DIY Day

I am anxiously awaiting the UNC playoff game which is set to tip off in about 5 minutes. We barely won on Friday and our star point guard isn't playing again so I am hoping for a miracle because Kansas is a really good team.

I am going to miss the weekend after today. Only 4 school days and a teacher workday til spring break!

Today was a DIY day.

First, we woke up to hail! It lasted about a minute, then turned to rain.

I made my own latte.

We watched 3 episodes of Yard Crashers on DIY and dreamed of what we could do with a house, a yard, and money :)

We grocery shopped, got gas, and a car wash.

Made roasted chickpeas, yum.

Josh finished sanding and I helped stain our table and chairs.

Only 3 chairs to go!

We also started P90X today. This will be a long 3 months!

Time to go watch this game. It's close, but only in the first half. I hope we can make it because the TV guy just said our point guard could play next weekend. Go heels!

hello!

for the (maybe) 2 people who might read this blog, sorry I have been M.I.A. It's been a crazy week (complete with last weekend's craziness) so free time has been few and far between.

I am waiting for Josh to get home to partake in drinking beverages and making dinner. Then UNC plays in the sweet 16 at 7:15pm. I am hoping I can stay awake for the whole game - fingers crossed! ;)

some favorites (off my phone) from the past week:

so happy spring is here :)

March Madness

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

and Happy Saturday!

"March Madness" not only accurately describes the basketball tournament, but also accurately describes my life right now. Work has been crazy. My class is off the chain and I have had to deal with so many things this week, both good and bad. My observation is over, but it was chaotic. I don't know how it went through the eyes of my vice principal, but I'm at least hoping she has a good idea of what I deal with every day, thanks to the diversity of my class.

Enough of school talk - it's the weekend! and 9 school days til spring break. The basketball tournament has been craziness. I lost a final four team as #2 Missouri went down to #15 Norfolk St. My dad picked Mizzou to win it all so he is not a happy camper. In other news, #2 Dook lost to #15 Lehigh. Yeah!!! I fell asleep at 8pm last night (yes, grandma). Luckily Josh did too, but woke back up for a few hours. He came to bed at 3 and I woke up. He then told me the wonderful news about Dook. I was laughing until I fell back to sleep. see yuh dookies.

UNC is still alive as they blew out their opponent. I could win some mullah if they win it all! And I'd be a happy tarheel of course :)

Green + Heels for the holiday

Josh and I went for a run on Tuesday. His mom had sent me a recipe she called "BEST EVER Vegan Smoothie". I didn't have all the ingredients, but in a blender I put:

-2 small frozen banannas

-about 2 handfuls of tiny strawberries

-1 cup of soy milk

-2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

I worked on math plans as I drank my smoothie. It was good! She said it was an option to add cashews and agave nectar, but I didn't have either. It also calls for frozen strawberries but I felt the consistency was perfect. It was a tasty smoothie. I am excited for the warmer weather because I love smoothies.

I also ran last night (about 2 miles) and I plan to run after I finish this blog post. I have a big day ahead. After I run I need to shower and get ready for a day of being downtown (which includes figuring out what to wear - temperatures in the upper 70s, low 60s at night and a chance of thunderstorms all day, but sunny...how to dress for that, I do not know). Then we are going out to lunch for my older sister's birthday and gearing up for the all day bar crawl! Charlotte hosts the "world's largest" pub crawl for St. Patty's Day. I went last year and am really excited for this year because I will have Josh, Jen, and Roy with me! Plus all my coworkers, like last year. Should be a fun day and night!

Hope everyone enjoys their St. Patrick's Day! Be safe! :)

stressed?

I want to forget Tuesday. It was not a fun day in Kindergarten land.

Josh and I did run 2 miles and walk about .8 miles back to the car last night. The weather was perfect.

Today was a little better in Kindergarten, but still hectic.

I went to my mom's for dinner with my sister's family + my aunt who is in town. We sat outside for a while talking and watching the kiddies play. It was really nice. Perfect weather, yet again. We also all filled out brackets and I am excited for March Madness to start tomorrow!

