Category Archives: Daily Life!

Messin’ with my Schedule

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Good morning! Woot, it’s Thursday!! I always love Thursdays. Every week this day brings me a sense of relief since the weekend is within sight. Love it! Plus that sense of relief invokes a good mood. No grumpy cats around here!

Grumpy-Cat-PurinaHAhahaahah. Sorry. I love that poor little cat.

I didn’t get a chance to check back in for another post last night because a lot of action was happening in my kitchen.

photo(85)Yup, that right there is diabetes in a pan. Looks yummy right?

photo(86)Halloween Chex Mix made an appearance! Other goodies did as well, but I will wait to post pictures until I get them iced this evening.

I rarely cook up these types of treats in my kitchen, but this weekend brings up good reason for celebration and goodies are necessary! Nick, Mac, and I are heading to St. Louis to visit his family to celebrate several upcoming birthdays. My birthday is Nov. 1. His father’s birthday is Nov. 4. And his brother’s girlfriend’s birthday is Nov. 8! I had to make this Chex mix and lots of cookies last night to take along for our weekend fun. Yay for a little reason to splurge!

We are leaving right after work tomorrow evening and will stay through the weekend. Hence the reason for the post title – this trip will be messin’ with my schedule. Big time.

I LOVE Nick’s family. Love them. To pieces. Really, I do. So I can’t wait to go visit and spend lots of time with them the next few days. But since I just started out on this Half Marathon training plan, this trip will put a little kink in the regularly scheduled activities. I also have to get my Friday night and Sunday morning Jazzercise classes covered for me. When did weekend trips have to become so complicated?!

Luckily, I easily got my classes covered by my fellow instructors. Now I’m just trying to find a good way to squeeze in my weekend workouts and runs while in St. Louis! I have time on Saturday morning to attend a Jazzercise class at a local center close to Nick’s parents house and to also go running. But first, I have to figure out where to run and then how to get myself there. I’m terrible at driving around up there!

I’ve mostly stayed on track up until today, as far as my training plan is concerned. I started yesterday with a nice run. I was scheduled for 5+ miles, so I awoke bright and early and told myself I would run for 1 hour and just see how far that got me.

photo(84)It was stinkin’ cold outside! I think my body was in a bit of shock, and my pace was slower than normal. But I still made it almost 7.5 miles which set me off on the right foot for the day.

Today’s schedule is where it started getting funky. I should have started today with a shorter run (around 3-4 miles), but I instead taught the 5:40 AM Jazzercise class (I switched for my Sunday morning class). Tonight I will teach my normal class time at 6:45 pm. So today has become a cross training day, and tomorrow will be a shorter run day. I’m going to wake up early tomorrow to get out there and hit it hard before this fun weekend begins! I have a 3 hour car ride after work to rest my tired body and relax so waking up early is an OK compromise by me.

Soooooo, here’s another fun roundup of my upcoming weekend activities…

  • Make it to St. Louis by 8ish PM tomorrow evening
  • Dinner with Nick’s parents
  • Saturday morning Jazzercise class
  • 6+ mile run (somewhere?)
  • Meet my girlfriend Emily for a late lunch in the city
  • Relax at home (fingers crossed!)
  • Dinner out with Nick’s whole family
  • Sunday morning shorter run

And that’s about it, folks. I know I shouldn’t worry so much about all the small details, but I love making lists and staying organized.

Have a great day, and I’ll check in with you later!

BarkBox: Halloween Edition

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Happy Hump day everyone! It’s been a beautiful and chilly day here in Springfield, and I’m loving it! Crisp, Fall days like today are my favorite. Mac will probably even get an extra long walk tonight due to the gorgeous weather. 🙂

Mac received a new BarkBox in the mail yesterday! I always get really excited to receive his package each month and see what goodies they picked out for my little man! I was even more excited than normal when I opened the box to see bright and festive colors. It was a Halloween Edition Barkbox!

image(9)Okay, that’s what I’m calling it anyways, but BarkBox did not officially call it by this name. 🙂 But it did have lots of Fall themed goodies inside. Mac was pretty excited too. He even got crazy googly eyes at the sound of mommy’s excitement!

photo(81)HA. He’s so weird.

