Super Saturday

After about 6 weeks of running around crazy, we have a weekend with nothing scheduled. I love to go see folks and to have them come see us, but there is something to be said for having no reason to get out of bed on a Saturday! I am pumped to watch football, cook a bunch of fun food, and just mess around with a short "to-do" list. I am through my first beer of the afternoon, so it is going to be a beautiful day!

I just have some random ramblings if you have nothing better to do than read this!

Our lawn has multiple personalities. Sometimes I look at it and think that we are making awesome progress, then other times I look at it and think that we should just dig a moat around the house and just set the yard on fire. We have a combination of mushrooms from the wetness, dead grass (or "dormant" Jake keeps telling me) from the heat, patches where the grass is 6 inches high and places where the grass is really short.. Oh, and there are trees growing up through the bushes we are trying to kill. Luckily we have some constants, like the grass attempting to grow across the sidewalks and weeds everywhere. The weeds are really impressive. They are truly hardy and prolific. We had some that were 6 feet tall. No lie. PS: who decided they were "weeds"? Maybe since the "weeds" do so well, we should make them the primary part of the yard and kill off the finicky grass... Just a thought. Hopefully we can get out there and do something about it tomorrow as it is finally less than 100 degrees with 75% humidity every day.

I am still getting ready for our Half Marathon in October. My body no longer finds it entertaining that I am only running and no longer biking or doing core strengthening, so it decided to really make itself heard over the past two weeks. It's funny that even when I spend all day telling people what to do for stuff like this for a living, I am too lazy to do it right for myself. It was going too well. It is fun to be a "runner" though. I was always in awe of anyone who could just go out and run a few miles like it is no big deal. I realized the other day that I no longer see 3 miles as a "big deal", and I have done a 10 mile run and lived through it. Pretty cool to see something in yourself at 32 you couldn't have had the mental fortitude to do at 20...although my body would probably feel better if I were 20!

Work is super busy. I am glad to have a bunch of time this weekend becuase I have some performance appraisals to work on and my student's assessment to do as well. Being a student is the worst. You are taking out a loan so you can pay the school, so you can come to my clinic and work 40 hours a week. That is pretty dis-heartening for sure for him, but he is doing a great job and is a good guy. He laughs at my jokes and helps me get my work done without making me want to strangle him, so that is pretty top notch for a student!

Well, off to focus on football!

Really Great Weekend

This weekend (or whole month actually) was an example of how it is nice to be back close to home again. I got to spend the weekend with my family without catching a plane, missing any work, and I know I will get to do it again next month if not sooner. I miss many things about South Carolina, but what I get to do here far outweighs the lack of winter weather, beach proximity, and even the ease of oyster procurement!

KSU won, KU lost and honestly there is no better way to appreciate a Saturday. However, as a KSU fan you can never truly enjoy it as we spend out time waiting for the other shoe to drop when we will lose to some jackass team that we should beaten just because we are KSU and that is how it goes. I may purchase a NDSU t-shirt just in case we have it together this season and it would be my chance to wear it with pride.

We also got a ton of wedding planning done for Molly. We are trying to figure out where to have her bachelorette party. She lives in Memphis, friends in KC so she thinks she wants to be in KC...but we may try and squeeze a hometown shower in that weekend...and that is where it all gets dicey. I am the Matron of Honor..that word is weird. "Matron". Awesome. Time to buy a girdle...

So That's What I Dream When I Take Allergy Medicine

So I had this dream last week. It was bizarre. I dreamt that I had changed professions and was now a sanitation attendant (janitor) in a super classy subway bathroom (not classy at all). I was actually working in a men's bathroom, which doubled as a cafeteria, where all of the stalls had no doors. Yep, that's pretty bizarre.

Don't worry though, it was totally "G rated" because everyone was eating food off of their laps or reading the paper in their stalls...rank.

In that same dream, a very good friend of our had to go to jail for shooting a moose..with the gun behind his back. It apparently was not problematic that he shot the moose, only that he did it with the rifle behind his back.

Neat Benedryll, thanks.

Running in the Rain.

I used to LOVE running in the rain. Sprinkle, thunderstorm, whatever. It was something different, it cooled me off, it motivated me to speed up a little. It broke the routine that I am so used to.

I was out running in the rain in college on a day just like this when a huge storm kicked up. It didn't look like it would be much, but I got about a mile from ADPi and looked up to the sky to a boiling, black, angry mass. The lightning really kicked up in a hurry and I turned around the head home. It poured on me like I had never had in my life. The lightening seemed to be about 5 seconds apart and felt about 50 feet from my head. It really was scary for a little while because it escalated so quickly and there was no where to go to get away from it. I knew better than to stand under the trees, but I also didn't want to stand out exposed as that felt even less safe. I finally made it home and said a quick prayer of Thank You and went about my day of preparation for recruitment activities with all of my friends.

