Happy New Year!

| cheriarmour

Goodbye 2013.  I’m not too sad to see you go.  And I feel like everyone I’ve talked to had one of the most intense years in their life.  And for me, it was no different.

But enough about all that.

Last night, we threw one heck of a New Years Eve party to say goodbye to 2013 (good riddance kinda), and usher in 2014, in what I hope will be one of the best years ever.

NYE
We made some nachos that we (I) inhaled for the festivities.

This is all we have left of a night that was full of laughter, music, champagne, and these amazingly stunning cupcakes that a friend made and brought.  They were tangy and champagny and awesome.

Cupcakes
The guest who brought these said she was planning on these for her sister’s shower. Can I get an invite please? They were so licious!

I only had one of these.  I also stole two extras and hid them in the fridge where no one could find them.  Woops!

So I’m embarking on my first run of 2014, and feeling loved, happy, and extremely hopeful about the upcoming year.  I am so thankful for good friends, good cupcakes, good running, and good alcohol.

 

No more Blackfish!

| cheriarmour

Seriously.

I’ve watched it like 3 times since it started streaming on Netflix.

That’s sort of my personality to be a little all-or-nothing, and to add to this, I’ve always be fascinated by marine life, so much so, that I swore after I told everyone that I was going to be a veterinarian, that no, I was to be a marine biologist.  All of this happened in the fourth grade, by the way.

But no more, because I dreamed last night that my family’s beach house (and we don’t have a beach house in real life) was being attacked by killer whales.  I’ve got to stop with Blackfish.

Moving right along, however.

For the last run club of the year, I was joined by none other than my husband-to-be, an old friend from high school, and a new friend from my job!  Yay!

nogAnd I hear it’s New Years Eve, no?

Enjoy your last runs of 2013, enjoy your day at work some of you, and see you in 2014!

 

What was your workout tune of 2013?

| cheriarmour

Fitsugar posted this sweet list of the “Top Pop Workout Tunes of 2013,” and I’ve brought it to you!

  1. “Timber” — Pitbull, Ke$ha
  2. “Roar” — Katy Perry
  3. “Safe and Sound” — Capital Cities
  4. “Blurred Lines” — Robin Thicke, T.I., Pharrell
  5. “Pompeii” — Bastille
  6. “Work B**ch” — Britney Spears
  7. “Demons (Remix)” — Imagine Dragons
  8. “Best Song Ever” — One Direction
  9. “The Monster” — Eminem, Rihanna
  10. “White Noise” — Disclosure, AlunaGeorge
  11. “Don’t Save Me” — Haim
  12. “Get Lucky” — Daft Punk, Pharrell
  13. “Slow Down” — Selena Gomez
  14. “Under Control” — Calvin Harris, Alesso, Hurts
  15. “Wake Me Up” — Avicii
  16. “Mirrors” — Justin Timberlake
  17. “Burn” — Ellie Goulding
  18. “Wild” — Jessie J, Big Sean
  19. “Applause” — Lady Gaga
  20. “Can’t Hold Us” — Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
  21. “I Love It” — Icona Pop
  22. “We Can’t Stop” — Miley Cyrus

So, I find these kinds of articles totally interesting, because I love my pop, and I love love matching up to see how many of these I hit in my workout playlist.  Funny enough, when I went back and checked my Spotify, I’d hit a really good number of these.

So, as a total side note,  for those of you kind of new to figuring out the easiest way to do your music on your treadmill or long run, Spotify, is the total jam.  I discovered Spotify like 3 years ago.  Basically, when you do the free version, you have access to every single song you can think of across the world for free.  I pay about $9.99 a month to access Spotify premium, which allows me to access the songs when I’m not connected to WiFi, and it’s been really awesome for me, not only to create sweet playlists for me to race to, but also to create and explore new music for me to bring to my Zumba classes.  Because I can switch which country I’m based out of too, I can pull new Latin music for my classes from the top songs from Mexico, Cuba, and Spain.  It’s pretty sweet!

But I digress.

