A Little Bit Of Sunshine

The forecast for today is for freezing rain this morning which will change to all rain in the afternoon. Blah! Since there won't be any sunshine from the sky today, I am glad that I picked up this pretty bouquet on Friday to brighten up my kitchen. Today feels like it might just have to be a bread baking day.

After all of the kids' sports activities were finished yesterday, we just hung out at home and watched football. WOW! What a great couple of NFL play-off games we saw! Of course, the two teams (the Chiefs and the Eagles) that I wanted to win, didn't but, oh well. It was just fun to see good football played by well-matched teams. Although, it sure didn't look that way in the Colts-Chiefs game at halftime.

I am going to go out now and try to get a short run in - just something to get my blood moving. Although there was some melting on our street yesterday, it is still pretty icy in a lot of stretches. Too risky for me and, since we live close to a large hospital (which always gets top priority for snow and ice removal), I am going to drive over there and run around the parking lot a few times. I might even try to run on the streets in the surrounding neighborhoods if they are clear. Our street gets such horrible sun exposure that it takes a few days of sun and/or warmer weather (neither of which we have had!) to melt everything. 

I hope the weather is better in your part of the world!

Have a great Sunday!

New Year's Resolutions

In an attempt to begin 2014 with focus on clean eating and healthy living...today is day 4 of "no alcohol" for me. I find it interesting that alcohol is the first thing that I will eliminate from my diet without a second thought and without any hesitation. Fortunately (or, in my case, unfortunately), since I already exercise and I don't have a sweet tooth and I don't smoke and I don't have any other significant vices, wine is the thing to go. Although I do miss having a glass of wine before and/or with dinner, now that the holidays are over, it hasn't been all that difficult to go without. However, it has been only four days so I will have to update you in another week. 

My resolution of clean eating does not extend to caffeine and I won't ever consider eliminating my morning cups of coffee. And I would certainly never replace them with decaf.

I would also like to make some changes in how & what we eat at home but, since those types of changes will affect Kevin and the kids as well, I need to think about it some more. 

I am considering my goals for 2014 as far as running and exercising are concerned. One of the women in my running group ran 1234 miles this year and I thought that was fun so I am thinking about aiming to run 1234.56 miles in 2014. I would also like to get back in a regular routine of strength training and cross training. When we lived in Miami, I regularly did either the Jillian Michaels' "30 Day Shred" or "Ripped In 30" programs. If you haven't ever tried those workouts, I would highly recommend them. She has a few other programs that I haven't tried but will take a look at soon. I downloaded the programs from iTunes and followed along while they played on my laptop. In my non-professional opinion, I think Jillian is an awesome trainer and the programs, while not easy, are not beyond the capabilities of a beginner. In fact, Jillian has two trainers with her - one demonstrates a more intense version of the exercise and the other demonstrates a lower impact version of the exercise. You do not need a large space or fancy equipment to do the workouts and the programs really are 30 minutes (including warm-up and cool-down) so it is easy to fit a workout in your schedule. I tried to do one or the other program at least three times a week and definitely saw results. Each program begins with a warm-up before moving on to 3 sets each of three minutes of cardio, two minutes of strength (compound and isolation exercises) and one minute of abs. A cool-down finishes the program. Each set has different exercises which keeps it interesting. The only thing I didn't like was the music she chose to accompany the programs. Music is a big energizer for me so, as I became more familiar with the exercises and the routines, I would play my own music and just follow along visually on the laptop. Jillian is a fantastic motivator, she is in great shape and her personal story is very inspiring. I have a major girl crush on her! 

This morning, in addition to all of our streets and sidewalks being covered in a solid sheet of ice, it is a chilly 10 degrees outside. So, definitely no running this morning and mostly likely not tomorrow either. Maybe Monday. We have a recumbent bike so I am up early to ride that for a while before the craziness of our weekend begins. We have a busy day of crew practice (Caitlynne), basketball games (Christopher) and home improvement projects (Kevin). 

Have a great Saturday!

A Winter Wonderland

Although it made for 4 days of running in a row, I am so glad that I forced myself to get out of bed and run a great 6 miles yesterday morning. This morning, in addition to it being 13 degrees (with a "feels like" of -5) and winds gusting to 45-50 mph, this was my view while having my coffee...

