Another busy weekend...

Friday was a sad day at work. It was my (planet unicorn) buddy Katherine's last day. Slowly all my pals are leaving.. We used to have to pull chairs up to our lunch table, now we're going to have to recruit new members. Boo Hoo :( Anyway, we had a farewell lunch for her. There was no one at work on Friday so we didn't feel bad at all when our lunch/gossip session lasted for 2 hours!! It's always sad seeing someone go but she's a core member of our "eating club" so we'll be seeing her again!! Good luck at Tar-jay Kat!! Later that night was my friend Brigitte's birthday party at The Melting Pot. Really good but REALLY expensive. Who knew fondue was as expensive as lobster, caviar AND filet mignon? We had 7 people total but only 4 had dinner. 300 bucks!! Good Lawd..as Kim would say :) Saturday night was my third concert of the week, Mat Kearney. Imagine my shock when I found out that cameras were banned. The nerve!! I could have had some great shots if I could have snuck one in. Oh well! I managed to snag a set list sheet so that's the only thing I've got! It was a great show and The Social is an awesome venue. You can get so close, you almost feel like you are on stage with the band. I'll be back again on the 13th. Denise and I are selling merchandise for The Gabe Dixon Band. I'm so excited. Free admission, free stuff, hang with the band. How fun!! I could easily be a groupie :)

The Samples

This has been a truly crazy week. I'm borderline sick...probably because I'm so run down and to make things worse, my ankles hurt so bad I can barely walk. My running days may be over :( I have pretty much determined that it has been all my years of wearing high heels. My foot has been on an angle for all those years and now when I run I am pulling down and stretching out my muscles or my Achilles tendon or whatever. It just hurts!! Not sure what the solution is? I know that I am not going to be able to go to my class on Monday. The only way I can even walk is to wear heels. There's a walk-in orthopedic clinic down the street from me that I'm going to have to pay a visit. I'm so disappointed though. I was really enjoying my class! We were timed on Wednesday for the mile and with my sore ankles and all I did a 12 minute mile...I was happy with that!! Oh well, we'll see what happens. Any suggestions?? So, this has been my week of concerts. Started with Cat Power last Saturday, The Samples on Thursday and tonight is Mat Kearney. I'll blog a bit on The Samples for now. I was so excited to see them. I listened to them ALL the time in college. I can't believe they are still touring. My friend Denise and I went. We decided to go have dinner before the show and on our way to the restaurant we crossed the street and saw their tour bus. I wasn't really paying attention but Denise noticed two guys standing by the bus and said, are you guys in the band? They said yeah and I turned around and it was Sean, the lead singer. I got a little star struck although I'm probably one of the few on the planet that even know who The Samples are. (FYI-Dave Matthews used to open up for them) Anyway, we chatted with him for a bit, told him our names and he asked me what I wanted them to play. I got a picture with him too. I'm a blogger ya know...I don't go anywhere without a camera! Later on at the club we ran into him again and he remembered my name. He even yelled out from the stage and said Bethany, how's the sound over there? There were only about 4o people in the whole place so it wasn't hard to get attention but I still felt special :) Anyway, they were awesome and sounded pretty much the same as they did when I was in college. I'm spoiled now! I want special recognition at every concert!!

One week down, 9 to go!!

Just got home from class #2! Quite the work out. 3 miles again. This time more running than walking. I'll be going to bed early tonight. Here's a couple pics to prove that we actually are runners! Seth and Shalene and Seth and I. Running buddies :)

These will be our before shots. We'll take the same pics on Dec 19th and see if we have changed...

We made it!!

So tonight we started our class. It wasn't SO bad but I guess for the first night, how bad could it be?? It was pretty basic. We met at Lake Eola. There's a pretty big group of us. Mostly women (not going to meet my future husband there, that's for sure) We started with an introduction and then our trainer had us walk around the lake first, then we ran/walked 2 more times. We did about 3 miles total which is more exercise than I've had in a LONG time. I think it's going to be good. We meet at the lake on Monday's and the track on Wednesday's. Lake= distance Track= speed. We get timed next Wednesday. Hopefully by December I will have improved a bit. We'll see! I'm excited about running in our first 5k. Maybe in December? After class, Shalene and I went back to my house. Jenny and Karen were there and dinner was waiting. How cool is that?? Jenny made pecan and parmesan encrusted tilapia with a lemon cream sauce, brown rice and asparagus and a yummy peach and strawberry cobbler. Everything was delicious!! I even broke open a bottle of 2 buck chuck! I'm spoiled now. What am I going to eat on Wednesday after class?? I told Shalene we'd be the only two in the class to probably gain weight..hehehe

