Wanted: WDW Dining Recommendations

I'm making a list of must-eat places for my upcoming first trip to Walt Disney World. Unlike Disneyland, the dining choices at WDW are endless. Seriously. My wrist started to hurt from scrolling so much on my phone. ;)

So far, these are our absolutes for dining reservations:
-'Ohana

-Be Our Guest

Other places we are interested in:
- Rose and Crown
- Tokyo Dining (I think? My mom said it was a sit down place in Japan in Epcot)

Where do you eat at WDW? Do you have any places that are imperative for dining reservations?

WDW Marathon Training Plan- Starts Today!

The official WDW Marathon training plan created by Jeff Galloway starts today! You can find it here on the runDisney site. 

With the training plan starting today, the marathon seems so real and so much closer.

*commence freak out*

My running is not where I was hoping it would be when I started training, but c'est la vie. Just means more motivation!

As I read over the plans on the runDisney website, there are three options for the marathon. I didn't fall into the beginning runners (folks who have been running for less than 6 months), yet I'm not an experienced runner looking for time improvement (those who have done a marathon before). Then I saw the third option- experienced runners looking to finish in the upright position. Hey! That's exactly me! My goal is just to finish, preferably without limping/hobbling/crawling across the finish line.

I'm a fan of running 3 times per week and this fits my usual schedule of two shorter weekday runs and one long weekend run. Depending how I feel, I'll thrown in a 4th run. But I'm not too keen on how the long runs drop to 6 or 7 miles every other week. My plan is to also only train up to 24-25 miles, but have more 20+ mile runs that what this plan has. I'll be roughly following this training plan until I adapt and modify it to my own personal taste.

Are you running the WDW Marathon? Do you have a training plan? Please share yours! :)

If Disney Movies Had Honest Titles...

Saw this recently and it was too good not to share. Enjoy!

Funny Craigslist Experiences

My big move halfway across the country is in about 5 weeks and I'm not planning on taking any furniture. Pretty much if it doesn't fit in my car, I'm not keeping it. This means I have the joy of selling all my furniture. Craigslist is a great resource for this and so far it's worked out wonderfully. Maybe a bit too quickly though, since now I have no dresser and my clothes are in little piles everywhere. ;)

But sometimes I question the common sense of the folks buying the furniture.

The guy buying my dresser and shoe cabinet showed up in his little Prius... Come on, man. Really? A Prius?!

I will give him credit though. He got the dresser in his Prius! Had to make a second trip to get the shoe cabinet though.

Another lady came to get this bookcase. It's pretty big- 5 ft tall and heavy. When she arrived we had a moment of "uh, do you think we can lift this together?" Luckily we could. And she brought a big SUV.

And last but not least, my favorite- an older lady wanted this desk. It's a big heavy desk and the top hutch part did not detach. She said she would bring a truck and a guy to help her. Great, right? Except the guy she brought, bless his heart, was not in any physical condition to heave this desk around. The three of us got it out of my apartment, but couldn't lift it onto her truck. We had to flag down a couple of surfers (nice perk of living by the beach is that there is an endless supply of buff men walking around) to assist us.

I'm just happy to be rid of all this furniture- one less thing to worry about over the next month! :)

Do you have any funny Craigslist experiences?

Run Wine & Dine... Solo?

When registration opened for runDisney's Wine & Dine Half Marathon at Walt Disney World, let's just say I got a little trigger happy and registered my husband and myself pretty quickly. I knew we wouldn't be running the Disneyland Half, which used to be our annual race, so I figured WDW in November would be a nice substitute. 

Little did I know that we would end up deciding to do the full marathon- taking place in January, just two months later. My family is also coming along for marathon weekend and my brother is running the 10k, so that'll be fun. 

My husband isn't too keen on doing both trips and he doesn't think he'll have time to take the weekend trip for Wine & Dine. So now I'm left with a dilemma... 

-Do I just eat the registration fees? 
My husband's suggestion, but it doesn't make a difference to him since it was my side job money that paid for it.

