Fall Race

During my training for the Nike Women's Marathon, I promised David that it would most likely be the only full marathon I would run for a while.  While training for a half marathon fits easily into my life and encourages a sensible amount of daily exercise, training for a full TOOK OVER my life and made me a bear to be around 75% of the time.  The other 25% of the time I was actually running.


Of course, as everyone predicted, I started plotting my 2nd marathon seconds after finishing my first.  

I'm fickle like that :)


I had been looking for another full marathon to do--sometime in late September or early October.  San Fransisco is a little pricey to do again, so we were looking at Chicago.  Sadly, that also happens the weekend of David's 30th birthday...and I felt more than a little selfish taking over his birthday weekend to go run a really long ways, especially with my pre-marathon hiatus from drinking.
David disagreed and wanted to go to Chicago.  We hemmed and hawed.


Hem.


Haw.


I missed the registration for Chicago.


So that's out.  There's a full marathon in St. Charles (a suburb of St. Louis) around that same time, but there's a part of me that REALLY wants running that far to be an event.  I like the idea of planning trips around major races and something seems really anticlimactic about training for months  to run that far in the suburbs.


Right now, I'm not sure what the plan is...should I look around for an affordable marathon in the midwest (or at least a cheap plane ride away)?  Or I could run another half in the fall (around here) and work really hard this summer to train.


Heck, maybe I'll just buy a road bike and a wetsuit and do triathlons.





We can't make decisions to save our lives.

Kitchen Painting

I want to paint my kitchen.

Terribly....but I don't just want to paint the walls, I want to paint the cabinets, backsplash, AND laminate countertop.  I've done some internet research...and apparently that's all possible.

Scary, but possible.

I also want new flooring.

Of course, I don't want to pay for any of this....but I can dream about colors.

Here's what the kitchen looks like right now.

Oh, hello Maggie.  

Here is my dream color scheme....ignore the horrible job of line drawing.  I am no graphic designer!

White cabinets, dove grey counters and backsplash, charcoal grey floors and lavender grey walls.

I also want to use a deeper, coordinating purple/lavender for our baker's rack (it's on the other wall) and as an accent color--meaning I would paint the wooden knife block and that inspire sign the accent color.

Thoughts?  Think I can pull it off???  I don't work in the summer...so in theory it could take 2 months of full time work and not make me murder anyone.

Except I wouldn't be able to cook.  And that would stink!

Shelley's Wedding!

This weekend, David and I traveled to Kansas City to attend Shelley's wedding... and it was great!  Shelley and I were both Alpha Xi's in college, which means we've known each other for almost 10 years.

That also means that we're getting old, but that's beside the point.

I woke up super early on Saturday, did a 7 mile run, showered, forced David out of bed, and then headed up to the city.  We stayed with my friend Maren... making sure to arrive at her condo before the K-State game started.  Sadly, the game didn't end with a Wildcat victory...but the cats had a good season.  

Shelley's wedding was at a church in Mission where her parents were also married.  How cute is that?  

The reception was at Boulevard Brewing Company in a room overlooking the production center. 

 Swanky and awesome.

David was excited because there was unlimited Boulevard Beer....check out this smile!

I was excited because I got to see girls that I hadn't seen in a long while... in this picture girls live in Kansas City, New York, Dallas, Manhattan, Chicago, a town 30 minutes west of Wichita, and St. Louis.  

It's hard to get together anymore!

It's even harder to get a group shot (but David did try!).  

Just kidding... David thought this one would be funny.

And that's why I love him :)

This picture is most likely the first and only photograph together of Kat and I looking like normal people.  We have a history of taking ridiculous, horrible date party photographs together... most of which looked like this.

Eh, I probably still would have purchased that picture if we had taken it at a date party.  

For some reason, I spent a lot of time rocking out in front of these signs.  They weren't on the dance floor...they were just outside the women's bathroom.  I think David was looking at the memorabilia and I was trying to convince him that we needed to go dance to Bootylicious or something like that.

I think this is my favorite picture of the night... Cooper's probably not sure if she's in the shot or not, but decided to put on a smile.  What a trooper!

The next day, we went and met my friends Cari and Annie for brunch...unfortunately for Cari, there was a communication breakdown (error=me) and she spent 45 minutes waiting in First Watch.

Ooops.

But I still got to see the baby belly!!

Note: I asked before I touched the belly.  I've learned this is a good thing.  

For some reason, it's not cool to grab baby bellies without explicit permission.

Additional note: Annie and I both have purple purses!  I just noticed this!  

Also, we match Cari's shirt...maybe we were all still dressing for K-State?

Elite Eight!

