I Love Sunday Mornings!

This Sunday started out unusually nice with an extra 1.5 hours of sleep.  Wearing Sky out at the park last night was the best decision I made all day! 

I love slow, lazy Sunday mornings.  Listening to ESPN & Fox pre-game shows, last minute check of my fantasy football teams, deciding which game we will watch, and breakfast.  Sunday breakfast is the best of the week!   

We both get our favorites on Sunday.  Above (for me) coffee, mimosa, perfectly fried egg with Frank's hot sauce, bacon, and avocado toast.  For Sky, a perfectly runny fried egg, bacon, peanut butter toast, and milk.  It's messy, but she loves it. 

 

I even love my new way of watching football.  Not much yelling, screaming, or cursing at the T.V.

Now I wrestle with Sky, we have tickle time, color, mute the game so we can read books and sing her favorite songs.  (Thank goodness I know football well enough that I don't need sound to know what's going on!!!)  Lot's of running through the house to burn energy and then lot's of snuggles before nap time. 

Life is so different with a kiddo, but it's so much better!   

Any other football watchers out there?  Who's your team?

P.S. Totally questioning the wisdom of a runner doing a 30 day squat challenge.  145 squat's and a speedy 3 mile stroller run in 2 days = angry, angry legs.

Girls Day!

When Mark's away the girls will play!  Actually the day started with a few errands and house cleaning.  But after nap time it was on! 

The sun was out and we both needed to get out and enjoy it.  I got an awesome, AWESOME stroller run in with Sky (more on that later...totally solidified my goals for next year today!), and then it was play time at the park. 

 Swinging is still her favorite thing!

 

 Trying to figure out the cargo net.

 

 Playground version of toddler containment.  She got in there and couldn't figure out all she had to do was duck under it to get out. 

 

We came home and had our favorite "Daddy's gone on a trip" dinner...Papa Murphy's pizza!  I totally had something read to cook, but we played at the park for so long that I was just too darn tired to cook it. 

Sky was tired too and was ready for bed long before her normal bed time.  Which means an extra glass of wine for me!!!  Love sunny days full of productivity and fun!

I hope you're all having a weekend full of fun and sun! 

Happy Sunny Friday & Not From The Kitchen

Sky got her cast off this morning!!!  I had no idea her skin would stink so bad what the cast came off.  I thought it was the cast itself that stunk, but her arm was nasty.  (BTW - we found that when she did accidently get her cast wet and the stink flared up that putting cornstarch down/up her cast helped a ton!) 

I can't tell you how happy I was to wash her hair, and let her sit in the bath until the water was filthy and cold.  Her first real bath in over a month = black bath water.  She splashed and reunited with her favorite bath toys, and had a huge grin the entire time.  I tried to get a picture, but she was splashing so much it was getting my phone wet. 

With all the rain we have had there has been a lake puddle in the driveway for weeks, and Sky has wanted to stomp and jump in it every time we go outside.  I wouldn't let her though because we had to keep the cast dry. 

Since yesterday was the last day in the cast I let her go for it!

Pure happiness.  She was soaked from head to toe after stomping and belly flopping in it.  Of course now that the cast is off it's lovely and sunny out.  Spent weeks trying to keep her dry and happy inside and now we have sun. 

It's supposed to be fairly nice tomorrow too, so after nap time Sky and I are headed to Chambers Bay for a run and play time at the park.  I need to get my running legs back and she needs some outside play time! 

This little bit of sun is what I needed to counteract the post-race, post-training run let down.  At least when I'm training I don't even think about if I'm going to run or not.  I run no matter what no matter the weather.  But, with all the rain and only a couple of 5K's on the schedule between now and April I was starting to feel like hibernating was a better idea than running.  What a difference some sun makes!!  I'm looking forward to logging some miles tomorrow!

I was going to share a recipe for a From The Kitchen post today, but I'm opting to encourage you to get the Well Fed cookbook for yourself and/or check out the blog HERE
 

Even if you don't follow a strict Paleo diet (we don't) the recipes are yummy and add nice variety to our menu planning!

How much time do you take off after a big race?
2 to 3 days, anything more than that and I have a hard time getting back into it.

Ever gone puddle jumping?
Every puddle we see...we love our rain boots!

Any fun weekend plans?
Mark is busy all weekend, so Sky and I are going to hang out, run, play, and maybe run some more.  Oh, and go to Costco.

Thankful Thursday

Today I'm thankful that I get to bust out the puffy orange jacket, boot's, scarves, sweaters, flannel pj's, fluffy warm socks, flannel sheets, and blankets to snuggle up in on the couch! 

This is by far the most used and most favorite jacket I have!

 



I'll admit that I held onto summer until the very last second.  But, as soon as September 23rd came around I was all about fall! 

