MOST. PRODUCTIVE. DAY. EVER.

Seriously guys.  While there’s always a lot to do, I can think of way too many days where I lacked serious motivation, laid down with Murph ‘just for a sec’ (which turns into an hour long nap), or wasn’t nearly as focused on schoolwork as I should have been.  The fact that I make my own schedule (literally all my work asides from baby-sitting and classes is done when I want to, assuming I get it done within a certain time frame) can lead to a pretty sweet situation, but also the need for a lot of structure.  Thanks to my awesome action planning skills from Teach For America, I do a pretty decent job of planning my week and days out, even down to the hours I’m doing what, to make sure it all gets done.

BUT, now that classwork isn’t part of the equation, and I only had four hours of video tagging work to do this week, it’s the perfect chance to catch up on life.  Check out the productivity today…

• Took the dogs on three walks (totaling about an hour)
• Went grocery shopping
• Cleaned the kitchen (like SERIOUSLY cleaned… under all the appliances, removed the stove top, soaked and scrubbed, etc.)



• Cleaned my desk area (wishing I had taken a before picture so you could understand the size of this task)



• Cleaned out all my first semester binders/books/folders
• Baked a two-layer cake (first one ever!)



• Cleaned out two junk drawers (AND found a missing diamond earring from a year ago!!!  SERIOUS 10.  I lost one at a kickball game, and put the other in my bookbag.  Then, the following week I found the lost one in the dirt at the field, totally by accident, and then could no longer locate the original.  Saddest story ever but it now has a happy ending!!!)



• Cleaned my room (folded and put away the always growing pile on the floor)
• Cleaned out my fridge (GROSS… got rid of a bunch of old/moldy food.  No fun.)



• Cleaned out my car (again, kinda gross.  Left a cooler in there from the trip home from Thanksgiving that still contained food in it…)
• Made a vegetable lasagna for Will’s 75th birthday celebration tomorrow
• Made this year’s Smith Family Smackdown t-shirts
• Finished a couple other home made Christmas gifts (can’t describe in detail, as they might be for people reading…)
• Wrapped all my Christmas gifts (that’s right, I have completely finished shopping, making and wrapping.  SO different from last year!)



• Four hours of video tagging
• Worked out
• Updated the blog (Yes friends, this counts.  Writing this incredible doesn’t always come easily/quickly.)

I rate this a HUGE 10 as I feel awesome!!!!  Now I’m off to celebrate the end of finals!

Homemade Christmas Gifts

I came home yesterday to find this on my bedroom floor.

While perhaps unrecognizable to many, this is a Christmas gift I made over Thanksgiving.  Actually, I’ve removed the gift from the picture (to keep it a secret for any readers it may or may not have been for) and this is just the wrapping paper.

That’s right, while gone Murphy pulled my bag of gifts off my desk, used his brilliant Beagle nose to find the one containing edible insides, unwrapped the gift, and began to eat it.  Yes, he ate part of the gift. Just to clarify, the gift was not food.  It was made with edible parts, but it was not meant to (ever) be eaten.  I suppose it serves me right for making a gift out of anything a dog might enjoy.

Oddly Murphy was nowhere to be found…

I rate this a 1, solely for entertainment value.  I can’t help but laugh at his antics sometimes, even though it means coming up with some new Christmas ideas in the next week and a half.

Murph later making friends with Clawed the Eagle, AU's awesome mascot. And by 'making friends' I clearly mean attempting to chew a hole in him. I rescued him 10 seconds after I took this picture.

Pink Glove Dance

10!

Okay, so I feel a bit bad going to bed on such a negative note with the last post.  Luckily someone awesome sent this video my way tonight…

Several things I LOVED:

• The old janitor in the hallway.  Especially at the end when you can only see him from the back.
• The sequence of pairs of dancers in the hospital waiting room about halfway.  Especially the people watching in the background.
• The cause, clearly.
• The other janitor with the sunglasses.
• The incredible variety in dance moves.  I’ve got a couple new ones to try out the next time I go dancing…
• The choreographed group dances.  I can just picture the many practices that went into making that happen.

A much better way to sign off for the evening

Cheating, Lying, Gross Men (and some women)

I know it makes good TV.  I know we’re all nosy and want to know exactly who every celebrity is sleeping with (married or not).  But why does it seem that cheating is recently ALL over the place?  It’s not that I thought Tiger Woods was any exception, like all the news reports claim he seemed to be, but this is just one more story in the long line of stories about people cheating.

