Veronica Mars for President

Oh hello!  How are you?  Whatcha been up to?  Here's the short version of what's been going on around here lately:

1.  Veronica Mars.
I had barely heard of this show and I can't even remember what made me finally watch an episode. After one episode, I wasn't a fan and I was ready to stop. But after two episodes, I was intrigued, and after 3, I was hooked. And now, after the first season, I'm about ready to proclaim it one of the best seasons of TV ever (except for season 3 of Lost, of course).

Speaking of Lost, weren't we surprised to come across this in season 2 of Veronica Mars!

Notice anything?!?!

So far season 2 isn't rockin' it as much for me, but I'll still keep at it until the end.

2.  Frozen.
Speaking of Kristen Bell, Lindsay, Robyn, and I recently unleashed our inner 9 year-olds and went to see Frozen. I know the whole world (and I think both L and R) loves that movie, but I thought it was just okay. Kristen Bell did rock it though and I'll definitely be downloading a few songs.

Honestly, I think I was most bothered by the incredibly tiny waists of the two main characters, princess Anna and princess Elsa (Veronica Mars and Elphaba, respectively). Brave seemed like we were on the right track to producing more realistic, self-reliant role models for our kids. And the story line gets it right, which is great.  

But the teeny tiny waists and the huge eyes and the dainty arms - they're just plain ridiculous.  Or, maybe I'm just jealous?

3.  Snow!
We got some snow! After complaining that Portland stole all our snow it ended up perfectly - we got a lovely little snow day Sunday morning without being trapped at home or missing school (though a 2 hour delay would've been grand!  But no thank you to more make-up days).

I was able to get in a perfectly lovely peaceful pristine 5 mile run in the morning - it's wonderful when the only footprints are your own! But man is running in the snow hard.

 
Baby J wasn't too impressed with sledding, sadly, but he seemed to think the snowman was okay.

 
4.   Fitbit!  Or... not.
I got a fitbit! But, then, I returned it a week later.

Since Christmas I've been kind of ogling over them and I finally got one last weekend. It was cool knowing how many steps I take especially while working (it's a big range, from 2,500 one day to 7,500 another day!) and tracking my sleep at night. But, like I thought might be the case, in the end I think it's just an overpriced gadget that I don't need.

If it tracked my heart rate also I think that would be amazing and I would totally have kept it though. So fitbit, you should do that.

5. Baby J turned 7 months! 
He is not even remotely close to crawling or pulling himself up like some other baby prodigies I know, which worries me, but I'm sure he'll get there in his own time. Hopefully?

 Check out those baby leg rolls!

What have YOU been up to lately??

What I've Been Up To

Oh heeeeeyyyy.  How are you?  What have you been up to lately?  Sorry I've been so MIA.  Just not much to report around these parts.  So just to catch you up, here's the Cliff Notes version of what's going on (which is nothing!):

I did, miraculously, actually bake a few things for Thanksgiving this year.  I made pretzel brownies and s'mores bars thanks to Michelle's great ideas.  Like usual, and unsurprising, I f-ed it up though.  I know I know, you're far from shocked.  The in-laws have a fancy oven and unknowingly I used the "convection" oven setting, which apparently cooks things faster.  Buuuutttt I didn't alter the cooking times.  Story of my life.

So the brownies were kind of overcooked.  The s'mores bars were still awesome though, I highly recommend them.  What's not to like?  Butter?  Good.  Chocolate?  Gooood.  Marshmallows?  Goooooood.

Let's see, what else?  We saw Skyfall and Breaking Dawn Part II.  I fell asleep during Skyfall and thought Breaking Dawn was just as bad as all the other books / movies.  But we all know I'm not a reliable recommender. 

 

I went to yoga.  A LOT.  I bought a Groupon for hot yoga and decided it was my new method of fixing my hamstring.  Although I really liked it, and could feel it doing lots of great things for my body, I actually think it was making my hamstring WORSE.  All that direct stretching of it.  So my new method is to avoid putting any stress on my hamstring whatsoever.  I NEVER try to touch my toes.  I'll let you know how it works out.


I ran some races.  You already know all about those though.  Though I haven't "raced" any of them thanks to my bum hamstring, in the last 4 weekends I've done THREE races.  That's ridiculous!  The Mustache Dache, the Seattle Half, and now the Christmas Rush 10k.  Whew. 

