Monday Musing

It's true! The list is short, but the handful of you who stop by here to read regularly are definitely on it. And today, I believe you were promised a wedding-free post, yes? Well here you have it, ladies and gentlemen: here's what the heck is going on in my life that is absolutely not related to a wedding... at least, not related to my wedding. Since one of my very best friends is getting married this Saturday, I make no promises on that front.

I have not run in four days. To most people, this is a very normal statement. To me, who ran every day for the slightly more than 100 leading up to last Friday, this. is. killing. me. I've been fighting with my legs again, hoping that I could keep up some extremely low mileage while hitting the crosstraining hard and strengthening. It seemed to be working, and at the beginning of last week the pain was so much better that I actually considered venturing off the treadmill and heading outside to test the waters. Thursday morning, however, it returned with a vengeance -- bad enough to stop my nice little daily streak in its tracks. After a few days now of extended elliptical sessions (most boring 45+ minutes of my day, every day), my leg feels much better. I almost hopped on the treadmill this morning, but decided to give it just a little more time. I'm crossing my fingers that tomorrow will be the day and that the pain will stay (far, far) away.

Someone has a birthday coming up on Wednesday...

Someone is going to be a whole quarter of a century old... wow. Someone is also very hard to buy gifts for....

As I mentioned, this lovely girl is getting married this weekend!

I'm incredibly excited to celebrate with M and her new hubby. I finally found shoes for the big day over the weekend, so I'm officially ready!

I am absolutely itching to DIY something big -- like furniture-sized big. I'm thinking I should start with something easier, like an ottoman/bench:

or a bookshelf/dresser:

before I tackle an bigger project like one of these:

The ladder probably wouldn't be so tough, but that chair? That would take some skill -- skill that I surely haven't developed quite yet. For now, I'm just keeping my eye out for old, cheap furniture that I could re-invent -- especially because.....

We're moving! Dan and I found a great place for rent in an absolutely perfect location across town, so in a major effort to make September the craziest month possible, we will be packing up and moving into our very first real house! I am super excited to have a bigger kitchen, a yard, three whole bedrooms, and neighbors who reside more than three feet away. I am not a huge fan of moving in general and so I'm not looking forward to the extended packing/throwing away/organizing/unpacking cycle that is to come, but I'm definitely going to be happy once all of that is over and we can (fingers crossed) come back from our honeymoon to a great new home.

Phew... thinking about all things non-wedding for that long has left me exhausted -- and surely behind on at least sixteen things. I am off to catch up!

   Love,

    Meg

Quick and Easy Ways to Ruin a Thursday

Just in case you need a tutorial:

1. Schedule a holiday for Wednesday. Preferably one that involves sleeping late, lounging by the pool, enjoying excellent food with wonderful friends, cornhole, beer, a fire pit, and reluctantly driving home entirely too late at night.

2. Upon arriving home quite late on Wednesday night, forget the laundry started earlier in the day. Allow most of the clothes you own to wrinkle overnight.

3. Feel proud that you do remember to prepare breakfast for the next morning, knowing in advance that being alert at 6 AM is likely to be difficult, and will prove nearly impossible without coffee and oatmeal. Forget, however, that one key ingredient for said breakfast was a casualty of the Great Power Outage of 2012 (if I call it that, it means that there can't be another one this year, right?). Resign oneself to bland oatmeal.

4. Upon finally emerging from bed after hitting the snooze alarm one too many times, watch sadly as the cat repositions himself, curling up in your still-warm spot, yawning, and proceeds to lay his head directly on your pillow. Try not to curse the cat.

5. Once at the gym, step onto the elliptical for the billionth time this week. Select the same program as always (to give myself some credit, it is the hardest hill profile the damn thing offers). Look over at the treadmill mournfully, causing right leg to twinge with pain at even the thought of running. Try not to curse the leg.

6. Return from workout to find husband still happily asleep. Know that he is likely to remain in this state for another hour or two. Wish like heck that some days, you didn't have to be at work until 2 in the afternoon, either. Laugh because you know that means you'd have to work until 10 at night, and you are often asleep on the couch by 9.

7. Drive to work in sad old car with no air conditioning. Sweat through shirt for first time today in temperatures already steamy enough to prompt a heat advisory. Resolve to look again for a good deal on a new car that doesn't feel like a traveling inferno. 

8. Buy gas on the way to work. Ponder (for the gazillionth time) requiring that a new car run solely on electricity. Or water. Or love.

9. Arrive at work to a completely empty parking lot. Wonder if you're somehow early and have simply beaten everyone here. Realize that you are, in fact, a few minutes late, but that four out of every five employees have taken the next two days off.

