Things are picking up AND looking up

I have been feeling so much better the last couple days -- thank goodness! I realized yesterday that I have a lot of fun things coming up, and some of them have just come up over the last couple of days.

I'm going to go riding on Saturday to officially start training for the MS150 again. I wasn't looking forward to it as much because I wasn't going to have a riding partner this year with K being gone. Riding it with him is part of what made the experience so great.

My new friend Topeka, though, is really thinking about riding it with me, which I'm really excited about. Plus, one of my old roommates keeps talking about doing it as well. I've been feeling all along like she'll wind up backing out due to money, but so far she still says she's doing it -- she just hasn't registered (or rented a bike ...).

I decided I wanted to do a 10-miler in June or July, so I started looking those up. I found one in July that sounds like fun. I emailed the info to my dad's girlfriend, Jeremy and Topeka, and they're all in for it! A couple more of Jeremy and Topeka's co-workers who ran the 5k with us on St. Patrick's Day are coming as well. I'm excited! (Yes, I still hate running, but it's good for me, and I'm in it for the fun time with friends and the ability to say I've run 9.3 miles at one time. If I actually go through with it -- which I will -- I might then be insane enough to do a marathon just to say I've done that too. Maybe that's how people get into them.)

Not to stop the physical feats with May's 150-mile bike ride and July's 10-mile run, at the end of August, there's the Hott.er Than Hel.l 100, which I'm thinking about subjecting myself to as well.

And then K comes in September, so we'll take it easy and enjoy ourselves (but we'll go running and work out together while he's here).

Aside from the Feat.s of St.rength (10 points to whoever's cool enough to get that reference!), I've got a few getaways coming up that I'm excited about too. I'd hoped to do something cool for Memorial Day. I have Army-significant-other friends in Miami, Daytona and Orlando, so I had thought it would be cool if we got together down there that weekend for a little mini-reunion. I miss seeing them all, and Memorial Day would be perfect because since it's a holiday, no one would have to worry about losing a vacation day so we can all save them for our guy's R&R.

Well, yesterday one of the significant others who lives in New York emailed me to see if I'm interested in a little Memorial Day trip to Daytona to visit our friend. Of course my answer was, "Heck yes I am!" I'm really excited about that.

And the very next weekend I'm hoping to make it to Miss Heather's wedding in Tahoe. There may or may not be a little layover in California on my way, so I'm excited about that.

As if all that wasn't enough, today is the four-month mark of the deployment! It's really going quickly -- thank God!

And if that wasn't enough, I've scheduled my fourth massage appointment for Saturday afternoon. In addition to that (I know!), I'm going dress shopping for the Dallas wedding on Saturday, and one of my co-workers wants to come with me! Yay!

Feeling much better

When I woke up this morning, the first thing I realized was that K had not called me last night. Just in case I had managed to sleep through my phone ringing or had mistaken it for an alarm and shut it off, I checked my recent calls list. K hadn't called. I knew that already -- I had woken up at least twice in the middle of the night in anticipation of his call. The fact he hadn't called meant his morning meeting had run late, something had come up or the phone lines were down. Whatever the case, all I could do was hope it wasn't long before he'd really be able to call me.

When I got to work, I felt the familiar stress and negative attitude hit me as soon as I got to my desk. I was very glad my boss and I had lunch plans so hopefully I could ease some of my frustration.

The lunch plans wound up being thrown up in the air, but luckily, we wound up going as scheduled. I had made a little outline of the work issues I wanted to talk about. As we drove to lunch together, my boss asked me how I've been. "Stressed," I said. She asked me about K, so I told her about the family group issue and how little I've been able to talk to K lately. I told her about the base attack (only a few of my co-workers knew about it) and how I found out through email.

"No wonder you've been so stressed," she said. She asked me if I'd talked to my mom. I told her it's been almost a year and that I haven't seen my mom since Christmas of 2006.

My boss filled me in on some things with her, and then she asked me about work. We talked for the rest of the time about the things on the list I'd made. My boss said she was really glad to hear all the feedback and that all of it was very good. A lot of it was things that are beyond her control, but it felt better to express my opinion to a supervisor, who might then be able to share that feedback with her supervisor. The things my boss is able to have an effect on seem promising. I felt so much better just getting all of that out.

