See you next year, work!

Well, these last few weeks have been pure madness.

My job's really not that bad ... sometimes. I actually like it ... sometimes. I really do ... really.

Seriously (since when I'm ever serious?), I like what I do. I just don't like some of the hassles that come along with it. Like after a long day, getting a call at 9 p.m. asking me to do more work. Or getting stuck at work late those weeks and missing my running group.

But, I'm happy to say that as of yesterday, I'm away from work until 2013.

As a final hurrah to that pesky thing that pays the bills for 2012, I went to the holiday party this past Saturday to enjoy one thing I always like about my job: the peeps. 

This event may have caused me to miss running group on Sunday. Darn you sangria, cran-apple martini, red wine and more sangria!

So, what does one do once they finally have broken free from the chains to their desk?
Dye their hair shockingly dark, of course!

I'm sure I'll get used to it, but man, it's dark.

My hair stylist and I talked about some of the best Christmas songs, like "Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays" by *NSYNC. Do you find it hard to say "Merry Christmas" instead of singing it, or is that just me? And, the entire Jessica Simpson album, "Rejoyce." My hair stylist loves Jessica almost as much as I do, so I could care less what she does to my hair. OK, not really. But, she's awesome.

My dad was supposed to arrive this afternoon. Due to that terrible winter thing called snow, his flight was cancelled. Thankfully, after a 25-minute hold and another 20 minutes on the phone, I rescheduled his flight ... to Orlando. The next seat available to Tampa wasn't until Christmas Eve, which I found unacceptable. Fortunately, a flight to the next closest airport had a seat available tomorrow. It's a little more than an hour away, but it's so worth it. 

Because of this, I was able to delay all of the last-minute things I was going to do today before he arrived until tomorrow. No sense in getting things done early. 

Also because of this, I'll be at running group tonight. Yay!

Are you taking a break from work? Are you as pumped as I am? Did you go to your work holiday party? How was it? Have you ever dyed your hair a very different color? What's your favorite Christmas song? 

A Santa Swag Swap at Datz is where it's at

Last week I went to a delicious place. That delicious place is Datz.

I've been wanting to try Datz for awhile. Thankfully, the Tampa Bay Bloggers gave me the opportunity with a Santa Swag Swap.

What is a Santa Swag Swap? Well, bloggers bring wrapped swag (items sent from PR folks, giveaways from conferences, re-gifts, whatever you got) and swap it in a white elephant gift exchange.

I wrapped some random re-gifts and headed to Datz after work. Datz is conveniently located close to downtown Tampa (where I work), so that was pretty handy. 

Upon arrival, I was greeted with a Wreck the Halls. Hello, Datz and Tampa Bay Bloggers, I love you.

Wreck the Halls is a mix of vanilla vodka, Kahlua
peppermint mocha and Adult Chocolate Milk.
(Photo credit: Raffi)

Tampa Bay Bloggers from left to right: Caroline from My Fascinating Life,
Raffi from Running Betty, Brian from Digital Running, me, Asha from
The Dansha Diaries, Denise from RunDMT, Kristen from Gone Bananas.
Not pictured: Marisa from Fit Kids Playground who joined us later.

After drinks, the appetizers arrived: poutine (fries, cheese curd demi-glace and a fried egg), corn fritters (with powdered sugar and jalapeno-maple syrup), figtastic flatbread (slided fig, Asian pear, roasted red onion, blue cheese, baby arugula) and bruschetta flatbread (pesto, Parmesan, mozzarella, roasted red onion, plum tomato, basil, balsamic glaze).

Poutine (Photo credit: Raffi)

The corn fritters rocked (as did the other items). I'm not a syrup fan so I passed on it, thinking it was just maple syrup. After the fact, realizing that this was jalapeno-maple syrup, I'd definitely give it a try. Jalapenos make everything delicious.

Corn fritters (Photo credit: Raffi)

My favorite appetizer, which surprised me, was the figtastic flatbread. I'm not a huge blue cheese fan, but this had just the right amount mixed with the sweetness of the pear and fig and the spiciness of the arugula. You've got to try everything once because you'll never know what you'll like, right?

