Merry Christmas!

Christmas was exhausting and I can truly say I'm glad it's over. Now we still have to tear down the decorations, so it still feels like Xmas in the house, but as far as I'm concerned, my Ho Ho Ho has become oh oh oh! Let the cleaning commence.

I was a lazy runner this week: nary a run over three miles. One day I couldn't muster more than 15 minutes. To my credit I did give blood the night before, so there's that. I didn't run either Xmas eve or Xmas day and I'm really feeling the laziness. I'm cranky, tired and just want to be left alone. Not so festive. Oh well. Back to the grindstone tomorrow.

As far as holiday gifts go, the girl got lots of toys, hubby got a few things (yes, I actually spent much less on him than he did on me - but I had to buy/make all the family gifts, so he's still on the hook for less $$ than I am). He got a book, a watch and two lenses for his iPhone. He gave me a jogbra, compression socks, tire pump, waterproof earbuds, and a jogging stroller! I guess now I have NO excuses, right?

My father is up visiting from Georgia and I gave him a Garmin GPS and a Wahl clipper set. He also got the annual Miss P picture book. The in-laws received the same book, the DVD set of The Planet Earth, and Grammy got an infinity scarf that I made Friday morning. Miss p's cousins got giftcards for food and pictures of their mother that hubby found negatives of and made prints.

We are very fortunate, no doubt.

Public Relations Win

The day before the Reindeer Run in Lakewood I had to go pick up my race packet in Rocky River. It was a Friday night, so we ended up looking for someplace different to have dinner in Rocky River. We ended up at The Pub on Detroit Ave.

The Pub is an English Pub that is situated in an old movie theatre. In our party was P, Dave and me. It was early, maybe 6-ish and there wasn't a line or a wait or anything. We entered and were ushered out to the patio. Yes, the patio. Which at any other establishment I probably wouldn't have cared, but we went to an English Pub to enjoy the atmosphere as well as the food. So much for atmosphere. At least they had heaters so it wasn't too cold. I did not, however, take my coat off because it wasn't THAT warm. I assumed we were banished to the patio due to having a child in-tow on a Friday night. Whatever.

Our service was crappy, the food was eh. I made my displeasure known to the waiter, reassuring him that I wasn't looking for anything comped, but that I thought he should know that we weren't happy. This was after dinner, but before dessert. We still ordered dessert because, hey, bread pudding! With the dessert order we also ordered coffee. On top of all the other crappy stuff that happened over the course of the meal, the coffee didn't come to the table until almost 10 minutes AFTER we finished the bread pudding. Major fail.

I would've totally given them a pass based solely on the bread pudding (it was really, really good), but then the coffee incident. And nary an apology.

So when I got home that night, I posted on their FB page about the service. (If you want to read it, check out "The Pub" Rocky River on FB).  That was on Friday night.

Monday morning I received a FB message from the marketing / PR person asking for contact info so the manager could talk to me about my experience.

I received a call from "Matt" the next morning. He apologized for the service, offered to comp us a meal, etc. I assured him it was not necessary, but he insisted that he didn't want to lose a customer and that he would send out a gift card so I could give them another chance. So I gave him my address.

Two weeks later I still had not received the gift card, so I sent a Facebook message to the marketing / PR person who contacted me initially that said essentially that while I should be surprised at the lack of follow through, I really wasn't.

Within 15 minutes I received a phone call from the PR person. She apologized profusely, said that that blunder was her fault, not the restaurant's and that she thought they were sending the card and that they thought she was sending the card, blah, blah, blah, apology-cakes. She promised that she would send out the gift card immediately. This was yesterday morning.

Last night around 6pm the manager from The Pub appeared on my doorstep with a takeout of bread pudding and $100 gift card.

I think I'll give them another try.

They'd better not screw it up.

:)

Christmas Dress

The Christmas Dress in-progress.

Vogue 8593, view C.

I still need to attach sleeves, hem and make a belt.

Teacher Gifts

Because I'm a total slacker, I completely forgot about gifts for P's teachers until yesterday. Which wouldn't be a problem except that today is the last day of school until January! So I decided to make something I've never made before. Why not, right?

