How many cups of coffee does it take?

I’ve got a busy day ahead. I had a really great day yesterday and ended up being really productive. Ish… my bedroom and car are both still messy.


But on the workout front I rocked it. I dyed my hair and then I went shopping and spent a lot of money. Story of my life.

I shop a lot at Plato’s Closet which, if you don’t know, is a gently used clothes store. I’m really cheap and Plato’s is perfect for me. However, I generally try on 20 items of clothing and find one item that I actually want. It can sometimes be disappointing when you really like something on the hanger but when you try it on it looks like crap… and then that happens 20 times. Yesterday I hit the jackpot though. I would get up and count how many things I got but I’m too lazy. I got a lot.

I also stopped at Target. I bought some workout clothes and went to the gym after Plato’s and wore some of my new purchases. You know that warning that a lot of clothes have, “wash before wearing?” Well… I generally don’t follow random rules like this “don’t remove tag,” “wait 15 minutes after taking to drink,” etc because I don’t understand the why. If the why was explained and I knew that it was really important to follow the rules than I would. Well… unfortunately my disregard for rules left me with a lovely teal tint to my skin. It makes sense, I just never would have thought of it. Apparently the dyes can bleed if you get sweaty and then they might just stain your skin and you might not be able to get the color off of your skin.

I got really crazy last night and stayed out until 11:30 PM. I’m pretty much always in bed by 10:30 at the latest. I’ve been known to head to bed at 8:30 if I’m tired and have an early morning coming up. It wasn’t by choice though. I’ve joined a new drama group at my church. I was sort of roped in without any foreknowledge of how late the practices would go (or that they often go 30-45 minutes later than they’re supposed to). Once I was there and had practiced with them I didn’t feel like I could leave them just because they had a late finishing time. Next time there’s a good chance I won’t be joining them though.

So I got home at 12 and hopped right into bed. I’m not sure why but if I’ve been out driving it doesn’t really seem to matter how tired I feel, I seem to have a harder time falling asleep than usual. It probably didn’t take as long as I felt it did but I doubt I fell asleep before 12:15. I’m thinking more like 12:30. So when my alarm went off at 4:15 (I know, I’m a crazy person) I convinced myself that I would lay in bed awake for a few minutes before pulling myself out of bed. I’m not sure how I’m able to convince myself that this works because it never does. An hour later… I awoke and realized I had fallen back asleep and forced myself out of bed.

All I can say is, today is going to be a coffee day - preferably organic and freshly ground ;).

How to make your neighbors think you're crazy

I just realized I haven't posted in about a week.  Oops! 

I completely forgot about blogs, I haven't even been reading any!  Why?  Cause I've been dancing for about 3 hours everyday.

I'm involved in a dance team at my church (what?!  Dance at church?  I know... we're heathens).  Maybe that sounds strange to you but at my church we believe in using all of your talents to honor God.

But now the Easter dance is done and I have my Thursdays back and don't have any last minute 3 hour practices on weekends to worry about either.  Yay!  I love dancing and I feel so guilty that I'm glad to be done because dance is really my first love but now all I really want to do is run and dancing is getting in the way of that.

This isn't a youtube video so I can't just insert it into the post.  The easter dance should be posted soon but all I've got now is the Christmas dance.  I start in the middle.

Christmas Dance

Despite my crazy week last week I still managed to get a lot done

What am I doing you ask?  Uh... good question.

Lesson learned: don't dance while you're waiting on the automatic picture timer

Before my run...

10 miles later and alllllll I want is something cold to drink.

After that I went to a new running store to try to solve some issues I've been having.  I wanted to know if all of my random injuries are because my shoes don't fit properly.  Good news, I guess, is that my shoes fit great and I have a very very neutral foot and that I have a midfoot strike (without even trying - awesome).  The guy who helped me did sell me some orthotics to put in my shoe that will apparently help my IT band problem (which I haven't actually had trouble with lately at all).

While I was there, in typical Sharon style I bought a ton of other things too.

Those magical shoe inserts that will take away my knee pain

"The Stick" which is actually not supposed to be used as a baseball bat.  This fun thing is basically like a portable foam roller.  My favorite part is that I can use it while I'm in bed.  I dislike the foam roller cause I actually have to get out of bed to use it.  I am obviously a walking contradiction - I love to run but I really really love to sit in my bed all day.

These super cute styling compression sleeves.  I'm regretting my choice of white cause now they're kind of grey.  I've only worn them twice...

They also talked me into ANOTHER shirt - just what I need...

And now: how to make your neighbors think you're crazy

Completely unmatching outfit, unbrushed hair, no make up, no bra, shins wrapped in ace bandages, no shoes:  Cleaning your car

They should know by now...

