It's raining, it's pouring ...

We must be in Boone.

Yes indeedy!

Friday after work, I dropped Gatsby off at Suite Paws and then waited for Brian to come home. So, we set off around 6:15 and it was cold and rainy.

We stopped at the Cracker Barrel in Burlington for dinner and it was cold and rainy.

We got to Hickory and drove past our old house in Falling Creek and it was cold and rainy.

Saturday morning, we woke up and it was cold and rainy.

We drove to Boone and went to the game and it was cold and rainy.

We drove home to Raleigh Saturday night and it was cold and rainy.

We woke up this morning with nowhere to go and it was sunny and beautiful.

Go figure.

Despite the crummy weather, we had a FANTASTIC weekend! Saturday morning we went to breakfast at Cafe Gouda, which was awesome, per usual. Brian had Belgian waffles and mom, dad, and I had pumpkin-stuffed French toast. Everything was delicious!

Afterward, we headed up the mountain and stopped in to the bookstore to get a few things. Dad had to exchange out a cycling jersey for a different size, Brian wanted a hoodie, and mom and I were looking for hats to wear to keep the rain out of faces during the game.

We had lunch in the Yosef Club room catered by Panera Bread. Because it was so chilly and rainy, in addition to sandwiches they also had soup. Their broccoli and cheese soup is DELICIOUS.

The Yosef Club room was the perfect staging ground to get set for the game. Dad got us all these cool, see-through rain suits to keep our clothes dry:

You can't tell in the pictures, but they also have pants! We were very happy to have them and tons of people kept asking us where we got them.

The game was a good one and App. looked strong. They won 20-7 over Samford in a conference game. Yay, Apps!

There were two highlights of the game:

We were all garbed up in our waterproof gear and all of us had some tunnel vision going on with our hoods and hats. As we were walking in, mom, Brian, and I somehow got separated from my dad, but since we've had the same season ticket seats for the past FOUR seasons, mom, Brian, and I just kept moving along because we all knew where to go. We got to our seats and got our stuff settled and got comfy and enjoyed watching the team warmup. We chatted a bit and said hello to all our fellow fans. After a few minutes, mom and I started wondering where dad went. "Hmm...maybe he saw someone he knew?" So, after about 20 minutes, mom turned to me and started laughing so hard that she couldn't breathe:

Mom: "I know what happened to your dad."

Me: "What????"

Mom: "He's over there ------> in the wrong section."

Yup, dad rolled in and went to the wrong section and stood there for a good 20 minutes, never realizing that he was on the 30 yard line, rather than the 45 yard line where we usually sit (and have sat for the past 4 years)! It was absolutely hilarious. Even funnier was that dad was listening to his radio and mom had to stand there screaming at him for 45 seconds before he noticed her.

Dad said later that he couldn't figure out why in the world mom, Brian, and I were being such wusses and staying under the stands to be out of the rain. :-)

The second highlight was a PHENOMENAL play by Armanti Edwards to elude Samford's defense. Even if you don't like football, I think you can appreciate how cool this was:

http://www.vimeo.com/6772819

Go APP!

More photos from this weekend: http://picasaweb.google.com/lsleblanc82/AppVsSamford.

Weight Loss Update | Bye Bye Hair!

Things are going really well!!! As of Saturday, I've finally lost 50 lbs. (30 more to go)!

By the numbers:

I've gone from size 16/18 and 1X to size 9/10 and medium. (I've found that it's best for me to buy jeans in the juniors department because they have smaller hips and the height sizing fits better than petite. It SUCKS to be short!!) I actually bought a small, long sleeve App shirt last weekend, which was really, really exciting! (But, also kinda scares me...will there be clothes that fit me when I'm 30 lbs. lighter? Obviously, yes, but I've read some stuff about how much of a problem vanity sizing has become!)

I am really pleased with my progress in 8 months and I'm still as enthusiastic about it today as I was when I started.

I am 100% confident in my ability to meet my goal and maintain. I now know exactly what works for me and what I need to do.

Exercise-wise, I am still running. I'm usually running about 5K per run (3.1 miles). The fastest I've run is 10:58/mile for 3 miles. Once in my parents' neighborhood (at 5:20 a.m.!) and once in Hickory (at 7:15 a.m.!). It appears that I'm faster in the mornings! Probably because it's cooler and I've just woken up and haven't had too much going on to make me tired. My next goal is to get to 10 minutes/mile.

I'm planning to start P90X in October!

I haven't taken any pictures in my "standard outfit," but I do have a good picture of me, mom, and dad at the App/ECU game (and an old picture for comparison).

Before | In-Progress

***

And, finally, I chopped off all my hair yesterday, because I was totally over it.

Picture isn't the best, but you get the idea! So far, I love it!

The Great Computer Disaster of 2009

In the past two weeks, I've had the worst computer luck!

On Labor Day, I stood up and tripped over my computer cord, which was plugged into my laptop. It yanked the computer cord out and destroyed the power jack on the laptop.

