How I Pick Paint Color

Hello! How’s it going? Over here it’s going messy – more than usual actually! I have decided I need a make-over – but not a make-up or hair makeover (kinda needed, but less of a priority). No. Right now I need an entire life make-over. But I like to think big, start small so I’m starting with having my condo painted.

And  I  have a step-by-step process I personally follow to choose a paint color. You should probably Pin the shlt out of this post. I’m pretty sure HGTV is going to be knocking on my door any second because these tips are gold…

Step 1: Randomly decide on a Wednesday night you want to paint your place and peruse Craigslist looking for painters. Email some. Text some.

Get distracted and text a friend. Tell him you read an article about how colors affect mood and you’re painting your entire place Kermit the Frog GREEN because it’s supposed to make you feel closer to the Earth. Let him try to talk you out of it in a nice way – this shows you if it’s a real friend.

 

Step 2: Get quotes from painters.

Preferably quotes from funny movies because then you know they can paint your house and play “What movie is this from…”

 

 

Step 3: Choose paint color.

Go to Home Depot (or wherever sells paint) –> proceed to the paint section where there will be a wall with 22 million different colors.

Look at all the colors.

Consider getting something on trend right now like a flat gray color (discover there are actually more than 50 shades of gray).

Then, observe all the people around you at the paint wall who look completely lost and overwhelmed by all the colors. Note that a few of them look like they’ve probably been standing here in the since 2006.

Decide to go with something neutral.

That sounds easy until you realize there are 12 million shades of white in various tones and undertones and Boca Ratons.

Grab a white paint card. Hold up a few off-white paint cards to it.

Don’t pick the darkest one. Don’t pick the lightest one. Pick the one that’s just right – boom. You’re the Goldilocks of choosing paint.

Go up to the counter and order a 5 gallon buck of Sugary Snowstorm (or whatever it’s called).

Pay for it and go home to enjoy a snack while everyone else is still trying to decide on which shade of sea foam is going to be the answer to all their problems.

Actual conversation I had after choosing paint:

Me: “I was just going to get the primer and ceiling paint because they need it for tomorrow, but all paint was on a big sale ending today so I just bought everything.”

Mom: “What color? Did you already know what color you wanted?”

Me: “No, I didn’t want to deal with it so I just got one of those off-white bullshlts. I told them to give me a 5 gallon bucket of it and we’ll use it for everything.”

The painter was super surprised I picked a color so fast. Ha! I get their fastest picker award.

It took me longer to walk around the store to see if there was anything cool or fun in the area.

The point is :

I’m either super chill about this kind of stuff and  can pick a paint color for my entire life in under 10 minutes OR

I’m colorblind so I don’t really see the difference OR

I know I don’t really pay attention to stuff around me so I won’t care when it’s up on a wall OR

I’m the worst and will soon regret my house looking like a hospital. But at least when it starts to drive me crazy I’ll already be used to living in an institution.

I asked Vegas about the paint color and he said, “Meow…” which translates to ‘I legit don’t care but it’s fun that you put a ladder here’

Step 4: Reward yourself for crossing that off the list.

Now I’m relaxing with some much needed dark chocolate… I’ll let you know how the painting turns out!

In running and eating news…

I can’t find the charger to my Garmin –it probably got lost in trying to move things around for the painters. And this is actually important to me so I’m a little stressed about it.

I ran without my running watch this morning but really need to find it because I have a training plan for my next marathon and need to do some speed work with it.

Pre-run I had a banana with PB.

And I had a funny fail when making a protein shake…

I was making a green smoothie the usual way – ice, frozen spinach, protein powder…

but scooped the protein powder into a can of nuts that were next to the blender cup!! I usually snack on nuts or something while making breakfast so it’s usual for me to have a container right next to my cup.

Ha! I was just bummed I wasted protein powder because it’s expensive!

Ya gotta roll with the random stuff like this…

And lunch was a big salad with chicken, nuts, craisins and onions on the bottom – then, topped with salad veggies. I do it this way so the veggies get dressing.

Today’s Plan:

I’m all about doing a 90 day plan right now since I keep hearing you can be super productive and knock out huge goals if you remember it every day, set a plan for that day and work on it. So, I got this Today’s Plan Notepad and am going to fill this out first thing in the morning for the next 90 days.

Question: What color paint does your bedroom have?