I finished up the week with two more 6 milers

Hey week:  Whatcha got?  I'm ready for it, bring it on.

I hope all of you had a great Easter weekend.  Hopefully I'll be back later today to catch up on some posting and tell you all about my Easter weekend.

In the meantime:  I recently "liked" Runner's World Magazine on facebook.  Recently they posted about running with allergies.  The second part of their post mentioned not re-wearing the same workout clothes.  Well, I don't have allergies so I don't have to worry about that at all but a lot of people posted about how re-wearing workout clothes is absolutely disgusting.  At this point I have so many workout clothes that I really should wear different ones just to get my moneys worth out of it but in general I don't think recycling clothes is that gross.  Am I crazy?  What does it matter if you're just going to sweat and get them dirty again anyways?

I want to know what you think!

The Loot

I should warn you before you read more: This post is all about me.  I mean, really, they all are but this one even more so.  If you're not in the mood to see a bunch of self-timer self portraits then you should probably go somewhere else.  If you do want a good laugh though you should scan to the bottom of the page and take a look at my "bloopers" - who am I kidding, pretty much all my photos are bloopers.

I went shopping on Thursday with my mom and grandmother and then I hit up a few stores on Saturday and finished up the week with a stop on Sunday.  Did I need anything?  Uh... not at all. 

Remember in middle school and high school when you bought clothes from Wal-Mart and tried to pretend they were from some really expensive store in the mall?  Oh... that was just me?

Well now I buy clothes from Wal-Mart (okay, not true, I just buy cheap clothes) and I brag about it.  In my mind the less money you pay for an item of clothing the more valuable it really is.

FOREVER 21

(aka my favorite store)

Scarf - $5.50

Goes well with skirt/shorts and probably jeans

Super comfy pants for $8.50... sadly they make my legs look like tree trunks (did I mention I have 4 of them in various colors?  Oops)

Cream top that I also have in red - $11.50 - want to hear something kind of pathetic?  I almost never ever pay that much for just a shirt.  I'm moving up in the world.

Plato's Closet

If you've never heard of Plato's then... well, you're missing out big time.  Basically you pay dollars and pennies for gently used name brand clothing.  This is my kind of store.  You can also sell your clothes there, also for near nothing. 

Really comfy, long tank with small pocket for dance (and sleeping, yes please) - $2.40

Basically my favorite shirt in the entire world.  Now I have it in three colors.  I still want more. $5.60, shorts $4

$3.20

$2.40

This shirt for $3.20

On Sunday I hit up another one of my favorite places in the world:

TJ Maxx Homegoods

Shirt for $7.99

The front

The back.  $10 - originally $58.  Who the heck pays these prices?

Running capris - $19.99

Now I am forbidding myself to set foot in a clothing store for... well, at least a week

BLOOPERS!!! :)

I really have no words of explanation... it is a little odd that all the really bad pictures happened with these pants

Okay, I promise not to post this many pictures of myself all at once ever again ;)

Why I have to marry a rich man...

I LOVE saving money and I love getting good deals... or at least I used to.

Suddenly I am spending all of my money on food and I'm not really giving it a second thought.  I figure now is the time to do it when I'm living at home mooching off of my parents hospitality with no husband and no kids.  That being said, there's a good chance that unless I find someone who rakes in the big bucks, at some point I will have to stop living so frivolously and go back to the basics.  I don't want to give up my health food store addiction!

Today I spent 62.92 - I meant to pick up "a few things" - I only bought 8 items but wow, it adds up fast when you're buying organic and all natural. 

I'm planning to make it official on April 1st and go Vegan!  I realized today that April 1st is April Fools Day.  It's not a joke though, I really am going Vegan on that day.  I'm taking the rest of this month to ween myself off of dairy... like I ever really consumed much in the first place.  It shouldn't be that hard.  Right now I have 2 blocks of almond cheese in the fridge that have milk casein in them... whatever that is.  I've been LOVING Maranatha's Dark Chocolate Almond Spread but it has milk in it.  Oh, and I have some fish oil pills that I've been taking.  The whole point of today's trip was to pick up some vegetarian capsules.

Well, after much searching I found only two tiny bottles, each around $25 of capsules that not only had non-animal sources of Omega 3's but also didn't have some form of glycerin or gelatin in the capsule.  Well, $25 later I am set in that department. 

I also found some chocolate almond butter that was milk free - Yay!!!  Too bad it costs $12.  I did end up buying some.  Two actually, but only because they were buy one get one free.  I think I got a really good deal but that's still a lot of money to spend. 

