Weekend in Review

Friday 

I started the day off with a 45 minute Tuna walk around the hood before heading off to work. The place was DEAD.. I seriously waited on 3 of the 8 tables that came in all day, so I left early to hang out with James. We headed to Providence for a very chilly walk around the city with Tuna.. (We are trying to get him around as many people and places as possible to desensitize him since he is nervous of loud noises and such- plus as a “Pit Bull Mix” people are automatically going to be sketchy around him, and we want him to be used to that and change their skewed views on the breed with all of his smooches!)

By the time we got home he was pooped

Aren’t they cute together? Sammy totally loves him

(He jumped on the chair to lay next to him- which is basically the dog version of spitting in your palm and shaking)

We made some dinner before heading out to meet our friends for a drink. 

It was a nice low key night :)

Saturday

I went to work- and ended my shift with a $10 tip on a $150 check- This is a table that I had to sing Happy Birthday to among other things and they didn’t even leave 10%.. So I asked them how my service was.. They said it was great, etc..  I just don’t get it.. Being a waitress really blows sometimes.

After work James and I walked Tuna to our friends’ house to see what they were up to. We decided to head over the the shoe store since I need to buy new running shoes and our friend Scott was in the market for some new shoes as well. 

I have been looking for new shoes for a while- but I have commitment issues.. especially when sneakers are over $100 a pair.. Eventually I settled on Brooks Pure Cadence2 

They are my first pair of minimal sneakers and was very excited except for the price.. $120- ouch.. Pretty sure my credit card is still crying.

After the shoe buying we came back to our place and played Uno.. 

Sunday

I took my new kicks for their very first run

 If nothing else they look awesome and make me feel cool

Well so far so good! I could instantly tell the difference between these and the other shoes I was running in.  I think I like them ;)

We did some random stuff during the afternoon and then headed out to see Tenacious D

 “Balcony” is code word for the very last row of seats with noses bleeding- it didn’t matter it still rocked our socks off and we were excited about it

 The show started with Sasquatch playing a Bigfoot guitar and singing.. he was pretty awesome actually

 Followed by KG and Jack Black rockin’ the house.. super amazing and awesome :)

On the way home we grabbed a pint of Ben and Jerrys 

And proceeded to eat the entire pint between the two of us.. It was fantastic and I’m not the least bit ashamed :)

Monday

Morning walk the with The Big Tuna followed by a bunch of errands and house cleaning.

I checked the mail and found this

Apparently the folks at the vets office where Hydro was put to rest- took his foot prints and mailed them to us with a wonderful handwritten condolence message. I bawled the moment I saw it.. 

The funny thing was- as I was vacuuming earlier in the day, I was thinking of Hydro (and the fact that I will probably be vacuuming his hair up for the next 2 years) Man I miss his presence <3 nbsp="" p="">

The afternoon was a coffee date with James followed by a walk around the hood with my friend Laura and her dog.

Then off to teach- dinner and wine to end the night :) 

Birthday Weekend

    Getting older is a weird thing.. When your in your teens you can’t wait to get older. Your looking forward to 16 so you can drive; 17-18 we have prom and graduate from high school; 21 we finally can party!

    By the time your passing your 21st birthday, the timeline gets a whole lot less exciting. Seriously.. I’ve been singing the Toys r Us theme song since 24.. “I don’t want to grow up, I’m a toys r us kid…” 

Thankfully I have an amazing husband who refused to let  me be bummed out about it.. and friends who helped in the 5 days of celebrating.. My birthday was actually on Monday, but I totally kept using “it’s my birthday weekend!” As an excuse to rock out and have a good time.. 

  Friday night James and I met up with some friends. The boys played darts while the girls chatted.. 

  (I love how the Guinness poster in the back in totally photo bombing us!)

  The night didn’t go on to late since I had to work in the morning.. but it was a great time! 

    I woke up feeling pretty good and started bouncing off the walls straight away.. It’s funny how somedays I wake up with endless amounts of energy, while other mornings I can’t drag myself out of bed. James suggested we go out for breakfast- which is easily my favorite meal to eat out.. I love that I don’t have to shower or look fancy.. roll out of bed and go!

