it's a great day for hockey to come baaaaaack!

so, there was this silly little lockout
{those are the nicest adjectives i can use to describe it. feel free to replace}

and now it's finally over. so, naturally we are having a gathering tonight to watch the first hockey game the preds have played all season.

until then it's the normal saturday cleaning, laundry, tv, cooking, errands run...

anything spectacular happening in your world?

thursday's ten or so: the smashville edition

reasons to love smashville during the playoffs:

local preschoolers teach their classmates the fan chants...not limited to "hey, you SUCK" and "we're gonna beat the hell out of you!

the fact that nashville is really a small town becomes apparent when the local celebs get into the action and you realize they are just as big of a fan as you are (cue vince gill starting a new chant during his performance last friday "bertuzzi is a sissy" and getting the entire arena to join in the fun.) say what you want about country music (and i may even agree) but you gotta love these guys.

webering becomes popular

on the way home from church while listening to the game on the radio, you and your husband can sing the ENTIRE song/chant when the preds score their first goal of the game.

you can paint your fingernails in fun colors that you normally wouldn't...like this!

at the arena everyone is bundled up and wearing oversized clothing so you don't have to feel self-conscious about those 5 extra pounds
(i mean, i still do. but you don't HAVE to.)

you discover that you can listen to live radio broadcasts of the game on your phone because there really is an app for that

usually the traffic circle peeps at demonbreun are decked out in playoff gear. i forgot to look when i was on music row yesterday, but here's last years!

the city suddenly seems to unite around the games, and you start to wonder if we are becoming more of a hockey town than a football town (which would be fine...)

hey, it's ok (tuesday) 12.27

hey, it's ok


...to get choked up while watching ellen.  or the soldier appreciation episode of rachael ray.
...to see someone giving design/creative ideas on a talk show and thinK "she totally got that off pinterest"
...to toooootally have baby fever after cuddling our friends 11 week old for an evening
...to have paused everything to watch drew brees break the record last night, and to be genuinely happy for him.
...to talk about football (or hockey) in everyday conversation ;-) and your blog
...to have LOVED your Christmas celebrations, been totally overwhelmed by all the generosity given to you, and to just feel completely blessed by the whole season
...to be glad for a quiet day after Christmas to unwind a bit from ALL that family time, as good as it was
...to have been really spoiled over the long weekend by going to bed (too) late and still getting a solid 7-8 hours of sleep
...to still not understand why people want sweet stuff on their meat.  pass the spice and savory; keep your apples away from my roast


visit amber's blog and link up with your own list of what's ok in your world!

what i'm loving wednesday (11.30)

i'm loving that emi has similar tastes to mine :-)

(spinach and sour cream dip from trader joe's)

i'm loving this sweet puppy who lived with us for about a week and a half while her family was visiting texas -- she's so much fun!
(emi was not so much loving her though...)

belle :-)

helping us decorate

i'm loving the holiday season, as i do every year.

one of our trees (red and turquoise)

i'm loving the new traditions we're creating while we combine good things from both our families and things we want to do on our own :-)

the wreath on our front door: pine for him, berries for me = perfection

i'm loving the boots i mentioned yesterday

i'm loving my cell group girls...such amazing Godly women...so important in my life

photo by our AMAZING wedding photographer

i'm loving friends i can simultaneously cook and be silly with :-)

i'm loving this, which i'll be explaining a bit more about on a monday soon!

i'm loving going to sporting events with my husband

football (go titans!)

hockey (go PREDS!)

i'm loving that he's my HUSBAND! :-)


i'm loving the sacredness that surrounds this time of year...or at least i'm loving the reminders that all of life is sacred

our advent wreath next to the nativity

weekly meal planning 11.13 - 11.19

unfortunately our week kinda went...crazy.  i'm updating to what we are ACTUALLY having :-)


sunday
lunch out with friends
dinner: bbq chicken cheddar pitas (recipe coming soon: these were GOOD!)


monday
dinner: on our own, i'm working late.  i'm having tortellini minestrone leftovers


tuesday
dinner: at the hockey game.  brats anyone?


wednesday
since we both worked past 8, we met for dinner at ChickFila


thursday
italian shells hamburger helper and salad


friday
pizza, salad and brownies for dessert


saturday
breakfast: blueberry crumb breakfast cake
lunch: chili cheese dogs
dinner: french onion soup (new recipe)

what i'm loving wednesday .4

i'm loving this year's hockey season! our predators are currently playing the #1 team in the league, and holding our own.
i'm loving that we've selected our photographer.  she's amazing, in our price range, and (bonus!) she's actually the very first person i ever met in nashville.  i'll have to tell y'all that story sometime :-)
i'm loving my cell group girls.  such amazing spiritual insight, Godly conversations, and great taste in food (a bunch of sushi, thai, vodka pasta loving fiends!)
i'm loving the child wearing this t-shirt. i won't see him quite as often after this month (more about that later) but i have SO enjoyed these last few months with him.  and plan to babysit as often as they'll let me ;)

i'm loving the instagram app on my phone.  i was late to the party, but it's so fun to play with! (photo evidence below)

i'm loving the message that pastor alyn brought to us on monday night.  such a gentle, balanced perspective on our response as christians to the events of last weekend.  you can download it for free here (it's entitled 'justice is good.  but mercy is better'
(by the way, while you're there if you are in the nashville area or would like to be for memorial day weekend there's a link to a FREE conference as well.  it's called the MORE conference, and all you need to do is register :)  look for the tab at the top of the page)
i'm loving that we'll be having sunny days for the next few at least...seems like RAIN has been here more than anything else and i am ready for a tan!  i mean...a walk...or run...or something.
i'm loving my sweet hubby to be.  sometimes i feel like all of this wedding planning is a dream that i don't want to wake up from.  soooo happy i get to spend the rest of my life with him :)

hey, it's ok (tuesday) .12

 hey, it's ok

...to eat doritos with your low-fat cottage cheese.  it's balanced, right?