Anyways, I was excited to see a toy and lots of yummy treats for Mac to enjoy when I opened his box.

image(2)I immediately squeaked the chevron print bear to get Mac’s attention. So he went to town chewing on that poor little fella while I sorted out all his yummy goodies!

photo(82)Tearing toys to pieces is his favorite hobby. We have many stuffing-less toys laying around the house!

image(4)I also opened up the weird looking lambs ear for him to chew on. The pack came with 2 of these luckily because he ate the first one in about 1 minute flat. Must’ve been tasty??

image(5)The cutest part of the box were these doggie Halloween treats. They come in individual packs to share, so this must be what I’m supposed to hand out to the neighborhood dogs on Halloween! Doggie trick-or-treaters are my fav, so I hope to be able to ate least hand out 1 or 2 of these adorable little treats next Thursday.

The one thing I’m skeptical about? This dry mix that I’m supposed to use to make doggie meatballs.

image(3)I’m just not sure if I want to go through the trouble of making meatballs for Mac when I barely have time to cook for myself and Nick. Basically, you add a pound of lean meat (like ground turkey) to this mix, make little meatballs, and then bake them up for your Mutt. In theory, this is very cute and he would love them. In reality, this probably won’t actually happen because mommy may be just a touch too lazy. But we’ll see… It is Mac’s birthday month after all.

Tonight we’ll have to break out the Autumn Harvest treats. I couldn’t spoil him too much in one night!

Well, I’ll see you later friends. I have another night off of teaching tonight, so I will be packing for the weekend (we’re heading to STL!) and baking up some goodies hopefully. Catch ya later!

Tuesday Blues

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Happy Tuesday gang! I hope your day is going better than mine. From the title of this post I’m sure you can tell that I’m having a case of the Tuesday Blues, and I’m not loving it.

This morning came wayyyyy too early. I woke up at 5 AM and couldn’t fall back asleep. This was supposed to be my day to actually sleep in! Sadly, my body didn’t understand. I decided to get up and start my day early with Mac on the couch drinking coffee and going over some new Jazzercise songs I learned last night. I was thankful for the few extra minutes to work on downloading my music and going over the routines for tonight’s classes, but I would have gladly stayed asleep in bed instead. Oh well.

I downed lots of Cheerios and coffee during my extra hour this morning, but it all went unpictured because, well, it was 5 AM. I got in the shower at my normal time of 6:30 and made it to work feeling extra lively with all the caffeine pumping through my veins.

photo(81)I had some yogurt and a Honeycrisp apple at my desk, but I could barely finish the large apple. I’m not used to having big bowls of Cheerios at home before work!

I hit a brick wall around 9:30 from my lack of sleep and have been tired, grumpy, and icky feeling ever since. I’m a real delight today, to say the least. 🙂

The morning dragged on, and I headed home around noon to get some lunch and walk Mac. Luckily he was his normal perky self which added a little sunshine to my day! I still wasn’t feeling too hungry though, so I had a salad with lots of veggies…

photo(82)And some lowfat cottage cheese on the side for protein. Hopefully this will tide me over through my double classes this evening!

Thank goodness for Jazzercise on days like today. I need a good workout to boost my endorphines and pull me out of this funk! By the time my second class begins, I’ll be feeling back to my normal self I’m sure.

Half Marathon Training Update

As for my half marathon training, yesterday was my rest day which I greatly enjoyed! I relaxed at home all night with Mac without any guilt. 🙂 I’m still a little sore today from Saturday’s long run, but hopefully my classes tonight will help warm me up and stretch me out enough to be ready to run again tomorrow morning. On the schedule for tomorrow is at least 5 miles. I’ll try to tackle this in the morning before work while it’s extra cold. If I’m going to run a half marathon in January, I’ve gotta get this body used to the freezing temps! Wish me luck!

I hope you have a great Tuesday! I’ll see you tomorrow, and I promise to be in a better mood. 🙂