It's the Little Things...

I am super excited because I got a new phone at work. This is totally dorky, but I've been asking for a new phone for a year. This one has caller ID (which I didn't have before) and 3 lines so I can put people on hold and switch over to another line. Yesterday, I was able to catch someone while they were leaving a voice mail...so cool! I realize that this is silly, but man it's already making my life better at work. Oh, AND it has 10 speed dial buttons so I don't have to remember any phone numbers anymore!

Another thing that is making my life better today is that I have gotten TWO good nights of sleep in a ROW. That is the second time since last July that that has happened. I'm not exaggerating! I feel so refreshed today! Yay!

Things That Make Me Laugh This Week

I have gotten addicted to the TV show, "The Office". My youngest sister, Laury, and her husband, Leighton, watch it and love it. I watched it a little when it first came out, but it didn't fit into my schedule at the time, so I didn't start watching it regularly. This summer, I decided that I need watch funny shows on TV instead of depressing ones. I love "How I Met Your Mother" and I watch it religiously, but not much else funny. Well, I really like "The New Adventures of Old Christine" because she is such an idiot and kind of reminds me of me. But that one doesn't always come on and I'm not sure if it's going to make the cut. So, I figured I need another sitcom in my life. I got the DVD for the first season of "The Office" and LOVED it. It is so hilarious. As a general rule, Steve Carrell is awesome, but this show takes it up a notch. That Dwight character is hysterical and the rest of the people on the show are so quirky and, well, real, I guess, that I laugh out loud the whole time. Now I'm in the middle of Season Two and it's even better. I really like the storyline about the guy and girl that like each other...so sweet and cute!

I am also re-reading my Dave Barry books. When I was in college, one of my roommates always knew when I was reading Dave Barry because I would try to laugh silently, but I would be shaking because it's so funny. Right now I'm reading one that was published in 1988 and it is just so hilarious. He is so clever...I highly recommend it for a good laugh when you're down!

I am a Space Geek!

Since I was 10 years old, I have wanted to be an astronaut. I can honestly say that, if I had 21 million dollars, I would spend 20 million of it on a trip into space with the Russian space program. I know that all my NASA friends just cringed, but I can't help it...I would abolutely die if I got to go into space. I think it's so cool.

So, in spite of the fact that I have lived within walking distance of NASA for five years (that's not an exaggeration, one of my old running routes was a 7-mile loop around Johnson Space Center), I have not really been on site. Part of me didn't want to go because I knew that it might not be everything I dreamed about or I would get so wrapped up in it and get obsessed. I know that you are all saying to yourselves, "Jenny get obsessed? Never!" : ) But, a friend of mine works with training and he gave me the coolest tour EVER!!!

I don't really remember the order of everything because I was so in awe, but I got to sit in the simulator where the astronauts train for take-off and landing. I was very overwhelmed by all of the switches there. Then, we went to where my friend works and I got to use the simulator for the robotic arm, which is what he works on. It's like a planetarium with a part of the shuttle inside it and it really kind of feels like you're moving because you can only see through the windows. He did a sim where he docked the shuttle with the space station. We only crashed into it once : ) I got to throw something into space. It was so awesome. I LOVED it!!!!

The best part, though, was when we went into the Mission Control building. We couldn't really see in and they were doing a sim, but we ran into someone that Matt knew and he had some extra phone or something. So, completely by chance, I got to go into the REAL Mission Control and sit on one of the consoles and listen in while they did a landing sim. I had white knuckles from holding the phone to my ear while I was listening to them and I was smiling like an idiot the entire time. It was the COOLEST THING THAT I HAVE EVER DONE!!! I am not kidding when I say that I think that was the best day of my entire life. Seriously, I can't think of a better day ever!

So, I'm an official geek. Make fun of me all you like. And all my NASA friends, please don't brag about how you get to do this all the time...it was a once-in-a-life time experience for me and I LOVED it!

Fun Lazy Weekends Rock!

This past weekend was so much fun. I just kind of did what I felt like doing, which was unusual, but very fun. Friday night, I had dinner at Barb's, then Maradee, Barb, Michelle, and I went to see the Spazmatics at Scout. So much fun. Here is a pic of Maradee and I later in the night...my hair was up because it was so freaking hot in there! I look a little scary, but it was really fun.

Saturday, I met my friend Michelle for lunch. We went to college together and, despite the fact that we live less than 10 miles from each other, we never see each other. So, we had lunch at Cheddar's and it was great. Michelle always makes me laugh. She has the most beautiful kids in the world (see her blog under my links) and her husband is great at hooking up electronic stuff. He made his own DVR and hooked up a TV that is also Michelle's computer monitor...I am so impressed! So, anyway, we had a great time catching up. As much as you can catch up in an hour, but it was fun. Here is a picture of us. My hair is quite windblown!

Later on in the afternoon, I went on a shopping spree. I have been on an electronics buying spree for the last couple of weeks, starting with a new running GPS. For the past several years, I have had a GPS watch to run with. These things are so cool! They tell you instantaneously how fast and far you are running. It is weird how I have no concept of how fast (i.e. slow) I am going. I cannot estimate it at all! So, back in May sometime, I set out my GPS on my car to link up to the satellites because it sometimes takes a while to link up. I was going to pick up a friend to go running, but you have to be still for it to link up, so I put it out a few minutes before I left. Then I drove off and forgot it was there. This is something I blame on my mother. When I was a kid, she was ALWAYS leaving her cup of Diet Pepsi on the top of the car and we would go driving down the road and Diet Pepsi would spill off the back of the car. If I was anything like my sweet niece is now, I'm sure that I was all-too-eager to point it out to her every time. Anyway, apparently I inherited this character trait of forgetting things on the car. I didn't realize that the GPS wasn't around until I got to my friend's apartment and then I kind of freaked. We decided to run, then go back to my house and look for it. When we got back there, it was lying in the street like 50 feet from my house and it had been run over. I was absolutely speechless...I'm such a moron!!! I really hate it when I do stuff like this. Like a few years back I lost a Best Buy gift card for $650. I'm still not really over that. So anyway, I finally got over the trauma of losing my GPS and decided to buy a new one. This one is even better! I can download my running info to my computer and compare routes and stuff. I bought it on 4th of July and I've used it twice and it is GREAT!!! I ran 4 miles in 39:19 Sunday and the last mile was 9:10!!! LOVE IT!

Well, in the process of looking for a new GPS, I went shopping with my friend Matt and I mentioned that I need a new TV for my room. The one I have in there is 9 years old (survived my fire in 1999). When I turn it on, it takes a full minute for the picture to come. Which is really annoying when I'm trying to catch the "Local on the 8's" segment on the Weather Channel in the mornings because if the picture doesn't come on soon enough, I miss it and then I have to wait another 10 minutes to see the weather. Actually, I don't really need to watch the weather...I live it Houston....it's going to be hot and probably rainy. Anyway, back to the TV thing. So, Matt convinced me to get a nice TV. I compared a regular old TV with an LCD flat panel and the costs were pretty close for 19" TVs. And there is something about a tuner and 2009. I don't really understand the details, but apparently my TV will be obsolete on February 17, 2009. Something to do with digital or something. So, I decided that I did want to get a nice small TV that would look less bulky in my room. Then, for some reason, Matt researched a nice big flat panel TV for me to put in my living room. Only I have a perfectly good TV in there now. It is a 27" and I got it at Sears about 6 years ago for only $200. There is nothing wrong with it at all. But, I really liked the looks of this other TV. But, it doesn't fit in my entertainment center. So, I ended up buying 2 TVs this past Saturday. Yes, 2 of them. I realize that this is completely ridiculous, but you should see them...they are so cool and clear and I LOVE them! I actually wasn't sure if I was going to like them all that much. But, we watched The Bourne Identity on the living room TV on Saturday night and it was AWESOME...so clear you could freaking count the snowflakes on the ground! The one in my room is so nice...takes up so much less room than my other one. Here are some pictures of my TVs...old and new. See the difference? So I guess I am now an electronics geek, too. But maybe not since I'm still not too sure how to use the remote controls.

