Whiny Wednesday

After my crazy morning, I was really excited to discover that it was Wednesday and that I get to whine on my blog!
1. So I woke up today at 6:00 am to discover 2 inches of snow on the ground and that we still had class (of course). No snow days in a place where it always snows, sadly.

My poor car yesterday when all the snow started.

I went to get my snow boots out of my car and my doors were all frozen shut. It took me forever to get them out. Then, while walking to class on the icy sidewalk (my university apparently does not know what salt is), I slipped and spilled my coffee all over my white gloves. Why I have white gloves in the first place, what with my history of clumsiness, I do not know. But still. Ruined. 

2. I have no idea what to wear for the race this Saturday. The weather says there is going to be a high of 58 and a low of 31. That is a pretty big difference. I am thinking it will still be chilly at 8 am, though, so pants and long sleeves would be the best option? Who knows! 

3. When I got to the gym today, I realized I had forgotten both my ipod and my book. So it was a very boring 45 minutes on the bike. 

I did manage to get 9.5 miles in, which is a little slower than I would have liked, but whatever. I'm pretty sure I fell asleep a few times because of boredom. It also took me about 20 tries to get a non-blurry picture (I was still trying to pedal while taking this), and I'm pretty sure the guy on the bike behind me thought I was nuts. 

4. Kourtney Kardashian and her boyfriend(?), Scott, are expecting another child, which is strange, considering they have separate bedrooms.

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I'm not really whining about that, it's just weird. I guess that's what happens when you've been together too long. After two and a half years (officially, today), it's about time Zach and I got our own rooms. Zach, you get the dog bed in the living room. It will be nice and comfortable, considering how much it has been chewed on. 

5. The Victoria's Secret fashion show last night really made me wish I had boobs. Also, this bra is $2 million dollars?!

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Do people really pay that much for a bra? Is it made of diamonds or something? Does it come with the giant clam shell? So many unanswered questions. 

I guess that's about it for the whining. Time to dive head-first into these last few weeks of the semester and the massive workload that comes with it. Is it May yet? 

Snow

So I haven't blogged for a few days... I know, I know, shame on me. There has just really been nothing to blog about. Zach and I just lounged around for the rest of the weekend, and since I got back to school, I have been doing homework. I did want to show you these amazing little goodies, though:

I made these on Saturday. They are peanut butter brownies, stolen from this recipe. I altered it to make them gluten-free, though, and instead of making them in regular cupcake tins, I used minis. I did make one batch of the regular sized ones, and I thought the minis were much better (mostly because you feel less guilty about eating 10 of them). Not surprisingly, they are all gone now... nothing with chocolate lasts long around me.

Just a few minutes ago, I walked out of biochem lab only to be greeted by snow. ugh.

It was sticking all over my jacket and hair, so I took a picture. I'm not actually gothic, I just look that way when it snows. And you see the giant red line on my forehead? That's from my goggles. I have a permanent goggle mark across my head on Tuesdays because of my two labs. I get a lot of funny looks.

Oh! I forgot to mention that I am definitely running the Gingersnap 5k race this weekend back home. Zach and I are taking Flynn with us, too. Good thing he hates riding in cars, and it's a 3 hour trip. This will be interesting.

Now I am just killing time until I get to kill my abs with Pilates. Why do I exercise? It hurts.

Thanksgiving and Deep Frying

*Sorry in advance for the blurry picture quality. These were all taken with my crappy phone camera because I am too lazy to bring my real one.

I hope that everyone out there had a great Thanksgiving. Mine was pretty good. It began with "Thanksgiving dinner" at my grandmother's house on Wednesday, with the usual Thanksgiving staples of barbecue, baked beans, and potato chips.

And it was followed by the classic Thanksgiving dessert, an icee from the gas station.

We really couldn't get any more traditional. Afterwards, my dad and I had a lot of fun aggravating the cat. 

"The bunny ears might be funny now, but
you'll regret them when I claw up this leather
sofa later."

On Thanksgiving morning, I got up and set out on my own 3 mile turkey trot to get good and hungry for lunch at my mother's step-father's son's (say that 3 times fast) house, which was about 2 hours away. After lunch there, I drove another 2 hours to Zach's house (ugh, so much driving) to eat dinner with his family. They had a fancy turkey with gluten-free stuffing and everything. I was impressed.

I ate leftovers for breakfast this morning. It was delicious.

We opted not to try to deal with the crazy black Friday shoppers last night and instead braved the streets around 12pm today. I found possibly the best purchase ever at the running store up here, Zensah compression sleeves for 25% off! 

These are obviously not my legs, but this is what they look like.

I am super excited to have finally found some compression gear, and I have been wearing them all day to help with my tendonitis (and because they are new and make me look bad ass, I won't lie). They feel soooo good. It's like a bear hug for your calves. I am hoping that I can participate in the 5k next week with the healing powers of compression. I can also pretend I am a hard core runner now.

