Spring Break & Gosling Spotting

Our “Spring Break” trip (minus any actual Spring Break-ers) was a week of relaxed-pace recreating in Myrtle Beach.  I knew our vacation was off to a great start when I spied our condo’s dishes:

If you guessed Fiesta, you guessed correctly. I’m feeling very influential these days.  Or maybe I’m just in good company.  What’s not to love about these dishes?

The week provided several rounds of golf for Mr. Official, a couple hours of hot yoga and a nice 5-mile run for me, plus plenty of pool time.  Our winter whites have been banished for the season, replaced by a pink-brown color they call “tan” – I hear it’s the “in” color this summer.

The temperatures exceeded expectations, pegging out in the high 70s/low 80s most days.  We  ate our fill of local seafood each night and we drove Thunder Road:

…well, one of us did. Somebody had to take pics, and besides, I wasn’t sure I met the height requirements.

Because Mr. Official is an easy-going good sport, one night he agreed to forgo a seafood feast and dine on movie theater popcorn and Cokes while watching Jurassic Park in 3-D (in a nearly empty theater.. which was kinda weird.)

In between golf, yoga, and taking laps around the lazy river on innertubes, we also got in a day of antiquing, which netted two red fruit bowls and a turquoise salad bowl for my (ever-growing) collection.  I also acquired some wonderful additions to our landscape, courtesy of a plant sale at Brookgreen Gardens and a fabulous little nursery in Murrells Inlet:.

But the highlight of the trip was on Friday…it was a paparazzi moment for me and my camera when I spotted this gosling surrounded by a couple tough-looking bodyguards on high alert.  I managed to squeeze off a few shots before they shooed me away.

Technically, it was six goslings.

Oh, wait…you thought I spotted Ryan Gosling?  Silly goose.  Nope. But I think these Canadians are just as cute as he, and it was way easier to get a photo of ‘em than THAT guy.

Happy Monday,
Terry

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It was Monday.

Yesterday started out fairly well.  Before the clock struck 7, I saw Mr. Official off to work, hit the gym for 4.73 miles (precisely) in 45 minutes, hauled the recycling bin to the curb and let the dog out for her “morning constitutional.”

This all happened BC.

You know.

Before Coffee.

Which also explains how I managed to double up on my posts yesterday.  (Actually, they were finished and scheduled Sunday evening. Because I can do a lot of things, but I can’t work out AND blog simultaneously…at least not that early in the day.)

But apparently I managed to schedule two posts for the same day and in my pre-caffeinated fog, I didn’t catch them until they both hit “the street.”  Then I tried to recall one back to draft status, but that was a no-go.

So for today, I’ll just say “Hey!  How ya doin’?”

And tell you that I’m excited.  Because if it doesn’t rain (hard) today, I’m setting out my vegetable seedlings and seeds.  If I do get rained out, then it’ll happen tomorrow.  It can’t happen soon enough – the cat is decapitating pepper seedlings at night while we slumber.  Every morning, I discover a few more casualties.  She’s persnickety – she turns her nose up at the tomato seedlings.  And she seems to be avoiding the hotter peppers, preferring only the bell varieties.  So please send good thoughts for sunshine and gardening my direction today.

How’s your week going so far?

Happy Tuesday,

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A runner’s ruminations

I was not born to run.  In my teens and twenties, I was hard-pressed to jog unless required to.  It wasn’t until my forties that I took it up seriously, when I observed two events within a few weeks of each other.

First I watched Music City marathoners cross a bridge overhead as I zipped down I-40.  Then I caught the Biggest Loser finalists finish a marathon.  For whatever reason, those two events stirred me to run.

It did not come naturally or easy – I had to build up to a quarter-mile,  then a half mile, then a mile.  One mile stretched into two and two became three, then four.   My average is 3 and change. Longer distances in my future?  Who knows?

Since I began running, I have injured myself three times. A nasty  glute pull sidelined me for six weeks.   Second was  a calf pop that took two months to heal.  Third was a ruptured “baker’s cyst” behind my knee five months ago.  I’m really hoping that old superstition of bad things happening in threes applies.

I’m slowly easing my way back into running.  It isn’t easy.  I considered giving it up altogether.  Well-meaning friends encouraged me to hang it up.  But despite my late start and injuries, I’ve dug deep and found I love running.  And now I have a new role model: Inez Ross.

Women's Running, September 2011

According to this article, she is still running at 80 years old. Like me, she started in her 40s.  She’s living proof that it’s never too late to find something that you like to do – and do it every chance you get.

Do you run?  Or have another favorite activity?  (Or are you searching for something you can love?)  Leave a comment, please? Share what you do and why you love it!

Happy exercising,

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Do old habits always die hard?

“They” (you know, that anonymous group of people who say and do a lot of things), say it takes 21 days to make or break a habit.

I disagree.

Yes, it may take several weeks to develop a new habit. And some things will take a while to work out of our system. But some habits are altogether too easy to break.

