Responsible Things

Heeeeeeey peeps.

Today is all about responsibility.

About once a month or so, I achieve it for a day.

I guess yesterday was it.

On the third of the month. Way to get that one out of the way early, right?

Because of the late date night on Tuesday, I slept in. Because sleep is important and you need to make sure to get a respectable amount every night. And also to have a rest day from the gym at least once a week (doesn’t matter if I already have one or two planned this weekend).

Don’t worry- I took responsibility for my health and went to bed early last night so I could get up early today to run 4 miles. Boom.

Because the roomie and I are out of town for the weekend, we’re being responsible by making sure no food will go bad.

By eating ALL THE FOOD.

Leftover pizza. Life is hard.

Oh and that’s the book I’m supposed to be reading for book club next week. It’s shameful that I’m so far behind and don’t want to tell Lauren.

Ok, fine. Let’s take responsibility for it- Lauren, I’m so far behind!

To be fair… the book is longer than originally realized!

Thank goodness for upcoming quality time in airports.

Anyway…

And because it’s officially Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I feel it important to make a public service announcement.

Everyone grab a handful. It’s important. And the responsible thing to do.

So there you have it. Responsible adult things.

You’re welcome.

A Tuesday First

Ok, fine. It’s not just a Tuesday first, but a professional first.

Work from home.

I got a taste. And I liked it.

I liked it a lot.

Granted, I know all the benefits of being in an office during the day.

More focus.

Socialization.

Free motor oil coffee from the break room.

What’s not to love?

However, the cool thing about my current job is that they’re flexible. And allow for me to schedule around routine doctor appointments by getting my 8 hours in from the comfort of my living room.

I didn’t have to shower right away. I got a home-cooked lunch.

Ok, fine. It was only semi-homemade. The roommate shared some leftover meatloaf cupcakes from her bar outting on Monday night. Yes. Meat. In cupcake form. Genius.

And the hour I saved in commute was an extra half hour of sleep + an extra couple of miles to my standard mid-week gym session- 6 total for the day.

Since there’s another travel weekend coming up, the long(erish) run had to happen sometime, right?

Anyway…

So the working from home is sort of awesome. Except for the whole “8 hours of access to stress eat out of my pantry” thing.

Discipline. It’s something I don’t have.

Which would probably also explain the extra drink I had after dinner last night. And why I didn’t go to the gym this morning.

If I didn’t have such a good time over dinner, I’d probably be more upset.

Instead, I’ll just fill up my to-go mug with coffee and head to the office. Per usual.

And yes, for the people who have asked, this is the same dude as a few weeks ago. He hasn’t been scared off just yet.

Which is surprising. Because we end up accidentally getting ourselves into situations. Like when we decided to go to a nearby favorite bar of mine. And ended up sitting down for drinks in the middle of trivia night.

Kinky trivia night, to be exact.

I guess there’s no better way to learn more about a person…

Ok, now really… time to head into the office…

Laters.

Deadline DONE

I made it!

I made it through my crazy deadline!

And all it took was a little of this to start my day:

And then this gets dragged to work with me:

(Yes- the stress ball pictured above is heavily utilized.)

And some of this:

And then a little afternoon caffeine enjoyment that looks like this:

Yes, all four.

And yesterday, my boss went out to grab a late breakfast and came back with some chocolatey/espresso/protein shake thing. It had me tweaking through the entire morning and made me want to lift heavy things for the remainder of the day.

But I did it. Biggest work project yet. DONE. And all of my hard work over the last 2-3 weeks are stuffed in a fedex overnight box. Traveling across the states. I’m not nervous about it at all. Nope. Didn’t wake up in the middle of the night wondering about all the things I could have possibly forgotten. Nope…

Surely I’ll get better about this in the future… right?

At least there’s always caffeine for that.

All this work focus also took a little neglect in other places like, um, here. So I apologize.

But we’re past it. And here I am! WEEEEE!

Sorry. Effects of the caffeine overdose are still in the system.

