52 New Things -- Week 18 -- Colombia (Part Uno)

It's ironic -- I came up with the whole "52 New Things" resolution because I didn't think I'd get to go anywhere new and exciting in 2013. I wanted to try and find joy in new things wherever I was . . . and then my hubby booked two tickets to Colombia! I have enough material to last me months, if I were to write about one Colombian experience a week, but that kind of seems like cheating. Instead, I'll do two parts -- we were gone for ten days, so I think that's fair.

The Amazing Race-Style Connection in Atlanta
Ugh. Here's a little update for ya from a few weeks ago when I tried to take up running: it lasted two weeks. It's unfortunate, really, because I could have used the training. Our flight from Minneapolis to Atlanta was delayed, delayed, delayed . . . we arrived with just fifteen minutes to make our connecting flight. We sprinted through the airport, bounded down the escalator, and caught the train just as the doors closed. Five stops later, we ran off the train. I hurdled a suitcase and kept on running, up, up, up the loooongest escalator I've ever seen. I was huffing and puffing by the end of it and started thinking maybe a night in Atlanta and a flight out in the morning wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. I half ran/half limped my way to the finish line, staggering breathless to the ticket counter as the agent was about to give our tickets to vultures on standby. Not today, suckers.

Little did I know, it was about to turn into an actual weapon . . .

Spousal Abuse
Our first day in Colombia, my husband smacked me across the forehead with an umbrella. He says it was an accident, and if I weren't so short, my forehead would not have been at the same height as the umbrella tucked under his armpit which inadvertently hit me when he turned to talk to me. I'm documenting it here, just in case.

Potato Protest
Let it be known that this trip was educational as well as entertaining. Did you know Colombia grows huge amounts of potatoes? Nor did I. And did you know that the government has been importing potatoes from other countries, driving down the price of Colombian potatoes? Well, they are. And the potato protestors came to town to make it known they were not happy about it. We saw the whole thing go down. Power to the people.

Bogota Public Transportation at Rush Hour
Bogota buses at rush hour? Cray. Zay. I'd say their bus system is pretty high-tech. Very well done. We just chose the wrong time to use it. We stood in line, watching already-full buses pull up. One or two people would smash themselves on before the bus pulled away. When we got to the front and an already-full bus pulled up, we said, ah, we'll just wait for the next one. The crowd had different ideas. It surged forward and we had nowhere to go but onto the bus. Thank goodness Kevin has a totally flat butt, because if not, when those air-lock doors squeezed shut, it totally would have gotten pinched. I kept saying "sorry" to the girl I appeared to be slow dancing with, but Kevin told me to chill out since they're all probably used to this and I was making myself look crazy. I tried to swivel my head exorcist-style to see who was spooning me from behind but couldn't get a good look at him. Kevin reached up and grabbed the bar above his head; he looked like a mother hen with several chicks under his wings. Two young ladies kept glancing up at him nervously, hoping he wouldn't come crashing down on them. Luckily everyone was packed in so tight that no one moved when the bus lurched. So much for my personal space bubble!

Channeling Ricky Bobby
On day two, we left for the hills at 4AM. After a few hours, we left the wide-open highway for narrow, winding roads through the mountains. I'm pretty sure the further up and out we went, the more narrow and winding the roads became. Often there was no shoulder along the side of the road, just a sheer cliff. Every few miles or so, a little shrine was set up; on top of a pole, a box the size of a mini-fridge featured a glass front and a statue inside of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus. As we wound our way up and around and around and up, I found myself praying to sweet baby Jesus a la Ricky Bobby, asking him to please not let us get hit by a truck or go careening off the sheer cliff or a combination of the two. The more winding the roads got, I also found myself asking sweet baby Jesus to not let me throw up, which leads to . . .

Colombian Pharmaceuticals

At least the scenery was amazing . . .

We were traveling with two members of Kevin's Colombian "family," people he knew and stayed with when he taught English in Colombia back in 1998. Wilson kindly pulled over at one point to let me get in the front seat when I was feeling sick. A few towns later, he went into a little store and came out with two small tablets. Kevin translated for me that it was something for motion sickness. It didn't strike me until later that maybe I shouldn't take drugs when I haven't read the labels and found out the numerous potential side effects. I guess if I have a three-headed baby in the future, we'll all know why.

