Like everyone else, I am SO ready to quit receiving sleazy campaign ads. Gah. I’ve taken them straight from the mailbox to the shredder.
Did anyone else get a creepy letter from The Voter Participation Center shaming them in to voting? Part of the letter says:
Who you vote for is private, but whether or not you vote is public record.
We’re sending this to you and your neighbors to share who does and does not vote in an effort to promote election participation. While we have hidden the name and street number of your neighbors to protect their identity, these are their true voting records.
Then it showed a chart of my name and address, and my neighbors’ names and addresses with identifying info blocked out, and whether we’ve voted in the last four general elections.
The letter also promised to review whether I voted or not, and that they may call me to ask about my voting experience and why I did not vote, if I chose not to.
Voting is important. People should vote. But trying to shame me in to doing so by comparing me to my neighbors? Eff off.
And don’t call me.
Sigh.
Anyway.
We voted early, by mail-in ballot. We’d go next Tuesday, but we have important plans that night – we’re seeing Bohemian Rhapsody!
Apollo voted to amend the constitution to include more fish for all cats
Our month of all the house guests is over! Sadness!
My snister Christina, her husband Will, and their son William, visited from Kansas City Thursday night through Monday afternoon <— how awesome they could stay for so long!
We didn’t have any big plans! We just wanted to spend time together. And eat. And get our nails done (Christina + me). And do a project or two (Steven + Will). And go to the petting zoo.
And that’s what we did! (Minus the petting zoo because the weather was crap the day we wanted to go, wah.)
There was lots of playing! Jen had brought over some toys that William loved. Thank you, Jen!
William likes the Porg! Until it makes noise, ha.
Having William visit pointed out how NOT toddler-friendly my house is! Lots of steps (the first floor has two levels) and lots of things at arm’s reach. We made it work, though! And no one was upset about it (except me feeling bad for making watching a toddler more difficult!).
There was playing with kitties! Khali mostly hid, Starbuck would hang but didn’t get too close to William, and Apollo was super chill with William.
Khali and Will are basically besties now.
A new hiding position – took us a while to find her there!
Being brave on the stairs
We ate!
Of course we went to El Famous. Um, twice. Which I’ll explain later. We made chili, dumpling soup, and got pizza (twice)! Oh yeah, and we got Taco Bell. Ha. FOOD, FOOD, FOOD!
We went trick-or-treating at the businesses in downtown Grayslake, the town where I teach and where Steven’s business is. It was fun to see all the costumes! And fun to run in to a few friends.
William as Alfalfa
We got our nails done! Christina got “CIA = Color Is Awesome” and I got “Toying with Trouble.” I’m jealous of her blue nails.
Steven and Will installed a camera in one of our attics to watch for critters. They also sealed a gap (with metal and wood) where the heating duct goes between our two big attics, to keep critters from going between the two spaces.
While Steven and Will were working in the attic on Saturday afternoon, Christina and I were inside hanging with William and we heard our driveway sensor go off. I wasn’t expecting a delivery so I looked at the camera to see who it was and saw a familiar red van and !!!BIG SURPRISE!!! my dad was walking out of it!
Mom and Dad knew Christina and family were visiting this weekend and decided to come out and surprise us! They’d been planning it all week and none of us had ANY idea! Mom was even saying thing on group texts like “Oh! I forgot this was your special weekend together.” Tricksters!
Me, Mom, and Christina
It was such a great surprise! We were having fun, and had even more with Mom and Dad there!
So we obviously had to go back to El Famous so Mom and Dad could enjoy it. They were even joking about stopping there on the way to our house. Ha!
We spent the rest of the weekend hanging out, watching some shows/movies, playing 5 Second Rule (yeah, I am a bit obsessed), and doing a bit of shopping (I scored a great deal on a new comforter aww yeah). Oh, yes, and eating, eating, eating! Mom brought delicious apple crisp!
Mom and Dad brought this fake cat. It was funny to see how the cats reacted!
Christina and I were still talking today about what a great surprise that was from Mom and Dad. It’s not often we all get to hang out, without something else going on to distract us. And it’s fun for me to get to host everyone… in our small cozy house, ha! (Our dream is to someday have a garage/workshop with a guest suite above it!)
And of course, we love having family and friends meet our babies!
