I was exhausted going into Labor Day weekend, and I think I’m even more exhausted coming out of it. Unfortunately, I think that’s going to be the norm for me me over the next couple of months as my campaign kicks into high gear… so I’d better get used to being busy! (Fortunately, I love it.)
On Friday evening, I caught a flight from Denver to Albany, New York, where I was visiting my family for the holiday weekend. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as simple as that one line implies. Although I had booked the nonstop flight, it ended up getting more than 4 hours delayed, so I didn’t land in Albany until 3am; finally got to bed at my mom’s house at 3:30am. Since I had planned to run a 5K race on Saturday morning, and needed to be up by 6:30am, this wasn’t ideal! I debated whether to run or skip it to sleep, but since I had already registered and paid for the race, I figured I’d give it a shot. I had originally wanted to use this race as an opportunity to PR and go sub-20, but with only 3 hours of sleep, I knew that was very unlikely.
Sure enough, I woke up on Saturday morning feeling really exhausted and terrible. However, I totally surprised myself by still PRing the race, and beating my time from 2 years ago on the same course by more than 90 seconds! I won second female overall, and was really proud of that accomplishment. Stay tuned for a full race report!
After the race, my dad and I headed over to my brother Lars’ house… with a pit stop first at Stewart’s for my dad to get coffee. I had already had a large pre-race coffee at Stewart’s and was still a little jittery from the caffeine (which I usually don’t drink). Instead, even though it was only 10am, I was considering getting ice cream. Stewart’s ice cream is the best, and I get so excited whenever I’m in upstate New York and have the opportunity to get some! I was on the fence about eating ice cream so early in the morning, but when I saw Stewart’s had a flavor called Honey Grahams (cereal milk flavored ice cream, studded with Golden Grahams cereal and a honey swirl), I decided it was a sign that I was meant to have ice cream for breakfast 🙂 It was delicious, though that decision set the tone for a lot of unhealthy eating over the course of the weekend.
We made it to Lars’ house mid morning, and things are still pretty calm there… but not for long! Lars and his twin brother were born on September 3rd, and while Erik couldn’t make it up to Saratoga, we were hosting a big 40th birthday bash for Lars on Sunday. Meanwhile, Lars’ son Torin was born on September 2nd, so on Saturday, we were hosting a party for him and his friends. It worked out really nicely to rent a tent and buy a ton of happy birthday balloons and leave them all set up for both parties!
For Torin’s party, I was responsible for organizing an obstacle course in the backyard for all of the kids – which I’m really proud to say was a huge hit. Torin’s party overall was a ton of fun, though also really exhausting, as I racked up more than 20,000 steps for the day chasing the kids in and out of the house, and up and down the stairs. Between that and getting to bed so late Friday night, I was totally exhausted, and hit the hay at 9pm Saturday for what I knew would be an even busier day Sunday.
Sunday morning, I woke up at 7am, clocking in a glorious 9 hours of sleep. The day started out a little bit slow and quiet, and I took advantage of the downtime by heading to an Orangetheory class down in Clifton Park. I was incredibly slow on the treadmills, and I could tell that the lack of sleep was catching up with me! But the rest of the workout had a zillion lunges, both body weight and dumbbell split squats, and I knew the workout was a great one for my legs. On my way back to the house, I stopped at Target to pick up a few party necessities, and when I got back, party preparations were in full swing.
Kathy, my sister-in-law’s stepmom, was in charge of the cooking. Grandma Kathy’s cooking is always incredible, and as soon as I got back to the house, I helped myself to a sweet potato biscuit right out of the oven. Yum! I then got to work with my sister-in-law filling plastic syringes with liquid jello shots, for a fun twist on a classic. The time before the party really flew by, and before I knew it, guests were arriving.
However, before it was party time, I managed to get in a good chunk of work on my campaign, doing something that was much needed: organizing all my ideas and tips from current elected officials into a master to-do list and campaign calendar. I was pretty stressed before I got this all in one place, because ideas were floating through my head but I felt like I was being reactive rather than proactive.Now that I have it all consolidated into one place, I can see I’m going to be very busy this fall, with not a lot of time to myself. But I’m really excited for the new challenge ahead!
My brother’s party was a blast – as evidenced by the fact that we started at 4pm and didn’t wrap up until after 2am! (Oh boy… we are all too old to be doing this on a regular basis.) Since the kids’ obstacle course had been such a hit the day before, we threw a few adult party games into the mix at Lars’ party, which were fabulous after a few drinks 😉 We played musical chairs, flip cup, beer pong, and a hilarious relay race where everyone puts a balloon on their butt and has to run up behind their teammate and try to pop it with their body. I was laughing so hard throughout the night, and I was so glad we got to celebrate big for my brother’s 40th!
Monday morning, we were all a little bit slow to get going. But once we did, my mom and I headed over to check out my newly renovated townhouse (which is finally done and on the market!), while my sister-in-law went to pick up my nephews from their other grandma’s house where they had a sleepover. We met back up at Lars’ house for lunch, and before I flew out to Florida, I got to take my nephews to Stewart’s for ice cream cones. The perfect way to close out my upstate visit!
When I got to Albany Airport, I learned that my flight to Philly was delayed (a creeping delay that ended up being 2 hours), and I was initially afraid I would miss my connection… but then my flight down to Palm Beach was delayed four hours, so it turned out I had nothing but time to hang out in the terminal! I got a lot done on my layover, and so was able to sleep instead of working on the plane. I finally rolled into West Palm around 2am (shades of Friday night), but this time, I canceled my Tuesday morning Orangetheory class in favor of sleep. It’s another busy week ahead, and I need to be on point!