size/weight as my dad's rat terrier and had the same body structure as Milo, except for being white with black, he was all "blond" with a tiny little white patch at his third eye center (this is a total yoga thing, the space between your eyebrows, also one of your chakras and the seat of your enlightenment). Y'all, he was such a doll. We were instructed at the beginning to not sit down with the dogs and let them climb into our laps because that encourages "alpha dog" behavior. As soon as we went in the room, he was the only dog to not flip out and try to rush us at the door. This little guy just laid in his bed, almost skittish to see us. My partner and I walked over and started very, very gingerly reaching toward him and giving him little pets. We both sat down near his little bed (oops, oh well) and slowly he opened up to us. We stayed with him for probably 25 minutes and he melted our hearts. I was almost crying when we left. This dog was my ideal dog! He was so relaxed and mellow but once he trusted us, he was affectionate and loving. He just needed some time to feel us out. I got his profile sheet and did the required research on his background. No problems! He was judged to be a "constant companion" dog in their personality research on him, which is what Adam and I would need, a relaxed dog that doesn't need tons of exercise and just wants to love on us. As we were walking out and I was about to find the volunteer lead to talk about him, we saw the sign. He's being considered for adoption by another family.

This brings me to so many mixed emotions! I would have walked out with him last night if they didn't have strict pet counseling policies that would involve Adam first meeting the little guy (they are so smart over there). I do hope that the family picks him up today and that they love him with all their hearts. He is so special. When we were leaving all of the other girls from my program were around when I was asking the front desk girl about him. Apparently 90% of the time that someone initiates an adoption, they do come back and pick up the animal when they say they were going to. These people said they would come around 6:00 tonight. I asked if I could call at 7:00 after we get out of our group yoga practice because that is when their adoption hours are over for the day and they would kind of forfeit their claim to him. She said that I could of course call and ask after him. All of the girls were saying we should use our intentions in tonight's practice that he still be waiting there for me. It was so funny.

I came home so excited to tell Adam all about it and he didn't have the reaction I was hoping for. Going back to what I first mentioned about timing, well, obviously the timing for this would be crazy stupid. But when is there going to be good timing? We agreed we'd get a dog right after we buy our cars in Dallas, however, we'll be insanely busy then too! It's never going to be easy to go and get a dog and try to incorporate it into our lives. Just like having kids, is there ever a good/easy time? After MANY tears (mine) and a little heart opening (his), we agreed that I can call and ask about him tonight at 7:00. I know the chances are slim that he'll still be there and I do hope that he is adopted by a loving family. I just believe that if he isn't, that this might be our message from God to take a leap of faith. I can't describe the way he worked his little way into my heart last night. I'll keep you posted but I think we should go ahead and have our fingers crossed that the original people come for him today and that they love him as much as I already do.

And yeah, I don't plan to volunteer at the animal shelter on a regular basis. I have NO IDEA how people do it day after day. It was completely and utterly gut wrenching.

trial by fire

2011-07-12T13:26:00.000-07:00

Last night I had a pretty unique and cool opportunity presented to me. I was sitting downstairs at work (I work at a health club, just for reference) and around 5:00 my boss called down and asked if I thought I could teach a yoga class at 6:15. I reminded him that I'm only halfway through teacher training and he said to think about it for a few minutes. Apparently the regular teacher had an accident and was unable to come in at the last minute. I realized that I needed to build a bridge and just get over all my fears and do this. I have no idea where I'll be able to teach in Dallas and I doubt I'll be so lucky to find somewhere to teach in the brief time that we're here between my program finishing and moving. Plus, I need all the experience I can get to find my teaching voice and learning to lead a class.

Adam and I were already planning to go to a class together after work anyway so I had my mat and some clothes to change into. He hurried back downtown because thanks to AT&T, I was unable to catch him before he took the train all the way home. I bought him a pair of shorts to practice in and we headed up there together at 6:15. I wasn't sure at first if I wanted Adam to be there or not but in retrospect, I'm so glad he was there.

I just followed my instincts and used what I've been taught so far and I made it through about 55 minutes of class. It was basically the longest public speaking "presentation" that I've ever done... I think. I can think of probably 25-30 things that I need to continue to work on but I'm only halfway through the program. 5 weeks ago, I would never have imagined that I could do what I did after such a short time. It's definitely a testament to my teachers, I learn and have learned so much more from them than I thought I would have. I have another post brewing in my mind about some of the instructors that lead our program and the impressions that they've left on me.

But the practice teaching we do together every Sunday is what prepared me and gave me the courage to do what I did last night. I am keenly aware that I was so lucky to have the opportunity to work out some of my personal kinks and conquer some huge fears! I am so grateful that my colleagues had the faith in me to do it and the support I got from everyone before and after was much more than I expected. I'm lucky that I have a husband who will turn around and head back into a rush hour commute to be there to support me. I know he was nervous for me too but when I got nervous in class I could go be around him to ground myself again.

As our group exercise manager told me before class, anything I could do with them for 45-55 minutes would be better than having to cancel the class. I am thankful that my 10 students allowed me to share my passion with them. And I'll never have to be as nervous for my "first class ever" again.

Onward and Downward

2011-07-09T09:34:00.000-07:00

As Jen mentioned in a previous post we are headed back to Texas (hence the Downward). I can't begin to explain how excited, nervous, scared, anxious, etc. I am about all of it. However given my recent therapy I can safely say I have the proper and healthy tools to deal with whatever this situation throws at us. First, I have to say it was a huge confidence boost to land this job. After so much rejection, which is inherent in any job search, it's nice to get a win, and a big win it is. I will miss Chicago dearly, but I am excited for the next chapter of our lives to start.

The main stress left in my life now is this #%*+*ing condo. I'm hoping with the new low price this will finally sell and we can move on. I'm trying very hard to let go of this since there is not much I can do to make it sell. My recent intention in yoga has been "let go". I kind of discovered in my last therapy scission that I am a bit of a control freak when it comes to some things. Which is very common for people who suffer from anxiety like myself. I have been dealing with it by trying to let go of the stress that the condo brings me. It is not easy, but yoga, and Jen have been a huge help. I certainly have not completely let go of it, but I feel I am making progress. Jen and I do everything we can to make the condo sellable, and one day god is going to bring in the right person who will take good care of this place and make it their home, much like Jen and I have for the last 2 years. Slowly but surely we are on our way to a new chapter and I think I'm ready for it with open arms. Ready for the ups, the downs, and everything in between. So basically, I'm ready for life to continue on with me being an active part, no longer waiting for my chnce to come, but making my chance come and taking the opportunity and running with it. Running all the way home to Texas.

healing

2011-07-03T06:02:00.000-07:00

I touched on it briefly in the last post, but I am realizing I use the word journey an awful lot when I refer to the job hunt process. In my mind, this has been an epic journey of extreme highs and lows. I can remember being so mad after my grandmother died and probably saying to Adam in a fit of anger something to the effect of, "Well, there's no point in trying to move back home now." (I was really mature in handling my grief. NOT.) It's been an Oregon Trail for the two of us and I have wanted, countless times, to just give up and quit everything here and start over down there. Luckily, I have a much more sensible partner who wanted to do everything he could to do this the "right way". Mainly by having a job and a money source before we moved.

