to see, or not to see... that is the question!

well, the question isn't to see or not, but rather how to see. this year, it's my turn in the family rotation to get new glasses. and i'm beginning to think that i would rather wear glasses full time than wear contacts. i've been wearing contacts for several years now but i wore my glasses for a few years before that. contacts can be annoying but then so can glasses. i hate when my eyes are unfocused then i focus them my contacts are all blurry. or when my eyes start to hurt when i'm awake for a really hard time because my contacts are drying out. and the look of contacts isn't really important to me. if anything i don't like it. i would rather be who i am and who i am can't see very well, so she needs glasses. i don't want to make my mom spend a ton of money on a year's worth of contacts if i'm not going to wear them. i'll probably need a few pairs just in case i need them for something. although i don't really know what i'd need them for so maybe not.

feel free to comment and tell me: glasses or contacts, what do you think?

it's the most wonderful time of the year!

hello hello. got a little sidetracked with the whole christmas thing ;) anyways, i'm back. i got some pretty rockin gifts from my pretty rockin mom :) like a kindle, which i am very much enjoying. and a drawing kit with a book that teaches how to draw people (which, previously i was rather bad at, but that's starting to change :). and we all got cute little lutheran chick coffee cups (which you can see here if you want to get one: oldlutheran.com ). and the most wonderful gift of all: GLEE karaoke for wii!!! we played it when my brother and his family came over and it was amazing!!!

we did a big family christmas at my grandmother's house. complete with more food than i should have eaten, a $15 gift exchange my dad and i rigged so i would get a good present (if i don't know what i'm picking i always pick the worst stuff) and a little mechanized laughing, rolling monkey. one of the most coveted presents in the gift exchange was a lighted tip up with a bag of chocolates. if that's not my family in a nutshell, i don't know what is.

so then my brother came over. my mom got him this cool little flip camera thing. it plugs right into the computer and shoots really nice video. he was happy :) we made 48 deviled eggs so that my sister and i could eat how many we wanted and everyone else could have a few too ;)

so that was my christmas. pretty wonderful i'd say. and tonight i'm going out to supper to exchange gifts with very good friend and eat mexican food :D i still have a gift to exchange with one other person but we seem to be having scheduling issues so if said friend is reading this, he should text me :)

things that grow revisited

i witnessed something amazing today. i saw something grow! in early november, i bought a mini grow-your-own-christmas-tree kit thingie. well, a week or so ago, it started growing for real. there had been a shoot before but it quickly died. but this one is a keeper.

this is what it looked like this morning:

but then i looked at it tonight. and here is what i saw...

it was amazing! and awesome! i couldn't believe it. normally i don't have much of a green thumb, but it's actually working this time :D this is wonderful and i thought i'd share it :)

the reason for the season

Luke 2:1-20  ¹ In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. ^2[a](This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) ³ And everyone went to their own town to register.  ⁴ So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. ⁵ He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. ⁶ While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, ⁷ and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.
 ⁸ And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. ⁹ An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. ¹⁰¹¹ Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. ¹² This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.
 ¹³ Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
 ¹⁴ “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
   and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”
 ¹⁵ When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”
 ¹⁶ So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. ¹⁷ When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, ¹⁸ and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. ¹⁹ But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. ²⁰ The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told. 

growing up in a lutheran school, i have heard these words every year. and instead of seeming repetitive and  boring, every year they become more and more special to me. :)

3...2...1...Blastoff!!...er...i mean...Christmas!!!

it's here! well, almost. 5 days until Christmas. the stockings are hung, the tree is lighted and covered with all the embarrassing school art project ornaments my siblings and i have ever made, and we have enough snow for 3 white christmases. but what really makes it feel like christmas is finally here: the eggnog. we didn't buy any before this week because it's ridiculously high in calories and anything else that could make me fat. but i love it anyway.

