Derpy Snowman Cookie & Miles, Miles, Miles | Blogmas Day 13

 

I went into this weekend thinking it would be nice and relaxing, considering that we'll be traveling over the course of the next two weeks. That's *not* what I got at all! 😅 Most of my days this week have been non-stop action from the moment I woke up until the moment I went to bed, but I'm happy to say that we made some awesome memories this weekend. Tonight we went to Brett's mom's house for a Christmas party before we leave for FL, which consisted of dinner, cookie decorating (see my derpy AF snowman above), gift exchanges, and board games. We had a blast and I am so happy that we live so close that we're able to celebrate holidays together so frequently.

This weekend also consisted of quite a bit of running! I did a 9 mile run yesterday, and a 10 mile run in *gorgeous* weather today. I'm hoping I can get some distance in over the next few days before we hit the road to FL! I'm really excited to be racing next weekend and I'm hopeful that I'll be able to clock a LOT of mileage while I'm down south where the weather is much more tolerable than it is up here. 🤞 How was your weekend?

TBR: #ReadYourFaceOff 24 Hour Readathon // January 2020

This weekend is the January 2020 #ReadYourFaceOff 24 Hour Readathon and I'm so excited to finally be making a return to these monthly bookish weekends! The official readathon lasts from 9AM on the 18th in your time zone to 9AM on the 19th in your time zone, but lucky for me I get Monday off for the holiday! I'm going to extend RYFO across the three days and enjoy getting lost in some really great books. (If you want more updates for all things Read Your Face Off, check out our Twitter page!) For this weekend, I have one major focus:

Re-reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling!

The weather is looking like it's going to be really snowy and gross and I am in desperate need of some rest for my body, so getting lost in my very favorite Harry Potter novel is exactly the kind of weekend I need. I do have to fit in a 14 mile run and there's a good chance I'll be working on Saturday night (depending on the weather), but when I'm not doing those things I'll be reading my face off and returning to Hogwarts for the first time in over a year. I'm so excited!

 

I'm also adding The Complete Persepolis and Dear Edward back to my weekend reading list. I didn't get nearly as much reading done as I was hoping to last weekend so neither of these titles got touched. Having The Complete Persepolis on my TBR will be great to break up all of the novel-reading I will be doing, and I will be starting Dear Edward before the weekend as I'm almost done my current read - Talking to Strangers by Malcom Gladwell. Wish me luck - hopefully I can finish all 3!

Weekly Round Up (December 29, 2019 - January 4, 2020)

This, this, this!

I really loved doing these weekly round up posts during Blogmas so I thought I would make them my little weekly ritual on Saturdays! It's nice to have a "catch all" spot for things I didn't get to throughout the week, and it actually ends up being such a fun post to write every time. This week was so weird with New Year's being smack dab in the middle and returning to work for two days after nearly two weeks off, but here we are.

For New Year's we had plans of going into Boston, but Brett came home from work super tired so we decided to hang at home with our roommate and friends. We made our favorite "cocktails" which was really just hard seltzer with frozen fruit (Honestly, try it. So simple yet so good!) while I updated my blogs layout (NERD) and Brett and Craig played video games (DOUBLE NERD). 

We did end up going out to our local Chinese food joint and drinking cocktails and eating all the food! This has become one of my favorite things to do on New Year's Eve and I'd be totally content if the tradition continued for years to come.

The Mai Tais I ordered at this place were PURE ALCOHOL. Needless to say I had a great night. 😂

We ended the night playing Super Smash Bros on the Switch while we waited for the ball to drop, then a game called Fibbage which I never heard of before but had a blast playing. I'm a big fan of group games so staying in and playing games all night was the perfect way to spend New Year's, IMO. I love New Year's Eve. I know a lot of people hate on NYE as being super disappointing, but if you don't overthink it, it can always turn out to be a super fun night!

