The Week in Pics!

Hey guys! I finally downloaded some pics from my camera, so if Blogger will allow it I will show you guys what we've been up to!

The first couple of pics are from the Frist Center where we went to see the Pulitzer prize winning photos a couple of weeks ago. The exhibit's gone now but it wasn't worth it. The third pic is from the Flying Saucer, I just love the decor! All the saucers on the ceiling and wall are so cool!

Next up are pics from last Saturday's show at Zanie's comedy club. They don't allow pics during the show and for once we obeyed the rules. Ha! But we did see April Macie (from this season of Last Comic Standing) talking to fans outside a side door afterwards. She's the redhead on the other side of the very large lady!! (On a side note, if you live in Nashville you might as well realize that AT SOME POINT, if you get out of your house AT ALL, you will end up in one of our pictures, on my blog.)

This next pic is from the inside of a new Rubbermaid container I bought. Obviously, sticking your kid inside of it to suffocate it has become a large enough problem that we all need to be warned against it. Huh????









Here's what we call the suburban rapture, or what happens when the Prez come to town. We were on our way home and are used to seeing pics like the first one. Traffic heading towards the suburbs at a complete standstill for our entire 18 mile commute into the city. We just laugh at all the suburbanites as we SAIL home each day. But, Wed afternoon once we hit the downtown loop a police van was in the middle of the interstate and there wasn't a car at all on that side for miles and miles. Huh??? We quickly remembered Bush was coming to town for a $2,100 a plate Republican fundrasier. (On a side note, if I EVER paid that for a dinner it had better be a dinner of Doritos, cake, cheese dip and all my fave foods. And Kevin Bacon had better be there, not George Bush.) apparently they had shut down the insanely busy side of the downtown interstate loop for the prez, in the middle of rush hour. If I was a suburbanite that would have been one more reason for me to vote Democratic.









And here are pics of Brent fixing our roof. THREE shingles had come loose and were hanging on one side of our house as a result of a storm less than 2 weeks ago. I've just changed insurance carriers due to some SERIOUSLY incompetent people at our local State Farm office (when I received all our official docs with Brent's name set up as BRETT that was the straw that broke the camel's back) and apparently our new insurance carrier came by to do a home evaluation and didn't even bother to tell us they were coming. I got a voicemail from our contact at the main office that the local office wanted to drop our coverage due to these 3 shingles. OOOOOOHHHH did she receive a voicemail back from me!!!!!!! We were so mad Brent came home and fixed it right away (it took all of 15 mins) and I jammed her inbox with pics of the fixed roof today. She called back and was very apologetic but I am still as mad as a wet hen. I've been dealing with insurance carriers basically non-stop since our wreck last October and I am sick to death of them. On the good side Brent is now obsessed with getting up on the roof and may change careers.





In running news I've been keeping up with my midweek runs. I've been to the company gym twice this week to run during lunch. Yeah for multitasking!!!!! Yesterday I went on my own because Brent had a going away lunch for a coworker. A yoga class was getting out when I got there, and then the crowd thinned out a bit. I glanced out of the corner of my eye at a lady on the elliptical - who was eating a SANDWICH while reading a magazine, while sort of "working out" on the elliptical. UGH!!! That sort of sums up our office!! On a side note, we had cake today to celebrate some units records broken during August. I never, ever turn down cake!!! We eat healthy - no sodas, avoid most sugars & fried foods, etc, but cake - oh yeah!! So, I had a meeting to go to and I brought my cake with me to eat later. A VERY obese VP had the nerve to look at me and say "Oooh cake. You have no idea how bad that is for you." To which I said "Yeah, I really do, but I'll work it off when I work out tonight." He said "You don't realize how long you'll have to work out to burn that off." I said, "Yeah, I do. I run at least 35 miles a week, work out 6 days a week and do plenty of toning exercises on top of that." He said "Oh, well I guess you will burn it off. I only work out 3 days a week." I'm here to tell you - whatever workouts he is doing we ALL need to avoid. Changing channels is NOT exercise people!!

Speaking of, it's time or some exercise!! Have a great weekend, great races and an awesome Labor day!! Something VERY exciting is brewing in the RBF world and I can't wait to tell you what some of us are going to be up to!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE IT!!!!!

