Fabulous Friday!

Happy Friday!

I am so excited to have three days off in a row!  It only happens every couple of weeks if I'm lucky!  I was so excited I couldn't fall asleep last night and then woke up super early this morning!  

My legs were sore today!  After work I even put on my compression socks and wore them to bed in hopes a miracle would happen and my legs would be refreshed.  No such luck.  I was scheduled to do 3 miles today, but decided to wait and see what the day would bring.  

I went to my mom's to see if she needed anything since she has a hurt back.  I brought her a bunch of movies to watch and the first season of Psych.  I reassured her that if she really liked that first season, I had up to season four.  

I took her other daughter  dog for a walk later too.  She has been cooped up lately and needed to stretch her legs.  We went in the field by my parents house and spent over 30 minutes hunting any possible animal she could smell.  She was pooped after.  She looks a little creepy sleeping with her eyes half open.

 Random!  I saw this on Pinterest and cracked up.  Any time you can incorporate "That's what she said" is okay by my.  And how funny would that be to see during a race.  I would start cracking up!

 My friend, Melissa, came over tonight to hang out.  We thought it would be fun to do our nails, so I started trying to find all my nail polish.  I kept finding more and more.  Why do I have so much nail polish?  I'm not a nail salon!  And has anyone ever really used a whole bottle?  Ever?  Probably not.

 Melissa tried a new technique for taking off polish that she saw on Pinterest.  It is supposed to take one swipe after sitting two minutes.  I got mine off before she was done, but I can see how this would work with colors that smear everywhere when trying to remove.  I always have a hard time getting off blue colors.

I thought I would do pink since October is breast cancer awareness month.  I did the ribbon swoosh free hand.  I couldn't believe how well it came out on the first try!  I had to do it twice on my other hand, though.  But I am very happy with the results.

Tomorrow, 10 mile run and then Party on the Pavement! 

What are your plans this weekend?

Tame Tuesday

Finally, after eight days in a row, I had a day off of work!  I always wake up, early and excited, like a little kid on Christmas morning!  I got up, had some coffee and breakfast (banana and clementine), watched some TV and then went for a 3 mile run.

I had to make sure I went in the morning, since I had plans for the rest of the day.  It was so beautiful out!  It was sunny and breezy and about 60.  The fall colors were everywhere!  It was so picturesque, I had to stop several times while running to take pictures.  It was literally raining leaves in the woods where I run.


After I got home, logged my run, and showered, I ate a salad with my homemade pickles and made a dressing with some red wine vinegar and half a packet of Sweet n Low.  It's very good.  I really like the tartness of it and it's virtually no calories!


I went over to my friend, Melissa's.  We were going to go shopping to find some clothes for our Halloween race and she needed to run some errands. I got a little bored waiting for her so I took some pictures of myself.  There are a lot more like this, but I thought one would be enough to share.
We went to a couple of thrift stores and found what we needed.  We also went to Menard's since she had to get some painting supplies.  That is probably my least favorite store to go to.  There is nothing there that interests me...even when we are doing home projects.  So, I was glad that we were there for only about 15 minutes.
After I got home, I grabbed a jar of pickles I made and headed over to my parents.  My dad had made more salsa and had a jar ready for me.  I also wanted to check on my mom.  She has a slipped disk in her back and has been in a lot of pain.  My little brother gave me a big old bag of quinoa too!  I was quite excited about this.  And, I convinced him to run the Halloween half I'm doing.
After my parents I ran to the grocery store.  I was pretty much out of fruit and ran out of almond milk the other day.  As a result of my shopping trip this ended up being my supper; carrots, grapes, tortilla chips, and my dad's homemade salsa.
Later that night Kevin came home with half a tube of Nestle chocolate chip cookie dough from our neighbors.  I made the cookies and ate 6 of them.  Good thing I pretty much ate nothing all day, because 6 cookies really adds up in calories.

I'm going to finish watching I Love Lucy and then get ready for work.  I just have to get through today and tomorrow and then I have a three day weekend!

Cleaning with a Feeling

I was so tired this morning...maybe it had something to do with not going to bed until 1am.  I was running a bit behind this morning so took my oatmeal to go.  I eat it on the way to work a lot.  It's filling and easy to eat!