No Seaties, Sweeties
Why are there toilet seats on the toilets in Bogota but not on the toilet seats in the mountains? It's a mystery. All I know is that I squatted/teetered for five straight days. Besides cardio, I also should have done some strength and balance exercises before this trip.

Improper Footwear
The people in Colombia were AMAZING! While staying in the little mountain town of El Cocuy, Kevin's Colombian family arranged little trips to the mountains for us every day. Unfortunately, with my language barrier, I often wasn't clear on the plan. For example, the first day in the mountains, I thought we were going for a scenic drive. When we got out at the top of a 15,000-footer and started walking, I shot daggers at Kevin with my eyes and asked why he didn't translate for me that I needed hiking boots instead of the sandals I had on? It wasn't much of a hike, though. We just ate cookies after walking uphill about a hundred yards. No biggie. But later on, when horses suddenly appeared in front of us and we were told to climb on? Yeah. Shoes would have been nice. Worse, though, was two days later, when I specifically asked what we were going to be doing and showed the sandals I was wearing. I got a "yeah, that's fine" and away we went. That day we hiked for several miles, including through a cow pasture with fresh cow pies. I shudder two weeks later, just thinking about it. I was very careful where I placed each step, and I made it out poop-free, but let me tell ya, Kevin got the daggers again for that one.

I know what you're thinking: perfect footwear choice!

Hi-Ho Silver -- Away!
Let's back up to that horse ride again for a minute. Awe. Some. This was not a nose-to-tail trail ride like those I've been on before. This was a no-trail, three-hour ride through the mountains, past this farmer's sheep and that farmer's cows, up, up, up to the clouds. Unbelievable. At one point I found myself feeling that same feeling I had while driving around the country -- totally blessed. I wish I could find that sense of awe on a more regular basis and not just when I'm out doing something new or amazing; I'm sure it's an attitude shift and I just need to work on counting my every-day blessings. It was like being in a movie, looking down on this gorgeous, untouched landscape. But the ride down? A bit more scary. I reignited some of those sweet baby Jesus prayers on the steep parts, especially the couple of times when my horse lost his footing. Eesh. Even more worrisome was looking back at my gigantic husband and the poor horse that had to carry him; at one point on an incredibly steep part, I thought for sure Kevin was going to get launched right over the horse's head. Phew. Made it out alive. No horseback ride in the future will ever compete with that one, I'm pretty sure.

Mere moments before ramming my head into a steel beam . . .

Self-Inflicted Head Injuries
I'd like to say this is the fault of Colombians being short and therefore making their bridges too low, but the truth is I just wasn't paying attention. I was looking down at a camera, and BOOM. I walked straight into a bridge. With my forehead. It was painful. And the Colombians thought I was stupid, I'm sure. Luckily only two of them saw it, but man, did that ever hurt. Note to self: pay more attention to your surroundings. On the upside, we got some lovely pictures there!

Mother's Day the Colombian Way
Sunday morning I heard a siren for the first time in El Cocuy, the picturesque little village we spent five days in. I found out later that this wasn't an emergency, just a little something extra for Mother's Day. Shortly after the siren, some fireworks went off. Mother's Day again. We walked by the town bakery and saw ten cakes in the cases. They looked delish! Then music started blaring from the cathedral, loud enough to be heard all over town. All my poor mom got was a box of chocolate-covered strawberries. I kind of feel like a slacker. Sorry, Mom!

American Idol in Colombian Church
Before leaving town, we worshiped with the Lutheran church of El Cocuy. The night before, the pastor asked if we would sing something in English while the congregation took communion. No prob. I mean, most people there spoke little to no English, so even if we forgot the words, no one would know, right? I mean, we could sing anything. We considered a holy-sounding version of "Call Me Maybe," but neither of us knew enough words to even bluff it. We ended up doing two rounds of "I Love You, Lord" and two verses of "Amazing Grace." And we were both super-nervous, even if we could forget the words. I guess super-stardom is not in our future.

So that's Week 1 . . . .stay tuned for Week 2!

