Rants, Recipes, and Running

Happy Thanksgiving weekend, American friends! I pray that most of you are spending a weekend among family. Mine is not so much that way. It's spent working kind of long days - but I'm not asking for a pity party. I entered a field that never shuts down. So my mantra this weekend is, "Suck it up buttercup". Although, it pained me to drive into work this morning when I really wanted to be shopping at the Express jeans sale.....and putting up my Christmas tree. I will have Cyber Monday, however. Oh, America and our shopping. Talk about a 1st world problem. Did I just try and complain that I couldn't spend a stupid amount of cash on clothes on the day I wanted to?... Er.... Let's move on. I found this little meme, and thought it was fun. You are welcome to join. Or maybe answer a few questions. Here it goes! Four names that people call me other than my real name: 1. A variety of names around "Abs". Some family calls me "Abster". My ...

I simply cannot be a "blogger", and not write some form a "thankfulness post". But I fear that this may turn into a novel. Or an Odyssey-like poem. I will try to keep it simple. Bare with me, my friends. Every single day I am reminded with how blessed and lucky I am. Maybe it's because I work in a career where every day I'm talking to people who are dealing with bad news, and it  gives me an overwhelming sense of grace. But lately I have really honed in on listening to my patients, and trying to be a shoulder to lean on. Being that shoulder to lean on, and focusing more on really listening instead stressing about all the work that needs to be done has really made me take a step back and count my blessings . So here are a few of the things in which I am grateful for: Every single day, I have a home to return to. Let's start with the obvious. It has a roof. During the 100+ dog days of summer, I have the ability to crank that AC to as cold as I wan...

We had the perfect balance going this weekend between fun, productive, and relaxing. Sometime that is rather challenging. But I think we had it down! Here's our weekend in bullet-point style: Went for a nice solo run Friday morning. Almost all of my runs these days are with friends. This is awesome, but for most of my life I've always ran alone. So I value my solo runs done at my own pace with my own thoughts. That night we went to a Ragnar "wrap up party" with 3 other couples. It was such a fun evening. Definitely came home that night with "sore cheeks" from all the laughter!! Saturday morning I shared a pot of coffee with Ryan, and went to the gym to lift weights. Mornings like that make me really appreciate being done training for my 70.3. From June-October, my Saturday mornings would be spent waking up at 4:15 am and doing a 3+ hour brick workout! After the gym, we got coffee and met a few friends to watch the "El Tour de Tucson" - whi...