Tomorrow is Opening Day aka our first race of the 2017 season!

Tomorrow is our first official race of the season. I was able to run twice this week and give my legs a rest for a couple of days. On my most recent run, I was able to run sub-11:00 minute miles, which has been my fastest pace since last summer. The Old Girl was once again my best mate for running.

 Let's see if I can keep it up under race conditions tomorrow! I did meet some friends for a beer last night (Lansing's Ozone Krypton Ale--will it help?) which I don't normally do, but I figured it was 36 hours pre-race and it should be okay...

I stopped at my favorite running store to pick up our packets. I was drooling over the new Saucony shoes as well as the Mizunos. I have no idea what shoes I should actually be wearing but I sure love looking at the flashy ones!

Here's the race gear (H is running the Kids One Mile with his BFF Emma):

Mother Nature didn't like my taunting last week. Here is our Mitten weather today (freezing rain, snow, sleet, ice pellet-y mix!):

I seriously hope the weather takes a turn for the better in the AM. Nothing like slick roads to blow an Achilles!

And finally, in the spirit of the holiday, here we are.

Happy St. Patrick's Day 2017! And may the luck of the Irish be with us and all the runners in tomorrow's Run for the (Ronald McDonald) House!

Marching in like a lion for sure...what a run today!

Snowing, blowing, cold. That sums up what we woke up to today after hitting 60 degrees last week. After hardly a winter at all here in the Mitten, I shouldn't complain. But outside runs are great, if and when breaking an ankle is not a distinct possibility.

I really was not going to risk it with our race coming up soon... but... my Old Girl looked at me with those eyes when she saw me throwing my New Balances on. Next thing I know, I am rigging up her harness and pulling on my Puma running hat and gloves. And she is dancing around in her own doggy glory.

I really didn't have time for more than 20 minutes before work but I figured if I could get 20 minutes in without face planting on the icy streets or blowing an Achilles, I would be happy.

Low and behold, once I couldn't feel my hamstrings from the cold I felt pretty good. I surprised myself by finishing a full two miles with a pace of 11:31. Considering the conditions, I consider this a big win for the week. Ice crystal mascara is really attractive, isn't it?!??
Come on, Mother Nature, you can do better than that!!

Mitten Love Mondays vol. 1

I have decided that I need to share my favorite Michigan products with the world... now let's hope that shouting from the rooftops how much I love all things Mitten doesn't mean a shortage for me when I'm low on my favorite products!

This week, in honor of St. Patrick's Day, I am featuring one of  my favorite Michigan-made treats. Wooden Crate Popcorn Company makes the BEST gourmet popcorn. Ever. Seriously.

This weekend, we got our hands on two bags; one is Irish Stout, featuring beer from one of Hubs' all time favorite Michigan breweries, Shorts in Bellaire, Michigan. I have never, ever witness him try one of their beers and NOT rave about it. Ever. He loves all of their beers that much. He's visited the brewery as well and has declared it is a must-stop on the Michigan Hops Trail. Back to the popcorn! We tried to just have a tiny sample and save the rest for later, but alas, half a bag was gone in the blink of an eye. They actually poured bottles of Uncle Steve's Irish Style Stout into the caramel coating as it was cooking. Oh my GOODNESS. We did manage to save a few pieces more than 24 hours after opening the bag, but not much.

The other bag I was gifted with was their Peanut Butter & Jealous, which is peanut butter and chocolate covered caramel corn. Those who know me know my #1 food obsession is peanut butter in any and all forms. This popcorn is amazing. That's all I'm going to say for fear that next time I want a bag, my friends that make this confectionery delight will tell me they've run out.

Check out their Etsy store here:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/WoodenCratePopcornCo

You will not be sorry. They ship anywhere, but if you're in the mid-Michigan area, you can stop by Appletree Lane in Owosso and pick some up for yourself (and even sample their other flavors if you are lucky enough!). Pure Michigan deliciousness!!

Training time! Let's do this.

So. My husband has been complaining incessantly that he needs to get back into shape, that he needs to start eating well again. I agreed with the getting back into shape part; it felt like we took the winter off from running, and it showed. It's so hard to get motivated to run outside when the weather clearly suffers from psychotic episodes frequently here in the Mitten. It can't decide if it's winter, spring, summer, or all three during any given week. He hates the "dread"mill even more than I do so he's done nothing over the course of the last few months.

