extra, extra: read all about it

I realize it’s May 4th, and I have yet to publish my May Challenges but I promise to deliver that tomorrow.

In the meantime, May the Fourth be with you.

the hairy dude

Can’t believe I just did that, considering I have never watched ANY of the Star Wars movies.

Ever.

Sure I know the characters: Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, the hairy yeti-looking dude, but this knowledge has been gained through pop culture osmosis.

People think I’m a freak for never having experienced the Star Wars phenomenon, but I now consider it to be a personal streak.

It’s a streak I’m not planning to break. #Winning

Enough of that, Nanc, if you’re not going to write about May Challenges, what are you going to talk about in this post?

Well, bits and bobs, really. But first, the biggest news of all!!!

I’m so excited I can barely breathe. I’m in a tizzy!

Remember during the month of March how my friend, Andra Watkins, was destroying her feet by walking 15 miles per day in a journey to cover all 444 miles of the Natchez Trace?

Well, she was doing that in conjunction with the publication of her book, To Live Forever, An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis. If you recall, she was also running a contest for her readers, incentivizing them to help her promote her book.

I would have helped her promote this book with or without a contest, because a) she is fully awesome in every way; and b) her book is a wonderful read! (Have you read it yet??? Why not?? Buy this book! You won’t regret it!)

Anyway….

Andra just announced the winner of the contest on Friday.

YAY!!!!!!!!!

YAY!!!!!!!!!

YAY!!!!!!!!!

I am over-the-moon excited! Not only do I get to visit a beautiful part of the country that I’ve never seen before (my only South Carolina experience thus far is Myrtle Beach), but I also get to finally meet *in person* someone I have come to consider a friend! How lucky am I? #Winning

So, now, onto the other bits and bobs.

Hmm… I shouldn’t have led with the big news, now it’s all going to be a big let down. Humpphh.

I went shopping at Sail yesterday. Sail is to me in Toronto what REI is to me in Vegas. It’s my Mecca. It’s where I hunt for all manner of hiking supplies.

There was a moment, though, when I realized that shoe porn used to mean this to me:

And now it means this:

And I wondered…who is this person, and what have you done with the real Nancy??

Growth.

I’m growing.

And I managed to score a great pair of Salomon hiking shoes marked down to $74.99 from $124.99! #Winning

Finally, I think I’ve mentioned before how much I love Spark People. Their site offers great (and free!) exercise videos  as well as nice tools for tracking both food and activities. What I recently discovered is that they also have a fabulous recipes site. Since I’m not always on my laptop, I was thrilled to find out that they offer it as a SparkRecipes app for the iPhone.

You can easily sort on recipes by category (breakfast, lunch, appetizer, dessert), by ingredient or by dietary requirement (gluten-free, sugar-free). I’ve already made a couple of their recipes, including a banana peanut butter oatmeal, which was delicious! #Winning

In other news, I spent 9 hours moving my youngest from one university house to another. He and his roommates were living in absolute filth.

I wish it looked this good

My son had an English cucumber, of undetermined age, in the mini fridge in his bedroom. It was nearly liquefied.

There may have been maggots. Okay, maybe not maggots. But other equally nasty things.

I can’t unsee that. The image has been permanently burned into my retinae.

It still haunts me. #Scarredforlife

And on that happy note, I bid you adieu.

Tomorrow brings the May challenges.

Keep moving!

xoxo nancy