Which 5 Percent Do We Own?

Losing (and Finding) My Religion (Again)

2011-01-18T22:45:00.000-05:00

From Christmas 2008 to July 2010, Brian and I went to church no more than 7 times. And...that's probably over-estimating. I know those of you who are Catholic are not pleased. :-)

As some background—Brian was raised Catholic and could probably count the number of times on two hands he missed Mass before he met me. I was raised Lutheran (ELCA) and my pre-college attendance wasn't quite as impressive as Brian's, but it was definitely up there. We were on the left side pew (about 7 rows back) at Mt. Olive most Sundays of the year.

Early into our relationship, we decided that regardless of what religion we were, we were going to do it together. None of this Laura's church and Brian's church.

Because we were living in Raleigh and Brian already had an established church, it made sense for us to go to his church. So we did. Pretty faithfully and it was good. Good enough that I decided to go through the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) process and become Catholic. So I did. The process lasted about a year and consisted of classes each Sunday morning. Brian took the classes with me and it was pretty good. Some of the days were boring, but some were really interesting. I enjoyed learning about the faith and felt confident in my decision. I didn't phone-in the experience. I really thought through it. I did a lot of reading and research. So, they let me in and I became Catholic (I think it was Nov. 2006.) After going to the church for a few months, Brian and I discussed that we didn't feel much of a connection to any of the priests. The parish is Jesuit and very large, which may or may not be what the problem was, but it wasn't a fulfilling experience for me. I think it was comfortable for Brian, but not fulfilling.

So, we set off for a couple of weeks and checked out a few other churches. And we found another Catholic church that we liked. The music was beautiful and the sanctuary was beautiful. (It was also a huge church.) And it was good. And then after a few months, it wasn't good. The same thing was happening for me—it wasn't fulfilling. The last time we went to that church was Easter 2010. The church was packed, we were stuck in the back, and I spent the whole time looking at everyone else's outfits and shoes. Afterward, Brian agreed that he wasn't into the service either. I thought to myself, what's the point? Why go if it's just a frustrating experience? Just go because I'm supposed to go at least once each weekend?

And we took a lot more time off. We definitely talked about church and going, but it never materialized. I know we both felt pressure and guilt. It wasn't good.

One night when we were driving home from dinner, we were discussing the possibility of eventually having children and we talked about how as we were growing up, we felt that going to church was an integral part of us becoming who we are. We knew that we wanted the same for any future, nonexistant children. I asked Brian if he would consider checking out another denomination and he immediately said yes. I told him that it didn't have to be Lutheran.

So, when we got home, we got online and did some denomination research and comparisons and we talked about what was important to us: a defined liturgy, a traditional worship experience, and good hymns. Our choices were pretty much: Catholic, Episcopal, or Lutheran. We checked out the faith statement on the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and talked about other things on their website. (I'm not lying either—we really did discuss it.) We decided that we both agreed and so we did some research on ELCA congregations and found Grace Lutheran on Six Forks Road. (This definitely isn't Hickory where there is a Lutheran church (or three) on every corner!) A few Sundays later we got dressed up real pretty and went to the 11 a.m. service.

When we got there, Brian was stoked to get a bulletin and a hymnal with the liturgy. We were also immediately welcomed by people as we walked through the door. (That type of experience had never happened at the Catholic churches. At least not for me and definitely not from strangers.) The pastor wasn't preaching that day and there was a guest pastor. He was really awesome. As we were leaving, a handful of people came up to us and recognized that we were guests and welcomed us and invited us back. It was weird—the people actually felt genuine. (I'm generally skeptical when I meet new people. Not so good, but true.) We also realized it was clearly a very small church, if that many people knew we were visitors. (There are about 100 people at each service: 8:15 a.m. and 11 a.m.) In the car, I asked Brian was he thought and he said, "I loved it!" (I did too—it felt like I was home. Lame, but true.)

We went back the next week and the pastor was back and we liked him just as much as the guest minister the week before. After the service, more people welcomed us and the pastor talked to us for a few minutes. The other thing that I loved was that each week before the service the pastor asked other people if they had any joys or concerns and people actually stood up and told things—car wrecks, surgeries, new babies, and children passing major tests. Brian and I just couldn't get over how genuine everyone was. (Brian was also a huge fan of the children's sermon. I have to admit, I had missed it too!)

We continued to go each week and eventually decided to join (after about a month) and it's going great. Brian is already involved with the worship and music team! One of the things we really like is that the minister is married and has (grown) children. It sounds like a minor point, but it's not (at least not to me). I feel like when he talks about the difficulties of life that he's really lived in the same real world as the rest of us. I think that's important to making religion accessible.

And that's where we stand. We're very happy, excited, and enthusiastic and we feel very welcomed. I'm sure there will be things that we don't like and things that annoy us, but as of right now it just feels right.

I'm also embarking on my read the Bible challenge again. I downloaded a One Year Bible on my Kindle and each morning I plug it in to my car radio and listen to it on the text-to-talk feature on my way to work. It's been a really good way to make my commute go more smoothly and seem productive. Each day consists of an Old Testament, New Testament, Psalms, and Proverbs reading. This afternoon, I also started listening to An Explanation of Luther's Small Catechism on the way home from work and it's really interesting. I studied it in Confirmation, back in 8th grade, but it's absolutely fascinating now after all I've gone through with my Catholic conversion and de-conversion.

For me, for the first time in a long time, I feel connected. I think Brian does too. (If he doesn't, he's a good liar. And, he's a horrible liar.)

Kitties!

2011-01-11T23:26:00.000-05:00

So, we've had the little guys since late August and they are such a wonderful addition to our family!!

A few pics of them right after they moved in

Mozart

Copland

All our babies together

Exploring the snow

Looking out the door

There are a few others in our Picasa Animals album: http://picasaweb.google.com/lsleblanc82/Animals

They are so sweet and are the most friendliest little kitties you've ever seen. The only thing they are scared of is the vacuum cleaner. Other than that, they're pretty fearless. They take on Gatsby all the time and love it when people come over.

They've grown quite a bit since we've gotten them—I'd estimate that they are probably 8–10 lbs. each and they were about 6.5 lbs. at their first vet visit in September. They are about 9 months old.

We can tell them apart because Mozart has a very defined M on his forehead. Copland's is a little less pronounced. (Now, we can also tell by their personalities!)

Mozart is the trouble maker and the snuggle bug. He loves to be held and rubbed all over. He's also obsessed with the sink and LOVES to play in the running water. He's a bit squatty-er than Copland and slightly less nimble. He often falls the first time he makes a difficult jump that Copland nails on the first try. Mozart and Gatsby wrestle with each other quite a bit. Gatsby seems to be rougher with him, but Mozart isn't scared of him. He has no problem standing his ground or rolling around with him on the floor. He's also a little piggy! When it's breakfast or dinner time, he starts meowing incessantly to get your attention and then runs in the direction of their food bowl. He keeps doing this until he leads you to food. He's also a mega-purrer! :-)

Copland HATES being picked up, but he loves to crawl up in your lap on his terms. When I work from home, he climbs up between me and the computer and rests his head on my stomach. He also purrs a lot and loves to knead into my arms. He's very, very nimble and curious. The other night he cleared a 4.5 ft. vertical jump on the first try and he's always trying to dart into doors right before you close them. A couple of times he's found his way into the pantry and then you'll see him carrying off a granola bar! We also have to keep the garage door closed all the time because he always tries to escape into the garage.

We didn't have to do any type of litter training for them—we just showed them their little litter box igloo and they were all set. We keep them in a bedroom, separated from Gatsby when we're gone for a long time or overnight (they can't sleep with us because they like to jump on Gatsby or attack our feet!). We keep a baby gate leaning up against the door to their room all the time because if not Gatsby will eat all their food. The kitties just run under it.

Their favorite toys are cardboard boxes and a hula-hoop-type ring with a ball stuck inside it that they can bat around over and over and over and over.

Brian and I absolutely adore them and Gatsby has gotten much better about not getting too jealous when the kitties are getting attention. :-)

All About Brian

2010-11-06T12:27:00.001-04:00

Today's post is dedicated to Brian:

(Goofing off at the Cracker Barrel in Smithfield waiting for a table.)

The last three months have been very good to Brian. Very good.

As most of you know, for the past few years Brian had been hosting the "Saturday Evening Request Program" a few times a month at the local classical music station. As he was talking with people there, he found out that they were integrating a new computer system to help improve the efficiency of the station and the program that they would be using was one that he was very familiar with from his "real" job. So Brian worked for about two months on that project and helped get everything set up.

As the project began coming to an end, it became evident that they would need someone on a more than part time basis to run a section of the system and Brian was offered a full-time job there (his official title is Traffic Manager).

YAY, BRIAN! This was very, very exciting because Brian has always wanted to end back up there working full time. He loves the station's mission and loves the music. In addition to the technical aspects of the job, he's also the permanent on-air substitute announcer and still hosts the request program on Saturday nights twice a month.

He LOVES his new job and the work he's doing. (It's been so nice to have him come home from work EXCITED about what he did during the day, rather than talking about how bored he was all day.)

He also continues to "moonlight" as the Hurricanes press box and locker room reporter.

In other exciting news, Brian is going back to school to finish his degree. He'll be back at THE North Carolina State University and working to finish his B.A. in English (journalism concentration). He'll take 3 classes during the semesters and probably 2–3 classes during the summer sessions and should be done in Fall 2012 (assuming, of course, that he can get all the classes he needs, when he needs them).

He'll be supplementing his on-campus classes with distance education courses. In spring 2011, he'll be taking Introduction to Spanish (FLS 101) and History of the Word Since 1750 (HI 233) on the Web and then Introduction to Editing (ENG 214) on campus on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. His new employer is very supportive of him finishing his degree and doesn't have any problems if he takes classes during the work day, as long as he still works 40 hours each week (which is really easy since he hosts SERP twice a month).

He's excited to get back in the "school" groove and is definitely looking forward to wrapping up his degree. (I, as the resident school geek, am very excited to buy new books and school supplies and find out everything he's learning.) :-)

Yay, Brian!!!

Marine Corps Marathon Photos

2010-11-06T12:18:00.001-04:00

http://picasaweb.google.com/lsleblanc82/MarineCorpsMarathon

That is all.

OORAH!

2010-11-03T23:51:00.002-04:00

[I hope y'all are having a boring day at work because this is going to be long!]

Marine Corps Marathon? DONE!

I took Friday off from work so that I'd have plenty of time to pack and I got up right about 8 a.m. I had to do some laundry, run the sprinklers (7 sprinklers x 15 mins. each), and pack for me and Brian and then make it to lunch at noon for my friend Maggie's bridal lunch and bridesmaid dress shopping (more on that in a future post). I got all that accomplished and then made it off to lunch in time.

My dad was set to arrive at our house at 4:15 p.m. So when I got home around 4, I packed up the food and drink cooler and got Gatsby packed for Suite Paws and the kitties' room ready for their home alone weekend. When dad got here, we packed all our stuff into his car, loaded Gatsby in the backseat, dropped Gatsby off at Suite Paws, and then headed to WCPE's studios in Wake Forest to pickup Brian.

[I should also mention here that my brother-in-law Clay wasn't able to run the marathon. He started having knee problems about a month out from the marathon and had to pull himself out. Pretty crappy timing, but he's concentrating on rehabbing his knee and hopes to run the Myrtle Beach Marathon in February.]

We got to Richmond around 8 p.m. and picked up my uncle at his house and then headed out to a local Italian restaurant for dinner. We spent the night in Richmond (going to bed pretty early) and then left Saturday morning for D.C. around 10 a.m.

We stayed at a Hampton Inn in Alexandria and after checking into our rooms, we headed to downtown D.C. to the MCM Expo. The expo itself was crowded, but very well organized. Getting to the expo was absolute hell. It was occurring at the same time as the Comedy Central rally with Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart and it was a huge pain in the ass. There were so many flippin' people in D.C.--pedestrians, cars, traffic cops, and not nearly enough parking spaces. Thank goodness we had Brian who was driving and knows D.C. very well. After about AN HOUR we found a parking space in a parking garage and then walked to the expo. We picked up our bibs, shirts, and goodie bags and then walked through some of the vendor booths. Then we bailed because we were starving and eventually found a ridiculously packed (tiny!) Quiznos where we waited about 20 minutes to get our sandwiches and then sat at a table in the corner by the bathrooms. Yuck.

After lunch, Brian took us out to the course start and we drove as much of the course as we could. We drove most of it, but had to cut out a few places because of the the crazy crowds. Driving the course was REALLY helpful. While we were driving, we also had dad's iPhone on speakerphone and we were listening to the Appalachian game via a phone call to mom who had her phone by the computer speakers. It worked wonderfully!

We eventually made it back to the hotel to decompress for a bit and then headed out to pick up Brian's parents and go out to dinner (Italian, again!). Dinner was really good! Afterward, we took Mike and Barb back to the Metro station, bought our passes for Sunday, and then headed to Harris Teeter to buy a few things for Sunday morning breakfast. When we got back to the hotel, I laid out everything I needed for in the morning and packed my "checked" bag for after the race.

I went to bed around 10:30 and laid there until about 11. Then I fell asleep and didn't wake up until my alarm went off at 4:50! I woke right up and got dressed. I wore black capri tights, a gold Livestrong longsleeve shirt, and a custom-made (yay, CafePress!) black t-shirt (and a bright pink headband). The t-shirt said "Breathe In, Breathe Out, Keep Running" on the front and "Laura" and "Marine Corps Marathon 10.31.2010" on the back. I purposely wanted my name on the shirt so that people could cheer for me by name (though, when I make another one, I will have my name on the front AND the back). I also wore bright red velour pants and a red snowflake sweatshirt that I bought from Goodwill over my running outfit to keep warm before the race. I discarded those (purposely hideous) clothes right before the start and the MCM people picked them up and donated them to charity.

After I got dressed I ate breakfast, which consisted of a whole wheat bagel smeared with peanut butter, a banana, and some Gatorade. I also took two Endurolyte pills, which are filled with electrolytes to help reduce cramping. (I've had calf cramping during some of my longer runs, especially when it was hot.) We left the hotel at 5:30 a.m. and Brian dropped us off at the Metro. Brian told us exactly where to go and a train arrived right as we got to the platform. We hopped on and then it dawned on us that we didn't double check that it was the right train (fortunately it was!). We rode a few stops and then got off at the Pentagon. We then had to walk about 20 minutes in the dark around the Pentagon to get to the parking lot where the Runner's Village was located; we also had to go through security at this point.

The marathon gave us a clear bag that we put a sticker on that had our bib number on it that allowed us to check our post-race clothes. We went to UPS truck no. 27 and checked our bags. The UPS drivers drove the trucks to the finish where we were able to pick up our belongings. This worked WONDERFULLY. It allowed Brian to have to bring minimal stuff with him for us (just our cell phones and wallets).

After we checked our bags, we walked to start line (at Arlington) to find our corral (you line up based on expected finish time) and we waited. When we got to the start line it was still completely dark, but fairly shortly the sun started to rise. It was BEAUTIFUL. A great sunrise on a crisp Sunday morning. (It was about 45°.) I drank another Gatorade and ate a Strawberry Yogurt Zone Perfect Bar (about 200 calories). More and more runners started arriving and eventually it was time to lineup. We heard the national anthem (I cried) and chatted with some of the people around us. Then we heard the start cannon (how bad ass is that?) and off we went.

Haha. Just kidding. There were 31,000 runners and we were probably three quarters of the way back in the start crowd, so it took us about 20 minutes to cross the start line. Dad and I walked to the start in a big mass of people, gave each other a final hug, wished each other luck, and then off we went for real!!!

I crossed the start. I was running a marathon. Holy crap, what was I thinking!?!? :-) I was SO excited. Then, I looked to the right and saw the backs of probably 15 runner guys peeing in the woods (a mere 50 yards from the start line). Sentimental personal moment over. HAHAHA. Some lady beside me commented, "That's totally just nerves!" Me, "Yup, but it sure does suck to be a girl."

The first 8 miles or so are mostly flat, but do have 3 pretty serious hills. I ran the first few hills conservatively, killed it on the downhills, and enjoyed the run. There were TONS of spectators and even more runners and lots of people shedding excess clothes.

Between miles 3 and 4, there was a big hill. I decided to walk up it and take one of my GU gels and drink some of my Gatorade/water mix (from my $1 Hello Kitty water bottle that I bought from Target). After I was fueled, I crossed a bridge that took us from Arlington into Georgetown.

Oh my goodness. There were SO many spectators in Georgetown and they were going crazy. It was incredible. It actually made me choke up to think that they were cheering for me. We turned left and headed into a wooded area that followed the Potomac. The crowds thinned out and as I was running out, other runners were heading back in---they were about 2-4 miles ahead of me. And I heard one of them shout, "HEY! LOOK AT THE TURTLES!" OMG, I thought, what a complete jackass. Who the hell says that? Usually runners are so nice. And then three guys dressed as Ninja Turtles ran past me (it was Halloween afterall). HA! The runner community was redeemed.

We made a sharp turn, ran/walked up a big hill, and headed back through Georgetown where the crowds were just as insane. The Georgetown Hoyas cheerleaders were out in full uniform and pompoms! People were BLASTING music and it was like a huge block party. There were also a lot of fraternities out cheering. Tons of great signs. One of the stores had a two story banner hanging down that said, "RUN LIKE YOU STOLE YOUR SHOES!" It was awesome and I felt GREAT. (I also abandoned my Hello Kitty water bottle in Georgetown.)

Then we started moving into downtown D.C. (running by the Watergate Hotel) and I took another gel. The crowds thinned out a bit, but there were still some good, loud spectators. I then turned my focus to Brian because I knew I'd see him at mile 10. Well, mile 10 came and no Brian and I was bummed and then I remembered he said it would be BETWEEN miles 10 and 11, so I kept looking for him and then I saw him in his BRIGHT orange Cleveland Browns shirt. He was looking for me, but didn't see me, so I screamed LEBLANC and he looked over. I slowed down to a walk and he encouraged me and told me that he had missed seeing my dad, but that he was tracking us both on his laptop and that we were doing great! It was so wonderful to see him. It really kept my spirits up. We said goodbye and I told him I'd see him at mile 16.

Then the course went out on this LONG-ASS peninsula thing that was BORING. It was gorgeous, but there weren't a ton of spectators. I crossed a water station and took another gel. After I finished my water, I remembered that I needed to take more Endurolytes, but I was 3 miles away from a water stop. So (at a risk of TMI) I sucked up as much spit as I could and swallowed each vitamin-sized, chalky pill sans water. Fortunately, I can do this really easily. I was definitely starting to get a bit tired, so I started walking and running. (The race has a 14 minute/mile pace requirement until you get to mile 20 because you have to "beat the bridge" and make it over an Interstate bridge by a certain time so that they can reopen it to traffic.) I was running at about an 11:30 pace, so I knew I could afford to walk some, though I tried to keep my pace right around 14 minutes. I'd make deals with myself like, "OK, run until you get to the next water station(or mile marker, or whatever)." I got to the half-marathon point right around 2 hours and 30 minutes and tried to figure out what my finish time could be. I knew it wouldn't be under 5 hours, but I thought under 5:30 was plausible. At the end of the peninsula, as I was turning back toward the National Mall, we saw Marine One heading toward the White House and some guy screamed, "OBAMA, I LOVE YOU MAN." I was also near this older lady who looked to be in her late 60s/early 70s. We kept passing each other as we were walking and running at different intervals. She was rocking it!

As we would go past different 5K splits, there would be a clock that was based on the gun time (remember I started 20 minutes after the gun) and then I started freaking out because I knew I had been walking and I was scared that the "beat the bridge" pace was based on the gun time and that I wasn't going to make it and not get to finish. So I really focused. I tried to run as much as I could and looked forward to seeing Brian at mile 16. When I found him, he was with his parents and there was a HUGE crowd of people. So I stopped and talked to them for about a minute. They told me that my dad was about 5 minutes ahead of me and was looking good. Then off I went!

At this point, I was running around the National Mall and I swear to y'all we passed that dang Washington Monument 11ty-billion times. Miles 16-20 took FOREVER as I alternated between walking and jogging. The crowds were great, but I didn't think it would ever end and I was so focused on that damn bridge time that I really didn't enjoy the sights. At each water stop, I'd take a Powerade cup and two water cups and take a gel. I also took two more Endurolytes. I also saw some lady bawling at one point and screaming "I CAN'T GO ON!" and her husband (who was pacing her) was trying to encourage her. I felt really bad for her. I ran pretty solidly from mile 18 to mile 19 and then ran/walked to mile 20 (I knew this point that I was going to make the bridge).

When the bridge started there was a huge sign that said, "THIS BRIDGE IS YOUR BITCH!" and that made me laugh out loud. I also cheered for myself and everyone else. I KNEW at this point that I was going to finish. My left hip hurt and my feet were on fire, but I knew I was going to finish. The bridge took about 2 miles and pretty much never seemed to end. And, I'm not going to like y'all, I knew I was going to finish, so I pretty much walked that whole bridge. I may have jogged for maybe 3 minutes total. Everyone else was walking too. There was no energy and no spectators (it's literally an Interstate HOV bridge) with Interstate traffic on each side.

When the bridge ended, we were in Crystal City and there was a two mile out and back. And this part also took a very long time and it was frustrating on the "out" b/c you could see all the people ahead of you coming "back." The one thing that really kept me going was that I knew I should see my dad because he was ahead of me. There were good crowds here. Finally, I saw my dad and he saw me at the exact same time. We were so happy to see each other. It was awesome. We KNEW we were both going to finish and that was the most important thing. I gave him a quick hug and when I lifted up to hug him my left calf started cramping. We said goodbye and I popped some more Endurolytes (sans water) and continued onward. The "back" portion was a lot more fun because I was able to see all of the people behind me.

I got to the mile 24 marker and water stop and had to decide if I could make it in under 5:30. I did some mental math and knew that I'd have to run the rest of the way at an 11 min/mile pace. I probably could have done it, but I didn't have enough will. I think somewhere back on that bridge, I had subconsciously decided that finishing was enough for me that day and time wasn't important. So, I continued walking and jogging. I should also point out that the course is measured on straight lines at the shortest distance you could possibly run, so because of all the people and the weaving you have to do, I actually ran 26.4 miles (dad actually ran 26.6!). As I got to the last 0.5-0.75 of a mile I busted ass until I hit 26.2 on my Garmin and then I hit stop. Then I walked for a few seconds and came into the entrance of Arlington, which is a big hill and is the last .2 miles of the race. There were tons of crowds and bleachers set up at the finish. There was also a Comcast video camera filming people on a HUGE screen. I summoned all my energy, ran as hard as I could, and crossed the finish.

I was smiling, I was happy, and I WAS DONE. And I saw my dad waiting.

I was given a foil blanket to help keep warm and we walked through a finisher chute where a Marine put a finisher medal around my neck and we went up to the Marine War Memorial where we got our finisher photos made. We took a picture separately and then one together. We walked over to the grass, sat down, and did some stretching. We walked toward the Finish Festival and saw Brian and his parents, all the while deconstructing the race.

At the Finish Festival we picked up our checked bags and went into a building lobby to change.

**DISCLAIMER: If you're easily nauseated by blood, etc., skip this next paragraph.**

I took off my shoes and socks and holy moly did my feet look bad. Fortunately for y'all, I didn't take a picture (I thought Brian was going to puke.) I had 4 blisters, two of of which were the size of a quarter (and one of those was filled with water and blood). My two "index" toes were in bad, bad shape. They had blood blisters all over them and the two toenails had completely worked themselves loose. One is now completely dislocated from my toe bed (held in only by a blister at the top) and the other one will fall out at any time. Both will be gone very soon. (Don't worry, I'm taking good care of everything and keeping it wrapped up.) The blisters are all almost healed, but the toes are still quite painful.

**DISCLAIMER OVER**

After changing, we walked around a bit and saw the seriously long line for the Metro (a block and a half long). We decided to grab something to eat at the festival and dad wanted to do some shopping, so Brian and I camped out on a bench. After about an hour, the Metro lines thinned out and we headed back to the hotel. We each took a long bath and then went out to dinner at a place called Hops (interestingly, I wasn't too hungry), but my meal was delicious. We also went to Baskin Robbins for ice cream!

Monday morning we slept in, ate breakfast in the hotel, and then headed home, stopping in Richmond at the Cracker Barrel. YUM!

Final Thoughts

This race was incredible. The coolest thing I've ever done. We're definitely planning to run it again next year! Now that we know what to expect and all of the logistics involved, dad and I know exactly what we need to do to train (hill workouts and speed runs!). We also both need to lose more weight. I HAVE to lose at least 25 lbs. before I'll be at a really good weight for running.

The United States Marine Corps is awesome. This race was so well organized. The water stations were well-manned and never empty. The Marines were so encouraging, as were all the spectators. It was amazing to have a Marine tell you how inspirational you were or how great you were doing.

It's amazing how many different types of people I saw running the race. Many different shapes, sizes, and ages. And lots of people running for charity or for fallen or active duty military. My dad even saw a lady with a shirt that said, "10/15/2010: Finished Chemo; 10/31/2010: Running Marine Corps Marathon." This race was a true testament of the human spirit and what the body can do!

