Concert Review: Lady Antebellum

Last night Kati and I headed down to ARCO Arena (I refuse to call it Power Balance Pavilion) to see Lady Antebellum. Both of us left our cameras at home, so all we have to document it is the obligatory cell phone picture:

Kati & I At The Show

The first opening act was Thompson Square, a husband and wife duo. They were really good - I absolutely love Shawna Thompson's voice. She is a really talented singer and absolutely everything that came out of her mouth was on key and technically perfect. They played for about half an hour and were fantastic!

The second opening act was Darius Rucker, formerly of Hootie & the Blowfish. His first song or two were a little rough, but once he seemed to warm up, I think he sounded great. He sang a bunch of his country songs and a few of the more popular Hootie & the Blowfish songs. In fact, in true Smithson sister style, we called our parents on "Only Wanna Be With You" and sang at the top of our lungs. I imagine that they thought we were drunk and had both gone tone deaf, but we were having a blast. He ended his set by saying "Now I sing whatever the hell I want" and did a cover of Prince's "Purple Rain". It was awesome since the first time I had seen him was in Las Vegas at Tiger Jam, where Prince was headlining.

After a 45 minute minute (!) intermission, it was finally time for Lady Antebellum. They were pretty spectacular. I think what really makes this band is their incredibly tight harmonies. I could listen to 3 part harmony all day long. I didn't totally love Hillary Scott's voice live - she sounded very tinny and "chipmunky" but that might have been how it was mixed. They sang all of their hits and did a pretty cool cover of Aerosmith's "Sweet Emotion". One of my favorite parts of the night was when they brought Thompson Square and Darius Rucker back out on stage to sing "Black Water" (yep, the Doobie's song) with them. There was a heck of a lot of harmony going on there. The band was amazing too. Dave Haywood (you know, the guy who isn't Hillary Scott or Charles Kelley) played both guitar and piano - phenomenally. I think he doesn't get enough credit for his musicianship and for being that 3rd harmony.

It was a great show and Kati and I had a really fun time!

Year Of Music

I'm super excited about what the rest of 2012 holds for me musically. I absolutely love concerts. In fact, I think the mark of a truly great artist or band is that they can perform live.

Here's the lineup so far for this year:

March 29: Lady Antebellum featuring Darius Rucker and Thompson Square
June 16: Wicked
August 4: Aerosmith featuring Cheap Trick
September 9: Dave Matthews Band

I am bummed - we were slated to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but Anthony Kiedis broke his foot and they rescheduled to a date that we can't make. I am keeping my eyes on the weekly Ticketmaster emails - it seems like this year is the year of cool bands going on tour!

I'm Sexy And I Know It

There are not words... I love it!

Album Review: Madonna "MDNA"

Today Madonna released her 12th studio album, "MDNA". I really like this album. Some of the songs make me think back to the sounds of the "Ray of Light" album. She definitely toys a little bit the the religious themes in several of the songs. But more than that, it's just fun music. I bee-bopped by way to work listening to this this morning and it was super entertaining. Catchy, good fun pop music. It's been a while.

Favorite songs: "Girl Gone Wild" (both the original and the remix), "Gang Bang", and "I'm A Sinner"

We tried to get tickets to see her on this tour but it sold out in something like 5 minutes flat. If she's anything, she's an amazing entertainer!

Book Review: The Hunger Games

I have to admit, I didn't really get what all the "The Hunger Games" hype was all about, but I needed a break from some of my other reading and decided to give it a go.

Synopsis: (from amazon.com)

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she is forced to represent her district in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

I was very pleasantly surprised by this book. In fact, I read it in 3 days. It is one of those "it's-2am-and-I-can't-stop-reading" books. I really liked how Suzanne Collins developed her characters... you can't help but feel the desperation, the fear and the triumphs of each one. Somehow she gets you past the horrifying violence of children killing children (seriously, I have no idea how they made this a PG-13 movie) and focuses on the spirit of survival. This is definitely a must read book!

I've moved on to the next book in the trilogy and am happy with how that one is going as well! Stay tuned for the review!

Twelve Mile Stalker

This week I jumped right back into my marathon training (last week was an "easy" week). So today, being a Saturday, was long run day. Let me start by saying this was the best 12 miles I've run in a long time. I still have a bit of the achy knee thing going, but not nearly as bad as it's been in prior weeks. I ran on a road that Mike and I normally bike, but for some reason had forgotten how hilly it was - today's 12 miles included 640 feet of climbing.

