Maybe I should be a teacher like Kelly

Reasons:
1. My mentee woke me up (on my day off) so I could take her to school. It was also her birthday. Happy sweet sixteen!

2. This website. I want to be a teacher just so I can get exams like that to grade. Seriously, if the site is blocked at work, go home and look at it. Somewhere you can laugh out loud. A lot.

my day in pictures

It turns out, I worked too much last week and my boss told me not to come in tomorrow. Sweet. In honor of that, I spent some time tonight trying to improve my score on this word game on Facebook. (Who knew I was this competitive?)

I got two high scores on the game:


A poet huh?


Later on, I was on the web and saw the cutest picture ever (original here). Awwww.

A brief link fest with oddly colored butter

First off, I did run today. Five miles of sprinting was hard this morning for some reason. Actually, the first 2.5 miles was hard. Work, well I worked basically a full day extra last week and my boss told me I had to take it this week. So work has been kind of busy. But it was good today.

And now

• Do you know a kid who has ADD? (Besides me!) Well, let them fidget. They're doing it because it helps. I chew gum instead of moving the rest of my body for this very reason.


• For the bloggers out there, 10 html tags I'd like to see used in your next post. I don't know why I saved this bookmark to show you really. I must have thought some of the tags were neat. I always used "strike" instead of "ins" and "del" to cross things out. Maybe that was it.


• And finally, 11 things you should never do to food except for mash potatoes which can come from naturally purple or blue potatoes and are fine. But seriously, pink? Ewww.
  

Running is going...

Well, it's not today or yesterday. But I'm realizing exactly how much stress from my job impacts my wanting to run at all. And I think that will make me run a whole lot more.

Today, I came home and took a nap after work.

Work was ok today actually. I had sort of a flurry of work to do at the end of the day, but it was a good thing that happened that made me have to do all that work so it was worth it.

Tomorrow, I plan on running. Someone, please check on me and give me crap if I don't. And if applicable, remind me that you gave a generous amount of money to Bolder Options so that I could run even more and I should show my gratitude by keeping up my end of the bargain.

Now, I think I'm going to have something resembling dinner (although not quite that in depth) and then go to bed for real.

Hey Liz! How are y.... is that a waterfall coming from under your kitchen sink?

Why yes, yes it is a waterfall coming from under my kitchen sink. The good news is that the waterfall only falls when the water is on. So far. Also, one of my neighbors is a handy man. I just gave him the key to my unit. I'm hopeful he'll fix it tomorrow while I'm at work.

I was just thinking, "gosh, it'll be so nice to be done with bed bugs" and then I realized that it never ends. All of you who own houses or condos understand this concept. Your house knows when you've just fixed something and you want to be done for a while. And that's when it breaks something else.

Actually, I've been pretty fortunate in the stuff not working category. Amanda helped me fix one sink. (Really she did it and I just watched.) I just don't have the energy for this one. Also, there were the light switches that I replaced myself, at least one of them. And there was all the painting (pictured here and here plus a bonus video of Amanda "helping").

God, condo, don't get any ideas for anything else. I'll give you a nice new closet and then we are done for a while.

In other news, I ran this morning. I didn't quite make it seven miles but I made it over six, signaling that stress reduction has worked on at least some level. I also went to my very first Seder. Thanks to my boss for inviting me. I learned a lot. And not what I thought I would learn about.

Now, I will go to bed and picture a fully functional kitchen for the the next day.

Running and stress: Also not a good mix

I had a really rough day yesterday. You can go here to see how I feel about personality disorders.

Yesterday involved a medical transport hold. And another hospitalization. And I realized I've been watching way too much ER lately.

After work my mentee and I hung out and wrote her resume. Then she played around on her MySpace page. (I seriously do not understand...) I almost fell asleep. (Did I mention I did all these hospitalization things on about 4 hours of sleep?)

Today, I tried running, but I wasn't really feeling it. The walk I took instead was quite relaxing. I'll try the running thing tomorrow. Right now I just realized I have to go grocery shopping.

Liz, it's 11:40pm. How come you're writing and not, you know, asleep?

Well, it's been quite a day. There's no better way to start the day than how I did it. I woke up and ran (yeah me) and then did something really fun at work. And it all went down hill from there. Let's just say I ran into more than one person with a personality disorder today. (For more information about personality disorders, check out the links here and here.)

