iworkout: shoes

let us start from the bottom up, shall we?

Source: google.com.my via howling on Pinterest

clearly if you are starting a workout program, you want good shoes.  the best shoes for YOU.  the best shoes for you MAY NOT be the coolest sneakers at the store that YOU LOVE.  they may be the ugly plain ones, but fit your foot like a glove.  trust me, i am the girl with the ugly plain ones.

true story: a few years ago i trained for a half marathon and was wanting some fun colored tennis shoes to run those 13.1 miles in nashville, tennessee. i like my shoes kinda crazy, i mean might as well have rainbow colored tennis shoes if you can, right? well, when i went to get fitted for shoes, NOT ONE of the pair that my eyes liked were good for my foot. NOT ONE. i left the store with white tennis shoes, white laces and a little blue on the side. BOR. ING. and they fit my foot like a glove.  DARN IT.

that was years ago. i have had three pair of those exact shoes since. they are boring. but they work for my foot the very best.

FITTED: what did you say?  fitted?  
can't i just buy a pair of sneakers i just really like? i mean, they are all pretty much the same right?
NO.

get your foot fitted to the shoe. less chance of injury. less chance of chin splints and the like.  

find the closest fleet feet in your area. everyone that works there has knowledge about the foot and will go from videoing your stride to taking you outside and watching you walk/run to see what your foot does. then they find the shoe that you need. my left foot, for example, turns in so i need a shoe with a substantial sole and more of a foundation on the insides of my foot to keep my left foot from turning in when i workout. I ALWAYS want whatever shoe is neon and the loudest at the store, and like i said - i always leave with nothing i would ever pick. womp womp. but when i am working out and my feet and legs feel great, i kinda want to hug those boring things.

also, did you know your feet really swell when you run/walk/workout? i normally wear a women size 9.5 or 10. usually they fit me for a 11-11.5 MENS running shoes. i mean, honestly? swallow your pride that you may be petite, girl, and just run to the closest rack of cool socks.  

no, really.

always, to make myself feel better for having to get a big ole man shoe, i just buy some great fun girly NEON socks to go with those boring shoes.

the shoes at fleet feet are not higher priced and you get more for your money with their expertise in knowing feet. and if you have any trouble with the shoes, you can return them, no questions asked. i got a wonky shoe a few years ago, just something wasn't right about the shoe. took them back, no receipt and they switched it out, no problem at all.

which ONLY MEANT, since i was there i had to just get more new socks...

this post was not sponsored in any way by fleet feet and is soley (pun intended) my opinion.  also, the picture of the adidas shoes up above are not the boring shoes i was referring to - i just pulled the picture from pinterest.

record store day!

it's like christmas only better.

whuuuuuu?

you've never heard of it?

yeah, me neither.

then i married brad.

let me tell you a little bit about records, or long play albums, or LP's --- all the same.  

see how educated i have become?  

first of all, they {records} are still around.

nashville happens to have a few really great record stores, grimeys being our favorite.  once a year, labels release certain albums (literal records like your daddy used to have, not compact disc) on this day that everyone wants.  this year brad had five albums he wanted and got everything but one.  the one he didn't get, there were only eight copies available at our nashville store.  

and since we got in line at 6:30 am instead of 6:30 pm the night before, well.

did you catch that?  yep, folks start lining up the night before to get music.  this year we got in line a little before 7 am with a hot coffee in each hand, fully charged cell phones and each other.  and about five hundred of our other best friends while we waited for the clock to chime ten am.

it is a fun day.  once you get in the store, it's organized chaos and you get and grab whatever you are looking for as quick as possible and then get in line to pay as quick as possible.  at least i think that is what we do.  maybe brad is browsing and this is all conjured up in my head.  

either way, it's a fun day.

i like to think of it as the opening to festival season and being outside for good music.
and who doesn't love a pretty day and some good tunes?

underwear and cheekwood.

if i had instagram right now, or an iphone for that matter (don't get me started...), or even, perhaps, a camera, i would have taken a picture of this moment that just happened.  here, let me paint a picture for you.

i was folding laundry and lil bit asked if she could help.  sure, i said, as i started haphazardly throwing her all of her brothers underwear i came across.  then gently i told her do this as i gave them the pop in the air to get al the wrinkles and folds out, then fold them like this as i folded them in half.  truth:  i don't fold underwear but it was better than asking a two year old to fold...the shirts.  she preceeded to "fold" the underwear and then harsly put them on the table as to which they would unfold. she repeated this until i had the rest of the load folded and ready to go to it's designated drawers.  then, one by one, she started hugging each pair of underwear saying oh, i love you until each little size 6 boys boxer briefs felt some love.

it would have been a great instagram picture.  or nikon picture.  i would have gotten tons of likes and i would have felt real cool.

whatever.

i do have pictures of cheekwood though. i'll show you.  cheekwood botanical garden here in nashville is beautiful year round.

read botanical + garden = pretty.  

for the past few months, they have had a tree house exhibit and lil bit and i grabbed our sweet friend pam, pulled her arm, talked her into it, and we became a trio and spent the afternoon in the midst of beauty.

lil bit and her sweet face.

pam and her sweet heart.

me and my, ugh, camera.

here, i'll let the pictures do the talking.

want to know more about these tree houses, here ya go.

what a fun, peaceful afternoon, spent in lovely company.

don't you just love days like that? 

days that you wake up with no plans and then the day turns into something wonderful?

go big or go home. (WIWW)

struggling.  

i was dressed all weekend.  shocker i know.  i wasn't running around naked.  

dressed with make up - did i take a picture of myself and my cute outfits?  

oh no, why in the world would i do that?

today it was up to me and me alone.  brad was gone and it was pouring rain and then it stopped and the lighting was perfect.  i was dressed and showered and make up.  so i grabbed my camera and a towel (it was really wet, remember?) and made it happen.  

made it happen as in the pictures you see here.

go big or go home.  right?

i went big.

what am i even talking about?

and then i had this genius idea to tell you about my go to cheap mascara that beats out my 

MAC and diorshow most of the time.  and it cost two ninety-nine.

