Two days in a row! Three times in less than a week. Brinkley is loving the walks so we'll see what kind of a streak we can keep!
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Morning walk
If only juniper berries were blueberries... Mmmm.
Two days in a row! Three times in less than a week. Brinkley is loving the walks so we'll see what kind of a streak we can keep!
Two days in a row! Three times in less than a week. Brinkley is loving the walks so we'll see what kind of a streak we can keep!
Monday, December 30, 2013
Crockpot Pork and sweet potato stew
Stew is never visually appealing but trust me, this was delicious!!!
3 sweet potatoes cut into 1 inch(ish) cubes
1.5 lbs pork stew meat (only $1.50 on sale)
Diced onions (probably the equivalent of one medium)
One can of white kidney beans (could probably do 2)
One can of chicken broth 1/2 cup of orange juice Kosher salt - I just sprinkled it on, maybe a teaspoon
Crockpot on low for 8 hours
Now for the secret ingredient - ground cinnamon!!! With a few hours to go, I sprinkled on some cinnamon and stirred. And sprinkled on some more.
I thickened it a little with corn starch at the end.
IT IS AMAZING!! This may be one of my favorite recipes that I’ve concocted.
I’m just sad my husband isn’t here to enjoy it with it me.
Long ride day
As with running, cycle training includes a long distance day to build endurance. Most of my rides over the past week were 40 minutes. So I bumped it up to an hour today.
Distance was kind of low - had to start out slow because my rear soreness played with my head.
I was rewarded with my post-ride chain tattoo. Every single time and yet I never feel my leg touch the chain. Life's mystery, I guess.
I had leftover chicken and veggie stir fry for dinner. Going on about 36 hours of healthy eating ...
I'm off to run errands. Actually, I'm going to drive not run. Mostly because my mom always tells me running errands will make me tired. ;-)
Distance was kind of low - had to start out slow because my rear soreness played with my head.
I was rewarded with my post-ride chain tattoo. Every single time and yet I never feel my leg touch the chain. Life's mystery, I guess.
I had leftover chicken and veggie stir fry for dinner. Going on about 36 hours of healthy eating ...
I'm off to run errands. Actually, I'm going to drive not run. Mostly because my mom always tells me running errands will make me tired. ;-)
Sunday, December 29, 2013
Happy New Year (A few days early)!
Hello 2014!
It's resolution time. Ok, I know it's a little early but I have the time now so I'm knocking this off the list while I have the chance!
I've decided to really challenge myself with resolutions this year. Rather than just doing one resolution, I'm going to do 14. 14 in '14. FOURTEEN! Not all our ongoing, habit changing, all improving resolutions. Some are more goals than resolutions. But setting a time frame within which to accomplish the goals will hopefully help me complete some goals I've had on my list for a while.
1. Read 14 books. I've been spending more time reading lately. I've noticed it keeps me off the internet and it is helping me sleep more. With a goal of reading fourteen books, it should keep me reading all year long!
2. Pay off my student loans. This is the one last financial goal from my single days. I need to focus on this goal the same way I focused on paying off my second mortgage a few years ago. Totally doable.
3. Exercise for a total of 2014 miles. I honestly have no clue if this is even feasible. But I'm going to try. Whether this is walking the dog, running, swimming, or cycling... I want to do a better of job of tracking my distances. I did a pretty good job at the start of last year but kind of stop tracking my runs in about July. This averages out to 5.5 miles of moving per day.
4. Do Project Life for the entire year. Rather than daily or weekly spreads, I'm going to do monthly. It will be a first calendar year of living in our house and being married. With any luck, it will come easily enough that I will not fall so terribly behind in scrapbooking current events.
5. Complete the blue room transformation to guest room!! This will require coming to terms with more and more junk. And it will require painting. And I'm not yet sure I'm over all of the condo painting from this past summer.
6. Rebuild my mountain bike. I've decided that rather than sell it for $20, I'm going to do my best to rebuild it. This may be a monumental failure or it may not. I think it's a good opportunity to tinker with a bike without fear of screwing it up as it's already in poor shape.
7. Give up coffee shop lattes. This is a frequent challenge of mine. I've gone months without them but I always end up going back. I'm going to start the streak all over again to try and reign in the extra calories and the extra spending. This may be a little easier to accomplish if we buy a small latte maker with one of our many gift cards from the wedding. Limiting caffeine all together would be a good thing too. Maybe tea after noon would be a good distraction.
