Wrapping up 2010...Hello 2011!!

I CANNOT believe that 2010 is over! People, I am getting dangerously close to 30 years old and God and I had an agreement that that wasn't going to happen! The years need to stop flying by!
I had such a fun holiday season and don't let my over usage of exclamation points confuse you... I am in my post Christmas funk! As I sit here writing this I see all of my Christmas decorations STILL up in my house. Hey, don't judge...we took down the outside Christmas lights so we aren't THOSE people...but no one knows what's going on inside! The idea of taking these decorations down is just... UGH!!! It's not fun, it makes me sad, and I just don't feel like doing it! So there! That's my maturity shining through!
Just a fun quick look back at the holiday season and then I promise I'll put on my big girl panties and move on:
We went to the Nutcracker Market in November which was such a fun way to start the Christmas season. I'd never been before and while it was overwhelming and definitely had WAY too much estrogen piled in one room, it was so much fun! I went with Kelli, Tricia, Kelli's mom and mom-in-law. I think we decided to make it a tradition!

I love how warm, cozy, and romantic Christmas decorations (esp the tree) make a house look

The diet suffered pretty good over the holidays...aw who am I kidding, my diet suffers year round

My very favorite day of the year is Christmas Eve! Between singing in the Candlelight Services at Sagemont and spending the evening with my favorite people at MeeMaw and PawPaws, it's just the best!!


Oh how I love Christmas morning! I still feel like a kid!

We had such a nice Christmas day lunch with Kev's parents, Jim, and Taylor!

Next it was back to LaLa's house for MORE food, MORE fun, MORE presents, and MORE family time!

I feel like I needed 3 days of sleep to catch up from all of the Christmas fun!!
But the fun wasn't over! We had to have our annual "Southwest Stocking" party! An HBU apartment tradition that will live on forever!

And one week later we had a special fun-filled day with Dad, Michelle, Marc, Chrystal and the girls. So. Much. Fun!






And of course over the holiday season we had to fit in some great workouts to fight all of that pecan pie I'd been eating!




We even got our runs in on COOOOOOOOOLD days!


To ring in the New Year we just did what we do best...PLAYED!






It was a fun packed couple of weeks to say the least...but here we are...back to work, back to the routine...I'm not bitter :)

The original intent of this post was to give a QUICK recap of the Holidays and then announce some exciting news for 2011 (NO I'M NOT PREGNANT, DON'T ASK)! But I am entering a new business venture and you will be seeing more about that very soon (probably more than you want to)! :) If you want to get in the best shape of your life in 2011, keep watching...more to come!

God sent Pam

It is so beautiful out here. Huge oak trees with limbs spread so wide I have to resist the urge to climb them! Except for every 5 minutes when a huge jet plane flies right over your head leaving Hobby Airport, it's quiet and peaceful! Birds chirp in and chimes hang from the branch that hangs right over her grave. There are bright beautiful bundles of flowers as far as you can see at Forest Lawn Cemetery. The way I describe it sounds gorgeous, right? So why don't I ever come? In six years, today was maybe my 5th time to come to my mom's grave. I have no words to explain why. I just can't.
So much anxiety built up on the way here today that I actually u-turned twice. You may think my anxieties were big life changing thoughts, but no, they went something like this: What if I don't remember which section her grave is in? What if her stone is so dirty you can't see her name? And the one that seriously paralyzed me today was: What if her flower vase has been turned upside down? (that's what the funeral home does when the vase is empty..turns it upside down). How could I not bring her fresh flowers on a regular basis? Will she be the only one without flowers?
I put some there 3 years ago..the last time that , I hate to admit, I went to her grave. Dad, Marc, and I spent some sweet time here 5 years ago. We took pictures (therapeutic in our family), laughed, cried, and just sat silent and remembered.



I'm not sure how often they visit, but I've stopped in an embarrassingly low number of times, quickly fall apart, and have to leave.
As I pulled in, I easily found her grave. That fear began to dissolve as I realized that I could never forget this place. This exact spot. Three huge oak trees hang right over her grave blocking out the direct sun, providing beautiful shade and noises of nature, and as I like to say giving mom the best seat in the house!
I parked and grabbed my bag out of the car (moving in slow motion as to stall) and walked toward her grave. I kind of had my eyes half open in fear of what I'd see. But then I saw the most beautiful bouquet of red, purple, and yellow flowers I'd ever seen. She had flowers.

