Training for the Half Marathon!

My friend, Lindsey, from work who is my daughter’s age, has talked me into running a half marathon. So I decided it could be on my bucket list! What’s a little ole 13.1 miles? The way I figure it, if worse came to worse, I’ll just walk the whole thing. So back in May, I signed up for the Outerbanks Half-Marathon. Then at another friend, Joyce's suggestion, I went to Runner’s World online and got a training plan for 12 weeks. I entered a previous race time, how hard I want to train, the date of the race and what kind of race and lo and behold, you get a nifty little plan telling you when to run and how far in so many minutes. I’ve actually been pretty good at following the plan, but lately they have added a long run in the middle of the week. A five miler on Thursdays! I can just hear it now, asking my boss if I can leave early to go home to run??

Some days I just don’t feel like running and my times are terrible. I end up walking the majority of it. But I figured I am moving in a forward direction so that’s ok.

Today was a good run and it was mostly a run, not much walking at all, 4.5 miles  in 54 minutes and 32 seconds! Let me do that math for ya, oh my Garmin did it already. That’s an average of 12 minutes and 7 seconds per mile. I am getting better!

My goal is to finish the half in under 3 hours! Gotta keep running!

Gel Nails!

Those of you who know me, know that I am NOT a prissy girl! I am a bit of a Tom-Boy, out running and training for my half-marathon (it’s on my bucket list!), riding my bike, painting a room here and there; but I do like to look nice. At least I try! I like nice but comfy casual clothes and I don’t spent a whole lot of money on my hair. Guess you can tell, huh? A few years ago, I started going to a salon and spent about an hour and a half and $$$$$ later for cut, color, highlighting and style. Although my friends said it looked good, they didn’t think it looked much better than when I did it myself! Oh well, back to Great Clips and a bottle of color!

So now my new beauty thing is gel nails! I have never had pretty nails and I always kept them short so as not to draw attention to them. They are thin and uneven where the nail extends past the nail bed. By the way, that is called the hyponychium. I googled it to be sure!

My best friend opened a spa in Pittsboro, Spa at Bell House and I have a monthly membership that allows me a spa treatment every month………for a fee. I have had massages, facials, foot reflexology and last month I tried gel nails. I have had acrylic nails before with tips and ended up removing them shortly after the “event.” They just felt weird, like I had something stuck on my fingers. The gel nails are different. They feel normal, natural and supposedly are better for you than acrylic. I am enjoying them and keep splaying out my hand and fingers and admiring them!

We’ll see how long I keep it up!

Lexington Senior High School, Class of 76, Mini-Reunion

 

Yay for FaceBook! Yes I now some of you are leery of it; afraid someone will find out something about you and invade your privacy. However, you can control what goes on there, who can find you and who to be friends with. Over the past year I have gotten reacquainted with quite a few of my friends from high school and I haven’t seen nor heard from some of them in 33 years! yes, I am THAT old!

Rick Carpenter is a fellow LSHS graduate who went to NCSU and actually became better friends with my ex-husband as they were both in textiles together. He and chatted it up one night and decided that we should have our own little casual, mini-reunion for FaceBook friends. The real, every ten years thing is fun too, but it’s often loud with music and hard to hear when all everybody really wants to do is just sit and chat! So the two of us planned one of our own.

We met on the Saturday after labor day at Lexington Barbeque Center (I think that’s the real name) AKA The HoneyMonk or The Monk. That’s where we all went for lunch (back when you could leave school for that) and after ballgames etc. Then we went to Childress Winery and had a tour and a wine tasting.  The out-of-towners checked into the hotel, Comfort Suites in Lexington, where my cousin, Mark Marley works. he got us a really good rate of $60 a night! Glad we got to see him as he is also in the Class of 76. It was slow, so he hung out in the little breakfast social area with us. We first sat out by the pool and had some fun, adult beverages, then ended up ordering pizza and chatting in to the wee early morning!

I brought along my trusty 1976 Annual and Kathleen being local, filled us in on where everyone was, who married who and sometimes divorced and remarried another who. Sadly, we learned that quite a few have passed on, yet we celebrated the successes of our classmates.

Some of the late crowd. Many had come and gone and some came to only one or the other “events.

