Coral fingers, vasolined feetsies, scrabble and steps

I painted my fingernails last night. I never ever have color on my nails - it's just one of those things that has always looked better on other people, but mine are always natural. I'm not attached; I'll probably take it back off tomorrow.

I did my fingernails because I was doing my toenails now that my feet aren't completely hideous these days. I've always had bad feet; eczema, cracks, dryness... Lotion doesn't help, steroid creams are expensive and make them tender. I usually give up, but last week someone on Style Lush commented about using vasoline on dry winter hands and I thought, "what the hell" and it worked! Two days later and my feet are much more presentable than they have been in quite some time. Deserving of a mini pedi, even. So thanks, Style Lush!

I've been addicted to wordfeud on my cell phone for a few months now, and now I'm on Words With Friends too, which is almost as much fun (buggy for the android but prettier). Are you on either? Are there any better word games out there?

HENRY TOOK TWO STEPS YESTERDAY. He was holding on to the couch, but still! He saw daddy and decided he wanted to be over there and shuffled his little self over. Ridiculous, I tell you! 6 months old and trying to walk; I think I'm going to have a heart attack before he's two.

We all had a fabulous time at Disney on Tuesday; I just realized that I haven't blogged about it yet. Spencer loved it, went on all the rides and was so good all day. No stroller so he walked all day and stood in line and we were there until the fireworks ... It was a long long day. I'll probably post a few pictures for my Friday post. Toodles!

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What? My pants are falling down?* Time for TOT

I had planned on running this morning, but I wanted to wear pants because it's chilly and my yoga pants are not fit properly for running. My neighbor leaving for work almost got to see my pants around my thighs (really, not a pretty sight). Rather than come in and change, I just discontinued my run for today. I was on the fence about going anyhow - my ankle hurts a little from my weekend exercise, we're going to Disney today and I'm sure I'll be tired from all that walking, and Henry was up for 2 1/2 hours screaming (damn teething). So I got two houses down, turned around and came home. Looks like I have time to blog before getting ready to go! Here's Ten on Tuesday!

1. How did your parents decide on your name?
My mom said that she named me April because she didn't know anyone else named that. Of course, it ended up one of the most popular names of my year, and I get to explain to everyone I meet that no, I was not born in April. Thanks, Mom.

2. Do your initials (First, Middle, Last) spell out anything fun/funny?
Nope. I used to be ALJ, and now I'm ALB. ALF would be funny though.

3. Did you take your middle name from childhood or did you take your maiden name as your middle name? (If unmarried, what do you plan to do?)
I kept my middle name because my last name was ridiculously common. Why bother?

4. Are you or will you name your children thematically (ie. same first letter, all of same origin…)
Nope.

5. Did you decide on baby names as a little girl? Did you stick to them or change your mind?
I didn't, but my husband has been stuck on Isabella since he was in high school.

6. Does your family have any names that have been passed down through generations?
My first son's middle name is my husband's first name, which is my FIL's middle name. My second son's first name is my husband's grandmother's name (the masculine version), and his middle name is my husband's grandfather's name (which has been used about 8 times within the family for first and middle names).

7. Do you look at the meaning of the name or just the name itself?
I look at the meaning just so it's nothing bad, but not otherwise. Spencer means servant, and Henry means king. We might have role problems later in life.

8. Do you name pets with human names (Sally, Henry) or with pet names (Fluffy, Mr. Bo Bo)?
Our dogs' names were Lola and Jazzy. I assume one could be named Lola, but I should hope not.

9. Are there any names that you have an affinity or dislike for based on a childhood experience/someone you once knew?
There are some family names/ex-family names I wouldn't use.

10. What are some of your favorite names? Why?
I'm addicted to girls' names lately, which is funny since I'm NOT HAVING ANY MORE CHILDREN. I like Sylvia, Margaret, Margot, Claire ... and a whole bunch more. If Henry was going to be a girl, he probably would have been Eleanor. He's going to hate that when he gets older.

For more TOT, visit Chelsea.

*pants not falling off due to weight loss. I buy my yoga pants for comfort and not for working out, so they're just big.

Screams and shorts

I'm blogging as an alternative to going in to rescue Number Two, who woke up 5 minutes after falling asleep and is now crying in bed. Damn it, this has got to stop. We're six months old, dern it.

It's been quite a day. I got up and ran 4.2 miles which felt great. I took longer on my first mile, but I actually ran every mile pretty close to the same speed, and while I didn't run the whole thing I felt good afterward. Not like I needed to die. Not like I was going to collapse but not like I didn't work hard either. 4.2 miles, 53 minutes. Seriously, over 4 miles. FOUR MILES.

Of course, I then came home to find that my dear toddler had decided that Disney wasn't enough entertainment for him this morning and started pulling off the buttons from my laptop. I'm now missing the backspace, the \| key, the enter, tab and the `~ key. He also pulled off the page up/down keys, home, delete, end, caps lock and the left shift button but the Hubby was able to get those back on (well, the left shift is a little ... shifty). I'm still at that point where I'm so mad I'm resigned to ignoring the whole situation. Honestly, I need a new laptop anyhow - the battery doesn't work, we had to replace the plug once and the new one is half broken too, it causes sparks when I plug in ... it's a mess. But the stupid thing worked, and now I have to push the little spongy do-dads when I need one of those buttons.

