It’s been a while hasn’t it? I could give you a whole bunch of blah blah blah about why I haven’t posted anything and it may be interesting to some – but would require me to actually stop & think about why I haven’t been posting. To sum it up – I had a lot going on at work…We were getting ready for a family vacation to Florida so I could run at the Disney World Princess Half Marathon… Life was busy.
I have a whole bunch of photos I am going to post up from the trip we took. It was a great time spent with the kids in Disney World. Their first trip, my 3rd, HunBun’s 2nd. The weather held out for us until the last day we were in the park – when it started raining in the afternoon while we were in the Magic Kingdom. The rain didn’t last long nor was it very heavy but people sure whipped out their ponchos like they were going to melt. Of course everyone in the family had hats on their heads except for me…so I just trudged through the drizzle. Good think I wasn’t wearing a white shirt that day – HA!
Although I didn’t get my PR at this race I didn’t do too badly – and I still had fun. It was nice to run in a different place this time and I will say I did have to adjust a bit to the heat & humidity. The one thing nice about running in Florida was that I was not cold during the long wait for the start. I did decide that I am going to get more serious about my training plans for these runs. I have renewed my commitment to speed drills, tempo drills, fartleks and what ever else I read up on in the running magazines and blogs. I’m also doing more about my approach to eating. Although it is relatively healthy, I am going to expend more control over my snacking. I love me some salty chips….so am going to explore the variety of flavors of homemade Kale chips and store bought crunchy nori sheets.
Anyhoo. Got a lot of work emails to get through – only did about 1/2 yesterday and I got a lot of planning to get through for some organizational changes I’m instituting in my team (doesn’t that sound exciting? 🙂 )
One nice by product of our family trip to Florida? 12yo has been getting up at 6am – instead of his normal 640am…so he’s been on time to leave for school and I’ve not had to pester him to get a move on. Sweet!
I’ll post those pictures up as a wordless montage…
I know that doesn’t really go together, but it sort of does. It was a deja vu kind of work day. Conference calls – Email – Excel files – Word documents – Instant Chats… yada yada yada. It’s probably the same thing that every employee in corporate America does one day or another.
This morning I did not wake up to exercise. Boo on me. I didn’t sleep well and was just plain tired…physically tired. So I decided to do what people always say “listen to your body” and my body said Stay in Bed. So I did….and an hour and 15 minutes after the alarm went off at 5am I got myself out of bed.
Started the work computer – my data transfer was still going…day 3 – but it was saving all my work from my dead work computer so I wasn’t going to bother it at all. First thing I do every day is check my calendar to see how many conference calls I had for the day – only 4 today.. YAY! There are days where I have 6+…Yikes!
My food has been really good this week…I’ve been patting myself on the back as an affirmation of my good choices. Tonight was a slight deviation with our Hillshire Farms chicken sausage sauté – so good! On to the foodie foto’s..Yeeha!
Big ole breakfast pancake…eaten with my hands. MMMmmm
Snack today was 2 Cuties and 2 Apricot Date balls… looks so zen. Ohmm
Homemade chicken salad in a Flat Out wrap on a bed of spinach.
A spoonable smoothie!
Hillshire Farms sausage, leeks, red potatoes and celery. YUM!
I ended dinner with a healthy cocoa – cocoa powder + protein powder with hot water. Sounds weird but tastes really creamy and chocolaty. You don’t even have to add any sweetener at all. Oh, one picture I didn’t take was the piece of Black Bean Brownie I ate after lunch – decadent and healthy!
All this healthy eating is making me feel really great about my recent personal choices. I’ve got a biggee I’m making at work – but I’m not stressing on that at all. Must be all these positive endorphins from exercise and healthy eats. 🙂
I don’t really have a whole lot to say. It’s been a lot of the same thing every day this week. Waking up early to bust out an early sweat session…eating healthy meals to stay on the TIU plan…powering through a work day…zooming off to yoga…cooking dinner…trying to chill out…falling asleep. B-O-R-I-N-G. 😦 Routine is usually what I fall into – be it eating or slogging through the day. There are so many demands on our every waking minute that you become immune to enjoying life.
