New

A lot of new things have happened over the last couple weeks. Whether it is something physical or an experience, it's new nonetheless.

Friday, for example, I retired my mizuno wave inspire 6's for these bad boys:

I had never eaten by myself at any type of restraunt before. I was up in an area that had a Chipotle and it was lunch time after I bought my new shoes. I ordered and sat alone while eating my chicken burrito bowl! Luckily, facebook on my iphone was my companion for lunch!

We have also been enjoying our new bed...

We are at my parents this week in WV. It's so nice for us to be able to spend time with our family now! I love Derek's NEW business! He's going to be working from my parents tomorrow while I get to see my college friend, Kelsey, while she is in from Grenada!! I've already spent time with my cousin and her family, not to mention her sweet almost 3 year old, Keilah and her NEW baby Evelyn! Derek and I also got to spend time with my childhood best friends, Brittany and Kelly and their hubby's!

We'll I'm off to bed...more exciting posts to come!

What I'm loving Wednesday!

It's Wednesday once again......but this may be the BEST Wednesday yet! Link up with Jamie to share what you're loving!

I'm LOVING...that today is my LAST DAY OF SCHOOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Kids got out half day yesterday..sad bittersweet but thankfully I didn't cry my eyes out like last year! (I think it was because I had just finished my first year-which was a whirlwind anyways and my kiddos were so sweet) My babies were so sweet this year but it was a relief to be finished with year number 2! We get to leave today at noon if our checklists are complete!!!

I'm LOVING...that tonight my first grade team is celebrating with our annual deck party at Amy's :) Loads of laughter and fun! I have THE BEST TEAM EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm LOVING.....that I get to see my family in a few days for a week!!

I'm LOVING....that my hubby is so excited to start his new business! His last day is Friday at his old job and we are having a "Yay Derek's starting his own business party" on Friday! Check out EZ Budget here! Go and "Like" his page on facebook, if you can!


Have a GREAT WEDNESDAY, Ya'll!!

Last Monday of the SCHOOL YEAR!!

Hey Ya'll!

Today is my last Monday of the school year and the kiddos only have today and a half day tomorrow!!! I go until Wednesday but HOORRAAYYYYYY! It makes me want to sing "School's out for the summer!" The weekend came and went too fast! Hubs and I brought back yummy Italian food from our favorite, Joey's Pizza and Italian Friday and watched "No Strings Attached"

It was cute and funny..the language was much at times but Hubby and I really enjoyed it!

Saturday was spent cleaning this place up and doing laundry! I babysat for the sweetest almost 2 year old boy Saturday afternoon/night while my WONDERFUL hubs went and picked up our new bed and put it together! Pics to come soon! I am so excited to do some summer home projects!!

Sunday we tried to make it to church but traffic from construction made our interstate a parking lot, so we went up to my brother in law and sis in law's house for lunch after they got home from church. I discovered this AMAZING blog yesterday, thanks to my SIL :)

 

You can visit this blog here!

It is full of awesome and affordable home decor ideas! I can't wait to get to some garage sales and antique stores this summer!

We also had our girls Bible study group down at my house (which is 35 minutes from everyone else but it was so nice of them to come!). We always have a great time and awesome converstaion. We are almost finished with this book:

 It is really good! We are all trying to live better stories for our lives and we are going to finish up this book by making a "memorable scene" by all going to the BellBuckle RC Cola and Moonpie festival in late June!

I finished my Sunday meeting up with my partner in crime, teacher friend, Amy...or Aimsweb as I like to call her or Francesca Isabella, Monticello as she goes by at Starbucks when they write her name on the cup. It's a riot every time we go! I got to be Duchess Tiffany of Spring Hill last night! It was a treat and I only told the guy "Tiffany" but it was nice to have that fun surprise on my cup of wonderfulness aka the mocha coconut frap!!!! We met up to do report cards together. It is just nice to do them with someone that can keep you company when you are doing something so boring! It was a little after 9 last night and I thought we were golden because the website said it closed at 9:30..WRONG-O...the nice guy who took our orders came over to check on us and in the nicest way possible he pretty much kicked us out..we felt bad that we had kept them there later but he said it wasn't our fault but someone came through the drive through. All in all, I got my report cards done with the exception of attendance because I have to take it today :)

HAPPY MONDAY, YA'LL!!!  (hope I didn't bore you too much this morning....this wasn't suppose to be such a long post but oh well..when my fingers start typing they don't know when to stop...seee........)

