In addition to #NaBloPoMo I also signed up for Photography 101 this month.  All or nothing, right?  The photo theme of the day is ‘home’.  That’s a word that means different things to different people and which has meant very different things to me at different times.

I’ve lived in Arizona most of my life, and a few years in California as well.  I felt at home in those places, or I thought I did. I was perfectly fine with either one of them really.

But then I moved to Florida and I found that home isn’t just where the heart is as so many people say. Home is the place that when you get there you find you don’t want to leave.  I’ve only been here 8 years but after the first year I was already hooked.  Visiting other places is fun and I’d love to go back and visit the desert and the mountains, but Florida is home to me.

I don’t seem to be able to get back into running OR writing ever since I stopped when I was sick.  It’s not because I don’t have time or anything logical like that, I just got out of the habit and haven’t got back in yet.  To help me get back in the habit of writing (since I do, after all, enjoy it!) I joined a Writing 101 class.  It’s not exactly a class, but that’s a close enough description for me.

The first assignment?  Just to write freely for 20 minutes.   And then post it. I am taking the fact that it is an assignment as an excuse to simply write for 20 minutes without worrying about wrapping up the subject, giving an  answer to the problem, or looking for a picture to go with it. One neat thing about this assignment is that when I was done I had all kinds of other things that I wanted to write about.  I do believe this class may work to get me back into writing!

So here is assignment 1, free writing.  It’s kind of funny because writing the first paragraph I wasn’t even planning to write about food.  🙂

Am I the only one who sometimes looks around and feels overwhelmed by everything there is to do and everything there is to accomplish? I want to do so many things, but I just don’t. I’d like to say there isn’t enough time, and there really isn’t sometimes but most of the time I simply don’t know how to get started or after I have started I don’t know what to do next.

One of my big challenges right now is eating right, and making certain that my kids start eating better. One big challenge is that the boys and I have tae kwon do classes three or four nights a week and that doesn’t leave a lot of time for cooking dinner, especially since we don’t want to eat right before we leave for class. Running around with a just filled stomach is not the most fun thing ever.

I know that prepping food on the weekends, planning easy things like sandwiches, and using the crockpot all would help. Knowing this and doing it are two very different things! Of course it doesn’t help that my kids see any food that’s not what they usually eat as something to run from. Frozen pizza, burritos, or chicken nuggets are their idea of the perfect dinner. It should be as easy as not buying the things I don’t want them to eat and I do that often enough, but then there’s the little part where I have to supply healthy food as an alternative. Curses!

One thing I never learned at home was how to cook. My mom always did a meat, a veggy and a starch and we always sat at the table together and ate. But us kids had nothing to do with the actual cooking. I think the most I ever did in the kitchen was make kool aid. Of course it didn’t help that I became a vegetarian and moved out when I was 17, I didn’t even know what vegetarians where supposed to eat let alone how to cook whatever it was.

I bought the book Lauren’s Kitchen and started making my own breads, sprouting, and all the interesting things that were in the book. Not bad for someone who was known for burning water. But then I had kids, and baking bread and sprouting was replaced with walking around and around the house or neighborhood with a colicky baby, reading stores, taking day trips to the library for story time, all the things that moms of little ones find consuming all of their time. Food was the last thing on my mind, I ate at work or grabbed a cheese sandwich, whatever was quick and easy.

All of that seemed fine and good and I really didn’t worry about what I was feeding myself or my family much. But with the advent of social media a person really can’t ignore or say they didn’t know about just how bad some of the food is that we eat every day. Chemicals in the food, hormones in the dairy and meat, and now GMOs to worry about. How is a person not to be overwhelmed?

About that 10K goal.  Ya, I still have it.  But how do you take anything too seriously when it’s summer time and you are living in Tampa? If you know don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.

Ya, huge Sublime fan here.

Summer is always a little bittersweet if you ask me.  The possibilities are endless, except for that whole gotta feed the kids 9-5 thing.  My 9-5 is as a technical analyst. Bet you didn’t see that one coming, I actually have to think 8-10 hours a day.  Nerd that I am I enjoy it, but when I’m done I’m done, and this is what’s left.  🙂

Anyways, back to my 10K goal.   I have been following the plan minus the cross training. I do yoga after every run, sometimes quite a bit, but that’s a much cross training as I’ve done since starting the 10K plan.  Until this week, when summer time hit.

First, I started the Kinetic Revolution 30 Day Challenge which, as all things do that look super easy at first, kicked my butt by the second week and reminded me that people who do not cross train are weaker than people who do. So ya, my legs are a wee bit more tired than they should be.

Then, to celebrate and make official summer I went paddleboarding AND kayaking.  I paddleboarded out, switched with my boyfriend and kayaked back in.  Best of both worlds!  You want some excellent cross training, try anything with a paddle.

