#56milesinjune

The weather was temperamental this past weekend - which made it easy for me to do nothing... absolutely nothing in the yard. It also made it easy to do nothing in the house too. I like the sun shining in the windows to inspire me - at least during the spring and summer months. In the fall and winter, it's an entirely different mindset - because - in the fall and winter, when it's darker out, it's harder to see the dirt and dust and dog hair in my house. But the sunshine makes that hard to ignore during the lighter, longer days. Mostly.

We watched the final three episodes of "House of Cards" on Netflix - brilliant show with Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright and I did a little laundry. But now I'm in a rush to get some stuff done as we have house guests coming tomorrow night and I like to put guests in Blue Eyes room - furthest from all of the different noises in the house, nicest bedroom set... yada yada yada. But Blue Eyes took that beautifully clean room I gutted and cleaned and moved everything right through the window making it impossible for me to step foot in there. I will be throwing it all in the closet today... and beg the guests NOT to look in there.

Then I'll clean that bathroom downstairs as well as the upstairs hall bathroom for them to get themselves and their girls ready for their continued trek to Oregon on Thursday morning.

The lawn needs mowing too...

So on Sunday I saw this on Instagram:

And I thought - I'm going to do this. The sun is out - I love running when it's warm. The weather seems to be leaning towards improving. I'm GOING to do this. Sure I go to the gym 5 days a week but it's time to change up my routine/work out - again anyhow. So running/walking it is.

Since I skipped the weekend workouts entirely - thanks to the dreary weather - I decided to push myself yesterday by hitting the "5k" button on the newer, nicer treadmills at Golds Gym. Okay, 3.1 miles is nothing to runners... I know. But I haven't run in some time. Quite some time. I walked the first 9 minutes and 47 seconds, warming up, psyching myself up to run. Move. Your legs. Move them now. Faster. Speed up already! And then I ran. And I felt soooooo good and energetic all day long. Energetic enough to hit the gigantic pile of photos sitting on the floor in the new "book room" and the box that accompanies it. For three hours. I started to come across pictures that made me go "awwweeeeee" and then "OH god!" and toss into a garbage pile. Then some that made me laugh and then some that made me SNORT! So that turned into a 2 hour (plus) group text with WAYNE (who hates to make the blog), Laurie, her husband Ron (via photos... classic photos), Jeff and Rich - the only non iPhone user of the group, so could not respond to us all in the thread. As I sat there, indian style, snorting, laughing out loud at their responses and photos - I could tell I was getting a skoche stiff, likely from my short, slow run that morning.

Then I woke up this morning - having told my pal I'd meet her at the gym at 8 AM. She texted she was on her way out the door, I was shortly behind, but I live a minute and a half from the gym and she's out a bit. I had gotten in a warm up on the treadmill before she arrived and when I started to jog - every bone in my rear and quads was, well, tender. But I pushed that button again and went another 5K - only this time, walked the entire "cool down" of 5 minutes which I did not do yesterday. I was slower today and I'm already walking painfully awkward - but my mind feels springtime fresh because I love a goal... competition... working toward something.

It's funny how I always describe The Wiz/#7 as being uber competitive and that everything is a competition for him... I think I might resemble that remark a little. <yikes> In this case though - it's a good thing. Right?

Here's a few photos from last nights cruel picture group chat... Crikey. Enjoy!