Food Coma(s) and Christmas Cheer!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

(A Day Late lol)

I hope everyone ate as much as they could yesterday!

I know I did :)

I really love this time of the year.

(So what if I said that about the fall too?)

Can't a girl love ALL the seasons/holidays of the year?!

Good.

Because I really do!

Thanksgiving.

A holiday to spend with your family, to be thankful, eat as much as you can, sleep, watch football, play games, and drink! Once you're old enough too!
This year we ate 2 dinners!

However, I did run my own 5K yesterday morning to prepare!

But man. My stomach is still trying to recover.
How could you not eat like 10 5 rolls AFTER dinner?!
No way alcohol was involved. Nope.

Here are some sweet turkey day photos w/ the D'Alessio's :)

Note: 2 rolls have been confirmed to be eaten.

Yes that's a Cribbage board on the top right!
My family LOVES playing games on the holidays :)

Speaking of Holidays. Now that Turkey Day is over...
CHRISTMAS TIME IS HERE!

My favorite holiday of all :)
How could you not love Christmas Time?
It's "The most wonderful time of the year!"
It's a holiday where generosity and happiness are in the air.
Singing carols. Decorating the Tree. Wrapping presents. Baking awesome cookies. Snow (hopefully). Cuddling up with your love. The smell of pine trees.
I could literally go on and on :)
But you get the point 

So natrually.
I spend Black Friday decorating our tree :)

Dear Thanksgiving,

I love you as a holiday.

But as soon as you're over.......

It's time to get ready for Christmas!!

And Gingerbread Dunkin Donuts coffee.

And peppermint mocha flavored everything. 

And an eggnog shake from Mickey D's.

We'll talk again after Christmas,
Brittany

Does your family have any fun Turkey Day traditions?

First 10K!

First off.

I'm sorry.

I'm a horrible blogger.

I don't know if I can even call myself a blogger anymore!

But I'm doing it anyway

So I'm pretty sure my last post I mentioned that I was training hard for a 10K.

Well....

I did it!

All that hard work finally paid off! 

I followed a pretty general training schedule that I found on the web.

Probably not the best one.

But hey.

It worked!

 Wondering how I did?

I wanted to be faster than 1:20:00....

Then I got thinking last week...

"Shoot. I think I could actually pull off 1:15:00!"

(After running 5 miles in 59:11)

...

......

........

Final time: 1:12:15

BAM!

Holy shiznat!

 I really could not believe it!

And!

I ran the WHOLE thing!

6.2 miles.

Just like that.

wow.

:-D

   

 And I couldn't have done it without the help/motivation/answering all of my dumb questions from this awesome girl and my just as equally awesome work paht-nah!

They were soooo awesomely awesome that they met me around my last mile and ran with me to the finish line! 

That extra motivation was desperately needed!

For my first 10K it was VERY hilly.

And I knew that upon signing up.

But didn't know it was going to be torture that bad. 
And the worst part was there was no service so I had no pandora to keep my mind off of my breathing like a wild woman deep breathing!
I tried my hardest to do negative splits. But it didn't happen. Still happy with my times though! And I finished strong :)

 

But.
It's over.
I kicked that 10K's butt.
And I feel awesome about it!

Look at the awesome sweatshirt we got!

 
I can't wait to get back out there and kill my PR.
:)
Interval training next on the agenda!

But first.
Some Chicken Stir Fry I whipped up tonight

And some wine while I blog :)

Ahh. This is the good life.

 

Running for dessert.

I'm finally feeling 100% better :)

I know you were sooo worried

No stomach bugs around here!

Training has been going great!

Wednesday was supposed to be CT day.

But since I failed to do the 3 miles on Tuesday, 

I ran a quick mile plus 30 min of elliptical!

Decided to push myself while on the treadmill and ran on an incline of 1.5

MAN!

That really DOES make a difference!

I was exhausted feeling a bit tired after that.