Rae

Nothing funny about 17

Hey guys!! I hope you all had great weekends and awesome runs!!

So, Saturday's plan (aka random distances I make up from week to week) called for 17 miles. I haven't run that far since January, but we've been building up the flat and hilly miles training for PWP. We got early, around 6:30, which of course isn't early enough in TN in August. We headed out the door about 7:15 loaded down with our FuelBelts with frozen water and Gatorades. We headed from our house over to Shelby Park and decided to wind around the lake and golf course before heading for the Greenway. When we ran past the golf course I noticed a cooler with water by one of the holes, so I pointed it out to Brent as a good refueling spot for later. In August I knew there was no way even our 6-pocket Fuel Belts would have enough water and I've yet to spot a water fountain in that park. We headed out of the front of the park and stopped when we got to the ghettos houses that literally smelled like sewer before turning back and heading into the safe confines on the park. As we were heading back through a tiny little league of footballers were gearing up. They were so cute! They had to be 6 or 7 years old and they were loaded down in all the gear. I felt so bad for them considering how hot it was!! One team was obviously from an affluent part of town. Their cheerleaders were decked out in cutesy cutesy uniforms and their side of the stands was full of cookie cutter parents. The other team wasn't so "polished". Their cheerleaders had plain white T-shirts and black denim shorts on. I was totally for the "home" team. The affluent kids can fend for themselves, they don't interest me. I'm not sure who won, their game was finishing up as I headed out of the park hours later.

We headed down the greenway, and it was just getting hotter and more miserable. It was already 86 degrees by 9 am, and 89 by 10 am. I think I finished running just after 10. We were also under an ozone advisory for most of last week, every day the air was so thick you really couldn't even see the skyline, and it was muggy as hell. Brent just doesn't do heat, so I could tell it was bothering him more than me. Around mile 9 we stopped to walk for a minute and share some Sports Beans. His pace was really slowing down and he told me to go on without him. I hate doing that, but I was also ready to be done with this run! There were plenty of people on the greenway and we both had our phones so I knew he'd be fine. I decided to run straight out from the greenway in hopes of finding a cold water oasis in the form of a golf course water cooler! I swear that was the only thing keeping me moving, and I knew I would be so devasted if it was empty!! I was running out of water, so I was really happy when I got there and tasted the coolest, most delicious water EVER!!! I drank 3 paper cups (TOO MUCH!) and filled up my empty bottles. I splashed my face and thought about stripping down right there!!!! I was so excited I decided to run back and tell Brent about the great find!! I was at mile 13-ish, so I figured by the time I ran back to him, ran a different stretch of the greenway and then headed out of the park I'd be right at 17. I found Brent right after I hit Mile 14 and he looked exhausted. I told him about the water and he was instantly jazzed!! We went our separate ways as I headed through the sunniest part of that wretched Greenway. I swear, it's like being a bug under a magnifying glass, and there was this gross woman wearing bright red sweatpants walking with her gross family. They took up pretty much the whole sidewalk and I just wanted to tell her it was too damn hot for sweatpants and ask her what her problem was!!! (Of course as slow as they were moving she probably wasn't breaking a sweat!) Anyway, moving past them was an awesome goal, and as I left the greenway I hit mile 15. My goal was to keep running until I got to the bottom of the big hill near our exit/entrance to the park. I knew there was no way I could run that hill that morning, but after the super sunny stretch I was just spent. My stomach was gurgling all that water and I needed a break. I walked part-way around the lake and then slowly jogged to the bottom of the hill before walking up it. I made it back to my house right around 16.7 miles, so I ran around the block halfway to get 17. Right when I walked in the door Brent called me to come and get him, he was over it!! So Pips and I hopped in the car and drove back to pick him up at the bottom of the hill. It was a terribly dehydrating morning!!

I haven't shared my splits lately, so here is the terrible, horrible truth!! I can't wait for cooler weather!!

Overall: 17 miles, 10:06 pace, 2hrs 51 minutes
Mile 1:9:44
Mile 2:9:49
Mile 3:9:41
Mile 4:10:09 (don't know what happened here!)
Mile 5:9:20
Mile 6:9:33
Mile 7:9:55
Mile 8:9:52
Mile 9:11:58 (this is when we walked and ate sports beans)
Mile 10:10:07
Mile 11:9:44
Mile 12:9:37
Mile 13:9:51
Mile 14:9:46
Mile 15:9:34
Mile 16:11:11 (some walking)
Mile 17: 11:42 (some walking)

I guess overall I'm fine with the pace, it's actually faster than what I expect our marathon pace to be, but this course was mostly flat and the marathon course is not. I'm not feeling tired on these runs, just HOT, so I guess that's fine.

