Aright… advice for my fellas (I know for a fact I have at least three, hahah so you three can share this with your amigos): I would strongly advise you NOT to come at a girl – especially a girl you have intentions of scoring a date with – and tell her,

“Hey, do you want a biking buddy? I can even slow down so you can keep up. ”

1. Seriously? Dog… strap on some Asics. I’d smoke your ass.
2. You are the guy who time and time again prefaces a workout of any sort with, “well I’m not going to be fast today because ______.” (I lifted hard yesterday. I just ate Chipotle. I have a sliver.) Cry me a river homeboy..  you’re just not fast period.
3. Your little smiley face does not make up for your cockiness. Confident ≠ cocky.

And then when I respond to your cute little offer to slow down with letter 1) above, and you come back at me with,

“Don’t kid yourself. ”

expect retaliation. Or better yet… expect nothing. Nothing at all.. because you señor D. Bag are not worth my time, much less a date or any of my precious QT with the Roo. Time to rework your game buddy.

[End rant]

In general I think of myself as a nice, compassionate person. But redheads are known to be feisty for a reason. Remember when someone stole my bike?

LOL and if you think I’m being hard on the guy.. I guess just know that he is a repeat offender and I just don’t play that game.

Glad to hear some people might have a new motivation to jumpin in the pool this week! I definitely had to remind myself of the 5 second ultimatum this morning, but it was a great workout! If you have continuing questions, feel free to leave comments on the Train On Top: Volume One – SWIMMING post (I’ll still be notified even if it’s an older post), or leave any questions in a comment on the Train On Top page! And of course, you can feel free to shoot an email to RunDogMpls at gmail dot com.

The next venture in this series will be regarding CYCLING/SPINNING, and I believe I’ll be calling in some expert testimony here since biking/cycling is my least strong of the athletic trifecta. (And I am aware that that is entirely an incorrect use of the word trifecta, but I like the way it sounds, and that’s just my style. )

(p.s. That’s absolutely the photo my mom wanted to use as my picture on our xmas card this year. Alright with me!!)  Alllright. Feeling much better now that that’s out… and I should head over to Gold Country – doin’ a little early birthday shopping for myself! Haha sometimes the only way to get what you REALLY want is when you are the one to buy it!

Till next time amigos,

-E

[edit: p.s. Lizzy got the golden beans, and she's sharing!]

I actually really didn’t (/don’t) like that song when it came out. The lyrics are pretty lame. But Pharell.. and that face.. ahh!!

ANYWAYS, the money maker title comes from the fact that makin money is like my job right now (oh wait.. aside from school..) because I came to the sad realization that many things in life cost money (… doh!) and although I have a decent safety stash in my bank account, I am really terrible with spending money. I haaaate it. I’m not like so frugal that I won’t spend money at all, but when it comes to buying things for myself, I usually find a way to talk myself out of it. Either it’s “I have enough running clothes” or “I can run the lake for free, why would I pay to race it?” 

Wow.. that was a tangent. What I was going to say right after “makin money is like my job right now” is that  I spent part of today down at Brigham & Women’s Hospital participating in an asthma study. And an asthma study that pays! Today I was paid for basically just filling out forms, and getting myself down there, which was like a 15 minute walk in the gorgeous sun. Next time I will be paid for letting them induce an asthma attack in me, which doesn’t sound as fun as just filling out forms. Luckily, they jack me up with albuterol to bring my lungs back to normal after the attack, so it can’t be that bad. And hey.. I’ve had enough asthma attacks on my own, and no one pays me for those!

And the other sentence that was supposed to come after “spent part of today down at Brigham & Women’s Hospital participating in an asthma study” was that I got paid, and I used that money to register for the Loco Luv2Run 5K! This will be my first “real” race now that I’m back in action. It is also the day before the Boston Marathon, so maybe this will help ease my pain from not running. 

No joke.. letting Boston go this year is the hardest thing I’ve ever not done. 

Anyways – this race – I’m really excited!! This adds one more race to what is my current/probable race calendar for 2009:

• Great River Ragnar Relay (3 6-mile legs over 24 hours)
• Lake Waconia Triathlon (the running leg)
• Hennipen Lake Classic Double Header (10K + 5K)
• Urban Wildland Half (Half.. claro)
• Loco Luv2Run (5K)

That pretty much gets me through the end of the summer! I haven’t started looking at races once school starts up again in the fall, because I don’t really know what my situation will be at that point. I have to hop on it soon though and get my registration in for Ragnar and the Waconia Tri.. because one of the things I hate dislike the most is paying a late fee! 

