Lunch & Oz

So lunch was fun. My friend picked up my Mom, Melissa & I and we went to the Great Plate, which is across the street from the movie theater.

I had a tri-tip sandwich and the clam chowder. I had planned to steal some of Melissa's fries but I was too full! At about the time that we got our food,  Traci's friend Sonja made it and she ordered and got her food pretty quickly. We had a nice time sitting and chatting before the movie.

Once we could see that the theater was open across the street we made our way over there. Tickets were only $5 and Traci was super nice and bought ours. We got some small popcorns, water and candy for $10, what a steal compared to a real movie theater, right?

We went in and found some seats, sadly they didn't have the balcony open, that would have been fun to sit in. There were quite a few little kids, which I thought was surprising for some reason. The movie I think was just a DVD that they played on the large screen. The quality was pretty crappy but it was still fun to go and see the movie with everyone.

After the movie we came home and I headed for the couch while my mom and Melissa shopped online for all the missing pieces of toy collections my mom has for the "kids". She's so funny.

Later I got a second wind and put away all the laundry and washed & put away just about all the laundry we had. I was watching Downton Abbey on my Kindle and ended up staying up until 12:30 on a work night. Whoops. It sure is nice having all the laundry done though. I have one load in the washer and dryer right now and maybe one almost full load to wash. Hopefully I can keep it up!

Should Be Fun

Ugh so I totally had the sweats last night, which was messed up because I thought I was fever free all day yesterday. Apparently not. I just took my temp and I'm still running a low one. Sucks.

I have plans today to go see The Wizard Of Oz at the old downtown movie theater. Originally it was the movie theater that my mom went to when she was a kid. When I first moved here as an adult it was closed and since then has been remodeled. They do plays and concerts and such there. Jessica played there when she was in band.

My friend Traci LOVES all things Wizard of Oz (her mother was a huge Judy Garland fan) so when I saw this pop up I immediately thought of her. I thought originally that it was a play but then she figured out that they are just showing the movie. Which is still cool. So we are going to go to lunch and then watch the movie. My Mom, Melissa and one of Traci's friends is going too. I hope my body is up to it. I'm on antibiotics so I shouldn't be contagious to anyone right?

Scott went to the A's game today with some neighbors. Originally I was invited to but then I got told they only had one ticket left so he's going. They all go really early and tail gate but I make him take BART (the train) because I don't want him driving home with people who have been drinking all day. I'm sure he will have a great time!

Coming Back From The Dead

Well I'm on my way back from the dead.

Wednesday morning at work I kind of felt like I might be getting sick. I had the chills a bit and my throat was hurting. I took some Motrin and then I was fine. Until I went to Bingo. I had a drink and dinner and then I started feeling really bad. I left early and home to walk/ran my mile and then went to bed.

I had 101/102/103 fever for all of Thursday. Awesome. There went my run streak. Dead on day 360. I never would have thought I wouldn't make it to the one year mark but when you can barely walk to the kitchen running a mile sure isn't going to happen.

Friday morning I made a doctor's appointment since I was still running a fever and my tongue looked like this.

Yeah grody. I have "graphic tongue" so a lot of times it looks weird anyways but that was really bad.

I went to the doctor and cried a tiny bit in the waiting room because I felt like such shit. In hindsight it was probably because I had hardly eaten anything in the last couple days. There was an Indian man in the waiting room with me and he kept giving me nice sympathetic looks while I tried to pretend I wasn't falling apart.

So the doctor said I had a little pus pocket in the back of my throat (I don't have tonsils) and it could possible be strep so the antibiotics will take care of whatever infection it is.

I then drove immediately to Wendy's and ordered a vanilla Frosty. I swear I haven't had one of those in years but I had been craving it for the last day. It tasted fantastic and felt great on my throat. I went through the drive through pharmacy pick up and picked up my meds and now on Saturday morning I'm finally fever free although my throat is still hurting. I could really go for another Frosty ;)

Hopefully I'll be ok by tomorrow since I have plans to go see The Wizard of Oz movie with my friend, mom and Melissa along with some other people I think at the old movie theater in town. My friend Traci just loves The Wizard of Oz so it should be fun. So far today I've scooped the cat box and took the toilet brush to the toilet so I think I'm on the mend lol.

Bear Creek Trail Run

One of the girls I run with sometimes, Heather, was wanting to do a race sometime so the other day I shared with her the Bear Creek trail run that was coming up this weekend. Next thing I knew I was signed up to go and run on Saturday.

This was a Brazen Racing run which is ALWAYS difficult when it's a trail run. This one was no exception.

The race was held at Briones Regional Park in Martinez, which if you asked me where Martinez was I'd give you a shoulder shrug. I was thinking, oh it's a trail run, it will be pretty. Honestly though? It was kind of ugly. It's summer, and it's hot. The "creek" (dry) was in the last mile or so. The whole race was pretty much uphill, on the dead fire break road, surrounded by dead grass. At the top of the run it would have been a great view but there are fires somewhere and all I could see was smoke. 

