Back…with a new word!

I know right?!?  That’s what my 10yo would say and I find most appropriate here.  Long break again where I just didn’t find a moment to log in and jot stuff down.  So let’s catch up shall we?

It wasn’t a Staycation it was a Projecation

So last week HunBun and I took time off from work to do a bunch of stuff that we had procrastinated long enough on.  You know how you do “around the house projects” and then look back and say “why didn’t we do that last year (or 2 years ago)?”  Yeah, that’s us.  So with the wonky weather in the Bay Area, CA last week we decided that it was going to be filled with long awaited projects – Whee!  Bleah!

The weather was a major decider in what we dd every day.  So with Monday being projected as rain-free, we decided to tackle the dirt square by the front door.  Now it hasn’t always been a dirt square, but over time the plants got all janky and we moved the big tree that was the focal point…so that gradually it became that uneven dirt/rock spot RIGHT WHERE EVERYONE CAN SEE!  It irritated HunBun to his last nerve…so we decided to do this.

Now that’s a welcome

We planted 3 palms and then covered the dirt with some landscaping river rocks.  We have to get taller pots for the 3 plants we’ll have in the back right under the window.  The current plants are in shorter pots and we need some height change for effect.  Thanks HGTV!

We should have kept going on the other side of the door where we have a rectangle planting area under the other window.  But this project took us about 4.5 hours and we were hecka tired from lugging rocks and placing them.

Then the rain came….

So when it was cold and wet outside we spent the days inside doing everyone’s favorite maintenance activity – touch up painting – YAH!  You know those projects where you can’t tell you did anything?  That’s what touch up painting is.  I mean I guess the crown and base looks shinier…and we don’t have those random pencil/scuff/chip spots in the hallway, office, master bedroom, master bathroom, front bathroom, laundry room.  But really you can’t tell that we spent 2.5 days doing touch up painting.  Well except in the laundry room where the door and casing went from a yellowish straight from Home Depot color to a crisp clean white.  And in the hallway where we unfortunately, for us, used a different paint finish on the touch ups and can now see blops of color here and there.  UGH.  We’ll have to re-touch the hall when we do the front room where the Christmas tree is since both rooms are the same gray color.  I don’t have any pictures for you…since it’d look like I was just showing you pictures of every room in our house.  🙂

So my new word, projecation is really because we did a whole bunch of projects while on our “vacation” or “staycation” as they call it now since we didn’t go anywhere.  Well projecation can cause some provocation of mini arguments and irritations.  Too much together time?  No more like two people who like to do things a certain way and expect the other to be a mind reader to know exactly what we’re going to do as soon as we decide to do it.  Nothing major…just a bunch of long loud breathing and forced quiet to calm down.  🙂  I’m sure any of us in a relationship totally gets it.

Sweats

I did a couple of runs and circuits during the projecation.  Nothing too jazzy or exciting.  Just used my interval clock and did a bunch of random things until sweat started dripping all over. 

I did get to 2 yoga classes during the week.  My favorite Monday night Vinyasa Flow class from 5-6pm then did a new class Xplore Yoga just added – Wednesday night Vinyasa Flex from 5-6pm.  I liked the new class a lot.  Building up some flexibility and the instructor was fantastic.  Xplore also added a new class on Friday night – Crossflow, a blend of cross fit and yoga.  I wasn’t able to get to the class because 12yo had his first band concert.

Yes.  That is my 12yo.  Currently taller than me and I’m 5’10”!  They had the church sanctuary decorated with white christmas trees in groups of 3.  It was really beautiful and the concert was lovely too.  HA!