Also in there somewhere, we went to play Putt Putt. It was Tommy, Kinsey, Matt, Kristy D, Jess and me. Here are a couple of pics from later on in the evening. We had already been playing for a while and Jess had already left, so they're not the greatest pics, but they make me smile!

I Love My Birthday!

I turned 32 on June 17th. If you know me at all, you know that I LOVE MY BIRTHDAY. I don't know why, really. There is no logical explanation for why I love it so much, but I do. Seriously, I'm obnoxious about and I know this, but I just can't help myself...I just love it! My actual birthday was on Father's Day. I had flown in from North Carolina the night before, so I was a little tired, but I got to do many of my favorite things on my actual birthday...went to the gym, saw a movie, ate Mexican food, had Bible study, went running...so much fun!

The next day, I went to lunch with two friends at work, Kate and Katherine. We went to Tortuga's in Baytown, which is my favorite restaurant in Baytown. I just love their salsa...so yummy I would eat it with a spoon! On Thursday of that week, I ate dinner with my friend Shanna. Her birthday is a week before mine. We have, over the last few years, eaten dinner in the week between our birthdays, but this year I was out of town, so we had dinner the week after mine. She is having her first baby, so we spent most of the dinner talking about baby names and middle names...fun times! Friday, I went to lunch with a friend of mine from work and got treated : ) gotta love that!

Friday night, I had plans to play Ultimate Frisbee. In case you don't know, I also LOVE Ultimate Frisbee. This is always amusing to me because I don't usually like things that I suck so bad at. I am just not a great Ultimate Frisbee player. If someone is patient with and helps me, I can handle myself that day, but I always forget the strategy and get nervous when I have to throw, so I would never call myself a good player, but I still love it. The one thing I can do is, after we've been playing for 2 hours, I'm just about the only one that can still sprint down the field...one good thing I got from marathon training. So, I was playing with a group that I hadn't played with before and I was the only girl, which I'm used to. Only I didn't like playing with this group. They just didn't seem like they were having any fun, which meant I definitely wasn't having any fun. I was there because my friend Matt plays with them, but I kind of stopped playing after an hour or so because it wasn't very fun. I did learn how to throw the frisbee a different way...I'm sure there is a name for it, but I don't know it. Once I decided not to play anymore, I took off to take a very short jog around the park we were at and I came back and Matt was laying on the ground...he had hurt his foot. So, instead of playing spades that night like we had planned on, we hung out at the emergency room. It actually was fun. We got Fuddrucker's and, between the two of us, ate about 2 lbs of sauce (ketchup and spicy cheese dip). Nothing exciting, but it was a good story, which I always love! Did you know that they have portable X-ray machines? The X-ray tech was friendly (as opposed to the doctor) and brought it in the room and I was amazed by it...who knew?

Saturday was my birthday party...yay! 4 friends of mine threw the party for me and it was so great! It was at Maradee's house and she cleaned everything and made these awesome brownies that have big chunks of peanut butter in them...soooo good! She even got a trampoline a few weeks before and had it set up to jump on and it is so much fun! Heather and David came over and brought food...David cooked it on the grill. Matt and David set up this awesome projection thing in Maradee's garage. David brought the projector and Matt brought his sound equipment and we watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off in the garage...it was so neat. I hadn't seen that movie in several years. It took a lot of self control not to sing along very loudly to Twist and Shout during the parade scene. Maradee really likes the part where they go running through the yards at the end. We were originally supposed to set up the movie in the back yard, but it was rainy, so we put it in the garage and I think it was even better there. There was a good crowd there and I got lots of presents, which I also LOVE!!! We played cards very late in the evening and I played horribly, but we didn't lose, just had to stop playing because it was so late.

I stayed at Maradee's that night and ended up going back over there to hang out on Sunday...I got a sunburn, ate too many leftovers, and watched the end of Lonesome Dove. So, that was the

end of the birthday extravaganza. Best birthday every!

Last 2 Days...then Home Sweet Home!!

So, Friday was kind of a slow day. We went to Central Park again and I got to run around the reservoir...equally pretty on Friday. Then we wandered back to the hotel and got cleaned up. We ate lunch at Houston's. Missy was so glad to be eating somewhere where we couldn't see the street, which is a funny commentary on the rest of our trip. I guess all the places we ate at were either outside or near the window, which would have been my doing, since I love to be outside. So, Houston's was great, as always. They have these in New Orleans and Houston, so it wasn't too much special, although I was sad that they did not have my favorite, Baked Potato Soup. Then we meandered down to Times Square so Laury could see the building where David Letterman is filmed and we went into the Hello Deli, which is very tiny. We were only in there for like 6 seconds and I was on the phone, so I don't remember much, but I think that Rupert G was there.

For some reason, we decided to go see a movie. And somehow we ended up in a not great part of town. I forget why...it's taken me so long to write this up that my memory is fuzzy on this detail. But we got there too early and we were exhausted, so we went into a McDonald's just to sit for a while. This was a 2-story McDonald's (not unusual...there is one at the corner of St. Charles and Louisiana in New Orleans), but the odd thing I noticed is that this McDonald's DELIVERS. Have you ever heard of such? Who is so lazy that they can't get to a McDonald's??? They're on freaking every corner...even in NYC! Of course, this reminded me of the episode of Seinfeld where Elaine pretends to be the Janitor of a building so this Chinese restaurant will deliver food to her. Also on that episode, Kramer adopts a mile of highway and makes it two lanes instead of four and it causes a big traffic jam...hysterical!

So, back to our trip. When we got to the movie theater, there was a little old man yelling at people to get in line. This theater had like 4 screens and the movie times were set up so that only one movie was ever starting at one time (not like the mega cinema plexes we have in Houston!). So, there just wasn't really much need for crowd control. AND it was like the 4:00 show, so the crowd was pretty much a bunch of people over 30...not your everyday houligans. But this man was serious about us being in line. And he really did YELL at a man (a grown man who was dressed in cackies and a polo) whose wife was buying their tickets while he stood in line. Apparently that is not kosher. Fortunately she walked up with the tickets so the old man didn't kick them out of line. Craziness...we decided that this old man should hook up with the lady from the theater we were at for Chicago...quite a Nazi couple you'd have, there!

We went to see the movie Knocked Up. I must say that it was pretty crude. I honestly liked the story and character development, but it was too over the top. I know, I know, I'm too old-fashioned or whatever you want to call it, but it really was just too much for me to absorb in my little protected mind. When we got done, we headed back to the hotel and ate pizza at a random place two blocks from the hotel, then back to the room. We rented Catch and Release on the hotel TV. I had already seen this movie and liked it just as much the second time around!