I stopped at Starbucks on the way home to pick up giftcards and to steal a coffee sleeve to use as a pattern. It only took a couple of hours, but I made tea wallets and cup cozies for them. Added in a tea bag and the gift card and voilà - instant teacher gifts!

Hope they like them!

Warrior Dash!

I managed to talk my brother J into doing the Warrior Dash - Florida with me at the end of January. I challenged him, he agreed and I booked a flight and registered us. Him, me and his son T are going to do it.

I'm insane. Seriously.

Jeopardy!

Miss P was introduced yesterday to the episode of Jeopardy! on which I competed.

(shock, I know)

And now she's making me watch it with her.

I am absolutely embarrassed by how pathetic we all (yes, all three contestants) did. We all missed the very first (read: $100) answer. It's freaking awful.

I haven't watched the show with any regularity since.

Sent from my iPhone

Insane? Quite possible.

I have never run a distance over 4 miles.

I've only been running for four months.

I just registered for the Cleveland Half Marathon.



It's official. I'm insane.

.... and I will be registering for the Warrior Dash, too. I need to find someone to do that one with me. Mainly for the company for the drive down and back, if nothing else.

This is a good thing, right?

Week Wrap Up

I haven't done much sewing this week, but I have managed to work out every day whether I've felt like it or not (mostly or not). I wake up every day with a sore throat, no doubt owing to the cold, dry air. I force myself to get up at (to me) an ungodly hour and go downstairs and put in time on the elliptical or the EZ rider. This week started with a snowstorm. Monday saw me do 40 minutes on the elliptical followed by 20 minutes shoveling snow and cleaning off the cars. Tuesday was a lather-rinse-repeat day (same as Monday). Wednesday I didn't feel well when I woke up so I slept in and didn't work out (in the morning anyway). Before bedtime I did an hour on the elliptical and 20 mins on the EZ rider while watching a Kevin Sorbo (Yay! Hercules!) Christmas movie. Yesterday I did a quick 25 minutes on the elliptical at top pace because I was running late and thought that'd be better than nothing. Of course I undid all that hard work by having a couple beers and brie, but hey, why run if I can't eat something really yummy every now and then?

This morning I woke up before 5am and couldn't get back to sleep so I went down and did an hour on the elliptical and then did some legs exercises. That's new. So now my ass hurts. Heh. Not really.

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I took the afternoon off of work yesterday in hopes of getting a little sewing done, but alas, it didn't work out that way. Miss P was in rare form. At least I hope it's rare - we don't really need a repeat performance. She yelled, screamed, cried, sobbed - anything but take a nap. She wanted to go to the mall. She wanted to play. She wanted to cling... So no, I didn't get the sewing done that I wanted to. I did, however, manage to sew up four scarves (none for me - they're for a coworker), so at least I got that off my plate. Pretty much the whole time I was working on that, P was begging, crying "Mommy! You need to make my Like A Surgeon costume!" --- Yes, I promised her I would make her a "Like A Surgeon" costume. My three year old LOVES Weird Al. *sigh* (I guess it could be worse - she doesn't like the Jonas Brothers or Miley Cyrus!)

I would love to spend this weekend doing nothing but sewing up Christmas stuff (I haven't even started!), but alas I have two Santa events tomorrow, Mass on Sunday, then another Christmas party Sunday afternoon. I haven't figured out when I'm going to do laundry let alone sew. Oh well. At least I'll be able to sneak in a run early Saturday AM. Hopefully it won't be too snowy - according the forecast it should be clear. Cold, but clear.

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Inspired by Jason at Life of An Aspiring Triathlete, today is Pay It Forward Friday.

To that end, visit his blog, leave a comment, pay it forward. :)

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Edited to add this: 

Happy Holidays!
 

Update: Official Time

I just checked the Hermes site and my official time is actually LOWER than I had thought: :35:21

11 seconds makes all the difference!

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Post race:

Jingle All The Way

This morning I braved the 19F cold and made my way to the Jingle Bell Run 5K in Lakewood. My goal was to run as much as I could, but if I had to walk, so be it.

