Crappy week

This is kind of a "woe is us" kind of post.  So, if you're one of those people that can't handle whining, you probably should skip this so as not to be oober annoyed with me.

Today is kind of a rough week for us.  Jake has a major paper this week, and it has required him to be at the library as much as possible.  Since the library isn't open on Sundays, I got out the apartment for a while and hung out with a friend so he could stay home and work on the paper.  I don't work the first half of the week, so I've really missed social interaction, especially since Jake is never here (but I still have lots to do!).  Because he's busy, I was trying to plan meals that don't take a lot of time so he can eat quickly and then get back to the paper.

The problem is, I work over the dinner hour the latter half of the week.  It's kind of making cooking especially complicated since we have to have easy, ready-made meals for pretty much the whole week.  I miss sitting down to dinner and eating together!  That hasn't really happened since I started my current job.  On top of that, we've agreed to dog/house sit for a couple we know from church on Wed-Sat.  So not only are the meals hard to navigate, we'll be driving home to do any cooking since we don't want to have to bring all the ingredients there.

I'm really hoping that those dogs are worth it because navigating cooking, not seeing Jake at all because of the paper and working opposite schedules, and figuring out when we are going to fit our runs in is a bit complicated.  If you could pray for and encourage Jake as he tries to finish up his paper, and that I don't go insane trying to plan a weird week, I'd appreciate it.

Woe is us. :)

Milestones

I've reached another milestone in my weight loss.  I have officially lost 20 pounds in the past 10 weeks!  I'm pretty excited.  I am a bit embarrassed to admit though that I still have a couple more pounds before I am back to my wedding weight, but at least I'm losing it now instead of gaining. :)  I am hoping to keep losing after I reach wedding weight, and would actually really like to lose another 20.

I also think it's fascinating how our food budget hasn't really increased even though we are eating healthier, slightly more expensive food.  We're just eating so much less than before that it kind of evens out.  One food we have found that I absolutely love is Yoplait yogurt smoothies.  They advertised for them on The Biggest Loser, and they really are great.  They have all the frozen fruit and yogurt inside the package, so all you have to do is add a little milk and then blend it, and it's ready in a couple minutes.  They taste awesome!  Now if only they weren't bad for me since I'm allergic to milk!  For the rest of you, you should try it.  It's a bit pricey, but totally worth it for a treat every once in a while.

Training is also going great too.  We're up to running for 15 minutes at a time, and I love it.  We just finished week 13 of training for us, which means that we are over 1/3 done with training!  Sadly, I am having twinges of shin pain, so I'm planning to talk to my friend's dad who is a surgeon working with lots of sports injuries.  I know I need to start icing more regularly, but I've already done lots of other things already.  We'll see what her dad has to say.

And finally, it's supposed to be 70 degrees today, and 78 tomorrow.  I find that absolutely fantastic.

Bingqilin

So, Jake blogged about our friends who are missionaries in China right now.  They just had a baby, and our church took an offering for them this morning to give to them.  As we were talking about what it would be like to exchange the funds into Chinese money, Jake suggested that they could be transferring $200 into an account and then exchanging it.

My response: "Man, you could buy a LOT of bingqilin with that!"

Explanation: Bingqilin is ice cream (at least a not very good transliteration of it).  When I was in China, we often went and got some from a local shop, and it was super cheap.  Anyway, they could buy a TON of ice cream for that.  Like, they could probably have ice cream every day for the next couple of years and not run dry of money.

I think I miss ice cream.

And peanut butter.

And eating cheese regularly.

And yogurt.

Boo for allergies.  Maybe I should move to China because I'm pretty sure that their bingqilin is not milk based...

Couch hunting

My back is sore because we have a crappy couch.  We're finally getting a new one soon because we're getting a large tax refund.  The problem is that neither Jake nor I really know what we like in couches.  I'm not really sure how to shop for a couch.  I've not really had that "aha!  This is it!" moment yet, and I'm not really sure if I should expect it.  I know which ones I certainly think are hideous, including the one that we saw yesterday that I swear was corduroy.  Gross.

We've looked at American, Sofa Mart, online at Sams Club, and at a discount store that has furniture that has been modeled in homes before.  Haven't really found anything yet.

Anyone have any good couch-hunting suggestions?

Miss him

I hate being apart from Jake for so long.  I knew this was going to happen, but it's still hard.  Jake generally works from 8-2pm (leaves for work around 7-7:15am), and pretty much every day the next couple of weeks I start work before he gets home and then don't finish until late.  That means that we will be getting about 4 hours max together before we go to sleep.  Boo.  And I am scheduled to work quite a bit on the weekends too.  That's supposed to be our time together.  Really.

I understand that most married couples already experience this and I shouldn't be surprised, but it's already a difficult adjustment for me.  It'd be one thing if we worked the same hours and therefore saw each other in the morning, but I usually am just getting up when he leaves for work.  I've tried to get up earlier so that I can be with him while he gets ready, but then I'm oober tired.  So I only see him when he comes and kisses me goodbye, and then for a couple hours before we go to sleep when both of us are exhausted.

I just miss him.  Probably only 3 more months of this though and then hopefully it'll get a bit better.  I want the time to pass faster.  Just look at how cute he is!

p.s. I find it a bit amusing that this post follows the one where I made fun of him.  I really am crazy about him.  I mean really, who tells you that they didn't actually listen to you unless they really love you, right? :)

Amazing listener

Today was the first day that Jake and I had to run separately.  I worked my first LONG shift which made it so that there was no good time for us to run together.  I ran this morning and he ran this afternoon when it was supposed to be gorgeous outside.  When I got home, I had the following conversation with my loving husband.