Saturday morning, we got up somewhat early. We went for our usual "breakfast" (I got a double chocolate chip brownie every day) and realized that we had not bought ANY souvenirs. So, we went looking for a shop and, turns out, there was a street fair one block over from our hotel. We bought all our souvenirs in less than 10 minutes! And I think we did pretty good because we got some different stuff...not just the normal "I Heart NY" T-shirts and such. Driver came to pick us up. I was really stressed out about it because I had gotten the flight time wrong (flight was at 3:15 instead of 4:00), but we made it. We had the same driver from Sunday, so he asked about our trip, etc. When we got to the airport, our flight was delayed due to weather somewhere. We were connecting in Baltimore. They held our plane for us. Good thing because we were all ready to get home. You know how, when something is going to happen, you're just ready for it to happen? I had a great time on the trip, but I was ready to be home. Got home and immediately went to Jamie's house to play poker...fun times and great to be back with my dear sweet friends who held up the game until I got there. I came in second...I am really liking poker!

Thursday - Museum Day (or Not)

Thursday was the last day that our New York Passes were valid, so we had grand plans to use them as much as possible. We went to the Museum of Modern Art (or MOMA) in the morning. It was pretty cool. They have Starry Night there and some Andy Warhols, which I thought were cool. This is the best part about being there with my sisters...we all have essentially the same appreciation for art, which is "Eehh...that's neat...let's go do something else now." We were there for maybe an hour and saw the whole place as much as we wanted to. I actually took a lot of pictures of artwork that I liked. We all walked around with our iPods on and used sign language to say that we wanted to go to the next floor or leave. By the time we left, Missy was sitting on a bench text messaging, so she was "done" little before Laury and me.

We left MOMA and headed to Greenwich Village. We were going there for 2 reasons: (1) to eat a hot dog from Gray's Papaya, which I've heard in multiple movies (Fools Rush In, You've Got Mail) and (2) to see Washington Square Park. So we take the subway there and get off and it's just not the cleanest place we've been. It's near NYU, so I'm sure it's just less well-kept than say the Central Park area. We went straight to Gray's Papaya because we were hungry. It's just a corner store with the doors open and no A/C. They sell hot dogs (with mustard or ketchup) and like 20 different varieties of papaya drinks and that's it...no french fries or anything. Eating there meant standing next to the pane glass windows at a metal counter. This was, without a doubt, the best hot dog I've ever eaten. However, it was really small, so we were still hungry. We left Gray's Papaya and went to get batteries for my camera (which EATS batteries, BTW) and the drug store we went into also didn't have good A/C, so we decided that they must not like A/C in Greenwich Village : ).

From there, we went to Washington Square Park. This is the park with the arch that looks like the Arch du Triumph in Paris (except this one has George Washington on it, which I'm pretty sure they don't have on the one in Paris) and I really wanted a picture of it, so my sisters walked there with me. I wandered around trying to get a good shot of it, which I did. As I was walking back to the park from my photographing session, I passed Uma Thurman out with her kids. I took like 3 pictures of her like a big dorkie tourist!!! My sisters were across the park, so they didn't see her, though!

After that, we decided we were still hungry, but I wanted to get to the Guggenheim, so we took the subway back up to the Central Park area. We wandered around the Guggenheim looking for a place to eat, but couldn't find much. By this time, we were REALLY hungry. We wandered for over a half hour looking for a place to eat and finally stopped at this place called Jackson Hole. I do not recommend this place. I got a chicken sandwich that was supposed to have BBQ on it, but it was just ketchup. Don't get me wrong, I like ketchup, but not on grilled chicken! Anyway, we survived that meal and went back to the Guggenheim. Let me point out that the reason I wanted to go to the Guggenheim is that it's really cool to look at. It's the one that is spiral-shaped on the outside and I wanted to go in and just see how it is set up. Well, they were doing some work on the building, so we couldn't see the outside (had scaffolding, etc. on it). And then, when we got back after our unsuccessful lunch, we discovered that it's closed on Thursdays...so, no Guggenheim for me. The funny part of it is that we had walked right by the sign saying it was closed during our quest for food, but didn't read the sign.

After that, we went back to the room. I think we took a nap. That night, we went to eat at Planet Hollywood because we got $10 off with our New York Passes. We were excited to be getting a deal. Only thing is that we ended up spending a lot of money because we got appetizers, meal, dessert, etc. Silly girls!

On the way back to the hotel, we were walking down Fifth Avenue minding our own business, when this girl walked up next to us and said, "Do you see those people over there across the street?" We kind of said "Yeah" (there were a lot of people across the street...it's NYC!). Then the girl said "They're following me, don't let them cross the street." So, let me tell you why this is ridiculous. First of all, no one across the street looked remotely interested in this girl. Second of all, how were we supposed to stop someone from crossing the street? Anyway, Missy, Laury, and I kind of gave each other weird looks. When we looked back at the girl, she was gone! She had turned a corner and was RUNNING down the street...very weird. No one on the other side of the street seemed to respond to her quick departure, though.

OK, that was it for Thursday.

My Favorite Day!!

Sorry I'm terrible at keeping this up...I have lots to blog about since the trip, but I have to get the trip details out there first (I can't handle things out of order like that!).

Day 4 was my favorite day. I got to run in Central Park around the Jackie Kennedy Onassis Reservoir. It is a beautiful loop around this reservoir and the view the whole way around it is gorgeous. The loop is a little over a mile & a half, so twice around is a good 5K training run. Missy & Laury laid out on the Great Lawn while I was running. I ran for 35 minutes, then ran back to them and got my camera to take some pictures. Only I took almost an hour to do the picture taking, so when I got back, Missy & Laury were a little frantic worrying that something was wrong. Of course, I guess if they were worried enough, they could have come looking for me, but they didn't. Anyway, we headed back to the hotel after that. We ate across the street at PAX, a sandwich and soup shop. We all got different sandwiches and tasted them...all good. It was very busy with people in dressy work clothes, so we stood out like sore thumbs in our clothes for the trek to Central Park.

That afternoon, we went to Times Square to get our half-price tickets for a show. We had to be flexible since you never know what you're going to get. We ended up getting our first choice...Chicago. The whole ticket-buying thing is crazy to me. If you wait until the day of the show, you get half-price tickets if they're available. I don't understand this concept...why are they suddenly so cheap? And why would anyone pay full price if they could get them for half-price? I guess I should just reap the benefits and not question it. The line was really long, but moved fast. What made me laugh about it was that they were very strict (one might say "Nazi") about moving the line through towards the end of the line. But, once you got close to the ticket windows, it was a complete free-for-all, including pushing people out of the way. We saw two men get into an argument because one pushed the other. Which is fine, it just was very different from the end of the line, where it was very organized. So, we got our tickets and went on our merry way...

...to Madame Toussaud's Wax Museum. Let me say that we had "free" tickets to this through our New York Pass. If we hadn't, we probably wouldn't have gone to it anyway. And especially not paid the $30 to go in. And we would have been very disappointed if we had paid the $$. This place wasn't all that great. It was kind of cool to see the life-like figures of people. And it was pretty funny because we kept thinking there were more people in the room than there actually were because you have all these wax figures standing around. However, we were maybe there 30 minutes. It was just OK...nothing special. We did take a lot of pictures with the figures. My favorite is a tie between Jon Bon Jovi and Jesse Owens...I took pictures with both of them. Bon Jovi doesn't look like him at all, but I took the picture anyway...it's my favorite band ever!