10. Sit down at desk to write a to-do list. Complete one page and continue on to a second... and then a third. Fight the urge to crawl under the desk and hide from life and its responsibilities.

11. Dream of the weekend. Realize that the weekend is jam-packed with overcommitment, too. Realize that the rest of the month is similar. Realize that the rest of the summer, in fact, is going to be crazy. Realize that it actually extends past summer, through the much-anticipated September 28th. Dream of the honeymoon. Consider giving up a room with an ocean view for extra pillows on the bed.

Note: Can't say that I recommend following any of these procedures. Except maybe the first one... that was definitely worth it. 
Hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday!

   Love,

    Meg

Randomosity

Life has been too busy lately to think in full sentences, so bullet points it is.

 -- Who made the decision to skip spring and forge straight ahead into summer... in March? I'd like to speak with them about paying my AC bill for the next few months.

 -- On the other hand, I am celebrating the return of grilling season. There is nothing better than cheeseburgers and corn straight from the grill... except when that meal is accompanied by a margarita. Just talking about it gets me all excited for dinner, and it's only 9:15. Going to be a loooong day, ladies and gentlemen.

 -- The other springtime perk I'm not complaining about? All the extra daylight hours lying around these days. I love being able to come home, change, spend a little quality time at the dog park, and then have plenty of time to still run outside before dinner.

 -- Thank goodness for awesome neighbors. Tuesday night, Dan and I were watching TV after dinner when I started to experience the blurry vision that means I'm getting my once-every-two-months migraine (it's like clockwork, I swear). I headed in to track down some Advil before trying to nap through the worse of the vision stuff, when I realized we had sudafed, benadryl, pepcid AC (for the dog, believe it or not), and zicam, but were out of both advil and the always-essential fast-acting tylenol. After a mini panic attack that involved searching through old purses in a desperate attempt to unearth just one pill (a difficult task when you can't even focus on your hand in front of your face), Dan texted our lovely upstairs neighbor, who also happens to be a nurse and the supervising human for two of Tess' very best friends. She immediately brought down several doses of at least three different choices of drugs, saving us from what would have otherwise meant either a miserable night or a miserable trip across town. Definitely a nice perk to apartment living.

 -- Even though the cards were stacked against me last night (lots of shin pain after my previous run, a lingering headache from the night before, and a stomach that wasn't exactly happy), I decided to head out for just a short run. The idea of going out with no goal mileage or planned route was kind of appealing, so I hit the road and told myself I would go as far as I felt ok, but if things started to go badly I'd head for home. (In the end, of course, I ended up taking the same route that I run almost everyday... I am sadly predictable.) Less than a mile in, though, I realized that my head, my legs, and my stomach would be the least of my worries. I had been drinking water all afternoon, and even though I went to the bathroom just before heading out, it didn't take long before I needed to go again. As I've experienced a few times before, the motion of running makes "holding it" harder than normal, so for several miles I was doggedly focused on just one thing: making it home before I peed in my pants. Too much information for a Thursday morning? 

 -- I was washing my face last night when our smaller-sized fluffball strolled right on into the bathroom, hopped onto the ledge of the bathtub (very normal), jumped down into the bathtub (very NOT normal), and proceeded to gulp (clean) water from the cup I use to rinse things down when I clean the tub. This is, for the record, the cat who has full access to both his own water dish and his sisters', which are kept full at all times. This fact didn't, however, keep me from feeling like a terrible fur-mama.

 -- I have to update a bit on my post last week about the Nike+ app, in which I wrote that one of the (few) disadvantages of the system was that you couldn't just glance at your pace, but had to swipe the screen to see it displayed. I've since figured out, however, that the app offers a "lock mode" during workouts, in which the screen is blocked against random tapping, but your time, distance, and pace are still displayed. The really great part about this feature is that if you double-tap the screen, it reads those stats to you at any time. Dangerously easy...

 -- I have a new friend. We've only known each other for a few days, but I can already tell that ours will be a love-hate relationship. We originally met because I've been trying to find a way to reduce some pain, but this friend... he is not always gentle. He is definitely not kind, even though I know that the longer I spend with him, the better off I will be. Sometimes he starts out easy, and I think that hanging out with him might feel just a little bit good, even a tiny bit relaxing. Before long, though, things get uncomfortable again. But I've been told that our time together is "supposed to hurt," so I suppose that I will keep him around for a while...

my new BFF: the foam roller... and a very spaced-out me after yesterday's run and rolling session

  -- And last but definitely not least: my awesome hubby got a job offer yesterday! I am so proud of him and excited for him to start, because I know the last few months of job searching have been long and frustrating. Last night I told him I wanted to take him out to celebrate, and he was practically beside himself with excitement to go here:

Our town's very own Cookout just opened, and while I hadn't even heard of the chain a month ago, Dan has asked almost every day for the past two weeks "Is Cookout open yet?!" This was a perfect (and cheap!) way to celebrate, and I have to say -- I may or may not already be craving another Oreo milkshake.