last night i started on christmas gifts. i make the ones for my friends and this year, they're gorgeous! i have no idea how i'm going to transport them, but hopefully gift bags will do the trick :)

tonight is the choir christmas concert at my school. i'm in the top choir, so we sing 6 songs plus a mass piece with all the choirs. it's a good night. the christmas concert is always packed. as opposed to our other concerts which have minimal attendance of parents. everyone loves this concert though. i know that after i graduate, i'll still want to come and hear the music. it's a beautiful service because they read Bible verses and sing hymns and stuff between choirs. my favorite songs this year are a cool arrangement of go tell it on the mountain and our mass piece, peace peace. peace peace is cool because the sopranos and altos break into 2 part harmony while the basses and tenors sing silent night underneath us. as we sing they dim the lights little by little so that by the end the only lights still on full blast are the crosses on either side of the stage. it's a wonderful way to end a beautiful concert :)

christmas is getting so close. it came up so fast. will my whole life go by this fast? when you're little, everything feels like it goes so slow and takes forever to grow up. but now, as i get older, life is a speeding bullet and it's all i can do to hang on. i'm not saying that i don't enjoy my life, because i do, but i look back at this semester and it feels like last weekend i was getting ready for homecoming with my friends but that was like 3 months ago.

that's life

so after my relatively huge accomplishment recently, today i was brought back to reality. as usual. whenever things are going good, something inevitably goes bad. all good things must come to an end and such. anyways. today i sang for my choir director so he could approve me to sing the national anthem at a basketball game. but there was a slight problem...he didn't approve me. even though i can do it perfect in practice the first try, i did it three times and kept switching keys :( so i won't be showcasing my not so awesome skills anytime soon. maybe it's for the best. i'm going to develop a heart condition if i keep up all this live performing!

in other news, it's only 8 days til christmas!!! that is insane! and awesome! (if you haven't guessed, i love christmas) it feels like just yesterday i was walking the halls of my high school for the first time in three months, wondering at the fact that my class is top dog now. and here we are with only 13 days left in the semester. next thing i know, we'll be lining up in the gym before graduation, then in the car on the way to college. it's exciting, but the more i think about it, the more strongly i feel that i don't want to have regrets. i don't want to feel like i wanted to say something but didn't. better late than never, huh? i try to live my life like that, but the older i get the more it hits home.

so merry christmas til we meet again :)

mission accomplished

i don't have cool theme music, but i definitely accomplished something this evening. i sang in front of over a hundred people without choking or doing anything horribly bad. i chalk this up to a success.

i have been a singer all my life. i take weekly voice lessons and i'm a member of my school's "good" choir and show choir. but there's one accomplishment i had not reached. solo performance. i'm trying to tackle that this year. see, the thing is, i get this almost paralyzing stage fright to the point where i can't even breathe. i tried out for a solo in choir last week and this happened. needless to say, i didn't get the solo. so when i perform i have to breathe, relax and tell myself it doesn't matter it's just high school. that definitely helps. that's what i did tonight.

i sang "wishing you were somehow here again" from phantom of the opera. i got several compliments afterwords but then when i got home, i listened to it. i am a victim of that terrible phenomenon where it sounds absolutely wonderful from inside my head when i'm singing it, but then when i hear it played back it sounds like the worst thing ever. i hate that. i guess i'll have to work at it more until i like the way it sounds from both angles. but that could take some time. oh well, what are voice teachers for?

blizzard anyone?

i'm not talking about going to DQ... i'm talking about most of my state is under a blizzard warning. every hour or so we hear sirens and firetrucks going who knows where. the wind is blowing like the big bad wolf and according to weather bug it's 19 degrees out (farenheit). unfortunately for me i have to go shovel the (literally) 10-12 inches of snow that has fallen in the last 24 hours. well it's my own fault really. not the snow, the shoveling. i didn't put gas in the snowblower because i wanted to force myself to get some exercise. i'll probably regret that later when i'm out there, but when it's done i'll feel good :)

i live about 6 minutes away from one of the largest malls in the state of wisconsin. the DOT says for everyone to stay off the roads unless they absolutely need to go out. so someone decided they should open the mall today anyway. my mom's job is right next to the mall. so when the mall opens, my mom's work opens too. so now i have to shovel because of the stupid mall :P

days like today are why i plan on moving to a warm weather state after college...

oh the weather outside is frightful!

