"secret's in the sauce" or "a little bit of chicken fried"

long before pinterest came along, recipes were passed around by hand. my mamma has a patchwork recipe box on her kitchen counter filled with mis-matched recipe cards from numerous family members and friends. most of the entries are titled after the giver of the recipe -- ex: nana brett's chicken casserole. as a kid i'd flip through them while mamma told me stories about the owner of the delishousness. i dreamed i'd one day have a box just like hers. let's face it, it's 2012. for the past 5 years i've managed to transpose those goodies into a self-built filemaker database (take that high school computer teacher with no imagination).

i sometimes take pride in the fact i can't cook very well. i can bake up a storm, but cooking requires a longer attention span then i can typically muster. the few things i can cook, i choose to cook because they are special to me. perhaps nothing is more special than the aforementioned nana brett's chicken casserole.

"crazy roommates" or "spoiled only child"

true story - my sofa is in here

i moved this weekend. it's the first time since i moved to wilmington that i've moved everything in 1 day, well, nearly everything. typically i have a week of overlap and i do the small things gradually. i could have done so here, but the back and forth is just too far to make it logical. as the title suggests, i'm not big on roommates. i've been an only child for most of my pre-college life. i have a half-sister, but she lives with her parents and we've never had to share a room.

when i went off to college, i attended community college my freshman year, no dorm room. i had my own one bedroom apartment, it was great. i didn't have my first roommate until my junior year in college when i moved in with a sorority sister. long story short, we weren't friends at the end of that year.

"carolina girl" or "hells belles"

taking a break from the running updates to talk about something that continues to surprise me, the surprise on west coasters faces when i can do something they don't expect.

some examples? change a tail light, drive an suv, drive an suv that's 4wd, drive an suv with 4wd that's also a stick shift. i haven't figured out where the shock comes from, the only thing i can figure is i'm a girl. this is pretty weird considering i see girls driving around in suvs all over la. i don't dress particularly girly, tho one of the tail light changes did occur while wearing heels after work but still, it's la, everyone wears heels.

friday i had the unfortunate task of venturing into what i can only assume is the atrium to the gate way to hell: the glendale dmv. after being pulled over in november for expired out of state tags and subjected to such witty banter as "nc huh? did you drive in today?" umm, no. "are you planning on driving back tonight?" umm, no. being threatened with impounding my vehicle i promised to take care of getting registered in ca. i got my extension notice warning me that if it were not taken care of and my "bail" paid by 3.26.12 i could have my license suspended and a warrant issued for my arrest. (already had one of those for a speeding ticket, mom hung it on the fridge) i should prob take care of this huh?

i arrived at the dmv at 7:30am, the line was already 7 people deep. i arrived with as much paperwork as i could find, having lost my expired registration paper months ago. i knew i had most of what i needed, i planned to talk my way around the rest. after about a 20 min wait, i went to see dmv worked #1. #1 looked at my papers and handled the drivers license form, dmv works #2 would have to do the registration. here we go, let the tap dancing begin.

"too much to do" or "too lazy to do"

i've fallen off the treadmill, not literally thank goodness. what started out as a solid 3 weeks of sticking to a training plan of 4 days a week, has become a mad scramble to try to go 2 times a week. why the drop in momentum, let's try to figure that out.

first there was the valentines week that totally threw off the sched. i swapped days due to date plans and then unexpected commitments popped up. i got back on track for a week and a half, then the beau moved apartments. i helped (meaning i packed everything) to get him moved out over the week so we could take some out of town friends to vegas last weekend. i did put my foot down at 10:30pm one night and stormed to the gym. that was the hardest 2 miles i've ever run.

2 miles? you ask, wasn't i on track to 3 miles just a week ago? why yes, yes i was. and like the weekend after valentines when i was a bit under the weather, missing the week to pack up an apt totally kicked my ass. i have to take responsibility, i could have told him to do it himself, even he admits i went above and beyond. i am taking responsibility for it and reminding myself that i have a 10k in may and if i have to spend the hour after it sprawled out on the ground, i'm gonna finish it.

i knew going into this that the physical strength wasn't going to be my biggest problem, it was my mental strength. that's part of the reason i ordered a giving key with "strength" on it, to remind myself to have it. i have an incredibly short attention span and running on that treadmill is damn boring. the weather should warm up soon and i can start changing up the scenery. until then i'll just have to search for additional inspiration. wouldn't you know it, every time i need a little, the tar heels give me a boost. (i'll try to keep this love fest short)

"finally making it" or "much to learn"

this past weekend my parents came to visit and totally tried to keep me on track with this whole "training" thing. i took a day off from work and went for my first outdoor run since i started. i figured out a 2 mile block around my neighborhood, started off and before i knew it, was a little tired and way further along than i had expected. while waiting for the stop light to change i looked at my handy dandy runkeeper app. i had finished 1.5 miles at a pace of a 10 minute mile, no wonder i was exhausted.

i've been varying my pace on the treadmill a bit, starting at 4.7 for a song, 4.9 for a song and 5.2 for the rest. i'm averaging a 12.5 minute mile. so what happened? clearly i have no idea what a 12.5 minute mile feels like. i've been working on a machine that does the ground moving for me so i just get in rhythm with it. now i have to figure out how to pace myself before i keel over on the side of vineland from exhaustion. as my ironman athlete lady friend told me as we watched unc tear down dook, when you're running a long distance, it's all about pacing. (yes, i had to give a unc shout out)

how will i learn to pace myself when the treadmill is not around? there are a few options; one is cheap the other is not. i have the handy dandy run keeper app on my phone: it tracks gps, keeps time and pace of each mile and easily saves to my online runkeeper account. the draw back? i don't run with my phone readily available when outdoors, i keep it in my little run bag with my house keys. i don't use my iphone as an ipod when i run outdoors, i have a shuffle for that and don't feel like moving to a bulkier arm band. i'm left with the following option, some heart rate monitor / pacer combo.