Thank you Mom and Dad...

I don't think I have ever really thanked them. It's about time. I just realized today that I never have appreciated either one of them enough. How did I figure this out?

I had been subpoenaed to appear in court today as a witness in a case. It was in juvenile court. I sat in that court room for a couple hours and heard several cases. In most cases, the mother ended up being called to the witness stand. No wonder these teens were how they were!

Examples:

One mother was asked if she knew if her son was attending school. Her answer: "He has a car and he knows where the school is." What???? He's your son! Make sure he goes!

One mother was asked if she knew what grade her daughter was in. Her reply: "I don't know, she misses a lot of school." In her defense, this woman did know her child's birth date, even if she messed up her child's age. Yes, she did! She said she was 17 and she is only 16.


One mother has a daughter with an IQ of 65. This daughter had never been taught how to respect authority. Her home life was far from functional, making her disability even harder.


Now, now is the time that I want to thank my parents. I want to thank them for teaching me to respect authority. I want to thank them for teaching me morals. Yes, I know, I've complained about you. I still love you! I know you love me. You cared about me when I was growing up. You wanted to know what I was up to. You grounded me. You spanked me (Yikes! I promise I came out ok). You taught me to be a better person. You took me to church. You would not tolerate it if I ended up in juvenile court! My goodness I can't even imagine what would have happened! You don't even know the difference you made in mine and Becca's lives. You helped us become the people we are and that is great!


I know you know when my birthday is. :) I know you know if I attended school. I even know you know I didn't do much homework. You allowed me the opportunity to be involved in many things. Most of all, you were proud of us and I know you still are.


Thank you again. If only the people in the courtroom today could have parents like you. They may not have been sitting in that court room. I wouldn't be who I am today had it not been for your love for me and your guidance.

So here they are!


My mom: She likes to sing. She has a wonderful husband name Clark. She loves her dogs. She loves chocolate covered cherries. She is allergic to onions. She loves the Colts. She loves her daughters. She loves her grandbabies.

My dad: He has a beard. He does not like to acquire lots of things. He sends me random packages full of random stuff. He likes to travel a lot. He hikes. He would like to do the Appalachian Trail. He is goofy.

ridiculous running clothes...

I am normally not a very flashy dresser. In fact, the color I wear most is gray. Boring right? I don't know, I like the gray I wear!

It turns out that when I pick out outfits for races or various other running activites, I get a little crazier. I like standing out I guess. Also, I have fun with it, and it helps me remember races better.

Here is some of my team and I at the Hillbilly Porkchop Roundup. (We got first place by the way). We were the Dirty Hog Divas and that was the first time I ever wore any Razorback gear. The tights were a last minute find at Walmart. Next, here we are at the Warrior Dash! So fun I tell you! So fun! It didn't matter that my time didn't get recorded, or that my medal broke, or that a woman stole my beer! I tell you what! It was fun! Also, I think I will wear a tutu again in a race, it was fun to hear people talk about being passed by a girl in a tutu. I sadly lost my tutu in one of the obstacles and finished the race without it. :(

Next up, Here's my outfit for the Fayetteville Half Marathon (hilly as #%$#). I'm not normally a person that wears pink. (You can't really tell that from the pics.). I am wearing my friend's clothes. She wanted to say that her clothes ran a half marathon, and I did that for her! I must say, the Every Damn Day shirt was pretty great!

And hey now! doesn't the lime green stand out??
Now, this next one is from a race that was only yesterday! It was called the one hour track run. You run around a track for an hour and do as many miles as you can...I was just shy of 7 so that's not too shabby! Zebra pants! See? Running just looks like more fun. (I'm probably lapping those kids too...haha)

You aren't even seeing it all! I love to wear mismatched socks, and you haven't even seen my tie dye spandex shorts. I hope to run in a tutu again because they are just so awesome and am going to get a running skirt too. The more unique I look the more fun I have! Plus, it puts some fun into my otherwise boring wardrobe!