I made sure to bring my lunch and snacks though.  I had a hard time this weekend to eat healthy, but I blame it on working too many days in a row.  It gets hard to think of food to bring.  I did really well and didn't go buy any junk food or eat any of the junk food we have in the break room.  

When I got home, I was excited to see that my compression socks had come!  I have read a lot about them and with my marathon training starting soon and a sale going on where I bought them, I figured it was meant to be.  I have been wearing them all day.  I can't tell if they are doing anything since today is a rest day.  They are definitely the most expensive pair of socks I have ever bought!

For supper I had a salad and I made my own dressing.  It was super easy. I just mixed together some red wine vinegar, EVOO, and a half packet of Sweet n Low.  I also put my homemade refrigerator pickles on it.  Those pickles are super good!  I am definitely  making them next year again.  I also had the rest of my soup that I brought for lunch and a banana and pear cut up.

I spent the rest of the night cleaning, doing laundry, dusting and doing the floors.  Tomorrow is my day off and I do not want to spend the whole day cleaning like I usually do. I cleaned out a cabinet I have random things in and found FOUR Gu's!  The receipt was dated April of last year.  That was right around the time I hurt my knee.  I must have bought them for a race and then not needed them anymore.  That was a sweet find though since I have a lot of long runs coming up!

I am going to finish watching Revolution and then heading to bed!  

Have you ever found anything while cleaning?

Sunday Funday!

Despite working most of the day, it was still a great day.  I was pretty tired when I got home.  I knew I had to run, but actually fell asleep for about an hour in my running clothes.  I got up and turned my Garmin on when it beeped and said low battery.  Well, that was just great!  I will not run if I don't know how far I'm going!  So I charged it for about twenty minutes and hoped it would last.

 I was walking for about 5 minutes outside when it beeped low battery again.  I turned it off until I was ready to run.  I was already outside and it was getting late.  It was almost six and I knew I would be out for over an hour.  With fall here, it is getting dark at about 7 now.  I'm not a fan of running in the dark just because I feel a bit off balance.  I turned my watch on and started running.  It beeped the low battery warning at me, but I just figured I would go until it died and then I could just figure out how far I went by mapping out the rest.


The first mile was really tough.  I kept getting crazy stomach cramps and stopped about three times until they passed.  After that pain was gone I was feeling a bit better.  I listened to Jillian Michaels podcast.  Her and her cohost are so funny.  It really made the time fly by.  And every time I wanted to give up I would just think about Jillian and what she would say to me.

On the way back I couldn't believe how huge the moon was! I tried to take a picture of it (again) and it never does it justice.

After I got home and I logged my runs on my 3 websites and wrote it in my running journal ( a little over-kill, I know) I jumped in the shower.  I hadn't realized that I had sweat through the two shirts I was wearing!  I knew I was sweating a bit, but I most mostly a bit chilly and was thankful I had thought to wear the long sleeves over a short sleeve T-shirt.

The rest of the night I just hung out, caught up on blogs, and watched Boardwalk Empire.  Next week's episode looks good!
Off to bed!  Early day tomorrow!

National Coffee Day!

I usually forget that it's actually the weekend when I have to work straight through until Tuesday.  All day I kept forgetting what day it was.
This morning was a pretty big struggle to get up.  I had cereal for breakfast and some green tea.  Yes.  Tea.  It is national coffee day and the irony is that I ran out of coffee yesterday and forgot to buy more.  I was dragging until I felt it was an acceptable time to down a soda...10ish.
My food choices were not the best today.  I only went over by a little, but that's because I didn't eat much, just badly.  On my break at work I had some diet Pepsi, king size Twizzlers, and Doritos.

Not my proudest moment, but lunch wasn't much better.  I had a pretzel with butter and salt on it and some cheese.  When I got home I had a better lunch.  I had a cheese and tomato sandwich, a salad with balsamic vinegar and EVOO, and a pear and banana.  

A little while later I really wanted an apple with peanut butter, so I told myself to go for a walk and then afterwards I could have one.  It was a beautiful afternoon, in the mid 60s with a light breeze.  I listened to Jillian Michael's podcast for the first time and really liked it.  I figured I would, but it wasn't what I was expecting, what ever that was.  I ended up doing just over 3 miles.  I am planning on doing a longer run tomorrow after work, just not sure how long yet.

I took a couple of pictures of the leaves changing.  I also tried to get a picture of how huge the moon was tonight, but this doesn't do it justice.

