Flat Corgi Friday - Smallest Sith Ever

Oh yes, she's a daddy's girl alright.

Merida is also a Sith. She is sweet and maintains a cute, lovable facade, but underneath she's sneaky, crafty, and always plotting to steal whatever Gimli has and scurry off with it.

Gratitude - Week 2

Missed Sunday again.

Here is my list from last week:

• Cough drops. 

• Watching the corgis romp through the snow.

• Weekly runs becoming easier. This is good because I suspect I'm behind on my goal to meet 526 km by the end of June. Oh well, just like Dory (who just keeps swimming), I keep running.

• The feel of a book in one's hand. I read Anne of Green Gables last week and while I enjoyed the story, it was startling to realize how much I'd missed the feel of a book in my hands. I've been reading with an E-Reader for the past few years, and while I love my Kobo, there's something to be said about feeling and smelling the pages and the creases of a book.

• Water. I'm now 2 weeks into making a concerted effort to drink more water each day. I don't feel any different, but I find I feel a little "off" if I haven't had enough. I'm sure it's all in my head, but I'm going to keep on keepin' on!

Flat Corgi Friday - Corgi totem

At the Canada pavilion - EPCOT

If a totem pole is meant to describe the culture and heritage of the area, does this cement me as a crazy corgi lady?

Gratitude - Week 1

I'm behind. I intended to start these weekly posts on Sunday, but I missed yesterday.

In any event, here's my thankful list from last week.

• Remembering work passwords.

• Ending 2015 28% of the way towards my goal of completing 526 km by July 1st. As of this past Saturday, I'm at 30%.

• Pleasant customer service reps who ask about the weather and then tell me to bundle up.

• The Body Shop coconut body butter. My feet have never been soft and pretty, but this lotion helps restore some moisture. Plus smelling coconut in the middle of January helps too.

• Sleep. I've not been feeling well the past few days, (flu coming on), but catching up on sleep has helped immensely. I've been making small gains in unplugging by 10 pm, but I haven't actually made it into bed by 10.

Flat Corgi Friday - 2 new companions

There's even room for 2 corgis in there!

a new direction

It's a bit of an understatement that the frequency of blog posts has decreased over the past year. I don't know why. I know I like putting my words/thoughts/silly corgis out there, but sometimes our life is so very boring that I don't have much to say. Multiply that with starting a new exercise regimen and doing "stuff" that you have little time for blogging and all it entails - taking pictures, modifying said pictures, and writing posts.

This past December, I was part of a voluntary Twitter experiment where you had to state the things/places/people etc for which you were grateful. I had fun with it and it helped lessen the impending stress I was facing due to hosting Christmas dinner. The whole experiment promptly popped out of my head until this past weekend. I was feeling guilty because I had so many half dreamed up ideas that I wanted to post, but I never made time to do it. If I didn't make time to do it, then was it a good idea? Did I care enough? Don't really know. That's when the idea hit me to shake things up on the blog.

For me, I find my days run into each other. I don't stop and smell the roses anymore, it's do this, do that, walk the dogs, plan dinner, cook dinner, go exercise, lament that you're behind in your running training and so on and so on. I've also been dealing with my computer and actual life balance. Many times I'm on the computer doing nothing in particular, so I'm struggling with this as well.

The new direction of the blog will be to post weekly about the 5 things for which I'm grateful in the previous 7 days. I'll still throw in the Flat Corgis, Throwback Thursdays and full fledged posts when the mood strikes, but I'm not going to get upset if I don't have a picture to go along with the blog post. I intend to start a journal to write down all the gratefuls during the week and use that list as basis for the weekly post.

No Merida, we aren't going away

Happy New Year!

But Santa, I've been ever so good...

	Gimli would like: - cheese - toys - cookies - Marrobones - a new Mr. Sun - more cheese - some apples
	Merida would like: - all of what Gimli receives so she can steal it away - cuddles with Candy - but most of all, she wants snow Alas, it's a green and rainy Christmas for us this year.

New ornaments

Every time we travel, we make it a point to return with a new ornament. This year was no exception.

Merida

When her ornament was first released, it was quite popular and the shops at Disney couldn't keep it in stock. Now that Frozen has taken over, there were quite a few Meridas available :)

 We picked up this one and the next one on our most recent trip in November.

This is my unofficial motto when I run.

Faith in myself. Trust in my body. Pixie Dust for that extra bit of something.

A friend gave us this one.

Exterminate!

Here's our tree now.

The fluff awakens

Since the movie Star Wars: The Force Awakens opens today, the corgis are paying tribute to the Star Wars universe.

You are unwise to lower your defenses!

The circle is now complete. When I left you, I was but the learner; now *I* am the master.

Help me Obi Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope.

AT AT

The fluff is strong with this one.

A basket of fluffs

The dark side is strong with this one.

Flat Corgi Friday - What's a couple more animals?

Flat Corgi Friday is back. We were on vacation in November and I have more Flat Corgi pictures to share. It's difficult to have content when you only brought out the corgis once this year, but such is life.

This past November we spent a few days at Animal Kingdom Lodge before a 4 day Disney Cruise to the Bahamas. I have a full post coming about that whole experience and what I learned from it, but for now, here are some pictures of the Flat Corgis.

These two pictures were taken around the Arusha Rock Firepit in Jambo House.

The view from our balcony. Because we are DVC members, when we stay at Animal Kingdom Lodge, we stay in Kidani Village. This allows us to book a savannah view room where we can see the animals roaming around.

What's a corgi without the obligatory cow picture?

