last hurrah

Ah, what a beautiful sight. 

My last latte of spring break snuggled up next to my new (to me) ipad.

Mr. Sneaker has been anticipating the release of the ipad 2 pretty much since he purchased the original, so after I spent a nice little afternoon at home awaiting the FedEx truck to receive his new gem last week, he handed over his original ipad, which is now mine. His obsession with the newest/coolest technology usually leaves me with cool hand me downs! Originally, the first ipad was for me because the idea of storing books in this cute little package rather than lugging textbooks and books for my research from Germany to Portland and back was very appealing. Unfortunately, textbooks are not really available yet on ibooks and Mr. Sneaker became a bit too attached to "Patty" and was not ready to give her up when I moved back to PDX. I wasn't too torn up about it, but now that I am getting acquainted with how fun it is to play with Patty, I am in love. I downloaded some books and am having fun giving digital reading a try. I really feel far too attached to real books to forego them altogether, but I do like the idea of being able to travel without having so much luggage space hogged by my books. I am a heavy travel reader (meaning when I am on vaca I read a LOT) so I never travel without 2 or 3 books. This will make that load a bit lighter, but unfortunately I am not loving the first book I downloaded. It's not the digital reading that I dislike, but the book itself. Elegance of the Hedgehog is not sparking my interest...anyone read it? Please give me a reason to finish besides the fact that I spent 11.99 on it and don't want that to go to waste. I though digital books were supposed to be less expensive! I heard that it's awesome, but I am just not feeling it yet.

Anyway, here I sit with my latte and my ipad, enjoying the last day of spring break. Today marks one week left until my half marathon and I am super excited for the race next weekend. I am not super excited that I have my first weekend class of the term which means rising early on Saturday and I have to get up early for the 7:00 am start time of the race on Sunday, but hey, that's just how my crazy busy life rolls! My roomie and I ran a short 5 in the pouring down rain and wind this morning and despite feeling less than enthused, we rocked out the entire hill on the route that we previously struggled with when we first set out to start training for the half marathon. Our cute doggie joined us on the run as well! For the rest of the week I want to focus on yoga and pilates with maybe one more 5-6 mile run thrown in there somewhere. Since my class schedule has changed a bit, I will now have Wednesday evening open instead of being in class, so I am hoping that means I will get in more than 2-3 workouts each week. 

The beginning of each new academic term always means a new beginning in many regards...I vow to exercise more, eat healthier, be über productive all the time, and spend a lot of free time writing. Let's hope all those things come to fruition! I am once again attempting to remove sugar from my diet, which is always a huge struggle for me. I am 2 days in and I can do fine if I am not tempted, but as soon as I am in front of chocolate, cookies, cake, candy etc, I usually cave. What really helps me is keeping a tally of how many days I have gone without sweets because I see the number increasing and never want to break the streak! We'll see how far I get this time. In 2009, I made it over 100 days.

Have you heard this song?
It is totally reminding me of my last night with Mr. Sneaker before we parted again for another 3 months.
::sniff sniff::