things that got my eye right now...

• just had brunch at duo located at 32nd and zuni in east highlands. delicious and well priced at around $8 for an egg dish. next time, i'm getting the "sweet thing" with onions, mushrooms and eggs, it's to die for! and their dessert is getting rave reviews as well.
• cornhole is sweeping the nation, well at least I'm introducing all my aquaintenances to the game. much like horseshoes, but with a beanbag and board with hole, this game is addictive since little skill is needed.
• the denver marathon has now enter my radar with a race date of october 19th, my goal has been defined. but will it be a full or 1/2 marathon?
• i sit waiting with baited breath for my Pétanque set to be delivered to my front door. another outdoor game that is the french version of bocce ball. Pétanque uses metal balls and can be played on any surface. you can find me in the park drinking vino verde and playing lawn games.
• i've been waiting to check out neighborhood flix on east colflax next to the new tattered cover bookstore. they have independent movies served with food. tuesdays is a steal with $6.50 ticket prices all day (regular adult is $10). rumor has it the Sesame Ginger Sweet Potato Fries sell better than the popcorn.
• irish snug is a pub that started a run club 18 months ago that has grown to over 2000 members according to their website. tuesdays nike has a run club with good sandwiches and fruit after the run, the irish snug run club has pasta and discounted brews. i might try it out this week...
  

take me to... niketown

so you won't believe it when you read it, brace yourself, but i've let myself go. take a minute, laugh it out. i know what you are thinking, she sure doesn't look like she's gained an ounce. well i hid it well. i admit, i did all the stuff the quintessential bride-to-be does to get in shape and lose a few pounds around the waistline. who wouldn't when all eyes are on the bride? since the wedding, life has happened which doesn't leave a lot of time for working out especially in the winter. the slow decline started in march, as winter marched on and the appeal of running outside faded each night as the sun went down at 6. plus there were the boxes screaming to be unpacked at the new place and the fact that the inside temperature of my house is only a few degrees higher than the outside temperature in the winter (the house was built in the late 1800s), all i wanted to do was crawl into my cozy bed.

no big deal though, surely i could keep the extra pounds at bay by walking a few blocks here and there. and what about all those boxes i was shuffling around, weight training right? and when all my pants started to feel snug around the waist, i blamed it on the new dryer which was definitely shrinking my clothes ignoring the fact that most my work pants are dry clean only.

the wakeup call? finally stepping on a scale at goodwill... not a pretty sight. i'll spare you the details as most people know the horror of stepping on the scale after tricking yourself into thinking you weigh the same as when you were in college.

so this is week one of my turnaround "to a healthier, fitter, happier me." cheesy indeed, but it is true that i feel much better when i'm exercising. i have 2 action plans: ride my new road bike to work a few times a week and to do errands around town and sign up for a running race to motivate my running legs.

i've been wanting a road bike for over a year now, but i put it off because it was an intimidating process. i settled on a Giant OCR1w after looking at the trek women's bike and fuji. the nice guys over at arapahoe cyclery hooked me up and they offer free tune-ups for the life of the bike which is quite the deal. now i feel so fast compared to my mtn bike and i can't wait for the weather to turn warm so i can ride 20 miles to work.

tuesday i was the newbie at the niketown running club which meets weekly at 5:30. i ran the mile to get to niketown located on the 16th street mall in the denver pavilion. everyone was milling around the store, 2 out of 3 men to women who mostly were ripped or a runner's ripped anyway (read skinny no fat). a few quick announcements before we took off for rei via cherry creek bike path. everyone went their own pace and distance which is why i ended up running 4.5 miles instead of the 3 miles i planning on because i didn't know the route and just kept following anyone that looked familiar. when i got back to the store i was exhausted, but i stuck around for the free nike shoe raffle. plus they had free drinks and snacks and i got a drawstring bag for being new. two thumbs up for this free club that gives away nike gear and a group to push me on my runs. if only it was twice a week...

so there's the plan, typed out on my computer screen, my commitment to myself. progress and fallbacks to come.

information at my fingertips

enter my new centro smartphone. it's small, it's red, it's cute and oh so talented! let me list all it's skills:

camcorder
camera
address book
word documents
email
google maps
IM
text messaging
music
games
tv/video
web access

i want to know a restaurant around a certain location, but no labtop, no phone book... well centro to the rescue. google maps can find restaurants and even connect you to them with a push of a button. What's the score of the football game? let me check on espn mobile. look there is the coat you want for your birthday... i'll send a picture to your husband. the uses are endless and I sometimes find myself staying up late to play the daily sudoku puzzle.

