I guess that I should probably start updating sometime again…

Today my toe hurts.  It is hurting because I ran a half marathon on Saturday, proving that 245 pound guys can run, albeit slower than Kenyans. 

Hey everyone…I’m getting ready to study so I just want to do a quick little post.

This week wasn’t too bad…it was pretty busy though.  I won’t bore you with all the details though, since most of it was pretty blah. 

My workouts got sidelined this week when I hurt myself lifting weights.  I have been lifting off and on (mostly off the last few years) since I was 14 and I have never got hurt lifting.  Ok, I have twice before…once I had a dumbbell fall on my head and another time I got hit with a bar, but this is the first non-head injury.  I was doing bench press with 245 pounds and felt a sharp stabbing pain in my chest buy my arm pit.  I think that I strained my pec or had a micro-muscle tear.  It hurt most of Tuesday but hasn’t hurt since then.  I think that this coming Tuesday I will jingerly work my chest and see how it feels.  It really makes me sad, since I had been having such a good time lifting. 

Also to make things even better I have been sick with a cold.  That means that the cardio that I could do wasn’t as effective as it could be since I felt like crap and was hella conjested.  Thankfully the cold is slowly going away and all that I have to deal with now is conjestion. 

Amanda and I had been doing such a freakin’ awesome job eating in and this week that went all to hell.  We ate out every single day.  Hopefully we get back on track this coming week. 

Keeping up with the random themes of this post…

I also need to get some new music.  It seems like I haven’t added any new music to my iPod/iPhone in a month or two.  It’s about time to get something new, but it seems like it is kind of a lull in new music being released. 

I’m also in the middle of a drill weekend…that means that I’m going 12 days working straight.  Thankfully after next week I have 4 days in Phoenix at a conference and then I’ll be back on Friday to work.  Then Friday, Amanda and I leave for vacation.  I’m so excited…we need a vacation more than we have ever needed one.

Ok, that’s it, I really need to do a little bit of studying tonight.

Finally, sign up for Twitter people! 

Hello everyone, I am actually updating for the first time in well over a month.  I know that I have been MIA, but I have been darn busy lately.  I still have some blog presence but it is all on my twitter account.  Twitter has really came to the forefront for me because it’s so quick and easy.  Just 140 characters is all that you get and it only takes a few seconds to give an update.  It really is quite neat…but be warned the twitter world is still dominated by ad/marketing types but as it continues to go more mainstream there are more “regular” people out there. 

While, I haven’t been posting, I have been keeping up with everyone.  Sadly though, when I say keeping up it doesn’t mean that I have actively been participating with everyone.  I will read all my subscriptions every few days but I very rarely left a comment.  I guess there isn’t any good reason why I disappeared…but anyways, I should try to make a concerted effort to get back on here.  I don’t know how many times a day I think to myself “Man, I have to post that”…but unfortunately I don’t do anything with it.

Ok, so now the questions you have been wondering…where have I been?

Starting January 12th (curiously the first Monday after my last “real” post) I started going to the gym at 5:15am.  On January 10-11, I had drill and I decided that I needed to majorly get into shape.  I recruited DD and we started going every morning.  We lift weights three times a week and do cardio the other three times.  We have been pretty faithful to our routine with only one skip during this five week stretch, and that skip was due to 12″ of snow.  One other time we lifted in the evening instead of the morning.  It’s been nice to begin to see some results and slowly starting to get back into shape after letting myself go for pretty much the last year and a half.  I’m really looking forward to the next few months to see what happens.

As a result of the early morning workouts I have also started to go to bed earlier.  After the first week I have managed to get used to the early mornings and actually look forward to them on most days.  Every once inawhle I will wake up and have a hard time, but most days it’s no big deal.

I also started school a few weeks ago.  It was a week later than planned do to the big snow storm, but it has started.  It’s considered full-time but it is only one night a week.  So far, so good.  The first class hasn’t been that intense but I am making a concerted effort to stay ahead of the game and not get into trouble.  The entire course is about two years long, so my Wednesday nights will be a little occupied for the forseeable future!

I’m also now doing Big Brothers and Big Sisters.  I have a “little” that is 8 years old.  We started meeting about once a week after the first of the year.  We have done some fun things like going to a Pacers game, bowling, playing video games, and going to the movies.  Hopefully he is enjoying himself as well. 

So with that, you basically get what I have been up to in a nutshell.  Granted I have missed a lot of stuff but that should do for now…

In other news yesterday was Valentine’s Day.  We didn’t do anything special though.  We just kind of hung out throughout the day and in the evening we went to the casino.  It was crazily packed and we didn’t stay as late as we could have.  We ended up making it back home before midnight.  Thankfully she isn’t one of those girls that make a big deal out of V-Day.

Today is Amanda’s birthday.  We normally would go to a fancy restaurant, but she would rather eat a normal restaurant and use the difference to buy makeup.  She is funny like that…

I really need to start posting more…I’ve been such a crappy poster.

Tonight – Going to eat with friends.
Tomorrow – Snow, ice, and drill.  Presentation to the Brigade Commander.
Sunday – Drill and presentation to the Battalion Commander

Now – Amanda called and we have to leave. 

Ok, I just want to type a quick little post up before I go to sleep. I should probably get out my laptop to save some time, but that would mean that I would have to get out of bed and I am not going to do that.

