Sports in the City

Two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend some sporting events in my new city! 

First, I finally made it out to The Diamond to see the Richmond Flying Squirrels play. I attended the game with the Richmond chapter of the JMU Alumni Association. As much as I love baseball players, I had never been stepped foot in The Diamond. Luckily I now live really close to there so hopefully I will take in some more games! The best part is that general admission is only $7.00 (+ $3.00 to park). You can't beat that.

Tori & I

Anyway, I was decked out in my purple since it was a JMU event. The Flying Squirrels were playing the Portland Sea Dogs. I may or may not have but definitely did bring and wear my Portland, Maine hoodie, since I had been in Maine the week before. I am such a bad Richmond fan. I own nothing that says Richmond on it. (Wouldn't want anyone to think I meant U of R. Eek.)

Attempting to stay dry in my over-sized Portland, Maine hoodie

The game was super fun. Except after a couple of innings it starting raining and since there was a bit of a breeze, the rain was kinda coming at us sideways. And even my over-sized Portland hoodie couldn't make me dry and warm enough to stick it out through the weather.

My next Richmond sporting event came the Friday after the Flying Squirrels. I got off work at 3 p.m. on a Friday and headed out to meet my mom, her boyfriend, and my youngest sister at the Redskins Training Camp. In case you haven't heard (and that could only be possible if you live under a rock), the Washington Redskins are holding their training camp here in Richmond. They had about two and a half weeks of open practices that the public could attend for free (well, plus the $5.00 to park and the $2.00 trolley ride to the camp).

 

Redskins Quarterbacks

It was super crowded the day we went and none of the well-known players came over to see us. It was still pretty cool to see them practice though. I tried to get RGIII to wave at me as we stuck way after practice hoping he would realize he was in love with me or my sister come over. But no luck. Maybe next year!

What sporting events does your city boast? Do you attend any?

My First Pinterest Project

Hi all, 

You know how whenever you try recipes or projects off the internet, the pictures they show you always look waaaaaaaaay better than what your finished product looks like?

Well I (with some help) attempted my first Pinterest project and it was fairly successful! As most of you know, I recently moved to Richmond! In the process of attempting to organize my room, I decided I needed to do more in terms of organizing my jewelry. I have allowed my necklaces to get tangled and knotted way too many times. 

So to Pinterest I went. And I found this project here.

And this was created!

I love it and it's so simple and expensive to make. Just go to Walmart and buy a $10 thread rack and a $4 bottle of spray paint. The hardest part was putting it on the wall because I am not a talented Command strip user.

Here are my photos of the process, taken by my little sister who supervised the project. My mom's boyfriend had a lot of fun setting up the spray painting area and did most of the painting. 

Have you ever done a Pinterest project that turned out great? What did you make?

Becoming a Richmonder

I think I am slowly becoming a city girl. If you know me in real life, this can be surprising. Traffic stresses me out. One way streets freak me out. 

I've been working in Richmond since July so this is bound to happen. And pretty soon, it'll be a lot more official.

Since the weather has gotten warmer, I've been spending a lot of time in Richmond. A couple of months ago, my middle school/high school/college friend, Tori and I did the canal walk. It was amazing! I learned so much about the history of Richmond and the James River. Best of all, I got some amazing photos.

A couple of weeks later, I spent a Sunday with my sister at the Virginia Fine Arts Museum in Richmond. I had been to the VMFA many times but my sister is an Art History major so she has class there all of the time. She has so much knowledge about the place so I learned a ton.

Have you gone exploring in your hometown or city lately? What have you seen or learned?

Monument Avenue 10K: A Two Time Finisher

I have been so MIA. I apologize profusely. But let's get to the real point of this post.

As you know earlier this year, I joined the gym. What you may not know is that I fail miserably at the gym. At least at the part that was supposed to help me train for the Monument Avenue 10K. I can't stand running on a treadmill. Everytime I ran outside, my calf cramped up, my knee would hurt and my foot would go numb. Not a good recipe for beating my time from last year.

My sister, Dani, was also training for a half marathon. So she was out running 10 miles at a time and I was struggling to run 10 minutes. On the morning of April 13, 2013, my goal was simply to finish the race. I gave up on my sub-65, beat-my-time-from-last-year. I just wanted to finish the race which seemed impossible.

Pre race faces!

The weather was much nicer this year for the race. A lot sunnier and even too hot at times. I attempted to start my RunKeeper app when I crossed the starting line so I could track my progress. Unfortunately it did not start. So I just ran. I started looking at the clock on my phone and after 1 mile, I realized I was running at a 10 minute mile pace. I had to pee but I decided I could ignore that for awhile. After 2 miles, I was still running at a 10 minute miles pace. Stopping to pee was out of the question. And my calf? It felt great.

