One Week til Princess Time!

I saw in the paper today that MC Hammer's new reality show "HAMMERTIME" will not feature him wearing baggy pants or doing that crazy dance. Guess I'll have to find something else mindless to TiVo now that the season finale of Housewives of Orange County has aired, and Top Chef is almost over (yes, I'm behind - if it is over don't tell me what happened as I'm catching up on my TiVo quota). Just the thought of that song has planted the ear worm in my brain and I've been stuck all day on it. Princess Time!

One week from yesterday is the flight to sunny Orlando, FL to start the craziness that will be the Inaugural Disney Princess Half Marathon. Yes, it's the first one. *blush* I plan to be a crazy girl and stimulate the national economy at the expo with "Run like a princess" gear. Barack, you can thank me later. Then we are trying to snag discount tickets for a park on Saturday, race and Happily Ever After party on Sunday (of COURSE they had to change the party name) and back home on Monday. I can't wait for this weekend with the girls and having fun.

I still have absolutely no expectations for my time in this race. After all the injury poop, I'm out there to have fun and enjoy the experience. My training runs have all been just under a 12:00 pace (my goal for each mile is to NOT let it be 12:00 or higher), and I'm proud enough to have held that pace for the last 8 weeks as the mileage has increased every week. So if I have a 12:00 pace half, wonderful. If I somehow pull a 11:30 out of my rear end, double wonderful. I just want my tiara medal and a smiling picture at the finish line to send to my orthopedist as promised.

Pictures with more Disney princesses, triple wonderful. I can't wait to run through Cinderella's castle. Giggle! Ooh! Maybe this weekend with the girls will be like a grown-up slumber party! We can braid each other's hair (ok, well not mine), paint our fingernails, and put people's hands in warm water while they sleep.

So the countdown is on - one week from tomorrow is race day, feel free to track me via their website as I run like a Princess! (Which brings up all sorts of awkward questions about how exactly those Princesses run in those heavy dresses? Jasmine is about the only one who has any freedom of movement. And Ariel? Let's not go there - maybe it's the land Ariel and not water Ariel.)

I can't wait!!!! Let's go NOW!

Fabulous Running Spot!

Wow! I just got back from a week in St Louis for business, and I had the most fabulous runs there. Googling for running in St Louis, I found Forest Park as being one of the places that the running club in St Louis meets for their long runs. 6 mile loop around the outside of the park, I needed 9 miles, so this sounded like a match.

So off I go and make my way to the park. I have no idea where to park as this place is HUGE and the notes on where the running club meets makes no sense to me being a newcomer, but I stumble across a bunch of cars and a bunch of runners starting out or just mingling, so this must be good enough.

I hop out and quickly fall in between two groups of runners, figuring that they must know where they are going. As a safety check, I ask the group behind me where the heck I am, so that if I get lost I can at least find the rental car again. (This park is 1,200 acres, nearly 50% bigger than Central Park in New York City). They are super nice, and suggest that I go with the group in front of us as they are doing 6 miles down to the University and back, but I politely decline.

The park is made for running. There's separate but parallel biking and running trails that are impeccably groomed. Packed gravel or graveled asphalt for the foot traffic, and hard black asphalt for the bikers. The trail is easy to follow, and has enough hills to be challenging without being miserable. You will wind by the ice skating rink, the zoo, the science center, the family pavilion, statues, museums, the golf course, and follow Lindell Avenue, where the homes are absolutely ginormous.

Although it was the middle of winter and the bathrooms were closed, there's public bathrooms (not portapotties) at frequent intervals that are open in the warmer months, complete with water fountains.

I had a fabulous 9 mile run (the loop around the park was 5.75 miles, and I even saw the occasional mile marker painted on the path and it was accurate). My average pace was right where I wanted it to be for 9 miles, and it felt good. I can't wait to go back to St Louis now and run it again. A definite MUST-DO for anyone visiting St Louis.

(BTW - I parked at the Visitor Center/Field House, which isn't well marked on the map of the park, but it's at about 5 o'clock from the History Museum and right by the tennis courts.)

What a weekend!

After suffering through the cold and snow for the past few weeks, this weekend of sunshine and warm breezes has been a welcome change. I "heard" it was nice last Sunday, but I was sick in bed and wouldn't know.