8. Go fresh/whole. I had a nice streak early last year of eating just fresh food or natural food. I tried to stay away from prepackaged and processed foods and it made a big difference in how I felt. I had more energy and felt leaner and stronger. I want to try doing this again and get it to stick. Lots of vegetables and lean meats!!
9. Stay hydrated. I do an incredibly poor job at staying hydrating. So poor. I'm going to try and down four Nalgene bottles a day. This will be a huge improvement from one that I may get down during the day now.
10. Turn my thumb greener. Last year we had so much going on that the only thing I managed to do was mow the yard, rip out some bushes, and plant some bulbs. I really want to work on growing some food. We have a huge backyard, there is no reason why it can't be used to grow us some food.
11. Bulletjournaling. Video is here. I usually have about five hundred lists going in five hundred different places and a dozen different formats. I'm going to try one and only one location/format for the entire year...with some modifications along the way probably. And I'm going to use a cute plaid journal Santa brought me in my stocking. This should also help with #3 and #4. Completed workouts with distances will be tracked with one color. And events/notes to remember for Project Life will be tracked with a highlighter.
12. Make my office functional. My office/scrap room is a complete disaster when it comes being functional. The floor is one big shelf with piles all over it. My desktop is barely visible. My scrap stuff is all over making searching for what I'm looking for the thing I do most. Papers will be files. Books will be organized. Junk will be removed. Walls will be decorated. I will not longer have to move something to find something.
13. Support the Post Office. I always say I need to do better about sending birthday cards, anniversary cards, holiday cards, etc. We receive a lot of cards from Brent's side of the family and it's about time we returned the favor.
14. Clean more. This seems like a resolution to be avoided but it's a necessary one. Our house is huge. And there are way too many days where I do absolutely nothing around to maintain it's cleanliness. So I'm going to aim for doing at least one thing a day to keep a clean. Whether it's wiping down a window, vacuuming one room, wiping down a sink, or scrubbing a floor, I'm hoping one thing a day will help prevent those times where an entire three day weekend is spent cleaning in heated frustration.
So there you have it. A very lengthy of list of things for me to work. I guess one thing is for certain, I should never be bored this year! Ah, but where to begin first...
It's resolution time. Ok, I know it's a little early but I have the time now so I'm knocking this off the list while I have the chance!
I've decided to really challenge myself with resolutions this year. Rather than just doing one resolution, I'm going to do 14. 14 in '14. FOURTEEN! Not all our ongoing, habit changing, all improving resolutions. Some are more goals than resolutions. But setting a time frame within which to accomplish the goals will hopefully help me complete some goals I've had on my list for a while.
1. Read 14 books. I've been spending more time reading lately. I've noticed it keeps me off the internet and it is helping me sleep more. With a goal of reading fourteen books, it should keep me reading all year long!
2. Pay off my student loans. This is the one last financial goal from my single days. I need to focus on this goal the same way I focused on paying off my second mortgage a few years ago. Totally doable.
3. Exercise for a total of 2014 miles. I honestly have no clue if this is even feasible. But I'm going to try. Whether this is walking the dog, running, swimming, or cycling... I want to do a better of job of tracking my distances. I did a pretty good job at the start of last year but kind of stop tracking my runs in about July. This averages out to 5.5 miles of moving per day.
4. Do Project Life for the entire year. Rather than daily or weekly spreads, I'm going to do monthly. It will be a first calendar year of living in our house and being married. With any luck, it will come easily enough that I will not fall so terribly behind in scrapbooking current events.
5. Complete the blue room transformation to guest room!! This will require coming to terms with more and more junk. And it will require painting. And I'm not yet sure I'm over all of the condo painting from this past summer.
6. Rebuild my mountain bike. I've decided that rather than sell it for $20, I'm going to do my best to rebuild it. This may be a monumental failure or it may not. I think it's a good opportunity to tinker with a bike without fear of screwing it up as it's already in poor shape.
7. Give up coffee shop lattes. This is a frequent challenge of mine. I've gone months without them but I always end up going back. I'm going to start the streak all over again to try and reign in the extra calories and the extra spending. This may be a little easier to accomplish if we buy a small latte maker with one of our many gift cards from the wedding. Limiting caffeine all together would be a good thing too. Maybe tea after noon would be a good distraction.
8. Go fresh/whole. I had a nice streak early last year of eating just fresh food or natural food. I tried to stay away from prepackaged and processed foods and it made a big difference in how I felt. I had more energy and felt leaner and stronger. I want to try doing this again and get it to stick. Lots of vegetables and lean meats!!
