"It's Complicated"...or is it?

Random topic, completely different from what I usually talk about.  I have been like 96% single for the last 6.5 years (I briefly dated a guy about 4.5 years ago for a little over a month…not sure if that counts).  The last about 6 months I’ve had an itch to be in a relationship.  I’m not sure what changed or what caused the change of mind/heart.  All I know is that I happened and I’ve spent the last 6-ish months trying to find a guy that’s not a jerk or a total douchebag.  This is much harder than it seems.  You see, a great many guys are already in some sort of a relationship, whether it be dating or married.  And a lot of them do not wear a ring, much to my frustration.

I’ve done a lot of thinking over the last couple weeks.  I have come to the conclusion that my faith and trust of men has not changed.  I have none of either for them.  I don’t believe them when they complement me.  I don’t believe them if they tell me they’re sick and that’ why I’m not hearing from them.  I don’t trust them not to lie to me or to not cheat on me.  I have been lied to and cheated on by SO MANY boyfriends.  I think I’m ruined.  I do hold out a tiny hope that Mr. Right or whatever will appear and restore my faith and give me cause to trust again.  However, I am not and will not be holding my breath on this.

Some people are just not destined to be in a fully committed, life-long relationship.  I seriously hope that’s not the case for me, but I am also not going to get my hopes up only to be continually disappointed.  I’d rather be lonely then heartbroken.

Now that I’ve said all that and gotten it off my mind and out in the open, I can move on with this post.  Haha!

I have a good group of girl friends right now and they all mean the world to me.  Amanda, Heather, Hannah, Jen, and Bri…I love them all.  They’re all there for me no matter what.  They’re my BAE’s (before anyone/anything else, in case you didn’t know).  I have so much fun with all them when I hang out with them.

And now for some mundane things.  First, over the weekend, during my 2 trips down to San Antonio for the eventually canceled half marathon related events, I stopped at the New Braunfels Buc-ee’s (an amazing travel stop that is always an obligatory stop for me!) three times!!!  On my first visit, I bought an RTIC 30oz tumbler.  It is HOT PINK and I love it!  It seriously makes drinking my water more appealing and fun, since for some reason the last couple weeks I’ve had an issue with drinking my minimum 100oz a day.  I have a friend that can make custom decals, so I’m going to ask him if he can make me a couple to stick to my new tumbler to personalize it.  I want to have him make a decal (in yellow) of my blog title in the shape of the Boston Marathon unicorn that I drew a while back.  The other decal I want will be a quote.  Either the one I have tattooed on me, “we choose to do these things not because they are easy but because they are hard.”  Or, “run the race before you.”  I haven’t decided yet.

I think I mentioned that while I was in San Antonio I bought a new pair of tactical boots for work.  They are the Bates “Strike” 8-inch side zip boots.  So far I really like them. They’re comfortable and don’t really rub me wrong.  Or, at least wrong enough to cause blisters, so that’s a good thing.

Project Sara: Episode 2

It’s been quite a while since I posted any updates about my Project Life.  I’m sorry.  I really completely and absolutely LOVE working on it and love talking about it and sharing it with people.  If you follow me on Instagram, then you’ve probably already seen my more recent spreads, so this will be nothing new for you. 

 

First up is the final draft of the first page for the month of March.  It has me singing karaoke, a couple pictures of Vlad (my black kitty).  Then there’s a few pictures from the Warrior Dash and my wooden cube “medal” from it.  In the bottom right corner is a picture of the wooden “medal” from the half marathon I ran later that same day as the Warrior Dash, and next to that is journaling about my very first double race day.  And, of course, a great picture of my boys cuddling with their front legs wrapped around each other!

Then there’s the page for my VERY FIRST ULTRA!!!!  Race recap is handwritten, just needs to be typed up and pictures added and then posted.  I’ll try to get to it this weekend.  But we’ll see.  I had a lot of fun with this page.  I had bought a super cute stamp and die set for an adorable little cartoonish cactus holding a sign and there are a few little phrase and word stamps that you can use to stamp onto the sign (like “free hugs”).  My friend Ben ran this race with me and he’s the guy right behind me in the pictures.  I had ordered 2 stickers off Amazon.  One said “ULTRA” and the other said “>26.2.”  I decided to use the “ULTRA” for this page and I really love how it turned out.  I used a washi tape with cactus on it to make the background for the card and then stuck the sticker on and cut the card in half so that it could span two 3x4 pockets.  Then I stapled 2 little cactus paperclips to the card with my Tim Holtz tiny attacher.  Also on this page was a picture of the sunset from the top of the employee parking garage at work that I used the Prizma app to edit.  There is also a picture of the damage to my car.

