I'm running a half marathon.

It's official.

B convinced me to do a half marathon. I guess I wanted to do it too, but B was kind of the nudge in the right direction. We've always talked about doing one, but never had concrete plans. We decided last January to do one of the Disney ones, because that's just the way we roll.

We have officially signed up for the Tinker Bell Half Marathon at Disneyland on January of 2014.  

That's 26 weeks from now. 

I've been training on and off since January. More off for the past two months. 

But I'm officially back on! I bought a training app, and it's 14 weeks long. The next one I'll do allows you to set the amount of time you have until your marathon, so that I one will fill the final  12 weeks. 

I'm a big fan of the training apps available in my iPhone. I have a half marathon training plan. It's from Zen Labs; I used their 5K app, and I loved it. It all works up gradually, so your conditioning your body to run farther and farther. 

I will say that the first day did kind of kick my butt. I'm definitely sore, but it's all of the soreness I had when I first started running. 

I also have a GPS app that tracks my route. MapMyRun shows you where you ran, at what pace, and what your mile splits were. It's awesome. 

Right now, I'm all amped up about training for this thing. My only goal, really, is to finish. I don't want toy get picked up by the bus for people who go too slow, and I want my pretty Tinker Bell medal. 

I want to move to San Diego.

This post is super delayed, but I think that's the story of my life.

I went down to the beautiful San Diego to visit K for the Fourth.

See, I love the Fourth of July. Back home when I was a kid, it was hot, but we would go to Scout Park and lay out our blankets in the grass to let the mosquitoes eat us while we waited for the fireworks. It meant baby brother and dad were handing out watermelon with the Boy Scouts, so if you waited until the right moment, it was really easy to snag half a watermelon.
I love watermelon.
Then the fireworks would start.
I love fireworks.
Now that I've seen fireworks in other places, ours were never huge. But they were awesome. There's something about small projectiles exploding up in the air in a bunch of different colors while they make a bunch of different noises. The ones that crackle. The ones that whistle. My mom's favorite are the big ones that look like a weeping willow, or the ones that burst twice, sending little lights all over the sky. My dad likes the noisy ones, the ones that you feel deep in your chest and set off all of the car alarms. Oohs, ahhs.
Once I was in college, we didn't want to wait for hours or fight the traffic to get in town. So we would stay out of town, get Baskin Robbins, and watch them from camping chairs on the sidewalk.
It's just an awesome holiday. Everyone's excited, and it's just so much fun.

So, for obvious reasons, I wanted to have a blast for the Fourth. So I took the fifth off, and flew down to San Diego early, early Thursday morning. K was kind enough to host a get together at her house, so we had hot dogs, and hamburgers, and pool time, and red, white and blue streamers, and country music, and of course, some beer. A bunch of the ADPi girls came, so I got to see B, M, J, C, and another C. It was a blast and a half. We watched the fireworks from a park. It was gorgeous all day. It was amazing.

Friday morning, I went surfing with D, a friend from high school who I haven't seen in YEARS. It was at this point I absolutely decided I need to move to San Diego, or at least somewhere with a beach.
I loved surfing. Loved it.
Even if it didn't love me.
I got beat up. I had three pretty gnarly bruises, one on each thigh and one on my collarbone, from catching fin when I got dumped. And oh, did I get dumped. On my face, sideways, upside down and backwards. I'm pretty sure I swallowed half of the ocean, and the other half went up my nose. I don't even know what happened. I don't know if I learned how to surf, but I sure learned how to protect myself when I fell off. I also forgot to factor in that my daily sunscreen wasn't waterproof, so let's just say I was lobster-esque at the end of the morning.
That's a lie. I did get up a few times, which D said was pretty awesome. So, I'll take his word for it.
It was an amazing morning. D and I ended up just sitting on the surfboards and talking for a while. It was amazingly calm. And just amazing in general.

After surfing, K, B, J, C, and I went to the beach. This was the second point I absolutely decided I need to move to San Diego, or at least somewhere with a beach. This time I put sunscreen on.
I love the beach. And the ocean.
Beach and ocean just work really well with me. I love the water. Always have, always will. I love being able to walk around without shoes on. Or without pants, because pants are lame.

That night we went to In Cahoots, the bar that Toby Keith supposedly wrote the song about. It was a lot of fun. It was weird to try and dance there. They danced more traditionally; I've learned more progressive and modern stuff. Also, line dances are regional, so I'd be ready to jump in on something, and then would do something completely different. I still had a blast. Country bars always put me in a good mood.

Saturday morning, B left, and K had work (she's such a responsible adult.) So B, J, C, and I got breakfast at Coco's, which was magical. Then J, C and I went to the beach, which is forever and always magical. The whole crew went out that night; shenanigans were had by all.

Sunday morning was nice and slow. K and I eventually got up and had breakfast with the whole crew from Saturday night. Then we sat outside and read our books. Which is the point where I decided I need to move to San Diego. It just needs to happen.

