noBOLOGNA

IngenuiTEA

Happy Wednesday!  How is your week going so far?  Mine has been good – work has been good, not too busy, but still keeping me on my toes, my workouts have been okay… could be a little better, but I’ve enjoyed being at the gym the past 2 days and today I’m attending my very first Pilates Reformer class!  I’ll let y’all know how that goes.

This morning for breakfast I had my favorite cinnamon raisin ezekial bread with sliced bananas, peanut butter, & cinnamon.  Instead of my usual cup of almond milk coffee, I went for a glass of hot tea.  My mom has recently gotten on a tea kick and so my dad got her the ingenuiTEA steeper with a bag of Cinnamon Orange tea.  I had to add some extra water to it because of how concentrated the tea was, but I’m a fan!

ingenuiTEA

WORKOUT

Last night for my workout, I did my usual 1/2 mile walk, 1/4 mile run, 1/4 mile walk as a warm up, did my usual stretching, and then tried the below workout from Julie @ PB Fingers.  This thing kicked my butt!  I’ve decided that even though I adore her and love her workouts, I’m definitely not fit enough to complete any of them.  Pretty sure I haven’t made it through a single one of her workouts completely to this date.  She’s a tiny little strong thing though.  On some of her “run” workouts, she goes hardcore at 6.8mph… fairly positive I’ve NEVER run that fast haha, so I usually have to adjust her workouts to fit my desired intensity level.

On this workout, I completed the following exercises in this order:

Jumping Jacks

Push Ups

Squats

Walk Out Plank

Skaters

Tricep Dips

Left Knee Repeaters

Bicycle Crunches

High Knees

Arm Circles

Wall SIt

Spiderman Plank

Plank Jacks

And that’s as far as I got on this one!  Afterwards, I went and did some walking lunges w/ weight and some ab exercises.  I believe that one day I’ll make through an entire one of her workouts – surely I’ll be that fit at some point haha.  Today isn’t that day though.

Legs Abs and Arms Boot Camp Workout

Overall I got a decent workout and I love having a workout template to help me along the way, even if I modify the workout some.

STARBUCKS MARKETING

Are you as big a fan of Starbucks as I am?  We already know that my life revolves around Starbucks, so naturally their marketing tactics work well on me.  With my small marketing background (basically I have a degree), I am always impressed with their marketing!!  The way they created the star system & app was genius!   It’s so easy to reload my card and now that I’m a gold card member, I enjoy getting my free large drink every 12 stars, plus they offer multiple opportunities for bonus stars!  Their most recent marketing campaign was another genius move!

starbucks-marketing

#StarbucksDate this Friday, February 13th 2pm-close!  I’ve already told Nick that we’ll be there and I’m so excited!  We had previously discussed having a Starbucks date this weekend, so this was perfect.  They also have some great $5 pairings to choose from.  I love getting a warm cup of coffee, sitting down next to Nick at a table, pulling out his laptop, and planning things – whether they be trips, projects, or whatever!  It’s one of my favorite “dates.”  With this marketing campaign, you could even create an invite to send to someone.  Mine wasn’t loading properly, but I thought it was an awesome idea and just snapped a screenshot of my invite to send to Nick.

  • Do you modify workouts you find via pinterest or favorite bloggers to fit your fitness level?
  • Are you going on a #Starbucksdate this Friday afternoon/evening?
  • Have you tried the IngenuiTEA before?  What’s your favorite tea flavor?

Girls on the Run

Good Morning! How was your weekend?  As always, I’m a little sad it’s over and now I’m getting ready for another day of work.  Luckily, I enjoy my job, but who would rather be at work than relaxing on a weekend?  Not any sane person.

Friday night, I went over to Nick’s mom house to have dinner with his family while we waited for him to get in town! I made some delicious banana oatmeal cookies to share with everyone and they turned out better than the first batch I ever made, so that was pretty exciting!  I used them as a breakfast cookie and then later on as a post-workout snack.  They were officially gone by Saturday!

On Saturday, I woke up for my Girls on the Run Training!  I have been so excited for this program.  I originally heard about it from Julie @ Peanut Butter Fingers and enjoyed checking in each week as her enthusiasm for the program grew throughout the season.  I can’t wait to meet my co-coach and meet our girls in a few short weeks.  I hope this is an empowering program for them and a beautiful continuation of ending obesity, teen pregnancy, and diabetes in Mississippi.

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I’m currently waiting to hear back from my co-coach so we can set up a time for us to get to know each other and plan out our first couple of lessons.

