Monday, November 21, 2011

Potpourri

Greetings, people of the internet!

[Insert the usual apology for my lengthy blogging absence and typical litany of excuses, followed by a renewed vow to write with more regularity]

Phew. What a busy few weeks it has been. Between preparing to run in a half marathon, organizing the half marathon on base, pondering thanksgiving meal planning so as to optimize the amount of deliciouness I can experience before I have to unbutton my pants, and general care and keeping of house and husbands, I haven't had much room in my noggin for thinking up interesting things to blog about. But, I ran my half marathon (woo! also, hello sports bra chafing.) and for better or worse, have adopted a lackadaisical (10 point word. I didn't even use a thesaurus, so I'm promoting it to a 15 point word) attitude regarding current projects at my place of employment, so let's get this party started.

I have a lot of things I feel like discussing, and they should probably each have their own blog post so as to avoid one overly large and nonsensical post, but I don't feel like it and you're not the boss of my life, so quit yelling at me!
....

Hey, so guess what? My sister had a baby yesterday! I can't wait to meet my sweet little niece! I love her already. Look at this precious girl:
Ellie Jane Blake
I can't wait to hold her and snuggle her and kiss those perfectly round baby cheeks! I'm Colorado bound on Friday, and it can't come fast enough. I already feel so connected to that angelic little baby. A little glimpse into heaven.

I sang "Come Thou Fount" yesterday in church. On a normal day, that song gets me all choked up. Combine that with the fact that I had just looked at pictures of my lovely sister holding her tiny miracle, and I was already feeling like the space between here and heaven was very thin. My knees shook through the entire song with the effort of trying not to cry. But I lost the battle at the end of the song and barely squeaked out the last lines. Music has always been my solace, my outlet of emotion, and my connection to the divine. For anyone who is interested, or for those who were there yesterday, but want to know what the song sounds like without ragged breaths and a shaking voice, I thought I'd post the recording I made for my mom when I left home to go to school. And if you think it's totally lame that I'm posting a recording of myself singing, once again, you aren't the boss of my life! (p.s. I couldn't figure out how to add a song, so I threw on a random picture I found on the internets and made it a video. Technology, why are you so hard??)



Thanksgiving is in 4 days. Oh, I can't wait. I love eating. And, I love the grateful attitude that Thanksgiving inspires. I am so undeniably and undeservedly blessed. I recently read a quote, something along the lines of, "What if one day you woke up, and the only things that remained were the things you were grateful for yesterday?" That quote really inspired me to consciously acknowledge all of things I have to be grateful for. Almost every day, I lay (lie? I just did a google search and I still can't figure it out) in bed and feel overwhelmed with gratitude for the life I am blessed with. I have a wonderful husband. He makes me laugh every day, even if I am grumpy and I don't want to laugh. He is so patient with me and my many idiosyncrasies. I have the most incredible family. They are my best friends, and I am constantly in awe that I am related to such amazing people. We have a cozy, comfortable house and a fridge full of food. I have a cute pooch who wags her tail by the door when I come home. We live in a great community and I'm so grateful for the friends we've made here. We are surrounded by such kind, thoughtful, hilarious, welcoming, and inspiring friends. They constantly act as answers to my prayers. I'm grateful for a healthy body. I'm grateful that I have a job. I'm grateful for my husband's job and his pride in serving our country. For my faithful little Honda that keeps running even though I don't take very good care of her. For phones, e-mails, skype, and texts to keep in touch with my friends and family. For Diet Coke (Don't look at me like that). For best friends who don't care if it's been a month or a year; you pick up exactly where you left off. For music. For beautiful things. For chubby baby legs. For the using a towel that's fresh out of the dryer. For holding hands. For books that take me to a whole new world. For little kids who can't quite say their "R's" yet.  For the gospel of Jesus Christ. For a loving Heavenly Father who knows me, and hears my every prayer.


Life is a beautiful thing. And I am so grateful for mine.

