My Meijer Deals This Week - Maximizing My mPerks

I haven't really been deal shopping for a couple weeks as I've been stocked up on all our essentials and nothing's really grabbed my attention lately. I suppose the itch to find a deal grabbed me on Sunday though as I was perusing through the ads. CVS had the Jergens lotion my older daughter has been using. It has a bit of a self tanner in it and the girls recently got in a fight over it after the older kid found her younger sister using "her" lotion. So, it was off the CVS where if you spent $20+ on the Jergens products this week, you'd get a $5 ECB and I had $2 coupons for the lotion.

The lotion was $10.99 each and I got a tube for each kid; used my coupons and got my $5 ECB. Not the greatest deal but, hey, I thought I was being a nice mom. Well, imagine my disappointment when I showed the kids the lotion and was informed I "bought the wrong one." Boo. Apparently they use the Jergens Natural Glow "+Firming" that "reduces the appearance of cellulite in as little as 7 days" and is for "medium to tan skin tones." Apparently the ones I got didn't have the "firming" and was for lighter skin tones. Seriously? Can I poke them in the eye with my finger?

Today I decided to return the lotion. I considered exchanging it for the "right" one as I had already received my ECB. Then I perused the new Meijer ad. They had a similar deal but it was "Buy $20+ Jergens and get $5 off instantly." So, same deal but a bit more appealing to me for other reasons...

I had a Meijer personal mPerks reward that was expiring today. My deal was that if you spent $400 over 28 days, you'd get a $9 off coupon loaded to your account. I had until today to spend $45.xx more dollars to get to $400. Originally I was just going to let this one expire and start over tomorrow on accumulating another $400. Not a huge deal for me as I really don't spend that much on groceries anyway. The beauty of the mPerks rewards is that the dollar amount you have to spend is the shelf price of the item. It doesn't count any instant reward or coupon that you may use at checkout. So, in reality, I usually end up only spending about half of the required amount out of pocket. If I bought the Jergens at Meijer it would put me about halfway to $45. Plus, their new ad started today and there were a couple deals I had been eyeballing... and, there were two more mPerks personal rewards that showed up in my account - buy $20+ lotions (and other similar personal care stuff) from Jergens and some other brands, get a $3 off coupon, and buy $10+ Finish, Lysol, and a couple other brands, get a $3 off coupon. You can double dip on the mPerks rewards - meaning what you spend for the specific branded products like Jergens will also count towards your overall spending reward. So, it was off to Meijer to spend $45.

Just as I was leaving the house, it occurred to me that Meijer's prices on health and beauty aids are usually lower than CVS. There was a good chance the lotion I wanted would be less than $10.99 and, if so, I'd have to get another Jergens product to get me over $20. I grabbed some regular lotion coupons to take with me too.

Good thing I did! The Jergens at Meijer was $8.99. I grabbed another lotion that was $3.39. That put my total at $21.37... and I would get $5 off instantly, plus I had two $2 coupons for the Natural Glow and a $1 coupon for the other bottle of Jergens lotion... which would be $11.37 out of pocket, plus I'd get another $3 off coupon. If I hadn't bought the extra lotion I would have paid $17.98 - 2($2)=$13.98 for just the two Natural Glows and not received another $3 off coupon.

To round out my spending...

There's a Buy 6, Get $6 off instantly deal this week. Included are Finish Max in 1 dishwasher tabs for $3.39 (shelf price) and Lysol wipes $1.89 (shelf price). I got 4 Finish and 2 Lysol, got the $6 off, then used 4 ($1 Finish coupons) and 1 ($0.50/2 Lysol coupon).

Innovasian Cuisine frozen rice is on sale for $2.50. I had coupons for $2 off a box. It's a convenience item for me. $0.50 for a box of frozen rice, can't beat that! Got 4 boxes.

Needed a bag of carrots ($1.39) and some hummus ($2.50).

Total:
 $52.60
-   5.00 instant savings Jergens
-   6.00 instant Buy 6 savings
  41.60
-17.50 coupons
  24.10
+  1.94 tax
$26.04

Yup. Never pay full price!

$26.04 for everything in the photo

Earned digital mPerks coupons for $9, $3, and $3 off my next purchase. These can be used together so now I have another $15 to spend at Meijer. Plus, I found out that the Buy $10 on Finish, Lysol, etc. is a reloadable reward, meaning you can do it over again, and the register gave me credit for $17.34 in Finish and Lysol products today so when I checked my account, they had already credited me another $7.34 towards the $10 I needed to spend to get another $3 off coupon.