Later tonight, K even called me. We were able to talk for about 45 minutes or so. It was really nice. We talked about a ton of things I'd meant to tell him or had asked him about in an email, but he hadn't had a chance to respond yet. We talked more about vacation plans. We talked about his new role and how he feels about it. He misses what he did before because now he's spending much more time in an office, and he's away from the soldiers for the most part. The job he's doing now will be great on his resume, but he really loves being out there working with the soldiers. He's doing some great, important work, and I hope he's just in an adjustment period still.

I didn't say anything to K about my slump lately because I don't want him to worry about me. I know it's just a temporary thing, so I'll be fine on my own soon enough.

I went running tonight with Topeka (my new friend who I ran the 5k with). We ran 4 miles, and it felt great. I really needed it after all the (yummy!) junk I ate in OK last weekend. Plus, it was just the two of us, so it was good to get some girl time in while I was doing something good for my body and my mind.

All in all, I'm feeling much better about things tonight. I'm still not feeling as chipper as usual, but I can definitely tell things are improving. And it feels good to have taken control of what I can to improve the things that were bothering me.

The slump continues

I don't know what my deal is, but I keep finding myself in a slump. I went back to OK this weekend to see my dad, his girlfriend and my grandparents. I had a good trip -- nothing too exciting, but it was lazy and nice.

I got back to Dallas last night and went to check my email. My homepage informed me that soldiers had been killed over the weekend in the area where K is. I hadn't heard anything, which normally means it hasn't affected anyone in K's battalion. K switched jobs a few weeks ago, though, and that switch has put me in a different family group. Whoever the person is in the new group who's in charge of calling me and keeping me in the loop with things has failed miserably. I haven't gotten a call in weeks. It makes me worry that even if something bad did happen and K was involved, I wouldn't even find out -- like they'd forget they're supposed to let me know or something. And the little line at the end of the article on my homepage that said the identities of the fallen soldiers were being kept private until families were notified wasn't any comfort.

I called my former family group person and talked to her for a while. She's going to keep me in her loop of things, which means a lot to me. I'll feel much better when I get a random call from her just checking up on me like I used to. I never realized when I was getting those calls how much better it made me feel, since if they were calling me for no reason at all every three weeks or so, then they'd definitely be in touch if there was a reason to call.

I haven't gotten a call from K since Wednesday. Since he's transitioned to his new role, we've gotten to talk less. I don't know if he's just getting used to things or if it's just how it'll be for the next few months, but one 45-minute phone conversation a week is hard to keep going on. Before, we were able to catch each other on IM or email back and forth. K signed on IM today for just a few minutes, but go figure I was slammed at work. We were able to talk for a few minutes, and he said he's going to call me after his morning meeting, which means I should get a call around midnight or 1 a.m. Here's hoping.

Work has been frustrating and stressful too. My boss noticed today that I'm not quite myself, and she sent me an email asking if we could go to lunch to catch up. I think it's going to be a good thing.

I was supposed to go running with a friend tonight, but I had to stay late because an urgent project came through. I left work at about 8, which was 30 minutes before I was supposed to meet my friend at her place for our run. I hadn't even had dinner yet. I had to cancel the run I was looking forward to so much (for the release, not for the run). We're planning on going tomorrow, though, so that'll be good.

I just feel like my life lately has been work, the gym and running errands. The routine of things was going well for a while because it was keeping me occupied and making the time go fast. In the beginning of the deployment, I stayed busy doing things with ER and with Brit on weekends. I've only seen ER three times over the last two months (two times when she came to church, and once when she called me at 7:40 on a Friday night and convinced me to come have drinks with her, her boyfriend, her co-worker and her boyfriend; we were only out for an hour), and Brit has been busy the last few weeks too. I've had no trouble keeping myself occupied with making care packages and getting things done from a seemingly endless to-do list. But I just feel very much alone right now.