I actually sat straight down on the ground and just cried. What a silly thing...flowers...like mom cared that she has a bouquet of fake flowers that probably cost $8 at Hobby Lobby...but I needed that moment.
All of a sudden in that quiet, vulnerable moment I heard a small ladies voice. "Don't you sing at Sagemont?" Now, let me explain, this only happens when I have just cut someone off in a parking lot, have no make-up on, am dressed hideously, am yelling at my husband in public...etc...you get the picture :)
I looked back and realized I hadn't even responded yet so she repeated her question. I said (with mascara and snot running down my face) "Yes ma'am I do". She told me her name is Pam. My reaction to the next words she said are why she'll probably forever think I'm crazy. She said "sometimes when I"m here to see my family, I put flowers on your mom's grave".
I just wept, went completely into the ugly cry and said "Pam, we don't know each other, but God sent you to me today". I wrapped my arms around her and hugged her tighter than I think I've ever hugged anyone.
Pam comes often, unlike me. She makes her rounds between two different funeral homes and 4 plots having experienced 4 times the loss that I have (her brother, her mom and dad, and her sister) but she, for 6 years, has been looking over my mom's grave too. As we talked I shook out the flowers to rid them of some of the dirt and ants (and to keep my hands busy as I HATE to talk to someone face to face while I'm crying). I began to get out some of the supplies that I brought with me (towels, rags, bottles of water). Pam let me borrow a small broom out of her car and then the Spring Cleaning was on. Something about being able to be down on my hands and knees and scrubbing that stone, making it spotless, the way she always kept our house, felt so good. Felt like I was doing something for her. I believe my mom led the angels in the Hallelujah chorus at that moment because Lord knows my mom loved to clean! And to see ME cleaning, Hallelujah! :) I probably made Pam uncomfortable with how many times I hugged her. I thanked her over and over and hoped that my eyes said what I couldn't find words to say.
Now, Pam has left. I've sat on this beautiful (and CLEAN) stone of the most beautiful woman I'll ever know for 3 hours. I've looked through pictures I brought with me, cried, taken more pictures, laid down and almost took a little nappy (which I must admit probably looked mildly creepy), and written all of this. One of the most beautiful afternoons of my life.

I fully believe God inserts people into your life when you absolutely need them the most. Patti Reim will always have a place in my heart as she went from mere acquaintance to charge nurse and ANGEL during our stay in the hospital while mom was sick. After today, I'll never forget Pam. God sent Pam.
Just a few of so many mommy memories:


Free digital slideshow personalized with Smilebox

I'M ALIIIIIIIVE!!!!!

I'd already assigned someone in my will to do a final blog post for me in the event that I died in the triathlon last Saturday! But sorry world, you aren't getting rid of me that easily...i MADE IT! :)
It was AWESOME! Hands down, one of the hardest but BEST experiences in my life! I don't claim that I rocked it...actually I think I was moving a little slow...but I felt great and finished with no problem so that's what matters to me!
I'll get to how the day of the race went, but first a little pre-race prep...
Friday afternoon we went to packet pick up, which is one of my favorite times! It's like a stocking on Christmas morning! It's filled with goodies and freebies and I just get so excited digging through it! It was at this moment though that we found out we were in different wave start times with Kelli starting before me. This was not ideal because that little fish already swims faster than me, so we'd planned for her to start later so we could end up biking and running together. Oh well, all plans out the window, gotta go with the flow on race day! We then went to Clear Lake Park to check everything out! Here's us at the transition point:

And right on the shore near where the swim would start:

We then drove the entire bike course so that we'd have an idea where we were going when we were very first leading the pack...HA HA YEAH RIGHT! It was so that when the entire race left me in their dust I'd know where the turns were! Oh and did I mention that the Kemah bridge was part of the race route and we'd never trained a hill?

