Sick as a dog

It started off with a sore throat on Monday, and a bit of an itchy face... you know, like sinus itchy, but it itches in your nose, ears and throat and you just wanna scratch your face off! Yesterday it got worse. It was accompanied by a sinus head ache and lethargy. Last night I got no sleep due to a persistent cough and an overactive mind. Today I feel like total dog shit. I went to the doctor, who prescribed some stuff for the cough, tooks some blood, and a culture from the back of my throat that made me almost throw up. I have a fever, too. Uuugh. I hate this because I can't go for a run or anything :-(

Weekend in review

I love weekends! This one was no exception. On Friday evening we went to Dave and Busters to celebrate our friend, Meneesh's birthday.

We had a somewhat productive day on Saturday - we had lunch at Rudy's with Mike's brother, Austin and his friend Corey. Then we went to Costco and got a $400.00 refund on our new TV because a coupon came out 2 weeks after we bought ours. Nice!

I think I have sold the Waverunner. A guy came over to check it out yesterday and made me an offer, which I accepted. We just have to work out the logistics now.

At 6 we met Eric and Reba and a bunch of their friends at Cheddars for Eric's birthday. We really only new Eric and Reba, but by the end of the night had met a lot of fun people. After dinner we went to The Main Event and did some rock climbing. I had so much fun, I just loved it! Brian did too. He did really well and got up some of the more difficult walls.
After we left Main Event, we headed over to Bob and Renee's house for Bob's birthday party. We were going to head out to GCS, but everyone looked pretty comfy in their bathing suits so we all decided to forgo the bar and continue to party at their house.

This morning, Brian and I got up to do our "long run" which was actually only 3.1 miles. Jenny V's marathon training group runs started today and there was a great turnout.

(Update posted on Monday 8/29)
The guy came over to pick up the Waverunner. The Garage looks so big without it taking up all that space. We plan to move stuff around next week so that we can park both cars in there. The only issue is that it has been sitting so long that it needed a new battery. So hopefully that's all that's wrong with it. I did tell him if he gets it checked out at Woods and he's uncomfortable with anything, I'd take it back. So fingers crossed.

We went shopping for a stereo cabinet to put our DVD player and Cable Box in. Right now they're sitting on the mantel next to the TV and it looks tacky. Later on we took the boat out on Lake Austin. They must have been letting a lot of water in from the dam because it was freezing. I made a couple of runs on the wakeboard, but since I'm trying bigger jumps and doing fakies, I crash more, which means more time in the water, brrrrrr!

We got home pretty late from the lake and watched a crappy movie called "Black Cadillac". I don't recommend it.

High road

When you feel low, it's really hard to take the high road in a situation. Your natural tendency is to stoop to the same level as the person who put you down there. But I won't. I'm better than that. I see the jockying for social position going on around me, but I'm not going to dignify it with a response. :-P

Last supper.... sort of

Last night Brian and I went to Papasito's for dinner with Kevin. Today, Kev is moving to Indiana :-( We're sad to be losing our brother, but we are also happy for him because he got a good job, and his best friend is also moving up there and they will be working together.
Brian helped Kev load his posessions that he had been storing at our hous into the U-haul. We'll miss Kev, and we're looking forward to a trip to Indiana to visit in the near future. We also talked about skiing and Vegas trips this year.

In other news, the auction for my waverunner is progressing nicely. It has only one more day till it ends and the price is up over $2,000.

Long post about weekend, etc.

