Underpants is for suckas

I heard my favorite poem today that includes my header so I’m using it whenever I can…. Like in my very own bloggy blog.

So I didn’t have much time to blog this weekend because my favorite little sister and brother-in-law were in town! They came in late Thursday night and left yesterday morning. So… I had to work on Friday but we had nachos and Margaritas (some more than others) and played Mexican Train until Maggie got annoyed with the Margarita drinkers. I had to work on Saturday which blew. This is the first time I have had to work on a saturday in about a year so of course it had to be when the fam was here. To make matters worse, I found out that I had written down the wrong date for the Run for Hope. I thought it was on Sunday, but it turned out to be on Saturday which, again because of the new branch, was a work day. After this disappointment, we decided the best course of action was to stuff ourselves full of chicken wings at the Wing Festival!

Super Awesome fun time!! It was soooo windy!

Maybe I’m angry at the wing… Not so sure.

So we ate 15 wings apiece then went and got ice cream sodas. Not the healthiest weekend. We tried to make up for it on Sunday with a hike/ run in the Niagara Gorge. It is a LOT harder to trail run then to run on asphalt. My muscles are still hurting in places that I don’t normally feel.

Mike called me on Sunday and I got to talk to him for about an hour and a half. I really wish we had more frequent phone calls. It would be nice to get to tell him everything in more real time. I have so much to tell him about and I try to cram it all in to an hour. He went into more detail about the “rocket attacks” that he’s always writing about. It scares me to know what’s actually happening. I could have fooled myself for the next ten weeks and been perfectly happy. We’re only about 10 weeks away! I miss the silly boy so much. It was nice to hear his voice. I’ve had enough of this. I never could have imagined what this would be like. Thank god we don’t have children yet. I would be beside myself right now… I’m hardly making it through this by myself. I have so much respect for the military wives. We hear about supporting the troops and how brave they are but the women(and men) who wait here for them, raising the families alone,  are so strong.

Anyway, Monday was our annual Labor Day party and Uncle Rodney didn’t disappoint. We had 2 kinds of ribs, 2 kinds of chicken, sausage, 3 kinds of dip, every dessert imaginable… Some of the desserts had coconut in it which did a number on my digestive tract. I do not feel well still. I went to Trish’s for another party and couldn’t even look at food.

We got to play more games Monday night too! We taught Randy to play Rummikub which is my absolute favorite game and I know Mike will be more than happy to play with us when he comes home. It’s one of his favorites too.

I gotta get out to get my run in before it rains. It’s turning to fall! It was 89 yesterday (I spun at the gym, no running in that weather) but it’s 62 today. I love the crazy swings like that! Perfect running weather. I’m going to Dicks to pick up a foam roller then off to run run run!!!

Ouchie wahwah!

So I had my first softball practice today. Not too terrible actually. Considering it has been roughly a decade since I played softball (no joke, last time was my freshman year of high school, in gym class) I did pretty damn well. I hit the ball a few times, I caught the ball most of the time, and I only spiked the ball into the ground while throwing it twice. Not so bad for my first time out. Before the aforementioned gym class softball, I played tee ball. When I was 5. I like to think that I’m naturally athletic though. My brother says that I’m better than the last girl who played for the team which I find very hard to believe. I got smacked really good with a ball (maybe called a line drive? That term seems to fit this ball…) and it instantly bruised. My bone hurt!

So after practice I went out for a short 20 minute run (approximately 2 miles) and forgot to put on my zensah sleeve. My hip starting hurting pretty quickly but I don’t think it was from lack of compression on my calf. It started acting up a couple of weeks ago. I don’t think it’s sidelining but I need to keep an eye on it. Racing on Sunday with my brother in-law should be super fun :-/

I got a thank you card in the mail from Mikes sister. It choked me up a little bit. I cross stitched a baby blanket for our new niece or nephew. It turned out really nice and luckily she liked it too! I knew she would but I spend a couple hundred hours on it and I was nervous! Only 2 and a half months to go until Mike gets to meet the little peanut. She’s not going to find out until the baby gets here, which I think is awesome. I would like to do it that way but I don’t know if I could be that patient. I’m really bad with that stuff!

