Yesterday!

Yesterday was my last day of my staycation and as much as I wanted to stay home and sleep in, I had to get up.  I had signed up to do my time trial for paddling at 6:30am, what was I thinking?  Everyone has to do a time trial even though I think mine does not really matter, because of my age I will be paddling in the "open" category no matter what and most likely steering so if you ask me it is really a waste of time and no one really cares how fast or slow I go, but whatever, I am a team player and did my one and only time trial of the season.  

This is the way I roll!

I posted this picture on Instagram

And this is the response I get from my M O M, geez.

This was a nice little email from our coach about the time trials, it is nice to see that she recognizes improvement even if it is only 14 seconds in my case, errr, I wish I could paddle in a straight line and oh maybe faster.

After paddling I cleaned out my car, errrrr, how does it accumulate so much stuff?  I took it to the car wash and folded down the seats so they do a really good vacuum job, there was more dog hair and sand than I care to admit. 

This all came out of my backseat and trunk, thank goodness for tinted windows so no one can see all of my junk in my trunk.

Once I removed all of the clothing and towels, I was left with a lot of laundry, I seriously did laundry every day and it took almost 7 days to get everything washed and put away.  Around 4 o'clock I waved my white flag and surrendered to the laundry basket, it won, I was done, so I crawled into bed and took a nap.  I had to drag myself out of bed at 5pm to start making dinner for the Sheriff and I.

The laundry pile, it NEVER ends.

I bought myself some pretty flowers, just because every girl should have pretty flowers given to her from the Sheriff every so often for her to enjoy.

A quaint dinner for two.

After dinner the Sheriff hung this little rack in my garage for my paddles and other paddling gear, lets just say we had two different ideas of how it should of been hung.  :)

 21 "likes"from our Facebook fans, nicely done Sheriff. 

And that was yesterday, I went back to work today, I wanted to stay home, oh well, someone has to pay the bills and we all know Gracie does not help out at all.

The End

For the Sheriff!

The Sheriff and I have been dating for 17 months as of yesterday, yep, that is the extent of my mushy gushy, awwwww, we have been dating for 17 months blah blah blah blah social media share.   Anyways, it has been 17 months, how the heck did that happen?  I don't know about the Sheriff but the last 17 months have flown by at lightening speed for me and every time I talk to him about how fast it has gone by he just shakes his head cause life has not been the same for him since he met me.  BTW, just for the record I blame him (someday I might explain why I blame him, but just know it is all good).  Poor guy never gets to relax it is go go go go on his days off.  I have never been able to explain my need to be on the move to him, I just shake my head and say "let's go" and I have finally found the words I have been looking for and the explanation that I have needed, so this one is for the Sheriff…..

I hope you understand why and know the last 17 months have been a great ride.

My Spring Break!

Darn, it is Thursday, I took this week off  from work and took a blogging break as well, I needed both and I am feeling sort of recharged but mostly tired.  This is the most free time I have had in a long time and my body and brain are enjoying it so much that I am exhausted when doing absolutely nothing.  So what have I been up to you ask?  Well lets see!  For starters, paddling, I paddle paddle paddle, it NNNEEEVVVEEERRR seems to end, good thing I love it, but hot damn it sucks the life out of you sometimes!

I am in the turquoise, paddling as best I can all the while trying to figure out the new stroke technique!

This is probably my favorite cartoon.  All of my coworkers call paddling rowing and it makes me crazy.  They do not understand the difference, perhaps this will help clarify it.

The other day my car decided to make the world's worst noise on my way home from the beach, so with a quick phone call to the parents we had arranged for me to drop my car off at the repair shop and take Super Dads car back to work.  Super Dad's car was on track to turn 100,000 miles that day and he was bummed he was going to miss it, so I promised I would take a picture.  And yes, I was driving 65mph down the 405 freeway when I took this picture and yes, the cars in front of me were breaking and no I do not recommend doing that ever again.  Turns out there was nothing wrong with my car, so instead she got an oil change along with $300 in needed maintenance and was all better when I picked her up.  I don't have time for car dead on road, so we went with a lot of preventative maintenance.

It was mustache Monday in mammoth last week.  My boss takes her kids every year for spring break and somehow my invite never makes it into the mail.  She sent us a pic of her and her kids with mustaches, so naturally we had to send her one of us.  Yes, we are in her office and of course I am sitting on her desk with me feet up, we are professionals can't you tell.  

We have also been getting fit at work.  We have lunch with Jillian several times a week, she is awesome but talks WAAAAAAYYYYYY to much in her DVD's.

We celebrated Easter, here is a sneak peak of the cuteness, more on Easter in a later post.

The Sheriff and I had a couple days off together this week that included some park time for the pups, a quick trip to San Diego for a few hours, lots of food, a walk, coffee, etc. it was nice to have uninterrupted time together.  

