Mondays...My Saturdays!

I feel great today!  Ran 3.34 miles this morning with my mom...well the first half mile or so and then I took off and left her in the dust.  I am just stoked that I did not get a side cramp this time!  Took me about 33 minutes this time.  I have got to get consistent since I have that 3.47 mile obstacle course on Saturday.

I started using this new app that I have on my Nook and my Droid called "Lose It".  It is a great app to track your food and exercise and the calories you consume and burn.  I have not really played around with it much so I am not sure if you can keep track of your water consumption.  It is pretty awesome that you can actually scan the barcode of the food you are eating and it will pull up all the nutritional information and then you do not have to insert it yourself!

Until next time!

Day 8: What Is In Your Handbag?

I almost think that it would be a shorter list of what is NOT in my bag!  Here is what is in there at this very moment!

Sunglasses (usually kept in my car so I do not forget or lose them)
Wallet
iPod Classic w/Skull Candy ear buds (blue)
Allergy pills/EpiPen (in case I get stung by a bee)
Car Keys (w/key tags for Aerie, Best Buy, Fred Meyers, Hot Topic, Rite Aid, Vision Quest, and Vitamin Shoppe)
Night guard (I tend to grind my teeth or lock my jaw up when I drive)
Work Keys
Aleve (for all those times I hit my head)
Nail file
Sharpie, Pen, and Pencil
Lighters
Watch
Spare set of car keys
Extra gum (Apple Pie flavored)
Pony tail holders
"The Shack" by Wm. Paul Young
Glasses
Two notebooks (1 for thoughts and 1 for recording my mileage on my running shoes)
Lotions and hand sanitizer
Bloggie
Chapstick/lip gloss
Travel Hair brush
Mints (Eclipse and Ice Breakers)
Business Cards
Zippo
Combination lock (from boot camp...and I still know the combo!)
Oh Yeah! bar (Peanut butter and Caramel)

Usually my cell and my Nook are in my bag too BUT they are both on the charger at the moment!

Day 7: Your Pet Peeves

I cannot stand the sound of anything popping...knuckles, knees, any and all joints popping actually.  Now if it happens by accident then no problem but if you are like my sister who can and does pop every joint in her body then it makes me nauseous.

Anyone that sucks snot...and then spits.  Disgusting!

Nails on a chalk board...'nuf said!

Stupid people!

Lazy Sunday drivers...on Wednesdays.

Hey Seattle drivers...it rains like 370 days a year...figure out how to drive in it damn it!

I cannot stand being interrupted.  It happens constantly.  I try to have a conversation with someone and another person walks up and starts talking as if I am not even there.  I hate it and it hurts.

Anyone who drives under the speed limit...especially more than 10 under...and even more especially on the freeway.

Jerks who try to control everything.

No shows to my Zumba classes.  Does not matter if it was a holiday or anything.  I know that I have passion and that I am good at what I do but it still stings when no one shows up.

I am sure that there is more but I am exhausted and if I think of more, I might add it!

Day 6: Your 5 Senses Right Now

I am not quite sure what it is exactly that I am supposed to be writing about with this one.  So I guess this is my interpretation of this.

Sight - So my eyes are on the computer screen and sometimes they gaze up at my TV because I have Daria playing!
Sound - I hear the current Daria episode.
Touch - I am touching the keyboard and move my hair away from my face.
Taste - I do not really taste anything right now but I am very much considering a snack even though I just finished dinner a little over an hour ago.
Smell - My mom got me this pink champagne candle for Christmas or something and it smells really pretty!

Day 5: 10 Songs You Love Right Now

#1:  "Shinin' On Me" by Jerrod Niemann
#2:  "Apple Pie Moonshine" by Jake Owen
#3:  "5-1-5-0" by Dierks Bentley
#4:  "Banjo" by Rascal Flatts
#5:  "The Race Is On" by Sawyer Brown
#6:  "Are You Gonna Kiss Me or Not" by Thompson Square
#7:  "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" by Lady Antebellum
#8:  "Postcard From Paris" by The Band Perry
#9:  "Honeybee" by Blake Shelton
#10:  "The Cowboy In Me"  by Tim McGraw

There are a lot more but I guess this would be my 10 right now.

Day 4: What Are You Afraid Of?

