Pittsburgh Girlie

4. Now I Get It

Actually, no. No I don’t get it. I’m a planner and a worrier, so the whole “living-in-the-now”? Hard.

My plans are usually long term though. Like the school thing. That was an 8 year plan right there. I have little problem seeing myself in 5 or 10 years, though to be honest it’s hazy, changes a lot, and is a bit romanticized. I have no vision of myself beyond a week or so. I mean, I definitely have stuff in my calendar; yoga, tweetups, an awesome family reunion, etc. What I should see is me hanging out with awesome friends, laughing, having a good time. Let’s make that happen, k? Oh, and beer, with fruit. Sorry Uncle Crappy, my beer does need fruit

Let’s also include hanging out with this guy some more! What a cutie!

I’m not sure how much more self-reflection I’ll be able to handle for a month straight. I might pseudo-cop out and start writing around the NaBloPoMo prompts. Just not today’s, that would be more like an epic novel.

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3. Apocalypse Now

Last night and today have sort of been a series of bad decisions and mishaps. I’m sure it’s not a dire as my title might suggest, but I’m trying to go with a theme here.

Yesterday late afternoon/evening Elle and I went running. Yes, in the rain. In the storm. Wow that was a crazy idea. My plan had been to wait for the rain to pass. I waited and the rain passed and I waited some more and some more rain came. We waited until almost dark prepping our tutus for the race on Saturday. For which we’ve met and exceeded our goal! You guys rock so hard!

My sensor for my Nike+ died and I was sad until we opened the front door and saw the buckets pouring down. Then I was thankful for leaving my iPod behind. We were drenched, but it was a really good run. For me at least. I’m slow and Elle is too nice to complain about anything, so she runs slow with me and walks with me when I still need to do that.

This morning the rescue bird leapt from my bed and missed the windowsill. I am worried that she may have broken her wing and I feel like the worst bird mama in the world today. We had been planning to take her to the Wildlife Rescue place, but I have to admit we were putting it off due to being totally in love with her. It’s likely to happen tonight now, as there’s nothing we can do for her if the wing is broken. Poor baby bird

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2. Now and Then

A year ago today I never would have thought this is where I would be now. A year ago I was all about planning for when I finished school, and getting married, and starting a family. I will still do all these things, my plans are just slightly altered now.

Right now I’m sad, and a little angry. Doors I never even let myself see are standing wide open in front of me.

Right now I’m finding ways to be happy. Opportunities I didn’t think were available are slowly becoming real.

Right now I’d like to take a nap because I stayed up way to late last night working on homework.

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1. Now

Apparently, everyone is swiping this from Uncle Crappy. I’ve not been writing much and not for a lack of things happening but mostly due to not knowing how to put it all down.

So, now? Right now?

• I’m adjusting to some pretty scary life changes. I’m just going to leave it at that for now. And no, I’m not pregnant.
• We’re caring for a baby cardinal. Pretty sure she’s a she and um she’s loud! PEEPACHEEP!
  

  Peep-a-cheep!

• I’m running, a 5k, Saturday, in a TUTU. You should really come out and cheer for me/us. Also, go clicky on the side and mebbe win something! No, really. Go.Clicky!
• With the encouragement of a friend, I’m looking at you SecretAgentL, I’m working on paying of my not insignificant amount of credit card debt. (Click for article.)
• I’m finishing work from my spring classes and taking two summer classes. All at the same time, because I’m crazy like that.

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Tutus for Tanner

Tanner must be a pretty special kid. He’s gotta be pretty amazing. I first heard about him after my friend Elle asked me to run a 5K with her. When I mentioned this race to another friend it was suggested that we run in tutus in honor of Tanner.

Those of you who know me know that I’m not big on physical activity let alone skirts. And a tutu is kind of the epitome of a skirt. I feel very brave for agreeing to do this. However, I am nowhere near as brave as Tanner.

Tanner is battling muscular dystrophy. He’s miles braver than I ever can imagine being. His aunt has written about him in her blog. She was planning to run the Disney Princess Half Marathon in Tanner’s honor. She was unable to run in the race for him so some of her friends thought up this idea: Tutus for Tanner

Even though we’ve never met him, Tanner (and his family) has a special place in many of our hearts, and so we wanted to do something special to help lift Catherine’s spirits and honor Tanner in the way she wanted to this past weekend.

So, along with fellow Shredhead Kari Dahlen, I came up with the idea “Tutus for Tanner.” It’s really quite simple. If you’re planning on running a race this year (5K, 10K, Half Marathon, Marathon, or whatever other distances exist), then agree to wear a tutu when you do, in honor of Tanner.

Elle also had a genius idea of using this race to raise some money for a meaningful cause. Raising money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association was the first choice. It really made the most sense to me. So, I’ve set up a First Giving Donation Site. There’s a link on the side of my blog too. Go, clickly, please!

Elle and I are offering mini tutus for each $15 donation. I’m working on a couple prizes that we can raffle off to all donators. So we hope that you’ll click on over to the donation page and put a couple bucks towards a good cause.

