HELL NO, HE WON'T GO!!!

Do you see a resemblance?

Sally Field playing Norma Rae, a textile worker who tried to unionize her mill, in the 1979 movie.

Gatsby LeBlanc, a dog who stayed at Suite Paws while his mommy and daddy went on vacation over Memorial Day who got mad that he had to eat out the Suite Paws issued food bowl and went on hunger strike.

Yes, that's right. Our little Gatsby did not eat ONE meal (though the peeps at SPs did hook him up with tons of treats) from Friday night to Tuesday night because he didn't like the metal food bowl. When Brian picked him up and brought him home, he came in and ate dinner like it was no problem.

Point taken, Gatsby LeBlanc. Next time you go to Suite Paws your blue bowl will go as well. 

Clearly Master LeBlanc has been taking lessons from his Aunt Callie who tried to launch a kindergarten insurrection in Mrs. Wofford's class at Clyde Campbell Elementary School when she refused to take the fluoride swish and had to be forcefully removed from the classroom when her teacher was fearful that all of the kindergartners would revolt and cavities would rule the planet.

Like his influential role model some 20 years before, Gatsby LeBlanc was removed from the Suite Paws premises before other doggies could be so dangerously influenced by his hunger strike.

IAMS and Purina One are most grateful.

And Aunt Callie hasn't swished since.

May has been good to the LeBlancs!

Ten years ago Brian and I graduated from high school (Brian's reunion is next weekend [super excited for a good opportunity to wear my hot blue dress!] and mine is in August).

My best friend Shannon, my good friend Mary (St. Stephens High School '00 valedictorian), and me after our high school graduation. I was ranked no. 8. Not that I remember or have my transcript upstairs in plastic covering or anything. Just sayin'.


Brian didn't have any digitized high school graduation pics. Don't worry...he looked just as silly as I did in those dumb robes.

Seven years ago I was fixin' to hop on a plane and head to France for 5 weeks:

Atop the Eiffel Tower. Realizing for the first time that I was homesick for a boy and not my parents. (Sorry mom and dad.)

Four years ago today, we were walking down the aisle at our cute little Oak Island chapel:

And then driving home the next day for Game 5 of the NHL Eastern Conference Finals.


This next picture wasn't taken in May, but here we are with the Stanley Cup one month later, right after we got back from our honeymoon (I'd show you a picture from our honeymoon, but someone dropped the camera during the lifeboat drill):

One year and 363 days ago we went from:

to:

I sure hope everything doesn't go to hell when our two year "Fit and Finish Warranty" expires Saturday.

And, one year and five days ago, my baby sister got married and Brian and I were both honored to be a part of it:

I hope all of our future Mays are this good!

Kick and Softballs

Another kickball season has come and gone and we doubled our success. Yes, sir! Last season, we had 1 win. This season, we had 2 wins!!!!!

Hahahahaha. So, we suck, but we had a great time and a fantastic team. A lot of our people are planning to come back next season (in the fall), so we're hoping that not having too much turnover will help us for season 3.

The last few games of the season, Coach Brian moved me from the outfield to the infield (second and third bases) and I really started enjoying playing defense. I made some good, solid plays (catching line drives and popflys) and now I'm really pumped for next season.

I also got better at kicking and did well at sacrificing myself to advance the boys who were already on base in front of me.

Brian also got a lot better. He had some great kicks and got on base quite a bit.

I got so into it that I bought some cleats! I found them at Target; they're actually for girls (they're black and pink) and were on clearance for $4.75!

So, all that kickball nonsuccess got in my blood and after a trip to the Frankie's Fun Park batting cages, my friend Adam convinced me to sign up to play on his coed softball team (also with the Town of Knightdale).

I became a proud member of Team Get Dirty, even though I'm scared of getting hit by the ball.

And tonight was our first game.

And I got hit by the ball.

On a ground ball in the shin, not too hard. And it hurt. Hurt really bad. But I didn't cry and I didn't die and I picked up the ball and threw it in and that was that (except my shin still hurts; really bad).

So, now I'm not quite so scared of the ball. In fact, I even caught a popup that made it to me in the outfield. I even surprised myself. In fact, after I caught it, I said "OH-MY-GOD-I-CAUGHT-IT!!!" :-) I'm such a lame girl.

My first at bat I hit it into the infield and got out running to first. My second at bat I struck out on foul balls. And my third at bat I got a base hit! And actually got cycled around on the bases to third! That was very exciting!!!

So my goals for softball are to continue improving my fielding and throwing speed. (After my popup catch, I dropped one that I shouldn't have.) I also want to improve my base running speed. Oh yeah, and I'm still keeping my goal of "Don't Die." I think that's the best one.

