My first girls trip!

April 25, 2017April 24, 2017 | cheriarmour

Hi! Hey! What’s up? Do you miss me? Are you wondering if I quit blogging? What am I doing? Maybe not?

So hey, I’m still here. I just have a (not so) newborn, and I’ve been crushing it at work, but not crushing it as much in blogland. Which I absolutely hate, so here we are!

I somehow by the grace of the good lord above ::skin-tone appropriate praise hands:: have survived a few whirlwind weekends of work, travel, and packing the baby and husband into my little compact, and making it back in one piece for work on Mondays. It’s nuts. It’s crazy. It’s fun.

So let’s take it back to a few weekends ago, when I survived my first girls trip!

So a few months ago, a friend who was turning 30 said he wanted to plan something, and he sent out an invite, a date, and a gorgeous photo of a cabin in the Shenendoah State Park area of Virginia. I’d just had Liam, but I was really determined to do something that would require me to leave him at home with dad for a weekend or so, and I figured that early spring would be a good chance to try it. So I talked it over with Austin, confirmed, and since time is accelerating (I swear it is), found myself up early on a Friday morning, packing stuff for me, getting the baby’s stuff together for daycare that day, thawing milk, and finally, heading out of town on a rainy Friday, with my podcasts (S-Town), my audiobooks (Andy Cohen’s Superficial), and my breast pump stuff for the morning and into the afternoon.

My first stop was in Richmond, about 3 hours away from where I am in Raleigh, to have lunch with someone I used to work for. She’d just accepted a position in Richmond, and I stopped just off of 95 with her to have some lunch and to take a pump break before I finished the last two hours or so.

I arrived at the cabin just after dinner (I had to stop at the super Target in Short Pump to pick up some cleaning stuff for my bottles), and was one of the first ones there, along with the birthday boy, and some friends. I ran to my hidey hole upstairs for one more pump break (that was kind of the theme of some of the weekend because OMG) and we started the weekend. We drank, got in the hot tub, I called the hubby and the baby, who were both doing amazing, and we finished off the night by watching RuPaul’s Drag Race (now at a bizarre time on Vh1, which is a discussion for another day), and I fell asleep after promising I wouldn’t, long before everyone else did. Seriously, there is a photo of me dead asleep with my phone still up to my ear (I may have been talking to Austin?!) completely passed our for the night. I was told that someone came in and flipped lights on and off, strobe light style, and I didn’t budge.

The next day, we all woke up, and one of us cooked breakfast. I pumped, ran down our corner of the mountain and back up, and by the time I got back, we were getting ready to do a gorgeous hike in the park. It was rough, and about halfway through, we split off, and half the group headed back, and the rest of us continued to the peak. I was reminded that I don’t entirely do heights (at all), and as we came back down the mountain, it was starting to get a tad darker and a tad chillier. That evening, we cooked dinner, baked a birthday cake for the birthday boy, listened to ALL the music, practiced old tap routines with one of the theater nerds there, some of us got back in the hot tub, and just enjoyed one another’s company. I managed to pump some more and build up a little stash, and major shout out to my friends, who don’t have kids for the most part, but who were ridiculously understanding and curious about what breastfeeding entailed. They are the best.

Sunday was good

Questions I have after finishing OITNB

July 5, 2016July 4, 2016 | cheriarmour

I hope you guys had a really good 4th weekend. I did. We just had a bunch of horrible weather, so my brother and Austin painted the baby’s room, and started setting up some more stuff in there.

That would be great, except now, with a fresh, beautiful coat of paint in the baby’s room, I hate the way the rest of my house looks, and I really want the rest of the house painted, the nasty old couches gone, and the carpet ripped up and replaced with hardwoods in the back of the house.

IMG_8805 (1).JPG — Every single one of our three pets sleeps like this on the couch. It’s foul. When we get a new couch, I don’t know what we’re going to do.

That’s not a tall order, is it?

Ok, so over the weekend, we finally finished season 4 of Orange is the New Black, or OITNB. If you have not yet finished, I need you to stop reading. I’ll post a pregnancy update separately later today, but I don’t want to spoil things for you. So stop reading. STOP READING.

Ok, so I kind of want to go back and watch all the seasons straight through, and that might be my next watch while I’m on the treadmill, when I can’t trick friends into hopping on and gossiping with me. But it started off lightly enough to the point where I secretly thought that Litchfield seemed kinda like camp.

This season however, it because really really apparent that Jenji was moving more into the realm of social commentary, similarly to what she did with Weeds, and things got terrible. Like way too real. So here are the questions that I have. Some of these are observations.