But on to the more important part of the run. I firmly believe I was stalked by turkey for the entire 12 miles. Before I elaborate, let me remind those of you who followed my blog way back in 2008 (when it was on Vox - boo, they deleted their whole site and I lost the content from that time) that I have a history with the turkey. Not the eat-you-for-Thanksgiving history, but the holy-crap-you're-mean-and-scary history. Long story short, I found a turkey in my front yard making pretty little turkey sounds (think: velociraptor sounds in "Jurassic Park"). As soon as it saw me, it escalated to hissing, wing dragging and flying. Yup, until then I didn't know they could fly (like onto the roof of my house). I spent the next two years in that house terrified to walk out the front door, convinced they were waiting on the gutter to pounce on me.

Add to that Mike's horrifying story of being chased on his bike by one who proceeded to peck at his calf and I've developed a healthy "respect" for these critters.

Today, one (I'm pretty sure it has to be the same one) followed me, gobbling, for the entire 12 miles. Only, whenever I looked over my shoulder, they weren't there. Keep in mind that I was running in the country - like real country (cow pastures, horses, creeks, etc), so there was plenty of places to hide. Mike tells me that there's hundreds out there this time of year, but I'm pretty convinced it was just one... toying with me the entire time.

Maybe I need to drink more water...

St. Patrick's Day

Last night we headed to Kati and Nate's house for St. Patrick's Day Couples Bunko. Obviously, she went with the green theme (complete with green beer) and we all dressed up. Her mint chocolate cupcakes (on the right below) had pudding in them... I've had two today and there is one more sitting on my kitchen counter. Marathon shmarathon. Also, dead center were those dang "Drunk Gummies" - gummy bears soaked in vodka. This time, instead of the marshmallow vodka that Jamie used, Kati tried cake vodka. Also fabulously delicious!

Kati's Snack Table

Kristen won the costume contest - there was no competing with her awesome green wig!

Ruth, Kristen, & I.

I even got Mike to dress up - his "Irish You Were Beer" shirt is bound to become a classic. I was rocking my Kermit the Frog "Kiss Me" shirt, a jean skirt and some really great Ireland knee socks. Alas, there's not one picture of the socks. So sad.

He Really Loves It When I Make Him Pose For Pictures!

Mike and I actually both won - he for the most bunkos and me for the 50/50 (meaning I won the same amount of games that I lost). It was a really fun night! The lovely ladies:

Bunko Girls!

And finally, a shout out to Ruth Mackwood! I discovered last night that there are more people reading my blog than I thought! Thanks for being my third reader (beyond my Mom and Aunt Eva)! I also discovered that I gross some of them out with my nasty foot pictures. Hey, at least my toenails aren't falling off... yet.

Today we woke up to about three inches of snow... and it continued to snow off and on throughout the day. It was a super mellow, relaxing day for us and was very much needed!

Movie Review: Water For Elephants

Last January I read "Water For Elephants" by Sara Gruen and absolutely loved it. I've been working through a list of chick flicks on Netflix when Mike is at work and the latest in my queue was "Water For Elephants".

Director: Francis Lawrence

Main Actors: Robert Pattinson, Reese Witherspoon, & Christoph Waltz

Synopsis: (from IMDb) After his parents' death, Jacob Jankowski is left penniless and homeless. Events lead him to joining the circus as their vet, working under their unstable boss August whose violent tendencies give everyone reason to be cautious around him, including his beautiful and quiet wife Marlena, whom August is very possessive of and who Jacob finds himself soon falling in love with.

Rating: I actually really liked this movie. They stayed very true to the book. There were parts that were very difficult for me to watch (with animals being beaten and killed), but again, exactly how it was in the book. I absolutely can't stand Robert Pattinson, but think he did a fantastic job with the role of Jacob. This is a definitely must watch movie!

Movie Review: Burlesque

Last night while Mike taught his firefighting class, I had a chick flick night and watched "Burlesque".