Next up is a page that is slightly out of order in the sequence of events.  See, the Distance Challenge party(the top line) actually happened the weekend before my first ultra marathon, but I forgot to print out the pictures so I completely spaced on putting it in my PL in the proper order and now it was too late, so I just added it where it is now.  On the second line, there is a picture of a deer I took during the ultra that I just had to include in my PL, so there’s that as well.  Just under that picture of the deer is a card I made myself!  The background is from one of the spring cups from Starbucks and I glued and cut down a gift tag that is shaped like a deer…to go with the picture of the deer, of course!  Then there are pictures of my two furbabies snuggling up to me after I arrived home from running the ultra.  Some journaling next to that about the ultra.  On the bottom line is some more journaling, a picture of me I took on range qualification day and then the spring deal from Facebook on the first day of spring.

After that, we have a mostly girls weekend page.  First, top left corner is a picture of my feet.  I got my annual pedicure and I think my feet look all pretty now, so I had to take a picture of them.  Next to that is a picture of a plain Starbuck’s cup.  Why?  Because they’re supposed to have the spring cups now, but so far I’ve only found them at ONE Starbuck’s.  So disappointing, really.  The next pocket over is my movie stub plus a mini movie poster for The Shack.  I read the book a few years ago and LOVED it, so of course I had to see the movie with Heather.  Now I want to read the book again!  The pizza was from when Heather and I went to Amanda’s house to watch The Princess Bride.  We bought frozen pizzas and I got a fig and prosciutto.  It was so good, but a bit too sweet so I probably won’t get that one again.  Next line down is from when Hannah, Jen and I went to see Beauty & The Beast at Flix Brewhouse.  OMG, looooove that movie too!  on the bottom line is a picture of the hated rental car, a list of what I did that weekend, a picture of Oliver “nesting” on my Sam’s Club cooler tote, and a picture of a banana peel on someone’s tire in the employee parking garage at work that I just thought was hilarious.  This page isn’t very embellished and I might very well come back to it at a later point and add to it.  If I do that, then I’ll post an updated picture of it.

The final page I’m showing here is of the trip to Sherwood Forest Faire.  I unfortunately didn’t take a selfie with Amanda…not sure what was wrong with me on that as Amanda and I ALWAYS take a selfie together.  But I did get one with David.  Plus a great tall & skinny picture of the sign post that is just inside the front gate.  There is also 2 of the same picture of my new unicorn leggings that I used sort of as filler cards.  Then a picture of a musical group playing on the new stage at the festival and then two 4x6 filler cards.  The one that says “so much fun” has a washi tape background.  I used a washi tape that has a bunch of fox heads on it.  I really, really enjoy doing card backgrounds with washi tape.  Makes it more unique and personal that way. 

Hopefully next week or the week after I’ll have at least 2 or 3 more pages to share with you! 

More Updates + The Half That Wasn't

Okay, so, more updates!  I didn’t want to post everything in one giant post, so I decided to break it up into 2 posts instead. 

 

Last week, I did something that is trendy right now but sets my OCD on high alert.  I wore non-matching socks.  No one could see them.  But I knew.  I knew they didn’t match.  See, they’re 2 socks whose mates were eaten by the dryer or stolen by the sock gnomes at some point.  But they’re still perfectly good socks so I didn’t want to just toss them.  Besides, maybe someday their partners will turn back up!  Hey, you never know…it could happen.  So yea, I work non-matching socks on a day I worked a double shift!  So my OCD was going bonkers for like 18 hours!!!  But, I survived.  I didn’t die or have a stroke or anything.  So I took a picture to remember the occasion by (and, in case you’re wondering, yes it did end up in my Project Life…haha).

