Bye Holidays

I am fairly excited to be through with the holidays.
I am only a festive-ish person now because of my son.

I spent Christmas sick, but that is okay. My son was so stoked about opening presents that it did not matter if I had the sniffles or not. Something about his smiling face as he unwrapped his gifts eased my upset tummy. (:
After gifts, I watched the basketball games on ABC. This is my only real Christmas tradition. Seriously, I would not even have a tree if it was not for my son. I am just a weirdo like that.

My training is going well. I have had to run sick, in the rain, and stuffed with cranberry jello salad. I wrapped up week 5 day 6’s run today. I’m so thrilled to be injury free and running the way I was prior to the PF issues that plagued me throughout the summer. Tomorrow is my first double-digit run since July. I love 10-12 mile runs!

I am almost done with Stage 2 of New Rules of Lifting for Women. Lifting is becoming harder to fit in as my mileage increases. I just become pooped and I would rather run than lift. I love to lift but running comes first!!

Speaking of my training, I was looking ahead to January’s schedule and YIKES! Stage 3 certainly qualifies as BEAST MODE and towards the end of the month I will run FOURTEEN MILES! I know I know….14 miles is nothing if I want to run a marathon, but I have never ran more than a half (13.10) so I am scared and excited about that extra 9/10 of a mile.

Since I am obviously going to enter beast mode in 2013, I have started to focus on my eating. I have not binged in, at least, a week now. Once all the family has cleared out the first week of Jan, I have collected some recipes I want to try out. I am going to make a healthy eggplant dish, my own protein bars, and some veggie lasagna. I really want to eat as clean as possible and do a bi-monthly cheat meal.

So i’m alive and haven’t quit my blog. I was just sick and wrapped up in all that is Christmas.
How was y’alls holiday? Get an amazing presents?? (:

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Small Steps

I drag my exhausted body into the house. Looking around the disheveled living room, I shake my head and sink into the nearest chair. I feel the anxiety in my chest rising. My heart is starting to race. I can hear an echo in my ears. I can feel a lump in my throat.
I am thinking about the next few days. The stress of the upcoming holidays. The waiting. I am always waiting for something better. My mouth becomes dry. I stand up and pace. My mind locks on to one thought. I look over at my husband and he already knows what is happening.

Fifteen minutes later, I slowly unwrap the brown greasy bag. I take out a item that is less like food and more like a drug. I shovel it in my mouth. There really is no taste. I am not eating this for the taste; I am eating this for the fix, the high, the ability to focus on something else.
The bag is empty. My hands shine with grease and my face shines with guilt. I am ashamed. I am embarrassed. My chest seems to be pounding again. My mouth hangs half open. How do I let things get to this?

After a binge, I want to restrict. I want to purge. I want to feel clean again. Or…I keep bingeing. I temporarily give up on myself.
Friday was difficult. I wanted to run more than the 3 miles my training required. I wanted to head to the gym. I wanted to eat only 900 calories. I tried to push these thoughts away. Restricting will only lead to a binge. Bineging more will just make me feel worse.

I was able to moderately eat and only do my training run. I was proud. I came out on the other side of a binge. I did not slide downhill for a few days, nor did I starve myself for a few days.

Yesterday, I ran my week 3 long run. I did 7.05 miles in 69 minutes. I was able to enjoy a cupcake, guilt-free, afterwards. I am trying to not let stress control my eating habits, but it is easier said than done. I have been focusing for almost three-years on fixing myself, but I do know a lot of it is mental. I eat to relieve the stress I feel over things I feel I cannot control. I eat to relieve myself of the obscene standards I place upon myself. I eat when I fail….or when I think I have failed.

Point of this post: this is one of the first times I can remember NOT letting one binge control me and alter my next few days or weeks. Progress is progress. I have to remember to be proud of the small things.

I add memes to lighten up a serious sounding post…

Hulkin’ Around

Today was the interview at Disneyland. The interview went very well. The lady explained that Disney tends to pull apps prior to a peak season and put the best candidates on a waitlist. She told me to expect an email or call between January and February. She even waitlisted me for two positions: the stores and the quick-serve restaurants. She went on to tell me that I carry myself well and communicate with ease. The first part meant a lot to me because I have had a problem with portraying myself as confident for the majority of my life.

Here is the slip she gave me after the interview. The best part is: I won’t have to be interviewed again. I will receive a call or email for a job offer. Whoop! I am excited!