It's no secret to anyone that I am indifferent, at best, to most sports.  I enjoy going to games, but purely for the social aspect.  If I were allowed to tailgate and promptly go home once a game started, I would be a happy woman.  I've found that my disinterest stems mostly from the fact that other people are interested in the game we're watching and refuse chatter with me or otherwise goof off during games.  Seriously, who goes to games to watch them?  

The only shining spot in my sports watching history is baseball... I've found that no one really watches baseball.  The most avid fan will be focusing on the game 7-8 minutes at most.

I love going to baseball games.

Last night, however, I watched an ENTIRE basketball game.  

Avidly. 

Did you see K-State play last night?  Even I was excited--double overtime is nothing to sneeze at.  It was like someone at Buffalo Wild Wings was rooting for some overtime (joke courtesy of Erin Garrett's facebook wall)

I have to say, though, credit must go where credit is due... if I hadn't married a man who so completely loves sporting events, I probably wouldn't have turned on the game, much less stayed up until past 11:30.

Because, seriously, I get up at 5:30.  I'm cranky on too little sleep.

My absolute favorite moment of the game was when they showed Frank Martin talking to the team in the locker room... he called their offense both "selfish" and "silly."  When a man who looks like this

most of the time uses the word "silly" twice during one pep talk, you know he's HIGHLY aware a camera is on his face.

Silly, silly offense.

Drugging the Roo-Bear

My baby girl has an issue.

She's a snorer...and it's getting WAAAAAAY worse every single night.

I called Dad.  He says it's because all of her fat is smooshing her breathing passages.  

His solution: drop the chub.

I told her that.  And she looked at me with these big pretty eyes.

So I gave her a treat for being pretty.

After that fiasco, I called Dad back and said I needed a short-term solution.  

Now, Maggie gets half a tab of benadryl every single night.  The only issue is that I have to sprinkle the pills on a bit of peanut butter.  I think she's put on a few more pound-o's since we've started.

However, when Maggie's drugged, she's hilarious.  Wandering around with lidded eyes, if she was more lethargic, I would wonder if she had died.

But, man, it stops her snoring. 

My new cookbook

On Sunday, I ran over to Borders to buy our new bookclub book, and got distracted by discount (!) cookbooks.

I love cookbooks...but these were a little weird.  I only saw promising recipes while I was flipping through it in the line, but once I got home, I uncovered some treasures like this.... 

Chargrilled Baby Octopus... yuck.  But, I think if I really tried, I could find some octopus in a specialty store.

Maybe.

The next one, though... I don't think so.

Kangaroo Pies.  Like a chicken pot pie, only with 1lb of KANGAROO RUMP!!!!!

OMG, I think I need to return this cookbook.  It calls for kangaroo.

12 miles done!

Before getting sick, I successfully completed my last long run before the half marathon on Saturday...

...now it's time for the taper.

I love the taper.  It's my favorite part of running.

You know, running less. :)

I wanted to show you guys this really cool thing that happens when I run a long ways.  My sweat dries all funny on my face and just leaves a salt crust.  You might have to click on the picture to make it bigger (does that work in blogger?  I have no idea), but you can totally see the salty sweaty monster I was after the run.

Also, check out my new headband.  I love it!

I usually HATE head bands, especially while running because they never seem to stay put or do what I want them to do.  This one (from www.sweatybands.com ) didn't move once during the 12 mile run.  I never had to touch it!  AMAZING!

Yeah, it was a little pricey...I bought it on impulse while buying a pair of running shoes and didn't realize how much it cost until looking at my receipt in the car.  Yipes.  However, totally worth every stinking penny.

If only I could afford 100 more.

Sick!

I woke up this morning at 2:30 with a massive sore throat and aches all over...and couldn't fall back asleep. By 4:30, I had decided that work was out of the question today.  Seriously, I felt very yuck.

David did his best to make me feel better...bringing me a Poweraide Zero (grape, yum!) and dressing Maggie up in an old pair of his pajama pants.

I've got to say, I did start to feel better after seeing Maggie wearing pants. I'm not sure if it was that or the massive amounts of cold medicine, but I'm going to give credit to Maggie.

I made bread!

Again!

Can I just tell you that I love baking bread?  It feels like such an accomplishment...not because it's hard, but because a lot of people are afraid to try it.  Basically, I feel like a badass in comparison to other people.  Not a stand alone badass, but at least it's something.

Anyway... while David was watching basketball, I found a new favorite blog.  I love this girl!  She's cheap!  She bakes bread!  She's just like me... except she's got 4 kids and she home schools them.  Totally not like me.

But still.  You can read how she made this AWESOME French bread here  but I'm going to share the recipe on this post because it makes me feel special.

Btw, I totally just copied and pasted hers, so it's really not that special.  Pictures are mine, though!

