My mouse is a spaz

I've dropped my laptop so many times that this last one has irrevocably sent my mouse into automove. I know that's not a word. It's like my computer is possessed. Luckily, it can be repaired, but still--quite annoying. 

Today I shoveled my first snow in MInnesota. We have the world's smallest driveway, specially chosen because shoveling snow sucks. Today I walked to a movie and finally went to the indie cinema here. It was lovely & Dan and I celebrated it with Indian food. "As spicy as you can make it." It was spicy, but didn't come near enough to killing me as I thought it would.

So we came home and I finally put the office together after 3 months of being in the house. Dan put our DVD rack together. I put away tons of blankets and papers and random junk from the past. Soon we'll start demolishing the indoor planter system the prior prior owners built and build our own wet bar.

Bartles had his trivia party, with a good turn-out. My category was world leaders, so I'll leave with the world leader trivia question:

Well, I would leave you with them, but my mouse won't let me copy/paste.
The answers are:
Stalin
Boutros Boutros Gahli
Congo
Nicolae Carpathia
Thunderbirds.

Now you guess the question!

5K Reindeer Run

Last year, I attended the 5k Reindeer run with some of my coworkers at Lake Harriet. That's where I first met Tim, who was also assigned to the Philippines with us. I'd driven in from Burnsville and cursed the snow, which was making my drive pretty slippery and nasty. Additionally, I cursed waking up early and felt bad for Dan, because he was so sick.

I parked far away last time, because it was crowded, and when I got to the race, I realized I didn't look like the rest of the group. For one, I was missing a Christmas costume, for 2, my outfit made it clear that I wasn't a runner well-prepared for Minnesota's December race. No one else was wearing their winter coat. They all had pretty under-armour for that!   But the starting gates went off, and then I ran and ran and ran. I was quite miserable last year, overheating, changing my coat, and running my slowest 5K time ever.  Did I mention the path was covered with 6 inches of loosely packed snow? Felt like we were running on sand.  I felt too guilty after leaving Dan home sick that I went back to be with him and skipped the post-run breakfast.

But this year, I was prepared. Dan wasn't sick, either, and he joined me. We wore all of our new out-door running stuff in Minnesota. We got there over an hour early, so we went home and then came back. We had no snow on the ground at all and our drive was only 10 minutes. While still parking far from the race, we got there in just the right amount of time to run and crossed the gates at 2:25 into the race, still in the thick of the pack.

I started running really fast from the beginning. I wanted to get under 36 minutes, which I knew was possible from my training. But I couldn't walk much to do it and I definitely couldn't let something like tying my shoes again slow me down. So I wanted to run as fast as I could. It was a hard race. I walked a LOT more than I was expecting. I felt like crying at the second hill and when I was only 1.5 miles in, I felt terrible. It almost felt like mile 24 of the marathon!  I paused to walk even more and watched some people pass me. Dan was gone and I really wanted my ipod again or something to distract me, so I played Amanda Palmer's music.

And then.....The Marine Corp came bolting up behind us. They were running in good speed and it reminded me of a line from a book that sometimes becomes my running mantra (A Welsh unit came marching by in good order.--It's just describing the march to the sea from WWII and everyone is exhausted. They see this unit march by them in good order and they're somehow renewed). So I picked up my speed a bit with the Marine Corp, and kept going until the finish line. I felt miserable, but a little better.

After a veer to the left, the race clock was in view. I saw it say 34:33. I smiled. I ran faster to the finish line and got in at 35:02. Oh, yeah, and I started at 2:25 as mentioned earlier, making my time under 33 minutes. 33 was about as fast as I thought I could ever do it, and last night, I was dreaming of it.

I know this isn't a fast time for a lot of people, but it was fast for me. I'm fat and out of shape. I've always been slow! I plan to pick up my speed a lot this winer. I might even start biking to work.  I can't wait to do it in 25 -28 minute next year!

Dan turned 30

Yep. He's 30 now.
Dan is neither gray nor balding (much)
Dan is a righteous dude with a lot of good friends, a home-brewer, and a guy that still loves addictinggames.com
Dan was promoted on Thursday before his Birthday Vacation.

I bought a kegging system for his birthday, made a birthday cake and paid for a bunch of drinks and food at the bar. We had everyone over and played a ton of games. Horray.

Digital List of Chores

Here it is, digital

Clean kitchen
clean mirrors, bathtub and toilet
wash the dog
vacuum basement
do some laundry

Ok, that's not so bad. I can do this. 

Philippines

I still miss it. I love how everything changes, how you can see a skyscraper and a wild chicken at the same time. I love how pure hearted everyone was, how unjaded they were. I love the promise of the country, I love the gray sunrise that was more amazing than any sunrise back home. I loved feeling like I was in Gotham city, eating Starbucks and fast food every day. I love how dirty things were and how crowded it was all the time. I love the hotel staff and the taxi drivers who tried to rip us off everywhere. I love the people that I worked with, their accents, their camaraderie. I loved the way we were there.  I loved the person I was and now that I'm home, I hate going back to the person that I used to be.

Big Girl Panties

Ok, really, I have no right to complain about anything. So consider this post as me not complaining. I'm just stating that there are some things that are freaking me out in Kansas City House and I'm trying oh so hard to not freak out.
I guess there are lines that you draw regarding things you're afraid of and when you cross them, you have to be so much braver than you were before.
So I'm putting on my big girl panties. After this, really, there's not much left for me to be afraid of.  Maybe it will be limited to external situations like "gunshots" "Kidnapping" "auto accidents" and "something bad happening to Dan."

hahaha. Ironically, I'm thinking about the character Reek in Game of Thrones right now.

DONE!

Stuff is done on my to-do list. I can't believe I accomplished everything. V is for Victory.

The lagging things, of course, are the clothes re-organization, which I will just say isn't possible until I figure out what my weight should be after this trip and diet fluctuations.

And the filing cabinet downstairs isn't quite under my control yet. 2 houses, 2 sets of owners manuals, insurance shit and 3 bazillion different brokerage account statements will all take a bit of time. That's what winter is for, I think.

Wedding weekend. I can't wait to pack my suitcase for another round of travel. (ok, that's sarcasm, but I can't wait for the wedding.)