Books of 2011

 Books of 2011

Here's my now annual "books I've read this year" list. (Still too much juvenile and young adult fiction, but I love it.)

If I tagged you, it's because I know you love books.

Here they are in chronological order. Read to the end to get the ones I thought were the best.

1. Found (Juvenile)
2. Sent  (Juvenile)
3. The Maze of Bones  (Juvenile-39 Clues series)
4. The People of Sparks  (Juvenile)
5. Catching Fire (young adult) 
6. Jemima J  
7. One False Note  (Juvenile-39 Clues series)
8. The Sword Theif  (Juvenile-39 Clues series)
9. Beyond the Grave  (Juvenile-39 Clues series)
10. The Black Circle  (Juvenile-39 Clues series)
11. Sabotaged (Juvenile)
12. In Too Deep (Juvenile-39 Clues series)
13. The Vipers Nest (Juvenile-39 Clues series)
14. The Emperor's Code (Juvenile-39 Clues series)
15. Storm Wanring (Juvenile-39 Clues series)
16. Into the Gauntlet (Juvenile-39 Clues series)
17. I Still Dream About You
18. Angry Housewives Eating Bon-Bons
19. Gods in Alabama
20. Ravenous (Non-fiction)
21. Matched (young adult)
22. Fly Away Home
23. Mini-Shopaholic
24. Gone (Juvenile)
25. New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance (Non-fiction)
26. Year of Wonders
27. Revelations of a Single Woman (Non-fiction)
28. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society
29. Are you there, vodka, it's me, Chelsea? (Non-fiction)
30. The Westing Game (Juvenile)
31. Chelsea, Chelsea, Bang Bang (Non-fiction)
32. Bossypants (Non-fiction)
33. Revolution (young adult)
34. City of Fallen Angels (young adult)
35. The 13 Reasons Why (young adult)
36. A Northern Light 
37. Commencement
38. The First Husband
39. Okay for Now (young adult)
40. Delrium (young adult)
41. Stories I Only Tell My Friends (non-fiction)
42. Divergent (young adult)
43. Sisterhood Everlasting (young adult)
44. Tinkers
45. The Island
46. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Juvenile)
47. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Juvenile)
48. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Juvenile)
49. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Juvenile)
50. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (young adult)
51. Harry Poter and the Half Blood Prince (young adult)
52. Prid and Predjudice and Zombies
53. Made to Crave (Non-fiction)
54. Fat Chance (Non-fiction)
55. Name of the Wind
56. Wise Man's Fear
57. The Little Women Letters
58. Good and Beautiful God (non-fiction)
59. Summer of my German Soldier (young adult)
60. The Little Book
61. Wednesday Letters
62. Me and Mr. Darcy 
63. The Murderer's Daughters
64. The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner (young adult)
65. Ready Player One
66. The Girl with the Pearl Earring
67. Night Circus

 

The books I would most highly reccommend to other adults are:

New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance

Revolution

The Little Book

Night Circus

Ready Player One

Divergent

A Northern Light

 

Top 5 Accomplishments of 2011

Without further adieu, here is today's Top 5 post.
Top 5 Personal Accomplishments of 2011
5. Europe. I finally made it to another continent besides North America on this epic trip. I saw many Harry Potter sites, climbed to the top of Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower and learned the beauty of an evening spent in an English pub.

4. Continuing my blog for over a year. When I started the blog, I wasn't sure I'd make it a month, let alone more than a year.  Keeping up with the blog is hard because it makes me face some hard truths, publicly.  But if I can't share this journey with all of you blog readers, what's the point?

3. Completing the U.S. Marine Corps Mud Run. It was muddy. It was hard. It was ridiculous. It was a team effort.

2. Jumping out of a perfectly good aircraft. A life goal achieved and documented with the help of two cute and courageous sky diving boys.

1. The Turtle Crawl Triathlon. Easily one of the hardest physical and mental things I've done, but made easier by the support of my friends.

What are you proud to have accomplished this year?

Top 10 Blog Pictures of 2011

Top 10 Blog Pictures of 2011.

10. Hard to believe my niece Natalie Grace is almost a year old. Last January was a scary time, with her arriving early and having to have surgery at four days old, but now she's a happy, healthy 11.5 month old! PS if you read all the way to the bottom of this post, I'll reward you with an adorable recent picture of sweet Natalie.