I hope everyone has had or will get out for a good run this weekend and enjoy the temps. There's something to be said for that smug feeling you get when you've gone out for a run when the temps are in the teens or single digits, but I'll trade all of those smug feelings for the sheer enjoyment of sunshine, light breezes and comfy temps like this. It's a taste of spring, and global warming & polar bears be darned for a minute, this was nirvana.

It just reinforces my old lady retirement dream. When I grow old, I will:

1. Drive a big Cadillac
2. Have my hair blown out every week (I can't face the thought of being "set" yet)
3. Move somewhere WARM - Florida is overdone, but maybe Arizona, Texas, or (if I win the lottery) HAWAII! Yeah, Hawaii. I'd give up the Caddy and the hair appointments to be in Hawaii. Sigh.

I'm looking forward to hitting the road with my Garmin. First stop - St Louis for work (yeah - St Louis in February. Cross your fingers that it will be decent enough to make the run down to the Arch at least once).

Then, and this is a SECRET and if ANYONE tells my kids I will seriously KILL you - we're going on a Disney cruise in late April. We aren't telling the kids at all -- we'll send them off to school that morning, do a stealth packing job, go pick them up from school, drive to the airport and hop on a plane to Orlando. W can read and T is smart, so they'll obviously figure out we're going to Orlando, but we'll go check in to a hotel. They'll just think we're spending the weekend in this cool hotel with the cool pool. Then we'll get up in the am, and somehow end up at the cruise dock in front of the Disney Wonder and "gosh - let's go get on board!".

So, even though it's lame, I'm such a geek that I want my SportTracks software to show me running in the middle of the ocean this year, so Garmin is going with me and will make some laps around the Wonder's running track. And if you aren't using SportTracks and have a Garmin, what are you waiting for? It's the most fabulous thing I've ever found on the Internet.

I will repeat the warning. If ANYONE tells my kids, they will die. Both you and the kids. And we don't want that, do we? Hmmmm?

Eeeks...my tupperware cupboard has been compromised!

Eeeks...my tupperware cupboard has been compromised! What happened? Did evil munchkins come in over night and tear apart the haven in which my precious tupperware lives???
Maybe once I leave for work there are little, mean, deprived goblins that come in and destroy the paradise that I call "TupperHaven"!
Square containers with round lids...
Liquid containers on the wrong shelf...
Full meal containers living with the side dish containers...
Don't get me wrong - I am all about diversity but NOT in my "TupperHaven".
Everything in its place and every place has a thing.
I can bare to even look at it, it's like a bone yard of plastic just half-hazardy throw about without a care in the world. How can I sleep knowing around container is frockling with a rectangle lid!!!
I recall a peaceful time when I opened this cabinet and all the pieces were in the proper place. Square with square, lids neatly aligned with matching corners, right angles on point and no unmatching orphaned pieces hanging out lazily like they "belonged" even though it was obvious they didn't.
Did they think I wouldn't notice? Ha!
Who knows the cause of this mayhem?...but sleep tonight will be tough.
Now you all know what I will be doing Wednesday night...restoring order in the Kingdom...man, anal-retentiveness is exhausting to say the least.

Why I will never move any further north......

The photo here is from the elevator shaft of an abandoned warehouse in Detroit. And yes, that’s an actual dead man encased in 2-3 feet of ice with his fee and is that a hand sticking out. It was discovered when “urban explorers” were playing ice hockey in the basement. This shook me to my foundation (no pun intended) when I came across it.

[The man who found the body] is an urban explorer who gets thrills rummaging
through and photographing the ruins of Detroit. It turns out that this explorer last week was playing hockey with a group of other explorers on the frozen waters that had collected in the basement of the building. None of the men called the police, the explorer said. They, in fact, continued their hockey game.

Well, it’s not like stopping the hockey game is gonna bring him back to life now, is it? What’s the rush? Just make sure you don't trip over his legs so rudely sticking out of the ice. Don't want to get hurt, you know.

A colony of homeless men live in the warehouse. Wednesday morning a few fires were burning inside oil drums. Scott Ruben, 38, huddled under filthy blankets not 20 paces from the elevator shaft.

