My next race is coming up + a dinner fail + microblading!

Uuuugh, I was wrong. We have one more day of this casserole. It’s not terrible, it’s just not my favorite. I’m being a baby. I don’t like wasting food, so we are going to eat every last bite! But I WILL complain about it… ; ) At least I get bacon!

Lu decided she needed to stand on both kitchen chairs yesterday while I was working. She’s a mess.

Then I got some sneak attack kisses. See Aspen lounging on her chair in the background? She sleeps there ALL day. Every. Day.

I worked all morning (and got a TON finished!!!), then I got ready to go run. I drink BCAAs before every run and this flavor is my absolute favorite – it’s Vanilla Latte. Mmmm.

Holy heart rate. Can you tell I’m running faster than I have since September/October? I have a lot of work to do before my half in April – I’m shooting for a PR. Well, that’s my second goal. My first goal is to get to the starting line HEALTHY, no pain in my hammy. But after that, I want a PR. Since I had to drop from the full to the half, I want to walk away from the race with an accomplishment. I know just getting to run it is an accomplishment, but it’s motivation to have more than one goal. BUT, not getting a PR isn’t the end of the world. I’m just thankful I can run. Being able to pull off a PR will be a major bonus! I ran 5 at an 8:18 yesterday. I started out a little too fast – my first two miles were 8:06 and 8:04 – not what I’m supposed to be doing right now. I could definitely feel my hammy a little after those, so I knew I needed to chill and pull it back.

Running in the sunshine? Sign. Me. Up.

This Tres Piñas trucker fits SO well. I love it. Also, I think I will forever run in Altras. I’m sold.

Lunch was leftovers from Wednesday! I love leftovers. Also, I know that’s a ton of brussels…

I’m not even ashamed…I think this is the 8th time I’ve watched New Girl from the very beginning…Can’t stop, won’t stop!

I knew he wouldn’t judge me for the huge amount of brussels…this is the kind of support I need in my life.

Rice cake and PB snack attack!

I am super excited about this race! It’s next weekend – my girlfriend, Kayla, and I are doing the 15k. I’m going to pace her and I can’t wait! She’s so much fun to run with. I also LOVE this race – this is my third year in a row running it. Jake actually designed the course this year, too. It’s a good one! If you’re in town, come join!

I took a little brain break for an Epsom Salt soak with Eucalyptus oil.

All the orange things for my next snack…

This is my favorite water bottle. I try to drink 4-5 of these every day.

Look at her head. I have no idea how that is comfortable….

Y’all – these were the bomb. Onion bombs! ; ) We had some deer meat in our freezer, so I thawed it and then mixed in some seasonings. Then I stuffed these onion pieces with it before wrapping them in bacon. These baked for about 20 minutes, then I dumped a mixture of ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, BBQ sauce, garlic, and black pepper on top and baked it another 20. (Which wasn’t enough…keep scrolling….)

I also made sweet potato fries in the AirFryer and sautéed onion, zucchini, and mushrooms in EVOO, garlic, and cajun seasoning. So. Yummy. Until…

…you cut into your dinner only to find that it is NOT cooked. At all. Major fail on my part. Jake came to the rescue and cooked everything in about 5 minutes in a skillet on the stove. It was still delicious! Not pretty, but oh so good.

I mentioned the other day that I had microblading done on my eyebrows. Microblading is semi-permanent procedure where technicians use a special microblading pen to draw individual hairs into your brows. It’s basically using a scalpel with ink on it. Here are my results! I tried to find a picture with no make-up on my browns, but I couldn’t. I’ll keep searching! The first picture is of my brows when I attempted to fill them in – remember how I said I’m not good with the make-up stuff? Here’s proof. The middle picture is after my first appointment. It took about two hours. It’s definitely painful, but it’s not unbearable. The technician, Liz, went through my brows two times. The first time, she didn’t numb me, but it was only a little painful. The second round, she did use a numbing cream – I guess the cuts are deeper the second time. I asked for more numbing cream toward the end because it started to hurt, but other than that, it wasn’t painful at all because you really can’t feel it. I was already much happier with my brows after just the initial appointment! They were definitely thicker and darker than I was used to, but I loved them. You can see some of the lines that were drawn into my brows in the middle picture. The third picture is after my second appointment, this one only took about an hour. I feel like it was a little more painful than the first, but still 100% worth it. She followed the same two-round procedure as before. I LOVE the outcome! If you have questions about it, let me know! I went to Liz at Acacia Spa here in Springfield, MO. She’s amazing. She is SO friendly and literally talked to me the whole time, which made the whole experience enjoyable. And now, I don’t have to pretend to know how to fill my brows in, because let’s be honest…I don’t have a clue.

More chapter 5 today, then it’s off to Health Tracks. I also have a couple of errands to run. We don’t have any big plans this weekend, which is good because I need to try and finish up this chapter. Jake is gone next weekend for a 3-day race and I have that 15k next Saturday, so I’m looking forward to having a relaxing weekend. I plan to run early Saturday and then spend the day working on this dang chapter – I kind of love not having plans, especially when I have so much computer work to do .

I hope you all have wonderful weekends!!!

Happy Friday!