My original shopping plan had been to do my Meijer shopping tomorrow because there is a 2-day sale Friday and Saturday and you get 5% off groceries and 15% off general merchandise if you use your Meijer credit card. I got a better deal by buying some of my items today and getting my $9 reward.

I'll probably go back tomorrow to buy 2 more Lysol. My out of pocket cost would be $1.28 - 5%, and I'd get another $3 reward. Plus Maxwell House coffee is on sale for $1.99 (as part of the Buy 6 sale) and I have $1 coupons, Swanson's chicken and beef stock are $0.50 a can (and I need some), and I can pick up meat, milk, and veggies, get 5% off, and maximize using my $15 credit. Everything I spend tomorrow will count towards my new $400 overall spending reward. I'll pay off what I put on my Meijer card online as soon as I get home.

As for the Jergens I bought at CVS... I returned them. I tried to give my $5 ECB back too and the manager told me to keep it. :)

B2B Training Week 12 of 18 ... The Big Week That Wasn't

Week 12 was supposed to be another big mile week. Plan was to hit 40 miles by doing two days of 15 milers and filling in the rest with shorter runs but it didn't pan out that way.

Sunday (2/28) - Zero miles. Planned rest day. I felt like I should do something but I didn't. Did zippo all day long.

Monday (2/29) - Zero miles. I was scheduled to work from 9 am to 5:30 pm. I didn't leave work until almost 7 pm. By the time I got home I had no desire or energy to run.

Tuesday (3/1) - 3 miles. I hit the treadmill at the Y while G was at dance. I ran my first mile in 9:00 and the next two in 8:34. Then I didn't want to run anymore. I wasn't too tired and I had plenty of time but I JUST DIDN'T WANT TO! Done for the day.

Wednesday (3/2) - 15 miles. I knew I had to run long today. Fact was, I was making deals with myself even before I got out of bed on how I could do this another day. Finally I realized I HAD to do it today. Of course it was cold and gray outside. I took to the hamster track to bang it out and get home before the kids got home on their early release day. Made dinner and went to work.

Thursday (3/3) - 7 miles. Got home from work at 4 am so I laid around the house all day until I had to take G to dance then went to the Y. FINALLY felt like running. Actually had a very good run on the treadmill and felt strong.

Friday (3/4) - Zero miles. I got up at 4:30 am to go to work and never felt like I fully woke up all day. Work was busy and I had a bunch of patients test positive for influenza A. By the time I got off work, I felt a little crappy. Original plan had been to try and squeeze in a short 5 mile run after work but that didn't happen cause I got home and collapsed into a chair until it was time to drive again. By the time I got to Carmel to pick G up from dance at 8 pm, I felt REALLY crappy - achy, feverish, chest congestion, the beginnings of a sore throat...

Saturday (3/5) - Zero miles. It was supposed to be a beautiful day and I was suppose to run the Pink Power 5K in Columbus, IN at 9 am. Plan was to do about 5 miles in Columbus with the race and warms up/cool down runs, then come back home and do another hilly 10 miler. My alarm went off at 6 am and I knew immediately that that wasn't going to happen. I felt worse than Friday. I rolled over and went back to sleep. Mid-morning I crawled out of bed and considered calling one of my colleagues at work to call in a Tamiflu script for me cause I was convinced I had influenza too. Then I took some ibuprofen and talked myself out of it. I'd been vaccinated already and I really wasn't feverish... just tired and achy... and TIRED!

So there you have it.
Week 12 - 25 miles

The only advantage to feeling ill was that my family figured out I must be feeling REALLY crappy to skip my race and they were all really nice to me all weekend... like hubs actually drove the kids around and all of then picked up after themselves.

Hoping the coming week will bring me more energy, sunshine, and miles!

B2B Training Weeks 9 - 11 of 18

ValenTimes 10K

I'm WAAAAY behind on blogging my weeks. Sometimes I ask myself why bother? However, just like my scrapbooks, I like looking back at what I've done in the past and in the end I'm always glad I wrote about the experience. So here it is, mainly for me...

Week 9
Sunday (2/7) - Zero miles. Total white space on my calendar today and all I did was lay around.

Monday (2/8) - 5 miles.

Tuesday (2/9) - 10 miles.

Wednesday (2/10) - 20 miles.

