Halloween Costume Help!

So I'm going to LA on Friday, and Maren informed me today that we will be attending a Halloween party that night. Problem is, I don't have a costume yet! I need ideas fast!! Please help! There are a few criteria:

1. I need to already have most of the items or can get them quickly
2. I will be in LA so I would like to look somewhat cute
3. Needs to be easily packable and not take up too much space!

Thanks!

Obama v. McCain dance-off!

Check it out.....and wait for the surprise Sarah Palin appearance at the end....it's my good friend Maren...she's famous!

See, told you so!

I know you Austinites are jealous of this:

So long and so cold

Here's a not so fun way to start the work week.

First, don't check the weather all weekend and throw on a light fleece in the morning, on the drive to work you hear that the high for the day is about 41 and there is a chance or rain/snow flurries (seriously snow already??) this afternoon. Brrr....that's cold.

Then you get to sit in a meeting for 3.5 hours listening to all of your co workers talk about their projects. Oh and did I mention that the heat at the building wasn't working so it was a whopping 61 degrees in the conference room. Yeah, this fleece hasn't come off yet today.

Can I come back to Austin yet???

Weekend Update

So for those that were wondering, my company did do a halloween tick-or-treat for the kiddos, and they did it this past Friday. (I don't understand why they didn't do it on actual Halloween either - maybe that would just be too much t-or-t'ing for one day.) And my choice of what to do was.....well it was a combination. I couldn't leave right at 3 when it started because i actually had work to do. So I tried to get it done, but that tends to be difficult when you have kids running by and yelling every couple of minutes. So around 4 I decided it was ridiculous to still be there and if all of the parents who were walking around with their kids didn't have to work, then why should I? So I got the heck out of there. Good decision for my sanity.

Saturday I checked out the ski and snowboard show with my sister. Wasn't a huge show so there wasn't a lot to see, but I did score a sweet new pair of Oakleys. (yes another one)

For those of you that are planning on running to the store to pick up the sweet new Breast Cancer Edition of the Ravishing frame, well sorry you can't. It's not in stores yet! :) I just happened to find a very nice Oakley rep who realized I was a big fan and sold me his sample pair (which he wasn't really supposed to do) at a nice discount (which he also wasn't supposed to do). I love them!

Sunday was the Sunrise Park Cross race out in Bartlett. I ended up volunteering once again and it was fun, well except for the 50mph wind gusts!! At one point the wind decided to blow over our entire registration tent which had previously been staked to the ground. So 5 or 6 of us had to stand and hold it up to keep it from blowing into the course while some others tried to dismantle it. Boy were my arms tired!!

The big, big news of the weekend is that I met Kristin Armstrong! And yes I am referring to this one. She spoke at our local running/tri store and she has a great story. Amazing how someone who grew up playing all sorts of different sports, then got into triathlon after college, and really didn't start cycling seriously until her late 20's can win a gold medal in the Time Trial! Amazing!! She shared her great story and then answered many questions completely honestly. I even chatted with her afterwards for a couple of minutes about attempting to get into some racing next year. She was of course very encouraging. Oh yeah, and I got to hold her Gold medal! Yeah, it was very cool.

Redeemed....

So Pandora has managed to redeem itself today. Hooray! Good new music once again. Just thought I would share that. :)

Also, here is a question to you all that maybe you would want to comment on (hint, hint). If your company was doing a kids trick-or-treating event (kids wander the halls and we pass out candy) on a Friday afternoon from 3-5pm. Would you stay around or see it as a chance to leave early on a Friday? :)

Comment time....

Ok people, its time, time for me to put my foot down. Each day (well most days) I slave away preparing a post for you to read. I try to make it humorous, witty, thought provoking, etc... and what do I get in return?? Well nothing lately. So that's the problem. It's time for you to add a little something to this blog, it's comment time! :) I give you a way to waste time...it's time you return the favor. So bring on the comments. Doesn't matter if you are a frequent reader or a first timer. Lay it on me.

Apologies

So I thought that sending an apology would make me feel better about it. But why is it that when you don't get a response from the person about the apology it only makes you feel worse?

Fail...

