Pheidippides Died.

Well, Amy and I have started marathon training as of this week. Why would we do that? Because we think we can. And I know if I'm going to do it, now is definitely the time. (No kids, a husband writing a dissertation, you do the math.)

Being in a somewhat flexible job where I can work pretty much whatever hours I want, I am not accustomed to waking up early. I like to stay up late, so the reality of marathon training hit me at exactly 5:45 this morning, after a big garlic-y dinner last night and staying up to catch up on "The Sopranos" on Netflix. (We are on Season 3.)

But I had to be in the shower to get ready for my teaching day in Tuscaloosa (every Wednesday) by 6:45, so that meant an early morning-it was a pretty short run today. I'm down. And now I feel very accomplished.

This is the first week of training, so I'm still in the excited phase.

Here's how it goes:

Sunday- Cross Train (easy enough)

Monday- Rest (very easy)

Tuesday- Run in the a.m., Power Yoga in the p.m. (gotta keep those muscles strong and stretched out!)

Wednesday- Run in the a.m.

Thursday- Run in the a.m., Power Yoga in the p.m.

Friday- Rest (!)

Saturday- Loooonngg Run for the week (up to 20 miles)

So periodically I will blog about how this is all going. I have run quite a few half marathons, a 15K, and a million 5Ks. I know what training is, and I know I'm going to be in amazing shape, but too tired to enjoy it at all. I know I will drink so much (organic) milk and eat so much (all-natural) cashew and peanut butter we might go broke. I already dread the 18-miler the day after Christmas. After all, Pheidippides DIED.

The 1896 Olympic Marathon, courtesy Wikipedia.

Put on yer dang jean shorts-we're goin' to see them Gators play!

Another fun weekend in the books!

At 6:00 p.m. Friday evening (after work) we drove to Gainesville, FL--arriving at roughly 3 a.m. after several interstate setbacks.  For those of you that don't know, Gainesville, FL is the center of the universe (*inject some sarcasm*).  Anyway, we stayed with my in-laws for the weekend, had a lovely visit, and went to see the Gators play the Kentucky Wildcats!  I like the gators, but I don't love them.  Mostly I married into gator-dom.  But what I love love love is football--so exciting!

That being said, I hope the Gators kick the shit out of Bama this upcoming weekend.  One can hope.

Jeff, my brother in law, and "Dr. Mans" to you, was nice enough to plan the pregame tailgate. We had some amaze-balls burgers, great sides, and enjoyed watching the Bama (YUCK)/Arkansas game on the flatscreen.  One of the tail-gators (!) got a pretty severe sprained ankle, but that was the only snafu.  We went to the game, where the gators killed the wildcats, and finally back home after another tailgate snack while we waited for traffic to clear.

And Mississippi State beat Georgia!  Woot!

Again we got in bed superlate, but it doesn't matter, because the next morning we had to go see the grandparents!  We missed Grandpa Mans' ("Dr. Mans" to you) birthday party two weeks ago and needed to give him his gift and catch up. We had a great visit, complete with homemade cherry turnovers.  Granny Mans is the best cook in the world.

Overall a superfun weekend.  Thanks Jeff and Lori for your hard work--I know from experience that planning and executing a tailgate is no small feat.

Photo with the fam before we leave on our football adventure. 

Jeff did his hair special for the occasion.

And one more with the mom-in-law.  Woo!  Look at those bags under my eyes!

I'm too old for this type of travel, apparently.

The only photo I took at the game---with my cell phone.  Win.

Have a great week everyone! 

-Keri ("Dr. Mans" to you)

The football game is mostly secondary to the food.

So after yoga and breakfast on Saturday, I went to a THIRD social event!  I know!  Turns out three is my limit for social events in one day, because I totally flaked out on going for drinks and dancing later that night.  

We tailgated for the UAB football game.  I didn't go to the game, but I hear they won finally. Anyway, it was time for the Golden Tongs cookout competition, and this year the media was beef!  Rob didn't compete this year, since he's won the tongs every year at this event.  But Erica made beef skewers which were a big hit, and Edie made "the best hamburgers on earth".  They were seasoned with cajun sausage and wrapped in bacon!  Bacon!  

Erica won by a vote of 6 to 5!

Edie poses with her amaze-balls burgers!

I wonder if Sean believed me when I said I didn't take this photo?  

Abby protects Bells from the marching band.  

