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Wife. Web Developer. Kitty Momma. Runner. Singer. Triathlete. Shoe Collector. Blogger. View all posts by Lauren @ mostly i run →

nyc weekend

February 5, 2009UncategorizedtravelLauren @ mostly i run

Yes, it’s Thursday and I’m just now catching up from the weekend!

I went with a group of friends into New York City to celebrate two of their birthdays. We’re all friends from the chorale, thus a musical trip was in order!

We took the train in Friday night and were greeted with an amazing view from the hotel.

Then we met up with the rest of the gals, who had arrived earlier in the day. We enjoyed a great dinner at an Italian restaurant. I can’t remember the name, but it looked like this above my seat:

After a champagne toast back at the hotel, we called it a night. Well, we might have been toasting for a little while. It had gotten pretty late at that point!

We had to get moving kind of early on Saturday. We were going to the opera!

Part of our group bought tickets, but four of us opted for the $20 standing room only tickets. They went on sale at 10 a.m., so we went to the opera house after breakfast.

Yes, we had to stand for three hours, but we had an unobstructed view, it sounded great, and we saved $200!

I couldn’t take pictures in the opera house, but did sneak a couple of the light fixtures.

In the store:

And near our assigned standing place:

We had another great dinner after the show, followed by drinks at the hotel bar. And birthday cupcakes from Magnolia Bakery. Yum!

We started Sunday off with a delicious brunch.

And then wandered around the city until it was time to see Wicked!

What an amazing show. I highly recommend it!

We took a late train home so we had time for dinner after the matinee. We got to the restaurant just in time for the Super Bowl. None of us cared all that much, but I got to watch as I won the first quarter in my office pool!

For dessert, I got a Dark and Stormy float. If you didn’t know, a Dark and Stormy is rum and ginger beer. And delicious. They added rum raisin ice cream to make the float. Yum!

Then we grabbed our bags from the hotel, hopped in a cab, and headed to the train station.

Nice visiting you, NY!

weekly winners: short snowy week

February 1, 2009Uncategorizedweekly winnersLauren @ mostly i run

January 25-31, 2009

I’ll probably have a “Part II” Weekly Winners for this week coming in a few days. I had to draft this post ahead of time since I was (or still am!) out of town for the weekend.

I didn’t have much to pick from prior to Thursday night, but still wanted to share!

Snowing

The snow came down all day Tuesday, but didn’t amount to much. Wednesday we woke up to a sheet of ice and worked from home.

Melting

It was raining so I hurried and had to line this up from a bit too far away. Oh well, I’d rather have a dry camera!

Meadow

Our resident stray kitty. When she looked at me I didn’t have time to focus properly. I still love the look on her face!

Stay tuned for more once I have computer access again, and visit more Weekly Winners at SarcasticMom.com!

26.2 miles

January 29, 2009Uncategorizedrunning amuck, take it and runLauren @ mostly i run

OK, so it’s almost not Thursday anymore, but I still wanted to participate in Take it and Run Thursday over at the Runners’ Lounge. This week’s theme is the Marathon Explained.

What attracts us to marathons? Why do we run them?

Souvenir bracelet from my first marathon

Well, peer pressure eventually got me to sign up for my first (and so far, only) marathon! But that, of course, is not the only reason.

I liked the challenge. It was something really hard, but something that I could accomplish. With some pain, yes, but I crossed that finish line with a smile on my face.

It took a little while to be ready, but now I am officially signed up for another.

I decided to challenge myself a little more this time. I’ll be running a half marathon the day before!

Yes, I’m registered for the Goofy Challenge in 2010.

Uh, why was that again?

snowy strangeness

January 27, 2009UncategorizedweirdnessLauren @ mostly i run

I grew up on Long Island. We usually got snow during the winter, but it was rare to get more than a few inches at a time. Still, I was somewhat used to it.

Then I went to college in Western New York. Where it was not unusual for a foot of snow to drop in a couple of hours. And I learned how to shovel my car out from two feet of snow.

My husband grew up in Rochester, NY. Where children would stand on snow banks waiting for the bus. Where his mother still lives — and hires a snowplow driver for the winter to clear her driveway each snowfall.

Yet it wasn’t until we came to Maryland that we’ve noticed this behavior:

Whenever it is snowing, people stick up their wiper blades.

Why? To keep them from freezing to the windshield?

This afternoon, when I took the two-minute walk from my office building to our main office, I noticed that at least 25% of the cars in the parking lot had their wipers up.

Many of them had icicles forming on the wiper blades. That seems far more damaging than wipers freezing to the windshield. Warming up the car for a few minutes, while you scape the windows, would unfreeze them anyway.

I’d worry more that a sharp wind would slam the blades down, cracking the windshield!