At the end of the day I went over to Bolder Options to raise money for them. My fundraising goal is $4,000. In exchange for that, they will teach me to run a marathon. Plus they will be able to continue to mentor many teens in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

At this time I'd like to thank the following people for allowing me to call them and ask for support (even though most of you don't read this blog)

Amanda
Kelly
Mom and Dad
Mike and Linda
Aunt Barb and Uncle Tom
Uncle Dave
Erin and Matt
Mark and Irmghard
Aunt Terri
Aunt Joan and Uncle Joe
Marge
Alyssa
Chris
Bonnie
Liz
Sarah (dude, answer your phone)
Sona
Jenny and Doug
Aunt Elaine
Jenny's Parents (Monica and .... it's not that bad, I always call them Mom and Dad)

I feel like there are more people who should be included on this list. But I can't get to my paper list right now to check. Why not? Because my apartment is somewhat packed up so my unit can get sprayed as a protection against bed bugs yet again. (Remember the first time my unit got sprayed?. What about the second time?. Yeah, I remember them both too.)

Only tomorrow, in addition to my unit getting sprayed, the unit above mine is getting heat treated. The temperature in that unit will be raised to 140* or so and kept there for several hours. No word on what that's going to do to the stuff in my unit but I've taken the pictures off the wall and put them on the floor (what? heat rises), same with the photos and electronics. Also, I'll be taking the laptop to work tomorrow. I wish we had wireless there. It would make my joy complete.

Supposedly someone else is going to "prepare" my unit, but I took that to mean, "we'll move stuff away from the walls for you" so I still did a whole bunch to get ready for them.

Tomorrow I'm working for 12 hours. (Not my idea.) But at least I'll be out of here while they're spraying and heating and spraying and heating.

This week has actually been a little interesting because I'm having a lot of long days. Monday night I went to a Shiva (a definition for the Gentiles), tonight and Thursday night I'm volunteering at Bolder Options and tomorrow I'm working forever. Friday I think I'm only going to work a few hours. Then I'm going to help a teenager write a resume. It should be fun, she has a lot of neat stuff to put on it. Then I'm going to sleep forever. After I unpack.

An updated on this word game

Earlier last week, Amanda and Kelly got me addicted to introduced me to this word game on Facebook that I've obviously been playing frequently. If you've never played before, or don't have Facebook, at the end of each round, it compares your apparent vocabulary level with that of different professions.

A little while ago, I reached the verbal ability of a lawyer. I thought the caption over the girls head was hilarious and eerily familiar. That's exactly how I felt about becoming an attorney.


Today, I reached the verbal ability of a journalist. Which is cool because my Aunt Terri is a journalist. (Although, I can't tell if she's really serious about keeping up a blog.) This one's for you Aunt Terri.

An unexpected side effect of all the packing and unpacking

As a result of all this packing and unpacking, I cannot find my ibuprofen. Who looses that?

How are things going in the land of bugs? I think my apartment has to get sprayed again. On Wednesday. Have they officially told me yet? No, but I ran into a neighbor. There are still bugs in two units that I know of and possibly a third unit.

How goes the land of the runners? I'm starting to raise money for Bolder Options tonight. As part of their annual call-a-thon. (I'm not sure that's what it's really called.) So, if you read this blog, expect a call from me asking you to donate to Bolder Options to help me run a marathon to support at risk youth. It'll be tonight, Tuesday or Thursday.

I thought of one more place to look for drugs. I'll be off now.

Baseball is meant to be played... indoors

I just saw a Twins commercial saying, "reserve your seat in the sun". Ha. You wish it's going to be in the sun. It's March. The low today was -9*. (I guess you can figure out how I voted on the levy.) You know the average temperature in April is in the 40*s right?

In other news:

• I was reading about 24 diseases that are freaky and generally don't make my blood pressure drop. Amanda, I thought of you.



• Do you live in a big city? With lots of new Americans? See where they all came from before they were Americans.



• One of my favorite time killers websites is turning one year old.



• And, Which TV feuds have entertained you over the years? My vote is for Jon Stewart and Crossfire, although it was pretty entertaining to watch Jon Stewart rail on the guy from CNBC too.

