BloggingDangerously

#IWouldRun500Miles

A few years ago my baby turned 1 and I decided that after 5 years of being pregnant or nursing it was time to get my body back.

I started out slowly - by going to the gym and using the elliptical trainer.  It was no impact and it was easy - 60 minutes start to finish and I was home before the family was even awake.

And then I saw an article in Outside Magazine about the rising popularity of sprint triathlons and I decided that it would be a good way to up my fitness regimen without upping my time commitment.

I loved the training.  I would go to spinning twice a week, swim at 5:30AM twice a week and do a couple of runs.  I was in great shape and felt fantastic.  I eventually did three sprint triathlons and was very proud of myself.

And then my town underwent budget cutbacks and I became a slob again.

How could the two POSSIBLY be related you ask? 

Well as part of the budget cutbacks, the town went to a split elementary school schedule.  And our school was chosen to be the early school (so they can stagger the bus routes, thus needing fewer buses.)

So instead of getting up at 6, working out from 6:30-7:30 and getting home in time to put my kids on the bus for 8:30, I now had to get up at 5, workout from 5:30-6:30 and get home in time to put my kids on the bus at 7:30.

And with a full time job and a Blog?  Well let's just say that I didn't see 5am very often.  Then never.

Suddenly 20 months had by since I'd run and I felt like crap.  So I decided to do something about it.  I started goign to the gym at 9pm after the kids had gone to bed - and I felt great.

I had more energy than I'd had in a year.  It was self perpetuating - I had so much energy - so I had energy to go to the gym at 9pm.  It was great.

And then it was summer and I was running outside after work and I loved it.

And then it started getting darker earlier and I was travelling more often and suddenly it was harder to squeeze in a run during the day because by the time work was done, it was dark.

But the truth is that I CAN squeeze in a run here and there, I just need to make it a priority.

Over Christmas break I took a look at my runkeeper stats from last year...

I ran 366 miles last year over 76.5 hours and burned 38,000 calories.  That's pretty good considering I wasn't even trying.

And since you know that I MAY be a little OCD about numbers, this year I decided to set a goal.

600 MILES!  That's 12 miles/week for the whole year!!!

And then I remembered that it snows in Boston - sometimes it snows A LOT.  And I'm old.  And sometimes my hip hurts.  And sometimes I like to go on vacation and so on.

In short, sometimes life gets in the way of our workouts - and we workout to make life more enjoyable so I'm not going to set an unattainable goal and then feel bad when I choose to live my life rather than try to hit 600 miles.

So I lowered my goal to 500 miles.  (That's a much more OCD-number anyway - at least for me.)

And then I created a Facebook group and invited people to join me...

So will you?  Run 500 miles with me this year? Or whatever number makes sense for you...

Don't set the goal too high that it stops being fun and don't set it so low that you're done by September.

And use the Facebook page as your brag book...

And use the #IWouldRun500Miles hashtag to tell me all about it on Twitter.

You can do this!

PS I'm in Amsterdam right now and some handy calculator just converted miles to kilometers for me.  500 mile is 804km.  I'm so glad I only have to run 500! ;)

 

Project Amazonian Tatas

Several years ago I set up an Amazon affiliate account for another project I was working on. 

That project never really took off but since then, from time to time, I've linked to various products using my Amazon link and last month - for the first time EVER - I got an Amazon gift card as payment.  It was worth $26.32.

Not exactly fabulous after 5 years of being an affiliate but it got me thinking.

It got me thinking that if everyone who read this site clicked my Amazon link before shopping there, I could probably earn enough money to retire, go on vacation, afford to shop at Whole Foods, get my boobs done.

I get that there is ABSOLUTELY no reason for you to click here before you shop at Amazon.  It's an extra step and you're not going to get to grope my new breasts - probably.

But if you were willing to do it, I would TOTALLY appreciate it.

Blogging is pretty time consuming - and despite what you may have heard - it's not particularly lucrative.  I would love to reward my husband for all the nights he's gone to bed alone while I've stayed up writing for you.

And to make you feel even better about it:

I will donate half of whatever I earn from Amazon between now and Christmas to Toys for Tots.

So if you click my AMAZONIAN TATAS link (above on the navigation bar) before you shop at Amazon you'll be helping children who would otherwise not have toys at Christmas.

And you'll be helping to purchase two new toys for my husband - who is essentially a child most of the time.