Are you ready to know how it ended? Are you sure you're ready?

I RAN 6 MINUTES AND 20 SECONDS FASTER THAN LAST YEAR! (63:21)

Post race smiles!

I still don't know how I did it but I am happy. I was 2 minutes slower than Dani down to the second!

I'm still ecstatic I'm looking at sub-60 for next year; if I can get off my lazy butt! :)

Tell me about a time that you accomplished a goal that you thought was impossible.

Hands Up For the Dukes!

I am not a basketball fan. I love me some football and baseball pants. Basketball is just so squeaky.

But I am a JMU fan. A big JMU fan. I learned via my Facebook newsfeed that JMU had won its first two games in the CAA tournament and was advancing to the CAA Championship.

Best of all, the game was taking place in Richmond! So on Sunday night, I got the idea in my head that maybe I should attend the game. After consulting with a couple of fellow JMU fans, I learned that tickets to the Championship were as cheap as $10.

I had to take advantage of that. So Monday, I spent some time coordinating a couple of friends to go to the game with me. I ended up getting in touch with one of my favorite Dinwiddie/JMU girls, Michelle and my cousin, Travis to attend with me. I also found out that Matt and Amanda would be in attendance too.



Hands up for the DUKES!

After work, I headed over to the Coliseum where the game was taking place and bought mine and Travis's tickets. We were playing Northeastern, a team out of Boston, MA, so JMU was obviously well represented in the Coliseum. Also no one was checking tickets at all so we got to sit much closer than the seats our tickets were for.

 

Our team had such great momentum in the first half and our fan had so much energy. Northeastern gained a little momentum in the second half but they couldn't keep up. JMU won the game 70-57 to become win the CAA title and to start their road to the NCAA tournament!

 

 

It was amazing to be there and watch it all happen. I love being a JMU Duke and being a part of JMU Nation.

Virginia Weather

Hey all! I hope you enjoyed the weekend. It was absolutely beautiful here. Which is actually kind of ironic due to the weather that we had earlier in the week.

I've lived in Virginia my whole life, for almost 25 years now and we can have some interesting weather. 

It's March. Almost mid-March. A little more than a month ago, good ole Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow.

Does this look like an early Spring? This is Wednesday, March 6.

 

I drove 45 minutes to work in this messy weather. It rained the entire way up, until I reached the interstate and then it started a wonderful snow/rain mix. We ended up closing our office at 11 a.m. and I was stranded stayed in Richmond. I'm not sure what the final measurements were but I'd say we got 2 to 3 inches.

 

 

Today, just 4 days later, it was 63 degrees. Tomorrow it's going to be 70 degrees. Gotta love that crazy Virginia weather.

 

 

I can't wait until spring is here to stay.

How's the weather where you are?  

Get Fit or Cry Tryin'

Hello all!

So two weeks ago, I did something a little uncharacteristic of me. Firstly, it involved spending a lot of money (even though it is stretched out over a long period of time). Secondly, it involves me being active. A lot.

I joined a gym. No big deal, right? Except remember when I went to JMU and had free membership to UREC and I hardly ever went except for that one semester I had to go for Personal Wellness class. 

I'm going to go though. Because I spent my hard earned money on this. Also, I just signed up to do the Ukrop's Monument Avenue 10K again this year. It's in April this year instead of March so hopefully that will do me some good. I am determined to beat my time from last year. 

Except I've been a real wuss when it comes to the cold and running outside. Which brings us back to the gym! 

Do you belong to a gym? Anyone have any good advice to training for a race in the gym?

Red, White, and Whew, It's Hot...

Happy Weekend everybody!


I survived my first week of my big girl job! Though it was a short week, due to the holiday. It still totally counts as surviving week one. 


Speaking of the Fourth of July, have I mentioned that it's one of my favorite holidays? I have a ton of spirit and I love showing it off. So I go all out in my red, white, and blue every year.

My outfit: Blue&white striped shirt from Rue21, red tank top from Forever21,
and white shorts, Mossimo at Target

In my outfit, looking rough after a long day!

For some reason that I haven't locked down yet, fireworks in Colonial Heights were postponed until Saturday. I ended driving to Richmond and watching fireworks from Lynn's apartment's rooftop, which was super cool. It was the ultimate spot to watch several different shows all at once.

"Baby, you're a fiiiiiiiiirework"

What's your favorite part of the Fourth of July? How'd you spend the holiday?

Weekend Recap

This past weekend was one of those weekends that started off slow and then went full force leaving me wishing that it wasn't over. And that I had time to recover from it.

