**Note** I’ve been working on this post for a few days, still not happy with it, but having just signed up to volunteer at BarCamp in September, figure I should probably do the social media thing and blog already.

I went to my 10-year High School reunion this past weekend.

It was, in a word, surreal.

I’m not sure what I’d expected of my graduating class - maybe that everyone had moved up and out and changed as much as I think I have since High School. Maybe that I’d be surprised and everyone was wildly happy and successful.

But really, everyone was exactly the same.

The people who seemed most likely to succeed have certainly done that (and it was nice to reconnect with some of them), and those who seemed to have no particular path they were following are still meandering along without any indication of much purpose.

I went to High School in a pretty small town 2 hours outside Vancouver. Population about 8,000. My graduating class was one of the bigger groups in recent history at 97 students. After I left, I kept in touch with exactly no one.

And I’m trying to write this without coming off as a complete asshole, but I think I’m going to fail - so I may as well just go for it.

A great number of people back there are seriously fucked up.

Normal there is to not bat an eye when people have multiple babies with multiple partners.

Normal there is to hold no curiosity of the world at large, and to aim only as high as next weekend, where levels of drunkenness will be compared to those of weeks before.

Normal there is to go to the local bar, and have the unease of feeling like a brawl could start up any second, because that’s just how disagreements are dealt with.

Normal there is to have truly peaked at 18, and still live life as if that’s how old one still is.

And sure, everyone laughs at Blue Collar Comedy thinking “heh, amusing, but this is made up. People aren’t actually that backwards or ignorant.” Newsflash: they are.

I moved there one week shy of my 13th birthday, having just started to figure out what I want out of life. I was stunned and disappointed at the lack of possibility and potential I was suddenly surrounded with. I also wasn’t particularly shy about my disappointment with where I’d landed at the time, which made me a social pariah for most of my time there.

I guess over the years I lived there I got a bit used to it - but damn, the confusion and alarm and just wrongness of it all smacked me in the face all over again when I returned.

So yes, it’s completely judgemental of me - but, to put it mildly, even though I spent 5 of the most formative years of my life in that town with that crowd: they are not my people, I do not belong, I’d rather never go back.

Has anyone else had as traumatic an experience with their High School reunion?

Remember those goals I wrote about the other week?

Here’s a recap for those just joining in:
-Plan more meals
-Log food consumed
-Add short daily workouts
-Solidify bedtime routine
-Clean up doghair

They kindof fell apart.

Any guesses why?

I broke the cardinal rule of goal setting/behavior change: DO ONE THING AT A TIME.

By trying to change a bunch of things at once, I set myself up for failure. I based my reward (oh, I decided it would be fancy new sunglasses) on doing ALL of those. Then when I only managed to do some of them, I devolved into doing none.

For example:

I started off with the logging of food. Every morsel was accounted for. And I was taking the time to get ready for bed instead of blindly falling into it. Almost every night! It was going quite well! And I incorporated the swiffering of dog hair - hooray! I was also planning meals and actually cooking again (much easier to do in a dog-hair-free kitchen).

But I couldn’t fit in the 10-minute-trainer workouts. The DVD is still in the plastic wrapping. I’m still having serious trouble figuring out when exactly to do it. My brain says morning, but my body says other things (mainly “grrrrrreeeeeeaaaaaphhhuuuuuuuuuuhhhhmmm”) at 6:00am.

Anyhow, so I’ve not been doing the 10-minute trainer. Which means no reward anyhow. Which means I’m only half-heartedly (if at all) doing the other things on the list.

It culminated last night when I remarked to Neil (after he closed the pizza box) I don’t care that this place is a sty - I just want to ignore it and fall asleep on the couch in front of the TV. Which I did.

So it’s time to start again. Slowly.

One. Thing. At. A. Time.

So I’m back to aiming for those individual behaviors, and tracking them with individual goals. Every time I finish a 1-week streak of one of them, I add another thing. When I finish two solid weeks of any one new habit, I get a smaller reward. Bailing on one of them doesn’t affect the reward for the others.

Then, once I’ve finished the two weeks of the 5th goal (whichever one that happens to be) I get the bigger reward (still sunglasses).