Mom and Dad were able to stay until Monday afternoon too (yay!), and left when we took Christina, Will, and William back to the airport. Then, sadly, it was back to reality. Four days off with family was such a nice break (even though I accidentally checked work email once on the weekend and was dealing with some stupid issue at the end of the day yesterday, sigh).
Oh! And in case you were wondering from the pictures, yes, Christina is pregnant! She is having a boy in January! Yay, another nephew! That will probably be the next time I see her – when I get to meet him!
Monday | October 22, 2018: 7 m run + teaching strength class Loc: VP Woods Loop, Temp: 62°/63°, Time: 1:11:08, Pace: 10:09 avg, Difficulty: easy-ish, Felt: good enough
Strength: bands and bars, Felt: good Tuesday | October 23, 2018: 4 m run Loc: hood, Temp: 48°/47°, Time: 39:01, Pace: 9:45 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good Wednesday | October 24, 2018: 3 m run Loc: Chicago Lakefront Trail, Temp: 48°/49°, Time: 29:22, Pace: 9:47 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good, chilly Thursday | October 25, 2018: 10 m run Loc: Kilbourne/DPRT Loop, Temp: 48°/49°, Time: 1:42:38, Pace: 10:15 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good, annoyed with all the traffic though Friday | October 26, 2018: teaching strength class + one-on-one Strength: bands and bars, Felt: good, so tired though (not enough sleep) Saturday | October 27, 2018: rest Sunday | October 28, 2018:7.2 m run (w/Dad on bike) Loc: VP Woods Loop, Temp: 46°/48°, Time: xx:xx, Pace: x:xx avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Notes:
I thought my Monday run would feel better after 72 hours of running rest, but my crappy diet caught up with me! Ugh.
I took leave Thursday afternoon to get a long-ish run in before our guests arrived. I thought the roads would be clearer because it wasn’t “rush” hour, but I must have been running in the school traffic because there was car after irritating car. No one did anything to pester me, I just felt annoyed with them. That’s a sign I need to hit the trails more (2.9 miles of that run was on trail, at least).
Wow, those first two bullets are kind of whiny! Let’s end on a high note! I got to run with my Dad on Sunday which was completely unexpected and a total highlight!!! YAY!!!
Yesterday when I was leaving work and getting in the elevator, two people walked out with cake. After the doors closed, I said to the guy in the elevator with me “Ooo, cake! Someone must be having a retirement party.” Then he said something about the party, and “You don’t need that cake.” Then he paused and said, “and neither do I.” UM WTF kind of response is that to my stupid small talk? GFY, telling me I don’t need cake. Jeebus.
I’ve said it before, but I’d love one day where everything I pick up, set down, or reach for doesn’t fall to the ground. And when I can walk through my house without any loop or strap on me getting caught on things. So aggravating.
I finished Give Me Your Handand am reading Vox. Give Me Your Hand is a mystery/thriller about Kit, a post doc vying for a prestigious research position, when an old classmate with a secret that scarred Kit shows up out of the blue and competes (kind of) against her for the spot! I mostly enjoyed it, except for the research on animals parts. Vox is a dystopian novel where women only get to say 100 words a day and are electrocuted when they go over. This one makes me feel awfully anxious reading it… but I want to see what happens.
Shitterfly had a “free” bag offer recently so I ordered one to keep in my backpack (because a favorite similar bag of mine has a hole, sadness). I love having these lightweight bags handy. And I love having my cats’ faces on it!
I had a light meeting week to start the week (woo hoo!) then had FOUR invites for meetings at 9:00 am on Wednesday. Sigh. And the one I went to ran 1.5 hours long (until 11:30).
Another calendar complaint – when someone acts like it’s difficult to coordinate with my schedule, but they never bothered to check my public calendar and try making an appointment when I am shown as free. It’s not hard, folks.
Aww, Khali loves her siblings, but especially Apollo! Apollo has been such a sh*t lately. He’s gone poo on the floor twice. And he wakes up in the middle of the night (not all nights, thankfully) to play. Sigh. I hope it’s growing pains!
I kept seeing “let’s get this bread” references all over Instagram (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) and had to look up what it means BECAUSE I AM OLD.
Basically, bread = dough = money, so the phrase can mean “let’s get this money,” like “let’s work hard and make money.” But a secondary meaning is more like a battle cry to succeed. And a third meaning literally means to get bread. Ha. Ha ha. So (poll below)…
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When I said goodbye to Steven this morning, I did say “go get that bread.”* Ha ha ha. And I may or may not have jokingly used it on Instagram this morning… I think it’s fun.
