Ruff Life.

I missed my calling to be a dog in this life. Sure, some dogs have it rough, but not this one. What I would give to trade places with him just one Monday

Here’s a typical day in his life…

4:30am. Someone’s phone is making so much noise. Could she be any ruder. Do I wake her up in the middle of a nap, no. I’ll just lay here in bed until she is busy doing something else and THEN I will decide I need to wake up and go outside. Serves her right for that obnoxious wake up call.

I woke up once… it was AWFUL!

4:45am: Finally I can go back to sleep but I just can’t seem to get comfortable. Still with the too much noise and too much light in my bedroom. I’ll go sleep in the hall. It’s quiet and dark there. Ahhhh, finally some more zzzzz…..

5:00am: WHAT?! someone else is trying to wake the dead and just took another year off my life. Why do these people in this house make SOMUCHNOISE! I make no noise, never. See how they treat me?

5:15am: Finally peacefully asleeeeeeeeeeezzzzzzzzzz……..

6:00am: More noise. Great. What now? Wait! Is that breakfast I smell cooking? Ok, I guess I will permit that noise… wait a minute. You forgot to make two plates. What’s going on. Why does no one ever remember to make me breakfast. Grr. That’s OK, I’ll just cook some bacon while they are at work. hehehe

7:30-4:30pm: Sweet glorious sleep. Nap, nap, nap. Maybe I won’t even move a muscle today since I am so exhausted from the morning rukis.

4:45pm: Thing 2 waltzes in the door like she owns the place. Thanks for waking me up, AGAIN! Where is Thing 1? She’s my favorite, I need her! I’ll just watch for her out the window…

5:30pm: I’m not sure why but I get really excited to see my girls when they get home?!  Absence really does make the heart grow fonder. Plus I know the cuter I am, the more likely they are to give me chicken. Live and learn, folks.

6:15pm: Finally feeling awake and ready to face the day now. TIMEFORMYWALK. I don’t understand why those two lazy lumps just sit there watching TV while I stand here by the door, totally ready to go on a walk. Maybe they need me to remind them what time it is. Ruuf! Walk! Moveitfatties!

Later!

6:30pm: OH FINALLY they decide to move and take me for my wander. Gosh I love spring. I hate those stupid coats they make me wear in the Winter. #claustrophobic  So.many.good.smells! Jeez these two weirdo-s are slow. I could totally lap them both. Move it!

6:45pm: So thirsty! and HUNGRY! Where’s my meal! Feed me! Starving… Wasting awaY! paw paw paw, grasping for sustenance…

Wasting… away…

7:00pm: Food! This food is kind of gross, especially the blue chunks. Seriously, food coloring in food? #notok Don’t they know I prefer clean eating?

Dirty!

7:15pm: Isn’t it time for bed now? I’m exhausted. This day was sobusy! I’ll take a nap on the couch/floor/mybed/diningroom/couch/chair/hallway/person. Just can’t get comfortable and again with the noise and the light! No consideration.

9:30pm: Finally it’s time for some real peace and quite! Can’t… keep… my… eyes…open……

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…….

Thirteenager.

Someone in this house is celebrating a birthday  Well, somedog technically!  I can’t believe this little guy is turning 13 years old today!  Knock on wood, he is still a pretty active, healthy little guy and will hopefully stay that way for many, many years.  Here are some pictures of my favorite pup!  You’d never know by looking at him that I was actually worried he would get too big when I first heard about him.  Clearly, I worried for nothing

Clearly someone was hitting the happy hour special a little too hard. And I don’t mean me.

Running marathons is hard work, now where is my medal made out of meat?

Good smoothie. Gonna build me some muscles!

Mooner

I am so embarrassed. Must find something to destroy to pay her back for this humiliation.

Stop putting these stupid little blue pieces in my food. You will not deceive me. I will conquer all.

Good lord women, put me DOWN! You smell worse than the deer crap I like to roll in.

I love mud. Mud is awesome. I would like to live in this mud!

Oh my gawd, this summer heat is ridiculous! Get me in my air conditioned palace!