SpotSpotify was kind enough to sum up my year, and as you can see, there were a few songs I couldn’t get enough of, especially when racing and working out, including Pegate Mas, Balada, Kiss You (for all you 1D fans), Blurred Lines, and the ever classy F*ck You by Lily Allen.

So,

What were your workout tunes of 2013? 

 

I’m trying to convince my mother to open an Etsy store.

| cheriarmour

Not cause she’s like hard up or poor or anything, but when I was at home for the past few days, I was tooling around on my mom’s iPad, and I found the cutest picture ever.

Monkeys

 

So for years, Nadege has been a wonderful knitter, but this time, she’s truly outdone herself!  Not only has she knitted some incredibly friendly-looking monkeys, they’re playing the piano too?! This is really too much.

So while I work on her about this Etsy store, help me to convince her.

On a scale of 1-10, 10 being like “ABSOLUTELY YESSSSSS,” how much should my mom open a store of her cute handmade toys? If the answer is anything less than a 10, seriously, don’t bother answering.  

Happy Belated Christmas, folks!

| cheriarmour

I think it’s the law that the WiFi in your childhood home has to, has to, be incredibly horrid, so I’m blogging a little late from the McDonald’s a few minutes from the border of South Carolina.

I’m avoiding eye contact with like 4 youths who’ve taken an interest in me, and seem to be trying to catch my attention.  I’m wearing my headphones and pretending I can’t hear them – but nothing is really playing.

But I digress.

I hope your Christmas, or whatever you celebrate, was wonderful.  Mine was really really nice.

I started with some Redbox action with my brother upon my arrival.  We watched that Melissa McCarthy/Sandra Bullock cop movie, ‘The Heat’, which I was totally sure was gonna be hysterical, but it was honestly a little off-putting.  There wasn’t a minute in the movie that you didn’t hear the f-word.  Now don’t get me wrong, I totally live for some some dirty language, but it was really too much for my delicate sensibilities.

Christmas Day, I woke up, and once we got everyone up, we started opening presents.  The fan fave?  This:

Soda Stream

The Soda Stream!  My pops, like me, is a huge fan of some seltzer, and we got into making a few glasses before we even started breakfast.  My dad kept looking at his glass and saying, “This is amazing!”

So I’m pretty sure I went with the right choice.

So knowing that I’d be probably indulging in a few more cookies than I usually do, I made sure to hit the run in some way, shape, or form a few times while here at home.  So when I was sent out for our Christmas dinner, some key Chinese dishes (veggie lo mein, sesame chicken for my brother, and general tso’s chicken for my dad), I put in the order, and left the restaurant on foot to make sure that I wouldn’t make an excuse to skip my run.  I ran around the back of the building….and right onto a golf course.

Golf 1

Seriously.  I ran, and found myself on a golf course, and it almost looked like another planet, with the amount of balls (hee hee) that were back there.

Golf 2

Like, doesn’t that look just like Mars or something?  So my quick run turned into one that was a little longer, around a local golf course as the sun went down.

Golf 3As predicted, I ate a few more cookies than I planned to before I went to bed last night and watched some Sherlock Holmes with my brother, so this morning, I hit it again, with some time on the treadmill, followed by some time spent with weights.

Some of today’s highlights?

  • I got to be lazy, aside from my workout, which was fabulous.
  • I used the Starbucks gift card that my mom got me!
  • I went to the Whole Foods in Charlotte, and they have a wine bar there.  A glass was on special for like $3.00, so of freaking course I indulged!  I also walked around, picked some produce with my mom, ate lunch from the hot bar, and got some handmade soap, which is super spensive, but awesome.
  • And I found my wedding dress today!  I’m keeping it super secret, otherwise, I’d post a little pictorial evidence for you.

So onword and upword!  Next up!  New Years!

What are your New Years plans?  Any running related ones?

Merry Christmas Eve!

| cheriarmour

A quick check-in with you all.

Hope everyone is having a great holiday.  I’m finally tucked in in Charlotte with most of the family, but not before I put in a full day in Raleigh.

I started with a plan to leave the homestead for my parents’ around 12 noon, but that was not to be.

