Remembering 2013 & Cheers to 2014

It has been quite the year. There is no doubt it was life changing. It was full of so much fun, new experiences, a few breakdowns, stress, memories, and lots and lots of love.

We started the year off with a big snow storm and I enjoyed a few days off work, and I knew these may be my last snow days for awhile

 Brandon traveled to Guatemala for a medical mission trip

Had my first of three bridal showers, it is such a blessing to have so many wonderful people in my life who support Brandon and I.

Headed to Nashville for my bachelorette party. It was a weekend I will never forget!

We found out we were moving to Orlando, Florida! The nerves and stress began to settle in as we had to plan for a move to a new city and I began the stress of figuring out where my next career path would go.

We got to meet two of the newest members of the "Squad" as two of our best friends had two beautiful little boys in May.

Brandon graduated medical school and became Dr. Alexander. I couldn't be more proud of him and more happy to be the women to walk by his side during his journey to make it to graduation and beyond.

A week later, we tied the knot and the whole weekend was just another reminder how lucky we are to have so many wonderful people in our lives. It was a "pinch-me, is this real life" day.

Spent our honeymoon in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. It was perfect and I can't wait to plan another trip!

We made the long move to Orlando, FL. We have adjusted very well and take advantage of all Florida has to offer. We miss all of our family and friends in MO, but if we have to move, Florida is the place to be.

 I spent the rest of the summer in MO spending lots of time with friends and family and celebrating the wedding of another great friend.

 I ended the summer with getting LASIK eye surgery and graduating from UMKC with my Masters of Arts in Education. I proudly earned academic honors and graduated with a 3.89 (that one dumb B from the spring semester!). Many tears and late nights were spent achieving that degree in two years while working full time and one part time job, proud of it and glad it's over.

My first trip back to MO was to celebrate one of my best friends weddings. I was so honored to be her Maid of Honor!

We celebrated Thanksgiving with my family in Orlando and traveled to St. Louis for Christmas.

2013 has been a blessed year for us. I know there are many more blessings ahead of us, but to be honest. I'm ready for a low key year. Hoping for relaxation in 2014.

**Who can help get the Pinterest button off my pages? I can't find the URL in my template to remove it***

Alexander Family Christmas

I was so excited to throw our first party and combine all the things I love! 

Decorating my home for guests, finally using a lot of our wedding presents that have stayed in boxes, downing sangria, and playing drinking games.

Brandon first introduced me to Christmas Vacation when we started dating, I have no idea how I had never seen this movie till then, but I've been making up for lost time. And what goes great with awesome Christmas movies? Awesome drinking games to play along with awesome Christmas movies. Thanks to one of my favorite blogs Little Baby Garvin I used her amazing rules.

All of my Christmas decorations come from pre & post Christmas sales. Almost all of it came from Target last year. I also hit the clearance jackpot at Target two days ago. They were getting ahead of the game, but I'm not complaining. I scored lots of clearance Christmas kitchen goodies--most expensive piece was a snowflake bowl for $8. Who can argue with that?

I made Winter Sangria the night before and created homemade potpourri, both were equally amazing.

Winter Sangria:

1 bottle of Pinot

1 bottle sparkling apple cider

Couple bits of mint

1 cup cranberries

1 apple sliced

1 orange sliced

Stove Potpourri:

4 cups water (boil)

1 cup cranberries

Couple bay leaves

Whole Cloves

Cinnamon sticks

1 orange sliced

Brandon's shirt is from Khols & mine is from the boy's section in Target

 Couldn't resist---I SAID FREEZE!

I have made it a mission to have the Alexander Family Christmas party every year from now on!

Training Kick Off- 2 Miles

5:45 am, Saturday morning, sun isn't even up yet. But I am awake and suiting up for a morning run...

Excuse me? 

That's why Team In Training is such a vital necessity for my training. I would never do something like that on my own, I barely got out of bed as it is.

But I did it and I completed my first training day of 2 miles!
I warmed up with a fast walk for 5 minutes, ran about a mile and ended with a five minute cool down.

After we had all completed our miles, we celebrated with breakfast, sharing our stories and reasons we joined Team In Training, and got to hear from our Honored Hero.