Today we had our carpets cleaned. Overall our carpets were in good shape since we don’t wear our shoes in the house but we had some dog spots here and there. The guys did a good job on the carpet and of looks great. It’s still a little damp, so I hope that it dries tomorrow.

Speaking about tomorrow, we are having a couple people over, so that should be fun. Also the Colts are playing, so we should have a long day. It feels like a long time since we have had anyone over. I can’t even think of the last time.

Work was alright today.it really felt like Monday and not Friday, which was strange but good. It would be worse if it was the other way around.

Yesterday we bought a couple new plants. I an bit quite sure where I am going to put then yet. We have a few rooms that are conducive to plants, just am not sure.

Ok I am going to cut this off.

I’ve been planning a post-Christmas post detailing all the great gifts that my family gave me, but that has been pushed the wayside.  Yesterday though, I managed to use a couple of my gifts so that was fun…

Those of you that have been hanging around here know that I love to cook.  This year when I was making my Christmas list I asked for some cookbooks.  I’ve always just found recipes online, for better and worse.  Yesterday I took out the Christmas cookbooks and looked through them to find a tomato sauce and meatball recipe for our spaghetti.  I found a couple recipes that looked good in “The Joy of Cooking”.  The recipe turned out great.  I was really impressed how good it was (or maybe that was the bottle of wine I drank).  Even Amanda said that she liked it (and she didn’t drink any wine), so that alone says something. 

I’m so excited to go through the cookbooks and find recipes that I like and try them out.  Yeah, I’m kind of a strange kitchen geek. 

Oh, and I also used my new stick blender on the tomato sauce.  Just stuck the end in the pot while it was on the stove and within seconds my chunky tomato sauce was thick and yummy! 

No big plans for Amanda and I tonight (New Years Eve).  We have never been big NYE fans, we have never went to a NYE party or anything.  We’ll probably treat it like any other night.  Maybe go watch a movie or something.  We’ll probably drink some bubbly around midnight but we won’t go crazy…that is Saturday night.

I am looking forward to the day off tomorrow though!

I think that I’m also going to sneak out of work early today too!

Tomorrow I’ll try to put together an end of the year post as we close out on 2008.  This was a good year and it deserves a post and some related pictures.

Christmas reminds me a lot like all the preparations for a wedding.  Granted a wedding took a year to plan and it was a much larger affair I really have resigned myself into thinking that the Christmas holiday is the yearly equivalent of planning for a wedding.

For me the Christmas season kicks off the day after Thanksgiving.  It’s a day full of preparation and a big dinner.  For the wedding planning, it officially kicked off with the engagement.  There was lots of preparation and most people eat a big fancy dinner prior to popping the question. 

For the wedding there is TONS of things to prepare.  You have the rehearsal dinner, reception, the church, the officiate, the rings, the DJ, the list just goes on and on.  For Christmas you have to make lists, do all the shopping, prepare the dinners, wrap the gifts, this list also goes on and on.

For the wedding you have a budget that you have to stick to.  For Christmas most people seem to make some sort of budget.

It seems like while you are planning your wedding all your friends are getting married also.  During the Christmas season there are lots of little parties to attend.

For the wedding the day before you get married you typically have a rehearsal and a rehearsal dinner.  For Christmas you have Christmas Eve.  Lots of people have some type of gathering on Christmas Eve but it definitely isn’t the main event.

For the wedding you have the ‘big day’ and you get married and have a reception where you get to eat and socialize.  For Christmas you open presents and lots of times have a big dinner and then get to socialize. 

Then for both Christmas and the wedding the day is over and you feel kind of this empty pit in your stomach….

It is the day after Christmas and I am laying in bed not sleeping listening to some music. I really don’t think that I am going to go back to sleep even though I should.

We have one final Christmas gathering so I am starting to get sad thinking that this happy time of the year is almost over.

Today we are going to go to Amanda’s dads house. I think that it usually on Christmas Eve but this year they are doing it on the day after. We are supposed to get there at 8-9 but I doubt that Amanda will be up by then.

Christmas yesterday was really fun. Everyone had lots of gifts to open. I think that everyone received a lot of stuff off of their list. Everyone in Amanda’s family takes Christmas really seriously so everyone gets a ton of stuff for each other. I have been coming to Christmas here since 1999! I can’t believe it has been that long. I wonder what we are going to do when we have a kid?

The only thing that stinks about coming here (besides the drive) is that there is no 3G service so I am stuck with slow and spotty Internet. Oh well it isn’t that big of a deal.

Oh I am also taking today off of work. I hate using my vacation days for anything but vacation. It is the one thing that pisses me off about work. I am salaried and I technically shouldn’t have to take a vacation day to take a day off. Oh well in June I start getting four weeks of vacation a year. I figure that I will just use one week to just take random days off. Really I wish that we had PTO days.

Ok Xanga my pinkies are going numb from holding up my phone so I am going to go. Please excuse any typos.

It is early on Christmas morning and I cannot sleep. Ever since I was a little kid I have had trouble sleeping on Christmas Eve. I guess somethingd will never change.

I am writting this on my iPhone. I just bought an app that assists with blogging. So far it is much better than messing with safari.

That is it for now. I am going to try to get a little more sleep.

Merry Christmas everyone!