Anyway, I even managed to fit in a longer run (5.4 miles- let’s just call it “longerish”) this morning. You know… before I leave this lil’ blog again to go out of town for the entire weekend.

All the way to the exotic and fabulous Indiana.

Such an extravagant life I lead.

Toodles.

In ZOOMA news…

Are you still up in the air about picking a half marathon (or 5k) for the fall?

Come run with me October 20th in Lake Geneva! Just go to ZOOMA’s facebook page to get an EXTRA discount today!

Just Hanging Around…

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any more crazy around these parts, I go and let myself get thrown around in the air by complete strangers for a bit.

This Groupon came through in February during a particularly down week. The winter doldrums were hitting me hard. Combined with a little relationship (or lack of?) and job unsatisfaction?

A girl will do strange things. Especially me. I specialize in the random.

Like signing up for trapeze lessons.

So I had this groupon and let most of the summer slip away before realizing that if I wanted to take advantage of the lessons along the harbor (and if I was actually going to do it at all), it should happen sooner than later.

The roommate came along for moral support. Or at least let’s pretend that’s what it was when she said, “oh there’s no way I’m missing this.”

Setting the appointment a month or so in advance didn’t allow for the nerves to set in right away. Those nerves set in as I was climbing the tallest ladder I’ve ever climbed in my life.

There were a few moments of hesitation. I was scared. But what do you expect when you’re jumping off a ledge?

All of the workers said I was the only one who never let a smile leave my face. They didn’t realize it was because I was slightly delirious from the terrified feeling creeping in each time before jumping.

It was just a matter of sucking it up and going for it.

So. Much. Fun.

Once you actually let go, it’s easy.

And after a while?

“So now we’re going to teach you how to do a catch. You’ll have fun.”

Wait… what?

You want me to let go and just trust he’s going to hold on to me?

My grace and poise could still use work. But Rome wasn’t built in a day. Gimme a break. Geez.

Point of the matter is I tried it.

Because, as I always quote Sheldon, “what’s life without a little whimsy?”

And that’s why, no matter what mood, I bought it. Something to shake things up. Something out of my comfort zone.

Tonight I’m doing it again.

The getting out of my comfort zone thing. Not more trapezing. My blood pressure has already been tested on more than one occasion this last week.

I’m talking about the dreaded first date.

Dun dun dunnnnnnnnn.

Let’s see if some of the fearlessness I showed on Sunday translates to tonight, shall we?

Later, kids!

PS- I just really want to give all the peeps at TSNY Chicago a shout out- they were awesome, extremely patient, and made the whole experience very very cool. Much appreciated.

Firefly 5k Chicago

I’ve ran races in the evening before. Not a problem.

But in the dark?

Considering my track record of being the biggest klutz of all time, I must have been concussed when signing up for this thing. It’s the only explanation.

Actually, there’s another one.

It was my roommate’s first 5k. And what better race to start out with than one that requires glow sticks?

Totally brings me back to high school. My friends and I thought they were so cool to wear on road trips (because there are SO MANY PEOPLE to see you while driving on a gravel road in the middle of nowhere). Or thrown in a Bacardi bottle because it was preeeetttttyyyy.

Now that I think about it, that was really dangerous. What if the glow stick leaked? I’m sure there’s something on the package about not digesting the contents inside the tube.

I was living on the edge and didn’t even realize it.

Wait… something shiny… what?

Oh yes… So the Firefly 5k…

I absolutely love how creative organizations are getting with theme races. Undie Dash… Elvis is Alive… and now this?

It makes the race a little more fun. Plus, I really like wearing obnoxious colors.

Bailey’s reasoning behind wanting to try a 5k was basically “there’s no reason why I can’t” and I’m so proud of her because she rocked it!

Especially since it was a rough course. Definitely not an “in it to win it” kind of race. Because you will hurt yourself.

Word to the wise? This would be a good street race. The random holes or loose gravel in the trail were seriously dangerous. Because the only warning you got was if the person in front of you said something as they almost sprain their ankle or bite it.