This past weekend was the Alamo Run Fest down in San Antonio.  There were 5k, 10k and half marathon options.  I, of course, signed up for the half.  So I drove down Saturday to attend the expo and packet pickup as I have discovered it’s much cheaper (money-wise, not time-wise) to drive down for packet pickup and then back down for the race than it is to get a hotel room.  Must save money where I can.  So, I get there for packet pickup and the line for bibs was stupid and ridiculous.  For as big as this event is, they were looking up bibs manually from a printed out list.  Really?  Most races this size (heck, lots of races smaller than this one even!) use tablets to look up bibs.  Then, when the guy crossed me off the list that I had gotten my bib, he did so before telling the bib grabber what bib number to grab and crossed off my info so well he almost couldn’t read my bib number.  Ugh.  Anyway, that was at LEAST 10 minutes in line for my bib.  Then…then I had to go stand in yet another long line for my shirt.  And it’s a good thing I’m no longer bigger because they only had small and medium (unisex sizing) shirts left.  SERIOUSLY?!?!  They were also giving everyone a complimentary bottle of olive oil.  Then I perused the vendors.  Not impressed.  I swear based on what their website said, that there should have been TWICE the amount of vendors that were there.  I bought from one vendor, Infinite Alchemy.  I’ve bought from them before and love their stuff.  I bought a cute pair of shorty runner shorts in a nice lavender color. 

After the expo, I met my friend Jennifer at Cullum’s Attagirl and got some PB&J wings and a waffle with edible glitter on it!  In fact, the wings had edible glitter on them too!  Everything was soooo good!  A local lady makes these super cute earrings and I just had to buy 2 pairs.  One is pink roses and the other was cherries.  And the pink roses ones seriously make me want to get my traguses pierced.  So I’ll probably do that while I’m on vacation next month, that way they should be healed enough for me to switch out the jewelry from the piercer with something more discreet for work.  After that, I went to Victoria’s Secret and spent over $100 on sports bras and things!  Sheesh!  Oh well, I love everything I bought so therefore I don’t regret it, but I do wish it had been a smidge cheaper.  Then to Academy for some new boots for work.

 

 

 

 

Then I went to the Freetail Brewery and hung out with my friend JennaLou.  She’s one of the managers there and comped my beer!  She also gave me a koozie, that I prompted cut the logo out of when I got home so it could go in my Project Life.  Haha!  Then I headed home to get everything ready for the race Sunday morning.

 

 

Okay, so it was supposed to rain all weekend, but it didn’t rain at all on Saturday.  I knew it was going to rain Sunday and that was okay.  I’d just get rained on while running, no big deal.  So I left about 10-15 minutes later than I intended to leave and arrived to park on site just 20 minutes before the race was set to start.  I got myself kitted up and headed for the portas.  Holy cow, much like the lines at packet pickup, the line was ridiculous.  They had maybe 12 portas for the 1000s of people that were there.  I was in line until after the race was SUPPOSED to have started, but they delayed the start, so it was okay.  I did my business and then made my way thru the corral to the 2:20 pacer who I hoped to keep up with.

 

We stood there for about 7 minutes past the delayed start time and then they made an announcement.  They were canceling the half marathon due to a forecasted massive storm cell that was moving into the area and would be on course before we were finished running it and for the safety of the runners, they called the race.  They sent us inside the Alamodome.  I ended up talking to a Camp Gladiator lady and was highly tempted to sign up for their 1 month challenge as it was discounted $20, but ultimately decided not to impulse spend.  They ended up handing out everyone their medals as they canceled the entire event.

 

I still had hopes of hanging out with Jennifer again, but then the storm rolled in and I opted not to make her go out in it and just made my way home.

 

OH!  When I was driving down for the expo, I stopped at Buc-ee’s in New Braunfels and they had a hot pink RTIC 30oz tumbler.  I HAD to get it.  And seeing as how it was only $11, why not?  I love it so much.  I want to see if a friend of mine will make me some custom decals to put on it so I can personalize it! 

 

Okay, back to the half that wasn’t real quick before I finish with this update.  I won’t be attempting this event again.  The organization was absolutely horrible and completely inefficient in my opinion.  I’m sure it’s a great course as I’ve heard it is, but the whole thing was just so frustrating.  I understand them canceling it in the end wasn’t their fault, but they could have at least refunded our $20 for parking when we were only there for like an hour and didn’t even get to run the race!  But, so, yea, I got my medal at least, so that means at some point, I have to do 13.1 miles on my own to “earn” it before I feel okay with hanging it on my wall.  Not that I actually have anywhere to hang it right now because my medal racks are all full and I already have like 4 or 5 other medals waiting for me to buy a new rack so they can be hung up.  Haha!