Everything together is just overwhelming -- my frustrations with my job, the decreasing communication with K, the boringness of my weekday routine, the feeling ER is getting closer to permanently resigning herself to a life of early nights in on the couch watching Dancing With the Stars with her years-older (but nice) boyfriend, my defective washing machine, and the fact I haven't been to the gym since last Wednesday.

Tomorrow really will be better, I'm sure. K is supposed to call tonight, I won't be working late tomorrow night, I'll get to run with a new friend, and I'll have a nice lunch with my boss that will hopefully result in some positive changes at work.

Tomorrow will be good.

Tomorrow will be good.

Tomorrow will be good.

Am dumba$$

My first car was a 1966 Ford Mustang. It had no "Check Engine" or "Maintenance Required" light. It just had a few simple gauges to tell me if something was wrong, and if there was a problem those gauges couldn't tell me about, my car would let me know by not starting, sputtering or making funny noises when it did start. I guess that's more the style of warning I need.

My Honda Accord has all these nifty little lights and gadgets to tell me random things -- when I need more gas, when a door is not fully closed, when my seatbelt isn't on, and even when Honda says I need to go to the dealership for "routine maintenance" so they can make a couple hundred more bucks off me (can you tell how I feel about car dealerships?). All those lights and gadgets can get a bit confusing, even to someone who can carry on a decent conversation about 289s and 302s, aluminum headers, dual exhaust and such (again, sticking to the old cars).

Those warning lights make me really nervous (obviously). Even when the warning light comes on for my gas tank, I panic and think I need to immediately fill up, like my car's giving me a five-minute warning, when I know fully well that I could probably go another 30 or even 50 miles before I really had to get nervous. But those lights are on for a reason. And with cars, if you ignore a problem for long enough, it can escalate pretty quickly, and next thing you know you're having to replace a motor instead of a simple belt or pump. So I take those lights pretty seriously. I just don't like to take chances with my car. I kind of rely on it for transportation.

When the light that turned on in my car last night was a picture instead of words, I knew it was bad. I knew it was the oil light. I pulled out my manual, found the Oil Pressure warning light image in the book and read all the bad things that light stands for. In my nervousness about my car being messed up, I didn't even notice that the oil light picture in the manual did not match the oil light on my car.

The reason it didn't match is because the "oil light" I was seeing was my check engine light. The mechanic called me to tell me that this morning. (Seriously? I don't want a PICTURE for that one! I want words: CHECK ENGINE!) An hour later, when they'd performed the diagnostic (which cost $100, by the way, as opposed to the no-charge diagnostic A.uto Z.one does just three blocks away), the mechanic told me the problem. Thankfully, it's nothing serious, but their repairs would wind up costing $422 with the military discount they offered me.

Since my brother (the NAS.CAR mechanic) could probably teach these guys a thing or two about cars, I called him. When he finished laughing at me about the "oil light" issue, he started laughing at the fact they charged $100 for a diagnostic. And then he told me the whole thing was BS -- that one of the things I "needed" done for $79 wasn't necessary, and I could even do it myself for $10; and the main problem was a $60 part that would require a simple wrench to install. My dad will take care of it when I go home for Easter this weekend.

Thank goodness my dad and brother know more about cars than I do!

Help me think positive -- and decide on a vacation spot!

I felt better last night after I left the gym. I was pretty proud of myself for the amount of weight I lifted during one of our exercises, so that definitely lifted my mood. I still feel in a bit of a funk, but i just really miss K right now. I don't know if it's because St. Patrick's Day is one of the few holidays we always managed to spend together (not that it's a major holiday for either of us, but it's a fun day that we always found ourselves doing neat things around). Last year at this time, we were in Hawaii, and soon after we got engaged, so it's kind of sad to not be around K right now.

What's also kind of sad is the fact that a few of the mechanical devices I own and rely on have decided to start malfunctioning at about the same time. My washing machine is having issues with completely draining itself, so when a cycle of laundry is supposed to be complete, I find drenched clothes that are sitting in a couple inches of soapy water.

