Music and Signs

Everyone knows how passionate I am about music, especially live music. There’s just something so raw and gritty about live music. I truly believe the saying that “Where Words Fail Music Speaks”. There have been so many times I am feeling a certain way and I can’t seem to find the right words and then a song comes on and all of sudden it hits me and POW there are the words I was searching for and then I’m like you (insert singer) get out of my head!! Being a Southern girl (Y’all I always will be no matter how long I live in New England) it’s the music that moves me, makes me move and touches my heart, soul and brain. I’m pretty sure that was the run on sentence to end all run on sentences but there are no rules in music so therefore there are no rules for this blog on said subject. I’d like to introduce you to some of the songs that have evoked feels and spoken to me as if they were written for me.  Cole Swindell has the privilege of being the first musician in my little series (it could take like 6 months to get the next one so yeah y'all read slowly)

A few months ago I was missing my dad a lot. I miss him every day but I was missing him something crazy. I’ve been looking for signs and literally said Dad seriously nothing? I went to go try and find some funny videos on YouTube to cheer me up and no lie the first recommended video was Cole Swindell “You should be here” It’s a song he wrote about his dad who passed away a few years ago as well. There was no reason for that to be the ONLY video in my recommended section (I just looked there are like 8 in there right now) but it was. He started singing, I started crying and I knew then it was a sign from my dad. I watch it all the time and I can’t wait for it to be on an album so I can hear it any time I want. The part of the video when people start to clap and he can’t sing for a second gets me every time.

I know all the words but it’s always this part I love the most.

One of those never forget it better stop and take all in kind of scenes

Everything is just right except one thing….

You should be here standing with your arm around me cutting up

Cracking a cold beer sayin cheers hey y’all it’s been a good year

It’s one of those moments it’s got your name written all over it and you know if I had just one wish it would be you didn’t have to miss this….

You should be here

Speaking of Cole Swindell my alarm is Hey Y’all cause who wants to stay in bed when there is practically a party on the night stand. Though I guess if he was jumping on my bed to wake me up that’d be better.  OMG he could be singing Get Up which is totally about concerts but make it about getting my behind outta bed. Guy is going places, wicked talented and I expect to see him headlining Gillette Stadium someday! Show #4 August 29th!

The Time I Quit My Garmin....Kinda

So for Christmas I got a super awesome Garmin Vivofit. My fitbit just wasn’t cutting it for what I wanted so I was more than pleased when mama got me one for Christmas! 

The first few months were great. I was meeting and or exceeding my 10,000 step goal every day especially on days when I ran. I was seriously Rock Star status. And then I started exploring the different tab and I found challenges.

 Curious, I clicked on it and thus started my descent into the rabbit hole. YOU GUYS you get to compete again total strangers to see who can win a challenge every week. So the first week I was placed in a 60k step challenge. I was like NO PROBLEMO! I ended up in like 7^th for the week. W….T….F I am not a 7^th place (6^th loser but I digress).

I ramped it up the next week and I WON! And I won AGAIN!

 Now with winning comes a cool “badge” on your app.

 I exceeded the challenge steps it bumped me up, it’s usually a 5k increase so for a while I was good and then one week I went somewhere or something and was walking a LOT, like 40,000 steps in a day! The damn thing bumped me up to 100k steps. WHOA let’s stop this horse right here! That’s about an average of 17k steps a day and the people in this category do not mess around. I started to PANIC, yes I panicked over a “virtual challenge” but I had been on a roll winning challenges. On day 1 I was in DEAD LAST with my 13k steps. DEAD FREAKING LAST! 

And then I found a loop hole, I’m not proud of this but I was in my car one day tapping my hand to the beat of the music and noticed my steps were increasing. So to test the theory I tried it again, by God in a short 10 minutes I had 1000 steps. But this is cheating I can’t really count those as steps, can I?

 That was the end of honesty in the competition for me. I tried to tell myself it was okay that I was switching arms and using a small weight when I was lifting my arms to get step credits. I literally became obsessed with winning this challenge, I would tap my hand at work, in the car, watching tv and so on. 

I can’t tell you how many steps I even took that week because it was so skewed by the non-steps. I won the challenge easily with my 110k steps, a bump up to 120! I won that week too. And then it bumped me to 130k and I knew I was in trouble. 21k steps A DAY! I literally started panicking. OVER A GLORIFIED PEDOMETER VIRTUAL CONTEST!!! I knew right then I had to quit, 

I wasn’t being honest with myself or my Garmin, I couldn’t figure out how to leave the challenge on my phone so I teetered between keeping the range going until I could but my brain (and my elbows) had enough. When I got home I logged onto my account and I felt so much relief pushing that Leave Challenge button. The pressure was gone! I couldn’t believe I had let something like that take over my life. I was literally skipping giddy!

 I thought about taking the Garmin off for a few days just to clear my head but it was as if the cheating side of me was gone when I deleted the challenges. I’m back to my 10-13k steps a day and content with that. I can’t see myself every joining the challenge groups again, maybe it was an addiction to those badges I got for winning the challenges but I’ll take boring badges every 100k then psycho crazy eyes Erin trying to beat the system. 

I laughed at myself when I was writing this which is good since the whole experience was highly traumatizing for me. On a side note I didn’t get hurt at all during this time period. Small victories people! That's it for now. Go outside and play, it's SUMMAH!

Rules for Dating my Teenage Niece

No. Just no.

I will make an exception when she is 24 and marries Ed Sheeran and they give me little ginger great nieces and nephews.

In all seriousness…

Rule #1- You hurt her I will hunt you down. Now her parents may make an empty threat to scare you but I am her crazy Aunt. Try me.