 

Sunday night, I went to karaoke with Hannah…FUN!  I really love karaoke.  I got there and was like, is the bar closed tonight?  Because there was NO ONE there.  Like, I think there were 6 or so customers in the bar + the employees.  I got to sing at least 7 songs.  I sang a bunch of new-to-me songs and that just makes me happy.  Got to talk with Casey some more.  He’s a pretty nice guy and I’d like to talk to him more.  He said that we should sing together sometime, which I’m totally up for.  The more I get to sing, the better!

 

Monday morning, I WENT TO THE GYM!  This is the first time in probably 2 months that I’ve gone to the gym not for bootcamp!  I’m pretty proud of myself.  I think…I HOPE…that I’m coming out of my slump.  I’m now at the point where I have to re-drop 20 pounds to get back to where I was last summer.  Ugh.  I would LOVE to drop 10 pounds at least before my road trip next month.  That would just be fantastic in so many ways.

In part one of this update, I forgot to mention I went to the Sherwood Forest Faire with my friends Amanda and David.  I dressed up in my fox costume as it’s always a “fan favorite.”  I was actually quite disappointed.  As annoying as it can be for people to ask, only 3 people asked me “what does the fox say?”  The first lady to ask was one of the vendors and she quoted the song in Shakespearian speak…it was pretty epic and I quite enjoyed it!  I did my own face paint for it and I am very happy with how it turned out!  I’m getting pretty good with doing my own face paint!

 

Also, I got unicorn leggings!!!!

And, of course, a random picture of my furbabies how I found them when I arrived home from the failed half marathon...haha!  So cute and lazy.  I love them!

Geez, it's been a little while

I am so very sorry guys!  Life has just been crazy busy the last MONTH (!) and the blog has suffered as a result.  That is not to say that I haven’t been writing, because I have!  I just haven’t posted any of it.  I have a few race recaps almost ready to go, just need to type them up and add pictures as they are currently handwritten. 

 

What has been going on with me?  I’m sure you’re curious.  Haha.  So, let me do my best to get you all caught up on the last month of my life and all the happenings.  When I was handwriting this post, I wasn’t sure of the date of my last post, but after logging onto my blog today, I discovered it’s been almost an entire month.  Eek!

 

Like 3 Thursdays ago, I had gone for a run  in the spirit of multitasking, I threw my laundry in the washer with plans to toss it in the dryer when I was done with my so that it would be finished by the time I went to work.  Well, I got home from my run to find that my washer was still full of water and was refusing to drain or spin cycle.  Great.  I thought I remembered someone had once told me that so long as the lid stayed shut it would be fine.  So I left it as it was and went to work. 

 

After my regular shift that night, I was making my way to my overtime assignment.  I was in the left lane and there was a car in the lane to my right.  All of a sudden he signaled and cut me off.  I had no time to react to avoid colliding with him.  Thankfully, 1) he pulled over, 2) he had insurance, and 3) both him and his passenger were really nice.  So, that was a fantastic day…not.  At least my car was drivable.  However I couldn’t open the passenger door and if I went over a bump my finder would rub on my tire. 

That night, I made my claim with insurance and scheduled my estimate for the following Monday.  I arrived Monday and they went ahead and kept my car, siting that there could be damage to the suspension system making it very unsafe to drive.  Not sure if that was BS or not, but whatever.  I went to Enterprise and got my rental.  A 2016 Chevy Impala.  If you own this make, model and year, I apologize, but I absolutely hated it.  HATED it.  Seriously, the only things I liked about it were the giant trunk and that the power plugs stayed on when the car was turned off.  Not kidding, I totally hated it.

Okay, back pedal to that Saturday.  Bootcamp.  We did something called “wall walks.”  If you’re a crossfitter, then you’re already familiar with them.  If not, here’s the low down.  You start in the pushup position with your feet against the wall.  You lift your feet up and place them on the wall (this is called an inverted plank, in case you were wondering).  Then you walk your hands toward the wall and your feet slide up the wall until you’re doing a handstand against the wall.  You touch your nose to the wall and then walk your hands back out until you’re back in the pushup position.  I am in love with them.  I thought about them the entire week following our first doing them and was VERY happy when the following Saturday they were part of our workout again!  I even tried to do one at work, but it didn’t work out, sadly…because my work boots had no grip to the sole so I couldn’t get my feet to stay up against the wall in the inverted plank position.  I’ll have to figure out a way to do them at home.  I don’t have any free wall space, but maybe I can use my front door?  Maybe not, I don’t think the ceiling in my entry way is tall enough.  I might be able to close my bedroom door and do them there, the ceiling in there is way taller.  Or, I can go to the fitness room in my apts.  Options…I have them…maybe.  Haha.

