48 hours in 120 Seconds

Holy smokes was this weekend a whirlwind! Lots of things happened.... so much in fact that if I attempted to tell all the little bits and pieces about EVERYTHING I did, I would inadvertently write a novel - liiike I'm doing now... so here is my weekend plus Monday and half of Tuesday in roughly 2 minutes:


Saturday morning consisted of a 16 mile run with my running group. 
I then got to spend the rest of the day with my friend Karin and our friend from college, Connie, and her husband Dan (they were visiting from Cleveland - Connie and Dan that is, Karin is moving right down the street from me in 2 weeks!)
We drank mojitos:

We ate giant pretzels with an amazingly good whiskey sauce... I never realized how much I LOVE whiskey!

Sat outside at a local cafe right down from my apartment and drank yummy drinks:

We walked in the park:

Swung on the swings:

And played on the jungle gym:

And had a Gap photo shoot:

But sadly the newlyweds had to pack up and head back up to Cleveland :( I was sad but had to perk up my friend Lydia's 25th birthday celebration!
We had a little get together at the apartment with all these pretty girls:

(Lydia is the one dead center between us all) - Happy Birthday!

Then headed out downtown where too much drinking took place, but also lots and lots of fun!

Oh, and Karin (from way above) made it out too!

So yep! That was my weekend... I'm sure it took more than 2 minutes to recap, but how can you not stare at these pictures of my beautiful friends.... they are just too pretty :)
Sunday was spent lounging and spending money at Old Navy with the roomie... I did manage to sneak in a 4 mile recovery run... 


Off to watch Vampire Diaries season 1 with Gil... she is hooked :)


Happy Tuesday Night,

Pizza.

So lately food just hasn't sounded good, which isn't the best since I've been in a constant state of starving with my milage kicking up into high gear. 


I find myself only craving 3 things:

• pizza
• peanut butter sandwiches
• icE CREam

totally balanced, right?! 
haha.... right.


So here is a snapshot of a pizza I made to satisfy my craving but also sneak in a few veggies:

red pepper, eggplant and ham pizza.

Excuse the photos... these were taken while talking to my chatty mom on the phone.


On that note... I'm off to do 16 miles on 4 hours of sleep, 
but then I get to spend all day with 2 best friends + a a husband from college :)


tootles, 

Look on the Brightside....

Excuse me? Look on the brightside? There is nothing bright about my life right now!! @#$%&@##

Whew. Okay. I feel better.

Haha... just kidding (well half-kidding)... half kidding referring to the absolute nonsense I just wrote above... it's totally uncessary...just having one of those months where nothing goes wrong - just nothing goes right. Where nothing goes in my favor. Where I feel I'm just pushed to the side.

HOWEVER, I do realize that a major hurricane is threathening homes and peoples' lives and people across the states are living in poverty and are jobless, and are homeless and are in just overall rough shape; so if you're worried about me bitching and complaining this whole time... don't worry, it is stopping now... and moving on to the brightside.

Yes, I said it. Looking on the brightside...

• One of my best friends from college and her husband are coming down for the day to visit on Saturday... SO EXCITED.
• I start a chemisty class in 1 month in route to get my nutrition degree.
• Another good friend from college has become an even better friend over the summer and is moving just down the street from me in 3 weeks!

So yeah, I guess my life isn't so bad...I mean, it can only go up, right??

OH. And yes, as with any mini-crisis I have, there was chocolate.
Last night. I got these:

and surprisingly only ate a serving!!
However, I was promised told by my roommate that orange leaf would be in my future tonight.... she better be right :)

Homegrown

Check these guys out!

Do you believe these came from my own apartment back patio?!

I don't.... 

because they're not!!


Haha! The above tomatoes came from my mom's garden back home in Cincinnati - my attempt at growing cherry tomatoes failed... miserably... but oh well! I'll enjoy my mom's homegrown tomatoes when I can :)


That's all for tonight! 

Dedicated to Kelsey Ann

-I had a really cheesy tennis title, but my sister sent me a text today wondering where the tennis post was.... so this is for her..." aw fun, I have an interested reader :) -
Good news everyone! I'm back! - well sort of...
I know my blogging hiatus has gone on for months at a time before, but I know ya'll were just dying this past week with the absence of my stimulating stories and tantalizing recaps and flawless photography... :)

Anyway... enough of my opening paragraph nonsense - that's for structured essays, right?