Rule #2- She can like you but I will never like you, she is MY Princess, not your bae which isn’t even a word.

Rule #3- She is a person not a conquest. Treat her as such.

Rule #4- I am everywhere. Seriously pull your pants up kid.

Rule #5- Refer to Rules 1-4

I’m not ready for boys or dating and I would like to lock her in her room until she is 24 but that’s not going to happen so I guess I will have to accept it but to all future boys that seek to date her I will have a 50 page application waiting for you. 

Tap tap, anyone here?

Wow so good thing I wasn't leaving a cliff hanger in my last blog. Let's recap the past couple of months:

YAY: Went to Antigua with mom.


BOO: Fell off horse in Antigua. Seriously my horse was an asshole, I would lead her away from tree branches and she would walk back into them. I swear she tried to drown me in the ocean. Falling off at the end was just the icing on the cake. 

YAY: Patriots won the Superbowl!!

BOO: We got like 908 feet of snow this winter. Ok maybe like 850 feet.

YAY: I bought a treadmill to train again

BOO: I fell down concrete steps at work and got banged up. Did I mention I tripped on rock salt and fell down the stair. That takes talent people!!!

So new year new goals right?

I talked my friend Lisa into a 1/2 marathon in October, We're pretty much pretending we've never run before and are training from scratch. It's super fun, right Lisa? Actually it hasn't been too bad but there are some days I just look at the treadmill and all I an say is 

But then I think of Lisa and I get on and run, after all it was my idea, but we get a MEDAL and BEER! 


It's almost baseball season which as a Red Sox fan is going to be great or painful, I got a mini package this year and I'll probably pop in some other games. After the winter we've had we better have a good summer!

Marathon Monday is in a few weeks, pretty excited I know a ton of people running so after the Sox game Lisa and I are going to plant ourselves and yell at people who are running twice the distance we will be, oh and we might be drinking beer. 

I also gave up peanut butter for Lent. I dream about peanut butter. This is pretty much our relationship.

So I promise to blog with fun stories. I mean training for a 1/2 marathon is SUPER fun! Along with healthy eating and all that blah blah crap! And you know tripping and falling along the way…

Do good things people!

I suck at blogging

Apparently I haven't blogged since February. Some people have noticed....

I'm going to do better. I have all kinds of injuries and fun stories from the year. Clearly I'll never get my book completed at this rate.

So stayed tuned kids. Big things are coming!!

I know I can't believe all the excitement either!!

Upcoming Runs! Hooray!

I’m getting back in the swing of things. Some days I’m still hard on myself about running but I am who I am and I’m going further than anyone on the couch! SO THERE! I have to say that I’m not really looking forward to the Shamrock Shuffle, my own reasons, one that are probably a coward’s way out, but I will blame Iceland on my slow if I show up performance. Not feeling it!

                                                    Oh whoops I forgot!

Once Heather pops out my new nephew (ok I’ll let her recover too!) we’ll train for the B.A.A 5k which is April 19 in Boston. It’s 2 days before the marathon and the course will take us across the Boston Marathon finish line as well. I’ve run in Boston a lot, but I think this run will be different.  I think there is a lot of emotion and love for a city behind this run. They opened the field to 10,000 so it’s kind of a big deal. 

The Color Vibe is coming to Manchester on April 27^th! The Mind Ninjas are at it again and I am sure no one will leave with any white left on their clothes. I’d appreciate no rain because that just really made for a miserable clean up! So sunny vibes!

I am most excited about the Hollis Fast 5k because my 6 year old super niece Adalee is going to be running with me. I keep telling her I hope I can keep up with her. It’s a downhill race and I thought it would be something special we could do together! So I’ll just chase her the entire time and probably have my best time ever!

                                                        He gets me

July is the Run to Home Base, which I am lucky enough to be sponsored by my company but I am still choosing to fundraise because it is an amazing cause! I missed out last year and while I’m not overly happy it’s in the middle of July I’ll take it! It’s still a cool feeling to run across home plate at Fenway Park! Or maybe I'll do this! 

Heather and I are trying to decide on a mud run, but so far it seems as if there is nothing at the time we want or that we can both do or that didn’t try to kill me (Spartan Run I’m talking to you!) We’ll see what we end up doing. Every race has its ups and downs so it’s a matter of finding something that fits “us”. The last thing we want to do is hate it!

I’m not going to lie when I say a nice shiny medal or good bling really help motivate me! And beer and cupcakes....mmmm cupcakes!

Daily Mantra:  “Focus and finish.”

An Open letter to running...

Dear Running,

I feel like we need to talk. It’s been a rough year for us. You were there but I didn’t appreciate you the way I should of. I lost my passion for you. And then someone came along and I thought it would help me find my way back to you. It didn’t. It made me resent you. I didn’t think I was good enough to be with you anymore. I forgot why I started running and only saw that I was slow and the person who was supposed to support me only made me feel bad about the effort. And then I figured out that something needed to change. I was going to need to break up with one of you. And so now I ask you for a second chance to be a permanent prominent place in my life. I let the negative person go and thought I would miss them, but I still missed you. A lot! So I think we should start over. This time, with better results. Better stride, better times and most of all a better attitude over all. I want to do this for me. I want to remember running and smiling because I was having fun. I may not ever be the fastest person out there but I will always cross the finish line and know that I did something to better myself. In a way letting go of the negative “support” (tough love I think is what it was called) allowed me to have the greatest support someone can have. The support of myself. And so now I’m going to lace up my sneakers, fire up the running app and turn on some good music and just run, not fast, not far, not for anyone else but me.  I’m glad we had this talk and I can’t wait to see where our relationship goes in the future.

Yours for miles and miles,

Erin