A Picture Paints a Thousand Words

so this post is going to have like 10,000! :-) Sorry I kind of dropped the ball this past week. I really did want to write out some of my thoughts and epiphanies I've been having the past couple of weeks, I've just been super busy at work. And, here at work, that comes first. But I do have a bit of time to include some pictures for your viewing pleasure. It's Friday-- have a great weekend!

Girl's Day 2010! Another Pioneer Woman Recipe- SO good!




A Perfect Day for Laying Out and Eating Ice Cream!



Fort Worth Zoo- 4/26/10



Kute Kudu!



Feeding the Birds



Don't be sad, I'll be your friend!



My Favorites



We humans think we're creative, but God made this!



Emperor Tamarin-- I now have the stuffed animal :-) Thanks Deb!



One of Hubby's Favorites



Gorgeous!



So Many Roses



One of our best pictures



Don't these make you smile?



To life... full of God's amazing creation!

My New Favorite Race?

Good Monday Everyone! I have a lot of thoughts, ideas, epiphanies, questions swirling in my mind right now, so I'm going to try to take this week to write some of them down. But today I'm going to start off with my new accomplishment over the weekend. On Saturday our team met up and drove to the Ft. Worth Zoo for our run. It was dark and early-- but I got to have a jelly doughnut, so I didn't mind being up for that :) It was a bit chilly, but still close to 60 degrees by this time. We found parking pretty easily and waited around for awhile before the aerobic exercise began. Up to that point, we planned on just watching everyone else, but Courtney, Amy, and I decided to join. We did some jogging in place, toe touches, knee stretches, and jumping jacks to get our heart rates going and loosen up our muscles. They said it would actually help our performance in the race and I think it did. Want to see our new moves? I also got a picture with my awesome new race bag! We weren't exactly thrilled that this is what they dubbed our 'race bags' for the weekend. But life goes on. We started lining up for the race around 6:50 am. Most of our team was able to make it, even though it had rained most of the night and called for continual showers through the day.

Southwestern Squirrels

It was actually super-great weather for a race: in the low 60s and cloudy. I wore a sleeveless running shirt with my running capris and shorts and I was very comfortable throughout the race. We got started and several of us stayed together through the zoo. Sadly, the only (part of an) animal I saw was some alligator legs. And I'm not even 100% sure that's what it was. Running through the zoo is MUCH different than strolling through...

Around mile 2 we started running some hills... and boy, did they continue throughout the race! I was suprised by the amount of hills there were. Now I'm not saying they were all steep and long, but after a certain point, any incline seems more like a mountain than a speed bump. Throughout the race, I was feeling good. My heart never felt like it was going to pound out of my chest, my legs felt strong, and I was truly able to enjoy myself! I talked to a couple of people throughout the race, but thoroughly enjoyed just being outside on a cool morning enjoying the scenery around me. Once I hit mile 5 it began to sprinkle, but at this point it felt awesome! I was starting to get pretty warm, so it came at really the perfect time. It wasn't a hard rain at all, just a nice light shower. I kept checking my watch at each mile marker and could tell I was going to meet my goal, so I kept pushing myself in hopes of truly smashing it!
Here's the clip of me finishing the race:
I was able to push a little harder at the end and pass the lady in the black. We had been pretty close throughout the race. I had passed her at one point early on, then she went around me just before mile six, then I was able to pass her at the finish! She told me afterwards that she paced off of me-- I was excited to hear that! It made me feel like I'm truly becoming a runner. I was noticing the other people around me during the race and I was able to stay up with the "skinny" runners. It made me happy because I know I'll never see myself this way, but knowing that I'm keeping pace with them makes me feel like I'm really reaching my goals!!

The race went really awesome and my offical time was 63'07"- a new personal best! My pace is improving greatly because I was able to put out 10'10" miles! I was pleased with my time because that means I beat last year's time by over 5 minutes. I had a really great time and am learning more and more that I enjoying running. It has been especially helpful to have such a sweet and encouraging running buddy. I can't believe she is moving on May 7th-- so soon :-(

I am really going to miss her!

I think this may be my new favorite race. I enjoyed the half marathon, but this length, 6.2 miles, just felt really good. It could also be that on a lot of my long runs I run for about an hour, so my body is pretty used to it. But who knows? I had a great time and am looking forward to my next race on Labor Day! To life... full of hills to conquer and hugs of goodbye.

Progress Report

Remember getting those in grade school? I do. I liked them :)

Today I am excited about several things related to my weight loss. I wanted to share them on here because sometimes I feel like just telling everyone I talk to about my weight loss either makes them bored or makes them frustrated with their own struggles. But on here, I feel like I'm free to say these things and will receive support.

#1. Today I realized that I am using the last notch on my belt... as in the tightest one!

#2. As of this morning, I have 4.8 lbs. to lose to reach my goal!

#3. On Wednesday, I zipped up a pair of size 8 jeans. The last time I did that was... wait a second, I don't ever remember wearing that size. Seriously... EVER!

#4. This brings my grand total of weight loss since coming to Seminary to: 29.6 lbs.