As many of you may have read in my previous post, I spent this past Monday in Mason, OH for the ATP tennis tourament, which, for all of you non-tennis folk, is a "world class" tournament - meaning that there are hot tennis players who practice with their shirts off most of the top 50 players in the world on both men and women sides. 

Center Court

Initially, the tournament used to be home to only the men, but within recent years, they added an additional week for the women to play and now, since adding new courts to the complex, the tournament was able to have both men and women play during the same week - which allows the fans to see both men and women play during the same day... but limits the number of players you get to see on certain days. 

While I didn't get to see many of my favorite players play - I was able to watch some great tennis with my mom and sister:

-apparently I wasn't aware of the mandatory Gilliam uniform for the day:

more tennis:

me and my sister: ♥

Once the day session was over, my sister and I decided to save some money by eating dinner outside of the tennis complex.... and what better way to save money than to hit up happy hour! (I still can't believe my little sister is 21...I'm old!)

Once we ordered our beers, sis got a phone call from the one and only Mom, who decided to crash join happy hour....we all know she just didn't want to cook dinner for the boys at home ;) Oh, and to obviously spend time more time with her delightful daughters!

After a shorter than anticipated happy hour (Kelsey and I had planned to get a tad influenced from our 3 dollar Bud Lights and shout obscenities at Andy Roddick (we aren't fans)) once we returned to the tournament for the night session:

Such a pretty sunset.

All in all it was a great day. Sure I didn't get to see Rodger Federer or some of my other favorites, or more importantly, fall in love and get married to a tennis player so I can quit my lame job and travel the world, but I had an awesome time with my mom and sister.


On a more disgusting note, tomorrow's Monday - blah.. er, I mean bring it on!


Play tennis,








Oh, and just so you all know... Andy Roddick ended up losing his match....with no obscenities needed :)

aww... he is just so hot.... hahaha...NOT!

Rewind

Morning!


Just popping in to share with you a few couple photos from the last few days. 


Saturday morning I got the privilege of tackling 15 miles. 
It was the perfect weather and I felt awesome throughout the whole 2 hours and 20 some minutes -could probably be attributed to the alcohol I didn't drink the night before... damn it :) haha
I came home to a "pancake muffin" made and specially set aside for me by my roommate, which naturally was enjoyed with a strawberry-peanut butter smoothie with cereal on top:

special note: these muffins were made with leftover pancake batter from my roommate and her boyfriend's breakfast dinner last night... I passed on the breakfast but enjoyed an obligatory chocolate chip pancake while watching scrubs for the first time with the two crazies.


Speaking of crazies... here is 1/2 of the above mentioned duo:

(this picture was not taken by me nor was it known to me that it was on my camera...but it sure as hell is making the blog!) hehe


Off to the tennis tournament all day!


Have a good start to the week!

Past, Present and Future

Hi Guys!
This morning, for your reading pleasure, I provide you with a look into the things I'm loving of the past, present and the future...

The Past:
I found these gems last Saturday at a vintage store in the Short North (Flower Child):

They were a little expensive for my liking ($18.00) but not only did I fall instantly in love with them, but they also fit my feet perfectly - match made in heaven if you ask me :)

The Present:

Check out this weather I had this morning on my 6 mile run:

Man, was it perfect! I've had sort of a blah week and this run totally turned everything around. I love how running can do that. My marathon training called for a tempo run and usually these are hard for me to actually complete.... but my pace was actually faster than my past runs!

And... to make my morning even that much better.... BREAKFAST!

Oats in a Jar! LOVE! I've really been straying away from oatmeal breakfasts lately because of the relentless heat and humidity, but with a cool run and an almost-gone pb jar... it seemed like the right choice :)

And on top of a perfect run and a perfect breakfast... I got to look at these flowers from our back patio:

And what could be better then realizing I have a full day at work wearing leggings:

Yes, I complain about my job... but I can't complain that I can wear basically whatever I want :)

The Future:

Remember in my recent post that I said I played tennis in college? Well, I also LOVE to watch tennis... and I get to do just that next week with my only favorite sister. Besides the Cone, the only good thing about living in West Chester (the suburbia of Cincinnati) is getting the privelage of having a world class tennis tournament in your backyard, well, ok... 15 minutes away from your backyard...

