Chuck Norris better Watch Out!

And just when you thought you were down....

Yesterday was a LONG day, friends.  I woke up in massive pain, undoubtedly from standing from 8 am to 10 pm on Thursday at my work convention.  I didn't even have to get out of bed to realize I was not feeling fantastic and have a new found pain in my LEFT hip (most likely from walking weird in this boot).  The resort we stayed for our trip was nice but it was built in the 50's and suffice it to say is not very ADA compliant.  I wish I would have worn my pedometer... that would have been interesting.

I took the Vicodin I was so bravely trying to avoid which in turn made me feel weirdo, fuzzy and heavy.  Ugh. Not my fave feeling (although I know lots of people who prefer it!)  While the boys went and played I sat at a table catching up on work emails, attempting to scribe some words for the novel (I really need to give it a nickname...) and basically started to feel sorry for myself.  3 hours + in the car didn't help much and I started really feeling sorry for myself last night.  Pity is such an ugly color.

Alas ~ a savior.  I awoke this morning to the BEST message from a friend that moved a few years ago.  And in that moment, my pity left completely.  I replaced it with PRIDE.  Pride DOES have a beautiful hue to it!

To fill in the blanks, hubs and I had the opportunity to meet a fantastic couple 3 years ago.  They moved into our 'hood from Ohio (I think... they moved a LOT) and we became FAST friends.  DD joined hubs in coaching our little guy in football and what an extreme asset he was!  Instant credibility (he was a rugby player).  And so, our friendship began.  

They had a beautiful baby girl (aka Princess) about 6 months before my nugget came along.  So perfect and fantastic, they are the BEST parents.  Of course their love for one another makes it all the better ~ they clearly worship each other.  Hubs and I were often jealous of how well they treated each other.  And it was clear she was the center of DD's universe (both momma and Princess).

And then... we got the news.  I'll never, ever forget it.  DD knocked on our door one night and asked if he could come in.  He had news to share.  They were moving, relocating, to the east coast.

Oh man.

What I haven't quite clarified is how incredibly important this man has become to hubs.  Not only did he admire him for his amazing success so young in life, but his friendship was unmatched.  I'm pretty certain these boys were brothers somehow.

And so, they moved.  And we miss them, all three of them, all the time.  We talk about them all the time.  Sure we follow them on facebook and try to text / call when we can, but we are both raising families and we are all busy.  But we miss them terribly.

So back to our message this morning... as I'm sitting in bed feeling sorry for myself, I turn on my phone and see a message from our great friend DD.  I'll paraphrase a bit for privacy :):

"My new hero's live in the 'sac at 2220.  Thanks for removing any real reason that I could ever have for being a lazy, fat bum.  I have been following the status of your training.  And it is really cool that you took out Warrior Dash.  2 back surgeries and finished = awesome.

Then the woman you are married.... Warrior Princess, THE JD, Seal Team J.  I am pretty sure that in a fair fight she would take Chuck Norris outright or 10 rounds and maybe lose on points.

You are missed.  Hug Mom and Dad and let them know I am thinking of them (hubs P's).  Push Coop."

And... I'm smiling so big I can barely contain it.  You're right, DD.... I AM a bad ass!  I would totally take on Chuck Norris!  And hubs is out running a long run of 9 miles this morning by himself.  Because he is a bad ass.

I love the Dalton's and I'm so blessed to have them in my life.  With friends like these, no number of enemies could ever stain my life.

So go out there and get YOURS today, friends!  No excuses!!

Jen

FAVE FRIDAY!!

I am actually embracing my new boot, believe it or not.  It has given me MUCH more time to write!  Sometimes you have to slow down a bit in order to spawn new creativity.

I'm writing this week's faves from Osage Beach (MO) and I have to admit just being in the region near the lake makes me feel "lake relaxed" (even though I'm working).  There is just something about this environment, plus life moves a bit slower in these smaller lake towns.  Maybe that's where the Davis Tiny Home should be?  We shall see...

