Yellowstone

It looks like I'm going to Yellowstone this spring! It's been kind of a quick decision, but today plane tickets were bought by myself and 5 friends to take a 12 day trip out west. We plan to hit up Grand Tetons National Park, Yellowstone National Park, and maybe if we're feeling adventurous (and the roads are open) Glacier National Park. Pretty exciting stuff.

3.3 miles

That's how far I ran on Saturday! Wow. Back in December I could only make it about half a mile. I've been kind of "training" to be able to run in a 5k. There's not really one anytime soon that I plan on doing, but there is one in November I'm looking forward to. This weekend was the first time I made it that far. (I actually went further, a 5k is only 3.1 miles. But I didn't know exactly where 3.1 miles was, so I went a little further just to make sure.) I'm fairly impressed with myself that I was able to get there in only about 2 months. *patting myself on the back*

It wasn't easy though. In fact, it was rather painful haha. I don't think my body was quite ready for it since my longest before then was only about two and a quarter. but still, i did it, and no one can take that away from me :)

one thing that i think seriously helped me was getting some good running shoes. it was painful paying so much for them, but they've made such a difference. I wouldn't quite call it "running on clouds" like i've heard from others, but it definitely took away a lot of the pain i was experiencing before.

Charleston

Last Friday my friend James sent the following email:

North or South. It's a long weekend. We should do something about it. This means impromptu trip with minimal planning! Who's in?

1. Keys/Everglades
We leave tomorrow morning to spend the weekend in the Keys, stop by the Everglades, camp on a beach somewhere, maybe rent kayaks and paddle around the keys, drive all the way to Key West.

2. North to SNOW
Just start driving North in shifts. Leave as early as tonight and see how far we get. Find cheap campsites on the way. Eat at Waffle House at 3:00 AM. New York City? Bring your passports for Canadian excursion? Worst case scenario we end up in the Appalachians or DC or South Carolina.

We'll take my car. Don't pansy out. It'll be one of those trips we talk about years from now. Let's do something irrational, because there's no homework or practice, and we have the means to do it!

Wellllll.......... we decided to go North :) But me being the party pooper I am insisted that I was not going to just get in the car and drive for 18 hours to see snow. So we decided to go to Charleston for the weekend. It seemed like a nice place, plus it's about 6 hours away so that's a decent drive for a 3 day weekend. And it is a really nice city - the downtown area was beautiful to walk around. While we were there we toured Fort Sumter (where the Civil Way began) and the Charleston Tea Plantation (apparently the only place in the US where tea is grown). We also had a fantastic seafood dinner on a rooftop patio downtown. I guess the only question now is, where should we go next time??

Also, while we were there we got the chance to see some good friends of mine from high school and college who are living in the area. That was really great. I haven't seen them since they got married 2 years ago. Nikki was hugely pregnant, as you can see in the picture. She ended up having the baby just 2 days after this picture was taken! Too bad we missed the little guy...

(I look really short in this picture don't I??)

happy valentine's

darren took me out to dinner last night at this little european market place. they were doing a french themed evening - food, music, etc. it was in interesting mix of casual and fancy. there were 5 courses, but the main course (dinner) was a fancy sandwich. anyways, it was actually really yummy and i thought it was sweet of him to find this french themed evening for us. he's such a cutie :)

taxes done

i sat down and worked out my taxes yesterday. kind of a pain - but so good to have it done! and it's only the beginning of february. go me! i'm getting about $3500 back. it's high mainly because this is the first year i could actually itemize deductions and count my mortgage interest.

so what should i do with the money.....?? hmmm... i mean i guess it could just go into savings, i could forget i ever got it. or i could use it to finish funding my ROTH from last year, i guess that would be pretty responsible too. there's a couple of big purchases i'd like to make too, like a new washing machine, but... oh... i dont know. i'm torn between the desire to use it like found fun money and the desire to be responsible and do something "smart" with it. (sadly, there's no "put it towards the next vacation" option because there are really no trips on the radar anytime soon. darren and i had talked about going to yosemite in april, but it doesn't look like it's going to happen.)

one other thing about taxes - i had to report my "free" tv as income from last year. it was valued at $1650, so it effectively increased my tax bill by $412 (or rather, reduced my refund by that amount.) so i guess it wasn't so free after all. but it's still a sweet tv. and even at 412 bucks, that's still tough to beat.

Weekend Getaway

I'm going up to Maryland to visit my friend Laura this weekend. In fact, my flight leaves in approximately 3 hours. :) apparently it's 32 degrees and snowing there today. yikes! i guess that's not really that bad, but to this florida girl it sounds scary! i'm taking like 4 jackets and i plan on wearing them all at the same time haha. hopefully when i get back i'll have some fun pictures to post.

blue screen of death

so my computer decided to crap out today. it was freezing up and taking forever to do things, so i thought i'd restart it and maybe that would help, ya know, it seemed like a good idea at the time. well in the process of restarting it suddenly went to a blue page that said FATAL SYSTEM ERROR. THIS SYSTEM IS SHUT DOWN. Whoops. It was pretty intimidating. I had two IT people in my cube looking at it, shaking their heads and saying this is bad. so eventually they decided that the computer needed to be decrypted before they could try to fix it, and apparently this is a process that takes a looooong time. It's been going for about 5 hours now and it's only 52% done. Guess that one won't be fixed til Monday.

