Storm the Bastille!

I ran my 2nd 5k of the season last night to help with #68: Run at least 3 5k's per year. I did the 'Storm the Bastille' race at 9 p.m. in downtown Milwaukee. There were a TON of people that run this race, so it's hard to actually 'run' it. The first half of it is more like a light jog trying to get around people so I can actually start running. But it was fun! Josh and I crossed the finish line at 27 minutes, but we didn't actually cross the starting line until it was already more than a minute into the race. And considering the first half was pretty slow, I think we did great!

We didn't stay too much after the race to actually enjoy the Bastille Days festival because I'm boring and like to sleep so I'm not toooo tired at work the next day. :-) But the race was still fun!

Our next 5k is next Sunday the 19th for my work's annual meeting! I can't wait!

A really happy birthday to me!

Good thing it was my birthday last week! That helped me accomplish a few more things on my list that I would've definitely put off.

Let's start with #54: Get a fire extinguisher. Now, you might start to wonder if I've been having a lot of fires in our condo or something. I have not. However, sometimes I get so paranoid that our stove top is just going to burst up in flames when I use it, that my mind can now be at ease with a fire extinguisher. This was one of the things Josh got me for my birthday! And it's one of my favorite presents! He even got the 'kitchen' version in white. It's so classy.

I bet you want one of your own now.

Josh also helped me accomplish #57: Plant flowers on my porch. Also for my birthday, not only did he buy me some flowers to plant, but he actually planted them himself!! He's so nice. I didn't take a picture, but they're purple and kind of look like gerbera daisies to me, but I think they have another name. And they definitely spice up our small, kind of ugly porch! Thanks Josh!

And lastly, thanks to my birthday again, I was able to accomplish #97: Complete our dishes set. Yay! Now we have 12 sets of dishes and are alllll ready to have a dinner party. If only our small condo could accomodate 12 people. Someday, someday.. I didn't receive dishes as a birthday gift from anyone. However, my mother was in town visiting and wanted to take me shopping for my birthday. I decided I wanted to go to the Prime Outlet Mall in Kenosha, so that's where we went. At this outlet mall, there is a Corelle outlet store. Corelle just happens to be the brand of our dishes. (I love Corelle--they don't break even if you drop them, which is definitely a plus to me!). I wasn't exactly looking to buy more sets of our dishes, but decided to go into the Corelle store to look at them anyway. However, I couldn't find our set on the loooong wall of dishes. I was a little bummed I didn't get to see them, but didn't care that much. I mean, they are just dishes. BUT, on our way out of the store, I saw them. They were sitting there all lonely on the table of discontinued items!!! Sadly, our dishes are being discontinued. I make a split second decision and decided to purchase 2 of the boxes to complete our set. But the gooood part was--they were on sale because they are discontinued! Yay!

Just so you're not thinking that we must've picked out super ugly dishes--dishes so ugly that they have to discontinue them--here is what they look like:

They're not that bad, right?

And there you have it. 3 items accomplished all because I had a birthday. Maybe my birthday should come around more than once a year? I think so.

A Whole Bunch of Stuffff

This is going to be an update post. As I said in my last blog, I've been super busy lately and haven't had time to update too much. I guess that's what summer does to you! But here are a few things that have been going on:

I made a couple new 'recipes' this week. They're not realllllly recipes, but they're new meals for that I haven't made before (even though they're super easy), so I'm going to count them! The first one is chicken and cheese quesadillas! Yummmmm. I even made some extras of these to eat as leftovers for lunch. All you need is chicken, shredded cheese, and some tortillas and you're good to go. I made them on my griddle and they turned out just fine. I supppose you can use an actual quesadilla maker, but I see no need for it. To make them even better, dip them in sour cream and/or guacamole and your meal is complete!

The second new 'recipe' I made this week is marinated chicken. Why didn't I think of this before!?! Wayyyy better than regular grilled chicken. I just bought a marinade in a bottle from the grocery store and poured it into a big baggie, put a few chicken breasts in, and let it sit in my fridge overnight. The next night for dinner, I grilled them on our George Foreman grill and they were very lemon-peppery! :) I wanted to make them on an actual grill, but Josh didn't come home from work until later, and I was too nervous to attach the propone to the grill myself. I would probably blow everything up. :)

On to update #2. I have now finished the second Twilight book: 'New Moon.' It was as good as the first, and now I can start on book #3! On a related note--Josh and I rented the Twilight movie on our Apple TV last night. I do have to say that I was not as impressed with the movie as the books. We didn't even finish the whole thing. I thought the acting and lines were pretty choppy and they just stared at each other a lot. I might have to try watching the rest of the movie by myself tonight to see if it gets better.

If you've seen the movie and read the books--what do you think?

And lastly, I have now completed #87: Volunteer for something with Josh. We volunteered in the beer tent at Fiesta Waukesha--which is put on by La Casa de Esperanza. It was a very nice day for it and it looked like there was a decent turn out for the event yesterday.

