i'm exhausted, and still trying to get clean from the dust and grime of today. but for a day that started out as "a day of failures," it turned out pretty well.

- meredith and i left at 9:30 to see will run the chicago marathon. unfortunately, we didn't actually get to see him run. i signed up for this service that sent text messages to my phone with the projected times that will would reach certain points in the marathon, so we relied on that to figure out where he was located. later on, we found out that those times were highly inaccurate, plus will ran faster and earlier than he thought he would. we stopped at three different points on the marathon path in hopes of catching him, but we were always at least half an hour behind. we finally saw him after the race, in his mom's hotel room, so we congratulated him and showed him the signs we made for him. we felt so bad for not seeing him run, but he appreciated the fact that we came out and tried our hardest to see him. we then headed out for what we thought was certain to be our next failure, the lyric opera rummage sale.
- the lyric opera was selling the warehouses where they stored thousands of old costumes, props, and set pieces, so they were trying to get rid of everything this weekend. we wanted to go yesterday to get a look at the best pieces, but the football game went into double overtime and we were too late. when we got there today, the line was extending around the block, and we were worried that we wouldn't make it inside before it closed, but we eventually got there. it was a madhouse with costumes all over the floor and dust flying everywhere, but it was fun to dig through the piles and piles of stuff looking for gems. all the really good stuff was gone, so it was mostly just plain costumes from the chorus people, but they had a lot of random things like spats, wellingtons, fake chain mail, and hair pieces. i got three really odd hats and meredith got a scarf, a crown, and pants for a total of $4. it wasn't as amazing as we thought it would be, but i'm glad we went.

now we're back, and i have to get ready for a busy week. but i might just go to bed early...