52 New Things -- Week 17 -- Hemming Pants (Shut up, you Martha's! I'm trying to learn a skill here!)

We're leaving for Colombia. Tomorrow. Why am I blogging right now? Because I spent half my day yesterday on this stupid project and I want someone to know about it.

I think everyone knows I hate shopping. I needed some travel pants, though. You see, when we went to India last fall for our honeymoon, it only took me half a day to realize every person there -- male and female -- was staring at my legs. I was wearing a cute little sundress, because hey, I hadn't seen my husband in six weeks and I thought he might appreciate seeing a little skin, even if it was blindingly white. I quickly realized, though, that the India women's saris went all the way down to their ankles. Whoops. Cultural faux pas on my part. 

I don't know if Colombian women are all about the coverage, too, but I thought I'd better play it safe this time. I headed off to Goodwill to buy some cheap pants to make the journey south with me. The only problem? I'm an oompah-loompah, I guess. I couldn't find a single pair of pants that weren't way too long. The price was right, though, so I bought two pair and figured I'd hem them.

I've had a few bouts with Susie Homemaker Syndrome in the past. I don't know if it was Molly Ringwald and her homemade prom dress in Pretty in Pink or my jealousy of other girls' projects in 4-H or what, but I had grand delusions in high school that I could make my own clothes. I took freshman home ec., and while other girls were making shorts, I fashioned a jumper. Yeah. A jumper. Horribly uneven gathers and all, I wore that jumper to church repeatedly. Even worse? I made three more jumpers before I graduated. Not sure what the weird fascination with jumpers was, but I wore those things out in public. For real. (Later on in college I donated them to the clown closet at the summer camp where I worked . . . that's a little taste of how awful they were.)

I took another home ec. class my sophomore year: clothing. An entire semester dedicated to learning how to make your own clothes. I am not making this up. I spent weeks working on the most hideous pair of pleated pants you can imagine. We are talking MC Hammer-but-not-on-purpose pants. I beamed on the day I finished them, then triumphantly strutted to the closet Mrs. Fondroy had us use as a dressing room . . . only to find out, to my horror, that I hadn't used enough elastic in the waistband and I couldn't pull them up past my thighs. Needless to say, I did not get an A.

My delusions of homemade fashions-grandeur ebbed for a few years, only to come back during my senior year of college. Using some of that hard-earned camp counselor money, I went out and bought a sewing machine and some bold sunflower-printed fabric to make my sunflower-loving sister a Christmas present. The look on her face as she opened that gift did not express wonder at my even stitches; when she tried on the skirt, it definitely looked like a sunflower-covered tent. Later on I refashioned it into a tablecloth. Yeah. It was that big.

When I moved away from Colorado, I sold the sewing machine. It had been collecting dust in my closet for ten years and I was not interested in moving it again . . . 

. . . which brings me to the dilemma of the too-long Goodwill pants. How could I hem them when I no longer had a sewing machine? I wasn't about to actually stitch them by hand. That would take forever.

I searched the web for no-sew hem ideas and found that lots of people recommended iron-on hemming tape. Easy peasy. I was in. But when I went to buy it, it was right next to a tube of Liquid Stitch.

Liquid Stitch! I had half a bottle of that sitting at home! I'd used it to make these little doosies for an ugly Christmas sweater party:

I know what you're thinking: can I borrow those for next year? The answer is no, since they didn't last the night. The Liquid Stitch held the tinsel on just fine, but the purple ornaments, hand sewn on, kept falling off on the bowling alley floor all night. I'm sure the owners loved us and our shattered purple balls. What does that tell you about my sewing skills? (And yes, there are lights on those shirts. They were pretty fabulous. I mean, with my track record for craftiness, I knew I had a great shot at creating the ugliest of ugly Christmas sweaters.)

So anyway, why buy hem tape when you can use the Liquid Stitch you've got sitting around at home? And also, why go to the trouble of trying on the pants again to measure how much needs to be hemmed when you could just compare them to a pair of pants you already like, right? So that's how I started this little Martha Stewart of a project.

I remembered using pins back in my home ec. days, so I stuck some pins in. Also, note here that the last time I bought second-hand pants that were too long, I just cut them off and didn't even bother hemming them. They've lasted like four years now, so whatever. 