Someone is home from work with a “hurt” back… but really she’s just interrupting my nap time.

Shut the light off. I am TRYING to SLEEEEEEP! Death glare to you humans.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Love the belly bloat feeling!

My name was Crosby before this football player was famous. He never asked if he could borrow my name to put it on his jersey…

Happy Birthday, Bud!  You’re so stinking spoiled

Saturday in Photos.

Packet Pickup!

Cobia

Where I will probably finish out of 200

Pretty nice finish shirt!

View for the run tomorrow.

68 degrees!

 

Long Time No Post.

So sorry about that disappearing act over the past 7 days!  I have absolutely no clue what happened to this past week but I am glad it is Friday once again!  Since I have not posted at all this week, it should provide me a few items to include in my Friday random post, right?!

1. So last weekend it was Easter.  Sorry if you missed that memo but you can probably still find some 50% off candy at the store?!.  I went up to my parents house for the weekend and was completely unproductive the whole weekend and it was fantastic!  My mom, sister and I did manage to pull together an awesome Easter dinner that included delicious ham, mashed sweet potatoes, lemon asparagus and deviled eggs.  We still have ham left in our freezer but I am not complaining!  I also think I have reached my sodium limits for the year… oh well.  Good thing I can sweat it out

2.  Also, I made this adorable cake for dessert on Easter.  I used this recipe and it turned out dense but delicious.  The frosting was cream cheese and not healthy at all.  Just the way frosting should be!

3. Backing up to Saturday, I managed to pull my act together and run 12 miles.  For whatever reason, this was the most painful run of my whole training season.  I felt like a weak little baby running the whole time.  Not sure what is up with this downward spiral of energy during running but I am NOT a fan…  I have now revised my goal for Nashville to = finish.  This was a hilly route by my parents but Nashville is also hilly so I am assuming similar results (hopefully not worse).  We shall see how that goes!

4. Following my less than spectacular running weekend that also included 4 painful miles home from Church on Sunday, I was to the point of swearing off running every again and just giving up on the Marathon.  Then it was Tuesday and I realized I was stupid and just having a “boo hoo hoo, I can’t run fast enough” party for myself and moved on.  I am now at in the final stage of grief, acceptance.  I ain’t no Kenyan…

5. Monday and Wednesday I had acupuncture appointments.  I am still not sure about these things… I feel SO much worse the next day but then better the day after…this is supposed to stop happening after awhile but I am not sure how long this will take for my body to “get over”.  I also had a rather disturbing bruise pattern on my back after having some bizarre Chinese Cupping thing done.  I’m sparing you from showing pictures.  You are welcome.

6. At my appointment Wednesday, the acupuncturist and I discussed results from a little personality/brain imbalance quiz that I took over the weekend. Apparently I am ultra-sensitive and semi-hypoglycemic.  Real world examples = clothing tags are “picky” and when I am hungry, get out of the way!  Case in point on the first part, when I was laying on the table for my treatment on Wednesday, I could feel my heart beating… not racing but beating and it was driving me nuts.  This was all before the discussion so he then brought it up and was like “Most people would just ignore something like that but you are not able to switch thought and move on”.  Ok, great.  Now I have more evidence that I am psychotic…

6. There are like 36 days left until my Marathon and I feel totally and completely unprepared and undertrained.  I feel like I have not logged that many miles each week but I still have been managing to complete the long runs but is that the most important part?  I have been very hesitant to run any more this training cycle because of my nagging back pain and foot pain.  I really hope I can shake this crap and get back to my years of “injury’free” running.  Like seriously, never had an ache or a pain for 5 years before this!  What the heck!