     I had a broccoli and cheddar omelet.. and we shared a chocolate chip pancake course..

  They didn’t stand a chance. After many cups of coffee we rolled ourselves home. I had to get to work and James had some stuff around the house he wanted to get done. The best thing about the new job? I don’t have to go in until 10.. that’s practically unheard of in the restaurant biz. One of my least favorite things? Making this dessert for customers..

Banana, Nutella crepes. I don’t know if you’ve ever worked with crepes, but they are paper thin.. and not a fan of getting sticky spreads smeared on them.. they just rip to bits and I’m left trying to piece them back together.. Therefore lots of caramel and chocolate sauces to cover up your mistakes.. Oh and the homemade whipped cream does too :)  

   When I got home from work, James was still working on the house. I grabbed a little snack and caught up on the world while I waited for him to finish. By 6:30 we were meeting up with friends for dinner.. (Yes I went out to eat twice in one day.. it’s my birthday weekend dude!) I had an amazing salad.. But I did accidentally eat a mozzarella stick with sauce that had meat in it.. I have never heard of meat sauce being served with mozzarella sticks.. but it happened.. Thankfully I didn’t actually ingest a piece of meat.. I think I would have thrown up! (But it’s still icky.)

   After dinner we headed out to play pool

  Martinis were there too :)

    Oh, incase your wondering.. I suck at pool.

    Sunday I had to work again.. it went by pretty quickly and I was home by 3. James and I tossed the kids in the car and made our way to Starbucks… Hydro insisted on jamming his head between James and the side of the car.. and then gave me the look of death when I took a picture..

 Kids! My dad dropped by so we had dinner and hung in for the night.. James and I re-watched “Religious” the documentary so that my dad could see it.. Bill Maher knows his shit. 

   MONDAY! (Aka my actual birthday)

Unfortunately James had to work.. so we got up and had out normal routine.. I went to the gym and did some legs and a little arms:

-Leg press @200lbs 3x15

-Dual pulley row @27.5lbs per arm 3x10

-Deadlifts @70 lbs+the bar 3x12

-Squats @160 1 set of 10 and @90 1 set of 10

-Biceps curls @20/ triceps curls @ 20 2x8

- Treadmill 15 minutes with 6, 45 second sprints in the middle

    

  I came home to refuel

Banana

Romaine

Plain greek yogurt

Spirulina

Bee Pollen

Protein powder

   I showered and got  ready for my birthday present (from J) He had made me an appointment for a massage! And I actually had 3 more massages to use in the future.. Seriously the best gift ever. I have been to a massage therapist in the past and loved every minute of it. It was my first time getting a massage from Jen.. and she amazing.. I love a deep tissue massage.. it can be painful at times, but it really works old kinks out! I’m still sore 2 days later.. she kicked my butt! I didn’t want to get up.. I could have slept right on the massage table.. but I needed to get moving because I had a lunch date with my dad!

    Dad and I went to a local Indian restaurant, I totally didn’t take any pictures.. but it was awesome. I got Chana Masala (a chick pea curry dish) and some kind of spicy veggie curry and Brown rice. Yum and Yum! After lunch I dropped dad back off at home and went to meet up with my mom at Starbucks for some birthday coffee. We hung out for a couple of hours chatting and such and then I was off again! 

    I ran in the door, changed into my workout attire and was off to the studio in 5 minutes flat! I had totally forgotten to prepare a class with all of the birthday hoopla.. so I grabbed a deck of cards on the way out.. and just picked four exercises to go with the suits.. 

-Burpees

-V-ups

-Mountain Climbers

-Jump squats

 (Modifications were available so the intensity could be varied)

Number cards were face value, Face cards were 11 and aces were 12 reps. 

    Class ended up being awesome! I had 4 new to me students, who totally rocked it BTW, and we had a blast.. Ok well I had a blast while they complained.. but they are always good sports! 

Finally I was able to go home and enjoy the rest of the night! 

