Melting pots and 20 milers
Three Sisters: Me, Gretchen, Ashley (friend), and Katy
Friday was my sister Gretchen’s 20th birthday. Thinking back I can’t even remember my 20th birthday…I must have been right in the middle of some crazy semester at school, trying to work and handle a full-time CS undergrad load. I do remember my 21st birthday, though. I had a huge test the next day - I think in either Calc II or DSAII (Data Structures and Algorithms — good lord, it could have been both I took them the same semester…) Anyway - I remember being incredibly frustrated because I had to spend so much time studying and working on programming assignments when it seemed like a lot of the other majors were going out and having fun. I remeber thinking - that’s ok - after I have my degree it will all be worth it.
Since then I have realized that sometimes it’s just best to live in the moment. Who knows what would have happened if I would have partied through college (I would have probably failed a lot of classes and had to graduate later.) Certain things require dedication and responsibility, but there isn’t this binary black and white border. There are some greys that I really missed out on because I was so dedicated to school back in the day. (I was valedictorian of my high school class, too). Who knows what my life would be like now if I would have spent more time doing ‘fun’ stuff… Things are different now - even though my GPA is pretty good at Case (3.7), I know I could have a solid 4.0 if I really tried. I don’t care that much about it anymore, though. What good is it to spend that extra time? If it’s between hanging out with my family and friends or having a 3.7 vs. a 4.0 I’m taking the B every now and then! Getting laid off has really taught me that success means more than job title, grade point average, and your salary. It’s your overall LIFE that matters; your health; your happiness; your satisfaction with your accomplishments both career and personal. It’s too bad that it took me a while to realize these things, but I feel like I know a secret now…one that’s so obvious but so hard to realize.
So - we went to the Melting Pot for dinner. If you’ve never been there I recommend NOT going there for dinner, but instead dessert. Dinner is overpriced and not very good (they give you raw meat/seafood and you cook it in this pot of broth on your table). The dessert is also overpriced, but the experience is fun and it’s very tasty. We decided to do this thing where you get an appetizer, salad, entree, and dessert. It was $88 per couple. (I told Gret she could get whatever she wanted). Here are some pictures:
Spinach and artichoke cheese appetizer
Entree plates (each couple gets one) with seafood and meats
Dessert! 2 pots of different flavored chocolate and plates with strawberries, marshmallows, rice crispy treats, brownies, bananas, and cheesecake!
And yes, we did eat ALL of it! I may have eaten more of the dessert plate than Gretchen did! It was nice, though, because going here is more of an event than most dining. We were there for close to 3 hours. It was fun to have tons of time to talk and have fun in-between the courses. We took lots of pictures of each other and at one point were being really silly and taking fake myspace pictures. (If you have a myspace acct you know what I’m talking about — the over the head self-portrait where you’re trying to look good - yet another reason to make fun of myspace.) Oh - and no, I won’t be posting those. 
I was out pretty late, but decided I really HAD to get in a long run and there was no way I was doing it by myself so I decided to run w/ SERC . Daisy and Espeed are too fast for me and Barb was only doing 10, so I joined Dawn and Rich at the 6 mile mark. They were planning on doing 20 and they weren’t going too fast for me so I ran with them. They are great to run with because they talk most of the time and made the miles go by pretty fast. Towards the end I was pretty tired though and barely made it up the big hill in the park. Luckily Rich gave me one of his gu’s or I would have likely died because I was expending so many calories trying to stay warm! Man it was frigid! The wind was crazy and it was snowing pretty steadily so my fleece was soaked from the melting snow. My eyelashes were covered with snow and ice and I could barely see! Rich said my ponytail was like a barometer or something because it had so much snow on it that it was an indication of how long we had been running. I know neither one of them read my blog - but they are such great runners and I’m really appreciative that they ran with me. (They’ve both done many ultras including hundred milers). I’m so happy to get that 20-miler over with. Now I feel like I’m really training. Let’s see where the rest of the weeks take me!
29* year old Akron native. Recently completed my MBA with a concentration in Sustainability. Passionate about innovative renewable energy technology and endurance sports.