Confessions from Leap Day

* I forgot about the leap day thing, instead, in my head, today was ‘don’t forget your calculator for the chem test, make sure to finish the lab report for chem lab, don’t forget your goggles, and find some time to google pictures of pig hearts for A&P lab’. In other words, it was just another regular ole Wednesday.

* Kiwis are 3 for a dollar at Fred Meyer, who could turn that down? I couldn’t. I also couldn’t resist eating all three of them at once. Now my tongue feels all tingly. Lesson learned, 2 kiwis=good, 3 kiwis=having a discussion with my roommate about hoping that my throat doesn’t close up. (It’s not going to, I’m fine, it’s just good to discuss these things)

* My roommate is more interested in taking me to the ER if I need to go than doing her homework. I feel the same way about doing mine.

* Kayden feels the same way about my homework as well.

Right after I took this picture he started licking the book. Now that page is all wrinkly.

* I wore my sparkly skirt to track night last night because I forgot to pack my running tights and all I had were my leggings that I was wearing under my dress. They wouldn’t have been that bad on their own but they’re a tad see through. File that as a win for the sparkly skirt.

* Passing guys on the track while wearing a butt load of sparkles feels pretty awesome.

* 60 days until Eugene! That’s not a confession but it’s pretty awesome.

* I took home a few of the balloons from the poker tournament this weekend and then left them in my car since I didn’t know what to do with them. Last night I realized that my 2 year old goddaughter would love them so I brought them to her when I went to babysit. She loved them. I’m not above bribing her for affection.

* I think I’m going to have to miss my kiddo’s next appointment and I’m quite depressed about it. I haven’t missed an appointment in over a year. Damn you finals week.

* At Freddy’s this evening I spent 15 minutes wandering around the athletic clothes section and didn’t even look towards the regular clothes section. Who am I these day?

* Quote from my teacher during our weekly visit, “no pressure, but I’m expecting you to get a 95% on the next test”. I just smiled and nodded but in my head I was screaming, “let’s back up to a month ago when I was sitting in your office crying after you graded my test in front of me? Remember how awkward that was for both of us? Do you really want to do that again?!” I think I may have a panic attack.

* I hate weeks that are so busy that I can’t make it to the gym. Maybe I’ll call this a cut back week… yeah… that sounds good. Damn you week 8 of school.

* My tongue is still tingly, maybe eating more chocolate will make it feel better. Chocolate makes everything better.

Best and Worst of the Weekend Poker Tournament Style

It’s been a while since the last Best and Worst but let’s give it a go anyway.

Best: The Go All In For a Cure poker tournament! My fellow teammates Lindsay, Jen, Jeff, Jacob and I had a poker tournament fundraiser on Saturday and we raised over $1,200 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society!

We had 42 players and several others who came to provide moral support.

We also had some great raffle prizes and congratulations to Jim for taking home first place and Nicole for taking second!

It was an amazing event, thanks to everyone who came!

Second best: 9 miles. Before the poker tournament we had our Team and Training long run, this week it was 9 miles around NE Portland. It rained, it snowed, it blue skied, a few times all of those happened at the same time. Hello, bipolar Portland weather. The summer season team was out too and it was great to see so many people working towards the same mission. I love my teammates!

Worst: Peeing dude. As I was running and it was snowing/raining/being sunny I passes a guy peeing on a bus stop. He was actually peeing on the bus stop sign. I guess that’s better than peeing on the bench at the bus stop, but, really dude? Gross.

Life: When I’m not running you can find me doing this

I’ve been hanging out with my notebook for the last 10 hours. School is soooooooooooooo much fun.

Go All In To Cure Cancer!

I’ve been trying all evening to come up with snappy poker themed betting against cancer jokes but my brain is failing me. Sorry, I’m tired. In fact, earlier this week my teacher told me, in front of a class of about 200 students, ‘yeah, I could see you being anemic’. Which, by the way, I’m not anemic. Apparently this winter weather isn’t doing anything for my complexion since his explanation was ‘sometimes you’re kind of pale’. Thanks, bud.

Anyway, back to poker. Can you think of a more awesome way to support the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society than hanging out with a bunch of awesome people while playing poker?! Didn’t think so. So, if you’re in Portland this Saturday, Feb. 25 come to Nemo Designs (enter through parking lot entrance) at 1875 SE Belmont St. Portland, OR 97214 at 3:00. Poker starts at 3:30. Buy-in is $30 ($20 goes directly to LLS). Cash and prizes for the top finishers! All are welcome. Snacks, beer and other beverages will be provided.

So come on down, wearing purple is encouraged, and GO TEAM!

