Funny Times, Funny Signs

So happy that Blogger came back, but even happier when this unfinished blog was still ready for me to read over and add some pictures! Hooray...
Anyway, I keep forgetting to remember, my favorite part of the 1/2 Marathon was the signs and the people along the way! I wish I could have taken pictures of some of it but I will do my best to re-create the run through the sideshow!

First, as I said before I started with my brother! As we crossed the start line to the left there were tons of people wearing dark gray shirts that said Baker, in orange! I of course knew that they were there to cheer me on specifically, Go BU! I saw them a few times and I actually think someone with the last name Baker was running near me, but it was fun!

Along the first part of the run lots of people had noise makers and were yelling go runners! It had me thinking, were they yelling that specifically at the people running or did the people walking (in my way!) get pleasure from the runner yell? Anyway it was nice to start with people yelling at you!

The first water station I bypassed, but the water people were really excited. One had a serious coach voice and it took me straight back to high school basketball. I think I ran really hard for at least a half mile after he yelled. He was so good I wanted to take him along and just have him yell when I was feeling bored or distracted!
For the first few miles the signs were mostly directed at individual people. One girl spotted the person she had a sign for and started yelling about the time I came up near the curb. I mentioned to her that the sign was upside-down. I mean if you spend the effort to make a specific sign I would at least want someone to tell me I was holding it wrong! She thanked me and went on yelling.
"Run Kelly, we are so proud of you" only it was upside-down, much funnier!
All of this is through downtown, but neighborhoods are when it got fun, well if torture is your idea of fun! These people were just lounging in their front yards with mimosas and martinis nicely stationed on tables in the front yard. I mean if you can't leave your house for a few hours on a Saturday morning why not torture the people who are keeping you locked in?!
One of these houses was not like the others, it looked like an off campus frat house or something very much similar. I hope that gives you an idea, they had a broken window upstairs and the porch was in disrepair. They were drinking cheap beer not the requisite champagne on ice in the silver bucket. Again I hope you get the idea. This house had one of my favorites:
"Brett and Todd stop running and fix our house." stapled to a tree, and written on a box.
At the end of this street, when we turned left there were a few people holding signs pointing right, this was getting toward half way for the 1/2ers and as if we had not just come out of torture central with the mimosas this sign said free beer. (it was pointing the wrong way, but I genuinely think there was beer the other way people were asking serious questions)
Then we went toward a very narrow street and funny signs started popping up everywhere! It was time to get a laugh at the expense of these people who have chosen to run for an entire morning. I guess the spectators knew we did not need encouragement at the point, we were well aware of the crazy nature of what we were doing, we needed humor (or booze).
"It was really early when I got up this morning and made this sign too!"
"I don't do marathons, I do a marathon runner." This was a t-shirt but still made me laugh!
"Chaffe now, care later"
"Feel the chaffe"
"Bill, puke here" Gift bag attached to this one
"Hurry up my legs hurt"
"Should I be worried about what is chasing all you people?" There were a few with different variations of this idea.
"It was hard making this sign too"
"Free High 5s" And lots of people just hanging out willing to high five runners along the way!
 A few of the signs had the priceless theme:
"Race entry- $95
Running Shoes $95
Pride- Priceless" Again there were a few variations on the theme!

There was also a pretty intense hill about this point. I say intense in relation to how many people stopped running right in front of me and killed my hill mojo! This is the only time I have been thankful that my neighborhood is so hilly! The people along this hill were giving us distance to the top and encouragement, and there was another coach voice that caught my attention, as if I were not trying hard enough to get up the hill already!
"This hill is as bad as it seems, accept the suck"
More Chaffe related signs here, I guess they knew the beginning was not the place for chaffe signs!
As I said before the personal signs seemed to be more toward the beginning, but here there were a few lots of "GO MOM, We are proud of you" 
"Run Forrest Run" I think that this was actually a personal sign and just funny coincidence that the most over done running joke was the same as his name!
At the top of this hill was a restaurant trying to attract people to come back later by handing out "free beer". There were lots of people drinking it too (I later found out Jeff was one of those people!) These were not little shots like the water stations, these were glasses of beer! I don't know how you would run and drink that much, I struggled with the bathroom cup sized water.
About the time I saw the 2nd Elvis (I did not see the running Elvis) there was a lady running in a veil in front of me with the t-shirt "This time next week I am running down the aisle" I hope she is running the right way!
The last person I really remember was Gator Lady! All of us had a different Gator Lady story, but she managed to catch everyone's attention.
Gator Lady should be easy to describe, a lady with an alligator. The gator was stuffed and on a leash and she was YELLING! I mean she would read someones shirt and then tell them to run hard they were almost there! My brother said she was telling people to run or she would let that gator chase them to the finish.

