Where I've been and some exciting news

So, here's what I've been up to since returning from my fabulous vacation:

 A little bit of this...

And whole lot of this...

HA. I'm kidding...mostly. But seriously. I've had so many 9 o'clock bedtimes in the past week. Recovering from vacation and coming back to face the inconsiderate bitch that is work (Coworkers-what do you mean you don't want to sit here and listen to me recall every detail of my trip and see the 400 almost identical pictures I took of the mountains while you were stuck here???) has proved to be almost impossible. 

But I'm finally catching up on work and life, which is why I now have time to drop back in and say HI! To all my blogging friends and all my other friends and all you random people who never talk to me in real life but secretly stop by and read when you are bored at work or sitting in traffic. I love you all!

 (Not equally, of course, but it's still love so just accept it.)

Now that I've caught you up to speed on all the boring crap I've been doing, I need to fill you in on my extra-curricular activities. Last week (has it been that long already? I no longer have any concept of time.) I met up with my best friend in the entire world for the showing of SOTM2!!!!

Aside from coming on an entire half hour later than it was scheduled to (WTF, AMC?!?!!) this movie was INCREDIBLE. Y'all. I could not have been more enthralled by the stories of the seven runners they followed during their journey through the Rome Marathon. I cried, and I'm pretty sure I saw Allison cry. If you saw the first Spirit of the Marathon, I promise, this was even better, and even more inspiring. 

SO inspiring that the very next day...

I signed up to run my first marathon.

Yep. Betcha didn't see that coming. I'm such a sucker y'all. 

Anyways, I've really been slacking on my runs lately. My last "feel good" run was my birthday nine-miler, and since then I've only run a handful of times. I completely fell off my half marathon training wagon, and just hadn't felt motivated. I decided a few weeks ago to skip out on the Jalapeno Half Marathon at the end of this month. Partly because I can't really afford to shell out money on a race registration right now, and partly because I know I'm not ready for it. As much as it sucks and is a little embarrassing, I'm also really ok with it. I'm not the kind of person who wants to drop almost a hundred bucks to run a race by myself that I know I'm not going to do well in. I'm okay with that. But in the past month or so, I've really been craving a "running community." Cheesy? Oh, hell yes. But right now, it's exactly what I need. I don't have anyone close to me that is into running. And on those days when I'm tired, or busy, or just not feeling it, I want to have accountability with someone other than my training plan. So after thinking about it for all of 24 hours, I bit the bullet and ran down to our local running store (Fort Worth Running Company), and signed up for the almost 6 month long marathon training program. And I am excited. We meet for three runs during the week, and one long run on Saturday mornings. I'm SO excited to be around a huge group of people of all different backgrounds and age groups and just run! I'm also excited because it's starting out really slow, easy, and letting me fall back in love with running all over again. 

I think that deserves yays and claps all around. 

And for the second piece of exciting news...

I'm going to New York!

Actually, we're going to New York! Me and the tall friend, I mean best friend.

She hit the jackpot and will be in New York having an awesome time and also doing some photography work, so I'm going to fly up for a long weekend to hang out. So your assignment is to start coming up with a list of must-do/must-see things for a quick weekend in New York. Also if you are one of my NYC readers your assignment is to email me and hit me up for a cup of coffee/a beer/a run/whatever suits your fancy while I am in town. I mean it! 

And because I have failed you and have yet to reference anything pop culture in this post...

Congrats to Kimye!

LOVE&HUGS,

Nat