Erster Alltag

I met Ashley so early today – at 7:30am – that I didn’t run in the morning but when I came back home around noon. Work wasn’t great today, one of these days that you just want to get over with.
But it was nice spending time with my parents when we took Brownie for a walk in the jungle later in the afternoon.
My dad and I cooked dinner together. He’s a very good cook and it was fun. Everybody loved the butternut squash mac’n’cheese!

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Besuch aus Deutschland

My schedule was so full today, it was almost overwhelming, but somehow I got it all done.
Intervals early in the morning went well. I really like this plan that gives me different workouts every Tuesday. That way it never gets boring.
Working with Ashley and Lori was also successful. We did the presentations and got more appointments set up.
The farrier who was was supposed to be at the barn at 4pm didn’t show up, of course. But as much as I’ve learned so far in the horse world over the past 20 years, farriers usual don’t show up at the time they said they would or they just don’t show up at all. So I waited until 4:40 and went home because we had to go to Orlando to pick up my parents at the airport.
I haven’t seen them for a year and they’re going to stay with us for the 90 days their visa waiver allows them to stay.
It was great to finally see them. We’ve been talking on the phone every week though, so it didn’t even feel like we haven’t met for that long.
We took them to Chipotle for supper and went to bed early. They were exhausted from the long flight and the jet-lag.

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Neustart

The week started with a day of renewals and many different activities.
As usual I didn’t run very much today and went to Carole’s house for some training on the employer presentation. Jeremy, another new agent, was also there and played a grumpy employer. We were done at ten and I went to the base to vacuum out the truck and go swimming for 30 minutes. The pool was heated, so it wasn’t too bad that the weather was rather cool today.
Because I was already so close to the Atlantic Ocean I took my sandwiches to the beach for lunch.
Back at home I cleaned the house, using my new red vacuum cleaner, and got ready to ride Brownie.
I’m going to ride in a working cow horse show in April, so I was exited to get the training started and rode in the arena for an hour. I still have a lot of work to do before we’re getting ready to show, but it’s very motivating to have something to look forward to. Stephanie gave me some tips and advice, too.
For dinner Jon and I made a good turkey meal with mushrooms, beans and spinach that we both liked.

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Back to business

I’m back to almost normal again, just a tiny little bit of stomach sickness left, but I’m eating normal. Just can’t see some foods that I usually like.
Anyway, I was able to do my tempo run, work all morning with Ashley and ride the horse in the afternoon.
It was pretty warm today and I enjoyed lunch on my favorite bench underneath the orange tree in the garden.
Now it’s Friday again and we’ll be going to Sarasota tomorrow to watch a working cow horse show. That should be a lot of fun!

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Ruhe und Erholung

Den Morgen habe ich größtenteils im Bett verbracht, um diese blöde Krankheit auszuschlafen und das ist mir auch relativ gut gelungen.
Ich wollte mich absichtlich schonen, damit ich nachmittags mit Ashley zu den beiden Terminen gehen konnte, die wir ausgemacht hatten. Eigentlich waren es ja drei, aber ein Arbeitgeber hat – zum Glück aufgrund meiner Situation – abgesagt und so war mein Arbeitstag heute nur etwa eine Stunde lang. Das kann man ja ganz gut aushalten.
Um meine Laufserie – seit März 2007 täglich – einzuhalten bin ich dann noch zum Rockledge Park mit dem Fitness Parcours gefahren und den Weg zweimal ganz langsam gejoggt. Dabei sind zwar nur 2,4 Meilen zusammen gekommen, aber ich wollte es ja nicht gleich übertreiben. Der Trainingsplan war mir da heute mal egal und wenn ich morgen wieder richtig fit bin, kann ich die Tempoeinheit immer noch nachholen. Wenn nicht ist auch nicht schlimm.
Jedenfalls hatte ich heute einen sehr geruhsamen Tag, so dass ich Jon, der völlig fertig von der Arbeit kam, das Kochen erlassen und mich alleine am T-Bone Steak versucht habe. Sehr nett fand ich dass es warm genug war um auf der Terasse zu essen.
Jon ist dann auch gleich ins Bett gefallen, eigentlich ganz untypisch für ihn. Ich hoffe nur, dass ich ihn mit meiner seltsamen Krankheit nicht angesteckt habe und dass wir beide morgen wieder fit und fröhlich um halb sechs aus dem Bett hüpfen können!

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Bisse krank musse in Schrank!

