Bliss...

I had the good fortune of taking a few extra days off of work following the winter break. My intention is that I will get some home stuff taken care of - things that I can't ever seem to find the time for during the year like organizational things, giving the shower and tub a really good scrubbing, cleaning out some drawers and closets of items that haven't been touched in forever...you know, fun stuff like that. HA! I know it may seem silly to take vacation days to do things like this, but for me it does my mental state a world of good to start the year off feeling like I've accomplished some things around the house. The reality is that during the busy holiday season, there just isn't time for it. So now that the holidays have passed I can turn my focus.

Today was my first day at home and it didn't actually end up being what I had intended, but it was absolute PERFECTION. I may have only gotten the home office/workout room organized and cleaned, but it meant so much more more than that! Because what I did was totally kill my workout, enjoy a nice cup of coffee as my reward, get my home office organized/cleaned including finding homes for all the christmas gifts that were scattered around, and writing all my thank you cards.

All this while the rain gently fell outside (at this point anyways, as El Nino finally arrived in SoCal and has been making his presence known most of the day), the candles burned created a calming scent of vanilla and spice, and Spotify gave me wonderful music totally new to me on my Discovery playlist for the week. And the house...the house was at total peace and calm! Joshua was at school, Angelique and Tasha are in Hawaii, Brandon and Pat were at work, and Michelle was upstairs finding her own bliss. It was absolutely AH-MAZ-ING!!! I kind of just kept saying to myself "I can't believe how absolutely perfect today is"...and it was. Absolutely. Perfect. My soul is happy and at peace.

Tomorrow I can scrub the showers and clean the blinds. Today I will be happy to have such a blessed day in quiet reflection and preparation for an amazing year.

Make it awesome, friends!

We Be Jammin...

For my third Half Marathon on January 11 - the Citrus Heritage Run in Riverside, CA - I knew that music was going to be a HUGE aspect to my running endurance and strategy. When I ran my first half marathon in November 2010 I didn't really know what to expect. I had been training with some basic music podcasts that primarily consisted of snippets of popular songs or house-type music; which was working great for the training runs! Without having songs played in their entirety I was able to just get somewhat lost in the beat without boredom. But oh goodness...once I got to the race environment it was a very different story!!

Source

That half marathon consisted of about 6.5 miles of absolutely NOTHING entertaining - it was down a paved bike path that ran parallel to a dry riverbed. So it was 6.5 miles of dirt, shrubs, the other occasional runner, and a far away view of cars on a freeway. And that was it. Well, that and the hot, dry wind pelting me with sand from that dry riverbed. It was during that time of my own personal Exodus that I realized that the type of music that had been so helpful to me on my training runs was going to kill me drive me crazy now. I actually turned it off because it was just too much thumping in my head.

So I learned the really hard way how important music can be when it is playing in your head for several hours of what may, or may not, be excruciating pain and suffering. Okay, I'm just a *tad* overly dramatic. So when I built my Tinkerbell playlist in January 2012 I knew I wanted something that would keep me going if the going got tough. And I had a pretty good playlist then too and it made a world of difference.

Finally, it was time to build my Citrus playlist and I knew that there were going to be some perennial favorites on there, but that I also wanted to "juice" it up a bit (haha - punny, punny!) and add some new music. And I have to say that I absolutely LOVED my Citrus Playlist! So without further ado, here it is!

• Pompeii by Bastille
• Should Be Higher by Depeche Mode
• The One That Got Away by The Civil Wars
• Team by Lorde
• Party Rock Anthem by LMFAO
• Madness by Muse (one of my more recent favorites!)
• Conquistador by 30 Seconds to Mars
• All My Life by the Foo Fighters (an always on my playlists fave)
• Shake the Disease by Depeche Mode
• Timber by Pitbull featuring Ke$ha (a new favorite just added - love the harmonica as it reminds me of my Grandpa)
• If I Lose Myself by OneRepublic
• In the Mood by the Glenn Miller Orchestra (yes, this is old-time big band and it NEVER fails to get me wanting to dance in the streets even though I do not know Swing Dance at all...)
• One by Metallica
• Lose Yourself by Eminem
• I'm Shipping up to Boston by Dropkick Murphys (another perennial playlist fave)
• I Can Transform Ya by Chris Brown feat. Lil Wayne
• It's Time by Imagine Dragons
• We Won't Give Up by The Afters
• Let's Dance by Vanessa Hudgens (a guilty pleasure)
• I Lived by OneRepublic (THIS song right here gave me the BIGGEST kick in the pants during the race...I sang out loud and just realized that I LIVED! This is a definite keeper and will make return visits forever)
• The Rockafeller Skank by Fatboy Slim
• Shake it Out by Florence + the Machine
• My Songs Know What you Did...by Fall Out Boy (a most definite new favorite!)
• Right Now by Van Halen
• Barton Hollow by The Civil Wars
• Who's Going to Save the World by Swiss House Mafia
• Miss Jackson by Panic! at the Disco (another new add that I like a whole lot)
• Demons by Imagine Dragons (this is also a new add that is a keeper for sure!)
• Walking on Air by Kerli
• I Will Wait by Mumford & Sons
• Girl on Fire by Alicia Keys (how could I not have this song on there?)
• The Seven Deadly Sins by Flogging Molly
• On to the Next One by Jay-Z featuring Swizz Beats (a definite favorite, but explicit so be warned!)
• The Sinner in Me by Depeche Mode
• Called Out in the Dark by Snow Patrol (not a typical running song, but it really got me focused so it will most likely remain on the playlist for some time...)
• Like a G6 by Far East Movement
• Ni**as in Paris by Jay-Z and Kanye West
• Up in the Air by 30 Seconds to Mars
• Roar by Katy Perry (another one of those that I just had to include...definitely a keeper!)
• Sound of Madness by Shinedown
• The Truth About Love by P!nk
• Don't Stop Believin' by Journey
• Soothe My Soul by Depeche Mode
• Learning to Fly by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
• Give me Everything by Pitbull