I was angry at Adam and various companies and most of all God, so many times during this process. Oh, I was also angry at my dad a lot. If I heard one more "it's only money" in relation to the condo sales process, I thought I'd probably lose my mind and need to be committed. All I'm trying to say is that this entire (there's the word again) journey was really damn hard for me and us. I feel pretty grateful to have reached this point with about 90% of my sanity still in tact (see, I haven't gone completely new age-y).

During all my reflections, and I've been reflecting a hell of a lot, I have come to believe that we were both in need of time to heal. Adam might want to elaborate more on what the healing has meant for him, but for me, it's been learning to deal with sad things and move past them. Instead of taking on my own personal grief and the grief of others and holding on to it for inordinate amounts of time (inordinate, say like 22 years of being sad about something that happened when I was 7). I was meant to learn from Adam what a good thing therapy could be for me. I only went to three sessions before yoga school took over my free time, but in conjunction with that, I know that it put me on a jumpstart to being able to move on from pain.

I was obviously meant to do this yoga program. I wavered so. darn. much. about signing up because I was worried I'd get halfway through the program and Adam would have to leave and I'd be stuck here selling the condo by myself. Naturally, when he went to interview in Dallas my first weekend of classes, I about lost my mind as all my dream (really, nightmare) scenarios were coming to fruition. I had no idea it would be another 4 weeks before he would get an offer, thankfully.

I mentioned it yesterday, but we did collaborate on a Chicago Bucket List of mostly restaurants we've been meaning to try or really want to revisit just once more before we leave. Having the next 2 months to accomplish those things is a blessing. I think it will give us just enough time to knock most of them out (and we're making a big dent this weekend, since I'm off from lectures and clinics). I'm able to see this city in a new way again and appreciate it more, instead of being angry that I'm stuck here. The fact that it's summer and the weather has been fairly decent has a lot to do with that I'm sure. I used to have a tab on my old blog that was titled "Things I love about Chicago" and I used to fill it up, it was a huge part of how I used to write. I feel like I'll be able to think about and talk about Chicago from a place of love again this summer, our last summer here.

I didn't mention much about it yesterday but I am just so lucky to have Adam in my life. When I was reading what this company had offered him, I was so proud. I've known all along that he deserves better than what he has and to hear that there are others who feel the same way makes me so happy for him. I hope with all my heart that he finds happiness (as much as you possibly can at work) in this new position. We are fairly certain he's not going to be bored! When he puts his mind to things (and sometimes getting his mind there takes a tiny bit of prodding), he is the most meticulous and thourough person I know. For example, when he's assembling anything around the house, he reminds me so much of my dad (even though they have vastly different personalities) because he becomes this determined perfectionist. I can only imagine how that translates to his work life because the things that he's doing are so detailed. I know he will be successful, I just hope that he gets what he wants out of this new position and new lifestyle.

Mostly, I've been feeling fairly "healed" lately. As much as I'd like to be, I am not done with sorrow or despair. I know we'll have more negative things cross our path in this life, but this year and this journey has given me some of the tools to be better equipped for the next time. I had to take charge of my own mental healing before I could be ready to cross over to the other side.

for all intents and purposes

2011-07-02T06:01:00.000-07:00

I used to blog when I was marathon training, but eventually that was over and I didn't feel like I had as much focus in what I was writing about and stopped. When I started putting words down here, it was as much about keeping my mom informed about what was and is going on with Adam and I, as it was intended to be a journal of sorts to document what I knew was going to be an exciting and partially frustrating time. When I started "The Nard Dogs", I thought we were a week away from Adam accepting a job offer. I had no idea that it would evolve into this outlet for healing for both of us.

We went to this amazing local brewpub last night and while we were sipping on some of the finest local beers Chicago has to offer, we were reflecting a little bit on our journey to get to this point. It's funny how in the middle of a rough patch, we (well, at least I sure as heck do) constantly throw our hands toward the heavens and question God's motivation. It's human nature and the ego to do so but I wish, just once, I'd learn to stop and enjoy the toughness knowing it's only going to make me a stronger person.

Right before we got married, this job search for a new life in Texas got started. I made a bet with Adam for 30 brunches (brunch bets are kind of our "thing") that it would take him more than a year to find a job. Obviously, I hoped I'd be wrong. So if you do the math, he's been searching for about nine months now. It's been mentally tough on both of us at various points over that time. It's not easy to hear that your husband was in 2nd place for something he thought might be his dream job with a great company. It's probably even harder for him to come home and tell me that he didn't get an offer. He's taken two trips to the DFW area for interviews, which I know can't be easy on the mind or physical body. Having the stress of the condo on the market hasn't done us any favors either.

Getting past the drama that got us here, as of July 1st, this blog can finally be used as it's original intention. Adam, pending background checks, will be working in downtown Dallas starting sometime in mid-September. Obviously, we still have a condo in Chicago to unload, but the relocation package is going to help us immensely with the decisions we have to make there. Our realtor is completely on board and we've amped up the aggressive marketing. We'll get to choose our living situation when we move and we've never had a chance to go through that process together. I am hoping we'll have room for my patio furniture that languishes in our basement storage locker now. So many of the things that we've put on hold and sacrificed for this project can now start to happen. YOU GUYS- we can get a DOG when we move (something I have been begging to get for three years now). It's going to be a complete and total lifestyle change but I think it's one that we're ready for and excited about.

Like I said, we were doing a fair amount of celebrating and reflecting last night. We were at the brewery because it was one of the 20 or so items that are on our "Chicago Bucket List". It's a place that is so uniquely Chicago and it's conveniently located in my old neighborhood. I realized that three years ago yesterday was the day that my roommate and I drove up around 8:00 a.m. from driving (in separate cars, y'all) all night in from D.C. It was July 1st that moved in to our Logan Square apartment for our new beginning. I had no idea that it would only take me a couple of months to meet Adam and have my world completely flipped upside down. I never imagined that I would eventually end up celebrating another new July 1st beginning with my husband, a beginning that will take our lives full circle and back to the place we were both born.

P.S. I'm going to be making a lot of bacon waffle brunches for Adam to work off my 30 brunch bet!
P.P.S. If you know us in real life, this is definitely not going to be "Facebook Official" for quite some time so please don't write anything incriminating on our walls. Thanks!

enlightment

2011-06-30T13:06:00.000-07:00

We recently got a lower price on cable (which is still grossly overpriced if you ask me, but I can't fully convince myself that we don't need it... yet) and as part of the deal they threw in 3 free years of Starz. I was kind of annoyed, as I'd rather not pay so much and I'd gladly give them back their movie channels, but I've found myself pleasantly surprised by the ability to watch bits and pieces of movies that I liked.