And then I was like, oh hey, I think the pins are supposed to hold the fabric where you want the hem to be, not just randomly stuck in the pants. I went to move them and found that I had pinned the pants to the comforter on my bed. I'm pretty sure I'll never get hired in a sweat shop.

When I pulled the pins out of my old sewing box, I also found this dandy little plastic six-inch ruler. It has a Bible verse on it and it says, "Lutheran Layman's League." I don't remember exactly when I acquired this important piece of sewing equipment, but I'm pretty sure it was a prize I won playing Bingo with my grandparents at the annual church picnic, sometime in the 1983-1987 time frame.

So anyway, once I figured out how to pin the hems, I ironed for the first time in I don't know how long. If it's any indication, the ironing board cover is an Aztec-y kind of pattern, so back when Aztec-y was an acceptable home fashion trend is how long ago it was. Then I slathered on the Liquid Stitch and let it seal my no-sew hem. Awesome.

Don't you love how I'm showing you pictures and explaining the step-by-step process just like those Pinterest women who tell you how to do all sorts of awesome things that you pin to your page knowing full well that there's not a chance in the world you're ever going to make it? I know!!

Unfortunately, friends, this is where the photo-blog stops. Why? Because after the glue dried and I tried the pants on four hours later, my foolproof method of comparing vs. measuring left me with pants that were still too long. As in, two inches too long. As in, you've got to do this whole stupid process over again if you want to wear these pants without tripping on them too long. I had to wrestle that stupid ironing board back out of the closet and repeat the whole freaking process. I was cursing Goodwill and their cheap pants at that point. 

I didn't bother trying them on again after fake hem number two. They're in the suitcase. I may look like I'm preparing for a flood as I walk around Colombia, but after all that work, I'm wearing the dumb things -- short, long, or in between.

So the final cost of my travel pants?

-- $4 per pair for a grand total of $8

-- Way more of my Saturday than I wanted to spend on this stupid project

-- One partially maimed plastic Lutheran Layman's League ruler (but I really think that's not bad considering I hadn't touched an iron in ten years and could have caused way more damage) but I wasn't using the centimeter side of it anyway

Next time I think I'll go back to the "just cut off the bottom" method. Happy Pinning!!

52 New Things -- Week 16 -- Earth Day Celebration

I have to say, I'm pretty bummed to be leaving the La Crosse area so soon. I mean, we're just starting to grow close to some really cool people, and now we're leaving already. It kind of stinks.

Also stinky? We missed some stuff this year that we thought we'd have plenty of opportunities to check out in the future, not knowing we'd be headed south again so soon. La Crosse has a gigantic Octoberfest celebration, but we only went to the parade; Kevin was leaving for his six-week trip to Asia two days later, and we didn't want our last few days together before the long separation having beer sloshed all over us. Then in December, there was a giant light display in the park down by the river; crossing the bridge over the Mississippi, I could see all the trees covered in lights. I'm not a fan of the cold, though, so I kept waiting for a warm night to go walk through it . . . and it just never warmed up enough for my liking.

So when I saw a flyer for an Earth Day festival, I thought, heck, here's my chance to see a La Crosse event before I take off! It was set for Sunday, and we planned to meet some friends there at 11AM. We went to a church other than the one we normally go to since they had a 9AM service; our usual 10:30 service wouldn't get us there in time. Kevin and I gave each other a little grimace when the pastor included a warning against Earth Day enthusiasts in his sermon; could he somehow tell we were bound for the festival right after worship? He said we should stay away from those who worship Mother Earth and give her all the credit for creation . . .

. . . so we headed out for the park and guess what? There wasn't a Mother Earth evangelist in sight. Just lots of kids and grown-ups checking out rain barrels and baby turtles and bike blenders. And this, the highlight of my day:

One of my goals in life is to be a costumed character someday. Mickey Mouse, Chuck E. Cheese, a fruit or veggie at the La Crosse Earth Day Festival . . . it makes no difference to me. I just want to be in one of those outfits and spread joy to little kids everywhere (and weird adults who love them, too).

And hey, there are still 36 weeks, friends. It could happen. 

