Top 5 on Friday

It's FRIDAY!

1.  I am obsessed with bagels right now.  This is what I dream about:

Mounds of bagels everywhere!

Yesterday, I had a cinnamon raisin one for breakfast and then a plain with cream cheese as part of my dinner.  Obviously, John wasn't home, so I ate breakfast foods for dinner.  I always like bagels, but right now, I can't seem to choose any other breakfast food over them.  Like, tomorrow, I'm running a race, and afterwards, I want to bribe John into taking me to Chick-fil-A for breakfast, and the only thing I want is a chicken egg & cheese bagel.  Sorry donuts, you've taken a back seat...

I'm not sure who I am anymore.

2.  I'm running my first race tomorrow in an embarrassingly long time...

Ready?

10 months.  

I didn't feel like it had been that long, but time has flown by this year.  Blame it on the wedding stuff?  Sure.

My last race was the Turkey Trot 5k on Thanksgiving last year, which I finished a 1/2 marathon 5 days prior to.  I had to double check myself, but that is a fact.  Thankfully I'll break that streak tomorrow, while sporting my I <3 Sweat shirt...you know, to support (in spirit) Ali in her first marathon!  Go sent her running love!

Thanks for breaking my no-race streak 

3.  I've been eye-ballin' a Coach handbag for probably a year now...one of their signature totes.  It's simple, something I would actually use all the time...

I got an email this week, inviting me to an online sale.  I don't usually even look at stuff like that, and for whatever reason I did.  I got the bag I've been wanting soooo bad for 60% off!  And, I picked regular shipping and it's already out for delivery, which means I'll get it today!!!  So excited!  Hurry Mr. FedEx!

4.  Today is the first day of fall.  You couldn't tell here.  See this.

Even if it is a beautiful looking day outside.  I want a reason to wear jeans, boots, sweaters and to enjoy everything pumpkin.  

5.  Lily moves her mouth, and we swear she is trying to talk like humans do.  I was taking a picture of her after she was groomed this morning to send to John, and she was yelling at me...

I'm pretty sure that's what she said...

Have a happy weekend friends!  I'll be racing/running, catching up on the DVR, watching the Gators play while hanging out with some of my favorites, getting my church on and other random acts of weekending.  Enjoy!

Running, Sock Monkeys and Crystal Light...a few of my favorite things

Yesterday, after work, I was planning on getting in a speed work out.  Well, during my warm up, my knee starts to have a dull pain.  Weird...I continue running, hoping to run it out.  It kind of got to be more of a sharp pain by mile 2, so I kept it slow to hopefully work out the kink.  I ran 5 miles in 48:00.  I didn't really feel winded or like I worked hard...it was a leisurely run.  I thought back to a year ago about how I would have considered that a good run because it wasn't 10 minute miles.  It feels good to know that somewhere along the line I got faster!  Those speed workouts have been paying off!  Now, hopefully on Thursday, my knee doesn't hurt anymore so I can actually get that speed work in.  That would be awesome.

Yesterday in general was a little stressful.  Work still needs to be caught up on and someone gave us a scare within the family, so today, I thought I'd share some of my favorite things of this week.  According to Fraulein Maria, it's the best thing to do.

Helps chase away my afternoon cookie monster

Feeling like this after an 8 mile speed workout (a couple weeks ago)

What? Peyton Manning and bubblegum?  This photo wasn't strategically taken...Get well soon Peyton.

My brown hair...I think...

My sock monkey Jack...not sure why, but he makes me happy

 A "redneck wineglass" that my friends found for me.
I might be a little obsessed with mason jars...

 Hello hottie...and beach!

Sleepy, fluffy Lily

Our new plants for our garden!  I know what we'll be grilling soon!
Oh, and this:

and of course these lovelies:

and my newest workout apparel addition

I'm hoping to sport it in the15k on Saturday...if I can decide whether to run or not...Picture borrowed from Ali.
Oh, and I'm loving 

and

Hilarious!
ANDThey're back...

Hope you have a good Wednesday friends!

I'm in love...