When I got there, I was jumping about trying to get warmed up and asked a guy to take my picture (because I'm vain that way). He was kind enough to say yes, and then we got to talking. I don't remember his name (let's call him Bob), but he said he was there on a bet. A marathoner coworker bet him he couldn't run a 5K in under 40 minutes. Now apparently he's not a runner at all, so the marathoner thought this was a safe bet. Bob was totally unprepared: wearing shorts and a polo shirt and no gloves (he at least had a Santa hat on). Anyway - when he told me of the bet I told him to stick with me - I could probably get him in under :40. (no guarantees, but I was confident enough that I could). So he agreed and Bob and I ran the whole thing together. And yes, I RAN the whole thing! Woot!

At about the 3/4 mile mark Bob said "If I weren't running with you, I'd probably be walking by now." I was pacing a tad fast for me, but I didn't think he could actually go any slower without walking so I sucked it up and held the pace. Around the two mile mark he was really appreciative "Man. I would've gone balls to the wall running and been passed out on the street!" is how he put it.

When we hit the three mile mark and could see the finish line, I told him to "Run, Forest, Run" and go ahead without me. Not only did he make it in under :40:00, but he made it under :35:00!*

I kept up a steady pace and crossed the finish line in an unofficial :35:32!!! PR for me!

For background:
Run for the Record 5K 09.18.10 :39:55 (12:53)
Project Homeless Connect 5K 10.23.10 :38:22 (12:22)
Jinglebell Run 12.04.10 :35:32 (11:27)

So yeah, really happy with how I did today.

Now off to sew Christmas gifts.

* as for the bet: if he had lost, he would've had to run a 10K. Since he won, the marathoner has to eat a McRib. I'm pretty sure the marathoner hates me right about now.

Sent from my iPhone

Feeding the Obsession / Cyber Monday Shopping

Thanks to Vogue's CyberMonday sale, I broke down and bought five patterns that I probably wouldn't have otherwise. First up, V1197.

Looks easy enough.

Next, V8413.

And V8593.

And because Miss P doesn't have enough costumes, M6184.

Last but not least, M5890.

Now if I actually sew up any of these, that's a whole different story.

I also managed to find not one, but THREE presents for the hubby. So I have Christmas and his birthday covered! Yay!

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Not much running yesterday or today. Monday on my run home for lunch my calves started cramping about a half mile from home. I tried walking it off, but it just hurt. Bummer. I ate a banana and all seems well, so I'm just guessing I was low on the potassium. Yesterday I didn't get in a run because the girl decided to visit us in bed around 2am, where she proceeded to kick and hit at me. I'm pretty sure she was asleep. So I took her back to her room and put her back in bed. And while I was doing that, my back wrenched, so I ended up just lying down on her floor until 5am, wherein I made it back to my room to go back to sleep. And she promptly followed. The alarm went off at 5:45. *sigh* I was beat, so I stayed in bed until 6:30 and decided to at least hit the elliptical for a half an hour. 20 minutes into that, my dad came down to tell me he was leaving. Whuck? So I got off the machine and came up to help him get his stuff together. He left (he said he'd be back by the 18th, so he will at least be here for Christmas) and by then it was time to get ready for work. I was already exhausted and would've preferred to go to work and come home and go straight to bed (or for a run), but I agreed to go see Billy Elliott with the in-laws on the annual Ladies Night Out adventure. So instead of relaxing after work, I went straight to dinner (lousy service, good food... hate that) and to the show. I didn't get home and to bed until midnight. *sigh* That makes for a very long day.

This morning when the alarm went off at 5:45, I turned it off and went back to sleep. Got up with the 6:15 alarm and went down to do some time on the elliptical. Of course as soon as I got down there I hear P on the monitor crying that "daddy won't let me out!" -- yes, hubby put up the baby gate on her door so she couldn't come down in the middle of the night. So I went up and got her out and she wanted to come down and work out with me, which of course means I have to watch Agent OSO... which totally blows. So I did 20 mins on the elliptical and 15 mins on the EZRider doing arm work. But no running. :(

Even though it's started snowing, I think I'll go home a bit early today and do a run through the cemetery behind my house. I need to get out more.