My Name is Heather and I'm a Planaholic

Its training season again

2012-01-24T21:47:00.002-05:00

I love spring training....

Track it at

That Redheaded Sister

See you there!!

Whats the plan for next month?

2012-01-19T21:38:00.002-05:00

Maybe you should check it out here:

That Redheaded Sister

(dont you worry that pretty little head of yours....Ill keep posting these cryptic posts here)

I just built something AWESOME

2012-01-14T10:02:00.000-05:00

But you have to go check it out on my NEW website:

That Redheaded Sister

Go...now!

Did you see it?

2012-01-10T21:54:00.000-05:00

Hi all!

I hope everyone is having better weather than we are here is soggy Atlanta.

Just wanted to send you a reminder about my new website

That Redheaded Sister

I hope you follow again....it will be AWESOME!! :) Well lets be real...it will be awesome after I am through this busy time at work. I have a lot to post and share with you at that time.

Im moving!!

2012-01-08T22:12:00.000-05:00

Hi friends! Did you have a lovely weekend?

It has been a jam packed weekend for me. I had to work all day Saturday and worked on some projects today.

The biggest project I was stuck on for a majority of the day was creating my new website. For about a year now, I have wanted to make changes to this place. I never really knew how and never really had the courage.

And then I said....why not!! Check out my new site:

That Redheaded Sister

With the help of my uncle, we got through all of the site hosting issues/domain name problems I ran into. The site does not look 100% the way I want to, but its a start.

I was lucky enough to import this blog and posts over to my new site, so if you want to read up on past posts, no problem :-p

What are you going to find at TRS? (the name blossomed from an inside joke starting between my sister and I and eventually Lauren and I)

In my efforts to become more socially integrated in the running community, I am going to be more dedicated to posting about workouts, tidbits, information, races, etc
I have been a DIY fool and I want to streamline it a little more there than I do here.
My baking, while it has slowed down, I will have an area dedicated to recipes, pictures, etc
Possibly a twitter link?

My goal of having my own site is to make everything clean and easy to navigate. Like I said, its not where I want it to be, but I am still learning the IT jargon. And there is a lot to learn.

I hope you plan on heading over there and following me. I am still learning how to use it and how to refollow my blogs from here, so I will keep this blog open for a while to keep up with you all.

Ok, now head over to That Redheaded Sister

Reminders

2012-01-05T21:24:00.000-05:00

Have you accomplished all of your resolutions yet? Haha

This week marks the first week of absolute chaos. I am going to try my hardest this month to maintain mileage. I was disappointed in myself for waiting until yesterday to get my run in. I tried to get it in everyday this week, but the timing just didnt work out.

My friend and I decided we were going to meet at the gym last night to finally get moving. She was stuck at work longer than I was, so I decided to get some extra cardio in. When I started running, I was worried my legs were going to protest as per usual. Mile 1 was one of the most comfortable miles I have run in a long time. I was so motivated and decided I was going to push to 3.

Mile 2 was ok in the beginning. I was pretty excited about my legs not cramping up in mile one, I noticed my form falling apart and my breathing was out of sync. The girl next to me was doing intervals, but at my speed so I decided to keep up with her. REMINDER 1: pump your arms. I kept pushing my speed up on a 1% incline and the more I pumped my arms, the less my legs seemed to bother me.

Halfway through mile 2 I could tell how tired my body was (out of shape much?). I kept bumping my speed up to test the waters and felt ok when the girl next to me jumped off her treadmill. Dang. I needed her because I was mirroring her form.

I hit mile 3 and felt like a million bucks. I had to jump off because my friend arrived and we hit the weights and did 1.8 miles on the elliptical. This workout reminded me (REMINDER 2) just how much I love running. I love it so much, I am signing my friend and I up for the Cooper River Bridge Run in March!

I am so excited for this race because not only will it be my second 10k race, but its in the most magical place on Earth, Charleston, South Carolina. I have said it a million times, GO if you can.

Come run this race with us!

On a nonrunning note, on NYE we were all talking about how we need to go skiing one day. What pops in my email but a Groupon for a golf resort in North Carolina. While I dont care much for golf, we googled it and saw this place was only 15 miles from the slopes. DONE. I bought the Groupon and am booking the hotel tomorrow. I have never been skiing, but I am so pumped! My friend and I are planning to have a girls day on the Friday we go before the boys get there, Saturday is dedicated to skiing, and Sunday we are going to visit Biltmore Estates. Neither of us have been, so this will be a fun day trip

What an exciting first half of the year!

When will you be signing up for the Cooper Bridge Run??

Are you still alive?

2012-01-02T19:44:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year friends! How was your celebration (if you celebrated)?

New years eve was a great day for me. I woke up early to get a run in with my friend and former running buddy. It was such a great run. I signed up for a running Meetup group awhile back in hopes to meet new people, start running more regularly, etc. This weekend was literally the first weekend I could actually meetup with this group. Every weekend before has been filled with moving, holidays, races, and traveling. I asked my friend to go along with me and since she is getting back on the running train, she was all for it. We knew going into this we would be doing walk/run intervals because she is still recovering from surgery on her leg.

When we arrived the weather was perfect running weather. Sunny with a slight chill in the air. We arrived at the meetup spot and waited around for a little bit for everyone to arrive. We met some really nice people in this group. We started running and decided we would stay back with the walkers in the group since we were going to be doing a lot of starting/stopping. Those walkers are fast! We ended up losing them. I dont know how on earth that happened, but there was no catching up. It ended up being a great workout and I am so proud of my friend for being able to stick to doing the whole course. We did 2.53 miles and felt fantastic. Great way to end the year.

After buying a ton of food for our SMALL get together that night, Matt and I cleaned up and prepped for the party. It was fun, but can you believe I did NOT take a single picture? WHAT? That is so unlike me. We did have a great time. The night FINALLY ended at 3am. My body has literally shut down because of it.

New Years Day was spent with my family having our Christmas we missed last week.

Today, after sleeping for 13 hours (yeah I went to bed at 8pm), we laid low. And the funny part, neither of us were hung over. We have just been so busy the past few weeks, it was a needed break.

I was searching deep down inside to complete a run of some sort, but I think Matt got me sick. Great.

*****************************
So one of my resolutions was to become more active in the running community both physically and socially. I have actually created a whole different blog from this one, but I am having a few issues with it and I am not ready to show everyone. I am torn between paying to self-host my site or to keep trucking in Blogger or Wordpress.

Once I start my new blog, I am debating whether or not to start a Twitter account. Is it all that it is cracked up to be?
*****************************
How was your New Years?

Did hear there were 4 set of twins where one was born in the last minutes of 2011 and the first minutes of 2012? How cool.

Goals/Resolutions of 2012

2011-12-27T20:22:00.000-05:00

WAKE UP! Or is it just me that is super exhausted from Christmas? We did a lot of traveling in the past 3 days. The sad part is, it never felt like Christmas. Florida was hot so it made me think it was July 4th weekend. But I am sure we will make up for it by celebrating again this weekend with my family.

I was thinking about my goals for 2012 and I am pretty pleased with what I came up with. But first we must look at 2011.

Run 500 Miles

Run a Half Marathon
Pay Off Debt and Stay Debt Free
Open A Roth IRA
Read More
Complete 5 Things from my 30 Things List
Learn More about Baking (ie make awesome cupcakes)
Hone in on my goal pant size

**************************************************************

I didnt hit 500 miles. I ran into some foot issues, time issues, and motivation issues this year. With my elliptical miles, I logged 476. But I dont think I can count the elliptical.

I ran TWO half marathons!

I stayed debt free for a good chunk of the year, but thanks to moving and the holidays, I have a new goal to set for 2012 :(

I dont know why I always make the same "open an IRA" resolution.

I think I did a good amount of reading this year. My favorite book this year was The Help for sure.

5 things from my list: I went on a girls trip, went on a picnic, saw NYC, moved ahead in my career, and I am learning to be handy

I have definitely learned a lot about baking this year.

hahah my pant size is far, far away.

****************************************************************************

What is in store for 2012? I am going to make this an easy year.

Be healthy. I am not going to say "lose xxx pounds." I think I have found the flaws in dieting (at least for me). I let a number rule my life. I get mad when I dont see much change. This year I am going to change my mindset and focus more on how I FEEL and how much clothes fit.

Pay off debt/save save save. I want/will buy a house this year. I cant stand renting anymore. Not only does renting suck, but according to some insider sources, the market is about to get a little worse and I should expect to see more pop up. Win for home buyers.

Become more involved in running. I want to be more active in the physical and the social side of running. I am not sure where to start, but with a little research I see this happening soon

Complete 4 or 5 things off my 30 things list.

and the hardest one.....

Give up my beloved french fries. I will lose sleep over this. Matt said I should challenge myself and give up something I love the most. I obviously love sweets the most, but I am also learning to bake. He chose french fries. UGH! In return, he is going to give up drinking pop. I cant say this one is going to be easy (because I LOVE fries, but worth trying)

How was your Christmas? Did you get what you asked for?

What are your plans for New Years?

And what are your resolutions/goals?

Its the Most Wonderful Time of the year

2011-12-22T23:24:00.000-05:00

Hi Friends! This will probably be my last post until after Christmas. We are heading down to Florida to visit Matt's parents for Christmas. Its going to be a long drive, but I have already seen the amount of emails in my work inbox, so I will try to do some work on the way down there. I personally hate long drives because I cant do anything to entertain myself. I know so many people that can read, play video games, etc while they are in the car. Not me. I get that car sick feeling pretty easily if I am not careful. So Ill probably check an email once every hour.

Before I share with you my new year plans/goals/resolutions, I figured we could take a walk down 2011 memory lane. Shall we?

January: I started 2011 with Matt and my two best friends. We celebrated low key and I was ok with that. I signed up to run the Georgia Half Marathon with two of my colleagues. Started training. Atlanta was hit with a HUGE ice storm that shut the city down for 3 days.

February: Signed up for the Kentucky Derby Half Marathon. Had some amazing training runs during my weekend visits to Matt in Louisville. Had the best Valentines Day with some great girls....and baked 33 cupcakes. Was offered a job in Louisville. Spent an amazing weekend with my best friend in Charleston.

March: Had some more awesome training runs in Louisville during a move/visit weekend. Moved to Louisville. The next weekend ran the Georgia Half Marathon.

April: Not a great month for me. Hit some walls training for the Kentucky Derby Half. Saw the most AMAZING fireworks show in the world. Ran a subpar Kentucky Derby Half Marathon.

May: Went to the Kentucky Derby. Planted the seed in my head to start learning more about baking.

June: Refinished my first piece of furniture.

July: Friends came in for the 4th for the Taylor Swift concert...CANCELLED. Celebrated my 27th birthday. I was back in Atlanta for 3 weeks working HARD. Got TWO KitchenAid mixers for my birthday. Bought my new shoes. Decided we had to move back to Atlanta for various financial reasons

August: Headed to NYC to meet Megan and run a 5k.

September: Went to my first Louisville football game. WORKED SO MUCH!! Literally had a 100 hour week!

October: Threw my dad a surprise 50th bday. Decided I was going to run a marathon in 2012. I hope I still have those thoughts. Had to deal with a sick kitty :(

November: Stripped! Moved back to Atlanta. Unpacked. Got a promotion!

December: Ive spent a lot of this month ready to vomit because of the amount of stress from work. Not because I cant do the work, but because there is A LOT to learn and I have to learn it quick. Slowly getting over it. Ran two 5ks

I know its a lot to read and a lot of links, but it was sort of fun to look back on this year. I wont say it was the best year because there were a lot of hard times and stress this year, but we survived.

Next week I am going to share some of my 2012 goals.

Have a safe and Merry Christmas/Happy Hanukkah! See you next week

These days....

2011-12-20T18:43:00.000-05:00

Happy week of Christmas!!!

Are you done with all of your shopping? I actually have one more person left and can you believe I know I want to get her running accessories, but I dont know what? Is that sad?

I am going to tell you, if you havent already noticed, I have been a bad blogger...commenting and posting. I am still in crazy transition into my new position at work and have barely had time to think, let alone eating during the day or you know, going to the bathroom. It will slow down...but I think after January.

I have another race to recap from this past weekend. I went into it saying it would only be for fun because of the race the week before. This weekend's race was the Virginia Highlands Christmas 5k. When you picked up your packet (a week ahead of time) you got a shirt and a free Santa Hat...SCORE! The race started at 9am (which I think I am a fan of since I dont have to wake up early). It was pretty chilly, but perfect running weather.

When I got to the race, I realized I forgot my Garmin. I wasnt too upset because I wasnt going to push myself on this race. When I got to the start, there were Santa hats everywhere. FUN! I wish I had someone to run this race with because it was very social.

I walked up to the start line and we started downhill. Not having the Garmin was sort of freeing. When I started, it wasnt too hard or spazzy as per usual. And then we ran. Downhill, uphill, downhill, uphill, uphill, holy crap uphill. By mile one I was feeling great. I started to pick up my pace a little bit, my breathing was perfect, there was no pain. Uphill, finally downhill, that was downhill?, uphill. WALL

I hit the wall at mile 1.5, in the middle of a crazy uphill. I watched everyone around me hit that same wall

This was us hitting the wall. The poor girl in front of my just pooped out. It was a tough course, but it was so much fun. It was a well organized race (except they ran out of water at the water stop) and I will run it again. I sort of wish I lived in the neighborhood we ran it because not only are the houses amazing (you need AT LEAST $350k just to move in(yes we are looking there but for much cheaper)) but it would be the perfect course to train on. Those hills will make you fast.

I saw my time, but I dont care. Im glad I was able to finish out the year with a fun run. I wont be able to race again until February.

How was your weekend?
Are you excited for the holidays? Do you have any plans?

Winter Blues? Runners Regret?

2011-12-13T20:59:00.000-05:00

Hi friends! My current location is parked on the couch with an awesome headache.

I think I am currently suffering from the winter blues. I will tell you everyday, all day how much I love the summer. It gets dark late, its warm, its a happy time. Since the weather started turning cold, my motivation has dropped faster than the temps.

A few weeks ago I planned all of my training plans for 2012. I made the most beautiful spreadsheet (NERD) breaking down each cycle. November was a decent month where I did about 90% of my scheduled workouts. Not only did I do 90%, but they were quality workouts.

Now that we have moved and it has gotten colder, I find myself skipping the gym. A lot. Runs outside? Nah. Gym? Huh

What happened?
Excuse #1: My new role at my job demands a lot more out of me. Thus exhausting me more than I have ever been and I havent quite adjusted.

Excuse #2:Its dark when I go to work, its dark when I leave

This is on the way home tonight...stuck in bad traffic. But you see how dark it is (its actually darker than the picture shows)? And there is still about 30 minutes left in my journey.

Excuse #3: My gym is really far away and really out of the way. If I am working in my second office, its closer to the gym, but you sit in a lot of traffic. So by the time I get to the exit, I just want to go home. If I work in my main office, its completely out of the way. Not to mention the gym is out of the way from my house. This sets me up for failure.

And thanks to these winter blues, I have developed runners regret. If I dont go for a run/workout, I am really hard on myself. Please tell me this happens to you.......

Ok I have bored you enough with my teenage angst.

Have any of you felt this way?

How do you deal with winter blues? Besides running away to the Bahamas....but I could do that too!

Design Disagreements

2011-12-11T16:39:00.000-05:00

Happy Sweatpants Sunday (as Megan deemed it on Facebook)! I am not going to lie, I still have my pajamas and glasses on.

As a couple, many of you know you have to make compromises. A lot of compromises. Right now, Matt and I arent quite seeing eye to eye on the direction of our apartment's design. He likes stained furniture, I like painted. He likes neutrals, I like color. Obviously I dont want to introduce bright pinks and oranges, but some color here and there are nice.

If you follow my Home Decor page on Pinterest, that gives you an idea of my style. I like soft, warm colors. I like a room to look lived in and comfortable. I also like beachy colors: light blue, tan, browns, whites, yellows. Here is what our bedroom looks like right now. Lets not judge the unfinished look to it right now...we did JUST move in.

Showing off my paint skilz. Obviously not drawn to scale

As you can see its really bright (which I love) and very naked. I like this furniture layout because its a little different from the "norm" (or how I think people with this room would place their furniture). Matt doesnt like it. See my challenges? I think it looks too unfinished right now for him to see the end result

Another disagreement we are having is what to do with this piece I bought yesterday.

For the time being (or if I find actual nightstands) this will hold our tv. The idea is to find something similar and use them as a nightstands. I love it because its the perfect height and double the size of an average nightstand. And it has cute working keyholes.
When I bought it, my mom and I were talking about the different ways to paint it. Maybe white, maybe a pale color. I decided I am going to stain it the same color as the top of the dresser (very very similar to what you see...a little richer). No one really sees why I should restain it, but if you look closely it looks like someone tried to stain it, but did a poor job

Currently the knobs are a wooden stained knob. I was thinking of classing it up a little with vintage glass knobs. Something like this?

Source

You get the idea. Nothing crazy, just a subtle shine to it. I dont think Matt agrees with me. He thinks I should stain the wooden knobs currently on there the same color and call it a day. What do you think? Would you repaint the current knobs or would you buy new knobs?