here it is, here at last: the first snowfall. sure we've flirted with the snow a bit in the past few weeks, some flurries here, freezing rain there, but nothing stuck. until about 2 pm this afternoon. since then we have maybe 4ish inches on the ground (and counting).

i have never lived through a year where i did not have to deal with snow and bitter cold. living in wisconsin, it's just life. i can tell if it's below zero just by breathing the air. i know to some people this much cold must be unfathomable but here it is the norm.

snow and i have a love hate relationship. we have some good memories: snowmen, snow angels and the like. one time my family was in the lifetime section of the local newspaper because our neighbor (who happened to write for said newspaper) thought we looked like a norman rockwell painting all out in the snow as a family building a huge snowman.

then as i got older, snow removal became my chore. i have severe allergies so my sister mows the lawn and i take care of the snow. this works alright for us, but i wouldn't say its my favorite job. somehow after all these years of the vicious cold, i never get used to it. at least i don't have to do it early in the morning. well today. tomorrow i will. although it's dark out so i guess it's a horse a piece.

i must admit, it is beautiful. the first day after a big snowfall when it's all still on the trees and everything looks like a christmas card, no matter what it looks like normally, that's the best. by the time january rolls around the side of the road snow will be gray and nasty and all the parking lots will be ankle deep in brown slush that gets in my socks and makes me ten times colder. but i don't want to think about that right now. i just want to think about how pretty it looks :) and about how i'm going to get my first decent exercise in a while shoveling.

i'm off to brave the tundra armed only with my shovel and my ipod! wish me luck :)

employee of the month

so i've been working at the same retail job for two years. whenever i'm scheduled to work on a weeknight, it's until 10 pm. i've never enjoyed this, but have always dealt with it because that's just the way things are. but tonight i'm scheduled to work until 10:30 (because i'm not a minor anymore they can make me work super late). but that is so not ok. i know it's the busiest season of the year, but they already hired a ton of seasonal help.

i've already decided where i'm going to apply (where i hope to be working soon!). it's a bakery :) not like a cookies and cake kind of bakery, but a bread bakery. i am personally in love with the smell of bread so i think i'll enjoy it. and it's not like fast food where i'd come home smelling like grease. i'll come home smelling like fresh bread :) i know someone who works there, and apparently their uniform is jeans and a tshirt w/ their logo. that'd be a relief after 2 years of tan pants and ugly polo shirts :P

so wish me luck and send some prayers my way that i get this job :D

Frightening Forest of Fashion Faux paus!

yes you read that right. welcome to the world of retail. i've seen some pretty terrible stuff working as a cashier these past two years. tonight i think i'll share with you some of the scariest of all...

just tonight i saw a man in my peripheral vision. i judged him to be about 17 from the clothes he was wearing. i looked up. he was at least 45.

a mother and daughter (the fashion of one obviously influenced the other) who were a tad round. but they thought that if their shirt and pants were touching at least some of the time, their clothes fit.

a woman in her early fifties wearing a straw hat with a strap under her chin. a white t shirt tucked into blue ice cream cone pants (you know, cinches your waist, makes your bum look astronomical and tapers to nice little point at your feet) and those horrible velcro sandals that 5 year old boys wear. i would like to point out: no wedding ring and buying cat food.

all hairy men in tank tops. just sayin.

hispanic woman who was wearing jeans. they were at least three sizes too tight. i know this because she had three inches of stomach fat sticking out all the way around the waistband.

jersey shore wannabe: i think the waistband of his jeans was at least halfway down his thigh. he must have been wearing like five sweatshirts (getting progressively larger). or he was wearing football pads underneath just 2 sweatshirts.

that's all i can think of right now and i don't want to frighten you out of leaving your house ever again.

creator

today is the end of a rather long week. it had its ups and downs but wasn't too terrible. i'm dead tired as usual. that's pretty much a constant state for me during the school year. which stinks for someone who finds it utterly impossible to sleep during daylight hours :(unless it's in the morning and i was already asleep).

