Day 7/9 of Marathon Training, and Law Day luncheon

Today was week 1, day 2 of my marathon training program.  I didn't run yesterday.  Yesterday was a horrible day for me and I just didn't have the time.  Today I ran 3 miles along a Rio Grand trial with my friend Carey and her dog Tux. Sadly I didn't bring Venus because I had to go straight to my writing group meeting afterwards. It was a hard run but a nice trail. It is close to the Flying Star in the North Valley which is pretty close to where I live and not far from where Carey lives on the West Side. There's a dirt path along each side of the ditch bank and it goes very far. There are some pretty houses and yards to look at while passing by, and it's a nice place for the dogs. At one part it is very clumpy with sand, which was annoying. Other than that I like the route a lot and want to do it again soon! It took me 34 minutes which is s-l-o-w but it really felt hard! Carey kicks my butt and I have to get into better shape to catch up with her!

Also today I attended the Albuquerque Bar Association luncheon, which is held the first Tuesday of every month, and today was the Law Day lunch.  The national purpose of the American Bar Association was to celebrate the legacy of John Adams, and this was mentioned at our lunch but no one really talked about it in depth.  Instead Chief Justice of the NM Supreme Court, Justice Charles Daniels, gave a really interesting talk on technology in the Supreme Court and the law, from the quill to the computer. It encompassed a lot of things from early New Mexico history about how at one point the territorial map put us in Texas (the line was drawn to the Rio Grande) and how at another time the territory of New Mexico stretched through Nevada, making "Caesar's Palace a place in New Mexico." It was quite funny and entertaining. I also had the opporunity to visit with a lot of friends, former law school classmates and former colleagues (I've worked at four firms in the past five years, so, I have a lot of former colleagues. ;)

In other news, I put my deposit down for the apartment yesterday, so I'm definitely moving! I have a couple weeks to sort through my stuff and then I think I'm going to start moving in around May 14th, but I don't have to be out of my house until May 31st because I already paid for the last month's rent. I like that I have a lot of time to do it and I want to make sure I set up my new place very nicely, because I never really got around to setting up my current place at all. I always thought I would either move back into my own house across the street, or move back home to Pennsylvania/Maryland where my family is! Now I'm still here and it's time to get organized and finally settle in.

Day 6/7 of Marathon Training

I didn't get to do Run for the Zoo this morning because I stupidly left my key in my friend's car last night and didn't realize it until it was time to drive to the race! I suppose it was for the best, though, because the weather was really really crappy-- cold and windy-- and so my time would have been horrible. There's another 5K run next weekend I'll do instead.

I was rather sore after my four-mile fast-ish treadmill run yesterday at the gym, so I did an easy run with Venus along the ditch bank near my house. We went for 2.65 miles (30 minutes) which neatly wrapped up the week. I'll post a Week One recap next.

I spent most of today listing books and other things on eBay. I decided I'm definitely going to take the apartment, so, it's time to downsize and get rid of a bunch of stuff!  Bye bye clutter. :) With today being May 1st, it's the start of my new budget, which basically means keeping track of what I spend and trying not to spend as much as I usually do. This should be fun... yeah right.

Day 4/4 of Marathon Training

Today I did a speed interval run along the ditch bank with Venus. I included six repetitions of two minutes of running as fast as I could, interspersed with jogging, some walking, and some regular running. It wasn't ideal-- I would have liked to steadily alternate minutes and pick up my non-sprinting pace, but it was hard because I'm out of shape, so I'm just glad I did it. :) Overall it was 40 minutes and I think about 3.5 miles. It was a sunny, hot day and I went at about 5:15 pm.  It was a hard workout but a good one!

After the run I went to look at the apartment that my former landlord is renting out. There are some good things about it and some bad things about it but for the price I think it's a good deal, and what's most important is that he doesn't care about the pets, and the place has a fenced, private "backyard" (more like a big dog run, but, that's fine for our purposes. ;)  I am pretty sure I'm going to do it.  I may spend tomorrow looking at a few other places to be sure -- I can never make up my mind about anything though so I should probably just jump off and do it.  My current lease ends May 31st and my last month's rent was paid in advance, so I think I'll sign up for the new place starting May 15th, which gives me two weeks to move everything out. I am a bad procrastinator and I hate doing practical things like moving, so, hopefully this will be ideal. 

Then I went to meet my friend Carey and her husband Sonu at Gecko's in Nob Hill. It was originally supposed to be for the purpose of picking up some things I accidentally left in Carey's car yesterday, but she invited me to have dinner and drinks with the group of anesthesiologists that Sonu was meeting with (he is in the last year of his anesthesiology residency at UNM).  We sat out on the patio and it cooled off and it was a lovely evening to do that!

Then I went to see my friend Jessica's new casita she's renting in Nob Hill. It's really cute--small but practical, and it has wood and cute trim and painting, etc. And it costs less than the place I'm considering. I thought about trying to find something like it but it doesn't have an enclosed yard.

