New Year Update

Happy New Year.  This is going to be a quick post about how we spent our New Year's Day. My husband and I started off 2020 with a race. I ran the Bill Hogan 3.5 mile which is held in conjunction with the Hangover Half.  My husband did his own thing and ran about a 10K.  I finished in 45:38 which is about a minute slower than I did this race last year.

Afterwards, we hurried home to shower and get ourselves over to the Troy Music Hall. Our friends had tickets to the Berkshire Bach (orchestra) playing all six of Bach's Brandenburg Concerti.  We were in the sixth row and it was amazing. I am not a philistine! 😉 Of course not! That is a reference to one of my favorite movies "The Squid and the Whale" which I watched on Netflix over the weekend for the umpteenth time.

I watched a lot of Netflix over the past weekend, while recovering from a cold. The rewatch of "The Squid and the Whale" was prompted from viewing "Marriage Story", also by Noah Baumbach and also about divorce.  In addition, I watched "Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things" (so true) and "The Magic Pill", which touts the benefit of a ketogenic diet.

My husband and I have also started watching "Schitt's Creek" which is a Canadian sitcom by Eugene Levy and Dan Levy. It is about a wealthy couple who find themselves broke and end up in the small town they own with their two spoiled adult kids. 

It was a great way to kick off the new decade!

I Get The News I Need On The Weather Report

That song came on my iPod when I was running one day last week. That song is in one of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite movies.  If you don't get the reference, google “Garden State” - Infinite Abyss. And yes, right then, I did feel like the only living girl in New York.

In addition to my family and friends, the main thing I am thankful for on this day before Thanksgiving is the feeling of being able to run outside in the sunshine.  That sums it all up for me - good health, the outdoors, the glorious sun on your face.  As Dr. Cohen says in another scene from Garden State: "Yeah, you're alright. You're alive!"

This time of year, I really do get the news I need on the weather report. If it is sunny you will find me running outdoors, walking the dog, and occasionally helping my husband with the endless leaf blowing and raking.

My husband, daughter and Summer on the rail trail on a perfect November afternoon

My older son got me a groupon for a dip in a sensory deprivation tank as a birthday present last month. I scheduled it for the day after Stockade-athon to rejuvenate any sore muscles.

That was a new experience for me. You get naked, shower, put in earplugs, and climb into 11 inches of salt and hydrogen peroxide-infused water. The salt concentration keeps you afloat, just like in the Dead Sea. You switch off the light and just float for one hour. It was relaxing and maybe I would do it again. I definitely wondered about the cleanliness of soaking in water that others soaked in. As it turns out, nothing (bacteria!) can survive in that mixture. Plus, it’s been well over two weeks and I didn’t catch anything.

Yes, I went into that abyss 

Speaking of Stockade-athon I was in the newspaper. Yes, that's me in the pink.  Bethany from my running club is to my left in purple.

Photo courtesy of Schenectady Gazette

Thanks for reading! Happy Thanksgiving!

Clocks Back

I have been neglectful of ye olde blog here. I am also in a reading slump.  The last book I started was the weekend of October 19th.  We went to Massachusetts to watch my niece cheer at her college football game (Endicott College) and thence to Newburyport. On October 20th, my husband ran the Newburyport Half Marathon with an old friend who lives there. 

Sunset in Newburyport Massachusetts

I passed on that run and started reading Stay Hungry by comedian Sebastian Maniscalco while sitting in the car waiting for it to warm up a bit.  Not a book that I would have ordinarily chosen, but my coworker lent it to me after she heard that I have tickets to see him next April.

I made it through Chapter 3 and have not read anything since. That happens sometimes. If it can happen with reading, it can happen with writing. Instead I have been crazy into doing crossword puzzles.

Besides running and volunteering at Squirrely Six last weekend, I participated in a Crossword Puzzle Tournament on October 26th. I may need to devote a post to that.  In case I don't, I finished 16th place out of about 70 participants. It was a blast! Oh, and it was also my birthday. 🙂

Every day after work last week there was something to do: Monday - got my nails done, Tuesday - ran treadmill at the gym, Wednesday - saw Zombieland: Double Tap.  I loved it.  Gosh, that needs a blog post of its own as well.  Thursday - Halloween! We always get a lot of trick or treaters; the rainy weather did not keep them away. Friday - met a group of my husband's old high school friends for dinner. 

