Running

Getting my run on

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I was planning to go to the gym today.  Chris even told me I should go, because it was really hot outside.  But after I did some other stuff, I just wanted to go run outside.  I know, I KNOW that I would have gotten a better workout if I’d run on the treadmill, but I would have been so bored.  I’m so whiny, aren’t I?

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I’m making a really weird face here.  I’m not sure why I thought the internet would enjoy that.

I got honked at no less than three times.  I was reminded of that bit Jerry Seinfeld does about why do men honk at women.  Do they expect them to kick off their heels, run after the truck (in this case, it’s always a truck), calling out “I’m so glad you honked, I had no idea how you felt!”  Nothing makes me feel more beautiful than a couple of incredibly disgusting men honking or yelling out of their vehicle.

Seriously, what is wrong with people?  When I see an attractive, shirtless man running, I don’t honk.  I just stare.  Hmm.  Or maybe then somebody honks at me as my car is swerving out of control.  I’m kidding.  Women never objectify men.

I think, though, that my point is, no good comes from honking, unless you are just showing off to your friends that a) your horn works and b) you aren’t afraid to honk at a female.  WIN.

Oh, and Happy Birthday to my sister Leslie!  Here’s last year’s blog post because I’m too busy (lazy) to write a new one for her.

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From Leslie’s engagement session.  She’s smiling because she finally got the frame to herself 😉

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What’s the verdict?  Do we look related?

Cat, Food

Tacos y Gatos

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My friend Melissa is a dog walker in the Central West End in the summers.  (She is a music professor during the school year, and perhaps a superhero at night.)  We hadn’t seen each other in awhile (you know, a week or so) so I met her for a late lunch after she had finished walking all the dogs.  (Not all the dogs in the Central West End, just the ones she was supposed to walk.)

We decided to go to Tortillaria, which is owned by the same people as Milagro, one of my favorite restaurants in St Louis. 

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The decision making was a challenge.  Fish Tacos, Baja Fish Tacos, Shrimp Tacos…so many options…

I decided on the Shrimp Tacos, with a side of black beans and street corn.  I wasn’t in love with the black beans.  Next time I’d either get a different side or perhaps just get three tacos.  I do love the corn though.

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There are other things on the menu besides tacos too, but I love tacos too much.

Speaking of things I love too much:

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That’s part of our new couch and you can see the matching chair in the background.  I’ll show you some more pictures of the new place but we aren’t totally done unpacking yet so I wanted to wait.  Living room:  same cat, same rug, different couch. 

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Also the same coffee table.  See, fatness, not much has changed!

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She’s just such a great subject.  Chris thinks I’m insane when I pull out my phone and start snapping away, and then posting to instagram.  Look at her little paw under her head though :( 

Okay, there you have it.  Tacos y gatos.  Hablo espanol!

Product Reviews

Miss No-Depth Perception

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I noticed this at my gym this morning.  It made me think of "Operation Beautiful", only the opposite. The difference is that if I wear something odd my trainer does make fun of me.  For instance, last week I could only find one pair of gym socks because the rest were packed somewhere.  I had to wear white socks and they weren’t as low cut as I usually wear.  I felt a little uncomfortable but told myself, nobody cares about what I look like.  I was warming up on the treadmill and Mike came over, and immediately he started mocking my socks.  He kept making fun of them the whole hour, and even the next time he saw me, he remarked on how relieved he was that I was no longer wearing them.

Basically I have learned in my life—and this may come from being tall—that people actually do notice you a lot, what you are wearing, how you wear your hair, what you say, what you do, where you go.  They notice, they judge.  The question is what are you going to do about that.  Do you care?  Often I care too much.  I try not to.

I am also aware of the fact that Mike was only mocking my socks because he could, and because I certainly make fun of him enough, in particular his atrocious haircut.

Look what I got in the mail the other day!

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The people at SendaFlyingCard.com asked if I would be interested in getting a flying card. (I think of it as a frisbee, but they just call it a flying card.  They explain this on the website, that the term "frisbee" is owned by another company and cannot be used.) I said sure, because I’ve told you guys I’m jumping on the free stuff bandwagon, right?  This is a pretty cool idea though, I’d think especially for a younger kid, or maybe a bored high school or college student. 

I am not a great frisbee player.  I attended a music festival many years ago, and a group of us liked to play frisbee.  I earned the nickname "Miss No Depth Perception" because I would run to catch the frisbee, reach out for it…and then it would float by, perhaps 4 to 6 inches away from where I thought it would be. 

Anyway, if you are interested in sending me or someone else a flying card, there’s a good sale going on right now, plus if you use the coupon code "firstorder" you get 10 percent off your first order.  I love this line from the website: "Get noticed and send a customized flying card today while promoting exercise and outdoor activities."  Who doesn’t want to do that?  Work off your birthday cake with a nice game of "flying card" in your backyard!

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I saw this sticker on the bathroom of a bar we hit up last night.  It made me giggle.  I went to the link just now and there is a nice explanation of the sticker too.

Random thoughts, Running

Habits of Highly Successful People

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I’m trying to get back in the habit of doing certain things.  For instance, I used to practice violin every day.  Okay, I’m kidding, I’m not worried about that, haha, that’s just asking for an injury!  (Or would be the smart thing to do.  But this blog post isn’t about that.) 

I used to run several times a week and blog almost every day.  Those are the habits I’m trying to get back into.  I already "ran" this morning (I’m using quotations because it was awful and there was a lot of walking) so now I’m going to "blog".  (Okay, I’m going to actually blog.  Technically the quotations aren’t necessary.)