In other you-never-thought-you'd-see-it news, I went shorts shopping today. I had a slight couple breakdowns - the first when I had a fat-attack in Loft because my stumpy legs are pasty white and um, stumpy), and the second when the Macy's shorts that fit me were several sizes bigger than my actual size (yes, juniors AND Macy's run small, so my 12 turns to a 15 but I just got down from a 14/16 to a solid 12. It's harrowing to have to buy a size 15 shorts). BUT I got through it and now have a couple pairs of shorts. Hmm. Hopefully I'll wear them. I definitely need to retire the maternity shorts that I pulled out this week.

Number Two is now officially cried-out, Number One is down and Hubby is opening a bottle of wine now that I've had two cups of coffee in attempts to wake the heck up this Saturday night. Let's go crazy!

Friday Bits

1) I wrote a post about a weird admirer I have at work (Suz, you might remember him as the “stalker”) but I’m hesitant to post it. Needless to say, I have this admirer/stalker at work who I like talking to because he’s a nice guy but then I get weird emails about him wishing that I wasn’t married, or telling me how nice I looked … it’s creepy, and I wish he could just be normal and we could have a nice work friendship but I’m pretty sure I’m just going to have to put the kibosh on that relationship.

2) I also wrote a post about last weekend’s race, but I never got around to posting it and I think it’s probably irrelevant now. The only picture I have of us all is when we were seriously sweaty after the race, because dude, it was hot. What business do they have starting a run at 9:30am in Florida? Yeah, yeah, the 15k started at 7am. Dude, it was hot.

3) I need to stop saying Dude.

4) I’ve gotten addicted to my phone again, with checking FB and my GoogleReader and my email. Today I actually put it away in my purse and put it on my work calendar to look at it at 10am and 2pm. Let’s see if that curbs the cravings. (update: I was good before the 10am check, but I couldn't hold out for the 2pm)

5) This is how cute my boys looked at last weekend’s wedding. When I dressed Spencer he said he was wearing a “daddy” shirt and that now he was the daddy. Because all daddy wears are button-downs. It was adorable.





6) I made awesome chicken enchiladas tonight for dinner. And I was good and only had one instead of stuffing in a second one ... which I easily could have done.

7) I broke into the Top 10 of BBL! I'm so excited, even though the people ahead of me are likely way ahead of me. Still, out of 109 people at the start, I'm now officially #9 (mostly because I stuck with it, I'm sure, and not because I've lost a serious amount of weight). I'm sure as hell going to go running tomorrow! I've come this far, I hope I can stay on the leader board for the next 4 weeks!

Can you see me now?

The photos that didn't post before.

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Half-written

I've been blogging all week. Surprising, yes? Since you haven't seen them at all. I keep writing on my breaks at work and emailing them to myself, but then when I get home it's so beautiful outside that I can't keep myself in long enough to copy and paste and attach the requisite photos. So here's one that was texted to me at work yesterday.

Seriously. He's 6 months old - why does he insist on growing up so fast??? Yesterday he finally got the hang of crawling on a flat surface - he's been making his rounds for a month, and outside on a blanket in the grass he had the mechanics of the movement down, but inside he still couldn't get it. But last night he put it all together, started crawling and subsequently brought himself over to the coffee table and climbed up it. I'm dying here.

Otherwise, my 5k was good; I cut nearly 5 minutes off my last minutes off my last official race (although it was still slower than my last run on my own) and I have another in 3 weeks. My goal had been that I would wait to start adding on distance until I could do 5k in 30 minutes, but I don't honestly know when that will happen so I'm thinking of adding a mile after this next run. That way I can get the hang of 4 miles for a while and then move up to 5, etc.

I don't think I have it in me to sprint to the end of the race on BBL, and win or anything. I think I would have to not eat for the next month. I have lost 19 lbs and counting though, which puts me at lighter than I've been in 8 years. So I'm going to keep chipping away at it, and I'm not giving up. I have 25 lbs I'd like to lose. Doing as much as I have in the last two months, weight wise and running wise has only shown me that I can do it. I can. And I will run that 10k in November.

And if I can do it, you can too; 6 months ago I would have laughed in your face if you told me I was going to be this active or this motivated.

On a lighter note, I was almost out of the house this morning when I realized that the shirt I had on had a 1-inch hole in the nipple area. The cream colored bra I had on masked it for me and I was about 30 seconds from being in the car on my way to work. How embarrassing would have that been? Eek!

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Friday bits

1) this sign has been up in the bathrooms at work for EEVER, and every time I see it, it makes me giggle.

2) I hate my sister. I wish I could go into more depth, but she is draining my entire family of any empathy. It's no longer about love or forgiveness or understanding. It's about self-preservation and I'm sick of ignoring what she puts people through.

3) I wish my mother could hate her too - it would be so much healthier for her.

4) the gasparilla 5k is tomorrow morning. My friend's wedding is tomorrow night. I'm doing both. So is the friend who is getting married, as well as a few of the bridesmaids.

5) I stayed out too late last night at my monthly girls' night/play date, but I had so much fun. I did feel guilty leaving early before Spencer got up this morning because I know it was rough for him and daddy. He didn't go to sleep until after 10pm. He was having too much fun too!

6) as of an hour from now, my husband will be officially laid off. I'm nervous.

7) I had a horrible headache today, and I broke down and had a soda. And it was a cherry coke zero, and it was heaven.

8) I'm reading a fascinating book right now: Listen, by Rene Gutteridge. It was a free or cheap book from Nook a couple weeks ago. Not sure where it's going yet, but I can't wait to find out. In the meantime I have so many books waiting in the wings I almost wish I was the one jobless so I had time to read them all.

9) pretend I didn't say that. Then find me some wood to knock on.

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