That afternoon we did some shopping and then went to Zanies Saturday night for a comedy show. It was SO much fun!!! We went to see Chris Porter and April Macie from this past season of Last Comic Standing. They were hilarious! We've never been to a comedy show before, so it was a really fun time. A local comedian opened, then April and then Chris. Of course April and Chris talked about how nasty and hot it is here, and Chris kept ribbing on us for being a little "slow" to catch some of the jokes. He asked if we all spoke English and someone yelled out that we speak "Southern" and he chimed right back with "Oh, I was unaware there was a translator somewhere in the audience". It was great, we had a ton of fun and there are several people I'd really like to go back and see in the upcoming months. We snapped a couple of pics I'll upload later.

Talk to you all later!!

Rachel

I'm so jealous

Is it wrong to want to be my own dog???? I think this has to be one of my fave pictures we've ever taken of Pippin. He's such a ham.

Have a great weekend everyone! Good luck to Mouse and Elizabeth racing up in Michigan this weekend!!! You go girls!!!

Feeling the Burn!

Hey guys!! Tomorrow's Thursday, yee haw!!! I love it when the work week flies by and it's almost the weekend before you know it!

Before I ramble into other stuff, a few of you had asked how you get a call from Samuel L Jackson. If you'd like a call from him go to www.snakesonaplane.com and from there you can enter a phone number and some other data. It's really HILARIOUS! You can only have him call a number once, which sort of sucks because I wanted to harass a few coworkers with it throughout the day! Also, if you're looking for some new running tunes I would highly suggest the movie soundtrack. There's lots of great tracks for running on there. I'm also loving Christina Aguilera's new CD, I sit at my desk bee-bopping to that all day! And did you see where some people actually put snakes in the theater?? YIKES!!

So anyway, back to what we've been up to. It's mostly work, working on the house, and running. I have SO much paint in my hair!!! We've done all the closets, some trim and our bathroom and now we're painting the den. I have a seriously big issue of backing up into what I have already painted. I got my hair cut last week (trimmed, really) and my stylist called me on it. Well, last weekend I REALLY got my head in some white paint (in a closet). WOW! It's bad. I razored some of it out, but it's time for me to add some more color to my hair anyway!

This week I started back on all my toning/strength training. I haven't done a lick of it since before the move in early July. Man, do I feel good!! 20 mins of killer butt Monday night and 30 mins of Ab Attack last night and I am sore all over and it FEELS SO GOOD! I love that our routines are starting to return to normal. Except, our DVD player broke in the move! It's just a $30 cheap-o one, so it's no great loss. I guess we're very lucky that the DVD player is the only thing that's broken. So, in doing my workouts I'm having to pop the DVD into our laptop. Small screen but it still did the job! I also have the treadmill set up here now. It's a little wobbly on the not-so-100% flat-105 year old wood floors! I guess it's just something to get used to.

Today Brent and I both went to the eye doctor. I haven't been in TWELVE years!! I have good eyesight, but I can tell all the staring at spreadsheets all day long is starting to take its toll. Well, it really isn't. The doc said I can see through drywall, but he can see some astigmatism (sp?) starting to develop, just as a result of age.

I really don't have much to talk about, so I guess that's all! Sorry for such a boring post! This weekend we've got 17 flat miles on tap. Woo hoo!! I hope it's at least a little cooler than last weekend. I can't wait til fall! Good luck on all your races and long runs this weekend!

Rae

Exercise -
Sun - 2 miles
Mon - 3 miles, 30 mins Killer Butt
Tues - 4 miles, 20 mins Ab Attack

Snakes on a Plane and Coyotes on our Heels!

Hey guys!! Yes, we did it. We went to the matinee yesterday and saw Snakes on a Plane. When did the matinee become $6.25 each??? Insane, but worth it. To put this in perspective - the last movie we saw in the theater was last summer's Batman Returns, and we only saw that because that's what some friends wanted to do. In general we prefer to go places with our friends where we can hang out and talk (or burn calories!), rather than sit silently for hours.