Then, to also celebrate and make summer official I went for an hour swim.  It was both hella fun and hella exhausting.

And then I realized.  I have the choice of continuing to try to up my distance running each week, jumping into all kinds of other crazy exhausting but fun other summer activities, or trying to do it all.  I choose a lazy combination of all of the above.  I’m going to stick to running 4 miles on the weekend for a while and swim, paddle, hike, and other summer stuff my heart out.  I still intend to gradually add distance to my ‘long runs’, but not every week until I get used to all the extra stuff I’ve been doing.

I had my eye on a cool sounding 10K in July, but it specifically said it was NOT for run/walkers. That’s intimidating since it would be my first 10K and I’ve never done a 5K that wasn’t a mud run or fun run. Plus some people said that it was not only extremely hot in spite of being a night run, it was extremely dark in some parts which would make me nervous running by myself barefoot or not.

I’m thinking I will let summer be summer, gradually continue with my plan but repeat weeks as much as I want for a while, and look for a 10K when it starts to cool off a wee bit, maybe in September. I feel pretty good about this since paddleboarding and swimming are WAY more exhausting than running so they can only help my running in the long run (no pun intended).

So, what is my current goal? Paddle a lot, run 3 days a week consistently (hopefully including trails but not ticks, a whole ‘nother post)  listen to a while lot of Sublime, Weezer, Slipknot and such, appreciate the local bars, wineries and breweries, visit some aquariums and generally live like a tourist because I DO live in vacation land after all.

These guys agree with me, I’m pretty sure.

I’ll leave you with an entirely inappropriate but yet completely my favorite Sublime song because it’s summer and so I can.

How about you, do you change your plans for summertime even if you are an adult who doesn’t get the benefit of being off for the summer? You should!

I am. After all, I wouldn’t even be kinda zennish if I didn’t.

I said that I was starting a 10K running program and that I’d start doing a weekly update, I bet since you haven’t seen an update you think I quietly skipped out (again), right?  Wrong!  So far so good, no skipped or moved runs at all.

I decided it would not be a cop out to add a cushion week in before starting the actual plan since it had been a while since I ran and I didn’t want to give myself an excuse to quit the first week!

I’m running Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays.  I may switch that to a Saturday here and there since a weekend run is a weekend run, but no other editing.  My add on week was a 2 mile, 1.5 mile, then 2.5 mile run.  This week I did a 2.5 Tuesday and 2 miles tonight.  So far they’ve all been barefoot and on the treadmill.  Sunday I’m meeting a running group (never did that before) and will do a 3 mile trail run.  That’ll be fun!  My oldest son is going with me so I know I’ll finish, I don’t run with anyone else often so when I do I don’t even notice the miles because it’s something different.  I’ll wear my minimalist shoes for that and maybe for all of my ‘long’ runs because the 10K I think I’ll be signing up for is a midnight run and I was told the turnaround part is really dark.  I like barefoot but not in pitch black conditions!

I’ve been doing yoga after every run and though I can’t say it’s been easy for me to finish all the runs I can say I haven’t been sore anywhere or had any real issues finishing.  I just have a horrible habit of looking at the mileage every 2 seconds which make my runs seem to take FOREVER.  I’ve been listening to Zombies, Run!, Rock My Run, and podcasts and it makes a big difference.  Especially if I hit on a really funny podcast.

My one fail has been cross training.  I haven’t been.  It’s part of the plan and I need to get started on it. I wish my Radio Flyer looking bike wasn’t messed up, that would make cross training fun.  I did go kayaking last Thursday, that counted as cross training for certain, even if it was a run day!

Lots of other great non-running things have been happening too. I’ll have to give an update soon on the garden, the chicks, our newest farm-y addition and some other things like a giveaway to the Margarita Festival coming up in Tampa!

Are you training for or starting anything new?  How’s it going so far?  I love the first few weeks of pretty much anything, it’s always so much fun to start something new!

I have a couple of confessions to make.

1. I haven’t run, done yoga, or much of anything else for about 3 months
2. I also haven’t written much because I operate on a switch, my motivation is ON or it’s OFF across the board
3. I have a serious commitment issue – I’ve been running off and on for years now but I’ve never got much over a 5K an I’ve never once committed to a running plan.
4. I am one of the most excellent people you will meet at making excuses about why I don’t want to get on and stick with a plan, and also I’m most excellent at making excuses.  Even about things I want to do, and then I convince myself (pretty easily) that my excuses are actually truths.

So, ya.  That about sums it up.  I’ve decided not to do that anymore. Again. Sound familiar? But this time I’m going to try a couple of things I’ve not tried before. Because you know, that thing where if you keep doing the same thing over and expect different results…  I’m about 2 more times from being committed.