My surprise favorite appetizer: figtastic flatbread (Photo credit: Raffi)

After appetizers, we did the swag swap. I went first and was rewarded with a Turbie Twist. Score! No one stole it, so I ended up going home a happy girl. I put it to use right away.

The main course arrived after the swap. We were treated to: chicken little (black tea-spiced, baby, free-range chicken, tri-colored quinoa, honey-fig sauteed spinach, Asian pear chutney) with a side of curried vegan winter stew (carrots and butternut squash braised in a tomato curry broth, tri-colored quinoa, cilantro, mint, pumpkin seeds).

Chicken little (Photo credit: Raffi)

I think the coolest thing about dinner was that they were all new tastes to me. Nothing was an "oh, I had something like this at another restaurant." I particularly liked the honey-fig spinach. Apparently, I like figs. I didn't know this.

And then dessert happened. Oreo beignets. Holy yum. And yes, an Oreo beignet is exactly what it sounds like: an Oreo fried inside of delicious donut goodness. For an Oreo-loving girl like myself, this could be the perfect dessert. 

Oreo beignets (Photo credit: Raffi)

My first trip to Datz and my first Tampa Bay Bloggers meetup rocked! I'll definitely be back to both (with my regular camera, not an iPhone camera — thanks so much to Raffi for the non-dark, non-blurry photos; and thanks to Datz)! 

Do you have a Turbie Twist? Have you ever eaten poutine, corn fritters or jalapeno-maple syrup? Are you an Oreo lover? Do you live in the Tampa Bay area? If so, have you been to Datz? What did you think? If you don't live in the area, come to visit me; I'll take you there!

A fairly uneventful holiday weekend

At one point, my boyfriend and I were planning on driving to South Carolina for Thanksgiving to visit his family. Then, we decided that wasn't going to work. So, we stayed and celebrated by ourselves (with a begging dog named Chloe).  

Yes, this is too much food for two people.

Never fear. Chloe is here.

After we ate, we watched football the rest of the day as one should. Well, I did anyway. Somehow my boyfriend ended up in line for a good deal on a TV at Walmart. Not sure how that happened ... he went out to get gas in his car at halftime of the Cowboys-Redskins game and called telling me he'd be in line until 10 p.m. I didn't go because I didn't want to miss any of the game, although I wouldn't have minded missing the Kenny Chesney halftime show. Well, now knowing the outcome of the game, I wouldn't have minded missing that, too. It's rather painful to be a Cowboys fan these days. 

Thankfully, now I can watch the Cowboys' demise on a 60-inch TV screen. Yes, that is extremely big. Probably too big in my opinion, but I wasn't the one standing in line for 3+ hours to get it (so I'll probably keep my mouth shut on that).  

I feel like we didn't do anything else the rest of the weekend besides a few trips to the dog park and one to see Christmas lights.

These icicle lights are the coolest. A photo doesn't do them justice.

Oh, and last night we went out to eat at Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Tampa with a friend. They have the absolute best oysters. I love raw oysters. Love them. I also love people-watching at the casino. I also love wine at the casino. With all of the love, we ended up staying there pretty late; by the time I got to bed, it was 2:30 a.m.

So waking up for our 7:30 a.m. run today was somewhat unfun. But that is really no different than any other day. Mornings and I just don't get along. 

But, I made it (we ran 50 minutes; 4.5 miles). And after breakfast, I promptly took a long nap. And, I really don't like naps. 

How was your holiday weekend? Did you cook? Did you do anything fun? Did you run?

Running in a cotton T-shirt and other randomness

I have a lot of random stuff on my mind, so what better place to spew it than here (you may think otherwise ... sorry).

• I'm running a 5K on Saturday. In a cotton T-shirt. For a sweaty turtle, this is bad, bad news. Why the cotton shirt? It's a work-related run, so we all need to be corporate in our matching shirts. Great. I'll be a hot mess around work peeps.
  
