Why I Love the Red Sox

There is really only one reason that I cheer for the Red Sox every year.  It's not because I think Boston is an insanely cool city.  It's not because my aunt, uncle, and cousin live there.  Nope...its all for one reason.  This guy:

I was so happy that the Red Sox won the world series.  I knew that my friend Paul, a HUGE Red Sox fan and Bostonian, would be watching the game.  He'd be jumping up and down, cheering, yelling, crying tears of joy and excitement.  But he'd be doing all of that from Heaven.

Paul was an amazing friend.  I have so many memories of Paul, he was one of the most genuinely nice people I've ever known.  What the world really needs is more Pauls. 

Paul was killed in a car accident over Memorial Day weekend, a few days after I graduated from college. He lived in Boston and was killed while riding in a taxi on his way home one night.  The car that hit him was a stolen SUV being pursued by the police through a residential neighborhood. 

I can barely look at these pictures of him.  He was an incredible singer and fronted a band in Boston called TheMark.  It's been several years, but I still can't listen to their songs.  I can cheer for his favorite team though.  Go Red Sox!  That win was for you, Paul.

Another weekend come and gone...

Fall is in full swing around here and I am loving it.  The trees in Minneapolis are stunning this time of year, which tends to make my iPhone full of nothing but tree pictures.  I'm not complaining.  We had a really gorgeous weekend, the weather was perfect- sunny and cool but not cold.  I started out the weekend teaching yoga on Friday after work, it was a low-key class with a couple of laughs and a lot of gratitude. 

Saturday morning was spent at the gym getting in a good workout before a day of football watching and beer drinking.  We headed over to NE Minneapolis to check out Dangerous Man brewery and 612 brewery.  Both were cool places to hang out.  We caught the Gopher game at Dangerous Man and the start of the Notre Dame game at 612.  The beer was good both places, though I preferred 612.

On Sunday morning I had the pleasure of teaching yoga to 5 students, including Kelly, Madison, and my college friend Katie.  We had a nice little brunch after the class, which I really am finding is the perfect way to spend a Sunday.

                 

Sunday afternoon was spent cooking up some food for a family dinner that night and being lazy around the house.

Also, this isn't technically from the weekend, but Shay loves the fall weather too!

Big Friday and Sleepy Weekend

Every couple of month of work, we put on a big program for families of the teenage patients we have.  Usually both parents come and any siblings that can make it.  They are there all day, from 7-4:30 doing an intensive therapy/education day with their teen...as you can imagine, it is quite stressful and tense for everyone.  I'll give you one guess who is in charge of representing the OT department and who gets to plan and present to the families? Thats right, me.  This day happened to be on Friday, which made for an incredibly early morning.  I felt like a nervous wreck all day even though I've done this program 3 times now...you just never know how the parents will respond.  I always fear they are going to just glare at me from their chairs and not ask any questions.  Fortunately, I had a lot of parents (mostly dads) who participated a lot in the conversation.  I had one dad come up to me afterward and say how helpful it was, which made me feel much better.  I'm hoping it was helpful for more than just one dad,  but no one would have had a chance to tell me because I had to book it out of there FAST to make it to my yoga studio for my first Yin class!!

I got to the studio and fully expected no one to show up, but I had 3 students! Not bad for it being the first time this class was offered.  It can be so hard to read the students and know whether they like the class or not.  For some reason, people like to make an angry face while they do yoga.  I know that it's really them concentrating, but they look frowny.  Next time you take a yoga class, try to smile for the teacher if you like the class!  Anyway, everyone said the class was good and they wished it was longer, so that's a good sign.  Come to my class if you are in Minneapolis, I will give you details if you leave a comment!

As you can imagine, I basically crashed on Friday night.  Except that I couldn't sleep at all.  And then I had to work Saturday and Sunday, not really sleeping on Saturday night either.  Does anyone else ever get so exhausted that you can't sleep?  I think that is what happened.  I didn't do anything social this weekend since I was at work/trying to sleep. The good news is that I don't work another weekend until December!  So crazy!  I am not ready for winter yet!!

Lovely Weekend

I had a nice little weekend at home.  Friday night, we just stayed in and watched a movie- Life of Pi.  I am such a sucker for animal movies and this was no different.

