dear husband,

five years ago, you made me the happiest woman alive when i walked down the aisle and saw that smile on your face.  i am so blessed to share my life with you and i thank God each and every day for bringing us together.  you are the best part of me.  HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!

with all the love in my heart,

your wife

it’s been an off week for orlando visiting.   between being sick and hubby being gone, i’m just not super motivated to be social.  i’ve spent a lot of time hanging out with sissy’s family, which is always a joy.  yesterday, i finally started to feel better.  the sinuses cleared up and i coughed a lot in the morning but even that was lessened throughout the day.  last night was poker night at my cousin’s which is the night i look forward to most when i’m down here.  i am honored that stryker always shows up when we’re in town even though i hear he never shows up anymore. 

i choose to steal the pic writersblock posted because i'm so amused at all of us geeks with our laptops open while playing poker (although the pic was taken before the cards and chips hit the table)

yes, we were all partaking of our various geekyness throughout the poker game; my cousin and i played a game of scrabble on fb while taking everyone else’s poker chips (she finally won when we all went all in, with four side pots, and a bunch of nothing cards).

when i got back to my sissy’s i briefly visited with her and BIL before heading to bed where i was up until 01:00 unable to sleep.  and then i awoke out of a sound sleep right around 02:30 for a severe coughing fit that lasted until close to 04:00.  i’m sure i had the whole house awake listening to me hack up my spleen.  after coughing myself into a massive headache, raw throat, sore chest, and pulled muscle in my back, i finally broke down and took some OTC cough medicine.  within fifteen minutes i had quieted down enough to start trying again for sleep.  it was just a miserable night.  i guess hubby is lucky he wasn’t here as i would have certainly kept him awake.

it seems when i’m sick, i sleep even less than normal.  this means that twice in the last three days, i have been wide awake at 06:00 and willing to go running.  unfortunately, i can’t seem to breath in the mornings.  either i’ve been all stuffed up or, like this morning, i started to get up and went into a major coughing fit.  these conditions are just not conducive to running.  i wonder if i’m so willing because i know that my lungs and sinuses will win?  i am, however, mulling over the idea of going over to my cousin’s ridiculously early on wednesday to run and then spending the rest of the day utilizing her house as a satellite office so that i’m there good and early for poking!

my sting-ray-flu has hit the road.  i carefully cultivated it all last week so that i could bring it to orlando with me.  as planned, it flourished over the six hour drive down here so that i was feeling far more lousy when i got here than i had during the week.  i have made efforts to spread it around to all of my sissy’s family as well as other relatives and friends, as chronicled below.  you’re all welcome!

saturday sissy’s family accompanied me and hubby to my dad’s for a nice lunch and visit with him and his wife.  saturday night’s plans got postponed due to hubby having to get some work done so we popped in on my cousin instead. 

sunday we went to see my friend’s first house.  i loved her sense of pride as she showed us around and i am impressed with the improvements that they have already made in the last month.  i wish them happy, happy days in that home.  the rest of sunday was lazy.  we got back in time for splashy pool fun but i chose to nap instead.  when i awoke, i went down and sat next to the hot tub while hubby, sissy, and BIL soaked.  no way was i getting in a hot tub on a 94° afternoon!  the rest of the evening was passed with dinner, a bit of the magic game, and a movie.

i didn’t even go to yoga wednesday night because i felt so crummy.  we did go to the bridge run last night though and it seriously kicked my butt.  turned out i was much less up for it than i thought. 

i was in a pretty good mood when i started since i found some animals to watch on the backside of the pond.  and i had a big smile when a strange man was walking toward our group and several of the men-folk stopped and turned to watch me and make sure the man kept on walking past.  it was nice to feel so protected.  and then i felt like i was actually a bit faster on the first leg since i was already heading downhill when i met the first group coming back over the bridge.  that’s never happened before so either i was going faster or they were all going slower (which, unfortunately, is a possibility since most of them are doing the half-iron this weekend so they are tapering down but i prefer to think i was being a speed-demon). 

at the other end of the bridge, it all started to go downhill, so to speak.  i decided to add some distance by veering off through the college and circling back up to the road.  this was a mistake.  it seemed like it took forever to get back to the bridge and i was wary because i was by myself (no worries, cousin, my pepper-spray was tucked safely inside my purse back in the car) and no one knew where i had gone so there would be no men-folk watching protectively if strangers passed.  by the time i finally started climbing over the bridge again, i was done.  i’m talking D-O-N-E.  i wanted so badly to walk.  luckily, my hubby must have seen my struggle and, instead of finishing his second lap over, he turned and slowed drastically to jog with me all the way back to the car.  it was so nice to have company when i was feeling so shot.  he kept telling me i was doing great and i could make it.  he was highly encouraging even though i couldn’t stop gasping out expletives.  and i did make it back to the car without slowing to a walk.  based on the overall time and my assumed pace, i’m guessing i did between 3.7 and 3.8 miles.  i’m not sure if it was feeling crappy or the fact that i didn’t do my tuesday run that made it so much tougher.  i really think that the tuesday run helps on thursdays.

