Thursday

My big news for today is that I'm going to have a visitor come April. Daniel Wood, a loyal follower of the blog and dear friend will be gracing Portland with his presence for several days at the beginning of April. It is really nice to have someone (excluding family, who are nice too) come and visit me. It's funny that when he comes out, I'll just have been getting back from the East Coast so we will both be adjusting to Pacific coast time at the same time.

Other than that a hiccup on the training front. It seems as though I may be getting some mild shin splints. I maybe, should have been more careful before I essentially tripled my weakly mileage. I was just so excited! It's OK though. After tomorrow's long run I've got a couple days off and then I'm going to start replacing my shortest runs with bike rides of equivalent time spans. I'm also not going to increase my mileage at all for the next couple of weeks. In fact, due to the bike replacement it will actually fall a bit. Then, I'm going to make every effort to run on people's lawns instead of on the sidewalks. Hopefully all of that will put me in good working order.

Today was my first day as a volunteer at Habitat for Humanity's Restore. It went well. I'm hoping that having two jobs won't get in my way of being able to volunteer when they need me but I'm not going to go around turning down any work.

Other than that, I just drank some sleepytime tea and am about to zonk out. Hope you all have had a good night.

Real Deal

Some of you may think I'm getting soft.

What with all the pictures of flowers and blue skies I'd think the same thing if I were you. But here is an update with real information.

I know you're looking for what's happening in my life. I know you're not interested in being placated with pretty pictures. Delicious pictures, on the other hand are in great demand.

I'll start with this. I got another job.

I actually got offered a few different jobs at the same time but the one I took is at a self serve yogurt shop. The benefits of this job as opposed to the other opportunities are that: A) it's closer to my house and B) there's room for advancement. This means that by summer time I could potentially be a manager there. C) I can eat frozen yogurt but not ice cream. I figure it's best to take a job where I can get leadership experience, can stand behind the product, and don't have to bike a half an hour to get there every day. Also, with this job I can keep my currant job. Which is a plus, since I just picked up another bigger money shift and am generally opposed to leaving jobs after only being there a few months.

Next thing is: I entered into a half marathon yesterday! It's at a little island that's just a bit north of Portland and it is on the Fourth of July. Really early in the morning on the Fourth of July. I'm excited because you are supposed to get Strawberry Shortcake after that race. Now I have something to train for AKA the Foot Traffic Flat. A nice bonus of this Half is that it's exactly the right amount of time before a marathon that I'd like to run for me to use it as a stepping block to get trained up for the marathon.

And then let's not forget that yesterday was Pi day. So, I went over to my friend Rosie's house and had some pizza pie.

Pizza Pi

Delicious

I'm about to go for a run now in fact. I've got to work off that Pizza and get ready for that Half.

Oh, the air, the air is full of spring.

That's right. Spring is in the air.

I went on a trip to the grocery store today (funnily enough not to buy groceries but a gaggle of other necessary household items) and as it turned out the sun was out and the flowers were blooming. So I grabbed my camera.

A beautiful tree with peeling bark

tiny purple flowers

The trees are just beginning to bloom

I hope that everyone else is feeling the sweet sunshine of spring as they go about their day. More updaty updates in the future. For now I just want to share with you the joy of new beginnings.