Thursday (2/11) - Zero miles. Got home from work at 7:30 am and slept all morning then pretty much laid around the house all day. J and I then went out to dinner before driving down to Bloomington to work the IU vs. Iowa basketball game which didn't start until 9 pm. The game was a fantastic barn burner, down to the last second. The student section was a rockin' party the whole game. J said she wanted to go to IU just so she could sit in the student section during the games. We didn't get home from the game until after midnight.

Friday (2/12) - 3 miles. Easy shake out miles on the hamster track.

Saturday (2/13) - 8.2 miles. Went down to Seymour to run the ValenTimes 10K in the morning. This is where I ran my 10K PR last year. I am no where near the shape I was in last year but I was hoping to run under 50:00. The forecast was frigid.

 

I finally settled on wearing two pairs of running tights and two thermal shirts, gloves, and a headband to race in. I brought a whole duffle bag of other clothes to change into after the race. I did a one mile warm up. It felt fine and I actually got hot. Then the race...

Mile 1 - 7:39
Mile 2 - 8:15
It went downhill from there. My legs felt like wood and they wouldn't speed up.
Mile 3 - 8:29
There was NO ONE in sight at this point. It was an absolute suckfest. I decided to try and run 8:30 pace and pretend it's a tempo run.
Mile 4 - 8:27
Mile 5 - 8:33
Mile 6 - 8:32

Official time - 50:44.6 (8:09 pace)
Finished third overall in the women's race and second in the 40-49 age group.

One mile cool down immediately after the race.

Afterwards, I hurried my butt home to watch the Olympic Marathon Trials. Got out of the shower just in time to watch the start of the telecast. Got to watch everything but the last 30 minutes because we had to leave to take G to her performance so I recorded it. Hubs and I were watching G's show that night but her call time was two and a half hours before the show actually started so we went out for a nice dinner and I HAD to peak at the women's results. I was actually surprised to read that Shalane Flanagan hit the wall at mile 25 and finished third. Then, when I got home I watched the telecast. OMG, what a race!

Week 9 - 46.2 miles

Week 10
This was a drop down week. I was tired and scheduled to work a bunch of shifts so it actually worked out pretty well.

Sunday (2/14)  - Zero miles. Worked all day.

Monday (2/15) - Zero miles. Worked all day.

Tuesday (2/16) - 5 miles. I got up at 5 am to go pick up my mom (she lives an hour away) and drive her to the hospital for a scheduled upper endoscopy and colonoscopy. Thankfully the whole thing got done earlier than I expected. I got home in time to take G to dance and I ran at the Y while she was in class. I was already changed and showered when my phone started blowing up at 7:30 pm. The night shift locums doc for Martinsville had not shown up for work. I ended up covering the shift after I got home from Carmel, so I worked from 10:45 pm to 7 am. All I have to say is that it's a good thing I got my run done before all this happened.

Wednesday (2/17) - 5 miles. Original plan was to run 10 miles on the hills south of my house. I had two podcasts all cued up from Another Mother Runner about the "mother runners" that had made it to the Olympic Trials and was super excited about it. However, after being up all night (unexpectedly at that!), I was too trashed to do this so I ran easy on the indoor track and laid around the house all day.

Thursday (2/18) - Zero miles. Worked all day.

Friday (2/19) - 10 miles. Finally got to do the hills I had planned for Wednesday and listened to the podcasts. It was a glorious run, even with the 27 mph winds! Sunny and 60 degrees. Spring?

Saturday (2/20) - 5 miles. I worked Friday night. All the computers at work went "down" at 1 am for some kind of scheduled maintenance/upgrade so everything in the ED went to paper. I didn't get home until 4 am so I pretty much slept til 10 am, then crawled out of bed in time to drive G to dance. Ran on the Monon while she was performing. Not quite as warm as Friday but it was still sunny.

Week 10 - 25 miles

Week 11
Back to two more weeks of "big" mileage weeks, but my right foot keeps hurting me and I am getting more paranoid that I have a first metacarpal stress fracture or something. With 7 more weeks to go though, there's not enough time to stay off the foot so I've decided to just try and minimize the stress.

Long runs for the next two weeks will be shorter but have higher intensity. I may try to only run 4 days too.

Sunday (2/21) - 3 miles. Another short run on the Monon while G was performing. I was going to do 5 but I still felt totally exhausted so I cut it short.

Monday (2/22) - 15 miles. I heard a nasty rumor on Saturday, when it was sunny and warm, that it was going to SNOW later this week. Ugh. Better get the long run in sooner than later. Plan was a progressive run - one mile warm up, 3 X 9:00, 2 X 8:30, 1 X 8:00, one mile recovery, then repeat the 3-2-1 progression, then a one mile cool down. I dropped G off at dance and hit the Monon at 5 pm.

