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By kilax, August 11, 2016 6:57 am

• I love magnets, especially photo ones. I was asking my snister on Tuesday if she had seen any Shutterfly coupons so I could order some. She found a small coupon, and I was going to use it Tuesday night, but was up past midnight helping Steven paint (see more below) and didn’t get to. That turned out to be a good thing – she sent me this coupon for ten free magnets on Wednesday!!!! SCORE!!! I still had to pay shipping of course, but it saved me over $60.

• All the attic Kilz painting is done. Yay! Steven did all the painting, and I was “ground support” – getting things, moving the equipment, making sure we didn’t paint the carpets/walls, etc. It was SUCH a hard job for Steven. He painted the undersides of the joists Sunday and Monday, then did the tops Tuesday night, which involved crawling around in the attic.

• I also helped clean the equipment after using it. Our friends let us borrow their air paint sprayer and there are so many parts and pieces! I channeled my inner Rey and scrubbed, scrubbed, scrubbed, ha ha.

• I am bummed these major house projects are taking place during the Summer Olympics. Even though we don’t have antenna or cable, I’d still have liked to find a way to sit on my bum and watch a lot of sports! Instead, I am just reading highlights and watching the small clips I find and texting friends about it. My favorite memories of the last two games (winter and summer) are “watching” it with Gina and texting each other our reactions and commentary! At least I can wear my Olympic shirt and show support in spirit (only, not really, because the stuff we’re doing in the house will ruin it!).

Link to Random Thoughts Thursday 104

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By kilax, August 3, 2016 12:48 pm

I seriously didn’t realize how bad my racerback tan lines were until I saw this photo my mom took on Monday:

Eek!

It may be time to look in to a strapless running stop and bra… because I know sunscreen/running in the dark aren’t going to happen. Oh, or maybe just a racerback swimming suit?! Derrr…

And we won’t even talk about the horrible tan lines on my legs. Because booty running shorts are not for me.

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By kilax, July 28, 2016 6:23 am

• Hummingbirds have been hanging out by the flowers growing out of the hastas! Exciting! I should put out a legit feeder for them. They’re so fun to watch. Here’s a super awesome photo I took of one (circled in red, in case you can’t find it, ha):

• We had friends over last weekend and I was excited to use our new lawn furniture and eat lunch outside! Only, all you had to do was step outside to start dripping in sweat. So… we ate inside. Ha. But I am happy we got some outdoor seating. Hopefully we will have some opportunities to use it next month.

• I finished knitting a bunch of wash cloths. I thought about saving them for housewarming gifts, but decided to mail them to my Grandma to sell at her church’s farmers market booth. The pattern is ZickZack.

• Shelley helped me pick out needles to start knitting socks! August is going to be busy with house projects, so I hope I can give it a try in September.
• I’m sad to be missing the Movin’ Shoes Full Moon Run (5K) tonight in Madison with Rachel! We’ve run it the last three years together! But it just doesn’t make sense with my schedule this year. I hope she has a great race!!!

Link to Random Thoughts Thursday 103

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By kilax, July 22, 2016 6:00 am

When we were staying at the rental house in Alaska, I used my ear plugs a few times at night – our room was right next to the bathroom and there was air in the pipes*, so it was super loud whenever anyone used it.

One night, I woke up, and both ear plugs were not in my ears. Typical. I found one and put it on the nightstand, but couldn’t find the other. I gave up and figured it would be stuck to me when I woke up. Nope. Still couldn’t find it in the morning, with the full daylight! That’s odd.

When I came back to the room later in the morning after my run, there it was, sitting on the bed. It definitely was NOT there in the am! I felt like I was losing my mind!

So I see Steven after I get done showering after my run (he was still sleeping when I left for it earlier) and he tells me that he woke up in the middle of the night and saw a bug on his chest. There was enough light to see it, but not to tell what kind of bug it was. He didn’t have any tissue to kill it with, and he didn’t want to grab it with his hand (ick!) so he grabbed the nearest thing to kill it with – a sock.

In the morning, he was worried about opening up his sock to see what disgusting bug he killed with it. It had to be pretty nasty to be big enough to see when it was mostly dark in the room.

Then he found my ear plug in his sock.

Ha ha ha. That explains it! How it got on his chest though? I’ll never figure that out…

Data was not in Alaska, but he likes to pose for blog pictures!

*I am not sure I would have known what the noise was last year, but we actually had an issue with air in our pipes at our house when we were trying to get the old water treatment system to work, so I am very familiar with the noise, now!

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By kilax, July 20, 2016 12:23 pm

Sigh. I was trying to tell a group of people at work about a delicious watermelon mojito I had yesterday, because alcohol is something this group talks about often, and for once, I had something to share (I rarely drink!).

But, I didn’t get to describe the drink, at all. They immediately asked where it was from, and when I said the name of the restaurant and they didn’t know it, and I said it was “up north,” the conversation turned in to “Up north?! Don’t you live in Wisconsin?!” And “that’s so far,” and so on.

So, basically… don’t share anything about the area you live in cause it’s WAY TOO FAR, OMG. Blah.

My boss did chime in to say it doesn’t take long to get to my house. Ha.

