Oh the Places You'll Go
We're all busy and there's alot going on in the world, so this is my microcosm of reality and way to enable everyone to share in my experiences in Austin and around the world and maybe help create some of your own. Consider it a life "to-do" list, "have done" list, photo album and journal all in one.Wake Up
I still love some of the most popular children’s books. I like them for the same reason that I like Pixar movies like Shrek, Ratatouille, Up and A Bug’s Life. They can span generations and be enjoyed by a 5 year old or a 50 year old. The writers, directors and creative people behind these movies are incredible and know how to incorporate humor that can be understood on different levels by people of all ages. And can get me as a 26 year old to spend $10 on a movie ticket and be excited to see Up in 3-D and also count down the days until Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs hits the theater. These are the types of movies that make babysitting more enjoyable and make parenting easier (I assume 
) And they have a way of connecting with the audience – I hate rats (due to the plethora of them that inhabited our house on Meyran Ave. in Pittsburgh) but found myself thinking that the little guy in Ratatouille was adorable and I went to look up a recipe for the dish afterwards. And I’d be lying if I said that during the story of Carl and Eleanor at the beginning of Up didn’t make me cry. On a side note: this is an interesting article from the NYTimes about the creation of the characters from the movie.
So needless to say, when a movie combines both great creativity and a classic children’s book with a twist of one of my favorites bands, I’m pretty excited about it. I’m counting down the days until Oct. 14th when Where the Wild Things Are comes out in theaters. I recently went and bought the book and reread it. The directors did a great job of capturing the little boy in his pajamas running through the beach away from the “wild things” and the trailer for the movie gives me chills.
The song is by Arcade Fire (love them) and called Wake Up.
summertime, and the livin’ is easy
It’s been awhile but I’m back. And certainly haven’t slowed down lately. It’s crazy to think that summer is almost over! The 100 plus degree days over the last few months have kept us in the water alot but I’m not complaining: lake, beach, tubing. Just a few of the ways we’re beating the heat down in Austin. We’re pretty lucky to be a hop, skip and a jump from all of this water and we’re taking full advantage of it. We’re in a pretty bad drought in Austin and haven’t gotten rain in a really long time so it’s a little scary to think about what is going to happen if we don’t get some soon. But, we’ve been spending alot of weekends on Mark’s boat and we’ve been able to make lemonade out of lemons by docking at “sometimes island” (which is just a big sand bar in the middle of the lake that used to be covered by water) and spending the afternoons grilling out, playing frisbee and creating cherry limeades and blueberry lemonades (recipe below) and watching the dogs swim and retrieve for hours. Sophie is so tired by the end that her legs don’t even move when she’s swimming back from a fetch but rather lets the waves from the passing boats push her in.
Along with taking the boat out on Lake Travis and floating the Guadalupe and the Comal, we just got back from a weekend in Port Aransas. It was a last minute trip and a great time. Port A is about a 3.5 hour drive from Austin and the beaches in TX are different than Sea Isle or anywhere on the Jersey shore. You can actually drive your car onto the beach, there are no drinking rules and you can have DOGS! This obviously sold me on the idea to head down there this weekend and I think Soph appreciated it as well – considering she’s still exhausted. 
These have become a favorite on the boat!
Cherry Limeade Recipe
-organic vodka
-Odwalla Limeade
-Fresh cherries
Pour two shots (or more if you like it stronger) into a glass with ice. Add limeade. Squeeze cherries into the drink and throw away the pits. (tip: you might want to bring wet wipes because the cherries get messy). Stir it together. For the blackberry lemonade use the vodka but instead of limeade and cherries use lemonade and squeeze in the blackberries. The fruit at the bottom is a good treat for later.
tuesday’s gone
lose yourself
If Pitt could please not choke during the tournament this year, that would be cool. We haven’t exactly had the best football seasons the last few years and we’re always so close in basketball but made it to the Elite 8 in 2006 but have been choking ever since. So this could be the year? I usually get so excited during March Madness time that I can’t even sleep and am like a little kid in a candy store when the brackets come out so if we could make it this year and stop losing to teams like Providence, that would be great. We’ve been number one a couple times this year – and being in the Big East this year is a “gauntlet” (as Jamie Dixon says) so bring on the tourney. I think beating Connecticut was a huge confidence booster for us (most watched game in Big East history I think) so ahhhh, I can’t wait
So adding to my “to-do” list is see Pitt win an NCAA tourney – or at least make it to the championship game. It’s so out of my control it’s going to kill me but I will completely freak out if we do
you
I read a story in The New York Times about a new visualization platform they were creating to allow readers to create interactive charts, graphs, maps and other types of graphical presentations from data made available by NYTimes editors. Yeah, yeah sounds boring at first but I thought it was a really cool concept and one that might be useful for client presentations or for anyone looking to make words more visual. I used my bio and chose a format and this is the final product. I think it’s pretty cool. Mainly because it pulls out what it thinks to be the most important words and it’s interesting way to see how word placement and word use affect how words are bolded or in written in larget font. Maybe I’m just trying to make this work because I think words in this design are much more interesting than a Powerpoint.
somewhere down in texas
Maybe I am a country girl at heart…run (the remix)
DONE. One full marathon under my belt. Cross that off the To-Do list and that was a major to-do. I also think that To-Do list just got longer because now I want to add to it along these same lines – qualify for Boston (3:40 for my age group), run the NYC marathon, run the Chicago marathon. I can’t help it – one thing done and time to start planning the next. Not that I’m not happy that the race is over or happy with my accomplishment (3:58 – not bad I guess )but I like continually set goals for myself so it gives me something to work towards. Same with planning things. I like to always have something fun planned so that Monday is never just Monday – it’s the Monday before the beach or two Mondays before Coachella or five days before a trip to Mexico. It just keeps everything exciting I think it’s funny that people who are closest to me know this about me too – after talking to my Mom after the race she said “okay, so what is your next goal because I know you set it right after you finished.” Little did she know, I actually set it at mile 25. Get stronger and take more Yoga classes so my hips aren’t as tight near the finish and train my butt off so that I can drop a few minutes off my time in either NYC, Chicago, San Antonio or Philly (all fall marathons, one of which I’m doing).
