Adventures in Cooking

It was a good day for cooking! It was really cold out, so I happily spent a few hours in the kitchen. I didn't get in a run, which I feel guilty about, but I WILL run my own personal Turkey Trot in the morning before we head out. It's going to be cold, but I'll do the best I can.

I think 2 out of 3 things I made today turned out well, and the third I messed up but hopefully it isn't too awful. Here's what I made. None of it is diet-friendly cause it's Thanksgiving. Duh. :P

This pumpkin cheesecake recipe is always great. Next time I'm going to try the Pioneer Woman pumpkin cheesecake, but I didn't have all the ingredients for it this time so I went with the same recipe as last year.

Here's what the cheesecake looked like as it went into the oven:



Here's a picture with the vanilla sour cream topping (the little flecks are vanilla beans).


I've never made a pecan pie, but I wanted to try it this year. I started out with this crust. The only thing I changed was I added some vodka. From what I understand, the vodka makes the crust easier to work with but it evaporates in the oven so the crust doesn't get soggy. It looked so pretty!

I used this recipe for the pecan filling. I did make a mistake, though. It called for one heaping cup of pecans. That didn't seem like anywhere near enough to me. I used well over 2 cups. That was too much, I think, because it boiled over which made the pie not look very good. :(

This is what it looked like going into the oven:

And this is what it looked like after the whole boiling over disaster (it looks worse in person):


I also made these honey yeast rolls. I've made many quick breads (pumpkin bread etc), but I've only made "real" bread with yeast once. They turned out ok but had ZERO flavor. It was like eating cardboard. These were much better! I had extras, which we ate with dinner tonight, and they were GOOD.

Making bread is a pain. I wouldn't say it's hard, but it just takes soooo long what with the rising and the second rising and all that nonsense. They were so good right out of the oven though, and I'm hoping they'll be good when they're re-heated before dinner tomorrow.

Here are the finished rolls:

Decorating Update

I've been working on a couple little projects in the master bedroom. I'm happy with how they turned out so I thought I'd share...First, I made a starburst mirror. I followed directions from this awesome home bio. It was pretty easy and I love the way it turned out.First, I went to Michaels to pick up some supplies. I got a round wood shape thing for the base, dowel rods, 4 packs of small mirrors, a bigger mirror, hot glue sticks, and silver leaf paint.
First I drew on the back of the round wood piece and split it into 16 equal-ish pieces. Then I glued the dowel rods on with hot glue.Then I glued bamboo skewers in between the dowels (I already had those at home). Then I attempted to silver leaf it, which was a major fail, so I just used the silver leaf paint and that was WAY EASIER. Then I glued on the mirrors.

When I was done, I attached a picture hanging thing and that was it!

Then it was time to attack our Boring Beige master bedroom. Picture beige carpet, beige walls, beige bedding, black furniture, and white curtains. I was going to post a picture, but I don't have one right now because I need to work out this iPhoto issue.

One way to ditch the bedding was to add color. But most of the bedding I like is neutral.

Here's the bedding I like from Anthropologie:
The duvet cover + 2 shams comes to $306. Yeah.
Here's the other bedding I wanted from Anthro for something like $370...


Then one day, I was walking through Target and saw a duvet cover and shams that looked an awful lot like Anthro Option 1.... but on clearance for $40!! SCORE!!

To add color, I decided to just take a risk and paint a bold accent wall. I wanted some kind of turquoise, but something more bold than the silver sage in the guest room. I decided on Tropicana Cabana from Benjamin Moore.

It's hard to get the color to look right with the camera on my iphone, but this is the best I could do. And BTW I just realized I never took the tags off the lamps. Oops.


This picture is probably the most accurate as far as color goes:


I wouldn't consider it "finished" yet but we're on our way! I LOVE the accent wall! On the other wall, there's a dresser that needs to be painted black, and I want to hang some black shelves and add some accessories. I need something else on this side too... maybe I'll recover the lamp shades, or add some accessories or throw pillows. The lamps look really tiny in these pictures, which is something I never thought about before. They are very practical so they'll stay for now. If anyone has any ideas, please share! :)

Go Me!

Fourth place! Sweet!

