Recent Adventures

This spring has turned into one of the best, maybe the best, in my young years.  The wedding is only about 80 days away now and I can. not. wait.  The wedding planning is going smoothly.  This weekend Brandon and I got to test our wedding cake options.  That was by far the most fun of all of the wedding planning.  We're 90% sure that our bottom tier will be almond (the baker's version of yellow cake with buttercream frosting), the middle tier will be a yellow cake with pineapple filling, and the top tier will also probably be almond with buttercream frosting.

Easter was a lot of fun.  Here's my favorite picture from that day.  Isn't he handsome with his bowtie?  Good grief that man is good looking.



Otherwise we've been having a lot of fun.  We went to my first Drive By Truckers' concert last month.  Brandon is a really big fan and has seen them several times.  I enjoyed the concert a lot but the really cool part was watching him get all giddy telling me about his favorite band.  It reminded me of when we first started dating.

Aren't we just adorable?  Really, we're uncommonly good looking people.

The concert was really fun.  It was at a baseball stadium and the band was in the middle of the field while the audience was in the stands.  This means that even though we were on the very first row we were still 40 feet away from the band.  It was a weird set-up but it was still really cool.  The power went out to the main-stage in the very first song so for about ten minutes the band went around and visited with fans while the crew worked on the issue.  Brandon got to fist-bump Patterson Hood, one of the main singers and guitarists.  I don't think he's washed his hand since then.

This period of dating and engagement has been so much fun.  I am looking forward to June 29th but still trying to relish this time before we are husband and wife.  There is something about waiting to see each other that creates an anticipation that once we are married and living together most of that will be gone.  I won't have to until the weekend to see him; I'll have to wait until we get home from work.  There is something different about this time that I want to savor because once we're married it will be gone.

Mason Jars

I feel like I'm going to go all 'Joan Crawford' on somebody every time I see a wedding idea with a mason jar.

They. Are. Everywhere.

Candle holders, pew decorations, lanterns, cookie cutters shaped like the famous 'Ball' logo, vases, invitations with the image embossed on them, used as glasses, turned into 'the theme of your wedding' snow globes, etc.

Mason jars are everywhere.  There is not a thing wrong with these glass jars.  People seem to love them and that's great.

For them.

But, if you don't want mason jars at your wedding, man, you are out of luck.  Just look at Pinterest and you'll see what I mean.

My cat, Simon

Since the engagement I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out what parts of my single life will stay the same when I get married and which parts I will need to change when I pair my life with Brandon's.  Two of the things that will change are CrossFit and my job.  I'll also be moving from Tallahassee to a town that doesn't have a stoplight.  However, I will continue running and lifting, I will continue teaching history to college students, and I will continue to spend as much time with my best friend as I can.

But there will a significant change and I'm trying to do the best with it now that I can.

I won't be taking my three cats, Idget, Simon, and Baxter, with me to Norman Park.  I have a lot of reasons for not doing so and while this is a difficult decision it is not one I took on lightly.  I have made tentative but promising arrangements for Baxter and Idget but nothing yet is looking good for my cat, Simon.

So, dear friends and readers, please consider helping my cat by making room for him in your home.  He's a 9 year old neutered male.  He's a real cuddler and will want to be near you if not right next to you.  This is a picture of him in my lap.

When I first got Simon he was meant to be a companion cat to Idget.  Nine years ago I moved into my first apartment and between school and work I spent a lot of time gone and Idget was clearly bored and bothered by my absence.  I found an ad for a kitten in the music building on UF's campus and knew this was a good choice.  It turns out the person who found him found Simon in a trash bag inside a trash can.  The kitten's howling drew attention and he was rescued.  

For years he and Idget were clearly best friends but in the past nine months Simon's status in the house has changed.  I don't know if it is because of his age or a change in his behavior but when once Simon's position in the house was as a firm alpha, he is now bullied by my other two cats and excluded by them.  He is very unhappy and it is in his best interest that he find another home even if I wasn't getting married.

He would be a good match for someone who either does not have a cat or who has only one other cat.  As an older cat he would not be a fifteen or twenty year commitment like a kitten is and has the maturity to not be destructive like a younger cat could be.  But don't let his age fool you- he is a fiend for a laser, stuffed toy on a string, and loves to chase and pop bubbles!  

If you're interested in adopting Simon I will make this a no-hassle experience for you.  He will be up-to-date on vaccinations and I'll send you home with a litter box, some litter, some flea treatments, and a couple of weeks worth of cat food.  

Please consider giving this genuinely sweet cat a place in your home.  My home is no longer best for him and I need to consider what may make him happier and that may be your family.

Short-Term Goals

Brandon and I have set a wedding date of June 29th of this year.  That is only a few months away.  I am crazy excited about this but it does mean the end of something else: CrossFit Tallahassee.  

There's a countdown to my wedding but I also know that it is this countdown to a place that gave me a community and friendships here in town and I am sad to leave it.  I'm not sad to leave FSU- I'm done with courses and my church home is now in Norman Park.  The one community that I cannot take with me to Georgia is the one I've made at CrossFit.

So, with that in mind, I want to make the most of the structured WODs that I can and I want to work harder to reach some goals.

1. Double-unders:  I am horrible at jump rope.  For all of the coordination that I thought I had for Zumba classes I cannot seem to master the timing of jumping rope.  My goal is to get ten double-unders in a three minute period.  This means actually getting dubs to begin with.

2. Skin the cat: I want to do an unassisted skin the cat.  

3. Box Jumps- right now I can jump what I have lovingly called 'baby grey.'  Well, I think I should be able to master 'medium grey' soon.

