Don't... don't talk that way, Sandy.

Unless you're living under a rock somewhere you've probably heard that there's a hurricane headed my way.  People around here started panicking on Friday, hitting the stores for food & water, filling up gas cans and spending hundreds of dollars on generators.  I've tried to stay calm, I figure after the derecho we can survive anything.  Things stayed pretty calm all weekend, some wind and a little bit of rain but nothing crazy.  My mom, Nicole and I even managed to work on some wedding projects.  


I got a text from my supervisor just before bed that said to stay home until further notice.  I slept well, I thought I'd be woken up by the wind like in June but nothing.  My alarm went off at 6 am and I was happy to see the power was still on.  I jumped in the shower in case I was called into work and more importantly in case the power went out and I would be forced into showering by candlelight again.  

Shortly thereafter I received another text telling me to be available via email for emergency orders from the hospital but to stay home and be safe.  
I made myself some breakfast and tried to figure out what to do with my extra time off.  That's about when Joe said he was changing into his bathing suit...  I asked why, he said to go out back...  Since the sun was finally up I decided to go check it out...

Our backyard is under water and it's not even high tide yet!  

The water is rising fast!  Within a half hour of taking these pictures the water was high enough to cover the 2x4s and it's almost into our crawl space now.  Luckily our house sits up higher then rest of the yard and the crawl space is almost 4' deep so it will take a lot more water to make it into the house.  

The storm is supposed to intensify all day, keep your fingers crossed for me.

Five for Friday ~ 10/26/12

1.  You ran the entire 1/2 marathon with me.

2.  Your hard work is finally paying off.

3.  You want to go to Angela's Pumpkin Carving Party.

4.  You're a good guesser too.

5.  Even though Nicole made other arrangements for Jack you want to help so you offered take care of him DURING the 5K.

January 2012

...i ran a half marathon...

For a couple of years now, friends have been trying to convince me to run a 1/2 marathon.  After Broad St, I always said I see no reason to run more then 10, in fact 6.2 is a pretty great distance.  What I heard in response most often is, "if you can run 10 you can run 13.1."  I am here to tell you that is true, I am capable of running 13.1 miles.  However, I don't ever want to do it again.

Before I get into the nitty gritty of why I'm not planning on doing another 1/2 marathon, I'll tell you about the race.  

Joe & I attended the expo with my sister in the late afternoon on Saturday (I didn't take any pictures there).  It wasn't very exciting, there weren't many vendors.  We pretty much just walked in, picked up our bibs, shirts & bags then headed out.  From the expo we went over to Shana's house where Bill prepared a carb-filled dinner for us.  After stuffing ourselves silly we headed from home and went straight to bed so we'd be rested for the run.

We were up bright and early at 6am so we'd be in Atlantic City with time to spare for the 8am start time.  We managed to find Mandy, Shana & Beth just before the start gun.

My mom and Bill were there as our cheering squad.  They had a couple of funny signs to encourage the runners, we ended up seeing them around mile 8.5.

I couldn't believe this guy.  He was running the marathon and juggling...show off...

Here's the nitty gritty.  I just plain and simply didn't enjoy myself.  Well that's not totally true, I loved that Joe & I trained together, we spent a few evenings a week and usually one weekend morning running together.  But I hated every training run over 8 miles, every time I crossed the 10 mile mark I would just fall apart.  And that's exactly what happened during the 1/2 marathon.  I trucked along with very few complaints until we hit mile 9.  Then I wanted to quit.  But mile 12, I'd taken two short walk breaks and would have been fine to wander off the side of the boardwalk never to be seen again.  I had some issue with my left calf but nothing debilitating, I was just tired and didn't want to go any further.

My average mile time was under 12 minutes which is what I was shooting for.

Joe and Mandy are literally my favorite people in the world after Sunday.  They both stayed with me THE ENTIRE RUN.  By the way, they are both way faster then me and could have gotten much better times if they'd just left me in their dust, but they didn't.  They were encouraging and just plain awesome!  I owe them an ice cream or something.