I'd also like to not get hit by the ball again, so I think I'll buy knee-high socks so that I'll look like a real softball player and the other teams will be so intimidated that they'll hit it away from me. ;-)

Sure, that will work.

MCM training officially started this past weekend with a six mile run. I also became a crazy person and agreed to do a 208-mile relay in the mountains of NC and VA with 11 other people in September. You can read about that race on my running blog.

That's pretty much my life.

Gatsby Dog!

Brian and I have always talked about how we wanted to find a good, spacious place to take Gatsby where he could run around off-leash. We can take him to a dog park and he does fine there, but he still gets a little intimidated by the other dogs, so we wanted a place where we could take him where he could run around solo. It also needed to be a place that's fenced in because he would definitely make a break for it if he saw a pepperoni truck drive by. :-)

So, when we started playing kickball, we realized that the field that we play on would be perfect as an impromptu, massive dog run. It's completely gated and usually pretty desolate on the weekends. (It's also not a super incredibly nice field, so it's not like we're taking him out at Knightdale High School or something.)

We took him this afternoon and he had the BEST time. He ran around so fast and played fetch with Brian. After about 20 minutes of crazy-fast running, he collapsed into the grass and just rolled around. It was too cute. He also drank a TON of water from this cool water bottle that we bought at REI last month.

We took a few pictures (http://picasaweb.google.com/lsleblanc82/GatsbyAtEWMS) and two good videos:






It was a fantastic Sunday afternoon!

Fleming's | Southern Ideal Home Show | Kickball

Friday night, Brian and I decided that we wanted to go out to a fancy schmancy dinner because we hadn't been on one as a date in a very long time and it's always fun to spoil yourselves! So, we decided to go to Fleming's (one of the new restaurants at Crabtree). It was VERY good. Though, honestly, I would have probably loved it no matter what because the hostess totally made my week when we got there. I was wearing my cute blue dress that I bought in New York with a half-sweater and my favorite heels. Anyways, the hostess was like "girl, you look beautiful. I just love that dress." And then said it again when we got to the table. She might be my most favorite person in the whole world this week. It was just such an unexpected compliment and totally made my night. The dress is kinda short, so I was feeling a little bit weird (I'm just not used to showing that much skin) and I annoyed poor Brian like 3 times before we left to make sure it looked OK.

So, anyway, the dinner was delicious. They served really good bread and I started with the Fleming's Salad (seasonal greens, candied walnuts, dried cranberries, tomatoes, and croutons with a lemon vinaigrette). My main entrée was a tuna mignon (cooked rare) served with a vinaigrette, halved cherry tomatoes, and three (yes, three) asparaguses. Brian had a prime ribeye and we split some parmesan peppercorn mashed potatoes (all sides are served à la carte). For dessert, we split the chocolate lava cake (rich chocolate cake with a molten chocolate center, served with vanilla ice cream and homemade whipped cream). So yummy. I very much love food. :-)

***

This afternoon, I went with Mike and Barb to the Southern Ideal Home Show at the State Fairgrounds.

I had a good time with them and we even saw Kevin's girlfriend Blair, who was wo-maning the TWC booth.

Other than that, I have to say that I was unimpressed. There were a ton of vendors, but I really didn't see anything new or exciting. There were some cool landscaping stands and some fun swinging hammock things, but everything else had all been done before.

And no one really had any good tips or ideas: it was mostly just here's our product and here's what it looks like installed. :-/

I think Mike and Barb got some good contacts on some different things that they want to do around their house and I wasn't really looking for anything specific, so maybe that's why I was unimpressed. However, I was looking for some cool ideas on landscaping the plant beds in our front yard, but there really wasn't a ton of that kinda stuff. Most of the outdoor stuff was on building patios. I also would have liked to see more cool organization stuff (closet and kitchen organizers, etc.), but there were only a couple booths on that and they were pretty weak.

Maybe I'm just more a fan of going to concept and idea homes to get ideas. Maybe I need the presentation inside the home to get the full effect!

This was the first time I'd ever been in any of the buildings at the fairgrounds (Dorton Arena, the Jim Graham Building, and the Exposition Center), so that was pretty cool.

Oh yeah and evidently I live in a utopia because it never even dawned on my that I might have to pay get in (I'm an idiot). Fortunately, Brian's parents spotted me $9. The sucky thing is that I had a ton of cash yesterday (from winning my March Madness bracket pool at work!), but used it all at the Teeter last night because I hate carrying cash!

***

We are playing kickball again with the Town of Knightdale. We have almost a completely different team (only 2 people from last season are back). I really like our team this time. Lots of really friendly people and we're all trying very hard. Bless our hearts.

