I’m the Kind of Girl Who…

February 20, 2014 | cheriarmour

I totally stole this idea from I Wore Yoga Pants to Work and Hey, Hollywood: – but I absolutely loved it so well I had to!

So. I’m the kind of girl who..

…despite my vegetarianism, there are so many vegetables I hate. I mean, I really hate so many. These include, but are not limited to, mushrooms (and that’s what people always try to offer vegetarians when there is no other option. Kill me). I also hate cauliflower, the gourds, and certain peppers.

…naps like a damn champ. When I was in college, I used to nap multiple times a day, Now I’m an adult and I really almost never get the change to nap. So when I do get the chance to nap, once or twice a month, I nap for like a thousand hours for the day.

…gets a little obsessive about certain things. Lately I have been shampooing my carpets like the world is going to end. Just did it again last night. And I loved it. I may have a disorder, and I’m completely okay with that.

…works out a ton. I didn’t used to be, but I got sick of being annoyed with my body, and I started working out. It’s amazing. I try and do something every day. I run, I yoga, I do Zumba, I lift, I try and do something, or I go crazy.

…gets in weird moods once in a while. My weird moods usually mean I want to just lay on the couch and do nothing, or I want to pick a fight because I feel kind of irritable. Two nights ago, I was in a weird mood, so I took the dog, and sat on the patio at a sushi restaurant. It really did my soul a lot of good.

…is an awesome cook despite the fact that people say skinny girls can’t cook. I love taking comfort foods, like Mac + Cheese or a Grilled Cheese and turning it healthy.

…loves bright colors. Bright, deep, amazing colors. They make me happy!

…is getting married in a little than 6 months, and is surprisingly relaxed about the whole deal. I honestly can’t wait!

Enjoy, and link up with these bloggers, or link up in the comments below!

Lake Street Dive! And Valentine’s Day recap!

February 16, 2014 | cheriarmour

So I gave you guys the little teaser yesterday. In case you like, forgot or didn’t read it or something I provided that awesome linky for you to review.

But we swapped everything all around Valentine’s Day weekend. Since Lake Street Dive was recently on Colbert Report, and had blown up, the tickets were super sold out, so a lot of my snowy week was spent begging for tickets on the internet, which I found, 4:00 pm the day of the show. So hubby and I headed down to Carrboro, the land of the super-cool and laid back hippies, parked, and headed in for the show.

First, we passed by the Fleet Feet Sports there, and I chatted for a little while with the guy who was closing up the store.

Very pretty store! And we headed in for a sold out show.

We were right up at the front, and it was a super, super sold-out show. Also, side note. It is a CARDINAL SIN to try and push your way to the front of a general admission show when you came in late. Don’t do it or I will say something to you. So serious.

The opening act was awesome, and they were super sweet. Here’s Miss Tess…

Who looked like they stepped right out of the ’50s. Here’s me and the drummer after.

Sweet guy, and we gave him some suggestions on where he could eat in Asheville, where he was headed the next day.

The show was awesome. Rachael Price, lead singer, has a voice that’s like butter, and really really refreshing to hear.

And the best moment of the night?

When me and my Elon University Jazz professor got to meet Lake Street Dive! Can you tell from the photo how excited I am?!

Ugh. I cannot tell you how freaking excited I was.

But the show was awesome, I wish I could have taken you guys out there with me 🙂

And finally, we headed to the Irregardless Café in Raleigh on Saturday for our Valentine’s Day date. I forgot to take a pic for you guys until I’d eaten all the veggies, but this is the vegan shepards pie. Super tasty, and Austin bought us a lot of Prosecco to split. It was really romantic because we got to dance with all the old people to real music. Two nights in a row of good music! How did I get so so lucky?

So I really hope your V-Day weekend was great, and single or taken, I’d love to hear about what you did! How was your Valentine’s Day Weekend?

Here’s what! What three things are you obsessed with this week?

February 14, 2014 | cheriarmour

It’s Friday y’all, and time for my Here’s What!

In case you missed it the past few weeks, here are a few links.

1/31/14

2/7/13

And in case you’re still dumb (jk, jk), my here’s what is my “here’s what three things I’m obsessed with this week,” which I totally stole from Andy Cohen, my American Idol. Andy, please, give me my own show! I need it!!! Okay, here goes though.

Lake Street Dive.

A friend tagged me in this video on the YouTube, and I’ve been obsessed ever since.