Wednesday night, we got dressed up to go the show. However, we ate at Burger Heaven on the way. It's a chain of diners around town. We looked very funny in our black dresses sitting in a booth eating burgers and fries! For some reason, we took lots of pictures in Burger Heaven...I don't really remember why, though. Laury's feet were killing her, but there wasn't any easy transportation to the theatre, so we kept walking. Missy and I offered to switch shoes with her, but she didn't want to. And we never found a drugstore to buy band-aids on the way, so the poor thing just had to suffer through. I think her feet were actually bleeding!

We got to the show and sat down. There was a lady seating people who was a little too into her job...she would yell at anyone who accidentally sat in the wrong seat. Fortunately ours were on the end, so we were very clear about where to sit and didn't get yelled at : ). The show was awesome! It was Chicago and Joey Lawrence (aka Joey from Blossom and Joey from Gimme A Break and Joey from that Brothers show he made with his brothers) played Billy Flynn. It was fantastic. The lead character (Roxie)was played by the understudy. It was her first night playing the lead, but she did great. The other main character (Velma) was great. Shortly after Act 2 started, the announcer came over the sound system and said "The role of Velma will now be played by..." like they do on daytime soaps when they change actors. It was odd, especially since the lady that stepped in had been in the show as another character...it was a little confusing to follow. Regardless, the show was awesome. At the end, they explained that the actress originally playing Velma threw out her back, so they had to sub someone in...crazy! I was quite impressed with the caliber of people they had singing and dancing...I really like musicals!

We took a taxi home to spare Laury's feet any more trouble. That was all for Wednesday.

Day 3, Part 2

Whew...Tuesday was a busy day for us! Here's the rest of what we did...

Once we left Chinatown, we went to Little Italy to eat dinner. There ended up being a street fair on Mulberry, where all the restaurants are. And when I say street "fair", I mean fair...like with the games where you fish for ducks with a magnet on a string or throw darts at balloons to win prizes. There were several stands with funnel cakes...always the sign of a classy operation...and people trying to get you to see their booths. We made it through the street fair...pretty easy since there weren't any people there...and went to a little Italian restaurant, Il Fornaio, which I found in my Zagat's guide to NY restaurants. It was decent food. The funniest thing about this restaurant was that we had 2 waiters. One young guy who loved my sister and asked her if her name was Linda (it's not). He mostly refilled our water and maybe brought us bread? We nicknamed him Mario. Our other waiter was an older guy who did not speak to us the whole time we were there. When our table was ready, he pointed at us, then pointed at the table. When he came to take our order, he just walked up to the table and stood there until we told him what we wanted to eat, then walked away...weird! We saw him talking and laughing with other people, but apparently he did not like us! When we got ready to leave, my sister asked Mario what his name was (I don't remember his real name) and he kissed her on the cheek...hysterical!

From there we took the subway up to the area near the Empire State Building and went in the Manhattan Mall. Missy & Laury shopped some, but I just sat. Then we went to H&M. I'll be honest, I wasn't too keen on going to this store. It looks a little messy in there (I never go in Abercrombie and Fitch because I want to straighten everything up in there). But, I am very glad that I did. I bought 5 tops and a skirt for $47.90. And they are totally cute tops! I've worn almost all of them already! We had a totally slow cashier named Jude who desparately needed braces. Like the older guy at Il Fornaio, Jude also pretty much ignored us except to take our money.

From there we went to the Empire State Building. Our NY Pass got us in the Express line, so it only took about half an hour to get up to the top. It was after 10:00 by the time we were there and it was a great, clear night. I got some good pictures of the views, but it was so crowded, we didn't stay out there too long. We left, then went to get some dessert at this place next door, Heartland Brewery and Grill (or something like that). They had heavenly key lime pie. Took the subway back to the hotel and crashed after our very long day!

Day 3, Part 1

This was the longest day, by far, but the most fruitful. Here is the list of things we did:
-Statue of Liberty
-Battery Park
-Wall Street
-South Street Seaport (museum and shopping)
-World Trade Center site
-Chinatown
-Dinner in Little Italy
-Manhattan Mall
-H&M
-Empire State Building
-Dessert

The Statue of Liberty was cool. We ate on Liberty island. It was quite hot and both my sisters got sunburned. It would be great if I could say that I didn't get sunburned because I was smart and put on sunscreen. However, that is not the case. I don't own sunscreen...I didn't get sunburned because I'm already tan from being in the sun so much (bring on the skin cancer...I know!). We took mucho pics on the island of lady Liberty and of Manhattan from the boat. I felt more comfortable because we were just amongst a bunch of tourists so we didn't stand out like sore thumbs! We took the boat on to Ellis Island, but we didn't get off...we didn't even look at Ellis Island. I know, I know, it's some historical place with all this stuff, but we were hot and tired! After we got back to Manhattan, we ate popsicles in Battery Park while sitting on a bench. This are the things that I love on vacations...just chillin' wherever you are and enjoying beautiful weather and scenery. Battery Park is OK. I've been there before. It's just a park with a bunch of tourists in it. There is this cool sculpture (I forget the name) that was at the World Trade Center before 9/11 and was put in the park after it "survived" the attacks. It's really beat up, but supposed to be a globe, I think.

From there, we walked up to Wall Street and by the NYSE, then onto the South Street Seaport. My sister, Missy, just graduated from nursing school and really wanted to see the Bodies exhibit (a gross exhibit that was in Houston for a while showing what dead bodies look like with disease) at the museum. We thought our New York Pass would get us in for free, but it didn't. Since the exhibit was $26, we dedided that she would enjoy the exhibit while Laury and I shopped. Which is what we did. I ended up buying a skirt and 3 shirts at Benetton and Ann Taylor. Missy & Laury had quite a bit of fun making fun of me for buying clothes at stores that we have in Houston, but there was a sale!!! I really liked this area...it made me feel like we were in San Francisco.

From there we went to the World Trade Center. I think there might be a tour, but we just looked at the stuff they have up at the subway spot. Very moving, still, 5-1/2 years later. I was at the site a couple of years ago and was able to look down into it, but we couldn't get that close this time. We did go into St Paul's Chapel, which is an Episcopalian church that was completely undamaged during 9/11. It ended up being a soup kitchen and place for workers to rest during the recovery efforts after the attacks. It is a beautiful church and has some awesome memorials. Oh, and it was where George Washington went to church. I took pictures of the church pew he prayed in.

By this time, the sun was going down. Laury was kind of looking for a new purse, so we took the subway up to Chinatown. One of the things we had already noticed was how different the different parts of the city are, and Chinatown is definitely different than where we had just come from. We did not particularly care for the ladies that chase you down the street saying "You like a bag? Coach? Chanel? Miss? Miss?" It was a little disconcerting (almost as annoying as the guys in Times Square that keep trying to get you to go to a comedy club...more on that later). But, we survived. Laury ended up not buying a purse.

OK, this is getting too long. I'll finish up with Part 2 of Day 3 later.

