Weekend Wrap Up!

 

Happy Monday!

I hope you had a great weekend.

Here's what we were up to...

Oh what a beautiful moooooorning! Actually, it was drizzling and dreary outside. But it was FRIDAY and I was RUNNING so in my book, that's a beautiful morning!

I mentioned on Saturday that I have been easing up on running due to my left hammy sometimes hurting. This morning, I ran 4 pain free miles and stopped while I was ahead. Then I did some pull ups, push ups, bicycle crunches, and donkey kicks. Chrissy "helped".

During my first class we had a fire drill. My second grade class was awesome during the drill. Even though some other classes were running and being loud, my class walked and were quiet. Ms. Michael don't play.

It was cold!

Work actually went pretty smoothly. When I got home, Paul and I sat on the back porch and drank margaritas while playing cards.

Then I made myself a super yummy Mexican dinner... tortilla chips, ground turkey, black beans, tomatoes, hot salsa, cheese, lettuce, cilantro. GARLIC. CUMIN.

GOOD MORNING, BABIES! (Just picture me screaming that in a high pitched voice.)

I worked out in my driveway with the sun beaming down. It felt so good. I did two deck of cards workouts and I am faster at them than I was last week!

 

Then we hit the road to Philly to meet Cheetah and Maggie's baby Lila! Driving on the Pennsylvania Turnpike is dangerous.

Paul and Lila

She is so beautiful!

Cheetah and Lila

On the way home, we grabbed dinner at a rest stop. I got this yummy sandwich from Starbucks which was... $7.84!!!! I almost fainted!

When we got home, I finished a puzzle I had been working on for a long time. It's 750 pieces. Who wants it next? (It's not hard, I was just dragging my feet on it.)

GOOD MORNING BABY JELLY!

The internet wasn't working so I couldn't do all my favorite morning activities. So I got a jump start on cooking for the week.

Roasted red potatoes seasoned with salt, pepper, and garlic. I just threw them in the oven with some olive oil.

Roasted chickpeas seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic, and a TON of cayenne pepper. I drizzled them with olive oil and popped them in the oven.

 Quinoa surprise: quinoa, a bag of mixed veggies, sauteed peppers, mushrooms, and onions, chickpeas.

 Brown rice, sauteed peppers, onions mushrooms, and squash.

Just some frozen veggies with chickpeas ready for my lunches this week!

 I made too many peppers so now we have an extra container of just peppers for whatever.

 Sauteed zuke and yellow squash

I cut up some cauliflower that I will roast at a later time. I didn't want to make too much!

 Pasta salad: broccoli, peas, onions, orange pepper, and this vinaigrette:

 Just some basic pasta with tomato sauce and ground turkey.

PUDDING PIE!!!!

I actually did like 3 sets of washing and drying of dishes. This is the third stack!

Halfway through cooking, I had to run to Weis. I always try to surprise Paul with beer when I go there. These are two of his favorite "standards".

After I was done with all of my cooking, Paul grilled some chicken and made some ground turkey.

Dang, we have so much food now!

Tell me something fun you did this weekend!
Did you do any cooking?
Do you have a favorite "standard" beer?

Driving on the PA Turnpike is Dangerous!

Yesterday, Paul and I traveled almost 200 miles round trip on the Pennsylvania Turnpike to visit friends who live near Philly. Every time I come home from a turnpike trip, I feel lucky to be alive!

These are the three most dangerous things I see on the turnpike:

1. People do not use their turn signals while changing lanes. This baffles me because using a turn signal isn't a hard thing to do! This is especially dangerous because a lot of people....

2. Cut you off to pass in the right hand lane (without using their turn signal to at least warn you that they are about to cut you off!) I understand sometimes someone is being slow and you just have to pass in the right hand lane, but don't cut off the driver who is already in that lane, minding their own business!

3. RIDING. ASSES. I see people do it all the time. They speed up right behind another car. There is barely five feet between them and they're going 75. I get it, it's the car's way of saying "I want to pass you, get out of my way!" but it's sooooooo dangerous! This doesn't happen to me a lot since I stay in the right hand lane, but I see it happening.

I feel like I have to drive very defensively on the turnpike. It's not a highway you can zone out on, in my opinion! In fact, on the way home last night we passed an accident. An SUV was upside down halfway up (yes, UP) a grassy embankment and a sedan was right side up on the embankment, totally smashed. When we passed, there were police officers but it didn't seem like there was anyone in the cars and there were no ambulances. My guess is any passengers had already been taken to the hospital. It was so surreal to see. I hope everyone is okay.

What are the most dangerous things you see drivers do?
Are you guilty of any of these dangerous habits?

Weekly Workouts!

Starting about a week and a half ago, my left hammy started hurting about 4 miles into my runs. I'm not sure why my hammy was hurting. It was one of those sudden things that just popped up in this old ass 35 year old's body. Since I don't like to run through stuff because I don't want to be down and out for a long time, I decided to run a lot less this week. Here's what I was up to...

Saturday- 8 miles on the Stone Tower Loop to see The General. This was a very difficult run because we had to go straight up a mountain twice. There were so many cool sights along the way, so check out this post to read more! Yes, my hammy hurt by the end of this run but I really wanted to do it anyway!

Sunday- 2 Deck of Cards workouts in the hot sunshine! The workouts plus a 3 minute break took me an hour. It was hard, but doable. The exercises I did were: jump rope, burpees, sit ups, bicycle crunches, glute bridges, donkey kicks, mountain climbers, and stability ball pull ins. For some reason, all that jumping did not bother my hammy at all. Yay! I can get some good cardio in without bothering it.

It was exhausting!

Monday- 6 warm morning miles! I was sloooooooow this morning. And my hammy hurt a little at the end and then throughout the rest of the day. Come on, what gives!?

Tuesday- Lifting upper body @ home.

Wednesday- 2 deck of card workouts. I did exactly what I did on Sunday except I did it in my carport since it was raining! It took me 55 minutes. All good in the hammy hood.

Thursday- Lifting upper body @ home. I was feeling a little blah in the morning. When I feel that way, I am happy to stay inside because it's also a little bit of that homesick type feeling.

Friday- 4 morning miles, then some indoor exercises. I decided to test out the hammy. I made it to three miles with no pain. When I made it to four miles with no pain, I decided I should quit while I was ahead! So I went inside and did some pull ups, push ups, bicycle crunches, and donkey kicks. Chrissy hijacked my towel...

I'm glad my hammy can withstand four miles! I'm going to keep the mileage down next week as well and try to quit my runs before I feel anything start to hurt.

In the meantime, I will be jumping a lot of rope and doing lots of burpees. Ugh!

How were your workouts this week?

Friday 5: Running is supposed to be simple!

Hey all! I am linking up with Running on Happy and Fairytales and Fitness for Friday 5 2.0!

The Friday 5 format has changed a bit. We can still list "5 Things" on a certain topic, or we can write a short blog post that takes 5 minutes or less to read.

Today, I just have a short one for ya!

Running is supposed to be simple! They say all you need to do is throw on your running shoes, step out your front door, and hit the streets.

But lately, I have been noticing it is not so simple anymore! Before I go for a run, I need to consider:

Is my Garmin charged?

Are my wireless headphones charged?

Is my phone charged?

Did I download new podcasts?

I remember the days when I would run with a no skip Discman. I remember the days when I ran without a Garmin and only had my MP3 player to worry about charging. I remember the days when there wasn't so much planning going into a run! 

Technology definitely can make running more interesting and fun, but it can also make it more complicated!

How many techno gadgets must you worry about before a run!?