where do you keep your house key?

i'm very low-key {ha!} when it comes to running. i don't listen to music or carry water. i put on my shoes, watch, Road ID, and head on out. it's just me and my thoughts {watch out!}. but nothing annoys my brain more than having things jingle and jangle around. followed closely by the paranoia of loosing my house key in the woods somewhere.

so i turn to the always handy binder clip. just unhook one of the metal legs, thread your key on, and put it all back together. 

clip it to your waistband and tuck the key inside. ta-da! now if i could only get some of those awful random tunes out of my head.

hello november 2014

this fall has been quite the whirlwind, september was busy, and poor october was jumped right over. so november, let's get some sht done:

> run 40 miles: last month was a bit of a stretch, running-wise, so this month i'm going to work on maintaining at 40 miles, not to mention the inevitable sweatpants-on-the-couch-under-a-blanket struggle when the temps drop. update: 45 miles completed, efff yea!

> wake up early: no matter what time i get up in the morning, by 9:30 pm i'm wiped. it could be 4:30 or 6:30, but as the evening wears on, i put my cranky butt to bed. i don't mind getting up early, i actually feel better when i can get some stuff done before my day starts. update: this was surprisingly easy, instead of flipping and flopping around all morning, i'd get up, have some coffee, do some reading/writing, a nice slow start to the morning

> get my biz-ness paperwork in order: bow ties are awesome and pocket squares are cool, but receipts and paperwork are not. so before the pile of papers grows larger, it needs to be tamed. oh, and spreadsheets are my jam, so no fear there. #nojudgie update: nope, all i had on my mind this month was running and stitching.

> haha, third time's the charm. that is all. update: i'm over the hump on this one, i didn't get them completely finished before the month's end, but all of the major bits are done.  check out my progress here

how to get the stink out of your work out clothes

oh summer running......i love getting up at the crack of dawn with the sun, enjoying the cool(ish) breeze off the river, and getting one thing checked off my to do list before work....no matter what though, still i end up a hot and sticky and sweaty mess, ugh. i guess its better than heatstroke later in the day.

with all of this sweat, things get stinky. even {especially} the fancy sweat wicking work out clothes. the smell tends to linger, even after they've been washed. but no fret my friends, i've got an easy, eco and wallet friendly way to get rid of it. and I promise you won't smell like pickles at the end. say what?!?!

oh yes, the wildly underrated, plain ole white vinegar. seriously. i promised, no pickle smell. just pour a 1/2 cup into the wash with your detergent. then another 1/2 cup into the softener dispenser for the rinse cycle. done!

i keep a plastic 1C measuring cup with my giant jug down in my creepy basement, and measure everything out as i go along. when you take your clothes out of the washer it will smell a little vinegary, but once they're dry you won't smell a thing. oh, and for the things you cant throw in the wash, The Creek Line House has a great solution.

hello august 2014

holy sh*t it's august already. yikes! where did july {and the summer} go? i took some time to slow down and relax last month, and have some fun without thinking about what i should/could be doing. boy do some of my goals show that {whoops}, but i feel a million times better. so without further ado....

> this is a leftover from last month, boo.  i've been wandering the fabric stores and not finding any inspiration {lame excuse, i know}. but these aren't things i can force production on, if i do, i'll never be satisfied with the end product. update: still no, but now that the fabric stores are full of fall and winter selections i'm much more inspired. it's hard to get mideval-heavy when all you can find is neon chiffon. true story.

> well last month i covered my 25 miles in 13 runs, which breaks down to 1.92 miles per run and 2.6 runs per week. so with 4 weeks in august, i need to run 7.5 miles a week to be successful. now that the 1st week is almost over and i'll be 4 miles behind by sunday.....longer runs are gonna be my friend once again! update: yayayyyy! done, done and done!


> hahaha, oh boy. this one has been on my unoffical to-do list for a while now. greg finished his list months ago, and his gentle nudges to do my own have started to become a lil more forceful, lol. so its time to just get it out there, it doesn't have to be a final list, but i do need to get some names on paper. update: besides the rest of this list and other daily things that needed to be done in august, this is alllll i heard from greg this month. so to be a brat, i did it on september 3rd. then i made him rework his list of first names into my super-duper spreadsheet extraordinaire! muahhhahahaa

> it's not easy, nor convenient, but riding my bike is good for my wallet and body and jeepy. update: jeepy is still out of commission, so this was easy to maintain.

what do i listen to?

well that just depends on what i'm doing. or how i'm feeling. or where i am. and even then, who knows what's already stuck in my head.... but lately here are my fav sources of audio entertainment:

Dave & Chuck the Freak~ an awesome morning show from detroit that i've been listening to for YEARS now. they mix 13 year old boy humor with weird internet findings and no person or topic is safe. it's semi-embarrassing to admit that i am a huge fan. caution though, they may be technically radio friendly, but probably not appropriate for work, or your grandma....

