tulips

My tulips are starting to bloom. Last fall, Cardy & I planted 11 bunches in our small garden area around our patio. I was so excited when they started to sprout a couple weeks ago and we've been checking them daily waiting for buds & blooms. Well a couple days ago they started to bloom! I'm so excited - tulips are one of my favorite flowers and it was really fun to plant my own. (the only weird thing is I bought a bag of bulbs thinking they were all shades of pink but we ended up with yellow & red??? i guess you never know with bulbs. oh well, just another excuse to plant more this fall)

37:12

That's my time.

This past Saturday was the Salt Lake marathon/5K. My friend, Julieanne and I ran it and we had a really good time. She was a great partner and kept me pumped and motivated throughout the course.

For the past 9 or 10 weeks I have been running several times a week preparing for this run. It has been tough and I still have a hard time deciding if I want to stick with running. If you've read my past entries, you've heard me describe my struggles. But, through it all, I kept at it, determined to run. Each week I kept expecting for things to get easier and while I improved (slowly, very slowly) running was never easy for me. The last two weeks I was really down and thinking my training had failed me. I thought to myself, "I cannot run this 5K, I just can't do it." I've been told that a huge part of running is mental, so as you can tell, my training was only helping me get so far. Who can run long distance when the whole time they're telling themselves that they can't?

Well, I can. And I did. I had an attitude adjustment the morning of the 5K. I planned my dinner the night before and my breakfast and outfit for the day of. I had trained physically, now it was time for the mental part to kick in (it maybe would've helped if I had started my mental training a little sooner ::shrugging shoulders::).

My original goal was to run the entire 5K without having to slow down and walk. Sadly, we stopped a few times. However, with that said, I took only the necessary time to recover, slow my heart rate and catch my breath. We never slowed for longer than a minute. I ran at least 98% of the course - a large improvement from last year but my biggest achievement was my time. I improved by a whole 5 minutes! So what if I didn't run 100% of the course, I improved my time, stamina, and my distance. Overall, I was happy with my performance.

It's Britney, B!tch

Okay, okay. I know what you're all thinking ::gasp:: "she really went to the Britney Spears concert?"

Ummm ye-ah. Whether we like to admit it or not, she's an icon and one of the biggest icons of my generation. She's everywhere. And let's face it folks, she puts on one hell of a show! I have to hand it to her, the songs make me want to dance and I can't help but get a huge grin and sing every word to hit me baby, one more time.

She put on quite the production for her Circus tour and I was impressed by the performance of all her dancers and entertainers. Britney sang (well, lip synced) all of her #1's and in Britney fashion, the dancing was pretty amazing. Her set design was really cool so props to the set designer. If you think the Britney fans are few & far between, you are completely mistaken! This was almost a sold out show at the Energy Solutions Arena. I couldn't believe all the people, girls mainly. Ashley and I were laughing the entire time and in Ashley's words, "we look like we're going to church compared to these girls!" Perfectly stated. It was hood rat nation! I was in people watching heaven all night.

Thanks Ash for a fun night even if we did spend an hour at a complete stand still in the Gateway garage at midnight on a Tuesday. And for the girl who thought she was in a music video, crawling on the hood of her car...please for the love of God...purchase a pair of leggings and spend the dough on some real hair extensions!

Happy Easter!

On Friday, my sister in-laws, nieces & myself got together to dye Easter eggs. This is one of my favorite things to do before Easter. I'm glad I have family that enjoys this activity as much as I do. All together we colored 13 dozen (it's a Godina thing)! We had so much fun coming up with themes, designs, pictures, animals and faces to put on our eggs. We were in creative mode, for sure.

Now I have to figure out how to use all the eggs I brought home with me.

WARNING...

If you get queasy at the site of blood - Don't look below!

Here's a little practical joke I played on Cardy.

We are constantly teasing and playing jokes - mostly at my expense. I've come home to witch masks hanging from the garage door, fake rats on the hood of my car, etc, etc. Well, last week I made some sugar cookies for Easter. As I was dying the frosting to make a nice pink color, a drop of red food coloring landed on my counter. I quickly wiped it up using my finger and I realized how much it looked like fresh blood. Of course, my first thought was to wash it off before it stained my hands but then I realized I could use it to my advantage.

I put another droplet on my finger and ran up the stairs shouting to Cardy I had cut my finger ::wink, wink:: I was holding on to my hand as I entered the room and put on my best terrified face. He took one look at the "blood" and jumped up. I have never seem him jump up so fast in my life! He was generally very concerned and immediately wanted to know how and what knife I was using. I couldn't contain myself! I just started laughing...he didn't think it was so funny.

I'm already dreading the retaliation!

{Disclaimer: Not real blood}