And in the meantime, I’ll hopefully manage to stick with one or two things on the list, and not give up on it all when everything inevitably falls apart, again.

Now that I’m back in town, and for the first time in quite a long while don’t actually have another plane ticket booked to anywhere for the foreseeable future (also known as “October” ’round these parts) I’m really trying to buckle down and work on a few areas of my personal life that I’ve been meaning to improve upon.

This is more for me than you, but if anyone wants to pester me about these and keep me accountable, I’d definitely welcome the prodding.

Here are the goals I’ve set for myself for the rest of the month, some big, some small:

-Make meal plans. Neil and I have been away so long, I think we’ve only actually cooked three real meals in our kitchen since we’ve been married. We eat better and healthier when we plan food - do more of that. Plan and make at least 4 meals in per week.

-Log everything I eat. If I’m recording my food, I do much better at choosing “apple” instead of “cookie” when the 3pm snackmonster attacks.

-Do a sesson from the 10-minute trainer 6 days a week. If I’m going to succumb to late-night fitness informercials, the least I can do is take the damn DVD out of the box and try it.

-Wash off my makeup every night. I’ve been lucky enough to have pretty darned good skin for the last number of years while falling asleep with a facefull of leftover makeup and daily grime. Note to self: you are getting older and can not hide from wrinkles forever. It is time for an extra dose of soap and water and nighttime regenerative moisturizer.

-Swiffer every other day. Dog hair does not have to be a way of life. Cleaning up after it, does.

I think these are do-able goals for the next couple weeks, after which I’m hoping they easily become habits.

One thing I’m trying to figure out, though, is an adequate reward for actually meeting all these. I’m not particularly good at denying myself life’s little (and sometimes not-so-little) pleasures as they come, so it’s gotta be something I wouldn’t normally just do or buy for myself -but also shouldn’t be excessively extravagant (remember it’s just two weeks I’m talking about).

Suggestions?

A funny thing happened on the way to our honeymoon.

I changed my facebook status from “engaged” to “married,” refreshed the page, and saw that all the wedding product ads had magically switched themselves to baby product ads.

It’s not quite true that the first question out of everyone’s mouth is “When are you starting a family?” That’s the second question. The first is either “How was the wedding” or “How’s married life?”

But it is a question that nobody fails to ask. (Unless you’re my mom, and so hungry for grandchildren that you’re terrified that asking will jinx the situation and you may have to get another dog before baby humans make their way into your life.)

And it’s a question that I still don’t have a good answer for.

I mean, my biological clock is certainly ticking - or at least I assume that’s what’s happening because the sight of babies now makes me go “aw” instead of “ew.”

But the overwhelming emotion in the face of contemplating joining the breeders of the world is still utter and abject terror.

I’ve been looking for a way to put it into words, but I think a commenter on amalah.com said it best:

But also, this really scares me. I’m a lawyer, fiance is a lawyer, we both work long hours, and no way we can work these hours once we decide to have kids. It’s clear I’ll be the one to cut back the most (although he’ll frankly have to as well, because seriously, we were both up until 4am working last night). Anyway, your comments about staying home and its effect on your opinion of yourself scare me. Your comments about feeling like you’re always working to meet deadlines but yet you feel like a drain on the finances scare me. Comments about it not occurring to him to put the kid to bed or brush the babies teeth scare me. And the 345 comments agreeing with you scare me. I don’t want to resent myself. Or my husband. I don’t want to feel like I can’t go to as many happy hours as him b/c what I do isn’t as important. But I look at you and everyone else and it seems like it’s simply inevitable? Scary.

Even though I never really thought I’d be the type to want to be a stay at home parent, it’s still not all that simple. My biggest fear comes from what will happen by default when we do reproduce, thanks to the fact that I’m the one in this relationship with the uterus.