I mean who can believe that it’s already February? I certainly can’t. I’ve got too much to do at work, for my family, for myself that sometimes I just turn inward. I retreat into myself – disengaging from everything on the inside while maintaining the outward appearance of full participation. Is that a protection mechanism? So I don’t completely drain myself? Maybe…who knows. Blah. That’s usually my statement whenever I don’t want to talk or can’t talk. 🙂
Anyhoo…who signed up to read a decompression session? Not me – so let’s move on to my favorite topic – EATING! For all those who think eating healthy is boring and hard – you’re right. HA! It can be both of those things if you don’t inject a level of creativity and planning into it. I do think that healthy eating requires a lot more prep work than not so healthy eating. That means figuring out what you are going to eat during the week because all that healthy food tends to go bad – certainly doesn’t have the shelf life of say Hamburger Helper. 😀 You also need to cut, pack and organize your healthy eats in an easy to see and grab way. The easier to grab – the more likely you will eat it. I’ve learned that the hard way (hard way being throwing out hundreds of dollars of veggies that went bad because I didn’t eat it fast enough – Boot!)
Enough blah blah blahing…. on to the pictorial – Wheee!
Tuesday breakfast. Oh yeah, I eat my pancake with my hands!
Tuesday snack was a juicy pear
Tuesday Lunch – Double wrapping it!
I forgot to take a photo of my super tasty smoothie I had before yoga. I followed a TIU recipe – Mango, Banana, Almond Milk, Coconut…whir it up and drink. 🙂
After yoga I whipped up a Mexican shrimp sauté and served it along with some lime cilantro rice. Of course I forgot to take a picture. More because for some reason we didn’t eat until 730pm…we’re usually done eating and kitchen cleaned by 7pm. Not sure what happened. So I was rushing all around and then rushed that food right down my piehole.
Wednesday’s eats were almost an exact duplicate…I think I’m falling into my rut. Ick. 😦 But it was still tasty – so whatever, right. 🙂
Wednesday Breakfast. What else but a giant ole pancake.
Wednesday Snack: Balls!
For snack I had another pear and 2 of these awesome Apricot-Date balls. Easy to make, although they are a little sticky to roll into balls. YUM YUM.
Wednesday Smoothie. Kiwi, berries and spinach.
No photo of lunch…that’s because I was running late to a conference call and had to shove my wrap into my mouth as quickly as I could. Not the best thing to do. Also had 2 Cuties along with my lunch. Sweet treat!
I was smart today and put some ribs in the crockpot for HunBun and the 12yo so that cooked all day and made the house smell SO GOOD! I put some rice in the rice pot so it’d be ready for them to eat before I got home from yoga since I had to run to CVS to pick up a prescription.
Wednesday Dinner. Chicken and Kale wrap
I may eat a couple Apricot-Date balls as a treat…or have a piece of the Black Bean Brownies I just made. Hmmmm. Which would you pick? 😀
So I’ve got a few weeks before I’ll be pumping my arms and legs while running over in Disney World….eeeeeee! I wasn’t that worried, until HunBun says to me while we are brushing our teeth this morning “so, uh, you going to be ready to run in a few weeks?” Uh, What??? Now I’m thinking- well I haven’t been as consistent with my running since I got this cold and my schedule has been ridiculous; am I ready? Blah!
Hey what you gonna do right? Just do the best I can every day – get myself moving every day until we leave then make sure to do some jogs once we get there to get acclimated. It’s all about having fun on these races so I’m not overly dwelling on it. Although I will admit I’d love to improve my time from last month’s Tinkerbell. That was a pooter for me… 😦
A while ago I joined the Tone It Up program…or I should say I bought the program and had not made the full commitment to the program in any type of consistent manner. So this weekend I made a commitment to myself that I can give the TIU plan 5 days (doing the Beach Body version) to see what it can do for me. I’m not overweight…I just want to tighten up in some spots and lose that layer of cover over my muscles. I like my arms and think they’re pretty good – but would love to have Jillian Michaels arms or Linda Hamilton a la Terminator
I mean seriously tight! I got a little more squish around some of the edges you know. 🙂 I’ve always expended a lot of calories but certainly did not help on the eating side of the matter. I know, I know…90% of your body is made in the kitchen – or whatever they say. That’s why I’m doing the TIU plan – to help with my eating approach.