I also want to start using “thanks for coming to my TED talk” but I unfortunately haven’t said/shared anything profound/useful. Ever.
*We did not win the Mega Millions so we do have to go get the bread today. Ha. I enjoyed fantasizing about building our garage/workshop/guest house for a bit yesterday.
On Friday night we were telling Anne and Terry we installed a camera in our attic to track any critters in there. And that since we put it in, there hadn’t been any activity.
Yeah, you know where this is headed.
Steven informed us Saturday morning that we had a visitor.
Aww, but he’s having so much fun!
As adorable as flying squirrels are, we don’t want them living in our attic. The reason we spent all of August 2016 tearing out our second floor ceiling (and some of the walls) and redoing it, along with the HVAC and electrical, was because flying squirrels had taken residence in our attic while our home sat vacant for 2-3 years. AND THEY PRETTY MUCH DESTROYED IT.
We don’t want a repeat of that. We’re going to find someone to humanely relocate them.
We had a fun weekend with Anne and Terry! It was so nice of them to make the long trek (almost seven hours) from Columbus to see us! Okay, really to go to El Famous. Then spend some time with us, since we happen to live nearby.
(They actually came out here to spread some of their dog Heidi’s ashes at her favorite preserve from when they all lived here, but it’s light-hearted to joke about them coming just to eat at El Famous, right?)
FRIDAY!
We met at El Famous on Friday night, hence all the jokes about them driving so far just to eat there. We offered to let them spend the night since we ate around 8:00 pm, and it seemed cruel to make them drive back over night. Ha ha ha, we so funny.
We went back to the house, and stayed up late chatting! (Note: late for me is anytime after 10:00 pm… but this “late” was past midnight!)
SATURDAY!
Anne brought us a delicious and beautiful sourdough loaf that she made! We had some of that with breakfast, along with hashbrowns, vegan sausage, and eggs. Totally NOT things that bother your stomach when you take a fitness boxing class after eating them muah ha ha.
While Anne and I were at Fitness Boxing, Steven and Terry went to Milwaukee to get donuts from, you guessed it, Holey Moley, and to get coffee from Hawthorne Coffee Roasters. Even though I had Holey Moley donuts two weekends ago, and um, donuts last weekend, I was STILL excited to have a donut when I got home from boxing. I was thinking about it while I was teaching.
We stopped and got Starbucks on the way home, and remembered to take a photo. Phew!
THEN WE GOT HOME AND THE BOYS WERE STILL IN MILWAUKEE WITH OUR DONUTS.
Ha ha ha. We were glad they were having fun together. Just also excited to eat our donuts!!!
I made our fettucine alfredo recipe for lunch (and messed it up, again, sigh – I suck in the kitchen) and we had donuts as dessert.
Then we decided to do a fire, and take some cutesy not-posed-at-all photos, and watch Tales of Halloween (very gory), and drink a little wine to get in the mood for the haunted house.
When Anne and Terry visited last February, we went to an escape room that is run by the guy who does the Dungeon of Doom in our town. I suggested to Anne and Terry that they come back in October for the Dungeon of Doom, and when Anne visited in August, I suggested it again.
Of course, all week, when people asked what we were doing with our guests this weekend, I kept saying “They want to go to the Dungeon of Doom! I don’t know why, it looks so scary!!!” Anne, Terry, and Steven reminded me it was MY idea. Oops. Ha ha ha.
Just looking at the website freaked me out! I was worried it would scare me so much I’d have nightmares, or pee my pants (while there). Ha. Ha ha. Eek.
I invited Jen and Troy, thinking the more people we had, the less scary it would be.
The Dungeon of Doom opened at 6:00 and I read there could be long lines so we got there around 5:15… and were the second group in line… and it was cold and really windy while we waited outside. Oops, sorry guys.
Steven, Terry, Anne, me, Jen, & Troy
Then we got inside and realized it was cash only. I didn’t buy tickets online since we were planning to get there early. I happened to have cash (anniversary money from my parents, thanks!) but everyone else didn’t and I felt bad they had to use the ATM. Anyway, the more you know, if you go.
They had “characters” walking around spooking you while you paid and stood in line to start. They’d sneak up on you and get right in your face!
