What's Happening, Hot Stuff?

In the past two months, I have...

1.  Finished Couch to 5K.  Towards the end of July I finished the program and have continued running.

2.  Added 1.25 miles (13 minutes) to the top of my 5K program.  That means I now run for 43 minutes at a time, without stopping.  I used to not be able to run 60 seconds.  I am planning on running my first road race in October.  My original plan was to run just the 5K, but now that I'm only about 1.5 miles away from a 10K (6.2 miles), I think I'm going to aim for that.

3. Gone on a family vacation with my husby, daughter, and inlaws.  We went to my husband's mom's hometown in Northern Minnesota and it was fab.  It had been since about a month after L was born that we went anywhere on vaca (and that's where we went then too!), so it had been over two years.  It was time, we had a good time, and we can't wait until next time.  How's that for time!?

4. Started my 6th year of teaching school.  The year has gone well so far, and we made it through homecoming week last week.

5. Attended T's 10 year class reunion (just yesterday).  It was a good time seeing people we hadn't seen in a long time.  I graduated from the same school, just a year behind T.

July so far...

So today I finished week 5 of the Couch to 5K program.  I have not skipped any days of the program, nor have I ever cheated on my minutes while running.  Today required 5 minutes of warm up walking and then 20 minutes of jogging.  I never in a million years thought I could run for 20 minutes straight.  But I did it.  AND I didn't even look at my stopwatch for the first 14 minutes.  Normally I look like every 30 seconds, but not today.  I kept telling myself I would check it at certain points, and then at those certain points, I'd tell myself not to do it and to wait until another point.  When I looked finally, it was because I was having to decide which way in the park to go... before I looked, I was in a runner's high -- I wasn't in pain anymore, I was breathing well, I was enjoying what I was doing.  Once I looked?  BAM! Runner's high = done.  I swear I looked at my stop watch every 4 seconds after that initial look.... oh well...

C25K

So I just finished the second week of the Couch to 5K plan.  It's probably the hardest I've worked in a really long time.  Not probably.  It IS!  I feel like I'm more toned up already and I've lost a couple pounds.  I've also really kept good track of everything I eat every day.  I use www.myfitnesspal.com and I really like it.  It has a good database of most of the foods I eat. It also gives an option to add a food to their database, which I like.

On another note, this weekend is our towns annual celebration.  Hopefully we don't have a repeat of last year. UGH!

Just Keep Running...

So I know Dori from "Finding Nemo" says "Just keep swimmin', just keep swimmin'" but I was running, not swimming.  Day 2 of my Couch to 5K is in the books.  I started much earlier today (at 2:30 ish as opposed to 9:10 at night!).  The wind was really a factor today and it made the running hard for me.  But, once again, I didn't let myself give up.  I just kept on running.

Not going to lie, I feel skinnier when I'm done running.  It may all just be in my head, but I don't care.  I'm going to keep living that dream!

I'm Here!

Well, kids.  Here it is.  I've not blogged since November (I think).  Lots of things have happened since the last time I posted (duh, that's what life does).  LC gave up her pacifier, she's in a big girl bed, she turned 2 on Mother's Day (complete with a Sesame Street birthday party), and she's a bossy-flossy little thing. I finished up my 5th year of teaching English in May and Tyler finished his 4th year at his network administrator position.

Here's the real scoop with me.  On Thursday, June 7, I quit drinking pop. Now it's not like I was a camel when it came to pop, but let's be real, I love, love, LOVE (!!!) Dr. Pepper with all my heart. When I quit, I went cold turkey.  I never really drank water --- and when I say never really, I mean never -- so I have totally cut out all pop and have been drinking water. A lot of water. Sometimes I really just want a pop. so. bad. I am not even opposed to having one once in a while, eventually . For right now, I think it's best that it's just gone for a while. I don't know how long a while is yet. Maybe a month? Maybe 6 months? I just don't know.

