Kristabella: Full of Snark Since 1977

Posted By Kristabella on June 13, 2012

So, I leave for Toronto early in the morning. It’s weird, I’ve been having these panicky passport dreams lately. They all revolve around me forgetting it at home and getting to the airport and realizing this. Then it is a mad dash to decide if there is enough time to go home and get it and still make the flight.

I figured these dreams just meant “Hey, dumbass, don’t forget your damn passport!”

I didn’t really think anything of it. I wrote a giant note that said PASSPORT on it to remind me.

And then as I was sitting at my desk this morning I had a startling thought: “I think my passport may be expired.”

So I panicked. And there was nothing I could do about it until I got home tonight. And really, if it was expired, there was probably nothing I could do about it anyway. And then I got sad that I was going to miss my trip.

I got home and first thing found my passport.

WHEW! Two days to spare! Cutting it way too close.

TUESDAY, you guys. It expires TUESDAY.

Now let’s hope they let me back into the US on Sunday.

TUESDAY. Holy shitballs.

Category: A Dash of the Crazy, A Day in the Life of Me, The Luck of the Polish, Travel | 7 Comments »
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Posted By Kristabella on June 12, 2012

I’ve fallen off the horse. The working out horse, that is.

I was doing so well. I was working out and running. I was exercising at least three days a week. And then life got busy. I was still aiming for 1-2 times a week, but even that seemed to be difficult. Right before my mud run, back at the end of May, I was maybe running one day a week.

And then there was the Mud Run. And I was so sore. And defeated that I didn’t actually do any running. I actually finally ran for the first time the Wednesday after that race. And it was good!

Then I left on vacation. And I’ve never worked out on vacation. I brought the stuff, but you know what is better than running on vacation? Not running on vacation.

Then my trip continued and I went to Seattle. I was supposed to go running with Chris, but was still drunk on Sunday morning. It was all fine and good because I had somehow sliced the top of my toe off.

I figured once my toe was better, I’d get back at it. And really, had I done something the week after getting back, it would have only been a week break.

My toe was better by last week. Not 100%, but capable of handling a workout. But that wasn’t enough to get me motivated. I missed running and working out, in theory, but not enough to actually do something about it.

I had a chat with a runner friend of mine two weekends back. She was all excited to hear about me taking up running. I mentioned it had been over a week and she said that sometimes we need a break. Forcing yourself to always do it will make you hate it.

I completely agreed with this. And I vowed to get back on the horse. I even signed up for a monthly unlimited pass at Bar Method. I’ve registered to go about 7 times and have made it to the studio exactly zero times since June 1.

This week I told myself. This week it was time to stop with the excuses. I have another mud run on July 1 and then a 5k on July 12. No more dicking around.

And here I sit, completely unmotivated to do anything. It makes no sense. I KNOW how much better I feel when I work out. I KNOW how good it is for me. I know, I know, I know.

I should do the reward system again, but I feel like even that isn’t enough motivation. To me, there isn’t anything I need/want that bad. And I’ll probably just end up buying it for myself when I want anyway.

But I’m not giving up. I’m going to be back on that stupid workout horse. I go to Toronto this weekend and when I get back, I’m going to have a renewed motivation. I’ve not only lost the mojo in working out, I have not been good about what I’m eating either. I get compliments on how I look and then I think I can have fried chicken and biscuits for dinner twice in one week.

I’m writing it down here because then I have to be accountable for it. I want all of you to MAKE me accountable for it. Force my ass back onto that horse!

Pretty please? With whipped cream and a cherry on top?

Mmmmm, ice cream sundae.

Edited to add: After writing this, I forced myself to go to the gym and it was good. I need to remember this the next time I don’t want to go.

Category: A Day in the Life of Me, Healthy Living, Working On My Fitness | 13 Comments »
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Posted By Kristabella on June 4, 2012

Well, that was a long break from blogging that I took. It wasn’t really intentional. I mean, let’s be honest, my writing in the last year or so has been sparse at best. I just don’t feel like writing when I get home.