There was quite a bit of that at the start – people in your face, breathing right down your neck. It was annoying, especially when they did it for so long (one guy did it for what felt like a minute to me!).
But after that, we were in the maze that is the haunted house, and it was harder for the characters to do that because there was less open space, AND, they had advised us not to get separated, so we were holding hands in a big chain, and I think it made it harder for the characters to get between us, muah ha ha. So, more people DID make it less scary!
And it really was one big maze. We almost always knew where to go (Steven lead the way), but had NO idea where we were in the thing! We went through many themed areas – a circus, a derelict old house, a hospital, a butcher shop, you get the idea. It was really dark in there – we could hardly see at times, so the scary props weren’t too frightening, yay! I wasn’t scared by the characters (I just laughed at them!), but the air compressors and loud air horns/etc freaked me out, especially when they blew right on me.
Our favorite parts were the sensory type experiences – going through a tunnel that feels like it’s turning on itself, slanted floors, moving walls, soft floors, leaning over to get under big padding or walking through it, etc. There was even a “buried alive” experience!
I was impressed by the actors playing the different characters. They’d jump all over around the props in the rooms, and climb on rails on the walls (so you’d approach a hallway and there’d be one of the characters elevated on the wall, facing you, eek!). They seemed very energetic. We all wondered if they were able to stay that way all night (did they get breaks?), and if they lost their voices from their scripts (whether it was talking or screaming or screeching or whatever).
It was well done! Kind of steep pricing at $35 a person for “peak” weekend (it’s normally $30), but we were in there over an hour and all enjoyed it, and the adrenaline rush. And I never felt that scared! I just laughed and tried to be curious and enjoy it! They have a cheaper “blackout” event in November where you go through the whole thing with NO lights at all, and they give you one glow stick per group. Ha, no thanks!
So, regarding the blog title – I never peed my pants out of fear! Ha! Woo hoo! Success!
We got pizza and hung at our place after and played a little of Five Second Rule. And spent some time laughing at Steven’s pose in the group picture from the Dungeon of Doom. Ha ha ha.
It was a fun day and night with lots of laughs and joking around. And our two groups of friends (only the ladies had met previously) seemed to get along well!
SUNDAY!
We had pancakes and eggs Sunday morning, and hung out and chatted a bit before Anne and Terry took off, a bit after 10:00.
Then Steven and I were lazy AF the rest of the day. We took a nap, watched three movies (Pacific Rim Uprising, Ocean’s 8, and 7 Days in Entebbe), and did a few chores. It felt good to be so freaking lazy. I can’t remember the last time we sat around all day like that!
RANDOM CAT PICS!
Apollo and Starbuck hung out with us most of the weekend, and Khali even came out from under the bed a few times!
Highlight of the Week: Running on our newly paved road!
Monday | October 15, 2018: 4 m run + teaching strength class Loc: hood, Temp: 46°/46°, Time: 38:33, Pace: 9:39 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: great, annoyed by traffic though
Strength: kettlebells and cones, Felt: good, felt so great not to be a sweaty mess in the studio! Tuesday | October 16, 2018: rest Wednesday | October 17, 2018: migraine Thursday | October 18, 2018: 3 m run + massage Loc: hood, Temp: 29°/28°, Time: 29:46, Pace: 9:54 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: great Friday | October 19, 2018: teaching strength class + 882 yd swim + 7 m run Strength: bands and body bars, Felt: okay, kind of blah from my headache
Loc: FitNation, Time: 17:43, Pace: 2:01 min/100 yd, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Loc: VP Woods Loop, Temp: 53°/51°, Time: 1:09:33, Pace: 9:56 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: great Saturday | October 20, 2018: teaching strength class Strength: kettlebells, core, and boxing, Felt: good Sunday | October 21, 2018: rest
Notes:
I usually stick to running counter-clockwise loops so I have left turns/less turns against traffic. On Monday I couldn’t do the right turn to get to a loop like that because of traffic, so I ran in counter-clockwise and it felt so different – it a mostly good way. Traffic was annoying the whole time though, and some lady made a big deal about stopping when I was running toward her (because another car was coming her way) then peeling out down the middle of the road when that car passed. Okay then.
I love when it gets colder and I can start wearing vests and jackets with POCKETS! Love love love! It feels so nice not to carry my phone on my waist belt.
