{Wasted Outfit}

You ever feel this way? I can say today was not one of those days. Neither was yesterday. I didn't take a picture of either outfit, surprisingly, but I got so many compliments on Monday's outfit. I was able to make Polyvore outfits of what I wore though haha.

This is what I wore Monday. Seriously, I can't even begin to tell you how many compliments I received. It was pretty nice. :)

The other outfit I ran into my ex in. It was great and I felt great. :) The Polyvore outfit just doesn't do it justice but I like it.

So, that's that. Otherwise, things are going pretty good. I'm finishing up my Bachelor's degree and will be done with classes December. Talk about excited. My mom and Aunt are coming up for a visit also this weekend, so I'd like to get done with this week's school work by Thursday so I won't have to worry about it. We're going to the Avery Brewing 20th Anniversary Party Sunday.  :)

{Fall in Colorado}

So, one of things I've been wanting to do is drive around Colorado during Fall time to take many photographs. Fall in Colorado is absolutely beautiful. I know many other states are just as beautiful and I've got plans to visit them as well but I'm already here in Colorado, so it's my first trip of photographs I'm going to take.

I saw these on Pinterest and it's so easily doable that it is most definitely going to get done.

Crystal Mill in Marble, Colorado

Aspen Road in Boulder, Colorado

The Boulder, CO one I'll be able to do first since it's not far from here at all, only about 45 minutes away. Marble, CO on the other hand is about a 4 hour drive. It may call for an overnight stay. I also plan on driving North on 285 to Estes Park as I've been told that's a beautiful drive as well. I think I can get the Boulder and 285 drive done during one of my 4 day breaks. The Marble, CO drive will have to be done on 2 of my off days during another break.

I also found this website Colorado Fall Foliage Drives that has more scenic routes to take during the fall. I'm pretty excited since fall is my favorite season. I love everything about it: smells, crisp & cool air, apple cider, pumpkin farms, the changing of the leaves. You name it, I love it.

From Pinterest

I know Fall and Winter are about plants dying but for me it always feels like rebirth. Like anything and everything is possible and life is renewing again.

{Funny thing...}

Almost daily I think of something to make a post about.  Daily I forget to make said post. So, one thing I've wanted to make a post about is my monthly 5k races. I am still running in them. I even bought the next 5 months worth of registrations. The only thing that makes that scary is my work schedule. My work schedule is so crazy, but known, that I scheduled these races on days I know I have off. If a race day changes (like this months), it could definitely throw a kink in things since it seems like for the rest of the year I'm working most weekends.

Anyway, so on to my previous races! I don't think I spoke about May, June, or July's races. May was the Drop Your Drawers and Run Wild 5k. This race benefits kids in need getting underwear. For instance, they sent a whole bunch of underwear to Oklahoma after the huge tornado. This run was at what's become my favorite race park, City Park and afterwards there was a private after party at the Denver Zoo with 2 drink tickets (beer or wine). I had some pink ruffled panties I'd bought for a Halloween costume one year so I wore those over my running pants and an awesome tank-top my parents bought me for my birthday (an early b-day present).

 

Seriously, the green man photo is positively my favorite!

June was a 5k race in Estes Park, Colorado. This is an absolutely beautiful place to run but terrible to do so because of the elevation. I've become use to running here in Aurora at 5,471 ft above sea level. As use to it as you can get anyway. The beginning elevation for the Estes Park 5k is 7,522 ft above sea level! While it may not seem like much of a difference, and I naively thought this as well, it was terrible. When I began running I immediately felt it. To top it all off we gained about 100 feet in elevation in the first mile and a half. I have no problems admitting I walked most of the first 1.5 miles of this race. The nice thing though is the last 1.5 miles were ALL downhill...steeply downhill but that part was nice.

The Stanley Hotel
(The inspiration for the book/movie The Shining by Stephen King.
The TV series was filmed here also.)

The Stanley is the white building on the left side of the photo

The view of of the Rockies on my drive to Estes Park, Colorado

If anyone ever gets a chance to visit Estes Park, CO and Rocky Mountain National Park, I highly recommend it. It's positively beautiful. I can only hope that I'll never run a race in higher elevation again! haha!

July's race was terrible. It was the Firefly Run and was supposed to be on a Saturday night at City Park (my favorite park to run a race in). The Firefly is a night run with glow stick goods and good music and parties and all that jazz.  It was moved though to Friday night at Dick's Sporting Goods Park. Luckily, Friday night worked with my work schedule. The picture of the running route at Dick's did not look promising though. It looked like it was through a lot of parking lot. I tried to keep an open mind though. Oh, we had to pay $5 for parking also! So far, all of my races have had street parking or free parking.  Well, I get there and the pre-race party seemed fun enough. I was by myself though (as I am for all my races but one so far) and I'm a shy person so there's only so much fun that can be had!  The race began and it was entirely through the parking lots of Dick's Sporting Goods Park. Entire. Race. After 1.5 miles the ankle I had surgery on a few years ago began hurting. It occasionally hurts me but usually stops after a little bit. This time, however, it did not stop. I'm pretty sure I began overcompensating for it because then my hip on the same side began hurting. Really bad. It was terrible and the most pain I've ever been in while running. I did stop to walk to kind of walk out the pain but walking just seemed to make it worse. I didn't stick around afterwards for the post- race party. I was in too much pain and not happy with just having ran around the parking lot I had to pay an extra $5 to park my car in.

I can only hope none of my races get moved to this location again because I just won't run it.

These are my next 5 races:

August

September

October

November - Color Run

December

Ok. Whew. What a long post! Sorry guys, it's what I get for waiting so long to post!

{Suicide}

This is a touchy subject but one I feel like I have to talk about right now.

An acquaintance of mine has taken her own life. I didn't know her well but hung out with her a time or two. She's the second person I know to take their own life and it makes me so incredibly sad but mostly angry.  How dare you put the people you love through this? Do you even know it's almost always your loved ones who have to find your body? Clean-up your mess? Get through their own life wondering why? They have to GET through their life without you. They have to survive the emotional trauma you have put them through. They have to wonder for the rest of their lives if there is just one thing they could have done to help you get through your own emotional black hole.

I've suffered through depression. It's not something I've ever sought help on but maybe I should. I NEVER want to put my loved ones through this though. When I do go into my own depressive black hole I help climb myself out of it by thinking of my loved ones. It's not anything I'd ever write about on here but my personal, hand-written journal gets to bear the brunt of those emotions. I think about my niece, who is more precious to me than anything. She's so incredibly young also that I could not even begin to think of what ending my own life would do to her, especially since we have such a close bond.

Seeing the after-effects of two people I know end their own life, it's just selfish. If you really knew what you put your loved ones through and could see just how much they love you and care about you, I'd bet anything you would think twice about ending your own life.