But what's more motivating than knowing you've signed up for a race that almost 1000 people will be at?!

Not much.

We are registered for a race that benefits our local Ronald McDonald house in just a few short weeks. Knowing this, I've been running about 2 to 2.5 miles every other day over the course of the last few weeks. My lungs aren't very forgiving yet but I'll get there. I am amazed at what foam rolling does for post-run relief. I so wish I would've had my foam roller a year ago! It definitely speeds recovery time and helps to alleviate soreness.

Here's my beloved orange friend:

The TriggerPoint Performance "The Grid" model is fabulous for legs, calves, hip flexors, glutes, even shins. If you don't have one, run (ha!) to your local sports gear store and get one. Really.

{I've also added new compression socks to my routine; more on those and my opinion on whether they are worth it next week.}

.

<---Not me, but a perfect example of how I use it.

This is me, and how happy I am after rolling the crap out of my post-run sore muscles!--->





I also REALLY made him frustrated when I announced that I had also sort of kind of maybe definitely registered us for our first 10K in June.

"YOU WHAT!!!!"

"It'll be ok and we have 15 weeks to train and the route is beautiful compared to their 5K route and we can work together to up our mileage and we can start tomorrow and take H with us and it will be fun and...."

I lost him at "it'll be ok"; I'm quite sure he didn't hear much after that. I am convinced he will thank me later. Stay tuned!

The Half Birthday Treat (Project)

At school, H's half birthday is celebrated since he was born in the summertime and school will never be in session on the actual date of his birth. I see all these other parents carrying in a package of store-bought cupcakes for birthday treats (we're very lucky there are no allergies in his class!) and so I was trying to mentally guess what character treat we'd be in search of the weekend before his half b-day. He came home from school a few days prior and announced he knew exactly what he wanted me to make. Cake pops. Not just any cake pops. Strawberry cake pops. With chocolate outsides.

Now, our family makes more of a cake ball, and we've never felt the need to put sticks inside; instead we prefer to eat them by the handful before the chocolate shell melts on our fingers. The stick element would be a new challenge for me, but I was confident I would figure it out easily.

I was able to get the cake mix and frosting on sale (strawberry is not always the easiest flavor to find!) and I bought three pounds of melting chocolate from Appletree Lane, which has the BEST chocolate hands down for candy making. Visit them here. 

https://www.facebook.com/shopappletreelane/

I also bought the 50-ct. Wilton sticks using a 40% off coupon at Michaels so that was a bargain too.

I was SO happy I thought to re-read the family recipe prior to being gone for part of the day--there are several steps that take a long time to complete! I started that morning with baking each cake (I made two) by following the box directions exactly.

While the cake was still warm, I crumbled it up into a large bowl, and then added the can of frosting and mixed well. It looks like dough at this point.

The dough has to be refrigerated at least three hours or even overnight. We were going to be gone for several hours so I knew that would be long enough.

Once we were home again, I balled up the cake ball 'dough'. I'm sure a melon-baller would've made this easier but instead I used a large spoon and my hands (tip: REMOVE YOUR RINGS!).
Critical step: cake balls must be frozen to retain their shape when dipped.
Critical error: putting the sticks into the balls before freezing. I am quite sure this was a big downfall of my vision of the "perfect treats".

Once frozen, I attempted to melt the chocolate (best tip: microwave a pile of the chocolates for 30 seconds, then stir, then 30 more seconds, and it will be perfect with just a few pieces of solid chocolate that will quickly melt when stirred again) and then dip each ball on a stick,

This is where I got mega-frustrated, to the point that I am pretty sure I yelled, "Don't ever expect me to make these again!!!". The sticks were falling out. The balls were spinning on the stick and not picking up the chocolate evenly. The balls would fall into the chocolate. I also spent $3 on what I thought would be a cool Wilton cake pop stand but that was a fail too. The balls would bump each other, or the base, when I tried to stand them up to dry in it. I ended up using it just to get them to dry, and then I laid them out in a Tupperware container to transport them to school.

