a runner's note

Dear Self,

So I'm training for a half marathon.

Um...yikes. Why do I think I can do this?

Breathe...breathe.... I can do this. No big deal. I've run nearly 9 miles before, this is just a few more. Just a teeny, tiny.... barely noticeable, little bit more! Ok, so it's like 4 miles more. 4 miles is like the distance I used to max out on & I now I'm trying to convince myself to do 13.2? I've never run more than 9 miles at once before! What am I thinking??? This is a HALF. MARATHON. Really skinny people with a lot of motivation and a lot of time to train do half marathons. Hardcore runners only! Am I hardcore? Stop it, self. You're being stupid. Of course you can be hardcore. You're training. You're running like 15 miles a week right now & you still have like 11 weeks to train. This is totally doable! I know that tempo run you did last night was a doozy, but look at the facts: You did it! You ran 3 consecutive miles at a whole entire 1 minute under your usual pace! That's something! Sure, it was hard, but it was your first time. Next time will be easier.

You can do this.

Just breathe.

Think about Collective Soul. They will get you through this. "Shine" will you remind you that you can do anything. Imagine the sunshine on your face as your feet pound the pavement!

You are officially a Runner now! You love running! "Heaven let your light shine down"!

I can do a half marathon! Sure! BRING IT ON!!!

Love,

me

a saucy st. patty's party

This is me & my DCBFF (Dear Cousin & Best Friend Forever) pulling sultry faces with our forearms decked in rebellious St Patty's tats. Just one of the many ways we plan on celebrating a magical, leprechaun holiday coming up! Mwah ha ha ha!

It's always a battle trying to get together. Life just...gets in the way! But every time we finally do hang out again, it's as if the stars align & we realize that we're still the same people as we were when we first became BFF when we were about 5 or 6 years old.

All our lives, people who don't know us have asked if we're twins. We were always thrilled to take the inquiries as compliments and started telling each other: "Another tally on the board!" But really....people have NO IDEA. We are THE. SAME. We feel so passionately & yearningly about things that sometimes it's excruciating. We revel in our defiant odd-ball-ness to the point of our sanity being questioned in public places. And we really do REVEL in it. REVEL and YEARN and BASK and CELEBRATE! When we get together, it's like the world gets colored over again with all the uninvented colors from our imaginations put together.

And sometimes, it's just so refreshing to have a girlfriend who really knows your SOUL...because it's like it's her soul too.

I could go on for hours about our adventures: our word-love explorations, our pen-pal memories when she lived in Texas, our chew attacks, double dates we scared pantless, our doorbell-ditching & cherry-chucking shenanigans. I wish I had more pictures to show for our lifelong BFF-ness, but alas, we have always mourned our inability to preserve our memories in decent pictures. This does not include some truly hideous pictures that we take strange delight in. We can pull faces into a camera for hours, but if you saw the pix, you would be convinced for all eternity that we are CREATURES. GIMLETS. Grotesque goblin witches from some other forgotten planet. I will spare you this revelation into my inner alien.


Except...perhaps...for this one mild sampling...
Whew! Ha ha.

Anyway! My cousin Emilie came over on Tuesday to watch American Idol, which I thought was a good show, by the way. And I agreed with America that Jasmine & Jorge were no longer suited to remain in contest. Emilie brought a sheet of Irish day tattoos which we recklessly placed all over our forearms.
And then we played around with features on the webcam on my computer:


And at last, after 20ish years, we managed to take several decent & cute pictures of both our heads together. Pictures like these of us are unbelievably rare. And this one is an instant fave.



Emmers, my dearest BFF in crime, my Sassy Sista in Operation Domination, here's to a continuing life-long friendship. Thanks for reminding me this week how indispensable one soul-mate girlfriend really is. Love you.

a week in the life, part the second

Dear Cosmos:

Welcome to Part II! And thus continues the engrossing saga of a week in Sam's life:

THURSDAY 26th:

People don't give standing ovations the way they should. The principle seems to be: "If everyone around you starts getting up, go for it." I'm disappointed in many members of Pioneer Theater Company's audience this season. They've given standing ovations for 3 or 4 plays so far that I thought were...eh...average to worthwhile. Minus, perhaps, a few genuinely well-executed performances.

Thursday night, I had the too taken-for-granted privilege of attending a rendition of Shakespeare's own work. "For never was there a tale of more woe, than this of Juliet & her Romeo." R & J seems to have gathered its reputation by romantic appeal. I feel moderately qualified to expand on my appreciation of this play since I have actually read it! Imagine! And I guess taking a Shakespeare class in college & writing a few papers about the play may have given me some insights as well. After the class, I appreciated the play as true art. I was so excited for this play because: number 1. I'd never seen a live performance on stage of Shakespeare, and 2. because I crave any activity that links me back to my good old intellectual days at BYU.