I had a terrible 4 1/2 mile run tonight. I kept going even though it completely sucked, and after 3 miles it got better. I did 8 this weekend (not terrible, but a far cry from last weekend's 12). I also started writing down everything I eat again cause it's time to lose another 20 pounds. Go away, fat. I hate you. I'll probably start posting a lot more updates to try to hold myself more accountable.

I Did Not Forget About You, Little Blog

I've been really busy since school started. Basically I get up, get ready for work, go to work, come home and run, cook dinner, do more work, and go to sleep. Then I wake up at about 2 or 3am from some work-related nightmare and attempt to get more sleep. Then the next day I'm even more tired. Repeat.

When work first started back up, running was a nightmare. My calves were burning, my legs felt like lead, and I could hardly fight my way through 3 miles. Fortunately, my weekend runs have gone phenomenally well and weekday runs have gotten better. Last weekend I ran 11 miles! Without stopping at all! I ran 82 miles in July and 74 in August.

I am in need of some gear. My iPod arm band is awful. My sweat gets in and has nearly broken the iPod twice. Also my hydration belt doesn't hold enough water for 10+ miles. I need either a camelback or one of those hydration belts that holds more, and I really need to figure it out soon. It also needs a zipped pocket to hold my phone and emergency powerbar. If anyone has any recs, please share!

The last Nike+ challenge ended, and I ended up in the top 10 which I was thrilled about. The new challenge started Aug. 15th and I'm currently in 6th. SWEET!!!!

I'm also joining a challenge that I co-worker told me about. The goal is to run or walk 300 miles between Labor Day and New Year's Day. That's a really hard one because it gets so hard to run outside when it's cold and snowy. I need to figure out if I should get a punch card to the rec center again or look for some sort of cheap gym membership somewhere. I don't want to pay for a gym membership when I don't want to use it from May-September.

Food is going so-so. I'm doing better on lunches since I'm back at work and am doing better with drinking water. I still struggle though. Running burns a ton of calories but also makes me REALLY hungry.

Still hanging in there!

9th!

For now at least...

Where do I go from here?

(Yes that is the title of one of the songs from Buffy: The Musical and I know every word. I'm a geek or possibly just a loser.)

I started running a little over a year ago and I could only run for 60 seconds. Barely. 2 days ago I ran 8.2 miles without stopping. Crazy! I used to HATE when someone said something stupid like "I ran 2 easy miles" because I could not imagine a world in which entire miles could be "easy" to run. Tonight I ran 4 easy miles. Seriously, it was easy. And fun! Weird.

Big Hairy Goal #1 was the Bolder Boulder. Yes I was slow. But I did it and ran the whole way.

Now what? I thought I wanted to work on my speed, but that's been pretty much impossible. I'm slow. I can improve my distance, though. The next big milestone would be a 1/2 marathon. That's 13.1 miles. That's a LOT more than 10k. And it's a LOT more than the 8 miles I can currently do. But a year ago, 10k seemed completely impossible so who knows?

I've been doing 3-4 miles 2-3 times a week, and a longer run once a week. When I looked at the Hal Higdon training programs, I'm right about at week 6 in the intermediate half marathon training program. Maybe I can do it?

I'm actually not sure the ouchie disc in my back can handle it. At 8 miles, it was really hurting and it hurt the next day. Today, it was fine and I did the 4 mile run without a problem. But I'm not sure I can keep improving my long runs at the rate of 1 mile a week. I'll just do the best I can and see how it goes.

It's definitely time for an update about the Nike+ Challenge.When the previous challenge ended, I was extremely proud to end up in 8th place. Since then, a few more girls joined, and everyone started running more to train for summer races. I was sick the first week. When I checked my place and I was in 18th!! Since then I've been clawing my way back up to the top 10. Here's how things are looking tonight:
That's me in 10th! But I'm having a battle with Shannie11. She has this magical ability to predict how many kilometers I will run, and she will run 1 more than me. SO FRUSTRATING! And SO MOTIVATING! Ha! 8th place is clearly out of the realm of possibility, but 9th place girl, watch out! (And Shannie11, you might have a crystal ball, but I am very stubborn and won't go down without a fight.)

UPDATE: Please disregard my last post. Apparently, I do run in the rain (just so it's a light rain and not a downpour accompanied by lightning). And I like it.

Excuses, Excuses...