Freakonomics Radio~ data mixed with pop culture. they talk about anything from business and crime to economics and competitive eating. covering what they like to call *the hidden side of everything.* not as nerdy as it seems, and super interesting.

After the Jump~ grace bonney from the ever-so-famous {in the blog world} design*sponge talks with {and about} artists, designers, makers, and all sorts of other stuff in the creative community. i've developed quite the pavlovian response to this series.... after the jump=time to go running.

Elise Gets Crafty: she covers lots of small biz and blog stuff. her style is pretty low key and honest, and her blog is awesome. huge fan of this gal, i just want to be her bfffffff {i promise i'm not a creeper, lol}

hello july 2014

june was the last quiet month for a while {heaven help hermit me}, with the annual 4th of july lake house extravaganza, weddingpalosa 2014 kicking off at the end of the month {aka 6 long distance weddings in 2 months, aka, that's why we opted for a 2015 wedding}, and lots of other things to get done in between, i'm gonna keep this months list pretty simple:

> soo have you checked out my etsy shop yet?!?!? right now it's looking pretty sparse {boo}, but after a recent trip to the fabric store, i've got lots of fun fabrics to work with. check this post out for more details and a special coupon {woohooo!} update: well i did get some new stuff stitched, photos of it all, a few things actually listed in the shop, and more of the preppy collection ready to go!

> we're not gonna talk about how i'm having issues with the jeepy and am stubbornly ignoring it. once again, we're gonna focus on how i only live 1.5 miles from work and i shouldn't be driving anyways.  it takes me just as long to ride my bike as it does to drive, and i get equally as sweaty walking home in the afternoon, so i might as well speed up the process. update: the jeepy's going in next week, and i've enjoyed riding my bike around town this month.

> every couple of years my mom and her hubby request a new set of renaissance faire garb, made by yours truly. this seems simple enough, and after making 3 sets you'd think i'd be more realistic with the timeline. so in all reality, i'll be super pumped if this is the only thing that actually gets done this month. update: ummm, nope, not yet, sorry :(

> i finished june with 21.3 miles, and with how busy this month is, 25 miles is gonna be super hard to do if i skip runs when i'm outta town.  so i guess i'd better pack my runnin gear {and not stay up too late drinking :/ } update: i started working on longer runs, which meant fewer runs, but i still ran around the same {small} block until i hit the last tenth of a mile i needed to finish, yay!

hello june 2014

oh it never fails, the longer days and perky sunshine get me super motivated, but then reality kicks in and i've bitten off way more than i can chew. last month was semi-disappointing, boo. my brain was working way faster than my poor body could keep up. so this month there's gonna be a few do-overs:

> the first two weeks of last month i spent a half day at the library and wrote my posts for the upcoming week. it felt awesome, super-duper awesome, to have it all wrapped up and taken care of. then greg was out of town, and i figured with the house being quiet, i'd be able to just get it done at home. haha, nope. sh*t got haphazard. in the back of my head i was super stressed, and i couldn't focus and so i sat, like a lump, on the couch instead. update: so you can totally tell when this didn't happen and i went for 2 whole weeks of no posts, whoops. it did work well when actually implemented though... :/

> if we go waaayyy back to last summer, this was a pretty popular goal for me. but running in the AM and walking to work multiple times in a week was just too much. so 1.5 times a week should be do-able. update: we ended the month with 7 bike rides, woohooo!

> re-do from last month, see couch-blob above. update: i went on a bit of a caffeine fueled cleaning binge, and donated a ton of clothes and other stuff. mission accomplished.

> week 5 day 1 and its running for 5 minutes at a time kinda kicked my butt, w5d2's running for 8 minutes at a time, knocked me flat on my ass....then i just laughed at w5d3's run for 20 minutes straight. ha, no way. so i've gone back to the 8 minute segments and by the end of this week i should be able to *comfortably* {aka still be able to breath and not want to die} finish those and continue on as regularly scheduled. {fingers crossed} either way, you can follow along here. update: meh. i'm back to running 5 minutes at a time, and i've paid attention enough to realize it's my legs pooping out before my lungs. so i've added in a weekly hill run, and riding my bike to work should help make 'em stronger too.

off my butt: couch to 5k

via

so i joke {quite often} that if you want to run with me, be prepared to walk. a lot. which, lately, is pretty true. don't want to be a fast runner, nor a long distance runner, i just like to get outside and force some fresh {city} air into my lungs.

even though i'm getting out there pretty regularly now, the run/walk progress is pretty low and i'm not really pushing myself {mostly i'm too lazy to increase the intervals on my watch}. so, instead of using precious brain power to figure out what my run should be, i've given in to the c25k program.

to make it even easier on myself, i've downloaded an awesome app on my phone.  it does all of the math, the counting, and the buzzing all on its own. so now, all i have to do is lace up, turn on my crazy podcasts and go, wooohooo!

sunday i finished week 3 day 1, so {fingers crossed} by mid june, i should be able to cover 3 {turtle-slow} miles, non-stop. so follow along, cheer me on, start your own, do whatever you want, just get off your butt :)