Run Like a Dog 2013

Yay for picture-heavy posts!  (Though I imagine that this, too, is okay with you, because my posts are usually novels I write in attempts to procrastinate working on my actual novels.)  I don’t have much to say on the subject of this run, except that it wasn’t nearly as tiring as I thought it was going to be, except for a brief but overwhelming wave of nausea after it was over, most likely because I sprinted too hard to the finish line–but endurance is building up! 😀  We did end up taking two dogs–Daddio ran with Peeve and I, Stitch.  He was a good, faithful running partner, only stopping to pee on three garbage bins and attempting to yank my arm out of its socket only twice while stopping to greet a dog behind him.  I actually think having Stitch with me made me faster, because I had something to think about/fuss over/be concerned about other than the fact that I was running a 5k.  And while I didn’t try for time, I actually managed a perfect 10-minute mile–on the dot, 31:00!–and that’s pretty okay for me! 🙂  I’m not sore at all today, one day later, and I feel accomplished and awesome and like I want to go for another run.  Tomorrow.

It was also my first time running with Bic Bands!

(Tip:  when taking an awkward but necessary-for-your-blog selfie, be sure to include emphatic jazz hands.  It makes things easier on everyone.)

I ran in the above band, the thick Orange Crush (have not tried the bottom one yet, thin Hip to Be Square).  And all I can say is…wow.  Just like every other fitness blogger on the internet, I’m going to virtually yak your ear off about these, so be prepared.  I didn’t have to reach up and adjust, check that it was still there, remove, or otherwise fiddle ONCE–and I may or may not be a pathological fiddler.  And–andandandandandandand!–it was in THE SAME PLACE when I finished the run as when I started.  Being someone with an abnormally large cranium and uncontrollable hair (MIGHT I REMIND YOU OF THE OLD HERMIONE-INSPIRED LOOK:

), these were a godsend.  And Bic Bands donates profits to charity!  HOW COOLIO.  They’re pricey, yeah, but I have a feeling these are the only workout headbands I’ll need for a few years now, and the company is totally SPUNKALICIOUS.  (Read my last post if you’re lost here.) 😉  So…yeah.  Consider Bic-Bands heartily TGITO-endorsed.  I bought them myself, wasn’t provided with review products or anything, so all opinions are 100% my own!

Ten-minute mile.  Fun dog socializing.  Free clementines and granola bars afterward, and a good time was had by all.

 

 

 

Further Fur

I all but promised you 2 days ago that the alliteration was going to die with that last post.  Maybe that might have been a mite misleading.  I’m on a roll, or rather, a reckless rampage.

This post isn’t really an update or record or news flash or anything, but it does introduce a furry member of my family and it does include a lot of cute goggie pictures and hopefully it will make you smile, because Peeve is really good at that, and you never know when someone’s in need of a laugh.  So, read on, my good peruser-of-le-blog.  Read and be entertained.

Peeve made her Instagram debut last week, and she quickly became quite popular.  I’m not sure why I’ve never shared pictures of her before, because she’s comedic gold!  If you follow me on Instagram, you’ve already seen her….special face, but now for the cordial introductions:

Her name is Peeve, because she’s our “pet” and our family is one that gets a roaring laugh out of puns.  We always joke that she’s our “biggest pet peeve”, and she certainly seems to think so, though she’s pint-sized.

She’s a docile creature, not overly concerned with the fast pace of society and its regulations.  She likes to take it easy.  Naptime occurs at least six times a day, more if someone else is willing to engage in the pastime with her.

These are STUNNING shots of her, all gussied up in her best.  On a normal day, expect to find Peeve like this:

Yes, Peeve is rather special-looking.  She also possesses startling chameleon talents, managing to resemble Yoda, an Ewok, and a monk seal all in one fell swoop.  Judge her by her size, do you?

Striking, the resemblance is.  Mmmm.

I…I can’t even… There…there are just no words.

