After more than 35 years with the same company, my dad is retiring today!


Me, Mom, Dad and my Aunt Marybeth at the beach in July

He'll head into the office for the last time to hand in his badge, do the HR thing and then ride off into retirement sunset.

(Or more like immediately start reporting to his new boss, aka my mom, who has a long list of things for him to do around the house -- like ripping up carpet and putting hard wood floors in my parent's living room.)

Either way, I'm super excited for my dad. I know he's been looking forward to retirement for a while now.


This is my Dad at 18, when he was in the Navy

After years of constantly being on the road at client sites both foreign and domestic and wracking up a million frequent flier miles -- which he then let my brother and I use for fun trips -- he deserves some down time.


Family tailgate in Philly

I know my dad has plans to do some volunteer work and spend some more time on the golf course when the weather gets nicer...and perhaps maybe run some more races.


Family in Baltimore

And he's even planning a trip to Maryland in the coming weeks -- but not, you know, to visit me, his daughter. Nope, he's coming to visit the twins.

He sent me an email that basically said, "Hey, I'm coming to Maryland to see the twins. Hope you can make some time to see us..." Ha thanks Dad.



Guess I can't blame him. They're cuter than me.

So congrats Dad! I hope you have a long and happy retirement...and don't drive Mom too crazy!

Have you all seen in the news how the Raiderettes (the professional cheerleaders for the Oakland Raiders) are suing the Raiders for a whole bunch of things that basically amount to unfair and perhaps illegal employment practices?

When I first saw the headlines, I was a intrigued and wanted to know what the heck was going on. As I started reading more about it though, I became more and more outraged at the Raiders organization and the NFL.

Let me take a step back quickly and say that I am a huge football fan. I love the NFL. I happily spend my Sundays camping out on the sofa watching hours and hours of grown men throwing a pigskin around and acting like idiots when they score a touchdown or sack the quarterback.


Love my Eagles!

I buy jerseys, I play fantasy football, in general I invest a lot of time and energy into loving the NFL.

On the flip side of the coin, I think cheerleading is kind of silly. I've never quite understood the point of girls in short skirts and pom poms jumping around on the sidelines. They don't get to watch the game, they're pretty much just there to be eye candy for the drunk dudes in the stands.

Don't get me wrong, I know there is some level of skill involved in cheerleading, and that it's an athletic event when done in a competitive setting. Maryland used to have a competitive cheer team. Those girls didn't jump around and go "Rah, rah" at games. They did crazy flips and intense feats of gymnastic prowess at competitions around the country and won a few national championships.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmOY9z399qI

But all my personal feelings about cheerleading aside, if a girl decides that's what she wants to do, and she goes and tries out and makes a professional squad, she should freakin' be paid fair wages for all the time and energy she puts into it.

The Raiderettes get paid something like $1,250 per season (which after rehearsals, games, special events, etc amounts to less than $5 per hour) -- all paid at the end of the season, after a whole bunch of fines have been taken out of the pay. What are the fines for you might ask?

Deadspin published a nice list:

Forget to bring (including but not limited to) correct pom(s) or props to practice? $10.00 fine

Wear wrong designated workout wear and/or footwear for two-piece Wednesday rehearsals, special rehearsals and/or game day rehearsals? $10.00 fine

Not able to get bios in on time? $10.00 fine

Forget all or part of the official uniform, boots, and or poms for any event or game day? $10.00 fine (per item) and/or benched from game (-125.00)

Boots not clean and polished for game day? $10.00 fine

Failure to follow point #1 under Etiquette or Appearances (Game Day Ready)? $10.00 fine

FINES WILL CONTINUE TO DOUBLE IF INFRACTIONS CONTINUE. Example: a $10 fine will go up to $20 if you forget to wear the proper attire for a second time, etc.

There are other ridiculous employment practices too -- like forcing the girls to pay for certain hairstyles by a certain hairstylist, paying for transportation costs, and getting benched and not paid for a game if they miss a day of practice or "look too soft" (to be read, perhaps gain a few pounds or bloat a bit).

Seeing this bubble up in the news the other day really pissed me off. Teams in the NFL can afford to pay players millions and millions of dollars. They make a disgusting amount of money from ticket, food and apparel sales and somehow can't afford to treat their cheerleaders human beings worthy of a fair wage.