I chose a plan to get to a 10K and I’m committing to actually doing it.  I usually have preconceived reasons of why I might skip a night or why I might not finish it.  Yes, really.  This time I wrote it all on my calendar and I’m not making any schedule changes or skipping any nights.  If my run doesn’t happen until midnight or if I have to get up at 5am to get it in, so be it.  I looked at a bunch of plans and decided to go with Hal Higdon’s novice 10K plan.  A lot of people swear by him and the plan includes cross training and such so there you go.

My usual method is to tell no one when I start something like this because that way when I quit before I finish no one will ask me about it. This time I even told my sisters, so there is some built in shaming if  so much as skip a night.

Also, I’m going to do a weekly check in here to keep track of my progress.  Probably boring for anyone else to read but this blog actually started as a running journal way back when, so it works for me.

Finally, it’s about time for a new mantra.  I’ve read this one on the internet a bunch of times and it seems to about sum things up for me at the moment.

So here I go, off to find out what happens if I actually start something fully committed to doing it by the book. Wish me luck, and feel free to be part of my shaming team if I come anywhere NEAR to making excuses.  Which I won’t.  🙂

Do you ever have an issue with following through on commitments you try to make to yourself?  Do you have any suggestions on how to break through the limitations a person puts on themselves?

I haven’t been running at all lately, but tonight I did a nice slow barefoot mile on the treadmill and then did some yoga and I am feeling amazing.  Someday maybe I’ll be one of those brilliant people who wake up in the morning to run and then feels great all day but not quite yet.

Here’s the yoga I did tonight, very easy and perfect for right before bed, especially if you work at a computer all day like me.

 
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0ejZxy7Doc?rel=0]

So why am I running on the treadmill inside when it’s absolutely beautiful outside?  Partly because I’ve fallen so out of the running habit it just seems easier to do if I stay inside.  But also partly because we have a wild hog with lots of little baby hogs in our neighborhood at the moment.  These things stand as tall as my shoulders and of all the animals I’ve run across since moving to Florida these are the scariest (on land anyways) just because of their huge size.  They tend to be seen a bit after it gets dark, just about when I like to go running.  So, no running outside for me this week.  The HOA hired a trapper to come and get them and hopefully bring them safely somewhere else.

OH and I’ve also seen a FEW alligators in the last week not to mention a few people have told me they’ve been seeing a bunch of snakes lately.

And people think a few rattlers, scorpions and killer bee swarms in Arizona are bad. I don’t know about anyone else but I am not feeling at the top of the food chain at the moment, and I don’t think being vegetarian has anything to do with it.

Have you ever run into wild animals while running or just out and about in your neighborhood?

A little while back I mentioned how I had read about a great defense against slugs. What I read is that chickens are great for eating bugs, they can get an out of control yard (mines not.  Mostly.) in control in no time.  Cool!  But, you know, who would go buy chickens when they live in a neighborhood with a crazy strict HOA?

So I kept reading and asked my dad to find out about the HOA since he used to be on the board or something.  I read that chicken poop is great for gardens, and chickens in general are great for composting.  Not the birds themselves (gross) the fact that they scratch around all day pooping nitrogen and eating things like weeds and bugs.  The scratching and eating part helps break down everything into a nice compost.

Also, I read they don’t really take all that much time.  Once they’re big enough to move outside into a coop anyways.

Also, my dad found out for me that I can have a limited number of hens, just no roosters.

And so I went and got 4 little tiny baby chicks. Look how these 2 have grown in less than 3 weeks!   Nugget (my daughter named her(?)) already has a comb on her head!  I’m afraid that may mean she’s a he.

The didn’t even have feathers when we got them, just fuzz and now they are in an awkward in between stage.  Still cute though!

This weekend I build the coop, I’m pretty excited about it since I’ve never made anything like that before.  Another adventure!

So far the chicks have been fun and my kids are already thinking a little more about where their food is coming from, without any prodding from me at all.  Have you ever had chickens or other outside birds?  Would you?

Yes, I did it to myself AGAIN.  I was doing great with my running, I was up to 4 miles and keeping to a running schedule, running 3 or even 4 times a week.  Great, right? Right.

Then February hit and I just fell right off every wagon there is.  Stopped running, stopped blogging, stopped doing yoga, guess how great I feel about now?  Yep, not that great.  But all of that is just the start. Guess what I’m doing in the morning.  Less than 12 hours from now.

Mud Endeavor! Not just any mud run. This one is 5 or 6 miles, depending on how they decided to set up the course.  So not only is it the longest mud run and longest run I’ve done yet if I must be honest, it’s after taking an entire month off of doing anything even remotely healthy for me.