First progression went well. I'm still trying to decide how fast I want to run Boston but right now I'm leaning towards a 9:00 pace. It was actually a discipline challenge to run 9:00 pace at the beginning because I kept wanting to run faster. However, during the second progression I started having a hard time keeping this pace and realized I really couldn't go any faster. Plus, it was so dark I could no longer see my watch. I ended up doing a 4 mile cool down instead. For some reason though, I wanted to make sure I went though 13.1 at under 2:00. Made it in 1:59:40. I'm not sure why it mattered to me but it did!

I was really happy about the run overall. What followed though was not fun...
By the time I got done running and back to my car, I had exactly one hour before G got done with class. It takes me 15 minutes each way for me to drive to the Y where I shower. I was about 40 degrees when I got done running and I got cold as soon as I stopped moving. Got to my car and downed my Gatorade Recovery protein shake. All my blood went to my stomach and I got so cold I was shaking. Sprinted into the Y and into a hot shower. All the blood vessels in my extremities vasodilated and I could feel my blood pressure drop - so I was weak but warm! Then I sprinted back out to my car to get back to the dance studio before class let out... and I was sick, as in, my face was flushed, I was light headed, and my recovery drink was still sloshing around in my stomach. I had a couple minutes so I went inside and tried to stretch but ended up lying on the floor in a fetal position instead until G was done. Oy! Now to drive home. I made it about half a mile down the street before my lower abdomen started cramping and I had to find a bathroom fast! Made it into a bathroom before I had an accident then suddenly everything was better. Phew!

Tuesday (2/23) - Zero miles. Recovery day. No work either and G had a ride to dance so a nice free day for me. I focused on staying off my legs as much as possible and went to watch J cheer in the evening.

Wednesday (2/24) - 7 miles. Original plan had been to do 10 hilly miles but the bad weather was starting to set in and it was pouring rain so I went to the hamster track. Then, shortly after mile 6 my foot started hurting so I finished out 7 and called it a day. It was snowing by the time I left the fitness center.

Thursday (2/25) - Zero miles. Planned rest day. Worked all day. I've been working on my nutrition too and the day started out well. Oatmeal for breakfast. Lean Cuisine basil salmon with orzo for lunch. J was cheering in Columbus that night so I picked up half portions of black bean soup and Greek chicken salad at Panera for dinner and ate before the game started at 7 pm. So far so good. However, J announced she was starving after the game and wanted Buffalo Wild Wings. I caved. Then I decided I was starving too and wanted wings. I ended up with a dozen hot boneless wings. We got home a bit after 10 pm, just in time to watch the second half of the IU - Illinois basketball game. Hubs had ordered a pizza and chocolate chip cookie for the game. I ate ALL my wings plus a cookie wedge. IU was leading by a good margin. I had been up since 4:30 am. I fell asleep. I woke up again at midnight to brush my teeth and go to bed.

 Friday (2/26) - Zero miles. Ugh. I paid for Thursday night's food indiscretions. Plan had been to run 5 miles. It was still nasty outside. I was so tired I slept though the kids getting up and leaving for school in the morning. Luckily they are old enough to care for themselves. I crawled out of bed at 10 am and found the kitchen looking like there had been a frat party the night before. Half eaten pizza in pizza boxes. Empty cookie box. Empty jug of milk. Empty B-Dubs containers. Sink full of dirty dishes. Toaster and bread still out. Blah. I got all that cleaned up and finally motivated myself to get in my running clothes and leave the house. Oh, forget to mention, the hot wings were now burning a hole in my stomach. I was still full when I woke up so I had choked down some coffee and a fruit smoothie. Then I got in my car. It still smelled like hot wings. Barf. That was it. I was still exhausted from all my non-running running around the day before. I bagged my run. Drove to the bank and the grocery store instead with my windows down.

Saturday (2/27) - 15 miles. I SLEPT Friday night. The light woke me up at 7:30 am this morning and I didn't know what was going on. Why is the house so quiet? Did the kids go to school? Oh, wait, it's Saturday... and I feel pretty good. Ran a hilly route outdoors. Plan was to run my 10 mile loop and come back to my house, then continue either 3 or 5 more miles depending on how I felt. Well, the weather was back to being beautiful again and my foot didn't hurt so I ended up doing 15. It was a watchless run at an easy pace but I think what mattered for this run was just the time I spent out there on my feet moving.