  James put dinner together, it was already on the table when I walked in..  There were also sweet potatoes.. YUM

  After dinner James and I did something new.. (backstory coming)

     A friend of ours shared my birthday. Chuck was like a big brother to me for years.. We had a falling out around my 21st birthday and I held a grudge..  We ran into each other at a gas station months later. He called my name and we chatted awkwardly for a few minutes, (the whole time I was thinking about how mad at him I was) We hugged.. And the was the last time I saw him. Chuck committed suicide not long after… 

    For the last 5 years, I’ve felt guilty that I let something so stupid get in the way of being there for my friend. Our birthday has had this black cloud following it- I couldn’t make peace with what happened, I just felt sad. A few days ago, I decided that I needed to make an effort to move on.. So I came up with a little ritual. Back in the day, Chuck and I would dance around like silly little kids any time “Octopus’s Garden” from the Beetles came on… so in his memory James and I put on the song and danced around singing.. afterwards we toasted 

“To Chuck, birthdays are never the same without you. See you in another life brother”

Afterwards I was ready for the main event.. 

HOMEMADE ice cream cake.. I have the best husband ever.. Vanilla ice cream, a layer of caramel, more vanilla ice cream, frosted with whipped cream, chocolate shaving and drizzle, and a sprinkle of coconut.. AMAZING. 

   

The final chapter…(Tuesday night) Hanging out with Paula who gave me this singing card

.. I had whiskey for the first time.. 

We ran into some other friends too… It was a good night! 

THANK YOU to everyone who made my birthday awesome :) 

Frozen Treats+ Race recap+ Roller Derby

    I’d love to tell you this is going to be short and sweet, but I’d just be lying to ya.. I haven’t checked in.. it’s been a week.. and kind of a lot has happened!
   I’m just going to start with Friday Oct. 5.
I took Hydro to a new vet in the morning. This lady was pretty awesome about listening to my sob story and looking at before and after surgery pics of the mutt. I felt a little bit crazy whipping out my phone for the pics, but she agreed that he looks a whole lot different.. Unfortunately, even after seeing her, I still feel like we need more answers about whats going on. She didn’t notice much with him physically and suggested we give him puppy Prozac.. The husband and I are still trying to figure out what to do.
    James came home around 3:30 that afternoon, got cleaned up from work and we left right away on the motorcycle to take advantage of the nice weather and go pick up my race bib and packet. The mall is only 5 minutes from the hotel, and I had made an appointment at the Apple store so James could have his iPod looked at. (I bought him the iPod Classic 160gb for Christmas last year and he broke it in less than 2 months- why are men such bruts?) And yes it has been broken for that long..  We figured that they would just tell us we were shit out of luck- it was full of dents and dings from James dropping it at work a million times.. and at first they told us it would be $120 to get a replacement.. but when he got us the new one, he told us we didn’t owe anything! (He was just as surprised as we were) So we booked it out of there in 1 minute flat, just in case they made a mistake.. and ran like we stole something.
   Ran right into Pinkberry!

    It was my first time at the famous froyo spot.. We got a small mango and original with fruit to share, (it was our appetizer before dinner after all) which was really good- though I must say I like to put my own toppings on- I would have had more than 4 raspberries!
   After we housed that froyo we walked around the mall a bit.. this just killed me

    Haha.. Too much fun- a great night!

       The next morning I made us breakfast

   I can’t really remember what we did all day- and since I have no pictures of it, it’s like it didn’t happen.
   Later that night we met up with our friends and headed to Foxwoods Casino for some fun

   Oh yeah.. there was more ice cream..

 I haven’t had Ben and Jerry’s in light years.. OMG so good.. again we shared- a small Cookie Dough..  YUM..

    Sunday was race day! The race didn’t start unit 11:15 so we just took it easy and hung out most of the morning. It was pretty chilly and cloudy but the ran held off for the race

 We parked in our old neighborhood and walked to the race.. which was about 15-20 minutes. which left us plenty of time to walk around a bit and check things out

   This was made out of sand.. So cool!