9.  Hard to believe all it took was a trip to Europe to unleash the style maven in me.  

 

8. Remember all of those crazy vegetable posts from my CSA-box this summer? Seems like a lifetime ago.

7. Blue sky, bottom side of plane, me gasping for breath, cute sky diving instructor. Does it get any better? 

6. Two years later, and I still haven't lost 100 pounds. Whether I lose it or not, life is still happy.

5. Isn't this the most amazing picture ever?

4.Some of my favorite people working to Stop Hunger Now.

3. Team Ridiculous

2. My color coordinating running partner in crime

1 The four fives.  I love these girls.

That's it. My top 10 blog pictures of 2011.  Each of them brings me such happy memories.

Now for your reward. Here's Natalie at 11ish months old. :)

Top 5 Lessons Learned this Year

In the manner of continued reflection, today's year-in-review Top 5 list is:

Top 5 Lessons Learned

Does dressing as diet soda mean I am not
drinking it in moderation? Most likely.

1. Ab work is a self confidence booster
2. It is possible to give up diet soda, but drinking it in moderation is better.
3. Endorphins make you happy.
4. Just be interesting. Accept nothing less.
5. Never stop trying.

What are some lessons you learned this year?

Top 10 Posts of 2011

Hello! I hope you have not missed me too much since my last post on Christmas Adam.  I wasn't much in the mood to blog as I was too enthralled with eating delicious Christmas goodies like cookies and jello salad and dilly dip (those are my favorite of the Christmas goodies.)

This week between Christmas and New Year's is one of my favorites.  Not just because we get the week off of work, and there is almost always a Mafia party,* but because it's the time of year when the world reflects on how far we've come during the past 12 months.  We reflect, and then we turn it into lists.  Two of my favorite things.

In honor of the end of 2011, a pretty spectacular year in my life, I'm going to make lots of lists about the year this week and share them with you.

Today's list contains the Top 10 blog posts of 2011 from Lost and Not Found.  I wrote more than 240 posts this year, but these are the ones of which I am most proud, in no particular order.

Living in the Gray
Beginning to Run and Beginning to Run Part Two
Bricks are a Beast
Today's Affirmations
Nocturnal
Mama
Thunder Thigh
The Amie Outlook on Life
Happiness and Farm Fresh Friday
Loved

If you haven't checked out these posts, might I suggest that you do?

*Don't know what Mafia is? It's my favorite game and it involves lying and killing. It really doesn't get any better than this.

Merry Christmas Adam!

Short post today. I'm departing for my parents' house any minute, but just wanted to take time to thank you for your support this year. I'm not the best of weight loss bloggers, but I have a great community that supports me as I keep trying. For that I'm truly grateful.


Plus, I had a really great run this morning, which is always a great way to kick off the weekend.


Now me and the Christmas tree eating Bons are off!

*i know it's not the best pic of me and Bons, but she was eager to get on the road

Thankful Thursday: December 22

Mostly, tonight, I'm thankful for Christmas break.
Here's to 10 straight days off of work!

Merry Christmas!

The Joy of Christmas Traditions

A few of my favorite Stuckey family Christmas traditions...

Arriving at church 45 minutes early on Christmas eve to make sure our whole family can find a spot to sit together.

Baking Christmas cookies, shaped as Santas, trees, snowmen, stars, or gingerbread men.

Crooning along to Bing Crosby's Christmas record, or these days MP3 files, especially Mele Kalikimaka (it's the thing to say on a bright, Hawaiian Christmas day).


"Organizing the presents" with my sister Mandy, which may or may not be an elaborate ruse for seeing the shapes of our own presents and helping each other guess what they could be.

The Stuckeys in 1980 on our homemade holly rug.

Sampling our favorite foods at our "snack supper" on Christmas Eve.

Singing "O Holy Night" amidst the candlelight at church.

Insisting on opening presents from youngest to oldest, because I was the youngest for the first eight years of my life.  Even after Mandy came along, second youngest is better than fifth oldest.

Racing my brother and sisters to be the one to put the daily ornament on the advent calendar.

Sitting at the top of the stairs on Christmas morning waiting for Mom and Dad to "make sure Santa came."



As I've grown older, Christmas has become less about the presents I receive and more about the time spent with family. I can't wait to see my family in two days. What's one of your family's favorite Christmas traditions?

AIRobics

Pineville, N.C. has a new trampoline center called Sky High Sports.  Picture a warehouse covered in trampolines, including the walls.
How awesome is this?