That's some crap.

I hope the Raiderettes win their lawsuit and the team is forced to pay them fair wages.

End rant.

With the arctic freeze still having a death grip on DC and the gym in my building still closed due to that pipe bursting several weeks ago, I bit the bullet and picked up a membership at the gym down the street.


Back when the fitness center was open

I was sick of not being able to do a good workout, and the gym offered me a pretty decent deal on membership. This is my first real gym membership (if you don't count CrossFit) in six years.

I've never paid to belong to a gym since I moved back to the DC-area because the places I lived always offered a free fitness center as a perk.

Last night I hit the weight room at my new gym to keep up with my online personal training plan. It's been a struggle to stick with it while the fitness center in my building has been closed, but I'm so glad to have access to the equipment I need again.

Last night's workout included some squats, deadlifts and push presses -- a move I haven't done since my CrossFit days. (On a totally random side note, I do hope to go back to CrossFit some day when all my foot problems eventually clear up for good).



I love push presses, for some unexplained reason I think they are the most fun thing ever -- maybe it's because I can lift so much more weight in a push press than in a regular overhead press.

Anyway, I surprised myself last night by how much weight I was able to press. It was definitely more than I expected.

I just so happened to finish up my lifting as a spin class was starting, and since I haven't taken a spin class in ages, I decided to join in.

Unfortunately, the class was only so-so. Definitely not the best I've taken, but not the worst either. I like my spin classes to have good music that I can jam out too, and the song selection last night was definitely meh.

I also thought the drills we did in class were kind of boring. Maybe I'm just a spin brat -- I haven't found an instructor I've really loved since I left the gym in York, Pa., six years ago.

Anyway, I'm glad to have a gym back in my life -- especially since there's no sign of an end to this cold weather.

Welcome to the start of a new week. It's another bitterly cold one in DC...seriously where is summer?

I had the day off on Friday so I went to hang out with my cousin to give her a hand with the twins. When I got there she had them dressed in their little Terps outfits.



Could they be any cuter?

Unfortunately even the boys in their cute outfits cannot seem to bring any luck to the Terps. Our basketball team is just straight up atrocious. We're talking might not even make the NIT levels of bad here.

So it's no surprise that we lost again at home this weekend to Pitt. It's been a depressing year to be a season ticket holder.

And since I refuse to end this post on such a depressing note, here's another cute baby picture for you of Patrick snoozing on Laura.

As much as I love the ability to work from home, after three days cooped up in my apartment -- seeing no one other than the guy at my front desk -- I decided I needed to get out of the house yesterday for work. I'm an extrovert and I need to be around people.

So I took my home office and moved it to Panera, where I drank many mugs of warm tea and settled in for the day.



The change of scenery was nice.

Unfortunately when I got home from Panera, I walked in to a disaster in my kitchen.



RIP Crock Pot :(

Maintenance had been in my apartment during the day to fix a light switch issue in my bathroom, and I'm guessing when they slammed the door shut as they were leaving, the rattling knocked my Crock Pot out of the dryer rack on my counter and sent it crashing to the floor.

I literally wanted to cry. I love my Crock Pot more than any other kitchen appliance I own since I use it pretty much every single week to make dinner. After being irrationally sad, I hopped on the Interwebz and ordered myself a new one. I will have it tomorrow -- just in time to make more delicious food for the upcoming week. Seriously, I don't know how I'd survive without it.

In other news, yesterday after work I also had my doctor's appointment for my foot.

I'm getting pretty used to this routine by now. Fill out a bunch of papers, explain pain, go do some X-rays, pray it's not broken.



And hey this time, it's actually not a stress fracture! Whooo!

Instead it's a wicked case of plantar fascitiis. My doc said it's most likely tied to my extremely tight calves. No matter how much I stretch them, I can't seem to get them loose, and since everything down there is all connected, she thinks the tightness in my calves is causing the tightness in my foot.

So she set me up with some stretches and other exercises to do for the next 4-6 weeks that should help, and conveniently I already had a sports massage scheduled for tonight for my back, so I can just ask my massage therapist to spend some extra time on my calves as well.

