52) is this a problem?

tonight, bob came to me with a very concerned look on his face.  he was holding my ipad.  this is how the conversation went:

bob, holding my ipad toward me:  i opened this up to look something up on the internet and i found something.
me:  huh?
bob:  in your safari browser.
me:  ok?
bob:  should i be concerned?  do we need to talk about it?
me:  uh, what are you talking about (of course by now i’m thinking how in the heck did i click on something porno-y)?
bob, flipping the cover off of the ipad:  this.

THIS:

hahahahahaaaaa!

almost every single tab is for some yummy treat.  i think bob thinks it’s time for an intervention.  and , in case you were wondering, here are what the tabs really were:

simply delicious strawberry sauce for cheesecake
the ultimate cheesecake recipe
pumpkin chocolate chip cookies
pecan pie
gluten free pie crust
green bean casserole
how to make gluten free french fried onions
italian dressing recipe

and, please keep in mind that we have decided that we only have one more week of gluttonous eating.  then, bring on the veggies and freezing cold early morning workouts!  yeah!

(i hate winter.)

51) fill in the blank friday.

yes, i am aware that it’s sunday right now, but i did say in my last post that i was feeling like a belated fibf.  so, here it is.

[image from here]

1.  a nervous habit i have is fidgeting.  i do it when i’m nervous or if i’m uncomfortable.  i can’t keep still.  i pick at invisible lint on my sleeve.  or i twirl my hair in my fingers.  or i pick at my nails.  stuff like that.  i can’t stand that i do it, but for some reason i can’t make myself stop, even when i notice it right in the midst of doing it. 

2.   something that makes me sad is when i hear about people taking advantage of elderly people.  i work in home health and hospice, and it’s not uncommon to hear a story about “so-and-so is taking advantage of his aunt because she has alzheimer’s and can’t manage her own bank account anymore.”  and then you hear about the sweet little auntie who can’t afford to live in her assisted living facility anymore.  not cool.

3.  today i am thankful for my mother.  she’s sometimes the most annoying person in the world but she’s kind and generous and she makes me laugh. 

4. my favorite room in my house is ????  i can’t even remember the last time i spent the night at my house.  but since i’ve been spending tons of time at my mom’s, i will admit my favorite room in her house is her kitchen.  it’s where we all sit and chat and cook and enjoy each other. 

5.  i can’t stand it when people have no awareness of their surroundings.  and this is the worst time of year for it.  you know what i mean…you’re at the mall and there is an obvious pattern to the flow of traffic.  what about that person who stops, in the middle of a busy walkway, pushing a humongous stroller?  they just stand there, waiting for whomever, making everyone walk around them in the limited space available.  that kind of stuff drives me crazy. 

6.  if i had an extra $100 to spend on whatever i wanted today i would probably try to do something extra nice for bobby.  because i’m cool like that.

7.  the last person i hung out with was my mom.  we went to the craft store to buy stuff for my sister’s wedding.  you know, all the crafty things that i volunteered to do.  like, make her a sash to wear for her reception.  remember when i said that i’m cool like that?  i really am, huh?  just kidding…kinda. 

man, today is one of those days where i just want to sit around all day and do absolutely nothing.  but, i did my sisterly, maid of honorly duty and went craft store shopping (and that place was a madhouse so i deserve mad props, ha!), i’m doing laundry, and i cleaned the crud out of the room we’re staying in at my parents’ house.  and, even though i want to lie down and almost nobody would say anything about it, i can’t bring myself to do it because poor bobby is working his booty off outside in the cold.  so, maybe i’ll start making something for dinner.  if i don’t get up and move around a little bit right now, i think i could probably take a substantial nap.

oooooooh.  a nap sounds delightful…

50) i’m doing awesome, thanks for asking.

hahahahahaha.  man, i crack myself up sometimes.  nobody asked how i was doing.  these days, if i neglect my blog, nobody even notices.  but i notice.  so here i am, blogging away.

