Something to be Grateful For

I found this quote below about a year ago but only today does it really strike me as so true and strangely calming. It comforts me knowing there is great truth behind this quote for me. Perhaps, this is a sign of my healing....

"I have found something new for which to be grateful. It's morbid, but I'm grateful that I will never have to look forward to the deaths of the two people I loved most. I will never again have to deal with low numbers or high numbers on monitors and oxygen tanks or brain scans and radiation and wheelchairs. This holiday, it sucks like hell that I don't have parents, but now there is this gift I'm newly ready to accept- the realization that I was so magically, desperately, ruby-red loved. There's an equisite power in that, like knowing every road. It's enough to last me a few hundred more holidays, behind trees or raw in the wide open. I'm the luckiest free girl in the world."
-Wish I knew where this was from but today I cannot remember at all.

If I remember correctly, the article that I took this quote from was about a woman in her mid-twenties who had recently lost her mother just months after her father had passed away. They had both been very ill with different types of cancer at the end of their lives and she was their primary caretaker. Losing them like that was as difficult as you can imagine but she also found peace as well in the end of it all. They were no longer suffering and she wouldn't have to visit them in hospitals anymore. Everyone's pain had essentially ended. In a sense, she could finally stop hurting and begin grieving and face the healing process.

While, this woman's situation and mine are very different, I can still understand where she is coming from. I will never have to face ever seeing my parents go through an ounce of what this woman did. My parents will never grow old or get sick. I never have to worry about one of them getting Alzeihmers or other awful diseases. They will forever stay the ages that they were when they died. Most importantly, they died together and were at a happy place in their lives and knew that my sister and I were embarking on wonderful things in our lives. Of course, none of this makes losing them any easier but like the woman said in the quote, "I'm grateful that I will never have to look forward to the deaths of the two people I loved most."

LA Marathon Recap!

"If you want to run, run a mile. If you want to experience another life... run a marathon." -Emil Zatopek

My head has been full of mixed feelings about the Marathon so it's taken me a long time to write this particular post. I loved the experience and I hated the experience. It was amazing and it was awful. I enjoyed every second of it and I despised every second of it. There were moments of sheer bliss and moments of sheer agony. I can say for certain that I wouldn't trade those almost 6 hours back for anything in the world. The marathon pushed me more mentally and physically then I've ever been pushed before in my life.

Honestly, the first 20 miles went by fairly smoothly and the only complaint I had was the torrential downpour that we were constantly being hit with. Yes, folks, even in Los Angeles, it rains. Actually, this particular day, it didn't rain, it flooded! I've never seen rain like this here ever and long-time LA residents were shocked by it too. So, of course my clothes were soaking wet, my shoes and socks and everything else were wet. My poor hands were so frozen the entire run that they became numb and I think that they were beginning to turn blue even! At the finish line lots of people were being treated for Hypothermia.

Ok, back to the running part, so like I was saying, the first 20 miles weren't miserable and then I hit that "wall" that I've heard people talk about but haven't encountered myself. It was a serious wall alright. Everything that I've heard about the "wall" is correct and it's terrible. It's hard to explain exactly what it felt like... I felt like it took everything I had in me to take each step forward. I didn't have much more in me. I just kept saying to myself, "Only 6 more miles, only 6 more short miles." But those 6 miles were the longest miles of my life!!! I slowed way down and walked a bit more and slowed my running pace as well. One of my roommate's friends who ran the Marathon as well summed it up best, "the first 20 miles were easy; the last six, longer and more tortuous than the preceding 20!"

By mile 23, everything was hurting! I took out my phone during a rare dry moment out there and saw that my sister had called several times so I called her back. She asked me where I was and I told her that I had 3 miles to go. She then asked how I felt and I lost it. I began crying and just blubbered out, "not good". I'm not sure if it was hearing her voice and knowing that she was at the finish line waiting for me or that I wasn't going to be a quitter at mile 23, but I pushed through all the pain I was experiencing and crossed that finish line in just under 6 hours! I am proud to report that I was #14,038 out of 20,000 runners.

