Berfday weekend
Aww, thanks everybody for the birthday wishes and virtual gifts! I appreciate them so, so much.
I got taken out to dinner Saturday night by Rachel and Alyzan. I got some pressies, a new stuffed llama (yay) and a pretty pretty necklace. Then we ate at one of my favorite restaurants where I had delicious delicious sangria and got to have a few bites of decadent chocolate dessert. We went back to Rachel's and had wine and cheese and watched YouTube videos.
Sunday I went hiking. I joined a Meetup.com group of women-only hiking buddies called, naturally, Babes in the Woods and they already had an outing planned for Sunday. I'd had idle thoughts about going on a hike on my own, but heck, this one's already arranged. It was in...Hocking Hills. Where I JUST WAS last weekend. But they were planning to hike at two sites, one of which I'd never seen, so that's okay. There were about nine of us, a diverse group of women of varying ages from mid-twenties to fifties. They were all friendly and interesting and excellent hike company. We carpooled down; I rode with a Tanzanian/Kenyan woman named Rarin (prounounced rah-REEN) and we had great conversation. She was so excited when she discovered that I love "Deadwood." :-)
Anyhow, bit of an eye-opener, it was. Most of the women were smaller than me, some significantly so, and several of them were very experienced hikers...but I felt like I was one of the fitter people in the group. Hocking Hills hikes aren't typically super long but some of them do involve a lot of up and down because they're all on gorges and cliffs and such. We'd hike up a long incline or a big series of stairs and we'd pause for a breather and I noticed that I was much less out of breath than most of my companions. I was never more than slightly out of breath. The other women commented on it. "You're in such great shape!" they said. That was like hearing someone tell me "Your skin is such a lovely shade of purple!" Although I guess having been doing cardio for eight months probably has earned me some degree of in-shape-ed-ness. But all I think of in terms of my fitness level is that I can only jog 90 seconds at a time on my Couch to 5K workouts. I mean, I've got a ways to go to my goal weight. Quite a ways to go. But I'm so accustomed to thinking of myself as "out of shape." I don't really think I'm in "great shape." But I may have to upgrade my internal assessment to "moderately decent shape."
One of the other women in the group got this AWESOME picture of me in front of one of the falls. I can't wait to see it. That one might get framed.
So we got back to Cbus around 4, after a quick stopoff to see Brian I went home and showered and washed my Keens and relaxed. But then I spent most of the evening sick from dumping (an unpleasant condition we post-ops sometimes get when food doesn't agree with us) after having eaten some ill-advised pizza. Live and learn. I ended up going to bed at like ten o'clock.
This week will be a short week because OMG COLLEGE REUNION YAY. I'm going to try and put in some extra hours early in the week so I can have a short day on Thursday, because my flight leaves at 6:10 in the morning on Friday which means I have to get up at, like, three thirty if I want to be at the airport before five. That means early bedtime and not much time to pack if I leave work at the normal time.
I got taken out to dinner Saturday night by Rachel and Alyzan. I got some pressies, a new stuffed llama (yay) and a pretty pretty necklace. Then we ate at one of my favorite restaurants where I had delicious delicious sangria and got to have a few bites of decadent chocolate dessert. We went back to Rachel's and had wine and cheese and watched YouTube videos.
Sunday I went hiking. I joined a Meetup.com group of women-only hiking buddies called, naturally, Babes in the Woods and they already had an outing planned for Sunday. I'd had idle thoughts about going on a hike on my own, but heck, this one's already arranged. It was in...Hocking Hills. Where I JUST WAS last weekend. But they were planning to hike at two sites, one of which I'd never seen, so that's okay. There were about nine of us, a diverse group of women of varying ages from mid-twenties to fifties. They were all friendly and interesting and excellent hike company. We carpooled down; I rode with a Tanzanian/Kenyan woman named Rarin (prounounced rah-REEN) and we had great conversation. She was so excited when she discovered that I love "Deadwood." :-)
Anyhow, bit of an eye-opener, it was. Most of the women were smaller than me, some significantly so, and several of them were very experienced hikers...but I felt like I was one of the fitter people in the group. Hocking Hills hikes aren't typically super long but some of them do involve a lot of up and down because they're all on gorges and cliffs and such. We'd hike up a long incline or a big series of stairs and we'd pause for a breather and I noticed that I was much less out of breath than most of my companions. I was never more than slightly out of breath. The other women commented on it. "You're in such great shape!" they said. That was like hearing someone tell me "Your skin is such a lovely shade of purple!" Although I guess having been doing cardio for eight months probably has earned me some degree of in-shape-ed-ness. But all I think of in terms of my fitness level is that I can only jog 90 seconds at a time on my Couch to 5K workouts. I mean, I've got a ways to go to my goal weight. Quite a ways to go. But I'm so accustomed to thinking of myself as "out of shape." I don't really think I'm in "great shape." But I may have to upgrade my internal assessment to "moderately decent shape."
One of the other women in the group got this AWESOME picture of me in front of one of the falls. I can't wait to see it. That one might get framed.
So we got back to Cbus around 4, after a quick stopoff to see Brian I went home and showered and washed my Keens and relaxed. But then I spent most of the evening sick from dumping (an unpleasant condition we post-ops sometimes get when food doesn't agree with us) after having eaten some ill-advised pizza. Live and learn. I ended up going to bed at like ten o'clock.
This week will be a short week because OMG COLLEGE REUNION YAY. I'm going to try and put in some extra hours early in the week so I can have a short day on Thursday, because my flight leaves at 6:10 in the morning on Friday which means I have to get up at, like, three thirty if I want to be at the airport before five. That means early bedtime and not much time to pack if I leave work at the normal time.