What am I afraid of?  Well the one that I get teased about a lot is being afraid of the dark.  I know.  I am 28 years old and I am afraid of the dark.  I am almost terrified!  It is not just the dark like when the sun goes down or when the lights are out at night.  NOTHING good every happens in the dark.  I have said that to numerous people and they all say, "But you have sex in the dark."  Yeah but it is not pitch black dark.  The street lights outside the window shed some light.  My alarm clock sheds some light.  The porch light is right next to my window.  Therefore, it is never fully dark.

The kind of dark that I am afraid of is the kind that your eyes cannot adjust to.  Being in a room with no windows and the lights are out.  That is the kind of dark that terrifies me.  My eyes and my mind play enough tricks on me as it is...I do not need to be trapped in a pitch dark room with no way out or light of any kind.  I get light headed and dizzy and start to slightly hyperventilate.

The other thing that terrifies me is snakes.  I do not do snakes.  The sight of a snake will bring instant tears to my eyes.  I was at the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans many years ago with some friends and we went through the reptile area.  While standing right by the exit sign, my friends tell me that the only way out is to either go back the way we came or go through Rattlesnake Canyon.  I start walking through with my eyes on the floor and one of the guys says, "Look, someone pissed this snake off so bad it started to break the glass."  I look up and this snake is staring at me and even though I can see that there is a very thick layer of Plexiglas, I instantly have tears running down my face when I see that the Plexiglas has like a spider affect and it really looked like the snake struck it so hard that it was going to shatter.  I know that it is not possible yet I still cried.

My mom has the same fear of snakes.  She has flat out said that she will sacrifice your body (whoever is nearest to her at the time) if she sees a snake.  She has even thrown one of my sisters into the path of a snake to get away.  Last summer at our family's annual camping trip, my mom and I were standing in the river and her cousin points out that there is a snake sunning itself on the rocks about 15 feet away from us.  We had both walked right by it and as soon as it was pointed out, we got the hell out of dodge!

I do not like spiders either but at least I can kill those...only when they are small though.  If they get bigger than the size of a nickle then I am out!  Oh and bees.  I cannot stand bees but that is because I am allergic.

I think that is about it.  I have two more blogs to write to catch up on!  So until next time!

Exhaustion Just Cannot Take Over

I am so tired but my mind just cannot seem to stop.  I am not really thinking about anything particular...oh wait...yes I am.  I smashed my head, right behind my ear, on a step on a plane this afternoon and somehow managed to not cry or vomit (but I really wanted to).  My boss told me to close up and clock out early so I did and managed to even get myself to the gym.  I was still seeing stars by the way.

I went for three reasons.

Reason #1:  I have only been to the gym three times and it was for my training sessions.  I am paying for it and I really need to start using it!

Reason #2:  I got this gym membership because my boss put the idea in my head.  I signed up.  Got him to sign up and I had not even gone to the gym at the same time as him (not my fault though because he goes when I am normally working).  Needless to say when he told me to close up and when he was going to the gym I had to go.

Reason #3:  I have to get some upper body strength and my running stamina back up because I have the Survivor Mud Run obstacle course in 10 DAYS!!!  Here was my little rant about it.

I really need to get into the gym at least three days a week to do strength training and then I seriously need to run on my own.  I have to run on the street because I run slower and not as far on the treadmill.  What I really need is to find some kind of practice obstacle course and work on it.

I think I am finally going to give in and try to get some sleep.  My head still hurts like crazy so I do not think I will be reading tonight even though I want to.  I guess I will just have to stick with watching "Daria".

Until next time!

Day 3: Favorite Quote

I have several quotes that I absolutely love!  Here they are and a couple of them I will explain why.

"Zumba is like Madonna...it's never going away!" ~ Madalene Aponte
     Miss Madalene is a Zumba Education Specialist out of Hawaii and she led  my Basic 1 and Basic 2 trainings.  She is one of the sweetest women in the world!  She said this during my Basic 2 training in January 2012.  I do believe that she is correct!

"Love is something eternal - the aspects may change, but not the essence." ~ Vincent Van Gogh

"This is a Taco Burrito conversation...Nachos!" ~ Bridgette Hennessy (10 Simple Rules)
     Not only was this show just absolutely hilarious but I cannot say this quote without laughing!

"I feel like I just found out that my favorite love song was written about a sandwich." ~ Jane (27 Dresses)
     Anyone else felt like this sometimes?  There are days when it just feels like everything you thought you knew was just wrong and this just hits the nail on the head!

"There are two kinds of man:  the ones who make history and the ones who endure it." ~ Camilo Jose Cela, Spanish novelist
     Now I am not trying to make history BUT I do not want to just live life.  I want to make a difference.  That is why I love being a Zumba Instructor.  I want to touch peoples lives through Zumba and be a part of their history.  If I can help someone let go and feel better about themselves in any way, shape or form then I am happy!

