Painting

So Saturday night Tom and I were sitting in our living room, hanging up Christmas lights, and something just didn't look right. We decided we had too much "white" in our apartment. I suggested the idea of painting one wall and having an "accent wall".......half joking/half serious. The more we thought about it.......the more we liked the idea. So Sunday morning (after my 17 mile run!) we went to Lowe's, got some paint, and came home to paint our accent wall :) We needed the color to be something dark and bold to get the full effect of the accent wall, and we have a lot of tan and brown in our living room so we opted for dark brown. We LOVE it! I think it turned out so well because we painted the wall that has our doors to our balcony on it, so the accent wall is accented nicely by the white doors :) There are a few pics below.

Me painting

The finished product :)

So yeah I ran 17 miles on Sunday! It was hard, but not too bad. My legs hurt more than anything else. I think that has something to do with the fact that my current running shoes have over 400 miles on them since April....TIME FOR NEW SHOES! My team in training coach was actually surprised that I haven't injured myself yet running in my shoes because they were so worn down on the inside. So I have new shoes now so hopefully I'll be as good as new on my 15 mile run this weekend. I've also almost reached my fundraising goal!! Thanks to EVERYONE who has donated! I think I have like 20 more dollars to raise to meet my goal ($2800). Unfortunately, I have one more person that I would like to run in memory/honor of. Tom's nephew Michael's good friend, Nick, just passed away from lymphoma. I think he was only 20 or 21. Hopefully he passed peacefully and painlessly. Please keep his family and friends in your thoughts and prayers.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Unfortunately, Tom and I were not able to make it home for Thanksgiving this year so we had our own little Thanksgiving....just the two of us. We even cooked a turkey....and it turned out yummy!!! Everything actually turned out really well except this one dish that I tried to make....it kind of tried to explode (ok, not explode, boil over) in the oven but it still tasted good :) And we went for a nice run in the morning too so we didn't feel guilty about stuffing ourselves. I tried to trick Tom into running 6 miles....but he kind of figured it out.

Today we got up at 4:45 to hit the Black Friday specials (If you don't know me too well, I'm kinda obsessed with finding really really good deals on things)....like for example.....my 200GB Internal Hard Drive that I got today for only TWENTY DOLLARS!!!!!!!!!! My computer won't know what hit it! (which I'm kinda worried about....hopefully it will still function after I install it). Ok, enough of that :) Tom came with me this morning but slept in the car while I faced the masses and waited in line FOREVER! But well worth it. Oh yeah, did I mention the weather was beautiful yesterday and today? Mid 60's yesterday and low 70's today! Hopefully it will be like that on Sunday morning for my 17 mile run! Here are some pics of us on Thanksgiving....they're not the best quality b/c they were taken with my phone camera and our disposable.....but we shouldn't be having that problem anymore after today's Black Friday sales O:)

Tom carving the turkey

Tom is hungry!

And so am I!!

Tom and I before Thanksgiving Dinner!

Weekly ramblings

I can't believe Penn State's football season is over! Except for their New Year's Day bowl game in Orlando, of course :) Too bad Tom and I don't have a lot of money and I don't have a lot of paid-time off at work or we would go to the PSU game in Orlando Jan 1 and stay there for the week for my marathon on Jan 7! Oh well. Next year hopefully we'll go to a BCS game and then we'll go to that :)

I ran 15 miles yesterday with Team in Training! I actually ran the last 2 miles by myself because yesterday I happened to be the only one there training for Disney (everyone else was training for Mercedes which is a month later) so they were only doing 13 and our Team in Training coach ran an ultra-marathon (40 miles!) on Saturday so he only did 13. And I think he was ready to stop after 7 but the rest of us were afraid we were going to get lost on the 13 mile course because I had only done it twice and everyone else had only done it once. Anyways, 15 miles was a pretty big accomplishment...but we do 17 next week!!

So we don't have a dog yet ;) IF we get one it probably won't be until the spring or summer anyways. We'll see. The chinchillas are doing well. I think they're getting fat. We let them out to play last night...we let them run around in the one bathroom and close the door so they can't get out. They like to think that they are participating in the X games or something because they always like side-jump off of the walls and stuff. It's cute. They also like to hide in things that we put in their cage....Tom will use cardboard and make a little house for them. Here's a pic of Chimu who decided he wanted a window in their house so he chewed through the cardboard. They are so cute but such brats sometimes :)

Happy Anniversary to us :)

Yesterday was our Five Year Anniversary from when we started dating! Unfortunately, we didn't do anything to celebrate because I had a casting lab at work until 6 and then Tom had a dodgeball game at 7:15 and I had to train as well. But I think we're going to go out to dinner tonight :) I'm not sure how much longer we'll celebrate our dating anniversary now that we are married but we thought 5 years was special.