The other night we caught the end of Eat, Pray, Love. The book is one of my favorites and I'm currently re-reading it for a second time. The movie was a little "eh" because they left out so many great parts and concentrated way too much on her failed marriage but it was Saturday night and we were both exhausted at 9:30 or so and figured it would be a good way to wind down (WILD AND CRAZY TIMES HERE AT THE NARD HOUSE! staying up til 10 on a Saturday! WHOA, SLOW DOWN!). And at the end she was with her Brazilian dude in a market in Bali and in his heavily accented English they were talking about what he referred to as the enlightment and she made fun of him for missing a syllable.

Sorry, all of that was really neither here nor there but I found it funny because I'm having so many of my own "enlightment" moments right now, both mentally and in my physical body. Turns out I've been doing crunches wrong my whole life and it explains why my belly tends to puff outward (it does not explain the layers of chub that sit above my abs but that's just something to work on). Crunches are WAY HARDER when you actually do them right.

I went to a workshop on Sunday morning for teacher training that was amazing. I hate to be all clique and call it life-changing but it did change the way I see my yoga practice in relation to the things going on in my life. I have kind of come to a point where everything is coming full circle for me. The hours I spend in personal practice, all the hard work that is changing my body and mind, the cadaver lab, the anatomy classes, the workshops, the lectures, my personal experiences in therapy: it's all coming together now and making sense. I hope I'm able to share this with others when I'm done with training as well as others have shared their talents and gifts with me. I'm not sure if I can adequately explain how I felt during and after the workshop in particular but I will say that I have always had trouble with the meditation aspect of yoga and some of the spiritual sides of practice. After spending two and a half hours in intense self-study like that, I have a new found confidence that I can get better at meditation and yoga spirituality as I go and with steady practice (this is exactly why yoga is called practice, because it will always be imperfect, there is always another edge to find, pose to work on or level of consciousness to reach). There was a part where we were instructed to journal about our relationship to grief and sadness (and I know I sound like a total new age hippie now but I promise, I'm still 100% the same) and it touched me that we would be talking about something that I have been dealing with and working through for the last seven months. It brought a tear to my eyes, just one, mostly because it was powerful in the way that writing down my feelings in the journal felt. I think I'll probably look at that Sunday morning in a room with 10 or so other people, chanting, meditating, singing, practicing and writing about our feelings as a turning point in my grieving. I know that time has helped to heal the wound but all of the self-reflection that I'm doing every day has been speeding things along quite nicely. And now I need to wipe the one tear that's reached my eyes in writing this post. I promise the tear is only because I'm starting to feel like I'm healing from the inside out, and I think that is my biggest enlightment.

Summer

2011-06-26T12:55:00.000-07:00

So the weather is FINALY nice in Chicago and Jen and I have really been enjoying it. She has been going to yoga school for a few weeks now and I have been trying my best to help out more around the house since she has been more busy. I have to say I kind of like the little routine we have gotten into. Our Friday nights are my favorite except we don't actually get to eat dinner together. When shes done with school I met her outside her school and we find a local bar to have a drink or 2, then head home. I feel like her school has been good for our marriage and has brought us closer. I started practicing yoga with her and feel much more connected to her. I would recommended yoga to any married couple looking to try something new.

Nothing much really new with me. The condo is still around so not much really to discuss there. We are looking at another price drop, however we do have 1 person interested, kind of, at the moment so our Relator is going to try and coax an offer. Next weekend is 4th of July weekend and I'm so excited that Jen does not have school and we will get the entire weekend to ourselves. However, I think her mom is coming for the weekend. It should be a good time though, Jen's mom is always a good sport and pretty much game for just about anything. I think it will be good for Jen to see her again and spend some time with her.

Emotionally I think I am getting better. I am starting to regain some of my self confidence that I lost somewhere along my journey of life. I think I have learned that I was (still kind of am) lazy and a bit of a procrastinator. I am trying to work on those 2 things the most. I am trying to use Jen as a role model because those are NOT 2 words I would use to describe her. I feel like the 2 of us have changed so much for the better since the winter and I am so excited for our future together. Someone just asked me how I would like to define myself and what impression do I want to leave on this world. I would define myself as a husband, and one day a father first. I want to leave this world knowing I got to spend the happiest days of my life with my sole mate and our family. After that I would like to be remembered as a successful engineer, but first and fore most as a good husband and a father.

i see dead people

2011-06-25T11:19:00.000-07:00

Now that I've had a few days to digest all that I saw on Tuesday night at the cadaver lab, I thought I'd put some of my feelings out there.

I didn't react in the way that I thought I would. Going into the lab, I was super apprehensive. I have a very sensitive sense of smell and I was afraid the smell would overwhelm me. I can remember when I was a Lab Assistant in high school Anatomy and the way the lab would smell so nasty during fetal pig dissection. I was surprised that it didn't smell that bad, I mean it didn't smell good, but it was nothing that made me feel nauseated.

When the Grad Assistants opened the first bags and we were able to see the bodies, it was also completely different from my expectations. I thought it would be like looking at a body at a funeral, where you would see the person as they were. To start, they had the heads covered so there was no viewing of the face (until much later when we asked to see it). Also, the lab has been in possession of the bodies for two semesters of classes now so all that we were able to see (and all that we were really concerned with for that matter) were the bones and muscles. It was more like viewing an exhibit at a museum than looking at a funeral body.

I stayed for about an hour. Although most of my classmates did, I wasn't interested in touching anything. At some point, I found out that we had essential oils so the eucalyptus smell helped me stay in the room longer without being disturbed by the smell. Like I mentioned before, some of us were interested in seeing the "faces" and we got to see a skull that had been cut open. It was kind of like viewing the sinuses from the inside. We were able to see the gender, age and cause of death and even the name if you looked on the tag on each body's leg. The lab at UIC got the bodies from Wright State University in Ohio (I assume they have a teaching hospital there) and eventually the skeletons and all of the parts removed will go back there where Wright State will have a cremation service for the families.

For my feelings on everything, I think if I had been in the lab all semester, I would have been very interested to know the people behind the bodies. I was amazed to see all of the tendons, ligaments, bones, muscles and even a few organs. It's crazy that they are able to keep the bodies preserved for so long. At some point, I realized that these people actually did a very "yogic" thing. In yoga, we are taught to believe that our body is really just our vessel and these people obviously had the detachment from their physical body enough to want to donate it to science after their passing.

