well, this is it.

today i head down to disneyland hotel to pick up my official race bib and goody bag for the tinkerbell half marathon.  the very first race of its kind!  i'm stoked to be in on something that nobody's gotten to do before.  i'm an elitist beeyotch like that. 

i can't believe that i only started running five months ago.  that's pretty amazing to me, because honestly - it feels like forever.  it probably doesn't help that i've been rather burned out and just ready to do this thing already.  the last month of training has been really difficult for me, but i think it's a mental thing.  don't get me wrong, i'm definitely not about to get out there on sunday morning and run the whole 13.1 miles.  i'm sure that with the distraction of other runners, a whole new course, not to mention all of the fun things i've been hearing that disney does every mile or so, i'll be taking even more walk breaks than i already do.  advice from more than one friend has told me to try and relax during on the big day and not to worry so much about my finish time.  although i know me, i'll totally be bummed out if i'm not able to maintain my 11-ish minute/mile pace.

i'm so, so, so grateful for all of the support i've received throughout this whole thing - via my "real life" friends, social media buddies, blog readers.  i can't tell you how helpful it's been, and it's really kept me going through the days that i just didn't want to go out there and run (and there have been MANY of those).  and i am oh-so-thankful to those of you who helped me reach my fundraising goal for the autism speaks running team.

so now i get to go to the disneyland health & fitness expo and hopefully keep myself from splurging on all of the fun tinkerbell-themed merchandise that's going to be on display.  well, maybe i'll let myself scoop up an "i did it!" tee, because you know how much i love me a souvenir t-shirt.  heh.

i'm also pretty excited to finally put on the costume i've been slowly gathering items for over the last couple of months.  sparkly skirt?  check.  matching wings?  oh, yeah.  glittery headband?  uh-huh.  pom-poms for my shoes?  psh, of course.  don't forget the awesome fanny pack i managed to cobble together for myself.  although i'm certainly not kidding myself - i know for damn sure i'm going to be just one of 12,000 similarly-attired runners out on the course.  but i'll be the cutest.  hee!

i know that my friends aline and kim have made plans to come and cheer me and our friend kirkette on at some point on the course.  i also dropped a major hint to my buddy kelley, who's been instrumental in getting my ass in gear and working on my fitness.  it sounds like she, her husband g, and li'l d may be there as well.  i'm really excited and touched to know that they're going to make the effort to be there for us.  and of course, my little family plus rock-ell will be present too.

oh mah gah, i'm going to be such an emotional, blubbery mess at the end of this thing.  remember when i finished that 5K a few months ago?  yikes.  i better pack waterproof mascara.

not that i really think you're all that interested, but disney has a system set up that you can sign up for to receive text messages/e-mails/tweets/facebook posts on my progress through the run.  if you want the link, just e-mail me and i'll give you the info.   and hey - if you happen to be in the anaheim area around 8am on sunday morning, well...i sure wouldn't turn my nose up at any extra cheerleaders.  ha.

plus, i got to scoop up a new pair of running shoes a couple of weeks ago that totally match my ensemble.  check it:

eeeee!  and i've got an appointment to get my nails done - the plan is to paint the tips in a glittery lime green.  cheesy?  abso-freaking-lutely.  but this is a DISNEY race.  where else can i get away with such silliness?

oh, and uh...speaking of disney races, registration for the disneyland half marathon this september officially began last week.  while i tried my best to talk myself out of it (sucky training runs through the summer, more long runs in my not-so-distant future, etc.), i...um, i might have signed up for it. 

come on!  now i get to plan a whole new costume, and this time it's open to ANY disney character i darn well want to dress up as.  whee!

so yeah - send me lots of happy running vibes come sunday morning at 6am!  i'm gonna need all i can get. 

going green

inspired by my friend nanette, i decided to try something totally out of my comfort zone:  a green machine smoothie that she'd discovered via pinterest.

i miss nanette.  but despite her recent move up to oregon, it's really nice to still be able to easily keep in touch with her as often as when she was here in l.a.  thank goodness for social media - i still get to talk to her all the time via twitter and facebook, although i can't say the same for the bean.  she misses her friend em, and still asks about her at least once a week.  "mommy, is em still far far away?" she'll ask.  awwwww.

