I got my hair did last night so naturally I skipped this morning’s run to preserve the blowout.
Now my running group is calling me “Hairmarie.” I think it has a ring to it.
I do need to keep my muscles moving for Saturday’s OUC Half Marathon so I’ll ride my stationary bike tomorrow morning to keep moving. Until then, I’m going to enjoy not having to do my hair. 😉
Photo Source
I can spend hours upon hours enjoying the ridiculousness available at someecards.com so I was pleasantly surprised when I noticed Lululemon’s lovenotes on their website.
Yesterday I found my new favorite lovenote: “Let’s watch Love Actually together.”
Every year, my best lady friend hosts her annual Love Actually night for all us lady friends around the holidays. She cooks pasta, we bring wine and chocolate and other tasty treats and together we crowd around the TV and laugh together (and sometimes we sniffle a bit too). And it wouldn’t be our annual Love Actually night if my friend T didn’t spill some sort of red drink. This year I’m considering bringing her  a sippy cup.
So I, of course, shared this lovenote with our lovely party host. It’s such a simple holiday tradition, but it brings us ladies together every year and it always brings us joy and laughter. And a carpet or couch stain. But this year we will try to leave her house unscathed.
Which is your favorite lovenote? Â Do you have any holiday traditions with your lady friends?
Today I checked off three items on my to-do list so I’m feeling super accomplished:
My 5th Turkey Trot
New shoes, meet old shoes.
What did your Monday look like?
Every year Donnie and I love to dress up and head downtown for what never fails to be the best amazing people watching night of the year.
I always tend to pick my costumes by makeup. I love to play with makeup and Halloween is the perfect time for me to indulge. Donnie, on the other hand, tends to pick a costume day of and usually bases his decision on materials available or whatever slim pickings are left at the costume store. Here’s what we chose this year.
This year I dressed up like Natalie Portman’s character as the Black Swan from the movie, Black Swan. The makeup for this role was epic and I was dying to recreate the look.
I found this tutorial on YouTube on how to make it happen:
I had some leftover white costume makeup that I used for my face to get that pale look. I used my regular makeup to create the eye portion: black waterproof liner, black pencil liner, silver pencil liner and silver liquid liner. On my cheeks I used cheek stain and on my lips a dark red lip liner with black pencil liner for shading and a ruby red lipstick to top it off.
On Amazon.com I found a black halter leotard and a black tutu. I chose the halter style for the added support and I got lucky because it’s super comfy and I can pair it with sweat pants for strength workouts or yoga (which is on my TO-DO list). I had to search the Fashion Square mall high and low for white opaque tights (I found them in the very last department store I walked into). By the way, white tights are not flattering on my body type at all, but I was trying to stay true to the costume. Needless to say, I won’t be wearing these again. For shoes, I wore my pink flats from Aldo, which resemble ballerina flats. The tiara I got for $1.99 at Party City. I picked it up in the kids birthday section and popped the purple stones off that were on it.
As for Donnie, he left all brainstorming for a costume until the day of as usual. I’m not sure why, but the cult vampire flick The Lost Boys popped into my mind. I suggested he go as Keifer Sutherland’s character in the movie, David. Donnie loves that movie and quickly got excited. Although he didn’t have any luck finding the blonde wig that would’ve completed the look, he picked up some fangs and some fake fingerless leather gloves at one of the costume stores. And while at Target, I completed the look with some $4.99 cross earrings I found at Target (I was there trying to find the white tights). He wore a black t-shirt and jeans and I tried to mold his hair into a mock mullet. We added some leftover fake blood leftover from last year and his look was complete.
Here’s our final look:
Me and Donnie Halloween 2011
What did you dress up as for Halloween? Did you plan ahead or decide at the last minute?
And by ‘this mess’ I mean running.
When I lived in NY, I went to the gym 3 or 4 times a week. My gym was only a block away from my Astoria, Queens apartment so it was really hard to talk myself out of going. I usually spent my time alternating between the bike, the stair climber, the elliptical and the weights. I stayed as far away from the treadmill as possible. To me running was the devil.
But when I moved back to Florida, I lived in Tampa for 10 months and money was tight. Plus my hours at the office were long and the thought of coming home and working out within more walls made me cringe. So I started to walk along Bayshore Blvd. And then I started running ‘until the next light post’ or ‘until I passed those people walking their dog.’
Not long after, I moved back to Orlando and continued setting short term running goals:
I met a lot of these first goals with the help of my boyfriend Donnie’s support. He would run to Lake Eola (I would drive there) and he would run laps with me. He would tell me to dig deeper and push harder when I needed to hear it (and sometimes when I didn’t care to hear it). And he bought me my first pair of running shoes. Up until that point I had been running in old cross-trainers and had started to feel some pain in my ankles. Without his help, I would’ve given up early on.
Shortly before that first 5k I started to run with some ladies from my job and after running a few 5k’s we started talking about running a longer distance. Our friend Tim, who was also a co-worker, got tired of hearing us ladies talk about it, but never actually do anything about it. So he picked a small half marathon held in Baldwin Park in November 2009 and told us we were training for it. From then on we called him “Coach.”
Running with this group of friends was an incredible motivator. Together we ran, we laughed, we got lost on runs and we commiserated. We dragged ourselves out of bed on weekend mornings, we struggled, we got injured and we learned the importance of listening to our bodies. We encouraged each other and we pushed each other. By the time the half marathon came around, two of our ladies were injured and had to run the 5k instead. But we all showed up that morning ready to run:
Before the Baldwin Park Half. I am the one feeling strong. Donnie is the one tying is shoe. Roxy is waving and Tim is trying not to look nervous. Both Roxy and Tim placed in their age groups!
Because we all have different paces and jobs now, we no longer run together. But occasionally you’ll still see us at the finish line cheering on our old running buddies.
If I had a dollar for every time I said I was going to start a blog, I’d probably have enough to buy myself something pretty, like this pretty Anthropologie dress I’ve been oogling. I’ve always put blogging on my ‘to-do tomorrow’ list. It’s right next to ‘try yoga’ and ‘volunteer’ and ‘graduate from cooking 101.’
‘Train for and run a marathon’ is also another of those items on that list. This didn’t used to be on my list. I was perfectly content with just running around Lake Eola. But then four years ago my boyfriend Donnie talked me into a running a 5k. And I ran a few more 5k’s. Then two years ago my friend Tim talked me into running a half marathon. And I ran three half marathons. And then a random stranger on an elevator talked me into running a marathon. So here I am: training for my first marathon and blogging about it. It’s lovely to be here.
Running the 2010 ING Miami Half. I borrowed those shorts. I forgot mine.
I Sweat Pretty 