The cooler weather means I get way less sweaty when I teach strength class. It’s amazing how much better that makes me feel while teaching (and after).
I was excited to swim on Friday. I had more time because I wasn’t training after class, and I had just gotten a massage so I knew it would feel great. Then I got to the pool (literally – was about to get in the water) and my phone was blowing up because my friend left his phone in my car. Oops. I got out and drove the phone back to his house then went back to the pool, and had less than twenty minutes to get a swim in. UGH. Not his fault at all, but it made me realize how big of a pita it is for me to fit in a swim, with the very few open swim times. Fridays used to work well, but training someone after class eats up a lot of open swim time.
I usually don’t take two days off from running in a row, especially twice in one week! But I did in the middle in the week because I had a migraine, and over the weekend because we were busy with house guests, then I wanted to be totally lazy after they left! We have guests next weekend too, so that week will probably be light, as well.
So, the last time I did this, my crappy blog closed all the polls on its own. Now they are all miraculously open, somehow, also on their own. Sigh. (Yes, I am looking in to updating my blog.)
Anyway. So if the polls stop working, feel free to leave a comment. BECAUSE THIS STUFF IS OBVS WAY IMPORTANT.
not
In (my work) class this week, we were talking about how NO ONE still uses checks. But guess what?! I do! That’s how I give Steven extra money for our joint account when I get paid (because we use two separate banks so I don’t think I can transfer it easily electronically?), and that is how I pay for my massages. And usually how I give someone money if I owe them.
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We also talked about who still has a land line. Yeah, not me. Ha. Ha ha ha.
This one is from a conversation with Mom and Alyssa about walk-in bathtubs which I had NO idea were a thing. They were saying how it must be odd to have the water fill up around you, when using one. Um, is that not part of the fun of taking a bath?!
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I get in when there is a bit of water in it. If I don’t, I tend to make it the wrong temperature. (Although Steven pointed out, if you fill it up with yourself in it, you can make it too hot and not realize it, too.)
And finally…
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My swim pass expires on October 31st. Last year it cost $225 for the year, and I assume it will cost that or slightly more, for the next year.
A drop-in fee to use the pool is $6. Therefore, to make the pass “worth it,” I need to use it at least 38 times ($225/$6 = 37.5 visits). So far this year, I’ve gone 40 times, which means I’ve paid $5.63 for each visit.
So I use it enough, but man, the drop-in (“open swim”) hours are not very convenient! Friday morning open swim is 5:00 am – 7:30 am. I used to teach at 5:00, drive there, and be swimming by 6:20 am. Now I’m training someone at 6:00 am though (after I teach). So I’m rushing to get there and swim before open swim closes (who knows what they’d even do if I swam past then, ha).
And note – I swim for relaxation and exercise, not because I’m going to do a triathlon. I do feel it helps my body, but is it crucial… no? Would I miss it…? I don’t know. Ha.
Every soft skills course I take at work ends up being about personality types (Myers–Briggs, DISC, what have you) and generational differences, and how the other person isn’t going to change, so I need to adapt to THEM. I find that stuff interesting, but I’d like to dive a deeper than being told I need to change my communication style all the time for the other people. I did that, on my last detail, every single day, and yeah, it worked. But how do we help the other person, rather than adapt to their style all the time? I want to get more in to the nitty gritty.
Our road is complete. Check out our new shoulder versus what it was before! It’s not super wide, but much nicer to run/bike on.
Ugh, it seems like cold season is here! Lots of throat clearing and coughing and sneezing on the train this week. AHHH!!!
When the Bath & Body Works closed in the train station I hoped they were just remodeling… but no, an Amazon Go is going in that spot. Sadness! Better for my wallet though. (This will be our second Amazon Go. I checked out the first one a few weeks ago.)
What do you think of Thunderstruck‘s new home? He can hang there until I get another medal rack!
Hi! I'm Kim, a 34-year-old living in Chicagoland with my husband, Steven, and our cats, Khali, Apollo, and Starbuck. I work in the design industry (architecture), follow a vegan lifestyle, am addicted to running, and am an ACE certified personal trainer (working at Essential Fitness, LLC ("Efit"))! I write about a variety of topics, and consider this a "life" blog - a place I can share anything that's on my mind. Please visit the "About" page to get a better idea of who I am! :-)
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