But anyway, when Samuel L Jackson called me last week and said "Rachel, on August 18th you need to blow off your pansy ass job crunching funny numbers, grab your husband Brent, quit messing with your fancy hair do and get in your oversized sports utility vehicle and go see Snakes on a Plane" I knew I had to do it. And, I also knew that I had to have Samuel call as many of my friends as possible! Too bad he'll only call a number once. It was really a very good movie. It was funny, scary and even made me tear up a time or two. I think I screamed out loud at LEAST three times! There's a very good storyline and it's not some goofy, low budget flick with fake snakes or anything. It was really worth it. It's one I would even buy when it comes out on video, and it's one I can really see us watching at fun parties with friends in years to come as a fun "cult classic". Now, if you're into artsy films that dominate the Oscars - you probably won't be interested, but that's just not our thing. I don't want to spend time deciphering symbolism and trying to read subtitles. But if you think Old School is a classic (like we do!), you need to go and see it NOW.

And OF COURSE I had dreams about snakes last night. I am a strange sleeper. I used to walk and talk a LOT in my sleep, now I just talk. I also "fall" to sleep every night. Literally. As I fall to sleep I jerk - and each time in my head I am actually falling. If it's a big one Brent will wake me up to see where I fell. If we've done a race it's usually somewhere along the race course, or it will usually somehow tie into something or somewhere we've been that day. It's quite entertaining (for Brent). So last night I just KNEW I would dream about snakes. For some reason Brent and I were canoeing and of course we had Pippin too. Snakes kept falling on me LIKE CRAZY. Pippin was barking at them like crazy, and trying his best to defend me. I got SO frustrated at beating the blasted snakes that I turned to Brent and said "I am SO sick of these m-fing snakes on this m-fing boat". HAAAAAA!

So, today being Saturday meant one thing - LSD. Today's plan was 15 miles. We didn't quit make it because it was just TOO hot. We went back over to Percy Warner with our plan being to run the first 15 miles of the marathon we're doing there exactly 3 months from today. Well, we ended up in the wrong parking area (long story but things aren't marked all that well out there). As we were trying to figure out where we should start at I saw what I THOUGHT was a dog crossing the road behind us. A second later Brent saw one and said "WHOA! Did you see that???" And I said "Maybe." To which he replied "That was a coyote!" Ugh. Then another one went by. So, we didn't run that direction. At all. We headed out and it was just a tough, tough run with hills. I just wasn't in the mood for the hills, mostly due to the annoying heat. It was already 85 when we started, and that's just too warm. We walked some of the worst uphills and just took breaks when we needed them. Our strategy for this marathon will be to walk some of the uphills, I just don't see us being able to run the whole course, and I'd rather save myself for later in the race and not wear down too early on. We ended up right at 12 (since we hadn't started where we intended to) and we were just so worn down that I'm going to do the remaining 3 tomorrow. Next Saturday we're doing 17 flat miles, yeah!!! I don't want to wear out the hills, so we'll probably rotate 2 weeks of hills while building up mileage and running portions of the course and then 1 or 2 weeks of flat, easy miles. I don't really have a goal time for this race, I am thinking it will probably take us 5 hours. We ran our best miles at 9:30 pace today, and ones with short uphill walk breaks were closer to 11:30. I think a lot of it will depend on race day temps, I am really looking forward to fall!!!

Well, we are headed out to a going away party for someone downtown. Yeah for parties, boo for people moving away! I hope you all had awesome LSD runs today!!

Rae

I blame the Republicans

Seriously, I could get used to the whole vacation thing. Does it really HAVE to end??? Do we really have to go back to work next Monday? UGH! I need to get a P-ball ticket for tomorrow night, that seems to be the only way out of it!!

So, I now have Davidson county tags (Nashville)! Yeah! My car tags expired this month so this morning we headed down to vehicle emissions ($10) and then new car tags ($79). (I like to include the prices for you guys all over the place to compare! It's always SO interesting to see how things stack up across the country and globe!). The car tags are actually a few bucks cheaper than the suburbs, yeah!! So, later today we'll put the new tags on my car and no one will ever know my sordid suburban past!

