Hawaiian Love Affair

Hawaii will always be my first love. I may cheat on it with Disney World, but at the end of the day, I always come back to Hawaii. And what's not to love? Hawaii is a land where coconut syrup flows like honey, your biggest decision of the day is whether to have the macadamia nut or pineapple pancakes, and rainbows sprout up like weeds!

I am crawling out of my skin I am so excited to go! Why can't the clock move faster?! As I sit and obsess about my trip, here is a list of things I'm looking forward to:

1. Listening to a constant soundtrack of ukelele music. Oh who am I kidding, the Hawaiian music marathon has been going strong the last few weeks at my house!

2. Eating coconut syrup on everything

I swear they put crack in this

3. Reading trashy romance novels on the beach (why oh why didn't I save 50 Shades for vacation!?)

The beach and smut go hand in hand

4. Visiting the Disney Aulani Resort. Disney IN Hawaii? This really is paradise!

5. Buying hoodies I don't need...Hoodies are my shoes, I just can't have enough!

There's no such thing as too many hoodies

6. Attempting the Dole Plantation Maze again...and probably giving up after 15 minutes, just like last time.

Why hunt thru a maze when there's pineapple ice cream to be had?!

7. Taking a ridiculous amount of pictures of the sunset

Even the Turtle gets in on the action

8. Body-slamming the Turtle each morning until he gets up (sleep in?! What do you think this is, vacation!? You can sleep on the beach!)

Poor guy, he suffers such abuse

9. Running to Diamond Head for sunrise

10. Wearing a flower in my hair every single day!

And most of all.....

11. Spending time with the world's most wonderful Turtle.

Get ready Hawaii, this wahine is coming home!!!!!!!

Holy Crap!

HOLY CRAP!!!!!!!  I haven't run this fast since before I got married! And it was humid!
Needless to say, it was a good weekend :-)

Yesterday, mom and I hit the towpath and we were both struggling for air in the sticky, humid morning. Despite each of us telling the other it was perfectly ok to cry uncle and stop for water, we only did one extra stop. And I wasn't the only runner out there with an entourage either! I passed a woman running with a Hubby-Tourage.....which gives me ideas about the Turtle.......

An Oscar-worthy performance- She was ready to keel over

Not gonna lie, I felt that landing!

The rest of the weekend was equally awesome. Besides spending some quality napping time with the best puppy in the world and hanging with the fam, I got to play dress-up and model for my incredibly talented photographer friend, Natalia Dale. It was so much fun and I got to spend some time with her ridiculously cute poodles.

Sherlock

Isn't she talented?!

Starting to countdown to Hawaii! So excited I can hardly stand it!

7 Gyms, 1 Girl

I'm beginning to collect gym memberships like I collect running shoes!

Last Thursday, I got the boot from my special little AC-ed room at the base gym. It seems they think I don't belong in a room meant for rehabilitating active and retired military (I'm usually always rehabilitating, that should count for something!). Sad as I was to lose my free AC-ed room, I kind of knew my days there were numbered. It was inevitable that they'd notice the very non-military little girl, pedaling away to The Chew.

I may be kicked out, but I left my mark. Mwahahahaha!



But have no fear! LA Fitness just happens to have 5 of the exact same bikes (Star-Trac) that I love to use! Sunday, I dragged the Turtle with me to help negotiate a membership. I tend to tune out after about 2 minutes of technical talk about things like terms and agreements, so I thought reinforcements would help. How little did I know......

Buying a membership soon became a U.N. negotiation with a little bit of Good Cop, Bad Cop thrown in. You would have thought the Turtle was negotiating an arms deal with some European country, not whether or not we could pay in full so as not to have our credit card number on file! And when the salesman couldn't get the check scanning machine to work,  fumes came out of the Turtles ears! I was alternating between smiling apologetically to the guys and glaring warning daggers at the Turtle.  I even had to mouth "Behave!"

In the end, the Turtle talked them down $20 and now I am the proud member of LA Fitness. When I think about it, this is the 7th gym I have access to! Between 3 gyms on base, the 2 indoor tracks facilities, LA Fitness and the rec center by my mom's house, that makes 7! The Turtle texted me while I was dripping sweat all over LA Fitness's carpet yesterday (seriously, who puts carpet under gym equipment?!), asking me to remind him again why I couldn't just use the bikes at the base? I politely reminded him that I don't question why he needs a whole stable of gaming systems (this weekend he bought an original Nintendo AND a Gamecube at 1/2 Price Books). I think he got my drift.



I won't complain about this. You don't complain about that!

Note the fancy shmancy hard wood lockers

In running news, my right achille's has been stiffening up again, just like last year. When I wake up in the morning it is so stiff  I hobble down the steps til it loosens up. I read up on it and they say adding heel cushions may help, so I stuck some Dr. Scholl's in my running shoes (completely defeating the purpose of my semi-minimalist Brooks). They felt great! So hopefully it'll improve soon, though Achille's injuries usually take awhile.

I cut the back off too, ya know, just to be extra safe!

Happy Friday everyone!

Pat's House

Yesss! I finally found the motivation to finish this painting! I was really getting sick of seeing it lying around and there are so many other paintings I want to get started on!