Wanna know the real reason I pushed myself?

I baked on Tuesday night. (Baking is awesome makes me feel better)

I made these amazing brownies.

Knock You Naked Brownies they're called.

How could you NOT make them!

 

That is not my picture, it's from The Pioneer Woman. She's amazing!

Mine weren't nearly as picturesque as hers.

Gooey. Just really really gooey!

You HAVE to make these.

They are amazing!

Did I mention they were amazing?

And delicious, scrum-diddly-umptious, you name it!

You're welcome in advance :)

Just a fair warning. They are definitely a PMSing/don't give a sh hoot what I eat today kind of brownie :)

Back to training.

Today. Despite feeling like a fatso wanting to curl up in a little ball and die, I got my butt up and to the gym BEFORE work.

Yes. Before.

Even I almost fainted at the sound of that :-p

And let me tell you.

It felt amazing!

3.3 miles in 38:00 minutes (with warm up & cool down)

I should do it more often!

Now I have my whole day free :)

I'll be baking more tonight!

Pumpkin Rice Krispy Treats for our Church's Bazaar this Saturday!

I will share more tomorrow!

That is all.

Brownies.

Lesson Learned!

I loathe being sick.

Especially on cool crisp fall days like yesterday and today.

(insert cry baby face here)

But luckily (?) it was only a 1 1/2 day thing.

I blame it on Mimi's chili. TMI

So about that 10k training?

Yeahhhhh.

Today I was scheduled to do 3 miles.

Only did 1.

I read somewhere that any run you can fit in is better than nothing?

I hope so.

Cause I felt like crap afterwards. 

Probably shouldn't have done it.

But my legs felt amazing during that mile! I couldn't believe it! 

The stomach on the other hand...not so well

I learned something tonight.

It's fall...

The sun sets A LOT earlier than it used to.

Still had some daylight. But not a whole lot.

(Yes I wore bright colored stuff...safety first!)

And...

I was listening to Pandora...

Rob Zombie.  Pandora.

WTF was I thinking?

Nothing like setting the tone of my run with a dose of Paranoia.

Constantly looking over my shoulder because I'm running on a not so well traveled road, at dusk...in October, the scariest month of the year...no streetlights...stupid squirrels rustling through the leaves...making me think there is a mass murderer lurking behind the bushes...waiting to attack me...

Ok.

You get it.

I freaked myself out.

As much as I love your rock n' roll Mr. Zombie.

You are now x'ed from my running mix.

I'll stick to the "fo shizzle my nizzle" music for now.

 

Back from the dead.

I'm a terrible terrible person.
I've kept you guys out of my boring life for over a month!
I'm truly sorry :(
During that month....not a lot happened.
Except.
I was persuaded to sign myself up for another race. But this time...
its a 10k!
Dun. Dun. Dunnnnn.
I can do it. It's just the matter of motivation. I'll share more about my training later on.

Ugh. But lately I can tell you that I have been exhausted.
Deprived of sleep.
Stressed out beyond belief. T
he bad moods overtake my good moods.
I need a vacation. We need a vacation. But that won't happen.
Any time soon anyway.
Here's why...

I started this blog during the summer. Summer, like school kids, is my time off. Fall and spring are filled with my "extracurricular" activities. Orchestra. Church choir. PV Choral Society. I love music. Love playing the violin. Love singing.
But man.
I. Am. Tired.

I can't "not" do them either. I don't want my fingers to go all rusty nor my voice go horse. But I do want time with my wonderful husband and friends and family. Not to mention have the energy to train for my next milestone race! I totally wish there were more hours in a day.

I have to tell you of some more recent happenings....
One of my "side jobs" is being a violinist for weddings.
It's awesome to be apart of someone's special day :)
The money isn't bad either ;)

Yesterday I was able to play with my lovely sister and cousin at a friends' wedding.
It was cold for an outside ceremony but we did great!