52 New Things -- Week 15 -- Macbeth

You would think that as an English major, I would have seen a production of Macbeth at some point in my life, right? Nope. I had the opportunity this week. I won't go into detail since I'm really behind in my blogging, but here's the one thing stuck out most to me that night. Since the audience was made up primarily of high school students, the cast came out at the end of the play to sit on the edge of the stage and answer questions. One student asked how many of the actors had been in a Shakespearean play before, and almost everyone raised their hand except THE GUY WHO PLAYED MACBETH.

For real. He'd never even been in a play before, and what did he take on as his first-ever stage performance? The lead role in a Shakespeare production. Lots of soliloquies. Pretty much the entire show being on his shoulders.

So was I inspired to try out for the lead in the La Crosse Community Theater's next Shakespeare production? Heck no. Who's got time for memorizing all that? But I was impressed with the guy and reminded that trying new things is awesome . . . I just prefer my new things on a smaller scale. ;)

52 New Things -- Week 14 -- Wisconsin Trivia Championship

Nerd alert!

It all started out so innocently.  We met this other young, childless couple -- the ones who introduced me to Settlers of Catan -- and they invited us to play trivia sometime. Scott is the host/announcer, so Amanda was often left to sit alone listening to him read off the questions. We said we'd stop by sometime to play . . .

 . . . and we won a gift card -- they give $30 bar credit to the first place winners, $20 to the second place winners, and $10 to the third place winners . . .

. . . so then we had to go back another night to spend our winnings . . .

. . . and when Scott started hosting at a different bar, we invited a whole bunch of people so he'd have a big crowd on his first night there . . .

. . . and Amanda, Kevin, and I sat next to and started playing with A.J. and Nick . . .

. . . and then we won, so we had to come back and play again the next week and spend our winnings . . .

. . . and lo and behold if we didn't win again the next time . . .

. . . and pretty soon we were winning pretty much every week and everyone else in the bar was hating on the Roaring Cheetahs. Geesh. We can't help it that we're awesome.

So anyway, long story short, these trivia scores got added up every week and the top fifteen teams in La Crosse got invited to play in the state championship game. Madison and Milwaukee each got thirty teams. La Crosse and Eau Claire's top fifteen teams got to play. There are some other cities who had teams, too, but because I'm not from around here, I can't name them. (Obviously Wisconsin geography questions don't come up much or we'd be out of luck.)

All in all, 120 were playing at the bar on Saturday. Scott had told us in advance that the questions were really hard and someone from Madison or Milwaukee always won. In other words, come on out, have some fun, but don't have too high of expectations.

I should mention that Amanda had to bow out at this point. First place wins $2000, so people take it seriously. Scott was afraid if by some wild chance we did win, people might not find it fair that his wife was on the team. He said we should recruit a couple more players since every team can have six players, so we invited Jon and Christina, another couple that plays most Monday nights, to join us.

So there we were, sitting in our booth, expecting awful, unanswerable questions, when the first question was asked. It was something along the lines of, "On Seinfeld, what Latvian word is used to describe Kramer's "lure of the animal," meaning women can't stay away from him?"

A.J., Jon, Christina, Kevin, and I stared blankly at each other. Nick grabbed the answer pad and wrote down "kavorka." I have no idea how on earth he knew that, but whatever. We were off.

(Nick turned out to be the master of strange knowledge. He also came through in the clutch with "Trixie" when asked the name of Speed Racer's girlfriend. Who knows this stuff?)

The Roaring Cheetahs doing our super-intimidating roar!!

So yeah, we rocked. It was shocking, really. At halftime when Scott read the scores, we were SECOND IN THE ENTIRE STATE OF WISCONSIN. We couldn't believe it.

Unfortunately it was all downhill from there. We stunk it up, answering question after question with wrong answers. Presidents, dogs, clothing, religions, geography . . . we were equal opportunity stinker-uppers. Our score in the second half was less than half our score in the first half. It was sad.

But here's the thing: everyone else in the state seemed to stink it up in the second round, too! We still had a shot at this! You could risk 0 to 20 points on the final question, and if we went up 20 while the top team went down 20, we could still win. We bet it all on the final question, eying the $2000, $500, and $100 prizes for first, second, and third.

We lost. Dang that Carly Rae Jepson and Call Me, Maybe. We thought for sure she had to be one of the top five downloaded ringtones in 2012, but she wasn't. Sigh.

