I Survive the Tough Mudder

But first, I went to St Louis for a work meeting, which was comprised completely of pediatric educators. So do you see the red bottle on the table in front of me? That would be a Budweiser which a pediatric neurologist brought in...and this was the very first meeting of the conference at noon, so it's not like it's the last day and this is an evening meeting....and would THAT even be okay? I was just stunned, but nobody said anything as far as I know.


Secondly, my sister went to Galena, IL for a visit and very kindly stopped in the LYS and bought me some yarn! This is a hand-painted mohair-wool mix - can't wait to pick out a sweater pattern for it! And did she buy me a vintage coat pattern too?


No - it's a notebook - how clever!!!


And so, on Saturday, we traveled to Milton, FL, for my first and Dean's and Drew's second Tough Mudder. They have funny signs.


So here I am all marked up and rarin' to go.


The boys had numbers written on their arms, but mine were covered with sleeves, so it had to go on my head.


And here's the after shot.


No action pics yet, though I'm hoping they'll post some eventually, and if you want to see what we did, just go to YouTube and google "2016 Florida Tough Mudder." People have started uploading their GoPro videos today, but I didn't want to share someone's personal video here without permission.

Let me just say that in 4 hours, I ran 10.5 miles, did 21 obstacles without backing down, and took 4-5 electrical shocks at the end. And obstacle-wise, I did require a leg-up to clear the 10 and 20-foot walls, but I did the "Liberator" wall that you climb using 2 pegs you put in holes all by myself! And I was a big girl and leaped off the 15-foot King of Swingers, even managing to grab the T-bar, until I lost my grip about halfway through the swing and fell into the water. Also I did the Arctic Enema icebath with no coaxing or whining. That's why I was so happy in this pic:


I highly recommend it - it's kind of like recess when you were a kid, if you grew up in the country surrounded by red clay and rednecks. It was totally fun and I didn't hate a single minute of it, though I did get a little tired climbing up sandy mountains in the glaring sun. They had plenty of hydration stations and bananas, and there was always more nice cool mud when you started getting hot.

Now today, I feel like I've been run over by a truck, and I have matching purple bruises over the backs of my legs from climbing over the walls, but doing that empowered me to hang up the blinds in Lucas's room instead of waiting for Dean to get home and do it. (Climbed up a 20-foot wall, I can CERTAINLY climb up a stupid ladder.) You go, girl!

Two Spring Breaks

Drew the college student's Spring Break happened first, and he and some friends stayed at the beach a few days (with loose supervision by Dean, who was repairing wood decking...certainly not spying or anything...but when you've got college students at the beach, somebody needs to keep a bit of an eye, in my opinion), then spent a couple of days in Mobile. To overcome any boredom, I took them downtown to eat and wander around the waterfront. And WHO KNEW we had a waterfront, what with all the industrial-ness and trains and such?! Behold the Austal plant where they make the famous Littoral ship. There are 2 on the other side there.


And here's the corner of the lovely Convention Center, which blocks the view of the river, thus my lack of knowledge of our waterway until I attended an event where they actually let you walk out the back and enjoy the water views. Trust me, watching a huge cargo ship get turned around by tugboats is fascinating stuff!


I believe this is Bienville, who had something to do with the founding Mobile, but as I'm not a native Mobilian, I'm not sure terribly sure about that. Drew did do a little research on all this fascinating port-business, and I believe we're the 9th largest port in the nation, and the largest one handling coal exports.


I didn't get a pic of GulfQuest, which is our new maritime museum, but it was quite lovely inside, though we didn't fork over the $18 per person to tour anything but the gift shop and lobby. Well-appointed gift shop, though!

While we were doing this, Dean was wrapping up repairs at the beach, and as a reward for his supervisory time there, God granted him a full rainbow, from one end...


to the other, and note the double rainbow on this side - amazing!


So then Drew's break was over, and Lucas's started a couple of weeks later. We went to Cabo San Lucas (sorry, Drew!). This is an excellent restaurant named Toro, and if you look just to the right of the lady behind Dean, those lights are a cruise ship heading out. Neat!