7. In connection with 6, I broke down and bought some new, more cushioned, shoes.  I know the name of this blog is Better Off Barefoot but maybe that is not the case for me after all…  I mean if you think about it, I didn’t run around barefoot as a kid so why would my “natural” state now be running that way?  I think it might be time to accept the fact that this was one of those “sounded logical and worth a try” ideas that didn’t pan out for me… We’ll see what these new shoes can do for me.  I ended up ordering Mizuno’s Wave Rider 15s after reading Tina’s gushing over them post the other day  I walked around the block with them tonight and they felt HEAVY but hopefully they help correct my current leg issues…

8. I no longer am following any actual “training plan” but just doing what I can when I feel like I am up for it.  The goal this weekend is 18 miles but we shall see what the pains say when I wake up tomorrow morning… erg.

9.  It was national grilled cheese day yesterday and has me craving a grilled cheese SO bad!  I have been trying to avoid dairy lately but I might have to cave and have one this weekend… with a cup of tomato soup.  There is no other way!

10. I royally pissed off the dog on Wednesday and Thursday by having the disgusting-ness that is Garlic Mustard sprayed in the yard and therefore, the dog was not allowed on the lawn.  If looks could kill, I would be dead right now…

11. I might finally be figuring out a trick to keeping me from being a ravenous beast during the day at work… avoid a morning snack?!  For some reason, if I have a snack in the morning, I can’t stop eating ALL.DAY.LONG.  But if I have a larger breakfast and larger lunch, no problems whatsoever.  This was proven yesterday when I wanted to eat everything and anything in sight after having a 10am Larabar.  Lesson learned.

12. This post is crossed over the line toboarding on rambling so I will shut up now!  Hope everyone had a great weekend and has something fun to look forward to this coming weekend!

Anything exciting on the docket for you this weekend?  I’m playing catch up on everything to prepare for two out of town weekends coming up!

Wanted: Spring Break

There are few things I miss about college…I certainly don’t miss homework and I don’t miss being poor all the time.  However, one thing I really do miss about college is all the breaks we used to get!  Fall Break, Winter Break, Summer Break and Spring Break.  I could sure benefit from a week off right now to just relax and do nothing like I used to in college. Man, those were the days  On the positive side, it is Friday and it is Friday of Easter weekend so at least this weekend will be good albeit the same length as any other weekend.  But since it is Friday, it’s time for another edition of my random ramblings.  I am sorry in advance

1) Speaking of Spring Break, if I could go anywhere this year for Spring Break, I would go back to London!  Rough right?  My sister went to school there a few years ago and even though I was working at the time, I still took a long week off and went to visit her in the spring.  This was definitely one of the best weeks of my life  (Even though it was also the worst hair week of my life)

2) I had my first ever acupuncture appointment on Tuesday and it was very interesting.  I ended up buying three more treatments to see if it does anything for my issues but I know even after one appointment, I was a bit more relaxed at least for awhile.  One interesting thing about acupuncture is you totally feel drunk after… is it legal to drive in this situation?  Not sure if you got pulled over the officer would be too impressed with a “but I just had an acupuncture appointment” excuse…

3) Trail mix is going to be the death of me.  Or at least the death of my pants still fitting… Every time I go into Trader Joe’s it is almost impossible for me to leave without a bag.  This would not be a problem if I didn’t have the ability to polish off the entire package in one sitting… self control, Kinley, self control…

This is my favorite to date. Sweet and Salty!

4) On the training schedule this weekend… 12 miles.  In my head, this has become a NBD run.  I’m glad my head no longer believes this to be a long run because I am guessing my legs are going to disagree tomorrow morning.  That’s still kind of like 2 hours of running and last I checked, that is still kind of a BIG deal

5) Emily Giffin is coming out with a new book this summer and that makes me oddly excited!  I love her style of writing and her stories.  I have read all her current books at least three times although I was not a huge fan of the movie…

So many details were just plain wrong... and Dex was supposed to attractive and nice looking. This dude just looks creepy and dumb...

6) Back to running, I have changed up my training plan AGAIN.  It’s good to know I am super committed and really like to see things through to the end.  Ha!  This one makes more sense though but causes a couple of interesting situations.  I REALLY should be doing a 20 mile run the weekend of the Nashville half marathon so somehow I am going to have to tack on another 6.9ish miles that day.  Not sure if this is a horrible idea or maybe not the worst in the world?  Guess it would give me an excuse when I don’t PR!