I know I took some pictures recently, but I will find time to upload eventually.

Right now I am exhausted and I have my last observation of the year tomorrow. I need to get some sleep and try to not get completely stressed. What happens, happens. I just need to do the best I can do and stay clam. Why is that so hard to remember when the time comes?


Tomorrow, I will be writing a celebratory and happier post :)

goodnight!

5 Happy Monday Things!

I'm in bed (Josh is beside me, talking to Pepper - weirdo) and my eyes are starting to close slowly but surely. Josh still has more work to do unfortunately. Guess it'll just be Pepper and I snuggling in bed for a while (edit: Pepper just peed on the ground cause she was mad Josh left - no more Pep in bed). I've gotten caught up on Pinterest and should be asleep!!

5 Happy Things (quickly)

1. Pepper being cute

2. making more chickpeas and croutons

3. making my bracket! I love March Madness

4. reading hilarious someecards on Pinterest

5. beautiful weather!


Tomorrow morning I plan to wake up a tad early to do a quick workout before showering. Then Josh and I are going to go for a run when he gets home from work. The high is 75 tomorrow! 70ish when he gets home from work it says. I also see 80s for Thursday. Craziness. Goodnight!

Run For Your Lives

Although Mondays make me want to run for my life, that is not what the title of this post is referring to. I'll get to that after all of my boring rambles about Monday.

I woke up today and it felt so early, thanks to the time change. It was pitch black when I left the house, making it harder for me to fully awaken before I got to school. Plus, I just didn't want to get out of bed. The dark, quiet room made me want to stay under the covers for hours.

School wasn't too bad today. We went to an assembly called The Ned Show for about an hour this morning. This girl did a whole skit about being "champions" of life and school for the kids - she was really animated and did all these cool yo-yo and balloon tricks. Whatever she is having, I want some of! This girl was non-stop energy. She was pretty funny and the little ones really enjoyed it. Not so sure they got the message about how to never give up and encourage others all the time though :)

Josh had a run in with a sheriff coming to our door this morning. We are assuming there is another person with my Gramps' name, because this sheriff was trying to serve him with papers in a civil suit from another county! Still an interesting way to start a Monday morning (poor Joshua).

I stayed at school a little late to write some emails and catch up from the weekend. When I got home, I ate some new garlic hummus I got at Harris Teeter last night (it's so good!), plus half a tortilla and some carrots to go with it.

Josh posted on my Facebook a website of a run that is happening in Florida in November. It is a 5K"zombie" obstacle course. Josh loves zombies and it's an excuse to go to Florida. It sounds like a lot of fun and I think something I would be interested in doing! I did a 4 mile obstacle course called the Mud Run my senior year of college and it was a blast. I am always up for new things when it comes to fitness!

Run For Your Lives!

We also need to register for our Pub (bar) Crawl that is this weekend. Not exactly in the realm of running, but fun in a different way :)

I have a ton of laundry to put away that is all clean now, I want to make some more roasted chick peas, and then get a run in before I figure out what to make for dinner. I also thought about doing a yoga DVD, but we'll see how I feel. I was feeling a little off last night! Josh has to work late tonight, so I'm crossing my fingers it isn't too too late. I will also come up with my 5 Happy Monday things for later this evening. One will probably be the weather - it is gonna be a gorgeous week!

old people stuff

Today was pretty productive. We:
-did tons of laundry
-cleaned the kitchen
-cleaned the downstairs bathroom
-made croutons
-made roasted chick peas
-cleaned out some stuff from the garage (Josh really did most of it)
-cleaned out a closet
-vacuumed
-got groceries


UNC lost the ACC Championship game to Florida State, which the majority of my afternoon was spent watching. It's okay though, we were without one of our best players, who should be okay for the tournament. We got a #1 seed in the tourney and I'm excited to fill out my bracket. March Madness is one of my favorite times of the year!

tired pup

While I was doing croutons and chick peas, Josh made more fried pickles. Might be why he has a stomach ache this evening ;) Pepper is really funny when we have food on the table. She sits right next to it and longingly stares at it.

