2009 So Far

I realized I've Really Really been slacking on writing a blog. I've been pushing it to the side while working 10 hour days and catching up on generic life stuff life watching my movie collection LOL.

• My year began finishing up my holiday visit to Erik's family in Central Illinois. The first day of the year, I was recovering from a slight hang over which was really embarrassing because I was the only one to have one from the night before. I spent New Years Eve celebrating with Erik's Sisters, Brother, and their significant others playing Rummy and Apples to Apples. We had a blast. I'm not a big drinker, but my third Cap cod put me a little over. I didn't get sick sick, but I wasn't able to eat anything substantial till 5pm.
• I spent my 2nd day of the year attending my first Hockey Game. It was for the Peoria Riverman which is a Farm team for the St Louis Blues. We were a little late, but we had great seats and they won the game. I bought my niece and nephew a couple of souvenirs afterwards. They had a blast!
• I had some back problems and even through my back out a little the day before I had a doctor's appointment to discuss my back. I was prescribed a couple of visits to physical therapy where they gave me exercises I'm supposed to do for the rest of my life. They also told me I have slight scoliosis which I will get a 2nd opinion on because, I've had physical therapy and chiropractic care on my back before in the last 10 years and neither of those doctors said a thing.
• In the middle of the month, Erik and I threw a BBQ and had a few friends over. One of my friend's drank way too much. It actually ended up being a play off party since the Football playoffs were that day.
• The next weekend, Erik and I ventured out to Sherman Oaks for Ryan's combined birthday party. Mick came with us and my coworker Jill also came. I was a fun night of Wii and friends.
• The Monday after was MLK day and I had the day off from work, but my coworkers really wanted to do a girl day at the movies so a bunch of us got together to see Bride Wars (I wasn't planning on seeing this in the theatres). It was funny, but sadly most of the jokes were shown in the previews. I don't plan on owning it.
• The only other movie I've seen recently in the theatres was Underworld: Rise of the Lycans. I do plan on owning this one. It was a very decently done prequel and makes me forget all about the bad sequel for Underworld.
• The last day in January, Erik and I ventured out to Huntington Beach to pick up my Surf City Half-Marathon race packet for the next day. Strangely enough without planning it, I met up with my cousins there at the same time. We were all planning on meeting at Buca De Bepo that night for dinner and to load up on our carbs. As usual, we all ordered too much food, but boy was it good food.
• The next day I was woken up by my next door neighbors blasting Death Metal at 4:30 in the morning. I can normally sleep through it but since I was getting up early to go race 13 miles, i wasn't in the mood. Erik and I left a little later than I wanted but it all worked out. We ended up parking in overflow parking and the line to get on the bus was huge. I ended up on the bus with Mandi and her friend Alana, so I didn't have to hunt them down. And then we immediately ran into Tanya and Christina. The timing was perfect. Within the first mile of the race, I lost all 4 girls. They started at a much faster pace then my body was going to handle since I didn't train for it. I had my cell phone which provided me my music. My music kept me entertained while I walked and occasionally jogged. By mile 4, I was starting to hurt. In mile 8, I saw Alana just ahead of me, so I jogged to catch up and we walked miles 9-13. It was nice to have someone there to keep pace with in the final miles because I was in a lot of pain. I jogged across the finish 3:37 minutes after I started. Not too bad without any training. I averaged about 16:30 a mile. After the race, I could barely walk. Erik and I went home and he waited on me while we watched the Superbowl. One of the better games, I've watched in a while.
• I really didn't walk normally till Wednesday and then it still hurt. We picked up our combined Valentine gift on Wed. We got a surround sound system to go with our TV. I know I'm such a geek. It took Erik 3 days to finally get it installed, but the sound is great.
• Strangely, on Friday just a section of my left quad muscle decided to hurt me. I was limping all day Saturday when we went to the Getty Center with Mick, Fred and Judy. We caught a lull in the rain and it was so beautiful there. We stayed 5 hours walking around and looking at all the art and antique furniture they have.
• Sunday we called it a rainy day, Erik and I played Little Big Planet (the most adorable game ever), Erik did laundry for me, and I also continued to work on my Twilight puzzle that I picked up the night we went to see Underworld. There's a lot of dark colors in the puzzle so it's pretty much kicking my ass. I've been working on it a week and I'm hoping to finish it tonight.
• This week at work, we're preparing for a huge remodel and I'm looking forward to the change; I'm not looking forward to people messing with my organization.
• I'm going to start a race training program: couch to 5k. I wanted to start this week, but I don't know if I'm going to with the rain. It's a 9 week program so I technically don't have to start for another 2 weeks if I want to do the OC half Marathon in May (which I'm seriously thinking of doing). I've got the bug heehee. Since I had no training for the last Half, I wanted to step it up a little to see where it takes me. I will eventually do some hard core training, but I don't know if my time is quite ready for it.

I will follow this up with a picture post of some of the events I listed above.