Monday in New York - We Are So Famous!

So, day two started off early. Maroon 5 was doing a concert on the Today show, so we got up and went down to Rockefeller Plaza to see them and try to get on TV. We got there right around 7:00 and there were so many people...mostly teenage girls. Maroon 5 came out around 8:30 and played a few songs. We were on TV in some crowd shots (thus the "We Are So Famous" title). It was pretty fun. Missy & Laury made fun of me because I kept saying "They sing this song?" I clearly know nothing about Maroon 5...and I'm OK with that!

After the Today show, we got some breakfast at Dean & Delucca (right next door). I had a really good empanada, even though I really wanted one of these great-looking cupcakes that were red velvet with cream cheese icing. Somehow, the empanada looked healthier : ). After some caloric intake, we went to the NBC Experience Store for a tour of the studios. While waiting on our tour, we were looking out at Rockefeller Plaza and could see Ann Curry (newswoman on the Today show) talking to people. She is very talkative and likes to touch peoples' faces, which we deemed odd. Still, I took a couple pictures. She's my favorite person on the Today show. So, on the tour, we ended up in a group with a bunch of girls from California. There seems to be an inordinate amount of school children here in NYC...don't know where they came from, but they are loud! So, this group of girls were like junior high age and they asked dumb questions. We really disliked this one girl and wanted to throw rocks at her, but there weren't any rocks to throw, so she survived : ). The tour was really cool. We saw the studios for Conan O'Brien (Missy's favorite), SNL, and NBC Nightly News. They are very small studios, which makes sense, but is still weird. The annoying girl stood up in front to do the weather in the news studio. She is so lucky there were no rocks lying around!

After leaving the tour, we went to have lunch in Times Square. We stumbled upon an Irish pub and grill called the Pig 'N Whistle, so we ate there. Uneventful, but good food. There was a family in there from Wisconsin who were talking really loudly. OK, the mom was talking really loudly. Apparently they had closed down the bar the night before...at 4:00am. We were very glad that we had not been with them. After eating, we went into Times Square to pick up our discount passes (we had ordered them online Saturday night) and by then we were exhausted. So, we went back to the hotel room and took a three-hour nap! I know, I know, here we are in New York City and we're napping! But, we were so tired!!

We decided that Monday night would be our night to eat at a nice restaurant, so we made reservations at Mesa Grill, which is a Bobby Flay (Food Network) restaurant. It was really good! We each had something different and it was all great. We walked a little after eating, then decided we were still tired, so we headed back to the hotel. Nothing exciting, but lots of picture taking!

NYC!!!!!

My sisters and I are in the Big Apple. We are managing to cram so much stuff into our days that we are quite exhausted. Since there's so much stuff, I'll only write about our first day in this post, then write about other days later...way too many details for one post!!!

So, we flew out of Houston on Sunday. The airport stuff was long (who knew so many people would be flying out of Hobby the Sunday before Memorial Day?). We got through security, then went to the gift shop, then to our gate. We were in group A on Southwest, so we moseyed over and stood in line. There were some guys being searched and we were saying how we would be so embarassed. My youngest sister, Laury, said "If that happened to me, I would freak out." Right after she said that, this little man came up to us and told her to come with him. She had to go be searched!!! They do the metal detector wand and everything. Missy & I could not stop laughing. Well, we did stop laughing long enough to take her picture, which, if I could figure out how to upload, I would totally do now. The one good thing about the search was that Laury got on the plane first and we got the exit row seats. I usually avoid these because I'm scared of having to actually do something during an emergency. But, man these are awesome...so roomy!

The flight is uneventful, except that both my sisters are scared of flying, so I had to calm them down some, but we made it. Had to change planes in Chicago, then on to NYC. Well, not exactly NYC. Because I had these vouchers, we flew into Long Island...tiny airport called Islip. I had a car reserved for us, so we called them and they came to pick us up. Only, I couldn't remember the name of the car company, so we weren't entirely sure that the guy we got in the car with wasn't going to kill us. Fortunately, he didn't. He was actually pretty friendly and made fun of us for having so much luggage (one of my bags was 49 lbs, just 1 lb shy of having to pay extra!).

We got to our hotel, the Courtyard Marriott in Midtown Manhattan. I highly recommend this hotel...it is great and great location. We were hungry, so we checked in, then went to eat. The concierge recommended a pizza place, so we went there. It was Angelo's and it was great. Then, for some insane reason, we decided to walk around some. We tried to go to Serendipity, but the wait was 2-1/2 hours!! So, walked down to Times Square. On the way, we walked down Park Avenure. We took pictures in Times Square, along with all the other tourists. I would have been concerned about being mugged, except the only people around had nicer cameras than we did. We went to eat some dessert at TGI Fridays where we had a waiter named Abdul who showed us his name tag like he was Vanna White. He had lots of "flair" on his suspenders! We ate our dessert in a comatose state, then walked back to the hotel (decided not to start using the Subway at nighttime) and really fell asleep before we got in bed...we were so tired!!

Mayhaw Jely & Why I Am Crazy

I promised in my last post to tell you about Mayhaw jelly and why I'm crazy, so here's a short blurb about that...BTW, they have nothing to do with each other.

First, mayhaw jelly. My grandmother used to make it and, if you've had mayhaw jelly, you are missing out. It's totally a Louisiana thing (I think because so many people have never heard of it). This man at work was auctioning some off to benefit the Relay for Life and I know him. I bid on the jelly in the auction, but it was a little too rich for my blood ($37!!!). Since I know him, I pestered him to bring me some for free, which he did and it is so good! I have only eaten it once because I am saving it to eat with really good biscuits. I had some Popeye's biscuits a few weeks ago, so I ate some of the jelly. Such a treat!

OK, on to why I am a crazy person. I have decided that I want to qualify for and run the Boston marathon. The reason that this is insane is that there are qualifying times for Boston based on your age. If I wanted to qualify right now, I would have to run another marathon in under 3 hours and 40 minutes. I have done one full marathon and I did that in 5 hours and 37 minutes. So, clearly, I have some room to improve. The crazy part is that this is kind of phyiscally impossible for me. But, I've written it down on my list of things to do before I die. Yes, I have a list that also includes things like take tennis lessons (check!), see a Superbowl in person, and live in Washington, DC for a year! So, now that it's written down, I have to do it. Sigh...I think I will be very happy and relaxed when I'm dead and can't work on all of these goals anymore : ).

Simple Pleasures

I know, I know, I haven't written on here in forever. I can't really think of what's been keeping me so busy, except I have been just that...insanely busy! But having fun. This past weekend, I had a great time enjoying simple pleasures that I think I should enjoy more often.