Then tonight as I was headed to my gym, I noticed my oil pressure light was on. Not good. I remember my dad telling me years and years ago that if that light ever came on, I was in trouble and needed to pull over immediately. So I called him. My gym is pretty close to my apartment, so my dad told me just to see if the light came back on when I got in my car to leave the gym. Go figure, it did. My oil level was fine, which means the problem is not the simplest level possible (go figure). So my car is still in the gym parking lot, and Jeremy drove me home. Thank goodness he lives nearby.

I have to get up bright and early to risk driving my car a whole mile to a nearby mechanic. In that distance, if my car is seriously in trouble, I could burn my motor. Here's hoping the problem is really minor so that doesn't happen -- actually, here's hoping that when I get to my car and start it tomorrow, the light doesn't stay on because whatever is malfunctioning fixes itself overnight. It really could happen (really!).

To let this post begin and end on a good note, I talked to K on Sunday. As we were about to end our conversation, it occurred to me that September is getting pretty close. "Hey, we have less than six months before we get to see each other!"

"Yeah," he said. "We need to start looking at tickets."

That was surprising, for some reason. I had tried to not let myself think too much about K's R&R and where we'd go for our little vacation together the first week, since it would be far too easy to think about it nonstop. We've only talked about possible destinations a couple times, but now it's snuck up on me so much that it's close enough we could actually book something. Exciting!

One of K's co-workers suggested we go on a cruise. I've never been on a cruise before, so that could be neat. I know we'll both just want to be able to relax together for the trip, though.

We also both want something tropical. We've kicked around a few things -- Hawaii again, Cancun or Cozumel, the Keys ... Honestly, all I'm looking for is a beautiful beach and great weather. We won't need too much of anything else -- we'll have each other.

OK, now that I've made you all throw up in your mouths (just a little), any recommendations?

Going, going, going

I can't believe it's been almost a week since I blogged. I've been pretty busy, but I just haven't felt like getting on the computer after work.

Last week seemed to go by more slowly than usual, so I was glad to see it end. After several nights of trying, I finally made it to bed early last Wednesday night -- at 11 p.m. I really needed it.

I realized Thursday afternoon that I hadn't felt like myself in over a week. In fact, I felt like I'd been a bit of a bitch, and it was frustrating. I was rushing to run some errands that afternoon, and it was in the middle of them that I realized the reason I'd felt so off: I was insanely stressed. I realized I was pretty much on the verge of a breakdown, one of those times I'd just need to stop and cry my eyes out for a few hours, only I didn't have time. I decided I'd give myself Sunday after church through the rest of the day to relax, rest and cry if I needed to.

Since it was still just Thursday, I needed to vent somehow. I started to write a blog about my light bulb moment, and I thought about rattling off the list of things I was stressed about -- everything from the fact my washing machine decided to stop working properly to the fact I hadn't heard from K all week (and had only talked to him once a week the previous two weeks as well). Go figure, though, there was no time to write it.

Then, that afternoon, K called. I immediately felt so much better just to hear from him. We were able to talk for about 45 minutes, and the conversation actually overlapped the time I was supposed to join some friends for a workout. I wound up skipping so I could talk to K longer. It wound up being an additional blessing because it meant I wasn't rushing to the workout. I was able to run a couple errands I hadn't had time to do, and I got to relax a little bit. I met up with Jeremy and a friend at 9 that night, and we ran 4 miles, so I still even got my workout in.

I was able to put an Easter care package together for K that night after the run. It meant I was up late, but I didn't mind.

Friday was a standard day, but that night after work, I met Heather for Mexican food and margaritas. It was so much fun! We talked about work, the guys, bloggers, wedding planning and a billion other things. I really needed that.

We called it a night at a little after 9, since I had to get up before 6 a.m. on Saturday. I ran a 5k that morning. It was my first running event. I started off in the run more quickly than I meant to because I was just trying to get past the people who were walking or had strollers and dogs with them. There was no staggered start, and the people who weren't in it to run didn't worry about sticking to one side of the road. I weaved through them and tried to find a spot where there was more space to just run. After a while of that optimistic attempt, I realized it wasn't going to happen.