   Love,

    Meg

Excitement

There is nothing better than waking up on a Monday morning and realizing that it is, in fact, Tuesday. I am a big fan of four day weeks! Somehow (perhaps it could be the extra day?) I feel shockingly rested and ready for the week... or maybe it's that I'm ready for it to be over already. Either way, it must be some sort of miracle that I am not dragging the ground today, because our weekend was actually full of excitement... both the wonderful kind and the kind that makes you want to kick yourself in the head. Nice to have a balance, I suppose.

 -- Friday our poor puppy started experiencing some... intestinal issues. For the sake of preserving your breakfast and mine, we won't get into the details, but suffice to say that our carpet will never be the same. A few weeks ago, our vet had let us know that she tested positive for exposure to lyme disease, but assured us that since she didn't seem to have any symptoms, she would probably be just fine. And she was... until things got bad in the middle of the night on Friday (proving that pets really do wait to do these things on holiday weekends), at which point two slightly overprotective parents decided that she needed to be seen by a vet right then. ("Couldn't have waited just a few hours?" taunts hindsight...) One entire sleepless night and an exorbitant emergency vet bill later, we learned that Tess' symptoms have really nothing in common with the symptoms for lyme disease. Lovely.

3 days later? She seems to be feeling much better... and hasn't pooped in almost 72 hours. Really lovely.

 -- On a happier note, Saturday morning (on less than two hours of sleep) I ran a 5k, which is the longest distance I've logged in far too long. Even better, that was the first of three 5k distances I ran this weekend -- I followed it up with a second on Sunday and then another this morning. My shin pain was much better until today, but I'm hoping some stretching and more quality time with the elliptical over the next few days will fix everything again.

 -- Also on Saturday, I was lucky enough to enjoy time with two wonderful friends -- I had a lunch date with one and the other was visiting our hometown university and met up with Dan and I for dinner. Lots of yummy food and fun catching up with lovely girls! Between lunch and dinner, I also took a fantastic nap. I honestly wish I had time for one of those every day... I swear I sleep better during a two hour afternoon nap than I do all night.

 -- In case you didn't see my pictures on Sunday... it snowed! It started in the afternoon and I watched it begin to stick from the treadmill. Tess loved it and we spend some quality time down at the dog park freezing our toes off and watching her play with friends. In the evening, Dan and I drove around town with two very different goals: I was hoping to see our pretty town blanketed in a gorgeous snow (success) and Dan wanted to spin out and get stuck and be a man in the snow (not terribly successful thanks to 4 wheel drive). Nice to get one good snow in before spring comes (hint hint, nudge nudge... anytime now, really).

 -- Undoubtedly the best part of our weekend was yesterday, though, when we took a little drive out to one of our favorite little vineyards to sign a little contract, write a little rather large check, and make a little decision:

Meg & Dan: I do, part deux

September 28, 2012

Hooray! I am so excited to finally have a date and venue locked in. Now we get to start working on all the details: photographer, cake, save-the-dates... it's an overwhelming list and I'm so ready to start checking things off! 

   Love,

    Meg

Friday Favorites: In Brief

One heck of a Friday at work seems to have exhausted me of any inspiration or ingenuity I might normally be able to muster (a fact which does not bode well for the remaining 7 hours of my day), so here you have it: things I'm loving this week... in pictures.

[center picture via... I made the recipe this week but didn't take any pictures of my own!]

Clearly cookies were a major theme of the week... nothing wrong with that. Whoever decided that Valentine's Day and girl scout cookie delivery should happen in the same week should probably have a conversation with my waistline though. The middle left picture was taken on my first run outside in almost two months, so hopefully that counteracted a little bit of the cookie action. That sunset was definitely worth the resulting frostbitten fingers and sore shin. 

And finally...

There are exciting things on the horizon these days -- things that hopefully I can share in more detail soon. Even though I'm not normally a big fan of changes, these I am absolutely ready for.

Happy weekend, everyone!