It's amazing to look at a body, that is just that. A body. Nothing else, no energy, no life, no breath. I have been thinking about the experience over and over in my mind and for me, it was an "ah ha" moment. My body is just my body. It's a gift from God and I am meant to take care of it. These bodies were all of elderly people and to look at the way their muscles atrophied over time was sad. The GA mentioned that one of the men was very obese and cutting away all of his fat to study the skeleton was a time consuming and pretty gross process for her. I hope that I am able to better love and appreciate myself and what my body does for me in the future. It's given me a great deal of pause this week as I look at the things I put into my body and the way I treat it. Often times in a yoga class, the instructor will give various instructions such as "give yourself a hug" or "give yourself some love". I feel slightly different about those phrases now and I need to give myself more love when I'm outside of the yoga studio.

I'm still sorting out quite a few of my emotions that have come up from the experience but I know I want to continue on my journey to find a healthier balance in my life, in my diet, stress level and my personal choices.

so many things

2011-06-21T19:55:00.000-07:00

I had to go to a customer service training for work today (we won't discuss the fact that it is the fourth time since I started in January that I saw what is essentially the same presentation, ahem). Before it really got going, the owner of our company started talking about the current economy and what it means for our business (i.e. a more "fringe" type expense that most people can easily cut out of their budget). He was saying that maybe this is our new normal, meaning that we might not ever see times like we did a few years ago when the economy was good. It was super depressing to hear, mostly because this very successful man was articulating something that's been rolling around in my mind ever since we put the condo on the market. And that maybe he and I are both right and that this sucky time of uncertainty and working very long hours for no extra pay for most people could be the new reality for a long time. Sad.

Last week I wrote a post about the condo but it was really not coming from a place of love, only anger. I waste a lot of time and energy being angry about the situation and even more time and energy trying to figure out how not to be so darn angry about it all the time. But the bottom line is that I'm working on it and some days are just a futile effort. So I'll spare you the anger and just say that things are moving in a direction that we're not exactly happy with and we have some big decisions to make in the coming weeks.

On a lighter and happier note, teacher training is going well! It's hard and overwhelming if I start getting ahead of myself, so I am taking it one day and one week at a time. Tonight we had a chance to go to a cadaver lab at one of the local colleges. It ended up being super cool! I wasn't as sickened or upset by the bodies as I thought I would be. It's actually very yogic to not identify your Self with the body, as those who donated their bodies to science so we could learn from and study them did. I have this total disdain for the idea of being buried and I think after that I'll probably look into donating my body to science so some crazy people who want to be yoga teachers can look at my muscles, tendons and ligaments. Some of the students were really in to the whole thing and touching everything but I was more than happy to watch from afar and do my visual learner thing. Muscles = cool. Intestines = yucky.

My actual classes where I am the student and get to practice yoga are going well. I'm loving the intensity that trying to rack up hours has brought to my personal practice. I don't think I am losing weight but my pants are all saggy butts and I need to think about getting some new ones. I am exploring lots of new postures in the classes and I'm enjoying challenging my limits on a daily basis. I still suck at getting up for morning classes on the weekdays, I think I'm just a better at nights. We journal on the regular for our program and I'm actually finding that exploring my feelings and patterns that I'm drawn to has been beneficial. I am definitely changing myself (hopefully only for the good) from the inside out.

yoga school

2011-06-12T18:30:00.000-07:00

I survived my first week of the yoga teacher training program. I'm a little bit overwhelmed! It's a great deal more time than I originally thought it would take. The average week will look like this for me:

Mon: 8.5 hours work, 1 hour yoga late night class
Tues: early a.m. yoga, 8.5 hours work, beach volleyball with the Aggie team
Wed: 7 hours work, 1 hour yoga class, 3 hour lecture
Thur: 8.5 hours work, late night yoga
Fri: 7 hours work, 1 hour yoga class, 2-3 hour group class, workshop or movie for training
Sat: 1-1.25 hour yoga class, 3 hours teaching clinic
Sun: 1-2 hours yoga class, 3 hours teaching clinic

Combined with work, it's super full time. Luckily, because it's all interesting to me, the hours in lectures and classes fly by. I am hoping and praying it stays that way for the next 8 weeks!! Adam has been a huge help around the house, doing lots of grocery shopping and really fending for himself when it comes to dinners and helping making lunches. I'm eating the vast majority of my meals away from the house right now so he made a big Costco run to get me a few things that I can throw in my lunch bag for dinners and snacks.

Most of the people in my class are young and either in college or very recent (as in today) college grads. It kind of makes me laugh because they don't take things in yoga school seriously at all and I am totally that old lady that actually does all the homework and required readings on time. Mostly because I really want to get certified the day our program is over, I don't want to have hours to complete after our classes and lectures are over! But I think a lot of them probably got their parents to pay for this instead of summer school so they seem to be more preoccupied with boys and drinking than actually getting the most they can out of the program. It's funny, because I probably have one of the busiest schedules, time wise, out of everyone in the class, yet I am determined to learn as much as I can and do everything on time. I want to be the best instructor that I can be, and I hope to start teaching as soon as possible when I get the training done and certified.

My most dreaded part of the program will be on Wednesday, the anatomy lecture. EW. I avoided anatomy in college and high school like the plague and now it has finally found a way to catch up with me.

Been even longer...

2011-05-31T10:10:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since Jen wrote, until last week, but it's been even longer since I have added something. How about a little re-cap:

Things have been going quite well since the last post. I have been doing more yoga with Jen and actually really enjoy it now. I bought my own mat so I'm official I guess. I have actually lost a bunch of weight in the process. I have not weighted this much since I was a freshman in college. Summer is now starting and it's Jen and I's favorite time of year. We enjoy biking and running and being outside most of the time. This summer will be a bit harder given that Jen will be in yoga school for much of it during the weekend, but I'm excited for her to start. I know this is going to be great for her and I know she is going to be a fantastic teacher when it's all said and done.

I am still rocking my therapy and it has been going pretty well. Good days and bad ones, but definitely more good than bad. I am truly thankful that I married such an amazing women because she helps me out so much on the bad ones. I have gotten over many of my fears and anxiety, but developed a few new ones I'm working on. Overall it has helped me become a much better person and a better husband, so for that I am thankful.

This weekend Jen and I are going to San Diego our best friends wedding. I'm sure the story has been told here, but one of Jen's best friends is marrying one of my best friends. We are both in the wedding and are very much looking forward to it. Plus both our parents will be there so it will be so nice to see everyone and have a little vacation for all thats going on in our lives.

Till next time.

cherries

2011-05-27T06:29:00.001-07:00

It's the little things, am I right?

We went grocery shopping on Sunday afternoon at our usual produce mart. On the second display to the right, I spotted the most glorious thing: cherries are back in season! Last summer, I went admittedly a little crazy on cherries. At one point, the farmer's market lady told me it was the end of season so I ran all over the market and bought a pound of four different varieties. I pitted them all to freeze for the winter and ended up with brown fingers for a few days from all the cherry juice. I'd never given them a second look until last summer and they are one of my favorite staples in the warmer months. I throw them in homemade lime and lemonade. This week we threw a bunch in with a fresh pineapple I cut up and have been working on them all week. They make me happy.

