noBOLOGNA

Thinking Ahead

Good Morning!

I hope everyone survived Monday!  Monday’s usually have the potential to “get in your head” and drag by!

I wanted to get into work early this morning for a client coming in, so BREAKFAST was quick & easy!  I went with 2 scrambled eggs and 2 pieces of blackberry jam toast.  Of course, with a side of coffee.

egg-toast-breakfast

I’m on day 16 of my 21 day workout challenge and I’m feeling really great!  Last night I opted for a one hour walk so I wouldn’t be too sore for my HIIT class today.  This class is becoming obsessive, I love it so much!  I’ll have to share more about what we do in each class.  It’s always different!  I’ll try to make some mental notes this evening.

I need to work on creating an editorial calendar because it was a struggle coming up with a topic this morning… but hey, pinterest always helps!

THINKING AHEAD

We live in a society that is constantly thinking ahead.  I’m terrible about doing this – I’m looking ahead to my trip to Texas this weekend, I’m looking ahead to buying my own house one day, I’m looking ahead to Fall & Winter with Thanksgiving and Christmas, I’m looking ahead to weddings & trips we have planned the remainder of the year.

I know it’s somewhat in our nature to think ahead in this way, but I was wondering what created this almost “need” to look to the future.  I came up with a few reasons why we are constantly thinking ahead and what it is that encourages this.

(1) Social Media

I was looking through my pinterest feed the other day and realized that there was an excessive amount of halloween pins.  It’s mid-July, but we’re already prepping for what Halloween costumes we want to wear and what type of party we want to have.

(2) Retail Stores

It never fails that I hear some kind of complaint about Hobby Lobby putting out their Christmas items before Summer is over.  Because we plan early, we must buy early.

(3) Competition

We’re constantly competing with the Martha Stewart’s of this world.  It may take them a simple week to prepare a grand fiesta, whereas, ordinary people may need months to perfect every detail.  We’re constantly trying to overachieve from the previous year – whether it be with ourselves or our neighbor.

I don’t think this is a bad thing, honestly, I just try to remind myself that every now and then, it’s important to live IN the moment and not constantly look TOWARD the moment.  I’m all for the excitement that builds for fall & winter, Christmas & Thanksgiving, and the opposite for when we’re looking forward to summer.  I love a good party theme and planning ahead, but sometimes we get so caught up in the planning, that we forget to just enjoy.

I’m guilty of this too, so I’m definitely not pointing fingers here.  The views from society as a whole are not going to change, so we have to remind ourselves of this simple fact in order to get the most out of this life!

  • What activity do you complete to stay active, but not be too sore for a killer workout you expect the next day?
  • Are you constantly looking FORWARD to something, instead of enjoying the moment?
  • What tips do you have for living IN  a moment?

Unplug

Good Morning!

How was your weekend?  Mine was absolutely wonderful & relaxing.  I don’t get a lot of empty weekends so this was exactly what I needed.  Nick was out of town for bachelor trip and I stayed home the entire weekend doing a lot of nothing.  I did workout, of course!  I’m looking forward to a 30 minute evening walk later today to loosen my muscles and take a little break from my more hard-core workouts.  I may make it an hour walk if the weather is nice and I’m enjoying myself.  Tomorrow I’ll go to HIIT, so I want my body & muscles and to be well rested for that so I can give it my all.

webcam-041

Excited to see this little monkey on Friday!

When I left for the gym yesterday, my phone was close to being dead so I decided to leave it at home.  Honestly, I’m so attached to my phone sometimes that I truly enjoy the peaceful moments when I choose to forget about it.  I don’t unplug nearly enough!  As I enjoyed this true alone time, it made me think how important it is to unplug.  Do you find yourself checking your phone regularly throughout the day, even if you know it hasn’t vibrated or made a noise alerting a phone call or text message?  I do this ALL.THE.TIME!  My phone, the social networking, all of it can be such a huge distraction for me.  I don’t leave my phone alone enough, but when I do, I appreciate the lack of stress it brings and the freedom I feel when I’m not attached to it.

Maybe unplugging means something entirely different to you!  I encourage you to unplug regularly, it’s good for the soul – as I learned yesterday during my quiet workout and drive.

I’ve mentioned time & time again about the challenges that Nick and I do.  They vary in time frame and activity.  Right now I’m in the middle of a 21 day workout challenge where I workout for a minimum of 30 minutes every single day for 21 days.  This will help me establish a habit of working out.  I’ve currently completed 14/21.  If I’m sore from my workouts, then my 30 minute workout becomes a walk (like today!)  I have one week left of this challenge and then it’ll be time for a new one.  I’m challenging myself to unplug for 1 hour every single day for a month.  For me, unplugging will be silencing my phone and leaving it somewhere.  I’d love to know if you’re interested in joining me on this month long challenge!  Unplugging can mean something entirely different for you – whatever it is, unplug for one whole hour every day for an entire month and my hope is that you’ll find peace & relaxation during that time.