For now ~ happy Friday, friends!  Below are my fave finds from around the interweb this week.  I hope you enjoy!

FAVE FURNITURE

Each Wednesday as I settle in to watch my fave show, Revenge, I secretly hope to see Victoria Grayson sitting in the most AWESOME chair I have ever seen!  For her show, it is a high wing back chair (possibly even chair and a half or small settee) that is scripted.  It's fantastic.  I envy it every single time I see it.  So in searching the web this week, I came across a close replica.  AHH!  I'm sure there is a way to custom order this with the writings you want.  Maybe my own book? :)

FAVE FASHION

This is my style completely.  I even have similar wedges and the shorts... just need the shirt.  I'm not a giant accessory person but the necklace is fantastic.  Love it!

FAVE RUNNING MOTIVATION

I absolutely LOVE spectators at a race.  I know they are there to support their one person, but I could just swear that every time I run past someone and they yell something they are totally supporting ME.  I have busted out laughing at mile 12 over a funny sign like "Don't poop!"  Just cracks me up.  So spectators... THANK YOU for your support!

FAVE MOVIE (today)

I had a total flashback while reading 50 Shades of Grey and the (ahem) unique relationship between Christian and Elena.  It immediately reminded me of The Graduate, which I didn't actually see until well into my 20's.  I love complicated relationships and this certainly was right up there!  Oh, Mrs. Robinson.. you naughty, naughty woman!

FAVE YUMMO

I love all things pasta, however, when Mr. Davis placed homemade gnocchi in front of me 12 years ago I thought I was going to die right then (and quite happily!).  Although not technically pasta, the texture and richness completely makes me excited.  And who doesn't love starch?  So finding this recipe this week made me so incredibly happy.  I cannot WAIT to get it on our table a night before a long run!  Click here for this fantastic recipe:  Gnocchi with Zucchini Ribbons

FAVE SPACE SAVER

Ah, I love this.  When hubs and I spent the weekend in a secluded cabin earlier this year, the home we stayed in had one of these doors.  What an awesome idea... particularly in a tiny home!  I think I will try to incorporate this if I can to save space!

FAVE SASSY

Yep, I do.  And yes, I do stand up for what I believe in.  And take the consequences sometimes.  And they are totally worth it.

FAVE SUMMERY TREAT

Oh man, I cannot WAIT to make these this summer!  Shout out to my red drinkers Dr. C, Steph and Trai... we are TOTALLY consuming these this summer!! :)

FAVE FUNNY GAL

In honor of the Comedy Central awards this week (in which she WON), I'm spotlighting one of my fave new funny gals.  Kristin Wiig first stepped onto the scene in Saturday Night Live alongside Amy Pohler and Tina Fey.  At first, I didn't really care for her much.  Alas, she has grown on me!  You may have not seen her early work, but she hit it out of the park in Bridesmaids (2011).  Love her!

FAVE SNACK

In honor of Cinco de Mayo last weekend, I can attest I ate my weight in guacamole.  Thank you, dear Lord, for giving us the beautiful gift of avocado.  MMMMM!

Have a GREAT Friday, friends!!

Jen

Friends For Life

I'm so freakin' excited!  I have another new BFF!  It's such a great thing that my truest best friend in the whole entire world knows and understands my crazy tendencies to fall in and out of admiration with others and NOT be jealous.  She is such a rock star.  I need to tell her that today.

I have a very tight knit group of super friends in my 'hood.  Five couples, really... so 10 super friends. Of course I'm friends with ALL my neighbs but these 10 have a special little nugget of my heart and I would jump in front of a bus for them.  I'm not sure I would do that for just anyone, especially friends that are conditional. 

Well, that number just went up!

We have known some friends that live on the other side of the 'hood for a few years now, with their oldest son playing football with Coop.  I've chatted with both mom and dad during practices, games and year end parties.  We even trick or treated together last year with our kids (which was WAY more fun for us adults than the kids!)  But to really get to know each other, you have to get a little muddy.