• I get so irritated at the phrase, “I’m just sayin’.” Argh! It grated on my nerves to even type it. I really don’t understand its purpose. Obviously you’re just sayin’ because you just said it. See? There is no need for this ridiculous phrase. EVER.   
• Almost every weekend, we head to a dog park with a beach in Tampa. Being the baseball-loving girl that I am, I know that Derek Jeter (Yankees shortstop) happens to live on the island (not that I ever see him). Yesterday, Evan Longoria (Rays third baseman) tweeted asking for a good dog park/beach with real grass. Of course I suggested this park.

• I recently heard two guys admit that they sing along to Justin Bieber's "Boyfriend." As they should! That song is a jam (and reminds me of Justin Timberlake ... almost exactly). Don't be embarrassed, boys.

Fancy pants and sweaty runners

So, this happened a few weeks (um, almost a month) ago, but since I was behind on my posts at that point, I forgot to add this to my post when I caught up on all my posts (another reason to not fall behind on posts again).

Our running training group meets at Fit2Run, a running store at International Plaza. International Plaza is a spiffy place. So spiffy that I usually don’t shop there. It has nicknames like million-dollar mall, where rich people shop and fancy mall (OK, maybe I just made those up). It has stores that make me mad (I haven’t decided if this because I can’t afford them or because they really irritate me). I mean, if I had millions of dollars, would I feel the need to buy a Burberry jacket, Gucci hat and Louis Vuitton purse? I don’t think so. And, I think I’d still feel the prices were ridiculous, and I think they’d still make me mad. I think. I don’t know because I don’t have millions of dollars. If someone wants to give me millions of dollars, I’ll let you know if I still feel this way. Thanks.

Well, this particular Thursday, I noticed the parking lot was fuller than usual. People were pulling into the parking lot at an alarming rate. And everyone had their fancy pants on. People usually dress pretty well to go to this mall, but these people were a step up from usual. So, I really stood out in my running gear.

When I got to the door to the mall, a sign on the door stated that by entering the mall you are giving the property rights to use your image in promotional videos. Um, yeah. I don’t think they want an image of a girl in running clothes in their video. Since I really wasn’t concerned about being used in a video (and because I didn’t have a choice), I walked in … and onto a red carpet. Ah, lovely.

It was Fashion's Night Out at the mall.

I ducked into the store and found my running group. After waiting longer than usual to make sure that everyone had a chance to find a spot to park, we headed out.

After completing our run, our assistant coach let us know about events happening in their store and the mall. He said it was a big deal, and that Jessica Simpson was at the mall.

Eeeeeeek! Jessica Simpson?!?! I LOVE her!

I tried to ignore some of the other girls degrading comments about not finding a parking spot due to Jessica Simpson, and I tried to contain my excitement that Jessica Simpson was IN THE HOUSE (or the mall, as it may be).

After grabbing our post-run smoothie in the store, one girl asked if anyone wanted to try and hunt down Jessica Simpson. I, of course, said “Of course!”

So, we headed out into the crowd of fancy pants in sweaty runny gear.

We hit up Dillard’s, thinking since her clothing and shoe line is there, she’d probably be hanging out in the area. Even though I felt some disgusting glares from the fancy pants crowd, I didn’t care. I just wanted to see Jessica.

Dillard’s had a fashion show happening on the lower level in front of the store, and we searched for Jessica. No luck. We asked a Dillard’s employee. She said if Jessica was there, she’d be at the fashion show. Hmm … Since it was the last fashion show of the night, we figured we could have missed the lovely JS. I managed to hold back tears (OK, not really. Really, not really.), and we went back through all the fancy pants to get out of the mall.

Somewhat disappointed, I headed home. Then, I started thinking. I’m a big Jessica Simpson fan. Huge. I’m friends with her on Facebook. I’m on the Jessica Simpson Collection email list. I check her website. How could I miss her appearance in MY city?!? I couldn’t is the only answer.

After some research, I found out that a “designer from Jessica Simpson Collection” was at the mall. That doesn’t mean Jessica Simpson herself. Pesky assistant running coach got my hopes up!

So, I guess the moral of this story is … never be ashamed to go anywhere in your sweaty running gear. You ran. That’s more than those people in their fancy pants can say (well, maybe they ran earlier, but it's more fun to say they didn't). Oh, and Jessica Simpson rocks!