Here is one thing we agree on: the headboard

I love the whole room actually. Its so cozy.

So there are just a few of our disagreements. What do you think? I think at the end of the day, Matt doesnt really care about the planning of it all, he just wants a nice looking room.

HGTV, feel free to come to my house and help me. I just want it finished!!!! Genevieve, you know you want to!

Jingle Jog 5k

2011-12-11T00:09:00.000-05:00

I am plum exhausted from today. I woke up EEAARRRLLLYYY for today's race and didn't stop all day. We are only two weeks away from Christmas and I am not ready! Story of everyone's lives I suppose.

Today was the Jingle Jog 5k and I was excited to run it. I decided I was going to make this time my base time to build off of for the next training cycle. I tried to convince my friends to run this with me, but everyone that runs had plans or werent available to wake up and run in the cold.

I left early enough so I had about 45 minutes to hang around before race start. When I got close to the race location, traffic was awful. Absolutely awful. There were a TON of people and ONE officer directing traffic. Are you serious? I sat there for the 45 minutes I usually take to get my number, stretch, warm up.....

By the time I found a spot I had to run to the race packet pickup. Of course I got lost because there was no signage telling me where to go. When I DID find it, it was a clusterfluff of people. Im talking people cutting, tempers flaring, etc. UGH!

While trying to pin my number (t-minus 2 minutes until race start), I wanted to drop off the toy I bought for the toy drive. I went to the location I THOUGHT was the toy drop off, but the kid looked at my like I had a horn growing out of my forehead. The drop off was on the OTHER side of the COSTCO parking lot (think of the size). I was so rushed for time (t-minus 30 seconds to race start) that I just took the toy and dropped it on the ground. Oh well.

When I got to the race start, I knew there was going to be trouble. Everyone had a dog or a very small child next to them. I got a lot closer and started walking with the crowd and apparently had started the race. That is something I would have liked to know beforehand.

The race: I was so frustrated. SO MANY WALKERS. SO MANY LITTLE KIDS. SO MANY LEASHES. I was almost tripped by a dog leash and plenty of kids did the run/stop motion. I did sub-9 for the first 1/2 mile thanks to being downhill and my high frustration to get out of the pocket. The pocket never did end though. When it finally ended, the madness didnt. People were handing out flyers as you crossed the finish line, causing congestion.

Post race: More madness at the shirt pickup. People really like to cut in line. The cool thing was there were quite a few good looking food stands. I didnt participate in that because it was BBQ...there is something about bbq after a race and being 9am that sounded dreadful to my stomach.

On my way home I thought I was just being a baby and it wasnt that bad. I posted on my DailyMile and someone else who ran the race posted the same issues as I did. Dreadful.

This kicker of this whole thing is this race has been running for 24 years.

I am sad people had such a bad experience. Sadly, this will not be on my list of races to run.

I made up for it by an awesome purchase Ill share with you tomorrow.

How was your Saturday?
Did you run any races?
Are you ready for Christmas?
Have you had a bad race experience?

The Table that took five months

2011-12-06T20:34:00.000-05:00

Hey-o everyone!

I was going to blog about two different things, but I feel like I should save it for another post. It is two things I am struggling with at the moment and I know being the HONEST readers you are, you would help put it in perspective for me. Or at least tell me to shut up and sit down. But one situation is still a little too fresh for me to be as unbiased as I should be. For another time.

In the meantime, lets celebrate the fact that Matt and I FINALLY have a dinner table that we actually eat dinner together at. First let me start off by saying, we only eat dinner together on the weekends. He and I work completely OPPOSITE schedules. I am in the morning and he works at night.

Back to our table. Remember the post where I told you how we planned to refinish it by stripping it clean?
Stripped we did. After the stripping and the sanding, we said we were going to wait until we moved to stain. Im glad we didnt.

After a little research and experience, I applied wood conditioner to all of the pieces. It is CRUCIAL you do this. It really helps the piece turn out the way you want it. It keeps the stain nice and even. I applied it with a rag and let me tell you, a little goes a long way.

Post conditioning. Whats great is it only takes a few minutes to dry. Just make sure you are fully invested in the first coat of stain when you apply this. I think there is a 2 hour window stain has to be applied after using the conditioner.

This is the stain we used. I liked the look of it on the sample. After further research (after the fact) I saw a lot of mixed reviews when using stain and poly mixed. I didnt really have an issue with it. It was easy and very shiny!

Coat one complete. After I applied it (with a sponge brush), I let it sit overnight to dry. It was pretty chilly out, so I didnt have to worry about humidity slowing the process.

The next day, I applied the second coat. When I applied the first coat I thought for sure I would have to apply way more than two coats to darken up. It was so light.

Not the case. It went on as thick as paint. And just look how shiny. Sadly the shine did not translate to the top as much, but I have a feeling it just needs more coats due to the type of wood.

Here you can see the difference between coat one and coat two. Night and ~~day~~ darker night if you ask me.

What does the finished product look like?

(lets not judge the unstained chair...that is my task this week...its been raining outside). I think it looks great. It was an easy project, but took some time for sure.

Next on the dining room agenda:

~~Finish table~~

Recover new chairs

Finish staining wood chair

Find a buffet/sideboard to refinish

Table linens

What's happening on your Tuesday?

Pink Sugar Bakery WINNER and another busy weekend

2011-12-03T08:07:00.000-05:00

Happy Saturday everyone! (my favorite day of the week)

It is time to announce the winner of the Pink Sugar Bakery giveaway. The winning number pulled from random.org is:

~6~

Meg O @watchmegorun said... i'm about to blog right now with a link to the giveaway :): Congratulations Megan! Send me your email address and I will send it to Pink Sugar's Megan and have her give you the hook up!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another busy weekend on deck. Last night was great. I got to see my a group of my friends for dinner at my friend Carina's house. It was so nice to hang out with the girls and enjoy each others company.

This morning I am going to drive over to my sister's school and get my haircut. Im thinking something along the lines of

via pinterest

I may try to hit the little antique shop in the same parking lot for some picture frames I want to convert into pin boards. Also, I hope I can find my mom's gift there as well. After driving back from the OTHER side of town (I have used SO MUCH gas since I have moved here, its getting ridiculous!), I am attending my friend's wine tasting soiree. It just happens to coincide with the SEC championship game, so we will be rooting for our Dawgs (even if they are demolished by LSU).

I am hoping for a little down time tonight for more Christmas decorating and cleaning because tomorrow I WILL GO TO THE GYM OR FOR A RUN OUTSIDE! This is getting ridiculous. My gym is really hard to get to after work and before work is really not an option (due to its location and the fact that I dont want to wake up at 4am). I have a 5k next weekend and havent done much preparing for it AGAIN. I dont know what the deal is. I think part of it is that I want to have a clean, unpacked house and everything else can fall to the side.

What are your plans for this weekend?

Last Day to Enter the GIVEAWAY!!

2011-12-02T10:19:00.000-05:00

Dont forget, the giveaway for Pink Sugar Bakery closes today at 11:59pm EST. Make sure you get your entries in before then!

I will announce a winner tomorrow morning (picked at random).

Good luck and see you tomorrow!!

I knew those Muppets were smarty pants

2011-11-30T22:20:00.001-05:00

My house looks so much nicer with Christmas decorations up. Its not complete, but there are Christmas lights everywhere. Forget unpacking, time to get festive!

Have you started decorating?

In light of my boyfriend's new Muppet Movie, I thought it would be fitting to show you a video a friend posted on Facebook.

Why is this song so great? It is the fight song for The University of Georgia! How fitting for this weekend: UGA vs LSU in the SEC Championship. Glory Glory to Ole Georgia! And to Hell with LSU!!

(wanna know a silly secret? I used to call my uncle "Uncle Gonzo." I have NO idea why either. I think Gonzo was my favorite?)

Have you entered the giveaway I am hosting? Hurry, it ends THIS FRIDAY!!

Pink Sugar Bakery GIVEAWAY

2011-11-29T19:12:00.000-05:00

Hello darlings!

I am really excited about today. First and foremost...I got a promotion! I am so excited but scared at the same time. Its a BIG step and I have even bigger shoes to fill.

Onto even more exciting things: ITS TIME FOR A GIVEAWAY! (say that in your best Oprah's Favorite Things voice).

A few weeks ago I found some of the cutest jewelry from Pink Sugar Bakery. You all know my love for baked goods (especially cupcakes) and I know how much you wanted me to share my love with you. I spent a lot of time looking at everything Megan offers. I built every type of earring, necklace, and bracelet I could.

What is Pink Sugar Bakery?
PinkSugarBakery.com offers sweet shop inspired jewelry for the fashionista with a sweet tooth! Each piece is handmade to order by the owner, Megan. The best-selling Build Your Own Cupcake items are entirely customizable, down to your choice of yummy scents (yes scents). One of Megan's favorite types of custom orders to do is a set of cupcake necklaces for your bridesmaids in your wedding colors. They make such a cute wedding party gift!

After emailing Megan about hosting a giveaway, she sent me a cupcake pendant to check out. When I got the necklace in the mail and opened it, I was hit with a sweet smell. mmmmm I wore the necklace around and couldnt help loving how I smelled. My coworker pointed out how cute the pendant was and I commented on how yummy it smelled. She wanted to smell it but mentioned she noticed I had it near my nose most of the morning, so passed. Hahah what can I say?

The charm itself is extremely lightweight and absolutely adorable. Not only does Megan carry necklaces, bracelets, earrings, charms (hello Pandora bracelet), but she also carries hair accessories, clothing for both men and women, gifts for your fur baby, and so many other things. My favorite thing is that everything is customizable.

These items would make perfect gifts for Christmas (Ill send you my list), weddings (I think I found my bridesmaids gifts), birthdays, and more. Make sure you also check out her Etsy shop.

So you want to win do you?
Megan is awesome enough to give one lucky winner a $25 giftcard for her site. Exciting right?! I think so.

How to enter:

You must be a follower of this blog to enter (1 entry)

Follow Pink Sugar Bakery on Twitter and/or Pink Sugar Bakery on Facebook (1 entry)

Head over to Pink Sugar Bakery and tell me what you would pick out (Im nosy) (1 entry)

Blog, Tweet, or Facebook about this giveaway and link back up in the comment section (1 entry each)

Basically you have a million chances to win (or up to 6). This giveaway ends Friday, December 1, 2011 at 11:59 EST. The winner will be chosen at random and announced Saturday morning! Good luck!

Be Here Tomorrow

2011-11-28T20:46:00.000-05:00

Hi friends!! At some point my weeks are going to slow down right?

I wanted to accomplish more than I did this weekend, but it was packed with so much. We finally found chairs for our dining room and even rescued a puppy. I'm telling ya, we were busy!! While driving home we saw him running on the side of the road, so I jumped out and grabbed him. We called animal control (bc he did have a collar) and I'm hoping they find his owner. He was extremely hyper so I'm guessing he jumped the fence. Poor boy. You could tell he was scared.

Today I looked at how much I slacked in the running/gym dept and noticed on my schedule I was planning to start 10k training this week. Hahahahahah yea ok. The race would land at the worst time with my work schedule (yes thats about to get crazy again), so I'm pushing it back a week. This week will just be a base week. Except my run today was subpar. My body was pumped to run. My breathing was perfect. My calves just wouldn't follow. I stretch like its my job, I dont understand. I guess the plan is to roll tonight and stretch more.

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Why did I ask you to stop by tomorrow??

I'm hosting an awesome giveaway!!!! I can't wait to show you what it is! So make sure to stop by.

Do you feel like time is moving faster.

Have you started Christmas shopping.

Make sure to stop by!!!!!

Thanksgiving Randomosities

2011-11-26T09:06:00.000-05:00

Hello Friends! I hope you are enjoying your Thanksgiving weekend. If you work retail, I know your pain. I have worked MANY of Black Fridays/Tday weekends at Target back in the day. Its always a trip to see how people freak out over some of the craziest things.

It has been a very busy weekend for me, but I am so happy I was able to spend it with my family. I feel a little less cut off like I did when I lived in KY.

On Wednesday my entire office (if they even came in) chose to leave at noon. It was nice because I had a few errands to run in preparation for Thanksgiving. I headed downtown to the race expo to pick up my number for the Atlanta Thanksgiving 5k. A few months ago I decided I was going to run the half, but never signed up for it because training took a sharp turn downward in the month of September because of my work hours. Then Lauren said she was going to run the 5k, so I signed up too. Not bad that ALL finishers received a medal. Gotta love some bling!

When I got downtown I was extremely disappointed with the expo. They had it in a very nice hotel, but it took me about 20 minutes to find off street parking (because you would have to pay to have your car valet parked at the hotel) and then I spent $5 just to park for 20 minutes. I thought the expo itself was a little lacking. I have seen bigger ones. Plus they ran out of shirts. I got one of the last ones in a size bigger than what I wear. I checked out their facebook page and a lot of people had the same issues. I filled out the survey and said they need to have the expo at a location outside the city so it is easier to get to. Just saying.

Thursday I woke up at 6am and headed down to Turner Field to meet with Lauren. OH.MY.GOD it was cold! My pinkies were frozen in the first 10 minutes of being outside. This race had a GREAT turnout. The 5k alone had about 5000 finishers. When I got there, the half marathon was just beginning.

Getting to the start of the 5k, that was interesting. I had a few people come up to me asking where it was. I thought it was after the half runners were cleared out. I was wrong. It was on the OTHER SIDE of the parking lot. I didnt see any signs, so that was a bit of a let down. After cutting through the corrals for the half marathon (which was a fun time...sorry), I found Lauren and we went to the start of the 5k.

I was so excited I got to try my new Active Bands I won from Ali's giveaway. I love how they feel and how secure they fit. I of course wore the pink sparkly one.

And we were off. It was quite frustrating because it took over a half of a mile to weave in and out of the walkers. Its fine if you want to walk, but dont start up front. It was a bit of a pain and I know took a good chunk out of my time.

Holy hills. I was not ready for the entire course to be uphill. For the first TWO miles we went uphill. There was one little dip in there, but not enough to call it downhill. And just when you thought you were on a flat drag, you went up some more! I was not prepared at all for this race.

When I FINALLY got to the finish, it was down hill. I hit the finish line, got my medal, and waited for Lauren to rock out her race. My time was extremely slow. I almost didnt want to share it on here OR Daily Mile because I was quite blah about it. But I went into this not having worked out in one full week (moving) and I hadnt run in longer than that. I had ZERO goals for this race other than to have fun (and its always fun to run and see homeless people running with their shopping cart across the street alongside you...go team!)

My official time was 38:32. Im not happy about my time, but Im happy we had fun. And Lauren pretty much rocked it out!

Awful picture of me, but that sun was hitting all the wrong places

I headed home to bake my dessert and unpack. Im so bored with unpacking. Make it stop!

Chocolate Chess Pie anyone? It came out SO tasty. Rich, but tasty. Dinner was great as per usual and it was nice to see my family. We stuffed ourselves to the gills with THREE turkeys. THREE!! We had two traditional turkeys and one deep fried.

And that is about as southern as it gets. Sitting around next to the lawnmower looking over the frying turkey.

Post dinner we basically couldnt move. Hey we had three freaking turkeys to get through (and just to let you know, we didnt break into the 3rd turkey. There was about 20 of us, but we only finished off 3/4 of one and almost the full fried (it wasnt as big)...my mom was so worried people wouldnt get leftovers).

On our way home we drove past some big stores to see the madness of black Friday starting on Thursday. Lines everywhere. We unfortunately had to stop at walmart so we could accomplish work the next day and it was a disaster.

Yesterday my mom and I headed out to the lesser traveled stores and I wasnt WOWed with the deals. Hobby Lobby always has something great on Black Friday, meh. Bed, Bath and Beyond, meh for sure. Home Goods I bought a few Christmas decorations. Old Time Pottery I scored big. I bought a Christmas tree for $40 (7ft tall tree), a whole bunch of decorations, and lots of things that sparkle. I cant wait to start decorating. Gotta unpack first.

Today we will embark on the last regular season football game, Georgia vs Georgia Tech. Luckily since my team is AWESOME, we are the SEC East Champs and will be playing in the SEC Championship next weekend. I want to go to the game but tickets START at $300.

How was your Thanksgiving?
Did you go shopping in the Black Friday madness?
Did you score any good deals?
Annndd when do you start decorating for Christmas?

Hopefully back with a fun filled post this week

2011-11-20T11:49:00.000-05:00

We are moved in and trying to get unpacked. Moving was of course extremely eventful (mainly frustrating). but I am glad we are part of the way done.

Wednesday:
After work we picked up the truck and started loading it up. We finished faster than we expected so hit our favorite mexican restaurant before leaving the next day. I was pretty happy how quickly things were getting done.

Thursday:
COOOOOOLLLLLLDDDDDD. Freezing cold. This day was semi frustrating because moving is straight frustrating. We (I) were (was) really worried we were going to have to throw things away because they werent going to fit in the truck. Luckily everything BARELY fit. We cleaned the apartment (which they are trying to pull one over on us. Typical apartment) and headed out. 6 hours later I arrived in Atlanta with kitties in tow. They had to bunk in my mom's office because with all the moving and stress, meeting her cats was something I wasnt keen on doing.

