The hottest run date ever and a pop tart revolution

First, a funny text. Because I have obviously reached "pretentious runner" status. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little excited. 

It's totally fine though because I listened to her talk about soccer for almost 10 years and I still have no idea what "off sides" means. I have at least 9 more years of running talk to go until we are even. 

When Taylor told me he wanted to start running with me on Thursday nights, it was pretty much the best day of my life. We were I was so excited to go running tonight, that I sorta kinda forgot the fact that it is July in Texas, which means that at by the time Taylor makes it to my apartment at 5:30, it is approximately 11,000 degrees outside. I mean that's not an exact number but I think it's pretty close. Which made tonight's run date one for the Guinness book. 

Hottest run EVER.

 We are good at pretending we are happy.

And then I made Taylor take a feet picture. I was convinced it would be cute. 

Turns out, not so much. Just looks like feet. 

  

 

After a three mile scorcher, I cooked a crappy dinner, so we decided half price milkshakes were in order. 

I have officially eaten ice cream every day this week. 

Then, as we returned from the milkshake adventure, I got this text. 

There is something really special about the bond between a mother and daughter. She just gets me.

Yes, my friends, that is a picture of a box of COOKIES AND CREAM pop tarts. You know how I feel about pop tarts. I'm thinking of throwing a pop tart party where everyone brings a box of their favorite pop tart flavor and we all trade and everyone leaves really happy and as a result the world would be a better place. Who's in???

LOVE&HUGS,

Nat

Pop Tarts, Blizzards, and Royalty (I am ridiculous.)

I almost always go grocery shopping on Sundays. I realize that lumps me in with the entire rest of the world, but I love it. I love having Sundays to clean up the house, do some laundry, and stock the refrigerator. I'm a simple person and those are the things that make me happy. So you can imagine, when Sunday (which is already my favorite day) rolled around and I was strolling through Target and saw this...

I FLIPPED OUT.

Do you guys remember how I feel about pop tarts? Strongly, very strongly. Pop tarts single handedly caused my freshman 20 (Yes 20, not 15. Cause I'm an overachiever like that). 

Y'all. I LOVE POP TARTS.

Don't ask me which is my favorite flavor because they are all delicious and I can't choose and just thinking about having to make that decision causes me great distress. They are all perfect and delicious and bring so much joy to my life which is precisely why I am not allowed to buy them anymore. 

But just because I can't doesn't mean you shouldn't so you all have to go out and buy a box and then send me an email describing to me in great detail the essence of the chocolate peanut butter pop tart. I'll be waiting by my computer. 

Okay just one more Pop Tart picture and then I'm done. 

This is  GREAT IDEA, Kellogg's!

Changing subjects. Last night roomie and I sat down to dinner before we had to head off to Monday night Bachelorette watching party. I had a salad, she had some leftovers. I was blog-stalking, she was texting (she has real friends not just virtual ones like me). All very typical Monday night blah. 

When out of nowhere...

Sydney: "OMG. Did you hear Dairy Queen now has blizzards in a cone????!!??"

Me: "HOLY FREAKING FUDGEBALLS. That sounds AMAZING."

Sydney: "If we leave right now we can go get one before the Bachelorette starts."

Me: "I can't believe the conversation has lasted this long. GET IN THE CAR!!!!"

Race to Dairy Queen as if they were going to spontaneously decide to close at 7:14pm on a Monday night. Pull into the drive-thru...

Sydney: "Can I get two Oreo blizzards in a cone?"

DQ: "Do you want the cones chocolate dipped?"

Sydney: **Turns to look at me**

Me: "That is literally the stupidest question anyone could ever ask."

Sydney: "Two chocolate dipped cones, please."

And so began the happiest 6 minutes of my life. (Approximately how long it took me to demolish that thing.)

In other random news:

William and Kate somehow found time to deliver their first child. (Though I really don't know who has time to be having babies when there are new pop tart flavors to be discovered and blizzard cones to be enjoyed.) In case you missed it: the baby is perfect, nameless, and we all still hate love Kate for being so beautiful.

Fox News has been sending me push alerts. However, after this one, I've decided that I am obviously not mature enough for news apps. 

Weiner.

And I had my first treadmill run in over 6 weeks! And then I ate. 

  

Miles 1&2 @ 9:22, mile 3 @ 8:12, and miles 4&5 @ 9:22, average  pace of 9:07. I definitely felt pretty slow on this run, but to be perfectly honest I haven't given two craps about my speed these days. My primary goal has been not to die of heat stroke, and so far, I am succeeding. I'm hoping once it cools down, and I get further into marathon training, that my pace will gradually pick back up to what it was. And lastly...