...to sometimes watch silly tv shows

...to love wrapping paper and wrapping gifts in a nearly unhealthy way :-)

...to consider trading free babysitting for my clients with elipticals.  i used one of them the other day and it was a fantastic workout!

...to really, really, really be tired of the rain.

...to be thrilled that not only do you have a summer job lined up but that when the mother called to tell you she used the words "we are so happy and excited that we've found the perfect person for our family!"

...to be over-run with laundry.  all of it clean, none of it in it's proper home.  yikes!

...to be a hockey fan even if your knowledge of the game is a bit sketchy.  but hey, the fights are kinda fun.  (go preds!)

...to get excited about goodwill shopping.  no reason to spend big money on a wardrobe as i'm moving between sizes and losing the weight.  and finding actual quality pieces there makes me even more excited.

it's a great day to watch hockey

thank goodness it's my "weekend" wordle and not a "saturday" one! we just watched a nail-biting game in which the predators tied up the series with the canucks. to say we were nervous wrecks the entire double-overtime game is an understatement! but we're on our way back home with a tied series, so it's gooooood!

hope you all are having exciting and wonderful weekends.  blessings!

...at least i twisted my ankle on sunday...

because our 5K was *awesome*

I left my house at 2pm (race started at 3) because I knew that it would take at least 30 minutes to get there. I live only 15 minutes away, but they had shut down one of our major roads for construction all weekend so the back way I had to take was sure to be jammed full of not-so-happy rerouted people.

Sure enough.

Anthony's aunt texted me while I was still waiting in a line of traffic on said back road, asking if I were there yet. I said no, but probably would be off this particular street within 5 minutes and it should be a short 5 minute drive from there. She said they were 1 stoplight down from the zoo waiting in line to turn in (they were coming the opposite way from me).

It took exactly 5 minutes for me to turn onto the next street (points for me knowing my Nashville traffic!), and not even 5 to get to where I could see the entrance to the zoo. That's where the real fun began.

(don't you love this overpass with the animals painted on? on the other side there's a cheetah stretching up to a bird. very fun.)

I only got pictures from my side of the line, because thankfully it moved really quickly. However, once I got around this corner:

This is what awaited me!

Once I was in, I texted them to see if they had parked. They were STILL IN LINE to turn into the zoo! My side of town for the win!

More waiting ensued...at least it's a pretty little drive up the zoo property to the parking lot...

(this sign always cracks me up a little bit)

I finally parked. There was a MASSIVE amount of people milling around the parking lot (including Gnash, the Nashville Predator's mascot). So I decided to just hang around the top of the lot and wait for Anthony's mom and aunt...because I figured there was NO WAY I would find them in that crowd.
(which I found out later was at least 3000 people strong--and that was just the participants)
I only ran into one other person I knew--a former coworker from when I was teaching. Since we taught together she has had a precious little girl who is now 2, and found out that she had cancer when Olivia was 3 weeks old. She thankfully was declared cancer free last October, and is doing these 5Ks and half-marathons just to show that she's kicked cancer's ass. I love it.

They delayed the start of the race until 3:15 because of the traffic, but eventually we were off!

The route was pretty cool--lots of little trails not open to the public and quite the backyard tour of the zoo! We're members there so I thought I had seen all the animals the zoo houses, but there are several that live off exhibit. I was lucky enough to walk by these tapirs. If I hadn't watched Rachael Ray earlier in the week I wouldn't have known that they were so special, but apparently they're a pretty rare sight.The path was paved at times, rocky at times, and muddy often. Several hills and twists and turns. I can't imagine having run those portions of it!

We got to see the Bengal tigers (who were quite interested in all of us too!) and the other big cats (Lynx and cougars were out) but most of the other animals were either indifferent or holed away somewhere. I didn't stop to take any pictures. Got a couple of drive-by shots, but they definitely show motion:

(lynx)We wanted to beat our last 5K time which was somewhere in the 55-60 minute range. Of course, we all were walking slower that race so we thought it shouldn't be a problem. We decided that somewhere between 45 minutes and 50 minutes would be great. Of course, we decided this when my iPhone app that we were using to time ourselves (we weren't officially timed, so we started about 5 minutes after the timed runners/walkers) turned to 40 minutes. So we were hoping we were within 10 minutes of ending the race!

Mess, Anthony's aunt, got a little burst of energy right at the end and started speedwalking. Anthony's mom and I looked at each other, shrugged, and kept walking at the same pace. She finished 10 seconds ahead of us...we ended the walk at 48:36. Not too shabby for walking the ENTIRE way...and definitely not to shabby for me considering that less than a month before it literally hurt to walk from one place to the next. My back did fine for the entire time, and I even began contemplating running some in the next 5K we do...which will be in 2 weeks!

finished! Anthony's mom on the left, aunt on the right

Mess and me

And then Sunday came.
And in true Lora fashion:
I completely wiped out in the back of our sanctuary after church.
Twisted my ankle.

Not TOO badly, but enough that I'm now wearing an ankle brace for support so that I'll be able to do the next 5K...

but I guess I'll be walking that one too!

(Next 5K: Nashville Predators Fangtastic 5K...February 6...12 days and counting!)