By Nicole

The two things I need to do at the beginning of every week are plan our meals and my runs.  Life seems a little smoother when those two things are handled ahead of time! Monday -  Eat:   Stew in the crockpot.  I had some leftover venison and broth when I canned last weekend.  It is patiently waiting to be cooked up with carrots and potatoes.  Yum Run: Two and a half miles at lunch.  If I hustle, I could get in three. Tuesday -  Eat: Burritos.  I was smart last weekend and pre-made about two dinners' worth. Yeehaw! Run: Easy two miles at lunch. Wednesday -  Eat: At the church.  I love that they feed us on Wednesdays! Run: Easy mile on the track with a friend and some stairs if I can fit them in. Thursday -  Eat: Salmon patties and coleslaw.  Homemade tartar sauce. Run: Rest if I've ran all week.  Two miles at lunch if I skip a day.  I shouldn't be so flexible... but I'm not on a real plan right now...

Last March, I ran the Hot Chocolate  5k with my husband and my friend.  This is a race recap that is obviously a long time coming.  But, sometimes.... well.  Things take a while. That explains why I'm still putting photos into albums from when my 10-year-old was three.  Ahem. So, back to a race that was only seven months ago... not seven years.  Yay! Once I heard about the Hot Chocolate, I knew I had to run it.  For the chocolate at the end, of course! We live four hours from Seattle, so we drove over the day before and hung out at the Space Needle. We watched Jack the Giant Slayer on IMAX and then turned in for the night. Race day begins early... really, really early. That morning we just walked to the race start with a few other runners we met in the lobby.  Lots of people we met were running their very first 5k.  What a precedent!  My first 5k was our town's local Fourth of July Fun Run.  Twenty-five people, no water...

I haven't planned out my runs in a very long time.  Even when I was training for the NODM the first half of this year, I didn't write down what I should have been running.   Since I have downloaded the Run4Good app and plan to enter Another Mother Runner's challenge for October runs, I'd better stay on my game.   Sunday:  No run.  Stack firewood and do farm chores. Monday:  2 miles, tempo Tuesday:  3 miles and 20 sets of stadium stairs Wednesday: Rest Thursday: 3 miles, slow and steady Friday: 2 miles tempo, 40 sets of stadium stairs  Saturday: Rest The boys practice football T, Th, Fri.  Monday is a crockpot dinner, so I can run really quick before we eat. Friday might be crazy.  My sister is getting married Saturday, and I am doing the cake.   Who am I kidding?  The whole week is going to be crazy.  What better time to start a running plan?

Okay, I know it's technically "running season" all year round, but for me and my husband, it starts the end of January or middle of February when we begin officially signing up for the races we are going to run each month.  Through the holidays, I kind of slack and don't really have a big run coming up.  But March through October, we've got a schedule. Here's what we have planned so far: March 3 - Hot Chocolate 5k in Seattle !  This is my first Hot Chocolate run, and I am excited!  Mostly because we get chocolate at the end, but also because the sweatshirt is awesome. March 16 - St Paddy's Day 5k in Tacoma .  We ran this last year.  I had trained (half-heartedly) for a 5k and accidentally signed up for the 10k... so I ran it anyway.  Not smart.  I died.  And I wore an actual sweat shirt, which was also a bad idea.  It just soaked up the freezing rain and made me heavier and more miserable.  Hated that run.  Loved the shir...

I have to confess.  Tonight I should be frantically cleaning, getting ready for tomorrow's shopping trip by emptying out the leftovers in the fridge, and drinking tea and water and Airborne to help my body recover from this ugly bug I have been fighting. Instead I am on the computer, eating chocolate chips out of the bag and drinking the rest of the white wine in the fridge out of my 2012 Tacoma Narrows Finishers glass.  I am pathetic. The upside to this is that I have cleaned one bottle out of the fridge, and I am being completely honest with all the elves4health that may read this. So far, I am a sad excuse for a healthy elf.  In my defense (and it is SO weak), I have been a single mom for a week and a half, and I have spent part of that time sick.  I've had to load firewood in the boiler, muck out our chicken coop, and fix holes that our pup digs.  All in the cold, dark, rainy weather.  All things my husband usually did before he abandoned me to c...

We weighed out today... out of the weight loss challenge that we signed up for in January .  So - in three months, Jason and I lost more than the weight of Leilee!  A total of just over 39 pounds.  Jason took up the slack, losing 25.  I lost 14.  We were so stoked.  Neither of us thought that we would be able to lose that much weight in 3 months... but we did!  And then we splurged like maniacs today.  Eggs, cheese, chocolate pastries, coffee with cream and honey, ice cream, steak, mashed potatoes with feta.... we feel so gross and delicious today.  And already so excited and relieved to run and eat healthier tomorrow! My current joke is that I am one stomach flu away from my goal weight .  I even wrote that on my "story" that they asked us to write for the challenge.  And then I wrote, in parentheses, 'just kidding, please do not print!'  It is such a good feeling to be able to button pants that I haven't been able to get in...

