34 posts tagged “kati”
I know it's been an obnoxiously long time. Very sorry. Lots has happened! Last Friday I made the decision to have Lasik surgery. My appointment is for tomorrow morning at 9am. I'm utterly terrified and totally excited all at the same time. I think I just need to mentally get through the two or so hours that I'm going to be there. Everyone that I've talked to that's had it says it's the best decision they've made and that they wouldn't go back. I can't wait to open my eyes Saturday morning and not need to put glasses on or contacts in! More details later this weekend, but think happy thoughts for me tomorrow!
Last weekend was pretty insane. On Saturday night Kati, Brigitte, Amber, Kristine and I went to see Britney Spears. I was pretty disappointed in the show. The Pussycat Dolls opened for her and were pretty good (I've seen them before). In between, they had circus performers come out and do their thing, which was pretty cool (the title of Britney's latest CD is "Circus"). I was really disappointed in her actual performance - she was clearly lipsynching, which I had expected. But if she was gonna lipsynch, I wanted to see some serious dancing and all of her moves were halfhearted. I honestly don't know if she'll be able to pull off another tour.
We got up bright and early Sunday morning to head to the Bay Area for Easter and to celebrate Oma's 80th birthday. On the way there, we saw a terrible car accident happen... a lady clipped the car in front of her while changing lanes and they went spinning and flipping off the road. Mom pulled over and her, Kati and I went over to help. The lady's car had landed on it's side in a ditch with the other car on top. We were able to get the couple in the top car out but the lady and her passenger were stuck in the sideways car. I could tell that the passenger wasn't breathing, but couldn't safely get to her. It was beyond frustrating. All I could do was talk to the driver, tell her help was coming and try to keep her calm. She told me that the passenger was her sister. When we got home, we found out that the passenger had died.
The rest of Easter was fun - we spent time with the whole family at Oma's house, including the much loved "throw eggs over the house" tradition. I have some great pictures posted on Facebook (I'm too lazy to upload them here today).
First and foremost, a great big
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
to Kati and Brigitte! Yes, my sister and best friend share the same birthday. I know it's weird. You know what's even weirder? I have the same birthday as Brigitte's youngest sister. Apparently the universe has aligned!
Work is easing up a little bit (hooray!) today. It's been a while since I've looked forward to the weekend this much... I'm just toast. At rehearsal last night my brain was literally fried. Nothing there. Couldn't sight sing to save my life, and I'm normally pretty good at it! I really think I need some down time - stat!
Speaking of stat, this Thursday is the last episode of "ER"... ever. That's right, ever. I will be sitting in front of my TV with tissues in hand. I can't believe the show is actually going to be done! It looks like they're going to pretty much have every character that has ever been on the show back for the finale. I can't wait!
In other random musings, I can't believe that it's the end of March already. We're seriously a quarter of the way through 2009 already? Where the heck is time going?!
That's right, I survived my very first half marathon! Today was such an amazing day - I'm still floating on adrenaline! I was super nervous this morning... if you know me, you know how I get. I'm cranky and, well, a little bit on the bitchy side when I'm really scared about something. So you can only imagine the sorts of things I was saying to other drivers on the road who cut me off at the exit.
My good friend Susan left me some great advice on Facebook last night... she said "the challenge in marathon running is getting to the starting line, knowing what lies ahead and having the guts to start. The rest will take care of itself." Honestly, it was so true. I was so freaked out until I actually started the race. Once we took off, it was "just run"... like every other run I've done for three months. Amazing.
And, of course, my fantastic family was there to support me! Adam and Eva brought some "flair" with them to make sure that our family was the loudest most visible group on the course:
And cheer they did... I know some of you are skeptical, but let me tell you, I was happy to have ANYONE cheering for me. My friend Jess also came to cheer... it was so amazing having all that support! Here's the family and I before the race:
The weather could not have been more perfect - it was cold, but once I started running, it was enough to cool you down without cramping your muscles. I started out pretty fast (hooray for adrenaline). My goal was to run 10 minute miles, which would have given me a final time of around two hours and ten minutes. Instead, I ended up doing roughly nine minute thirty-three second miles which gave me a final time of two hours and five minutes. I'm so super proud of myself! Towards the very end of the race, I seriously wanted to cry. I'm not sure if I was just that tired or if I was overwhelmed by it all or both. The only real pain I have going on is some seriously screwed up feet. I spilled some water on my shoes at one of the aid stations and managed to get it to soak through my socks... leaving me with some great blisters. Other than that, just the normal soreness!