Top 5 reasons why I don't run in the rain:

5. If it's raining, maybe it just isn't meant to be. Who am I to argue with fate?
4. People driving by in their warm, dry cars give you the strangest looks.
3. Cookie is terrified of thunder, and she can't exactly cower under my feet shaking while running (though she tried and I almost crashed).
2. No one wants to see me running in a wet tank top and running shorts. NO ONE. It's just not something you can un-see. This isn't an episode of Baywatch.
1. To say that I am clumsy is a huge understatement. I can hardly manage to sit still without hurting myself. I'm surprised I haven't managed to kill myself in my attempts to run on dry, good weather days. Running in the rain or snow would be begging for disaster.

So no matter how much I love running outside more than on a stupid treadmill, running in the rain, sleet, snow, etc is just not an option for me. If it was just sprinkling lightly that would be wonderful, but usually we get quick torrential downpours rather than light drizzle.

Today we were busy most of the day and it was way too hot to run, then it finally cooled off and rained. I thought the rain had passed, but soon after Cookie and I left home it started raining again (big cold raindrops that were trying to become hail), so we only made it half a mile. :(

I never thought I could be so sad about missing a run. Who am I and where did I put Kirsten?

Proof that it was too hot to run in the middle of the day:


Okay it's possible the thermometer was ever so slightly wrong. ;-)

Good Workout!

Do as many rounds as possible in 15 minutes of the following:

5 push-ups (I gave up on man-style pretty quickly)
5 burpees
5 jumping pull ups

I got through 10 rounds. It's the burpees that will kill you.

Some videos:
Burpees
Me doing burpees (Ha! Maybe someday)
Crazy dude does 1 mile of burpees
Burpees for overachievers
Burpees for beginniners
Jumping Pull Ups

Delicious Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

Since the diet is a big old thumbs down at the moment, here's a great chocolate chip cookie recipe. First I'll copy the recipe as stated, then share what changes I made. Seriously, these cookies were GOOD. Sorry I don't have a picture... by the time I thought to take a picture, they were all gone.

Here's the original Nestle Tollhouse recipe:

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup butter or margarine, softened
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 large egg
• 1 (12 ounce) package NESTLE® TOLL HOUSE® Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels
• 1 cup chopped nuts

Directions

1. PREHEAT oven to 375 degrees F.
2. COMBINE flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels and nuts. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.
3. BAKE for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

After reading through a bunch of the comments about this recipe on allrecipes.com, I decided to try a few changes.

• You really need more than 2 1/4 cups of flour or the cookies will be too thin. I used 2 1/2 cups, but I just went with heaping measurements so it was actually more than that.

• Double the vanilla. When you alter a recipe for high altitude, usually you add more flour and add some water, but I went with extra vanilla instead. I used the amazingly wonderful madagascar vanilla bean paste instead of regular vanilla extract.

• Instead of 1 teaspoon of baking soda, I used slightly less than 1/2 teaspoon baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon baking soda. Usually I cut down on baking powder or baking soda when altering a recipe for high altitude.

• 1/2 teaspoon of salt instead of a whole teaspoon was plenty. I did use salted butter though. Actually I used Irish butter, which is divine and can be found at Costco.

• I left out the walnuts. I was making the cookies for some friends and wasn't sure if they liked nuts in their cookies or not. The recipe is great with or without the nuts.

• I used milk chocolate chips because I like them better. The cheap generic chocolate chips from King Soopers are super yummy.
  

• 9 minutes cooking time was perfect. I did not wait for them to be "golden brown" because I didn't want them to be crunchy.

The "Improved" Recipe:

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (heaping cups is fine... there's no need to measure precisely)
  
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, or slightly less
  
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, or slightly less
  
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 3/4-1 cup granulated sugar
  
• 3/4-1 cup packed brown sugar
  
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 1 (12 ounce) package milk chocolate or semi-sweet chocolate chips
  
• 1 cup chopped nuts (optional; walnuts work well)
  

Directions

1. PREHEAT oven to 375 degrees F.
2. COMBINE flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels and nuts. (At this point, you might want to taste the dough. Don't eat too much because of the raw eggs, but this cookie dough is GOOD!). Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.
3. BAKE for 9 to 11 minutes or until they're a little brown on the edges. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely. I ended up with 38 fairly small cookies.

Oh and one more tip.... when storing the cookies, put a piece of bread in the container with them. It keeps them nice and chewy.

Enjoy!

