What It Takes To LICK 1500 Envelopes

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More patience than I have. Luckily I married the world's best man, willing to come home from a 10-hour workday and dig into a job he didn't know he'd signed up for. 

The Holiday Open House for the Rockingham County Arts Council will be held Sunday, December 13th and invitations go out this week. That means 1500 brochures that must be folded, then stuffed, along with printed invitations, into envelopes, which must then be sealed shut. 

I figured Blair and I would sit in front of the TV for about 2 or 2 1/2 hours and get the job done. 

HA.

Four hours into the task and we were about two-thirds of the way done. My lower back was screaming from being hunched over, folding and stuffing, and I fear Blair may have depleted his saliva stores for life. 

I stayed in a good mood for the first three hours, at which point I started muttering about how my volunteering days were over. Blair, cheerful as always, tried to humor me out of it.

"We're a team," he said. "Isn't it nice, working together? Hasn't this been nice, spending time together?"

"Shouldn't you be licking something?" I said, glaring at him. 

I'll try to adjust my attitude for tonight. Another 500 envelopes await us...

No Time To Blog

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My apologies for the slow blog week. The days keep slipping away from me. For about two weeks now I've been walking around thinking, "By tomorrow I'll be caught up." You'd think at some point I'd clue in that I'm lying to myself, but it turns out I'm pretty gullible...

What have I been up to? Survey says:

  •  Art Council Open House. I sit on the board of the Rockingham County Arts Council and we're launching a kickoff gallery party on Sunday, December 13th, from 1-5 at the Dan River Art Gallery in Wentworth. Lots of meetings, planning, phone calls, editing brochures and invitations, etc. 
  • Along with that, I discovered that I am the worst fundraiser on the planet. Yes, on the entire planet. I had to make some fundraising calls...
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Who are these MadMayo Runners...?

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MMRC inaugural runners - Dena, Tamara, Josh, "I cast no shadow" Iris, and BlairThere's a new sheriff in town pawdner, and... wait. Wrong genre. Try again.

Huzzah! There's a new running group in Western Rockingham County and you're invited to join. Don't live here? Doesn't matter. Like most runners, we only formed this group for the chance to get cool t-shirts. 

What are MadMayo runners? In the interest of my having to do as little work as possible, here is information stolen from our cool new website:

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For All You Runners Out There...

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My trainer sent this to me. Yes, it's a big commercial for Nike, but the words perfectly capture the runner's experience.

NIKE

You pretended the snooze button didn’t exist.  You dragged your butt out of bed while others slept, while others ate their pancakes.  You had a feast of protein, glucose and electrolytes.  You double knotted.  You left the front porch light on and locked the door behind you.  You ran.  5k’s, 10k’s, 26.2 miles.  Some days more, some days less.  You rewarded a long run with a short run and a short run with a long run.  Rain tried to slow you down.  Sun tried to microwave you.  Snow made you feel like a warrior.  You cramped.  You bonked.  You paid no mind to comfort.  On weekends, on holidays, you made excuses to keep going.  Questioning yourself.  Played mind games.  Put your heart before your knees.  Listened to your breathing.  Sweat sunscreen into your eyes.  Worked on your farmer’s tan.  You hit the wall.  You went through it.  You decided to be a man about it.  You decided to be a woman about it.  Finished what you started.  Proved what you were made of.  Just kept putting mile after mile on your internal odometer.  For 25 years you ran.  And we ran with you.  How much farther will we go? 

As far as you will.