Time to go meet this kid for some Caf time.. I don’t know if I like the kid more or the caf? Haha oh life… there is this little love triangle going on here in Boston, and it’s throwing me off big time. When it rains it pours. And that’s the end of that!

Love yall.
-E

Heyyyy kids.

Yesterday was basically nuts.. culminating with me in panic-mode, once again. In studio, all the sudden the profs were like “OK, put this into Adobe and save it as a PDF and go print so you can start your diagrams.” There are several problemas with this situation:

1. I don’ have Adobe. No one told us we needed to already have Adobe. 
2. Adobe costs a lot of money. A LOT.
3. We needed it by Monday. It was already Monday.
4. Even if I had all the money in the world to just drop on software, our bookstore doesn’t sell the physical CDs. You have to order it, and then it is shipped.
5. Shipping takes time. Time fails the Monday requirement aforementioned in #3.

Not to mention this was at the end of an already overwhelmingly long day. It was like 10:30 when I called my dad, while I was simultaneously trying to write note cards to study for a test that was this morning. (Didn’t find out about it until last night – don’t give me that disapproving “typical college kid” look!)

I ended up finding an older version of Adobe Creative Suite (3^rd edition.. not 4) and I bought it through our school’s partner tech site, so I got a student discount. I also got the Standard version (which I swear they made seem like it wasn’t even available) versus the more extensive (read: expensive) one. I overnighted it in hopes that it will get here at least by tomorrow morning. Long story short: lots of money saved (sans the $30 next day shipping charge) and I’ve learned by now I can’t stress about it anymore because I have no control over the situation from this point on.

photo from Chen Xin. I'm actually excited for the software to come though..!

Oh.. and that test? I either champed it, or failed miserably. It was in my Honors History of World Arch class.. and the last question asked us to diagram the Temple of Horus at Edfru, along with what year it was built. I wasn’t even sure if Edfru was one of the Egyptian sites, or if it was one from the Mesopotamian region.. but I did remember something about hypostyle halls and clerestory windows.. and I knew the basic layout of all these sites.. so I just started drawing the one I thought was right. Looking at my notes once I got back, I saw I got it right! But the year.. hahah lets just say I was about a millennium off. Oops!

Pylon at Temple of Horus

All my shifts for work this week are at the Cabot center.. grrrr. I love being at the Marino cause it’s always so busy and you always see all the people you know.. but Cabot is way less busy. The Cabot center is our building for all the varsity athletics, and the sports med center, and then it also has the pool. So yea.. I guess I shouldn’t complain when the guys varsity swim team comes in..

OH. And speaking of the pool:

I’ve been not running for a little bit due to a possible stress fracture (or two). I’m waiting on some MRI and xray results..  but until then I’m not going to [possibly] prolong my return to running. If it’s not a stress fracture, it’s a stress reaction, which would LEAD to a stress fracture if I kept running on it the way it was – something I don’t need. So I’ve made friends with the pool.  I only did 2000 yards today because that’s what I had time for, but here’s an example of my pool workouts for anyone else on the DL (or just looking to cross train).

• 500 warm-up (I usually alternate free/back every 50 yards)
• 3×100 kick (free, breast, back)
• 4×50 pull (free, breast, free, breast)
• 3×150 medley build (free, back, breast. hah.. like how I cut out the fly?)
• 3×100 build (free, breast, free)
• 250 cool down

I usually stay away from the pool cause I HATE being cold. But today I found myself looking forward to it. It was actually like a legit excited. I feel like I’ve still kept a lot of my good swimming skills from when I used to be on the team (wayyy back when), so I kinda feel like a BAMF when I get out of the pool or pull a flip turn.

Aright. Off to work. Seee ya!

Husky Staff!

[EDIT EDIT EDIT]

Back from work.. maybe I DON’T mind working at Cabot! It’s a lot slower than the Marino.. but I basically got paid to watch the Twins vs. White Sox game. And I think I ingested about 30,000 calories worth of Varsity eye candy. Gooood night.

I responded to the comments on the latest two posts two.. sorry for slackin on that! My response is in bold

Hah – wow. Could I sound more dramatic? I’m not trying to be.. but hopefully putting this in writing will be a good step in moving forward. (And because I do everything in photo form.. it will of course be accompanied with pictures. Some of which may be irrelevant.)

