Reverse Route

Morning runs this week so far = 2 (Monday and Wednesday)

How did they go?  Man, it's getting hot out there in Boston even at 5:45am it's already 70 degrees with high humidity.  That's just crazy, but it's still way better than after work at 7pm when it's even hotter outside and there are more people out in about (and in my way).  I've been having a hard time breathing, and it's really my own fault, I'm not taking care of myself.  When my allergies are bad, then my asthma is bad, they go hand in hand.  I ran out of Zyrtec last week and I keep forgetting to get more.  By the time I remember, it will probably be August!  I have my inhaler at least.

This morning I decided to try something new, or new to me anyways.  I took my usual route and ran it in reverse.  This is generally recommended to keep away boredom and it's like mixing it up without really mixing it up.  I think it made it harder somehow - my brain was too active when I sort of wanted it to stay asleep.  Usually, my brain feels totally and completely shut off until I hit around 1.3 miles and then I'm suddenly like "OMG I'm running WTF!" and then it becomes a little bit more labored for me, and so this time it felt that way the entire time.  I actually had to think about where to turn and stop and look for cars, when it's usually just total reflex.  This route reversal is probably better for a run later in the day for me and anyone else who likes to run while half awake.  I followed my run with some core work that I remembered from an old pilates dvd and then I basically melted into myself in the heat of our apartment while stretching out.  Central air cannot come soon enough, this window unit AC crap is total BS. 

Oh and surprise, I have to start training for the Newport Half soon... that sort of crept up on me.  I did sort of forget how much less time you need to train for a half than a full, only 12 weeks vs. the 18 weeks for the full marathon.  I am going to loosely follow the Hal Higdon Intermediate Half Marathon Training Program, and I say loosely because I'm not good about following track workouts but I follow the long run schedule as closely as possible.  The intermediate program is for someone who has already experienced going through this at least once before and is ready to alter goals from "just crossing the finish line" to improving upon previous time.  It's too early yet to really have a goal time, but two years ago I ran about a 2:10 in San Francisco which... with the hills isn't so bad and it was my first distance race ever, but in Chicago my split at the half was 2:00 so I know that this one will be under the 2 hour marker, it's just how much I'm not sure on yet... 2:50 would be a good place to start.  I have pretty much no talent in the distance field, but I like the half, it's long enough to feel like you've really worked for it but short enough that you can walk the next day.  It's a very reasonable distance for people who don't have a ton of time.

This picture has nothing to do with anything, but it makes me laugh (this was done in Vegas).  They took our faces and put them onto Star Wars characters... which Almost works... I mean they made me white and then they didn't exactly fit Abe's face quite right, but it's still hilarious.-- also, this is what I look like without bangs.

First Weekend of Budgeting

Since last week our finances have dramatically changed.  It's about time too, we were never really good with our money because we had no reason to be.  Now that we are facing the realities of home ownership and every yearly cost that comes along with it, we really need to cut out all of our stupid expenses and be more careful about where our money is going. 

Friday night:
Usual dinner - dinner out somewhere in the neighborhood of $75 or a ridiculous amount of takeout $50
Actual dinner - $28 for pizza and salad delivery... slightly over priced but still cheaper
Store - picked up ingredients to make a few dinners for my parents while my dad is recovering from surgery next week and a handful of items for us at home $37 and bought almost every single thing on sale or for a fraction of the price I would have paid at Whole Foods... this was a serious eye opener considering some of it was organic.  I had two bags bulging full of food and $37 at Whole Foods would have gotten me 1/2 of that.  Also, the delivery of said dinners to my mom made her really happy for a very small amount of cash.

Saturday:
Lunch - mom and dad picked up the tab for Chinese food after a 3 hour long house inspection.
Dinner - leftover pizza and salad with a hard cidar... usual dinner would be at a restaurant with friends and drinks somewhere in the neighborhood of $100.
Store - I had to go to the pharmacy to pick something up $0 copay and Abe needed some allergy medicine.  Usually I would just buy whatever, but this time I brought a $3 off coupon and also have a special health care card discount on store brand products so we saved $7.50 off a $21 for 90 allergy pills.  I was pretty freaking happy about that deal!