The interesting thing about the restaurant where I got this drink is that our neighbor owns it! And he was actually standing outside when we walked in. But, we haven’t been able to say hello in person in the neighborhood yet, and I thought it would be a bit dorky/weird to walk up to him and be all “I live across the street from you!” so I restrained myself (and luckily he wasn’t outside when I walked out because I was a little bit more obnoxious after having the drink).

I will make sure though, whenever I do talk to him, to ask what he was thinking to have a restaurant so far north, basically in Wisconsin. I mean, do the people out there actually pay to eat food? They don’t just hunt and gather it all from the forest?!

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By kilax, July 19, 2016 5:10 pm

PLEASE

What a nice, momentary escape*.

And pretty cool that it’s fifteen minutes from my house. This was the first time I went to a Lake Michigan beach** – and I’ve lived here nine years!

*Minus the children throwing rocks at birds, which really bothers me.
**To do beach things – I’ve been by Lake Michigan plenty of times.

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By kilax, July 15, 2016 9:53 am

I was inexplicably anxious about renewing my drivers license by the end of the month (when it expires). The anxiety all started when I got the notification to renew it a month and a half ago. The problem being that the notification went to my old house – crap, I forgot to tell the DMV I moved! So I was going to need all these extra documents to prove my new address. I was so stressed I would bring all of the documents and still not have the right ones, and have to go back home to get the right information, then come back, and try all over again.

So you’d think I’d try to get it taken care of right away, but no, I put it off. I put a note in my calendar to do it two weeks before the license would expire, which happened to be today. I even forgot I was going to do it today until I was making plans with a friend a few weeks ago for tonight and saw the calendar appointment.

I didn’t sleep well last night. I tossed and turned and had strange dreams. I was all worked up/worried about a friend of mine who lives in Nice and was not responding to messages to see if she was okay (she finally checked in in the am and had a horrible eye witness story of what happened).

I went and taught class, then went for a swim after class. What’s normally a relaxing swim left me exhausted. I left the pool all shaky, like I did after I tried to swim as fast as I could in a race last year (yet, this was a slow, easy swim)! I still felt shaky when I got home.

By the time I got to the DMV I was all jacked up, like I was about to race a 5K. Difficulty breathing, elevated heart rate, shaky legs, all sweaty, the whole package. WTF.

When I got up to the counter, and they asked me what forms I brought to prove my change of residence, I said the wrong names of the forms and got a “we don’t take those” response.  Um, what? Your website says you do. She looked at them and told me they were okay. Phew.

But I still felt so nervous until I got out of there (and really, even after I left). I don’t know what the hell my deal was/is. All I had to do was take a vision test, pay them, and retake my license photo. But my adrenaline was all high.

When you go swimming, take a shower, then get your new driver’s license… also, when you wear sun glasses for your runs and get a strange tan on your face, ha!

I think dreading it for so long made me build it up to be this big thing in my head. I need to quit doing that. It was no big deal, everyone there was super nice and I was in and out in forty minutes. Chill out, Kim.

Seriously, I need to work on this, in a big way. It would really improve my quality of life to leave Club Dread.

On a side note, the guy filling out my forms for me asked me a few questions about my Garmin watch. I actually get a lot of questions on my watch. One time a stranger was leaving the train, walked by me, saw I was wearing it and turned around and asked me questions about it, ha ha. I wonder how many people have gone on to get them after I told them about it! Conclusion – Garmin should sponsor me. Muah ha ha.

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By kilax, July 12, 2016 5:36 am

So itchy. Wah.

But it’s so hot out, I’m still wearing a dress to work! (Ha, I did wipe the calamine lotion off though.)

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By kilax, July 4, 2016 5:20 pm

It doesn’t feel like Independence Day to me! For years we’ve spent Independence Day with my family on the Mississippi River in Iowa, but none of us are there this year (except maybe my parents?) since we were all together a week ago, in Alaska.

It feels odd to be at home today!

Coming home from Alaska on Wednesday was a bit of a downer. I had previously wondered if I’d feel a bit overwhelmed having another wedding to go to the weekend right after Nick and Alyssa’s, but it was actually really nice to have something fun planned since we had nothing else going on (besides housework and errands, of course!).

The wedding was for my favorite coworker, and was in Appleton, Wisconsin, at the beautiful campus center for the town university. My coworker was the only one I knew at the wedding, and I had a blast meeting a lot of the people she’s told me about over the years – we had a lot of fun conversations and enjoyed connecting with people.

And I had a blast in general. I really enjoyed their ceremony. Her uncle was the officiant, and my coworker and her husband (!!!) wrote a lot of ceremony/vows and I loved how personal and sweet it was. I had a stupid smile on my face for the whole thing. Probably for the whole night, really. Everything was so thoughtfully done (for example, she had a goody bag for every hotel room, but made sure our room had vegan snacks in it… and she made sure I had a vegan meal and vegan treats on my plate!) and I got so much joy out of seeing her and her husband so happy and loved. It feels good to see the people you care about so happy. Awwww.

And one last thing – their DJ was AWESOME. He played the piano and sang at the ceremony, then sang some of the songs at the wedding – and I even saw him playing the harmonica once! He rocked!

I feel honored we were invited and am so happy we were able to go! It really helped me get out of my post-trip funk! Now if I could find something to prepare me for an almost full week of work… ha ha ha.