five on friday!!

I'm hoping that every single one of y'all are in the same boat as me when I say AMEN FOR THE WEEKEND.  This week just felt like the days would never end, and with a fun-filled weekend ahead of us, I'm just hoping that this work day flies by!  I'm linking up with some of my fav bloggin' ladies for "Five on Friday," and I highly suggest that you join in as well!

{one}
We're meeting up with Brian's cousin and his fab girlfriend (also a Katie!) and some of their friends tonight for drinks and I'm so excited!  We've been so crazy busy lately, it feels like it's been forever since we've taken time to just hang out and catch up with our friends, so tonight will be very much appreciated.  We have plans to head to Davis Square, which is a fun little part of Boston near Cambridge-- I had an internship in the area years ago but we've never been to any bars or restaurants, so I'm looking forward to seeing the nightlife.  Plus, I like to never pass up a reason to make the trip into the city. The temps are supposed to cool down throughout the day-- perhaps tonight will be the perfect night for my first Shipyard Pumpkinhead of the season (cinnamon sugar on the rim of the glass, please).

{two} 

After battling the urge for a few weeks now to debut my fall decorations, I'm thinking this weekend might be THE TIME.  I already have a menu planned for chili and stew and a fridge full of yummy fall-ish beer (perfection for football watching, obviously), so what's better than to arrange a few pumpkins and wreaths?  The main issue that I battle is that I'm decorating a 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom apartment and have enough decorations for a 4 bedroom house with multiple living areas.  'Tis a serious issue, y'all.  I usually go all out while Brian's out of the apartment, and then he comes home, asks why (enter season here) exploded in our home, and I start taking pieces away until the space is cute, not cluttered.  When it's cool enough to sleep with the windows open and my yummy fall candles are burning away, the tables are just begging for that autumn leave arrangement, no?

{three}

The longer I've lived in Boston, the less of a baseball fan I've become.  Basically, I peaked as a Red Sox fan when I first stepped off of the plane at Logan and the enthusiasm has slowly declined.  I mean, my first fall here, I saw two no-hitters IN PERSON and they won the World Series!  Once we started going to games more regularly, I quickly realized a baseball fan, I am not.  It's bound to be a looong night when you think it's the fifth inning AT LEAST, only to check your watch and realize it's the bottom of the second (does it sound like I know what I'm talking about?  Oh, good-- because I do not).  Regardless, there's just something a little magical about a game at Fenway Park, and I can most certainly tolerate it in small doses!  My fabulous Uncle Frank in Connecticut mailed us four tickets as a "just because" gift for the Red Sox/Yankees game on Sunday night!  If you need me, you can find me in a field box, sipping a beverage and trying to get service on my phone to Instagram the night away.

{four} 

So I haven't blogged since the whole engagement announcement, but I am DELIGHTED to say that our entire morning tomorrow is blocked off to do wedding things-- EEK!  While we aren't sharing much info quite yet, we've narrowed our venue options down to our top two-- one is a country club, so everything is covered, we just get to make our decisions (love); the other is a completely blank space, which I've always thought that I wanted so that we could completely make it our own... but that's a lot of stuff to figure out.  Bringing in rental companies, caterers, not to mention the standard vendors (music, florist, etc).  We're hoping seeing the places in person tomorrow will give us a little more insight as to which way we'd like to go-- the "blank space" will be being setup for a wedding, so we can get a visual of how the room would be.  

The OCD part of me is just ready to set the date  (we're flexible, depending on when our venues are available), book The Big Stuff (ceremony/reception venues, photographer, band/DJ for us) and then the smaller things will fall into place.  I'm not crazy about spending tons on flowers-- it's just not super important to us.  And the details, to me, are the fun part. So loads of stress will be off of my shoulders once I know we have a spot for things to happen.  Also, I never thought that Brian would really care about the little things, but he's been so gung-ho right along with me, so that's been a lot of fun.  He even coached me through my first sticker-shock meltdown on Monday night.  Between the fiance, my Southern Living planner plus the insane binder I put together, and myself, I think this little wedding will come together just fine.

{five}

I run the BAA Half Marathon in Boston ONE MONTH from today.  THIRTY days.  I run the New York City Marathon in 50 days.  FIFTY.  I'm pretty excited for the half-- I've trained for the marathon twice now and have run more than 13 miles countless times on training runs, but this will be my first actual half marathon, where I get to stop at 13.1 miles and have a medal placed around my neck.  However, once the morning of November 4th (the day after the marathon), I feel like I'll wake up and either want to run forever, or swear off of it for the rest of my life.  Training this time has been for the birds, and I'm just kind of ready to be done with it.  I'm excited of course, and I think that the overall spirit and feeling at this year's NYCM will be just amazing, considering all that NYC has been through post-Sandy.  Plus my mom, an aunt and Brian will be there to cheer me on, along with other friends who are planning to head to the city to join my cheering squad as well.  

I know that I haven't been as focused on training this year as I was last year, so I'm trying to really pick up my midweek runs going forward so that I'm a little more prepared.  When I get so exhausted and think "This isn't fun anymore.  This isn't easy," a little voice says "Well of course it's not.  You're running a marathon to challenge your body and your mind beyond anything that you thought possible.  If it were easy, would it be such a privilege to be running this course right now?  I think not.  Pick it up, slowpoke."  And so I run.  Continuously.  For hours on end.  New shoes are in the plans for this weekend, and I just ordered a new lululemon top-- it's the little things to perk you up, right?  Anyways, the reality of TWO races in the next sixty days hit me and HOLY MOLY was it a reality check.