Sunday:
Lunch - we stopped and picked up sandwiches and drinks for us and my mom on our way out to see them quickly, $24.  We don't normally go out for lunch on both Saturday and Sunday, so this is a bit out of the usual routine, but we were sort of stuck doing it due to timing so I'm glad we kept it on the cheap.
Gas - Our new car has a much bigger gas tank than our old car which is sort of good and bad... but instead of filling it up all the way, we only filled it with $30 worth... remember back in high school when you'd only fill it with $5 or $10 at a time?  This is sort of how that felt...
Dinner - $0, leftover ingredients from my grocery store visit on Friday and some pantry items.

Besides feeling a bit poor, I was able to fit in a run this morning before doing a million other things so I could feel a bit out of shape too.  It was my first run in 5 days and so I knew that I was going to feel slow, which I totally did.  It didn't help that it was hot and humid out there but my splits were really really bad... at one point, I questioned the accuracy of my Garmin.  Since I knew that the run was going to be unimpressive, I decided to add in some stadium stair running - and you would think that would make it worse, but I think it really helped me.  Doing something different within a run makes it go by faster and honestly running upstairs is pretty enjoyable.  I am still having trouble with my angle/tendon/calf post-running.  After taking 5 days off, I'm surprised that it's still there but it is so maybe it's time to try something else.  Someone on Twitter suggested yoga, and I have been thinking a lot about yoga and weight training and how they can improve my running so maybe this week I can try and add a little bit in and ease into that... sigh, we'll see.  Maybe this week I'll continue to think about it more while I'm helping my family out after work, and next week I can actually do something about it...

Almost a Done Deal

Today we had the inspection done on the house that we could potentially own in 2 weeks out in the suburbs... this is all happening at a swift and uncomfortable rate.  Last Saturday, we got a "first look" at this house before it was officially on the market and immediately we placed an offer thinking that they would just laugh at it and wait for a better offer to come around.  On Sunday we left for Vegas for a 4 day vacation, and spent half of it negotiating with the sellers.  We ended up compromising on a fair price, and then set up the inspection for today.  Our home inspector was Fantastic, very meticulous and really good at pointing out things that weren't necessarily wrong but things he thought we should keep an eye on.  My parents came along and saw the house for the first time - my mother was trying to contain her overwhelming joy that we bought a house so close to them (15 minutes away), and my father was trying to contain his overwhelming joy that it wasn't a piece of shit.  The inspector found a lot of little things that we are going to bring back to the sellers to ask them to fix or compensate for, and we have pending radon and well water tests as well.

This house is great because we can move in without having to really do much to it at all.  There are some updates that we'll want to make over time such as new cabinets, counter tops, appliances in the kitchen, new flooring in the kitchen bathrooms and dining room, new light fixtures, new front steps, and a couple little odds and ends.  There was only one medium sized project that needs attention immediately having to do with rot on some of the trim on the outside of the house but it's a very small amount and should be taken care of without too much money or stress.

The home itself sits on 2 acres of land so my dad is going to sell us his sit down lawn mower and leaf blower for an amazing deal - I'm pretty sure he's only doing this because he can't wait to upgrade to something even more powerful for his yard (expect a hilarious photo of me sitting on our new lawn mower with a beer in hand... is that illegal?).  Taking care of that amount of yard isn't something that I really had thought too much about... but now that I'm thinking about having to water all those plants, I am starting to worry... it will be alright, I just can't forget this time.

I'm starting to worry about a lot of things.  Sure, I'm ready to leave the city, but that doesn't mean that there aren't at least a dozen concerns swirling around my brain.  Perhaps the biggest one is how broke we're going to be for the next 6 months.  Most people forget that buying a house also means paying homeowners insurance, taxes, trash pickup (in our case), well maintenance (in our case), chimney maintenance and cleaning, higher utility bills, security system?, and upkeep of all things home related from the inside and out.  I'll get over the money issue because living out there also means that we'll spend less money on most things like groceries, dinner, car insurance, all social activities, dry cleaning, shopping, basically everything else is cheaper being further from the city.  This also means that I really won't have any running buddies, I won't have my group runs or my running friend up the street to hang with, and I won't have an awesome gym to workout at, no crazy awesome yoga studio (I don't even do yoga, but this concerns me), reliable ethnic delivery is probably going to be a major challenge to find (it's ok to call it ethnic delivery right?), it's really all these little things that sort of nag at me.  This new town is very country-ish, which is great, but it's also very void of things like City Sports, Target, and malls.  The good news being that I do still work in Boston we do still have access to stuff when we need it. 