My doctor also suggested I get some inserts for both my running and regular shoes to help support my arch and absorb some of the shock and pressure.

So I guess we'll see what happens. Here's hoping the exercises and stuff pay off!

I know, with a title like that, I must have one heck of a workout for you guys right?

Welllll how does spending 90 minutes jumping on trampolines at a giant trampoline park sound?



If it sounds like the best, most fun workout ever, well you'd be right!

So apparently, giant trampoline parks are a thing, and over the weekend, my college roommates and I got together to try out Skyzone -- a trampoline park that opened recently in Columbia, Md.

We bought a 90-minute block of time in advance (it cost about $20), and all we had to do when we showed up on Sunday was sign a waiver, listen to a brief presentation on the rules and put on our fancy jumping socks.



Then we were set free to either jump on the wall-to-wall trampolines, flip off trampolines into a giant foam pit, show off our sweet moves on the basketball court or play dodgeball on trampolines.


Wall-to-wall trampolines


Randyl has sweet ups

I think the only thing we didn't do was dodgeball. There were lots of kids parties that day, and they had booked the dodgeball room.

I was pretty OK with that though, it left us plenty of time to play on all the other trampolines.


Chris catching some air before landing in the foam pit

Skyzone definitely draws a ton of kids and families. On the day we were there, we were definitely in the minority compared to all the little kids running around. But as we were walking out, I did see Skyzone offers trampoline workout classes, so it's not just a place for kids and families. I just imagine on a weekend afternoon, that's probably the biggest draw.


Emily with a slam dunk

By the end of our 90 minutes, we were all dripping in sweat and huffing and puffing. All the jumping was a killer workout.


Our crew: Chris, Randyl, Laurie, Ronnie, me and Emily

Overall we had a great time trying out Skyzone. It was definitely something fun and different to do, and if there's a giant trampoline park near you, I highly recommend you try it out!

My foot doctor and I should just become besties, as often as I need to go in to see him.


Why do I feel like another one of these is in my future?

I think I had mentioned in a post a few weeks ago that I had been having some pain in my right foot again. (For those playing along at home, that's the foot that I had my first stress fracture in last November and December.)

The pain is in a similar spot to where the stress fracture was, but it doesn't feel exactly the same as the stress fracture did. My stress fracture radiated pain from the outside of my foot into my heel and ankle.

This pain radiates from the outside of my foot through the center of my foot.

I mean it could still most definitely be a stress fracture, just in a different place, but the pain is also different in that it's the worst first thing in the morning when I wake up, and then tends to ebbed a little bit during the day.

When I first stand up to get out of bed, the pain is pretty bad. I'd put it at a 7 on a scale of 10. It's painful to support my weight. But after walking around for a little bit the pain starts to fade a bit.

The pain is also most notable when I'm barefoot, but if I'm wearing a shoe with a firm sole for support, it's much, much less noticeable.

Activity doesn't seem to make the pain any better or worse. The few runs I've done lately haven't seemed to aggravate it, but I've been trying to rest to see if some time off would help.


Running how I miss you

And I have no idea what would have caused it. I am not running heavy volumes. I definitely eased back into activity when I got over my last stress fracture, so I don't know what the heck is going on with my foot.

So after resting for a week or so and not seeing any real improvements, I'm calling on my new BFF -- my sports doc -- to see if we can figure out what's going on.

I was able to snag an appointment for Wednesday after work so hopefully we'll be able to get some answers then.

Who wants to take bets on whether or not I end up in another walking boot?

So I've been working with Kris and Virginia, my online personal trainers, for a little more than a month now, and I thought it was time to do a recap of the first phase of the program.


Wrapping up an EP Fitness Prep workout

The program that I'm doing is three months in total, so each phase is about four weeks. My first phase was focused on building a strong strength base and cleaning up my diet. You might remember when I first talked about the program in December, I wasn't too keen on the whole idea of a diet plan.

In general, I don't like diets so I pretty much operate on an everything in moderation mentality with a focus on whole, healthy foods most of the time. But I promised Virginia and Kris that I would give the eating plan a try, and I have to say, I really like the way I feel while eating this way.