When we got back to Knightdale, we took the computer to Best Buy to see if they could fix it. They were absolutely no help and told us that we needed a new motherboard (~$400-500) on a 2-year-old computer. (Heck no!)

So, I got online and found a place in Cary that could fix it for $149. I took it over there, they fixed in 2 days, and I picked it up last Monday.

Yay!

Last Wednesday, I set a cup of mango green tea down on our coffee table right in front of Gatsby, who promptly knocked it over and spilled it all over my computer.

Awesome.

So I dried it off and everything looked OK.

And then the keys started sticking and the screen turned all sorts of colors and it started beeping incessantly.

Not usually a good thing.

So, I pulled out the mini screwdrivers and started taking the thing apart. I dried everything off around the motherboard, rechecked all the connections, popped all the keys off, and checked a lot of other things.

Brian helped me check all the connections and we got the screen working again, but the computer wouldn't boot.

So, I pulled out the old laptop and took out its hard drive to see if it would fit into this one.

It wouldn't.

Through a lot of trial and error, we figured that the hard drive was working, but completely wiped clean. Decided to reinstall Windows to see if we could get it to work.

Put in the Vista CD. ("We're sorry, we can't find a copy of Windows on this hard drive and this is an upgrade, so we're not going to install. Haha, suckers.")

Put in the XP CD. ("We're sorry, we can't find a copy of Windows on this hard drive and this is an upgrade, so we're not going to install. We hate you and since you've already paid, we don't care.")

Put in a Windows 98 CD (from 3 computers ago). Finally got it to start to install and then the install corrupted, so I then put in the XP upgrade to see if that would work now that Windows was "sorta" on the drive. It did work and I got XP up and running.

But the wireless card wasn't found and there was no power to it.

So, I took the whole computer apart again. Checked all the connections and everything was connected, so we figured that the card was short circuited.

And then the screen started messing up again.

Clearly, there were still hardware issues.

So, I got mad (still pissed at Microsoft and their lame "upgrade" CDs), went to Best Buy, and bought a Mac.

Very, very pleased with the Mac! Will never buy a Microsoft OS again.

Computer Disaster '09: A Photo Montage

Gatsby

It's hard to believe, but he's now been living with us for a year!! This past year has flown by, but it's amazing to think about how far he's come.

The most noticeable difference is how much healthier he is. He had a yearly vet checkup on Saturday and weighed 22.5 lbs., which the vet said was perfect for him. He is completely up-to-date on all his vaccines and the vet was very impressed at how healthy he was.

Pic from last year | Pic from a few weeks ago

It's amazing what a difference 3 lbs. can make on a dog! His coat is very soft and shiny now!

Temperament-wise, he's still a bundle of energy and timid of men when he first meets them. However, he's calmed down considerably and is now very good when playing with other dogs. He's gone to Suite Paws three times and has played in the doggie daycare each time he was there. He's also played with some neighborhood dogs a few times. He LOVES going for rides and is much calmer in the car. Once we hit the highway, he lays down in the back pretty quickly and goes to sleep, but as soon as we stop or slow down at a stop light, he's up and sticking his head out the window to look around. :-)

I would estimate that he's 98 percent potty trained. He knows that he's supposed to go outside and he's good at telling us he has to go (even when we travel to mom and dad's house, he will go to the door to let us know that he wants to go out). It is very rare that he has an accident, but if he does, then we usually realize that it's our fault that we missed a cue from him or he's sick.

He probably jumps around too much and we'd like for him not to jump on people when they come to visit, but that's all stuff for year 2! We expect that he will continue to calm down as he grows up.

We adore him and spoil him entirely too much! We have the best time watching him play!

He's also ready for Halloween with his new t-shirt!

Sports

A brief rundown of our teams:

PEKers (our kickball team): 0-3 (including 1 forfeit and 1 OT loss)

Apps: 0-2

Panthers: 0-2

Browns: 0-2

Hurricanes: 0-1 (preseason)

In other words, our teams are batting .000.

Not so good! :-(

Although App has two losses, we've seen two really good games (one in Boone and one at ECU). We also saw the additions to the stadium in Boone, which are really impressive!

Pics from App @ ECU: http://picasaweb.google.com/lsleblanc82/AppAtECU

Pics from App vs. McNeese State: http://picasaweb.google.com/lsleblanc82/AppVsMcNeese

On Saturday, App plays Samford in Boone and Brian is going to the game with us! We're going to Hickory Friday night and staying at my nanny's house and then we'll be back in Raleigh Saturday night. I'm really looking forward to it!

It's hard to believe, but it's also time for preseason hockey and Brian is back to covering the Canes. He's doing a lot of cool stuff this season, including a weekly podcast (which starts Monday 9/21).

Be sure to check out his coverage at http://thebigtailgate.com/Canes-Coverage.aspx and you can follow him on Twitter: http://twitter.com/puckdrops.

Rhet/Comp @ NCSU

http://english.chass.ncsu.edu/graduate/ma/rhetcomp/rhetcomp_grads.php

Doesn't the chick at the top make you want to apply??

OF COURSE SHE DOES! ;-)