May Favorites

Goodbye May...Hello June bring me some sunshine and water time already. First though let's glance back and see what was awesome, glorious, and otherwise fantastic during the month of May.

Moments:

Winning 3rd place for my age group on a horrible hilly monster.

 



 

Finding the very last of our geocaches at the Ledge

 

Music My jam -

Andy Grammer - Honey, I'm Good

Walk the Moon - Shut up and Dance

Beauty Product - I really have been trying to stick to some of my old faves and not trying new things to the point of an ipsy bag came and I am like no...lets stick with what works and do some make up clean out. The love this month goes to my tried and true nighttime summer oil
Boscia Tsubaki Beauty oil.

Reading -
 The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up and What you Left Behind

Watching -  Not much lately, we need to finish the "final" season of "The Following" and yes, I am slightly distressed that they have canceled this.

Food/Drink - 

Bacon from the Natural food store was hands down the most glorious thing that touched my taste buds this month (or quite possibly ever).

Purchase -

The Camper since it officially came home and we officially made the first payment on it.

Smelling - Same as last month...seems like I don't burn candles as often in the warmer months.

Cyber world finds -

Trolling around the interwebs this month (sounds so seedy, doesn't it) I stumbled upon this blog called Un-Fancy. This little corner of the cyber world talks about reducing your wardrobe and creating a capsule wardrobe. Very intrigued by this, especially if you have seen the overflowing in my closet.

Then running with this whole theme of  I want to be outside, we got a camper, summer please come then there was this article, 25 Things only Campers Understand.  Way to many of these are true.

Looking Forward too next month...The Farmers Market starting up, its my dad's and hubbie's birthday (pssst he will be 40), I am going to Mexico with my son, Our hometown Jersey street music fest, paddle the marsh...aka all of the above equals living like a rock star.

Work It Out - May

The very first thing on the agenda for May was the Bustle Hustle.  Got 3rd place in my age group, holler, no PR though.  This thing was a hilly monster and I am anxious to do this again next year.

Since I was rather pissed at myself for not training hard enough...I got up the following Monday morning and hit the treadmill for a quick 5 miler. Then it was back to my to Tuesday lifting day. But then I took off Wednesday. Thursday though found itself being a 6 mile slow or marathon pace run.  Friday, due to pure exhaustion, I just hit the bike for a leisurely six miles. Over the weekend we did a short little hike.

Week 2 -
 Monday 05/11 decided it would be a good day for a mid pace day and do to a little messing around getting out of the house ended up with only a 5 miler. Tuesday was a standard lift day with a mixture of upper and lower body with a touch of abs.  Not to much since it is race week again.Wednesday was a long run day.  Hit 6.5 miles and watched two episodes of "House of Lies".  Saturday was the nurses run.  It was hot and humid. Missed my PR for this course.  Once again I am thinking that I really need to work harder.

Week 3 -
There was a lot going on this week, so my fitness was pretty off, which sucks because when my fitness is off my mood goes right along with it.  Ran 4 miles on Monday, then did some biking on Tuesday with strength training, Wednesday was a quick 3 miler.   Thursday and Friday took the days off been running on empty here lately.  Taking the bike up north though to do some exploring.  Saturday found me catching a quick 8 mile ride. Planned on a little longer, but no one really mentioned that quite a few of the back roads up there are sand. So change of plans.  In the afternoon I was also able to get in some kayaking time with the steppie.

Week 4 -
  Tuesday, I started a new lifting program.  And this girl got some much needed new shoes, which means this morning I broke them in with a 5 miler.  Ok and they are a new "model" of adidas for me...supposedly they are lighter.  Lighter equals faster, right.

 

Real life = Runner Show Problems, the miles and hours we spend together <3

 

Until next month...

Ghosts of Weekends Past - Memorial Day

Let's here it for three day weekends and the unofficial start to summer. No better way to start it off then a camp trip.  We made our way with the new camper in tow to my parents' land.  The trailer will be calling the land home for the summer. 

 

Friday night we arrived rather late, got settled and basically called it a day.