Rachael Price is that lead vocalist, and even though the show was totally sold out, I was able to purchase exactly one ticket. I know a few friends are hitting the show too, so I should be able to try to find them, but yes, I love Lake Street Dive enough that I’m just going to go to this show solo dolo.

The weather.

I promise, I’m not lame. Which I have to say because I recognize that it’s pretty lame to be posting about the weather on my blog. But it’s been disgusting, especially by NC standards, and I’ve been forced onto the treadmill more than I’d like this week. Mid next week in good ol’ Raleigh, we will be well into the 70s here. When we had a snow storm and people were abandoning their cars this week. It literally makes no sense. But whatvevs, I’ll take whatever keeps me off the treadmill for a day or two. Raise ya glass for 10 miles on Sunday! Woohoo!

These Minnetonka Boots

I blogged on these a few weeks ago, how I’d been dying for some to add to my collection, so imagine my surprise (delighted surprise), when Austin told me to close my eyes and open a shoe box? They could not be more perfect! Gah, they’re exactly what I needed!

So what three things are you obsessed with this week?

Clark Howard, I’ll let you do your job, let me do mine.

February 14, 2014February 13, 2014 | cheriarmour

During yesterday’s snow day debacle, where I literally spent the entire day inside, blogging, doing laundry, and cleaning. I did not do any running, and for that, I feel extremely guilty. [addendum to this post] I finally couldn’t take it anymore, and Austin and I put on our winter finest, and shuffle-ran to to local coffee joint, grabbed a cup, and shuffle-ran back. My feet are very cold!

But anyhoo, when I was working on the blog and doing my usual scan of Facebook/Twtiter/Bloglovin, I came across this gem by Clark Howard. Clark Howard, if you’re not familiar, is the resident financial guru on HLN, and he offers tips and tricks to “Save More, Spend Less, and Avoid Rip-Offs,” which I’m all game for.

Seriously, as I moved toward getting married and merging finances with another human, I’m working to get better with my finances, as Austin is seriously amazing with money, and I’ve learned a lot from him. So I try not to spend money on stupidity, but I was blown away when I came across this article, that was credited to things Clark Howard had said.

The main premise of the article?

Cheapo sneakers are actually better for runners.

No, no, no-no, no no no no no. Absolutely not. The article credits a Scottish study that somehow concluded that less-expensive shoes are just as good as low cost one.

Full disclosure here. I work for Fleet Feet, and I am biased, however, having run in both $25 shoes and $150 shoes, there is really no comparison. You pay more, your feet feel better.

I consider myself something of specialist when it comes to running shoes (since it’s my job) and I’ve said it once, and I will absolutely say it again. Go to a specialty shoe store, like a Fleet Feet or a Pacers, get a fitting, and pay the full price for your running shoes. If you’re running, there’s no reason you should be pounding around on shoes you found in a Payless.

And now, I present to you a list of stuff you don’t need to be skimping on!

Your bras. Sports bras or not, you don’t want to be turning into a floppy mess by the time you’re 25. Spend the money on something good and supportive, and you won’t regret it.
Your jeans. I’ve purchased jeans from Target, and they smell like mothballs. I’ve purchased designer jeans from a consignment store. Designer digs > Target jeans.
Your vacuum. If you buy it cheap and your ish is gonna break in 6 months anyways, spend the extra bucks and enjoy your vacuum for years to come. I have an Oreck XL that’s like a million years old. I don’t remember how much it cost when it was first purchased, but it’s still going strong.
Your food. Now let me clear, you can certainly afford healthy foods on the cheap. Heads of lettuce, fruits, and juices can be purchased for cheap. But don’t run out to some bargain place and sweep the bottom shelves for Ramen. You’re doing your body no favors.
Obviously, your running shoes. Unless you like bunions and bone spurs. But that’s completely up to you.

So what are you willing to spend your hard-earned money on?

Snow day!

February 13, 2014February 13, 2014 | cheriarmour

I think I was gonna post on something else today, but Raleigh, NC shut down today. Thankfully, yesterday was slated as an off day from marathon training, so I wasn’t really worried about how I was gonna get my run in – that said I am not sure how or where I’m gonna get today’s 8 in because everything is shut down.

I woke up yesterday morning, and it was just straight-up cold. But the school system closed school for the day, so it had to be serious, right?

I drove into work anyway, and worked for a short time before it occurred to me that I didn’t want to be stuck, so I headed home, and immediately set about to taking a nap. When I fell asleep it was cold and dry. And when I woke up, I saw this.