Anyways, this has been a whirlwind way to buy a house - and if everything continues to go smoothly, we'll be out of the city in August and into a house 35 minutes from Boston where we will eat bologna sandwiches on paper plates while sitting on lawn chairs in the new family room.   

A Quick Vegas Recap

Just got back from a Vegas vacation and it seems like we are the last ones to visit, so I'm just going to do a quick recap with some photos thrown in.  We were supposed to go to the Grand Canyon, but then we needed to be in touch to work out an agreement on a house that we never in a million years thought the sellers would want to work with us on.  So that's another story for another anxiety ridden post, but until then here it is:  an unconventional Vegas trip for our 2 year anniversary.  

We stayed at the Encore - loved it, would recommend it to anyone who likes nice things and $14 cocktails.  It's less smokey and less crowded than the other hotels and really feels exceptionally nice.

We went on an Area 51 tour - everyone was freaking crazy.  The driver was crazy, the other 4 tourists in our group were crazy.  Obviously they didn't take us Into Area 51.  If one more person asks me that, I'm just going to go total Nerd on them.  Do you really think that secret government facilities operate day tours?  Think about it.  They took us all around it and to the Little Ale Inn, and to all these related locations that geeks think are cool.

For some reason we went to the aquarium in Mandalay Bay - not sure I'd do that one again, nice hotel though and we got to take a hilarious photo with a shark.

We saw all these hotels on the strip - MGM, Luxor, Mandalay Bay, Palazzo, The Venetian, Paris, Treasure Island (regrettably), The Wynn, Bellagio, Caesar's, and maybe like a couple others... next time I really want to see Cosmopolitan and Aria.

Favorite dinner - Bouchon in the Palazzo. Loved the food, the service, the restaurant, the price.  Loved the whole thing and would do it all again.

Favorite lunch - The Noodle Shop (get the pho) in Mandalay Bay

Favorite breakfast - The Wynn buffet (it's worth it)

Favorite gelato - the little pizza shop in The Wynn, the cherry yogurt flavor!

Whatever you do, do not go to the Grande Lux buffet.  It's freaking shitty.

Shows - we saw Mystere and I loved it, but Abe just thought it was Ok.  We used the "half price ticket booth" which definitely wasn't Half price but we had excellent seats at somewhat discounted prices.

Because of our pending house deal, we were Really good with our cash when we are normally those assholes who order rounds of drinks for everyone and their mother and then rounds of appetizers and then hits the blackjack table and slot machines and stops at Louis Vuitton on the way home.  This time... this was a whole new way for us to vacation in possibly the most tempting city in the states.  We spent less on this vacation than on any other vacation that we've ever taken (we did spend $15 to use the gym though!), so while Vegas can be very expensive, it can also be affordable when you stop and think about things.  I will go back again sometime - most people tell me that the first time in Vegas is just sort of an intro., and each time after that it gets even better since it's less overwhelming.

Now for some quick pics:

Happy 2 year anniversary Abe!

Morning #2

How about that?  Seemingly overnight I turned into a morning runner.  The hardest part seems to be mentally getting over the fact that it's such an early time slot to be doing anything at all.  After you accept that it's better to get it over with now than to wait until later, it all just falls into place.  Again this morning I woke up before my alarm went off at 5:30am and got out the door feeling pretty darn good (this is the only face I make in the morning).

Today's goal was to match yesterday's pace or faster, and maybe even go longer if I could.  I surpassed yesterday's pace by a comfortable amount - God those splits are really good for me, but because of that speed I really didn't feel I could go any further and I probably should have pushed myself harder to get to 4 miles.  Did those miles feel fast?  Yes.  I was working very hard out there, huffing and puffing and trying to get through it.  Tomorrow I hope to do a long run.

The one thing that has been in common on the two nights before waking up early is that I've had a Woodchuck Hard Cider before bed - either it makes me fall to sleep easier or it just really hits the spot!

Time to foam roll and get ready for work! Hopefully today I won't spill an entire 10 ounce cup of coffee into the keys of my desk phone so that I need to turn it upside down to empty the liquid from it.  It will forever smell like bad office coffee...

I Survived

Today I did something very out of the ordinary - I got up at 5:45am and did my run before work and even had time to foam roll, and blog after.  I'm so not a morning person, so this is one of my most impressive moments.

So how did it go?  It actually went ok, my splits weren't impressive but they weren't bad either - basically what I like my average 3 mile run to look like when I don't have any specific goals in mind.  It was sort of nice to be out there on the roads/sidewalks without having cars flying by and tons of pedestrians in my way.  Sure it was early and I was tired, but I'm sort of always tired so it didn't feel much different.

