Productive Weekend

I love weekends! I especially love weekends that are both fun and productive. Some weekends fall into the mostly-fun, not-that-productive category. I ennjoy weekends like that...but afterwards, I sometimes feel like I'm slightly behind in life-maintenance activites. Some weekends are mostly-productive, not-much fun. I relish the sense of accomplishment after such a weekend, but I prefer to have at least a few moments of escape from must-do activities.

This weekend has been the perfect combination of both. Activites on the fun side include:
~ Seeing the Dead Sea Scrolls. The exhibit is a fascinating glimpse in to life in ancient Israel. Seeing the actual scrolls themselves is amazing! I love that the words I read in my Bible, published just a few years ago, are the same words that were written on those scrolls 2000 years ago.
~ Having lunch at Boulangerie Philippe . We tried to go to a couple of different restaurants in the Crossroads District that are on my list of places to try, but it turns out that neither place is open for lunch on the weekends. So, we headed to a restaurant that I love but don't get to very often.
~ Watching the KU basketball team beat up on Iowa State.
~ Watching The Guardian . It's a kind of cheesy movie, but I liked it. It's about swimming, after all. How could I not enjoy it?

Things knocked off my to-do list:
~Donated an old TV. It's been sitting on the floor of the yellow room, where it's been getting in the way of my sit-up routine for three weeks.
~Grocery shopping. Some people love to grocery shop. I am not one of them.
~ Vacuuming my car! I can count on one hand (without using all of my fingers) the number of times I vacuumed my old car. It's amazing how my new car can motivate me to keep it clean inside. In the 13 months I've owned it, I've vacuumed it more than the 9 years I owned the other one.
~Touching up the paint on the windows in my study. I just got new windows in here and some of the paint got chipped in the installation process. Also, the holes left by the old blinds were screaming at me to fill them in and paint over them. Done!

A weekend like this one is definitely a little thing that brings me a lot of happiness.

Future President Sighting?

I saw Barack Obama while at the St. Louis airport yesterday. I was standing about 10 feet from him. It was pretty cool!!

His smile seems so genuine, doesn't it?

World Record Surprise

Yesterday, I drove to Columbia, MO with a couple of friends to watch a USA Swimming meet featuring 19 Olympians. I thought it'd be fun to see some fast swimming by great athletes. Michael Phelps, Natalie Coughlin, Aaron Peirsol, Katie Hoff, etc.

The surprise of the evening came in the 200 fly, when un-shaved, un-tapered, and goatee-sporting Michael Phelps broke the World Record. He was so shocked when he looked at the scoreboard and saw his time. Judging from his reaction, he totally did not expect to swim that fast. It was so exciting to watch! And so unexpected!

Seeing Michael swim in person is totally different than watching him on TV. The efficiency and beauty of his stroke don't really come through on TV. During his fly, his chin just rests on top of the water and stays completely still despite the constant motion of his arms and legs. It truly looks effortless.

Watching fast swimming always makes me slighly nostalgic. A couple of the competitors yesterday are my age. It made me wonder, what if I'd stayed in shape? How fast would I be swimming now? Did I miss out on something great by retiring after college? I always decide that I made the right decision. I still love to swim, but I also love having time to experience other life adventures.

But, it was fun to be back in that world for a day, if only as a spectator.

Little Things Today

In honor of my first day of blogging, here's a couple of the little things that made me smile today.

• Getting my taxes done. There's nothing quite like sitting down, having someone else do all the work, and then away the return goes electronically. Refund will appear magically in my bank account in a few days. Love it!
• Left over pizza for dinner. Yummy!
• Receiving a phone call from my cousin in CA to get the famous family chocolate sauce recipe.

Blog World Here I Come!

My boredom at work today finally pushed me over the edge. I've contemplated staring my own blog for over a year and today, after finishing all my work, surfing the web, and playing several games of Free Cell, I was so bored that I decided today was the day to give this blog thing a go.

Since I'm just getting started, I'm still figuring out the look and feel. I promise to add pictures soon.