why do these things happen to me?

so yesterday evening, i indulged in a speed workout (6 reps of this steep-ass hill. boy, my a$$ was definitely feeling those uphills...)

and after said speed workout, me and a few others decided to meet for dinner afterwards-so i detoured home to clean up and dry off (was a little rainy before.) so i was about to leave my apartment...when I couldn't find my keys. Uh-oh...I had a sinking feeling I knew what I did, because yes, I had done that once before.

I friggin left my keys in my apartment front door. Which pretty much locked myself in my apartment.

Guess that workout left me more than a little scatterbrained?

Last time it happened-my across the hall neighbor was able to unlock me, but I was not sure if he was home this time. Thankfully, I called one of the cool peeps I was meeting and he was able to come over and bail me out of trouble :)

Dinner was good, and then...afterwards someone noticed someone's metrocard/money on the floor...yep you guessed it, it was mine, fell out of my pocket.

I swear, i would have lost my brain yesterday if it was not attached.

Thank god both me and my keys made it inside my apartment without incident after that. :-)

almost perfect

10 miles in the park this afternoon...almost the perfect run. Don't know if it was the new shoes, the cross-training and lifting I've been doing lately giving my legs a little more strength, or just the nice weather, but the legs felt great and I still felt like I could keep going after 10!!

What stopped me? Damn allergy season...yeah. Those cherry blossom trees on the bridle path are pretty to look at, but they are just bad for me right now. I'm going to the Yankee game tomorrow...and just pray that don't have to make an early exit like I wanted to last year.

Off to celebrate Cinco de Mayo for the 2nd time in the last 3 days in a little bit.

And I got my lease for next year in the mail, and the landlord is giving a sneaky rent increase. You can bet I am not having that. Stay tuned.

five years.

Five years ago yesterday (9/1)...a 20-something year old girl packed up the majority of her room in her parents' house in suburban NJ, and with the help of several people, moved it into a 4th-floor walk-up apartment on East 33rd St and 3rd Avenue.

Oh I remember all too well how excited I was about this...Murray Hill was at the top of my list of neighborhoods, and that I found a place there the first day looking? I didn't care that it wasn't in a fancy building-it's all about location!! And the girl I was moving in with seemed like a nice, fun girl as well-this was her first place in the city too. (yeah, i know it took me awhile to escape the shackles of my parents' place. I had a car to pay off for 3 years. and also...oops, involves the Ex, I'm not going there...)

The actual moving day...well we found out that the landlord totally overpromised a 9/1 move-in date...as renovations in the building weren't complete yet. I think our place was better off than some other apartments in the building. I remember moving day was a hot day (apparently some building residents remembered me running around in a sports bra while trekking up and down the stairs...lol) but once the bulk of it was done, my roomie and I hit the 3rd Ave bars and had a fun nite.

But, as I'm sure you could tell from the move-in date...though we wouldn't have known it at the time, our move-in date was poorly timed. I think my roommate took it harder than I did-then again she was closer to downtown when it happened. Anyways, the next 2 years consisted of a coupla roommate changes (the 1st one wound up buying a studio before the lease was up, so I had a subletter for the remainder of the year, but found a new one for the next year), a job change, some money issues, some male heartbreak, other crap, and I dunno, just a feeling, that I wasn't sure that I could ever truly make this city my home.

In the summer of '03, my roommate told me that she would be getting free housing from her grad school and that she'd be moving out. And as I didn't want to deal with the search for another roommate-I decided to peruse the Craigslist ads and take a chance at finding a studio apartment. I thought Murray Hill was a great neighborhood and I would have loved to have stayed there, but I had a feeling I was going to have to move uptown-be it east side or west side.

The first apartment I saw was on the UWS in the 70s-and was very small...little too small for comfort...I said "next." Then one Friday night after a long workweek, I didn't really feel like going out, and that turned out to be a great decision...I browsed the ads, and saw an ad for an affordable brownstone studio in the west 80s, a block from Central Park, with a 9/1 move-in date. I wasted no time in sending an email, and apparently I was the first to respond-so I was the first to see the place. I saw it the next morning and knew it was my place. I had an application in on Monday, confirmation that the apartment was mine on Tuesday, and moved in at the very end of August.

In a way, I think that move was a turning point of sorts. If I hadn't moved uptown, I may not have taken up running like I did (thanks to my proximity to Central Park), may not have gotten inspired to run the marathon someday, might not have joined the Flyers...and so on. While there is one thing in my life that still needs major fixing (those of you who know me "off the blog" know what that is)...outside of that, I think things are much better 50 blocks north.

And into my 4th year in my cozy studio and as long as I can still afford the rent, I ain't moving!! I wouldn't give up a place within stumbling distance of the park if I didn't have to :)

now playing: "deja vu" ~ beyonce/jay-z

the things you can do with tie racks...

I decided my whole mishmash of hardware was looking kinda disorganized...no before picture, but here's the after!

I had seen this idea on one of the running forums...so a quick trip to Bed, Bath & Beyond, and voila!! But man...for someone who has never run a marathon, I've really accumulated a lot in the last 2 years!!

• Finishers medals from the Mini 10K (2004, 2005, 2006)
• Finishers medals from the Poland Spring Marathon Kickoff 5-miler (2004, 2005)
• Finisher medal from the 2005 Nike Run Hit Wonder 5M
• Finisher medal from a turkey trot I did on Long Island in 2004
• Finisher medal from the 2005 Vegas Half
• 6 team award medals from various NYRR races
• my "Rookie of the Year" medal from the Flyers awards gala in 2005
• a 1st-place age-group medal from a 5K I did in NJ back in Sept. '04
• a 2nd-place age-group trophy from a 5K I did in NJ back in Oct. '04 (actually was 3rd in my age group...but the 1st place girl in my age group was the 1st overall female, so that moved me up)

So there will be a spot saved in the center for the marathon medal...or I may decide to do something a little more creative with that...we shall see...