I would like to point out, although the brother has a much lower corral number he finished behind me! Hooray for turning 30 and finally beating my brother all in the same day!

I had so much fun with trying to remember all these signs I thought I would look at some more: this is hilarious! Just a bunch of signs, many of which I remember the same sentiment in Nashville. I like the last one posted there in particular, just me! And check out Kate's blog, she helped me remember some of the signs she thought were good and also blogged about the race.

What are some of the funny signs you have seen while running? I know some of the readers have finished more 1/2s and marathons and you have to have a favorite story!

Moving Forward Starts Here and Now

The following is a very lengthy account of the events that took place in the Western North Carolina area this past weekend. If you want the synopsis scroll to the final 2 paragraphs, they sum it up nicely in one sentence!
Thursday after school we started driving the direction of Knoxville. We went through a few towns that no longer exist, and Chattanooga got hit pretty hard by tornadoes as well. All this tornado action I have gotten in the last 2 weeks is almost overwhelming. You know sometimes how if you see something all the time it disappears? Well not this. I am emotional every time I see even a broken tree, and getting home and back has been a serious challenge. I feel like I am preggers I am so emotional lately, let me be clear I AM NOT WITH CHILD, just really emotional at all the destruction I have seen. We have seen all along the 65 corridor and now the 20 and 59 corridors as well, plus our nieghborhood. It is really incredible. Anyway. We got about 20 miles from Knoxville and stopped for the night. We looked at a few more places online and went to bed.
Side note: After I spend hours and hours looking for houses, making calls, scheduling appointments based on how far houses were from each other, mapping out 2 days of viewings I determined that The BF could take control this time. I honestly could not do the same thing again, I was taking calls during class the first time and with testing going on I can't have my phone even on much less answer calls. The BF took the opposite approach of me. He had looked at a few places, made calls to people who lived in the area, and decided we would just play by ear. I tried to warn him that these people do not answer calls they call back, and that many of the houses online are already rented. I would say around 80% of the houses are already rented or have an application. He thought oh this will not be that hard. Also we do not have GPS, so in my plan I had directions from house to house all lined up going from south to north based on the 2 days and the appointments were scheduled accordingly. Justin had no clue where anything was, and he has no internal compass so he gets really frustrated at me for constantly saying we are going the wrong direction.
Back to the story. We drove in Friday, and had an afternoon appointment. Checked into the hotel, got directions and went off to this and one other house close that we had the door code for. The first one he hated. It was an awkward layout but it had storage and space inside but little outside space. It was a duplex and I honestly think he was done when the car next door was a little beat up. I hate it but he is so brand oriented. The next one was in a cute little neighborhood, wood floors in the TINY living space, basement with man cave space and office space, the other half of the basement was storage and there was an outdoor storage building. Upstairs were 2 small bedrooms and a slightly larger master with a TINY half bath. The kitchen was tiny and there was a chandelier right in front of the glass doors to the deck. I think it would have been really awkward to put a table there, it was right in front of the door but if you didn't you would hit your head constantly. The BF of course loved it due to large deck, wood floors, and man cave. I was more hesitant due to TINY! The lady showing us the house did not give us a second to talk or anything she just stood there and somehow I talked him down seeing as this was only the second house we looked at and we were not really even sure we wanted to live in the area. The lady called later and said the other couple took the house. I was thankful, I think The BF was upset at that point. He had no other things scheduled so we made some calls and off we went to Weaverville, a town north of Asheville.
There we looked at a townhouse, brand new, great appliances and all the stuff people usually want. No storage, no parking, even smaller than the house, and it was a middle unit. It said fenced in yard, and there was no chance there was going to be a private fence, maybe all the houses in back would share a fence but Cricket can be a bitch when it comes to neighbors so that place was out. We really liked that town, there were lots of people out and walking parks all over ect. so we drove for a while looking for signs. We called on a few and most of them were no dogs, or only one bathroom.

