Week 5: Running

Lance and I were supposed to run a 5K this past weekend, but because he was on call (and I didn't feel ready) we decided to skip the race. He didn't want to be 15 minutes away from his truck and his pager go off! That would be terrible to go into an emergency case all sweaty and stinking! haha! Instead of running, we did a lot of eating! My sister, Lauren, and her husband, Eddie, were in town for the weekend. They came home to run some errands for the baby boy and to visit. All my mom did was cook delicious food all weekend and instead of exercising and trying to get in better shape, Lance and I just fell off the wagon and went back to our old habits of eating!

Today has already started out good! We ran this morning at 5:45 like usual and we bumped it up to running for 5 minutes, walking for 3, running for 5, walking for 3, and finishing it with another 5 minute run. I'm actually starting to feel like I'm getting better and lasting longer! I used to run all the time and just as I would get in shape and feel good, something would happen and I would stop and not pick it up again for another 4-5 months! I'm hoping that we can keep working out for at least 3 or 4 days a week even after our 5K run in October!

For the last few weeks, I've been doing ab workouts and rotating leg and arm workouts after we get back from our morning run. It feels so good to know that by 8:30 I've already worked out for the day and it's behind me! I just hope I can keep this up after I get a full time job!

Running: Week 4

Last week, I thought running for 3 minutes was torture but this week actually made it bareable. We started out this morning by walking for 5 minutes then we ran for 5 (this is where running for 3 minutes started to not sound so bad). After that we walked for 2 1/2 minutes then ran for 3 minutes followed by walking for 90 seconds.

Lance and I are going to enter a 5K Road Race on Saturday, August 29 for a little girl named Caroline. Her dad works at the hospital and her mom is the sister of my second grade teacher (Miss Huggins) even though Lance and I might not be ready, it's for a really good cause. Each person pays a $15 registration fee and a few prizes will be given out to some of the winners. It should be a really fun run!

Running, Birthday Dinners, and Baths

Yesterday, I didn't have to work and therefore I slept until 9:45! It was completely by accident because I usually set my alarm clock and get up around 8 even if I don't have real plans for the day. I used my free time to clean out some junk I brought home from school with me and ended up throwing away 3 trash bags full of old papers and tests. Lance got off work around 3 and was really tired, so while he took a little nap, I decided to go for a run since I missed our morning run on Wednesday. Running at 4:30 is never a good idea and because it was so hot, I only got in about 20 minutes.

Last night was Stacey's birthday and so Stacey, Tammy, Kyle, Kayla, Lance and I all went out to eat at the new Gator Tails. It's pretty pricey, but Lance and I ended up splitting a dinner and it was much cheaper! The highlight of the night was when I realized Lance had eaten our other hush puppy (which is my favorite thing with sea food) and Stacey tried to be nice and give me his other one. What he didn't realize was that he had already taken a bite out of it! I think he was really embarrassed, but we all got a good laugh out of it!

After our Friday morning run, I decided to give baby Finn a bath. No one believes us, but he will actually follow you into the bathroom and step into the tub by himself if you pull back the curtain! This morning he had one of his "babies" (a fox to be exact) in his mouth when he stepped into the tub. I guess he thought it needed a bath too! If you've ever bathed a 68 pound dog, you know how difficult it is to do alone! I ended up standing in the bathtub with Finn and getting pretty wet myself, but all in all he does smell better and that was the goal! Hopefully he won't get too dirty again this weekend with all the rain we are supposed to be having!

Happy Friday!

TV Terrors

For about three weeks now, I've been obsessed with watching television shows based on murders. One of the shows is called Snapped and is based on stories of women who have ultimately "snapped" and ended up killing people (usually their abusive husbands). Lance hates this show because he says all those women are just crazy! haha! Some of the other shows I've been watching are 20/20 and Dateline. Those shows are much more intense because they are centered around serial killers or psychopaths instead of just crazy women. I love watching how the police gather the evidence and look for clues to help them find the murderer but the more I've been watching these shows, the more paranoid I've become.