Linda, Caputo’s gf is a terrible human being. This is not a question. But an observation. She is awful. I hate her stupid haircut. I hate her disregard for the inmates. I HATE that she pulled a gun on Sophia’s wife. She is awful.
Speaking of awful people, when I got a sense that something bad was going to go down, I was kind of hoping that something would happen to Piper. She absolutely sucks. Now, I did feel terrible for her when she got burned, because it was really mean and I get why Ruiz was upset, but I feel like it knocked her down a peg or two. I mean, she unwittingly (ish) started a white supremacist group in prison. I knew she was selfish before, but this is just awful. (Also reminds me of how selfish Nancy Botwin was. And we all still rooted for her because it’s Nancy, and she always lands on her feet).
Is Daya gonna do it? Shooting someone, execution-style, makes you an awful person. But that guard is disgusting and brought a gun into the prison. But her mom would be heartbroken from outside of the prison, right?
What did Piscatella do that landed him at a women’s low-security facility after working at a men’s max. It had to be bad, right? I also didn’t realize how badly he sucked. But he is just awful.
What’s going to happen to Judy King? Things weren’t looking food for her there at the end. And when the inmates quickly figure out that she was on her way out (she was wearing a jacket and holding her belongings in a box), they’re not going to be happy. Especially since they didn’t get their payout from the photo yet and Judy got the Martha Stewart treatment at camp cupcake. Which I know to be a fact – while I was in social work, one of my clients was at camp cupcake and told us how Martha was lovely and would cook using hair straighteners.
Poussey. 😦
How is MCC going to cover up a dead guard AND a dead inmate? Looks like the “secret” about the dead inmate is out (I call it a secret since it took them forever to report it to local police). Will the guard thing every be revisited or are we all going tot pretend that they didn’t dig a body out of the garden?

Those are my questions for now. Let me know if you have any thoughts/answers for me, I’m dying to hear what others think.

Thoughts on Season 4 of OITNB?

What did you do this weekend?

Weekend Update!

April 19, 2016 | cheriarmour

This (last?) weekend went by entirely too fast. I could have extended it at least by one day, but that’s never really how things work, right?

So, many weeks ago, a friend of mine, Erin, decided that she wanted to run her first half-marathon. After discussing it in the group chat (my primary source of news and entertainment throughout the week), Erin and Liz decided that they would run the More/Shape Women’s Half Marathon in NYC. The rest of us decided to tag along, and make something of a weekend of it and spectate the race.

Really, the weekend started on Thursday evening. Because I knew I’d be in the airport for a good chunk of the day on Friday, I needed to put in some hours of work after my class on Thursday night, and I set about to do that. I sent emails and worked on May’s schedule into the night, slept for a few hour, and made it up for my 5:45am Pump class. From there, I ran home, showered, packed, and called an Uber to get me to the airport, where I proceeded to sleep through two flights. By the time I made it to Jersey and to the house in Sayreville, I was exhausted again, and napped on the couch until folks started arriving home from work. My aunt made us an amazing meal, and my cousin and I attempted to watch the first epi of Kimmy Schmidt before I completely passed out so hard, I had to keep myself from panicking when I didn’t realize where I was the next morning. I lazed around on Saturday, went to the park for a walk with my cousin, and got out the door for dinner with race friends in the city.

I friggin FORGOT how annoying it is to drive into the city, btws. A ride that was supposed to take me like 40 minutes, ended up taking well over an hour when I got stuck in traffic in the Holland tunnel. Blah. But we grabbed some italian, grabbed some ice cream from Big Gay Ice Cream, and headed to the hotel to hit the sack for our 5:45am wake up the next morning for the race. After heading to the start (and spotting Sara Bareilles and Padma Lakshmi), we saw the girls off for the start, around 6 miles, and then squatted at a Pain Quotedian and met a friend of mine from camp to meet the girls at the finish. We surprised Erin at dinner the night before with these shirts we had made, so we all wore them, and made sure we snapped pics.

We finished the day with some burgers, (a ridiculously hearty black bean for me), annd parted ways back at the hotel.

I did not leave without the parking garage losing my car and Andrew and Ryan having to find it. I did my best not to panic and remember that if they lost the car, there were really worse things in the world, and that it could totally end up being a funny story. Fortunately, we didn’t have to make it quite that far.

And now, I’m here sitting in the airport late, waiting for my last flight home, where I can shower and get into my own bed.

