It's Just Stuff Right?

The Late Night Call

Last Saturday I received a call late at night (while I was on my way home from a boat party - talk about a downer to ruin a good night!) from Public Storage saying that there had been an "incident" down at the facility and that I needed to come in as soon as possible to open my unit. And oh yeah, I was also told to make sure I brought a camera for insurance claims. :-O AHH!

Background

So backing up a bit, let me address why I have a storage unit. When I moved from Arizona back to California I went from a 3-bedroom house to a 1-bedroom apartment. While I didn't exactly take the entire house with me, I took a large majority of it. I actually got rid of a lot of clothes and books and crap when I moved, and then even more once I arrived in San Diego and unpacked .. but still, I had way more stuff than I had room for. Why? Um, I moved into a 500 sq-foot "modern" and "space-efficient" apartment. Do you have any idea how small 500 square feet is??

Moving Truck w/All My Belongings From AZ

Yeah, that's all my stuff.

The movers almost fainted when they saw my apartment!

My apartment has only one closet meaning things like a suitcase and vacuum have to share space with my clothes. Or well, in my case I decided to put my bigger two suitcases in storage and just keep the one I needed most frequently in my trunk. Yep, you got it. I drive around with a suitcase in my trunk! Ghetto!! Its much easier for me to keep it there where I have access to it than to have to drive 15 minutes to my storage unit whenever I need my suitcase to go on a trip. My apartment also has no swinging doors besides the front door. That's how small it is! The doors between the living room and bedroom, and bedroom and bathroom are frosted sliding doors. It looks kind of neat and modern, but honestly its a necessity over anything else.

Sliding Doors

View from bedroom to bathroom & living room

My "Dining Room"

Aka the stools by the kitchen counter

Living Room

I'm seriously the only apartment w/o a flatscreen! There are hook-ups behind the two pictures. The living room is so small you need one!

Bathroom Designed by a Man

Pedestal sink = no storage. There is nothing but a tiny medicine cabinet in the wall! Where are you supposed to put even a hair dryer?

What I Stood to Lose

Anyways, enough about my shoebox apartment. Back to all of my belongings that didn't fit into my apartment - there were a lot of things! And a wide variety of things to. Here is what I have in storage:

• Luggage
• Bookshelves & shelving units
• Wardrobe box of coats
• Wardrobe box of dresses
• Books & Old Textbooks
• Artwork I didn't have enough walls for anymore
• Dishes, small kitchen appliances, glassware, etc
• Blankets & Extra Bedding
• Two big tubs of Christmas decoration and all my childhood ornaments
• Files of work from previous jobs

Last Year When I Moved Into Public Storage

I have suitcases and a few other things in there now. Its almost full to the ceiling!

Okay I suppose in all honesty a lot of that stuff I don't really "need". Especially the wardrobe of coats. Growing up in California and then living in Arizona for 5 years I've had little need for coats in my life. Maybe one coat for chilly days in San Francisco or short trips to the east coast. I don't know why I have so many coats. I have a black pea coat, a black mid-length wool coat, a long grey wool coat, a tan belted wool coat, a few ski jackets.. I think that's it. Can't totally remember right now since I haven't seen that box in a year!! I've somehow collected a new coat every few years or so and since I rarely wear them they don't wear out. I'm also pretty boring when it comes to choosing styles so none of them look really outdated. (At least I hope so! I hope I'm not the girl with the ugly wool coat walking the streets of Manhattan!)

What I Realized

So prior to coming to asses the damage, I started doing a mental inventory of all the things I had in my storage unit. Things like the coats and dresses I would be very disappointed to lose, but didn't have a huge emotional attachment to. Other things like my books and childhood Christmas ornaments would really hurt me to throw out if they were ruined. I kept thinking over and over again about what it was that could have gotten wet in the unit and what I would do with it. Its not like I even have anywhere i could have taken the stuff to dry!