I’m not sure how over 3 inches of snow accumulated in the amount of time it took for me to doze off, but it did.

I stumbled out of my sleep, not realizing how much it snowed, and if you peek in the bottom of that picture, you can see that I wore my nude flats, because I honestly didn’t realize how much it had snowed. Poor Coco didn’t really know what to make of the snow, and during her bathroom break, she actually ran underneath the building so she could find a dry spot to “powder her nose”.

At any rate, the snow day was nice because I actually had time during the day to write and to work on my blog, which, is quickly rocketing to my Top 5 of things I like to do with my time. Can I just go full-time with the blog yet? And it was all fun and games until Austin called and told me he was stuck, and that Raleigh had turned into a version of Atlanta 2.0.

This, my friends, is how the South does winter. Let me tell you what, the South does many things correctly. Biscuits, musicians, and summer nights. All very well done by the South. But winter, winter is not our strong suit. This is literally a few blocks over form my house, and yes, in case you were wondering, that is a car on fire down the hill. Talk about a bad day, right?

So I went into stress mode, thinking about Austin stuck. I thought about hopping into my Lancer and saving him, like a knight(ess) in shining armor, but that quickly was pushed aside, and I kind of just wrung my hands until he was home safe.

As night fell, a really nice ice crust formed over the ice…

And my fur-baby was having absolutely none of it. (How cute are her little footprints, PS)?

How is the weather where you are? How do I navigate my run tomorrow?

Running Hungover

February 10, 2014 | cheriarmour

^^ Not something I would ever suggest. But things happen, right?

I totally got to thinking about this after Monica over at Run Eat Repeat posted this hysterical recounting of how she ran the Palm Springs Half Marathon (in good time, I might add), after taking shots the night before. The best part was this. Her rationale for taking shots was that she should take shots instead of drinking cocktails or beers I’m assuming because you can never be too sure how much was in them. Kinda right. Kinda hysterical, right?

And it reminded me of the time I PR’ed on a half marathon after Beerfest.

So one of my best friends, Melanie, was running her first half, and I wanted to be there in some way. And it just so happened that a friend of ours had signed up for that exact race, but hadn’t really done much to run for it. So she was going to let the bib go to waste! I totally couldn’t let that happen! So I decided on a whim that I would take the bib, run the race, and get another race experience under my belt for spring.

Except, Austin had purchased us tickets for beerfest, which fell on the night before the half.

Essentially what beerfest entailed was going around in a tent, seeing everyone you’ve ever met in your life, eating pretzels and whatever food trucks rolled up with, and drinking every beer ever made available in North Carolina.

I just love that gif. Cause that’s exactly how I felt. Minus the hamburger meat. Michael loved it. I loved it. We all loved it. So my rationale is that I’m going to drink some beer, because my husband-to-be didn’t pay $60 for us to stare at each other all night inside of a dirt floor tent, take a cab home early, drink some electrolytes, and hit the hay so I could rise at 5:30, take a few cute pre-race pictures for the blog, and run the race.

Contrary to what you may think, beer has alcohol in it, and before long, my tiny frame had consumed about 10,000 tiny units of local beers. Not sure what that adds up to in regular beer terms, but it was a lot. So next rational line of thinking, eat a sandwich because that will cure me, and then take a cab home. I did all of this, fixed up a nice refreshing glass of Nuun with all the electrolytes that a girl could desire, and woke up around 5:30 am the next morning to run my race.

Surprisingly, the race was beautiful, I felt fine, and I actually PR’ed on the race – I can’t honestly what tell you came over me, but I assure you, I won’t be trying my luck again. I had enough of a hard time racing Greensboro sober to be playing with my stomach like that!

What’s the worst physical condition you’ve ever run in?

Can I shop in peace?

February 9, 2014 | cheriarmour

I taught a class yesterday morning, like I always do on Saturday mornings, and then headed into Fleet Feet Raleigh to moonlight for the weekend (which I love doing btws).

I ran after class, so I was smelling extra ripe, so I decided to jump in the shower after class to spare my coworkers the pain and suffering of having to smell me for 5 or 6 hours.

This is all to say, I wasn’t looking particularly fine on Saturday afternoon.

Midway through the afternoon, I headed to the mecca for health-conscious 20-somethings, moms with tattoos, and people who smell like patchouli.

Duh.

And I was ordering my pizza sandwich, the sandwich that I eat when I’m feeling like pizza but when I know I don’t need it, when this short sorta frumpy guy sidled up to me.