Director: Steve Antin

Main Actors: Cher, Christina Aguilera, and Alan Cumming

Synopsis: (from IMDb) The Burlesque Lounge has its best days behind it. Tess, a retired dancer and owner of the venue, struggles to keep the aging theater alive, facing all kinds of financial and artistic challenges. With the Lounge's troupe members becoming increasingly distracted by personal problems and a threat coming from a wealthy businessman's quest to buy the spot from Tess, the good fortune seems to have abandoned the club altogether. Meanwhile, the life of Ali, a small-town girl from Iowa, is about to change dramatically. Hired by Tess as a waitress at the Lounge, Ali escapes a hollow past and quickly falls in love with the art of burlesque. Backed by new found friends amongst the theater's crew, she manages to fulfill her dreams of being on stage herself. Things take a dramatic turn though when Ali's big voice makes her become the main attraction of the revue.

Rating: This was actually not a bad movie. This actually also starred Stanley Tucci, who is a character actor that never fails to make me laugh. The storyline is predictable, but cute. The music is really nice - in fact I downloaded the song "Bound To You", which is a stunning ballad she sings about three quarters of the way through the movie. If you have a free night and some time to kill, this is not a bad movie!

Staycation Day 9: The Half Marathon

I think I'm the only person on the planet that decides to spend the last day of vacation running. And running a half marathon at that.

That's right, today was the big race day - Kati and I ran the 2012 Shamrock'n Half Marathon! The official results are not up yet, but my Garmin says 2:13:09, which might be a few seconds high since I was so excited to be done that I forgot to hit the stop button.

I am beyond proud of my sister - she's not a runner by nature (or so she says!) and this was not easy for her. It was really fun to spend time training with her and then running today. That said, I've officially dubbed her a "real" runner since at one point in the race she said "I sort of wish there was a hill so we could run downhill". Yeah, only real runners actually wish for hills. She seriously did really well and we didn't walk a single step! I'm sort of sad that when I do next weekend's long run, it will be alone! :(

They changed the course around a lot from when I ran it (way back in 2009). There was this awful hill back then that they've taken out and a big chunk of today's race was out on the bike trail. There were pluses and minuses to both. The old course was great for spectators to be able to see you at a bunch of different places (the new course, not so much). The new course didn't have the hill, but we were able to run on the trail (similar to where we trained).

Here's an action shot from somewhere around mile 9-10. My parents, Mike, and Nate were there (in Old Town) to take some pictures and cheer us on. I'm in the pink and Kati's in the purple.

Running Our Hearts Out

Here's us just before the finish line - we rounded the corner into the stadium and both of us felt like rock star athletes! They have great music playing and you're running out on the field. It's a really fun finish!

Making A Dash For The Finish

After the race, we ran into one of our coworkers, Irene, who was also running her first half. Why is it that everyone else always looks all cute after races and I look like my face is about to explode and have Kramer hair?

Kati, Irene And I

Finally, the only reason I run - the medals. They were actually really cute this year - with a pot of gold and a little leprechaun.

2012 Shamrock'n Half Marathon Bib & Medal

In sadder news, my feet took a pounding today. I'm not sure what was different in my stride today (13.1 miles vs. last week's 12) but I ended up with a great blister on and under my scar. Awesome. My favorite place to get a blister.

Ouch.

I'm sore and tired, but am so happy that Kati and I ran today. We had a lot of fun together and it was really cool to be able to share this experience with her! Now it's off to the sofa to spend my last few hours of vacation relaxing!

Staycation Days 5, 6, & 7

On Wednesday I did some work in the garden. I've been wanting to plant cherry trees, specifically Bing cherries for the last couple years and missed the boat on bare root. I was stoked that our local nursery had both Bing and Tartan cherries - two more trees for Blankenheim Orchards! I also did some planting around the rocks that Mike used to build our waterfall. I didn't take pictures because it's really very much a work in progress - I'm testing to see if these couple types of ground cover are actually "deer resistant".

On Thursday, we headed over to Fitzpatrick Winery & Lodge for an evening's stay. Some of you may recall that we attended a crab feed a few weeks ago and entered a raffle - this was the prize that we won.

Our stay was absolutely fantastic - it was so nice to get away for a night and to completely chill out. We arrived around 7pm and were told there was only one other couple staying and that they were out to dinner, so we had the lodge to ourselves. Diana, one of the owners, checked us in and offered us wine for tasting - saying there were 4 bottles open that should couldn't pour the next day, so help ourselves to our "one" complementary glass. We hung out by the fire drinking wine for most of the evening.

