Sunday, March 1, 2009

Approaching Normalcy

I am having a great weekend! Here is why:

- I sold my bike. A very cute girl came to pick it up yesterday, and she gave me $275 for it. I was pretty sad to see it go, but I decided to sell it for a few reasons. It was taking up so much space just sitting in our living room, and it was too heavy and cumbersomely shaped to hang it from the ceiling, like we did with Roger's. So it's just been sitting there, and our living room has been so cluttery, and the reason I haven't been riding it is that since I took Roger's awesome, incredibly lightweight, super fast road bike for a very short spin, I've been jonesing for an awesome road bike of my own. They're so expensive though, so I hadn't really thought about buying one yet... but I just realized last week that since we kind of have some money now, if I sold my bike, I could actually get an awesome new one in the near future. And what I really want to do is go for long, long rides up to Marin county with Roger on Saturdays. That would be a really fun thing for us to do together. So, up on Craigslist it went, and this girl contacted me. She was completely in love with it, and so so happy to come pick it up yesterday, so I'm glad it went to a good home, and to someone who will appreciate more than I have been lately.

- So yesterday, there I'm sitting with $275 burning a hole in my pocket... and just having got my City Car Share key a few days before... clearly time to go buy some stuff at Ikea. So I reserved a Prius and drove out to Ikea and got us some actual furniture for our house. I spent all the money... but our house is becoming a real people's house now! Here's the stuff I got:


(Office chair and desk for Roger.)


(Dining table and coat rack for the living room/entryway.)

*I'm* the most excited about the dining table, I think. That's not the exact one we got - ours has slightly darker wood, so it looks a little nicer - but it's just this cute little thing that'll fit perfect in the spot where my bike used to be!

That's not the exact desk I got Roger, either - his is dark brown/black on top, but just has four silver legs on bottom instead of the drawers. He made me laugh (to myself) yesterday. His "desk" thus far has been an ironing board in the living room. He's been sitting in our Ikea chair we got for $25 when we first moved in (it's like a cross between a lazy boy and a folding chair) with an ironing board next to him with his computer on it. At first it made me a little sad that he had an ironing board for a desk, but y'know, you do whatcha gotta do. We would make jokes about it at first like, "Rye, get out of Roger's office!" Anyway, I've been saying how I couldn't wait to get him a real desk and get the extra bedroom set up as an office for him, and he's been saying "no no, I'm totally fine like this! I even like it! it's more comfortable!" Well, yesterday when I dropped off the stuff at home, Roger wasn't here. But by the time I got home 20 minutes later, Roger had gotten back from the store, busted open the boxes, cleared a space in the extra room, and almost finished putting together the desk. Partially just because he's such a good little husband, but partially because I think he wanted a real person desk too.

So we put together everything but the dining room table and chairs last night, and our house is starting to look like a real house! It's very exciting. Once we make it the rest of the way there (i.e. straighten up the living room, get the table up, and get Roger all moved in to his new office), I will be un-embarrassed enough of our house to take pictures of it in its current state. :)

- Ok. I wanted to say one more reason why this weekend is good, and that is because I found a marathon training partner, and I'm meeting her for the first time today! I've been trolling Craigslist for a new running partner for almost two months now, and I saw this girl's ad, emailed her, and she emailed me right back with her phone number, so I called her, and we talked for like 10 minutes! It was so fun - I really like her, even though I haven't met her yet, and I'm meeting her for a run today.

Should I tell you the details of the run? ...I'll tell you the details of the run.

As you may know, I've been thinking about/wanting to train for the San Francisco Marathon this summer. The race is in very late July, so I haven't started ramping up my long runs quite yet. I did 13 miles about two weeks ago, and it was great, but that's the longest I've been since we moved here.

I saw this girl's ad, and she's training for her first marathon in April. She's running Big Sur, which is amazingly gorgeous. Here, you've got to see this: Big Sur homepage.

I definitely want to run this before we leave California, but I wasn't planning on doing it this year. Anyway, this girl is farther along in her training than I am, since the race is in April, so she's scheduled for 16 miles today. So... I'm gonna give it a shot. I think I can do it, and if I can't, I can always stop and walk. She said she's on the slow side, so I'll just take it easy and see how far I can make it. (I should be able to make it!) It's such an exciting day, though, because I'm taking BART to meet her in this little town I've never been to before. She's a florist in Walnut Creek, which is on the other side of the hills, away from the Bay, and she's doing a wedding there today, so I'm taking the train to meet her, and we're going to this trail I've never even heard of before. So much new stuff! So much adventure! I can't wait!

I think that's pretty much everything I wanted to say. Wait, no, we might be hosting a prospective grad student starting a week from today, and that's exciting too! I hope we get good new grad students for next year...

Ok, that's all. Maybe I'll have pictures of our house for you soon?

Happy March! Happy spring!


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

oh, that is so,so,so exciting. Your title is perfect. So is your dining set. I can totally see Roger busting open those boxes, LOL. Great news about the running, too. Just great, great news.

Much love, mommy

Anonymous said...

Wow! Your life has gotten so exciting! I can't believe how much
you two have accomplished in such
a relatively short time. Good luck
with your running. I'm glad you
have someone to run with now. I
don't much like the idea of you
running all over alone. (Worry
wart Grandma)

LOVE YOU