Today's Workout

This is a good one to do at home with minimal equipment. All you need is a hand weight. I used 15 pounds. 15 felt fine but I should probably try 20 since my arms aren't sore (crap I hope Brenna isn't reading this). Really the problem continues to be my abs. They are so weak and it makes other exercises difficult. I really need to work on this issue. My chiropractor thinks it's contributing to my back issues as well. Maybe I'll do a plank challenge in July or something.

Today we did this thing that is called a half viking salute, though google is not bringing me any results for this exercise. I'll attempt to explain it.

Put the weight on the ground. Grab it with your right hand and bring it up over your head with your arm straight up. Leave it up there, and take your right leg and move your leg back into a lunge on your right knee. When you're on your knee, bring the weight down do your shoulder, then back up above your head. Then keep it above your head and stand up (I think this is the hardest part!). Once you are on both feet with the weight still above your head, put it back on the ground. That's 1 rep. Then do it with the other arm and the other leg.

The workout is 10 half viking salutes (alternating which side you use, so 5 on each side), then 50 sit ups. Then 10 half viking salutes and 40 sit ups. Then 10 and 30, then 10 and 20, and finally 10 and 10.

I also squeezed in 5k of running tonight. I was stuffed full of delicious lasagna and Yogurtland, which made it really hard (at first I was so full I had to walk) but it was a beautiful evening. Maybe someday I'll learn my lesson about overeating.

I also started tracking my food and exercise again. I'm using an app called livestrong, but if you don't have an iphone and the app, the website is free. The best thing is they have an amazingly complete selection of items so it's soooo easy to find how many calories are in just about anything. They even had nutritional information for about 20 flavors from Yogurtland! So far I would definitely recommend it. The only thing I would say is that the calories it gives you seems rather high so I'm trying to stay under their recommendations.

Thoughts on Tonight's Little Run

I thought I'd be safe from getting sick over the summer since I'm out of the germ factory (school), but apparently not. A couple days after book club, we all came down with it. It hasn't been fun.

I ran Sunday morning and started getting sick afterward. Since then I haven't really been able to exercise. I went on short walks Tuesday and Wednesday with Cookie, which was all I could handle, and today (Thursday) I woke up feeling awful. After a few extra hours in bed, I was feeling a big better so decided to try to get in a short run tonight. I was shooting for 5k and made it 6.27k, even slower than usual.

Here are some random thoughts....

1. There is someone who missed the runs more than me, and that is Cookie. She was happy happy happy! Halfway through, we saw a little old man walking with a walker on the path with (I assume) his daughter and grandchildren. He was waiting for his family on the path and was looking at Cookie and smiling, and asked me her name. I told him that her name is Cookie, and he said "Hi Cookie" and Cookie was soooo sweet. When he said her name, she stopped running, walked over, stood right next to him, looked up at him, and stood perfectly still so he could pet her. It was so heartwarming to see how happy he was to pet her and how good Cookie was. She is so intuitive and just knew she needed to be calm and still. It made me wonder if there's a retirement home where they like to have dogs come in. I'll look into it.

2. I got a side stitch. I haven't gotten a side stitch in months. :(

3. Bug spray with deet is only partially effective against mosquitos. Some mosquitos don't care. Some seem to like it. A couple days ago I forgot to wear deet and got tons of bites, and tonight I sprayed on loads of deet but still saw several mosquitos trying to suck my blood. Pretty much all I've been doing the last couple days is scratching mosquito bites and blowing my nose.

4. Working out is much more fun with someone else. Jesse isn't into running but likes riding his mountain bike, so he rode around on the path while Cookie and I were running. It was fun seeing him on the path. Cookie was thrilled.

5. Amazingly awesome running shorts:


6. I don't think I'm going to make my run goal this month. Here are the distances I have run each month this year (in kilometers):

January: 58.68
February: 65.48
March: 90.74
April: 64.63
May: 93.3
June so far: 64.61

It's not looking like I'll make it in the 90s this month. :(

Ahh, summer!

First, the good....

