The Picard Manuver

For those of you who weren't fortunate enough to grow up in a household of Scientific Parents, you have no idea what you were missing out on!

I was brought up in a household that watched Jeopardy every night, laughed at contestants Wheel of Fortune who stupidly buy vowels, and watched at least three hours of Star Trek a week.

Laugh if you want. It has made me who I am and I'm proud.

In no way shape or form am I a Trekkie. I enjoy the movies. I enjoy the television shows (especially The Next Generation), but I have no urge to dress up like a Klingon and go to a convention.

Moving right along with my point. This morning I read a re-tweet that said the following:

happysorceress

Two of my *favorite* companies, @AdagioTeas & @ThinkGeek,have made tea magic!!: http://bit.ly/aPrWBo

Of course I clicked the link. I love Adagio Teas and ThinkGeek too! And what did I find? Something I might just have to purchase!
Umm, hello? Four teas that sound delicious! And check out the name of that one on the top!

Earl Grey, Hot!

Seriously...do I need to say more? I only do if you're a sad person and you never watched Star Trek: TNG.

I think the best way to describe if you are unfamiliar is this montage of clips I found on YouTube.

Enjoy! Oh, and if you're interested in ordering any Adagio Teas, let me know and I'll send you a $5 gift certificate! They're cool like that :)

Manjoyment Monday: *swoon*

When I have an arduous task in front of me like cleaning my room, packing my life away to move, or even just constructing, stamping or addressing 150 some-odd invitations, I like to put on something to watch that I know will keep my attention but I've seen so many times it doesn't matter if I miss something.

I also tend to do this when I'm sick. But I reserve Titanic for when I am sick because I can fall asleep, wake up two hours later, and the boat is STILL sinking.

Anyway.

Last week I cleaned my room. I still need to clean it again (I hate this vicious cycle), but then I also had to make all of Laura's shower invites too. I decided that it was time to watch all three of the extended edition of the Lord of the Rings.

I've mentioned before how sexy I find some of the actors they found to portray our favorite characters of Middle Earth, but I completely forgot about David Wenham until The Two Towers disc got popped into my DVD player.

Honestly, I'm pretty sure it's the long wavy hair that does it for me for him in LOTR. I've seen him in other movies (Van Helsing, 300, and wha-wha-WHAT?! he played Audrey in Moulin Rogue?!) and it just wasn't the same.

Seriously, there's something about the way he plays Faramir that is so endearing. If you haven't seen the trilogy I recommend it highly. It just came out on Blu-Ray too! How exciting. I might get it for my dad for his birthday.

I bought the trilogy when I heard they were making the movies. And began reading them casually here and there. Tolkien's writing is difficult for me. I get tripped up with wordy writers like Jane Austin and it seems like work to get through the words into the actual meat of the story.

It probably didn't help that I started reading the Fellowship when I worked at the beach. Basically I would read a few sentences and then see a seagull, read the same few sentences, get distracted by the waves, and wind up reading a total of two pages over the course of my whole shift.

Also, when I saw the movie the one thing that really confused me was Arwen and Aragorn's story line. I really wanted to get to that part of the books so I could better understand it and while I was reading one of my friends told me that it wasn't in the books.

What?! Something so crucial to the story-line wasn't in the book? How could they have come up with something like that on their own just to use in the movie?

Stupidly I believed him. I put my books aside and waited for another urge to tear through Tolkien, which never really came. BUT! Since I'm one of those people I happen to watch the Appendix at the end of the movies and part of the Return of the King's Appendix is about Tolkien and how he came up with some of the story lines and they spoke about Arwen and Aragorn's relationship and I was like wtf?!

Apparently my moronic friend never read the appendixes at the end of the novels. Who wouldn't read every last page of a classic like that? Now I suppose I'll have to legit sit down and read all of them. In the meantime I'm still trying to get through my Leatherbound Classics which is harder than I originally anticipated and I don't know how I'll get through them all before my 1001 is up!

Yes, he's cute. But I prefer the long flowing hair.

A VA Weekend

Spent a wonderful weekend with Jason in Virginia.

Last time I was down there I realized how close he actually is to Williamsburg so this time around we decided to head up to Busch Gardens.

I've only ever been to Busch Gardens Tampa which I knew was an African Safari, so I had no idea what to expect out of Busch Gardens Williamsburg.

Once we got there I realized that I had been there once in high school as part of a band trip when we had a competition in Virginia Beach. In fact I vividly remember going on Apolo's Chariot with my friend Joey and it was his first roller coaster ever and he was so excited/nervous about it. But anyway...