Fun Fact:  Boston Terriers were originally bred as “war dogs”!

Since I know you’re all quaking in your boots with trepidation right now, I’ll stop with the Peeve pictures.  I’m glad I finally got around to introducing you to her though! 🙂  Now for a quick poll:  Which dog (if any) should accompany me to the Run Like a Dog 5k?  I initially thought I was going dogless, definitely (drat, here comes the alliteration again), but now I’m decidedly less decisive…

The contenders are: Stitch…(he might be more fun to document; he’s a bit of a camera ham, really)

and Fraggle.  Yes, like the Rock.

(Heckyes we have a buttload of dogs.)  Both medium/large breed, both in good shape and quite amiable, both would probably find the run fun.  Thoughts?  Have you ever run with a canine companion before?  I haven’t, so it’s probably not the best idea to break into it at a race, but…dogs…  I might simply pawn one off on Daddio.  That way they would get to enjoy the race without baffling me and what little consistency there is with my running style.

(In case you were wondering, Zixie gets an honorable mention.  Her hips are too bad to run that far, though.  Alas.  Otherwise she’d be my go-to girl.)

Should I go for it?  The dark side clouds everything.  Impossible to see, the future is.

Haha, anyway–happy final fragments of Sunday.  On a semi-related note: how the heck are we over halfway through August already??!!  I literally thought it had to be the August 3rd yesterday… #timewarp

I hope you got a laugh out of our funny-faced furry friend.

Orange Peelings:

• July
• Healthy Eating on the Road
• A Tribute to the Final “Dog Days” of Summer
• First Weekend of 2013, in Pictures

Friday Faves

Featuring: food finds, fun, fur, accomplishments and attempted alliteration.

1.  Accomplishments: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, meet 3-dimensional puzzles.

Up in our Wyoming cabin, the bro, the friend, and I happened across a vintage Peppercricket Farms 247-piece, 3D PUZZLE.  We slaved away hours over this thing (at least, I did–the bro and friend dropped out 70% of the way through [weaklings]) and I’m not ashamed to say that I’ve been kinda waiting for an excuse to show you my handiwork since then. 😀  Or that this puzzle was my sole driving force for the three-day span it occupied; I ate, breathed, and slept Peppercricket Farms.  I even missed dinner one night???!!  What could have possibly possessed my soul so fiercely as to cause such an unthinkable outcome??

Other news in the accomplishments department:  I’m running my second 5k evah next Saturday, the 25th!  (You can read the recap of my first 5k here.)  I’m simultaneously pumped and terrified–since the great fooeing of the knees, running has been rather hard and painful for me.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m extremely grateful that I’m at least able to run with knee braces at this point, but I’m also out of shape and in pain and such and consequently I’m not nearly as speedy as I would like.  For this reason, I’m not hoping to PR on my 5k, but I am hoping to finish strong–that is, resist the urge to walk!  Running is an extreme mental hurdle for me, and I only hope I’ll have the strength to jump it.

The race is South Bay Veterinary Hospital’s Run Like a Dog 5k–I’m stoked because of the proceeds going to the humane society. 🙂  Also, it’s pet-friendly, so hopefully I’ll get lots of chances to ogle and photograph all the cute widdle goggies! 😀  Daddio shall run too.  Fun!

2.  Fur: The many joys of peanut butter.  A few days ago, I introduced dog Zixie to the many joys of the spread and put the ends of a jar to good use.  We both had great fun.

Yes, my dog looks like a fox.  And yes, after this session, the remaining peanut butter levels testified to exactly how far her tongue could get into that jar:

🙂

3.  Fun: The world’s smallest potato.

I don’t know why, but I crack up every time I look at this guy.  Obviously, Mother Dearest and I are such talented gardeners!

Once upon a time I had a pretty orange manicure, but now I’ve traded it in in favor of a more natural earth-inspired nail look.