Protein-packed breakfast

The diet focuses on increasing the amount of protein I'm eating and focusing on high quality carbs, while timing your meals around your workouts so you get the most bang for your nutrition buck. The timing part has definitely been tricky for me, but I'm slowly starting to get the hang of it.

I'm struggling a little bit with the amount of food Kris and Virginia want me to be eating. It's lots of little meals throughout the day, which is pretty different from how I normally eat. So I'm definitely still adjusting, but I notice that I have a lot more energy, and I'm a lot more alert with the major increase in in protein and veggies.

In terms of the workouts, the first phase focused on all of the major muscles groups. I did lots of squats and deadlifts for my legs.

And then I became best friends with the cable machine for my upper body.



That was a pretty huge deal for me because I've always been pretty terrified of the cable machine. It's overwhelming and there are a million things you can do with it, and I would just look at it and be confused and not no where to start.

But walking into the gym with a solid plan every day, I know exactly what I need to do. I know what settings to put the machine on and what weights to use.

Kris and Virginia also give me a spreadsheet to track my food intake from Monday-Wednesday and all of my workouts during that time as well so they can monitor progress and address any issues I might be having.

We email back and forth each week, and they both check in on how the program is working, how it's impacting my running and if I'm having any problems.


Slowly getting faster

I definitely could see a little bit of muscle definition popping up after a month of solid strength training, and I'm really excited to continue to improve and gain strength as I move through phase two!

If you have questions or want to learn more about the online personal training that I'm doing, you can check out EP Fitness Prep's website.

So training for the Shamrock Half Marathon was supposed to start on January 6, but I was having some more problems with my feet, and I was afraid I'd somehow developed yet another stress fracture, even though I haven't been running much at all.



I decided instead of risking yet another injury that would sideline me for a few months, I'd give it a few days and see if some rest helped.

Luckily it seemed to, so even though I'm now starting training a week later than I wanted to, I'm fairly certain my feet are going to be OK. (Or at least I'm really hoping they are.)

After the polar vortex peaced out, DC was gifted some pretty nice weather on Sunday, and I was excited to head out for a run in just capris and a long sleeve shirt.



My original plan was to just do three miles and see how my feet felt. But since everything felt good and the weather was gorgeous, I just kept going. In the back of my mind, I knew I was supposed to run six miles as part of the training plan, so I decided to see how six miles would feel.

I'm super happy to report the run went way better than I expected!

I haven't run more than three miles since June, when I was sideline with my second stress fracture, so I was really worried that my speed and endurance were going to be garbage.

But I ran faster than I expected, and while I was tired when I finished, and my legs are a little sore today, overall, I held up really well over the longer distance. (It amazes me that right now I'm calling six miles a longer distance, when just a year ago, I was running 20 milers to train for a marathon.)



Yesterday's run was a nice little confidence boost that maybe, just maybe, I will actually be able to have a decent race in Virginia Beach in March. I'm not trying to break any time goals, but I was getting really nervous that I would not be able to run a good race and that my endurance just wouldn't bounce back.

Here's hoping my feet stay healthy, and I can make it through a training cycle without another injury!

Good morning and happy Thursday!



I treated myself to a chai latte on my chilly walk to work this morning because it's been a while since I've had one, and because I'm starting to feel a little bit better.

In fact, yesterday I actually ate three real meals. I mean they were smaller than usual, but they consisted of real solid food and not applesauce and juice! Winning!

And since I was finally able to eat again yesterday, I decided it was safe to get back in the gym. (When I'm not feeling well enough to eat, working out and burning calories that I'm not consuming seems pretty unsafe.)

I mentally prepped myself for the post-New Year's overcrowding I would face and braced myself for the freezing cold (but at least pretty short) walk to the fitness center.

But when I got there all the doors were locked and the fitness center was totally empty. I asked at the front desk of the building and apparently overnight a pipe had burst, and the gym was "out-of-order" until further notice.

Nooooooooo!!!!

Nothing will completely kill your motivation or frustrate you more than getting up early to work out, getting all the way to the gym and then not being able to get inside.

When I got back home, I was super annoyed that the building hadn't sent an email letting people know the gym was closed. That would have at least saved me some time and frustration. An email eventually came sometime around 3 p.m. Super helpful really.