“Yeah, I seen him,” Ruben said. The snow outside howled. The heat from the can warped the landscape of rotting buildings and razor wire. Did he know who the dead person was? “I don’t recognize him from his shoes.”

[Ruben's] shack mate, Kenneth Williams, 47, returned at that point with an armload of wood. “Yeah, he’s been down there since last month at least.” He was asked if he called the police. “No, I thought it was a dummy myself,” he said unconvincingly. Besides, Williams said, there were more pressing issues like keeping warm and finding something to eat.“You got a couple bucks?” he asked.

After snapping photos and carefully interviewing all the vagrants and demanding to know why they didn’t call the police right away, the reporter finally gets the authorities involved, but it takes multiple 911 calls and something along the lines of 48 hours for the authorities to finally show up with a jackhammer to remove the poor man's (??) body. (Note that the urban explorers never called the authorities - a friend of a friend called a reporter at the newspaper. So the reporter goes and gets this story complete with pictures BEFORE ever calling the police)

Where's the national news media? Where's CNN or Fox News with Greta Van whatever going on the scene? This is much more newsworthy than the lady who didn't return the d**n library book and got in trouble.

Maybe the prophets are right - maybe this IS the end time?

He says I don't do the laundry ALL THE WAY...hmmm!

Okay, typically when B and I have a disagreement, I always win...not because he is sweet and concedes but because, well, women are smarter and I am usually right (or I don't argue to begin with). So besides the money argument which we cured with "allowance checkbooks"...the one standing one that never ends is - he says "you don't do the laundry all the way!"
If you know me, you already know I have a routine for everything. For laundry it's Sort, Wash, Dry or Hang Dry, Fold, put mine AWAY and place his, kindly sorted by type/category, in a basket on his dresser.
Saturday when he came home and asked what I did that day, one of the answers was, I finished the laundry. After going up stairs to change, he yells,"You didn't do the laundry all the way..."
WHAT?
Here we go again...he proclaims that if I did it "all the way" his clothes would be put away for him!
WHAT? Are you high? Seriously! Is it way to stressful to open a drawer and place a stack of tshirts in, throw some socks in a drawer, lay your jeans on the shelf!
Geez...I will never win this one...maybe next week I will sew one leg of all his boxers shut to prove my point! My Mom showed my sister and I this trick when my Dad complained and after he fell over while stepping into his underwear, he never said another word about laundry!

I am learning I could never stay at home full time...

DISCLAIMER: Before reading this, know none of this is meant as rude, complaining, shallow or whatever...these are thoughts in my head which is why this is a blog.

I am off work today, needed to take a day before the "hell breaks lose at work" for the next month. Paperwork needed to be done, taxes needed to be prepared, etc.
So I got up at 4:13am as usual and went off to Seal Team 5:45am workout, got home at 7am, said hi to Bob while eating my bagel, then laid down for a one hour snooze fest.
Got up at 8:30am, waited for the BBQ drop off from D.A. and then off to Ukrop's.
We have a dinner guest tonight so in my usual manner, I made the entire baked spaghetti dinner, including homemade croutons and set the table.
It's 10am and off to start the "paperwork" - ugh!
It wasn't looking too bad as my organization made it fly...receipts, statements, interest earnings...file, file, file. Envelope for CPA all ready, this month's receipts reconciled and all the work I thought I needed a day for is done...and it's 12:30pm. I guess I will eat lunch. Done. I am bored out of my gourd!!!
Maybe it's because we don't have kids and because I am so anal-retentive and keep my house and laundry caught up but what am I suppose to do with the rest of the day? It's not that I don't feel productive, because I do. I like being organized, making lists, keeping order and having everything in its place but should I do less on a regular basis so I will have more to do during down time? Funny thing is, I never feel overloaded. Friends tease me when I say my house is messy, because they say it's not, but it is to me. I joke about my pantry (Sleeping With The Enemy has nothing on me) and the fact that I label all the items in the pantry and fridge each week for dinner. I guess I just wonder what I am doing wrong.
Oh well, just thoughts in my head I figured as long as I had time I would blog about it. Ugh, now it's only 1:11pm...