i've been thinking about something in sculpture lately. it gives me a whole new appreciation for creation. the Bible tells me that God made me and he knows me inside and out. of course i have always known this, but now i feel it in a much more personal way. right now our project is animals, so i (of course) am making a pig (i love pigs and collect them). what started out as a chunk of clay is now a pretty realistic pig. i can see every little flaw. i know exactly where every dent is, i know how it feels when i add a little bit, i know where i need to work on and which parts are just the way i want them. i have plans for how to fix the bits that need work. i know that little piggie inside and out just the way that God knows me. that's an amazing feeling. i thank God for giving me the artistic abilities i have so that i can feel that feeling and know it's all because of him :)

it's the most wonderful time of the year

holy. cramole. today is december 2, 2010. it snowed yesterday. i think it's time for a reality check: it's winter now, and my senior year is nearly half over. december is a good month.

a month where we get to go to advent church every wednesday. that in itself makes this an excellent time of year. i love going to the suppers before church and eating with our church family.

it's a month where i either hunt down (or make) gifts for my friends. and my favorite part of gift giving: i handwrite each of them an individual letter telling them how special they are to me. my favorite part of christmas is giving things to people. i usually only do something small for my friends because i know it's not the actual gift that matters, but the letter. now that it's december i can get started on those. :)

december is a month filled to the brim with christmas music! choral music, church music, music on the radio, music at work...it's everywhere! and i love it! more than any other time of the year, this christmas music brings people together, and it's a wonderful thing.

and last of all, december is a month of snow! snow days hopefully but definitely snow. it snowed all day yesterday but we only have barely an inch to show for it. but that's alright because i'm the one in my family responsible for snow blowing the driveway :/ so the longer we can put that off the better :)

these are my favorite things about the christmas season :)

academic and other accomplishments

i'm feeling an incredible sense of accomplishment right now. i have just completed my first real thesis paper. it is 6 pages long. my first paper with no working on it during class. i had to do it all on my own. and it feels great. 
uh oh. i can't get rid of the underline!! i keep clicking on it, but it won't go away. oh well. anywho, life seems full of accomplishments lately. some i haven't actually accomplished, but am planning. like singing the national anthem at a basketball game. a silent gym. hundreds of fans, most of whom i see every day. silence. then my voice. it's quite intimidating. but i think i can do it. 


 oh there it went away! still can't get rid of the rest...


i am a member of my school's show choir and we received the most wonderful news last night at rehearsal! not only will we be performing rockin robin in january, but we will also be competing in Solo and Ensemble (a musical/theater competition where we are judged) (it's being hosted at my school) with knock on wood and another song tbd. we have never been in solo and ensemble before! and we're singing awesome songs. 


all in all, a good couple of days :)

A Study on Research

what sort of sick, twisted mind invented the concept of a thesis paper?? whoever it was, they're messing up my weekend. i have been charged with the task of writing a 6-7 page thesis paper on how Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is seen in his work of the Hound of the Baskervilles. it is turning out to be a bit more time intensive than i thought. not only do i have to actually write 6-7 pages, i have to quote sources, do web site evaluations, write a works cited page *shudder*, and all of this must be done by wednesday.

last night i managed to power through 130 pages in one sitting to finish the actual book. it's pretty hard to write intelligently about this sort of thing without reading the book :/

you may say that i have brought this upon myself by procrastinating. i suppose you're right. although i don't think this would be any easier 2 weeks ago. on the contrary it would've been more difficult because i spent the first two weekends of november out of state. therefore proving very difficult to write a paper.
so here i am. i have made my bed now i must lie in it. er... write in it.

farewell, as i have writing of a more academic nature to return to.