Then that night before the race Kev and I went with Wes and Kelli (and a few of their clan) for a yummy CARB FILLED dinner at Freebirds (does this count as effective carbo loading?...I think it does) :)

I gave Kelli a cute charm that I had found and bought for both of us

Here's a closer look at it

My good friend Kelli learned something about Kevin that night. Poor girl brought her bike over just for him to air her tires...oh I could've warned her :) Kev got giddy like a little school boy (as he LOVES biking and everything to do with it) and here's how we found him 30 minutes later:

He took the whole stinkin bike apart, washed it, cleaned it with a citrus degreaser, eventually did put air in the tires! So we both had smelly-good, sparkling bikes...if only that would help my performance in any way!
After a delish dinner and a melatonin, I crashed at 10pm (which is nice and early for me)! I slept like a rock and when the alarm went off at 4:45am I woke up very excited!
We threw on our cute tri outfits, loaded up the bikes and were off!! We arrived a little later than we would have liked. As we walked into the transition area (after unloading, walking a mile with our bikes and bags, getting numbers drawn all over us, etc...) the announcement was made that we only had 15 minutes until the transition area would close. If you know anything about us, we DON'T LIKE TO BE RUSHED! Especially on a day like this! So we quickly set our stuff out, got our chip timers strapped on and made our way to the swim start! Of course we still found time to goof off, take some pictures, and chat with people that we knew....which by the way, I saw WAY too many people I knew while wearing barely any clothes and a swim cap...not a great look for me:




Kelli's wave started and I had to stand on the shore getting nervous for 10 more minutes! Then as if a 45 minute swim isn't hard enough, they put us in the water (where obviously we could not reach) to tread water 5 MINUTES before the gun was to fire! 5 minutes may not sound like a lot of time, but when it's treading water it's an eternity!!! Finally, the gun went off and I started "swimming"...i put that in quotes because at first it felt like just crazy flailing and thrashing!

(All those little specks and ripples in the water are swim capped people)
Once the nerves settled a little bit, I actually felt like I got into a rhythm! From the shore we could see the Hilton what seemed like 10 miles away! So our instructions were to "swim toward the Hilton". And that's the FIRST BUOY!! As long as I could keep myself going in a straight line, I was doing good! But I swim a straight line about as good as I could draw one. I'd look up once and be headed straight for the buoy, then look up again and see Nasa Rd. 1! When I got to the last straight-away toward the shore is when I started to get antsy. I NEEDED to be done! I could see the shore, but just couldn't get there! That's when the 215 lb. man in front of me decided to practice his synchronized swimming routine! He went left, he went right, he popped up, he dove down...AAAAHHHHH!! I finally, in my nicest race voice, asked him to PICK A SIDE AND GET ON IT! (*please note my "i've been in this stupid salt water too long- race voice" is NOT A NICE ONE! :)
But I finally made it to the shore, took way too long to transition, hopped on the bike and took off! I headed confidently toward the Kemah bridge and was surprised that I climbed it with no problem...granted my speed slowed to about 10 mph, but it felt like a really good workout on the leg press machine! I'd spent so much time worried about the climb that I forgot to think about the descent...HHHHHOOOOOOLLLLLLYYYYY CCCCOOOOOOWWWW!! Before I knew it I was tucked down and flying like a bullet at 33 miles per hour down that stinkin thing!! I've never gone anything about 25 mph before this, so as you can imagine, I thought since the water hadn't killed me, the asphalt surely would! But I think at one point I closed my eyes, said a quick prayer, and before I knew it I was at the bottom! Hooray!!! I was so pumped to see about a hundred people behind me! I felt on top of the world! But that quickly ended when the Sprint Triathlon turnaround came up at the next light! All of a sudden at least 3/4 of those people behind me were GONE and all of a sudden I felt like I was at the BACK! Which if you know anything about me, this is NOT OK with me! :) The rest of the bike ride in a nutshell:
1. Forced myself to eat a protein bar at mile 6
2. Rode about 3 miles (FM 1266) on a rode which I still swear was made completely out of rumble strips and I think permanently damaged important parts of my body!
3. I must have looked like I was hurting because every police officer directing traffic along the way felt like they needed to give me an update of how many miles I had left
4. All was made well again when I came up to the Webster Fire Department and, get this ladies, the guys were outside (SOME WITH SHIRTS OFF) washing the fire truck! HELLO???? All is right in the world again! Sorry, I would've taken a picture if I wasn't sure I'd fall off my bike!
When I transitioned from bike to run I MAY OR MAY NOT have yelled at my poor husband when he tried to be encouraging by saying "come on, it's almost over"! My mature response was yelling at him and throwing my water bottle at him :)
The run was FABULOUS! I felt GREAT and felt like I could run forever. My legs were SO happy to get back to what they are used to! I never thought I'd say that running is my strong point, but when compared to the other two events, it is! Besides the one nasty hairy man that I was right behind 1. BURPING, 2. WARNING ME HE BURPED BECAUSE I WAS "DOWNWIND" and 3. ASKING ME IF IT SMELLED, the run was pretty uneventful! Seriously, if my muscles were still functioning I would have punched him in the throat! How NASTY!!!
Well, I'm not sure if anyone is still reading, but there it is! BEST experience of my life! Can't wait to do it again! Upcoming: 1/2 marathon in January, Tri Girl next summer, and who knows what else in between! I'm thinking eventually the HALF IRONMAN! :)
But now that I think about it...maybe this ride is next:

Love and kisses,

This may be one of my last posts...