After the interview, the boys and I lingered around Downtown Disney. Primarily the Lego store. My son showed a big interest in the Legos. He loved the Lego models of Woody, Buzz, and RC. We both really liked the Hulk model and decided to take a Hulk pose picture. (:

In non-Disney related news, I am finally through with fall semester. I’m now thirteen units closer to my AA and have a 3.75 gpa. I am fairly proud! I cannot wait until spring semester in Feb! (Yes, I am that nerdy.)

Today was a well-deserved rest day. Yesterday, I killed my new rules stage 2A workout. I absolutely HATE front squat/push press. I love squats; it is the push press part I loathe. My ability to do push-ups and planks are slowly improving. I also blasted out my week 3 day 3 4 mile run. I woke up unable to fully walk until after my long hot shower. I will not be lifting until Sunday. Tomorrow I have a speedy 3 miler and Saturday is the day I dedicate solely to my long run, which is 7 miles this week.

Last thing, I want to recommend a protein bar. I am a fan of a couple Pure Protein products and the other day I came across another awesome one.

This bar is delicious! I leave my protein bars in the fridge and this was another great cold bar. It is 180 calories, 20g protein, 17g carbs, and 6g fat. I have found them at Target and Fresh & Easy. The bar is fairly filling too!

To summarize: y’all cross your fingers that Disney calls and calls me soon!! (Or emails…that is fine too.) (:

A Spoonful of Magic Helps the Anxiety Go Down….No, Not Really.

Even at 23, I run up to my favorite characters….

The interview at Disneyland is tomorrow and my anxiety levels are a peak. I have been wigging out now for about a week.

 

Last week, Tuesday to be exact, I came home from an invigorating run and my husband told me Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market might go out of business between March and April.

Seriously, this meme does not even begin to cover it.

First of all, I LOVE FRESH AND EASY. Words cannot even begin to make y’all understand how much I truly need Fresh and Easy in my life. I think Trader Joe’s is okay. As for Whole Foods? A little out of my price range and both stores near me are actually….not near me. Fresh and Easy has been the sole market for my shopping for three years now.
Secondly, my hubs is currently employed by Fresh and Easy. They give him decent pay and decent hours. Losing Fresh and Easy would be a big blow to my family.

When hubs told me the news, instead of losing my shiz (because that is totally what I wanted to do) I sat down at the computer and decided to apply at a few places.

Since I decided to go to school and do as much of the stay at home mom thing as possible, my work history is less than stellar. I have held down a couple jobs since I was 16 but I do not have many real employable skills yet. (Nothing besides my amazingly awesome personality and ability to beast it in the gym. Haha) The first site I went to was the Disney careers site. Luckily, they had a few positions open. I applied. Then, I received a web-based interview a few hours later. Then, I was asked to schedule an in-person interview.

At first, I was sincerely excited. For the past four years or so, I have wanted to work at Disneyland. I actually moved out to this state with that in mind. It had just never panned out. I went to bed that evening yammering to my hubs about how fantastic my job will be and how completely envious he will be.

The next morning was a different story.

i think i had that creepy face going on too….

I was pouring over Disneyland message boards trying to figure out what the interview would entail, how I should dress, what I should say, what the job would be like, if I would get hired, and a lot of other speculations that only the interwebz could grant me. I was starting to go nuts.

Do you think i’ll do well? Maybe they won’t like me? Should I wear this? If my hair is curly, will I look too edgy to get a job there? Do you think they’ll hire me right away or waitlist me? What if I do not get the job? Will we be broke? Will we become homeless? AHAHAHAHAHA!

I warned my husband when he first met me that I am crazy. In fact, I think my actual wording was something like this, “I am the kind of person that stresses out about being stressed out and then will become depressed about being so stressed out. I’m actually probably crazy enough to be committed, but I have been told that my neurotic mess of a self can be endearing and hilarious.” Somehow, he never ran off during any of our initial dates and then later proposed….and then actually married me. He’s probably the crazy one.

Anyway, this poor man has been bombarded with questions he could not possibly have the answers to. We have gone to the mall four times to return and purchase the perfect interview shirt. I have rehearsed my answers to interview questions at least half an hour a day and he is still lovely enough to pretend to listen. I have to give him kudos.

There is nothing magical about this right now. I have been to the point of pulling my hair out. I see my insecurities out in full bloom. I hate the possibility of rejection, no matter who or where it comes from. I am going to breathe today. The interview is tomorrow and I will sleep tonight. I will not scan Disney message boards. I will not try on the same five outfits over and over again asking if I look fat, dumb, or employable. They should hire me and if they don’t then they are crazy. I’ll be fine. I will not let it define me.

