Category: Travel | Kimberussell.com

Friday 5: Stay and Let Me Look at You

Sep 14 2018

Happy Friday from Lexington, Kentucky!

It’s Maker’s Mark with a local gingery soda called Ale-8-One.

I’m here for work. I exhibited on behalf of TNP at a Hospital Medicine Conference for the last few days. The hotel is lovely, but set on a highway which is unwalkable. That combined with the typical conference schedule (Session breaks were for 15 minutes every 2 hours It’s hard to go somewhere, see a sight, and return in 2 hours) meant I stayed on property the entire time. Don’t cry for me.

Everyone told me Kentucky was horses and bourbon. Being a proud New Jersey resident, I’m against blatant stereotyping of states. But as the plane was descending I saw at least three dozen horses. And three steps away from my gate there was a bourbon store. Okay then. You win, stereotyping.

Things I did right this trip:

I went to the gym every day and walked on the treadmill for a half hour. I forgot how much I enjoy treadmill walks. I do! Not enough to buy a treadmill or go to a gym, though.

I made sure to get outside every day. I spent many of the 2-hour downtimes with my laptop by the pool.

I didn’t eat like a feral teenager with money. I made good food choices (I had a salad with steak on top 2 nights in a row), passed on desserts, and limited my alcohol.

You know those things at work (or home) that you put off over and over? I call them shame tasks and I knocked all of my work related shame tasks out while sitting by the pool.

I made sure to hit the hot tub. Priorities.

I traveled with a carryon bag only. It’s a nice exercise in packing and purchasing restraint, plus when I get off the plane tomorrow I can just go home. As it is, I packed a teeshirt, skirt, and 2 necklaces that I didn’t wear. And I packed 4 pair of shoes. I don’t know a way around that, though. I had heels for the meeting, flats for dinner, sneakers for the gym and flip flops for the pool.

I had the hot tub to myself!

I go home tomorrow. It’ll be nice to be home.

***
Time for the Friday 5! This week’s theme is Stay and Let Me Look at You, which is a lyric from Neil Diamond’s September Morn. It was a song that was big when I was young and I guess it was sexy in the 70s, but is pretty creepy now. Let’s get to it!

1. (Earth, Wind & Fire) Why are you dancing in September?
WM was paid today for the first time since June 30. We save money for the summers, but holy balls something happens every year that takes the wind out of our sails. In 2016 it was our dead HVAC and poor Max. Last year was Murphy’s puppy expenses and 4 new tires. This year it was more dog bills. Not Ollie’s dental surgery because we knew that was coming, but his ear infections, sore neck, and then both dogs’ gastric distress in August. Holy balls.

2. (Neil Diamond) September morning still can make you feel what way?
Sad. I hate the later sunrises and the end of the lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer.

3. (Green Day) What are some things you have to endure until September ends?
Silly birthday month emails from retailers with crummy “gifts.” Oh, thanks for the 10% off of an order of $75 or more. So generous. Also this year, my free Starbucks drink was good on my birthday ONLY. They used to give you a month. Then two weeks. Now one day? Nah. My Panera free pastry was good for 2 weeks. My free coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts was 3 weeks. One day is mean.

4. (Kool & the Gang) What place or thing is your September love?
WM is my love every month of the year.

5. (Willie Nelson) What is your September song for the rest of the month?
That freaking Earth, Wind & Fire song. BAAAA DE YAAAAA DE YAAAAA DE YAAAAA. I’m hoping Demi Adejuyigbe celebrates September 21 again. He’s a great Twitter follow, if you’re still on that trash heap of a site. (I’m still there.)

Time for bed. This time tomorrow I’ll be snorfling my dogs.

Seattle 2018

Jul 30 2018

As we did in 2017 and 2016 (I didn’t blog that) WM and I went to Seattle to visit our friends last week. It was a great trip, expensively extended by a day due to a cancelled flight. This post is VERY photo heavy.

Day 1

WM and I have completely different travel aesthetics. I always dress as if I’m headed to a resort, and he dresses as if he’s going to explore ruins. We stand out in crowds.

We paid extra for these exit row seats, and my reward was having 60+ butts in front of my face as they stood directly in my legroom to wait for the bathroom. No bueno.

So many butts.

After a lovely breakfast at Cafe Kopi, we went to the Funko HQ store.

Funko Headquarters store.

I was expecting a little bit more but it was just a store. There was a make-your-own-Funko-Pop area which I was really jazzed about, because I was going to make one that looked like me. But you’re tied down to 2 models, and that day one was a monster and one was Freddy Funko.

I didn’t see any products that I couldn’t have purchased elsewhere. In fact, there were some new ones released at SDCCSan Diego ComicCon that day and I was a little bit miffed to be honest. There were quite a bit of cute photo opportunities and I ended up with a Kenny Omega Pop to go with my tiny collection of pro wrestlers so, all good.

We stopped at Toggle’s Bottle Shop for a beer and I bought a shirt because the logo was too darn cute. Dinner was at Diamond Knot Brewery (many, many breweries in Seattle). I did not buy a shirt but I bought a coconut beer that I regretted later.

And then we went back to the house and I collapsed into bed because we were up at 5am.

Travel: Austin, Texas!

Apr 30 2018

Remember the Big!Work!Project! that consumed an entire year-and-a-half of my life?

(You: YES KIM YOU WON’T STOP TALKING ABOUT IT.)

It was a large-scale software implementation at our organization – it’s a brand new system that lets us take better control of much of our association’s data. It replaced a system we had for over 10 years. Last month some of my TNP coworkers and I were given the opportunity to travel to Austin, TX to attend a user conference for the software, called Personify. The conference is called … wait for it … PersoniFEST.

We flew out from Philadelphia to Austin via Chicago, and a layover just long enough for me to pee out the first coffee of the day and refuel with the second. (this is life after 40, I’m realizing.) We stayed at the EFFING AMAZING JW Marriott. The networking event was a duck boat tour of Austin!

Coworker D and I on the Austin Duck Boat.

There are a lot of photos so I’m going to pop them behind this tag.

I've been blogging for over 15 years and I'm apparently one of the few over-40 female bloggers who haven't sold out to THE MAN yet; hence this blog remains quirky, homespun and unprofitable. No big.

~~Wife. Dog lover. Slob.~~ I live in Southern New Jersey with my husband WM, and our dogs Ollie and Murphy. I work a fun (really!) office job in Philadelphia. So if you're looking for a childless, slightly round, marginally boring GenX woman's blog to follow, you've come to the right place! :)

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Kimberly's bookshelf: read

The Awakening

by Kate Chopin

Welp, that ended abruptly. The version I have includes additional short stories, which I thought were part of the book, so when this story ended, I thought the second half of the book would be the others' responses to ... the events that...

tagged: fiction, women, and own-ebook

We Should All Be Feminists

by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

So very good. Beautifully written, and really hits home. It was refreshing to read about feminism in a viewpoint other than that of my white, middle-aged, ladyfriends. :) Every middleschooler should be issued a copy of it. It was supe...

tagged: nonfiction, borrowed-from-library, and women

Hidden Figures

by Margot Lee Shetterly

tagged: nonfiction, history, and women