Running Outdoors - WAY harder than you think

I've been a little cocky lately.  Ok, maybe a lot cocky.  I've been strutting around all "I can run a 5k any night of the week, cuz I'm cool like that."  Or perhaps, "Look at me! I'm running at 6 mph and I can have a full conversation with you!"  I'm pretty proud of that accomplishment, so I can be a little cocky, right?

Look at that smile on my face.  Cocky, right?

But the other night, I was SHUT DOWN.  By my own self...

It was an incredibly cool night out and I wanted to take a stab at running outdoors.  After all, I used to run cross country and I was in great shape then!  My major complaint with running outdoors is that I hate getting my clothes all sweaty, so in general, when I'm home I only wear shorts and a sports bra to exercise.  I know that some people think that it would perfectly fine for me to wear that same thing while running outdoors, but I do not have the body to go running around outside in a sports bra, no matter how good I feel about myself.  Trust me.  Plus, my ritzy neighbors would probably call the police, or something.

Just kidding.

Anyway, it was a nice cool night, I wanted to try to run outside.  I wasn't feeling great - my one meatball sub for dinner was so good that I doubled it to two and my belly was not happy about the addition - but I decided to persevere.

After a brief warm-up walk with DH and the Murph dog, I put my earphones in and headed off!

......

Only to stop immediately because the sound on my iPod was so loud that I temporarily went blind from the blast. 

Once I got that figured out, I started running again.  It was hard.  It sucked.  My knee starting hurting almost right away and in less than 60 seconds I encountered my first hill.  (If you saw this "hill" you'd probably laugh at me and tell me that it was basically totally flat, but trust me, it was definitely a hill.)  That hill was HARD, with a capital H A R D.  But I pushed through it and continued on.  I probably went half a mile - if that - when I encountered the massive hill at the end of the development.  I stopped briefly, panting like I was dying, and paced around, trying to get up the nerve to try that hill.  Then I saw some ladies who were walking coming up behind me, and in an effort to not look like a total wuss, I took off up the hill.

Oh. My. God.  It was sooo hard.

My lungs hurt, my heart was pounding.  I couldn't feel my legs and it felt like I couldn't take in enough air to sustain my existence. About three quarters of the way up I said "Screw this," turned around and headed back down the hill.  I avoided making eye contact with the ladies.

Second later, DH and Murph rounded the corner.  Wow.  Seriously? I'm so bad that walkers basically caught up with me?  Hmm...

So, the moral of this story is that running outside is WAAY harder than running on a treadmill.  Way harder. WAY HARDER.  Did I mention that it was harder?

Now I know why real runners hate us treadmill runners, and call treadmills things like "dreadmills."  I'm going to start calling it the "lovemill."  Because at least on the lovemill/treadmill I can pretend that I am healthy and in shape and strong and beautiful, which I love.  Outside I am sweaty and hurting and suffocating and hating it.   

And of course Murphy was being a royal jerk.  He's usually a jerk when we're walking - he hates other dogs and does everything that he can to kill them - but tonight was even worse than normal.  I think he was pissed that I went jogging without him.

And I think I'm going to try to it again tonight. I know... I'm a glutton for punishment.  But I can't let outdoor running get the best of me.  I'm much happier when I'm confident and cocky.  This dejected/defeated feeling is definitely not for me....

Mayan Ruins

One of the neatest things about Tulum is that it's the home of an amazing set of Mayan ruins that were built on a cliffside overlooking the ocean.

(All images from tripadvisor.com)

Beautiful, right?

We decided to rent a car, since it's relatively safe and easy to drive in Mexico, and since the rental was significantly cheaper than round trip van transportation that would take twice the time (Tulum is about an hour and a half drive south of Cancun, which is the airport that we're flying into.)  Another perk of the car rental is that instead of paying the steep "excursion" prices offered through the resort, we can drive ourselves to the ruins. From what I've read on Trip Advisor, it's about $5 a person for entry into the ruins (without a guide, which I think we're ok with skipping on.)  The resort price for the excursion is $50 a person, which does include another trip somewhere else, but still, I think we're definitely saving money.