-Do I pay $90 or possibly $140 to defer both our registrations?
It still wouldn't be a guarantee that we would be able to go in 2015.

-Do I make the trip solo and run by myself? 
Keep in mind that this would be my first trip to WDW. Newbie + solo + WDW = probably a confusing trip. I'm not too worried about running alone, but I was really looking forward to sharing the experience of the race and after party with my hubby.

What makes it even more complex is that I don't even know where we will be living in November. Heck, we could end up in Orlando! I'm going with the assumption that we will be back in CA, which means it would take a full day to fly to FL and my husband does not want to miss work.

I have until the end of September to decide- that's when the deferral price goes up and I'd much rather figure things out before then anyway. Hopefully by the end of September I will also know where we'll be living. And it'll give me time to try and convince my hubby we should take the trip. :)

What are your thoughts? Have you ever done a Disney race solo? Have you ever been to a new (to you) Disney park solo?

Training Tuesday

I think I've finally found my training groove again. And oddly enough, I found it on the treadmill! 

Weekly Recap

Tues: 2 miles

Wed: rest

Thurs: 2 miles

Fri: 4 miles

Sat: rest

Sun: 2 miles

Mon: rest

Friday I wasn't feeling up to running outside, so I decided to hit the gym and run on the treadmill just to get it done. I was only planning a couple miles, but felt good and I got in 4. But... I think this affected my long run on Sunday. I had planned to go out for 6 miles on Sunday, but my calf was starting to cramp up a lot, so I only got in 2. As I'm getting back into the habit of running and logging more miles, I really need to keep up with stretching.

As I'm preparing more and more of my first marathon in January, I've been looking at half marathons to run for a time to submit for a better proof of time. The best half time I could submit is a 2:27. I'm pretty confident I can run a faster half and I've been eyeing one that is on July 13th. I'm still on the fence on whether I want to run it. 

I've gotten a lot of my packing/purging done for my impending move to Texas, so that's a huge relief. Now it's just a matter of keeping things to a minimum and staying organized. I'm excited, but I'm definitely going to miss my perfect 75 degree California weather! 

How was your week?

Big Life Changes!

I've thought a while about how to start this post, but I suppose just getting it out is easier for all of us. :)

I quit my job and I'm moving to Texas.

It may not come as a surprise to most of you who know that my husband is in Texas for work; apparently both my boss and landlord expected it, just not this soon.

It's a huge change: I've worked at my current company for 5 years now and I've worked my way up through about 4 promotions. I'm definitely not the best of the best, but I do my job pretty well (or so I've been told), and for the most part I really enjoy it. I work at a bank handling peoples' money, so I've had my fair share of angry folks, but overall it's great. It's hard to give up a career I've worked 5 years on, but I'm grateful for the experience I've gained. Most of all, I really enjoy working with my team. A few I've grown as close to as family and I'm really sad to leave. They've been very supportive and are a big part of how I've been able to live away from my husband for so long.

But I know it's for the best. It's been over 4 months since my husband moved and I won't lie; it's been hard. Really hard. I thought as time went on, it would be easier to be apart, but to be honest, neither of us are happy with the situation. I found myself drinking more wine, sleeping a lot more, then having insomnia, and running a lot less- a slippery slope that I know can lead to depression. Financially speaking, it's not optimal as well. Double rent, double living expenses, travel costs to see each other, etc.

So while leaving a perfectly good job (and income stream) is a scary prospect, my current side jobs will keep me busy and help to offset leaving my job. I'm pretty sure my husband's exact words were "anything you make can go into your Disney fund." Hello, motivation! ;)
He's also been super supportive and keeps encouraging me to pursue my dreams and other career possibilities.

So that's my big secret and why my blogging has been very sporadic lately. It was a difficult decision to make, but I'm excited for the new adventure. I didn't immediately share the news on here because my boss and I agreed that we would wait to tell our team until we had a plan/my replacement in place. Moving won't be for a while though- I'm aiming for the end of July.

In the meantime, I get to enjoy lots of purging and packing.

Have you ever made any huge life changes?