Diaries I Read:
To anyone who clicked through to my diary from my banner ad, I wish I had a better entry to offer you today. I promise that sometimes I have more wisdom and wit to share than today.
This will just be short and sweet to catch y�all up on what�s been going on in the last few days.
After stressing out all week, I had one of those weekends that makes you feel like all is right in the world and that worrying is silly because everything will turn out OK in the end.
B went out to the movies on Friday night, leaving me with some privacy to fiddle with my page design. After much trial and error, I finally ended up with the masterpiece you see before you. Hee. I like it, though. Much better than the orange, eh?
On Saturday morning I got up bright and early for my 5K. I met my boss, Spike, and my co-workers, Brit and Queen there. Brit and Queen were planning on walking, but Spike wanted to try running with me. I was worried because he has a bad knee and only �runs� on an elliptical trainer, so I wasn�t too confident he could keep up with me. Not that I�m all that fast. Anyway, I lost them all in the first 500 yards or so, which were entirely downhill (whee!), but then when the course leveled out, Spike came sprinting up to catch me. He ran with me, huffing and puffing, for about five minutes before telling me he was �done� and slowing to a walk.
So I had the race to myself, but after those first 500 yards downhill, the next 90% of the race was uphill. So it was hard. Not only that, at the two-mile mark, the timers told me we were at 1.5 miles, so that threw me off, making me think I needed to conserve my energy more than was really necessary. So, with the uphill battle and being disoriented about how far I had left to run, I don�t think I ran the best race I could. I finished in 27:06, which was two minutes slower than I�d wanted to. That ended up placing me 14th out of 52 in my division, which I guess isn�t too terrible. I think I could do better now that I have more experience with that distance. I still think I like 10Ks better, though, because they give you more time to adjust and get into your groove. By the time you establish a good pace in the 5K, it�s almost over.
But it was fun. Spike finished in about 31 minutes and Brit and Queen finished in 40 minutes. Then we all headed to our company picnic, where I won $1,000! See why I feel so guilty for complaining about my job and tentatively planning on quitting? I really do work for a great company. (By the way, I�ve already spent that money, which will be about $500 after taxes, about ten times over in my head.)
The next morning, I ran seven miles with two of my running buds. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to me, Pacer had just broken up with her boyfriend on Friday night, and when I innocently asked how things were going with him, she nearly broke down in tears mid-stride. We ended up talking about it for a little while as we cooled down after the run, and she is devastated and heartbroken. She has not had good luck with love, and she�s 35 and thinks that nobody is ever going to want her. My heart aches for her because I felt that way when I was 25; I can�t imagine how hopeless it can feel 10 years later. It was one of those situations where there was really nothing I could say that would make her feel better. She just has to get through this period of being sad before things will start looking brighter.
After church, where the pastor emphasized that �everyday life is exciting� (the theme of this journal?) and that we should count our blessings and that life is nothing but a vapor that can be over at any moment, my mom and I went shopping for graduation party stuff � centerpieces, tablecloths, cakes, napkins, plates, guacamole, salsa, tiki torches � which was quite exhausting.
Oh yeah, and I scrubbed the guest bathroom and changed the sheets on all the guest beds in preparation for the millions of houseguests to be arriving soon. And tonight I have to scrub the downstairs bathroom and give Dixie a bath (B�s in charge of Hondo�s bath � I�m a little bit afraid of that cat) and run some more laundry and make sure everything looks neat and pretty so I will seem like the perfect little housewife that I most certainly am not.
Oh, and last night after work B met me and Spike and Queen at the brewery and we drank many beers and ate pizza and breadsticks and buffalo wings. Then we had ice cream. And then we had Starbucks. And then we barfed. Hee.
And apparently B is going to get a job offer for sure, probably by tomorrow, and on Thursday he has another interview with another company, so he could even have two job offers on the table by the end of the week. I�ve come to terms with him taking a new job and I�m going to support him in it because this is what he wants. And making that decision to be OK with whatever happens relieves my stress to some degree, which is nice.
And I spent all day at work today editing (translation: rewriting) B�s term paper that he will turn in tonight, the very last night of his MBA program EVER. He has to take a 40-question multiple-choice test (which I feel like I could pass after all of the homework and papers I�ve �edited� for him this semester) and then he�s DONE! I�m so happy for him and so proud of him. He�s really stuck with it and school is not his thing, and this is a huge accomplishment.
And this entry has turned out to be not so short but maybe a little bit sweet. Bye.
Working at home - Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2004
Toronto - Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2004
On the way to Toronto... - Tuesday, Nov. 09, 2004
A Good Day - Monday, Nov. 08, 2004
Another letter - Thursday, Nov. 04, 2004