Ch-ch-ch-changes

I went for a run today. In spite of still having a sinus infection that makes my teeth hurt like crazy and an ear infection dulling my hearing, I headed out the door while the girls were busy learning at school. I figure I need to get a few runs in before I attempt this:
For the record, I am running the half instead of the full. I am in no shape to run 26.2 miles right now. But the one good thing that came out of forced rest was a hip that feels like it's finally back to normal. And while I am not overly excited about the race, I am excited for the weekend. A little nervous to be without my girls, but excited for a grown-up weekend! And to see some of my favorite people.

Also for the record, I did not run the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving. After being up half the night because my ear ached, I went to Urgent Care instead of to the race. Don't be too jealous. I am now on antibiotics and finally feel like this mess of a cold/sinus infection/ear infection is on its way out.


As far as the title of this post, the change coming my way is that I have taken a full-time editing job. I will be working from home, but it will take some time to get into a new routine and schedule. So please be patient with me if I am MIA for days at a time on here or don't comment on your blogs as often. I'm going to try to keep up on your lives as much as possible, but I will do a lot of it from my phone and it's a pain in my runnerd booty to leave comments from my phone.

Don't worry too much though. I have some fun things in store for December, including the return of the singing runnerd.

And now to finish off my month of gratitude:

November 24th - Turkey.
November 25th - Christmas movies. And TV specials. Like Prep & Landing. And Happiness is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown.
November 26th - My Honda Pilot. Which is good because sometimes I feel like it is like my second home.
November 27th - Dr. Pepper. Sad but true.
November 28th - Doctors and veterinarians. I like people who can make my little family and me feel better when we don't feel our best.
November 29th -Pumpkin pie shakes. I might even be more thankful for these than for actual pumpkin pie.
November 30th (a day early) - Millie. I couldn't go all month without being grateful for Millie. Even if she is has spent more time as a place to hang clothes the past week than as my running buddy, I still love her.

What are you most thankful for today?

Turkey Trotting, Toilets, and Three-Year-Olds

Happy Thanksgiving Eve! I can't believe it is already here. And because I don't have a turkey defrosting or rolls raising, it doesn't feel like tomorrow is Thanksgiving. We are spending tomorrow at family's, so I don't have much to do today. There is a pumpkin pie in the oven though, because we need to come home to some kind of Thanksgiving "leftovers."

What have I been doing lately, since planning and executing Thanksgiving dinner obviously hasn't been keeping me away?

Well I made this last week. My first wedding cake. And I delivered it and spent a day at the wedding and reception. Hard to believe my beautiful cousin is married.

Making the cake was stressful but fun. And it was easier than running a marathon. Or at least I only said "I will never do this again" once. I said those same words dozens of times during and after my last marathon. I can also tell you that I now know wedding cakes are worth every penny of what they cost.

And I have been sick. Yes, still. I think I am finally on the other side of things. I still have my "sexy" deep raspy voice (one of the mom's at The Princess's school said my voice is sexy, so I'm going with it) and sound like I am going to cough up a lung. But I have my energy back. Just wish me luck that I don't, in fact, cough up a lung during tomorrow's Turkey Trot. I'm just hoping my lungs operate at a near-normal level and that I don't have my all-time slowest race tomorrow. No matter what though, I'll have fun.

And now to get caught up on my gratitude for the month. I am grateful for:

November 10th - Toilets.
November 11th - Toilet brushes. So I don't have to stick my hand in there.
November 12th - Zooey Deschanel. New Girl. Elf. A Very She & Him Christmas. Zooey rocks.
November 13th - Sunglasses.
November 14th - My girls playing happily together. When my Bean is smacking The Princess on the side of the head with a Christmas book, not as much.
November 15th - Cell phones. How did we ever live without them?
November 16th - My Bosch mixer. Forget Kitchen Aid. Bosch is where it's at!
November 17th - The Internet. How did we find out anything before the Internet? And computers. I can't remember life before computers. And yes, I was alive before everyone had a computer at home.
November 18th - My dishwasher. Seriously. I am so grateful for my dishwasher!
November 19th - Weddings. Congrats M & B!!
November 20th - Pumpkin pie. And whipped cream. November 21st - Books. Sometimes I wish I didn't love them so much. Or at least had more time to read them and more places to put them.
November 22nd - My sister. Happy Birthday!!
November 23rd - Three-year-olds who can sing O Holy Night. We are on round two of little people who know all the words to and can sing O Holy Night. And they sing it everywhere. Old(er) people at the grocery store LOVE hearing tiny people sing such a big person song.

Good luck to everyone trotting tomorrow. And HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Things I Love Thursday - NOT Having Food in My Teeth

Image Credit

Blogging? My running blog? YOUR blogs? No I haven't forgotten about those things. It's just that I've been making fondant and baking cakes and chasing down the text for some work projects. And when I've had a little extra time, I've been running and biking and 30-day shredding and getting a miserable cold.

I meant to write a post on Monday that included an apology to Janae, who I ran into at Costco on Saturday. I'm pretty sure I had food in my teeth the entire time we were chatting. But that's what happens when you go to Costco on a Saturday (which requires a level of insanity I now realize I have) and they have a sample at the end of every isle. I also managed to eat all 1200 of my calories for the day at Costco. And since it wasn't even noon yet, I clearly exceeded my total for the day. I have pretty much every day though. I just can't live (happily) off 1200 calories per day.

In addition to running into Janae and realizing we are both running Vegas in a few weeks (yay), I realized something else. I wasn't having one of my better days as far as how I felt about myself. So as I walked to my car, I realized I may never stop worrying about how I look. In some ways that is good, because it means I will take care of myself. I won't turn into a mom-jean-wearing old lady with greasy hair. But it also means I need to find a way to love myself, even on bad hair days and when my jeans are more snug than I'd like. Or when I can't find the right shoes to wear, because shoes really do make the outfit, even if you'd never know it by looking at mine most days.

