A House for Sale in Da Hood

Going to the highest bidder... Yep ol 43rd Street is going up for sale. I've had it!! It's my first house and I bought it all by myself a little over 5 years ago. I remember when I was looking for what I could "afford" and it wasn't much. The houses weren't in great areas, they all had orange or green shag carpet. The walls were either the lovely shade of pea green or were dark and paneled. Wow! That was depressing. I made an ok living but the Baylor Student Loans I was and still am paying back limit me on what I can shell out every month. Thanks BU!! But then I stepped it up a little and decided I would pay a little more for a house that didn't need as much work and didn't have bars on the windows. Then the realtor took me to 43rd Street. I fell in love immediately. It was in a decent neighborhood, had normal, neutral carpet and neutral color on the walls, a great yard, great trees and a line of hedges in the back that made my yard feel secluded. I could even live with the sea foam and forest green tile in the bathroom. (at least it wasn't salmon pink) When I was looking at it and deciding what to do another buyer pulled up and was waiting on me to get out of I my house!. I looked at the realtor and asked what I needed to do. Off we went to his office and an offer was made. While the negotiating was taking place I had to go across the street to Johnny Carino's for a glass of wine to calm my nerves. That's a big deal for a 26 year old single woman!! I had 5 great years in the house and Conway helped me remodel this year.

Sad to say my car has been broken into twice this year and the last straw was when my license plate was taken over the weekend. That's all I need is my license number and name being called over a police scanner for being involved in a drive by shooting or bank robbery get away car. I spent most of Monday making reports, getting my new license plate and then putting the sucker back on. They took the whole bracket and screws!! Seriously? So that's it! My wonderful first home has been tainted and I've been violated so I'm OUT! The next house has a few musts!!
1 - 2 bathrooms it's not so bad when you live alone but since Conway's been back you just don't have the privacy
2 - Washer and dryer must be inside - no, it wasn't in an attached garage that you could get to through a door in the kitchen. It was in a detached garage in the back yard.
3 - a garage I can actually park my car in - Hopefully this will reduce my car insurance if I stop replacing windows.

See, I'm not real picky. Conway and I are already looking at a few possibilities. Cross your fingers my house will sell soon!!

Dirty Love Burger at 1am

**Before I start my fun recap of the week gone by I just want to take a minute to honor those killed yesterday at the massacre at Ft Hood. We have an office in Killeen and many of those have family that work on the base and I know yesterday was horrific. Please keep the families of the victims and all our troops in your prayers**

Good Lord where has the week gone. I've been super busy and haven't had time to post or catch up but I'm doing so slowly. Here's the cliff notes on what's been going on so far...

Running - Still injured but I may have found some new running buddies, which gives me hope that I'll still have the motivation to finish my 1st Half by my Birthday in May. Until I can start running I'm stuck at the stinky boring gym and just don't get the same satisfaction. Plus it has been PERFECT weather here. That makes the gym that much worse.

Halloween - Halloween in Cowtown was a BLAST!! Conway and I went to the Ranch Bash at Sundance Square and saw Roger Creager, Ryan Bingham and Charlie Robison. (ok, Conway got his name when I threatened to dress him up as Conway Twitty for Halloween. Ya know, tight shirt, gold necklace, 70's aqua net boof hairdo and trucker hat. This would be funny if we were going to a friends house that would know we were dressed up, as it was, we went to Ft Worth and dressing up as a redneck country singer really isn't much of a stretch, so I'll have to keep that until next year)

One of the best costumes I saw was a chick dressed up as Box Wine. She made copies of the lables big enough for the box she was wearing and even had a pour spout. I got nervous when I saw her trying to light a cigarette but somehow she managed. Genius. The winner of the costume contest was a dude dressed up as Lt Dan from Forrest Gump. Except he wasn't actually an amputee but had his legs tucked in and you couldn't tell until he started jumping around when he won. It was still hard to look at him for fear you were staring at a cripple. Which he wasn't, but he made the most out of that wheelchair all night.

