Spring Break, home edition

This spring break was not spent at the beach, (which I intend to never allow to happen again) but it all worked out because I got a lot done.  I mean a lot.  Plus, Florida wasn't warm enough for my liking.  Talked to my grandpa on Friday and he said it was high 60's.  What!  It ain't never in the 60's in N. Fort Myers.  That's crazy talk.  So the money saved on my tan was well worth it. 

I don't mean to brag, but I took down the mother of all checklists this break.  A special thanks to my MOH for conquering the never-ending list and the rest of my BM's for helping make some wedding decisions and cuts. 

Tasks completed:

1. Centerpieces
2. Bridesmaid's shoes

1. Bridesmaid's Jewelry & Mine!
2. Bubbles-- wasn't even on my checklist :)
3. Table numbers-- which required a stop at the Home Depot, eek!
4. Ceremony layout with Readings & Songs
5. Created an impromptu "Love Story" Shutterfly book--It was free!
6. Wedding invites arrived and addressed!  (See notes below.)
7. Wedding Makeup Trial--Check. 

8. Registry updated.
9. And best of all I SOLD my CAR.  (And by me, I should say my Dad.  Thanks Dad!)  Bye, Bye, my love.

9. 5 I managed to play 2 games of monopoly.  I was proudly declared the Master of the Monopoly Rules. Try me.
9.75 I also managed 2 meals at Cooper's Hawk.  Not.a.mistake.


** I was very intrigued by this addressing wedding envelopes process.  **
Observations while addressing:
1.  I am enjoying this more than I think I'm supposed to.
2. I checked 4 different sites about the proper way to address a wedding invitation.  The 2nd envelope for a guest is really causing a conundrum.  I've had to use 4 different methods of addressing.  Names on the same line, different line, Dr's names, oh my!
3. My biggest problem addressing is determining the spacing.. but damn am I killing the "Illinois."

4.  It's all about the right writing utensil.
5.  How do you address a woman who is divorced, separated, or divorced and widowed?  Why are woman so much more complicated than men.  Can't we just have a standard "Mr." title.
6. We have a lot of out-of-state- guests.. I should have planned to visit them on my spring break.  :) 

All in all, Spring break was a stay-at-home success.  I am not mad or disappointed that my tanned skin came from a Victoria Secret bottle and that I didn't sip frozen drinks by the calm, crashing ocean waves.  I will just have to hold out 60 long days til Nashville to resume my vacationing habits. 

Xo

Yours Truly

Valentine's Day really is all about the little things-- The little things that make you feel loved even if for just one day.  Here is 24 hours of hearts and hugs from people who love me.

Taryn-- my valentine that I've had a February 14th date with for 6 years running-- got me this. Best.Card.Ever. 

My precious gems are trying to fatten me up.

How sweet!

These showed up in my classroom as a surprise around 10am.  How sweet is he??!!  I blushed and everything.  One student asked who they were from and another responded, "Her fiance, duh."  Obviously they didn't see the card Taryn gave me.

Eat your heart out.  I surprised Giorgio with a homemade heart-shaped pizza for dinner.  YES,  it tasted as amazing as it looks.

Want a piece of this?? The recipe is posted below.

And finally... what's a Valentine's Day without a little wine, friends and bowling?

HOMEMADE PIZZA:

 (taken from my mother-in-law, Gilma.  Not to be mistaken with Giada though she should have her own cooking show.)

Ingredients:

