One of these days...

...I will get better about staying on top of posting here. I too easily get distracted on the computer with other sites and sometimes wonder what the point of keeping up things here is if most of my readers already know what's going on with me - or at least who I think is actually reading this thing ;)

Anywho - let me get you up to speed on my weekend and the past couple of days.

Saturday - Went to the gym in the morning for a full body workout and some cardio. Went to our town's Christmas parade in the afternoon. It was so cute and fun. Ate candy that they tossed out to everyone. Hehe. Got Subway for dinner and watched a movie that night. 

Sunday - Church in the morning. Continued our Sunday school lesson on how to manage stress God's way. Yesterday's two points were taking time to rest (after all He rested after creating everything even though He didn't need to) and the other point was having a positive attitude in your work and focusing on doing things in His glory. After church, I did some errands (library, store, bank) and tutored the neighborhood kid. Then, we went to dinner for Mexican that night since all we had for dinner was a roast that I forgot to put in the crock pot that morning and we had nothing else to make. Plus, we had both been having cravings for this restaurant Cheeky. Came home, put M to bed, and chilled with some Desperate Housewives. Man! Cliffhanger, much? LOL

Yesterday - Gym for a spin class and some abs. Laundry, dishes, cleaning kitchen. Play time with Makenzie. Bible reading. Usual day. Enjoyed some healthy baked "chicken parm" and peas for dinner. Makenzie's antic of the day = "helping" me with laundry. 

Today - Gym for a full body workout and 30 min treadmill run. Cleaned bathrooms. Played with Makenzie. Her antic today was trying to climb into her doll's stroller (see pic below). Bible reading. Fun reading. Still on track with eating balanced but enjoying treats. I had some ice-cream tonight to top off a delish dinner of some slow cooked roast and roasted brussel sprouts. Right now my focus is on being consistent with workouts and eating more to give myself a break. I do plan to tighten things up after the holiday season, like everyone else, eh? Now that doesn't mean I'm going crazy and overindulging but I am indulging a reasonable portion most days. Yum :)

BOOK REVIEW - 18 Seconds by George D. Shuman: It is about a blind woman who can see the last 18 seconds of a dead person's life by touching their hand. She is called in on a wave of crimes happening to young girls in a beach town. I really enjoyed it. It was the perfect amount of suspense and had other interesting stories to accompany the main plot. The only thing I don't like is knowing who the killer is. I love love love suspense novels where you are guessing whodunit. Does anyone have any good recommendations for me??? I am now re-reading Eclipse aka #3 in the Twilight series so no review for that one. I can sum it up easily enough without a real review. READ THEM!!!! LOL


Cool Beans! Check out this CarbaNada giveaway at my friend Lisa's blog :D Go...HERE!

A Friday Friday

Today was a nice day that actually felt like a Friday with fun activities, instead of just any old day. I woke up well-rested after a wonderful 10 hours of sleep, shared some delicious oats with baby M for breakfast, and then we danced to holiday music and played with Pig and Bear (two of her favorite stuffed toys). I also spent part of the morning chatting on GMail Chat with hubby and he mentioned something about grabbing lunch together since we haven't done that in so long. Let me think about it for all of 2 seconds. Heck yeah! So during M's nap I skipped my home cardio workout showered up for lunch.

Around noon, met up with my wonderful man and enjoyed a grilled BBQ chicken wrap and hubby and I shared some salad and fries for our sides, while the baby girl devoured some mac'n'cheese. It never ceases to amaze me how much that girl can eat. She must get it from her momma ;) One day I will need to get a picture of her full belly.  Anyhoo - after lunch, I hit up Toys R Us for some Christmas shopping. I knocked out all nieces, nephews, and M's gifts for $120. Score!! They had lots of things 50-66% off that were good gifts.

The rest of the afternoon was grocery shopping and reading my book. I'll do a review of it in the next day or two once I finish. Although, who knows if I will finish this weekend. Tomorrow will be busy with the gym and our town's Christmas parade and Sundays are always busy with church, tutoring, etc. Have great weekends all!!!

PS - I promise one of these days to get better about getting more pictures. I love seeing pictures in other blogs and want to spice my entries up some.

Just Because....

....she cracks me up and I love her so much I can't contain it!!!!

My Silly Baby M

Sleeeeeppppyyyyy

Look what I was surprised with after my post last night:

Awww! Although not from the hubs. They were brought to me by the neighborhood kid I tutor in Spanish. He got 100's on his last two tests/quizzes and wanted to show his appreciation. Roses are a bit of an awkward choice for a teacher, but hey - they look perfect on our mantel with our other Christmas decorations so I ain't complaining. 

The night ended with watching last night's The Biggest Loser as well as the results show for So You Think You Can Dance. Both good episodes, but nothing too surprising/exciting. Then it was time for bed....or so I thought. My body had different plans.

