Update

Oh, February. It is flying by. Highlights of this week ... the family (minus my sister and brother-in-law, buried in snow) gathered for a post-wedding, post-Super Bowl catch-up dinner. My mom outdid herself with the deliciousness -- homemade mac and cheese, shrimp stew, broccoli casserole, yumminess overall -- and everyone basically re-lived the game in a three-hour highlight reel of play-by-plays and memories. My brother and sister-in-law were at the game in Miami, and they had many fine tales to tell. Re-experiencing the game this way around the dinner table was almost as fun as the game itself.

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My little brother called me to tell me he was bringing over an early birthday present, and that I was going to love it. LOVE IT. I had no idea what he had cooking, but he showed up and put a CD in the stereo and pressed play and I heard the opening chords of "Lakes of Pontchartrain," the song we loved from the Swell Season show. Immediately I burst into tears. "I thought I'd never hear it again!" He laughed and explained that he'd found the whole show online and stayed up until 4 a.m. trying to convert the songs into mp3 files and voila! Here they were. I was so happy. There are a few tiny clips of it up on YouTube, but they're not great quality and are only a few seconds of the song, which is quite long. Listening to the whole show again, including the talking between songs & all of the audience sing-alongs, brings back great memories of a great night. And hearing this song again is just the best. It snowed on Friday morning. It didn't stick for long, but it snowed hard, big beautiful flakes, and I drove to an appointment that morning in the thick of it, listening to that song and weeping at the beauty of the snow and life and it all. Happiness. The love of Glen & Marketa goes on and on.

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The majority of my weekend, including Friday which was a snow day (ridiculous), has been spent stashing away pretty much the entirety of my possessions in my closets. When you are preparing to have your entire house re-painted, everything has to come off the walls, and everything has to come off the furniture that you have to move into the middle of the rooms. This has been a bigger job than I ever could have imagined, and I am still totally not done. I have filled up a few bags of things to give away, along with about ten boxes of books, so that feels good. Really, how many books does a person need? When you can give away hundreds and still have hundreds left, I'd say that's enough. I feel very grown up. I still haven't made the final decision about my gray (all rooms but kitchen) -- the one I thought I liked is too putty-colored and not gray enough, and the other one is a little too dark -- so I'm hitting the paint store again for more samples -- but I think I'm decided on the blue for my kitchen. Great goodness, I just hope this endeavor is worth it. It hasn't even started, and it already feels like a full-time job. I can't help but be a little anxious about reining in the pets throughout the chaos and also about the totally blank slate my house will be when the painting is done. Where will I even start? I have no idea. One step at a time, I guess.

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District 9 was really good and scared the bejeezus out of me! I thought I was going to have a heart attack watching it. I'd also like to say that I'm not sure how it happened that both Community and Parks & Recreation are better than The Office and 30 Rock every Thursday, but they are. Meanwhile, I'm now done with season two of thirtysomething on DVD and the little feature on Snuffy Walden is very enjoyable. I've always loved his music and not just because he was born in my homestate. I had the soundtrack of this show on cassette, and now I have it on CD, and who doesn't get chills during the opening theme of The West Wing? He also scores Friday Night Lights, which -- awesome. Gotta love that Snuffy.

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And now for everyone's favorite topic (I kid), running. I did a short three-miler mid-week, which was fine. Yesterday was a two hour & 20 minute run, and I made it 11.58 miles. I think at this point in the game I am going to need to accept that for those super long runs, a 12-minute mile pace is how I'm going to average out and that's the end of the story. It is what it is. I was dead tired by the end, but I survived. It was a beautiful sunny day, in the upper 40s without a cloud in the sky, and I was comfortable once I got going in shorts and a sleeveless shirt. Weather like this would be awesome on race day. Just saying, weather gods. I can't believe it's two weeks from today.