A linkfest post

Last night Amanda and Kelly fed me way too much food and alcohol went out to dinner with me during the beginnings of Blizzard March '09. (My car didn't have any ice to scrape off by the way.)

Somewhere during the evening of debauchery, Amanda and Kelly starting comparing notes on Netbooks. I think if I were still in school, I'd want one too. Since I'm not in school the little buggers make no sense to me. But I pointed out the rumor that Apple will release a netbook this year. Amanda and Kelly discussed the merits of such a product and were reticent, but I just want to point out, it will probably have a touch screen.

::Steps up onto soap box::
Also, for some reason Minneapolis is all of the sudden indignant about prostitution and Johns. I can identify with the story of the girl walking to the, well, for me it was always the bus stop. I've also spent a lot of time on a restorative justice panel that hears cases of men who were arrested for solicitation.

That said, when Mayor Rybak is looking for stuff to cut from the city budget, I suggest cutting the website where people can go look up Johns by picture. (Who cares?) Second, quit prosecuting everyone. Restorative justice is the better option because it takes up way fewer resources and has a lower recidivism rate than traditional prosecution. Plus, in the program I serve, Johns have to come and volunteer in the neighborhood that was "victimized" by their crime. That helps a neighborhood much more than putting someone in jail or making them pay a fine and sending them to probation.

It's prostitution. It's Lake Street. Put the money you would have spent prosecuting these men from the suburbs and actually invest in Lake Street. It's a better use of the money and will help Minneapolis more in the long run.
::Steps down from soap box now::

I just had a really weird dream

And I'm only half awake right now, so this might be a little like those "blogging while drunk" posts. Anyways, at first I was in an operating room while these other doctors were helping an old white guy. For some reason a guy shot the white guy while he was sitting up in his hospital bed. But the shooter didn't mean to hit him. Then the shooter started shooting at whoever he did mean to hit. And the doctors did all this surgery on the old guy. I definitely wanted him to live and didn't like that he was shot.

Then suddenly, I was the one who had to have an operation. It was something about my heart but they had to go through my back. There were two doctors. The young doctor was really cute and I definitely had a crush on him. Anyways, it was emergency surgery, so they just started getting me ready and then they had to lay me there while the anesthesia took effect. Which is not my usual experience with anesthesia which knocks me out in seconds. I admonished them to "poke hard" to make sure I was asleep.

While they were waiting for me to fall asleep, I kicked some girl off the head of my bed so I could lay down. Then the doctors asked me who I wanted as an anesthesiologist. They both wanted someone different and I yelled at them for even asking right then. But then I worried that they didn't get who they wanted and they might not do as good of a job. And then I started worrying about having surgery. You'd think it would have happened sooner. And then I remembered what Amanda said about catheters in surgery so I started imagining that being put in, Oh good, I have to pee anyway, and then I started remembering all these stories about people who hear the surgeon when they're asleep, and hear what they're saying. And then I started thinking about sleeping, and how I'd just wake up in a minute and not know what happened and there would be wonderful drugs. And then I started thinking about trusting god during all the time in between.

And then my alarm went off. And now I don't know how people ever get on the table for surgery.

In support of runing, and I feel like a cowboy

A while ago at my job, we started serving people under a whole new funding stream to us. New to us as well as the funders themselves. I kept telling my supervisor that learning this new funding stream and continuing to serve our clients was going to be like an adventure. I told her it would be like cowboys riding through the desert, avoiding bullets and little cacti and holding on to our hats.

Today, I learned to file an answer to a complaint and summons. And that cowboy feeling is back. It's kind of exciting but I'll be glad when it's over.

I ran 5 miles today. Well, I did 5 miles of sprints but I count that as the full five miles. So, one day down this week and four to go. I think I just have to go back a few weeks on my marathon schedule and do shorter distances. I just have to accept that if I'm running inside, 5 miles is probably my limit and that's ok.

A marathon update

Training for a marathon is much harder than I thought. Running long distances is not my problem. The issue seems to be running five days a week. I'm not sure how much the problem is living in Minnesota where it's icy right now, and how much I just let that be an excuse.