The other most awesome purchase of the day is something every health-conscious couple needs, a deep fryer.

Where have you been all my life?

This is really exciting, because now I can have all the things I have missed out on due to my gluten allergy, like chicken fingers, donuts, and deep fried snickers. And of course, I had to make some chicken fingers tonight. Plus some sweet potato fries, because nothing goes better with grease than grease.

All I did to make the chicken fingers was roll chicken tenderloins in egg and then in gluten-free bisquick. The sweet potato fries came prepackaged, lazy-style. And then I ate a package of snow man peeps to get into the Christmas spirit. I have really fallen off the healthy bandwagon today... good thing this is not a healthy eating blog.

Speaking of Christmas, I need to set up my little 1 foot tall Charlie Brown Christmas tree. I am glad my tuition bill came in just in time to start thinking about Christmas presents. Everyone is getting tin foil sculptures this year, wrapped in my Pchem homework with bows made out of dental floss. Okay, maybe I'm not quite that desperate, but just in case, let me know if you see any tin foil on sale.

Hope everyone else is getting excited for Christmas!

Back home

Today I got to drive home to spend part of Thanksgiving break with my lovely family. The drive through the mountains was gloomy and curvy, per usual.

I decided I needed caffeine for the drive, because it is better to take pictures and drive at the same time while caffeinated. It makes you more alert.

The lady asked me if I wanted sugar added to my coffee. I asked her if it was already sweet and she said she didn't know. I decided to turn down the sugar and take my chances, and boy I am glad I did. That was the sweetest iced coffee I've ever had.... it was actually sickeningly sweet. I heard about some woman that went into a diabetic coma one time after having dunkin donuts coffee... and I can see why. I don't even have diabetes, and I was in a diabetic coma. Or maybe that was just brought on by rush hour traffic:

There is nothing I like better than sitting in a line of traffic for 3 hours. You really get to know the back of the car in front of you.

Once I got home, I had dinner, and then headed over to my Mom's house where we made gluten-free pumpkin pies and I did yoga with my sister. I forgot to take pictures of the pies, but I did remember to take a picture of my sister's pet snake.

Her name is Holly. I am usually okay with animals, but I am still not a huge fan of snakes. I'd rather have a guinea pig or something with more fur and less of an ability to strangle me. Oh, and this is my step-dad's obese cat, Chloe:

She is proud of her curves.

Tomorrow, I have a coffee date, followed by a trip to the running store to get suckered into paying too much for compression socks, and then I am having "early Thanksgiving dinner" with my grandmother. I put this in quotations because we are actually having BBQ instead of turkey. That is the kind of family I have.

Perspective

Sometimes, I just have to sit back and look at my life in perspective.

Will you really remember that you failed that test in 10 years?
Will the massive amount of Pchem homework your favorite professor gave you over thanksgiving break really screw up your whole life?
Is the fact that you can't run for a few weeks in order to let your ankle heal going to cause the apocalypse?

I have always been the number one champion when it comes to stressing myself out over every little thing. I am so goal-oriented, that every time something throws a wrench in the plans, I have a meltdown. But really, what is the big picture? Will these little setbacks really affect the rest of my life? I tend to forget what I do have.

I have love.

Topsail Island. Summer, 2010.

A lot of people wait a lifetime simply for that.

I have my health. 

I have never been seriously injured, and I'm not terminally ill. I can do things that I love like bike and swim and run.

I have a job to fall back on over winter break and a warm (although messy) bed to sleep in at night.

A lot of people don't have either of those.

I have my puppy, Flynn. And really, how can life be incomplete when there's a puppy involved?  

This was back when he was small and adorable. Chewing on
his cute chew toys later turned into eating mommy's shoes,
underwear, and favorite running shirts.

Maybe my wardrobe would be more complete without a puppy, but I love him all the same.

I have a lot to be thankful for, and I guess it is good to have those moments of realization from time to time, even if the cause of that realization is a bad circumstance. Surprisingly enough, this realization and attempt at an attitude change came about just in time for Thanksgiving.

Has anything happened in your life to change your perspective?

Gatlinburg Trip

So this weekend was absolutely amazing. It was really great to get some time away from the stress of school and life in general (although now I have a Biochemistry exam in the morning that I haven't studied for... oh, the sacrifices we make for happiness).

After a long drive, we walked into the hotel room, and Zach was like a kid on Christmas when he saw this:

The guy has an obsession with flat screens. I don't understand the big deal...it must be a male thing. The rest of the room (well, technically condo) was really nice too!
The bedroom:

 We even had our own fireplace:

Our first night in town, we went out for Mellow Mushroom, and I had quite possibly the best pizza ever. 