I had asked Drew to ask his girlfriend what a good contemporary nail color was, since I'm nail polish-challenged, and she recommended either pink or mint blue, which I'd never heard of, but the lady in CVS had. (Brief aside: did you know that on Saturdays if you shop in the Beauty section, they give you some free goodies like bubble bath, etc., in a nice gift bag?!) These are mint blue toesies in the rocky sand of the Pacific Ocean.


And these are the same toesies at the pool near the swim-up bar - oh, garcon!


This was a wacky piece of art that I would love to recreate in actual fabric. These are tiles in a mosaic pattern to make a dress. I guess you could buy it, but you certainly couldn't wear it.


So we did a little dune-buggying through the desert and out to the ocean, though you had to pay for any pictures with that outfit - boo. Lucas kindly photo-shopped Drew into our ocean pic. This looks like a good Christmas card photo candidate...

And the next day we went zip-lining, though they also made you leave your camera, so the only pics I have are the ride there...


and prior to catching a line.


Now one thing that was cool about Cabo are all the types of cacti there are, so I took some pics of the purple cactus...


the bushy cactus...


and the wormy cactus. Sorry I don't have official names. I did learn from our dune-buggy guide that only one species of cactus has water that's safe to drink. The rest have toxins and what-not, so no drinky!


Something else I learned that was quite devastating is that knitting needles are not allowed on flights from Mexico! WHAT??? Also no nail clippers or tiny scissors....and no golf balls! What are people thinking?!


OH, and so we make it safely back to the US, and we land in Houston to catch our connection to Mobile, and who should walk up but my sewing buddy, Becky! Her family was coming back from a West Coast spring break, and one of Lucas's classmates was also returning from a Grand Canyon spring break. Made the rest of the trip go by much faster.

Next post, I hope to have some pics of my knitted mesh sweater which I finally did get around to working on when I got my needles back, and also a Tough Mudder update, since that's next Saturday - yikes!!! Back to training....

Running and cooking

It finally hit me that Drew is an adult when he signed up for a Spartan race in Atlanta and went there with his girlfriend a couple of weekends ago. Got himself up and left at 7 in the morning, did all the checking in, then ran that thing over 2.5 hours all by himself. Camille was there to cheer him on and take pictures, but this is the only one I got. God bless him!


Meanwhile, Dean and I forced Lucas, uh, I mean joined Lucas for a 5K that same day, and he dropped his time from the previous 58 minutes to a very respectable 37 minutes - woohoo! Now we couldn't convince him to join us for O'Daly's Green Dress Run downtown, so we went by ourselves. They take the Green Dress part very seriously, and if you look just to the right of center, you'll see a lady wearing a green tutu...who has also pained her entire body green, down to her eyelids. Now that's commitment....or needs commitment - ha!


Here's the starting line - note all manner of wigs and a man in a dress way behind me.


And these young ladies were running in dresses, but they walked through their beer breaks. Yes, people were running with drinks in hand. Dean saw a group running with Fireball shots...which was probably necessary to stay hydrated, as there was not a single water station until you crossed the finish line!


Okay, now next weekend is the Azalea Trail Run 10K, and I will attempt to do this while on call, so we'll let you know how that goes. Now to segue to something my sister told me about - Birchbox. For $10 a month, you get 5 samples of beauty products in a beautiful box worthy or re-gifting.


Ooh, this month I got 6 things! They were dry shampoo, regular shampoo, conditioner, 2 eyeshadows, facial cleanser, and a facial mask. Last month I got samples of lotion, foaming face wash, lipstick, hair serum, and something else I forgot. Love this little club, and it makes for great travel-size toiletries. Thanks, Sister!


Another thing I discovered is that there's a lady in Publix who cooks a new dinner every week, and you can taste it, then buy all the ingredients right there next to her booth, and get a free recipe card - who knew?! So I made a delicious cranberry-walnut salad with lemon vinaigrette dressing....


and pork tenderloin with dill yogurt sauce - shoot, I forgot to get a shot of that, it made it look a lot yummier.


So what have you been doing lately? Cooking anything new? Exercising? And yes, I wrote this post instead of going running like I should have...dangit! .

