Awww

At playgroup this morning E and I discussed how the little girl who's house we were at had a nanny and her mommy was at work, just like her.

So later at lunch, I am unloading the dishwasher, and this is the conversation:

E- Angela, are you my nanny?
A- Yes, E, I am your nanny.
E- Oh, well thank you for taking good care of me!

Sigh, so sweet.

Her sister pipped up with, Yes, thank you for my yummy lunch!

Love my job.

If your purse looks like this....

you might be a runner.

I was throwing all my stuff together to head out to see my girlfriends, and then go home for the night, and I went to grab my purse and this sight made me crack up!

It is totally normal to keep and ice pack (which isn't cold, but will go to the freezer as soon as I get to my girlfriend's house), icyhot and my giant bottle of Glucosamine Chondroition in my purse right? The kindle and granola bar is for post running :-D 

Happy weekend friends!

Yellow Dubmarine and Badfish

Austin and I went to Rams Head Live on Friday to catch 2 awesome cover bands.

Yellow Dubmarine is a reggae Beatles cover band, and they are really cool! I took video on my phone(it was so loud, my videos sound fuzzy, my ear didn't stop ringing til Saturday night!!), but it sucks. Of course my brothers phone took much better videos but he can’t send them to me! I am linking some random YouTube videos because they are awesome!

They did 2 of my other favorite songs. A Day in the Life didn’t make the show, but Something and Dig a Pony did!




They were really awesome, and I hope I can catch another show!

Then there was Badfish, which is a sublime cover band. Austin sang every single lyric of every single song! He had a blast!!

I on the other hand, enjoyed it, but realized just how OLD I am. They didn't come on stage til 11pm, and I was fading fast! Then the moshing downstairs started and I got super nervous. I don't get it. These people were getting shoved around so much, falling down, getting stepped on, and this is fun?! It scared me to death. One girl got her face busted! What on earth is fun about that?!

The concert was so fun! Great bonding time with my brother!

I do wonder what people though of us, we tried really hard not to look like we were together on a date!

The run that was a MESS

Saturday I set out to do 13 miles.

Despite having my watch on the charger (probably not correctly) it died 2ish miles into the run! So while I ran I downloaded an app to track the rest of my run. Of course my belt that I wear to hold my phone also broke around mile 2 awesome!

I ran 10 miles with the app and a total of 2 hours 23 mins. I am guessing it was close to 13 miles, but probably a little short.

I ran to Mount Vernon, past it a while, back to it, then down the Mount Vernon Trail to my house.

Beautiful run! The weather was WARM at 60 degrees! So crazy for January 7th! Loved it. Since I was holding my phone, I took some pics while running.

January Goals

-No missed training runs: no excuses, all runs must happen! I don’t care if I am tired. MAKE it happen!!!!!

-lights off, tv off, computer and phone away by 11(on work nights):  This means I will sleep more! (in theory at least)

- 3 water bottles a day: This isn’t even that hard for me, but sometimes I slack on the water drinking

-church 3 times:  I know I shouldn’t have to put going to church on my goals list, but going to a new church alone is not something I am enjoying, but I need to do it more. The more I do it, the more people I will know and the more comfortable I will be with it

-Put away clothes after laundry: this is the worst part about laundry for me. I will let my clothes sit in the basket clean and pick out of it for a while. I hope that this changes!

 

So a week into January, lets see how things are going. All runs ran this week! I ran 28 miles the first week of Jan! Almost every night I have had tv and computer off. One night I was on the phone with mom til 11:30, but I have been asleep by midnight every night, often before. Water is going well, except today. Must go drink some! I woke today with a headache, so I didn’t go to church, that means that next 3 Sundays I will be there! All my laundry is being done right now as we speak. I will put it away while I watch some of my DVRd shows after dinner!

2012 > 2011

That is a guarantee! 2011 was a year of change. I started grad school, my long term relationship ended, I moved,  I got a new car and I got very serious about running. Lots of other things happened, friends got married and I went on some fun trips.
2011 was hard. But 2012 looks to be amazing, it can only go up from here.
I don’t plan on recapping all of my 2011 like some people do, too much emotions there. Instead I will tell you about my ringing in the new year, and the out look I have
This year I decided I needed to go away for New Years Eve. Getting away allows me to start the year off on the right foot!
I went with my high school friend Jessica, and her husband and their friends to Bethany Beach.
I woke up on New Years Eve to amazing weather! 65ish degrees! I tried to go for my 8 mile run, but I packed for, you know, WINTER! So I was poorly dressed and burning up!
I managed to get a good run in, even though it was difficult.
We sat around watching greatest songs of 2000s on VH1 and all the songs brought back memories. Then we got ready and went out to a nice dinner.
I had the best cranberry martini (or 2) while we were waiting for dinner and at dinner. Super strong!
We went back and played lots of games. Apples to apples is such a fun party game. We rang in the new year with a bang! (though we forgot the fireworks we brought!)
So while I am late to write this post, I did write a list of goals for 2012.
Here they are.

