Getting back in the groove!

Over the holidays I did a lot of stuff.

• Hung out with family
• Hung out with friends
• Went to the dog park with Wookie!
• Caught up on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, New York and Orange County (Thanks Dad!)
• Went to the Hill Country(Boerne and Fredericksurg)
• Saw a movie
• Went to the Riverwalk and saw the lights.
• Ate. A lot. 
• I ate a lot of good food at good restaurants and at home.

What I didn't do:

• Keep up with my running from my couch to 5K training. (Or much exercise period, unless you count Wii bowling, tennis and golf.)

So this week I  did the following:

• Got back into the gym with a friend on Wednesday
• This morning my office announced another Biggest Loser (Girls vs. Girls and Boys vs. Boys so I might stand a chance with no Europe trip (Sad Panda) in the middle of it.) 
• This afternoon I hit the pavement with Wookie! and did 2.73 miles in 50 minutes

This was not bad for the first time on the streets since early December 2011.  My jogrun was decent, but something was off in my shoes and I ended up walking probably half the time. (And I was getting some awful side stitches.) Apparently, when bonding with Wookie! at the dog park I used some old crummy sneakers and put my good insoles (that help me combat the awesomeness that is plantar fasciitis) in them. 

I never moved the inserts back into my workout/running shoes. (Face.palm.)

I realized this after my workout at the gym on Wednesday when my shoes felt loose.  I remembered laying the inserts next to my sneakers to put them in before the next gym trip and apparently I didn't realize I didn't have them in until I was a 1/3 mile from my house. Far enough to not turn around.

So at about 2 miles in my feet said no more and it took the other 0.73 to get home.  Wookie! was also throwing in the towel and has been recovering ever since we walked in the door.  

Yay for a tired puppy letting us sleep in tomorrow morning!

Anyone have an extra three hours lying around...

or do I just need to sleep less. I'm an 8-hour sleeper people. 


But is that the key, go to bed later, wake up earlier and get more done? Seriously, I don't know how some people squeeze everything they do into their day.  Yes, this is a little bit of a whitewhine.com complaint, but yesterday my day was like a blur. 

6:40 am Up to walk Wookie! with Justin.

8 am Dressed for work and drinking my breakfast smoothie

8:30 am At work and busy bee until lunch

Lunch- home for lunch, chatted with my pal and started pricing stuff for our yard sale this weekend

Back to work by 1:30 pm and busy, busy, busy until 6 pm

6:20 pm Back home and inspected the fact that the house was 85 degrees. Reported my findings to Justin. Changed for the gym. Made a snack and waited for Justin to fix the AC. And yes, I played some Words with Friends. 

7:15 pm at the gym for a class so that we were home by 8:30

9:15 pm feasting on a dinner of grilled salmon, grilled zucchini, convection oven roasted brussel sprouts and red potatoes while watching South Park

9:55 pm Rosetta Stone to prep for my studio session en espanol with a native speaker that I have at 10 pm tonight. 

11:10 pm Made one last move in my Words with Friends games before hitting the light because I was up at 6 am for meeting at 7 this morning. 

So really. Do I just need to figure out how to function on less sleep without injecting coffee into my veins.  I know other people can do it. I guess I need to become other people?  I don't really like the sound of that. (Side note- I can't get this paragraph to be the same size font as the rest of the entry.  If you are seeing this as smaller than the rest just know I tried.)

Pumpkin Carving…

This is a Halloween tradition that is not for the weak or timid.  It takes precision, patience, and persistence. The use of opposable thumbs. It takes a basic understanding of shapes and an awareness that the end product might look like it was art directed by a youngster learning shapes.

Behold Cyclops Vampire

We'll call him Cy.

Cy is what I did for my office’s pumpkin carving contest.  This is a contest in which you vote for the pumpkin you think is best. I entered my pumpkin because I figured I would help fill out the field.  There had been a rumor going around that not a lot of people were going to enter pumpkins because they were too busy at work.  Needless to say given the field of entries mine wasn’t the best.

So, my “cannot-tell-a-lie-with-a-single-bone-in-my-body” self did not vote for Cy. Poor Cy.

Here were the winners:

Third:

Uncarved

Second:

PacMan going for the Ghost.

First:

Tiffany Lamp

This wasn’t the only round of carving this year.  We went over to a friend’s place Saturday night and everyone brought pizza and pumpkins.  We all carved a pumpkin and ate the toasted seeds (which reminds me I have seeds that still need toasting).

Here’s the family photo:

Top row left to right: Dan's Life and Times of Time Character, My Scaredy Goofball, Lisa's Traditional

Bottom row left to right: Carrie's Owl, My Justin's Silly Guy, Sara's Voldemort, Carrie's Justin's Angry Baby Pumpkin, Jamie's Snarky Guy

Fun was had by all, though it was decided that pumpkin carving is some ridiculously hard work and it’s a good thing people are only expected to do it once a year.

Cupcakes not from scratch...

I baked 2 dozen cupcakes last night. Justin and I split one. Well he had a bite, I had the rest. I brought 23 into work.  There were 2 left at lunchtime. 

The lonely two.

It's been crazy busy at work.  Someone was sweet enough to bring treats on Monday and it lifted everyone's spirits.  I'd bought the goods for the cupcakes on Sunday and figured that a mid-week pick-me-up would do everyone some good too. We are a group that enjoys food.

This morning people asked me what I used to make them and I told them it was H-E-B's brand.  One of my co-workers said that her box mix cupcakes don't turn out so well.  I was proud of my little 1984 oven at that moment.

Electricty...

So this song got stuck in my head when our power went out at work yesterday thanks to TS Hermine. We sat around for 2 hours hoping it would come back.  I really was hoping it would come back cause I knew it would impact the rest of my week.  Example I was at work until 7 tonight and consequently was late to the my class at the gym.  So ok, maybe it just impacted one day, but still when the lights flickered today due to storms moving through the area there were the teeniest moments of panic.

But here I sit watching Iron Chef Japan with Justin.  We saw the octopus episode and he still loves this show.  Tonight's ingredient was chicken. Whole chicken.  It weirded me out a little bit.  I will not post a picture of chicken.  You're welcome.