I am the one in the pink and all of us in this picture are in my current bootcamp class. I don’t know my exact time, but I did complete it before the time I’d given myself (45 minutes). I’m somewhere between 42 and 43 minutes. They didn’t post the updated list (I’m at the tail end of the pack) before Joe and I had left. They post the times online, but it’ll be a bit before I know as it hasn’t been posted yet.

Star did surprisingly well with Joe. Of course, she was confused and Joe swears up and down they ran the first mile within 6 minutes. Star saw people run and she ran. They finished in 25 minutes, which is about an 8 minute mile. He had to drag her the last quarter mile though because once the hills were done she decided she was done.

There was a big ass fucking hill on this route. Apparently it is the HARDEST course they have on post for the races. It kicked my ass. I couldn’t make it up the hill, and managed to run everything else and if that hill had not been there, I may have done even better.

Again, I’m exhausted, but VERY content in that I can check this off my list.

This is an AWESOME deal to take advantage of if you haven’t got the money to buy the programs yourself, but have always wanted to play in them. All three programs work in conjunction with each other and there is a plethora of free things out there to get you started if you’re interested.

Here’s the link. Here’s the forum link.

This is for a limited time, and the site is getting hit heavy right now, but have patience, it’s definitely worth it

I think that the reason I have kept reading this series is the fact that I really like Rachel and connect with her as a person. She is an extremely strong individual, who will do what has to be done to make sure those she loves are protected and survive, even at the potential sacrifice of her own morals (the use of unsanctioned black magic) and well being. Harrison writes with a very fluid style that doesn’t constantly rehash passed books and events, but keeps the story moving and her character growing with the relationships that she’s developed with other characters. Harrison doesn’t introduce crazy amounts of new characters, she doesn’t reinvent the wheel or change the rules because of a lack of fact checking with the other books. And she keeps it real.

In the Pale Demon, Rachel is racing to a convention on the west coast to nullify her banishment from the Witches Coven because of her unwilling dabbling with demons and black magic (I can’t write much about it here due to spoilers from previous books). So what could possibly happen when you put a pixie (Jenks), a witch (Rachel), a living vampire (Ivy), and an elf (Trent) in a blue Buick for a road trip, while being chased by assassins because Trent is on an ancient elven quest and the Coven is still after Rachel to prevent her from reaching the convention where she might spill the beans about where the origins of witches come from? I’ll let your imagination stew for a bit.

Harrison continues to delight and one of the things I absolutely love, develop, Rachel’s relationships with people. There is one thing that stands out and is a pertinent thing with her character. Rachel is a person who seems to inspire change in others in order for them to be better than what they currently are… This was very apparent between her and Al (her demon tutor) in this book. I love the relationship between her and Al and am curious to see where this will go especially with how this book ended. On top of that, I’m freaking confused about how I feel about Trent. I’ve never really liked Trent. He’s one of those annoying characters who doesn’t seem to know how to do a days worth of hard work, but this book, showed a completely different side to him that kind of makes you do a double take. How the relationship between him and Rachel will develop is yet to be seen.

I eagerly await for the release of the next book in the series: A Perfect Blood. I hope I’m not left waiting to long for the eBook copy to be released.

If you know me in real life, you’ve probably experienced my allergy problems at one time or another. I love the outdoors though, I like flowers, I like meadows of wavy grass bending in the wind, I used to love hiking with a passion. But my allergies have progressively gotten worse the older I’ve gotten. I am not a happy camper if I’m sitting at a camp fire, tears and snot running down my face. I hate taking allergy meds because most of them out there rob me of any sense of mind (I kind of turn into a dumb mute who can’t hold a single capable thought in her head). But, if I can get pictures, sometimes its worth it to end up a snotty nose crying girl.

I don’t think a lot of people understand what it’s like to have allergies really badly. When I was a kid, the doctor would not let me out of the house all summer. I stared out a window and watched my sister play with the neighborhood kids. We had this huge hill in the backyard that went up to some high ranking person’s home. Cardboard of any kind was used as a sled. You took a running start, threw yourself on the cardboard and tried to see how far you could get going down the hill. Add in the grass cutting forts and the constant running around like a mad rabble and it’s a miracle I survived my childhood. Most summers, it was like I had a permanent head cold that would never go away.

The first time Joe discovered my allergies was when I flew out to visit him in the middle of the pollination season in North Carolina. He wanted to drive his RC cars around and wanted me to do it with him. I wanted to hug the AC unit to my bare chest and huddle over a box of kleenex. I ended up sitting in his car, the AC on high, draining two boxes of kleenex. The second time was during a phone conversation. I went out back of a home I own in Nevada to clear weeds out of the backyard. I barely made a dent in it and within 30 minutes, I was sprawled out on the couch, doped up on benedryl and weezing myself to death.

Allergies people, are not fun.

The best way to control allergies is to drug yourself and avoid the thing that sets you off. I can’t even drink good beer anymore because it makes me congested (pending the ingredients). So you have to imagine my apprehension when I walked into the barn today and saw the hay.

I feel itchy just thinking about it.