 

Saturday we were treated to some beautiful weather, which was perfect since we had quite a few plans lined up.  As you may recall our first camp trip with the dogs did not go so well.  This time though they did a great job.  I managed to stumble on some information about a dog park in the area.  So we took the dogs up there to do some free roaming and playing.  Sadly though there was an older gentleman in the little dog area with some big dogs.  We did manage to have the big dog area to ourselves for a little while before an actual large dog showed up.  Then we decided we would come back another time when they could play freely with no worries.

 

 

The dog park did have agility training equipment. Which we really couldn't get any of the dogs to try.  Overall though they actually stuck together as they were exploring the area. Until another day though.

 

After the dog park, the steppie and I decided to take the kayaks and go explore one of the lakes that we always see on the way up.

 

 

The lake was Big Roche A Cri lake.   We explored the section Northeast of the bridge. There was not many boats on that side of the lake.  I am guessing it was due to the depth, which appeared to be very shallow.  We explored around the edge of the lake and discovered numerous abandoned piers yet the homes still stood towering above.  And with our adventurous side, took a little trip up the Roche A Cri creek that feeds into the lake.  Even though we could have kept going we decided better to turn around before we got completely lost.  Once we got home though, we mapped this out and will be making a future attempt to navigate the creek to the lake.

 

After resting, eating and things it was time to hit some geocaches..

 

 

Two of these had eluded us the last time we were up there...but we found them this time.  One of them was a great hide and thankfully the little bro had a great eye and caught an item that was out of place.   Otherwise the Queen of the Caches this weekend goes to little Miss K.  She found 2 of the 4...and in one of them she even scored a car air freshner, which made the little bro's trailer smell ever so fresh.

 

Then it was time for some campfire time before bed. 

 

Sunday came to be a rainy day, so we chilled in the trailer and napped. 

 

And then it was time to take things down and head home.  The things that I discovered that we need to fix for the next trip would be to ensure that I eat s'mores and have at least one pudge pie.  Neither actually happened on this trip.

 

 

Monday brought the yearning for some boating only for mother nature to not cooperate.  Instead I weeded the garden then we had the family over for some BBQ since we ate out on Sunday.  Since it was warm though we did get to have squirt gun fights, so in a round about way I did get to play with water.

 

Now for me to start thinking about my next excursions....



Wild - Book Review

 

Since it seems like it only took me forever and a day to finish this book, figured I would grace you with my thoughts on the book.   I can say the length of time for me to finish is not by any means related to the story.  I generally only read my books while I am on the elliptical or bike at the gym, which means books usually get a max 2 hours of my time each week (sadly).

 

My overall view of this book is ok.   Part of this is due to the personal perspectives or the issues that she was going thru that got her to the point of deciding to hike the trail.  Yes, I understand that this is what makes the book relatable; aka girl with personal problems goes off to conquer the world.  In that context a great book. My fault in reading this was probably due to me adding or thinking with the backpacking side of my brain where I was looking or more drawn in to the actual hidden trail information, the towns that were stopped at, the people along the way, food supplies, and  water sources type of commentary in the book.  Hence why it ended up with an ok.

 

Would I read it again, probably not.  Will I go see the movie...oh yes, because I would love to see how this translated to the big screen (except I truly am hoping that they left out the horse part).  I also hope that in the representation of the backpacking world they do not portray what Instyle deemed as necessary items for backpacking,  Must Have Hiking Gear. Because hello girl going in the woods is not some sort of fashion show and what your recommended I would no way put on my back nor body, especially for a trip that lasted months unless I planned on getting eaten by a bear early on and my corpse would be shown on a camera...it would look darn good then.

 

Enough of the ramble, quickly now. Thank you for introducing backpacking to the world and I am anxious to see the movie now.  That's it. Peace Out.

 

Have a glorious Memorial Day Weekend!

 

 

 

 

Ghosts of Weekend Past

Welcome to Monday...and a Monday it is. This week being particularly hard for me to engage since I have part of the day tomorrow and some of Wednesday.  Ok now back to the weekend...it started out with a bit of a nail biter on Friday night.  Forest's baseball game was a tie in the seventh inning. Sadly though they lost, it was a good game though.