Love Love Love

First off, I'm LOVING.....My wonderful Hubby!!!

I'm LOVING that I only have 6 more days of school left!!!

I'm LOVING this awesome new baking book that I got at our school's book fair:

I can't wait to use it this summer!

I'm LOVING  that I get to see my family soon and spend a week with them in WV :)

I'm LOVING.....the new adventure hubby and I start soon!

Happy Wednesday, Ya'll! Link up with Jamie!!

A leap of Faith and a Summer Schedule

We have some news and are taking a huge leap of faith!

My hubby resigned from his job 2 Fridays ago and his last day will be May 27th. He resigned so he can start his own business. Now don't freak out like I did at first. We started off on the right foot financially when we got married. Completed Financial Peace University (Dave Ramsey) and became debt free (except for our house) in 10 months. We paid off $28,000 in 10 months!!!! It is still crazy to me that we actually did that! We have been saving like crazy since then and have about 10 months of our expenses in an emergency fund. He created a blog called Christian Common Cents and has since sold it but still writes for it! So hubby is starting his iphone app/software business. He has several apps (Look him up on the app store: Derek Clark) He has recently released a budget envelope app that you can find here. He is looking into making software for this and an ipad app for it. We are both really excited about it because if it is successful, we can be much more flexible with trips, traveling to see family and so on because he can just bring his computer to work. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we begin this journey!

I want to make a summer schedule for cleaning, exercising, and fun things. I know that this summer will be different because Derek will be home working and I won't want to be in his hair all day (his desk is in our living room because our town house doesn't have much room for it anywhere else). I'm so bad about keeping the house clean during the school year and then when I clean on the weekends, it takes me forever. So here it goes and let me know if I'm missing cleaning something...
Mondays: Vacuum/mop
Tuesday: Laundry/change sheets
Wednesday: Bathrooms
Thursday: Dust
Friday: FREE DAY!
Everyday: keep kitchen clean, keep things straightened up, and make bed.

For Fun activities:
Pool, scrapbook days, organize at home and at school, photography (I'm getting a canon rebel T1i soon for b-day/anniversary!!!!), recipes (cooking more/baking more), try to blog everyday and home projects.

Exercising:
-train for next half (The Women's Half-Nashville in September) at the end of June (hopefully my knees will be cooperating and healed)
-Jillian Michaels 30 day shred
-swim
-bike
-strength/weights


That's about it for now. 7 more days until Summer Freedom...except it felt more like March today :(

Getting to know you Sunday!

First time linking up for Getting to know you Sunday!

1. Have you ever gone to see a movie by yourself? Can't say that I have.
 

2. Would you rather go through a tornado or a hurricane? A hurricane for sure!

3. Have you made summer vacation plans? Spending a week at my parents in WV, spending a couple days at Hubby's parents and a week long cabin on a lake vacation with some friends!

4. What's your favorite accessory? My wedding band and engagement ring! LOVE THEM!

5. Have you ever been thrown a surprise party? When I was 7 years old at church camp, my parents came up and my cabin of girls and counselor knew the whole time! It was so cool. Also for my 21st birthday my mom tried but I just thought it was for the 4th of July because my b-day is July 7th and the party was on the 3rd.

6. Are you friends with your neighbors? Not really. We talk when we run into each other outside but we live in a town home neighborhood.

7. What's the last movie you saw in the theater? We actually went last weekend to see Fast Five. Great movie!

8. What's your favorite food network show? It's not a food network show but it's a food show, Cake Boss! I really want to go to Carlo's Bakery someday!

 

 

I'm getting so close to being out of school, it's insane! ONE MORE FULL WEEK and then 3 days the next week (for teachers) 1 1/2 days the next week for students. I plan to have a full summer schedule up and running to keep me on track and hopefully blogging everyday! Only 6 more followers until I host a giveaway! 3 chances to win, ya'll!! Have a wonderful week!! (Oh by the way, since it is Sunday, I thought I'd give you a few wedding pictures like I did last weekend!)

What I'm loving Wednesday!

It's here again and we are linking up with Jamie!

I'm LOVING.....that I only have (counting today) 11 teacher days, kids have 9 1/2 days left of school!!!!! Let the summer schedule begin! I want to get organized, have a cleaning schedule, make time to train well for my next half and such. Another post on this to come!