Private practice last week was about a woman discovering her mom had cheated on her dad for 20 years (and she had previously cheated on her ex-husband), Beverly Hills 90210 is constantly exposing new cheaters, including Mr. Walsh this week (yes, I watch 90210 during the day, and yes, I realize this is not the best example), Jon Gosselin, Tiger Woods and many, many more.  I seriously question if anyone in Hollywood (or anywhere really) gets that when you marry someone it means forever, and that you no longer have the luxury of sleeping around.

Start paying attention… it’s everywhere.  Why am I letting this disillusion me when it comes to love and marriage?  I rate this a 0.

I Heart Acrobatics and Live Music…

CIRQUE DREAMS: 8.5

Last night I finally got to check out my first Cirque du Soleil performance, as Cirque Dreams (the Christmas version) was here in Raleigh for the week. While I’ve never been, I’ve definitely heard a lot about it (everyone else in my family has seen one), and was always intrigued from the stories.  A mix of music, costumes and intense acrobatic tricks apparently makes for a pretty great show.

First of all, the costumes are crazy and impressive all at the same time.  There’s so much going on at once, in so many different colors, I often found it difficult to focus on the main event.  For example, the one act was a balancing act with two men dressed as penguins.  While they were doing all kinds of crazy balancing, there were other ‘penquins’ tossing giant balls around, one on rollerblades, and one that just kept sliding on his stomach across the stage (my favorite of them all).  How can I focus on the incredible balancing going on when there are this many entertaining penguins on stage at the same time?

-1 for the danger aspect.  In climbing, we spend so much time learning to tie the right knots, how to double check them, how to doublecheck our harnesses, how to protect the ropes, etc. so that no one falls.  Free climbing is seen as ridiculously stupid, especially in my mind due to something that Claud and I call the ‘bee sting factor’.  Even if you’re the most incredible climber ever, on a super easy route, it’s still not a good idea to climb 50-100 feet in the air without a rope because you never know what external factors might interfere.  You might reach up for the next super giant hold and get stung by a killer bee.  In which case, you might let go, fall and die.  SO, when watching these acrobats do crazy, out of control balancing moves on a hoop/rope/silk scarf 50 feet up in the air, I spent much of the show waiting for one to get stung by a bee and fall to their death.  Doesn’t make for constant enjoyment.

-.5 for the singing.  Overall I really liked the music they played, but the singing wasn’t that fabulous.  They should stick with the background music.

The company was great, and I loved the excuse to dress up in heels and my theatre jacket   Something nice about that when you head out to a nice performing arts center all decked out for Christmas.

TRIPP: 7

Following Cirque, I ended up meeting  Claud downtown to check out a couple local bands.  We started at Tir Na Nog to see an old favorite, Tripp.  I haven’t seen them play since last winter, so that part was awesome.

I totally dig their original music (except for how catchy it is… definitely hard to get out of your head), love the guys in the band, and especially loved the return of my favorite awkward bass player (wearing a jean jacket with jeans, no less).  However, their lead guitar was missing which was a bummer since not only is he incredible at guitar, but he has a definite stage presence that adds to their vibe.  I’m wondering if he just missed that gig or is gone forever… any insight Alex?

I also thought the crowd there last night needed some definite work.  For the drink special of the evening being Red Bull and Vodka, there seemed to be a serious lack of energy.  Two crazy guys dancing right next to us (LOVED their excitement, p.s.), but other than that no one dancing.  Very different from the first time I saw them play at Jack Spratt.  The set up of this bar wasn’t exactly conducive for crowd involvement, which I’m sure probably sucked for the guys playing, who had only tables in front of them while the crowd was all the way over on the other side of the bar.

Overall though, the music was great and it made me whip their CD back out for some fun driving music.

AMERICAN AQUARIUM: 9

From there we headed next door to check out one of Claud’s favorite local bands, American Aquarium.  I’ve never heard of them before, or seen them play, but boy did I dig their music.  TOTALLY different scene then the first bar (where we felt under dressed while surrounded by tuxes and formal wear), way more casual and a much larger crowd.  The cover was a bit steep if you ask me, but after listening to their stuff I decided it was worth it.  A mix between rock and folk, I was totally into both the twang and the pretty kickass lead singer.  While sometimes the accent seemed a bit heavy (which I only started to notice when both Claud and Lauren pointed it out), the combo of the two was pretty fun.  It was the kind of music that I literally couldn’t stop myself from dancing to.  So I did, and had a pretty great time doing it.