I got home in time to watch The Sitter.  It was an okay movie.  Funny enough to keep me watching.  I'll be heading to bed soon.  I have to be up bright and early on Sunday!

What are your weekend plans?

New Shoes!

Today I woke up excited! I knew that I was going to go check some running shoes out.  I had tried some on the other day, but wanted to check them out online to see if I was getting a good deal or not.  After some research I decided I was.  I got up and had some toast with jelly, coffee, and banana and pear.  I ate it while watching, you guessed it, I Love Lucy!  After that, I got dressed and headed out.  It takes about half an hour to get down to the outlet mall where I was going.

I decided to try on a bunch of different ones again to make sure of which one I wanted.  Last time, I didn't really spend time trying on other shoes.  The ones I ended up with are just a bit too big and it causes a lot of problems.  My toes and arch are sore from my foot sliding around in the shoe while running.  I did not want to have to deal with that again so I made sure to take my time.

 I finally decided on some Nike Zoom Vomero's.  I remember looking at these years ago when I was still wearing the Nike Pagasus.  They just weren't around for me to try on at the time.  They have a wider fit and don't sit too high on my heel, which I seem to have a problem with a lot of shoes doing.  They are also not too cushioned.  For some reason that bothers my feet. Another great thing about these shoes?  They were an extra 30% off!  I got a $130 pair of shoes for $50!  It was a great day.  So to celebrate, I stopped at McDonald's and picked up some crack...I mean Coke.  Diet Coke.  There is something about their Diet Coke that I really love.  I have not had it in months!
It was almost noon when I got home.  I wanted to take my new kicks out for a test drive before work, so I quickly changed and took off.  It was a really beautiful day out, even though it looked a bit overcast and dark in some areas.  I just love these fall days and am glad I run outside so that I can enjoy them!  They sure don't last that long!  So, I ended up taking a 2 and a half mile run just to get the feel of the shoe and to make sure they weren't going to cause problems.  They felt good.  I don't remember the last time I had to actually break shoes in.  After that I had a rather large lunch.  I had 2 cheese sandwiches ( I would have been satisfied with 1), apple with peanut butter, a clementine, and some apple juice.  It came in just under 1000 calories when I logged it.  I was SO surprised.  That is a very large lunch.

 For dinner I had the very same thing I had yesterday.  I had the Smart One with 2 Boca patties and a Chobani.  When I got home there were Swiss Rolls on the kitchen counter.  I really, really wanted one.  I use to love eating those when I was younger.  I would put them in the freezer and eat them frozen.  Yum!  But, I can't make any excuses for them now. I don't need them, they really aren't that good, and if I have one I will automatically want more.  It's just how I am.  So, it's better to just ignore them until they are gone. 

Tomorrow is Friday!

Any plans for the weekend?

Rest Day

Today I finally stayed in my allotted calorie range.  I have been tracking diligently for the past week and had constantly gone over...by a lot.  Not today!  I had about five calories to spare.

For breakfast I had an apple with 2 Tbsps. peanut butter and some green tea.

For lunch I had the rest of the vegetables and rice I made yesterday with some salsa.

I had dinner at work.  I didn't bring anything, but bought a Smart One.  It's called mini rigatoni with vodka sauce or something close to that.  I get it every time I have to buy my lunch.  I also bought some Boca Chk'n Patties.  I brought some of my tomato and cucumber salad I had made, but really didn't eat any.  I was hungry when I was buying the food and also bought a king size Hershey bar with almonds and a bag of salt and vinegar chips.

Thankfully a coworker came into the break room and I gave her half of my Hershey bar, otherwise I would have most definitely eaten the whole thing.  I liked the chips I got.  They aren't too salty and have the tanginess from the vinegar.  They are also baked, so not too bad for you.  

After work I was hungry again.  I didn't want to go to any fast food joint, so I stopped at the grocery store.  I got some apples, pears, cereal, bread, and apple juice.  I felt fine after I ate an apple.  I was very glad with my choice of that instead of the usual Taco Bell!

I got my race pictures back from the Brewer Mini Marathon on Saturday. I always find them funny.  When I'm running I always feel like I'm really pushing hard and I feel athletic, but then I see my pictures and wonder if that is what I really look like.  Here are a couple.

I'm going to spend the rest of the night watching Bridesmaids.  I just love this movie!