Football, Socks, and Push-Ups

 

Hey Gals!  Hope you’re having a great start to your week.  We had a FUN weekend with family in Starkville at the Mississippi State/Alabama game.

Tom and I are a house divided since he went to State and I went to Alabama.

Sara Whit and Brian have a tailgate with a group of families, so we hung out there pretty much all day before the game.  Lilly was in her element with all her friends…young and old…there!

Giving Baby Hunter some love!

There was lots of corn hole, food, and smack-talkin’!

Myra even came in town for the occasion.  It was her birthday on Saturday so she brought some friends from Nashville!  It was so fun to see her and her friends, and have the whole family together!

Myra with Lilly, and her good friend Emily with Hunter (her nephew).

  I LOVE this family pic!  Usually the only time we get a family picture is on Christmas Eve, so it was nice to get one in all our football wear!  Of course I’m the black sheep that went to Alabama and didn’t wear maroon…can’t help it.  SISTERS!!!!  Love these two more than I can handle!!

It was a super fun weekend, and Alabama won!  Woop-woop!

While at the tailgate, I ran into a friend who reads the blog…Hi Mandy!  You can’t lurk on the blog anymore now that I’ve called you out.  :)

She loved the sock bun post, so I wanted to do a follow-up.  I wanted to tell yall that there are two ways to do a sock bun. 

1. First, put your hair in a pony tail, then roll your pony tail into the sock bun.  This is what I did in the picture below.  This is a more secure sock bun, if you’re going to be wearing it all day at work and running errands and whatnot.  2.  The second way is to just pull your hair on top of your head and roll it into the sock bun without putting it into a ponytail first.  You have to have pretty long hair to make this work, but I have done it a couple times with no problems.  I just use some bobby pins to pin up the loose part underneath, if that makes sense.  Sorry, I don’t have any pictures. 

So.

I tried way #2 one night after a shower.  I dried my hair about 80% of the way, so it was still a little damp when I put it up.  I slept on it like this and much to my surprise it didn’t fall out too much.

In the morning, I took the sock out and was left with THIS:

Gorgeous, no-heat curls!!!

I need to give credit where it’s due, though, with this blog which inspired me to try it.  I stumbled upon her picture on Pinterest and was so impressed!  And even more impressed when it actually worked on my hair.

It was trial and error, though.  First, I tried the overnight sock bun using method #1, and when I took it out in the morning, there was huge crease where the rubber band had been.  I always have that problem with my hair, so I really wasn’t surprised.  Then when I tried it WITHOUT the rubber band, it was perfect.

I need to be honest and tell you that my hair really only looked like this until about 2pm that day (this picture was taken at about 7am) before pretty much all the curl fell out.  But, with the right product and hair type, you could probably get this look to last all day!  Again, just trial and error with your hair type and lifestyle.  :)

So there you have it…..the Sock Bun Curls….who knew?!?!

On the running front, we are down to the final weeks before St. Jude Half Marathon!  I feel great about it, and am really getting excited.  Bex and I ran our 11 mile long run the other day and did it at about an 11:00 pace.  Just right!

St. Jude 2010 

I figure that if we can do our long practice runs in the 11:00-minute-mile range, we will be right on track for race day because our race pace will be slightly faster…hopefully. 

Also, Bex and I have decided to do the 100 Push Up Challenge.  Have you heard about this?

I have the upper body strength of a T-Rex, so I am in some serious need of upper body workouts.  When training for a running event, I am SO BAD about making time for strength training.  I know it’s important, but I just have run, run, run on the brain and never manage to work it in.

So Bex and I thought this would be a fun way to work in some upper body stuff.  You are supposed to do an ‘Initial Strength Test’ to determine what level you fall into for the challenge.  The test is basically just doing as many push ups as you can before falling into a sweaty, quivering heap on the floor.

I was able to do 12.

I told you.  Captain T-Rex, right here.

But I will keep you posted as we go week-by-week and increase my strength!  I was able to talk Tom into doing it also, so that should be fun.  He is in a totally different level then be, being able to do 30 push ups for the initial test.

Go check it out and try it for yourselves!

I am not sure if I can get to 100, but I am wondering if getting to 50 consecutive push ups by December 31 is an attainable goal???  I’ll let you know!

Have a great week, everyone!