It sucks to be a girl. Guys just peeled off at will during the race and peed wherever they wanted! Some girls did too, but I figured that I would pee all over myself! I was so worried about my time during the first 20 miles that I wasn't going to stop until I crossed the bridge (all of the portapotty lines were long!). When I got done with the bridge, I just had 4.2 miles left, so I figured I'd just hold it. At the end, it wasn't easy to find a portapotty so I ended up waiting until about 1.5 hours after I finished before I found a bathroom. So I didn't pee from 7:15 a.m. until about 3 p.m. and I drank A LOT of water and Propel. Pretty crazy!

Brian was incredible. He drove us around all day Saturday, spent all day Sunday on his feet cheering and tracking us, and then drove us home on Monday. It really helped to have him there. He was an A#1 crew member.

It was so very nice of Mike and Barb to come up and cheer for us. They also had to do a lot of walking and waiting on Sunday and it really meant a lot. They were excellent cheerleaders and so supportive!

The professional photographers on the course were everywhere! I'll have lots of pictures to post when I'm able to download them!!

I pretty much was a hobbling mess the rest of Sunday, all day Monday, and all day Tuesday. Today, my quads are still sore, but I can walk normally. My toes are definitely still sore and I won't be able to run until they heal a bit more. I'm hoping to take a short walk tomorrow.

Final Numbers

Gun Time: 5:54:53 | Chip Time: 5:37:01 | Garmin 26.2 Time: 5:33:46

Garmin Stats: http://bit.ly/dq4S3r

I can't wait until next year! I will be ready to rock out a strong PR!

Posts forthcoming, topics within

2010-10-27T22:50:00.000-04:00

I have pretty much been the worst blogger in the history of blogging for the past few months. I want to get back into the swing of things, so in the next few weeks I'm planning to do some serious blogging. We have been BUSY. Topics I plan to cover (in no particular order) are as follows:

Two new additions to the family: our kitties Copland and Mozart
Summer beach trips
Marine Corps Marathon (this Sunday--OMG!)
What's next after MCM (did someone say doughnuts?)
Brian's new job at WCPE (YAY!)
Aerating and overseeding our lawn
App. football games
Kickball and two softball seasons (and why chips and salsa are bad news)
Our good friends Adam and Maggie who just moved into our neighborhood (and who are getting married next October--Brian and I have been honored to be included in their wedding!)
Upcoming Thanksgiving cruise to Key West and Cozumel with Brian's parents
High school class reunions
New treadmill
New church and denomination change--we are Lutheran now

And probably a few more that I forgot about...

HELL NO, HE WON'T GO!!!

2010-06-01T23:43:00.001-04:00

Do you see a resemblance?

Sally Field playing Norma Rae, a textile worker who tried to unionize her mill, in the 1979 movie.

Gatsby LeBlanc, a dog who stayed at Suite Paws while his mommy and daddy went on vacation over Memorial Day who got mad that he had to eat out the Suite Paws issued food bowl and went on hunger strike.

Yes, that's right. Our little Gatsby did not eat ONE meal (though the peeps at SPs did hook him up with tons of treats) from Friday night to Tuesday night because he didn't like the metal food bowl. When Brian picked him up and brought him home, he came in and ate dinner like it was no problem.

Point taken, Gatsby LeBlanc. Next time you go to Suite Paws your blue bowl will go as well.

Clearly Master LeBlanc has been taking lessons from his Aunt Callie who tried to launch a kindergarten insurrection in Mrs. Wofford's class at Clyde Campbell Elementary School when she refused to take the fluoride swish and had to be forcefully removed from the classroom when her teacher was fearful that all of the kindergartners would revolt and cavities would rule the planet.

Like his influential role model some 20 years before, Gatsby LeBlanc was removed from the Suite Paws premises before other doggies could be so dangerously influenced by his hunger strike.

IAMS and Purina One are most grateful.

And Aunt Callie hasn't swished since.

May has been good to the LeBlancs!

2010-05-28T00:02:00.002-04:00

Ten years ago Brian and I graduated from high school (Brian's reunion is next weekend [super excited for a good opportunity to wear my hot blue dress!] and mine is in August).

My best friend Shannon, my good friend Mary (St. Stephens High School '00 valedictorian), and me after our high school graduation. I was ranked no. 8. Not that I remember or have my transcript upstairs in plastic covering or anything. Just sayin'.

Brian didn't have any digitized high school graduation pics. Don't worry...he looked just as silly as I did in those dumb robes.

Seven years ago I was fixin' to hop on a plane and head to France for 5 weeks:

Atop the Eiffel Tower. Realizing for the first time that I was homesick for a boy and not my parents. (Sorry mom and dad.)

Four years ago today, we were walking down the aisle at our cute little Oak Island chapel:

And then driving home the next day for Game 5 of the NHL Eastern Conference Finals.

This next picture wasn't taken in May, but here we are with the Stanley Cup one month later, right after we got back from our honeymoon (I'd show you a picture from our honeymoon, but someone dropped the camera during the lifeboat drill):

One year and 363 days ago we went from:

to:

I sure hope everything doesn't go to hell when our two year "Fit and Finish Warranty" expires Saturday.

And, one year and five days ago, my baby sister got married and Brian and I were both honored to be a part of it:

I hope all of our future Mays are this good!

Kick and Softballs

2010-05-19T00:03:00.000-04:00

Another kickball season has come and gone and we doubled our success. Yes, sir! Last season, we had 1 win. This season, we had 2 wins!!!!!

Hahahahaha. So, we suck, but we had a great time and a fantastic team. A lot of our people are planning to come back next season (in the fall), so we're hoping that not having too much turnover will help us for season 3.

The last few games of the season, Coach Brian moved me from the outfield to the infield (second and third bases) and I really started enjoying playing defense. I made some good, solid plays (catching line drives and popflys) and now I'm really pumped for next season.

I also got better at kicking and did well at sacrificing myself to advance the boys who were already on base in front of me.

Brian also got a lot better. He had some great kicks and got on base quite a bit.

I got so into it that I bought some cleats! I found them at Target; they're actually for girls (they're black and pink) and were on clearance for $4.75!

So, all that kickball nonsuccess got in my blood and after a trip to the Frankie's Fun Park batting cages, my friend Adam convinced me to sign up to play on his coed softball team (also with the Town of Knightdale).

I became a proud member of Team Get Dirty, even though I'm scared of getting hit by the ball.

And tonight was our first game.

And I got hit by the ball.

On a ground ball in the shin, not too hard. And it hurt. Hurt really bad. But I didn't cry and I didn't die and I picked up the ball and threw it in and that was that (except my shin still hurts; really bad).

So, now I'm not quite so scared of the ball. In fact, I even caught a popup that made it to me in the outfield. I even surprised myself. In fact, after I caught it, I said "OH-MY-GOD-I-CAUGHT-IT!!!" :-) I'm such a lame girl.

My first at bat I hit it into the infield and got out running to first. My second at bat I struck out on foul balls. And my third at bat I got a base hit! And actually got cycled around on the bases to third! That was very exciting!!!

So my goals for softball are to continue improving my fielding and throwing speed. (After my popup catch, I dropped one that I shouldn't have.) I also want to improve my base running speed. Oh yeah, and I'm still keeping my goal of "Don't Die." I think that's the best one.

I'd also like to not get hit by the ball again, so I think I'll buy knee-high socks so that I'll look like a real softball player and the other teams will be so intimidated that they'll hit it away from me. ;-)

Sure, that will work.

MCM training officially started this past weekend with a six mile run. I also became a crazy person and agreed to do a 208-mile relay in the mountains of NC and VA with 11 other people in September. You can read about that race on my running blog.

That's pretty much my life.

Gatsby Dog!

2010-04-11T16:27:00.004-04:00

Brian and I have always talked about how we wanted to find a good, spacious place to take Gatsby where he could run around off-leash. We can take him to a dog park and he does fine there, but he still gets a little intimidated by the other dogs, so we wanted a place where we could take him where he could run around solo. It also needed to be a place that's fenced in because he would definitely make a break for it if he saw a pepperoni truck drive by. :-)

So, when we started playing kickball, we realized that the field that we play on would be perfect as an impromptu, massive dog run. It's completely gated and usually pretty desolate on the weekends. (It's also not a super incredibly nice field, so it's not like we're taking him out at Knightdale High School or something.)

We took him this afternoon and he had the BEST time. He ran around so fast and played fetch with Brian. After about 20 minutes of crazy-fast running, he collapsed into the grass and just rolled around. It was too cute. He also drank a TON of water from this cool water bottle that we bought at REI last month.

We took a few pictures (http://picasaweb.google.com/lsleblanc82/GatsbyAtEWMS) and two good videos:

It was a fantastic Sunday afternoon!

Fleming's | Southern Ideal Home Show | Kickball

2010-04-10T21:33:00.000-04:00

Friday night, Brian and I decided that we wanted to go out to a fancy schmancy dinner because we hadn't been on one as a date in a very long time and it's always fun to spoil yourselves! So, we decided to go to Fleming's (one of the new restaurants at Crabtree). It was VERY good. Though, honestly, I would have probably loved it no matter what because the hostess totally made my week when we got there. I was wearing my cute blue dress that I bought in New York with a half-sweater and my favorite heels. Anyways, the hostess was like "girl, you look beautiful. I just love that dress." And then said it again when we got to the table. She might be my most favorite person in the whole world this week. It was just such an unexpected compliment and totally made my night. The dress is kinda short, so I was feeling a little bit weird (I'm just not used to showing that much skin) and I annoyed poor Brian like 3 times before we left to make sure it looked OK.

So, anyway, the dinner was delicious. They served really good bread and I started with the Fleming's Salad (seasonal greens, candied walnuts, dried cranberries, tomatoes, and croutons with a lemon vinaigrette). My main entrée was a tuna mignon (cooked rare) served with a vinaigrette, halved cherry tomatoes, and three (yes, three) asparaguses. Brian had a prime ribeye and we split some parmesan peppercorn mashed potatoes (all sides are served à la carte). For dessert, we split the chocolate lava cake (rich chocolate cake with a molten chocolate center, served with vanilla ice cream and homemade whipped cream). So yummy. I very much love food. :-)

***

This afternoon, I went with Mike and Barb to the Southern Ideal Home Show at the State Fairgrounds.

I had a good time with them and we even saw Kevin's girlfriend Blair, who was wo-maning the TWC booth.

Other than that, I have to say that I was unimpressed. There were a ton of vendors, but I really didn't see anything new or exciting. There were some cool landscaping stands and some fun swinging hammock things, but everything else had all been done before.

And no one really had any good tips or ideas: it was mostly just here's our product and here's what it looks like installed. :-/

I think Mike and Barb got some good contacts on some different things that they want to do around their house and I wasn't really looking for anything specific, so maybe that's why I was unimpressed. However, I was looking for some cool ideas on landscaping the plant beds in our front yard, but there really wasn't a ton of that kinda stuff. Most of the outdoor stuff was on building patios. I also would have liked to see more cool organization stuff (closet and kitchen organizers, etc.), but there were only a couple booths on that and they were pretty weak.

Maybe I'm just more a fan of going to concept and idea homes to get ideas. Maybe I need the presentation inside the home to get the full effect!

This was the first time I'd ever been in any of the buildings at the fairgrounds (Dorton Arena, the Jim Graham Building, and the Exposition Center), so that was pretty cool.

Oh yeah and evidently I live in a utopia because it never even dawned on my that I might have to pay get in (I'm an idiot). Fortunately, Brian's parents spotted me $9. The sucky thing is that I had a ton of cash yesterday (from winning my March Madness bracket pool at work!), but used it all at the Teeter last night because I hate carrying cash!

***

We are playing kickball again with the Town of Knightdale. We have almost a completely different team (only 2 people from last season are back). I really like our team this time. Lots of really friendly people and we're all trying very hard. Bless our hearts.

Basically, we suck. We're 2-4 on the season at the halfway point. We may improve for the second half of the season, but if we don't, "oh well." It's fun and good exercise.

Thursday I caught a popfly in the outfield (catching popflys is actually more difficult than it seems). I'm pretty sure no one thought I'd catch it. Even the other team complimented me on the catch! It also was a damn good thing I caught it because there were two people on base who definitely would have scored! I also had a good kick to get on base. Yay, me.

New Running Blog!

2010-04-10T00:30:00.000-04:00

Just a quick update to let y'all know that I started a new blog:

Runnin' Southern - http://runninsouthern.blogspot.com/

To my 4 readers on this blog: Don't worry! I'm still keeping this one going, but I'm hoping to not bore y'all to tears about running minutia. (If you want to be bored to tears, definitely subscribe to my other blog!)

I figure this way I can focus this blog on personal things going on in life and keep the new blog just for running.

I want to get more involved in the running blogging community and don't want those folks to have to filter through personal posts about Brian and I jetting off to the beach or to App. games.

Go big or go home!

2010-04-07T23:14:00.001-04:00

That's what my sister told me when I solicited comments from my Twitter and Facebook friends a few weeks ago about the Marine Corps Marathon.

So, this morning, at 11:36, I went big (and stayed home): I am officially registered for the 35th Annual Marine Corps Marathon on 10/31/2010 and I am SO PUMPED about it. Dad and brother (-in-law) Clay are also registered!

Technically, registration wasn't supposed to start until noon, but because I'm a fantastically OCD fool about this kinda stuff, I knew when it opened early at 11:30! (I clicked that refresh button a lot!) While I was registering, I was e-mailing and texting Dad and Clay so that they could get their registrations in early.

The MCM had 30,000 spots open today (they've already filled other spots with military registration and other early qualifiers) and it does typically sell out, although it usually takes a week or so, so I wasn't really worried that we weren't going to get in, but we all wanted to make sure we got in as soon as possible. It's the 5th largest marathon in the country. More than 11,000 people had signed up by 8 p.m. tonight!

Twenty of the 26 miles are flat and nearly all of the hills are within the first 8 miles. Unfortunately, it ends going uphill, but I've heard that it's a short hill and that you're so pumped by the crowd that your adrenaline pulls you through.

The course starts in Arlington and hugs the Potomac River for a lot of it. It goes by the National Mall and hits up a lot of the major D.C. sites, ending at the Iwo Jima Memorial. Because it's run by the Marines, it has really good organization and the Marines staff the course and the aid stations, which is very cool. Official Course Map.

Each runner is also "trackable" with technology. Spectators can sign up for e-mail or text message alerts that track the start and finish times as well as each 5K during the race. There's also an online map that tracks runners in real-time on a course map. Very cool stuff!

I am so incredibly excited to have my first marathon as a big time one. I'm really looking forward to having a big crowd of spectators through a lot of the course. Hopefully the weather will be good. The average high is 63° and the average low is 44° for October 31, which is an ideal temperature range for running.

The three of us are using the same training schedule and it was created by running coach Jeff Galloway (a former member of the U.S. Olympic Track Team and a contributor to Runner's World). This is the same guy who created the half-marathon training schedule that I used and that worked wonderfully. It's not too time intensive: just two 3-4 mile runs during the week and then a long run on the weekend. As the training distances get closer to marathon distance, the longest runs are three weeks apart. Long (and HOT) runs will be as follows:

July 10: 12 miles
July 24: 14 miles
Aug. 7: 17 miles
Aug 28: 20 miles
Sept. 18: 23 miles
Oct. 9: 26 miles

Because I'll be looking at long runs (2-4 hours at a time) in the hottest part of the summer, I'm planning to get up early on those Saturday (or Sunday) mornings to get the runs in (starting at like 6 a.m.). There's no way I could get through those during the day and no one wants to wait around all day to run 20 miles at 7 p.m. on a Saturday night! :-) I'll then spend the rest of the day floating in the pool or laying on the beach (I'm thinking there's a good chance that we'll be on the coast of NC on July 10, July 24, Aug. 7, and Aug. 28; completely coincidental, of course)! I'll definitely be glad not to have any 20° training runs or roads completely covered in ice and snow!

My ultimate goal is to finish and, of course, stay injury free while training. But I'm thinking right now that my time goal is to finish in under 4:30. That would involve keeping the same pace that I kept in the half marathon, but I expect to be significantly stronger and more fit by October 31, so it should be doable. I'll definitely know more about reasonable pace goals by the end of the summer. (The MCM has a 14 minute/mile pace requirement, which shouldn't be a problem barring any major crises.)

So, that's it for now. It's definitely marathon fever in my little corner of the globe! :-)

Posted Results for Half Marathon

2010-03-30T23:53:00.002-04:00

Laura
Overall
Place: 854 out of 1173
Chip Time: 2:15:32 (10:22/mile)
Gun Time: 2:15:51 (19 second difference)

Age Group (25-29)
Place: 109 out of 160

Jay
Overall

Place: 650 out of 1173

Chip Time: 2:06:24 (9:40/mile)

Gun Time: 2:06:53 (18 second difference)

Age Group (50-54)

Place: 24 out of 35

Not bad at all for a couple rookies!

Overall: http://www.ncraces.com/media/OA.HTM

Age Groups: http://www.ncraces.com/media/AG.HTM

Assuming I get in, up next in the distance circuit will be the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, D.C., on October 31. Registration starts April 7, so I should know more next week! Looking like dad is planning to do this too (peer pressure is tough when you're competitive)! :-)

I had given serious thought to the doing the WDW Marathon in January 2011, but decided against it because I don't want to be doing long training runs in the freezing cold in November and December when everyone else is eating turkey and bonbons by the Christmas tree!

I'm also going to kick my ass into gear with losing weight. (I've been plateaued for a few months and I'm sooo over it!) The plan is to be at least at 125 lbs. by the marathon (22 lbs. down) but ideally I'd like to lose 1 lb./week and get to 118 lbs., which would require some serious diligence, but would pay great dividends in my marathon performance.

On the positive, I've been doing a lot of strength training lately and I'm really starting to see some good definition in my shoulders, chest, and upper arms. Even Brian noticed it yesterday!

Mom (5K), dad (10K), Clay (10K), Brian (5K), and I (10K) are also doing the Oak Island Lighthouse Race on April 17. This should be a GREAT course. The only hill is over the bridge on the Intracoastal (in the first mile) and everything else is completely flat. We're all very much looking forward to it. I want to finish in at least 60 minutes. Brian's goal is 45 minutes.

Run, run, run!

2010-03-27T21:58:00.000-04:00

So, today was the half marathon.

You may have heard something about me running it. I know I haven't mentioned it much.

;-)

The race went soooo well for me and my dad! My Garmin profile of it is online. I ran 2:15:31 (or 10:17/mile) and dad ran 2:06. We were both extremely pleased with our times.

Race day started early and cold! The alarm went off at 5 a.m. because the pickup time for timing chips started at 6 a.m. and dad and I wanted to make sure we had plenty of time to park and figure out where everything was, etc. (The race started at 8 a.m.)

Dad and I each wore our running clothes and over them oversized sweatshirts and sweatpants from when we weighed a lot more! (We both looked kinda ridiculous!) The plan was to have these to keep warm pre-race and then dump them right before the race started. We were just going to throw them off to side and figure that we'd never see them again (that's why we had such old/big clothes)!

The chip pickup was in the Raleigh Convention Center (which is connected to the Marriott) and we were both really familiar with the area because dad's company had a show a few months back in the convention center and he had stayed at the Marriott.

We parked in the garage connected to the convention center, got our chips, checked out the start line outside, and then spent the rest of the morning hanging out in the Marriott lobby. It was PERFECT! There were tons of chairs to sit on, heat, very nice bathrooms, and we were about 30 feet away from the start line, so we didn't have to go outside until 10 minutes before the race started (and were able to put all our excess clothes back in the car).

Right before the race started, dad and I gave each other a hug, commented on how cool it was that we were doing this, and said goodbye. Then the cowbell clanged and off we went!

As I started running, I felt a little emotional; I actually teared up a bit. I was so excited to get going and thought about how 14 months and 2 days ago I weighed 205 lbs. and had never even considered running a half marathon and then today I was feeling great and confident. The emotion passed pretty quickly and I got down to concentrating on my breathing and establishing rhythm and pace.

I ran the first 2 miles pretty quickly for me (under 10 minutes/mile). Running up Hillsborough Street was a challenge. Lots of slight rolling hills and lots of people that were passing me (pretty common at the beginning of a race). When I ran past Tompkins Hall (the English building at NCSU), I thought about all the time I spent there and how hard it used to be for me to trek around campus with all my extra weight and books and laptop. It felt good to be cruising and healthy! When I got to mile 3, a lady beside me said (to no one in particular), "Only 10 more to go." And I replied with, "Actually, 10.1!" That got a few chuckles.

Right after that, I came up to the 2nd water/gatorade stop and I took one of my GU gels. I wanted water, but ended up on the Gatorade side. The cup was super full and I spilled red Gatorade all over my face, neck, and hands. Pretty awesome! Fortunately, mile 4 also had a water stop, so I got a new cup, drank a bit, and then poured the rest all over my hands to keep them from getting sticky! Success!

Between miles 3 and 4, there was a section of the course where the runners farther along double backed along where I was and I was thinking "Damn them for being so fast!" :-) When I got back to that point, there were still a few people on the beginning part of the course and that made me kinda happy because I knew I wouldn't be the last one to finish!

As I was continuing down Hillsborough Street (toward Blue Ridge), we had to stay to the left of the cones on the road because the right of the cones was another part of the course for the way back. Well, all of the sudden, I saw a guy speeding by on a bike making sure everyone was staying left and then a dude running like really fast! Well, it turns out that he was the leader! He was flying! Whereas I was on mile 5, this guy was on mile 9! He had already ran down toward Blue Ridge, through the Museum of Art greenways, over the pedestrian bridge on the Beltline, and back out through Meredith College. Turns out the dude finished in like 1:05. That's like REALLY FAST. He ran less than 5 minute miles!! Everyone on the left the cones clapped for him as he went by. It was pretty cool to see!

When I started going up Blue Ridge Road, I looked back down Hillsborough and there were lots of people behind me! There's a decent hill at that point and it was right at 9 o'clock. I thought of Brian and how his alarm was just going off! When I got to 6.55 miles (halfway), my time was 1:05 and I spent about .25 mile trying to figure out what my time goal should be. 2:10 would be incredible, but I knew that there were serious hills on the greenway portion of the course, so I decided that 2:15 would be my goal.

I took another GU at 7.25 miles at another water stop and then trudged on through the greenway. I tried to accelerate on the downhill portions and then just do my best on the uphills. I had heard another runner (on a blog that I read) say that when she gets to tough hills that she gets really mad at them and tries to use that to her advantage. So, that's what I did. I gritted my teeth and HATED those hills and just pushed through. The stretch of the race my mile time was 11:02, which I thought was pretty fantastic. (That was the only split that I had above the 10s.)

At mile 9.8, I heard someone ask how far we'd gone, so I told her. Other than that and the mention of "10.1" back at mile 3, and thanking a few cheering spectators along the course, I didn't say anything else the whole race!

Mentally, the hardest part of the race was probably miles 10-12. I thought of my best friend Shannon at mile 11 because she told me to think of her when I got there. And then I remembered that she in South Beach visiting a friend, so then I had to stop thinking about her, considering it was 45° and I was at mile 11. :-)

Around that time, I ended up with 2 really obnoxious, super loud girls right behind me. They kept complaining about how much different parts of their bodies hurt and I was trying so hard to stay positive and not let anything negative pop into my mind and I knew that if I kicked it in high gear with 3 miles to go to leave them that I'd run out of steam before the end. So, I listened to them for about another .5 mile, but they must have really been slowing down because eventually I couldn't hear them anymore.

I started counting down the tenths of miles at about mile 11 and that's when I started giving myself pep talks. ("C'mon, girl, you can do it." "You're strong." "Almost done." "You couldn't pay me to stop and walk at this point." "You're a badass." "This is the last hill." "2.1 to go, 2.1, 2.1, 2.1, 2.1. 2 miles to go, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2 etc. OK, we're in the 1s now. 1.9 to go, etc.")

The last little hill (where Hillsborough and Morgan streets split), I felt my legs getting heavy and I was like "NO NO NO. GO. GO. GO. 2 hours 15 minutes. Don't slow. Go" and then I worried that I was running out of energy and should have taken another GU, but once that hill passed, I could hear the crowd at the finish and I kicked it up and the next thing I knew was coming up to the Capitol and then immediately I was at Fayetteville Street for the last down hill into the finish. I was rocking at that point. Running as fast as I could go.

At mile 13, I pushed my lap button (which measures mile split times). And at mile 13.1 I hit it again. WTF? I still wasn't done! The finish ended up being .06 miles farther (probably due to me running not in a straight line the whole time, which is how they measure courses).

I saw Brian with the camera and tried not to look like a complete moron while he was snapping pictures and my dad was standing there with his medal on and I saw Brian's mom and dad and my mom and I heard them cheering and I was just running (and thinking that I didn't know we got medals and that it was really cool and that I was excited to get a medal).

I crossed the finish, mashed stop on the Garmin, slowed down to a jog/walk, got my medal, and stood there while some volunteer cut the chip off my shoe (thank God you don't have to do that yourself)!

I felt so incredible! I caught my breath and then turned around to find my family!