We decided to just go for the annual passes. They pay for themselves after two visits and since Jason currently lives 20 minutes away from the park we figure when people come to visit us we can take them there for a day of fun. PLUS you get things like free parking, 10% off some merchandise and food inside the park and discounts on tickets for friends. We figured it was a win-win-win situation and didn't look back.

I totally forgot that Busch Gardens is more zoological/conservation type theme park and less adventure/rides type of theme park. I love animals. My parents took us everywhere when we were younger to go bird watching and I surprise myself sometimes when I spout information like, "Oh that's just a hooded merganser" or "Hey check out this kookaburra!" What can I say, we're nature people...

So seeing animals like eagles and wolves and other wildlife that have been rescued from shelters or from the wild is nice. All these animals would otherwise have died where they were so I applaud people (and companies) who adopt animals and help conserve nature.

We wandered about and enjoyed the European Pavillions. We joked how if we wound up in Germany for lunch we'd make sure Jason would stay away from any salmon he saw.

We did in fact wind up eating in Germany and got to see the show, which is one of the things I really wanted to catch while in the park. (Don't worry, Jason was safe and ate a turkey sandwich. Although he said that if he could do it over again he wouldn't have gotten it. The meat was dry and sort of bland. My combination plate with three different sausages - we all know how much I love those - was excellent.)

There's something about an oompah band playing the polka that gets me every time!

The stage itself was awesome. Or at least I thought it was. The gazebo had all of the music stands set up and the band marched in with the dancers. Then the band sat down and the platform of the gazebo raised them up above the rest of the structure.

You can see them sitting up there near the really cool ceiling. Das Festhaus is actually a beautiful building on the inside. All of the ceiling are these fabric ribbonesque panels that are woven into patterns.

It was just such a happy environment. Jason even turned to me and said, "Man, your people know how to have a good time!"

Gotta love z'Germans!

We continued to wander around and sat down to watch another show in Italy. The singers were excellent. A traditional group of minstrels I suppose you could call them.

A lot of the songs were sung in Italian so I had a very meager understanding. It's similar enough to the other romance languages that I can gather the gist of what they are saying, and the tunes of the songs were familiar but I would have enjoyed subtitles :P

The guitarists that accompanied them around was extremely talented and hilarious. He actually started following around people with trays of food and wandered off chasing children. It was wildly entertaining.

When we were in Scotland we caught a show of different animals doing trained acrobatics. It pretty funny. They mathematician birds and jump roping dogs. Even a pig!

That's all folks!

The weekend was nice, I wish it had lasted longer and my feet are still killing me from walking around the park all day, but I heart roller coasters and we got our fair share of those!

Deal with It

I kind of wish these came in my size.
Seriously.

c25k: Week 1, Day 2

I had no intentions of running last night. But I wound up at the boardwalk with Casey and I did day two of week one.

What I find amazing is I actually WANT to run. Like legit I just have the urge to run.

Am I sore? Yes.

Am I achey? Yes.

Does it feel amazing? Yes.

The downside to running on the boardwalk is I have no control over my pace. When I run on the treadmill I set myself at a certain pace and stay there for the entire interval. On the boardwalk as I start to get tired I tend to slow down even if I'm aware of it and try to keep time with the beat of my music.

After our run we tried to get a delicious smoothie at this place on West Park Ave but they were closed so we drove over to Smootie Roo and got some protein in us. It was pretty good although I'll have to get used to the taste of whey protein again. Just one of those things I suppose.

One thing I both love and hate about running is I can really feel it in my inner thighs. Hurts like hell but I'm glad those muscles are getting some sort of use. I wouldn't mind that area trimming down since I've inherited my mother's thunder thighs.

I'm thinking I'll run at the gym tonight. I won't get a chance to work out again until Sunday night when I get home from Virginia and depending on how tired I am I might wait until Monday night to run again.

I'm debating whether or not to do Week 1 over again just so I can make sure I can sustain the 5.0 pace during the jogging intervals. I don't want to go any slower than that.

Cooooool Runnings!

Feel the rhythm. Feel the rhyme. Let's get on up. It's running time?

Coooool Runnings!

One of my goals on my 101 in 1001 is to run a 5k. I have never run that long a distance in my life. Typically my family goes by the adage, "Why run unless something's chasing you?"

But then in college I used to have dreams - literally - where I was running. And nothing was chasing me. I just ran!