   Love,

    Meg

Stubborn

When I was in high school and college, I wanted so badly to be a runner. I wanted to have the stamina and strength that could carry me for miles. I wanted the sense of accomplishment and self worth that (I assumed) came with knowing I could run distances that would leave others wheezing and sore. I wanted the mental and emotional release of being outside, feeling the progress beneath my feet, putting distance between myself and my problems. I wanted (although it pains me to admit it) to be able to say to people, "Oh, sure, I got up super early and ran a gazillion miles this morning before your head even left the pillow."

Well, easier said than done. Every time I would actually try this running thing, I'd peter out faster than you can say "wannabe." Most days, I'd head home after only 30 minutes, a sweaty, exhausted mess. Sometimes, I would stick it out for a few days, focusing determinedly on that picture in my head of a tanned, toned runner gliding along some scenic route. Within the week, though, I was always done. Back to the elliptical at the gym, a few crunches here and there in a fit of ab envy, and avoidance of the fact that I doubted I'd be fit enough to be considered "in shape" ever again. Running just wasn't fun... in fact, it was so very not fun that even such lofty aspirations weren't enough to keep me going. I certainly wasn't a natural, and I couldn't imagine that it would ever get easier, so I did something that I rarely do with anything else in my life: I gave up. Again... and again... and again.

Until one day last winter, with no warning, it stuck. Something deep inside me clicked and there was no looking back. Running still wasn't fun -- it took at least six months before I would be able to even think about describing it with such a positive word -- but finally, I got it: the longer I stuck with it, the easier it could be. Each run would feel a little bit better than the last, until my muscles and lungs and head got with the program. Eventually, I realized, running could come naturally... or at least a little less unnaturally.

With this realization, something else subconsciously slid into gear and, at long last, locked. It was a mechanism that has driven me all of my life in so many situations, but one that had never quite fit with running until then: for lack of a better term, it was my overwhelming amount of sheer stubbornness. It was my just one more, my I am NOT going to let this get the better of me, my dogged, tenacious, bordering on self-destructive will to hang on tight and under no circumstances give in. It had served me well in swimming, academics, leadership positions, and personal relationships, but for some reason it had never quite engaged with running... until about the third run last winter. And let me tell you: when it finally kicked in, it kicked in hard and strong.

All of a sudden, I was running every day, determined to get out there and get it over with so that tomorrow, it would be that much easier. If I made it through three miles one morning, the next I would make myself do 3.25. If I could do it at a 10:30 pace one week, the next I'd be pushing myself to hit 10:00 (I started off slooooow). If I went to the gym thinking I'd run for 30 minutes, I would usually end up going for 40. Every day, I was determined to outpace, outdistance, outrun myself.

So before I knew it, I was the one running 5 miles every morning. Some days were tough, but generally it was easier than I had ever dreamed it would become. Double digit runs were no longer unfathomable: sure, they were brutal, but I knew I could finish. Races became realistic goals for which to train. $100 was finally a practical, necessary price for running shoes, and I didn't feel guilty because I knew that I was running them for all they were worth (and in many cases much, much more). I never used it as a bragging right, as I had always dreamed of doing, but instead found an inner comfort each day in knowing that it had either begun with a solid run or would end with one.

Eventually, gradually, it started to dawn on me: this was something I could do. I could run long, I could run fast. I could talk myself through 13.1 miles. I was the runner I had always wanted to be.

... And then I got shin splints. Which are, for the record, just terrible. I am dying to run again, but every time I do the pain serves as an irrefutable reminder of why I need to rest, stretch, and give my leg a little time to heal itself. I've pushed myself back into it too quickly, and every time it gets worse. Luckily, my new-found determination has served me well in the interim: 30 minutes on the elliptical has become 45, 50 crunches has become 100, and a minute and a half plank has now reached three.

There are times I question my sanity when I am struggling through that last mile, last minute, last repeat. Am I crazy to push myself this hard? Should I give myself a break? Should I be ok, just this once, if I don't break yesterday's record? I know the answer, though -- it's the same as it has always been, and will always be: I could never live with myself if I stopped pushing my boundaries. Even as I curse myself for this stubborn drive to be better, I love testing myself and finding that 9 times out of 10, I can do more than I expect. The whole experience has opened my eyes to the fact that I am stronger than I ever believed. And a whole lot more stubborn, but I choose to believe that's a good thing... just don't ask my husband.