Mike was stuck on a fire all night but was still sweet enough to drag his tired self down to catch what he could of the race. I honestly didn't think he'd make it, so I was blown away (and probably a little delirious) when I saw him standing at the top of the stairs. Here's us (don't I look great after 13.1 miles?):
After the run we headed over to Mom and Dad's for a delicious lunch (trust me, today I'm ready to eat just about anything!). I then went over to Betty's for a little going away party for one of our CERT members, Cheryl, who is moving to Texas. We did an offical "couch picture" for Cheryl to remember us by:
I spent the rest of tonight working on the pictures and catching up on some work... I think I'm just about ready for bed! For those of you who are wondering, yes, I'm still contemplating doing the full marathon, although I'll need some time to think about it. Here are the final stats for this run:
Half Marathon Final Stats
First Day Training: January 4th
Race Date: March 15th
Final Race Time: 2:05:08.3
Total Miles Logged: 178.6
Well, tomorrow at this time I will have just started my first half marathon. Yup, I'm a little nervous. No idea why - I've done 12 miles for the last two weekends, so I'm pretty sure that the extra 1.1 miles won't kill me. Oh well... today I'm heading over to Mom and Dad's to hang out - the whole gang is here! Adam, Eva, Mom, Dad, Kati and Oma are all there ready to chill and BBQ later tonight. It looks like it's supposed to rain, which is a little bit of a bummer, but nothing I can't handle!
Ok, off to carb load! :)
Marathon Update
Miles This Week and last: 27
Total Miles: 166
Well, this weekend pretty much sucked. I had some pretty cool plans with Mike for Valentine's Day on Saturday (hooray for wine tasting), but somehow managed to come down with the flu. Fantastic timing, right? Let me rewind to the one cool part of the weekend...
Dad decided to surprise Mom and fly in for the weekend, which was awesome. He had to fly into Oakland late on Friday, so Kati and I drove to pick him up. Mom had no clue (despite some pretty terrible lies on my part) and was completely surprised. It was awesome! I got back to my house at about 1:30am and went to bed. I had been feeling pretty tired that whole day, but I was figuring it was from my 10 mile run. Saturday morning I woke up with a fever, a rash, and a headache. Definitely not Valentine's Day material. As much as it killed me (and those of you who know me know it killed me) I stayed home in bed. I pretty much slept the whole day, went to bed at 9pm and still slept until 8am on Sunday. Crazy. Kati was awesome and made a delicious Valentine's Day meatloaf and we watched movies together until I passed out. The good news is that the fever is gone now and I'm feeling a lot less tired. I spent all of Sunday at Mom and Dad's house relaxing and most of today reading and napping. I guess my little body needed some rest! Shadow was a trooper... he was more than happy to hang out in bed with me and take lots of naps... I have to admit, it was pretty relaxing!
Marathon Update
Miles This Week: 19
Total Miles: 101!
Seriously, Shadow cracks me up. If he gets super hyped up (for example, doesn't get walked because it's raining) he sometimes burns off energy by running around the house like he's crazy. Occasionally, he gets a little bit out of control and launches himself at the sofa. He's learned that if he twists mid-air, his body actually bounces off the back of the sofa. For those who have never witnessed it (which is pretty much anyone that is not me or Kati) here is some video for your viewing pleasure:
I know, it's not Sunday night, but tomorrow night is the Grammy's, so I'll be doing my "Grammy's In Your Jammies" blog, so I thought I'd update on the weekend now.
First of all, I'm happy to say that I've regained my will to run, thanks to a little prodding from Jess and one great article in Runner's Magazine. The article was about this fireman that was an Ironman, marathoner, etc and was hit by a bus... he should have been killed, but somehow, he survived. He fought back through crazy surgeries and ended up running the New York Marathon with some of his buddies (in the disabled category because one of his legs was shorter than the other and the other one was basically made up of metal rods). I figured, if he can do it with a beat up body, well, me and my not so beat up body could do it. Which leads me to my nine mile run on Friday morning. That would officially be the farthest I've ever run in my life. Pretty much every long run from here on out is going to be the farthest I've gone, which is pretty cool. Jess met me out at the trail and ran a mile with me, then jumped in her car and met me at different spots on the trail. Talk about a great friend... poor girl is pregnant and has awful morning sickness, but was still willing to risk it on the trail with me! It was the best long run I've done so far... I don't know if it was the change of scenery, that I had someone out there with me or my new water pack, but it felt great. Before I knew it the run was over. Now if only I could do that three times, I'd be done with my marathon!