the blackest day of the year

today is a weird not-quite-holiday that stems from greed, insanity, and just plain american-ness. this day is known as black friday. a day when much of our lovely nation gets up waaay before the crack of dawn to stand out in (at least where i am) below zero temperature for hours so that they can shove someone out of the way for a cheap tv, laptop, coffee maker, toy, you name it. it is on this lovely day that all of the employees at my wonderful retail job are called upon to serve these sale-crazed masses. that is how i spent the first 8 hours of my day today.
it wasn't so bad this year. i've seen worse customers on regular days of the year. i got mostly cheerful shoppers and the store was steadily busy for my entire shift. there were subs, cookies, and free sodas in the break room and i got 2 breaks and a lunch because my shift was so long (this is the only day of the year that ever happens). the one fly in the ointment of my day was location. my store has 13 registers (including self-checkouts). only one of them is in the vicinity of the door that leads to the frigid outdoors. that is where i spent my 7 1/2 hour shift today. i at least had the good sense to wear long sleeves just in case. during my first break, i went and bought a pair of gloves ($0.88 for 2 pairs = score!!) which i proceeded to wear, despite the ridicule from coworkers and customers, for the rest of the morning. they were purple :)
overall, it was a successful day. no one was trampled to death (not even the managers who unlocked the doors), everyone got through the line safely and soundly, and most of the cashiers were in high spirits. what more can you ask from the busiest day of the year?

why doesn't thanksgiving have an eve?

so i wrote this yesterday but didn't have time to finish/post it. so here you go, a little late...

so, i'm pretty sure that christmas eve is an official holiday. why not thanksgiving eve? or easter eve? christmas gets away with it because it's a holiday where people get stuff so they want to prolong it as long as possible. of course i know that is not the true meaning of christmas (that being Jesus coming to earth to live a perfect life and die for the sins of the world). but that's discussion for another post.
it is snowing buckets outside. but that cannot bother me tonight because i'm going rollerblading!! rollerblading is probably my most favorite past time ever. i've been doing it since i was a child and is one of the few forms of exercise that doesn't aggravate my asthma. to top it off, i'm going to go have a blast with my best friends!
anyway tomorrow is thanksgiving so i think it's time for a thankful list...how about the abc's??
Amie my favorite pen pal
Bagels
Cats!
Dogs!
Español
Faith
God
Hannah!
Ipod touch
Jammer the hammer :)
Krispy Kreme
Lily (my cat :)
Money
Necklaces
Okra
Piggies
Quiet
Ring, class ;)
Sculpture
Television
United States of America
Violet (purple)
Waterbottles
Xmen movies
You!
Zebra striped shoes

Things that grow

everything grows, everything changes. and somehow the more things change the more they stay the same. lots of silly things grow that shouldn't (like snow on the ground) and some odd things that don't grow but probably should (like me.) i'm not very good at growing things. i am currently endeavoring to grow a tiny christmas tree on my window sill. it's been a few weeks, and still no progress. i'm watering it. that's what you're supposed to do, right? i, myself, stopped growing somewhere around 7th grade. at 5'4" i was average sized for a seventh grader. now i can count on one hand the number or people i know who look me in the face at my own eye level. i don't mind though, i like being short. it's the roundness i have a problem with :P
my hair is growing. i have had short hair all my life. i always wanted it that way. i'm not sure if it was because that makes it easier to care for or if it was the fact that my sister had long curly brown hair that made people stop us in grocery stores and ask if she was the little girl from the pepsi commercials. but i've decided it might look good long so we're going to give it a go!

just another monochromatic monday

today (as you may well know) is monday. for many, myself included, the most dreaded day of the week. although, these days there's a few bright spots in my mondays.

like snack in spanish! for someone who's trying to lose weight, i know i shouldn't be this excited about eating during class, but let me tell you, my spanish class makes delicious foods! we've had everything from snickerdoodles to oreo truffles to fruit pizza. i have yet to eat a snack in spanish that i didn't like.

another bit i look forward to is sculpture. of course, i look forward to this every day, but it's particularly joyous on mondays, having not been there for two days. today i started work on my sculpture of a pig, which is my final (and most important--double grade!!!) project of the semester. i will definitely miss sculpture  come january. but then i shall have sewing to entertain me :)

and last but not least is choraliers. choraliers = glee but way less cool. it's still fun. our choir has 18 people in it: 8 guys, 10 girls (there's one girl partnership). it works out pretty well though. my partner is nice and catches me when i fall over (which is pretty often). we wear silly character shoes that are slipperier than ice in march (thus the falling). for our last performance (choralfest :D) we even wore poodle skirts. mine was way too big so we had to safety pin it but there were no other ones left. ah choralfest. i should post about that. maybe next time :)

at this point you probably have that nagging curiosity sensation that wants to comment and ask why it is monochromatic monday. today technically wasn't, but one is in the works. it came up today in gym class when i noticed my friend Hannah was wearing all black and white. we decided that it was alliterate and awesome and we should plan another.

