OC Mud Run (or How I Spent My Saturday)

The next time someone asks you, 'hey what you doing next month - want to do a 5k with me? and oh yeah, it's through some mud' - you should say 'yes.'

Yesterday, some co-workers and I ran the Orange County Mud Run. The day started out hot - at 7:30am it was already in the high 80s - and it just got hotter. Luckily, we had pits of mud and lagoons of dirty water to race through and keep us cool.

Our two teams: Oz Clodz and the Mudder Fruckers

...and cleanliness ends.

Obstacles included crawling through mud pits...

...and hopping over mud-encrusted walls.

The Mudder Fruckers post-run.

It was a great time and I'm looking forward to my next one!

I’m your ch ch ch ch ch cherry bomb

Well, 5 years, hundreds of concerts and countless celebrity-spottings and shoulder-rubbings later, I finally have an “I met so & so story” to tell my relatives about back home.

Last night, thanks to an incredibly generous offer, we watched the Joan Jett concert back stage and then were invited into her trailer.

Our view from backstage

The woman is my hero. Onstage, she’s still as intense and intimidating as she was 30 years ago. At one point during the show I was watching her and wishing I could be her when I grew up. At the same moment, Sean leaned over and whispered, “I’d be afraid she’d beat me up.” *huge grin*

After the concert, we were invited into her trailer, where we met Joan, her longtime producer, and a couple people from the production company producing The Runaways (the movie based on the first band she was a part of). She was incredibly generous and polite, letting us into her space after the concert. And it was thrilling to meet her. It was awesome to say the least, but also slightly awkward because she has no idea who we are or how we know the same people she knows. But, it was cool to hang out with her for a few minutes. And ever the guilty Catholic, on the way out the door, I thanked her for letting us invade her space for a few minutes.

(apologies for the sideways angle)

We took another trip to the house site and I was pleasantly surprised with all of the progress that’s been made since the last time we visited.
1. It feels real now!
Up until this point, when I would walk through the house I never got a sense that it was ‘my house.’ It always felt like I was simply walking through a construction site. But once the drywall went up I was finally able to see the rooms for what they were and that’s when the switch went off in my head and I realized that this is our home.

2. We have kitchen cabinets!
I am absolutely salivating over all of the cabinet space we’ll have in the kitchen. This is at least 4 times more cabinet and storage space that we have in our current 2-butt kitchen.

3. We have railings!
4. We have a roof with shingles!

I’m now getting pretty anxious to move in. To clarify, I’m actually getting pretty anxious to start painting. After living in a condo that we couldn’t paint for the last 4 years, I’m super excited to finally create an environment that suits us perfectly by adding some color to the walls.

I’ve also been spending an inordinate amount of time each night on Craigslist scouring listings for furniture (patio and living room). We don’t need a lot of furniture, just a few pieces that we’ve always wanted to purchase (hutch, bar) but we never had room for in the condo.