Eats

On Saturday I did the Dr. Oz 3 day cleanse, where all you do is drink 4 smoothies a day.  It’s pretty easy to stick to and the smoothies did fill me up and kept me satisfied.  I didn’t do the epsom salt bath every night though, not sure what impact that would have on the detoxifying.  It must have worked because by the 3rd day my tongue felt perpetually coated with guck.  It was probably the easiest “cleanse” or “deprivation” style diet I’ve ever tried.  I call it a deprivation diet because you deprive yourself of certain types of food.  So on the last smoothie of the last day – I quit.  I know right!  Well the reason I quit was because I made this tasty delight:

Easy Dinner

4 ingredients (+ salt & pepper): Red potatoes, Hilshire Farms Hardwood Smoked Chicken Sausage, Leeks, Fuji Apple.  Instructions:  1) Slice everything up – the potatoes, leeks and apple into thin slices for quick cooking.  2) Add 1 Tbsp olive oil to pan and saute the red potatoes until almost cooked through.  3) Add the chicken sausage to get a nice brown color and warmed through as the sausage is pre-cooked.  4) Add the leeks and apples at the same time and cook for another 5-6 minutes until the apples and leeks start to soften.  EAT!

It smelled so good and I really wanted something warm and hearty to eat instead of another cold veggie smoothie.  So I said goodbye to Dr. Oz and hello to warm delicious food that I could chew.  🙂  This dish was a big hit and as soon as I posted it to my FB I got a bunch of questions from family about what I made and how to cook it up.  Winning!

My other eats since Monday have been my norm, protein pancakes and wraps.

I forgot the banana

Cukes & Carrots for snack

Roast Beef wrap

Then last night 12yo and I headed to the Westfield mall down in Santa Clara for this:

Oh yeah!

Althleta opened up a new store and I got an invite to the grand opening.  .  So I asked HunBun if he wanted to go.  He said “uh, no”.  So I asked 12yo and he said “Sure”.  Don’t you love kids?  I appreciated it because that meant we could blaze down in the car pool lane since we’d be heading toward San Jose at 5pm – smack in the middle of commute traffic.  Sweet!

We got a parking in the first row we turned down – Winning!  Then did a quick search for the store, since we got there at 530 and the invite said the opening was from 6-8pm.  Well once we found the store we saw that they were letting the invitees in the doors.  So instead of heading to the food court 12yo agreed to go in to the store.  😉  It’s like a healthier candy store!  They offered some little bites and wine/sparking water as you roamed the racks…which made it difficult to try things on.  Good thing I had an extra pair of hands….which meant that he drank up my sparking water.  LOL

I found some cute new winter running gear that I can’t wait to sweat on:

Sweet new gear

Goody bag with purchase

After enduring my shopping activity – which included 12yo holding my purse, belt and sweater at different points as I tried on 3 tops; we headed up to the food court to find something to eat for dinner.  He got a sushi platter and I got Chicken Pad Thai.  It was so much food that he and I shared my Pad Thai with some left over for his school lunch today.  It was really tasty…but next time I’d order without the protein.

Food court Pad Thai

We grabbed a hot drink from Starbucks and headed home.

It was a great week off from work and hopefully I’m back in the routine – early wake ups to exercise, blog, work, yoga, cook, chill, sleep – Repeat.  🙂

See ya later

Cathy

Life 10. Blog 0.

A knockout can be characterized by temporary unconsciousness. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yes.  Life won…even with bonus rounds, overtime and extra innings.   I can’t believe, well actually I can believe, that my last post was waaaaaaaay back on Friday the 16th of November.  She-oot!  That was a long time ago.  And no, I was not unconscious as the free image next to this introductory paragraph indicate.  Rather I was caught up in the rush of a 3 day work week before the Thanksgiving holiday followed by a planned 5 day stay-cation.  Of course in those 3 days before the holiday a whole bunch of work stuff had to get taken care of – both anticipated and unanticipated.  Which resulted in no yoga attendance for the last week and a half.  😦  Boot!  In addition to no bloggedy blog posting.  Double Boot! 😦  😦   It’s not like I didn’t want to (yoga or blog) – but after spending all day in front of a computer for long work hours I took great pleasure in turning off both computers (the work one and the home one) after I stopped working.  Plus the boys were out of school for the holiday week and I wanted to spend some time with them before I said “you can stay up if you want but I’m going to bed” everynight at 9pm.  Super killjoy I know.  10yo usually responded by going to bed too…while 12yo put himself to bed around 930-10pm.  He doesn’t stay up too late – lucky for me.

