Aside from the usual duties of the clinic and the O.R., I also continued work on my new project of writing freelance articles. I'm finding that I really enjoy the challenge of writing, and I've focused on the topics of health and sports, both of which I genuinely love. Exciting, too, is the fact that my first few articles have now been published by LiveStrong, the health and fitness website created by the Lance Armstrong Foundation. So it's pretty cool to see where a fun hobby can take you...I also had a blast this past Thursday night as we kicked off our first little book club! 7 of the 8 of us gathered around the table for some wine and chit-chat.
And somehow, in spite of (or perhaps as a direct result of) all the wine and chit-chat, we also managed to pick our first book! From everything I've heard and read, Kathryn Stockett has written a wonderful novel, The Help. It's a small miracle that none of us had actually read this book to date, so we agreed to let this story be our first book club journey together. As I finish up the Twilight Saga, I can hardly wait to see what the pages of The Help have waiting for me.Then we were off to Raleigh on Friday night to meet up with Shelly, my college roommate (now of the wintry Disney Half-Marathon fame!). Erich was signed up for the Wolfpack Classic Bike Race just southwest of Raleigh on Saturday morning, and our plan was to have dinner, hang out with Shelly and Jason, and see some speedy cyclists battle it out on the road while we sipped coffee. And that plan worked...sort of. We had a great dinner with Shelly and Jason at The Twisted Fork Friday night. As we finished up our yummy food and drinks, snow began to fall - first as tiny, beautiful flakes, and then as (less than) tiny, (but still) beautiful flakes. The roads quickly became more treacherous, so we were glad to settle in at Shelly's house. We still woke up at 5am, only to learn that the race had actually been cancelled! You'd be surprised, though, how quickly bacon, eggs, pancakes, and coffee can squelch the cancelled-race disappointment! And after a great visit with our buddies, we headed back home where Erich got in his fastest ride to date. Look out, Battenkill.
Just last night, we joined all of our friends in the City Loop Mafia at a farewell party for Scott. Truthfully, his new adventure of moving to Spain simply gave us the excuse to gather together and share some laughs, along with tasty food and drinks, entertaining music, and hilarious videos. More importantly, Scott's new pad in Bilbao, Spain, actually gives us added (though totally unnecessary!) incentive to go watch the peloton of the Tour de France pedal through the Pyrenees someday. Though a little bittersweet, the Mafia put on a great party, as always. And I am grateful that my husband has (and shares) his cool/crazy friends.
We're also really excited that the Olympics officially kicked off over the weekend. Erich and I are both self-proclaimed Olympic-nerds. We can get excited about every event from biathlon to curling, skating (figure and speed), and slalom to luge.
Beyond that, these Winter Games are hosted by Vancouver, which is in my second-favorite country of Canada. No bias there. So our Valentine's Day celebration looks a little like cinnamon rolls and Jittery Joe's coffee in the morning, followed closely by a training ride (for E) and some page-turning (for me) in the afternoon, capped off with cooking a great dinner together and watching the athletes of the world put on their show. You know, life is pretty good these days...and so much the better if lived 'with glowing hearts.'
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