Summer Bucket List

What a perfect time for a Summer Bucket List Linkup. 

Obviously, for some of these I'll need some help. I mean, who wants to day drink by the pool by themselves?

What's on your list?

Workout Wednesday 5/29

Wanted to linkup again with Skinny Meg so I thought I'd throw out a short post about yesterday's speed training.

Ran my test mile in 11:02! Not to shabby if I do say so myself.

What are you all doing this fine, lovely Wednesday?!

Weekly Goals 5/29

A little late, since I like to do these posts on Mondays, but better late than never. Memorial Day threw me all off. However, I wouldn't have traded it for anything!

Recap of last week's goals:

1. Clean my bedroom.

DONE. And it is fabulous.

2. Actually stick to my plan.

Better than the week before, but not 100%. That's okay though. Life happens.

3. Get all of my runs in.

I got 3 out of 4 in. I didn't get my Sunday run in, but my friend and I did go hiking on Monday.

This week's goals:

1. Clean my craft room.

Yes, I have a craft room. No single person needs two guest rooms so why not use it for something functional? Right now it's kind of a "catch-all" and just a mess.

2. Do core work everyday.

I said that I was going to do a 30 day ab challenge, but I haven't. 

3. Stay under my calorie goal everyday.

I tend to go over at least twice a week and that crap adds up.

4. Cook what I have.

I do NOT need to go to the store before next Tuesday. I've got a pantry and new fridge full of stuff so I need to make that work.

How did you do last week? What are some of your current goals?

I think running has ruined my life of TV watching and couch potatoing

It's true.

I think I'm "outdoorsy" and it's all running's fault.

When I started running, I did it because I wanted to burn some extra calories. However, I think it has changed me in more ways than just my pants size. I actually WANT to be outside DOING things now! This weekend was seriously the best weekend I've had in a LONG TIME.

Saturday, I ran a 5K, went to Zumba, and stopped by the farmers market, ALL BEFORE NOON. I don't even know what was going on with me. The 5K was awesome. My goal was to finish in 39 minutes, and I did it in 37:58. Big shout out to my gym buddies who did it with me. One of them even texted me the next day and said, "I've got the bug. When's the next one?!"

Saturday night my neighbors invited me over for a cookout that consisted of lot of food, lots of people, lots of cornhole, lots of laughs, and lots of drinks for those over the age of 21. It was fabulous.

Sunday, I went to TOWN on my closets. Guys. It's ridiculous. I've got 3 closets FULL of my clothes and there was no rhyme or reason to any of them. At one point while going through all of them, I looked around and I was literally surrounded! Check out this mess...

Sunday afternoon, my friends Scott and Robin (or Scobin as I like to call them) had a bunch of us over to cookout and just enjoy each others company. I seriously want to move in with them. They have the best place out in the country, surrounded by fields. SO PEACEFUL. The "boys" got there early to shoot their guns on Scott's course that he made. This thing is intense. The boys were having a hay day.

Scott even set up a shaded area for us women-folk to hang out, complete with a couple of couches and a shade tent. Some might say the word "redneck" comes to mind, but for realz, it was the best afternoon ever.

After grilling out, we ate dinner and then busted out the dessert. I brought a peanut butter pie that I thought was going to be wonderful.

I was wrong.

VERY WRONG.

The recipe was peanut butter and greek yogurt in a oreo cookie crust.

Yall...

It was the worst thing I've ever tasted. My friend Drew took a bite and spit it out it was so bad.

So I had an idea.

Blow it up.

And that's what we did.

After all of that excitement, we started a bonfire, watched some hilarious ultimate frisbee played by guys who are definitely not teenagers anymore, and sat around the fire drinking wine until about 10:00 at night.

Perfect. Day.

Got home and realized that my room was still a mess, so I said screw it, and slept in the guest room on the air mattress. Please tell me I'm not the only one to have ever done this.

Monday morning, back to work on my bedroom. Ended up with the guest room closet full of winter clothes, and a bin of clothes that are too small but I don't want to get rid of (they WILL fit one day). Another closet holds shoes, purses and bags, jackets, and dresses. Finally, my third closet holds jeans, dress pants, shirts, and I even made two bins designated for workout shirts and workout pants so I don't have to dig around for them when getting my bag together. Folded the MILLION tshirts I have and put them away. Stocked my winter boots up on the top shelf. And got rid of everything that's too big, out of style, or I just haven't worn in ages.

One of the best parts about living in Western Kentucky, is an area called Land Between the Lakes (LBL). My friend Shawna and I went on a little adventure and took a hike around Lake Hematite. Here are a few pics of the area...

 

There is also an area in LBL called the Elk and Bison Prairie. Paid 5 bucks to drive around in this Jurassic Park like area and at one point, the Bison were about 10 feet from the car.

