Half Mary

A couple of days ago I signed up for my third half marathon. This may sound like I'm an experienced runner, but I'm not. The first one I ran/walked with Team in Training. It was a fantastic experience and probably would never have done a half marathon without them. I walked a second one and experienced blisters like you've never seen and it was miserable. So, enter apprehension. I REALLY want to run the entire thing. I'm in full on Couch to 5K training mode to prepare myself to actually try to run the whole thing. I'm excited about this because one of my best friends is doing her very first half marathon with me. Another friend (a more experienced runner who claims she won't be faster than us) is also joining us. We decided to to the Rock'n'Roll. It is the first year one has been held in St. Louis, so I'm excited to have a little musical motiviation each mile.

Hopefully, stating my intentions on this blog will motivate me to keep up my training. Look forward to many more posts about running and how I'm doing. I think that is the only way I may make it through this!

Cabin Fever

Ugh. I've had a terrible summer cold for the last week. Seriously, it's like I can't breathe through my nose and am coughing. I feel so much better than last week, but I'm not completely over it yet!

In spite of not feeling fantastic, I went away with one of my best friends, Alison, and some of her friends from a previous job for the weekend. We went to a bed and breakfast that allowed us to have a cabin all to ourselves but delivered breakfast AND dinner. Oh, and stuff to make s'mores. This place was AWESOME and I'd definitely recommend it to anyone. The owners were so nice and the place was beautiful. Since I'm not planning to take a vacation this summer, this was just the relaxing getaway from home for the weekend trip I needed! Here are a few pics from the weekend:

(view of the cabin from the "front" door)

(view of the lake behind the house-Alison gives it the thumbs up!)

(Saturday it rained in the morning so starting a fire Saturday night was difficult. Here is Alison ripping apart a phone book to feed the fire.)

(Here are the firestarters. I let them worry about starting the fire.)

(While the others started the fire, Erica sat on the porch patiently.)

Great weekend overall!

Dinner and a Movie

Last night some of my great girl friends and I had our first Girls Night. We decided to do dinner and a movie.
Dinner and conversation was great because we went to one of my favorites-Stir Crazy! Stir Crazy offers a Market Bar option where you can build your own stir fry. It is AWESOME! I opted for the chicken stir fry with brown rice and loads of veggies. It was super yummy!
Then we drove across the parking lot (hey-it was very cold so we felt justified) to see No Strings Attached. That's the new Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher movie. I had very mixed feelings about the movie because I feel Ashton gets a little out of control sometimes and Natalie is so serious in most of her roles that I didn't think I could relate to her being in a romcom. My verdict-it was cute and funny, and quite inappropriate at times. Definitely don't see this if you don't find cursing and slight vulgarity ok.
I can't wait for the next Girls Night. We've decided to make this a monthly occurance so we are looking for ideas for next month!

Help! I need somebody. Help!

That is probably what my dog thought today when she was at the vet today. I had skipped a month or so giving her the heart worm meds so I had to have her take a test for heart worm. She was not pleased but did really well. Of course, squirming and $31 later, she tested negative and I could spend lots more money for the medicine. Sheesh.

On a lighter note, I got to mow my grass with the old fashioned lawn mower before it pours down rain and am going to see one of my oldest (well she isn't that old she's the same age as me, but we've been friends longer than just about anyone else I'm friends with) friends Aimee. I don't get to see her that often, and I really enjoy spending time with her. Can't wait for tonight!