The last 1 1/2 miles or so was pretty but there was poison oak EVERYWHERE and I was pretty much terrified that I was going to get it on me.

I probably walked 3/4 of the race and ran the flat and downhill parts. It was really, really hot and at one point I started to get the chills, which I knew pretty much meant I was going to be f&cked later. I'm so glad I took my fuel belt and water with me since there was only 2 aid stations, one at around 2 miles and one at 5 miles.  I made sure to drink at least a cup of their sports drink stuff each time and at the last one I used the sponge full of cold water they had all over my head to cool off (that felt pretty awesome). When the race was over I was downing water like crazy and drank a couple of the recovery drinks trying to keep that heat migraine away. Lucky for me it didn't show up for a couple of hours so I at least was laying on the couch in nap mode when it hit.

BUT with all that, I'm still glad I did the run. Nothing makes you more motivated to keep going than knowing that even though the conditions and your body weren't totally up to something, you made it through to the end!

I actually didn't take ANY pictures because one of the girls I went with was taking a bunch. so far she's only posted a couple on Facebook so I can steal those ;) Her and the other girl that went with us ran together and  I hung back from them because I knew they were quite a bit faster than me and I wasn't up for the pressure of trying to keep up.

They didn't have too many photographers along the course so we'll see if any pictures of my show up on their site. I love that they have free pictures :) I'm sure I looked like death in them though!

School Days

Melissa's 1st day of Junior year!

My kids can just stop growing up now, ok?

We just got back from Trevor's back to school night. His teacher this year is the same teacher he had for 4th grade. She seemed pretty encouraging and motivating back then so I'm hoping that will be the case this year. Last year felt like a long slow nightmare. I've never been so happy for summer vacation as I was then!

Scott went with me to the back to school night, so that was nice. That's another good thing about him working right down the road, he's actually able to come to school functions. AND it's also nice that he actually cares now. I used to have to drag him in the early years, then I just went by myself. It's nice to be parents instead of just one person having to do all the school responsibility.  Sometimes you don't realize how much you take on for yourself until you don't have to do it all anymore. Yep, kind of nice.

In other news, today they finally "flew" the job posting for the "real" job for the job I do at work. I'm a contract employee and they are finally going to hire a real employee for my job. Please pray that I get it! I started working on my resume and am going to take it to work to have some people help me out with it. You have to answer a bunch of questions online so I think I'll have at least one person look at those and see if they think I answered them the way I should. I think I've got it, but I want to be sure! Very nerve wracking! The job closes on the 18th so I only have to stress for the rest of August or so. Fun stuff.

I've got 3 1/2 miles on my schedule to run tonight. I guess that's a good way to work off the stress right?

1st Day of 7th Grade

I can't believe that Trevor is in 7th grade already. After the torture of last year I'm kind of amazed he made it to 7th grade, lol but still. It seems like yesterday he was just starting school.

Goofy kid! He seemed in pretty good spirits when he got home from school so that's good. Probably because he didn't really have any homework!

Melissa goes back tomorrow. It's weird when the high school starts on a different day. Somehow they always end up having the same last day of school though.

On a side note, notice in his picture when he was little I hadn't planted the bushes along the side of the house yet? They sure do like it there! Very drought tolerant too, I hardly ever water them and they look great!

Concert Night

Last month our friends Carolyn & Allen invited us to go to a concert with them at Ironstone Vineyards. We were like oh fun! So we went. The concert however, wasn't really my realm of music. It was REO Speedwagon and Boston. Which, just happens to be in that narrow time area of music that I don't know all that well. I grew up listening to the 50-60's music and then of course my era is more late 80's and on. I did know the more popular songs though! 

We started off the night by meeting up with our friends who were staying in their time share in Angels Camp. Scott and I are kind of wishing we had a time share lol. They have places all over that they stay in. Apparently he got a great deal off of Craigslist. I've stayed in the one in Tahoe and it was nice!

Then we went to El Jardin in Murphy's. When we walked in a group of people got up and left and told us they had been sitting there forever and hadn't even ordered yet. We had a lot of time to kill so we stuck it out but they definitely had the worst service I've seen since that time we went to Utah and walked out of the restaurant after ordering. 

This is our friends Allen & Carolyn. 

Group selfie picture :)- Those people in the background there were pissed that they got there first and we got our food before them. 

Us

Margarita time!

The concert was out on the grass. You can bring your own chairs but they can't be too tall. They actually have someone standing at the entrance with a measuring stick. I'm glad our friends brought us a couple chairs to use!

Over all it was fun going to the concert but I won't be running out to buy Boston's new CD anytime soon. Their songs are SO LONG. I got up and walked to the porta potties, went to the bathroom, checked my phone, walked back and sat down and they were STILL playing the same song. Ok if you like instrumentals I guess!