Here I am before the Marathon started:


After the Marathon:


Post-Marathon champagne my roommate got me! Yay!


As of today, I'm feeling much better and will probably be able to stop taking so much Aspirin soon. It still hurts to get up if I've been sitting for a long time but definitely not as much as Monday and yesterday. Now, the only thing really annoying me is that my iPod is still out of commission. Sadly, it got too wet on the run and will probably never be resuscitated. : (

So, have I inspired any of you to run a Marathon now?! Not sure if I'll run another one but there definitely is a part of me that wants to run one in better weather. We'll see.....

She Taught Me How to Love

This week's Mama Kat's Writers Workshop writing prompt that I chose was 2) 10 Things my mother taught me.

My mom and I were extremely close. Sometimes I have trouble breathing because I miss her so much. She and my father were taken too soon from this life and I certainly was not finished learning from either of them. Well, are we ever really finished learning from our parents?

Back on my mom's birthday in November, I wrote the following piece and I think it fits perfectly with this week's writing assignment. There may not be 10 exact things that my mother taught me but honestly, I wouldn't be able to pick just 10 things she taught me.


Today would have been my mom's 62nd birthday. My mom, Kathi, was my favorite person in the whole world. If you have been reading my blog for awhile, then I'm sure you know that I talk about her a lot. For those new followers, let me just tell you that my mom was my best friend. It's incredibly difficult going through life without her and I honestly don't know how I've gotten this far without my mom.

I know a lot of daughters don't feel this way about their moms so I know that my relationship with my mom was rare. I wish that I had really sat her down and told her how much that meant to me. For some reason, we didn't have too many serious conversations. I still would like to think that she knew how I felt. I could tell her anything. Seriously, anything. She never judged and never criticized. She just got it. I always felt comfortable divulging intimate details about my personal life to her, well, of course not e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g.

I've been keeping a journal since my parents died. Lately, I haven't really been writing in it like I should. Well, the week they died, my sister and I made two lists of things that made us think of our mom and dad.

Here is what was on our mom's list: bubble baths, The Temptations, anything easy listening, Twizzlers, scrapbooking, Singapore Slips, beach novels that she would never remember reading but really did, trips to a Tucson, AZ salon(Gadabout), Monopoly (she collected different editions from all over the world), daily trivia, stencil letters, awful singing but she still had fun, Christmas ornaments (we had one from every country we had ever been to on our Christmas tree), she wanted to be a translator for the UN, colorful and sometimes cheap jewelry, diet cherry coke, her amazing chocolate chip cookies, party mix, the best lasagna ever, getting sucked into any and every TV show that I made her watch with me, hugs, painful goodbyes always made her cry, Clementine(a stuffed monkey from Build a Bear), wandering in grocery stores and Target forever, magazines, comfort food, very smart, held hands during takeoff, loved children, reading aloud, movies, teaching stores, colorful pens, surprise presents, happy tears, big red apples, nose kisses, she dyed her hair since I can remember, always willing to do anything to help someone out and she has the power to make you feel like everything was going to be ok. Of course, there's so much more, but that's my list so far.

❤ Above everything else, I learned how to love from my mom. ❤

My Feet

This post is for The Red Dress Club's writing assignment, Red Writing Hood. This week's prompt was to write a short piece, either fiction or non-fiction, about something ugly - and find the beauty in it.

While running has done some awesome things for my body, there are a few bad things it has done to me as well.

This might be total over share but my feet have been looking pretty awful lately. We are talking never-ending blisters that refuse to heal completely, rough and cracked heels, dry peeling skin pretty much all over and basically just a general overall ugly appearance. Then, sadly, last week, I lost my first toe nail. Yep, I now no longer have a second toe nail on my left foot! I never thought I would be saying that. Who loses a toe nail?! Apparently, this is totally normal to runners! Geesh! Needless to say I haven't had a pedicure in months and stopped caring about painting my toe nails awhile ago. Why bother?