After another long workday, I picked up Clint from class & we went to the Training Table for dinner before taking our pilgrimmage up to the house of the Pioneer Theater Co. The student art they displayed in their Loge galleries was courtesy of students of the Salt Lake Visual Art Institute, & it was inspirational! Those kids, I'm telling you, some as young as 5 or 7 years old, put out some serious art. I mean, Serious Art capital A. And the play was simply brilliant. The direction, the production, the staging, the performances, the interpretation, the delivery. It was wonderful. I could hardly believe it when I was the only person standing as the lights came up, but thus it was. And I am unashamed to admit to some emotional leaking in the last few scenes.

FRIDAY 27th:

Wake up, work 8 to 4:30. Starting to feel every hour of it. Have calculated in my head that I spend about a third of my life in-cubicle. Goody.

Clint rescues me at the end of the day with his ever-endearing smiley greetings. We drive home with sunshine, thanks to the increasing daylight as we near spring. We went to the Jordan River Temple, which is always a welcome release. Every time I leave that place I swear I have one less wrinkle on my forehead than I did before. We got take-out Chinese from this great place down the street from us, Peking Wok, and went home to settle down with some blankets & watch Wall-E. We both fell asleep about halfway into the movie.

SATURDAY 28th:

Slept in. Cleaned house. Did laundry. Saturday is also my day for getting in a really good, long workout session because I am gifted with the day off. I also did some grocery shopping, some sanity shopping at Le Super Target, & settled down for some quality time with Dean Koontz. Easily my favorite day of the week. I also don't have a lot to say about it for some reason.

SUNDAY 1st:

The dreaded. The one-and-only....Fast Sunday. Dun dun dun. For some reason, fasting's harder being in the nursery, espesh when snack time rolls around & we start handing out gold fish, animal crackers, and dried apple slices. Aargh, how my tummy rumbles!

So if you've been in the Nursery before, you understand. There are 2 clubs of post-nursery-calling people out there. Those who did it so long ago that they claim it was one of their favorite callings, and those who openly admit that they're glad it's over. It's a service calling, no doubt about it, & I get that it's necessary. But I'll openly admit that baby-sitting 10 kids for 2 hours every Sunday is not my favorite thing. The nursery in my ward's split into 2 sections: junior & senior, with about 11-12 routine attendees in each. But over the past 2-3 weeks in the younger nursery (where I am happily assigned as Nursery Leader), we have had 5 newcomers show up. Okay, so... just to clarify here, newcomers in nursery are not happy people. They generally last about 5-10 minutes max before we bail them out. Just so happens that on this lovely day of fast, the bishopric decided to pull out one of my nursery workers to attend a 12-week Sunday School session of Temple prep. (We are already short a 4th worker who never shows up so this left 2 people in charge of 11 kids, 3 of which were new & screaming.) They said they'd send up a replacement for her for the first hour. Ha, ha - funny joke, guys!

But fear not. My pluck is fortunately solidly intact & I conferred this past week with my really great Primary presidency helpers & discussed the calling of 2 new workers for our neglected younger nursery. Assignments are underway, people.

Church is usually followed by me collapsing into an exhausted heap on the couch after pulling on some pajama pants. (This also helps to distract me from being hungry.) But also, Clint & I usually have some scripture-study/goof-off time together before he dives into homework. We rotate between Clint's parents & mine for Sunday sup. Dinner happens around 5, and Monday dread sets in around 8-ish. But let's rather end with how I spent an engaging evening discussing Austen, Idol, & relationships with my sisters-in-law at Clint's parents' house. Nice to have similar interests. And nice to have nice sisters-in-law. :)

And there you have it: another week, another battle won.

it bit me...

Clint & I have kind of a running joke about our bed frame. He sees me limping around my side of the bed in the morning & asks me, "Aww, did you walk into the bed frame again?" And I use a string of colorful language in my head that no living person has ever heard. (I am only capable of this when I am somewhere between my Rapid Eye Movement sleep & the bathroom.) Actually, I say, "No, it jumped up & bit me!" The dang bed frame sticks out like 3 inches from the edge of the mattress & it hits me just there:

The offending corner:

The next time we buy a bed frame - no frame at the foot!

Also, a few thoughts on American Idol this evening...