1. Since I haven't weighed in for a couple weeks, I stepped on the scale today and was down 1.6 lbs.

2. I'm getting into a running groove. I didn't run all week after the Bolder Boulder. I actually wasn't sore or anything.... I was just WAY too busy. Anyway, since we're off from Crossfit this week, I've done some good, easy runs. I've been running laps through my neighborhood with Cookie, which I've really been enjoying. It's nice being close to home in case the weather changes. Here are my runs in the past week:
Saturday: 6.87K
Monday: 5.85K
Wednesday: 5.93K
Thursday: 7.11K

3. Summer break is just plain awesome.


Now the, er, not so good news (in my house, we've learned to not say the word "bad" because Cookie gets all upset and thinks you're talking about her. Yup, she's got us wrapped around her cute little paws!).

1. Losing 1.6 lbs is good good, but I'd really rather be losing that much each week rather than every 2 weeks.

2. Yes the summer break is WONDERFUL, but food is more of a struggle. I was into such a routine before... healthy breakfast, healthy lunch, normal dinner. Now sometimes I'll sleep through breakfast and skip it entirely, or have a late breakfast then a weird lunch/dinner meal and a snack later. We've gone out for ice cream once this week and froyo once. And last night I had to turn down Dairy Queen, which the husband insisted that he "needed". Yes, I love going out for ice cream in the summer. It's pretty much my favorite thing in the world to do. But seriously, no one "needs" ice cream three times in one week!!!

BTW, if you're looking for some really good ice cream, I highly recommend Little Man Ice Cream in the Highlands neighborhood. I got the Bailey's Chocolate and it was to die for. They have a Scoop for Scoop program where they donate one scoop of rice to Ethiopia and Myanmar for every ice cream scoop sold. Here's a pic of Little Man:


And here's my froyo.

Bolder Boulder: Recap

The Bolder Boulder was awesome! I'm so glad I signed up.

The husband and I were really worried about the logistics of it all.... traffic, where to park, etc. It turned out to be fine. We never found the runner drop-off point, but we got fairly close to the start and I hopped out and walked to the starting place. It was easy to figure out where to go and you didn't have to check in or anything. I was happy to find my friend Hilarie before the race started, and we came up with a plan to meet up afterward and go out for lunch. Jesse ended up parking at Wild Oats, and he rode his bike all over town while I did the race. He found me at two spots along the way to cheer for me.

I was in the 70-90 minute joggers group, which turned out to be perfect. When it comes to pace, I was about in the middle of my group (slower than half, faster than half) which exactly the kind of group I wanted to be in.

A few minutes in, I was looking around to see if anyone was going about the same pace as me, and spotted someone who looked familiar. It was Michele, a parent of a former student of mine! I took off the headphones and jogged over to say hi, and we ended up running the entire race together. It was WONDERFUL having someone else to run with! We chatted a lot, especially during the flat and downhill parts. It was such a fun race. There were people in the neighborhoods spraying us with water, throwing marshmallows, handing out beer and snacks etc. The hardest part was the hill going up to the stadium at the very end. I gave Michele my phone # and I'm going to see her tomorrow, so I'm hoping we can schedule some time to go on a few more runs together. She's been running for 30 years and I think she'll be a perfect running partner.

I had 3 main goals: 1. Don't Die. Check! 2. Run the whole distance. Check! 3. Finish in under 90 minutes. Check! I finished in 82 minutes. Here are my stats:


Honestly, even though my goal was 90 minutes, I'm really disappointed in my pace. I would have liked to have been in the 11 or 12 minute range. Michele pointed out that I talked a lot, and said that means I could have gone faster. I don't know. I CAN go faster, but I can't keep it up for long periods of time because I get so worn out. Then again, while I was tired after the race, I wasn't any more tired than I usually am after a longer run and I wasn't sore or anything. Maybe I do need to push myself a bit more. Then again, now that I know what kind of back and neck problems I have, I'm reluctant to push it very much.

For now, I want to just keep on doing 3 miles twice a week and 6-8 once a week, ditch the walking breaks entirely, and see if I can slowly improve my speed a bit. I also want to start bike riding. And of course, I'll keep doing crossfit with the ladies from work and keep working toward losing weight.

It's going to be a busy summer! 2 more days... can't wait!!!

June's Push-Up Challenge: Enter if you Dare!

