Day Off

I won't make this long, because Leah's post is obviously more interesting and exciting than mine. Although it is pretty exciting to take a personal day! I don't have any witty topics about which to write. One might wonder, though, what Martha does on her day off...It is pretty exciting: drop my husband off at school, get coffee, go to Michael's, make birthday cards, take the dog to get groomed, shop at Target, pick up the dog, and I will leave in a few minutes to pick up my husband, go for a run, go to the market and then make Lasagne for dinner. My life is pretty thrilling these days! All kidding aside, I am so appreciative to have a day off as I have been working my buns off lately at work and at play. Work has been consuming lately and we are training for a marathon in March. I will close with pictures of Mattie (our dog), now groomed, and the view from our place toward the Blue Ridge mountains that you can't see today, but what you can see is ice and snow as it melts. Love to you all!

meet my man!!!

some of you have undoubtedly heard through the 360 grapevine that i am in love... liz and ben cleverly set us up at the end of the summer, and we will forever be indebted to them!! liz may benefit by gaining a girlfriend in montana soon (did i just say that?!) and i have already benefited from her wisdom on a variety of topics from married life to clothing layering strategies to stay warm in winter. matt is everything i have always dreamed of and more... we both love playing outdoors, and spending time at his cabin in the north fork. he is employed as a civil engineer and has a yellow lab named sage who loves to join in our adventures. he has introduced me to many things i likely would never have experienced otherwise- most notably, hunting, and eating antelope and deer (i am now a recovering vegetarian).



a visual to help you imagine little megs on the prairie... :)

Random and Assorted Happenings

Okay, so it has been so ridiculously long since I last posted I couldn't remember how to do it when I sat down, so I had to call a friend for a tutorial. Little embarrassing. But not quite as embarrassing as this morning, when I was at the endodontist's office, and, after being told that my husband could not come back to the room with me for the root canal, I promptly broke down in tears. Yes, seriously. For those of you who know me well, I do not do this sort of thing. Just a few months back one of my best friends sent around one of those little email surveys for friends to do with each other to just reveal things about yourself that you think your friends know but they probably don't, like what your favorite movie is or your best childhood memory or whatever. I am sure you have all seen them. Anyway, one of the questions was when was the last time you cried, and all of my friends' answers (it was sent to 5 of us or so) were like "Last week" or "Last weekend" or "Yesterday." I was like, "Umm, last year? I think." Anyway, needless to say I was feeling so silly just sitting there crying when nothing had even happened yet, and it isn't as if JD had been in there he could have changed one little thing. But I was clearly so anxious about the whole deal that the one wrench thrown in was enough to make me break down.
But the dentist was awesome! He told me he has people come in all the time and sit down in the chair and just lose it. And then just for good measure he added "And it isn't just petite women-it is big, burly cops and everything." Petite? I like you! And he was super gentle, asking me the whole time if I was okay, constantly telling me how great I was doing. I think I have a crush on him. He was so good at snow jobbing me, he reminded me of my L&D nurses (e.g. "you are the best pusher we have ever seen! or "That is the cutest baby we have ever seen-she doesn't even look like a newborn!" etc etc.)
Anyway, for anyone who may need a root canal, it seriously is not bad. Not painful, in and out in an hour, no big deal. Don't put it off for over 5 years like I did. Only down side: most of my Tall White Chocolate Mocha I got as a consolation prize for myself afterwards is dribbling down my numb chin, and I don't even know it!
Not having anything earth shattering to write about is a little dangerous for me; I could probably write about nothing all day. So I will wrap up in this paragraph filled with things that don't relate: First, this Christmas has to have been the best one EVER since I was at least 8 years old and got a lavendar 10-speed. Kharis made it SO FUN!! I wish I could attach a pic of it, but they are all on JD's camera at work. So I attached old pics from this summer at my parent's lake house. They just bought a boat! So we are SO excited about this summer with that. I just turned 29, which was so fun; I had a great party JD threw for me and he bought us private dance lessons! Which is unbelievable bc he knows how much I love to dance, but he is the WORST dancer I have ever seen, and I know he is DREADING it, but he did it all for me. True Love. In other news, where are all the other preggies? Don't we have at least 2 360 babies due in January?! I want some pics!! Speaking of, isn't Alethia so cute you could just thump her in the one I attached? Okay, peace out!