It's possible my marathon goals have changed slightly. On Thursday I made it to a meeting at Bolder Options. Those of you who see me regularly know I want to train for a marathon with other people since I've never done it before. I'd thought about the American Cancer Society since they have a team running in the Twin Cities Marathon every year. But then I found out about the destination marathon Bolder Options does every year. Since I know them, I decided I'd rather work on their behalf. (For those of you who don't know, I was a mentor for them. My mentee and I graduated the year-long program last Thursday. Go us!)

Someone said that if you have a rather lofty fund raising goal and a goal of training for the marathon, the marathon training becomes the easier of the two. Good, I'm ready for something to make this easier.

Here's the change in my plans: Instead of running the Twin Cities Marathon, I am now training to run a marathon in Amsterdam and raise money for Bolder Options. So, if you're reading this blog, I'll be asking you to make a contribution to Bolder Options. Thanks in advance.

What else happened this week? I decided to actually go out for once: Last night Amanda took me out dancing (not just me, a whole bunch of people). My favorite part of the evening involved the phrase, "THIS IS NOT A HALLWAY". We were actually sober by that point. There really wasn't a whole lot of alcohol involved last night. My other favorite part of the evening involved someone trying to get me to smoke, "oh just once" as they inhaled, coughed repeatedly and made a face comparable to the bitter beer face, and then took another drag and did it again. And after two drags, couldn't take anymore.

Today, I've been laying on the couch. All day. I'm considering getting off the couch. But it never seems like the thing to do.

Running and audiobooks: Not a good mix

I like running. I like listening to audiobooks (still often referred to as "books on tape"). I thought, "hey, I have to run about a bazillion hours this morning, I'll listen to a book instead of music". No. Just, no. Apparently, it doesn't work like that. My brain got tired of paying attention to running and paying close enough attention to follow the story somewhere in my fourth mile. So I ran sprints and walked to finish up my time.

About 20 minutes before I was done (I know because I was watching the clock at this point), a guy started talking to me. (Calm down, I'm pretty sure he's married.) He noticed I'd been on the track for over an hour. (Hey, thanks for noticing.) So I walked with him the last little while. I'd seen him at the gym before. He said he likes to lift weights and doesn't like to run very far because it makes him too skinny. (Insert your own rude remark here.) He turned out to be a computer tech from India (insert your own stereotype here). We talked about India and how crowded everything is, especially compared to Minnesota. He said it didn't bother him when the gym was crowded (thank you, New Year's Resolution joiners for being done by the way) at the start of the year because it felt more like home. There's a new way to look at things.

Yesterday, well most days last week I did not run. I did get to the gym one of the days to do the elliptical. That was when I realized the New Year's Resolution folks had stopped clogging up the gym so much.

Looking at the running I did in Florida compared to the very next week here, I finally realized how hard it is to train in Minnesota in the winter. It really impacts my running, mostly the distances I would run, more than I realized. I miss those eight mile runs. That was a good way to wake up. Hopefully we'll be done with this snow and crap soon and I'll be able to run outside to my hearts content.

Pictures from Vacation

I feel like some of my blog entries need an explanation, specifically, Drink and blog part 1 and the follow up: even more alcohol than the first time. Every time I read those, they get more hysterical. It's a good thing I have this blog because option B was drink and dial, and I know you're all thrilled to be spared.

Setting the scene: Let's be clear. I left a fairly crappy situation in Minnesota to go on vacation. (Here's the photo evidence.) Amanda came over to help me pack and helped me pack before I left. Then she agreed to provide shelter for the night since I had to pack all my bedding for the treatment. She was really sweet and got indignant for me about all the work I had to do. (It was a nice reaction. I just didn't have the energy for it by that time, so I was grateful to have the support.)


When I got to Florida I nearly died and spent some quality time on the couch recuperating. Once I felt better, it was my job to de-gecko the lanai. I was the only one who wasn't afraid of them. Did you know they can jump? This one was kind of cute and quite photogenic.


So by the time the next few days rolled around, I was ready for a whole lot of sun shine and doing nothing. Mercifully my wish was granted and included a swimming pool and a sweet place to run. So, I spent a lot of time around the pool with my family.



The alcohol consumption: I'd like to thank my aunties for finding $125 in change at someone's house to finance all this wine. My favorite was the Mescato selection. (Did you know they sell wine at Target in some places?) I bought 3 bottles of wine to restock just before I left. (Did you know that Target will also wrap the wine bottles in newsprint so they don't clank in the bag? Classy.)