Gracie and I drug him around for 3 miles on our morning walk, he thinks I am crazy and yoga might be better for me, he says my mind needs to relax, I don't know what he is talking about.

My Gracie girl always ready for a walk, love her.

Speaking of food, this is my new favorite lunch; egg salad (hold the mayo and add the Greek yogurt), avocado and tomato, yum.

See why I am exhausted this is just a glimpse of my crazy life that occurs EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Hello Friends!

Well Hello Friends!  Looks like I left you with images of the Sheriff’s ridiculously delicious banana birthday cake last weekend (I may have had him bring me some on Tuesday and then gone to his house on Thursday and eaten more of it, hehe).   Tuesday we celebrated his actual birthday with a coffee date and a birthday selfie because why not, it is what all the cool kids are doing these days.  I love our coffee dates so much even though they are short but they are sweet and I think we rock the coffee date pretty well, there is pretty much nothing better than a warm drink, some sunshine and your main squeeze sitting next to you talking about random things and thoughts that the caffeine spurs in your head.   The rest of the week Gracie and I put in some serious miles together, we generally walk 3 miles 5 days a week and we both come home pooped and now that it is staying lighter later we sometimes pound the pavement again in the evening #iwanttowearshortsthissummer. 

I love a little Facebook shout out!

I have been seeing this avocado and egg bake type thingy all over the internet, it is supposed to be really healthy and yummy and I have been wanting to try it for a while, so I did so on Thursday and I hate to say it but it was GROSS.  I love avocados and I love eggs and I generally have them together for breakfast but baking the egg in the avocado was not for me, baking the avocado changes the flavor of it and it was warm and mushy and I just couldn’t, so I shoved it down quickly and added that recipe to my “never again” list.   Another disappointing “never again” item was a stuffed chicken breast from the deli counter at Sprouts, it had cheese and broccoli and the potential to be AMAZING and I was so looking forward to it, but after I cooked it and took the first bite it was gross, as in no flavor and the broccoli tasted weird, so to the trash it went.  I did however discover that zucchini is the best substitute for pasta, I made my zucchini spaghetti several times last week, nothing better than a quick healthy meal after paddling practice that is quicker than any take-out meal could be.  

This weekend was pretty great, Saturday we had paddling practice and then a steersman clinic afterwards, all in all we paddled almost 14 miles and I was kind of tired and hungry when it was all said and done.  After practice Gracie and I went for our 3+ mile walk, after a quick shower and a trip to the grocery store I was “done” and a 2+ hour nap was needed and taken.   I lounged the rest of the day too tired to care that I was being lazy and nothing was getting done.  Sunday was the last Sunday for a while that the Sheriff, Mr. Pie and I will get to spend together (sniff, sniff), the Sheriff’s shift changes and he will be working weekends for at least a month if not longer.  So keeping with tradition, Mr. Pie and I tagged alone with the Sheriff to paddling practice and then rode off to Proud Mary’s on our scooters for breakfast and then to Doheny to walk out on the jetty to watch the canoes come in.  That boy and I have put in some serious miles on our scooters together and I am kind of bummed that our time together is over for…..

Gracie was tired too.

The view from the seat we sit at almost every time.

Our last beach selfie for now.

The Sheriff bought this at the Bass Pro Shop, I like to think I am the "catch of the day".

After a few errands we went home and I taught Mr. Pie how to burn leaves with a magnifying glass.

I had forgotten how much fun that was when I was growing up.

As I was chilling at the Sheriff’s house last night watching TV (8:30pm) it occurred to me that I had not done my taxes, doh and I only had one more day to do them.  I sat there trying to figure out how and when I was going to do them.  I knew I would be way too tired to do them after paddling practice tonight and that the chance of error would be greatly increased so that was not an option.  I thought about skipping practice but I had a chocolate shake from In N Out yesterday and I needed to burn those calories.  So I headed home, dug through my box of important papers, found last years tax return and organized this years paper work and got started thank you Turbo Tax and the internet (after I did the dishes, folded two loads of laundry and took the pup out),can you say procrastinator?  Anywho, taxes are done and my refund is on its way, now it is time to start planning our next KONA trip!  See I don’t procrastinate on the important things.  I have checked airline prices and registration fees for, now we just need to find a place stay and we are good to go.  The Sheriff and Mr. Pie will be joining me this year and I pretty stoked about that, I think we are going to head out there early before all of our paddler friends get there so we can do kid friendly activities because once everyone arrives there is not a whole lot of kid friendly events going on and that would be no fun for a nine year old boy.  

Now go outside and check out the moon, it is going to be amazing around midnight tonight.

Happy (early) Birthday!