Only later that day did we hear that the new football coach's wife (Phil Bennett)had been out running in that same storm across town and had been struck by lightning. She had died. I had never really thought of the danger before. It hadn't ever crossed my mind as I headed out into the drops, unafraid of the thunder.

A cloudy day still puts a spring in my step, but I don't run in the rain anymore.

And then I had to carry my bike a mile....

Yep. I need more time to write than I have right now about my weekend biking adventure! It was definitely awesome.

Had a great bike ride this morning with Jake. It was beautiful. The roads here aren't nearly as scary as the one's in SC, so that makes it really nice. I would even consider going out by myself here. I would never have done that in SC. Our ride this morning was rolling hills, ranches, long horns and tall grass. Gorgeous. It was a great way to start the day.

We are going on a float trip this weekend and I am totally jazzed about it. Jake and I had a prior float trip experience that was not so good, so I am hoping this one redeems it, or Jake may never go again!

I can't believe summer is almost over. The kids and teachers I treat are talking about going back to class already. Unbelievable how fast this has gone. Work has been super hectic so I haven't gotten to enjoy my summer like I would have liked to. Hoping all this hard work I am doing laying a foundation pays off...because it's hard work...

What I don't understand is that sun is coming up later and going down earlier, but somehow it is still hotter than the face of the sun all the time. Explain that you crazy science folks!

Yeah For Sue!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SUE WORCESTER. I am pretty sure you are one of three people that reads this thing, so I thought your birthday could be the subject today! Hope it is a great one! You are my favorite mother in law....

Communicate People

That is a famous saying of someone in SC that I used to do triathlons with. She was AWESOME with e-mail and always right on top of it and it would take Jake and I a few days to get a response to her, which always made her nuts. I suppose that there are a few of you out there that still read this mess, and I have been terribly inconsistent with it which makes me sad. So, now I am going to try to do it in the mornings since I seem to have more time then. Turning over a new leaf today. We will see what the underside of that leaf looks like...

This is an ode to how much I LOVE the mornings! Holy Smokes there is no better time to the day. I have been getting out and running in the beautiful summer right before the day starts and there is not a time I am more excited about my day. Everything from yesterday is behind you, everything for today is in front of you and you are stealing a glimpse at how great the day can be. Deep breath in ----- exhale. Now, rock on Friday.

Flashback

We got to spend last weekend with our buddies from South Carolina. It was the best time. I certainly miss those jokers. They were my family for 2.5 years when we were too far away from our "real families". I got to see a former employee of mine marry a student of mine. They were engaged before she came to be my student, but it was still fun for me. We ran through Greenwood and I got to hang out with my old boss/mentor who is my absolute favorite. That is always refreshing for me. It recharges my batteries and gets me excited about work. We then pushed through to Atlanta in our ghetto cruiser rental car.

Jake is a "Gold Member" at the Hertz rental car joint. Apparently that doesn't matter in Atlanta. Apparently that means you get the crappiest car they make. Luckily we only drove it 8 hours in 72 hours. It was a piece of junk for sure.

We stayed in Midtown Atlanta and it was AWESOME! We stayed at the Marriott Suites with 8 of our friends and had a big time. We went to some great restaurants, I got to run around Piedmont Park (ATL version of Central Park), got to catch up with some great people and had a super time. The wedding was outdoors and the weather was gorgeous. The wedding was at 12:30 on a Sunday and the DJ wanted us to tear up the dance floor by about 2:30....so we complied. I love my husband for that reason. If someone needs him to do the Cupid Shuffle in front of everyone in order to make a wedding dance fun, he'll do it. I a never alone in my stupidity..we'll mostly never alone. I do some pretty stupid things.

We got home LATE on Sunday night and the next morning I got up and went to work, Jake got up and went to the airport. I left yesterday for a class, Jake gets home tonight late. I get home late Sunday night, Jake leaves late Sunday night. Fun.

Cool/Not Cool

1. Cool: Writing a fantastic post that was awesome all based on the "Cool/Uncool" theme. It was magical. Not cool: The internet not being fully connected and the post being lost into cyberspace never to be seen again.

You all will just have to wonder how good it was. It was spiffy for sure.

Screw you internet lords and evil connection failure wizards. I am almost certain it is some sick jackass's job to make sure I fail at using technology..because it really shouldn't be possible that I can be that bad at it. And I hate my husband for then being helpful and telling me what I "should" have done. I seriously want to kick him.

Happy Freaking Monday.

So Anyway

This is an update post..so of course there will be bullets and incomplete sentences..and run on sentences like I like to do.