Here's a picture of Josh in the coooool t-shirt we got:

Campinggggg

I'm back! No, I'm not dead. I've just been sick and really busy lately, and haven't had time to blog. The good news is that when I'm really busy, I'm probably checking at least one item off of my list!

Let's start with #5: Go camping with Josh. We successfully completed that this past weekend. We went camping at Governor Dodge State Park in Dodgeville, WI. It was a very nice and big park! There were hiking trails and beaches and dog beaches. We didn't hike at all or go to the beach, BUT we did make it to the dog beach. Which, by the way, wasn't all that exciting. It was very small and neither dog liked the water. But it was worth a shot. We thought it'd be more fun to spend our days having washers tournaments and playing beer pong anyway. :-)

Rather than spend more time talking about our fun weekend, I'll just show you some pictures.


This first picture of Josh and me making S'MORES! I was looking forward to this the most on this trip. The first night we were there it rained, and I was disappointed I didn't get to have one. But the 2nd night was very nice and made the s'mores well worth the wait.


Here is me and my old two college roommates playing beer pong. I am 25, almost 26; I've lived at college for 4 years, and have never played beer pong before. Until now. It was fun. However, I have a strong dislike for beer. I ended up filling up 1/3 of the cups with my yummy wine coolers so I could last until the end of the games.



This is me, with my friends' dog Reeses. She hated me at first, but then warmed up to me nicely. Probably because I taste salty.


Here are the college roommates again with our much needed coffee in the morning! Thank goodness for camping stoves and perculators (don't know if I spelled that right!), that allow us to make coffee even without coffee makers.



And here is our family picture. Apparently, we had to borrow a dog to complete our family.



This camping trip has also allowed me to cross another item off my list! #96: Don't watch t.v. for one whole day. Saturday, June 13th, 2009, would be that day. There were no t.v.'s on our campsite, therefore, I couldn't watch it. One campsite we came across while walking around, though, did have a Direct TV satellite on it. I guess that family couldn't go one whole day without watching t.v. Maybe they should make a list like this and make that one of their items.

And lastly, I haven't done this one yet, but, Josh and I have signed up to volunteer at 'Fiesta Waukesha' next weekend--June 26-28th. After we do that, I can then cross off #87: Volunteer for something with Josh off my list. A friend of mine works for the organization that puts together 'Fiesta Waukesha' and is need of volunteers. So, we signed up for a shift! Our choices of work stations were: parking attendants, face-painting for kids, beer tents, or soda tents. I definitely said no-thank-you to the face-painting area. Kids and art are not two of my strong points. It looks like we'll be in either a soda tent or a beer tent. Yay! If you're free that weekend, come out to Fiesta Waukesha, by the Fox River, and get a beer or soda. :-) There'll be music, food, drinks, etc...pretty much just like any other festival. But we'll be there, so that make it just that much more fun!

No running for me :(

Well...I didn't go to my race today, sadly. I've felt 'weird' ever since this past Wednesday night. I'm not feeling as 'weird' anymore, but I've had this lingering headache ever since. It just won't go away! Not even for a minute! And it's nothing like the headaches I'm used to having. I get migraines a lot, and it's nothing like that. With migraines, I can't deal with noise or light. Basically, I have to go to sleep in a dark, quiet room in order to get rid of it. This 'headache' is way different. It doesn't really bother my day to day routines, but I get these sharp pains in my head whenever I turn my head or move my eyes. So, if I'm driving and turn to look in my blind spot, my head hurts. Or if I move my eyes in any direction or raise my eyebrows, my head hurts. No medicine has really worked for it yet, so I guess I'm just waiting it out. But that means I did not get to go to my run this morning.

The next 5k we were planning on doing is July 9th, so hopefully I will be able to run that one! And hopefully these headaches go away so I can go campingggggg next weekend!!

Smiiiiiile Miiiiiile

I just signed up for my 2nd 5k of the summer, and it just so happens to be this coming Saturday. It's called Laura's Smile Mile and it's down on the lakefront. This race benefits Ovarian Cancer. We ran this same race last year and Josh and I each got 2nd place in our age division. This year, we're the next age division up, which happens to be a more competitive age group. Let's see if I can keep up the tradition of getting a medal.


One difference between this year's race and last year's race is the TEMPERATURE. I vividly remember that it was over 90 degrees at this race last year. It was HOT. I had to lay down at the end of the race because I thought I was going to pass out! I felt very dizzzzy. The temperatures have been well below average so far this summer, so it'll be lucky if we even get to 70 degrees at the hottest part of the day on Saturday. This should make for much more comfortable running conditions.


Come cheer me on!!!!

Edward is mine again

I finalllly got the second Twilight book, 'New Moon'. And my sister gave me her copies of the third and fourth books, so I am good to go! Let's see how long it'll take me to read all three. I'm going to guess that I'll be done with them by the end of July! Which may seem like a long time to some, but I can't remember the last time I read three books in that amount of time. And I also can't remember the last time I read a 700-something page book..if ever! This just might be a new record for me. Now...Edward is waiting...so I must go.