After the race, I had a banana and a Powerade, we got some 13.1 car stickers and magnets, stretched a bit, and then went home. IT WAS FREEZING!

That hot shower felt SO GOOD!

Lunch was at the Cracker Barrel in Clayton (mom and dad had to head back home today) and it was SO GOOD. It was so fun to have a meal that I didn't care about calories! Biscuits, chicken and dumplins, corn, collard greens, and fried apples. DELICIOUS!

I spent the rest of the afternoon chilling on the couch and then met Brian's mom at Pei Wei for dinner. I had the dan dan noodles, which were SO GOOD. They were so salty and I was craving the salt.

A really awesome, incredible first half marathon!

My knees and hips are a little sore when I go up the stairs and a few of my toenails are nice and purple and painful, but other than that, I'm not doing too badly!

Pictures are up on Picasa.

Tomorrow, I'm planning to take it easy (should be a good day for it; supposed to be cold and rainy). Probably going to do 15-20 easy, easy minutes on the elliptical to get the legs moving (usually, Brian, Gatsby, and I take an easy walk on the day after long runs) and then maybe do some yoga to stretch or upper body strength training.

The Curt Schilling of Half Marathons

2010-03-21T19:58:00.000-04:00

Saturday I went to Lassiter Mill for my last weekend run before next weekend's half marathon. The run was 5 miles and went really well (49:47). I was super stoked to average under 10 minutes per mile. It was actually a little hot! There aren't any leaves on the trees yet, so there was absolutely no shade. I think it was about 75°. Regardless, it was a great day to be out.

After my run, I crawled down on the rocks right at Lassiter Mill Dam and did all my stretching. The rocks were super nice and cold and it was so pretty:

After my run, I had to stop by the store to pick up some laundry detergent. While I was there, I looked down at my left shoe and saw that it was pinkish-red in one place. After looking at it for a bit I realized that it was blood.

Awesome.

So after stopping by Subway, I got home to check out the damage. (Don't worry! No photos!)

I have never seen so much blood! The entire top of my sock was completely red from the tip to the ankle and the bottom of the sock was covered from the tip to the arch.

Unsurprisingly, my foot looked about the same. (I was so glad Brian wasn't home; he would have fainted!)

So I stuck my feet in the bathtub to wash them off and to figure out what was up. Turns out, one of my toenails grew a bit weird and was like a millimeter too long and the edge rubbed up against the next toe. After I got it all washed up, I looked at it and the "injury" was no bigger than if you stuck yourself with a pin!! And it doesn't hurt. It's so crazy that it caused so much blood!!

I put my shoes in the washer and they came out looking pretty good. You can still see a little bit of pink if you look hard, but I figure that's OK since they're just running shoes.

I put the shoes out in the sun to dry out and I spent the rest of the afternoon laying in the sun reading a magazine. We went out to Crabtree Tavern with Brian's family for dinner.

Last night, after dinner, we heard Gatsby going crazy upstairs. When Brian went up to check, Gatsby had my (washed) bloody shoe out and was wrestling it around. He's never paid attention to our shoes before, but I guess the blood scent still remains! Pretty funny! (Fortunately, the shoe wasn't messed up!)

Today, I did pretty much nothing except work on a jigsaw puzzle and put away my "winter" (aka Christmas) village. Last year I left it up all year because I forgot about it until the middle of the summer and by that point there was no reason to take it down! This year I was determined to get it down once winter was over! :-)

Yummy supper!

2010-03-16T20:09:00.000-04:00

I was very badly craving some pad thai from Pei Wei tonight, but couldn't justify going out to get it because I've been feeling pretty run down today and decided to take a rest day from working out. I searched around on the Internet for some type of noodle dish and then took a few ingredients from one of the recipes and made a super yummy spicy peanut sauce chicken and veggie noodle stir fry. I didn't really measure anything out...just kinda combined ingredients until it tasted good.

Noodles
Boil water and then add noodles. (I used whole wheat linguine.) When they're at the appropriate level of doneness, drain and set aside.

Peanut Sauce
In a small sauce pan over low heat, add a little bit of water and a spoonful of crunchy, natural peanut butter and a dollop of honey. Add some reduced sodium soy sauce, olive oil, garlic powder, ground ginger, lemon (or lime) juice, red pepper flakes (I like heat, so I used a lot of these!), black pepper and stir. Once it heats up, give it a little taste and adjust ingredients as necessary.

Chicken and Veggies
While the sauce is heating up, saute a boneless chicken breast in a bit of olive oil until it's cooked through. Set aside and chop up into bite-size pieces. In the same pan, saute a lot of vegetables (I used Harris Teeter frozen Chinese StirFry vegetables and some mushrooms). Once the veggies are pretty much done, add the sauce, chicken, and noodles and stir and heat everything up.

The whole meal took about 30 minutes to prepare and it's easy to clean nearly everything while it's mixing together at the end.

It was so yummy and not too bad for you if you go easy on the olive oil and peanut butter. The perfect combo of spicy and sweet!

Twelve and a half miles.

2010-03-13T23:02:00.000-05:00

(Is 1.5 miles farther than 11 miles.) :-)

Today was my last long training run before the March 27th half marathon. And it went pretty well! All of the stats are up on the Garmin site. My average time was 11:19 minutes per mile and I'm pretty pleased with that because on my last long run (11 miles), I averaged 11:49 minutes per mile (on roughly the same course). My overall time today was 2:21:32.

I'm know now that (barring an injury) I won't have any issues finishing the half. I'm also incredibly stoked because I've finally found the perfect pre-run breakfast to give me sufficient energy without upsetting my stomach. (I won't go into detail, but it's fairly common for endurance runners to have intestinal issues if they don't have the perfect food combos because you're bouncing around your insides for so long.)

Brian and I slept in today until 11 (which was GLORIOUS). So right after I got up, I had breakfast. I had a banana, fat free greek yogurt (with honey on the bottom) (incredible protein source!), 24 (yes I counted!) Cinnamon Streusel Frosted Mini-Wheats (dry), and a bottle of Propel. I watched Friday's Young & The Restless while I ate and afterward went upstairs for a quick bath to shave my legs! (COMPLETELY LOVING non-long-pants season!) Afterwards, I got dressed in the new running outfit I bought last weekend (black Nike capri-length running tights and blue short sleeved Reebok shirt [I can't find a picture online of the shirt!]) and then headed downstairs to mix up some Crystal Light into my water bottles for the Amphipod hydration belt. I also took a Vanilla Bean GU gel.

GU gels are my new favorite thing! In addition to tasting delicious, they really do work! You take one 15 minutes before you start running and then every 45 minutes while you run. They're basically just 100 calories of carbs and sodium to help you sustain energy and replace your electrolytes (if you're sweating like crazy and only drinking water, then your salt balance can get way off). It's amazing how you can feel your body change after taking one. You can also take one at the end of your run to help with recovery. (Sports nutrition science is so interesting!)

I started running at Shelley Lake and then headed south (hoping to end up somewhere around Anderson Drive for my turnaround). This was also my previous plan for my 11 miles; however, I got "lost" on that run and ended up not where I wanted. Well, today, I followed the signs and still wasn't exactly sure where to go and didn't want to waste a lot of time figuring it out (although I did take one spur that ended up being STRAIGHT UP HILL to end up in a damn parking lot!) So I turned around, flew down the hill, and then ran down the Crabtree Creek trail down behind the mall. It was a really good trail and I was able to turn around at 7.5 miles and distanced-it perfectly to finish up right back where I started at Shelley Lake. (GO ME! Completely lucky!)

The weather today was great! Lots of cloud cover and a slight breeze and I felt great all run. At the very end, my butt was a little sore and a few times my toes felt weird, but, all-in-all, I felt fantastic. The hilarious part of the run was the last 1.5 miles back around Shelley Lake. I ended up with these two teenage boys in front of me who would run as fast as they could for a minute and then end up completely out of breath and walk. They repeated this over and over and would start running right as I was catching up to them. It was clear they weren't doing intervals; they just couldn't pace themselves at all. (I was thinking, "look dudes, I'm at 11.8 miles, I could care less what you're doing.") So anyway, toward the end, they were completely gassed out and then I blew right past them. It was fairly awesome...pretty much like something out of a movie. My motivation song, "Don't Stop Believin'," was blasting on my iPOD and as I was running by, I so, SO, SO wanted to say "ahaha suckers, you got chicked by a slightly overweight 27 year old who just ran 12.5 miles." But I didn't, because I didn't want them to kick my ass. ;-)

So, after I finished running, I found a picnic table and did my cool down stretches and then hopped in the car and drove straight to the Subway in Knightdale for a turkey sub. It was so delicious!

I've pretty much just spent the rest of the day hanging out around the house watching TV. I cooked some whole wheat penne with peppers, mushrooms, and turkey sausage in a balsamic glaze sauce for supper. It was super good.

Oh yeah, and then I made some granola.

A really fantastic day!

Eleven miles ...

2010-02-20T22:16:00.002-05:00

is a long way.
will make your toes hurt for being in your running shoes for 2 hours and 10 minutes.
will make your brain stop telling your legs what to do so that when you stop running, it will make you wonder if you're going to collapse and take a good five minutes for the walking to feel normal.
will make your legs hurt, and your hip, and your knees, and your lower back, and your stomach, and your breasts.
will make your calves sexy.
will make you so grateful for the energy gels that you bought at Dick's.
will make you wish you had bought some type of hydration pack.
will make you hate the people in front of you at Shelley Lake who are walking six wide with no concept of the fact that people are trying to pass them.
will make you mad at the City of Raleigh for not marking their trails clearly such that you end up on some random street inside the Beltline or don't take the trail that you wanted and end up on the steepest hill (by Root Elementary School) east of the Eastern Continental Divide.
will make you feel like crying between miles 9.75 and 10.5.
will make you simultaneously love and hate running.
is completely worth it, despite everything.
will make you so proud of what you can push your body to do.

Today's Run on the Garmin

¡La Biblia Dice Así!

2010-02-18T23:03:00.000-05:00

So, if you were to think of adjectives to describe me, I'm pretty sure that religious probably wouldn't appear until somewhere after adjective no. 100. (BTW, hopefully, adjective no. 1 would be humble; hahaha...yeah right!).

Don't get me wrong...I'm not agnostic or athiest or anything, I'm just not the kinda girl who will be citing you Bible verses. In fact, the four years I spent in my high school Sunday school class consisted of walking to the McDonald's and Bojangles or playing Bible Baseball. And let me just tell you, no one wanted me on his or her team for Bible Baseball because everyone realized I knew jack about Bible trivia. In fact, there was only one kid that knew anything about Bible trivia, so everyone wanted to be on his team. By about the middle of my sophomore year, we all pretty much figured out we were screwed if that kid wasn't on our team, so we just said to heck with the teams and read questions out loud while this other kid answered the questions. This probably explains why I suck with religion. :-)

So anyway, I have to say that I was a little concerned when I realized that one of the books on my reading list was the Bible. I knew that there wasn't anyway that I was going to sit down and read it cover to cover, so I sought out my friend Google for help. (The last 15 times I tried to read the Bible cover-to-cover the furthest I got was God smiting Cain.) Mr. Google informed me that there were many ways to read the Bible: cover-to-cover; chronologically in the order that the books were written; or thematically (i.e., pairing an Old Testament, New Testament, and Psalm reading). The English major in me (who firmly believes in how the author's lifetime has an effect on the narrative) led me to decide to go with the chronological order and I'm using the following reading plan:

www.gribblenation.com/personal/laura/Bible_Reading_One_Year.pdf

I should be finished with the whole thing by February 14, 2011. The readings only take about 10 minutes each day, but I'm also reading all of the supplementary material in my Catholic Study Bible as I go (that is, front matter, footnotes, reading guides, and so on). These supplements are really critical to my understanding of everything. It's fascinating to see how different books became part of the canon and how nuances in the Hebrew affect the meaning of the English translation. I'm also particularly struck how each book was formed. Most of the books are pieced together from various sources (down to the verse level), which is incredibly impressive as a literary and historical piece.

One of my history electives at N.C. State was the History of the Old Testament. A lot of what I did in that class is starting to come back to me. I just wish I had kept my notes and essays.

Spiritually, I'm very much enjoying it. It's definitely healthier than Bo-berry biscuits and cajun fries.

BTW, I'm doing all this concurrently with reading Nineteen Eighty Four. And once that's done, I'll be moving on to Vanity Fair.

The Catcher in the Rye

2010-02-10T00:00:00.004-05:00

So, the night before we left for New York, I finished reading The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger.

I'm not going to do a full book report or anything, but I will say that I am so happy that I reread it. It is very, very good! Everyone should read it; it's very short.

The book follows the protagonist as he travels around New York City alone for a few days after failing out of his fourth prep school. It was published in 1951.

Holden's problem (aside from being mentally ill and possibly sexually abused) is that he can only see people as black or white. He wants to like everyone, but whenever he comes across a negative character trait, he completely writes off the person and considers him or her a phony. Unsurprisingly, he doesn't really like anyone except for his dead brother and his little sister.

I got a lot out of the book. I'm not going to lie, though, I felt incredibly lonely after finishing it. Like more lonely than I've ever felt after reading a book. Most of the book is just Holden's thoughts and although there are some human interactions, it's mostly just Holden.

As a side note, it was very cool to go to the city right after reading it!

Up next on the list is Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell, which I've also already read. I've started reading the first 5 pages and I'm already depressed again. After I finish this one, maybe I can find one that isn't so damn depressing. I also need to go to the library so that I can read some books that aren't already on my bookshelf!

The List

No place in the world that can compare | Final Thoughts

2010-02-09T23:02:00.004-05:00

If you're not up on the hip hop/rap scene, my blog titles are lines from Jay-Z and Alicia Keys' song "Empire State of Mind," which is all about New York City. It's a really good song, but if you're not all about rap, go download just Alicia Keys' R&B version. It's absolutely beautiful and a lot of the lyrics are the same. Her voice is incredible and the piano part is unreal.
I love my husband. Brian has probably had NYC roads memorized since he was 3 months in utero and, with the help of his Blackberry, he knew all the pertinent subway trains that we needed. We never got lost and the dude is a freaking genius. He knows which routes in and fro the city require tolls, he knows which subway stairwell to take to come up on the right side of the street, and he knows exactly how to tell the cabbie to get to our hotel so that he doesn't drive all over the place and charge us a fortune. It was fantastic for me. I just followed along and went where Brian told me to go with no stress.
My first actual experience with Manhattan was incredible. We came up from the subway at night right in Times Square. It was complete sensory overload: everything right and wrong with America simultaneously. My head was probably spinning 360°! I haven't been to a lot of places, but I have been to some big cities (namely, London, Paris, and Sydney) and I haven't ever seen anything like New York. The sheer number of skyscrapers is incredible. The only places I can even imagine having a similar phenomenon would be Tokyo, Hong Kong, or Shanghai. Whether they do compare, I have no idea.
The city didn't feel nearly as dangerous as I would have thought. We never felt weird, not even on the subway at night. I would have been 100% comfortable going around the subway and the city (at least to the places we went) by myself during the day.
I still don't want to live there. It would be a major pain to have to deal with public transportation every day. I like my car, thankyouverymuch.
It snowed A LOT in D.C. and Baltimore.
Smart phones can be very helpful.
Every Top 40 station in America is playing Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" and Ke$ha's "TiK ToK" four times an hour. Fortunately, we liked both songs.
I do regret not getting to run while I was up there, but it was absolutely freezing and we did so much walking that I was completely exhausted each morning.
I do wish we had seen the NYC Public Library building and visited the Natural History Museum. We'll definitely be doing both on our next trip.
We are incredibly lucky. It snowed 2 feet in Washington 2 hours after we left the area, never snowed a flake in NYC while we were there, and tomorrow they're calling for 18 inches in NYC. Go us!

Yellow cab, gypsy cab, dollar cab, holla back | Sunday & Monday

2010-02-09T22:26:00.003-05:00

Sunday

Sunday was our appointed touristy day. We made reservations for a bus tour around Midtown and Downtown. It was very cool! You get on the tour bus at Times Square and then it goes all around the city, stopping at different places. You can hop off at any of the stops and then when you're done, you just head back to the bus stop you got off at and continue the tour with a new bus! Very smart! Our tour went to the following places:

Times Square
Greenwich Village
Empire State Building
Union Square
SoHo
Chinatown
Little Italy
East Village
Rockefeller Center
World Trade Center Site
United Nations

So, we started the tour and then hopped off at Little Italy for lunch. We had the most incredible lunch ever. The only time I've ever had better Italian was in Italy. Brian had spaghetti and meatballs and I had eggplant parmesan. It was the real-deal-Italian!

When we got back on the bus, we made it around to the United Nations and then hopped off so that we could walk up to Grand Central Station. The G.C. is very cool in that old school way that just makes train stations so romanticized. A few months ago we watched a History Channel special on Grand Central, so it was very cool to see what we had watched on the show.

As we were heading back to the bus stop, we came across a cool coffee shop: Aroma Espresso Bar, where we sat and chilled for a while. One hot chocolate and one mocha later, we finished our tour and then took the subway to one of the areas around NYU to a nice little bookstore: Shakespeare & Co. We spent a lot of time there decompressing and flipping through books.

Afterward, we went back to Times Square and found an Irish Pub to eat dinner and watch the Super Bowl. Our dinner was fair and the bar scene was completely lame, so we decided to go to a free improv comedy show that I had come across in one of the books I read at the bookstore. The show was the Upright Citizens Brigade and it was supposed to start at 9:30 p.m. and we were supposed to get there at 8:15 p.m. to get free tickets. Well, for some reason, they weren't doing a 9:30 show, but we were able to go in to the 7:30 show that was already in progress and watch the rest of it. We got there around 8:05 and then saw about 2 hours of the show, so I really don't think we missed much and it was FREE! It was incredibly offensive, perverted, and over the top, so, naturally, we loved it! We laughed so hard. I highly recommend it if you're not one to get offended.

After the show, we were tired and it was cold, so we decided to splurge and take a cab back from Manhattan to our hotel. It was about $35, including the tip, so it was expensive, but completely worth it!

Monday

Monday was basically a driving day, but we weren't in too much of a hurry to get back (we picked Gatsby up Tuesday after work), so we slept late and then headed out to find a good pizza place for lunch. We ended up at Nick's Pizza in Queens. It was very, very good and the area in Queens was really cool. We were able to get half the pizza my way and half Brian's way and each ended up bringing home two slices, so it was very excellent to get two meals out of it!

After lunch, we drove through Manhattan so that we could see Central Park West and Harlem and then The Bronx (so that we could hit up all five boroughs). There were SO MANY dog walkers out in CPW. It was sooo funny. If I was rich and lived in NYC, I would definitely be a CPW kinda girl. Gatsby is absolutely a CPW kinda doggie!

After that, it was pretty much just driving until we got to Baltimore and D.C. where it was pretty much just driving with 5 feet snow walls lining the roads! :-)

We ate dinner at the Max and Erma's in Richmond (one of our favorite Ohio restaurants) and then got back to Knightdale around 11 p.m.

These streets will make you feel brand new | Saturday

2010-02-09T21:14:00.004-05:00

OR POOR! ;-)

Saturday

Saturday was our shopping day!!! It was also supposed to snow 3-5 inches in the city. We shopped, but, thankfully, it didn't snow! In fact, we didn't see one single flake descend from the heavens the entire trip!!

We woke up Saturday morning, got ready, and headed to Fifth Avenue. We came up out of the subway right by Central Park and the Plaza. Very, very pretty and cool. We started out at the Apple Store, which is basically like every other Apple Store, except it's very I.M. Pei-like with the huge clear cube and an elevator descent into the store.

After Apple, we went to FAO Schwarz. Brian wasn't really psyched about the FAO until he realized that they have a huge, yummy candy section! ;-) I just loved walking through and looking at all the toys. It kinda made me wish that we had a kid to buy for, until I realized that we wouldn't be able to afford to go to NYC if we had a kid, so that feeling passed pretty quickly. ;-) While there, they were having a big sale on holiday-inspired Madame Alexander dolls (of which I have collected since I was a very wee tot!) so I was able to score a cute Raggedy Andy doll for $15! I would have rather had Raggedy Ann, but I guess all the other little girls in America would rather have Raggedy Ann too, so there weren't any left!

After FAO, we found the promised land: Tiffany & Co., Louis Vuitton, Prada, Gucci, and Saks. I found a beautiful pair of $1,200 boots in Gucci that Brian wouldn't let me get. He said something about it being comparable to a mortgage payment, but I didn't really hear him... After that, I was jaded. We walked into Nine West and those shoes looked like crap to me. Ironically, I was wearing shoes from Kohl's, so it's not like I'm really a big spender when it comes to shoes! It's amazing how when you see something that's made really, really well, the others just don't compare. It's probably a good thing that I didn't try them on because they were totally prêt-a-porter and I was prêt to porter them! :-D

We had lunch at a little grille in Trump Tower and it was INCREDIBLE. I had a smoked salmon salad and Brian had a BBQ brisket sandwich. Mad props to Mr. Trump!

After lunch, we hit up a five floor Nike store, Nintendo World, and American Girl Place. I just had to see AGP. All those little girls with their dolls were so cute! Brian's mouth actually dropped when I pointed out to him that the girls were taking their dolls to the "salon" to get the doll's hair styled. I would have been IN HEAVEN if I had been little. Callie would probably pee in her pants. (She still gets baby dolls for Christmas and has the whole American girl ensemble for Molly.) Our last purchase on Fifth Avenue was at Sephora. I got a nice, subtle lipgloss and bought Callie some BeneTint: Rose-tinted lip and cheek stain. I don't actually know what it is, but that's what she wanted. It looks like a vial of blood. Ironically, the Sephora is in the old Charles Scribner's Sons building, which was the publishing house of Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Wolfe, et al. Very cool!

After we were done shopping, we went to 30 Rock and took the elevator to the top. We saw some amazing views and then we eventually happened across the building of my company's NYC office, which was very exciting!

After that, we went back to the hotel and then headed out to Long Island for Brian's hockey game. During the game, I went to a mall and did some shopping (for items I could actually afford!) and I'm not going to lie: I was nervous as hell about driving to the mall by myself and not getting lost. Fortunately, driving on Long Island is nothing like driving in the city and our GPS was awesome. It pinpointed the exact gate where I dropped Brian off, so I was able to go back to the exact same place and it took me right to a parking deck in the mall.

It was success for all. I didn't get lost and the Hurricanes won! While at the mall, I was shopping for an outfit to wear out next weekend when I go visit my friends Shannon and Mandy in Charlotte. I found a very cute dress (in blue) at Express and then headed over to Victoria's Secret to get a strapless bra. While I was there, I FINALLY got around to get my bra fitting done that I'd been wanting to do for forever and I got a bra that I'd been thinking about getting: the BioFit 7-Way, which is very awesome. It's designed to be able to be worn with seven types of tops (strapless, classic, halter, one-strap, crisscross, v-front, and crossback). As you can see, very exciting! BTW, I totally look like the chick on that Web page when I put it on. It's THAT good. ;-) I also got a new body spray: Coconut Passion! Even Brian likes it!

After the game, I picked Brian up and we went to a diner on Long Island with two of Brian's roadgeek friends (Doug and Steve) who Brian ran into at the game. Our diner dinner was very good and the diner was really nice!

Afterward, we kinda wanted to drive around for a bit so we decided to drive over to New Jersey to get gas (which is a heck of a lot cheaper than gas in New York). As an added bonus, it's illegal to pump your own gas in NJ, so Brian didn't have to get out into the freezing cold! We also drove a lot around Manhattan--down to Grand Central Station and all over the place. It was like 1:30 in the morning, but you would have thought it was 9:30 at night! Fortunately, there wasn't much traffic, so it was a great time to drive around!

One hand in the air for the big city | Thursday & Friday

2010-02-09T20:14:00.003-05:00

So we survived New York without getting lost, mugged, or pushed in front of a subway train! Haha!

Pictures from our trip are up on Facebook; they should be visible to everyone!

Thursday Night and Friday

I left work on Thursday and headed straight to Lowe's Foods to pick up some granola bars and soft drinks for our cooler (I am the granola bar queen on trips!). When Brian got home, we quickly got the car loaded and headed out. (Brian had taken Gatsby to Suite Paws Thursday morning before work.) We had decided that we would eat dinner at the IHOP in Knightdale because it's close by, good, and usually quick. Well, Thursday night it was good, but not quick. We got stuck with chick who was working her first week at the IHOP and she took for-freaking-ever. I'm not kidding. It took us an HOUR AND A HALF to eat dinner. All we could do was sit back, laugh, and enjoy the lengthy dinner. It was pretty hilarious considering we were driving to Baltimore.

As we left the restaurant, Brian realized that he had left his phone at home, so we had to swing by the house to pick it up. Helluva portent for our trip!! :-) The rest of the drive was very uneventful. We basically just blasted the iPod through most of North Carolina and Virginia until we got into the listening area for WTOP (our favorite FM newsradio station in D.C.).

Our hotel in Baltimore was really cool. It was just a Holiday Inn Express, but it was in an old bank building from the early 1920s. The building had been completely redone, but they kept a lot of the architecture from the original building. It still had the vault and the old elevator shaft visible. One of the hotel employees told me at breakfast that the bank was the only bank in Baltimore to survive the Great Depression.

