Yes I Know I am Late

Yes I know the relaunch was supposed to happen months ago. To be honest there is really no excuse for my laziness. I promise the relaunch will happen this year, as well of a launching of a new photo project. So please bear with me a bit longer.

Republic of Joymany Relaunch

In February 2009, the Republic of Joymany will relaunch as the home of  Wildlife Stalker.   WTF, Wildlife Stalker?  Yes Wildlife Stalker, which is my photographic alter ego.  Come next month I will be posting images and descriptions of places I have visited and photographed.  There even might be a sighting or two of the Fiance.  Anyway, check back in a couple of weeks, and I hope you will be as pleased as I am with the change.  Besides I am totally boring anyway

Oh and Team Butter Puff rides again in 2009, details to follow.

A few samples to get you ready for more:

Hello world!

Hello World! Welcome to my blog.

I know, it seems like everyone has a blog now, but I have very good reasons for doing this. This is my chance to keep all of you, the people I know and love, up-to-date on the comings and goings of my life. This is where you can learn about the mundane things that happen to me everyday, or the new and wonderful things that make me smile, or vent along with me as I train for new events in 08.

Since it has probably been a while since I have talked to many of you, I will quickly bring you up to speed:

This year I turned 30 and I decided to celebrate by crossing off a few of my goals from my to do list. I signed up for a 5k and a sprint triathlon, flew across an ocean, started dating again, and finally made peace with who I am as a person. The last one was probably the easiest, if not the messiest of them all, since the others were more emotionally draining and two are no where near the top of the repeat list.

The 5k was a great warm up event, it was for a great cause, well organized, and the all the participants were amazing. It was the Manna 5k on March 24th and I was able to register through my job. I finished in a respectable 37 minutes (for someone who had never raced before this wasn’t bad), and hooked on doing it again (the race shirts make it worth the trouble), and for a while it made me more excited about doing my triathlon in August.

Fast forward to August 19th, I am nervous, cranky, and ready to bail on an event I had trained an entire year for. Luckily my cousin Erika was there to shame me into finishing what I started. The event didn’t start off as well as I had planned. When you train for the swim portion of a triathlon, you are mainly stuck with a community or gym pool, and everyone will tell you it is not close to swimming in a lake. Assuming you can use kiddie camp time, and all the rough water they create to your advantage, it only goes so far. Needless to say when I got in the lake for the start of my triathlon, I nearly drowned. Rumor has it I aged my mom, cousin and aunt 10 years (sorry). See, I am an ok pool swimmer, but I am a terrible (and this is being kind) lake swimmer. It turns out there is a bit of diva in me as I refused to put my face in the nasty green water. Being that I am determined (crazy) and hate to be embarrassed, I swallowed my pride and back stroked the entire .62 miles. I was not a happy camper when I got out of the water (Erika was laughing at me), but since the hard part was over, the rest was a piece of cake. I finished my first (and right now only triathlon) in 3 hours and 25 minutes. Yay me!

In October, I got to go to Hawaii for work. As many of you know, I am not a fan of our fastest mode of long distance transportation (Flying). But I did it and was rewarded with the realization that the beach bores me to tears. Don’t get me wrong Honolulu is beautiful, our project is amazing, and staying in a resort is the way to go. But really once you have seen sand, figured out walking in it only looks sexy in the movies, and then realized it doesn’t wash off your feet very easily, what else is there? I will say that Kaneohe Bay is gorgeous and I would be happy to go back there any time, but it is sort of in the mountains (which I love). Flying over the Pacific was a good experience, only because I got over my fear of using airplane bathrooms (even I, the Queen of Joymany, cannot hold it for 5.5 hours).

Ok to the part you have all been waiting for: I have met someone special. He is the nicest, sweetest, tallest guy (6′4″, hooray for heels!) I have met in a long time. I won’t give you his name just yet (he reads this too), or too many vital stats, but the highlights are:

• Loves photography;
• Owns and rides mountain and road bikes;
• Can cook and loves food;
• Loves road trips;
• Has dimples in each cheek; and
• Makes me smile so much that my cheeks get cramps

I will keep you posted on how this goes, but I don’t think you have to worry about me crying over this any time soon.

Ok now on to what you have to look forward to in the future. My goals in 2008 are (drum-roll, please!) — The Army Ten Miler, Tour de Cure (for Uncle Bill), and a long distance ride in Lancaster, PA. I start training tomorrow, and now that I know not to over-train (sometimes being Type A does more harm than good), next year should be even better. If I can score another registration for the Manna 5K I will do that again in March.

Soooo, check back for updates and may be some photographic evidence. I am sure the next year will be an even wilder ride than this last one.

Hugs and Kisses to all of you,

Her Excellency, The Queen of Joymany