 It's being billed as a kids play place, BUT it also has fitness classes on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. At $7 a pop, AIRobics could get a little pricey, but I'm desperate to give it a try. 

The website describes it like this:

AIRobics is low impact fat burning exercise that improves balance and coordination and it is fun and energizing! The workout consists of moves from many different workout activities, and it incorporates some moves that can only be done on a trampoline. Studies show that an hour of jumping on a trampoline burns over 1000 calories. It's the best cardio you'll ever enjoy.

Who wants to go with me?  I'm thinking this Thursday or next Thursday at either 6 p.m. or 7 p.m. Seriously, I'm looking for volunteers here. Let me know. I would even go tonight if you want to go. Give me a call! 

My Weekend in Pictures

Having a great time in Wilmington! Enjoying delicious foods and funny friends.
Enjoy some pictures!

Cara Chip Face

On the coast

Caution! Slippery when Wet

Road Trip!

Photo bomb

Christmas Cookie Goodness

Goldi-Jill

For some reason, perhaps because I'm off track on goals this week because of the sickness, I've been wacked out on the amount of soda I've been drinking.

I'm back to drinking way, way too much.  Today, when it got to be 1:30 p.m., and I hadn't had any water I forced myself to drink nature's nector instead of diet cherry coke.  I KNEW I needed the water. I could tell. My mouth was constantly dry no matter how much I drank, I was getting a headache and I was just feeling off. Still, it was really hard to reach for the water bottle instead of the soda. Addiction, crazy stuff, huh?

Even now, when I've downed two liters of agua, I feel better but not completely normal. I guess because I'm still low on water for the day/week.

So clearly, I've had way too much.  But I don't feel like my reaction should be to go completely off of Diet Coke.  When I give up Diet Coke completely I miss the sound of the can cracking open and the fizz that immediately follows.  I miss the icy feeling on my throat and the little kick of the caffeine.

It occurred to me that it's rather like the story of Goldilocks and three bears.  The amount of soda I had this week was too much.  Going cold turkey is too little. I need to navigate the Diet Coke waters to find the amount that makes me exclaim, "This Diet Coke is just right!"

I think it's two cans a day, but I need to stick to that better.

I really think the Goldilocks principle (beside being about an intrusive little blonde) applies to much more in life. Have you ever experienced the "just right"ness of something similar?

Have a great weekend!

Thankful Thursdays: Dec 15

Last night as I was falling asleep I was thinking about all of my thankful things for today, which was great.  Not so great?  Falling asleep and forgetting everything by the time I woke up. Good news, that means I get to start over with new thankful things today!
Today I'm thankful:

That my stove is fixed.

That means I can start baking Christmas cookies!

That I get to see this lovely lady this weekend.

April moved away a few months ago, but this weekend, we're roadtripping to visit her!

That people care about rolling down hills.

I posted this random status on Facebook last night about how I want to roll down a hill at work and got a whole lotta thoughts on whether I should pursue this dream.  I haven't done it yet, but the response was overwhelmingly positive, so I think I really have to do it now.

That a co-worker is giving her husband skydiving tickets.

This is not just an excuse for me to post a skydiving picture of myself. I might be more excited about this present for a man I've only met once then I am for any that I bought for my family (sorry, family). Skydiving was discounted on Living Social a few weeks back, and I told her about it and she immediately snapped up the deal for herself, her husband and her daughter. She says her husband has always wanted to jump. I can't wait to hear how much he loved the gift when we return to work in January.

That Christmas is just around the corner!

I get to see my sister and likely take more fun pictures like this one. (hehe, she doesn't read my blog so she'll have no idea I posted this of her. I'm sneaky.) Time spent with family and a week off are two wonderful gifts.

As always, I'm wondering what you're thankful for this week.  Share in the comments below.

My Sickness of Choice

Now that I am fully recovered from my recent sickness, I have a lot of thoughts on the subject.  Really, the stomach sickness is my preferred type of sickness*. And here's my top five reasons why:


5. I think it shrunk my stomach.
Yesterday and today I have not eaten much.  This morning I ate my normal breakfast and then wasn't hungry until 1 p.m. That's unheard of. Usually I'm about ready to gnaw my arm off by 9:30 or 10, which is when I turn to my trusty snacks.  Today I started back on my exercise routine, though, so I bet my appetite returns tomorrow. And while I do not, in any way, endorse bulimia, between the up-chucking and the not eating anything, surely I lost some weight. I won't know until Friday when I weigh-in, but here's to a sickness that could potentially help with weight loss!

