Saturday, October 15, 2011

Going Back in Time

Joe and I met at RIT in 1993. He was a computer science major and I was having trouble with my programming class (I didn't have a clue what I was doing), so he offered to help. Our 13th wedding anniversary was October 10, 2011 (just this past Monday). We took the day off and ended up back at RIT,  to buy tickets to the men's hockey game on 10/15.

Less than a week later, we were back on campus, to see a lecture of one of my childhood celebrity crushes; Michael J. Fox. It was a great lecture - he was so amazing to listen to and so inspirational. I was absolutely in love with him after seeing Back to the Future, as a pre-teen, in 1985. I watched him on Family Ties and on Spin City and was thrilled to be able to see him speak today. What's even more special is that Joe now does work that supports the Fox Foundation and he even mentioned it in his lecture today; discussing bio-markers and the sharing of information among different companies to continue making progress. This sharing of information is something that Joe is personally involved in.

This weekend was parents' weekend at RIT. The third annual RIT hockey game at the Blue Cross Arena was tonight. RIT played St. Lawerence in front of a sold out crowd (10,500) of RIT students, alumni, parents and many others who follow the team. It was a pretty evenly matched game. The first period ended in a 1-1 tie and the second one ended in a 3-3 tie. With eight minutes left in the game, RIT got a 5 minute penalty. At that time, they was behind 5-4. With nine seconds left, RIT scored to tie the game and sent it to overtime! RIT then scored the game winning goal 14 seconds into overtime. It was one of the best RIT games I have ever seen. We were celebrating as if we had just won the national championship (or beat Elmira - it was always fun to beat Elmira).

Today was filled with great trips down memory lane and a great sense of RIT pride. I am proud to be an RIT alum, even if going back to campus makes me feel a little old. Thank you Michael J. Fox for being who you are (and being one of my childhood crushes) and doing what you do. I think I might just have to have a Back to the Future movie marathon very soon.

Happiness Is...Going Back in Time

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Never Giving Up

It's been awhile since I've written a blog entry, but I just couldn't come up with anything that I wanted to write about. While pulling into the garage today after work, I thought it was a great opportunity to chat about one of my summer activities and how it parallels to what I saw in my own garden today.

Over the summer, I joined a Learn to Run program. Running is not something I enjoy (and still don't), but I know it's a necessary evil. The program started off with a 35 minute walk, with the next session having us run for 30 seconds at a time, six times (with walking in-between), in those 35 minutes. We gradually kept increasing our running, while decreasing our walking. By the end of the 12 week program, we were running for 3 miles. It was a great program and taught me a valuable lesson - never give up. I will admit, I didn't run every minute I was supposed to on the group runs, but I didn't skip any of my homework days either. It was so easy to stop running, and occasionally I did, but in the end, I finished the program. At the end of the 12 weeks, I ran a 5K and beat my time from my 5K run last year.

I decided to join the fall running program, to continue my progress. I even signed up for another 5K and beat my time from 3 weeks earlier by almost 2 minutes. I'm happy to say, I ran the entire 5K, which was a first for me. My new favorite saying is "I don't stop when I'm tired, I stop when I'm done."

Now I need to explain how this parallels with my garden. In the spring, we moved a few plants from the back of the house to the front, by the driveway. One of them was my iris. I knew there was a chance that it wasn't going to take the transplant well this year and probably wouldn't flower. Well, just like I thought (and everyone else told me), it didn't flower in spring or summer. However, when I drove up today, on October 4, it had blossomed! My iris didn't give up either!

Happiness Is...Never Giving Up