And then I realized I'd worn myself out. And then I came to a hill I'd forgotten that I'd been warned about. (Oops.) After the hill, I slowed quite a bit. I'm pretty sure I was at less than a 10-minute mile pace. I really wanted to stop running and just start walking, but at the same time, it was just 3 miles. I had run 4 miles TWICE that week. I could tough it out a bit longer. I did, and I wound up finishing in just over 27 minutes. Without the hill (and the smaller one at the very end of the route), I know I'd have done a lot better (along with everyone else in the run). I was still pretty proud of myself, though -- especially considering I couldn't even run a block in December.

Sunday, I went to church and then pretty much took the rest of the day easy, like I'd planned. K called me, so I was able to talk to him for a little bit. Hopefully we're back on our twice-a-week schedule now.

Things today have been pretty uneventful. I feel like I'm in a bit of a funk again, but I'm hoping it's just because I haven't been to the gym since Wednesday night. I did run on Thursday and Saturday, but running just doesn't give me the boost I get from the gym. I'm supposed to head that way in about 30 minutes, so hopefully that helps. Guess I've gotten used to those endorphins!

Can't ... catch ... up

My gosh, this time change is killing me! It doesn't help that I was behind on sleep before the government decided to take an hour away from me.

I was up late last Thursday night (until 2 a.m.), and I really can't remember why. Friday night, I was up at least that late making K's awesome care package. Saturday morning, I had to get up early (for a Saturday -- 9:00 a.m.).

The choir director at church had asked me in February to play in the church orchestra. I was going to be out of town that weekend, so I told him I'd try to play in March. The rehearsal and play dates were last weekend. Since I hadn't played my clarinet since May of 2005 (when I graduated college), I was going to have to go buy some new reeds. I planned on doing that in the morning before our 11:00 rehearsal, which is why I got up so early.

After the rehearsal, I had several errands to run. I had to mail K's care package, and I had an errand I'll blog about later. By the time I got home again at about 4, I was exhausted. I took a nap for about 45 minutes. My dad and his girlfriend would be leaving soon to come visit me, and I needed to be dusting and vacuuming, but the nap sounded so much better.

I called my dad shortly after 5, and I was immediately interrupted by another call. There was a good chance it was K, so I answered. Good thing, since it was him. We only got to talk for about 15 minutes, so I called my dad back after. I was surprised to hear that he and his girlfriend were well on their way to my place. In fact, they were less than an hour away. I wasn't expecting them for another two hours! I hadn't even started cleaning yet.

I rushed to dust my furniture, scrub my shower and the rest of my bathroom, and finish washing the sheets for them. I hadn't got to the vacuuming yet when there was a knock on my door. (#*$%!!)

We stayed at my apartment talking and hanging a curtain rod, which my dad had brought his drill for. We went to dinner at 7:30, and after that, we went to the piano bar I'd told them about so many times. We stayed at the bar until just after midnight.

By the time we got home and I showered, got my things ready for church the next day, and got my dad and his girlfriend settled in my room, it was after 2 a.m. with the time change. I had to get up at 6:15 the next day so I could leave by 7:15 to be at church by 7:45, which was when our warmup started for the 8:30 a.m. service. I watched the sun rise as I headed to rehearsal.

I managed to be up after midnight Sunday night and night since then. Getting up in the morning has not been an easy thing to do this week, and I've been getting to work about 30 minutes later than usual. (Thank goodness my job is laid back!)

As much trouble as I'm having, you'd think the time change made me lose four hours instead of just one (it certainly feels that way). What's funny about the whole thing is that I'm still optimistic that I might actually make it to bed early tomorrow night (since it's not happening tonight).

Ha!

I'll let you know how that goes.

I'm becoming a pro at these care packages

I didn't have any luck with the weather on Thursday night. It stopped snowing before dinner even, and although a lot of people in our office worked from home, I went in to work on Friday.

Friday night, I baked some cookies for K and made him a St. Patrick's Day care package. I'm even more excited about him getting it than I was about his awesome Valentine's Day package. What I didn't mention on here, though, is that every care package I've sent him has taken right at a week to get to him. EXCEPT FOR THE VALENTINE'S PACKAGE, which took over three weeks. (Good thing I sent the homemade cookies in the package before that one!)