My head is still spinning from Monday's drama. More on that later. The weekend was awesome! On Friday night we went to GCS for a little karaoke and some dancing. We met Eric and Reba there. Reba talked me into going up on stage with her to play a game like "Simon says". I got eliminated within the first minute. Apparently I don't take direction well. Later that evening, Mike and three of his friends showed up, and later still, Renee and her entourage also showed up. On Saturday, Brian and I went mountain biking with Eric. That afternoon, Brian took his brother to test drive cars while I did some things around the house.
Saturday night, Brian took me on a date to Eddy V's, which is a really nice restaurant downtown, then we met up with about 15 of our friends at the Light Bar on Congress Ave.
Sunday morning I went for a run with Andi. I love running with her. We have so much to talk about and it's always so positive. Never whining or complaining, just talking about life, ideas, fun, family. After that, we ran some errands, and later that day went to Salt Lick with Mike and Tara, Nick, Jethro, Kev, Mike, Joe, and Jen. Unfortunately, Tara's car broke down less than a mile away so we had to send Kev to pick them up, then arrange for a tow truck and a ride back into town. It all worked out, though. Brian took Mike's truck to pick them up from the Land Rover dealer downtown.
Back to the drama I was referring to. So someone who I considered a really good friend accused me of making up a story about something her fiancee said to me at a party.

Anyway, it's sufficient to say that right now I'm extremely angry. I feel betrayed, too. A reasonable man would have come to me and said "I hear you think I said this, and that's not what I said, let's talk". Instead, he called me a liar, didn't even bother to try to sort out any misccomunication, and then broke up a friendship. That seems a bit spineless. My friends say that people like that aren't worth worrying about. I need to find a way to just get over this and move on. But I'm so hurt.

Kicked out of the wedding

Today I got accused of lying and betraying one of my friends. Consequently, I got kicked out of the wedding party. I understand why she would believe her fiancee, rather than me. But I didn't lie. I'm sad because we were really good friends, but it's for the best if that's her opinion of me. It will make things a little awkward at work since we work in the same office.

So Long, Mr. Flippy

I posted my waverunner on Ebay yesterday. So far it's generating quite a bit of interest. Brian and I haven't used the waverunner at all this year, and last year we used it twice, and Barbie and Scott used it several times. It's just not enough use to warrant the amount of space it's taking in the garage. So we're selling it, and reclaiming our garage space. The extra money can go towards our honeymoon next year.

New telly

I love our new TV. We got a new High Definitaion (HD) cable box yesterday from the cable company. It makes a huge difference.

I'm feeling pretty good today... Going to the gym, eating more healthy foods and running regularly, along with taking my vitamins seems to be paying off. I hope I can keep it up. I had a great run last night. I ran by myself because Brian's foot still hurt from when he tried to rescue me from the waterfall on Saturday. I practiced all the things I'd learned to say in Spanish (en Espanol) as I ran, which made the run go by really quickly. And speaking of Spanish, I am on my final lesson in the set. Lesson 10. I've retained 99% of what I've learned in the previous 9 lessons. I think I will move on to Spanish 2 next. I'm actually enjoying learning Spanish. I wish I had this kind of attention span when I was in school. Who knows what I could have accomplished. I might have been an astronaut! Of course, then I might not have met my wonderful future husband... so I guess it all works out :-)

Action-packed weekend

I did so much fun stuff this weekend, I am not sure if I can remember it all...

On Friday, Brian and I took half a day off, and we, Kev, and Mike took the boat out for a bit of wakeboarding. This time, I tried wakeboarding with the wedge down, which causes a much bigger wake. I'd always been intimidated by it, but it was actually really good because it puts you in a better position to land your jumps. We taught Kev to get up on the wakeboard. It only took him a few tries and he got up. We're very proud of him. We went for dinner at the County Line. They do awesome peppered babyback ribs.

On Saturday we went tubing down the Guadalupe with a large group of friends. It was a lot of fun, except for one tense moment where the cooler tube got stuck in the waterfall. The bag of empty cans we had tied to the cooler tube got wedged between some rocks as I tried to take it over the falls and I couldn't get it free. A nice man who was just hanging out in the river drinking a beer helped me get it free. I got rope-burn on my finger. Brian and the rest of my group, meanwhile, had made it a little further down the river and were waiting for me. Brian came back for me. He was fighting the current to get to me, and people told him he'd never make it, but he did. He did cut his toe in the process, though. My hero. He got to us and helped me and the guy free the tube from the clutches of the waterfall, then we met our group and floated on down the river.