Hurray for my Birthday!...a dissertation on the issue of birthDAY vs. birthWEEK

Thanks for the shout out Court! For those of you who don't know my birthday is my second favorite holiday of the year behind 4th of July (something about warm weather, picnics and fireworks that I LOVE) so Court's shout out MADE my day! :) Speaking of making my day I took off of school for my big day, woke up late, went to the gym (yes on my birthday - I'm so fit don't you know), went to the Cheesecake Factory for lunch with my mom (the real reason I felt obligated to go to the gym) and then putzed around the mall looking for winter coats and cute underwear. All in all a very good time of doing very little of anything productive. I just feel like there is no good reason to work on your birthday. It's a day all about you therefore you should do exactly what you want and for me that involved eating key lime cheesecake and searching for scandelous undergarmets...and really it shouldn't just be one day that is celebrated for one's birth. Growing up we had birthweek, it started three days before your birthday (or whenever the first birthday card showed up - which in my case came from my denist on January 1st though maybe that doesn't count) and ended three days after your birthday (or if day three happened to fall on a weekend birthweek could be extended to accomodate additional celebrations on non school/work nights). And frankly birthweek makes way more sense because you get cards and presents and stuff from family and friends for that whole week as they come in the mail and you end up doing the cake thing on a day that is more convinient (in my case today because not having a washer and dryer in my little backyard playhouse of an abode means Wednesday is laundry day at my parents and what better way to spice up laundry day than to have a little ginger orange carrot cake birthday cake). Hence birthweek - embrace it 360 girls you know you deserve more than just one day.

In other news I went to starbucks today to buy this cute set of two cup and saucers for a friend as a surprise in the mail sort of fun present and when i saw them yesterday for the first time they were on sale for $12.99. Not the best price but not the worst and it was worth it b/c i knew this friend would be excited to get them. So i go into starbucks today and get up to the register and at some point between yesterday and today the price dropped to $5.99! Amazing. On top of that the Starbucks I go to has a little trivia question that if you answer correctly you get 50 cents off your drink. Well i wasn't planning on getting a drink (since I'd already gone to Starbucks for a beverage this morning - Megan Woodruff would be proud.) but I looked up and the trivia question was "How many times did John Glenn orbit the Earth?" UMMMM THREE!! I totally just taught a lesson on major achievements in the space race just before Christmas and he was totally supposed to orbit more times but his heat shield somehow got damaged so they cut his flight short and brought him back - and who says science isn't applicable to everyday life! People who don't get 50 cents off their drink that's who! Needless to say I caved and got a Chai - I mean really 50 cents.

Finally I would like to point out that this post includes very little if any meaningful content yet you, faithful blogger, have read all the way through to the end which means that we really just like reading about the silly and mundane things we all do everyday and that we don't have to have a deep and meaningful post EVERY time (though they are fabulous when they present themselves) so please save me from the population pyramid and sedimentary rock formation monotany of high school earth and environmental science and POST!
with much 360 love,
nik

Anyone out there?

Hello 360. Just want to see if anyone out there is doing anything interesting. I'm not. Today is Nikki's birthday so I'll send a little Birthday song shout out her way. Got through the holidays okay. Hope everyone else's where good. Chelse moves in with me this weekend, so I'm totally excited and I now have a non-sexual crush on my walls. I painted them this past weekend and love them. Come see me anytime you want! Just wanted to say hi.

2nd best blog (behind ours)

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Hi-larious!