What did you do this weekend?

Valentine’s Day Plans!

February 12, 2016February 11, 2016 | cheriarmour

First up, I know I’ve talked about this place, Happy & Hale here before on the blog, but I have to sing its praises once again.

Lots of changes going round in the Samples household, and as a result, I’ve had to work really really hard to stay on track with a decent diet and stuff. More on that later.

But I was really in a rush on Tuesday to get a good lunch in that didn’t involve anything gross, anything friend, and was quick, and the first thought was Happy & Hale.

I did my usual, a quinoa bowl (without the onions) and here was the finished product.

I’ve seen Katherine, the nutritionist here, a few times, and she is highly encouraging of incorporating lots and lots of color in each meal. This meal TOTALLY has it. I mean, it’s gorgeous to look at. Unfortunately for me, this was a lot of fiber, so I had to watch the fiber at dinner and do something that was a little less psyllium-y. TMI.

Valentine’s Day Plans.

I think this is the first V-Day that we don’t have something special planned, but I really think I’m okay with that.

In years past, we’ve always done dinner around Valentine’s, and given little gifts, but nothing super major. This year, despite my efforts to get to bed much, much earlier than I have, I still am battling some fatigue as I adjust to earlier start times, and we’re looking forward to dinner in and making our way around Lake Johnson that day. It’s boring, but it works for us.

One thing I will ask my hubby really really nicely for is a mani/pedi. That’s still one of my favorite treats in the world. I’ll happily oblige with his favorite treats (probably a trip to Harbor Freight to buy more things to put in the shed).

What are your plans for Valentine’s Day?

Stevie Wonder part trois!

November 18, 2015November 17, 2015 | cheriarmour

This weekend, I celebrated my 28th birthday.

The weekend was absolutely bananas though, and it’s not entirely my fault.

So months ago, I got an email from Loretta Bates’ assistant to see if we’d be willing to schedule a training on the weekend of November 14th. Of course, right? We have a great relationship, and I’d love to have Loretta at our facility for the Zumba B1 Training.

So then, I’d scheduled my Body Pump training for the weekend FOLLOWING. (I did it again because I really haven’t used the skills from my first training).

Also, I got word that Stevie Wonder was going to be in Charlotte on the 14th. No worries, I can make this all work.

Well, long long story short, the Body Pump training was inexplicably moved back to the weekend of the 14th. So on Saturday morning, I woke up early, set our folks up for the Zumba training, ran OVER to State to take the Body Pump training, got OUT of the training, and drove down to Charlotte to see Stevie wonder with my dad.

I was exhausted, but the concert was so worth it. It started off a little – and I don’t want to say annoying because that’s not the right word – but it was a little nerve-wracking. Because of the horrible tragedies in Paris on Friday night, security was really nuts, and we ended up standing in a HUGE crowd for a while before the concert started. I actually tweeted the venue, and begged them not to start the show, and they didn’t. I think that’s more on Stevie though. [Before you start to think I’m really narcissistic, the reason why the security was nerve-wracking was because we were standing in a really antsy, quasi-angry crowd, and I was SO afraid of either being trampled, or something else horrible happening. But perhaps that’s just my anxious mind speaking.]

But the show did not at all disappoint. I think my favorite part was when…well dang. I don’t think I can pick a favorite. But I loved the feeling that I was completely lost in the music. I could have stayed there all night, and not noticed. But instead, I had to wake up around 4am, and head back to Raleigh to finish my Pump Cert.

I think it was the love of Jesus that got me through Sunday. I rocked my tracks, passed the cert, and got one of the best compliments I’ve ever gotten in life.

I was told that I had a magnetic personality. Ugh. That makes me freaking tear up. I don’t know why. But it’s nice to hear nice things about yourself.

After I got home (and this is the actual day of my birthday), I poured a glass of wine, noshed on some chips and salsa, and laid down on the couch. Austin came in, sweetie pie that he is, and dropped off some more wine, some kombucha, and a really sweet card for me. But the sweet thing was that he let me SLEEP off the weekend, and sort of tiptoed around the house.

Later, he and my brother took me out to froyo, and later, dinner at a Coquette, a french place here.

I’m not huge on birthdays, but it was so good, and it felt good, throughout the weekend, to be acknowledged. I think it’s really easy to sort of get down on yourself. My house is messy, I can’t get everything I want to get done done in a day, my clothes are rumpled – but it’s so so nice to remember that you’re enough.

You might not have seen Stevie Wonder for the 3rd or 4th time, but what did you do this weekend?