Friday, I gathered up all of my strength to ignore the couch's siren call and got to work. Recently I have found a bunch of really fun photoshopping websites where you can upload pictures and mess around with them. It has opened a whole new world of possibilities for me! Now, pictures I never thought I could paint, I can! The little effects you can do help me break down the painting into something more linear that I can wrap my head (and brush) around. I'm so excited! Had I not found these sites, I probably would have turned down my coworker's request for it.

Here's the picture Pat gave me of her house:

And here it is after I photoshopped it:

Let the games begin....

The sketch that laid on my kitchen counter for a month

Once I got the tree done, I knew I could do this painting

Painting the sky was so much fun!

And finally............

Pat's House - 14" x 11" Acrylic

Feelin' Hot Hot Hot!

Me mind on fire,  Me soul on fire, Feeling hot hot hot!

Like everyone else in the country, we were cooking last weekend! With temperatures well over what’s acceptable for faeries and reptiles, we decided to leave our AC behind and head to the Pennsylvania Oven – my family’s trailer, our summer getaway spot.  

First, we stopped in Cleveland on Friday night to break up the 5 hour drive. We stayed at the Turtle’s parent’s house, crashing on mattresses in the dining room because even the bugs were evacuating the heat from the 2^nd floor.  Since the Turtle’s parents were in Greece, the AC had been turned off and it was quite toasty inside.

But that didn’t stop me from wrapping up in my hoodie and a fuzzy blanket when a mosquito the size of a hummingbird landed on my leg while I was on the couch!

Now, I’m not a wussy scaredy cat of bugs (I’ve swallowed my fair share of flies on summer runs), BUT out of principal, I refused to become an all-you-can-eat buffet just because that little opportunist snuck in the house. So, I covered up all my bare skin and waited.

I'll get you, my pretty!

and waited……

and the Turtle gawked at me in disbelief as he wiped his dripping brow even though he wasn't dressed for a blizzard.

30 minutes later... WHAP! Mwahahahaha! Annnnnnnd, off came my Siberian layers!

Saturday, our hopes of Pennsylvania being any cooler were completely dashed when my mom called to say the trailer was in the triple digits when she got inside. We spent the day freezing wet washcloths and wearing icepacks around our necks. But, it was so nice to be up at the trailer and spending time with my family.

Hillbilly AC

At our favorite, The Pizza Shop

Speaking of hot, the gym reopened this week and it is now even hotter in there. Their brilliant plan of installing giant fans, turned out to be 2 jumbo ceiling fans that blow the hot air down, onto the weight room floor. Is this what my leftovers feel like in the microwave?

Not the brightest of ideas

I’ve been making very slow progress on a painting of my coworker’s house. This happens to me every summer. I just can’t get motivated to paint when I’d rather be outside! Complaints about the heat aside, I actually really hate AC if I’m not working out or sleeping. I’d rather sweat it out during the day if it means being able to have the windows open and hear the sounds of nature outside! I hate being shut up in a house during the summer…it feels no different from January like that (especially with the temps the Turtle likes to keep the house at..Brrrrr!) But, with the current cold spell (90 degrees, it’s practically fall!), I should hopefully get this done soon and have something new to show to you!

Birthday Run

I decided to celebrate my birthday yesterday by dragging myself out of bed at 6am to run 9 miles in the muggy mess. Happy birthday to me :)

But, it actually turned out to be a fantastic present when I realized I had run my fastest non-race average pace of the year! In my heat stroke haze I'd accidentally hit the 'lap' button instead of 'stop' on my Garmin when I finished, so I had to find  my pace online. Since I couldn't see what the total seconds were, I know my average pace was between 7:27-7:34. Maybe legs are like wine and just getting better with age! Hehe.

Wahoo!

This is the week the gym is closed so I planned on having the Turtle show me how to get to the other gym when he got up. That gave me a lot of time on my hands to be stinky and sweaty while I waited to get stinkier and sweatier. Since he forbids me from sitting on our furniture after I run (he has this crazy idea that our furniture will absorb my sweat and Eau de Stink. Madness! ;-) ), I banished myself to our back patio while I running-high dialed the rest of my family to share (pester) my good mood.

Don't want to lose my runner's tan!

Once the Turtle got up and we hit the road, getting to the other gym became quite an adventure. We got hit by the storms pretty hard on Friday. It seemed every turn we made, we came face to face with orange cones closing off the road or an entire tree laying across the street.

It murdered our tree

Luckily, we finally found a way on base and I was pleased to see they had all the weight machines I use.....and 1 or 2 different ones I just had to try since no one was around.

This machine...not my favorite

The rest of the birthday was pretty relaxing, and later that evening, we had a nice dinner of sushi (me) and Philly Cheese-steak pizza (Shudder. That was all the Turtle's) while we watched the Olympic Trials. I swear, when the Olympics are on I just get sucked in, I don't care what sport is on!

And the best part of all? After dropping a few subtle hints (ridiculously obvious all CAPS emails), the Turtle, his sister and my family all went in and got me an iPad! Now, my family and I can message our catty comments to eachother while we watch the Bachelorette on Monday nights! YES!!!

I wish.......

Holy crap!!!

Going to run Tuesday and Thursday this week so I can sleep in and enjoy my 4th of July!

 Happy Fourth everyone!