It’s been a while since I’ve posted — other than my excruciatingly detailed Day in the Life post — so I thought I’d do a little catching up with a few brief updates. But first! Here’s a gratuitous photo of my dog:

Good old Mr. Eegs. All righty then, five things:

1. Physical Therapy. I’m back in it. My old hip flexor injury started flaring up again in January, and dialing back my running mileage/intensity and adding in more PT exercises didn’t really help. The pain got bad enough one day that I had to cut a run short and walk home. It wasn’t pretty. So I’m back in the comfortingly capable hands of PT Guru Steve, who is busily tormenting me twice a week in the interest of getting me back to a good running and strength routine. There’s a lot of standing on one foot: balancing on one foot on a squishy pad while playing catch, single-leg squats, balancing on an upside-down bosu ball, et cetera. Apparently this time I don’t have as much weakness in the joint as I did when I came to see him last time, so my strength program has been helping — we just need to fine-tune it. I’m bummed to have to go back, but pleased that I’m starting out from a better place than before.

2. Travel Tips? CW and I want to take a trip abroad this summer (a belated honeymoon sort of thing), and we’re not 100% set on a destination, but Italy and/or Greece are at the top of our list. The problem is, well, that shit’s expensive! Looking at flights alone was pretty sobering. Seventeen hundred dollars per ticket at the lowest available price. Yikes! Does anyone have any tips for traveling to Europe more cheaply? Not necessarily, like, youth-hostel levels of cheapness (we’re technically too old for that anyway), but, more on the level of… grown-ups who are not entirely made of money but who still like nice things? Or do we just have to get over it and spend the money?

3. Atlanta. We recently spent the weekend in Atlanta hanging out with my brother-in-law. He was up there for a work training weekend that happened to coincide with his 40th birthday, so CW and I made the quick drive to the city to help him celebrate. It was a really fun trip and made me wish we took the time to get out of town more often. We went out for burgers and beers and did some shopping and generally just enjoyed ourselves. Brunch the next morning and then back home. Easy, quick, and a much-needed breath of fresh air.

4. Valentine’s Day. I am a fan of Valentine’s Day when in a relationship, although I hated it when I was single. Or, perhaps more accurately, I used my “hate” of it as an excuse to wear black, drink heavily, and attend anti-Valentine’s-Day parties — which, when you think about it, is just an alternative way of celebrating the day. At any rate, CW tends to dislike it — you know, the usual “it’s a fake, overly commercialized holiday,” “we can express our love any day of the year” kind of argument. However, he can be convinced to celebrate Valentine’s Day if it means a great meal, a bottle of wine, and no gift pressure. So we spent the evening cooking together (a huge and amazing lasagna) and drinking red wine and then watched a movie. It was a pretty great evening. Other than time spent together, my favorite aspect of Valentine’s Day is the exchange of cards — and one great benefit of marrying a writer is that you get really good messages in your holiday cards.

5. Jo Nesbø. Last year I read Nesbø’s The Snowman based on the recommendation of a friend — and then I found out it was one of a series of detective novels featuring the unfortunately named, to Anglophone readers, Detective Harry Hole. (The name of course doesn’t have the same connotation in Norwegian, but dang. Hard to think about it without laughing.) This year I’ve gone back and found more of the Harry Hole novels and, based on what’s on sale for Kindle, am reading more. Earlier this week I finished The Readbreast and am currently enjoying Nemesis. Quite excited to have found another series of Scandinavian crime novels I really enjoy.