1. "throwback" soda- why did they ever take the real sugar out to begin with? Then why did they put it back in? Furthermore, why is there a hillbilly with a big moonshine jug and a plaid shirt on the can of "real" Mt. Dew? What does that even mean? Does real coke now contain cocaine, and real Mt. Dew now contain real hillbillies?

2. My current thoughts on television- "Justified" on Fx, "The Good Wife", and "Modern Family" are my current favorites. They are smattering, funny and inappropriate in their own special ways.

3. Our yard full of crap- There is so much crazy vegetation growing in my yard and "flower beds"/weed beds. I don't know what to torch with Roundup and what to let continue to prosper. Maybe I will just cover it all with mulch and see what blooms in two months...

4. "New Toll Happenings"- This should have been #1 but I put these in the wrong order somehow. Molly and Chad got engaged last week and then came to Bartlesville to see us and surprise my parents with their announcement. We went to Tulsa so Mols could look at dresses and had a great time in general. Next April we should have quite a shin-dig.

And that is all I currently have in the hopper.

So, That's Sunday School.

Or otherwise titled "Demonstration that God has a sense of humor". The Sunday of Valentine's Day we went to Sunday school. We celebrated Valentine's Day the night before with a combination of wine, bourbon and beer. Needless to say my mind was not the sharpest tool in the shed and we were headed to meet a bunch of folks at church. Recipe for disaster..yes, yes it is.

So we get divided up into groups to work through a Bible passage and I of course get matched up with the Youth Pastor and leader of the group. He then looks at me and says "Let's just turn to the book of Acts"...and then I almost threw up. I am sorry, but I learned the books of the Bible about 20 years ago in Weekday Church School..I don't remember what I ate for breakfast, and I sure don't know where Acts is in the Bible right now. So I take the Bible and open it up..and it falls to the book of Acts. I almost died of shock. I fumble through and find the verse and start to read. The jist of it is that the Gentiles and the Jews should hang out together and eat meat, but the Bible chose to phrase it all about circumcision and non-circumcision...which I get to read aloud to the Pastor. That was great. I wanted to croak. I only recall snippets of all of it because I was very busy trying not to cry/laugh/run from the room screaming. The rest of it involved the Pastor making me discuss our part of the questions with the rest of the group, which was challenging as I had completely blocked out the Pastor and my discussion of circumcision and meat eating. I had to admit it to the group that I forgot our original answers, but shot very well from the hip. Jake was not nearly as mortified as I thought he would be. Point for Hilary.

Along Came Hilary.

Here are several gems of the day.
1. "Do not feed my dog more than 2 raw hide bones a day or his farts will be so bad you will want to cry." We had some friends over today helping Jake run some sort of wiring for something and I actually had to bring it up to them so that they didn't think it was me ripping them silently while we watched the KSU game. I am amazed that he can just lie there asleep and drop napalm bombs. He must be laughing his butt off inside his little doggie brain.

2. "If a toilet looks plugged up, don't flush it." Directly followed by: "You know the architecture of your home is super awesome when your toilet overflows and it comes out of an overhead vent in your foyer onto your dog's head". He was super confused. Maybe that is why he is acting out with the farting.

There is a scene in a movie called "Along Came Polly" where Ben Stiller stands praying over an overflowing toilet...that has been me twice since we moved into this house. Not in the 30 years before this have I ever had a toilet overflow. I do not know how to operate a plunger. I do not know better than to try and flush it when it looks clogged. I do not know how to stop it from overflowing. I do know how to run through the house screaming and swearing as the water pours out everywhere.

I should have known better. I thought I knew how to stop it. I thought I learned from the first one. I held down the flapper, I was ready with the plunger, but the water wouldn't stop rising. Then I realized that the plunger was a moot point after the water starts to rise because you can plunge without slopping the water everywhere. And with all the slopping, if a turd is dislodged then what? I'll tell you what, there is a loose turd in your bathroom or on the floor and one of Jake's friends is helping him string cable and how do you explain that scene..so no plunger. Then before I could consider it any further it was over, the water had reached the top and was going everywhere, so I grab all of the mats in the room..oh yeah, all the time yelling like a crazy woman. So all the banshee screaming finally gets Jake's attention and he shows up, just in time to have the toilet spontaneously flush itself and suck all the extra water (that was not already all over the floor)back down and resolve the problem itself...except then it was pouring out of the ceiling in the foyer...hmmmm. Luckily all of the overflow was clean water (or as clean as it gets coming out of a toilet)so it wasn't a total disaster of loose turds and teepee everywhere. So that was my morning.

Catching Up!