That afternoon I got a late lunch/early dinner with D, my friend from my Germany trip. We hung out for a few hours before I had to be at the airport. It was awesome to catch up, attempt to speak some German, and steal some German music from him. ;)

That weekend was just all around amazing. In every way.

So, I want to move.
Not anytime soon, after graduation, maybe.

My Ode to Otter Pops.

You concentrated tube of sugary-ness,

You sweet relic of childhood's summers,

Sugar-high cohort, who canst thus express

How many naps were missed in your favor;

What belov'd friends haunt about the freezer?

Of Louie-Bloo or Short Kook, or of both,

With Poncho or the Little Orphan Orange?
What magic, mythical otters are these? 
What joy they bring? What pleasure to each them?
What smiles and grins? What wild ecstasy?

Yes, I totally stole "Ode to a Grecian Urn." And yes, I was bored. And yes, I've been eating a bunch of Otter Pops.
They're an essential ingredient of summer. It has been since I was a kid. My uncle would come up to the cabin, and he always made sure we had some Otter Pops in the freezer. He also made sure we got an extra one when our parents weren't looking.
Now, I have to have Otter Pops every summer. I had them in high school. I gave them out during recruitment; that made me a little more popular during those dreadful days. I bought them as soon as they were out in the grocery store this year. C and I killed a box during finals.

Otter pops are simply perfect.
Except for the orange and green ones. Those are gross.

To leave you with some of the Ode's original content, this is my favorite Keats quote.

"Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone..."

Learning to be Domestic.

I am not a domestic person. I can only cook basic meals. I hate doing the dishes, folding laundry, and vacuuming. I can sew, but I really prefer to do that with SUPER basic patterns, and then alter them to produce different things.

But I'm learning.

Lunches are easier if you cook for the whole week. Enter a pot of teriyaki chicken and rice.
Laundry is an all-day project, between walking to a different building to go switch it after a half hour (this is a location specific problem, I guess) and folding it all, so you might as well get ready to watch a few movies. It doesn't help that much, but maybe a little.
And sometimes, you've just gotta dance through the dishes.
I've started turning on my Spotify, putting my computer on the counter, then start the dishes. The floor can get a little sudsy as I bounce and wiggle my way through, but hey, it had to get cleaned too, right? At least I don't dread doing them after work anymore.

My current music crush is Chris Young. So catchy, so precious, so much fun.

Enjoy!

Exciting things this week.

I am officially a morning person!

It's hard for me to sleep past seven a.m. SEVEN A.M. I used to sleep until noon. 

Even better, I got up at 5:15 a.m. on Friday, pulled my butt out of bed, and went on a run. I was out the door by 5:20 a.m.! I felt so successful.

We'll see if that happens again next week. (It didn't)

The sun coming up at the end of my run last week.

I made this laptop case. I have to tell you, I'm pretty proud of myself. It was based loosely on this tutorial. I did a bunch of stuff differently. I padded it: sewing batting to plain white cotton fabric. I altered the dimensions: I did the measurements like they suggested, and it looked massive. Now that it's done, I was right in cutting down the width, but I could have left the length. I have a different closure: I have a button instead of the strip. I used different materials: I found that awesome red vinyl on sale. I wanted something durable, and something that I could clean off easily if it does get dirty.

I'm absolutely in love with the red. And the teal. And the button. I really love the button.

My mom was a little concerned that my machine wouldn't be able to handle it. A completely valid concern; it's kind of old. It took a little while to get going when we were having to stitch through four layers of vinyl, but once we got going, she did just fine. 

In line with my sewing skills, I have officially begun a fabric stash. You have to understand that my mom is a magician when it comes to sewing. That means that she's collected fabric for forever. There's a whole wall of it in her sewing room. Her collecting meant that there was always a "stash" that we could all go to when we needed random fabric. Mine is no where near what my mom's is, and it doesn't necessarily have all of those basics that you might use at any given time, but there's some pretty great stuff in there. Most of it has been bought on sale, as a remnant, or with the help of coupons. 

The only question now is where I'm going to put it when I move...

Everyone I know has been complaining about how hot it is. I haven't agreed with them; it's about 10 degrees hotter back home, and I haven't turned on my A/C yet. So it's not hot. 

Today has made me think they might be right.

It's still 10 degrees hotter back home, but we had rain roll through four or five days ago. The moisture hasn't completely left yet.

Humidity is gross. My hair doesn't like it. I'm sticky. I don't like it.

A/C... coming soon to an apartment near me.
Or not. Apparently, the A/C/ doesn't think that the apartment temperature needs to be any lower than 85 degrees. I disagree. It's been so hot that I can't fall asleep early, so I don't wake up early. Sad face.

Check out my knock-off sausage McMuffins! They're awesome! I actually eat breakfast with this, instead of a waffle with some jam, so that's great.

This week has been short. I leave for San Diego on Thursday to meet up with a bunch of my Arizona girls! I'M SO EXCITED. San Diego isn't going to know what hit it.