I moved! I'm a Bloomsburgian now! I can't tell you how happy I am in my new place. The old apartment just wasn't right for me. I'm in a more developed town with more social things going on, and I've got a cozy half-double house with quiet neighbors. Me and the cats are pretty happy.
Moving can be chaotic, and I had some bumps on the road to my new place. I had no fridge until yesterday, and a gas leak that was repaired literally an hour before I moved in. But I'm pretty much settled in, if you can call being surrounded by boxes "settled in." lol. I'll have to post some pictures of my new place when I get time.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Living Alone...or not?
One of the tough things about living alone is having to kill spiders. I'd rather give that job to someone else.
I'm looking for a new place. I have two major problems with my current apartment: bed bugs, and downstairs neighbors that scream at each other every day. I have other, more minor problems with the place, like street noise gets bad sometimes, my neighbors steal my netflix movies (I can't prove it, but two have gone missing), I have to mow the lawn and shovel snow. My kitchen floor leans, so I always feel like I'm about to fall over. My downstairs neighbors control the thermostat, and they like it HOT in the winter.
I'm looking for either a 1 bedroom apartment to live by myself, or a 3-bedroom apartment or townhouse, and I'll live with my friend from work and her teenage son. Those are two very different options! On one hand, I'd love to have someone to talk to when I get home. Lonely evenings have been really tough for me. And it would be really nice to split the bills with someone. On the other hand, I've gotten used to being by myself. And it seems a little risky to depend on someone else to cover their half of rent and bills. We're good friends, so I trust her a lot more than I would a stranger. But she talks about moving to a bigger city, and what am I supposed to do if she decides to move away? She knows that I'm in a better situation financially, so what if she starts to take advantage of that and I have to pay more than my share of the bills?
One of my other options is that my mom's friend runs a business on the first floor of a building (that her mother-in-law owns), and she's moving the business. They are going to remodel and rent it out as an apartment. I can wait for them to remodel and then see if Iike the apartment. It will probably be a 1-bedroom, and my mom said that the rent will probably be cheap. The location is really good, too.
Decisions, decisions. I still find it odd to make all these life decisions without my husband.
I'm looking for a new place. I have two major problems with my current apartment: bed bugs, and downstairs neighbors that scream at each other every day. I have other, more minor problems with the place, like street noise gets bad sometimes, my neighbors steal my netflix movies (I can't prove it, but two have gone missing), I have to mow the lawn and shovel snow. My kitchen floor leans, so I always feel like I'm about to fall over. My downstairs neighbors control the thermostat, and they like it HOT in the winter.
I'm looking for either a 1 bedroom apartment to live by myself, or a 3-bedroom apartment or townhouse, and I'll live with my friend from work and her teenage son. Those are two very different options! On one hand, I'd love to have someone to talk to when I get home. Lonely evenings have been really tough for me. And it would be really nice to split the bills with someone. On the other hand, I've gotten used to being by myself. And it seems a little risky to depend on someone else to cover their half of rent and bills. We're good friends, so I trust her a lot more than I would a stranger. But she talks about moving to a bigger city, and what am I supposed to do if she decides to move away? She knows that I'm in a better situation financially, so what if she starts to take advantage of that and I have to pay more than my share of the bills?
One of my other options is that my mom's friend runs a business on the first floor of a building (that her mother-in-law owns), and she's moving the business. They are going to remodel and rent it out as an apartment. I can wait for them to remodel and then see if Iike the apartment. It will probably be a 1-bedroom, and my mom said that the rent will probably be cheap. The location is really good, too.
Decisions, decisions. I still find it odd to make all these life decisions without my husband.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Good/Bad
One of the bad things about living alone is that when I have a nightmare, I have no one to cuddle with until I fall asleep again.
But here's a good thing: I made baked tofu for supper last night, and I didn't have anyone roll their eyes at me for trying something new. (Also, no one to criticize when I accidentally burned it a little...)
But here's a good thing: I made baked tofu for supper last night, and I didn't have anyone roll their eyes at me for trying something new. (Also, no one to criticize when I accidentally burned it a little...)
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Reboot
This blog needs a reboot. I haven't written in two years??
