fun | jenojoon

Jan 11 2012

Do Stuff: Run a 5K!

I want to run here!

My friend Hillary Libby took this pic. She is a great source of inspiration for me as she trail runs and posts fabulous photos like this!

One of my goals for a long time has been to run a 5k race. I’m not a natural runner but I love the idea of running and the freedom that comes with it. When I see people running effortlessly around town I always think it looks so fun.

Last spring I started the Couch 2 5k training outlined on this site and was really enjoying it until I was sidelined by a yoga-induced heal injury. I had to stop all physical activity and undergo physical therapy for a while. I didn’t get back into running after I was given the go ahead to start exercising again. I had kinda moved on to other things, but it was still there in my mind and on my goal lists.

The Couch 2 5k training is a nine week program that gets you from not running (‘couch’ potato) to running a 5k within that timeframe. I know lots of people who have used the program to get started and are now avid and regular runners. I would love to be among that crowd!

Last week (first week of the new year) I started running again. I’m using the Get Running iPhone app. It costs $2.99 and is totally worth it in my opinion. It guides you through each run- three times a week. You can listen to music while using the app and pause the program if needed and it tracks your runs. I really like it and it is keeping me motivated. Each workout is about 30 minutes- five minute warm up- walk/run for the allotted time- and then a five minute cool down.

Currently I’m running three times a week in addition to doing Turbo Fire six days a week. The runs are short enough and not overly intense that they are a nice addition to my cardio and stretching with the Turbo Fire program. It is a time commitment, but something I really enjoy (physically as well as mentally).

I’m planning to run a 5k in March. I may just do one race and scratch it off my ‘bucket list’ or it may become a ‘soulmate’ workout. I’m excited to see what happens!

Here’s the playlist I created for my training. I like to listen on random because this list is random! BUT, all the songs give me tons of energy. :)

Jan 07 2012

2 Comments

adventures, baked treats, cats, do stuff, food, fun, halloween, holidays, in the kitchen, life, loveliness, nachos, travel, vegan food, Vegan MoFo

2011- A Year in Cell Phone Photos

I take lots of pics on my phone- who doesn’t, right? So I thought it would be fun to take a walk down memory lane via phone photos! I tried not to overload you on FOOD pics and CAT pics… ;) Here we go:

In January I made vegan waffles!

in February we adopted Nathan!

in March I went to Washington, DC with two of my besties! this is bestie Joe

and this is bestie Anna- that's the White House behind us

In April we went on THE BEST vacay evarr! this is Joe and David in Philly!

in May we got new bicycles! mine has a basket, cup holder, and a bell!

In June I went to Denver for a really great conference. I love Denver!

in July it was HOT!

also in July, we went to a Dodger game on a beautiful Saturday afternoon

in August I made 'sundried' tomatoes in the dehydrator- one of my better ideas!

in September I flew to Vegas for PhotoShop World in a private jet!! it ruled.

in October I blogged about vegan nachos for Vegan MOFO- it was a delicious month!

also in October, David and I were scary Halloween Clowns!!!!!

also in October I made pumpkin chocolate spider cupcakes!

aaaaaand in October I made these cute pumpkin-shaped sugar cookies!

in November I hosted the 2nd Annual Punkin' Partay! All pumpkin treats and drinks!

also in November David and I got new glasses and had beachy adventures!

in December these puppies escaped from the neighbor's yard and frolicked in my yard!

also in December I made these super cute (I mean scary) MONSTER cookies for my nephew's bday!

my nephew Jake turned NINE in December!

we lost our precious Bas in December but Nathan and Pepper are keeping his memory alive. here they are snuggling in Bas' tuffy bed

So there’s my year in review. It was hard to pick just one or two pics for each month. Looking back, I had a REALLY great year for the most part. It ended on a sad note with the loss of our kitty friend Bas, but it was nice to reflect on all the positive that did happen throughout the year.

Here’s to a wonderful 2012 with all kinds of fun adventures on the horizon! Cheers!

Dec 15 2011

Weekend Adventures: Redondo Beach Pier

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving was a vacation day for me and David worked a half day. We were heading south to see a band play that evening in Torrance, CA, but knew we needed to leave pretty early to bypass some of the holiday traffic in Los Angeles.

We got very lucky with the traffic most of the way and took surface streets once we were deep in the heart of LA. We almost always take surface streets because it is so much more fun! There’s always stuff to look at and if you see a little shop or something interesting you can just pull over and go in!

We got to Torrance with a few hours to kill before the show and we headed to the Redondo Beach Pier. Neither of us had ever been there that we could recall. It was dark out and there were lots of neat lights and lighted signs around. There was a creepy 80s style arcade with this fun/creepy clown mural out front that I made David pose in front of in his best gangsta fashion:

fun? factory ;)

We saw some cool boats, neat birds and some seals (my favorite!). The beach surrounding the wharf area was very pretty. But my favorite thing was this awesome sign with lighted balls for Tony’s! It was a restaurant/bar that I’m sure has been on this pier forever (there was even this sign telling us that- Old Tony’s!)

I imagine this pier is packed with kids and families and strolling lovers during the day, but it was really fun to be here the night before a holiday when it was mostly deserted. We wandered around for a long time just looking at stuff. It was a really fun way to start our super long holiday weekend.

Dec 11 2011

7 Random Things From My Childhood

A few weeks ago the darling Heidi of the blog Banana Buzzbomb tagged me in a 7 Random Things post. I LOVE reading lists and Q & A’s about people. Getting to know the little bits and pieces about people is so fun. Heidi is like a little ray of positive, rainbow/sunshine! She is so much fun to follow on twitter and on her blog.