"A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor's book" ~ Irish Proverb
     No one can say that they do not fell better after a good, hardy laugh.  Any time I actually try to get in a long good night's sleep, I wake up several times during the night.

"This tastes significantly better than sardines!" ~ Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs

Day 2: 20 Facts About Me

I have to come up with 20 facts about myself. I do not have to go into details so I suppose I can come up with 20...although it might prove harder than I think.

1. I have a flat spot on the top of my head from my sister slamming me into the ground when we were children.
2. When I was 4 or 5 I was swinging on my swing set, stood up and jumped off. The end result was a hairline fracture in my left arm.
3. After getting a soft cast put on my arm after the swing accident I was back in the hospital getting a hard cast put on because I went home and hung from my swing set and broke my arm clean through.
4. I sprained my right ankle and broke my right foot all in one fail swoop...walking across the playground when I was 11 and in 5th grade.
5. I have a scar that extends from the outside of my left pinkie, all the way up my left arm, across to the center of my chest and up my neck behind my ear...from falling into a wood stove.
6. I took my first dance class when I was six year old and have been dancing ever since.
7. The first movie I remember seeing in the movie theater was "The Little Mermaid" with my great grandfather and my great aunt when I was just learning how to read.
8. 2 months and 10 days after graduating high school I was in boot camp. Three weeks into boot camp, my entire company was kicked out of our squad bays because some of the guys did not zero out their locks and we had to move EVERYTHING out to the Parade Field. Mattress had to be made just like it was on the rack, all clothing in our sea bags and our piece attached to our hands.
9. I have a little OCD problem. All of my CDs are alphabetized. They are alphabetized by category of Groups/Singles/Solo Artists/Soundtracks and then alphabetized within each category. My books are alphabetized by author and then title...unless they are in a series and then it goes in the series order. My DVDs are alphabetized by title. Thought about going more in depth and going for category of Cartoon/Comedy/Horror/etc...but that got even too much for me!
10. I have had the same cell phone number since the beginning of 2004.
11. To get people to remember my name, I tell them that my name is Myranda...like the Miranda Rights that the cops read when arresting someone...but just spelled differently. To get people to remember my birthday, I tell them it is the day before Cinco de Mayo.
12. I was stationed and lived in New Orleans for almost 5 years and had to evacuate for Hurricane Katrina. Before you ask, my apartment was fine. It was not destroyed BUT some jackhole went in and not only turned ON my air conditioning but set it at 60 degrees leaving me with a $300 electric bill for three months...and someone broke in and stole my vacuum! Jerks!
13. I love to cook and bake. One day I will create my own cookie...or cupcake...something yummy and delicious!
14. When I feel the need to truly geek out, I watch "Star Trek: The Next Generation". When I want to feel the magic, I watch "Harry Potter" movies. When I want to laugh, I watch "Daria" or "Fried Green Tomatoes". When I want to cry, I watch "P.S. I Love You" or "Bed of Roses".
15. My great grandfather used to tell me that I looked like Snow White (except I did not have the short hair)...and then he would tell me that I looked like Christina Ricci and while I love that compliment because I love her, this was back in the early 90s when she was in "The Addams Family" and had the long dark hair and the extremely pale skin...and stick skinny...that was me!
16. One of my favorite television series was "Gilmore Girls". The relationship that Lorelai and Rory have is the same kind of relationship that my mom and I have now...it was not always like that but I am so glad that it is now!
17. I love coffee. I love bacon.
18. I love Britney Spears with all my heart...but my favorite genre is Country music!
19. I only listen to Christmas music from the day after Thanksgiving to New Years Day. Any other time, it is against the law and should be punished by death!
20. I get cravings...like crazy weird cravings. The other day I wanted sushi for dinner and chocolate covered gummy bears for dessert.

Day 1: Introduction and Recent Picture

I decided that in addition to anything else I just might want to write about, I am going to try a 31 Day Blog Challenge. Today officially being May 22nd, I will try and make it the next 31 days. I thought about waiting until June 1st to start but I am such a procrastinator that I would probably forget to start.

As the title says, this is my recent picture. This was taken on May 13, 2012 in down town Seattle. I thought about taking a much more recent picture but I am currently sitting in my computer chair with my glasses on my face and my hair a mess after my shower wearing what my mom calls my "ugly sweater" and my Stewie Griffin dressed as Santa saying "Rather Naughty" all over them. I determined that it would be best to spare anyone who reads this the horrible image!

