halloween

halloween turned in to a very fun and long night! i had a few freinds over prior to heading out. the girls dressed, the boys not so much. they were no fun!! but in any case, megan, kim, jared, ellen, mar, and me all had some predrinks and then headed out for the night.

he hit up mickey's and drank some there and then we hit another bar across the street from mickey's but the name escapes me right now. maybe it is called jacks... anyways, we stay there waaaaay too long but it was so much fun. more drinks, more fun and then! we found mccain and obama coming to our bar! so of course we needed pictures of them. pretty much everyone did. they were a big hit. mccain was so hitting on me...

and then kim and jared and ellen and her boyfriend all left and we stayed. and when we did leave it was close to 3:30am or so and we were starving. so we headed over to the golden nugget and waiting fooooooooorever to get our grilled cheeses. but while we were there, we did run in to michael phelps! i guess he really does need a lot of calories to keep up swimming.
it was our waitress' first night on the job and i felt so bad for her! but we didn't leave there until around 5am. oops... and then i crawled in to bed and stayed there quite awhile!

a very long winded account of this weekend.

Family history is an interesting thing. And mine, I think, happens to be pretty darn interesting. For one my great great grandfather has a published autobiography that I didn’t even know existed until over the weekend. I now own a copy courtesy of my dad and started to read it last night. More about that later, but let me start with the beginning.

This weekend after running in the misty yucky chilly weather of Chicago with Alice and Dev and a bunch of other crazy people who joined the same program, I drove over to Muncie, IN to meet my parents and my aunt and uncle. It’s about a four hour drive from Chicago and I stayed awake with the help of an energy drink and a host of cds I’d made previously. The cds were great. They were all the best songs to sing along to. which I do. But only by myself. Unless we are in the karaoke cab. And Africa is playing. Which by the way, Africa was on one of my cds. So, I spent four hours driving along first the freeway and then a two lane highway with the volume high (to drown out my own singing) and singing at the top of my lungs.

I arrived at the Hampton Inn where we were all staying… and no one was there. They’d lost track of time and so I had to wait for them for almost 20 mins. we then had a couple hours to spend together catching up before we had to get all pretty and head out to a cocktail reception and dinner/fundraiser/90 year anniversary of BSU. This was all being held at the ball state university art museum for the descendants of the ball family. The ball family had 5 brothers and my great great grandfather was one of those (the most important one if you ask me). Because my granddad hated or resented my nana’s family, he essentially alienated them from her formerly very close family. As a result, they pretty much all know each other and I already knew anyone. The last time I’d seen some of them was for my second cousin’s wedding almost 16 years ago!

The reception was lovely. It was held in the foyer of the gallery and there was music and of course beverages. There was a group picture and after the dinner we were all given a very nice framed copy of it. I can literally name about 8 people in that picture. During the reception, some people roamed around the gallery. My parents had taken a tour earlier in the day, but my mom showed me around and told me some of the stories. BSU has one of the best art galleries in the country and it’s mostly due to my nana’s cousin, my great uncle david (who is a character all unto his own). Uncle david as he is referred to by my family grew up in Muncie with the rest of the family also lived a lot of his childhood in Ireland where his dad was the ambassador. I think it’s kind of funny b/c you can still hear some of that European accent even though he’s as American as they come. Uncle david is also interesting in the fact that he never married or had children… and the reason for that is b/c he is gay. He is marvelously affluent and extremely generous with his money. He is a great lover of art and has traveled extensively. He has also donated more than 15 million dollars of artwork to the gallery over the years and has started a campaign to raise 10 million more for expansion. If the museum can raise 5 million, he’ll donate the other 5. Hence the reason for the dinner and the reason for my dad and his siblings to ‘buy’ a room and name it in honor of my nana.


the room to be rededicated to my nana. my mom, dad, me, my aunt and uncle


the art gallery from across the lawn

After the reception, it was time for the dinner to start. Everyone went to a beautiful room in the gallery – it looked like an old theater or something. We were sat at table two! We had the President of the university at our table, the Board of Trustees President and his wife, the Director of Art for BSU, and also another Board of Trustees member (and also related to us) and his wife. My aunt and uncle were also seated there. We think we got the best table b/c we made one of the first donations, but also bc my uncle is co chair of the fundraising efforts and I think he has visions of sitting on the Board of Trustees. Anyways, we enjoyed a lovely dinner complete with wine.

the statue known as Benefience on the BSU campus. it was erected in honor of the 5 brothers (i can't remember by whom)