By the time the next weekend rolled around, I really needed that extra hour we gained from turning the clocks back!

Reunion

Last Saturday night I went to my 40th high school reunion. This was a big deal for me because I have never been to any previous reunions. My memories of high school are okay but not great. My high school was very cliquey and I never felt popular.

Some background - I live a few hours away from my hometown and I don’t have a Facebook page.

First the good part. I reached out to two former best friends ahead of time. Both of these ladies were so warm and welcoming to me. They came to my mom’s house Saturday afternoon before the reunion. One of the girls was a grade ahead of me so she didn’t attend the reunion. She could have because it was open to other classes but she is the caregiver for her elderly mother. The other girl has been attending all the reunions.

As far as the reunion itself, all I can say is meh. I saw several people I hadn’t seen in 40 years and it convinced me that people don’t change.

There was one bad part about the reunion and I am baring my soul to you readers by writing about it. A woman came up to me and the first thing she said was “I have a memory of you and it’s bad / you’re not going to like it”. I’m not kidding - that is how she greeted me after 40 years.

She said that in 10th grade I had written something about her that wasn’t nice. I have no memory of this whatsoever but it certainly made me feel bad. I told her I didn’t remember writing anything like this but if I did I was sorry. The rest of our brief conversation reinforced that she is not a nice person. Which makes me wonder if I did write this because I disliked her 40 years ago. How would she have seen it or known about it anyway?

My mom said the whole thing is silly because even if I wrote anything, I was a 15 year old kid.

My husband thinks it is hilarious that this woman has been coming to reunions for 40 years just waiting to confront me. I have been wracking my brain trying to recall this and nothing rings a bell. Oh well.

Did I get to say hello to a few people from the past? Sure, but who cares. They have their lives and I have mine.

Being Neighborly

Every September our YMCA holds a Member Appreciation Picnic barbecue in their pavilion. A few weeks ago a notice was up that the picnic was being held on Friday September 6th.  There was an email to RSVP.  I didn't remember there being an RSVP in the past, but I went ahead and emailed the contact. It seemed odd that it was a gmail.com address and not a ymca.org address.

A few days later there was a notice that the YMCA Picnic was going to be on Friday September 13th.  I asked the woman working at the desk if that was a date change.  She told me that there were actually two picnics; the first one was a new neighborhood organization that is forming and was not the YMCA picnic. The new organization was using the Y as their venue. She said "You may as well go to both".

So, on Friday, my husband and I tentatively went over to the first picnic with absolutely no idea what I had signed us up for. As my husband said, we could always "Bite and Bolt". It turned out that our town was forming a Neighbors Helping Neighbors type of organization.  It is geared for ages 50 and up (yup, that's us). 

They asked us to fill out an information form with what services you can offer and what you may need.  For example, help running an errand or minor handyman tasks. The goal is to help seniors age in place and to encourage neighborliness. It turns out that this is a part of a larger national organization. 

Instead of handing in the info form, we took it home with us.  We are going to share it with a friend who is already retired and would enjoy doing that. Right now, two full time jobs and caring for our own home, cars, pet, volunteering at races, exercise and leisure takes up all of our time. I'm glad I went though! We met some very lovely people sitting at the table next to us and enjoyed a great dinner.  Stewarts contributed a "make your own sundae" station and I had a butterscotch sundae for the first time in years.😋

On Saturday night, we went to see Little River Band which was a free outdoor concert. If you remember them from the late 1970's and early 1980's their biggest hits were "Cool Change", "Reminiscing", "Lady" and "Lonesome Loser". It was a lot of fun.

Reminiscing about "Reminiscing"

On Sunday, my husband ran a 10K race up in Lake George. This race was a Half Marathon / 10K. I volunteered at the finish line water station.  It was my third year in a row doing water at the finish line. In fact, I never heard from the race organizer after I signed up so I headed straight to the finish line and started pouring. When I saw him, he said "I didn't email you because I figured you know what your job is".  After the race, there was a free barbecue for runners and volunteers.