We also had our very own purse holder :-p

Tehe ;)

All in all it was a fun night! My legs are killing me!
Running 3 miles in the morning followed by a night of dancing...
Probably not the best idea for me.
Ha.

Gosh. I love us :)

Special shout out to this amazing runner on her Marathon Day! She is going to kick some booty!! :)

Play Ball!

Baseball!

Hate watching it on TV talk about boring

But LOVE going to games!

Last night we went to Coca-Cola Park for a Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs game for my Cuz's B-day.

(His actual Bday was in July...better late than never!)

Awesome time with family and friends!

I love my family :)

We're all crazy...yes ALL...not just me

There's some good lookin' photos of my crazy family. 

See I told ya I'm not the only one :)

Oo! 

And there was a blue moon last night! 

Cool.

 

My littlest cuz got to throw one of the first pitch!

He is adorbs! 

Future NFL or MLB player right here!

9 innings and many beers later the Iron Pigs lost.

Poop.

But!

Just so happened there were fireworks after the game!

Confession: This pic is from a different iron pigs game :-o

But I couldn't just say there were fireworks without giving you a picture!

Moving on...

My legs hurt.

Like really.

Thursday I decided to do some at home crossfit.

Crossfit?!

Yes crossfit.

Wanted to see what everyone keeps talking about!

I did only 2 moves.

Thrusters and Burpees.

Threw in some jumping jacks or ski jumps in between.

Ouch.

Then stupid motivated me did 35 minutes on the elliptical followed by a mile run before the game yesterday!

Ouch.

But it's a good ouch! 

Def need to do some more strength training!

Today is full of relaxing :)

Slept in until 11.

Laziness FTW

Went out and got myself some coffee...

wait for it......

Duh nuh nuh nuhhhhhh! (It's a Zelda thing)

DD has pumpkin K-cups!!!!

Thank you September :)

This is what I'm currently doing...

Editing pictures and playing Runescape. An online game for us ultimate nerds :)

Yes. That is Andrew's computer hooked up to our 42" tv.

And yes I'm also on my laptop.

This blog IS called TalkNerdytomeBert :)

I've done this loads of time.

But I still cannot master the two-mouse-two-screen concept.

Why isn't the pointer moving!!

Time to do some more relaxing until heading to a birthday get together tonight!

P.S. Today's weather/mood of the day calls for some Zac Brown Band Pandora :)

Yesssss!

Gamer night!

Nerd Alert!

 

Today is the 20th Anniversary of Super Mario Kart!

(SNES)

Holy cow.

20 years already?

I remember playing this game when it first came out!

Omg sooo many good times with that game!

Naturally, Hubby and I HAD to play it :)

Um. Forgot how hard it was to steer in that game!

Soooo we switched to my other favorite Mario Kart :)

Ohhh yeah!

If only you could have been here.

Curses left and right.

Laughing until you cry.

Well only me haha

And now for something completely different.

Today I wore Purple.

Watch out I'm getting girly!

 

Ditto says "Hi Angel Violet!"  

I wore purple in memory of a beautiful baby girl named Violet.

She was taken too soon from her wonderful parents by SMA.

Please take the time and read her story!

Hopefully you can be tested to see if you are a carrier of this disease!

The Color Run 2012

Who ran the WHOLE Happiest 5K on the planet?

I DID!

Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

much fun!

I'd have to say this was one of the coolest things I have ever done. 

Hands down.

It was worth the 3:30am wake up call and 1 1/2 drive to NYC. Especially this sunrise:)

 

Everyone was so helpful, encouraging, colorful, and HAPPY!

I hope you can attend a color run at least once in your lifetime.

Did I mention how much fun it was? 

Just don't get a mouth full of that colored dust. 

It doesn't taste the greatest. 

But it does come out of your hair and off your skin pretty easy!

 I kinda wanted to leave some color on :) 

My teammates were so awesome!

They kept me going until I crossed that finish line! 

