I think I'm coming down with a summer cold. Trip was feeling kind of yucky last week and we blamed it on allergies. But since I am now tired and sniffly, it probably isn't the pollen count. Boo.

Anyway! I can't be sick. Must be at work and a retreat this weekend! No rest for the wicked.

It's been a busy couple of weeks with the family reunion over Memorial Day and last weekend having fun with the ladies. I saw a couple of movies last weekend too -- Indiana Jones and Sex and the City. Both were fun and enjoyable, but not the best movies ever. I'm hoping to see a few more movies this summer -- maybe Iron Man, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, the new Batman, and maybe Get Smart. Trip and I are planning to go to the drive-in movie sometime this summer. If you can make it through nine hours of being in the car, you can watch three feature films on Friday or Saturday night. A pretty good time too, for only $9!

I've got lots of pictures of the vacation in Minnesota that I should put up, but it will have to wait until later...

But the big news is that I'm all signed up for the Baltimore Women's Classic 5K on June 22. Yup, I'm back to training despite spraining my ankle a few weeks ago. I think I can do the 3.1 miles in a decent time, although to break the 10 minute mile mark I will have to train harder (and perhaps run a 5K in early fall!). So we'll see how it goes!

I went for my first run in quite some time today. Wowsers, was it rough! I am seriously out of shape and probably won't be ready for the St. Patrick's Day 5K. I mean, I could probably do it, but it would mean doing A LOT of walking! And that's not my style.

I wasn't going to go -- it was gloomy and grey outside this morning when I got up. But around 9 am it started getting sunny out. Since I have today off, I figured I could take a half an hour and just do a 2 mile run. No worries about time (although I did pretty good, probably running about an 11 minute mile when I was running and doing 2 miles in about 24:30 minutes!), just trying to make sure to get the two miles in. But it was sooo warm! Probably the mid-50s! I had dressed for a bit colder weather, hat, long-sleeved T-shirt, short-sleeved T-shirt, and lined pants. I ended up losing the hat before running, but I wish I'd worn shorts! I ended up rolling up my pants in an attempt to stay cool, but it was a toasty run!

Today I might be going to see 27 Dresses with Shayna. It's still playing, so if she's feeling up to it, that's my plan for this afternoon. I'm also planning to make pasties for dinner tonight. Luckily, it should be getting colder this afternoon, which means that the winter-y food will still be palatable!

I finally saw Pulp Fiction this weekend. I didn't really like it all that much. The movie was much longer than I was expecting (2:30!) and while I enjoyed the fact that the stories wrapped around each other (the beginning came into play towards the end) and the overlapping narratives, it wasn't really all that interesting. I am guessing back in 1994 it was quite revolutionary, but it just didn't do much for me. I have enjoyed other Tarantino movies -- I liked Reservoir Dogs a lot and Kill Bill and Kill Bill 2 were pretty awesome. But this one...not so much.

I'm here, blogging by special request.

Nothing too exciting happening in my life recently. It's mostly wedding stuff. We're sending out invites today. I'll actually be going to the post office in the next hour or so. Today I signed my lease for our new apartment. It's kind of scary in a way, especially since I've been in the same place for so long...three years! And lease are just kind of weird legal documents. But I'm sure everything will be fine. We decided on a two bedroom apartment. It's got a washer and dryer (WOOHOO!), a "sunroom" off of the kitchen, and a giant walk-in linen/hall closet. Plus we are on the bottom floor so we've got a walk-out patio! No enclosed patio for us; it's all outside! Trip is hoping to get a grill for next spring/summer so we can cook outside.

Oh! We finally got a results for the 5K -- my total gun time (which is probably off by a little bit ) was 31:48, with mile splits of 10:16. It was actually a little bit faster than the 5K in June (gun time 32:05 with splits of 10:20) which is pretty awesome. It was a heck of a lot hotter in August, especially on the asphalt roads, and we had a couple really big hills to go up. Trip kept saying that Angela and I would break 30 minutes at the next race. I'm not sure if that'll happen -- maybe if it's a really, really flat course, but I could see us getting our mile pace down to around 10 minutes!

So...that's about it. The weather has been crappy lately, so I haven't been up to much. I should run this afternoon, but I'm not sure how motivated I am! I'm looking forward to Labor Day weekend, not because I'm doing anything, more just to have two days off in a row! I also decided to take next Wednesday off for no particular reason -- just because I want a day off! Everyone at work has taken at least a week off for fun reasons and I will not be doing that until October. So I just wanted a day off. I am thinking that I will get my oil changed and look for a salon to have my hair and makeup done. Fun stuff!