To top it off, I happened to run into four more of my friends that I don’t see nearly enough.  Lauren, Andy, Will and Mike were all there as well which was an unexpectedly pleasant surprise.  I also loved Andy’s willingness to get his groove on with me

THIS PICTURE: 1

I wanted to try and catch a shot of Claud, Andy and I but again, the iPhone let me down. Without a flash it’s pretty much useless in dark places.  Just wanted to emphasize my desperate need for a new digital camera… Santa, can you hear me?

Check them out here…

Overall an awesome vibe there, and an awesome night, and I will definitely be checking them out again in the future!

It’s Nice to be Back :)

Well, it’s been awhile.  It began with a little sickness around Thanksgiving, and then after waiting for some pictures from Thanksgiving it quickly became several weeks with no blogging.  But here I am, back at last   So the first rating must be a quick recap of Thanksgiving (it’s been too long to bore you with a full report).

THANKSGIVING SICKNESS: 2

It’s almost like your body knows when you’re going home and you’ll have some time to rest and be taken care of.  Appropriately, it shut down right before leaving.  The mystery illness from the weekend in the mountains returned, and through the past two weeks I’ve been hit with a bunch of random symptoms, none leading to anything specific.  I attempted to treat it with orange juice, ibuprofen, Nyquil, Dayquil, Zinc, cough drops, and Robitussin.  Nothing cut the cough, and only in the past two days has my sore throat healed.  I think the decision to start working out this week (when the weather gets colder I tend to get lazier with the dogs…) helped.  Nothing like sweating out the sickness

+1 because it definitely could have been worse, and for that I’m grateful.

+1 because it forced me to relax, and gave me an excuse to lie around for multiple hours sleeping each day.

REUNITING ‘THE PACK’: 9

Now that the parents have a puppy, going home has brought a whole bunch of new excitement.  On top of seeing the family, the pups get reunited with their family.  While my pups always seems a bit out of sorts when around Maggie, you can tell they like the excitement.  Plus, the exercise is definitely good for them.

Murph and Maggie spent the whole time chasing each other around the house and wrestling, taking occasional breaks for Maggie to harass Dakota and attempt to get him to play (to no avail).

-1 because of how loud they can get when they’re playing.  It’s pretty difficult to even hold a conversation when the two little runs are sprinting and growling.

I’m going to attempt to get some videos with the mom’s camera over Christmas…

TRIP TO HAPPY VALLEY: 8

Friday after Thanksgiving, and some early Black Friday shopping (on my mom and sister’s part, not mine) we headed up to State College to see a Penn State women’s volleyball game.  We’ve been doing this since I was a kid, as my sister and I played since we were little.  Always big fans of the Lady Lions, it’s only gotten better as the team has become consistently the best in the country.  This year they’re working for their third national title in a row (fourth total).

Having gone to a much smaller college with a lot less school spirit, I now love going up even more.  Upon arrival, before dinner, we decided to partake in the spirit by doing a little Nittany Lion style shopping…

THESE LION HATS: 9!  I LOVE them, and they’re super soft and comfy.  Plus, how can you go wrong with little lion ears on the side?  Only downside… they’re $25 each!  Not exactly fitting into my budget…

THE GAME: 8.  It was nice to see a Penn State win, and see what all the hype was about, but they pretty much kicked Michigan State’s butt.  Even when the game was close it never felt close, as you could tell they were clearly pretty confident they were gonna take the match.  And take it they did   In only 3 games no less.  Sometimes you wish they would take it to 4 or 5 so you could get more out of your money, but at least it meant we got home early

Saturday morning I headed back to North Carolina to get in the Christmas spirit.  The tree was put up (still with no ornaments…), music was listened to, and this week ‘Elf’ finally came out.  Clearly that will be watched many times this season

Until next time (which will be soon, I promise!), living for the tens!

Framily Thanksgiving!