Easy French Bread
makes 1 loaf

2 1/2-2 3/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1 pkg(2 1/4 teaspoons) active dry yeast
1 cup warm water(120 degrees F)

In the bowl of a standing mixer, combine 2 cups flour with the salt, sugar, and yeast. Add water and beat for 3 minutes.  Beat in enough additional flour to make a soft but kneadable dough.

Turn dough out onto floured surface and knead for 3-5 minutes, or until smooth and elastic. Place the dough in a bowl, cover with tea towel, and let rise 45 minutes(an hour if your house is cold).

Punch dough down and roll into a long rectangular shape. Starting from the long end, roll up jelly-roll style.

Place seam-side down on a greased baking sheet, cover with a wet tea towel, and let rise 30-45 minutes, or until doubled(it’ll depend on the warmth of your house).

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Whisk one egg white with one tablespoon of water until slightly foamy. Using a pastry brush, gently brush beaten egg white onto loaves. Using a sharp knife, make 3-4 diagonal slashes on top of the loaf.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until nicely browned. Cool on a wire rack.

YUM!

Spring Break...going out with a bang

This week is March Madness, and anyone that knows my husband knows that this is VERY VERY IMPORTANT.  Actually, Mizzou is playing as I type and I am avoiding the basement.  

It's a little much for me.

Anyway, since today is the last official weekday of my spring break, I talked David (and Brett, our basketball-driven houseguest) into doing something, anything with me before the games started at 11.

I decided that we needed to hit up the batting cages.  

David and I will be on a softball league (or two, maybe) this summer, and I'm all about no embarrassing myself if at all possible.  Plus, it was a dude friendly suggestion.

I look ready to dominate the balls.  David looks silly.

But not as silly as Brett!

Ha... that hat is too small.

Anyway, I managed to hold my own with the boys...for the first 4 pitches.  Then I popped one up and then tripped on the ball while swinging for number 5.  Ooops.  David had a panic attack.  Apparently, it's not safe to be collapsed on the ground in a batting cage when you still have 15 more pitches and no way to stop them. Oh yeah, and I had David's glasses in my pocket...and then they fell on the ground.

David was screaming.

I told David that we could never have kids if he's going to freak out like that about every little thing.

David agreed.

(that's a joke, everyone.  Calm down.)

All said, I got out with only minor scrapes...

See the little dot on my ankle?  

Do you know how hard it is to take a picture of your own ankle?

Hair hair hair

It's spring break!  And I've been cleaning like crazy....during my cleaning and organizing I have found TONS of Maggie hair.

TONS... it's a little overwhelming.  I'm guessing she's shedding because it's time to loose her winter coat.  Dad informs me she's shedding because she's a lab and that's what they do.

Boo Maggie, Boo.

At any rate, David and I decided to clean the floors last night... and I panicked because I figured Maggie would just flithify them immediately.  So we drove to Petsmart and bought the poor man's version of the Furminator.  I forget what it's called--it's liked buying Always Save Cheese Curls instead of Cheet-os. 

I'm totally not above Always Save.

After Always-Save-Furminatoring Maggie, we were left with this pile of hair.

I placed a pen next to it to give you a frame of reference.

HOLY CRAP, MAGGIE ROO!

That's a lot of hair.

The whole process made her miserable, so David gave her a hug.

Yeah, she hated that too.

Anyway, today I forced her to go to the local U-DO-IT dog washing station and bathed her, scrubbing her hard with the NAME BRAND FURMINATOR bath accessory.  Don't worry, I was too cheap to buy this.  Mom and Dad scored this for me at a trade show.  Huzzah!

On a side note, I love the U-Do-It Dog Wash.  They provide the tubs, towels, soap, and tethering lines.  You have to bathe the dog, but it's a far better option than trying to load 106lbs of dog in my tub, hoping she doesn't pull off the shower curtain, dripping water through the whole house, and clogging up my drains.  

Maggie, however, hates the whole day.  I tried to blow dry her, but she FREAKED out and almost choked herself.  I'm guessing the blow dryer is a little too close to a vacuum for her peace of mind.

Oh well... she got to play with her bear when we got home.

Spring cleaning...too many shoes.

This week is my spring break, and I've decided that my main goal (besides sleeping in and loving on my puppy) is deep cleaning the house.  Yeah, I know we've only lived here for 6 months, but a lot of junk just got shoved away in the chaos of moving in.

I completed the basement and have relocated the pet feeding and pooping (the cat, not Maggie) stations to a hidden room in the deep recesses of the basement.  I also forced David to go through the 7 boxes of miscellaneous crap that had been piled up--he found some winter coats that would have come in handy during the, you know, winter.  Better late than never.

Today, I'm tackling the upstairs closets.  One of these closets is mine solely for running/workout junk...yeah, I have a lot of it.  I go through running shoes every 300-400 miles, and have a hard time getting rid of them.

