Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Pushing the boundaries of a mother's love too far


I'm short on time (too busy eating candy), so here's a list post.

1. The Stone Mill 50 miler is officially on. 2.5 weeks and counting. So far this week, I did 10 miles Monday, and 8 miles Tuesday. Wednesday was my planned rest day so I could get wild Tuesday night. More on that later. I'm sure you can hardly wait.

2. I was actually excited that it was raining today. I got this super cute umbrella at Target and I hadn't had a chance to use it yet. I feel like that could be some sort of inspirational thing on Pinterest about making rainbows or lemonade or focusing on the positive or something, but I hate that stuff.

I can never resist an opportunity to include my Harrison calendar in a picture.
3. Broomball started again last week. For those not in the know, it's a social sport, similar to hockey, except you use sneakers, a broom, and a ball instead of skates, a hockey stick, and a puck (this post has a video at the bottom - and also some adorable pictures newborn Cordelia!). There's a lot of falling. Eric and I are now playing for the fourth consecutive year. It's hilarious and awesome. We lost, but I'm not competitive enough to care. We also stayed out getting to know our teammates until 11pm (the game didn't even begin until 8:30!). I know, it's like I had a social life for a hot second or something.

4. I don't exactly know when Halloween turned into Valentines Day, but I like it. 

First of all, all week my students have been bringing me Halloween candy, because they're the best. I also don't know when Halloween turned into a week long event. When I was a kid, it was one day. You dressed up on October 31, then realized it was snowing because it was upstate NY, put on a winter coat over your costume, and collected candy until your parents made you stop. Now, there's "trunk or treat", mall events, church events, all sorts of candy collecting occasions. I'm benefiting, so I'm not mad.

Then, a friend at work brought me a bag of Ghirardellis in my favorite flavor - salted caramel. YES.

I have grad class on Wednesdays, and a few weeks ago I discovered that a nearby Walgreens had these. 

They were ten times better than I imagined. 
Now I'm conditioned like those Pavlovian dogs (Reference - my boyfriend in college explained that concept to me during freshmen year while we were visiting a frat house and that's all I know.) that every time I have to attend class, I get a red velvet pumpkin. 

I nearly had a breakdown this week when they were all out. I just stood there sadly for a few minutes then left.

I got home, pumpkin-less - or so I thought. But I was wrong.


Have I mentioned enough times that my mom and stepfather are amazing? My mom has been stalking Target for weeks now looking for the elusive pumpkin spice M&Ms (a Target exclusive - check your local store right now. They're all out. I guarantee it.) 

I was excited enough to open this up and see all this candy. Then I found that she had gotten her hands on one and only one package of Pumpkin Spice M&Ms - and sent them to me without even opening them to try a single M&M! I told her that was pushing the boundaries of a mother's love too far. 

Review - they're delicious, because they're chocolate, but the pumpkin flavor is pretty faint. I feel confident in my assessment, due to the fact that I had a Pumpkin Spice latte and pumpkin spice english muffin earlier today.

Shockingly enough, that box is far from gone (although, full disclosure, probably more of it is than it should be). The Reese's pumpkins are for Eric, and my mom was even smart enough to include a bunch of mini Reese's for me so that Eric would actually get his candy. It's almost like she knew I bought him a Reese's pumpkin the other day then ate it myself and never told him about it. When they say mothers have eyes in the back of their heads - seriously, I think it's true.

Tell me one of those crazy inspirational gems about how you turned your frown upside down this week. Or your favorite Halloween candy. Not the most rigorous, thought provoking question, but I like to know these things. 

Also, please estimate how long that box of candy would last you. I would like to note I have also only eaten two salted caramel chocolates, and it was totally not because I left the bag at work by mistake.

13 comments:

  1. My frown turned upside down when I went for a run yesterday in the snowy sunshiney day and my foot did not hurt!

    Pumpkin spice anything is awesome in my book and now I want some M&Ms!

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  2. I'm working on the "acceptance" phase of my injury and learning to enjoy the downtime (that I always say I want when I'm marathon training). I'm working on a motivational post on the lessons I've learned (lesson 1 - I am LAZY at heart).

    I only do chocolate candy - those reeses pumpkins/christmas trees/easter egg things are some of my favorite!

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  3. Your mom and Vince are awesome! When my kids are older, I'm totally mailing them boxes of their favorite candy.

    I can't believe how tiny Cordelia is in that broomball post. I don't remember her ever being that small haha

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  4. I feel that I need to send you some pumpkin spice M&M's because Target is FULL of them here. I think it's because Boulder is so damn healthy that most people won't buy them. I'll stock up for you :)

    We had a serious surplus of sugar cookies after our party this weekend (like 10 dozen because I forgot to put them out) so I was mowing them down at the beginning of the week. Finally, I made Will take them to work yesterday because I was seriously concerned for my health. Pretty sure I ate at least a dozen...or two.

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  5. Just found pumpkin spice English muffins at Wegmans this morning and immediately came home and ate one...so good! Nora loved it too: )

    Your mom and Vince are awesome! I love the peanut butter cup shapes and I bought myself a bag of hundred grands a couple weeks ago that I'm still working on. Can we still be friends?

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  6. I'm a bit obsessed with Take 5's. I love them. I had forgotten about them for a few months and then thankfully, they were sitting right in front of me at the grocery store - that was close!

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  7. Candy (translated: chocolate) doesn't stand a chance in this house. Allan brought home a bag of Kit Kats and assorted Reese's candies last night thinking we might have trick or treaters a day early and the candy bowl has a big dent in it already. We both had candy for dinner last night and lunch today. Healthy right?!

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  8. I need to start teaching elementary school. My students bring me nothing but attitude.

    I love all the candy. But I can't eat it this year because I'm doing that Whole30 thing. And I just realized that our doorbell is still broken (because some husband said he'd fix it three weeks ago), so I had to put a sign on it that said, "Knock." No one is knocking, and the candy is just sitting there tempting me.

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  9. I'm heading to Target tomorrow to get that umbrella!
    Right now I'm loving candy corn and peanuts.
    Gabe will be home soon with his "winnings." I'm looking forward to seeing what he got!

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  10. I sent you an email, Latta Road Wegmans had the single serve candy corn m&m's in the bulk food section for 1/2 price. There were three boxes full of them. Send your mom....-Emily

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  11. First of all, your description of Halloween in upstate NY still has me giggling....

    How did I turn my frown upside down.... Well, I was feeling pretty grumpy after getting an unclear, but overall bad-feeling, evaluation for the spin class I taught on Tuesday morning. To add insult to injury, I didn't even have time to shower after class, because the evaluation took too long and I was running late....for a full day seminar. I had about 10 minutes in a taxi to figure out how to turn my sweaty, sad self around to be cheerful and chipper for the next 7 hours. Some combination of the friendly driver, good traffic, an encouraging text from my husband, and a cup of sweetened caffeine helped considerably!

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  12. Your halloween sounds like my halloween experience too. I grew up in TN, but it's still like 30-40 degrees there in October sometimes, so winter coat it up!

    Mike and I barely had any trick or treaters this year which is good since we ate most of the halloween candy prior to the 31st...

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  13. Yay! I'm glad the 50 miler is officially on! Broomball sounds like a lot of fun, but I highly doubt we have anything like that, here. The only youth sports we have are football, soccer, baseball/softball, and cheerleading and they don't have anything for adults. I'm dying for some kind of activity like broomball or flag football.

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Thanks for commenting! Comments make me probably more happy than they should.