I'm LOVING.... this article I found with IT band stretches....I need to get a resistance flat band!!

I'm LOVING.....Starbucks happy hour from 3-5 Half off fraps!!! The new mocha coconut is AMAZING!!

Source

I'm LOVING....that Sweet Ce Ce's has a coconut flavor now, too!

 I'm LOVING...that yesterday during our D.E.A.R time (Drop Everything And Read), I was having some students come up to my one at a time and read their A.R. (Accelerated Reader) book to me and then take a test on it. One little boy came up and was reading a cute book about a witch that had a cat who sat on a mat and all kinds of -at words in the book. He came to the word "Stupid" and he looked up at me with wide eyes and said "Mrs. Clark, I think I'll just spell that word." He is so sweet! I thought it was cute! We have read some Junie B Jones books and her language is less than polite at times and the kids get a kick out of it if I spell the word. Some time I slip up and say it and they gasp!

Have a WONDERFUL WEDNESDAY, Ya'll!!

Sweet Saturday Morning...

I'm coming to you still in my PJ's with a bowl of apple and cinnamon oatmeal and a cup of coffee and boy does it feel MARVELOUS! This is the first Saturday that I've been able to do this in a long time since I had been training for the half marathon that took place last weekend! The recovery this week has been, well, painful. My leg muscles are much better but every time I go down the stairs, my knees feel like they are 80 years old and want to give up. It's really unfortunate. My blisters are almost all healed and my little toe on my right foot almost has all its feeling back!

On another note (and forgive me, but stop reading and skip this paragraph if this might be TMI :), my tummy started feeling like a bunch of knives were shredding it Thursday night. I took the appropriate meds to try to relieve some pressure and pain, and that didn't work. I thought "Oh no, what if it is my appendix!!!" so Hubby told me to go to the Dr. after school. I had xrays and it's not my appendix and I didn't have a small bowel obstruction...I'm just FULL OF CRAP.. :-/  I hate this feeling and I had the steps I have to take to get rid of it. That's enough of that..

We finally got the disk and copyright papers from our wedding. Our 2 year anniversary is coming up in July! We have the big photo album but the disk was separate. I want to share a couple of my favorite wedding pics every so often!

Happy Saturday, Ya'll!

P.S only 9 more followers until I host a giveaway!

Country Music Half Marathon 2011 Recap

Before I go on with the whole slew of events, check out my other race recaps, if you would like!
Country Music Half Marathon 2010
Womens Half Marathon 2010

All the festivities started on Friday afternoon/night. My little brother was in since Tuesday and my parents got here Thursday night. We ate at Which Wich in Cool Springs...YUMMY PLACE!

We went to my friend, Heather's house to pick her up and went to Nashville to the expo to pick up all our goodies!  Our friends from college, Amber and Jesse and now their little girl Lily, came to Nashville so Amber could run the race with us. So me, Heather, Adam and Amber got our racing bibs, chips, goodie bags, and looked around the expo for awhile.

We went back to Heather and TJ's for a carb load party with all of our friends! It was so yummy and fun sitting around figuring out the logistics for the spectators who were wanting to go to several spots in the race!

Race day came and we were out the door by 4:00 am. We definitely wanted to leave earlier than last year because of all the traffic. It was really chilly out and luckily Amber brought an extra jacket for me to borrow! I used the bathroom 4 times before the race...talk about nervous! Before we knew it we were doing a warm up jog (which later on during the race, I realized that I needed to have warmed up a lot longer than I did and stretch more than what I did as well) We used the bathrooms one more time and the four of us prayed before parting ways. Adam was in Corral 2, Amber was in Corral 17 and Heather and I were in Corral 27. It took forever for us to get to the starting line. We talked to the 2:45 pacer and wanted to stick with him through out the race or at least be in sight of him. If only that plan had worked....We started off strong Our first mile was 13:03. Our fastest mile ever....BIG PROBLEM! We were doing what we said we weren't going to do...started off too fast. We wanted to keep up with the 2:45 pacer and that is what he was doing. Well my legs decided to play a mean trick on me and my shins and calves cramped up so bad that I had to stop running. We took several small walking breaks and then they really started to hurt and I mean hurt so bad that I couldn't run...I cried. I was so upset because we were losing sight of the 2:45 pacer and I appologized to my best friend that I let her down and that we weren't going to make it under 3 hours. She said "Tiff, you're seriously going to start crying...you are doing your 3rd half marathon in a year right now and we are going to forget about the pacer. We are going to do this race for ourselves." The first couple miles were really tough because I had a bad attitude and was thinking all these negative thoughts. My hubby, parents, and friends were around mile 2. I was so discouraged and then I saw my dad first. I ran to him and threw my jacket and hand held water bottle at him. They all were cheering so loud for us and it gave me that pick me up before the giant hill of Demonbreun Street. We knew we weren't going to be able to see our cheerleaders until right before the finish line, so we had to keep encouraging each other. My shins cleared up but my calves didn't loosen up until mile 5 or so. I had a good run on Belmont Blvd. and several other parts of the race. I fueled with: breakfast: banana and luna bar. lots of water. During the race: several sports beans, several orange slices, water, cytomax, and 2 chocolate outrage GU gels.

