Farewell Friends!

I can't believe it's time to say goodbye. Here I've been so excited to revamp the blog and start fresh, but now that it's time to say goodbye to RunnerBabs, I'm quite sad! I cannot express how glad I am that I started this blog. It will forever serve as a wonderful resource for me to be able to look back and remember all of the good times I had.

And with that said, here you go...

http://babsbrown.blogspot.com/

The journey continues.

Examine Your Paperwork

Hello friends. I have made the executive decision to launch the new blog on December 1st. So until then, let us continue...

This weekend started with the geekiest of date nights for Andy and I. First we had dinner at Chipotle, and then we went to the Video Games Live concert. I have never been surrounded by more geeks in my life. Geeks or no geeks, however, there was a guitar hero competition, so we both did our best to win. Spoiler alert - we did not win.

The concert was an experience to say the least, and it was definitely different to sit with Andy in the audience rather than watch him on stage. It was kind of a nice change!

The rest of the weekend was pretty low key. I worked Job #2 as usual, Andy and I went to another concert (a few of his clarinet students were performing), we had Anna, Will, and Rose over (always fun), I bought a new book to read... nothing monumental, but all in all a good weekend.

The blog book prompt for today is to "examine your paperwork," meaning look back at old documents to see if anything interesting comes back to you. Now I don't have any of these, but Sheena saved all of the notes we ever wrote to each other in high school... remember that was before the age of text messaging. Whenever she digs one out and reads it to me, I die laughing. I'm so glad (and slightly mortified) that she saved them all!

Video Games Live

I just ate a lot of grapes and now I feel sick to my stomach. Ugh.

Anyway...

On Monday I went to the Strong National Museum of Play for a behind the scenes tour of their video games collection. I was amazed at how large their storage facility is.

Old Pinball Machines

Old Handheld Video Games

Archive of old board games

Thinking about breaking into the Barbie Closet

The best part of the whole trip though was seeing my boss playing an old arcade game.

This blew my mind

Tomorrow the orchestra is performing Video Games Live (hence the trip to the museum). Andy isn't playing so I guess it will actually be a date for us to go to a concert together, haha. Not much planned for this weekend, which I am not complaining about. Perhaps I'll put the final touches on the new blog and launch it on Monday!

Count Your Blessings

Well, this is what I woke up to this morning...

View out of my bedroom window

...and it's still coming down. Bah. I guess winter is on its way.

But! I shouldn't complain. According to the blog book, it's tempting to vent on a blog (yes, I would say that is quite true), so today's post inspiration is to count your blessings. Instead of all of the monumental things I'm grateful for (family, friends, health, blah blah) I am going to focus on this morning.

Here's what I was thankful for this morning:

1) When I woke up I had realized the covers had barely been disturbed. It was so easy to make the bed!

2) I was able to locate my snow brush quickly - I had stored it in the basement over the summer, and luckily remembered where I put it!

3) I opened a fresh jar of creamed honey. I love being the first person to put a knife into a fresh jar of peanut butter, honey, whatever.

4) I easily packed my lunch because I had made a salad the night before.

5) Since Andy is out of town, I was able to take his parking pass, so I'm getting free parking today!

Pretty good morning huh?

So, what's on the docket for the week ahead? It's a pretty normal week. Regular work schedule... a few extra meetings and a luncheon I really don't want to go to but oh well. And apparently we are in store for more snow. I also need to figure out what to make for our office Thanksgiving lunch. Any ideas??

Be A Sage

Happy Tuesday! My weekend was full of friends and food - two of my favorite things. I would have liked to have gotten more done in the way of chores (you know... laundry, grocery shopping, etc) but oh well. Not like it's the first time those things haven't been accomplished when I'd like.

The new blog is coming along. I should really just launch it already. And honestly it's not even that exciting! I suppose I should just pick a date and do it. Hmm....

Anyway, today's blog book post idea is to talk about good (or bad) advice you've received. I've probably received better advice, but I'll just list a few pieces that pop into my mind:

1) Fake it 'til you make it. I find this works best when I don't feel happy or smiley... once I act happy and smiley for a little bit I typically start to really feel that way.

My friend Lani - faking it for sure!

2) Beauty knows no pain. My mom always says this one, and it seems to come in handy when I'm getting my brows waxed or feet scrubbed... I just grin and bare it and know it will be worth it!

My mom made this sign for the marathon!

3) Don't stop to walk. Emily's advice to me before I ran the marathon. If I had stopped to walk towards the end, I NEVER would have started running again. Best advice for sure!

The guy on the left clearly didn't get that advice...

So there you go. I'm sure I've gotten bad advice, but I can't think of anything! I guess it's good that I don't use brain space to keep things like that stored away.

Exploit the Youth

Well, hello from the East Coast now. That's right, Andy and I are back to our regular routines (boo), but it sure was nice to get away for awhile (yay!). Sadly we won't be moving back to Seattle, but Andy did make it into the final 10 people which is amazing. I could not be more proud of him and how hard he worked. Hooray for Andy!

The new blog is coming along nicely... it will only be a little bit longer until I say goodbye to RunnerBabs and start the next phase of my blog life! But until then...

The blog book says that kids are hilarious and surprisingly insightful. True! At Job #1 I get piles of thank you letters from kids every year. Here are some of my favorites:

Into the loin pit!! Just what every prince dreads hearing...

That's nice.

I believe she meant "rapper." Otherwise I'm pretty sure I'd be out of a job if I had kids watch a raper perform....

There you have it! I obviously have these hanging on the wall of my office. Duh. Now I have to go and figure out what to do about the flat tire I got this morning. :-(

Give Us Something

Good morning! I'm writing to you today from a giant Starbucks in Seattle. Mmmmmm.... Seattle Starbucks....

My short trip home is already halfway over, but so far it's been great. Lots of shopping (woohoo!) and an entertaining trip to the casino on Halloween. I'm sorry I didn't get any pictures but my phone was next to dead. Right now Andy is auditioning for the Seattle Symphony, so I'm not sure what else will be in store for us this trip, but regardless, it's just been nice to get away from responsibilities and relax. :-)

Now onto the prompt for the day. What are the best gifts I've ever received? Here are some of my most memorable gifts (in no particular order)...

1) My dog Cookie! One year I looked over the banister of the stairs and saw a little puppy face peeking out of a box. I don't have a picture of her handy, but she was a black and white lhasa apso/long-haired chihuahua and she was pretty cute.

2) A flying lesson! My parents bought me a flying lesson for one of my birthdays and it was soooo much fun. For those of you that do not know, I wanted to be a pilot/astronaut for many many years.

3) A trip to Vegas! My graduation present from Eastman was my first trip to Las Vegas. We got to stay at the Mandalay Bay (my favorite hotel based on all of the travel channel shows I had watched). Turns out I LOVE Las Vegas and have thankfully been back a few more times!!

Seriously though, this list could go on forever. I've gotten a lot of amazing gifts... my car, my engagement ring, my saxophones... basically everything I own. But as cheesy as this sounds, my best gift is my life. I have awesome parents, Andy Man, great friends, and I've had a zillion opportunities to do some really cool things. Lucky me. :-)