Saturday morning found me doing the nurses run with L.   Sadly this time I could not talk the hubbie into doing one again.  I will though...someday.

I missed my goal time again on this one.  I can say though it was a warm muggie one in the morning.  Now I will be working harder and making sure to clock in some outdoor miles versus just treadmill.  It is the off season for me...aka this chic don't race in hot weather....perfect time to train and set up my fall plans.

After that it was off for a pedi...which ended up ruined due to the humidity in the air.  After that the master plans changed and my hubbie and daddie put the trailer stuff (real technical, I know) on our beloved green burrito and camper.  Since I couldn't be on the boat or jetski and it was warm I did the next best thing...went to spend sometime with my littles.

Check out the lounge chair...it is so awesome.  And I did get to go on the water at least with my Cooper via the kayak.  I have declared him my kayaking buddie.  We saw a chicken, a tire in the water, and the farm ducks with a little baby.

Since I had a little time left before our dinner plans, I did manage to squeeze in some time on the jetski.  Of course, it is having starting issues.  So we will need to play with it more to figure it out.  I was able to make it to the little bro's and back to the dock without running out of gas.  Yes, running out of gas is a major fear for me.

Then it was off to dinner.  We tried a new restaurant and my phone died.  While the food was good, it was not worth what we paid for it.  Part of all of this is that I probably set my expectations to high.  Because really there is no way someone in Wisconsin can mimic the goodness of New Orleans. The funniest part of the night was when the hubbie and I saw a picture of the Pearl, a New Orleans restaurant, that gave us food poisoning.  Thankfully this restaurant did not follow suit.

Sunday morning found us being leisurely getting our stuff done.   Then in the afternoon we got the garage all cleaned out.   And I discovered that our little mouse friends that decided to live in the garage over winter didn't get enough bird seed and started eating some of the lawn fertilizer, now that takes food poisoning to a whole new level.  No dead mice...but there was quite a bit of poop.  And another major accomplishment of the day...I broke down and planted my flowers before Memorial Day.

 

After all was said and done family dinner and trip to the ice cream station before the start of our new week.  What did you accomplish this weekend?  And let's hear it for more summer weekends

 

 

Ghosts of Weekends Past - Camping Time

Warning...get ready for a picture heavy post going on. This weekend we took our new camper on it's very first "official" camp trip.  We opted for a park close to home...well because you know, what if something would happen or we would forget something.  And getting on with it...

First up for the weekend was hitting starbucks for a half priced frap....this weeks choosing was s'mores, of course.

And car mouse approved.

 

Then it was off to catch some of my son's baseball game...where I got a little puppie fever again. I mean look at this little ball of fluffy adorableness.

Five weeks old and a Chihuahua/jack russell mix.

 

After all that it was finally time to pack up the last few things and head to the camper.  When we arrived our company aka my mommie and little bro already had the fire going and to close out our evening a little Cards Against Humanity with my teenagers.

 

Now to be honest it was a rough night in the camper.  We had the reminder of why we are not super thrilled about campgrounds...que the loud drunk neighbors and then across the way there was a kennel company who kept their dogs in the trucks at night (this was wrong on so many levels argh) and said dogs would randomly bark setting off our dogs.  Sleep equaled crap. Then it was birding weekend at the marsh, so after a craptastical sleep night, we felt like we were on display when the birders decided that 6:30 AM would be a great time to walk around the campground.

 

 

Oh yeah I completely took a picture of them, since for a brief moment we felt like we were animals on display at a zoo. 

 

Lunch consisted of crescent dogs before our little hike to find the last geocache that we had to find at the park. Ok...ready lets go on a little hike.

 And down we go for our little geocache.

Needless to say we do quite a bit of dog passing to scale down these rocks

 And she found it...there was so much garbage in the area it was almost overlooked.  We have decided to go back and do some clean up plus put a better log book in it.

 

Hard to tell, but behind the steppie was 2 x 3 foot hole that we crawled thru.  The picture of me is when I was coming out of it.  Good thing it didn't rain the day before or it would have been even worse of a muddie mess.

 

Then we grabbed the hubbie and other two pups for another short little hike.

