chimesblog

My friend Molly had her annual Christmas party this year and I was lucky enough to be invited to the festivities. Molly makes the most awesome food and it’s always fun to get together with these girls — usually full-on crazy.

I was really excited to go because I finally got to introduce my fabulous beau to all my friends. Granted, he’s met most of them before — just not in boyfriend context.  We’ve been good friends for years so our circles have overlapped already a bit anyway.

Anywho — I made a giant spinach/spring mix salad and an awesome Better than Robert Redford cake. (yes, robert redford — because of the mixed bag that reads my blog!)

It was a fun time. We had a lot of wine and a lot of good food. Lots of good conversation and fun times with friends!

Here’s a few photos from the event … I’m hoping I captured the crazy as well as the cuteness of all the adorable people there! (I can haz cute friends?!)

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Birdies and Coffee Cup

Flower Fiesta Bowl (Gold)

Butterflies in Wonderland Baby or Lap Quilt

OBEY Andre the Giant Men’s Winter Set

Mention the code mrfidgets and receive FREE SHIPPING on any order until December 15.

I’ve got a Mary Kay facial in about a half hour, so I’m just chilling out and finishing up some stuff and hanging around at work.

Today was really nice out… 30°ish and NO SNOW!  I took advantage and ran at noon.  BEAUTIFUL out but my body just wasn’t having it. I think I’m sore from hills on Sunday. (sad)

Either way, 3 more miles for the week.

my average time FINALLY made it under 10 min/mi according to Nike+.

And if you notice, I’m pretty close to 500 miles (since August — I’m about 15 miles away from 1000 since last March).

I ran 7 miles last night between the treadmill and track. Dunno if I’ve mentioned this before, but I HATE running inside. BO-RING. I did each for about a half hour.

Today I did speed intervals. Nothing too exciting.

I also noticed that nikeplus.com adds a cool background if you ran at night vs. the day. This is the day version (missing a hell of a lot of snow though).

Since I’m too lazy to walk over and run on a treadmill in this below 0° weather… I’m taking a 10 minute break to blog it up over lunch.

Nothing too exciting is going on this week other than the fact that it’s ridiculously cold out. Temperature in Anchorage, Alaska is 41° today. Temperature here: -8°.  Awesome.  Anchorage isn’t in the cold part of Alaska, but still, -8°.

Several of my friends cars wouldn’t start today. One of my friends saw some jackass out running (yes, I do have a limit. I don’t go out if it’s below -10° or if the windchill is below -15°).

My apartment is frigid.  Both my main heating unit and space heater are running at my apartment, which brings the temperature up to a whopping 55° according to the awesome refrigerator magnet thermometer I got for Christmas from my friend Meredith (not the best way to guage temp, I’m sure, but still).

So I’m cranking the heat here, much to the protest of my coworker who’s always too hot.  Oh well… go outside for 5 minutes, then tell me it’s hot in here.

Also, on an unrelated side note, my iPod 30GB classic is dying.  Sad day.  I had it in my purse the other day and I took it out to put some music/movies on it and it needed to be restored. So I restored it and it went right back to the “connect to a computer and use iTunes to restore” window.  I repeated the process about 5 times.  I realized it could be doing this because I don’t have internet.  I took it to work and repeated the process a couple times before realizing it was probably iTunes 8. I downgraded to 7.0, and it randomly restored.

I thought that was the end of the problems, but I tried to add music/movies to it today and it started making a weird grinding/cranking/squeaking noise and wouldn’t let me put much on it. Fabulous.  So I went to apple.com and checked to see if it was under warranty. Of course not. It expired last August.

Then I selected “shuffle songs” as an experiment to see how far it would get before freezing up (when it was just setting on my desk).  5 songs.  Exciting.

Here’s what I think: I’ve been working out with it…but have been putting it on the machines so it wouldn’t jostle around so much.  I think the vibrations screwed it up enough to kill the hard drive.  Which totally rocks, by the way, since I’ve been wanting an iPhone and finally decided that “no, I’m just going to get a Blackberry on USCellular because I can afford the plan that goes with it and not go over the minutes.”  So NOW I will either have to get a new iPod OR a smartphone. Granted, I can live without both. I’ve got an iPod nano and I can deal with a regular phone.  The Nano ONLY has my running music on it, and I’ve got very specific music that I listen to when I run.  So if I want to listen to it aside from running, I’d need to put different music on it all the time, which is a hassle.  Also, if I listen to the music I run with on a non-running basis, it won’t be as effective when I’m running. GRR.

