WCW [#1]

It is no secret that I have just about the most bad-ass family out there.  This week in particular, I’m crushing so hard on my cousin Christine Marks (otherwise known as MarksyPants). I’m a whopping 22 days older and a couple feet taller than Chris but girlfriend has always been my idol. Here is one reason why. SHE IS THE WORLD’S MOST AMAZING ARTIST and way too humble about it.  Lucky for everyone she recently opened up her own Etsy shop and now I have to be unselfish and share her with the world.

I mean just look at the Christmas present she made me this year!

And then she totally saved my butt this past week too!

My sister is notoriously hard to shop for, she is one of those super non-greedy people whose all “but I don’t need anything” you can tell who got the gimme genes in this family for sure. But I totally had an ace in the hole this year: in March she was going on and on about this Limited Edition St. Patrick’s Day Jameson bottle not just because she loves whiskey because the label was so beautiful! I was totally ready to start scouring the internet to find a bottle for her birthday, but the girl has a whiskey bottle collection to rival Jameson himself, and having it sit on a shelf somewhere just didn’t seem special enough. Enter MarksyPants. I sent Chris a picture of the label to see if there anything she could do with it, and this is what happened…

Seriously the pictures don’t do it justice; this thing is a flipping masterpiece even the original artist thinks so!

Christine has always had a knack for design and making things beautiful and I am constantly blown away totally jealous of her work ethic and attention to detail.  I am just so so happy and proud as hell that she is getting the recognition she deserves.  So basically you need to have MarskyPants make you ALL THE THINGS and then follow her on Instagram to get sneak peeks at her custom work because it’s just the cutest ever.

Girl Power, Sisters before Misters

Last week was a very odd combination of lots of good things and lots of really annoying things that just would not go away, I felt like I was trying to play Whack-a-Mole at times. By the time Friday came around I was just over the unnecessary worrying and tired of trying to control things that were in fact outside of my control. Which is when I came home to this.

Now, I worship at the church of Lauren Fleshman. Period. Not only is she an amazing athlete, creator of one of my favorite snacks (holla at ya Picky Bar), Oiselle elite, and an all around bad-ass. I swear she is also psychic. Whatever stupid crap happens to be going on in my life, running related or otherwise, Lauren Fleshman will appear in some form with the most insanely ridiculously appropriate advice and I'm just like YES.
For example:
When I basically broke the left side of my body and was having a complete meltdown about being injured, she posted this story about her Achilles - Ask Lauren Fleshman


When I was terrified of attempting to run the Marine Corps Marathon after said injury, this popped up as Runner's World QOTD

I'm down to my last Picky Bar and have a Oiselle Wishlist out the Oisoo (hahahahah) she's like here, let me give you a discount on all your favorite things.



...and I have just come to the realization that LF is actually my Fairy Godmother...so add that to her list of accomplishments.

The girl crushing continued on Saturday when I got to spend some much needed quality time with my Mom and Sister getting ready for my Cousin's "Engagement Party." Aka it wasn't a real engagement party, we just all happened to be getting together and will use any excuse necessary to buy large quantities of Champagne and make multiple trips to Michael's. The McCrystal girls far outnumber the men in both quantity and volume, so it was obviously all about us Saturday night.

A video posted by Kaitlyn McCrystal (@ktmccrystal) on Nov 9, 2015 at 9:35am PST

 And the Happy Couple, of course.

We're going to politely gloss over the majority of Sunday morning, as said Champagne and cookies took quite the toll on my poor sad body. But sometimes you really just need an excuse to load up the DVR with Quantico and crush on Priyanka Chopra and that chick from UnREAL who was also on Greek and you just kind of hate to love. I could have quite literally spent all day moping on the couch. But this chick decided to win the Big Sur Half Marathon, and I was like ok Kara would want me to get up and be productive.

Been a long time since I broke the tape! Thank you for all the support today! 71:13. Onward and upward!! ❤️❤️ pic.twitter.com/bEzTvBr2C2— Kara Goucher (@karagoucher) 

So in her honor, I pulled on my KG Tights, Oiselle trials hoodie, and managed to do semi-productive (normal people things) like laundry, errands and a quick 3-mile recovery run + conditioning. This is why you should always ask yourself WWKGD because chances are it's a lot better than whatever you're currently doing. [unless you are watching Quantico, because it's just a really good show and I'm sure Kara would agree].

Life is a whole lot better when you're surrounded (physically and digitally?) by people who inspire you. I was reminded this weekend that I am a lucky did, let's see how long the warm and fuzzies last when faced with weekdays!

-Stay caffeinated my friends