When we made it back to finisher's village we met up with Shana, Beth & Jess.  

My sister finished in somewhere around 2 hours and 10 minutes!  Surprisingly she still managed that fantastic time after wiping out around mile 1!  As she was running up onto the overpass she wiped out and cut up her knee and hands.  I'm impressed, I would have quit right then & there but she powered through the remaining 12 miles sore and bleeding.

At breakfast after the race Shana mentioned that she gets a runner's high after finishing an extra long run and she can't stop smiling all day.  That's when I realized it's just not for me.  When I finish my long runs I want to curl up in a ball and die...

So, now I know.  I don't enjoy running more then 10 miles.  I'll be sticking to 5Ks and 10Ks, might throw in the occasional 10 miler but no more 1/2 marathons.  I definitely won't be attempting a marathon!  I'll be a great cheerleader for all of my friends that want to hit the pavement for more then 2 hours but I won't be running along beside them.  At least I've got another medal to add to my collection!

Five for Friday ~ 10/19/12

1.  You keep telling me how skinny I look.

2.  You ran my errands while I was in a meeting then took me out to dinner.

3.  You're running a 1/2 marathon with me this weekend.

4.  You chatted with me via text when you were bored at work.

5.  You offered to watch Jack so Nicole can attend "all" of my bachelorette party
.

October 2012

catching up

Day 5: Sunset - My intention was to post a picture of the actual sun setting but I keep forgetting to go outside at 7ish.  Instead I'll use this picture of Mandy & me in a golf cart right around sunset...

Day 6: Animal - I'm guessing Jack was hoping she'd wake up and want to play...

Day 7: From a distance - Joe and Jack jumping waves.

Day 8: Close-up - I've been eating a lot of salad lately...

Day 9: Upside down - Looking for Munzees with Keebs & Aufbau.

Day 10: Favorite - My favorite ladies at my bridal shower, minus Edra.

Day 11: From up high - Frank taking a shot at a hole-in-one contest.  The same night Mandy and I got to drive the golf cart.

Day 12: Hands - self explanatory :-)

Five for Friday ~ 10/12/12

1.  You are possibly more invested in our wedding crafts then I am.

2.  You knew when my shower was and never let on.

3.  You know how to make me feel better after a bad day...junk food.

4.  You wanted to bail on a run.

5.  You always make sure I have a little cash for emergencies.

October 2012

downward spiral

Holy crap my goals are not going well!

Until this morning I hadn't even filled in my spreadsheet since 10/2 and when I did I was not thrilled with the results.

I've already eaten out 12 times this month!  There's no way I'll be able to keep it under 15 considering we're not even half way through the month yet.  I'm going to try my hardest to eat at home but I know we already have a couple of meals out with friends on the calendar...

There's only been 4 days so far I've drank all 64oz of water...

Meeting my calorie goal is going alright, I've only missed it 2 days...

I haven't been running.  Yesterday was actually the first time I ran in almost a week.  Not good for my goals and not good for my 1/2 marathon.  Between social obligations, crappy weather and lack of running partner I've been slacking.  Joe & I are planning to do our final scheduled long run tonight but I'm getting nervous this race is going to be a disaster.


My steps are 50/50...literally 5 days of getting them, 5 days of not.  Now that my time working in the cath lab is over I'm not up and moving at work as much.  That coupled with my lack of running is killing this goal.

So, what am I going to do?  All I can say is I'll try harder.

MIA

I totally did not mean to disappear on you all.  Things just got super crazy around these parts!  I was all set to keep posting my photo challenge every day (which I plan to catch up on soon) but I got distracted by drinks with a friend on Friday.  Then Saturday was packed with wedding crafts.

And Sunday I was surprised with my bridal shower (after doing the Alzheimer's Walk in the rain)!  

Obviously I have a bunch to catch you up on but I'm hoping you'll forgive me for now since I'm going to show you some of our engagement pictures (from Photography by Kim Angelo)!  There are bunches more that I love but I need to save something for future Five for Friday posts!

