Life Lately...

Oh heyyyyyyyyy.  I wonder if you're sick of me talking about California?  I realize I did 5 posts about my trip.  I guess I couldn't help myself.  There was so much to share with you and I wanted to keep re-living each part.  I hope I didn't bore you.

It was hard to get back to reality for a couple weeks after I returned.  And I think it was a bit more than 'post-vacation blues'.  I really missed California.  I missed everything I saw and how I felt out there.  I came back and the seasons had started to change here and it made me sad.  I'm sad to see the summer and sunshine go.  I am a fair-weather gal for sure and unlike a bear, I do not appreciate being forced into hibernation for months on end every year. 

Despite all of that, I am trying to readjust back to my normal life, while still keeping that sunny flame alive.  So since I've talked about CA ad nauseam perhaps you've been wondering what I've been up to lately?  Or maybe not.  My normal life is not nearly as exciting as my road trip life!  Oh well, this is what I've been doing anyway....

1.  I have a new baby at work.  Did I mention that before I left?  I don't think so.  She was born just before I left so she is a WEE little thing! Brand new to the world.  I love newborns.  They are probably my favorite population to work with.  So, now I have two under 2!  All the mommas out there know how crazy THAT can be!  So I've been working a lot and don't have any down time during the day anymore so it's been hard to keep up with blogging.  It still kind of amazes me that I get to work with brand new humans.  I love being there as they see the world for the first time.  It's kind of magical.

2.  Running is still mostly a no-go.  My leg/back of knee didn't bother me AT ALL while I was out in California, and I walked a lot.  Miles upon miles every day, in flip flops no less!  But when I got back home and started working out again it started to bother me!  So I don't know if it's the stress of my day to day life, or some particular workout that aggravated it.  It's quite frustrating since Fall is actually the most ideal running weather.  I've done a couple long walks where I've alternated run/walk mile by mile and it was borderline ok but over the past couple of weeks it has become increasingly irritated :(  So that's where I am with that.  Perhaps one day I'll have a job with health insurance again and I can get to the bottom of it!

3.  As much as I complain about the Fall weather, it is also pretty ideal not only for running, but for hiking.  The leaves have just begun to change here in MD and the woods become so inviting with their new colors.  I went to one of my favorite spots over the weekend (Gunpowder Falls State Park) and felt 'ok' for the first time since I've been back.  There's just something about the outdoors that speaks to the soul, isn't there?  If I could be outdoors 24/7 (in a WARM climate!) I would.  Perhaps I should look into a career as a forest ranger?! 

Behind the beauty of those changing trees lies a hidden warning though.  Winter is coming.  I can't even think about it.  Months of snow and ice sound about appealing as a death sentence right now.

4.  I went to the library last week.  I figured losing myself in alternate realities might help!  Currently reading this book:

It's about showing our true selves to the world, something most of us don't do for myriad reasons.  But the author contends the only way to reach true, deep, meaningful and intimate relationships with each other is to let everyone see exactly who we are.  Not who we want to be, or pretend to be, or who we think we should be.  It's hard to do and I don't think we realize how often we try to cover up parts of ourselves.  It's a good read so far.


Andddddddd that's my life back in Baltimore!  There are still a lot of things going through my mind, spurred by my trip, that I hope to put into action.  I just hope winter does not suck all of the motivation out of me.  It has a way of doing that.

I'm just going to keep reminding myself of this:

"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer." ~ Albert Camus

Oh God, I hope so.


I hope you've all been well :)



How do you feel about Fall?  Can you enjoy it for its own beauty or do you fear what is coming behind it as I do?!

Parents out there:  Any experience with two kids under 2?!

What are you currently reading?

Cats Who Watch TV, Udder Cream and Baby Bums

Hellooooo February. Sorry for being MIA all week.  I have a lot going on on the work front right now and it's currently consuming the majority of my time and energy!  No complaints, but time is just running away from me.  Somehow it's been six weeks since Christmas which feels like an eternity at this point.  Other than work, here's what I've been up to lately:

• Garlic update!  So, remember how I tried curing my Christmas flu with garlic and it didn't work?  Well, last week I felt myself coming down with yet another cold from one of my kids (side note: when you work in someone's home, wipe their nose all day and get coughed on repeatedly, no matter how many times you wash your hands and use sanitizer, you're pretty much guaranteed to catch their germs!) I hit up the garlic hard core.  I started eating raw garlic like I was planning for a vampire apocalypse.  And once again, it didn't work :(  So, I don't know if I'm just not catching these buggers early enough but garlic is 0 for 2 now.  Anyone else ever had success fighting a cold with garlic? 
• In an attempt to feel better from said cold, I left the grocery store last Friday with the cleanest cart full of food you ever did see.  Green smoothies for days.