Friday night, two friends of mine got married in League City. The wedding was outside and it was just beautiful. The reception was at the same place and it was so much fun, too. Lots of dancing and catching up with friends. Have I ever mentioned that I love my friends? Or that I am a terrible dancer? Like I just twirl around and always go the wrong direction. No matter how good the guy I'm dancing with is, I can not do it right. I think it's because I keep thinking for myself...always a mistake. This is one of the things that I want to get better at. Only I don't know how to do that without embarrassing myself horrendously. Well, that's never stopped me from doing anything else, so why should it now? I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Saturday, I went to the International Festival in Houston. This is one of the reasons that I have fallen in love with Houston...much like Louisiana, there is some sort of festival or event any given weekend. The iFest has been around for like 40 years. This year, the feature country was China. Which was really cool. The funny part about this International festival is that there were 4 kind of highlighted areas of the world..China, Jamaica, Texas, and Louisiana. It made me laugh! I was very happy, though, because the Louisiana section had Zydeco music. My friend, Maradee, and I sat and listened until we couldn't stand the heat anymore. Turns out that I work with one of the guys in the band! Oh, I also had a real snowcone...first one of the season. It was delightful! They let you put on your own flavors, so I got to soak it with the flavors I love (rainbow of cherry, grape, and blue bubblegum...best snowcome flavors EVER!). Anyway, we left there and went down to Bacliff (smaller than a dot on the map) and ate at this great restaurant, Clifton by the Sea. I have been there several times and I've never had a bad experience. I highly recommend it. They had a live band, too. We sat outside like 20 feet from the water and listened to a Louisiana bluesey Zydeco band. I was so happy! The last few years, one of my favorite "simple pleasures" has been to be outside, no matter what. I feel like I'm just soaking up outside air to make up for the first 27 years of my life when I sat inside all the time! I had plenty of opportunity to aborb the sun and the outside air and lots of other things on Saturday. After dinner, we watched Raising Arizona. This is a really funny movie that I have not seen in forever. My favorite line by far is..."Do these balloons blow up into funny shapes?" "No, unless you think round is funny." Cracks me up!!

Sunday, I got to run in the morning before church. Did you know that I love running? I do. It is so nice and peaceful and all up to me...no one else can do it for me. And it's not easy, which means I have to work at it, which I love. Anyway, I went running with one of my favorite people to run with. It is getting hotter, so it's not quite as easy as it was a few months ago, but still great. There were so many people where we were. Unfortunately, there were also dogs. I only got scared once, though (for those that don't know, I'm terrified of dogs!). Sunday afternoon, I went to play Ultimate Frisbee, but not many people showed up, so we just tossed the Frisbee around. This is also one of my favorite things in the world to do. And I am terrible at it. I really don't care. The thing I love about it is that I get to run alot. I don't even have to because it's not like I impact the outcome of the game (except negatively), but I still run up and down the field the whole time. It is heavenly! Sunday night was group. I also love my group (I am loving a lot of things today!). We are doing another cool study and we had good discussion. Then we went to dinner for good fellowship.

OK, OK, I have got to stop writing such long posts. Sorry. If you made it this far, thanks for bearing with me. I'll write again soon about Mayhaw Jelly and why I'm a crazy person (think marathon!). I am loving my life these days!

Friends are such a blessing...

Lately I have had several opportunities to catch up with old friends...or at least friends I don't get to see much. Isn't it neat how you have friends for a season and then maybe you don't spend as much time with them as you used to for one reason or another? The best kind of friends are the ones who, even though you don't see them as often, you still feel like you're just as close when you do see each other.

A few weeks ago, I had a great week of catching up with friends. I went to a week-long training class in downtown Houston. One of my closest friends at work, Kate, and I planned it so we were in this class together. We actually work in the same building, on the same floor, but we don't see each other much anymore. Our jobs don't really have reason to intersect and we're both busy in meetings, etc., so we just don't get to talk that much. And boy can we talk! On Monday of the class, Kate and I sat at a table together. By Wednesday, the instructor made everyone change tables. I think they always do this, but I'm sure that our incessant talking during the lectures probably made him even more eager to move us around. Well, we fooled him! We sat a different tables, but next to each other so we could still talk some! It's hard to describe why Kate and I are such good friends except to say that we have some of the same quirks. If you know me, then you will understand this comment...one of our favorite topics of conversation is our newest organizational systems. That's just not something I have in common with a lot of people!

Since I was downtown for this class, I made plans to meet up other with friends during the week for dinner. On Tuesday I met up with Mitzi. Mitzi and I became friends because we both worked at an inner city mission in New Orleans. That was 12 years ago, which is crazy! Mitzi is very fun to be around. She has a very infectious laugh. When she laughs, you have to laugh with her! There are some really funny stories from our days in New Orleans, some I think we'd both like to forget, but funny nonetheless. One of my (and Mitzi's) favorite stories is about when she was moving out of her dorm at Tulane. She is not strong at all when it comes to carrying things. I am not weight-lifter strong (and definitely wasn't back then!), but I can carry my own luggage usually. So, she was moving out and we had to get some books and some clothes downstairs from her third-story dorm room (no elevators). Knowing that she isn't that strong, we packed the books in one suitcase and the clothes in another. I took the suitcase with the books and she took the one with the clothes (much lighter than the books!). We got to the first landing on the stairwell and I kept going, but she stopped. I got down another floor and looked up and she was still standing there. So, I just walked back up and picked up both suitcases and walked down to the first floor while she walked down with nothing. The funny part is that neither of us said anything during the whole thing. Very typical story!

On Wednesday night, I had dinner with my friend Shanna, who I have known since elementary school. She is one of the sweetest people I know and I always wish I was more kind-hearted like she is. On our church ski trip our senior year of high school, another friend of ours found out that she got accepted to a different school than she was planning on going to and so was going to have to make this big decision that she didn't think she was going to have to make and I think there was a boyfriend involved that she didn't want to leave. Anyway, we were all having a fun ski trip and suddenly this friend is crying because she doesn't know what to do. Shanna immediately starts crying with her and says "No one cries alone in my presence!" which is totally Shanna. Really, I've never seen her NOT cry when someone else is crying. She's just so compassionate. She is having a baby in September, so I got to hear all about the preparations for their first baby. Goodness that baby is going to be so loved!

After a week of catching up, I was very refreshed from just being around people who know me well enough to tell me what they think and listen to me ramble about whatever is going on in my head. Then tonight, I had dinner with my old roommate, Barb, who is so much fun. Every time I talk to her, she has a new hair color and a new plan for where she's going to live next (next is coming up soon...she has to move out in June). The funnest thing about Barb is that, even though we are both grown-ups (come on, we have to admit we are grown up, now!), we sometimes find something random hilarious (often that no one else thinks is funny) and laugh for 30 minutes while we roll around on the floor. I'm pretty sure I haven't done that with anyone else in a good 10 years! Tonight, there was no laughter that involved rolling on the floor, just visiting and talking about whatever came up in conversation. It was one of our shorter dinners...only 2 hours, but still filled with chatting and planning and giving advice.

I wish I could say exactly what I talked about with each of these friends, but some of it I've forgotten and much of it isn't for public consumption. I can just say that it warms my heart to spend time with each of them and I'm so glad that I get the opportunity, even when they are few and far between. On days when I feel like no one understands me or knows all my secrets (and if they did, would they really like me?) or thinks I'm funny or knows where I come from, I remember that I have friends like these women, as well as a few others, who God put in my life for reasons that I may not completely appreciate, but am always humbled by.

Titles

I decided today that I needed to update the title of my blog. It's always been pretty boring. I'm never any good coming up with titles...I constantly get "feedback" that I am not very creative. Which is funny, because I actually think of myself as creative, just in a neat and orderly manner (I realize the irony of that statement!). Anyway, I have been trying to think of a new name for my blog for a few weeks.