Thankfully, I don’t think my mom will be reading this before she gets her gift tomorrow morning, but my dad asked me to stop by the Best Buy to pick up something called the Google Chromecast.  Little did I know that this was such a hot item in Raleigh, North Carolina.

I hit the Best Buy on Capital.  Nope.

I hit the Best Buy near my home. No way.

Wal-Mart told me they had them.  I drove there.  They did not.

I hit Tiger Direct.  They didn’t even stock the item.

I tried the AT&T store.

And finally, I had to call my sister in Charlotte to run to the Best Buy near my parents’, hours after I’d embarked on my journey.

Cooked a little tofu, banged out a nap, and stole away for a few miles before I had to get into the Lancer (which someone hit in the parking lot of Best Buy while I was trying to make my way back home, at this point, almost with tears in my eyes).

Greenway
A swollen Crabtree Creek after a night full of rain.

And…

Greenway 2
Some chilly greenway – if nothing else, Raleigh is hilly!

Anyhoo, I made it. Have a Happy Holiday! I will check in with you guys soon!

Dinn

| cheriarmour

20131223-210644.jpg

After the crap I put into my body last night, (the sweets and the alcohol), as the result of a holiday celebration, I decided to drain some tofu, sauté some green beans, bread the tofu with a few bread crumbs, and just keep it simple for dinner. What’d you make?

Old school blogging: Holiday Edition

| cheriarmour

I saw this on Olive’s blog last week, and this cute little survey has been making the rounds since then, so I thought today might be a good time to play.

1 Holy Night or 8 Crazy Ones? (Do you Celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, both?)

Our family (my maiden family, I suppose you call it), celebrate Christmas, but the past few years, we’ve added a little bit of a New York touch.  When we were kids, all of our Jewish friends would get Chinese food and go to the movies on Christmas, so we started adopting this tradition to avoid the huge kitchen cleanup after.

Peppermint or Chocolate?

In a York Peppermint Patty, I’m going for both.  But generally, I hate for peppermint to be involved in anything other than my toothpaste.

Sing us into the Holiday Season, what is your favorite Carol this time of year?

I love the Jackson 5 Christmas album, and I’ve always loved their version of ‘Up on the Housetop’.  It’s so sassy!

Tell us about a Favorite Family or Personal Holiday Tradition.

I love eating Chinese Food and watching a Redbox with my family.  It’s very New York.  It’s very summer camp with my Jewish friends.   And it’s my favorite.

C’mon you remember your favorite  (Christmas, Hanukkah) gift, tell us all about it:

Debbie got me a Starbucks gift card last year for like $150.  I know people say gift cards are impersonal, but that gift was personally made for me.

That magical moment? (Your favorite scene from a Holiday movie…it’s okay if you have 2)

I love the scene from ‘Love Actually’ where…you know what?  Who am I kidding, that entire movie is like a delightful treat.

Kissing under the mistletoe?  Who do you hope is standing underneath (We know it’s normally your spouse, if it did not have to be, who would you choose?)

  1. Austin Samples.

But if for some reason the following people appeared under the mistletoe, I would have to take one for the team and accept that kiss.

  1. Denzel Washington
  2. Channing Tatum
  3. Adam Levine
  4. Will Smith

21-jump-street-quote_03152012_142911

 

Swans a swimming, lords a leaping, golden rings; which gift of the 12 days of Christmas would you like most?

5 (rose) golden rings designed by Jeanine Payer, one of my favorite designers in the world, who is closing her doors come January 😦

Play Secret Santa, what inappropriate gift would you love to give this year?

I love making people uncomfortable.  I think I would love to send Austin Samples, my husband-to-be, sexy pictures of Justin Bieber.

Martha Stewart or the Grinch? What is your decorating style? (Pictures would be awesome!)

College chic.  As in, I have not decorated since the days of yore at Elon University with my dear roomie.  I think we had a little pink x-mas tree in our apartment.

What is ONE WORD that defines the holiday season for you? (Examples: Believe/Wonder/Bah Humbug?)

Family.  Food.

If Santa could assure its delivery, what’s the first thing on your holiday wish LIST?

A PUPPY!

Now your turn to do a little LiveJournal style blogging!