i did have one problem with the original centro i was sent. after about 5 days the ear piece stopped working and i could only hear when i turned the phone to speakerphone. i tried everything to get the sound to work again even tried a hard reset (wiping all information from the phone), but nothing worked. magically the next day it started working. well i wasn't going to risk it cutting out again so i went to the sprint store and they easily replaced it in a snap. no problem yet with centro part 2.

a few things could be improved like the ability to get hotmail pushed to the server and access to opera mini which is a program that allows phone users to see the whole web and zoom into a certain part of the page. a useful program my husband has on his touch phone. the white color that AT&T offers looks sleek, too bad it's not an option for sprint. and speaking of sprint, i'm not a big fan of them nickel-and-diming me for the added services like text messaging. i understand that's how they make their revenue since it's pure profit with infrastructure in place, but please just bundle all data including text messaging into one cost.

all in all i love my new phone and hope for a few software updates to make it even better.

movie review: juno

i wasn't sure if this movie could live up to all the hype of being nominated for best picture, but i do love indie films that focus more on life and relationships than the special effects and high paid actors. and this film did not disappoint with ellen page playing juno, stealing the show with her quick-wit sarcastic humor who embodied the quintessential teenager at the same time handling the role of the scared pregnant girl like a pro. not quite best actress worthy because how hard is it for a teenage girl to be a teenage girl, but still great acting.

a brief storyline: juno has sex with her best pal, Paulie Blecker (Michael Cera) and surprise surprise, she gets pregnant. we see 4 seasons of juno's life including telling the parents, trying to figure out what to do with the baby, finding a suitable couple to raise the baby in the "penny saver" newspaper all the while doing life in high school. juno is forced to grow up fast making choices and learning about love and divorce all the while talking on her cheeseburger phone keeping her in teenage youth.

funny film that made me laugh at a not so funny situation. sort of made teen pregnancy look easy, not something i want to be teaching the youth of today...

randoms

good food and friends tonight at our new place in five points. finally we are able to host people for meals which was impossible at the old apartment/dorm living. orange curry chicken with candied carrots was on the menu tonight using the crock pot.

i have short hair now and hate it at this length. 2 inches need to come off to make it look somewhat cute, but i don't know if i want to deal with the hassle to get back into the salon.

slowly, slowly we are getting up packed. living room/dining room and kitchen are clean and neat, now we need to move to the 2nd bedroom/walk-in closet. finding something to wear that isn't closest to the top of the bag... priceless.

big, ugly tv is now setup for our viewing pleasure. you can't help but notice that thing the moment you step into our house, like a big sign reading "we don't care much about ascetics in this house, we are just addicted to the tv, so the bigger, the better." yippee for technology in tv where slimmer is sexier.

one week in the new house and i'm getting use to the quirks of the light switch placement, the extremely small bathroom and the constant cold because of inefficient windows and doors. i could love a house like this... of course as i steadily upgraded the imperfection so i wasn't literally throwing money out the window. ah, but i get a brand new house in golden.

speaking of plans of our custom house in golden, you might ask how that is going? well it's not. we need some much needed help on the plans to get the ball rolling. dreams of being in the new house before christmas are sliding away with each week that passes.

i love my husband because money or the appearance of money isn't important to him. i love him because "good enough" just won't cut it, if he is going to deliver, it is going to be the best. i love my husband.

a perfect island

i'm much better at taking care of myself than being a good wife. let's face it, i love me! i'm pretty close to nearly always right so things should be done my way. and when someone (usually my husband) does it differently and it fails, i will remind said person of their error. the one flaw to this selfish life is that i need people. i need my husband to be around. i need friends who will talk about real life. i need my family who love me even though i'm a brat. so there is this constant tension of wanting to let people into this warped life and pushing them away so that i can have my way. most times the island wins, but very rarely a glimmer of hope shines out onto the people around me. more and more of others, less of me.

art for everyone

good art is in the eye of the beholder and if the beholder happens to be a little light in the pocketbook, well shame on them! or wait, maybe expensive does not necessarily mean good art. i believe art should be affordable and so does jen bekman who started 20x200. it's a website where you can purchase limited editions of art at $20 for a smaller piece. their motto is large editions + low prices x the internet = art for everyone. i learned about jen bekman from a ny times article.