Recapping: Waking Windows

Ah yes, another one has come and gone (plus one day if you folks start your weeks on Monday like normal people). This past week was crazy at work and I learned that I am officially the most awkward interviewer ever. I told one fantastic applicant that I didn’t like NYC (where he’s from) very much and that “I have a lot of feelings.” Yeesh folks, yeesh. (He took the job p.s. so all is not lost). Anyway Friday night til Saturday afternoon I was pretty much working so I haven’t got much to say on that part of the weekend except YAY hotel busy season 😉

Saturday afternoon Zach and I met some friends at Waking Windows, a local music festival that takes over Winooski. The festival which has certainly grown since we went last year, took place at various businesses around the town of Winooski including a main stage and food truck area in the downtown area.  After meeting up we headed over to Four Quarters Brewing to catch a band called Iron Eyes Cody and grab some beers. The band was awesome and totally worth having to wait in line for the majority of it. Some of the beers put out by Four Quarters aren’t usually my style as some of their more popular options tend to be a bit too sour for my unrefined pallet… sue me. I was so excited to try their White Peach IPA, it was so crisp and refreshing and paired so well with being at an outdoor music festival. We all talked about how we easily could drink it all summer. This was the first Derby day that I didn’t do anything special for which felt a bit odd, I guess that’s how you know you’re really out of the south! Though there was cornhole at the brewery so I was real freakin’ pumped about that.

After the brewery we hung out at the main stage for awhile and rocked some delicious pulled pork poutine from one of the food trucks. I liked the layout of food options along the water this year and I wish we had gotten there sooner to check out some of the local artist’s tables. It’s awesome that Waking Windows is a 3-day event so you can pick and choose the day and the kind of music you want to hear at the different venues around town. I’m glad we got tickets for Saturday because all of the bands we heard were great. Though I will admit 5:40pm Kari was much more pumped for listening to new bands than 12:40am Kari… I made it 15 minutes into that show before casually stepping out to call an uber. Guess my Bonnaroo days are behind me…

Sunday was officially my first day off in 12 days and all I wanted to do was sit around the house and do absolutely nothing so that’s what I did. I debated doing something active knowing that I’d feel better about the day but the furthest I got was to the corner store for some coffee and I’m quite okay with it.

Monday I had set up to be filled with appointments and getting my cleaning/laundry done but that was quickly turned upside down when I managed to completely throw out my back. 26 going on 86, I tell you. I forced myself to get out of the house for groceries (had to ask for help carrying them to my car at Trader Joes) but other than that I binge watched Happy Valley on Netflix all day. So that was a win at least.

What’s your beer style?

Have you been to any fun outdoor events lately?

Recapping: Restaurant Week(end)

Greetings Earthlings! Let’s get right into a recap shall we? After Zach and I got back from a beautiful wedding in NYC we had all of 1 night before having my sweet friend Sarah come visit for a long weekend. This was her first visit back since Maria & I moved her down to DC in August for her brand new big girl life so it was great to have her back in town and the fact that it fell during Vermont Restaurant Week was a great coincidence!

Thursday afternoon we got our gossip on while getting our nails done before heading over to Pizza Barrio. I had been to Barrio Bakery many times during the day for some great coffee & delicious sweet treats but had never actually made it for the evenings that they open up for Pizza.

How cute is this place??

The restaurant week deal looked great but we ended up breaking it up a bit to try a few things between the three of us. The Focaccia and bacon marmalade was an awesome salty-sweet combination that we were all big fans of. My favorite part of the meal was the chopped salad that we decided to split. I loved how fresh the lettuce, avocado, and cherry peppers were and the buttermilk dressing perfectly accompanied the goat cheese. It’s been 4 days and I’m still dreaming about it. Will need to recreate…

We tried two pizzas for our entrees, the Tricolore and the Green Mountain. The Tricolore was topped with mushrooms, fresh mozzarella and Prosciutto di Parma which was great but the Green Mountain pizza with it’s fresh apples and honey drizzle was the show stopper. Honestly you can throw apple slices and cheese together on anything and I’m in love, it’s the Vermont way.