My weekend.

September 21, 2015September 21, 2015 | cheriarmour

First off.

I’m really sad. I want to just be sad for a second ok.

Austin is back in China for the week, and I really hate it. I absolutely hate it.

He left on Saturday morning – I dropped him off at the airport and it was hard. The trip was pretty last-minute, and I could tell he didn’t want to go. When we were kissing goodbye, we both were really bummed, and there may have been some tears.

I drove home, and managed to squeeze in a really quick run before I headed to Fleet Feet to help out for the weekend. It was good for me to get a little distracted, and my entire family, including my brother-in-law, stopped in for a shoe fitting really quickly toward the end of the day. Debbie’s a big big walker, and Kimmy, a big dancer and tumbler, is working to be able to cheer professionally in Charlotte.

Family — Which one of us do you think is the oldest? The youngest? What do you think my siblings do for work?

As soon as I got home after a day at Fleet Feet, Kimmy and I did what we do best, and headed to a bar to grab a few drinks and to catch up. It was around the corner from the house, so after our drinks, me and Kimmy laid down in the bed and watched some cable on-tv movies, and decided we were going to head out for sushi.

Thankfully neither me nor Kimmy were driving, because we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly, and probably drove Debbie and Luigi nuts by insisting they take us to Harris Teeter to buy a bunch of stuff for brunch on Sunday morning. So Kimmy and I, buzzed, flitted our way through Harris Teeter, working off of a list we’d made during dinner. We tossed champagne, biscuits, orange juice, bacon, and all the necessities for brunch in the cart, and managed to get home, drink another, and I had a sleepover with Kimmy.

Biscuits — The seconds before this thing pops? Literally the scariest seconds of life.

We turned into our Aunties literally, and got up at 8:30, and cooked for a while until Debbie and Lu, my brother and his roommate, and MY college roommate, Mackenzie, got together to eat up a storm, drink, and laugh on a Sunday morning.

Throughout the day, I managed to text Austin a bit, and figured out Skype on my phone and got to see his face before he started his day in China.

So that was my weekend. What did you do this weekend?

Weekend Update!

August 17, 2015August 16, 2015 | cheriarmour

Full disclosure. This post contains some affiliate links. Cause mama needs to pay these student loans down, times is hard!

The next few weekends are going to be banana-rama, so you should definitely be reading along nonstop because it’s all good interesting stuff. Plus I finally did my eyebrows so I don’t look as werewolfy as usual, so you may have some pretty things to look at!

So moving right along. This weekend was really really jammed, but all with good stuff!

On Friday, I worked for the first part of the day – sent emails, and sent the September scheduling requests out to my team. I started getting the warm fuzzies on Friday. I really truly love my job. I waited for such a long time for a job like this one, and I was so upset during the time when I was job searching, but I think it was worth the wait, and the big guy upstairs and the universe knew when I would be ready to take on this team. And what an incredible team it is.

^^ all that to say, I looked up on Friday from my work, and realized that I was running behind what I was supposed to be, and I had to quickly rush home and rush into the shower so I could get ready for my father-in-law’s retirement party (which they combined with my stepmother’s birthday party). After my dress didn’t show up for the event, I just threw something together, and we drove the two hours down to Albermarle to party.

Dan, my FIL, flew for 41, count ’em, forty-one years! It was pretty cool to see. One observation I did make, however, is that there aren’t a lot of black pilots. I was the only black person in a room of 175, and it got me thinking – perhaps this is the next place we need to encourage folks of color to go – just a thought!

So Saturday, I rushed to get a run together and busted open my Rent the Runway (RTR) just in time for the wedding of someone I have known since I started school at Elon University. That’s a solid 10 years of friendship!

So I rented this dress, and funny enough, a friend of mine wore the same dress at my wedding last year! The dress was comfy, really forgiving, and I was not at all expecting the sheer volume of compliments I received on the dress. I think mostly, people were just in shock because I wasn’t wearing dirty workout tights and I actually fixed my face for once.

Austin and I have had a pretty calm wedding season, and this was the first wedding of the year we went to. The ceremony was at a church that was close to Elon, and then we all hopped on buses and limos to head the reception, where we enjoyed food, dancing, and fireworks under a tent.

We partied, then headed home where my brother was still up packing some things. I quickly hit some push-ups…

And hit the sack where Austin and I actually got the chance to sleep in for the first time in a million years. It felt so so good!

