A Challenge

I've attempted this before in one of my previous blogs and wasn't sucessful. But in light of our grocery trip today that turned from 2 items needed into a cart full of stuff we didn't need and a bill of $180, Tim and I have decided to not go grocery shopping for two full weeks. Some people do this regularly, but we go grocery shopping atleast once a week and sometimes several times a week. We are bad about deciding we want a certain meal and then having to go out and buy all of the ingredients instead of eating something else that we already have at home.

The rules of the challenge are: no grocery shopping until October 18th excluding fresh produce and household items such as cat food, toothpaste, etc. I figure I'll allow buying produce since it goes bad too quickly to be kept for 2 weeks.

The purpose of this challenge isn't only to save money, but also to use up some of the items we have around that we've had for a while. I also think with this restriction we will probably come up with some pretty interesting meals that might be fun.

Tomorrow I'm going to take an inventory of the things we have on hand in the pantry, freezer, and fridge and make a meal plan for the next two weeks.

Official Race Results

This morning I ran outside to get the newspaper to check out the official race results from yesterday's Capitol City Half Marathon and 5K. I finished 67th out of 322 runners in the 5K. Not bad!

The newspaper listed my official time as 26:08. So that was even faster than I thought I had finished.

After lunch Tim, Nicole and I went out to Swayback Bridge Trail for some mountain biking. We did the 1 mile course just to try it out since Nicole hasn't ever been out there before, and then we did the 4 mile course. We had a really good time. This was actually the first time that I've been out there when the ground was dry. I didn't get all muddy for once! Yes!

When we finished the trails, Tim wanted to ride down the road a little to the bridge. I've never ridden on the road before and it made me really nervous, but luckily we never saw one car. Coming down the hill towards the bridge I got my bike up to almost 23 mph. I actually started to get scared because I was going so fast!

We stopped by the grocery store on the way home to buy dog food and salsa and ended up spending almost $180 on random stuff. Don't you just hate that?! But one cool thing we got that I've never been able to find before was Spaghetti Squash. I've been itching to try it. So tomorrow night I think I'm going to make spaghetti squash with meat sauce for dinner.

Do you cook with spaghetti squash? What kinds of things have you made with it besides ... spaghetti?

Capitol City Half Marathon & 5K

Tim and I got up at 4:30 this morning to get ready for the Capitol City 5K. I slept pretty good last night though. After all the mexican food, two beers, and a sleeping pill ... I was ready for bed at 8:30 pm.

We drove downtown this morning as the sun came up to meet my friend Nicole and her mom who were running in the race also. It was very confusing with all the one way streets and the roadblocks, but we eventually all got where we were suppose to be.

The Half Marathon started right at 7:00 am, and the 5K got underway about 15 minutes later.

Poor Tim, he mistakenly had his iPod on "shake to shuffle" and kept wondering why he would only hear 10 seconds of a song before it switched. He didn't figure it out until more than halfway through the race. He got so frustrated that he actually threw his headphones away at one of the water stations.

I however, didn't have any iPod issues today. The race went great! I felt like I paced myself well, yet I ran as fast as I possibly could without overdoing it. I didn't get any side cramps today, and the hills that I worried about really weren't an issue at all. I actually wished I could have kept running. I was super jealous of the half-marathoners!

Of course I forgot to stop my Garmin when I came across the finish line again today. But these are my times according to my Garmin (the official results haven't been posted yet):

Mile 1 - 8:55
Mile 2 - 8:45
Mile 3 - 7:44
0.1 Mile - 7:06

My time according to my Garmin was 26:28, more than 2 minutes faster than my previous 5K time!

My father in law caught this shot as I came in to the finish line:

Tim came in a few minutes after me and we got a good shot of him right under the finish line.

After the race we went to the post-race party where they had Jim & Nicks BBQ, free beer, live music and massages!

I won't know my official results until tomorrow morning, they are suppose to be in the newspaper. I'm really glad to have my second 5K under my belt though, and I'm more than pleased with my time.

Tonight at dinner I asked Tim, "who would ever have thought that we would be runners?". Which brought up the conversation of "are we really runners?" What makes a runner? How far do you have to be able to run to be a runner?

