Matt was home this last weekend! He got home late Thursday night despite the fog here in Oklahoma City. Reaghan and I were so happy to see him. Friday night we went out with some friends to Michael’s Grill. Kind of our early Valentine’s date, I guess. I love that place. We only end up eating there once a year or so. It’s always fantastic. I tried something a little different this time, the manicotti with a side of steak and peppers. Fabulous.

I know, these photos are bad, but it was really dark in there, and all I had was my iPhone.

This is one of my good friends, Dana.

So several glasses of wine and port and chocolate mousse cake later, I had to get up and run 8 miles. I wasn’t looking that forward to it, but I do as other runners do. We get up, we run. Thank goodness this was my “rest” week.

And Here is Where I Jump Into Comments about Running.

Having a “rest” week doesn’t mean that I get to take a break from running or exercise. I still have miles to log. But what it is is a break to let your body recover a bit. Anytime you are following a training plan, whether marathon, half marathon, 10K, whatever, you will typically see a “block” set up. A common block consists of 3 weeks of gradually increasing your mileage by 10 to 20% per week. On the 4th week, your mileage goes down a bit. The training plan then starts up again at mileage that is just a little lower than where you ended your last “up” week. A lot of times people will decrease their cross training the rest week, too. I don’t usually… but then again, I wouldn’t. So, if you ever hear a runner saying that this is their “rest” week or “down” week now you’ll know what they’re talking about.

This is part of my training plan, and while it’s a little different than some of the basic plans out there, you can kind of see how my mileage goes up and then down. Boy, you always look forward to those rest weeks!

My playlist this week was kind of a mix of different things. I listen to such a variety of music that sometimes my playlists end up looking a little funny. I also tend to find songs that I really like running to, and keep those in my playlist. (Like Carry Out and TiK ToK).

• Green Light – John Legend
• Carry Out – Timbaland
• TiK ToK – Ke$ha
• Hit ‘Em Up Style (Oops!) – Blu Cantrell
• Uprising – Muse
• Middle of Nowhere – Hot Hot Heat
• (If You’re Wondering if I Want You T0) I Want You To – Weezer
• Icky Thump – The White Stripes
• 4 Minutes – Madona
• Fergalicious – Fergie
• Starry Eyed Surprise – Paul Oakenfold
• Keep Fishin’ – Weezer
• Paparazzi – Lady Gaga

Then I Change the Subject Again.

After Matt left on Sunday, Reaghan and I decided to do some pictures for her Valentine’s Cards (which I need to finish). I usually prefer natural light photos, so I don’t have a fancy light set up. Maybe someday I will have one. For now I use my Picture Perfect Home Studio kit that I got for Christmas a couple of years ago. And really what I end up doing is using the frame and then adding my own backdrop paper. This picture shows the set up from a shoot I did last year.

The frame holds up my paper and then I have a faux wood floor and faux baseboard that I can use to create a wall. Today we didn’t use the floor and baseboard. I just pulled the pink paper all the way down and had Reaghan on top of that.

Here are a few of may favorites from today. You can view all of them in my flickr gallery.

You can’t tell in these pictures here, but her shirt says “Rock Band” on it. And, since she looks kind of funky we’re going to do a Punk Rock kind of Valentine’s card this year. Last year I made these bookmarks:

I’ll post what I make later this week when they are finished. Yikes, they need to be finished because Valentine’s Day is coming up quick! I love pushing deadlines down to the wire.

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