13.1 MILES...The Princess Half

So, I did. I finally did it. It hurt. I'm not gonna lie.

I won't bore you with all the gory details (okay, I will--- just for my own record.) But I'll try and make it interesting at least.

Once Upon A Time... a *ahem* youngish girl (suspend reality a little for this story) set off on an adventure at the Most Magical Place On Earth:

It all started out benign and exciting. With the allure of the Expo to win her over, our heroine Princess had a grand time getting checked in and browsing the many booths of running paraphenalia.

Though she was nervous, she knew once it all began that peace would come to her, just as it had at every other run she went on. Still, the butterflies in her stomach would not be contained when she saw the clock counting down as if it were recording a silent death notice:

Nevertheless, our Heroine Princess found happiness amongst her peers:

After an exciting day at the Expo it was time to fall into a deep  not-so-deep slumber. This Heroine Princess had to wake early:

And dressed in her appropriate Princess outfit:

With even her glass slippers upon her feet :

She prepared to embark into the unknown.

Upon arriving at the waiting location our Heroine Princess took many pictures of the festivities to alleviate her growing anxiety:

But, alas, before she knew it, it was time for her long (20 minute!) walk down the plank to neverland:

Little did she know, the 2 hour preliminary wait before her run would be her undoing.

After a very long and lonely wait our Heroine Princess was off! (along with 3000 other people in her group). In all, there were 23,000 runners!

The Fairy Godmother did right by her and gave a magical send off:

And just like that, she began the ardurous journey set before her:

The first paced time of her journey wasn't too bad...despite having a very slow running pace due to the large number of people crowding her:

It could have been worse. At this point, our Heroine Princess still felt like she had a chance... she was optimistically hopeful that she would be able to finish in a reasonable amount of time...with little to no pain (ahhh, the optimism of the innocent running virgin!). 

She continued on and arrived at the edge of the Magical Land:

When she arrived at the castle her hope and vigor was kept strong by the wondrous sites she saw:

 Before she knew it she was almost half way done:

That is when it started getting very trying. Our poor Heroine Princess was tiring quickly and her feet were much too sore to run well. (If she had truly been chased by some awful monsters no doubt she would not have won.) She slowed down considerably coming up to the 8 mile marker:

And it was noticeable in her 15K (9 miles) timed pace:

By the time she rounded the 10 mile marker she was thoroughly exhausted and her feet would barely carry her more than a slow jog.

It certainly did not help that the crowd was still thick as thieves and she had difficulty going around slower runners without weaving -which caused her to expend her energy faster.

With much effort, and little peace, our Princess finally came to her last mile:

The most excruciating mile yet. Although there were distractions:

 our Princess could barely stand the pounding of the pavement. Dismayed by her running time as well, she was feeling all but spent. She did not trust to hope that the finish line would come soon.

That last mile hurt the most. It did our Heroine in. By the time she crossed the finish line she was very near to tears. Still, she held her head up high and smiled:

She had done it! She did not need a Prince Charming to come and rescue her --she had accomplished so much on her own! And yet, when all was said and done...he was there, her Prince:

There to help her as she ungracefully hobbled the half mile to the car. There to tell her he was so proud of her. There when she teared up for some unnamed reason...the relief that it was over? the regret that her time wasn't better? the pain felt in every step she took? What it was, she could not say. But she was glad, nonetheless, that he was with her. He reminded her of the great feat she had accomplished-something no one else had done (okay, maybe 23,000 others had too...).

When she got back to her car and (finally!) sat down she was able to reflect and realize it was a great accomplisment. And upon reflection, she found her pride in herself. And she realized she did pretty well, all things considered.

After all, it was all about getting the shiny medal anyway.

It's that time again!!! Happy Birthday Seester!

These are a few of the things I'd like to say to her today:



She's going out with her friends to karaoke for her birthday and I just wanted to make a request for her to sing------ It's My Party!

Happy Birthday sister and I hope you have a great weekend without "wishing I were there with you" too much!

;)



Teen Girl's Bedroom Makeover

I finally (finally!) put the finishing touches on Monkey's teen room. I am pleased to announce it's pretty much done! And I'm happy to say she loves it (as do I!).

Remember when I posted the hideousness of before:

Run-down, tired, and pathetic (and that's just ME---take a look at how bad that room is too!).

So, it was time to paint, paint, and paint some more. Everything got stripped down and moved out to start over. Anyhow, enough talk. Let's look at pictures!

Like I said, we really love the way it turned out. Aside from the fact that her dresser is on it's last leg. My mother is giving me an old dresser that I will probably use for her room eventually and get rid of this one. You can see in the pic it's peeling. But I used what I had. No big upgrades for this makeover.