As I obsessed over all my stuff, I thought a few times to myself, wow, what bad luck I have. This sucks! What a crappy call to get late on a Saturday night! And then suddenly, it all fell into perspective. Of all the unexpected calls to get on a Saturday night, this really wasn't one of the worst ones. I could have heard that my apartment burned down, or worse yet that someone I loved was in the hospital or worse. Soon, I realized that if losing every thing in that storage until meant that I wouldn't instead get a call saying someone I love was sick or hurt, I'd take it!

I kept thinking about that the rest of the night, and then the next morning up until I drove there. I think poor David was on crisis support alert for me as we texted that morning, but by then I'd already come to peace with losing my stuff. I really had. I was sad to lose things with sentimental value, but I could deal with it.

At Public Storage

So the next morning I drove over to Public Storage to check things out. When I walked in I was instantly asked to sign something releasing Public Storage from any liability for my things being ruined. WTH? I was shocked for a minute and said how is this NOT your fault?? The lady at the counter told me that someone's storage unit on the second floor was overloaded with textbooks and the floor had collapsed taking a pipe out along the way. This whole incident was the "renters fault"! Or so she said. Um honestly, I can't possibly imagine how stacks of books made a floor collapse, but okay. Fire those structural engineers!

After grudgingly signing the paperwork I went over to look at my unit. The manager was there telling me how most likely it wouldn't be too bad since my unit was all the way down the hall from where most of the flooded water went. So we unlocked the unit and opened it and....

The Damage

As I started to open the door I seriously felt sick. Agreeing in my head that losing my stuff wasn't the worst thing in the world to happen is one thing, but to see all my stuff wet and ruined was another. BUT ... everything was fine! Oh my goodness ... I literally almost started crying. I had to compose myself. I was sooo relieved! I was afraid that from the front we might not see water damage in the back so one of the movers pulled some boxes out so I could see in the back. It was all fine!

Wow, did I feel blessed. I was prepared for the worst and nothing actually really happened. A part of me almost thinks that because I was able to have a good attitude about the whole scare, that I was spared. WHEW!

Deep breaths... deep breaths ...

I'm really not kidding when I say I was close to tears with relief. I can't believe how much these "things" mattered to me, but they did.

So we put everything back inside, I locked the unit back up and drove off. I was the happiest little girl ever! Suddenly all that stuff I was so ready to leave behind .. well it was mine again! Yay! My obscenely large collection of coats was intact! Ha!

So the moral of the story is .. I don't know. I was scared, I was angry, I felt like a victim, I moved past it, I realized what things are more important than physical belongings, and then in the end all of my belongings were fine!!!! For now! jk There better not be a fire down at that building... that's been one of my nightmares for a while now! Knock on wood for me! :o)

I Admit It, I'm a Twihard!

Yes, I'm obsessed with Twilight. How did this happen? I have NO idea!!

How It All Started

I can't totally remember how it all started. I think it was a month and a half ago when I was emailing/texting with my cousin Donna about me driving up to LA to visit. I think she asked what I was doing that night before I said nothing, watching Twilight on DVD. OMG .. suddenly intervention stepped in!

She insisted.. no TOTALLY insisted I not watch the movie but send it right back to Blockbuster and then read the books instead. I though oh, how silly. I can just watch the movie, and then read the books later right? NO. She was soo soo dead set on me not watching the movie before reading the book that I finally agreed and put the DVD back into its envelope, sealed it up, and dropped it in the mailbox. The next time I saw her she handed me a big bag of the four books in the series. HOLY MOLY they were big! Each book was 2 or 3 inches thick! I was really taken back. I'm a casual airport reader. I read some fiction, some business books, mostly magazines. The last time I sat down with a book that size was when I read War & Peace in high school! Oh wait, I never really read it and copied a paper off someone else! Sorry Dad! I knew you knew! Who cares now? I have two college degrees! See kids, cheating pays off! TOTALLY KIDDING!

