Our Lives

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Veronica and I have a lot to be thankful for and as this is our first Thanksgiving as Mr. and Mrs. Turner we are cooking a “traditional” Thanksgiving meal complete with turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, rolls, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce. For dessert we have carrot cake and pumpkin pie.

WHOA! You may be thinking, that’s a TON of food for two people. Fear not as Veronica’s mom and sister are coming to dinner as well as my mom. It will be the first thanksgiving in our new house as well.

So far this morning we have cleaned the turkey and put that big bird in the oven. Now we will slowly prepare all the other items and wait for our families to arrive. A side note on the turkey; we bought a near 16lb turkey to feed 5 people. Yeah, that’s huge for 5 people. Maybe not if that’s all we were eating but that’s not all we’re eating so there will definitely be some holiday leftovers!

That is all for now. We’ll have some pictures this evening of our festivities.

Check it out!

Sean and I have recently adopted a new member of the family…. a Garmin Forerunner! (No, not a dog like you might have been expecting – and certainly no babies in our near future!) After reading so many blogs where people were able to document there mile splits, exact mileage and so on with such accuracy, we decided that it was time we checked it out. We decided on the Forerunner after trying it on at Best Buy. Had to make sure it wasn’t too bulky or uncomfortable!

Sunday was our first attempt at using it while we ran. We were in Columbia for MU Homecoming so we went to the Katy Trail – a little piece of heaven on earth! We decided that we would run 4 miles and begin slow – a 10:30 pace and then speed it up from there. The plan was great in all, but turns out that my normal speed is more like a 12 minute mile so the 10:30 pace felt like a sprint! That was a blow to the self-esteem! On top of that, the Forerunner is not instant – ie after about 30 seconds you get a true reading of your pace not right away. We didn’t really know that so we were slowing down and speeding up faster than the Forerunner could handle. It is comical now but definitely was not at the time. We did end up completing 4 miles, but it was not pretty and only slightly enjoyable.

Last night we decided to give the Forerunner another chance. We spent some time setting up an interval program – 4 min run: 1 min walk. Let me tell you – this little guy is a champ! We pressed start and it told us everything we needed to know. Run for 4:00! Speed up! In Desired Zone! Slow Down! It was like running with a personal trainer. I absolutely loved it. We did 2.66 miles in 30 min! We average a 11:16 mile and got up to a 9:54 pace for the last 4 min run. It was such a great experience. A far cry from the torture that was our Sunday run!

Happy Wednesday!

- Veronica

Today is the beginning of the end of a fairly long week. Work has increasingly taken up more time and as more projects pile up, I’m forced to work longer hours to meet the deadlines. The only real adversity is that the people who are assigned to assist me do not seem to be able to do the work in a timely fashion. This leaves me with the task of picking up the slack.  It isn’t much of a problem until they begin to tell you something may only take 15 minutes and in turn it takes 5 hours.  That type of time differential is 1) ridiculous and 2) unacceptable. Most people know very well how long something may take to complete. I don’t mean down to the letter, but within a 30 minute window is acceptable. Having something take 20 times longer than you say it will just kills scheduling ability and forces others to have to work even harder. Such is the way it goes in the corporate environment.

In other news, Veronica and I managed to completely change one of the rooms in our house without spending a dime.  We have always envisioned our front room as an office. Once we moved in however, it became a space that had a desk and also contained “things in transition” be it junk we were getting rid of or things that were going to be placed in different areas of the house, it just began to get cluttered. Monday night came along and we decided to re-arrange the space and bring up an end table from the basement. With a little time and some furniture rotating we were able to achieve a much more homey space as well as a useful office area. The coolest part in our eyes is what we turned our glass wedding card holder into. For our wedding we had an elongated 4″ tall glass vase.  Veronica decided a few weeks ago to put some coffee beans in it. From that point it managed to sit on the kitchen island until it was in the way, then it moved to the bookcase, then back to the island.  Finally, after we had re-arranged the office, she set it on the desk and put some pens in it. Now it’s our modern pencil holder! We think it looks great!

Fancy I know! We like it anyway.

As I write this I am currently waiting for the Orkin man to show up so I may get to work and finish my 2 projects that are breathing down the back of my throat.

Sean

So I bought a Parker Stainless Jotter pen nearly 7 to 8 months ago. I think it was around $4 at the local Wal-mart. At the time I wanted something that would last, look nice and I wouldn’t set down and not worry about. Packaged with it was a “gel” refill cartridge. I couldn’t for the life of me think why they put a “gel” pen refill in with a ballpoint pen. Today however I discovered that it was a direct replacement for what I had, but instead of being a ball point I now have a “gel” ink pen. Now my pen writes somewhat like the Uniball pens, but looks classic.

Thus my favorite pen just became more favorite.