So Blair asked if I was suffering from post-marathon blues. I don’t think that’s the case, but I will say it’s actually harder not to run this week than I expected. I’m actually craving getting out there on the trail. I miss it! But, from what I’ve heard, your muscles are worn down much more than you feel or even realize so it’s not worth it to get back too soon. I’ve heard a couple different things but think I’m doing everything right. I’ve had Sophie out for walks a couple times but nothing too intense and got a great massage yesterday (thank you!) and feel really good so think I might try something so small like two miles tomorrow and then yoga or stretching this weekend. I’ll start up with some 5-7′ers next week but don’t want to get back to Gazelle workouts until March. I’ll be counting down the days!
A couple things I took away from the first race:
- Up until mile 18 I felt incredible. When 20 hit, that is when the tiredness set in. I think I also wanted to punch the guy who held the sign that said “20 mile warm-up, only 10K finish.” Um, do you want to get out here and finish these last 6.2 and tell me how you feel?
- Shot blocks are so much better than goo’s for me. I was wondering why everytime I tried to take down a goo during training I’d have to stop myself from throwing up. Not normal.
- I could hear Gilberts voice in my head when I was climbing the hills. “Pick up your knees.” Such a small thing but some of the best advice. I finally realized what he meant by saying that during so many Wilke workouts. If you approach a hill, maintain your same pace and just pick up your knees more.
- Seeing my friends throughout the course and Gazelle’s cheering along the way was so encouraging. Seeing my friends at mile 23 was one of the greatest feelings and was like the rock that helped me get through the last trek. I didn’t realize how much I needed people there for support.
run
Friday night: dinner at Taverna – whole wheat pasta and turkey meatballs. Then heading across the street to get some of the best gelato around. Oh btw – even with a small, you can choose three flavors and it is HUGE.
Saturday: easy three miles and stretching with the group in the a.m., Barton Springs soak, good breakfast (probably oatmeal), salmon burgers from Whole Foods for lunch and a small bowl of whole wheat pasta with steamed mussels for dinner. I found a really good recipe online and hope they turn out since I’ve never tried to make mussels before.
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And Gilbert officially announced to Gazelles that he’s running the race on Sunday. He’s told us earlier but is keeping it really DL because he doesn’t want media contacting him or having any additional pressure. Because he is so freaking fast and incredible – and when I say he’s running it, he’s running it to win. He started training in Dec. because he had a dream that he got third place and he “always follows his dreams.” I love that – and honestly I care what happens to me but not as much as I just want him to have a great race because he deserves it more than anyone. Goodluck!
the underdog
The Pedigree commercials and the Humane Society ads with “I Will Remember You” playing in the background kill me everytime. I know I should probably volunteer for people in Austin more but there is something about a dog, that will love you unconditionally no matter what, that makes me want to help them all. So I’m definitely in for the Blue Dog Run for the Rovers 5K on March 22nd. Dogs are invited to run too – so Soph and I better get training such great heights
I was looking through my “to do” list because if I end up going to Coachella this year that will be another thing I get to cross off (there have been a ton in the last two years that I’ve been able to check off!) I stopped when I saw “sky dive” crossed off on there. First of all, I didn’t even realize I had that on there and it very well could’ve been one of those things I added after it was done because 1) it was so freaking cool/scary/incredible/indescribable I had to add it and 2) if I didn’t add it at first it was because I felt like it was really unoriginal – like everyone has skydive and bungi jump on their to-do lists, right? Anyway, I got a weird chill all over because I still can’t believe I jumped out a plane 10,000 feet in the air. I also am so happy that we decided to go back after waiting around for hours because of weather delays, taking friends back home that had to be back at a certain time and then turning right around to go back because we were so disappointed and let down that we had built up all the courage for this day and had to go through with it. When you ask someone what it feels like to jump out of the plane, they always say “indescribable.” I didn’t understand and thought it has to feel like something you can describe, but now I’m one of those people that uses that word and it’s completely true. It’s like going so fast, yet completely still at the same time and it’s by far the biggest rush I’ve had in my entire life. Okay, so I guess I described it a little but you still have to do it because words really can’t describe the full feeling. I have always meant to send a thank-you note to my guy – the one that was strapped to my back and
had to listen to me talk non-stop the entire time because I was so nervous. He was so awesome, and you have to love an Intel computer engineer who is a skydiver on the weekends – perfect combination of patience, intelligence and just enough nerdiness to make you feel as safe as can be when jumping out of a plane (I had no idea what he was talking about but he was calculating altitude and velocity and about a million other things on this huge Inspector Gadget-like watch). The free fall was about one minute and the first five seconds out of the plane was the scariest time of my entire life, but it quickly fades as you make the fall and when the parachute finally opens it is the most amazing view of Austin and the surrounding area. It was SO cool. Vinny and I were completely giddy when we left (hence the sky dive company’s warning that cops wait right outside Skydive San Marcos waiting for giddy post divers on a speed high).