Once dinner was over, it was time to hit the audience up for some money! But, they didn’t do it aggressively. It was definitely a passive maneuver. Our new friend, Tom DeWeese (the BofT Pres), got up and gave some opening remarks. Then the President (we now affectionately call Jo Ann bc you know after a couple hours of dinner…) spoke. After that a film made about the Unversity’s history was shown and it was pounded in to everyone’s head how generous all of our relatives had been – including the 5 brothers who had bought the land and struggling college back in 1918. They revamped it and gave it back to the city. In thanks, the city renamed the college after them… Ball State University. After the video, we had five members of the family all get up and share their comments on whatever they wanted to talk about. It was long, but interesting and at times funny. One of the older members of the family, Frank Bracken, spoke and showed us a watch his grandfather (my great great grandfather) had once used. I’d never seen it before and when he got back to the table, I asked to take a closer look. It was a beautiful old pocket watch with an old photo of his kids on the left side and the clock part on the right. After everyone spoke, the President made her final remarks and an unveiling of a plaque was announced. It’ll be placed next to this statue that was erected in the Brothers’ honor.

After dinner, we all went back to the hotel and changed. Mom and I stayed up talking while my dad either patiently listened or was asleep. I was sharing a room with my parents b/c it was parents’ weekend at the school and also a home football game and their team is undefeated this year. The aerobed was awesome. My dad snored all night and I was freezing. But other than that, sharing a room was fine!

On Sunday, my parents didn’t have to leave until around 2ish for the airport so we had breakfast with my aunt and uncle in which a very heated discussion of politics and the economy ensued. After that, we checked out of the hotel and roamed around Muncie looking at the various homes and places my parents had lived and gone to in their youth. Then we hunted for treasures at a flea market and then headed over to Minnetrista which is a cultural center all about the… you guessed it… Balls. We headed for the gift shop and my dad bought me a copy of that published autobiography I mentioned earlier. After all of that, we headed for the best place to go get lunch. The Muncie mall. There is a cafeteria restaurant in there with not too bad of food (not the food court) and so we went and ate too much food. Then it was time to drop me off at my car and for both of us to head on home. Once again, energy drinks and sing alongs were my friend.

More family history if you guys would like to hear it in future blogs…

champaign.

no, not the bubbly tasty kind... the city type in il. b/c of budget cuts, i got up at 3:15am this morning to drive 2.5 hours to champaign, il. for a meeting that started at 7:30am. it was a breakfast meeting and there were supposed to be 15-20 people there. guess how many showed?? 4. 4 of the cutest old men you've ever met and super friendly. they all convene at panera bread like everyday. how cute is that?? sometimes this one guy goes to panera twice a day. once with his wife around 6 and then again to socialize with the other oldies around 9. he says it's a great place to get business and socialize. who knew?! so cute. anyways, then i had 2 hours to do whatever (blog/email) and in a few, i will be heading to lunch with an attorney and a title agent. and then i will get back on the road and drive home. ugh. loooong day. the budget does not allow for hotels or overnight stays or plane trips these days. fun times. in any case, i'm ready to get back home and after hitting up the gym - i'm prepared - i brought a bag of my gym stuff so i can drive straight there - i am super excited to plant my rear end on the couch and watch some good thursday tv. survivor and greys. i just have to make a long drive home first.

26.2 loooooong miles: my story

So my life has been pretty darn consumed by this whole marathon thing… it’s truly screwing up my blogging abilities! I thought you were supposed to get more energy from exercising…in any case, by the time the work day is over and I go to the gym and get home, I just don’t feel like sitting down to the computer to type more. I want to eat dinner and veg in front of the tv. I still need to figure out how to set up my wireless connection for the computer. I hear it’s pretty easy, but I have brain issues when I get home at night and the thought of messing around with something I’m not sure how to do seems to overwhelming to attempt… so I put it off. And now it’s been almost a year. Go me. I’ll have to tackle that asap…maybe this weekend. I’m a horrible procrastinator in case any of you didn’t know this about me…so enough blabbering, let’s get to the good stuff!

The expo! Holy moly this was a sight to behold. It was an event in itself! Alice and I attempted to leave my house a little before 4 on Friday afternoon. The theory is that it is less crowded on Fri than Sat plus it is a lot of walking and I needed to save my feet for Sun. We drove over to mccormick place which for those of you who don’t know is a convention center that is more of a small city. We drove around for almost an hour looking for the one parking lot that we were supposed to park in… and kept getting lost. Yes, it is that big with that many turns and it is so not well marked! We saw others getting lost too… it was pretty funny but so frustrating! We finally parked and made our way to the expo which was full of booths: everything from various upcoming marathons, to massage products, food stuff, to running gear, and even tooth whitening you could do right there on the spot. Of course this is also where we picked up our packets for the race and our new technical race t-shirts. They also had a huge Nike store in the middle of everything where I couldn’t help but purchase a new purple fleece and purple running shorts (in my favorite style) with the Chicago marathon 08 emblazoned on them. And I also got a nifty frame dealio that will house my medal, my bib number, some Chicago marathon artwork piece, and a little plaque with my super slow time on it. Gosh, the pressure, now I had to finish not only b/c of all of my hard work, but also because what would I do with this very nice $150 display thing if I didn’t earn my medal?! That would seriously suck.

