Good Things...

So, I'm obviously waaaay behind on blogging. Want to get you caught up on some things I've failed to catch you up on.

First--the Bath County Triathlon. It's taken me 3 weeks to get over enough of the pain to be able to talk about it!!! :) Just kidding--but it was-by far-the most physically demanding thing I think I've ever done. It was almost in W. Virginia-in the Allegheny Mountains-so you can imagine the course. SOOOOO hilly. It probably didn't help that I was completely unprepared. My training was pretty non-existant, so the combo was tough. It was a beautiful race, tho....surrounded by the mountains. We rented a house there for the whole weekend. Racers were me, Anne and Susan Tanagawa. Shauna served as our "support team." I've gotta say, my proudest achievements are that I didn't quit during the bike--cause I wanted to! And, I didn't come in last! Almost, but not last!!! We spent the rest of the weekend at the warm springs pools--kind of like Hot Springs, AR's bathhouses--eating out, hanging at the farmhouse-and we even drove thru UVA on the way home. It was a nice weekend. Pics to come--I forgot my camera and am depending on Shauna and Anne for theirs....it could be years. ;)

Second--Implementation day at Discovery!!! Okay, I don't know if I've said this in a while...but I LOVE my job. I don't mean in a flippant kind of way, either. I mean it in a "I'm totally scared that this is all gonna fall apart because it's JUST too good to be true!" kind of way. It just keeps getting better and better. Anne reminded me yesterday that I was really nervous for my first couple of months there because I wasn't really connecting with anybody at work. Finally, I feel like I really belong there. I've made some great friends there-and have travelled extensively with Sarah (my boss), so I feel like she's a friend now, too. I don't have to call Nancy and Anne and Shauna all day anymore. I love my team--we totally mesh--and Alezandra, my new teammate, and the person I share AR with (so we work very closely) is awesome. She and 2 other girls from work are going to do a couple of tri's with me--we've even started training together (Kristen is my new work BFF and she was a swimmer at Villanova--even made it to the Olympic trials in 2000! And she is coaching our swimming!) My friend Lisa and her friend Jessica start working there on the 24th of this month (and I'll get a nice bonus for referring them!!!). So Monday, we had "Implementation Day" (that's the division I work under)--we celebrated the successes of the last school year, ate well, played, had some guest speakers, did some team-bulding exercises, had a team happy hour--and most importantly--performed the "Rookie Skits." The idea, is that the whole team was randomly divided into teams of 8-10 mixed gender groups and had 2 weeks to write and practice a skit that basically made fun of everybody. The rules were--no nudity. So no holds barred, basically. Now----there were 5 or 6 teams that fit the description above--then there was my team: "the Kristen's." Composed of me, Kristen O., Kristen C. (out that day on vacation), Kristine S., Cristina (who has been there for 2 weeks) and Cristen (who's VERY FIRST DAY AT WORK WAS THE DAY OF THE SKIT!!!) CAN YOU IMAGINE???? So basically, there were 3 of us. All girls. Not funny, right?? At least we thought...........but as it turns out, ours was the funniest one!!! It went over great! I wont bore you with the details that would never go over in writing (although Anne has seen the whole thing like 4 times--so she could tell you!)...instead I'll just give you the premise.

"First Day of Work at Discovery Education"--fitting, no? New girl--Cristen (from above)--she meets all her new co-workers--each named "Kristen". And we proceed to walk her thru a myriad of trials: keeping track of which "Kristen" is which--loud talkers who sound like they may be running a 1-900 hotline--meeting impossibly ridiculous goals--trying to ask questions of people who can't be bothered--trying to learn the "rules"--and trying to get help from the impossibly slippery IT dept (I got to use my famous "wranglin' greased pigs" line here..) It was a great day.

Welcome aboard, Lisa and Jess....you're gonna love it.