Having the bags in the freezer also came in handy in February when I added them to some peaches and made a cherry/peach cobbler with my mom's famous recipe. It was SO good.

My personal favorite is sour cherries. They look similar to the jarred maraschino cherries you might see in a Shirley Temple but they taste like Sour Patch Kids. I also loved the Rainier cherries last year that are yellow and reddish in coloring. We just ended up with a more standard variety this week (Bings, I believe) but they are delicious.

This is one of the first signs of summer and it is more than welcome in my life! We have had several days where it got into the 80s and even a record-setting temp of 90 a couple of weeks ago. My bike tires are pumped and primed for the long weekend. Happy summer and happy cherry season!

it's been awhile

2011-05-23T05:54:00.000-07:00

Hey there... I haven't stopped by here in quite some time. We have been busy with out of town trips and out of town visitors and there have been many decisions made and things are moving right along in this little life of ours.

I started going to see a counselor two weeks ago and if you haven't ever tried it, I'd highly recommend it. Most of the hour involves me sitting there and telling her everything, and since she doesn't know me, I often have to start at the beginning. As I'm talking and telling someone who is unbiased all about my life and the things that make me sad and happy, I often come to realizations about myself on my own. I realized that I used to do the very same thing by either driving over to her house or just calling my Grandmother. There is something to be said about telling someone all of the thoughts that are rolling around in your head so you can actually process them instead of dwelling on them. It has added another "thing" to do in my week, but I don't mind juggling other things to make it work.

Speaking of big "things" to do, I did sign up for and get accepted into a yoga teacher training program. My classes officially start on June 8th, but I can start counting all of the yoga classes that I'm taking now as part of my required hours for the program. I've been trying to go at least 4 times a week. Adam goes to at least one class a week with me and sometimes he's been going on his own. He's lost some weight and looks great. I haven't lost a stinkin' pound but I can do regular push up in my TRX class without using knees or feeling like I might die so that is something! I do get nervous about the class, feeling like maybe I won't be good enough but then when I'm in the studio and having a particularly good practice (which happens almost all the time these days), I remember that this is what I feel really comfortable doing. Since I started telling people that I'm doing this program, I've already heard about some teaching opportunities. I am excited to start classes and get that certification!

In therapy, one of the things I realized that we've been doing (A LOT!) and that makes me feel depressed is taking things we'd like to do and saying "oh we'll do that when we move to Texas". Stuff such as getting a dog. I've wanted to get a dog together since we first started dating (and I almost had Adam convinced then!) and we have been putting it off and saying we'd do it when we move. We also have been saying that about getting a car, buying things, bringing our wedding presents that were given to us in Texas to Chicago, etc. Obviously, we have to sell the condo first (more on that later) but we do plan to take the money we'll save by renting toward a dog and buying a car. I feel like that will help us feel a lot more set up before we make our big move, whenever that may be and hopefully help decrease the sense of urgency we both feel all the time. At this point, I am realistically expecting that we'll be here another winter. We also made a commitment to each other that if we reach a certain point (quite some time in the future, not anytime soon) that we'll just move to Texas and get whatever jobs we can to stay afloat while Adam looks for something in his field. I think that having the Chicago address hurts his chances sometimes because companies don't want to deal with our relocation and from all I have heard there are plenty of qualified candidates looking for jobs that already live in the state.

As far as the condo goes, I wish I had better news. We are going to drop our price this week to what we think is a more "sellable" number. It unfortunately involves Adam and I most likely bringing money to the table at closing. However, we just want to be done with this condo and start paying the money back that we owe on it and move on with our lives. I look at this place as a huge sore spot in my unhappiness here because, whether it is or not, I see it as what holds us back. I will be happy to pay much smaller rent amounts in the future. It's going to be awhile before I feel like I'm ready to get back into the real estate market. I am hoping and praying that dropping our price is going to make a sale a more realistic possibility. I'd love to put this chapter of our lives behind us and work on the debt we'll incur from living here.

That's pretty much all that is going on around here. Our days go by so fast when you factor in that we have something going on almost every night after work, whether it's yoga or another work out, book club (me), Bulls games (Adam), therapy appointments, etc. I can't believe I only have two and a half weeks until yoga school starts!

recommitting

2011-05-03T06:48:00.000-07:00

I have been on a bit of a weight loss mission for the past few months, because let's face it, I was getting tired of seeing my fat rolls in the mirror in yoga class. I also want to be in great shape and feeling good about myself and my body before I start teaching others and preaching about the benefits of yoga.

I started this process in January after a hard month of stress eating and grief drinking in December. It was not my finest hour, y'all. Because I knew I was starting a weight loss competition at the first of the year (and I was watching the jackpot skyrocket), I may or may not have gone extra overboard over that time. I think I might have put on an extra five pounds in the week between Christmas and New Year's alone. It was gluttony at it's absolute finest. I have a pretty loose attitude about food because I do work hard in the gym and yoga studio but at this point, I was doing neither of those things and holding myself back from nothing in the food or beverage department.

January was a very restrictive food month for me. I was calorie counting and working out hard since I wasn't working at the time. Weight literally fell off because I completely altered my habits and got serious. Going from overdoing it at every meal to mindfully eating and choosing healthy options at every opportunity made a huge difference. OH- and I also didn't drink. That was a huge boost in the calorie reduction department.

February started out exactly the same and I was feeling SO good. I got a little bit derailed on our ski trip and started picking up the boozing again on occasion. Toward the end of the month and into a good portion of March, we started the process of getting our condo ready to hit the market and a few other stressful things were going on so I kind of adopted a see how little I can eat every day diet plan. It was anti-fun and absolutely terrible for me but I had no appetite. I can remember getting through an entire day on little to nothing and having Adam force me to eat something for dinner. Sometimes eating at dinner would make me sick. It was bad. Shockingly (or not-shockingly if you know a little bit about nutrition science), I ended up staying at pretty much the same weight that entire time and feeling rather sucky all-around. I was still doing yoga off and on but most days, I'd finish work at noon and get home and pass out. It was not a good time. Somewhere in the middle of March, I started to hit a stride again with eating. I stopped feeling sick and awful all the time. I started practicing yoga basically every day. I lost a few more pounds here and there.

April was nothing to be exceptionally proud of. I spent at least one day each weekend being entirely too drunk. My eating was fine but could use a great deal of work. We ate at too many restaurants and I imbibed too many beers. The best thing about not drinking at all in January was that in February, I could have just a couple of drinks and feel satisfied. I want to get there again as opposed to these benders I've been on lately. Luckily, because I have been working hard in the studio, my weight has stayed within the same three pound range.