We'd wanted to visit the Frist Center for the Visual Arts for a while now. I didn't know much about it, but I figured it would be a cool place to go. From the website we knew there was a Pulitzer Prize winning photography exhibit, so Brent was pretty amped about that. We also knew (from a million signs around town) that there was a big Egypt exhibit going on, but that was double the entrance fee and we're really not into stuff like that. We like art - painting, sculptures, photos, esp modern art. We loved Moma in New York as well as the art museums in Seattle, Boston and Chicago that we've visited over the years. All that to say: the Frist Center sucks. We paid $16 for 30 minutes of experience, and we were done. They bill themselves as a "traveling exhibit" museum - aka there is no art that's there 24-7-365. So, the only exhibit there for us to view was the photography exhibit and a kids area teaming with children. That's it folks. For an additional $17 we could have seen the Egypt stuff, but no thanks to that. Ugh yeah, rip off. The photographs were OK, but they were all prints on foam of the original winning photos. And, obviously since they are Pulitzer winners, they were from newspapers - meaning with the exception of one or two photos they were all death, destruction and war. Not exactly happy vacation viewing. It was really disappointing, but we can say we've been.

On the upside, we discovered that the Flying Saucer was next door. (Their website is so cute!) We've seen their ads before, and they have an insane number of beers on tap - 300+. I'm not a beer person, at all, but I found the idea interesting so we headed over. The food was really cool, and the atmosphere was awesome. They have saucers (like souvenir plates) all over the walls and ceilings. The food was really good, too. I had a goat cheese pizza and Brent had a roast beef sandwich. I would definitely go back there again, and highly recommend it to anyone in town. They have live music some nights and lots of special brewery type nights with good deals. I do wish their waitresses wore longer skirts because that sort of thing does offend me! (Naturally Brent said he didn't even notice!) Brent took some pics from our excursions today so I'll post those later.

OH, and one other thing! Stay away from the Frist parking lot! SERIOUSLY overpriced! We were there a total of less than 2 hours and if we had not had our admission tickets it would have been NINE DOLLARS!!!! With our tickets it was $3. You can park anywhere in Nashville during the day for $6 all day (excluding special events, of course). Their maximum - TWENTY FOUR DOLLARS!! Seriously guys, that's nuts. Hopefully I can save at least a few people a few bucks from a Republican who just wants to take more of your money!! =)

(Honestly, I am neither a Republican or a Democrat. I vote for the person and their stand. So don't rip me a new one people.)

So, now I need to convince Brent to take me to see SNAKES ON A PLANE!!! Samuel L Jackson called me last week and told me to go, so I have to.

6.66

Hey guys!! We are still enjoying vacation!! Vacation is SO much better than work! We've gotten quite a bit of painting and other home projects done, but we've gotten some rest and done fun stuff, too! (Of course Blogger is being a prick, so click on links to see pics!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

After doing some work around the house Sunday we took Pips over to the dog park. It really just wasn't his night. As usual, he was the smallest dog there and they all wanted a piece of him. He was getting pretty frustrated (and so were we!) so we left and went over to just walk the greenway, where we saw a guy on a Segway!! Crazy!! We had a nice time, it was a really nice evening. The temps haven't been TOO bad lately, it's been in the low 90's versus the high 90's, which is really good for us. Don't get me wrong, that's still HOT, but much better than a couple of weeks ago! (More pics from Shelby Park here, including this hilarious one of Pippin!)

Monday was the first day of school here. We have an elementary school across the street from us, so we got up and stretched out on our porch swing and watched the kiddos going to school. It's amazing how many families walk to school in this neighborhood, but it's really not THAT strange since we walk most everywhere now. Pippin loved watching the kids and running up and down in the yard trying to get their attention. He even got some loving from the principal! (I seriously think he should be mascot!!) Once school started we geared up and headed out for a run. We decided to run downtown from our house. Within 1.7 miles we were at Titans Stadium, and then at just over 2 miles we were over the river and in downtown. We ran down 2nd and then back over the Shelby St Pedestrian only bridge. All the bridge crossing has been serious hill training!!! We took our camera with us, so we stopped and enjoyed the views from time to time, and the "window shopping"! =) Our plan was to stop at Bongo Java on our way back for some coffee, and as luck would have it that gave us exactly 5 miles. We got some iced coffee and walked the rest of the way home (half mile). You can see the whole set of photos we took here.