7) And more running talk… I signed up for half marathon #3 of the year!  It’s become a tradition I think to run the Fox Cities Half Marathon in September and this year is not going to be the exception.  Yes, I am probably biting off more than I can run this year with races but I just love them!  And if I can go sub-2 at any half marathon, it is probably going to be this one.  Just saying.  Plus they have the most stress free start corral of any race I have ever done and I love that because that is my LEAST favorite part about racing!

8) The dog was really in a Mood this week.  That is all.

This would be his dream life. But only if everyone is sitting by him, NOT using computers.

9)  I miss Insanity a lot.  Note to self, pack a DVD to use at home this weekend as Cross-Training!

10) Best App ever…Nike Training Club (NTC).  This app takes FOREVER to download but it’s free and it’s awesome.  You can select what kind of workout you want, add music and then it times you and gives you videos of the moves, etc.  I did a workout on Tuesday and realized how out of shape for those kinds of things I am.  Pump is not the same kind of weight moves…

That’s all I got this week.  That was truly randomness at it’s finest

Happy Easter!

WIAW: Monday, Monday

Like most of the world, I hate Mondays.  They are equal parts depressing and overwhelming!  But this past Monday, I decided to shake up my foods for the day to help make something for me to look forward to!  Sad, but oh so true!  So for my final installment of Love your Veggies What I Ate Wednesday, hosted by Jenn at Peas and Crayons, here is what I ate Monday that helped me make it through the worst day of the whole entire week…

 

My mornings always start with coffee and a little snack, like a handful of dry cereal or something similar.  I realized I never take a picture of this but I think you can picture it?  Hopefully

Once I am showered and closer to ready to leave for work, it’s time for some breakfast!  I am sure I have said this before but breakfast has always and will always be my FAVORITE meal of the day.  Today’s was fantastic and I want it ever single day…

I used a recipe from Edible Perspective for the wrap portion of this breakfast to which I added some cinnamon and then filled each wrap with blueberry jam and topped the whole thing with a serving of cottage cheese, some nut butter and cinnamon.  Trust me when I say this breakfast is a keeper and also made the house smell heavenly! Yum!

Despite the fact that this breakfast was delicious, it was a little on the light side for me so by the time I got to work, I also needed to snack on a banana.

A few hours later, my stomach was growling again so I drank up on some water but then had two apple cinnamon rice cakes with PB2 on top.  This combo was delicious!  I did not eat that whole packet of rice cakes

A few hours later, it was FINALLY time for lunch.  For some reason, the 15 minutes before noon are always the most painful minutes of my day because I am SO hungry!  I often have to grab a handful of something because my hunger does not understand “Just a few more minutes”… so I had an unpictured handful of raisins.

Lunch was worth the wait though!  I had a ham sandwich on the best ever GF free bread by Udi’s with a little mustard and half an avocado.  On the side of that, I had a cup of tomato soup with quinoa and broccoli added in to bulk it up a bit.  My sandwich was pretty much gone by the time my soup was hot because there was a long line at the microwave because too many people had their frozen meal lunches… 7 minutes is so long to wait

My about 3pm I was hungry AGAIN!  (seriously never ending…) so it was time for snack 1,267 for the day – a yogurt and granola.  This snack is always very satisfying with a little crunch and a little creamy!  I kind of like this new granola I tried by Kind but I am not 100% sold on it yet.  I’ll try it one more time because the bag I have has an off “plastic” taste but maybe this is from an old batch or something?  I don’t know.  I like it, minus this weird aftertaste I sometimes get… and I also love the Blood Orange Chobani.  Yum!

By the time I got home from work, I was STARVING (shocker) so I had to have a little snack to tide me over for dinner because it was going to be awhile and I had 1,000 things to do in the meantime so I had a mug of puffed millet with a few cinnamon chex topped with a little keifer and more cinnamon.  After the picture I mixed this all up and it was good! I first had Keifer on my way to Hawaii back in November and had not bought it since but I’ve been needing some new snack ideas so I picked up a jug and it is a nice change on cereal, for sure!