I saw this amazing sunrise last week when I was headed to work.  I told you, I don't have that much to report!

We actually completed a home improvement project.  Our weekends used to be filled with these but we haven't done one in a LONG TIME now so I was proud we did anything.  This awkward space was in our bedroom and we finally added some shelves.  I kind of wish we'd done 4 shelves instead of 3 but those are NEVER coming out of there.

I read Reached, Wild, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower. 

Reached was the 3rd book in the Matched trilogy (more young adult dystopia fiction, the story of my year), and NEVER start a trilogy before all three are published.  I could not for the life of me remember what the previous ones were about. 

Wild was VERY interesting and I HIGHLY recommend it.  Very hilarious the true troubles Cheryl gets herself into when she hikes the Pacific Crest Trail without EVER training, wearing hiking boots before, or ever putting on her backpack.  Kind of like Eat Pray Love but better.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower was okay.  I look forward to seeing Hermione in the movie. 

     

And last but not least, Cooper is still precious.  I know you won't find that surprising at all.

And how's Runcember going for you?  I've been struggling, I won't lie.  Last week was crazy busy for me with something work-related every night, and I was just so exhausted that convincing myself to walk even a mile was tough.  I hope this week is better.

We have some people who are just straight up DOMINATING though.  Seriously, Robyn did 50+ miles in just the first week!  Don't forget to enter your mileage!

So what's new with you???

Cake Pops Are Divine

This weekend there’s not much to report.  While I did lots of fun things, I took zero pictures which makes the report a lot less enjoyable for you (oh wait, is it ever enjoyable? Don’t answer that…). 

There were shenanigans with our best buds Jordan and Rachael.  This was the last time we’ll hang out with them before they’re officially parents!  Their first daughter is due at any minute (I tried to coax her out this weekend but I failed).  

There was movie watching.  We saw Ted, which I thought was okay.  JMan was dying to see this so it was never my first choice, but there were funny parts, and it certainly could have been WAY worse.  So I’ll call that a win.  

There was a burger cook-off, with our secret weapon: pretzel rolls from Costco.  I am OBSESSED with these, if you haven’t had them you must run, don’t walk, to Costco and buy some.  I fear they may be a limited commodity.  

 Best burger in the US of A

There was game-playing and hot-tubbing and garage-sale-ing.

There was cake pop making!  After Rachael heard about Leandrea and I’s failed attempts at cake-pop making she stepped in for an intervention.  It was a complete and utter SUCCESS.  A very very very delicious success. 

Then I headed to the beach for a night where there was lots of walking on the beach, some running on the beach, more hot-tubbing, and lots of gymnastic Olympic trials watching.

 Look how gorgeous the beach was!  Don't be deceived though - it was VERY windy.

And last but not least, JMan and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary.

 We like to match.

So yeah, I’d call it a pretty good weekend overall.  

What did YOU do this weekend? 

Ode to SWATH

Did you enter my Nuun giveway in honor of MARATHON WEEK yet???

I forgot to mention that when Leandrea was visiting we went to see SWATH.  What's that, you ask?  Why, Snow White and the Huntsmen of course!

I don't know why exactly, but I LOVED this movie.  LOVED LOVED LOVED.  I actually didn't want it to end.  I in no way promise you will feel the same way.  It is obvious from my boredom with The Avengers that my opinions rarely match those of the general public.  However, without any spoilers, here's what I liked about it:

1.  The costumery.  There is no way you can see this movie and NOT be impressed at least with this.  Seriously, the costumes are AMAZING.  Charlize Theron deserves some sort of Oscar for make-up changes.  Her dress made out of ravens is truly amazing.  I promise you will be impressed.

2.  The imagery.  Perhaps this is too synonymous with #1 to be it's own bullet point, but there is a point where Snow White is in the Dark Forest and all these crazy things are happening and I just think they did such a fabulous job bringing fairies and hallucinations and scary trees and all kinds of magical things to life and making them feel real at the same time.  A stag made out of butterflies?  Pure genius I tell you.

3.  I had low expectations.  I think this helped.  I honestly was not expecting anything, so with that alone, it was able to blow me out of the water. 

4.  Even though you guessed it would have a happy ending (it is based on a fairy tale after all), I truly didn't know what was going to happen next.

 Plus, Thor's not so bad as a Huntsmen.  I approve. 

