Three Days To Go and A Whole Bunch of Nerves.

Three months in the making and we're now down to a measly three days before race time.

That's right people, this coming Sunday is the Blue Nose Half Marathon in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Me and 11,999 of my new best friends will be running through the hilly streets of Halifax - think San Fransisco style hills. It shouldn't be a big deal seeing as I have been training exclusively on roads with zero incline.

I'm a little nervous. First of all, I'm terribly sick and am hoping my antibiotics kick in soon. Otherwise, I'll be hacking up a lung while I try and run across Canada. It should only take me six hours and a box or two of Kleenex to finish 13.1 miles.

Secondly, I've had an annoying pain in my lower leg for a few weeks now. I spent an hour waiting in line for an x-ray today and should have the results back by Friday. I'm thinking it will be clear, but just in case could you all start praying now that the radiologist doesn't find a stress fracture? Or maybe that they'll loose my films and won't be able to tell me in time, which means that I can run with no guilt.

Third, thanks to my lovely illness, my appetite has been a disaster all week. Instead of spending the week loading up on healthy carbs, proteins, fruits and veggies, I have been eating only ice cream and coffee because nothing else sounds remotely appetizing. Nutrition at it's finest. But like the good doctor said yesterday, "Your body is telling you to soothe your throat. Enjoy." Thanks, doc.

So, my goal for tomorrow is to eat an apple and go for a walk. I'm hard core like that.

Please pray for me, my lungs, my throat, my stomach, my leg and the radiologist's blindness.

Oh, and in case you care, this is the training plan that has been torturing me for the past three months. I made it on Smart Coach - awesome site, by the way. You'll notice that what I was supposed to do and what I actually did are two very different things. You'll also notice that there is nothing about time on there. That's because I've refused to wear a watch or even learn the definition of 'pace.'

That could be part of the 6:30 finishing time that I'm expecting this weekend.

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Workout: nothing!!!!!!!!!

Digital Photos Don't Deserve to Die.

We all know that I take no less than eight zillion photos a week. It's a problem. One of these days my computer is going to have a meltdown.

I take all of these photos and then I delete most of them. With what is left, some go on the blog. The rest sit and rot away on my hard drive. They get sad and depressed and eventually start to shrivel up and die a slow death. No one even notices because no one ever looks back at them.

Poor digital photos. They never had a chance.




At my parents' house is a whole shelf full of old school photo albums. They're hunter green, navy or maroon with gold stripes. Do you have some of those? The ones with the clear sheet that peels off the page. I love looking through them.

My mom clearly chose the best of the best photos to fill the albums. Next to each photo she wrote the location, date and names.

If the computer and Internet all crash tomorrow, we'll still have those fabulous old photo albums that are full of one or two great photos from most of the major events in my family's life.




Facebook and iPhoto albums are great, really. But when I feel like taking a walk down memory lane I don't want to see forty-five photos of one random party that happened a few years ago. One photo will suffice.

That's what I did today. I went through my computer and picked out the best of the best. A photo or two from each event that I thought was important enough to photograph at the time. No scenery - only people.




Then I marched my happy ass on over to the drug store and developed all 113 photos. Then I put them in an old school photo album and wrote quick captions next to each - place, date, people. No cute scrapbook for this girl.

That way we can quickly flip through an album and see a quick snapshot of our lives all the way back to 2005 when TC and I met.




See? I knew there was a reason I took all those photos! They're much happier in my old school photo album than rotting away on a hard drive.

Plus, TC had never seen most of them - including this little gem from a museum trip that I had forgotten about.

What do you do with all your digital photos? 


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Workout: nothing. still sick as a dog. finally got some antibiotics today. thank the good Lord.

Sangria. It's Wine's Long Lost Cousin.

You know what I could totally go for right now? Sangria. Or a pickle. Or buffalo chicken.

I need something potent - spicy, salty, whatever. My taste buds are shot because an evil cold has invaded my respiratory system for the second time this month. This time I blame the kindergartners that I worked with last week. My usually tough-as-nails immune system falls apart whenever I even look at a kindergarten classroom.

Happens. Every. Time.

I'm having an unusually large glass of wine tonight, in hopes of knocking myself out so I can sleep through the constant coughing and stuffy nose.





Wine is great. Sangria is better.

For all of you 'I don't really like Sangria' people out there - you haven't made it with brandy.





Try it, I promise you'll like it. It's the perfect refreshing drink for a warm summer evening on the patio.

Not that I have a patio. Definitely not that it is summer here. But you get what I mean.





Ingredients:

1 750 ml bottle of red wine
1/4 cup brandy
1/4 cup triple sec or Grand Marnier
1 apple or pear, peeled, cored, thinly sliced
1/2 orange, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons fresh orange juice
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1/2 lemon, thinly sliced
1/4 cup sugar
500 ml sparkling water, if you're like me. 750 ml will work as well.

Instructions: Combine everything except the sparkling water in a large pitcher. Cover and chill for a minimum of 2 hours. Add sparkling water just before serving.

*adapted from Emeril Live with Emeril Lagasse

For the record, this is Canadian approved (as evidenced by Cuatro de Mayo) and Southern approved (as evidenced by my friend Sally's wedding shower).

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Workout: nothing. i'm sick. hello? did you not just read the post? darn kindergartners.