AND if you're a fan of my blog, you'll INDIRECTLY be helping yourself because I have a feeling that Amazonian Tatas will certainly AUGMENT my blogging material.

Finally, because I've seen what a time suck how valuable Pinterest is, and to provide a little more value to you, I've added my favorite items to my Amazon store. 

If you're an expectant parent I've posted some of my favorite and stress-tested items to my "Parenting" category.

And if you're just interested in some of the things I can't live without there's a section for that too.

You can check out the store here.  Thanks for shopping.

Kit

P.S. Please leave a comment telling me whether you think that this is a great way to leverage Amazon's affiliate program to raise money for a worthy cause - or if you think I'm a dirty capitalist.  I'd really like to know what you think.

#WINEPARTY GLASSES

They're finally here - and they're FABULOUS!

 

These acrylic goblets hold 14 ouces - that's more than half a regular winebottle!

You'll never have to leave your keyboard during #wineparty again!

To order, please click the store link in the sidebar to the right.

I'm Not Going To Lie To You...

This week kicked my ass.

Between turning 40 on Saturday, losing power on Sunday - for 100 hours, running my home on generator power - which meant that we couldn't leave, trying to entertain 4, 21st century children without tv, computer or electronic games, and actually trying to WORK, I'm completely frazzled.

I retreated to the beach house today.  Oh, I couldn't actually enjoy the beach because I was working but there was electricity, a strong wifi signal and ice cold Diet Coke.  What more could a girl ask for.

Lunch?

Oh.  I forgot lunch.

Luckily there was a bucket of animal crackers and a tube of Ritz crackers in the cabinet. 

I emailed my boss, "I'm taking tomorrow off.  It's been a LONG week."

"Good idea." he said.  He's smart like that.

Then my husband showed up with the kids.  The waves were huge.  He lost my daughter on the beach.  To be fair - she wrapped herself in a towel so she was a different "color" - but she was standing 10 feet away from him.  When I heard him frantically calling her name I looked out the door and saw her right away.  "She's right there." I pointed.  He felt silly but it took a while for the adrenaline to leave him.  I hate those moments.

Then my husband took the boys to their first football scrimmage.  The LOVED it.

The girls and I? Oh we decided to take a little ride into Boston.  We have a condo there and the old tenants were moving out and the new tenants are moving in tomorrow and we had to let the cleaning lady in.  Do you know why they were moving today? Because EVERYONE in Boston moves on September first.  That's what happens when 72% of a major city's population are college students.

It took 2.5 hours to make the 45 minute trip but we didn't really care because we were rocking out to Beyonce and Taylor Swift.

Everyone around us appreciated the show - at least that's what I choose to believe.

When we were done in the city it was past dinnertime and I offered to buy the girls pizza but they insisted on McDonald's so I made them wait until we got back to the suburbs.  The timing was perfect and we managed to rendezvous with the boys for dinner at McD's after their game.

We came home and the house was dark - we had left so early that we'd forgotten to turn the lights on.  I was SO Happy when I flipped the switch and the lights came on - in every room! 

The kids were so tired they showered and crashed and I only read them one story.

Tomorrow we are going back to the beach and I am going to body surf with my children and dig my claws into summer and hold onto it for dear life.

Thank you all for bearing with me this week.

 

 

Okay I Lied but Please Take a Poll

We still don't have power and I couldn't get my shit together in the dark to write Part II yet.  I'm sorry.  I'm also supposed to have a guest post up.  I'm sorry about that too.

In the meantime check out these cool links:

Bolt is giving away an iPad and a bunch of gift cards.  You should give it a shot:
http://peggotty.bo.lt/IPadContest

CheapSally is giving away a chance to win a $100k/year social media job.  You don't have to move or quit your "real" job.  Check it out:
http://peggotty.bo.lt/100kJob

Finally, I'm thinking of selling #wineparty goblets.  They would be WICKED CLASSY. Y'know ACRYLIC.

This is what the glass would look like (unless you hate it - then leave a comment.)

 
Seriously, if you don't like it - PLEASE leave a comment.  I can't get wineglasses on Zazzle so I'm going to have to order 100 of these.

I've also created a poll so that you can help decide what it would look like.  The artwork would be the same as on the t-shirts here. 

(Only the first 400 people get to vote because I'm too cheap to pay for this poll so don't give up the vote!) 

Crap - I just realized I forgot to ask you how much you would pay for this thing.  If you are seriously interested please let me know in the comments.  I'm targetting a cost of $15 including shipping.