Crescent City Classic

I kind of had a "meh" day at the Classic this year. It was actually a really nice day for a 10k, especially given how hot this race can be: it was pretty cool and overcast, a little breezy, with the only drawback being 85% humidity. David and I brought a friend from church to the start and parked in my work garage. It's only half a mile from the start, so we walked.
 I got in a decent warm up before they closed the corrals. I was in seeded corral C, which I begged for - I had not run any of the qualifying races, so I kind of had to do some explaining to get a seeded bib (the cut-off for C corral was 45 minutes, though, so I thought it was fair to give some equivalent times). Ever since the tighter corral enforcements took effect, the start at the CCC is smooth and easy - considering there are like 25,000 runners (some sources say 44,000. That is a huge discrepancy. I tend to believe 25,000 is more accurate). I ran in a crowd for almost the whole race, but the start was especially tight. I was trying to figure my German garmin out. It worked, but the average pace was not showing all the time - it was blank for good parts of miles 1 and 3 (oddly). I had to ask those around me for our pace.
This is a really boring race report because I ran high 6:40's/low 6:50's the whole race and could not get my engines started for some reason. I didn't feel tired, I just couldn't speed up. Maybe it was the humidity; maybe it was my really bad allergies (being able to breath would be nice), maybe it was the antihistamine I took making me lethargic. The only excitement came around mile 6, when - right at the turn to the finish - we were stopped by an ambulance! I never heard what happened to the person (runner? spectator?) but it must have been serious for the ambulance to cross the race course. I didn't actually come to a stop, just jogged a large loop around. None of the runners really knew what to do! Hopefully, the victim is fine; I imagine that if there had been poor outcomes it would have been a news story, so thing it ended well.

Then it was over, 42:41, slower than I'd like (and poor tangents/crowd running on my part, too). But hey. A year after I was cleared to run and I can still finish top 500! Yay!

Das ist nicht hilfreich

My new Garmin decided to change itself to German. It's still set on English. But the readouts are in German.
And my race is tomorrow....

Dies sollte morgen interessant zu machen!

New Garmin 220

In a moment of panic, I bought a cheap, manufacturer-refurbished Garmin 220. It's a big change from the 305, and it's not all good.

New watch, old coffee cup (I despise Disney anything,
which makes this mug funny).

Pros:
- gets satellite many minutes faster than the 305
- easy to set and change settings

Cons:
- Only has six data fields. What was I thinking?! I need seven: Time, pace, distance, average pace, lap time, lap pace, lap distance.

Now, I don't need all those fields all the time. The lap time and distance are only if I'm doing a workout off the track. But who wants to reconfigure settings all the time? I guess it's a good thing that it's easy to do on this watch. I'm about to go try it out and see if I can run with the thing. I expect there will be a big learning curve!

Check back in an hour...

Limoncello factory

My sister-in-law had me over to pick some of her plentiful citrus this winter, and that means one thing: limoncello!

Well, it also means tangerine-cello. And tangerine jam. And lemon preserves. And lemon juice. And salted preserved lemons. And tangerine-clove-honey marmalade. I had a LOT of citrus!

The fruit was incredibly pretty

Limoncello is super easy to make: You carefully peel the fruit, then soak the peels in Everclear.

Tangerine peels in Everclear - look at the color! 

After two weeks, you mix with sugar syrup and let it age for a month and a half.

Limoncello and tangerinecello.

Beautiful, huh?
When David and I were buying the Everclear, we were getting SO MUCH attention. You cannot go into a New Orleans grocery store and buy eight bottles of Everclear without eliciting many comments! Besides the general ribbing and teasing while in the check-out line, we were overheard talking in the parking lot: I was telling David the process to make limoncello, and another shopper heard me say, "Well, you can make it with vodka or Everclear" - and he wheeled around and told us he wanted to be invited to THAT party!