No Flat Corgis in these, just a few pictures of the animals

Feeding time

The baby zebra and its mommy

Grateful Day 1

I've recently discovered the organization, Plasticity, who works to improve employee engagement/morale/retention etc through data and psychology combined. One of the social media campaigns they are leading this month is the #12GratefulDays initiative. Starting today - 12/7, they post a daily mission and you respond to it via Twitter.

I love this idea, so I figured I'd expand and turn my daily entries into blog posts.

Today's mission:

Name 3 things that happened last week that you are especially grateful for and share them in images, videos or text.

In no particular order:

1. The corgis racing around the house.

Nearly every day after our evening walk, Gimli runs up and down the length of the house. Merida chases him from the living room in the back all the way up to the front and back again. Eventually, she tires and she remains in the living room, while Gimli continues towards the house. Most times, on his run back he then chases her around the coffee table.

Every day I say, "oh, I must record this!" And everyday I do not.

It looks something like this.

2. Finishing a tough run.

Last month Runkeeper posted a new challenge - the Global 5k run on December 6th. Their aim was to bring thousands of runners together on the same day for the same goal. They are tabulating the data right now, but by their estimates, they brought together about 200k runners.

I signed up for it and off we went early Sunday morning. We were fortunate enough that there was no snow or ice on the ground, though it was a little chilly... ~ 1 degree Celsius.

I've done 5ks before so the distance wasn't too much of a challenge, but I had updated my "5k race" workout interval to:

1k - run

.5k - walk

1k - run

.5k - walk

.5k - run

.5k - walk

1k - run

Sunday's run was the first time using this schedule and while I was sore afterwards, I was pleased to have accomplished it. This is the closest I've ever gotten to running the full 5k. I have more ground to cover, I know, but it's a far cry from where I stood back in January.

3. Homemade cookies

Last week, I made my first batch of gingerbread cookies. Although, if we're being honest, they are gingerbread Mickey Mouses. It was not as difficult as I thought, but I really had to get my hands into the dough to mix it properly.

These cookies are all gone now, but I'm going to make another batch this weekend. Those Mickeys should have M&M buttons... unless someone eats all the M&Ms before Saturday.

Tongue out Tuesday - the cake version

This past weekend, we held a get together with friends to celebrate Christmas and my upcoming birthday.

One of my surprises was my cake, which was modeled after a certain fluff ball. I'm sure you'll see the resemblance.

Time to head inside... and get to work!

Here we are, coming to the end of November and the end of my outdoor running season.

To be clear, the temperature these days hovers around the freezing mark and I'm ok with it. I've run in those temperatures before. Once you are dressed for it, it's fine and you warm up quite quickly! The portion I dislike is the snow and ice. See, I'm clumsy at the best of times - walking bare feet. So running on snow and ice is just asking for trouble. I slip and slide when I'm wearing winter boots with grips!

I'm fortunate enough to have an indoor track close by where Mike and I have been visiting over the past week and a half. Our current schedule is 3 times a week for 2 runs during the week and a long run on the weekend.

This is also great news because I've decided to start training for my first half marathon. Scary, I know. I'm convinced the rational side of my brain is blissfully unaware of what's coming over the next year or so.

To provide some backstory, I joked around with myself mainly, that some day I would do a half marathon. You know, that magical day far off into the future that never actually arrives. I kept up my running schedule, started gaining strength and incremental PRs, and the half-marathon worm slowly made it into my head. Then, I'd push it away, because really... 21k, are you crazy?

Then, earlier this year RunDisney announced the Star Wars Darkside races for 2016 to be held at Disney World. My dear husband, the Star Wars fan, got that look in his eye. Disneyland holds the Star Wars Light side races, but seriously who wants to run for the Light side? We jokingly talked about it, but never came to an agreement.

Fast forward to November. With the impending move to the indoor track looming, I had to devise a training schedule. Unfortunately the track does not have the best GPS access, that metal roof probably has something to do with it, so my RunKeeper runs are always a little off. I now rely on timed runs and intervals through RunKeeper and a separate log of the total time I've spent. It hearkens back to pre-phone days of running, but it works.

In devising a plan, I went full bore and created one for the half marathon. My goal is to complete a half by next Autumn. My rationale is this: I need to show myself that I can do it. Once I've done it, then I'll feel much better about completing the Star Wars half. Back when the WDW marathon weekend loomed, even though I was just running the 5 and 10ks, I had huge anxiety. I'd never done a 10k before, was it even possible for me to do it?

This time, I'll be more prepared.

In terms of races for next year, I have one 5k planned. At this time of the year, it's a little early for the Spring and Summer race information to be posted. I'll be in a different and better situation heading into Spring 2016 compared to Spring 2015 and I hope to see some gains - both in time and overall feeling/strength.

I leave you with some pictures from this year's races.

Still cannot believe I got to run on a runway!

Throwback Thursday - Snow

It's November 19th and there's no snow on the ground. I'm a little unnerved by this - wavering between 'this is abnormal!' and 'I'm ok with no snow.'

Today's throwback is to last year when we were receiving snow on November 19th and 20th.

You're still gone?

MERIDA: Gimli, they are still gone :(

GIMLI: What?? How can this be?

MERIDA: *sniff*

Wordless Wednesday - Apple chips

Saturday Smiler - Here's Gimli!

Little Sleeper

Merida sleeps in strange positions. Upside down or head under the pillow, she can sleep anywhere.

And she snores! That short snout of hers causes some loud snoring.  See for yourself:

Wordless Wednesday - Rollin' in the grass