10 Goals for 2014

OakMonster.com - Brandon and Oakley with the Endeavor

Let’s do a quick recap of 2013 first. 2013 Goals: kind of 7 out of 10 Find a job I love? Check! Oh my god, check! Don’t finish last at Race on the Base? Totally check. What I didn’t expect is that I would stick with running and continue to run 5K races around the neighborhood. This year’s Race on the Base is my one year anniversary race, and also my last race in a series of 3 to receive my first ever series medal! Be able to do 20 burpees in a row? I wouldn’t say in a CONTINUOUS...
Continue reading...

Raced On the Base

OakMonster ran a race!

This is my final original article as the Face of the Race for the Los Alamitos Race on the Base. It’s been fun writing for them!  Please give the Race’s blog some traffic and click here to see the original post.  Also, I was interviewed pre-race with both the Race on the Base blog AND the Orange County Register. Check them out! After all this time of having shared with you about my journey and struggle with running, I almost didn’t make it to the Race this past Saturday. Tuesday night before the Race, I was clutching the toilet bowl...
Continue reading...

Five for Friday: Saving Lives, Running with Wings, and Breaking Up with Glee

OakMonster.com - Running with Wings

Five for Friday is a weekly (well, almost) series about the five new things I learned each week. (Hey, it’s still technically Friday! Sorry I’m late. Hee.) Actually, I should call this as Five for January. I haven’t written on of these since Christmas!  Well, having the year end recap, my 2013 goals, and Race on the Base updates did throw me for a loop.  We’ll just go with whatever I fancy for the past month, alright? I’ve Learned CPR Oh yes. I now have a CPR card. I just have to remember exactly how many compression (30) and how...
Continue reading...

Enjoy the Little Things

At 4 a.m. this morning, I was jolted out of sleep by a bout of vertigo. Oh yeah. It’s back. Just a little over a week of having been on my feet again. #FML. Seriously. Fortunately, this one doesn’t seem to have the strength of the original version, but it was enough to nauseate me already.  I woke Brandon up, poor thing, to fetch me an anti-nausea pill. He asked if I want to do the Epley maneuver right away. I chose to sleep comfortably for a few more hours then do it when I’m actually ready to get up....
Continue reading...

My Week in Vertigo

Hello, hello. I’m a place called Vertigo… Bono clearly has never had vertigo.  He has never been to where the entire world spins in front of your eyes and the floor shifts beneath your feet, so much so that you were thrown to the floor from how disoriented you are. Where you are so dizzy your stomach makes like a snitch and gives up everything it has. It was a horrible place to be.  And that was where I found myself on Saturday night. The day started out just like any other busy Saturdays. Early afternoon quick visit to a...
Continue reading...

Cowboy Take Me Away

Next Friday, Brandon and I will have been married for 10 years. Instead of celebrating on our actual anniversary weekend, we had to do it this past weekend instead.  Brandon’s certification course begins next Saturday. A while back, I bought a Groupon for a horseback riding and wine tasting package with Wine Country Trails by Horseback at Wilson Creek Winery. Now that Brandon is learning to enjoy wine, we thought we’d make a weekend in Temecula out of it. Besides, with my current employment situation, we can’t quite get ourselves to Hawaii like we wanted to do originally. We spent...
Continue reading...