Week 11 - 40 miles

Hoping to put in at least another 40 miles this coming week but I'll keep the long runs at 15. I'm also going to work on blogging more often... for me.

B2B Training Week 8 of 18

Week 8 was as bipolar as the Indiana weather. It started out wonderful and sunny, then fizzled into the gray cold wetness... physically, psychologically, as well as weather-wise!

Sunday (1/31) - 10 miles. It was 60 degrees and felt like Spring. I was going outside. I decided to just let my legs dictate how far I went... and they felt fantastic. One of those runs where you felt like you could go forever. However, I had no water or fuel and I didn't even know what time it was as I wasn't wearing a watch so I stopped at 10 and went home. I ran the loop at the old West Grove school so I could stop whenever I wanted.

Monday (2/1) - 5 miles. Another beautiful day. My Garmin splits say it all. It's the first time I've worn a watch since November. I wanted to do some kind of tempo or speedwork on the Monon but really hadn't committed to a plan when I started, as I didn't know what my legs would feel like after Sunday and this was my 5th day in a row running. I started at what felt like a "good" tempo pace and tried not to look at my watch. This worked for 2 miles. Then, I charged the only little hill on the course and my legs just kept going after that... so I let them. Afterwards though I kept staring at my watch in disbelief. Hey, I actually ran fast today!

Tuesday (2/2) - Zero miles. I actually wanted to run today however, the flying-by-the-seat-of-my-pants training plan in my mind this week was going to be to try a back-to-back 10 miler and 20 miler like I had done during my marathon training leading up to Napa. If I ran today, it would be my sixth day in a row. I didn't want to try 20 on my seventh day. So, no run today.

Wednesday (2/3) - 10 miles. Everything went as planned. I hit the county roads south of my house and did 10 solid hilly miles without a problem. Then... it started sleeting in the evening.

Thursday (2/4) - 15 miles. It was cold and wet and totally gross by morning so I hit the hamster track. Now that I've been listening to podcasts, running on the indoor track has become SO much easier. I just plug in and run on autopilot. Everything was fine until mile 12. Mile 12 I started to feel my left hamstring starting to complain. My right foot has also been hurting a wee bit. OK, maybe a little more than a wee bit after 10 or so miles. Anyway, I have been getting paranoid I might be developing a stress fracture in my foot. BUT, it goes away if I stop running and the pain moves around a bit so I'm NOT getting it looked at for now. The hamstring I'm more concerned about because I KNOW all about that pain. Anyway, it bothered me enough that I stopped after 15. I think it's still too early in the training cycle to push it.

Thursday night all hell broke loose as far as my sleep cycle. I'd been staying up late all week because I didn't have to go to work early in the morning and I'd been really productive in cleaning out my office and doing other things in general until the wee hours of the morning - like 1-2 am. Thursday night I MADE myself get in bed at 2 am. I was physically tired. SO tired. But my brain would NOT shut off! I laid there until well after 4 am. It was probably closer to 5 am before I fell asleep. I almost got up to do something (anything!) but my husband was about to beat me to death at that point because my tossing and turning was keeping HIM up too. And my leg hurt.

Friday - Zero miles. I had planned to get a couple shake out miles in but was too trashed from the night before. I was basically a zombie all day... until 8 pm. Oh no... then I was wide awake and ready to tackle the world... except I had to get up at 4:30 am on Saturday to go to work. I took an Ambien at 11 pm to knock myself out.

Saturday - Zero miles. I worked all day and it was a stressful day. Today was a planned rest day anyway. I made it home, crawled into a chair, and planned my couponing deals for the coming week.

Week 8 - 40 miles

Now the weather is wretched again. I'm planning another higher mileage week for Week 9 so I hope my body is on board. On the plus side, I'll be back to working at night so I won't have to fight the sleep cycle too much.

Mission Accomplished

Paid $12.66 for everything in the photo

Several weeks ago I lamented that I needed a deal on Arm & Hammer laundry detergent but that I probably was never going to see the $1 pricing I had capitalized on in the past. Well, this is the week!! Both CVS and Walgreens have my detergent on sale for $1.99 and a $1 off coupon came out in the coupon inserts as well as online. Can't beat $0.99 laundry detergent!

I hurried my butt over to CVS this morning to pick up my stash before they ran out. CVS had bigger jugs than Walgreens. Admittedly, these are smaller than the ones I used to get for the same price years ago but still a great deal. Also on sale was the contact lens solution that my kids use.