5.  Oh yeah, and I'm running a marathon tomorrow.  Did you know?  So I think I'm officially in denial and am trying to pretend like it's not really going to happen by writing this post.  When the going gets bad (which we all know it will at some point, hopefully later rather than sooner), I'm just going to imagine I'm a character in SWATH.  Never give up, Never surrender.

Here goes Marathon #3. 

Things I Did Instead of Running

So this weekend I didn't run 12-15 miles as planned.  You already know about that.  But even though I wanted to curl in a ball in the fetal position and sob my life away about how I'll never master the marathon, or PR in any distance ever general, and just feel sorry for myself in general, I didn't let myself do that.  Instead I did a million other fun activities instead.

Instead of running, I went to Rachael's baby shower.  Delicious food, amazing cupcakes from Saint Cupcake (highly recommend it - the frosting is to die for), and good times in general.  I was in charge of games, I hope I didn't fail completely! 

Isn't she the most adorable pregnant lady you've ever seen?  Seriously.  And why is my posture so bad?

Instead of running, I sucked at golfing.  But had a blast in the sunshine.

Hole #3.  Two of my balls found a new home in that lake you see there.  

Instead of finishing Hole #3 I had a photoshoot with this adorable little duckling instead.

Instead of running, I went to see The Avengers.

Just like some other fan favorites, I decided to ostracize myself once again by not liking it.  I was BORRREEEDDDDD.  I think there was just too much set-up time with all the characters and I was surprised it was about aliens.  And poor Natalie Portman, her boyfriend Thor comes to Earth like once a milennium and he doesn't even look her up.  It didn't help it started way past my bedtime (aka 10pm).  In conclusion, me no likey.  Sorry folks. 

Instead of running, I still got my sweat on by riding the recumbent bike for 60 minutes and taking Cooper on a 4 mile walk (with a dog park pitstop, lucky guy).

Cooper likes playing.  He said "Thanks Mom."  Though he didn't get me a Mother's Day gift!  How rude.

 

Instead of running, I brunched it up for Mother's Day and the sister-in-law's birthday.

And instead of running, I was actually super productive and got a ton of work done, including fixing all 700 of my copies that had the WRONG phone number on them.  That's right, that happened.  Only I would do something so stupid.

This became my best friend.  Correction tape is truly amazing.

And that my friends, is how you drown your sorrows of not running. 

How was your weekend?  What did you do?  Have you seen The Avengers and if so, what did you think?

Tennis, Road Trips, Birthdays, & Hooligans

Hey, did you check out my Nuun Hood to Coast Application yet?!  If not, please do!  Now back to today's post - good post name right?  I'm extremely creative.  My weekend wasn't incredibly exciting, but I'll recap it all the same, because that's what I do - tell boring stories. 

• The weekend started out with a Friday night tennis match.  Whew that was exhausting.  It was by far the most grueling match I've had so far.  1 hour and 40 minutes later and I was thoroughly spent and completely drenched in sweat.  My opponent had an amazing serve / overhead combo and I truly didn't expect to win but somehow I managed to barely squeak out another win 6-3, 6-4.  

 Cooper was impressed with my skills.  He said, "Good job Mom."

• After the tennis match, despite getting home around 9pm, we headed down to Portland.  Ugh, that 3-hour drive so late at night is always a bad idea.  Soooo tired by the time we got there.

 

You remember this peanut butter on crack?  I devoured a bunch of this upon our arrival. You must try it if you still haven't.

• On Saturday we birthday-ed it up with our nephew.  He turned the big 3!  And he is freaking adorable.  Possibly the most adorable, happiest child in the world.  I adore him and wish we got to hang out with him more.  We got him a sweet dump truck that he loved and also a huge bubble maker thing that was really for us.  A few hours later, plus a few humongous bubbles, some frisbee, softball, and hula-hooping later, and our nephew, our three nieces, and ourselves were definitely exhausted.  

Look at that amazingly ginormous bubble!

 

JMan told me not to post this picture.  Like a good wife I did it anyway.  The world deserves to see his hula-hooping skills!

• Then we decided to drive back home.  I had no idea that would happen but was really ecstatic because it meant I would have running buddies for my long run.  But I already talked about that.

