Rearrange

Every year, the warm weather comes and I get in my happy spring cleaning mood. Well, this year, the warm weather is here and it is just FEBRUARY! Come on, Mother Nature! You are really messing with me here! It totally feels like spring in Starkville. Everyone has been living in shorts and flip flops for the past two days. Even though it is not really "spring" yet, the warm weather tricked my mind into spring cleaning mode which led me to.....rearranging my room. Now this is something that really excites me. There is a small part of me that just loves change and so I decided to rearrange my room yesterday! This is something that I do at least once every six months. It is so fun to change things around, try things out in different spots, and just play around with what works and what doesn't. And for about a week after you do it, it is always a fun little surprise every time you walk into your room! I took this room rearranging as an opportunity to play around with the lighting and some different settings on my camera. I want to practice and learn a lot more so that I can be taking awesome pictures when the real true spring comes around!

Here are some pictures of my "new" room.

Anyway, thats the new set up and some fun little camera practice pictures.

Now, we all know that the star of this blog is Miss Cosmo, and I couldn't make a post without including some of her latest pictures!

I swear she grows like, an inch or something every day. Its crazy. She is so bad sometimes, I'm not gonna lie. But she brings us SO much joy. All I want to do is skip class and play with her all day. She LOVES to run. We have taken her to the intramural fields a handful of times and she could just live out there fetching balls all day. This weekend, there were some guys over at Andrew's house and they were outside throwing the ball for a couple of hours and you couldn't have lured Cosmo away from those boys if you had a giant t-bone steak in your hand. She loves people, she loves to play, she loves to love. And boy, do we love her!

Wow, I am turning to a typical mom....going on and on about her "baby". Somebody stop me!

One last thing...the "big day" is Wednesday. I have a rockin' outfit picked out for the interview and I am doing my best to prepare myself for any questions that they could possibly ask. As much as I want to be confident, I am extremely nervous. Please keep me in your prayers on Wednesday around 2 in the afternoon if you happen to think about it :) At the end of the day, I know that whatever is supposed to happen, will happen. God already knows the plans He has made for me and I am striving to find my peace in that fact.

Hope you have a terrific week!!

Cosmo, V-day, and happy news!

Cosmo has been having a lot of fun lately...she is living the life.

We took a little trip to Columbus to Andrew's grandparents house. They have been wanting to meet Cosmo, and we also wanted her to to get to meet their two pomeranians, Roxy and Riley.

On February 9th, we had our second snow day in Starkville! It was really neat because the day we got Cosmo, January 9th, was the first snow day. Cosmo saw snow twice in her short 12 week life span! She absolutely loved it if you can't tell from the pictures!

peek-a-boo....can you find Cosmo?

 Andrew and I had Valentine's day "in" this year and decided to cook for ourselves. We have been spending a lot of our money at the vet so we decided to stay in instead of going to spend a lot of money on a nice meal in a restaurant. But the meal we ended up making was absolutely gourmet and delicious! I meant to take pictures along the way so that I could do a little food blogging, but I am not very good at multi-tasking and I forgot.

First on the menu was this creamed spinach with shallots and bacon....YUM. And I'm not even a huge spinach fan.

 Andrew was in charge of the steaks. They were good, but I think we will splurge for a little better cut of meat next time. Not too bad for college kids though!

 These may look like regular ole crescent rolls...but actually they are pure heaven in your mouth. Inside of these little babies is a mixture of tomatoes, bacon, and cream cheese. All of that goodness inside garlic-butter crescent rolls. Go out to the store, buy the ingredients, and make them right now. You can thank me later.

Okay, now for the really sweet part. I have an interview for Occupational Therapy school at UMC next Wednesday afternoon. I am beyond thrillled but VERY nervous. Please keep me in your prayers!

Okay, after two posts in one day, I think I am caught up on all of our latest news. Hope you all have a FANTASTIC weekend!

Catching Up

Where to begin??

I guess I will begin with the race. Good news and bad news.
Good news: I ran continuously through the entire 13.1.
Bad news: I did not meet my time goal.

I am VERY disappointed about not making a new personal record at the Mercedes race. Everyone was telling me "great job, Anna!" when I crossed the finish line, and I just didn't want to hear it because I was so upset with myself about my time. I finished in 2 hr., 9 min, and some seconds which is about a minute and a half longer than my time in the MS Blues race. Not that big of a deal....but to me, I think that you should show improvement from one race to the next. However, I did have some factors that slowed me down. First, I was wearing different socks that I had never run that far in and I got a blister on each foot which I battled with for a few miles. Secondly, I had very bad, umm....let's just say..."stomach issues". Now, if you are a runner, you know that running is not always wonderful and pretty. It can do some pretty raunchy things to your body to be completely honest! I battled with stomach problems throughout the entire race but I could not bring myself to stop and use one of the lovely porta potties along the race route. So, I toughed it out but it definitely slowed me down. This will be an issue that I need to figure out how to fix before I do my next race! (Sincere apologies for the graphic nature of that paragraph.)