Sperly’s Lovin Life Lowdown: Phase 1- Detox

Everyone has bad habits.. whether we admit to them or not. And if you don’t like the words “bad habit”, lets just say there are some things we could all do better at in life – I have my fair share of those things. Maybe this should be Phase 2.. because Phase 1 would have been like recognition and claiming responsibility or something along those lines.. but I didn’t think of that till now, so too bad. Here are the things I’ll be workin on for the next… while.

1. Sleeping. I’ve accomplished all of my new years resolutions, except for getting back on track with a decent sleep schedule. I used to go to bed after the sports on the local news, and ever since 2nd semester last winter I’ve been staying up until like 12:30 or 1:00.. or later. And then waking up still at 7:00 because my body is incapable of sleeping past sunrise. I’ve had to reset/change my sleeping patterns before due to a new job or a different class schedule.. and for some reason this last effort has efficiently FAILED. Work on it.

2. Letting go of my mom’s relationship decision. I have no say in who she dates. Why she dates them. What they do. When they do it. I don’t get to pick if she choses to get married again. My parents aren’t getting back together and I know that. Missing our family 4 and wanting it back are two different things. I can miss it, but they’re not getting back together. I may not love my mom’s boyfriend, but I love my mom. Work on it.

3. Letting go of my own relationship non-relationship stress. After my last relationship ended I was really enjoying being single.. but to be honest I’m not exactly feelin’ that right now. I’m torn because I want a relationship, yet at the same time I only let myself get to a certain point before I close myself off and don’t allow one to develop. My outlook on relationships has been jaded, and I don’t know how to get around that. And especially considering my current situation – I’ll be leaving in two months. That’s not time to start anything serious. But I don’t know that I’m enjoying being on my own. Aah! God knows what’s up, and he’s got a plan, so I need to leave it to him and let life take it’s course. Work on it.

(This photo is from 4th of July 1 year ago when I was up at my bf’s grandparent’s house on Lake Michigan. It was so much fun! We’re still friends. )

4. Stay excited about going out to Boston. I do love the school. I do love the city. I love architecture and I know I’m passionate about it. Every now and then though, I remember that we can’t really afford it, and I’m leaving behind a full ride at the U of MN. And then I remember that I’m going to be hundreds and hundreds of miles away from my home and my family. And then I think about how much I’ll miss the lakes, and how bored I’ll be running the Charles (I clearly have my priorities figured out). I need to find a way to stay excited about this, because if I don’t go now, I never will. Work on it.

5. Being a better person all around, to everyone. I feel like I’ve been more irritable/fake with people than I used to be, and that’s NOT ME. I’ve still kept my promise (to myself) about not talking about people behind their backs, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been thinking just as (if not more) bitchy thoughts them (whoever “them” happens to be at the moment). It didn’t use to (used to?) take a conscious effort to be a legitimately nice person to everyone. Despite how much I gritted my teeth, I could always find the good in someone, and remind myself that God made them too – we’re all human. Maybe I’m just irritable because of the major sleep debt I’ve been in? Maybe more sleep will help? I sure hope so. Work on it.

I’m only going with 5.. because I feel like more than that and I’m being over ambitious.. I like setting goals in smaller steps. Plus, everything is better in odd numbers (flowers, candles, cookies) (OK I lied.. being the 3rd wheel SUCKS).

I honestly have no clue where this post is headed, and what a future follow-up post will be, but there you go.

In Other News..

I’m flying out to Boston on Sunday (wayyyyy early in the AM), and I’ll be there through Thursday. (Or Friday – take your pick. My flight gets in at like 12:08 in the morning on Friday.) I’m SO EXCITED! Sunday/Monday I’ll be staying in the dorms on campus, and Tuesday/Wednesday I’ll be staying at the Colonnade Hotel. I’m not sure which one I’m more excited about – the Colonnade is pretty sweet!! It’s right by campus though, so I’ll be getting used to commuting from “home”.

I had my highest mileage week.. um, ever.. last week. 72! Unintentional, but felt fine. (And please [do I even need to say this?] – no anonymous “you shouldn’t run that much” comments. It won’t get posted, and you’ll be wasting your time.)

(There’s a ME in there.. running at Harriet. I love these photos.)

My mom’s BF is coming.. TOMORROW. For 2.5 weeks. Please see above for my feelings on that.

(bahhaaha.. kidding. Hope mom can take the joke.)

Well, I’m gonna have to sign off here folks. Time for a shower and my bathroom cleaning/laundry duties for the night. I apologize for posting so infrequently, but I’ve been working every day (look forward to a very photographic TF post coming soon!), + running, + friends and family, + prepping for Boston, and I just don’t have a ton of free time. Be back soon!