Work is going wonderfully! I love the new branch. We have a good team and a great customer base. I know I will thrive there. Only problem is there doesn’t seem to be a good healthy place to eat around there. I had a greek salad from Tops and a quesadilla but that’s not gonna cut it for me. We’ll see what I can find once stuff calms down for me. I do only get a half hour lunch most days too, which isn’t enough time to GO get food. I guess that’s a good thing. There’s a gym nearby that I’m thinking of joining temporarily. The dues are only like 7 bucks a month and they have basic fitness equipment. Since my membership at my main gym is only 20 bucks a month right now, if I could do this little one for the wintertime and use the treadmills, it’s seriously less than a block away. We’ll see…

Time for a very late dinner and maybe some Dexter! Maggie will be here in 2 hours! Oh my!

Back again… Again

Ok so I was gone for a month. I know…. how can you have a blog if you never blog? Well, I was pretty damn busy and I guess I wasn’t feeling it. So this is my last try on blogging. If I don’t do it regularly I will just accept my place as a blog reader, not writer.

So I haven’t really taken any pictures. I did go get Mikes birthday present and I will post pictures soon, but he doesn’t know what it is yet, so in a couple of weeks we shall have pictures. Hopefully Jen will send some over to me soon.

I have been running, not as regularly as I’d like. I need to find a way to track this that I will do on a regular basis. Maybe I’ll track it at work. I got in trouble for using the internet too much for non-work related stuff (I’m super lucky I kept my job) so I will be being extra careful about that. I just switched branches so I have to be extra careful. I actually have a lot more work to do at the new job. Much much busier. I like that a lot. I took a moment to write Mike a letter today but it was all the free time I had.

I volunteered at Camp Hope this weekend. It was an amazing experience. It’s a camp for kids (7-13) who lost a loved one. I was a cabin counsellor for girls 9-11. They were all so sweet. I really think that I made a difference in their lives. It isn’t an immediate result, but I know that the impact is there. They are so strong and such amazing little girls. I will get to see them in October for our reunion party and I’m already super excited!

Tomorrow is our first softball practice. I’ll be playing with my brother and sister in-law. I’ll have updates and pictures tomorrow I hope. My sister is coming in town too… Again, very excited.

My mom fried my computer so I’m doing this very uncomfortably on her laptop… I will have a detailed post tomorrow, but basically that’s a recap of my last month!

Despicable me

I started off my sunday with my favourite weekend meal.

Turkey Bacon and eggs with some limeade. Usually I would throw in a banana or something but I really need to go shopping. I spent most of the day taking Mom around to do errands. Pretty boring stuff. We went to see Despicable Me at the theater. It was so amazingly cute and funny! I will definitely be getting it for my collection on dvd. It was pretty predictable toward the end, but what do you expect from a kids movie? It was so awesome to hear the children shrieking with happiness and laughter at the funny parts. Them laughing made me laugh even more.

I had lunch at Taco Bell (a couple of those Fresco tacos) and yummy dinner with Mom and Trish and Kurt. We made bbq chicken, garlic potatoes, green beans and zucchini. We went through 19 beers/ seagrams coolers between the 4 of us. Lots of drinking, lots of Trivial Pursuit and Apples to Apples!! Of course this also meant we were up super late.