Bring on the Caramel Salted Mochas, Blue Moon Caramel Apple Beer, Pumpkin Spice Latte's, heck pumpkin everything, cold/rainy days that make it seem ok to stay inside nice and warm in pj's all day, puddle jumping, fall leaves, running in the cold, not needing to water the plants, candy pumpkins, and maybe most importantly football!

I really do love Fall, I just wanted to enjoy Summer as long as possible.  Once it's gone it's gone for like 8 to 9 months. 

What are you thankful for? 

What's your favorite thing about Fall?

Another Craigslist Score!

First just let me express my love for Craigslist!!!  Thank goodness Craigslist exists because it's really inconvenient that I'm feeling the need to majorly change things up in the house on a single income. 

I guess after 9 years of looking at the sameness of the layout and major pieces of furniture I'm ready for something different.  Plus, losing the spare room to Sky (totally worth it!!!) eliminated a whole room of storage and we are approaching max capacity.  I can only consolidate/organize/find new hiding spots for so long!

It's been a two part process.  I started out by taking almost all the art/pictures off the walls, shelves, mantel etc. and moved it around/into different rooms to create a more colorful, less bulky, more space efficient look.  Anything that I can't find the perfect spot for goes to goodwill, unless it has special meaning, then I work harder to find it's new home.  BTW - I'm shocked at how much stuff I take to goodwill every week.  I didn't realize how much stuff we have that we don't need/use!

One of the things I really wanted in the dinning room was a square table.  Since we were fitting a rectangle table into a smallish square room I felt like square would be better.  Since Mark pretty much owns craigslist (he has gotten so many good deals, including Sky's free wooden swing set and slide!) as soon as I got serious about changing up the house he started looking for a square table and found the perfect one for a great price!!! 

It looks perfect in the dinning room and fits so much better than the old table.  It gives us options too if we want to push it up against a wall we can fit a buffet in there, or move Sky's school desk and white board in there for a more official pre-school space.  Bonus, it matches the wine rack perfectly.  Not too matchy matchy, but they look good together!

While we were taking the old table apart and putting the legs on the new one sky decided to start her own project. 

 

She was working away on the gate with her screwdriver and yelling at us, "I working, I fix it".  Any time we are working or fixing something around the house she gets her tools out and fixes things. 

The second part of the project is to tackle the big pieces of furniture.  What to keep, what to ditch, what to move, and what to replace.  Things like replacing the couch and living room flooring will have to wait a while, like until I go back to work.  But, in the meantime we can update the curtains, throw pillows finish hanging all of our prints and keeping an eye on Craigslist.

Any cost effective decoration/organization/consolidation tips for me? 

P.S. First post-race run today.  My legs are still sore and my knees hurt, but I'm going to give it a go with the Stroller Group.  Will see how it goes! 

#5024

Half Fanatic #5024...that's me!  I spent some time on the fanatic site today updating my profile, adding myself to the 1/2 I'm registered for next year, and adding my race history.  And, yes I had a huge smile on my face the whole time!

It almost makes me cry just thinking about it.  I was so anti running for so long, and then so I'll never run more than a 5K, and then I don't know what happened.  Somehow I fell in love with running and started setting a yearly running goal.  Last year was to run a race a month for a year, but due to injury I only got 10 races in.  I did it this year though!  I set my goal and I reached it!!!! 

Don't worry, I'll get this out of my system and stop posting about it all the time.  But, right now it's still so new and I'm still really proud of myself for doing it.  Plus, I kind of feel like as long as my legs are sore enough to remind me that I ran a hilly race then I can keep being excited/proud about it.  ;-)

I'm slowly moving on though.  I'm already considering what my 2014 running goal will be.  I think I'm settled on it, but not sure enough to share yet.  Interesting tidbit...I have finished all 4 halves within a 4 minute window.  I'm nothing if not consistent...may be time to change that though.    

One thing I didn't like was turning my calendar to Oct and seeing this...

 

...a blank month.  For the last 5 months every month has been inked in with training runs and races, and it's strange having a blank month.  So, to fill it up I added my 30 day challenge schedule.  Love seeing what I need to do inked in each and every day! 

Today starts a 30 day plank and squat challenge.  Both of which I found on Pinterest.  I find it hard to believe I'll be doing a 5 minute plank by day 30, but I'm going to!  I'm going to have to wait a few days to start the squat challenge though.  Given the fact that my legs are still sore and I'm still having muscle spasms in the hamstrings I think it best to let them rest a few more days. 

Laying low today.  I feel like my body knows my big challenge is over and it's now ok to get sick.  My sinuses are acting up and just feel tired and sore.  Some of that is from the race I know, but I totally feel a cold coming on too.  Enjoying this last day to lay around lazy (I did do my plank challenge for the day though) in pj's, but also looking forward to getting my running legs back and joining the stroller group tomorrow for a fun easy 3 miles. 

What's your biggest running, or other fitness related, accomplishment?