That evening, we went over to Bob and Renee's house for a BBQ, then we headed downtown.

Sunday, I got up at the crack of dawn to go running on town lake with Andi and Jenny V. We did a 7 mile loop. After that, I showered and went to meet Barbie for breakfast at Einstein Bagels, then we went shopping in the arboretum. We went to Express, Victoria's Secret, and Gap. I tried on (and consequently bought) the new Ipex from Victoria's Secret. It is SUPER comfortable. Next, we went to the mall. Barbie and I both need more tops. I have tons of trousers, and nothing to wear with them. We also found ourselves in the shoe dept, where Barbie found some great black stilletos for $10, and I got some purple snakeskin shoes for $16.

While on the way to the mall, I called my sister, Paula. My nephew, Daniel, answered the phone... at first I thought it was Steve, but then I realized that my little nephew's voice had broken and he was now sounding all manly! That was a shock, considering I just saw him in April and he sounded like a kid! He's grown up so fast! I told Paula how much I was looking forward to taking Daniel to do all the fun stuff like wind surfing and snorkeling when we go on our trip to Dominican Republic.

After the mall, I went over to Mike and Tara's to check out the new TV... Brian was there helping Mike hang it on the wall. We discovered that there was a problem with mounting it and the boys took it back to the store to exchange it. A couple of hours later the boys arrived at our house with two 50 inch plasma TVs. One for us, and the one Mike had exchanged. We now have an awesome 50" plasma in our living room! Yay!

Brian spent the rest of the day helping Mike hang his new TV, and I mowed the front lawn, cleaned out more room in the closet for Brian, and did the laundry, and of course, watched our new TV :-)

A very productive and fun weekend!

Every day is a gift...

Sometimes you have to step back from your life for a moment and give it a little perspective.
One key thing that I've learned recently, and I can't stress this enough, is that you only get one shot at life, so make it count.
Consider what it would feel like to be taking your last breath... I can almost guarantee that you won't say "I wish I had worked more". No, more likely you're going to say "I wish I had spent more time with the people I love, doing the things that make me smile".
Realizing this, and acting accordingly has improved my life so much. Now I find that things roll off of me, I don't bring work, or work's stresses home with me. When all's said and done, I don't live ot work... I work to live.

And with that in mind, I'm going to take Friday afternoon off with Brian and go wakeboarding, because that's what makes me smile.

Chicken

I made the yummiest chicken last night. I took two boneless chicken breasts and put them in a bag with some lemon pepper and juice squeezed from 2 limes. I let them sit in the fridge for an hour. Then I chopped some garlic and put it on top of the chicken, and put the chicken breasts onto their own sheet of tin foil and closed them loosly to make foil packs.
I baked them at 400 F for 30 minutes. They were awesome! so juicy and the flavour was fantastic. The garlic had infused into the chicken and the lime juice gave it a little tang.

MMMMM MMMMMM Good!

The Hippo Song

Mud! Mud! Glorious mud
Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood
So follow me, follow
In to the hollow
And there we shall wallow in glorious mud!

