Warriors

Happy Monday! Wow did this weekend fly by. I honestly feel like I blinked and it was gone.

A couple of milestones this weekend for me. I know you’re DYING to hear them.

Saturday morning I hit my 7 mile goal that I have ever so slowly been working up towards. It took me just about an hour to complete… my Garmin wasn’t working great so I don’t have an official pace, but I would guess right around 8:30.

I took this on Saturday. Pretty huh?

Afterwards, I stretched it out, jumped in the shower, pulled on my cowboy boots and headed off to my first ever Preakness Stakes with the boy. I don’t have a particular affinity towards horse racing… I actually have zero interest if we are being bluntly honest. However two of my favorite artists – Florida Georgia Line (yes, again) and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis were both playing that afternoon in the infield before the race itself.

So we said sure, why not? It was a good time – the infield is a crazzzzyyy atmosphere – but a lot of fun to be a part of.  We took a ton of hilarious pictures but since Andrew’s blog-shy, I’ll just share one of my favorite mug shots.

The third milestone of the weekend? Running my first ever ‘adventure’ type race. One of our good friends from college works for Red Frog Events, and flew out from Chicago to help put on the Maryland Warrior Dash. A chance to get super muddy and see an awesome friend? Duh.

We were the noon wave on Sunday, so the course was extra muddy and torn up. Just how I like it. So muddy in fact, that my shoe literally came off in the mud two times, and I lost a sock. I felt like a true warrior.

I took a second to glance at the finisher results last night out of curiosity and had to laugh when I saw that I finished 13^th in my age group. All thanks to Andrew, who screamed at me to sprint up the final hill and pick up my measly jog.

I also had to laugh when I saw this on our drive home:

Chicken Necks. Yes.

Southern Maryland. Gotta love it.

Cheers to trying new things!

There's a lot of beauty in ordinary things

Happy Friday!

It’s a beautiful day here in Columbia Maryland. The sun is out and the flowers sure do seem to be happy...

 I snapped this on the way out of the gym this morning. I hit up my favorite Friday Morning spin class, followed by some weights. I kind of like lifting in the morning more since the weight room tends to be pretty empty.

Along with the sun and warmer temperatures comes the wonderful East Coast humidity that changed my life last summer. I was definitely feeling it last night after my run, and BELIEVE ME this is not me complaining. There’s never anything wrong with working up a nice sweat. Bring on summer.

Last night also entailed me crying for two hours over the Office Series finale. I wish I was exaggerating… but I would be lying if I said I was. Pretty sure there were tears in my eyes for at least 50% of the finale.

That might sound a bit absurd, crying over a television show? Maybe it is; that’s fine. And as a disclaimer, I’m not a huge TV girl at all. I actually sometimes resent watching too much TV, and loved my time spent in CO when my townhouse didn’t have cable at all. I strongly feel as a country we sit on our asses way too often, and excessive time in front of the tube detracts from so many beautiful areas of life. Don’t get me wrong, Andrew and I have our movie nights and all that jazz. But I guess I’ve just grown to believe that mindlessly sitting in front of the TV with your friends, or significant others takes away from real interactions and conversations that could be happening.

That’s my rant on T.V. But yes, I was and probably always will be an AVID Office fan, starting in the Fall of 2009 when I decided to bring myself up to speed on all of the seasons… just in time to bawl myself through Jim & Pam’s wedding.

WHY am I devoting almost an entire post to a television series? Hear me out.  In short, I feel like this was a real series. It had a point. It was funny, hysterical at times, but it just held so much freaking truth.  And it was about life. It made me want to live a real, hard, fought-for love like Jim and Pam.  And to hold on tightly to friendships like Phyllis and Stanley had.

The title of this post comes from my favorite quote from the finale last night, when Pam AKA Jenna Fischer eloquently summed up the show by simply saying:

“There’s a lot of beauty in ordinary things...isn’t that the point?”

Amen sister. Beauty in what may seem like just a normal office job. Beauty in the flowers you walk by every day, and the relationships you hold, no matter how big or small. Stop and find that beauty.

Thanks to The Office for many beautiful years together. I have my doubts that a television series will ever hit the spot like this one. It was quite the ride.

That’s what she said.

Cheers :)