Charleston Visit and the Gulf Coast 10K

So for my Mom's and sister's birthday presents, I set up a trip to Charleston, SC. Now we did a trip to New York a few years ago, and I whipped them all over that town with very little down time, so this trip we decided it would be relaxing with no real plans other than a couple of dinner reservations. We were off to a great start by getting some dinner and drinks in the Atlanta airport during our almost 2-hour layover...except that dinner never came and we had to walk out and get on this plane with no food.


Luckily, when we got to our hotel, they had a restaurant on the rooftop that was still open...and empty...with excellent music playing...you see where this is going, don't you?



Sadly, my peeps just sat at the table waiting for waitstaff to stumble upon us, but none did! Totally got away with it!


And it was a blessing in disguise that we missed dinner in the airport, because take a look at this: delicious burger with truffle parmesan fries - yum.


We found out the next day that The Watch was a hip, new restaurant that just opened - how lucky can ya' get? So I highly recommend The Restoration on King (which is actually on another street), because the rooms are more like condos with separate bedrooms and full kitchens...


although the main attraction are these crazy private balconies - huge!


You also get a complimentary basket of breakfast every morning! They have a menu to choose from, and some of the food came in these precious glass jars - fabulous.


So we did some sightseeing by the water...


and some historic cemeteries with pretty flowers...


and some pretty fountains...


and historic College of Charleston...


and the Joseph Manigault House.


But mainly we ate great food. This was at Cru Café...delicious and in a tiny old house.


And this was at Callie's Hot Little Biscuit for lunch one day - homemade pimiento cheese in a biscuit - yum.


And this was Eli's Table, which was our best meal, and also it was Ladies' Night so we got a glass of champagne and a rose after dinner. It was an awesome trip, and so much more relaxing and fun than that New York trip!


Oh yes, and I even fit in a little run around College of Charleston wearing my super-tight running shorts...


because the Charleston trip was closely followed by a 10K race!

I finished in 1 hr, 14 minutes, which isn't terrible considering that involved crossing a huge bridge twice! Robbie, I started to text you to come out and say hey that morning, and I think I ran by your water aerobics building, possibly, but we started at 7 AM so you may have been asleep. (No idea why they made the finisher medals with a Crimson Tide theme on one side, but it's a bottle opener, so I'll take it.)

And yes, you can see from Lulu's FB page that I wore the handmade fancy pants, which garnered 3 "I love your tights!" and 1 "Where did you buy your leggings?" That was from the overall female runner herself, who looked at me like I was an absolute freak when I said I made them. She was enamored by the contrasting legs, so I definitely have to make more.

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Alright, that'll suffice for now. Hope YOU'VE been enjoying life, too!

Tiny Bit of Mardi Gras and Tiny Running Shorts

Not many pics this year, because I was mostly supervising college freshmen. Drew and his friends drove down Friday after classes and stayed at home one night before heading to NOLA Saturday AM, so of course I stayed home too, instead of spending Friday dancing at Lafitte's, which is my Mardi Gras home away from home. After feeding them some lunch and sending them off into the French Quarter, though, I did head to Lafitte's to make some friends. This is the Queen Mother and her guards.


Here's the final Saturday afternoon line dance in the street, and the funny thing is that I talked to half the people in the picture at some point or another, including the kid in the hoodie, who's Drew. Yes, he actually brought his girlfriend up to Lafitte's to join in the dancing with me - maybe I'm a little cool after all!


On to the Jalie Cora running shorts....which are decidely uncool per Lucas. He was completely correct that they are way too tight, despite the fact that I went up a size. I think the problem is that the Dri-fit has less stretch than my previous fabric.


Dean thinks the pink accents make me look like I'm trying out for a girls' dance team. This is actually the same pink fabric I used in my one-piece swimsuit a few months back.


I went ahead and wore them for a 20-minute run and had no problems and no burst seams, even though I heard about 30 stitches pop when I put them on. Hey Tracey, what's your hip measurement now? If it's less than 40 inches you can have these!


So I have plenty of Dri-fit fabric left for longer running tights, and maybe I'll try to find a more subtle print for the waistband, calves, and pocket, because solid gray is just too boring for me. I may have to buy another pattern, though, because I cut this one originally for the smaller size, then added tissue paper to make this larger size, which is STILL too small....mabe there's something to this tracing of patterns after all!