Finally I went bowling with Jess, her sister Richelle who is in town to help her move, and a guy that Jessica is dating. We like to go to Holiday Bowl on Thursday nights because there's karaoke, cosmic bowling and $4 pitchers. Definitely a young crowd though-- high school and college. It was fun but I bowled terribly and stayed out too late!

Oh, today I had a meeting with my financial advisor and I wrote out a big check to my mutual funds company so that I can invest money for the future instead of keep spending it. Go me! :-) I have to really live off of a budget now, something I'm not used to at all, and I'm going to try to keep saving up more money.  Living in the new place will be almost $300 a month cheaper than my current place, and my current landlord was raising my rent by $100 so it will now be $400 a month cheaper! I still have to pay some of my mortgage after my own tenants pay their rent, so alltogether it's rather pricey but not nearly as bad as if I stay where I'm at now. I also plan to axe my gym membership at Sports & Wellness because it's way too expensive, and join Planet Fitness for only $10 a month. Plus I'm really going to try to cook more instead of going out so much and spending so much money on food and alcohol when I'm out, but, that is probably going ot be the most difficult goal to accomplish because it seems like I always have something going on.

Finally, I've lost two pounds in three days. :-) I still have so many more to go but it feels good to get a start at it, and I know I've lost them the right way, so they won't be coming back if I keep this up!

Day 2/2 of NWM Training

Today makes 2 out of 2 straight days of training for the Nike Women's Marathon, in San Francisco this October.

This morning, before work, I ran for half an hour, which I think was at least 2.5 miles, although I still can't find my Garmin charger and therefore have to guess at the distance and pace. This amount is less than I'm aiming to run on a regular basis, but I acheived my goal of getting up early and running first thing. I am so not a morning person but I've realized that getting up a bit earlier and using the mornings for running is a sure-fire way to fit my goals in. Plus, I am really busy today, with my weekly counseling appointment over lunch and my weekly writing group after work (Tuesdays are always busy for me!), plus having to go back and forth to my house to take my sick dog Katie out and do some of her physical therapy exercises, so it was half an hour this morning or nothing. I'm trying to stay positive and focus on what I do accomplish rather than what I don't. :-) So go me!

I ran with my dog Venus along the ditch bank by my house. That is one of the things I'll miss if I move out of my current place, which I am now 99% positive I'm going to do, as part of my plan to save up money and for other reasons. Right now I'm renting a townhouse that happens to be across the street (cate-corner!) from the townhouse that I own. It's a long story but let's just say my life had been in some self-caused upheavel and up in the air for awhile, with some major changes, and I had been thinking about moving back East (I'm from southern Pennsylvania, right along the border of Maryland) to be near my family.  I became a nomad for a bit, during which time I rented out my townhouse to tenants, and then, when I returned to some of my senses (or so I thought), I took this townhouse with the intention of moving back across the street when their lease expired. Well, their lease expired in March but I had gotten used to lower monthly payments! My rent isn't as much as my mortgage, and their rent payment covers a big chunk of my mortgage, although not all of it. So by March I was still getting my footing and I didn't want to bid forever adieu to these stable, good tenants and starting paying for my expensive mortgage on my own, only to later wish I could still rent it out to them. I gave them the option to extend the lease for another year, and they took it (although they still haven't signed the lease, so, as usual, nothing is for certain as of yet).

The townhouse that I'm renting (and obviously the one that I own, across the street) is in Albuquerque's North Valley. I love living here because it's the greenest part of Albuquerque (although nothing compared to Pennsylvania, of course ;), and it's very eclectic, with a mix of different types of people, houses, stores, plants, animals, you name it, all coinciding together. It's centered around the Rio Grande river and it's the oldest section of Albuquerque. I love the history and the landscape and I also love that it's centrally located-- right between the East and West sides of the city, and a close drive to nearly anywhere within it (although it seems annoyingly far away from Nob Hill and from my BFF Jessica's apartment near Kirtland Air Force Base, where she works. It only takes me, however, seven minutes to get to my office/downtown from my house). Oh, and it has a lot of bike and jogging trails, like the one along the ditch bank where I take Venus running, but most places in Albuquerque do, because we are actually a very bike-friendly city.

Of course, with all of this beauty and convenience comes a downside: it's more expensive to live here than in other parts of the city, such as some places in the Northeast Heights, and pretty much all of the West side. This is especially true if you have a roomy-ish two-story, two-bedroom two-bath townhouse (duplex) with a fenced private yard and a garage and your very own washer/dryer etc. There's just not as much bang for your buck here (unless you count convenience/location as bangs, which I do, except that now I'm more worried about bucks.) So for quite some time I've been debating whether to move somewhere cheaper, or maybe even into something similarly priced downtown, so that I'm even closer to my dogs during the day and I can let them out more easily and frequently, especially with Katie's recent surgery, and perhaps even walk or bike to work.

