My Life, As Told Between (Baby Cakes') Naps

My friend V and I stayed at the Omni the night before the race so we could meet our running group the next morning and take the subway to the starting line together. We woke up at 5:30, met our group at 6:15 and arrived at the starting line at 7:15, an hour before our race was due to start.

This year’s race got off to a much better start than last year. Last year, we waited in the freezing cold for almost two hours, so this year, I came prepared. Like many other runners, I had on disposable layers. I felt bad contributing to the piles of clothes strewn about the starting line (which I hope gets donated), especially since we weren’t waiting nearly as long this year and it wasn’t nearly as cold as it was last year. (Seriously, it was so cold last year, I feared losing appendages to frostbite. Then, when the race actually started, it suddenly became blisteringly hot.) This year, it was fairly mild to warm for most of the race.

I was oddly tired right from the beginning, but managed to stay with my group, which on track for a 4:30 finish time, for 21 miles. Sadly, at mile 21, I hit a wall and had to slow down considerably. T met me at mile 22 though and said I was looking better than I did last year, when I started out way too fast and hit a wall at mile 15. The rest of the race was a painful blur, but I got myself through it with the promise that I would take a break from marathons after this one. Finished in 04:55:58 and felt miraculously better as soon as my foot crossed the finish line. Quickly devored a banana and some apple slices and was feeling fairly human by the time I made it back to the hotel, where T greeted me with some lovely flowers.

Plus, thanks to a prescient phone call from T, I didn’t get lost this year finding my way back to the hotel! Hurrah! (The last two years, I’ve desperately wandered around downtown LA, lost and confused, for half an hour after the race. This year, I was tempted to make the same wrong turn I’ve taken the last two times – I am nothing if not a creature of habit – but T wisely thought to call and navigate me back to the Omni.)

Done. 04:55:58. About 6 minutes slower than my best time (my first marathon two years ago), but almost 30 minutes faster than my time last year. Think I’m going to take a break from distance running for awhile. This last one really wore me out.

How cute is this dress? If I had $400 to spare and an occasion to wear it to, I’d be all over it! =)

My parents and T’s mom finally had a chance to meet at a lovely BBQ hosted by T’s mom this Saturday. My parents brought the meat (three different kinds of beef) and T’s mom provided the setting and the sides. The Fresno weather cooperated and gave us a beautiful sunny day in which to sit and feast. Aside from introducing my mom by the wrong name (I inadvertantly introduced her by her last name rather than her first – What? I rarely call her anything but “Mom”!), it turned out to be a great first meeting. And, as always, Buddy Lee (see below) was a big hit.

Sunday, we went to Yosemite, which was a first for me. Still covered in a blanket of snow, it was beautiful. I’m looking forward to another trip back in the spring, when we can bike and hike around without fear of losing fingers to frostbite.

Oh, and somewhere between all this loveliness and fun, we made the mistake of seeing Jumper, despite being warned by several people that it was the worst movie ever made. I wish we had listened because it’s two hours of my life I won’t be able to get back. In fact, I still have haunting visions of suffering through this movie. Please, for your own sanity, do not see this movie.

Happy (belated) Lunar New Year! Growing up, we always tried to clean house before the lunar new year, so we’d be able to welcome the new year in on a good note. I was really hoping to do the same this year, but T and I fell a little behind and didn’t get around to cleaning our place until this weekend (new year was Thursday, February 7th).

I guess the good news is that we did it at all since we were originally scheduled to go to Fresno this weekend. However, our plans changed at the last minute and we found ourselves with an entirely free weekend in LA. . . so we impetuously decided to thrown an impromptu dinner party! T and I scrubbed the place clean Saturday morning and had a random assortment of friends over for dinner Saturday night, including my running buddy G, his wife and their adorable seven month old daughter.* T grilled up steaks and corn on the cob, while I sautéed mushrooms, put together a salad and oversaw the baked potatos. People brought over yummy desserts (sabatoging my three day old effort to give up chocolate in support of T’s giving up soda and dessert for Lent), which we munched on while playing Apples to Apples, the best game ever, and generally catching up. It was a terrific get-together and I’m so glad it came together as well as it did at the last minute!

*My apologies if you weren’t invited. It was mostly my running buddies – whom I’d gone running with that morning – and people who happened to call us that day. It reminded me of how much we enjoy having people over though. Hopefully, we’ll be motivated to do it more often!

