Harry Potter Hilarity

I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned, but I'm a HUGE Harry Potter fan.  My mom used to wait in riddikulusly* long lines to get the books for me when they came out, only to hide it for about 2 weeks until we went on our family vacation.  Basically for about 5 years (I got the first 3 as a set about a year after they came out but about a year before they got popular) I was physically present for our family outing, but my nose was stuck in those books.  (I really don't want to talk about the vacation the year Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince came out. Page 596 ? Devastated. Ruined the whole trip !)  If you haven't read the books, or seen the movies you could bookmark this and come back after you've realized the error of your ways.  Or you could just stop reading now.

(*No, that's not a spelling error)

Homesick

Last night they lit the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center.  I was way more sad than I should have been.  After a lot of thought, I decided that I would not be traveling to Jersey for Christmas.  There are too many factors to get into, but ultimately, I decided that staying in North Carolina was what was best for me & the monsters and my sanity. And also my wallet. I'm looking forward to seeing how I celebrate in my own way.  But I still feel like I'm missing a little piece of myself this year. 

I'm Not Dead

Hi. Remember me ? I'm not dead [yet]. I just tend to fall off the face of social media for an extended amount of time. Especially one that requires thought and planning and effort and it's not that I don't love you guys but honestly

Story of my life for the past 2 months. Which I feel SUPER bad about and will probably apologize for over the next million blog posts.

Especially when the creation of this blog was to track my progress for a certain half marathon that, oh yeah, I KILLED in 2:14:14.

So would it be okay that even though I haven't been around in almost 2 months, I got a little braggy ? I mean, you do come here to read about me, right ?

Oh good.  Want some pictures ? Of course you do. And I just happen to have some right here:

(Finish line pic - Sweatband dude is my FAVORITE)

(YAY for this guy. I'd probably be dead if it wasn't for him)

(Let's talk about the unnecessarily GIANT finishers medal, shall we ?!)

And you'll never guess who I ran into (no not literally, she was TOTALLY done before me) ?! The super awesome Tracy !

It was one of those fun moments of "Hey ! I'm so excited to actually meet you and I smell and you're here with your family and I'm awkward and I really want coffee but high fives for awesomeness and I'm gonna go die now, kbye !" I only hope that one day I can run a sub 2:00 half like this girl. Damn !

THEN, I ran the Santa Paws 5K which was my first ever 5K last year. The course was in a different place than last year, I got lazy and hadn't run since the half and holy hills batman did that course hurt. But I still PR-ed with a 29:01 !

(Again, This guy ? Best. Ever.)

And lastly...I ran my first Turkey Trot 8K on Thanksgiving. That however, was not a fun run for me as my lungs have decided to suck A LOT. I still managed to do it in 51:58 but I walked WAY more than I wanted to.  Shout out to Big Mike for running and walking with me the whole time while I was pretty sure I was dying. [Asthma that has been dormant for about 15 years has decided to rear its ugly head again in the form of exercise induced asthma.  Currently on a steroid inhaler to kickstart my lungs so cross your fingers they stop sucking - metaphorically of course - and breathing becomes not so brutal.]

Otherwise I've just been relaxing and having awesome adventures (pictures to come once I get them all off my phone, obviously): Front row seats to a Hurricanes hockey game, fun trips to the zoo, Dracula the ballet, and lots of other fun things. I can honestly say for the first time in a VERY long time, I am so insanely happy with my life. Now if I could just get a job that doesn't make me grumpy...

What does the future have in store ? Once I can get my breathing under control, I plan on training for a TBD spring half marathon. Only this time ? NO WALKING. Now that I know I can complete one, I want to run the whole thing. And I also want to nail some PR's in the process.

I guess the only thing left is...are you guys going to hang out and see how it all unfolds ?!