• Last week the cats (and I) watched "Voices From Auschwitz" on CNN.  It was a special commemorating the 70th anniversary of the death camp's liberation.  Harrowing.  One day, I'd like to see it in person.  Many of the survivors toured the site as part of the anniversary observance, but I can't imagine wanting to go back there ever again if I had lived through it.  Also check out our TV.  We like to keep things as low-tech as possible over here:

• New books!  One for work, but the others are simply for the sweet sweet pleasure of consuming words:



• I wash my hands so much at work, that they are becoming painfully dry and cracking (and yet, I somehow still contract viruses?!).  I just got this cream because it was cheap and had good reviews online but its not impressing me or improving my skin that much.  Also it contains parabens which I'd rather steer clear of.  Anyone in healthcare/teaching/etc have the same issue and can recommend a reallllllllllly good hand cream?  Regular lotions are just not cutting it!

• Gift for one of my new families.  I love the design trend of putting animal faces on the rumps of infant clothing.  If only it were acceptable for me to wear pants like this (I would):

 

• In addition to all this randomness, I've made it my job the past 2 weeks to try out every non-dairy popcorn currently on the market!  Tough job stuffing my face with bags and bags of salty snacks but I am hoping to have a post up soon with the fruits of my labor.  So fear not, my fellow compadres in search of dairy-free snacking goodness, help is on the way!

Has garlic ever cured any of your ills?! 

Have any magic cream that will save my hands?!

Freeze Pop Koozies are the End of Childhood as We Know It

Why hello there and happy Wednesday to you!  I don't know about you, but January is just running away from me.  It's been a flurry of activity so far, and we're already 3 weeks in!  Although it's been busy I still have these undercurrents of energy and excitement pulsing through me.  I still have that same feeling that 2015 is just going to be wonderful :)

And now, I am going to be posting another random list of completely unrelated items.  I feel like I should be planning out my posts better so that there is a common theme to things, but life is pretty random most of the time anyway, isn't it?!  Here we go...

1.  Read this book over the weekend.  Something inside me was set off when I first read "The Diary of Anne Frank" in 6th grade, and ever since then I've been drawn to reading stories and first hand accounts of the Holocaust.  There is something about the 2 extremes of human nature during this period in time that I still can't wrap my head around.  That at one end of the spectrum, humans can be so incredibly resilient and radiate light, and at the other be so incredibly full of darkness and hate.  And every time I read these stories, I wonder if humanity will ever reach a point where we completely extinguish the darkness?

 

 

2.  Tried this stuff for the first time.  I don't eat popcorn often because it's usually coated in either butter or some kind of cheese, which are both no-go's for me.  But this contains just sunflower oil and salt.  At first taste I thought it was kind of bland, and needed more salt, but it became strangely addicting! 

 

 

3.  I intended to go out for a long(er) run this past Sunday but of course it decided to rain and be icy.  So I decided to do some HIIT work instead and grabbed this workout from my Pinterest board.  It's a good one to do at home because it's quick, you don't need any equipment and it will leave you a bit sore!  I did the circuit 3x through which took 27 mins total, but I took 2 min breaks between each circuit (so 24 min total work).  [I also edited it a little and did a few more pushups/squats/crunches than they called for, so you can tweak as you go]

source/via Pinterest

 

 

4.  I went to the grocery store last night in search of zucchini because I have been craving my mom's legendary zucchini bread and wanted to make some myself (it's dairy free!).  I had no idea how bewildering this task would be.  I scoured the produce section over and over in search of zucchini to no avail.  Finally, I happened upon a vegetable that looked EXACTLY like a zucchini but was labeled "Green squash".  WTH?!  (I actually had to text my mom to ask her if this was the same thing!)  Maybe I'm the idiot here b/c I rarely buy zucchini, but is this what supermarkets call it?! What is zucchini called where you live?  And have you ever once in your life heard of "Green Squash Bread".  NO?!  I rest my case.