Perfect day on Lake George

It was a fun and frugal weekend!

Last Week's Workouts: On Monday I ran 3.5 miles, on Tuesday I did HIIT with Erin, on Wednesday I did Zumba with Michelle, on Saturday I did Zumba with Tammy, and on Sunday I ran 3.5 miles. A five-workout week in the books.

Thanks for reading!

August Clean Out

At the beginning of August I decided to set a goal of cleaning out, dumping and getting rid of something every day. I have mentioned before that I hate clutter and excess.  While I don't want to be a true minimalist with a bare house, I would love to be able to name every item that I own and know exactly where it is located.

Anything beyond that is probably not necessary.  However, I live with two other people, so I can only get rid of things that are mine unless I have my husband or daughter's blessing.

Here is what left our house in August:

Trash
Old running shoes (too decrepit to donate)
Everything in my bottom night stand drawer
Black flip flops (broken)
Contents of bag in kitchen cabinet
Contents of box in older son's bedroom
Items from kitchen junk drawer
Items from top dresser drawer

Sold
Husband's wetsuit (apparently he is done with triathlons)

We sold one of these

Gave Away
Glassware (belonged to late mother-in-law; gave to brother-in-law)

Donated
3 bags of clothes
Old bedsheets
Snuggie
5 pocketbooks

Recycled
Plastic gladware
Old piano book


And there you have it - my August cleanout.  Thanks for reading!

Painting and Other Things

Before I continue my Acadia National Park travel recap, I thought I would write about my real life weekend.  It's not all hiking and unicorns in my world.

A month ago, my older son and my daughter made an arrangement whereby my daughter was going to live rent-free in an apartment that my son owns in exchange for painting the entire apartment.  You know the saying "Mother knows best"?  Do you see where this is going?  Somehow, I knew that I would be painting during the month of July.

The deal was that the painting needed to be done early enough for my son to get a tenant in for August. My husband got drawn into this, but he always has a positive attitude when it comes to helping our children.  So, one day about two weeks ago, my daughter and husband took a day off work, and they painted the living room.  The prior tenant had painted it a very unflattering bright blue, and it was a sloppy paint job, too. It's now a pleasing linen color. Progress stalled there.

As the month of July was drawing to a close, I could sense tension in the air to get this thing done and over with. My husband, daughter and I ended up spending a good part of the weekend working on the apartment.  We painted the bedroom and bathroom in "greige". We did the trims and doors in glossy white. I wish I remembered to take more pictures!

The only picture I took was this corner of the bathroom - after cleaning but before painting

The bathroom ended up this color

Cleaning was not part of the deal but oh my, the bathroom and the kitchen appliances were in bad shape. I figured I would work on that, since there were people coming in to look at the apartment.  Personally, I would rather clean than paint anyway.

Well, it was hot and messy, but we got the job done and it felt very satisfying to do it - the apartment is painted, cleaned and painted some more!

On Sunday, we visited with my husband's running buddy's grandbaby.  She is 4 1/2 months old, and her nickname is Little Gal.  The baby's mom is working on getting back in shape so she joined the guys on their run.  While they ran, I visited with my friend (baby's grandma / running buddy's wife) and Little Gal. I just love that nickname and she is adorable!


I know I missed a few weeks recapping my workouts, but I'm not skipping this one.
Last Week's Workouts: On Monday through Thursday I hiked, biked and walked in Acadia National Park (at least 4 hours per day), on Friday I ran 3.1 miles and did Yoga with Suzy.  On Saturday, I did Zumba with Tammy and on Sunday I swam 40 laps.  I also painted and cleaned for 7 hours over the weekend.


It was an active week!

One Month In

Although today is a Saturday it is the one month anniversary of the date I started my new job. I have to admit that I struggled a little the first three weeks. Not with the work itself - that I am learning. Rather, I was surprised at how much less volume of work there is at the new job. This work has a routine of monthly, quarterly and annual reports and budget duties. At my old job it was just nonstop.

It really was an adjustment to accept this slower pace. Last week, which was my fourth, I was finally able to accept that less is Ok.