I finished off the weekend by helping my brother set up his apartment which is literally like 3 or 4 miles from here. We helped him pick out the best tv for the value, and while I was there, I found a stack of some familiar HD antennas…

The associate saw me looking at them and told me that they were the “best”. Duh fool, I know! And it sounded like their Leaf-30 was all gone – I couldn’t find any on the shelves, and another associate walked up and told me that they were flying off the shelves with all the college kids moving in. Yay! (Can you tell that I’m sort of a big fan of the Leaf? May have something to do with my husband’s engineering skills…)

Whew! Okay what did you do this weekend?

Weekend Update!

August 4, 2015 | cheriarmour

Hey.

I’ve missed you guys a lot. But things have been sort of bananas around the house – we’re finally, almost a full year after moving in to our first home together, starting to get things set up. Our next order of business is for Austin to order and go pick up office furniture from the Ikea in Charlotte, and I’m measuring for/ordering curtains from overstock. Austin told me I can start thinking about my she-shed if we get the house set up, so you know I’m on it.

I’m a terrible homemaker.

June 22, 2015June 21, 2015 | cheriarmour

Hi everyone!

For anyone keeping up with my sober June deal, you’ll be please to know that I am still sober, and it’s such not a big deal, that there really is not reason to update you on it. I feel good, and I think after getting over the initial fear that you’ve shot all your friendships in the foot by not drinking, it really isn’t bad. I think Nene of RHOA recently went on Kelly and Michael to talk about her experience with her cleanse and she said this, according to E! Online.

“So I go and I have all these tricks,” she revealed. “I said water in a wine glass. Last night I went to the Polo Club here in New York and I said, ‘I’ll have a Red Bull’ and they were like ‘We don’t have a Red Bull but we will send someone down the street.’ So they got me a Red Bull and I wanted it in a wine glass. Everything to make me feel like I’m having a cocktail.”

I totally agree, and have had a much easier time when I can go in with a trick that keeps me hydrated, and also keeps folks off my ass with questions about what I’m doing. Austin asked me the other day if I’ll keep it up, and I imagine that after this 30 days, my drinking will look a little different than it did before.

Weekend Updates

I hope you guys had a good weekend. I took a little break from the blog because with all the devastating news last week, largest of all, the massacre out of Charleston, I really didn’t feel like it was at all appropriate for me to be blathering on about the minutiae of life when a monster had taken the lives of 9 innocent people in Charleston. The thing I keep thinking of is when I saw Stevie Wonder in April, and he sat down at his piano, and started his nearly 4-hour concert with Love’s in Need of Love Today. This act in Charleston was one of pure madness and hatred, and there is nothing that’s more ugly or evil. It reminds me to keep living each day to the fullest.

Ok, I’m sorry, I’ll get off my soapbox now.

Switching gears, this weekend was really lovely because I got to teach a bunch and spend a lot of time with my sweet, sweet husband, which we sometimes don’t get to do on the weekends as much. When we woke up on Saturday, I headed out to teach a Cycling class, and then went in and taught a Zumba class straight after, while Austin tried to coax the lawnmower back to health. (He broke it last weekend). When I got home, it was naptime, and then I headed out for a very short run before finally cleaning the house, which had gotten gross over the week.

Sunday morning, I met up with Amy, who trains at the Y, for about 6 miles in the State Park.

It was hot and sticky, and the horseflies were out in full force, but we really zipped along, and I noticed that my knee wasn’t absolutely killing me the entire time. I’ve been really afraid to go hard with a possible meniscus tear in my knee, but since it’s looking like the process of getting it fixed will be a really slow one, I’m staying cautious on it, but not halting all activity. I’m really hoping, if I need a repair on the knee, to do it around the holidays so I can lay low for a while and start training in the late winter and in the spring for any late spring or fall races I want to do.

The one lesson that was reinforced to me this past weekend?

I’m a terrible homemaker.

And it’s not like I don’t love a clean, fresh space, because who doesn’t, right? But the actual consistent action of cleaning up, running a vacuum, clearing mail off the island, changing out the Plug-Ins, sweeping the floor, and throwing in a load of laundry and timing it perfectly so that I can fold it while I’m watching Netflix at night completely escapes me. It frustrates me because a cluttered space makes me really crazy, and I know it frustrates my husband as well, so I really really need to brainstorm a system where I’m doing something cleaning related each day so my house doesn’t straight up get gross. I feel like I’m just not wired to do this stuff though. I’d much rather be writing a letter to my grandmother, or blogging, or running. Washing clothing? Not so much….

How was your weekend? What did you do? Are you good at house stuff?

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