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By kilax, September 5, 2018 6:35 am

… have frequent meaningful interactions with loved ones
… have a furbaby in my life
… move every day, and workout six days a week
… eat a mostly healthy diet, and not too much food
… get enough sleep
… feel productive at home (and ideally, productive and meaningful at work)

What’s on your list?

This post is brought to you by someone asking me (not meanly… I think?) why I want to run forty miles a week if I am not training for anything. My answer to them – stress management. And it makes me feel my best!

I used to be that person wondering about people who ran often and never raced. When I first started running, I knew of some people who ran five miles a week… just for exercise! I remember thinking “why don’t they do a 5K? They can already run farther than that!!!” Ha, I was young, a new runner, and did not get the allure of exercise to feel good and manage stress. I obviously get that now!

A photo from this morning’s run!

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By kilax, September 4, 2018 12:14 pm

It was so nice to have three days of nothing going on, to wake up whenever we wanted, and be lazy this weekend. What a treat. I haven’t had a weekend with nothing scheduled since mid-July!

My focus this weekend was to spend time with Data, doing things he enjoys (i.e. going outside and eating popcorn).

Data’s worse. He’s weaker, and you have to pester him to eat. His heart rate is elevated a lot of the time. He started hanging out/sleeping in his litter box this weekend – not because he is having bathroom issues (besides his poo consistency and missing the edge of the box some times) – but because that is where he wants to be. It’s a mess, literally.

Sigh.

I take him out of the box and put him somewhere comfortable near us and sometimes he’ll stay there for a while, and sometimes he rushes back to his box.

So, yeah. That’s where we are. It’s time to say goodbye. He doesn’t have a high quality of life anymore.

I’m grateful we had all this time together (this weekend and since we’ve had him). But of course I selfishly wish he’d recover and be himself again. UGH.

The constant rain this weekend made it a difficult to spend much time outside with Data, but we did as much as we could.

On Friday he hung out on the balcony with his sister:

I was dressed to run and took them outside and he did NOT want to come back in, so we stayed out there for three hours and I skipped my run. Priorities!

On Saturday the rain mostly kept him inside, but he hung out with us all afternoon.

On Sunday we made it outside for two hangout sessions in the grass:

And he hung out with us at dinner and watched To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (SO CUTE)! <— I think he was just there for the popcorn!

The rain kept us in Monday too. Sigh. But he did join us for our three episode Mad Men marathon and hung out on the couch all day. And he totally didn’t mind doing the paw print picture frame kit that Rachel sent (what a thoughtful gift! I know we’ll cherish having it!).

So… yeah… I didn’t leave the house much this weekend! I ran a few times. I did some retail therapy at Bath & Body Works. But I mostly did nada.

I didn’t even read much. I tried to start two different novels from the library, but I couldn’t get in to the writing style. I may keep going with one (Aurora).

We did cook some yummy meals this weekend – a Tofurky roast and mashed potatoes on our anniversary night, and fried seitan the following night! (Neither photograph well, so I will spare you the pics, but they were both DELISH!!!!)

Anniversary roses!

Maybe I will be more social next weekend. Maybe not!

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By kilax, September 4, 2018 7:23 am

“Hey, Kim! It really is TOO early to put out those fall candles!”

It’s kind of hard to tell with that ugly tile, but that’s a candle holder and broken candle, and candle wax all over the floor and shower curtain, and a bit on the walls and bath tub and the things next to the bathtub.

So.

I had my weekend recap ready to go (hint: I did nothing… and I’ll post it later), but let’s talk about this.

We needed to clean Data in the sink this morning.

I had a candle going on the sink and thought “I better move this so we don’t knock it over while we clean him!”

Then proceeded to move it to an uneven surface where it knocked over naturally, cause, duh.

Sigh.

So, clean Data, clean the mess he made, then try to clean the bathroom. I’m not trying to clean the shower curtain – screw that – I ordered a new one.

I’m sharing this because I’m proud of how calm I am in a crisis. Oh, candle dropping behind me and wax and glass going everywhere? That’s okay! I am cleaning Data now and will get to that later.

Poop and pee outside of the litter box again? No worries! I know how to clean that!

But gosh, I sure do spend a lot of time cleaning up messes. The cats’, and my own!

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By kilax, September 3, 2018 9:58 am

I used my birthday Bath & Body Works gift cards yesterday and picked up some fall scents!

Now, for a very important question (click through post to see poll):

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I am in the “fall starts on the equinox camp,” so it feels odd to put fall things out before then. I like seeing them in stores, and hearing people being excited about things like apple picking and PSLs, but it feels premature to have fall things out in my home when it’s still humid and 87 degrees! (Run on sentence much?!)

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But… I DID IT! I put out two fall candles and that super cute animal candle holder. I also drank a hot cider this weekend. YOLO!

And P.S. I am ON TO YOU, B&BW. When I picked up “Caramel Pumpkin Swirl,” I thought it smelled very similar to “Cinnamon Caramel Swirl,” a favorite scent of mine.

Look at the fragrance notes (click to see larger)! They are basically the same candle. And as my snis pointed out, the “pumpkin” candle doesn’t even HAVE pumpkin in it. BLASPHEMY!!! (But I kept it, duh, because I LOVE those notes together!)