Bundy's joined us for Warrior Dash festivities this year and what a blast we had!  They are truly sarcastic... both of them.  If you know me, you know sarcasm is totally lost on me (which is why most of my friends are sarcastic... they like to pick on me!)  I'm always the one in the group that will do anything and believe anything I'm told.  Extremely literal.  I take everything as gospel ~ why would anyone lie?  So naive.

Our festivities continued onto another neighb's Cinco de Mayo party Saturday night and the real fun continued.  Hellcat (aka mom) is HILARIOUS.  I can barely keep up.  The couple banter exactly like Davis and I.  Destined to be married for life (because it's to exhausting to consider divorce and coparenting!)  I knew we would be lifelong friends when she dropped trowel next to my neighbs air conditioner because the potty was to far away.  Yep, I'm in love.

So now I'm addicted.  I want to see them every day.  I had so much fun laughing with them I cannot WAIT until we can all get together again.  Better be this weekend.  I seriously can't go very long without seeing them again.

It's good to be me.  I'm gonna start signing my texts to her LYLAS.  Yep, I'm from the 80's!

Happy Thursday, friends!

Jen

Midlife, Schmidlife

Geesh, what is it with people?  My saga with my leg continues, shocking I know.

I took my results of my tests this weekend into my doc yesterday.  Convo was interesting with the staff.

Front Desk when I called to make the appt:

"Ma'am, can you explain why you need to see the doc?"

"Yep, I fell and broke my leg.  I need it re x-ray'd and I gotta lose this air cast."

"Um... how did you break it?"

Seriously.  I SO don't want to have this conversation with the front desk chic.

"I fell off a fire pole at Warrior Dash this weekend."

Wait for it....

"You did WHAT?"

Ugh.  Come on peeps, it's not THAT foreign that a mom would be looking for a little adventure.

My visit was actually worse.  Nurse comes in, takes my BP (94/60 ~ no stress here!) and starts her own battery of questions, once again.

"Um, I see by your chart Ms. Davis that you fell off a... can you please explain what you did again?"

"Well, Ms. Judgemental, I was swinging on the brass pole in my bedroom and I accidentally fell..."

I have to make stuff up now.  It's too much.  I'm so tired of trying to explain this.

"Ma'am ~ in looking at your file, I see that you are 40.  I am also 40.  It sounds to me like you 

may be having a midlife crisis."

OH MY GOD.  I almost came out of my chair at this stupid woman.

"Yes, you must be right.  Good thing I didn't decide to have an affair instead."

She blushed, apologized and left the room.  Good.  I'm SO not explaining my need to be healthy to someone so obviously short sighted.

Right?  Am I really having a midlife crisis?  I thought that was done when I turned 36, my Bubba graduated and left home.  Surely not now... again?

Then I decided she was just jealous.  She wanted a boot just like me.  Oh well.  Dream on, sister.  I worked hard for this boot!!

Happy hump day, friends!

Jen

Bummer Legs

I love my blog readers!  You guys are seriously the best!!  I love that my writing extends beyond my computer screen.  People call me, email and text me about my writings all the time (or lack of).  I even got chastised this weekend for NOT blogging when I was supposed to (apparently I help people have a regulated morning... a little TMI but I am so excited they faithfully read!)  I promise to be a bit more diligent and please be patient, I'm trying to crank out a book simultaneously for god's sake! :)

Alas, I have bad news.  Not only did I hurt myself at Warrior Dash Saturday, I really hurt myself.  Yesterdays doc appointment showed two severe sprains (both ankles) and a fractured fibula.  Yep, I broke my leg.  I didn't realize it because the fibula is a non-weight bearing bone so of course, I kept running anyway.

Which is completely me.

I am so determined.  It's not about winning it's just about NOT losing.  I don't want to let myself down... ever. 

With 25 days to the Hospital Hill 1/2 marathon, I'm in a cast.  Fantastic.