The Cranky Product Manager summed it up pretty well:

You’ve been understanding about the CPM’s requirement for a reduced travel schedule, her need to leave at 5pm on the dot when she once regularly stayed past 9pm, and her need to work at home when her nanny gets sick, doesn’t show up, or quits out of the blue and leaves the CPM without viable alternative childcare for 3 weeks at a time. You’ve put up with canceled and postponed meetings due to illnesses and doctors visits. You’ve gracefully dealt with conference calls with a wailing baby in the background. Kudos to you, DysfunctoSoft. The Cranky Product Manager thanks you.

So yes, DysfunctoSoft, you are enlightened. Somewhat. But she can’t help but notice you don’t give the DADS the same flexibility as you afford moms. You expect the dads to travel incessantly, work endlessly late hours, and be available on a moment’s notice. And DysfunctoSoft is hardly atypical. For example, the Darling Husband of the Cranky Product Manager works at nearby software company — let’s call it AHoleSoft — in a similar role. AHoleSoft gives Darling Husband no slack to contribute to the childcare situation. (AHoles. What do you expect?) As a result, it all falls 100% on the Cranky Product Manager’s shoulders. And that is crap, my friends. Unexpected crap, at that. Especially for someone ambitious who had dreams of taking over the world with her wealth of product management knowledge and derivative evil genius. Though she never thought it would happen to her, the Cranky Product Manager finds her career derailing, unable to accept a promotion because she can barely keep up as is.

So I guess the answer is: yes, ideally I will have children someday. I’m pretty sure I would like it (and them).

But I’m not ready to lose the birth control until I figure out how not to lose my job, and more importantly, MYSELF in the process.

Post title yanked from the title of a monologue by Dr. Erica Hahn in a recent episode of Grey’s Anatomy that was on my TiVo. Sweet TiVo. My constant (and it feels like only) companion at the moment.

It’s true though. I really feel like I don’t make friends particularly easily, which really sucks when you feel like you need some.

Oh I do have some really special people in my life who fall under both friends and family who would be there in an instant if ever I really needed them.

And we certainly get invites to “important” parties held by friends and acquaintances (by “important” I mean holidays, birthdays, things of that ilk) and dinner parties, BBQ’s, etc.

The people I’m missing (and it’s really been a near-constant sore-point in my personal life) are the friendly acquaintances that you can hang out with, without having a reason. Other than say, it’s Wednesday, let’s sit down and have a glass of wine (tea, go for a walk, chat, whatever).

I mean, I guess I have a reason for wanting that right this moment: Neil’s out of town, I’ve run out of TiVo’d shows to watch and no matter how much I talk to her, the dog doesn’t talk back. Which makes it seem like I’m looking for last-resort companions, but believe me, if I could think of someone to call, the TiVo would’ve stayed full. And even when Neil is around, there are people we’d rather hang out with than eachother sometimes (both separately and as a couple).

I’m basically at a point where I’m bugged enough about the situation to stop deluding myself into thinking that it’s not a problem for me.

Not that I’m asking for a pity-party or play-dates (okay, maybe I am, just a little), but seriously, how do you transition past the point of being friendly with people when you happen to see them, to being friends with someone and comfortable enough to actually pick up the phone or email and say “hey, let’s go ride bikes get together this week” without seeming weird?

Almost every morning when I get on the bus, I have the same set of thoughts about my fellow commuters: How do They Do It?

And by “It” I mean, how do they keep it all together, get everything done, manage to blow-dry their hair in the mornings (one of my own shortcomings these days). What are they letting slide?

I’m not sure how it happened, but in the last few years I have managed to go from having a bunch of girlfriends who seemed to have similar lives and goals, to having girlfriends who have less and less in common with me as life goes on. Mostly on the work front. Namely, that most of my close girlfriends just don’t. Or if they do, it’s not full-time. They’re having babies, taking breaks, going back to school or focusing on other hobbies and goals.

Hobbies? Hah. I don’t even delude myself into thinking I have time for hobbies.

Anyhow, I find myself without anyone to truly commiserate with on this particular state of affairs, so I’m opening it up to the internets: How do you do it?