 

Heart Breaker 5k

You know me, breaking hearts left and right.

Jen and I ran the Heart Breaker 5k this morning!

After running 8 miles yesterday and having a very busy weekend I didn’t have any lofty time goals. I just wanted to get somewhere near my time from the New Years Eve run which was 28:19. I also wanted to practice starting off a race at a sustainable pace and not go busting out of the gate at lightening speed just to die half way through (hello bad race plan for the First Run). On a fashion note, I wore the same outfit from New Years, the sparkly skirt, matching head band, and I ❤ sweat shirt which always gets a lot of comments from people.

I accomplished my goal of starting off not blazing a little too well, I passed the first mile marker and looked at my watch to see 10:20 staring back at me. A little too slow there turtle, time to pick up the pace. It didn’t help the the first mile and a half was all up hill but we’ve been doing a lot of hill runs with TnT so I should have pushed myself a bit more. I picked up the pace for the second mile, passing the mile marker in under 20 minutes (I don’t have one of those fancy GPS watches, I just use a stop watch. It’s nice here in the 19th century). My legs were pretty mad at this point that I was making them work at all but the rest of the race was down hill so I told them to f off and to get their act together because there was no way we were going to have this 5k take longer than 30 minutes. They somewhat listened, probably while cursing me, and I crossed the finish line at 28:56.

So, I guess, mission accomplished? I’m not sure how I feel about this race. It’s the first race I’ve ran where I didn’t cross the finish line with a giant smile on my face and then spend the rest of the day (or night in the First Run’s case) being ecstatic about it. I’m hoping it’s just because I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck thanks to soccer on Friday and the 8 miles yesterday. Maybe sleeping would help too. Oh sleep, how I wish I could be better at you.

After I finished I walked back to get a photo of Jen finishing.

She totally rocked it and beat her goal. Great job Jen!

I was happy to add another bib to my racing wall, I’m quite happy with how it’s coming along.

I then spent the rest of my day studying. I started at 12:00 and it’s now 9:15 and I’m still at it.

I live an exciting life.

Running Out of a Funk

This title is a bit misleading since I didn’t go for a run at all this week. It’s been a really a long week, and while I could complain a lot about it (and boy do I want to), by the end of the week I felt like I was kicking some ass, so I feel like sharing the happier parts. So, without further ado, things that may or my not be related to running but in any case have made by life more enjoyable.

* Pre-run Doctor Who reference- Coach Mike made a two hearts reference during a route description and I may have yelled ‘time lord run!’ in response. Sometimes I think my teammates think I’m a little weird.

* Cupcakes- cupcakes make my really happy.

* Waffles- they’re amazing, both dinner and dessert style. I’m noticing a food theme.

* Crap on the internet- I’m not much of a cat person about cat stuff on the internet can be very entertaining, such as Doctor Who Cats and Cats That Look Like Ron Swanson. Speaking of Ron Swanson, Infinite Dancing Ron Swanson and I got our groove on this morning to get pumped for my 8 mile TnT long run.

* TnT long run you say?- We has our second week of doing 8 miles and while my legs felt like the were made of lead, my overall average mile time was 20 seconds faster than last week. Sweet.

* Teddy in a scarf- he’s super cute and I miss him.

* Reaching 100 volunteer hours in the Doernbecher ER since September. Bam.

* Getting close to $2,000 raised for LLS!

* Running a 5k tomorrow because I’m such a heart breaker.

Heart breaker out.

Galentine’s Day!

Happy Galentine’s Day!

(Disclaimer 1: I hate Valentine’s Day. Even when I’m dating someone I have a strict no gift policy. In fact, last year when I was in the ‘omg, it’s a new relationship and it’s awesome’ stage of a relationship I still instituted the no gift policy and I pulled a Liz Lemon; I purposely scheduled a dentist appointment for Feb. 14.)

(Disclaimer 2: Galentine’s Day was stolen borrowed from Parks and Recreation. If you haven’t watched the show, go do it now. Go ahead, I’ll wait.)

Good, now that you’ve watched all 3 1/2 seasons, you’ll know that Galentine’s Day is Leslie Knope’s way to celebrate her girl friends, and that she loves waffles. My friends Jenni, Anna and Katie decided to combine the 2 into one amazing evening.

We had a bit of a false start at the Pancake House, which may serve pancakes 24 hours a day but they only serve waffles on the weekend. So, after a little iphone searching,

we ended up at Jam on Hawthorne because this is on their menu.

We decided to Ron Swanson each waffle, i.e, each waffle had bacon in it. While it seemed like a great idea at the time, turns out, this is such a thing as too much bacon. I know, shocking. We decided to go all out and get 4 waffles to share, so this is what we went with.