Almost there this awesome girl said "Hey! Remember that time you ran the whole 5K?"

That's exactly what I needed to cross the finish line :)

Words can't explain how accomplished I felt. I could have cried! 

I want to say thanks to everyone of my teammates for sticking with this slow-paced beginner runner

That meant so much to me :)

Amazing day with some amazing people.

Let's do it again next year!!

I want to get colored again!

Last minute...

What do I do on a Saturday morning when I have nothing planned?

If you guessed sleep.

EH WRONG!

I'll be running another 5K of course! :)

Bring on The Color Run in NYC!

Yep you heard it right. This country gal is going to the Big Apple (Brooklyn to be exact!)

I'm not particularly fond of the city.

Too busy

But...this is a great opportunity! Someone couldn't make it at last minute so I'm jumping in!

SOOO EXCITED!

 

 I'll be running with these two awesome ladies and a couple of girls (and a guy) at work!

I seriously love  the girls I work with!

They have offered me so much advice and support about my new love of running :)

If I had a bad run, they'll know about it, but just tell me to brush it off and tomorrow is a start of a new day! Even the best have bad runs sometimes!

Have I mentioned I was excited about running this 5K?!

Cause I totally am :)

  I made up my mind yesterday at work.

Then I realized.

Crap.

I didn't run on Monday OR Tuesday!

So I got my butt out and ran last night. 2.15 in 27 minutes (With a cool down!) 

Not bad. Not bad. 

Freaking hills are a killer. But I will conquer them one day!

 Different subject.

Hubbers got new glasses! Buttttt I forgot to take a good picture of him :-p

I got to make fun of his old glasses :)

 I was getting strange looks from Andrew's phone afterwards...

I see what you did there

Also, My hubbers is so awesome, he made me dinner! I didn't get to take a pic before I smashed it with some gravy, BUT The Pastie was awesome!

Pastie? I hope most of you know what it is. I find myself explaining what it is A LOT!

A Pastie= Kind of like a meat pie. Beef, potatoes, sometimes onions in a pie like crust!

It's delicious. That's all you have to know :)

Andrew and I get into an argument about the best condiment to put on a pastie. 

He likes ketchup.

I love gravy. The meat kind! 

Not the "gravy" that Italians call their tomato sauce :-p

That was a BIG surprise when I first met Andrew's Italian side of the fam! Haha.

"Gravy on Spaghetti?!"

Any hooters,

Hoping to get some awesome pics this weekend to share with you!

What kind of spontaneous things do you like to do?

The "A Bacon C's"

My husband and I are...

well, perfectly weird together :)

This is what we came up with together at dinner...

Complete Randomness.

The D'Alessio's present:

 

The "A Bacon C's"

A:  Applewood smoked Bacon

B: BACON!

C: Canadian Bacon

D: Damn good Bacon

E: Excellent Bacon

F: FREEKIN' BACON!

G: Good Ass Bacon

H: Hallelujah! It's Bacon!

I: I Love Bacon

J: Just Kidding...Bacon!

K: Kick Ass Bacon

L: Luxurious Bacon

M: Mmmmmmmmm Bacon

N: Naked Bacon

O: Overcooked Bacon

P: Perfect Bacon

Q: Question...What's your favorite condiment? BACON!

R: REAL Bacon

S: Smoked Bacon

T: Tasty Bacon

U: Uber Bacon

V: Feminine Bacon

W: Where's the Bacon?!

X: X-treme Bacon!

Y: Yummy Bacon

Z: Zomg Bacon!

The funniest part?

We didn't even have bacon for dinner!

:)

Running, Family & Friends, and Pumpkin Cookies!

Welp. We did it again! Another 5k done!
My work sissy and I finished the 1st Annual Palmer 5K :) 

And we kicked butt! Both of us beat our last 5K times :)
Last time- 43:30
This time- 35:13!!
Eff yeahhhhh buddy!
AND I felt like complete death great afterwards! My feet were screaming at me...but that's because I hardly walked :)

Today is a different story though haha! My recovery run later on will be interesting...to say the least!