So anyway, we ended up twenty-something-eth in the state of Wisconsin. Scott said if we would have bet 0, we would have been fifth in the whole state. Alas. We wanted the money, baby.

We still got a $50 gift card for getting third place in all of La Crosse, so that was nice. Also, we declared ourselves the third smartest people in all of La Crosse, Wisconsin, which is pretty much awesome and may or may not be true.

And then we resumed our regular Monday night game at our regular bar two days later . . .

. . . and won . . .

. . . so guess where we'll be, spending our winnings, this Monday?

ROAR!!

52 New Things -- Week 13 -- Running

Before you ask, no, I do not have a head injury. I'm sure you're going to wonder that when you find out that I, the woman who has always said, "Only run if you're being chased!" ran today. Nope.

I blame Colorado. It was just so gosh darn beautiful last week with the blue skies and the sunshine that I couldn't help but dream of being active outside. Plus I did a fair amount of huffing and puffing every time I walked up a slight incline. I blamed the high altitude, but let's be honest: it's been a long Minnesota winter. Being a fair-weather walker, I spent many, many more nights on the couch than getting exercise of any form. A couple of weeks ago, while I was getting undressed, Kevin looked at me and said, "We need to start working out again." I threw my pants at him and stomped out of the room.

"I said 'we,'" he called after me.

(The next day, when I'd calmed down, we had a long talk about our needs . . . like his need for me to communicate instead of stomp away, and my need for him to not imply that I'm fat if he ever wants to have sex with me ever again.)

So yeah, getting in shape wouldn't kill me . . . or would it? I hate running. Too much jiggling. Too many cramps. But I read a magazine article about Jamie Lee Curtis doing a 5K after downloading this C25K app, so I thought, heck, if a 54-year-old woman can do this, I can, too, right?

Free download = no risk. If it stunk, I'd be out nothing. The premise? By starting out slowly, alternating walking and running, you'll build up your stamina and be running a 5K at the end of eight weeks. Color me skeptical.

Today was day one. Here's how it went down:

3:45 Get home from school. Promptly sit on couch. Fiddle with iPhone to figure out how to make a playlist. Wonder why only twenty songs show up on my phone when I've got a bazillion on iTunes. Realize what a waste it is for someone like me to have a smartphone.

3:50 Playlist done on phone, try to figure out what one wears to run. Completely unaware. Put on two sports bras in an effort to reduce jiggling. Wear two layers of everything else since running sounded a lot better in sunny Colorado than 35-degree Minnesota.

3:55 Search three junk drawers for the ear buds that came with the iPhone. After finally finding them, spend several seconds flipping the iPhone around before figuring out where to insert the jack.

4:00 Leave apartment. Go right back in to get hat and gloves.

4:01 Begin five-minute "brisk warm-up." Heavy D and the Boys begin singing "Now That We Found Love" in the background. Try to remember what it was that Heavy D died from and figure probably a heart attack. Walk faster in an effort to not die the same way or garner a similar nickname.

4:06 A Tinkerbell-ish ding sounds and a soothing voice says to begin running. Take a deep breath and take off . . . at a sloth-like pace. Wonder why I didn't drive out to a deserted country road so that no one would see me. Also, wonder how one is supposed to run -- on the balls of your feet? Rolling from heel to ball? Flat-footed landings? No idea what proper form is, other than staying upright, which is taking a great amount of concentration.

4:07 Tinkerbell-ish ding and instruction to "begin walking." Not bad. Not good, but I made it a whole minute. Yay me!

4:09 Tinkerbell ding lady says to start running again. So soon??

4:09:30 Leg cramp . . . run through the pain.

4:10 Ding and walk. Thank God. I thought I might puke up those Special K bars I ate at school. Someone brought those yummy treats into the teachers' lounge today and I ate not one, not two -- I'll skip right over three and tell you -- I ate FOUR of those darn things over the course of the afternoon. They are now churning in there.

4:12 Ding and run. Seriously? Already? You're killing me, ding lady. I listen to Metro Station sing "Shake It" and remember happy times with youth group kids. Yay for ribbon dancing. Disassociation or something, right? Isn't that what hostages do? Go to a happy place when being tortured?