Baltimore

I'm so behind on my blogging! It takes a lot of time to sit down and write, post pics... I just don't have much time. Anyway, I'll backtrack a bit. I went to Baltimore last Thursday for a mini-vacation. It was a 3 in 1 trip. Was going to see Paolo Nutini in concert, going to my friend Nicole's baby shower and going to visit my aunt, uncle and cousins in Delaware. I left on Thursday evening after work and flew into BWI. My mom flew in as well from Greensboro and we met up at the airport. We stayed by the airport that night since it was so late. The next morning we got up and headed into Baltimore. We were able to check into our hotel early, so we put our stuff down and then headed out. We hit the Inner Harbor for a bit. Had a crabcake at Phillips...Maryland is all about crab so we were on a quest for some good crabcakes. (Unfortunately we never really had any) Got bored with the Inner Harbor. Been there done that! My mom is from Maryland and I have grown up going to MD visiting family so we had seen our share of the IH. We decided to cab it to Fells Point. What a neat little area. Very, very charming but very young and collegy (if that's a word?) I can only imagine what it's like on a weekend night. Tons of bars!! We wandered past an old police station and saw that it was where they filmed the tv show Homicide. Got a pic! Did a little shopping and stopped in a diner and had some Maryland crab soup. We were determined to have all things crab. The night before we had crab quesadillas at the hotel lounge. Believe it or not, they were probably the best "crab" thing we had the whole trip! We headed back to the hotel to freshen up and then we were off to see Paolo Nutini. He was playing at the Rams Head Live which is a very cool venue for concerts!! He was AWESOME!! I wasn't expecting him to sound so good live but he was amazing! The opening bands were really good too. Serena Ryder and Jon McLaughlin (who is also pretty amazing) It was a great night and it was so cool being there with my mom. I am so blessed to have such a cool, hip mom who loves all the same things I do. Not many moms I know would be squirming their way up to the front of a concert to rock out with Paolo Nutini :) We had a great time in Baltimore and headed to Delaware the next day. My cousin and all of her kids picked us up and drove us to my aunt and uncle's house. Delaware was really nice. Very rural for the most part but cute little beach towns along the way. My aunt lives near Lewes, Delaware. What a charming little town. Very New England like and just adorable..and it's a few minutes from the Ocean. We went down to the beach at sunset and saw the largest natural dune on the East Coast. Really beautiful! Thh next day we headed back to Maryland and over to the Eastern Shore. My friend from college, Nicole, is pregnant and was having a baby shower. I'll post a pic for any of you that know Nicole. So strange seeing her 8 months pregnant. She's lucky and has really just gained in her stomach. The shower was nice. Beautiful house!! I only stayed for a couple hours and then had to head back to Delaware. The next day we went into Lewes again and had lunch and then trekked it back to the airport. LOTS of driving on this trip. Stressful drive though. We were pushing it with the timing. I was getting nervous that's for sure. We finally made it. After we got through security we went to my gate since I was leaving first. My mom's flight was going out a couple hours later. I was flying out of D2 and saw the sign that said D2 and D4 together. We saw that gate D4 was boarding and didn't see a gate D2. We just assumed that maybe my flight was going after so we went and got coffee, sat down and yapped a bit until I heard, FINAL boarding call for Orlando. D2 was down in the corner where we never even looked. I raced down there and barely made my flight. That would have been amusing and definitely blog worthy.. I got lucky!! All in all it was a nice trip but I was ready to get back home. I missed the A/C! It was about as hot as Florida there and it seemed like NOBODY used their a/c. Crazy stuff! Ok, gotta go and get ready now. I'm going to a play called Return to the Forbidden Planet. A sci-fi 80's campy sort of musical. I'll let you know how it is! Oh yeah...It's T-1 and counting. Tomorrow is the day we start our running class. YIKES! We were tryng to recruit some people at a party last night to come and take pics for the blog. Not sure if anyone agreed but we did get Jenny to agree to cook dinner at my house and have it waiting for us when we get back from our class :) So I guess I'm having another dinner party tomorrow night...

Funny picture

You may wonder why I call this blog, Welcome to my crazy life?? There hasn't been anything crazy to add since I started it. I guess that's a good thing?? Normally though, I have all kinds of stories... Just haven't had many lately. Give me some time!! Anyway, here's a funny picture. I was home watching tv the other night when my phone rang around 9:30. It was my landlord asking if he could come over and hang some blinds. I told him that would be fine and frantically ran around trying to pick things up. Nothing like an unexpected visit when you're in your pj's and settled down for the night. I run down to meet him and he asked if his partner Bob could come over in his bathrobe to look at the handle on my shower. It recently had pulled out of the wall. I laughed to myself and let them both in. They both went up to my room and into my shower to fix the handle. It struck me as funny for some reason and I started to crack up as I watched them in my shower. I asked them if I could take a picture for my blog. They both looked at me like I was nuts. Ah, the things that make you laugh!!!