You know those lucky ducks whose jobs are to come up with witty nail polish colors for the bigshot companies?  Well, I call this look “Girl Who Had Way Too Much Fun Digging For Potatoes Gloveless”.  Catchy, right??  O-P-I hiring office, here I come.

Fortunately, Mother Dearest and I have also harvested some (marginally) larger potatoes, and other glorious summer veggies (pole beans, snap peas, radishes, etc.)–I’ve got my eye on a satay from Vegetarian Times for these babies.

Fun, part B:  Scavenger Hunt w/ Little Bro.  Alphabetical, photographic scavenger hunt, no less (“Take a picture of something starting with A, B, C, and so on, no skipping letters and no going inside.  First person to finish gets a 10-point bonus; duplicate picture points go in favor of the 2nd finisher.”).  Yeah, ‘at’s right, folks, we’re bringin’ sexy good, wholesome fun back!

Here’s my Wasp Nest for “W”.  Do those white caps mean there’s still eggs inside the nest??  Ook.

4.  Food Finds:  Ketchup Curry, and Rockin’ Rice.  A few weeks ago I made PBF’s Crock Pot Curried Lentils (minus chicken thighs), which in my opinion was amazing (or maybe I was just really hungry) the first day and then faded into meh for the remaining servings.  Not to fear!  This mehness resulted in the discovery that I l-o-o-o-v-e the rather offbeat combination of curry + ketchup.  Like, a lot.  Like, enough to maybe make my own recipe out of it.  Nummy stuff, you guys.

(^^Such a beautiful photo.  Ain’tcha proud?)

Food Finds, part B:  PlanetRice Lightly Milled Sprouted Brown Rice.

(Photo from PlanetRice’s Website, Link Above)

Are we thankful we discovered this!  We picked it up on a whim while at Albertson’s in Sheridan, Wyoming, and it turned out to be the best rice Mother Dearest or I have ever tasted!  Not to mention the fact that it’s like a healthy combination of white and brown rice–sprouted, too, so extra nutrient power–and pleases my entire Standard American Diet-eatin’ family!  Hooray!  You have no idea how hard it is to find something healthy that will do this!  Thank you, PlanetRice.  Highly recommended.  Now hopefully we’ll be able to track some down back home…

*****

Well, this was a fun post!  Mayhap they will start to become a regular feature–a Fantastically Fun Friday Faves Feature!  Or, in the interest of not being murdered in my bed by a band of bustling, boisterous, alliteration-averse apes, I should prune the practice of such postings and crack down on the current craziness to circumvent catastrophic consequences.  Happy Friday!

Orange Peelings:

• I’m back! Have a health survey.
• MIMM: Hatchday, Pretty Light, Knees, and Insane Decisions
• Let the Festivities Commence
• Healthy Eating on the Road

Running While High

7,434 feet above sea level, to be exact. 😉

How can you not enjoy your evening run when you’re enjoying the above scenery^^^ while mowing through it??  I really wish I could just move this mountain back with me as my own personal running field.  Alas.  No matter what Dr. Seuss and any number of inspirational speakers may say, it’s severely hard to move mountains.  I couldn’t even figure out how to get the rope around it.

I was a bit worried about the oxygen-related complications this much of a jump (hardeehar) in elevation would cause while exercising, especially with intense cardio like the tempo work the friend and I were doing on our run–but it was actually kind of nice.  🙂  Too focused on the burning and hacking in my lungs, I didn’t notice my legs or core muscles fatiguing at all, even on the largest hills! 😀  It was a beautiful run (and I was proud of this post title) and I felt immensely accomplished after cooling down back in the cabin.  We only did two miles, at most, but there were quite a few hills, there was a thunderstorm chasing us (insta-motivation!), and we booked it.

Afterward we were quite tired.

