Christmas 2011

Christmas was great. We got so spend lots of time with family and it was FULL of laughs.
We left late Thursday night and made the hour and a half drive to my parents house.  On Friday my mom decided she just had to go workout, so Scott and I dropped her off and went to pick up  my dad who was just getting back into town from Florida.  We decided to run to Wal-Mart and get the groceries on moms list while she was in class.  TERRIBLE IDEA.  Of course we got half the wrong stuff and ended up making ANOTHER trip to Wal-Mart.  We spent most of the day Friday out and about and most of the Saturday hanging out at home.  We rented The Grace Card (AWESOME!) and Horrible Bosses (TERRIBLE!)  My dad taught Scott how to cook pop corn the old fashioned way in a pan on the stove and it was soooo good!  We opened gifts at my parents on Saturday night since we were heading to Scott's parents Sunday morning early.  We got up Sunday and we were off.  Scott's mom always fixes a great Christmas breakfast and my mom had sent some homemade cinnamon rolls.  We opened gifts and just relaxed the rest of the day.  We got home late Monday and, thanks to me starting the process on Thursday before we left,  we didn't have many Christmas decorations left to take down.  We went today and had Christmas with Scott's grandparents here in LR, so now we are officially done with Christmas.
We cooked to much, ate to much, and laughed WAY to much but it was GREAT.  What makes it even better is that no one got the stomach bug this year.  I got it Christmas day last year and it pretty much ruined Christmas for me.


Mom and Dad opening their presents.  Please ignore the fact that my dad has on a "wife beater."

New blankets.   I think my parents actually bought these so that would have a decent blanket when they came to see us.

Oliver loved opening presents

Eliza-Grace playing with toys and thinking about opening some more.

So our niece got a blow up donkey (RODY) for Christmas.  After finding out it would hold up to 400 lbs, we all took a ride on it.  Below are the only pics I got and they just happen to be of my crazy husband.

Something else to add to Scott's collection of Razorback stuff.

My father-in-law opening his gifts

 Eliza-Grace reading to Uncle Scott.

Fiesta Dinner plates!  This stuff is addictive.

My 1st Fiesta baking dish.

 Fiesta Silverware

New gloves to replace the ones that were stolen from our street corner while running one Saturday morning a couple months ago.

Finally scored a rain jacket.  I have been needing for for about a year now.

 New Toms!!

New camera strap for my DSLR.

Running Totals: Week 49, 50, & 51

Now that I have started CrossFit, I really haven't been running that much and the running I have been doing has been short distances.


December 9th - 1.25
December 10th - .5
Weekly Total: 1.75



Week of December 11th - 17th - 0


December 19th - 1.0
December 21st - 4.3
Weekly Total: 5.3

Yearly Total: 595.3

So on Wednesday the 21st, we got to CrossFit and the workout was that we could either run a 5K or row a 5K.  Since I haven't done much running and the weather was decent, I decided to run the 5K.  The trainer had a map drawn on the board to show the route.  It was pretty much a 1.25 mile loop that we would run twice and then an extra .6 of a mile on the end to round it out.  5 of the girls decided to run it so Adele (the trainer) explained the route a couple of times for those of us unfamiliar with the area and then we were off.  While she was explaining the route we noticed that a guy at an earlier class has ran about 4 miles.  We asked what happened and she said the he had gotten lost.  We that wasn't going to happen to us, I mean how hard was it to run up HWY 107, make a R on Bobbitt, make an R on Hatcher, and another R on HWY 107.  I ended up in the lead and everyone was following me.   I finished the 1st loop and thought that was the LONGEST 1.25 miles ever!  I didn't have my iPod so I chalked it up to that and went on.  I finished the 2nd loop and then did the little extra and got back to the box and called time.  38:48 was what she wrote down.  ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?  It took me almost 40 miles to run 3.1 miles when just a couple of weeks ago I was averaging about a 9 minute mile or less.  Adele then says, did you turn R on Hayley or did you go to the end of Hatcher?  Duh I went to the end of Hatcher just like you said.....WRONG!  Turns out we ran 4.3 miles instead.  Oh well, I guess my body needed a good run and it felt great to know that my speed hadn't really slowed either especially with the rolling hills.  Lesson learned....always triple check the directions!!

Infertility Etiquette

So this has been sitting inu drafts for a week and I'm just getting around to posting it. As the holidays approach, the fact that I am still struggling with infertility is on my mind more than usual. While I know that God has a plan for my life, I can't help but sometimes feel like a failure at my bodies inability to make and carry a baby. Infertility is not something a lot of people openly talk about, especially with friends and family who have never experienced it. Many people will often say "I know what you a going through," but unless you have experienced infertility first hand, you have no idea. I know most people's intentions are good, but there are still a million things that people say that crush the heart of a person struggling with infertility.

