Hi there,

Happy October—my favorite month of the year! My birthday is in 3 weeks and I spent my first day home from vacation yesterday with Mr. Sweat Out the Small Stuff and his girls apple picking…..can’t get any more October than that!

Today I got in an 8 miler as my last long run before the Staten Island Half Marathon next weekend. Another reason I love October. And Mr. SOTSS will be running too. #winwin

I’m happy to say after 8 days of togetherness, we’re still a thing. LOL. It was easy for the most part although there were a few moments that we had to work a little harder than others and of course nothing was my fault because this is my blog right? 🙂 Since we started dating almost 2 and a half years ago, the most consecutive days we’d spent together was around 5 or 6 so this was a big deal.

We visited Seattle, Vancouver and Jasper and Banff National Parks in the Canadian Rockies all in a week. We packed in so much that we literally were on the go the entire trip.

Here’s  PART 1 of my recap!

Day 1-Travel Day: Started off with Duncan banging his leg and limping a few hours before we were headed to the airport so I bailed on my long run and quickly took him to the vet. Xrays revealed just a soft tissue injury and no broken bones thank god! And so my sister-in-law got Duncan along with his pain meds and anti-inflammatory meds. She ended up being sick all week so they both rested together. We discovered our flight was delayed a few hours meaning we’d miss our connection in Minneapolis but we were able to re-book to a direct flight that would get us to Seattle only an hour after we would have arrived. This was so awesome because I was able to squeeze in a run. It wasn’t the 10 miler I had originally planned. It was a 2.5 miler on my sister-in-law’s treadmill.

But it made me feel better and Duncan was able to lay on the couch beside me. And since Mr. SOTSS ran 12 miles that morning he was tired so he sat on the couch and watched some college football for the 30 minutes I ran.

The flight was long and I tried my best to amuse myself since Mr. SOTSS was either watching a movie or napping.

I’m not a good traveler. I get antsy and uncomfortable within the first hour. We arrived in Seattle about 8pm and took the Light Link Rail to our hotel and just crashed.

Day 2-Seattle’s Pike Place Market, Bainbridge Island and the Washington State Fair: We started with a walk down to get breakfast at this cool joint called Biscuit Bitch. So delicious and I highly recommend if you ever visit Seattle. Just go early because it gets crowded. Then we strolled around the waterfront and Pike Place Market before hopping on a ferry to Bainbridge Island in the afternoon.

Then it was time to rent our car and drive about 40 minutes south of Seattle to Puyallup Washington for the Washington State Fair.

The reason for this is because the band Train was playing and Mr. SOTSS bought tickets for me as an early birthday present. The fair was fun. We ate fair food and played fair games. He even won me this cute pig. He won this little turtle too. I named him Sheldon. But within a few minutes of taking the pic Sheldon fell out of his back pocket and we’re hoping a kid found him and gave him a good home. The Train concert was AWESOME!

Day 3-Space Needle and EMP Museum: We actually popped back over to Pike Place to try and actually enter the original Starbucks but it was just as crowded as it was the day before so we took a picture of the outside and walked over to the Space Needle and the EMP Museum which are right next to each other.

I was getting cranky about something or another and saw a 7-Eleven and insisted we stop because I knew a slurpee would snap me out of my crank.

Wouldn’t ya know the flavor I wanted shot out all watery?! It was sort of funny actually.

I really enjoyed the design of the exhibit that you walk through before entering the elevator to take you to the top of the Space Needle. It was beautifully designed and interesting to learn about how the structure was built.

And the EMP Museum also had some beautifully designed exhibits. I’m a graphic designer and get really giddy over design treatments and typography…especially the exhibit about horror movies.

We made our way to the train station and hopped on the Amtrak to Vancouver. After breezing through customs we hopped in a cab for a 10 minute ride to our hotel.

You can go here for Part 2 of my recap.

Have you ever been to Seattle?
Do you like museums?
Are you a good traveler?
Do you like horror movies?

I’m so sorry y’all!

If you follow me on Instagram then you know I’m on vacation but I literally haven’t had a minute to post on the blog.

I had a wild morning last Saturday just a few hours before heading to the airport. Duncan and I were playing around and he banged his leg and started limping. $200 and an x-ray later I had the peace of mind it was just a soft tissue injury and he’d be fine in a day or two. My sister-in-law is used to watching Duncan when he’s got a boo-boo. Back when I ran the Cherry Blossom 10-miler in DC he had his cone of shame still on from the surgery on his cheek. (P.S. she said he stopped limping after 1 day on the doggie anti-inflammatory meds!).