This is how i’ll walk out of the interview if they do not hire me.

 

A Crazy Saturday

A long run, a final paper, and a visit to the emergency room. This is what my day consisted of.

I woke up an hour and a half late so I had to skip my morning yoga. Having a hyper toddler means I have to be up before eight to do yoga otherwise he thinks I want to wrestle.

After a nice breakfast of Chobani vanilla greek yogurt with a pile of blackberries (and a dash of cinnamon), I propped open the laptop to begin my final paper on Shakespeare’s Othello with a short compare and contrast of the 1995 film adaption. I finished the paper earlier than I expected. I have loved that play, primarily the soliloquies of Iago, since I was sixteen, so that might have helped.

Next was my long run of week two. A six mile run is not long to me but I am following my training as much as I can. I ran 6.20 i 1:01:50 which excited me. My PR for a 10K is 56:40, so I did not lose too much during my unfortunate break from running. I am not running for speed. I run for the joy of it.

Now, to where I am at currently. I suffered from an abscess that developed into cellulitis in mid-late September. Well poor hubs has had a string of abscesses in the past two weeks. Two days ago, he developed one that was larger and a bit more painful than the others. I was so afraid that he’d toy with it and create an opportunity for his infection to spread (as I made the mistake of doing) that I forced him to go to the ER. He can barely walk and I can tell he is in miserable pain. Poor guy.

My Saturday has been a little whacky. I have one week left of school and only a few days until my Disneyland interview.

And how could I forget, Christmas is around the corner. I have to find a healthy recipe for those “gingys” my son keeps asking for.

Hope y’all had a wonderful Saturday with no trips to the doctor!

Daily Fit Thought #14

Tonight’s daily fit thought is about dreams.
Do you ever lay in bed at night and imagine the things you want to do? Do you then scoff at those dreams and tell yourself to be sensible? We all have at some point, but we should not.

What is the point of life without dreams? All of our goals develop from a dream, don’t they?

I used to dream of being able to run. I would see those people running on the sidewalk. They looked happy and free. I would gaze out at them from the passenger seat of my mom’s mini-van and later on from the driver’s seat of my first car while stopped at a red light. One day, I decided to make that dream come turn. I dusted off the treadmill in the back of the garage, hopped on it, and started running. I remember that my lungs burned before I even hit half a mile. I had a side stitch by three-fourths of a mile, and I was damn near collapsing after the first mile. Instead of giving up, my dreamed expanded: I wanted to run a 5k. My first 5k, on a treadmill, took me forty-four minutes to complete. A few months later, I ran my first 5k and I completed it in thirty-one minutes. By the end of that year, I ran a half marathon. Now, I am training to run the LA Marathon in March. I never stop dreaming. I never let fear stop my dreams from becoming bigger.

Dream, dream big.

New Shoes

As I stated in my last post I purchased a new pair of running shoes last Friday. I went with the Mizuno Wave Rider 16.

I know, they look like watermelons! Anyway, I decided on coughing up the extra $80 to have a pair of custom insoles. I was skeptical but the salesman at Road Runner was just a doll. (And the 30-day money back guarantee helped!)

I tried out my new babies on Monday and was not impressed. I ran 2.25 miles on the treadmill. I felt loose and not secure with the shoe.

Note: I was wearing stability shoes prior to this new pair. However, after having my feet analyzed at Road Runner and comparing it to my first analyzation, my feet have changed. I am now in need of a neutral shoe. The pronation problems I had have been corrected. I was told that I trained my feet. Which made me feel like an awesome seasoned runner. (:

Back to the story: Today, I took my babies out for a four mile run. I decided no more treadmill running. I have always disliked it anyway. Well, this run was amazing. That on and off arch and knee pain I have dealt with this year? GONE I ran so comfortably. I felt as if baby Jesus had made those shoes specifically for my feet. I ran 4.40 in 42 minutes. I was not trying to be speedy. I actually wanted to run farther but the teenagers had just gotten out of school and they hog up the sidewalk. Point is: best running shoes ever.

(but the insoles could be the big difference…..)

In other news, I am alive again. I have one paper due Saturday and one due next Saturday. Then, I am done with school until spring. Also, (and this is why i’m still up) I have an interview at Disneyland next Thursday. I know it’s a week away but I found out a few hours ago so I am excited!! I need to go to bed. I have been waking up early so I can do 20-45 minutes of yoga before my son wakes up!

yes, i am really excited….