 

Karaoke last Sunday went quite well with the exception of one song that I totally bombed.  One of the regulars, a guy named Casey, told me that he loved my voice.  YAY!  then, another guy had me sing with him, but I didn’t know it until the KJ called him up on stage…with me to assist!  It was Summer Lovin’ from Grease.  I sang 3 new-to-me songs so I’m happy with that.

My car was originally schedule to be complete last Friday afternoon, but Tuesday I woke up to a text from the body shop that my car was ready!  OMG!  So I happily dropped off the hated rental only to be told that if I wasn’t happy I could have come in at any time and they would have swapped me out for a car I liked better.  Well wouldn’t that have been nice to know.  the to go get my car.  They washed her and did a basic detail on the interior.  They replaced the front bumper, right front fender, wheel, tire, some brackets and supports, heat light and some other things.  She looks beautiful again!  I was so happy to have her back that I literally cried as I was driving away from the body shop.

 

I’m all over the place here.  Thursday before last, I had a great 4 mile run.  Completed 4 miles in under 39 minutes.  Not bad for someone that hadn’t run in 8 days!  (of course, right now, it’s been over 1.5 weeks since I ran…ugh)I was going to run or hit the gym last Sunday, but that didn’t happen.  Then I was going to run last Monday but was so tired that I slept straight thru my alarms!

 

Last weekend, I went ahead and bought a new printer.  It’s not the one I was originally looking at, but it’s its little brother…basically.  It is missing some features that the other one has, but they are nothing that I need.  Also it prints just 2-4 pages slower per minute.  Whoop-de-do.  Big deal.  It was $65 less, so I went ahead and got it.  I love it but am still figuring it out, of course.  In fact this past weekend I had my first paper jam because I didn’t realize I needed to change the paper type when using photo paper instead of regular paper because I didn’t have to do that with the Canon.  OH!  So this new printer is an HP something 8710 (but the box says 8715…who knows).  Anyway, I love it. 

I might have found someone to be an occasional running buddy!  We’ll see how our schedules work out. 

 

I decided that after my road trip, that I will 1) go ahead and buy a new washing machine and 2) sign up for the Gold’s Studio package so I can do the Gold’s Fit classes.  I just have to decide if I want to do 1 or 2 classes per week (4 or 8 classes a month).  I’ll have to look up the pricing and then decide.  I’d love to do twice a week, but really, it just depends on the price.

 

I bought more dresses…surprise, surprise.  But, I only took a picture of 1 of them.  It's white with sketch-style roses is my absolute favorite. 

 

 

An Overdue Update

As outlined in my recap of the Austin Marathon, I had the suckiest marathon of my marathoning “career.”  I finished with my slowest time ever.  But you know what?  I finished.  I didn’t give up.  I listened to my body and I didn’t get injured.  Though my hamstring was bothering me a fair amount for a few days post-race.

 

As a result of the marathon, my PT decided to let me take the week off from any work sessions and I just had 2 soft tissue appointments.  Those were Monday and Saturday.  So I didn’t have PT at all on Thursday like I usually do.  So I made plans with David to meet him for lunch at our favorite SoCo (S Congress Ave) food trailer, Burro Cheese.  After the marathon, I had gotten the distinct pleasure of trying a new-to-me one of their sammiches and it was absolutely delicious, called the VIA 206.  Going into Thursday, I didn’t know if I’d try yet another one of their sammiches that I hadn’t yet tried (I’ve had the Waylon & Willie, sans pepperoncinis, the Burning Mac and the VIA-something, which had balsamic fig jam on it, but doesn’t seem to be a regular offering per their online menu…booo).  I ultimately decided to just get the VIA 206 again.  It was really good.  It was funny because the cashier remembered me from the marathon!  Right next to the Burro Cheese food trailer is a Juice Austin trailer, so we were checking out their menu and all decided to get a juice each.  I opted for the Grind me up Scotty which has cold brew coffee, spinach, bananas, peanut butter, almond milk and I think one more thing in it.  It was delicious!  It’s always fun hanging out with David and his roommate, Ragan. 