While technically I hosted Thanksgiving last year, my mom was in town so a lot of the burden was taken on by her (basically, I did some of the cooking but didn’t quite tackle the turkey).  So, I decided that it was important, in my ongoing quest to become a ‘real’ adult, to give it another try.  So a couple weeks ago I announced to the framily that I would be hosting a Framily Thanksgiving, the Sunday before actual Thanksgiving.

THE TURKEY: 8

Luckily, I remembered to buy the turkey in time so it could defrost, and only had to use cold water to finish it off for about an hour on Sunday.  Following a lot of advice received from seasoned experts, I removed the giblets, washed it out, buttered it up and popped it in the oven.

5 hours later, out came a pretty beautiful turkey (if I do say so myself).  Overall I’d rate it an 8.  Lots of leftovers (mostly dark meat too, which is my fave), pretty moist and tasty, and timed perfectly.

-1 for the stuffing (despite everyone’s offers of homemade recipes, I decided to go with the box stuff).  Pretty tasty, but I couldn’t manage to find enough holes in the turkey to actually fit most of it.

-1 for the neck.  The directions clearly instruct you to remove the neck after the giblets, but if you don’t know a whole lot about the anatomy of a turkey, how the heck am I supposed to figure out what the neck is?  Scott found it as he was carving and was a bit confused.  Oops…  Always make new mistakes   I’ll be sure to get it out next time.

THE SPREAD: 9!

We sure do know how to pull out all the stops when it comes to framily dinners.  The spread last night included (but is not limited to), mini-queche appetizers, cheese, Krab and tuna dips, hummus, crackers of all kinds, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, a gravy mix (onion, mushroom and turkey gravy), stuffing, turkey, fresh vegetable soup and some delicious $.50 rolls from Kroger. For dessert we had incredible pumpkin brownie type treats, as well as homemade pumpkin cake from Laura.  Perfect amounts of everything to create that stuffed, miserable Thanksgiving feeling.

-1 because there was nothing with sweet potato in it- my all time favorite fall food!

THE COMPANY: 10!  Not only was the whole framily in attendance, but we also had some new guests.  Katie and Liz were awesome additions, plus the famous Will Bradley.  I’ve been working for him for a couple months now, and in addition to the work I’ve developed a new friend who I’ve been trying to convince to join us for some time now.  Despite my reminder call 5-minutes before dinner, he still found his way over to join us, which was enjoyed by everyone!

AFTER DINNER EUCHRE: 7

It should be a surprise to no one that dinner was followed by some incredible euchre.  And by incredible, I mean mediocre, ultimately non-victorious euchre.  Snooky and I kicked some butt during game 1, but unfortunately lost our lead there.  However, two folks “learned” how to play (hopefully providing us with more players in the future), and the deal was only stolen from my team once (and it wasn’t even from me!).

My game face:

Paul’s game face:

Jay and Scott ‘learning’ how to play euchre…

PAUL’S PHOTO SHOOT: 8

At one point the two dogs started cuddling and Jay reached for my camera.  I looked around to try and find it, and spotted Paul on the couch, pouting his lips, and posing for self-portraits 12-year-old girl style.  Apparently he forgot how dangerous it is to play around with the iPhone of someone who has a blog.  Results of the photo shoot: 8.  Poses 1 and 2 are awfully similar, and there’s no blue steel, but overall pretty entertaining.

TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE HEART: 9!

Snooky and I have long been in love with Total Eclipse of the Heart, by Bonnie Tyler.  We talk about it, we sing it, we theorize about the meaning of the video, and we seriously know how to rock out to it.  So when it came on the stereo last night you could say we were a bit excited.  This moment would have been a 10 were it not for my laryngitis, seriously preventing my best performance.  However, loving the photos Jay snapped.  Especially Paul’s face in the second one (click on it to enlarge for an even better view).  I’m a bit curious about what’s going on in the third…

Overall an incredible night.  So much so, I’d like to offer to cook the family turkey on Thursday.  Considering I am experienced and all…  until then, just living for the tens

Awesome Climbing Quotes

Thanks to Claud, I’ve been pretty distracted the past day reading through a website full of awesome quotes about climbing.  Lucky for you, I’ve weeded out the best

“What an odd sport we inhabit, where bits of obscure rock in remote locations are recognizeable.”    — Richard Pawlowicz.

“Getting out of this required a 5.11 Beached Whale move combined with a Bloody Scream, something they never teach in the gym.”    — Lord Slime.