Friday: MOVING DAY
Matt left before us (since he had the truck) and we loaded up two more cars. I was about 10 minutes away when he called me and said they werent going to let us move in. ?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!? They said we werent supposed to move in until Saturday. ?!?!?!?!?!??!?? (note those are mainly cuss words).

My mom and I got to the apartment and freaked out. How could they not let us move in? Today was our move in day. They actually said that I NEVER called to change the move in date from Saturday to Friday. (right because I want to move all the way from Kentucky in hopes we can just move in). They were REALLY unsympathetic and wouldnt do anything for us. We left. Pissed.
When I got back to my mom's I found the email and welcome letter showing we were supposed to move in Friday, but it was too late.

Saturday: Moving day?
Strike two for this complex: they are completely unorganized. The whole day was a cluster fluck of madness. The woman at the leasing office talked TOO much. She never had her facts straight and was just dreadfully unorganized. We told her we had paperwork showing we were supposed to move in and of course the blame was passed to someone else. They deleted something that caused everything to reset. Hmmm When she came to collect our money (which she forgot to do when we were sitting with her) she tried to double charge. I explained to her the price WE discussed, she didnt remember, and blamed this other person for the notes being gone (I paid the right amount though). THEN had the nerve to ask us to give her all 10s on some survey they are doing. HAHAHAH

The move was hard and really expensive. Im glad its over, but I hope this is the last apartment I EVER have to rent.

How was your weekend? I have a lot of blog catching up to do.

Ill be back

2011-11-15T18:56:00.000-05:00

I am not sure when I will be online again, but I am hoping in the next week we will have internet.

We move back to Atlanta Thursday. Tomorrow after work we start loading up the truck and Thursday we pick up odds and ends and head out. The one thing I dread the most about this move: the drive. I am going to have two kitties yelling at me for SIX hours. It doesnt end there. We are staying at my parents' for the night, so we have to keep them locked in my mom's office. I can bet her cats are going to be very curious about who is in the office.

Friday we move into our new apartment and I am so excited to see it.

Like I said, I have no idea when we will have internet (we have to wait until the current tenants cancel their cable/internet before we can hook ours up).

And lets hope this pressure I feel in my throat is just because it was freezing cold today and really warm this evening. Sick + moving heavy things= bad times

Thank goodness we go to the gym

2011-11-09T21:17:00.000-05:00

There must be something in the water this week because our sweet tooth has been on the prowl! A few weeks ago we had a slice of pie from a local bakery called chocolate chess pie. HOLY GOOD!

I knew I had to make my own and I knew it was perfect for Thanksgiving dessert. Close to my bedtime Sunday night we decided I needed to make a practice pie so I could perfect it for the big day. Im glad I did, there are so many changes I will need to make to it.

Once I have changed the recipe up a little, I will share that and better pictures with you. It took FOREVER to set and the baking times in the recipe were off, so it was a little under cooked...but it was really good!

Tonight after the gym another sweet tooth attacked and since we dont really want to spend money out, I opted to whip together some peanut butter cookies. I love my PB! I also love how quickly cookies like this bake and set. In 20 minutes you can stuff your face.

I found the recipe at Lick the Bowl Good (have you seen how ah-mazing the pictures are??? I cannot wait until I am in a location with better lighting. I may have to put something together myself).
It is a super easy recipe and I think after one more make, Ill have it memorized (with my alterations of course)

2-1/2 cups flour
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 stick of butter, room temp
1 cup peanut butter (I prefer crunchy)
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar, packed
2 eggs

Mix flour, salt, and baking soda. Set aside.
Mix butter and peanut butter. Add both kinds of sugar. Mix well. Give the spoon a little lick, I wont judge. Add eggs and beat well.
Stir flour mixture into peanut butter mixture.
Drop dough from a teaspoon on baking pan. Flatten with a fork.
Bake at 375 ° for 10 to 15 minutes until lightly browned.

Grab yourself a glass of milk because these taste that much better with some cool milk.
This recipe made a ton of cookies. So many cookies I may have to give them away. Thank goodness for the gym this week. Make sure to stop by my baking blog (for my new friends) For the Love of Baking soon. Once I have moved and settled, I will have a ton of recipes to post.

Last week and this week I made something that makes me a big runnerd. I may have started playing around in Excel and I may have made a master training log for an entire year! It may or may not be color coated and I may or may not look at it often. My goal is to run A LOT of races next year. I need to work off all this baking somehow. Right now my schedule calls for hard cardio and weight training. Come the end of December/Jan, I start training for a half. I havent found a half I want to run in March, but I am looking.

What is your favorite cookie?

What are your plans for the weekend?

Do you have a favorite food at Thanksgiving? Lumpy mashed potatoes for me!

Ive only stripped once

2011-11-04T16:47:00.003-04:00

In reference to my last post, I am looking to you for some help because as I said before there might be a little change around here. I am thinking about making the move to Wordpress, but its more challenging (maybe not?) than Blogger and there are a lot more steps to launching something than here. If you know anything about it, please let me know.

Ok ok. So you want to talk about the time I stripped? Hey, hey its not what you think

We are keeping this G rated folks! So about that time. I have spent months and months and months looking for THE kitchen table. Craigslist can be a frustrating thing. So can my cheapness. I go through life thinking everything should be under $5.
One day not really looking for anything on CL, I found a table listed for $40. It was exactly what I wanted. (YES!) We picked it up and decided the original style wasnt what we were looking for (not to mention there was some scratches and dents that needed to be sanded out.

We headed to our local home improvement store and picked up a few things to remove the stain that once was.

Here is the table before we stripped her clean.

We (and yes Matt took interest AGAIN in a furniture redo....he is becoming quite the handyman) knew it wasnt going to be as easy as sanding the finish down and restarting. We bought scrapers, brushes, sander pads and paint stripper:

$6.28 at Home Depot

This stuff is great. It works so well and is really easy to use. You spray it on, let it sit for about 15 minutes, scrap it off, wipe it down, and sand it away.

Spray it on

Give her a good scraping

Like buttah

Pre sanding

Look how clean they came out after being wiped down and sanded. An empty canvas for me now.

Here is what I do have to say about the spray.
-WEAR THICK GLOVES. Or have a glass or bucket of water around you. If you get the smallest amount on your skin it feels like fire ants biting you. Im getting itchy thinking about it. The good thing is if you DO get it on your skin, water washes it away, hence the bucket. If you are a crazy scraper, you may want to protect your eyes/mouth.

-WORK IN SMALL AREAS. When you spray the stripper, you will want to spend some time in that area to ensure you get everything (especially if you have curves...ps USE a wire brush. BEST.IDEA.EVER). So dont be like me and spray the entire top only to watch it dry up. You will have to respray thus causing wasted strippers (hey now). Spray little bit at a time. Plus its fun to see a side by side

-A LITTLE GOES A LONG WAY. We found that if you spray a little on, you can spread it lightly with a rag and it does the same job (economical). You dont want to spread it too thin, but move it around so you dont have to use as much from the can.

-WORK OUTSIDE. Your lungs will thank you. Plus you dont want the little fire ants all up in your stuff.

So this is part one of my kitchen table remodel. I am currently waiting for the stain to dry (5 hours to go) so I can apply the second coat. And just to let you guys know, I passed on those chairs. I ended up not going to Atlanta (where they are located) this weekend and frankly I was put off by that woman.

Hopefully this weekend I will be able to show you an almost finished product (there is a leg missing which we did find...in Matts trunk....in Atlanta....400 miles away). I guess that leg will have to wait to be refinished when we move. Wamp wamp.

(ps Klean Strip has no idea I exist and did not contact me to review their product. I just wanted to let you know about a product that worked well for us. You might have something you like better and that is a-ok. If Klean Strip WOULD like to get to know me, I promise I am a great person and there is a lot more stripping in my future :-D)

Wordpress?

2011-11-04T10:33:00.001-04:00

Does anyone speak Wordpress? If you do, can you shoot me an email at hlg0706 at gmail dot com? Im trying to learn how to use it and I am COMPLETELY lost.

Thank you!!

Stay tuned for one last project before we hit the road and move back to Atlanta in two weeks.

Am I too nice?

2011-11-01T17:33:00.000-04:00

The answer to this is yes and no. In instances where I should be like WTF, Im not. I let it happen.

Today made me realize even with little things in life I might be too nice.

I am currently in search of 4 dining chairs so we can finally have dinner like normal people at a table. I have looked all over craigslist for weeks. FINALLY I have found the 4. Not only are they the style I want, but they are price I like (less than $40 for all 4). They are located in Atlanta and with plans to go down this weekend, it would work out perfectly.

Pottery Barn (this is what the chairs look like)

The ad on CL said to either stop by the garage sale or give them a call. Not wanting strangers on CL to have my number, I always email. I will skip listings if they say calls only. Its awkward and you dont need my phone number.

I sent the email (a nice email) asking if the chairs were still available. Please remember they were being sold at a garage sale. They emailed me later that day with the simple response "yes." (I usually add more content to MY emails, but I get it, this is CL). I email her back and say we will be in the area this weekend and ask if we can stop by because I want to buy them (see how wordy I am in my emails?) She emails back and says I need to call. Really? REALLY?

Hoping my phone call does not disturb her, I call about 24 hours after she emailed me back. Here is how the conversation goes down:

Me: Hi, this is Heather. I have been emailing you about the chairs you listed on CL.

Her: Yes. Oh yes

Me: I just wanted to check and see if they were still available and if so would it be ok if I stopped by Saturday to pick them up.

Her: You can IF they are available (insert snotty tone).

Me: Oh ook. Do you plan on trying to sell them before Saturday?

Her: Well I am NOT a STORE maaaam. Just to be clear.

Me: I know you are not a store, but I am currently out of town and wont be there to buy your chairs until Saturday.

Her: Well IF they are here, you can have them. But if someone comes here before you, I will sell the chairs to them.

Me: (insert snotty attitude) Ok well I guess Ill call Saturday to see if you have them.

Her: Yes do that. Thank you SOO much for calling me. (insert a nice tone....too late)

Hang up. Whatever. There was no reason to talk to me like a moron. Lets backup...you were selling these at a garage sale this past weekend and you didnt sell them. You arent selling gold. They are chairs.

I have sold quite a few things on CL and I have NEVER treated someone like that. The way I handle CL business is if you email me saying you want the item I give you a few days to come claim your prize. I understand people get screwed on CL, but its not like Im asking her to hold them for a month. A few days and I WILL be in that area Saturday. My thing is if you say you will be there, I will hold off on any following inquires until the agreed day. I understand that people cant get out for things until the weekend, so Ill wait.

Am I unreasonable to expect this from other people? Am I too nice when I sell things on CL? Now I am so put off by this woman that I dont want to buy the chairs. Would you be the same way?

What sucks is she has my number. I hope she doesnt call Saturday asking where I am because I dont have a reason and I dont want to tell her that her tude put a bad taste in my mouth.

Keep Em Coming

2011-10-30T19:51:00.001-04:00

Happy almost Halloween!

Do you know what I have noticed? Since the hellish month of September I am finding it easier and easier to sleep in on the weekends. Sleeping in to me used to be sleeping until 7am. Now I can easily pull off 9:30-10am and then a nap!

This weekend we didnt do much but relax which was nice. No reason to burn ourselves out when life is about to get busy again.

Friday I DIDNT go to the gym like I wanted. Fail. Instead we went to dinner to a wing place. It was ok. Maybe a 6 out of 10 on our rating scale.

Saturday was my big weigh in. I was looking forward to hitting my 5 pound mark. I gained 2 pounds. FAIL. I was disappointed in myself. BUT I also knew it was my fault. I ate SO MUCH PUMPKIN BREAD! And I wasnt tracking my dinner calorie consumption. I am sort of anti dieting right now because I dont see a reason to spend all this money on using services that I try on my own for free. Right now Matt and I are both using My Fitness Pal on our phones and I actually like using the program. I was VERY hesitant to sit and track everything I eat because I know myself. I have been pretty successful though. Its crazy/motivating to watch your calories go away because it makes you have to hit the gym. And BAM you have 600 extra calories.
I think what makes it so successful for me is the things I eat doesnt vary too drastically. Bowl of cereal in the morning, roughly 100 cal snack in the morning, pretty standard lunch, etc. This past week though (and today) I just didnt do it the way I should have.

Today I was playing on Pinterest and ran into a dining room I had pinned a while back. I showed it to my mom and we both swooned. I was so excited because THIS is what I wanted to do for our table. But not all parties agreed. Fail

Just so LOVELY...Source

The more I thought about it, the more I started to agree. I can see why a guy wouldnt like this. I am back to wanting to stain the table black (because it just wont make sense to paint it), but I am stuck on the chairs (that we dont have). I want to paint them a different color. Pale yellow, light blue? I dont know.

Most importantly we need to talk about this pumpkin bread I devoured this past week.

I probably ate 6 pounds of the batter putting it into the pan. This was so good! I wont lie: I did a little dance every time I took a bite. But dont worry....there is still half a loaf in the freezer waiting.

How was your weekend?

You realize what happens after tomorrow? Its the holiday season! And I am so excited to share the pie I am making for Thanksgiving with all of you. It is TO.DIE.FOR!

Sick kitties, racing on the mind, and other various topics

2011-10-27T17:11:00.000-04:00

Thursday evening. I welcome you with open arms. I am ready for the weekend (hush, I know I always say that).

So what has been going on in the world of waiting you ask? A lot of waiting that’s what. I don’t really know how to describe this past week. It was just there.

My little baby Hopps is still laying around sick and it breaks my heart. Last week we noticed he stopped eating/drinking and wouldn’t get out of bed. I thought it was a cold but after 3 days of not really going to the bathroom, flags of concern went up. We brought lil Hoppy to the vet (which he was unhappy about) and had blood/urine taken for tests. My gut said he was possibly constipated, but I wanted to cover all of my bases and make sure there wasn’t something else going on. The test results came back very good and the vet had the same thought as I did: constipation. (Sorry to be so TMI). She gave me a tube of Catlax and said to give it to him once a day for a week. Now try to give a cat anything against his will. Its good times I tell ya! Eventually after days of struggling and syrupy goop all over his face, he lets us give him the medicine. A week has passed and he has gone from lethargic and sickly to a little more like himself. He is eating A LOT more, drinking on his own (because I was so worried about his hydration I forced water into his mouth…good runner mommy…always worried about hydration), and much more mobile/vocal than last week. My worry now is that it is still really hard for him to poop. I really want to avoid an enema. He will HATE me! Im giving him one more day before I call the vet again.

I am trying to get myself pumped up about racing again. I have signed up for two races to date. One on Thanksgiving and one in December. There is actually a second race in December that I want to register for, but I am not 100% sure.

Next month my plan was to start unofficially start training for racing next year (STOP giving me THE look 26.2). I set the plan up so my friend/running buddy could join with me. She has been sidelined for over a year now because of a crappy injury. This week she got the ok from her doctor to start walking on flat surfaces. In the training I have a lot of walking for the first few months. But now on top of the walking I want to bump some training up. My original plan was to run a half in the summer, but now I am thinking about doing a half in the spring, one in the summer, and the marathon in the fall. I keep getting emails from the Atlanta Half I ran last year and I am considering doing that again, but I think it would be more fun to run a different race. I don’t know. Its all still in the thinking process.

After we move (ugh I hate waiting) I am going to basically tackle all three of my projects in a row. Yesterday I bought fabric for my chair. I am really excited about it because the price was right. I saw they reduced the price from $9 a yard to $7 and offered free shipping with my order AND I had a coupon code for 15% off. Cha-ching! Now the question is: how to recover a chair. Check the fabric:

Lovely isn’t it? I cant wait!

Now for the public service announcement I feel obligated to give:

Today is OCTOBER 27, 2011. Please please please for the love of all things holy, unholy, whatever do NOT start decorating your house for Christmas. The other day on the way home from my gym I noticed an apartment with CHRISTMAS lights on their patio. Normally I would have thought this was probably some college student that loves Christmas light ambience, but I see these people all the time. They are a FAMILY of 3 or 4 that live in a 700sqft (70sqm) one bedroom apartment. Weird already, no? As I was pulling through the complex I saw 8 apartments decorated for a holiday TWO months away. Please someone explain this to me. I cant figure it out. Megan and I were talking this morning about the tacky things our neighbors do (because she is fighting the inflatable mob in her hood) and I could probably make a list of things I see. (please note: It is OK to start pinning/planning Christmas décor or gifts)

What are some tacky things your neighbors have done?

What races are you running in 2012?

Are you tackling any fun projects?

Take a hike

2011-10-22T09:58:00.000-04:00

I dont know if I shared these pictures from a hike Matt and I went on a few weeks ago. I love to hike. I dont do it enough. We went to the Natural Bridge around Lexington, KY because we heard that was the place to hike (unless you head down to southern KY and hike at the caves). It was a really nice hike. We packed a picnic and headed out mid morning. It was about an hour-1.5 hour drive (to which we got a little lost) and the hike in total was about 2.5 hours. Boy our legs were TIRED when we were done. To get to the bridge, you have to go up up up. You feel out of shape hiking that trail. We dressed in our workout clothes, but there were people in jeans and flip flops....I couldnt imagine. I wonder if they regretted that choice once they started hiking.

