I need to retire so I can have more days like this . . .

What a wonderful, wonderful day.  I love days off, especially when they coincide with one curly-headed mop top’s days off.  Let me just recap.  I awoke without the help of an alarm (although with the help of an elbow to the face), which means I slept in until 8am.  Amazing.  After a muggy 65-minuter and a much needed long stretching session, we mosied on over for my very first Diner experience.  Yum!  I’ve only been waiting for this day since I moved here.  So basically a dream 4 years in the making was realized today.  A longer than planned homework session at Starbucks followed.  Why in the world do they blare the music so loud in there?  Do people really go to Starbucks to jam out to music?  Some of us are trying to get through homework and quizzes with as little effort as possible, for crying out loud.  I was especially irritated things were taking longer than planned because I was excited about what was to follow the homework sesh.  I took my first steps towards owning my first road bike!  We went up to Schlegel’s to check things out, and I got all measured and put into the system so when I decide which route I want to go bike-wise, I’m all ready to go.  I’m super pumped!! J  However, it made me realize how little I know about bikes, which made things slightly overwhelming.  But I will learn!  Following the bike outing, we couldn’t help but make a stop at Cuppies and Joe . . . I mean, you can’t just drive by.  That would be rude.  Speaking of things you can’t do—you can’t just buy 1 cupcake for yourself.  So we left with 4, which took a lot of self-control.  Taking full advantage of having some time to spend in the city, we headed over to Red Coyote to spend some hard-earned gift cards that had been burning holes in our pockets for quite some time.  After that, we thought hitting up a happy hour special at nearby Republic Gastro Pub might be fun, but unfortunately the wait was 45 minutes for a table.  So we headed over to tried and true McNellies, but we were informed the wait was 30 to 40 minutes there.  Which, according to the hostess, “isn’t really that bad” (shrug of the shoulders).  Not that bad!?  When it’s already 7pm, and we have a 30 minute drive home?!  Which means it would likely be nearly 10 o’clock before we got home.  No thanks—that late of a return home was not going to fly with my inner granny.  So we ended up at Erma’s, and I will admit, this might be the only disappointment of the day.  Not Erma’s itself—I’m a big fan of Erma’s.  But my chicken fried steak sandwich was less than appetizing.  Thank goodness I had a big basket of fries to satisfy my hunger.  And a delicious beer.  And now I’m concluding what might be the best day I’ve had in a long time with sweats and movie.  And then crawling into bed, since I have an early morning training session with my favorite newbie half-marathoners-to-be, followed by a conveniently located 10K on campus.  On a running note, things are finally starting to come together a bit, and I feel stronger every week, so let’s hope this trend continues and I start racing fast again.  And I started hitting the weights again this week, so keep an eye out for my biceps.  Ha!  Still missing friends and family back home, but my parents scheduled a trip down at the beginning of April (counting down the days!), and plans for a girls weekend with my college roomies is in the works.  Until then, more days like this will more than keep me content. J