After training I met up with Nick’s family for lunch at Piccadilly’s and it was delicious!  I had never been, but I got an assortment of different vegetable dishes and the most wonderful Mexican cornbread!

I may have mentioned that Nick is running in my place for the Mercedes Marathon.  After lunch, it was time for one of Nick’s training runs – the longest run he’ll do before the actual marathon.  So we set out to do 15 miles – him on foot, of course, and I decided to ride my bike with him to keep him company and help him out with water & snacks throughout the run.  He finished the 15 miles a little over 3 hours so I have no doubt he’ll survive the marathon in under 6 hours!  Now he’s focusing on stretching and endurance.  I look forward to seeing how he does!  Since he did so great on the run, I treated him to some Japanese that night – he loves sushi!

Sunday was pretty low key around here – I went and hung out with a friend and her daughter then Nick and I headed out to Engine 2 Graduation!  Nick has done excellent on the Engine 2 Challenge and lost almost 10 pounds with it.  He plans to continue it until the marathon so the weight loss will help him run easier.  I also didn’t do great on the last week of the diet, so I’ll be sticking to the diet for another few weeks during the week day, but I’ll splurge a little on the weekends due to being out of town and such.

Mary Lindsey did such a great job on the dinner and in true bad blogger fashion, I forgot to get a great picture of the meal, but I did happen to snap a picture of the delicious chocolate cupcakes she made.  Seriously, how can you call this a diet when you can eat wonderful things like this?!

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Switching gears here…. this is my workout schedule for the week:

Monday – Leg Strength Training, Stretching, run 1/4 mile

Tuesday – Arms, Abs, Stretching, run 1/4 mile

Wednesday – Pilates Reformer (my first time!)

Thursday – Leg Strength Training, Stretching, run 1/4  mile

Friday – Arms, Abs, Stretching, run 1/4 mile

Saturday & Sunday – I’m going to do a 1/2 mile each day and see how my knee feels!

  • Have you participated in Girls on the Run?
  • What workouts are you doing this week?  Trying anything new?

DIY Beginner Light Box

Good Morning!  Can’t believe we’re already a day away from the weekend.  This week has gone by pretty fast in my opinion.  I’m excited for the weekend because I just found out that Nick’s coming to town!  I thought we wouldn’t be seeing each other for another week (which would make 3 weeks straight), but I’ll get to see him tomorrow! YAY!  Other exciting events on the horizon – Lunch at Whole Foods with Kathryn and baby Cade plus happy hour after work with my friend Mary Lindsey!

Today I have a simple DIY, although it’s for beginner’s out there because I definitely finished with some flaws, but it’ll work out just fine as I’m starting out with “better pictures.”

I will gladly be the first to admit that I’m no photographer and my pictures are less than par.  On top of that, I don’t have any great windows in my house to take natural lighting photos either.  I decided to make my own DIY beginner Light Box to assist with getting better quality photos.  Like I said, this is most definitely for beginners –  There was nothing special about it and honestly, I would have probably done some things differently, but for this beginner – it’ll work just fine!

diy-light-box

Supplies

  • 3-4 Foam Poster Boards
  • Hot Glue Gun

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I got my poster board from Michael’s for about $6.00.  I had a hot glue gun and glue sticks on hand already so this made for a simple & cheap DIY project!  I just applied the hot glue along the edges and then firmly pressed the boards together until it dried.

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I used an old Whole Foods bag for my glue gun and later used it for another DIY project I’m working on that involves paint.  These brown paper bags are perfect for craft projects!

There are few things I’d change or fix up based on my experience – 1) There are a few spots where the glue didn’t attach completely and I have small light holes in a few areas. 2) I probably wouldn’t have put up 3 walls, but just 2, which is why I said you could use 3-4 foam poster boards depending on your own preference of that. 3) I will probably add some white out or tape in the open light spots to continue it’s use until I’m ready to work a little harder on something better.  Since I’m fairly new with my desire to take quality food photographs, I wasn’t concerned with it being 100% perfect yet.  My suggestion for beginners is to do the best you can with what you have and then find ways to improve it for the time being, like I’ll be doing with the white out or white tape.

Overall, I’m pleased with the outcome because it was really quick and I used it immediately to take pictures of my Stuffed Bell Peppers.  I’m excited to see how my pictures improve and I may just buy another set of this $6.00 foam board to do the 2 sided light box to provide more flexibility as I take pictures & move things around, plus that will give me another opportunity to fix the light holes.

  • Do you use a light box?  Was it hand made or bought?
  • Do you have any suggestions of making a better light box that I didn’t think about?

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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.