One thing that helped was an email from a former coworker. I was on the committee that hired him at the old job, but I didn’t work with him directly. A few months ago, he accepted a lateral transfer to the agency I work for now. We work one floor apart and have not crossed paths yet!

He left our old agency for the same dissatisfaction with management that I felt. In his recent email he said that the work volume here is far less than it was at the old job. Then he wrote “you get used to it”. One month in, I am getting used to it.

And now a segue to work clothes. I was mentally keeping track of what I wore to work each day. One nice thing about changing jobs is that all your clothes become “new again” because the new coworkers haven’t seen them. I wore a different outfit for 19 straight days. That means I went almost a month without repeating an outfit.

Looking at my summer work wardrobe, I have around 5 dresses, 10 or so tops, 4 skirts and 4 pants. I also have a lot of shoes. To some people that may seem like a lot of clothes and to some it may be a little. For me this is enough - I don’t want more and I don’t want to spend my money on more summer work clothes.

However, I am excited because I found my favorite running shoes in my size online in pink (Mizuno Wave Rider 19). The current version is 22 which I had previously tried and disliked. I couldn’t even find the 20 or 21 in my size to try, so finding the 19 was awesome. I just hope they are legit and not a knockoff!

Muddy running shoes after a spring trail run 

Same garden this morning 

Have a great weekend!

Berkshire Botanical Garden

Last weekend, we met up with my sister and her boyfriend in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.  Stockbridge is the hometown of artist Normal Rockwell.  One of his famous paintings is of Stockbridge at Christmas time.  The town looks exactly the same, because they work very hard to keep it that way!

We met on the porch of the Red Lion Inn which was nice and relaxing.  They have rockers and it's very welcoming.  We walked about 20 feet to have lunch at a cute café.  I did not want a big lunch that would leave me stuffed. I noticed two older ladies at the next table had the quiche special; it was accompanied with a small salad.

Both of the ladies wrapped up leftovers! It was a small meal, so it struck me funny that they didn't finish it.  I certainly finished mine!

After lunch and strolling around the cute gift shops, we drove about a mile on Route 102 to the Berkshire Botanical Garden.  It had rained earlier, and was cool and overcast. A lot of flowers were not in bloom. I am not an expert but I think that the flowers blossom more in sun. The last time we were there it was a beautiful sunny day and my face was orange with pollen from sticking my face in the day lilies. We have a photo of that to memorialize it! For some reason that photo cracks my husband up every time he sees it. 🤷‍♀️

We had four free admission tickets to the Botanical Garden courtesy of the public library. I went to two different library branches last week to get the four free passes.

After the Botanical Garden we  headed over to the Lee Outlets.  By then the sun was out.  I picked up a couple of outfits at the Oshkosh store for a 1-year old's birthday party we have on July 4th. And a sports bra at the Champion store.

Pretty white and magenta blossoms 

Bupthalmum Sunwheel Daisy Speciosa Telekia 

Shrubs shaped like llamas 

Thanks for reading!

The Duggars

Are you familiar with the Duggar family?  If you hate them, please feel free to stop reading now. They used to have a TV show on the TLC network called "19 Kids and Counting". After it was revealed that the eldest son Josh Duggar had "issues" the show was cancelled. It was reinvented by TLC as "Counting On" with a focus on the other Duggar children, who are all growing up, courting, marrying, and having babies of their own.

For the record, I do think Josh is sketchy and I'm glad that he is not on the show any longer. Although to give him the benefit of the doubt, supposedly he has been to rehab and is reformed.

Last week, Grandma Mary Duggar passed away unexpectedly at age 78 after a drowning accident. When I googled it, the first thing to pop up was something to the effect that "Jill Duggar Dillard is exploiting her grandmother's death by blogging about it."

Say what? That is beyond ridiculous.  Jill and Derick Dillard have a blog which you can find here if you are interested: www.dillardfamily.com.  Yes, that blog is monetized, like many blogs are. When you click on it, you will see ads.  I saw an ad for Fitbit watches and one to donate to St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital.

As I expected, Jill's tribute to her grandmother was beautiful. Jill wrote "My grandma taught me to thank God in every situation, realizing that only He can see the big picture. She would say, “Praise the Lord” all the time, and even talked about how thanking God for tough things that happened helped her release it to Him and acknowledge that he was ultimately in control."