I have been working out several times a week for more than two years. A few muscle pulls have sidelined me temporarily, but I fought my way back to 3-5 weekly workouts as soon as I could.

And then this summer hit. Moving into a new house and everything that went with it consumed most of May. Daily workouts became a question instead of a statement. Then school let out and mornings became unstructured and un-regimented. My five-morning-a-week workout routine became hit-or-miss (and that’s a charitable description.)

So I’m not sure “they” are right. It didn’t take 21 days to break me of daily workouts. In fact, it was really easy to let my routine slip away.

I’m determined to get back to working out several days a week, and get my running distances back to a respectable length. But I’m not sure this will ever become a true habit that I would have to work hard to break.

Happy habits,

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It’s the little things.

Our shower saga continues. Every day we pass by our gorgeous new shower, which has yet to be used.  Because it has no door.  The door is ordered, and is promised (pinky promised) for delivery next Tuesday.  (I’m holding you to that, Mr. Shower Door Guy!)

So in the meantime, we have used the upstairs shower (nothing like feeling like a houseguest in your own home, shlepping towel and toiletries in and out of someone else’s bathroom…) On workout mornings, we have availed ourselves of the YMCA’s showers.

The Y’s showers are like most public showers:  hit or miss. Some have broken knobs or drippy showerheads, some have skimpy shower curtains, some don’t get much water pressure or much hot water, or both.  I think I’ve personally identified all the sub-par showers on the women’s side.  But a few mornings ago, as I turned off my shower, I heard another one going. Full blast.  And lots of steam rolling out, like it was a nice HOT shower.  I made a mental note of the location and checked myself into that shower stall yesterday morning after a 5K run.  I counted it pure joy.  It blasted me with hot water, and lots of it. And a shower curtain that didn’t gap and flap in the breeze.

When we were driving home I mentioned my happy discovery to Mr. Official.  His response? 

“I bet our new shower will have great pressure and lots of hot water too…if we ever get to use it.”

Here’s to showers of blessings, and lessons of patience.  And to nice hot showers.

Happy day!

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Holiday Sprint: The final lap

I know, I know…there is another major holiday a week after Christmas. But since we tend to usher in the new year pretty casually, I count this week as the last lap of my holiday race. Whatever we happen to do after December 25 is not planned or orchestrated by yours truly.

I am beyond thrilled to be able to RUN this last lap. Yes, as of last Wednesday, I am once again running. Not as far or fast as I was prior to the calf strain, but I will take any form of running I can get, even if it’s only 5 minutes at a time and at a poky pace of 5 MPH or thereabouts. Speed and endurance will be back soon enough.

The final bit of cookie and candy-making is wrapping up today, the cards are going in the mail, the shopping is closer to being done (we got sidetracked by some house shopping this weekend…) and so now we will scurry to finish the last few to-do’s and settle in to enjoy the holidays.

Happy sprinting,

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Holiday Sprint Week 5: Time is the only thing sprinting around here

It is Week 5 of the holiday sprint and Week 8 without running.  This has to be God’s way of giving me a heaping helping of patience, which I’m pretty sure I haven’t asked for in a very long time.  (I stopped praying for patience when I figured out it doesn’t come in an easy-to-swallow form.)

The good news is, I’m steadily throwing on more weight in Body Pump and getting better at Pilates and yoga.  The bad news is the calf is still not healed.  It is getting better, though and one of these days it will be fully healed.  Next week will be another opportunity to test it and my fingers and toes are crossed it will hold up to a mile or two.

At the risk of sounding like a rank amateur compared to my hard-charging Christmas-shopping friends, our tree goes up later this week – yes, just three weeks before Christmas.  We are planning our third annual family outing to a local tree farm on Saturday morning.

For those who think it’s de rigueurto have your tree up for at least a full month or more, it’s not.  Nearly three decades of tree decorating tells me that a 3-week run is plenty long.  No other holiday gets to take over my entire house or dominate our schedule for weeks on end.  After the trees go up (yes, plural – a UT tree goes up in the bonus room and a small one in the kitchen), it will be time for a baking/candy making marathon next week. My tentative plans include these family favorite cookies:

1. Grandma’s Date Pinwheels
2. Cherry-filled Thumbprints
3. Iced Sugar Cookies
4. Gwen’s Gingersnaps
5. Almond Crescents

and candies:

1. Homemade Peppermint Patties
2. Toffee
3. Pretzel Turtles
4. Fudge
5. Black Walnut Divinity
6. Cookie Truffles (Oreo and maybe gingersnap or Nutter-Butters with white icing)

And a new recipe to make it an even dozen; or two new ones to make it a baker’s dozen.  I’m not sure what the new additions will be yet, but every year I like to try at least a few new treats.  No, we won’t eat all these confections all by ourselves.  I will send a platter with Mr. Official for his co-workers and take some to neighbors and friends.  Once the cookies and candies are done, it will be time to wrap up the Christmas shopping; it has to be done before December 18, since that’s a very special date for Mr. Official and me.

Happy sprinting,

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