And I need an excuse to show you this ice cream picture from the amazing KENDRICK PARK ICE CREAM STAND–seriously, this ice cream is one of my favorite things about the yearly trek back to Sheridan.  It embodies summer and childhood and post-swim-lesson starvation relieved by sweet, sugary, crunchy, creamy heaven.  You can just taste the nostalgia, like they churn it into the ice cream itself, and I could swear there was a hint of chlorine about it somehow, a happy tribute to memories of swallowing gallons of pool water before indulging.  The taste of simple childhood.

Except they removed my favorite flavor, Bear Claw.  Don’t ask me about how it tastes, because I will yadda on about Bear Claw until you have the urge to break out the claws yourself and maul my face.  Anyway, this time I got Espresso Almond Fudge in a Sugar Cone.

Sweet silky heaven on a hot summer day.

This post has not been cohesive because my thoughts right now are for some reason not terribly cohesive, but we’re cool (haha, ice cream pun) with that, okay?  Okay.

 

Orange peelings:

• MIMM: Hatchday, Pretty Light, Knees, and Insane Decisions
• WIAW: Intervention + A Smile Experiment
• Healthy Eating on the Road

Pretty, pretty, pretty.

Nobutseriously.  Say what you will about canyons and rain forests and glaciers; these are my ideas of stunning natural vistas.

 

Orange peelings:

• We hired Death as our landscaper
• Healthy Eating on the Road
• MIMM: Hatchday, Pretty Light, Knees, and Insane Decisions
• Let the Festivities Commence

Pics from the Weekend of 5 AM Cake

Be forewarned:  What follows is a post with no particular theme except the dates of 4/13/2013 and 4/14/2013, so if you hate random, wandering posts, this isn’t for you.  Also, the sporadicness is accompanied by some, gasp, phone pictures of cruddy quality…but how else is one to take a picture of their own camera?

……..

http://instagram.com/p/YDIqgVlYiy/

I figured, y’know, I’ve got a buttload of a to-do list waiting, what the heck, I’ll make myself pancakes.

It made more sense in my brain…

……

I was so grateful to Mother Dearest for providing me with a new mini tripod for my orange camera!  It certainly came in handy for video shooting this weekend…and it’s just awesome…because, you know, tripod.

……

Ahaha the crux of the weekend!  Hit up a local running store and walked out with a new pair of Asics GT-2000‘s, plus a nice pair of cushy orthotics for knees/feet/leg/joint/arghhghdhgh issues!  So far the orthotics are MAGICFUL (I can stand like a normal person now–and they bump up my height by half a glorious inch! 😉 ) and the shoes fit like a dream…can’t wait till I can start actually running in them!  (Also, the color of the shoes is called “electric melon”! 😉 This just cracks me up…)

Yeah-heah for new kickage!  Check it.

Okay, okay, no.  I should never try to talk like the teens of today.

……

Some peanut butter protein bars (#loveofmylife) and edamame hummus happened.  I was obsessed with the edamame hummus when I first tasted it, but now the Costco tub is almost gone and I don’t really want to look at it any more.

……

Face:

http://instagram.com/p/YJR3kQFYmU/

I happened to stumble upon the BEST retro sunglasses in the attic…I bet you thought I was above cheesy selfies.

I bet you were wrong.

Dramatic enough for ya yet? 😉 #yesthosearerealglasses

Their rein continues…

 

 

……

I was outside, feeling philosophical, and asked Stitch how he was feeling.  He plopped down and did this

so, although crap happens, I think we can be cautiously optimistic about our world situation here.

Le Diagnosis

GUESS WHAT!!!

GUESS WHAT!!!!

GUESS WHAT GUESS WHAT GUESS WHAT GUESS WHAT GUESS WHAT!!!!!

I am DIAGNOSED!!!

Knees knees knees knees. How much longer shall you plague me..?

Are you ready?  Are you really ready for this?  All right, don’t all jump up at once; I’ll tell you.

I have inflamed cartilage under my kneecaps.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…ha…ha…heh…*expletives*.