This was the cable suspended bridge to get to the trail. YIKES!

Under the natural bridge. It really is a pretty area.

The stairs to get to the top of the bridge. They were so narrow and the passage was so tight.

On top of the bridge

See how narrow that passage way was? I was starting to worry I was going to be stuck.

The Natural Bridge from afar.

With all that hiking UP, we had to come down! Hiking down was SO.MUCH.HARDER! There were some areas you had to get on your butt and scoot.

This was the middle of where we had to scoot down. I had to stop and take a picture to show just how steep it was (clearly we didnt take this way up)

It was a fun hike, a beautiful day, and a nice little picnic. My legs were wobble the second we hit flat ground.

Today looks like it is going to be a pretty day, but we have to clean and pack. Can you believe its the END of October? I woke up to FROST on the rooftops! Frost!

What are your plans this weekend?

Excitement

2011-10-20T21:13:00.000-04:00

It is funny how life went from extremely crazy to stop-in-its-tracks boring. I mostly blame it on the fact that we are waiting for the next step in life to occur and I am not a patient person. I have put all projects on hold. I have not signed up for any races until AFTER I have moved. Stuff in the kitchen is starting to get packed up, so baking is soon going to become nonexistent. (Speaking of which…would you be so kind to tell me what you think of For the Love of Baking? I am trying to pick a direction that blog should go, but I am not quite sure yet. And don’t judge the photography! I am working with dreadful fluorescent lighting in a tiny space.) In other words....Im restless.

So I guess since there isn’t much going on in my world now, I am going to share with you what I am EXCITED about:

Moving home! I miss my family and friends something terrible. There has been a bit of a disconnect lately because of the distance/life being busy. Our new place, even though we haven’t seen it personally (crazy I know) is going to be the biggest place we have ever lived in (3 bedrooms/2 bathrooms and 1500 square ft (150 square meters!). That means there is PLENTY of room for visitors *hint hint cough cough*

From my photo trip with Lauren

Via google images

Running a Thanksgiving 5k with Lauren! I think this is her first 5k?! so head over to her blog and cheer her on! (I don’t think she realizes what is about to happen to her after she runs this….she is going to be bitten by the running bug. Cant say I didn’t warn her!)

Finally getting back to work on all of my projects. I have 3 major outstanding ones at the moment. Matt and I are in the process of refinishing a dining room table, I am going to attempt to recover my chair, and I want to build a headboard for our bed. Wanna see:

Via Pinterest

Racing in 2012. I am starting a list of races I want to run from November until the end of time. If it is possible, I am going to try to travel to some races (depending on budgets) My biggest excitement is running a marathon next fall. I am a runnerd and have already made a training plan for it (umm one year early). Its nothing set in stone, but more of a guidance tool. Every week I will update it to have more set in stone like qualities.

Changes around here. Boy does this blog need something. A facelift as I told Lauren. Its taken a turn for the boring IMO. Im not sure when these changes are going to happen, but they are coming!

Having a truck handy for all of my projects. (my moms gotta truck and im gonna use it). I bought my kitchen table in hopes it would fit in my car. Wamp wamp. No good. I had to rent a Uhaul trailer to pull it home. It was only $20 but it was $20. In just a few short weeks I wont have this problem.

Being 15 months closer to buying a house. Seems so far away, I know.

Christmas decorations! I should be more excited about Halloween decorations, but they are all sitting in a tub in storage. I have one lonely little decoration up right now.

2009

A list of fall meals I have ready to be made.

Ok enough to be excited about. Now you see why I think life is so boring…I have to wait 3.5 more weeks until all this will commence. Le sigh.

What are you excited about?

Have you ever given your blog a facelift? What things did you change?

What are you doing for Halloween? Are you dressing up?

I hate how red my face gets after working out

2011-10-18T20:55:00.000-04:00

Two days down. I start looking forward to the weekend before the weekend even ends most times.

I wanted to post yesterday but I was knocked on my butt from some bug I caught over the weekend. I don’t know what it was, but it was brutal.

Yes I am a nerd with too much time on my hands. And yes I am supposed to be smiling

It hit me suddenly at work Friday. I was sitting at my desk, minding my business eating a banana when BAM I felt nauseous. I groaned and tried not to think about it. When I got home Matt said he felt the same way. Hmm.

That night as we were both laying on the couch watching tv my little Barley was meowing up a storm for a solid hour. It was really annoying to be honest. I finally sat up and asked where Hopps was and we realized he was not in the confines of his house. So we went out and searched and searched. After about an hour of looking Matt said we would probably have to wait until the morning (no furry mommy wants to leave her baby out alone all night (I realize I sound like a crazy cat lady)). I was really upset. Tears. I didn’t want to leave him out there alone. We live near a busy street. We live with people who drive fast in the parking lot. In my head I was going to stay up until I found him. We kept looking. And looking. Finally as we rounded the front of our building our neighbor asked if we were looking for an orange cat…why yes we are! There he was curled in a tight ball in the corner of her patio crying. I was so happy. We scolded him and I told him how he broke my heart…because he understands everything I tell him. He knew he did wrong because he didn’t leave my side for the rest of the night.

I was up most of the night because I felt like I had flu like symptoms, severe chills and I felt nauseous. Saturday I woke up, TRIED to get out of bed, and sat on the couch. I felt like garbage and went back to bed. (I was dying inside that nothing was getting done). Matt felt bad too.

Saturday I barely consumed food and never stood up. The whole day took a lot out of me. We did manage to carve pumpkins (but it took me ALL evening).

Hopps and Barley's Vampire Cat pumpkins

Matt's pumpkin

My pumpkin

Sunday I started feeling great. I weighed myself (out of curiosity and because I am counting calories) and I am officially down 4 pounds since I started counting!!! I ate some brunch cleaned up a little and hit the gym. Matt came home to let me know he hit 800 calories on the elliptical and told me to move my training from intervals on the ellip to more steady, cardio needy workouts. I went to the gym with a mission: beat 800 calories! I didn’t know if I would be able to do it, but why not try at least.

848 calories later!!!

I went home and wanted to die because I did feel like barfing at this point, but I was on an exercise high. All I did was 60 mins of the elliptical starting on level 12 and moving it to 14 after 10 mins then up to 16. Woof.

Of course Monday I was on my deathbed again. Today though is a different day. And Matt just texted me saying he burned 923 cals on the elliptical……….

This guy hit 943! It sucked royally but I did it. I will be taking it a little easier for the rest of the week for sure.

(Bonus prize: Im getting banana peanut butter french toast for dessert! mmmm)

Smile

2011-10-10T20:13:00.000-04:00

This video made me happy! I dont know why, but I love watching kids react to the "we are going to Disneyworld" surprise. And she is adorable. You have to watch the whole video.

I remember when I was "given" Disneyworld. I was in 2nd grade (February 1992) and was getting ready to go to my Brownies meeting. I walked outside and there was a limo waiting in our driveway. I didnt know what was going on and my dad said we were going to Disneyworld! I remember being so excited. We were leaving that day and my one big concern was what I was going to do with my winter coat in Florida (oh the worries of an 7 year old).

It was the best.day.ever. A limo ride, a plane ride and Disney freaking world.

Do you remember how you were "given" Disney?

This has been an interesting weekend if i do say so

2011-10-09T12:55:00.000-04:00

I wish everyday could be Saturday. This weekend has allowed me to finally catch up on the sleep I have been deprived of.

Friday we FINALLY found a place to live! I am so ready to buy a house so for the next 5-10 years we dont have to worry about finding a place, finding boxes, packing setting up cable, etc. I hate moving. But I guess since we are officially moving and have a place (hopefully this week) I can tell you where our next adventure lies.

We are moving....................................................................

Back to ATLANTA

Im happy. I miss my friends and family. I miss my city and all the familiarity. We decided it is best to move back because there is more opportunity in Atlanta. Plus I need my friends and family to sample my baking. No one in my office will eat my treats and Matt and I certainly cant.

So Friday night and Saturday morning we spent our time cleaning like crazy people. We dont move until November, but we had to have a preliminary inspection since we are transferring our lease. I truly hate packing and moving.

After that was complete we headed to lunch before the pumpkin patch. We had to stop at home before the pumpkin patch and I saw Barley staring the trash can down. I had a sinking suspicion there was something under/behind it. I lifted it up and saw something large run under the couch, something large and black. Have you ever seen the episode of "How I Met Your Mother" where Marshall and Lily see the monster mouse/roach in their apartment? We were reliving that episode.

Once our intruder ran under the couch, the cats went into hunting mode. THEN......I looked over to one side of the couch and intruder and I were staring each other down. I screamed! It was a MOUSE! OMG A MOUSE! Ive never had a mouse in my house. He ran under the desk and the cats couldnt get to him. I had to run to Home Depot to get a trap. I personally dont like killing things other than roaches, so I got REALLY poopy I had to do this.

It took 5 minutes. The intruder is no longer. Sorry buddy.

After stressful situation number two of the weekend, we headed to the Huber Family Vineyard + Orchard to pick our pumpkins.

I got a white pumpkin and Matt got a perfectly shaped orange pumpkin

How would you carve this guy?

The kitties got their own pumpkins

The farm was huge and smelled of pumpkin doughnuts. Go figure we go to a place with the sweet aroma of yummy looking doughnuts and its the same day I start tracking my food. Dang. It was really busy but there was a ton to do. They had a winery (which all of the wine was made from their vineyard). They had a burger stand, an ice cream shop, a farmers market, an orchard, a pumpkin patch and berry patches. There was also a restaurant on the other side, but we didnt get to venture that far.

The first pumpkin I picked up Matt deemed his pumpkin. It is a perfectly shaped pumpkin and would make for a good carve. I grabbed a white pumpkin because how often do you get white pumpkins?

After buying a bottle of wine, four pumpkins, a small scoop of pumpkin nut ice cream and two pops....it was time to head home and watch Georgia beat Tennessee.

I was suffering a headache at this point so I took some Goodys PM and passed out. I am happy to report I slept through the whole night. It was so refreshing.

Today is going to be a slack day. I bought a few Halloween decorations and have already thought of some ideas for a Halloween party I want to throw...next year. Please refer to the title of this blog to understand why I am so crazy.

How was your weekend?

What are you doing for Halloween?

One year and counting?

2011-10-05T17:36:00.000-04:00

You all know I am crazy by now don’t you?

I was reading this great post at Shut Up and Run today and was totally inspired, as is usually the case. I am not going to lie but for the past few months I have been suffering from severe runners envy. Reading about all of your awesome races and runs.

After reading the post on SUAR, I immediately sent Megan a facebook message saying we were going to run a marathon next year. GULP! A marathon. Did I really say I wanted to run a marathon? Are you still shaking your heads at me? I mention on Daily Mile after every run how my legs disagree with me…and that is only 2 miles of running. So why a marathon? I have run 3 half marathons. I love 13.1. It’s a great distance, but I feel like I want to push myself more, farther.

The more I think about this the more anxiety I have. What training plan should I follow? When should I start training? Do I really have to train alone? 26.2 miles, seriously? Where do I even start? I know we aren’t planning to tackle this until the fall, but yikes! So many questions.

I have no idea which race we will do, but I think it should be a fun race in a fun location to make a trip out of it. And the better the location, the more likely the boys will agree to go…as Megan pointed out. I was casually browsing today and Canada and the Bahamas caught my eye.

I have been sitting here all day thinking about why my runs lately have been subpar. I think a lot of it is the pressure I put on each run because of too much comparison. Lets take last night as an example. I have taken 2 weeks off from any sort of physical activity bc of my schedule. Last night I decided to go on a 2 mile run. While out on said run, my right calf and my left knee were sore/tight/in disagreement. I walked some it. Not proud, but like I said before I baby my legs because I am scared of getting injured again. Once I started walking I started cursing myself asking what the problem was, in the spring I was doing half marathons. (Yes I often ask myself questions). I started thinking back on how easy it was to run that 8 mile run I ran while training and now I can barely run two (I know you are doubting my marathon conquest by now).

I went home after my run feeling less accomplished. That’s because I compare my current runs to previous. Have you ever done that with something running or not? I do it ALL.THE.TIME! When I went back on Weight Watchers I kept saying it was so easy the first time and then would be discouraged I couldn’t drop the pounds the second time. I need to stop. I have read a few people post about this because (especially with running) its so easy to do.

Im ready to get ready.

Have you run a marathon or training to run one?

What is your favorite distance to run?

Any marathons you recommend?

What type of doubts do you try to conquer?

Do you know how to crochet? (random..but Im thinking about learning)

Time to get back on track....because my clothes said so

2011-10-03T17:52:00.000-04:00

At some point in the next few weeks I am going to rest. I am going to get a full nights sleep and I am going to take a minute to breathe.

For the last few ~~weeks~~ months I have been working extremely hard at work for an upcoming show. It was hard. People are not nice. A lot of tears were shed and there was a lot of necessary and unnecessary stress involved. We worked crazy hours and it wears you down. Right in the middle of the show, I caught a cold. And it got worse. And worse. Nothing like feeling like death on showsite and you cant do much about it. Most days we were working from 8am until 11 or midnight. Needless to say I am still fighting this cold (8 days later).

The worst is over.

I am glad I did not sign up for the half I wanted to run on Thanksgiving because I would not be close to being ready. I haven’t run in two weeks. I haven’t thought about working out either. Well I have thought about it and stressed that I wasn’t working out and my eating habits during these weeks were TERRIBLE. I did make sure to bring a lunch everyday (and keep it as nutritious as possible) but when it came to dinner (and not leaving the desk EVER) I had to eat what was provided. McDonalds, pizza, crap, crap and more crap. And when you thought it couldn’t get worse, someone brought a ton of candy. So to avoid falling asleep you would pop a Reeses cup for a little sugar rush.

My body felt like blubber. It still does even though I am slowly transitioning back. I feel like I have to start completely over (because I do). All I want to do is go home and sleep this cold/exhaustion away, but I know I need to get back in that gym. I need a schedule to stick to. Not so much a racing schedule, but something to keep me on track. This week I will be doing a lot of research it seems like.

This past weekend we celebrated my dad’s 50^th birthday in Chicago. It was actually a lot of fun. A few months ago my dad called my sister and I saying he wanted to go to New Orleans to celebrate his bday. NO is his favorite place. While I was in New York he called me in a rush and said the trip was cancelled because of work. Hmm.

At the beginning of September I was on the way to work and thought of how excited he was before he had to cancel. Party planning went into full force. It’s a disease really. I decided since he couldn’t go to NO, we would bring it to him. Mardi Gras themed everything. I bought feather masks online, beads, decorations…the whole shebang. Of course there was baking. We had the party at my gmas house and she cooked up jambalaya, pulled pork, muffelatta, tons and tons of food. I made King Cake (which came out AMAZING) and bananas foster cupcakes (total and epic fail and I may have cheated because I was so utterly exhausted).

I was so happy everyone showed up and had a great time. With my family though, they always have a great time. I will leave you with pictures from the weekend.

King Cake and Bananas Foster Cupcakes

My cousins

My sister, Matt and I

Me, my sister Karli, my dad and my sister Laurel.

My dad and cousin

My sisters and me

My grandma

My dad and cousin

How was your weekend?

Drunk with Exhaustion

2011-09-29T19:00:00.000-04:00

I made it through the worst part of my job. I survived (barely). Im still fighting a bad cold and I am still running on fumes from working over 90 hours last week and over 40 hours already this week.

I WILL update/share new posts here soon.

This weekend I am in Chicago to throw my party I alluded to 23497 years ago. Pictures will follow.

Have a super weekend!

A letter to your former self

2011-09-18T19:33:00.000-04:00

I saw this on 20something bloggers and thought it would be fun to write a letter to my younger self (the college years).

Dearest younger self,

Did high school really matter as much as people made it seem? Good for you for getting the grades you did, but it will not prepare you for college. You have to work A LOT harder to get those As. Meet with your advisors AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE!! Do not take no when they said there were no spaces available for that scholarship. Dont take classes with people you know. Its ok that you will change your major 48372 times, but make sure you pick something you can do something with.

I cant really tell you what you should do about living in the dorm. Its a good experience, but the dorms at school #1 sucked! Unsafe.

Dont go to Auburn. Just dont. You really did not gain anything from that experience other than 20 pounds and a lot of self doubt. You will never hear the end of it jokingly from your friends and seriously from your family. The cost is too much. Stay in state, work, go to school #1, and save money....THEN transfer to UGA

Party more and worry less. These are the only years you will actually be able to physically keep up with drinking until last call. Soon midnight is going to be late. And my God, drink on your 21st birthday!!! It is unacceptable to be the designated driver on YOUR 21st! Just saying.

Get out of all toxic relationships/friendships sooner than later, you had quite a few. You need to recover your confidence. But just think, these friends you go to school with will be the friends you go through the rest of your life with. Yeah some of them will fall off the face of the earth a few years after you leave school. And yes you will be devastated by the thought of weekends not being the same, but eventually they will come back around.