Just devoured the last two books of the Gemma Doyle trilogy this weekend. I’d recommend it to anyone who likes The Golden Compass/Harry Potter series, i.e., young-adult fantasy books, although this one had some very dark and scary scenes. I’ve been a little scared of the dark since I’ve started reading it. It doesn’t help that the last week has been cloudy and stormy with all sorts of noises in the middle of the night. Luckily for me, T’s still working days so he’s there to reassure me there are no monsters in the hall or hiding behind the closet door at night! =)

Aside from obsessively reading, I dragged T along with me to meet several florists this weekend. I don’t want to do it any more than he does and don’t see why I should be stuck with it simply because I’m the bride. Fortunately, he was a great sport about it (mostly) . . . although I think he’s developed a bit of a martyr complex after one of the florist accidently revealed that she doesn’t see many grooms at the initial consultation!  We also looked into hotels near our venue and will hopefully have a block of rooms reserved at a decent price for our guests soon.

Other highlights of the weekend include playing Trivia Pursuit ’80’s edition with T’s brother (T surprised us both by taking the lead before we all called it quits), finally putting up shades in the guest bedroom (T’s mom calls the guest room the Land of Eternal Sunshine because aside from the lack of shades, there’s also a light right outside the window), and watching The Bourne Ultimatium (which was a fun action movie).

Checked out some bridesmaid dresses and visited a couple of wedding photographers this weekend. We’ve decided to go with the first photographer we met. We really liked him and his work and his rates are reasonablish. (I say reasonablish because everything wedding related is grossly inflated and expensive.)

We also met with a DJ last night and are meeting with three florists this weekend. Since we don’t have any friends that have recently gotten married in LA, choosing vendors has been really difficult. Sigh.  Wedding planning is all about making decisions and neither T nor I are particularly good decision makers. I can’t wait until we finalize all the vendors and I can stop worrying about whether I’ve chosen the right person . . . cause, um, that worry goes away as soon as you sign the contract, right?

This isn’t my wedding dress, but how gorgeous is it?! If I hadn’t already bought my gown (which I still love), and T weren’t opposed to slinky gowns (although this has more shape than most), this one would definitely be a contender. Especially since it’s only $378 $225!

Survived my 22 mile run on Saturday, with energy left over to meet up for lunch and a movie with my friend L. I’d originally intended to go into the office to catch up on some work this weekend, since T had to work both days, but ended up getting distracted by fun things and domesticy things the entire weekend.

L and I had lunch at the Curry House and headed to Pinkberry for dessert, where we were pleasantly surprised to run into our friend, J, and her boyfriend. J, L and I had all trained for the LA Marathon together last year but they’ve since taken a break due to various running injuries.*

After Pinkberry, L and I went to see The Waterhorse, which was cute and a little touching. So bascially about what I had expected.** I was lured in because of the sheer cuteness of the titular Waterhorse and he lived up to expectations. We were the only ones there above 10 and/or without a 10 year old in tow however.

Sunday I used up my quota of domesticity for the year. I went grocery shopping, did laundry, took out the trash, dusted, ironed, organized, and cooked (a decent!) dinner using one of the great cookbooks we got for Christmas! Whew. Tired just thinking about it.

*Actually, I’m thinking of taking a break from marathons after this next one and sticking with half-marathons for awhile. They cause much less wear and tear on your body. I’ve also recently signed up for Pilates classes, which will hopefully help balance out all the running. I love Pilates and am excited the studio next to our place finally opened. I had my first class today and although it was painful getting up at 5:40am, the class was fun and passed by quickly.

**Added bonus – the fancy theater showing The Waterhorse sold Tim Tams at the consession stand! I’m ashamed to say it, but as beautiful as Australia is and as much as I enjoyed various aspects of it during my visit, Tim Tams may be what I miss most.

T thinks I’m going to be a terror between now and the wedding. This may be in part because last night, I forced him to take me to Office Depot to pick up clear mailing labels for our Save the Date cards, which I insisted had to be done that very day (our cards had arrived earlier that day) even though our wedding is still over nine months away, almost everyone knows the date already anyways, and we probably won’t actually mail them until sometime next week when we finish getting all the addresses we need.

He then witnessed me frantically searching the store to find matching clear return address labels, only to dejectedly settle for white ones because the clear ones only came in expensive packs of 2,000 – way more than we need for our small wedding!