Our street is covered with packed snow and ice so I probably won't be able to run again anytime soon!

Chester was thrilled to see the snow and ran right out to play and eat as much of it as he could. 

I put Sonder's sweater on him so he could go outside too. He went out for just a very few minutes and then waited at the patio door to be let back in.

We still have our Christmas lights up outside (and the trees up inside!) and the front of the house looked so pretty last night with the snow on top of the lights & bushes. Everything sparkled!

   

I know the amount of snow we received (about 3") is nothing compared to what the North-East has gotten hit with but it is still new and fun for us - although Kevin wasn't too happy with spending an hour shoveling the driveway and clearing the snow off of his car before going to work. I am sure it will be a very big dig out for my aunt, uncle and cousins who live on Cape Cod where they are expecting 8 to 16" of snow. Yikes! We were hoping for a significant accumulation as my parents' gifted us with a snow blower for Christmas and Kevin is anxious to try it out. Hopefully, it will see some action before the end of this winter. But not too much action.

The kids are still on winter break and since Caitlynne's crew practice was cancelled, we will have to come up with something fun to do once the roads clear up a bit. It isn't supposed to get above 23 degrees today and won't be much warmer tomorrow so the snow isn't going anywhere anytime soon! However, as cold and miserable as this weather is, I still haven't said, "I miss Bangkok".

Have a great Friday and stay warm!

101 And Done!

I closed out 2013 by running a short three miler with the dogs on New Year's Eve. That run brought my total miles for December to 101 miles and I reached my goal of  running at least 100 miles for the month. 

Over the entire year, I ran a total of 865.5 miles. Not the greatest for me but, considering everything that I had going on in 2013, I am happy that I was able to at least continue running through it all, even if it wasn't for any great distance.

My mileage broken down by month... 

Obviously, our move back to Virginia was a great thing for my running! Since our return in July , I have been able to consistently increase my weekly and monthly mileages and am now running 5 days a week. Most importantly, I have done this without any injuries. In fact, all of the many aches and pains I suffered with while in Bangkok disappeared after a few weeks of running here on better surfaces (paved paths, trails, etc.) and in better weather. 

Running in the cooler and less humid weather is wonderful and, now, after being back here for just six months, it is hard to imagine how I made it through two years of running in the Bangkok heat and humidity. I am adjusting well to the winter weather and have figured out the perfect combos of clothes to wear for an entire range of winter temps. Most days I look like the Pillsbury Dough Boy and I know I could run faster with less clothing but I am warm and comfortable. Next week will be challenging as temperatures are predicted to be VERY cold with temperatures forecast to be in the 10 - 15 degree range. Yikes! 

While I was unpacking some boxes in the garage a few weeks ago, I found my balaclava mask which covers my entire head and leaves only my eyes exposed. (This isn't me.) .

I have already worn it several times when the temps were the low 20's and I will certainly be using it next week! The mask isn't pretty but, for a runner running in extremely cold temperatures and wind, a balaclava is the best invention since sliced bread. I even bought Caitlynne a mask to use when her crew team begins to practice on the river in mid-February. 

My plan for 2014 is get back to running 30-35 miles per week and to maybe run either another half-marathon or a ten miler in the Spring. There is a ten mile race in Charlottesville in late March/early April that Kevin and I have run many times together (many years ago) and we both like the course. Although it is quite hilly, the course goes through the campus of UVA (and in & around the very charming downtown of Charlottesville), the race is not crowded and the spectators are great and very supportive. 

To celebrate the beginning of 2014 and (hopefully) a great year of running, I ran five miles with the dogs on New Years' Day. This is the longest distance I have run with them and they both did really well. It definitely tired them out for the day! 

Have a great Thursday!

Happy New Year!

Out with the old and in with the new...

I am really looking forward to a great 2014. Although we (already!) have a lot planned for the new year, I am hoping it will be much calmer and less stressful than 2013 was. 

My best wishes to all of you for the happiest and healthiest 2014.

Have a great Wednesday and enjoy the first day of 2014!