1 container of homemade pizza dough (bought from Mariano's or Trader Joe's

1 container of peeled whole tomatoes

1 container of fresh mozzarella cheese

4 large cloves of garlic (or more if you are a garlic lover), minced

cornmeal

olive oil

fresh basil

salt & pepper

1. Let the dough sit out of the container for about 20 minutes.  Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. 
2. On a pizza pan or a baking sheet, drizzle olive oil and smear it around.  Shake cornmeal on top of that.  Lay down a good amount.  This is to keep the dough from sticking to the pan. 
3. Drain the tomatoes and cheese, chop the garlic and basil while you are waiting.
4. When the crust has been out for enough time, roll it into a ball and then spread the dough to the shape you want. 
5. When the dough is in the right shape, place it on your prepared pizza pan.
6. Lightly coat the dough with olive oil. 
7. Spread the cheese down first.  (Put it under the tomatoes so the cheese doesn't burn.)
8. Then add the minced garlic. 
9. With your hands, break apart the tomatoes and cover the pizza. 
10. Top with basil, salt and pepper.
11. Put into the oven for about 30-40 minutes.  The crust will start to brown on the outside and the cheese will be a little bubbly.  It will look like a cooked pizza =)

My ingredients:

Just add dough & indulge.

I'm supposed to have this hot Valentine's date tonight, but the only thing hot are my flashes.  This fevered girl will be spending her romantic date night in sweatpants with her sweetheart. 

Fat Tuesday!

It's interesting to think about things and people that you know of and have heard the names a 100 times, but you really couldn't tell anyone anything about it.  That's kind of how I feel about Fat Tuesday.  I know it is supposed to be some sort of feast.  For some reason I am linking Fat Tuesday to Mardi Gras, yet it also happens the day before lent.  I'm just not sure where I veered off track here, but I know this is not adding up. 

What I do know is that Lent starts tomorrow.  And while I haven't been to church since the last wedding I attended in November, I do understand enough about Lent.  The purpose is to sacrifice a luxury or indulgence for 40 days & 40 nights to represent Jesus's sacrifice for all of our sins and blah blah blah.  I'm close, right?  You're also supposed to not eat meat on Fridays (or at all really).  That just about wraps it up for the history of Lent. 

The best part about Lent is the people who partake.  I for one am not a practicing Catholic, but I give something up every year.  Aside from Christmas and Easter, its pretty much the only tradition in Catholicism that I follow.  And even better, it's for selfish reasons which I think is the exact opposite intention of the tradition.  Nonetheless, I am all for people taking this opportunity to better themselves (even if only for 40 days.)  It is a time to test your will power and for the common lent participants, attempt to kick start a diet. 

As I debate what to give up for lent this year, I reflect on my prior years success.  The first few years in high school when I started practicing lent I gave up pop.  By the third year, I had stopped drinking pop beyond lent so I had to come up with something new.  Then I think I moved on to candy. I remember anxiously anticipating my Easter candy basket to devour one of the top five candies of all time-- Chicks, Ducks & Bunnies Sweettarts.  (They are just more tasty than the regular ones. ) That accounts for another successful couple years of lent.  And then I went on to salt.  My most challenging endeavour.  Believe it or not, I gave up salt for 8 weeks.  (Yes, that is longer than lent! Great math skills!)  And then, I went right back to being the salt-aholic that I am.  Since that run in 2010, I do not think I have had any more successes to share.  Last year, I tried for the trifecta of abstaining from candy, sweets (cakes), and salt.  What a failure. 

So this year, I'm going with sweets and sweets only.  Recently, I have taken a strange liking to these delicious treats.  Wait, eating cookies and brownies and banana bread are not the key to losing weight? (:  Additionally, sweet treats are my only "bad habit" that I have never really kicked for this special season.    I have attempted before, but failed.  So here goes.  As God as my witness, and all of you, I am giving up sweets until Easter Sunday. 

As much as I'd love to indulge myself on this fatest of Tuesdays, I have, without thinking ahead, jump started my lent kick with a good old fashioned KH 3-day detox.  (I renamed it after myself though it originated from my ex-running pale R. Strandt.)  This is the most simple, mindless, detox without any weight loss goals.  The sole purpose is to reset my body from all the junk I'd been putting in it (aka brownies and buffalo chicken dip and chips and nastiness).  Basically, it involves eating fruits & veggies for 3 days.  The best part of this self-made "detox" is that since wine are fermented grapes, it is not a restricted item!  I know.. its amazeballs!! 

