noBOLOGNA

Wonderful FABuary!

Hi there!  My blog posts continue to be few & far between, but I’m excited about what February has to offer!  I have a few different “challenges” going on with myself this month that I believe are going to tremendously improve my quality of life, my discipline, and my mental/physical health.

  • NO TV

I have committed to watching ZERO television this month.  I realized in January that I was getting very addicted to Netflix (mostly Criminal Minds – which I’ve already seen!)  I felt like a lot of time was being wasted with Netflix playing in the background, distracting me from what I should be doing, or I would stay up late to continue watching it, allowing it play in the background as I fell asleep.  We all know that’s not the medicine for a good night’s rest.  I believe that cutting out television will allow more time for blogging (yippee!), more time for reading and self development, more time for fitness, more time for cooking, more time with Nick, and more time working my Arbonne business.

  • DISNEY PRINCESS HALF MARATHON

My half-marathon is this month and I haven’t done a great job of blogging about training, etc. so my guess is that most of you don’t even have a clue that I’m running a half marathon this month!  But surprise, I am!  I’m actually really excited because it’ll be another opportunity to see my sweet and dearly loved blog friend, Meg!  Training has been a lot better this time around than most.  I’m up to about 9.5 miles, should be at around 11 or 13, but my knee has still been giving me trouble.  I have finally accepted the fact that it’s my IT band and I’ve been doing a lot of stretching and foam rolling to work it out.  It has proven to help tremendously with pain during a run.  I just completed 5 miles this evening after work and didn’t stop to walk once.  That’s a huge accomplishment for me!  I’ve been getting miles in, but they haven’t been great miles.  They’re either painful, or I have to take a lot of walking breaks to get through it.  I seriously wanted to take a nap instead of go for a run today, but I pushed my butt out the door and completely surprised myself!

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**(left) Disney Wine & Dine with Meg (right) Me before the 2012 Disney Princess when I was in the College Program**

  • 30 DAYS TO HEALTHY LIVING

I’m doing Arbonne’s 30 Days to Healthy Living Program this month.  I was supposed to do it in January, but that fell apart pretty quickly.  Nothing like next month, I guess!  I started it today and for the most part I’ve done really well so far.  We had donuts brought in for our staff meeting this morning and I said NO even though I had been craving donuts the day before.  Later in the day, someone dropped by some cookies for me.  I would love to say that I 100% refrained, but that’s not the case.  I ate half a cookie.  I wasn’t proud of myself, in fact I was disappointed, but tomorrow is another day and I get another chance to say no to temptation.  Also, the rest of my day was great, food wise!  I get in a really bad habit of consuming sugar & sweets so I needed something to help combat that before race day.  I love all the Arbonne products and the protein shakes are delicious!

 

I can already tell that my month of no tv is going to change my life!  Tonight, I got home, went for my 5 mile run, came home and showered, finished a book that I’ve been reading for far too long, made dinner, started a load of laundry, and now I’m about to head off to bed.  I’ll be in bed by 10pm tonight!  I definitely think I’ll be well rested by the end of the month, my Arbonne business will be strong, my training would have been successful, my quality time with Nick will be more interactive and fun, you’ll see more than just this blog post, and I my self-development will be off the charts!

Cheers to a wonderful FABuary!

Pineapple Lettuce Wraps and Renting a Netflix

Happy Thursday everyone! It has been one slammed week for me, but I love keeping busy, so it’s been great.  Tonight is my Arbonne “launch” party so I’m excited and nervous about getting this started.  I know I’ll have at least a few people in attendance! I pretty much have something every single night this week and because of mine and Nick’s work schedules, we will never get the chance to have lunch together this summer.  Since I had a free night last night, I suggested that we rent a redbox  (I actually said rent a Netflix and Nick got a kick out of that) and cook dinner together.  I thought that the Pineapple Water chestnut lettuce wraps would be good and refreshing now that it’s heated up in Mississippi.  I remember being surprised at how much I liked them when Mary Lindsey served them at our Health Starts Here graduation.

