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Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Enriching my life, and maybe yours in the process!

Another housebound day today as my son remained feverish overnight. Today, he feels fine, and if he weren't up at 2:30 this morning telling me he was hot and coughing, I would have sent him to school. He is feeling back to normal today, which is driving me crazy since he and sister have been crabbing at each other all.day.long. It will be ok, he'll be back to school tomorrow and Justice and I can get back to our regular routine for two days before the weekend.

When I discovered in April that I was going to be laid off of work in the end of May, my husband instantly leapt into action. He figured he needed to find a way to supplement his income in the eventuality that I couldn't find work. He decided that the best way to do this would be to become an AVON representative. Yes, as a man. Have I mentioned how much I appreciate this man??? His great-grandparents both sold AVON years and years ago as a team and he figured there couldn't be a better way to do this. Now that I'm not working, I do a lot of the leg work during the day. Distributing, making phone calls, and whatnot. So in an effort to boost our exposure and introduce new customers to the AVON product line, I would like to present to you, dear readers, our online store located here. You can browse our catalog just as though you were receiving a paper copy or you can search for specific items. The way I see it, if you are going to buy makeup anyway (and let's be honest, you will), might as well support the small business dreams of one family rather than stuffing the already bloated wallets of the bigwigs...right? As a bonus, we are offering free shipping on all orders of $30 or more. So check it out! I guarantee that you will find something you love. And we don't just offer makeup...oh no, we offer household items, toys, clothes, and even Mark. which is a more trendy approach geared toward more youthful style. (Really really cute stuff, I'm tellin ya!)

Also, if you are fundraising for any organization we can create an online event in which you can invite your friends and family to shop our online store and a set percentage of their purchases will be donated to the organization of your choice. Their purchases would be directly shipped to their home, so you don't have to sort orders or deliver! This is an amazing and easy opportunity to raise money! Contact us at brownjid (at) gmail (dot) com for more details.

Keep your eye out for AVON product reviews from me as I explore new items!!

On a running related note, I checked out CSN stores today and discovered that there are very inexpensive manual treadmills on the market....I didn't know that these existed! I've only seen the fancy schmancy ones with digital readouts and programs and waaaay too many buttons. Has anyone ever used one of these? I'm curious, because they are super inexpensive and if they actually get the job done I would totally be looking into purchasing one. Let me know if you have any input! And make sure you check out Running from the Law's giveaway here!!!

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Not a prostitute, but encroaching on their space.

Thank goodness Jacob got home early from work yesterday. I excitedly changed my clothes, laced up my shoes, and took my inhaler hits. I opened the door, stepped outside, and instantly felt nervous. Running without Jacob feels just wrong. Like I'm all of a sudden very vulnerable to everything- the elements, people, and above all, myself. I composed myself, stretched, and strutted my way down the street and saw my worst nightmare swooping over my designated starting line. A flock of seagulls.

No, seriously, one of my biggest fears in life is to get pooped on by a bird. I just don't know if I can handle it. And right there, outside the choice liquor store at the end of my street, is a whole flock of birds. I couldn't figure out why until I turned the corner and discovered that there was a guy throwing out bird seed or bread or something for them. I patiently waited at the other corner under the guise of messing with my iPod, but just as the birds started to disperse, he threw more bread out! Grr! I couldn't wait any longer, so just decided to chance it and go. The man apologized while his friends (super classy while they hang out at the bus stop, ooohhh yeah, swoon) leered at me passing. Ick.

My legs felt tired already after not even a mile but I was determined to finish this run out. My goal was five and I was going to hit it, dammit!! So I told myself that I would allow rest at stop lights while waiting for the walk sign and I could walk through the crosswalks on the way back home. I was feeling shin-tired, but overall felt great. The weather was perfect for a run. There were a lot of cyclists out too since I run on a main street through town. They usually aren't very friendly, but yesterday was the exception. They all waved and said hey as they went past. Except for one, who yelled HI from across the four lane road. I waved politely and carried on, until the stop light when the guy actually had turned around and rode back to talk to me. Yikes!! This guy shops regularly at the grocery store I used to work at so I recognized him as a pretty hard core cyclist. I figured a little banter on training might be nice. So when he asked how I was, I was ok with that. How many miles I was going, I was ok with that. How old I was, not so ok with that one. I told him I don't answer that question and his response was, 'oh, very young I can tell'. And with that he turned his bike around and headed in his original direction. Phew.

This stretch of road that I run on- I like it because it's got sidewalks most of the way and it's very heavily trafficked. The heavy traffic I used to hate because everyone sees me and looks at me, but then at the same time if everyone is seeing and looking at me, hopefully no-one will mess with me. After dark is another story. I would not venture out on this strip of road by myself after dark, mostly because it is known for it's choice occupation-solicitation. Knowing this, I thought two/three/four times about taking off my top layer long sleeved shirt and just running in my tank and decided against it each time. That was probably a good idea being that it was a weird temperature. It was cold enough to need the long sleeves but then not. I rolled up the sleeves to expose my wrists and I had to pull them back down because I wound up feeling cold.