We finished our adventure with a trip to Belews Dairy Bar. I may or may not have had a chocolate and peanut butter milkshake with a grilled cheese and onion rings. (Okay, who's kidding... of course I did. It was amazing.)

Got home, showered, and went (yet again) over to the neighbors for another grill out and more cornhole.

All in all, this weekend has made me realize that I really do like to be active and outdoors. 

Can't wait to do it again next weekend!

Call me a hippie, but get outside and enjoy nature!

A Dolla Makes Me Holla DietBet

Have you heard of DietBet.com?

I'm not even kidding you, I wish I had come up with the idea, but unfortunately, I did not.

DietBets.com is a sight that basically coordinates a competition between your friends and even strangers. You set up a game, invite people to join, throw some money into the pot, and then you have 4 weeks to lose 4% of your body weight. Whoever in your group loses their 4%, splits the pot.

I did one of these last month and ended up making some money, so I've decided to started another one.

Dolla Makes Me Holla (round 2)

Buy In: $25

Starts: June 1, 2013

In no way, shape, or form is DietBet paying me for this. I just want more people to join to make the pot bigger inspire others to get healthy.

So get to movin...

Put down the fast food...

and maybe a dolla will make YOU holla AND move a little fasta!

Click here to sign up!

If I Won the Lottery...

It's funny that Beth over at Hang On, Honey is doing a link up about this very topic because my friend Meagan and I were just talking about this subject.
I honestly feel like if I won the lottery, I wouldn't change my standard of living very much. I probably wouldn't go move to New York or buy and island or anything like that. If I won the lottery, the first 10 things I would do are as follows:
1) Tithe. Yup, 10% would go to my church because really, when you win 632 kazillion dollars, what's 10%? Plus, I know my church. I can't even imagine what awesome things they would do with that money!
2) Pay off my house. I like my house, so why move? 
3) Update my house. Renovate the kitchen, the bathrooms, the flooring, add on a huge deck or screened-in porch, convert my carport to a garage, and on and on and on.
4) Buy a new car, but probably not a Bentley or anything like that. An Acura or Lexus SUV would do just fine.
5) Adopt a kid, because damn that's expensive... and probably pay for my friends' adoption too, because I really just want them to have a kid.
6) Pay off my parents' house and pay them back for my college.
7) Buy my brother a house and pay for the rest of his college.
8) Pay for all of my friends to go on an AMAZING vacation. 
9) Wait until Christmas and go to WalMart and just give crazy amounts of money away and pay for people's purchases and all that. How much fun would that be?!
10) Pay Dolvett to be my personal trainer.
No, they aren't really fun, but it is fun to think about! What would you do if you won the lottery?

Speed Training and NSVs

You might remember from my Workout Wednesday post, I said that I was excited about speed training. 

Umm... yeah.... what's wrong with me?

My friend Amanda and I met Allie at the high school track and we started with a 400 meter (one lap) jog. Then started the sprints. 

Holy. Moley.

Seriously thought I was going. to. die. We were suppose to sprint and then jog but there was NO jogging. Only walking. I don't even know if I'd call it walking. It was more like dragging my ass to the next line so I could sprint AGAIN. I'm not even going to lie to you and say that it was awesome. It was hard. It was painful. I sounded like I was having an asthma attack. But we did it. 

Took a cue from Amber over at Crafty Healthy Mommy with the selfie. :)

What's even more exciting is that I posted something about this on Facebook and some of our other friends said that they wanted to join us next week! So we might have a big ol' group of us next time! I texted Allie this morning and said I felt it in my abs and she said that meant I was doing the sprints the right way.

In other news, lifebylex and ktjweighingin have their Non-Scale Victories Linkup going on again and I just love Linkups. A few weeks ago I put on a pair of jeans and they were way too big so I threw them on the closet floor. Ever since, when I put something on and it's too big, I've just thrown it into the pile. Last night I tried on a bunch of shirts and had to throw them in the pile as well. So I guess my NSV is that I've got a lot of clothes to donate to Goodwill!

Workout Wednesday

I workout.

A lot.

I honestly feel like it is now a necessity for my mental and physical health and on days I go without it, I feel like CRAP. Now granted, I have not ALWAYS been this way, but I'd say I've been pretty consistent for the last 9 months or so.

So this post is about to be a modge podge of stuff about working out and some of my motivation for writing this is that if I write it and post it, it will make me more accountable for actually DOING it all.

As you might have read, I recently ran a half marathon. As soon as it was over, I had my friend Allie come up with a plan for the next one, and here is what she came up with:

My goal when she made this was to run the race in October with an average pace of 12 minutes a mile, since my pace for the last one was around 13:35. She did say that about halfway through, we'd reevaluate the time and pace for my long runs and see if we should set a more aggressive goal. (Maybe finishing in 2:30:00?!)