i gave an awful lot of consideration to doing my tuesday night run tonight.  really, i did.  and then the whiny laziness won out.  my throat hurts.  my head hurts.  waaahh, waahhh, waaahhh…  i did go to the plaza but instead of going to the park to run the loop, i went to target to buy some sympathy cards and then walked to penney’s for some towels.  just as good as a three+ mile run.

i woke up this morning with a sore throat.  i assumed that i was just dried out from a night under the a/c and fan… maybe i slept with my mouth open or something.  sadly, it has only gotten worse throughout the day.  and i feel sniffly.  and my head is still throbbing like it has been the last three or four days.  didn’t i just go through the flu?  that’s gotta fill my sick quota for the next three years or so.  knowing my luck, i’ve probably got alligator cold or whatever is the next animal-related-chicken-little-disease that’s going to kill us all!

we found out friday that a coworker passed away last week at 56 years old.  she worked in a different department and the only reason we really knew her is because i worked with that department for about a year.  hubby and i used to complain about her because she would call one or both of us directly on every issue she came across,  flouting escalation procedures.  i met her a couple times when i had to go to that office for meetings with my then-boss and she was a nice lady (even though her direct calls drove me nuts, i had nothing against her personally).  i was very sad to hear of her passing.  i immediately contacted another person in that department to pass on my condolences.  he said that she had been out on disability after a surgery in march but was supposed to be returning to work today.  though she had health concerns, no one expected this.  my heart is heavy for all of them because i know how difficult it is to have to go into the office and have to continue working like nothing happened when there is an empty desk that just breaks your heart.  my thoughts have once again turned to ron and how much i miss him… even though he was just a coworker.  it’s amazing how our fellow employees really do become family to us.  and a little sad that we don’t even realize it until they are gone.  i need to get a sympathy card to send to that office group tonight since i forgot over the weekend.  my prayers are with her family at this difficult time… her blood family and her work family.

here are some snippets of things that made me LOL this weekend…

• saturday i called my cousin-in-law to ask him about a photography website that he had sent me.  a few minutes later, hubby’s phone rang.  he was outside so i got up to answer it.  it was my cousin calling her cousin-in-law.  i laughed while she asked for hubby, i said he was unavailable, and she said she would call him back later. 
• on the way to the naval base to pick up shaw saturday night, he called and said to pick him up at the burger king across the street as he was starving.  we got to burger king to find shaw standing in front of the drive-thru menu, seemingly arguing with the sign.  we pulled up behind him and he jumped in grumbling about them not serving him.  we pulled the car up a couple feet so that his window was in front of the sign and… they asked to take his order.  i thought it was hilarious that he stood there begging them to take his order for at least ten minutes before we arrived and yet he had food in hand less than a minute after we picked him up.
• background: we drink boxed wine.  people make fun of us and i don’t care because i like the taste of it.  i don’t subscribe to the philosophy that wine has to cost $$$ to be good.  cargo shows up yesterday afternoon with a bottle of wine, like a perfect gentleman dinner guest.  he hands it to hubby and says, “it’s the cheapest wine i could find in a bottle.  hopefully you’ll like it as much as the box stuff.”
• background:  scooter talks all the time about the feasts that sunny prepares for dinner every night.  i am known to downplay my cooking.  it’s not that i don’t/can’t cook, it’s just that i am married to a man who doesn’t really like food so my everyday cooking is pretty simple.  heck, i usually end up making two dinners, one for hubby and one for myself.  sunny and i are laying out on the beach yesterday and she’s telling me about scooter informing her of the plan to come over for dinner.  she said to him, “but arcanai doesn’t cook!  what are we going to eat?!”  she laughed as she let me know that she had visions of showing up to find boxes of cereal sitting on the table.
• we apparently have the most exciting trash disposal ever.  when kids are here, they all fight over who gets to take out the trash because it is just that fun to listen to it go down the twenty-two floors of metal chute.  i don’t get it, but whatev – as long as i don’t have to take it out.  apparently, the trash chute is just as much fun for adults.  scooter and cargo were equally entertained by it.  i think they took the trash out no less than five times last night, throwing away bags with next to nothing in them, just to be able to enjoy the chute.  on their way out, they bargained with each other over who was going to throw away what.  cargo, a hugely emotive person, let out a jovial “are you kidding me?!” as scooter dropped a large glass bottle down the chute.  they listened for the few seconds that it took to reach the bottom and scooter let out a “ooh, that’s breakage!  you could hear it break!”  i’m so glad our chores are entertaining for our guests!  now how to make shower/tub scrubbing fun so that people will want to do that for us too???