Study abroad. It might be expensive, but you are not going to go to Auburn so you can save up for it. Got it? Do more internships. One is not enough. Your reasoning for not doing more internships is valid (needing to work bc I needed money) but its still a good idea.

And just remember even though your college years started off lackluster and rough, the final years are the years you will remember and laugh about forever.

Sincerely,

Your current awesome self!

The $40 Challenge

2011-09-16T21:15:00.000-04:00

I really cant believe how crazy my days have been this month. They are so busy/stressful I have sort of lost my drive. I hate to wish my life away, but the end of this month cant come soon enough.

I was getting ready for work the other day and while sitting in my closet I started pondering. I had to work on show site that day which requires me to wear a work polo and khakis. I only have one pair of khakis. Sad? Yes and no. I am not a pants wearing type. I like to wear skirts/dresses (even in the winter) and shorts. Pants...eh. Khakis....nope. My uniform when I worked at my favorite store, Target, was red and khaki for 6 years.

While I was looking at other pant options I realized that ALL of my pants are worn out or dont fit. Hems are coming out, shapes are no more, buttons need to be rethreaded. All easy fixes, but some not so much. Then I moved to my winter clothes in general. They are all faded and worn. Shoes are the same way.

What I am getting at here is I need to start replenishing my clothes. I usually dont buy clothes for myself. I wait for Christmas to really bank. Its sad but I know its time to fix the situation.

Banana Republic

Each month I am going to save $40 and see what sort of outfit I can buy. My definition of an outfit: pants/shorts/skirt, shirt, under shirt, underwear, and shoes. Now I know throwing the shoes in there might be tricky, but that is why they call it a challenge. Hopefully next month I will have a $40 fabulous outfit to show!
(And the money I dont spend one month goes toward the next....hello accessories!)

New York and Company

What type of clothing budget do you give yourself? Are you frugal about buying clothes or is it you just cant get enough?

What is your favorite store to shop at?

Its Gameday Saturday!!

2011-09-10T09:11:00.000-04:00

I wish I were in Athens today watching the Bulldogs take down the Gamecocks. The Classic City is such a fun place this time of year.

Last night I was invited to the Louisville Cardinals game with some work friends. COMPLETELY different experience that what I am used to. I have only ever been to SEC football games (and 1 NFL game) so this was truly a new thing.

First we have to preface by saying it was a Friday game, it was against Florida International, it was rainy all day/week, and its not the SEC.

When we arrived at the stadium the first thing I noticed was the beer stands. I didnt know the stadium was off campus....good news! Georgia needs to take notes and build a newer/bigger stadium off campus....


Cardinal Bird landing with the game ball

I have to say I was most disappointed in the fans. I was the only one standing up in my section. I yelled (jokingly) for people around me to stand up and cheer. Crickets. The only reason I sat down was so I didnt block the guys view behind me. But I guess when your team is losing to FIU, I wouldnt be standing up much either.

It makes me dream of Athens and all that energy. Go Dawgs!

Oh the 3 day weekend

2011-09-05T09:16:00.000-04:00

Everything I wanted to do all week was thrown out the window because of work. I had big baking plans this week since the next few weeks are filled with birthdays, but I didnt. I was supposed to get a 4 mile run in and go to the gym. I didnt. I was working late and working stressed all week.

New week, new rules.

After working a 13 hour day for a second day in a row, I came home from work about 9pm Friday and tried to convince Matt to go out. It was birthday weekend (the big 3-0). Unfortunately he doesnt share the same love of birthdays that I do. Sad really. So Friday night I crashed.

Saturday our plan was to get up, hit the gym, bake a cake, and then head to dinner to watch the Georgia game.

What actually happened: I woke up, cleaned the whole apartment, started laundry, caught up on all the blogs I never had a chance to read this past week, pinned for a while, went to the Dollar Store, Home Goods, and Target. Ate lunch, convinced ourselves we were going to go to the gym Sunday, baked a 10 layer birthday cake for Matt, watched football, decided we didnt feel like going out to watch the game, ordered delicious pizza instead, yelled at the terrible game we watched, crashed.

Matt's cake wasnt the prettiest looking cake (due to lopsidedness) but I have to say, I have NAILED the chocolate cake recipe. I mean (and not to toot my horn) but it was so tasty. It was moist, the chocolate-sweetness ratio was perfect. Every single bite basically melted in your mouth. The frosting wasnt the greatest and like I said the presentation wasnt all there, but for making a 10 layer cake for the first time, not bad. You'll have to check out more on this chocolate heaven at For the Love of Baking. Im not kidding....if you are having a bad day, make this cake (maybe not 10 layers). The recipe is at FTLOB.

After a nice sleep in on Sunday, Matt and I planned to go to brunch at Lynn's Paradise Cafe. This place was featured on Food Network quite a few times. Man vs Food was there Derby weekend and Bobby Flay has had a few throwdowns go on there. We tired to eat here before (before we knew all that info) and the wait time was about 2 hours.

Via google Images

This time we were smart. We made reservations. The food at this place was AMAZING. She is well known for her french toast. I love love french toast but I was craving eggs. Plus I saw a plate of the french toast and it was a little much for me....especially with 10 layers of fudgey goodness at home.

Matt and I both got an egg scramble dish (forgot the name) that was featured on Bobby Flay's Throwdown. This dish did not disappoint.

Scrambled eggs, cubed ham, roasted red peppers, a hit of cheese, fried green tomatoes and biscuits. I was part of the clean plate club on this one. It was so amazing. We decided this is a place we would go to when people were in town because its not cheap. For both of us including tip I spent $40.

While we waited for our reservations, Matt and I went to a thrift flea market to see if they had any nightstands/projects waiting for me. Boy did they have a lot!!

I loved all these pieces. The prices didnt love me, so I took the pictures for my mom since she is looking for hutches to refinish. My favorite piece of all (and I didnt take a picture) was of a baking cabinet from the 40s maybe. It was old wood, old hinges, when you opened a door a tin flour sifter pulled out (and still worked). It was the perfect baking station. Drawers, cabinets, nooks and crannies. The price: $300 :( That would have been so fun to restore.

I actually didnt leave empty handed. I spent a whopping $10 on this:

Pardon the mess. Can you believe that was only $10!! It fits perfect at my desk and it was only $10. I finally have an awesome flea market find that I am always reading about.

The next task is to learn how to reupholster. While my mom likes the color of it, its dirty and faded and basically someone else body touched it. Plus its not quite the look I want. Here is a swatch of fabric I keep coming back to:

I dont know when I am going to refinish this, but I know my mom is excited about it. Good thing she is helping me.

Today seems like another lazy day around these parts. I know one thing....we WILL go to the gym.

How was your long weekend if you had one?

Bye bye summer....I already miss you

2011-08-31T21:19:00.000-04:00

How was your summer? Besides being hot. I worked A LOT! I visited the pool 2 or 3 times (fail). I did get to go on an awesome trip to NYC (win).

I had two goals in mind for this past month, run more and stop spending on nonessential home decor. I didnt make a big deal of either because I wanted to see if I would actually do it.

The spending part was hard. I have been on craigslist everyday looking for SOMETHING to refinish. I didnt shop for anything so I would say this was an ultimate win. My goal is to buy a house in the very near future so I need to save save save to do something so bold. I cant wait to tell WHERE we are going. A place I am VERY familiar with.

I wanted to run more this month. After running my 5k this month with Megan across the Brooklyn Bridge I was motivated to start training again for a fall half. I havent signed up for anything because the race I want to run might be thwarted with a family Thanksgiving trip.

In the month of August I ran 20 miles. I know some of you are saying you did that after lunch today, but Im just getting back into it. I think I baby my foot and legs too much because I am so scared of being hurt again. So Im taking that 20 miles to the bank!

My goal for September is to beat my 20 miles and to SURVIVE!! It is going to be a very crazy month at work for me. Mentally, physically and emotionally draining. It is already like that but I expect it to get crazier.

I have a lot of baking planned for the next few weeks (I have so many recipes I need to try before I introduce them to real live people). Stay tuned to For the Love of Baking for updates.

I will leave you with pictures from this past weekend hanging out with my family in Atlanta.

My mom, gma, cousins and I went to a little paint studio where they show you what you are painting and how to paint it. It was a lot of fun. At night you bring a bottle of wine and good friends. I will do that again

Then we went to a tea shop to have a tea party. My gma and cousins wearing the clothing you can wear to fit the part.

Its almost Gameday!!

2011-08-22T19:08:00.002-04:00

If you know me you know my favorite season is summer. Its bright, its hot, its cheerful. My second favorite season is football season. Mainly college football. I have probably said this in the past, but I do not have a favorite pro team. Its not like I do not come from a city without a team. I grew up in Chicago and I am from Atlanta. It just wasnt as big as baseball in my house.

Now my team for college is the University of Georgia. My Georgia Bulldogs. Going to a game is unlike anything you have ever experienced. Its loud, its crazy, its crammed, but its the best time you will have.

If you are a proper southern lady (or you like dressing up) and you attend a Georgia game, you have to dress the part. Sure you could wear a cotton tshirt and shorts, but its much more fun to dress up.

Every year my friend and I throw our big tailgate. So far it has been a success and I hope it continues to be. You can read about past tailgates from 2010, 2009 and 2008. One of the main questions we both ask before each tailgate/game is "what am I going to wear?"

Our favorite outfits arent necessarily decked out in UGA gear, but in red and black. I love gameday dresses. They arent easy to find.

We also love to accessorize. Check the fabric bracelet I made here.

That was for last year. This year my friend and I were shopping and we were totally inspired by some necklaces we found at our favorite boutique. I wasnt too keen on spending $30 on something I knew I could make myself.

Its been a while since I have seen the necklace, so I did what I thought looked ok.

What I used:
1 1/2 inch red ribbon
Black honeycomb round beads, large and small
1 strand of black pearls
Red embroidery floss
Red thread
One snap

I cut based on how long I wanted it. I literally wrapped it around my neck.

I feel like I may have picked a ribbon too thick so I took spray adhesive sprayed one side and folded in half.

Then I took the floss and sewed each black pearl on individually starting 3 inches from the top. I used 18 beads.

Once I hit the 18 bead (sorry for the lack of pictures), I started using the bigger beads. In between each bead I folded the fabric over the back and created a half loop. I thread the floss through the middle of the empty loop to the next bead.

Then I finished with 18 black pearls.

I realized I may have cut the fabric too short to cut, so I improvised by using a snap button. I actually like this better.

I folded a small tab and sewed it together. Then used the thread to attach the snaps.

This it what it looked like pre-trim and pre-dry glue.

Perfect to wear with your gameday dress. Or with an everyday black or white shirt. I like it.

What is your favorite team?

What are their colors?

What do you wear to your favorite sporting event?

Time to rock the elliptical. Its day 1 of half marathon training. And I have picked out my race.

Seriously I need a planning intervention

2011-08-20T00:13:00.001-04:00

I signed up to plan a party. A BIG party. I cant say much more because its a surprise and I dont know if they read my little corner. Its HIGHLY doubtful, but possible. No its not Matt's-super-awesome-30th-birthday-party-I-had-been-planning-for-a-few-months-for-Labor Day weekend-and-he-knew-I-was-up-to-no-good-so told me not to plan ANYTHING. Hmph. Its a good thing I didnt buy much. Its even better I can use those things for my favorite holiday...4th of July.

I decided today to take on this party. The hard part...its in another city. And Im paying for plane tickets. I will share details as I create bursts of awesomeness as they come up. This weekend is menu planning and guests lists.

The theme (because I love a good theme): New Orleans/Mardi Gras...or glitter glitter GLITTER!!


Google Images

Have you ever thrown a Mardi Gras themed party? I have a good idea of decor and cake I want to make. I am a little lost on what food to make. We are on a budget.

More to come on that a little later.

In other news Megan tagged me in her blog for a super award.

Name your favorite color: Every color? Ok in order: Yellow and Pink are tied for first place, blue, green, purple, gray and red.

But I love rainbow too...if that were a color.

Name your favorite song: I dont think I really have a favorite song. I like just about everything. If I had to pick a favorite band I am old school and would say Journey. In fact I want to use their "When You Love A Woman" song for my wedding dance. LOVE that song.

Name your favorite dessert: In the words of Alf, "Ive never met a cat I didnt like," Ive never met a dessert I didnt like. Cupcakes, brownies, cake, pie, ice cream, fro yo, everything under the sun. I love desserts so much I have started another blog documenting my love for baking delicious desserts. Shameless plug!

These are my Shirley Temples.

What wizzes you off: I havent heard the word wizz since I was little. So I may have let a giggle out. I think things that make me late and have to wait around grind my gears. People who yell at me because they have to do things that are completely out of my control. The current economic state.

When you're upset you: talk...A LOT. I am a planner, I like to figure it out. Ive tried to let things go their course, but its not me. I wont apologize for it either. Sometimes I just have to write one very long email to a friend and i feel better. Sometimes I have to tell my mom. Sometimes I just have to tell myself.

Your favorite pet: Well considering Hopps and Barley are my little babies, they are of course my favorite.

Barley in his usual pose

Hopps

Black or white: Black. It hides dirt better.

Your biggest fear: Not accomplishing something great. We only have one life and it should be full and happy.

Best feature: hmmm I have been told my hair and my smile. Its a good thing I brush everyday. When I was in high school and worked at Target someone came through my line and complimented my swimmeresque shoulders. They are the manliest feature on my body. So it was the most RANDOM thing to hear.

Everyday attitude: I try my hardest to find the positive in everything. I have a few boo hoo days, but I feel like everything happens for a reason so instead of dwelling, find the good and move on.

What is perfection: Sitting on a rocking chair on a front porch at sunset during the summer listening to the crickets. Or the beach. Or childhood.

Guilty pleasure: Pinterest. Pure addiction. Watching home improvement shows and trainwrecks like 16 and Pregnant, Teen Mom and Celebrity Rehab.

Now YOU HAVE to play. Well you dont have to, but its fun and it gives you a post if you are having post block.

Amber
Kelly
Lauren
Kym

Have a super weekend!!!

All aboard the race train and cupcakes (DUH)

2011-08-18T18:36:00.001-04:00

I told you I was completely motivated to start training for fall races. I spent this week figuring out the "perfect" training schedule for any race this fall. I took a little for Hal's training plan, I liked the way Amber's was laid out (I hope you dont mind!!) and used what I already know and what we already do to draft my weekly plan.

I ended up putting this in google docs because I am tired of emailing myself spreadsheets. Yes spreadsheets plural. I am a nerd.

Here is what my training plan looks like starting next week until mid November.

Now what I NEED to find is ALL of my races. Recommendations??????

Ok non-running friends, you can come back.
Last night I made some cupcakes. I have noticed that baking helps me forget everything going on. Im semistressed right now. So I baked up a batch of Lil'cakes....Shirley Temple style last night.

I am so proud of how these came out. Wanna know what they are? Check them out at For the Love of Baking. They are also on Facebook! Go ahead and follow. If I ever doubted baking, these have brought me back to life.
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Any 5ks, 10k, 15ks and half marathons you recommend for my training cycle?

What did you call Shirley Temples growing up? I called them Kiddie Cocktails. I didnt know they were anything else until I moved to Atlanta.

I am looking up ways to start shipping my cupcakes...you know so I can soon start a business out of this, what ways have you sent food via snail mail?

What is your limit?

2011-08-15T22:03:00.000-04:00

Lets start out by talking about this awesome workout I started the week with, shall we? I lifted a few weights (back and biceps) and hit the elliptical. My favorite workout on the elliptical right now is 12:1 intervals for 30 mins with a 15 min warmup. Level 12 kicks your butt!!

When I got home today Matt told me his BIL is running a 50 mile race in October. 50 miles...I seriously cant imagine. What do you do during a 50 mile run? That is 10+ hours of running. Have you ever done something like that?

Of course this inspired me to run the half marathon that same weekend. I looked up the deets of the race....they dont give out finisher medals to anyone running less than a marathon?!? Really? Why?

I know that is not a reason to run a race, but damnit if I am running 13.1 miles you WILL give me a medal.

Plus the course is pretty hilly...and in 8 weeks. I am NOT close to being ready to run a half marathon in 8 weeks.

That doesnt mean it didnt pump me up for a late fall race. I have been obsessing about the Women's Half Marathon taking place in St. Petersburg, FL Nov 20. I have heard pretty good things about this race, the medals are cool, its at the beach and there is a lot of pink! hahah dont worry...that isnt why I want to run it.

The catch....$100 entry fee. Kind of a let down.

The other Florida race I have been watching....Walt Disney World Half. $140! Can someone please explain that to me?

Otherwise there is the Sunshine Insurance Half in the Bahamas! $50. That is doable and it would be a lovely little vacation. huh? HUH? I know you want to go on a racecation to the Bahamas!

What are the things about a race that have completely turned you off from doing it?

What is the most you have paid to run a race?

Wanna go to the Bahamas with me?

30 Things

2011-08-13T19:00:00.000-04:00

One of my resolutions for 2011 is to complete 5 things on my list of 30 things to do before I turn 30. I just turned 27 so I have A LOT to do in my less than three years.

