Three Weeks

I am no longer in the months count down to our wedding but rather in the weeks and not too far off from the days count down. Seriously mind blowing that time has flown and crawled by so quickly.

We are now down to three weeks until we get married (yes, you may as well brace yourself for a weekly update now because I am writing one).

I have a bedroom upstairs in my house that sort of looks like all thing wedding has puked - I will be ready to have my room back upstairs when this wedding is over and to have all of these jars out of my house. Also ready to be able to focus on other miscellaneous projects beyond wedding stuff - it's been real, its even had a couple fun moments (food tasting), I am not sure that I would give wedding planning a real fun rating though.....anyways. It soon will be over.

This week's wedding related goals are:

• finalize worship bulletin
• work on bridesmaid gifts
• drop off twine to the flower place
• type up a weekend schedule for everyone
• start dipping dinner meal tags for the reception
• contact the rest of the people who haven't RSVPed

Unrelated news:

  Today is the Fargo Half Marathon and I seriously love this race and couldn't be more excited to be running it. Fingers crossed for good weather and not too many flooded roads and speedy legs (full review to come early next week).

Disney on the brain

Sarah & Merida

I find myself with Walt Disney World on my brain a lot lately. As I have begun to prepare for the Walt Disney Wine and Dine Half Marathon I find myself thinking about past memories of Disney and dreaming about this upcoming trip and even trips to come.

Yesterday, I watched Princess Merida become an official Disney princess, what I wouldn't have given to be there among that crowd. My personal favorite Disney princesses are: Mulan (hands down top of my list), Merida, who is closely followed by Tiana. Another one of my favorite characters is Jesse from Toy Story. While not a princess she also has a warm place in my heart for one reason or another. I also do have an appreciation for the classics as well. I have a book on shutterfly in progress, with my friend Suz, and we are on a mission to get our pictures with as many characters as we can and we are creating one big book of only photos with characters. We also have a rule that we don't wait in any line that we think will be longer than about seven minutes to ten minutes. The only time we have broken this rule is after we ran the Tinkerbell Half Marathon in Disneyland last January and we desperately wanted our pictures with our medals with Tink.

Suz &  I at Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party
in Magic Kingdom

I have found myself thinking about Disney as I am running and swimming as well as spacing out at work (let's be honest we all space out from time to time at work). My mind has been floating between the delicious restaurants, the different parks, the characters, the fireworks shows, illuminations, the rides, and the experience as a whole.

I am a huge advocate for runDisney! I love the different runDisney events and on my bucket list is to get a complete set of all the half marathon medals. Also if I ever decide that I am crazy enough to earn a full marathon medal you can bet it will be a runDisney medal! I love the runDisney experience and the ways in which they offer such an outstanding experience. I recommend runDisney events to everyone I talk to end end up talking about running to (seriously most conversations seem to revolve around running to some degree or another).


Who is your favorite Disney princess?
Who is your favorite Disney character?
Do you runDisney?
What is your favorite runDisney event so far?

Nervous

I run the Fargo Half Marathon this weekend.
I am nervous.
I have spent far too much time on a treadmill and not enough time on the roads.
My excuses are lame.
I will run anyways.
I will finish.
I will get my medal.


I am excited to have a day in Fargo to hang out with friends, tomorrow and into tomorrow evening. I will go watch the 5k runners. Hopefully they all do well and the heat index is exponentially lower than it was last year, it was crazy town for sure.

The day or two before a race is always hard for me. I am awful at tapering and I think about the race with every moment of my day - or so it feels. I pick out my race outfits (yes, I pick out a few due to the uncertainty of the weather), I make sure my watch is charged, I review my running playlist and make changes to it as needed, I charge up the Ipod, I go for some easy runs, and I pack my bags. I try to pack oatmeal so that I can heat it up with hot water from the coffee pot in the room, I have found that oatmeal seems to sit fairly well in my stomach while I run.

Unrelated excitement: This wedding deal is getting real fast. I am picking up my wedding dress tomorrow. It seems a bit surreal since I bought it back in October. Now the question is where to store it for a few more weeks until we actually get married.

Ice Out date

My sweet lime green kayak taunts me every time I go into the garage
as she sits beautifully behind Dakota's travel kennel and some yard tools
Marc's kayak is on the ground below mine

I think (knock on wood) that spring/summer may have actually arrived in Northern Minnesota. We have FINALLY gotten rid of the ice on the lakes around here, I hear up north there are still a few lakes with a few remains of ice in them. I never ever would have predicted this late of an ice out date. Fishing opener was over a week ago and there were some very unhappy fishermen due to the amount of ice still on the lakes as their beloved boats sit on shore and they make plans for how to catch the largest walleye.