Here’s what it seems I do have time for these days:

06:00 Alarm goes off
06:09 Snooze one goes off, coffee starts
06:18 Snooze two goes off, coffee’s ready (Neil still brings it to me in bed… awww)
06:40 Stumble into shower
07:15 Ok, I lied - this is when I normally stumble into the shower, because I’m absolutely knackered and have trouble dragging my carcass out of bed.
07:55 Leave house (with wet head if I’ve not gotten up until 07:15)
08:30 Arrive at work
18:30 Arrive at home on m/w/f (sometimes because I’m working late, sometimes because I’m running errands after work)
19:00 Arrive at home on t/r (after the gym)
19:30 Eat whatever we’ve created for dinner
20:00 Walk dog, clean up from dinner, make lunch for the next day, tidy up house, throw in a load of laundry, try to get one or two wedding-related tasks taken care of (none of this is solely my domain, Neil and I switch it up and both do all of these during the week).
20:30 Sit down on couch with Neil to hang out with each other a bit
21:30 Fall asleep on couch
22:00 Off to bed
03:00 Wake up, toss, turn, curse. (This only happens about 9 out of every 10 nights - the 10th morning is when I actually get up in time to blow-dry my hair before work)
04:30 Finally fall back asleep
06:00 Alarm goes off…

And so it goes.

So, for all the working girls out there (and heck, the boys too) - how do you do it? I love what I’m doing for work, and have no desire to do it less, but I still feel like I’m missing some crucial element on how to manage to fit a few extra things in there like the blow-drying (oh how I long for good-hair days), running (off that wagon again), better blogging, more picture-taking and maybe, just maybe a social life.

Or maybe it’s just an illusion and you don’t have it together either?

Enlighten me.

One of my favourite features of the Nike+iPod setup is the Powersong.

It’s a simple concept - pick a song that pumps you up, gets you going, gets the mojo flowing, renews your energy. Program that song into your iPod nano as your Powersong. When you’re lagging and need a boost, you hold down the nano’s centre-button for a few seconds, and whatever song was playing is paused while your Powersong comes on. Once the Powersong is over, you go back to your regular workout playlist.

Also, a fun community feature that’s tied in to it is iTunes collects the Powersong data from all Nike+iPod users, and keeps a list of the 10 most popular Powersongs. It’s a pretty typical list as far as such things go: Iconic Rock Anthems and high energy dance music (The top 5 right now are Eye of the Tiger, Pump It, Thunderstruck, Sexy Back and Lose Yourself).

And this past week I’ve taken the concept of a Powersong to a whole new level. I’ve been so.

completely.

exhausted.

for about 6 weeks now.

Packing, moving, wedding, running, training, working.

And none of them are really as simple as those single words. Buying a house and the associated paperwork and organization, planning a destination wedding, planning a 3 week (backpacking, we’ve decided) trip (including making plans for things that need to happen while we’re away and immediately after we return), finding an extra hour every day for the running and training, the pain and exhaustion as my body gets used to having my ass kicked 5 days a week, and increased duties and responsibilities at work because things are getting busier and I’m also wicked awesome at what I do (yay for career development).

All of which I love. But seriously - stop this crazy ride for a moment, wouldja?

Since my demands (see above) for the world to pause on its axis just long enough for me to catch my breath seem to be going unheeded for the time being, I’ve decided my headphones to tune out as much of the crazy as possible - and a good powersong - are going to have to be enough to keep me going for the next couple months.

When I need to clear my head at work. When I need something to sing along to in the car. When I have more appointments in my calendar than hours in the day. When I’m surrounded by my nearly exploding homeowner’s manual, dirty dishes, mounds of laundry in various stages of clean and would rather ignore it all and dance. I grab my iPod, turn on my Powersong, and forget about it all for 3.5 minutes.

Right now I’m alternating between two tracks:

Flying - The Secret Machines (Originally by the Beatles, found on the Across the Universe soundtrack)
Piece of Me - Britney Spears (don’t judge)

So what about you? How do you keep your sanity when you’re crazy busy? What’s your powersong?

Week 3 is in the can. However, not without a serious episode of needing to get over my damn self already.

Last night I posted about not wanting to run and a long list of accompanying excuses. I figured I’d vent the negativity onto the blog and just go home and run.

