3.

3 years today.  I like that the little counter thingy at the top of my blog is so simple today.  We have been married for 3 years.  No extra months, weeks, or days.  Simply 3.  Nice.

These past three years have been the most exciting and challenging years of my life.  I'm so glad that I've had Jake by my side!  If I had more time, I'd probably write more about how wonderful my husband is.  (He is pretty wonderful.)  Unfortunately, I have to head to work now.

However, I am working a shorter shift today because... we are staying at a nice hotel in Denver!  I'm super pumped.  We also went to a Rockies-Cardinals game last week as part of our anniversary, and also signed up for a wine tasting event (we have to schedule it).  Our anniversary fund is not going to be able to cover dinner this evening, but we'll just use that toward our monthly budget for eating out (it'll probably cover the whole budget, but it'll be worth it!).  I totally love that we spend our anniversary doing things together instead of buying things for each other.  I am so much more a quality time kind of person than gifts.

Anyway, Jake, I love you super much.  I'm excited to splurge a bit tonight. :)

Monday thoughts.

I want to write the unwritten rules of running/biking on a trail.  I'm pretty sure that there are quite a few people on our trail that could learn from them.  Today's annoyance was a guy who has three spaniels who has a weird leash he puts around his waist so that they can run with him.  Three dogs and a runner take up a ton of room on the trail.  He was running faster than me but he stops sometimes with the dogs.  So, I passed him at one point, and then he was right behind me for a mile.  It was oober annoying.  Then he passed me, but while there was another walker on the trail going the same direction as us, and another walker from the opposite direction.  At least he had them on a leash though.  There are many people who don't leave their dogs on leashes, and there IS a written rule about that.  I'd rather not worry about whether their dog is going to freak out at me when I pass.

Turns out that McDonald's actually still smells good right after finishing a run.  Kinda weirds me out.  It should smell disgusting, but nope.  I really wanted a sausage mcmuffin.

Per Pam's suggestion, I made banana muffins last night.  The recipe is from the milk-free cookbook my mom sent me (still really excited about it!) and they taste very yummy.  Seriously.  Super moist- I think I'm getting good at baking at altitude.  I bet if we ever move away from a high-altitude area, I'm not going to know how to bake anymore.

I have also passed the 40-lb weight loss mark.  I have lost 41 pounds so far.  Despite how I sounded in my last post, I am still excited.  Jake and I were chatting about it earlier, and he mentioned that I've lost 4 average sized bowling balls off of my body.  That's really intriguing and disgusting at the same time.

And Leah, I did try your and Alisa's suggestion with the running shorts.  (sorry for the inside info to everyone else.)  I'm thinking I'm actually not a fan.  Worth a try though!

Haircut!

I got my hair cut last night, and I'm super excited.  I've been wanting to cut it much shorter again for a while.  It just gets so obnoxious while running when it's long; plus it gets pretty heavy.

Anyway, we were planning to go to "manna" last night (where we get free groceries and I get my hair cut), but we hadn't been in a while.  We were talking on the way over realizing that there was a possibility that they might be closed tonight without us knowing since we hadn't been there in a while.  We got there and it definitely was closed.  Boo.  We made a whole trip there and it wasn't open.  I still wanted to get my hair cut, though, so we drove around and looked for a salon.  We found a place that seemed fairly cheap (I've only paid for a haircut once since we got married prior to last night!), and decided to go for it.

When we were leaving, Jake said "You should have become a hair stylist."  I asked why, and he said "You just sit around and talk to people all day.  You'd be really good at that."

He must have forgotten that I just got my degree in counseling, where I DO sit around and talk to people all day.  And I don't have to learn how to do hair.  What a weirdo.

But I still love him for the sentiment. :)

It's hard to believe...

1. that just a week ago I thought my flowers were going to die.  I think they might be on round #2 of dying and re-blooming, but I'm still excited I have some petunias.  Hurrah!

2. that these bananas have gone from "too green" to "too many spots" without passing through an in between stage.  Seriously; look at them!  They skipped my eating stage!

3. that my husband can be rented out for only $5 each half hour and $12 max.  I tend to think he's worth more than $12.

4. that I really had to say goodbye to the Durkin family.  They're headed back to NJ now that Chris is done with school and has officially been offered and accepted a head pastor job.  I'm going to miss them and their beautiful children!  Abigail is such an awesome snuggle buddy and Ethan's constant turbo-speed is super fun to be around.

5. that I have halved my jeans size since beginning to lose weight.  I have lost 38 pounds to date, and apparently my body is still going.  I'd like it to stop though because yesterday I did another clothes update and realized that I no longer have dress pants that are my size- I didn't save anything smaller than that size.  I don't want to sound obnoxious, but I'm not really sure what I need to do to stop losing weight when I'm training for a marathon.  At least it's slowed down some.  I just can't afford new clothes!

6. that we are over 25% done with our official training program and 68% done with everything (pre-training included).  That's more than 2/3 done in total.  Jeesh!

7. that Sarah Loan and Sarah Soldner are so weird.  Ok, it's not hard to believe.  There will probably be more pictures of our visit with the Sarahs at some point and in some form.

The end.

Batting practice

It's really too bad for any horsefly that makes it into our apartment.  Jake and I have a habit of torturing them.  How you say?

We find a way to get them into our bedroom (smaller room) and shut all the other doors in there.  Then we take turns running around taking swings at it.  It's pretty funny to watch it get more and more "drunk" in behavior the more we make contact.

It's fair to say we love this game.  In fact, I emailed Jake earlier today to tell him that there was a horsefly in our apartment waiting for a Jake-and-Elizabeth rendezvous.

Yes, I am the same lady that talked about how it's great to have organizations that work toward the fair treatment of animals.

I just like torturing flies.  It's good for hand-eye coordination.

Bring it.

So I was just sitting on the couch with my planner and another book strewn across my lap.  Jake looked at me, laughed, and said "You've got your security blanket."

So I like my planner.  A lot.  And I look at it.  A lot.  I can look at it for a long time and it makes me feel better as I organize and plan in my head.

So maybe it is a security blanket to me.  :-}

Birthday Shout-Out 'N Stuff

My brother had a birthday last week.  He's pretty great.  He's got the sweetest heart and he's super funny.  Jake and I always have a blast when he's around and continue to laugh about things he's said when we're apart.  Sure, we have our arguments and we certainly don't agree on everything, but who does?  I'm so happy to have him as my big brother and I miss him like crazy.  Love you, Clay!

Randomness: My petunias are blooming like crazy again.  I'm really excited because I thought I killed them.  Not yet at least!  Phew.

I think I officially have an injury.  It sucks.  I'm limping around a lot and I think I am going to skip today's run, which was supposed to be 5 miles.  I don't like the idea of skipping, but I suppose if it makes me heal faster so that I can actually run later this week then that's good.  Saturday's run was absolutely horrible (long saga story there) and yesterday was pretty awful too since I was in pain and basically gimping all over the place.  Anyway, I hope it gets better quickly because I don't want to lose too much momentum mentally.  I really wish I could just skip working this week because being on my feet for 8 hours at a time doesn't exactly help (by the way, I work in apparel now instead of cashier... moving up in the world!).  I did change my availability though primarily so that I could have the weekends free for my counseling job, but it will also help for the long runs.

I'm really excited that we're going to a Rockies game tonight.  They're playing the Red Sox, which is a team I absolutely despise.  So it should be great fun- except that Jimenez is not expected to pitch tonight, so we can't exactly count on a win for the Rockies.  Cross our fingers!