Short and Sweet

Hey guys! It’s been such a busy day and is still going, so I’m going to make this post short and sweet!

Breakfast

Eaten straight out of the Chobani container!

I added in strawberries, PB2, and almond butter. YUM!

I worked on a fun project the first half of the morning (post on that later!), and then had some meetings until lunch.

Lunch

Spinach and mozzarella omelet and a simple spinach salad with grilled chicken and balsamic vinaigrette.

Apple with PB2 afterwards.

The afternoon was spent in my classroom unloading my Orff instruments that just came in! YAY!

After doing work in my classroom, I finally made it to the gym to run my 3 miles! It was way too humid for an outside run. 😦

My regular run times are always so much worse than my race times…. but I guess that’s okay? It was a great run nonetheless! 🙂

Dinner

(I literally JUST ate it.)

Frozen mixed veggies and a Boca burger on wheat. Not the prettiest dinner, but I needed something fast!

And now I’ve got to run because it’s revival week at our church, and I don’t want to miss a second of our fabulous speaker!

Hope you’ve had a wonderful Tuesday! 🙂

30 Before 30

I showed you in this post about how I’ve been working on my “30 Before 30” list, and now I’m ready to show you the finished product!

I’m going to be keeping up with the things I do and will be crossing them off my list that you can also see on my “30 Before 30” page at the top of the blog! 🙂

*Note: These are just the TOP 30 things that I want to do, and even if I don’t finish them before I’m 30, I WILL be finishing them some time!

30 Before 30

Also, I didn’t put “run a half marathon” on the list because I know that I’ll be running that one in October! 🙂

Olympics and My Worst Run

Chad and I had an afternoon date to the movies yesterday. I’m officially the lamest person in the world since I don’t want to go to the movies at night because I’m afraid I’ll get too sleepy. 😉

We were really excited to see The Dark Knight Rises because we loved the first two movies in the trilogy so much! Well, to be honest, I was a little hesitant because I knew it was close to a 3 hour movie, and I’m not a fan of sitting still for 3 hours. But this movie really flew by and was so so so so good! I wont spoil it for any one out there who hasn’t seen it yet (what’s wrong with you??), but the ending was just amazing and brilliant and I was super pleased!

After the movie, we came home and I got to work on dinner.

I put sweet potatoes in the crock-pot before we left for the movies, then came home and cooked up a quick chicken stir-fry with some green beans on the side.

I parked myself on the couch for the rest of the night in honor of the Olympic Opening Ceremonies! I read a lot of different opinions about the ceremonies on FB and Twitter. It seems that many people were confused/disappointed. I guess everyone expected the same or better than the ceremonies in Beijing?

I on the other hand, LOVED IT!! Why you ask??

GIANT VOLDEMORT.

Defeated by none other than….

Hundreds of Mary Poppinses.

It was amazing.

*******

This morning I woke up with intentions to run 8 miles. I knew that wasn’t going to happen within 1 minute of my run. My right knee, which has been bothering me for months, started hurting as soon I started to run. Plus, the new water bottle I had in my runners belt was flopping up and down so much that I had to hold through out the entire run. To top it all off, my legs felt completely and utterly DEAD. I was already lacking motivation before I started, so this series of unfortunate events just made my run horrible. I decided around mile 2 that I was going to go 5 miles and be done with it. I ended up walking a lot, which is usually something I never do in a run that’s 6 miles or less. When I got home, I felt disappointed and guilty that I didn’t get 8 miles in and that I couldn’t even pull off a really good 5 miler! 😦 I know everyone has bad runs, but I just couldn’t get over this one. Then I saw Lindsay’s post and found this.

Such a great quote that made me feel a lot better! 🙂

I was starving after my shower, so I made some “protein” pancakes using my Kodiak cake mix and adding in a scoop of protein powder. It worked perfectly!

Topped with almond butter and sugar free syrup

*******

Today, Chad and I are basically on house arrest because of a problem with our Comcast box. We have to be available at home for the entire day so that a guy can come to our house to fix it. The problem is, no one knows when a Comcast agent will be able to come over, so we have to be ready all day.

No problem though, because I have a pretty good setup over here. 😉

Olympics on the TV and on both of our iPads! We love the Olympics!! I’m SO glad we found the Olympics live app because now, no matter where I am on August 5th, I can watch the women’s marathon!!! 🙂

Lunch

This one is pretty random

Boca burger on a whole wheat bun, cucumber, hard boiled egg, and an unpictured Blueberry Chobani.