They definitely turned out to be delicious, but they weren’t very filling so I’m glad Nick had already prepared some lentils as a side.  He just cooked the lentils normal and then when we were ready to eat a bowl, we seasoned it a bit with cumin, paprika, and red pepper flakes.  They turned out a lot more delicious than I expected.  Nick has been raving about lentils ever since the Engine 2 challenge and has been telling me that I really need to incorporate them into my diet, especially since I’m a vegetarian, but I just never took the time to cook or taste them.  I’m a fan though!

GIRLS ON THE RUN

I never knew there was an actual thing called May Day until this year.  My sweet GOTR cuties have been talking about May Day literally all.season.long!  I loved hearing their enthusiasm and watching them act out some of their performance before GOTR practice every day.  Finally the week came and they were all giddy with excitement, so I mentioned that I might come watch and I got some basic information from one of the parents.  Well when I said that, a few of them just got over the moon excited, so I knew I absolutely had to be there now!

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Each grade goes through and performs their skit for the audience.  When 4th grade comes to perform, they wrap the May Day pole.  It’s really pretty and the parents get all teary-eyed.  It meant a lot to me that I could be there to see some of my girls perform.  They all did such a great job!  I was only able to locate one of my girls the entire time and had pretty much given up on finding any others.  I was about to leave, but they suggested I stick around and have some food before taking off, so I did to be polite.  I’m so glad that I did because that one girl had found 2 others, so I was able to see 3/8 of my girls there!  I wish I could have seen them all, but it was chaotic with all the families and children running around and having picnics.

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I cannot even express how wonderful Girls on the Run has been this season and how blessed I am by every single one of the girls I have the privilege of working with.  I’ll be sure to do a full re-cap of GOTR and hopefully answer any questions you may have.  If you have a GOTR in your area, please do yourself a favor and volunteer your time to this wonderful organization!

Yesterday was my last day with Girls on the Run and they were absolutely precious.  We do this ‘go bananas’ cheer at the end of every practice, I was surprised at how much they all loved it throughout the season (because you act a little silly and I surely thought they may be too cool for that! haha)  We accidentally kept saying that we would do the LAST ‘go bananas’ cheer before we all left for the day.  They would flip out and say, “no!  it’s not our last cheer.  Just say we’re doing the ‘go bananas’ cheer.  Nothing else.  We don’t want it to be our last.”  They also asked if we could be their coaches next year and if we would all be together again.  We asked them what they liked or disliked about GOTR this season and one girl said everything and nothing!  Basically they all stole my heart and I didn’t realize I could like kids this much because I haven’t been a huge fan the past few years.  I think it’s because I burnt myself out on volunteering for Sunday School at church many many years ago when my mom was Preschool & Children’s minister.  Now I think it’s safe to say… I love kids.  Especially the 3rd-5th grade.  They totally think I’m cool and I love it.  We kept our practice very low-key yesterday and I think it was the best thing we could have done.  We spent 30 minutes chatting about the season and getting some input, then we spent another 30 minutes playing games – freeze tag, simon says, and mother may I.  The coaches played along with them and these girls wore me slap out from freeze tag.  They are fast!  The last 15 minutes we handed out their end of season gifts – picture frame that held our group picture from the 5k race, purple nail polish, GOTR headband, breath mints, and a personalized note.  We all hugged before leaving and I didn’t shed a single tear, which I’m super proud of.  They kept telling me not to cry, so I listened.  Luckily, we still have to finalize our community service project, so I look forward to seeing them all again in a few weeks!

Time for me to get ready for work, then after work, I’ll be hosting my “launch” party!  If you’re interested in contributing an order to Arbonne for my party, you can do so by clicking this link!  Like I’ve said time and time again, their protein powder is legit.  So if you run or workout and like a post-run smoothie or protein shake, you will not be disappointed, but they have plenty of other great products that are worth the investment!

