Ask Away Friday with Allie From VITA Train for Life

Sharing is caring!

This week I had the opportunity to pick a blog friend that I really want to get to know better for my Ask Away Friday partner!

I had a great time getting to know Allie from VITA Train for Life better! As you know, I’m a long-time runner who doesn’t often write about running, although I have done a few posts about it thanks to some encouraging blog friends. I raced competitively in high school and college…but now I live vicariously through friends like Allie! She is a true inspiration! She has four year old twin boys, she writes an amazing blog, and she is out there kicking some serious butt in races and triathlons! If you want to learn more about Allie, her VITA-MERICAL blog commercial is a great way to start! One of my favorite posts was about how she was dissed after winning her hometown triathlon in Sexism? You be the judge…go read it and you will understand why!

I hope to meet her soon (maybe even for a run, if she’ll slow down for me) because she actually only lives about an hour away from me! How cool is that?!

If you aren’t familiar with Allie’s blog, you should definitely visit. She writes about all sorts of topics besides running and triathlons, and you will definitely find her fun to read.  You can find her on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Instagram, and I know she’d love to connect with you!

I’m sure you’ll also have a good time checking out the other blogs that participated in Ask Away Friday as well!

[inlinkz_linkup id=324776]

1.  If you ever find yourself alone in the house, what’s your favorite thing to do? If I had a few free hours, I would probably nap. I like to read, and I like to cook. But it seems like these days, I try and pack everything in. Reading is limited to at night right before bed, and I try to do most of my cooking prep for the week on Sunday night so we can get it on the table at a reasonable hour with all the kids after school sports. Things might get easier once they start driving, but I don’t want to wish time away either.

2.  What are your pets names and how did you pick them? We have a lot of animals…4 cats and 3 dogs! Our animals have for the most part come from rescue and shelters, and we just keep the names they had there. Saint and Clara, 2 of our dogs came to us with names. Murphy was a puppy when we adopted him from a litter from friends in town, and no one could agree on a name. My oldest son’s friend actually named him. I think his name came from a restaurant on the side of the road while we were driving to Vermont. So much for putting a lot of thought into it! When we got our cats a few years back, we hadn’t had cats in years, and we decided to get kittens. So none of them had names, even though they came from the shelter. We let each of the kids name them. We have two black and white siblings, which my boys named Oreo and Calypso. We call Calypso “Caly” which my oldest son hates, and he always corrects us (like the cat cares). He does that with his own name too when people shorten it. Luna is our beautiful longhair black kitty. The last one, Gunner, came later, and his name is the first one we have ever changed from the shelter. They had named him U-Haul because he was found in one. I just couldn’t do that to him. My daughter named him after her old soccer team.

3.  “A” is for…?  As in “A” for a A Dish of Daily Life? Apple? Well if you’re talking my blog name, I’m not sure why I put it there. To be grammatically correct? When I introduce myself to people at blog conferences, I say “Dish of Daily Life” instead. Isn’t it funny that we all introduce ourselves at blog conferences by our blog names or twitter handles? It’s one of those odd things in life.

4.  Do you volunteer?  If you could take up a cause, what would it be? I used to volunteer a lot in my kids’ classrooms. I think I was room mom for my youngest son for four years straight…and not because I necessarily wanted to be. In a couple of cases, no one else wanted to do it. Now I’m a volunteer photographer for two high school teams and a travel team. The cause I am most involved in is the Fresh Air Fund, which is a program where inner city kids come stay with families in the country for a vacation during the summer. We’ve had the same child for seven summers now. You can read more about our experiences with the Fresh Air Fund here and here.

5.  What have you learned today? That our cat Luna is teaching us (and the dog) to hunt mice. Go ahead, laugh. It’s true. You can read all about it in How to Tell if Your Cat Loves You.

6.  Favorite show on TV right now?  If you don’t watch then favorite movie ever! I don’t watch tv, so movies it is! Miracle is probably my favorite movie, with Remember the Titans and Coach Carter coming in right behind. I love the “against all odds” theme!

7.  Who would you like to meet someday and why? That’s a hard question! I thought you promised no hard ones! I’ve never really thought about that. I’d love to meet more of my blog friends, you included!

8.  What’s the best advice you’ve ever received OR given? Fake it till you make it. Once upon a time, I received that advice, and I give it on a regular basis now. I feel like if you prepare properly and believe in yourself, you can do anything you want to. Believing in yourself is key here!

9.  If talent and skill were no object, what professional sport would you like to play/do? I know the sky’s the limit here, but I don’t really have lofty goals. I don’t think I’d like to be in the limelight all the time, so it would have to be a lower key sport. I think it would be fun to be really fast on the track. I was always more of a strength runner so I was a better cross country runner than track. I loved the hard hilly courses (not so much anymore though). But I love watching those strategic races with women who are just really fast. Then again, I also like watching my kids play soccer and that wasn’t really an option when I was growing up. I don’t think I am answering this question all that well!

10.  What is something you wish everyone knew about you? We should change that to what is something you wish no one knew about you? Haha. I wish none of my friends knew what a lousy housekeeper I am. I don’t know if I want everyone to know anything in particular! I’d rather have my secrets. One thing my good friends know about me is that I take things to heart easily. Once I called a friend a little after nine because I really needed something and her husband answered the phone and said “It’s after nine, Michelle” and hung up the phone. You can not even imagine what a basket case I was after that, because I usually don’t call friends that late. I found out later her husband was with another friend’s husband, and they thought they were being funny. As it turns out, they actually were trying to figure out a way to call me back but not have caller id show who it was but when they couldn’t, they lost interest. Meanwhile I spent the whole night upset. So the next morning when I saw the friend, I apologized, and she had no idea what I was talking about. She said “people call us after nine all the time, no big deal!” Then she and the other friend put two and two together. Her husband did something similar to me one other time where he pretended he was the babysitter. Then he called me back to tell me it was a joke, because he’s not allowed to play jokes on me like that anymore. I knew something was up that time though. He’s a pretty good prankster.