last week, my bff emily was in town for her dad’s funeral (so sad).  even though it was a sad situation, it meant that i got to spend some quality time with her and her children and her mom last saturday.  the best part was, when we were getting ready to leave, i was holding her 6 year old jackson (my little bff) and i asked for a hug and a kiss goodbye.  he gave me a big hug and then pulled back, so i asked him, “are you getting too big for kisses?”  he didn’t really say anything…just kind of looked at me, like he was thinking about it.  i told him he didn’t have to kiss me but that didn’t mean i wasn’t going to kiss him.  after much consideration, he finally came in for the kill.  he tilted his head and gave me a nice, romantic-looking kiss, right on the smacker!  and of course it was better in person, because you really had to see it to understand how funny it was.  all of the adults burst into laughter, so he got embarrassed and ran away.  well, a couple of minutes later, when we were actually walking out the door, he said to me, “aderin, sorry i married you!”

ahhhh, that made my day!  what am i talking about?  that made my whole weekend!  he’s the sweetest little thing, isn’t he?

anyway, other than that, there is even better news!  emily and her family are moving back to utah next month!!!!!  i haven’t been this excited about something for a while.  i’m sure they’re really looking forward to the smothering they will be getting from me about once a week when they get back.  you know, because tuesday nights are OUR nights.  and they will be reinstated promptly, well…once they get settled.  i can’t wait!

oh, i do have some other news on the running front!  i agreed to be on a 12-person relay team for the epic relay logan to jackson race next august…it’s kind of daunting to me because i haven’t done one of these before, but i’m really looking forward to it.  my dear friend kenia ann invited me to be on her team and i really couldn’t think of a better way to run a race.  you know, good friends, common goal, sleeping under the stars, and being gross and stinky for a couple days.  sounds delightful, doesn’t it?  yeaaaah…i can’t wait!

you know me…sometimes i get the itch to blog.  i am kinda feeling like a belated fill in the blank friday right now…how does that sound?

49) NWM 2011.

well, the nike women’s marathon has now come and gone.  i’m a little bit sad that it’s over, but it was a great experience and i’m so glad i did it (especially being the first race i did with my sis).  and yes, i will probably try again next year to get in again.  bob and i road tripped out to san francisco, where we met up with my sister jessica and her fiancee tommy (they flew in from san diego) and tommy’s sister stefanie (she came from santa barbara) and our friends dusti and nick, who had just moved to the bay area a few weeks ago.

we had some good food, experienced some (ahem) interesting parts of the city, and had a lot of fun experiencing all that the NWM had to offer.  it felt like billions of runners took over the city, even though it was only about 30,000 people.  we saw our fellow runners everywhere with their race packets, little nike backpacks, course maps, NWM gear, and then, afterwards, finishers tees and swag bags.  we even witnessed a 99%-er protest right downtown!

and now, my dearest loved ones, i give you the nike women’s (half) marathon, in all of its photographic glory…

1.  the wall.  every single participant’s name was written on this wall inside of the niketown store in union square.  there was also a larger, pink wall on the outside of the store.  luckily, it was alphabetical…otherwise, it would have been extremely difficult to find our names amongst the roughly 30,000 runners, right?

2.  we visited lululemon and saw two of these chalkboards outside the store.  apparently, someone out there thinks along the same lines i do…”i run because i smell cupcakes!”

3.  this was the fuel center in our hotel room.  we had gu aplenty.  too bad we forgot the organic stinger gummies – because they ended up being way more delicious than that nasty gu (which totally gives me a tummy ache, blah).

4.  this was us, near the start of the race.  everyone was taking pictures in front of the niketown because it said “nike women’s marathon 2011″ out front.  the person who took our pic left out half of the sign.  oh, well.  that’s jess, me, stefanie and dusti.

5.  whoa, sea of people, right?

6.  so we were a little excited.  we had been waiting since april for this!

7.  the start line.  it’s blurry because jess took it while we were running toward it.