On to the breakdown:

-Paint on walls (Valspar paint and primer in one -a paint brand I wouldn't recommend- it was very thin and coverage wasn't great IMO- color was: Silver Birch)- $30.00
-Paint for bed (SW color matched in Behr-Sea Salt)- $3.00
- Paint for dresser (SW color matched in Behr-All ablaze)- $12.00
-Turquoise Quilt (Home Goods)- $40.00
-White blanket (Ralph Lauren-Goodwill thrift find)- $4.00
-Coral blanket (Old Time Pottery)- $12.00
- Coral pillow (Ralph Lauren-Marshalls)-$16.00
-Turquoise Chevron (cover-Hobby Lobby)-$3.50
-Curtains (Ikea AS-IS section-1 panel made into 2)-$4.00
-Dragonfly art (Xmas gift from family-dipped in coral paint to pop on wall)-$0.00
-Dressing room sign (old from when I worked at Ross in college!!! Blast from my past and love that I can use in my teens room!)-$0.00

Total spent: $124.50!!

Sweets for the Sweet

Okay, not really. Sweets for me (who's not so sweet but really more sour). If we're talking sweet I have to say that Luhvah takes the cupcake on that one. I'm more of an acquired taste (if you're into  bitchiness stubborn women who like to talk back and never shut up).

So, I worked a long day yesterday and didn't get home until 1115pm last night. Then had to be back to work today at 700am. Yeesh. And if you remember, I'm one of those people who needs their 9 10 14 hours of beauty sleep. So, the 6 hours I got wasn't really cuttin' it.

Cue my knight in shining armor on his white stallion (aka Luhvah in a polo and shorts pulling up in his compact car).To hand deliver me this at work:

Just a little summin' summin' to get me through my day. I mean, helloooo SUGGGGGARRRRRRRRR!

Aren't they so pretty too?

He gets big big BIG points for this one. Inventive and surprising plus CHOCOLATE it was a wonderful little gift that I will forever remember in my hips heart. He said he passed this cupcake shop while running errands on a side of town that we don't typically traverse and thought about stopping in. So, he went the extra mile and instead of getting one for him he got 4 for me! YAY!
 
Off to eat my lovely lil' cupcakes.

A Whole New Year...2013

I've been pretty much MIA since November. On one hand, this makes perfect sense- the holidays are always hectic and it really makes it difficult to blog. On the other hand, it's when I decorate the most, as well as craft, so it seems like I would have more to post. I do (did) but I just couldn't be bothered with the actual posting so, of course, it fell by the wayside (it seems a moot point to post 50 pictures of Thanksgiving decor, then Christmas happenings after the new year doesn't it?).

So, we're just moving on to something else (pun intended) [you'll get the pun in a minute]. And that brings me to The Lettered Cottage (one of my favorite blogs). Layla talked about having a word of the year. She mentioned this about a week or two ago and I thought of what my word would be back then. Today she's having a linky party to celebrate words of the year and it reminded me of my word again.

 MOVE. {please refer to pun above}

Almost instantly it came to me so it had to be God - it was so quick. I'm never quick with deciding words- I have too many choices, too many words to play with that I love, so I would have pondered for awhile forever on the exact right word to fit me for 2013 and still be eloquent. If it had been me I'm sure it would have taken much longer to decide.

Move can mean so much. It's an action word (something the sloth in me hates). I know right now it means a lot to me because of this:

Since I'm training for a half marathon it's really meant to motivate me. Seeing her linky party reminded me of the word and it brings a whole new meaning to me today.

See, 2.5 weeks ago I hurt my foot. Something that I thought was a little thing has turned into a big thing and now I can't run at all right now. I went in last week for Xrays. I can't run a mile without pain shooting up my foot and I can't walk more than 2 miles without it starting to throb. (We're thinking stress fracture-which takes 6-8 weeks to recover). This is  very disheartening to me (which is the polite way to say it--really I've cried about it more than once and been a big baby all in all).

When I hurt my foot I was up to 10 miles. 10 MILES. I would never have believed that I could be capable of that before. My time was steadily at a 12min. mile. This may be slow for runners out there (average for real runners is 9min miles) but sheesh. The fact that I can keep it up for 10 miles is amazing to me.

See? Here's the proof:

The first one is for my 8 mile. Both have me averaging 12min miles.

For someone who started out running with a program called "Couch to 5k" you can understand why this is such an accomplishment.

Especially when I'm getting up on my weekends at 615am and running in the likes of this:

Okay, so it's no blizzard or below freezing weather but all that fog drenches me by the time I'm done.

Anyhow. How did this post get turned into a running post?? Oh, right. My word of the day. MOVE.

Suffice it to say, I'm not moving too much right now and I'm feeling very defeated. And the jury is still out on whether I will be able to run the half marathon in February. With no running I feel lethargic and unaccomplished.

So, my word of the year is move. This not only applies to running but also in doing. I am a procrastinator and I tend to be quite lazy so this word-move-should motivate me.

 Some days it will be something as simple as, "Move to the bathroom and brush your teeth."

Other days it may be "Move your body and run!" (hopefully)

"Move" can also be used in the terms of something that moves me- aka find more intention in my life. Significance.Find those things that make me have a more meaningful life. Move me. More specifically, get rid of those things that don't.

So, that's it. Move. move. move. This is the year of Moving.
Now, if only I could figure out how to work the musical "Moving on Up" into this year it'd be perfect.

(okay, now it's sounding like those funny wrong words when you say it too much).