Miles For Melanie

After a long time away from my blog, I have finally returned. The last couple of weeks have been fairly uneventful, with nothing really straying far from the norm. At this point, I'm just really looking forward to leaving for India this weekend. However, the weekend was pretty good so I wanted to make sure and write about it.

Things have been tense in the office as more people come and go on a weekly basis, with many people just not being able to hack it. At this point, I've seen my team drop from 15 people down to 8. It's really been difficult keeping my positive attitude and trying to stay motivated as I watch these people just leave the company. I'm really hoping that things turn around soon, because I don't know how much more of this I can take. I am excited for my promotion party which is scheduled for July 30th, but even that just seems so far away.

Last night, I drove up to Massachusetts to have dinner with the CD. It had been months since I'd seen her, so it was really good to get up and spend some quality time with her. After closing the office, I drove up and we just spent a couple of hours together. Everything was really wonderful and I had a great time. It's so refreshing to see how amazingly our friendship has turned out even after the tumultuous times that we've had to endure.

The biggest thing that has happened in the last couple weeks was the Miles For Melanie 5K road race this morning. After Melanie's passing last summer, the family decided to build a pavilion at YMCA's Camp Sloper in her honor and memory. With that plan in mind, they put together a road race to raise some money for the project. The race attracted around 500 people today to Lake Compounce, where we ran around the town of Bristol. I've been friends with the family since I was 13 and was present during the entire weekend of her wake/funeral, there was no way that I was going to miss it. Even though I haven't been consistently keeping up with my own running and workouts, I knew that I was going to participate and finish the race. I finished the race in 28:58, which I felt was pretty good for not having run in a number of weeks. It was really amazing to see everyone there supporting the family and a great cause. It was a wonderful feeling to finish the race and to be able to help support the fundraising effort.

Even if things aren't going well at work, at least everything outside of work is going well. I'm in the best physical shape that I've ever been in. I now wear a size SMALL, which is just crazy to think about. My family life is good and I'm really just looking forward to heading out to India on Saturday.

Now... if only Derek Jeter could get back to playing baseball and finish his quest for 3,000 hits!