raleigh north carolina

Ya missed me? This post is so jam-packed with goodies, I can’t even stand it!

| cheriarmour

I took a few days off from writing, and it drove me peanuts.   But I logged the events of Thanksgiving break in my head so I could keep everyone filled in on the events, which were events a-plenty.

Wednesday, before the holiday, I skipped the run (I know, shame on me,) because I went in for an endoscopy after work to figure out what was going on with my stomach, which you’ll remember has been acting really nuts since my bout with a stomach bug in September.  It was an upper endoscopy, so as far as prep, it just required that I fasted for a bunch of hours.  Rude.

I went in, stripped down to a sexy gown, and they started me on an IV.  The whole process was fairly non-dramatic.  I was wheeled into a room, laid on my side, given oxygen and the process began.  First the Lidocaine to numb my veins, and then the Propofol, and next thing I knew, I was out.  I woke up a really short time later – apparently, while I was under and they tried to shove the camera down my esophagus, I started flailing, pulled my IV out, and they had to pull me out of my sleep to reset the IV.  It was no big deal, and next thing I knew, I was out, and Austin was ready to take me home.  But not before in a haze, I told the nurse that “I looooove him,” and “did you know we were getting married?”

The final verdict? Gastritis.  The lining of my stomach was inflamed and has kicked acid up into my esophagus, which was burnt up too.  The morning of Greensboro, nerves and something I ate the day before probably aggravated my already-raw stomach, causing me to throw up.  Which burnt my esophagus even more.  Yumz. They did a biospy and I should know what’s causing it and what I need to do in the next 10 days or so.  I’ll keep you posted.

Hospital

Thanksgiving Day.  It was awesome.  I woke up, went for a slow and steady 4 miler (I’m streaking til New Years Day), cleaned up my house, and headed down to my parents’ for the holiday.  I cooked, and it was so lovely to spend the time with my family.  That evening, I was able to trick my brother into watching Pitch Perfect with me.  Score.

BroFriday morning, me and little Derek suited up for a run – and I will be gosh darned – the kid can run!  He’s a cross country star, and 18, so truthfully, the run consisted of me chasing him around Waxhaw, NC, which he regarded more as a casual jog.  My hamstrings were mad at me afterward, and I will definitely have to utilize him more for those speed workouts.

DressWe went wedding dress shopping.  That is all I can say, and this is all I will show you because I’m keeping dress negotiations top secret.  But my mom and I had a blast shopping for dresses.  She did try to negotiate a tiara and a set of silky gloves out of me, but I’m not budging, much to her chagrin.

CarAnd in the single greatest moment of the holiday, possibly of the year, my brother offered to drive us to Harris Teeter to buy my dad seltzer, and we needed to, since I drink up all his seltzer every time I go home.  Anyhoo, my brother drives a Benz.

Fancy?

Well, it’s an ’87, and when he started it, he had to pump the gas like a madman before we could get moving.  Then, when we arrived to the Teet, we had to leave it running while we ran inside.  Hood.

Brosky

And finally, I finished out the weekend by enjoying a dinner where I spent my 16th birthday, Kristopher’s in Matthews, NC, with Austin, the husband-to-be, and Derek, my brother.  It was so fun, so delicious, and an excellent way to wrap up the weekend.

Thanksgiving was awesome.  It was a lovely visit, and I finished out the weekend by running, running a little more, and working at the running store, which always puts a smile on my face.

How was your Thanksgiving Holiday?

That time I tried to go apartment-hunting.

| cheriarmour

I drove past this place today while running an errand for work, and the horrors just came back again and again.

A few years ago, I was super new to Raleigh.  So I set about the task of finding a place here, using the only platform I was familiar with to do so. Craigslist. (Seriously, if you’re moving to a new place, don’t only make sure that you visit the place, but also go off of word of mouth. I cannot stress to you how important this is. Luckily, I always ended up with super cool roommates, and my only rando Craigslist roomie I had turned out awesome, and our time together was only cut short by a tornado.) But I digress, that is another story for another day. Anyhoo, so this place called Westgrove Towers had been advertising a butt-ton on CL, so I’m like “Okay, anything with the world ‘Towers’ in it is fancy, and that’s where I need to live.”

Tower

So, this is the picture they kept advertising with. Idk, the sky is blue in it. It kind of looks like a hotel. How bad could it be right?

I literally walked in to the biggest murder scene of my life, minus the murder.

    • The advert, and the man at the front desk was bragging about how close you were to “shopping”.  By shopping, he meant a run-down K-Mart with a parking lot big enough for you to park your Winnebago in, and the $1.50 movie-theater. Other than that, I’d be forced to cross a 4-lane highway on foot to reach civilization. Listen now, before you get all up in arms, I’m perfectly aware that there are nice K-Marts, and dollar-theaters but this, this was not one of them.
    • The lobby was really dim.  Not in a fun, romantic way.  In a creepy murder way.
    • The room they showed me….

So, for some reason at this point in my life, I’d become enamored of this idea of living in a studio. I felt like it was very hip and cool, and that I would stylishly roll out of bed, my hair perfectly imperfect, a sort of Shakira-Lauryn Hill hybrid, and I’d step into my fringed moccasins, wrap my pashmina around my neck, and glide across the room to pour myself a latte, which I’d obviously brewed in my single-girl espresso machine. Plus I think the studio was all I could afford.

So I remember taking this Alfred Hitchcock elevator upstairs in this “high rise” and we step into the studio apartment. It literally looked like a motel room that you could rent by the hour, if you know what I’m sayin’. The apartment was their showroom, and the bed was saggy, it might have been a pull-out, and the furniture was all made out of that particleboard stuff, all furniture that had probably fallen off the back of a Big Lots truck. I tried to mask my horror as Miguel motioned around the room – it smelled of stale cigarette smoke, and the back lighting made the room look even worse. I forced a smile, as Miguel took me down to the front office, a room lit only with fluorescents, and pitched the “high rise” to me. He complimented my figure, told me I looked like a Zumba teacher (well duh bud), and shook my hand before we parted ways. He even emailed me like a month later to follow up!

I ran, not walked, out of this place, and called my father immediately, almost in tears about what I’d seen. And today, as I drove past Westgrove Tower, I giggled at poor little 21-year-old me, looking for her single-girl studio.