Normally I can blame it on working out and running taking up all of my evening hours, but I didn’t even do that last week. Last week I was just lazy and tired, recovering from my vacation to Portland and Seattle.

I’ve been meaning to recap my trip since I got home, since I had such an amazing time. I spent the first leg of the journey in Portland with her and got to meet the most adorable baby in the history of the world, Mr. Henry! He’s even more perfect in person than he is in photos on the internet. He is so my new BFF!

Rhi and I had a great time catching up and eating delicious food and enjoying all Portland has to offer. She and Bill took me to Hood River and to some of the breweries there and it was an absolutely perfect day. I also got to experience the Portland Farmer’s Market, which is super nice and has an awesome selection and free samples of meat and cheese. You had me at meat and cheese, PDX.

The reason for the trip was because my friend Rich was getting married in Seattle that Sunday. Long-time readers may remember Rich from such drinking shenanigans as this time in St. Louis and this time in St. Louis and so many other times I haven’t documented. I figured he’d be a life-long bachelor, so there was no way I was going to miss this wedding.

And I’m so glad I went! I have to admit it was a little weird going solo to a wedding and knowing no one but the groom. I hadn’t even met his lovely bride-to-be. But the day before the wedding a bunch of us went to the Mariners game and I knew I had nothing to worry about. Rich’s friends are all super fun people and I had a blast. Well, that I can remember…

After the game, a few of us went out drinking, including Rich. And I promised all of his friends that I’d make sure he got home. What I didn’t plan on was getting so drunk myself that I don’t even remember getting home myself. (I later found out that the bride was not pleased, nor would I have been if my groom was out drinking late the night before his wedding with some chick.) (It was all good! He made it home! No worries!)

This about sums up my brain capacity that evening.

Also, side note, we were here.

I woke up around like 7 AM on Sunday in my hotel room, full clothed and wondering how I got home and if I was still in possession of my things. (Clearly I must have been, seeing as I made it to my room and fell asleep.)

I was supposed to go running with the lovely Chris on Sunday morning, but I had to text her that no, I would not be able to make it because I was still drunk. I barely made it up for our brunch date, let alone running.

As I got up to get ready for brunch (i.e. changing my shirt and brushing my teeth), I noticed that I was bleeding and my big toe was killing me. SOMEHOW, the night before, I got the top part of my big toe sliced off. Someone apparently tried to scalp my toe and it hurt like a bitch.

Since I was up about 10 minutes before Chris showed up, I shoved a bunch of Kleenex over it, threw a sock and my shoe on and sucked it up. This girl needed food.

After our very awesome brunch (if you’ve never met Chris, who no longer has a blog, you’re missing out because she is the loveliest person in the entire world!), I went back to take a nap. This turned out to be a five-hour nap, which had me almost missing the ceremony because I was running so late.

But I made it! It didn’t start on time anyway! And while there, I tried to figure out what happened to my toe, but no one knew. I’m thinking if anyone knows, it’s the cab driver, the bartender or the dude I was with, who wasn’t at the wedding. The world may never know.

The wedding was insane! It was so much fun! I really had a lot of fun with all Rich & Shelby’s friends and I’m so glad I made the long trek out there to be there in person. We danced, we threw fake dollar bills, we went crazy in the photo booth. These are clearly my people and I had nothing to worry about being by myself.

And let’s face it, coming home to boa feathers stuck to your injured toe is really the true mark of a fantastic wedding, is it not?

Congrats Rich! I’m so happy for you and Shelby!

Category: A Dash of the Crazy, A Day in the Life of Me, Gotta Have Friends, Hooch Hilarity, Travel | 7 Comments »
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Posted By Kristabella on May 21, 2012

About two months ago I was sitting on my couch watching The Real Housewives of Orange County and they were doing one of those mud runs. It looked like such fun, so I was determined to find one I could do.

I found one, the Merrell Down & Dirty series, and it was this past Sunday. The race was out by my sister’s house and I somehow convinced her and her friend Amy to run with me. (Thank God, because doing that run alone would have made me cry and just fall into a weeping mess on the grassy field.)

