How I spent my day

I know I've been writing a lot of "I love life" blog posts lately.  There's been the "I love biking," "I love running, "I love my friends," and of course "I love my dog" blog posts.  And very soon in the future, I'm pretty sure there will be an "I love swimming" post too.  I'm sorry if you are getting sick of these posts, and I promise you that my life is certainly not 100% bread and roses, but for right now, in the midst of the first summer I haven't worked full time since early college, I'd say life is pretty good.  So I'm going to keep writing about how I love life, because despite whatever unnamed-on-the-internet struggles I may actually be facing currently, the vast majority of the time I really do love life.

And let's remind ourselves of one reason why I really love life right now.  It is summer.  And I am not really working.  But I am still get paid (whatever measly amount it may be).  And after tomorrow, which is the last day of summer school, I will really not be working for the next few weeks*.


*Small preachy aside: for those of you who may be thinking "ugh, teachers have it so easy": I invite to come into my classroom on September 4th and do what we do just for one day.  Then tell me I don't deserve my summer...that I don't deserve this recharge.


Oops sorry, that just kind of came out.  Back to loving life.  The reason that I am again discussing this oh so important topic is that today very much exemplified why I currently really love life.  Here's how I spent my day:

6:30 am  Wake up unaided by an alarm clock, with no reason to wake up so early.  Force myself to continue to toss and turn in bed.

8:30 am  Finally admit that no more sleeping will be happening.  Get out of bed, eat some cereal, have some coffee.  Start some laundry (this didn't really aid in the "I love life" feeling, but I desperately needed to do it, so it made me feel accomplished).

9:45 am  Take Lucy for a walk.  Stray from the usual "routes" I take through my neighborhood.  Be daring.  Explore new paths.  See new things.  Be disappointed that the sun is out and I forgot to put sunscreen on.  Darn.

10:45 am  Get home, switch laundry.  Putter around on facebook, twitter (@doggedlyrunning...follow me), blogger, and other unnecessary social websites wasting time.

11:30 am  Make a tomato sandwich for lunch.  If you've never eaten a tomato sandwich, I feel bad for you.  Bread, mayo, whole grain mustard, thick sliced tomatoes, basil (fresh from my little pot of basil on my porch), lots of salt, pepper.  Simple deliciousness that only happens in the summertime.

11:45 am  Finish laundry.  Hear from Ironman Jason that crossfit killed him this morning and therefore he can no longer go for our planned bike ride.  No worries.

12:30 pm  Instead of the bike ride, decide to go for a run.  And do hill repeats. Because I'm a little nervous about the Nike Women's hilly half marathon in October.  It was hot.  It was tough, and I struggled through it.  But the struggle made me feel good.  Later.  And despite the 20 minutes of hill repeats in the middle of the 40 minute run, I still managed to maintain a 9:21 average pace.  Yay me.

1:30 pm  Get home from run.  Relax.  Spend more time on useless social websites.  Eat some GU Chomps, which I regretted a little bit later.  Change into swim suit.

2:30 pm  Meet Ironman Jason at Green Lake for a swim.  The water was cold, and I swam yesterday too, but was excited to get back in again.  Swim for 21 minutes.  Burp up GU Chomps while swimming.  Make it a little over a half mile.  Not too bad.

3:15 pm  Get home, shower, put on a comfy dress, eat a little peanut butter on an english muffin, put on some make up (not happy about having to do that...have been so excited about the lack of need for make up this summer).

4:30 pm  Go to the zoo.  Yay, I love the zoo.  We super cool zoo members call this "happy hour" at the zoo.  I walked the 5 minutes from my place to the entrance of the zoo and then wandered around until about 6:00 when I met up with fellow cool zoo member Ryan to enjoy the final hour of open zoo hours.  I saw lots of fun and exciting animals that I have come to know and love.

Pretty jaguar poised and picture ready (yep,
that's intentional alliteration)

Baxter and Barclay, new 6 month old Kunekune
pigs in the Family Farm.  Super cuddly.

New Warthogs, replacing the apparently
old and uninteresting Wild Dogs.

The ocelot was out in the Rainforest and I haven't seen him in forever.  And both the elephants and hippos were social at the gates, asking to be fed.  All in all, a very successful zoo happy hour.

7:15  Leave zoo past closing hours, walk back to my apartment to pick up Lucy and walk through Woodland Park with Ryan for about an hour.  That is 2 long walks for Lucy today.  She is a loved dog.

8:15  Get home, cook yummy dinner, eat yummy dinner, write blog.

So, let's summarize: start the day with adequate sleep, eat, spend time with Lucy in the sun, eat, run in the sun, swim in the sun, eat, see fun animals at the zoo (in the sun), spend time with good friends throughout, spend more time with Lucy, eat, write (and before bed I will read).  Yes, that is how to make this girl happy.  In case you were wondering.

And I won't apologize for telling you about how much I enjoyed my day.  Or how much I'm enjoying my summer.  Or my life as it currently is.  Because, frankly, after the year that I had previous to this, I deserve it.  

I hope sincerely hope you enjoyed your day.  Because you deserve it too.

FYI:  If you donate at least $15 to my Team in Training fundraising (purple widget at the top right corner of the blog) by THIS SATURDAY at noon, you will be entered into a drawing for a $15 Starbucks card to win back your money!!  Yay coffee!!  Coffee also makes life good--did I mention that I started the day with a very large cup of it?  If you want to be like me, you should donate money, win coffee, and then drink coffee.  Logically that's how it must work.