I’m Honestly Fed Up With All The Bad News, So I Illustrated 50 Of The Best Ones From 2019

The Happy Broadcast

I came across this link on someone's blog and I have now found my very favorite Instagram account. The Happy Broadcast is an account that just shares all the GOOD news in the world. I think we all agree that we can use more good news on our feeds. PLUS the illustrations are just so stinkin' adorable! Highly recommend giving this account a follow! These are a couple of my favorite that I've come across so far:

The Science Behind Why You Don't Remember the Pain of Running Marathons

What an interesting read! It's so true that when I look back on marathons I definitely remember the ones that were painful, but I don't exactly remember the pain. I feel like my brain mostly remembers the accomplishment itself rather than the fact that my ankles were on fire for 10 miles or that my calves were totally cramping or that I felt like the sun was going to melt me alive. I really liked this quote from the article: 

“If a painful activity produces outcomes of value, positive emotions result, and these emotions seem to help ensure that pain does not prevent us from doing it again.”

Thursday was Cassie's birthday and for  a gift I got her a Motivate Wrap from Momentum Jewelry! On it, I put our favorite mantra which sprang from Florida Marathon weekend last year - Just Show Up - and I also got myself a matching one (her's is turquoise and mine is purple - our favorite colors!). I've seen these all over the place and I think they are a great extra little motivator when you're running. Can't wait to wear this on my long run this weekend!

Yesterday our Associate Dean brought in a couple dozen donuts from a local donut shop, Kane's! Honestly these donuts are HEAVEN. If you're ever in the Boston area, I highly recommend checking them out. It was a perfect treat to end the short-yet-painful week back from vacation. YUM.

This weekend I have quite a bit going on - mostly "back to reality" kind of stuff. I have a dentist appointment this morning (siiiiiiiiiick) which will be interesting as I haven't been to the dentist in a few years. *shame* I then will be hitting the gym and doing a big grocery shop & cooking a big meal before the Patriot's game tonight (🤞). I'll be mainly focused on getting myself mentally and physically prepared for my 18 mile long run tomorrow. These training runs are always so scary, no matter how many times I do them, so my main focus will be getting myself into a good mental head space to chip away at the miles early on a Sunday morning. I think later in the day tomorrow we're gong to try and go see Star Wars, but I guess we'll see where the day takes us!

In terms of reading, I have a few books that I'll be trying to focus on and hopefully finish this weekend! I'd really like to finish Bunny by Mona Awad, which I started on New Year's Day, as well as The Marathon Maniacs by Malcolm Anderson, which I started back in August when I became an official Maniac. 😂 I'd also like to start Permanent Record by Mary H.K. Choi - I'm craving a good YA contemporary right now and I absolutely loved reading Emergency Contact by the same author, so I'm hoping I'll feel the same way about Permanent Record!

How was your New Year's? What'd you get up to?

What are you hoping to read this weekend?

Do you have a long run or a race on your schedule for this weekend?

You Ain't Reason (BEDA Day 23)

Weekend plans:

1. Watch UnReal - I recently got into it and it's a reality show lover's dream of a scripted show

2. Finish up Love Island UK - the last few episodes should be going live on Hulu tomorrow

3. Present to a few student groups at a student leader retreat tomorrow

4. Run 16 miles on Sunday... fingers crossed I can catch that distance

5. Finish my paint by numbers I started last weekend

Weekends tend to be harder lately because there's less to keep my mind occupied. This comic I came across today reminded me of the mentality that I need to reference back to when the shadow snake is taking over. #youalittlebitch 😂

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Weekends in July

I've been busy-busy relaxing and having fun over my two weeks off - my favorite kind of busy! I spent a large amount of time hanging with Brett, family (both his and mine), watching Netflix (yesssss), and enjoying the summer sunshine. (I even got a nice little burn on my back to prove it!) Here's a little round up of everything I got up  to during my vacation!

Running for Ribs

On Father's Day my parents and I went to Rock n' Ribfest in Merrimack, NH! It's exactly what it sounds like - a festival of BBQing, rib cooking, music, and awesomeness! There was also a 5 mile road race that my mom and I ran together. We weren't aware of it, but it was actually the National Championship for the 5 mile distance, so the place was packed with over 2,000 runners, including many elite runners!