I'm a day late posting this, but it is now officially June Push-Up Month! (I might be making up the "official" part). Last June, Brenna challenged us to do 5k of something. My lovely friend Erin helped me through jogging intervals for 5k (I think it was 60 seconds jog, 2 minutes walk). A year later I ran a 10k! After push-up month, who knows, maybe a year from now I'll be able to do 60 push ups! Maybe my arms will be rockin! Maybe my core will become stronger than strawberry jell-o! Heck I'd be happy if I am able to do just ONE proper man push-up by July.

So every day you do that many push-ups (the 1st you do 1, the 2nd you do 2, etc). I skipped yesterday because I forgot, but today I did 2 push ups. If you can't do a man push-up, just go down like a man push up then back up on your knees. Had I not been so ridiculously exhausted I might have attempted to do them properly today, but instead I did the down on your toes up on your knees thing.

Come on people, who is brave enough to join the PUSH-UP CHALLENGE????

Long Overdue Update

Confession

I didn't post much last week because it was not a great week. I've been SUPER stressed out and our dear Aunt Flow was making things even worse. My weight was up 2 lbs. But I'm starting to de-stress and get back on track. As of this morning, the 2 lbs are gone, and they took another 1.2 with them. Yay!

Food

I found a wonderful fast food breakfast that I am totally in love with: The Western Egg-White Melt from Subway. It's a lower calorie wheat English muffin, egg whites, cheese, ham, onion, and green peppers. They toast it, and you can choose any other veggies to put on it. It is GOOD.... and only about 160 calories! I've been searching for a healthy takeout breakfast item for years and it's finally here. THANK YOU, SUBWAY!!! I've also had a few Subway turkey sandwiches this week since I've kind of sucked at the whole going to the grocery store and packing my lunch thing. Sadly, my Subway gift card is now all used up, but it was lovely while it lasted.

Health

I finally found the time and motivation to make an appointment with a chiropractor who came highly recommended, and went in today. I've been having some problems for years.... hips often feel crooked, upper left side of my back always feels off, middle right side always feels off, and my neck feels stiff and like I don't have the proper range of motion.

It turns out there is a reason for every single one of these issues, the biggest ones being my lower back, where a disc has started to degenerate, and my neck which has completely lost its curvature and the next step if I don't do anything about it will be disc problems.

He recommended I not push it too much with the running. I am not going to stop running. I figure I go so slow it barely counts as running anyway. However, I will probably keep the distance to 7-8 miles tops and won't be working toward a half-marathon. Instead I'll just work on my 5k and 10k times. I'm also going to start bike riding too. He thinks there are many things he can do to help, and it will also help if I can continue to lose weight. I feel better after the adjustments he made today and feel confident that it would continue to get better if I could continue to go.

Insurance Rant

Unfortunately, due to the horrible health insurance issues in this country, it probably won't be covered and therefore I can't afford it. In my opinion it should be 100% covered as preventative care because that will be a heck of a lot cheaper than the future surgeries that will probably need to occur when everything gets worse 10 years from now. I seriously don't understand why people are all pissed off saying that Obama will make it so you can't choose your own doctor. Guess what, like millions of other Americans, I can't choose my own doctor NOW because the doctor I want isn't in network. I want to know what insurance these people have where they supposedly have the freedom to choose any doctor they want. I want that insurance. We teachers obviously do not have that insurance, and in fact this year we lost our dental and vision coverage. Kirsten Not Happy.

How to make your entire body sore.

Step 1: Go for a 13K run on Sunday.

Step 2: Do this workout on Tuesday:


You do 200 jump ropes and 50 sit ups, then 160 jump ropes and 40 sit ups, then 120 jump ropes and 30 sit ups, then 80 jump ropes and 20 sit ups, and finally 40 jump ropes and 10 sit ups. The goal is to get through it as quickly as possible. I think I did it in 14-ish minuts? Or 15?

Oh but before that, do 30 push ups. MAN push-ups. Well the closest you can get to man push-ups, which for me is man-style on the way down then go back up on your knees.

Step 3: Do this workout on Thursday (by the way, you just need to go on walks Monday and Wednesday. You won't have the energy for anything else because your class is draining every ounce of energy out of you):

Set the timer for 1-minute increments. For the first minute, do thrusters. Thrusters are where you hold a hand weight in each hand (mine were 15lb, which was way too heavy), bend your arms so they're at your shoulders, do a squat, then when you come up push the weights up above your head until your arms are straight, then bring your arms down and go back into the squat for the next rep. Sorry that's kind of a horrible explanation. Do those for the first minute. Then when the minute is up, start the next minute right away on the timer and do 3 burpees, then keep doing thrusters for the remainder of the minute. At the end of every minute, you do 3 more burpees then finish that minute doing thrusters. Once you've done a total of 100 thrusters, you're done.