What is your opinion? What makes a person a runner?

Fell Off the Wagon

Tim and I went downtown this afternoon to pick up our race packets for the 5K in the morning. I hate to report that the t-shirt is really ugly, but its a nice comfortable material. There weren't very many goodies in the packet, a water bottle and a coupon book were about the best things.

When we got back home for some reason I was starving so I decided to have a snack. Somehow my snack turned in to a major binge! I ended up eating: a soft pretzel, Cheez-Its, string cheese, a trail mix bar and about 4 tablespoons of peanut butter straight from the jar. I wiped out the rest of my daily points and all but 1 of my weekly points that I had left.

To make matters worse about an hour later my friend Nicole called and wanted to go out to dinner at a mexican place. I talked myself into it even though I had no more points left to spare. I ate a full meal there as well and 2 beers. Although I will consider the beer a small victory because normally I would get a medium or large margarita. You know the ones that look like a fishbowl.

I hope I don't feel weighed down and bloated for my run in the morning. I wish I wouldn't do this to myself, but I always seem to justify it at the time.

On another note, I made my playlist for tomorrow. Its got a couple of songs from the previous 5K playlist, but most of them are new.

This course has several hills, some gradual and atleast one steep hill. So I'm almost positive my time won't be anything close to my last 5K time. I'm aiming for finishing in 32 minutes or less.

Family Pictures

Every year we donate money to our local Volunteer Fire Department and in exchange they give us a free sitting for family portraits. They called today to tell us that the photos will be taken tomorrow afternoon.

I got to thinking about how different we will look in our photos this year than last year. Most years we didn't even take photos because I never wanted to see a picture of myself.

This is our family photo from last October.

I honestly don't hardly recognize those people. Its hard to believe that was only one year ago. Hopefully this year we will have some pictures that we can actually be proud of. Who knows ... maybe we'll make Christmas cards with photos this year.

I Love Lists.

I make lists for just about everything from grocery lists, packing lists, to do lists, and everything else inbetween. This morning I started off by making a To Do List for today.

I keep a dry erase board on my refrigerator for my lists. And as a bonus you get to see some of my fat pictures that are on the refrigerator. We could barely fit into the photo booth. I was actually sitting in his lap and my boobs were just about choking me.

For breakfast this morning I had some GoLean Crunch with Chobani Strawberry Greek Yogurt.

I think I like the Chobani yogurt a little bit better than the Oikos. Or maybe its just because it was strawberry flavored. Who knows?

Well off to get started on that to do list!

What a day!

This morning I woke up and decided to spend the day shopping. I do this way too often, but when you are going through sizes as quickly as I have been its pretty much inevitable. I found some good deals on jeans and sweaters. And I'm happy to report that I got to move down another size in jeans! Size 10 baby! I never even wore a size 10 back in my "skinny days".

I called my grandmother to see if she wanted Lincoln and I to come over for a visit this afternoon, and she offered to meet me at the store and pay $50 on my new clothes. Score!

I took Lincoln to lunch at Zoe's Kitchen, one of my very favorite places to eat for lunch. I always order the same thing, Grilled Chicken Breast sandwhich with a side of salsa, slaw and Baked Lays.

When we got finished shopping and visiting with the grandparents I decided I'd like to go for a run. So I dropped Lincoln off at my mother in-law's house and got everything together to go running. I ran a great 5 miles! Nothing on my body hurt, the weather was nice, my clothes and my iPod cooperated with me, it was awesome. I probably could have run another couple of miles except that I was so thirsty and I forgot my water bottle at home on the counter.

I picked up Lincoln and went to the grocery store to find some inspiration for dinner. I wasn't sure what I wanted at all. I saw pizza crusts and remembered that I had some goat cheese at home that I've been wanting to use. So I bought some pizza sauce, fresh spinach, baby bella mushrooms, a red onion, and black olives.

Put it all together and bake in the oven for 10 minutes at 450 degrees and this is what you get.

It was AMAZING! The goat cheese was the star of the show for sure, but anyone that knows me knows that I'm obsessed with goat cheese. I can't wait to make this for Tim when he comes home tomorrow. Its definitely going to be a new regular in our house.

Have you ever tried goat cheese? What do you think of it?