Friday morning we got up around 9 a.m. to leave the area before the snowpocalypse arrived. We headed to Philly to get cheesesteaks. Well, Brian had a cheesesteak and I had a chicken philly (yes, I forsook my pescetarian diet twice on this trip!). We went to this place called Jim's Steaks and it was pretty good. It came as a recommendation from one of Brian's coworkers; we were trying to avoid the super touristy cheesesteak places because those places typically only have cheesesteaks and I really didn't want to eat beef.

After lunch, we were NYC bound! Oh yeah, and we screwed the state of Delaware by hopping off the interstate before the toll plaza and then getting back on an exit later. Power to the people! We had some traffic coming into the city, but really not too bad for a Friday afternoon. We got to our hotel (another Holiday Inn Express, in Queens) and checked in. Our room was on the first floor, which is actually like the basement. We walked in and there was an A/C unit in the window and I was bummed. Brian was also bummed. So he went back to the front desk and we were able to switch rooms to the third floor. I felt a lot safer being off the ground and our new room had so much more sunlight and a stunning view of the Long Island Expressway! ;-)

After we decompressed for a bit, we got dressed up and caught the (free!) shuttle from our hotel to the subway station, which we took directly to Times Square. We went to the TKTS booth and bought tickets for the off-Broadway show Newsical: The Musical. We only had about an hour before the show started, so we decided to hit up a deli that was down the street from our theatre. I had some huge avocado, cucumber, sprouts, carrots wrap-deal and Brian had an Italian sandwich. Both of them were HUGE; neither of us could finish our meals.

We got to the theatre and we were the first ones there! We were kind worried that maybe it was going to suck because the theatre wasn't too big and no one was there yet, but pretty quickly thereafter it started to fill up and the show was HILARIOUS. It was so funny. It spoofed current events as a musical and we were laughing so hard! (Our favorite was "Hillary Clinton" singing "Who the Hell is Barack?")

After the show, we went back to Times Square and had dessert at ESPN Zone. Really yummy and we got to catch the end of the Canes/Sabres game!

Then we took the subway back to our hotel and waited out in the freezing cold for 15 minutes for the hotel shuttle to pick us up! :-)

Setting goals (and achieving them)!

2010-01-31T20:20:00.002-05:00

In the past year, I've realized that I'm a far more productive person when I have a set goal and work toward achieving it. I know that sounds pretty hokey and kinda like "duh!", but it's really true.

This past week was a good week for meeting goals. On Thursday, my weight hit 143.8 lbs., which doesn't sound incredibly awesome except for the fact that I've now lost 60 lbs. I was pretty ecstatic Thursday because it's taken me a very long time to go from losing 50 lbs. to losing 60 lbs. I'm also now within a healthy weight range for my height. I think the last time that happened I was probably 8 years old. Now I've got 20 lbs. to go and it will probably take a long time to get there, but so be it! I'm not 100% sure yet if 125 lbs. (technically, 124.4 lbs.) will be my final resting place. Because I'm now concentrating so much on becoming a strong runner, I know that the lighter (and stronger) I am, the faster I'll be able to go. Distance running chicks are super thin (I've started following a lot of different women's running blogs, so now I'm getting a sense of what I really need to do to improve.) Truly, I think 115 lbs. would probably be an ideal running weight for my height. So, I guess we'll just have to see. My plan is to get to 124.4 lbs. and then reevaluate.

Today, I decided to "woman-up," go outside, and brave the ice and snow. We got between 5-6 inches at our house with the top layer being a very solid sheet of ice and today was an absolutely gorgeous day. Not a cloud in the sky. It was cold, but because of all the snow it was so bright that it didn't feel too bad. There was also very little wind! So, I decided to head out and do this weekend's long run. I had spent all week being really annoyed that my run was going to messed up by the weather. Friday night as I was laying in bed with the snow swirling outside, I decided that I was going to do everything I possibly could to do my run on Sunday. I mean, really, people in Boston and Michigan and Denver and Minnesota still run when there's snow, and I am not one to be outdone by a bunch of non-Southerners!

So, I woke up this morning, ate my bowl of steel-cut oatmeal (with Craisins and pecans) and my bowl of Boston Creme Pie Yoplait and then let it digest for an hour and a half. Then around 11:30, I put on my layers, laced up my shoes, and headed out into the elements for my 9.5 miles. Surprisingly, the run was pretty easy. It didn't get bad until the last mile when parts of the road were getting really slushy. I left our 'hood and headed east on Old Faison Road, turned south on Bethlehem Road, then eventually took a right on Grasshopper Road, then a left on Poole Road, and then a right on Hodge Road, which took me back to Old Faison Road. I also had to run a little bit on Clifton Road (a deadend off of Old Faison) and then a little bit past our house to get my 9.5 miles in, but I did it, I didn't stop, I didn't fall, and I didn't die! (Here's the Garmin map of the run: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/23652581). It was by no means fast (1:55:33 at 12:09 min/mile), but I'm OK with that since I was on a sheet of snow and ice the entire time and I was purposely being cautious because I absolutely didn't want to fall. I'm just super proud of myself that I did it! (My dad and Clay also had long, cold, windy runs today. Dad did 10 miles from Morehead City to Fort Macon and back and Clay rocked out 8.5 miles at a 7:39/pace!! I am so proud of them!)

My legs felt so funny when I stopped running. It was like they had formed a memory of the running movement and it was hard getting my brain to tell them to walk. So weird. When I came back in, I had a granola bar and a huge glass of soymilk and then stretched for a long, long time! After a shower, lots of water, and a Zone bar (~200 calorie lunch-type bar), I laid down on the bed for a long time and just stretched out my legs. It felt SO good. Brian and I ventured out for a super early dinner and I had a hearty portion of salmon with creamed spinach on the side and a yummy salad. I was under no impression that the creamed spinach was good for me, but it tasted SO good! :-)

Speaking of exciting running news, Brian just figured out that our hotel in Queens this weekend is super close (one block away!) to Flushing Meadows Corona Park, which is a really nice and HUGE (1255 acres) park that hosted the 1939 and 1964 World's Fairs. Here is the ABSOLUTE BEST PART about it. The park was built over an old swamp and ash heap site that was what Fitzgerald called "The Valley of the Ashes" in The Great Gatsby. I am SO excited to be able to run in the Valley of the Ashes!!! Brian and I always joke about it and Dr. T.J. Eckleburg, so to be able to go there is a dream come true for this English major!!

And to bring this post full circle, I've also set a new goal for myself. I've been really frustrated with myself and my lack of reading lately and I've always been annoyed that I haven't read too many classics. So, my new goal is to complete the BBC Top 100 Book List in the next few years. I've read some of the books before, but I think I am going to reread most of them again because I'm really bad at remembering them! I'm starting my list off with The Catcher in the Rye in honor of J.D. Salinger's death. Here's the complete list: http://www.gribblenation.com/personal/laura/BBC_Book_List.pdf

The ones in bold I'm not going to reread because I've read them pretty recently and remember them (Lord of the Rings series; Harry Potter series; The Great Gatsby; The DaVinci Code; The Handmaid's Tale; Lolita; Memoirs of a Geisha; and The Lovely Bones). I am really excited to have good, diverse book list to conquer. I plan to blog a little bit about each book and what I thought of it. Some of them will be a challenge (Complete Works of Shakespeare and the Bible?)! Should be fun!! Oh yeah, and I'm not reading them in any order!

Fire & Ice (& Rain)

2010-01-23T22:01:00.004-05:00

Rain

On Thursday night I was in a wreck. Fortunately, I'm OK, my car is OK, and no one else was involved. It was rainy and generally gross and I over corrected on a curve (twice), twisted my car around, plowed through some lady's mailbox, and ended up in 8 inches of mud and hay!

I was on Fox Rd. coming from my dentist's office to the Honda dealership on Capital to meet Brian to drop off my car for an inspection, oil change, and some other work. I drew a picture of the whole thing on Photoshop so that you can get a feel for what happened. The red line is the path my car took and the blue line is the mail box I plowed through:

I'm super, duper lucky that no other cars were coming because I definitely crossed over into the other lane before I jerked back. When my car finally stopped, I had landed in this lady's newly grass-seeded front yard in 8 inches of mud and hay. It was GROSS, but I'm really lucky that the mud slowed down my car or I probably would have hit a tree. I'm also really lucky that I went clear across her driveway and not over the huge ditch that probably would have sent my car airborn.

Right after it happened, I immediately called Brian who was pretty close nearby and two people stopped to make sure I was OK. One of the people who stopped was the guy named German (he's Hispanic, so it's pronounced Herman) and he was super, super nice. He stayed with me until Brian got there and then helped Brian get my car out of the mud.

After the car was out, we went in to me the lady who owns the property and it turns out that she owns an African-American beauty shop and had all these customers in there. They were all very nice, but it was incredibly evident that Brian and I are extremely white. It was so out of a comedy movie!

One of the customers has a husband who does yard work and other handy work, so he came over and talked with Brian and he agreed to fix her yard and put in a new mailbox, so all we had to do was cut her a check for parts and labor. Yay, for small miracles.

After we got settled up, Brian was able to drive my car to the Honda place, where, luckily, we already had an appointment scheduled! Turns out, the only issue with the car was that the alignment was out of whack and the bump stops and the right strut needed to be replaced. I have no idea what these things are either.

It also passed inspection, had a bunch of other already-scheduled work done, got an oil change, and had the A/C fixed! My A/C and heat have been broken since August 2008! But, I've been too lazy to go get it fixed! But, now, all is well! :-) So hopefully, if nothing catastrophic happens, my car should be in good shape for the next couple of years. Our goal is to not have to replace my car until we get the new car paid off. No thank you to having two car payments at the same time!!

Fire

After we picked up my car today, we went to Lowe's to pick up a few things. We finally got around to buying a firesafe. It's not like we really have anything really valuable to put in one (none of grandma's old pearls or anything like that), but we did want to have our super important paperwork protected in case of a fire or something like that.

As I was putting the stuff in it tonight, I started thinking about the differences between a fire safe and a safe deposit box at the bank. I'm not really one for conspiracies or anything like that, but I can't imagine paying to have our stuff "imprisoned" in some box at some bank that you can only access at the most inaccessible hours known to man. Maybe I'm foolish and maybe I'll regret it if our house burns down and the fire safe doesn't do what it's supposed to do, but at least I'm the most comfortable with the decision. Who knows?

So, anyway, this is the safe we got; it's not too big, but it should be just right for what we need it for:

Ice

While we were at Lowe's, we also bought a freezer to put in the garage. As you can see from the following pictorial representation, our regular freezer is packed to the hilt and it is not uncommon for something to fall out on your foot when you open it:

The new one is going to be delivered by Lowe's on Sunday (for free!!). We were originally going to get a chest freezer, but as we looked at all the ones available, we realized that a chest would be really impractical and it would be super hard for us to get to the stuff in the bottom, so we decided to get a regular freezer:

I am so, so, so excited about it arriving. It will be incredibly nice to be able to buy stuff when it's on sale and have enough space to freeze it!

Midget Feet

2010-01-20T22:24:00.005-05:00

So, for Christmas, mom and dad gave me and Callison a picture frame and plaque with our bronzed baby shoes. Because Callie and I both wore the same sets of shoes, mom decided to give me the smaller set because I have the smaller feet. Here we are simultaneously opening our gifts:

As you can tell, I was excited. (My mom has the same exact type thing of her baby shoes.)

When I got back to Raleigh, I took one of my baby pictures to Kinko's and got it sized correctly for the picture frame. This was my final result (via my camera phone):

Pretty cute, huh? :-)

So, anyway, it was an awesome gift, but it should have been a portent!

A few days after Christmas while in Morehead City, I went to my parents' local running shoes store. This is the only place I buy running shoes (and running socks) because I really like the people there and they have all my information in their little computer.

So, we roll up, give the guy my info, and he brings out their new model, super-duper, overpronation running shoes that are just right for my feet.

Size 7.5.

I stand up, go for a little in-store jog and the guy does the little toe mashing deal and goes "Whoa! Those babies are too big!"

So they go back and get some 7s.

More toe mashing. Still too big.

Then he puts me barefoot into the little cold metal measuring device.

Size 6.

No, I'm not kidding.

So he puts me in the 6s and does more toe mashing and sends me outside to run up and down the strip mall. (I did this for each pair of shoes I tried on and I'm pretty sure the people in the clothing store next door laughed at me each time I jogged by.)

The shoes are perfect. I'm like gliding. It's completely crazy. Sized exactly right.

While I'm running outside like a fool, my parents are talking to the shoe guy and evidently when you lose weight, you also lose weight in your feet. I had NO idea. Makes sense, but who would have thought? I've been running in the new shoes for the past few weeks and I haven't tripped over my feet once. Completely crazy. Now that I think about it, I did used to trip over the extra mesh at the end of my toes before!

So, just in case you're curious, here are my new shoes! Aren't they pretty?!?

And the sucky thing is that now I have to buy running socks for people with feet sized 4-6.5. I figure that when I lose the last 20 lbs., I might be able to fit back in my bronzed shoes!!

Half Marathon Training

2010-01-17T16:22:00.006-05:00

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I'm training for a half marathon. The race is the Raleigh Rocks Half-Marathon and it's March 27, 2010. I registered for it last week, so it's now for real (although I started training for it back in December).

My dad also registered for the race last week. Unfortunately, it's going cost him $354.95 to run it (whereas, it only costs me $54.95).

It's more expensive to run it if you're old.

HAHA. Just kidding. My dad signed up for the race and then realized that the date of the race was the same date that he and my mom were scheduled to fly back from Florida where they are going to the Braves' spring training. So, they changed the dates of their trip, but because they were using frequent flyer miles it costs $150/ticket to change the flights.

If that's not dedication to running, I don't know what is!!!! :-)

We're very excited about the race and we've been lucky enough to do two of our long runs at the same time because I've been down here visiting.

Over Christmas, our training run was 6.5 miles, so we decided to run from Cape Carteret to Swansboro and then back to Cape Carteret (http://bit.ly/8x4blz). This was a crazy day to run. It was 25° with an 8° wind chill! Some of the wind gusts were so insane that I thought I was going to blow away! We both did pretty well despite the conditions. I averaged 11:17 splits and dad averaged 9:38.

Yesterday, our training run was 8 miles. (The general gist is long runs every other weekend, increasing by 1-1.5 miles each time.) So we decided to run from Cape Carteret over through Emerald Isle and then back to Cape Carteret (http://bit.ly/61Hq67). I averaged 10:37 splits and dad averaged 9:31. Not too shabby!

Yesterday's run was pretty much amazing. The weather was PERFECT! It was about 63° with little-to-no wind and some cloud cover. It was absolutely beautiful running the huge bridge across Bogue Sound and there's a really nice greenway through Emerald Isle. Both of us felt fantastic. I, legitimately, could have fun 10 miles yesterday. Everything just felt super smooth and excellent.

The next long run will be 9.5 miles on January 30.

I am even more excited for the half-marathon now. Completely inspired. It's so much fun to set a goal and work toward it.

If everything goes well with the half then I think we're looking at the Disney World Marathon in January 2011 (me, dad, and my friends Adam and Maggie).

Christmas, travels, etc.

2010-01-17T14:55:00.012-05:00

After all of the craziness that we had with rushing off to Cleveland, it was really nice to have a pretty low-key, relaxing Christmas. We spent Christmas in Knightdale and then the week after Christmas at my parents' house in Ocean.

Brian had to work for most of Christmas Eve, so after he got off work, we headed over to his parents' house, ate some dinner, and hung out over there until Midnight Mass, which, contrary to Midnight Mass at the Vatican, actually started at midnight. Brian's mom played handbells and sang in the choir, so it was fun to see all of her performances. We got home around 2:30 a.m. and immediately crashed in bed.

We were planning to head over to the LeBlancs around 10 a.m., so when my alarm went off at 9 a.m., my first thought was total panic when I realized that we had forgotten to start the bread machine (we were making bread to have with our Christmas feast). FORTUNATELY, my loving husband had realized that we had forgotten the bread around 7 a.m. when he got up with Gatsby and had started the bread machine then. Whew...Christmas crisis averted! :-)

Christmas day was lots of fun and pretty relaxing. After we ate dinner, we went back to the house and picked Gatsby up and took him back over with us. This was the second time that we have taken him over there and he did really well this time. He made friends with Mike (who he was very scared of before) and spent the night sniffing out everything in their house while we played Trivial Pursuit. The highlight of the LeBlanc Christmas was that we got a very sweet HDTV to put in our loft. It's so nice (for me) for Brian to be able to go upstairs and watch his hockey games upstairs in HD! ;-)

The Sunday after Christmas we packed up the Civic with like 11 thousand tons worth of stuff and headed to mom and dad's for the week. We had a fantastic week! I spent a lot of time transferring our old home videos to DVD, which takes a long time because (1) we have a ton of home videos and (2) you have to play each one in its entirety. I think I did like 25 of them over the week and I'm still not done. I LOVE watching our old videos because Callie and I were the cutest kids ever and we have so many funny things captured on video.

The highlight of my Christmas was getting my Garmin Forerunner 305, which is a very pimp, wrist-top GPS device that tracks your runs. It keeps track of your distance, heart rate, calories, and a million other things and then let's you upload it to your computer and track your progress on Google Maps. The online component creates RSS feeds of your data, which I've added to the right column of the blog, in case anyone cares. If anyone REALLY cares, you can also just subscribe to the RSS: http://feeds.feedburner.com/GarminConnect-LSLeBlanc82. (PS: I know that no one else cares but me and my dad, but I like to pretend that others do.) :-)

Our Christmas pics are up on Picasa: http://picasaweb.google.com/lsleblanc82/Christmas2009 (the first few are Christmas with my dad's mom and sister in Raleigh and then the rest are at my parents' house in Ocean).

While we were there, my dad got a new handgun (a Springfield Armory 1911 .45 caliber), so we went to the gun range twice. Shooting that gun is SO much fun. It's heavier than his other ones, so you can be really accurate. We were all fantastic shots with that gun--even Clay, which is like a miracle! ;-)

We took a few pictures at the gun range in Jacksonville that are up on Picasa: http://picasaweb.google.com/lsleblanc82/ShootingInJacksonville. (Brian didn't go shooting with us because he was at Harris Teeter with mom. I'm not kidding.)

I'm off work for MLK Jr. Day, so I came back down to my parents' house for the long weekend. Because I work remotely on Fridays, I was able to leave Thursday right after work and work down here on Friday. (A very nice perk!) We've had a nice weekend with lots of yummy food and exercise. Sushi is for dinner tonight!!

Our other exciting news is that Brian and I are going to New York City the first weekend in February. Brian is going to cover a Canes/Islanders game, so I'm going to tag along and we're going to do the touristy NYC things. I've only been to NYC a few times and only as drive (or fly) throughs. Never an actual visit. I AM SO EXCITED! We're going to drive to Baltimore after work on Thursday night and then we'll only have about 3 hours to NYC on Friday morning. Our anticipated itinerary is as follows:

Friday night: dinner and Broadway
Saturday: touristy shopping, like visiting Macy's, FAO Schwartz, etc.
Saturday night: Brian to the hockey game and Laura shopping at a mall on Long Island
Sunday: NYC touristy stuff (Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, bus tour, and maybe a tour of Radio City Music Hall)

I'm planning to take lots of pictures and do a full blog report when we get back. (I'm trying to remember to blog more!)

Gatsby's Christmas Letter

2009-12-18T21:04:00.004-05:00

Because of our impromptu trip to Cleveland, we're late at getting our Christmas cards out. We're aiming to get them done this weekend to get them in the mail on Monday. In our house, Brian is responsible for writing the letter and then I edit [READ: rewrite] it. ;-) We were laughing the other day about how funny it would be if Gatsby narrated our letter, but we thought it would probably be too over the top to do it and that everyone would think that that we are strange.

Well, we are.

So we decided that Gatsby would create an e-missive for the blog because, well, our life needs some comic relief right now.

***

HEY GUYS!!! IT'S ME, GATSBY SAMUELS LeBLANC!!! THIS WAS THE BEST YEAR EVER!!

[EDS. NOTE: Master LeBlanc would prefer for his letter to continue in ALL CAPS; however, we realize that's a pain to read.]

In January, we went to visit Miss Ellie and Mr. Jay at the beach. But I didn't know what mom and dad meant by "the beach." It just looked like another house to me except it was cold and windy there. The best part of the trip was when someone dropped a bowl of popcorn and I ate it all off the floor. It was the best trip ever.

We also went back to their house later in January and that was when mom started talking about NutriSystem and ordering food. She kept talking about portion control and that seemed like a bad thing for a doggie because if she had "perfect" portions then there wasn't gonna be no extras for me. Man, I was right. It was the worst trip ever. In fact, I got so mad that I snuck off into Miss Ellie's room and peed on her comforter when nobody was looking. HAHA! I SHOWED THEM!!

February, March, and April were pretty typical cold doggie days. I woke up, ate breakfast, slept by the fireplace, ate dinner, and then played with my dad when he came home from work. I also watched all these houses get built behind us and we got a next door neighbor. His name is Ranger and he's an old dog. I like to bark at him and try to pee in his yard, but mom and dad won't let me. He doesn't really play with me. I also figured out that I like to sit up on the upstairs bed and watch the little kids play in our cul-de-sac. I wish I could go out and play with them, but mom and dad won't let me. :-(

In early May, we went back to Miss Ellie's house and I got to find out what everyone meant by the "beach." It was sandy there and there were lots of other doggies to bark at. That ocean thing is weird though, I wasn't really all about that. It kept chasing me. Jerk. In late May, my Aunt Callie and Uncle Clay got married and mom and dad ABANDONED ME. They took me to this place called Suite Paws that's a 5-Doggie-Star Hotel for an ENTIRE WEEKEND. I thought it was really going to suck until I realized that there were other doggies there and I got to play with them at daycare and mom and dad got me a cool suite with a TV. I got to watch Animal Planet all weekend and mom and dad watched me with something called a webcam.

June was hot.

In July we went to another beach (how many are there?!?!?!) and it was a FULL house. Lots of people and Aunt Callie and Uncle Clay brought my kitty cousins too. The kitty cousins stayed in another bedroom, but I saw them through the window. I just wanted to play with them, but the boy cousin Brewer hated me for no good reason! He kept hissing at me. Little jerk. The girl cousin Bama seemed interested in me, but Aunt Callie wouldn't let me play with them. She's a meanie head.

Before everyone came, I was just there with mom, Miss Ellie, and Mr. Jay and the best thing ever happened. Mr. Jay wasn't fast enough with the sliding glass door and I ESCAPED. I went for a run and everyone kept chasing me to play. Boy, those dumb old humans are SLOW. I had to keep stopping and waiting for them to catch up and then I'd take off again. They kept talking to me all nice-like and Miss Ellie even got in her car to come get me. Eventually I decided to get in and go for a ride with her. My mom was MAD and she stopped talking to me in that nice tone of voice. It sure was fun though.

I can't remember anything else that happened for the rest of the months except for the best thing ever that happened today. I was voted "ALL-STAR BOARDER OF THE WEEK" at Suite Paws. I mean let's be honest: there really was no other choice. I wasn't surprised at all. I AM the best doggie in the world. I don't know if there is an award for ALL-STAR DOGGIE OF THE YEAR, but if there is, I'll probably win it. If you want to send me a present, you can.

I hope you guys have a good Christmas and a good New Year. I'm tired and I'm going to take a nap.

Love,

Gatsby

PS: Please send me a pepperoni pizza (hold the pizza). Here is my address:

Gatsby S. LeBlanc

Gatsby's House

THANKS!

The Cleveland Report

2009-12-18T20:04:00.004-05:00

Cold. Gray. Windy.

That is all.

:-)

Although we went up there under very sad circumstances, we did have a good trip. Brian and I left super, super, super early (left the house at 5 a.m.) Monday morning in a cloud of fog (evidently right after we left there was a ground-stop in Raleigh). We were at our hotel in Cleveland by 10 a.m. and then we pretty much took the day by storm. We went with Mike and Barb to run some errands and take a tour of all the Henry and LeBlanc hot spots. It was most excellent for me to get the real tour with super narration.

That evening, Brian and I went out to a swanky dinner downtown at the Cleveland Chophouse. Holy moly, it was good! I had the salmon with a sesame-apricot glaze served over a bed of fresh sautéed spinach and rice pilaf and Brian had a bone-in ribeye. For dessert, we split a crazy-yummy chocolate ganache thing with raspberry syrup. After dinner, we went to check out some Christmas lights at Nela Park on the East Side. It was was kinda scary getting out there (it's not in a very nice area!) and the lights were underwhelming, but we had a fun drive and Brian got to see a very cool redesigned road. After that, we drove about 300 blocks west to meet up with Brian's parents and their friends in Westlake. We hung out there until it was time to go pick up Kevin at the airport (his airplane was super late)!

