December!

My favorite month of the year is here! Not only is it the holidays...but the weather is PERFECT. At 10am, I'm still wearing a long-sleeved top and socks, because brrr! I think it's only about 78 today! (Hardy we are not over here.)

Last weekend was pretty amazing. which started off with this.,. 

Sharing the FB 'marque' with a Kardashian...but smashing her measly 12k to my 65k. (Okay, FINE. So it was really about Dolly Parton & Miley Cyrus singing 'Jolene' acapella with the Pentatonix s, but it was still a thrill for me to see my name there...because the 'Jolene's' of the world just don't get any respect or love.

On Friday evening, we attended the opening night of a play Rich has helped co-produce, followed by an after party of appetizers with the cast, crew and guests.

The next morning, while I went ugly Christmas sweater shopping for a party we have this week, Rich and Ryan got to join some friends on a private, chartered (birthday) duck boat tour! And they even got to see dolphins swim alongside them once they left the harbor!

From there, we headed to the beach in the afternoon to meet up with friends who we haven't seen in a weeks, and miss a lot! We joined them after that for dinner and an outdoor movie, which made for a relaxing, but long day.

The gorgeous, unfiltered sunset from a few nights ago.

I was semi-successful in my sweater search and found a couple of great options for Rich, but this one, by far, is my favorite!

On Sunday morning, I was dragging from two back to back late nights (because remember, granny is usually in bed by 9), but I still forced myself out the door and ran a half marathon by myself. It wasn't pretty, but it was the first one I've done in months, and one of just a tiny handful I've done this year. So I'll take it was a win.

Once I finished some yard work and a shower, I dragged Ry with me on a four-hour Christmas shopping adventure before I came home and cooked dinner for my parent's/neighbor's very belated birthday dinner.

I think partly because our weekend was so busy, and partly because I found out I have to cancel working one day at school to fly to Oahu for a medical issue, I found myself really wanting to run off some stress yesterday. So even though I'd run on Sun & Mon, and knew I'd be running Wednesday, instead of resting as I'd planned, I ran one of my fastest miles on Tuesday.

Disclaimer: it was cool, it was a net downhill of about 600 feet, and I was jacked up on caffeine. I'm pretty sure there had to have been a strong tailwind as well...because I ran my fastest miles in years. Last night. I ran 9:04 minute miles for 5.5 miles. I've run faster only once- a 5k (26:08, or about 8:40 min/miles) that I trained for over 6-8 weeks back in 2014. So to pull this run off was a huge surprise and a much appreciated reminder that this 'ol bag 'o bones can still get her butt in gear from time to time (that's twice in 42 years in case you're not counting).

I'm enjoying my final day off tomorrow until I go back to work for a week on Friday. But I'm also excited to go to bed tonight since I hit the library with Ryan today and just picked up five new books! This is a grown up nerd's idea of heaven, I got no shame in my game. :-)