Mike In The Great Room

Yay For Wine!

We really enjoyed their 30th Anniversary Zinfandel (we bought a case!) and their Merlot was very mellow.

We stayed in the "Irish Room", which was super cute. They had a great window seat that had a beautiful view of the valley and some of their grapes:

View Of The Valley

The bed and easy chair - we loved the color of the walls too - we're thinking of re-doing our bedroom at home!

Clearly I Need A New Camera...



The View From Our Private Deck

We're thinking of going back in the summer - they have a massive wood burning pizza oven and they do Friday pizza nights! This morning we woke up and were served breakfast - I had a potato and onion frittata and Mike had an omelet. It was absolutely fantastic - we definitely recommend this place to anyone coming up to our area!

Today I had the chance to do a ride along with my awesome brother in law, Tim. It was a really cool experience (my prior EMT training had been in the ER so that I got to see a wider variety of stuff). It was my first time doing a code 3 (lights and sirens) in an ambulance! I actually learned a lot - lately I've realized that it's really good to step back and watch other people work - there are lots of little tips and tricks to pick up on!

I've got a bit of a headache now, so we're catching up on "Idol" and then I'm headed to bed. Tomorrow I've got EMT class and then Sunday is the half marathon - I'm so excited to run with Kati for her first half!

Staycation Day 4: Taxes & Sausage

Today ended up being a lot busier than either of us had anticipated. I ran my 3 miles this morning (after another fantastic bacon, eggs and tater tots breakfast). Then we headed into town to have our taxes done and visit our friendly AAA office.

Let me begin by saying these two are never amused at my photo opportunities:

Identical Expressions

We went to Swingles after our tax appointment to get sausage casings. You know it's a good butcher shop when...

Swingles

Here's the Kitchen Aid meat grinder setup:

Kitchen Aid Mixer With Meat Grinder Attachment

And here's the actual grinding of the meat. We ran each batch through twice, to make it a little more tender. Then it ran back through to get stuffed in the casing.

The Grinding Of The Meat

Of course, Shadow wanted to know what was going on - he ended up spending most of this afternoon outside on the deck after this:

Is That Meat I Smell?

I think the grossest part of the whole process was the sausage casings. We opted for natural (read: intestines) instead of man made.

Rinsing The Casings

They come packaged in a very briny solution, so you have to rinse the heck out of them otherwise you'll have super salty sausage. We let them soak in really cold water in the sink for a while. Then you had to untangle one of them and feed it all the way onto the squirter thingy (that's the technical term):

My Second Phallic Picture On This Blog In 2 Days!

We were a little disappointed in how the attachment worked - it took a really long time to get the meat to dispense into the casing and the little plunger thingy pushed the meat down but then pulled it back up when you pulled it out. It was a very labor intensive process and got pretty frustrating.

Here are the final products:

Garlic & Pepper Sausage

Garlic On The Left, Spicy On The Right

All in all, it was fun, but it took about four hours from start to finish and pretty much everything in our kitchen was covered in raw meat and needed to be hosed down. We made a garlic & pepper sausage as well as a hot Italian sausage - using a combination of beef and pork. We noticed they were a little drier than we would have liked - I think that had something to do with the beef. We might need to pick fattier cuts of meat as well. But the flavors were definitely there! I think we might try some fancier sausages next time (like chicken & apple) to play around with the flavors. The other thing we noticed is that the colder the meat was, the easier it went through the grinder - almost frozen worked best.

It was a pretty busy day - now it's time to watch some "Justified" and "tosh.0"!

Staycation Day 3

Let me start with how I'm ending my day... with the most fantastic bath ever. Shadow wanted in on the fun, so I had to give him a bone to keep him occupied. I don't think he would actually climb in, but he would definitely keep coming over to poke me.

Shadow And The Tub

Here's the tub after the removal of the dog and the lighting of most of the candles. I gave up after one wall sconce because our lighter is dead and I was tired of lighting matches.

Ahhh...

I used my Philosophy "Milkman" bath gel... the stuff smells like chocolate. It was fantastic. I seriously thank God every time I take a bath for giving my husband the inspiration to add this sucker to the house before he had a wife. It has jets too, but I've been warned not to use them if I have bubble bath in there.