“Just cause you pretty doesn’t mean you can hold up the line.”

[Polite laughter]

“So what do you order?”

I told him with a polite smile glued to my face.

“So what are you, some type of vegan or something?”

And then his creepy friend rolled up and smiled in a creepy fashion.

“Are you a student athlete?” [He looked my body up and down.]

And the conversation went like this, me politely laughing and trying to ignore Dumb and Dumber whilst they looked my body up and down, a body that, I might add, was barely showered and not looking its best.

I can not express to you how painful it was to get looked up and down while I just tried to order my sandwich. Seriously. Can anyone else empathize with me? Can I shop in peace?

The scam in Acuvue Contact lenses…

January 22, 2014 | cheriarmour

This is about to be a hard-hitting piece on what I feel is a grave injustice!

Okay, it’s not that serious, but it really annoyed me, and you guys tell me if you’ve had this experience.

So I’m blind as a bat. I started wearing glasses in like 4th grade, and my vision has steadily gotten worse, even more so now that I spend the second half of my day glued to my laptop.

My only option at this point is contacts – I work out way too much for glasses, and I think I look pretty stupid in glasses.

So the way it all works, is that when you order 6 months to 1 year in contacts, they tout this rebate as like, the biggest draw EVER to ordering the contacts in bulk. Since I wear dailies, that meant that I had to order a truckload of contacts to get a $35 rebate.

So I apply for the rebate, and I’m notified that it’s going to take 10 weeks to get the rebate. Okay, fine, whatever. At least this time I didn’t forget about the rebate, like they were hoping I did. I got that thing in the mail over the weekend and my “rebate” is a prepaid Citi card with $35 on it that I have to activate, and it expires in a year. I also have to spend all $35 in one place because they charge you per transaction. That rebate sucks. I’m buying my contacts through Walgreens’ website next time.

Moving right along…SNOW! Actually, it was fake snow. Here in North Carolina, we never get good snow, so on my way to the gym last night, the snow was looking pretty serious, but it was for naught. By the time I was done with the gym around 9pm, the snow seemed to have eased up, and was replaced by a bone-chilling wind and cold. Ugh, North Carolina, can’t we get just one good snow before the spring? Please?!

Once I got to the gym, I ran an easy 2 miles, and then hit the studio to take instead of teach a class with the amazing Loretta Bates. I look like a beluga whale next to her, but she is teeny, not only around, but she’s a good half-a-foot shorter than I am. Her class was a blast! It’s so nice to take a class instead of teach one once in a while.

So how are you guys doing today? Enjoying a snow day?

I made a Facebook page! And scenes from the week!

January 21, 2014 | cheriarmour

Yous know I love my social media right? So it only seemed fitting that I’d make a Facebook page for the blog, and folks seem to be enjoying it. So here’s the deal, if you love me, and you’d love to interact with me a little more, do a few things for me:

Read the blog obviously.
Follow me on Bloglovin‘ if you’re a fellow blogger. (Seriously, the most useful tool for keeping me and all my blogs organized and in one place, rather than logging on to every single blog.)
And follow me on my Facebook . It’s a little more interactive, because there’s no real lag time between when you comment or ask me a question, and when you get a response, either from me, or from another informed reader.

Okay, moving right along, I hope you guys had an amazing 3-day weekend. Usually I’m a little more service-oriented and reflective on MLK Day, but since I made a little addition to my family…

…I spent a lot of the day doing laundry, straightening up, vacuuming, and using my degree in Psychology to train my little girl to make sure she only poops outside. She’s doing so well! She’s extremely clingy, and she keeps hurting Austin’s feelings, because she’s glued to me, but she could take or leave my husband-to-be. He texted me yesterday and said “I hope Coco starts to like me more.”

My shadow and I went for a run yesterday morning. She’s very tall, and her hair is long. Is that what I look like?

GoodNESS, these Raleigh hills kicked my butt. Look closely at the end of that road. Mama ran ALL of that.

The legs got to come out yesterday, and probably for the last time all week. They’re predicting snow tonight. Woo-hoo! Raleigh never gets any good snow!

And finally, look at this dinner I snagged last night! Me and the nearly-husband met with some good friends from undergrad at the Remedy Cafe, a little joint that features a lot of local, vegan, and vegetarian items. I went with friend “chicken” and some veg mac and cheese. It was awesome, and I split it in half, added a salad, and brought the rest of it for lunch today.

How was your weekend? Hope it was lovely!

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