Shopping for Jeans

Oh the dreaded phrase, jean shopping. I HATE shopping for jeans. I have "athletic" thighs which means I have to buy jeans a size larger and belt the waist or go for the wide "bell" leg types. My jeans I own I've had for years, before I was pregnant which was 3 years ago. Okay, I did break down and buy a pair of skinny jeans but as for that I have pretty much the same pair of jeans.
So the most amazing thing has happened. The economy goes down and my jean spending goes up. I have found 3 new pairs of jeans this year, well in the past 4 months. I'm so happy, now that luck is on my side I need to stop buying jeans. Hopefully my luck will help me find some bargain sweaters now.

Voila, I'm Martha Stewart

We've had issues with our tub. It's slippery and has no coating on it. It's totally not worth reglazing the tub, it's super old. But in the meantime to keep our daughter from not slipping in the tub we've been trying everything.
1. We tried the stickers you put on the bottom. Those lasted all of 1 shower.
2. We tried a long rubber mat with suction cups on the bottom. But the suction cups didn't really stick so it looked like she was riding a magic carpet as she bathed. Plus the mat stained, no matter washing it in the washing machine (was machine washable), bleaching it, scrubbing it with Comet, it looked brown not white.
3. We bought little suction cup rubber duckies but like #2 the suctions don't stick.
4. I don't remember who suggested this but I tried it this weekend. The kitchen sink liner, those rubber mats you put at the bottom of your sink to prevent glass from breaking. I found one at the $ store so I figured I'd give it a try. It's awesome, it didn't float up! It's still in the same place. I'm going to buy another so we have somewhat full coverage of the tub. And the best part it's only $1. So I can throw it out if it get's grimey. Not like the $13 I spent on the magic carpet mat, or $8 for the rubber duckies or $5 for the bath stickers.
Hooray for a solution! I'll keep you posted in a couple of months if it stains or has any issues.

What's in a name?

I named my daughter a unique name but for the most part we call her by her nickname. Her nickname is pretty unique too. Just before we decided to name her, I saw an actress with her name (nickname, no one has her real name). And then last week I was at Borders, I picked up a book, main character has her nickname. Today I pick up a book from the library, same name as nickname. Crazy! After all the books I've read (745 according to my goodreads list) it's only now that I'm coming across that name. So great, now my daughter has a trendy nickname. I guess I'll have to call her by her real name more often now.

Caltrain

This week I've attempted to take Caltrain to work again. It's been 2 years since I've commuted on the train. I stopped when I had my daughter. I just didn't see how I could drop her off at daycare and still ride the train. What made me change my mind? It's the stupid back to school traffic. My commute is only about 11 miles and it normally takes 20 minutes (no traffic) but now it's jumped to 30-40 min. Sucky! So I'm trying it this month to see how it works. I drive to my daughter's daycare, drop her off then drive to the station to take the train. It's a little backtracking but so far so good.
It makes me feel good riding the train again. I feel like I live in a big city, I feel like I'm helping the environment. Hopefully I can keep it up for a while. Of course, I decide to do this train thing when it's getting into winter.

My two favorite sports products right now

I've always had a stick of Body Glide that I used in triathlons for the swim portion but it wasn't until recently when my running partner mentioned using it for blisters on my toes in running and other parts of the body I was experiencing chaffing. I have to say that ever since her rec, I use it several times a week. I love it!

The next item is my Garmin 205. I love the GPS on it. I love that it tells me my speed/distance etc. I haven't even begun to use it's potential in training and I'm already happy. I use it biking and running. I just wish it was waterproof so I could do my full triathlon using it, I mean it claims multi-sport, wth. Anyways, maybe in a future model they'll fix that.

And now for what I want next. I call myself a camel. I can make it very far in races without drinking water but my hubby doesn't like that so he's worked with me on incorporating water in my workouts. So my new want is the fuel belt. I don't know how comfortable it would be but I definitely want to try one out. I've had the water bottle fanny pack looking item but as I ran it would bounce and was very irritating. I think with the water bottles spread out along the belt perhaps there won't be as much bouncing.

Sore and tired

I completed the San Jose Rock n Roll 1/2 Marathon. I have a new PR of just slightly over 2 hours, beating my last PR by 2 minutes. I was hoping for under 2 hours but just didn't have it in me to get there. My running partner got food poisoning so I ended up running with her husband A. It was good to have someone setting a pace for me or I don't know what I would've finished at. When I first got the phone call at 7am I thought to myself, I haven't run by myself in a race (tri's excluded) in years. I've always had a friend or my husband with me. But A came through and helped me pace myself for the first 9+ miles. Then I started to fade so I told him to take off. He finished in just under 2 hours. If only I could have kept up with him I may have achieved my goal. Oh well, guess next time.