You know, I have no idea why it took FOUR FREAKING MONTHS of being shunted around from pediatrician to specialist to pediatrician to specialist to specialist to diagnose this, but, oh, no, I’m not bitter about it.  Not bitter at ALL.  Sure, yeah, I may have lost all faith in the modern medical system, but will you catch me griping about this particular wry misfortune?  No siree.  Not one little bit…

So, yeah.  Diagnosis.  A bit late in the coming, but…anyway.  This diagnosis is a huge weight taken off me in some ways, and a huge letdown in others, because, you see, it means I have to start a regimen of physical therapy and probably won’t be able to run for another three months at least…if ever.  That brings me close to tears every time I think about it…

On March 14, which is coincidentally Pi Day, I go in for my first physical therapy session, and I get some better braces for my knee, in lieu of my current brace Charles, the 20-buck, ordered-off-Amazon contraption.  In the meantime…rest and Advil.

Sometimes I feel like my life is becoming increasingly dominated by rest and Advil.

On a brighter note: pics from my day at the orthopedist!

Because I have to talk about the food–especially the strange-but-good variety–today started off with the singularly most disgusting-looking bowl of hot cereal I ever ate.  It definitely elicited the typical reactions from the family when I plunked it down at the breakfast table.  🙂 It was topped with two of the varieties of “Superfood” nut butters I won on Life Hands You Limes’ Artisana nut butter giveaway–Marine Phytoplankton nut butter (green) and Goji Berry Milk Thistle (peach).  The Marine Phytoplankton tasted oddly like a lemon poppyseed muffin, and the Goji Berry tasted exa-freaking-zactly like the strawberry filling of those processed Bagelfuls I enjoyed for breakfast as a wee young sprite!  Ah, nostalgia!

It was a children’s orthopedist; I made a pretty magnetic tesselation. This one’s for you, geometry teacher.

Somehow in this crazy mix of a day I found a quiet moment to watch Fred the cat stare transfixed at the sink for five minutes while my inner environmentalist burned in shame.

Fred the cat deserves a longer explanation, but one that shall not be offered in this post.

At any rate, dogs will always hold a much more special place in my heart than their feline counterparts.  Need an explanation?  I arrived home, sore and dejected (though the  consolatory Trader Joe’s run did help–thanks Mother Dearest :)), and I was greeted with this face:

Can’t you just see the empathy in his eyes?

This dog understands me.

Monthly Recap: February 2013

Recap in a sec, but first:

HAPPY NATIONAL PEANUT BUTTER LOVER’S DAY, GUYS!!

On such a monumentous occasion, it is very tragic that my peanut butter jar is in such an (empty) state.

I was so, so thrilled that I remembered to check the Hallmark every-holiday-ever calendar yesterday, especially since I missed the actual national peanut butter day.  (Good thing there’s a day just for the fans.)  I mean, seriously, why didn’t someone tell me?

Maybe you can celebrate by making something, special for tomorrow’s breakfast, like, say, Apple PB Baked Oatmeal. 😉  Or maybe, since tomorrow is National Banana Creme Pie Day, you will choose to whip up some 2-Ingredient Banana Creme and top it off with some peanut butter/sauce…!  The possibilities are endless.  Let your imagination run wild!

Onto February stuff. 🙂

So, during the month of February, I…

acted in a school play, didn’t run at ALL (still) and remained bitter about it, figured out a (somewhat) way to keep my fitness schedule on track even so (hello, strength training and yoga!), became even more enamored with oatmeal now that I can no longer eat it, practiced yoga in a real yoga studio for the first time evah, did a lot of…pondering, took a barefoot walk in the rain, wrote some things, and…acted in a school play.  Rather underwhelming, huh?; but what’re you gonna do.  It was a short month, somehow made even shorter by the lack of a breezy 30-minute run every day.  I told you.  Bitter.