So in the end, I had to cut my run a little short due to some road construction at my turnaround point. I wound up running 4.6 miles, and traveling approximately 5 miles with my warm up and cool down. It took me around 55 minutes to do the run portion, which was 12:01 mile. Not terribly bad, but I'm hoping I can drop more weight and speed up a little bit so I can hit my goal.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Weekend Recap

I am the oldest of six kids (if you include my 2 stepbrothers). I take my older sister job extremely seriously. This means that I tell my siblings how it is straight. I try not to sugarcoat, unless it's necessary, and I don't say things just because I know that's what they want to hear. Unfortunately, I'm the only one that does this. So while everyone is thinking it, I'm the only one that's saying it, so I wind up being the big B word. Congratu-freakin-lations, I'm the bad guy. Always. On the flip side, I also try to always be supportive in times of need. After my sister's accident, I jumped into action, arranging the memorial service for my niece and Nicholas. I was immediately on the road to the hospital to hold her hand. I offered up as much support as I could.

There is a lot of background behind her and her previous relationships, and I just won't get into that now. Let's just suffice it to say that when she announced her engagement for her second marriage, I was a little bit apprehensive. But I kept my mouth shut about it. I've done enough talking to her about that whole subject. And when she got married this Saturday, I was there to let her know that she was putting her petticoats on inside out and to help her and her bridesmaids get her into her dress. I put her veil on her and fixed her mascara. I posed her on the steps and tried to get the designated photographer (a relative of the groom's) to get at least some of the shots that I wish I had gotten at my wedding. I can only imagine what her in-laws think of me. I'm sure that I'm described as the big B word. I'm sure that when she talks about me to them, they only get to hear about the 'mean' things that I've said or about the a-hole that I'm married to. Oh well.

On the running front, I haven't done any running this weekend. Last night we headed out to a friend's birthday party. The chips and cookies out for general consumption were a huge temptation, and I did fine with avoiding them...until everyone else left, and it was just our family and the hosts. Luckily it was only a short period of time that I found myself in front of the chips shoveling them into my face while we chit-chatted. Naturally, I was irritated with myself the whole way home.
My son developed a fever last night, which carried on until this morning, so I am pretty much housebound. I'm hoping that Jacob will get off of work early enough that I can head out for a run before dark...but it's pretty gray and gloomy outside so it will probably be dark too early. But here's hopin!! I really want to get a five miler in this week. I was supposed to do one yesterday, but that didn't happen. Before my son got his fever I was thinking that they could go hang out with my mom while I ran, but that's not going to happen either. I'm pretty sure that five miles on a treadmill might just be torture. One hour. If I were faster, that would be no biggie. But at the pace I run, that's one hour committed to a little five foot square space. I'll keep you posted.
For curiosity's sake, and a desire to potentially increase my income potential, how does one set out to promote/review/offer items? I see a lot of people getting offers and I'm curious how that happens?








Thursday, January 13, 2011

MIA, but not missing or inactive

Hello fellow bloggers, and Happy New Year to you all! I know, I know, the month is practically halfway over already. I personally don't know where the time went. Life has been crazy and fun and overall pretty fantastic for the past few weeks.





Thanks to my lovely lovely friend Denise, I have been able to maintain my running habits. I haven't really been sticking to the training plan, but I have run almost every single weekday since the beginning of the year. I haven't hit anything on the treadmill over 3.5 miles yet, but I have hope. Treadmill running is so different from running on the street. For one, the scenery doesn't change. The terrain doesn't change. The wind doesn't change. The speed doesn't change, unless I hit a button. It's very strange. I kinda like it, but then I kinda don't. After a certain point, it just gets boring. But I am plugging along, trying to get those miles built up. I'm already at ten miles for the week, which I'm really excited about. I'm also cross training on the bike there and I'm considering trying out some Bosu ball workouts. We have the weights here at home too so I've been doing some lifting in the evening. So I'm definitely staying active and I'm feeling great!!





Did I tell you that I set a mileage goal for myself this year? My goal is to run 500 miles by 1/1/2012. I figure that if I'm training for half marathons for 24 weeks out of the year, I can easily hit that. I will have to run about ten miles per week. We'll see how I do.





On non-running related news, check out this little guy that we picked up last week!!

This is Bruiser! He is a sweet Jack Russell Terrier puppy. He's nine weeks old now and my kids are madly in love with him. Well, Justice is apprehensive. He likes to bite on her skirts and stuff and she doesn't know how to handle that. But otherwise, he's the household center of attention. I'm having loads of fun doing all the extra laundry from the towels in his crate and even more fun with the house training. It's like having a newborn in the house, but worse. I can't wait until he can just tell us when he has to go instead of us taking him out every hour and still having accidents in the house.

So I hope to be back on a more regular basis as my miles grow and my training progresses. See y'all soon!!