Anyways, Donna gave me the books and I kind of forgot about them for a bit. Honestly I get so many magazines (Runner's World, Running Times, Time, Shape, Self, Pharma Executive, Medical Marketing & Media, dental magazines.. wow I'm a party!) and usually read those at the beach and I really don't read books as often. Mostly when I travel. So she asked a few times and I felt kind of bad saying no, I hadn't started then yet. Then, when I was packing for my trip to Paris to visit my mom I put the first book Twilight in my bag, added some magazines, and then added another book my friend Jenna gave me just in case Twilight wasn't all it was cracked up to be. I mean come on, vampires? Teen romance? *eye roll*

But I was wrong.. so wrong!! :o|

The Flight to Paris

I was flying from Phoenix to Charlotte and Charlotte to Paris. On the PHX - CLT I started to read Twilight about halfway through the flight. I never put it down! Seriously! I have major airplane ADHD too. I was lost in the story almost immediately. Its been years.. many years since I was in high school, but reading Bella's first encounter with Edward, and then all the times after that hoping he'd be in class, hoping she'd see him in the cafeteria, looking for his car in the parking lot.. oh wow, it brought back the memories. Both in high school and college I pined away after a guy, and 10-15 years later I'd almost forgot about it. But reading this book and hearing Bella's thoughts and it striking so clearly with my own personal memories.. well I was a goner! I was swooning over Edward myself before I was halfway through the book.

Not to say as you get older things get less exciting, but honestly I think they move faster. You don't spend months exchanging looks, glancing and looking away, going to school, hoping, waiting, etc the way you do when you're younger. We grow up, become more bold, get more confidence, and usually make some type of move if we're interested. But deep down inside all of us have to remember back when we were younger, unsure, shy... and totally enamored with someone we didn't know would ever talk to us, much less think would ever fall in love with us! (I least I hope everyone feels that way and *I* wasn't the only starry eyed 15 year old dreamer!)

So I read all the way to Charlotte, got on the flight to Paris, and read all the way to Paris. I then arrived in Paris at 630am the next day and attempted to keep going the next day without a blink of sleep. I was rudely awakened! Or should I say instantly sedated! Due to reading Twilight the whole way and not sleeping on the way to Paris I had horrible jet lag for 4 days in Paris! I was only there for 7 days! It was horrible!

So upon arriving in Paris I was then occupied with being on vacation, sightseeing, and catching up with family. But during the slow times, I thought about Twilight, and was dying to continue reading. Unfortunately I didn't bring the next book with me! So ... each time we passed a bookstore in Paris I asked if they had books in English. NO! :o( At one point we walked by a big bookstore and I saw the next book New Moon in French and honestly almost bought it. Um, my French is really sub par. It would have taken me weeks to read in French and translate/understand in my head.

Finally - I went home, and was able to start reading again. Halfway through reading New Moon I decided I really wanted to watch Twilight the movie to bring more vividness to what I'd pictured reading the book.

The Movie

So I watched the movie.

*crickets*

*crickets*

*crickets*

Wow, I was so disappointed. :o( I thought the movie was terrible. The acting wasn't that great (Kristen seemed so awkward, I didn't feel the chemistry), the special effects were horrendous (Edward running and jumping from one tree to another was on the King Kong movie level of prehistoric), and the meat of what makes you love Twilight and the love story it portrays and the appeal Edward draws was totally missed in the movie! In the book I felt the way Bella felt (I think) and felt anticipation, excitement, apprehension. In the movie.. I just watched an awkward girl and a guy with too much lipstick act oddly around each other and then suddenly kiss. :o( boo. Fail.

The Next Three Books

I was really disappointed by the movie and just wanted to go back to the books. I went back into reading the second book, but felt rushed just to get to the third. No spoilers I promise - but in the second book things weren't as I wanted, but I knew for there to be a third and fourth book they had to get there. So I just wanted to rush through and get to the next book!