At the moment I have completed two, Girls Weekend Away and See New York. You can read about those here, here, here, here and here. Ill give you a second. Go go.

Welcome back. There will be a test at the end of this post to see what you learned from each outing. I kid, I kid.

The year is winding down and I still have 3 things to accomplish on this list. I have been looking into baking classes but I find they are hard to come by unless you want to pay full tuition and enroll in school. Just looking for something fun that I could do after work. Why must it be so hard?

I feel like there are a few things on there I want to change. I would like to attend a blogger event. I have read about how fun they are.

I dont think Alaska will happen, but I would like to run a half marathon in 5 states. Im at two now. One in Kentucky, two in Georgia.

Id love to see Canada.

Anyways.....I still have a lot of work this year to get three more things done.

What about you...do you have a list of things to accomplish?

New York: Im going to start a dog walking business

2011-08-11T21:41:00.000-04:00

Its the last day of our fabulous trip. It was bittersweet. I was tired and ready to be home and see my beans, but I love NYC!

Monday:
We took our time getting ready since checkout was at noon. Our flight wasnt until 8 and we had to carry luggage around until then. This meant we couldnt go crazy with what we wanted to do.

After grabbing breakfast and heading out, we jumped on the subway and headed to Brooklyn. Matt wanted to see what it was like, so we did it. Guess where we went.....Target! Hah We flew all the way to NYC to to go Target. To be fair I knew we would be outside again all day and I needed sunscreen. Brooklyn is not too different from the city. Not as busy, but busy.

We got back on the subway (note my patience is slowly fleeting because I had to carry my bags up and down all those stairs) and headed back to the city. We decided to see a few things that I hadnt had a chance to see this time. This was Matt's second time to the city so he had an advantage.

First we jumped off at Washington Park

Then we walked around NYC/Soho for a little bit. I decided if I ever had to move to NYC I would become a professional dog walker. There were so many dogs.

After the park, we went back to Madison Square Park and grabbed lunch. While waiting for our food I shot some video of a guy that made friends with the pigeons. He read to them, scolded them, sang to them, danced with them and hid from them. hahaha

The last few hours of NYC were spent in Central Park. Absolutely amazing.

Walking through the park if I didnt know where I was I would never have thought I was in a MAJOR city.

And thats it my friends. That is NYC for you. Did it compare to my expectations? Not at all, it blew them apart. It was clean, I never felt unsafe and it was easy to get around. And yes I did buy an I <3 NY shirt!
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Since coming home from the trip (really since running the 5k) I have been so motivated to start training again. I am in the works to create a workout/running plan, but I am always looking for input from others. You are all so much more experienced than I am.

New York: Because we love to eat

2011-08-11T07:19:00.000-04:00

Dont forget to recap:
Friday
Saturday

Sunday:
It was hard to wake up Sunday morning. Two days of nonstop being on our feet and out in the heat. It was exhausting. But one of the reasons we were here was to run a 5k across the Brooklyn Bridge. Yep, running a race on a walking vacation. Sunday was humid and overcast. Translation: hot and thick.

We headed down to the start line and waited for the race to start. It is very questionable when the race did start because there was no actual indication of a start line.

We all were given the same start time and I think we started our Garmins a few seconds off. Once on the run, it was a little chaotic. They didnt designate sides for racers and everyone else. People were riding bikes with us, strolling across the path and not getting out of the way. At the end of the race (I was so hot and still very sunburned) I finally got my stride and hit the Manhattan side. As I was running some tourist started walking in front of me and stopped. Just stopped right there. To take a picture. ?!?!?!?!?! It was a fun race, but they need a little more organization.

After the race and showering, we met back up for brunch. We headed to Friend of a Farmer, a suggestion from one of Megan's friends. When we arrived we saw a line (theme of the trip). But it was SO worth standing there. SO VERY WORTH IT!!! Oh that food!!

We headed to grab cupcakes for later in the evening from Crumbs. They are HUGE....but very very good.

Once those were purchased, Matt and I headed back to the room to rest. After a glorious 3.5 hour nap, we met back up with Megan and Ryan for pizza. Cant go to NYC and not have pizza.

SO GOOD!

Yep we ate every bite. Can you blame us?

Later we headed out for drinks and we needed to cut through Times Square. We stopped by the Hershey store because who doesnt love their pictures taken with obnoxious amounts of chocolate?

We headed out for drinks after and an impromptu trip for fro yo. 16 Handles. If you have one in your area....GO! WOW! I really want to open my own store. Its such a great idea. Its self serve fro yo (with different flavors...red velvet, graham cracker, etc). Its all done by the weight.

Sunday was a very filling day to say the least. But what a marvelous day indeed. One more New York post after this. I know Im sure your weeping at the idea

New York: Love your life because some people have bad kidneys and cant pee

2011-08-10T13:42:00.003-04:00

Back to the NYC trip. Im telling ya....a lot happened on this trip. If you missed Friday, check it out here.

Saturday:

Saturday morning was a slow morning. Lets just say the drinks at the comedy club were slightly strong. hehe
I spent the early morning sleeping in and sitting on the rooftop soaking in the sun. Our plan was to meet with Megan and Ryan then head to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island and the Mets/Braves game that night.

We headed to Battery Park and it was PACKED. First thing we did: order falafal from a street vendor. Well I didnt order it, but I had a few bites. Matt put hot sauce on it so 3 bites was my limit. Not bad.

There were lines everywhere and we werent sure what was going on with what line went where, but eventually we figured out you had to stand in ONE line for tickets (about 45 mins) and then another line to get on the boat (an hour and a half or so). And there we stood. And stood. Annnnddd stood.

The Statue of Liberty was neat. It was a short boat ride over and the island it was on was bigger than I expected.

After Lady Lib we went to Ellis Island. I was really excited about this because I know my family came through here and wanted to find their papers. We got there and there was NOTHING. And to look up papers? You had to pay. Lame. The museum was lame. The whole thing was a bust. Plus we had been doing this ALL day, so it was time to leave.

We headed to dinner and to the Braves/Mets game. It was fun, but its hard to watch your team as the away team. It wasnt as amped up as it is in Atlanta. Plus it was raining. Yuck!

It was still fun. The perk to this was....we were SITTING! hahah My legs wanted to be amputated at this point and we had a 5k to run the next day.

We decided to leave early to beat the subway traffic and made a quick pit stop at Grand Central Station. It is so pretty at night.

When I got back to the hotel I crashed! My legs were so sore and I was sunburned like a lobster.

Until tomorrow. There is a 5k race and food in your future.

(If you are wondering about the title....this wisdom was told to us in line for Lady Lib from one of the random fellas collecting money.)

New York: Just Keep Walking and say it was the air conditioner

2011-08-09T19:07:00.000-04:00

We are back from an excellent trip. My feet are so sore, my legs have no idea what to do and my stomach wants more awesome food. This was my first time to the Big Apple and we had a great time. I have so much to say/show, I have to break this up in 4 posts.

Friday:

We headed to NYC early Friday morning so we could enjoy the day of sightseeing and eating. We landed about 9:30 and it ended up taking about 2 hours to get to the hotel from the airport because we had to take a bus and two different trains. Our hotel was across the street from Ground Zero and it was nice. What I liked about this hotel was in the hallways they offered water bottles. I hate going to a hotel and not having something to drink.

Once we got to the hotel, we hit the ground running. Lunch was the first stop. After watching Food Network Star we knew we wanted to try food at Chelsea Market.

Chelsea Market is so cute. If you havent been, its basically a grouping of shops, food stores and restaurants. It has such a great atmosphere. They had seafood, finger foods, grilled cheese sandwich shops, cupcakes and grocery.

We saw this crepe place mentioned twice on Food Network Star and wanted to try them.

They had sweet and savory flavors for the crepes. We chose a savory ham and cheese. My thoughts:

It was good but there was too much. I got sick of the flavor quick because there was something missing. I should have gotten the apple and brie but I would try it again for sure.

What is the deal with that guy behind me?

After a very filling lunch we headed to Times Square. TS is a place that Ive seen and never need to see again. It is chaos. There are tons of tourists and lots of traffic. I feel bad for New Yorkers that have to deal with that. I was irritated myself.

While there we bought tickets to a comedy club for that night. The comedy club was a lot of fun...but EXPENSIVE. You have to pay a $20 drink/2 drink minimum per person. That was an easy $70. My title came from one of the jokes told that night. The guy (forgot his name) said "you know the water that hits you in the head when you are walking outside? New Yorkers have learned just to keep walking and say it was the air conditioner. Middle of winter? Its ok, it was just the air conditioner."

Before the comedy club we headed to our rooftop bar at the hotel to hang out and come up with a dinner plan. Here are the views from above.

Ground Zero. Next month this will be a memorial open to the public

On the way to dinner we walked down Wall Street and had a lookie loo at the Stock Exchange.

We spent most of the night in the Upper East Side. Extremely nice area. Its funny how different these neighborhoods in the big city are SO DIFFERENT.

By the end of the first night my feet were sore. We did so much walking.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's update. We've got Statues and Bravos.

Have you been to NYC? What did you like about it? What did you dislike?

On Challenges

2011-08-03T21:12:00.000-04:00

I think I am bored. I have had some sort of project going on every weekend that I literally became overwhelmed this past weekend. I dont know why either.

It seems like lately in the blogosphere there are a ton of challenges going on. And you know me...I want to do all of them.

The first one I should really participate in is the no spend month. At Thrifty Decor Chick she implemented a No Spend July. I may have a weakness to buy anything to decorate our apartment and right now I shouldnt. I have started putting money away to buy a house in the next 15 months and frankly have no where to put anything. I will deem August my No Spend Month. This means no more money spent on projects. Does that mean I am going to sit in a corner bored? Nope. I have a lot of little things sitting around to work on projects. I was just dazzled by the bigger projects.

Next. In speaking about projects, Pinterest is my addiction. I have almost 400 pins. A lot are projects I can do easily and quickly. Right now there are a few blogs (including Young House Love) hosting Pinterest Challenges. Its time to start completing the pins I pin. Whatever...if you are on there I bet you are hoarding pins just like the rest of us!! I know your games.

And lastly, Nesting Place is hosting a 31 day challenge series in October. I am excited to see what she comes up with this year. Click on her blog to see what she has done in the past. Its a lot of fun.

On Goals

2011-08-01T22:14:00.000-04:00

I was browsing around my Daily Mile this evening after my kick butt elliptical workout and realized its time to make some goals.

Ok lets back up. Its actually time to fulfill the ones I have already made before I start making new ones.

Goal 1: Run 500 miles this year. I wanted to be super awesome and make it 1000, but my knew after basically a year off from my stress fracture I didnt want to push it. Here we are August 1 and I am currently at 323 miles. Not bad considering my foot basically sucks and most of my workouts have been on the elliptical.

Goal 2: Run a 3rd Half Marathon this year. I was invited to run one with a friend this fall, but the thought scares me. Why? Ive done 2 already this year. Back to back too. I love training. Ive been motivated and I have even made a wishlist of races I want to run. No reason to be scared.

Goal 3: To be faster. I am working on this. I am trying to drop some weight and bump up my cardio.

Goal 4: Get working on that 30 things list.

What are some of your goals you have made/met/want to beat?

What we did this weekend:

2011-07-31T15:18:00.003-04:00

-Bought a new dining room table off Craigslist! No pictures yet because the top did not fit in my car and we have to go back today with a trailer to pick it up. I already have big plans for it too.

-Bought new dishes and plan to donate the old ones soon. Yellow and white.

-Sat at the pool. Much needed.

-Cleaned? Not as much as I need to

-Completed a new project:

This has been in my family for many many years. Or really just 12 years. It used to be my mom's and hold her stereo in the living room. Then it was moved to the basement to collect dust. When I moved out I saw an opportunity (to store more crap). That is....until today.

I got to looking at Martha's site.....and you know what happens when that starts. I saw this technique called faux bois. I have never worked with glaze before and was a little worried I bit off more than I can chew. Isnt that what DIY is about? Making mistakes? I kept saying, if I mess up its just paint.

Onward. First I bought a quart of Behr glaze and a sample size of Behr paint (I believe the color was Castlewood). I put about a half a cup of paint to one cup of glaze in a bucket. I am not sure if that was right, but it looked good so why not.

I painted the base and top with leftover paint from my dresser after giving it a good sanding. After everyone dried I started with the glaze. I painted it on with a brush and used Martha's wood grain tool and dragged it in one long stroke.

Then on the middle board I did the same thing but with the other side of the tool. The key for this to work is to start on one side of the tool and slightly roll it so it ends on the other side. Use the tool's shape to your advantage.

I know the color is hard to see since its light, but you get an idea of what the grain effect looks like. It was really easy.

Now for the bathroom (this tables new home) before:

Notice how my Target drawers were stepped on and crushed? Oh well, they were destined for the trash after we moved anyways.

Now the after:

Whats cool is you can do this glaze with any color. Doesnt it look MUCH BETTER?

An unmotivating week just turned around

2011-07-28T22:28:00.000-04:00

Is that you Friday? I see you! You can come out of hiding.

This week has been semi subpar for me. Mainly because I have been completely unmotivated to do anything. The last month has worn me out.

I am excited for a few things that have turned this week around though. Earlier this week, I joined Sparkpeople. If you are unfamiliar with it, this is a website that is very similar to Weight Watchers, but free. My goal is to lose about 37 pounds total, but I want to drop 5-10 pounds so I can start training again. Day 1 was a great day. Day 2 (today) I did really well and rocked my workout (4 miles set on TOUGH intervals on the elliptical), but I ate my weight in roasted chicken. I did technically burn 700 calories at the gym though.

My goal is to start training this fall for a spring half marathon. Do you hear that foot? That is enough rest time for you. I am going to start using the elliptical more and harder so you have less impact. Youre welcome

Another thing happened this week that has made me so happy. I was doing my daily blog reading and saw Susan with Hometown Girl called out asking for volunteers needing design help. I could not hesitate. You know I am always asking for design help from SOMEONE!

I was excited when she sent me an email saying she would help me. She sent me a few questions and very quickly posted a mood board. I am so happy with what she came up. So very happy. Check the post out here. Below is the mood board she put together. I am so inspired right now and I want to start decorating.

What is perfect about it is that we I want a beachy/coastal room with colors that will work with any pop I bring in there. I think everything above fits in that vision without being themey. Susan, if you want to decorate our whole apartment, I will not hold you back! Check out her work at Hometown Girl.

Now I am going to scour Craigslist to find furniture and accessories that probably wont fit in our little apartment. Thank goodness we have a storage unit and are moving soon.

Stay tuned this weekend while I bust out another project. And possibly a baked dish at For the Love of Baking. Are you following or liking this on Facebook yet?

3 weeks until it starts again

2011-07-25T19:22:00.000-04:00

I am still trying to bounce back from my "trip." I worked 15 hour days for 3 weeks straight. Im exhausted. Im physically exhausted and mentally. For a few days I questioned if I still had a soul. I just dont understand how people can be so vicious to others when they dont get their way because they did not follow directions. Ive had things thrown at me, blamed for all the problems in the world and heard every excuse why they didnt want to do what I asked. Its over...........for 3 weeks. Then it starts up again, but I will be here...in my own bed.

Moving on, we survived...with high remarks too!

Running:
As I told you, I am having foot problems. Never ending foot problems. I started talking to my coworker and he said his son was having the SAME problem in the same spot for the same reason. He had a name for it, but I cant remember what it was. Basically the nerves in that part of my foot are really irritated and need some cush. Enter shoe shopping. I started at one sporting goods store in search of the Saucony Kinvara. No luck. But I tried on the Progrid 4s and the Asics Rush 33s. I decided I am not ready to jump back into a "regular" shoe just yet. I needed lightweight and I found the Asics to be lighter and less chunky. So I bought them. (After getting into quite the discussion with the sales guy who thought he knew everything about running....are you a running coach? Didnt think so, you know as much as I do).

I got back to my hotel room and started researching the Asics. Not good. Not good at all. I returned them the next day. After I got back home, I went to another sporting goods store and found THE shoe. After two successful runs, I am in the Nike Free TR Fit. I love them. No pain at all and just the right amount of cushion.

They are a great shoe to transition into from the FiveFinger shoes (which I still adore). I am so happy to finally be able to start running again. I need to get back into shape so I can start training. Oh I miss training.

I met an extremely nice exhibitor at the show I was working who carries extremely cute headbands. She had a HUGE box of samples and gave one to me. Her company is called Logo Loops and they make headbands in tons of colors with many types of logos. Her website is not up, but check back. I am going to email her and see how I can get my hands on some for you all. They are not just for running.

Cute right? Stayed in the same place for my entire workout. Ill see if there is a way if I can buy a few with different logos to share with you all.

Shameless Plug: Check out the most delicious chocolate cake ever! Facebook that too!

Travel:
I am so excited to be heading to NYC in 2 weeks to meet with Megan and run/walk a 5k sort of with her. I will be eating her dust in the race. I have never been to NYC so we are going to hit up the tourist spots for sure. I am most excited to eat at Crumbs. I think Im going to have a hard time picking out a cupcake. Matt has already picked his, Artie Lange. I pick on him and say its because he LOVES Howard Stern.