last night, we had cargo, scooter, and sunny over for some mariokart fun.  sunny and i had some good conversation while watching the boys play.  they left around 23:00 and we headed out to pick up shaw at the naval base to go listen to music.  when we picked him up, he insisted that we stop by and get cargo so we popped in and picked him up and went to a bar down the street from him.  the band that was playing there was technically good and the singer had great vocals but the music was for an older crowd.  i was  vastly aware of being the youngun in the group since i was the only one that wasn’t just blown away.  around 01:30 we moved on to our favorite venue where our favorite local band was playing.  much younger music.  i was pleased that we arrived just in time for their last set.  and i was even more pleased when the guitarist, who i heart, recognized us and stopped to talk before getting back on stage for that last set.  that put a smile on my face.  when we took cargo back home a little after 03:00, i helped him to the door and made sure he got in okay and then we dropped shaw back at the base again before making our way back home.  after a quick shower, we were in bed just after 04:00. 

this afternoon, scooter called and asked to come over for kayaking.  we invited them for dinner and then called the rest of the group to invite all of them as well.  by the time i got back from the grocery store, cargo was pulling in and scooter and sunny weren’t far behind.  by the time we were ready to go down to the beach, shaw had arrived as well.  hubby, scooter, and cargo all enjoyed kayaking and playing in the waves.  sunny and i held down beach chairs and talked and shaw caught a few z’s on another beach chair.  shaw didn’t stick around very long and the rest of us came back upstairs to start dinner shortly after he left.  i made pizzas, bbq chicken and plain cheese, and i’ve got to brag that they may have been my best efforts yet.  we followed the pizza up with ice cream and warm, out-of-the-oven brownies.  yumminess was plentiful.  the evening finished with an hour or so of rockband. 

it was such a great, social weekend.  i’m thrilled that, after all these years, we’ve finally made some friends.  i love having people to hang out with!

that’s just unnatural.  07:00 should just never be seen on a saturday.  but… it was.  and i got up, laced up my running shoes, and walked out the door.  we actually walked down to the plaza where we arrived just in time to see mello driving off.  he stopped long enough to say hi and say that no one else showed up so he was going to go ahead and open the store.  it was just me and hubby and we just did loops around the trail instead of the actual mall run.  since we walked there and back, i would say that we did right at six miles total.  my guess is that we “ran” 3.5 of it.  don’t tell hubby but i even smiled a little when he said that i was going faster than usual.  go me!

i finally got a bit of sleep last night.  i laid down around 23:30 and only woke up a little while before the alarm went off at 06:30.  it was wonderful.  unfortunately, it didn’t do much to alleviate the massive headache i went to bed with so i’m still enjoying that this morning.  oh well, whatchya gonna do?  on the bright side, my hubby should be home in the next eight or nine hours!!!

without hubby here to push me, i really had to talk myself into going out for the bridge run tonight.  i’m glad i did because, while jogging, i realized that i now have social outlets when he’s out of town.  sure, they’re exercise related social activities but it really helps break up the lonely. 

the run itself was decent.  it was bloody hot and sunny.  there was a nice breeze but it pushed against me a good bit so it wasn’t a total perk.  don’t get me wrong, i’d rather have to run into the wind than have no wind at all in this heat!  i was really excited when we started out because there was another lady right there with me and i thought i was going to have another slow-poke to jog with.  granted, she was easily twice my age and said she was nursing a knee injury but i was still happy.  after a quarter mile or so, she started slowly pulling ahead of me.  by the time i made it to the bridge, she was at least a hundred yards ahead.  yep, i got smoked by the old injured lady.  oh well. 

i had my music (which i had to keep turning up to hear over the friggin motorcycles) and i was moving forward.  i stayed winded but i kept up my slow jogging pace the entire way.  though i only did the once over the bridge, i did add on some little side loops to increase my distance to somewhere between 3.5 and 4 miles.  my guess would be 3.6 or 3.7.  overall, i felt pretty good about the matter and i had a great time hanging out with everyone afterward.

so even though i’m wallowing in lonelinesswithout hubby, i managed to pull myself away from the couch for yoga night at the store.  go me!  thankfully, the dvd was slower paced and more leg intensive.  i’m sure i’ll still be feeling it tomorrow but last week’s pace on the arms about killed me.  i think tonight’s track was about forty-five minutes.