Today we decided to run from our house to downtown and the state capital/Bicentennial Mall. We headed out a little late (after 9 am) and it was clear and warm! For whatever reason my legs just didn't have a lot of juice, so when we arrived at Bicentennial Mall (3 miles from our house) I was MORE than happy to take a break and play in the fountains. We took a few more detours on our way to take advantage of the shade of the tall buildings. We arrived back home at 6.66 miles, freaky!!

We had lunch today at the Red Wagon. It's really close to our house, but only open for lunch during the week and brunch on the weekends (which is PACKED). So, we took advantage of our vacation status and headed over today. It was SO good! Everything was incredibly fresh. We had fruit tea to drink and it was SO good, seriously fresh fruit. I had a "grown up grilled cheese sandwich" which came with a salad and fresh tomato basil soup. The grilled cheese was like a panini and it had a nice slice of real cheddar cheese on there along with some sort of other cheese. YUM! I would definitely go back!!

I guess that's all the news around here. We've done lots and lots of painting but there's really nothing exciting to say about that! Have a great rest of the week everyone!

Rachel

Tomatoes Rule!

Hey guys! I hope you all had awesome weekends! Ours is not over, because we are taking some time off this week! WOO HOO! We plan on relaxing and working around the house. We have PLENTY to do here!! (OF COURSE BLOGGER IS NOT COOPERATING, so you'll have to click on links for pics. GRRRR!)

Our weekend has been great. We had tons and tons of rain on Friday, so Friday night we just chilled at home and worked more on the drywall we were putting up in our bathroom. Saturday am the dog alarm went off before the real alarm. Pippin is a machine. He is well aware that we get up at the hour of "ungodly" M-F so on S & S he wants to make sure we are running right on schedule - so if we're not up he is going to wake us up. Correction, he is going to wake ME up. So, at 6:30 am (which is much better than most weekends) I get the scratch, scratch, scratch and a whimper. UGH! The alarm was set for 6:45, dog!! I still climbed back in bed until 7:30, which was fine because the rain had really cooled things off so we wouldn't get baked if we started out later than usual. Some oatmeal down the hatch and we loaded up in the car to run at PWP. Now that we're back in the regular training routine it was time to go and have some hills kick our butt! We haven't run at PWP since our intense hillwork in March & April getting ready for the Flying Pig Half. Last Saturday we ran 11.2 here, but that was flat and fast, the plan for this Sat was 12-13 of killer hills which is 5x harder! We started out slow and easy and I was instantly reminded how much I hate hills!! AND, how out of practice I've gotten with them. First hill behind us we started settling back in. The temp was only 75, it was a little muggy from the previous night's rain but I can't complain. An August day that like is rare here, it was really more like a May day. PWP isn't closed to cars, so we usually don't wear our headphones. It's also full of cyclists who can get some serious speed going so I really don't want to get run over by one of them, either!

Our plan was to run the 11.2 loop of the park, and add some additional miles on after. We're running a TOUGH marathon here on November 19th, so we've got to really start picking up miles in the park or we are going to be in a SERIOUS mess in November! I have to say, I was REALLY impressed with my Garmin. I got the new 205 in May, right before the Pig, and since then most of my running has been pretty vanilla neighborhoods. With my old 201 I never made it further than .2 miles on the 11.2 loop before my Garmin cut out. On Saturday, Garmin hung with us the whole way! For some reason it cut out on the big road we did at the end, at got stuck at 11.87 miles even though I had measured out a 12.5 mile course for us. Whatever, at least it was really great on the heavily treed areas! Neither one of us was loving the tough hills on Saturday, but we took them one at a .time and made it. One of the worse ones is towards the end, around mile 10. We built ourselves up and tackled the beast!! Afterwards you're rewarded with a couple of miles of sharp downhill, but by that point your legs are shot and the downhills hurt just as badly as the uphills. We rejoiced our accomplishment at the large stone gates and then ran down Belle Meade Blvd enjoying the massive mansions for a couple of extra, much easier miles! We have just over 3 months to get ready for this marathon, so I think we'll be ready by then. I don't plan for it to be a record setting run, AT ALL, this is just one to complete. All 100 spots all full now, so it sounds like it's going to be a blast! We're also thinking about doing the the Stump Jump 50K in October. Could we be ready for a tough, trail 50K by then? Doubtful, esp since we don't even own trail shoes. But do I think it would be fun? OH YEAH! Anyway, we're heavily considering it just as something fun to do, and cross into the ultra world!!

