With light

Comes shadows. One of my favorite light and shadow shots by Tim

Inspired by InspireMeThursday.com — the topic was light. (Site found via Omgirly)

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Last day of vacation…

Last official day of vacation…or unemployment, however you want to look at it. And I think I will soon be a bike commuter! We are very near a bike trail that goes up to downtown Durham, and it’s easy to get to my Duke office building from there. Tim would have to drive me maybe a mile or two to the trail head, since there is no shoulder on the road or bike lane, but then it would be an easy 10 mile ride or so.

I’m thinking of getting something like this — a nice commuter bike that will be comfy and fun to ride on. Nothing like Bianca, the wonderful Bianchi road bike I used to have when I was with Mark, but I’m not intending to put those kind of miles on a bike again. When I had Bianca, Mark and I would often go out for rides of 30-70 miles. I actually biked a century (100 miles in one go) on her. Now, I want a bike I can take on bike trails and bike paths, nice, easy rides.

And today, we are getting new phones (no, not the fun, snazzy iphone, just a new verizon phone). It’s weird to be getting new regular cell phones on a day when even the mayor of Philadelphia is caught camping for the most anticipated phone. Maybe someday, when the prices drop to a reasonable level! lol. We are actually going to wander by an apple store tonight, to see how crazy people are getting over the iphone. Can you imagine people getting this excited for a new microsoft product, like a Zune phone? I don’t think so…

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Going down a new path…

The gate is open, inviting me down a new path. New job, new decade, new city. I don’t know where the path leads, but I’m curious to see what surprises I will find.

I’m excited about turning 30, it seems so big. And I feel like I am more comfortable with who I am and what is important to me now than I was at 20 or 25.

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‘What will your obituary say?’ at QuizGalaxy.c…

‘What will your obituary say?’ at QuizGalaxy.com

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one week till…

I’m employed again.

I’ve been freelancing since November. I haven’t had any work at all since April, and that was only six hours for the month. I haven’t had to get up or be on a schedule for months and months.

And you know what? I am so ready to not be on vacation mode anymore, ready to actually get up every morning and go to work. I’ve been really, really bored. And now I know exactly how little you can do, and I’m ready for a change. And it will be really, really fantastic to have money return to normal and actually start building our savings again.

Plus, as much as I’ve loved being home with the boy and Myrawonderpup, I think it will be really good for me and Tim to not be together literally 24/7. I will really miss having the pup with me all day though.

On to new adventures!

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Signs, everywhere

“Compliments accepted”

“Insight, freedom, wisdom, compassion, attitudinal healing”

“Gates lead anywhere”

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running four miles fast and a lot of push ups…

can cure almost anything.

I’ve always been one to turn to exercise when I’m angry, upset, whatever. A hard workout, loud music and a lot of sweat have a way of getting rid a lot of emotions or at least helping you work through them. Running for me helps me keep my head on straight.

Yesterday was one of those days when I needed to run to clear my head and get me back on an even keel.

We switched our car insurance yesterday to a NC policy, and our bill dropped by about $60, which is cool because we’ve been paying WAY more for insurance than we should have been. But we had to pay them yesterday for the new policy, even though they just took out a payment last week for our old policy. And even though they are going to put most of the other payment back in our account, it just set me off.

This move has been so much more expensive than we ever thought. It has taken virtually all of our savings, even though we had planned initially that we would have enough money in checking to cover just about everything and not touch what was left in savings. The universe had other plans apparently. Combine that with the fact that I haven’t brought in a substantial paycheck, and won’t bring in a substantial paycheck until the end of next month, and we’ve been doing the fast money juggle and shuffle. We have a very small buffer for an emergency, but after being so good about saving for so long, it’s hard to just keep see money flying out the door and seeing our available money until Tim gets his next paycheck get smaller and smaller. For a while, it was even looking like we wouldn’t have any money to do anything for my birthday.

So paying an extra car insurance payment just really put me in a bad mood. I KNOW our money is going to be stabilizing soon. I know that once July starts and once I start at Duke, we’ll be pretty much to where we were when I was working at OHSU. But in the moment, it was hard to see that. So I got on the treadmill, cranked up my shuffle and just ran. Set the treadmill on a fast setting and just sweated it all out. And then I did about 50 pushups.

Needless to say, the anger burned off, I was able to think clearly again and get my head on straight. And know that things really will be ok.

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and they’re off and running….

We are treadmill owners! Our lovely new treadmill just arrived, and is set up on our sun porch exercise room. Out there we have the treadmill, the total gym, free weights, yoga matt and ping pong table. And it has a separate AC unit, which is vital considering how warm that room gets.

We are both really excited. Me, so that I don’t always have to run early in the morning or late at night to avoid running in the heat/humidity, and so it is easy to do speed workouts. Tim so that he can do cardio, and so he can actually run, because street running just does not work for him.

Myra isn’t sure if she’s excited, she kept wanting to sniff the new thing in her area. 🙂

And we discovered that oddly I make more noise running than Tim does. I think it is because he doesn’t pick up his feet a lot when he runs, and he tends to walk really lightly and quietly. But the sunporch is insulated enough, with a really good door, that as soon as you close the door are in the actual house, you can’t hear it. Which is of course of vital importance during football season… lol

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Hooray peer pressure!

Ok, that might seem like an odd post title, but today it was definitely a good thing.

I went out for my first trail run in NC today, meeting a group of runners from MeetUp.com for a run at Lake Johnson. The lake was really pretty, all green, with morning light making the trees glow and the lake sparkle. Lots of geese and ducks everywhere (watch where you step!), who were happy sunbathing and looking for food. One big goose hissed at me, but I told him to be nice, and he seemed to agree to.

The other runners were nice and easy to talk to. I ended up running with this girl Jenn, who runs at my pace and we talked about being people-without-kids in an area where being asked if you have kids is probably the second, maybe third question you get asked.

We ran just over three miles on a nice paved trail through the forest. We got back to the boathouse, waited for the other runners to get there and decided to do an extra loop, this time a dirt trail that was just over a mile. This was an actual trail, with some good hills, walking on a log to cross a small stream, dodging roots and such. Now just the first part of the loops was already the longest I’d run down here, but I’m glad I kept going. I felt good, and really enjoyed myself. I only had to stop once near the top of a particularly steep hill.

And where does the peer pressure come in? Well, it’s harder to just stop or quit when you are with other people, and I certainly wouldn’t have done the second loop if I had been on my own (plus the added bonus that I didn’t know where I was going…)

It was the longest I’ve run down here, and I feel like I’m home now.

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Great to read, think about, strive for

Words of wisdom from the Dalai lama

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