...with Tennessee.  Last Tuesday night, I hopped in the car with some friends and we drove through the night to Tennessee and we returned last night.  I can tell you, driving through the night really screws with my internal clock and my body is still angry at me today, but it was worth it!  We played games, had some really good laughs, made smores, hiked, enjoyed watching the Gators beat Tennessee and made a new friend...

Meet Jack

So, that explains my absence!

I can't explain how much I would love to move to east Tennessee.  I have been going up there on vacation with my family as long as I can remember.  Now, we're lucky enough that my parents have a place up there we can go stay at and enjoy the beautiful Smoky Mountains.  Everyone is truly nicer up there.  It's refreshing. The taste of fall wasn't too shabby either...hello 60's as the high!  I'll touch back on this trip again when I get the pictures off the camera!

Now...onto the fall line up!  I can't explain how excited I am about real TV again!

First, the new shows I want to check out:

Love Zooey!

I'm not sure I'm sold on all of them, but I wanted a couple shows to replace the ones I'm ditching...Grey's and Private Practice.

Of all the show's returning, I'm most excited about....

My favorite!

To see my other favorites, click here.

What shows are you looking forward to most??

Destroying the Enemy!

This weekend was a pretty nice one.  We saw some friends, watched some football, hung out with family, and did some work around the house.  As you can see, it was too much for Lily.  She's so exhausted this morning she forgot to be a lady...

On Saturday, we got our free Chickfila which was super exciting for me.  I would have snapped a picture, but the 3 seconds it would have taken would have been too much for me.  John and I have plans for Chickfila again this week so I'm excited!  After we finished up our free breakfast, we headed to the Home Depot and got a new table for our patio, a new tree to replace this plant that I loathe, and a couple other odds and ends.

John was very supportive of my want for the removal of the ugly plant.  The ugly plant's evil spawn grew everywhere and it invaded the plants we actually like.  So, he took care of the plant...if you know what I mean:

We got a triple palm (totally it's official name...) and put it in the place of the ugly plant.  You can see it in the corner behind John if you look hard enough.  Plus, I think the HOA decided to put the ugly plant there, so suck it!  Kidding...kind of...

We also painted a trellis, put together a patio table (yay!) and took care of a few other things around the house.  All in all, a productive day.  Unfortunately, I forgot to take final pictures of all of our hard work, so I'll get those up eventually!

I am really starting to like the house.  It's becoming ours.  We've been putting so much work into it.  It makes me sad to think about selling it, but it's not the right house for us to live in long term.  Hopefully for the next house, we'll have one that's just right and we can stay there forever!

Homeowner's Associations are the Devil

So, yesterday I get home from work and notice our grass is cut very, very short and there's a lawn service truck parked in front of our house.  A guy is walking in our yard with hedge clippers on the way to cut our tree.  What is going on?!

I get out of my car and asked what they are doing.  They say, "The homeowner's association gave us a list of houses that needed to be mowed, so we're just following their list."  We cut our grass a week and a half ago and it has been raining since Monday in the afternoon and evening.  It was a little longer than normal, but every week, our neighbor or John mows both of the yards.  Our neighbor's grass was not touched even though it was the same height as ours.  I was livid.  I told them to get out of my yard and that  I don't care if we're ever on that list again, do not step foot on our property.  But you know, they knocked on the door during a work day and no one answered, so I shouldn't be mad since they tried.  Yea, ok...

Does their grass look out of control?  No?  Ok, didn't think so...

We are required to have St. Augustine grass in our yard.  That stupid grass is hard to maintain as it is and there is a book that's 1" thick that the University of Florida has written on how to properly maintain this type of grass.  John's read it.  All of it.  It's what he does.
Rule 1. Don't cut it lower than 3-4 inches and do not cut until the grass is over 6 inches tall.
Our grass is 2 inches tall at best now...they scalped our yard which probably will kill portions of it. So, we'll be buying sod soon I'm sure to fix their damage.
Oh, and we have chinch bugs in our grass right now because we have an absentee neighbor on the other side that has only weeds and bugs coming from his grass that we fight off all. the. time.  The grass has to grow a certain length so we can pull it out to replace the not so pretty parts in our front yard.  You know, if you ask UF, the inventors of the grass.  You should read up, yard guys and HOA.