First things first: (I'm imagining that I actually have readers...ha ha) My life has changed drastically in the last year. My husband passed away unexpectedly on June 23, 2011. I lived in our home for a few months, but I had to declare bankruptcy, give up the house, and move into an apartment. Besides the loneliness (and sometimes despair at having to live my life without my other half), I'm finding that my life has a lot of good things. I'm a lot more financially independent, and there are things that I really enjoy about living alone. I control the remote! I can have weekend-long x-files marathons, and I have a no-pants rule in my apartment. I still have my two cats, so they keep me company.
I'm still running, but that's something that also changed last year. I over-trained and got a stress fracture in my left foot. I took a verrrrry long time to recover, and truthfully I was afraid to start running again. But recently I completed a 3.4 mile run and finally felt like a runner again. I'm currently training for an 8k trail run.
I'm going to make this blog more about my daily life. I was searching for blogs about living alone, and I couldn't find any, so I thought that maybe there's a void that needs to be filled. There are some funny things about living alone, like having a Zoey Deschanel moment by making up a song about going to the kitchen for a glass of water.
First things first: (I'm imagining that I actually have readers...ha ha) My life has changed drastically in the last year. My husband passed away unexpectedly on June 23, 2011. I lived in our home for a few months, but I had to declare bankruptcy, give up the house, and move into an apartment. Besides the loneliness (and sometimes despair at having to live my life without my other half), I'm finding that my life has a lot of good things. I'm a lot more financially independent, and there are things that I really enjoy about living alone. I control the remote! I can have weekend-long x-files marathons, and I have a no-pants rule in my apartment. I still have my two cats, so they keep me company.
I'm still running, but that's something that also changed last year. I over-trained and got a stress fracture in my left foot. I took a verrrrry long time to recover, and truthfully I was afraid to start running again. But recently I completed a 3.4 mile run and finally felt like a runner again. I'm currently training for an 8k trail run.
I'm going to make this blog more about my daily life. I was searching for blogs about living alone, and I couldn't find any, so I thought that maybe there's a void that needs to be filled. There are some funny things about living alone, like having a Zoey Deschanel moment by making up a song about going to the kitchen for a glass of water.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Quick Note
I'm off to NYC in the morning! The hubby and I visited New York last year and loved it, so this time we're staying for a couple days! I hope to have a million wonderful pictures to share when I get back.
I had a great run with my sister this morning! Usually I'm struggling just to keep up with her, and she's encouraging me to keep trying. This morning, I was the one with more energy, and I was trying to encourage her. We both have good days and bad days, and I feel so lucky that I have her with me on my long runs.
Oh yeah, and I'm totally 80s today...
Friday, July 2, 2010
Still Here
Hi there! I'm still here. I'm taking a tiny break from running...I promise I'll start up again! I feel like I was starting to neglect other things in my life, and running was starting to feel like a chore, so I'm taking a little break.The holiday weekend is almost here, and I'm excited to say that I've got no plans! I want to hang out and enjoy the sunshine. I'll be running with my sister tomorrow morning, and I hope I can keep up with her! (Which reminds me, I owe a race report from last weekend...the short version is that we both rocked!)
What I'm most excited about is my upcoming mini-vacation. I'm going to New York City for three days with my husband and brother-in-law! I can't wait to set foot in the city that never sleeps. We visited for a day last year, and one day is just not enough! I'm most looking forward to Central Park (and trying to convince hubby to take pics of me jogging, lol) and the wax museum. I'll probably have lots of pics to share!
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Volunteering at a 10k Road Race
The Coal Cracker 10k is a local road race that's been going for 30 years now. When I found out the race date, I knew that I wasn't quite fit enough to run it, but I wanted to be involved somehow. I e-mailed the race director and asked if they needed any volunteers. He said that they could always use more help, so I showed up on race day and said, "How can I help?"
They gave me a stop watch and a couple 5-gallon water jugs (which they didn't think I was strong enough to carry, but I proved them wrong!). I manned a water stop at the 5k mark by myself. I didn't have a table, so I had to put the cups of water on my car. I filled the cups as quickly as I could and started handing them out as the fastest runners were going by less than 20 minutes after the start! I dropped a couple of the cups as I was handing them out. There's a skill to giving water to runners! Note to self: you spill a lot less as a runner if you take the cup with both hands.
It was a relatively small race, with 130 runners. The organizers were really happy with the turnout. It's not advertised that well, so it's mostly a community race, with a lot of the runners running it every year. The course is tough, with many grueling hills.