Since we're staying at an all-inclusive, we can order sandwiches from room service (free, round the clock) and pack a lunch and drinks and then hang out on the beach.  This day trip will end up being dirt cheap.  If we decide that we need more, a short down the beach and there are supposedly some awesome beach bars/restaurants that are fun and authentic. 

Given the proximity to our resort and the low cost of this trip, this is definitely on my "must do" list.   I hope to take some amazing, breathtaking pictures like the two above and hopefully some of them will be frame worthy. 

Has anyone ever stayed in Tulum or seen the Mayan ruins there? 

Tulum Bound!

Our trip to Mexico is only a few weeks away and I've starting doing research into what sorts of things we're going to do when we're there!

Photo from www.dreamsresorts.com

To bring you up to speed, we decided to go to Tulum, Mexico and specifically, the Dreams Tulum resort.  We chose this particular resort because early on in the planning stages, we were trying to get a group of friends and family to go together.  We sent out lots of e-mails, solicited feedback, and there were quite a few people who said they would be interested.  Some of these people had kids, and so to encourage people of all ages and family orientations to join us, we wanted to do child friendly.

But no one else is coming with us.

I shouldn't have been surprised, but in all honesty, I was.  I'm not really the type of person to tell someone that "might" do something.  I usually just say "no," which does make me a party-pooper of sorts, but I hope that people appreciate the honesty.  So I guess that I thought the people who told us "maybe" were actually interested and seriously thinking about coming.  I really truly honestly thought that we'd get at least ONE other couple to join us.  Maybe even more!  I was really optimistic about this, and I'm not usually an optimistic person.  Now I remember why.  Optimism usually leads to being disappointed, and feeling disappointed sucks.  If I had been using my realist attitude, I would have said, "It's pretty unlikely anyone else will come," and I would have just moved on.  For one, we definitely would have booked at an adult's only hotel - kids are great and all, but for just DH and I, we both really enjoy the adults-only atmosphere for an all-inclusive vacation.



Anyway, speaking of moving on... enough about that!


There is one enormous "positive" to no one else coming with us.

Being able to do whatever we want, whenever we want, however we want.

Competing with the interests and agendas of others can be challenging.  When you have a group of people, everyone will want to do different things, but some people will also really want the whole group to do things together.  This can be challenging.  Everyone will have different things that they want to do with their vacation time, and in the past, I've often felt like so much time is lost arguing about what to do or saying things like, "you decide." "No, YOU decide."  Seriously.

We're renting a car and we don't need to share space.  We can do as many or as few day trips as we want.  We don't have to meet anyone for meals and if we want to sleep for an entire day, no one will miss us. 

I'm going to have lots of plans in place for things we want to do, but if we wake up one morning and want to do something else, we can.  There's something refreshing about being able to live life day by day and although we might wish we had family and friends there in the evenings when we're at the bar, we can always make new friends, right?!?!

I'm going into this trip with a totally positive attitude and I'm determined to have an amazing time.  It's our first all-inclusive vacation where we'll have a ton of freedom to leave the resort when we want to.  (In the Dominican Republic and Jamaica it's not really safe to leave the leave the resort other than sponsored excursions.)  I'll leave some of the fun plans for a later post!  Until then, just know that I am SOOO excited. 

Living the Suburbian Dream

This past weekend, while I weeded the garden, the two Hartman men mowed our 1+ acre yard with two lawnmowers, while our small white dog watched from the top of the hill. 

After I was done weeding, I set up my beach chair and soaked up some sun, while they finished up mowing.   Then I made strawberry daquiries and we sipped them over a dinner of taco soup while we listened to traffic pass by on our screened in porch.

Seriously.  Could we be any more suburban?  What's happening to me?!?!

Remember this desolate looking hill of dirt???

 It started out look like this.... evolved into this....

I dreamed about it looking like this....

And so far, it looks like this.

It's definitely progress, although not QUITE the dream I had envisioned.

Some things have been more disappointing than others.  The hibiscus plants - the entire reason that I ordered these dormant plants in the first place - have been less than successful.  It seems like 3 of 6 that I received will actually end of surviving.  The same seems to be true for the rose of sharon bushes - 3 of the 6 have leaves, and the other 3 are still stupid looking twigs. 

That's a rose of sharon in the center of that picture

The bulbs, on the other hand, have been a dream.  Both the lilies and the blazing liatris are thriving.