So I finally finished the second book, then the third, and finally the fourth. I took to bringing the books to work with me and reading them at lunch. I swear the universe was against me the weeks that I suddenly would have lunch meetings 3 out of 5 days in the week. Usually I'm excited for those. Free food! Good food too! But at that point I saw the free lunch and some meeting as just time wasted that I could be using reading Twilight! YES! I was obsessed!

Life After Twilight

So finally a week ago I finished the last book Breaking Dawn. :o) Yay! I was happy with the way the series ended, but was sad that the series had ended. It was kind of like watching the series finale of Friends. I was happy how it worked out, but sad to let go.

I had heard mid-4 books that there was a 5th "book" in the works that had been abandoned and I could read that. It was an unfinished manuscript that had leaked showing the story from Edwards perspective. Oooh.. Edward.... sigh..

I was a little happier to hear there was more to come, but again, still sad to leave this fantasy world. Since finishing Twilight I hate to admit I think about the stories and books more than I'd like to admit. It still hits me as strange that a teenage vampire love story could appeal to me so much, but in a way I like that it has. I can't even think of the last story, show, movie, whatever that I have been so into. The books are great, its a great story and world, and I'm sooo happy that my cousin talked me into reading the books.

It strikes me as odd when I talk about Twilight and about half of the people I know suddenly stop and touch their heart and say, wow, its about as good as Harry Potter. Really? I've seen the first Harry Potter movie but that's it. I can't imagine the big appeal behind the books. I think with Twilight everyone can relate to their first love, or their first infatuation. What is it that is so great about Harry Potter?? I'm on the fence now about starting that series.. at least that one has so many books it will keep me entertained until 2010! But oh no! Who will read the stacks of Pharma Executive I have piling up?! haha.

Anyways, I love Twilight. Too much. For anyone who hasn't read Twilight, I wish they would.

Thank you Donna ... you've introduced me to a new addiction! Maybe I can finally get over marathon running now! haha jk.

Chills, Church, & Chili

Chills

I am currently training for the Marine Corps Marathon (10/29/09) with my favorite training/running partner David! This will be his first full marathon and I'm really excited that we will get to run it together! Last weekend we planned for an 8 mile run on Saturday. We ended up oversleeping a bit and decided to hit the beach soon after breakfast. We tossed around the choices of running later that afternoon or early the next morning. I always do my long runs on Saturdays and love getting them over with, so I talked David into doing our long run after lunch, after the beach. Oh what a mistake! Roasting in the sun for 2 1/2 hours left us totally dehydrated. Unfortunately neither of us realized this until halfway through our run.

David Marveling at My Hello Kitty Towel

Running in the late afternoon in the heat (~85F, not bad, but about 20 degrees higher than I'm used to running in the early morning) after sweating in the sun all afternoon was not a good choice. We both felt the effects and had strange heavy-headed headaches for the last half of the run. We powered through our 8 miles though (with some walking.. shh! don't judge) and agreed to try out a real ice bath when we got back to my place. We made a quick stop at the liquor store on the way home to pick up two bags of ice and some Gatorade and we were ready!

We dumped the ice in the tub and filled it with a few inches of cold water and were ready to soothe the soreness out of our muscles. We then added some Gatorade for electrolytes. No, I'm kidding, we drank the Gatorade. But back to the ice bath .... Um, have any of you sat in an ice bath before?? Well if so, hats off to you! Seriously! I stepped in and could barely stand the few moments my feet were in! I jumped back out and though crap! That hurt! I dipped my feet back in again and figured if I withstood the pain for a bit longer it would start to go away as my body adjusted. Um, nope! I had to step back out. My feet ached with pain and felt like there was an elephant stepping on each foot and crushing the life out of them.