Cousin Mark! My mom’s sister’s youngest son. I think we are only about 2-3 weeks apart in age!

Sitting and chatting!

 

Everyone had so much fun and we plan to do it again in the spring. Hopefully the word will get out and more will come. Maybe some  thought we were just “talking!

No More Dark Teal Green!

We built our house and moved in 13 years ago I picked dark green teal with white trim for both the living room and dining room. I swear it looked good back then! I am just tired of it and needed a change. The hubby went to our beach house for three weeks and while he was gone when I could totally control the TV remote, I sweated my evenings away in the dining room!

Moved everything into the living room.

The china cabinet was the last thing out. I bought some cool sliders so I didn’t scratch the floor!

Patched some holes!

Fixed some cracks that have been there since just after we moved in!

Tried out the orange……………….too pumpkiny. You know I hate pumpkin and sweet potatoes anyway!

Lots of priming. It needed 2 coats to cover the green!

Choices!!

Even sponge painted the light fixture. Brass is so last century!

Taped off the trim. Time consuming but so worth it in the end!

Now for new curtains? Ideas anyone?

Pictures all hung too!

Now for the living room!

My Friends Aren't Keeping Up With Their Blogging!

Everyday is a treat to check all of my friends' blogs! It's just the highlight of my day to see cute pictures of babies growing up, silly signs on the road, new recipes, renovation project updates, random thoughts that make me think, race results, vacation fun...................you name it. I think that must be why I like reading them because you just never know what you're going to see.

Here of lately, no new blogs! Come on Jenni, come on Joyce, come on Cathy. And yeah, come on Marianne!

Revolving Door

Sometimes our beach house can be empty for 3-4 weeks, but we love the area so much, we try to go down at least once a month in the winter. Sometimes I even think the fall and winter is the best time down there. October is a lovely month; low humidity, warm sunny days, cool nights and the ocean is still warm enough to go swimming.

But, in the summer, the place is usually occupied! Between us, and all the fun beach holidays like Memorial Day, July 4th and Labor Day, we go down there frequently. We usually do some long weekends every other weekend since I work at Student Health and the students are mostly gone and I can take liberal time off. The we usually go down for a week at Memorial day, 2 weeks over the 4th and extended time over Labor day.

But our house was full non-stop pretty much from early July until mid August. I call it the "revolving door!" Jim, Alex and I went down on July 2nd until July 12th and Jim stayed another week. I went back down for a long weekend, Friday til Monday and came home on the 20th. My son, Zack, and his wife, Amanda went on July 23rd and Jim and I, Alex, our youngest and my daughter and her hubby joined them on July 31st. We all celebrated Amanda's birthday! We left on August 3rd after spending an hour overlapping with my brother and sister-in-law. They came down for a few days, leaving on Saturday, August 8th, just a few hours before my bestie, Pat and her family arrived. They stayed a week, leaving on Friday, August 14th and we arrived that evening. We stayed until Monday. Unfortunately I had to be back for Freshmen move in day at Duke on Tuesday! Now we are headed down Thursday night and my hubby will be staying 3 weeks. Unfortunately, I'll have to work most of next week but will return for Labor Day!

I guarantee you that we will go back for a few "bonus days" before the holidays! And I am sure you all are totally bored with all of these dates about my revolving door. However, I wonder how many of you will offer to pass through the revolving door? :-)

His and Hers Grills!

My husband is the grill master! I love grilled food but I hate the wait and Jim is particular about his grilling. No lighter fluid, use a chimney, stacks the briquettes just so and we usually end up eating an hour later than planned. I don't touch "his" grill! I am afraid to even lift the lid or he will come running to take over. However, I want to grill different foods................................squash, corn, salmon. That's stuff he doesn't like, probably won't eat and darn well won't grill!

So, I bought me a grill today. It's a gas one and fast! Turn on the valve, open the lid, turn the knob, click the button and like magic, there's fire! Now all I need is some grilling food!

Just to check it out, I rewarmed slices of pork loin that Jim grilled on HIS grill last night. Note the pronouns "I"! I foresee a lot of outside cooking!






I got the idea for this blog from my dad after he posted a comment to my status about me buying a grill. He said "that comment deserves a blog!" Here ya go daddy!