Wedding Industry Happy Hour

I've decided that every Monday should end with cocktails, cheese and cupcakes.  What is better to end the second to worst day of the week?  You may ask, what's the worst day if it's not Monday...why Tuesday of course. It's like a repeat of Monday but worse because you're not significantly closer to the weekend.  Anyway, I met Tawsha and Heather to head down to a wedding industry cocktail hour at Baur's downtown.  We were the first to arrive and immediately ordered drinks and determined the best table to sit at for optimal networking opportunities.  Tall bar tables are always the best choice because people can stand or sit and not feel like they are looking down or up at your.  Write that down.

People started filtering in shortly and the networking began. I met all sorts of awesome people, even one who works fashion week and got to oil up the male models...that's hot.  I even saw Alaneyer who worked with Josh and I on the catering for our wedding.  I did my best to talk up My Big Day Planner and get Tawsha, who is actually shy on occasion, to loosen and not feel intimidated.  It amazing how many different wedding vendors there are. A lot of them I remember from when Josh and I were selecting ours a while back. 

Check out this little piece of heaven.  This snowman was probably one of the most delicious sweets I've ever had.  Chocolate cake mixed with cream cheese, covered in white chocolate and topped off with a Rolo.  I ate every single sinful bite.  We had these thanks toRachael who owns Intricate Icings in Erie.  Mmmmmmmmmm.  That was just the top of the sweets tower. I probably over indulged a bit.  Lots of cheese and finger foods that Footers Catering provided.  Everything was delicious and it was awesome getting my feet wet in my first official networking event for My Big Day Planner.

Few things I learned, when drinks and food are involved, people will come.  Drinks also lesson the tension for vendors in the same area and everyone can be friends.  Lastly, Twitter is the new Trekkie club. OMG, most of the people had to introduce themselves by the Twitter name last night. It was hilarious.  Everyone new eachother but were strangers.  Now I have not joined the cult yet, but obviously it's awesome for networking and meeting new people.  Since Tawsha is already all over it for MBDP, I'm going to go ahead and let her have at it. Maybe I'll snoop around sometime.

Snot Very Pretty

This weekend was just not my weekend. I'm hoping that I just had a bad one because I have such a fabulous vacation in just a few days.  I can also taste the gelato it's so close.  But back to the bad weekend.  So I've been sick, thanks Lobster, for about a week now and though it's slowly getting better (I'm pretty much like a leaking faucet instead of one turned all the way on) I still feel generally crappy.  Which lead to me having to cancel on two of my favs Sarah and Lisa on Friday night. 

Now this was just the start.  I was already feeling down about that when I went to meet with Erin, my new nutritionist at Momentum Health.  That appointment was actually super helpful and informative and I'm very grateful for Erin working with me. So you ask what went wrong here?  Nothing major except somehow in the past three months, I've replaced 2 lbs of muscle with fat.  How this is possible I'm not sure. So regardless of what the scale says, I am in fact getting fatter even though I'm holding a steady weight.  Man I'd rather gain weight (muscle of course) than been losing and gaining fat.

Well then it was time to have some dinner.  I was just chewing a piece of pizza when one of my teeth decided it had been used quite enough and broke.  Seriously?  I mean WTF, who loses a quarter of their molar eating pizza?  Must have been a sign from the diet gods that I should not have been eating pizza in the first place. Of course do I have a dentist in Longmont?  Ha...

First thing Saturday morning instead of running with my team, I was at Comfort Dental in Boulder numb for almost 3 hours.  The verdict, apparently my last dentist didn't fully drill out a cavity before filling it. So it continued to grow and caused the tooth to break. Right now it's been filled so that I can head to Italy with a complete tooth. When I get back though it's time for the dentist and a crown.  Boooooooo.  Did I mention I hate dentists offices?  They smell of rubber, tooth dust and gingivitis.  Blah. (No that is not me in the picture.)

Luckily I got in some good laughs with Tawsha during our business meeting later that afternoon.  I'm pretty sure she was more laughing at me and my feeble attempts not to drool and speak normally even though half my face was numb.  Regardless, I can always count on her for a laugh. In fact I think last week my abs hurt from laughing with her so much.  Well that and this stupid cough.  Isn't it ironic? Don't you think?  (Tawsha that's for you ehmmmmmmmmmmm ok?)  I am really looking forward to the Wedding Preview Event even though I will be in Moab running my little heart out during the 1/2  marathon.  I have total faith that someday sooner rather than later, Tawsha and My Big Day Planner are going to be emensly successful. 

I spent Saturday night trying to infect the city of Boulder with my cold.  Aaron, Amanda and Kelsey joined me at Borders to wrap gifts for donations.  We actually wrapped quite a few books and such, the final tally...$38 and some change.  Really?  We had one lady alone who we wrapped 10 items for.  She left $1.  Come on people...it's for cancer.  Speaking of which, I am seriously lacking in the donations department.  I still have a long ways to go, please donate, right after the first of the year is just fine.  Thanks.

