2,000

As of 10:24 a.m. on Thursday May, 24th my blog has exactly 2,000 views!!! This is exciting news people. Well, maybe not exciting to you but exciting to me. It is irrelevant that those views probably came from the same 10 people viewing my blog over and over (and yes I did disable my own pages views so I am not counted)! This just motivates me to blog even more because I know that people are actually reading what I am writing, which is always awesome validation! So, if you are reading this it is possible you are 2,001st visitor of my blog, congratulations!

Whose idea was this?

When I originally agreed to run Ragnar I was well aware that it was less than a week before my wedding but I wasn't really concerned abot it. I thought 4 1/2 days would be plenty of time to recover and be ready for the big but the closer the race and the wedding get the more worried I become. What if I get hurt or sick or have big giant blisters and I can't wear my cute wedding shoes? What if I get a nasty sunburn and have big nasty blisters on my back? What if I am so sore I still can't walk normally down the aisle? These are my thoughts and I am terrified. More likely than not (at least I hope so) I will be a little sore but will be fully recovered for walking, dancing and whatever else I need to be ready for on my wedding day. But there are always those what ifs in the back of my head! More than anything it has become very stressful trying to get ready for 2 events at once! Between training for the race, doing wedding stuff and work I feel like I have no time to myself. The beach in Mexico is looking sooo good right now.

Lesson Learned , Twice

Sometimes you have to do the same stupid thing more than once before you learn your lesson that it is probably not the smartest thing to do. Case in point: I take a multivitamin and fish oil capsules every morning (per my personal trainer), once several weeks ago I took them on an empty stomach because I was in a hurry to leave for work and hadn't eat my breakfast yet, less than five minutes later before I could get out the door and to my car I threw up. I decided then that taking pills, any pills, but these ones in particular on an empty stomach was not a good idea. Yet this morning I did the same thing. I was in a hurry, I woke up late and didn't want to bother putting the pills in a plastic bag to take with me to take later so I just took them. Again, almost instantly I was throwing up. But this time something even worse happened. So I threw up, rinsed my mouth with mouth wash and was out the door again but as I got to the car I noticed a gross taste in my mouth and smell in my nose (sometimes I throw up out my nose, gross I know but true) it took me a few minutes to realize it was the fish oil!! It was seriously the grossest thing ever! I almost threw up again just because of the gross fishy taste that was in my mouth. It is still lingering more than an hour later. The moral of the story is NEVER take fish oil on an empty stomach and definitely don't do it twice.

Maybe I am a morning person

I have always thought that because I don't like getting up early I am not a morning person but sometimes I wonder if this is really true. Today for example I got up at 6:00 a.m. because I had to be at work early but I am in a better mood this morning than I am most mornings when I sleep an hour or two longer than I did today. This has happened before but I always just considered it a fluke. It is a curious thing really because I am the girl that sets my alarm for the latest possible time even if it means I have to rush to get ready or put my hair in a bun, again. But today I got up had plenty of time to get ready before I needed to leave at 7, listened to some music on my way to work and here I am in an excellent mood and I a feel less tired than usual (but that may have something to do with the rather large coffee I just drank). Maybe this is a new era in the world of Paige, an era in which it is possible to set my alarm early enough to workout before work and actually getting up and doing it rather than turning off my alarm and setting it for an hour and a half later. Well, maybe that is wishful thinking but at least for now I can "Good Morning" and actually mean it. It is a GOOD morning.

Ragnar Roller-coaster

I feel like training for and emotionally preparing for the Ragnar has been such a roller-coaster. I did so so well training for the first few months, I was motivated, I was ready to go and then I the wall. I didn't want to run and then I hurt my knee and couldn't run and now I am back to not wanting to run. I think emotionally it has been even worse. One minute I am excited and then the next minute I am dreading it. I get mentally prepared for how hard it is going to be and tell myself I can do it and then I go on a run and think, "Who are you kidding?" There is still 4 1/2 weeks until this thing!! I am going to be mentally exhausted by the time it gets here! It doesn't help that I am also in the final planning stages of the wedding and trying really hard to stay on my diet and exercise plan when all I really want to do is eat a pint of ice cream every single day. I ran outside for the first in a long time on Saturday and it sucked and I sucked but it really made me wonder if my stupid knee can even hold up to running 3 runs in 36 hours, one of them being 7 miles all downhill. So then I get all worried about things like I do and wonder if I can make it and who will take my spot if I can't. But then I think about not running and how disappointed my mom and sisters will be and how bad it would suck to just drive the van while they all run!! See roller-coaster, I drive myself crazy sometimes.

I am not normal

I am not normal, there I said it. I like organizing things, calculating things and figuring out problems. I spent a good part of my day reorganizing my pintrest recipe board into categories just because I felt like it. I took my big giant recipe board and organized it down into 4 smaller more manageable boards. I also spent a good chuck of the day doing math to figure out how fast our Ragnar team is going to finish the race in and how long it will take each runner to run all of their legs. That is 36 legs and times I figured out, plus starting times for each of those legs. I don't just have one or two folders for documents on my computer or in my email I have several. At work for example, I have Health Stories, BYU Stories, UVU Stories, General Assignment Stories and Campus Notes and then a finished stories folder under all of those Headings. I get stressed when I open my inbox and there are 20 things just sitting there! I like things to be organized and in there place. I am for sure one of those people for who the saying, "Everything has a place," is true. I wouldn't let John help me put the groceries away yesterday because he might put things in the wrong place! It sounds silly but this is how I do things. So now you know, I am just not normal.

The Adventures of Willy

My adorable Pug dog Willy is one of the best things in my life. I love how excited he gets when I come home from work and how he likes to snuggle on the couch! He does some crazy things though. A week or so a go I was walking him and we encountered two other pugs, I was hoping he would be excited and want to play with them but really he was such a little scaredy cat! He kept hiding behind my legs and scratching at my legs just begging for me to pick him up. He has also recently decided its a fun idea to pee on the steps of our apartment building rather than on the grass. The funniest thing I have ever seen him do happened last night. I was sleeping but kept feeling this shaking on the bed, I thought maybe it was John just thrashing about and was about to yell at him, when I realized the pillow next to me was moving. Willy had someone managed to crawl inside the pillow case and couldn't get back out. I have no idea how he managed to get in there. He can't even get under the covers by himself because he has no nose and can't lift up the blanket but somehow he squeezed all 25 pounds of himself into the pillow and then was stuck because he couldn't turn around and wasn't smart enough to back out. I picked up the pillow to dump him out but that just scared him, it was so funny to feel him wriggling inside the pillow case. When I got him out he snuggled up to me, "Like thanks mom I was totally stuck in there." Such a silly little dog.