For some reason, I had a serious case of insomnia last night. I couldn't fall asleep and then by the time I was starting to drift off, hubs was deep in snore land and there was no way I was going to be able to ignore it. So I packed up a blanket and my book and headed to the couch. I planned to read some of my book to help me get tired again. NOPE! Somehow, reading only woke me more, which never happens. And I had just started the book so it wasn't anything particularly suspenseful making me excited to keep reading. I finally started drifting off after 3 - and then awoke at 4:30 with an intense crick in my neck. Laid around again for an hour, before heading up to bed since hubs was up for work at this point. And leave it to Makenzie to choose this day to wake up at 6:30 instead of her usual 7:30. So I have downed 3 cups of coffee and been a bum today. My neck is in pain and my head is throbbing due to lack of sleep. No gym and no dancing with baby M. Boring day. At least my new book is good!

Random Truths

For today's post, I will list out a few random things that came to me throughout the day today....enjoy my ADD thoughts :D

1) Pink Lady Apples = MMMMM .... I had my first pink lady today. I am normally a gala gal, but they didn't have any spiffy galas this week at the store so I opted for the pink ladies. Quite yum! Tasted kind of like a pink starburst at times.

2) I want odd gifts this year for Christmas. The main gift I will be getting will be from Peter's mom since she has me for his family's gift exchange since my side of the family and Peter & I decided not to do gifts this year except for Makenzie. So I have been brainstorming what to ask for since it is my one gift so I want to make it useful. You know what I came up with? A book light, some bigger/nicer coffee mugs, or a calendar. Wow. Haha!

3) Makenzie has inherited my weirdness. She is an odd little girl. She was running around with a clear plastic bucket that normally holds her blocks on her head. All. Afternoon. And was very amuzed. Works for me. She also adores green beans and was begging for more, more, more green beans at lunch with an almost complete grilled cheese sandwich cut up waiting to be eaten. I would have chosen the sandwich.

4) She is also so smart! Maybe just a little biased...but...She can say please when she wants something by clasping her hands together. She will say "Teddy" when she is ready for bed/naptime. She knows where her hands/feet/nose/mouth/eyes/ears/belly are. And she will play with books all day long...well, minus when running with buckets on her head. And getting mischevious. See #5.

5) 3 Hours is how long you can go with an unharmed Christmas tree and a 13 month old in the same house. Yep, 3 hours after getting the decorations up (aka 1 hour after naptime, 30 minutes into playtime) we had our first casualty. Luckily it was just a silver bulb. I thought I had all the breakable ones out of her reach. But apparently the little goober is able to reach higher than I thought.

6) People who gripe about Christmas music playing irk me. It's cheery. It's fun. It's one month a year. Now stop whining! Sounds like you need it the most!

7) All the Whey protein powder is by far the best protein powder ever! Cake batter and chocolate. Strawberry is quite decadent too. And the cinnamon is perfection for protein pancakes. AND I am looowwwww. Must get on restocking ASAP! If Peter's mom knew how to handle ordering things online I would ask for this for Christmas. LOL

Now I will close you out with some Christmas tree photos :)

Some favorite ornaments - Makenzie's 1st Ornament, UGA (my alma mater), a mini photo of my 1st Christmas, and a beautiful cross...plus M's casualty.

Productive Start

Quick morning post, since I was fortunate enough to get my workout groove on early. Yippee skippy!!! I trained back/bis/tris this am and then rocked it out in a spin class. This is the first chance I have had to do spin in almost a month! GAH! It is normally my cardio of choice so it was weird to be away from it due to crazy holiday schedules and snotty noses. I enjoyed my workout, but did have one sad moment. I tried to warm up with a set of pullups, but my stamina for those has disappeared. Well, dang!!! I never had energy for them during competition prep, and so it just goes to show --- don't use it, ya lose it. I was rocking out sets of 8 for a time there. Today I got one. Hrmph. So, I'll just make this positive and say my new goal is to build up my pullup reps again. *thumbs up*

After the gym, I went by the grocery store to pick up a few essentials we were out of. Then it was home to have my big morning breakfast and do my devotional reading. Now, I need to get my caboose moving and start crack'a'lacking on decorating our tree, a load of laundry, and some cleaning. Also, I have to get some things organized for my tutoring session this afternoon (this boy is going to pass Spanish if it's the last thing I do!!!) and also get working on Sunday's church group lesson/discussion. Busy day ahead...ciao!!!

My Morning Workout
Cardio = 45 min Spin Class = sweaty mess
Training = Back/Bis/Tris
underhand bb row - 65# x 12, 75# x 10, 85# x 8, 95# x 6 x 2sets
lat pulldown = 90# x 8 x 2 sets, 100# x 8 x 2 sets
wide grip machine row = 70# x 8 x 2 sets, 75# x 8 x 2 sets
machine preacher curl = 45# x 10 x 3 sets
1 arm overhead db extension = 15# x 12 x 2 sets/side, 20# x 8/side

I Gots Me Some Strong Boobies!