Dunn’s River Falls

Good Morning!  Did you miss me?  I know, my consistency has been about once a week this month ha, but it’s been nice to take a small break.  I’ve been working on one of my 2015 goals though and that’s getting braces.  It hasn’t been the funnest experience of my life at this point and I don’t imagine it getting any better since all I’ve had to deal with so far are spacers. The brackets aren’t even on yet and I haven’t had my teeth pulled, so that week will probably be the most miserable week, but I do believe it will all be worth it in the end!  Wish me luck.

BREAKFAST

It’s been difficult to eat a lot with my spacers in, but I’m getting a little more brave as time goes on and I decided to do my old favorite – cinnamon raisin ezekial bread with peanut butter and banana.  It just now occurred to me that I forgot the honey & cinnamon on top.  I only did one slice this morning instead of two because I knew I wouldn’t make it through two whole slices with my spacers in.  I also have some Pineapple Kona tea steeping in the kitchen right now.   I’ll probably make myself a smoothie before leaving the house as well.

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JAMAICA

Wow… that’s been forever ago!  I still miss it.  I would not object to being on the beach right now with a book in hand and the sun shining down.  It’s finally time to share about Dunn’s River Falls though.  I had been waiting on the flash drive from my cousin with the pictures.  She had the full blown water proof camera, so we brought that with us on the excursion and the pictures turned out great!

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We met up at the excursion desk that morning around 9:30am.  We decided not to do the booze cruise and to take the bus instead.  We both agreed that we didn’t feel like we missed out on anything when we did this and it saved money so I could get a massage later in the week.  We met a super sweet couple that had just gotten married, so we stuck with them throughout the trip.  It’s a little chaotic when you arrive, but we finally made our way to the falls and we had a tour guide to start us off.  I was a tad surprised when they wanted us to hold hands during the entire climb up because I felt that if one fell, we would all fall.  Turns out, that’s definitely the best way to go – so we formed a line holding hands all the way to the top.

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The guys who led the way would stop at certain points along the route for photo opportunities.  They would take our picture with their fancy camera in case we decided to purchase a cd of pictures and they would also use your camera to take pictures.  It was very convenient.  I felt that the excursion was the right amount of time too.  I never thought it should be time to go and that we were dragging on, but I also didn’t get too disappointed when it ended.  Don’t get me wrong, I could have done that again the very next day because we had so much fun!

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We decided to bring as little as possible with us.  My cousin brought a small shoulder bag and that’s where we kept her camera, a little money, and our clothes during the trip up the falls.  It worked out great.  I decided to leave my shirt on because I was a little nervous about my top coming off, but Karla did just fine wearing her swimsuit and never had any issues.  We definitely encourage you to wear your hair up.  It didn’t get in our way and I’m sure it made the trip much easier.  It’s pretty shaded, so although I would recommend wearing some sunscreen, you don’t really need to worry about reapplying or wearing a whole lot.  The water can be a little chilly, so be prepared.

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One thing that we were not sure about were shoes.  We debated whether or not we should purchase water shoes or if we could wear some tennis shoes or sandals that we brought with us.  We were 110% thankful once we arrived that we decided to purchase specific water shoes from the gift shop at the resort.  Do not wait until you arrive to the falls and do not purchase them along the route.  They have a place where the driver will stop on the way there for you to “rent” shoes.  They’re NOT worth it, in my opinion.  We were so glad we chose to purchase the water shoes at the resort.  I thought about wearing some active sandals that can get wet, similar to choco’s, but I’m so glad I didn’t.  I would not have felt that my toes were safe.  There are a lot of rocks, obviously, and a lot of places I could have cut a toe or pulled a toenail.

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This was by far one of my favorite days from the entire trip.  I’m so glad we chose to do this and I have some really great memories with my cousin!

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Can I go back now?

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The views and statements expressed on No Bologna are my own. You are reading No Bologna at your own risk and I am not providing any type of professional advice. Unless otherwise noted, all material on No Bologna may not be used, reprinted, or published without my consent. I do occasionally have affiliated links on my blog - this does not raise the price of the product, I simply get a very small commission from the regular retail price if something is purchased using an affiliated link on my site. I appreciate any support by you in regards to affiliated links.