Easter Catch-Up

Jason & I went to my parent's for Easter this year. My sister was planning a party with a few of her friends, so we decided to join in. On Sunday, we headed out to Aransas to her friend Jennifer's house. There, we were greeted by TONS of children and several people we didn't know. We weren't worried about this in the least because we brought beer and brisket.

The kids entertained themselves by running around, playing video games and just plain acting crazy. My nieces love to pick flowers, so that's what they chose to do. Here's my oldest niece, Hailey, giving me a smug smile. I was sitting down when I snapped this picture, so it's at a weird angle. She's a little camera shy, so there's not too many pictures of her.

At some point, my brother stole my camera and this is what I found in it:

You should be thanking me for sparing you the rest. I think there's about 10 of his self-portraits. He also took the only picture of me that I have from the party, but I'm not posting that sucker. It's HORRIBLE. I wasn't ready and it's a BAD angle. We'll just leave it at that.

This, however, is a picture I love! This is Jason with my other niece, Hannah, showing her true colors. She is one silly girl who loves to pose for the camera.

Someone decided to bring dozens and dozens of cascarones (confetti eggs for you northerners!) and all craziness ensued.

I even have a few small cuts on the top of my forehead from someone being a little overzealous with a cascarone. I blame my sister. I'm pretty sure she enjoyed smashing one on me. I felt the most sorry for this cute little girl. That confetti may never come out of her hair!

Jason & I got to play Easter Bunny this year. I've never actually gotten to do that before, so we had a lot of fun. Unfortunately, there weren't a lot of places to hide eggs in Jennifer's back yard, so we hid a lot of eggs in the grass mounds. We then called the kids to the back yard and lined them up:

And they're off!

That's my sis, Carrie, trying to take pictures in the middle of this photo:

Somehow Hannah talked this poor fellow into giving her a piggyback ride all through the yard. She kicked her shoes off earlier because they were hurting her feet.

Luckily, my mom was able to relieve him of his duty.

After the hunt was over, we ate lots of food while the kids stuffed themselves full of sugar and eggs. Speaking of eggs, have you ever wondered what kids do with hard-boiled eggs?

Well, if you guessed "try and crack them open, then put them in the seat of the tricycle" you were right! I laughed so hard because this kid was so intent on his work!

But the real joy was seeing all the kids stuff themselves silly with sugar, then leaving them there. Just kidding. I hope everyone had a safe and happy Easter!

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Dear annoying guy at the gym,

Stop hogging equipment! Although highly obnoxious, you can talk to your friend at the gym as long as you want. But not while you are holding the ONE 50lb barbell in the entire gym that I need. I tried to wait as patiently as possible, but I just couldn't hold out any longer. So when I asked if you were using it and you told me yes, you should have known how infuriating that was. That barbell had been sitting next to you for the past several exercises I had done. Meanwhile, you're in some conversation with your buddy at the gym the entire time. Seriously? Could you maybe be more aware of your surroundings? Maybe you could just leave equipment alone while you are chatting and come back to it later. I know that might be a little too complicated for you, but you can try. You have until Friday to fix it.

Sincerely,

A gym goer that doesn't have all day to work out

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C25K W5D1

This morning I dropped back to Week 5, Day 1. Even though I ran indoors, I took the Advair and guess what? I did really well! In fact......dare I say it......I actually enjoyed my run! I can't believe those words came out of my mouth, but it wasn't so bad at all. After I finished running, and I was stretching, I felt good. I didn't feel horribly exhausted. As Martha says, "it's a good thing."

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The results are:

That I actually don't have exercise-induced asthma as we originally thought. The asthma is actually triggered by the outdoor elements like pollen. Since the oak pollen has been in the 1000s, it was no wonder that I had trouble breathing. My doc gave me Advair to take on the days that I run along with the Proventil that I had already been using. The Advair takes 45 minutes to kick in, so I just take it when I wake up in the morning. He said that if I still had problems afterward, that I would just have to continue my C25K training indoors. This was not exactly the news I wanted, but hopefully the pollen will be long gone by the time Muddy Buddy comes along.

I think that I will drop back to Week 5 this coming week. Since I didn't get to finish the W5D3 run and this week went horrible, I think it's best to go backward. No one said that you couldn't repeat weeks. In fact, on the Cool Runnings site, it's encouraged to do so if you need it. This would put me finishing Week 9 the week before Muddy Buddy. So, I should still be on track.

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Do You See What I See?

Look closely. Do you see what I see? You must look past the overgrown purple sage, the crape myrtle that's grown in the wrong spot and the out of control plumbago.

You may have to do some moving around to find it........

Do you see it now? The sign that spring is upon us?