4.  Handstands: I would like to be able to kick myself up to an unassisted handstand.

5. Rope Climbs.  I've never been able to do this.  I'd like to get at least half-way up the knotted rope.

No half marathon for me in two weeks.

Man, I was so excited to run the Disney Princess Half Marathon on February 23.

Then January 7th happened.

Sometime while teaching I got a cold on the first day of school and the cold laid me flat for 10 days but the worst part was that the cough is still with me.  Almost five weeks later and I am only just now getting back into the running part and back into CrossFit.  A week ago I could barely walk across campus without stopping to take resting breaks to catch my breath.

Now I'm getting back into the swing of things and am humbled at how out of shape I am.  Two miles feels so hard and I am really slow.  Before Christmas I could go out and run 8 miles with less than 12 minute mile averages; not even close now.  Running 13.1 miles just isn't going to happen in two weeks.  I was very sad when I made this decision but I'm not trained for it and I want my next half to be an awesome experience; run/walking a four+ hour half marathon was not what I wanted for myself.

But this week and last week I've gone running and gone to the WODs.

Oh, the WODs.  I have missed them so much.  I missed my friends but there are other things.  I missed the way they made they made me feel about myself.  I love defining myself as a runner and as an extreme athlete and CrossFit and races let me do that.  I've said here before that I'll never be content being a casual exerciser.  I need to feel like an athlete and not just that, but as a bat out of hell, oh dear, this stuff is insanely hard but awesome kind of athlete.

Doing what others won't even bother trying is what makes it great.

So yeah, I'm back into things.

Guess what else, I've signed up for another race.  Yes, it's only a 5K, but races keep me committed and you get Girl Scout cookies at the end of this.

11th Day of Christmas

Today is the 11th day of Christmas and I found this on my fiance's blog:

Seeing as I took that picture I think it's okay to put it here.  Besides the ears and the raised the eyebrow, it's the eye patch that really sets Brandon up as an elf with questionable intentions.  

Even looking ridiculous he's still really hot.

Big News!

There are a lot of things that have happened over the past month.  I've done a couple of races, including a Thanksgiving day Turkey Trot where I PRed a 10K with 1:11:41.  I ran a Santa Shuffle in Moultrie with milk, cookies, and Santa at the end.  It was a lot of fun, although mostly filled with people who don't run races.  I defended my prospectus and now I'm all set for dissertation research.  I went to Kentucky where I met my very first nephew, Grant.  All of that is wonderful.  All of it marks my personal, academic, and professional successes, but something happened last night that changed everything.

Really, it changed everything.

Brandon and I got engaged!

He did the whole thing beautifully and I wanted to write it here because I wanted to share it and also because I want to remember it before too much time passes for me and I start to get the details fuzzy.

I came down to Moultrie on Christmasday from Kentucky.  Our family celebrations were a little different this year so the whole family went home on the twenty-fifth and instead of going home with my parents I drove straight to Brandon's apartment.  Brandon took me to the family farm where all of his immediate family was in for the holiday.  We spent the evening eating leftover Christmas dinner and watching holiday movies.  I spent the night at Brandon's apartment and he stayed at his parents' house. 

The next morning I came over and Brandon's mother made the family pancakes for breakfast.  Brandon and I then went and saw what may be the most depressing movie about marriage ever, This is Forty.  We really wanted to like it; I really wanted to like it, but I just couldn't.  Brandon dropped me off at his apartment and went to run some errands, I stayed to put on a dress and get ready for a dinner in town.  Brandon told me he wanted to take me on a date since we hadn't seen each other in over a week and because his house was really busy with people.  He also wanted to take me to drive under the Moultrie Christmas lights as they turn them off on the thirty-first and I wouldn't be back before the New Year.  On Thanksgiving night we went to the Christmas tree and lighting ceremony and throughout December we'd driven under them several times.

When he asked me where I wanted to go I picked Mexican, so we went to El Cantador, a local place in the Wal-Mart plaza.  Later when he asked me if I knew what was happening all I could think was 'Chips!  I just got engaged and I ate chips!  No one eats chips right before they get engaged.'

After dinner we drove to the Moultrie downtown center by the courthouse.  I was wearing a dress, gloves, a scarf, and my new coat that I got for Christmas.  I had bare legs so I was freezing in the wind, I mean really, my teeth were actually chattering.  Brandon and I were walking and he started to tell me that he had been praying for us in the car earlier today, while running his errands.  He had been praying for our future and some of the plans we'd been talking about, including marriage.  He then told me that he'd been praying for his wife for years before he met me and that after he met me he started praying for me specifically.  At some point he realized that the wife he'd been praying for and his prayers for me were for the same person. 

Then he got down on one knee and the rest gets a bit blurry but I know he asked me to marry him.  I looked at him and then I bent down and kissed him and looked at him again.  He said that he knew what my answer would be but I took forever to actually answer him.

"Everyday yes.  Everyday yes.  Yes, everyday, always."  Or, really, something almost exactly like that.  I really wanted to say that phrase.  I'd thought about it.  I wanted to say 'everyday yes' because I wanted to tell him that if he asked me again in a week, in seven years, and in twenty three years and so on that my answer would still be the same and that everyday I would make the same decision.   

And so now Brandon and I are engaged.  We will be getting married this summer in June.  We are both overwhelmed with excitement and I am happier then I knew I could be, then I thought I deserved.  This relationship is the answer to many prayers. 

The next six months cannot pass soon enough.