Today was fix up the house day. I had a leaky toilet, which was a little bit daunting, since I know nothing about plumbing. Over the weekend I was told it was probably the "wax ring". Keep in mind, I know NOTHING about plumbing. But I figured, how hard could it be? So I headed over to my friendly Lowe's where I bought the ring, some caulk and a caulking gun. I then headed over to Home Depot to pick up some ground cover for under my roses and a hibiscus tree to replace the weeping cheery that decided it didn't want to live. I did all that planting, met Mike for lunch and then headed home to face the dreaded toilet. I turned off the water and flushed a lot. Now came the scary part, actually unhooking, picking up and moving the toilet. It probably would have been helpful for me to read up on toilet anatomy so that I knew what I was getting into, but sometimes I guess it's all about flying by the seat of your pants. Once we moved it, I stared at, well, a hole in the ground. For all it's fanciness, that's really all that this is about. A big fat hole with some pretty porcelin on top. Without contemplating what's been down said hole, I started prying off the wax ring (which was a little smellier than I expected) and replaced it with the new ring. Kati and I then put the toilet back, screwed it down and flushed. Water everywhere. We took it off, dried the floor and I molded some of the old wax with the new wax to make a bigger ring (and a better seal). This time, when I flushed, no water! Woo hoo! I then caulked around the base (which was a little messier than I had planned, but it was my first time...) and attempted to take a nap...
... which leads me to confess that I'm as addicted to the "Twilight" books as everyone else on the planet. I laid down in bed and 150 pages later it was 4:30 and definitely past prime nap time. I recommend the books - and I'm only ~200 pages into the first one. I can't wait to find some more time to read (maybe tomorrow afternoon?)!
Tonight the girls and I are headed out to see "He's Just Not That Into You". I've heard it's supposed to be really funny... I can't wait!
Marathon Update
Miles This Week: 18
Total Miles: 83
This weekend was a marathon weekend (no pun intended)! Friday night, Mike and I went to the Tesla concert. I didn't really know who they were, but it was an awesome show... I really like their music. In fact, I might get their new CD... there were some great songs that they played at the show and I liked them a lot! Here's Mike and I chillin' at the show:
That crazy look in my eyes is because I ran eight miles earlier in the day thinking I'd have lots of recovery time sitting at the show. As it turns out, we had general admission tickets, so we were standing the whole time. Now, some of the best shows I've seen have been standing, but definitely not after eight miles!
On Saturday we went to the Make-A-Wish Food & Wine Festival. Me, Mike, Kati, Brigitte, Dan, Jeremy, Steve, J and Jen all ended up going. Kati had the fantastic idea of renting a limo so that no one had to drive. Our limo driver dropped us off at the wrong place, but we got a cool picture in front of an old car:
The event itself was great - you paid $85 to get in and they had 60 wineries and 60 local restaurants offering you all the food and drink you could possibly consume. I think it's safe to say that we all drank our $85 dollars worth! Here's me a few drinks (and some delicious truffles) in:
This afternoon we had a Super Bowl party at my house. It was a blast! I've been craving all things summer, so I barbequed chicken, corn on the cob and we made pasta salad. It hit the spot! I thought the commericals were so-so. This year really didn't seem to have a ton of great ones. The group seemed to like a couple - here are the ones that made us laugh. Apparently we like when people get smacked:
As well as cartoons:
And finally, ones about hating work:
Marathon Update
Miles This Week: 17
Total Miles: 65
Friday was a pretty nifty day... I ran seven miles, which for some reason (along with 26.2) just sounded like a lot to me. The mileage went really well... the legs are holding up and so far I haven't had any repeat performances of the disaster from last Monday. The best part of my run (besides it being lucky number seven) was that I discovered the wonder that is GU. Let me preface this with the fact that I suck at eating and drinking while I'm running. I'm getting better with water, but I have a very hard time with sweet stuff, such as sports drinks. The problem with that is once you're doing this kind of physical activity, you need to replenish your carbohydrates, electrolytes, and calcium levels (along with a ton of other stuff that helps with recovery). I was terrifed that this stuff was going to make me barf... it's pretty much got the consitancy of snot. The good news is that it comes in like a zillion flavors (I picked up Chocolate Outrage, Vanilla Bean, Tri-Berry, Espresso Love and Strawberry Banana as testers). I decided that my inaugural run should be something I would think I would like, so I went with the safe choice of Chocolate Outrage. Around mile 3.5, I popped the packet open and sqeezed it into my mouth. It was like eating chocolate frosting... and seriously, after about 3.5 miles, who on earth doesn't want chocolate frosting? A few minutes later, I no longer focused on my legs hurting and focused more on how I could squish that last little bit of GU out of the packet. And sure enough, little energy boost. I spent the rest of my run pondering whether it would be safe to have Mike hook up a GU IV.