8.  this is how i won.  i beat jess by one SECOND.  don’t tell her i’m being all braggy about this.  kidding.  she already knows.  (and because i have fooled many people with this photo, i must explain – it was a poster in lululemon with the faces cut out.  i did, however, get a workout crouching down for pictures.)

9.  i totally felt like one.

10.  us wearing these fancy super reflective nike jackets posing in front of a green screen.  we were supposed to pose like we were running.  they rushed us, ok?

11.  aaaaaand my results.  not bad, huh?

48) fill in the blank friday.

woohoo for friday!  there are so many good things about today…i ate my first solid food after my cleanse, the mlb playoffs start today, and i got my confirmation email for the NWM which is in just a few weeks…whoa!

but, for now, on to the blanks…

[image from here]

1.  my current obsession is healthy eating.  since i just finished the master cleanse, i don’t want to re-grossify my body with nasty processed food and sweets and too much meat.  i want to feel as good as i feel right now, but all the time.

2.  my peeps make me happy.

3.  my greatest strength is my easygoing-ness.

4.  my passiveness is my greatest weakness.

5.  my life is pretty superb.  i have had relatively few low spots and i’m surrounded by wonderful people.  what more could a girl ask for?

6.  in high school i was neither cool nor uncool.  i wasn’t popular but i wasn’t despised.  i was one of the smart kids but also got involved.

7.  when i’m super tired my eyes go blurry and i can’t stop yawning.  plus, i get all quiet and slurry in my speech so nobody wants to talk to me anyway.

i had friday fever yesterday at work, so today has felt excruciatingly long so far.  is it 5 yet?  oooh…once it hits 5 then it won’t be too long until 6:37, which is when the yankees game starts.  it’s going to be a fun weekend…yeah…of me, on the couch, watching baseball.  yessssss.

47) as requested…the master cleanse.

since so many of you have asked what the “recipe” for the master cleanse is (yeah, i know, only like 2 people have really asked), i am going to post it on here in its entirety.  i also recommend going to the master cleanse website if you have lots and lots of questions, like i did.  it helped a lot.  bob actually has the book written by the guy who runs that website, but i think all of the info is the same.

your grocery cart will look something like this (hey, where are the lemons?):

[image from here]

“lemonade” recipe (i write it in quotes because i refuse to call it lemonade.  i refer to it as “the lemon-syrup-pepper drink.”)
*2 tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice, preferably organic lemons, which i didn’t buy because they cost twice as much as the regular lemons and were half the size
*2 tbsp grade B maple syrup (must be grade B, something about the nutrients in it and it’s more pure and yada yada yada…brace yourselves, too, because it’s freaking pricey and you need a lot of it…bob and i have together purchased about $75 in the stuff and we’re hoping the purchase today lasts through wednesday, but it’s unlikely.)
*cayenne pepper (i can’t remember the measurement because i just do it “to taste”.  there has to be enough pepper in it to feel some heat with each sip.  the more, the better.  but believe me when i say it gets hotter and hotter as it sits.)
*8 oz pure water (steam distilled is what we used – purchased in the gallon size)

you are to drink 6-12 servings of that mixture per day.  i average about 7-8, bob has been drinking 8-10.  i think it’s just because he’s bigger than me, so he requires more calories than i do each day.

at night, we drink smooth move tea.  we got it in the organic section at the grocery store.  it’s a laxative tea, in case you couldn’t figure it out by the name.

every morning, we do a salt water flush (which we started the 2nd morning of the cleanse).  this is by far the worst part, so don’t say i didn’t warn you.  it’s 32 oz. of water with 2 level tsp of sea salt (organic NON-iodized sea salt).  drink it as fast as you possibly can without puking (the book says 2 min but we can never do it that fast).  then you must stay by a toilet, because that stuff will be coming out your bum in about 30-45 minutes, sometimes faster (and then it keeps happening over and over again, sometimes for an hour or longer…the first few times are uncontrollable, then after that you can hold it for a bit but i wouldn’t risk it on a workday the first day if possible.).  the first day we did the flush, neither of us had a bm afterward.  weird, right? where did all that saltwater go?  we don’t know.  anyway, what they say is that it is the exact consistency or something of your blood, so your digestive system moves it along as if it were just blood and not something it needs to try to absorb.  so, it literally flushes your bowels…seriously, just like peeing out your bum.