Being up late meant that I was exhausted before I even got up this morning. I had some McDonald’s for breakfast. Boo. It was something I was craving though and sometimes you need to satisfy your cravings. I don’t like to deny myself usually. I’m fairly strict but if you don’t let yourself have treats sometimes you will definitely gorge…

Leftover dinner for lunch, and then I went for a simply gorgeous walk. I stayed out for about 2 minutes. I went down to the Theatre district and back. I wish I had my headphones though. I don’t particularly like hearing the weirdos talking about my booty… Anyway, Buffalo used to be a beautiful city. It’s full of rich history and wonderful landmarks. The suburban sprawl totally killed downtown too. That and the closure of Main St. They put a train line up in the downtown portion and it had the opposite effect intended. So now one of the highlights is Fountain Plaza

This is actually nicer from the other side but I wanted to show the water area which is frozen over in the winter time. Mike and I went ice skating there once and almost busted our butts. It was soooooo cold too. I didn’t wear gloves which made it difficult to hold onto the frozen rails around the rink… Anyway, example of old, nice Buffalo:

I wish we still had this.

I went for a 2 mile run today, but it was so crazy hot and humid. I had to stop every few blocks to hydrate and lower my heart rate. It still only took about 20 minutes. I feel good about that but I have to work on my shin splint problem and the heart rate thing. I will do it!!

I’m chilling with mom and the poos after a good 1.6 mile walk, watching Dexter in the air-conditioned room. Tomorrow I will be doing an operation beautiful post that give s a little more background on me and my philosophy on health, body image, wellness, etc.

Forced Family Fun

So I stayed out with Trish and Kevin for way too long Friday night. I only had 3 drinks but I was there until 230ish. This definitely didn’t help when it came to getting up to be in Lockport (a half hour drive) for a meeting at 8:30. I had to get gas and breakfast and almost made the stupid decision of getting McDonalds for breakfast. I had even placed my order. Fortunately, I Was at one of the only McDonalds that doesn’t trap you in the drive thru with a concrete border and was able to scoot out before I ruined my whole day!

I was a little late for the meeting but it was ok because everyone was still eating breakfast!! YAY! I had a bagel and cherries and strawberries and finished my sugar free red bull. I wish more meetings featured giant bowls of cherries.

I’m volunteering for a bereavement camp for children at the end of August. I’m pretty excited/ anxious about it. It’s going to be very difficult for me to get through and be strong for the kids and everything. I fully expect to cry the whole time. I’d better bring some bottled water so I can stay hydrated! The camp is for kids ages 7 to 13 who lost a loved one. We found out that in the camp a couple of kids parents were murdered, a few comitted suicide, some overdosed and some just died from natural causes. It’s run by Hospice Niagara, but obviously they didn’t need to go through Hospice care to be there. I don’t know how I will be able to relate to these kids. At least I’ll get to cry. I haven’t had a good sobbing cry since before Mike left in January.

We broke around noon for some snacks

More cherries, some tortilla chips and buffalo cheese dip (I only ate about half of that serving) crackers and a few pieces of pepperoni. I drank a lot of diet pop yesterday too.

The meeting ended around 130 then it was off to Hamburg for my dad and aunts combined birthday party. Hamburg is a solid hour drive from Lockport… joy.

I always love hanging out with my family. There is always good food and good conversation. There was nothing green to eat though

I ate a few too many of those baby quiche, probably 4 or 5, half a “man chicken” sandwich and half a cheese burger. My uncle makes this crazy seafood rice thing that I like quite a bit (as far a seafood goes, its tasty). And I ate a lemon “cheesecake” and half of the coffee chocolate thing in the bowl. I don’t like coffee but didn’t know that was the flavor.

My cousin Liam is the only boy in the family and since he’s still young he still needs attention and to have everyone play with him. So Dad and Aunt Kelley and Liam and I played badminton for a while

It was all fun and games until Liam slipped in dog poop and had to be hosed down.

So the rest of the playing time was in the house, on the Wii.  He beat me at Wii boxing but dad crushed him at Wii baseball. I was there until a little after 6. I got home and ate some popcorn and fell asleep watching The Long Hot Summer. I love Paul Newman with all of my heart. He makes me smile and then some. I kept getting distracted though and the movie that I started at 730 didn’t end until 1030. Lots of pausing and moving about. Although, once I got settled in, the monkeys decided they were going to make themselves comfortable.