Hey there folks. Hope all is well in your neck of the woods and your New Year is off to a fabulous start. Mine is lovely so far. I have so much to catch everyone up on so this will be a "Magic Bullet" post. An attempt at a fast summation of many points...everyone knows I am terrible at telling stories in a short fashion, so just put up with it and pretend it was short. And for extra fun, these are not going to be in any particular order. Here goes...

*Bartlesville- actually has a bunch of cutural stuff. It's amazing. There is a Mozart Festival,huge regional theater, ballet company, orchestra, whole deal. It's pretty cool. We won free tickets to "Broadway in Bartlesville" last week. The way we got tickets was pretty funny. We took a bunch of packing paper to the Humane Society and met a really nice guy who was the director. He started chatting us up and asked us if we would like to register for "some tickets for cats", and that "no one else had registered so you would definitely win"..Jake and I don't want any damn cats. We both stared at one another and tried to find a way out of it, until the guy explain that the tickets were for "Cats" the broadway show that would be in Bartlesville. So that was funny and we registered for them while watching someone with meth teeth try to adopt an animal while the humane society person tried to find a reason not the give it to them. We got a call that we won them last week and had a great time. We went to the show and then to a really cool bar at the top of a building that was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It was a great evening.

Oh, and by the way.."Cats" is really just about cats..there is no other meaning or deep plot. I had seen other Broadway shows and there is usually a plot. Don't waste your time trying to figure out what "Jellicle cats" are because it's hopeless. You never find out.

*Christmas- Due the other things going on in life we spent Christmas in South Carolina without our families. It turned out really well though as we had a few great friends that weren't going anywhere either, so we just spent the time together like a makeshift family. I cooked Thanksgiving dinner on Christmas, which made me really happy since I worked on Thanksgiving, and ate Pavlova for the first time. It is an AWESOME meringue dessert that is native to New Zealand, but that my Austrailian friend insists is native to Austrailia.

*Moving- What a total fiasco...but not so bad because it is always going to be non-ideal. We got on the road super late due to the retardation of the loading crew. My husband was awesome and drove the whole way as we were pulling my jeep and it was totally pouring the whole way. He is a saint..yet again.

*Ike- Doing great in his first real yard. It is actually fenced in so we can just put him out there. It took a lot of work to convince him that yards aren't just for pooping in, that fun can happen there..so now he begs to go out so he can stare inside while holding he frisbee in his mouth and looking pathetic. Then he decides that you aren't letting him in and lays down 1 inch outside the door looking pathetic so there is no possible way you can accidentally leave him out there.

All right. I am totally tired. Giving it up for the night. PS: we are supposed to get some sort of really awesome ice storm at the end of this week. I am really glad we live in the Midwest again...Crap.

Insomnia

So, it is 3 a.m. and I am on the computer. Generally not good. I am not sure what is keeping me from sleeping lately, but it's doing a fantastic job. I don't start work until Wednesday, so it makes me nuts that I can't sleep because I could sleep all I want..until Wednesday. Crap.

I have heavy duty blog catch up to do right now, but I am not sure that my thoughts would be organized enough to be worth reading!

My parents came over the weekend and helped us put a big dent in getting the house together. It's nice to have another set of hands and eyes for sure. You get to the point where you are just wandering around in the boxes and not sure what to do next! Jake's parents are coming next weekend to bring Ike back to us and see the new digs. It will be fun to see what Ike thinks of the new fenced in yard and significant increase in living space!

So Luckily That Worked Out..

So the fantastic house in the last blog post ended up needing a new roof, so there was a moment of "AAAAHHHH" when we realized the whole deal could explode. Luckily, we found out last night that everything was on, and we close on January 4th! Hurray! It is a relief to know that there is somewhere to put our furniture when it arrives in Bartlesville.

We are here through Christmas, and I have decorated the apartment up like Christmas exploded so it doesn't seem so sad to be without our families. We are also very lucky to have some good friends that are going to be here too, so we are going to have a mish-mash of traditions together to make our own holiday. Should be a lot of fun. Then four days later we leave. I am working up to the 11th hour so that the rest of the staff can have some time off, and we can pay to have someone else pack up our junk so Jake and I can stay married. I feel like moving yourself more than 2 times should be strongly advised against if you still want to speak to one another!

This whole thing is wild to think about. One week is Christmas, 10 days we move, then Jake and I will roll into Lindsborg on New Year's eve with a car pulling a car, just in time to par-tay. I have a fantastically awesome wedding to attend on January 2nd, then head to B-ville on that Monday to take possession of our freshly roofed house. WHEW! No wonder I am having more trouble relaxing right now than I usually do. Good thing I have plenty of distractions with the holidays and work, otherwise I would be an even bigger mess!