And so many more excuses lines themselves up on the way home. Missed buses, increasingly bad weather, and then the final straw:

I grabbed my shorts out of the laundry, and despite the fact that I very carefully tied up the drawstring on them, it untied itself in the wash and was halfway pulled out. And with the level of clutter and nothing-having-a-home-ness around here, I had no idea where any tool to fix it would be.

I gave up.

I tried to console myself with a new oMop and by finally getting a lot of the cleaning up and laundry done (which included finding the mechanism by which to fix the aforementioned shorts - aka safetypin). The chores got done, but I didn’t feel any better.

Then I read all your comments. And I felt like a huge ass. So thank you to everyone who commented or emailed or otherwise nagged and cajoled me.

I needed a little Yoda-therapy: there is no try, only do.

But by the time I finally realized that, it was quite late. So I just continued to feel like a huge ass (with a huge ass) and tried to figure out when I’d run the next day.

To add insult to injury, the weather during the day today was the closest thing to beautiful I’ve seen around Raincouver for a long, long time.

So I got over myself and just did it - I played hooky from work for an hour this afternoon. (Can you still call it “hooky” if you get flex hours and can telecommute, and go back to working at home later?)

I came home, grabbed the dog, and ran. And it was lovely!

And once I got back, I made a smoothy and picked up the computer and looked outside and it had just started raining.

I thought about making some sort of personal resolutions this year, but 2008 is shaping up to be a year of so much activity, growth and change already I think I’ll just give myself a big pat on the back for making it through.

It starts off with becoming a first-time homeowner, complete with list of DIY projects to get started on, and we don’t even move in for a few more days. Then comes the actual DIY work, design and AV plans and the execution thereof.

Smack-dab in the middle of those, there’s that whole wedding thing coming up. It’s slowly starting to hit me that there are about eleventy-frillion little details to get all squared away within the next 90-ish days. Fitting into my dress is enough motivation to keep me on the running plan for the next little while. As for those details, I am currently distracting myself by agonizing over shoes: Manolo Blahnik or Christian Louboutin… the Spring Manolos have absolutely perfect styling for my dress, but those damn red soles on the Louboutin are like a siren song in shoe form…

2008 will also be a big travel year again, with definite trips to Tofino (twice), Morocco, Spain, Orlando (twice) and Las Vegas (twice), with probable jaunts to San Fransisco, Denver, Boston, Atlanta, DC and Barcelona. Don’t get too jealous, only three of those destinations are personal trips. I’m sure Neil, in addition to one “man-time” camping trip, will also have his share of trips to the exotic wilds of Columbus and maybe Oxford.

In between all those I also want to make sure I manage to balance the crazy with time to both visit and entertain friends and family near and far, keep running and not lose time I’ve worked hard to find for things like playing the piano, learning how to make beautiful photos and just lazing about with a good book or two.

Realistically, the goals we have for getting our new place put together and the travel schedule coming up means that most of our time and finances are pretty well spoken for until late 2008, when it’ll practically be time to gear up for another holiday season where I can finally pause and wonder where the year went.

But there is one thing I felt I could certainly set some goals for and make the time to do better at over the next 12 months - this damn blog. It definitely stagnated over 2007, which I’m definitely not pleased with. So starting now, I’m going to take the step of engaging more with readers by replying to all comments, and try to drag some additional content out of myself to keep to a 3-4 post/week schedule.

And so, in the spirit of getting this thing start off right, and actually soliciting some comments to reply to… how are you this year so far, and do you think I should go with the Manolos or Louboutins?

Because I am surrounded by boxes that are not full yet, you get a meme (From Colleen):

Here are the ground rules for the newbies:

1. After reading my answers, copy and paste the list into your comment.
2. Change my one-word responses with yours (ONE WORD, even if it kills you).
3. Submit your comment.
4. Feel free to post your finished list on your blog, too. (Look at that, a post idea, FREE. You’re welcome.)