On Friday as soon as I got home from work, I took a nap. I hadn't slept that well the night before. All the announcing that I had done for the two days of the Central District Track and Field Championships had turned my cold into a mild case of tonsillitis. When I left the meet on Thursday night, my tonsils were so swollen and I had a fever.

So believe me when I say I did a lot of sleeping and laying around on Friday night and Saturday morning through afternoon. At least on Saturday when I went to my mom's boyfriend's house, I had Parenthood to keep me occupied. I am addicted to that show, by the way.

Source

On Saturday, the rest of my family headed up to Fredericksburg because my sisters were participating in the Historic Half Marathon there on Sunday. They left me at home with the dog, the cat, and Lynn.

Lynn had been craving sushi for awhile so we made that our plan for dinner on Saturday night. I had never been to Wabi Sabi, which is vaguely surprising since I have friends that used to go all the time. I guess when I was in high school I wasn't an adventurous eater. One time we went to a sushi restaurant in Richmond, I ordered a cheeseburger.

However, this time I ordered sushi. I had the Philadelphia roll and a tempura shrimp roll. Sushi is so filling and so expensive. I ordered one roll of each and had about half to take home in a box. It made for good lunch at work on Monday!

Sushi: really bad cellphone photo

After Wabi Sabi, we weren't quite ready to call it a night. So we headed where all pretty girls head on to on a Saturday night: Martin's. There we bought the craziest assortment of items. The cashier was totally judging us, between our assorted drinks, breakfast foods, two gallons of ice cream (I'm lactose intolerant and require lactose-free ice cream), chips and dip, and ice cream toppings. Lynn remarked that she probably thought we had just broke up with our boyfriends.

To add fuel to the fire (or well, that argument), we stopped by Redbox and picked out the two sappiest love story movies. Our first choice was Breaking Dawn Pt. 1; the second was Like Crazy, a movie I'd seen previews for but had forgotten about.

While eating massive amounts of junk food, we opted to watch Breaking Dawn first and it didn't make me groan nearly as much as I thought it would. Like Crazy, on the other hand, was not good. At all. I didn't realize it was one of those low budget, creative type movies. And the plot line was flat. I went to bed before it was over. Lynn said it didn't get any better.

Sunday, we got up and we were so tired. But we had plans to get things accomplished! First we had a breakfast of bacon, eggs, cinnamon rolls, and cubed potatoes. Then my family returned from Fredericksburg and then half of them left again to head to Blacksburg because my littlest sister is taking a six-week summer class.

Lynn and I headed to Glen Allen to go to my very first wine tasting, which was super cool. We're still upset that we didn't get to keep the glasses. How lame. Then we headed out to do some shopping at Virginia Center Commons. To finish up our day out, we went and got our nails done.

My new nail polish

When we returned back to Colonial Heights, I got back to my watching of Parenthood and then Lynn somehow convinced me to rewrite my resume. The next thing I knew it was 9:15 and I still had to drive 30 minutes home!

What did you do this past weekend? What are you going to do this weekend?

Rendezvous in Richmond

For those of you who don't know, I currently work as a substitute teacher. While on a day-to-day basis, the job definitely has its ups and downs.


One of the positives is the schedule. Every day I'm off by 3:00 p.m. and I have weekends off, unless I'm hanging out at my alma mater on official school business.


And the best thing is I have still have Spring Break! Who says you have to give up Spring Break once you graduate from college. Last year I spent my break in Harrisonburg.

This year Spring Break was last week, April 9-13. I spent my entire break in Richmond. From Sunday to Thursday, I was helping Lynn make over and paint her new condo. I got paint all over myself.

On my skin...

On my clothes...

Even in my hair!

Exhibit A:

I was talking to Patti one day while I was painting and she mentioned that she had Friday off of work. She also mentioned that she didn't have any plans. Since it's been far too long since I saw Patti (okay it's been since St. Patrick's Day), I took it upon myself to make plans for us to hang out.

I toyed with plans of going to the beach or spending the day in Washington, D.C. but these plans sounded both expensive and exhausting. Then I thought, well I've been in Richmond every day this week, what's another day?

It took me awhile to narrow down what I wanted to do.

We decided on Carytown, since I hadn't been there except briefly since my senior year in high school. Then I wanted to check out Hollywood Cemetery.

I met Patti in Richmond with some directions from Google Maps since I'm not exactly the best at driving places I've never driven before or city driving. But I successfully got us to Carytown.

We decided to walk down one side of the street from end to end and then hit the other side on the way back.

Some of the highlights:

Cops on horses.