I went to the gym on Saturday and am still sore from lifting weights, I guess it had been awhile!  Mark and I went to the Summit Brewery for a tour in the afternoon.  We sampled a couple of their beers after the tour, which was a little long in my opinion.  Let's be honest, we were really just interested in the samples!  It was interesting to see though, especially since I had never been.

We headed further into St. Paul to grab a bite to eat at Cosetta, which was great!  I can't believe I had never been there before!

We decided to continue with the beer theme for the rest of the day and headed to Fulton.  We each sampled a beer there, then got a growler of Lonely Blonde to take home.  Our growler collection is growing steadily, we need more shelving actually!

Sunday morning was so much fun!  I taught yoga in the morning and 3 of my best friends came to the class!  In addition to the other 7 students there, it was the largest class I've had at the studio!  After yoga, another friend joined us and we walked down the street to Sun Street Breads for brunch.  It was great to hang out and plan a bunch of fun holiday stuff together!

Sunday afternoon was pretty relaxed.  I did my Bible study and made chili.  We spend Sunday evening watching TV on the couch.  It was just what I needed because I have a big week ahead of me, and it doesn't stop until next Monday!  Lets just fast forward, ok....?

Weekend in Duluth

When I was told that I couldn't run the marathon, I knew that I would not want to be in town for the race.  Call it dramatic, but until you have put in months of training, spent lots of money on registration and new shoes, and given up every Saturday of the summer to a long run, only to be told that you can't run the race, you don't really know how disappointing/heartbreaking it is.   Not to mention that I tend to be a perfectionist, and being told that I won't reach my goal makes me instantly feel like a failure.  So yeah, getting out of town for a weekend up north with my husband and dog sounded like the right thing to do.  We packed up the car on Saturday morning and started driving into the progressively colder and rainier weather.

It was pouring rain when we got to Duluth, so instead of the hike we planned on, we decided we'd drive up the North Shore for lunch.  Apparently Lake Superior has turned PINK!  I read online that it turned this color after the flooding last year , but I didn't realize it was still like this!

We stopped at the New Scenic Cafe for lunch, which is a must-do if you are in the area.  We continued up the road to Two Harbors to get some pie from Betty's Pies to have later.  

We didn't get to our hotel until about 4, but once we settled in and got Shay situated, we headed across the street to Canal Park Brewery to sample some of the new beers being made in Duluth.  We really liked several of them and ended up buying a growler for our growing growler collection.

We had planned to go out to dinner, but we felt bad leaving Shay in the hotel and the weather was so miserable, so we just picked up a pizza from one of the nearby restaurants and enjoyed it in our hotel room while watching the Notre Dame football game.

The next morning was cloudy and cold, but there was no rain, so we took advantage of it and went for a nice long walk in Canal Park.

Since we were in no hurry, we took the scenic route home through Wisconsin, and I was so glad we did because the fall colors were AMAZING!

The pictures don't do the colors justice AT ALL.  It was really gorgeous and such a nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon looking at all the trees.

Even though the weather was pretty terrible, we still had a great time!  I admit that Sunday was a little hard for me knowing that the marathon was going on, but the pretty drive did a nice job distracting me!

I'm private!

Thanks to all of those who commented on my last post and asked to be added to my list of subscribers now that I went private.  I just made the switch, but I am not 100% sure that I did it correctly!  Can you comment on this and let me know you can read it?

Other than all that privacy stuff, I had a nice weekend in Duluth that I can't wait to write about!  As some of you know, I was supposed to be running the marathon yesterday and clearly that didn't happen.  That's why we left town- being around for the race would have been pretty hard for me and I didn't want to put myself through that.  Congrats to everyone who did run though!  It's been hard for me to be happy for all the runners, but I am proud of how I handled it overall.

Check back later for a weekend recap about Duluth!

Privacy, please!

Ok, Ok...I know you are all missing me dearly.  No, I haven't dropped off the face of the earth.  And no, I'm not harboring some big secret that is making me avoid my blog.  What is really going on is that I started getting uncomfortable with certain people in my actual life being able to read my daily thoughts.  I've learned that I want to be able to write whatever I want to write and not have to have a conversation about it later.  That's all I'm saying about that.

What I plan to do is make my blog private.  I realize that means I won't accumulate any more readers, but the 40 of you reading it now are enough for me!  I will add those of you whose email I can locate, but please comment on this anyway and tell me that you want to be added- then I won't miss anyone.

I'll give it a few days before going private so you all have time to jump on this bandwagon.

Thanks everyone!