About 4 years ago, while I was going to ABAC and living with my parents, I actually saw a man looking through my bathroom window at night. My sister has actually heard him outside her bedroom window on several occasions and we have called the police only to find evidence that someone was in fact outside but no way to catch him. Our neighbors have also seen and heard him outside of their homes too. Since this was several years ago, I haven't been quite so afraid of this Peeping Tom...until now! I haven't heard or seen this particular man again, but now I'm just so afraid that some is going to break into our house in the middle of the night to murder us! These shows are completely the cause of this phobia, but I'm still so addicted to watching them. Last night I told Lance I wanted him to teach me how to shoot a gun. I have lived in the south my entire life and I have never shot a gun...ever. That's pretty rare, so hopefully I'll learn how to protect myself if an intruder should ever happen to break in and free myself from these fears I have.

Working Girl

I started my new job today! I'm helping enroll people in life and health insurance for Skip Hill and on my first day we went to Prince Dealership in Tifton. Tomorrow we'll be going down to the Prince Dealership in Valdosta. The day started out with me sitting in on sessions and listening to Kayla explain all the information about dental and life insurance plans. I felt extremely overwhelmed at the beginning because I have limited knowledge about insurance. Since I have always been on my parent's insurance, I've never really had to know anything about it. As the day went on, it began to actually make more sense and I got a feel of the approach they use when explaining the different types of insurance. There are definitely some weird people purchasing insurance out there! I got hit on twice today (guess I'll have to start wearing a fake engagement ring on my finger)! We only worked from 8:30 until 2 but I was definitely overwhelmed and tired my first day! I was hoping I'd be able to continue running on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings but since we are leaving for Valdosta at 8:15, I'm not sure I'll be able to run, cool down, and shower in time! If I can't, I'll just go to the track tomorrow night and have Lance either run with me or time me!

Hopefully I'll be able to learn quickly and stick with this job! I really like the fact that we might not be working everyday of the week and Kayla and Karen (the other women enrolling) are really nice and helpful!

Picking Up The Pace

This is the third week that Lance and I have been going up to the track at 5:45 to run for 30 minutes. We kicked it up a notch this morning! Previously we were running for 90 seconds and then walking for 90 seconds. Today we started running for 90 seconds, walking for 90 seconds, running for 180 seconds, then walking for 180 seconds in intervals. It has definitely gotten harder, but it was a little better than I expected and I'm actually starting to like the fact that we have to get up so early to run. After we finish, Lance has to race home to shower, check on Finn and then get to work by 7 am. I usually just relax and watch the Today Show after we finish running, but last Friday I was worn out! I came home and took a two hour nap and was pretty useless for the remainder of the day.
I'm so proud that he and I have been able to keep this up for our third week! For months, Lance and I have been wanting to start running and this group just happened to start right after I moved home. It is so much easier to get up and run when you know that a group of people are waiting for you every morning and it is much easier to run when you have someone else watching the clock and telling you when to run and walk! We'll be ready to run our first 5K in no time!

Rearranging

Lance moved into a house my Mom rents about three months ago. He has been fortunate enough to receive numerous pieces of furniture and household items from his parents, my parents, his coworkers and other family and friends. We have both been so grateful due to the fact that Lance has never lived completely alone before and he had almost no furniture to speak of! We have slowly been refinishing some of the pieces of furniture given to him. For example, we painted an old cabinet that looked like it once belonged in an elementary class room and turned it into a storage cabinet for his dining area. It actually turned out really great!

Earlier this week, I needed to pick up a few things at K-Mart and as I was wandering the aisles, I came across a chair that seemed exactly like something Lance would pick out. The only reason it really even caught my attention is because it was on sale. Originally, it was priced somewhere around $275 and it was now on sale for $80! I took a picture on my phone and texted it to Lance. It caught his fancy and so after he got off work we went to look at it together. Much to my surprise, Lance didn't just want one chair, he wanted two chairs and the matching coffee table (he desperately needed one because the one he had was so light Finn knocked it over every time he came barreling inside).

After we bought Lance's new furniture, the first step was to assemble the chairs and table. The package encourages you to have two people to make it easier...um, it's necessary to have two people. He couldn't have done it alone and if he could it would have taken him twice as long! After we assembled to furniture, we had to rearrange his den. I have many passions in life (as Lauren knows) and along with frying onion rings and making floral arrangements, I also like to arrange furniture. Recently I somewhat forced my friend Meg to rearrange her room while I was staying with her for three days. I don't feel too bad about it though, because she said she loved it! With Lance's den, it was really difficult to place the furniture in good locations. Finally, I called in reinforcements and my Mom went with me to help me figure out a good layout for everything. This is what we came up with...