- Run a marathon: yes, I realize this is crazy, but I am at the perfect time in my life to do it! I have no one to answer too with my free time, so I won’t feel guilty giving up 2+ hours on a weekend to go run.
-PR my half marathon:  This won’t be hard to do, as I am in much better running shape, and my last half marathon time kind of sucked!!
-Call my grandparents 2 times a month (at least):  I am very bad about talking on the phone. I don’t really do it anymore. I really only talk to my mom regularly. My dad and I email pretty often. But I often don’t check in with my grandparents enough. I shouldn’t have to make this a goal, but if I do I will be better at it. Here is to being a better granddaughter in 2012!
- Get and A in 5 out of 6 classes:  6 out of 6 would be great, but there are some tough classes coming up, some math ones, I must be realistic.
- Read 6 books for fun:  I find that reading while doing school is pretty difficult for me. I am going to make an effort to read more for pleasure this year. I just finished 1 book today! I started it on Dec 30th, but I am going to count it!
-Keep healthy lifestyle choices: I have been doing a good job sticking to a semi paleo diet. Not as strict as I was in the past, but when faced with choices I try to make the better choice!
-Cross off 2 things from the bucket list: Some way, some how I will do this!
-Run 650 miles in 2012: This might not even be difficult with marathon training, but I am hoping I can do it!
-Sightsee in DC more: I live in an amazing city, and yet I hardly take advantage of it! That changes in 2012. Good thing I have made a friend who isn’t a local, I can drag her along too! Get ready Lindsay!
-Save money for emergency fund: This is something I have been doing since I moved, but I need to step it up. I hope to put more money in my savings account every month so that I have it when something unforeseen comes up, and it always does.

So that is my 2012 goals. I have specific January goals, but I will post those separately, this post is long enough!
Hope everyone had a great New Year! Happy and Healthy 2012!!!

Christmas 2011

This holiday season hasn’t been easy for me. I struggled to get the tree up, and while it was beautiful and I loved it, it still didn’t feel like Christmas yet.

I kept waiting for it to start feeling like Christmas. Saturday am, Christmas Eve, I got up and went for a run. I went 4.5ish miles with a friend, then finished up 7.5  miles on my own.

12 miles = very sleepy afternoon. I sat around with Austin watching tv and waiting for A Christmas Story to come on.

The true is, I was waiting for the evening. Christmas Eve is probably my favorite part of Christmas. It is full of tradition and family.

Saturday night we went to church for service. The service was great but the end is the best. Everyone lights a candle and we all sing silent night. **insert chills here**

I ran home and made a breakfast casserole while mom and dad finished up at the 2nd service at church.

Then my 2nd favorite part of Christmas eve began. The Waffle House.

This tradition has been going on for 16 years. It started in GA, where we would spend a good few hours opening up gifts then our adopted grandparents (all the grandparents lived in MD ) would come over and we would go to WH for breakfast.

When we moved to MD, we would open gifts and then head to my grandparents house so there wasn’t time for a WH stop, so we started going after church on Christmas eve. Along the years others have joined us in our tradition. The past few years our music minister at church, Chip, and his wife, Marcie have joined us.

The time is full of food, fun and laughs. Always guaranteed to laugh, a lot.

This year, since Christmas was on Sunday we decided we would open all of our family presents on Christmas eve. So we came home and exchanged gifts.

Dad handing out presents.

I got a lot of running related gifts . A cute new bag and my brother gave me new perfume. Then we went to bed for the big day.

My mom got a trip to go drive a racecar from my dad. Her reaction was HILARIOUS!! Hoping I can get the video edited and up here soon.

On Friday night, Austin and I made some homemade eggnog, it was pretty good, even Kobi liked it.

Sunday am, we  got up and had blueberry french toast casserole and then headed to church.

After church we went to Rockville to do the rounds at my grandparents house .

Christmas at my mom’s parents house first with lots of yummy cookies and carrot cake.

Then over to my dad’s parent’s house for dinner and then more presents. This time is probably the most funny part of all of Christmas. It seems that there is always jokes being cracked, typically because my granddaddy got yet ANOTHER damn shirt.

Also, my uncle Mickey is just hilarious and gets some pretty great presents.

Like this year, my brother the DIE HARD Steelers fan got this shirt.

to pour salt into the wound, he got 2! Because my uncle bought one in orange first, then realized it was the wrong color and got it in yellow too. It was hilarious!

What was even more funny, was everyone else got Jesus Loves [Insert their team]

I got the complete Harry Potter series! Which is what I plan to do today!

We came home and all of the neighborhood kids that are Austin's age came over for a little party. So fun, but man I felt old. I used to babysit most of them!

It ended up being a great Christmas! Even if it didn’t feel like Christmas until the very end!  Looking forward to the last week of 2011 but even more to 2012!