Tuesday, October 30, 2012

How to survive a hurricane like a toddler.

Most of you know I work in politics.  And all of you know that Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast pretty hard yesterday.  DC was lucky and I'm so thankful that I kept power and kept dry for the last 24 hours.

However, being that the election doesn't stop for 'a little rain,' I worked all weekend - and yesterday, and today and 7 days a week for the last 6 months.  So, what I'm trying to say is I haven't had a lot of time to go to the grocery store.  In fact, what I found out last night is that my cabinets consist of only Cheerios (no milk), Pasta (no sauce) and a lot of expired canned goods.  I also found some really moldy yams in my refrigerator crisper.  I don't even want to talk about that.

So what did I do last night when I got home from work, hungry for dinner and not a restaurant delivering or open for miles?  I survived the Frankenstorm like a toddler - munching on dry Cheerios and pasta with butter.  In fact - when I woke up this morning, it was the first time in months that I thought, "I can't WAIT to get to work....And order some lunch."

And that, my friends, is how to survive a hurricane as a baby adult, which I still kind of consider myself to be, considering I can't even get to the grocery while CNN is predicting the end of the world.

Monday, October 1, 2012

In Conclusion...

Here it is.  Week 61.  And so concludes (less than) 60 hikes in 60 weeks.  I'm ready to recap, and make excuses for, the last 60 weeks of my life.

I just tallied and I have completed:

19 hikes.
2 Guest Hikes (thanks April and Matt)
8 Races (from 5k to 10 miles)
A slew of museums, events and sights to see in the DMV.

Seems kind of anti-climactic, am I right?  I definitely thought I'd done like, 35 hikes...  But I've also survived an earthquake, a hurricane, an apartment fire, bike theft and car theft.  Oh, and election season...I'm surviving election season.  Frankly, 60 hikes in 60 weeks was a bit unrealistic to begin with because winter happened - which took up 3 months, and work happened - which has been occupying my last 4 months of weekends pretty solidly.  Every other year, I lose summer and fall.  It's sad, really.

And another excuse?  I started out hiking and walking, but ultimately a lot of my hiking weekends were replaced with runs and races, and I'm pretty proud of that!

Other things to report...

Though it was a major goal of this blog, I didn't lose any weight and my calves have grown two pant sizes.  I did however go from running a 12 minute mile to a 10 minute mile - so there's the silver lining.  I'm basically all muscle.

I kind of just lied because I only run a 10 minute mile if the distance is 6 miles or less and if I was running two months ago.  That whole thing about work has really cut into my running, as well as my hiking.  Also, I'm not all muscle. I'm all calves - I thought we established that?

So, What is the future of le Blog, you ask?  Fret not, little hikers.  It turns out I kind of like nature (not to be confused with liking bugs or sleeping on the ground) so I think I'll stick to the hiking and the running and adventuring as hobbies.  But, I'm also thinking I'll try to write more about whatever strikes my fancy and see what happens, so you'll see some changes in the weeks to come.  Most likely, you won't hear from me again at all until after November 6.  But Thanksgiving through Christmas is going to be a really exciting few weeks, with trips to San Francisco and Georgia in the works.

Special thanks to my guest hikers of course, and to the people who laughed at my mishap-fraught life along the way.

And that's it.  The sixty's survey...I accomplished less than a third of the goal I set for myself.  Which I'm NOT going to take as a metaphor for my life or anything.