4:13 Ding and walk. Try to do some mental math, which is never easy for an English major. A twenty minute program, and with five minutes of warm up, that's only fifteen minutes . . . plus maybe a five minute cool-down at the end, so that's only ten, and over half of it is walking, so I won't be running all that much . . . I mean, I'm probably almost done already, right?

4:15 Ding and run. That seriously cannot have been the whole rest period.

4:16 Ding and walk. Oh, Special K Bars with your chewy, gooey goodness and your delicious chocolate frosting . . . please stay down. Almost done.

4:16:30 Think I'm having a heart attack but then realize the pain is on the wrong side of my chest. And it's more external than internal. Make mental note to wear three sports bras tomorrow.

4:18 Ding and run. The ding is followed by a chipper announcement that I am halfway there! Halfway? I think hateful thoughts toward the disembodied voice as I realize the twenty minutes do not include the warm up or cool down.

4:19 Ding and walk. Oh. Oh. I'm dying. I'm pretty sure.

4:21 Ding and run. I plod along with the grace of a wounded gazelle, wondering how many people are looking out their windows and judging me.

4:22 Ding and walk. Thank you, Jesus.

4:24 Ding and run. Wish someone had taught me how to run at some point in my life since it obviously does not come naturally. Think back to high school P.E. and the curriculum that could easily have been called "Ten Variations on Dodge Ball." Awesome at the time, but not so useful lifeskill-wise . . .

4:25 Ding and walk. Notice that my walk has gotten considerably slower since I started.

4:27 Ding and run. Decide I am probably doing irreparable damage to my spine and stuff. Wonder why no one has invented a workout called "Gentle Stretches on a Queen-Sized Bed." I could jump on that train whole-heartedly.

4:28 Ding and walk. One minute to go, the trainer lady says. Hallellujah. I was about to start repeating what I'd heard in church on Friday re: forsaking, but I didn't want to get all melodramatic up in here.

4:29. Ding and instruction to "begin cool down." Oh honey, I started that a minute ago without you telling me to.

4:31 Arrive back at apartment and do some stretches on the front step. High school girls track team runs by . . . effortlessly. Sigh.

4:34 Ding and a message that my cool down walk is now over. Lady, I am already on my couch. You don't have to tell me to stop.

So yeah . . . I mean, I didn't die, so I've got that going for me, but I have to tell you that I am definitely not looking forward to repeating this tomorrow. Now excuse me while I go ice my hip . . .

52 New Things -- Week 12 -- Spring Break!!

Sometimes I look at college kids and think, Did I have an insanely different college experience or what? I mean, call me dull, but the thought of a Spring Break trip that I pay thousands of dollars for but don't remember a thing about? Not appealing.

(Oh, and while watching something on Hulu the other night, we saw the same trailer for a new Spring Break-themed movie about ten times, during which a bunch of former Disney girls are obviously desperately trying to break out of their Disney mold. Yikes.)

But last week I went on my first ever Spring Break trip! Whoo-hoooooo!

(Don't get too concerned. There was very little alcohol involved and absolutely no bikinis.)

Also, it's been about fifteen years since I even had the opportunity to go on a spring break trip, being out of the education world for a long time, so it's not like this is earth shattering, but . . .

Whoo-hoooooo!!! Spring Break trip!

We had the best week! Sunshine, skiing for a day (well, part of a day . . . our legs gave out fairly early . . . ), getting to know some of Kevin's family members, and not having to work = AWESOME!!! (Grown up Spring Break must seem totally lame to college kids, huh?) We ate more than I thought our stomachs could hold, but we did some hiking so that totally offsets the gluttony, right?

Best of all, though, was that I got to see LOTS of my old friends, and Kevin endured being introduced to almost everyone for the first time. I think he was exhausted by the end of three days of constantly being "on," but he was a trooper and knew it was important for me.

I left feeling very loved . . . and very thankful. Those ten years in Colorado played a huge part in making me who I am today. If I could have one superpower, it would be teleportation so I could just blink my eyes and be anywhere I wanted to be, with anyone I wanted to see.

Miss you, friends! Thanks for the best Spring Break trip EVER! (And just because this is the only one I've ever taken, don't feel slighted. I'm sure it's waaaay better than anything those college kids did this year . . . )