Circuit Training Mix Master Style

I know my last post said something about blogging about the circuit workouts that I’ve been doing.  Hope you weren’t holding your breath or anything – otherwise I’d be feeling pretty terribly about myself right about now.  I’ll try to whip up a graphic with the circuits I’ve been doing because I’d like to repeat a couple of them myself.  I make it super easy for me to remember and also completely different every time so I don’t get bored AND my muscles pay attention.  🙂

A couple essentials.

• An interval timer.  I use a free one on my iPad that lets me set up whatever amounts of time I want for Warm Ups, High/Low Interval Cycles, Repeats, Number of Cycles, Rest Times (between cycles) and Cool Downs.

• Dumb bells in a range of weights.  I have a set of 3lb’ers, 5lb’ers and 15lb’ers.  If I want to bust it all Mr. America style I can always use HunBuns 25lb’ers (Uh, never).
• Kettle bells.  I have a 5lb one and a 10lb one I got in a Jillian Michaels workout set I bought a while back.
• A towel.  I work out in the garage so I like to put a towel down on the rubber mat for me to lie on or put my hands/elbows on when I do planks.  Otherwise I’d have to sweep every morning – bleah!
• A bench.  I do bent over tricep rows on the wooden bench we have in the garage so that we can sit down while putting on our shoes.
• A weight bench.  I do chest presses lying on HunBun’s weight bench.
• A step.  I use the steps that go from the garage to the laundry room to do toe taps or “box jumps” (or rather “step jumps” HA! )
• A big space.  I move around a lot so I make sure there’s nothing I can fall over or step on as I “plyo” my way to healthy living.  🙂
• Randoms: Jump rope and stretchy bands (I can’t remember what their real name is, but it’s those rubber tubes that sometimes come with handles on the end that you can stand on or tie to door knobs to increase resistance)

So once you’ve got your slick little home gym set up you can start making up a circuit for the morning/afternoon/night or whenever you feel like getting a little (a lot) sweaty.

I start with whatever warm up time I want – depending on how I feel.  That can be 1 minute of jumping jacks to 10 minutes on the treadmill or stationary bike.  You can do whatever you want to get your body warmed up.   Then I usually do 2 repeats of 12 (high/low) intervals with 1 minute (high) and 10 seconds (low) and a 30 second rest between repeats.  That’s a 29:30 circuit work out that I end with 1 minute of cool down.  You can change the time for any of these to suit your needs – be creative to keep your excitement up!

I do as many of the exercise as I can within the 1 minute high interval time frame and use the 10 seconds to grab dumb bells or position my towel on the ground or get whatever extra doo-dah or space I need.  I try to plan out what I want to work – legs, arms, core, a mix and then select exercises that work those areas.  So now you know where I spend my time, here’s what I use to fill it up with.  Use your DJ skills and mix-master your way to a totally unique circuit:

Pick whatever you want from:

• Jumping Jacks, High Knees, Butt Kicks, Toe Taps (on the step), Skaters, Box Jumps (on the step), Jump Squats
• Planks, Side Planks (each side gets 1 minute), Elbow Planks, Up/Down Planks, One-legged Plans (each side gets 1 minute), Side Planks with “Thread the Needle” or rib grab or whatever call it when you grab your side rib with the opposite hand (each side gets 1 minute).
• Dumb bells or Kettle Bells: Bicep curls (each side gets 1 minute), Deadlifts, Shoulder Raises, Chest Press, Hammer Curl to Shoulder Press, Shoulder Press, Single Arm Row (each side gets 1 minute), Bent Over Row, Weighted Squat, Weighted Lunges, Push Ups
• Squats, Lunges (each side gets 1 minute), Walking Lunges, Side Lunges, Jump Lunges, Single Leg Deadlifts, Mountain Climbers, Burpees, Plank Jacks
• Whatever exercise you see in a magazine, on a tv show, on a fitness video, or read on a blog.

And that’s how I keep it interesting and fit a really nice workout into a 30-50 minute window.   Hope that was worth the wait.  🙂

So how’d life get 10 and this little bloggedy blog get a big fat goose egg?  Well here’s a photo montage for the past 10 days (or why life scored a perfect 10).