While dinner was cooking, Sister and I attacked out to-do list that spilled over from the weekend: bake sweet potatoes, make coconut butter (x2), dishwasher, garbage, cut up lettuce for salads, boil eggs, make overnight oats for Tuesday, set up coffee maker for Tuesday and grind up oat flour.  Exciting stuff, no?  By the time all of this was checked off the list, we were more than ready for dinner!  And it turned out to be a really good one!

We cut up potatoes, carrots and some broccoli, placed that in foil and topped with 1/2 T coconut butter and a fish fillet.  Wrapped it up and baked it at 450 for about 45 minutes.  Once it was baked, we topped it with Frank’s Red Hot Sauce and ketchup, the essentials lately!  We kept this dinner a little on the light side because after dinner, some Insanity was on the menu!

Someone else enjoyed his dinner before Insanity took place and left his required 3 pieces of blueberry behind… I don’t think he likes fruit?  But it’s in his dog food so that is just weird to me!

I no like bloobs...

After doing the Max Recovery DVD we were both very stretched out with burning quads… and I knew if I didn’t have a snack, I would wake up in the middle of the night starving so I had a half size mug of oatmeal with freeze dried blueberries mixed in, Cake Batter Cashew butter on top and a little splash of coconut milk!  I then proceeded to attempt to watch Castle and fall asleep after 15 minutes…. #winning

Whenever I type all of these up, it really seems like I never stop eating all day long! But yet I am pretty sure I went to bed just a littlebit hungry… LOL!  The joys of marathon training I suppose… See ya next week!

My Friend Clif.

I used to love Clif bars with a passion.  I would have one almost ever day… but then I started to avoid gluten and keep these in my diet. But that was a no go.  My stomach did not like them anymore  I think I might have honestly cried a little bit after eating that last bar…

I have been craving them really bad lately so this past weekend I set about making my own Gluten Free Version!  Although even if you make these gluten filled, they would still be a very good way to save money (unless the trip to Whole Foods to buy the two items you need to finish them ends up costing you $60 of random items…oops!)

I don’t talk about it very often on this blog but I am a relatively decent cook and actually really enjoy it but I REALLY struggle with baking… I think the whole “accurate measurements” thing gets me in trouble (read, I don’t measure).  But since these bars are no-bake, I think that’s one I can handle!  This recipe is so simple and literally took me 10 minutes to throw them together.  They are not a perfect recreation of a Clif bar (theirs are just so much gooeyer!) but they are darn tasty!

Homemade Chocolate Brownie Clif Bars

I posted this recipe as a guest post over on my sister’s blog so hop on over there to check these out!  I envision I will be recreating other flavors soon.  Next up, probably Carrot Cake!

I think if I was granted three wishes, one of them would certainly be a lifetime supply of gluten free Clif Bars  Luna Proteins are Gluten Free so I do get to enjoy those from time to time but they are just not the same…

And because this post was rather short, here is a cute picture of a certain hoodie wearing pup.  He love these bars as well and always used to beg for me to share my Clif bars with him!

Enjoy!

Snow Schmo.

When I was little, I LOVED snow and got terribly depressed when the temps were ever forecast to be above 30 degrees because that meant the snow would start melting in the sun.

Now, snow makes me bitter.  I own a home and am responsible for shoveling a driveway,  I like running outside (and not with my snow treds on my shoes) and I have a 30 minute freeway commute to work (in good weather).  These three items added together equal me now HATEing snow and I would be perfectly happy never seeing it again.

I thought this year was going to be my year.  The year I would not have to see this white power… but alas… it snowed last night.  And I had a gross drive home from work and back to work this morning.  And I had to shovel.  Excellent.  Welcome to Winter in Wisconsin!!

At least snow looks pretty!