More good news....Martha Ann blew her first race OUT OF THE WATER! I was sooo proud of her!! She was positive the whole time. We ran together until mile 12! It was such a great experience for us to share that excitement together. At mile 12, I told her to go ahead and finish strong (without me, due to the stomach stuff slowing me down). She sped on ahead and finished about a minute and a half before me. I look forward to many more races with her!!

Here are some pictures from race day:

At the starting line!

Finish line!

Yes, I felt as awful as I look at that point.

Time to run to class...I will post later with snow day pictures, Valentine's day dinner, and some very special school news! :) Have a great rest of your Thursday!

Round Two

Here we are a little over a month after the Mississippi Blues Half Marathon and I am about to do my second race...the Mercedes Half Marathon in Birmingham, AL! I am so excited. ...wait...why did I type that? I am way more nervous than excited. I had such a great experience during my first race last month and for some reason I am worried that the Mercedes race won't treat me as well! The blues marathon was really (knock on wood) the perfect race for me. I met the sweetest lady who was my running partner for almost the whole race and she kept me inspired, I was well hydrated, I didn't have any cardio problems or cramps...it just went off without a hitch. And I finished alot more quickly than I had anticipated. I finished the blues race in 2 hours, 7 minutes and 51 seconds, which is not fast by any means, but it is pretty good for a rookie runner and a half marathon virgin. My only goal for that race was to finish without walking, and I achieved that. I have two goals for the Mercedes race...to finish without walking and to finish at or before my finishing time in the blues race.

Now in its tenth year, the Mercedes Marathon weekend of events has become a Birmingham tradition. The event has helped to raise approximately $2 million for local charities. The 2010 event included more than 9,000 runners and walkers of all ages, shapes and sizes and was used by participants to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars.

My good friend Martha Ann has been training so hard this whole semester and she sticks to her running schedule like glue. I am happy to say that she will be running in Birmingham at the race this weekend also! This will be her first half marathon. We dont really have plans to stick together the whole time, but it would be really neat if we did. We are both planning on running at our own comfortable speed and if we end up running together then that would be awesome but if not, that's okay too. I am excited that we get to experience such a neat thing together! I cant wait to see her after the race and see how happy she is....the feeling that you have after completing your first half marathon is just priceless.



Me and MA. So proud of you!

Now, the logistics of planning this race weekend have been a little difficult since we have a dog. Most of our friends were out of town this weekend so no one is really here to keep her on Saturday and most of Sunday, but we also just didn't really feel comfortable dumping her on any of our friends. Sadly, after much debate, we decided that the best plan would be to board Cosmo in Starkville on Saturday night. I hate the though of her being cooped up in a little cage, but I know that the staff at the MSU vet clinic are wonderful and that they will take good care of my little girl! Plus, she is due for her booster shots anyway so she will get them while she is there and she will have some down time to recoop.

Andrew and I will be meeting my mom and dad in Birmingham tomorrow afternoon. We are going to eat and shop and relax before the race at 7am on Sunday morning. The weather is supposed to be great...sunny and a high of 61! So please keep me and all the other race participants in your thoughts and prayers...I am hoping for the best! I'll report back in my next post, hopefully with good news that I successfully accomplished my goals! Have a terrific weekend!

"They just grow up so fast..."

Yesterday was the four week "anniversary" from when we picked up Cosmo. Hard to believe that we have had our little puppy girl for 4 weeks already! On Wednesday she will be 12 weeks old. We are going to take her to the vet for her third round of shots. The MSU Vet Clinic is AWESOME by the way! We took Cosmo for her shots two weeks ago and they were just the nicest people. I dont think Cosmo is going to be one of those dogs that hates the vet because they were just so sweet to her! Besides the fact that they shot something up her nose, poked her with a needle, and stuck something up her little booty. But she got over all of that. Anyway, Cosmo is like HUGE. Not really, but when I compare her to what she looked like the first time I saw her two days after Christmas, she is enormous. She doesnt even look like the same puppy and it makes me sad! She is starting to slowly lose that puppy face.

Here she is at 4-5 weeks...little bitty and so innocent.



And no more little puppy face at 12 weeks



No longer sweet and innocent at 11 weeks



Family photo at 4-5 weeks



Family at 10 weeks



She will always be my little baby though!



Cosmo really has been so great in the four weeks that she has been ours. No, she isnt completely potty trained yet (I had to clean up an accident last night that made me gag and I thought I was going to DIE). And she still bites. And she still gets into every thing, including the trash. But all of that aside, she really is the sweetest little puppy. She wants to make us happy and she is SO loving.

Happy Monday - have a great week!