So as the holidays approach, I have decided to put together a list of things I hate to hear when it comes to infertility and/or having a baby. (Some of these I borrowed from another blog, the RESOLVE web site, and some are things that have happened to me.)

1.  Please don't assume that it is easy for everyone to get pregnant.  I know your intentions are good, but don't go around asking everyone you know when they are going to have kids.  While most infertile people will smile and say something nice like "We're trying" or "We'll see" you may one day cross an infertile on a bad day and get more than you bargained for.
2. Please don't tell me to "Just Relax" and you will get pregnant.  
3. Please do not ask me if I have thought about adoption or tell me that you know a person who adopted and then got pregnant.  While fertility treatments are expensive and somewhat a gamble, so is adoption.
4. If you have children or are pregnant, please don’t talk about the downside. I know you’re trying to be comforting, but this can be the equivalent of telling a blind person they are lucky because you have to spend so much money on your eyeglasses. 
5. Please don’t suggest a reason why this is happening. Whether you think it’s God’s will or fate or that there’s some reason the universe has decided an infertile couple should have these issues, kindly keep it to yourself. Trying to apply logic to an inexplicable or illogical situation is simply not helpful. I personally have been dealing with this long enough to know that some couples get lucky, and some don’t. Even the most religious infertile couples will tell you that sometimes things happen when you’re going through this journey that don’t make sense. You just have to do your best and accept the outcome. Plus, when someone struggles with infertility, they often blame themselves. You trying to provide a reason as to why it might be their fault, only makes it worse.  
6. Understand that there are some events that are difficult (baby showers being at the top of the list). Again, it’s nothing personal toward you. You never know where an infertile woman is either emotionally, psychologically or physically. Imagine finding out your IVF failed, and then the very next day going to a baby shower where they talk about pregnancy the whole time. Sometimes, the timing is off and the person just needs to protect their own feelings.
7.  If I take an unexpected few days off work, please do not ask me upon my return if I'm pregnant and was home with morning sickness.
8. If you are pregnant and/or have children, please to do make every conversation revolve around your child.  While we are happy to hear about your child, sometimes we just want to talk about life in general and other things that are going on.  
9. Don't tell me there are worse things that could happen to me.  
10. Don't try to minimize the problem.  Failure to conceive a baby is a very painful journey. Infertile couples are surrounded by families with children. These couples watch their friends give birth to two or three children, and they watch those children grow while the couple goes home to the silence of an empty house. These couples see all of the joy that a child brings into someone's life, and they feel the emptiness of not being able to experience the same joy. 
11. Don't be upset if we do not acknowledge you on Mother's Day and/or Father's Day.  These are very difficult days of the year for us and it is another reminder that we do not have a child here on earth to call our own.
12. Please do not exclude us altogether.  While we know your lives have changed and there are lots things you want to do with other couples of who children, please do not forget about us.  We already feel alienated because we do have a child or our own.  

Here are a few phrases that are good to say:

• I’m sorry you’re going through this.

• I can’t imagine how you must feel.
 
• I’m here for you.

• I’m thinking of you.

• Please let me know if you want to talk.

In general, the key is to be supportive. That’s one thing people struggling with infertility do for each other. If you post on a fertility-related chat board that you’re down, you get an endless amount of support. If you post that you’re about to start hormone shots, everyone will wish you luck. No one makes judgments or tries to make it all better: We just support and encourage each other, and that really is the most helpful thing a person can do. 

I hope this helps at least one person. Hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas.

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

Today I'm linking up with Kelly's Korner for SUYL Chirstmas Tour of Homes. Christmas is my favorite time of year and I started putting my Christmas decorations out the week of Thanksgiving.  I love putting up decorations and I usually love wrapping presents, but I haven't really gotten in the mood to wrap presents this year.

Enjoy the Christmas Tour below.


Here is a couple of pictures of our Christmas tree.  I used to always want my Christmas tree in a front window so people driving by could see it.  We now live on a lake and I have enjoyed putting it by the back window so people across the lake can see it.  I just loving turning it on at night.

Below is the sofa table in our living room.  One of my friends made the wreath and I love it!!

One of our end tables.

The other end table.

I found this at Sam's last year.  I have actually only put stuff in it a couple of times, but it makes an awesome decoration.

The buffet.  We have had the Moose since the 1st year we were married.

The dining room

The top of the TV cabinet.

Our mantle.

Scott's Razorback/St. Louis Cardinals tree in his "man" room upstairs.

I hope everyone has a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! My Christmas break starts this afternoon and I am super excited.