IF I DIE THIS SATURDAY IN THE OPEN WATER!!!!
Okay, I guess it's not really THAT bad...But, this coming from the girl that has been both skydiving and bungee jumping, I will say that this was one of the scariest things I've done. Last Friday, Kelli and I took our first shot at an Open Water Swim. I put on my cute little tri swim top, grabbed my workout bag and headed out the door to pick Kelli up..la la la la la...no worries. And then halfway down the road leading to Lake 288 (a scuba diving and sports training lake) something unexpected happened...BUTTERFLIES IN MY TUMMY!! This is VERY different than swimming 60 laps in a 25 meter pool! Will there be alligators? The big know-it-alls say "No Misty, there aren't alligators in there", but HOW DO YOU KNOW?? An alligator can go wherever it wants! At one point I will be 1/2 mile away from shore bobbing like bait...what if I get a hammy cramp? aaaaahhhhhhh!!! We talk the whole drive out and calm ourselves down. Then we arrive and see this:

Yep, it's official, I'm going to die! THIS is where I'm going to die!
The owner of the Lake took pity on us and got his swim instructor to come give us a quick little private lesson. Faking confidence (as to not look as stupid as we know we are) we began putting on our swim caps and ear plugs...only to be told WE HAVE BEEN WEARING OUR SWIM CAPS WRONG ALL ALONG! We were putting them on sideways (which looking at them and minding all of the rules of fashion is how it SHOULD go, but whatever)! How do you fake confidence in your swimming ability when you don't even know how to put on a swim cap! So this process, which has taken us an average of 10 minutes (getting our big fro's all up in a tiny cap is NOT an easy task) only takes about 10 seconds when you do it correctly!
Now that we are one week from the triathlon and just passed level ONE of putting on the cap, we were ready to do a "test" for the instructor! Simply swim out to the boat in the middle and back. Sounds easy, right? Being the show offs that we are, we put on our best swimming form and did his little test. After a couple of quick pointers (and Richard nicely lying and saying that our form actually isn't all that bad) it was time to start! If you hug the perimeter of the lake it is a square, 225 meters on each side. So twice around would be 1800 meters, 200 meters more than the race.
So off I went! No more than 100 meters away from shore, it was like I completely forgot how to swim! I floundered, gasping for air and would have drowned, I think, if I hadn't forgotten how to do that too! I had a quick Come to Jesus meeting with myself and said, "Misty, you have a long way to go...there's no turning back, and you know you'd rather die than quit! So GET IT TOGETHER!" Before I knew it, I'd passed the first buoy, then the second, then the third, and in no time at all I'd finished 900 meters, one time around the lake! And since this whole triathlon is just a big mental game with me, now knowing that all I had to do was do the same distance one more time, I was good to go! Settling into my rhythm, I finished the distance just before sunset! It was a great feeling to be done, and an even better feeling to know that I can do this again in a week and I won't die!
And it really felt good to get out of the water, talk to Kelli, and find out she had ALL OF THE SAME EXPERIENCES in the water as I did!

I was on such a high the rest of the night and began counting down the days to the race! I told everyone who would listen all about this Open Water experience but I don't think you can understand the feeling unless you try it!
A few more pictures of our recent training...

If you look closely, you can see a little dark shadow called KELLI! Yep, we are DUMMIES! We had to start EXTRA early (5:30am) one day because Kelli had to be home earlier and it was a 2 1/2 hour workout, so we meet in our usual spot forgetting that it would still be PITCH BLACK! Good thing I was wearing black shorts, grey tank, and had NOTHING reflective on me! I eventually turned on my iphone and tucked it in the back of my shorts to shine behind me, hoping the cars MAY see us and not kill us! :)

Beautiful morning for a bike ride!



T-Minus 2 days, 17 hours, and 31 minutes until start time...