• Remember how two weekends ago someone broke into our car?  Well THIS weekend some hooligans egged that same car.  What a waste of a dozen eggs.  Don't they know eggs are pretty much my favorite food?  Lisa - forget everything you just read (I am trying to convince her to move to our neighborhood and talks of crime probably doesn't help my cause!). 

Then this happened: Blue Moon Spring Blonde Wheat Ale.  Not as good as Blue Moon Spiced Amber Ale (but nothing is), but definitely worth a looksie.  I was a good little carb-loader for Sunday's run.  Oh, beer's not a good carb source you say?  Blasphemy.

• We watched Tower Heist.  It was okay.  Not amazing but also not NOT entertaining (I love double negatives).  Several extremely poor series of special effects and some unbelievable nonsense at the end that I won't spoil for you, but it otherwise passed the time. 

• And finally, we finished my Nuun Hood to Coast application!  In case you can't tell I'm really REALLY excited about it.  Filming it was a blast and quite ridiculous.  I owe JMan a huge HUGE HUGE HUGE THANK YOU!!!  JMan is my ultimate partner in crime, always a great sport, and the #1 ultimate most fabulous director, producer, and editor of all things movie-making.  I could not have made the application without him!  I also owe him and Cooper a big THANK YOU for all of their impressive actor-work.  Don't you think Hollywood is calling their names?!

And that was my weekend!  Another lovely weekend down the drain.

How was your weekend?  What did you do?  Seen any good movies lately that I should watch?  

The Hunger Games & A Rainy Windy Run

While I was dying to go see Hunger Games at midnight on Thursday like some of the rest of you crazies, I knew it would probably literally kill me.  But don't you worry your pretty little minds, people throw rocks at things that shine, I still made the movie a top priority.  When we arrived in Las Vegas Friday night, JMan made fun of Molly and I because the very first thing we wanted to do on our mini-vacation was sit in the hotel room and peruse the extremely amazing magazine Molly brought.

Look at this rock star of a People magazine Molly brought along.  I knew I liked her for a reason. 

This was the special edition magazine we were fawning all over.

So on Saturday morning while the boys were still sleeping we headed out bright and early to see the movie.  I'm assuming most of you have seen it by now, I purposely waited on posting this just to make sure (aw, look how thoughtful I am!), and although there's no spoilers below, if you want to know NOTHING about the movie skip the next two paragraphs. 

I don’t think I’ll spoil it for you though by saying I LOVED IT.  Wow.  I was in a complete state of panic / anxiety / fear / tears for the entire 2.5 hours, which I thought was impressive given that I already knew what was going to happen.   For once, I actually thought the movie did an excellent job of bringing the tone and feel of the book to life, TWO THUMBS UP!  I stand by my previous statement though, you should NEVER read the book within a month or two of seeing the movie.  Leandrea and her husband had JUST read the book within the last few weeks and they had a lot of complaints about the movie, but I didn’t even remember any of the plot lines they were mad about not happening, since I read it about 9 months ago. 

Things I didn’t like about the movie version of the Hunger Games: I thought they did a poor job portraying how unsure you are about Peeta’s loyalty in the beginning.  There could have been a bit more character and relationship development for Peeta and Katniss overall.  And finally, I don't know why it bothered me so much, but I really hated the way Katniss got the mockingjay pin.  I understand why they wanted to skip over the business with the mayor's daughter but I feel like Katniss' character wouldn't have wasted precious money on buying the pin.  Other than that though, in terms of my whole book vs. movie battle I was quite pleased!  I was all hopped up on Hunger Games excitement the rest of the day, and my lovely husband made sure to say “Happy Hunger Games!” to many strangers, which was quite funny.

In running news, on Wednesday I met Jordanne for a rainy, windy run.  In that order.  On the drive there it was POURING but luckily it was just regular raining by the time I got to the meeting place.  So for the first 3 miles it was raining on us pretty steadily.  I saw a HUGE dead frog in the middle of the road and screamed.  Typical. 

This is EXACTLY what the dead frog looked like.  Now you know why I screamed.  source

After 3 miles we turned around, and it stopped raining!  And then the WIND started.  We realized why we were easily racking up sub 9 minute miles on the way out, apparently the wind was majorly helping us along.  So the 3 miles back kind of sucked.

And there you have it, 6.4 miles in 59:25 (AP 9:16). 

May the odds be ever in your favor.

Did you go see Hunger Games?  What did you think?  Do you ever scream when you see dead frogs?