4. You get a little sympathy.

Everyone knows exactly what you're going through and gives you heartfelt sympathetic reactions when they hear. Of course this also means you have people who will avoid you and anything you've touched for two weeks after, but I've got to respect that. No one wants to get sick.

3. I was definitely sick.
I have this thing where I feel guilty about calling in sick to work. All day I spend wondering if I should be at work, if I could be working through the hacking/sneezing/itching/exhausting symptoms of a cold or if I was right in staying home.  But when you have validation that you are sick coming out of your esophagus every few hours, you know you were right to stay home.

2. It doesn't hit me very often.
As I was staring at my toilet** throughout Sunday night, I started thinking about how often I had used it for this, most disgusting of disgusting uses of a toilet, and I think it was only once before.  That means I've only thrown up once in four and a half years, if my memory serves, which of course, a lot of times it does not.  Regardless, it's not bad.

1. 24 hours and its over.

Once I made it to 24 hours, it was like I was a new person.  I felt completely fine yesterday, even rested.  I ate cautiously, but that was because I was nervous, not because I felt bad.  This totally beats cold-like symptoms, where you mope around for days or weeks, sneezing, blowing your nose, coughing or just feeling like you've been drug around a truck.  Wham, bam, no thank you, ma'am.

So while all sickness is no fun, I'd much prefer to deal with this every few years,*** then the perennial cold.   What do you think? Am I crazy?

*Under no circumstances are you allowed to remind me of this post the next time I have the stomach sickness and say, "But Jill, isn't this your preferred type of sickness?" Sarcasm will not be tolerated while I am puking my guts out.  
**If you are offended by the graphic nature of this post, I am sorry.  But also, you could just be glad there are no pictures.
***If you think I am offending the stomach sickness by being a bit too cheeky a bit too soon after my encounter then pray for me. I'm a little nervous myself.

Goals of the Week: December 12

You guys, I have been betrayed by my stomach. From Sunday night to Monday afternoon, I had a pretty horrific stomach bug. Sure, some might argue that my stomach owes me a little grief after I've spent most of my life abusing it with too much fried foods and chocolate.  But it didn't need to attempt to get its revenge by causing me to spend 24 hours hovering in the vicinity of my toilet so that I could make a quick dash in case my stomach got angry and started spewing like a volcano.  Not appropriate.

While I am infinitely better today, I'm hesitant to set several, if any, goals this week. First, I've already missed two days of working out, and I'm not back to eating full meals yet, (although the way my stomach is rumbling - in a good way - right now, I might be rectifying that tonight) so I'm pretty weak.

First let's review my previous Goals of the Week:
Last week

• Stick within my calorie budget each day This worked well for Monday through Wednesday...Thursday through Saturday this did not happen.
• Add in two strength training workouts. Checkmark!

The week before that.

• Exercise five times Checkmark!
• Run three times Checkmark!
• Drink 3 liters of water a day Checkmark!

This week:

Get back to drinking 3 liters of water a day

Work out three times, including at least one run and one strength session

Allow myself to recover

That's about all I've got the energy to think about right now.  Hopefully next week I can be a little more ambitious.

What are your goals this week? Or do you have any great stories from a time your stomach betrayed you? I know they're out there...

Sore City

Oh my goodness, you guys, I am SO SORE!

Like, for real.

In dutiful accordance with my GOTW, I wandered back into the weight room for the first time in almost two months on Wednesday. And now, 48 hours later, I am still hobbling around.

It's mostly my quads. I found a workout on a running blog I read and decided to try it. Almost every move involved some form of a squat. Don't get me wrong, I love a squat as much as the next girl, but there is something called too much of a good thing.

Now I'm walking stiff legged and have to be careful when lowering myself on to low chairs. Or, you know, the toilet.

While I'm sore now, I loved being back in the weight room. It makes me feel pretty powerful. Plus, I know it's good for me. I know lifting weight will pay dividends for me in the long run. (how's that for a financial metaphor on a Friday?)

I know from experience that being able to feel my muscles, especially my abs, boosts my self confidence a bunch. And hey, right now, at the beginning of this weight loss journey yet again, I could use any self confidence boost I can get.

I took this picture in the weight room today
because I noticed two curls were sticking
out of my head in a horizontal fashion.
I thought you would enjoy.  