What do you recommend we do in NYC?

I am SO looking forward to vacation

2011-07-13T21:30:00.000-04:00

I literally havent done ANYTHING outside of working for almost a week. I have been down in Atlanta for work since last Tuesday, but it has been nonstop. I know I already told you all this, but Im not kidding.

Each morning I open the blogs I want to read. I never get to. Im sorry. So I guess this is going to be a filler post.

First up, you still need to check out For the Love of Baking. My OMG bread recipe. Not kidding...BEST EVER! Check it out on Facebook too!

Last Tuesday I traveled down to Atlanta for 3 weeks for work. I was happy because I love being home. It took 8 hours to get here because of all the crazy traffic I kept getting stuck in. I was worried about the hotel I am staying at because people had mixed reviews. I dont know why:

Super nice. And sadly MUCH bigger than my last apartment. The kitchen is a full kitchen and nicer than anything I have ever had. These people are crazy to think otherwise.

Last Wednesday was my birthday, so I had dinner with my family (who I hadnt seen since Easter). Are you ready for what they got me?

A red KitchenAid mixer!!! What are the chances of getting TWO for my birthday!! HAHA I died laughing.

My sister got me a Jesus Rubber ducky. Something I have always wanted. Dont worry...this will find a place in the bathroom.

The rest of the week I worked and worked and worked. Luckily we were able to have Sunday off because we busted our butts to get everything done so we didnt have to be in Sunday. I headed to my mom's for the day.

My mom's crazy cats

I checked out my gym that happens to have a new location in Atlanta that morning. Not easy to get to, but nice. The ellipticals were the coolest things there:

Touch screen tv built into the entire system. It was one of the neatest things I had seen. Sadly I have not been able to visit the gym again because like I said, its hard to get to and I have been working late everyday.

I am still on my running ban at the moment until I can find out what is wrong with my foot. I have been having a hard time just walking around without that pain bothering me and I am starting to think it has something to do with my shoes not having enough cush. You know what that means.....time to buy new shoes!! YAY! I am looking into the Saucony ProGrid Kinvara 2.

I have seen a lot of great reviews for these shoes and while they arent my Vibrams, they are lightweight and close to being minimal with some cushion. I have used Sacony before and if you remember was able to test out the Hattori shoes.

What do you think? Have you tried these shoes? Love em or hate em?

Wow

2011-07-11T07:04:00.000-04:00

Eventually I will be able to post here. I have been not just busy, but CRAZY busy. It has been insane. Im down in Atlanta for work for 3 weeks and week 1 killed me.

Not to mention I am not sleeping in my own bed, so Im not sleeping. Oh glorious sleep. I learned there is one day next week I think we have to work 6am-midnight. Yes you read that right. I wish at this moment I could drink coffee.

I promise to post as soon as I can. Dont run away just yet

Its the most wonderful time of the year

2011-07-04T10:53:00.000-04:00

Happy 4th of July everyone!! I hope your holiday weekend has been full of excellence. July 4th is by far my favorite holiday. Cookouts, pool time, summer heat, fireworks. Its also my birthday weekend :).

This weekend for me was a lot of fun, but I dont think it was so much fun for my friend. A few months ago we bought Taylor Swift tickets....I know, I know. I am not 9, I am not much of a fan either, but he is (a fan, not 9). Since we werent able to get tickets in Atlanta, we got tickets for the show here in Louisville. They drove up Saturday morning and we headed downtown to pregame (eat and drink duh). The show started at 7pm.

As we finished dinner and finished the last of our drinks, I decided to check my email one last time. And I saw this:

This email was sent out at 6, one hour before the show. Im sorry but if youre sick, you usually know more than an hour before hand. Am I right? I think that is pretty shady of her. Not to mention it was doctor's orders? How sick were you? If your DOCTOR had to say something, you knew you were sick all day. I think it was a scam. Or my friends terrible bad luck.

It was a sad site. A lot of people didnt see that email and when they got to the Yum Center they saw this:

So many disappointed people. I feel bad since our friends drove all the way up here and paid for a hotel room. Shady I tell ya.

We walked around back and we let our friend take out anger:

And we let others celebrate from this "joyous" news:

Matt was literally pleased as punch. He didnt want to go, but we made him. Now he was off the hook. HA
Wanna see who was driving this truck?

Thats right, a sweet puppy! We spent the night walking around downtown Louisville. We walked along the river and while there, we spotted a bookbag floating in the water. We think it was filled with millions of dollars or had evidence to crack a murder case inside. So Matt set out to get it. Unsuccessfully. The water was dirty, nasty, rivery, icky, and he sank on his first step.

GA-ROSSSSS!! We couldnt get the bag. Our millions of dollars are probably on the way to the Mississippi right now.

Yesterday after lounging at the pool and getting burned, we headed down to their hotel to watch fireworks on the river. In all of my celebrations of the 4th, it has never rained. It has treatened to, it has been overcast, it has been so cold we had to wear winter coats, but never rained. Then my friends bad luck came back out to play:

Luckily it cooled down to a comfortable temperature and the rain held off until the over night hours, but it was still funny to laugh at. The fireworks were ok. Nothing special. Nothing like Thunder over Louisville (seriously watch that video). If the weather holds up, I get my packing done, and we are bored...maybe we can go again

When I got home, Matt gave me my birthday gift (since I wont be here with him Wednesday)......

I am so so so so so happy!!!!! I am going to use it tonight and make him some bread to have while I am gone. I cannot wait to play!!!

Speaking of which, have you checked out For the Love of Baking yet? I have a new recipe up today.

Have a great holiday!!!!

Motivation?

2011-06-30T23:00:00.000-04:00

Source

I can say I am very unhappy with my foot. It has been thwarting my ability to run. Even walking is sometimes bothersome. I have been having this pain in my foot on and off since the Derby Half marathon back in April. I thought it may have been overuse (since it was two races almost back to back). Then I thought I just needed cushion since I was in Vibram Five Fingers. So I went back to normal *shudder* shoes. I cant say I like them at all.

Then I stopped running. I couldnt stand the pain. But it wasnt pain like a fracture, it was more irritated? I certainly WILL NOT let anyone touch it either. That is when it hurts.

Take a look:

Source

Where I marked the red circle is where I experience pain/discomfort. My mom has pain in the same place so we thought it was some sort of genetic mutant that we shared, but I googled that and everyone seems to poo poo the idea.

Source

So I have been doing exactly what I would have paid a doctor to tell me....resting. At least that is how I started. I rested and rested and rested my little heart out. Now I am back on an elliptical (starting things easy). In regular shoes *shudder*. I still have a little pain, but its more of the discomfort I get from wearing a regular shoe. My foot just rejects it for some reason every way possible.

I am not going to lie, the elliptical bores me. I want to be outside, soaking up the sun. I miss racing. I miss having that sense of accomplishment of a run under my belt. After 30 minutes on the elliptical I am COUNTING the seconds until I am done.

So what has yet another set back done? I FELL BACK OUT OF SHAPE. Its hard for me to start again (physically, footfully, and mentally). I know the one thing I love is putting me out of shape because of its set backs, but I am dying to get back in.

I have made a weight training schedule to at least control the weight/muscle issue, but the elliptical and I are going to have a bumpy relationship if it keeps up like this.

It doesnt help that I am in DESPERATE need of shoes. Since I trained so long in them without socks, they seriously STANK!!!!

Sigh.

How do you combat low motivation? Getting over ANOTHER injury? Avoid afternoon/after work/dont want to go to the gym laziness?

Source

I Did....

2011-06-26T17:30:00.000-04:00

Some of this:

And this:

To make these:

Woke up Saturday to this: (and Sunday for that matter)

Organized this:

To look like this:

Cleaned this:

To this:

Went to the Library
Dropped things off here:

And hoped to find some cheap furniture....nothing worth buying

Almost talked myself out of going and doing this:

(Just getting warmed up on the elliptical in the media room at the gym....if you were wondering)

Took time out of the to do list for this:

Went to one of my favorite places:

Fell asleep to this:

Heck of a week

2011-06-24T18:08:00.000-04:00

Its over though.

I have been sitting around the house basically acting like mush all week because work has seriously been kicking my butt. Luckily its all over in a month.

Wednesday we were hit with some crazy storms. I was pretty annoyed because the tornado sirens went off literally every ten minutes for a few hours. If you want people to take them seriously, you cant set them off every time a cell goes by. Just when you see rotation. Below is proof we didnt take any of the sirens seriously:

This is how this came about. The one time sirens should have gone off, Matt walked in the door as I was literally getting out of the shower and said we had to get in the car and look at the clouds. Normally I panic at tornadoes...if they happen at night. They scare me yes, but during the day I am calmer. Weird I know. My hair was wet, I didnt have a bra on, and Im jumping in the car to basically storm chase.

The clouds were scary. We heard this was the one cell that almost touched down on Papa Johns Stadium. It didnt touch down, but caused damage.

This weekend I am alone while Matt is in Atlanta. I made a HUGE to do list to keep myself occupied.

And this is what a post looks like when you have literally spent the week thinking, eating, dreaming, breathing work. I hope it doesnt rain so I can at least sit at the pool this weekend. With a beer of course.

That's One Way to Dye

2011-06-19T12:17:00.000-04:00

In the epic long journey I call decorating, I have hit a few speed bumps. Things have worked out, things have failed miserably. Other things have just needed a rethink.

Do you remember my Ikea Poang chair needing a redo? I like browns and neutrals, but this was getting ridiculous.

Everything in my living room has a brown overtone. Even the walls (but its an apartment so Im not painting).
For a while I was looking for the perfect fabric, but I was stumped because I didnt want it to compete with the coffee table

I tried to solve this problem with something inspired me....fabric dye. I was browsing Young House Love's post on fabric dye. I dont know why I didnt think of this before. I headed to the store and pulled a color out of the coffee table that Matt and I both liked....blue.

Rit Royal Blue. Matched the color blue in the fabric perfectly. I was excited

Let me start out by saying I have NEVER used fabric dye before. Stop saying UH OH! I used the sink dyeing method because our washer stinks (rented from the apt) and I didnt trust it getting the dye out completely.

You take the dye, dissolve it in 2 cups of HOT water and pour it in HOT water. I used the bathtub. Our water comes out scalding hot, so this worked out well.

I placed the cover of the chair in and stirred with my hands. I flipped it around, mashed it, had it constantly moving.
After about 30 minutes I took it out, rinsed with warm water until the water ran clear and threw it in the washer.

This is what the tub looked like:

Nothing a little Tilex didnt fix. I wouldnt recommend using a much darker color in your tub for fear of permanent dyeing. Our tub is no longer blue.

After a good wash and air dry here is the final result:

We hated it. It was too light, the dye didnt cover it completely, It reminded me too much of blue jeans. It was just a big fail. Plus it didnt mesh with the room well.

I walked away from this project hoping to come up with a better solution. Im not going to lie, I liked the simplicity of dyeing. Back to the store.

We decided the best color to take from the room is green. I ~~made~~ took Matt with me because he seems to always have an opinion about what I pick out. Now he can be part of the decision making process. We liked all of the greens Rit offered. We ended up picking a new color Rit has, Apple Green. I was worried about how it would come out

We tried the bottle version instead. Almost the same process again (no dissolving). Shake, pour, mix.

I stayed with this for 30 minutes. I did not stop moving it. I didnt want spots. I even took it out into the living room dripping wet to make sure it was covered.

After a washing and patiently waiting for it to dry, here is the final result:

I love it! It pulls the perfect green out of everything that is green in this room. I liked using the liquid because there was more which made for easier coating.

What do you think?

Weekend Bliss

2011-06-18T09:52:00.000-04:00

I am a little bum diddily bummed out this morning. This week has LITERALLY been HELL week for me at work. We have a big trade show coming up next month and yesterday was the deadline to get paperwork in. Of course 900 people waited until this week to do that. It got to a point where all I could do was print forms out. I couldnt enter, I couldnt call...basically I couldnt work. I had to go in early, stay late, skip lunches, and take it all home with me.

Needless to say I sent Matt a text Thursday saying I wanted to have a fun weekend this weekend. He is gone next weekend and I leave for Atlanta (for a month for work) the weekend after.

He decided we were going to go camping. Yes! I love camping. I ask myself why dont we do it as often as we want. We both love it. We just dont have the tools.

We got everything packed up and went to bed with plans to get up bright and early. We got up early all right....to crazy thunderstorms. Boo.

Yeah. Camping isnt going to happen with that line of storms. Its supposed to be off and on all night. Sad.

So I guess its time to salvage the weekend. I did some work this morning (Im telling ya...its exhausting). My goal is to finish two projects, make two pillows, go to the gym, work on my For the Love of Baking website and Facebook (have you checked them out yet?!), and maybe whip up some cupcakes.

Domestic much?

In running news: this week it has not been a priority. My motivation went out the window. Can you blame me? Please dont blame me Its just been an exhausting week. I am excited to say starting today, tomorrow or Monday I plan on starting P90x. I do love doing those types of workouts.

Off to rework the weekend out.

What are your plans? Anyone wanna stop by for some cupcakes?

Another Project? A Sunburst Mirror

2011-06-14T18:04:00.001-04:00

Thank you for your nice comments yesterday. I am really excited about a new venture. Its going to be a long and tedious process trying to start an at home bakery, but Im excited. I hope you can visit For the Love of Baking every so often to see what is going on. Maybe follow? I am starting to make a facebook page, so when that is ready...you know the drill!

In all seriousness, I have taken on tons projects for the weekend. I need to focus my energy on FTLOB or running.

I ran onto a new blog, Twenty-Six To Life. Well look at the Sunburt Mirror she made. I just love how hers looks. It looks so flawless.

You know what that means? I have to make one too! Saturday I took another trip to Home Depot/Michael's.

I bought: 2 bundles of cedar shims, 6", 8' and 12' floral rings (from Michaels), an 8" round mirror, and used glue stick, leftover white paint, and a hook for the back

I laid out the rings and when I do ANYTHING on the floor, I always have help! Barley giving his mommy an hand

Its really hard to get things done around here. Especially at my desk. Eventually they get bored and walk away.

I took the shims and glued them to the middle and outer rings (for extra support). My shims were NOT as cool as Kate's so Matt said we should paint it white. There were a lot of flaws. I broke out the leftover white paint from my dresser and painted away.

I filled in the gaps with the second layer and glued the same way. It was a bit of a process.

After two layers, I took the smallest ring and placed it back in the middle. I glued and painted some more.

Pretty cool huh? Thanks Kate for having such an awesome tutorial! Check out her blog. She has great techniques on how to beautify your blog.

Side Note: I need to reglue the mirror....I fell off and almost hit me in the head. Ill break out the wood glue later.

Other projects I accumulated this weekend: 2 pillow projects, a chair change and a July 4th wreath. Stay tuned.

Finally the BIG news!!!

2011-06-13T18:50:00.002-04:00

You waited all week for this. You lost sleep over this. You JUST.COULDNT.WAIT!

Well here it goes......you are all the first to know. Which is probably strange that I havent released this to any of my friends or my family. Its because I love you oh so much! Or because I know if this doesnt work out, you wont judge as hard. But it will work because I have confidence!

Ok ok enough delay.

Please check out my new blog (not replacing this one), For the Love of Baking!! What is this you ask? Here I am going to start documenting my baking creations because I am starting (eventually) an at home bakery....which will lead to a storefront! I am so pumped about this venture!

I will post my experiments, techniques I learn, and recipes. I am hoping in the next year or so this will launch into something I can make into a business on the side of my day job.

Please check out my new site and become a follower!

There is a first for everything

2011-06-09T22:23:00.000-04:00

Ok, I need to take a break from staring at my dresser.

This week I havent been following my training schedule. I am up to date on my runs, but not the days I scheduled them for. No biggie though since they are getting done. Today was my first time doing speedwork. My biggest fear was doing it wrong, not running fast.

I hopped on the treadmill, programmed my speed and took off. I did 5x400. In case you are a lamezoid like me (not that Im calling you lame, I just should have known this off the top of my head) 400m is one time around a quarter mile track. Yep, I googled it (after playing with the Google guitar..did you see it today?). I second guessed myself...dont judge.

The first go around felt great. I did my fast 400 at an 8:30 pace each time. Since I didnt want to hurt myself the first one out, I did my fast 400 followed by a walking 400. I did a total of 11 laps roughly.

My second 400 I felt great. I was on FIRE! As I approached my 3rd 400, my legs were starting to wobble. My breathing was not cooperating. I kept pushing. My 4th 400 I was having a hard time. I jumped off for 3 seconds to stretch my hams. At this point my lungs and legs were like "YOU ARE A CRACKHEAD!" only one left....and I did it.

Overall I was really happy with this workout. My legs feel like jello and are sore, but I felt great. I cant wait for the next round!

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The wait is almost over. I know you have been DYING to know the big news....right? RIGHT? I am going to announce one bit of news Monday. Go ahead....write that in your planners..Ill wait while you do that real quick. K? Thanks!