Perfect timing

My Garmin died! AND IT'S RACE WEEK!
So many puns in the title...
I've had my 305 since 2011, and only this year did it start giving me trouble: first, it had several totally-dead-need-a-hard-reset events in January. Then, I noticed that the average lap pace wasn't updating. It would get stuck - say, on 7:45; then when it beeped the lap, the time would be far from the average, like 8:30. This didn't happen all of the time, but when it did, it would keep occurring until I did a reset.
Then Saturday morning it just up and died. I turned it on and it beeped like normal, and then...nothing on the screen. Everything about it appears to be working except the screen! I tried all the tricks, but no luck.
The problem is that Saturday is the Crescent City Classic, and I have not been back running enough to do well pacing off a stopwatch. I need my Garmin crutch! But - this is a terrible time to buy a new one. I haven't done any research into which Garmin I'd like to buy to replace the one I have, and even if I can make that decision and get one on time, I'll have no time to learn to use it.
Well, oh well. A few weeks post-marathon wasn't going to be a crazy fast race anyway, probably minutes off my PR, so could be worse. At least ol' Garmin held on for my marathon!

Scheduling my life

I enjoyed reading comments on my first MBA post, because it made this seem a lot more doable. Many readers have gone back to school under much more difficult circumstances; they survived, and so will I!
I'm done with the second week now, and it got a lot easier. My class assignments weren't available until Monday of the first week, and they are due Thursday of each week, so that was a bit of a crunch. But after that, I could view the reading assignments on Saturday morning and start working on projects on Sunday. I took Saturday off, but on Sunday afternoon, I completed all the reading, one set of accounting homework (we are currently doing two per week), and one of three management communications assignments. That made the rest of the week much easier, especially since I had a work event to attend Wednesday night.
So here's my proposed schedule for the week, to work around class requirements:
- Monday: keeping track for now; it might not be continued after the Crescent City Classic 10k in a few weeks (what we're all working towards).
- Tuesday: dropping Tuesday Bible study. This is kind of  long story: we attended this study with our last church, and when we changed churches, we stayed on at the study. And ever since we've been trying to politely leave. We really enjoy the study, but it's just too much every week! This is a good excuse.
- Wednesday: we're group leaders for our community group (with our current church!), so this stays.
- Thursday and Friday - off! Everything is due Thursday, so I get some time to finish last minute schoolwork, and Friday is free time.
- Weekend: Saturdays are forced off of school because nothing is posted unless it's accidentally early. Sundays I have a whole afternoon free, which is perfect to get a jump-start on the week.

Orange lips make it look like I care.

Other ways I've made time for school:
- I roped David into doing the dishes. For some reason, I usually do them. I formally handed that task off to him.
- I've taken to simplifying mornings with easy make-up - just under-eye concealer and lipgloss made infinitely more chic by this LOVELY orange color - and plain hair (the joy of bangs; brush your hair, and it's done).
- I am cutting corners in the kitchen: buying instead of making bagels; using the slow cooker; leaning more heavily on easy meals like beans and rice or pasta. I can survive boring food for a year!

By the way, my management communications class allows us to post all of our assignments to a shared forum, which...heavens. I am slightly appalled. Some of the posts are impossibly incoherent. I keep telling myself in disbelief that all of these posters already have undergraduate degrees, and that floors me. For example, one poster referred to "the et al study" several times. Part of my soul died! This is why I would be a bad teacher: I'd be posting things like. "What is WRONG with you?!" instead of constructive criticism.

Freshening up the living room

My throw pillows were starting to resemble prison-issue bedding, so last month I decided to redo them. I had to replace the worn pillows as well as the covers, so before sewing some cases, I bought new pillows online at Target. I DO NOT RECOMMEND. These were the flimsiest, squishiest, most under-stuffed pitiful excuses for throw pillows you have ever seen.
Before I realized that, however, I'd already headed to Hobby Lobby for some pretty affordable upholstery fabric ($13 a yard, but it's wide-width fabric, so I only needed a yard total). I did three large cushions and two small (we already owned two small pillows that did not need to be replaced). I did one large cushion and the backs of the two smaller ones in a coordinated solid.

See the back?

I ended up coping with the squishy, useless pillows by actually stuffing TWO pillows into each cover: One old, flat pillow and one new, overly soft pillow. That's why the covers don't fit perfectly and are creating those annoying dog-ear corners - not the best look, but much more comfortable now that they have some heft and body.

I also got rid of our coat rack. There was nothing wrong with it; it just seemed to me like we were decorating our living room with our coats!

I bought this small cabinet and, rather than put shelves in, instead screwed hooks into the side and ceiling to hang our jackets on.

The small cabinet on the bottom is used for hats, umbrellas, and ponchos leftover from our Peru trip (I am sure I'll need one at some point, right? Or am I hoarding?).