It also helped that Heady Toppers were $5 and our server though clearly incredibly busy and maybe the only one working (?) was fantastic. I’d highly recommend this cute neighborhood favorite.

After dinner we rushed over to the Vermont Comedy Club to catch “Belly Laughs” performed by the hilarious Unmentionables improv group. I know I have discussed many times how strongly I feel about free shit so you can only imagine how excited I was to walk into the show and receive a badass canvas bag filled with swag from various Vermont Restaurant Week sponsors.

It’s quite difficult to have a bad time at a comedy show (plus the free shit high that I was riding helped) but this was particularly funny. I love the comedy club itself, it feels low-key and comfortable while still seeing top-notch performances and really fits what Burlington is all about. True to form the Unmentionables crushed all the glorious awkwardness that comes along with improv shows. They based their sets off of two interviews with people in the local restaurant/cider game which I thought was a cool way to connect to restaurant week.

Check this swag out folks! #chevreforevre

We spent the rest of the weekend drinking *arguably*  too much alcohol, waking up  semi-hungover and hiking a mountain with growlers from Fiddlehead because, welcome to Vermont. We started Saturday with dinner reservations at Pizzeria Verita as classy ladies and finished the evening by eating delivery Domino’s pizza and watching Gary the Goat youtube videos on the Big Comfy Couch. 26 is a real transition year.

It was a great time to have visitors and totally worth the fact that I am now exhausted to begin the month of May.

Do you participate in Restaurant Weeks around you?

 

Training Day: Week One mixed with some Kobe

Hello Friends!

What night in sports last night huh? Red Sox won. My Penguins crushed Zach’s Rangers in game one of the playoffs 😉 Naturally Steph Curry continued to blow my sports loving mind with his 400th three of the season. BUT CAN WE JUST TALK ABOUT KOBE’S LAST GAME??? That damn man is such a legend. To go out with 60 points in your final game after such an incredible career, totally fitting. I mean do you throw a piece of garbage into a trash can without yelling “Kobe!!!” because I certainly do not. Plus I think we can all agree that any day that Jay-Z decides to show up on your final day of work you know you’ve lead a ballin’ life. #mambaout

Anyway, as I mentioned in my previous post I was signed up for a half marathon last Saturday but due to being 100% not ready I did not participate. The night I made the disappointing decision I got online and found a new race to train for The FaxonLaw Fairfield Half Marathon in Fairfield, CT! Zach is from Fairfield and his parents actually live right on the race route which will be fun to pass (unfortunately for me towards the end where I’ll probably be dead). It looks like a great half to explore the beautiful coastal town so I’m really exctied. I love running races in different cities, so far I’ve run races in 5 states and I’m looking forward to tacking on more!

Colorado 10K. Vermont Half Marathon. Georgia 5K (aka a time I was heavy into tanning)

So the race is June 26th and I’ve given myself a solid 12 weeks of training for this one because knowing my schedule I want ample time to get myself into gear. So here is how it’s going so far…

Thursday 4/7: 2 Miles in 23:00.

Friday: Rest

Saturday: Nothing planned but I did get my 10,000 steps in on my Fitbit which was my goal.

Sunday (done on Monday) 4/11: 2 Miles in 24:00. My plan has my long run day on Sundays which is normally one of my days off but this week I worked so I pushed it to Monday. It was a chilly afternoon outside but it was a good run around the neighborhood.

Tuesday 4/12: 1 Mile in 12:00. I planned for 2 but I forgot my socks at home and running in sneakers on a treadmill without socks lasted all of 12 minutes.

Wednesday: 20 Minutes on a Treadmill. This wasn’t a planned run but I got done work and didn’t have enough time to head back home to catch the 2nd period of Penguins game so I headed the treadmill to watch. I ended up running a mile and then walking on an incline but I have no further details because I literally just wanted to watch the game and get to 10,000 steps on my Fitbit.