So tune in here Monday evening for awesome news!!

Our First Furniture Makeover

2011-06-08T17:53:00.001-04:00

How long have I been saying I need to redo my dresser? A million times. Its a nice dresser, just ugly (sorry dressy). She needed to fast forward into the 21st century. The 90s are long gone. Lets jump right to it shall we?

My goal was to keep this project cheap and quick. Im talking start Friday/Saturday and be done by Sunday evening. Boy was I off. A lot of rookie mistakes were made and a lot of cuss words were said.

Here is the before:

I have had this dresser since 1998 when I moved to Atlanta. There is nothing wrong with it, so there was no reason to trash/sell it. Plus I have nothing better to do with my weekends.

Friday we went to Home Depot and I bought my first power tool....a power sander. Best.Investment.Ever!

We picked out a bunch of whites and went home to see which we I liked.

I ended up heading back to Home Depot after my run Saturday to pick up the color (Behr Vermont Cream in a semi gloss) and pick out some new handles. See how this project is starting to add up? I thought I was on a spending freeze.

Step 1: We removed the drawers (with help of course) and sanded, sanded, sanded. Power sander...seriously a new friend.

Rookie mistake 1: dont assume your drawer pull holes are a standard distance. Please dont ask me why I thought that (especially on a dresser 12 years old), but I did. After about 4 coats of paint, I had to fill and redrill holes. *slaps forehead

Then we painted everything.

Rookie Mistake 2: buy a SMOOTH roller made for cabinets. I bought what was cheap because I was being cheap. It left bumps everywhere. It was made for walls, not surfaces.
After coats of paint on the dresser and drawers, it was time to turn in. Did you see what the bed looked like though?

Clearly we werent sleeping in our bed. We slept on the couch and it was annoying for me since the cats thought it was 8 hour play time.
I woke up and decided it was time to throw the polyurethane on the top. I had a left over can sitting in the closet from a few years ago. Apparently poly expires? The top looked awful! Not to mention we must not have sanded the top enough, because there was paint peeling off.

Time to make decisions. We went and got MORE paint (a quart covered everything at this point) and paint thinner (in spray form). Matt worked on taking the top layer off while I was at work Monday.
Rookie Mistake 3: Just use paint thinner on the top from the start.

Nice and clean. During this whole process I was inspired by some two toned pieces I saw on Pottery Barn, but since they werent dressers, it wasnt comparable. We found a few examples online, but they werent impressive. I was ready to can the idea and paint it all white. After seeing the picture above, I KNEW I wanted the top to be a different color.

Back to Home Depot (well Matt, not me). We picked out Minwax American Walnut. After staining, Matt applied a spray poly 100 million times (stinky) and we were left with this:

I am so in love with it right now. So in love. It was a lot of hard work, and took longer than we wanted, but the result was worth it. Now we have left over paint for nightstands I am hoping to find at the neighborhood garage sale. Our room is slowly coming together. Next up: find lamps, find/refinish nightstands, striped curtain and build a headboard! (Thats right...BUILD)

Someone help me find friends.

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In other news.....I am hoping to reveal some info for my news in the next week or two. I have been talking to a few people and the support is overwhelming! Stick around for more deets. I need to run and stare at my dresser more.

Looking Ahead

2011-06-06T22:45:00.001-04:00

I have a sad heart tonight. I found out this morning a girl I went to high school with was murdered yesterday afternoon. During a custody exchange, Shannon's ex-boyfriend shot her in the face and in the body four times in front of their two children.
I was not close friends with her during high school, but I knew her. She was a warm person. She always had a smile on her face (and if you look at the news story you can see in her picture she is someone you want to be around).

My friend texted me this morning about this and it doesnt seem real. I know the family does not want it to be real. My thoughts go out to her family.
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Not to start on a sad note ( I guess it didnt help that I just read ALL of the comments on her facebook memorial page). I have so many things coming up that I cant wait to share with you all but all I can give to you is a tease.

The next few months are going to be a whirlwind. I am going to be doing something (I hope) that makes me most happy. There are going to be big changes around here. I can feel it.

Source

The sad thing.....running has taken a bit of a backseat. I ran for real on Saturday to see what my feet were going to do. It wasnt so much my feet as it was my form. I feel like I have fallen out of proper form. I made it about 2.5 miles and threw in the towel. I realized then just how much I miss running with someone. I agree you shouldnt fully rely on someone to keep you motivated, but it made running so much fun! My friend and I trained our hearts out and missed ONE run during our cycle. ONE. We were so dedicated. And now she is hurt and I make excuses.

I tried the group run at the running store here, but I felt REALLY out of place. I know if I raced with these people, I would finish last. They were all elite runners. In fact I think people were walking faster than I was running.

I made a running schedule for the next 8 weeks to kick it into gear....otherwise Im walking across the Brooklyn Bridge.

In other news...I hope tomorrow or Wednesday I can reveal what Matt and I worked on this weekend. Its just another thing that proves to the world I need to make friends up here. PRONTO!

Day 3: My favorite place to be......and cupcakes...DUH

2011-06-03T20:23:00.001-04:00

Happy first Friday of summer! I love this time of year. This weekend is going to be great....it started with a cupcake run and a visit to Home Depot. We plan on doing nothing. The past few weeks have been busy and nonstop so we plan on hanging out at the pool, a furniture redo, and did I mention doing nothing!?

Day 3: My favorite place to be: Charleston, SC. I love being there. The history and scenery sweeps me away. I would love to live there, but sigh....I have been told no. I CAN get married there..........DONE!

You will find my recap from my recent trip to Charleston here. If you havent been, it is really somewhere to consider taking your next trip.

It is a great vacation location because there is something for everyone there. Shopping, tourist spots, golfing, the beach, etc.

Onto cupcakes. My friend Carina and I have started forming a team to host our first ever Bake Sale in Atlanta. Domino Sugar is hosting this event all across America to help end childhood hunger. When Carina found this, we had to jump on board. We both love baking and thought it would be great to give back. Help our team, Spoonful of Sugar, give back!

We have not picked the date of our bake sale because our schedules havent been matching up this summer, but it looks like we might be able to pick a weekend.

Stay tuned for details about our upcoming bake sale.
Every cookie sold and every dollar donated can make a huge impact. Here are some examples:

$1 can help provide a hungry child with 10 healthy meals.
$4 can help provide a child facing hunger with a backpack full of healthy food over a weekend when school meals are not available.
$9 can help connect a child with healthy lunches during summer when school is out.
$35 can help a child care center provide free afterschool snacks and suppers to at-risk children all year long.
$65 can provide a grab-n-go breakfast cart to an elementary school so that every student starts every school day with a healthy meal.

Please visit our team page for more information or how to get involved....or maybe to make a donation (which starts now). Ill even see if any of the sponsors will give a gift or have me host a giveaway for those who donate. Help us exceed our goal.

Shoot me a comment or email hlg0706 at gmail if you have any questions!!!

Day 2: Photo of what you wore today

2011-06-02T20:43:00.000-04:00

For the next two weeks I am on a spending freeze. I need to bounce back onto my budget and meet some of my goals. One goal is to replenish my emergency fund....Im more than halfway to where I want to be. Another goal is to start saving money for a down payment on a house and to pay off my car. I am hoping with all this overtime I am about to acquire, it will help.

When I graduated college, my gma gave me Suze Orman's Young, Broke, and Fabulous. Then I thought it was a great book. Now I will find it MUCH more useful. There were a lot of scenarios I read back then that didnt really apply. I need to pull that book out of storage. Have you ever read it or anything from Suze?

Source

Anyways, onto the project of the day. What I wore today. Dont judge the messy hair, the sleepy eyes, and the unmade bed. It was a long and busy day.

It was a brown day. My shirt was from TjMaxx, skirt from Ann Taylor outlet, (not shown) brown peep toe shoes from Off Broadway.

Day 1: Photo of Yourself

2011-06-01T19:17:00.000-04:00

June? June? JUNE? Ok, Ill take it! 6 months through 2011 and boy did it fly. So much has happened and there is so much more about to happen.

This month I am going to work on a photo project to make myself play with different settings on my camera and in a photo editing program.

Day 1: Photo of Yourself. Well that's convenient since I need to show off my sister's work with my hair.

8 1/2 inches later. I think she did a good job. And that isnt even styled...this was taken after a day of work and shopping at the Farmers market. If you live in the Atlanta area and want your haircut for cheap, let me know and Ill get an appt for you. She also does coloring.

So I bet you are wondering what happened with the cleanse I told you about yesterday. (Maybe you arent wondering, but Im going to tell you). We decided to cleanse because we wanted to clean out the pipes. The goal was to last a week. After a day of drinking the lemon syrup water......I couldnt take it. I was taking sips of fake, delicious syrup. BAD! I think secretly Matt wanted to stop too because he quickly agreed to food.

In other news, I got the green light to take time off from work to visit NYC and run with Megan in a 5k. I started looking at flights and hotels and I am quite pleased. (Im not going to lie...I might walk across the bridge because Ill be so busy snapping pictures.)

Which reminds me to share with you....if you travel this summer and book your hotel through Expedia, use SAVE25 to save $25 on your stay.

Recaps and Reviews

2011-05-31T19:08:00.001-04:00

The long weekend went by pretty fast dont you think? I hope you enjoyed it.

We traveled back to Atlanta for the weekend. It was a nice trip. My sister is in school right now for cosmetology so Saturday I was her haircut model. I let her cut 8.5" off. Crazy right? I actually like the cut. Im trying to get a good picture to show everyone. After that Matt and I grilled out and relaxed around the house. Sunday I spent waaaayyyy too much money at the outlet mall and we headed to the Braves game.

Turner Field

Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN

Last week I went on my first Louisville group run with Fleet Feet. They had a Saucony rep at the store giving everyone a chance to test run in their shoes. Sign me up. I think the hardest thing about buying shoes is the testing part. I was lucky with REI's return policy and my Vibrams. I could run outside for a few runs to test out the shoes. If I didnt like it, I could return them. Most shoe stores wont let you do that. You have to stay on the treadmill. Anyways, I went to this run wanting to try anything close to minimal as possible.

Enter the Saucony Hattoris. These shoes are their lowest minimal shoes, but have a little padding to give you cushion.

Source

These were much different from the Vibram Five Fingers I am used to. First is the most obvious, they dont have toes. When I was talking to the rep she said the shoes are designed to run in without socks. They didnt have my size so I had to go a 1/2 size up. This made me hesitant to run without socks....so I left one sock on, one sock off.

Pros: There is padding on the bottoms. You arent straight barefoot. My arches thanked me. They look more like shoes. They are very light weight and roomy. I also felt like my feet were very cool (temperature-wise)

Cons: They were hard to put on (not really a con because most new shoes are hard to put on). They remind me of water shoes and clomped when I landed. I could also feel my form changing (my feet were landing incorrectly).

I ran 2.5 miles in the HEAT and because they were a 1/2 size too big, I blistered bad on the shoe without the sock. The foot with the sock went completely numb. I think my feet just hate socks and regular shoes, I dont think its the shoe.

Which do I like better? I think I am going to have to stick with Vibram Five Finger. I know how they work, my legs are happy with them. I would recommend the Hattoris if you are looking for a minimalist but cant go down the Vibram road. It might be a good breakout shoe for those who are ready go to less but cant quite take the leap.

For the past few weeks I wanted to show you the hill I have been busting butt up the past few runs.....

Finally took a picture

Its steep. Its bumpy. Its tough. It sucks while running it, but when I finish I feel like I actually did something. I always try to do this hill regardless of how the run went. It seals the deal.

I just looked at my monthly running recap and I pulled in a whopping 8 miles. Unacceptable. Granted my foot was not letting me go any further and I have done a lot of elliptical training. My toe is STILL sore, so I need to listen to it.

We are doing a cleanse right now to clean the junk out of our system and I have to say day 1 SUCKED. Im starving. You drink lemon water and syrup. I cant stand the taste. In my hunger fit, I am going to leave you with my homemade brownies with homemade ganache.

God Im STARVED!

UPDATE: After posting this we immediately went to Jason's Deli. There is only so much Lemon water one person can drink in a lifetime. THANK GOODNESS!!!!!

It finally has a home

2011-05-23T17:58:00.006-04:00

A few years ago my dear friend Lauren and I went on a shopping trip to A Classy Flea in search of something cool. We walked out of there with two window panes. Two window panes with no real future. Actually, I dont know what Lauren did with hers, but mine just sat. And sat. Annnnnd sat.

Saturday while I was at the gym thinking about the trip we were about to make to Cincinnati to visit Ikea (to see if I could cheaply solve these problems here) I started brainstorming. I wanted to do something with that freaking window. Matt hates it. Or rather he thinks its a waste of space. I painted it in the past and it sat.

So what did I end up doing with the window?

Here is the window before. I bought it (in white) for $3. I painted it a few years ago this bright yellow, but being a novice that I ~~was~~ am, I didnt sand BEFORE I painted and the paint peeled right off. If was fun for a few minutes. It was like peeling skin off your body. YUCK!

This was the first PITA (pain in the ass) part of the project. There is only 6 panes, but geeze....it took forever to tape up.

The second PITA part. Sanding. I sanded and sanded and there was still a lot of paint left behind. Its time to invest in a hand sander. I know, I know...Im still new to this.

The color. I bought two sample Behr paints because they will make it any color and its only $3. I bought two for this project, but 1 was PLENTY! The color is Fountain Spout. Luckily I have a lot left over and its such a great color.

First coat. As I was shaking the sample, it slipped out of my hand and broke a pane. Matt and I cut our fingers up trying to remove the glass. There was a lot of blood and sweat invested into this project. Literally.

You knew burlap was coming. I took Elmers Spray craft glue and sprayed the edges of the back side of the pane and (quickly) stuck the burlap on. It smoothed out pretty quickly, just be careful about moving it around once contact has been made. It looks sloppy after that happens

Then I attached these hook things to both sides of the window. I also used picture frame holders on the wall. I used the ones that hold up to 30lbs. Just to be safe.

I cut two pieces of wood for shelving and painted them the same color. For the bottom, I measured 32" to fit flush on the window. Since I dont have a power saw and had to use a miter box, the top ended up being much longer. I made it work. Note: miter boxes are hard to use on wider wood. I attached both with 2" wood screws. There was a bit of cracking, but because the wood was being difficult. I would use shorter screws, maybe 1.5". I also attached little hooks under the bottom shelf to hold hand towels.

Im pleased about the color. I was worried it was going to be too light, but it is perfect. The lighting stinks

My new washcloths from Target for $5. They match all the colors I am looking for in my bathroom

I bought these jars for $3 each at Ikea from our trip Saturday. I printed labels, but I think when I have more time I am going to mod podge letters on. I wish I had a Silhouette for this.

Dont mind the ugly black cord I forgot to hide. Do you see the little jar next to the basket? Saturday night we PURGED our kitchen. Threw a lot of crap out. I bought a new spice system and took one of the old garlic jars and put my bobby pins in there. I hate losing bobby pins. Now they are in a central location. Although they smell a little garlicky. Win some, lose some.

My Name is Heather and I'm a Planaholic

Its training season again

Whats the plan for next month?

I just built something AWESOME

Did you see it?

Im moving!!

Reminders

Are you still alive?

Goals/Resolutions of 2012

Its the Most Wonderful Time of the year

These days....

Winter Blues? Runners Regret?

Design Disagreements

Jingle Jog 5k

The Table that took five months

Pink Sugar Bakery WINNER and another busy weekend

Last Day to Enter the GIVEAWAY!!

I knew those Muppets were smarty pants

**Pink Sugar Bakery GIVEAWAY**

Be Here Tomorrow

Thanksgiving Randomosities

Hopefully back with a fun filled post this week

Ill be back

Thank goodness we go to the gym

Ive only stripped once

Wordpress?

Am I too nice?

Keep Em Coming

Sick kitties, racing on the mind, and other various topics

Take a hike

Excitement

I hate how red my face gets after working out

Smile

This has been an interesting weekend if i do say so

One year and counting?

Time to get back on track....because my clothes said so

Drunk with Exhaustion

A letter to your former self

The $40 Challenge

Its Gameday Saturday!!

Oh the 3 day weekend

Bye bye summer....I already miss you

Its almost Gameday!!

Seriously I need a planning intervention

All aboard the race train and cupcakes (DUH)

What is your limit?

30 Things

New York: Im going to start a dog walking business

New York: Because we love to eat

New York: Love your life because some people have bad kidneys and cant pee

New York: Just Keep Walking and say it was the air conditioner

On Challenges

On Goals

What we did this weekend:

An unmotivating week just turned around

3 weeks until it starts again

I am SO looking forward to vacation

Wow

Its the most wonderful time of the year

Motivation?

I Did....

Heck of a week

That's One Way to Dye

Weekend Bliss

Another Project? A Sunburst Mirror

Finally the BIG news!!!

There is a first for everything

Our First Furniture Makeover

Looking Ahead

Day 3: My favorite place to be......and cupcakes...DUH

Day 2: Photo of what you wore today

Day 1: Photo of Yourself

Recaps and Reviews

It finally has a home

Pink Sugar Bakery GIVEAWAY