Plus, my legs still are kind of angry at me for last weekend’s half marathon.

And I really just wanted to see Bailey finish. So we ran it together. The whole way. No stopping. I felt like such a proud lil’ mama.

I don’t know my official time. Because, for some reason, it’s not in the results. Which is weird and mildly annoying. My chip must have been defective? However, since Bailey and I were together, I’ll assume it would have also been just over 31 minutes.

Yeah. Her first 5k in 31 minutes. Nailed it!

(Oh and we still have the blinking arm bands. Who wants to go rage?!?!)

Clearly we had to go out and celebrate afterwards.

You’d think we’d be tired. But you’d be thinking wrong.

Our victory outting lasted until the wee hours of the morning and ended with a lil’ party at our pad at 3:30 in the morning.

So you can understand why I’m a wee bit tired still on this Monday morning. The marking of a good weekend.

Carry on…

Celebrations With Food

Thanks for all the love yesterday.

You kids are the bestest.

Thankfully, the soreness was kept at a minimum.

After the race and most of yesterday, my hip flexors pretty much hated me. But we worked through our differences, mostly with casual walking around the ‘hood, and today is a much better day.

But let’s talk about important things.

The best part of finishing a half marathon?

Other than that weirdly awesome sense of accomplishment, yada yada…

Indulging in some seriously good food.

After an amazing breakfast with the family, my Sunday afternoon was split into work (yeah- I must stop doing that) and lounging on the couch while cheering on my Bears to victory (Bear Down!!!!).

I was also anxiously anticipating my date with Tiffany @ Snack Snark Bark!

Miss Tiffany was in town for an extended wedding weekend, but we definitely made sure to squeeze in some blogger bonding time.

Naturally, we did it at a restaurant that came highly recommended:

By being featured on Food Network.

Plus, it’s a burger bar. Which is exactly what I was looking for after the Chicago Half Marathon. CHOW TIME.

Tiff came with her lover boy, and he offered to share the massive salad he ordered.

“I ran a half today. There is no healthy food entering this body today.”

This is a rule.

So I went with one of their burgers that included BBQ and bacon. But, as weird as it sounds at a burger bar, the fries stole the show.

Truffle fries with parmesan. ‘Nuff said.

Full of good food and Lagunitas. Sunday Funday!

We caught up with all the gossip “behind the blog” and decided one of these days I’ll have to go to Denver. Who’s comin’ with?

Anyway, as mentioned earlier, Monday was spent being stiff like an old woman. That in combination with my blood shot eyes from lack of sleep?

#HotMess

Hopefully today, weirdly enough because Tuesdays generally blow, I’ll be a little better off.

If not, I’ll just do what I did yesterday. And hobble my way down the street to get one of these:

Technically, it wasn’t race day, so my race day food celebration was over. But to be fair, I hadn’t hit all the food groups on Sunday. And by food groups, I mean “chocolate”.
Also, my stomach hurt 10 minutes afterwards. I’ll remember next time- sharing is caring.

Yes, people. I’ve discovered Crumbs Bakery.

My waistline is already concerned.

Behind Closed Doors

Teenage girls are a strange breed.

Pretty sure they scare the crap out of everyone. EVERYONE. Their parents. Their teachers. Their boyfriends. Even their other girl friends.

They. Are. Scary.

Emotional. Irrational. Vicious. Dramatic. Whiney.

Every other day is LIKE OMG THE WORST DAY OF MY LIFE EVER EVER EVER.

Hopefully I’ve mellowed out a bit since then (er… *cough* 8 years ago…), but the fact of the matter is that I was one.

The teen years weren’t my favorite time of my life, even with my ability to cry at the drop of a hat. But it was bearable enough.

I bake a lot. So when a beater flies apart mid-mix, I don’t even think twice about it. I only cross my fingers I’ll be able to finish the mixing process before the other part of it flies away.

My parents may say otherwise. As the eldest of my brother and I, I took it upon myself to break my parents in. Test the waters. Push the limits.

