hello, lovely

CONGRATS TO TERESA AND ALEX!!!! They found out (a while ago, actually. I just realized I never posted. BAD, AUNTIE MANDA!) that they are expecting their 2nd child!!

CONGRATS TO APRIL AND JOHN!!! THey ALSO, like literally just this minute (give or take a couple of hours), found out that THEY are also expecting their 2nd child!!

Plus, Stacy’s sister & significant other are expecting their first child any second now…

AND my friend Annise is expecting!

And remind me to bring my OWN water with me when I come visit next time (which is looking like it’s going to be my birthday instead of Thanksgiving or Christmas, which works because it looks like I’m going to have to spend a lot of time in Dallas come spring! … ).

YAY BABIES!!! I better get knitting…..

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Team Unraveled had their LAST TRAINING WALK this evening!! It went well and we celebrated by eating Mexican food at Alberto’s afterward. We have a Pasta Feed planned for Thursday, but it looks like I will be packing tomorrow night. I can’t believe how much crap I have to take with me. We’re camping right on the Bay, and it’s always cold and foggy there, so I have to pack tons of layers, not to mention the sleeping bag and all that stuff. Wow.

The team has all made their $2200 (some have been very fortunate enough to raise even MORE! Woohoo!), and I’m SO happy about that! Now we can all just focus on walking and having a good time.

I probably won’t have time to post anymore before the event, so I guess I’ll see you on the flipside. When I come back, I’ll be able to say I walked approximately 500 miles in about 5 months!!

Here’s a photo of me on a break on our last SF/big training walk… we were hanging outside of Taylor’s near the Ferry Building.

so, we walked 17 miles today. it was supposed to be 20, but since we were behind the group on the second go-round, the route support ladies (WHO. ARE. AWESOME. I walked with a couple of them on one of the training walks before they did the Avon walk back in July (if we did the Avon walk, we’d be done by now. I try not to think about it)) were supposed to give us a ride to catch up with the rest of the walkers. we made a wrong turn somewhere though & couldn’t find them so we ended up getting dropped off at the first break and walking from there, essentially cutting out 3 miles of walking.

During our walk, we walked passed what is supposedly Robin Williams’ house (it’s kind of ugly, but that was the landmark I used to know where to turn.. lol), and I almost got hit in the head with a golf ball, and we did part of a route that we’ve done before so I actually knew where I was going and how long it should take. it RULED.

Tomorrow, we’re walking a mostly tried & true route on one of the trails near home, but we’re walking 15 miles. Pray that I make it & that it’s over as quickly and painlessly as possible.

Also, please take a moment to send in your donation! Thank you!

Wow, I wish I had something to talk about, but my life literally consists of working, walking, and sleeping, and that is pretty much it. I don’t look forward to weekends because I know that I will be subjecting myself to some sort of torture that resembles walking. I like Thursdays. We knit on Thursdays, and while we still TALK about walking, we still get to KNIT.

Anyway.. it’s not all bad. I think I’m losing weight, even though it hasn’t reflected in the numbers on the scale. I don’t want to eat as much, even if I’m sometimes ravenous after walks. I don’t eat as much. Case in point: this evening. Unraveled walked approximately 12 San Francisco miles (which considering the hills and steps we walked is probably more like 15 or so Pleasanton miles, lol.) with the Warming Hut Hotties.

I am most definitely the caboose, but I’m okay with that. Every time I go out there and walk, especially now that we’re doing the longer distances, I surprise myself with what I’m capable. I’m really proud of myself.

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Joe was reading over my shoulder and annoying me, so I stopped posting. I’m picking up where I left off now.
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Yesterday on our walk, we tackled the Lyon Street Steps. There are 200-300 steps in this place, and one guy was running up and down like it was nothing. I barely made it to the top. When I did, there were people up there cheering me on, which was kind of embarrassing, but it really did help. After I did the stairs, everything else was easy.