so, i’m sure you’ve figured it out by now, but point of the master cleanse is to rid your body of toxins and really give your body a good cleansing.  my favorite part to read on the website was the stages of the master cleanse.

i know you’re not supposed to just go back to eating the same old junk afterward, and that you’re supposed to ease back into eating foods…but i haven’t gotten to that point yet.  bob and i have started looking through healthy recipes and we have already started planning how we’re going to be much, much more conscious about what we put into our bodies.  anyway, i will post the “easing off the master cleanse” part once i get past that point, and if you want me to.

all i can say is this…i think i’ve only lost about 3-4 pounds so far, but people have already told me that i look like i’ve lost weight and i actually can feel it, too.  i feel vibrant and healthy and actually NOT starving.  weird, huh?  when i’m a little hungry, i take a swig of my beverage (i usually make about 2-5 servings at one time, since i don’t want to be juicing lemons all day long) and then i feel fine.  i can’t believe how much crap (yes, pun intended) has come out of my body, even though i haven’t had food in 7 days.  the one small negative side effect that i have felt is that i’m a little more tired than normal.  it might have to do with the fact that i’m waking up earlier than i ever have (while not really going to bed any earlier), but i’m not sure.

so, that’s it.  the MC in a nutshell.  hopefully i didn’t miss anything!  good luck, my friends.  please let me know how it goes and how you feel if you decide to do it.  i’m willing to coach you through it, with the limited knowledge i have.  it’s always been my dream to be the yoda to someone else’s luke skywalker.

46) cleansing.

i’m sure you’ve all heard about the master cleanse before…right?  well, i am doing it.  yes, today is day 6 on the cleanse and i actually am surprised at how completely normal i’m feeling.  you’re supposed to drink this delicious* concoction of grade b maple syrup, fresh squeezed lemon juice, and cayenne pepper.  and you drink it all day long.  you can also drink plenty of water, too.  exciting, isn’t it?  i haven’t even mentioned the smooth move (you can guess by the name what it does) tea or the salt water flush…

okay, okay.  i know i’m talking sarcastically about it, but i am actually really excited to see how it goes.  i have felt for a while that i need to actually clean my guts out.  if i could take a bottle brush to my guts and scrape out all the goo, i would (of course i really wouldn’t, what with all of the negative side effects something like that would cause).  you know, a nice detoxification to get all of this built-up crud out of my body.  my skin hasn’t been looking great, i’ve been feeling way too tired for what i do every day, and i would love to drop a few pounds, too.

enter the master cleanse.  10 days, baby.  i’m going to do this thing for 10 whole days.  and then, i’m hoping to enjoy a diet rich in natural foods.  no processed foods.  no refined sugars.  very little meat.  and apparently, when i’m finished with the 10 days, i will not be craving those foods anymore.  this is good, right!?!?  of course it is.  i will try to remember to report to you how i feel at day 10 and the “easing” back into foods i must do post-day 10.  people at work have commented that i am obsessed with my bowels these days.  um, when all you do is drink this “lemonade” and a tea called “smooth move,” your bowels suddenly become a very interesting topic for conversation (for those who can handle it).

*my use of the word delicious is very subjective…

45) i run to be…

…a runner.

oh, wow.  the nike women’s half marathon is but a mere month away!  i can’t believe it.  it seems like forever ago i was such a little bright-eyed and bushy-tailed newbie of a runner.  since may,  i have run a 5k, a 10k mud run, a regular 10k and a half marathon.  i even have the remnants of blisters on my feet to prove it.  i rock a fuel belt.  i have a sprained ankle and tendinitis and even some road rash from a little tumble i took a few weeks ago.  i talk about hydrating and cross training and gu and tempo runs and long runs and have even caught myself saying, “oh, we’re only going 5 miles today.”