This care package, naturally, was entirely green. I put green tissue paper in the box for starters. I baked him some peanut butter cookies, and I wrapped the Tupperware container in green tissue. I did the same with the package of protein bars he'd asked for. Everything else was green to begin with, and some of them were funny coincidences.

I had planned on burning K a CD. It turned out I had one rewritable CD left, and it just happened to be green. (I think it's a sign God liked my idea.) I had bought K some good loofas a couple weeks ago, and I hadn't had room to put them in a package yet. Coincidentally, they were green, so in they went. I had some Pringles snack packs I'd bought to disperse in care packages, too. There were several different flavors, and the pizza flavor had a green wrapper. I put a few of those in the box.

I bought some Heal.thy Cho!ce soup, which comes in green containers; K's favorite gum, which happens to come in a green wrapper; some granola bars in green wrappers; and some Russ.ell St.over candy I found that came in green bags. I also had a fun St. Patrick's Day card that I don't think was intended to be a "missing you" card, but it worked perfectly. I wrote a letter on green-and-blue-striped stationery, and of course I wrote it in green marker. Not to restrict the festivity to the inside of the box, I even addressed the care package in green marker.

As I closed the lid to tape up the box and ship it to K, I considered taking a picture for proof of the (over)abundance of green inside. I decided not to, though, and now I wish I had. There will be more special packages, though -- I'm sending Easter this week -- so I'll be sure to get a picture of them.

Next week, I'll have to make a care package for April Fool's Day. Obviously there'll have to be a whoopie cushion and little prank toys in there, but it's gotta have a little extra something in there too. (April Fool's Day is a big day for us, remember?)

It's a wonder I made it home safely

I've said a few negative things on this blog about Texas as a state, so when I come across something about living here that makes me smile, I feel it's only fair that I blog about that too.

The weather in Texas and Oklahoma is a lot alike. We both deal with tornadoes, humidity, a practically nonexistent spring, and incredibly hot summers with awful droughts and water shortages. Weather from day to day (outside of the summer) is completely unpredictable in both states. Wearing shorts in the morning only to see snow falling later (or vice versa) that night is something that I've experienced in both states.

In college, though, I was always surprised to hear Texans and Dallasites complaining about the Oklahoma winters. "It's freezing here! It doesn't get this cold in Dallas!" they'd say. I figured maybe it had something to do with that wind sweeping down the plains, but I couldn't imagine winter in OK would be as different as they made it sound. I guess I was wrong.

I'll never forget the first "winter storm" I encountered after I moved to Dallas. All the local news stations were doing regular weather updates before there was ever even a drop of precipitation. Yes, snow and ice were in the forecast, but it was still sunny outside! Our department at work (at my old job) called a quick meeting to let us all know that we could leave early if we needed to so we could be sure to be home and safe before the weather got bad. We discussed arrangements for work the next day in case the roads were "still" slick. I was amazed to hear of the many, many businesses that were closing early (like 11 a.m.) that day while the weather was still fine simply because of the fact snow was in the forecast for that afternoon. And of course (unpredictable, remember?), the weather was nothing near as bad as expected. In fact, what actually hit was ridiculously minor. The roads were fine the next morning.





(from Monday's snowfall)








Until March, it hadn't really snowed in Dallas this year. We got a whole inch on Monday night (it was mostly melted by Tuesday morning), and when the forecast called for more snow this afternoon, it was all anyone could talk about. Many of my co-workers started leaving to work from home as early as lunchtime.

When I left work shortly after 2 (any excuse to work in my pjs!), it was only raining, as it had been all day, but the roads were already as jammed as during rush-hour traffic. I passed two accidents on my 1 mile of highway driving. Once I got home and turned on the TV, all the local stations were showing was weather coverage. One station had even overdramatically labeled it "Major Winter Storm."