So...
6 jugs of Arm & Hammer 50 oz laundry detergent @ $1.99 (on sale, regularly $7.49!)
2 bottles Complete solution @ $9.99, Buy 1 get 1 50% off
Total $26.92
Used 6 ($1 Arm & Hammer coupons), 2 ($3 Complete coupons), $2 ECB, $2 CVS contact lens solution coupon
Paid $10.92 + $1.74 tax = $12.66

Yay!! I'm hoping this is close to a year supply of laundry detergent. I'm really tempted to get more but I'm out of coupons now and I don't want to go totally crazy either.

Next stop was Meijer to stock up on some grab-and-go food for my family this week.

Transaction #1
8 Power Bars @ $0.90 each = $7.20
Used 2 ($2 off 4 Power Bars coupon)
Paid $3.20 and received a Catalina coupon for $2.00 off your next order from Power Bar

$3.20 plus the coupon below

 

Transaction #2

7 cans Chunky soup @ $0.99 each

1 bottle Sweet Baby Ray's dipping sauce @ $1.69

Total $8.62

Used 2 ($1 off 3 cans Chunky soup coupon), $1 Sweet Baby Ray's coupon, $2 OYNO coupon from Power Bar transaction

Paid $3.62 and received a Catalina coupon for $3 off your next order from Chunky

 

$3.62 plus the coupon below

 

 

Transaction #3

4 18-count boxes of Bagel Bites @ $2.50 each

2 cans of Pillsbury rolls @ $1.00 each

1 tube of Crest 3D White toothpaste @ $2.99

Total $14.99

Used $1 off 2 Pillsbury rolls, $2 Meijer instant coupon off 4 boxes Bagel Bites, $3 OYNO coupon from Chunky

Paid $8.99 + $0.21 tax = $9.20

 

Everything on this receipt got submitted to Saving Star. I'll get $1 back for the Pillsbury rolls, $10 credit towards spending $20 on Bagel Bites (I'll get $5 back when I hit $20), and $5 back for the Crest (it was another buy $20, get $5 offer and I had spent $17.98 already last week... which, by the way, was how I spent my $10 ECB that I had gotten from CVS several weeks ago from the Diet Coke deal).

 

Paid $9.20 for everything in the photo

 

So there you have it. That's how I spent my Sunday morning. I might end up doing the Chunky soup deal one more time and turn around and get 4 more boxes of Bagel Bites later this week if I have the freezer space. Our stand up freezer croaked a couple years ago and there are weeks that I really miss it.

 

Have a great day everyone!

 



 



 



Decrapifying My Life

When you put your house in order, you put your affairs and your past in order, too.
                                                                                                               - Marie Kondo


There's a scene in "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" where Kylo Ren stares at Darth Vader's burned out helmet and cries out, "Grandfather, give me strength!" Lately here, I've been staring at Marie Kondo's book and crying out, "Kon Marie, give me strength!"

My big project this past month has been cleaning out my office. I started applying Marie Kondo's principles to my house last Spring. Unlike the suggestion in her book I could not "Kondo" my home in one fell swoop. Part of it is because I don't live alone. My husband and children are not on board. Instead, what I've done is try to get my own life in order. I'll worry about them once my shit's together. In the meanwhile, I am decrapifying my life.

As the rest of my house came to order, my office turned into the repository of all things "left over." To keep or not to keep? Let's put it in my office for now.

As a result, it came to look like this...

 

 

It was a space filled with unfinished craft projects, scrapbooking memorabilia, toys the kids couldn't part with but didn't want in their rooms. A repository of memories and dreams, so cluttered I could no longer see much of the floor, no less work on any of the said unfinished projects. It was time to let some of it go.

I'm a sentimental person. I think that's why scrapbooking appeals to me so much. Kon Marie would tell me to get rid of it all and just keep the memories in my heart but she also said to keep the things that give you joy and my finished scrapbooks still give me great joy. My children love looking at them too. So... scrapbooking stuff had to get organized. All the memorabilia I want to keep is now in 3-ring binders, organized chronologically by date. I was also delighted to "find" scraps of my childhood that I had kept. I knew I had kept these things, it was just a matter of finding them again.

There was the autographed photo of Maria Tallchief. She was the closest thing I had to an idol growing up. Osage Indian by birth, she was America's first Prima Ballerina. Briefly married to George Balanchine, she danced for both the New York City Ballet and American Ballet Theatre and founded the Chicago City Ballet. She sent me this photo while she was with Chicago City Ballet. The ballet company folded in 1987. She died in 2013.