My only problem this week did not involve my wrists. My wrists have actually been quite dandy, the tendinitis has not been acting up (some swelling, but no shooting pain). No, this week I discovered shin splints. Holy effing cow do those effing hurt. Insert all the other dirty words I would like to type here but can’t because I’m an ‘officers’ wife. They started on tuesday, I thought it was just my calves being sore. I was limpy and in some pain, but capable of dealing with it. Then by the end of wednesday I had horrible shooting pain in both legs by the end of the hour, I wanted to just sit on the field and cry. ALOT. And it was a light day, whereas we did cardio endurance the day before (2 mile run broken up with body weight exercises). I iced and heated all day on wednesday and tried not to do a lot of things requiring walking or standing.

Thursday I told our instructor about my pain because we had another 2 mile run followed by indoor swimming. I managed to get a mile and a half out before I got shooting pains again, this time in the left leg (apparently I iced my right way more the day before). Oh, I also had a new pair of shoes on. Again, last night, I iced and wrapped and iced the hell out of my left leg. Today, I am so much better. I had some pain after we were done today, but it wasn’t shooting by the time I left. And now I don’t feel anything at all. So it’s a good sign, I had a horrible pair of shoes and now I’m doing better with the new ones. That’s what I’m banking on anyways. We’ll know for sure when next week comes along.

So, I’m just keeping the following in mind:

Especially when we are running again next week.

We’ve tried premade spice mixes and jars of premade sauces, but all have been a disappointment. I said on more than one occasion that I was going to try and make it myself. I don’t work, I have nothing better to do, so why not? So I decided to try a recipe at a blog called Budget Bytes, which is quickly becoming a favorite read of mine. I made both the chicken and the naan.

It came out decent, better than my previous attempts not to cook from scratch. Cooking from scratch, certainly pays off. Joe’s only dislike was for the tomatoes (he’s a picky bas… just picky.. good thing he didn’t figure out there were onions in it, eh?). My only other dislike is I didn’t feel that the sauce was thick enough. I’m used to thick, creamy style Indian food. But overall, I’d make this again… and remember to buy jasmine rice (I only had sushi grade rice =/ ). I need to also figure out how to grate ginger properly. That’s something I found was a bit of a hassle.

I pulled the camera out and irritated Reaper with it, while it poured outside. I also did a great deal of reading while I watched Joe play Super Mario Brothers 3. Yes, NES. We picked up a converter system that allows you to play the NES and SNES games on it (8 bit and 16 bit games respectively). It’s been a very nostalgic experience.

I’m still setting things up around the website. My read more link is not working and I haven’t taken the time to figure it out. Not sure if I really care, but there’s a code break somewhere (assuming) so hopefully when I do take the time to find it, it’ll get fixed. I’m in the process of building actual galleries too so not everything is linked to flickr. But that’s a bit of a process as I have to resize images. Speaking of images, I just recently finished:

I’ve been in the habit of rendering images, but not finishing them. Well, I made myself sit down and finish this one and I’m pretty pleased with it.

I very rarely ever have a plan when I go to paint. I picked three colors to use for the whole piece. I also used a sponge to add in texture and used four different brushes. It was mindlessly relaxing and just what I needed to end this week. This was done with acrylic on canvas.

I’m still partially sick. I can’t seem to get my left ear to finish it’s draining… just a few more days of antibiotics and maybe it’ll be done irritating myself. Plans for project 4? Going to crochet those baskets I was talking about in project 2′s post! Oh, and I really need to learn how to take pictures of art on canvas to see if I can get the colors to come out bright and vibrant with all of the textures.

My legs are sore. My calves ache and my whole body is a big ache. My way, I guess, to make up for missing three sessions of bootcamp last week. Add in that I pretty much cleaned the house because of the last week of neglect (no commenting husband).

We are signed up for the Black History month 5k which is in about two weeks (beginning of February). It’s going to be interesting in how this goes. I think I’ll do fine, but I’m not so sure about my time… or my goal for my time. I’m not sure what is reasonable given my level and capability. Add in that I’ve never done this before as well.

I chose to make Oatmeal Apple cookies this evening. I was craving something sweet, but reasonably healthy and we have apples that are starting to go too soft. These are freaking delicious. The recipe comes from the Weight Watchers cookbook that I’ve owned for a while now. Hence, I can’t repost the recipe here (pretty sure there’s some copyright infringements there), but I did find a similar one for those interested in trying it themselves: link. I used dark chocolate chips because Joe loathes raisins (so I don’t usually keep those in the pantry). Oh, for giggles and to close this up, here’s a photo of brunch this morning (the run set us back late in eating a full meal this morning).

Originally, my goal was to finish the quilt I started back in September. But after piecing it together, I realized that machine quilting the pieces together was not happening. I have to stitch it by hand as my sewing machine is not capable of dealing with that much bulky fabric. It’s now sitting in a quilting hoop, pinned and ready to be finished.

The sewing wall organizer was an idea that came upon me while I was doing research on sewing projects. I was looking for a free wrap dress pattern and stumbled upon organizers, so I figured, what the heck? So that’s the project for this week. I think it came out decent as I constructed the pattern myself. My apologies again for the yellow of my pictures. We really need a better house with better lighted windows.

Week 3′s project is going to be crocheted baskets. I have the patterns and plenty of yarn. But I’m getting a late start because of how exhausted I am, so this one may be late as well.