I am not quite sure if I have really given any kind of introduction but if I have, it is surely out of date by now.

My name is Myranda and I am freshly turned 28 as of May 4th! I am the oldest of three children. My two younger sisters are Heather (25) and Samantha (21). My parents are divorced (official as of May 2011). I have the two cutest nephews in the world, Cayden (4) and Keagan (3) from Heather.

After high school I joined the Coast Guard and was active duty from August 19, 2002 to October 18, 2007. I spent a year and 18 days on a sea-going buoy tender out of San Francisco before I transferred to Air Station New Orleans. While in Nola, I spent 22 weeks in Elizabeth City, North Carolina (a.k.a. the armpit of America) and shortly after that six months in Houston, Texas. I also met M.L. We worked together and eventually ended up dating and getting married in September 2007.

In May 2008, M.L. was transferred to North Bend, Oregon where we bought a house. My happy little family life was not really all that happy but I tried my best to make it happy and if it was not then I pretended it was. I will spare you another very long story but we ended up splitting up in April 2011 and our divorce was final in July 2011.

In August 2011, I moved back up to Washington to live with my mom. After two weeks here, I landed myself a job at a small local airport/flight training school. I could not have walked into a better job. The whole family is amazing. It is a very physically demanding job but I love it! Plus I work Wednesday thru Sunday and those are the same days that Skydive Snohomish operates so I get to watch people jump out of airplanes while I work. There are very few things that sound cooler to me than the wind whipping through one of the parachutes as they are coming down to land! I will get up there one day and jump out of a plane and you best believe that I will post it here, on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest (if I can still access my account), etc.

When I am not refueling or washing airplanes and now (the sole washer of) helicopters, I am a Zumba Fitness Instructor. I have been active in the Zumba community since March 2010 but I got my very first license to teach in July 2010. Since then I taken specialty trainings for Zumba Gold and Zumba Toning. I am also signed up for another specialty called Zumba Sentao in July and total that will make my fifth license BUT I will be able to teach six different types of classes...that is until I can afford to get the material and obtain my Zumba Gold-Toning badge and then one last specialty that I want is Zumbatomic which is geared towards children.

I guess just a last little bit about myself...some little random tid-bits if you will...I have a love/hate relationship with running. I truly hate running but I love the results I get from running so I endure it. Do not believe me? Check out my last blog about the Hell Run here. I love to cook and bake. When it comes to baking, I really do have to follow a recipe and even then if it is supposed to be from scratch, my mom or sister is usually the better baker but dang it I can make some killer baked goods out of a box! When it comes to cooking, I change and adapt recipes to my taste. I add cayenne pepper, red pepper or hot sauce to just about everything! I make a killer gumbo recipe which I will have to share sometime. I believe it was a Paula Deen recipe but I took a lot of stuff out and changed a few things but mainly it is still the same but I love mine better! I am a huge Britney Spears fan. I love Harry Potter books/movies and Pottermore. I love Twilight books/movies (however I am neither Team Edward or Team Jacob...I am Team Cedric...for all you young people who do not know jack...Rob played Cedric in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire WAY before he was Edward...see?). I love The Hunger Games books/movie(s). "May the odds be ever in your favor." My favorite movie forever and always is "Fried Green Tomatoes". I love all of the Disney classic cartoon movies and own most of them. I have a strange obsession with light houses. My books/DVDs/CDs have to be alphabetized and each of those three have a different way of being alphabetized. My socks HAVE TO MATCH. Even if there is only the slightest color on the socks, if they do not match then I have to change into a pair that do. When I drink, my southern accent becomes more prominent (which is odd given that I was born and raised just south of Seattle but I lived in the south and my mom's family is from Texas so...). I think that I look and feel the sexiest when I am wearing my favorite jeans (not too tight but not too big), my cowboy boots and my red and white stripped shirt...or when my bra and underwear match...and I only have a couple of those sets! I love baseball because it is one of the only sports that I truly understand! Despite not being married anymore, I still root for the Chicago Cubs and Chicago Bears and Oklahoma State Cowboys (Go Pokes!). I will also root for the San Francisco Giants and the New Orleans Saints but I will pick the Cubs and the Saints over any other team by far! I love candles. My favorite MTV cartoon character is Daria Morgendorffer and I do own the complete series! I may even name my first daughter Daria...maybe not!