Hubs is being the most awesome trooper ever about it.  He got up Monday morning and busted out a 5 mile run without me.  This weekend he has 8 and I feel immense guilt that I am not running with him.  I'm investigating options on how I can trail him somehow just to cheer him on.  It's amazing that he is continuing this journey without a partner - I would quit honestly.  It's very hard to train independently.  Short runs are fine, but long runs without a friend make for some difficult mental moments.

Big kudos to the stud hubs and prayers for his training.  If I can figure out how to convince the doc to take this crap off soon enough, I will run with him.  Even if I have to walk.  If I can run a mile and a half on bum ankles and a broken leg, I can surely run 13.1 slowly on recovered legs.

Bum leg before wrap

 

We shall see.

Happy Tuesday, faithful readers!

Jen

My Inner Warrior

Monday again.  Ugh.  I try to be one of those super positive peeps that doesn't fall into the narcissist blah blah woe is me camp, but today I just don't want to.  So there.

I officially survived Warrior Dash, although I wouldn't say unscathed.  I'm pretty sure I broke both my ankles.  In an attempt to keep up with the likes of Ruckus Run, Commando Run, Rugged Warrior and Tough Mudder, Red Frog, LLC decided to make this year's Warrior Dash a little bit more difficult.  Um... they succeeded.

I'm sure this will be post 1 of 2 as we don't have all our pictures in just yet but I can share what we have now for all you future "I'm 40 and want to act like a bad ass even though my body won't let me" Warriors.

Pre Race - the EC Warriors!

For those of you unaware, Warrior Dash is a 3.1 mile race with adventure obstacles.  Last year as newbies, the EC Warriors (my crew) were quite worried about how we would make it through.  It was so easy peasy we thought... sure, why not do it again?  Hubs was making his debut 11 months after spinal fusion surgery - can I just say that again?  Unbelievable!

You can now insert the "why oh why would anyone be that stupid" comments... these people would!

The Dash started out with a 1 mile run, of course not on our flat pavement we run every day.  Up and down meadow hills, basically.  It was important to be weary of each step as to not turn an ankle in a hole ~ that kind of terrain.  Our first obstacle was Storming Normandy - a series of barbed wire that you had to crawl under military style at differing heights.  Fun!  Other than dirty knees, not that big of a deal.  We survived!  The rest of the obstacles won't be in particular order... because I can't remember how they fell.  

Chaotic Crossover was a series of cargo nets horizontally presented but we crossed those with no problem.  Then... bring on the water.  Tightrope Tipsy was up next ~ crossing water holding onto ropes.  Once we figured out a strategy, we were able to cruise across without much work (I went backwards and pulled my weight rather than fought against it!)

Up next.. the Trenches.  Oh poor Davis was the only thought going through my mind.  Dug trenches covered in plywood, only big enough to shimmy your body through to the other side.  He can't even get an MRI without medication so I knew this one would be a true test for him.  Amazingly, he breezed right through!  That man constantly surprises me with his determination!

The Capsized Catamaran gave JP and I a chance to get up close and personal with strangers.  Swim out 15 ft, climb over buoys, swim more, climb again and then swim 15 ft to get out of the water (in which you are SINKING up to your knees in mud, by the way).  We had to get a leg up to get over the buoys... thank god EVERYONE smelled like we did otherwise there might be some 'splaining to do.

And then my demise.  We are soaked, muddy, slick.  Climb up ladder to a platform 15 ft off the ground, slide down a fire pole.  Insert joke here.  I was scared at the top but of course I wasn't about to show that to anyone.  Thank GOD JP was right next to me.  I started to slide but the metal burned my hands, so about 10 ft off the ground... I let go.  I fell straight down and landed flat on my feet, turning both ankles simultaneously.  The obstacle worker freaked and jumped out of his chair "ma'am... don't move.  I heard them pop".  Well... I'm half way through.  No way I'm stopping now.  But the pain was EXCRUCIATING.  Think Nashville marathon pain, times 2.  This really, really hurt.  Hubs had stopped and come back after seeing me on the ground, refusing to leave my side.  JP was an amazing friend... refused to rush forward without me although I insisted on it.