I used to be very active in our local track and field community back in the days when Indianapolis was trying to establish itself as the "Amateur Sports Capitol of the World" so I had several opportunities to meet athletes at national and international events. These are some photos from when I was the athlete escort for the medal presentation ceremonies at the 1987 World Indoors.

The woman in the white is Merlene Ottey-Page from Jamaica.

I can't remember the other woman's name.

 

Sergey Bubka of the USSR who held the world pole vaulting record.

 

Heike Drechsler of East Germany who set the indoor long jump world record at that meet.

 

My other memory from that meet - the outfit I am wearing was tailor made for me. It's the first and only outfit that I've ever had that was tailor made. I remember driving myself down to Leon Tailoring in downtown Indianapolis to get measured for it.

 

I was a runner for the press box at the USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships in 1985 when Willie Banks set the world record for the triple jump. It's the first and only time I've witnessed a world record being set live and in person. I still have my credentials from that night. We stayed in the press box well past midnight that night waiting for world record verification.

 

 





I carried index cards with me that meet to get autographs.

 



Here is Dwight Stones' when he was the world record holder for the high jump.

 

All these I kept.

Some of what I didn't keep...

My wedding bouquet. I will be married for 20 years in July. It's hard to believe it's been that long. The first scrapbook I ever did was of our honeymoon but I never had time to do the wedding photos. I have the "official" photos that the professional photographer took bound in a leather album however I have a box of candids that have yet to make it into a book. I think it's the sheer volume of the photos that kept me from scrapbooking them. Anyway, these flowers pretty much turned to dust when you touched them so I took a photos and pitched them.

This is the "death mask" that I made in my 8th grade art class. I believe it was also displayed at an art show. I kept it because I had such good memories of making the mask. I made it with my friends Neil, Greg, and Gideon. They are some of the guys I hung out with. This was our art class group. To make the mask we each took turns laying on a cafeteria table with a wet paper towel on our faces while the other members of the group patched together strips of plaster casting material until it was thick enough to hold the shape of your face, and then you had to lay there until it dried enough to remove it. Needless to say, the person getting casted was pretty much helpless and blind on the table so we had all kinds of fun with that. Neil and I still hang out. We've been friends since we were six years old. I haven't talk to Greg in ages but he is a runner. If this mask was in better shape it would be hanging on my wall, but it's not so in the trash it went.

The nurses at Three Rivers Community Hospital ER gave this to me as one of their parting gifts when I left Michigan in 2001. I loved my nurses. It was a small hospital and I was the only doctor in the building for most of the day. This was the place where I learned to handle things on my own because I was the only one there. We had a pitch-in every Saturday night in the ICU. We shared Weight Watcher's recipes and scrapbooked in our free time. This gazing ball was for the garden in my new Indiana home. However, after 15 years I've yet to have that garden so I took a photo for remembrance and gave the frog away.

Then there were the unfinished projects. They were hard to pitch because they represented time that I had spent working on them. However, in my heart, I didn't want to finish them anymore.

 

This is the needlepoint rug that I started when I was pregnant with my first child. She will be 17 this year. I had to special order the wool thread in all the different colors for this project. I had envisioned myself sitting in a rocker next to her crib, needlepointing while watching her sleep. Wrong. This was my baby that NEVER SLEPT!! Needless to say, this project never got done and the desire is gone now.

 

 

This was the cover for a needlepoint plastic canvas Victorian "glove box." I used to love all things Victorian. My tastes have changed. I could never get the bottom of this box done. Part of me kept it to finish just to finish it but what's the point?

 

These are two of the many unfinished projects that I pitched. The projects that I still am excited to finish I now have out in plain sight, available to work on at a moment's notice.

 

Then there was that bed. It was part of a bunk bed and trundle bed set that the girls slept in when they shared a room. Since getting separate rooms they have both gotten different beds. One bunk was in pieces in the basement. The other bed and trundle was just taking up space and being used as a storage unit for more unneeded things in my office. I wanted to give it away to someone that I knew would use it. I posted it on my Facebook page. It was taken in one minute.

 

So here are my AFTER photos  (the BEFOREs precede them for comparison). I still have work to do but the bulk of what needed to GO is gone and I now have space to work on the projects that I WANT to do.