Sounds easy, but we were all SO sore from Tuesday's workout that it was absolute TORTURE!!!!!! I seriously thought I would die before I'd be able to get through it.

Step 4: After the above workout, drive down to the park and go for a run. The longest I could manage was 4.4k. My calves were KILLING me from Tuesday's jump ropes. It's weird, my calves used to always hurt like that and get stiff when I first started running, and I'd have to stop to stretch them out often. That hasn't happened in months becuase my calves had gotten so much stronger, until today. I should probably do jump ropes more often since they're obviously a great exercise for strengthening calves.

Step 5: Go home and sit on the couch and voila! Your entire body will be sore.

As soon as I can gather up enough strength, I will be crawling upstairs to take a very hot shower and then crawl to bed.

Oh and in case anyone cares, here's today's lunch (you can't really see the lunch meat, but it was there in the baggie). It was yummy. Not as yummy as the Chinese food my 3rd grade teacher friends were eating or the Jimmy Johns the 5th grade teachers were eating, but more appropriate for someone who is having a WAR with the scale this week. And the scale is winning. :(

Bolder Boulder

I signed up. And now I'm wondering WTF I was thinking?! A race? Me? EEK! *mini panic attack*

I'm having major anxiety about being able to finish the race, and I really want to be able to jog the whole way. Looking back at my runs on Nike+, I've done 10k or more several times but I'm still freaking out. The anxiety comes in because 1. I still have to take the occasional walk break, 2. I suck at hills, and 3. I don't trust the accuracy of Nike+ so I'm not 100% sure how many miles I'm actually getting in. Also I'm just nervous about the crowds and logistics.

To deal with #3, I went to www.mapmyrun.com to get a more accurate idea of the distance I've been running. It's a pretty cool site and is easy to use. It said that my run yesterday was 7.4 miles. Nike+ said it was 8 miles, but that does include a bit that I didn't map on the website. So yes Nike+ is off, but not quite as bad as I had feared. It took me a little over 90 minutes to get through those 7.4 miles so it looks like my goal of finishing in under 90 minutes is possible.

By the way, I had some tutoring money burning a hole in my pocket so I got some new running duds. Here are some blog pics of someone else wearing the pants and tank I got (someone who looks a hell of a lot better in it than I do). The Run Zoom Crops are fabulous and SO comfortable for running! The top is so light it's like wearing nothing - perfect for sunny, sweaty days. If I pass out in the middle of the Bolder Boulder, at least I'll look cute. :)

Vampires and Werewolves and More Vampires, Oh My

In honor of purchasing my ticket today for the midnight premiere of Eclipse in IMAX, I decided to do a blog post about books with supernatural elements that I will soon be reading.

A few books arrived in a lovely Amazon box this week. The first was Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater. I've actually already read this book (and rated it 5 stars because I LOVED it!), but it was one I really needed to own and read again. The sequel, Linger, comes out June 20th! Here's the beautiful trailer to the sequel, created entirely by the incredible talented author. I can. not. wait.




I also got Dead in the Family, the newest book in the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris (the series that the tv show True Blood is based on, which I also love!).


And finally I got Spirit Bound, the next book in the Vampire Academy series. I might read this one first because I need to know if they are going to be able to turn Demetrius good or not!!! The storyline is a bit Angel-like (from Buffy the Vampire Slayer).


Right now I'm reading Bite Me by Christopher Moore. His books are hilarious! I've only read like 15 pages though so I seriously need to get reading.

Finally, a workout!

I really don't feel like counting calories today. I had one of those bagel thin egg sandwiches for breakfast, veggies, berries, dip, yogurt, deli ham, and a chocolate cupcake for lunch. Turkey tacos for dinner.

Here's today's workout. It was good!

Do 10 goblet squats, 1 lunge (per leg), then run a lap. Then you do 9 goblet squats, 2 lunges per leg, and run another lap. Keep going until you get to 1 goblet squat, 10 lunges, and one final lap.

Now I am completely worn out. The last few weeks of school are exhausting! It's 8:31. Time for bed.