Tonight I Googled "Couch to 5K," because I keep hearing about it, but never get the full story.  So, I looked at it. I set my computer down.  I went and changed into workout clothes. And. I. Ran. The program seems do-able and I'm definitely ready for a change in my life.  I cannot continue to look the way I look and feel the way about myself that I feel. Today the plan told me to walk briskly for 5 minutes to warm up.  For the following 20 minutes, I alternated jogging 60 seconds, then walking 90 seconds.  Even before I started jogging for the first 60 second section, I was telling myself (with each footstep) "I. can. do. this. I. can. do. this." And I DID! I surprised even myself, but I didn't give up.  Not even once. I ended up running in the rain at the end, but it didn't matter.  I sweat. A lot. But I did it!  (And I have the shin splints already to prove it!).  I felt fat running -- like my butt weighed a thousand pounds; like all the leftover baby pooch wiggled and jiggled all over; like I was drained by the last 60 second running interval.  But I CAN DO THIS!

I came home and took pictures of myself, but I'm not brave enough to post them yet. Later....

Overdue.

So here I am.  Another three and a half months have passed since a blog post.  Things have just been so busy that I can't keep up! It's funny, though, that I manage to keep up with reading the blogs I follow..... something's fishy there!

I can't believe we are already into the month of Thanksgiving, cold weather, Christmas trees going up, and lights on the house.  I love, love, LOVE this time of year.  I can hardly stand the wait to put up our Christmas tree.  It will be interesting to see how it goes this year, though, as we have an 18 month old in our house who may like the tree a little too much.  I hope she can learn to just look and leave it alone.  She's pretty good about stuff like that, so who knows. We are also going to re-arrange our living room to accommodate our Christmas tree this year.  We usually put it right in the middle of our picture windows.... but.... the four-legged friend in our house likes to spend most of her days looking out that window, thus pushing and turning the tree with each delicate (NOT!) pass near the tree to get to said window.  It about makes my heart stop every time, so this year, we're going to eliminate the problem!

Where Have I Been All My Life?!

So clearly my blogging skills have taken a back seat.... again!  I thought I was doing better at blogging more regularly, but not so.  It's funny, because I still read the blogs I follow regularly (like daily or more!), and I think to myself each time I'm looking at the dashboard "I should write something..... but I can't think of anything.  Eh, I'll do it later."  Yup.  Now is later!

So, today is my husband's and my five year wedding anniversary.  It seems like just yesterday that we got married.  Yet, when I think about our wedding -- our actual ceremony, the reception, the dance -- it seems like longer than that.  Not that I'm saying it's a bad thing.  It's just all that planning and waiting seems like a lifetime ago. 

I was thinking today about the anniversaries we've shared thus far...

The first year, we went back to the Wisconsin Dells to the same water park we had been to on our honeymoon.  SO FUN! 

The second year we went to Sioux Falls for shopping and eating. 

Our third anniversary was spent on a trip to Rapid City to go to a Taylor Swift concert (bless my husband's heart).  I'm not so sure Tyler was into TayTay (yep, that's what we call her at our house!), but when we got to Rapid and saw that our seats were FRONT ROW (!!!!!!), he seemed to have more fun.  Then when TayTay grabbed my hand (EEEEEEPPPPPPP!!!!!), I cried, and I think I realized he actually was having a fab time!  We had just gotten possession of our house (Tyler's grandpa's house that we bought), and had been painting, moving, painting, moving, painting, moving, moving, moving the week before we went.  This trip was a welcomed break!

Our fourth anniversary was spent just hanging out at our house.  Lydia was only about 2 1/2 months old, so it was easy to just hang out! 

Today we have again just been around the house.  It's been kind of nice to just hang.  We planned to go on a bike ride tonight, but as I type this and look out the window, I see that the sky is darn-near black, I'm hearing thunder, and I'm pretty sure it's raining/going to rain soon.  I'm not Lance Armstrong.  I don't love biking that much and I don't like the weather that much to ride IN IT! Haha!  I'm literally taking a rain check!