I had a flash back of waking up in the summers to go to swim practice before swim coaching and life guarding.  Do you know what that is like?  Looking back, I have no idea how I did that and survived.  I have no idea why I even did it... A sprinkler hit me, and I felt like I was standing right next to a pool again dreading having to jump in at 5:45am.

I might be doing this more often!

Chicken and Waffles

Last night, I grabbed dinner with a girlfriend - who is in fact awesome because she reads my blog.  Anyways, we went to a newish place near where I work and that's really when life got good.  Enter: Chicken and Waffles.  Alone they are nothing... together they are Everything.  These are from the Back Bay Social Club - which is not as elitist as it sounds, it's just a simple American restaurant and bar.  They're known for their "Social Burger" but these chicken waffles were right there with it.  It was served with both a BBQ sauce and syrup on the side, and I would alternate my dipping - both were delicious.  I might have paid $17 for this - which is outrageously over priced for a piece of fried chicken on a Belgian waffle, but hey sometimes you just have to spend a little bit of cash on yourself so it might as well be ultra enjoyable.

Now that I know I really really love chicken and waffles, it turns out that there is more to be had at The Hen House in Boston.  I've found a new obsession, and unlike my crazy addiction to 2% Fage with honey pot, this is Not a healthy one... and it's far from low carb!  It's sort of a celebration on a plate and I can't wait to have more.

I Wish I didn't Read That!

You know when someone says, "I just read the most amazing book"... that doesn't always mean that you need to read it too.  I choose to read books that not everyone adores, that aren't always on the top sellers list - not to try to be cool or different, but because when something gets too hyped up the let down is crushing.

I decided to take a chance and read a popular book that it seemed like Everyone was reading.  I saw people reading it on the train, and it was seemingly everywhere - it will be turned into a movie in a couple years.  The writing was fantastic, and it was so emotional... in a way that makes me uncomfortable.  Maybe I'm missing part of my soul, but if I were a more emotional person this would probably make me cry a river of unending tears.  I think it was supposed to be heroic or uplifting somehow, but to me it the opposite of that.  This book made me feel sad and angry all at the same time.  When I was done reading it, I felt like I wouldn't want to let someone borrow it because I don't want anyone else to read that.  The story was hard to read, the book was hard to feel, and I didn't enjoy it.  Is that the mark of good writing?  It probably is, but I still don't want to read it again.  I felt this same way about another book, which was also turned into a movie that many people seemed to like... but I couldn't figure out why. 

I don't want to ruin everyone's summer reading list but if I could take the book out of my brain, I would in a second.  In fact, I'd really love to run around and rip this book out of people's hands when I see them holding it on the train.  It's not bad, but once it's in your brain you can't get it out.  YOU CAN'T GET IT OUT!

Today's rant was about "Little Bee"... please only read this if you're willing to be uncomfortable and angry and sad.  Who wants to be all those things in the summer?  Not me.  Not me at all.

Just a trip to the cape...

We spent the weekend in Falmouth with our friend at his parent's house, which sounds like it might not be all that cool but once you pass a certain age staying at some people's parents house actually turns the corner from being really lame into being really cool again especially when they spoil the shit out of you.  We were there with two other couples and it was a seriously awesome weekend full of many many cocktails, bad weather, and first time adventures.

You think I'm wearing that helmet and standing next to a Coke machine for fun?  Oh no, we decided to take a day trip to Martha's Vineyard so we rented some scooters to get around the island.  It was pretty cold that day and slightly rainy but that didn't stop us, and honestly I loved every second of it.  Scooters are the most fun thing ever, especially in a quaint little vacation town.

If you've never been to Martha's Vineyard, it's totally worth the drive and ferry over.  Even in shitty weather, it's the best afternoon you'll ever have.  We rode all over the island and went shopping and had lunch at Nancy's.  I don't remember each particular place we stopped but this was definitely in Oak Bluffs at the Flying Horses Carousel - the oldest operating carousel in the country where you lean off your horse and grab these little rings as the carousel is turning as a game, it made it much more fun than just sitting there going around in a circle.

Later, we were walking around admiring the waves in the ocean due to the crazy wind... and I decided to take a picture of myself and Abe and when I looked at the photo it turned out that Abe was not even there.  It was just an embarrassing self photo... yes, my hair is crazy, it was one of those bad hair days.