The marching band, really, this dog was terrified.

Owen protects Mommy from the marching band and looks around for snacks.

Erica, after years of hard competition, finally wins the Golden Tongs! 

Maybe next year, Edie!

Unless Rob decides to come out of retirement...

Woot!

Peace factory, WORD.

This past Saturday, there was a yoga session at Vulcan Park on the city overlook.  The name of the class was "108 Sun Salutations at Vulcan Park".  I was very excited and decided to take interested parties of my yoga class on a field trip.  I am a very stupid person sometimes.  At least one of us should have realized that we were going to do 108 sun salutations with different yoga instructors from the Birmingham area, and even though I did realize it was going to be a lot of saluting the sun, I kind of thought each instructor would do a different version of the pose series, and not the SAME ONE OVER AND OVER AGAIN FOR 1.5 HOURS!

But that's what happened.  

It was a beautiful day, and even though my little group was stuck by the pregnant lady section, we did very well for about 24 rounds of sun salutation.  I learned that I should imagine my body as a peace factory (for reals), cleanse my internal organs, and open my body to cleansing energy and peace from the earth.  Just so you know, this is NOT how my yoga class operates.  Anyway, I got somewhat dizzy, very nauseous, and super-hungry.  After about 75 rounds of the same thing over and over, I took my yoga class on a field trip to the pancake house.   We had a wonderful time eating bacon.

Edie and I fail at keeping our eyes open.  And also I'm making my stank-face.  Win.

Alicia and Johanna, thinking they're ready for anything!

It looks like Edie forgot her pants, but she's wearing them.

The hippies come out of the woodwork.

 

twenty eight and 11/12 years old

i will be 29 in exactly one month.  29!  this means i'm going to enter the last year of my twenties.  i mean, actually, i'm going to enter my 30th year, if you wanna be technical. 

there is going to be a party.  a theme party!!

i find it very strange, because i feel so young.  i mean, i'm married and have a job.  but there are plenty of immature married people out there, so this alone does not make me a grown up. but i don't feel ready to be 29.  i still need advice all the time, mostly from my mom and dad! there's something about it that's just weird to me--have i really crossed the great divide into "grownup" world?

those of you that are older than i am, i realize, will say, "wah wah wah".  but let me be clear on one thing: this post is not about getting older.  each year, often around new year's or my birthday, i think about the past year and what i have done.  now that i'm close to entering a new decade, i'm thinking back about how much i have changed in the past 10 years.  how much about my life has changed.  does every decade bring about this many changes, or is the 10 years from 19 to 29 the most dramatic?  

at 19, i was a sophomore in college.  i was roommates with my bestie kristin, and our weekends were filled with house parties and strip twister.  yes, strip twister.  as i've gotten older, i have found that no one wants to play strip twister anymore.  whats the fugging problem, people?  so that's one big change.  no strip twister. my mother is going to die when she reads this.

i was dating someone completely wrong for me.  i believe this is something EVERYONE must do.  there should be no regrets, but it really makes you appreciate the right one when he/she comes along.

then came 21, when i got my bellybutton pierced.  that lasted until i was 27, when it fell out and i was too lazy to put it back in.  i started teaching yoga, which i still do! at 22 i graduated college, moved to birmingham, and started graduate school.  until age 25 or so, i was convinced that graduate school was the single worst decision i had made in my entire life.  at 24 i met the man i was to marry. wow. sometime in this time frame i started running 1/2 marathons.

at 26 i got engaged.  2nd happiest day ever.  at 27 i got married.  first happiest day ever.  at 28 i became a doctor and landed a great job doing exactly what i want to do, thus making graduate school somewhat worth the suffering.  

what will the next decade bring?  hopefully a full marathon.  rob will be a doctor soon, and hopefully will find a job doing exactly what he wants to do.  we plan to leave birmingham and settle somewhere we truly want to be.  we'll probably have children--i mean if we are going to have them, i guess it should happen in the next 10 years or so.  

i'm almost 29.  god help me when i turn 30.

HairDO!

I impulsively cut my hair after teaching yoga class last night!  I had an appointment with a new person at a new place and was really only going to get my luxurious blond locks shaped up.  But walked in, met Scott (my new hair guy), and said, "just cut it".  So it's a layered bob, which I hope doesn't look too mom-ish, that was my biggest fear in getting a shorter cut was that people will think I'm having a kid.  But here's the thing.  It's just another excuse to drink, which means I'm:

a) not pregnant

or

b) a terrible person. 