And just because I can only eat salad so many times in a row without hating myself, I whipped up this bad boy for lunch today: 

Avocado, Red Pepper, Red Onion, HB Egg, Roasted Corn, Tomato, Lettuce, Spinach, Garlic, Balsamic
 

Ain't nothing boring about that.

A.R.T.

Do you recall October of 2011?  That is when my cousin Taryn ran that marathon like a rock star.  It was also when I first developed shin splints-- the worst, non surgical/ major injury, ever.  To support Taryn on her run, I signed on to keep her company for ½ the run thinking I could just do a couple of weeks of longer runs and be ready for it.  Wrong.  I think I would have been better off just up and running 13 miles without any “prep” at all.  I was in pretty good running condition and able to run an easy 5 miles at any given moment.  But once I started to do 7 or 8 mile runs a couple times a week,,I found myself with a case of the shin splints.  I tried to ignore them. I even got in 17 miles with Tar Bear.  But these suckers stuck with me.  

             --Insert T's marathon picture here.. if I had one ;(  --

After the Chicago Marathon, I took a month off and iced my shins a lot.  I thought rest  and ice were the answer.  Wrong. I tried to roll the bottom of my foot on top of a golf ball. Which might have been an answer if in fact my shins weren't so bad.  I’ll tell you what else isn’t the answer.  Running after a month after concluding I was stuck with these shin splints forever, and I just had to learn to live with them.  Since giving up running was not an option, I picked up right where I left off.  I even convinced myself that running a spring half marathon was a good idea.  

I started training in January with my running partner, Leanne.  If there ever was a cure for shin splints, this wasn’t it.  Just days before our scheduled half marathon, I found myself in tears on an easy 3 mile jog.  After run-walking the first mile and a half, I called it quits.  I questioned what the point of doing a ½ marathon was if I wasn’t going to beat my first time, and I could quite possibly injure myself and never run again.  It wasn’t worth it.  Being a competitor, this was a tough decision for me.  Looking back on it, I’m glad I didn’t do it.  

Two weeks later, I walked 39.3 miles in two days in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer with my sister.  Now that, that was worth it.  Though I crossed the finish line with tape up and down both legs, I was proud of myself for the accomplishment.  Had I pushed myself through that half-marathon, I probably wouldn’t have made it through one day of the Breast Cancer walk.  

Two weeks after that, I found myself with an injury I could not overlook.  I could not ignore.  I could not run. I could not play softball. I could not even get myself a glass of water.  I sprained my ACL sliding into home plate. 

… gross!  My right knee was four times the size of my left.  I spent 6 weeks in physical therapy and saw a little progress.  But my knee was still swollen and I was frustrated with the activities and tasks I couldn’t complete.

This is when I turned to Dr. Amanda Karm, my savior, for a little TLC.  Amanda is my good friend and happens to be a chiropractor!   I went in to see Amanda to cure my shin splints with a little technique called A.R.T-- Active Release Therapy.  My friend Rachel had ranted and raved about this method, claiming it to be the answer to all my problems.  She was not lying.  

I visited Amanda once a week to receive abuse and that wonderful good pain relief on my shins & my knee (bonus).  She drained my knee (ouch) and taped me up like an Olympian trend-setter with Kinesio tape weekly.  She cleared me to workout & run!  I would.  And then when I felt the pain come back, she fixed me again and sent me on my way.  

What is ART you may be wondering.  Basically it is a massage for this little muscles in your body that no one really pays attention to.  She rubs them and moves them in a way to release the tension or strain that I have been putting on them for a very long time.  --That’s the medical definition, obviously.

I am proud to say that I haven’t been back to visit Amanda since mid-November.  Though I am no longer paying for our friendship, ART + Dr. Karm cured me.  I still have some knee pain and muscle tightness that I solve my giant foam roller-- second only to the doc herself.  

And now here’s my plug.  Chiropractors are the answer to all the weird things wrong with your body that you may be too ashamed to mention to anyone else.  Don't tell me about em, I'll judge you.  Amanda won’t judge you. Go visit her at ActiveCare.