“That was amazing ! Five lead changes to climb 40 feet of rock ! How can they say this route doesn’t look good ? This was MORE than a route — this was an EXPERIENCE !”    — Larry D.

“The best climber in the world is the one who’s having the most fun.”    — Alex Lowe.

“I’ve climbed with some of the best climbers in the world, more importantly, to me, they are some of the best people in the world. That’s another reason why I climb.”    — Jim Wickwire.

“Some of the world’s greatest feats were accomplished by people not smart enough to know they were impossible.”    — Doug Lawson.

“Yoga is a system, scientifically proven to boost your climbing ability significantly. Why do you think you always see that Guru figure sitting on the top of the mountain? You think he/she got there by enlightenment ?”    — Lg.

“How do you distinguish between being off-route and putting up a first ascent ?”    — Bruce Bindner.

“I climb as hard as anyone on earth. I just do it on easier routes.”    — Mad Dog.

“In fact, I think you should add your body fat to the rating of the climb, to get a true measure of your inner climber. So climbing a 5.7 with 22% body fat is way harder than climbing a 5.14 with 3% body fat.”    — Mike Yukish.

“In fact, I think you should add your body fat to the rating of the climb, to get a true measure of your inner climber. So climbing a 5.7 with 22% body fat is way harder than climbing a 5.14 with 3% body fat.”    — Mike Yukish.

Check ‘em out for yourself here.

Organizing my Gmail…

GMAIL’S TAG FUNCTION: 9

I’m LOVING this new part of my gmail.  Basically, gmail allows you to create a variety of different tags that you can then apply to each individual email (and color-code them!).  It’s similar to the idea of folders (as a copy of the emails are then stored under that tag), EXCEPT that you can tag emails with more than one tag.  BRILLIANT!  Sometimes you have an email that you could possibly store in two folders, and have to make the hard decision of where it goes, but now that problem is solved!

You also can create filters (similar to ‘rules’ on Outlook) to proactively tag any emails from certain people, with a certain subject line, or just containing certain words.  I went through and created a bunch of rules for friends, family, climbing and most importantly, junk e-mail.  When I went and applied them to all my emails it quickly cleaned up my inbox, now down to only 3,032 (not quite as lucky).

And from now on, any emails coming from my classic junk mail providers will automatically be archived and I’ll never have to look at them again.

I may have gone overboard out of excitement (we’ll see if there’s a need to narrow down later on), but some of my tags include:

-1 because it was a bit difficult to figure out at first, which is why I’ve gone three years without doing any sort of organizing.  Once you get the hang though, it’s awesome!  I can’t wait to figure out what else gmail has to offer…

Framily Vacation to the Mountains

What started as a trip out west (western North Carolina that is) for a climbing comp, quickly became a framily birthday celebration when Laura suggested renting a cabin and bringing the whole framily.  I’d say the vacation really began Thursday night with some Bub’s karaoke…

REDISCOVERING THE RATING CARDS: 10!  When Rate Your World first began, I made my very own, color coded, rating cards that were conveniently clipped on a ring for easy transport.  Almost all my ratings involved them, and the colors prevented any sort of skewing of ratings later.  I whipped out an old purse on Thursday night, and what did I find inside but the original rating cards.  THANK GOD!  I didn’t realize how much I’d missed them until I rediscovered them.

SUMMER NIGHTS: 8.  While Snooky rated Paul and my duet a 10 (both for performance and vocals), I had to average that out to get an 8 (cause let’s be honest, Paul didn’t hit the high note at the end and I didn’t hit a lot of notes).  But I will say, we knew almost all the words by heart so there was little use of the monitor and a whole lot of stage presence.  Well done us.

The next day we all packed up the cars and headed up to Black Mountain, an old favorite of mine from high school days of Youth & Government and the Conference on National Affairs, and one of Laura and Snooky’s favorite places.  We lucked out with a pretty incredible cabin.

OUR LOG CABIN: 9.  Set up with three bedrooms (two with big beds and one with bunk beds), a sweet kitchen with everything you need to cook/eat, a beautiful living room, game room downstairs (with foosball and air hockey), a hot tub and outdoor fire pit.  It is virtually brand new, beautiful and very ‘log cabiny’.  I’d say we lucked out.