What does everyone else do with their finishers medals/other hardware that gets accumulated over time?

now playing: "jump" ~ madonna

no rest for the weary

oy vey. it's only hump day and i'm beat.

my weary legs are getting a little bit of a running break too. nothing but easy runs this week. decided to be smart and skip speed last nite in favor of an easy 5-mile loop, turned out to be the right decision since my legs didn't feel up to pushing fast anyway. i did stop by engineer's gate to say a quick hi to everyone and find out what i missed :)

seems like i never made up my lack of sleep from this weekend. after a too-short nap on Saturday, i set out for a little Flyer event with a twist. Our very creative social chair decided to think "outside the box" a little and set up a pottery painting event at Our Name Is Mud (or whatever it's called now) in the west village. hey, I needed a mother's day gift for my mom (it's too hard these days to think of what to get for the mother who has everything) so hey why not. and we got to guzzle some red wine while doing so (and there were some who accidentally put their paintbrushes in the wine cup and yes, I was that person.) after that was over, we headed to a nearby bar/restaurant for food and drinks-including a coupla bottles of champagne, courtesy of a nice Brit in town for the weekend who wanted a running team to spend a Saturday nite with (and who had no prob using the expense account as well! very nice.)

then on Sunday, as I liveblogged, I went to the Yanks game-my brother has season tix for all the Sunday games this year. Not bad seats, tier reserve, 1st base side. Nice win over Toronto...only thing that marred the game for me was me getting probably the worst allergy attack I've had in years-all the Claritin in the world couldn't help me. i was in misery through the game and after the game when we went back to NJ for a belated b-day dinner for my mom.

but nevertheless, a very good weekend...and has seemed to be the case lately after good weekends, monday morning is a bit of a letdown.

this week at work has been quite hectic so far, and looks like a taste of things to come, as starting next week we are gonna be down 1 man. i'd be lying if i said i wasn't apprehensive about what the next couple of months are gonna bring...man, is it too much to ask that i can have at least 1 summer where i'm not consumed with work and can just kick back and enjoy...?

only good news i've gotten this week is that my rent will have a very minimal increase next year...meaning that the UWS is stuck with me for another year :) as long as i can afford the rent on my current place, i ain't moving...i wouldn't give up a place within stumbling distance from central park if I didn't have to :)

3 days down, 2 to go...

now playing: "say i" ~ christina milian

assorted hump day thoughts

yep, another Wednesday, another hump day (ya know...Wednesday, the middle of the week, is the "hump" of the week.) Anyway, i'm borrowing the style of this post from a recent post of Derek's. I feel like being sorta random today.

• Rosa Mexicano had very good food/drink, but overpriced...the kinda place where you go to more for the "ambiance" than anything else. I had 2 of their pomagranate margaritas and honestly...I've had better margaritas, cheaper too. Also, that was the place I was referring to in this post (the restaurant that replaced an old happy hour haunt.)
• Accidentally eating part of an über-hot pepper-not good. Downing a whole glass of water didn't work. Apparently sucking on a lime neutralizes it. You learn something new every day. Also, in a rare moment, a colleague that is notorious for being obnoxious and having a sorta "brother-sister" relationship with me was actually nice for a change and helped me out. I'm never gonna let him forget that :-p
• I love Flickr's "liveblogging" feature. Pretty cool to do a blog post "on the fly." tried it out last nite and it worked like a charm...
• My ConEd bill is the lowest it's been in a very very long time. Guess the work that had to be done to my place was worth it.
• Why can't I be more consistent with my running. I never know if it's gonna be a good day or bad day. Monday's run was absolutely atrocious, god bless jbl for keeping me company. This evening's run was a total 180 from that. I go to such extremes. I still really like the Brooks though.
• Why do guys give all the signs that they are interested and ask for your number when they never have any intention of using it?
• The Bachelor keeps up its track record...did this surprise anyone at all? I say they should bring back Trish for a season of The Bachelorette to boost ratings (anyone remember her antics on Jesse Palmer's season?)

now playing: "i begin to wonder" ~ dannii minogue

it's oh so quiet

typical for the week between xmas and new year's right? the office is a ghost town. so...what better way to take advantage of it with a 2-hour lunch? even better when the waiters know us and they slip us a complimentary glass of port. even better when it's expensed too :)

so right now, i'm utlizing my hanukkah present, which is in the piccy to the right...how cute is this thing? :-D i am actually wearing the white headphones right now...not overly comfortable though. got a pretty cool case to go with it...will come in very handy when running.

saw la familia on sunday and yesterday..."celebrated" hanukkah with both homemade latkes and chinese food...and everyone was very happy with their presents...

was not too happy to come back to my place last nite and see part of the wall torn out...yeah, there's work being done in my apartment and the place is a disaster area (but still somewhat liveable) but hopefully when all is said and done, i won't have the same issue with lack of heat that i've had the last 2 winters, and my ConEd bills will go back to normal (you know there's a problem when i'm paying twice as much during heating season than during A/C season-especially with this summer's record heat! heat is supposed to be included in my lease.)

i need to get back to some sort of routine...ever since last week, i have not been able to fall asleep til after 2 am (damn transit strike coverage,) and waking up around noon (or if i'm getting up early for work or something, it ain't a pretty sight!) don't think any morning runs will be happening any time soon...at least not til after the new year...

now playing: "long way down" ~ goo goo dolls