It was hot yesterday. Over 90 and super humid. Even early in the morning. I commented at 7 AM that the temp wasn’t too bad, because it was probably in the upper 70s. But our race wasn’t until 9:30.

We got there super early because my sister and her friend needed to pick up their bibs. One very negative thing I will say about this race (and this might be the only negative thing) is that the packet pick-up and race location were nowhere near each other. I drove an hour out of my way to pick up my bib on Saturday, thinking it would save me lots of time on Sunday morning. It did not. The line on Sunday morning was shorter than the one on Saturday.

So basically by about 7:45, we had our packets and had nothing else to do but wait. We sat in the hot, hot sun and just waited until it got closer to 9:30.

I stayed at my sister’s house on Saturday night, which meant I got to spend some time with my niece Maddie, who is starting to realize I’m the funniest person ever. She has the best baby giggle ever!

When I packed my overnight bag, I was super proud of myself for remembering to pack sunblock, knowing this was the first time my winter white skin would be exposed to the sun for any length of time.

Fast forward to Sunday morning, and I realize that I left my sunblock back at my sister’s house. I almost hear my skin sizzling with this realization. Thankfully my sister went into mom mode and decided to find us some. She asked some guy spraying something on himself if we could borrow it, but realized it was athlete’s foot spray and not sunblock. BUT! Athlete’s foot guy told us the Subaru booth had sunblock. And they did! And my skin was saved!

(I totally registered and added my name to every mailing list they had then, because a million emails is worth the fact that I’m not painfully burnt. Thanks Subaru!)

Finally it was close to 9:30. We got in line. We were in the last heat. I didn’t mind since I am a slow runner and I had no clue what to expect. Close to 10 AM, right when it was getting nice and warm and humid and the lovely breeze was dying down, we finally started the race.

Every time I run, I hate the beginning. It makes me hate running and I never understand why I started this stupid hobby in the first place. Add in a trail on not smooth ground, blaring sun, and I was ready, after about 2 minutes, to turn around. I didn’t.

When I told my sister about this race, she was like “OH MY GOD, THE HILLS!!” She knows this farm where the race was held because she used to live right there and go 4-wheeling on it. When she said this my mind thought “it can’t be that bad, I mean we’re in Illinois for Christ’s sake, it isn’t a mountain range.”

We got one mile into the race and there was our first mud puddle and third obstacle. This was a giant fence to climb. I ran most of the first mile. Until my sister pointed out the hills. And then I realized that those were not hills, they were mountains. With inclines steeper than any street in San Francisco.

Do you see it in the background? THIS WAS NOT THE WORST ONE!

This was the second time I wanted to quit.

I jumped in the giant mud puddle, fell on my ass and then climbed the wall. Mud is heavy. And it was only really on one of my shoes and my hands. But I walked up those hills. I thought I was literally going to die or pass out, but I did it. The worst was getting to the top only to realize there was more to climb.

After the second one, my sister took off. She ran when there wasn’t a hill and I did not. I needed to catch my breath. I figured I’d start running again once the hills ended. But it seemed as if they would never end.

We got to some more obstacles – more climbing – and then I ran into my sister’s friend. I decided to walk with her. From there on out, we walked almost the whole rest of the race in between all the obstacles.

There were 11 obstacles in all. They left like four or five until the very end. And they were like some of the hardest. The ones that required upper body strength were the ones I dreaded most. The climbing wall and the slippery rope wall were right near the finish line. I almost fell off both, but I didn’t. I made it up both.

One of the other final ones was a tarp pit filled with mud. I figured, being tall, that it would come up to my knees and I’d walk through it. Oh, hahahahaha! I couldn’t have been more wrong. I did a combo bellyflop/faceplant into this pool of mud. And then couldn’t figure out how to get back up. It seriously had to be one of the funniest things those people had witnessed all day.

