Wait, it's the end of July?

I cannot believe it's the end of July!  Here's a quick life update covering my recent travels, findings, adventures, and just life in general...

A few weeks ago, my mom and I went to San Antonio, TX for a girl’s trip.  Her high school friend, Beckie, lives in the hilly suburbs of Stone Oak.  We stayed 2 nights with Beckie and her husband, Preston, and then 2 nights my mom and I stayed at a hotel on River Walk.  We had a great time.  We go on several mother-daughter trips each year but never one that required a flight. My mom may or may not have had a few Xanax before boarding but she still swears it was the first time any of the pilots had flown. We got in around noon on Saturday and Beckie picked us up at the airport. We went straight to lunch (duh) at a great Tex-Mex place called Chuy’s. They had really cute shirts and looking back I wish I had gotten one. For the next 2 days, Beckie showed us around town. There was an awesome gourmet supermarket (sounds lame, but it wasn’t) down the street called H.E.B.  We went there on the reg.  That afternoon, the three of us went to a Japanese Tea Garden that had a really interesting history.  It was pretty funny though because Beckie had gone on and on about the koi ponds full of big, fat koi we were going to see at the garden and when we got there we found out that all the ponds had been drained for cleaning.  Haha...So no water, no koi, but still an intense lingering fish smell. The place was awesome though.  Here are some pictures of what it would have looked like with full ponds.  More San Antonio pictures to come soon!

From the top of  one of the stone cliffs

The Pavilion and bridge

Sunday night we sat around the fire pit out back and just talked.  It was fun to listen to my mom and Beckie’s old stories from when they were growing up together on Johns Island.  Preston made me a Caipirinha, which is basically the national cocktail of Brazil. These things were amazing-sweet but not overkill and very limey, which I liked. Dangerous. Here's a recipe for one from Bobby Flay, because why not?

Monday through Wednesday my mom and I stayed out at the River Walk at the Hotel Indigo.  We did a lot of shopping and exploring.  It was great to just get out and wander the city a bit.  We went to the Alamo and did the river boat cruise through all the bars and restaurants downtown.  Our last night, we made reservations at a really nice restaurant called Boudro's.  The food and cocktails were great.  It was a tiny and busy restaurant and we could tell it was very popular with locals and tourists.  We sat inside because it was roughly 9000 degrees outside.  We got made to order table side guacamole, which was fantastic.  My mom had never really tried guac before and I was glad she liked it.  

Skip ahead a few weeks...

July 4 weekend: Can I just ask- why isn't every weekend 3 days? It baffles me.  Everyone would be more productive during the work week if we had 3 days off.  I'm just saying.  Anyway, July 4th, my best friends, Emily and Katie, came into town to celebrate and be all American. On Thursday, Katie and I went downtown to an Independence Day Kick-Off party at the bus shed.  The next day, my brother and I had a group of friends over to the pool. We had a fully stocked cooler, a playlist and a watermelon full of vodka. We all got wonderful sunburns. That night, we did the American thing and had Mexican food at Taco Boy. We redeemed ourselves by at least catching a glimpse of the fireworks from the rooftop at Stars later.  

Katie and me

Little personal running update (and how to force yourself to run faster):
Back up to a pain free 4-5 miles daily.  Got new Brooks this past week.  The new Ghost 7s-awesome as usual.  I'm dying to sign up for another half, but not one in this blazing heat. As much as I crave the sunshine and love sweating, I’m convinced I’d never finish a summer half. I read this article from active.com about forcing your body to run faster. Currently I’m running about 30 seconds slower per mile than I was in the winter/early spring.  I’m blaming it on the heat. Usually speed isn't really a big concern for me (I'm more interested in mileage), unless I’m running a race, but I would like to get back to my old pace.  I’m hoping the tips from the article (in combination with fall temps) will help me decrease my time. I’m thinking the Kiawah half in December will be my next milestone. Here's another article about training pace that I might pull from as well.

Job update:
I recently got a new job at work.  It's the job I'd been eyeing all year and I couldn't be happier (and more surprised) that I could got it.  I am now an Associate Editor in the Corporate Marketing Department.  I’ll be writing and editing copy for different company campaigns such as customer stories, emails, product and webinar ads, newsletters, eBooks, landing pages, etc. It’s pretty awesome and kind of Mad Men-esque as in I feel a bit like Peggy Olsen pitching copy in creative meetings.  

Peggy Olsen