Here is my plan of attack for this next week:

Thursday: TEMPO: 2 Miles @ 11:30 with 1 Mile warm-up/cool-down.

Friday: BOSU workout.

Saturday: Rest

Sunday: LONG: 3 Miles

Monday: Yoga @ Sangha

Tuesday: EASY: 3 Miles

Wednesday: Rest

Anyone else training for anything? How’s it coming along?

Did you guys catch any of the awesomeness in sports last night??

 

 

I Just Don’t Understand…

How has it been a month since my last post? I feel like I say “oh i should blog about that” to myself every single day and yet getting it to actual post just seems to be a real big problem lately. Let’s do a mini recap of the weekend, shall we?

I don’t normally have Saturdays off but I took this last one off because I was signed up to run the Half Marathon Unplugged. While I was signed up- I did not actually compete. This is the first race that I’ve not competed in after signing up. It was a really hard decision but I hadn’t been getting the mileage in to make it a pleasant experience and the thought of “pushing through” just to say I did it felt wrong. Fear not (I tell myself) I have a new half at the end of June to focus on and that training plan is coming along very nicely.

There are quite a few great brunch options around Burlington but one of our favorites is definitely Henry’s Diner. Typical greek style diner tucked away on a side street it’s always packed and for a very good reason. The food is delicious, the portions are huge and it’s all pretty inexpensive which is amazing for myself and all the college kids that frequent it. Post brunch Zach and I had some friends over to watch the Masters. While we watched, Maria and I made cupcakes for her boyfriend’s birthday.

May I present to you, the very first cupcake made by the newest addition to our family- Charlie Conway the KitchenAid mixer (as seen on my Instagram). It’s a Bourbon Chocolate cupcake topped with Maple Buttercream frosting and Bourbon Candied Bacon.

After baking, Zach and I headed out to dinner at Pizzeria Verita which was packed but they squeezed us in to the pizza bar station. It was a little weird to have our backs turned to the restaurant but I was so fascinated by watching those guys make pizzas right in front of our faces that I quickly got over it.

I will admit I felt uncomfortable every time I made eye contact with them -which was a lot because I was staring like a stage 6 creeper- but after a Focal Banger you’d be surprised how comfortable you can be. The pizza itself was one of their nightly specials that had turkey, sun-dried tomatoes, feta, basil and a balsamic reduction. It was great but I have enjoyed other pizzas on their menu just a tiny bit more in past visits. It’s such a great restaurant though I’d highly recommend it!

We headed over to meet some friends at The Archives, Burlington’s newest downtown “barcade.” I believe this was their first Saturday night open to the public (?) and there was quite the interest. The beer and cocktail list was extensive, we both ordered a can of Boom Sauce IPA which we’d had before and loved but I think the $9 charge was a bit high even for a craft-beer oriented town such as Burlington. They had quite a few old school arcade games and though it was a crowded Saturday night, they were all pretty accessible. I’m literally horrendous at arcade games but I have fun trying. Any new spot has it’s kinks (the token machines kept emptying and waiting for a beer took a lot longer than it probably should have) but I really see the potential in this place. I definitely can’t wait to go back!

I worked on Sunday morning but made it home in time to catch the crazy day that was a Sunday at the Masters. I can’t even believe all of the magic that happened on the 16th hole! My boy Rory left himself too much to do but the Danny Willett story line is why I love sports so much. Monday was my day off which meant thousands of loads of laundry, grocery shopping (because I refuse to go on the weekends) and trying out a new recipe for “Cajun Chicken Pasta On the Lighter Side” from Skinnytaste It was so good!

Is everyone having a good start to their week?

How are your arcade/video gaming abilities?

Vermonting: A Sunday on Church Street

Well hello there beautiful people, long time no chat!

It is no secret that I am a born and raised Vermonter and proud of it. I love being from this little state where everyone knows everyone and local goods are supported far more than anything mass produced elsewhere. While it certainly has it’s drawbacks (I’m still looking at you, Target) I am truly grateful to have moved back to my home state for the last few years. Living along the waterfront of downtown Burlington in particular for the last couple of years has been great because it means a 5-10 minute walk brings me to fantastic restaurants, shops and activities. I’ve always wanted this blog to in part showcase some of the fun things that the area has to offer so I thought I’d start a series called “Vermonting” to grow that outlet.

