Last Workout Of The Year

 The Murph and I just got back from workout of the day number 2 at the gym.  As we were leaving, I realized that this was our very last workout of the year.  I mentioned this to The Murph and he mumbled, "Yes, that's why I did such a terrible one."  I guess he means that tomorrow starts a new year with some serious gut busting workouts, not these little sissy workouts we've been doing for the past month or two. With all the holiday foods and easier, shorter workouts, I've gained six pounds since the Chickamauga marathon in November.

As I sit here typing on the computer, eating cookies and drinking sweet tea full of high fructose corn syrup and saturated fats, you can see I'm really concerned.  Not!

Tomorrow is a new day!

I already have my 2013 race schedule planned out, but I'm not doing the early registration so they could fill up before I register. I'm still going to take the chance of the races filling up and sign up for most of them at the last minute.  I figure that's better than registering now at the lower rate and then not being able to do the race.  The lower fees are not that much lower anyway.

My race schedule for 2013 looks like a half marathon in January and one in February, a marathon in March, one or two sprint triathlon races in May and June, an Olympic distance triathlon in July, USAT Nationals in August which is a sprint triathlon that I qualified for last summer at the Coastal triathlon, a sprint in September and a sprint in October and maybe, just maybe a 70.3 half Ironman triathlon at the end of October.  Then a marathon in November or December.  The marathon I really want to do is in December if I can make it out there.  It's sort of far from here and I don't know where we will be living.

Actually, four of the races I want to do are not close by.  It will require flying or a really long drive and I've only flown with my bike one time and it was tough getting it into that little box.  The other times I've either driven to the races or used Tribike Transport which is a really great service.  They pick up your bike at a designated bike shop near you and have it at your race all put together and ready to go.  They did not offer this for Hawaii, but I did use them when I competed in Ironman Canada.  It was great.  I just left my bike at the local bike shop and picked it up at the race venue, did the triathlon, then turned the bike over to Tribike transport after the race and a few days later picked it up at my local bike shop ready to go.

I think I'll let the bike shop take my bike apart and pack it in the bike box next time.  I could use Tribike Transport again, but now I have the bike box so I should probably use the box.  When I tried to pack the bike up for Hawaii, I left gaps in the box and some bike parts slipped out in transit.  I ended up having to purchase replacements parts.  This meant I had to go into town in Kona, Hawaii to find the bike shop and buy the part.  Then we had to take it back to the guy at the race expo who was putting my bike together because he couldn't leave the expo.  They were very busy putting bikes together.

This would not have been a problem if my bike and luggage hadn't arrived two days after I did and on the day it arrived I had a little mishap while doing a warm up swim that required stitches.  I got into a fight with some coral and the coral won.  Something that could only happen to me!  The Murph and I had to find the hospital, which was on one end of the island, so I could get stitches in my hand and elbow and then rush to the other end of the island to find the bike shop and then bring the part to the bike guy so he could have my bike put together and race ready in time for me to get it checked into transition in time.

This is me getting out of water with my hand and elbow cut up and bleeding,
 but The Murph doesn't realize it yet as he snaps away

I barely got the bike checked in transition in time and didn't get to test ride it except for the 20 minutes that it took me to ride from the hotel to the race start.  The seat was too low and my hand hurt, but there wasn't much I could do about it at that point.  I will say the Hawaii 70.3 was an awesome race in the most beautiful place in the world and I can't wait to go back and hopefully one day do the full Ironman.  Hopefully, without stitches in my hand and with plenty of time to ride my bike and test everything out on the course before race morning.

I don't know if I will actually do a 70.3 in 2013 or wait until 2014, but it keeps calling me.  I'm nuts!    I'm addicted!  What can I say...

Happy New Year!

Phantom's Christmas Present

Below is Phantom enjoying his new scratching board that he got for Christmas.  Hopefully he will keep his claws out of the furniture now.

Our Wedding Feature In Alabama Weddings Magazine

The 2013 Winter issue of Alabama Weddings magazine is finally out and our wedding is one of the real weddings featured in it.  We were very excited when Inverness Country Club asked if they could use our wedding in the magazine feature.

Holiday Fashions

Herve Leger Uncontrollable Dress

Tejani Bracelet

Herve Leger Uncontrollable Dress

Dress:  Herve Leger;  Shoes:  Calvin Klein;  Bracelet: Tejani similar Here; On nails:  OPI You Only Live Twice

Herve Leger Cyclone Dress

Kate Spade Necklace

Herve Leger Cyclone Dress

Christian Louboutin Pumps

Dress:   Herve Leger similar to this one that's on my wish list;  Pumps:  Christian Louboutin;    Necklace:  Kate Spade;  Bracelet:  David Yurman similar Here

I had a really tough time this year finding cocktail dresses to wear during the holidays.  Every time I found one I loved, my size was sold out.  I had terrible luck this year.  Finally, I gave up and decided to try out Rent the Runway, a company that rents out high end designer clothing.  I hesitantly signed up not really knowing what to expect, but just the thought of getting my paws on one of those Herve Leger dresses was enough for me to take the plunge.  And I was not disappointed.

Since I could rent a dress for $25 with every dress I rented at full price, of course I decided to try out two different Herve Leger dresses.  I was so excited when they were delivered to my door.  I had so much fun wearing them.  I told the Murph I wanted one if I could ever grab one I like on sale.  I thought I would like the one shoulder cyclone dress the best, but the winner was the black uncontrollable dress.  If I can find that one deeply discounted, it will be mine!