And what they looked like.

Yeah, we did finish everything, plus a plate of sweet potato fries. I love having friends that love to eat. But more than that, I love how wonderful my friends are.

Ok, so the last picture was a little silly, but it’s not often I wear heals.

Life is better with great friends. And waffles may become a monthly event, at least one can hope.

Chicago! Cupcake Style

(Written on the plane ride home)

I love Chicago.

Hello my darling. (Chicago is in there somewhere, promise.)

I’ve been there 3 times now and each visit I love it a bit more. Perhaps it’s not Chicago specifically that I love, but just big cities in general. I loved living in Paris.

Aww, we were so young!

Just walking around Paris was fun for me, watching everything that was happening, all the people going about their everyday lives. It was enchanting. I get a bit of that in Chicago. Sitting on the L (I always want to call it the metro, thanks Paris), it’s fun to imagine where all the people are coming from or going to.

There’s also the fact that Chicago boys are better dressed that Portland boys. A nice pair of not ripped and dirty jeans and a button down shirt is a good look. Take note Portland hipster boys; you’re not very cute. Just sayin’.

Anywho, I was in Chicago for my brother’s fiancé’s bachelorette party. No, I did not spend the weekend getting shitfaced. We had a sleep over on Friday night, brunch Saturday morning at a restaurant called Brunch, and then hit the spa. I can’t think of a better way to do a bachelorette party.

We also went on a cupcake tour since Amber’s friend Angie has a cupcake catering business and wanted to check out how Chicago does cupcakes. We put about 7 places on our list.

First up was Phoebe’s Cupcakes.

The menu

We got a banana swirl and a bacon maple.

Sadly, they were not very good. We all ended up spitting out the frosting on the banana swirl, it was just gross. The cake part of the cupcake was ok, but nothing to write home about.  The bacon was the best part of the bacon maple, that’s not saying much, it’s hard to get bacon wrong.

The best thing about Phoebe’s was that there was a very cute store next door that was having a sale. I went into the store thinking I would just look around since I’m not in need of anything in particular, but walked out with a coat that I couldn’t live without.

Next up on the list was Molly’s.

Cute sign

Besides being super cute, Molly’s cupcakes were delicious and amazing. We got the peach cobbler and a peanut butter chocolate concoction.

So wonderful. If you’re ever in Chicago, make sure to swing by Molly’s.

At this point we were starting to feel pretty full of sugar. We decided to take a look at the third place on our list, Swirlz to see if anything looked enticing and then continue onto our fourth destination, Sweet Mandy B’s. Nothing looked too exciting at Swirlz’s and after trying one of the samples we decided to move on. Yep, we were those people who walked in and then walked out. Oops.

Sweet Mandy B’s looked pretty cute from the outside but once we got inside we weren’t tempted by and of the cupcakes. Not they looked bad, but we just couldn’t bring ourselves to want to eat another full cupcake. So we ended up leaving and heading home thinking we hit the places still left on our list another day. Sadly it didn’t work out with any of the other places. Who doesn’t open on a Sunday?! I guess Angie and I will just have to come back to Chicago so we can finish the tour.

What did I learn from my first cupcake tour? That it’s a fabulous idea on paper, but in reality, it’s not that great. It’s way too much sugar, and this is coming from a person with a sweet tooth the size of Illinois. I’m thinking next time I’d get one cupcake from each place to go and then have people over so that I can try each cupcake but not feel like I have to eat all of them. But it was definitely a fun experience.

Oh, you want to know if I did some running in addition to eating my weight in sugar? Why yes I did! I did my 7-mile long run on Friday since I knew I wouldn’t have time on Sunday (I got into Chicago Thursday evening). I took off from my brother’s place and headed east towards Lake Michigan to the Lake Shore path.

The temperature wasn’t too bad, nothing colder than what we’ve had in Portland this winter but it’s definitely a different type of cold. It’s a cold that has sharp, dry teeth it likes to bite with. But it wasn’t too bad. I even found some elusive snow, elusive since Chicago has had a bit of a shortage this year.

This morning I got a 3 miler in that took me west from Max’s place through the campuses of Rush University and the University of Illinois at Chicago. Both are schools I’ve considered applying to if Max and Amber stay in Chicago after Amber is done with law school so it was nice to get a glimpse of them.

Now I’m sadly on my way home and trying to cheer myself up by drinking ginger ale while listening to Mayer Hawthorne’s Henny and Gingerale. It’s the little things in life, people.

‘Well ok, feeling fine

Out of mind, out of sight’