My schedule typically gives me Sunday & Mondays off- Sundays to be lazy, Monday to prep for the week while everyone else is at work. This Sunday in particular was one of those days I could have easily hung around the house all day so I was very happy when a friend of mine invited me to go watch the SEC Championship game at a local sports bar. (I never thought I’d actually want Kentucky to win over another team but as I am strictly against shifting conferences, Texas A&M didn’t stand a chance in my book). After the game I decided to walk along Church Street half to people watch, half to pop in and out of some of my favorite shops.

First up, Saratoga Olive Oil Co. Let me preface this part by saying- I don’t cook. I try to cook, I don’t normally suck at it but on the whole I am terrified of it. I’ve started gathering the general idea of how to use oils and balsamic vinegars but knowing what flavors go with what gives me some solid anxiety. I love going into Saratoga Olive Oil because not only can you taste literally everything, they will also be very polite when you ask dumb questions like “what could I possibly do with this?” I feel like every product in the shop is the perfect addition to gift baskets so I’m constantly buying them but I can’t say that I’ve ever purchased my own bottle until Sunday. I ended up with the Cilantro & Roasted Onion Olive Oil that according to the nice girl behind the counter “makes an excellent roasting oil and even better in guac if you like oil based guac.” Uh, sure I do? I’ll let you guys know how I fare. Also, if you get the chance I’d highly recommend checking out their website for helpful recipes!

My next stop was a local kitchen supply store called Kiss the Cook to grab a maple leaf cookie cutter and get real, real Vermonty on this shit. As I mentioned previously I’m not a big cook (though I do hope to be one day) however I do love to bake and I’ve wanted to try out a new cookie recipe so why not get a badass cookie cutter in the process.

I floated into Zinnia Jewelry Store in search of a fun statement necklace. I love the selection at Zinnia and the majority of their jewelry is moderately priced which makes my frugal soul happy. According to their website they have a few locations along the east coast. On this particular occasion I walked out with this beauty for $9.

Towards the end of Church Street is an adorable little locally owned bookshop called Crow Bookshop. They offer everything from new and used books, graphic novels and more. One of my goals for 26 is to read more than I have in the last few years- sadly I’ll admit in the first month of this goal I’ve probably already succeeded in this goal, younger Kari wasn’t exactly an eager reader. I found a book that intrigued me instantly called The Boston Girl which I plan to start reading soon now that I’ve finished Brooklyn.

I finished my Church Street trip with a “day cap” at the new to me Vermont Distillers Tasting Room. The family owned company produces a couple of liqueurs that I’ve tried at various festivals around the area, their Vermont Maple Cream Liqueur is an excellent choice similar to a Bailey’s. I debated doing a tasting but as i’m not the biggest fan of liquor straight up I decided to just grab one of their cocktail specials. I ended up with a “Moscow Blue” which included a blueberry liqueur, ginger beer and their own Catamount Vodka. The gentleman behind the bar was so lovely, the drink itself was delicious and the records playing in the background was the perfect way to end my Sunday.

Can we also talk about these shelves? I posted this picture on my Instagram and a friend was very quick to point out how awesome they were and I couldn’t have agreed more.

So there you have it, the first official Vermonting post. You can certainly expect more Church Street adventures to come but these shops in particular are some of my favorites to begin with.

Have a wonderful week folks!

Fun Facts Friday: Birthday Weekend Edition

Well hello there!

3 posts in 3 days? Quite the jump back in to blogging and it probably won’t happen often but I’m just so excited. This Sunday I turn the big 26 so I thought I’d share 5 fun things I’m looking forward to this birthday weekend of mine.