Did you choose it? What color would you like to change it to?

The post How I Pick Paint Color appeared first on Run Eat Repeat.

source http://runeatrepeat.com/2017/05/31/how-i-pick-paint-color/

Would You Wear a Running Romper?

You’ve probably heard about the Romphim – a kickstarter campaign for a romper made for guys. There’s so many jokes about a romper for men online right now I couldn’t tell if it was a joke or a legit fashion trend.

But – have you ever heard about a romper to wear for running? A running romper? Or should I call it a Runper??

Anyway. At the Boston Marathon expo I was perusing all the awesome running gear and memorabilia when I spotted this in the North Face booth. It caught my eye and I joked – it’s a running romper! Ha!

I was with Chandra and decided to try it on to make a self-deprecating  joke on Instagram.

I went into the lil changing room, put on my new running romper and thought…

 

 

Crap. I like it. I like it!!

Well, I like it just to wear – not to wear while running.

It’s super revealing – short shorts, thin straps and a cut-out back. That’s not how I dress for running. It does have built in shorts and a pocket for keys/fuel – which is runner-y. But you have to pair it with a  sports-bra that would show a lot.

At first I really thought it was a cute lil romper for casual wear NOT for running but the tag made me think it is actually meant for some sorta active pursuit.

When I tried it on I knew it would be great for super hot summer days in Palm Springs. So, I went for it.

 

I bought it because it’s cute, made of sweat-wicking material and has a little pocket in the back that I can put snacks in. Plus it has an underwear liner so I don’t have to sit like a lady. Boom.

I now think all my clothes should come in sweat-wicking material and a snack pocket. Thanks. The end.

This “Runper” is by North Face – Runagade Onsie.

Question: Would you wear a romper to run?

Would you wear one at all?

The post Would You Wear a Running Romper? appeared first on Run Eat Repeat.

source http://runeatrepeat.com/2017/05/30/would-you-wear-a-running-romper/

Motivation from Fellow Run Eat Repeaters

Hello! How’s it going? My neck feels so so soooo much better today! Thank you Ms. Masseuse and Mr. Frozen Veggies. It’s still the slightest bit tight and it makes me want to stretch it but I’m trying to be gentle – which is NOT my strength.

Ya know what is my strength though?

Eating cereal. And General Mills hooked me up. Love the Blueberry Chex. Love. The other one is good too – but Chex is my fave.

Another favorite is all the summer fruits! I love melon and yogurt and smoothies. I made a snack of honeydew with yogurt, nuts and blueberries.

And I mentioned on my Instagram stories that I had these weird little bugs suddenly appear on my curtains!??! Well, I looked into it and they’re carpet beetles. What in the actual F. I don’t even have carpet. Not cool.

I did some research and they are easy to kill if you clean everything. Multiple sources said you don’t need poison or crazy sprays or fumigation to kill carpet beetles – just soap and water. But they eat fabric and cardboard so they can damage your clothes even if you don’t have carpet.

Since they started near the door in the kitchen I was so grossed out and put ALL the utensils in the dishwasher.

Then, I made a smoothie and realized I didn’t have anything to eat it with! Ha! I used an ice cream scoop. The other option was my rice server which I looked up and is called a shamoji. Isn’t that the most awesome word you learned this week??!!

And I also washed all my clothes and the towels and bedding. It took over my entire weekend and I’m still working on cleaning out different random drawers and containers. Ugh. This makes you totally want to come over my house and hang out, right?

All I need is to lose the 1 friend I have!!

On the upside – I just ordered these drawer organizers so after I washed my running socks and compression socks I had this neat lil situation to put them in. I felt so type-A on top of life for 5 full minutes! Boom. This is a big deal for me! I’m usually wearing two different color socks and one of them is dirty and the other one has holes.

This guy was NOT helpful in helping to clean or kill the bugs or really give me any sort of meaningful interaction that would make me feel validated.

Speaking of the fur ball…

I feel like Vegas tracks his litter outside the litter box and I’m constantly having to sweep and/or step on it and say 4-letter-words in his direction.

I’ve tried different rugs and matts and locations – but it keeps happening. I thought maybe he’s just messy but my mom said maybe it’s the litter I’m using. What!? I didn’t even think of that so I bought this new hippie cat litter from Trader Joes – it’s pine cat litter. It looks very different from his usual litter – it’s like little brown pellets.