We were doing great on our pace. Under 15 min miles on all our mile until we got to mile 10 or 11. Heather had an asthma attack. She took her inhaler but it didn't help much.  *Side note* my mom kept calling me every several miles to cheer us on/ see where we were at/ give us updates on adam and amber. (I had my iphone head phones in with the speaker on the cord) So when Heather had this attack, she said, call your mom and have them get a cold wet towel ready for me when we see them. So I decided that it would be good to use my voice command on my head set. People were looking at me like I was CRAZY! "Call Mommy....dang it Call Mommy....Not Lily...MOMMY!!!!" I ended up having to get my phone out of my ifitness belt and call her by hand. My sweet baby brother....who finished his first half marathon in 1 hour and 36 minutes (he's a psycho runner) ran back to mile 12.5 to give the towel to Heather. He also ran the rest of it with us (until he got to mom and dad, who were right close to the finish) He encouraged us and was so sweet!! Amber finished in 2:45!!! Heather and I finally finished in 3 hours 13 minutes and 36 seconds. I missed my PR by 3 minutes. Heather kept telling me to go on...but HECK NO I'm not leaving my best friend..we train together, we finish together no matter what!! Anyways..we finished, got some good grub in the secure zone and then found our clan! I went to the medic tent to get ice wrapped on my calves and took my mizuno shoes to find 3 ginormous blisters that were terribly painful.  We went back to Heather and TJ's for food, Ice Baths, and resting. We then went to the Montgomery Gentry concert that was free to all the runners but didn't stay for all of it because we were so tired. It was an awesome weekend with family and friends! Not to sound conceded ( but this is my blog and I have a right to be :) But I am so proud of myself for finishing 3 half marathons in one year. From a girl who hated to run to one who's already planning her next one...

 Adam coming upon the finish

 Amber at mile 2

Me and Heather- my horrible silly looking face while handing off my jacket and water bottle

(I was going to try to add a video but I can't figure out how to shorten it..oh well) 

 Runner girls and their Husbands!

 WE DID IT!

 So glad my baby brother and I could run the same race together!

 Proud parents!!!

 AWESOME friends who came at the butt crack of dawn to support us! THANK YOU!!

 The awesome sign, Lindsey made!

 Cutie girls cheering us on...or just entertaining themselves!

 Sweet husbands who came to support us!

 The finishers!!

 The supporters!!

The ICE BATH.....oh so cold at first but felt so good after.

Well folks, that about sums it up...shin pain, calf pain (still a little bit lingering as well as...), blisters the size of TEXAS, and a numb baby toe (still a little numb and still concerned) but I have medal # 3 and that is all that matters!! I can always try to PR at the next race! 

(I don't blame you if you didn't make it all the way through this post) 

Back into full training next week!

What I'm loving Wednesday!

1. I'm LOVING that I completed my 3rd half marathon this past weekend! (Full race recap hopefully to come tomorrow!)

2. I'm LOVING my wonderful First Grade class! This week is teacher appreciation week and they have definitely spoiled me!!

3. I'm LOVING my wonderful husband and family!

4. I'm LOVING Netflix!

REAL QUICK!

THIS IS NOT MY RACE RECAP! I just wanted to say HI and that I survived my 3rd Half Marathon. This was my 3rd in one year. I'll post a picture and then I'm headed to bed. 7:15 am staff meeting and I'm a hobbling/blistering/sore mess..even after an hour massage today.

Be back tomorrow with a full race recap!