So even though I'm barely moving today, I made my way (slowly) back to the weight room.  And you know what? It felt good.And I didn't take it easy on my sore quads one bit.

Happy Weekend!

Thankful Thursdays: December 8

Today I'm feeling slightly angry and a bit stubborn. My oven stopped working on Tuesday night, and I got it into my head that I could fix it, but I was met with obstacles with everything I tried to do.  So today I bit the bullet and called a service repairman.  I will have to pay a lot of money and will have to wait until Tuesday for it to be fixed, all of which rankles me a bit.  I would like to wallow in that, but it's Thankful Thursday, so I will let that rant be the end of it and move on to happier things.

Today I'm thankful for:

Work pants that are slightly looser.
Hallelujah! I can wear them and my legs still get some circulation! I'm not cut off at the waist any more.  What a difference two weeks can make.


Cherry Coke Zero, my new soda obsession

It's so good and it makes me feel like I can accomplish anything. Weird? Not to me. Seems perfectly logical.

Christmas decorations

I can neither confirm nor deny whether this was also on my list last week. But I love 'em. Also April had a contest for Christmas trees this week, and I got to look at a bunch of pretty pictures.

Christmas cookies
The best baker on campus,* Miss Linda, gave my office a batch of cookies that have big bits of Snickers inside them. They are AMAZING.  Picture melted caramel-y nougat. I would take a picture for you guys, but it wouldn't do them justice, and they're in a slightly public area (good for someone who doesn't want to look like a pig and keep going back for more) and I don't want my coworkers seeing me take pictures of cookies.

Being a youth leader

Working with youth has given me some great life-long friends like these girls: Amie, Taylor and Cara.  It's also giving me a free dinner at a great restaurant tonight for "Leader Appreciation" night. Both are very good things.


Wow, after writing this post I feel a lot better. I scrolled back up to the top to read through it before publishing and had already forgotten about the anger over the oven situation.  Being thankful is a great thing. So I think you should take a minute and remind yourself about what you're thankful for (and I'd love to see it in the comments section below.)
*This is an unofficial title. There has been no contest to declare her the best baker on campus.

What I'm Eating This Week

I'm eating two really easy and tasty meals this week, so I thought I'd share.

First, for lunches, I'm eating this:

Pita pockets, with sun-dried tomato hummus, a smattering of feta cheese and spinach.

It's yummy. I'm eating it with a side of Baked Doritos.

For dinners most night, I'm using a recent discovery, Steak-Umms.  It was part of the Bi-Lo Meal Deal a few weeks back. It's thinly sliced steaks that you find in the frozen section of the grocery store.  They cook in about a minute in a frying pan on the stove.  Each sheet of steak is only 100 calories. I cooked them up on Sunday and sauteed a batch of green peppers and onions too. Then each night I layer up a couple of the Steak-Umms, with onions, green peppers and just a bit of cheese on a nice Pepperidge Farm roll and toast the whole thing in the toaster oven. Served with mashed potatoes.

Toasted and delicious!

Goals of the Week: December 5

That's right, it's the start of another week, so it's time to set some new goals. But first, let's review last week's GOTW.

As a refresher, last week's goals were:

• Exercise five times, 45 minutes each.
• Run three times.
• Drink at least three liters of water a day.

And we could put a big ol' checkmark next to each of them.  I exercised five times, ran (or attempted, at least) three times and drank more than 3 liters of water each day.  This week, I aim to continue each of these.

However, I need to progress and set some new goals for this week.  So here's what I'm working toward this week:

1) Stick within my calorie budget, as determined by my Loseit.com profile, each day (including Friday and Saturday?!?).

I started faithfully logging calories last week, but went over my budget most days.  

2) Add in two strength training workouts this week. I have not done any resistance training since I completed the Mud Run in mid-October, and friends that is shameful.  I can feel myself going flabby all over.  I haven't yet decided what to do in the weight room, but it might be one of these options that I found on Pinterest last night.

This looks a little intense. So maybe I will start with something a little simpler like the squats, pushups, planks, lunges and rows below? Not sure yet, but do something, I will.

What are your goals this week?  They say the first step to accomplishing goals is to figure out what they are and then write them down.  What are you waiting for?

Beginning with Pinterest

So today I joined Pinterest instead of spending time writing a blog.  And, of course, I love it, and I'm addicted.