The hot weather is giving me high levels of ennui.

Last night I went over to Trip's house for dinner and to work at his (vastly superior) apartment gym. I was sleepy after work, but managed to get in a very short nap. I thought I'd be fine, but when we started walking over to the gym, the heat made me soooo sleepy and whiney. I did not want to work out. But I got on the treadmill any way and it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. I've got another 5K planned for Sunday evening and I must be in shape for it. Tomorrow is the day that I make sure I can run 3.1 miles. Woo! Let's hope it isn't as insanely hot as it has been.

In wedding planning news, our invitations are done and waiting to be picked up from the printers. Wee! So I will be getting them tomorrow and oohing and ahhing over how pretty they are. Then we just have to make up a hotel information card to include with everything. After that's done, I can go to the post office and find out whether or not a regular stamp will be enough postage or if we have to spring for more stamps. Fun stuff! It's scary to think we have to send them out by August 27, in like less than three weeks!! Yikes.

My back is all painful and crispy today. I spent the day outside (11 hours!) on Saturday in the heat at the Virgin Festival at Pimlico. The Beastie Boys were AWESOME!!!!! And also deserving of many, many exclamation points. Totally the highlight of the day. I also saw Amy Winehouse, who was a total surprise in her kind of non-energy, Fountains of Wayne, fun but somehow I expected more, Incubus, good but I'm not a huge fan so I went to the bathroom and got food while they were playing, Ben Harper, excellent in a jam fashion, The Police, but only from a distance...but Sting had a lovely voice!, TV on the Radio, who I wish I had seen more of but I had to stay and watch the Beastie Boys finish their set, Modest Mouse, which was entertaining, and The Fratellis, who were okay but young. This year wasn't quite as much fun as last year, but to be honest, the Beastie Boys made it really worthwhile. They played some of their new instrumental stuff (fun live!) and lots of old stuff, including my favorites off of Hello Nasty (Body Moving and Intergalactic) and to end it all, Sabotage, one of my favorite songs! I also resisted the urge to buy a shirt -- and managed to not spend a ton of money. The most was spent on water and Gatorade.

The rest of the weekend was fairly low key. Trip and I went to the mall where I finally found a sundress for the summer! It was a little more than I wanted to pay, but I have been searching for this dress since MAY! That's practically three months of searching! Plus I got a really pretty grass green cardigan at Nordstrom Rack to match it -- and I'll totally wear the cardigan all the time.

I've got another 5K coming up next Sunday. My friend Angela and I are doing the 5K out at Boordy's vineyard. It should be interesting -- apparently it's a cross-country-ish race, which means hills and grass. I'm a little worried -- I've been running, but not perhaps cross-country prep. I do hills, but I hope the hills we have to run aren't terrible. I'm sure we'll finish, but it'll probably be a little bit slower than our usual time! Oh well, it'll be fun. And I think it'll be the last 5K I do for a while, maybe until Thanksgiving.

Two exciting things happened this past week.

I ran a 5K on Sunday with my friend Angela. It was a women-only 5K and was a lot of fun. Because the race started at 8 am, it was nice and cool -- perfect weather for running! I also did AWESOME with my time. Since the last race that I ran back in November, I took around 1:20 off my mile split, down to 10:20 per mile with a finish time of 32:05 gun time and 31:42 with the chip. I got to wear a chip around my ankle which recorded when I actually went over the start line and when I finished. Best of all, I actually RAN THE WHOLE RACE!!! No stopping, even when I had a stitch in my side. I couldn't believe it. I think running with someone really helps motivate me!

In other news, I ended up having to use my system disk to restart my computer and lost my hard drive. Not very fun! Especially since I had (have?) an extensive MP3 collection from my college days when file sharing was less restricted. It was a very sad day for me, but I got some good news from some computer geeks I work with. He apparently had a similar problem and was able to get everything off of his hard drive. So I'm going to download some file recovery software tonight/tomorrow and see what I can get back. The downside is that they say you shouldn't install anything on the drive that you are trying to recover...so I really want the MP3s back, so I might end up losing some of the other stuff on my other hard drive. I don't really know how to get around this. Luckily, another one of my friends has a computer geek boyfriend, and maybe he'll have something that I can do.

This weekend looks like it'll be a fun one. We've got plans to visit Anapolis on Friday night to see an Irish band with some church friends. Sunday afternoon we're going cake tasting! I am looking forward to that!

I am having second thoughts about my shoes for the event. Luckily, with Zappos, I've got up to a year to return them as long as I don't wear 'em out. I need to try them on again, but I think I might want something more delicate. It's hard to balance comfort with aesthetics.