Bolder Boulder 2011

This year I have decided to run a 1/2 Marathon, the Denver Rock and Roll- October 9, 2011. Some close friends back in Fl inspired me to run when they all ran their first Marathon in November 2010. I certainly have come a long way in my training. When I first started the longest I could run was 5 mins, now I can run 60mins. I have been doing several 5k's but with October approaching thought it was time to kick up the distance.

The Bolder Boulder is a 10k road race held on Memorial Day in Bolder CO. This was the 33rd year. It is one of the biggest 10k racing in the country and there were people from all over who were in attendance. After everything was all said and done it was reported that there were over 55,000 people who participated that day. Holy Cow! I knew there were a lot of people but never would have guessed that many.

With the horn sounding and adrenaline pumping I was off, embarking on a big milestone in my life. I was off to a good start about 11mins in and out of nowhere I got double shin splits. Are you kidding me? I had been getting shin splits pretty constantly in training but it was only one shin. I have to tell you I was in so much pain, the tears were flowing. I prayed to God to take away this pain..I had worked so hard for this and wanted to finish strong. However the pain remained, mentally I was defeated and I was about to call my sister to come pick me up. I fought with myself, I was already here, had already paid. I was going to finish this race if I had to walk the whole thing. It wasn't until mile 3 that the shin splits went away.

The thing that is really cool about the Bolder Boulder is that they have like 30 some bands who are lined up along the course, as well as slip n slides, belly dancers, people with marshmallow guns, you name it they pretty much had it. It was also great seeing all the different costumes.

This was a very emotional race for me, as I ran I just thought about how far I had come. It wasn't but 4 mos prior that I sat on the couch and stuffed my face as I watched the Biggest Loser. Amazed at the transformation they went through and disgusted that I could not or more importantly would not do it for myself. But here I was in the middle of a 10k and again the tears flowed down. For the first time in a long time I was proud of myself for my accomplishments. As I got closer to the stadium and heard all the people who sat and cheered I was amazed and couldn't help but let the tears fall. (Yes, I was crying again) Then once I entered the stadium and saw all those people I was so overwhelmed. I pretended that they were all there to see me run, I felt like I was on top of the world. It was also great that my family was there to cheer me on, thank you Mom, Nicole, Eric and Ariel! (also Brett and Christina) Thank you also to everyone else who has been there with encouragement through Facebook as well as txts, it all means so much to me!

I finished my 10k in 1:33:10:76 and it felt incredible to cross that line. Here are some of my other stats:
Overall place> 38429
Divison place> 645 out of 741
Gender place> 19107 out of 26317

Still have a long way to go but looking forward to that 1/2 in October. I will keep you udpated!

Flip

So a few months ago I bought a goldfish, I don't know why, guess I thought I needed some company. I bought a little tank with a filter and everything, I was gonna do the right by gosh. It was a Comet Goldfish and all of the fins had black tips on them. So I wanted to come up with a cool name for it, but couldn't think of anything clever. I was going to name it Tips, but thought that was to stupid, then I thought Onyx...nah. The fish went without a name for about a week until finally I just name him Flip. I know it's not cool and kind of corny, but Flip it is. About a month in Flip stopped eating and was acting really funny and I realized that the filter was dirty, so I ran out and got a new filter and changed the water and in a few days he was back to normal.

Things were going along fine until about two weeks ago. I got busy, forgetful, lazy, whatever you want to call it and didn't do the weekly tank change. One week turned into two which brings us to tonight. Earlier today Nicole made a comment about how Flip was swimming kind of weird. I said "I don't know why, he is just weird." I was gone most of the day , when I got home I went to feed Flip and couldn't find him in the tank. And seriously (not even kidding) my first thought was that someone stole my fish. Honestly Vicki, who would come into an apartment to steal a fish!?!?...a $0.13 fish at that! I found him hiding in the plant, I got the net and tried moving him around but he wasn't really responding. He swam away from the plant but in a very slow manner, I then felt guilty and proceeded to change the water (since that's what I had neglected to do in the first place) But a little to late, he was already starting to float to the top as he swam.

Long story short, Flip died tonight. It was kinda sad, even though he was only $0.13 does not mean I wanted it to die. I'm just not a good pet owner, not sure if I will get another. I mine as well though since I have all this fish stuff now.
SORRY FLIP......

Ariel turns TWO!

My niece, Ariel, just celebrated her 2nd birthday! I can hardly believe it, it seriously just feels like my sister was calling to tell me she was pregnant. And I know everyone says that...."it feels like just yesterday..." , but that is really how I feel. We had a BBQ at the house with family and of course Elmo made an appearance. Elmo balloons, Elmo cake, Elmo bib, Elmo dolls, Elmo, Elmo, Elmo. Ariel absolutely loves him, but it's kind cute hearing her say his name and the way she gets so excited when she sees him.


For the last two years I have taken her yearly pictures. It is so much fun taking her pictures now because I really don't have to pose her, I just let her go and I just click away. Here are some of my favorites from the shoot.

Laundry Drama

It's no secret that I move a lot. Whether it's apartments, houses or states; I guess I just bored...or frustrated and end up moving. The current complex I'm in is absolutely is driving me up the wall. One of my biggest pet peeves is that it doesn't have a washer/dryer in the unit. Which I knew when I signed the lease but I thought that I could handle it. About six months ago, someone stole 5 pairs of my pants as well as a skirt from the dryer in the laundry room. First of all WHO DOES THAT?!?!? So now I have to sit and wait for my laundry to be done. (not horrible I guess just an inconvenient) Another thing I don't like is the machines don't take quarters, there is a special card you have to buy from the office and you fill and refill the card in the leasing office. My hours do not always coincide with the offices, so when I'm ready to do my laundry but have no money on my card, I'm just out of luck.