While I really don't care a whole lot about fishing, although I do appreciate when a friend shares a fish or two for me to grill up, I do care that the lakes and river gets warm enough so I can put my kayak in the water. I am willing to go out paddling when the water is cold but not sooooo cold that hypothermia creates a real fear and reality if I were to tip over for one reason or another. Every year it seems that someone goes out on the lakes too early, flips over for one reason or another, and dies of hypothermia. The threat is real and so I impatiently wait, my kayak taunting me every time I go into the garage. I have my rack on top of my car all ready to go at first word that the lakes have even slightly warmed up from freezing temps.

Fingers crossed by the end of the month or early next month we will be able to put our kayaks in the water and do some serious paddling.

Asics to Brooks

Asics betrayed me. They quit making my beloved shoes, the Asics Gel Frantic 5 in green and black version. I seriously wore through seven different pairs of this beloved shoe. I LOVE those shoes, I still have one pair that I have basically worn thin - however I refuse to get rid of them, I LOVE them and no longer run in them however I do still wear them to go shopping, or play at the park with my little cousins, or take a short hike. The bottoms are smooth as a babies bottom and I LOVE them. It is probably to the unhealthy point buuuutttttttt I LOVE those shoes.

Brooks Pure Cadence 

I tried a new pair of Asics and I don't love them, they are heavy and uncomfortable, I tried on about seven pairs of shoes in the store and these were the most comfortable. They aren't comfortable for a long run, they are fine if I am just walking the dog or doing something short, but the long runs in these shoes are out of the question.

I gave in and went online. I looked at the Asics options and wasn't impressed by anything. I decided to try a new brand, I looked at Nike, but those don't always fit amazingly well and often feel heavy on my feet. I have read a few reviews of the Brooks shoes, and have decided to give them a shot.

They aren't as heavy as the Asics I had been wearing, they fit fairly well, they aren't my beloved Gel Frantic 5's after one run but I don't hate them like I did my Asics. I think with a few more runs, I may just come to love them as a new substitute for my beloved shoes.

The laces through me for a loop at first due to them not running directly down the middle of the shoe, it took me a minute to figure out what I thought about it. Once I had the shoe one it didn't even phase me. The arch support in this shoe is great. My most favorite thing about these shoes is they are SUPER light weight which is amazing!

I have several runs now under my belt in these new shoes and they are WONDERFUL for sure. They are ridiculously light and ridiculously wonderful! I am excited to run in these this weekend in the Fargo Half Marathon.


Have you ever fallen in love with a pair of shoes like this?
How do you pick out new shoes?
Are you brand loyal?
What brand do you prefer?

Zumba

My knees only allow me to run about four days a week most weeks before they start to revolt. We have come to an agreement that if I cross train on the other days and don't run they will behave (try to not swell up too much AND we can get some good runs in on the days we agree to). Now generally my knees are kind and follow by this agreement and so I try to reciprocate. I have gotten creative with my cross training - in the winter I did a ton of swimming and recently (as you have probably read about several times) I got a new bike.

I am loving biking and I do still enjoy a good swim however, last weekend at synod assembly a friend of mine introduced me to Zumba. I had tried it once or twice before but nothing really, I had tried it in a huge group of ladies who all knew one another and apparently were professional dancers, or so it felt like to me (the one who had no clue what she was doing and felt like she was just flailing around in the room and looked ridiculous). My friend brought his laptop and a Zumba DVD and one night as we were all hanging out he said he was off to do Zumba, between our snickers I was intrigued. I wanted to try it. I wanted to try it outside of a ridiculously large group of people who all knew the routines like the back of their hands.

So another friend and I joined him, we tried it. AND I LIKED IT, seriously when I wasn't under the pressure of all the other people in the room and I didn't feel like someone was criticizing my inability to dance  we had a great time, worked up a serious sweat, and laughed at ourselves during many of the moves.

My friend gave me a zumba DVD before we left as a gift! I was jazzed. I have already done the DVD a couple times at my house and LOVE it! What a fun and new cross-training option.


What types of workout DVDs do you enjoy? (I do love all of Jillian's workout DVDs)
Have you tried Zumba? At home or in a gym?
What do you think of it?

Adventures in Composting

We have begun our adventures in composting. I am thrilled and couldn't be more excited, seriously. We have been talking about it and reading lots and lots of stuff about composting. We finally gave in and got a composting bin from our local arboretum for super cheap. I know you can make your own but I didn't have a garbage can sitting around and the price on this was about the same as buying a can that I would have to drill holes into. We had some leaves left over from last year that fell after we did our big raking job and so we put about four inches of dried leaves in the bottom of the can. We then added some stale bread and my banana peel from dinner. Our composting journey has begun. I am pretty excited to see how it works and am excited about the potential of having nutrient rich soil in a few months. This is something I have been interested in for several years and just haven't had the guts to start.

My theory now is that I may as well try and fail rather than fail by surely not trying, at least I have a chance at succeeding by trying. We also have bought some seeds and are going to attempt a small garden this year, nothing fancy and we know that we have to at least attempt to try it. So here is to taking my hand at gardening with two very nongreen thumbs! 

Luther and Dakota playing in the yard while we set up the compost and the
start of a garden