on diets...

Dieting isn't something I've ever done. It's not something I think I could even do. It's kind of the reason I run. I want to stay in shape...but I LOVE food.

I heard or read a good point the other day. Wherever I heard or read it...I'm sorry. I'm not giving you credit. I just don't remember where I saw it. Many people feel the need to diet because they feel as though they need to lose weight. They want to consume less calories. Many Americans over eat. The problem with a lot of diets is that they still encourage you to over eat. It doesn't kick the eating addiction. Dieters just replace sweets and high calorie food with low calorie options. They can eat a lot of empty calories, and so they do.

The problem with this is that people will eventually get sick of the empty calories and start replacing those with higher calorie options. This is why most diets end of failing.

My take on it:

Calories aren't bad! Fat is good! Carbs aren't even all that bad! You just need to eat in moderation. Did you know that if you start cutting back on food, your stomach will start to shrink?

I'm not the healthiest eater in the world, but since I started training for the marathon, I definitely eat better! I can't eat as much fried stuff, I don't eat a lot of sweets, I don't drink as much alcohol, and I don't want to. I don't feel like I am starving myself either, and I eat a good amount of calories. In fact, after my 21 mile run yesterday, I consumed 1500 calories within 2 hours after the run.

I monitor my calories. I don't do this to make sure I am cutting down. I do this to make sure I get enough.

Here is what i ate today (and this was not even a good example of a day):

Breakfast: Oatmeal and banana (lacking on protein, I know)
Snack: peanut butter crackers
Lunch: I forgot my lunch. Whopper Jr. with no cheese or mayo, apple slices
Snack: a piece of Andy's bday cake with the frosting taken off (Don't like frosting)
Dinner: tonight was red beans and rice with kiabolsa, glass of milk
snack: I am probably going to eat some pudding :)

To drink today: Water, and a glass of milk.

Today was in particular not a pretty day, however I still don't feel like I over ate...nor do I feel like I under ate. I ate what I wanted.

This is more of a ramble. What's my point? I don't like diets. I like healthy, active lifestyles. I like healthy eating. I encourage people to exercise. I encourage people to eat. I want you to eat healthy. It's possible to lose weight without starving yourself people! I promise!!!!

Not even sure I made sense...

PS... I plan to post next about the making of Andy's b-day cake. :) I may have said that last post too...not sure...but I'm too lazy to upload pics :)

21 miles...

Today, I set out to do my long run. As part of my training plan, i do one pretty long run a week, as long as several other shorter run days a week

It was a little different because I have never ever ran as far as I was suppose to run today ever. I was setting out to run 21 miles. I started out with some great people! I sure am part of a wonderful running group!

We were doing three seven mile loops.I made it through without much of a struggle. I feel amazing! It kind of baffles my mind that I ran 21 miles today. That's a considerable drive if you were to make it. I did it on foot. It took me 3 hours and 27 minutes.

Just think... only 5.2 miles and I will have that marathon over with!It's a proud moment for me.

In a couple weeks, I will do 22 miles. That's going to be another milestone. Then, three weeks after that I will reach another milestone....running my very first marathon!

I promise it won't be my last one. It probably won't be the only one I do this year.

Something about these long runs...they are lovely!

Give me a couple years. I WILL qualify for Boston. I promise.

Ladies Room Fashion Show

This post is inspired by something that a friend from high school does. (Her blog is here ). She calls it Ladies Room Fashion Show, and she takes a picture of her outfits for the week.

I thought this would be great to try. I am very much so a t-shirt and jeans kind of girl. I'm trying to dress more fashionably. I mean, we own a clothing store, I need to do better at this! I thought by starting to do this post every Friday like she does, it would inspire me to do better at picking out my outfits.

Turns out that I kept forgetting to do this...so I only got 3 photos this week...but here they are! I will tell you where I got everything...and what brands if I remember. This should be fun. I want feedback! I want to know what you think about the outfits. Are they flattering? What could I do differently? Is it just plain terrible? Is it so-so? Tell me!

So first...