Fried pickles really don't look that appetizing, Pep.

After the game, my mom came over to get some of Gramps' stuff out of the garage/condo to give to Goodwill and so that we can finally have room again to put 2 cars in the garage. Josh is still finishing up sanding a table and chairs to move up to our top deck. We're excited for warm weather so we can sit up there and have dinner/drink as the sun goes down. Spring needs to hurry!

While cleaning out the garage, we found some more interesting things. I told my mom that if I randomly saw the back of the truck, I could have guessed she raided an old person's home. However, we came accross something hilarious that Josh wants to proudly display. Currently, it's at the bar, but we put it facing our neighbor's (with the obnoxious Spongebob curtains) for a short time. Presenting, the wooden bird:

You just never know what you'll find in that garage. I'm sure there's more treasures to be uncovered. Luckily, I feel accomplished as the weekend comes to a close. Tomorrow I want to run and do yoga after school. As always, I'm dreading Monday, but there is pretty weather this week that I'm looking forward to. Plus this next weekend is supposed to be nice and we have a St. Patty's Day bar crawl to attend :) Hoping the next 5 days go by quick!

Pepper's snoring beside me, time for some sleep. Morning comes early.

spring forward

I don't like this whole losing an hour of sleep business. I feel like I lose an hour of productivity, or an hour of laziness before I am productive. I can't believe it's already past 11! I want to do a recap of my weekend so I can pretend it's not Sunday and that the best part of the week is not almost over.

Friday Night
I met Josh uptown (thanks to my mom dropping me off again) after he got off work. We walked to the Epicenter, again, for dinner. This time we went to Carolina Ale House. We got a pitcher of Bud Light to share - I told Josh that I think I had finally acquired the taste for beer. I made it through college without doing so! haha.

Josh ordered fried pickles because he'd been craving them. I had a few. I know they're not the best for you, but I wanted to try a few. They aren't my favorite, but I like them in moderation. Josh got a humongous burger for dinner and I got a yummy greek salad. I forgot to take a picture, but it was delicious.

We made our way to Time Warner Cable Arena for the game. We were excited when we found our seats because we were so close! It was throwback night and the Bobcats wore their AB team "Cougar" jerseys and the NJ Nets wore their NY Nets jerseys. It was weird seeing Kris Humphries close up - I would quietly chant "Kim" every time he shot free throws ;) The "Cougars" lost, but it was still fun!

Saturday Night

As I already recapped the excitement of Carolina beating State and the fact Dook lost, plus that I cleaned, ran, ate, etc. we went to my older sister's to hang out. We did some dancing, playing with the kiddies, and hanging out by the fire (even though I was still freezing!) Jennifer grilled some chicken and veggies on the grill. They were finally ready at like 10 pm, but I scarfed down some veggies right off the grill - they were really delicious! We left around 10:30 when my younger sister and her friend left. Josh and I were both really tired. We are old people.

Kylan was so funny - the flash was too bright for his eyes.

This morning

I woke up a few times this morning and looking at different clocks, trying to figure out what time it was. We finally were up at 9ish, which felt like 8ish to our bodies. Josh went out to get some caribou and I made breakfast. I made Josh two sausage and cheese English Muffins and I had veggie sausage and a piece of toast.

Josh

me

These are the sausages I use:

I think Josh is getting annoyed with me sitting here as he cleans up all around the house. I have laundry to do and working out before UNC plays in the ACC championship game at 1:00. Plus I have to do lesson plans (boo) and we need to go to the grocery store. Hope you have a happy Sunday before Monday morning hits!

Saturday Fun!

This will be a very quick post - I'm about to head out to dinner at my sister's.

Last night I went to the free Bobcats game we won on Tuesday. It was fun!

My day in a nutshell: Woke up. Was lazy. Did a ton of cleaning. Treadmill workout. Margaritas. Salad. Kale chips. Basketball. Laura (sister) came over. Hookah. UNC BEAT STATE. DUKE LOST. More basketball. Josh attempted to make fried pickles. He then succeeded to make fried pickles. Shower. Now we are all about to head out to my older sister's.