1. I really like the name Tatiana. Up until, well... Tatiana. Gag.

2. I was so unreasoningly happy tonight for Scott the piano guy, that I had to analyze why that is. First of all, I think he picks great songs that carry a lot of their own emotion. Also, he's not overdressed or unusually good-looking or glammed up, and he didn't get on American Idol by wearing a bikini or bringing in his adorable kid - he just is who he is. He reminds me of anyone I could see in the grocery store. He's genuine. You can tell how passionate he is about music & singing & that he can't keep it contained. I picked up on it especially when he performed "Mandolin Rain" last night & tonight when they announced him through to the final 12. I think lots of us have that flickering blaze in us to want to contribute something intangible & meaningful & unique to our own soul. And he's doing it, lucky guy.

I think American Idol has tapped into a really unique brand of magic.

a week in the life...

Dear Cosmos (& whoever else may read this):

Due to a recent request, I've decided to allow you a rare & exciting glimpse in what it's like to live in my world, although I still insist that my typical schedule is about as eventful as a llama's in the zoo. My typical long-windedness will no doubt bore you as well. But I'm the one who lives my life every day so perhaps to someone who does not reside in my skin, this routine will appear titillating. Last week was more eventful than usual, which is why I'm choosing to blog about it. For those of you wishing to skip my daily dry wit (your loss) & read only the out-of-ordinary events, you must wait for Part II (to come later this week) when I post about last Thursday, February 26th.

Part I

MONDAY, Feb 23rd:

Like typical Mondays, the alarm begins beeping around 6:30 & I slam the snooze button several times before finally sleepwalking out of bed around 7 a.m. when Clint gets up. As usual, this doesn't give me enough time to do even a decent job of getting ready, but we make it out the door around 7:30, & Clint drops me off at work around 8 a.m. before I've had time to fully wake up & realize what I'm being dragged into. The hours from 8 to 4:30 are pretty much a depressing blur of staring at my computer screen, talking to doctors & patients on the phone, & reminding myself that I shouldn't resort to "bored eating." Enter over-sized water bottle.

Clint & I get home after 5 p.m. & exercise. I ran 4 miles at the gym last Monday & was feeling pretty proud of myself. Returning from gym around 7 p.m., I threw together something resembling dinner, ate, showered, & got an hour or so of relaxation time in while Clint studied. Bed around 11.

TUESDAY 24th:

Alarm goes off at 6:15, & I slump out of bed at 6:30. Today we leave home at 7 a.m. & I drive.

Lately, our morning drive has been increasingly sunny & sometimes I am blessed with fantastic sunrise viewings as we exit the freeway on 6th South, which as you know faces east. For some reason, pinkish orange clouds with wispy yellow sun rays that filter through my windshield have the equivalent effect on me as a cup of coffee has on about 90% of my coworkers. I turn up the radio & sometimes even sing along.

I drop Clint off at work & then proceed up to Research Park to good old Myriad Laboratories. After work, I hit Golds Gym in Sugarhouse, where I discover that in my clarity of mind this morning I forgot my gym sneakers & must do my strength-training in the casual sneakers I wore to work. Good thing I wasn't in the mood for heels this morning. I pick up Hubby on U of U campus when he gets out of class at 6. We get home after 6:30.

While making dinner, I usually turn on American Idol at 7, but as you know, President O'Bama's address was last Tuesday, so we listened to that. He's a really talented speaker. I was impressed though I don't necessarily believe that he will manage to reduce government spending in everything, alleviate military spending while supporting national security, fund public schools, & fund national healthcare so that all the people I talk to at work who can't afford our genetic testing will miraculously be able to afford it within a year or two. Is anyone else surprised at how many people have just bought into this? Alas, I do hope our President can help us pull out of economic turmoil in the long-run.

WEDNESDAY 25th:

I drive us to work today & realize once again how grateful I am for the carpool lane now that I'm one of the few taking advantage of it. At work, Myriad's stock is still doing fantastic. My computer is still slow. And the cubicle is still devoid of natural sunlight, though my plants don't seem to mind fluorescent food.

I ran about 3 1/2 miles outside today & felt as sluggish as the humans on "wall-e". Yep, one of those days.

Clint & I picked up a Little Caeser's pizza to eat on our way to the U of U vs. UNLV game men's basketball game. We met my Dad & brother Kenny there & all got seats in the student section. Really not a bad game for the Utes. But what is the deal with Drca? I swear that kid plays like he doesn't know what he's going to do next. Every time he passes I worry he's going to throw it away & he picks up the ball mid-dribble without having someone to pass it to! Idiot. On an up note, Kenny was excited about seeing Coach Whit & BJohn outside the box office right before the game.

This exciting week will be continue in Part II later this week...