On Tuesday, we had to meet up with the minister and make arrangements for the funeral. We also did a little bit of shopping [Brian and Kevin both forgot their belts--are they brothers or what?!] and then visited with Brian's aunt. Tuesday night, Brian and Kevin went to the Cavs game while I "helped" Mike and Barb create photo collages for the funeral. (If you know me, you know that I am the least artistic human on the planet, so I basically helped distribute double-sided tape and provided words of encouragement!) The collages looked really fantastic and it was awesome to see all the different pictures. We were all laughing about what a fashionista G was. In one of the pictures, she was decked out in a gorgeous dress and pearls while holding a two week old Barb!!!

The funeral was Wednesday and everything went very nicely. Brian and Mike both did readings and the service was held in a small chapel at the Lakewood Presbyterian Church. There was a fantastic pipe organ in the small chapel and the flowers that Barb picked were so gorgeous. (I wish I would have taken a picture of them!) After we went to the cemetery, we had a phenomenal late lunch at Pier W. They had the most incredible bruschetta on the appetizer sampler and I had the "Vegetarian Tasting" for my entree: Breaded Eggplant Parmesan, Braised Escarole, Sundried Tomato Gnocchi, Marinara Sauce, Reggiano. Brian had a burger. Oh my goodness; it was sooooo good. For dessert, I had miniature chocolate truffles. After lunch, we went back to Brian's aunt's house for a while. Later that night, we hit up Malley's, which is a local chocolate candy store and ice cream shop. (Yes, I had dessert twice in one day and it was SOOO good!) All-in-all, it was a fantastic celebration of G's life. If you're interested, the obituary that ran in the Plain Dealer is online.

Thursday, we hit up Skyline Chili (one of Brian's favorites) before heading to the airport. I had never been before, but it was pretty good. I was impressed that they actually had nonmeat offerings.

I think we are all completely exhausted. Other than hitting up the grocery store today and picking up Gatsby, I've been so lazy today and it's been very, very nice to have some downtime.

Speaking of Gatsby, our little doggie did so good at Suite Paws! He was the "All-Star Boarder of the Week" and we had the best time watching him on the webcam (at daycare and in his little room). He's also been completely exhausted all day! This was the little bulletin board that they put up for him:

We took a few pictures while we were up there that are up on Picasa: http://picasaweb.google.com/lsleblanc82/ClevelandInDecember. The ones that Brian and Kevin took at the Cav's game are really cool. They had phenomenal seats; like 10 rows off the court for super cheap!

Running and Weight Loss Update

2009-12-13T00:10:00.010-05:00

Things continue to go well on my weight loss journey. It's hard to believe, but on January 26 I will have been at this for one year. The pounds lost rate has definitely slowed down, but I know that's because I'm moving closer to my goal weight. Eating on Saturdays during football season and during the holidays has been (and will be) challenging, but I feel really confident in my ability to do this. Basically, I know that even if I overindulge one day, I just jump right back on the ship the next morning and keep going.

It also helps that I'm staying really active. I'm exercising five to six days a week. I'm usually running three of those days and cross training the other two or three (elliptical trainer or a cardio/strength training DVD). I feel confident that this is something that I can maintain for the long haul. I've actually discovered that I tend to "crave" exercise. (I know you're thinking, "yeah, right, lady!", but it's true!)

Running is my absolute favorite exercise. When I run, I can't think about anything except for my breathing or like a four to five word mantra that I just repeat over and over in my head. Plus, when you're out running, people don't bother you or ask you questions or talk to you. It's just completely "me" time. I really, really enjoy it (that's probably the introvert side of me). I also like how I can challenge myself to improve.

On Thanksgiving morning, I ran the Gobbler's Run 5K in Wake Forest. It was a lot of fun. It was chilly, but a good race. I ran it in 29:26 (9:28/mile), which is the fastest multiple-mile run that I've ever done. I have also done a single mile time run at 8:46, but I also thought I was going to die when that was over. :-)

I really like doing races because it helps keep me motivated. In fact, I like it so much that I'm going to run a half marathon in Raleigh at the end of March. I started training for it right after Thanksgiving. The training schedule is surprisingly not too demanding. I do two 30-minute runs during the week and one longer run on the weekend (today was 4 miles). I try to push myself hard during my 30 minute runs and then keep a steady, slower pace on the longer runs. If you're interested, I'm using this schedule (www.jeffgalloway.com/training/half_marathon.html). I'm really excited about it.

I wish I travelled more because it would be really fun to get to run in lots of different places (I'm jealous my dad gets to do this)! Last weekend, my family was in Richmond for an App. game and my dad and I went running together Sunday morning. My poor dad had to slow down so that I didn't puke, but we had a really good time. We ran on an island in the middle of the James River that used to be a Civil War POW camp and was also a horse racing track during Colonial times. Pretty amazing history! Here's a picture:

http://tinyurl.com/ykn82tf (you can see the running trail in between the quarry lake and the river up at the top). It was a cold run, but it was really cool to experience it with my dad.

*****

Weight Loss Numbers

I'm 2.2 lbs. away from being in a "normal" weight range for my height and it's taking me FOREVER to get there! Even though, the weight loss is slowing, I can tell a difference in clothing sizes. Yesterday, I was at Kohl's looking for an outfit and I'm now wearing size 6 pants and small or medium shirts. In one brand, I fit into size 4 pants, but those people must be smoking crack because their sizing is obviously crazy wrong!

Here's a cute pic of me and mom (who is a total hottie!) in Richmond:

And a picture of me after my Thanksgiving 5K (I was pretty proud, I'm not gonna lie!):

Brian's Grandma

2009-12-12T23:00:00.006-05:00

I can't believe it's has been almost two months since my last post. We've been incredibly busy!

Unfortunately, I have some sad news. Last Wednesday, Brian's grandma passed away. She had been in ailing health for quite some time, but it was still quite a shock to everyone. We are flying to Cleveland early Monday morning and staying there until Thursday afternoon. This is one of my favorite pictures of Brian and his grandma that was taken before our rehearsal dinner in May 2006:

We were all really lucky to get to spend a lot of time with G (the nickname that Kevin came up with) in the past few years after she moved down from Cleveland. We saw her about once a week and I know Brian was really excited when he found out that she was moving down here. When we were in college and would plan spring and fall break trips, Brian always made sure to incorporate a stop or an entire visit to Cleveland to see his grandmothers.

I think my favorite memory of G was the first time I met her. Brian and I had been dating for a few months and he invited me to his mom's master's degree graduation party. I was INCREDIBLY nervous because it was the first time I was meeting most of his family and I was driving straight in from Hickory. As I was on the way, Brian called me to tell me to take a different route because the traffic in Chapel Hill was bad. He told me to take [and I quote] "85 to 147 to 40." What he failed to mention was that "147" was a highway (i.e., the Durham Freeway) and not exit 147. So anyway, I got lost (remember I had only lived in Raleigh for like a year and a half and most of that year I was without a car) and was running late and I was incredibly mortified. Because I was coming from Hickory, I was wearing casual clothes and planned to stop to change into something nicer, but I was running so late that I didn't have time to stop, so I ended up changing while I was driving (yes, I realize this was probably not a wise move)!

So, anyway, I finally made it to the party (completely harried) and met Brian's family. (And 11ty thousand of their closest friends--I still meet people who say "oh yeah, I met you at Barb's graduation party." Yeah, I have no memory of any of these people. Sorry.)

Brian plopped me down on the couch next to his grandma and introduced us and then proceeded to abandon me (for the rest of the party). I am not kidding. He and his brother were glued to a radio because the Canes were playing in some playoff game.

G was my savior. She sat on the couch and talked to me the whole time and kept me company. She told me stories about Brian and asked me lots of questions. People would come up and talk to both of us, but fortunately I didn't have to do the whole mingle or stand against the wall alone thing. She was just so incredibly nice.

Interestingly, a few year's later, Brian and I got engaged in her living room in Cleveland after she thwarted Brian's grand-engagement-plan by tagging along with us on a ride to this part of Cleveland where you can see all these cool bridges downtown. :-)

Camping Addendum

2009-10-18T21:18:00.002-04:00

We also saw some critters on our trip:

A family of deer Friday night

A snake on Saturday (maybe a copperhead?)

A baby raccoon Saturday night (it came right up to our campsite and then climbed a tree to stare us down!)

*****

I completely understand what people mean by "smoke damage" now. I had to shampoo my hair five times (and condition it twice) to get most of the campfire smoke out...I'll probably have to wash my jeans 10 times!!!

Camping!

2009-10-18T20:52:00.004-04:00

This weekend I went camping with some friends from work. We went to Hanging Rock State Park--left Friday after work and got home Sunday afternoon.

This was the first time I've ever really been camping and actually slept in a tent. I absolutely loved it!! I'm hoping that we'll go back more now that we all sorta have the stuff that we need.

It was definitely COLD! (Upper 30s in the morning/middle of the night and 40-50 during the day). But not too bad if you dressed in mad layers and stayed close to the fire at night and in the morning! The temperature was actually perfect on Saturday for hiking! Friday night it rained some and Saturday night it was CRAZY windy.

We hiked up to the top of Hanging Rock and stayed up at the top for about an hour looking around and taking pictures (2.6 miles round trip). Then we hiked to Lower Cascades Falls after lunch (0.8 miles round trip). And, finally, we hiked to Window Falls (1.2 miles round trip).

The distances weren't too long, but we definitely had some crazy elevation changes throughout the day! I had the best time crawling all over the rocks and going off the paths to see the different views. Completely gorgeous!! I was soooo glad that I bought hiking shoes!

We also had the best food that was cooked over the open fire:

Dinner Friday - Precooked ground turkey, rice, veggies, and cheese cooked in foil packets.

Breakfast Saturday - Bacon, eggs, and Bisquick mixed with water, coated with cinnamon sugar and panfried in the bacon grease (completely NutriSystem approved!)

Dinner Friday - Precooked ground turkey, taco seasoning, lettuce, tomatoes, and Fritos

Dessert Friday - S'mores! (Except I had a banana, graham crackers, Hershey's bar, and marshmallows cooked inside a foil packet [SO good!])

The tent that I was sleeping in was like the Taj Mahal! It was HUGE and even had a little vestibule in the front to leave your shoes! So nice to keep the tent floor clean. The park had bathrooms and showers, though I didn't dare to attempt a shower--too damn cold for wet hair! :-) Everything was really nice and clean for as cheap as the campsite was!

I'm now definitely a huge fan of hiking and camping (esp. when going with people who know what they're doing)!!

I took a lot of pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/lsleblanc82/CampingHangingRock. Most of them are just of scenery (and lots of duplicates), but it was really super pretty!

It's raining, it's pouring ...

2009-09-27T21:25:00.005-04:00

We must be in Boone.

Yes indeedy!

Friday after work, I dropped Gatsby off at Suite Paws and then waited for Brian to come home. So, we set off around 6:15 and it was cold and rainy.

We stopped at the Cracker Barrel in Burlington for dinner and it was cold and rainy.

We got to Hickory and drove past our old house in Falling Creek and it was cold and rainy.

Saturday morning, we woke up and it was cold and rainy.

We drove to Boone and went to the game and it was cold and rainy.

We drove home to Raleigh Saturday night and it was cold and rainy.

We woke up this morning with nowhere to go and it was sunny and beautiful.

Go figure.

Despite the crummy weather, we had a FANTASTIC weekend! Saturday morning we went to breakfast at Cafe Gouda, which was awesome, per usual. Brian had Belgian waffles and mom, dad, and I had pumpkin-stuffed French toast. Everything was delicious!

Afterward, we headed up the mountain and stopped in to the bookstore to get a few things. Dad had to exchange out a cycling jersey for a different size, Brian wanted a hoodie, and mom and I were looking for hats to wear to keep the rain out of faces during the game.

We had lunch in the Yosef Club room catered by Panera Bread. Because it was so chilly and rainy, in addition to sandwiches they also had soup. Their broccoli and cheese soup is DELICIOUS.

The Yosef Club room was the perfect staging ground to get set for the game. Dad got us all these cool, see-through rain suits to keep our clothes dry:

You can't tell in the pictures, but they also have pants! We were very happy to have them and tons of people kept asking us where we got them.

The game was a good one and App. looked strong. They won 20-7 over Samford in a conference game. Yay, Apps!

There were two highlights of the game:

We were all garbed up in our waterproof gear and all of us had some tunnel vision going on with our hoods and hats. As we were walking in, mom, Brian, and I somehow got separated from my dad, but since we've had the same season ticket seats for the past FOUR seasons, mom, Brian, and I just kept moving along because we all knew where to go. We got to our seats and got our stuff settled and got comfy and enjoyed watching the team warmup. We chatted a bit and said hello to all our fellow fans. After a few minutes, mom and I started wondering where dad went. "Hmm...maybe he saw someone he knew?" So, after about 20 minutes, mom turned to me and started laughing so hard that she couldn't breathe:

Mom: "I know what happened to your dad."

Me: "What????"

Mom: "He's over there ------> in the wrong section."

Yup, dad rolled in and went to the wrong section and stood there for a good 20 minutes, never realizing that he was on the 30 yard line, rather than the 45 yard line where we usually sit (and have sat for the past 4 years)! It was absolutely hilarious. Even funnier was that dad was listening to his radio and mom had to stand there screaming at him for 45 seconds before he noticed her.

Dad said later that he couldn't figure out why in the world mom, Brian, and I were being such wusses and staying under the stands to be out of the rain. :-)

The second highlight was a PHENOMENAL play by Armanti Edwards to elude Samford's defense. Even if you don't like football, I think you can appreciate how cool this was:

http://www.vimeo.com/6772819

Go APP!

More photos from this weekend: http://picasaweb.google.com/lsleblanc82/AppVsSamford.

Weight Loss Update | Bye Bye Hair!

2009-09-20T22:29:00.008-04:00

Things are going really well!!! As of Saturday, I've finally lost 50 lbs. (30 more to go)!

By the numbers:

I've gone from size 16/18 and 1X to size 9/10 and medium. (I've found that it's best for me to buy jeans in the juniors department because they have smaller hips and the height sizing fits better than petite. It SUCKS to be short!!) I actually bought a small, long sleeve App shirt last weekend, which was really, really exciting! (But, also kinda scares me...will there be clothes that fit me when I'm 30 lbs. lighter? Obviously, yes, but I've read some stuff about how much of a problem vanity sizing has become!)

I am really pleased with my progress in 8 months and I'm still as enthusiastic about it today as I was when I started.

I am 100% confident in my ability to meet my goal and maintain. I now know exactly what works for me and what I need to do.

Exercise-wise, I am still running. I'm usually running about 5K per run (3.1 miles). The fastest I've run is 10:58/mile for 3 miles. Once in my parents' neighborhood (at 5:20 a.m.!) and once in Hickory (at 7:15 a.m.!). It appears that I'm faster in the mornings! Probably because it's cooler and I've just woken up and haven't had too much going on to make me tired. My next goal is to get to 10 minutes/mile.

I'm planning to start P90X in October!

I haven't taken any pictures in my "standard outfit," but I do have a good picture of me, mom, and dad at the App/ECU game (and an old picture for comparison).

Before | In-Progress

***

And, finally, I chopped off all my hair yesterday, because I was totally over it.

Picture isn't the best, but you get the idea! So far, I love it!

The Great Computer Disaster of 2009

2009-09-20T22:10:00.002-04:00

In the past two weeks, I've had the worst computer luck!

On Labor Day, I stood up and tripped over my computer cord, which was plugged into my laptop. It yanked the computer cord out and destroyed the power jack on the laptop.

When we got back to Knightdale, we took the computer to Best Buy to see if they could fix it. They were absolutely no help and told us that we needed a new motherboard (~$400-500) on a 2-year-old computer. (Heck no!)

So, I got online and found a place in Cary that could fix it for $149. I took it over there, they fixed in 2 days, and I picked it up last Monday.

Yay!

Last Wednesday, I set a cup of mango green tea down on our coffee table right in front of Gatsby, who promptly knocked it over and spilled it all over my computer.

Awesome.

So I dried it off and everything looked OK.

And then the keys started sticking and the screen turned all sorts of colors and it started beeping incessantly.

Not usually a good thing.

So, I pulled out the mini screwdrivers and started taking the thing apart. I dried everything off around the motherboard, rechecked all the connections, popped all the keys off, and checked a lot of other things.

Brian helped me check all the connections and we got the screen working again, but the computer wouldn't boot.

So, I pulled out the old laptop and took out its hard drive to see if it would fit into this one.

It wouldn't.

Through a lot of trial and error, we figured that the hard drive was working, but completely wiped clean. Decided to reinstall Windows to see if we could get it to work.

Put in the Vista CD. ("We're sorry, we can't find a copy of Windows on this hard drive and this is an upgrade, so we're not going to install. Haha, suckers.")

Put in the XP CD. ("We're sorry, we can't find a copy of Windows on this hard drive and this is an upgrade, so we're not going to install. We hate you and since you've already paid, we don't care.")

Put in a Windows 98 CD (from 3 computers ago). Finally got it to start to install and then the install corrupted, so I then put in the XP upgrade to see if that would work now that Windows was "sorta" on the drive. It did work and I got XP up and running.

But the wireless card wasn't found and there was no power to it.

So, I took the whole computer apart again. Checked all the connections and everything was connected, so we figured that the card was short circuited.

And then the screen started messing up again.

Clearly, there were still hardware issues.

So, I got mad (still pissed at Microsoft and their lame "upgrade" CDs), went to Best Buy, and bought a Mac.

Very, very pleased with the Mac! Will never buy a Microsoft OS again.

Computer Disaster '09: A Photo Montage

Gatsby

2009-09-20T21:44:00.002-04:00

It's hard to believe, but he's now been living with us for a year!! This past year has flown by, but it's amazing to think about how far he's come.

The most noticeable difference is how much healthier he is. He had a yearly vet checkup on Saturday and weighed 22.5 lbs., which the vet said was perfect for him. He is completely up-to-date on all his vaccines and the vet was very impressed at how healthy he was.

Pic from last year | Pic from a few weeks ago

It's amazing what a difference 3 lbs. can make on a dog! His coat is very soft and shiny now!

Temperament-wise, he's still a bundle of energy and timid of men when he first meets them. However, he's calmed down considerably and is now very good when playing with other dogs. He's gone to Suite Paws three times and has played in the doggie daycare each time he was there. He's also played with some neighborhood dogs a few times. He LOVES going for rides and is much calmer in the car. Once we hit the highway, he lays down in the back pretty quickly and goes to sleep, but as soon as we stop or slow down at a stop light, he's up and sticking his head out the window to look around. :-)

I would estimate that he's 98 percent potty trained. He knows that he's supposed to go outside and he's good at telling us he has to go (even when we travel to mom and dad's house, he will go to the door to let us know that he wants to go out). It is very rare that he has an accident, but if he does, then we usually realize that it's our fault that we missed a cue from him or he's sick.

He probably jumps around too much and we'd like for him not to jump on people when they come to visit, but that's all stuff for year 2! We expect that he will continue to calm down as he grows up.

We adore him and spoil him entirely too much! We have the best time watching him play!

He's also ready for Halloween with his new t-shirt!

Sports

2009-09-20T21:09:00.005-04:00

A brief rundown of our teams:

PEKers (our kickball team): 0-3 (including 1 forfeit and 1 OT loss)

Apps: 0-2

Panthers: 0-2

Browns: 0-2

Hurricanes: 0-1 (preseason)

In other words, our teams are batting .000.

Not so good! :-(

Although App has two losses, we've seen two really good games (one in Boone and one at ECU). We also saw the additions to the stadium in Boone, which are really impressive!

Pics from App @ ECU: http://picasaweb.google.com/lsleblanc82/AppAtECU

Pics from App vs. McNeese State: http://picasaweb.google.com/lsleblanc82/AppVsMcNeese

On Saturday, App plays Samford in Boone and Brian is going to the game with us! We're going to Hickory Friday night and staying at my nanny's house and then we'll be back in Raleigh Saturday night. I'm really looking forward to it!

It's hard to believe, but it's also time for preseason hockey and Brian is back to covering the Canes. He's doing a lot of cool stuff this season, including a weekly podcast (which starts Monday 9/21).

Be sure to check out his coverage at http://thebigtailgate.com/Canes-Coverage.aspx and you can follow him on Twitter: http://twitter.com/puckdrops.

Rhet/Comp @ NCSU

2009-09-02T21:05:00.001-04:00

http://english.chass.ncsu.edu/graduate/ma/rhetcomp/rhetcomp_grads.php

Doesn't the chick at the top make you want to apply??

OF COURSE SHE DOES! ;-)

NSVs

2009-08-24T19:28:00.005-04:00

On weight loss message boards, a lot of times you read about NSVs (or nonscale victories). In other words, cool stuff that happens that isn't reflected on the scale (compliments, etc.).

I had a cool NSV Saturday morning. I decided that I wanted to check my true resting heart rate again (that is, in the morning before you get out of bed). It's best to check it on a weekend day or some other day when you don't have to wake up with any alarm.

So I checked mine (with my heart rate monitor, so I didn't miscount):

46 beats per minute

Pretty darn cool!

The last time I checked it a few months ago it was 66 bpm, so it's definitely come down a lot.

Yet another reason why running rocks!!!

OH YEAH, I also improved my 3[.07] mile time Sunday morning--35:36 (11:34/mile)!

We have our second kickball practice tonight at 9 p.m., so we're pretty much just hanging around until then.

My parents rock!

2009-08-22T23:14:00.007-04:00

Just sayin'.

June 2008 @ Jimmy Buffett

August 2009 @ Oak Island

My mom has become a super cyclist and walker and my dad just finished Day 36 of P90X (he's also still running and cycling--he ran 3 miles today at 8:41/mile).

I think it's pretty awesome that my dad is 25 years older than me and is running miles 4:21 faster than me!

Go mom and dad!

There's gonna be a lot more room in the seats at the App. games this year!!

If you're looking for a funny movie and aren't easily offended, Brian and I highly recommend "The Goods." It's hilarious!

A River Runs Through It*

2009-08-21T21:53:00.008-04:00

* It = Our Backyard

This afternoon, it rained pretty much the hardest I've ever seen it rain for a good 20 minutes. It was pretty crazy. Once the rain stopped, I was walking by the sliding glass door and happened to glance outside and was surprised to find out that we now have river access from our backyard:

Sorry the footage sucks. That's why I manage content and don't film it.

We have a drainage easement right at the back of our property that we had occasionally notice fills up with some water after it has rained. However, now that a lot of the houses along the back side of the easement have been built, H.H. Hunt (one of the builders in our 'hood) has planted grass seed and covered it with hay. It pretty much sucks for the people who are behind us where the land is significantly lower (especially because a lot of their grass seed washed away today). I'm just glad that our house is up on a hill (kinda like Jerusalem)! None of this flooding was on any of our property. We're not sure what's up with that drain right behind us with the black meshy stuff. We're pretty sure it's just there to keep construction mud out of the drain and that the mesh will be removed when the house immediately behind us is finished. Hopefully that will help reduce the flooding in the future.

We also came across something pretty funny at the grocery store Wednesday night. Smack dab in the middle of the Kraft Macaroni & Cheese was a box of Kraft Dinner (which is what Kraft Mac&Cheese is called in Canada). The box is clearly meant to be sold in Canada because it's half-French/half-English.

We would have bought it but decided not to because we have our own box of Kraft Dinner that we bought in Canada on our first road trip there. (Kraft Dinner is immortalized in a few Barenaked Ladies' songs--namely, "If I Had a Million Dollars.")

Pretty funny stuff!

If you're bored on Saturday, Brian will be hosting a shift at WCPE from 3-6 p.m. (www.theclassicalstation.org | 89.7 FM).

I, on the other hand, will be hosting no one.

I did, however, run my fastest 3.07 miles this afternoon: 37:55 (12:20/mile). The fastest mile I've run is 11:16 (on Monday), but that was only 2.39 miles. If I could get under 30 minutes for 3.07 miles, I'd be ecstatic, but I'm thinking it's gonna have to be about 50 degrees and I'm going to need to be about 30 lbs. lighter. :-)

And, finally, we got our kickball game schedule today. If you ever want to come out and see us, we will probably need fan support! All games are at East Wake Middle School.

Wednesday 8/26 at 9pm
Monday 8/31 at 9pm
Thursday 9/3 at 9pm
Thursday 9/10 at 7:30pm
Tuesday 9/15 at 8pm
Thursday 9/17 at 7:30pm
Monday 9/21 at 7pm
Thursday 9/24 at 7:30pm
Thursday 10/1 at 7:30pm
Monday 10/5 at 7pm

GO TEAM!

Wednesday Night Groceries | Nice People

2009-08-20T20:58:00.005-04:00

We went back to the grocery store last night (even though we had just been on Friday) to get back in the same weekly pattern (plus, we were almost out of fruit and some things that we didn't get Friday).

The List

Kashi Cherry Dark Chocolate Granola Bars

Kellogg's Smart Start Cinnamon Raisin Cereal

Ken's Fat Free Raspberry Vinaigrette

South Beach Living Mocha Snack Bars

Healthy Choice Mixers (Ziti with Meat Sauce)

Propel (Grape)

Diet Cheerwine

Harris Teeter Diced Tomatoes

Mrs. Cubbison's Croutons

World Harboro Teriyaki Marinade

Fresh Caught Alaskan Salmon (8 oz.)