More exciting post to come tomorrow with more details ;)

Have a fun Saturday night!

randomness

Today will be a bunch of random thoughts.

Last Night's Dinner
Last night I attempted an actual real dinner. I made a version of couscous and veggie stuffed tomatoes from my Forks Over Knives cook book. It was pretty simple to make - the hardest part, I thought, was hollowing out the tomatoes. There's gotta be a easy way to do that. It took me forever. I sauteed onion, kale, garlic, and mixed in some steamed broccoli, combined it with the couscous, and then put this mixture inside the tomato.

Josh really liked it. I wasn't very hungry and ate half. I thought it was good, but a little bland. Josh ended up putting some balsamic vinegar dressing on his and he said it was really good. Later, I ended up eating some chips with Josh. My hunger returned.

School

The girlies in my class were very sweet today. One of them gave me an invitation to her birthday party. Another one made me a bracelet during free centers.

So stylish.

Draw Something

I'm loving this pictionary game. My sister and I had a funny conversation relating to it today. I made myself laugh out loud...I'm so funny ;)

There have been some downs to the day. First of all our field trip (scheduled in April) got canceled. Thanks CMS and school. There are going to be some unhappy parents paired with the already unhappy teachers.

I have had 2 stomach aches today. I also just feel really blah and have no energy. Therefore, I declared this weekend a cleansing weekend. I have really been off track with my lent resolution and I need to assess how I feel when I don't put healthy foods into my body. When I eat better, I feel better. So, after tomorrow's night out, I am going to be eating tons of fruits and veggies while drinking lots of water. Then next week I am cutting out junk and candy for real. It's never too late to set new goals!

Speaking of goals, Josh and I are tossing around the idea of doing P90X together. I like setting goals and having something to work towards. We're either going to do that or train for a half marathon. Decisions, decisions :)

Terrific Tuesday

I had a very busy day yesterday and wasn't able to post! I also wanted to do a Monday night post, but of course fell asleep before 9:30pm, so I am dedicating this post to 5 Happy Tuesday things to make up for Monday, because my Tuesday was awesome!

1. Hilarious conversations between my kiddies.

2. Seeing these cuties

3. Seeing this cutie passed out with his Batman toy (I spy Sierra's tiny feet)

4. Dinner and Bobcats game with the boy (Bobcats won! Josh was sad because the only reason we went was for the Magic - I had fun heckling him at the game)

5. And probably the most exciting thing that's happened to me in a while? We won these:

We won 2 free lower level tickets to Friday's game! We found these papers in two empty seats beside us and Josh went to claim the prize it said they won, which happened to be these tickets! We are excited for another night out downtown. I really had fun last night. We can use the money we save on tickets on Friday to buy food and beverages :)

I have a million things to do for work, dinner to make, and I may make some more roasted chickpeas and crutons (I did this on Sunday - I will post recipes once perfected!). Josh really liked both, as did I! I also want to try to squeeze in a run, but we'll see if that happens. I am obsessed with a new iPhone game (when am I not?) called Draw Something and it has already cut into my productivity this afternoon. Time to get stuff done!

Disney: Race Day

I am laying in my bed and it's pretty outside. It is nice to relax after a long day at work (case of the Mondays for sure). Josh and I have been texting about a bunch of different stressors today, so I am excited about this post for the mere fact of escaping back into my incredible runner's high.


Disney: The Run
Race morning my first alarm went off at 3:15am. I was out of bed and brushing my teeth by 3:19. I got dressed, laid out food to take with us (bananas, banana oat bars, and mini Luna bars we got at the expo), did my hair/headband, and got all my accessories ready. We left the room around 3:45 to catch the shuttle from the hotel to Epcot.

On the bus ride over, Jennifer and I ate the bananas and banana oat bars. We arrived to tons of other shuttle buses and runners (27,000 people ran this race!!). We walked for a while and got to the bag check spot. We met up with our team "captain" (NF lady) so she could take a picture of us and wish us luck. We left that area and made our way to the corrals. It took us a good 20-30 minutes to walk there. I ate my Luna bar on the walk over.