After a short work morning I went shopping and had lunch on the beach. Everything still seemed fine when I called Jon and started driving to the barn to ride Brownie, but my stomach just began feeling sick and sicker and I was so tired I could barely think.
After a short attempt of riding the horse I had to go home and to bed for almost the rest of the day and night. I even had a fever.
Maybe it’s a weird kind of the flu or something like that.
I hate being sick!

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Von morgens bis abends

Den Sonnenaufgang habe ich auf dem Rennrad erlebt, den Sonnenuntergang beim Laufen. Dazwischen habe ich viel gearbeitet und zusammen mit Ashley einige Arbeitgeber überzeugen können, dass es sich auch für sie lohnt, ihren Angestellten die Möglichkeit zu bieten, eine Krankenversicherung abzuschließen.
Sogar nach dem Laufen musste ich noch weiter arbeiten und neue Betriebe für morgen heraussuchen. Da war ich ganz froh, dass wir statt zu kochen einfach mal Pizza bestellt haben. Da konnten wir gleich unseren Coupon nutzen und haben für $12.99 zwei große Pizzen mit Pilzen und Paprika bekommen. Da ist sogar noch genug fürs Mittagessen morgen übrig geblieben.

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Wochenanfang

In the morning I went to Carole’s house to do some informal training with her and meet Jeremy, the other new agent she’s responsible for. He’s a funny guy with five kids who’s working at his dad’s insurance office.
To get my Monday recovery swim in I went to the base, ran three miles and used the pool in the fitness center. I was glad that it has warmed up again and the pool is heated. The sun came out while I was swimming and I found it very relaxing.
As I was already so close to the ocean I had lunch on the beach before I went back home to do some house cleaning and office work.
When I got to the barn later in the afternoon I noticed that I’d forgot the key to my tack closet so I borrowed a halter from Stephanie (well, I just took it, but put it back in its place) and went for a walk with Brownie. On the way back I climbed on his back and the plan was that he should carry me back to the barn. That worked pretty good for a while until he got scared by an old truck tire sitting on the side of the road and all of a sudden jumped to the other side. Riding bareback I couldn’t hold on and fell off him for the very first time. Although I fell on the hard street I didn’t get hurt seriously, but just bruised my hip and shoulder. We weren’t very far away so I continued walking with him. I also met Gwen who was walking Endre. We went back together and she told me everything she’d done with the horse the last few days. It seems that the arab really likes her new home.
I said good-bye to Shelly who’s leaving for boot camp tomorrow and called Jon on the way home to give him cooking instructions. We cooked dinner and spend some time together before I went back to do some more office work.

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Horse, Bike, Run

I am seriously tired now!
After getting up at 5:45 I ran 10 miles in the morning and did some core strength training, worked with Ashley from 9 to 12:30, put my bike in the truck and rode it for 17 miles on SR 520 and Nova Road, Florida’s back country, rode Brownie for an hour and then stacked 34 bales of hay with Stephanie.
That was a strenuous amount of cardio and strength today and now I’m ready to eat the mushrooms with ham and cheese that Jon is making on the grill and not move away from the couch for the rest of the evening. We might watch a movie and I’m going to bed very early tonight!

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Stromausfall

Not only cold, but windy, ugly, dark and some raindrops. This was definitely no typical Florida day and the cold was the main topic on small talk among most businesses I went to with Ashley.
We worked until 2 or so today and after updating everything at home I went out shopping to get some groceries and utilities, although I was neither very efficient nor successful.
The first store, Dollar General wouldn’t take credit cards and there was no ATM available, so I had to leave everything that had taken me a long time to pick behind and went to the next place. They didn’t really have what I wanted and while I was browsing their crammed shelves suddenly the power went out and everybody stood in the dark. It didn’t make any more sense to stay there, because I couldn’t see anything and the check-out would of course not work either.
Police was controlling traffic, as the traffic lights were out of power, too but fortunately Publix and the Dollar Store still had power and I was able to get all the groceries I needed and some of the other stuff.
It was already after five when I started driving back home, I was hungry, tired and cold and when I came home Jon wasn’t even back with the truck yet so I decided not to go to the barn today but just start cooking dinner with Jon who came home shortly after me.

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Abgekühlt!

It got cold today! I ran with a warm shirt, long tights, gloves and a hat in the morning and did the same on the bike in the afternoon. I can’t believe how cold it was. We even had to turn the furnace on in our house, for the first time since we moved in in June.
For Shelly it was good that it was so cold. She had to run a mile in 10 minutes which she had just barely accomplished on Monday. Today her instructor was there to take the official time and due to the cold she was able to run the whole time and do the mile in 9:42 with me pacing her.
I also worked a lot today, went cold calling with Ashley and got my spreadsheet updated. That took a long time, but now I’m back on track.
After running with Shelly Jon and I made a good hot stoup – thicker than soup and thinner than stew – that warmed us up pretty good and I went back to work. It’s been a busy day today.