It was butternut squash, nutmeg, pesto, and some really awesome cheese. Sounds crazy, but trust me, it was the best gluten-free pizza I've ever had.

Over the next few days, we went to the Chop House, Park Grill, and Shoney's surprisingly delicious breakfast buffet. I seriously ate my weight in food. You know how you feel after a giant meal? Stuffed, like you can't move? That's how I spent this entire trip feeling. I don't think I've ever eaten more in my life. Also, eating an entire 1/2lb of fudge by yourself is normal, right? I am justifying all this with the fact that we walked like 10 miles.

Good thing Starbucks was having a buy one get one free deal, because we needed Starbucks every single day to fuel up for shopping and eating.

Zach gets so angry when I take pictures of him.
I'm not sure why. 

They should just make me their spokesperson.

The scariest thing we did was ride the chair lift all the way up the mountain. I was freaking out the whole way up. Going down was easier, though. I think it helps that, on the way down, if we were to fall, we would fall forwards instead of backwards. I think about these things. 

At the top. Don't let my smile fool you, I was terrified.

The view from the top. TERRIFYING. 

Other than eating, we mostly just walked around and shopped. And spent way too much money. I'll have to live off of cereal for the next 3 months. But at least I got most of my Christmas shopping done.

I also got some new running clothes from the Nike clearance outlet, which is super cheap. I got a few tops and some compression tights, which will keep me warm in the frozen tundra of Boone:

They are so incredibly skin-tight, though. How does one wear underwear with these? According to google search (yes, I did just look that up), you're not supposed to, but that just seems awkward to me.

And then finally, we ended our trip with lunch at the Chop House (again), where Zach got a salad that was bigger than he is:

And sweet potato fries. Yes, I did eat ALL of those. If there is one thing I'm more addicted to than Starbucks, it's sweet potato fries.

Overall, I would give this trip a 9/10. The only way it could have been better would be if it were longer, if I had a larger stomach so that I could eat more, and if I didn't have a stupid Biochemistry exam tomorrow morning. Speaking of which, I should probably look at that stuff... Hope everyone else had a great weekend!

Whiny Wednesday

Well, it's time for this week's edition of Whiny Wednesday, and I have spent all week thinking of things to whine about.

1. The rain. I hate the rain. But in North Carolina, both fall and spring are pretty much just rain, with the occasional nice day in between. Also, the temperatures are fluctuating like crazy. Today, the high is 60. Tomorrow, the high is 37. What is that about?

Not cool, Boone. Not cool. At least I get to escape to Gatlinburg this weekend, where it will be about 10 degrees warmer. I'll have to bring a bathing suit. 

2. Daylight Savings time is still messing with me. I keep waking up an hour earlier than I'm supposed to and can't fall back asleep because my brain thinks I'm late for classes. I appreciate you watching out for me, brain, but please shut up. You are almost as annoying as that garbage truck that visits my apartment at 4:30am on Monday and Wednesday.

3. My ankle is still being a pain in the butt. Even when I stay off of it for a week and a half, and it feels better, the second I run on it again, it starts to hurt. I have been making sure to ghetto-ice it every time I do any exercise on it, but I'm pretty sure I just need an ankle replacement.

$2 walmart ankle brace and a baggie full of ice. Professional quality, right there. At least my toenails are beautiful. 

4. I bet my Pchem professor will give us homework for this weekend since I am going out of town. Pretty sure he can sense when no one has time to do homework, and that's when he gives it out. What a nice man. I am still losing sleep over that exam. 

5. Driving. Now, I love road trips as much as the next person, but I am going to be doing an ungodly amount of driving during the next few weeks. This weekend I am going to Gatlinburg (3 hours away), and then on Tuesday, I am going home for Thanksgiving break (3 hours away), and then the weekend after that, I will be going back home for a 5k (3 hours away), and then the NEXT weekend, I will be going to Raleigh (3.5 hours away). Geez. The Round trip total for all of that is 25 hours of driving in the next 4 weeks. I need to get one of those squishy neck things so that my vertebrae don't fuse together or something from sitting in the car for so long. I will also probably make Zach drive most of the time. He will because he loves me, right, Zach?

"There better be food involved as a reward for this, woman."

True love. 

What is the longest time you've spent in the car? 

Pilates

Today was a very new experience for me. Well, not the physical chemistry lab and biochemistry lab part. Those were both very standard (long, boring, confusing, I was really hungry the whole time... you get the picture). But, on a whim, I decided to go to the Pilates class offered at the gym on campus. I had no idea what Pilates was. But apparently, Pilates is SERIOUS core work. Like real, "I can't breathe, oh my god my abs, I'd rather die" core work. I have always thought I had a strong core... that was apparently not true.

I looked just like this the whole time... really. 