And there you have it! You can see that there are several artists that are obvious favorites as they make multiple appearances: Depeche Mode, The Civil Wars, OneRepublic, 30 Seconds to Mars. And they are bands that just NEVER seem to let me down. I had some new additions and was happy for every single one of them: Roar, Girl on Fire, My Songs Know..., Demons, Timber, Miss Jackson. There were some that usually really give me a boost that I wasn't quite feeling this time so I may need to retire them for a bit: Party Rock Anthem, Walking on Air, Sound of Madness, Like a G6. But all in all I have to say that my playlist was pretty close to perfect for me.

So your turn - what are some of your current, or always reliable, favorites for your activity of choice? 

Playlist Thursday - 2012 Nominations

Today is a break from the normal (okay, I do realize that this is only my 3rd week of participating so I haven't really created a "normal" yet so bear with me here hahaha) routine of Playlist Thursday as Pavement Runner - AKA the ultrarunner extraordinaire guy that created it all - is doing his first Playlist Thursday awards.

So go check it out and then do some voting in his comments! And I'm not telling you who to vote for but I think y'all definitely need to put up some votes for Mumford & Sons I Will Wait and Fun.'s We Are Young. It's just too bad they are both in the same category. LOL

So go here and vote!

Playlist Thursday - Best of 2012

The Best of 2012!

Pavement Runner's original Playlist Thursday post for today is over on his blog right here - check it out...there's some awesome tunes over there!

This week’s theme was a great suggestion from Charlotte over at wildthingsrunfree.com — let’s look at the best songs of 2012. For the “something old,” I’m going to name an older song that made a comeback this year. Enjoy!
 
Something Old: Songs that are at least 5 years old.
Something Current: Songs that have been released within the past year.
Something to Consider: This is the wild card category. Feel free to list any song: old, current, guilty pleasure, underground, whatever.

So here's mine:

Something Old: I will admit that I kind of "forgot" about this song for quite some time, but it made it back onto my playlist this year and it never fails to get me moving when it pops up on shuffle. I probably wouldn't admit to listening to this song if you asked me in person though, so I will definitely classify it as a guilty pleasure. Take a step back in time to 2006 with J.T. and bring your own sexyback!

Justin Timberlake: Sexyback

Something Current: I just found Mumford & Sons this year...yeah, perhaps I was living in that "cave" that they speak of. No, seriously though - I heard their couple of songs on the radio over the past several years and I'll admit that when I first heard them I was pretty much thinking "whatever" You see, I'm one of those types of people that, for some songs/artists, have to let the music settle in for a bit first. Many times I need distance from it (AKA this means NOT hearing it a million times a day on the radio). Some music needs to settle in my bones and soul before it speaks to me. Mumford & Sons was definitely one of those things. But now that they are THERE...I could seriously listen to their albums a million times in a row and not tire of them. Okay, so maybe I do that already. Don't judge. ;) 

Mumford & Sons: I Will Wait

Something to Consider: This song may not seem like a traditional "workout" song, but when I'm out on the long runs I like to really keep it mixed up. Too much of the same sound and I just zone out but not in a good way. I stop focusing on the music and start thinking about how my legs hurt or I'm tired or I could be sitting at home drinking a nice cup of coffee instead of running down boring residential streets. You get the idea! And from a mental standpoint of where I spent some of 2012 just stressed out beyond belief, the chorus of this song spoke to me. This isn't everything you are. There's joy not far from here, I know there is - this isn't everything you are.

Snow Patrol: This Isn't Everything You Are

And there you have it - another Playlist Thursday! 

QOTD: What are some of your best songs of 2012?

Playlist Thursday - Old School Style!

So I just *discovered* Pavement Runner recently and it turns out that he does this thing called...okay, you guessed it from the picture above, right? Yeah, I'm not very good at building suspense! So the idea is that each Thursday you provide three songs: something old, something current and something to consider. Seeing how I love music and have it going pretty much constantly, I was all over this!!! What a fun way to share some awesome tunes and find others that I might not normally as anybody that does them can link from his page too. So here goes with my first EVER Playlist Thursday, brought to you by Pavement Runner.

I will admit that I was a total child of the 80's, from Southern California. If you aren't picturing Valley Girl or The Wedding Singer yet, then you should be. So now that I've set the stage, let's get down to business.

Something Old: So who doesn't absolutely love Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive"? This is a song that will forever be on my playlist because it will never get old.

Something Current: I was, and still am, a huge Depeche Mode fan. They were definitely "MY" band while I was in school. I remember sitting and listening (on cassette tape no less!) to Catching Up With Depeche Mode at least a million times. I would listen to a song then hit rewind and listen again. It was the soundtrack to my life all through the first year of high school. This is also a song that will forever and ever be on my playlists - Personal Jesus.

Usually not my type, but man - Dave Gahan is just so HAWT!

Something to Consider: I actually heard this song just this morning on the radio on my way into work and I found it to be very relevant to something one of my kids is going through and I made a mental note that I needed to share it with her, with the disclaimer to ignore the fact that it comes from the 80's and is full of synth pop that they feel is just "so ollllllddddddd" (of course accompanied with the requisite eye roll). So here it is Thompson Twins Hold Me Now.

Check out that awesome 80's hair!! hahahaha

So one last thing - let me leave with a picture of me in all my 80's glory...

Don't laugh - I was VERY cool...trust me. Hope you enjoy the tunes!