Your last meal: pancakeseggsbacon (it’s supposed to be one word - breakfast didn’t feel descriptive enough)
Something on your desk/work area: boxes
Your New Year’s Eve plans: packing
The smallest gift you received this year: nike+ipod
The largest gift you received this year: tripod
Something you wish you hadn’t eaten so much of during the holidays: cookies
On your feet: slippers
Your hair: ponytail
How many other countries you’ve traveled to: three (soon to be five)
One country you dream of visiting: New Zeland
A hobby you’d like to take up/revisit this year: running
A hobby of yours that died (aww, buh-bye) this past year: reading
A publication you subscribe to (print): Cook’s Illustrated
The most embarrassing subscription in your feed reader (if you have one): none
One of your favorite stores to window shop dreamily in: Sephora
One of your favorite online stores to window shop dreamily on: apple.ca
A color you love to wear: green
Your bed pillow: fluffy
The color of your kitchen counter: “dirty”
What you plan to do when you get up from the computer: pack

It seemed like a good idea earlier this week to book the nurse’s appointment for 8:00am on Saturday, since we’re usually up ridiculously early most days anyhow, and rarely sleep past 7:00am on weekends. Hey, did you know that when you buy life insurance, they send someone over to take your blood pressure and make you pee in a cup? Anyhow, this whole process also requires fasting for 3 hours beforehand, and I figured the less time I was without snacks or coffee, the better - so 8:00am it was. And then we’d be free to get on with our day without waiting around for our appointment.

And then this past week happened, with having to navigate managing work’s presence at a local event, go on an off-site course and do all the regular work stuff quite literally all at the same time. A couple 12-hour days later, and suddenly 8:00am Saturday seems like a very bad time to have some random stranger with rubber gloves and a clipboard show up at my door.

So the alarm went off at 7:00, and I snoozed it until 7:36, at which point I figured that despite his status as a health-care professional, I should probably put on pants for the impending visitor, and stumbled into the bathroom for my morning pee. Oops.

Mid-stream it hit me - I’m going to be required to pee again in about 20 minutes - without the aid of coffee.

We went through the questionnaire, we went through the height/weight/blood-pressure checks. I went through a couple glasses of water. Neil went through his questionnaire. He went through his height/weight/blood-pressure checks. I went through another couple glasses of water. Neil peed in his cup. I went through another couple glasses of water. The only thing I had to offer were complaints about my now painfully distended belly full of liquid, and not a drop of pee.

The nurse waited around for another 15 minutes - I still couldn’t pee.

And not for lack of trying! Oh how I tried! I tried relaxing, I tried willing myself to pee, I tried running my hands under very cold then very hot then very cold water, I tried applying pressure to my general bladder area. Not a damn drop.

So the nurse agreed to break the rules since we appear to be generally upstanding citizens, and not the type who’d have a stash of someone else’s pee in the bathroom, or otherwise try to cheat the test. He left me with the jar, instructions not to have anything but water until after I’d peed, and to please record the temperature of the pee (there’s a stick-on thermometer on the outside of the cup) and he’d come by and pick it up in-between some other appointments nearby later on.

Finally, FINALLY about 20 minutes (and another glass of water for good measure) later, I peed! Neil cheered, we High 5′d and did a happy dance (ok, I drew the line at the dance - I haven’t needed celebration for going pee-pee in the potty since I was 2 or 3) and I dutifully recorded the temperature of my sample. And the nurse came back, gave me a receipt for my contribution, and in about 3 weeks our next of kin can throw us under a bus for a tidy sum.

But now, of course, I can’t actually leave and get on with my day, because with all the water I drank earlier, I can’t stop peeing. Seriously. Every 10-minutes or so I need to go again. And I suppose it didn’t help that I finally had coffee as well.

And I was going to try and think of something pithy to close this with, but I need to pee again.

The cashier at the drug store was the most sour-faced person I’d seen all day. She was slamming things around, muttering under her breath and looking like there was nothing worse than her particular lot in life at that moment.

Then it was my turn.

And I placed my midol, tampons and chocolate bar on the counter.

Her entire demeanor changed. She broke out into a genuine smile, placed my items into the bag with the utmost of care, and told me sincerely to have a good day.

Apparently there’s at least one thing that would be worse.