Starting yesterday, May 1st, I wanted to recommit myself to this journey I am on. The hardest part for me about said journey is that I have what I think is my "goal weight" in mind but I'm not sure if that is attainable in the first place or if it will push me to a place that I don't want to be at. I know I still have some body fat that I could stand to lose, I'm just not totally sure about the best way to go about it. I've been trying new workouts (TRX) and now the weather is nice enough to allow for some biking and running outdoors. I know what I have in mind for my goal weight body, but I have no idea what the number on the scale would be to get there.

At the very least, this means in the short-term:
more workout days than rest days
not being quite so indulgent and then lazy on the weekends
trying to shoot for only one meal out a week
choosing fruits and vegetables first

We'll see at the end of the month how I do!

women vs. women (and other things)

2011-05-02T06:23:00.000-07:00

I've always been lucky to get along with guys really well. I spent a relatively good amount of time growing up with my brother and dad and they taught me quite a few things about sports. I actually enjoy watching sports and learning all the tricks of the game (except football, I will never understand it because college and the NFL have way too many different rules that confuse me). I've always had at least one close guy friend involved in my life. Partially because I share the common sports interest but partially because there are a lot of women out there that are just downright mean and/or hard to be friends with.

I'll never understand why some women/girls are so catty and mean. The movie Mean Girls was written by Tina Fey and has a great deal of truth toward real life in it. No one has ever tried to fatten me up with nutrition bars, to my knowledge, but I have had my fair share of "mean girls" in my life. Without getting too specific into the exact situation, I unfairly beat myself up when "mean girls" are around in my life. I spend entirely too much time thinking about and being upset about the situation, when in reality, I'm not missing anything by not having people like that as my friends. I will never understand why women do the things they do to tear down other women. When someone else judges me for the things I'm doing in life, it's a reminder to me that I need to do what is going to make me happy and be the best thing for my marriage and life, no matter what someone else might think. It's also a reminder that I should strive to be a little less judgy myself.

Having someone take a snarky attitude toward me when asking about my job last week really got to me, a great deal more than it should have. I spent a good portion of time being really upset about that and a couple of other things. My dad had a long talk with Adam yesterday about me and how I've been feeling lately about all of the things going on in our lives. It was a huge wake up call to me that I need to take control of my own destiny again instead of complaining that I'm waiting on so many things are completely out of my control. I can do things that will make me happy while I'm waiting. My first step was to get on the internet and seriously research some yoga teacher training programs. The great thing about the possibility of doing yoga school in Chicago is that I have several more options. I found a program yesterday that starts in early June and is only 8 weeks! If I like the school/studio/instructors, I want to try to do it. Why wait until the fall? Why should I sit here and complain about my life and "career" being on hold when I have all the power to change that?

It's hard to hear that your family is worried about you. It stings a little bit to know that. But I'm going to take this moment in time to change my way of thinking about all these things. I have touched on it before, but I know that my grandmother would have told me awhile ago to snap out of it. I need to honor her memory and do what I know she would have encouraged me to do.

marathons and too many plans

2011-04-27T19:56:00.001-07:00

I, like so many other people I tend to surround myself with, have an uncanny ability to overschedule myself. I got a friendly reminder from God and fate of my talent to do that today. A few months ago, on a whim, I did what I said I would NEVER do and applied for the New York City Marathon lottery. I said after Chicago '09 that I wouldn't run another marathon because it was so time consuming to train and the almost six hours that I spent on the course were really dang hard. I walked a marathon for the Avon Walk last summer and started letting thoughts creep up into my head that maybe I should do another one, a big exciting one like New York. (I've read testimonials that people like it better than Boston.) (And also, isn't that how childbirth works? You forget the memories of the actual difficulties of pregnancy and delivery just in time to start having more children?) Knowing that the chances of me actually getting picked to run it through the lottery were fairly slim, I went ahead and registered for it, without thinking it though and just figuring I'd find a way to make it work. Part of my motivation is that after three years of not getting in through the lottery, you are given an automatic entry and I figured I should start that process at some point.

Today was the drawing and I did not get in. I feel a pretty big wave of disappointment because who likes to get rejected? Not me, no matter the personal commitments and consequences involved. After pondering it for awhile, I realize that this is just a sign telling me to slow down. Adam and I have been talking about the possibilities of me going to yoga school in the fall regardless of where we're living, which would be at least a three month time commitment. I wouldn't have been able to do that if I were marathon training because I couldn't miss an entire weekend of classes, not to mention the training requirements and trying to fit that in with a full-time job, my personal yoga practice and trying to go to school both days of the weekend. This is just a step in the direction of pushing me toward facing my fears and getting my certification. Despite the sting of being bummed that it didn't work out this year, it may be telling me that I am meant to do this next year or another year after that, when we are more settled in our lives.

My faith is constantly being tested right now but small reminders like today give me reasons to still believe that God is always leading me in the right direction and on the path that I, and I alone, should be on. And also, that I should watch what I have on my plate to make sure that it's just the right amount of activities and not overloaded.

it's that time of year again

2011-04-24T17:01:00.000-07:00

The weather this weekend was fantastic. The 10 day forecast doesn't have any numbers that are in the 30's, high or low. We are moving full speed ahead to May which is ever closer to another fantastic Chicago summer. The weather makes things awesome but my favorite part of this time of year is that people start coming to visit again!

One of my sorority sister's from college, Jennie, was here with her husband this weekend. As Adam mentioned, we went to a Cubs game (our first of the year) and went to our out-of-town company standby, Tango Sur for steaks and vino.

My brother and Sara are coming later in May. Again, the only plans we have are to go to Tango Sur since Sara has never been yet. I'm interested in trying Rick Bayless' sandwich place downtown, Xoco. Having company usually means for us having treat meals out and/or trying new places.

I love playing tourist where we live because it is an excellent reminder that we live with in walking distance and short train rides away from some very cool restaurants and places.

Weekends at the Nard Dog house book up quickly over the summer so make your plans to visit now!

Home and Man Play Dates

2011-04-24T14:21:00.000-07:00

Given the recent events that have taken place over the last few months have really got me thinking about life and everything in between. Going to therapy has taught me that I need to do a better job of understanding and expressing my emotions. I'm hoping that writing in this blog can be one avenue for my expression.

Something that has been on my mind a lot recently is home and what it means to different people, but more specifically what it means to me. I think this meaning of home is why I wanted to buy my condo. Having had 2 very big moves in my life, my definition of home has changed many times. When I was 15 we moved from Texas, where I had grown up and where all my childhood friends are, and moved to the burbs of Chicago. I immediately had a new place I would be calling home and I remember it being both sad and exciting. Then a year before I finished college my Dad got a new job and my parent moved to Florida. Obviously I stayed in Chicago finished school and ended up getting a job in the city. It was from this point on I think I always struggled with finding my "home" as a young adult. Living in my various apartments never felt like home for me, it was just where I lived. Visiting my parents in Florida never felt like home since I never actually lived in that house and I knew no one else in the area but my parents. So when it came time to think about buying a place I got excited because I thought I would finally be getting a place I could truly call home. My condo was and has been a home for me now for almost 3 years, but in the last few months it has started to feel more like my residence than my home. It has to do with our desire be closer to our family. So far in life I think that is what my definition of home is. A place where you can feel comfortable with all your friends and family. Chicago has the friends aspect, but there are no other Bernardi's or Breda's here. Florida has the family, but there are no friends there. For me many of my friends have become like family to me, so having good friends near is a very big part of the equation for me. Texas is the only place where we have both friends and family.