My feet DON'T look quite this bad but you get the idea.


Don't get me wrong though. I take care of my feet when I go on long runs. I wear proper sneakers, and thanks to my sister, I wear fancy shmancy socks. I apply the amazing Blister Block and Vaseline, baby powder and then I even put on mole skin on the hot spots of my feet in order to prevent blisters. Even though I take all these preventative measures, after a long run, I still manage to grimace when I take my shoes and socks off. After 10 miles, everything starts to suffer a little bit.

Despite this long list of negative characteristics of my feet, I still manage to think they are amazing. I find immense beauty in the fact that I have run countless miles on these feet. In the past two years, they have gotten me through two Half-Marathons, a 60 mile long walk, many short and long training runs, including a few 20 milers and next Sunday a Full-Marathon. For that I'll always be grateful to them. Perhaps, like the roughness of a persons hands show you how much they work with them, you can tell a lot about a person just from their feet. This sounds like something Forrest Gump said, right? Well, if this is true, then you can surely see that I've been using my feet a lot lately.

I'm thankful that these ugly feet have not given up on me and haven't given me any real pain or serious discomfort. I suppose beauty is pain though, right? Maybe that's why so many things in life can be considered ugly or painful and beautiful at the same time. My feet most certainly follow along with that thought. My feet may be ugly right now but they are also incredibly beautiful too.

Curling Irons are Evil!!/Wonderful World of Mini Tripods

This post is about the evils of curling irons and this awesome mini tripod on the right that I got in the mail recently to review on my blog. Yep, I have turned into one of those shameless bloggers that will review products! But, in all honesty, I really have been needing one of these so it came at the perfect time. As you all know my roommate and I make these awesome YouTube videos and usually we have to prop the camera against a book, a TV, a tree, really anything that we find so this tripod will make things a lot easier for us.

Now back to the evils that are curling irons for a bit... Last Saturday as I mentioned in a previous blog this week, I attended a fabulous 80's Prom Birthday Bash.

It was a lot of fun getting into my 80's wardrobe which of course means breaking out the hairspray, mousse and the dreaded curling iron.

I don't use my curling iron very often, especially not around my bangs! I'm not really entirely sure the proper technique to use a curling iron and therefore my curls usually end up looking rather messy and undone. Thanks to plenty of hairspray, I was actually somewhat impressed with how my hair was turning out this particular night. Perhaps I was getting too ambitious and cocky..who knows... I had been watching YouTube videos earlier in the day on how to do 80's style bangs and I thought I had it nailed down and could totally accomplish it. So, I went for it, I sprayed hair spray on my bangs, grabbed the curling iron and proceeded to 80's curl my bangs. I didn't go slowly like I should have and pay attention to the proximity of where my forehead and curling was. Thus, I burned my forehead. Not once. But twice. It was bad.

At the time, I cried out in pain but I knew I had to get ready and didn't have the time to really investigate the damage I had done. So, I finished my hair and thankfully, my huge 80's bangs covered any evidence of self-mutilation. However, the next day I soon realized what I had done to myself!!

These photos were taken two days ago so of course the two burns have slightly faded since last Saturday. It's pretty intense, right?! I still can't believe that that second I left the curling iron rest on my forehead was enough to cause all this damage! Thanks to aloe vera, they are looking and feeling much better now but a few days ago, they really hurt and looked like I had some kind of a skin issue on my forehead!

I took those pictures above with this really neat mini tripod I was sent. Yay! I received it from BudgetGadgets.com. They are an online retailer/wholesaler located in Shenzhen, China, dedicated to selling quality electronic gadgets and great service at wholesale price with free shipping to anywhere since 2003. I got an email from their PR manager several months ago and she asked me if I would be interested in reviewing a tripod and I told her yes, yes, of course!