On our hike I also had my new Fuji insta camera, I took one picture because damn that film is expensive, but as we were walking these boys saw me holding the picture.  They were just taken back that I had a picture, so I made their whole family get together and took a picture for them.  Needless to say they were so excited to watch the picture develop and they have a little keepsake from their adventure...it was a fun, great moment.

 

Let's take a look at the heart on the tree...clearly it should not be there.  Please people stop ruining nature. By this time everyone was hungry.

 

 

No camp trip would be complete without pizza pudgie pies.

 

My mom and dad stopped out for a bit and we made some s'mores....vanilla caramel marshmallows people, find them, get them, eat them..Delicious.

 

And the campground had one of those little libraries...and this book was in it.  I couldn't believe it.

Then I found out the steppie hasn't read it...say what?!?  Guess what I will be getting.  Saturday night we took the dogs home and we got some well needed rest.  Sunday morning was for donuts, taking down camp, and getting home before the rain started.   Rest of Sunday found us doing the norm...cleaning, laundry....and we opted for some Chinese for our Sunday family dinner, egg drop soup for the win.

 

And that is our little camper adventure.

 

 

 

 



 



 

Ghosts of Weekend Past

When a weekend starts with a 1/2 priced caramel frap from Starbucks, really how could a weekend go bad. Even car mouse approves.

Friday evening found me watching my son's baseball game.  They won it was awesome.  What was even more awesome was the kid from the other team that liked to heckle his teammates while they were up to bat.  Of course, I have a video of this...sorry can't share that would not be right but some of the creativity that came out of that young man's mouth.

 

 

Saturday morning started with me hitting the local high school greenhouse to get my flower baskets and a flower basket for my mommie for mother's day.  Those ones with the peachie flowers and a dark purple black...oh just beautiful.

 

 

The hubbie took me out to my favorite"chic" restaurant for breakfast.  And I can say that I seriously had the best piece of bacon, I have ever had in my entire life.  We had a glorious conversation with the chef about bacon, places to eat, and the overall glory of food and savoring a meal.  With full bellies we stopped at the feedmill for the puppies and outside birds (who need jobs to pay some rent because they eat a lot).  Then it was off to pop some tags and get some things for the new camper.

 

 

 My afternoon was spent getting the camper all packed up and figuring out what we still needed.  Plus letting the pups get used to hanging out in there.

 

In the evening I had a jetski date with my Forest.  It was his first time out on it.  We had a few little issues, but overall think he liked it.  He is anxious to get his boater's license.  Plus the K got to go for a ride. And then it was dinner and chilling for the evening to get ready for the next morning.

 

 

 

Sunday morning was Race Day.  Weather man said it was going to be ok and then as we were driving the forecast changed.   And then I held my breathe, cursed a few times, it sprinkled and everything was fine for the race.  To be quite honest it was a little warm.  Plus a super extra bonus to my morning was that I talked the hubbie into doing his very first 5k.  He was awesome and PR'd, of course it was his first one, but hey he did it and you need to set the bar somewhere.  Made me feel a little better since normally he just hangs out and waits for me and since he has been walking anyways, why not walk a 5k plus get a t-shirt.

 

At one point he goes to me, did you see the little baby goats?  I am like no I was racing, darn it I need to look around more.  Speaking of racing while I did not get a PR for this course, I did

 

 

End up with a third place win for my age group.  I completely was not expecting that and I am always grateful when I place.  My goal is always: 1. Finish and 2. Better myself.   The bettering myself was difficult though, my inner bitch was pissing, moaning, and complaining very loudly. Turns out that the course changed since the last time I ran it...which meant there were a few less flats.

 

Just one big continuous climb.  The one little stretch in there that was flat...a girl was like ok take this time to recover.  Now I see why, it was an uphill battle to the finish.

 

 

I made it though...and then I went back to walk for a bit with the hubbie and catch his very first finish.  Since we worked so hard, we treated ourselves to Culvers.  Rest of the afternoon was spent getting the house stuff finished for the week and some family dinner time and there you have the weekend that was. 

 

Now to rest up for next weekend and our first big camp trip..