year in review! part2

july:

this summer was an awkward summer because i did not work or take summer school. i taught sunday school and was casted as the lead role in my family's hit drama series entitled "two-divorced-families-living-under-one-roof-with-two-teenage-girls." i spent the summer traveling back & forth playing big brother.
the best idea of the year was to recruit a brigade of women (&jeff) to drive cross-country to SCOTTSDALE, AZ to pick up my brother & fiance from culinary school.

15 y/o diva (stepsis) + 16 y/o sis(fullofangst)
18 y/o girl cousin + 47 y/o neurotic mother
+       21 y/o male college student + small SUV

RECIPE FOR CHAOS

highlights:

• my mother mastering the art of chain smoking in the backseat in the middle of the night. (yes, we drove the entire way)


• my sister & i bonding over our circumstance that we were in. driving in the middle of the southwest at 3am listening to taylor swift while our crew slept through the night. i feel like i know what it feels like to be a teenage girl after listening to "fearless" with my sister for the night. lots of emotions.


• i drove the graveyard shift of midnight-8am and kept everyone alive.


• i convinced my soon-to-be-step-sister that 1) rat tails were cool & 2) to let me braid a rat-tail. if you know me at all, i love rat tails. especially braided ones.

august:

one of my dear friends-that-i-didnt-really-know-was-one-of-my-best-friends-at-the-time andy married one of my dear-friends-that-i-didnt-know-we-were-actually-friend-emilys-dear-friend linds. then they moved to korea & blogged about it.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="(photo by bethany michaela)"][/caption]

addison had a brilliant idea. the idea was to get a grand group of guys to go galavant and gather good times in the woods. well, numbers dwindled and dedication flopped. so my trusty ex-best-friend-patrick and i set sail for what is practically canada with addison as our leader.

[caption id="attachment_181" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="we unfortunately had to "camp" out at a "family camp" because the transmission broke just outside of minnesota"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_182" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="at this point, i had already set down a tarp to play scrabble and read harry potter."][/caption]

we even stopped by the pyrotechnics guild international show in mason city while hitching a ride with a man who said he was a college professor & wrote books on speed reading & liked college students. we're college students and i liked the idea of speed reading, so we went.



we made it to canada, kind of. addison & i didn't bring out passports while patrick made a vow to never leave the united states of uhmerka.



we camped, we sang, we smoked cloves, we hiked, we read. we survived the storm of the century in which i didn't know i could pray for 4 hours for my life. patrick lost most of his food. i brought clif bars and sealed food in nasty wrappers. i crocheted a fishing net, that was really a lacrosse stick. addison whittled spears. patrick read...a lot. we left with our heads down because we packed a tent from the 70's that only held 2 and our "shanty" didn't quite make it through the night. rained out and slightly irate, we left our little getaway.

september:

i moved into a beautiful new east campus home (haha) named 516 with 4 dudes. ok, this actually happened in august, but september was a slow month. here is a never before seen 516 family photo circa tall john.

[caption id="attachment_184" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="sounds about right"][/caption]

october:

i went to my first, hopefully not last, NASCAR race with my mothers-current-boyfriend-or-fiance-yet-she-wears-a-wedding-band-and-engagement-ring-that-he-bought-her-but-my-mom-keeps-saying-not-yet.

after 2 long months or so of training for this wretched half-marathon, i did it.
i also decided that i was not going to wear shorts because after training on the MKT, i noticed that all of the hardcore runners just wore tights and a shirt. therefore, game time, no shorts was the only option. dress for the job you want, yanno.

i finished at 1:47. not bad for my first time half-marathon.

[caption id="attachment_187" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="i also noticed that all of the hardcore runners were drinking beer after their race. "drink like you have the job you want.""][/caption]

november:

i started a small cottage business. crocheting little headbands for hip girls to wear. then my wrist started to hurt, so i stopped. fail.

december:

i passed spanish 3 and officially completed all the spanish required by the university of missouri-columbia for a bachelor of arts in blah blah blah.

the 4th ANNUAL YANKEE SWAP rang in the holiday season with my high school friends & company. ed hardy hats, 5foot tall pencils, 10 commandments bible games, sarah palin autobiography hollowed out enclosed with a condom labeled "stimulus package" with a photo of obama on the casing+ pack of marlboro lights+ bottle of jim beam, recycled gifts from last year, a stolen sorority lamp from kappa alpha theta, and many others.

13.1

i started training for this past weekend's half-marathon in august. i trained all throughout august & september and tapered in october like scheduled. i feel healthier and more accomplished. i mean, its okay to have this neat feeling of accomplishment. i put in this effort & i get this result. boom. cause & effect. this helps my engineer and formulaic side of myself make sense of life.

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lynnette, kaitlyn, meredith & i set sail on friday night for kansas city from columbia. on the drive, we debated and discussed who was the least healthiest/trained for the race. all the while stopping at quiktrip to ensure that we were all on level playing field the night before. diet cokes and taquitos, chips, & other things that are generally not-not-healthy were consumed in justification of "resuming normal eating habits." i usually have a diet coke, 3 cups of coffee, and 2 nalgene's a day.


lynnette had a great idea to preoccupy our minds/hearts/souls/brains during the race. for each mile, write down a name/group of people to be praying for while we ran for that mile. it worked out so great and really felt pretty content while running. not focusing on my stride, my steps, or little things in front of me that usually distract me & my groove.

pre-race photo at 6:00am. nope, i'm not going to sorority recruitment. or confused that tights constitute as actual pants, but am wearing my uggs pre-race to ensure my toes are not oppressed anymore than they are everyday through shoes. knowing i would have to wear blasted shoes & socks for under 2 hours.

post-race photo at like 9:40isham. kaitlyn (on the far right) vom'd during the race & still finished. she's a D1 athlete, so that was no sweat. i would have marked it as a loss if anything besides sweat or pee came from my body at an unexpected time during the race. notice: im clutching my iphone like a little boy returning home from camp without his blanket because his mother wouldn't let him take it with him to camp because of other kids making fun of him. after the race, i enjoyed my free boulevard stout beer. :)

however, i didn't actually run as myself though. i ran as someone else. (i don't know how illegal that is, probably a liability) but that one goes down in the books for emmy. i forgot to register & emmy got sick.  overall, i ran a 1:47:40. my goal was under 2 hours & i done did it. :) i plan on running the st. louis half-marathon in april & beating that time.