UPDATE 6/1: We’ve got 3 tickets to the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium and 2 $10 gift cards to Amazon.com. We’d love to have more prizes, so if you’d like to donate something to the pot let me know. We will add each donator’s name to the drawing and choose winners randomly June 12. I will post the winners here on my blog. Good luck!

If you do donate and would like a mini tutu and to be entered into the raffle please send me an email; bethalbert [at] gmail [dot] com. This is just so I have some kind of contact information for winners.

We extra hope that you’ll come out to the race and cheer us on, it’s not like we’ll be hard to miss!

Thanks.

**These prizes have not been sponsored by the respective companies.

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March For Maddie

I’m walking again* this year for the March of Dimes March for Babies fundraiser. I walked last year because a big group of new friends invited me and it seemed like a cause I would like to support. After signing up I realized that I have a cousin who probably directly benefited from March of Dimes funded research.

In January my nephew was born; he is healthy and (mostly) happy, minus one tiny problem. One of his kidneys is dilated and thus not fully functioning. You’d never know looking at him though, he is the most.gorgeous.baby.ever! (Okay, yes, I am extremely biased here!)

I think a lot of people assume March of Dimes only helps under privileged families and babies. But it’s not true. The research they fund helps all babies. And you can be part of that.

Please click the badge on the right to donate, even $10 will help me reach my goal and help babies. Or visit: http://marchforbabies.com/beth910

The team I’m walking with is walking in honor of Maddie Spohr, more info over here.

Thanks

* I signed up last year, but I was unable to actually walk the day of. Obviously I’m very excited to be actually participating this year.

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Easter Egg Hunt

I posted a question on Twitter this morning and got a slew of answers. It seemed like it could be ripe for further discussion not limited to 140 characters.

How old is too old for an Easter Egg hunt?

Context for your answer would be appreciated, such as; “15yr olds might gripe about it, but secretly they love helping the little kids out.” Or; “20yr olds should just go buy their own candy, I mean really.”

So, what do we think?

UPDATE 4/8: No egg hunt, never really came up. *shrug* Beth 1 – Easter 0

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Meow

My cat has a thing with curling up and watching a good show.

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Running

When I say running I feel like I’m lying to you a little. What I’m really doing are intervals. Seems silly to say that I’m intervaling though. Is that even a word!? I’m listening to mixes from Podrunner and they are fantastic. I’ve been using these for a while and just discovered the Podrunner Intervals and I love them. I love that they are free; and I really should buy a shirt from them.

I know there are iPhone apps, like Couch to 5K etc, but I wanted to use my Nike+ to track progress and goals. (I have an older Nike+ that only works with my Nano.) The Nike website is a bit bulky and obviously really heavy on the advertising. But, it integrates nicely to twitter and Facebook. I normally don’t like a lot of things between these accounts, however with this the tracking and mini-kudos I get are great.

My brother and sister got me the Nike+ a couple years ago for Christmas. They kept asking what they could get me and I’m loathe to tell people to spend monies on me, especially when I know they don’t really have it. The unit was just under $30 and I still felt terrible asking for it. But I absolutely love it! I spent something like $3 on a pouch for the Nike+ fob that attaches to my shoe laces.

I run in the mornings before work and it really has made me feel better during the day, even if I’m starving. The downside is that I don’t get to brag about it until the evening. When I sync’d Monday evening I got a super cute and lovely “*cheers*” from@aPSUmama. I know she runs and I’m a little jealous that she ran in high school and can run faster/farther/better than I can. But that little congratulatory nudge made getting up on Wednesday morning just a little bit easier.

So, almost one week down. Something like 12 weeks until The Skirt Chaser 5K

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One Day at a Time…

I ran Monday morning. It was super hard to get out of bed, but I knew that I’d be very disappointed if I didn’t get up and just do it. In fact one of the best pieces of advice I got was from @BurghPotPie, “Put on shoes. Propel yourself forward.” I also got loads of advice and encouragement from all over, some unexpected places.

I ran Wednesday. I had to cut it short though and I’m really bummed about that. My ankle hurt. A lot. I had noticed it after I ran on Monday, but I couldn’t pinpoint any reliable movement that would make it twinge. I assumed it was from using muscles I don’t usually use and slapped a brace on it for the evening. But when my whole right foot was in pain and I kept dragging the toe of my shoe up the treadmill I knew it was time to stop. I slowed to a really slow walk to cool down, stretched, and grumbled at myself a lot. Not too interested in really messing up a limb that I kind of like and use quite often.

I will run Friday morning. Even though it means my Friday is going to be reallllly long. I will. I will.

Things I’ve noticed this week:

1. I don’t mind mornings so much, at least not now that the birds are up and chirping away.
2. I need to go to bed waaaaay earlier than I have been if I’m going to continue getting up so early.
3. I’m going to have to figure out better food and a better schedule of eating said better food.

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