BUSY WEEK!!!

HELLO friends!

This week was soooo busy. Let me back up to last weekend and explain from there! James came to DC to visit on Thursday and we had a great time. He got a direct flight from Indy to DC Reagan (which is super close to where I live) and it was only about an hour flight - terrific! He doesn't have class on Fridays so that's why he was able to come up on Thursday night. Friday I had to go into work for a meeting on a VERY COOL white paper I was helping out on - without going into too much detail, it was basically a very cool opportunity for my company to do some economic development work in Afghanistan. I was asked to work on the project based on the Afghanistan consulting work I did with the military contractor in Indiana this summer before I moved to DC. It was a fantastic opportunity with high visibility, and really fascinating work! Friday night we went shopping for a TV for me (the short story is I found a big tv in EXCELLENT condition for $25 at GOODWILL!!! Goodwill is quickly becoming my favorite place to shop in DC!!!) and then we went out to eat sushi in Old Town Alexandria. Here is a picture of us in the sushi restaurant:

After sushi, we went next door to this awesome place called THE BILBO BAGGINS RESTAURANT AND GREEN DRAGON PUB!!!!! Yes, I am not kidding, that was really the name of the place. It was the cutest thing EVER. It was totally decorated like a little Hobbit pub and all the beers, appetizers, etc, had names from The Lord of the Rings. We had dessert there. It was great.

Saturday we got up and went for a run at Mount Vernon, George Washington's residence, which is south of Alexandria. I ran 13 miles and James was supposed to do 8 but he wound up doing 10 with me, and it totally kicked our BUTTS. Ummm...I read online that the Mount Vernon Trail was "relatively flat" and that wound up being an out-and-out lie!!! It was the hilliest run I have done in a long time!! Needless to say, it practically killed us, so we took the rest of the night off but made some pretty killer veggie pizza:

Sunday we woke up early and headed into DC for brunch on Capitol Hill. First we stopped at got coffee at Eastern Market, which is this big huge farmers market and flea market that's held in the city every weekend. Then we headed to brunch and it was yummy! We came back to my apartment, repotted some plants, and then James was headed on his way back to Indy!

Monday was REALLY hectic for me because I found out on Friday of the week before that I was being sent to training for three days in preparation of the engagement I'm getting ready to be put on. So, I had to go into training to learn to be a better meeting facilitator. So, I did that all day on Monday, Tuesday, AND Wednesday in Rockville, Maryland - about an hour and a half away!!! The training was great and I learned a lot, but it definitely threw a cog in my works because I was working on other small projects already so I basically had to do those at night PLUS add to that a Happy Hour sponsored by my administrative team AND the fact that I started working on that white paper I mentioned (which is basically a fancy type of proposal) AND add to that the fact that I had a 7-hour "strategy session" for the client I am about ready to be working with (I'm waiting on my clearance and then I will start working on it officially)....all this means I had a REALLY STRESSFUL WEEK!!!

This weekend I'm going to get together with my old roommate Jon and his wife Suzanne, and my friend from Salem Jennifer. Also I've got a 14 mile run to squeeze in, as well as two presentations to create. Things have certainly gotten really busy all of a sudden, and I'm not even "really" on a project yet! But I am just so thankful to have work to do and stuff keeping me busy. Next week I'll be finishing these two presentations I'm working on, and gearing up to begin work on my actual engagement once my security clearance goes through. Also, on Thursday of next week I fly to San Diego to go to a wedding with James' family - and the best part is that James is singing in the wedding, so I am super excited about that!!!

Okay, well, that should bring you up to speed on my life recently. I'm absolutely exhausted so I am hitting the hay now!!! Love to all.....