Season finale and fall previews

The whole summer's-over-on-Labor-Day thing is sort of funny because it was over awhile ago for me. Academic calendars care not about normal people calendars. For lack of anything else to write about let's recap my summer. For me summer starts at the end of finals in May, which is a week or two before Memorial Day. In semi-chronological order:

I entertained people at my house for my birthday, which is noteworthy because I never have people over.

I went to Anaheim for a work conference. It was dumb.

I ran a shitload. If I had to estimate I'd say I've ran around 300 miles since mid-May. I love it but it has been so much more time consuming than I had expected. Gone are the Friday nights. Instead I have 5 a.m. wake-ups on Saturdays and two more days a week of running on my own. Usually I'd be so tired from the Saturday run I couldn't even go out Saturdays. Didn't get out much but it didn't bother me much either.

I went to my first Chicago beach. It was unimpressive. Only good thing was that I felt pretty a-ok about bikini-time thanks to running.

My friend and my uncle both got their cancers into remission. My cousin had a baby - the first in the new generation of our tiny family.

I got a promotion. Then another one. I now have three job titles, and the work to match. More not going out resulted. Also more stress and responsibility. Boo. And money. Yay.

Nate reappeared. Hung out a lot. Coffee and waffles in the morning followed by baseball-watching afternoons resumed. Threw him a surprise BBQ. Been good.

I saw only one movie in the theater: Dark Knight.

I went to two weddings. One really nice, one the exact opposite of anything I'd ever want for mine.

I made in-roads at sprucing up my apartment.

Continued hanging out with my 'new' friends. Can't call them new anymore huh? Made more new friends in my running group.

Went to a bunch of White Sox games.

Did not watch nearly enough films.

Had my brother visit for a few days.


I feel like I'm missing something but probably not. Running and work has dominated my summer. Overall rating? 4 out of 5 stars. I told Nate today that I was looking forward to the coziness of fall, the electric blankets, sweaters (more importantly doggy sweaters!), leaves falling, warm soup dinners, Christmas tree in the corner... Someday the world will invent a winter without cold temperatures but with all the good stuff.

Fall plans: completing my first marathon, making it through teaching this class, finishing my 'office', paying down some debt with my new income, visiting Kevin/Paul for Thanksgiving, Matty's wedding in October, and hopefully seeing a White Sox world series victory.