The rest of the obstacles are a slight fuzzy blur, as I ran and fought through immense pain.  More cargo nets, Vertical Limit (which I could do), Giant Cliffhanger (which I could not do... I couldn't bend my ankles to walk up a flat wall holding onto a rope), Great Warrior Wall (ouch), Tire Run (which I did but thought I was going to die), and finally... the Warrior Roast.  I jumped those flames like my life depended on it, being careful not to land on my right foot which by now was swollen over my tennis shoe and throbbing.  Hubs and JP finished with me in the Muddy Mayhem and we held onto each other (or they held me up) for our photo op.  I truly don't know what I would have done without them.

I hit the medic tent afterwards and before I could even say fire pole, they asked me "did you do this on the fire pole?"  By the end of our heat (which was the first heat of the weekend), they had shut down the fire pole and were making people go down the ladder ~ wait, there was a LADDER??  I totally would have bailed had I known that!!!

I have a medal.  I'm a bad ass that survived the Warrior Dash.  The after party was awesome and I had the coldest, most satisfying Miller Lite(s) of my life.  But now, alas, I pay for my fun.  Both ankles are wrapped, alternating ice and elevation.  I'm pretty sure the right has something seriously wrong but I'm trying to ride it out.  And Davis went out to run his miles for our 1/2 training without me this morning.

Injuries suck.  But friendships and experiences last a lifetime!  GO EC WARRIORS!

Bundys ~ rockin' awesome Warriors!

Parks don't Walk Warriors!

Happy Monday, friends!  I hope you have a fantastic week and find your inner Warriors!

Jen

FAVE FRIDAY!

Friday again, so you know what time it is?  FAVE FRIDAY time!  I love the month of May.  Everything is starting to bloom, new grass is growing, the sun in shining more every day and school is almost out!  Although I'm not hispanic, we always start out the month with a bang Cinco de Mayo celebration at our friend's house so this weekend should be a blast.  Bring on KK's margaritas!  Enjoy my faves this week, friends!

FAVE DRINK IDEA

Ole!  Can't wait for the fun Saturday night!

FAVE FURNITURE

In honor of Mr. Grey, of course I immediately want to buy this chair.  Thank you Fifty for dominating my thoughts the last month!

FAVE STEPS

Oh yeah... I want EVERY SINGLE PAIR of these shoes!  I am wearing my new purple Toms all weekend every weekend (except of course when I run).  These are WAY super cute!

FAVE BLING

All jewelry is bling to me.. I'm a pretty simple girl.  I absolutely love these.  My momma did macrame when I was a little girl and I absolutely loved to sit in the garage cross legged and watch her move her hands.  Of course she was making GIANT plant hangers (hey - it was the 70's!)  I loved the smell of the rope as well.  So this is a definite craft I am going to have to try!

FAVE MOTIVATOR

Yep, liar liar!  Ana Steele would say this is her subconscience talking.  Thank god my inner goddess is WAY louder and sassier than my subconscience!

FAVE FOOD

I love training for races because it gives me a fantastic reason to carb up at dinner before a long run!  Couple pasta, my fave meal of all time with my love of all broccoli and it's perfect bliss.  Click here if you want to make it!  Pasta with Garlicky Broccoli Rabe

FAVE LANDSCAPE

I absolutely love river rocks.  When we built 3 years ago, we really didn't input to much of the landscaping.  We took the traditional route and allowed mulch as our covering.  We are finally starting to get to work with some new beds into our property and considering some river rock incorporation.  LOVE this!

FAVE HOBBY

This is so true.  We are so different, us runners.  We can talk endlessly about our training runs, our injuries and our pace.  We buy gadgets and clothes and consume inordinant amounts of water.  I love running ~ there is no better way to clear my head or make a decision than lacing my shoes.

FAVE SASSY

Um... yes.  I admit this is me!  These things get HEAVY sometimes!!  Just saying :).

FAVE FUR LOVE

If everyone would strive for this, we would all be better people!

Happy Friday, friends!!

Jen