Sunday was actually the best day of the weekend.  Other than nearly breaking a toe when my baseboard moved two inches in an attempt to maime some of my poor toes, I finally got in the run I was supposed to do on Saturday morning.  Since I didn't have the team to run with and I was feeling super unmotivated, I just did the loop around our neighborhood twice. 

Time:  60 minutes    Distance: 6.28 miles    Avg. Pace: 9:33 min/mile


I'm not going to lie this was a hard run for me.  I took everything I had not to stop and walk.  I was wheezing, I had snot all over my face and I was hacking like a smoker the entire time.  I was so glad that there were only a few other people on the path.  I looked like a preschooler who had been hit hard by the boogieman.  Yuck.  Once my run was over (Thank God) I entered the house so that Josh could be present for a 10 minute serenade of coughs.  I think he really enjoyed it.  But hey, on the bright side, it makes me feel good to know that even when I'm sick I can finish a 10k in under an hour.  I have come so far from the summer of 2008. 

The rest of the day was spent going to four different stores looking for a new digital camera.  We finally bought a new Sony Cybershot at Wolf Camera.  So glad that's over.  One less thing to do before the big trip.  We headed to Dad and Liz's house for a family dinner before they took off to Costa Rica.  It was a good thing I went on that snotty run because my dad warmed up some Hanky Pankies aka Shit on a Brick and then we had Indian food. Love Indian. 

Weekend is now closed and not a minute too soon.

Happy Holidays from MBDP

Tawsha is awesome. She's been working with me at my office all week which has helped the week fly right by.  Check out this holiday card she created for My Big Day Planner.  Little side note, brides out there you can get free shipping on the book today only.  Also makes a great gift.  Plug over...

Also, the team is having a fundraiser tonight at Chick-Fil-A at Flatirons.

One Run Down...

The season got off to a great start on Saturday.  The weather was beautiful, perfect for a long run...but we only did a 5k.  The team met at Bobolink Trail (who came up with that name?) in Boulder a little before 8am. A few people thought I was nuts for wearing capris and not pants, but I knew that by the time we were done it'd be about 40 degrees outside and I'd be hot in pants.  After some introductions and announcements from the coaches we were off!

I ran the first mile or so with Martha one of my mentees. She's super nice and a great runner. She has an adorable 5 year old son.  I'm really looking forward to getting to know her more.  The next few miles I ran with Aaron and Amanda.  They are just super interesting. They met in language school in California and are both in the Air Force. Aaron speaks Hebrew and Amanda speaks Farci.  I told her that I'll have to see if my uncle's family with pratice speaking with her.  Here I thought my Italian lessons on CD were tough.  They are also great runners. They are even going to go for the Double Header with me this season. I'm super excited that my mentee group all runs about the same pace.  It's so nice to have people to talk to when I run.  Plus, that gives us a lot of time to get to know eachother and me time to make sure that they are enjoying TNT. 

Just as I thought I was getting hot towards the end of the run.  I was ready to peel off my jacket but then realized once I had it off I'd probably get cold just standing and stretching.  I was really relieved that I was able to run without my IT band or hamstring hurting. I tweaked my hamstring just the tiniest bit at the gym last week.  I swear, if it's not my knees, it something else. But that is why I'm definitely focusing on cross-training this season and really taking care of myself.

After our run we headed to a local coffee shop for a little chit chat.  Everyone on our team seems to be really excited about the season.  We are going to have a great season!  Maybe after a few weeks I'll be able to talk more people into doing the Double Header.  Might be a bit of a stretch. 

I have to say one of my favorite parts of participating in TNT is meeting all these awesome people. I've talked to people and read the blogs of people that are or have participated in TNT before that only did the fundraising. Most of them didn't go to the group runs of do anything of the actual team stuff. Granted, fundraising is the most important part but I just don't think that they know how much they are missing out on. I mean really, why not have these awesome people to get to know and talk to on those long runs? Last January when I started my first season with TNT I never thought that 10 months later I'd be getting together with some of my teammates every Tuesday for dinner and The Biggest Loser. Or that I'd be working with Tawsha on her Wedding Preview Event. I'm so blessed to have gotten to know these awesome people and I can't wait to get to know the new team.

After some lunch, a quick nap (I stayed up late watching movies with Rache and got up early) and some construction in our kitchen, Josh and I headed to the gym for another quick workout.  I'm totally not a two-a-day workout kind of girl but it felt really good!  I did 25 minutes on a bike, 10 minutes or so of abs and push-ups and a few other free weight exercises.  I think it really helped keep my muscles loose.  Plus, I burned lots of calories which let me indulge at Paul and Courtney's holiday party later than night.

I hope you all had a good weekend!

P.S. Don't forget to donate.  This is the last week for the t-shirt contest.  It's between Nancy and Tom right now.