Anyway, the boyfriend had gotten this iPod for me as a gift when he got his iMac in August of 2007.  He informed me that he ALMOST got me an iPod touch for Christmas (which would have been about $200 over our agreed upon budget), but didn’t because he knew I was thinking of getting an iPhone. So now I’ve got to set a strict budget for Valentine’s Day so he doesn’t break it because I can’t afford to buy him something that costs that much $$… argh.  Not that I don’t appreciate the gift…but still.

Anyway, my 10 minutes are up.

Saving the planet and my ass at the same time.

Yesterday I woke up super late (11:30ish) and felt kinda crappy from the previous night out (Angry Japanese Minnow Farmer+Olde Main’s Off Kilt-er = not a good combo). Anyway, I was in Ames and I needed to get to Des Moines and accomplish 3 things before 3 PM: pick up my prescription, run 5 or so miles and shower.

I made it back to Des Moines by 1:30 and was out the door and running by 1:40. I had an hour and 20 minutes to accomplish all three of these things.  I run by my pharmacy so I figured I’d take my insurance card, driver’s license, flex card and debit card (just in case the machine wasn’t taking flex dollars again). I ran out past my pharmacy, hit 2.5 miles and turned around. I ran back to the pharmacy and the lady at the counter was like “I admire your ambition for running today.”  I thanked her and proceeded to tell her that it was probably the last time I’d get to do it outside for a while and really it would be the nicest day of the week according to Jerriann Ritter’s 5-day forecast.

Also, I must not have been the only runner that realized yesterday was a “nice” day. I saw a few other people trudging through the snow. Normally on a day like yesterday I wouldn’t see anybody else out other than a few people that walk their dogs around the block or use public transportation.

Anyway, I ran the rest of the way home and made it, prescription in hand, with 20 minutes left to shower/put on makup/do my hair. And I totally made it. The minute I finished blow-drying my hair my phone rang and I let in my friends.

Well, here’s my visual for the run.

5 miles in the snow

Also, I checked up on my goals and challenges.  I started a challenge last week or so with two of my co-workers. I think the one co-worker is more of a biker than a runner and doesn’t do winter running.  I’m in the lead so far, but I’m pretty sure it’s because the other co-worker hasn’t uploaded her runs for a while.

so far in the lead..but probably b/c she hasn't uploaded her runs for a while.

AND I achieved my “run faster” goal again. I’m setting the bar at 5 runs under 8:30/mi.

My mom tried to tell me that Eugene, OR has just as bad of weather as we do.  So I’m conducting an experiment.

Every Monday I’m going to take a screenshot of the 5-day forecast from both places and post it.  Could be a terrible winter here vs. an unseasonably warm one there…but I’m going to check it out anyway.

Des Moines: 0      Eugene: 1

I’m meeting a friend for brunch today so I got up early to try to get a run in. Didn’t do so hot on 6 hours of sleep with the ice and the wind, but 5K will do.

Of course, I swear my Nike+ KNOWS when I’m tired or when I’m not motivated and decides to stop my workouts when I pause to catch my breath.  Stupid thing. It’s probably the armband I’ve got but they don’t make armbands for the iPod nano that I’ve got anymore.

Anyway, I checked my goals on nikeplus.com and I acheived my goal of 5 runs in under 8:55 a mile for this month. I reset the goal to 5 runs in under 8:45 a mile for the next month.  I’m also close to finishing my workout 16 times this month goal…but I think it might be because some of my workouts endeed up split. :/

I ran out to Camp Courageous and back for the first time since I ran the marathon. Nothing too exciting, except it was about 40° out and beautiful…but foggy. Kinda dangerous, but I’m still here, so oh well.

rawr.

It was freak-ing cold out… (8°)

Got some new under armour for Christmas.  A Sub-Zero cold gear mock in — what else? — Calee pink.

...in Calee pink.

Long story short — the new underarmour rocks. I have another subzero mock in teal, but it’s the “compressed” style (so it’s tighter around the torso) so it doesn’t stay down over my butt when I put it there.  This one does. So it’s my new favorite piece of gear (until it gets warm again). It worked so well that I actually was sweating

Anyway, ran Lover’s Lane again (more gravels).  I came across a 50 yard patch of uncovered gravel, which rocked. All in all it was a better run than the day before because the snow had packed down solid since it was so cold.

Kinda slower than normal, but I was being cautious since the snow was packed down to ice.