Their online store sells accessories for iPods, iPhones and iPads, Cellphone Accessories, PC/Laptop Accessories, Video Game Accessories, Car Accessories, Sport, lasers, Toys and Hobbies, watches, etc.

So, anyway, back to this particular tripod, it's their portable flexible tripod for digital cameras. It's item #4652 and it sells on their website for $11.23. Their description on the site definitely accurately describes this tripod. Let's see, it enables extra security to ensure your camera is safely attached to it. I accidently dropped the tripod and the camera certainly stayed nice and snug in the tripod! Yay! This also proves that it stays connected to your camera for nearly instant setup. It is made of hard plastic, which is very strong and flexible. It can bend and rotate 360 degrees to form multiple shapes to best fit your tripod needs.
So, if this all doesn't sell you on this guy, nothing will! : )

The company also awesomely created a coupon for my visitors! The coupon code is leahainla5OFF. So when you shop on their website, BudgetGadgets.com, use this code at checkout and you will be given a 5% off discount site-wide. Pretty cool, huh? I certainly never thought that I would be given a discount code for a gadget website to offer my followers when I started this blog about a year ago! Too funny!

Running Post #4/Side Effects Thus Far

I have compiled the following list of observations I've made about myself since I've started running a lot more:

1. My first ever blood blister on my foot!!! Aaahhh!! Any advice on how to handle this? Leave it alone, right?
2. Incredibly sore/sprained calves-worst pain ever!
3. Under-arm rash..don't ask, it's not pleasant but I'm learning what are the right shirts to wear when I run now.
4. Scar on my pelvic bone where my iPod has been hitting it! Sheeesh!
5. General pain all over legs now whenever I kneel/squat/basically any sitting at all.
6. Overwhelming appetite/thirst after running!
7. Slight sunburn from running outside since I sweat off all the sunscreen.
8. Overspending on running music.. Hey, I need good music to run to.
9. Feeling absolutely exhausted after my long-run days.
10. Slowly but surely beginning to love running! : )

Despite all the pain and uncomfortableness I feel, I'll continue truckin' along because I know that I'm doing all of this for an amazing cause, to fight AIDS.

That's my motivation.

Running Post #1

This week I ran outside for the first time. I figured that it was time I get off the treadmill and experience the great outdoors on foot. I ran around my super cute neighborhood and it is totally cute-lots of family homes, awesome gardens full of blooming flowers, beautiful tall trees everywhere and very few cars and pedestrians. I never thought that I would be running outside but thanks to my bright idea to run a half marathon in September I gotta train. And when I say train, I mean that I got to bust my ass training for it. I am absolutely terrified of running and the idea of this marathon scares the crap out of me which is why I know it's something that I should do. They say you should do something everyday that scares you, well, this is my thing for the year.

Now I am totally pissed because I recently discovered that I must have pulled a muscle or something in my right calf because after about 5 minutes of running, I get this horrible intense pain. It's actually been happening for a long time but since I am running often now, I am more aware of it. Actually, I felt this same pain two years ago when I walked the 60 mile Breast Cancer Walk. However, at the time I thought it was just because that was a ton of walking on one weekend. Yet, here we are, almost two full years later and I still have this awful pain in my right calf. Well, everyone told me that there were going to setbacks with marathon training, I guess this is my first setback. I hope this is my first and only setback, even though I am sure I have several blisters and broken toenails to look forward to... : (

So obviously yesterday's and today's runs were not long at all due to this pain. In fact, sadly, I couldn't even quite run a mile, I do know that I will get better at this. I will get better at running and I'll figure out how to stop this calf muscle from hurting. I'm even keeping track of my progress on my very own excel spreadsheet. Yep, I'm a dork! But I think that it will help motivate me to run more every time.

"The miracle isn't that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start." -John Bingham, running speaker and writer