Needless to say, I am very excited to hang out with my sister (and probably mom - she always seems to sneak free tickets to this thing), watch tennis, and drool over shirtless tennis players....aaaand I suppose it will be nice to see the other part of the fam... dad and brother... we'll see if they even know I'm there :)

It's almost Friday!

Just Because I'm Bored...

Bonjour Mes Amis!
(it's been super long since I've taken French, but I think I got point across of saying hello to my friends - please, don't correct me if I'm wrong)   :)

I've been ridiculuosly bad at taking pictures of my lame dinners, or my glitter magnent crafts or my sweaty face after marathon training runs or the bruises that keep popping up on my legs from Sunday's tubing adventure....SO, just because I am beyond bored at work right now AND because I'm sure you all want to know so much more about me....

here is a lovely little blog post of things you probably do not know about me... ...............or want to know for that matter    :)

1. Seinfeld is, by far, my favorite TV show. My day just doesn't seem complete without watching at least 1 episode.
2. My tolerance for spicey food is basically non exsistant. I once got dared to eat a jalapeno and wasn't even able to swallow it.... my lips and throat were num for a good 23 minutes after the dare was attempted.
3. I once joined match.com and POF, and subsequently have been on multiple "blind dates"...after reading the same chapter over and over in "He's Just Not That Into You" I've finally realized that they were all, you know... just not that into me.
4. I ran cross country my freshman year in high school and hated it. I peed my pants during every 3 mile race. 8 years later I ran 26 miles with no accidents.
5. My favorite color is purple and my favorite food is pizza.
6. I started playing basketball when I was 3 years old. I stopped playing when I was 16. I then started playing tennis and continued to play 4 years in college.
7. Primates are the scariest things in the world. Ever. Well, according to me :)
8. I hate ketchup.
9. Country music is life.
10. The only thing keeping me from being completely independent from my parents is my cell phone bill. You bet your bottom that I'm holding on to my flip phone until it dies.

Well, that is it... for now at least :) Hopefully I will have some really, fun and amateur photos to share with ya'll in my next post.

Until then.... what is something that no one would ever know about you unless you told them?!

Stay away from ketchup and primates,

Pribs and the Girls Do the Lake

Hi Friends!

This past weekend was pretty low key... well low key in terms of alcohol consumption and partying until 3am - which, BTW, I am so thankful for.... I realized during my 14 miler Saturday that I should probably limit my alcohol intake from now until the marathon in October... should being the operative word... it's pretty much impossible for me to turn down half price beers on a Friday evening, after a 40 hour work week for that matter...

But anyway.... back to my weekend, or more specifically... Sunday.

Sunday.

My roommate's boyfriend has a boat, again... to be more specific... a middle class boat -which basically means that it's pretty darn old, he got if for really cheap, it's not the prettiest, but it sure as hell works :)

So Sunday morning me and my roommate Annie loaded up the car and headed to her boyfriend's... where we then began to load up the truck. (lots of loading and unloading was involved) We were more than ready for a day of boating:

Once we got to the lake we met up with Nick's brother and his girlfriend... and if I had the sense to take a group picture it would look fantastic.... but all I got was a view of the lake:

Let me just quickly add that I got the privelage of being the 3rd wheel all weekend. And I say privelage because I've come to realize over the past month that I love it. I never turn down any chance I get to hang out with the lovebirds... Annie is one of my best friends and Nick is like a brother to me... I never get bored and never, ever feel left out... except during the wild make out sessions they frequently display in public places. It happens, right? :)
Ok, getting back on task....
The rest of the afternoon was spend tooling around the lake, anchoring the boat and swimming, eating delicious subs and way to spicey Sun Chips and tubing:

Lots of tubing!

Oh hello there mates, care to help me on board?

James and Christina



Leave your eye make up at home you bunch of girls!

Captain Nick

After about 3 hours on the water, we decided to bring her on in... which was a good choice because we were sunburnt, exhausted and we were about 20 minutes from getting stormed on.

I'd be completely lying if I said this didn't rank in my top 5 favorite days ever. So many times I think how awful my life is with work and other things, but when I have a day like this, it really brings me back to reality and reminds me of how lucky I am to have adopted a second family here in Columbus.

Despite a few tumbles while tubing, and the fact that my entire left leg body is a giant bruise - I'm already thinking of sneaky ways to bribe Nick into boating again... ohh, say this weekend?!

I'll keep you updated :)

Happy Tuesday,