Annoy the crap out of them.

My mom’s biggest complaint?

“Why do you always have to shut your bedroom door? What’s so secret? Why don’t you spend more time in the rest of the house with the family?”

I’ve never used greek yogurt in cookies before. But it was part of the promise of some of the softest cookies of all time. Is this considered healthifying them? I generally shy away from doing such things, but in this instance, curiousity totally killed the cat.

I think she feared the worst. Maybe I was writing a manifesto. Or smoking crack.

Which is extremely ridiculous. Everyone knows you can’t write a manifesto until you’re at least 21. Duh.

And why would the rest of my family want to hang out with me anyway? I was a moody and high strung teenage girl. I wouldn’t have wanted to hang out with me, either.

Maybe, just maybe, it’s time I give her peace of mind.

The other part of the beater had perfect timing and died right at the end. R.I.P. hand mixer. It’s been a great 2 years.

Tell her what I was really doing behind closed doors.

Let the world know my secrets.

Ok. Here we go.

I was talking to my friends about boys on the phone. Trying on cute outfits for the weekend (because I was going to get to stay out until 11:00!). Putting on makeup.

And I was dancing. And lip syncing. To Britney. And Eminem. And Third Eye Blind. Because I don’t discriminate.

All of this in front of the mirror. Like a total dork.

That, my dear mother, is what I was doing.

Not that exciting.

PUFFY!

That doesn’t mean I didn’t sneak a scandelous top out of the house under what I was wearing or in my purse (the gas station was an awesome dressing room).

That doesn’t mean I didn’t scrounge up a few bucks to split a 6-pack of Mike’s Hard Lemonade from time to time with, like, 5 other girls.

That doesn’t mean I didn’t end up on a road trip halfway across the state using entirely gravel roads. (Did you know that was possible? I sure didn’t.)

This stuff is ridiculous. There’s plenty leftover and it’s sad how quickly I’ll go through it.

But as for what went on my room?

Singing and dancing. Strictly singing and dancing.

Disappointing, right?

Anyway…

Oatmeal cookies were a standard in my mom’s rotation of baked goods when I was growing up.

Cookie Butter glaze. This is what takes the cookies from good to great. Enough said.

However, she always used raisins in hers. Which are gross. So I’d only eat the cookie dough because the raisins were easy to pick out.

But now that I’m grown up, and sing and dance with no shame wherever I damn well please, I can make oatmeal cookiest without the raisins.

And maybe even add some cookie butter icing. Because I’m feeling spunky.

The recipe I used for the Biscoff-Glazed Soft Oatmeal Cookies was from Bake at 350 and I will have to say she wasn’t kidding- these really are the softest cookies ever!

Look at the glaze… flippin’ everywhere…. sigh…

Maybe next time I’ll throw in some chocolate chips. Because I felt very strange not using any chocolate at all. Especially considering I rarely call it a dessert unless chocolate is involved.

Anyway. Now that you all know my secrets, I must sign off and get a few things done. Like buy a new hand mixer.

Plus I feel my mother may be calling soon about that mentioned road trip. So I should free up some of my schedule.

Oops.

But before I go….

Yeah. I’m just super mean sometimes.

Happy Hump Day!

Another Reminder

This has absolutely no relevance to anything having to do with my blog. You’ve been warned.

Donald Trump sent a little correspondence in the mail last week:
What a kick in the pants.

Last time I checked, you have to be under the age of 27 to compete in the Miss USA pageant.

Yet another reminder of how old I have become. If it wasn’t already bad enough that I missed out on all the Real World fun by surpassing the age of 25, now I’ll never get my chance at wearing a massive diamond tiara that is sure to cause back problems over the year of my reign.

Sad. Because, when younger (age 5- not like yesterday), I was the stereotypical girl who dreamed of being a princess. Or Miss USA. Whichever- I wasn’t picky.

There was one small attempt at glory. My mom entered my brother and I in the Little Mr. and Miss Pageant at a county fair. I think I was 5.