I have a run date!

I'm preeettttyyyy excited. Taylor never wants to run with me. Probably because every time we run together I try to convince him that couples that run together hold hands the entire time. And then my next project would be getting him to run races with me while wearing these shirts:

BAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I'm kidding Tater Tot. Sort of. 

LOVE&HUGS,

Nat

I've found my true calling

Hello. Where did we last leave off? Ohh right, I was super pissed at you all for lying to me and not bringing me ice cream in bed during the whole wisdom teeth debacle. Don't worry, I'm over it. Just don't let it happen again, k? Good good. Let's move on.

Remember when I was supposed to wake up and do my first run since my week off? Well, I slept approximately three hours that night, so the run didn't happen until Friday morning. But only after an awesome Thursday night dinner/happyhour with my very favorite person. When your best friend is busy as HELL, you have to get organized and compile a list of discussion topics for your hangouts. It's just good sense people. 

It's obvious that I know how to party. 

After severely mocking me for bringing an "agenda" to our dinner, she realized my list was awesome and was totally on board. 

 In my awful week recap, I completely forgot to tell you about the something good that happened-I finally booked my ticket to New York! It's OFFICIAL! So the majority of our dinner was spent planning ways to pack the most into our weekend in NYC! It's going to be awesome with a side of fantastic.

Friday morning I was up bright and freaking early for my first run in TEN days. 

Please ignore my still swollen and puffy face and numb chin and lips that are causing a creepily crooked smile, and focus your attention on the cute new Brooks sports bra that I got at the local running store during our trip to Colorado. I completely forgot I even bought that thing so I busted it out for my Friday morning run and LOVED it! And the blue matches my Mizunos perfectly. 

I didn't wear my Garmin, I have no clue what my pace was, and to be honest I am surprised that my legs even remembered how to run, but I enjoyed it and shook my legs out just enough to get the day started. 

Friday night after work, I did a little Hobby Lobby shopping with my friend and coworker Bryn. We both agreed that shopping makes us really hungry so we headed over to BJ's for what may be the most incredible meal of all time EVER. 

We appetized (Is that a word? It should be) on Thai Shrimp Lettuce Wraps that were so delicious that they almost had Bryn in tears. I am not exaggerating. 

They were so fantastic! Mango salsa, cabbage, shrimp and spicy thai sauce = I will never be satisfied by a boring chicken lettuce wrap again. Consider the standards RAISED. 

For my meal I had the mahi-mahi tacos and they were SO good. I'm kindove obsessed with mahi-mahi, because it makes for SUCH a good fish taco. Add the salsa and avocado sauce? I was one happy girl. 

Because I am the most exciting person in the entire world, I topped off my night with some Trader Joe's dark chocolate and the Katy Perry movie and was asleep by 11. Don't be jealous. 

Saturday morning I was up by 5:15 for my weekend group training run with Fort Worth Running Company. Y'all. I can not say enough how amazing it has been to run with these people. My pace group is AWESOME and just make these longer training runs SO much fun! Makes getting up before the sun on a Saturday totally worth it. 

We had 9 miles on the training plan, so after we finished the run, I had some chocolate milk, and decided to keep running for a little bit on my own. I set out thinking it'd be nice to just run another mile and call it an even 10 for the day, but once I started running I felt so good that I wound up doing 5. Oops. And I am feeling it today.

After 14 miles, I was pretty hungry, so I came back and ate all the food. 

Kidding. I had a smoothie, eggs, and turkey bacon. 

 This weekend was AWESOME because we celebrated my sweet roomie's birthday! Her actual birthday was last Saturday, but she was in a wedding, so we used this weekend to celebrate. Our friend Sarah drove into town, and my friend Alli met up with us from Dallas for the ULTIMATE girl's day!

We started off with lunch at the local Food Truck Park, and then headed over to Times Ten Cellar for an afternoon of wine tasting. 

After approximately two sips of wine, I realized something was missing in my life. 

Then I realized what it was.

 

Oh yeah, CAKE.

We had SO much fun, the wine was delicious, the staff was so fun, and this place is ADORABLE.

Birthday Girl!

It was after our afternoon at Times Ten Cellars that I decided I missed my calling. 

I was meant to work at a winery. Sipping wine and talking to strangers about tannins all day? 

YES. 

There may be a career change in my future.   

 Afterwards, we headed to Target to pickup a few things for Sydney's party later that evening. In case you forgot, Target is always fun, but especially after a pitcher of sangria. 

That evening we headed to the birthday party!

 

So happy birthday shoutout to my lovely roomie! This weekend was SUCH a blast!