Howdy fellow bloggies! :D I hope you all are having great Tuesdays. Mine was pretty standard, but good. 


I started the day with a lovely bowl of oats/dried fruit/All the Whey cake batter protein powder and an egg white/veggie sausage omelet. Yum! One of these days I will get better about the whole food picture thing. It would be helpful if I had a nice camera though. The one I have is very basic and takes food pictures for crap. Moving on....


Then I spent most of the day playing with my baby girl. She is still fighting the congestion junk and I wanted to keep her out of the gym daycare again. We headed to the doctor this afternoon to check and be sure she wasn't getting any sort of ear infection from her recurring snot issues. Luckily, she isn't. The doc just said "it's that time of year". Thanks. So insightful. I am hoping so hard that she wakes up better tomorrow. I miss going to the gym in the morning!


I did still get my workout in today by going this afternoon/early evening. Had a decent enough workout. I trained chest and shoulders and did some stepmill madness. Hit a PR on barbell bench, or at least post baby PR since I can't really remember what I was lifting before then. I was hoping for a PR on incline dumbbell bench too, but I still can't get those dang 40's up! GAR! I know I could get 4-5 reps out of it if I could only get them up to start. Yea, yea, yea. Ask someone for a spot. I'll see if I reach that point, but for the time being I don't really know/like/trust many of the people at this new gym. I like the gym, just haven't really buddied with any of the fellow members. I also was a little bummed with my shoulders weight. Before I did shoulders with legs and was getting 30's for overhead presses. Today since they were done after working my chest some I could notice the fatigue and was only able to get 25's. Overall, though, I liked having solely legs yesterday and will keep my split this way. 


Bummer about having to makeup my workout this afternoon was I didn't get the chance to decorate our tree like I hoped. It's (not really) beginning to look a lot like Christmas in our house. *tear* Thank goodness for holiday music to satisfy my festive mood. I WILL get that tree decorated tomorrow. Okay, I guess that is enough of my rambling for tonight ;) Time to wait for So You Think You Can Dance or The Biggest Loser to come on. I prefer not to watch Obama and just read about his speeches. 


Recap Day 4
Cardio = 30 min Stepmill
Fat Burner Level 12
Training = Chest/Shoulders
BB Bench = 75# x 12, 85# x 10, 95# x 8, 100# x 6, 105# (!!) x 5
Incline DB Bench = 35's x 8 x 4 sets
Cable Crossover = 17.5#/side x 8 x 3 sets
Overhead DB Press = 25's x 8 x 4 sets
Side Lateral Cable Raise = 7.5#/side x 8 x 3 sets


Diet = healthy, balanced, good portions - check!
Water = 3.5 Liters


Prayer/Devotional Time = check! Being more regular with this is SO making a difference. Tomorrow, though, I need to be sure my devotional time includes some preparing for Sunday's class lesson and discussion. 

Lost Symbol, Hidden Meaning??

***If you have not read Dan Brown's new book and want to, I suggest you skip over this post***

I just finished up my morning devotional Bible reading time and a very odd and interesting thought struck me. Dan Brown's book The Lost Symbol. I know, weird, right? I read this book a couple of weeks ago and had some issues with it while I was reading it. I thought it was a great story, filled with lots of good suspense and wanting to know what would happen next. What was behind the story, however, not so to my liking. Like The DaVinci Code, this book is a chase to figuring out a mystery that will unlock some incredible knowledge. The Lost Symbol's chase was to find some hiding place that contained the knowledge of the "ancient mysteries", which is the knowledge that will make man equal to God. This is where things got a little irksome for me as I was reading. Despite enjoying the suspense of the novel, I found myself constantly being distracted by thoughts of "Come ON! We can never be equal to God!!! And how can you promote such insanity, Dan Brown?? *hiss*".

But then came today. As I was reading the Bible and learning new things to help me grow into a better person and have a more fulfilling life, it hit me. In Dan Brown's book, Robert Langdon (the main character) and his partners in crime do find the "lost symbol" aka "the word" that will bring man godly knowledge. Guess what they found? That special godly knowledge was in The Bible. While I don't really agree with how the book claims that there is all sorts of secret meaning to the gospels that will make man some powerful person that can change the universe's matter and do all sort of crazy science stuff, I do have to agree that The Bible is a powerful source to godly knowledge. And even though it is impossible, as we are all sinners and cannot completely remove that part of our nature, we are in fact meant to be equal to God. Yes. God wants us to be like Jesus. Jesus IS God. The Bible teaches us how. There you have it. The Bible IS in fact a book to hidden knowledge that can help us learn and grow to be like God, although not so secret since it is perpetually the top selling book in the world. And while I know that no matter how much I study that book I will never fully understand it and be able to apply it to my life 100%, I do know that its' worth giving a shot because it will undoubtedly teach me things that will only do good in my life. You know what? I didn't even have to go on a deadly, scary hunt through a bunch of symbolic puzzles to figure that one out either. Sorry, Robert Langdon. ;)