Thirty Miles and Colorado

I met my goal of running 30 miles this week! The last time I ran 30 miles was the week of August 13, 2012 so this is a huge accomplishment for me. In addition to running 30 miles this week, at about mile two of my run this morning, I crossed from Kansas into Colorado on my transcontinental run. 

I thought the scenery would be better in Colorado but certainly not in this area!

2061.0 mi - "9.51 mi to Sheridan Lake, CO", Kiowa County

My mileage goal for the month of December is 100 miles and, right now, I have 31 left to run. Although it will be colder this week, there aren't any storms in the forecast so I should be able to reach my goal. The ice and snow storms that we recently had prevented me from running a few days so I am now stuck with cramming miles in.

Something to keep in mind during this crazy time of year...

Have a great Sunday!

Working With What You Have

One of the bloggers (www.emilyaclark.com) that I read on a regular basis often features "Working With What You Have" projects on her blog. These "Working With What You Have" posts feature ideas to inspire us to see potential in what we already own. Emily also provides different design tricks to help us make the best use out of what we already have or can easily (and inexpensively) transform. As she notes, "Most of us aren’t living in houses we’ve built specific to our tastes and needs. We’re living in real homes, decorating around other people’s design choices or a builder’s ideas. Or, maybe we’re living with hand-me-down furniture or a set of couches that we invested a lot of money in before we discovered design blogs and our tastes completely changed . . .  While small changes and updates are feasible, most of us aren’t working with the budgets or DIY skill sets that it takes to completely redo, remodel or even reupholster." 

I was so happy to have my very own kinda sorta "Work With What You Have" experience yesterday. Other than minor cosmetic work (painting, updating fixtures/appliances), the renovation of our home excluded the master bathroom and the kitchen. Those are huge projects (and very important to the resale value of our home) and I really want to think about design, cabinetry, tile, etc. before we bite the bullet and renovate those rooms. Maybe Kevin would like to have some input as well! 

For the most part, I have decorated the master bathroom (a new area rug, sheers and accessories made a huge difference!) to a point so that I can live with it for a while. And it might be for a long while considering how much money we spent on the renovations completed to date and the fact that we have two teenagers heading off to college in a few years. I am also okay with the kitchen but, again, to a point. All of the appliances are new, the walls are freshly painted and, although not my style, the cabinets and the counter-tops are in decent condition. I have hung some prints as well as a painting that we bought in Vietnam on the walls, moved a chest that I bought from Tibet into the room and reupholstered the chairs - it is definitely cozy and comfortable and reflects my tastes.

That being said, these tiles on the back-splash have bothered me since July. They are almost as bad as the wallpaper that we had removed from the kitchen.

There are three groupings of them in the kitchen and each grouping is about 8" x 8" square.  

I don't remember them being an issue when we lived in the house 8 1/2 years ago but, considering that I liked that horrible wallpaper then, who knows? Maybe I liked the tiles then too. But not anymore. Each and every time I walked in to the kitchen, I saw them and fixated on how ugly they were and what I could do to get rid of them. However, short of either replacing all of the back-splash (which was not in our budget or plan at this time) or somehow removing those particular tiles and trying to find white replacement tiles to match the existing (too much work!), I didn't know what to do about them. Over the past few months, I thought of several ideas but none that I was completely wild about. Then, Thursday morning, while I was wandering around Kirkland's looking for nothing in particular, a set of prints caught my eye and BAM! There was my solution! 

Voila!

 

 

Although this is not a permanent solution, it is much better than what was there and I am very pleased with how it looks. Even better...each print was marked down to $5.99 so I spent less than $18.00 on the fix. I must confess...once I had my solution in hand, impatience set in and I simply stuck duct tape on the backs of the prints and pressed them on to the tiles. The prints are light enough and duct tape is cheap enough that I am not going to worry about it if they come unstuck.

Not everyone in my family (in fact, no one) was as excited about this transformation as I was. In fact, I think they were all happy simply because they won't have to listen to me complain about the ugly tiles anymore. Now I need to find something else to fixate on.

And another holiday funny for Saturday. I have seen and saved these throughout the year and now is my one chance to post them! 

Have a great Saturday!