It’s just been non-stop since then (even the flight lol!).

I’m having a wonderful time with Mr. Sweat Out The Small Stuff.

We started in Seattle. then headed to Vancouver (BC) and now we’re off to drive through the Canadian Rockies stopping in Kamloops, Blue River, Jasper and ultimately Banff National Parks.

I’ll fill you in on everything when I’m home. Have a great rest of the week!

Anyone from or visited British Columbia or Washington State?

Hi peeps,

I’m home after spending 5 days with Mr. SOTSS and his girls down in Williamsburg, Virginia.

We got the “Bounce Ticket” to Busch Gardens, Water Country USA and Colonial Williamsburg. It was a super fun trip.

The highlights of the trip included:

More »

Happy Friday y’all!

I knew yesterday morning it was time for a running route shake up.

I just didn’t have it in me to run my usual 3 -4 mile neighborhood route for a couple of reasons.

1. Boredom
2. The sloped road and downhills were bothering my knee

So I took my run to the beach.

There’s a great 4+ mile trail that runs between the beach and the marina at Gateway National Park here on Staten Island.

The weather was spot on….in the 70s with a nice breeze. There is a loose gravel trail that runs parallel to the cement sidewalk so I alternated between both. The gravel is softer but also requires my knee to work harder to stabilize me. By alternating I was able to give it a break every so often. And the route is pancake flat which meant no downhill for my knee to get aggravated by. It was refreshing to see different scenery and psychologically it felt good to run all 4 miles in the 10:XX range.

The heat and the knee aggravation have made left me running in the 12:XX lately because I have been choosing to walk during downhills and when the oppressive weather forces me to.

I’ve been running mostly just to achieve my 12,000 steps a day goal (and to relieve my stress) but haven’t had any other real goals. But the Staten Island Half Marathon is at the beginning of October and that means I’ll finally be focusing my running on other things like hill workouts and long runs. I know at mile 9 of the Staten Island Half Marathon there is a big hill, so I’d like to run lots of hill drills. And since my knee is fine on the uphill I can get good workouts going up and walking down.

Anxiety lift

Well don’t ya know that my anxiety levels have come down so much over the last 3 weeks since leaving that full time gig. I’m enjoying freelancing again.

The flexibility is by far one of my most treasured aspects of freelancing. Not just for personal stuff like running and keeping up with my chores but to be available to bail people out when their in need of something, most recently when Mr. SOTSS had to work late and I was able to go feed Chester and let him out in the yard. I love that I can almost always create my own hours, whether to join my niece and sister-in-law for a jaunt in the city for epic milkshakes or today for instance, I’m going to a friend’s pool party but I’ll work this evening. And have I mentioned how awesome my clients are? They are really happy with my work and don’t hesitate to communicate that to me. It’s empowering as I start looking to sell my services to new clients. I’m working on updating my portfolio and credentials website and then I’ll be pushing hard this fall to land a few more clients. My life will always have things in it to cause anxiety and I’m ok with that but the anxiety I had being at a job that wasn’t a good fit for me was causing that anxiety to be more than I really should have had to deal with. The constant uneasiness of not knowing what my responsibilities or daily tasks were supposed to be and the complete lack of communication/direction from my superiors was just not my style. I also felt a ton of anxiety letting my family, especially Mr. SOTSS know how upset I was and how disappointed I was. I felt like a failure at first. I also wanted this job to work because I wanted that steady income so I could start saving for our (Mr. SOTSS and I) future together. And of course, as everything else in my life, everyone was so supportive of me. Life is too short to do anything that doesn’t make you happy or give you fulfillment. I’ve got plenty of time to save for that future. And once I realized I just wanted to work harder to find more freelance clients I felt so much better. I am a hard worker and have a marketable skill. There’s no reason I can’t make the same, or more money as an independent contractor. Actually I did this for many years so I know i’m capable.

Sorry for that ramble! Sometimes these blog posts become some much more for me than for you. 🙂

Have a great weekend!

Question:

Do you remember a time in your life where you just felt overwhelmed with angst? How did you handle it? Did it force you to make a change in your life?

P.S. I totally missed National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day yesterday! I guess that means next year I’ll have to eat 2 cookies. (or 2 boxes:)