Wednesday, April 13, 2016

why running is hard.

i'm not really that great at it. 

that's probably reason number 1 why it's hard. i've never been a size 2 kinda girl, except for when i was in like ninth grade or something crazy. that time, & the time i dropped a lot of weight due to not eating & running 3 miles a day. i was 22 at the time with the metabolism of a 22 year old. i also didn't have college claseses on monday, wednesday, or friday so sleeping in until 10am & then going for a later morning jog was easy. 

no stress for work. no exhaustion from work. no full time job. no house to clean. no dog to chase. just me, headphones, and the latest rap song for me to rock out to. 

fast forward until 27 and that's all changed. 

coming home yesterday, i knew i wanted to go for a run. i got home & thought of at least 10 reasons why i didn't need want to. i had a salad for lunch. i took the steps up to the 4th floor of the parking deck versus the elevator. lee was searching for a movie & it looked good to watch. it was too hot. it was too cold. i need new running shoes. luna needs a bath & i didn't do it like i said i would. i have a bottle of wine. 

i went & put on my running shoes and went anyway. i desperately need new shoes. 

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i ran 2.5 miles around our neighborhood & it felt amazing. an actual smile was on my face at the start of mile 2. why is it that i always dread it, but after i finish it's so satisfying? sure, my legs are still shaking today & i can barely move my arms to type, but that means it's working. i think i'll do it again tonight. 

one of my far, far fetched goals is/was to run a half marathon. it's something about those people who can run that kind of distance that is so empowering to me. i used to live around 13 miles from work and the fact that i would running that distance blew my mind. here's a secret though - i've never even ran a 5K. 

sure, i've ran 3.1 miles plenty of times before, but i've never signed up for one. that's all changing as i'm pretty certain i'm doing the panthers keep pounding 5k on may 14. what's better than running through the stadium?! hey chesson, you doing this one? 

here's an excerpt from the website: "the course begins on east morehead st. outside of levine cancer Institute. runner will proceed west on morehead to the south Gate of bank of america stadium and will head into the stadium. once inside, runners will ascend to the 500 level (using the ramps), run approximately a lap around the concourse, and then descend into the player's tunnel - where runners will feel like a panther emerging on game day! the finish line will be set up at the 50 yard line. friends and family will have the opportunity to cheer for participants from the stands. 

so there we have it. my first 5K is soon. and i'm scared. running up those ramps is NO joke. any fellow panther fan who has sat up high in the nosebleeds knows this all too well. but i've had practice before being late to my seats & refusing to miss kickoff. running up those ramps with panther adrenaline in your veins will kick your butt in gear. 

as far as that 13.1... maybe one day i'll be that crazy.
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Monday, April 11, 2016

april goals: 11 days late edition.

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i haven't ever posted about goals on the blog. 

well, i'm lying. 12 words into this post and i'm lying. oops? i did post about goals once. haha. looking back at those, i was such a clown. let's quickly recap, shall we?  become a better blogger & "the occasional style post." okay, amanda. let's jump off the typical blog bandwagon and make your blog your own, kay? i did learn to say no to making my blog what i thought others wanted to see, so CHECK that off the list. i'll give my gym routine 50%. i could do more; i could have done less. my house still isn't perfect, so i realized that. go me. and i did crafts for the wedding considering i got married, so i should receive a solid B+ on 2015 goals.

basically what i'm saying is i've never posted realistic goals that i wanted to achieve nor did i hold myself accountable until about a year and 3 months later when i realized that one time i blogged that. 

so for april, here we go:

finish the master bathroom. i'm currently about 32% complete. i just completely made up that percentage because i have no idea what i'm doing. i'll decorate a space and completely change it the next day because i'm bored with it. i'm attempting vertical stripes this time, unlike the horizontal stripes in the half bath, so we'll see how that goes. and good Lord, i'm going to lowes to get a laser level.

get my oil changed. that's the lamest goal if i ever had one. i just hate doing anything car maintenance. i wish we had an app for that.

- change my freakin' last name. yep, legally i'm still amanda gail crute. lee asks me all the time when i'm changing my name. it has nothing at all to do with me not wanting to. i want to. i just don't have the time. like, at all. i have walls to paint remember? kidding. honestly, since i received my promotion at work, i'm either a. too busy to take a day off or b. traveling & have a future work flight booked under Crute. can you even change an flight ticket name? my work email is under Walker & so is my facebook account, so why can't legal matters be that easy? 

- bathe luna. the chick needs a bath. i'll do that tomorrow, so check.

- paint a canvas featuring 08.29.15. i saw this cute idea and love the simplicity. canvas like this are super cheap at places like hobby lobby, and so are stencils. my creative side has exponentially grown since i got into wedding crafting. i actually started an etsy and then closed it down 2 days later because i knew my life was too crazy busy for that ish. plus "Crute's Crafts" didn't really sound as awesome as i thought it did the night i made the account after 3 glasses of wine. true story.

- find spring clothes. this is where i need y'all's help. tell me boutiques or hidden online stores where one shirt isn't $89.99. that bothers me. it's clothes. i'll wear it once, twice maybe, and never again. $89.99 can buy me that oil change & then the laser level. i maybe even could still stop by taco bell on the way home.