Thank God Scott was driving because I fell asleep about Angel's Camp and woke up when we were almost to the freeway. Score for sleeping through the windy part of the drive that makes me car sick. If we do that again I'll try and book a place for us to stay WAY in advance (everything was booked up by the time I was checking it out).

Camping In Hermit Valley

Way back in the middle of July we went camping up in Hermit Valley again. This year we didn't plan to go during the Death Ride but somehow we just picked that weekend again! Which was nice because there wasn't any cars driving up and down the road on Saturday.

So we packed up our 2 cars and the boys went in one and the girls went in the other. But we had Rusty with us and Snookie rode with them.  I stole this picture from Melissa.

Scott had worked part of the day and I think I had taken the day off but now it's been awhile so I can't remember lol but we didn't get on the road until dinner time. When we were going through the windy part of the drive Scott said that Snookie was acting like she was going to get sick. Not too long after that he was flashing his lights at me to pull over. Snookie had puked all over his back. I, of course, laughed my ass off. He didn't think it was funny though haha. Lucky for us I had packed some baby wipes so we could wash things up a bit. She made it the rest of the way and then puked right when we got to the campsite on Trevor's foot haha.

There was hardly anyone up there camping, which was odd! But soon we found out it was because it was freaking FREEZING at night. It had actually rained a little bit before we got up there so all the wood on the ground was wet and made starting a fire pretty much impossible. 

Scott had tried to make one Friday night and Saturday morning and after MANY MANY attempts and a lot of swear words he finally got one going. Then everything dried out and it was fine the rest of the time.

The first night was so incredibly cold. I had brought an extra blanket for the dogs which ended up being on top of me, along with the dogs in my sleeping bag. I think I slept for about ten minutes. The second night I got smarter and wore my whole suitcase to bed. Just kidding, but I did have 4 layers on including my jacket. It warmed up during the day, just enough to get my face nice and crisp.

Saturday we mostly just sat around because we were so tired from not sleeping. We played a bunch of games of cards, which we always do when we go camping. And we ate like 20 times I think!

At one point I took the dogs and walked down to the porta potties (.8 of a mile) through all the bike ride festivities and back and then after the bike race was over I did my mile run by going 1/2 a mile down the road and then back. 

Snookie helping me play cards

S'mores!

Rusty sleeping in the camp chair with a sheet wrapped around him

Snookie kept shivering so I put her inside my jacket lol. she actually stayed in there for quite awhile!

My pretty pup

My pretty girl :)

We had a chipmunk in our campsite and Trevor decorated his picture

Sunday we were more adventurous and went for our little walk back to the "beach"

The dogs had fun running around

Melissa crossed the stream and went on the other side to collect some wild flowers

Rock climber Trevor

Getting my forehead burned some more (stole Scott's hat after this!)

After awhile we decided to go walk around some more and we found a ton of campsites we didn't know about. Sadly most of them are hike in so not very realistic with a family and how much crap we take camping.

And then we had some lunch, packed up and drove home! Short camping trip but it was still nice to get away. I wish we could go back before summer is over!

Long Run Saturday

So I'm sure no one noticed but I didn't run any races for June or July. I'm not signed up for anything for August either, although that could still change.

I had some kind of weird infection for ALL of June and part of July that took about 4 doctor's visits and about $200 in meds to finally get cleared up. Nothing like a little infection to zap your energy. Thank God that appears to be all cleared up now.

So even though I was kind of sick I was still doing my mile runs every day. Today was day 349 (5 mile run). My goal right now is to get to day 365 and then I guess I'll decide if I want to quit or not. I have to say that if it wasn't for my little run streak I'd probably not even be running at all after being sick and not feeling motivated. Although running one mile so much has totally killed my stamina.

I'm signed up to do the Yosemite Half Marathon (which is really not in Yosemite but whatever) in October so I'm on week 3 of half training. I'm doing the Hal Higdon Novice 1 training again. I like this one because it doesn't have you run a half marathon before your half marathon like some do. I think that's kind of silly unless you are in super great running shape already.

So I've been playing around with run walk intervals for my longer runs. Today I tried a 5 minute walk warm up (put that towards my 5 mile run total) and then 4 minutes of running and 1.5 minutes of walking.  That was good for about 2 miles and then I kept finding myself walking a tiny bit when I still had about 1.3 minutes left to run so maybe next time I'll do 3.5 minute runs. That doesn't sound like very much, but overall my average running time wasn't too bad even with all that walking. I figure maybe if I can get a good rhythm going eventually I will shorten the walk times and be back to running longer distances without walking breaks. 

I REALLY need to become a morning person. Is that possible? I keep trying but it's just not working lol. My kids go back to school this week so I'd have to get up REALLY early to run before school. We have to be down to the bus stop before 7 am.