Christmas is in the air

Today is my last day off by myself before my kids are off with me. The sun is out and it is another beautiful day. I think I have everything done that I need to accomplish before they are off with me messing up my house and eating all the food. Oh, that does remind me, I need to hide some cookies and oreo balls so that we will have some for our Gregory Christmas up in Showlow later next week. If I don't, the kids, husband and possibly dogs will eat up all my hard work.

Speaking of dogs, my dogs ate my special Godiva dark chocolate candy bar that I had started eating and put down just for a nano second last night. I am upset and worried that one or both of my hounds will have chocolate poisoning, but I am more upset that my special treat was inhaled before I even knew what was going on. C'mon!! It was Godiva. They were probably exacting revenge on me for forcing them to wear the reindeer antlers for a recent photo shoot. In fact, I think if you look into Dayzee's eyes, you can almost hear her thinking "I will get you back when you least expect it."

Yesterday we made a big double batch of these awesomely thin and crisp Heath bit sugar cookies. These are definitely the easiest cookie to make and everyone loves them. Brian took a bunch into work and I will give some to our neighbors and we will have a few left for Christmas. Today we will do more baking, but first I need to make a dreaded trip to the grocery store. I have a love hate relationship with the grocery store. I'm fine when I'm there but I hate going and checking out and schlepping everything to my car. Enough said. It is a necessary evil.

Another necessary evil this time of year is wrapping gifts... ugh... double ughh... I do not care for that job at all. In a previous life, I was a professional gift wrapper at Mervyn's. I can wrap me a mean gift, but that doesn't mean I have to like doing it.

Joy to the world. Happy Holidays. Merry Christmas. Enjoy your family traditions and have a great time  remembering the reason for the season.

Here we are waiting to start the Hot Chocolate 5k. It was cold, but not unbearable. We found the location and were parked in no time at all. Very smooth considering there were about 7,000 of us.

I am super proud of my 12 year old daughter, Cassi, who ran her first 5k. She did great and came in 108th in her age group.

My friends Debbie and Cherame rocked the race and both ran the whole way!

Kristi, her daughter Madi, Hannah and I took the walk/run or run/walk approach. I came in 404th out of 470 in my age group. Nothing to brag about, but I'm happy that I was able to run part of it, didn't stop and give up when I really wanted to AND I wasn't last, which is my biggest fear.

I have to say that the little training that I did do for the Disneyland 5k really helped because I did absolutely no training this time and I could tell. It felt harder. I think part of this feeling was mental, I mean, who wouldn't want to run through Disneyland? In September I knew my way around. I knew when I was about 1/2 way done. I knew when I was close to the end. For this 5k I had no idea where I was going or where I had been and I haven't developed an internal clock to gauge the distance.

Luckily my friend Hannah was with me. She had a fancy watch on and could tell how we were doing. She was also super sweet and supportive and told me what a great job I did after each run segment. This sweetness I will accept, because it helped offset all the negative self talk that streams through my brain.

The best part about this race? Three things immediately come to mind: good friends, no blisters and chocolate and dancing at the finish line. :)

Do Viking women run? Sometimes...




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Will Run for Chocolate

Bright and early tomorrow morning when it won't be bright because it will be so early that it will still be dark Cassi and I will do the Hot Chocolate 5k with a bunch of friends. It will be awesome. Cold, but awesome. We need to keep our eyes on the prize. The mouth wateringly delicious chocolate that awaits us at the finish line. I'm excited. I haven't trained at all, but it will be fine because I know I can walk/run it.

Good luck to everyone going out tomorrow. I hope there's enough parking for all 10,000 of us.

Now if you will excuse me. I need to go look at the map one more time. Get my outfit out and ready. Make sure I have everything I need and crash.





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Another weekend bites

The dust, that is.

What happened to my weekend!?! Seriously? It's gone and I didn't get anything done.

No shopping (except for our photo shoot), no cookies, no Christmas decorations, no Christmas tree. :(

Don't get me wrong. I had a good weekend but had been feeling anxious and in need of a break. Friday night we had a tamale fund raiser at Cassi's school. Saturday we had our interior designer come over for a consult on getting our master bedroom started. Then we shopped for clothes for our photo shoot on Sunday, Brian and Cami went to the circ de soleil matinee, then we went out for dinner/drinks/dancing for my neighbors birthday. Sunday we got up and ready for our photo shoot. We went do beautiful downtown chandler for that. I am so happy with a service trade I did with a friend who is a photographer. I made a cake for her daughters birthday and she did some family photographs for us. Then we got Bosa donuts (one of my fav things) and went home and worked on a big school project for Calvin. Dog training, dinner and ready for bed. Sounds glamorous, right? Not. In out of breath just thinking about it.

Yep, that's what happened this weekend.

I am happy to report that I am feeling much more relaxed this week.


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