We decided to go have dinner downtown Asheville and start fresh Saturday in Hendersonville.
Parked behind a place called the Thirsty Monk. Walked around a bit. A random dude dressed in a nun outfit ran across traffic into the thirsty monk... Just up the street was a traffic triangle around a park. In the park was a drum circle. There were lots random people just dancing in the park, kids playing hackey sack, and a guy with those sticks that have the tassels on the end, I am not sure the point of them. We walked around and listened for a while, it is kind of infectious the feeling of just move the body. Of course I was hungry and wanted to potty so we found the nearest place with drink specials listed outside, a place called Tall Gary's Cantina. I think the memo got crumbled on the way to the company that made the awning though. Outside it looked like some place called tallgarys and it was in that font that indicated Italian food. Anyway $2 Margaritas and top shelf tequila shots for $5. oh yeah and appetizers were $3. The server told us they are smaller portions than normal but holy cow we could have both only eaten the "smaller portion" appetizer and been full.
We went back to the hotel and I took a dip in the hot tub! I have been wanting a hot tub since last weekend when the hotel there advertised a pool and hot tub and they were closed. BOO I say.
Saturday we did a drive by of quite a few places. None of which The BF wanted to really look at, he had his reasons for all of them. He is much pickier about the neighborhood we will live in, I grew up in Checotah after all!