Titles are funny things. I am someone's daughter, sister, friend, aunt, granddaughter, roommate, boss, employee, colleague, teacher, student, mentor, mentee (is that a real word?), running buddy, confidante, godmother, customer, project, etc. I also have an "official" title at work. It is very long...BTES BTCP Fixed Equipment/Inspection Section Supervisor. I kindof have a title at church...Group Navigator. I could also be called a Chemical Engineer or an MBA grad. I was once a summer missionary and still consider myself a volunteer. All of those things describe what I am to other people or the things that I do, but they don't describe who I am, I don't think. So, how can I describe who I am? Well, I would most likely use a lot of those titles above, which isn't what I want to do. Do you really want to read a blog entitled "Deep Thoughts from the BTES BTCP Fixed Equipment/Inspection Section Supervisor"? That's just not an appealing read!

Today in church, I decided that "By Grace" is a good new name. Not because this blog is written by someone named Grace. It's written by me, Jenny. But because I am learning more and more about grace and I think that that's the theme of my life. I saw the movie Amazing Grace last weekend and it is a wonderful story about abolishing slavery in England in the 1800's. It's called Amazing Grace because there are somehow ties to the man who wrote the song, John Newton, who was a slave trader at one time. I am also studying a book, What's So Amazing About Grace? by Phillip Yancey, with my small group. This book is absolutely wonderful and I think that everyone should read it. It not only opens your eyes to the grace that you've received, but also to how we should be expressing that to other people. It is phenomenal!! In the majority of sermons I have heard lately at church, we have talked about grace or forgiveness or acceptance in some way. So, grace has been all around me lately.

Often, the old saying "There but by the grace of God go I" runs through my head. I don't know where I picked up that habit. Maybe my dad says it alot? I'm not sure. When I see someone obviously struggling through life, whether it's in poverty or illness or just troubles, I am thankful that I have, seemingly, avoided such hardships. But, really, that applies to every instant of my daily life. Without God's grace, my life would not be so rich and full and privileged. I wouldn't have a job that I love and a family that is wonderful and friends that brighten my day all the time. I wouldn't be able to run or watch fun movies or buy clothes when I want to because I don't deserve those things.

The Webster's online definition of grace is "unmerited divine assistance given humans for their regeneration or sanctification." My definition is one that I heard somewhere, although I don't know where. To me, grace is getting something favorable you don't deserve. And I am quite certain that I don't deserve such a wonderful life. So, "By Grace" is my new title because I think that it says more about who I really am than all those other titles. I don't like the word "lucky" for some reason. It implies that there is luck, which means that life is full of randomness or fate. I sometimes use the word blessed, which is a good word to use. Just yesterday, I was rambling out loud about how blessed I have been lately to live somewhere with beautiful weather. But that word is kind of overused. In my recent reading, I have come to appreciate the difference that real grace makes in my life, so "By Grace" it is!

Absent Minded

I am definitely absent-minded. On Thursday, I left my wallet in the cafeteria in the building where my training class is. Fortunately, an honest person found it and turned it in to the cafeteria. The manager found my phone number in the work phone book, called and paged me. So, I didn't even realize that my wallet was missing until I knew that it was found. How absent-minded is that??

I May or May Not be a Quitter...

The last 24 hours have been very strange indeed. Last night, I had small group at my house as usual on Sunday nights. It was wonderful, as usual. Afterwards, I went to an Oscars party with some friends of mine and ate way too much junk. I've been eating pretty healthy lately, so I did not actually enjoy the junk because it made me feel greasy. Anyway, that's not the point. Apparently, when I left, I dropped my cell phone in my friend Mandy's car. This seems like no big deal. Unless you know me...I do NOT do things like drop my cell phone. Well, after reading the rest of this post, you will think that I DO do things like that, but I promise you that I DO NOT do things like that. I am borderline OCD and everything is always in its place and I don't lose things. If I do, I totally freak out. So, anyway, I left the phone in Mandy's car, which I couldn't confirm because I don't have a home phone and I don't know Mandy's phone number (it's in my phone), so the only way to see if she had my phone was to email her late last night and wait to hear back from her today. Which also would have been OK, except I wasn't going to work today. I was in a training class downtown, so I couldn't check work or home email.

So, I had to just hope for the best and try not to freak out all day today. Which, again, was OK because I always have my handy two-way pager for work to communicate in an emergency. So, I go on my merry way today. My training class is a full week and it's actually a really good class so far. A good friend of mine is in there and everyone in the class has a pretty good attitude. It really can bring a class down if some folks have bad attitudes about being there, but this one seems attitude-free, which is great since I am really interested in the material. Since I'm going to be downtown everyday this week, I have made various plans to do stuff or meet up with friends most nights of the week. Tonight, I had adventure racing practice on the agenda. Adventure racing starts at 6:30 and my class got out at 4:30. So, I headed on to Memorial Park (where we meet) and changed into running clothes. It was only 5:15, so I decided to take a walk around the Loop until time to meet up with the training group. So, I go on a nice walk. It was absolutely beautiful outside and I didn't have my iPod or anything, so I was just enjoying the scenery and thinking how great it is to live in Houston, where there is a place like Memorial Park to walk around and how it must be really great to live in places like Denver where there is lots of green space and how much cooler it is in Denver than Houston...this is how my thoughts go...tangent after tangent after tangent.

So anyway, since AR starts at 6:30, I didn't want to be too slow about my walking, so I took my pager with me so I could pay attention to what time it was. I even used it to email a few folks while I was walking. I checked all the news and sports and stock market quotes from today (they come across my pager all day long). I stopped at the restroom about halfway through my walk and dropped my pager in the toilet...it is now dead. So, here I am in Memorial Park (which I previously thought was beautiful, but now am thinking is ridiculously full of people and I am feeling very far from my car), not knowing what time it is, thinking about what a complete moron I am. I mean, in less than 24 hours, I lost my cell phone and broke my pager. What kind of idiot does that? Especially someone who DOES NOT do things like that? Apparently, I DO do things like that. I am absent-minded! I think I have to come to grips with that. Sigh...so it gets better.

I finally get back to my car and I have no clue what time it is. Recently a friend of mine told me that they have a good sense of what time it is (I don't remember who told me that...anyone want to claim it?), but I do not have that ability. I never know how long it's been since something else happened (10 minutes? 2 hours? I don't know?) and I never have a good sense of what time it is without a watch. This is why I always have a watch. OK, there I go on a tangent again. So, I get back to my car and there are clearly no AR people there. I'm thinking, surely I'm not that early? Or that late? Again, no clue what time it was. No, I was right on time. It was 6:28. AR starts at 6:30. NO ONE was there. I should point at now that I have not been to AR in over 2 weeks. The last time I went was the kayaking fiasco (see previous post) and since then, I've run lots of miles and traveled places and generally not felt like carrying lots of equipment downtown only to end up in mud! So, I haven't been in a while. AND I realized that I forgot to check our discussion forum to confirm that we were meeting there. So, no AR for me tonight. I just grabbed another water bottle and ran around the Memorial Loop this time. It took me 55 minutes to walk it and 32 minutes to run it...yay me! Don't worry, that's not the end of the saga.

