Quarantine: The New Normal

After writing what I deemed a pretty crappy post previous to this, I wanted to follow-up with something a little better and more unorganized and thoughtful. Hopefully I can achieve that in what is really an unprecedented time in our country’s (and world’s) history. What is currently happening here is something I thought only happened in the movies or hundreds or years ago before we had the technology and medical advancements that we have, but a microscopic organism like this novel Corona virus is unpredictable and made us living in a pretty scary movies. And I HATE scary movies. What's been going on with COVID-19 is definitely something I never thought I’d see or experience.  I also never thought I'd ever say this, but I am just happy that I am not currently living in NYC.

Real Life Outbreak

There has obviously been a lot going on (biggest understatement ever) regarding everything with the corona virus COVID-19 pandemic. I mean when all is said and done,  this will be in history book, so I'm having a hard time processing what we are all going through right now. It's just all too surreal, and not in a good way. I wanted to document some of this, more for myself in the future more than anything, but also writing it out is such a therapeutic thing for me. I haven’t written much at all in the last couple years excluding my trips, because no one wants to hear about my continued single life (sigh), because well, it’s just lonely and frustrating, with the occasional thoughts of "I’m glad I have all this freedom", but mostly the former. That loneliness has sure reached its peak lately as we are all quarantined for the foreseeable future and social-distancing pretty mandatory.

The Long Run to Recovery

Last October I ran the Chicago Marathon, my 13th marathon. I completed it after dealing with a couple of little injuries here and there, but nothing horrible. After the race, I was sore like usual, but a couple days later I had a weird pain in my knee. It was sharp and intense and hurt the most when I would go down stairs. I kind of chalked it up to a tweak that was just irritating me from the race. I took a few extra days of rest post-marathon because of this new pain and then started to try to run again. As soon as I did that, the intense pain entered the picture again. I stopped running for about two more weeks and gave my body the rest it needed. 

Europe (Take 4) by the Numbers...

I am finally back and almost almost recovered from a little over two weeks in Europe. This was my fifth time across the Atlantic and my 4th time for a big multi-country European trip. It was once again absolutely incredible and each and every day was amazing and I didn't want it to end. I woke up every morning excited for the day ahead and went to sleep each night with an exhausted smile on my face. How can anyone be unhappy exploring and wandering with beauty surrounding them?!? Traveling truly gives me life and I just love doing it.

When in Rome (part II)

DAY 15 

We got a late start this morning for two reasons: 1) we were out late last night and 2) we weren’t getting picked up until ten for our tour of Pompeii.  As soon as we left the hotel, it started pouring. Like absolutely raining hard. We got drizzled on for like two minutes yesterday and looked at the forecast for today and knew rain was supposed to come, but man, it was really coming down. We hoped it would get it all out of its system by the time we reached Pompeii, and it did. For the time being.