After our awesome finish, sissy got me DD! Ahhhhh so amazing!

Idk if I told you...but...since I bought those compression socks for myself...and hubby doesn't understand why I spent that much money on them....I agreed to push a DD strike on myself for 2 weeks. Oh. Em. Gee. This is the hardest thing I've done alllll year long! Especially since I stop for coffee almost every morning. Aye yai yai. However, the clause doesn't say anything about other people buying it for me!!! Tehehehe :) 

Then to continue with the GLORIOUS weather, I went to my family picnic to chow down on some hert dergs and hermbergers! Ermergerd! We had a birthday cake for my Mimi and one of my other kinda related relatives! Haha.

I left the picnic to get ready for the perfect night for a fire with some of mah bestest friends! 

(Saturday was jammed PACKED with fun!)

I made some beer bread, spinach and artichoke dip, smore's stuff, and........

I got to make my FAVORITE cookies of ALL TIME yesterday! 

PUMPKIN CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES!

If you haven't tried them

I feel sorry for you MAKE THEM NOW!

CAUTION: These cookies may cause extreme "yummy in my tummy" syndrome and not enough over eating may occur followed by sugar rush/crash. :)

Here's the recipe:

 Ingredients:

1 package of spice cake mix

1 15oz can of pumpkin

1 bag o choc chips (your choice)

Preheat your heating device (oven) to 350 degrees.

Mix the can o' pumpkin and spice cake mix in a large bowl.

Add choc. chips.

Place spoonfuls of the batter on a greased cookie sheet.

Bake for 18-20 minutes.

And Voila!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies!

These are "cakey cookies" and are moist and delicious!

I hope you enjoy!

I know we did :) It really was the perfect night for a fire, complete with plenty of fall beers, laughs, and great friends!

Cheers!

P.S. Do you like the new color scheme on the blog?
Let me know!

Fantastic weekend!

I enjoy...

70-80 degree weather,

A cool breeze,

Cuddling with my husband,

Sunday breakfast/lunch brunch with family,

Nights out with friends,

Nighttime swimming,

Running,

and

Being a lazy butt

Free weekends :)

All of which I got to enjoy this weekend!

Words canNOT express how happy I was to have a weekend where there was NOTHING on my schedule! 

You need these every once in a while. You time. Not worrying what others want you to do. Do whatever you feel like doing. 

Let me tell you...

It felt glorious! ;)

I enjoy running?

Woah. 

Yes I do!!

This weekend was amazing weather wise :) I'm glad to say I took full advantage of it too!

Look what the mailman delivered on Friday!

Those are my brand new compression socks from procompression.com! Neon yellow FTW.

Naturally I had to run on Friday night so I could try these suckers on.

Question.

How come no one told me how STINKIN' HARD it is to put these damn things on!?!?!?

Geez Louise!

I got a workout just putting them on my chunky legs!

But I can tell you that I'm in love with them!

I have a huge problem with shin splints. Ouch. 

And not to mention my retarded ankle.

But my legs felt fantastic on Saturday/Sunday :)

Saturday was a day of recovering from a hangover relaxation day ;)

Relaxed with a nice hot cup-o-joe and toast with apple butter..mmmmmmm.

(I forgot to take a pic of the toast before I ate it teheh)

Got to eat lunch with my Mimi and Mom at Panera.

I freaking love Panera!

If Panera was a person I'd totally marry him/her.

(Sorry Andrew :-p)

Got Ditto some new toys too! (obv. not at Panera)

 

I also cleaned the apartment.

Something I haven't had the energy for in a looooong time!

It smells sooo good in here now :)

Later on Hubbers and I went out for ice cream with mah sis and her newwwww boyfriend :) (oo-la la!)

He likes video games and Potter Puppet Pals.