Has anyone tried this? I just switched out his old stuff for this (even though the bag says to transition slowly). We’ll see how it goes!

When I get an email or comment or message from you it really makes me happy. I legit smile at the computer. Even the ones that call me the c-word. Hey, I don’t have any friends and a bug infestation – I’ll take what I can get!

Anyway. I really super love when you share your running updates and races and success stories. So I decided to save the RER Readers Running emails from last week and share them with ya! Congratulations to everyone running and working toward any goal. Keep it up! I’m super proud of you and it makes me really happy if I could help or support in anyway.

Run Eat Repeat Blog Reader Runner WINS:

Andrew ran his first 5K!

“It went well!! I finished in under 40min and that was my goal. I think I started too fast because I feel like I faded at the end. All in all it was a good first race and I can’t wait until the next one.”

 

Amy ran her first half marathon & sent a picture of the race medal:

“Hi Monica! I am so excited I ran in my first half marathon today. Thank you for being so motivating and inspirational to me! My goal was to do it in under 2 1/2 hours. I did it in 2:16!!! Woo hoo! I ended up getting the garmin forerunner 35 because it has the wrist based heart monitor. I LOVE it- even though I’ve only used it this one time so far.

I am including pics. Am going online now to find another one to do! I have a 10K next month and am hoping to beat my 58 minute PR.

Oh and we got the coolest medals! The Ferris wheel spins!”

 

Karen sent me a note saying Run Camp helped push her to run her first 10K:

“I just wanted to contact you about my accomplishment after taking your training course. I trained and finished my first Disney 10k last weekend at age 62! Thanks for the motivation and jump start for my training. “

 

Tracey from Tracey’s Getting Fit left this comment on RER :

“This weekend I did a 5 mile run in Boston called The Run to Remember. I was nervous about not being able to do a full five miles. I’ve never run that far before. The most I did was 4.3 miles and that was back in January. I injured my back this winter (so I get the pain thing) and couldn’t run for a while and when I started running again, I just wasn’t into it. But I was able to pull it out of my hat and do the Run to Remember. I ran five miles. Whoo hoo!!! I know you run five miles just to warm up, but for me, that’s a super long run.”

 

Beki chimed in about her first half marathon  on Twitter after my Jeff Galloway post:

Keep it up!

If you have a Running Win or Success Story or Ran a Race you want to share – email me at RunEatRepeat  @gmail.com with “RER Reader Running” in the subject line and I’ll share it here. (If you want to reach out but NOT have it shared, that’s fine just let me know in the email. I still want to hear from ya.)

Running and Eating other places online …

6 Things to Expect at a Disney Race via Women’s Running Magazine

7 Common Running Fears and How to Conquer Them via  ACTIVE

 

Question: What summer food are you MOST excited about?

Have you tried a cool hippie cat litter I should know about?

The post Motivation from Fellow Run Eat Repeaters appeared first on Run Eat Repeat.

source http://runeatrepeat.com/2017/05/29/motivation-from-fellow-run-eat-repeaters/

Not Running is a Pain in the Neck

Hello! Happy weekend!! It’s Memorial Day weekend in the US (fyi for my international people) so we have a 3-day weekend. I’m hoping you’re having fun in the sun. I had some fun and some not-so-fun because I was supposed to run the Mountains to Beach Marathon today and decided not to – not sure if that counts as a DNS (did not start) if you don’t even go and decide days before?

I woke up Friday morning, brushed my teeth, told Vegas “Buenos Dias” (he speaks Spanish) and started to slip off my top to change into running clothes. As I pulled my tank above my head I looked to the side for some reason and immediately felt a shooting pain down the left side of my neck.

I froze.

I took a breath and hoped that my muscle would relax – it didn’t.

I decided to just stop drop and roll – kinda. I laid down on the floor right there and tried to let the muscle relax without moving it.

After a few minutes I realized I was straight F-ed. I mean, I realized I might have pulled something in my neck and filled up on ibuprofen and put some ice on it.

I let the ice calm it down and the ibuprofen kick in before going for my usual run. I would have stopped if it was super painful – as long as I looked straight forward I was okay. So I ran and came home to try and stretch it out – nope. I couldn’t move it.