 

 

5.  I finally started adding some 'speed work' into my running.  I don't ever do tempos or fartleks like all the professional runners out there, and rarely do track repeats (a few times a summer), but I decided to just start adding sprints into my runs.  Genius!  For the treadmill, I started doing little intervals like this: 2 mins slower/1 min sprint, repeat over and over, and then end with a steady pace cool down.  Outside, I just randomly start sprinting every now and then!  I can only hope my made up speed training actually makes me faster for my next race! Hahaha

 

 

5.  And lastly, I was leisurely browsing my daily GroopDealz email this morning when this image caught my eye:

 

What has the world come to when we can no longer expect our children to HOLD THEIR OWN FREEZE POPS without insulating their poor little fingers from the cold?!?! I hope I never live to see the day when a child is actually using one of these.  Americans are soft, man.  That is all.

 

 



Have a great day!

 

 

What do they call zucchini around your parts?!

 

Can you recommend any other good dairy-free (salt only) popcorns to me?

 

Would you ever purchase a Freeze Pop Koozie?!  Please say no.

 

 

 





(Nearly) Wordless Weekend

Happy Hour

 

 

 

 

Currently reading...

 

 

 

Green smoothies on repeat

 

 

 

 

First test-run!!!

 

 

 

 

Planking the day away

 

 

 

 

What did you do this weekend?!



 



Books, Water weight, and Tinder gems

This weekend post is a day late, and I blame it completely on this:

I picked up this book at the library Saturday afternoon, and there went my weekend.  Glued to the pages.  I couldn't stop reading, even though I wanted to, because I knew if I didn't the story would end.  This is a book of fiction, set in WWII Europe, but it felt very real and honestly could have been the story of any number of millions of European children during the war.  The book alternates between the story of Werner, a young German orphan, whose eagerness to escape the mines ends up landing him a spot in Hitler's Third Reich army, and Marie-Laure, a young blind French girl who is displaced from her hometown of Paris due to the German occupation.  Their paths end up fatefully crossing, and that's all I'm gonna say.  [As I was reading, I was imagining some of the places Cely had visited on her recent trip to Europe.  Her photos and writings from that trip were all beautiful.]

So, other than spending two entire days reading that novel did I accomplish anything else useful?

On Friday, I went to the gym after work to do a quick run on the treadmill.  Seeing as I don't own a scale, I rarely weigh myself, but I decided to step on the digital scale in the locker room just for kicks.  Fun right?!  Then, I got on the treadmill and did a quick 3 miles.  I decided to weigh myself again post-run just to see if there was any difference, and I was a full POUND lighter, down to the tenth.  I sweated a fair amount and really didn't drink anything while running but it still surprised me.  I kind of wish I did have a scale because I'd be really interested to see how much water weight I lose on an outdoor run in the summer.  I'm guessing it's got to be at least 2-4 pounds?  Does anyone do this regularly to track their water intake?  I know I definitely don't drink enough water most days, but this inspired me to do so, seeing just how much I lost in 30 mins!

After the gym, I stopped by Wegmans and picked up 2 delicious packages of sushi.  No pic, because I ate it too fast.  Wegmans wins hands down for best supermarket sushi.  I'm leery of eating the sushi at most other grocery stores, but Wegmans never fails. I also picked up a new holiday tea while I was there:

It's yummy.  It's herbal and caffeine free so you can drink it late at night when you're up reading until 2am.  It's very sweet as is because of the caramel flavor and spices, so you really don't need any sugar or sweetener.  Trust me, I added honey like I usually do, and it was overly sweet.

After picking up several new library books on Saturday I had some errands to run.  My book high quickly wore off the second I stepped inside a store and saw holiday decorations everywhere and heard Christmas music playing through store's loudspeakers!?  So I guess we're here already.

Sunday I spent most of the morning lazily lying on my couch, watching a whole bunch of people run some little race in NYC.  The splits the elite men and women were running in the final miles of the marathon were literally blowing my mind.  5 min miles at mile 24?!  I can't even wrap my mind around that.

