Tower of Chocolate

Thanks for letting me get real yesterday, and now that I've said my piece, we'll return to regularly scheduled programming. Although those of you who didn't agree with me about Matt Lauer - I'm not saying he's on the same level as Dolvett, who refused to retweet me on my birthday and is dead to me now anyway, but he's very attractive for an older guy. Deal with it.

Running - ok, training for JFK has begun. That means nothing, other than when I am tempted to skip running in favor of the elliptical, I don't. So far, here's what the week has looked like.

M - 7 mile run, same pace as the Baltimore Ten Miler - aka I didn't push myself hard enough in the race.

T - 10 mile birthday run

W - 5 mile hungover post birthday run

T - 6 mile slow as hell it's way too humid run

I was going to wake up at the ass crack of dawn and run before my flight to San Diego. Then I realized I could do my boring neighborhood loop at 5am when it's already 85 degrees, or I could explore San Diego on foot where the high today is 69. 

Right now I'm just really building up and getting used to running higher mileage weeks. I want to still incorporate some biking and swimming, but now that I'm working two jobs, it's a little trickier to schedule.

Speaking of jobs, I learned how to fit people for running shoes this week! I still haven't done it by myself, but I technically know how.

More importantly, let's talk about my birthday cake. After wasting a significant amount of time on Pinterest, I decided to make myself this ice cream cake, substituting brownie for cake in the bottom layer, because brownie is always the better choice.

Making the ice cream

My ice cream mix - ins

Pictures really can't do this cake justice, but I tried.

                  

After eating some - just to show the layers.

Carolyn and Lily came over to drink wine, eat delicious Mexican food at the restaurant across the street, 

and of course, eat ice cream cake.

The fishbowl sangrias are so good, so cheap, so dangerous.

They put the whipped cream on my nose.

How cute is this crab wine glass from Carolyn?

 

 I'm not showing all my gifts, because I was spoiled and got so many awesome, thoughtful ones, but here's some that I feel are blog - relevant.

Mockingjay pin - it goes perfectly with my new Mockingjay Noodle Hugger from Emily!

My Dad got me some delicious smelling fancy coffees from Harry and David, and I was super excited. Then I came home from work the day after my birthday, and this was waiting for me.

Naturally, this picture sucks, because I was WAY too excited to rip open every single one of those boxes because they all contain some type of chocolate. I've already sampled way too many of them and it's brought me so much happiness. I would photograph them all but I forgot and now I'd be embarrassed to show how much is already gone and it would just make you all jealous that your dad didn't send you a giant tower of delicious chocolate. Note to Dad - I hear your metabolism goes down as you exit your 20s, so as wonderful as this was, non - edible gifts for my 30th birthday only!

Would you rather have a Mockingjay pin or a tower of chocolate?