And I was happy in these dreams. Happy to be running in my little sneakers with my pony tail wagging behind me with each step.

I am not a runner however. So this dream seemed out of my reach. I mean I used to be "in shape" in high school. And I even did a little running for fitness in college when my roommate got into a marathon challenge with her boy du jour.

Perhaps my dream was obtainable and I was just going about it wrong? It was soon after that, that I read about the Couch to 5k Challenge (c25k) and it seemed like I was in fact, doing it wrong. I always just went up to the track and walked a lap and then just started running for as long as I could - which usually turned into a slightly pathetic half lap - before I was panting and had to stop and walk again.

With the c25k program though, it's more of a scheduled 13 week course of interval training, ending with you being capable of running a 5k!

Last summer I tried the c25k but I was overzealous and hurt my foot even after buying new neutral cushioned running shoes (apparently I underpronate/suponate). But now I'm ready to try again! And I'm taking special care to not go too hard too fast. And I'm going to keep a log of how I feel after each work out starting today.

Each Week I'm supposed to do the work out 3 times. It takes 20-30 minutes including the warm up and cool down. I go to my gym and use the treadmill but I've also gone down to the boardwalk and done these exercises. The treadmill gives me more control over my speed which I like.

If I don't think I'm ready to move onto the next week then I can spend an additional week at the same interval. For example, Week 1 is intervals of 90 seconds of walking and 60 seconds of jogging. Then Week 2 is 90 seconds of walking and 2 minutes of jogging. Each week the intervals increase in either time or frequency and at the end of the 13 weeks, you're actually running for 20 minutes straight.

My goal is to run a 5k, but really what I want to be able to do is run the entire length of the Long Beach boardwalk (2.2 miles) and back (4.4 miles total) without stopping. I figure if I can run a 5k (3.1 miles) then I can certainly work myself up to 4.4 miles!

Week 1, Day 1

I had to retie my shoes about 12 times before they were both the right tightness and I definitely had a lot of shin splints going on. Halfway through I wasn't sure if I'd be able to make all of the jogging intervals but I did. Also I was completely distracted by some of the other people in the gym. I went to high school with one of them. His name is Chris, he was the drummer in our class band and for the life of me I couldn't remember his last name. This was almost as frustrating as the workout. Plus a beefy tattooed guy who was working out with Chris kept on looking over at me, for the love of God I was wearing 2 sports bras! It's not my fault if I still jiggle too much!

I warmed up at 3.5, walked at 3.3 and jogged at 5.0 on a 0.0 incline. I cooled down at 3.5 as well and spent an extra few minutes in my cool down so I could finish off the second mile completely.

It felt okay. I'm not dancing in the streets but at least I got through the entire work out. I did a little stretching when I got home and logged my activity for the day into calorie-count and had some dinner.

I think tomorrow I won't do the workout again, instead I'll do something low impact like the bike or the elliptical. I don't want to injure myself.

Also, I'm thinking that since the dress I wanted for my birthday is no longer available, that I'll just buy myself a new pair of running shoes as a present. I'm pretty sure the shoes I have can last another month or so. Does anyone know if the New Balance 1064s replaced the 1062s? It's been a few years since I've worn out a pair of running shoes...

Lamb Cake Part Duex

Easter was enjoyable. I spent it with my family and we got a fantastic dinner at our favorite German Restaurant Zum Stammtisch.

Seriously, if you have any sort of German in you, or even if you just love good food, head over there. We've been going to Zum for years and years and years especially since my grandma lives so close and it's always delicious and homey.

Even Mickey loves it!

Yeah, Jaclyn brought Nanny back a German Mickey from Epcot, what about it?

Probably the most exciting thing was the chance Julibean had to try the lamb cake again. You might remember our hilarious attempt last year to try to make a lamb cake for Jason's family.

Our first try was delicious, but he was sloppy. We made him out of carrot cake (which isn't as sturdy as it should be), we didn't read the directions (and apparently made the cake entirely wrong), and we used cream cheese frosting (which didn't hold together as well as decorating frosting). Basically it was a not so epic failure.

I'd never decorated a cake before so I completely winged it and he looked as if I did (as you can see here->).

I mean Jason's family loved it. Joe enjoyed decapitating the lamb cake and he was just silly looking. This year Julibean actually read the directions, made the cake out of the proper kind of cake and she even bought little sugar eyes for him.

Lamb Cake Part Duex was adorable and so much more delicious and cute than our first attempt.

Look at 'im in his little bed of grass!

Lamb Cake success!!