All in all, the two chairs and coffee table cost less that what one chair originally cost! I think he got a pretty good deal! You know I couldn't take pictures of Lance's den without including the most handsome dog in the whole world! haha!

A Total "Not Me" Kind Of Weekend!

One of the few blogs I read on a regular basis does a weekly blog she calls "Not Me Monday," in which she incourages all of her followers to list things that seem like they could NEVER happen to them, but actually did! Normally I don't partake, but this weekend some major mishaps happened and I figured it would be fun and a sense of stress relief to admit all of those things here!

I certainly did not drive over three hours to the beach in a small two door car with a boyfriend and a golden retriever to find when we arrived that my Mom had given us the wrong keys! Nope, that could never happen. And after that, there is no way that we had to all get back in the car and drive for another 30 minutes to meet the woman who regularly cleans the condo and has a set of keys!

My boyfriend in no way, shape, or form gets cranky and irritable when he hasn't eaten. So when we were still 30 minutes away from the condo, he did not almost pitch a fit in the car due to the fact that it was 9:30 and he hadn't eaten anything since 12:30 because who would do that!

I definitely did not tell my boyfriend it was okay that he forgot I am now a vegetarian just so he could still pull through Burger King on our way back from the beach. He found me a veggie burger on the menu but I absolutely did not start screaming in the car when I realized that the one healthy thing on the Burger King menu is smothered in mayonnaise! YUCK! It would have been entirely rude and uncalled for if I had then started screaming at the dog because he wanted to eat my veggie burger after all that!

There is no way that our sweet well behaved eight month old golden retriever would ever drag me across the front of Lance's yard chasing a white cat at 9:30 last night after being in the car for over three hours! He is absolutely too much of an angel and Lance and I are perfectly capable of training him! I did not proceed to scream, "NO, NO, NO" at him and spank him while Lance had no clue what was going on! There is NO WAY the neighbors thought Lance was beating me in the front yard or anything due to the noise!

Nope, no way any of those things could ever happen, no to me! We are absolutely perfect!

Whew! I feel so much better after realizing that none of those strange and unmanageable things could ever happen to us!

Life at Home

Being home full time has given me such a sense of relief! I used to get home on Fridays around 5:30 and leave Tifton on Sunday nights or Monday mornings at 5:45 am! Now, I don't feel like I have to pack so many activities into one day! So far, I've been cleaning out my closet and I had about 80,000 things in perfectly good condition that I haven't worn in about 2 or 3 years! I'm donating all of those things to make some room for the new work clothes I'll have to purchase! My wonderful momma took me on a little shopping spree on Monday just to get my collection started! I got a new skirt and 3 new sweaters to wear over camis and she also gave me two pairs of pants from her own closet she can't wear anymore! What a great mom! Lauren will be pleased to know that I go the best deal EVER at Old Navy last night when I bought two sweaters that were already on sale for $10 each and I ended up getting them for half of that and only paying $10 for both sweaters! I love me some deals!

Lance and I have been talking forever about starting a new workout routine when I move home and lo and behold the hospital where he works is desperately trying to get all their employees in shape right now. Some of Lance's co-workers have been participating in a weight loss challenge much like the biggest loser. Stacey, the man who stays at Lance's house during the week when he's oncall, told me he lost 30 lbs! This week they started a new program to help people go from couch to a 5k in 30 minutes! We started going at 6 am Monday, Wednesday, and Friday! There are only about 10 of us right now and we are all from different skill levels. I would say Lance and I are intermediate right now compared to others in the group. It should start getting intense pretty soon!

Say a little prayer for our baby Finn. Lance and I decided it was finally time to get him fixed because he's 8 months old now. Lance had to leave for work around 7 am, so I had to drop him off all by myself! It was so sad! I had to warn the lady at the desk that he's stubborn and won't let us kennel train him and he would probably freak out when they put him in there! Hopefully they'll do the surgery early and let him sleep most of the day before I have to go back and pick him up at 4:30!