    We parted ways so I could make it to the starting line.. At this point I was pretty nervous, cold and anxious to get started. I had the “Heavy Metal” Pandora station playing in my ears and I was pumped up. (I always listen to this station when I’m getting ready to be a beast.. Maybe it’s the screaming and anger? Whatever it is.. it works for me) So... I wanted to finish in 25 minutes. I hadn’t “trained” specifically for this race since I signed up less than a week before,  but I felt that 25 minutes was a feasible goal. Along with Pandora playing in my ear, I also had the Nike running App on as well. Its set to tell me at each mile what my pace was.
     The race started downhill, went through a little loop downtown and ended by running UP the hill we started down. I started quickly with a 7:40 pace, and felt pretty awesome.. except my mouth was SUPER dry as soon as I started running, which was a bit uncomfortable .. I was very excited to grab some water at miles 1 and 2, though both times more water ended up down my shirt- not intentionally BTW.  I focused on a couple of the other runners to keep pace and by the time we were about a half mile away from the finish line I was ready to push it.. I knew that I would have to dig- because there was no way I was going to come this far NOT to finish in 25 minutes!
    The run up the hill to the finish line was pretty awesome… Yeah I couldn’t really feel my legs, or breath at that point but I was pumped! I finished in 25:07 according to the Nike Run App, and according to the official results 25:53- I’ll take it! I finished 36 out of 919 in my age group (0-39) and 174 overall (out of 2600)

    I called some friends on my banana phone to tell them the good news

    After eating a banana and some oreos and guzzling more water we started to walk back to the car.. We made a pit stop at Starbucks- where the barista thanked me for  running (so cute!) The coffee was amazing and just what I needed :) Unfortunately we came across a smushed Praying Mantis

  (Poor little dude.. This guys are endangered and it is illegal to kill or even mess with them)
 Once we got to the car we drove to Wholefoods to pick up some stuff, and ended up grabbing some Subway for lunch (By this time it was nearly 3pm and James was starved.. I wasn’t so much but got a veggie salad with avocado to hold me over for dinner.
     You want to know the best part about running? Not feeling the least bit guilty about eating this

 WAY under the mountain of whipped cream is fresh strawberries and a drizzle of chocolate.. but really all I cared about was the whipped cream.. Who needs ice cream when you can just have the topping? Oh and eating it snuggled by the fireplace wasn’t half bad either :)

 (That’s Stoney the Stoner Gnome- he lives in the living room all the time.. Smoking his pipe and sitting on a shroom) We watched some TV and our friends stopped by later on to watch a movie..  And then I passed out.. I think it was a whipped cream coma..
    Since it was the holiday weekend, James was home from work on Monday.. We got some yard work done, I painted the door to our downstairs bathroom and he worked on building our new garage doors.. I had just gotten out of the shower when I heard him coming up the stairs and heard him say “You need to take me to the hospital!” I’m not the best when it comes to these kinds of situations.. but I sucked it up, asked if I needed to bring down a towel (assuming there was a ton of blood) and ran down to see what was going on..

   He was cutting some wood on the table saw, slipped and cut the tip of his index finger, and grazed his thumb and middle finger. Thankfully he didn’t cut off his whole finger.. or even the whole tip.. It could have been so much worse… They cleaned him up and bandaged it before sending us on our way. (there were no stitches because there was no way to close the wound)  Needless to say, James was out of work all week.. which was partially to blame for me lack of checking in.. But we spent a lot of time together which was really awesome.
    In between I managed to get a couple of 4.5 mile runs in

   AND we found a used Vitamix at a local consignment shop… for $15! Thats right.. a VITAMIX!! And- It works and everything! Green smoothies!

 I’ve used it since everyday.. multiple times.. I love it.. no.. no.. I’m IN LOVE with it.. I’ve always wanted one.. and now that I have it.. I’m pulling a Titanic.. “I’ll never let go!”
   I also went to visit my friend who just had baby Phoebe a month ago

    I held her for 2 hours.. and my arm was dead.. but it was so worth it..

And last but not least… We went to roller derby

   These girls are brutal.. it was awesome.. Neither of us had  ever been to a roller derby game, but we are definitely going to more! Oh yeah.. and I want to BE a roller derby girl..