We have a winner!

Sunday I kicked myself in the butt for not getting up early for a run. What a gorgeous morning! 

In my defense...Mom gave us a memory foam mattress topper thingamajigger to try out.

I was NOT getting out of bed.

Too darn comfy! 

However. I did run 2.15 miles after church/brunch/food coma. 

And it was a darn good run too!

Ran 10:40 mile (one of my fastest hahahah)

But I felt good with it! 

Before you know it I'll be able to do 3 miles...then 4...5..6! 

Haha.

Let's not get carried away :-p

This week I tallied up all the miles I ran (4/7 days)

7.4 miles.

Damn. I'm surprised I ran that much! (Remember I'm a beginner!)

So as a reward, Hubby and I went and got some brewskies to enjoy out at the pool!

Omg. They already have the fall beers out!

Blue moon has a new one!

Delish. Def a must try.

Autumn.

Jeans. Hoodies. Sweater klogs. Pumpkin EVERYTHING :)

Sorry. I was daydreaming!

But fall isn't here yet...so we're getting in all the pool time we can!

Even if that means swimming under the lights :)

Ohhh yeahhhhh.

:)

I wanna know...

What's your favorite season?

Glorious!

Remember when I was having trouble staying motivated?
Well lemme tell ya. I've kicked that lazy S.O.B. outta here and now Bert is shifted into full gear!

Ever since I ran the 5K last Saturday I've felt Glorious. Yes. GLORIOUS! That is my word for the week. Glorious. I wonder how many times I can say glorious in this glorious blog of mine :)

Any hooters. I'll take ya back to the weekend.
Sunday = rest day. And boy what a rest day that was! I really wanted to take a recover run before church. Yeah right. Honestly. Took a step outside to see what the weather was like...."EFF THIS! Nope. Not today." Holy cow was is muggy! Muggier than the 5k on Saturday! Went to church and slept the afternoon away. It was glorious :)

Monday= Good 2.19 mile run in the evening :) Wasn't the fastest, but still good. This was the day I discovered a pain in my ankle. I ignored it stupid me and kept running. Didn't hurt the rest of the night though!

Tuesday= Ankle was a little stiff in the morning. Tried to work it out and loosen it. Felt ok for the rest of the day. Then I hit the trails in Jacobsburg with Hubbers and our friend and his dog Yoshi (Ahh I love that name!) Only did a 1.5 mile run, but it had some hills. Phew. Good pace! The hills however aggravated my ankle a bit. But the temperature at 7pm was Glorious!

Meet Yoshi :)

 Isn't she the most adorable pup??!
Our night concluded with this beautiful sunset while eating some well deserved fro-yo! :)

Wednesday= Ok. Have to do some cross training. Not only to give my gimpy ankle a break, but I need to tone up everything else on my fat body! Swimming. Such a great way to workout! I might have read it in a blog somewhere? :) Tried to do some freestyle. Learned a very important lesson. I need a one piece swimsuit for this. HAHA! Luckily I tried this with just my hubbers around. But just doing the breaststroke I was mooning the birds up in the trees! I was able to do the fly and backstroke without any wardrobe malfunctions tehe :)

Thursday=Stormy day. Plus it was freaking hot outside! This equals sitting on my lazy ass heading to the gym! Ankle was still a bit ehhhh so I hopped on the elliptical for 35 minutes. No pain! Glorious. AND I got to watch the U.S. Women's Soccer Team beat Japan for the Gold! WOOOO! USA!!!

Today= My most favoritest day of the week :) And also my good friend's birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY SCOOT!! I'm almost guaranteed to have more than my share of alcoholic beverages tonight....SOOOO I'm going to leave you now and hopefully have a nice 1-2 mile run before it rains! 

P.S. I'm hoping to head to the running store tomorrow during my travels and see if they have advice for my ankle problems?! Maybe some new sneaks are in my future! 


GLORIOUS! :)