Seriously, check out my stash.

EIGHT PAIRS?

Let's see... in the box on the right we have a never-worn pair that I purchased early because I had a good coupon. The box at the top (the only non-Mizzouno shoes) is my trail running pair.  Other than those two, I have one pair I'm actively wearing (bottom right), one pair that I'm holding onto in case I ever mow the yard (yeah right), and four pairs that I keep around and wear to boot camp and other things.

Ummmmm.... that's too many shoes.  And that ignores the fact that it's bad for my feet to wear worn-out running shoes for cross training.

How many should I keep?

St. Pat's Run

This Saturday, I ran the St. Patrick's Day race with my friend Lesli 

(her husband, Brett, went to high school with David).

Look how cute we are before the race!  

It was a rainy Saturday, but not terribly cold.  It was a nice change from the race the year before...

I love this race...11,000 people ran it.  That makes for some awesome people watching.

There were a bunch of guys wearing green boxers while they were running...and I sprinted ahead of Lesli to take their picture.  Sad, though, cause I can't find them in the picture.

Looky, a man in a kilt.  Brrrrrr!

Most amazingly, there was a group of people PUSHING a keg in a shopping cart.

Somehow, people were managing to do MOVING keg stands.

That amazes me.  Even in college, I couldn't master a keg stand that was stationary.  These people did them in the morning, while running 5 miles.

Nothing but impressed here.

I kind of wish I was the girl who got to ride on the cart.  No gonna lie.

Lesli finishes the race!!!!

We finished in just under an hour.  I had a blast running it with Lesli--it was her first race ever and she was happy to have finished.  It was really cool to run a race to motivate someone else and not trying to beat the clock on PR from last year's race.  A couple of times she told me to go on and she would catch up, but I think one of the main rules of running is that you don't leave someone behind when you've agreed to run with them, right?

Plus, I had run my 11-miler on Friday and was still sore.

I think we look just as cute after the race as before.

I think I've been watching too much wrestling :)

Later that night, I went to my friend Jen's bachelorette party...where we took a pole dancing class.  

Sadly, horribly, I left my camera memory card in my computer :(  Other girls promised they would send on pictures...so a post will wait until those trickle in.  It was a blast!!

Jersey Shore

I'm going to a bachelorette party in Boston in April, and I've been told the theme is Jersey Shore.

And I'm a little concerned because I've never watched the show...who is surprised?  

Give me a little credit here!

Anyway, Seanne's making us some hot pink t-shirts (my name is awesome!)  and I just need to figure out the bottom half.  

My strategy is to try to dress like the 9th graders at the high school.  

That's got to be similar to Jersey Shores, right?

With that in mind, I popped into Burlington Coat Factory (you know it) after my 11 mile run to look for some ugly shoes.  

This is what I came up with.  Sorry for the dirty mirror.  

The denim mini skirt and leggings are part of my outfit "plan."

Does it work?  

Ignore the ugly feet... I fully intend to get a pedicure (and maybe a foot transplant) before the outing.

Man....it's surprisingly hard to take a picture of your bottom half.  

SPRING BREAK!

Wooo!

As of 2:35 today, I am officially released for spring break.  

The picture above is of me celebrating or, maybe, yawning.

I was going for excited...and came up with sleepy.  Oh well.

I'm looking forward to a pretty low-key week.  I'll do my long run of 11 miles tomorrow and then run in the St. Patty's Day race on Saturday.  I've got things scheduled and spattered throughout the week but, really, I'm looking forward to doing some deep spring cleaning and trying to get some stuff out of the house.  Maybe a garage sale is in my future?  Who knows...the world is my oyster.

Man, you know you're getting old when your bring plan for spring break is cleaning and maybe a garage sale.

Buffalo Chicken Chili!

After I made this meal, David gave me a big ol' smooch-a-roo on the lips and proclaimed it his favorite meal of all time.  He then did the dishes without prompting and made the bed.

You better believe this is going into our regular meal rotation.  I hate doing dishes!

Plus, it's super-dooper easy.

(When I took a picture of this, David informed me that it's weird to photograph my food.
Not weird!  How else will it go on the blog??)

Buffalo Chicken Chili

1 lb chicken breasts

2 stalks diced celery

1 large red pepper, diced

2 tsp minced garlic

1 Tbs ground cumin

1/2 Tbs paprika

1/4 cup Frank's hot sauce

15 oz can tomato sauce

15 oz can diced tomatoes

15 oz can black beans

15 oz can chili beans in sauce

Add ingredients to slow cooker and cook on high for 3 hours (or until chicken is no longer raw).

Shred chicken with 2 forks.

Top with sour cream or, if you're David, a whole lot of Tabasco sauce.