Between Sisters

I just love Kristin Hannah books. I've had a ton on my "to read" list on Goodreads FOREVER. I actually checked this one out at the library (maybe even twice) but didn't end up reading it for some reason or another. I just decided to use my Paperbackswap credits I had to get some audio books and I started at the top of my to read list. I really enjoy listening to audio books on my commute. It's half an hour each way and the books make it so much more enjoyable. I like to put the books on my phone and then I can also listen to them when if I do housework.

I finished this one pretty quickly. This is a story of Meg and her little sister Claire. Meg was more like a mother figure to Claire when they were little. Until Claire's dad came in to the picture and Meg felt like a third wheel and moved away. After years apart circumstances bring Meg to her sister's home for a vacation. While she's there she meets Joe who has a story of his own. 

Just when I thought the story was getting a little boring and I was wondering where the big twist was going to  happen as it so often does in Kristin's books, there it was. I'm not going to give anything away but it was a pretty good story. I gave it 3 out of 5 stars on Goodreads.

Other Kristin Hannah books I've read

 Night Road

Home Front

Firefly Lane

Winter Garden (my favorite)

True Colors

Magic Hour

Angel Falls

The Glass Case

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The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

I brought my Kindle to work today so I could read my book The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas on my lunch.

So one thing about reading on a Kindle is you don't really realize when you are almost done with your book and it can kind of sneak up on you. Imagine my surprise when BAM the book was over. I so wasn't expecting this book to end so abruptly.

Some people told me they had seen the movie, which I haven't. Not sure I'd want to now that I know how the book ends. It's a good story though.

The story is about Bruno who's Dad is a Nazi. The family moves from their home in Berlin to Auschwitz for his Dad's job. Little Bruno is only 8 and totally oblivious to everything going on. He's bored to death at their new "home" and ends up going out to explore. That's how he meets the boy in the striped pajamas. The rest is in the book!

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One down 2 to go

It never ceases to amaze me how I can start off on the most crappy run and end with such a runners high. In the beginning I'm struggling struggling struggling and then it's like a switch is hit and BAM!! I'm good to go.

Weirdest thing ever.

I keep having a lot of knee pain for the first two miles or so. Everything being so stiff and then it's like it just works it's way out and I'm fine.

I was thinking that this only happens when I run at night. Lately I've been sitting around a lot more before I run too so I'm thinking I'm going to try tomorrow to be up on my feet for about an hour before I run. Maybe it's just that I really need more stretching-warming up? I have been stretching before I run and walking for about five minutes but apparently that is not enough to get the kinks out.

In any case, TWO MORE RUNS then 2 days of rest and then my half on Sunday!! It's coming!!

I just checked the weather forecast. I might be getting lucky!  The race starts at 7 and will take me about 2 1/2 hours to complete so the weather forecast says it will be somewhere between high 50's to mid 70's while I'm running. That's not bad at all! Let's all pray it stays that way.

I still need to work on making a playlist. Not sure if I'm going to get around to doing that or not but I'd like to at least put a few of my favorite motivating running songs together in case I need them. I can play them over and over if I have to right? 

In other news today was Jessica's last day of classes! She'll be coming home tomorrow for the summer. It will be nice having her home :)

I spent most of my day today judging the science fair again. Oh my some doozies again this year. Things to consider when your child is doing a science project. 

1.) If you are getting out your welder to help your 5th grader? This is no longer their science project.

2.) If you didn't even know your kid was doing a science project you are with at least 50% of the ones I saw today.

3.) If you are doing a science project there should be some kind of PROJECT not just things cut out that you printed off the internet.

4.) The science project is supposed to start off with a question. If you didn't ever ask and/or answer a question you don't get the blue ribbon.

(my favorite)

I ate a school lunch today. It was kind of gross. Pretty sure it was a lot of calories too even though it was on the "healthier" side. I turned down the cottage cheese, shredded lettuce and pulverized peaches. Oh and milk (white or chocolate -170 cal I looked ;))

I'd rather eat school lunch than sit in a cube all day though so it was worth it :) 

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Last Long Run and Mother's Day

I started out my Mother's Day by going for my last long run before my half. I started off feeling tired.I could feel myself breathing a little harder and by mile 5 I decided to walk a little bit and my step mom went on ahead. I was wearing a hat and I was telling Scott how I was hot and I was out of gas. He told me I should try taking my hat off and that helped a bit. One more thing to add to my "running" shopping list. Breathable hat.  I did a lot of alternating running with walking. I was feeling a little bit annoyed with myself but not too much. I know I can run ten miles without stopping. I know why I couldn't run ten miles without stopping.