9. Stay hydrated. I do an incredibly poor job at staying hydrating. So poor. I'm going to try and down four Nalgene bottles a day. This will be a huge improvement from one that I may get down during the day now.
10. Turn my thumb greener. Last year we had so much going on that the only thing I managed to do was mow the yard, rip out some bushes, and plant some bulbs. I really want to work on growing some food. We have a huge backyard, there is no reason why it can't be used to grow us some food.
11. Bulletjournaling. Video is here. I usually have about five hundred lists going in five hundred different places and a dozen different formats. I'm going to try one and only one location/format for the entire year...with some modifications along the way probably. And I'm going to use a cute plaid journal Santa brought me in my stocking. This should also help with #3 and #4. Completed workouts with distances will be tracked with one color. And events/notes to remember for Project Life will be tracked with a highlighter.
12. Make my office functional. My office/scrap room is a complete disaster when it comes being functional. The floor is one big shelf with piles all over it. My desktop is barely visible. My scrap stuff is all over making searching for what I'm looking for the thing I do most. Papers will be files. Books will be organized. Junk will be removed. Walls will be decorated. I will not longer have to move something to find something.
13. Support the Post Office. I always say I need to do better about sending birthday cards, anniversary cards, holiday cards, etc. We receive a lot of cards from Brent's side of the family and it's about time we returned the favor.
14. Clean more. This seems like a resolution to be avoided but it's a necessary one. Our house is huge. And there are way too many days where I do absolutely nothing around to maintain it's cleanliness. So I'm going to aim for doing at least one thing a day to keep a clean. Whether it's wiping down a window, vacuuming one room, wiping down a sink, or scrubbing a floor, I'm hoping one thing a day will help prevent those times where an entire three day weekend is spent cleaning in heated frustration.
So there you have it. A very lengthy of list of things for me to work. I guess one thing is for certain, I should never be bored this year! Ah, but where to begin first...
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
Sunday, December 22, 2013
Christmas Tags
I didn't have any Christmas tags and I didn't want to run to a store for such a simple thing.
So I moved a pile of stuff from my scrapbooking table (the table is actually my mom's) and set out to make some easy Cricut tags.
I cut out some trees ...
And then spruced them up just a bit with some colored markers...
And then taped them on the box. Done! It probably would have saved time and effort to just go to the store, but that would have required showering and dressing. I made these while still in workout clothes!
So I moved a pile of stuff from my scrapbooking table (the table is actually my mom's) and set out to make some easy Cricut tags.
I cut out some trees ...
And then spruced them up just a bit with some colored markers...
And then taped them on the box. Done! It probably would have saved time and effort to just go to the store, but that would have required showering and dressing. I made these while still in workout clothes!
Sunday, December 15, 2013
Winding Down
The craziness of the year is winding down. Most of my presents are purchased and wrapped. I have one more shopping trip to do tomorrow and I'll be all done! Two Christmas parties down and two to go.
I finished up my New Years Resolution yesterday!! I ran a race in each month of the year. Fifteen races total!! It was a great challenge and I'm glad it kept me running all year through! I'm pretty sure I'll do some races next year but definitely not one every month. For one, I have more than enough running shirts to last me for a few years. For two, I think I'll take those entry fees and spend them elsewhere for a while.
It was great fun going to all the different races. I have photos from each and will possibly (I make no promises these days) make a post listing them all.
Brinkley had surgery last week to remove some lumps. Thankfully, all came back benign! He's been a real trooper taking his meds and not scratching like crazy at his four different incisions. Not that he's ever lacking in attention but I think he's enjoyed the extra attention.
I'm looking forward to the next few weeks. I get some extra days off, will close on my condo, and get to spend time with my family!! And then begins another New Year with plenty of New Years Resolutions I'm already dreaming up.
I finished up my New Years Resolution yesterday!! I ran a race in each month of the year. Fifteen races total!! It was a great challenge and I'm glad it kept me running all year through! I'm pretty sure I'll do some races next year but definitely not one every month. For one, I have more than enough running shirts to last me for a few years. For two, I think I'll take those entry fees and spend them elsewhere for a while.
It was great fun going to all the different races. I have photos from each and will possibly (I make no promises these days) make a post listing them all.
Brinkley had surgery last week to remove some lumps. Thankfully, all came back benign! He's been a real trooper taking his meds and not scratching like crazy at his four different incisions. Not that he's ever lacking in attention but I think he's enjoyed the extra attention.
I'm looking forward to the next few weeks. I get some extra days off, will close on my condo, and get to spend time with my family!! And then begins another New Year with plenty of New Years Resolutions I'm already dreaming up.
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