I kept the ice going and made an appointment for a massage. I wanted to see if I could get it back into working order asap and still run the Mountains to Beach Marathon. This masseuse is amazing – I went to her after the LA Marathon to help me recover faster. She did a great job and I felt a lot better after – but the inflammation was still causing some pain.

I knew I wouldn’t be at 100% by Sunday morning so I just decided right then to tap out.

I could have pushed myself – but I would have hated myself at some point (if not multiple points) during the race. It’s hard to get good sleep before a race – which is important to recovery of any injury. I get tense in the shoulders and neck towards the end of a marathon – this is something I’m working on and I do try to have good form, but over the course of 26.2 miles it happens.

So all of that is to tell you that sometimes I actually make responsible decisions.

Most of the time I don’t – but I want credit for this one time. Thanks.

I think part of the reason this happened is my neck and shoulders have been crazy super tight all week – to the point where I feel it at the end of the day. I turned in an article the other day and as soon as I pressed “Send” to email it to the editor I took a deep breath and realized – my neck and shoulders are so tight they hurt!

I’m stressed right now – my body was telling me and I didn’t listen.

But I was super aggressive with trying to heal it – Ice, Massage, Heat, Wine, Fries, Rest…

I went to the beach for a nice lil walk with a friend –  this was nice and relaxing.

I had wine for some anti-oxidant super powers for nutrition purposes.

And since sodium is important for electrolyte balance in athletes I made sure to get it in the form of salt on potato and sweet potato fries. Boom.

Please note that I drove to meet my friend for dinner with a pack of frozen veggies on my neck.

This is either smart or weird or shows I’m committed to recovery or wanted a snack on the road…

Question: What kind of frozen veggies do you have in your freezer RIGHT NOW?

What are you up to this weekend?

The post Not Running is a Pain in the Neck appeared first on Run Eat Repeat.

source http://runeatrepeat.com/2017/05/28/not-running-is-a-pain-in-the-neck/

Road Trip Games

This post is sponsored by Best Fiends. All Opinions are my own.

Hello! It’s Memorial Day Weekend! This weekend welcomes in the summer and is prime time for road trips. I love a good road trip and have warm fuzzy memories of going to Yosemite, San Diego, San Francisco and many places in between with my family. Now that I’m grown up (at least in size, if not maturity) I still love ‘em!

See – I’ve been road-tripping with my friends since way back:

I love traveling, but so does everyone else. The morning news today was warning about weekend traffic – it’s going to be busy out there! Make sure you pack a lot of patience, snacks and load up your phone with podcasts and games to keep you busy when you’re in the passenger seat.

 

Do: Pack healthy snacks. Portion them out to prevent mindless munching. Pack something with protein to help keep ya full.

Don’t: Pack a donut in your purse because it will get smashed and then you’ll be sad. And being sad will make you want a donut even more so you’ll map the best donut shop in whatever city you’re driving through to buy another one. But since this is a new-to-you donut shop you’ll feel the need to try one of every kind in case they’re super different from your local shop.

Do: Pack patience and fun games like ‘slug bug’ or ‘out of state’. I remember  yelling “OUT OF STATE!” whenever we saw a license plate from another state on road-trips with my family when I was a kid (and maybe I still do it, maybe).

I love spotting personalized license plates too.

Don’t: Yell SLUG BUG and slug the driver as this is dangerous.

Do: Actually – you can incorporate slugs into your road-trip games with  Best Fiends. It’s kinda the 2017 version of slugs and bugs –  Best Fiends is a free puzzle adventure game. You collect lil Fiends and defeat the slugs by matching color coded objects.

It’s a new fun way to pass the time – especially as you figure out how to master it.

I tried this game for the first time recently  it’s super colorful and cute and I  really love the name – Best Fiends.

And now the slugs are going to Boot Camp in their first feature film quality animated short which is available through the game or by clicking here. I guess they want to be in tip top shape for their summer bods and to fight the Fiends.

I’m working with Best Fiends on this post and sharing a special offer for RER readers!

Are you competitive? Want a lil advantage?

The first 100 readers to download the FREE game will get $5 worth of gold and diamonds !!

Go download Best Fiends for FREE! Just click here to start!

Question: When was your last road trip?

What is your next one?

The post Road Trip Games appeared first on Run Eat Repeat.

source http://runeatrepeat.com/2017/05/27/road-trip-games/