Jessa Duggar Seewald, Grandma Mary holding baby Ivy Jane, Michelle Duggar (photo courtesy of Facebook/Duggar Family)

While I was perusing the blog, I found so many well written, mature and honest discussions about God, marriage, parenting and other topics.  There was a post by Jill about marriage.  Let me tell you that even after 33 years of marriage there were some thought-provoking tips in that article. Two in particular struck a chord with me:
1. Look for ways to encourage your hubby, serve him and meet his needs.
2. Don’t gossip or name call, even if joking.

My takeaway is that people who hate on the Duggars could probably learn a lot from the Duggars.

Fri-Yay

Wow my post yesterday was a big giant waaah about the old job. I guess I needed to get it off my chest before I could really move on. Like detoxing! On that note here are some positive thoughts for Friday.

New Job
It’s my second day here at the new job. Yesterday was taken up by HR stuff and orientation in the morning. In the afternoon I got a brief tour of the building and shown where to read up about my new job on the computer. I got an ID badge. New Boss has Friday off so this is turning out to be a really quiet day. But day one is always hard and day two is always a thousand times better.

Middle Son
My middle son and his girlfriend came from California late last night. She will be here for a long weekend and he will be here for a week. I’m really happy and grateful that they are here. We haven’t seen him since Christmas. He wants to go out for dinner tonight and on Father’s Day. Sounds good to me. He wants a casual pizza restaurant tonight and a nicer restaurant Sunday. He has a lot of things planned as it’s her first time in the northeast U.S.

Shopping 
I was browsing online last week looking for something new for the new job. I saw a very cute dress at Target. The dress in this pattern was not available online. But another pattern was - go figure. The website said there was one available in my size at the Target in East Bejeezuz (don’t google it; that’s not a real place). It was only 5 minutes farther than the Target we normally go to. I got that dress. From thence to Loft where I got two tops and a pair of the wide leg pants that are popular now. Everything was on sale and the pants were on clearance for $19.88 (originally $59.99).

Other Stuff 
I went to a baby sprinkle for my niece. The concept was new to me but a sprinkle is a baby shower for a second baby. Since the mom already has the big stuff from her first baby, you sprinkle her with diapers, baby wipes, and other small baby gifts. What a wonderful idea!

I went to see another niece in her dance recital. Dance has come a long way since my daughter took ballet. Four out of five routines are hip hop, and there are a lot of boys. The costumes are hip hop street clothes. Most of the other dances were flowy contemporary numbers. Very few sequins, buns and tutus!

We went to watch my daughter go skydiving! It was her first time and it was on her bucket list. It isn’t on my bucket list! But it looked pretty awesome and she loved it.

Beautiful day for a skydive 

My mind was clearly stuck in a negative rut. Ending with a blessing:

Joyce Meyer

My coworker and I went to see Joyce Meyer. If you’re not familiar with Joyce, she is an American Charismatic Christian author and speaker (as per Wikipedia).

The crowd was very large, mostly women. She had three sessions - one last night and two today. A lot of people attended all three and many people traveled to see her. Admission was free for all sessions.

People arriving at the arena 

Joyce in person and on the big screen 

I have written before how it’s all connected and this was no exception. One of Joyce’s ministries is funding for drilling of wells to bring clean water to villages in 25 countries. In my last post about marathoner Meb Keflezighi I wrote how Meb was inspired by the villagers walking miles every day to get water.

I took notes and I want to share what was most meaningful to me.

Pray for your children. Make your children your best friends. Never speak poorly of your children.

God has been removed from public education and colleges today. Modern education teaches humanism, secularism and socialism. This is ignorant thinking; separation of Church and State is a deception. This is not America’s true history.

Encourage yourself! Think “this is going to end well”.

God loves you unconditionally!

Remove the words “I can’t” from your language.

Make it through one day without complaining. Have an attitude of gratitude.

You’re not too old to do something new.

The key to power is Faith. Faith is the belief that good is going to happen “to you and through you”.

Be childlike in your Faith. Take a leap of Faith. God will give you the perfect timing. When God tells you to jump - JUMP!