On the night before the race, I made all of my preparations. I made a sign for alice’s parents to hold with my name on it. I colored in ‘harper’ to the front of my team in training shirt. I figured harper was easier to write and see on a shirt. Less letters. Incidentally, did anyone see that lisa marie pressly named one of her twins ‘harper’? and at the marathon expo, alice and I saw a very cute golden retriever puppy poking out of a girls tote bag. The dog’s name? harper. I’d find this much cuter if that stupid hobag’s son hadn’t named his daughter ‘harper’ in ‘honor’ of my granddad. It makes me want to throw up thinking about it. Thus, none of my children will ever have the harper name as their first or middle name. I digress. I got my water bottle filled up, I put the bib on my shirt, put the clothes out on the dresser, put the timing chip on my shoe, packed a bag for my stuff to check at the race, my sports watch, got out the body glide, the gu, the sunscreen (I burned anyways), and a bunch of other miscellaneous items that one probably wouldn’t think of if…I wanted to make sure I was totally prepared so I didn’t forget anything in the morning.

The morning of! I woke up early so I could have breakfast (a bagel with peanut butter) and that I could get fully prepared. Body glide, check. Sports waterproof sunscreen, check. Watch, check. And so on. I was ready! Alice, her uncle (also running), her uncle’s friend, and her parents all picked me up and we made our way to grant park… the starting point. We got close, but then we had to jump out of the car so that her parents could find parking and we could get to the charity tents and find team in training’s tent. I was very stressed out b/c I felt like we were running out of time. We HAD to be in the start corrals by 7:45 or we couldn’t participate. It’s was 7:04. Charity village was far. And then alice realized she forgot her watch. Without her watch, she can’t do her intervals which are 4 mins running and 2 walking. She was absolutely stressed out and about to cry. She wanted to jump in a cab and go home to get it. She thought she didn’t have any other choice otherwise without her watch she’d never be able to finish. I told her absolutely not. We have to find another way. The make that round trip, she would have definitely missed the 7:45 am time deadline. She didn’t have her phone so she couldn’t call anyone (didn’t know anyone’s numbers by heart). So her stressing out was stressing me out, but we made our way to the tent (which of course, was the furthest one from the entrance). We stashed our bags and I happened to ask if either of the girls happened to have a watch alice could borrow. One girl lent alice her watch which was fantastic. However, no one knew how to program intervals and we never figured it out so it was of no help there…we headed to the starting corrals and lined up with the pace we were starting with. We both started around the 12 min pace. In the huge crowd of 40k + people, we managed to find a few member of our team that we’d trained with all season and so that was nice. Alice was super relieved b/c they all adhere to the 4/2 pace too. However, they go slower than her. But, luckily a girl named Jackie was around and she wanted to do 4/2 but a little faster. So it ended up working out a-ok. Phew. Deep breath.