Boar's Head Genoa Salami

Weight Watchers Chocolate Chip Cookies

Weight Watchers Chocolate Brownies

Yellow Bananas (3)

Bartlett Pears (2)

Blueberries

Dried Figs

Cucumber (1)

Yellow Sweet Onion (1)

Smart Ones Chocolate Eclairs

Smart Ones Fudge Brownies

Ittibitz Ice Cream

Lean Cuisine Three Meat Pizza

Harris Teeter (Sweet, Frozen) Pepper Strips

Sargento Colby Jack Cheese Sticks

Harris Teeter Fat Free Cream Cheese

Yoplait Light Orange Cream Yogurt

Yoplait Light Strawberry Shortcake Yogurt

Yoplait Light White Chocolate Strawberry Yogurt

Yoplait Light Cherry Cobbler Yogurt

Eggbeaters

Harris Teeter Fat Free Half and Half

***

I've pretty much felt crappy all week. Just kinda tired and generally "blah."

Tonight, when I came home from work, I actually fell asleep on the couch for about 30 minutes until Brian came home. When he came home, he was Mr. Up and At'Em and went right upstairs, changed into his workout clothes, and leashed Gatsby up into his special new walking harness that keeps him from pulling (it works great!!) and they were out the door.

I, on the other hand, was still laying on the couch half awake.

It took pretty much all the energy in the world to motivate myself to get up, walk upstairs, put my shoes on, and go out to run.

Right after I started running, I went by one of our neighbor's houses who we know sorta well (aka, we know their names). He was outside on his patio and gave me the nicest compliment about weight loss. It definitely kept me motivated through the rest of my run. That was the second compliment I had received this week from people that I pretty much just know as acquaintances. It really goes to show how small comments to people can really make people feel better!

It was only 88 degrees out tonight, but it was INCREDIBLY humid. Probably a CODE BLACK ozone day. Fortunately, none of us died, but I think Brian probably thought he was going to die.

Speaking of whom, he's probably going to have to go jeans shopping pretty soon because the ones he has now are getting way too big!!! YAY BRIAN!

TGI(almost)F

Title Image Update

2009-08-16T01:23:00.006-04:00

From left to right, top to bottom:

L&B with the Stanley Cup (June 06)

L at the hotel in Michigan right before App. completed the greatest update in College Football History (Sept. 07)

L&B with Sold sign (Feb. 08)

B driving home from Baton Rouge (escaping Hurricane Gustav) (Sept. 08)

L&B at Put-in-Bay, Ohio (Oct. 03, I think)

L&B before a Panthers game (Nov. 03, I think)

B ice skating in Ottawa (Feb. 06)

L&B at Callie and Clay's wedding reception (May 09)

G on the couch (April 09)

B on our honeymoon cruise (June 06)

L&B at Callie and Clay's wedding rehearsal (May 09)

L&B at an App. game (Nov. 06)

L&B at Callie and Clay's wedding reception (May 09)

B with the weedeater (July 08)

L&B at Callie and Clay's wedding reception (May 09)

L in Ocean sporting Callie's App. jersey (June 09)

L&B at L's Master's graduation (May 06)

G napping over Christmas in Ocean (Jan. 09)

Bears | Laura Beth is a Klutz

2009-08-16T00:07:00.003-04:00

I think I mentioned a few months ago that every time I lose 10 pounds I e-mail NutriSystem and they mail me a bear.

So my fourth bear came on Friday:

Aren't they cute?

They live on the TV in the exercise room to help keep me motivated.

Speaking of which, I never got out to do my exercise until after it was dark, so I decided to do the elliptical. I don't mind the elliptical, but sometimes it can get really boring and ever since I've started running, it's been really, really hard to keep my heart rate up while I exercise. (Because my heart is getting stronger, it beats less often when I'm not working out as hard, so I have to go really, really hard to keep it up if I'm not running.)

Like, my poor little legs were moving so fast that I got sick of it. I hung around for like 32 minutes and then decided to jump off and just run around the house for the last 8 minutes (up and down the stairs and so on). Well, as soon as I jumped off the elliptical to bounce out of the room, I definitely plowed right into the side of the door. It kinda hurt, but it's all good (nothing broken but my pride). Kept going and ran around for 8 minutes with Gatsby chasing me. (He couldn't hang the whole time though and had to stop for a water break.)

Brian just thought I was insane.

Probably so.

An organized pantry and fun with the rice cooker

2009-08-15T20:57:00.005-04:00

Today I spent the day organizing our kitchen pantry (and kitchen cabinets), which was BADLY needed. When I first started NutriSystem, I just kinda threw all the old food up onto the top of the pantry to make space for the NS food and it looked not-so-very-good. In fact, I got hit in the head last night when I was putting up the groceries.

So, if you want to laugh at our lack of disorganization, you can because I took before and after pics of the pantry.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lsleblanc82/PantryReorganization#

I'm not incredibly pleased with the top shelf (we really need more shelves down on the floor), but it will do for now because it's pretty much all baking stuff and other things that we don't use everyday. I tried to organize based on what we use the most (so breakfast, lunch, and dinner foods are on the bottom shelf; snacks on the middle shelf; and other cooking supplies on the portable shelves on the floor).

After the pantry, I was pretty much on a roll, so started reorganizing some of the cabinets to consolidate things and move things around so that they'd be in better places on the counter.

Gatsby pretty much laid on the couch and stared at me and watched the Roomba zip by on the floor. (Brian drove to Wilson with his friend Adam so that Adam could take some pictures for his Web site.)

When Brian got home, we decided to attempt to make fried rice since we've had a rice cooker since February that we had never used. The rice cooker was pretty much the greatest thing ever. We had perfectly cooked brown rice in like 20 minutes and then we each were able to fry it up like we wanted.

Brian's was pretty much just fried rice with soy sauce and then he had some turkey sausage sandwiches. My rice was fried up with some peppers, broccoli, mushrooms, hoisin sauce, soy sauce, and some veggie burger crumbles. Both our meals were DELICIOUS. We were so pleased and it was really fun to cook together. Next time I think I want to put some Eggbeaters in mine.

My dinner:

Brian's dinner:

Oh yeah, I also had a veggie omelet again this morning--does anyone know the best way to flip an omelet? I seriously screw it up every time. At least it tastes good, even if the presentation sucks!

Tonight's grocery list

2009-08-14T23:21:00.004-04:00

This week we had to go on Friday night instead of Wednesday night. We also had a lovely meal at Kanki with Brian's parents and grandma. My sushi was delicious: salmon nigiri; half mary roll; half scallop banzai roll!

The Receipt

Diet Wild Cherry Pepsi Fridge Pack

Hanover Chick Peas

Ocean Spray Craisins

Bounty Paper Towels (with pretty designs)

Cascade Gel

Kikkoman Low Sodium Soy Sauce

Crystal Light (individual and family size packs)

Peter Pan Reduced Fat Peanut Butter

V8 Low Sodium Vegetable Juice

Propel (Black Cherry, Kiwi Strawberry, and Grape)

McCormick Sesame Seeds

Harris Teeter Raisins

Harris Teeter Diced Tomatoes and Chilis

Harris Teeter Mushrooms

Harris Teeter Black Beans

Harris Teeter Paper Plates (100 c)

Harris Tetter Purified Water

Lundberg Brown Rice

Tsang Hoisin Sauce

Snyders of Hanover Mini Pretzels

Diet Sunkist Fridge Pack

Purafilter

Genoa Salami

Weight Watchers Chocolate Chip Cookies

Plumco Plums (3)

Yellow Bananas (3)

Red Seedless Grapes

Pink Lady Apples (2)

Red Pear (1)

Green Leaf Lettuce

Hot House Tomatoes (4)

Orange Habanero Peppers (2)

Kashi Turkey Sandwich Pocket (2)

Smart Ones Brownie a la Mode

Smart Ones Cookie Dough Sundae

Healthy Choice Portabella Marsala Pasta

Bocca Garden Vegetable Burgers

Green Giant Baby Vegetable Mix

Harris Teeter Green, Red, and Yellow Pepper Strips

Sargento Reduced Fat Provolone Cheese

Breakstone Fat Free Cottage Cheese

Yoplait Orange Cream Fat Free Yogurt

Harris Teeter Yogurt (pina colada, key lime, lemon, vanilla, banana cream, blueberry, cherry vanilla)

Fage Fat Free Greek Yogurt

Silk Light Soymilk

Harris Teeter Skim Milk

I kinda like typing everything out--I think it's a good way to realize if you really need everything you got.

First kickball practice was Thursday night. Lots of fun and our team should have a super good time. I actually got on base a few times. Next practice on Monday night--most likely a scrimmage.

My Delicious Dinner!!

2009-08-12T18:16:00.003-04:00

3/4 cup whole wheat pasta

4 oz. ground turkey

1/2 cup cooked (previously frozen) spinach

3/4 cup diced tomatoes

1/4 cup sliced mushrooms

1 clove garlic

onion powder

oregano

black pepper

Boil pasta.

Cook ground turkey in a large pan.

Mince garlic.

Cook frozen spinach in microwave.

Once turkey is cooked, move it to a plate and clean out any excess grease in the saute pan (there probably won't be much.)

Add diced tomatoes, cooked turkey, mushrooms, garlic, and spinach to the saute pan. Season with onion powder, oregano, and black pepper and stir until everything is warm throughout. Toss with cooked pasta until everything is nice and mixed.

DELICIOUS! I also garnished with a teeny amount of parmesan cheese.

Not too bad for an entire meal:

Calories - 328

Fat - 9 grams

Carbs - 30 grams

Fiber - 7 grams

Protein - 32 grams

I would have preferred to make it vegetarian and use chickpeas, lentils, or some yummy beans, but we didn't have any and we had plenty of frozen ground turkey in the freezer...

The Battle of the Great Cupcakes

2009-08-10T21:57:00.008-04:00

Because I'm a planning-type person, I had my list ready to go Wednesday night for our grocery shopping endeavor. (Score 1, Laura).

Of course, I forgot the list. (Score 1, Cupcakes)

However, because I have a good memory, I remembered everything I needed and didn't forget anything. (Score 2, Laura).

I also raided our cupboards to see if we had a cupcake pan. Couldn't find one--although, I really thought we had one. Oh well, couldn't find it anywhere--guess I was thinking of the cookie sheets mom gave me for Christmas.

So, Friday night, we went shopping and I got a cupcake pan at Kohl's (with the gift cards I had and 15% off coupon [Score 3, Laura]) and then went to Target to get a vessel in which to transport the cupcakes to Durham.

Saturday morning, I was up and at'em and decided to make an omelet for breakfast. It was an awesome omelet! I sauteed up some peppers, onions, and mushrooms and combined that with some EggBeaters and a little bit of cheese. SO, SO, SO Yummy. [Score 4, Laura]

After I ate my omelet, I started peeling a grapefruit (thanks, Laura, for teaching me that you can eat a grapefruit like an orange!!!!!). And, then, it dawned on me that I had to zest a lemon for my cupcakes. However, we had no microplane, cheese grater, or anything. Looks like I'm going back to Bed, Bath, and Beyond!!! [Score 1, Grater]

Not a huge deal because I had plenty of time. To be smart, I completely read through the recipe to make sure I understood it all and had everything I needed. "Hmm, wire cooling racks. Yes, we have those." OK, actually, we have one because the second one broke during a Christmas cookie baking expedition. [Score 1, Wire Cooling Rack] "No biggie! I've got to go to Bed, Bath, and Beyond for the microplane, so I'll just get more cooling racks." [Score 5, Laura]

"Hmm...what's that buried near our one cooling rack? Oh look, it's the cupcake pan that I knew I had that mom gave to me at Christmas." [Score 2, Cupcakes]

So, at this point we have three cupcake pans (because the cupcake transport vessel also came with a cupcake pan). Good thing, Kohl's is right by Bed, Bath, and Beyond. I'll just pop-in and return it.

So, I hop in the car and head over to the shopping strip in Knightdale and head to Kohl's. I return my cupcake pan; however, I get $3.57 on a gift card back that expires Sunday. (Remember, those handy dandy coupons. Well, they expired Sunday as well, so my gift card also expired.) (Score 1, Kohl's)

So, since I was there, I scoured the sales racks and found a cute pair of capris and some running shorts and only paid like $6 total. (Score 6, Laura)

Then, I went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond and got my microplane and cheese grater with a 20% off coupon (Score 7, Laura).

Hop back in the car and I'm navigating the millions of sales-tax-less shoppers in the parking lot.

"Ah crap--I forgot the wire cooling rack." (Score 2, Wire Cooling Rack) So, I whip it into a parking space and go into Target and get a nifty cooling rack three-piece combo.

Head home and start baking. I'm really taking my time to make sure I don't mess up. Reading stuff over and over, measuring twice, and I decide to premeasure out the stuff that I have to add. (Score 8, Laura)

Time to zest!!

No problem. I've got an awesome microplane and a lemon.

I am the ZESTING QUEEN. (Score 9, Laura)

Lemon is completely zested. "Hmm, I wonder if that's enough?"

Ah, yes, I've got about 1/2 tablespoon of zest.

Because I'm making 2 batches, I need 2 tablespoons and 2 teaspoons of lemon zest.

Crap.

Yep, no more lemons. All gone. (Score 1, Citrus)

My dry ingredients are mixed.

My oven is preheated.

My ingredients are nicely set out.

I'm covered in flour and sticky with lemon zest. (Score 3, Cupcakes)

So, back to the car I go to head to Lowe's Foods to purchase 4 jumbo lemons. I get my lemons and head back home. I think I rang up the lemons wrong at the U-SCAN. It had said 89cents/lemon, but I only paid 50cents/lemon. (Score 10, Laura)

Get back home and I'm back on my throne as the Zesting Queen.

"When life gives you lemons, you zest them!"

I get my wet ingredients churning in the Kitchen Aid. Delicately adding them as it says, in the perfect order, and it's looking darn good. Nice and pretty and tastes AWESOME. (Score 11, Laura)

OK, yes, the mixer did throw some buttermilk and lemon juice all over me, but I guess that's the price one must pay. (Score 4, Cupcakes)

Batter is done and ready to rock and time to put them in the little cups.

This is very stressful for me.

My type A personality wants them to be perfect and not get batter all over the pan.

It pretty much takes for-freaking-ever and I still get some on the pan that I have to wipe off and I can't get all the cupcakes proportioned correctly. However, because it's pretty much taken me 4 hours to do the "30 minute prep," I'm definitely over it and what it is, is what it is. (Score 5, Cupcakes--Laura surrenders)

So, pop them into the oven and I make the icing, which also tastes awesome.

While the cupcakes are cooling on the New Wire Rack 6000 that I got at Kohl's, I was even able to sneak upstairs and do the elliptical for 45 minutes. (Score 12, Laura)

Came back down and iced the cupcakes (which also took about as long as it takes me to put the batter in the cups [Score 6, Cupcakes]) and I garnish with lavender.

The cupcakes get to "set" before packing while I get ready and off I go to Durham after trying one.

Very, very, very good and only 152 calories/cupcake!! (Although, mine definitely aren't proportionate.)

Proof of my labor:

Up close and personal:

I scanned in the recipe and put it online at http://tinyurl.com/lemon-lavender-cupcakes. I highly recommend them and I'm sure that it will be far less an ordeal for you than for me.

They were well received at the party and all the extras got gone today at work. YAY! (Score 13, Laura)

Final tally: Laura 13, World 11

The party itself was AWESOME. The hosts brew and bottle their own beer and it was fantastic!! We also had tons of great food. Three highlights:

Mini-pies on a lollipop sticks (they had blackberry, peach, and banana)
Small toast things covered in gouda cheese and figs (OMG. These things were to die for.)
A brie cheesewheel baked in some type of doughy bread with a blueberry compote. (Also phenomenal!!)

Super, super good stuff.

Quickly, I also have to tell you about the yummy veggie stirfry I made tonight. Red and yellow peppers with onion and sugar snap peas, a little bit of a super spicy chile garlic puree, teeny bit of olive oil, smidgen of honey, some black pepper, and roasted red pepper flakes. It was hot and spicy, but the honey provided a nice cooling after effect. SO yummy.

I like cooking more than baking because it's far easier to just throw stuff in.

Shopping With the LeBlancs | WCR Update

2009-08-05T21:58:00.005-04:00

After dinner tonight, Brian's mom asked me jokingly (OK, maybe not jokingly) if I was going to be sending Twitter updates from the grocery store. I told her that I wasn't, but that I'd be more than happy to oblige by posting our receipt. So, here goes (in order of the receipt)...

Real Lemon Juice

Kashi Snack Bars (Cherry Dark Chocolate Granola)

Velveeta Shells and Cheese Cups

Bounty Napkins

Hormel Bacon Pieces

Hormel Chicken and Dumplings Compleats

Hormel Beef Tips Compleats

Crystal Light Live Active Raspberry Peach

South Beach Cereal Bar (Dark Chocolate)

South Beach Cereal Bar (Cinnamon Raisin)

Magic Pizza and Pasta Spice

Domino Confectioner's Sugar

Dried Lavender Buds

Harris Teeter Diced Canned Tomatoes

Al Dente Whole Wheat Pasta Blend with Flax (Roasted Garlic Fettuccine)

Runner's World

Genoa Salami

Weight Watchers Chocolate Chip Cookies

Green Pluot Plums

Yellow Bananas

Bartlett Pears

Lemons

Kashi Fiesta Turkey Sandwich Pocket

IttiBitz Ice Cream (aka Dippin Dots)

Fudgsicles

Smart Ones Three Cheese Pasta

Smart Ones Thai Chicken Rice Noodles

Lean Pockets Ham and Cheddar

Lean Pockets Four Cheese

Lean Pockets Sausage Pepperoni

Tropicana Low Acid Orange Juice

Sargento Vermont Sharp Cheddar

Sorrento Reduced Fat String Cheese

Breakstone Fat Free Cottage Cheese

Harris Teeter Yogurt

Horizon Organic Cage Free Eggs

Harris Teeter Organic Soymilk

Harris Teeter Buttermilk

Can you guess who picked each item?

***

Rumor also has it that Brian LeBlanc's Wake County Roads Web site has been updated.

All roads. All the time.

www.gribblenation.com/wakeco/

Callie and Clay's Wedding Slide Show

2009-08-04T22:37:00.008-04:00

For those of you who are bored at work and want to see some of the gazillion pictures from Callie and Clay's wedding (from the professional photographer), a slideshow is online at http://gallery.me.com/leeannadams#100120.

They're really all quite good! Lots and lots of beautiful people there.

There is music to it, so you may want to turn down your sound...

Callie also has a TON of amateur pictures from various wedding goers online at http://picasaweb.google.com/callisonsamuels/WeddingPhotosCombined?authkey=Gv1sRgCOPF3bCn-__hIw&feat=directlink.

I'm Not Getting Up and You Can't Make Me!!!!!!!

2009-08-03T23:22:00.004-04:00

This is what Brian found when he woke up this morning:

If that doesn't make you want to go back to bed, I don't know what would!!

Fun With Graphics (and my 200th blog post!)

2009-08-02T22:35:00.009-04:00

Tonight, after a yummy dinner at Brian's parents' house, we've pretty much just been vegging out watching the "Next Food Network Star" finale and "Design Star."

Brian is in Web site update mode (and generally uncommunicative--although, I can't blame him. I'm the exact same way when I'm focused on a project!).

So, in that spirit, I've been playing around with pictures. I had Brian take an update picture of me and I melanged that picture with all of the other pictures that I have into a little movie (it's only 16 seconds long and it doesn't have any music...). I have pictures every week from the beginning to week 13 and then tonight's picture (week 28). I wish I had more pictures to include, but life got in the way from weeks 14 to 27. :-)

I also took a screen shot of my NutriSystem weight loss chart because I thought it was pretty interesting. There's 172 days of data, so it's very smooshed together, but I think it generally shows some interesting trends. Of course, the overall trend is downward (yay!), but I also think it's fascinating to see how much it varies upward and downward from day to day. When I look at it, it helps keep me motivated if my daily weigh-ins aren't what I'd want them to be. :-)

Finally, I took my measurements yesterday, and here's where I stand at the end of week 28:

Weight -43 lbs. (-21.04%)

Arms -4.5 in. (-27.27%)

Chest -4.5 in. (-11.39%)

Waist -10.75 in. (-24.57%)

Hips -7 in. (-15.91%)

Thighs -5 in. (-19.61%)

BMI -7.38 pts. (-21.04%)

My waist-to-hip ratio has gone from 99.43% to 89.19%. My goal is for it to be below 80%.

Doing good, but still plenty of work to go!

Oh yeah, and I subscribed to Runner's World tonight. I love getting magazines!!

Have a great week, y'all!

Yay, Saturday! | Different Workouts | Playlist

2009-08-01T23:54:00.009-04:00

Today was a productive day for all of us.

Brian spent the day driving around Wake County taking pictures for his Web site, which he's in the process of updating. This is very exciting news because it hasn't been updated in a very long time.

Gatsby spent the day sleeping.

I met up with my friends Laura and Kara at Neomonde in Raleigh for lunch, which was AWESOME. I had a really yummy platter of tabouli, hummus, baba ghanouj, and stuffed grape leaves. Kara brought her daughter Whit, who is freaking adorable (for adorable shots, visit their Web site: www.thegammonfamily.com; Kara's husband, Jed, is a super photographer).

Whit was the star of the whole place. I think nearly everyone who came in there (which was A LOT of people) stopped by our table to see her. She's such a smiley, happy baby and I can't believe she's already 4.5 months old!

It was really great to see Laura and Kara--it had been entirely too long!

After lunch, I headed back east and went to Kohl's in Knightdale for some shopping (yay for perpetual sales and 15% off coupons!) I tried on about a million things, but stuck to my plan to only buy three tops (and two bras, but I doubt y'all care about that). I badly needed some stuff to wear to work because I've pretty much just been wearing the same three things over and over again in different order.

I also just have to take this moment to say that I am not down with all the nonfitted shirts that are à la mode right now. They pretty much make nearly everyone look like they're wearing a tent. If you want to wear a tent, go camping!!!!

So, anyway, it was a very good trip. Most of the shirts I bought were size medium, which was fantastically awesome and super surprising. Also good news is that I got $20 in Kohl's cash and $10 more to use during the tax free weekend, so next weekend I can go and get a pair of pants for free. Yay!!

Afterward, I went to Target and got a little half-length sweater thingie, a jacket, and a super cute purse. I think Brian's probably more happy about the jacket than I am, because now I will shut up about being so cold at restaurants and the grocery store. (Hopefully.)

When I got home, I was feeling all productive, so I spent the late afternoon/early evening cleaning out my closet and dresser. Now, we have two HUGE garbage bags to take to Goodwill tomorrow. Well, minus one pair socks that Gatsby stole midprocess. Yes, my dog steals from the Goodwill. :-(

I tried to be more ruthless this time and I think I did better. Last time, I couldn't bear to get rid of any of my App. stuff. This time I got rid of like 3 App things. However, I still have 11ty billion more. Maybe during football season, I'll try again and can make a bit more progress.

It's really silly how you get attached to clothes. I find myself making excuses not to want to get rid of something and them I'm like, "Dammit, Laura. This is stupid. The shirt is 7 years old. It's time." So, I'm gonna try to do this every few months or so until I reach my goal and then maybe annually thereafter.

I was very pleased to free up so many hangers!! We were at the point where we didn't have one extra hanger in the house. In fact, we had one hanger fewer than articles of clothing, so if all our clothes were washed and we were wearing pajamas, one piece of clothing got no hanger. Complete insanity.

***

After a super late dinner, it was too dark to go run, so I did my "30-Day Shred" video (www.tinyurl.com/30dayshred) and my "Basic Pilates" video. I stepped it up and did level 2 of the 30-Day Shred and it went really well. It's a very short workout (which I don't really like, because I'd rather do 45-60 minutes a day, instead of just 30), and the premise is three 6-minute workouts that consist of 3 minutes of strength work, 2 minutes of cardio, and 1 minute of abs (so, 9 minutes strength, 6 cardio, and 3 minutes abs per workout). The workout is very hard, but I'm not convinced that's the best way to do it. However, it's a good one to have around if you don't have much time or are looking for something different.

The pilates video I have is some 20 minute deal that I've had forever and completely forgot about until the other day. It's a decent introduction and another good one for when you want something different. I could definitely tell that my abs were considerably stronger than the last time I had done the video (maybe 2 years ago?). I'm not 100% down with pilates, but I'll definitely do it again and maybe look around for a different video (I think I got this one in a bargain bin at Walmart).

One thing I am down with is a cool yoga DVD that I got. It has two workouts--30 minutes for in the morning and 30 minutes at night. I've only done the night one, but I absolutely loved it. It was pretty basic, but the stretching felt great and I went to bed feeling completely relaxed. Eventually, I may have to look around for a yoga class to take (but I definitely don't want to join a gym just to take it).

