Ketchup Day

We only went away for three days, but I feel like I've been running myself ragged this week just trying to "catch up" from being gone--at work, at home, and on my blog. I'm doing OK, but I find that I can't organize my thoughts enough or concentrate on one thing long enough to put together a coherent blog post.

Instead, this will jump around quite a bit, with a little of everything! Get ready to read some of the thoughts rolling around in my head, none of which are really worthy of individual posts.
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At this point, I'm happy to say that with this post, I am officially caught up on my blog. For now. I intended to blog from Chicago since our hotel had free internet access, but every night, I just wanted to relax. Looking back, I can't believe I managed to blog every day of our honeymoon last year. At the time, it didn't even seem like a big deal, and it's not like it really took that much time.

Who was that Heather? I'd like to have her back.
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One thing I failed to mention about Chicago... it's currently in the running to host the Summer Olympics in 2016. I had no idea until we were visiting and I saw all of the advertisements everywhere, and also heard about it on the city's local news.

But how AWESOME would that be??

I can't imagine a better city to serve as host. The other candidate cities are Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro, and Madrid. I don't know how good Chicago's chances are, but if it does get chosen, I'll go ahead and say right now that we would seriously be looking into making a trip to the Olympics.

Not only do I love Chicago, but I loooooove the Olympics. The final selection will be made on October 2. I'm anxious to see what happens.
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The day before we left for Chicago, I did a "portfolio building" photo session with a coworker's son. "Porfolio building" = I offered to do it for free. It went really well, and I've spent the last few nights furiously editing the photos to put together a little collage to display at her son's first birthday (totally cute for my coworker and her family, and totally awesome advertising for me).

Speaking of his first birthday... this same coworker has hired me to photograph the birthday party. I'm still only charging about half of what I probably should be charging, but since I'm just starting out, I'm feeling OK about that. At this point, I'm just excited that people actually want to hire me.

Speaking of HIRING me... I actually have a second paid photo session on Saturday morning. It's to take photos of my friend's son. So Saturday's going to be busy! I have to do his session in the morning, then head over to photograph the coworker's son's big birthday in the afternoon. Fun, fun!

I'm working hard and getting excited about the payoff I'm starting to see. I'm afraid to dream too big, but I'm looking forward to seeing what the future holds for me...
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My aerobics classes started up again on Monday night. Well, actually, kickboxing started on Thursday, but I had to skip it since we were flying to Chicago. I'm back on my schedule of step on Monday nights and kickboxing on Thursdays (and regular ol' gym on the weekends, as time permits). So last night was my first class, and wow, it was nice to get back into it. It's nice to have a break over the summer, but I always sort of want to kick my own ass once I realize how much I've let my fitness level slide in those 2.5 months off. Stupid. But the good news is that I'm really not all that sore, so I might not be in as bad shape as I thought. Thank you, 30 Day Shred.

Since I brought that up, I feel the need to confess that I stopped doing The Shred the second week in August. I'm seriously not cut out for DVD workouts. Yes, 20 minute workouts are appealing. But HOLY CRAP did I get bored with it. Sure, the elliptical is boring as hell, but I keep myself entertained with reading my books. I'd much rather spend 60 minutes reading on the elliptical than spend 20 minutes following along with Jillian Michaels, knowing every word she's going to say before she even says it. Knowing the workout by heart made it seem impossibly and torturously long.

The good thing is that I felt so guilty for giving up the 30 Day Shred that I actually started going to the gym more often. Funny how that works.
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Now that our weekend in Chicago has come and gone, this is the first time in over a year that we have not had our next vacation already planned. We've done quite a bit of traveling over these past 15 months of marriage. First came Hawaii, then Charlotte, then Vegas, then Seattle and San Francisco, and finally Chicago. Since I'm a planner by nature, we always had the "next" thing planned. Now? Nothing. It's a weird feeling, and I'm not sure I like it. Since we got married, I've liked always having a trip to look forward to.

We'd like to remedy this by planning our next vacation, but there seem to be a lot of variables. Mainly, where do we want to go? And when? We have quite a few places on our "list," but we're sort of having trouble prioritizing. I think some research is in order.
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I'm feeling the need to tell you that when I did a Google Image search for "Ketchup Day" for this post, I came across a picture of ketchup cake. I love me some ketchup (like, seriously love) but even I think that ketchup cake is wrong on so many levels. I'm thinking that those crazy, ketchup-loving Canadians must be responsible for that. ;)

Anyway, I think that's enough randomness for one day. But this was actually really fun--perhaps more "Ketchup Days" are in the cards for Heather Drive?