Thanks for sharing in this journey with me. It's tough to lose weight, but it helps me so much to know I have support and encouragement from all of you!

Tomorrow is the Ft. Worth Zoo Run. I will be doing the timed 10K.
Time to beat: 68' 52" from last year's Cowtown.
My goal: 65'
I think that equals out to be about 10' 30" miles, which is what I ran in the Cowtown half. So, honestly, I hope I can do a little better than that, but I don't want to set my goal too high and not feel like I made progress. 65 minutes will be great! Plus I'm about 17 lbs. less than when I ran this race last year. I'm thinking that will be a significant factor in shaving off time. I'll try to make sure to get some pictures and let you know how I've done! To life... full of achieving your goals!

Reasons Why

Today you get to experience my great mind at work ;-)

I was in the bathroom; someone in the stall next to me flushed, struggled to open the bathroom door, then walked out. Do you see a missing step here? Because I sure do. No turning on of water? No paper towels being used? Soap? AGH! It really grosses me out when people don't wash their hands after being in the bathroom. Seriously, I can think of few things more disgusting, particularly in a public restroom. Thereby, reaffirming my strong belief in always opening the door with a paper towel on the way out! Also, I want to ask people why they don't wash their hands. Does it really take that long to rub your hands together under some water, add some soap, and then dry? Too much time? Don't want to dry out their hands? Didn't "really" get dirty? None of the above seem like very good reasons 'why' to me. Which made me think of the song by Nickel Creek. I hadn't heard it for a long time, so I jumped on YouTube and found it. I have missed this song. It is one of my favorites by them. So I thought I'd share it with you today. To go along with my wonderful, thought-provoking post.

Reasons Why by Nickel Creek

Sorry, they didn't allow embedding. But you can follow the link and it should play for you! To life... full of dirty hands and good music

Food Fantasy Frenzy

Ever have one of those days where you can't stop thinking about food? And not just any food, bad-for-you-food. And the reason you know you want this food is because you've tried the alternative, yay-I'm-eating-healthy-today-food, and it's just not cutting it. For example, this morning for breakfast I had a bowl of Red Berries Special K and a banana-- pretty good in my opinion. Then I brought a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch and actually sliced up a couple of strawberries into the sandwich. But then I ate that at 10 am because I was already starting to consider the miniature reese's pb cups in my drawer. Then lunch time rolls around and I'm left with nothing until Jeremiah returns because I already ate my sandwich, so I try a baked potato around 2 pm.Another good choice in my book and I was thankful to have lasted this long... but what did this leave me thinking about??

Taco Bell Crunchwrap Supreme

Paglia's Pizza Buffet


Two chicken enchiladas with rice and beans from Vallarta's

The awesome ice cream sandwich from last weekend!

Jalepeno Poppers

Cici's Pizza Buffet

a blizzard from DQ


Coffee ice cream with brownie mix-in from Coldstone (am I right, sis?)

So what do you do when that happens? Or am I the only one who struggles through days like these? Keep making good choices (which, honestly, I'm surprised I've made it this far without sending Jeremiah to one of these locations!) the rest of the day, or indulging a little? To life... a food-filled one!

A Wonderful Weekend!

This past weekend was a ton of fun and I was very thankful that we had three whole days to enjoy it. There was so much to do! It started with a little of this:


and ended with this...


Mmmmm! Wanna know what happened in between? All right, I'll fill you in.

Thursday night after work, Jeremiah and I decided to eat out for an early birthday celebration. We decided on a new restaurant-- Charleston's. It was AWESOME! We really enjoyed it. We got spinach and artichoke dip for our appetizer, Jeremiah got a steak and baked potato for his meal

Birthday Boy Dinner

and then we ate the delicious dessert you saw at the beginning. Yum! It was an "Ice Cream Sandwich" which was made up of two fudge brownies sandwiching vanilla ice cream, laying on a pool of raspberry sauce, topped with a whipped cream/mousse and then chocolate shavings--WOW! And we ate it all. You heard me, the entire thing, even after all the other food we had because it would have been wrong, WRONG I tell you, to leave any of it on the plate. We felt no regrets as we walked, maybe more of a waddle, out of there, with our doggy bag in hand, not able to fully stand up (that may have just been me) due to our extremely full, taut stomachs. It was the perfect kick-off to our weekend.

On Friday, baking ensued. I had a dozen cupcakes to make for someone who had won one of my gift certificates. So I made her these Easter cupcakes:


I was able to pawn off the rest of the cupcakes to some friends and was thankful. I was feeling just a twinge of guilt about the food-fest from the night before. But obviously not more than a twinge because I did try a cupcake before sending them off. Hey! I can't just give away sub-par cupcakes, right?