I really don’t hate me, but I CAN be my own worst enemy.  As a matter of fact, I excel at it!  Does it make it better or worst that I am super excited about the run tomorrow instead of dreading it like I think I probably should be?  Oh yeah, and I have a case of tennis elbow so bad I’ve been drinking my coffee with my left hand.

There won’t be any kicking ass tomorrow but I will still have a ton of fun!

So what exactly have I been doing with myself besides watching Netflix (I’m in the midst of a full on 4400 kick) and drinking hard cider? Gardening!

I cleared out the side yard (yet again), build a new raised garden, and planted the whole thing with non-gmo seeds.  I have lots of things sprouting and I’m planning to share pictures but at the moment it’s a wee bit too dark outside and I just wanted to share my insanity of the moment, my longest, most unprepared for mud run.

So with me luck since I’m going to need it, and come back later to see if I made it.  Ya, you can laugh.  Goodness knows that’s what I’ll be doing.

Everyone has a greatest fear.  That one thing that you hate more than anything else, way out of proportion to what it is.  Mine? Roaches.  I hate them like nothing else on this planet.  I once couldn’t sleep for like three days because I saw one in the house but couldn’t get it quick enough.  No way was I sleeping when that damn thing was probably just waiting for me to fall asleep so it could crawl in my bed.  Ew, I feel a little sick just typing that.  Um, seriously.

Just to be clear, I stayed in Arizona for 2 years after my entire family (grandparents, uncles, parents, sisters…) moved to Florida because Florida = palmetto bugs.  (roaches, people!)  I have an old fashion Italian family where we get together for pasta on the weekends and we could easily take over entire neighborhoods but I ate pasta sauce out of a jar, family-less, to avoid this.

Happily, it’s not near as bad as my preconceptions.  I think I’ve had one roach in my house since I’ve lived here and I kind of got over it.  At least they don’t have sewer roaches like AZ.

THEN I saw one in my car a couple weeks ago.  It was huge but dead.  I drove home with my foot that I didn’t need for driving up on the seat with me and left it in the car when I got home.  The next morning I psyched myself up to remove it, but it was GONE.  Gone. It had been for sure dead, but I drove with my foot up on the seat for the next week (just in case) and wondered where the hell it went.  My car hadn’t been dirty before, but it became the cleanest car on the block.  Not that I go around looking in other people’s cars, but I’d bet.

I saw another one a week later, killed it. From far away, with spray.  Ya, I’m brave like that. Then Sunday night my son saw one in the car so I sprayed like crazy and we walked where we were going.

Then comes Monday morning.  There were 3 dead roaches, each easily bigger than 3 inches long.  Needless to say I called in sick to work and fumigated my car.  Twice, for a total of 3 bombs.  Yes, that is poisonous smoke you see through my car windows. The light is on in there, you just can’t see it through the lovely smoke.

Needless to say I haven’t seen another one live since.  Needless to say I still drive with my foot up looking around the car like I’m jonesing.  And, needless to say I will be bombing the car again this weekend.  Just in case.

Of course I Googled this nightmare and you know the one state that’s known for this sort of thing? Florida.  You are welcome for not throwing in a few select curse words.

Oh, and just for good measure.  On the way back from my lovely new place to walk on my lunch breaks I had to walk (way) around this.  Because he (?) had zero fear of me and had no intention of moving out of my way.

I love Florida, I love Florida, I love Florida. Right?

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Everyone around me seems to be very excited that fall is here. I understand why.  The leaves turn color, the air picks up a bit of a chill, running seems easier, and the holidays are on their way. The family is talking about wearing sweaters, baking bread and cookies and the like.

Oh, wait.  I’m in Florida.  Fall doesn’t really apply. Not yet anyway.

I sat outside having a cup of coffee with my dad and other neighbors on the first official day of fall. The air was thick and heavy with humidity, one of those morning when you can almost feel a literal weight on your shoulders.  I decided that if we have time zones then we should get to have season zones too.  It’s only fair, don’t you think?

I have to admit, I am looking forward to the weather cooling down, making soups and bread for dinner and feeling a crispness in the air.  As a runner I also look forward to how much easier it will feel the first few times I run outside in the cold.

Plus, Halloween is on it’s way and it’s always been my favorite holiday of the year.

But probably the best thing of all is that once it gets cold I won’t have to mow every single weekend.  Come on, you know that’s your favorite part of the season too!

I looked through all of my old pictures and this crooked picture of a bridge (which gives me a bad case of vertigo) is the only one I could find that looked a bit like fall. It seems that Florida is really green all year round.  Which is great until you are looking for a picture that reminds you of fall…

Are you excited that the seasons are changing?  Are you looking forward to the holidays this year?