So anyway here are the pics.  My face looks real stoopid because I took pictures of myself with my camera phone, which is always a bad idea.  But anyway, you can tell I let go of a bunch of hair :)

Paging Lily Tomlin...

This weekend on a routine trip to Sam's (I mean, a trip to anywhere in Birmingham is never QUITE routine, but I digress...), we found these lovely giant chairs.  I subsequently became obsessed and can't decide if I'd rather have the red one or the black one, but really I wish they came in green or even pink.

We took a picture:

Anyway, the chairs and the pictures remind me very much of Lily Tomlin and her "Edith Ann" skits.

Check out this video posted for your convenience if you've got no idea who in hell Edith Anne is.

Happy Monday!

Holy Metal Mexican Mariachi!

On Wednesdays I spend my days in Tuscaloosa doing various teaching activities at Stillman College.  Christine and I usually try to ride together.  It saves UAB money in reimbursement, and we have fun and go out for lunch.  Today we went to a Mexican restaurant.  I can't really remember the name, but they had a mariachi band made completely from metal.  Including moustaches! 

Fall has Fallen!

For Labor Day weekend we went to a place best described as "the southern midwest":  Louisville, KY.   Rob and I deliberated all the way home yesterday and decided on this, since it's not really the north and not really the south.  Gary says it's the south, Beth says it is not because you can see Indiana. Kentucky, I heard from the internets, is technically a "border" state. Anyway, I'm not going to argue, because everyone seems pretty dead set in their opinions. Either way, it's delightfully charming.

We've certainly been missing Rob's uncle Gary, aunt Beth and their 3 girls (Ally, 8; Jaimie, 12; and Kaitlin, 14) since they moved from Helena, AL to Louisville sometime last year.  They were in limbo and an apartment for a while, but they are all moved in and settling into their beautiful new home!  So it was high time for a visit, and we were certainly happy to impose ourselves on them for a weekend.

We tailgated for the University of Louisville v. University of Kentucky football game on Saturday, Rob and Gary went to the game, and I got to hang out with Beth and the girls.  They showed me lots of their cool city, even though I'm pretty sure the older girls thought it was lame.  We spent lots of time walking in the gorgeous pre-fall weather and gazing across the river at Indiana.  Sunday Beth and I went running together (I'm ALWAYS happy for a running buddy!), showed me around the neighborhood, then we went back to the waterfront and saw the fountain that kids like to swim in and the vast number of parks.  We also got to spend some time by the waterfront.  Both Saturday and Sunday were filled with simply gorgeous weather. A very busy weekend indeed, but so much fun.  Lots of captioned photos below!

Bella (found out her whole name is Bella Blue) helps Rob navigate Nashville rush hour.  Brutal.

Gary and Beth have now have their own piece of the world on Tavener Drive. 

Now you know and you can go see them!

Neighbors' flowers in bloom, probably some of the last of this season:

We went to the Zachary Taylor Cemetery and played "Who's been dead the longest?".  

It was Zachary Taylor.

 Goofing off in front of the OH river and Indiana:

Kaitlin and Ally

Beth and Girls

A beautiful Sunday afternoon, pre-housewarming

Belle of Louisville, the boat, not me.  

Gary and Rob work hard on their brisket competition.  

Gary won this one, so now they need a tiebreaker!

My husband, the homemade grill-maker.

The party gets in full swing. 

See the guy in the light-blue button-down?  

There will be a post solely dedicated to him later this week.

Ms. Marie is 97!

Relay spent the evening really wishing for some brisket. 

Two of my favorite people from the weekend are in this pic.  

One told me I looked like a high schooler, which I realize is untrue, but shut up.

The other told me that I have smooth glamorous hair.  I'm sure they were both paid!

If you go visit Gary and Beth over on Tavener Drive, you must bring either bourbon or coffee.

You have been warned.

Surely they are making an instructional video.  

And surely they are all sober.

We all ate way too much!  Delish food!

We thought we would stop on the way home for some BBQ, it being Labor Day and all.  We went to TWO BBQ restaurants that were, much to our dismay, CLOSED!  This was a major fail:

SO:

Thanks again to the Louisville Mans Clan for a lovely time! Hope everyone had an eventful Labor Day weekend.  

Happy Tuesday!