anyway, so yeah - the smoothie.  i headed to the grocery store and bought a banana, which i promptly sliced up and stuck in the freezer overnight.  so after my yoga meltdown session with jillian michaels via DVD the next morning, i opened the door and was greeted by the aroma of fresh fruit.

i know you're probably thinking, what the hell has come over her?  she doesn't even like fruit!  now while this is certainly true, it's really chunks of the stuff that i dislike immensely.  i'm cool with the flavor and the smell of most of it (cherries, pears and peaches excluded, just to name a couple of my non-favorites), and if it's pureed into stuff - well, that i can totally get behind.  so smoothies are actually perfect for me.

following the recipe, i added a tablespoon-ish of peanut butter. 

and then the magic ingredient:  fresh spinach.  i'd sent the teen to the grocery store to pick this up for me and forgot to specify that i preferred the bagged kind, but that was okay.  this worked.

with the milk and fat-free greek yogurt, this looks...appetizing, huh?

i gave it a whirl.

i'm not gonna lie.  this stuff smelled really bizarre.  but i was determined, so i busted out one of my starbucks cold cups to make it look more appealing.

i posted a picture on twitter of myself hesitantly taking the first sip.  remember, this was post-yoga AND pre-fruit smoothie sampling, so click on that with caution.  heh.

anyway, despite the slightly off-putting aroma, it really wasn't bad.  i couldn't detect any spinach flavor at all, just the banana and a hint of the peanut butter.  except that there wasn't much sweetness to it.  and you all know how ginormous my sweet tooth is.  i have a feeling that the culprit was using plain yogurt instead of the vanilla flavored sort (because that's all i had in the house).  so i thought about it for a few seconds as i continued to sip, and then it came to me:

that's right.  i poured the smoothie back into the blender, took a spoonful of nutella, and started 'er back up.  and wouldn't you know it, the taste of that smoothie improved by about a gazillion percent.

nutella.  it truly cures all ills.

hooray for bollywood

when my friend AMP asked me to do some bollywood-style cookies for her baby girl's upcoming first birthday party, i was excited not only for the chance to be a part of the celebration but also to finally have a reason to use this:

that little guy has been in my cookie cutter collection for months now, just waiting for the right time to bust him out.  and i sure got to give him a workout, since AMP needed five dozen of them.

along with a link she gave me, i'd perused the precious few examples that the google had turned up when i searched for "bollywood elephant cookies."  i liked this one a lot, and after consulting with AMP, i decided to risk a moderate case of carpal tunnel syndrome and dove into the decorating.

i was grateful that the design only required three colors of icing.

a visit to my favorite supply store yielded these pretty gold dragees.  because of their metallic finish, the sale of these things was banned in california i don't know how long ago.  and so they've been difficult to get ahold of in the past, but apparently my store got around the technicalities by marking them like this:

get that?  for decoration ONLY, folks.  not meant to be eaten.  yeah.  as if people were going to take the time to pluck them out of their baked goods before cramming it in their mouths.  and this would be a slightly difficult task, since i sunk 'em into the frosting - basically cementing them onto the cookie.

after a couple of trial runs, i finally got a rhythm going and had the process down pat by the time i finished the very last elephant. 

they were so festive in their little bags, tied with red and pink ribbons.

i really love how these little guys turned out.  they may very well be my most favorite of all time...so far.  elephants really are lucky charms!

she's fresh. exciting.

my friend kelley and i are taking our kids to see the fresh beat band in concert next month.  i'm not sure if she's told li'l d yet, but i haven't shared it with the bean yet.  and whenever we watch nick jr. (which is every. stinking. day), the commercial advertising the tickets inevitably comes on - and then i have to duck her excited queries: "mooooom, look! is the fresh beat band gonna come here?  where we live?  can we go see them on the stage?"

i don't really know why i'm keeping it from her.  it's gonna be great for bribing her to do [insert random act she doesn't want to do] between now and february.  yes, i'm a fabulous mom who totally holds shit over her kids' heads to get them to do stuff.  hand me my tiara and trophy now.