Then we moved to the south toward Hendersonville. He had chosen a townhouse in a neighborhood that we both though we would like. It is a gated community with lap pool so I was in for my tri training. We had to go in a talk to the sales team since we could not get in the gate alone. He told us there were no rental houses at the moment inside, but there were some for sale that he thought may rent. He showed us around, and clearly wanted us to buy a lot and start building a house. Forget the fact that we only have 2 weeks, but he did show us inside one of the houses for sale and despite the really 90's deco it was a really nice house. It had storage in the basement, 3 bedrooms with huge closets, a large eat in kitchen and large living/dining room. He said the main reason the house is still on the market is the carpet colors (teal and forest green) and the matching counter tops (teal!) No maintenance yard. Blah Blah The BF wants this house, it is $1300 a month. I tell him we will look for ways to budget that much but he will have to make sacrifices not just me. I knew this was going to happen, he is so predictable. Set a budget, and all along he kept saying I am not going to limit my looking to that budget but if a house offers something else and is more expensive I am going to look at it. Here he decided that the pool (which he will never see) and the guard gate (which will be a thorn in my side every time leaving you have to go through the gate) are worth $300. I really like this house as well, but am really hesitant. When The BF also hesitated I knew we were going to have to talk about it and sacrifice a lot to make it work.
We went to drive by another house. This one is a funny story, I called the guy who listed it on Craigs List and he literally spent more time talking me out of looking at the house then he did telling me about it. He insisted that the house was very rural and not really in Hendersonville. It is 4 miles from center of town, and the whole 4 miles there are houses, hoods, stores, and road leading to the highway. It did however sit on an acre and in front of a neighborhood with maybe 4 acre lots. Rural compared to Manhattan but downright booming metropolis compared to my definition of rural. We decided to go back and see this one inside if we don't take the other place. The bedrooms looked really little, but otherwise it looked nice. I later found out that it has no AC and although he plans on putting in a window unit I am not sure I want to spend that week long summer in agony from heat. The lot is shaded and all but I am hesitant since I have never experienced a summer where 90 is really the hottest it gets, and that is only for a few days. I don't know how to deal with this kind of summer yet!
We went to find a hotel and watch the Kentucky Derby. It was fine, we had 2 places we liked and knew we wanted to stay in Hendersonville. Pretty accomplished for 2 days and if he had to come back I was not going to make the trip. His standards are obviously much higher than mine so I am ok with that, and I know even though he may want to he will not get us in over our heads without serious consultation. He hates serious consultation!
I spent a few hours thinking about how to tell him if we take the house for $1300 that means no cable until I am working and we have paid off some of our debt, and managed to save 2 months bills: a minimum of 6 months and preferably the whole time we are in that house so we can save even more than that just in case! (PS if you are going to ask me to marry you, you will need some money saved up that I don't know about, I am glad he does not read my blog) 
Anyway we went to downtown Hendersonville and I am seriously in love. Asheville had all the shops like Mass St. in Lawrence: local coffee shops, bars, restaurants, breweries, random kitch shops, furniture... think Lawrence plus bums and homeless dog people. Are they really homeless I dont know, but you know the type with the random dogs. The BF talks to them all and tries to explain that he is not blowing them off, he really has no cash. All of this in his clean polo shirt while these people clearly could care less they just want money not the story.
Side story: When we were in London we stopped in a pub one afternoon in Kensington right off the high street. Harrods around the corner. He went out to smoke and I had noticed this lady walking back and forth with a stroller, but with the cover zipped on the opening like it was raining. She was the gypsy type.  He came in and asked me if I have any bills. I said for what, he started telling me some sob story and looked up to the window. There she was this lady, huddled under the awning and the stroller just hanging out in the sprinkling rain. I know I said the thing was zipped up but still you would at least put it under the awning if there were really a baby. He tells me he only has change in his pocket and I freak out. Do you know that some of that "change" is worth more than a dollar? I looked up at the lady and caught her eyes, she took off. The bar man at the point also asked if that lady was begging and called the police. The BF had given her about 8 pounds which at the time was $16, he is really compassionate, one of the main reasons I fell for him turns out to drive me crazy sometimes now!
So back to Asheville, I can see me getting really annoyed with bums but at the same time I like the artsy parts of the town.
Hendersonville has the old downtown, with courthouse square, all the local shops and restaurants although here it is a little more antiques than fair traded goods, but it is less touristy also. We had dinner at a pub: 2 beers, appetizer, dinner salad, and burger all for $25! I don't know about where you live but here we can not go to the local bar that has mediocre food and get a beer each and share an appetizer for that price, much less a really good burger and organic locally grown salad with fresh house made dressing.
I am totally sold! Every house we looked at has a snow shovel! The BF should be excited about that part, and I know I said I would never move somewhere that cold again, but all the locals say that you only have to shovel your driveway and the roads are cleared in a day. No one works that first day and then you just get to enjoy the views! And the views are incredible holy cow almost everywhere you can catch a really special view. Autumn is the season to be there I guess. All the B 'n B's have specials for fall already. You can't book less than 3 nights in many of them during that season. I am really excited for that.
Our server one night told us that we have never experienced 4 season living like we will there! That is exciting, and it makes winter more tolerable if you know that you get a spring and fall not just from cold to hot and back again!

Yesterday The BF got a call from his new boss and they decided to push the start date back 2 weeks. There are a few reasons, but mostly I think that The boss's house got hit by tornado as well and he has not gotten as much done as he wanted to before The BF started. He did find out that he will be getting a Ford Escape for his car. I had been thinking about them again, due to my not really car shopping, car shopping. It is down to a small SUV (Escape or Rav4) or a Subaru. I am actually leaning toward Subaru, but if I can buy that one when The BF's get the 50,000 miles on it that may be a better deal We will have to see how it drives, longest test drive ever!
As a result The BF turned down the $1300 house yesterday. I am glad, and I think it was the right decision. Now with 2 more weeks to look and find something more in the budget I think we will be happier. I think that no cable during football season is a serious enough trade off that he will really have to love a house to propose to me again that we do something that high!

I am hopeful still about getting a job there in a school. Hendersonville is a lot of retired people so they are paying for schools they are not using. The guy we talked to said his daughter is in 1st grade and last year they had 2 students over quota for student/teacher ratio in the whole grade. So a week into the year they hired a new teacher so they would have lower student/teacher ratios. That was really good news! There are 2 high schools in the immediate area and Asheville is really close, plus there are county schools all the way up the road. It sounds like a better situation than Alabama at the very least, which is something!