Finally, I had an idea on how we could ice our shins but keep our poor sensitive feet out of the ice cold water. I found that if I kneeled in the water I could lift my feet back out behind me. The ice didn't hurt my shins like it hurt my feet, and the death bath, I mean ice bath was bearable that way. So we both kneeled in the ice, feet kicked back and up. Let me tell you, its pretty awkward to kneel in a tub of ice with your feet angled up and out of the water behind you, but hey - I do yoga. I can hold an awkward pose! About five minutes into the icing I had the bright idea that I could distract myself by reading more of the 2nd Twilight book. I started to engross myself back into the love that is Edward Cullen the vampire (sigh....) when David asked me to read aloud to him to distract him as well. So yes, two people kneeling in ice, with one reading Twilight out loud to the other. What a freakshow we were! Not sure I want to try an ice bath again anytime soon, but maybe if I do it will be less and less painful each time. One can hope!

Church

On Sunday David and I went to check out a church downtown San Diego. Yes, at the ripe age of 31 I've finally decided to try attending church on a regular basis. The first one I went to a couple weeks ago was really not up my alley. It was very doom and gloom and oddly political. The talk of the world ending due to moral decline and blaming part of our country's problems on "Obama not being friends with Israel" was way too much for me. I'm a Joel Osteen kind of girl. Learn to live a better life. Be positive. Do good. I like messages like that. Doom and gloom and fear? Not my bag.

Anyways, this church we went to last weekend wasn't political, but it felt wrong to me in its own way. Instead of the pastor there was a guest speaker, a lawyer. And he was angry! Very angry! Not being a church goer growing up, I really anticipated church to be a positive, growing place, not somewhere I should feel fearful and guilty as I did after the past two churches. This speaker gave an hour long presentation about how the media is attacking the Bible and faith by questioning the timeline and story that is told. The man presenting was very angry and gave example after example about how the media is trying to ruin faith. I wasn't quite sure what to think about his presentation, and wondered several times how they found him and if this church really aligned with his message and sentiment. I left this second church a bit disappointed again as I did last week. But oh well, the search will continue.

Chili

David was pretty excited that the Home Run Derby that was going on Monday night, and the All-Star game on Tuesday night. I'm not a big baseball fan myself but thought I'd try to get into the excitement by cooking a baseball themed dinner. Hot dogs were number one on the menu of course, and number two was chili! I love chili! Beans, meat, spices... you can't go wrong! I found a recipe online for a simple chili, substituted the ground beef with low-fat ground turkey, and also cooked some low-fat turkey dogs to go with them. Chili turkey dog home run derby night! I think it was quite a success! David did too, even with my low-fat substitutions! Hey, at least I didn't try to slip him a tofu dog! (That's what she said! Okay sorry, poor fit for that joke.. Sorry Michael Scott for not doing that justice.)

The Dogs Boiling

The Buns Grilling

The Chili Cooking

(Yes, that is a wok that my chili is cooking in. I need a Crock Pot! Christmas is only 5 months away! Don't forget to put it on your list for me!!)

The Finished Product

So one of the many great things about chili is that cooking a pot of chili for two people means you have plenty of leftovers. The All-Star game the following night became leftover chili night. It was just as good as the night before. I love chili!

Nothing else we did last week started with "ch" and fit with my title, so you won't get to hear about it. :o) Sorry! Well ...... fine, you dragged it out of me! We also went to the dog park! Actually if I use the French word for dog it fits my title - "chien!" It was a hot weekend and my poor little furballs were pretty tired, but they still had fun. Here are some pictures from that trip.

Mika Shoving Her Way into a Picture

My Girls Following Me Around in the Park

Mika & David Taking a Time-Out

Great weekend, lots of fun. Until next time!

15K for the 4th of J

This 4th of July I did what I did last year - I ran the Coronado Independence Day 15k!

I think the 15K is my new favorite race distance! Its a long enough run that it fits smoothly into my training schedule if I'm in the process of training for a marathon, but its also not so far that I end up sore from running harder at a pace much faster than I would normally train at.