Now, to say goodbye! Life is busy! Training for a marathon is just bananas. Also, if you don't comment, I might go bananas. I love bananas, and I love comments. :) Shameless plug.

the new way we spend money...

It used to be that I would spend all my money up! I would buy clothes, I would eat out, etc. I wasn't really saving anything.

Come Andy... he is a saver. He may be not so much a saver but more so a cheapskate. He just doesn't like to spend money.

Come job far away... I used to live an hour and fifteen minutes from where I worked, and it was hard for me to get to the bank. I went a couple pay periods without cashing my check, and bam! I was ahead! I couldn't spend my money because it wasn't in the bank.

Come the wedding... We started saving money for the wedding and that was the biggest to date I saw my bank account get.

Come a budget... Before we got married, we sat down and wrote out a budget.It has been a LIFE CHANGER!Never could I have imagined saving so much money. You could say that we follow Dave Ramsey's principles. We follow them kind of loosely, but we have the same goals: pay off my student loans, have a good sized emergency fund, save for retirement. It's working! It was amazing to pay cash for the 2006 jeep liberty that I just got! They were pretty amazed at the car dealership themselves. It wasn't because we have tons of money, but it's because we spent it right. We don't eat out as much. We plan out our meals (more on that later). We give ourselves each a little bit of personal money each paycheck. We pay our bills, we budget gas, we budget birthday gifts, Christmas gifts, etc. We contribute to savings. I now purposefully spend. I only have a little bit of personal money, and I need to make it count. I use my little allowance for when I want to eat out or when I want some new clothes. (We don't budget for clothing because we own a resale store) If there is something I particularly want, I need to save up my money.

It has worked wonders! I highly recommend that you check out Dave Ramsey (daveramsey.com). This budget has helped Andy and I start out in a strong marriage. It has made us focus on communication. We don't need to fight about money because the way we spend it is all laid out in front. We decided together that we would make decisions together. What a great way to be.

I know I am going to go into more detail on areas of this budget, but this new way of life is just amazing!

So true...

You MUST watch this video. Ok, it may mean nothing to you. It may have a couple curse words. It's so true though! I'm a rock climber, and these are phrases we here! I cracked up watching this thing!

Take!

Slack!

It's a low gravity day...

breathe!

http://lt11.com/2012/01/13/shit-climbers-say/

I promise, it's not a virus, it's just some chuffer's video.

Don't be a gumby. Watch it.

back into it...

I used to run quite a bit. I also used to be pretty fast. It's funny, back in the day, when I was pretty fast, I didn't think I was all that fast! Now I only could dream of being that fast again. (and I'm not that slow now)

I gave up running for quite a while. By quite a while, I mean nearly 5 years! It is not that I never ran, but I didn't do any races and the max distance I would do would be 3 miles.

I started to see changes in me. I'm getting older. The metabolism just isn't what it used to be. Climbing just didn't cut it. I decided it was time to jump back in. I am must comfortable when I have am very fit. I just needed to do something about it.

I started sort of running again last April, and then really started picking it up in July. In August, I ran 6 miles for the first time in 5 years. Then in September I ran 8 miles. In October, I ran my first half marathon in 5 years. In November, I started training for a marathon. That's right! I said MARATHON! My distances kept getting longer and longer, and now I have ran 20 miles twice. I fear that I may become a marathoner. Those long runs are amazing! Boston is my dream!

Here's a picture of me that landed in the paper. It's Christmas Eve, and I'm at mile 14 of a 20 mile run...

I also joined an awesome running club! I have met some amazing people and it has really helped me get back into this. Plus, I have got to have tons of fun! When running is fun, it's a lot more bearable.

Here's my great friend and I preparing for the Warrior Dash! I placed 27th out of 900 in my age group and she placed pretty high in her age group too! (I forget)

So yeah, running! It's great! I like to eat. Running keeps me eating. :)

I could take all the support I could get for this marathon...so keep reading. Please! I will try to get interesting.