I was trying my best to extend my originally seven month lease month-to-month while I pretend to make up my ever-wavering mind, but my landlord would only go for two months of that rigamarole. Now he's informed me that my rent is going up by $100 a month in June if I want to stay, and that he wants a 6-month lease at that price in September. So he's basically made up my find for me because I don't want to pay what I'm paying for rent, let alone $100 more, and I really don't think the place is worth it, despite it being in my beloved North Valley and despite the fact that he doesn't seem to care that I own an animal menagerie. (Or perhaps he does, and this is why he is raising my rent!)

To top it all off, just recently I've decided I definitely want to move to a new place and start over fresh. I never decorated this place in the eight or so months I've lived here, or even unpacked boxes that I'd brought from the house I shared with my ex. Living in it always felt very temporary and chaotic. I would like a new start in a new place, to de-clutter my life and downsize my junk. At first I worried that it would feel like I was going "backwards" by renting a smaller apartment when I own a nice townhome, but it seems to me that I have to go that way to move forward. Like many Americans I bought my house at the height of the market and had no idea it would crash so bad and end up underwater for [if you know how long please fill me in?], nor did I understand that my tax payments on the house would double after a year, and then go up some more, causing my overall house payment to go up by over $200 in two years.  I guess I rushed into buying my house when I should have sat tight and saved up money and lived in something smaller and more practical.  I'm definitely learning the value of patience! So now I'm going to do things "backwards" and keep saving towards my future rather than spending all my money on a mortgage or expensive rent. The hunt for a new place is officially on! And I'm definitely leaning towards cheaper rent over a location in the North Valley or downtown, although the combintation of both would be perfect of course.

Here's a random funny event: today I emailed someone who had an apartment listed on Craigslist, and when the person wrote me back, it turned out to be my former landloard, from whom I rented an apartment for three years or so when I was in law school! Luckily he always said I was a great tenant. I think it's a sign. :-) I had actually thought about calling him to see if he had anything available, because I knew he probably wouldn't care about my pets and also because the place I rented from him back then was really cheap and I am looking to save money.  Then I started thinking that I should live in a gated community apartment complex with a pool and fitness center etc. so that I can save on some of those bills (except that of course apartments that come with these amenities charge a higher in rent for them than private apartments that don't have them)!

Alas, I ran into some obstacles when almost every apartment complex I called wouldn't accept my dog Venus because she has the blessing-and-curse of being born a Shepherd/Rottie mix, and looks every bit of her ethnicity! (I know it's not called ethnicity in dogs but I don't care; I feel these policies are discriminatory because my corgi Katie is more likely to bite someone than Venus is!) In fact, I got Venus because she looks big and scary and I want protection on my runs around the sometimes-sketchy North Valley (its aforementioned "eclectic-ness" includes a halfway house that is less than a block away from my townhouse complex, several rundown apartment buildings in the vicinity that look like they house people in between their stays in jail, and a biker-bar that is close enough to walk to, but which I only enter when in the company of my no-nosense hispanic friends. ;) But hey-- the Nature Conservatory is close, as is several nice gated housing complexes... you just never know in the North Valley!) 

The strategy of adopting a scary-looking dog sometimes backfires on me when people refuse to believe she's friendly, just based on how she looks. And apparently most apartment complexes in Albuquerque aren't willing to give her a chance. I found one that will definitely take her (no breed restrictions), and one that might take her (I just said she was a shepherd mix, which is what her adoption and vet papers say, but let's not fool ourselves that if they do their homework and investigate, they won't take one look at her and know she's mixed with a rottweiler, which is on their restricted breeds list.  Still, I'm crossing my fingers and am just glad that shepherds aren't on their restricted breeds list-- as they are at many other complexes I've called).

Guess what breeds I am.
Do you think I could pass for a chihuahua on steroids??

In considering an apartment community, however, even though I'd like the pool and fitness center, I wouldn't like not having a yard for the dogs. They don't really need one because I only use it for the convenience of letting them out and occasionally for playing with them back there if I don't have time to take them on their runs.  I don't leave them out there when I'm not home, or when I am home for that matter, unless they're doing their business. Venus stays crated when I'm not home because she has separation anxiety and Katie is low-maintenance enough to just chill indoors. So while a yard isn't necessary, it is a bonus, and the apartment I emailed about, which ended up belonging to my ex-landlord, does have a yard, as well as two bedrooms. Plus he didn't seem to care about Venus the Maneater.  This might be a match made in heaven!  He said he'll email me in a few days when the current tenants move out.  In the meantime I'm going to check out the two apartment complexes where Venus might be welcome, and continue to scour Craigslist. Here's to finding an affordable but practical place to live! :-)





Desperately seeking shelter. ;)




Venus: Mom, I don't know how well your plan to call me a "shepherd mix" is going to work!
Katie: Oh just be quiet while I sit here and look pretty... I'll get us in somewhere!

Mom, how could anyone resist my smiley face?!