and so even though i haven't actually confirmed that we've got tickets in hand for the concert, she hasn't really questioned me as to why i've been working on a costume for her to wear.  there are two girls in the band, and because "kiki" has long, dark hair like the bean's, well - that's who she's going to dress up as for the show.  see?

i finally sat down this weekend and whipped out the first part of the ensemble - kiki's hot pink zip-up hoodie.  it's actually quite simple, but of course i managed to turn it into something complicated as hell.  heh.  i'd picked up a plain sweatshirt at target, along with some colored felt to make the patches for the front and back.  and then using a free printable i found via pinterest, i made a stencil for the guitar, traced it onto the white felt, and cut it out in two sizes.

yeah, it was kind of a pain in the ass to cut around those tiny curves on the small one.  and then when i looked at the "real" kiki, it isn't even the right kind of guitar.  bah.  whatever.

oh, and i'm terrible at cutting circles.  but at least i had a spool of thread in my collection that matched perfectly.  bonus!

next i had to shorten the sleeves and replace the stretchy cuff.  i totally held my breath as i sliced into the first sleeve with my scissors, because it's just so weird to chop up perfectly good clothing.  and then i had a slight panic attack when i realized that the cuff was smaller than the upper part of the sleeve that i had to sew it to.  crap.

but i managed to figure it out and got both sleeves done to my satisfaction.  and the bean was pretty stoked when she tried it on for me.

all i have to do now is make the skirt with a little petticoat underneath.  she can wear it with a pair of leggings she already has, a plain tee under the jacket, and we'll find her a pink headband to wear.

oh, and the rock star jacket.  ha!  wait till i tell you the story of THAT thing.  geez.

it ain't easy being green

sometimes the ideas i come up with are so utterly, amazingly fantastic that i can hardly stand it.  like, i'm a total genius.  heh.

so i've been slowly but surely putting together one hell of a costume to wear in this weekend's tinkerbell half marathon (yes, can you believe it?  it's THIS SUNDAY.  eek!).  i'll share details on that later, but for right now i have a confession to make:

i bought a fanny pack.  blech.  it's true - because i realized that i'd need some way to hold my gu energy gels for the run, along with a couple of other essentials that i can't carry any other way.  while training, i've been wearing a hydration belt with a pocket that works for this, but since there are water stations all along the course, i won't need it.  and so i headed to my nearest running store and picked up...this.

um, do you see that price tag?  i actually dropped a $20 on this stupid thing.  and as i got to thinking about it, i came to the conclusion that because i wouldn't ever, EVER be using it again, i could just...make one.  right? 

hell yeah, that's right?  and the genius part of this whole operation?  i'd bought a pair of white compression pants as part of my running costume that were a good bit too long.  when i compared it to a pair of capris i've been training in, it came to me:  i would make the fanny pack out of the extra material!

i realize that i sound like a lunatic at this point, and i really wouldn't blame you if you stopped reading right now.  but just in case, i'm going to show you what i ended up with.  you know you wanna see.  you know it, and i know it, and that's why i'm going to continue with my story as if i weren't starting to doubt my own sanity right along with you.

i pulled out the store-bought fanny pack and gave it a closer inspection to get a better idea of what the pieces looked like that comprised the thing.  i unzipped it and pulled it apart and twisted it this way and that and started making some notes.  and yes, i realize that this thing resembles...a pink taco.

check out my super technical hand-drafted pattern:

i took the bits i'd sliced off of the pants and cut them open to lay out my pattern pieces.  luckily, i had exactly enough for what i needed. 

it'd been quite a long time since i'd sewn a zipper - let alone an invisible one.  i have a big ol' bag of randomly sized invisible zippers in various colors that i bought on sale in downtown l.a., and i chose one in my favorite color to use.  after consulting the google, i shortened it to fit my pouch and then spent an embarrassing amount of time figuring out how to sew the damn thing in. 

i managed to hunt down this strap thingy that came with one of the blankets that the teen got at the microsoft event with nick jonas last summer.  since we never use this thing, i plucked the stitches out of it to reuse one of the buckles for my project.  don't you love how very thrifty and eco-friendly i'm being here?  recycle and reuse, people!

but there was one thing i did scoop up that was just so perfect, i had to spend the $3 for it.  look:

how delightfully cheesy and appropriate, right?  i can see you rolling your eyes from here.  stop it.