Oh yeah, and on Friday, I did a workout that was in Shape that I really liked (this stupid rain is really messing with my running schedule):

March in place or walk to warm up (Minutes 0-3)

Jumping jacks (3-5)

Run (5-7)

Mountain climbers (7-8) [http://tinyurl.com/mjluur, for workout description]

Squat thrusts (8-9) [http://tinyurl.com/lua94b]

Lunges to front kicks (9-10)

Run (10-12)

Mountain climbers (12-13)

Squat thrusts (13-14)

Lunges to front kicks ( 14-15)

Run (15-17)

Mountain climbers (17-18)

Squat thrusts (18-19)

Lunges to front kicks (19-20)

Push-ups (20-21)

Run (21-23)

Push-ups (23-24)

Run (24-26)

March in place or walk to cool down (26-30)

I skipped the cool down and hopped on the elliptical for 25 more minutes afterward. It was a FANTASTIC workout. Really hard, but lots of good transitions. I'll definitely be doing it again. Gatsby also loved chasing me around as I was running all over our upstairs.

***

Earlier this week, I completely trashed all the music that was on my computer because I had like 15GB of stuff that I never listened to and it was completely unmanageable and slowing my computer way down. I had been listening to a lot of Brian's music, so I decided to use his music as a base and start over. So, from that, I created a playlist of uptempo music to listen to while exercising (www.gribblenation.com/personal/laura/exerciseplaylist.pdf). I am absolutely horrible about remembering the names of songs, so if you can think of any others that would be good to add, let me know! Having good music makes all the difference!

Tuesday, thunder, sports, bar, Brian on the radio!

2009-07-28T21:31:00.008-04:00

A Tuesday night chez LeBlanc...

...Brian is chillaxin on his Mac, recovering from his walk with the puppy.

...Laura is chillaxin on her PC, recovering from her run.

...Puppy is licking all the rest of the applesauce out of the container from my post-dinner snack.

I didn't have to tutor tonight and Brian left work right on time, so we were both home by 6 p.m. Because it was still pretty humid and there was a threat of thunderstorms, we decided to eat early and then go exercise afterward (typically, we prefer it the other way around...).

So I had pizza (NS Flatbread with cheese, added mushrooms, and a 4 slices of turkey pepperoni) and some steamed veggies.

Brian also had pizza (Lean Cuisine Deep Dish Three Meat Pizza) and some Mixed Berry Teeter yogurt.

(Gatsby had Purina One Healthy Puppy [not to be confused with his breakfast, or yesterday's dinner & breakfast, or pretty much every other meal he's had since late September] and a slice of turkey pepperoni.)

A lovely dinner for all!

Après dîner, we watched the radar until it was clear that the storms were not going to come to our house* and headed out to exercise.

* This is a lie.

At approximately 13:00 into my run, I began to feel big, splotty raindrops (the kind that indicate that it's fixin' to pour).

At approximately 13:45 of the run, the rain drops became more intense.

At approximately 14:00 of the run, I saw Gatsby and Brian rounding the corner at the top of the hill as it started pouring.

At exactly 14:33 of the run, we all took shelter in the garage of one of the unfinished houses on the other side of the neighborhood for about 15 minutes until the thunderstorm passed. (We saw some AWESOME lightning!!!) It was all very exciting.

After 15 minutes, we all set back out on respective paths to finish up our exercise and it was so nice now that it was so much cooler and we were all wet!! (Gatsby...not so happy with the wetness.)

So we all made it home safely and had something fun to laugh about! I completed my 2.03 miles in 22 minutes flat (10:49/mile), but I'm not considering that competitive since I took a 15 minute siesta 2/3 of the way through. However, previously, I had improved on last Thursday's time, so my best time right now is 22:59 (11:19/mile). Pretty cool stuff.

I think I've figured out why I like running so much. I am INCREDIBLY competitive and running is pretty much one of the only things you can do to compete against yourself without signing up to be on a sports team. It's so much fun to try and beat my best time!

My next step is to increase my distance, so I think I'm going to up my run to 2.25 miles. I'm trying to decide if I'm ready to start that August 1, or if I want to wait a bit longer. I don't want to do too much too quickly, but I don't want to slack off either...

---

Speaking of sports teams! Brian and I are going to play kickball with the Town of Knightdale!! They have a co-ed adult league and we've signed up to play. We have a couple of friends who are also going to play with us and it should be great fun. I can't wait!!! I'm sure there will be many exciting tales from our games...

I wonder if I should point out to my team, that I'm pretty much the crappiest athlete ever? I played basketball for 4 years in elementary school and my career scoring total was -2.

Yes, -2.

I only made it into the basket one time, the last game of my 6th grade season...unfortunately, it was the wrong basket! They were nice enough to count if for my team...I wonder if that's because my dad ran the basketball program? Surely not.

I also played soccer for 7 years in elementary school. I don't remember specifics, only that I was the shortest kid on the team, not very good, and got mowed down by this really tall boy one year. But, at least I enjoyed all the orange slices at half time.

I actually was sorta decent at cheerleading. Imagine...me being good at something that involves a lot of jumping and screaming?

OK, actually, I really wasn't that great, but I made the squad each year that I tried out and my squads got a lot of first places at the competitions. I was "Most Versatile" (aka, I didn't cry when they moved me to the back row) and "Most Energetic" (aka, loudest).

A *few* of the mementos from my illustrious athletic career:

Perhaps, I'll be more successful at kickball.

If I'm not, I'll always have my Most Valuable Ringer award from handbells my senior year of high school.

Too bad the jerks misspelled my name:

I wonder if we'll get kickball trophies?

---

In other news, I had an awesome weekend with Shannon and at Mandy's wedding. Shannon, her sister Jenny, and I went out to a dessert bar in uptown called Crave. It had phenomenal martinis and delicious food. We ate appetizers there for dinner. I had grilled chicken sliders with a mango chutney (delish!) and my dessert was cupcakes! A dark chocolate one and a ginger spice one with lemon icing. Of course, I was so full that I could only eat about three bites of each cupcake, but they were AWESOME.

Afterward, we went to bar called Blackfinn and danced for about 4 hours. It was SOOO much fun. The DJ was playing AWESOME music--recent stuff and great stuff from the 70s, 80s, and 90s. The only sucky thing is that some chick stepped on my toe in her stiletto and my toe is now all bruised and nasty looking. :-( At the bar, we actually ran into a kid that we went to high school with (come to think of it...I think he may have been on some of my elementary school soccer and basketball teams....)

Jenny, me, and Shannon @ Blackfinn:

Mandy was GORGEOUS at her wedding and came riding in on a horse drawn carriage. It was very lovely. It was SO great to see her. Everything was absolutely beautiful!

Harry Potter was good, but not the best one ever. Can't wait for the final two movies!

---

FINALLY, Brian is going to be on AM 680 (WPTF) Wednesday night (7/29) at 10 p.m. on the Tom Kearney Show answering caller questions about roads! Wake County and otherwise...if you have any burning ROAD! questions, be sure to call in!

BEST DAY EVER!!

2009-07-23T21:55:00.002-04:00

Brian and I have a running joke with Gatsby that whenever something good happens to him we say, "BEST DAY EVER!" with a nod to the fact that dogs are always so happy and excited. A few examples:

Gatsby gets up and has breakfast. BEST DAY EVER!
Gatsby goes back to bed beside dad. BEST DAY EVER!
Mom works at home all day. BEST DAY EVER!
Gatsby goes potty outside and gets a doggie biscuit. BEST DAY EVER!
Gatsby goes for a ride in the car and sticks his head out the window the whole time. BEST DAY EVER!
Gatsby goes on a walk. BEST DAY EVER!
Gatsby eats dinner. BEST DAY EVER!
Gatsby crawls under all the sheets and curls up into a little ball. BEST DAY EVER.

(I think you get the idea.)

So, in that spirit, this afternoon, I had the BEST DAY EVER!

After I left work, I had a very lovely phone call with my mom and hit no traffic. I was on my way out the door to go to the nail place and stopped by the mail box and had my August issue of Shape. Perfect reading during my pedicure.

I ended up with an awesome nail girl (who also did my eyebrows really well) and she did a really fantastic job with my toe nails. (I didn't even squirm too too bad during all the ticklish moments!) AND the color that I picked looked even better on my toes than in the bottle.

When I made it home, I went for a run and Brian walked Gatsby. I was kinda bummed after my run because my time was slower than it had been on Monday, but I felt like I had exerted a lot of energy. I decided to just chalk it up to the fact that it was a lot more humid today.

I was, however, quite pleased that my run didn't mess up my pedicure.

We all made it home before a storm rolled through and my dinner was awesome. Yesterday at the Teeter, I bought a Kashi Turkey Fiesta Sandwich Pocket that has the exact same stats as a NutriSystem dinner entree (http://www.kashi.com/products/kashi_pocket_bread_sandwiches_turkey_fiesta). This thing was freaking awesome! I couldn't believe how good it was. I had it with some bell peppers and tomatoes sauteed in balsamic vinegar. DELISH!

Then, after dinner, my dad called to tell me how well P90X was going for him and while we were talking I was logging my run on my little exercise tracking Web site (www.mapmyrun.com). As I was logging it, I realized that I had remembered the wrong time from Monday and my run was actually 12 seconds FASTER than Monday's (23:17 or 11:28/mile). It was quite fantastic!

So, basically, BEST DAY EVER!!

And tomorrow I'm going to Charlotte!!

Weight Loss Update | Annoying Motivational Laura-ish-ness

2009-07-20T23:54:00.009-04:00

Because we've been travelling so much, I've been really slack on taking weight-loss progress pictures and measurements! :-( Not so good.

But I haven't been slack at weight loss and exercise! So good!

I haven't ordered any new NS food lately because I had a huge backlog of dinners left over from past deliveries and I've found really good substitutes at the grocery store for breakfast and lunch items. Once I get through most of my dinner food, I'll definitely be ordering some more dinners to keep handy!

So far, I've lost 42 lbs. And I'm incredibly pleased with that. It comes out to about 7 lbs./month, which is right along a "safe" weight loss rate.

In the past month or so, I've really ramped up my exercise. I'm doing some form of cardio 6 days per week and strength training 3-4 days per week. I've also discovered that I REALLY like running. Yes, perhaps, I'm insane. I'm definitely a SLOW runner, but I'm pleased with what I can do. I had been doing a run/walk combo and I just decided on July 4th that I was going to go out for a complete run--and I did it!

When I run, I go 2.03 miles (because that's the course I've mapped out!) and I run it completely without stopping or walking. When I get done, I walk for another 1-2 miles (usually with Brian and Gatsby--a family that walks together, lives longer together!). I usually do that 3-4 days/week and the other 2-3 days, I do different cardio (exercise video, elliptical, walking, etc.).
In the past few weeks, it's taken me 26-28 minutes to run my 2.03 miles--I told y'all I was slow, but I don't care! Today, however, I was really feeling good and I ran it in 23:29--or, 11:34/mile.

This was SUPER exciting.

When I finished and looked at my watch, I said (out loud, to myself--I'm not kidding):

Holy crap. I can do anything.

And, that's how I feel. It's incredible.

(However, the little girls playing in their front yard looked at me kinda weird when I said that. I guess people don't usually give themselves pep talks on the sidewalk. Though, let's be honest, everyone should!)

I'm definitely into this exercise/healthy diet thing for life. It's completely changed my life. I don't even have to think about what to eat now or the correct portion size. I just do it. And it's not hard to motivate myself to exercise. I love getting all sweaty and feeling like I've accomplished something. It's AWESOME.

Twice while I was at the beach, I cyclejacked my mom's bicycle and went riding with my dad. Which was a ton of fun!! (I foresee some bikes in mine and Brian's futures!)

My current goal is to run a 5K. I've walked plenty of them and I'll be ready to run one in a few months. I'm not sure when and where, but I'm going to do it and totally rock it. Afterwards, who knows? Probably some more 5Ks; maybe a 10K; half-marathon; marathon; triathlon; Iditarod?

My other goal is to do a pullup. I try pretty much every day on the pullup bars by our walking trail. So far, I've gone from 1/10th of a pullup to 1/8th of a pullup. I figure I'll have the pullup accomplished when I finish my 2nd Iditarod.

I've also decided that in the mid-fall, I am going to start P90X (http://www.beachbody.com/product/fitness_programs/p90x.do). I think that will be a good time to start because it will be a good in-the-house thing to do when it starts getting cold (and dark earlier!) and I'll be in better shape by then... If you don't know, P90X is a fitness-cult-thing that's really popular right now. It's marketed in people in generally good fitness condition who want to get "absolutely ripped." It's a series of workout DVDs that you do for 90 days. It actually has a "fit test" (http://www.beachbody.com/text/products/programs/p90x/p90xFitTest.pdf) that they want you to pass before you start. I can actually pass it now, but I'll be less likely to die if I wait a few months. It mainly concentrates on building muscle and strength, but also incorporates lots of cardio and other good-for-you things. I did one of the workouts this past weekend with dad (plyometrics, aka jumping) and it was a lot of fun, but definitely hard.

*****

So, now I have to dole out some kudos! I am incredibly proud of my family!

Brian has been stepping up his exercise like it's going out of style! He and Gatsby are best walking buds and they walk for about an hour about 4 days each week. A few weeks ago he did a workout video with me and (probably wanted to kill me) but did incredibly well. He's also beginning to pay a lot more attention to nutrition labels and is trying new things (AND eating breakfast!!!) I am so proud of him.

My momma is a total hottie. She's had her bike for more than a month and she rides it about an hour and 15 minutes most days of the week (she walks the other days). She looks INCREDIBLE. I think she's pretty much ridden all over Oak Island in the past month that she's been there. We think she'll be ready for the 2011 Tour de France, but she has to figure out how to stand up and pedal first!

My dad is also kicking butt. Even though he's traveling all the time, he gets up at 5 a.m. to go run during the week! When we did a 5K over the 4th in Southport, he ran his in
25:49 (8:19/mile). He was 4th in his age group! Of course, he's still cycling when he's at the beach or at home. He also started P90X on Saturday and I can't wait to see how he looks in 90 days! Right now, he also looks awesome, so in 90 days there is no telling...

Callie and Clay are also doing P90X together (see a trend?). They started last week. Frankly, I'm a little scared to see them. They're pretty much rocking married life so far. Evidently their kitties look at them like they're crazy when they do plyometrics together. I can't imagine why.

Even Brian's parents are getting in on the action with some workout videos. They're toning and doing some walking videos.

It's all very exciting. I am so proud of everyone.

*****

So, I've been on my quest for almost 6 months and, like I said, I've lost 42 lbs. so far. My goal is to lose another 38 lbs. to put me at a total weight loss of 80 lbs. or at 124.4 lbs. (Yes, I know you're doing the math--I'll save you pulling up the Windows calculator--I started at 204.4.) I'll be honest. I have no idea what I'll look like at 124.4 lbs. That will put me squarely at a healthy BMI of 21.4, which is right within the recommendations. I think it will be about right. If it's not, I'll reevaluate. I'm not as concerned about the number as I am what looks and feels best. Because I like running so much, I know that the lighter I am the easier that will be. I'm also working hard to be as toned as possible.

I've gone from size 16/18 (XL-1X) to 10/12 (M-L) and I love, love, love going to the mall now. It is incredibly fun to be able to go in to any store and be able to find something that fits. Last weekend, I went to the mall in search of a dress for Mandy's wedding and found quite a few things that I liked (though I only bought a dress--go team self-restraint!). However, I did try on two pairs of jeans at Express. I was SO excited when the 12s were too big and the 10s were perfect.

So, I don't have any progress pictures, but I do have two pictures that I sent to Callie last night, as I'm trying to figure out how I want to accessorize my dress for the wedding this weekend.

(No, I don't purposely just have Brian take pictures of me posing by the fireplace!)

I send them to my fashonista sister for her advice. FYI, we still haven't decided, but I have a few other things that Callie wants me to try--I just want to be able wear my shoes from Callie's wedding again...

Have a super week, y'all!!

Where in the world does the time go?

2009-07-20T22:48:00.005-04:00

I really don't know.

But Brian, Laura, and Gatsby pretty much just go to the beach! :-) We've been down to my grandmother's house on Oak Island every weekend except one in July and before that we spent some time in Ocean with my parents.

I'm not going to lie. It's been pretty awesome.

This weekend, I'm heading to Charlotte to see my best friend Shannon and then Saturday night we're heading to Shelby to my good friend Mandy's wedding. It should be a lot of fun. On Sunday we're going to see the new Harry Potter movie. I am so super excited about the trip.

The last weekend in August we're going to OKI with Brian's parents, grandma, and brother. This is the third year in a row that we've spent a weekend down there in August and I'm really looking forward to it! Brian and I are planning to take Monday off so that we don't have to rush back. That's our one complaint about beach weekends--they're wayyyyyy too short!!

And the weekend after that--you guessed it--FOOTBALL SEASON, BABY!!!! App. is starting out the season at ECU! So, Brian, Gatsby, and I are going to go to my parents for Labor Day, so that I can ride directly with them to the game. I am SO ready for football. Y'all can't possibly imagine how ready I am.

I am so ready that I tried on "my" football game-day jersey a few weeks ago at my parents' house:

The jersey is at my parents' house because it's Callie's (and it hasn't quite yet made it to her and Clay's apartment yet...). But I'm claiming it for the start of football season because none of my App. stuff fits anymore. Here's the cool thing about that shirt--it's a boy's XL. (Not men's!) It's still a little tight in that picture, but it will be ready for some football action come Labor Day!

I'm pretty sure that between weekend trips to visit my parents in Ocean and OKI during the spring, summer, and winter, and trips to Boone in the fall, I definitely spend the majority of weekends in a year away from home. I love our house, but I LOVE spending time travelling and Brian and I are so incredibly fortunate to have such fun places to visit...and wonderful people to see when we get there.

That much driving has definitely taken a toll on our cars. In fact, poor Brian's car had a rough time coming back from OKI over the Fourth. It broke down on him in beautiful Pender County and needed a new distributor-thingie-mc-jig and then the mechanics told us that it really needed considerable more work (his car was a 2000 Civic with 150K+ miles). So when we got back to Raleigh, we took it to the Honda place and they told us that it needed about $1700 in additional work to have any more of a lengthy existence. Considering the car was worth pretty much $1700, we decided to say our goodbyes and purchase a shiny new Civic.

We're quite excited about it and LOVE, LOVE, LOVE having a new car. We're definitely the people who will drive a car for as long as humanly possible before buying a new one, so it's super exciting to see what Honda has come up with in 10 years of new models! (Our favorite is the USB hookup for our ipod that interfaces with the car's stereo.) It's very nifty.

It made its maiden voyage to OKI last weekend and performed without flaw--we were so thankful to be in a good car with super tires when we drove through a rainstorm second only to Noah's flood!

That's pretty much it for now...though I'm going to post a weight loss update in a few minutes...

I'll separate them out, so that you can ignore that one if you don't care ;-) (And, so that I'll have 2 posts in one night!)

Oh yeah, and if you want to...you can follow me on Twitter now...

http://twitter.com/SushiBeach

If you're friends with me on Facebook, it's the same status updates...

A lovely weekend for all...and a Thursday morning from the depths of hell...

2009-06-07T22:23:00.004-04:00

Brian, Gatsby, and I had a really nice, relaxing weekend.

On Friday after work, Brian went out to dinner with his parents and Grandma to the Texas Roadhouse in Wake Forest (his favorite restaurant of all time), while I trekked out to Durham to go to happy hour at my boss's house. It was a casual shin dig with lots of good conversation and food!! (I love homemade guacamole!)

Saturday morning, we were all up around 9:45 a.m. and just kinda chilled around until noon when we all went back to bed and had a 2 hour nap! :-D It was fantastic!! After we woke up, we had about an hour or so until our good friends Robbie and Sara and their daughter, Katie (almost 2), came over. They were in town for a high school reunion and stopped by for a few hours. Katie is absolutely adorable! She had fun walking around our house and finding (the few) toy-like things that we had around. Brian was incredibly jealous that Katie wanted me to "help" feed her dinner!!! ;-) (Point, Laura!)

Gatsby was way-too excited about Katie being here and ended up spending a lot of time hanging out solo in our bedroom.

After the Borkas headed out, we went to Milton's for dinner and then I coerced Brian to go with me to Walmart to buy some t-shirts--my App. ones are all way to big now :-)/:-( And then we went go to see Angels & Demons, which was quite good. I had forgotten most of the book, so it was fun to not remember everything that was going to happen. We didn't get back home until way late and didn't make it to bed until probably 2 a.m. ...

... which explains why we didn't wake up until noon:15 today!!! (It was awesome!) We did some house things in the early afternoon and then went to Bonefish Grill in North Hills for an early birthday dinner for Brian's dad. Happy Birthday, Mike!

Since we've been home from dinner, we've pretty much just been hanging out playing with Gatsby and watching TV. We're quite pleased that the new seasons of "Next Food Network Star" and "Ice Road Truckers" have started!

I also have to tell y'all about my super-traumatic experience. Two Thursdays ago, I set off around 7:15 a.m. on my way to work (much like I do every Thursday). Usually, this is a very enjoyable experience because I'm happy to know that I don't have to make the drive for 3 more days! Well, on this fateful Thursday, I got on US 64 and all I could think was, "what is that putrid smell?" and then I saw it...

... a truck full of live pigs heading west to their ultimate demise.

It was horrible.

They were all squeezed in so tightly with their little pig snouts hanging out the little breathing holes.

And I immediately burst out into tears (admittedly, I was rather hormonal, but it was uncontrollable).

So, I hurried up to pass the pig truck (and hopefully stop crying) and then my lane stopped and then I played pass and get passed by the pig truck for the next 45 minutes until exit 273B on I-40. Yes, this truck went all the way from Knightdale, onto the Beltline, and then out Wade Avenue to I-40 to Durham with me.

It was horrible.

I, literally, cried for 45 straight minutes.

So, I know that in another post, I had previously mentioned the idea of going vegetarian, which I've been thinking about, and this pretty much helped me make my decision.

I contemplated becoming pescetarian (only eating fish), but I don't think I'm ready to completely cut out chicken from my diet. (I have no desire to cut fish out.) But I am going to try to completely eliminate all mammals from my diet. I'm not sure if it will be a forever-change, but it's definitely something that I want to try.

The pig truck was one of the worst things I've ever seen.

Interestingly, I was telling this story to my work friends on Friday night (three of whom are vegetarians) and my boss had almost the exact same experience a few years ago before she made a similar decision. I thought it was really fascinating that we both had a similar experience and made the same decision without ever discussing it previously...

Remember us??

2009-06-03T21:29:00.002-04:00

Things have been absolutely crazy and so busy!

ABSTRACT

Brian. Work, hockey, hockey, hockey, hockey, hockey, hockey, work, New Jersey, Boston, work, hockey, hockey, hockey, hockey, hockey, hockey, and Callie & Clay's wedding.

Laura. Work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, NutriSystem, work, work, work, work, bills, work, work, work, work, tutor, work, work, and Callie & Clay's wedding.

Yes, indeedy.

Daily Life

Now that hockey in North Carolina is over for the season (R.I.P. Canes), Brian actually has the opportunity to be at home at nights. During the playoffs, he was pretty much gone every other night and he took two weekend trips to Newark and Boston. And, during the away games, he was liveblogging the game, leading livechats, and recording post-game reports to play on the radio the next day. He was rarely in bed before 1 a.m.

I wasn't quite so busy at night, but we've been INSANELY INSANE at work for the past month or so. This is our normal busy season, but on top of that, we also are revising most of our publications because of newly issued authoritative accounting guidance (we're talking three 1000+ page looseleaf volumes that are each published in 3 different formats [online, paperback, and looseleaf]). In addition to these, we have our regular annual publications and we're short staffed. At least it's exciting, never boring, and I love doing it! :-)

The WEDDING

Callie and Clay's wedding was Memorial Day weekend and it was SO much fun. We had the best time seeing everyone and everything was perfect. The weather was really nice and Callison was GORGEOUS. She has a lot of the pictures online: http://tinyurl.com/rb775j.

We dropped Gatsby off at Suite Paws on Saturday morning and then heading down to Wilmington. The rehearsal dinner was Saturday night at a restaurant on the Intracoastal off Wrightsville Beach. It was DELICIOUS--so, so, so much yummy food.

The wedding was Sunday afternoon in downtown Wilmington and everything went off without problems. It was very casual and relaxed and gorgeous. I think the pictures tell the story best!

On Sunday night, Brian and I went to dinner with my very-best-friend Shannon and her parents. We ate at restaurant in downtown Wilmingtn and had a really fantastic time.

Monday afternoon we went back out to Wrightsville to have lunch on the waterway and then back to Raleigh pick up Gatsby.

The little pup had a great time at his doggie hotel. We were able to watch him the whole weekend in his room on the Webcam and we also were able to watch him out in the play yard with the other dogs. The staff said that he was pretty timid and shy the first day, but really came out of his shell the rest of the time and had fun playing with the other doggies. That place is SUPER NICE and all the people are fantastic. We were so impressed. Brian called at one point to ask a question and as soon as he introduced himself, the lady on the phone said, "Oh you're Gatsby's dad--he's out in the play yard." We were so impressed that they knew exactly where he was.

We're planning to relax and enjoy the rest of the summer with a few trips to the beach!

NutriSystem is going great. I'm down 35 lbs. and I'll do an update post on all that soon.

And, I promise, I'll blog more!!

30 lbs. lost!