so there you have it. your day brightened and your questions answered! :)

i'm back

hello to anyone who has been reading this.

i'm here to tell you that i did not reach my goal of becoming a runner yet... not sure how i feel about this. now i'll have to wait until next summer to run, as the winter where i live is rather harsh. Plus the fact that it's the school year makes me insanely busy. such is life.

anyways! while i'm here, might as well talk, as i have a feeling that someone will be reading this now :) my weight loss journey continues. rather slowly. but i'm still trying and that's what counts.

it's been awhile so i don't even know where to start. while i was out, i had a birthday. now i can buy lottery tickets :) my senior class ordered our caps, gowns, and graduation announcements already. (which seems insanely early if you ask me) i'm excited for college so what do i care?

i'm considering changing the name of this blog. since the whole running thing is kind of out of the picture. how does one condense their life into one little sentence or two? my life can be stressful and confusing and hard sometimes. but it can also be happy and crazy and wonderful. how to jam all this into a phrase...i'll get back to you on that one.

wow it's alot easier to talk about my life than it is to talk about running. maybe because i hate running and i'm not very good at it. everyone thinks that it's super easy for teenagers to lose weight because "they're young" and "they bounce back so quickly". but let me tell you, it's harder than it looks!

gotta go! life beckons once again.

fail.

this will be easy...it's summer...i never do anything interesting during the summer...i'll have tons of time on my hands...why not?... it is at this point that I'm wondering what on earth I was thinking. So that was a little recap. It's been nearly 2 weeks since my last run. I know this is no excuse but I have been busy. It's not that I don't have time to run, but I would have to make an effort to make time for it. Which is hard to do when it concerns something I didn't want to do in the first place. I'm leaving for vacation on friday, so I will try to run sometime between now and then. It's not like I don't get exercise. Well...kind of. My new job requires alot of walking. I took 10,000 steps in one shift last week! Plus, while I'm on vacation I'll try to get some exercise in, although it's scorchingly hot where I'm going, so we'll see.

run #3

I did it!! That wasn't so bad. I didn't have to walk until I was nearly halfway to the corner where I turn around and run home. (We don't have regular blocks in my neighborhood, so I have to pick a spot to run to then just turn around and run home.) This run was .71 miles. Not too shabby :). It's kind of hot out; about 76 degrees. I tried out my new Ipod armband I bought the other day. It worked pretty well, although next time I'll wear it looser so it doesn't feel like getting my blood pressure taken by the time I get home. This feeling of breaking the cycle is a good one. It makes me want to keep doing this. While I was running, nearly back to my house, I felt like I could not run any further. I wanted nothing more than to just walk that last 100 yards to my house. But I didn't. I told myself: run to the corner of the driveway. Then I did. The whole time I was thinking I can just stop right here and walk and no one would know. But I didn't. I rose to the challenge (small though it was) and accomplished it. Maybe I can do this.

*sigh*

So, I, uh, wore my running shoes today. Not to run. Mostly to stand; and a little walking. I have been terribly busy. I just got another job and I have been job shadowing this week. The weather isn't helping either. Therefore I have not been running. This is the constant cycle: Excited, Run, Less Excited, Run, Busy, Stop Running. This is where the blog comes in. When I get to the Busy stage, instead of not running, I will continue running. We are about to test this out in real life. I will try very hard to run again tomorrow. Hopefully it won't rain like it did all day today. It is so much easier to run when it's 77 degrees out and sunny. Very difficult when 65 is pushing it. Wish me luck!

Yeah, about that...