1.) ate dinner too early the night before

2.) champagne the night before

3.) only hate a pb&j in the morning (usually have a banana right before too)

4.) it was hot

5.) I started too fast

I know I'll be fine next week for my half. It's probably going to still be hot even at 7am but I'm hoping it's just a tiny bit cooler. My friend is having a birthday party the day before so I'm sure I will get nice and carb loaded. 

When we got back in the car I was checking how bad my time was compared to the last time I ran 10 miles. 

ONE MINUTE SLOWER. 

yes one minute! So even though I did a bunch of walking I still made good time. Just goes to show you shouldn't beat yourself up too much.  I'm pretty sure I will be able to finish the half in 2:30. That is my first goal. My real goal is 2:15 but I'm not going to beat myself up for it.

After my run we went by Scott's Mom's house to give her a Mother's Day card and then home to take showers. Then we were off to my brother Joe's house for pancakes. Last year I had just started my diet and I ate cottage cheese while everyone else had pancakes. 

This year I ran 10 miles before I got there and I ate pancakes. Four to be exact.

It was a really nice day. The only thing that was missing was my Jessica who has finals all this week. And my nephew Tony who was with his Mom for the day. 

After pancakes we took a bunch of pictures

Me and Scott

Mom with some Grandkids. 

All the girls there

Baby Brother's Family

Mom & Ava

Me & Mom

Dad & Ava

Mom & her kids

.

Dad & Mom

2 of my 3 and me

After pictures and hanging out for awhile we changed into our swimsuits (I had just thrown mine in my purse just in case, glad I brought it!) and spent the rest of the day lounging around the pool.

My brother's "puppy" is getting rather large

Drank a few of these (so good but 199 calories each)

We stayed so long we ended up ordering pizza for dinner. It wasn't too long after we ate that I crashed and burned and was ready to go home. I slept all the way home and crawled into bed at 7:30. 

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Lazy Saturday

Saturday morning I woke up at six in the morning. I looked over and Scott was in the bed and I was like "OMG you're so late for work!" He kind of did a wha? and then I was like oh yeah it's Saturday. My bad.

Rolled over and went back to sleep until 8:30. That was like was like a weekend miracle. I hardly ever sleep in that long anymore. 

I got up and made some coffee. Scott got up and did a sink full of dishes and then made us breakfast. Then we all cleaned up the house a little bit. When we were done we went and took the paddle boat out on the lake for a bit. By we I mean Scott, Trevor and I. Melissa was too busy being social with her friends that spent the night.

My friend Traci was laying out on her floaty in the lake so we hung out around her for awhile until she decided to go in and then we paddled around the lake just long enough for everyone to start complaining and for me to realize just how hot it was out there. 

We paddled in and just tied up the boat to the dock and went home. We ordered us some lunch/dinner from the little store. I went to go get it and the car was pretty hot.

Why hello summer! Nice for you to join us! It got down to 99 by the time I got back from the store so it wasn't REALLY that hot. 

After eating I took a nice nap. I woke up and Trevor was OUT. His friend had spent the night (yes I had 3 extra kids here Friday night) so he was pretty beat.

He slept for a couple hours. 

Around 7:30 I went back down to my friend's dock and we loaded up the paddle boat. Scott went to the store to pick up some things (like my Mother's Day card, so slick) and I stayed and watched the sunset and had a glass of champagne. 

I used to totally take sunsets for granted but my friend has taught me to appreciate them more. Right as the sun was starting to go down a lone pelican landed on the lake. I couldn't get a good picture of him but you can kind of see him on the left if you squint.

 Oh that's pretty 

Oh that's REALLY pretty. My good sunset pic of the night :)

Scott came and picked me up after he got back and we went home and ate popcorn.

Melissa got this cool popcorn maker for Christmas and now we are all popcorn addicts.  