Happy Sunday night everyone, said no one EVER.  Is it really time to go back to work in the morning?  Ugh.  The Sheriff, Mr. Pie and I had a great Sunday together as always.  It was another busy one because we try and jam everything in that we want to do in about 12 hours.  The Sheriff dropped Mr. Pie off at my house at 6am, dear god that is way to early, but he wanted to hit paddling practice early so that we could get on with our day and drive out to the Bass Pro Shop (we love that place).  It actually worked out great, Mr. Pie and I were able to put the finishing touches to the cake that I baked from scratch and wrap the Sheriff's bday present cause wouldn't you know it but the Sheriff is having a birthday on Tuesday.  

I needed coffee this morning bad, so we walked over to Starbucks.  Mr. Pie walked Gracie the entire way which was awesome.

After coffee we did the frosting for the cake.  Mom, I am so sorry for all of the years begging you to let me lick the bowl, dang that is annoying.  Mr. Pie asked me probably 8 times in about 5 mins if he could lick the bowl and of course I said yes.  However, by the 5th time I was so over him ask me.

After the sugar kicked in from the frosting Mr. Pie and Gracie had a wrestling match and I think Gracie won.

Mr. Pie channeling his inner Davy Crockett with his coon skin hat.  One of the reasons we went to the Bass Pro Shop was to get the boy this hat, cause we he has to do a book report on good ole Davy and dress up as him for his presentation.  

Here is the cake I baked, it turned out pretty good.  The Sheriff wanted a banana cake, so this what he got.  I secretly high-fived myself for a job well done.  Can you see the 45 in the candles, yes he is getting old.

Make A Wish

The Sheriff opening his gift from Mr. Pie and I.

Board shorts and a t-shirt, his standard gift from me.  I need to do better in the gift giving dept.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY (early)!

I hope you had a great day today and enjoyed your cake and presents, here is to another great year.

It's Been Awhile!

I have been trying to crank this post out all week. I have spent the majority of this week trying to figure out what day it was.  It mainly started with Tuesday, I thought it was Wednesday (I even gave out wrong info based on my wrong day of the week thoughts), then Wednesday happened and I thought it was Thursday and I have to work this Friday, so pretty much it this turned into very long week, perhaps I have a lot on my mind.  I feel like I have been running from place to place to place with a very little break.  My new bedtime is between 9 and 9:30pm and some days it is a stretch to make it 9pm, last night I got five text messages from my fans after 9:30pm, needless to say they did not get return texts from me. So now it is time for the weekly life update, cause there is no time for anything else and if I do not write down I am not going to remember it.   I went and saw Dr. Scott aka the best sport chiropractor/massage (without the creepy) guy around cause I felt a slight twinge in my lower back and with all of this new paddling stroke thing going on I wanted him to work it out before I hurt myself.  Good news he thought my lower back was fine but Holy Mother of Tightness my upper back and shoulders are tighter than my purse strings.  I would love to go see him weekly, but at $60 a pop (my new insurance does not cover him), I cannot go, plus he might get sick of me after a while.  My weekend was good, you all know the usual drill; paddling on Saturday and scooter riding on Sunday.  I did manage to sneak away from my usual Saturday life and celebrate my friend Lisa’s bday, it is so crazy that my swim lesson friends are all starting to turn 40, how did that happen?  My half birthday was last Friday, I am now officially closer to 40 than I am to 30 (insert panic attack), I tried to convince the Sheriff we should celebrate but that did not work, his idea of celebrating was going to Nalu’s and I wanted Grill Hut, so I bought my own celebratory dinner at Grill Hut while he went to Nalu’s and I there was no dessert, oh well maybe next year. 

Check out the birthday candle, lol, looks like someone forgot the bday candles.

Sunday (do you like how I have bounced back and forth and all around the days of week so far), I made a fabulous dinner for the Sheriff and Mr. Pie, it was sooooooo good that I want it now.  Zucchini boats were on the menu for the night.  Mr. Pie was bored and he is addicted to the television and revisiting my early childhood days when we were NEVER allowed to watch tv during the day it makes me crazy all of the tv he watches, so I recruited him to help me cook dinner.  Mr. Pie sliced, diced and stirred dinner into the amazing masterpiece that I posted on Instagram.   Dinner was really good and I think the only reason Mr. Pie ate his dinner was because he helped cook it and I am really sorry to all of my peeps I promised I would post the recipe earlier We are now approaching a birthday weekend for the Sheriff, I am going to throw my Susie Homemaker hat on and bake him a cake and then there is the gift thing, hmmmm!

 Two of my coworkerfriends and I are doing the 30 day shred with our new BFF Jillian Michaels during our lunch hour, I am hoping this will make it possible to wear shorts without everyone looking at my fat legs this summer, fingers crossed.  Ok enough rambling for now, till next time.  

One more picture….

Mr. Pie and I hanging our heads out the window like dogs driving down the freeway this past Sunday.

BTW, I did not proof read this, so if it is a hot mess, that is why!