When God gives you favor, take it and say “Thank you!”

Weekend Update

On Saturday we had a small lunchtime party for my older son who is getting his PhD degree. I am so proud of how hard he worked the past six years to earn this. The ceremony for the doctoral graduates is Wednesday night.

My brother-in-law from California was here, which made it feel special as we don’t see him that often. It worked out perfectly for him flying in for just a weekend, as he had another function to attend Saturday night and Sunday morning.

We had the food brought in - sandwiches, wraps, pasta salad, veggie salad, fresh fruit, and of course a cake. Everything was delicious and we had enough for dinner that night and lunch and dinner Sunday.

When my mother-in-law passed away in 2017 (at age 89), she was still living in the huge house in which she had raised her children. Meaning she never downsized anything. There was an estate sale for the big stuff, but 10 or so boxes of photographs and memorabilia have been in my other brother-in-law’s basement ever since.

He brought all the boxes over to our house Saturday. After the party, my husband, my California BIL, and I went through and tossed a ton of stuff. On Sunday, the three of us did some more.

I’m glad to report that we are down to 5 boxes / bins. My husband moved them down to our basement. I’m okay with that as we have the room. I am sure those boxes will sit there untouched until the day we move!  That’s the funny thing about sentimental items, isn’t it? Nobody wants to get rid of them, but at the same time nobody actually wants them.

Boxes of memorabilia in my living room 

Greeting cards from almost 100 years ago 

I must mention that my California BIL is an Ironman and marathoner. He is the real deal - he has sponsors and he medals in his age group. He is modest; he says “I was on the podium”. He also works full time and manages to fit in all his training.

He did a 5.5 mile run Saturday before the party and an 8 mile run on Sunday in a torrential downpour. Like my son and his PhD, if you are motivated you can find time for everything.

Unfortunately, their motivation didn’t rub off on me this weekend - I did nothing as far as exercise. I did get in two workouts last week and, since I forgot to report, four workouts the week before.

Hope everyone had a great weekend and belated Happy Mother’s Day to the moms.

Kindness Update

On May 1st, I wrote about my kindness goal and how one of my favorite bloggers was bashed for styling an outfit from Walmart.

First off, this kindness goal is hard! That shows me I have a long way to go before this becomes a habit. I have to remember that I set this goal and I have to make an effort to act on it.

Here’s a story from week 1. My daughter and I took Summer to Petsmart. A lady was juggling a few items plus she had her dog with her. She dropped an aerosol can which then knocked a bag of dog treats off the shelf. I picked up both items, retuning the treats to the shelf, and handing the lady the can. I happened to notice she also had a spray bottle in her hand.

I said something like “Here you go”, and she responded “It fell out of my hand”. That was it, no thank you, no smile. She would not allow her dog to “say hi” to our dog. Clearly she was in a bad mood. Talking about it on the way home, my daughter and I concluded that the aerosol can and the spray bottle must’ve been carpet cleaner for doggie accidents - after all, what else do they sell at Petsmart in that type of container?

Hopefully our kind act was a good thing after she presumably came home to a “present” from her dog.

This pooch is a loyal PetSmart customer

As for Julia the fashion blogger - she followed up the Walmart outfit post with a well-researched post on ethical clothes shopping. It's interesting that her previous posts featuring clothes from H+M, Forever 21, GAP and Old Navy did not generate any criticism.

I learned that 97% of clothes are made overseas, and that the world consumes 400% more clothing than we did just two decades ago. She listed multiple companies that are ethical and sustainable. Here is a link to a good article about buying ethical clothes on a budget.

Personally I’m glad she did not apologize for the Walmart outfit; because she certainly didn’t do anything wrong! She got over 100 comments on the second post and skimming through them, they appeared positive.

Thanks for reading!

May Day

It’s time to turn another page on the calendar. There is so much potential in a new month. I am setting a goal for myself for May.

I am going to Practice Kindness - do or say something kind every day. This isn’t an easy thing for me; I know that it’s something I can improve on.

I actually started on Monday without realizing it. On Monday my husband and I volunteered at a trail run. We were assigned different locations along the route to point runners in the right direction. This particular trail has runners crisscrossing each other so it’s important to keep everyone going where they are supposed to.