1. Being a Mascot.

I have definitely mentioned this before on the blog but if it wasn’t clear enough then, let’s just make it clear that I want to be a mascot so very badly. Last year a few friends at Hotel Vermont pulled some strings to get me into their Penguin costume for a few minutes on my birthday. This year, they asked me TO BE THE FREAKING PENGUIN one of the nights at their Ice Bar event. So yeah, don’t mind me just about to have the time of my life.

2. Penguin Plunging for an amazing cause.

Saturday morning a few of my co-workers and I are jumping into chilly Lake Champlain to raise money for Special Olympics Vermont. I have a few close friends who have worked closely with this organization and I have many more who have taken the plunge so I’m honored to be a part of it this year. I’ve never done a penguin/polar plunge before so I’m a little nervous but I know it’ll be a blast!

3. Attending Hotel Vermont’s 4th Annual Ice Bar.

This will be my 3rd time attending one of my favorite events of the year. Ice Bar is a great combination of sampling local foods, beer & cocktails all while listening to fun music and checking out amazing ice sculptures. Most importantly it’s the perfect event to celebrate a birthday with some great friends 🙂

4. A Casual Sunday Morning.

I can’t wait for a relaxing Sunday morning. I’ll be irrationally happy to stay in bed and watch Netflix in our Penguin (keeping on trend) PJs til we head to lunch.

5. Super Bowl!!!

I love being a Super Bowl baby, you get an automatic excuse to overeat junk food (forget yesterday’s post cough cough) and hang with all of your buddies watching football. What could be better? This year we are going to have a pretty small gathering which will be nice (and easy to clean up after). I’m so pumped to see my Tennessee Volunteer Peyton and the insane Broncos D take on superstar Cam and the Panthers offense. Peyton winning and then instantly retiring (come on bro don’t make me sit through another season terrified of you breaking in half) that would be the best outcome. Though I wouldn’t be too upset seeing Carolina take it, they’ve played Golden State good this season!

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend 🙂

Get it Right, Get it Tight?

Hey Friends!

One of the main reasons for coming back to blogging is to hold myself accountable (I’ve said that far too much but I can’t come up with a better way of putting it) in terms of health and fitness. I read so many amazing healthy living blogs and one of the best parts is not only getting ideas from each other as well as tapping into the incredible online community.  Today I am going to share some of the goals I’d like to focus on this year.

2015 was a great year but I will admit it was probably one of my least health conscious years. I developed a love for running and being fit my senior year of high school on into college. I managed a happy balance for awhile but soon became a bit too focused on “fitting in” both physically and socially to my new life in Tennessee which lead to unhealthy decisions. I attempted to keep up with my passion for leading a healthy lifestyle but soon found it too difficult to maintain while balancing school and work.

Moving back to Vermont I always assumed I’d just pick it all back up where I left it years before but of course that isn’t how that works. While I’m definitely not on the inactive roster, I 100% want 2016 to be the year I shift my focus back onto a healthy lifestyle. Here are some of my goals:

Running: I miss running! I miss training for something! So I signed up for the RunVermont Half Marathon Unplugged in early April (my first time running this race) so that is my number one focus over the next two months. I ran for the first time for longer than a mile on Tuesday to begin my training program but more on that next Thursday when I pick up my “Training Day” posts!

Yoga: I continue paying for my yoga membership because “this is the week I’m going to go” but I freaking seriously need to actually go. I can already feel my back starting to ache from not being stretched out enough. Plus my noodle arms are far too flabby for their own good so my return is necessary.

Cycling: I love spin classes and I think they are a great way to cross-train for races! Unfortunately my attendance at my beloved Cyclepath has been less than consistent. I went for the first time in awhile last Thursday to a HardCore class which entailed 30 minutes of spin, 15 of core exercies and thought I was dying. I don’t think I’ve ever made such awful faces to the instructor- sorry Ian! I’d like to get to the point where I do not make these faces… as much…

Food: I need to start cooking/prepping again. I work a lot of night shifts and my schedule varies each week now which means many of my meals are taken care of at work. While this is great for the old bank account it creates far too many excuses for me to never have a single grocery in the house and gives me a very untrue “I can eat whatever I want” mentality. My goal is to just be more prepared for my schedule each week by having healthy meals and snacks to take along with me. Lord knows I have some rather unhealthy eating habits that I could stand to kick!