(dramatic sigh) Anyway, now, the feature you’ve all been waiting for:

One month of The Girl in the Orange in terms of…

…food:

http://instagram.com/p/WIe4dHlYtC/

I did have some culinary breakthroughs this month, though I wasn’t as creative with coming up with my own flavor combinations as I would have liked.  Most recently, I went on a Trader Joe’s run a few weeks ago and ate the first tamale of my life.  I’m not quite sure why this seemed like as big of a deal as it did, but there you have it.  Sadly, it rather disappointed.  I was expecting it to be something like a Mexican dumpling, and instead all I get is this dry corn dough lumped together with a bunch of gooey cheese, corn kernels, and an attempt at jalapeno.  *Sniffs disdainfully*

Speaking of dumplings, I also made my first dumpling stew last month; a recipe from Allyson Kramer’s Great Gluten-Free Vegan Eats.  Except that now that we’re fairly certain my knee problems are not being caused by a gluten sensitivity and that makes me very happy, I promptly re-glutinified it.  It was highly delicious and highly brown (highly NOT photogenic); the dumplings taste like big gobs of homemade pasta dough and I <3, <3.  Comfort food at its finest.

…photography:

*Hangs head in shame* What do I really have to say for myself here, guys?  That running has left me too scatterbrained to participate in any of my usual creative activities…?  (I’ve already used that excuse multiple, multiple times, for multiple, multiple things.)  That my food/life has not been very aesthetically pleasing as of late..?  I’m sorry.  I know I make a lot of promises here, but this time when I say I’ll work on it (it being the frequency/quality of my photography), I truly mean it.  As halfway-compensation, in lieu of a proper photography section, here are some snapshots from the month:

Never in my life have I seen a dog that looks more like a walrus.

Citrus does not take kindly to his head-scritching session being intruded on by a big ugly camera.

A flub, obviously–I was intending to get the whole Citrus (only the Citrus, and nothing but the Citrus), but I rather enjoy how this mistake looks, with his feet on my shoulder.

…things that made me smile:

My poetry winning a contest that you can’t know about because it would tell you my name! 🙂  Ranting about my undying love for chocolate to my friends, on Valentine’s Day and beyond…I have made the resolution never to date a boy until I find one that makes me feel like chocolate makes me feel.  Chocolate makes me feel beautiful and respectable and appreciated and loved and YUMMMM.

I have to close with this since it’s no longer my header. 🙂 Happy March.

Oooh, Pretty Light

So, yesterday we were having one of those days when the light of everything was just too pretty not to go outside and take pictures, you know?

You probably don’t know.

But, anyway, it was that kind of day, so even though I had a buttload of homework to get done, I tromped around in the yard for a good half-hour, shooting (with a camera) anything and everything, enjoying the halcyon glow.  I hope these photos speak for themselves.

Shadows–dog and photog

Photographer, and purple ball

Chiaroscuro

Paws, and accompanying shadows

Secluded, sunny grove

Dogs invading secluded, sunny grove

Just to prove that, you know, I can and do take pictures of things other than food. 😉

Have a wonderful rest of your Winter!  (Why do we have so much sun all of a sudden??  Not that I don’t appreciate it, but…it’s JANUARY, for crying out loud!  Where’s my blizzard?)

First Weekend of 2013, in Pictures

First we hit up froyo. I went with the no-holds-barred approach. I think the picture above contains (in order from top to bottom) mint, vanilla, cake batter, red velvet, chocolate, and praline. The praline made me die.

Then Zixie wanted to play.

So we did.

She was happy.

Then she had a leaf on her head. But she didn’t know it.

Then I did a lot of writing things which would bore you guys, so I’ll skip to the neon bowling.

We went neon bowling. There were a lot of bright flashing lights and loud pop music. I actually found it to be powerfully boring.

But there were glow necklaces. (No orange ones, though.)

Then we went to Kohl’s. There was a cash register error in my favor and I snagged $34 worth of dishes for only $4. Not sure how it happened…but THIS, I did not find to be powerfully boring.