It was unseasonably cold Monday, which is fine for the runners, but not so fine for those of us standing around. But volunteering is giving of oneself, and that is kindness. We got to cheer and encourage the runners. We felt good afterwards.

On Tuesday, my daughter and I went to HIIT with our favorite instructor Erin. I complimented a woman in the class on her new hairstyle. Too bad she had to ruin it sweating! Again, the compliment was genuine - she felt good, I felt good - it was win win.

Something that I noticed this week that was anti-kindness: I was reading my fashion blogs, even though I dislike the consumerism, as I wrote about in this post about spring fashion. There is a fashion blogger I enjoy reading because hers is more of a lifestyle blog. She has written honestly about struggling with anxiety, postpartum depression, and even how she wants a nose job but can’t because of her nasal polyps. She puts herself out there.

She had a post titled “Affordable Fashion” and she styled a skirt, top and shoes from Walmart. She stated up front that this was a sponsored post (Walmart pays her). Well, she got a ton of negative feedback for supporting Walmart. I thought she was pretty courageous by leaving those comments up, as bloggers can moderate and delete comments.

I don’t want to get into any controversy about Walmart, but I felt like the comments were so mean and so hurtful. If you don’t like that outfit or don’t shop at Walmart because of how they treat their employees, or because the clothing is made overseas, so be it. But is it necessary to attack the blogger personally? Just stop reading her blog if her values don’t align with yours.

Anyway, this made me even more conscientious of how our words can hurt.

My point is that I am going to be aware of what I say. Down with the negative and up with the kindness.

Let’s make May the month of kindness 

Random Thoughts

I realized I never hit Publish on this post from the end of March. Better late than never!

Taxes
I’m relieved that we finally got that done. Since my husband has his own business there are lots of receipts and things to organize prior to doing the actual filing (we use TurboTax). So, yeah, we procrastinated. It was funny because we had finally gotten everything organized and in folders; we moved the folders to the kitchen island. They sat there for a week, but I was like “Yes, we are making progress! The folders are closer to the laptop!”

Vera Bradley
I got a Vera Bradley handbag for $23; the retail price on the tag was $75. Score! If you know me, then you know I like my Vera Bradley. I have a VB lunch bag, makeup bag, toiletries bag, coin purse, ID holder, eyeglasses case, and tote bag. This bag will replace a similar one that bit the dust.

It looks like my old one but different pattern 

Song in my head 
We watched “A Star is Born” on DVD. We saw this at the theater and I liked it enough to watch it twice. The song “Shallow” by Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga. Love it! Did you see them singing together at the Oscars? Watch it here on YouTube.

Baking
I made this recipe for apple oatmeal muffins and I used red velvet yogurt in place of the applesauce. The yogurt made the batter pink; they look a little pink in the picture, don’t you think?

So good I ate one before I remembered to take a picture

Have a great day!

1st and 33rd

1st because Saturday was the first running of the Helderberg to Hudson Half-Marathon. My husband ran and I volunteered at one of the water stations along the route. I didn’t sleep well the night before because I was having anxiety about getting to my assignment “late”. (I know, so silly, in retrospect).

The volunteer email said to get there at 7:00 a.m. However, I was dropping my husband off at the race start first so I arrived at my station at 7:45. It was fine. There were 15 people at our station and the first runners came through at 8:50. Yes, we needed 15 volunteers - there were 2,500 runners.

Here is a picture from my vantage point. These were some early leaders; after this there was no time for picture breaks. After the runners went past our stop, and we finished cleaning up, I drove to the finish line. A lot of our running friends were there and it was a beautiful day.

The top 3 male finishers came by around 5 minutes before this group

33rd because Saturday was our anniversary (I’ll let you guess how many years).🙂 We went to dinner at an Italian restaurant in the next town that some friends had been raving about.

When we go somewhere new to us, I like to look at it through the eyes of a restaurant critic or a mystery shopper; one of my sisters has been doing mystery shopping for a long time so it’s rubbed off on me.

