Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Exodus

On my run this morning it was 43 degrees and I had a problem focusing on my feet and watching where I was going (which was rather treacherous) for a couple reasons.

The sun was mid-rise and the sky was gorgeous, lined with ominous clouds on the horizon and spattered with pink and gold ones above.

And there was flock after flock of Canadian geese flying formation south for the winter. It was eerie how many of them there were. And then suddenly, there were none. The sky was empty. It was one of the oddest feelings I've had in a while, seeing hundreds and then none in the same short span of time.

It's hard to describe, and I'm guessing that my words aren't really doing much for it. That or the blood that is currently residing in exhilarated muscles and not in my brain has something to do with it.

Ciao,
kc

Monday, September 26, 2011

2.5

Only two and a half weeks until I:

get to go on vacation

get to see my grandmother whom I haven't seen in a year

get to steel myself for my FOURTH half marathon

get to realize that if someone had told me a year and a half ago that I would be running four half marathons by two and a half weeks from now, I would think they were nuts

get to realize that some days most people think I'm nuts for having run any half marathons at all

get to have some quality time with my mommy and daddy, nice and relaxing

get to leave my cat with a house sitter for a week...Aieee! (it's bizarre how concerned I am by that)

Happy Monday,
kc

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Connection

There is a time when I am puttering away the day and I look up at the clock and all of the sudden it's 5 o' clock and I realize that I spent the day quietly doing what I enjoy best.

Updating various and sundry websites (though unfortunately neglecting my own, the poor thing), working on Save the Date designs for a friend, finishing a baby quilt, planning future quilts for the various babies that will be entering the world in the next nine months, and just whiling away my time doing design and crafts. If I could have a day like this every week, my life would be complete.

Livin' the dream.

Ciao,
kc

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Remembering

This is a time in my life when the honest-to-goodness most exciting thing are the facts that my cat snuggled like a little angel with me this morning for about 15 minutes and that my 10 miler on Sunday averaged a 9:45 pace. Oh, and the fact that I am well and truly playing hooky on running today due to the fact that I. Don't. Want. To. Which means that I may well have energy enough to do it tonight.

Funny how that works. Allow yourself to not have to and suddenly you want to. How does that make sense?

Anyways, along the lines of my reminiscing yesterday....

Three years ago, almost to the day I started the first day of my last year of college. I was ready to be done. I was stressed, tired of finals, midterms, and homework and just wanted to be out in the Real World. I'm not really sure what I envisioned the Real World to be like, and granted I do enjoy the everyday minutiae that makes adulthood what it is (don't ask me why but I take great pleasure in sitting down to write checks to pay bills...not the paying part, but the simple joy of writing checks, putting a stamp on it, and putting it in the mail...I doubt that I will ever fully switch to online bill pay due to the simple fact that I enjoy that so much), but I have since discovered that the Real World ain't all it's cracked up to be.

When thinking about that last year, I think about Tuesday morning meetings with the PolyReps, claiming tours and writing them in my planner in the special colored marker that denoted PolyReps (yes, I am that anal retentive...it was so I could see at a glance what needed to be done!). Walking backwards on those tours with the ease of long practice, joking with potential students and their respective entourages about warning me if I was going to run into anything (it only happened once or twice...and one time I tripped over a tree root and then a few moments after recovering I was tackled by a sorority sister determined to give me a hug...luckily everyone laughed).

I remember fondly telling those prospective students about the greatness of Cal Poly, how it boasts 19,231 students, 18,000 of which are undergrad; how it's been rated Best in the West for 20 years; how many of its departments are ranked number 1 or 2 in the nation; how its student to teacher ratio is about 20 to 1.

Man, if I could work for Cal Poly and live in Oregon, I would be set.

Also, I remember running with my roommate's dog and being so happy to see his overwhelming joy as I unleashed his full Aussie-puppyness and gave him full freedom to plunge ecstatically after ducks in the stinky lake near our house.

I remember bar nights with the girls, getting dressed up and tottering around on heels that would kill by the end of the night. Not drinking too much if at all, just dancing and laughing the night away.

Farmers' Market and late-night donut runs and Bali's trips. Whiling away hours in the University Union sleeping, studying, reading, or getting side-tracked from all of those by the friends that would inevitably walk by and end up sitting for "just a minute" until we all looked at our cellphones or watches and excused ourselves to rush to our next class.

Cooking too much food in my kitchen and inviting over all the boys and girls that I knew would come at the drop of a hat at the beckon of "lasagna!" or "pasta!" or "chicken!"

House parties, art projects, sitting in the grass in front of my department building talking to my parents on the phone about all the angst of a student. Roommate fights, drama, sorority scandal and fun, love, laughter, friends and impromptu "family."

Man, I miss college. Did I really have to graduate?

Ciao,
kc

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

In Remission

I would like to start out by apologizing to you all, I have been remiss in my duties as a blogger. Here it is the end of September already and I haven't posted since August! The horror! Part of the problem is that I've had too many fun things going on this month:

- a quick but fulfilling visit with a dear Sister from college
- a quick and cold camping trip with lovely Heather and co.
- this weekend will see a visit with Heather and co. again (hooray!)
- and most importantly, I had my first vacation since May and it's only 3 and a half weeks until my next one!

I've been reminiscing a lot this month. It was only a year ago that I was having nightmares about the truck rental place only giving us a 17 inch truck rather than a 17 foot truck, wondering if the move was actually (finally!) going to happen, wrapping up things at the paper and getting super excited about becoming an Oregonian.

Now I'm an Oregonian of almost a year, I have Oregon plates (though I've held out on the drivers license, bad I know) and I still love it here. Most importantly, I have lots of fun things to look forward to here in the near future:

- Nike Women's Half -- only two more weekends of big runs, aiee!
- Halloween, my all time favorite holiday
- my birthday, my second favorite holiday
- my mommy's birthday bash (she's 39 again in case you were wondering)
- ski season (bought my pass already!)
- Cabo San Lucas, Mexico with parental units and co.
- sister's gradumacation in Boston in May
- Siobahn's wedding in July

See? So much going on. Now if only I didn't have to do the lame stuff like go to work so I can afford all my fun activities.

Ciao,
kc