-.5 for the hardwood floors.  It’s only .5 because I actually award .5 for the entertainment of chasing Murphy and watching him slide everywhere.  However, when Dakota got worked up by a dog he saw out the window, he started to rush down the stairs, quickly slipped (they were hardwood after all), and slid the entire way down the stairs, then faceplanted right into the wall.  I was super worried, and he looked scared out of his mind, but eventually got up and walked away with little damage (we found half of a toenail later which couldn’t have felt too good).  I tried to keep him on the rug in the living room the rest of the time.

LAURA’S PINK SNUGGIE: 7.  Warm and cozy, and pink, however I just can’t get over the fact that they’re basically just backwards robes.

LAURA’S PINK SNUGGIE ON JAY: 10.  A picture is worth a thousand words.

MY SICKNESS: 2

Doesn’t it always seem that the body allows you to get sick at the time when it knows you can most afford it?  I don’t find myself sick very often, but sure enough I woke up Saturday morning with a sore throat.  This quickly turned into a really sore throat, some serious stabbing headaches, and a fever.  Not ideal considering I’ve been looking forward to this vacation for awhile, but I did have some homemade soup, a hot tub, a snuggie and a comfy bed to help me heal.  Woke up the next day feeling 10 times better.

HOT TUB: 9.

I must say, while hot tubs sound good in theory, they’re INCREDIBLE in actuality.  Everything I imagined was true, and it was brilliant to arrive Friday night only to immediately all jump in the tub.  The next day after the comp, while suffering from some pretty serious headaches, it felt even better.  Right on the large porch of the cabin, it almost fit everyone (minus 1 since it was only a 4 seater technically, but we managed to get 6 in), and you could even see some stars.  If we were there in the winter and could play snow games like when I was a kid (who can jump out and run around the house the most times, or lay in the snow the longest) it might have been even more fun   There’s always next time!

LAURA’S BIRTHDAY CAKE: 7.

You can hardly go wrong with a funfetti cake topped with funfetti icing, however my decorations were somehow wrecked along the way.  The taste was delish (I’m not biased at all), but I wish the appearance were a little more beautiful.  However the ‘Birthday’ on the cake led to a pretty interesting singing of ‘Happy Birthday’ later that day…

REUNION WITH THE BLUE RIDGE CONFERENCE CENTER: 8

When I was in high school I was involved with a pretty awesome program called Youth & Government.  Similiar to Model UN, but simulating state governments instead, we convened once a year at the state capitol for a conference with students from all over Pennsylvania.  At the state conference, you then had an opportunity to apply to attend the National conference, where each state sends a select delegation.  That conference is called the Conference on National Affairs, and is held at an incredible conference center in the mountains of North Carolina.  I attended CONA my junior and senior years, and found it to be a truly incredible, life-changing experience for me as I was figuring out what I wanted to do with my life.  In fact, when I applied to Teach For America, a large reason I chose the Eastern North Carolina region was due to my fond memories of North Carolina at that conference.

So when I realized the conference center was about 10 minutes from where we were staying, I had to check it out.  The framily headed over on Sunday morning before rolling out, and I’m so glad I got a chance to see it again.  While not quite the same as while I was there before, the view was still beautiful, and it was great to share it with important people in my life.

The famous green rocking chairs.

MAGGIE THE MAGNET: 9.

During our stay in Asheville we happened to discover the strongest little magnet of all time, under Jay’s chair at the Woolworth’s diner counter.  Way too much fun was had with a magnet… that is until Jay started cutting her off from the camera (-1).

Where we found Maggie…

Jay using Maggie to hold his keys…

Maggie at Lee Hall…

Getting creative with Maggie…

Maggie slowing it down a little…

From there we hit the road home, stopping at Cracker Barrel for a delicious dinner on the way.

DINNER AT CRACKER BARREL: 9.

While never the healthiest option, there’s something about the incredible rocking chairs, the oversized meals, and the plethora of comfort foods that keep you coming back.  I enjoyed grilled chicken with mac ‘n cheese, mashed potatoes and corn.  Exactly what I was hoping for!

After we arrived back home, we ate some of the delicious leftovers (we came back with a cooler of food remaining) and enjoyed the Amazing Race as we began backwards planning our application video.  Stay tuned for the team of Laura and Janice taking on the race…

Until then, just living for the tens