Rusty included.

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Trader Vic's With Mom

Yesterday I finally dragged myself to the doctor to get checked out. She said most likely it will take a couple of weeks for things to settle down and prescribed an anti-inflammatory. She gave me a form for an x-ray if I want to go get one done. Hopefully my headaches will go away soon and I won't need to.

My Mom and I went out to dinner last night to Trader Vic's in Emeryville. Neither of us had ever been there before. It was super fun to go to, especially after reading that Tiki book. 

I started the night with trying out some concealer on my face. Not perfect but 100% better!

Oh eyeliner and mascara I've missed you so much. You can take all the make up away but I gotta have my eye liner.

I've had this dress forever. It's one of the few surviving things from one other time I had lost weight. I've only worn it once and I remember it constantly riding up and having to pull it down over my stomach. Not so much now. I'm glad I didn't get rid of it!

To get to Trader Vic's it was a pretty straight shot down the freeway. For like an hour, but hey it was totallly worth it!

When we got there I was like why is all the parking lot coned off? We got up to the front where they were doing valet parking and I asked about free parking and he said that it's all valet and free. Feels so weird to leave my car with someone else but we got out and went inside. Yes I'm a small town girl haha.

I had made reservations for 7:15 on their website and we got there at 7. We were walked right to our table, which sadly wasn't in the window but still nice. I'm so going to request a window seat next time we go. It sits right on the water and has a fantastic view. 

It took us awhile to pick our drinks to try. If I hadn't been driving I would have tried at least one more since they were so fun!

I think I got one called Bahi or something like that. It had coconut rum in it. I love coconut yummm.

Mom got the Parrot something or other. I know she got it for the Parrot which came home with us. I was like MOM you stole the parrot??? She said she didn't think they would reuse them. Not so sure myself haha.

Mom got us an appetizer. These crab rangoons are the real deal, no fake crab. I'd take an order of those and the shrimp. The rib was good too but I liked the others more.

I got the surf and turf for dinner. It was really good. The meat was super tender. It came with a little bowl of white rice which I ended up mixing in with it. I brought about half of it home.

My Mom got a steak with potatoes. She said it was so tender.

Oh look a mirror in the bathroom.

The bar looks pretty fun too.

We sat there for a couple hours total and had a great time just hanging out. The service was great and so was the food. It's a bit more expensive than what we would usually spend but it's totally worth it for a fun night out. 

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Music Makes The Run

Tonight I had a 4 mile run to do.

Soooo not feeling like running I finally dragged myself out the door. Scott came with me and he was bouncing along about ten paces in front of me for quite awhile.

Voices in my head

My knees hurt
My neck hurts
I should have stayed home
I should walk
Can't walk Scott's with me
Look at him up there bouncing down the road like it's so easy
Like Tigger
Suck it up you can do it
Ugh .9 miles really?? That's it??
Take alternate route from yesterday that will help
Where the hell are we
Largest round about EVER
Boy this road is dark
POTHOLES
We're half way thank God
I'm sick of running
I'm going to quit running for like a week after my half
Maybe longer
Stupid training plan
I MISS THE GYM
Up the hill up the hill
OMG I LOVE THIS SONG
I got this
Ahhh this isn't so bad
I LOVE THIS SONG TOO
Even though its Justin Bieber
Melissa would be so ashamed
Scott's burning out
Not bopping around anymore
He's back there somewhere
LOVE THIS SONG TOO
Love when they play them all together
Guess I'll turn towards home almost done
STUPID CAR SLOW DOWN
Oh shit are they coming back to run me over??
Oh whew that was a different car
Probably shouldn't have yelled at them
DOG ON THE LOOSE
Thank you God it didn't chase me
I'm MADE for distance
I could run all day
Oh there we are 4 miles
Time to stop!

This successful run brought to you by



stupid video but the song is great for running



and once again



(in Scott's defense he rode his bike 20 miles today, I LOVE YOU MAN!)Pin It

Reading Running and...

I am in much better spirits today.
Yes my eye still looks like I'm wearing purple lip stick eye shadow

I put a little make up on it today (and where I scrubbed all the scabs off-they were flaking off so gross). Just about everyone at work said it was starting to look better. (picture before make up)

For breakfast today I had half a cantaloupe and cottage cheese. I finally got a ripe one and I had about 10 people tell me how good it smelled. I've found that when you are picking cantaloupes it helps to pic ones that have the least amount of green on them. 