In the mean time, they've given me a loner computer, which is great, but there's not much I can do on it. I don't have any of my files or the programs I've been using. So basically I've been catching up on email, and ... well, there's not a whole lot I can do. what a friday...

so i've been thinking some more about what i want to do with this blog. one thing i think i'd like to add is more posts about foods, recipes, etc. I really enjoy some of the food blogs i've seen, so i think it'd be neat to do some of that here. Now I just need to remember to take pictures when I make something interesting. :)

The One Where Leah Gets a Cold

So do you remember the Friends episode where Phoebe gets a cold? It turns her into a really great singer, then she gets over the cold and tries to catch it again so she sing so well again. well that is totally me right now (well, kinda haha). i think i am getting a cold. i think. i'm not totally sure. but i'm getting all stuffed up and i can sing great. in my opinion at least :)

See first James was sick, then he gave it to Darren, and I think I'm next in line. Both of them have gotten pretty sick, to the point of having to take off of work. i really hope i dont get that bad. :-/ but i am pretty stuffy, and i've been coughing, my throat is a little sore... yeah... it's not looking good. but i sure can sing :)

jalapenos

man oh man. i've chopped jalapenos before and never had any problem. but this time - not so lucky! i did chop up a bunch of them, where i normally only do one at a time, but i'm making a bunch of salsa and other dips for this weekend. my hands are burning, not tooooo bad, but still burning. the worst part though is my CONTACTS. last night i decided to take them out using my right pinky finger, thinking it was the least contaminated. it burned, but not for long. this morning though, i tried to put them back in and there was NO WAY that was happening! i guess i should've just slept in them and dealt with the dryness. this burning is way worse. so i'm wearing my glasses today. it's kind of odd because i never wear my glasses for any long period of time, especially to work. i'm not used to it, and they feel weird on my face. *sigh*... plus i forget that all my peripheral vision is lost now. i actually tripped down the stairs because i didn't see the last step. haha im such a loser :)

so what to do about the contacts?? i'm wondering if that pair is a lost cause and i should just throw them out? or is it just that my hands still have the pepper juices on them. i would just get a new pair of contacts, but if my hands are still bad, wouldn't i just be ruining another pair? i don't know... i don't want to have to wear my glasses for the next week... especially not saturday at the party. and i'm almost out of contacts (i have two pairs left), but i can't go to the eye doctor until the new year because of insurance. what to do, what to do....

progressive dinner

My church's college and career group had a progressive dinner last night. I used to be really active in this group, but not so much anymore. It used to be about half "college" and half "career", now it feels like all "college" and no "career". so basically i feel too old for the group. oh well. anyways, i got a call last week telling me about the progressive dinner and asking if i would host the appetizer course. I think this officially pushes me into one of the "adults" in the group. haha that's ok with me.

so of course i said yes i would help out. that was the easy part. then i had to figure out what to make for about 25 people. i ended up doing four things, my goal was three, but somehow that expanded. when i cook for events like this i try to make things is several categories -
1. something i've made plenty of times before and know pepole like it.
2. something really easy.
3. something ive never done before that sounds good - this tends to be the most time consuming.
for this event i added a fourth category:
4. something not too hard that would make a whole lot so there'd be plenty left over for darren's graduation party. i guess category 4 isn't very generic so i doubt it will be used in future parties :)

here's what the menu ended up being -
1. bruschetta. this seems to be my go to appetizer lately.
2. queso dip and chips. heat up one can of rotel with a box of velveta cheese. what could be easier than that?
3. stuffed mushrooms. i'm not a big fan of mushrooms, but they were gobbled up real fast so they must've been good. the hardest part about making this was cleaning the mushrooms. there's got to be a better way... also, for this recipe, i used my mini food processor for the first time ever. it came in very handy :)

4. chex mix. yes you can buy this, but i thought i'd try making it. it wasn't hard and it made a ton, but i dont think it really had as much flavor as i was hoping for. there's plenty left over for darren's party though, so that's good.

all in all, things went well. i had everything ready and out before the group arrived, which was amazing to me. they all came on the church bus so everyone streamed in at once. you know normally with a party people show up over time and the noise level slowly rises, but this was like bam! everyone there at once. i think the favorite was the queso dip, which was also the easiest to make, which should probably teach me something haha.

darren and i went along to the other two house for dinner and dessert. it reinforced my feeling of being too old for the group, but it was still a pretty good time overall. i really should remember to get my camera out more often... i'll have to work on that.