Now on to something a bit more light hearted. This weekend one of Jen's college friends was in Chicago for the weekend with her husband and the 4 of us went to the cubs game and dinner. We ended up spending the whole day together and had a great time. Before I met her husband, we'll call him Joe for the purposes here, a buddy of mine and I were talking about this very common situation. The situation where you are going to be hanging out with a friend of your wife's and you know you are going to be left to hang out with the husband (aka a Man Play Date). I have been very luck in these situations so far as all of Jen's friends (that I have met anyway) have married great guys that I now consider friends of mine. The experience this weekend was no different. Joe is a great guy and we had a blast hanging out. However, I have heard horror stories of these encounters not going so well, or being very awkward. I am very thankful that Jen and I seem to get along with a lot of different people, and that our friends have married people who we enjoy spending time with. I guess I wanted to mention this because when we move back to Texas I see a lot of situations like this in our future. Depending on which city we end up in one of us will probably already have a network of friends there, and the other will be at the mercy of the "Play Date". Most likely it will be me at the mercy of the "Man Play Date" so again I am thankful that so far all of Jen's girlfriends have found guys that I get along with and could spend time with if the girls were not around. This is pretty important since I know it is going to be very hard leaving all the great friends we have made here in Chicago, and I know having a good network of friends is important to us.

catch up

2011-04-21T06:11:00.000-07:00

We went to San Antonio for a wedding last weekend. It was beautiful (both the wedding and the weather for our visit).

mi madre

Sara and Mere

Mr. Adam T

We ate almost every meal outside. I had two breakfast dates at Ruthie's (home of what is currently my favorite bean and cheese taco in town, and seriously, I know because I am a connoisseur of such things). I went on a fruitful shopping trip with the ladies for clothes that I can now wear to work.

Speaking of such things, my new hours are going swimmingly with the (tiny) exception of getting there an hour late on the first day. Trust me, after years of working for an airline, I am even more Type A ridiculous about being late to things. I had the nervous tummy of a lifetime that hit as I was walking in the rain toward the El train station and saw a myriad of every emergency vehicle you could imagine. I'm not sure since I haven't taken the time to watch the news since but apparently a train got stuck on the tracks. At the time they were telling everyone it was a derailment though, so it was a way more dramatic scenario than necessary. The Chicago Transit Authority doesn't have a very good emergency response plan. There was no information other than the three busiest lines were all delayed and/or not running. To make what is a long and rather stupid story short, I ended up getting completely soaked in the rain (also it was 36 degrees) and finally made it to work 1 hour and 50 minutes after I left home. For reference, it should be a 30-35 minute process door to door. To find out that they shut down the three main arteries toward downtown at the tail end of the morning rush for no real reason was kind of frustrating.

Anyhoo, I'm currently nursing some sore hamstrings because Adam and I, along with our friend, Heather, ventured out into new fitness territory on Tuesday night. We tried a TRX/Kettlebells class. While Adam and I were familiar with the Kettlebells aspect from prior experience, the whole TRX suspension stuff was a complete departure from anything I've ever done before. It's basically these straps and handles that are bolted to the wall and you use them in a bunch of different ways to hoist your body around. There were at least three exercises that I just could not do because they were so hard. Our instructor was stacked and even she would shake a little during the demos. We loved it and signed up for next Tuesday already because the class caps at 8 people and it can be hard to get in. I frequently shop fitness prices (and know from work experience what things cost) and the deal we get at our little studio is the best in town. I will miss Spring Pilates when we leave this area, it's only 3 blocks from our house!

out of all of these, the only one we did was the chest fly you see in the top left and let me tell you I was nowhere near that low. obviously we have something serious to aspire to!

six months ago

2011-04-16T17:15:00.000-07:00

I know everyone says this but so far, October 16th, 2010, was the best day of my life. It's going to take a lot to top it. Almost every single person that I hold near and dear to my heart was gathered in one place with Adam's nearest and dearest. They were all there to celebrate us and the beginning of our life together. It was 14 months of hard work and planning and I could not have done it without the support and love from Adam and my parents. The day was better than my wildest dreams. There were so many times I didn't think my grandmother would be able to be there, let alone stay at the party until the bitter end with us.

In the six months we've been married we have:

been to three foreign countries together (Canada, Argentina, Chile)
put our condo on the market
started the process to move our lives back home to Texas
buried my beloved grandmother
attended three weddings
I ended a job and started a new one
Adam learned to ski on a combined family trip

It's been a roller coaster of big life changes and emotional events. I'm just thankful to have the best seat partner I ever could have hoped for. I need to remember to be more humble to God every day that I'm blessed to spend with Adam.

a pleasant transition

2011-04-11T15:31:00.000-07:00

I get new hours at work next week when we get back from San Antonio. I have been the opener at work now for two months. I told myself I could learn to like the 4:45 a.m. start time. I fooled myself into thinking that because I used to wake up at ungodly hours a few days a month when I was working for United that I would be fine. A night owl like me can never get used to a schedule like that, I learned the hard way. In honor of my last four days of wake up hell, I made a list of the things I am not going to miss about waking up well before the crack of dawn.

-3:30 a.m. alarm blaring. It never got easier.

-Rainy/snowy/super cold mornings, not because of the weather but because of the increased homeless people on the train. At 4:00 a.m., I like my personal space.

-The fact that my morning commute coincides with the closing time of the late night bars. I won't miss being bothered by drunk people almost every morning. I'll spare you the details of things I saw and heard.

-The homeless people that sleep on the doorsteps of the property. Kicking out homeless people is scary and unfortunately it is my job.

-The rude man that comes every morning and still has no social skills to even acknowledge me even though I see him and check him in every morning.

-The several heart attacks I have every morning when I encounter something unexpected in my path (see above: homeless people, see also: bunnies, rats, cats, people on my street).

-Falling asleep in yoga class. For someone who wants to become a yoga instructor, this was the thing that probably stung me the most and was a huge part of my motivation to ask for an hours change. It may be the most relaxing hour of my day but that doesn't mean I want to sleep through it.

-The groggy/dehydrated feeling I get every afternoon after laying down for a nap, no matter how long or short said nap is. This was another area that I was hugely mistaken about. Afternoon naps aren't so fun when they are mandatory to function. And pretty much the entire time I spend between waking and going back to sleep for the "night" is groggy and cranky.