So in honor of Heidi and in case you are curious, here are seven random things about me. But with a twist- they are all things about my childhood:

1. When I was little I wanted to be a ‘part-time comedian/part-time veterinarian’ when I grew up. I never understood why my parents and other grown ups thought that was soooo funny. Now I get it. ;)

2. I had a beloved China doll that was a Swedish man/skier. I wanted that doll so bad! I guess I saw it in a boutique with my mom or something because it was definitely not a kids’ toy. But my mom got him for me and I named him Sven. I loved him so much. He has mysteriously disappeared these days. :( Later I got a frog man doll and I named him Sven Jr. as an homage to Sven Sr.

3. I played the cello. I loved it (or the idea of it) but I wasn’t very good and I didn’t practice as often as I should have. When I did practice and messed up I would hit the strings with the bow and make crazy noise to de-stress. This must have led to my love of loud punk-rock later in life.

4. Our family dog was Sammy. He was strictly an outside dog (with his own heat-lamp heated doggie house in the garage). When no one was looking I would let Sammy in and act like he just ran past me. He never just hung out calmly like I hoped. He’d run straight for the kitchen garbage. Then he had to go back out. This was back before we knew about Cesar Milan and calm-assertiveness and all that… ;)

5. My older sister was really into rap and hip hop music. I was not! I was into new wave and punk. But she had the car and the pullout Alpine stereo (HA!). I pretended to hate her music and I was really embarrassed to pull into the school parking lot with the Alpine bumpin’ Eazy E… but I secretly loved it.

6. I loved to cook and bake (and, of course, still do!). I must have been a pretty mature kid because my very protective mom let me make the salad for dinner every night. I used the biggest knife we had to cut all the veggies. I can remember being, like, seven or eight and chopping the salad every night. She also let my sister and me use the oven for cookies any time we wanted. She was probably right there with us, but it seems like we had free reign of the kitchen appliances.

7. I had a brown 10-speed bike (the hipsters would love it today!). I used to pretend it was a black Trans-Am with a purple pinstripe with my name on it. (I was with eight or nine- don’t judge!)

So there’s my random things. I’d love to hear some random (and embarrassing) things about you too!

Dec 08 2011

2 Comments

adventures, food, fun, life, travel, vegan food

Weekend Adventures: Pizza and Glasses!

This is my first installment of a new regular feature: Weekend Adventures! I try to always have at least one adventure each weekend. This doesn’t mean I’m always off on a road trip or exploring pirate ships or something… a weekend adventure could even mean staying home and baking. But to me, the ‘adventure’ part comes strictly from your attitude. If I look at two (and a half if you include Friday afternoon/night) days of potential with excitement and I’m open to what comes along, then it is an adventure! A few weeks ago was a jam-packed weekend full of fun- a concert Friday night; a road trip Saturday; brunch, shopping and then napping and baking on Sunday… so much adventure to be had! So I’m going to focus on Saturday.

David and I had this little day trip planned for over a month and it was pretty much centered on eating delicious pizza. The rest just fell into place.

After sleeping in and lazing around with kitties we headed down to Los Angeles (about an hour and 45 minutes drive) to hit up The Original Pizza Cookery for vegan pizza for me and non-vegan pizza for David. The Pizza Cookery has a full two page spread on their menu dedicated to vegan options! (they also have tons of gluten free options if you need that kind of thing) They automatically bring complimentary (and all you can eat!) garlic butter rolls to the table and you can request their vegan version if you like! And they’ll bring both versions if you ask.

I ordered a medium pizza just for me so I had tons of leftovers. I got the Southwestern pizza with Daiya mozzarella (they use Follow Your Heart vegan cheese unless you request the Daiya). The Southwestern comes with BBQ pizza sauce, vegan chicken, cilantro, and red onion. From past experience I had them leave the red onion off- just not my thing. So the pizza was as insane as I knew it would be. I ate a couple garlic rolls and a few slices of pizza and was set for the rest of the adventure-day!

delicious vegan pizza

Fully fed, David and I took the long way down to Venice Beach to wander, people watch, and oh, just maybe, get new glasses! We’re both a bit obsessed with glasses. David more so than me, probably because he needs glasses to see always! I only need them to see certain things… Earlier this year we discovered Good See Co., a wonderland of thousands and thousands of eyeglass and sunglass frames. And they can put your prescription in onsite in about 30 minutes. (and they are willing to negotiate on price- which is fun!)

We wandered the store and both found frames we were in love with. We negotiated a good deal and then left the good people at Good See Co. to work their magic while we wandered the boardwalk in Venice (that’s a lot of ‘goods’!). It was after dark by this time so we stuck close to the main drag, but it was so lovely out. After the sun went down the air got warmer than it had been that chilly afternoon. We saw tons of awesome doggies and interesting characters. After the allotted time, we headed back to pick up our glasses. They were perfect and we were so happy!

Happy! At the beach! With glasses!

Now we were ready for more pizza (since we had all those leftovers). We found a grocery store with a good selection of bottled sodas and then we feasted, once again, on pizza and garlic rolls. Only this time, we sat in the car and relaxed! It was so much fun to just kick back in the car with boxes of pizza on our laps. And awesome-er still, we had even MORE leftovers for Sunday!

Once we finished the car-feast, we look the long way (again) back to the freeway to head home to the kitties.

A nice daytrip with a good song playlist, a tank of gas, and pizza anticipation makes for an adventure to remember!

jenojoon

nothing fancy, just adorable

Category Archives: fun