I’ve decided that if we ever do another organized training walk, I will be plugging my ears and going “lalala, I can’t hear you! Lalalalalala” during the safety speech. Any walk we’ve attended where I’ve paid attention to the safety speech has involved me FALLING DOWN somehow. The first time, during the Expo Walk, was because I stepped funny on a rock. THIS time, it was because there was some metal circle thing in the road that none of us noticed until I fell on my ass with it hanging around my feet. WTF? Anyway… so I apparently do better when people don’t tell me to be safe. heheh

I met some cool people yesterday. Most of them are doing the Avon walk, which is in a couple of weeks. I wish them all the best of luck!

It’s getting tough! If you haven’t donated yet (or even if you have! hehe), please consider making a donation. I’d appreciate it.

My team and I have walked close to 200 miles in our training so far, and we still have a couple months to go!! I can’t even believe it. A couple months ago, 3 miles was TOUGH.

I don’t even know how many times I have started this stupid project, but I am determined. I started on the 1st day of the month so it would be easier to keep track.

Day 1: The Chronic-what?-cles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Day 2: I finished half a pair of socks

Day 3: Lunch Break with a sammich from Safeway and Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer. In this picture, I had about half the book to go. Now? Only about 30 pages. I am so BUMMED that I have to wait until August for the next one. I thought it came out this month.

HAPPY (Belated) BIRTHDAY, KIMMY!!!!!!!!!!!

I sent you a txt msg while I was at work yesterday, so I hope you got it! hugs!

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BTW… as of yesterday, it’s been 9 years since I graduated from HS. Anybody feel old yet?

Rock on.

In honor of Teresa’s birthday, work let us have half the day off!

Okay, just kidding. It wasn’t for Teresa’s birthday, but I did get half the day off. Next week is Administrative Professionals’ Week, and I am considered and administrative professional. They decided to have an appreciation luncheon, and then let us all off for the afternoon. I thought that was pretty cool. Between S and I, we “trained” her through the morning, and I went about getting stuff ready for the poor suckers people who had to go back to work and our interoffice mail bags & mail to corporate and some other stuff. Everyone kept saying I’m so efficient and the best receptionist they’ve had since they’ve been there. It’s nice to be appreciated.

Things at work before today have been stressful (not for me, just around the office in general), so it was nice to have a fairly relaxing day.

All of the managers got up and thanked their specific teams and gave them a thank you note with a “token of appreciation” in it. I ended up with a $25 Visa gift card, and I have a feeling it will be going towards yarn a bathing suit for our vacation/this summer or new workout/walking pants. Fun. I also won a plant because my envelope had a green dot on it. They had plant centerpieces, and they were purchased by our manager for the tables, and we all got to keep them. Nice, huh? Let’s see how long it takes me to kill it. lol.

What did I do with my afternoon? I came home and ended up hanging out. Joe was off today, and he said “Hey, let’s go to the movies.” We had a zillion dollars in movie bucks, so we went to see Forgetting Sarah Marshall. It was pretty hilarious. Now I’m at home, knitting & listening to podcasts. I’m not sure what we’re doing tomorrow, but Sunday my 3 Day team and I are going on our first training walk together. Should be fun.

Today is Cleaning Day at Chez JoeManda, and I got bathroom duty. Ugh. Gross. I hate our bathroom. I’m about ready to die, but my arms feel like they got a pretty good workout. LOL.

Anyway, we also decided to go get some lunch at our favorite burger joint this afternoon, followed by a trip to Fry’s to get some computery-electronicy-networky things. Then we went to Walmart and got a bookshelf/entertainment center thingy for all of our electronics. lol. I’ll say that we’ve done pretty well for ourself since moving in together. We went from 13″ tvs to an entire entertainment center (though not as fancy as it probably COULD be, but still nothing to sneeze at!). It’s pretty insane. It was a nice day. The first we’ve really left the house together on a weekend in a long time. lol.

We also decided on our vacation. Not to Florida, which is kind of a bummer, but since we’re not doing what I thought we were (using free flights & hotel stays. We’re saving them for when we’re in Dallas around Christmas instead.), I wanted to try to make it a cheap-ish vacation. We’re going to Vegas instead, which should be a blast!! We’re staying at the Monte Carlo. NO, we’re not getting married, though I have told him we should do that just to piss people off. We’ll only be there for a couple of days and then we’re coming back. We MIGHT do a couple-day trip down to Disneyland too, but we’re still debating on that. We’re pretty good about the two-vacations-in-one thing, so it just might happen.

