The Olympics, scooter rides, and watercolors.

  Who else has become utterly obsessed with the Olympics?  I had hardly watched television in months and now I can't seem to turn it off.  I don't think there is a sport I don't enjoy watching.  I have stayed up far too late since it started watching every last bit.  I'm evening recording it!  Michael Phelps.....amazing!  I've officially made the transition over from swimming to track & field.  Tonight is the Men's 1500m final.  That should be interesting.  

  Enough of that.  I was in St. Louis/Chicago week before last and I got some neat photos.  Once I can figure out how to post multiple photos on here without it taking me hours to re-size them I'll put them on here.  I might just post them on my Flickr account and post the link on here that way I don't have to mess with sizing. (Edit: I went ahead and uploaded the Chicago pictures to Flickr. You can see them here: Chicago Pictures)  My friend Nathan (aka Snarf) took me on a scooter ride in St. Louis. I must purchase a scooter now.  What a fun way to get around town! 

  I have been really having an itch to get back into painting/any art lately.  Instead of going back to my old favorite-oil painting-I have decided to dabble in watercolors.  I have only done ONE watercolor painting in my life and it was back in high school.  I have all the stuff I just need to sit down and have the patience to actually do it.  That's where I normally have the problem when it comes to this sort of thing.  I can't sit there long enough to make any progress and waiting for it to dry is hell.  Once I've done a few I'll take some photos and put them up here. 

   I have officially lost 45(ish)lbs.  I'm not sure how much further I'm going to go. I don't really care about the pounds-I just want to get to a size that I like.  I'm pretty darn close though.  I have a 5K this Saturday that I'm pretty excited about and another one the following Saturday.  I have been having issues lately running because it has been so stinkin' hot outside.  I have found that that is EXACTLY what has kept me from making any progress in the last 2 months or so.  On rainy days I run fine because it's cool out-but if it's hot I almost can't run a mile.  I'm really going to try and make an effort to wake up and run BEFORE work instead of in the evenings because its a good 10 or so degrees cooler in the mornings.  We'll see if that happens though.  Alright. I think I'm done babbling for now.  Comment please.  It's what encourages me to keep blogging. 

 

Before. During. But not after. Part 1.

I am having to do this blog in 2 parts because Picasa will only let you blog 4 photos at a time. I did the second one first so it would show up under the first blog so you can just start from the top.

I have been wanting to post some photos of my weight lost journey for awhile and finally have the motivation to do so. I know Grandma really wanted to see some so here we go. I'll try to put them in some sort of order.

This first photo is from Beth's (Pam's daughter) wedding back in September. It's right before I started running. I think I started running in November. There's definitely a difference between then and now.

This next one is right around the same time when Brandy and I went to a Braves game with my company.

In January I went to Savannah/Tybee Island with Jenna and here I am on the beach at sunrise. I think I had just started running at this point.

In March Brandy and I went to England to visit Jenna. I had finally started making at little progress at this point but not much.



Keep reading to the blog below.

Before. During. But not after. Part 2.

Continued....
I believe I took this picture sometime in early May. I was obviously tired.

At the end of May I went to St. Louis and this is the first picture where I almost didn't recognize myself. This is my friend Art and I on my birthday.

The next two pictures I took tonight so they are the most recent. I have a little further to go but I'm much closer than when I started. The second one I'm just being silly and showing off my muscle.

Who's been drinking my funfetti?

I just returned from Wrockstock (the second one-sequel to the one at Halloween). This has basically turned into a travel blog-nothing too exciting happens in my everyday life. I took many pictures and will post the link to my Flickr account when I upload and I even took some video this time. I think maybe next time I will see if Misti will let me borrow her video camera or something. Then perhaps I can learn to edit, etc. I didn't have any more trips planned for awhile (other than a weekend trip to Birmingham in July) but I think I may go up to Chicago for Wrock Chicago at the beginning of August. I can't resist seeing all those lovely faces again. This was possibly the best weekend of my life. I know I said that after the last Wrockstock but this one blew that one out of the water. I can only imagine how the next one will be. I am so fortunate to be involved in this movement. I'll post a blog on my thoughts later when I have more time (I'm at work).

In other news....about a month ago I ran my first 5K race! It was the Hustle For Hope 5K which benefited The Hope House- a children's respite center I used to work at. I really enjoyed it and look forward to running in many more. In addition to that I have officially lost 30lbs! I almost don't even recognize myself sometimes. Alright...I'll update later.

I have returned!