After the concert, we headed back to the stockyards and hit up the White Elephant. Before turning in at the Stockyard Hotel we got a burger from the Love Shack. Not just a burger but the Dirty Love Burger. WOW-ZA!!! Chef Tim Love has a restaurant in the Stockyards called Lonesome Dove, it's a nice Texas-y place with game on the menu like buffalo, kangaroo and rabbit, but he also has the Love Shack. A walk up, order a beer and a burger kind of place. We got the Dirty Love Burger. It was a cheese burger with love sauce and a fried quail egg. YES AN EGG AND IT WAS DA'BOMBDIGGITY!! I don't know what was in the "love sauce" but it may have been laced with crack because I'm starting to need a fix. Yum-O!! Juliane cut fresh french fries with sea salt. At 1:00am after an all day beer fest it hit the spot. The best was when Conway was getting ketchup out and the one was trying to open must have had a pin hole in it since it was spewing ketchup all over the wall of the historic Stockyard Hotel!! Good times folks!

It's a state holiday tomorrow in the Lone Star State. Opening weekend of Deer Season. Ok, maybe it isn't an actual holiday but hunters think it should be. Conway and I will be in the stand early, early tomorrow to see what kind of critters come our way. Things get crazy at the deer lease so stay tuned for some good stories. Have a great weekend all!!

After a trip to the Dr... Now What?

Well.... Went to the doc on Monday. No Stress Fracture *yeah* but Severe Stress Injury *ummm??* Apparently this means I don't know exactly when I will heal. You know it's not good when your Ortho Doc says "is this marathon thing a life or death situation?" Um.. Well.. #1 It's not just a marathon thing it's a goal I made that I've been training for and trying to attain. #2 of course it's not life or death unless you consider all the time, sweat and tears I've put into it. I guess he just doesn't get it. I'm picking up the sarcasm about running 13 miles he's putting down and I don't like it. I want him to understand me and the pain I've gone through to get to this point. He told me the smart thing to do was lay off the running for 4-6 weeks. translation: San Antonio is out unless I really want to hurt myself He said to consider this a speed bump in my training and to supplement all the endurance training I've done so far that I could do elliptical and bike for the next 4-6 weeks. Elliptical or Bike????!?!???!? are you kidding me?? Not that I'm saying it's not a workout but going from running every week for the past 12 weeks and intense boot camp for 9 weeks before that??, it just doesn't cut it. Redhead Running sent me a great email about getting my cross training on while I'm injured. But after feeling the accomplishment of running 10+ miles? I don't know what I'll do to get it back. I keep telling myself just to pick out another spring run and focus on that. Will I? I'm so scared I've lost my motivation. My friend that said she would run San Antonio with me is running the FULL marathon in Houston. Will she run another half with me? If not who will? I haven't even told her about my injury yet. I've been training on my own but looking forward to finishing with someone. No one else around here gets me or is even close to trying to go on this crazy journey. I'm looking forward to reading other running blogs and getting back in the game. I really want to heal up and be strong for my first. I just need to remind myself I made a goal to run a HALF MARATHON BEFORE MY BIRTHDAY!! My birthday is in May, so technically I have plenty of time. Mentally, do I?? Stay tuned.....

Surviving the Wine & Food Fest

Wine & Food Fest was this weekend. We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day!! It benefits the humane society so there were all kinds of fuzzy friends around. SiL and I took 2 rookies to the Fest this weekend and as veterans we gave them a little advice on surviving the 4 hour wine tasting marathon (ha! get it?? see how I made this a running post without posting about running??). I could see there were many rookies in our midst. This was evidenced by the numerous Rookie mistakes. I thought I'd use this post to let you all know some do's and don'ts in order to survive the Wine & Food Fest in Wacko if you ever make it here. Feel free to adjust these tips to your local Wine tasting...


Do - Use the shuttle, don't try to squeeze your way into a parking lot that with your wine haze at the end you can't get out of. Park in the open parking lot and let the shuttle do the hard work of not hitting any of the drunks stumbling around outside of the event.


Do - Remember it is a marathon, not a sprint. You have 4 hours of tasting all the wine you can sip. Pace yourself.


Do - Remember that WINE is before FOOD in the event. This means there's a LOT more wine than there is food. Grab a couple of tastings then move your @ss over to the food tent and build a good base before it's all gone.


Do - Feel free to grab cheese, chocolate truffles, cake samples or mouse to take back to the Wine tents in order to try pairings.


Don't - bring your 12 week old twins to the Wine Tasting. Or any other age children. It's about WINE and lots of it. If you don't plan on getting hammered a lot of other people do! and children scare drunks as much as drunks scare children. If you do bring your baby, try not to get a picture posted on the local trib website with you holding him AND your wine glass in the same hand. classy


Don't - puke at the table. Even if the event is outside, and you're trying to hide it by hurling under the table, seriously, try to make it to the bathroom.