So, we finished our 12.5 and then headed home, incredibly proud of ourselves. All the festivities in our 'hood were starting up for the Tomato Festival!! We showered quickly and headed back out, on foot. First we swung past the B&B on our corner. They were serving tomato pie for $7 a slice. No thanks!! Good luck with that one! We headed up 16th and stopped at the tomato dressing up contest. They didn't have very many entries, but MY fave was the 5K tomato race! I love it!!! Obviously they are runners! From there we headed to 5 Points, the main event spot. There were lots of booths and bands providing entertainment. We walked through the art gallery, ate some overpriced hot dogs, and had a really nice time. We even ran into an old college mate and chatted with some neighbors for a while before heading back for a well earned nap.

Sat night we went out with a friend. I'll talk more about that tomorrow because it was quite an eventful night and I have photos to upload to go along with it.

Plans for tomorrow?? Who knows! Sleep in a bit, go for a run, and probably do some more painting here!! Have a great Monday!

Rachel

Birthday Boy

Hey guys! We made it through another work week! Whew!!!! That was close!

The excitement of the week - Pippin's 3rd birthday! His birthday was Wednesday. When the alarm went off at the unfortunate time of 5:00 am we got up for our usual walk, but in his honor decided not to curse him. We sang various renditions of Happy Birthday and went on our merry way to work. (Or merry as possible for the screwed up company we work for.) When we left work we stopped by the pet store to get the little guy some gifts and made our way home - only to discover Pippin had already had quite the celebration of his own. We made a little wood windowseat that we have in front of one of the front windows where he can watch cars and people all day. On it, I HAD a really cute green feather-down blanket. Apparently, Pippin needed some excitement Wednesday because when we walked in feathers were flying. And sticking to a certain dog's face and ass. HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Have you ever tried to sweep up a full-size blanket of down? Uh yeah. Once we moved past the destruction we gave Pippin his cake and even let the booger sleep in (aka HOG) the bed. Here are some pics of the festivities:

On tap for this weekend? The East Nashville Tomato Festival! It's a little carnival in our neighborhood. It sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun. Pretty much everything going on is within walking distance for us, and they have all sorts of activities going on all day. So, the plan is to get up, go for a LSD, then head over to the festival! We've done a lot on the house this week. We re-did the master closet in our bathroom (re-paint it, hang proper clothes organizers and load my clothes in in my anal color-organized fashion) and we started painting our bathroom. We picked a beautiful deep/warm shade of orange which is looking awesome with all the white tile in there. We're taking out the small, old medicine cabinet and hanging a really pretty large and ornate mirror so we've (well, Brent) has been putting up some drywall in there. It's looking great!!! I've got a lot of house pics I need to upload to Flickr, so when I do I'll let you all know!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Rachel

Blogger Backup?

Hey! Does anyone know how to take all your posts and back them up? I'm planning to leave Blogger and want to back up my files. I don't think I want to post them to my new blog yet, but I want them if I change my mind.

I'm leaving Blogger for a variety of reasons. My new blog home has yet to be decided, but I will be in touch with it.

In other news, work today was GREAT! If you are one of the people who enjoys my torture stories, just let me know in a comment and I'll respond via email. I won't be sharing any of it here for a variety of reasons. Our 18 mile drive home didn't even cover the recap!!!

In running, Brent and I ran 11.2 miles Saturday. YEAH!! We ran from our house to Shelby Park and did the bulk of the greenway. This weekend I want to get back to Percy Warner and do some hills. We both ran 3 on the treadmills during lunch today. That is SUCH an awesome mid day stress reliever!!

And, the biggest news of all: tomorrow is Pippin's 3rd birthday!!! His cake arrived Monday and it is so cute! Don't worry, we'll have loads of pics of tomorrow's festivities!

T.G.I.F !!!