I went for a walk on my lunch to Carl's Jr. 

It was so nice outside I was wishing I had my running shoes.

Today I signed Scott and myself up for the Big Sur Half Marathon. 

Last year we watched the race and I made it a goal of mine to run it this year. Scott wanted to do it too. It sells out so I was worried about not getting signed up in time, but we are registered now! I already know of three people running the race besides us. My step mom, my trainer from the gym and my best friend from when I was in 4th-9th grade (pretty stoked about that last one!)  It should be a great run! (even though I'm already thinking what are you doing stupid you're already exhausted from all this training for the half you are doing this month!)

After work I went to get Trevor's prescription for iron. Which was more difficult than I thought it was going to be because iron is over the counter. They wrote out a script for 15 mg 2x a day. The only thing that came with that small of a dose was some infant drops that were pretty pricey. 

I had a very nice pharmacist helping me decide which ones to go with. We eventually picked some 45 mg pills with the idea of cutting them in half. Of course when I got home I just had him swallow the whole thing. I'm pretty sure he'll be fine. I need to research iron pills/foods a bit. The pharmacist said he should eat more red meat which is kind of funny because I have been really cutting down on how much red meat we eat (mostly because it's too dang expensive!)

Once I got home I picked up my Kindle and FINALLY finished reading this book I started LAST YEAR. It was a book I had picked for the Christian book club that I was in (and then dropped out of).

I remember that I picked the book because it was categorized as a Christian book or author but really there wasn't anything religious about it except for the two times they went to church in the whole book.

The book was called In Leah's Wake and it was a story about a girl who basically went from being the star soccer perfect daughter to a drug doing homeless running from the law girl. Much of the story was about her sister, mother and father and how they dealt with the whole catastrophe.  Obviously it was like the best book ever since it took me a whole year to finish it. 

Lately it seems like all the books I read are sooo long. Like they put all this extra detail in there that they really don't need. I'm starting to think I need to read some Reader's Digest Condensed Books (remember those?)  for awhile. Cut the crap and get to the meat of the story. 

I was looking through my Kindle trying to decide what to read next since I've been in a  ignore the laundry reading mood lately. 

I settled on The Boy With The Striped Pajamas

Either Melissa or my Mom or both already read it and that's why it's on my Kindle (we are all on the same account). I remember seeing previews for the movie but I never saw it. I'm only on the 2nd chapter and it's pretty interesting. 

Scott and I also dragged ourselves out for our run. Today was supposed to be running with the training group but I'm not going to do those anymore (after last week) except for Sunday's long run (last one!). 

My knees were KILLING me when we first started out. Like 20 minutes worth of it. A lot of times it takes my legs about 2 miles to warm up and that is probably about how it was tonight too. Scott was only supposed to do a 30 minute run on his 5k-10k training but he did the whole 50 minutes with me. That's his longest run so far!

I had turned off all my runkeeper cues again except for an every 10 minute time cue. It's so nice to just run and not worry about your pace or how far you went. 

We were really slow starting out with my knees not cooperating but I felt like we picked up a little bit towards the end. And now I'm wide awake and it's 11:00. 

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I need some cheese to go with my WHINE

I've spent most of today in a funk.
This is really getting me down.

I mean, it's not like I can hide my face all day. 

Hello! Don't look at me!!  At lunch it took everything I had not to go inhale some donuts, chinese food, mexican and the pizza buffet.  It's a good thing no one brought in a box of donuts because I would have been climbing in that box and having a pity party for one.

I did get Scott to bring home some pizza for dinner though.  Mostly because 1.) who wants to cook when they are having a pity party and 2.) my friend came over to use our computer & printer. Much more fun to have pizza.  

My friend brought over a bottle of wine and that helped a bit. I am going to skip my run because I just don't feel like going. I'll go tomorrow. 

I told Scott we need groceries but I'm too embarrassed to go to the store. He said he'd go for me. That's love right there. 

If you need me I'll be snuggled up with my animals reading a book. They don't care that my face looks like a punching bag. 