Even though the snow stopped hours ago, the gym tonight was completely dead, as were the roads on the way there. Many businesses and schools are opening late or are completely closed tomorrow just in case the roads get slick tonight. My office is waiting until tomorrow to make a decision. Just in case, I brought everything I'd need to work from home tomorrow so I could be prepared.

The forecast is showing our chance of snow extends into tomorrow. I'd just feel much better knowing I didn't have to worry about being out on the road in case another Major Winter Storm comes and dumps a whole inch of snow on us again.

Too bad the thought didn't count

Last night, I went to my handy dandy little personal file folder and pulled out my voter registration card so I could do my civic duty today. I got up this morning and got around more quickly than usual so I could arrive at the polls, stand in line and vote, and still get to work at a decent time.

I got to my designated voting location and took my place at the back of the line. It wasn't too long from the outside, and I figured the whole process would probably take me somewhere around 45 minutes. I could do that.

I had only been standing in line for a few minutes when a man walked out of the building and, as he passed those of us at the end of the line, helpfully informed us that we had about an hour's wait.

"An hour?!" we all said incredulously. "Are you serious?"

The man nodded as he continued to his car. I looked at my watch. An hour before I even got into the building? Whoa. Plus, there's the fact that the whole Texas Democratic primary is completely messed up (it's because Texans hate Democrats). We Dems in Texas were supposed to vote twice today -- as if those lines aren't bad enough the first time. We were supposed to vote in the primary between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., and we were supposed to return at about 6:45 or 7 tonight to vote in the caucus. Otherwise, our vote wouldn't carry its full weight. They call the whole process the Texas Two-Step. (Isn't that cute?! rolling eyes)

It was all a little overwhelming, and even though I watched debates and interviews and even did research online, I still didn't feel confident enough about my decision to justify standing in line for an hour and being late for work -- especially if I would have to go through that whole process again at the end of my day to make it completely count.

I turned to the women standing near me in line. I considered changing the words on the tip of my tongue, since they were a bit too stereotypical for my generation, but nothing would express my feelings more appropriately: "Screw this," I told them. "I have to get to work."

Don't hate me. I tried. And my evening was much better spent tonight than if I'd stood in line for a second time to cast a vote I don't feel entirely confident about. Instead, I supported our troops by making a care package. Which I will happily stand in line one time to mail tomorrow.

WARNING: Excessive numbers and parenthesis ahead

Over the last couple months, I've started running at least once a week with Jeremy. I don't know why he decided to get into running, but since he's my workout buddy, I started too. I've gotten some good results from running, but as I've said a few times before, I don't enjoy it. At all.

A couple months ago, Jeremy and one of his co-workers started this little workout group consisting of a few of their co-workers and friends. We meet up once a week near their office and do 20 minutes of straight cardio and then run for a bit. You can guess which portion is my least favorite.

Two weeks ago for our workout, our 20 minutes of cardio consisted of nonstop sets of 10 pushups (I do real ones, thankyouverymuch), 10 sit ups (I did 26 crunches -- to me, proper situps are really hard without someone to hold your feet), and 10 squats. Twenty minutes of that nonstop is exhausting. (Most of us switched to dips about five minutes into it. When that wore our arms out, we went back to pushups. It sucked!)

After those torturous 20 minutes, we ran 3 miles. Pretty quickly, even. Not fun. Especially after all those squats. Three or four people stopped running along the way (not me!) -- including a guy who ran a 5-minute mile in high school. (Yeah, it was probably about 10 years ago, but still!)

Last week, our 20 minutes was shortened to 10. The guys did 15 handstand pushups, while we girls either did 15 pushups or lifted dumbbells over our heads in sets of 15 in an attempt to replicate handstand pushups as closely as possible, followed by 10 situps (I did 26 crunches again).

After the 10 minutes were up, we ran our 3 miles. We took it slower this time. WAY slow, in fact -- especially since Jeremy and I had run 2.8 miles the night before in 23.5 minutes. As we jogged along our 3-mile route, though, I had a breakthrough.

I enjoyed it!!!

Yes, we were just jogging. But still. I hate running, remember? Now I'm just hoping I enjoy myself again the next time I run. Especially since my workout buddy seems to be so fond of it!