We were in corral B (they had corrals A-H I think) and made it just after 5am. We were scheduled to start at 5:45. I killed time on my phone and we took some pictures.

Tebowing, for Joshua

I actually left off something running related. The weather that morning was in the 50s and was not supposed to go up much during the race. I debated wearing running capris, but the only ones I brought made me chafe last year - I brought shorts because it was supposed to be warmer. I decided to go with the shorts. My bottom half never gets too cold anyway. I wore some pants and a jacket that my mom was going to give to Goodwill while we waited for the race to begin. They have all these bins you can throw clothes into to donate because a lot of people wear "throw away" clothes. While we were waiting, I gave Jennifer my jacket because she was really cold and I felt okay...plus I had been using it to stay warm for a while. I took the pants off about 5 minutes before our corral started. The shorts were perfect and I actually got hot and sweaty in the lightweight long sleeved shirts we wore under our jerseys, but it was the kind of sweaty I didn't notice too much while running because it was still chilly out.

Around 5:45, our corral was off! We were in a large herd of people. It was really hard for about the first 2 miles to pick up a good pace because of the amount of people. Josh was "tracking" me and my splits were sent to his phone. Our first 5k was around a 13 minute per mile pace, but we decreased that time every 5k because the crowd of people thinned out and we were actually able to run.

In the Disney Princess Half Marathon, they have tons of characters throughout the course you can stop to take pictures with. We stopped once to try and snap a quick picture of Buzz Lightyear (Kylan's new obsession), but other than that we didn't stop for any pictures. I tried to take some pictures on my phone while running, but they all came out blurry (shocker). I think the best one I got was going into the castle (my favorite part!)

Jennifer dropped her camera at this point and luckily some nice person picked it up and some other people stopped to tell her. The castle was around mile 6 and I was still feeling good. We ran through the kingdom, and this was my favorite part last year. It was still awesome. After the kingdom comes this long flat stretch of road for a few miles. I remember dreading this last year. We stopped for our first powerade break then because I could tell I was starting to run out of fuel. This was around mile 7 or 8. When I hit mile 9, I knew the rest would be difficult because 9 miles was the most I was able to run in my training due to sickness.

Around mile 10 I believe, they gave us Cliff shots of goo. I got the chocolate flavor which actually was tasty. However, my legs were killing me, I was fighting with myself in my head trying to block out the pain, was just telling my legs to keep moving, and it was all I could do to open up the packet and try to eat the gel while still moving. I did feel like it helped and I could tell I had a little more energy about half a mile after that, but come mile 11, I was back to pain and exhaustion. The last 2 miles were like a blur. There were some roads, curves, a huge screen, and lots of things on the side (like more characters, people in stilts, and a choir). Every step hurt and my right ankle started to do this weird pulsing thing. I wanted to stop and walk, but Jennifer kept running. I tried to pick up my pace to keep up, but I couldn't. Then I realized that I just needed to finish for me, not for any one else. Jennifer did pull ahead and end up beating me by about 30 seconds, but I realized that I didn't need to kill myself just to finish beside her.

The last mile I probably pushed my iPhone button 5 times to see how much time had passed (on my Nike+) and if I was almost there. I went around a loop, turned a corner and saw the finish line. One of the best feelings ever. I tried to start sprinting the best I could and crossing that line was a feeling of pure elation. 

Right before I crossed the finish!

My whole body hurt and I had to hobble to walk, but when I got that medal around my neck, I was the happiest girl in the world. I found Jennifer, and saw Roy and Josh in the crowd. They took a picture before they came to find us.

I grabbed water, powerade, and a box of goodies (food) they provided us with. I downed the water and started on the powerade. We talked about the race, found our "captain" lady and took some pictures. I smiled through the exhaustion, but it was genuine happiness.

I hobbled over to Epcot (seriously, I felt like an old lady. I know Josh was laughing on the inside, but was very sweet about it) and we took some pictures in front of the "ball" just like we did last year.

Time spent doing a half marathon?

2 hours and 20 minutes (9 minutes less than last year!)

Feeling after running 31.1 miles?

priceless :)