So we accomplished really nothing in the end, but we do have a narrowed down idea of where we want to be and we have realized that we are on a budget no matter how sure we are that I get a job due to our need to pay debt and save! I feel good about where we are right now.

Oh yeah and we learned that Clemson is closer than UT or UGA which we thought were the closest chances of seeing Auburn play in the next few years and AU plays Clemson in Clemson this season! The BF is happy and he has not been there for a game, double bonus!

May Day

Well I have hinted and even gone as far as saying this, but I have not made the official announcement yet. We are moving to Asheville, NC. There that part is done! Can we just leave already?

Well ok there is more to it than just speaking it into truth! First, due to the storms last week we had to postpone our house hunting trip by a week. We leave today after school to find a place and quite frankly for my first trip to Asheville. I had bags packed and all ready to head toward the east when we were blocked into our nieghborhood. Luckily everyone we had scheduled appointments with were very understanding of the dilemma and wished us well here before making the trip.
Our getting the house on the market in Cahaba Heights was also delayed by the storm (new story of my life, blame it on the storm)! We were supposed to have a realtor come look at the house the 27th as well but of course that could not happen. With the tree down in the backyard, the branches all over waiting to be picked up, and the tree that is cracking the ground out back just waiting for the next strong wind it is looking less and less promising that the house will be on the market before we head out. I know that I should not say this outloud but I really hope that the market in our neighborhood is still as vibrant as before. A large portion of the appeal of Cahaba Heights as a community are the mature trees and closeness to city. Unfortunately, the tree population took a serious down turn and the views are drastically different now that a week ago. Our house still has the features that made it appealing before for the most part, including the huge basement ready to be finished! Surely a realtor can market that right.

Tomorrow I will deliver on the funniest signs from the 1/2, I have been laughing about some of them for a while now on the drive. We are in Knoxville for the night, off the Asheville in the morning! Hopefully I will have a good update tomorrow night! Sleep tight. 

BirthMonth went out with a bang!

As I indicated in the last post birthmonth went out with a bang for me! I have been trying to post something for a few days now, but I can't seem to get my head around what to say. I am going to start with the 1/2 Marathon for now, and a short final list update!

So through all that happened on Wednesday April 27 I knew I still wanted to run the 1/2 Marathon and thank goodness I had that goal to keep my mind busy and not totally consumed by the chaos around me. I tried to talk The BF into going to Nashville Thursday and settling into a hotel so we would have power and we could try to get our minds clear, well my mind clear at least. We decided to stay in B-ham and luckily his parents got power that afternoon so I was able to get up for the Royal Wedding! (OK maybe that was a little bit of the reason I wanted to go to Nashville early!)
Luckily, my brother who ran the 1/2 with me was able to come spend the night with us and after a little side trip back to the neighborhood we headed north. Mind you we had no power at home, so we had no idea where the tornado had gone other than what we heard in the short bursts on radio in the car or from neighbors. I can attest that Tuscaloosa got the local and national press, and I know that it is bad there but I am not sure that they deserved all the attention. On our way up I-65 about Decatur we got hungry and pulled off the road. NIGHTMARE! There were 8 cars waiting for every gas pump at the first stop, and there were 3 gas stations right off the highway. We turned around and got right back on the road, about 40 miles later we tried a simliar turn with similar results. This time we decided to just go in and get some food and skip on the gas until later.
At Subway I wanted a pizza, but there is no pizza crusts; how about a wheat bread, no; this went on and finally we just went with the luck of the draw on bread. Meat was not as bad, but close. There were no chips in the station, people were wandering in asking any question you can imagine. It was the twilight zone in there. Randomly along the highway we ran into places where you could see tornadic or high speed winds that came through. Steel light poles just pretzled, debris caught in the barbs of fences, trees down, and again all sorts of damage to structures and landscape. Tuscaloosa got it bad, but if the highway is any indication of North Alabama it is as bad there!
When we got to Nashville we headed out to the expo to get our packets and meet our friends for dinner. We had a very delicious, slow, carb loaded plate each and went back to the hotel for bed.
Saturday morning came very early, but heck after the past few mornings I was totally prepared. With exception of the shuttle coming and leaving 15 minutes before we scheduled our pick-up the morning went off well. We showed up at the start line and the magnitude of the whole deal set in. Since the shuttle situation my running buddy had driven to the start herself, and in over 30,000 people I never saw sight of her. My brother and I checked our stuff and next hitch, I left my sunglasses in the bag. We headed back toward the start line with only a mile long detour through the porta-potty line. While in line we made a few great sightings, my favorite was Biggest Loser style weight loss man who was behind us. He had clearly been prepping for this race for at least a year, the skin on his legs was droopier than any post baby boobies I have ever seen. It bugs me that on the Biggest Loser you see the people when they are really fat with minimal clothes, but when they start getting thinner they clothe them more. I mean I get that you want people to think they are going to look great, and nothing is great about saggy skin but for the same reason people want to see bin Laden I want to see the sag!
Back to Nashville: Jeff and I started together, well we were in the same place. The second we crossed the start ine Jeff was gone. I was impressed with his pace and really hoped that he would be able to keep up the whole time. I will spare the dirty details of the whole race but I have to say I had a great time. I ran in and out of random conversations and was really encouraged by the people and signs along the way. The bands we ran into were fun, and it was just way more fun than I could ever imagined.
When I crossed the finish line my knees had started to hurt and I was so happy to be done, but man alive there are a lot of people running and then all of a sudden they are stopped. Inside the "secure area" there was food galore but I had to find another porta-potty! I had been running for over 2 hours and drinking water about every 3 miles. I know that most people would have sweated out all the water but I really had to potty.
The next step was finding everyone, and man was I glad that we decided on U as our family reunion letter. It was super close to the end and I was able to sit down sooner than if we had chosen almost any other letter! The BF was there with a hug and Happy Birthday! Oh yeah it is my 30th birthday, HURRAH!
While waiting on the others to finish I managed to get my shoes off and discover some serious blisters (which after a short run today are in serious hurt mode) but otherwise I was feeling good.
I spent most of the rest of the afternoon resting in bed, but we did have a really nice dinner in MidTown Nashville and went to a few local bars. It was all in all a great way to spend my 30th birthday!

