Many random bits, on account of my not posting anything for so long...

Summer in Western Montana is warm, sun-filled days, and crisp, cool evenings. Daylight lingers until nearly ten o’clock, and the west sky glows a soft green until much later. I love sleeping with my windows wide open, letting fresh breeze drift into my bedroom.

I met a guy the other day who reminded me forcibly of Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds. I love that movie.

I’m running in the Missoula half marathon in twenty-five days. I’m pretty excited, and a little bit nervous. The 10k was only slightly longer than I usually run on my own, but 13.1 miles is significantly more than I usually do. Like, more than double. I’m training for this one, trying to steadily increase my distance each week so I can manage the whole thing on race day. I have no time goals for this one, my only goal is to finish. I'm using my handy nike+ ipod sport kit to track my mileage and progress. Here is the record of my last five runs - you can scroll through them by using the gray arrow on the left:



Tonight I played pool with my new friend Andy. He's cool. I love meeting new people.

I bought a bellydancing instructional video last fall, and although it was a lot of fun, I only did it a few times before leaving it to collect dust with the rest of my extensive workout video collection. Yesterday on a whim I popped it in the player and did the workout, and holy cow do I hurt today! Every little muscle from my ribs to my knees is sore, especially my hamstrings... I loved it, though, and so today I went and bought a salsa video to alternate the bellydancing with. Since I can only run every other day (don't want to risk an overuse injury), and I have enough spare time in the summer to work out daily, I thought I'd cross train with something really different.

I have finished uploading my photos from Spain to my flickr account, so feel free to have a look if you like.

One of the nicest things about my recent engagement (other than getting to marry the guy of my dreams, naturally) has been calling family and old friends with the happy news. I have a sister in Kentucky, and another in Phoenix, both whom I adore but rarely get to talk to. I have girlfriends from my days at Washburn who I swore to keep in touch with, but over the years it has dwindled down to a call or two a year. It's been lovely to have a wonderful, happy reason to call these people, but I should do it more often, just because. Life is too short to put off the most important things.
I think my favorite part of getting older having a history. I love seeing old friends, laughing at old stories. Once I realized that change is not only inevitable, but good, it became a joy to reminisce in how things used to be.
Life is beautiful.

Ah, the red wine is kicking in, and the sappy has started seeping out. Perhaps I should stop now before I really embarrass myself. On that note - goodnight!