a lovely little garden

so, although i didn't make my 30 before 30 for a number of reasons, this weekend i was able to accomplish something (with A LOT of help) that i wasn't sure i would ever be able to accomplish...we now have a lovely little flower garden out front and nothing has died yet. SUCCESS! my mom came over on sunday and helped mark and i overhaul the garden plots out front. we started with weeding what hadn't yet been weeded, moving the junky mulch, removing a non-functioning weed protector sheet, tilling up the good dirt, adding better dirt, removing the HUGE roots (we don't know what they are roots FOR- but that's another story), buried flower pots and dog bones, toys, iron pipes, darts, pieces of a ceramic something-or-other, and everything else you would think couldn't possibly be buried in someones front garden, and then finally planting the flowers. last night and tonight i finished mulching and finally took some photos. i'm sad i didn't take photos before and during, but the after shots are pretty great:

#13- put myself out there

so today i had a 5-hour interview for a new job. the reason i'm not keeping this hush-hush is because i've been very honest with my boss about this prospect, and i'm quite excited about it. i haven't interviewed for a job in a while, and after having sat on the other side of the table in a number of recent interviews, i've got to say- interviewing is exhausting! don't get me wrong, i had a great time and walked away feeling good about everything i did and said, and feeling good about everything i heard and learned. overall, a success regardless of what may happen down the road. but, as i said, i'm exhausted! being an introvert, it was a long day to be "on" the whole time and i made the mistake of refusing coffee this morning, which i sincerely regret. at the end of the day, it was great to put myself out there and go for something i really want. change is hard, and who knows what will come of this, but it was nice. nice to go after something, nice to try.

#14- be horrified

yesterday i went to get a haircut. when i got there i was waiting for a few minutes, and then i overheard the following: "have you told rachel that her lady is here?"

i am the "lady." ew. i was disgusted, i don't want to be a LADY! i want to be a GIRL! or something else that's maybe more age appropriate, but i don't think i'm a lady yet. ladies are old. and of course this all happens within a week-ish of my 30th birthday. ugh. horrified.

#15- conform

last week i did it. i finally got an iphone thanks to verizon. i've hated my blackberry for the past year and a half, and it has been so nice to finally be able to have a phone that's easy to use, and nice, and just lovely in general. i am now a part of the apple masses.

#16- have FUN at a museum & #15- spend more time with mom

this is a combo pack. as a museum studies grad student, over the past two years whenever i was in a museum it was usually for school. granted, it's still fun and interesting and all that, but i'm there to think about the museum in a different way than a normal visitor. this was also the case on saturday, when i decided to go to the maryland science center in baltimore to do an exhibition review. i thought it would be fun to see if my mom wanted to go, so i invited her along. we first went through the exhibition i had decided to review, and then just had fun! there was a lot of cool stuff to see and do there and i would highly suggest it for anyone with kids. i felt a little weird at times because some of the exhibitions were definitely geared towards kids, so when my mom and i were playing we were the only adults without children. eh, maybe it seemed weird, but it was a lot of fun and reminded my why i love museums so much.

after spending a couple hours at the science center, my mom and i decided to do a little shopping and then grab a leisurely lunch. it was good to just relax and not have to be on a schedule of any sort and just hang out however we wanted. it was a nice treat for the both of us and should definitely happen more often :)

#17- let him pick the movie

mark and i are pretty good about sharing the television and watching the same (ish) things together. however, i do tend to wiggle my way into watching "pretty little liars" some nights while mark is doing homework or something and just wants something in the background. he hates "my trash" tv, but usually just rolls his eyes and tolerates it. when it comes to movies, sometimes we're on the same page and other times we're not even reading the same book. so friday we decided to go to a movie and i let him pick. i said what i absolutely didn't want to see, he narrowed it down to two, and i said i was fine with either. we ended up seeing "unknown" with liam neeson. the first 3/4 were good but the last 1/4 was eh. THEN on saturday night we stayed in (the boring lives of grad students) and mark asked if i wanted to watch a movie on demand...he had a great one picked out. it was about the civil war, called something like "riding with the devil" and toby mcguire was the lead. i generally don't like period pieces, but agreed since he seemed excited. it was good, but SO LONG. it probably wasn't even that long, but it felt like forever. my good deed is definitely done :)

#18- exercise

my exercise regimen comes in fits and starts. sometimes i exercise almost everyday and then other times it may be months before i put on my pair of sneakers. friday (a lovely day off) mark and i decided to go for a 4 mile run, our first since the marathon. in all honesty it became a 4 mile walk because it was a bit warmer than we expected and it was just nice to be outside! i won't mention the fact that i am so out of shape for not having run in so long, we'll keep that under wraps. then on saturday and sunday (and later today!) i FINALLY started the p90x tapes that i borrowed from my friend, rachel, a billion years ago. i know rach is reading this and i want to hide in shame, but if it helps, i'm sore all over and couldn't do all of plyometrics...rather, i couldn't do MOST of plyometrics...hopefully that will change over time! either way, i'm excited to be exercising again and am loving the soreness a little bit. it's been too long!