I Got An Award!

I've only been blogging a few months and I got an award today! So exciting! My friend, Amy, gave me this award! You should definitely check out her very inspiring blog, Life Follows Faith! I have known Amy and her husband about 5 years now and she is just an amazing person! Thanks for the award Amy!




Along with this award comes some responsibilities:

1. Thank and link back to the person who awarded you this award.
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Award 10 other bloggers.
4. Contact these bloggers and tell them about the award!

7 Things About Me:

1. I got married August 28th of this year.

2. My husband and I have 2 dogs, a Shih-Tzu and a lab - they are our kids!

3. I love to Run.

4. I am watching the Jayhawks beat up on the Baylor Bears - I hope this continues the entire game!

5. I am a very organized and neat person, sometimes to a fault! :)

6. I have 4 year old identical twin nieces and a 2 year old niece. When I married my husband, I gained a nephew and 3 more nieces (all 4 of them are high school age and above).

7. I am a Taurus and I stayed a Taurus, even with the crazy astrology calendar changes!

The 10 bloggers that I'm giving this award to:

1. Miranda @ Living Locally

2. Why I Run

3. The Audrey Ross Way

4. Elaine @ Our Semi-Homemade Life

5. Milligan Family Adventures

6. Mama's Sweet Peas

7. Brand New Hoosier

8. Life is not a destination, it is a journey!

9. Losing Weight and Finding Myself

10. Words to Run By

New Year...New Resolutions

I've said it before...I usually don't make new year's resolutions. But I'm feeling all resolution-y today! I know that resolution-y isn't a word, but it sounded fun. :) And I know I said back in this post, that I would maybe write a New Year's Resolution post. Well, here is what I am going to work toward in 2011! In 2010, my free time was pretty much spent planning our wedding, and I loved every second of it! After the wedding and honeymoon, I wanted to get back into running and I wanted to have something to spend my free time on. So, that's where these resolutions come into play.

#1: Register for and run in at least 10 races in 2010. All different distances, with at least one being a half marathon. I am currently registered for a 5K, 10K, half marathon and a marathon relay where I will run a 7 mile leg.

#2: Run at least 1000 miles this year (5 done today, so only 995 to go)! This is a goal I have seen others make, but I have never thought about the mileage I do in a whole year. I originally put 900 as my goal, but I kept thinking...why 900? Probably because I'm too scared to put 1000. Well, I might have been scared at first, but I'm challenging myself and putting 1000! If I make that goal...great! If I don't, I'll just try for it in 2012! You know that quote that goes something like this: "Reach for the moon and even if you miss, you will be among the stars"? Well, even if I miss my goal of 1000, wherever I land will be an accomplishment in itself!

#3: Work on speed more in 2012. I don't yet know how I'm going to do it. I'll have to do some research, and if you have any suggestions or websites to help me, share them please!

#4: Grow as a blogger in 2011. I've only been blogging for a couple months and I really enjoy it! Way more than I thought I would when I first started.

#5: Book a trip for our first anniversary! With both my husband and myself being so busy, I want to make sure we follow through with our plans of going on a trip for our first anniversary! Any trip ideas? Send them my way as we still haven't decided where we'll go.

#6: Do everything in my power to make sure Maverick's ACL surgery recovery goes well. Since his full recovery will take 4 months (and that is 1/3 of the year), I am putting this as a resolution as well. The vet does his part by doing the surgery, but it is up to my husband and I to take the time to get him healed and then take the time to get him through his rehab. He is such a great hunting dog that I want him and his Dad to be able to do that again next year without him being in any pain!

So there are 6 resolutions/goals for me to work toward this year (6 more than I usually do). I'll update my progress along the way. That way you'll know how I'm doing, and you can help keep me accountable! Do you have any New Year's resolutions? Do you make it a tradition to make them every year? Whatever you do, resolutions or not, make 2011 a great year and do what makes you happy!

What's in a name?

Deciding to jump into the blog world was a hard enough decision in itself. Although, now after a little over 2 weeks of blogging, I am very glad I did! After deciding that I would start a blog, my next question to myself was, “What in the world is the name going to be?” I could tell you that I pondered it for weeks, that I had many sleepless nights trying to decide, and that I researched the heck out of it. But that would be a lie. It took me a day to decide. And not a full day, but a day of thinking about it off and on and doing a little research here and there. I’m the type of person that when I decide to do something, I wanted it done 10 minutes ago. When I do get my mind set on something, it’s very difficult to change it. Not that I’m an impulse type of person, but after I have thought about something for what I feel is long enough, then that’s the end of it. Decision has been made, now let’s move on!

I knew that I wanted the title to have something about running in it. I had decided that running was going to be a main focus, but I also knew that it was not going to be all I blogged about. Running is so much more than...well, running. And I knew I wanted to share my running journey along with my journey of everyday life. I started with a list of 25 possible titles and then after some thinking, narrowed it down to 5. I put those into blogger to see if they were available. That cut out 3 titles for me so I was left with 2. I kept coming back to “Running Between the Lines”, so that was the winner!

After thinking about this title for a while, I kept thinking what it meant to me. The way I came up with it originally was thinking about the Start line and the Finish line in a race. “Between the Start and the Finish” just didn’t have the ring I wanted in a title, but “Running Between the Lines” worked. And for me, it meant the same thing, plus much more.

There are so many emotions that you go through in a race, especially in longer distances. There are butterflies when you’re standing on the start line. There is excitement when you hear that gun go off. You have so much adrenaline at the beginning of the race, then that adrenaline slowly runs out after running for so long. At about mile 19 you wonder, “Can I really finish this?” Then you are powered by nothing more than your heart! And finally when you are on the last stretch and all those people are cheering you on, you get a huge burst of adrenaline. You finish strong, and then the biggest rush of emotion comes over you after realizing that you just finished a 26.2 mile marathon. There are so many emotions between that start line and that finish line!

And is it not the same with life? Life is not a sprint, it’s a marathon. There are times you feel on top of the world like you can accomplish anything. And there are times when all you want to do is sit down and quit. But you push through the hard times to more fully enjoy the good times. And hopefully when we come to our own life’s finish line, we can look back and be proud at what we accomplished. And at that time, at our own life’s finish line, we can rest. But until then, we keep going and just enjoy the race of life!

So I hope you enjoy my journey of “Running Between the Lines”.

New Blog Design!

I'm really new with all this blog stuff and although the basic templates that blogger has are fine, I just wanted something a little more "hip"! I found this awesome blog site from one of my friend's blogs. There are all kinds of free blog backgrounds and they are so cute! You can click on her button that is at the top left hand side of my blog. It is called Aqua Poppy Designs.

I was very excited and pleased with myself when I finally figured out how to get the background to work. I will be honest, I didn't figure it out on my own. I had to contact the blog owner, and she very graciously pointed me in the direction of "the directions!" But, with her help, I figured it out and I have a new blog design. I hope you like it. It was hard to choose as she has many great options!

And this last part has nothing to do with my new blog design, but I thought I would share that we found out today that our lab will have to have surgery. While pheasant hunting with my husband a few weeks ago, he fetched a bird and came running back on only 3 legs. He wouldn't put any weight on one of his back legs. After 1 vet trip, then monitoring him for almost 2 weeks to see if he would heal, and then another vet trip today, we found out that he did tear his ACL and will have to have surgery. We haven't scheduled his surgery date yet, but when I know more, I'll update you again. Poor doggy isn't going to like the 8 weeks of recovery that will require him to stay in his kennel! But, he'll get better and will have many years of hunting ahead of him!