The reason I'm ranting about my laundry is because of what just happened. I am currently scrapping the bottom of the clothing barrel, really struggling to put outfits together for work. So I remembered to put money on, got all my laundry ready and then I couldn't find my laundry soap. Seriously! After searching high and low, I finally found some. I get to the laundry room and I can't remember the code to get into the building...and guess what, the office is now closed....ARRRGHHH!!! this is not happening! This was my only free time to do laundry until Sunday. I'm definitely going to have to more some stuff around, since I don't have clothes to wear to on my outings anyway. I can not wait to move-3 more months and believe me this next place will have a washer/dyer!!

Maybe I should just get a washboard and do my laundry in the tub@!

My Easter Adventure

I received a email from a local farmers market about dying Easter eggs organically, without the hassle of chemicals and all that jazz. So I thought that I would try it out see how it turned out. I attempted to do 5 different colors.
Blue: Blackberries & red cabbage, Green: Spinach, Red: Red onion skins & pomegranate juice, Pink: Beets, Yellow: Orange & Lemon peels, turmeric, cumin.
First of all it was very time consuming. Second it was kind of a waste of food. Third the way it told me to cook it didn't even cook the eggs all the way. Finally it didn't really work, as you can see from the pictures the eggs are very bright or vibrate. The worst part probably was I was so consume with doing this that I didn't really get to watch and participate in Ariel dying eggs for the first time. I had my camera there and didn't get one picture. Next time forget it I'm gonna get the $1.99 kit.

For Easter I pick up a few extra hours and went in around 10am. However this was hinder me from going to dinner with my sister and her family at my brother-in-law's parents house. But I LOVE ham, so I decided that I would cook my own Easter dinner. Mind you I have never attempted anything like this before. But boy was I going to have a feast. I made a ham (of course), along with homemade mac n cheese, scalloped potatoes, rolls, green beans, and for dessert pound cake. I also had sparkling cherry juice. I started making stuff the night before but I was partically cooking all day, that was so exhausting. I give props to the people who do that multiple times a year.

How did it turn out you ask? It was delicious, I was super proud of myself. Clean up kind of stunk though.

Easter

I have been searching for a church since I got to Colorado and it has not been pretty. I had been to several different churches and it was just like I didn't belong in any of them. Either they weren't friendly, the music was off, or the preaching or both. So I was looking forward to another bad experience...on Easter. I went to a church just don't the road and was just blow away the minute I walked in. I was greeted with smiles and friendly faces. Their worship leader and team were amazing and for the first time I felt like I belonged. I knew within the first 5 minutes that this was where I wanted to go, so YAY for finding a church.

So I went to the early service, came back to the house and got ready for Easter dinner with Eric's family. With had a photo shoot with the baby in her Easter dress and took some family pictures as well.
We (Nicole, Eric, Ariel, Pazu and I) went to Eric's parents house. It was great to be surrounded by family and amazing food...wonderful desserts. I have to confess I ate way more than I ever should have, I know thats the common theme associated with the holidays but man I really need to get a handle on that. It was such a good day!

5 month summary

To anyone who is still out there checking this blog, I am so sorry I have absolutely been neglecting it. So much to catch up on....
NOVEMBER: For my birthday day this year my day started off with balloons, flowers, and chocolates on my desk at work. Then I was treated to lunch by the ladies from the office. Follow by my wonderful friends, Kim and Jay, who organized a surprise birthday dinner for me and it was so wonderful. The funny thing is I didn't have a clue, not even a little, in hine sight there were so many signs that I should have caught in to (but I'm glad I didn't, it made the evening more special). I turned the big 27, inching my way towards 30...wow that's crazy!
DECEMBER: I was given the honor of leading worship for my church on Christmas Eve. This was something that I had never done before and had anxiety leading up to it, but when the time finally rolled around it was amazing. It was so great to be able to be apart of such a special night. Thank you Rob so much for giving me that opportunity and experience. Singing is something I really enjoy and hope that it is some how apart of life in a future career. After service I enjoyed an amazing dinner with wonderful fellowship.
December was also the month that I decided to move to Colorado to be closer to family. There were just to many incidences that occur that were to coincidental, after praying about and talking it over with Godly counsel, I felt the time was right to make the move. At this time in my life I feel that it was the right decision.
JANUARY: Every holiday season a hotel in downtown Orlando, Gaylord Palms, they have something called ICE. I guess it was in a tent of some sort, but everything in it was made out of ice. It was so cool, ha ha no pun intended. It certainly was incredible to see the things they did with ice. They had the Nativity Scene...that was just beautiful.
It was really hard leaving all of my friends (who became family) over the last 3 1/2 yrs. It took me 2 days to make the drive with all of my worldly possessions in the car surrounding me. Not something I want to do for a while.
FEBRUARY: Still trying to settle into my new surroundings, love waking up to the sound of Ariel (my niece) laughing and screaming....happy screams. Obtained a part time job. Went to the Denver zoo on one of their free days, that was exciting, it was both mine and Ariel's first time there.
MARCH: Nothing really happened, just mostly worked and signed up for a gym membership.

I know that that was really brief but I hope that gets you caught up a little. I will certainly do a lot better job at keeping this thing updated. Thanks for hanging in there with me.