Speaking of money and needing to find a rich man so that I can continue my consumption of super expensive foods: A woman I babysit for promised me she would lookout for a resident where her husband works to set me up with..  I kind of laughed at her and agreed because, well, I'm lame and never meet any guys.  I didn't expect her to find one so quickly!  It's been a few weeks and she's found me someone.  I don't know too much about him, just that he's 28 (I'm 2 months away from 23) and that he's a resident in urology.

I think I'm super awkward around guys but I guess I should give this a try?  If nothing else I can at least be able to say that I've had a blind date before... and by blind date I mean we will exchange pictures beforehand.  I'm not sure if I should go through with it though - one of my absolute musts is that the guy has to love Jesus a lot.  I have no idea whether this guy does/does not but it seems like a wasted date to me if he does not.  What do you think - should I go or should I find some excuse? 

After my expensive trip to the health food store I stopped in at the mall.  We recently got a much bigger Forever21 in our mall and I've been reading status updates on facebook all about it for the past several weeks so I finally caved and decided to check it out today.

It is HUGE.  Now our Gainesville mall is super tiny and I haven't really been shopping anywhere with lots of big stores so my "huge" forever21 might actually be pretty normal sized but to me it went on and on forever.  It was really overwhelming and I'm still not sure at all what the organization of the whole thing was at all or even if it was organized.  Whatever the case was, I ended up finding more than I wanted to find to buy.

New shirt: anything with pockets is a winner in my book

3 pairs of the same pants.  I'm pretty sure I already have enough lounge/active pants but you just can't beat $8.50, super comfy, pretty cute and I can wear them to bed, to teach ballet and various other activities if I don't feel like wearing real clothes

A pair of hoochie shorts that will be restricted to indoor use only.  How could I pass up $3.50 though?

In case you weren't aware, I actually model in my spare time.  This is me giving you my fiercest, most couture pose and facial expression.  Notice the dress is on top of the tank (and shorts).  I'm not keeping this one.  I didn't try it on because I had already waited to get into a dressing room for 30 minutes and wasn't about to do it again.  My mom told me this dress allllllmost bordered on looking okay - I'll take that as a no.  Thanks Mom for the always brutally honest opinion!

New shirt - not to be worn with these grunge shorts :)

And last but not least... my new setup.  Keyboard still not working so my dad brought me home a keyboard from his work... that I will be using until he remembers that he brought it home.  I feel really discombobulated though, I keep trying to type on the old keyboard.  I still have to use the mouse on the laptop so having the keyboard separated from the mouse is a strange feeling.

I'm really good at... shopping

Last night I got two exciting packages in the mail... aren't all packages that come in the mail exciting?

I think I have a problem.  I have bribed myself more than I'd like to admit to finish a long run.  If I'm struggling at about mile 10 with several more in front of me I start to try various ways to convince myself to finish.  The main one and the one that often gets me through is promises of new stuff.  One time it was a running hat, another time running shoes, more workout clothes - you get the idea. 


Well, my newest purchase wasn't actually a bribe.  This probably means I've gotten worse.  Now I'm just buying things without even making myself work for them.  Oh well, hopefully this one will make me work. 

I got a fantastic deal on this little baby:

The Garmin Forerunner 405 - $177 :)

I've heard fantastic things about it and am soooo excited to have it.  I've been using a polar heart rate monitor that wasn't made specifically for running.  I'll probably keep it and use it to track calories burned during crosstraining activities or I'll give it to Rachel who has been asking (very nicely) to have it when I get a new one. 

I just can't wait to try out the garmin and to be able to know my pace at any and all times during a run.  I think my favorite part will be not mapping all of my runs online beforehand.  It will be so freeing to just go out and run. 

Can you tell I'm pumped?

My other purchases were from forever21.  I will basically never be able to wear adult size clothing unless something crazy happens, I have the body of a 12 year old.  For now I'm taking full advantage of this fact and buying all kinds of cheap clothes from juniors stores.  Forever21 is my favorite.  Sadly, I realize that someday I will still probably fit in these clothes, I'll just be too old to wear them.  Yes, I'm talking about my addiction to headbands with bows on them.  Give it a few years and I'll just look ridiculous wearing them.

Nothing perks you up on a bad day more than some retail therapy. 

I bought several pairs of workout pants/capris for under $13 - not for all 4, each.  One was $7.50.  Seriously, how do you beat that?

Then I got several of these cardigans for $6.50 - amazing

Not so amazing: my faces... and this pose.  Pretty sure I was trying to demonstrate that this kept me warm... which really it doesn't.  I don't even know. 

Sadly, the pants didn't pass the "bend over" test.  All workout pants should stay opaque when you bend over.  Forever21 workout pants do not =/.  What a rip off.  Except not, since they are so inexpensive.  Oh well, I'll take it. 