And yes, we all fell asleep like that. We were pooped out!

I’m back!

Ok, so I practically stopped before I even started. I was having a hard time with, well, life. My mom asked me to move back in with her at the beginning of the month. I agreed, I figured it would help save me money and that I could get used to living with another person until Mike came home. Unfortunately, she neglected to kick out her horrible boyfriend like she had anticipated. So, basically he is intolerant of me and my dogs and has made my life very hard. I want this blog to be positive and I had a really hard time the past few weeks being positive. I was so depressed I wasn’t eating or running… So anyway, I’ve decided to try to turn this stuff around and just focus on myself and what I’m doing. Ignore the asshole in the other room…

So the past week was pretty busy anyway.

I went to a baseball game on Wednesday with work. We had really awesome seats and I drank a bit too much! Free food/ booze will do that to you. I went to watch True Blood with Cassondra afterwards. I was up until almost 2 which just kept throwing stuff off for the rest of the week…

Thursday I went to Shakespeare in the Park with Dad and Eileen. If you live in Buffalo and have the opportunity to see it-do. It was so incredible (and free btw!) The show was done with an all female cast. I don’t know if it’s because they’re women or what, but there were so many times that I was so moved by a play that I’ve seen tons of times. Maybe it’s a shameless plug because my step mom directed the play and the park has such an awesome history for my family, but I don’t lie about plays!  I am so lucky to live in this town. We have beautiful summers with wonderful art and culture. I had this view yesterday at lunch.

They were setting up for Thursday at the Square (another free event)

Saturday Mom and I went over to one of her co-workers house for a tattoo party. I had a couple extra bucks so I decided why not? It was only 40 bucks…

It’s a running girl! This is on the ankle that I hurt this winter. Sort of a reminder of my injury and my motivation to continue. It hurt having it done though since things were kind of achey to begin with and lets face it, tattoos hurt!

I had another race on Wednesday night. The Ronald McDonald House 5k. I PR’d!

It felt so amazing. After the first mile though, it started raining really hard. It was blowing and pouring. I think I did so well because I could stay cool with the rain. My clothes clung to me and I was so happy to have the bib on my tummy. I’m usually not too concerned about that, I’m not into the “Fat Talk” but it’s like running nekkid. They had the best beer at this after party. It was Flying Bison Aviator Red and Rusty Chain. Mom’s taken a liking to the Rusty Chain. I bet we can get that at Weggies. We braved the rain, and I’m so happy my mama was there! I’m also officially one of the most active runners in Buffalo! I’m on a real list! It says I only did 5 this year because they didn’t count the corporate challange. The guy who is #1 has done 65 races this year! 5 in one weekend even! I thought my goal of 26 in a year and a half was lofty… I’ve got NOTHING on this guy!

Rain Rain go away…

I also got this awesome cute card from Mike!

I love Grover, and I love Mike, but I have no idea what he was talking about in the writing part! It was all military time stuff! I can’t imagine he’s got too much he can tell me about. We’re at about just under 4 months (We hope) and that seems do-able. He’s interested in doing the runs with me. I’m pretty excited about that! I wonder if I can get him into the half and marathons too. I just read that they do weddings at the 5 mile mark of the Las Vegas Marathon. That would be too amazing for words!!

So back on track today, I started with the regular oatmeal and almond butter. Pineapple and string cheese for snack. We got lunch from the Globe Market. I had a half Spicy Italian sandwich and a spinach salad with oranges, caramelized walnuts and blue cheese crumbles. I LOVE that salad, I could eat it every day! Left over Pad Thai for dinner and a couple of blue chips in a few minutes.

I did some running this evening. About 1.8 miles in 18 minutes. My shin is pretty tingley since I only ran once between the 4 miler and the Ronald McDonald House 5k. I had to switch some runs around in August since I volunteered at a bereavement camp for kids. It’s through Hospice and I’m super excited about it. I have a meeting about it tomorrow, so I’ll have a few details about it then. I’ll be amending the race page when I figure it all out.