I'm hoping it doesn't take them too long to get the pipe situation under control. I miss lifting weights (there's something I never thought I'd say) and I do'nt want to fall too far behind with my personal training program.

2014 has certainly not been off to the best start for me, but I'm so over feeling sad and miserable all the time. It's just the worst. So now that I'm back in DC and sort of back into the swing of things, I'm trying my hardest to "turn that frown upside down."

I remember when Ali was Chrons-ing hardcore, she'd do her Thankful Thursday posts as a way to sort of force herself into a positive mood, and while I know it's not yet Thursday, I've decided do one of those posts anyway, because I need it today. (Also, cute baby pictures below.)

I'm thankful my parents are only a short car ride away. So when something crappy happens, I can hastily throw some stuff in a bag and head straight up 95. There's seriously no better place to be than home when you're going through some tough crap.

I'm thankful my parents don't mind me calling them at 9 a.m. on New Year's Day in tears and telling them I'm coming home. Not asking, telling and then showing up looking like a hot mess about 2.5 hours later. I'm sure that's totally how they imagined spending their New Years.

I'm thankful that I have truly amazing friends. They've offered to cram my calendar full of fun social events, make me dinner so that I don't have to cook for myself and pretty much let me move into their houses so I don't have to be all alone in my apartment.

I'm thankful for acquaintances who have gone above and beyond. It's always interesting when you're going through hard stuff to see who comes out of the woodwork to help in some way. I mean I always expected my very close friends to be there for me, but I've been overwhelmed by the kindness I've experienced from other friends in the last few days that I wasn't necessarily expecting.

I'm thankful for my adorable baby cousins. It's really hard to be sad when you're holding this much cuteness in your lap. (P.S. Twins update -- they are both home from the NICU!)


Patrick sound asleep


Cameron pondering the mysteries of the universe

I'm thankful for a job I'm good at working with people I love. I've always found my job to be a fantastic distraction from all the other crap I'm dealing with. I love my job. I'm good at it, and most days, I can pretty easily get lost in my projects. I will now probably have some inexplicable drive to kick more ass than normal. Watch out world.


Our annual holiday picture

I'm thankful that I start teaching again in a few weeks. See the above about work. My class at Maryland starts soon, and I've been putting the finishing touches on my syllabus and assignments. To any future students who may be reading, get ready for an awesome semester. But also brace yourself to get F's because that will definitely happen.

I'm thankful that I've been through this before so that I know I will get through it again. Yep, bet no one was expecting that one. But it's true. My last breakup was a hell of a lot more traumatic than this one. That's not to say this one isn't still sad and hard, but because I've survived worse, I know I'll survive this.

And that's all I've got for today. Happy Tuesday people. I hope you're staying warm.

I hope to be back to regularly scheduled blogging (and hopefully my more cheery self) soon.

Man if I could bottle my body's freakish ability to lose weight after a breakup and sell it to the masses I would be a millionaire.

Yes friends, my heart got dealt a seriously crappy blow on NYE when the guy I had been dating for a little while decided to call it quits pretty much guaranteeing I had the absolute worst New Year's in my life.

(In his defense, it was bad timing, but he didn't maliciously set out to completely ruin my New Year's. He's not a mean person. Please don't bash him in the comments.)

The only reason I can be this glib about it now is because I'm fairly certain there are no tears left. (At least not right now, give it another hour and I'm sure they'll be back.)

So yea, it's been a rough few days, and 2014 is not off to the best start ever. Man am I grateful that I was working from home today because I could not have handled trying to get dressed and pretending everything was hunky-dory at the office.

But back to this weight loss thing after breakups or in general times of very high stress or anxiety. When that happens to me, I literally cannot eat food. Hell, half the time I can't even stand the smell of food without feeling sick to my stomach.

So I have to force myself to drink a bunch of juice because I know I need the calories. And then eventually I can graduate to applesauce, and sometimes pudding and soup.

Last time I dealt with a breakup, I couldn't eat solid food for something like two or three weeks. It's only been a few days so far this time around, and I've already destroyed a massive jar of applesauce. I'm hoping my food aversions won't last as long this time around or else I'm going to waste away to nothing.

Does anyone else experience such strong food aversions during sad times or high stress or anxious times?