Random Eats over the last 10 days…

Can you believe I didn’t take any photos of Thanksgiving dinner?  Super Fail.

Nitro Turkey 10K Thanksgiving Morning!

I did a 10K the morning of Thanksgiving up at Point Pinole near Richmond.  It was so cold I couldn’t feel my toes for the first mile or so…then my fingers felt numb I was freaking out.  I need to invest in some pocket warmers for next year.  Brazen Racing is awesome!  Check them out if you’re in the Bay Area!  Of course I had to eat my It’s It Cappucino ice cream sandwich – even after I told myself not to.  Oh well.  🙂    Maybe our energetic Scrabble rounds at Thanksgiving dinner wore off the calories in that tasty treat!

Quarry Turkey 10K the Saturday after Thanksgiving!

Early Saturday morning I was back in the cold for the Quarry Turkey 10K over in Quarry Lakes, Fremont CA.  I again wished I had some pocket warmers for my toes as those digits were like ice cubes when I started running.  I kept my pace up and didn’t stop running!  I was super stoked that I kept my legs moving even when my brain was trying to figure out ways to convince them to slow down or take a break.  I was greeted at the end with a high five from the dad pushing the running stoller (wha???) and with HunBun’s parents meeting me at the finish line.  Super awesome surprise!  So after another It’s It Cappucino ice cream sandwich (what can I do they’re there all the time) they drove me home where I took a hot shower….AAAAAAAaaaaaaaahhhhhh!  🙂

After all that busy’ness, HunBun and I are taking the week off to putz around.

How we started the first 2 days of vacation…mmmmm!

Tomorrow some super storm is supposed to roll into or ONto the Bay Area so we’ll see what HunBun and I get done around the house.  I’ll have to photo the front landscaping project we accomplished yesterday and post it up.  I have to say it looks down right lovely.  🙂

See ya later!

Cathy

 

 

 

 

 

 

Starting Saturday off with some Brisky Behavior.

Brrr…it’s chilly beans out there!

That’s at 8am!

Let me finish off my Friday before I get to the brisky behavior.  Get it?  ‘Cause it’s brisk out there?  He he he

Every other Friday I pick up 10yo from school.  He lives with his dad and it’s about a 40-50 min drive over to where they live, depending on traffic.  Lucky for me that on Friday’s 10yo’s school gets out at 1:30pm so that means less traffic that I have to deal with.

I usually eat lunch before I drive out there, but since they just opened a new outlet mall halfway between our house and the school the news has been showing the ridiculousness that is people trying to get there to spend money!

Parking lot to get to the parking lot

So being the smarty that I am I figured I’d leave 40 minutes earlier than normal just in case…which meant I needed a to go lunch.

They make some fancy boxes now

 

Open sesame

I put together a whole wheat wrap with roast beef slices (the new healthy version from Oscar Mayer), hummus, arugula, goat cheese and olive tapenade (I love that stuff).  On the side I had baby carrots and a mix of gluten free crunchy stuff – Blue Diamond Almond crackers, GF pretzels and some cinnamon almonds.  Well the traffic didn’t even exist, so I got to 10yo’s school an hour earlier and sat in front of it like a creepy person eating my lunch.  I did bring my work computer so I got a bunch of stuff I needed to get done – done.  Hoorah for multi-tasking!

10yo and I picked up 12yo from school and we booked it home so I could finish up my work day.  Then while the 2 boys plyaed XBox, HunBun and I dropped my car off at the dealership for a 5K mile service appointment.  It gets so dark now!  It’s like we were on a date – but actually just driving home from Toyota.

I was lazy so for dinner I made everyone GF pancakes.  Wheee!  I used Pure Pantry’s all purpose GF flour and added some vanilla and cinnamon.  This mix makes really nice pancakes that hold their shape – although I am the worst flipper ever.  Kept slapping them against the side of the pan or on the pancake next to it.  Utter ridiculousness.