I started my day with a 30 min walk/jog on the treadmill. Last week sucked – in the way of exercising and with this blasted cold I wanted to ease into my sweat this morning.
TIU touts the wonders of drinking shots of Apple Cider Vinegar. So the TIU day starts off with some type of drink with an ACV shot. Today started with a Bombshell spell which is THE BEST way to drink an ACV shot. Zippy and sweet. That was followed by a protein pancake – which I always make in a single giant pancake rather than tiny multiples.
I make my protein pancake the way everyone else makes it – but I do change the dry ingredients just a bit. I do about 3/4 of a scoop of Perfect Fit protein powder, then add 1 Tbsp Decadent Mix Flax & Chia blend and 1 tsp of Maca Powder. That’s added to a 1/2 a banana and 3 Tbsp egg whites. Smash or whip as you like (I use the fork I’m going to eat it with – I wash it before eating… HA!) then pour into a heated sprayed pan. 5-6 minutes later you can eat it. That was Meal 1…Breakfast.
M2 was 1 cup of blueberries picked at while on a conference call along with 2 cups of hot tea.
M3, Lunch was 3 oz of grilled chicken on 1/4 cup of cooked quinoa and 2 slices of tomato wrapped in a collard green. I added some fresh cilantro on top – love the freshness of cilantro!
M4, I blended up a “juice” that was more chunky than liquidy. I haven’t invested in a juicer – and prefer not to until I truly get into the juicing habit. So I used all the settings I could to get my beet, apples, ginger and lime to a drinkable state. I had to add some water to get the stuff moving since I could imaging our blender starting to smoke as it tried its darndest to liquefy these things clattering around in that glass jar. It did get there finally…and I have a photo but apparently didn’t upload it…so that’ll be a bonus photo for tomorrow. Wheee! I was kind of worried about the taste but with the addition of the lime (peel and all) it was really fresh and light. Although the chunk factor makes this one for those with a penchant for healthy eating – and not someone who just came off a milkshake binge. 😀
My afternoon workout was 60 minute Vinyasa Flow at Xplore Yoga. Love love love this class. My knees felt really good so I could bend deep into Warrior 1 and side angles. She worked us on the Chaturanga‘s…but I was able to power through and keep up. Double Whee!
M5, Dinner was 2 more chicken & quinoa wraps in a collard green leaf along with some roasted brussel sprouts, cauliflower and broccoli. 13yo asked for some roasted veggies too – so I happily spooned some on his plate to eat. HunBun said “no thanks”. 🙂 That’s not unusual for our table.
I plugged all my food into MyFitnessPal and was told I only ate 1050 calories for the day. That’s a no-no. What’s weird is I don’t feel hungry or deprived in any way – it may be because veggies bulk you up more and I also ate about 89 grams of protein – which is 10 more than my daily goal. Tomorrow I’ll add a smoothie and see what that does for me.
Biggest Loser is almost over…we’ll see if Danny can save Jillian from going off air.
See ya later
Cathy
**Best commercial from Super Bowl Sunday? Dodge’s “The Farmer” with Paul Harvey. Awesome!
So the last few weeks have been ugh-ola. First my work Blackberry went bananas and it took a good 2 weeks and 3 replacements until I got one that would work. I don’t even want to make the switch to the iPhone that is being offered because I’ve just reentered all of my contacts BY HAND! So thanks but no thanks…I’ll wait until this BB dies then switch because it won’t matter anyway.
Then a week and a half ago my home pc went dark. The darn graphics card went kaput…and the computer was so old that it wasn’t one of those cards you could just take out and replace. Oh, no…that would have been too easy for me. When HunBun opened that thing up he found the card to be wired in. Gah! Lucky I was headed out for a work trip so I just let it go while he figured out a plan.