This week has been pretty busy with packing, moving, and then unpacking.  I am not beating myself up about not running, or not blogging, but I’m trying to start new habits.  I am planning to run at least three more times this week and planning to blog every day.  I actually have some cool stuff I’m doing for the blog including some book reviews and some giveaways, so stay tuned for that this week and in the future! (I decided it was time for me to get on the blog gravy train and get some free stuff, but I promise to stay real, even as my stock climbs…I won’t pretend to like something I don’t.)

The new place is AWESOME.  Most of the hard work of the move is done and all we have left is a bit more unpacking, some decorating, finishing cleaning the old place, and getting a dining room table and maybe another chair for the music room.  We had hoped to use our old couch for that room but it just didn’t fit in the door.  Oops. 

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We bought a new welcome mat.  Creatures with big eyes are a weakness Chris and I share.

We "celebrated" our move by going to Franco for a dinner.  I love getting anchovies on my caesar salad there.  I really like the white anchovies, but they are more expensive so I just got the regular anchovies.  Sometimes I get oddly cheap.

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Friday we spent unpacking and preparing for the yard sale.  Saturday morning was our yard sale, and we made approximately $185, so it was an overwhelming success. 

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We had never had a yard sale before, so we didn’t really know what to expect.  People who go to yard sales are an interesting bunch.  I was amazed at how much time people would spend deliberating over whether or not to purchase an item for 50 cents or a dollar.  Sometimes I just wanted to tell them, hey, you know what, just take it.  But I figured that would ruin the "fun."  The main reason we had a sale was to sell a couple of pieces of furniture, and we sold all of those, in addition to my old set of dishes, which were still very nice (we just got some amazing wedding gifts and didn’t have use for everything.)  Now all we have left to get rid of it is the aforementioned couch—it was already at the new place and the yard sale was at the old place, so we’ve just been trying craigslist for it.

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Those are more "bruises" from doing burpees.  Mike argues they don’t count as bruises as they are red.  I told him that he wasn’t taking my "injuries" seriously.  (Chris just saw this picture from a weird angle and asked if it was somebody’s butt.  I am now sad that my legs evidently look like a butt, and that my husband thinks I would put a picture of somebody’s butt on my blog.)

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Hey, look, it’s my leg warmers.  I was unpacking and found them—I love that I own leg warmers! 

From the 80’s race.  (I know you can’t see them in that first picture, I just really like that picture.)

Last but not least.  Chris likes to make breakfast sandwiches, with sausage, egg and cheese.  We finally got a little "contraption" to help him out with the egg.

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How cute is that??

Random thoughts

Ear worms

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Do you ever get earworms?  You know, when a tune is stuck in your head and you can’t get rid of it.  Well, I need help.  I have the music from Lord of the Rings in my head.  Most specifically the "Fellowship" Theme, but occasionally the theme from Rohan and other parts too.  Basically at any time I might start singing the music, and I think Chris is about ready to kill me.  It’s definitely been over a year since this has been a problem.  I thought it might go away, but it hasn’t.  HELP!

I’m on a break from unpacking.  I spent most of the afternoon trying to fit as many books as possible onto a small bookcase.  The trick is to make more than one stack, and to turn them sideways rather than up and down. 

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From last night.  We made pasta with something called "turkey bratwurst" that I bought at the store.  It was pretty good, and I figured it was (probably) healthier than using "italian sausage." 

I got my bridesmaid dress for Leslie’s wedding yesterday.  Well, I’d gotten it before, but now I own it in a size that actually flatters me.  I had Chris take some pictures of me to send her, and I was DELIGHTED that one of the pictures from the back showed some awesome back muscle definition.  I would totally share it but I can’t do that because I’m wearing the bridesmaid dress in it.  Maybe I’ll try to recreate the pose later and show you all. (In your face, JEN!)

Random thoughts

Moving is a pain

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We moved.  It’s done. 

And I’m exhausted from moving yesterday then spending the rest of the day unpacking, then waking up and spending all day today unpacking as well.  We got our internet and cable hooked up and spent most of the day waiting for a couch to be delivered…that we finally realized was scheduled to be delivered on Friday instead.  Oops.  I guess we’ll have to stay close to home on Friday.

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My parents came through and helped out a ton.  Points for local readers who recognize where this picture was taken!

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The cat did not enjoy being moved.  I took her to the new place the morning of the move and she was not happy with me.  Finally today she started really exploring the downstairs rather than hiding in a closet.  She seems to be adjusting well and I’m sure in a day she will consider it home and refuse to go anywhere else.

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The truck, parked behind a tree.  It was really hot.  Luckily we had hired people to do the actual moving so we just got to stay inside and chat during the move.

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Stuff in the new house, starting to fill up!

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Post move, celebratory diet coke.  Name this restaurant for bonus points!

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Chris was exhausted.  He did more than I did so he got a beer.  Also I am watching my weight as you know 😉

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And the start of our unpacking.  Those are some of our awesome wedding presents—our china, another set of dishes, and of course my Carolina Youth Symphony mug.  That’s just one of many cabinets we have now.

Moving is a ton of work, but the result is always so much fun.  I’ll write more later I’m sure.

I am accepting housewarming gifts from readers, before you ask 😉

Hopefully my Mom and Dad have made it safely to Aspen by now to visit Carrie and then they head to Boulder to visit Leslie. 

thoughts about violin, teaching, running, life.