I’ve managed to lose about 10 pounds since February 20^th and I’m pretty stinkin’ happy with that.  I’ve felt a lot more balanced and less stressed lately, so I know that has everything to do with it, I’m sure of it.  A few weeks ago, I just randomly stopped one of my OCD behaviors that I really hate that I do: chew on my cuticles.  Then, in the past week and a half, I have stopped eating as much.  I mean, it’s not like I’m not hungry, because I am.  It’s more that I just don’t have the overwhelming urge to eat when I’m not truly hungry.  This makes me sooooo happy!

 

Last weekend, I went and saw the movie Split.  I loved it!  There were some awkward scenes, but it was really well written and acted.  There’s a nice twist in the final scene and you realize it’s a sequel to another movie from a few years back (nope, not going to spoil it for you, you’ll just have to watch it!).  So awesome.  Total nerd moment for me!

 

Last week on Sunday night, my friend Hannah and I went out for karaoke.  There was hardly anyone there so I got to get up to sing 5 times!  I sang 3 songs that I have never sang before and I think I totally rocked them!  It was 2 Amy Winehouse songs and a Gretchen Wilson song.  Then I butchered a Tina Turner song that I’ve sang before but couldn’t remember how the verses went (oops), and then of course rocked my usual Duffy song.

Physical therapy last Monday morning was pretty kick ass.  We’re no longer focusing solely on my hip drop issue.  Now, we’ve moved onto speed and power!  So the sessions are more like personal training/run coaching where I get more of a nice workout in.

 

Last month, a friend regifted a Wi-Fi all-in-one printer to me.  I thought it was a superior model to the one I already had, however, it’s not.  Soooo, I did some online window shopping and found a printer I really, really want.  I had already sold my old printer to a friend, so I was kinda stuck with the new one.  So, I opted to make it a temp printer and then next month I’ll buy the way nicer one that I’m now eyeballing.  It’s got lots of excellent stats, plus it’s attractive…which is always a good thing, no matter what you’re talking about.

I had really bad allergies that may have also been a cold.  I’ve been on the border of miserable as a result.  My sinuses keep closing up, forcing me to use this god awful OTC nasal spray.  I try doing saline rinses, but it’s not helping with the swelling up in there like it usually does.

 

Saturday I did 2 running events.  The first was the Warrior Dash obstacle course 5K.  I LOVED the obstacles.  Didn’t really care too much for the muddy trails between them, but I enjoyed myself for the entire hour and 36 minutes it took to complete it…haha.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Later in the evening I ran a half marathon.  It went horribly.  I have lost so much fitness over the last 2 months…it’s practically depressing.  I know I’ll get my running mojo back again.  I’m just hoping it’s sooner rather than later, you know?  I mean, in December I ran a really hilly half in 2:03 and change.  In January I ran one in 1:59 and change.  Saturday’s half?  Yea…2:39:59.  Ugh!  This shall pass and I will be stronger because of it.

Sunday, I had to go pick up a super cute stamp and die set I ordered online from Joann’s…it’s a little cactus holding a sign and there are like 6 or so different sayings you can stamp into the sign!  Love it.  While I was there, I picked up 2 reusable bags that I couldn’t resist.

 

 

Then I had the party for the finishers of the Distance Challenge.  I got my ¼ zip pullover.  It’s a nice color of orange.  I really wish it was an actual jacket of some sort…either a rain jacket or something along the lines of the Rock’n’Roll series jackets.  Oh well.  Maybe next year, right?  I ended up with 3 very tasty free beers because people kept giving me their drink tickets!  I didn’t win the raffle I put my raffle ticket into.  Oh well.

 

 

 

Then, Sunday night was karaoke again with Hannah, and this time Heather went with us.  I attempted a new-to-me song and I don’t like the way it sounded to me, so I won’t be doing that one again.

Monday, I got a text saying my new metal food dehydrator was ready for pickup at Walmart.  It wasn’t supposed to be ready until after 6pm, but it was ready early!  YAY!  So I went and picked that up and am so excited to use it this weekend!  I’m going to make some salmon “jerky” (aka: salmon “candy” because it’s not all the way dried out…just like half dried…the way I make it).  I haven’t had it since before my plastic piece of crap Ronco literally disintegrated last year sometime. 

I’ve discovered that I love seaweed snacks.  I’ve been eating the heck out of them lately.  They’re so satisfying and low in calories.  A great filler food.  Plus they’re high in all sorts of good for you things.  And I think they’re quite tasty. 

And now for some pictures of my cats...