A Swedish Christmas in Oregon

Me, my dog Charlie Brown, Toulouse the cat and Amelia the cat all piled in the car yesterday and drove  a couple hours north to my mom's house for the holidays. It's been a little dramatic since Charlie is afraid of other dogs and my mom has a 120 pound Golden Retriever but it hasn't been too awful... Charlie has only dove for Buck's jugular a couple of times and howled until his voice was hoarse... So you know, not too bad. ;)

This is still only my third sub-14 mile, so I'm still happy with that first mile, even though it's not close or consistent with my PR from Sunday.  I will take what I can get!

I went for a run today around my mom's neighborhood, but I had trouble finding enough mileage. I don't really like doing out and backs, I prefer a loop, and I strive for hills so I can keep building up the muscle on my inner thighs to help support my knee caps. We ended up doing as many hills as I could find, and then struggling dying going up a super steep hill which totally killed any sort of pace I had. I still can't run a straight mile, I have to run-walk, but I've been encouraged to go faster when I am running (when I ran in law school I'd run super slow so I could maintain a running pace longer and not burn out, but I honestly feel this contributed to my knee issues since my stride was so short) and I think it's helping my endurance. All I can do is try my best and see what happens!


Tonight we had a traditional Swedish Smorgasbord, Fruktsoppa, rice pudding and Swedish meatballs with cream gravy. All super delcious and made by my great mom! Tomorrow I'm cooking the traditional American turkey, stuffing potatoes schpele. Also, Santa will be bringing my Garmin- YAY!

Exercise!

About 5 years ago I started running the Couch to 5k program and lost some weight, but ended up with a really bad knee injury that just wouldn't heal. I was actually banned by my doctor to ever run again.

There isn't a local dog park where my beagle and I could go hang out so we started walking around the neighborhood. First a mile, then two... four.... One day I jogged up one of the hills on our walk out of sheer impatience. Then I started jogging all of the hills. My knee hasn't bothered me at ALL! I started with walking 22-23 minute miles. Today, I ran 11:54!!!!!!!!! I am so proud of myself! I heard from Santa I'm getting a Garmin for Christmas (I've been using my iPhone) so I'm super excited to see where this goes! :)

I had lost a little over 10 pounds just before the move, but the process of moving, and starting school I gained a total of 16 pounds. I got food poisoning and lost over 10 pounds, but after about a month it creeped back on. (Super disappointing, as being sick was realy, really awful. I felt like I deserved to keep those pounds off!) Right now I am 3 pounds lower than my highest this year. Sucky, but I am proud of what I have been doing fitness wise!

This is from parts of our new neighborhood walk. Very woodsy with some water- this froze solid after the storm!

 Snow hit our neighborhood (almost a foot!) but that didn't stop us! I didn't score any PR's during the snow and I slowed down a TON, mostly walking, but it was still fun and different! I've never really been in snow. (Sadly it's gone now.)

 I had no idea my time today was so good until I heard the phone beep so I didn't get the screen shot in time, but close! My best time before this was a 13:54minute mile.

 I try to catch the 5k's (3.1 miles) because I'm trying to get a PR. My official race time from the Petaluma Clo-Cow Race was in the 40's somewhere, I'm just not sure if it was above or below the 45 minute mark so I'm not sure if I have PR'd yet on a 5k.  I'm still proud!

(Unfortunately I have since discovered that all of these records are wrong! MMH doesn't have a good GPA signal at my house, so it says I've gone probably a 1/3 of a mile further than I actually have. HUGE bummer.)

Fall 2013 Grades

I finished my second term! I had worked really hard and hoped for straight A's, but one teacher, I had a 90% before he graded me on participation, so he must have graded me down. I am pretty pissed as I do not think that was deserved. I also think he just doesn't like me. I'm not sure what I'll do about it, if anything, but it's hard to get excited for my other grades with that hanging over my head.

That said, this is my best report card since first grade and my highest GPA ever, (except for summer, when I took just one class.)

On another note, I had hoped to go to Oxford for a fellowship and study abroad program over spring break. I wasn't picked. (I cried, I wanted it so bad.) But I'm supposed to have a good shot at next year, so that's something.

Denver Colorado Vacation!

Making lemons out of lemonade, I used the credits I had to plan this trip with my friend Stephanie from junior high/high school. Denver is where I could have gone to school this year, and is a place I've wanted to visit for a long time. I've flown through here, and I went as a kid (saw pink lightening)but not as an adult. I had also seen the awesome movie "Catch and Release" in 2006 in the threatre right as I was getting dismissed from law school and I fell in love with the place.

First day we took our sweet time getting going (flew in between 9am and 1030am and I was waiting at Stu's gate when she got off the plane so we could do the screamy, reunion thing!), stopped at Einstein bagels for breakfast/lunch and then drove through Boulder to Rocky Mountain National Park. There was apparently a huge flood in September and October and there were felled trees everywhere. The river was actually frozen but underneath the ice it must have been flowing somewhere because we could hear the water when we pulled over to look at it. When we got the south park entrance the road really wasn't drivable, but we were super happy with the pretty drive and we walked around for awhile and had a great time. We stopped in Boulder for dinner on the way to the hotel to check in and it was amazing. Best dinner ever!

Saturday we spent in Denver, walked the shops, had a great relaxing breakfast, found flower earrings for $1 on clearance (for a 6 pack!), went to a German Christkindlmarkt (German christmas fair), saw some live music and has some Gluhvein, (Free mug!!) and then had dinner at Brooklyn's before heading into our first NHL hockey game, the Colorado Avalanche v. Minnesota Wild. It was a really tight game, and went to a shoot out but we lost. Sad! But so fun! Then we walked across town to take the free bus the rest of the way to the Sheraton. The view from that hotel was great!

We had loved Boulder so much we decided to spend Sunday there. We toured the Celestial Seasonings factory, did a bunch of tastings and got really great goodies. Then we went back to our favorite restaurant PastaVino for lunch and then headed to the airport. We got there at 5pm, said our goodbyes, and headed to different terminals. And then we ran into each other again! My flight was supposed to be at 8:55pm, and I was bugged enough that I had to get there so early for Steph's flight. But guess what... bunch of delays later, we didn't take off until about 11:15pm MST. It sucked. Then, I got back into Portland after midnight (PST) and got straight on a bus to Eugene. A three hour bus ride. I had to change buses in Albany, and then they left me at a hotel in Eugene. But the nice bus driver called a cab ahead for me. Thankfully it took credit cards so I could pay. (I had planned on taking the free public bus, but the buses didn't open until 430am, and involved a 1.5 mile walk in the snow with my luggage in a neighborhood I didn't know.) The cabbie was very nice and took me right to my door and was very chatty.

Despite the drama, which was totally exhausting, I had a really great trip. This was the first real vacation I had taken since 2007, so I was thrilled.  I didn't even take my computer!

I love bows and arrows! I thought this was so neat looking.

 Sweet potato gelato

 Boulder Courthouse

 Oh! And we went ice skating too!

It was a great weekend! I can't wait to go on another adventure!