I briefly considered going for a run today. Then I got out of bed. It seems I have not made much progress. Well, I suppose I knew this would not happen overnight. I did however bike roughly six miles today, which is quite a feat for a bike that is as not-in-good-condition as mine. I would love to tell you that I will go for a run tomorrow, but that would be a lie. Tomorrow I will be working for 6 hours at a job I thoroughly enjoy and don't mind sacrificing a run for. I will most likely not run on saturday either, as I have numerous graduation parties to attend. Therefore, week one has come and (practically) gone and I have not reached the goal I set for myself. It happens. Next week is a new week, a fresh start, and I intend to treat it as such. I will go for a run on Monday. There. I said it. Now I must. Also I want to say, thanks for listening. If I was just out here talking to cyberspace, I do not know if I would still follow through.

run #2

I'm thinking perhaps this run was a tad too short. This time I waited until after the asthma medicine had kicked in to start running. That definitely helped. I just checked the mileage on MapMyRun.com and my run today was .35 miles. My run the other day was .82 miles. I think next time I'll run that first route again. I didn't realize the second route was so much shorter. It was harder on my legs this time. I tried something I've never done before: running in the morning. I've never run during the summer so I was always forced to do it in the evening. I'm not sure how I feel about it. Hopefully it'll give me some energy for the day.

just a runner

So I'm still sore today (big surprise). I guess it has been longer than I thought since I've had steady exercise. I used to run around my neighborhood a few years ago. I ran every night for several months. It did wonders for my fitness, and I got to the point where I didn't hate it so much. But that was during the winter when it gets dark at 5 p.m., 40 degrees is nice, and no one ever wants to be outside. I felt nice and alone. But now that it's summer, everyone and their brother is out in their yard grilling or washing their car or talking on the phone or walking their dogs. I just try to tell myself: 'you're just a runner. you are invisible. when was the last time you gave more than 2 seconds of thought to a runner you saw on the road?'. That helps :). I will run tomorrow but I think this will get worse before it gets better.

goals

day 3 of this weird experiment of mine. I'm a little sore from my run, which surprised me. It feels like a drop in the ocean in the grand scheme of things, yet so huge for me because I actually managed to force myself to do something I strongly dislike. Anywho, I'm here to talk about goals since I'm not going to run today (I'm not giving up! keep on reading...). I've always found that for me it's best to set little goals. If I set too big of a goal I usually end up not accomplishing it, then I feel guilty which wears away my resolve faster than hate for running ever could. So I'm only going to plan my runs one run out--instead of a one month plan or something. My next run will be on Tuesday June 2, 2010. Now it is out for all of you (or two of you as the case may be ;)) to read and I will have to do it. That's part of the reason I decided to write this blog in the first place. Writing it down or telling someone I'm going to do something means I have to do it. That's just the way it is for me. Before I go, I have one more goal to impart: I will try very hard to run at least 3 times a week. (The chances of it being more than that are slim to none but I thought I'd put the "at least" in just in case.) There will be weeks where I am on vacation or working alot or it is simply too hot out, but I'll do my best.

hit the ground running

I sit at my computer sweaty, with labored breathing, and hands shaking to bring you news of my first run in probably years. I took my asthma inhaler before I left, grabbed a bottle of water, and set my favorite song on repeat. I was all ready to go. It's 80 degrees out at 6 p.m. I left my driveway in the dust, feeling good. About a block later my asthma kicked in. I walked about 20 feet and picked up running again. Another block... my legs started to hurt. Some more walking. Another block... I got that stabbing pain in my collar bone that means I'm not getting enough air. After another block I turned around to return home. I was about halfway home when a curious noise began to come through the filter of my music: an ice cream truck. Pop Goes The Weasel followed me all the way home. What kind of sick torture is that? If I drove an ice cream truck, I would be sure not to follow any red faced, mildly chubby runners around!

the first step

hello! I'm new at blogging so bear with me please :)

I have never liked running. I've always had asthma and terrible summer allergies, so the whole being outside doing physical activity thing has never been very appealing. However, I have struggled with my weight for several years now and I'm ready to make a change. I see people who love to run: how fit they are, how much energy they have, and just how they are generally happy. This is what I want. So I'm willing to make a temporary sacrifice while I learn to like to run so that eventually I will love it too.

Yesterday I bought my first pair of real running shoes that I actually intend to use for running on a regular basis. All winter (which is long where I live) I told myself "when summer comes, I'll start running." Well, summer has arrived and it won't get any more summery than this, so here I go.