My dad was taking photos at the Start/Finish line and managed to find us in the crowd as we passed by! He acted as our awesome support crew - even though it was the day to celebrate him, he was still working hard to make sure that we had everything we needed to make our race successful. Talk about the best Dad ever, huh?!

The race itself was nice and flat, save for a few hills at the beginning & mid-points, but it was hot with very little shade, so the pavement had us cookin'. We both managed to finish with decent times for the conditions, though! I also saw multiple 9-10 year olds just killin' it on the race course, as well as some super parents passing me while pushing multiple children in strollers. #champs

After the race was over, we had some time to kill before heading into Ribfest and sampling all of the barbeque deliciousness. The whole event was on the Anheuser-Busch Brewery, so we decided to pay the Budweiser Clydesdales a little visit!  

These horses are HUGE but seemed to be very good-natured. I think they're *very* used to attention from people and the snapping of photos, as they appear in commercials and even go on tour every so often! So essentially, we were hanging out with celebrity horses.

We walked around an enjoyed the sunshine and company of our new animal friends for a while longer before finally heading into the much anticipated festival! We went through the gates as soon as they opened, and technically we were still a few minutes out from the cooking from really getting started, so we explored a bit and came across a local high school robotics team showing off their basketball playing robot.

(I wasn't kidding.)

Once the rib chefs put their first racks on the grill, we headed over to grab our lunch. There were lots of different rib joints there from all over the world (including Australia!) competing for the Rock n' Ribfest trophy, so we had a pretty hard time deciding which place we wanted to try.

However, we decided to go with the places that both seemed to have a decent trophy collection: Jack's Downhome Barbeque from Virginia, and Gator BBQ from Naples, Florida!

We got a half rack of ribs from Jack's and a pulled pork sandwich and BBQ chicken from Gator BBQ:

We all sat in the grass, listened to the bands play, and shared the delicious barbeque feast. Both places made awesome food and everything was devoured pretty quickly. I knew that Ribfest was an annual event in NH, but I had no idea it was this awesome! I'll definitely be returning in the future. It was such a gorgeous day and it was awesome getting to spend it with my parents on Father's Day!

Post #100

1. Beautiful sunset I saw after class one evening.

2. Breakfast at this little place in Putnam, CT Brett & I found last weekend.

3. Playing in the snow with my puppies yesterday morning.

Happy 100th blog post! It's hard to believe that I've already hit 100 posts here on FivEleveNinety, but I suppose it's getting close to a year since it's been launched, so it makes sense!

I've been traveling a lot the past couple weekends. Last weekend I visited Brett at his new job and we did a bit of exploring around his new area. The town he stays in is right on the border of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, so we have lots of places to explore! This weekend I visited home. It was nice to see my parents and dogs and have a real chance to relax. I feel like when I'm at my apartment during the school year, I can never fully relax because you never know when a crisis may arise in the res hall!

I'm looking forward to the end of this week. I'll be finishing up my intensive Group Therapy course (meaning I will only be taking two classes until the end of the semester!), and also will be attending the NACA National Convention in Boston! All good things coming up - just got to get through the week!

Hope you all have a wonderful week with lots to look forward to! :)

Food, Football, Friends & Family

I had a wonderfully relaxing weekend with Brett, watching the Pats take the division title over Indianapolis, eating awesome food (including my favorite Buffalo Chicken Dip! I'll have to share my recipe with you guys one of these days...), and playing with Brett's adorably awesome niece and nephew. It's amazing being surrounded by great people without the worry or need to be anywhere or do anything except eat good food and enjoy the company!

Little Sophia was loving playing with my camera and got some pretty awesome vlog footage for tomorrow, haha! She's just starting to get the hang of walking and is learning more and more words (well, at least noises that sound like words) each time we see her like "socks" ("caks"), "ball" ("bah"), and "Brett" ("Beh"... pretty similar to ball!). So adorable! She's the first baby I've really been around and seen develop over time (Brett and I started dating about a week after she was born!), so it's been a very cool experience to see her grow!

How was your weekend?