No, this is more like it. I might have smiled
bigger if every part of me didn't hurt.

If you want professional tips on how to style your hair so that it looks like you just woke up, I charge $25 an hour. Anyway, I will definitely be going back. Even though I might not be able to breathe tomorrow, and heaven help me if I have to cough.

In other news, I am so excited for Gatlinburg and Thanksgiving break, I just can't stand it. Gatlinburg will involve lots of steak and booze. And Thanksgiving will involve a lot of turkey and dessert.

Source

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VS.

I just can't decide which option I like better. Good thing they are both happening within the span of a week and I have my new-found-Pilates abs to help me suck it in afterwards! It will be really nice to have some variety after eating turkey meat loaf and taco salads for a week straight.

What do you think, steak and booze, or turkey and dessert?

Race Bug

This weekend, I will be taking an awesome trip with Zach to Gatlinburg for our two and a half year anniversary (has it really been that long? geez, time to trade up. just kidding, honey). I can't wait! It will be great to get away for a weekend and pretend I don't have homework. I'll be sad to leave behind Flynn, though. I am sure he will really miss me

"I am going to eat ALL of your underwear while you're gone."

So far, the only exercise I have done since the 5k (besides eating... you know, building up the jaw muscles) is some swimming. My ankle is pretty tender, and I think it needs a few days off of anything hardcore. Okay, maybe I'm also just lazy. But it's a good excuse.

To combat my vegetative state, I have been trying to eat extra healthy. Last night, I made a gluten-free turkey meat loaf, with onions and bell peppers. It turned out pretty good! And it's healthy! And it will feed me for a week! That's a win on all 3 fronts: tasty, good for me, and college-student-affordable. But I got tired of meatloaf after eating it... all of two times. So tonight, I decided to make a little taco stew mix:

It's going to taste much better than it looks. I promise.

In the crock pot: chicken, 1/3 a pack of mild taco seasoning, 1 roma tomato, 1/3 onion, 1/2 bell pepper, 1/2 can of black beans, can of corn, and about 1/4 cup of salsa. The plan is to put this mixture over a bed of lettuce and top with some greek yogurt. I should be able to eat this for about a week too. It's going to be a very monotonous meal schedule. But that's okay, because next week is Thanksgiving which means I will be free-loading as much food from my relatives as I can eat eating a lot. And maybe "borrowing" the leftovers to take back to college.

Is anyone else looking forward to the new season of Kim and Kourtney take New York? No? You have lives? Oh, my bad. Well, I'm still psyched!

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I am really curious to find out what broke up an everlasting love like Kim and Kris had. Maybe he never put the seat down *cough* Zach *cough*.

I'm also pretty sure that I have the race bug now. Despite my ankle hurting, I am already looking up new races to register for. Someone stop me and remind me that I'm broke and that running is hard. 

Prevent Child Abuse 5K

Today was the day! My first EVER 5k race. I woke up sooo nervous and was tempted just not to go. I didn't feel like I could finish it without walking (I haven't run a whole lot lately), and I was just anxious in general. But  I got up, force fed myself some oatmeal and peanut butter, got ready, and we headed out.

Before the race, trying to stay warm (it was 27 degrees).

I have to say, I was really disappointed with the organization of the race. There were no bathrooms, the registration was a mess, and we didn't start until at least 10 minutes after the supposed start time. They had no way of telling us our times (I had to go ask), and the awards weren't given out at all. Additionally, the course was still open to traffic, which made for some issues as far as not getting run over. I definitely would not run this race again. It was a mess. Luckily, the money was being donated to charity, so I don't regret paying as much as I did.

Standing in the cold, freezing our booties off.

However, all of that aside, my personal running experience was amazing! I was careful not to start out too fast (I listened to music to help pace myself), and about halfway through, I started picking up speed and passing people. I did get one pretty awful side cramp, but a few steps of walking and some careful breathing fixed that.

Booking it to the finish line.

Before I knew it, I could see the finish line, and I really picked up the pace. I crossed the finish line with a time of 29:20, which obliterated my official goal of "just finish and don't die" and surpassed my secret hopes of coming in around 30 minutes. I couldn't be more thrilled! It was a really small race, so I actually managed to come in within the top 1/4-1/3 of runners.

The sun was in my face, but boy was I happy. Mainly because I could quit running. 

Woo! first 5k finished!

I rewarded myself with a delicious beverage (peppermint mocha), but I wouldn't recommend coffee right after a race. My stomach was not too happy with it. Won't be doing that again, even though it was soooo good (seriously, someone book me a spot in starbucks rehab. I can't afford this addiction).

Now I have the race bug and want to sign up for every 5k in the area. Is that normal? Anyway, my 5k was a resounding success. Now let's hope my Pchem exam went just as well! (err... unlikely)