I get home after a while and my roommate kindly lets me use her phone. I call my parents, who don't answer, then check my voice mail on my cell phone. There are two messages, both from my parents. My dad had to have emergency surgery today. Seriously, of all the days to lose my phone, the day my dad has to have emergency surgery! Are you kidding me? Is there some kind of conspiracy to drive me insane??? I finally got a hold of my mom. Everything is going to be fine. My dad didn't go into surgery until after 8:30 tonight, but the doctor said he really needed to have the surgery today, I guess? I don't really understand. My sister is about to be a nurse, and she was there. She said that I should be glad I wasn't because I would have freaked out. I don't like medical stuff...I get that from my dad! After I talked to my mom, I felt better and less like a slacker daughter who can't even call her dad before he goes into surgery. Because you never know what could happen in surgery...don't you watch Grey's Anatomy?

After that, I called my friend Mandy (fortunately her number is in my roommate's phone) and she had my phone, which she gave to my other roommate to bring back to me. I changed all my out of office messages at work to tell people to call me instead of page me. My dad came out of surgery just fine just a few minutes ago. So, back to normal. Now, if I could just stop being mad at myself for being so absent-minded, I might just be sane again (or sane for the first time...it's questionable!).

And, to explain my title, I may have quit Adventure Racing and not realized it! I finally checked the discussion forum and we met somewhere else tonight. I can't go back for another entire two weeks, so I may not be doing so good on the training. Oh well! Sorry, Jill, maybe no more funny adventures at AR. But, apparently I don't need adventure racing to have random ridiculous stories! Just my normal life will do fine for that!

I love my niece!

My sister just sent me a text message that says:

"Mia just told me out of the blue: Aunt Jenny has a heart tattoo because she loves me!"

Mia is my precious niece and I love her very much! Is that not the sweetest, cutest thing you've ever heard?

2:25:16

I finished the Austin Half-Marathon! Yay for me! It was an absolutely gorgeous day. The temp was 37 at the starting line, which is really cold if you are like me and have to run in sleeveless shirts (for some reason, all the heat in my body seems to escape through my shoulders). But, we made it through the hour and a half of waiting for the start. The race started at 7:00 and sunrise was at 7:09, so we got to see the sunrise as we were running. The first 5 miles flew by. I was running with two friends and we ran together until a little after mile 6. Then we all ended up splitting up to go our own pace.

Really, the whole race flew by for me. I did my best time ever - 2:25:16. My previous PR was 2:26:55. AND I did that on terrible hills. The whole course was pretty hilly. I was running uphill or downhill for about 75% of the race...not a lot of flat surfaces. A lot of the hills were not worth mentioning, but there were 3 or 4 that were pretty tough. There were 2 close together around mile 11 and they were killer. But, once I got over those hills, I started running fast. I was going about an 8 minute pace for the last 1.25 miles. That's really fast for me...I average 10:30 minute pace. We finished by running around the state capitol building and then a straight shot into the finish line. It was perfect!

The rest of the trip was pretty perfect, too. We drove in Friday night, hung out, watched a movie (How I Marrieds an Axe Murderer, which I had never seen before and which was pretty funny), etc. I didn't sleep much at all Friday night, though. Saturday, we went to the race Expo to pick up packets and that was fun...I love race Expos! Of course, I bought a shirt and some socks that I probably don't need. I lost track of time and ended up being late for lunch with a friend...so rude of me!

After lunch, we went driving all around the west side of Austin...it is BEAUTIFUL there. There are so many hills (which are beautiful when you're driving and horrible when you're running) and nice houses. We drove around a couple of neighborhoods just looking at the houses and the views that they have. We stopped a dozen times to take pictures, including one time to get a free sample of beef jerky on the side of the road. This guy makes his own jerky at his house...I think it's at his house. Anyway, he was really nice and took a picture of us by his sign. Maradee bought some to send to her friend in Africa. I think she bought the Chipotle flavored jerky. He had like 8 different flavors! These houses we saw were amazing. They all had winding driveways and manicured lawns and beautiful doors and windows and detailing. One even had a putting green in the yard (we stopped for Matt to take a picture of this one!). We also stopped at the Marshall Ford Dam, which is overwhelmingly huge and cool. How does all of that work properly all the time? And how did they build it 80 years ago and it's still functioning? I am amazed by things such as this!

If I could ever figure out how to upload pictures to my blog, I would upload some from this trip to show how pretty Austin is. After the hours of sightseeing, we got lost looking for the restaurant we wanted to eat at. We finally found it and ate, thank goodness! It was this place called the Brick Oven and it was very packed full of people. We carbed up on pasta and had a wonderful dessert...chocolate with more choclate and chocolate mousse. I think there was some whipped cream on there, too. By this time, I was pretty delirious from lack of sleep and getting close to grumpy. Fortunately, we went home after that...I was close to falling down, I think!

So, I had to wake up at 3:45 on Sunday morning because we wanted to be downtown by 5:30 and I had to get ready, etc. So, I ran this race on about 4 hours of sleep. Considering that I got less than that on Friday, I'm pretty sure it's a miracle that I finished at all! We got ready, headed out around 5:00 and made it downtown pretty quickly. I was so happy because we found a place to park really easily and it was close to the race stuff. These are the things that stress me out the most about big races. Or maybe those are the things I dwell on so I don't stress about the actually running. Anyway, we dropped off our stuff too early at the clothing drop-off and then hung out in the Spectator's tent. Thank goodness for this tent! It was set up to serve free tea and coffee to runners and spectators, but the biggest benefit was protection from the weather. We were packed in there like sardines to attempt to stay warm! I actually ran into someone from work in there. Oh, there were about 12,000 runners in this race, so running into someone I know was a small feat!

We moved up to the start line, begrudgingly leaving the warmth of the tent, around 6:45. The start was just over this bridge, so we were standing on this bridge (i.e. over water) in 37 degree weather for a while. There were fireworks just before the start. It was pretty cool...at least a nice distration from the hypothermia! One thing that always makes me laugh in big races like this is that people put on so many layers and then have to shed them as soon as the race starts. It makes sense for the people that put on garbage bags and them throw them away, but there are some nice clothes on the ground! Like shirts and socks and LOTS of gloves! It just cracks me up how much there is just sitting on the side of the road. These guys were running behind us and stopped to pick up some gloves. Which sounds funny, but, if I hadn't had gloves on, I would have done the same! In Houston I know that the marathon volunteers come behind and pick up the clothes and take them to homeless shelters, so they don't go to waste.

After the race, we ate at this BBQ place, Rudy's. We had seen several of them around Austin and they came highly recommended : ). These people let you sample ANYTHING if it's your first time at Rudy's. I did not take advantage of this because I knew what I wanted and didn't care what anything else tasted like. The thing that makes me smile about Texas BBQ places is that you can always smell when someone has been to one...the smoke pervades into your clothes and hair and stays with you! Rudy's has a "Cutter Cam". "What is a Cutter Cam?" you might ask. This is a camera over the cutting board where your lunch is being cut. You can watch it while you're standing in line...classic BBQ place! Another classic aspect of Rudy's is that it is really a gas station. You can NOT pass up BBQ from a gas station in Texas...it has to be good. And Rudy's did not dissappoint me. Of course, I had just run 13.1 miles, so my judgement might have been impaired.

All in all, this was a fantastic road trip. We listened to great music the whole time and laughed a lot and saw beautiful scenery and I ran a 13.1 mile race and finished..the best part of all!