I keep coming up with more and more little things and just realized that it has taken me about an hour to write this because I keep getting side tracked...but that is because I was adding links and then trying to find things which lead me to other pages and etc...so I will finally say goodnight at 1:08am on May 22nd! I may not count this as the actual post for the 22nd so I just might do Day 2 after I wake up!

Until next time!

Training for a Run from Hell!

I had initially planned on writing this blog post about the 5K I ran on Mother's Day but I cannot find my mom's camera which has the pictures from race day. No idea what I am talking about? Play catch up here!

So I am training for this run from hell. By "training" I mean I am just running and trying to get my time quicker. This run is going to require MORE than just fast running. It is an obstacle course. 22 obstacles over the course of 3.47 hellish miles (and that is exactly what the website called it)! Want to read more about it or see if you can survive? Check out the Survivor Mud Run website.

After I convinced my mom and my sisters to run in the 5K on Mother's Day, my mom comes into my room one night and tells me to google "Survivor Mud Run". After taking a look at it and clicking through the photos of the obstacles I tell her that it looks like fun. Then she proceeds to tell me, "Good...because I signed us up."

A few days later when the initial shock has kind of worn off, I asked her how long is the race. She says, "Just under three and a half miles." I can handle that. I have not ran that far in years but I have total faith in myself and my legs to carry me through. After she prints off our confirmation emails I ask her exactly how far the run is and she says 3.47 miles. Dang...she was not kidding when she said just under three and a half.

Of the 22 obstacles, only 21 pictures are shown. One of the obstacles is a "mystery". If it is one of the pictures I saw online from another race it will be jumping through a line of fire. It does not look scary at all. In fact I believe the fire in my backyard fire pit was about ten times bigger and some of my drunken friends jumped through that no problem.

Anyway, I have been running a few times and can complete 3.34 miles in less than 35 minutes. Now I just need to get into the gym and work on this lack of upper body strength. I mean I have muscles but I have never been able to climb a rope or anything. I know that there is a wall to scale and I think I can handle it but my mom signed us up for the earliest time she could...11:45am. I just have my fingers crossed that I can get it all done in an hour or less so I can be hosed off and get my work clothes on so my mom can drop me off at work...and that I start work at 3pm otherwise I do not know what I am going to do.

Hopefully I will be able to post some pictures later of the race on Mother's Day! Until next time!

Suicide Pact...Among Spiders!?!

I was trying to come up with something cleaver to post about this and considered making it read like a newspaper article. I was going to have the county medical examiner named Dr. Fancypants M.D. make a statement about how the names of the two victims could not be released due to the fact that the families could not be located to be notified as they both had hundreds of immediate family members. I just could not come up with anything really so here is what I have!

I work at an airport that has a flight school attached to it. Three days a week I open and have to do fuel samples on the two fuel trucks and the two fuel tanks. Thursday morning while doing fuel samples on the 100LL (Avgas) tank, I noticed that a spider had been on the filter when I started the pump and it ended up in the fuel. It's eight little legs were swimming around in the fuel trying to figure out how to get out is what I can expect. It just kept going around and around in circles. I continued my samples and by the time I finished with the third filter it was curled up. I giggled and chuckled out loud at the fact that this spider just killed itself.

Friday morning while taking samples from the SAME tank, I had another spider fall into my bucket from the second filter. I laughed really hard and asked my boss if it made me a sick and twisted human being since I was getting a huge kick out of watching an insect struggle for its life and dying! He laughed and then said yes.

I do not open again until Wednesday but if more spiders continue to commit suicide by Avgas then I will assume that the local spiders have made a suicide pact! I say good riddance because I hate spiders to begin with! Nasty little suckers!

Until next time!

I Have Not Forgotten...

I promise that I have not forgotten to write, I just allow myself to get consumed by the days as they go on and on and by the time I want to write, I can barely keep my eyes open! What have I neglected to write about lately? Here is a small taste of a few posts that are to come!

1) Spiders committing suicide...possible suicide pact?

2) First 5K run in about 8 years was completed on Mother's Day this year with my momma and sisters and best friend (Want a little more? I have showered close to a dozen times since last Sunday and I am still getting color out from the inside of my left ear...has you intrigued huh?!).

3) Training for a 3.5 mile run from HELL...no seriously...that is the nickname for the run...

Depending on how exhausted I am tonight, I might get them all posted...but definitely by the time MY weekend is over (I am always off Mondays and Tuesdays)!!!

Until next time y'all!!!