My favorite things

I love candy. Love it. As in like it more than most people like their dogs. I openly admit it is a huge weakness for me. Husband is a take it or leave it kind of guy. I fully agree with this New York Times article: Is Sugar Toxic? That sugar is causing obesity, heart disease, cancer and a whole slough of other problems (rotted teeth). But I really like it.

Why am I babbling about Candy? Because I haven't eaten it for almost 4 months. B and I gave it up for New Years. It really was after he teased me about liking it so much and I said "Fine, New Years Resolution for both of us: No candy" I forgot that the Easter season is a candy lovers dream. Need evidence?

I think I was really hoping someone would bring him some at work and he would eat it, tell me and then it would be off by now. Not even close. He is solid. Sweets in general aren't tempting to him. And after he read about Steve Nash, a professional basketball player, who doesn't eat sweets and has inspired Shaq to go sugar free too, he was even more set on the dangers of white granulated goodness (or gloppy processed from corn goodness).

For anyone reading this, could you send B a snickers bar to his work address, then I won't eat them and maybe he will? Thank you in advance.

I bought a brush

My hair use to be real short. I loved it. B hopes I never cut it again. It was so short I would weave my fingers through it and it would be done. Now my hair is real long. It has been growing for two years. I still just finger comb it. I finally bought a brush tonight. I am pretty excited about this purchase. I hope it actually reduces frizz Like the packaging says it will (yeah right) when DC turns into a hot swamp this summer.

A runner is born.

Two marathons
Two relay Races
One Half Marathon
Three years of pacing a running group

And....

I AM A RUNNER!!

Running has always been tough for me. I get bored, I don't like it, I would rather do something else. I have a lot of excuses, but I keep at it. It is the easiest form of exercise to do. You just have to have shoes. And you can do it anywhere in any weather.

But it has been so hard for me. Running long distances hasn't ever agreed with me. My knee hurts, my legs go dead, I had some ligament problem in my foot for months. Plus my lungs feel like they are going to generally explode after about a mile. In elementary school I would always be slow in the mile run.

Somehow though, on my ten mile training run for an upcoming half-marathon, I broke through. I felt real good. At mile 5 about the time I was staring at this:

I wanted to keep going. This is rare. Normally at mile 5 I would want to catch a cab. But I plugged along and felt good. I am getting excited for our Half-marathon in two weeks. Our office is doing it together (all three of us) and it should be a blast. I am still slow, but slow and steady crosses the finish line, right?

This winter I seemed to watch a lot of movies. It was cold and dreary and I had no desire to go outside. There are a few movies I adored. Here they are:

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

Garrett, Bryson and I watched this while G was visiting us. All three of us loved it. I think this is a diverse enough sample group that it will entertain everyone. This documentary tells of Steve Wiebe trying to break the Donkey Kong world record which was held by Billy Mitchell. I got so into the movie I yelled at the TV and almost cried. Hollywood could not have created better characters, and these are real people. Totally family friendly.

Lars and the Real Girl

I think I have cried in three movies in my life. This is one of them. The description of the movie sounds like it could be scandalous. It isn't. Lars brings home the girl of his dreams- the problem is she is a doll. The storyline is hilarious and moving and the acting is great.

Running

My office mates and I have been training for a half-marathon. This past weekend I decided to run a 10k in preparation for it. It was incredibly windy yesterday morning, wind about 20 mph with gusts up to 40 mph and I figured my pace would be a little slower but not too much slower.

Mid-way through the race I saw the time and it was 10 min slower than I thought I would be. My first thought was "WHAT?!" At that point, that would mean I was running 3 min per mile SLOWER than normal. I was so upset. I thought I was going to be a little slower, but that was really slow. I really thought about quitting. I was sick of the wind and I was not in the mood to keep running. But I kept going. There were only 3 miles left and I figured my real goal was just to run the whole thing.

And then I finished. I was pretty happy to be done. Running in the wind is a rough. I then checked my time. The time we almost exactly my normal pace.

There was a 5k that started 10 min before the 10k and that is when the clock was started. So, when I saw my time, I should have subtracted 10 min. I was really happy that in the wind I stayed on pace.

I learned that sometimes things aren't as bad a they seem. And that I shouldn't give up. All these reasons to love running. Which I am really starting to do.

GOP Candidates

I am against the two year long races for President/Senate/Congress. Too long. And for House members, that means they are running for the next race their whole term. Since this is an off year though, and next year is a presidential election, people are buzzing with guesses on who is running next year. I keep reading about potential candidates and it is getting interesting:

PalinHuntsmanRomneyTrump??

Taco Night

Bryson and I made Tacos last night. At the store I text him to see if he wanted soft or hard shells. He said both.

I understood why he wanted both when we were eating he made one of these:
and said "This [the double decker taco] might is the greatest culinary invention of the decade. "