So many things went wrong with this.

First of all, my brother and I didn’t get to compete together. I really think we could have double teamed it and exponentially exploited our cuteness. We were freakin’ adorable. I mean… come on… look at us:
And no- that is not photoshopped.

Instead, I got stuck with some blond kid who had a comb over and a runny nose. I didn’t even want to touch him because he’s possibly the originator of the cootie epidemic.

And he CRIED when it was our turn to walk out and wave to the crowds. I tried to tell him to get it together. But no. His mom had to walk out with us. HIS MOM. I looked like such a loser by association.

And then, on top of it all, I was screwed from day one. We had the interview portion of the competition on a separate day and were asked what our favorite animal is.

I figured everyone else went with the standard “dog” or “cat” or “unicorn” answer. And yes, unicorns are quite awesome. But in preschool? Could you be any more unorginial?

So I got creative and said “doe”. Bet the judges didn’t see that one coming. And it made for a fantastic answer. They’re pretty and graceful. Nurturing by nature. A wild spirit. And obviously I reference the female deer variety- to position myself with a little feminist sass.

Did they ask me to elaborate? No. Only to repeat myself. It became very clear to me, after I walked out (isn’t that always the case?), that they probably thought I meant “dog” and just couldn’t say “g” correctly. So instead of being genius, my answer ended up making me sound like a boring backwoods 5-year-old with a speech impediment. Another fail.

Plus, my mom tried to use hot rollers in my hair and from the pictures, it’s obvious my pageant hair is not quite  up to speed with the gals on Toddlers and Tiaras. Would hair and makeup have been that THAT out of line to request?

I’d show you the photographic evidence, but I’d like to hold on to at least a little dignity.

Plus, the pictures are back in Missouri in a photo album and I’m not quite sure if my mom knows how to use a picture scanner.

So did I end up winning? Of course not. And neither did the snot factory who was my partner. Obviously.

Wasted opportunities.

I could have been the original Honey Boo Boo.

Sigh. Guess I’ll just have to sit here in my normal apartment and at my normal office and think about what could have been.

So really, I guess I just wanted to say “GEE THANKS, DONALD” for the painful childhood memory and reminder that I’ll never be a princess.

Just had to get that off of my chest.

Happy Freakin’ Tuesday.

Things I Apparently Hide From My Friends

It’s always sad to have a friend leave after a fun weekend.

Luckily, I get to see Laura again next weekend for a second round. For now, I’ll put my feet up and rest from all the crazy.

And for those of you who are curious, here’s a quick rundown of what we got into:

1. Laura got ridiculously stuck in rush hour traffic. Not that we were on a super strict time schedule, but it caused us to break out the beverages early due to the stress it caused.

I was more than happy to oblige with vodka lemonades. And don’t ask why I have vodka called Ice Kube. The store manager convinced me it was better than Svedka. I think he was just trying to get rid of it. What a trickster.

2. Laura’s schedule and Rod Tuffcurls’ tour dates finally aligned.

Laura drank the kool aid. And is upset this is the first time she’s been able to witness the greatness.

She is now an official Rod Tuffcurls fan. FRIENDZ!

3. Because of the late night dance-a-thon at the Rod show, we scrapped the idea of running on Saturday. And decided a walk to the beach was more appropriate.

This was also Laura’s first time visiting the beach. She could not believe Chicago had this lil’ hidden treasure.

Chicago is the awesomest. I simply cannot state this enough.

4. It’s a shame we didn’t run. However, there was plenty of walking. Not only did we walk on Saturday, we also wandered the neighborhoods on Sunday before she drove home.

I got to show off my new laces during said walk. Laura brought my belated birthday gift with her and it involved accessorizing my kicks. I’m now the coolest kid on the block! Weee!

5. We ate ALL THE FOODZ.

And dressed up to do so. Before silly shenanigans with some of our dude friends, we took ourselves on a dinner date to Frasca Pizzeria and Wine Bar.