Friday, November 11, 2011

Sick Beats

I just updated my iPod shuffle to get ready for the half marathon Sunday, so I thought I'd share my favorite running songs. I have terrible taste in the music I like to listen to while running, but if these songs can motivate my fat butt to run 13.1 miles, they must have some kind of magical powers:


Jai Ho!   A.R. Rahman & The Pussycat Dolls
Set Fire to the Rain   Adele
What the Hell   Avril Lavigne
God Gave Me You   Blake Shelton
I'm a Slave 4 U   Britney Spears
Circus   Britney Spears
I Wanna Go   Britney Spears
Fighter   Christina Aguilera
Dirrty   Christina Aguilera
Good Girls Go Bad   Cobra Starship
You Make Me Feel   Cobra Starship
Butterfly   Crazy Town
Lose Yourself   Eminem
I Like It   Enrique Iglesias
Like a G6   Far East Movement
Dog Days Are Over   Florence + The Machine
Tonight Tonight   Hot Chelle Rae
Don't You Wanna Stay   Jason Aldean
It Girl   Jason Derulo
In My Head   Jason Derulo
On The Floor    Jennifer Lopez
Stronger   Kanye West
I Kissed a Girl   Katy Perry
E.T.  Katy Perry
Teenage Dream   Katy Perry
I Run to You   Lady Antebellum
Just a Kiss   Lady Antebellum
Bad Romance   Lady GaGa
Party Rock Anthem   LMFAO
4 Minutes   Madonna
Moves Like Jagger   Maroon 5
Everything   Michael BublĂ©
Feeling Good   Michael BublĂ©
Get Ur Freak On   Missy Elliott
Lose Control   Missy Elliott
Uprising   Muse
Hot in Herre   Nelly
Grillz   Nelly
Super Bass   Nicki Minaj
Smells Like Teen Spirit   Nirvana
Misery Business   Paramore
Give Me Everything   Pitbull
Disturbia   Rihanna
Only Girl   Rihanna
Rude Boy   Rihanna
Break It Off   Rihanna & Sean Paul
Push It    Salt-n-Pepa
Give It Up to Me   Shakira
Carry Out   Timbaland
DJ Got Us Fallin' In Love   Usher
She's Not There   The Zombies
In da Club   50 Cent



Seriously, every time I hear "Lose Control" I get so pumped I can't even handle it. I'm going to be dancing my way down the course.

Friday, November 4, 2011

Distance runners do it longer

My good friend Makamae posted this on Pinterest today:

I need this water bottle.

Oft times while I am running, I ponder either what I ate that I am now repenting of, or what I get to eat after accomplishing the run.

That didn't sound as pathetic until I typed it out.

I gotta be me.

I'm running a half marathon next weekend. It is probably not going to feel super good, physically. But it is going to feel AWESOME in all other ways. For those not aware of my running history, here is a little run (ha) down:
- I weighed 165 pounds when I was 13 or 14. Chubs, in a major way.
- I got down to 140ish through counting calories slash not eating hot pockets for after school snacks.(I'm 5'7"! I have hips! I'm never going to weigh 115! Don't hate.)
- I got tired of dieting all of the time, and decided to take up some sort of exercise.
- I've always hated running, but decided it was an activity of skinny people, so I should probably take it up.
- I ran to the end of our street and had to stop and catch my breath.
- I kept running and trying and complaining and sweating.
- I cried from happiness the day I ran an entire mile without stopping.
- Ever since that first time that I ran a mile, I've been scared of returning to the state where I couldn't run a mile.
- So I keep running.
- I trained for a half marathon last spring. I was all ready: I trained, I bought new shoes, I ran my 10 mile run, and then I chickened out. The altitude in Utah was killer, and I was scared to run it all by my onesie! I'm still mad at myself to being such a wimp.
- I'm in charge of the half marathon training group on base, but I can't run the base half marathon, because I'm in charge of the dang thing.
- The idea of training for, but not running, 2 different half marathons made me angry.
- I impulsively and possibly a bit foolishly registered for the Rock N Roll Half Marathon this week and ran 10 miles today in preparation. It was fun and not too bad, and I'm not even sore! That is a statement that I never thought I would make in my entire life.
- Word.


Wish me luck! Especially that I don't have any bathroom emergencies during the race (always happens to me).