The end result: Well, obviously I had my camera with me by the pool (next to the alcohol), but I was threatened within an inch of my life by several individuals if any of the evidence ever wound up on Zoogle or the loob toob, and obviously I had too good a time to ever mess up my chances for next year by posting pictures.

Feet...

While I was on vacation, I took a bunch of pictures of my feet wherever I was. Apparently, one of my relatives (who shall remain nameless for now) thought this was an ill advised use of my time. I tried to assure this person that this is a creative thing and can produce some interesting results and that I'd been doing it for some time. I think my family was not convinced. Nonetheless, I really have taken a bunch of pictures, and now seemed like a great time to look back at them. (Plus, those of us in Minnesota don't have to look at Florida pictures while we're in a snow emergency.)

From my kitchen: (Look, the floor wasn't even done yet.)

From Chicago, the Art Museum I believe:

From the State Fair:



From Africa:




From my most recent vacation (documented here, here and here among others):

Congratulations, you've just run... your longest ever

No, I really did today. I don't even need to connect my iPod to the Nike+ website to know this for sure.

Today I ran 95 or so minutes, which is at least eight miles. Although I was on quite a runner's high for a while, so I'm hopeful I went even farther than that. Then, seriously about about minute 97, I saw my two aunties starting out on their morning walk. So I joined them for a three mile walk. Towards then end of it I had to ask them to slow down. I was seriously tired.

I skipped breakfast in favor of water and a shower. Then we went out for a late lunch at a place called Red Robin where I had a bacon cheeseburger and yummy french fries.

We went shoppign at an outlet mall in the afternoon. I was denied my Starbucks on several occaisions (and wound up with some nasty Chinese and weird tasting Diet Pepsi instead). But I did buy some cute work clothes and some other items I needed pretty badly.

We're all hanging out for the evening. Aunt Joanie had to go to Tampa to collect Uncle Joe from the airport. I'm sitting here burning CDs for my aunties and typing in my blog. Actually, I'm so tired it's quite qelcome to have a relaxing night.

There was no dringiing today...

There was also no running. Try to guess why. That last post is even more hilarious when I see all the typos.

Today we walked the dog and then took a long walk ourselves. After that we went shopping and then out to dinner. Tonight I was techno girl. My aunties all wanted copies of the others iTunes libraries and I'm the only one who knows how to get around the DRM. I just want to tale a moment and put in a plug for Skreemr which is a great free mp3 search engine. And then I dont have to deal with stupid DRM. Plus it's free

Tomorrow ok hoping to take another nice long run. We'll see what else happens
After that.

seriously, still drunk

Now the unties have created a site called Zoogle and loob tube. I'm way too drunk to post videos right now. But it's freaking hilarious.

I've only had 3 glasses of wine but like nothing to eat today. Did I mention I ran 8 miles today? Did I also mention I haven't eaten today? that ould be why 3 glasses of wine made me totally freaking stupid. Are we not impressed that I'm typing in html code while this buzzed? thtmeans I've really learned it right?

for some reason, I remember trying to have a conversation with Kelly last night while equally buzzed. What did I say?

My aunts think I'm putting them on youtube right now and they're threatening me with alligators... sleeping with alligators... are there snakes? It's ok. I'm the only one who can work the pool heat pump. They can't toss me out. They're not done with me yet. Plus I have another aunt and uncle down here who love me.

I think they're already on facebook. Maybe I shouldn't write too much more. (Shit, I can't spell that word, I tried a few different variations until I got the wrote homnyogram "right" "write" "rite")

Oooh, now they've forgotten about me. Maybe I am sober enough to post this to youtube.... No, the camera cord is tooo far way. Although, they do seem pretty drunk. They're threatning me now...

Oh, god, blogging while drunk is freaking awesome...

God, I just want you to know, first of all, when I hear you speak it's with Ed Asner's voice, I hope that's ok, but I think it is, that when I was laying on the couch dying on Sunday, I felt myself getting better and there was this tinglling, buzzing sensation. And I think people get drunk because being buzzed is quite a similar senation. Although it's not quite the same. I can feel you more when I'm buzzing and sober. Sorry, I'll try to remember that more. But this feels really good too. I haven't heard people laugh this much in quite a while. Thanks for letting me have this too.