I had to work Sunday night until after 9pm, but I managed to finish the book by staying up until 1:30am after I got home.  Worth the raccoon eyes the next day. 

Oh, and I thought I'd end this post on a Tinder update.  Yes, I'm still on Tinder but rarely do anything with it anymore, except look at the ridiculous photo "moments" some of these cheesers post.  Like this one:

I mean WHO are these people posting screenshots of their bank accounts to attract women?!?! I just apparently don't understand the courting rituals of humans anymore.  This is why I've been on a total of TWO Tinder dates since I started that debacle back in the summer.  Overabundance of quality here, that's why.

Andddddddddd, that's about all I have.

Happy Monday a day late, which simply means it's Tuesday.



Favorite books this year?

Do you trust supermarket sushi?

Ever measured the water weight you lose on a run?

Do you want to take over my Tinder account?!

A Bunch of Randoms

There were a bunch of things I wanted to mention over the past week, but none of them were long enough for a post, so now I'm going to hit you with a bunch of randoms.  Enjoy!

1.  I just finished reading this book, that I picked up at the book exchange on vacation: 

Apparently, I have the literature interests of a 75 year old man.

 

Truthfully, I didn't know much about Jerry Lewis going into this book, other than that he was the MDA telethon guy.  I picked it up because I'm a big Dean Martin and Rat Pack fan and I must say, I quite enjoyed the book. The insights into what these men and showbiz was like in the 40's and 50's was kind of eye opening.  If you are naïve enough to think that most entertainers and actors in those days didn't have Mob connections and girlfriends on the side (like I was), well, then this will shatter those notions.  But, the relationship between Martin and Lewis, which is the heart of this story, is also incredibly touching and unique. 

 

2.  I baked muffins last week.  By myself.  From scratch.  With real blueberries.  I don't even know who I am anymore:

 

I am becoming a domestic goddess.  Watch out world.

 

3.  I recently bought these running shorts at Forever 21 on a whim (I know, I'm like 10 years past the age limit for that store) and they are probably my favorite running shorts ever right now:

 

 

I don't shop that much for myself but I had just given away a bunch of old, ill-fitting running shorts last month during my Minimalist Game and I had to replenish!  Plus, these were less than $16.  They are incredibly comfortable, loose, breathable and feel way more high end than $16!  I honestly think these are on par with shorts I have from Nike, UA, and Reebok.  And they even have a zip pocket in the back for keys!  If you are not ashamed to walk into your local Forever 21, then I think you owe it to yourself to go check out a pair of these bad boys for yourself.   

 



4.  I won a bunch of coconut water from Walgreens through Twitter a couple weeks ago and have been enjoying it ever since:

 

 



I already enjoy coconut water immensely and drink it pretty often (usually Zico), but I didn't even know Walgreens had their own brand.  I'm guessing maybe this is new and that's why they were hosting a giveaway, but I must say it is indeed Delish.  Yesterday I was out running errands and was so thirsty I actually popped into a Walgreens and bought one of these (yes, I realize I had them at home but that was doing me no good on the other side of town) so that's how much I actually love this stuff.

 

5.  I was introduced to a new blog last week via a guy from Tinder, and I really like it.  It's called People Passionate, and I'd encourage you to give a quick read.  It's not a running blog but it's authored by a guy who left his corporate job to pursue his passion (it's a theme with me lately, what can I say) and he publishes a lot of really positive content.  Soooooo, Tinder hasn't been great for my dating life but I'm getting new blogs out of it so not a total loss, right?!

 

6.  We all know I am addicted to Buzzfeed quizzes.  Sooooo, I took this quiz, and they guessed I am a TEENAGE BOY?!?!  I'm not even going to attempt to analyze that.

 

Quiz/Playbuzz

 

And finally,

 

6.  Last week while on a walk (with a baby in a stroller, mind you) I witnessed an older gentleman gardening IN A SPEEDO.  I can't make this up.  The human race continues to befuddle me on a daily basis.  Ahh well, to each his own!

 

Source

 

 

Here's to another week of exciting adventures ahead!!  Happy Monday y'all.

 

 



What are you reading right now?

Any good running clothing/equipment finds lately?

Seen anything bizarre on a run or walk lately?!