While I’m at work my darn work computer decides to blue screen itself…which if you’re familiar – means it has up and died on me. This is happening at 7:15am Wednesday morning as I was planning to print off a bunch of documents for an all day meeting I was leading with my team. When I turned on my laptop and saw that blue screen I yelped and hit the power off button…hoping I had caught it before the full memory dump completed. Well I started-stopped-started-stopped-started-stopped-started-stopped-started….then actually stopped. Seeing as my on-off plan wasn’t working I decided to sit there with a frowny face. Lucky I was in the office…one of the IT guys on site came over and took my dead laptop away to see if he could Frankenstein resurrect it for me.
Long story short…the technical way the IT guy said it was “You’re hosed”. Definitely not something you want to hear from an IT guy who was supposed to save your work life by recovering all of the work you had been doing for the last 2 weeks. (Thank goodness my work pal admonished me to back up my computer just 3 weeks ago) I’d be fine except for the fact that in the last 2 weeks I had built out an entire tracking workbook for all the things my team is working on…with legends and tabs and all that! Super BAH!
I got my new work laptop on Friday…then it took all day to get it to a working condition – while I am still waiting on another IT guy to save my email archive. Please please please be successful!
I got this lovely grapefruit shaded Vaio on Sunday to replace ye olde home pc.
Purchasing this was a pain in the patootie too. HunBun and I went on Saturday to the fancy Westfield mall since I couldn’t find something I wanted at the local Best Buy. We went to the Sony store and spent a good 40 minutes in there looking at a total of 4 laptops they had on display. It came down to the shiny red one or the white one that also came in pink. Meanwhile HunBun is steaming because the sales gal is blah blah blahing about techy this and that which means nothing to me since I told her exactly what I needed the laptop to do for me – go on the internet, upload photos, play iTunes, type stuff. Well when she said “when you need more memory you can upgrade this one and it’ll cost you as much as this more expensive laptop that has that memory now”. As I prepared for a flame out she walked away and I made a silent “whew” as I turned to look at his irritated face. He was done… and I made my decision. “I’d like to see the pink one of this Vaio please”, I said to sales person #2. Off he goes to the back room which must be the most cavernous place ever because it took him a good 10 minutes to come back out. Then he brings this pink cutie out and I say “I’ll take it”….and he says “oh, I can’t sell this to you today…but I can sell it to you tomorrow”. What????? I did not even look at HunBun as I could imagine what that face would have looked like….he was already circling the store so he wouldn’t get annoyed at the tech sell. We left. I was irritated. He was annoyed.
Sunday morning I dragged the 13yo (yes he had a birthday) and 11yo (and he had a birthday too) to the mall. After we wandered around the Lego store deciding on what new set we just had to have…we marched straight over to the Sony store where I promptly said “I’m here to buy the pink version of that laptop since I couldn’t buy it yesterday”. Sales person goes into the cavernous storeroom and after we stand there (I annoyed…kids asking why it’s taking so long) he finally comes out. I say, “is that the pink one?”. He says “yes, that’s the one you want right?”. I say, “how much is it?”. He says “$$$”. I say “ok, I’ll take it”. Then he proceeds to try to sell me some $$ protection plan to which I say “My husband says to never buy those, so no thank you”….I felt bad at my snooty self but I was just done with this whole purchasing experience. Plus he gave me an irritated look when I said no. Then after he attempted to sell me a different $$ protection plan – to which I not said a polite, but unfriendly, “no thank you”. He finally rang me up. I slid my card. I walked out with this teeny little box with a very spendy thing in it.
HunBun was able to buy some gadget that is able to pull my old data off my old hard drive. So he did his thing and now I’m back to business.
Whew….long story. Now it’s too work. I’ll be back to normal soon….I hope.
Hi! My name is Cathy and I'm working hard to balance health and life. Sometimes it's hard, especially with work, family and my own interests competing to fit into the 24 hours a day we've all been blessed with. This blog is a place where I can share what I'm doing to move - with direction and magnitude...on the vector.
Literature, more than anything inspires me to be the greatest version of myself. Through this blog and my teaching, I hope to share the love of literature that can only come from understanding that great literature is not just read, but demands to be felt.
onthevector 