Just from saving five dollar bills from this week alone, I have over $150.  That’s what nice about being a waitress, I always have TONS of cash on me.  That $150 is going into my “special” bank account.  Yay!

Also, I’ve made it to day 5 of the buy nothing month, and have only bought 3 ears of corn and a tomato for dinner.  And that doesn’t count, cause it’s groceries.  But I’m thinking of altering the rules, so I’ll update more on that later.

We had a record breaking night at work, and Lance gave us all champagne to celebrate.  It’s the best night in sales we’ve ever done since being open.  And tomorrow is the Destare bike race!  I need to get to bed, cause it’s already three in the morning, and I have to be down there for 11.  That’s the problem with working so late.  If I want 8-9 hours of sleep (which I usually try to get), I’d have to sleep until 11 or 12.  Which is not going to happen.  That’s just sleeping away my day!

I’d also like to point out to Pat that I’ve concentrated on giving myself time to read, and I’m already on page 61 of the book I started yesterday.  I’m hoping to do even more after relaxing from my bike race!

I ran my first 5k this morning.  Headed out at 10:30 with my dad.  My mom walked it, and the runners started at 10.  I was back at the house by 12:30, feeling that it was about 3 in the afternoon.  It was a nice feeling to have already run a race, and I hadn’t even had lunch yet!

Speaking of lunch, after the race they had a cookout, which was hamburgers, hotdogs, pasta salad, and potato chips.  I sure as hell did not want any of that food after running 3 miles. I was looking for a vege burger, and salad.  They had neither.  So… I went home and made myself a wonderful huge spinach salad, with a whole red pepper, a small amount of grilled chicken, some craisins, some sunflower seeds and some almonds.  It was the best salad in the whole world.  I wish I had taken a picture of it.

Anyway, back to the race.  Both Nicoles from work ran it, and so did Shauna.  Shauna is this REALLY awesome girl who wrote a weight-loss column for the Sentinel.  I think it was over 6-8 weeks.  And all throughout the process, she lost a total of 75 pounds!!!  Amazing.  She now look absolutely fabulous, and because she was working with a personal trainer, she now has a TON of knowledge about fitness stuff.  She’s going to bring me to Global Fitness with her on Wednesday and workout with me.   I’m okay with the cardio side of fitness, but I need help with strength training and weights and stuff.

Nicole M., Shauna and I started out together, and stay together for most of it.  I could see both of them most of the time, but then Shauna shot ahead!  She whizzed by me, and I couldn’t even see her for the last mile or so.  Nicole and I were pretty close the entire time, which was good motivation for both of us.  I got a cramp on Lincoln, and kept running since it was flat.  Then, I turned left and had to run up Pearl St, which is one hell of a hill (Emiliano, this is the hill that you had to bike up during the Fitchburg State race).  I got about half way up, and just thought “I can’t run anymore.” So I stopped, and walked a bit.  Then, Nicole came up behind me, touched me on the shoulder, and said “Let’s go!!”  So I started running again.  I made it up the rest of Pearl St, and then down the hill, I started booking it.  Then, turned left onto North St for the final leg of the race.  I started going pretty fast because I could see the finish line, and  I just wanted to finish!!!

I finished the race in 27.36, and was two runners behind Nicole.  I got my popsicle stick with my number, and then sat down on the pavement.  I was soo tired!

Oh, and I was VERY disappointed that there was no way to recycle the water bottles or the soda cans.  They also gave out bananas (which weren’t ripe, they should have bought them on Wednesday or Thursday) and orange slices, and there wasn’t a way to compost them.   I wrote a letter to the organizer of the event and said that I was disappointed.  I volunteered next year to help out with recycling.  I’ll set up the containers, and even deal with everything when they’re done.

I think that if I want to be content with other people recycling, composting, and the like, I just need to live by myself out in the woods with no one else around.