I also baked the birthday cake during this time and was happy that I was staying right on track with my timeline for the weekend :) In the afternoon we went to Wally's Party Factory and Dollar Tree to buy decorations and paper products. Then we went to Aldi and got a good portion of the food for the party. I even had a coupon for Aldi, so I got $10 off a purchase of $40 or more which was definitely a blessing! I bought three packages of strawberries to set out with my fruit dip for the party. I was happy because I got them for $1.49 per 16 oz. container. Then we went to Kroger and what did I see? Strawberries were on sale for $.99 per 16 oz. container! I couldn't believe it! I turned to Jeremiah and put on a big smile and insisted that I would happily use up all that I bought, plus my hands were already pulling them from the shelves-- four more boxes worth! With my new found sale, I decided to make strawberry jam-- what better use of beautiful berries? We finished up our shopping excursion and headed home briefly. I decorated the cake and it went much faster than I planned and I was quite happy with how it turned out. It was a Hello Kitty cake because our friend Carrie loves her and Jeremiah doesn't really care what it looks like, as long as it tastes good. We worked in the nursery that night during the Good Friday service and then played some Mario Party on the Wii once we got home.
Saturday, Jeremiah's 25th birthday, I woke up and made him a birthday breakfast. Monkey Bread and Coffee :) Sad, but true, I didn't even really make the coffee. He had it all measured out the night before, so all I had to do was push the button because honestly, I don't know how to make coffee. Sure, I could read the label and figure it out, but everyone likes their coffee in different ways: strong, medium, weak. For each of those, how much coffee do I put in? How much water? So I *pushed* the button on the coffee maker :) and made the monkey bread. It was the first time I'd ever made it and it turned out splendid! See for yourself!


Then I stuck in a candle and carried it in singing "Happy Birthday" in my best 7:55 AM voice. Ugh! Probably not the best rendition...but this made up for it... I think.


We walked the dog, then Jeremiah, poor guy, headed off to work and I went to take a 5-mile run with my friend Courtney. It was a rough one and we even stopped to walk for a while, but it was good just to get out there and exercise admist all the eating that had already taken place and was about to continue in t-minus 7 hours. I got back and started decorating the apartment. It was a lot of fun and I was able to take my time since I was right on track with my time-line (yeah, I really loved that thing!) I bought pink and lime green streamers which I thought went very well together. But they didn't show up in the pictures. Here's a little look into the decorations:


I liked how this area turned out!


Then I took a shower, ate a little, and got started on the cooking. I cooked up some breakfast sausage and onions to make the queso dip and hamburger, bacon, and onion for the calico beans. I got those put together in their respective crockpots and then *gasp* I had time for a break. So I played some more Mario Party! It's a fun game! Our friends let us borrow it for the birthday party. Then I dumped the rest of the hamburger ~7 lbs. into a big bowl, seasoned it, and made them into 23 patties! Then, ok, wait a second, maybe I'm going into too much detail. I used to do this as a child, and I guess I still fall into old habits. Let's see if I can just take one step back... hmm... I made the hamburgers, got on my party clothes, and then our first friends arrived. They came early to help us grill and do last minute prep. I was so thankful! We had a grand time. There were 15 of us crammed into our tiny apartment, but it was definitely fun. We played Super Mario Bros., ate supper-- the queso dip was a big hit and gone by the end of the night!--, played the Easter Egg game I came up with, Apples to Apples,


had cake and ice cream and we even had ice cream cones!!



Then the birthday boy and girl opened up a few presents and we chatted. Some guests had to start leaving about this time, but a few stayed and played the game, The Last Word. Then most everyone else left except for a couple of couples :) We talked for awhile, then they headed out around 10:45 pm. I was very happy with how everything turned out. I really enjoyed hosting all those people at our place. It was a blast!

Finally on Sunday we got to relax. We watched Jeremiah's new movie "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" and took a nap. Then I made two batches of strawberry jam!


I'll find out tonight how it turned out because it needs to set up for 24 hours. I'm quite excited to try it. And now we have, hopefully, a good six months supply of jam! I'm hoping to make another batch so it will last us through most of the year and I'd also like to try a new kind--Raspberry-Peach Jam. Doesn't that sound wonderful? I found it as a suggestion in the Sure-Jell box. I'm thinking if I make a batch of that to add to the mix we could be set on our jam for the year. Hooray! We love jam! And I hope you love this post because I sure had a fun weekend making memories for it. To Life!

April's Here

Can't believe I just typed that, but I'm also excited. I love the springtime and I love the months of April and May because it usually means the cold weather is behind us and we're going to have some sweet days of sunshine and warmth! Today's my last day of work for the week and I'm so glad. I'm ready for a three-day weekend, especially one that's looking to be packed full of fun :-) As I was looking through my four pages of notes, yes 4, for Jeremiah's birthday party I'm already having to do some switching around of what I'm going to do when... and I don't like it. I'm trying to learn that having a plan is good, but having a plan and being willing to be flexible with it is even better. I don't want to turn this weekend of fun into a drag just because I'm not following my exact timeline and don't have the cake decorated by precisely 3:15 pm on Friday. It will be OK and even if, by golly, I'm not entirely prepared with every single detail by the time the first guest arrives, IT WILL BE OK!! Whew! That's hard to tell myself and even harder to believe. But I thought I should just type it out and relieve some of my perfectionist planning pains. I can do this! We will have fun! And mistakes probably will happen, I just need to laugh at them instead of feeling like a failure.
Ok, and let's see if I can come up with one last tribute to Jeremiah before his big day...

Happy Birthday Sweetie!