Every Team In Training event has an Honored Hero that we run for. Our hero for Nike is named Jarred and he was diagnosed with Leukemia at the end of his senior year of high school. He is now in remission and studying journalism at UCF. It was so good to hear his story and see in person, the reason we are doing what we are doing.

Thank the good Lord, I live in Florida. I couldn't imagine (& wouldn't) train during the winter if I lived ANYWHERE else!

 I have hit my goal of 1/4 for November, but I feel like I'm hitting a bump on my second 1/4 goal of getting halfway to my commitment. The holidays and crazy life schedules are putting a damper in my fundraising, but as I continue to rack up the miles, I will continue to promote and hope that I can keep getting donations.
I want to see more little ones with shirts like this...don't you? 

Please donate to my fundraising page at http://pages.teamintraining.org/ncfl/nikewhlf14/kalexanjdj to make your stand against blood cancer today. Every dollar helps and every dollar goes to the direct mission of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. 

If you are wondering where exactly your money is going, please visit my previous post at Where is my Donation Going?

Fundraising & Running Update
Miles: 2
Money Raised: $855.00
Percentage to Complete: 27%
Amount left to go:  $2,345
Days till Race: 131

Where is my donation going?

Yes we can.

Thanks to my generous donations, I have reached my first goal of $800!! I am 25% to my total! I can't believe how much support I have gotten from my family and friends. But I'm still not there yet and it's on to my next goal of another $800 by December 31st.

This past weekend I worked at the Space Coast Marathon & Half Marathon in Cocoa, FL. It was my first time being a part of an event with Team In Training. If I ever had any doubt about if I could run a half marathon, it was squashed watching over 5,000 runners of all ages, shapes, & sizes run not only half marathons, but full ones too! I was so inspired by all the hard work I saw go into this event.

Team In Training had 62 participants run and they raised over $82,000!! So my $3,200 seems like pocket change.

Since today is #GivingTuesday I wanted to let me friends and family know where their money is going when they make a donation to my fundraising goal.

LLS is the world's largest voluntary (nonprofit) health organization dedicated to funding blood cancer research and providing education and patient services.

78% of every dollar raised goes directly to mission activities.

Since 1949, LLS, with your help, has invested almost $1 billion in research to advance therapies and save lives. 

But what is YOUR money going to for ME and why is my fundraising goal so high? 

Each race has it's own individual standard of cost, both to the participant and the organization who is running the event. Because my race requires a 3 night hotel stay, my fundraising commitment has been raised to cover that cost so that 78% of my total is still going directly into the mission. The donator also is not paying for my transporation to DC, that cost is on me.

Please donate today, and make a difference in the lives of many touched by blood cancer. As you can see, every dollar DOES make a difference!

Kate's Team In Training Page

Mile 1

My training officially starts on December 14th. That will be day one of the 6am Saturday wake up calls, meeting my team at our training sight, and racking up those miles.

My focus has been getting a good start on my fundraising, and thanks to my amazing family and friends, I can't believe I am just $45 short of my first goal of $800 by November 30th!

I'm currently holding on to three jobs, working at LLS during the day, 15-20 hours at the local YMCA in the evenings and weekends, and I am usually subbing for a local private school at least once a week, so finding time to start training on my own has been tough.

I had hoped by working at the Y, I would be more motivated to workout..well, when you work there 4-5 times a week, on my one evening off, I don't really feel like going into "work" to workout.

Luckily, there are 25 YMCA locations in Central Florida, so one evening I was able to go to a different site and get a start on building up a little pre-training endurance.

I have flat feet and it causes really bad shin splints. I had special shoe incerts made for me in high school that help support my falling arch. It helps, but never prevents it. So, it's important for me to start slow.

I was on the track and field team from 6th grade through senior year of high school. I enjoyed being active and part of the team, but I HATED running. My sport specialities included races that were over quickly and required very little running. I ran/jumped 100 meter hurtles for 7 years and my senior year I started triple jump.

As you can see, I prefered events that are over very quickly....

I used to skip out of our long runs, find ways to avoid them, or jump in with friends who had already ran half the workout and say I did it too (sorry Coach Ski).

So, that is why running a 1/2 marathon is going to be such a struggle for me. I don't enjoy running, I don't do it often, I get bored, my mind wanders, and I almost always talk myself out of it.