My monkeys are being so weird lately. Loki is obsessed with the red dot from a laser pointer. He won’t do anything in the living room because the dot could appear at any minute! He’s lost his mind. And Lucy seems to be losing her interest in anything. She’s sitting and stopping during walks. They’re driving me nuts on our walks. She doesn’t seem to want to go at all…. I don’t know what to do!

So now it’s time to watch King of the Hill and relax. How awesome is it that I can watch tv on my Wii with my Wifi and blog at the same time? I remember “back in the day” when we couldn’t use the phone at the same time as the internet. Gotta love progress! I’m meeting some friends for drinks later this evening. I haven’t seen Trish since Josh’s birthday so I’m excited to see my good friend! Sorry about the super longness of this post but gotta catch up somehow!

So… tired… must… post

The past 2 days have been so crazy busy that this is my first time to sit down to write and it’s 11 o’clock. I’m gonna keep this short and do a real post tomorrow. But, coming in tomorrow’s post, Baseball, True Blood, Work, Red Bull, Shakespeare and Chipotle… excited? Intrigued? How’s about both?

Banana Toes

I am dragging lately! I’m not sure what it is that’s pulling me down. I ran today, but I wasn’t able to really go long or fast. I really need to get my groove back. Maybe I need to stretch more, or try yoga… I don’t know. If anyone has any ideas, I’ll take em!

I’m not feeling great so I’m keeping this very short today….

I got up late today so I had a bagel from Timmy’s with a banana orange juice.

Lunch was pretty late but we had yummy Spanish food. I had a couple pieces of dark meat chicken and some yellow rice and beans.

I JUST realized that I didn’t eat any dinner… and it’s 9:30. I had a chocolate dipped vanilla ice cream cone from Dairy Queen a few minutes ago… I was so bad today! This is NOT like me at all. I didn’t want to run and even crazier, I didn’t want to eat today! Somethings up. Maybe its the living at home situation, maybe it’s the deployment stress. It could be anything, just a funk.

So I was getting ice out of the freezer for moms ice bucket and Lucy stuck her nose in the freezer. We decided she should get a frozen banana! The doggies destroyed it very quickly. And then Loki slipped on a banana peel! Cutest thing ever. His little toesies were covered in banana goop!

I wish I had a way to have caught it on film the other day… We went over to grandpa’s house with the puppies and we decided to tie them to a stump in the back. They had a very long rope that we attached to their leashes. Luckily it was also attached to their harnesses because as soon as I dropped the leash, Lucy made a mad dash for the porch! She got about 10 feet from the porch when the rope snapped. She did about 3 somersaults and landed on her face! It was really funny, mostly because she’s perfectly fine.

Moms laying next to me with her little ice cuff hissing and wheezing at us. She may be needing to sleep in my bed for the next few days to avoid distractions. I don’t mind sleeping on the couch for my mommy! Busy day at work tomorrow so maybe I can get some sleep early tonight!

Surgery Day

My mama had shoulder surgery today. She is doing very well now. She had some bone spurs removed. It’s a pretty minor surgery but it’ll help her a lot. She was in a lot of pain. So now we’re hanging with grandpa and the puppies and trying to relax a little. I’ll probably take them for a walk after dinner because poo dogs need walkin’!

I started my day off right with a bowl of oatmeal with almond butter (yes that’s sugar too… I can’t stand unsweetened oatmeal) and a whole pint of strawberries spread through the course of the morning.

At lunch time I had to come home and take care of the doggies so I had a left over turkey burger, left over potatoes and left over tomato cucumber salad. I only had about 2 bites of the salad since the onion had soaked in and made the tomatoes taste like big squishy onions.

I had a stick of string cheese and a fruit leather for a snack before my strength training and this yummy protein drink afterward.