 

BEFORE

 

AFTER

 

BEFORE

 

AFTER

 

BEFORE

 

AFTER

 

I can't believe there was a time in my life when I desired STUFF. Now it seems I have more STUFF than time. It's time to enjoy what I have. Looking at what I had kept I was also surprised how fast the time had gone by. No more new projects until I finish what I've started (or trashed it)!

 

Runner's World October 1983 - A Trip Down Memory Lane

 

I don't know why I still have this particular magazine. The fact that I still have it in my possession means it's traveled with me from my home in Indianapolis, to my college house in Bloomington, then on to my apartment in Columbus, IN, an apartment back in Indianapolis, a house in Kalamazoo, MI, then back to my current home in Greenwood, IN.

I am continuing the process of decluttering and cleaning out my house. It's down to the hard stuff now. Boxes and boxes of memorabilia and sentimental things. I've come to the conclusion that scrapbookers are horrible declutterers because we keep EVERYTHING!

I found this in a box of running related papers. One magazine by itself. Why did I keep it? Was there an article I wanted to read? Of course I had to thumb through it...

The ads were the best. Cotton was still "in."

Who remembers Alberto Salazaar looking like this?

He and Mary Decker were my heros.

                                                                   ...or Marty Liquori

It was their 9th Annual Shoe Review issue. These were the top 5 Women's shoes.

...and this is why I think all running shoes should be blue or white.

Because they WERE!!

 

This is how much shoes typically cost...

 

I wore the Tigress. Asics was called Tiger back then.

 

...but if you couldn't afford new running shoes you could get them resoled.

 

 

There were multiple ads for inversion boots and hand held weights. No medal racks or fuel belts. The best though was... wait for it... OMG, OMG...

 

 

Mind you, this was also the pre-running tight era.

 

There was an article about getting tickets to the 1984 Los Angles Olympics to be held the following year.

 

Another article was about the first ever women's Olympic marathon trials, to be held in Olympia, WA on May 13, 1984. It still did not have a sponsor at that time. The qualifying time back then was 2:51:16.

 

Other articles talked about what it was like to run on an aircraft carrier, training alone, and a behind-the-scenes look at the medical tent of the New York City Marathon.

 

There was "Tips for the First-Time Marathoner - Bringing marathon training into the '80's." Here is a training chart from that article.

 

There were the usual advice columns. The questions over the years have remained the same but the answers in 1983 were surprisingly different. There was a question posed by a 28-year old man who had not raced since high school but was jogging 20 miles a week who wanted to know how much time it would take him to work up to training for a marathon. Jeff Galloway's answer to him, in summary, was 12-18 months.

 

Back then, many running books differentiated between running and jogging. Most said that you were not running unless you were going faster than 8-9 minutes a mile. Only runners ran marathons. That's probably why the First-Marathon Training table maxed out at a 4 hour run.

 

Fast forward now to yesterday when I received my latest issue of Runner's World. On page 12 of David Willey's Editor's Letter he talks about preparing for their 50th anniversary and introduces one of their "lifers" who says...

 

 

There are SO many races now. You can pretty much race every weekend if you wanted but people "race" for fun and socialization. I remember the days when I gave up inside during 10K's when I heard my 2 mile split at over 15:00 and felt like my race was over. Then, in 2011, I ran my first road race of this century and was shocked to find myself leading the women's race at the 1 mile mark (it was a 5K) and even more shocked that were was no one standing there with a stopwatch calling out splits (silly me, I guess every other person in the race was wearing their own watch except me!)

 

Now back to 1983...

 

Some of my Sole Sisters remember we were following Kesha online at the Houston Marathon and the tracker was posting everything in kilometers and kilometers per hour. I finally posted for someone to please translate what mile marker she was at! Apparently the venerable Dr. George Sheehan agrees with me!

 

 

Another source of controversy. Fred Lebow did not want any wheelchair racers in the New York City Marathon but was allowing some under duress.

 

 

 

The magazine was 188 pages. THE runner's bible back then. So why did I keep this? I still have no idea. Maybe it was all the articles about marathon running. I entertained the thought of running my first marathon while I was in high school. Back then though, there was NO WAY I was going to run a marathon unless I was "in shape" to do it under 4 hours. I couldn't even imagine running for more than 4 hours.

 

Times change. Life goes on. I finally decided at 40 that I wasn't getting any faster so I might as well run a marathon sooner than later if I was going to run one. My first took over 5 hours... but then I got faster.

 

Hope you had fun with my reminiscing. Now it's back to decluttering!