The service was excellent. The dinners included salad and bread, both of which were fresh and plentiful. The portions were huge; I wish I remembered to take a picture of my lasagna because it could have served three people.

The best part was the bill was about $40. With a 20% tip, the total was under $50. You don’t have to spend a fortune to get a great dinner! And we have enough leftovers for tonight to feed ourselves and our daughter.

Thanks for reading!

Monday Encouragement

Monday’s post is supposed to be a highlight of the prior week and a summary of my workouts. Right now there are people I know (some very close to me and some I’ve known a long time) that are going through difficult times. But if I write about that, no one would read my blog. Even I would get tired of me pretty quickly!

So with no further ado, here are words of encouragement for the day:

On Sunday I ran in the Delmar Dash. Even though this race is practically right in my backyard, this was the first time I ran it.  That’s because it’s the first year that I ran consistently over the winter months so I knew that I could actually run 5 miles.

Another factor was the price to register the day before was the same as the preregistration price, so I waited until the day before to see how the weather was going to be. It was very nice. It has been known to snow on this race, and in fact, it did snow on Friday.

My time was 57:33 (11:31 pace). My pace has gotten faster each race in 2019. I was #209 out of 232 total runners. I was #10 out of 11 in my age:/gender. Including the race I worked out four times last week.

The thing that made me laugh the most last week: My husband, daughter and I watched a super funny comedian, Nate Bargatze, on Netflix. I recommend it if you have Netflix.

Have a great week!

Hello April

The last four fiction books I started were all duds. I won’t keep reading anything I don’t like.  Fortunately, I’ve had better luck with my nonfiction choices. This past weekend I read Girl, Stop Apologizing by Rachel Hollis. This book is number 3 on Amazon and number 2 on The Wall Street Journal’s bestseller list for nonfiction. Ms. Hollis started her career as an event planner and is now a top podcaster, author, lifestyle influencer (Instagram is her favorite social media), and motivational speaker. She’s also married and mom of four young children.

The message of this book for young women is stop making excuses and go after your dream. Overall I felt like the target audience is about a generation younger than me, but I can always relate to self-improvement and anything that inspires.

In the section on behaviors to adopt was “Build foundations for success”. There was specific advice for getting healthy. I’m listing them here because I’m going to work on this in April.
1. Hydration
2. Wake up earlier
3. Gave up one category of crappy food
4. Move your body every day
5. Practice gratitude daily

I also liked her point of view regarding skills like positivity and persistence. On persistence: a goal is not just a thing you do, it’s who you are. “Forever and ever, amen” (page 185). Ms. Hollis uses Tom Brady and Serena Williams as examples. Did they reach their goal and stop working? Of course not! The training never stops, the author says. Stop thinking small, she encourages.

As for positivity, it doesn’t hurt to hear it over and over again. You have to choose to be positive and see the blessings in your life every day. Which reminds me, I’m another month closer to retirement (3 years and 8 months to go, my friends!)

It’s April 1st, it’s Monday, it’s spring, and I have a new month ahead of me to think big and be positive.

Goodbye March

March came in like a lamb (I was in Florida) and is going out like a lion. My husband and I went on our first hike of 2019 yesterday.

We went to Vroman’s Nose in the Catskill Mountains. This is an easy, family friendly hike so it was a good one to do on a cloudy day. Apparently it can get very crowded on nice days. Vroman’s Nose overlooks the Schoharie Valley. The side of the hill that faces the valley was created thousands of years ago by glaciers that scraped across the land. It was muddy and slick but nothing our hiking boots couldn’t handle. We did an out and back with a lunch break at the top.

Afterward, we stopped at Schoharie Valley Farms and got some treats.

This week I worked out three times: Zumba, the hike, and a 3-mile run. I don’t count my walks as workouts, but that’s me. Most days I walk on my break at work or walk Summer around the block, each of which takes around 15 minutes. However, that is not long enough or exerting enough for me to call a workout.

Here are my year to date running stats: 50 miles and 2 races. I posted my annual running goals here so to sum things up: Ruh Roh! I need to pick up the pace if I want to meet these goals. I do have some plans up my sleeve for April so stay tuned.

Trail up to Vroman’s Nose 

Schoharie Valley - this was once a lake