Day 4: Love / Five for Friday ~ 10/5/12

I saved Thursday's photography challenge post for Friday because the prompt is "Love" and that totally works with all my Five for Friday posts.  Not at all because I was super busy and didn't have time.  That's not the case at all...

This Friday/prompt is especially poignant because today is also our 10 year dating anniversary!  This is probably the last year we'll celebrate this date since we'll have a brand new date to celebrate soon (87 days)!

1. You stuck up for what I wanted at our menu planning meeting.

2. You offered to cut out flowers for bridesmaid bouquets and touch up the glitter on the girls shoes.

3. You're most supportive weight loss partner I've ever had, I think you were more excited about my 4.3 pounds loss then I was.

4. You made me a delicious anniversary breakfast of pumpkin waffles and bacon.

5. I got a special delivery at work.

Happy 10 years Joey!  I love you!

April 2012

Day 3: Home

I took this prompt very literally.  This is my house, has been since November of 2008.  I got a great deal on it and we've put a lot of blood, sweat & tears into make it a home.  It was a rental property that was bank owned so I had to take it as is.  There were a few issues that needed to be taken care of immediately like leaky pipes but the majority of the work was cosmetic.  Because it was a rental there were all kinds of different paint colors and random holes in the walls.  We literally ripped out every original surface except one toilet & shower.  Oh how I wish I was blogging back then, I would have had so much to talk about.

Day 2: Fashion

My fashion has changed quite a bit in the last 3 months.  Those of you who've been reading my blog for any length of time probably remember that I used to take pictures of my outfits all week and post them on the weekends.  I found that it made me really think about what I was going to wear everyday so that I didn't fall into the trap of black pants day in and day out.  Plus looking at a full body shot of myself everyday kept me motivated to eat right and workout.  Then, in July, my job description changed and instead of going to my business casual office I work in a hospital and wear sterile scrubs all day.

Wearing scrubs has pluses and minuses.  Yes, it's great to not have to worry about what to wear each day, I've actually taken to wearing my gym clothes to work, not only does it cut down on locker room time but I have slightly less laundry to do!  The bad part is that even my size small scrubs are not exactly form fitting, I was concerned that wearing loose fitting scrubs every day would make it easier to eat junk, no waist band getting tighter and whatnot.  Luckily for now the wedding is keeping me on track but we'll see what happens once January comes around though.  

At first I just picked past all of my business clothes each morning in favor of yoga pants and t-shirts, but eventually I got sick of looking at all those pieces I wasn't wearing.  So just this past weekend I spent some time pulling my summer clothes and least worn business casual pieces for storage in the attic.  As of now there's 3 plastic bins full of shoes and clothes ready for storage but I bought 8, I see a lot more cleaning in my future.

to goal or not to goal

My goals for September didn't go all that well and I have no one to blame but myself.  For some reason I just could not get it together in regards to my eating.  I know that if I continue to eat crap I will not lose the weight I want to before the wedding.  I need to stop making excuses, stop sneaking calories in and start eating at home more often.


I skipped training runs in September.  If I have any hope of running the entire 13.1 miles of my half marathon I need actually do the runs that are scheduled over these last 3 weeks before the race.  I'm also planning to continue running after the race, I'm thinking I'll do at least 2 runs a week from the end of October until the wedding.

Luckily my sessions with the trainers at the gym have helped me tone my arms.  A few people have mentioned that I'm slimming all over!  I signed up for another set of sessions that will take me right up until the week of the wedding.  This makes me feel more confident that I won't slip back into bad habits around the holidays.

My life has been so busy lately that I almost don't want to make goals because I don't think I'll accomplish them.  Between work, wedding planning, the gym and 1/2 marathon training there isn't much time for anything else.  What I really want to do is sit on the couch and watch all the new episodes of my favorite shows, my DVRs are getting full!  But I know I need to stay on track, I always feel better after a workout, even if it's a crappy one.  So, I'm going to make goals that should be pretty easy to accomplish...

Meet my calorie goal each day.

Drink 8 cups of water a day.

Eat out less then 15 times.

Run 65 miles.

10,000 steps per day.