Ugly little things, aren't they?!!?

My vision was gone and I was mad. I literally spent almost five hours (FIVE!) trying to turn a disaster in the kitchen into birthday treats. My Type-A personality was so disappointed these didn't go as easily as I expected, nor did they turn out as I had pictured in my mind. However, as messy as they looked, they did end up tasting amazing.

Next year around the beginning of February, you'll find me at the grocery store bakery buying ready-made cupcakes. I'll leave the cake ball making to my stepmom, who clearly is far better at this than I am!!  Here is her recipe, better explained than I did above:

100th Day of School

We recently celebrated H's 100th day of school. His teacher makes a pretty big deal out of it, which was exciting for the kids. They had different activities planned, like counting 100 snack items (Goldfish, Craisins, Chex, pretzels), stringing 100 Fruit Loops on a necklace, sorting colored beads in groups of 10, etc. The homework assignment was to wear 100 items of your choice.

Thankfully we were given said assignment several weeks ago, and I had plenty of time to go on Pinterest and save several over-the-top cute pins of shirts that others had made with their kids. I was so excited to show my son my ideas but my excitement quickly faded... "...No, too girly. Too many stars (umm, aren't there supposed to be 100?). I don't like the gumballs. I need something ninja." He then took my phone and started scrolling through pins at lightning speed until he announced, "That's it! That's my shirt! Can you make that, Mom?"

He had found a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle made out of craft pom poms. I am over all things turtles, but he is not. But he was very clear on his vision, "But Mom, it needs to be Mikey, not Raph!"

I spent Sunday afternoon hot gluing pom poms to a cheap dry-fit style shirt I picked up at Wal-Mart for $3 on clearance. I was able to find the colors of pom poms I needed at Michael's after first checking JoAnn Fabrics. JoAnn's only had giant 1000-count multi-color bags that I would never use again so I was glad I didn't settle for those.

Some other cute ideas I saw at school that day--a girl had a baby blanket-turned-cape with 100 glow in the dark stars, a couple of kids had hats on with 100 gems or jewels, another girl had a tee with 100 little plastic peace signs glued to it, one had stuck foam flowers to hers, and one simply had a shirt with 100 tally marks on it. That mom is clearly wiser than I!

Our preschool had a bulletin board I designed (thank you, Pinterest!) that said, "This is what 100 looks like!" and we had each child bring in a bag with anything they wanted as long as the items totaled 100. We had pasta, Shopkins, books, stickers, coins, crayons, chocolate chips, popcorn, coffee beans, cotton balls, pencils and more. It turned out great.

So here it is, the "100 Ninja" shirt. Ideally, it would've said 100 DAY Ninja, but I had to have an even 100 on it! Not the easiest task. Was it memorable? It sure was.

100 Ninja shirt

Maybe next year I'll try to convince him to wear 100 Lego pieces on his pants. :)

Valentine project for school!

H decided he wanted to make his own valentines this year, which I was totally ok with considering we're trying to cut costs anywhere possible! I happened to find these adorable rubber dinosaur erasers in bright colors, and they came in a package of six. After buying three packs for his class, I decided the preschoolers would enjoy them too, and I went back to the store and bought four more packs (I believe the packs were $1.50 regularly priced, and they were 25% off).

So far I was under $8.00 into this project and, insert self-pat, this valentine would not include candy of any kind. Fellow parents, you are welcome. I also wanted good, sturdy valentines to support the dinos so I used sheets of cardstock that I had on hand in my office. I found this adorable free printable on Pinterest, from our friend Kara over at Life With Fingerprints.

Check her blog out here!

My son wanted to take ownership of printing each friend's name on the card, signing his own on the back, and cutting them all out. Initially I had this perfect vision in my head of how these would look, and I had to step back and remind myself these are HIS cards to pass out to his friends, not mine. And it will be very obvious that he did these steps himself. When they were finished I felt nothing but pride for his effort.

I used a hole punch to make two holes on each, diagonal from each other, to act as anchors for the baker's twine I used to tie the dinos to the cards. It's hard to tell, but I did use pink and white baker's twine for the girls, and then red and white for the boys. H even made sure his teacher is a recipient.

Aren't they SO cute??! Love, love, love these.