Just wanted to say that sadly, Pandora is failing me today. I used to be able to discover lots of good stuff on there, but today I put in a relatively new artist and Pandora is giving me No Doubt, Kelly Clarkson, Natalie Imbruglia, Brittney Spears, Natasha Bedingfield, Maroon 5, The Fray and Six Pence None the Richer (remember them). Sorry Pandora, but with that mix, you fail.

Don't get me wrong, some of those artists (not all!) have good songs, but they are not related to eachother or the original artist, so that's why Pandora fails.

Skirtitude!!

Yes, that's right, Skirtitude! That's what I've got. I stopped in to visit the great people at Runner's High n' Tri last night after work (I know, I'm neither a runner nor a triathlete, but I still like the store!) and after visiting for a bit, I headed straight to the SkirtSports rack. It always makes me happier. I ended up leaving with the Sweetest Thing capri skirt in black and the Tough Girl top in Red Kiss. And I love that the owner at RHnT gives me the "employee of another store" discount. He's awesome.

He's even more awesome because this weekend he's bringing in Kristin Armstrong, yes the one and only World Champion and Gold Medal winning Kristin Armstrong. She will be speaking at the store this Sunday, so I think I'm going to have to duck out of course teardown at the cross race to make it for that!

I plan on continuing my Skirtly Skirtitude tonight at computrainer class by wearing my Bike Girl skirt with built in bike shorts! I can't wait to kick the boy's butts while wearing a skirt. :)

Welcome Autumn!

This post has 2 welcomes in it.

First, autumn/fall has definitely arrived here in Chicago. This weekend we had glorious sunny fall weather, but this week we are getting back to the norm for Chicago with rain and temps in the 50's. Should make the cross race this weekend interesting!

Second, and more importantly, my friend Chrissy and her husband Keith welcomed Autumn Nikol Christian, a beautiful (ok so I'm assuming here, I haven't seen her yet), healthy baby girl, into this world this past Tuesday. Congratulations you two! :)

It's gonna be a long one....

Yes, it's going to be a long day here at work. Not only is it Monday, but it seems to be full on construction day today. They are redoing one of the cube areas by where I sit and for the 2 hours that I've been here I've been listening to drilling, hammering, cutting, etc.... pretty much non-stop. Yeah, that will make time fly. I really don't see how they expect us to get much done, let alone stay sane, when being subjected to that noise all day!

Weekend was pretty uneventful. Got home from California friday night after a spectacular 4 hour flight in the middle seat in the 2nd to last row. I was almost excited because I was sitting next to a cute boy, but then I noticed the stupid wedding ring. Boooo.... And once I sat down I realized that my book was in my suitcase which had been put in a closet at the front of the plane because all of the overheads were full by the time I got on (got on last due to flying standby on United) (and by the way...can you say ridiculously long sentence??). So I subjected myself to one of the worst movies of all time (Diminished Capacity) to pass the time. Why is it that Matthew Broderick does so well on the stage but finds himself in some pretty terrible movies? I think it's been pretty much downhill for him since Ferris Bueller.

Saturday was a day of hanging out, mowing the lawn, running errands, giving the dog a bath....all that stuff that you never find time for but then end up trying to do all in one day making for a pretty busy day. But I made it home in time to pick up some great salad stuff (I had been craving a big salad for a while) and then sit on the couch (I love my new couch!) and watch the Illini game! Way to go Illini! They had another great win. :)

Sunday was a day of work at the bike shop. I never understand people sometimes. We had a couple come in towards the end of the day, and the guy was committed to a road bike in approximately 5 minutes. Gotta love easy sales on $1500 bikes! Then his wife decides she wants to try a road bike. Well first she picks a 60cm men's bike because she likes the brakes on it, and I have to explain that she fits better on a 52cm or possibly a 54cm. So she responds "but I don't want my knees up by my chest!" I still convince her to put the large men's bike away and she tries out the women's 52cm she then comes back and starts telling me all the reasons why she can't ride a road bike, her back hurts, and her hips hurt, and her feet are flat, and her wrists hurt, etc.... So I start to explain that strengthening the core and spending time on the bike to get used to the new position will help. No! She wasn't having any of that, she said she will never be comfortable on a road bike but is very comfortable on her hybrid. So at this point I'm starting to get confused why she is even looking at the bike. She continues talking about all of her pains, but she wants a road bike for doing triathlons, she won't train on it, she just wants to race on it. (I also pick up during this that her rides are 12 miles, so we're talking a slow sprint triathlon racer here) I tried to convince her that she should stick with her hybrid if she's comfortable on it. Being on a road bike that she's not comfortable on will not help her. But now she's insistent that she wants a used road bike so she doesn't have to worry about wasting money. I did the standard spiel about why buying a bike at a shop is better than a used bike because of all the service we include, etc, etc... But she continues to waste my time talking about why her body won't let her ride a road bike, but she wants to buy a used one. Awesome. Thanks a lot lady. Luckily her husband, noticing my confusion/frustration, finally steps in and tells her that a road bike probably isn't for her and gets her to leave. By then luckily it was time to close. So we worked on ushering out the last 2 men who barely spoke english and were obviously there just looking and not looking to buy. I politely informed them that we were closing, and they said "5 more minutes?" And I politely informed them that no, technically we closed 12 minutes ago. (Aka....stop wasting my time and leave so I can go home. Thank you very much)