What he doesn’t see however is all the insanity I’m actually saving him from! There’s a big old scary world of wedding etiquette and protocol out there to which T is comfortably oblivious thanks to me (i.e., I just don’t tell him about it). I can only hope most of our guests are equally oblivious because I’m already trampling willy nilly over a lot of the old rules.

If you’re a stickler for wedding etiquette however, I apologize in advance for using printed address labels instead of calligraphy, dropping your courtesy titles, whether it be “Mr.,” “Mrs.,” “Ms.” or other, daring to include both our names on the (white! grrr) return address labels, thereby acknowledging that we’re living together before marriage, and a million other offenses I’ll undoubtedly commit between now and the wedding! =)

Heading back to LA after a great ten day vacation, where we visited T’s family in Fresno and my family in San Jose. I’m five pounds heavier, but ten times happier having seen so many of our friends and loved ones!

Happy new year everyone! Wishing you all love, peace, health and happiness in the upcoming year!

I bought my wedding dress this weekend!! After unanimous approval from both the Girlfriends and the Sisters, and a little whimpering over the price, I handed over my credit card (which was emitting its own pathetic whimpers). I love, love, love the dress though and can’t wait to wear it! Oh, and to get married and all that of course. =)

My weekend got off to a nice start Friday night, when we had dinner at C&O with a couple of T’s friends. Unfortunately, we had to call it an early night because I had to get up at 5:oo a.m. for a 20 mile run the next morning. The run, my first 20 mile run since the Marathon in March, was great! Aside from a brief moment at mile 15 when I wondered if I could go on, the run was fun and fairly relaxed.

T and I spent most of Saturday cleaning house and preparing for the dinner party we were hosting for some of my friends who were visiting from out of town. Dinner (aka take out pizza and snacks) was fun, although we bailed on going out afterwards in favor of watching Battlestar Galactica Razor and going to sleep early. Because that’s how we roll.

Fortunately, I got in a lot more together time with them on Sunday, when they came over for brunch, wedding dress shopping, and cupcakes. After they left, T and his brother dragged me to do more manly things – like watching I Am Legend. Which I actually only saw 1/3rd of as my eyes were firmly shut for 2/3rds of the movie. Either because I was scared, anticipated being scared, or was recovering from a scare.

(As told to me by T.)

T: Yes, my finance’s beautiful and in great shape [Note from Y: Not so sure I believe this part.] She loves to run and has run a few marathons.

Co-Worker: Really? Well, that’s all well and good now, but what happens when she blows out a knee and can’t run anymore?

T: Well, I guess she’ll just eat less. [Note from Y: I definitely believe this part.]

My sisters came to town this past weekend for a sister-bonding, wedding dress shopping weekend. It’s been years since all three of us have spent any length of time together, so it was a really great weekend. Made even better by the fact that I think I’ve found my perfect wedding dress (*knock on wood*)!

We visited three bridal stores and while we liked several dresses, we all fell in love with a dress at the last store. It’s simple, sophisticated, and sexy while still feeling like a wedding dress rather than just another white dress. The cut of the dress is a little reminiscent of the 1920’s. Best of all, it’s comfortable, lightweight and doesn’t require a petticoat! I absolutely love it and am dragging some friends along next weekend to try it on again. I totally want to buy it RIGHT NOW!

Some of you may already know this about me, but I have scarcity issues. I’m always slightly worried that things will run out before I get to them. I know in this context it’s totally illogical, but it’s there nonetheless. It may be a family trait since my sister B (who first noticed the dress) is now worried they’ll run out of all the good wedding dresses before she gets married/engaged. In fact, after we left the last bridal shop, she called her longterm boyfriend and told him, “You’d better get on it!”

In related shopping news, I bought these shoes on sale recently:

(They’re a darker, richer red than they look in this photo.)

I had thought to wear them underneath my dress (no one will see my shoes anyways and they’d be a fun touch of color!) but given my sisters’ gasps of horror and vehement objections, I may have to reconsider. Although I have no idea what else I’d wear them to/with. . .

Any minute now I’m going to start shopping for OTHER people. Really. I promise!

Remember me? I don’t know if you’re still out there, but I use to post on this Blog occastionally. I realize it’s been even more sparse than usual lately. Work’s been really busy and with the holidays and wedding planning (by which I mostly mean looking at pictures of stuff online and in magazines) and updating MySpace, Facebook, Friendster and my wedding site, this Blog’s been a little neglected. Sorry about that. I can’t promise that’s going to change any time soon, but you know you can always email or call me right? Cause I’m just saying, I’ve noticed a lack of such emails and calls recently. I know, I know, I haven’t been particularly good at instigating those either. However, T and I did order our cheesy Christmas cards recently so you can expect those in the mail sometime. . . hopefully before next Christmas.