Right when we were going to head back to catch our ferry it started down pouring and the boys decided to put the girls in a cab and they'd take the scooters back to the rental place.  They were heroes battling that rain!  To make it up to Abe, I got him a warm and dry women's size large sweatshirt... I didn't realize it was not a guy's sweatshirt until he stood next to a women wearing the same exact one but it fit her better... Abe was embarrassed.

Mike's parents were cooking dinner for us so we tried not to eat too many awesome island snacks because they were preparing a seafood feast: lobsters, clams, oysters, corn, potatoes, and lots of cocktails. 

I ate the entire thing.  Normally I am just a tail and claw kind of girl, but I took the extra time to make sure that I got every piece of meat out of the body and the legs and the little swimmers.  It was worth the time to eat every bit of the sweet meat inside this thing.  We stayed up late being ridiculous and slept like babies in the silence of Cape Cod.

Our little weekend vacation is over and it's back to an super disorganized apartment and a list of to-dos a mile long.

I Do Not Like Haggling

This week we did something that I didn't think we'd do for a long time.  We traded in our fancy sports car and got a Jeep Cherokee.  I have been in older Jeeps before but I never really thought anything of them.  To me, they are the original SUV for active/outdoorsy/low key people... that's not really us but at the same time it is sort of the direction that we find ourselves going.  I can't really express how happy I already am with this new vehicle:

• It takes regular gas instead of premium
• Our auto insurance went down by over $200
• It runs over city pot holes like they're nothing
• The Nav system is by Garmin
• It comes with a year of satellite radio
• I can put dogs in the back... not that I have any right now
• It still can drive really fast if you want it to

This car took us 3 days to get off the lot, so for 3 days in a row we didn't get home until really late and tonight was really the only night that I could do anything at all.  I tried to go to the gym but there was no parking at all - it's a super busy parking lot, so anyways I came home and thought about it.  I had two options: do nothing and since we're going away for the weekend that means nothing until Monday, or when the rain and thunder let up I could go try and get some kind of run in.  So I slapped on some compression shorts and got out there, and I was surprised at how many other runners I saw out there.  It was still raining but it wasn't all that bad, the main problem was the massive humidity.  I got in 2.5 miles which is small time but it's way better than nothing.  Mile 1 was in 8 minutes flat, and the second was closer to 9 minutes, the last half was also 9, and then I walked for a while before enjoying some AC on the couch.  It felt really good to get some exercise and get my blood pumping. 

We're going away to the cape for the weekend staying with friends and it figures that it is predicted to be a rainy weekend.  It's ok though, rain on the cape is way less hideous than rain in the city.  I'll eat a lobster for everyone.

Awkward Moments

While sitting at work, minding my own business.

Email from Abe: Hey, can you do me a favor and pick up Infamous 2 at Game Stop today - "the hero edition".


Sigh...

At lunchtime, I ran across the mall and walked into Game Stop and no more than 2 seconds later a lanky/zitty/over eager dude around 19 years old came right up to me sort of how a cat would pounce on a wounded mouse.

Dude: May I help you?
Me: Do you have any Infamous 2 Hero Editions Left?
Dude: I think someone may have cancelled their order yesterday... hey Mike did someone cancel their Infamous 2 Hero Edition order yesterday?
--We walked over to the cashier counter.--
Mike: [labored sausage finger typing tap tap tap] Yes, let me check, I think that someone might have cancelled yesterday we might have 1 in stock.
--three way silence -- two of us potentially had boners --
Mike: We do have just 1 more for you.  You know if you ever know of a game coming out that you really want, you should come in and pre-order it so that you have it guaranteed... we normally don't have the collector's editions in stock for walk-ins.
Me: Oh, thanks that's a great tip...thanks for the help...

Um, what just happened there?

Anyways, after that awkward transaction I rewarded myself with a Pinkberry and then had to lug a giant Game Stop bag with huge box inside back to my office where I promptly hid it under my desk.

A Run and A Recipe

Mondays are the worst.  I knew that if I didn't secure myself some kind of group/friend run that I might just sink into the couch and never get out - that's the kind of day that I had.  In order to get home today, I took a bus to the subway to another bus and got home over an hour later.  The car is still in the shop, they didn't have time to look at it today for some reason... they apparently have a lot of broken cars to fix besides ours.