I like jelly on my cakes

After dinner I spent the rest of the night reading all my bloggedy blogs I subscribe to and cleaning up my email bins.  Since I can’t just sit there, I was also “watching” Tattoo Nightmare followed by InkMaster.  Those tattoo artists are SO TALENTED!!!!  Tattoo Nightmare is one I’d watch again.  They help people who have janky tattoos and turn them into beautiful new ink.  It was crazy how they made the old tattoo just disappear.  Check it out on your boob tube when you get the chance!

Saturday’s brisky behavior

So last night I tell HunBun, “hey lets walk to Starbucks tomorrow morning”.  Well he tells me that he was already going to wake up early and do that since he had more work to get done.  So I, being committed and all, said “oh, well maybe I’ll just run on up there and meet you”.  So that’s what I did.

Rise and Shine

I used my new Timex GPS watch and apparently need to go back and read the manual again.  I kept pressing all the buttons on the side and FINALLY got the GPS on along with the run feature so I could get a move on.  Then off I went….then back home I came after realizing I forgot to take my medicine (I have a hard time remembering I need to take on an empty stomach)…then off I went (take 2).

I should have taken a picture of my cold weather running outfit – fail.  I don’t have long tights, just mid-calf length.  I wore a pair of those with my long sleeve “thumb-hole” Lululemon jacket’y thing and my awesome new Champion beanie I got from Target.  I looked so cute – you’ll just have to take my word for it. 🙂  That hat was the best $10 I ever spent on running clothes.  Kept my ears nice and warm which helped control the speed my nose ran.  HA!

Even with the chilly air wooshing in & out I kept a nice pace of 8:45.  Sweet!  I could see HunBun sitting at a table drinking his Starbucks and pecking away on his laptop.  It was warm when I got in there so I got a cool drink to start.

Chilling with my lady friend

I just read that caption I wrote.  I meant the ‘Bucks mermaid, not the banana.

HunBun and I sat there for a while and then walked back home together.  Grabbed a tall Soy Misto for the road since I had cooled down quite a bit.  Thank goodness I did because it was hecka chilly outside!  Round trip its about 2.5 miles from home to the ‘Bucks.  Nice walk for him and nice run/walk for me (not the true application of Galloway‘s run/walk method 🙂  ).

To close out the morning Sweats I did a bunch of planking….

Not this kind

I started with some Chaturanga then a quick plank flow to engage my abs.

Click the link above to see in action

Here’s my quickie ab routine

Now I’m off to feed my belly as a girl can not live on a banana alone.  🙂

Engage in some “brisky” behavior yourself today!

See ya later

Cathy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Freedom, thy name is Friday

Themed Blogs

So you know how all these blogs have theme names for certain days of the week…”What I Ate Wednesday”…”Fresh Picked Friday”…”Flashback Friday”… “Meatless Mondays” – oh wait that one’s more like a dietary push.  🙂  My new theme day will be “Freedom, thy name is Friday”.  It feels very Braveheart‘ish (which I loved and can watch everytime it comes up on cable) and it really captures the emotion I feel whenever Friday comes around.  Freedom usually sounds like a giant balloon of air being let out and a whole lot of happy air coming in – sort of like this scene from Braveheart.  HAHAHA

So while my first themed post will be pretty lame, now that I have it I will continue to improve its reading pleasure quotient.

Plus now that I know how to add YouTube videos I can be super cool like this.

Lunch on wheels

Today’s lunch was on the move.  Had to get 10yo from school so ate “al-car’o”…managing NOT to spill anything between the seat and armrest…WIN!

Travel meal to go

I love this new Coconut Chocolate Chip Clif Bar.  They had samples at the Disney Half-Marathon Expo but had no bars left to sell.  I found these at Trader Joe’s when I went berzerko on snacks.  This bar is FRACKEN FANTASTIC!  (Those who watch Battlestar Galactica will know what I’m talking about).  Then for some “real food” I added an apple on the side.  Oh, and I drank out of my janky water bottle.

I’m crooked by accident

Sorta healthy…but not like a salad or some other “real food” meal would have been.  That’s what happens when conference calls are stacked and you gotta bounce right after you hang up.

Have a super cool Freedom Friday!

See ya later

Cathy