But I digress.

So here are a few things I've found that help me love myself a little more:
Exercise. Whether it's running or a quick 20 minutes of strength training, I feel amazingly better about myself when I feel fit. Even if I weigh the same, somehow those snug jeans don't bother me quite as much.

Wear things that make me feel good. When I walk out of the house in those just-a little-too-tight jeans or the shirt that accentuates my rolls, that is all I think about ALLLLLLL day. It is distracting from everything. And it makes me grumpy. Just ask my family.

Eat better. When I don't overeat or eat a bunch of junk, I feel so much better. And when I drink a lot of water I feel better too. I can tell by how much I am craving water in the evening if I had enough that day. Water-loading just before going to bed isn't the best idea, so I try to be better about spreading it out throughout the day.

I know this is all pretty basic and nothing new. But they make a huge difference.

Having a little Bean who tells me she likes my hair when I do it differently or how cuuuuute my shirt is when I put something new on doesn't hurt either.

Harder than running?!?

Some days running is harder than others. If you read this blog, there is a good chance you know that from personal experience. This week I discovered two things that might possibly even be harder than running on those days when you just aren't feeling it and your legs aren't having it.

The first is jumping rope. Because my running has been limited lately, I am trying new things. One of these is a circuit that included several 1-minute intervals of jumping rope. One little minute. But it is HARD. The first 15 seconds or so, I think it is going to be cake. Then it gets harder and harder until I am begging the second hand on the clock to move faster. I'm not sure I have ever broken a sweat in less than a minute before. But by the end of every jump rope minute, I am dripping.

The other thing that, for me at least, is seriously hard is eating only 1200 calories per day. Since I'm trying to lose a few pounds and I can't rely on running to help me out much, I decided to cut my calories. A few different web sites told me my ideal intake for losing 1-2 pounds per week is 1200 calories/day. If I thought I was hungry all the time while training for a marathon, this is a whole new beast. I am not only hungry, I am STARVING. And we (meaning me and my poor family) have learned that a hungry Candice is a grumpy Candice. So I might have to bump it up to at least 1500 calories per day to stay sane and keep my family from kicking me out of the house.

The moral of this blog post? If you are looking for something to do that is difficult and potentially entertaining to you and those around you this weekend, try jumping rope or eating only 1200 calories for a day. Happy Friday!

Do your body parts talk to you?

You know that "F" word we don't say at our house? Well it has been A LOT harder not saying it lately. Because it is exactly how I've been feeling. Maybe it's because I kept eating like I was training for a marathon when I couldn't even run. Or it's because the time I spend on the bike and elliptical doesn't kill as many calories as time spent on Millie. Whatever the reason, I am trying to do something about it.

It is crazy how just one run made me feel a little better though. After more than a month of cross training and NO RUNNING, I was able to run on Monday. I ran three miles. They were a little slower than I would have liked, but I did have the incline at 3% because it seems to be a little easier on my hip. And speaking of the hip, it was very cooperative. It is still not at 100 percent, but it doesn't HURT. It just talks to me a little every once in a while. And it only whispered off and on during the run. I'm still taking things easy and following doctor's orders though to make sure it stays happy and eventually shuts up altogether. So after a day off yesterday and cross training today, I will be going for another run tomorrow. And I can't wait. Because the way I feel after some time on the bike or elliptical doesn't even come close to how awesome I feel after a run!

What I was thankful for on:

Thursday, November 3rd - Kitchen gadgets. Especially those that help making a wedding cake a little easier.
Friday, November 4th - The Internet. Seriously, how did we live without it?
Saturday, November 5th - When my girls sing. Especially things like "Drip drops and roses" and other versions of their Favorite Things.
Sunday, November 6th- Winter candles from Bath & Body Works. At the rate I'm going, I'll need at least a half dozen to get to Christmas.
Monday, November 7th - My first run in over a month.
Tuesday, November 8th - Command hooks. You know, those ones that you can stick to your wall to hold just about anything and then you can remove them later and they don't hurt your paint? They are one of my favorite things lately.
Wednesday, November 9th - Christmas decorations. And being finished getting them all out. Yep, we are THOSE people. (No Christmas lights outside yet though, so don't freak out!)

Still love it

It may have been a little slow, but after 36 days of not running...

I'll take it!

Princesses with crazy eyes

It's harder than you think to be motivated to write on a running blog when you haven't run for the past month. Yes, as of yesterday, it was a month since my last little (26.2 mile) run. Another visit to my doc yesterday and another possible two weeks without running. Fingers crossed the things I've been instructed to do for the next two weeks have me running before my re-check on the 15th.

And while there hasn't been running, I realized I can wear this year's costume if I ever run a Halloween race. My costumes from this year and last year are both running-friendly. I didn't think about that when I bought them but realized it when I was looking (jealously) at all the Halloween Half pics on Facebook over the weekend.

Instead of running 13.1 miles on Saturday, I went to an awesome Halloween party where we devoured a spaghetti skeleton, tried to eat donuts off a string and saw princesses with crazy eyes. Hope your Halloween was as fun!

And since the Halloween fun is now behind us and Thanksgiving is right around the corner, I am going to share 30 days of gratitude on here. And because my family and my health and all my incredible blessings are a given, I am going to have a little fun with it.

What I was thankful for on...

Tuesday, November 1st - Doctors. Who are also runners.
Wednesday, November 2nd - Frosting. Especially on cookies and cakes.

What fun thing are you thankful for today?