5…4…3…2…1! Now, hurry up and wait! Seriously. They let the really good marathoners go five minutes ahead of the pack. Five minutes later, we started but it took about twenty minutes to cross the start line. My time did not start until I officially crossed the line. So, off I went. Through 29 different neighborhoods of Chicago. My favorite neighborhoods were Boystown, Pilsen, and China Town. Boystown b/c as we turned on to Broadway, there was a band playing “On Broadway” and then there were the super gay guys all dressed up and cheering us (literally as cheerleaders) on. Then Pilsen. As we ran in to Pilsen, the sign said welcome to Mexico! Hmm. Ok! They played all kinds of fun festive Mexican music. And then China Town. It was near the finish line, but it was fun b/c they had a couple of Chinese dragons dancing for us. I can’t really remember what mile was where, but I know I heard my name and saw a sign for me around mile 8 or 9? Surprise! It was my friend Nicole (not the Scripps one) and her husband, Chris cheering me on. I had no idea they would be there so that was awesome! Then at mile 13, I knew to look for Alice’s parents. There was the sign I made! They also handed me some gu, and off I went. (gu is a small packet of nasty tasting stuff to give you energy b/c you burn so many calories). Also along the way Megan and Trish were cheering us on, but I never saw them. Alice did though! And another great surprise I wasn’t expecting was my name to be called out in the middle of the ghetto by devon! What?! Wait!! I hear my name “Katherine!” and it makes me look b/c I have harper on my shirt and it sounded like a voice I knew. And it was! A sweaty hug and a couple of self portraits later, I had to continue down the road to the finish line! I loved all the support. It was so great!! There were also so many people watching along the way. Many offered cheers, high fives, cookies, pretzels, encouragement, and in some cases they sprayed hoses on us – it was so freaking hot!! And a few times we were offered cold beers for free… I thought that might make me puke. No thanks. I passed. But even in all the heat, even as my knees, hips, feet and everything else was dying…. I continued to push forward thinking about all the reasons why I was running this race. Becky and matt’s mom, my grandpa, all the people who made a donation, my parents, and lastly but most important…that damn display plaque I bought that would be arriving in 4 weeks. If I didn’t finish, I didn’t get a medal and I would feel stupid about ordering the plaque. Just kidding. Well sort of. What truly kept me going was thinking about how much I had trained and how much effort I had put forth. I was not going to quit! Just keep going…every step you take is one step closer to the finish line. Cheesy, I know. But true nonetheless.

With a little more than a mile to go, I’m looking ahead of me and I see a purple tank and black shorts with a familiar blond pony tail…it was alice! I raced to catch up to her and we were both exhausted. But, it was so awesome to spend the entire race apart and then somehow meet up unplanned at the end when there were so many people out there. We ran the rest of the way together and even crossed the finish line at the same time. I know, it sounds so cheesy, but it was such an emotional moment and it was so amazing to have someone to share it with! And with that, just like that… we had finished 26.2 miles.

After the race, we hobbled to get our medals and then to get back to the team in training tent. Once there, we promptly signed up for the people to stretch us out… that was amazing. And we sat. and then her parents made their way over to the tent and we made our way home. Cab to car, then car to home. Once home, I jumped in to the bathtub and dumped Epsom salt in there (part of the previous night’s preparation). A lot of it. I read somewhere that it helps sore muscles. Once clean, bathed and showered I made my way to the couch. I ordered dominos and ate my pepperoni and mushroom pizza with zero remorse or regret or guilt. And then I was done. Just done. It was 7pm and I was exhausted. So I went to bed. Where I couldn’t sleep all night b/c I was so sore I could barely move. Literally I had to pull my legs up to get them to lift. And the worst part was, it seriously felt like I had to get up every half hour to pee. I drank so much water on the course, but never peed. But once I did, holy moly I had to a lot. I can barely move and yet I have to roll out of bed, sit, stand, and all the things that are normally easy (like walking) hurt like hell. But, I feel incredibly accomplished. I wonder what race I’ll do next…

me and alice at the finish line!
running at some point... no idea what mile this is...

happy birthday sarah lyman!!!

happy birthday sarah!!

i'm at work and can therefore not post any cute pictures of you at this time. but i am thinking of you and if you can't already tell by the facebook wishes, the text message, and the email...along with this blog... then i just dunno :)

here's to a wonderful year a head of you... i see good things happening!!

bucktown 5k

Sunday, the 5th brought the Bucktown 5k! Alice, Devon, Patrick, and I participated. Alice and I woke up early and drove over to dev and patrick’s where we met them about 7:30am. A little before 8 we headed over to the start line. The race was slated to start at 8:30. It was a brisk morning, but not too terribly chilly. A jacket and running shorts were fine attire. Since the marathon was only a week away, alice and I were taking it easy. So d, p, and the two of us agreed on a place for brunch. We determined Toast would be an excellent place though we were warned that it would most likely have a decent wait. So be it. D & p finished before us and headed on over to put our name on the list. They met amy and her coworkers over there where they were also brunching. After alice and I finished (under 40 mins), we headed over. It was about a 20 or so min wait, but SO worthwhile. Omg, I may just move in to this place. It was delicious. While we were waiting I was expressing my love for this time of year and all things pumpkin and was talking about wilma’s patio on balboa and their pumpkin pancakes. I knew pancakes were in my future, but I was really hoping they would be pumpkin! And lo and behold, the special pancake of the day was…. Pumpkin! It came with the best whipped cream ever – a hint of pumpkin and maybe some cinnamon. I also got a side of poached eggs and some potatoes that I shared. Yes, I was a piggy, but I figured I was entitled what with the marathon so soon and all! I ate well past full b/c the pancakes were delicious. After brunch, we headed back to d&p’s and chatted for a bit. Then it was time to head home. What a fun morning!