I went to a birthday celebration for a friend, is I wanted to dress up a little. This is what I came up with, although I'm not sure I love the cowboy boots.
Dress-American Eagle from Plato's Closet

Purse-American Eagle from Plato's Closet

Boots-Nocona boots (dang expensive but I found them at an antique store for $50! Looked them up, they would be 300 or 400 dollars!)

necklace-Vicki's (her room too)

Next,

Here's a work outfit, the picture was taken in our store. I like this! You can't really see the detail on the shirt underneath the cardigan but it's really cute...it has a dream catcher on it. :)

cardigan-Plato's Closet not sure the brand

cream shirt-Forever 21 from Plato's Closet

tank underneath-Plato's Closet not sure the brand

scarf-Plato's Closet

jeggings- abecrombie from Plato's Closet (love these!)

boots- Mossimo from Target from 3 years ago

Lastly, sometimes I have to run...I've told you about running clothes before, but here's my pre race ladies room picture.

zebra pants-under armour from academy

shoes-mizuno from Fleet Feet

undershirt-Nike from Vicki

WAR shirt-my running club

ear warmer-under armour from ages ago

So there, that's my first try. tell me if I should do it again.

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.

things have changed...

So here it goes. Once again. I haven't been on this thing since 2010.

I must say, things have changed.

For one thing... I am married!



So let's start with that.

Here we are!




Shall I share some highlights??? Ok, you twisted my arm!

My dress was AWESOME! See the beautiful backdrop? It was a rainy cold day, but it made for a perfect setting. We decided to get married in the Red River Gorge in Kentucy. It is where we met, and it was special to both of us.

They quality doesn't look all that great squeezed so small, but there is Andy with my bridesmaids. The color of the dresses you ask? It's clover! Where did I get the flowers? I ordered them online and had them shipped to me! (http://www.bridesign.com/) They were GORGEOUS!!!!

Enough of that though!! Let's get to the fun stuff!!! I loved our wedding reception! Here's our cake. We decided to go with a cupcake cake. LOVED IT. It turned out so awesome. The flavors were unique and it was yummy. It was a lot cheaper than getting a wedding cake too! (Thanks babycakes cupcakes/) See that cake topper?? Oh! Let me show you a closeup!

Yep! We made that! It was teamwork too! Andy did the structure work. He also made that tiny tux. (He doesn't understand why I am so proud of him for making that, but look at it, it's awesome.). I did the painting and little details. i think it turned out awesome.

So you are wondering...what about the food?? What about the drinks? Did you have snacks?? Why yes and yes and yes!

We did our best to have a wedding on a budget. We did a good job. Our food? It was pizza. Not just any pizza, but Miguel's Pizza! This where we met. It's a pizza place in Slade, KY that climbers also use to camp at. It is majestic. It's not just any pizza, they have so many topping combinations. My favorite is chicken, bbq sauce, ranch, pasta, onions, and green peppers. PASTA??? yep. You can even get rice, sweet potatos, corn, etc. I love this place!

The drinks? Andy brews his own beer. We were able to provide our own alcohol, so we provided homebrew! This was awesome touch and people loved his beer. We even made our own beer taps! They matched the caketopper. The groom signifies Andy's beer (a porter) and the bride signifies my beer (a pale ale). The middle tap was just a happy beer for everyone.
Pizza not enough for you? Well we had snacks! This turned out to be a hit and I LOVED the way the table turned out. Cheap too.

It was such a lovely room. The decor was simplistic and I loved it.

I guess my photographer didn't get a good picture of our centerpieces and I am too lazy to get on facebook and grab up someone else's picture of one. I loved our centerpieces and they were cheap! They were mason jars with candles inside. Strung around the outside was a litte wooden heart with A+R carved in them. They were cute!

What about the guestbook? Well, I was sort of against all things traditional and I just didn't want a normal guest book. So, I didn't have one. Here's what we did:

"Ok Rose, we are getting bored." That is what you are saying, right? Well, I'll stop soon. I know you are wondering about the music though! That was our biggest splurge. We had a band called Bonepony play. (Google them...they are awesome).
Andy and I just didn't really want to have a DJ or dance to the chicken dance. We wanted to have a good stompin good time and a big party. That's what we did. We invited rock climbers to come for the band and it was awesome to see a lot of faces that I don't get to see often. Our families loved the band and it was because of the band that we were able to get a picture that I will cherish forever!


If you made it to the end, I just wanted to tell you that this a new chapter in my life. A lot has changed and I want to share more. I promise that my next update will be soon. If you want more details or if you want to see more pictures all you have to do is ask!