In my last update on the list I feel a little guilty about some of the things, but I will go through them quickly!

22. Make a summer decision about work This is something I will need to change my focus to Asheville. We were planning a trip there for Wednesday, but after the tornado hit Cahaba Heights we were not able to make the trip, there are a few things that this last minute storm impacted!

21. Figure out a budget to get through the summer

18. Complete a puzzle This one I blame on the dogs. I got the puzzle out, set it up, worked on it, and came home from work to discover pieces eaten and scattered all over. Don't worry I still had fun with it, and I know sometimes I need to slow down and enjoy things other than TV (The purpose of this was to get me doing anything but watch TV and I have definitely accomplished the background meaning of the goal)

17. Wish an old friend Happy Birthday

15. Remind myself why I am doing these things.

14. Get the sewing machine out of the basement Well the machine is out, but it is not doing anything now. It is packed up and ready for the move. Half of and accomplishment again, the purpose this time not accomplished but the actual goal yes!

12. Spend the better part of a day cyber stalking all things Royal Wedding and prepare DVR

11. Call Scott

9. Start riding for Free Wheel I will do this, when I can get the bike out of the basement. I will do this!

8. Start graduation cards

7. Clear out and organize basement closet

6. Donate unwanted clothes/shoes This has a while new meaning! We are still going to have a garage sale, but hopefully we will be able to also donate things we are not moving to help people re-build their lives. We are going to have a better idea once we find a place in Asheville what furniture we can leave in B-ham for people who need it!

5. Enjoy Easter and celebrate the life I am living

4. Write rec letters for Tri Delta girls This is the only one I do not feel bad about. I fully intended to have resumes and all the stuff I would need from the girls, and only one has managed to get it together. Rec Letters not done, but grad cards are!?

2. Reflect on accomplishments in my first 30 years.

1. FINISH THE ROCK N ROLL HALF MARATHON. 




Don't worry I will continue to update the blog and I will do better with more moving details soon! We will hopefully know after this weekend what the plan is for the whole process! Wish us luck in NC Friday when we look at houses, and wish us luck in getting the house in Cahaba Heights on the market with all the stuff going on in the neighborhood.