More earrings that I will never wear.  Love earrings and hardly ever wear them, so of course I should buy 5 pairs.  All under $2.80.  They better be considering I will probably only wear them a handful of times.  I should change that.  But really, would you take me seriously if I showed up to a babysitting job wearing these? 

No, I wouldn't take anyone wearing five pairs of earrings seriously either.  How do you even do that?

Okay, so I meant just one pair.  Still, they're like baby magnets and I like my ears with holes, not rips. 

Garmin is all charged, it's a nice day out, today is a run day.  I better get this thing done!

Inspiration

I started off my day on a high-note.  What I absolutely love the most about blogging is other people's posts.  I LOVE reading about the awesome things others are accomplishing, about how they're becoming stronger both physically and mentally.  I love reading about new healthy foods and hearing about new fitness products - it would take me a long time to found out about these things if I wasn't reading blogs.  I am continually inspired to push for more in my workouts and in my everyday life because I hear day in and day out from these amazing and inspiring women (It's not that I don't like men - promise, I just don't read any blogs written by men yet).

This morning I opened up blogger and read something that is going to keep me going for a long time...

Kristin D. over at Aqufit Blog wrote an incredible post entitled This is Why I Do It

If you haven't read it already, check it out!

When I talk about my fitness goals I often get asked the question "Why?  Why do you want to run a marathon?  Why do you want to run an ultra marathon?  Why do you want to get involved in Crossfit?"

I always find it hard to put into words exactly why I feel the need to push my limits and find out what I'm made of.  Whatever it is, there is definitely something inside of me that is hungry for more, that desires to be the strongest me that I can possibly be.  I don't want to just get to a happy place and stay there, I want to keep improving and keep growing. 

Kristin put it perfectly:

This is why I do it. For the quiet, for the pain, for the exquisite moments of triumph that form inevitably out of all out effort.  It is why I'll never stop rowing, despite the initial fear. It's why it's always worth it to give it your all: on the rower, up the mountain, during your first marathon. Always.

Since I haven't done Crossfit (yet!) I'm replacing a few words:

This is why I do it. For the quiet, for the pain, for the exquisite moments of triumph that form inevitably out of all out effort. It is why I'll never stop running, despite the initial fear. It's why it's always worth it to give it your all: up the mountain, during your first marathon, in life. Always.

LOVE!

I had this thought running through my head as I ran 10 miles this afternoon.  I had the best run that I've had in a long time.  I'm sure it was good for many reasons but I attributed at least some of the motivation during the run to this statement. 

Then crazy me told Rachel we could run stadiums today so after a shower, some food and knee icing I was off to run some more.  Surprisingly, running stadiums was awesome as well.  I just had a really on day when it came to working out.  I guess I had to have an on day with something because I certainly didn't for the rest of the day :)

I made Rachel stop at the store with me to pick up a few things on the way home.  We filled the basket with hummus... and a few other things ;).  We took forever because I'm obsessed with the Greenwise Publix.  We don't have Whole Food or Trader Joes in Gainesville =( but we do have a few Mother Earth Supermarkets and the Greenwise Publix. 

Got in line, put everything on the belt and then realized I didn't have my wallet adfljsadflkj. 

While we were leaving several cars all tried to smash into me at once.  That was fun.  Sometimes I think my car must have the invisible button turned on. 

My plan for the rest of the night?  Bed before 10 :)





Charlie & Lola and Lots of Cuddling

I spent my day cuddling with this little cutie :)

Oh my goodness!

I tried to sneak him out of the house in my purse but his mom caught me ;)

Just kidding of course

But I (allllllmost) wanted to

Who could resist this little guy?  Even with the horrible picture quality he's adorable

Will is 4 weeks old today and he pretty much just slept the 4 hours his mom left him with me

When he wasn't sleeping he was snuggling (happily!) with me

No crying at all!

This is most likely because he's a great baby but I'm going to throw in that I am also an amazing babysitter ;)

After snuggling with Will for the first part of my day I made a quick stop at the mall to return several items I ordered online.  Love online ordering, hate when things look way better on the models (uh, which is pretty much always).  It makes everything okay though that I can so easily just return the unwanted items to the store in the mall.

Then I headed off to babysitting job #2.  Reid was napping so I caught up on 30 Rock, The Office and started watching Tabitha's Salon Takeover... which I've never watched before.  Then he woke up and we played outside and watched Charlie and Lola.  I think I really like Charlie and Lola... I know, sad

Basically the cutest kids show ever.  British accents melt my heart, always.

Workouts?  Uh, what's that?

Maybe later...

Today I was supposed to do P90X Chest & Back and Ab Ripper X, some time with my new hula hoop and some time spent on my foam roller

We shall see... I'm making no promises