Now to top it off with an afternoon by the pool!

LOVE&HUGS,

Nat

(PS: I have a little secret, but I'm not sure if the blog is ready for it, so if you want to be in on the secret, follow me on Instagram @nataliehickson for a hint later today :)

The worst week EVER (I'm really not exaggerating)

Well, I'm back...from the dead.

Remember last week when I told you how I was about to have my wisdom teeth taken out and I was absolutely terrified for my life and everyone was like "Oh no you're totally fine it's not that bad at all!"

That's right. If you are one of the ones who told me it "wasn't that bad" we are officially in a fight. You can go away now and come back later with chocolate, money, or shoes because you owe me BIG time. Y'all. That was the worst experience of my whole entire twenty three years of life. I mean, so bad that if I had to do over again, I would tell that dentist to stick it where the sun don't shine because I am keeping my freakin' wisdom teeth. They are in my mouth, that's where God put them, so that's obviously where he intended for them to stay. 

Anyways, Tuesday morning I went in for the surgery, more scared about the IV than anything (I don't do needles). Once the fuzzy "I'm going to pass out" feelings went away, they put me under and I don't remember jack squat. (Also I would like to point out that it is freaky as hell that medical mankind has the ability to knock you out, remove things from your body, and sew you back up without you having any recollection of it whatsoever. I mean seriously-think about it.) They woke me up and walked me into a little recovery area and at the point I obviously wasn't feeling a whole lot of pain. FYI, I participated in a sort of "trial study" for my surgery. I am really broke, and my mom works at a major research hospital/medical school in Dallas that was having a study on pain and pain medication related to oral surgery, so I actually got paid a pretty penny for them to do the surgery, instead of me having to shell out over a thousand bucks out of my own pocket. But as part of the study, they had to observe me for 6 hours immediately following the surgery as they administered the pain meds, and I also had to keep a diary for five days following the procedure. Really it was a pain in my ass. Anyways, all that to say that the first few hours I just hung out in the hospital, drugged up, drinking gatorade, sleeping, and letting the pain set in.

Such a blast.

 

Once the six hours passed, I got to go home, where I proceeded to pass out into a nauseated pain coma for approximately FIVE DAYS. Please hear me when I say - I am not kidding. The medicine knocked me out cold, and took away my appetite completely. From Tuesday-Friday, I had nothing but a couple cups of applesauce, and lost a grand total of seven pounds. I would sleep in four hour increments, wake up, pop another pill, and go into another coma. On Thursday, I'd planned on seeing Taylor and also my best friend Allison, but I felt so crappy that I told them not to come over. But here is a very entertaining text from Allison (before I told her not to come over) that almost made me smile.

This is a reference to when we lived together in college and she would occasionally come home to find me in an extra hilarious state sipping  non-virgin yellow gatorade out of a straw.  

Friday evening, I finally started to feel a little bit better, and Taylor came to visit me and I had a little bit of macaroni and cheese and some ice cream and we watched a little TV before I passed out again.

Super romantic boyfriend-girlfriend puffy cheek time. 

I know they don't look that bad in this picture, but y'all I SWEAR they were. 

Taylor could NOT stop laughing. 

Anyways, Saturday morning I got a visit from my mom and Mimi, who brought me the greatest present of all, mini-pancakes. Those things were the first bit of food that didn't make me want to puke everywhere, and my appetite finally came back over the weekend. Monday I had to get back to work and today I feel SO much better. My chin and lower lip are still totally numb, which is apparently sorta normal, but the dentist said it should come back on it's own in the next month (yikes?). I still have some pain and am popping ibuprofen all day, but it's bearable and my swelling has almost totally gone away, and my jaw muscles are loosening back up from my 5 day total hibernation. I'm still pretending that I require a "soft foods only" diet though because it allows me to eat delicious meals like this:

But I'd still rather have a burger.

In other really upsetting/traumatic news...

Ugh. Just ugh.

In other, more positive(ish) news, I get to run tomorrow morning! I haven't run in eight days and the fact that I didn't even move for four of them, had two giant subway cookies for dinner, and wore these heels at work today means that my first run in over a week will probably average around a 25 minute mile but that is okay with me as long as I get to do something! I skipped an entire week of marathon training, but that's the one good thing about being in such a long training program, one week won't set me back. I've got an early 4 miles set for tomorrow and I've got my running clothes set out all nice and organized like the psychotic neat freak that I am.

To sum it all up:

I didn't die. I'm glad to be back.I love Adam Levine and Mac&Cheese. 

Pray for me on my run wog tomorrow morning.

LOVE&HUGS,

Nat