I did call TC while we were out to find out where she wants me to send her birthday present, but I hung up when I realized that if she wanted it sent anywhere but her apartment, that I didn’t have anything to write it down on. haah I got a txt a few min later saying she’d call me back when she got out of her movie. If anyone reads this and then talks to her, please tell her that’s what I need, but I’ll try her again tomorrow if I don’t hear from her before then. It’s already almost 9pm there, so I don’t want to wake Gabby or anything.

Annnnyway.. also, thanks to the few of you who have already donated to my Breast Cancer 3-Day fund-raising efforts. If you haven’t donated already, you have until September.

Ahh, I remember the weekends where I’d get off work, TC would come pick me up, and we’d high-tail it to Denton or Deep Ellum (Oh, Curtain Club, how I miss you!!) to go see Dollybraid, Plasma Jack, Edgewater, and any other band who may have opened for them. Friday and Saturday nights glued to a stage with camera in hand, not leaving until closing, or even a bit after, and stopping IHOP on the way home… the ringing in my ears so deafening that I didn’t go to bed until at least an hour after getting home, sometimes two, just to get up and do it all over again the next day. Man, I miss those days.

Tonight, I spent my Friday night doing laundry, and putting laundry away, and knitting while Joe plays video games on the Wii.

I? Am the epitome of exciting.

The problem with my job is that I’m not able to blog. Unfortunately, that’s the only time I think of things to post about, and when I get home, I don’t really want anything to do with my computer aside from checking gmail and poking around on Ravelry.

Some updates for you, though…

* We were going to have to move towards the end of April, but now we don’t have to! Yay! Unfortunately, the opportunity to get rid of crap that comes with moving is no longer there, so now I’m going to have to MAKE myself do it. The good news is that now I can thoroughly enjoy the little trip I’m going on mid-April with my knitting buddies.

* I have Joe’s birthday present, Megan’s birthday present, and TC’s birthday presents ready to go. I still need to put something together for Joe’s sister’s birthday and my stepdad’s birthday. The month of April sucks as far as birthdays and my bank account are concerned.

* We’re going on vacation, but we went from deciding to go to Florida to So Cal to Vegas to Reno to “sooo..where are we going?” in a matter of a couple of weeks. So who knows, but I hope we go somewhere or my week off of work is going to be a huge waste of time… not to mention completely boring.

* I downloaded the new Jason Mraz EP, We Sing, and I LOVE IT!! Mraz rules.

* I need to lose weight. Ugh.

So.. there you go. That’s all that’s really going on in Manda’s world. What’s going on in your world?

I’m excited! I’m going to be getting new glasses soon.

My current glasses are on their last legs. The right bow is being held on by Scotch tape, and I don’t think it’s going to hold much longer. lol. I noticed a few weeks (yes, weeks) ago that it broke. It’s hard to explain so maybe I’ll take a picture once I get new glasses, but the top part of the bow that attaches to the frame with a screw had part of it break off right where the screw goes, so there’s not much holding it together. I somehow bent the bow in the shower and had to repair it with tape. lol. It seemed to hold alright, but the tape looks stupid, and I finally found my insurance card, so I’m going at lunch on Tuesday to have my eyes checked & look at new glasses. I’m hoping I pick some at that point and can get ‘em that night after work. That would rock. The dr. I’m going to is right next to LensCrafters, and they normally do glasses pretty quickly. I’m contemplating getting a pair of sunglasses too. All the glasses I’m gravitating towards have thicker frames (which will be good now that Joe is around most of the time. I can’t hug him without him knocking my glasses… lol) and won’t fit my clip-on shades. It’ll be nice, though, because if I get prescription sunglasses, I’ll actually get to wear pretty sunglasses for the first time since 6th grade. LOL

In other news, our vacation is on. I got approval for my vacation time, so yay vacation!