long weekend make me happy!

I'm incredibly happy and excited for the long holiday weekend.  No work, no worrying about work, and no work travel for 3 1/2 glorious days.  Starting at 1pm Friday afternoon I am looking forward to:

• Seeing the Cubs play and visiting Wrigley for the first time this season.  Nothing like a game at Wrigley and having a reason to sport my cute Cubs gear. 
• Warm weather!  After 44 degree's on Thursday I'll take 70's and possible showers
• Running with no specified distance in mind
• Seeing the Hangover 2
• Relaxing
• Finally putting together a photobook for the in-laws I've been putting off due to lack of time
• Grilling out with the hubs
• Enjoying the empty city!  I love how Chicago clears out over a holiday weekends.  It makes it so much more enjoyable to get around and get hard to make last minute reservations!

Happy Memorial Day!  Enjoy your long weekend!

holiday running

And like that Thanksgiving Day has come and gone. I'm very happy to be back in my own bed for the night at least. It was a long weekend on the in-laws pull out couch.

There was no Turkey Trot for me. None were happening in or around the small central Illinois town. Instead, I woke up early enough to go for a run before we had to go elsewhere to celebrate the day by stuffing ourselves. Going for a run is kind of difficult when staying with the in-laws. No one likes me to walk out the front door and run because of all the country roads. I don't mind too much but they all freak out. At least they care ;) There is a 6 mile path relatively close but I still need someone to drive me there since I can't take the car just in case. I'm not use to waiting on others when I want/need to run! I pretty much gave my husband no choice in taking me once I walked upstairs in my running gear ;) It ended up being one of those runs that got done. I was having issues the entire 6 miles and really couldn't find a good groove but I'm still glad I was able to get out there and do something before gorgefest 2010.

Friday was an off day then another 6 Saturday afternoon. This time I did the reverse of the route from Thursday. It worked out much better for me! The wind was in my face the entire time, there were 2 hills, but over 4 miles of the trail were downhill. Yea for the downhill!

Sunday I ended up having to run after we got back in Chicago. We wanted to get on the road before hitting a lot of traffic and because I hadn't slept well I didn't wake up early enough to go for my 12 mile run before packing the car and leaving. Not the best idea to try to run after being in the car for about 3 hours AND getting stuck in Bears game day traffic. It was nearly 4pm before I grudgingly changed into my running gear. Starting a long run in the dark is no fun. Even though I wasn't feeling the run at the start and there was an intense headwind miles 3-6 I was feeling dang good. I finished in some serious negative split land with the help from some tailwind and nervousness from being in the dark sections of the trail (I thought a cute little bunny was a gun wielding crazy man!) It may be time to invest in a running lamp of some sort...

How was your weekend running?

labor day weekend in review

I love 3 day weekends and really who doesn't?!? The city tends to clear out over holidays so it was nice to have a relatively quiet weekend. Parking was plentiful which rarely happens! The weather was pretty darn fab the entire weekend too.

doesn't it look beautiful outside?

Here's what I managed over the weekend:

• running of course! A lot of long weekends I get lazy and don't hit the road. Not this one. A long run of only 11 miles (cut-back week), 4 tough should have been easy recovery miles, and 3 windy miles with the husband. All done at the end of the day with nearly no one on the path. Pretty rare around here.
• sleeping in - love it!
• a little bit of cleaning. our kitchen and my office were a hot mess! I wanted to get more done but I got lazy and started watching The Stand on the SyFy channel instead.
• driving range with the hubs. I decided to get out of the house but didn't take my clubs this visit. I got to try out my picture taking skills along the running path instead.
• night out downtown with friends, for a going away party for one of them who is moving to NJ . seeing 30+ year olds pretend they are much, much younger = priceless.
• reading on the front patio. I picked up a photography book to teach myself and a book on Maui for our upcoming trip. I actually feel a lot more confident on my manual setting already! And seriously cannot wait for our November vacation.
• restaurants - delicious new ones and old favorites
• taco and margarita sunday. We ended the night with a movie on the couch
• a trip to the Lincoln Park Zoo. I love playing tourist in my own town and I haven't been back in several years. A fun (and free!) day in beautiful weather even if it was packed. I got some great pictures and exercise ;)
• 
• hit up whole foods. love that store though it hurts the wallet a bit.
• my husband making ribs and all the fixing's for dinner. I enjoyed a night off from the prep. though that does mean I had the clean-up. it's only fair.
• caught up on the dvr and took in some really bad (but oh so addicting) reality tv shows on Bravo.

How was your 3-day weekend? Did you get everything done you wanted or take it easy?

holiday weekend

After this long holiday weekend I now need a holiday. Isn't that always how it goes? For the holiday my husband and I made the drive back to Ohio for one of dad's parties. Also, for a little "fun" thrown in my in-laws made the 8 hour trip to visit as well. Yeah, they haven't seen each other since our wedding nearly 2 years ago and don't know each other all the well. Luckily we had a lot planned for the weekend to keep everyone busy! It was filled with no running (but a lot of talk about it with some neighbors who are ultra marathoners!), farmer's market, cornhole, a lot of cleaning up (2 hours of dishes the morning after!), partying, eating, drinking (I behaved myself), some boating with my sister and brother in law, and a baseball game. Another extremely fun but very tiring weekend! The long drive home yesterday was worth it. Now it's time to persuade my husband to move to Ohio so we no longer have these long drives on a monthly basis ;)

I also was the one documenting all the fun on my dad's fancy camera. I was to purchase one of my own but really wanted to get a handle on such an expensive piece of equipment before I made the big buy.

Farmer's Market on the Square

Cheeseburger cupcakes - YUM!

Serious games of cornhole

drink responsibly - especially when it's 95 degrees outside

How did you spend your holiday?