Observing the Day of Labor as it should be done.

Is anyone else needing this long weekend as badly as I am?  It has been beyond cray-cray at my office this week and I'm just plum worn out.  This was not made any better when I woke up at 3am this morning, sat straight up and bed and proceeded to the bathroom as if to get ready for the day.  As I passed through I saw that the clock on the stove read "3:02" and promptly headed back to the bed.  I don't know what's up but I just can't seem to get enough rest!

Oh, and when people tell you that training for a marathon is exhausting and time consuming and "Have you lost your mind?!"... yea, they're being honest.  Running 20+ miles every week sure will suck the fun-life outta you, let me tell ya.  I feel like all of the movement should be giving more energy but as of now, I've yet to have that happen.  I have 13 miles on the schedule for tomorrow morning.

In case you're unfamiliar with the running world... that's a half marathon.  I'm running a half marathon tomorrow morning, just for kicks.  If you never hear from me again, it's been nice knowing y'all.  

If I survive the fake-half, Brian and I have a day date to head to the Deutsche Bank Championship for the day!  He gets volunteer days through his job that he has to use that don't count against his vacation time, so basically boyfriend has spent the last two days at a golf course wearing a really big bucket hat that he is EXTREMELY excited about and watching pro golfers play golf all day.  I think the extent of his duties is to tell people to be quiet and not go past the rope barriers on the course.



Basically, he's in heaven.

Since the majority of our dates are planned by me, I've gone full-force-excited into this whole thing.  It doesn't hurt that I get to wear a VIP badge for the day and eat and drink as much as I want.  Hey, running 13 miles DOES have its benefits.  The gates open at 7am but since I'll be trucking my caboose along at that point, I'd imagine (hope) we're going later in the morning.  If you'd like to spend your morning watching the Golf Channel, keep an eye out for me!  I'll be the girl hobbling around with a beverage in her hand...s.

I only REALLY love Sundays on long weekends because it's like you have a mid-weekend!  And it's a lot easier to justify Sunday Funday when you don't have to be up before motherlovin' dawn the next morning.  But THIS Sunday... I am excited to announce... that my evening will be spent with the most wonderful man.


He's great too, and he'll totally be there as well.  This guy is gonna steal the evening though:



Oh, Darius.  I am SO excited, my friend!  For the third summer in a row, we get to see him in concert!  Two years ago we saw Hootie and the Blowfish (awesome, amazing, hoarse the next day from scream-singing "Hold My Hand" and "Let Her Cry" at the top of my voice) and then last summer we saw Darius by himself (hello tears EVERY SINGLE TIME I hear "Southern State of Mind") and it was even more amazing.  I don't know how the show could get any better, so let's just say that my expectations for Sunday night are mucho-high.  The best part is that the venue he's been at these last three years is called the "Music Circus" so there are tons of people there, it's circular seating so there's literally not a bad seat anywhere, and the stage very slowly revolves the entire show so everyone gets to see DR's bum!  I mean... face.  And awesome School House Rock tshirts.  Truly though, I'm so pumped.

I may have tried to justify purchasing and having these lovelies shipped overnight to get here by tomorrow but, alas, I must eat and pay rent.  


I mean really-- what's a $600 pair of boots for a Texas gal? 

So between 13 miles plus golf all day tomorrow, Sunday Funday + Darius, and a Monday which I'm sure will include some sort of Brian-family-get-together where I must present myself nicely and put on non-yoga pants and prepare a wonderful dish from scratch... I've got a packed few days ahead of me.  

I'll be back Monday with pictures from the festivities, don't you worry your pretty little heads.  Here's to a fake half marathon!

Alive and running! And Pinning!

It has been a sweet forever since I've blogged but I kind of have a really good reason this time.  For serious.

I'M RUNNING THE NEW YORK CITY MARATHON.

NOVEMBER 4, 2012, I will line up with 40,000 other nutjobs and will voluntarily run 26.2 miles through FIVE boroughs and cross the finish line in Central Park.

I've been training since July but hit a snafu with the blogging aspect of my life.  Knowing that I wanted to document my training experience, I started a separate blog for that purpose (mainly because I sometimes share things on THIS blog that I'd rather not be broadcast to everyone and their mother back home).  When I created the second blog I did so under the same email address that I use for this one, so they were linked, as in if I didn't but some sort of privacy block up on one of them, EVERYONE was gonna see/read EVERYTHING.  

So I blocked this blog... my baby.  And I have MISSED IT.  I've still been following along with everyone and faithfully reading YOUR blogs but since the other blog is solely dedicated to running and fundraising, I couldn't really chat about things there like how adorable Kate and Wills looked at the Olympics:


(Sidenote: I wear my hair like that A LOT and I still somehow cannot rock a pony like the Duchess.)

And who am I supposed to share my current Pinterest projects with, if not with y'all?  On the list currently... 


To send to Mama and Daddy in Texas.  If that works out, I'm contemplating a "house divided" wreath for our apartment, featuring the Cowboys and Patriots.

And this.  This may be the end of me:

Just as soon as it's chilly outside and I can dedicate an entire Saturday, with football on in the background, to make this, I'm getting started.  And wine.  I'd imagine I'm going to need a lot of white wine to fuel me through this because can you imagine getting all the way through to the very last ruffle and spilling a glass of Merlot across it?  I would tell them to wrap me in the skirt and put me in my coffin because I'D BE DONE.

Word of Wisdom, Learned from Many Pinterest Projects: When having a craft attack, I'm trying to space out buying the supplies so I don't go for broke once I'm ready to actually start... because that's usually what happens.  I decide on Friday night that Saturday is going to be Craft Day and end up leaving Michael's $50 poorer.  So knowing that these will be used in the fall/winter, I'm starting to buy now.  As for the gallery wall that I've decided needs to be put together this weekend and will be buying frames for on Saturday... well, we can't win them all.

So, that's my update.  If y'all would like to stop in to my running blog, knock yourselves out!  Any encouragement or support that you have to offer is soaked up, believe me.  It's been quite the experience up to now.  Going into the training, I knew that it would be intense and take up time, but now that I'm deep in the middle of it all, it has definitely had its overwhelming moments.  If I'm going to stretch well, run 4-5 miles or put in 60 minutes of cross training, plus my strength training routine, I'm at the gym for at least an hour and a half EVERY. DAY.  It is insane.  I know it will be worth it on race day, but right now it's a big adjustment.  I'm exhausted and the Olympics did me in.  Staying up until midnight every night does not an early morning runner make.

In an effort to truly put 100% into this training, I'm back to focusing on getting good, clean food into my diet and not refueling after 9 mile runs with Taco Bell (adios, you deliciously processed bean burrito, you).  And Points... I'm back to tracking PointsPlus, even though I'm not paying for WW right now.  I've never been a big stretcher and have also realized that if I'm going to make my body endure miles and miles of constant motion, I've gotta reward it with a good cooldown afterwards, so I'm trying to get better at that.  There may even be a little "Yoga for Runners" going down in our living room on the nights that Brian has softball.  It's good-- I'm fancy and SO LIMBER.  But not really.  Not at all.  It's been a loooong time since the days of jump splits on the football field.  Like 10 years long time.

It feels good to be back, my friends!

The Running Blog 
(Because I totally have more than enough time to keep up with two blogs plus train, work, eat, shower, sleep, and not forget my family/boyfriend friends.  Jump on the crazy train!)