Do - Dress appropriately. It's outside, in the afternoon, at the Art Center. No hoochie shorts or skirts please. Watch your heels, the grass and ground could be damp and you're probably drunk. Trust me no one wants to see your hoohah and the guys that are there aren't there alone so don't even try hookers. I mean, what straight man would go to a Wine Tasting at the Art Center when Texas-OU is on if their wife or girlfriend didn't make them.


Don't - fall out of the shuttle when it takes you back to your car only to be carried out by your friends. This is a hazard to others and more importantly to other's pants. SiL was laughing so hard when this one chic's wheels fell out from under her I thought she was going to piss herself.


Don't - get all sloshed on wine and decide to just go check out the dogs for adopting. You'll end up going home with a dog with wheels for back legs or something. You've done your part with your donation when you bought your ticket. Leave the dogs alone in your drunken stupor. Only adopt when sober.


Well, that about covers it. I swear I could make millions if I could come up with a red wine that didn't turn your teeth purple. Check out the pictures on the trib. No, I didn't make it in any of them. I'm sure I was too busy eating and boozing it up to track down the photographer.
Good times, Good Friends and Good Wine.



I'm out of town for a conference the rest of this week and go back to the ortho doc on Monday to get the diagnosis. Cross your fingers, say a prayer, light some sage, that I'll be able to run in San Antonio.

We were on a BREAK!!!!

No running posts for a little while. Running and I are taking a break. It sucks too. After my 11 miler a couple of weeks ago what I thought were just some shin splints starting getting worse and the pain more concentrated. I went ahead with my weekly runs the next week and a simple 4 miler on Sunday. Monday, the pain was getting worse so I made the dreaded appointment with my Orthopedic Doc. (He isn't the most encouraging. I went to him a couple of years ago when I fractured my tibia and sprained my ankle leaving George's Bar. Not that the beers had anything to do with it. It was my damn heels and those paving stones ok, and the beers.) He had me off working out for a while and in a walking cast for about 6 weeks. He looked at me like "Crazy woman, won't you ever learn" But I'm a new woman now. I was taking my training slow and serious. Really trying not to hurt myself and really try to get my body in shape, I scheduled plenty of rest days and was really feeling good about my training. I even just loaded NIN Pretty Hate Machine on my running playlist. ARGHHH!!
Maybe it was the shock of my body that had never trained for anything and never run in a 5k race before, that taking on the 1/2 was too much. He's scheduled an MRI for Friday, so I have to wait for the results of that. 12.5 were scheduled for this weekend so that's out. But you know what's in???? The Wine and Food Festival benefitting the Animal Shelter!! If I can't run I should definitely WINE!!

Who's Yer Daddy Dinner!!

Conway just made me the most A-MA-ZING dinner. I had asked for a steak tonight. After my run, I came home to wine, filet, scallops in a creamy jalapeno crab sauce, shredded potatoes and salad. SNAPAROO!! That'll make you take back sh*t you didn't steal!! He's a really great cook and has taught me all I know in the kitchen. I mean, I'm a meat and potatoes girl. The way to my heart is definitely through my stomach. Thanks Conway!! I LOVE YOU!!

New Gear

Well, I got my new bra in last week and gave it a whirl on my 11 miles this weekend. The girls were held up pretty good and I didn't walk away with any visible scars. The other item I tried were some Under Armour shorts. They're kinda like bike shorts but shorter. You can wear them under shorts or pants. I needed them under my shorts since I'm getting that great chaffing on my long runs. (No, I haven't found the Body Glide that everyone swears by yet.) After my last long run, it was pretty bad. Conway and I were talking about it. He was pretty sporty back in the day. Football, baseball, track so I usually ask him about athletic type stuff. He said "It sounds like jock itch, but I don't know if you can have jock itch without b*lls" HA! God I love him. Anyway, I found these shorts and couldn't wait to try them. So Saturday was the day for all my new gear. I wore the Under Armour with some shorts that I don't usually wear since they ride up BUT I thought it wouldn't matter since I had the other shorts underneath. NOPE !! They rode up and kept riding up and the rash got LOWER!! Like where my legs mushroomed out of my super tight under shorts. Oh well, now I know. Guess I won't be wearing all that to San Antonio.

On a completely different note. THE HEART O'TEXAS FAIR IS HERE!!! I love people watching at the fair. The carnies, the food, the rednecks!! I love it all!! I'm sure I'll have some good things to say later on in the week. Til then Later Taters!!!