So that concludes my excessively long Monday post. For those of you that have read this far I strongly urge you to leave a comment. Come on, it will make my day! :)

Time for a 2-fer....

So apparently the weekend took more out of me than I imagined. Even after getting 8 hours of sleep last night, I am on my 2nd cup of coffee for the day. That may not seem like a lot to most people, but I rarely drink coffee. Although the free coffee makers in our break rooms are making the coffee consumption slightly more frequent. This morning was a nice latte, but this afternoon I decided to be "good" and go for black coffee. I wonder if the non-dairy creamer and 3 packets of Splenda I added take it out of the "good" category though?? :)

I really wish I was going to have a relaxing night, but instead I will be packing and cleaning in order to get ready for heading to California for work tomorrow.

What a Weekend....

What a weekend, completely consumed by one event, but very worth it.

Saturday I woke up early to get a ride in. Headed out on the oh so sweet Blue RC8, went through Busse to get to Tonne Rd. where I did a few intervals and then back through Busse to home. No computer on the Blue so I don't know how far or how fast, but I got a solid 2 hours in and it felt great. Quick shower afterwards and I headed out to Hawthorn Woods to set up for Psycho Cross '08! Setting up a cross course is tough! Road courses are easy, the riders stay on the road and you let them know when to turn. But cross courses zig zag across open fields so every inch of it needs to be taped or flagged. This means that we stuck about a million stakes in the ground, a zillion little flags and ran miles of caution tape! There were less than 10 of us, and we were out there for about 5 hours completing the 1.7 mile course. But I did have a nice suprise waiting for me in the mail when I got home....my new CD's! Way to go USPS!

Sunday was another early wake-up to get out to the course by 7:30 to finish up last minute things before the races started at 10. Luckily Ted's wife brought coffee for all of the sleepy volunteers! :) We had everything set up in time so we were able to take care of all of the racers showing up for registration. First race up was the masters race, 30+, 40+ and 50+ all one the course at the same time with staggered starts. It was tough figuring out who was leading for each race. I should mention that the course we set up was tough!!! About 200m into the course the racers encountered a toboggan hill, that most chose to ride up, then they came down, then they turned right around, had to get off the bike and jump over a barrier, and then run back up the toboggan hill. A few of the super hard core riders chose to get on the bike and somehow ride up the hill with no momentum going into it. I don't know how they did it. The rest of the course was fairly flat and not super twisty, but the grass was apparently very bumpy so there wasn't much of a rest through the course. A few sections of pavement to rest on, but that was it. Vince, the shop owner, was out there racing on his new Blue cross bike (love it!) and let us know during each lap that it was tough! He offered to let me use his bike so I could race in the women's race, but after the power test on thursday, intervals saturday morning then spending all day saturday building the course, there wasn't really anything left in my legs to attempt to race cross for the first time! Maybe next time!

The rest of the day went well. Had some super hard core women show up. One of the women is pretty well known out on the road and showed up for her first cross race of the season and dominated her field. Very exciting. Then the Men's 1,2,3 race went out. These guys are fast!! Their race was an hour long, and by then it was pretty hot, you could see the hurt in some of their faces. The star of this race was the guy who had raced earlier in the day and won the 50+ race. He was out there absolutely dominating all of the younger guys, in his 2nd race of the day! For a large portion of the race he had a 30sec - 1 min lead! He wa eventually caught and came in 2nd I believe. Still very impressive!