Me: "How was your run?"
Jake: "It was good."
Me: "Was it super nice outside?"
Jake: "Yes, it was nice.  Hang on, I answered your question without really listening to it... it kinda stunk a little."

Wow.  That is how amazing of a listener my husband is.  Such a man.

25

I am a quarter of a century today.  Feels kinda weird.  For the past couple of years, I've been wanting to feel more grown up because I was sick of people telling me that I was so young.  Now I feel grown up.  Seriously.  I really truly feel like a grown-up.  I even felt like a grown-up when I went grocery shopping today.  I don't usually go by myself, but today I did and I didn't feel like a college student shopping.  Instead, I felt like a grown-up shopping.  Grown up enough to have a family already and people not think I look too young to be married.  It only took me until I was 25 to feel that way.  Ha.

A friend I have had since I was about 8 years old posted this picture of me on facebook from way back in the day.  It was at a sleepover and we had apparently built a pyramid, which she was reminded of because of the pyramid picture mentioned in my last post.  It kinda cracks me up a lot.  I LOVE the side-of-the-head ponytail.  Hope it's amusing for you too!

Marriage

Good stuff.  Jake and I took TONS of pictures over the past few days.

Jase is married.  That's a bit weird, but very cool. :)

Here's my favorite picture of Jase that I took.

And here's a fun one of all the older siblings and their women at the rehearsal dinner.

I think Jake is working on getting some pictures up on some website, so more pictures will come later.  I just wanted to give you a taste of a few of my personal favorites. :)

Wahoo!

It's official.  Last night at a church event (our church's 25th birthday celebration... yes, it was started about 2 weeks before I was born!) a gentleman that we know told us he could tell that we are losing weight!

HURRAY!

It was the first comment from someone who didn't know that we have been trying to lose weight to say that they noticed.  I was super pumped.  I even did a fist pump in the air when he said it because I was excited. :)

In other news, today we bump up our program to running for a constant 10 minutes at a time.  I'm pretty excited actually.  It just feels like our pre-training program is going SO slowly because we've had to double it up since our race isn't until September.  If we weren't doubling it up, this would be our last week before the regular training program, which means we are almost halfway through the pre-training.

I also have an interview for a job this morning.  It's the counseling position I mentioned a while back- the job is for the summer working with kids/teens who have autism.  Wish me luck!

I'm also getting way pumped for the wedding festivities this week/weekend.  I can't believe we already leave in two days.  Good stuff. :)

Your blogs

Jake just made fun of me because I only had three blogs listed off to the side (on the right).  You will now notice that I have many more blogs that I follow listed on there.  If your blog is listed on there and you don't want it there, please let me know.  I have my blog hidden from google searches (mostly to avoid issues with clients finding me...), so the only way they would find your blog from mine is if they somehow specifically know about my blog and then link to your's (which would likely be difficult to do if they were trying to find you).  Anyway, I want to protect any need or desire for privacy.  So let me know if you want it taken off.  Muchas gracias.

Blisters

Does anyone know how blisters are technically formed and why I don't get them?  Since we've started training, Jake has formed blisters at the base of both of his feet all the way around the heel.  I don't get blisters.  I never did in cross-country in high school, and I haven't since we started training.  I don't know if maybe I will get some as we start increasing distance or if it has to do with the fact that I have good shoes, or if it's because I have narrow feet, or if maybe my feet don't sweat very much.

Does anyone know?  I'd like to know if I'm just blessed or if I will be getting them at some point.


**The longest one-syllable word in the English language is "screeched."

Simple math

So... (I like to start my blogs as if we've been in conversation for a while and I'm just now changing the subject.  It makes me feel more connected or something)... we went to the grocery store yesterday for our weekly shopping trip.  We had an interesting experience at the deli counter.

I told the guy that I wanted 1/3 pound of ham.  He seemed fairly distracted trying to find the right ham, and then clarified with me that I wanted 1 pound of ham.  "No, I want 1/3 of a pound."  Ok, he says, and off he goes to slice it.  Then he comes back with huge mound of ham to put on the scale.  It's nearly 1 pound.  I remind him that I only wanted 1/3 of a pound.  He decides that since it was his mistake, he would weigh it in lighter and just give me the rest of meat.  Ok, works for me.

Then I tell him I want 2/3 of a pound of turkey.  Again, he seems a bit distracted and comes back with 0.74 lbs of turkey.  After I give him a questioning look, he says "You wanted 3/4 pound, right?"

Wow.  I'm pretty sure that anything other than whole numbers is difficult for this dude.  Except the last time that we went I told the woman I wanted 2/3 pound of turkey, and she didn't know how much that was on the scale, so I had to tell her 0.66.  Um... you work in the deli.  You have to be able to deal with fractions.  I used to work in the deli; I know.

So in the end, we ended up with a heck of a lot of deli meat for the week.  We'll see how much of it we actually eat!

Oh yeah, and I feel like poo.  I caught a cold on Saturday evening (it was the fasted acting thing I've ever experienced.  One minute I'm feeling fine and loving watching the lacrosse game, and within 2 hours I was full-blown sick.) and it has conked me out since.  I'm hoping that the jog we did today will help kick some of those bad germs out of me!