How awesome is my boss? So awesome that after the whirlwind of work travel, she gave me (in addition to a nice cash bonus) new running gloves and socks, as some incentive to get back into my running routine, since it was interrupted and had basically died.

I test-drove the gloves and socks on Monday morning when I ventured out in the cold for my first run in about a month.

The gloves are awesome - kept my hands nice and warm, without being sweaty at all. Now I just need a similar product for my ears (perhaps the matching hat!), because holy hell it’s frickin’ freezing at 6:00am!

The socks were great too - thin, comfy, dry-fit wicking material, unique left-right specific padding, and “the Nike Swift technology provides advanced aerodynamics to reduce drag and help you run more efficiently.”

That’s right. Ankle drag. That’s what makes me so slow. Not doughnuts, ankle drag.

Incentive and excuses! It’s the gift that keeps on giving!

I made it back on Thursday from “Fabulous Las Vegas” and am so incredibly glad the crazy travel time is over. Now we can get on with crazy running time and crazy moving time and crazy wedding time - hopefully in that order.

Vegas was good, though was really all work. And while I love what I do, it doesn’t make for very interesting blogging, so suffice to say I rocked the casbah with my trade-show-fu, and didn’t do much else. Quick hotel review: THEHotel at Mandalay Bay is really nice. So is Mandalay Beach. But the two are a 1/4 mile hike through the casino/mall apart. You have been warned. Quick restaurant review: Alize at the Palms is really not worth the money. Sensi at Bellagio really is worth the money.

Running update: I haven’t run since the day before I left for New York. I feel like a whale out of water - all floppy and useless and struggling to breathe. Now that I have the time and inclination to do anything but work and sleep, I’m going back to Week 2 of the Couch to 5k program.

Moving update: We finally dealt with securing our mortgage. No I don’t wanna talk about the rate (which, like all rates at this time, is atrocious). I also don’t wanna talk about how the GST is going down another 1% 2 weeks after our current estimated closing date. It’s ok, I didn’t want those thousands of dollars anyhow. We are trying very hard (and mostly succeeding) to be Zen about it all, since we can’t do anything about it anyhow.

Wedding update: Our engagement announcement ran in the Province and Sun last weekend (November 3 & 4, 2007). Thanks again to everyone who called/emailed/sms’d to pass on well-wishes. I’m not entirely sure how long the online version runs (I think I remember my mom mentioning 3-months or so), but you can also see it online for the time being here. Other than that, planning keeps on keepin’ on keepin’ on.

Do you (bloggers) ever get to that point where you realize you haven’t written for a while, and you want to, but because it’s been so long you have no idea where to start - you want to apologize for not writing because it has been so long, but you’re not actually sorry because you haven’t been up to anything very interesting - though a few things have happened and you feel you should mention them but you don’t because they seem far too insignificant to appear as the first thing on your blog after such a long absence and you end up so frustrated at the situation and your need to put something on the page that you end up just writing a huge run-on sentence instead of any actual content?

Me neither.

Anyhow, here’s a brief sampling of what’s been up with me lately:

Wedding stuff is still going on with a minimum of crazy-inducing antics. Note I said minimum, not zero, and while minimum is obviously better than medium or maximum, it is still far more irritating than zero. I am attempting not to drive myself nutty over it and/or throw things. So far I’ve been mostly successful at both.

Our new place looks closer and closer to completion every time we go by. The retail stores on the ground floor have opening dates that fall within the next couple weeks, and they’ve finally pulled the blue plastic off the windows. It’s so close we can almost smell it. Which obviously makes us hate everything about the place we’re in more with each passing day we don’t get our official notice of occupancy. Oh the list I could create of things that I am excited to leave behind - including our impending rent increase.

I’ve started running (stop laughing, Mom!). It’s not my favourite thing in the world, but surprisingly, it doesn’t suck as much as I thought it would. A good training program helps.

The countdown to travel is on. I leave for NYC in 10 days. I’m gone for a week, back for a week, then go to Vegas for a week. I am simultaneously excited and terrified, because I’m the lead for both these events and would rather not fuck them up. I actually think the likelihood of that happening is approaching zero, but I don’t want to jinx it.

Any requests for which of these to expand on first?