I'm a rookie

So, hello! This morning I logged into Facebook and noticed a few links to friends' latest blog posts. I then spent about an hour and a half reading through various blogs. I've got to say, I know some pretty witty people. :) After reading about all the nifty stuff going on in other people's lives I sat and thought about what's going on in my own life. The past year has been pretty great. I figured I'd start my own blog, and so, this is my first post.

A quick list of things that make smile:

• sunshine
• my wonderful friends & family
• seeing Justin & Lucien cuddled up
• fair food
• summer time
• music i can sing to
• the amazing colors of fall
• HALLOWEEN!
• cheeses of all sorts
• driving with the windows down, the sunroof open, and the music blasting on a sunny day

I'll give you a quick rundown on me. I'm 26 and a happy wife to a wonderful husband. We don't have any munchkins, but we have a FANTASTIC black lab mix named Lucien. He's a handsome devil. ::wink:: I am a Miami transplant and have been living in Mattoon(middle of nowhere), IL since May 28, 2006. Last year hubby became a police officer with Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, IL. This summer I will be starting grad school at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale to become a Physician Assistant. I'm pretty stoked to get started. It was a long road getting all of my pre-req's completed and I'm so blessed to have gotten accepted into a program that only admits 30 students each year. <--- Feels good to know that someone thinks I'm qualified and up to the challenge! ::wink::

So, I have to report to school on May 27. Carbondale is about 2:15 south of Mattoon. The program requires one year of classroom/PBL instruction on campus in Carbondale and then 14 months at a hospital for the 2nd year of clinicals. This means that in two and a half months I'll be moving to Carbondale for year while husband remains in Mattoon to work. Depending on the work load, I'll hopefully be able to come home 1-2 times a month. According to current PA students, the program is pretty intense and there's not a lot of free time. Being away from Justin for such an extended period is going to be rough, but we've gotta do what we've gotta do. No point bi*ching about it. A year will be over before I know it (I HOPE!!).

On another note, I'm participating in a 1000 mile running challenge this year. Initially I thought this was a group challenge where the group had to *collectively* log 1000 miles over the space of a year. Yeah, I wasn't quite so excited when I realized that each *individual* has to log 1000 miles. Anyways, I'm already committed so I've been trying really hard to stay on schedule. I'll have to average 20 miles a week for 50 weeks of the year. Killer. I began running in May of 2008. I logged 413.8 miles in 2008 and 543.3 miles in 2009. You can see that my mileage goal for 2010 is a HUGE increase on previous annual totals! I'm trying not to freak out about the whole thing. One mile at a time, right? I'm currently at 171.9 and will be running 5 this evening.

I've been training on a treadmill since late November (we've had a really nasty winter) and I usually tune into Animal Planet to make it a little more bearable. :) This past Saturday was my first outdoor run in a while. The forecast looked fantastic, so I drove up to Lake of the Woods park in Mahomet to meet up with my TNT buddies. The day was perfect - it was sunny and bright, no clouds, about 40 degrees, and I was surrounded by other runners. PERFECT. Running is so much more enjoyable when you can look forward to seeing friends along the path. We did 10 miles. The IL half marathon in Champaign is less than 2 months away. It'll probably be my last event with my TNT buddies for a while since I'll be going down to school. We'll also be losing JG - she'll be moving to STL this summer. So, I'll be making the most of these Saturday morning runs for the next few months. I'll be sure to suggest breakfast after each long run. Cause honestly, what's better than stuffing your face after running 10 miles with close friends?!?!