Sweet Caroline oh-oh-oh

I know that many of you spend your days wondering what us Holbees do when we gather together. You may think we discuss literature and poetry - twas brilig in the slithey toves. You may think we discuss travel and the world - our brother lives in China. Or you may think we discuss religion and politics. I hate to disappoint you, but all we are is one big mutual admiration society. I tell Joy how pretty she is. She tells Michal what a good athlete she is. She tells my mama what a good cook she is. She tells my dad how smart he is. And on and on it goes. Some would think it'd get tiresome always hearing how wonderful you are, but it really doesn't. It's actually quite lovely. Then I start thinking about all the friends I have and am blown away by the fact that I have not a single terrible person in my life :-D. I love it.

I didn't blog last week, but it was mostly due to the fact that I had lousy or no internet on my trip. Then I spent a whirlwind weekend in Louisville for Joshua and Brittany's wedding and visiting Jamie. I got home last night and haven't slowed down since.

The first day of my trip was spent in Oklahoma City. It was surprisingly hot. I did day 2 of week 5. This is the first week where all three days of running aren't the same program. Day 2 was two 8-minute runs, which is the longest I've gone so far. On Wednesday I was privileged to see Amy and Shane in Portland. It was the most beautiful day I've had up there. I usually bring bad weather with me. They've moved us to a hotel that is downtown near the port so there are plenty of places you can walk to which is really nice. The next day I was in Montreal. The weather up there was also beautiful. I was exhausted from staying up too late with the Whites so all I had the energy for was a run. I wasn't sure I could make it because it was day 3, which is a 20-minute run, but I survived. It helped that the sidewalks were busy so I couldn't really run that fast. It's good mentally to keep extending the time. I'll work on speed later. I went to sleep at 7:30pm that night :-P.

I got off work on Friday, after doing 5 legs that included a Louisville round trip, just in time to get my violin and my weekend clothes from my car and rush over to the gate, to wait and hope I got on the flight. It was delayed forever cause of maintenance but TanJoe and I finally made it on. Once we got there Jamie took us to Louisville's finest where we heard a really awesome band play a really fun variety of music. I did a crossword on Tuesday that was themed songs named for women. One of them was "Sweet Caroline" so after hearing that song play in my head for a week it was great to hear it live. The rest of the weekend continued in that vein. The wedding was lovely and I was thrilled to find out that I had not forgotten how to play the violin.

I got back yesterday in time to go up to Buckhead for my cousin's graduation party, come back down here for dinner with some friends, and crash. Today was shopping and cooking and picking up Joy who is back from Spain and seeing the rest of the family. Hopefully I'll write some blogs coming up that aren't just about what I've been doing. We'll see. For now, I must sleep.