I am SO glad it's Friday! This has been the work week from hell. Why? Because our budget season officially kicked off this past week. And of course we are already two days behind, but that's mostly because my boss is an idiot. I just don't get people. The budget is a horrible nightmare from beginning to end (in late November). I sit in these meetings - where I know EXACTLY how much these big wigs make - and listen to their nonsense. And every stinking time I walk out of there KNOWING I could SO own my own business and be successful. It's like the time warp/parallel universe from hell. They are truly out of their minds, and get paid like kings. (Oh yeah, they're all men.) I tried to jazz it up as I sent out each head honcho's budget template for his department. I had cute jazzy subject lines like "Better than Christmas!" and "Pick a number, any number!" and wrote some seriously hilarious budget instruction for each a-hole. Things like: "The due date is (blah blah), but of course earlier is always better and if you're the first person to turn your packet in we'll only cut your spending by 75% instead of 85%." or "Successful completion of the template will save you weeks of me stalking you outside the mens restroom". Did I get a single "Ha Ha" from any of them??Of course not. Just snippy, biting emails. But I really didn't expect any less.

All this "excitement" has made my boss even MORE pleasant than his usual pain in the ass self. He was so bad today I started taking up a collection from my coworkers to hire a hooker for him. We're thinking she will have to be blind and deaf, and incredibly desperate. Naturally I checked with my coworker whose husband owns his own stripper service. And of course "he knows people". Sweet. It can only help.

So, to continue this boring dribble about our insane workplace this weekend is our annual family picnic. What's worse than 50 hours a week with total goobs? Spending your Saturday with them too! The past couple of years the "event" has been at our local waterpark. That was always fun because it's so large and crowded with other people you rarely see your coworkers. This year our completely out of touch Marketing department has discovered something even better than seeing all your coworkers in swimwear - A Cowboy Town. (Click on the link, trust me. It's worth it.) What's even worse is that no one I know at work has even heard of this "theme park". I just don't see how anyplace with "Kick a Poo" Lake doesn't make the headlines constantly. The agenda for the 2pm - 10pm event tomorrow includes cowboy singing, cowboy magic shows and multiple cowboy gunfights. They also have human hamster ball races and watergun fights. If I shoot a coworker it will not be with water. Needless to say Brent and I are not attending. Even to take pictures of the insanity. I seriously wish I was making this up, but sadly I am not. At least all the ridiculous posters will be down next week, and all the idiotic cowboy hats and hobby horses will be distributed.

Other news around here.....it's sales tax free weekend! Our sales tax is a whopping 9.25% (it was 9.75% in the suburb we moved from). We don't have a state income tax, so they rip us with sales tax. This is the first time we've ever had this in TN, and I was super excited at first - until I realized it's only on computers, clothes, and school supplies. I was really hoping furniture would apply!! Either way, I am going to go and get a new pair of running shoes tomorrow and maybe a couple of outfits just to take advantage of the tax break. Here is an honest-to-God phone conversation I overheard between a coworker and her (admittantly very strange) mom:

Coworker: "Yeah, I think I'll go buy a few outfits this weekend"
Coworker: "No, it's only on school supplies, clothes and computers. To help people with kids going back to school."
Coworker: "No, I don't think a pillow would qualify."
Coworker: "Well, because it's not a school supply."
Coworker: "Seriously mom. A pillow is not a school supply."

Running - It has been HOT!! Every day the temp is 99 on our way home. Ugh!! Just standing outside you break a sweat. Since we can't go home for lunch now we've been going to the gym instead. It's actually a great break. I can fit 4 miles in including a warm up and cool down, and still have plenty of time to change. It's nice to get back into a routine again. I'm starting to feel very settled. We've even started getting up at 5 am to take Pippin on his 1 mile walk, which he LOVES! We also discovered on our am walks that you can see the Nashville skyline about two block from here! So, this week I already have about 15 miles, before tomorrow's long run. Everything is finally starting to get back on track! Last month I only had 45 miles, there were some weeks this past winter when I had that many miles!

So, tomorrow we're going to get up and run, then meet a friend at the dog park (just a half a mile from here!!), work on the house, and go out with some friends tomorrow night. Today we got a lot of rain this afternoon and it really cooled things off. After we ate it was so pleasant we decided to take Pippin to the dog park. We ended up having a blast and Pippin did, too. I gave him a bath last night, and now he's covered in mud but we all had fun so who cares??

Have a great weekend!!

Rachel