The racing ended around 4pm, and then the not so fun part started. Cleaning up the course. Remember those zillions of flags and stakes? Yeah we had to walk the whole course and pick them all up. And by this point, not many volunteers were left so I think there were about 5 of us out there picking it all up. Got it done though and then I was done. Completely. My body said no more, it was time to go home. Stopped at Whole Foods and picked up some goodness for dinner, and then laziness ensued.

So apparently all it takes to help out with a cross race is about 18 hours of my time, miles and miles of walking around, carrying lots of stuff, placing zillions of flags, standing for hours and cheering, walking some more miles to pick up the zillions of flags, and a slight sunburn. All in all, I'd say it was worth it. :) Although I am still completely exhausted today.

And I of course forgot to take pictures...but if you're interested, one of the racer's daughters took tons of pictures during the Masters race and they can be found here.

Good eats...

Today was a good food day. Sushi at lunch with some of the boys (had to....it was Sushi Friday!) and then a Trader Joe's shopping run! (TJ's is one of the few things that Austin is missing!) I always go in thinking I just need a few things so I'll just grab a basket, and by the time I make it to the cashier I have a basket so full that I can barely lift it. One of these days I'll get smart and just get a cart. Some of the highlights from today's purchases are ready to eat edamame, delicious hummus, honey crisp apples and of course some $3 Chuck. :) So now it's time to finish off the day with some "special" hot chocolate. :)

Good news of the day!

My CD's shipped today! Early!! Originally they told me my order would ship Oct. 14, but the wonderful people at Amazon got it together and shipped them today. Way to go Amazon! Now I just have to hope that the people at the USPS are just as speedy! :)

FTP Test #1....done!

Well folks, FTP #1 of the computrainer season is done. Wow, it was a tough one! I definitely gave it everything I had, and I hit my goal! Power number is lower than where I was back in March, but that was expected. Time to get it back in gear and get that number back up! And now my body is ready for sleep. :) Do I really have to wake up early and go to work tomorrow??

New Tunes!

You gotta love cheap CD's and free shipping from Amazon! Today's purchases include:

Death Cab for Cutie - Narrow Stairs

Jack's Mannequin - The Glass Passenger

Jason Mraz - We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things

Now I just need to be patient and wait for them to show up! :)

Shake It!

I am loving this song right now....you can't help but want to get up and dance around....go ahead, it will be fun! :)

(nevermind the video - i couldn't find the code to embed the real one...we're just worried about the song here folks!)

Getting it and moving on....

Recently I reverted back to a comfortable situation, forgetting that it may not be right, because at the moment it seemed ok. I was trying to fool myself into thinking that I could forget about the obvious differences and just enjoy the moments. That's not me. And it shouldn't be with this. I should be able to find more than just moments. So I finally saw what I needed to in order for me to get it, and I now do. I'm moving on.

I promise that blog posts will return to their normal humor soon. I've just been going through a few things lately. But computrainer classes are starting up (power test on Thursday - yikes!) and I will be spending all weekend setting up and volunteering at a Cross race. I'm really excited about my first glimpse into the world of Cyclo Cross. :)

Snippets....

Don't you love it when a piece of a conversation, when taken out of context, can have a meaning completely different than that of the original conversation? Take for example this snippet, taken from a conversation I had with one of the shop reps today regarding a race he is putting on soon.

"If I can't schwag you there, I'll schwag you later."

No it's not dirty, it just means I will get free stuff. Gotta love schwag! :)

Long weekend....

Wel, ACL 2008 is in the books, done, finito. Parts of it were awesome, other parts, not so good. For example, the back window of my rental car getting smashed while parked at Jack and Adam's. As Jon pointed out, these things only happen to me. Oh well. It's taken care of with insurance, so really, no big deal. Other events of the weekend seem that they will have more lasting effects. I've done my best though which apparently isn't enough, but I'll be ok.

Some good things coming up, like computrainer classes starting next week! Time to get my butt in gear and start the long winter of training for a possible racing season next year. Here we go!

I will also be helping out a rep from the shop at a cross race next weekend. I'm super excited to experience the world of cross racing. Too bad I don't have a cross bike!!

So that's all for now, trying to figure some other things out as well, but that issue is still way too scattered to even consider being able to write it out. I'll figure it out eventually. I always do.