Christmas Ornament Exchange

Last month I signed up and participated in an online Christmas Ornament Exchange I stumbled across while reading a blog.  I love Christmas ornaments and I thought this sounded like so much fun.  About a week later they posted our partners and we had about a week and a half to buy an ornament ($10 limit) and send it off in the mail.  Of course I waited until the last minute to buy my ornament and thanks to an awesome sale I was able to buy 2 ornaments. The girl I was buying for had told me she had 2 trees, a cupcake tree and a country tree.  I was able to find ornaments for both trees.  A few days after I sent my ornament to her, I got mine in the mail.  I LOVE IT!!

Here is the awesome ornament I got in the mail.  Thanks Timmarie!

Crossfit

After the 1/2 marathon I decided to trade in running for Crossfit @ Sherwood Crossfit..  I remember when Scott first started going to Crossfit in August and how bad his body hurt after it was over.  Part of me thought it wouldn't be that bad since I had been running non-stop for the past 12 weeks.  I thought I was in pretty good shape.  Wrong!  All I did was run for 12 weeks.  I never lifted weights or worked out in any other way.  My first day at crossfit (which was 2 days after the 1/2 marathon) we did squats, sit-ups, pull-ups, and push-ups.  My body hurt for 5 days.  It didn't help that I went back on Wednesday for another a$$ whipping and then again on Friday and Saturday.  By Saturday my legs were finally starting to feel normal again and I didn't want to die every time I got up or sat down.  After only going 5 times, I am completely addicted.  It is a nice change up from running and everyone is really supportive.

Below is a quick run down of the 1st weeks WOD's (Workout of the Day)

Monday
Tabata Allota! 8 Rounds each - Each round consists of doing as many reps as you can in 20 sec followed by a 10 sec rest.  At the end of 8 rounds you get a 1 min rest before moving on to the next thing on the list.  My results are in () below
Squat (65)
Pull Up (45 jumping)
Sit Up (55)
Push Up (51 incline)

Wednesday
Hang Power Cleans
Since I had never done this before, most of my time was spent trying to get the technique down rather than seeing how much weight I could lift (which would not have been very much)
5 min AMRAP (As Many Rounds as Possible)
1 Burpee
5 20" box jumps
10 KB Swings 25lb
I Completed 5 rounds on the AMRAP

Friday
400M Run
15 Handstand pushups (I did a modified version on a box)
18 Rope pull-ups
5 Rounds for time
Finished in 17:02

Saturday
We did a 12 min AMRAP using a deck of cards to determine what we would do next
At the end we did 100 sit-ups for time - 5:54

Monday
12 min AMRAP
5 Knees to Elbows (mine were not very good)
10 Hand Release push ups
15 20" box jumps
Finish: 6 rounds + 4 Knees to elbows
8 strict pull-ups with green band
10 kipping pull-ups with green band (these were not very pretty but I'm learning)


Hopefully I will be able to look back at this is a couple of months and really tell how far I have come.  And hopefully my muscles will no longer we sore on a daily basis.

Half Marathon Training Guide

Now that the half marathon is over, I thought I would share my training schedule and proof of how I did at sticking to it.  I found a half marathon training schedule online and altered it a little bit to my liking.  Below is the schedule that I put up on the cork board as a reminder of how much I was supposed to run each day. (Can you tell I love Excel spreadsheets?)  The goal was to attempt to follow the below schedule as well as possible.  I started out running only at the gym until the week of 10/9-10/15 and I started running outside.  I only went back to the gym once b/c it was pouring down rain.  Once the weather cooled off a little I LOVED running outside.

Below is the picture of how many miles I actually logged on which days.  I really can't believe that my actual miles came it almost exactly with what was on the training schedule above. 

I found that the more I ran the faster I became.  I never thought I would run anything much faster than a 10 minute mile let alone be able to keep that pace for 13.1 miles.

First Snow of the Season

As I was getting ready for work yesterday morning, Scott called and told me I should just stay home for a little while.  I thought he was crazy and then he said "You haven't looked outside have you?"  Nope!  Sure enough it had snowed Tuesday night.  As you can see this really isn't that much snow, but in Arkansas people go crazy when it snows and the overpasses were icy.  I waited until almost 9 before I headed into work.  The interstate was completely backed up so I took an alternate route.  It wasn't bad until I had to cross the bridge from North Little Rock into Little Rock.  Thanks to a stalled taxi cab in the left lane on the Broadway Bridge it took me 30 minutes to get across the bridge.  All in all it took me about 45 minutes for what is usually at 12-20 commute.  By lunch all the snow was gone.