Pinterest is a social networking site where people can virtual pin pictures of anything they find on the internet to virtual bulletin boards. Then they can go and see what their friends have pinned and look at pretty pictures and inspirational quotes and stuff.  There is a lot of good inspirational things for those of the healthy lifestyle persuasion, so I thought I'd share a couple with you tonight.

Classic.

A great flow chart.

You have to be invited to join Pinterest, but let me know if you want an invitation.

A Girl on the Run at the Reindeer Romp 5k

Dear Reindeer Romp,
I could not be more in love with you.  Please expect to see Cindy and I back next year, pounding your pavement.
Sincerely,
Jill











Seriously, guys, this was one of my most favorite races to date.*   We took off from Main Street amidst falling snow flurries (machine made).  There were more than 1500 runners and A LOT of them were Girls on the Run** and their dads.

We turned off of Main Street after one block, turned past Saturday Bike and Run, which is where I take my bike for service, and headed up Oakland Ave.

Oakland Ave runs from downtown Rock Hill past the college where I have lived, studied, worked and worked out for the past 14 years.  This is my home.

We turned off of Oakland Avenue onto a side street that led us past the nice houses that surround the university.   It was about this time that I first said to Cindy, "I AM LOVING THIS!"

When my Nike + (this is an app on my iphone that measures your distance via GPS) alerted me that we had made it one mile, Cindy and I started talking about taking our first walk break.  That's right, we had run the whole first mile, and we were doing awesome. We walked a minute and then went right back to running.

We wound out of the neighborhood, coming out right in front of Tillman Hall, the building where I work.  This might have been the second time I screamed something about loving this race.   We headed down Oakland and turned into campus at our beautiful main entrance.  There was the water stop.  Cindy was a few steps ahead of me, and I yelled to her that I was not going to stop for water.

Just then I heard someone yelling my name and turned to see two of my favorite high school seniors, Jessi and Jenna, handing out water at the water station! I had no idea they were going to be there.  I was so excited to see them and pumped that I was running good when they saw me. (Jenna said later it looked like I was sprinting...that's just how I run, Jenna.  But really, it just looked like I was going fast because everyone else was slowing down to stop for water.)

We made the loop around our auditorium and that's when I started getting really excited.  I pointed out to Cindy some of the important-to-me buildings. I said, "THIS IS WHERE I LIVE!"  I was really getting into it.***  Also, campus police officers were stopping traffic so it was fun to see more people I know, even though I didn't get to speak to them.

Cindy and I color coordinated for the Christmas race.

We headed out past Tillman and back onto Oakland for the return trip downtown.  We walked several more times, but always in really short spurts. Cindy and I make really great running partners because neither of us lets the other give up. We have pretty similar running abilities, so we understand how the other runs.

We walked up one side of the bridge that leads downtown. We decided to run the downhill side and keep running to the finish. It was probably about a half mile left to go.  I wanted to give up, but I was keeping an eye on my time via my phone.  I had in the back of my mind that I wanted to be faster than my first 5k race in April 2010, so I kept moving and even pushed to go harder. I crossed the line amidst more snow flurries at 35:15, about 20 seconds faster than that first race.  I was so glad.

Bonnie did not appreciate
the antlers.

Post race, pro-antlers

Another reason this race was awesome was that every runner got reindeer antlers in their goody bag. Most people ran with them, but Cindy and I stuck with our Santa hats.  Good thing, because most people ended up taking them off and holding them the rest of the race.





Afterwards, I wandered through all of the amazing, county-fair like street food vendors. I started thinking that I deserved a treat and almost walked over to the ATM to get cash to buy some fried Oreos or Snickers (I've never had them, have you?), but I decided to just go home.  But I was famished so I made this homemade pizza with spinach and pepperoni. Yum. A good day.

*Despite the fact that they had no timing system or even mile markers??. C'mon Rock Hill, let'st step it up a notch and try and look like we know what we're doing.


**This made for an interesting addition to the race.  A lot of the girls ran with their dads.  One thing I learned, dads and small girls are almost never the same pace.  Either the dads were dragging and being left in the dust by their daughters and looking like they'd rather be at home watching football, or the girls were tired of running and the dads were jogging in front of them backwards doing everything they could to coax them to keep moving.


***I'm sure my enthusiasm doesn't make sense to you, I can't really explain it. It was part race day adrenaline and part knowing that I know the streets around campus so well, and I've run them a million times. It was kind of thrilling.