So we went to the Gala last Friday night and had a fabulous time! They had all these decorated christmas trees up in the lobby area that people could buy...they were pretty. Guess what? I bid on something at the silent auction! And guess what?! I won!! :) Haha, it was this really cute little doggy water and food bowl that was in the shape of a dog (painted black and white-just like a border collie!) and said "Merry Christmas" on it. I bid something really low...and really I just bid on it just for the heck of it. After dinner, we went back to the silent auction before it closed and only one more person had bid on it and only $5 more than my bid. So with 8 seconds before the auction closed I made an impulse bid (that was only $10 more than my original low bid) and I won! Here's the best part....after winning I realized that I had won more than just the really nice food & water dish....I won a certificate for a free annual checkup for a dog and free vaccinations for 1 year! Now, some of you may be saying "But Anne and Tom don't even have a dog." Well, you're right.....but I really really really really want to get a border collie and now we can take it to the vet for free! Plus on the SPCA website the feature dog is a border collie....coincidence? Plus my brother just got a really cute border collie from his local animal shelter too! Since our certificate to the vet is good for a year, we may wait until the spring or summer to consider getting one. We'll see :) Oh yeah, here's another best part about my silent auction bid. When you went to pay and pick up what you won, it gave you the retail value of the item....My bid was 80% off the suggested retail value!!!!

Ok, so that was just all the news about the silent auction. After dinner there was a live auction as well. Ok, let me back up...the whole reason we got to go to this Gala was because The Lakeshore Foundation buys a table every year and donates some of the tickets to the PT/OT department at Children's. The Lakeshore Foundation is this really amazing place that is a paralympic training site as well as a recreational facility for children and adults with physical disabilities (and it happens to literally be right down the road from our apartment). Anyways, sitting at our table were two people from Lakeshore...one of them one of the administrative directors and the other a paralympic world champion in water sports! He actually owns his own non-profit business, Adaptive Aquatics, and teaches kids with physical disabilities how to water ski and stuff. Amazing. Anyways one of the prizes up for bid in the live auction was a one-week trip to some resort in Colorado for 7 people. Rhonda ended up bidding on and winning this trip! It was crazy....it went for like $3600!! And when she was bidding she kept looking at us asking if we "were in" or if we "want to go." And we are all sitting there thinking "Um, does she want us to go in financially or is she just being nice and inviting us along?!" Haha. I think she was just inviting us, but not seriously. We'll see....my boss that was there with us has her email address. We took pictures with my new digital camera (aka disposable camera from walmart) so as soon as I get them developed I'll post them. I'll leave you with a pic of Haleigh....my brother's new border collie :)

Gala

I'm such a bad blogger...no posts in over a week! People are going to stop reading because I don't update enough (or at least that's what Tom says ;).....j/k). Anyways, I've been keeping really busy, work, run, eat, sleep, sometimes run, work, eat sleep.......but my days have been consisting of some variant of that schedule. We ran 11 miles last week for our long run....we do 13 again this week. I also think that I'm going to run the Mercedes Half Marathon here in Birmingham. My full marathon will be in Disney on Jan. 7 and the Mercedes isn't until Feb. 17 or something like that. It'll give me an excuse to keep running but I'll have enough recovery time in between the two events. Plus I know a lot of people who are running the half so it should be pretty fun :)

And now for more exciting news. Every year Children's Hospital has this really fancy Gala that they put on and each year the Gala benefits something different with the money that is raised. There is dinner, a live band, a silent auction (I've never been anywhere with a silent auction before!). This year it benefits surgery at Children's I think. Anyways here is the best part. Tickets sell for $125 PER PERSON but Tom and I get to go FOR FREE :D One of the PT's husband's company buys enough tickets for a table every year and then donates the tickets to the PT/OT department. On Tuesday she still had 3 extra tickets so Tom and I get to go! It's Friday night at The Sheraton downtown. We can't wait! Maybe I'll bid $5 on something at the silent auction just to say I bid on something at a silent auction! (Apparently last year a dinner for 10 made by a chef at your house went for $1800.....some doctor's wife bid on it and won).

Unfortunately, my camera broke so I'm not sure if we will have pictures of the event. Seeing as how I'm photo-obsessed I'll probably buy a disposable before we go. Maybe Santa will bring me a new camera for Christmas......or Black Friday ;)

Go State....Beat The Owls!

P.S./Head's up: Next year PSU plays Temple IN Philly. We are definitely going up for the game and making a weekend out of it.....two of our favorite things in the world in one place....Penn State and Philly :) Now if only the Eagles play at home that Sunday...........