So yes, all is good. We’ve been filling our days with lots of friends, family and food. We’re heading up to northern California today for a belated Thanksgiving dinner with my family, which I’m really excited about. I’ll also get to see some friends I haven’t seen in forever. My sisters are coming to town the following weekend to help me try on wedding dresses. Then one of my best friends, the Frog, is back in California for the holidays, so I’m looking forward to seeing her.  Hope your holidays are all going well too and would love to hear from you! =)

I hope you all are able to make it home to celebrate Thanksgiving with your families. This year will be the second year I’m doing a belated Thanksgiving (we were on our cruise to the Caribbeans last year). T unfortunately has to work Thursday so we’re going home to visit my family the following weekend. Since my family is small and everyone but me lives in San Jose anyways, they’re postponing Thanksgiving dinner until December 1st. Yay for great families!

Speaking of great families, T and I went with his mother and brother to Disneyland to celebrate Birthday Month (all three of them have birthdays this month). I had a blast, even when forced to endure scary rollcoaster rides like Space Mountain. We got to the park at 10am and stayed until midnight, going on what must have been every single ride in both Disneyland and California Adventure.

Unfortunately, my body chose to remind me the next day that I’m getting older and thus can no longer be physically active for that long a stretch without some repercussions. Exhausted, I slept through my alarm and completely missed up meeting with my friends for the run that I had organized, then just layed around and did nothing the rest of the day, periodically taking a nap to escape the exhausting laying around. Three days later, I feel like I’m just barely getting my energy back. . .

Anyways, happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Sorry, work’s been kicking my butt this week. Between substantive work, meetings, and firm events, etc., I’ve been stretched a little thin. I’ve even noticed that my right eye has been twitching a bit the last couple of days! Sigh. No end in sight until mid December. Woe is me.

On a positive note, T and I painted an accent wall this past weekend! It’s teal and super cute. I’ll try to remember to post a picture.

Sorry posting’s been especially spotty on this blog lately. Since we booked a wedding date this past weekend – September 19th! – I’ve been secretly putting together our wedding blog. Yes, even though my wedding is actually ages from now (in exactly 316 days according to my wedding website countdown), I’ve been checking out wedding websites and putting my own together.

In case you’re interested, here are some of the dresses I tried on and actually liked!

Update: Since my friend CH mistakenly expressed an interest in my wedding stories, I thought I’d explain why wedding dress shopping was so much harder than I had anticipated. Apparently most places require you make a reservation – which I didn’t realize and when informed didn’t understand. Since we only had an hour to spare (and I don’t want to spend $1,000+ for my dress), we popped into David’s Bridal, a big chain store that could accomodate walk-ins. The reason appointments are necessary immediately became obvious. Many of the dresses require petticoats and bustier bras (provided by the store), are heavy, delicate, and/or cumbersome. Getting those suckers on and off is a labor intensive endeavor so someone is assigned to you who gets the dresses and helps you put them on and take them off while your friends sit on the sideline ready to provide commentary. It’s a little unnerving to be the center of that much attention, but maybe it’s good preparation for the wedding?

Happy Halloween all! Hope everyone’s enjoying their week! We’ve been super busy lately, but mostly with fun things. Friday night, we had dinner with a couple of T’s friends who were staying with us as they had a wedding in LA that weekend.

Saturday morning I did an 11 mile run by myself because I woke up too late to join my running group. Saturday night we went out with KA and some other friends in Hermosa, which was a blast. The girls dressed up as sailors and T came as a low-budget pirate (because the Halloween stores were ransacked we only managed to buy the pirate accessories but not the actual costume, so he wore jeans and a white t-shirt).

Sunday I went wedding dress shopping with some friends, which wasn’t nearly as horrible as I was anticipating, but a lot more involved than I thought. I even found some dresses I liked. Afterwards, T and I went to a pumpkin carving dinner party. But being the old fogies we are, by the time the dinner portion of the evening was over, it was so late we were too tired to do any carving. Fortunately, most of the other guests felt the same way so our hosts kindly gave us all cute little pumpkins and a carving set to go. T and I carved ours last night (well, T carved while I hurriedly threw together dinner since it was getting really late):