2009-04-25T14:18:00.004-04:00

Yup, today was the day that I reached the 30 pound mark, which moved my BMI below 30 pts. (albeit very slightly at 29.9). So, now, I'm not obese--just fat! :-)

Very exciting!

To celebrate, I took all of my clothes out of the closet to filter out the ones that no longer fit. I ended up with two trash bags worth of clothes to take to Goodwill, three pieces that needed to be trashed, and three pairs of shoes that need to be thrown away. My rule was that if it fit me right now, I kept it, regardless of the season. So I kept a handful of sweaters that probably won't fit in the fall, but I didn't want to throw them away just yet. I figure that in the fall, I'll have to do all this again and then I can trash those then. (Yes, I'm probably insane.)

Three things were particularly clear to me:

1. Most of the weight I've lost has been in the lower half of my body because I pretty much threw away all of my pants save the ones I've recently bought and one pair of capris that are probably a little loose now, but are still OK.

2. The shirts I used to wear were way too tight. Some of them still fit me now, so I know they were way worse 3 months ago. Just because it looks OK in the dressing room when you suck in your stomach, doesn't mean it's acceptable for the real world. Kinda embarrassing, but oh well. Most of the shirts that I tossed were button down shirts that look like striped potato sacks! SAYONARA! :-)

3. I have a lot of App. stuff. (I had a pile of keep stuff, Goodwill stuff, and App. stuff--and the App. pile was just as big as the other piles.) I couldn't throw away any of that stuff even though I know that some of the hoodies are way too big. I will have to reevaluate those in the fall closer to football season. I'll probably end up needing all new stuff, but I'm not exactly sure yet because in the middle of football season you end up with a lot of layers. So I'm not sure if I'll be able to salvage any of that stuff--maybe I'll put them in a frame to commemorate the garb of 3 national championships.

Oh, and I did save one pair of size 18 black capris that I'll be able to use in my NutriSystem commercial along with my crappy before picture. :-)

And now that I've reached my 30 lb. goal, I can have my 30 lb. reward, which is to go to the Pennyrich Bra Patch and get fitted professionally and correctly for a new bra. I am very excited about this because I know that most women wear the wrong size bra and I want to know what it's actually like to have one that's correct:

http://www.newsobserver.com/105/story/545085.html

Literacy Council of Wake County Road Rally - May 30

2009-04-20T22:44:00.001-04:00

In case any of y'all are interested. I think Brian and I will participate (and totally rock it!).

http://www.wakeliteracy.org/content.php?cid=33ad0586-2140-9380-dfa8-47bb21b91464

Want to spend a fun filled day outside in beautiful weather solving riddles and driving through Wake County? Then come to the first annual Literacy Council of Wake County Road Rally! This is a great chance to test your trivia knowledge, explore places you have never been, and support the Literacy Council. The Road Rally will begin at 1pm on Saturday, May 30, 2009 at Hendrick’s Cary Auto Mall. Road Rally participants will follow clues that take them on a 60-80 mile journey through Wake County. Each team will need to find the answers to a set of questions that will ultimately direct them to a secret end location for a victory celebration! The car closest to the actual course mileage, with the most correct answers, wins! There is a tax deductible entry fee of $100 per car. Your entry fee will go to support literacy programs helping individuals in Wake County learn to read and write, helping both the community and the individual to thrive. Fill your car with friends, family and co-workers and see if you can be the first person to navigate the course, find the answers and win the Road Rally! For additional information or to register for the event, please contact Nora Casper at 919-787-5559 or ncasper@wakeliteracy.org. Come help make our first ever Road Rally a success!

Three months later...

2009-04-20T19:58:00.008-04:00

Today is the start of week 13 for me, so it's time for my monthly photo and results:

Start

End of week 4 (-14.8 lbs. total)

End of week 8 (-21 lbs. total)

End of week 12 (-26.8 lbs. total)

Numbers

Weight: -26.8 lbs. (-13.11%)
Arms: -3.5 in. (-21.21%)
Chest: -3.25 in. (-8.23%)
Waist: -6.75 in. (-15.43%)
Hips: -4.5 in. (-10.23%)
Thighs: -3.5 in. (-13.73%)
BMI: -4.60 pts. (-13.11%)

My waist-to-hip ratio has gone from 99.43% to 93.67%. Still way too high, but definitely going in the right direction!

As you can see, things are continuing to progress nicely; however, I can definitely sense weight loss slowing down. It seems like my body will fluctuate around the same number for 4-5 days and then eventually lose ~0.8-1.2 lbs. and then repeat the cycle :-) However, I'm staying motivated and just happy that the trend is downward.

Unfortunately, I did not meet my tax day goal. I'm about 2.5 lbs. away from that goal, but that's OK. I'm still doing really, really well.

It's really pretty rare that I have bad-for-me food cravings, but for some reason today at work I really, really wanted a Milky Way. Fortunately, there aren't any in the vending machine downstairs, so I ended up with one minuscule chocolate egg, which somewhat tempered craving. :-)

This past weekend, Gatsby and I went to my parents' house because Brian went to New Jersey for the Canes/Devils game. We had a really good time. On Friday night we went to Tsunami, which is an Asian food buffet (a good one! not a freaky, scary one--I'm really pretty anti-buffet). This one has fresh-made sushi and we sat right by the sushi chefs so we were able to pillage the fresh pieces as soon as they hit the buffet! Very yummy and super cheap.

On Saturday, mom, dad, Gatsby, and I met Callie at Fort Macon and we laid on the beach for a few hours. It was Gatsby's first trip to the sand and he did really well. He let the ocean get him a little wet on his paws and he had fun eating seaweed and watching all the people and other doggies. Saturday night, we went to El Zarape in Beaufort, which is most definitely not NS friendly, but still good.

Sunday, we did some shopping and I bought a new pair of running shoes, which are awesome. I got to walk across a little machine that measured my weight distribution of my feet and also showed how I move my feet when I walk (evidently, I turn my right foot in slightly). So the friendly guy helped me find the right shoe to counteract my slight turn-in and I have a very lovely pair now. Sunday night we went to Outback and all had salmon and fresh veggies before Gatsby and I had to head back home.

A very lovely weekend with fantastic weather!

Oh yeah, and mom and dad look incredible!! (Callie and Clay too!)

Oh, I almost forgot! On Friday, many of the people in Professional Publications went to the Habitat for Humanity house that my company financed. The house is almost done and we spent the day helping out with painting and landscaping. I stayed outside with the landscaping because the weather was awesome! We planted two trees, lots of bushes, and pushed around a lot of top soil and mulch. It was SO MUCH FUN. It's very exciting that the family who will be moving in next month is going from a 2 bedroom apartment (with 4 kids!) to a 4 bedroom house. The area is Durham is not fantastic, but evidently it's become so much better since Habitat started doing work out there. It used to be one of the worst neighborhoods for crime and drugs and now it's just a quiet, low income area. Evidently the Habitat houses really motivate current residents to improve their own abodes. If you ever have an opportunity to do a build day, I highly, highly recommend it. It's hard work, but incredibly fun and fulfilling. I also wasn't nearly as sore as I would have thought--evidently strength training and losing 26.8 lbs. makes a big difference! I can't wait to do another!

Pretty colors, bp, jogging, meditation, and meat

2009-04-11T23:48:00.009-04:00

I am very excited about my fruit selections this week and my pretty fruit bowl:

3 bananas, 3 apples, 3 pears, 2 oranges, 1 grapefruit, 1 tangelo, 1 mango, and 1 horned melon (I also got some blackberries, but they don't get to go in the fruit bowl...)

I also dragged poor Brian to Kohl's so that I could get a new bathing suit. After trying on many bathing suits, I ended up with this one and a cute brown coverup:

Gatsby and I are planning to go to the beach this coming weekend and Callie and I have already set up a date at Fort Macon for some sand action. Brian will most likely not be joining us because he's planning to head north to use his press credential to attend one of the Canes away-playoff-games in Newark.

Poor guy. I'm going to the beach and he's going to New Jersey. HA!

I tried something different with my workout today. I did my normal strength training stuff upstairs and then headed outside. I want to get to the point where I'm like a super jogger because I really like doing it, but I can't do it for too long at one time because my heart rate gets too high and it's not really worth dying for...

So, I decided that I would alternate between walking for 2 minutes and jogging for 2 minutes. And I did that for about 40 minutes and then walked for about 10 minutes after I finished. I probably wouldn't have normally walked for the extra 10 minutes (usually, more like 5), but I ended up about 10 minutes from the house and I had to get back home! :-) It was a very good workout. I decided on the 2 minute intervals because 2 minutes of walking usually brings my heart rate right to 60% of my max and I don't want to go below that during my workout. I know that I went at least 2.3 miles on the road (we measured that out by car), but I'm not sure about the part on the walking trail. I think the walking trail is probably 0.5-0.75 miles one way and I did the full length twice, so I'm thinking that I was probably at about 3.5 miles for the day.

And at least something is working because this was my weekly Teeter BP check:

OK, that was check #4. The first check was 121/69 and #2 and #3 were around 113/65.

I'm also being kinda new age and funky right now. I downloaded some meditation podcasts on my ipod and the one I've listened to so far (twice) is a meditation to use right before you go to sleep and it's incredible how well it works. I've had 2 nights of the best, deepest sleeps ever! If you're interested it's online at www.themeditationpodcast.com/download.php (and also on iTunes). The guy's voice is a little hokey, but it does work!

Also, once I get to my goal weight and stop with the NS food, I'm considering eliminating mammals from my diet (i.e. beef and pork). I've found that I really don't care that much for them and I know I can get protein from other good sources. I wouldn't go full vegetarian because I don't think I could do without fish (my beloved nigiri!) and I do really like chicken. I've just pretty much figured out that I do really well with restrictions and guidelines and I want to be able to continue all I'm doing now as a lifestyle change. I'd love to start it now, but I don't want to limit my NS entrees. I still need a little bit of choice! :-)

It could also just be that I've been in publishing too long.

A picture is worth a thousand words...

2009-04-10T22:20:00.005-04:00

Via text message

~~ sometime this afternoon ~~

To: Laura
From: Callie

~~ at dinner ~~

To: Callie
From: Laura

Ahhh....sisterly love! ;-)

(I think we both won!)

Gatsby's Accomodations During the Wedding

2009-04-06T23:13:00.004-04:00

So, we weren't sure what we were going to do with Gatsby while we were at Callie's wedding. We thought about finding a hotel that allows pets, but we didn't want him to be miserably bored on Saturday night and all day Sunday, so we decided that we're going to board him. (This will most likely be tougher on me and Brian than Gatsby...)

So, because we don't have any kids and pretty much love to spoil our doggie, he will be staying in a suite at Suite Paws, which is right down the road from our house. In case you were curious, for the (not too terrible) price of $36/night, young Gatsby LeBlanc will have a private room with a bed and fleece covers and a TV and DVD player that plays special features targeted to doggie interests. Brian and I will also be able to check in on him because his room will have a webcam and he'll have 2 outside play times per day.

We also can pick extra services if we'd like:

SERVICE

Pick Up & Delivery One way / round trip, charge based on distance
Bone Phone Speakerphone chat w/webcam viewing $8/each
Bottled Drinking Water $3/per day
Peanut Butter Kong $3.50/each
Frozen Dog Treats $3.50/each
Extra Outside Time 15 minutes during requested time of day $5
1-on-1 playtime w/ staff 15 minutes - Frisbee or ball chase $7
Cuddle Time 10 minutes $6
Hair Brushing 10 minutes $6
Belly Rub 10 minutes $6
Attend all day daycare Temperament test required $15
Attend half day daycare Temperament test required $10
Email Picture to Mom/Dad $1/email
Exit Bath Minimum 1 night stay $15-$40 depending on hair and dog size
Minimum 7 night stay

http://www.suitepaws.com/SP_Brochure.pdf

Brian and I will be at the Hampton Inn.

Shoes, workout, and nasty dinner

2009-04-05T21:01:00.008-04:00

I've finally found my shoes for Callie's wedding! (Thank goodness!) I've been searching online for probably 2 months and I haven't been able to find anything that I liked. We decided that they needed to be gold because the dress is "truffle." I don't think I've posted a picture of the dress, so here it is:

I didn't post a picture of me in the dress because, well, I don't want anyone other than family to see it before the wedding (yes, I know I'm not the bride!).

So, the wedding party consists of Callie and Clay (obviously), Callie's good friend Melissa, moi, Clay's good friend Jonathan (who is Melissa's boyfriend), and Brian. Well, Callie, Clay, Jonathan, and Brian are all tall. Melissa and me, not so much. So, I don't want to look like a midget and opted for heels. And, voila:

They are bangin' hot!!!!! I love them and, surprisingly, they're quite comfortable. They must fit my arch just right or something.

I have my dress alterations on Thursday, so it should be interesting to see how that goes. I (OK, mom and dad) bought my dress two days before I started NutriSystem. In hindsight, not so smart, but I honestly didn't even think about the wedding when I decided to start NS (sorry, Callie!). I tried on the dress yesterday and I'm not in horrible shape. It's definitely big, but they should be able to take it in (and up!) and because it's not strapless or anything, I don't have to worry about it falling down at the wedding--that would be bad! Also, I seem to have lost a lot of my weight in my waist, arms, and legs (my calves are pretty awesome in my new gold shoes!!!), so I'm still able to fill out the dress up top.

After the shoe-buying fun, Gatsby and I went on a walk/jog. We were gone for about 45 minutes and had a super time. We started out on the trails behind our house and then went "off road" on the other side of the neighborhood over an unpaved road and some empty lots, then we picked back up on another trail. We then went off trail again and cut through the woods back toward our house and then back home on another unpaved road. It was a lot of fun to be "cross country" and really helped keep my heart rate up during the walking parts. Gatsby had a ball! He loved jumping across creeks and diving under trees. When we came back, I was stretching and Gatsby did this:

And he's pretty much been sleeping all night. Great fun!

I had the NS Vegetarian Chili for dinner and it was horrible, so halfway through, I called an audible, trashed my dinner, and made a turkey and cheese wrap. SO much better! The bummer is that I have 2 more of this veggie chilis left--anybody want one? They're delicious!!

Brian's been volunteering at WCPE all day, so that's pretty much been it...

Happy homeowners and a pair of jeans that fit just right...(for now)

2009-04-04T22:46:00.007-04:00

So, my super-best-friend-in-the-entire-world, Shannon just realized that I had a blog. Yeah, maybe she's not such a super-best-friend-in-the-entire-world... ;-) Just kidding!

So, she was catching up on the last year of my life and I started reading back through old posts as well and came across the one where we picked our options for the house. The following is what we picked with my now-commentary in parentheses and brackets:

Gas log fireplace in the Great Room (very excellent decision; Gatsby also agrees)
Separate garden tub and shower in the Master Bath (I take at least 3 baths each week; so this was a must)
Kitchen island (I truly can't imagine not having it)
Faux-wood floors (laminate) in the dining room and front foyer (they look awesome, but they're a huge PITA to keep clean)
Garage door opener (isn't it lame that you have to pay for the opener and motor?!) What's the point of having a garage! [A definite good choice; it was nice to have it ready to go on day 1!]

Fluorescent light in the kitchen (Works very well and keeps the kitchen bright!)
Two exterior lights on each side of the garage door (Very nice for walking Lil G at night)
An elongated toilet seat in the Master Bath (Brian INSISTED!) [I notice no difference.]
Super quiet Whirlpool dishwasher (black) [If ours is quiet, then I can't imagine the "standard." Thank God for the 4 hour delay]
Whirlpool microwave hood over the stove (black) [Very nice to not have it taking up counter space.]
Smoothtop Whirlpool Stove (black) [Way hotter than old school-lame stoves.]
Side-by-side Whirlpool fridge (black) [We probably could have gotten a better deal from Best Buy with no-interest financing, but it was totally worth it not to have to worry about it when we were moving.]

We also had them put ceiling fan wiring in all four bedrooms, the great room, and the loft (We've put up fans in the master, 2 guest bedrooms, and great room and we're planning to do the loft ASAP.) and overhead lighting wires in the hall bathroom and living room (The light in the bathroom is phenomenal). We also put cable hookups in all four bedrooms, the loft, great room, and living room (which we're going to make an office) (Also a good purchase; I do wish we had added an electircal receptacle in our closet (for ironing and for our Christmas candles) and put a light hookup in over the sink].

So, in hindsight, I think we did pretty darn well. When I'm motivated, I'm going to pull out all the available options to see what we passed up and if we have any regrets on that front.

Last Monday, we went to Lowe's and bought a storm door and signed up to have them install it. So, on Thursday, Brian came home for an extended lunch and the guy installed the door. It is so fantastic. We are very excited about it. The way our house is laid out with the garage, there are only downstairs front windows in the study. So with the storm door we can have a lot more light at the front of the house. Gatsby wasn't sure about it at first, but now he likes being able to look out. It was a pretty good deal too. The door was like $189 and the installation was 15 percent off at $84; I think it looks more expensive than it cost.

While we were at Lowe's we also bought a nice pretty little plant that I put in a hanging basket on the front porch. It's very cute. I don't remember the flower names, but I'm sure they're something generic and they're purple and yellow. I'm going to try really hard not to kill them. We also made an impulse buy of a little doggie welcome statue. Serious cuteness. But Gatsby was a little freaked out by it at first.

Today, we were super homeowners and did our HOA duty and Brian mowed the lawn. While he did that, I pulled weeds out of all our plant beds. As I did that, I realized that our neighbors probably hated us because the pinestraw in our beds looked disastrous.

OK, I didn't really notice this today--I'm a copy editor, I can tell if a comma is set italic or roman; I notice things; I've actually been thinking about the pinestraw for like 4 months. So I decided that today was the day that we were going to add more pinestraw.

Eventually we want to relandscape some areas, but I don't think that's going to happen soon, so the pinestraw was an easy fix. We also wanted to get the blower attachment for the weed-eater and I wanted to find a weed spray that I could use in the plant beds.

So back to Lowe's we went. And, as a 1st time homeowner, I haven't had a lot of experience buying pinestraw, so I had no idea about the cost. So we ask this guy in lawn and garden and he says "three ninety seven" for a bale. So, I'm like "three hundred ninety seven dollars?" And the guy says "yeah"...and then laughs. But doesn't say anything else, so Brian and I walked off. As we were walking through the store, I was annoyed because I really wasn't sure if he meant $3.97 or $397. So as we were checking out, I asked the friendly cashier, who clarified $3.97 and we bought 3 bales. And when we got home, I spread out the pine straw (Brian had to go to hockey game). And then realized that I needed another bale for the area around our A/C compressors, so back to Lowe's I went (3rd time this week!) and bought my 4th bale.

The yard looks so lovely now. The grass is a nice lovely cut and the pine straw really spruced things up (pun intended)!

Oh, and we also hired a lawn service that will fertilize and do all that stuff that Brian and I know jack about. So our yard will probably look fair through this summer and then in the fall they will overseed everything, so hopefully by next spring, we'll be the best looking yard on the street.

OH! And, Brian and I are going to put in a patio. And, yes, we're going to do it ourselves. We're not sure yet when, but hopefully very soon while the weather is still lovely; basically, as soon as we find an awesome weather weekend where we'll both be free all weekend. It will be 12'x10'8" and will be behind our "great room." We are very excited about it.

I'm also reworking the design of my genealogy page on my Web site, so as soon as I get it looking decent, I'll post the link. I'm basically taking my ENG 575 research and taking out all the literature references and adding more info about any other ancestors I can find...

And, finally, I have another new pair of jeans. Vive la Walmart! My most recent pair of Walmart jeans looked really bad because the hips kept sagging down and looked silly, so I am down another size. YAY!

"Every action which has ever taken place--every thought, ...

2009-04-02T22:14:00.006-04:00

every emotion--has taken place only once, at one moment in time and place. 'I love you.' 'I rejoice.' 'I suffer,' have been said and felt billions of times, and never twice the same. Every person who has ever lived has lived an unbroken succession of unique occasions."
- Thornton Wilder

This is probably one of my most favorite quotations of all time. I came across it in the program for the play "Our Town," which my friend Shannon and I saw at UNC-CH a few years ago.

I love it because it's incredibly true! This past weekend, we had a fantastic bridal shower for Callie. She got lots of cool stuff and we had a great time with family and friends.

Mom, Callie, and I stayed at my nanny's (grandmother's) house and Saturday night we all stayed up until midnight looking through two boxes of my nanny's old pictures. I mean like REALLY old pictures. There were lots of my mom, Aunt Dianne, and Uncle Danny (OK, a lot more of Danny than the other two, but he was the first child and that's just how it goes!), but there were a billion more pictures of my nanny and papaw's wedding and pictures of their parents. There was one incredible picture of my great-grandmother's family portrait when my great-grandmother was probably 6-8 years old (she was born in 1908 and just passed away last April--2 months shy of her 100th birthday) and another really cool picture of my papaw and my great-grandmother when my papaw was a newborn. And so many more! My nanny gave me 3 pictures and my mom took home a folder-full, so the next time I am in Ocean, I am going to scan the ones that mom took. The three that I was given are online at

http://picasaweb.google.com/lsleblanc82/FamilyPhotos.

I am absolutely mesmerized by photographs. I could literally stare at them for hours on end. I just think that they are incredible. It's so amazing to think about who all the people are and that there's a snapshot of finite moment in time and what that person was doing that very specific moment and then I love to think about everything else that the person did in life. One the pictures that I was given was of my nanny and papaw when my papaw was stationed with the army in Florida (prior to going to Germany for World War II ) and my nanny was still in high school and went to visit him:

They are absolutely the cutest couple on the planet and were for their 50+ years of marriage. I know that y'all won't believe me, but if they ever had a fight, no one else on the planet knows about it.

A couple of years ago, I got really interested in genealogy and started researching my family tree. I was very lucky to find a lot of information that allowed me to trace my lineage back pretty far. In fact, on my dad's side of the family, I can trace one line back to the year 1090 in England (seriously!). Genealogy on the Internet is fascinating because once you can trace your lineage back a few generations you can usually use names to link up with other genealogists who have done other research and then piggyback on their research. Of course, there's always a chance that something could be wrong, but you do the best you can.

My online version of my family tree is at

http://www.gribblenation.com/personal/laura/eng575/Genealogy/default.htm.

Unfortunately, you can't see the actual "tree" unless you download special software, but the HTML output is pretty cool too. And when I was in grad school, I took a Southern Writers class and I was able to use my genealogy research for my final project, in which I took a few people in my lineage and did a bit more research into their lives:

http://www.gribblenation.com/personal/laura/eng575/projectindex.htm.

It's all pretty interesting. My mom's family has lived in Catawba County since sometime before 1790 and another genealogist was able to find wills and ship manifests and other primary sources, which she let me incorporate into my Web site. If you're bored, you might find it interesting--just ignore the Southern literature analyses and any typos (I did a lot of the writeup over the course of 48 hours, so there's probably some issues!)

I really need to get back into more research--it's incredible.

I think what fascinates me the most about it is that if just one of my ancestors made a different choice and married someone different or never mate his or her mate, I (and LOTS of other people) would have never existed. Pretty crazy!

In fact, so interesting that I thought about it all the way to work this morning and I was thinking so hard that I completely missed the exit for work and had to drive down to 15-501 to turn around!!! :-)

Oops.

Please don't laugh...

2009-03-25T17:58:00.007-04:00

So, this blog is all about sharing triumphs and defeats right? Well, today, I had both.

I made up my mind yesterday that today I was going to run a mile. I wanted to see what my time would be (kinda like the physical fitness tests that I used to do in elementary school).

In my life, I have never run an entire mile. I've walked many and walked/run a few, but never running (without stopping to walk) in entirety. So, after work, I made my move on the trails behind our house. I actually took the GPS from our car to measure the run (since I couldn't mark off the distance with my car beforehand...).

So, I DID IT. Very, very exciting. Didn't stop to walk. Kept running until I reached 1 mile...

18 minutes and 7 seconds later.

No, I am not kidding.

18:07.

I ran a mile in the time it takes you to watch almost an entire TV show (without commercials). I ran a mile in the time that some people can run a 5K.

It was quite possibly the slowest mile anyone has ever run. I've never even HEARD of someone running a mile that slow, but I, Laura Samuels LeBlanc, did it.

Aha.

I'm pretty sure the construction workers were laughing at me (I would have been laughing at me--they can build a house faster than I can run a mile!)

So, that's the story :-)

At least I've done it now and my time will only go down.

I hope.

(Actually, on second thought, you can laugh. It's pretty funny.)

=====================================
ADDENDUM (about 1 hour, 30 minutes later)

It would appear that I am a complete moron. Turns out, the GPS doesn't work if it's not on actual roads. So, I went running again--on actual roads (probably not the best idea ever, but I had to know...) and, it turns out, my actual mile time is 12:35.

So, yes, before, I was just running haphazardly until the GPS decided to move to 1 mile, which, as it appears, based on my second time, was actually a little under 1.5 miles.

So, yes, I've run a little under 2.5 miles today.

Well, at least I know now :-D

12:35 is pretty good, I think. I am very pleased with it. (And I didn't stop the second time either!)

But I think I want to stick with the elliptical for a little while--although I might come back to running in the near future...

Yes, I'm insane.