That's right, the first two roses on our rosebush are in full bloom! I just love them!

I love roses so much. We plan to transplant the purple sages (if we can) to the backyard so they can get the full sun they need and possibly plant some climbing roses behind the current rosebush. I'm not completely sure yet of the final plan, but I definitely want to keep roses on that side of the house. The former house owners must have gotten tired of taking care of their yard, because there are so many plants that are overgrown. As if you couldn't tell from the first picture in this post.

I now have a few battle "scars" on my arms from moving the bushes out of the way, but it was worth it!

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C25K Week 6

Well, I've got some semi-bad news. I have completely failed this week. But it's not really my fault. It's my body's fault. It rebels. On Tuesday, I started Day 1. I got through the first 5 minutes okay and started walking my 3 minutes. I was having trouble breathing again, but I recovered somewhat. I then started in on my 8 minute run. That's where the problems started. I think I made it maybe 5 minutes before I had to stop. I just couldn't breathe at all. I tried walking for a minute or so, then finish out the run, but I couldn't make it. I walked until the next 5 minute run came up. I started in and did about 2 minutes before I had to completely stop and sit on a curb to recover. My chest was killing me. I stayed there for a couple minutes, then walked the rest of the way home. It took me almost 2 hours before I felt normal again.

Today was not too much different. I was going to press on into Day 2, but I decided that probably wasn't a good idea. I tried to do Day 1, but it didn't go well. Again, I did the first 5 minute run, but after that, it went downhill.

I've been taking my inhaler at least 15 minutes before I go outside, but it wasn't really helping me. I know that the oak pollen was part of it. But, because I had such a bad episode on Monday (the worst since I've started C25K), that I called my allergist up and made an appointment for tomorrow. Hopefully, I can get some answers.

It is so irritating that I have some friends who can pick up and run a few miles without having worked out in weeks.....or even months. Meanwhile, I work out 6 days a week, have become pretty strong, and yet I can't make more than a 5 minute run outside. It makes me feel very weak and I hate that feeling. Some of my friends look at me like I'm crazy because I have such a hard time running. They think it's fairly easy. Running is the only physical thing I do that causes the problems I have. But I still want to be able to do a 5K. And I will. I'll let y'all know what the doc says tomorrow. Obviously, Race for the Cure on Saturday isn't going to go so well. I'll probably walk most of it, but that's okay. At least I'm participating. There's still Muddy Buddy in May!

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ATX

Last weekend, Jason & I headed up to Austin to celebrate my friend Shana's birthday. Oh, and to help her move her big, heavy dresser upstairs. And to take away her old bedroom set. Yeah, that's what happens when your husband owns a truck.

Saturday night started out in Driftwood, TX out at the Saltlick BBQ. This place is in the middle of nowhere. Literally. All we saw were trees and pastures on the way out there. Finally, we saw a HUGE parking lot with possibly hundreds of cars in a clearing. A police officer directed us to the line of parked cars.

Now, you know this place must be jumpin' if they hire city police to direct their parking lot.

When we arrived, Shana, who's always the planner, had already made reservations for all 20 of us. Thank goodness. We walked past the 50 or so people that were sitting outside drinking and waiting for a table.

Oh, did I mention that this place was BYOB? AWESOME!

As we walked inside, poor Jason had to duck in many places because of the low ceiling. Luckily, the part that we were in was sufficiently tall. We take our places and immediately started to pour the booze while we waited to order. Jason & I partook in some classic Crown and Coke. (My favorite!)

Since we had such a large group, the food took a long time to come to us. But, one of Shana's clever friend brought her a surprise to pass the time. Jello shots!

And here's the birthday girl attempting to throw the shots at the various party goers. She missed a lot and I don't even think that booze was to blame!

The table behind us was pretty rowdy and I noticed that it was all men. 20-something-year-old men to be exact. This is never good. They were at a bachelor party and were taking hits straight from the bottle of Jack Daniels. Somehow, they talked our fellow party goer, Rich, into joining in. You can see the bachelor table to the right screaming "Chug, chug, chug!"

I was even able to get a shot of Jason downing a jello shot. It's at a really obnoxious angle, but hey, it's my blog, isn't it?


Finally, the food arrived. And not a moment too soon. I was so hungry - as was everyone else - that I downed most of this pretty quickly. Oh, how I love brisket/turkey/potato salad/beans/pickles. But not cole slaw. That's just gross.

After we stuffed our faces, we finally made it to the bars. This is the only picture I had because there just wasn't enough room for cameras and the birthday girl had 10 too many birthday shots. The angle makes me look 3 times more wide than I am, but that's okay. Cropping is still cool.

The end.

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