I hope it snows again and we actually get a good amount, but I will be ok if it waits until Christmas break or even January.

St. Jude Memphis Marathon Weekend 2011

I can't believe it's over.  I am officially a 1/2 marathoner.  All of the training and hard work paid off more than I ever imagined.  My goal going into the training was to finish between 2:10 and 2:15 which means I had to average about a 10 minute mile the entire time.  By the time race weekend arrived, I was really hoping to finish in about 2:05.

We headed to Memphis around 2pm Friday afternoon.  We stayed with my best friend in Marion on Friday night.  Kristin was running the race also.  Friday night we went to Pete and Sam's to carb up for the race.  I had lots of bread and lasagna.  We were up early on Saturday morning just trying to get ourselves prepared.  The weather was perfect for a race.  It was about 47 degrees and partly sunny. My parents met us in Marion and we finally headed into Memphis about 7am.  We finally got downtown and to the start around 7:30.  We hung around a little bit and then finally about 7:50 I made my way to my corral.  I started in corral 7 so it was actually about 8:12 before I ever crossed the starting line.  It took about 2-3 miles to actually get out of the worst part of the crowd.  I started off a little slow and kept telling myself to not overdo it even though I felt really good.  I am not a very good pacer, so I was scared I would start fast and run out of energy early on.  About 2 1/2 miles in I caught up to and passed the 4:10 marathon pacers that were at the front of my corral.  At this point it finally hit me that I could actually finish really close to the 2 hour mark.  I passed my parents again at mile 3 (Scott, Clint, & Connor (Kristin's husband and son) had decided breakfast was more important so they had gone to eat).  Luckily they were able to keep track of us on the St. Jude Marathon website.  It updated when we hit 3.1, 6.2, 10, and the finish.  It also gave them estimated finish times based on our pace when we crossed each marker.  I crossed the 3.1 mile mark at 0:28:33 which was a 9:12 mile pace.  About mile 4 we entered the St. Jude Campus.  If the sight of parents and families of the kids of St. Jude doesn't move you, I am not sure what will.  It was AWESOME!!

I crossed the 6.2 mile mark at 0:56:23 which was a 8:58 mile pace.  I was still feeling pretty good and hadn't really realized that I had sped up any.  I think the biggest help was that the racers were becoming more spread out and it wasn't nearly as congested. 

Around mile 9 I started to realize just how bad my feet were hurting, so I grabbed a drink of water and some GU and kept going.  I noticed that I was starting to slow down, but not by much.  The best I could tell I was still keeping about a 9:20 mile pace. 

I crossed the 10 mile mark at 1:31:38 which was a 9:19 mile pace.  I knew at this point finishing around 2:01-2:03 was looking realistic if I could just keep up the pace.  My body was starting to hurt really bad and I kept asking myself "What in the world was I thinking wanting to run a 1/2 marathon??" and "It's only a 5K left...You can run a 5K in your sleep...just not with legs that feel like they are about to give out on you."

From Mile 11 to 12 was the worst.  Then I hit mile 12 and it dawned on me that I was almost finished.  Only 1/2 mile until the marathoners split off from us and we were on the home stretch.  At about 12 1/2 miles we turned the corner and could see Autozone Park (the finish line was inside the park on the baseball field).  Something inside clicked and I was able to dig down deep and pick up the pace to the finish.  Once I passed the mile 13 marker, I actually entered the stadium and was on the home stretch.  I hit my stop watch about the time I crossed the finish line.  It said 2:00:06 so I figured it was actually off a little from my official time.  I saw my parents in the stands, waived, got my medal and a foil blanket and was headed towards the water and the stairs.  As I started up the stairs I spotted Scott in the stands and yelled "2 hours" to which he responded "and 6 seconds."  Somehow I had timed it just right and my stopwatch and my official time were the exact same.  Thanks to the tracking system Scott was able to see my finish time withing seconds of me actually crossing the finish line.

My body hurt pretty bad after it was over, but I got lots of water a little food and some rest while we waited on our friends to finish.  Now that I have had a couple of days to recover, I think I would do it again.  Not anytime soon, but I would run another one.

The St. Jude 1/2 Marathon is an awesome race to run and supports an awesome cause!!  I recommend it to anyone looking for a fun race.  It has some rolling hills, but is not too hilly.

Official Stats:
FINISH: 2:00:06 - 9:10 min/mile pace
Overall Finish: 1264 out of 6783
Gender Finish: 469
Age Division Finish: 103/782
5K Finish: 0:28:33 - 9:12 min/mile pace
10K Finish: 0:56:23 - 8:58 min/mile pace (Ranked 116 in age division)
10M: 1:31:38 - 9:19 min/mile pace