Switching gears…

I have a delicious & simple dip to share with y’all today!  Now that I’m a vegetarian, it’s extremely important for me to bring something that I can enjoy to parties & office functions.  Of course, I want others to enjoy it as well and I want it to be healthy!  When we had a baby shower in our office, I signed up to bring a veggie tray, but I didn’t want to bring ranch dressing and veggies – 1. overdone and 2. not healthy!

I made this delicious ranch dip that was 2 ingredients & was a hit at the office!

BeFunky_veggie-ranch-dip.jpg

Ingredients:

  • Your selection of veggies (I chose baby carrots, celery, cucumbers [home grown], and grape tomatoes
  • Plain Greek Yogurt
  • 1 packet of Ranch dip

I know this is ridiculously easy… Slice up your veggies, arrange to your liking (I enjoy alternating my colors), Mix up 16 oz. of your greek yogurt + ranch dip.

It’s healthier than plain ranch dressing because you add in that protein rich yogurt.  You’ll also surprise your co-workers or party-goers – The taste is different from your regular ranch.  The greek yogurt adds an extra ounce of flavor!  Everyone who tried it, loved it!  By the end of the day, the entire bowl of dip was gone and there were a few veggies left over.  People will thank you for bringing the veggie tray because everyone else probably brought the fattening stuff!

veggie-ranch-dip-2

Questions for the day:

  • If you joined the month long unplug challenge, what would you unplug from?
  • Share your healthy office-party food, what would you bring?

Pool Ready in a Jiffy

flat-tire

Good Morning!

That’s not a great sign, is it?  Apparently I ran over whatever the heck that thing is on my way home from work yesterday.  Luckily I noticed it before heading to church last night.  I was pulling out of my drive way, but felt like my front tire might be flat, so I got out and looked, but it was fine.  I went ahead and looked at all of them and sure enough my back tire was flat.

I went ahead and made an appointment last night so I could get my car in quickly this morning.  Thankfully my boss has been out of town these past few days and so I’m not extremely busy at work or I’d be a wreck right now.  I was caught up on everything when I left work yesterday.

What’s really funny is I’m picking my friend Lacy up from the airport today and she said her plane was delayed due to a flat tire also!  We’re all having tire trouble apparently.

It’s a dreary day here in Mississippi.  In a weird way, I love days like this.  I would love a day like this more if I could curl up on the couch reading blog posts and updating my own blog.  What’s your weather looking like?

me-karla-stephen

I’ll be visiting my cousin in a week & a half.  The excitement is overwhelming.  My friend Lacy is joining me and then we’ll be greeted by our friend Noelle who just accepted a job in Texas! I plan on parking myself by the pool pretty much all weekend.  In order to do that though, I need to ramp up my workouts.  I did the 30 day squat challenge a few months ago and saw a lot of improvement with that so I’m going to start that again today.  I also need to take all the ab classes offered at my gym between now and then!

Some other necessities to get pool ready in a jiffy:

30-day-squat-challenge

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Besides spending the greatest quality time in the world with my sweet Cousin and her beyond wonderful family, I’ll also be attending the Houston Veg Fest!  I probably won’t attend the entire day, but I’ll be there for a few hours learning about vegans/vegetarians, listening to speakers, and trying products!  You’ll for sure see a re-cap on the blog!

Did I mention that Nick and I want to do the Goofy Challenge?  It’s at Walt Disney World and it’s a Half-Marathon on Saturday, Full-Marathon on Sunday.  The problem is, I’ve never done a marathon.  I’ve done a hand-full of Half’s though.  We haven’t signed up yet because it’s not full and I’d like to see how I feel in a few months.  To kick off our training, we’re doing a Half in Starkville on October 18th.  When I trained for the Disney Wine & Dine Half-Marathon, I planned on using this great training plan I found that was created by (or for) Ellie Goulding.  The training didn’t go so great, the longest I ended up running was about 8 miles and I didn’t have a gym membership so rainy days were a problem and I also didn’t have a good yoga class to go to or a decent DVD / floor space for my yoga.  I still believe the training plan is one of the best I’ve seen because of the heavy amount of x-training and strength training involved as well as yoga.  I’m giving it a try again for this training and I feel it’s going to flow more smoothly now that I have a gym membership with yoga classes offered and a rainy day option on longer runs that are critical to my training!

  • What do you do to get pool ready in a jiffy?
  • Have you attended or even heard of a Veg Fest?  How was it?  What can I expect?
  • Share your favorite half-marathon training plan!
  • What’s the likelihood that I’ll succeed at doing a half & full in about 6 months when I’ve never done a full?

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