I’m gonna keep this post short and sweet, because really.. what can I say? Oh.. here’s something: someone earlier was like “Wow, you’re loaded! You got the 405!” Nope. Not loaded in the least. It’s not like I had a Garmin 305.. and just wanted the new model. I’ve never had a gps, much less a decent watch (although I actually kinda love my $15 Target one..) and I was saving up for a LONG time for this! THENNN my Honda decided to fall apart [again] and I had to put $970 in to that. Goodbye Garmin.

Luckily.. I’m having this going away party deal.. and as a “going away” present.. my dad decided that if a Garmin was what I really wanted, than a Garmin is what it is! My parents went together on it.. and I am very very thankful. My life is officially complete. (More complete than just being a Gold Star member at CostCo.)

All my fellow little wristed runners – don’t get your hopes up. The 405 is actually not a lot smaller than the 305. It just looks way nicer. I stole my buddy’s 305 once for like a week and had a blast playing with it.. but I gotta say the 405 is super cool, especially with the touch sensor ring around the face. I haven’t tried out the little virtual running buddy yet.. but trust me – I’m taking him DOWN.

A little ego boost for me: I found out my 6 mile loop (which as you might have seen, I do quite often) is actually 6 and a HALF miles. I usually never wear a watch when I run, but on the rare occasions that I did, I’d get done with the run and think I felt great, but I’d be like “damn.. that’s actually a pretty crappy time.” I knew I slowed down since I used to race 5Ks.. but I didn’t think I had slowed down that much! Well.. adding in an extra half a mile brings my pace down quite a bit. Order is once again restored to the world

Non running related.. I’ve been working quite a bit. I picked up an extra shift tonight, and it’s a good thing I was there because it was BUSY! Not surprising though, it was freaking gorgeous out today. I’m kinda in the mind set of ‘I’ll take all the hours I can get’ because I’m going to be in debt for the rest of my life after transferring to Northeastern. Right now.. I have a full ride at the U of MN. Well the U must see a lot more potential in me than NU because I’m not getting anywhere near that kind of aid from Northeastern. Anyways.. if I didn’t like my job, that might be a problem. Luckily, that’s not the case – I’d marry my job if I could. (Yes. I realized that analogy doesn’t work. But it’s late. Give me some credit )

One of my [hot] professors came into work today [with his girlfriend].. and joked “you ready for that final Saturday?” Only it wasn’t a joke. And I have ONE FINAL left on SATURDAY at ONE FREAKING THIRTY in the afternoon. Seriously.. who does that? And WHYYY are there so many couples at work?! Damnit anyways.. I always regret breaking up with (insert name here) when it gets to be summer. No one likes being single in the summer. No one, as in ME.

First things first: I decided. I’ll be transferring to NORTHEASTERN! I seriously didn’t make my decision until about half an hour before I had to make the phone call.. I was that on the fence about it. Just trying to process all the options was really draining on me (and on my mom too). There were nights when I couldn’t sleep, and my mom would come down at like 3 in the morning saying “Well what if we did this_____.” But really – I’m happy with my decision. (Except for the part where I’m drowning in debt until I’m 85.. that still blows.) To add some icing to the cake, I got a voicemail Wednesday morning “extending me an invitation” to the Honors program! SO EXCITED! Aside from smaller classes and amazing professors.. you also get to live in the Honors LLC which is suite style dorms We get our own little kitchen, bathroom, and lounge room!! I. Can’t. Wait.

Secondly.. prom was great. I had a really fun time with James and all my old high school friends. We all took pictures at the Sculpture Gardens, went to Buca for dinner (huh?? Yeah.. that clearly wasn’t my planning), and then Grand March.. dance.. after party.

There were TWENTY TWO people in our group!! That made dinner super fun And some good dancing..

Hahha.. I definitely felt very high school.. but hey – that’s what prom is for! Dancing definitely passed the time. The last prom I went to.. my date was LAME and didn’t dance AT ALL. Oop.. no, I lied. He’d dance the slow songs.

So after the dance we went back to my house to change quick before the after party. When we came up to the door.. it was wide open. Which was weird because we never leave our door open. Much less unlocked. James joked “like it even matters.. you live in such a safe neighborhood!” but I know it doesn’t matter WHERE you live. Our house was broken into once before like 10 years ago.