Thank you Lord and Subaru for the hill-holder clutch.  You ease my mind and lower my stress level.  I was overjoyed to remember, while sitting at a red light on one of the steepest hills in the world, that my wonderful little yuppie car has a hill-holder clutch.... whew!  No really. I shouted "Thank you Lord!".  I was so relieved.  Every time I sit on a hill in Seattle I picture my manual transmission just letting my car roll backwards into other cars and the chaos that would ensue.  If I knew blood pressure language, I would even tell you how many points mine went down when I realized that, but I don't.  Tonight I am writing from a fancy hotel room in Seattle.  I really love Seattle... to visit anyway.  Even though my day was frantic, and I left a whole four hours later than I wanted to today... I had a great drive.  Lots of time to think and sing.  No traffic, no ferry wait.  My delay in leaving work on time t...

This is our last week on the Daniel Fast.  I am running out of vegetarian options... even though I know we haven't come even close to exhausting what is available!  I guess a better way to say it is, this is another busy week, and I don't have enough time for experimenting!  So, you all might see a few repeats in here.  Monday - Baked sweet potatoes (I'm cooking them right now in the crock pot), roasted asparagus and brussels sprouts and a yummy wild rice/quinoa mix. Tuesday - Quinoa cakes, corn and salad.  This is the last of the batch I made a few weeks ago .  Wednesday - Dinner at Great Grandma's. We have been doing this for a little over a month.  The kids love to see her, and she loves cooking for us.  I've tried to take turns, and she won't let me.  So she'll cook something great for them.  I think Jason and I will have hummus/veggie wraps and steamed broccoli. Thursday - Veggie tostadas and stick salad (whole lea...

My calves hurt. That’s all I can think about. Between Jillian and my two 15 oz. can of queso “weights” on Monday night and running up and down the village in my Vibrams at lunch yesterday, it’s a wonder I can even walk. Yes, I am being dramatic and somewhat of a wuss. The great thing about this pain though, is that I was looking back through all my draft posts that I needed to finish, and way back in November, I posted about needing to run again . Well I actually started not long after that post and have stuck with it!! I needed that little bit of reinforcement – to see that I am making an improvement. I also had a draft post about a running plan going (which has been retrained into this post). So far this year, I have run one 5k , with my darling sister-in-law. As a coping mechanism for her while my brother is deployed and a way to fit back in my jeans (and stay there) for me, we have decided that we are running at least one race per month. We are starting with 5k’s because they are ...

Tonight we had leftover quinoa cakes and green beans.  Those cakes are much better after they have been frozen and cooked later.  The flavors run together a little bit more. There were no leftovers! Tuesday we will be eating at the church.  Probably potato soup, also reheated from frozen. Wednesday is another church dinner.  Quesadillas and leftover soup. Thursday will be deer steak, a vegetable of some kind and sweet potatoes. Friday will be halibut and brussels sprouts. Saturday me and the hubby are heading out of town to a concert!  Who knows what Grandma will feed the kids.  Probably cheese and rice cakes...  just kidding.  She does cook when they are there! Sunday is leftover venison vegetable soup from our Soup for Sashes (Missionettes fundraiser) on Sunday after church.  I always make a huge pot of soup so that we have leftovers for dinner that night.  So far, I have been entering calories and exercise into myfi...

When I was a teenager, I was very hardheaded and rebellious.  Kind of an insidious rebellious, I was a sneakily defiant, naive, lying, Jiminy Cricket-squashing brat.  I always secretly felt guilty... but like a hardening heart, the voice of my conscience grew steadily quieter and quieter.  When I was a bit older, I could silence the occasional roar with a good solid flow of alcohol. Okay, well I am getting ahead of myself... well... completely off track.  Back to sneakiness.  It started with the gateway activities of chewing tobacco, music and cusswords.  Then I started smoking and listening to music with cusswords in it.  Gasp.  Back then, BMG was really big. You could order 10 free CDs if you signed up for the monthly offer for a year or something like that.  So I signed my life away.  For a teen working a part-time, minimum wage job, having to throw down 20 bucks for the newest hit CD was a big deal.  Why do ...

Jason and I decided, on a last minute whim (which is how we usually decide most things) to sign up for a local weight loss challenge .  We have both done versions of Biggest Loser at work in the last 12 months.  Sadly, some of those pounds have snuck back up on us.  So, we dropped the kids off with Grandma and raced in to sign up Saturday morning.  Literally, at the last minute.  Thankfully, the newspaper had printed the end time incorrectly, which gave them an additional two hours to be there for all the lasties like us.  This challenge ends March 31.  Expect to hear random updates or complaining about how hungry or sore I am.  If I can lose 2% of body weight, I at least get a t-shirt.  My goal is at least 7%, since that's what I lost for our challenge at work.  And truth be told, I didn't try that hard. Then, we dawdled and bought fresh herbs and compost activator and some new fish and Christmas wrapping paper for 75% off (score!)....

There, I said it.  I started NaBloPoMo to force myself to write more and put myself out there so that people would hopefully read my blog and give me some feedback.  Now, I have just spent some time on Blogher reading blogs about bloggers who suddenly quit and leave their readers hanging.  I want to give props to those bloggers who have been writing every day.  I started late and am still "behind".  Only four days in a row, and I am starting to get nervous and worried about what I should write each day. I just read a blog entry by Emily at http://www.simplysahm.blogspot.com/ on how she wants to train for a marathon again but is working through her own nerves about the commitment.  And I was right there with her when I read it, thinking ME TOO. It has been over 90 days since I ran the Tacoma Narrows Half.  I didn't win of course (not even close, in fact some ninety-year-olds and a couple moms pushing heavy jogging strollers totally passed m...