-The longer commute I have because my preferred train line isn't even running when I need to go to work.

-The second cup of coffee that has become necessary and the cost associated with that.

I could probably think of quite a few other things that suck about it. I generally spend the entire time from leaving my front door until I'm safely locked inside the building at work freaking out that something bad will happen to me. You know the saying that nothing good happens after midnight is so true! There are lots of sketchy people I encounter along the way to work each morning. Even the few people that I have come to "know" from riding the same train every morning are semi-shady characters themselves.

I'm thankful to still have a job and to start living normal grown up hours again instead of my current todder bedtime of 8:30!

shamrock shuffle 8k

2011-04-10T17:01:00.000-07:00

Today Adam and I ran the Shamrock Shuffle 8K, which is the largest 8K (4.97 mile) race in the country. I'm not sure how many races there are at that distance since it's kind of odd ball, but it is known as the official kick off race to the Chicago race season and there were 40,000 people that ran this year before they capped registration sometime in Feb.

I really like the 8K distance. Even though this is a completely crowded race from start to finish (don't even get me started about people who start walking almost immediately and that they should start in the back of the pack), it's run over several parts of the marathon course. I'm pretty sure they share the same start and finish line. If my memory serves me correctly, it's basically the start, a section of the middle and the infamous Mt. Roosevelt just before the finish that are exactly the same as the marathon, give or take a few blocks. It's something special to run on the streets downtown and in the Loop with so many other people and it brings back fun memories for me. Mt. Roosevelt is probably the only 'hill' in the Chicagoland area and although it's pathetic, it's just before the finish. Both this year and last, I had thoughts going through my mind such as "HOW ON EARTH DID I DO THIS HILL AFTER 25+ MILES? SERIOUSLY!". Even after 4 miles, it's a challenge.

Todays race: it has been awesome outside today. We have the windows open and I broke a little sweat when I was heating up dinner on the stove. Compared to the 30's and 40's we've been having as highs lately, it's downright hot (but I'll take it)! I got to wear a sleeveless shirt, which is saying a ton since last year I wore a beanie hat and several layers and I can remember being FREEZING the whole time. Back to the run, I started in the same corral as Adam and we figured we'd run together for awhile before he'd inevitably leave me in his dust (like last year, which is the only time I've ever considered not finishing a race but a course official yelled at me to get back on the course so I figured I might as well keep going). We ran a really fast mile 1, about 9:30 pace. For me, this is extremely fast. I struggle quite a bit with my breathing as soon as I get under 10 minute miles. I felt really good, I never completely lost control of my breathing and at some point during the race, I figured I'd just push myself as hard as I could instead of letting up to a slow jog.

I felt like I fought a lot of obstacles during the miles. There were points when I felt crampy or struggled to get a full breath of air but I was determined to try to stay with Adam as long as I could. At one point, we hit a long straightaway and we were going downhill just ever so slightly that I could see the hoards of people in front of us. I remarked to Adam that I felt like I was watching flowers wilt. The sun was beating down on everyone and you could see people slowing down and/or stopping to walk. The two of us kept pushing and weaving in and out of slower groups of people. I'm not usually one to ever pass people, especially late in the race so it felt really good for a change.

When we hit Mt. Roosevelt, I could feel the adrenaline rush and I just took off. A wise friend once told me never to let up during hills because the faster I run them, the faster they're over. I felt like I was going to die for a couple of seconds after we climbed the hill but at that point, the finish line is in sight so we kept on going and finished in 50:41 (according to Adam's watch, I haven't checked chip times yet). For me, it was one of the best races I've ever run because I listened to my heart and overcame the mental battle that every runner faces.

Legs wise, I haven't felt that strong in a really long time. Which was completely unexpected because I have done next to no running lately and I've only been practicing yoga regularly. It's a good feeling to know that all of the hard work I've been putting in lately on the mat is paying off in my physical condition. I'm sure the regular breathing exercises that I do in yoga class are helping with my asthma and race breathing too. I definitely felt the runner's high today and I'm so glad this is only the beginning of the 2011 season. I'm not feeling very sore and I'm hoping that continues through tomorrow and Tuesday, although, I'm looking forward to hitting my yoga mat tomorrow for some serious stretching.

I forgot my camera but we did take a couple of pictures with my iPhone of our happy post-race faces (did I mention you get free beer with your race bib? this is pretty much why we run).

feeling thankful

2011-04-09T07:07:00.000-07:00

We FINALLY have two showings on the condo today after 2.5 long weeks of nothing! I'm so thankful that I had the foresight and hopefulness to do a pretty nice cleaning of the place on Thursday afternoon/night.

Even if nothing comes from either showing as far as offers, I am thankful because this will provide us and our realtor with real live feedback and we'll know if we have any changes to make.

My fingers are crossed! This is such a big step in the right direction. Prayers are being answered.

There go the Hawks

2011-04-06T17:47:00.000-07:00

So I'm going to write this one with the iPad and see how it works out. I'm sitting here watching the Hawks probably blow their chance at the playoffs seeing as they gave up a goal 17 seconds in. It crazy to think back to where we were last time at this year. Jen and I were looking forward to summer, much as we are now, putting the final touches on our wedding, and starting to get ready for our bachelor and bachelorette parties. Sometimes hard to look back and think about all the good things we were looking forward to, and now times seem so bleak at their worst. However, I think we still have so much to be thankful for and so much to look forward to.

My best friend from high school was in town this past weekend, the one who will be marrying Jen's best friend. We had his bachelor party and it was a blast! We went to a great steak dinner then off to a box for the Bulls game. We couldn't have asked for a better time. It was so nice to see an old friend I consider family. I think that's the hardest part about being here. While we have great friends here that I cherish, most of my old friends that I have had for a very long time do not live here anymore. I never really knew how important having family close to me is, but now that I don't have it I miss it.

I got my performance review at work this week. While the review was great in terms of my performance, the feedback was worthless. Based on what has happened in Japan we had to layoff quite a few people which means I'm in for another crappy raise. While its hard to complain about a raise since I still have a job, I know our company has done very well and could afford for us to get a decent raise. Based on my piss poor raises over the last few years and trying to sell my condo I feel we are never going to get out of this recession. I'm so sick of our country's leadership I feel that no one has any idea how to pick us out of this, and we as a country will fall. It hard for me to say I would be shocked, but based on the greed and stupity I seem to witness on a daily basis I say were getting what we deserve. Especially with people like Charlie Sheen making millions on a show where he does what, sits and talks about how crazy he is while his girlfriends make out? When I hear a show like this sold out in 6 mins that makes me lose all faith in humanity and think it's only a matter of time before we end up like the dinosaurs.

Now the Hawks are down 2-0, well at least this will probably be the year for my Cubs...