Today was the Muddy Buddy. Brian's parents came into town for the occasion. They wanted to see their boys do their first race together.
We got up at 4:45 and prepared ourselves for the race. Fortunately we had done most of the preparations the night before. We set off at 5:30am for somewhere between Dripping Springs and Johnson City.
Brian and Kev's age group started first, then all of the other age groups followed in 6 minute increments. I got their start on video. My age group started at 8:12am. Jenn started off on the bike and I started on foot. The obstacles along the way were an inflatable wall (about 12 feet), with a cargo net up the side to climb up, a wall to throw yourself over, another cargo net, but this time free standing, monkey bars, and of course, the icing on the cake... a giant mud pit.
This race was definately more challenging than the last one we did, I felt like I'd had an awesome workout and I definately felt like I did a good job, I think my muddy buddy did a great job, too. . The best part of the race for me was the mud pit. I think the reason I like it is because I'm usually a tidy and clean person, and getting into a mud pit breaks away from that norm for a few moments. I feel strangely liberated and free as I wallow in the mud pit. I think of all the people in the pit when I was in it, I enjoyed it the most, or at least that's the way it looked. It was therapeutic for me. I accidentally flung mud right into Jenn's mouth... I was meaning to fling mud at her, just not in her mouth... she was a great sport about it, though... and flung some back.
We crossed the finish line and were greeted by Brian, Kev, and the family. After the finish we headed over to the cleaning area where a bunch of people were rinsing off with hoses. We had to wait a while for a hose, but cleanup was pretty easy. We all took a change of clothes so that we wouldn't get the car all nasty.
I'm not sure what our time was, because it hasn't been posted on the race web site, yet.
After the race, with mud still in my hair, we went to the Nutty Brown Cafe for breakfast on the way back into Austin. They had a fabulous brunch buffet that had all kinds of goodies. I highly recommend it!
Afterwards, Brian's parents headed home and we dropped Kev off and headed home ourselves for some movie watching and veging out on the couch.
I love the muddy buddy.

Do you hear that???

It's the sound of a Friday afternoon margarita calling my name...
"Amanda! Amanda! Soy delicioso! Aqui! Aqui! Es hora feliz!"
(I guess thos spanish lessons in the car are paying off.)

Morning storms

I woke up this morning to the sound of distant thunder. I got up with the intent of going to the gym for my regular morning work out, but I just couldn't resist the storm. Instead, I went for a run in our neighbourhood. It didn't rain much, just spots here and there, it was about 70 degrees and a light wind. The sound of distant thunder was my soundtrack. As I approached home after 4.5 miles, the rain came. This weather has been crazy. I don't ever recall this much rain and thunder in July.

Is it Friday yet?

This week has been dragging. We've just acheived some major milestones on our project at work so I'm not as busy this week as I have been over the past several months. When you've been going 100mph and suddenly you get to slow down, you almost don't know what to do with all the extra time.
Brian and I are doing a race this weekend... The Muddy Buddy. It's a really cool race where you and your partner share a bike, one of your runs and the other bikes. You get to an obstacle, such as crawling under a cargo net, and the person on the bike leaves the bike, does the obstacle, and takes off running, the runner gets to the obstacle, does the obstacle, and retrieves the bike... and so on. So we each get to run and bike... the grand finale, though is a 60 foot long pit of mud that you literally have to crawl through on your belly. Most people like to mud wrestle in it, too, which is always fun. This will be my third time to do this race. Brian is teaming up with his brother, Kev, and I will be doing it with Jenn, who has been my partner for the past two as well. This is my favourite race of all! we have no hope of winning, but I hope to at least leave with a sense that I gave it my best.
Brian's parents are coming in from Houston this weekend to watch the race. Since this will be Brian and Kevin's first race it's a pretty important event. That reminds me... I need to call and see if I can get a maid!

Hablo Espanol

I can't believe I forgot to mention that I started learning Spanish. I got a set of CDs from the local book store called "the Pimsleur Method". It uses a unique graduated interval recall method to help you convert what you have learned from short-term to long-term memory. I listen to the CDs and respond while in the car. It works out really well because it's about 15 minutes to work and back, and each lesson is about 30 minutes. I am supposed to do only one lesson a day to help maximize the process of converting to long-term memory.
Today is day 3. It seems to be working. I have retained 100% of what I learned in the first two lessons. Of course, it's very basic stuff, so it might become more difficult as I get further into it, but so far I'm feeling pretty darn clever.

Great end to a long weekend

Biking didn't go so well yesterday. The trail was more technical than I was comfortable riding, so we ended up goofing around on the roads and mike went for a swim in the lake, then we went home and made taco's at Mike and Tara's house.
When we got home we ordered our new plasma TV. You can see it by visiting this link: Our TV
We have to wait 2 weeks for it to be delivered because it's not currently in stock. We got an awesome price, though. We got an IBM employee discount that saved us over $2,000. Awesome! I can't wait for it to arrive.