Basically, we suck. We're 2-4 on the season at the halfway point. We may improve for the second half of the season, but if we don't, "oh well." It's fun and good exercise.

Thursday I caught a popfly in the outfield (catching popflys is actually more difficult than it seems). I'm pretty sure no one thought I'd catch it. Even the other team complimented me on the catch! It also was a damn good thing I caught it because there were two people on base who definitely would have scored! I also had a good kick to get on base. Yay, me.

New Running Blog!

Just a quick update to let y'all know that I started a new blog:

Runnin' Southern - http://runninsouthern.blogspot.com/

To my 4 readers on this blog: Don't worry! I'm still keeping this one going, but I'm hoping to not bore y'all to tears about running minutia. (If you want to be bored to tears, definitely subscribe to my other blog!)

I figure this way I can focus this blog on personal things going on in life and keep the new blog just for running.

I want to get more involved in the running blogging community and don't want those folks to have to filter through personal posts about Brian and I jetting off to the beach or to App. games.

Go big or go home!

That's what my sister told me when I solicited comments from my Twitter and Facebook friends a few weeks ago about the Marine Corps Marathon.

So, this morning, at 11:36, I went big (and stayed home): I am officially registered for the 35th Annual Marine Corps Marathon on 10/31/2010 and I am SO PUMPED about it. Dad and brother (-in-law) Clay are also registered!

Technically, registration wasn't supposed to start until noon, but because I'm a fantastically OCD fool about this kinda stuff, I knew when it opened early at 11:30! (I clicked that refresh button a lot!) While I was registering, I was e-mailing and texting Dad and Clay so that they could get their registrations in early.

The MCM had 30,000 spots open today (they've already filled other spots with military registration and other early qualifiers) and it does typically sell out, although it usually takes a week or so, so I wasn't really worried that we weren't going to get in, but we all wanted to make sure we got in as soon as possible. It's the 5th largest marathon in the country. More than 11,000 people had signed up by 8 p.m. tonight!

Twenty of the 26 miles are flat and nearly all of the hills are within the first 8 miles. Unfortunately, it ends going uphill, but I've heard that it's a short hill and that you're so pumped by the crowd that your adrenaline pulls you through.

The course starts in Arlington and hugs the Potomac River for a lot of it. It goes by the National Mall and hits up a lot of the major D.C. sites, ending at the Iwo Jima Memorial. Because it's run by the Marines, it has really good organization and the Marines staff the course and the aid stations, which is very cool. Official Course Map.

Each runner is also "trackable" with technology. Spectators can sign up for e-mail or text message alerts that track the start and finish times as well as each 5K during the race. There's also an online map that tracks runners in real-time on a course map. Very cool stuff!

I am so incredibly excited to have my first marathon as a big time one. I'm really looking forward to having a big crowd of spectators through a lot of the course. Hopefully the weather will be good. The average high is 63° and the average low is 44° for October 31, which is an ideal temperature range for running.

The three of us are using the same training schedule and it was created by running coach Jeff Galloway (a former member of the U.S. Olympic Track Team and a contributor to Runner's World). This is the same guy who created the half-marathon training schedule that I used and that worked wonderfully. It's not too time intensive: just two 3-4 mile runs during the week and then a long run on the weekend. As the training distances get closer to marathon distance, the longest runs are three weeks apart. Long (and HOT) runs will be as follows:

• July 10: 12 miles
• July 24: 14 miles
• Aug. 7: 17 miles
• Aug 28: 20 miles
• Sept. 18: 23 miles
• Oct. 9: 26 miles

Because I'll be looking at long runs (2-4 hours at a time) in the hottest part of the summer, I'm planning to get up early on those Saturday (or Sunday) mornings to get the runs in (starting at like 6 a.m.). There's no way I could get through those during the day and no one wants to wait around all day to run 20 miles at 7 p.m. on a Saturday night! :-) I'll then spend the rest of the day floating in the pool or laying on the beach (I'm thinking there's a good chance that we'll be on the coast of NC on July 10, July 24, Aug. 7, and Aug. 28; completely coincidental, of course)! I'll definitely be glad not to have any 20° training runs or roads completely covered in ice and snow!

My ultimate goal is to finish and, of course, stay injury free while training. But I'm thinking right now that my time goal is to finish in under 4:30. That would involve keeping the same pace that I kept in the half marathon, but I expect to be significantly stronger and more fit by October 31, so it should be doable. I'll definitely know more about reasonable pace goals by the end of the summer. (The MCM has a 14 minute/mile pace requirement, which shouldn't be a problem barring any major crises.)

So, that's it for now. It's definitely marathon fever in my little corner of the globe! :-)