It's Friday

In case you didn't remember. Not that anyone could forget it's Friday, especially since it's the beginning of a three day weekend.

Nothing big is going on around here lately, just life in general. Here's a run down of my week:

I wrote my midterm paper for Literary Theory on Wednesday (stayed up until 2 a.m. to get that puppy finished!), and we only have two more class days! This has been an intense few weeks, but in class yesterday I feel like we finally completed the loop that links everything we've been learning about to real life. Don't get me wrong, theory is fascinating all on its own but being able to actually understand how the theorists were able to come up with these crazy ideas makes it so much better.

My oldest younger brother (all my brothers are younger than I am, but he's the oldest of the three, mkay?) is graduating from high school this evening. Holy. cow. Where did time go? I still remember how we used to play so well together when we were little kids. He'll be attending the University of Texas in Austin in the fall and I am so proud of all he's accomplished. Seriously, he is such a smart kid and has grown up so much in the past few years. His graduation gift has some stipulations that come with it, on being that he has to come visit Will and me for a weekend in the fall or he has to give it back. Muahaha, I know, I am so evil.

Tomorrow I am going on the hunt for some some throw pillows for our house. There are several places we could use some, so I'm pretty open to anything right now. As weird as this is, I just really want to be working on something for our house, and pillows are something I can do from 11 hours away. Bonus point if I find some fabric to make some, because that keeps me doubly busy and I have to go to my mom's house to use her sewing machine (which she loves). And THEN I am going to have dinner with my BFF since 2nd grade. I don't think we've seen each other since last August when she got married and I am so excited to see her. She is expecting her first baby in August and I CANNOT WAIT! Even though we're not technically related, I feel like this is my first niece. Plus, we are "Secret Sisters" (our code name so we could write epic 3-page notes to each other in junior high and not get caught), so I am totally calling this baby my "Secret Niece."

I've made it to the gym four days in a row this week and I feel awesome! I've stuck to running on the indoor track (best invention every for Texas summers!) and doing the elliptical. I'm going to add in weight lifting next week, so I'm trying to prepare myself for the insane soreness I get because of DOMS.
Proof:

Awkward/nasty picture from the locker room. You're welcome.

Running is pretty frustrating for me right now. Back in February when we ran the 5k, I could run 4 miles pretty easily. Now, I made it just past 1/2 a mile before I had to take a walking break. How is it possible to lose so much endurance in just three months? Actually, don't answer that question because I know the answer. Working out would be so much easier if I would stop quitting and having to build my endurance back up.

I've also been really concentrating on eating a much healthier diet this week. Most of my evening meals consist of things like this:

Roasted sweet potato and asparagus

I also usually add some broccoli and a slice of bread (you know, so I don't start feeling deprived and go crazy and pig out on carbs). For some reason, the idea of eating a "veggie plate" never dawned on me until I saw it on another blog the other day. I mean, I've been a vegetarian for almost a year now, so the modern American standard of having a hunk of meat with a few sides hasn't applied to me for a while, but I guess I had turned that into "must have an entree of carbs with side of protein and vegetables." Obviously, that was not helping anything. These meals have been really satisfying and keep me full until the next morning.

For breakfast I've been drinking a fruit and protein smoothie.

Generally I use:

Strawberries
Blueberries
Banana
Spinach
V8/Orange juice/ almond milk
Greek yogurt
Chia seeds
Vanilla protein powder
Ice

It makes a ton, so I drink half for breakfast and half for part of lunch or as an afternoon snack. Other snacks include almonds and baby carrots. Eating healthier is always hard at first, but man is it so much easier when your spouse isn't around. I'm not saying it's his fault we ate like crap all year, but it is so much easier to feed off each other's cravings or to give in to fast food when you're both tired. My goal is to help Will become much more of a veggie eater when I go to Houston. He's always hated veggies (his favorite "veggie" is the white potato, gah!) and tries to avoid them like the plague, but that is just going to have to change.

Last night I had a little extra time and made myself some black bean patties to go with my sweet potato. It was delicious.

The caramelized onion on top really made it special, though.


What is your best advice for high school grads?
Do  you have any fun plans for the weekend?

3.25 miles

That's how far I ran this evening. Not too far, but farther than I've run since early last fall, and the farthest on ground (as opposed to a treadmill) since... this summer, I guess? But those runs involved pretty much 2 miles of nonstop running and various bouts of running to interrupt the walk home. I forgot to time my first 10 laps (we have a tiny indoor track at our university and 8 laps = 1 mile), but I'm guessing I finished in about 37/38 minutes. I tried the run 10 minutes/walk 1 minute technique, but that got kinda screwy since I was *so close to finishing the mile* that I pretty much ran a mile (about 12 minutes... yeah, I'm slow) and walked a lap. So what got me motivated to run that tonight?