Guys. I could talk about B&BW candles for days. My happy place is smelling candles in B&BW (if it’s not busy) and I love gifting them. Last week, a friend told me that she’s addicted to them now that I sent her one for her birthday, and I don’t think I could be more honored than hearing that. That text seriously made my day. Ha. It’s the small things, right?!

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By kilax, September 2, 2018 2:54 pm

Highlight of the Week: Doing speedwork! Riding my bike! Rainy runs!

Monday | August 27, 2018: 4 m run + teaching strength class
Loc: hood, Temp: 80°/79°, Time: 41:24, Pace: 10:20 avg, Difficulty: medium, Felt: miserable, then better when I picked up the pace
Strength: dumbbells & cardio/core, Felt: good! so sweaty
Tuesday | August 28, 2018: rest
Wednesday | August 29, 2018: 4.5 m run + teaching strength class
Loc: Lakefront Trail, Temp: 73°/67°, Time: 45:15, Pace: 10:03 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: tired but good
Strength: Airex pad, kettlebells, boxing, Felt: great
Thursday | August 30, 2018: 3 m run
Loc: hood, Temp: 68°/68°, Time: 28:52, Pace: 9:37 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Friday | August 31, 2018: teaching strength class + one-on-one session
Strength: dumbbells and slam balls, Felt: good, sweaty
Saturday | September 1, 2018: 16 m ride + 4 m run (incl. 4×400)
Indoor Ride Time: 59:20, Pace: 16.2 mph avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good, glad to be back on the bike
Loc: hood, Temp: 72°/72°, Time: 38:46 Pace: 9:41 avg, Difficulty: mostly easy, Felt: good, enjoyed the rain
Sunday | September 2, 2018: 10 m run
Loc: VP Woods Loop, Temp: 69°/70°, Time: 1:47:10, Pace: 10:43 avg, Difficulty: easy-ish, Felt: good, but heavy

Notes:

• As of my Monday run, I’m officially sick of hot weather. It was in the low 80s with whatever high humidity and high dew point when I started my run (at 5:30 am), and just BLAH. I’m grateful we haven’t had many more mornings like that (I know lots of people have that more often), but I don’t think I have the mental capacity to ignore it anymore.
• Wednesday’s run was much more enjoyable – cloudy/moody and rainy! As long as I have my visor for a rainy run (and it’s not a downpour), I’m happy!
• During Thursday’s run I chatted with a neighbor that I haven’t before! She was so sweet, telling me to be safe and offering for me to cut through her yard whenever I want.
• Part of the reason she was telling me to be safe was because they are repaving the two-lane highway we live off of. I’m SO EXCITED for our road to be repaved. It’s the road I spent the most time running on, and it would be a dream to have paved shoulders and not have to run on the rocks anymore.
• I taught strength class on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and whoa that wore me out! I felt like a pile of bricks each morning after. I also did a one-on-one session this week, for the first time in almost three years.
• I hit my 200th run of the year on Sunday!
• My pool posted pictures of the “annual” maintenance they are doing which made me understand why it’s taking an entire month – it looks like they are doing a lot more than annual maintenance!

• I remembered the tidbit my RTT post ate – it was about my watch. It usually bugs me that it buzzes when it disconnects and reconnects to my phone, but on Monday night it saved me some hassle – I was about to leave the studio when it buzzed that it was disconnected – I had left my phone inside!
• Monthly recap! In August I ran 108.3 miles (21 runs), cycled 0 miles (eek) and swam 3,277 yards (3 swims). My coldest run was 63°F and my warmest was 89°F. I taught 9 strength classes,1 fitness boxing class, did 1 one-on-one session, and attended the Efit Games. I ran in my most states per month in August – five! August was a crummy month for me, workout-wise, and I feel it. September will be better!

Link to Training Week 462

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By kilax, September 1, 2018 9:04 am

Today is our eleven year wedding anniversary!

Happy Anniversary, Steven! I appreciate all the hard work you do for our family, and the support you give me. And I especially applaud your idea to expand our family this year!

Ha, I was going to write out our story, but it appears I did that last year! <— so click there if you want to read it!

I did dig up an old photo from around the time we first started dating (fall 2002):

Aww, babies!

I told a coworker our eleven year anniversary is this weekend and they said “Wow! You married young!”

Maybe? I was twenty-three, and Steven was twenty-six. That is somewhat young for Chicagoland, but not for where I came from. By the time I got married, a lot of my high school classmates had been married for a while and had children. Everything is relative, right?

It’s interesting to me though, to look back at our wedding photos and see so many old friends – not old in age, but old as in, “from a long time ago.” That is due to getting married young (right after college) and not having any “adult” friends yet, outside from my job. So most of the people at, and in my wedding party, are people I’m not in touch with anymore outside of social media, because of life – we aren’t around each other every day due to school and work. There’s nothing wrong with that – it’s normal – just something I think about once a year when I look at our wedding photos!

Anyway.

We don’t have big anniversary plans! I bet we’ll go out to dinner or do something fun at some point. For now, we just want to chill at home. And maybe we’ll take a trip this year – that’s something we wanted to do last year but it didn’t happen due to work.

Here’s to another year of fun and adventure!

Our most current “nice” picture