I went to the gym the other night and ran my first mile. YIPPEE! Now, I know running on a treadmill is very different than running outside, but I figured it's a good way to get my endurance built up before the training begins.

Brisk walk for half a mile(4.0-4.5 level)

Fast-paced run for a mile (5.5-6.0 level)

Brisk walk for half a mile (4.0)

Running about a 10-11 minute mile.

I ended the evening with an hour and half ballet class, getting back to my dancer roots. 

As hard as training is going to be, it is no where near how tough fighting cancer is for patients. Please help me raise money for the LLS and their fight against blood cancer. Please join me in this fight by donating to my fundraising page:

Kate's TNT Fundraising Page

*UPDATE: thanks to my lovely bestie Sara, I am only $20 away from my FIRST GOAL, BOOM!*

20/20

LASIK eye surgery was the best decision I ever made, and I want to tell you why.

I got glasses when I was in third grade. In all honesty, my best friend had glasses, so I failed my eye exam at school so I could go to the eye doctor and get glasses just like her…stupid I know, but I was 8, we all do stupid things.

I may not have needed them right away, but my dad has had glasses almost his entire life, so it was inevitable that I would get them eventually. 

Turns out I hated wearing glasses, so I ended up squinting my way through school for the next three years until I got to 6th grade and had no choice but to do something about it. I was able to get soft contact lenses and wore them every day for the next 15 years. My eye sight kept getting worse and every year I had to get stronger and stronger prescriptions. 

Although, I am grateful for contacts, they were so annoying. Swimming was tough, they got dry, I couldn't' sleep in them, and if I lost one I was screwed.

Even the morning after my wedding I couldn't find where I had kept the pair I had been wearing and I didn't have any extras, I was almost going to have to wear my glasses all the honeymoon…no way!

I had been wanting to get LASIK eye surgery for many years, but never had the money and kept putting it off. I also was lazy about making an eye doctor appointment, so for three years I didn't go to the doctor. I had been putting money into a health savings account for a year and half and I told myself, when I went to the eye doctor, if my eye sight hadn't changed in three years, I would go ahead with the surgery.

Well, it hadn't changed and I made my consultation. My eye doctor said my eyes were the perfect candidate for the surgery, I was the right age, the right blindness, and they took well to the pressure. So I bit the bullet and made the surgery appointment!

I was nervous about it, but asked many friends about their experiences, and everyone said positive things!

They tested my eyes before and the doctor said the only thing I could see was the large E on the chart, and it was still blurry. I was suited up for surgery and waited my turn. My doctor only does surgeries on Thursdays, so everyone there was in the for the same thing. The surgery room is out in the open and you can choose to watch the other patients…I chose not too, but it was nice to see each one come out happy.

Then it was my turn. They had me lay down on the bed and put numbing drops in each eye. Next, they put springs in my right eye to keep it open--I was most nervous for this part, but I couldn't feel a thing. And I was moved under the machine. The doctor told me exactly what was going to happen, so I was prepared. First there was pressure on my eye, that caused my eye to black out for a few seconds, then my vision slowly came back. He then used a blade to cut the time layer (couldn't even feel it). Then came the laser. I first say a red dot and I focused on that, as the laser happened the red dot began looking more like a firework and then it stopped! The doctor moved the flap back over my eye, smoothed it out, and it was over! He did the left eye and it was all done. I was in and out in less than 10 minutes. And right away I could see 75% better. It was amazing.

They took me back to the exam room and already I could read the lines on the board. It was really quite amazing.

I got to leave in some sweet shades and my sister in law drove us home. My eyes were uncomfortable but not painful. I slept for a few hours and kept up with my drops. Again, they were uncomfortable, but I was never in pain. Felt sort of like when my contacts would feel dry, or like I had something in it, but this time I couldn't make it go away. I was able to drive to St. Louis the next day!

My drops were white, so it looked like I was crying milk

I am now over three months post op and have 20/20 in my right eye and 20/15 in my left! At night I still have some rings around lights, but it doesn't cause any problems.

Seriously, if you are even considering in the slightest getting LASIK I will recommend it 110%! Even to this day, when I'm getting ready for bed or work, I am relieved I don't have to deal with contacts, I can wake up and see right away, and I can fall asleep watching TV.