Sleep: Inconsistent work schedule = inconsistent sleep schedule. I hope that by changing my activity levels and cleaning up my diet I can fix some of the issues I have with getting into a relatively consistent sleep pattern but I definitely need to make more of an effort.

And there you have it, my 2016 (and many years to come) goals for a return to healthy me.

Til next time! 🙂

Don’t Call It a Comeback

What can I say? I’m a closet LL Cool J fan.

But seriously, I’m coming back to blogging and I can’t even tell you how happy that makes me. Why the long hiatus? One reason was having my computer completely break down on me (props to those who post from their phones, it stresses me out wayyyy too much). One reason was that life got a little crazy over the summer. The main reason though is that I started a new job back in hospitality that has taken me quite a bit of time to adjust to.

First off I absolutely love my new job and while the schedule has taken some getting used to, I’m finally feeling ready to get back to my favorite online hobby. I also just got a new computer which makes all of my blogging goals so much easier to obtain, so in my heart of hearts I hope to be welcomed back into the blogosphere 🙂

For now I’ve put together a bit of a photo roundup to catch everyone up on the highlights of what was an incredible 2015…

 

I got my American pride out full force while watching the US Women’s World Cup team defeat Germany in the semi-finals up in Montreal with a few friends. It was such a cool experience and I can’t wait to see many more World Cup games!

I attended my very favorite event of the year, the Vermont Brewers Festival… and consumed more than my fair share of tasty beers (and a hot dog or two cause, obviously)  and yes those are toilets in the background. #classy

I experienced one of the very best moments of my entire life by throwing out the first pitch at a Vermont Lake Monster’s baseball game. Throwing out the first pitch at a baseball game has always been on my bucket list so I can’t even explain how exciting it was to have my friends and family be there to see it. It was practically a strike 😉

I am beyond proud to have been the maid of honor in my dear sweet Casey’s surprise wedding to Maxwell in beautiful Hilton Head, SC.  Casey has been one of my closest friends since college so it was so important to be there for the big day! It was an incredible weekend witnessing this gorgeous couple get hitched, hanging out with their adorable families and most importantly discovering the best chocolate cake on the planet from Michael Anthony’s. I am currently figuring out how to marry it, stay tuned.

Most recently (because Zachary and I are in that ripe old age of people getting married) we traveled to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic for a pre-holiday vacation to witness another fantastic couple get married. We danced, we happy cried, we ate, we drank and developed some EXCELLENTE water aerobic skills. In a rather unfortunate turn of events we also spent quite a bit of money to discover we get seasick while deep sea fishing off the coast… epic fail.

Finally I end my blogging hiatus after a long ass 9 month break, I can’t wait to share 2016 with you fine folks!

Love always,

Kari

Road Tripping! A Beforehand Guide…

It’s vacation week friends!

I don’t know about you but I’ve been running the roads for as long as I can remember. My parents would just stick the baby sister and I in the car and off we went! In particular the drive from Vermont to Tennessee and everywhere in between is one that I could do with my eyes closed at this point. Hell I lost my first tooth in a tuna fish sandwich on the way to Tennessee and cried for an hour because I was certain the tooth fairy wouldn’t be able to find our hotel room in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania. #trauma

Today I thought I’d share a few tips for getting through long car rides with the majority of your sanity.

Embrace your Ride

My little blue bullet of a car has A LOT of “special features” as we like to say in my family. Your car’s special features are probably heated seats, a sun roof and maybe even a GPS? Mine are more like no A/C, crank windows and not even a tape deck let alone a CD player.

The fix?

A baseball cap for when your windows are down on the highway and you don’t want your hair flying all around. An empty seltzer bottle for singing into all those *awesome* songs on the radio and a sense of humor for when your bum gets stuck to the seats after sweating in the car for 5 hours at a time.