my, how things have changed!  when i first started running, i used to think 5 miles was more like a gazillion miles away.  don’t get me wrong…i don’t, by any means, think of myself as anything more than maybe  an intermediate runner.  long runs are still difficult for me.  i cringe every time i feel that blister on my right foot re-forming.  sometimes i want to die if i haven’t hydrated well enough for that 5-miler because i refuse to wear my fuel belt for anything less than 8 miles (and yes, it’s because i think it makes me look dorky).

i know this might seem like small potatoes compared to a what a lot of other runners out there have done and continue to do, but this is all very big for me.  i made a goal so long ago and i have worked hard to meet it.  i have learned a few things about myself since i started running.  one thing…i can go farther and faster than i ever imagined.  two…i get emotional when i run long distances.  and three…i want to run for the rest of my life.

anyway, thanks for listening, friends.  and thanks for the support and for the encouragement…you all help and inspire me so much more than you’ll ever know!

44) fill in the blank friday.

yay for another holiday weekend!  you know how i love me some 3-days.  actually, last week i only worked 3 days, so that was pretty awesome, too.  my life has been a bit hectic and a total whirlwind lately.  i have several things i would like to blog about, but squeezing them in lately has been difficult.  so a tiny little update:

last week i went to a concert in salt lake, another concert in vegas with my friend rachelle, started school, ran a half marathon in cache valley, and nearly collapsed from a weird stomach bug.  work was crazy this week and right now i am very happy about having an extra day off.

and now…on to the blanks…

[image from here]

1.  one thing that is completely superfluous, but that i could never give up is my workout gear.  i was introduced to lululemon athletica several years ago by my little sister (who now actually works for them in california), and now, no other workout gear compares.  to justify the cost, i usually only make purchases to reward myself or if i really need something.  and, lucky for me, that little sister i have is very generous with her hand-me-downs!

2.  schmoozing isn’t something i’m good at.  i feel silly and ridiculous when i try.

3.  i can’t run without squinting and/or grinning like a huge dork.  i just learned this about myself, once i looked at my pictures from my race last week.

4.  ice cream is my favorite snack.

5.  lately i’ve been feeling a bit lazy.  i have only run once in the last two weeks!  two mondays ago, i sprained my ankle and took a nice little tumble on the asphalt, totally scabbing up my hands and knees.  i didn’t run the rest of the week until saturday, which was my first half marathon (more on that later).  and, to rest the swollen & bruised ankle, i haven’t run since then.  good thing i have another race tomorrow, huh?  it’s a 10k and i’m actually really looking forward to it.  it’s at swiss days in midway…should be fun!

6.  if at first you don’t succeed at your first attempt at a double-digit miler run, just jump up (or allow your significant other to pick you up because your legs are jelly) and rest for five days and go ahead and run that half marathon anyway.

7.  fall is the best season there is.  i wish the whole year could be fall.

HAPPY 3-Day!

43) the interweb can be a bad, bad place.

so, upon logging into my blog account, i am taken to my dashboard, which happens to also give me stats.  stats like, how many times my blog has been viewed from day to day, which posts are seen the most, and also what kind of searches bring people to my blog.  today, this last one pretty much freaked me out.  look at the “top searches” in the pic.

WHAAAAAAAT?!?!?!?!

does this mean that people are coming upon MY blog because of a search for THAT????!!!  oh. my.  shit.  i was super upset when i saw that because i knew exactly which post it was.  it was this one.  i have since changed the verbiage so that the sickos out there who do such searches will not chance upon my blog and the innocent picture of my BFFs sweet little daughter.  ooooh this just got my blood boiling and i had to share it with you all…you know, as a note of caution if you post pictures of the kids in your lives.

even though i feel like i should be able to freely write whatever i want on here, i will definitely be a little bit more cautious when it comes to stuff like that.  and i do realize that, in posting a public blog, one risk i take is exposing my life to all of the weirdoes out there.  but i can definitely use this tool to make it less enticing to the creeps of the world.