Saturday I did some EMT work in the morning - there was a kids duathlon out at Folsom Lake. It was a blast - some of these kids were so tiny that their bikes got stuck when they tried to go off curbs. Fortunately, I had no patients and just had to deal with the chilly wind. After the race I headed out to Back Wine Bar for Jessica's surprise party. It was loads of fun - in fact, Andrea brought her twin boys out (they're six months old) and we got to play with them! Then Mike and I headed out to see "Gran Torino" starring Clint Eastwood. Now, I'm not a huge Clint fan, but I have to say, this was an awesome movie. Until the very end when he sings for the ending credits. Imagine his rough sounding voice talking. Now imagine that same voice singing. Yeah. But seriously good movie... I think it's going to win awards!
Today Mom and I headed out to the Home and Landscape Expo... it was a blast! They basically had all sorts of contractors, vendors and demonstrations on how to improve your home. Of course, I love all of the little gadgets! I did buy some awesome flowers - they're plumerias (the ones that they use in Hawaii to make leis) - this San Diego based company was selling a bunch of different varieties. They smell great - so I got the yellow and the fuschia. They are bare root right now, but should bloom in 8-12 weeks. I can't wait! We also found what I've been looking for since I moved into my house... a key rack that makes sense:
For those of you that don't know, I have these great little frogs that live in my backyard almost all year. They jump up and stick to the screen door and all over the side of the house. Shadow loves to chase them and tries to eat them. They sound beautiful - my own personal symphony - when it rains!
You might notice that that's a very clear and crisp picture of the frog key rack. Well, that's because I finally got my new camera today! It's the Canon PowerShot SD790 IS. I absolutely love it... I still have some reading through the manual to do, but it's super easy to use and takes amazing pictures:
I'm so excited to have a new camera - my old Sony was good, but it's been fading over the last couple months. The picture quality definitely hasn't been there and the battery hasn't really been holding the charge. This new camera also takes video, which is something I wanted again (it came in handy in Europe!).
I plan to spend the rest of tonight totally relaxing... I've done all of my running for the week, all of my blog/Facebook updating and am going to take some time to just chill and watch TV!
Marathon Update
Miles This Week: 16
Total Miles: 48
On Friday, Mike and I drove down to Livermore for the Adventure Race that he and Sean were going to do on Saturday. We met up with Sean and his wife, Erin, for a delicious Italian dinner. Saturday morning we headed over to the park for the race. Now, for those of you who don't know, an adventure race is no ordinary triathlon. In this one, they had to kayak 2.5 miles, run 2.5 miles and bike 15 miles. Here's the catch... there is no real course. That's right - there are like 7 checkpoints that they have to hit, but no trail to get there. They can basically take whatever route they want - they all have maps and compasses. From what I saw, it was a pretty crazy, hilly course. Talk about crazy people. The race went well... here's the guys at the finish line:
It was a gorgeous day - somewhere near the 70s and I pretty much had nothing to do other than sit at a lake and relax. I know, it's a tough life I lead.
Today was pretty mellow - Kati and I ran this morning and then did a bunch of errands. Tonight consisted of delicious chicken caccitori and us watching "My Best Friend's Girl". I'm just about ready to head off to bed... it's going to be another long week!
Here's my marathon training update - so far so good. I was a little sore after my last long run, but it wasn't anything that didn't go away. I got a book today that was written by a woman who had never run pretty much anywhere and still managed to make it through. She goes through all the crap that no one tells you - apparently the marathon part is the easy part - it's the 300 miles or so that you run to get ready for it that pretty much destroy your body. I can't wait.
Miles This Week: 15
Total Miles: 32
Finally, a great big (and day late) HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Adam! I believe he was floating around in the ocean somewhere near Cuba (not a bad way to spend a birthday, is it?)... I hope it was a good one!