AND, they ran their mower into our fence so now it has marks all over it.  And they didn't know this, but if they cut our tree, someone would have died because it's not yet time in Florida to trim that type of tree and we really like it and don't want that dead too.  It's thriving!

Where do HOA's get off sometimes?  I understand they serve a purpose.  But only to a point.  You cannot mow someone's yard without warning.  A week and a half of growth is not going to devalue houses in the neighborhood.
I drove around the neighborhood after that, taking a look at the damage...and guess what?  They didn't cut any of the abandoned houses with grass that was over a foot tall with weeds because no one would pay them to do that.  Instead, they come after the people who try and follow the rules, but just so happened to hit the mowing cycle wrong and went a little over a week's worth of growth on the lawn.  It's Florida.  It's summer.  It rains.  Grass grows out of control.  But a little over a week's worth of growth and you come butcher our yard.  Rude!

And that folks, is why we're selling our house next summer.  No more HOA's for us.  We really like our neighbors and where our house is at, but we'll be moving here next:

Oh, you've heard of it?  

I hear it's real nice and they let you live your life without trying to ruin it.

Do you have any HOA stories?  

Do you like or dislike HOAs?

♥ Good run days!

So yesterday, I trekked off to the gym with the feeling that I might have the energy for a 4 miles speed workout with some bicep work added in.  Maybe even 6 miles if I got lucky, but in my head, that was pushing it.  The work out was a descending ladder, 1200 (optional 1200) 1000 800 (optional 800) 600 400 (optional 400).  The 1200 and 800 were to be at a 10k pace and the rest at a 5k pace.  Here's what I did:

1.25 mile warm up
1200 in 6:00
3 min RI

1200 in 6:00

3 min RI

1000 in 4:49

2 min RI

800 in 3:58

2 min RI

800 in 4:00

2 min RI

600 in 2:56

2 min RI

400 in 1:56

2 min RI

400 in 1:53

2 min RI

400 in 1:51

2 min RI

400 in 1:43

2 min RI

.75 mile cool down

Total: 8 miles

And it felt so good...

So good, I added those extra 400's.  So good, I got in 8 miles on a speed work day!

Then I did some abs and left.

I'm going to start keeping a work out journal of sorts.  I bought a composition notebook and I am going to try to write down all of my work outs.  Like, everything I do.  I feel that if I have to write it all down, I can at least guilt myself into pushing harder.  Meaning, if I get mad because I'm not seeing results, then all I have to do is look back on my work outs.  If I've put the time in, maybe I need to figure something else out.  If I haven't put the time in, I can only blame myself.  Hopefully it's a good motivator...

Oh, and it's pretty.  So that's fun...

Like how I added in a Gators sticker in there?  It is football season peeps!

In other news...

I dyed my hair brown the other day.  I was working on growing out my highlights, but I felt like my hair kind of looked like a mess, so a couple of friends went with me to pick out a color that matched my roots best.  (Apparently my hair is still considered blonde, just dark blonde? Whatever, it looks brown to me.)  I think they did a pretty good job picking the color.  I don't know how long it's been since I've seen my natural hair color, but it's been years.  Maybe almost a decade now.  Agh!  So, one day soon I'll show you a picture.  I feel like my hair is looking like a hot mess today and being totally uncooperative.  So it's pinned and tied back.  Maybe tomorrow!

I love long weekends and the weeks that follow them.  It's Wednesday already!  Woo hoo!  

Did you have a good run yesterday?

What do you do to hold yourself accountable with your workouts?

I'll leave you with some Lily enjoying her new dog bed that's about as big as her ego:

Tweet Tweet...

I keep hearing more and more people talk about Twitter.

I just don't get it.  I have an account.  I signed up to read the Boston Marathon tweets when I couldn't get my livestream to work and there wasn't much time left.  But what's the deal with this whole Twitter thing?  To me, it seems like a stream of status updates like you would have on Facebook, but it's only the status updates part, and a few pictures.  I have friends that love Twitter and use it more than any other social network, but I'm just not sure I'm sold on it.

How do you use Twitter? 

Any words of advice on getting into it?