The rest of today was pretty mellow - we hung out around the house, read a lot (I made it though another Alphabet Series mystery book) and took a nap.
I did a "pen inspection" this afternoon - every so often I do a walk around Shadow's pen to make sure the fence is still intact and that nothing is funky. I found this helium filled balloon that floated into the bottom corner of the pen...

Hmm...

It's not often that you find a penis "blow me" balloon in your dog's yard...

Staycation Days 1 & 2

Well, yesterday marked the first day of my vacation and the first day of my first every "staycation". I am taking an EMT refresh course in order to recertify (you have to recert every 2 years). The class consists of 3 Saturdays of reviewing the different disease processes and working on hands on skills. That basically took up most of my Saturday.

Today was a  pretty busy day. I started off with a solo 12 mile run since my sister is home sick. I headed down to the Mokelume River to do my run since it was close to home and gave me a little more recovery time between "appointments" today. I actually felt pretty good for most of the run - the last mile felt really looooong. I headed home to torture myself with use the foam roller. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of foam rolling, here's the definition in a nutshell:

"It is accomplished by rolling the foam roller under each muscle group until a tender area is found, and maintaining pressure on the tender area for 30–60 seconds."

Yeah, that basically reads: "it's meant to hurt". On the upside, I think it is actually helping. I took a quick shower and nap after that and then headed out for the second part of my day. I headed down to Sacramento to participate in the C.E.R.T. We work a lot of larger distance events (the airshow, half marathons, etc) and have found that having EMTs on bikes has been really helpful. We had to do an agility course (cones, circles at low speeds, curb jumps, etc) and a 3 mile ride in under 18 minutes. All in all, it was a good little exercise, but I just had a really hard time getting into it because I was pooped from the run.

I decided to treat myself to some delicious frozen yogurt on the way home from the bike trials - we have a Big Spoon in Jackson now, and it was pretty yummy! Apparently when I run I have the appetite of a four year old because I couldn't get enough chocolate chips, sprinkles and hot fudge. Ok, maybe that's all the time.

Big Spoon. Yum.

Tonight we're just hanging out - Mike is getting over the stomach flu (yuck!) so we're doing mellow dinners (pancakes for me, grilled cheese for him) and catching up on some shows we have taped on the DVR. I tried the foam roller again this afternoon and discovered that it hurts even more now than it did this morning. That's good, right?

Tomorrow is a very important part of my staycation. I have dubbed it lazy Monday because I have ever intention of not leaving the house. I figure I need one of those on my staycation, and it might as well be at the beginning!

The Tale of the Pork Tenderloin

Today Shadow had just about the best day of his entire life.

Friday is garbage day, so before I headed into work I decided to clean out the fridge. There was a big hunk of that delicious herb crusted pork tenderloin that I made the others day. It definitely needed to go, so I put it in the trash and continued to look for other stuff that needed to go.

In a split second, the tenderloin was gone. It's like Shadow had been waiting his entire life for that one minute. In fact, he ate it so fast he almost choked on it.

Seriously, the best breakfast a doggy could ask for!

Raindrops Falling On My Head

I've officially been training for a couple months now. This last week has been a really rough one. No, the mileage is not getting to me, in fact, it's been one of the lowest mileage weeks of the few months. My hips have been sore. I've been making good use of the foam roller and a bunch of my friends have shared with me some great hip stretches. I've just sort of lost my motivation and excitement about it. I'm hoping that the half marathon next weekend will bring back some of that lost motivation - otherwise it's going to be a long three months to San Diego.

This morning I woke up with a little bit of a headache and the rain pounding on my roof, so in a rare moment of weakness, I stayed snuggled in bed. I took a couple extra rest days last week as well to help with my hip (they really did help!). I felt a little guilty, so I packed by running stuff to take to work with the intention of doing my five mile run at lunch time.

It was pouring down rain at lunch.

I ran anyway.

I'm really proud of myself. I am noticing that the less I do on the treadmill, the better my hips feel... there's something about that very repetitive step that just kills me, especially when I get up to longer distances. I really did feel great to run in the rain today. There was something almost childish about it - like it was forbidden and everyone thought I was crazy. The thing I really liked was that I stayed cool (did I mention that this has been a very cold weather storm) and most of the run felt really great. I was completely drenched when I came back to the office and got a lot of weird looks, but it was totally worth it!

Maybe my running mojo is coming back already!