Well, you see we have a little group of friends and we call our selves Team FIT (Friends In Training). We ran and worked out together pretty much all last semester, with the intent to run the March for Babies 5k in March. I was actually pretty bad about sticking to their workouts (the times just didn't work with my schedule a lot of the time), but Will is the creator/"coach" of the thing, so I've made an effort to be more present this semester. We're running our first 5k as a group this Saturday, and last Saturday I looked at my calendar and realized the race was only a week away, and I hadn't run 3 miles in God knows how long. Hence the run tonight. Now I know I won't die at mile 2.87, although I'm likely to be the last one across the finish line. Oh well, at least I'll finish my first race, right?

All that to say, I can't believe it's been almost two months since I've blogged. I've had every intention of blogging, but it takes time and coordination with photos, something that's been difficult to come by for me since the start of the semester. We reset my computer to factory settings after it started acting funny and when hubs restored all my photos, well.... let's just say they aren't exactly organized like they were before. And I got rid of Picasa since Will got my Light Room for Christmas, and so I'm trying to use Photobucket for my photos and that website is reallllllllly slow. Or maybe it's just the internet at our house. Anyway, no photos for a while. But you know, I'm not blogging for anyone except myself. I want this to be journal of a sort, for myself years on down the line and for family once we move away. Pictures are awesome, but not necessary.

It's late and I have a 6 a.m. wake-up call, so I guess that's where we'll stop for today. I'll be back in a few days... or maybe 2 months.

No More Excuses

Yesterday afternoon I took the twins to meet their mom at her work. When Will found out I was coming up there (he works at the same place), he sweetly asked if I wanted to go out for fro-yo after that. Usually I have to BEG him to take me because he's not a big fan, so I was super excited. I even changed out of my 'work uniform' (running shorts, t-shirt covered in spit up, hair in ponytail, etc.) and put on a skirt, makeup and put my hair in a bun. As I was walking out the door with the girls, I heard Brooklyn having some gas. But then I smelled it. And needless to say we had to go back for a diaper change.

Once I got the girls dropped off I followed Will to the gas station so he could put gas in the Hyundai. I asked if he really wanted fro-yo or if he was just being nice, and he answered the latter. So I asked if I could spend the money on a foam-roller instead, to which he answered, "If I can go home and not go with you." What a turd.

So I went to Academy and was super pleased to see they were only $19. On Amazon they were closer to $25-$30. I perused the clothing section before checking out with just the roller and some anti-chafe cream. BTW, why did Academy not have cute tennis clothes when I was in high school when I actually played tennis? Back then the only tennis clothes they had were Nike, which were too expensive for me. Now they have a TON of cute tennis clothes.

I came home and rolled. It was amazing. Recently whenever I run or do my 30-Day Shred I am so sore for the next several days I can barely walk. DOMS to the max. I plan on foam rolling as often as possible and being much more careful about my protein intake, which has suffered a lot since the camping trip.

My sister-in-law came over around 8 pm and the three of us went on a run. Apparently Will is training us for a 5k. Not sure when this 5k is going to be, though. We did a loop of about 2.6 miles and ran a total of 1.5. Not sure on the time, but we finished and when we were 'running' I was going faster than walking, so that's all that matters to me. Not gonna lie, I thought I was going to die several times. The first .7 we did with Will in the front and me in the back, but the next several times Will stayed with me with Meg in the front. It was super motivating to have Meg in the front, because I was determined not to stop until she did (she had the GPS tracker thing). No because I wanted to make it a competition, but because I just wanted to keep up. If that makes sense. Obviously she was way faster than I was, but like I said: faster than walking. It was very humbling because last  year before our wedding, Will and I could run about 7.5 miles without walking. After the wedding we got lazy on our honeymoon and when we came home we were just so excited to live together before he left for 4 months we hardly did any working out. Then the fall semester was really rough on both of us (being apart right after getting married was much harder than the other times we had done this) and neither of us worked out consistently. And we both turned to food for comfort. And then the spring semester was really stressful and we were so tired at the end of the day from work and class and homework that all we wanted to do was laze around. So we did. And we both gained a lot of weight. Because of a bunch of lame excuses.

We're both on the short side, so even a little weight makes a big difference. We've talked all summer about getting back into shape, but it has yet to happen. We've made strides in our eating habits and have gone on a few runs (with my Couch to 5k app), but nothing consistent. But this is it. I'm tired of feeling like a slob. Tired of being lazy and making excuses. We both have a family history of heart disease, diabetes, stroke, Alzheimers, and obesity, and I refuse to let us be another statistic in the war on weight. We ran last night, tonight we're meeting Meg where she lives to run again.

There's always going to be more enticing things to do (like watch 4 episodes of True Blood a night), but we need to be more active. No more excuses.