We walked through the porch and into the house (porch door open too..) and right on the rug in front of us was my purse and my moms purse.. everything strewn on the floor. It took a second for me to realize what happened.. credit cards – gone. Cash – gone. Both my mom’s cameras – gone. The scariest part is that my mom had been home when it happened.. asleep on the futon upstairs. The TV was on and there’s no way the person could have not heard it. Aside from me just being super pissed.. I’m SO thankful she was OK.

We canceled all our cards and stuff.. but the lame ass still used mine to fill up with gas in St. Paul.. then make a stop at Cosetta’s (an Italian grocery store.. wtf?).. and go on a little shopping spree at Walmart in ST. FREAKING CLOUD! Gotta say.. the guy works fast.

I was supposed to run the Minnetonka Half Sunday morning, but by the time the police left and I got back from the after “party” (which I only went to for like an hour).. my car pool would have been coming in like 2 hours. PASS! My friend biked with me while I did 14 Sunday afternoon.

I made a teeny bouquet of flowers (yes.. that’s a shot glass) for my madre. We’ve both had a rough week. Speaking of rough – today was my last class for the semester. I have this big project for my Arch Studio due today at 4:00. I’ve literally been working on it all day, every day, for over a week. Around 1:00 today when I was in the studio, I had to accept to myself that the amount of work I had left to get done would take more than 3 hours.. no way around it. Our teacher said he’d rather we turn in a stellar, 100% best effort project on Monday, and be marked down half a grade, than turn in a shitty/unfinished project on Friday and probably get more than half a grade off anyways. I’m trying to be OK with the fact that I’ll be turning in on Monday, but it’s hard. I feel super defeated.. especially since I’ve been working SO HARD and SO LONG on this. It’s not like I procrastinated or something, and now I’m stuck dealing with the consequences. The fact is – there is just more detail than 3 hours worth of work. So I left the studio, and drove home.

I’m about to go for a quick run to clear my head. Today is my first day back at work for the summer (psh.. it’s only like 62 degrees here..) and I’m working 5 till close. I’m really excited to be back! Just kinda down about the project..

I’ll leave you guys with some good eats. Ignore the fact that this looks florescent.. it’s freaking amazing. It’s vegan stuffed cabbage rolls smothered in sweet & sour sauce and it’s freaking fantastic. I don’t get time to make this often.. but when I do I make a lot so I can freeze and have it for like a week straight

And last but not least, this GINORMOUS box of splenda. 1,000 effing packets!!!! This will last me until I’m about 25.. going with me off to Boston next year. I have no idea why we bought it at COSTCO.. but hey.. fake sugar doesn’t expire. We’re good to go for a lifetime.

I apologize for the novel.. but that’s what happens when you can’t post for forever! I can assure that my posts will be more frequent now that school’s over. (Well.. not quite. I guess I have to turn in my arch project on Monday, and then SATURDAY the 17th I have one last final. Who does that?!) Ahhh. Time to run. Thanks to everyone for all the support in making my decision and the rough last week!

This is how I know it’s really nearing summer. I start regretting old break-ups. Who wants to be single in summer? Not me. Boo.

So pity party on hold.. this is me (duh) just after biking home from run club tonight. But what I REALLY want you to notice.. is that sweet bag huggin my back. I picked it up on Monday. On sale. At REI. $8.50

I love REI.. but I really love things on sale at REI.

This is going to be so perfect for biking up to work!! Trust me.. I’m a happy camper =]

I’m also [apparently] a happy camper when I drink smoothies out of beer steins. This would be the Apple Pie smoothie.. Oktoberfest style

And last but not least, the highlight of dinner. I fired up the grill again tonight! The plan was to do up all this baby bok choy I had bought (boughten?) earlier in the week.. but when I pulled them out of the veggie drawer I realized I was too late =[ The leaves were all yellow and the white part was smooshy. I HATE wasting food.. but especially produce!! Grrrr! So, to prevent any more potential angry garbage moments, I grilled up this mondo eggplant. IT. WAS. SO. GOOD.

Heheh I already ate like half of it before I could get myself to stop and take a picture. I LOVE eggplant so if anyone has some amazing recipes with this stellar purple veggie.. fill me in! And I'm not sure why this picture's "medium" is so much bigger than the other "mediums". Still getting used to wordpress =]

Speaking of getting used to it.. I have 3 questions:

1. where do I find the smiley guys?
2. can I make it so I don’t have to approve comments before they post? I’m not online enough for that silly business.
3. how do I put a list on the side bar? I want to list my runs for the week!

well I have to finish drafting this axonometric plan of a courtyard. I’ve only spent like 4 freakin hours on it already. 37 days till the end of the semester!