   Love,

    Meg

Friday Favorites: The Shin Splint Edition

Yesterday after work, I headed out for what should have been the perfect short run. The weather was ideal and the fall leaves are absolutely gorgeous right now. I was excited to head over to my favorite running neighborhood, because it had been over a week since I'd been there last, and I was looking forward to enjoying the trees and some super enthusiastic Halloween decorations. I was pumped up to be feeling good after a great race this weekend (that I really will write a recap for sometime) and 8.5 good miles on Wednesday evening. Finally, I was feeling great about getting in a little speedwork as I start gearing up for my next half marathon in (gulp) less than 20 days. Everything necessary to make for a fantastic run, no?

No. Sadly, not even close. As soon as I hit the pavement, I felt the now-familiar pain and tightness in my shins. This was normal and not-so-worrisome, as said pain has been present but bearable during the first mile or so of my recent runs, but then disappeared almost completely as my legs warmed up. So yesterday I kept going without much concern, waiting for the magical moment when things started to feel good.... but that moment never came. By mile 2, I couldn't keep it up and slowed to a walk. Several times I tried to speed back up, but after 50 yards was forced to walk again, and by the time I made it back to my apartment even walking was a challenge. I was in more pain than I had felt in a long time -- even worse than a few weeks ago, when all of this forced me to take several days off.

To say that I was depressed by the time those agonizing 3-ish miles were over would be a dramatic understatement. I was angry that I was wasting such a perfect day on walking, knowing that I could be enjoying a beautiful run. I was terrified about what this meant for the next few weeks leading up to my half -- what about the long run I had planned for this weekend? What about the mileage buildup that I need to do now so that I can taper? Even though my unique backwards taper (aka no taper at all) worked fine for a 10k, there's no way such terrible training methods would serve me well for what is still a rather long race to me. And the worst question of all: what if all of this horribleness wasn't better by the time of the race? Could I make it through 13.1 miles of pain? Would I be able to live with myself if I couldn't run the race? Needless to say, my head was not in a good place when I finally slammed through the front door last night.

After some serious icing, a dose of advil, and a heart-to-heart with my training calendar, I felt a little better. Unfortunately, I know that the only way to get rid of this awful pain is to rest my legs and let them heal. As impossible as it is mentally, I know that if I don't take the next few days off, there is no way that I will be able to even walk 13 miles on Nov. 13th. So my plan for the weekend includes postponing the long run (hopefully until mid-week next week) lots more ice, lots more advil, quality time with the elliptical, and (perhaps most importantly) trying not to let myself go insane.

So in a desperate attempt to infuse some positive into my dangerously discouraged life right now, here are a few of the things that I'm counting on to keep me going this weekend:

Oh. my. goodness. When I read about these in an article about how bad they are for you, I couldn't believe I that I had let such an incredible looking fall treat slip by in my fervent-love-of-all-things-pumpkin. In the few minutes it took me to inhale my first one, I fell in love. My plans tonight include another one of these, in an attempt to lift my spirits out of shin-splint hell. What's that you say? High calorie desserts paired with days of no running might be problematic? Shhh... didn't you know pumpkin is a vegetable??

As if ice cream wasn't enough, I'm also planning to spend the hours I won't be running this weekend baking instead. I will be attempting to recreate some of the adorable creations above for our office Halloween party on Monday, and my list also includes pumpkin muffins and my favorite sweet-potato-meets-apple-crisp recipe. This may prove to be a dangerous weekend for my scale.

Since I'll be spending lots of time on the couch this weekend while my legs swim in bags of frozen peas, I'm lucky to have this little app to keep me busy. Also, I've been stuck on one level of the Halloween Angry Birds for three days, so there's that.

Although none of these fuzzy phone pics do it any justice, this week has been absolutely spectacular: the leaves are peaking, the sunsets have been incredible, and I've been taking the scenic route as much as possible. On a whim Monday night, I took a back road on my way home and turned into the parking lot of an old church where Dan and I used to park and watch the sunset back when we were first dating. I got there just as the sun slid below the mountains, and was rewarded with an amazing light show (viewed through just a few tears for my absent husband... I missed him more than ever that night, I think).

And finally... the best for last. Over the weekend, I was a lucky duck and received a super early birthday present from the hubs -- something I had been positively yearning for over the past year. Since I have absolutely no self-restraint (hey, the name was on the box, so there was no way I could just let it sit there for a month), I have been enjoying loving obsessed with this baby for the past week:

Ahhhh... truly everything I dreamed of. I am currently loving the pumpkin spice and cafe mocha... neither of which taste like plastic. Amazing.

So despite the fact that it looks like another loooong few days of no running, I am certainly lucky to have these joys in my life. Hopefully I'll be back on the road before too long, my recovery powered by ice cream, cake balls, and an insane amount of coffee. 

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

   Love,

    Meg