I like it quite a bit and it has fewer calories than the regular protein bars that I eat after a workout. I like it cuz its liquid too. I don’t feel like eating most days after weights. I’ve been using every other muscle enough, I don’t want to use my jaw muscle too! sheesh. I’ve been strength training for the past few months and it seems like its working. I’m using the plan from “The New Rules of  Lifting for Women“. I do feel like I’m losing my motivation though. I just don’t want to do it. I like running and won’t stop that but maybe I can find something else to do. This plan is supposed to get me through September but I’ll do a little research in the meantime.

I heard from Mike today which made me so happy! He’s doing fine and has lots of advice for me about Loki! I can’t wait to have him home to give him smooches!

We had our hot dogs, rice and green beans (I had a turkey burger too, I was pretty hungry), so I think it’s time for me to make my exit with the puppers! I can’t really handle the tv shows my grandpa is choosing! (C-span anyone?)

Party Weekend!

So I cheated this weekend… a bit more than I intended. After my delicious dinner of Wegmans Greek Turkey Burgers and grilled corn…

I had 3 drinks while I was out for “J.P’s slaughterama”. We started the night at Alternative Brews. Apparently I wasn’t the only one dressed up, I had a white pants crony in Bob

(fuzzy picture courtesy of Trish)

Now I was honestly expecting to only be out for a couple of hours but I got carried away very easily!  I tried 2 different beers there. I had Smuttynose Old Brown Dog, which was a very yummy ale, and a Banana Bread beer from a brewery I can’t remember. The banana bread tasted like I was sucking on a banana candy while drinking it which made it pretty interesting.

So, I got there at 8 and sometime around 1 am it was decided that we should go to a strip club. Since it was my friend Josh’s birthday I figured why not?  It was a strip club, basic naked girl stuff. I had a (5 dollar!) Smirnoff Ice and called it a night for drinking. The fun part came when we went over to one of our friends house for skinny dipping at 2 am! We had so much fun. I’ve never been before but even though it was night and we were in a private pool and stuff it felt so rebellious and, well, fun! We stripped in the pool and redressed before we got out. It felt weird being naked around anybody that wasn’t the HTBTB but they were all friends and I had one of my favourite girlfriends there with me and nothing bad was happening so I don’t feel bad or guilty about anything. I just wish he had been here to be part of it.  He’s missing so much!

So since I didn’t get home until 4 am I didn’t get up until noon! By the time I dragged my butt out of bed my mom was already baking a cake for our afternoon party. My grandpa is turning 78 on Tuesday so we all went over and had a ton of hot dogs, corn on the cob, sour cream potatoes, veggies and of course, cake! The cake looked terrible but tasted very good. (Chocolate with Peanut Butter frosting! Go Mom!)

I don’t get to see my family too often, so it was nice to have that time together. The only other people there younger than 45 were my 2 younger cousins, who are boys and who I have no idea how to relate to. I spent my time talking to the over 40 crowd.

The boyfriend didn’t get a chance to call today. Today was his scheduled call to his parents. His dad called me around 2 today wondering if I’d heard from him. No emails, no Facebook messages, no calls. He’s in a pretty dangerous part of Afghanistan and a lot of attacks and offensives have been launched against his base, so I understand that he’s probably busy. I’m not letting it worry me, because if something bad had happened to him, we’d hear about it. In this case, no news is good news, but good news is better! These past few weeks have been really getting to me. I’m not sure why… I’ve made it for 7 and a half months for pete’s sake! I think it’s just wearing on me. I want to be able to share in experiences, to whisper to him when I see something funny, or give him a look that no one else sees or would understand even if they did…  We’re at 4 1/2 months on the long end right now so I just need to focus on that happiness. It can be done!

Now I’m going to go crack open a cream soda I took from grandpa’s for my “dessert”, do some laundry and watch some nonsensical tv show… and someone clearly needs my attention, like right now!

(she’s been nosing my arm this whole time… silly goose!)