For the Love of Chocolate a.k.a. my new favorite place in the world. Think of any candy you've ever had (remember Warheads, anyone?), it's here.

Patti with a York Peppermint Patty.

Candy!!

Charms from the bead store

and Sweet Frog, which there are no photos of because it's so good and there's no time to take photos when you are that hungry.

Then we headed over to Hollywood Cemetery, except we got there at 4:40 and they close at 5p.m. So I only got to explore for a little bit! There are awesome views of the city and the river from the cemetery.

I'll do some more exploring next time!

The Year of the Runner (A Monument Avenue 10K Story)

5K, 8K, and now 10K.

I'm not athletic. Ask anyone who has known me for awhile. While they will rave about my many exemplary characteristics, my athleticism is not one of them. 

I'm the girl who avoided doing anything in gym class like it was the plague. Dodgeball? I hid behind the tall people until I realized that this kept me in the game longer. Then I would just pretend I got hit. "Oh that ball came within a 3 foot radius of me? I think it did hit me...somewhere...I'll just sit down now." 


We had to run the mile at least every year for our athletic tests. My fastest mile was in seventh grade: 9:22. That time was thanks to me running with J. Wray.

This year I've decided to take on athletic accomplishments of monumental (like what I did there?) proportions. First I ran the Sweetheart 8K in February, which marked the longest distance and time I've run in my life to that point. Then I was prompted to run the Ukrop's Monument Avenue 10K. I mean, it's go big or go home, right?

My Monument Avenue 10K story starts the night before. (Or actually it starts in the weeks after my 8K where I could not bring myself to train regularly. But enough about that.) I sat at home while Lynn and Dani went to Richmond to grab our bib numbers. At first, I was upset that I did not go with them. But afterwards, I was glad I stayed. I got extra rest and got to eat dinner first!

When I got out of the shower that night, my Monument Avenue 10K bag was sitting on the bed. I looked inside and found my bib number.

To be honest, I chose the wave "TB" because those are my initials. It's the 66-70 minute wave.

My souvenir Monument Avenue 10K shirt and another shirt! Turns out that at the expo, there was a company selling cute shirts with running slogans on them. Lynn and Dani picked out this one for me.

We all decided to wear our shirts for the race on Saturday. On Saturday morning, I woke up at 5:45. Got dressed, ate breakfast, and we were headed for Richmond by 6:30! The first wave of runners were set to begin at 8:30. Mine and Dani's wave wasn't set to start until 9:31. Lynn was in an earlier wave but decided she would wait and start with us.

Race outfit!

Pre-race photo

We sat in the car when we got to Richmond for awhile but then decide we should probably head to where everything was going so we wouldn't miss our start time. By this time, it was raining; it rained from that point on until at least my second mile.

I ran the first two and a half miles with Dani and Lynn and then went off on my own. I could definitely feel that my second half of the race was much faster than the first.

The Monument Avenue 10K is probably the most amazing race in the world. There is so much going on around you that you forget you're running. There are bands playing, people lining the streets cheering for you, and people just sitting on their porches watching all the actions. Some people dressed up in costumes for the race and it was exciting to check out their outfits as I ran by them.

While I still felt strong at the end of 6.2 miles, I can't say that I wasn't happy to see the finish line!

Post race photo!

And while my finish time was nothing to write home about if you're a real runner, I was quite pleased! (69:41)

I actually finished in the wave that I signed up for! =] And the rest of Saturday I rested. Because I could literally not walk. At all. At my mom's boyfriend's house I actually crawled up the stairs and slid down them on my bottom because my ankles were in such pain!

All in all, it was an amazing experience! Prior to the Monument Avenue 10K, I decided that it was going to be my last race for awhile since I couldn't find the motivation to train. However, then I remembered how much I love the feeling I get after I run! Now I need another race to train for!

Finally February - Our First Snow

It turns out that Punxsutawney Phil wasn't kidding on Groundhog Day when he said six more weeks of winter.

We've been having such a temperate winter so far, I simply just ignored Phil's warning. 

However, at some point last week, the weather men started talking about a possible snow-making storm system for the end of the weekend. 

Turns out Phil and the weathermen were right. It starting snowing and sticking on Sunday night, which led to our school system cancelling school for Monday (Presidents Day). Initially, the students had been scheduled to attend a half day. 

The students also got a two hour delay today, which is good because this will probably be the last snow day/delay they have this year. Especially since it's supposed to be 72 degrees on Thursday!

Personally I can't wait!

Our 4 inches of snow

Did you have Presidents Day off from work or school? What did you do? Are you a fan of snow or has this been  your kind of winter?