Yesterday, she sent me the speed workout for tomorrow. It is kind of ridiculous how excited I am about this...

She told me that I might puke and my response was "I've always wanted to workout so hard that I puke." She also asked how I felt about doing stadiums once a month and I said, "Sounds like I'm gonna be a total bad ass by the time you're through with me!"

Umm ...

wait ...

what?!

Who AM I!??!

You can see on my half marathon schedule I also go to BodyPump 2 days a week. Allie said that my rest days will be on Fridays, (which they might be after these speed trainings), but I'll probably still go to BodyPump on Fridays if I don't think I'm dying. I know that you're suppose to have "rest" days but aint no body got time for that.

So in addition to these workouts, I am starting THIS wonderful plan. I've heard that you can work your core everyday without a rest day and seeing as how my stomach is probably my LEAST favorite part of my bod, might as well work on that too.

30 day challenge starting today. Anyone else want to join in?!

That's all I've got today. What are your favorite workouts? Head over to Skinny Meg and see what other people are doing!

Weekly Goals 5/20

Yall... I can't even tell you how much I sucked at life last week. Fortunately this is a NEW week and I'm hitting the reset button.

Let's recap last week's goals:

1. Set up the night before.

I did better about this one this week, but not great.

2. In bed with the light out and phone put away by 10:30pm every night. 

HA! That's funny. EPIC FAIL.

3. Drink 120oz of water a day.

Not the greatest of weeks for this, but OH WELL.

4. Try a new recipe.

Yay! I did do this. I made stuffed bell peppers. Check out the recipe HERE.

5. Clean my bedroom.

Yeah that didn't happen.

So as you can see, this past week wasn't the greatest, but this week WILL be better.

This week's goals:

1. Clean my bedroom. 

I'm going to do it this week. No excuses.

2. Actually stick to my plan.

Last week I think I rewrote my eating plan about a million times, but I've already posted my new on one on my new fridge (!!!)  so I have no excuses to not follow it.

3. Work out this weekend.

A lot of times when I go home to Huntsville I half-ass my workouts but I will NOT do that this weekend. Hold me to that, please. (decided not to go home, so have to come up with something else!)

4. Get all of my runs in.

As I was typing this, my friend Allie sent me my speed training workout for Thursday! I'm so excited! She said that I might end up puking by the end of it, but that's okay with me! LAST CHANCE WORKOUT! (I'll just picture Dolvett screaming at me with his pretty white teeth). I've got 3 miles today, 3 miles Thurdsay, 3 miles Saturday (I'm actually doing a 5k!) and 3 miles on Sunday.

Just because I don't want to type anymore, here is my weekend excitement in pictures:

Yeah, that's me on the left. No make up. Getting the hair colored. Obviously make up is my friend. Not 100% sold on the coloring yet, but I'm going to give it a couple more days.

Sign of adulthood #362: You are more excited about a new fridge than you are about Christmas

Dog sitting this weekend. Look at that FACE!

As I said, I sucked at life this week, so much of my weekend consisted of lounging around on the couch, surrounded by dogs.

I've had this patio furniture for almost 2 years now, and suddenly Mr. Bentley likes to dance on the tabletop. 

Ended the weekend with a Sunday night run. As I posted on Facebook, lots of walking, a sore back, and heartburn, but a bad run is better than no run at all.

Stuff Yourself with Some Stuffed Peppers

Pinterest is an amazing thing. It causes you to stumble across things you never thought of or recipes you've never tried. I kept seeing stuffed bell peppers pop up under the Food & Drink category and always thought they looked delish but I had never tried them.

One of my weekly goals this week was to try a new recipe, so why not give them a try?

After looking at a few different recipes, I came up with this concoction, so feel free to try it out yourself.

Ingredients: Bell pepper, shredded chicken, mexicorn, rotel, olive oil, black beans, mild cheddar cheese

Cut the pepper in half and take out the stem and seeds.

Spray the peppers with the olive oil and place in a baking dish and cook for 20-25 minutes in the oven at 400 degrees.

Mix the chicken, beans, corn, and half the can of rotel together.

Be careful not to step on the dogs that are patiently waiting for you to drop something. (No, I don't have three dogs. The one in the front is Jefferson, I'm dog sitting for the week.)

Once the peppers are roasted, flip them over and fill with about half a cup of the chicken goodness. )I put the leftover filling in the freezer to use for other recipes.) Pour the rest of the rotel over the peppers. Put them in the oven for another 15 minutes.

Sprinkle with cheese and pop them back in the oven for 5 minutes. Then ENJOY. 

Final review: Really good and low calorie, but I think it needed some taco seasoning or something a little more spicy. Not bad though!