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!