Since the deal was if you rent one dress, you can get another dress for $25, I rented two more dresses.  This one by Milly is the one I ended up wearing to my own Christmas party.  I love the sparkle and my Jimmy Choo's were perfect with the dress.  I rented a gold Trina Turk dress as well, but it didn't go with the Jimmy Choo shoes as well so I chose the Milly dress.  Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to wear the Trina Turk dress before I had to send it back to Rent the Runway.  Four days is just not long enough!

Milly Chained to you dress

Jimmy Choo Vamp

Dress:  Milly Chained to You;  Shoes: Jimmy Choo Vamp;  Necklace:  Tejani

Herve Leger Dresses and Kate Spade necklace all from Rent The Runway.  All shoes and other jewelry are mine.

I highly recommend renting if you want a high end designer dress for a special occasion where you will only wear the dress once or you can't afford to spend $1,000 on a dress. I will say it is really hard sending them back if you rent one you really love.  I wanted to keep all of these!

Merry Christmas!

Ed says, "Hope everyone had a very, Merry Christmas and was on Santa's nice list like I was this year."

Phantom says,"Just give me another slice of that honey baked ham and throw in some bacon and a sugar cookie.  I'll try harder to stay off the naughty list next year.  I promise!"

And Cadence....

Well, we haven't seen him most of the day since my brother got here bringing along his little purse dog/rodent who he calls Sassy.  He's a little attached to this particular canine, but my cats don't care for her that much.

Here's a picture of Cadence in his favorite spot during calmer times on Christmas Eve.

Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without pulling out the only ugly Christmas sweater I still have leftover from the mid-nineties when the Boy was small and I purchased such things.

Ugly or not, I would like it better if it had cats on it instead of dogs, but we had a dog back in those days.  A very super-hyper dalmatian named Spot.

More pictures of our Christmas day with family below.  I forgot to take pictures of not only the food, but also my mom.  I'm going to assign someone else to be in charge of the camera next year.  I don't do a very good job.

Look who got a new Coach bag for Christmas. My niece.  Lucky girl!

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Ed's beat!

This mess is still waiting for me in the kitchen.

Wish I could train Phantom to clean the kitchen and wash dishes.

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!  We are having a line of strong storms coming through Alabama right now.  I heard that a tornado touched down in downtown Mobile.  I am so glad the Boy is home and not down there right now.

Stay safe everyone!

Christmas Eve

I know this isn't necessarily a traditional Christmas song, but to me it's very fitting for Christmas Eve and the birth of Jesus.  Originally, I was going to post the version with Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli, but decided on this version by 7 year old Rhema Marvanne in remembrance of the twenty first graders who lost their lives a week ago in Connecticut and their families who are dealing with their incredible loss this Chrismas.

This is a beautiful version of the song, "The Prayer" sung by an amazing little girl who lost her mom to ovarian cancer.

While I've been busy shopping, cooking, wrapping presents, etc., I will never forget the true meaning of Christmas.

Happy Birthday, Jesus.

Christmas Party

Friday night we had our 2nd annual Christmas party.  It was a small gathering since it's so close to Christmas and we had several friends who couldn't make it because they were either out of town or had other family obligations.  We put 7:30 on the Evite, but when nobody was here at 8:15 we thought for sure that nobody was going to show up.  The Murph and I got excited and thought we would be able to put on our pj's and watch a movie.  Then everyone showed up at once.   We ended up having about a dozen people.  We thought they wouldn't stay long and move on somewhere else for a late night drink or two somewhere other than our house, but at midnight they were all still here.  Everyone seemed to have a great time.  The Murph and I ended up having a great time after we got over the disappointment that we wouldn't be able to put on our pj's just yet.

I made sausage balls, sweet and spicy nuts, crab and avocado on toasted baguettes, stuffed olives, 2 kinds of chips and dips,  fruit and cheese trays, and ricotto and honey bruschetta  I picked up a veggie platter, cheese straws, petitie fours, wedding cookies and peppermint bark.

Everybody brought their choice of wine to drink, but I made a champagne punch with cranberry juice and frozen orange juice and had soft drinks and other bar mixers and liquors set out, including egg nog and rum.

I didn't get a lot of pictures of everyone once they got here and the Babysitter showed up late and refused to have her picture made because she knew they would be all over Facebook the next day.  So these are all I managed to get.

Everybody must have had a good time because nobody would leave so The Murph had to throw them all out promptly at midnight.  It was way past our bedtime.  We are not in our twenties anymore!   We slept in on Saturday and were totally useless the entire day.  

We didn't even get our workout in on Saturday which is almost unheard of!  I made up for it today by running 10 miles with little L (former Running Nazi) and then going to the gym and spinning for 30 minutes and about 10 minutes of weights.  

After running I finished up the rest of my Christmas shopping early this morning and picked up a honey baked ham at the HoneyBaked ham store.  I love those things!  It was great not having to wait in lines or dodge traffic!  No crowds at the mall yet!  Only us runners that early on a Sunday morning.  I was home by 10 a.m.  

Now I just have to wrap everything and get ready for my family and the Babysitter to come over Christmas day for lunch.  And the Boy comes home tonight from his dad's house.