Sure, I made homemade calzones the night before, but the polenta fries at Frasca blew my sweet cooking skills out of the water.

A garlic aioli was involved as the dipping sauce. I should apologize to the guy I was chatting with all night.

However, a little aioli didn’t deter him. Thank goodness.

6. Being too lazy to even pour ourselves bowls of cereal, we took ourselves out for breakfast on Sunday morning.

Laura requested a coffee shop atmosphere. She suggested Starbucks, but I quickly shot that down.

There are so many better places than Starsucks… come on, girl.

Bakin’ and Eggs is a super cute lil’ joint for breakfast and people watching. However, it is NOT a place to be snarky. When the waiter asked how I liked my eggs, I worked SUPER hard to keep from spitting out “unfertilized, thanks”. Being a lady is SO DIFFICULT sometimes.

The chilaquiles (baked corn tortillas mixed in with tomatilla salsa, onions and parmesan cheese) were delicious. SUPER hot, but sometimes a good kick in the face like that is what you need to wake up. Am I right?

7. My official recovery came in the form of a 4-mile run this morning. I could have easily slept more, and totally justify it, but the strong desire to feel “back to normal” consumed me. And pre-5am gym time is apparently my normal.

I don’t understand it, either.

Have a great start to the week, kiddos. It’s crunch time in the office, so I hope I’ll be staying busy and happy and breezing through it all before a nice lil’ Labor Day vacay. Fabulous!

Laters!

When A Tuesday Goes Decently Well

It does happen from time to time.

Even though I generally dislike Tuesdays, once in a blue moon, one is surely bound to fall through the cracks.

I’ve started sneaking in interval running on Tuesdays. Because a) I want to get faster and b) why not do a workout I hate on a day I also hate? It’s logical.

But the thing I’ve noticed… I don’t mind the interval running.

It goes by fast enough. 8 5-minute circuits.

1 minute walking
3 minutes running (notice I say running- not jogging)
1 minute sprinting

My sprints have been under the 7:20-minute mile range, which is fantastic for me, but I have the urge to find out what it’s like to do them at sub-7. I’m excited to work up to this. Just not too quickly. I don’t want curiosity to kill the cat.

Or, in this case, give it a nasty stress fracture.

After a rain-free commute (not the case the last few work days), I was surprised by a package waiting on my desk. Delivery from my old office!

The chef in my old office building had extras from a catering event (hence the blur on the tummy), so they forwarded a few my way!

Gingerbread in August is a little strange, but I don’t ever question free food. Especially free food with sugar.

And it went well with my coffee.

The coffee I bring from home, to be specific. Because the coffee at my new place is so strong, it’s one step away from being consumed with a spoon. No thank you.

And even though I am somewhat cheap with what I buy for myself, it’s ok. Because sometimes, when the boss goes away to Hawaii, he comes back with the good stuff.

Kona coffee is so delicious. Strong. But delicious.

So yes, my boss got a few weeks of fun in the sun. And I got excited about the coffee.

It’s the little things in life. I have to keep reminding myself of that…

The cookie and coffee may have attributed to the additional energy I had, once again, when getting home after a long day.

So thank goodness my roommate and I were on the same page.

We get along really well as roommates. We respect each other’s space. We sometimes have “family dinner”. We both have a quirky sense of humor. And we both have an appreciation of the finer things in life. Like what reality shows are acceptable enough to be DVR-worthy. And always have a stash of cheap beer on hand.

However, our workout personalities could not be more different.

I am the self-proclaimed queen of cardio at 5:00 in the morning. She prefers being a weight room warrior at a later time in the day.

However, she’s recently expressed an interest in running.

Her reasoning? “There’s no reason why I can’t.”

Fair enough.

So we’ve been running on occasion. Like last night. We have an exact mile measured out. And we did it. Easy peasy.

It’s kind of nice we can do this every once in a while. A new way to get in some roommate bonding. Which is for the best. Teen Mom is almost over. What will we do then???