ETA on a good note we got Trevor's blood test back today and he's just low on iron! They are going to prescribe him some iron pills and he should be good as new!


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Weekend Re-Cap, It's a Goodie.

Saturday morning we got up around eight and then I took Trevor in to get his blood work. The receptionist there was a total beotch. Seriously if you hate working with people you should NOT have a job where you have to deal with them. We got that done soon enough and then we came back home to Scott's wonderful weekend breakfast. Every weekend he makes us a big breakfast. I love it!

We then spent most of the day cleaning the house. I probably spent two hours in Trevor's room helping him clean. You can actually walk in there now and I've found all our missing forks.

That night we went and met some friends down at the bar to celebrate "Quatro de Mayo". They had a dinner but we just went down for the margaritas and Corona's. We spent most of our time sitting out on the porch. It was such a nice night. Perfect weather and for some reason no bugs!

We did go inside for a bit and did a bit of dancing and posing with these fun cut outs they had.

Scott and I had walked over and when we left we took the short cut through the field and Scott was giving me a piggy back ride. We were laughing and having a good time joking around.

Then I came to at home all scraped up?

Apparently I fell OVER his shoulders and totally knocked myself out! I don't remember falling or coming home. Somehow I took care of myself (even though later I got up to make sure I took my contacts out and I had), took some Advil, put my jammies on and slept with an ice pack on my head.

Scott said he though I had died at first. He said I was laying there and it took him awhile to get me to come to. He walked me home (the only part I remember of that was him saying "we're almost home"). Poor guy I scared the crap out of him.

I got up several times in the night to go to the bathroom, take more Advil, drink water, and put more ice on my head. I had my 12 mile run in the morning.

Probably pretty stupid on my part but I got up and felt ok so I went. Scott came with me and rode his bike. I told him if at any time I started to feel bad I'd sit down and he could come get me with the truck. Everything went just fine though and I did my first 12 mile run!!

TWELVE MILES!! I can hardly believe that I ran that. I did do a tiny bit of walking because I ran with my step mom and she does the 20 minutes of running 2 minutes of walking while you sip some fluids method of training. I was really looking forward to those after about mile 6. Knowing you get to walk for a couple minutes makes it much easier to keep on going. I did do a couple extra ones towards the end and she went on without me. I was totally ok with that though I was just so happy and proud of myself to be out there DOING IT! My body is amazing!!

After we got done we went over to Scott's Mom's house to take his sister to the train. Everyone was worried about my face which of course, makes you more aware that you are pretty messed up. I put some ice on it while we were at his Mom's and snapped this picture.

We took his sister to the train and then stopped to get some lunch. We found a Five Guys when we were looking for somewhere to eat. A lot of people had told me that it was pretty good so we tried it out. I ordered the bacon cheeseburger (I did just run 12 miles!) and we ordered a large fries to share (I really just wanted to split a small one but that is what he ordered). My bacon tasted over cooked almost burnt and the burger was pretty greasy. The fries were good though, although WAY too much. I ate a few and I was done. I think I like In & Out Burger better. Plus In & Out is way cheaper!


After lunch we decided to look for REI since they have the Wright socks that seem to help with my blisters. I only have one pair (those things are EXPENSIVE) so I needed to get a 2nd for when they are in the wash. Or you know, when the cat takes off with one and I can't find it. We found an REI and a Performance Bike AND another sporting goods store all in the same shopping area. We hit REI and then the bike shop and then I was pretty much done. So tired.

I slept for most of the ride home and then on and off after we got home until bed time. This morning I woke up and my eye felt swollen. I grabbed my phone and looked at my eye. F&ck me.

Can I just call into work "embarrassed"? I have no sick or vacation time and am already going to be a day and a half short from Trevor's little fiasco last week. Time to suck it up and put my big girl panties on and go to work. I thought about making up a great story about crashing my bike but I'm can't tell a lie to save my soul so I just went with telling people the truth on what happened. Any story that starts with "we walked to the bar" and ends with "I have a black eye" should be a good story for like EVER right?

Hopefully it doesn't take too long to go down. Everything hurt more today than yesterday and I really needed to lay down for a few minutes after work.

At last I know what I look like with purple eye shadow on now right?

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