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Haus und Garten

A long successful day lies behind me.
I got up very early at 5:10 and ran four miles in 30 minutes, which is a pretty good time for me, especially because it was very humid and exceptionally warm: 22 C at this time of the day is even for Florida a little unusual.
Anyway, I had to hurry up to get my run in because I had to meet Carole at 7:30 in Viera to go to enrollments with her.
To get my production started she let me write some of the business, so this is actually the first time I’ve earned some money – except the $75 that I won in the Omaha Half Marathon – since I’ve quit my job in California.
We were very busy driving around from place to place because everybody wanted to get their policies issued this year and everybody waited until the last minute.
Carole dropped me back off at my truck in the early afternoon and I got home by 3 o’clock. Jon was already home and after a quick sandwich for lunch we started working in the house and garden. I cleaned the kitchen and swept all of our stone floor while Jon cut back the overgrown bushes outside of our guest room. I also cleaned out the pond a bit and took out algae and dead leaves that had fallen into it. Unfortunately I didn’t see any of our goldfish. They’re probably all dead now, the poor things. We put more water in the pond as it hasn’t really rained a lot lately and the water level was way too low. Maybe another reason for the fish dying?
For supper we made a good Mega Meatball Pizza and Zippy Italian Popcorn. The popcorn wasn’t that good, but I had also got some spinach salad that we ate with the pizza.
The kitchen is really nice and clean now, but the garden still needs more work. We might get some more done tomorrow in the morning, but I also have to pack for the 50k that I’m running on Sunday. We’ll be leaving town tomorrow afternoon and I’d still like to go ride Brownie before that, so we probably better get up early to get everything done.

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Späte Bescherung

This has been a pretty good day in all areas.
First thing I did was run 6 miles, partly on trails and on the golf course. The sun was rising up so beautifully over this little lake I ran to. On the golf course I was able to pick a tangerine right off the tree. I should have taken it home as I has another half mile to run, but I ate it right there, so the last mile didn’t go too well.
Later I went out working with Ashley and we got to employer presentations. I enjoy working with her so much more than driving around by myself. It was fun today.
We got done around one o’clock and it turned out that Jon was already at home. They don’t have a whole lot to do right now, so he had the afternoon off. He made some wings (for himself) and some mushrooms (for me) on the grill and it was so warm that we could eat lunch on our back porch together.
I worked a little bit more updating my spreadsheet and then went on a nice 17 mile bike ride to and along the beautiful Indian river.
When I came home Jon had picked up a package from the post office that contained all his parents’ christmas presents. We had fun unwrapping them and actually had a little bit of the christmas feeling that didn’t really come up in Key West.
We drove out to the barn together, cleaned Brownie’s pen and went for a little walk and bareback ride. We couldn’t go very far with Jon’s broken toe, but he took many pictures of Brownie and me and it was so nice spending time with him.
For dinner we made Smoky Chipotle Mac-n-Cheddar, which was voted best homemade Macaroni-Cheese by Jon. I really liked it, too and we have enough leftovers for lunch tomorrow.
We both enjoyed the fact that we could spend a bigger part of the day together than usual and it looks like we’ll be able to do that tomorrow again.

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SNG Computer Kurs

The SNG computer class in Cocoa Beach that I had to take today was somewhat tiring and slow because people didn’t really know anything about computers and were not smart enough to remember or transfer any of the information our teacher gave us. Luckily there were only six people, myself included, or it would have been even worse.

The good thing about the class was that it gave me the opportunity to spend my lunch hour – actually 1 1/2 hours – on the beach where I first ate my sandwiches in the hammock at Lori Wilson Park and then walked on the beach for a while. It was not as cold as yesterday and the wind has already changed and is coming from the east again bringing in warmth and humidity.

Exercise today was a 15 mile bike ride at sunrise and a 7.59 mile run after the class in Cocoa Beach. My IPod turned to the PowerBar Audio Workout, so I ran some tempo intervals on the way making the run more challenging, strenuous and fun.

For dinner Jon and I made mac&cheese with real cheese, whole milk and broccoli which I never had before. It was so much better than the boxed stuff that he usually eats. I’m so glad I bought that new cook book that has a new recipe for each day of the year. It really makes cooking more fun again!

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