Let me tell you, it feels really good to have 100 people say thank you, one after another. I did the best that I could to make sure everyone who wanted water got a cup. There was one woman who was running toward me saying, "hurry, hurry!" She wasn't quite yelling at me. I think she was anxious to get the water, and she may have been telling herself to hurry.
The race director also ran the race (and got second place in his age division), and he even thanked me again while he ran through the water station. They wouldn't have had a water stop at the halfway point if I hadn't shown up. I'm really glad that I helped out.
After the race, they gave me a free t-shirt (is it bad luck to wear a shirt for a race that you didn't run?), and invited me to the "after party." They gave out trophies made of coal to the winners. They had a lot of awards to give! In addition to the usual age division awards, they gave an award to the 30th finisher (because it was the 30th anniversary of the race), the oldest and youngest finishers (age 77 and 18 respectively, I believe), the "Clydesdale division" winner (weighing over 190 pounds), and my personal favorite, the "clock stopper" award to the last finisher. There were two men there who ran the race every single year that it was held.
The race was sponsored by Mrs. T's pierogies, among other local companies. So each runner (and volunteer) got to eat pierogies after the race, and we were also offered beer and birch beer. It really felt like a run community event. It wasn't the type of race where people don't stick around if they didn't win an award. After the awards were given, people hung around and partied for a while.
I was thanked several times by a bunch of people, and they even joked that I should get a special award for helping out. They said that I was a lifesaver. I brushed it off and sid that I was happy to help. I didn't want any special recognition. I was just proud to be involved. It felt really good to help, and I have to admit that their thanks and compliments made me feel good about myself.
My sister and I have a goald of running the race next year. Part of me wants to volunteer again! I wish I could do both. The only thing I can think of is to try to recruit someone to help out at the water stations next year.
Although I do love running races, I can't wait to volunteer at one again!
They gave me a stop watch and a couple 5-gallon water jugs (which they didn't think I was strong enough to carry, but I proved them wrong!). I manned a water stop at the 5k mark by myself. I didn't have a table, so I had to put the cups of water on my car. I filled the cups as quickly as I could and started handing them out as the fastest runners were going by less than 20 minutes after the start! I dropped a couple of the cups as I was handing them out. There's a skill to giving water to runners! Note to self: you spill a lot less as a runner if you take the cup with both hands.
It was a relatively small race, with 130 runners. The organizers were really happy with the turnout. It's not advertised that well, so it's mostly a community race, with a lot of the runners running it every year. The course is tough, with many grueling hills.
Let me tell you, it feels really good to have 100 people say thank you, one after another. I did the best that I could to make sure everyone who wanted water got a cup. There was one woman who was running toward me saying, "hurry, hurry!" She wasn't quite yelling at me. I think she was anxious to get the water, and she may have been telling herself to hurry.
The race director also ran the race (and got second place in his age division), and he even thanked me again while he ran through the water station. They wouldn't have had a water stop at the halfway point if I hadn't shown up. I'm really glad that I helped out.
After the race, they gave me a free t-shirt (is it bad luck to wear a shirt for a race that you didn't run?), and invited me to the "after party." They gave out trophies made of coal to the winners. They had a lot of awards to give! In addition to the usual age division awards, they gave an award to the 30th finisher (because it was the 30th anniversary of the race), the oldest and youngest finishers (age 77 and 18 respectively, I believe), the "Clydesdale division" winner (weighing over 190 pounds), and my personal favorite, the "clock stopper" award to the last finisher. There were two men there who ran the race every single year that it was held.
The race was sponsored by Mrs. T's pierogies, among other local companies. So each runner (and volunteer) got to eat pierogies after the race, and we were also offered beer and birch beer. It really felt like a run community event. It wasn't the type of race where people don't stick around if they didn't win an award. After the awards were given, people hung around and partied for a while.
I was thanked several times by a bunch of people, and they even joked that I should get a special award for helping out. They said that I was a lifesaver. I brushed it off and sid that I was happy to help. I didn't want any special recognition. I was just proud to be involved. It felt really good to help, and I have to admit that their thanks and compliments made me feel good about myself.
My sister and I have a goald of running the race next year. Part of me wants to volunteer again! I wish I could do both. The only thing I can think of is to try to recruit someone to help out at the water stations next year.
Although I do love running races, I can't wait to volunteer at one again!
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