I figured it out, got out of there, ran to the last mud pit and leisurely doggy paddled my way to the finish line. (I kind of forgot it was timed and do you know what is refreshing on a 95 degree day after running 3 miles and doing 10 obstacles? A giant pool of mud. No lie.) (Although, I’ve never been that dirty in my life. There was mud where mud shouldn’t be. It was squishy in my squishy parts.)

It took me one hour and one minute. I’m not proud of my time. I wanted to do better. I want to be able to run in the heat and humidity. My goal is to really train this summer to get myself used to it. I don’t want to be such a wuss again.

But my sister! I’m so proud of my sister, you guys! She had back surgery like a year ago. And she just started running like two months ago when we signed up for this race. And she not only finished, she rocked it and finished ahead of me by like seven minutes. And now she’s hooked and wants to do more races and more mud runs! I’m so proud of her! She did so good!

Overall, it was actually really fun! I’m excited to do another one in July with my SIL and hopefully my sister. And I’m excited to get into training mode and teach my body to deal with this heat and humidity like a normal person.

This race has to be one of the harder mud runs, especially with those hills. The people in charge of the obstacles are all Marines and they don’t let you quit. There is no skipping the obstacles and running around the climbing wall. And they don’t mess around with those obstacles. I didn’t think I could do it. I really didn’t. And I am really glad that I did. And that I have the bruises (and SORENESS, OMG!) to show for it.

Category: A Day in the Life of Me, All in the Family, Run Forrest, Working On My Fitness | 15 Comments »
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Posted By Kristabella on May 9, 2012

This past weekend I spent with a lot of people from my youth. My friend Darcie organized a walk to support a fight against MS. It was out in Naperville. And because that is far and I’m not a morning person, I drove out Saturday evening to spend some time with my friend Darcie, whom I’ve known since I was a shorty. Literally. I was 5-4. She’s known me since before my growth spurt in high school. Which means we’ve known each other for like 20 years. Yikes!

Anyway, for those of you who may not know, I was a band geek in High School. I was in the concert band and the marching band and I even played in the orchestra pit for the school’s musicals. If it was band, I was all about it.

That was until sometime in my junior year. At that point, I enjoyed it enough to finish out my high school career as a band nerd, but I wasn’t as gung-ho. Long gone were my desires of continuing my music career after high school. I was going to put down my saxophone at the end of my senior year and never pick it up again. And that’s just what I did.

My former high school band director, Mr. Snoeck, is currently battling Multiple Sclerosis. Darcie, being a fellow band director herself (she did not stop being a band geek after high school), has stayed close with Mr. Snoeck and they are now colleagues. She wanted to do something for him, so she organized this walk for him and he, along with other people I hadn’t seen since graduating high school in 1995, also showed up.

High school was not the best time of my life. It wasn’t the worst, either. But I didn’t really come into my own and become who I am today until college and the years after. That was when I finally stopped doing the things that I thought I should do, and did the things I wanted to do. I learned what I liked and I did those things. It’s how I ended up working in sports.

So being around all these people from my past was…weird, to say the least. Darcie and I have been friends since puberty, so we will always be friends. If you’re friends with someone that long, it doesn’t just go away. I mean, when I walked in the door of her house she was like “I love that it feels like we saw each other last week, and not like two years ago.” That’s friendship, right there.

But the rest of the people, well, they are all still kind of the same. See, they were already adults and teachers when we were in high school. So they are who they are. And they are into band and music and teaching. And I’m…..not.

I spent most of the walk with one of Darcie’s friends. Because when I had a conversation with one of my old band directors, someone I loved when I was in high school, it was awkward. She asked what I had been up to in the last 15 or so years. I filled her in – Arizona State, 49ers, etc. It was just so forced because I didn’t still play an instrument. I didn’t pursue band after high school. I got as far away from band and music as I could the day I graduated.

And well, that’s where the conversation stopped. I mean, I’m sure there is more we could have discussed. But we don’t have the same interests. And unlike high school me, I didn’t have to be polite and conform and be that band geek. Thirty four year old me wasn’t going to apologize for anything and is damn proud of who she is. So I just walked ahead and found something else to talk about.

Category: Mayor of Band Geekdom | 4 Comments »
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