Baby Stilts

Some general cuteness from the Reece-man. One from a couple of weeks ago, just because I can watch him play for hours and I think everyone else should too. Kinda long, so no pressure to watch it. The second one's plenty short and also just cute.






Kind of as a side note, when I listen to myself talk to Reece I remind myself of Stewie from Family Guy (especially the last minute of the clip).

My Own Brand of Half Marathon

Okay, so I didn't actually run a half marathon. But my pedometer said I did, so for now that's going to have to be good enough for me.

My plan for last Saturday's run was to do a little bit shorter distance than the previous week and substitute in some hills for cross-training.

The run started out very sluggish, despite my excitement. I was, honestly, excited to run. I try to pump myself up all week and continually visualize the run I'm going to do so by Saturday I can actually push myself out the door and do it. Well, I was excited to go, but as soon as I started running my feet felt like lead. That lasted for about two miles and then I finally started to get into my groove. And since I was feeling so very groovy, I missed my turn. And I continued to miss my turn for an entire mile. I didn't realize I had gone the wrong way until I got to the freeway. But I was still feeling pretty good, so after backtracking that entire mile I decided to continue on with my original plan.

I then got lost two more times. I eventually found my route and jogged up the Dish (pretty popular hiking spot on Stanford campus), which has an elevation gain of 500 feet. Not too bad, unless you condense that into a very short distance, and also have already been jogging for 6.5 miles. My original goals of jogging all the way up were not quite accomplished, but I got some good practice walking up steep hills. The most discouraging thing about this run was that my marathon includes an elevation gain of 2500 feet. All I could think was "There is no way I can do my marathon."

Once I got back onto Stanford campus my legs were screaming and my bladder was threatening to burst (gotta love the post-pregnancy perks) and I had to give up my pride and walk. It was actually pretty humbling because it seems such a simple thing to just keep jogging, and at that point I had only jogged probably 9 miles, but I couldn't jog any more. So I walked for about 1.5 miles, thinking to myself the whole time that this was the time to push myself because this was how I would get stronger. But my legs and my bladder were conspiring against me (too much information?).

I did manage to pull myself together and jog very slowly for the last mile (yay, little victory!), but all in all I felt pretty defeated. My pedometer gave me a nice little treat at the end, telling me I had gone 13.38 miles, but alas, it was incorrect. Due to steep hills and quite a bit of walking, the distance was off by almost two miles. That's kind of like running a half marathon, right? I think I might tinker with it a bit more and maybe next week I can do the full marathon in two hours and be done with all this training craziness.

This is how sick I look when I get home. Poor Paul.


And then, because there has to be something cute about this post:

No TV, no beer make Homer...something...something

As of today the Paul and Wendy Weitzels are instituting a NO-TV FEBRUARY. Why? Because we came home from a date night a few weeks ago to find our babysitters (much to our surprise) reading books! My first thought was, "Who does that anymore? That's so 1945." Then I realized, "Wait, I LOVE reading books!" and I have been going through a serious process of repentance ever since. So for that reason, and also because we figure it'll make us more interesting people (and because we need more time to beat World 9 in Super Mario Wii), we are going TV-free for a month. Why February? Because it's the shortest.

As part of my addiction-kicking process, here's a list of shows that I will truly miss:

1) The Bachelor: Will Ali and Vienna ever accept one another as potential loves for Jake? Where will the RV road trip take them next? What do all the girls have against Vienna in the first place?

2) The Biggest Loser: I am addicted to this show. I love it. It inspires me. It's part of the reason I'm training for a marathon. I fast-forward past all the product endorsements 'cause I think they're lame, but I love seeing people accomplish things they never thought they could do and come out stronger (by the way, I ran 10 MILES! on Saturday...never thought I could do it...thank you, Biggest Loser). Who will leave the show in the time that I'm gone? Who will win the at-home weigh-in between Blue and Yellow?

3) NBC's Thursday night line-up of Community, Parks & Recreation, The Office and 30 Rock: Yes, I watch them all. Afterward Paul and I vote on which show was the funniest. The Office hasn't won yet this season. And last week's episode was horrific. But we watch it so as not to prove fair-weather fans, and because we're too lazy to get up from the butt grooves we've formed on our couches to change the channel.

4) Anything on the Food Network: No more Chopped. No more daytime cooking shows to get me through my workouts. No more Alton Brown to tell me why my food cooks the way it does. I may starve to death.

5) Morning cartoons with Reece: He loves Handy Manny and Dora the Explorer. He never watches a full episode (poor kid's got a short attention span), but he loves the songs and it's one of the only times I get to cuddle with him now that he's all big and cruising around the furniture and opening cupboards and what not.


So that's it. Will I survive? Only time will tell. Will this be the longest February in my 27 years of existence? Quite possibly. Will Jake pick Tenley and send home the cheesy swimsuit model Gia? Well, friends, ask me in March (wait a couple of days because I might spend the first week or so glued to my DVR).

Also, if you have any books you think I should definitely read in all my spare time, please let me know!