I'm definitely excited to hopefully get some flowers later this summer.  Now that things are actually sprouting, I can't help but laugh at how haphazard the bulbs appear to have been planted.  Some of them are right next to each other, others have 3 feet between them.  If I had not planted them myself, I would certainly be making fun of the gardening who doesn't know how to evenly space.  Oh well... as I always say, lessons learned, right?

There were quite a few plants that just never sprouted, including the Black-Eye Susan's, the Blue Oat Grass, and the Candy Tuft.  I plan to contact the company within the next few weeks if there is no evidence of life in those plants, since they do offer a warranty if the plants do not survive.  But based on what I received in that initial package, I feel like I should be THRILLED with what came up, since I honestly had NO EXPECTATIONS for anything to actually grow. 

I know that I won't get any Hibiscus or Rose of Sharon flowers this year, but I can't wait for lilies!

How to Plant Potatoes

I am writing this post because when I was looking for some guidance on how to plant potatoes, I couldn't find any good information.  I'm not sure if this will really qualify as "good information," but it's more than I could find online!

I bought potato spuds from the same nursery that I ordered all of the dormant plants (update on those soon, I promise.)  But the instructions that they provided were basically useless and I was left with a bag of potatoes and no idea how to plant them.

This is what the spuds looked like when I took them out of the bag:

I have no idea what that white stuff is on them, but that's how they came

 After reading over a dozen pages about potatoes, I compiled all of my new knowledge and set out to plant.

Things to know:
1. Plant in rows 2 feet apart.
2. Plant spuds about 4 to 5 inches deep.
3. Plant with the new growth and roots pointing UP.
4. Plant each spud 12 inches apart.

Two of my rows

I will admit that my spuds are not quite 12 inches apart, because my hills are 5 feet wide and I didn't want to plant the spuds right on the edge.  So, I would say that the spuds above are about 10 inches apart.  Hopefully that decision won't haunt me later in the summer.

So, after a couple of days, I started to see signs of life.

And two weeks they look like this!

Apparently within a few weeks, all of the plants should look like this, and the leaves should basically fill the area.  Underneath, the potatoes will be growing.  If potatoes start to poke through the soil, you're supposed to cover them up with dirt, otherwise, your potatoes will start turning green from the overexposure to sunlight. 

I am thrilled with how much progress these potatoes have made in just a few short weeks.  This is my first time planting potatoes, so my hopes are not high, but so far I have no reason to think that these won't be sucessful!

Updates to come, I'm sure!!!

Money Makeover

Many weeks ago I won my first blog giveaway ever!  Laura, who writes Life Happens, was giving away a copy of Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover, and I won!  I almost never participate in blog giveaways, mostly because I don't need to acquire random, useless stuff just for the sake of winning, and because I hate how with most giveaways there are all of these requirements to enter such as "Post a comment and then a Tweet linking back to my blog and refer at least 3 friends and then you're entered!"  Yeah, that's way to much work.

From www.daveramsey.com

But this giveaway was right up my alley.  All I had to do was comment, AND it was for something that I was actually really interested in receiving.  I probably would have borrowed the book from the library eventually, since I have been hearing so much about it the past few months.  But I WON! And now that I have it, I'm excited that I don't have to return it to the library because I've been marking it with post-its so that later on I can go back and refer to various sections when I get to that part of the plan.

Because - as I should have assumed - doing a "total money makeover" is a long-term plan.  It's really not the sort of thing where you can just read the book and then "BAM!" your financial problems are all over.  For most people, the TMM takes months and ever years (and in our case it will probably be years.)

So, I've been thoroughly enjoying the book, and although there are some parts that I think get a little preachy, it's still highly motivational and DH and I are planning on implementing many aspects of the TMM to our lives.

I plan on doing a series of posts over the next couple of weeks called the TMM posts.  I'm plan to discuss some of the "dos and don'ts" that Dave Ramsey discusses in the books, and which ones we follow and which ones we just have to ignore based on our personal situation.  I'm going to talk a little about our debt, and about how we got to where we are today, and finally, our current plan for tackling it all over the next couple of years. 

I learned a lot from reading this book, and I really do think that it will help us and hopefully some of you as well!  If you have any tips or other information to share after these posts, please do!