i created straps by sewing a couple of lengths of the ribbon together and ironing them flat, then added the buckles and attached them rather haphazardly to my pouch. 

it isn't the most perfectly sewn thing that ever was, but then again, who cares?  it's a freaking fanny pack.  i'm only gonna use the damn thing for about five hours and then stick it in a drawer and forget all about it.

and now i can go back to that running store and exchange that stupid $20 fanny pack for other stuff i'll need.  maybe i'll splurge on some fancy socks that will hopefully help keep me from coming home with a half dozen new blisters after completing the 13.1 mile course. 

stop laughing at me.

have a heart

like, about 647 of them.  haha, just kidding.  or AM i?

last week, my friend kim posted a picture on twitter of a project she was working on for valentine's day.  i liked it so much, i decided right then and there to be a total copycat.  after all, that's totally my style anyway - find something super cool/cute/awesome/fabulous elsewhere and just duplicate it.  i really don't have any creativity of my own at all, people.  i'm just damn good at copying other people's great ideas.

between the dollar store and michaels, i managed to gather all of the materials necessary.

the bean helped me open the bags of candy and get them sorted out.  well, she might have sampled one or two as she worked.

i had picked up "regular" candy hearts and some that were marked "glam."  they looked like they were all pretty and sparkly, and i figured they'd look cool all sprinkled in between each other.  but when i looked closely at them, i didn't really see much of a difference.  do you?

glam:

non-glam.

whatever.  and as i sat there with the bean as she watched the chipmunks movie for the gazillionth time (it's her current obsession, since seeing "chipwrecked" in the theater and then picking up the first two DVDs at target), i managed to blow through most of them to create this:

and through it all, i didn't burn myself even once with the hot glue gun!  i'm just that good.

because i was being a color nazi, i stopped when i ran out of purple, blue, and green hearts.  i wanted to cover the middle of the styrofoam base too, but i had to run out and buy more candy so that it wasn't all pink, yellow, and orange.  that was okay, though, because i also decided that i needed to spray the finished wreath with an acrylic sealer in an attempt to keep the bugs and birds away.

i was a little worried that the edible ink on the candy would fade, or that the candy itself might melt, so i sprayed cautiously at first.  luckily, my fears were unfounded - so i added a couple of extra coats.

after i was done covering the center of the wreath, i sprayed it again with the sealer and added a little extra bling.  cute, right?

i'm still debating whether or not to hang it outside or keep it indoors.  since i have damn near a month left till valentine's day, i think i have some time to waffle.

the white elephant in the room

the annual SFAMily holiday hoorah came a little late this time around.  we had a hell of a time trying to find a date that folks were available in december, and so we decided to just wait to have our GTG.  besides, it wasn't like our merriment would expire along with the holidays. 

i was pleased to host again, even though i live out in BFE compared to most.  plus, it gave me an excuse to keep this little fella out a little longer than the rest of the christmas decorations (which we'd wasted no time in putting away - literally the day after christmas):

as always, this group is no slouch when it comes to food.

this year, we expanded the group to include the OC contingent.  this resulted in a shortage of chairs, and poor courtney ended up...here (but just for a few minutes, till we worked it out).

after we'd stuffed ourselves silly and hooted and hollered over stories old and new, we gathered in the living room to have a little fun with the white elephant gift exchange.  this year, there was lots and lots of nail polish (and these little packages were also the hottest items, being stolen over and over).

the monkey had fun opening several packages in the bag she'd selected.

poor ashley got sucked in by the pretty unicorn bag that the monkey brought, and what was inside?  a shake weight.

aline was the lucky recipient of my own awesome contribution - a hot pink forever lazy with matching socks.

 poor tater.  she got stuck with...this.  but she accepted her fate with a smile.

after it was all over, everyone had a little fun with that shake weight.  it seems to bring out some pretty fantastic facial expressions to all who touch it.  comedy.

and of course, the group shot.

plus a bonus silly version.  i couldn't stop laughing at FGD's idea of a "silly face."

before she left, i made the monkey pose with her awesome kate spade bag.  i love that bag, it's so damn cute.

another holiday hoorah on the books!  my friends are awesome.