Actually to ride in my car a sense of humor is incredibly important as the car is actually totaled from a hail storm 4 years ago. The amount of conversations I have had with strangers about this hail damage would make your head spin. I’ve even been stopped in the parking lot of the Emergency Room to discuss it, DON’T HAVE TIME BRO, I’M AT THE ER FOR A REASON…

SNACKS! SNACKS! SNACKS!

If I’m on a mission to get somewhere I’m not wasting time stopping for food. I’m more of a… Subway attached to the gas station looks like a nice Subway, let’s get a sandwich. As snacks are crucial to any good road trip this is my typical shopping list…

Seltzer (for drinking followed by singing into)

Iced Tea

An entire bag of 12-Flavor Gummy Bears from the bulk bin of City Market

Junior Mints (the mint helps with the digestion of said gummy bears, obvi)

Cool Ranch Doritos (don’t even come at me with Nacho Cheese, I’m not having it)

Fruit of some sort (I’m not a complete waste case)

Appropriate Attire

In addition to the non-AC managing baseball cap there a few other staples of road trip wear…

Yoga Pants- great for yoga, even better for endless sitting as learned from Netflix binges.

Tank top- but be careful not to place arm out of window for long periods of time or else you’ll end up with one of those rather unfortunate but also kind of amazing arm burns.

Flip Flops- no better time to put that $2.50 Old Navy pair to use than a road trip

Don’t be a rookie and forget to put on a bunch of deodorant- awkward sweating only looks cute during and after physical activity. This is actually just a reminder to myself, I’m sure y’all know to put deodorant on.

A Solid Road Trip Buddy

Finally, if you are fortunate enough to have a partner in crime on this adventure make sure it’s someone who will put up with your annoying photo taking habit, obnoxiously chatty nature and is going to order extra dipping sauce at the restaurants attractive!

🙂

Any favorite road trips tips or stories?

Any fun Memorial Day plans?

Fun Facts Friday: May 15th

Aloha Friends!

Let us get to the fun facts shall we??

1. I ran my first 5K of the year last night!

I ran with some coworkers in the Vermont State Corporate Cup Challenge and it went pretty well actually! I was expecting to run it around 37 minutes and came in at 35:30 final time which I was veryyyyy happy with given that I just recently started pounding the pavement again. The weather was perfect, a little chilly at the start but once we got going I was happy to have a cool breeze. There were about 4000 runners/walkers that participated which meant for quite a bit of congestion throughout downtown Montpelier. My goals were to just keep good form, use my yoga breathing and not stop to walk, thankfully I hit all of them!

2. I met my first blogger friend in real life!

The lovely Rachel of the blog Darlin’ Rae aka the other badass Vermont blogger and I knew we would be running in the Corporate Cup but weren’t sure we’d be able to meet up before it given the craziness of the event. As luck would have it I had just taken a spot in line at the start and noticed a bright and shiny new pair of birthday sneakers that I recognized from her blog (cause I’m a creeper and remember that kind of stuff). We got to chat a bit and give our well wishes for the race, she is such a sweetheart! If you haven’t checked out her blog before I don’t know what you are waiting for!

3. I tried an awesome new beer that I must find more of!

After the race we headed to The Reservoir in Waterbury for a little post run food & drink. I decided to try the Foley Brother’s Brewing “Fair Maiden” double IPA and was not disappointed. It was perfectly hoppy but smooth and probably way too easy drinking for it’s own good. If you have a chance to try it out I highly recommend it.

4. My dress for baby sister’s graduation came!

The Loft was having a sale online a few weeks back and I snagged this awesome dress marked down from $89 to $33! I’m really digging this color for summer and it surprisingly goes with my current pale complexion though I hope a few rounds of self tanner will give it a little more pop next week 😉

5. Grey’s Anatomy Though?!?

All the feels for this stupid television show that I’ve never missed an episode of 11 years running.

Judge me as you feel necessary!

Have you ever met a blogger friend in person?

Are you part of the terrible television show watching club?