I looked up last year's race results and my "official" race time last year was 1:21:48. I say "official" in parenthesis because this race doesn't use timing chips, so your time is only loosely accurate. I wanted to improve my finish time this year compared to last year, so I decided to set a goal for myself of a 1:15 finish. (That works out to a 8:04 minute/mile.) A six minute improvement over 9.3 miles is fairly significant, but its also realistic, so I was feeling good going into the race knowing that I had a good chance at an improved finish time this year thanks to the speedwork I had been doing preparing for my last marathon.

I arrived in Coronado with only 15 minutes to spare before race time and managed to find legal parking not too far from the start. I was pretty lucky with my parking spot. Last year I ended up parking illegally somewhere and I'm glad I didn't this year because when I came back to my car after the race I saw them towing several cars across the street from me! Yikes!

Anyways, I started off the race feeling pretty good and noticed that I finished the first two miles around a 7:48 pace. I knew I needed to average at least a 8:10 pace for the race to finish in under 1:16 so I slowed down a bit. I paced myself with various runners throughout the race who were running close to my goal time. I guess you can say I was a drafter! The miles ticked away and I felt good mile after mile, and towards the end of the race I stopped looking at my watch (obsessively) and focused on how I was feeling and pushed myself based on that.

As I approached the finish line I was so excited to see that my strategy had worked, I was going to finish in 1:15! According to my GPS watch I finished in 1:15:32. Unfortunately, according to the "official" race results I finished in 1:17:48. HMPH! I feel cheated! Oh well. I'm still happy with the results!

I think I can attribute my improvement in time to experience with the course, another year of experience with racing in general, and possibly the fact that I raced with my new Bite Tech mouthguard for the first time. I'm beginning to like the way it feels and have been wearing it to sleep each night in the place of my oringal big, rubber mouthguard.

As I ran the race I thought back to racing on 4th of July weekends in the past. Last year I ran this same race and really enjoyed the race becuase it was the first one I had run as a San Diego resident since moving to the area 5 months prior. Unfortunately, after running this race last year though I came home to do laundry, tripped and missed a step coming down the stairs, and severly sprained my left ankle! It was a pretty bad sprain and since it was a long, holiday weekend I didn't have my ankle looked at right away. I actually waited almost two months before I went to see a doctor when it finally got to the point that I realized that my ankle probably wasn't going to heal on its own. A number of xrays and MRI's later, my ankle was cleared of any possible bone damage, and I was sent off to physical therapy for a month.

I also raced another time on the 4th of July, back in 2002. Wow that was a long time ago! On July 4, 2002 I ran my second 10K and second road race ever. Its amazing to think of how many races of various lengths I've run since then. It feels good looking back on how far I've come with racing the past seven years. And run, literally. Ha ha.

After the race I went home, showered, did not make eye-contact with my evil laundry basket that tripped me down the stairs last year, packed a few things for the day including my dogs, and headed up to LA to spend the day with my cousin Donna and her family.

My Cousin's Family

We hung out at her house, went to two different playgrounds, watched Wipeout on TV, enjoyed a great homecooked meal from her husband, and then the dogs and I headed back South to San Diego late that night. There must be a lot of locations that sell fireworks in LA, because as I drove down the 5 freeway on my way home, I saw dozens of locations shooting off fireworks along the way. I wish I could have taken pictures, getting a long range view like that was really pretty. It felt like my own personal fireworks show!

The hands down cutest moment of the whole day was when my cousin decided that we were going to move from one park to another, and her daughter came up to me and said "Monika, we are going to the Washington Street park now. Do you want to come with us?" Awww, so sweet. I was going to be coming along anyways, but it was still cute to get a personal invite from an adorable 4 year old.

My Cousin's Daughter w/Kona
(Yep, she's dressed as a hot dog for the 4th!)

Overall this 4th of July was a sucess. I ran a race, hit my goal finish time, didn't sprain my ankle, got to spend time with some family, and was able to enjoy a beautiful fireworks show from the comfort of my car.