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Friday, April 8, 2016

striped walls are jerks.


i really wasn't expecting to blog about the bathroom this soon, but sometimes life gives you lemons, so you put them in the fridge, grab a glass of wine instead, and write. 

plus snapping these pics with my iphone took 30 seconds. 

i always used to say i'm not a diy person. i was really weird about diy with the wedding actually. some things i didn't mind doing myself and others i was like nope - i'll pay someone. for example, any calligraphy i handled, but when it came time to spray paint something, i refused. who the heck knows why; i'm a complicated person. 

anyway, about a month or so ago, i went to a wine and design party thing. people, they teach you how to paint while you drink wine. it's literally the best idea/concept i've ever heard of and i constantly kick myself every tuesday for not thinking of it first. something snapped in me after that class. give me some wine and i'll paint the whole town red. i mean gray. i love everything in gray.

i went home and decided it was time to redo to half bath downstairs. i chose this room strategically though, because what if halfway through i did something crazy like decided painting was stupid or... God forbid.. run out of wine? this room was small and finish-able. 

i went to a lowes home improvement store, which i never go to for fun, and grabbed some paint. i didn't get samples; i just went for it. i bought a gallon of the lighter gray and a smaller size of the darker gray just to see what happened. it turns out i was off work on that friday, so i poured some wine and went to town on my first "for real" painting attempt ever. 


i poured the paint into the metal pan thing and went to work. it was shortly after that when i realized - oh damn. i forgot to tape the molding. like RULE NUMBER 1 is to tape your molding. so i went back to square one, taped it all (including the ceiling molding as i was also painting the ceiling), and then it was back to rolling. 

painting the walls one color was easy, really. it gave me a good arm workout too, so double win? we have pretty high ceilings in the house. they're close to 10 or 11 feet, so a dining chair was my only chance at getting those high reaches. let me tell you - getting up and down on a high dining chair to get more paint repetitively is a butt workout. 

sounds like i should paint more often if you know what i mean.

funny side story - i painted the entire bathroom the lighter gray and hated it. i mean i was "went to bed mad for not buying a sample, disappointed in my lack of home decor skills" angry. i woke up the next morning and loved the color. clearly, i'm paint bi-polar.

so then i had the stripes to do. my first mistake was not realizing there was this nifty contraption called a laser level. they sell them probably at any hardware store, but i didn't realize this under after i hand measured each line with an old school level to ensure it wasn't crooked.

this means i had to cut my tape measurements in 2 feet increments to keep consistency. this took way longer than it should have, but whatever. 


the white frames i actually got at target on clearance for $2.49 a piece. i seriously saw that sale and bought 15 of them on spot. how do you beat a skinny 8x10 frame for $2.49?! i found those printables online for free actually. originally, the "good day gorgeous" said "good morning gorgeous." it kind of bothered me as i knew we would have these in the downstairs bath, which is what a lot of our guests use when they come over for parties or to hang out.

i'm not a morning person, so the likelihood of a guest using the downstairs half bath during the AM is not high. they can use any of the other 2 guest upstairs full bathrooms, right?? so i took this printable to the computer paint program and somehow made it say "good day." don't ask me, because i don't even know how i worked the magic. the whole frame & printable thing cost me $5.00 total. win.

so for now, the half bath is done. lee likes to say "welcome! let me show you the half bath, the prettiest room in the house." 

little does he know, i'm on a mission. currently, i'm working on our master bath (have been for 2 weeks) and plan to share that soon. it's about 7 or 8 times the size of the mini half bath so the timeline to complete the painting, decorate it, and then actually blog about it is ........................................................


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Thursday, April 7, 2016

am i back?

i don't know. 

i mean i updated my blog title font. that has to count for something, right? i made most of the blog design "white" because that's the trendy thing to do now, i think. i even updated my picture to a bridal portrait with some sort of corny description about how i enjoy cooking, wine, my husband, and my dog. 

i just realized that simple sentence just summed me up and i'm sure if that means i'm growing up or if i'm some lame wife who wants to stay in all the time now. it's fine, i'm cool with it.

so, how's married life been, you ask? married life is awesome. i get to come home and immediately wash my face from makeup, throw my hair in a non-cute messy bun, and put on sweatpants. the cool part about it is there's still some great guy, already in sweats himself, waiting to give me a kiss and hang out. we're that couple that binge watches the food network for my liking, and watches game of thrones for his liking. (ps: by "watching game of thrones," i really i mean i just play on my phone because i can't get into game of thrones. any show where someone's name could be thor and it's acceptable is just not my kind of show. sorry GOT fans.)

anyway, now here's a sappy photo of us from the past 3 months (or however long it's been since i've blogged) because marrying this goofball is still the best thing i've ever done. for better, for worse. 


I've developed this love (hate?) for painting. in the past few months, i completely redid our half bathroom downstairs. i don't have the time or patience to take professional looking photos of the final product, so i'll leave you with this. just know painting stripes on a wall is a complete asshole project. 


maybe i'll post the whole story one day.

i also really like cooking. i used to get so pissed at my parents, growing up as a child, when they had me in the kitchen. rolling of eyes and under the breath comments were way too frequent, but now it's became my therapy. 

i started a insta for my food creations. @wineisafoodgroup - shocker? nah. i figured if i spent at least 5 minutes plating my stupid dinners for lee and myself, i may as well document it happened, right? right.


and how's miss luna? she's good. she's huge. she had surgery to get spayed and a procedure called gastropexy, and i lost my shit, but she's good. giant breed dogs often have an issue with "bloat," which can cause death, so the gastropexy procedure helps to avoid that. don't ask me any more questions because the words "death" and "luna" in the same paragraph doesn't sit well with me.

to distract myself, here's her sitting all nicely posing with me only because lee is holding a pepperoni to get her to focus.


i hope i'm back this time. work is more manageable now, but the rest of the walls in our 4 bedroom house are calling my name, so it will be a struggle between blogging and painting. we will see.

crap. i just realized i didn't "upgrade" my signature with the rest of the "blog uplift." eh, one thing at a time. 
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