Luckily my friend A was available for a 3.5 mile easy run around our neighborhood.  The pace was much slower than what I would have done alone, but it went by much faster having someone there to talk to the whole time.  I've been told a hundred times how great it is to go on running dates with friends but I just never really had anyone to indulge with.  You know what makes an easy run harder?  Talking a mile a minute while running... running and talking and breathing is way harder than I thought it was.  Once I settled into a pattern things were fine, but for the first 10 minutes I was like, "this is the hardest thing I've ever done."  It's cool though, you know what's harder than that?  Having dessert every day for 3 weeks and then one day just not having anything in the house that can qualify as a treat.  I'm going through withdrawals or something, like I'm ready to tear out my hair and run around screaming.

Dinner was really nice, I adapted a recipe that I found in Everyday Food.  It's a really light and quick to make salad, so Abe didn't exactly love it, but I did.

Ingredients:
1 cucumber
1 package of baby tomatoes
1 red onion
olive oil
pepper
feta cheese
1 lb green beans
I do 8 shrimp per person, or whatever you choose

• Chop a peeled cucumber, baby tomatoes, and a little red onion, throw together in a bowl with a bunch of feta cheese, sprinkled with pepper and add a tsp of olive oil, stir and put in the fridge for 20 mins. while everything else cooks
• Steam green beans till cooked but still firm
• Cook shrimp in a pan with butter and garlic for about 10 minutes till pink and cooked through, remove tails either before or after cooking
• Lay green beans on the bottom, the salad in the fridge, and then the shrimp on top

For a hefty serving of this meal it's about 500 calories with the feta cheese being the calorie heavy item so you can adjust that as necessary.  The real recipe called for garbanzo beans and I meant to use them but I totally forgot, I'm sure they would work well in this meal though.  

Car Shopping is Around the Corner

Once a week posting... I guess I will have to work on this.  Life got busy, and I kept forgetting my camera oh well.  There was a moderate amount of running this week with a 3.5 mile Boston edition of the Corporate Challenge - which I totally hated from start to finish.  12,000 people do not fit on Commonwealth Ave., I've never felt so squished before in my life, so yeah it was a slow run and full of really annoying moments.

Friday night we joined Costco.  Yeah, I know, this is the very exciting life that I lead.  It was slightly under-whelming, but it had potential and I'm excited to go back.  I was really hoping that they would sell a package of 50 compression socks but it turns out that was a pipe dream... they don't even have compression socks.  They do have 7 foot teddy bears, and 5 pound boxes of bacon though.

Saturday, we ate at a mall food court (one of my favorite past times) the line was too long at Sakura so I had to settle for that Cajun place...which actually was serving more of what I consider to be Chinese food.  I really don't know why I find the food court to be so totally awesome, but I love it.

I bought a new dress (Plenty by Tracy Reese, her dresses fit So Perfectly and they somehow create curves where no curves exist).  Ignore the weird reflection on my feet and the horrible location for a top to bottom shot... there was really nowhere else.  The shoes were also really awesome, really really comfortable and I got them for a bargain price at Nordstrom Rack!

While we were shopping, we had our car washed and a fuse blew in the car somehow, and we couldn't unlock any of the doors, but luckily Abe figured out the problem and replaced the fuse not too long after with a lot of hard work.  I'm pretty sure we both almost shit ourselves when we couldn't get into the car (The man pictured is not Abe).

Later, we went over to a friend's place to watch the Bruins game and witness his little grill burn down.  I've never seen a fire extinguisher used before, but after that experience, I can tell you that they do indeed work very well and fast.  It was a sad night, the Bruins lost and the grill died.  Another surprise - I actually like Bud Light Lime and I really wish that I didn't.  Sigh...

Sunday morning, our car failed us again.  The same fuse blew, so Abe replaced it, but it didn't mend the problem.  It's a much bigger problem than we initially thought and so... what do people do when their cars cause more problems than they are worth?  In our case, we freaking get rid of them and get something else because life is too short to drive a car that fails to get the job done.  Anyways, this totally screwed us.  We had to have a friend come get us and then drive like a bat out of hell in order to not be super freaking late.  In the end, we just barely got there in time but it was really too stressful for a Sunday morning.

We went to an engagement party where we ate loads of really fantastic Thai and Vietnamese food, and got to see a really nice Vietnamese engagement ceremony.  It was a good time and a beautiful day, but a long day in general.

I will try to be better about posting this week for all 15 of my readers!