In other news, Crosby had a little visit from his friend from California, Flat Kitty.  Since it does not snow much in CA, Crosby thought it would be fun to take Flat Kitty outside for a bit but Flat Kitty did not seem to much appreciate the snow :S I thought maybe these two could put their boots on and come out and help me shovel the driveway but they both just sat there and glared at me… They also both insisted they would be Better Off Barefoot (but probably still would not help me, they would just stop the glaring).

So I had to shovel this whole thing myself… Thanks guys

But oh well… at least shoveling is good exercise?!

Although it would have been nice if I would have remembered to bring my shoveling boots in the house BEFORE the snow fell.  Just saying…

Already excited about the 40 degree temps forecast for Monday!!  Happy Weekend!

Happy Anniversary, Crosby!

12 years ago today, my mom, dad, sister and I went to a little pet shelter near our house to check out a little puppy that was up for adoption.  Santa had given me a bean bag chair and a note that said “To sit in with your NEW PUPPY!”  So needless to say, I quickly started looking for a puppy to sit in that bean bag chair with.  I really don’t remember how we found this shelter but we ended up there on New Year’s Day 2000.  And at that little shelter, we found a little 4 pound, 4 month old puppy dog named Daisy or something ridiculous like that.

While we were there, that puppy got peed on by his grandma and we all felt so bad for him!  We took him home for a 3 day “trial run” but I think we all knew that little puppy dog was home for good.  When I first brought him home, I was actually worried he would grow to be too big.  He is currently about 8.5 lbs so I think I worried in vain.  I really can’t believe I have had this little guy for almost half of my life!  And I still don’t really recall why we settled on the name Crosby but I think it had something to do with being obsessed with the Cosby show at the time and wanting to make it like that, but different??

He might be a wee bit of a pain sometimes, and he might be a total spoiled rotten brat as far as other people are concerned but I think he was the best thing that ever happened to us this millennium!  I am kind of sad I don’t have his puppy photos digitally… they are on film negatives somewhere, I suppose or I would add those to this little montage!

Driving time!

Helping paint?

Pretty much the trickiest dog ever!

Bed time! Or Attack of the Killer Dog time!

All dressed up and no where to go. NYE 2010

Happy Anniversary, Crosby!  Hope you are around for 12 more anniversaries! (even though you probably want to run away because apparently we like to dress you in ridiculous clothes all the time!)  

Chilly.

So, signing up for a half marathon in Florida in January seemed like a fine idea.  But somehow I failed to fully comprehend the fact that that means running 7-10 mile runs in the month of December, in Wisconsin… it was 13 degrees this morning.

Needless to say, I could not feel my toes for the first 2 miles.  Once I finally got the blood flowing (or maybe my whole lower body just went numb?) the run actually went pretty quickly and felt like one of my better runs.  After my recent IT Band pain, every run has felt like a bit of a risk but so far it’s been behaving well.  I have had a bit of weird knee things going on though.  Not a pain but it feels like a bubble is in my knee or something?  Sounds weird and gross but I’ll have to see if that keeps occurring and if so, look into it.  I normally do better not doing too much Google Doctoring because then I become convinced of my impending death.

I listened to a little Josh Groban Christmas music this morning which was a nice change from my regular running tunes.  Something about his singing is very easy to run to for me. Maybe not if I was trying to run very fast but for trying to run a nice steady run, it works really well!

I did realize a few positive things that winter running has going for it over summer running…

1. My running tights do not ride up nearly as much as my running shorts
2. If my legs started hurting in the later miles like they sometimes do, I could not feel them because they were numb…
3. My water did not get hot.  Instead it turned to ice.
4. No dripping sweat got in my eyes.
5. No sunburn.  Sure maybe a little frost bite and wind burn but ehhhh, that’s nothing compared to sunburn.
6. No dehydration.  Freezation maybe but not dehydration!

Well, I guess the next three training runs could be kind of cold and interesting but at least I only have a long 9 mile and 10 mile run to go.  Hopefully my 9 mile run in two weeks goes as well as my 8 miler did this morning.  And I can finally break my 9 mile curse!

And on that note, I’ll leave you with another picture of this Christmas elf that we have infecting our house this Christmas…