I am back from my trip to England! It was a great trip but I am so glad to be home. It is so tiring to be away and in an unfamiliar place. I won't be able to get on the photos into this blog so I set up a folder on Flickr so you can see them all. Here's the link : England Pics On the right hand side there is a folder titled "England 08'". Click on that and then click on the pictures to make them bigger. I got to visit so many places I have wanted to see for years. I visited Colchester, Cambride, Oxford, London, Bath, Stonehenge, and Salisbury. My favorite part I think was either the Lent service I attended at King's College @ Cambridge or The National Gallery. There I saw paintings by Monet, Degas, Van Gogh, and many others. At the British Museum I got to see The Rosetta Stone and Mummies. It was all such an amazing experience but I think next time I will go for a little less time or try and not fit so much in one day. Now back to real life!

Savannah on a whim

My close friend Jenna, who is getting her PhD in England right now, was in town for December and a little of January. A few weeks back after her going away dinner we were looking for something to do. We both really enjoy ghost hunting and had been to Savannah together a few years back so on a whim we decided to drive "down" there. We didn't encounter any ghosts but we got some really good photos at Bonaventure. Here are some of them. I'm going to England in about a month (Feb 29-Mar 8) so hopefully I'll have more to post about soon. Things have been pretty uneventful around here lately though so enjoy the pictures!





The next few photos are from Jenna's collection.

The Weapon We Have Is Love

I'm finally sitting down with something to blog about. The last 4ish months I have been really busy planning an event that FINALLY took place this past weekend in Potosi,MO (about 2 hours outside St. Louis). The event was called Wrockstock Spooktacular and it was a benefit for The Harry Potter Alliance (http://thehpalliance.org/) I can't figure out how to do the hyperlinks right now as it's been awhile since I've used this and it's sort of late so I can't call Misti. The HP Alliance is a group that uses the imagery from Harry Potter to draw parallels in todays world relating to social justice issues like poverty,the genocide in Darfu,AIDS, and the environment. One of my best friends Abby had the brilliant idea some months ago to put on a weekend camp with wizard wrock bands (bands that sing about Harry Potter) and raise money for the HPA. Being in Abby's core group of friends I naturally hopped right on board with the planning. This was possibly the best experience of my life. Not only did we have a blast goofing of to wrock music but I made some amazing friends and helped with a good cause. I got to know the creator of The Harry Potter Alliance -Andrew- pretty well. I picked him up from the airport in St. Louis (along with some others that I'll mention later) and we ended up being bunkmates in the cabin at camp. Along with Andrew I picked up Maria, Tonks, and Cori-none of whom I knew before the even- and we all became fast friends. It was a 2 hour drive to the camp and 2 hours back to the airport so we had plenty of time to become chummy. They all (minus Maria who lives in Philly) live in Boston so I am going up there the second weekend of December for The Yule Balls (2 more Harry Potter events). I know you guys all think I'm insane for being so into Harry Potter but I have made some amazing friends through this "scene" that I will never forget. Naturally- I have a ton of photos so I'm going to post a few here:

This is a band called The Remus Lupins. They are one of my favorite Wizard Wrock bands and I've seen them play a few times. They always put on a really good show.


This is my new friend and bunkmate Andrew-the creator/founder of The Harry Potter Alliance. He colored his hair pink for some crazy reason (it was costume night) and he was wearing my tie. At least I got it back.


This is a band called Draco and the Malfoys. They act like Slytherins on stage but are possibly the nicest guys out there.


There's a band called Harry and the Potters who basically started the whole wizard wrock scene. They didn't play but one of the members was there. They are famous for closing their shows with a song called "The Weapon" which is about love and how it is the weapon we can use to defeat the evils in this world. Its the main theme of the Harry Potter series. The last night the last band had all the wizard wrockers there (even if they hadn't played) get on stage and see it. It was the most amazing of sites.


These are two more of my cabinmates Ty and Shawn O. They have a band called Tom Riddle and Friends and they are hilarious.


This is me and my goblin sidekick-Maria. We were in charge of getting all the behind the scenes stuff set up for the event. Maria and I (and her fiance Nathan) had quite a good time goofing off around camp.


This is Andrew,Tonks, and I when Andrew was getting ready to fly back to Boston. There were 5 of us in our little traveling crew that we like to now call "A-Slack's Traveling Crew" but only Tonks and I got to see Andrew off.


Here are a few pretty shots I got around camp. The leaves had started to change (unlike in GA at the time) and I loved taking photos of them.




Last but not least here is a video of the finale of the song "The Weapon". I guess I have made up for the lack of blogs with the length of this one. I'll try and keep it up better..if not- I'll at least blog when I get back from Boston next month :)