Friday, November 26, 2010

Thanksgiving and other things

Good day blog world!

Amazingly, I am blogging only a few days after my last blog!  Yay!  Even more exciting, I am up north, which has been lovely.  We all arrived Wednesday night and had a great Thanksgiving full of my favorite things- running with both of my parents in the morning, lots of cooking, a NAP! :), wearing sweatpants the whole day, and of course EATING.  Yes, it was lovely.

Today, the weather is crazy cold/windy so I went out for a short run with my mom.  Currently, we are all sitting around debating going into town for some shopping or something.  Personally, I'm going alittle stir crazy at this point, but my family seems immune caring about being in the house this long.  I am starting to go alittle nuts, as I am incapable of sitting around all day!  If we don't get going soon, I may just hijack our truck and bounce!

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! :)

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Apparently I stink at Blogging....

So yeah, where did life go?  My life is so crazy busy it seems, plus I have like no set schedule with anything so I've gotten out of the blogging habit!  Hopefully, I can get back into it!

Soo...what's been going on?

Work, work, work.  I will spare y'all, because if you are a reader, you know I already whine about that enough!  So what do you do when working sucks away your life/blogging time?  Blog from work!  Currently my 7th graders are working on a paper so I took this opportunity to sit in the back of the class and blog..lol.  Teachers are human too!  I'm currently on day 9 of work in a row, with one more day to go before I get 4 WHOLE DAYS off from both jobs!  I did an extra market on Sunday (my normal 'weekend') and therefore, headed right back into this short week with no break.  Needless to say, I'm SO READY for thanksgiving!  Tomorrow will be a super long day; bakery morning, teaching until 2:30pm (seriously, who does that?) then driving home to my parents, dumping all the food that I bought for thanksgiving at the market into their car along with my stuff, and leaving for up north packed into the car!  4-5 hours later, we will get there...hopefully.  My sis and bro in law will be meeting us tomorrow night too.  I. Am. So. Pumped.  I picked up a 20lb. turkey from a farmer at the market that sells in the booth next to us.  20lbs of turkey, 5 of my family.  Yeah, there will be alot of leftovers!  But, I'm totally OK with that.  Mmmm, turkey.  My sis and I actually have a really good menu planned of mostly in-season, local foods.  I repeat- I. Am. So. Pumped.  4 days of food, family, and no work.  Yess indeedy.

So running.  Yeah.  It's been...going.  I actually got in a few quality swims in the last week, plus core work.  It feels great to be in the pool.  Last Tuesday was the light fest run, that I mentioned.  It was freezing rain, but alot of fun!  Two people from my running club and I ran together and had a good time taking pictures by the light displays and messing around.  Nothing else really monumentous.  Honestly, with work, my exercise in general has been much less than normal, which I'm OK with right now.  Yesterday was good though- 10 miles split.  It was misty and rainy but WARM.  T-shirt and shorts weather.  I did 6 miles in the morning, and couldn't resist tacking on a shake out 4 miler after work.  Amazing.  Except when I fell.  Yeah, I'm a dork.  I have a headlamp, but didn't wear it because I was running in the 'city' at night (vs. country roads).  There is one spot going uphill with about a 1/2 mile to my apartment that is pitch dark.  A car came over the hill with its brights on and I was temporarily blinded while I tried to move into the dirt shoulder (I was already in the bike lane.)  I rolled my ankles and got totally dirty and alittle scraped, but mostly my pride was injured!

Today started out warm and rainy, but the temp has been dropping all day.  Unfortunately, my run has to wait until the evening as I was at the bakery at the 4am hour today.  Popular bakery + days before thanksgiving = craziness.  I was actually HAPPY to get out of there today to go teach!  I'm thinking a pull-off-the-freeway-randomly run is in order for tonite!  I will wear my headlamp though!  Even though I look like a freak in it.....

Ok, that's it from here!  My head is spinning with all of the stuff I need to get done and packed up and such in the next 28 hours or so.  And what is really on my mind is Thanksgivingthanksgivingthanksgiving..........

And being UP NORTH!  Its been since Labor Day...much too long! :)

Monday, November 15, 2010

Long time, no blog!