(that's poetry, folks.)

then i realized my not smart self had it all turned around backwards so you would have no clue what i was showing you.  

i also thought i was out of these pictures.

it's not normal to make kissy faces at your mascara.  but then again, i owe alot to that stuff.  

mascara has saved the day time and time again.  

maybe we should all kiss it more.  

i'm kinda serious.

jacket: old navy

tanks: target

skirt: old navy

bracelet: mexico, looong ago (and it's a necklace)

shoes:  moccasins from new mexico 

watch: fossil

mascara:  best lash extreme, jordana $2.99

tiny dancer.

girlfriend taps her foot when she's nervous.

saturday was her first ballet recital.  and my lord, it was cute.  she was cute.  and of course, perfect in every way.  i told brad that at a two year olds ballet recital, there will be either crying or waving,
but not a whole lot of dancing.  

about half way through, OCD lost her spot.  so for ten seconds, she was focused on that masking tape on the floor, until she found her tape and then looked out at the crowd and smiled a little more.

so, maybe i geeked out and was all over that first row, camera ready, cell phone camera ready, hand ready to wave, and repeat.

and who knows if she will take juilliard by storm when she is older, but i do know from experience that being a little girl is fun.  

and saturday she had fun.  

and when you are two, that's all that really matters.

weekend in review.

it was HOT in nashville this weekend.  like ninety degrees hot. 

like too hot to be outside without a pool hot.  

we headed to kentucky downs early to meet up with some friends; we had our wedding reception there so it was fun to go back a year later.  i did everything i could to resist wearing my wedding dress, but i thought that may not be the julia roberts derby attire look i wanted to go for - 

and no one looks great in white without a tan...sooooooo i wore jeans.

he wore jeans AND his beastie boys shirt.  because he is cooler than me.  

and this ole thing...it's a fake tree.

and at the bottom of that fake tree is burlap that cover a god awful gold pot.  

and guess who put it there?  

me...for our wedding a little over a year ago!  

cracked me up, i mean, it was over a year ago - but the pots WERE ugly.  

still, how funny is that?

so the birds just flew away from our back tree, and look what we found on our front door wreath.  fertile place outside of our house.  we gots some busy birds.

saturday night, the moon was at our house too!  and it really was super.  like, for real.  

everyone was right!

saturday night late i got this text:  

tomorrow is gonna be 90 and sunny!  you know what that means???

that's what it meant.

when i got home... 

brad said in all seriousness while hanging out on facebook: no one should be allowed to take a foot picture with the beach or pool in the background.

me response: oh, i did today.  but i agree.

brad:  jessica, no you didn't.  where did you post it?

me:  oh, just on instagram.  no where else.  i wouldn't do that.  

except i just did.  on le blog.

but i was just trying to drive the point home.

it was hot this weekend.

you should have seen me doing these jumps.  looked just as amazing.

it did.

just darn it, no camera was available. 

please excuse the mess on the blog:  it's under construction.  its about to be awesome, but just give me a little time...

chirp!

i don't know whats in the bird baths around here, but this is the third nest of robins i have found in the past two weeks.  and no, i'm not walking around looking for bird nests.  i haven't lost my mind, promise...  they just chirp and then i go all crazy like digging in the tree until i find the source of the chirp.  so maybe i am a little crazy.  then i grab all three kids and force them into the tree and command them to be just as excited as i am.  and since there are three kids OVER THE MOON about baby birds, well...the nanny's a joiner, what can i say?

our little guys are growing and next week, i bet they will be big enough to fly away.

chirp!
(that means happy friday in bird talk...promise!)

happiness. it's catchy.

it seems like everywhere i turn lately there is stress and sadness, and it affects me and i can feel the weight on my shoulders.  days and weeks like this are when i am especially thankful that for a living i hang out with this little one.
two years old, she knows nothing about stress or sadness that bellows all around her.  what she knows is what she is told.  and it's happy things, and things that make her smile and giggle and in return i smile.  i giggle.

yesterday we were driving and she was talking a hundred miles a minute like usual and she said, "hey caca, ew see those cars?"  and i look over and there is nothing there and she giggles with glee and says, "i kidding!"

happiness, and when you hang out with people that are happy, it affects you.  you can't help but be happy.

she was asking about my foot and wrist yesterday.  i was the lucky recipient of second degree burns on my foot and wrist two nights ago.  yes, call me lucky.  i was telling her in great detail that really hot water was spilt on me and it burned me so so bad.  listening fervently she said without missing a beat, "you just like cold water?"

happiness.  i like it.  it's catchy.

p.s.
he would like for you to know he did this.

pumped himself so high, he was above the swing and then he jumped.

because he is six and because (he thinks) he is awesome.

p.s.s.
how'd i do making those iphone pictures look real?