Oh man, I haven't blogged in FOREVER.  I'm sure my devoted few readers missed me.  Honestly, I feel like I haven't had a whole lot of blog-worthy stuff going on.  My running has been good, but unplanned and pretty low milage.  The rest of my life is spent working or driving!  Hmm, I'll try to sum up a few highlights from the last week or so.....

Stream of consciousness time...The top 10 of the week:

1) I FINALLY got back in the pool for a formal swim session on Friday.  It has been atleast 6 months since I did any formal pool work and it felt GREAT.  I did 30 minutes on Friday and felt good except my triceps were sore/tired afterward!  Which was OK by me, especially since that is an area I really want to tone up.  I was looking at pictures from my sisters' wedding 2 years ago (when I was swimming alot at the time) and LOVE how my arms looked in my strapless dress!  So I'm a bit motivated by vanity...lol.  Today I hit up the pool for 45 minutes of straight freestyle.  Felt amazing.

2) I've also started strength training regularly.  I took a core class at the local running shop last Monday, then repeated the routine again on my own last week.  I really need the core work and I'm *trying* to get into it, it is just hard because I always go for the running when crunched for time.  But, right now I'd rather hit up lower milage + core vs. extra miles.  It is the 'off season' for me afterall!

3) The best run of my week by far was yesterday when I met up with a new friend/blog reader for a lovely winter-y feeling run.  We cruised the roads along a new route for 7ish miles where we met up.  Then, proceeded to drink coffee and chat it up for 2+ more hours!  Such a nice treat on a blustery Sunday!  I'm hoping for more of these runs to come!

4) Second best run was tonite when I met up with my mom post-work for a quick sunset run.  I love running with my mom!  And then we made grilled cheeses!  Niccce.

5) I'm currently watching "Dancing with the Stars" with my parents.  Being at their house for the night = nice.  This show = lame.  My parents' quarkiness = awesome.

6) I am sooo ready for Thanksgiving.  Up-north.  4 days off from both jobs.  Good food.  Family.  Enough said.

7) I feel totally weird not having any race goals set in stone right now.  I really don't mind not having a training plan, but I'm getting anxious not having a set race on the horizon even.  This may need to be remedied soon.

8) I don't have to work at the bakery tomorrow morning.  Best. Morning. Ever.  So, I will get to run, and do core before work!  Plus, post-work I'm running again with my running group at a "light fest" run.  2x running and 1xjobs = how ever day should be.

9) I've noticed my bullet points are getting shorter, which further exemplifies the fact that I don't have a whole lot of exciting stuff to talk about.

10) Yeah, I better just end this now.

Ok, well that about sums up my life.  I'll try to keep updated more regularly from here on out!  Have a good night everyone! :)

Friday, November 5, 2010

back at it!

I feel so weird not having a 'countdown' on my blog title!  But, honestly I have nothing to countdown because for the first time in a few years, I am not signed up for another marathon.  That's not to say I won't be doing one soon, it is just a fact that I haven't decided and am trying to be free and flexible right now.

As for running, I'm back at it!  Started last Sunday with a few miles with my mom.  Then, (perhaps stupidly) decided to run home from my mom's work on Monday.  10.5 miles in the dark in sub 30 degree weather the second day back running after 3 weeks off.....not so smart.  It felt pretty good, but I was a bit sore the next day.  The rest of my week has been filled with shorter, easier runs when I could squeeze them in between my jobs and 12 hour workdays.  Really, work is what has been dominating my life the past few weeks.  Hense my lack of time/motivation to blog.  I've of course been teaching as usual, but also taken on extra hours at the bakery.  Suddenly, my 15-20 hours a week there, turned into 30 hours!  It has been difficult, but I'm really trying to save up extra money for that yet-to-be-determined spring marathon trip.  We will see though.  My sanity is not worth any amount of extra money!  Plus, too much work = not enough time to train = sad me.

So yeah.  Atleast the 'school week' is over.  I got 12 hours at the market tomorrow, but if you've been reading my blog you know I have a slight obsession with the market.  I'm alittle nervous because it is supposed to be 20 degrees...yikes.  I'm hoping people will still be out and willing to buy bread and pastries from me though!  I don't have very many weeks left to go down there, and the more I sell, the more likely my boss is to keep me going!  Pressure is on!

Have a good weekend everyone!