So here’s a recycled picture of a blueberry Chobani. 😉

If you haven’t noticed yet, I really really REALLY love Chobani. I have one almost every day with lunch, and if it’s not with lunch, then it’s for breakfast or as an afternoon snack. They are the BEST!

And if the Chobani company gets an email from me just happens to read this and wants to send me a huge supply of my favorite yogurts, well that would just be swell. 😉

Well friends, there’s more Olympic action that needs my attention!

Thursday Thoughts

Hello hello! I have so many thoughts and random tangents to share with you, so it’s perfect that today is Thursday because I can share my randomness “Thursday Thoughts” style. That way, it doesn’t seem so random. 😉

1. I’ve been working on a little project lately.

It’s my 30 Before 30 list! Basically, these are all the things I want to do/accomplish before I turn 30. (Which is only a little over 6 years from now!) I’ll share the list in detail in another post.

2. Yesterday, my mom and I went to see The Sound of Music at a local theater.

My brother Drew was in it, as was his girlfriend Suzanne. He played Uncle Max and she was Liesl. There were a lot of other people in the show who I knew, and it was so so good! I loved every minute of it! Every. 180. Minutes. Yes, it was a 3 hour show. But, still good! 😉

3. The other day I was at the Salvation Army browsing with my mom (yes we do that together), and I found this…

Y’all, this movie used to scare the poopie out of me. I almost bought it!

4. My dog Pierre likes to cuddle, and if you get him really good and asleep, his mouth with drop open like a human. It’s hilar.

Also, he thinks he’s a bat.

The quality of that picture is impeccable.

5. Have you ever been on a 150 ft slip n’ slide?

This was the one we had at our annual Water War for our youth. They spend hours on this thing!

It’s amazing.

6. This is a picture I took yesterday (at the Water War) of my friend Jeremy looking/being awkward amongst the youth.

He plays in our praise band and comes to help out with youth functions. We love him even if he looks like a creeper amongst children. 😉 Not really. He actually has a music blog called Vinyl Spinning where he talks about the music he’s listening to, the instruments he plays, and all sorts of other music related things. Go check out his blog! (You’re welcome Jer-bear 😉)

7. I like to lay on the sidewalk outside my house when I get done with a run.

After this morning’s HOT 3 mile tempo run.

The reason I do this, is because it gives me a chance to cool off a little with out being attacked by licking dogs who want all the sweat on your body. That gets a little gross.

8. My breakfast this morning was AMAZEBALLZ.

3/4 cups of plain chobani, vanilla and splenda, strawberries, cinnamon, and a drizzle of honey. OMGDELISH.

9. This happened today.

So yeah, all of a sudden they were all over me. It was intense.

10. I saved this one for last because I was excited about it! I got nominated for the Liebster Blog Award. Thanks for the nomination Holly! 🙂

The point of this IMO, is to award a blogger who has less than 200 followers and let them know that you enjoy their blog! With all of the wonderful blogs out there, it’s easy to get lost in the crowd, so letting someone know that their blog is worth reading is a great way to build them up.

The rules of the Liebster Blog goes as follows: 1) Paste icon onto blog post 2) Nominate 5 blogs that have less than 200 followers and 3) let them know in a comment

I honestly don’t know how to figure out how many followers another person’s blog has, so I just wanted to pick some of my favorite blogs that I follow from WordPress plus some friends from home! Here are the blogs I’m nominating!

My friend Jeremy at Vinyl Spinning

Emily at Perfection Isn’t Happy

My friend Anna at The McCrary Family

Alex at The Run Within

Nikki at Life After Swimming

 

And this concludes Thursday Thoughts! 🙂

 

WIAW is back!

That’s right, after 3 weeks I am back in with the What I Ate Wednesday action! Thanks Jen! 🙂

 Let’s go all the way back to Monday night’s dinner….

Pan seared chicken seasoned with my secret recipe (which is actually just a mix of random herbs and spices because I can never remember how I did it the time before), roasted brussels sprouts, sweet potato with brown sugar and cinnamon.

*******

Tuesday’s Breakfast

OIAJ with 1/3 cup oats, 1/3 cup plain greek yogurt, splash of almond milk, water, splenda, and cinnamon.

Mid-morning Snack

That would be egg whites and hot sauce. DON’T JUDGE.

Lunch

Brown rice, chicken, and brussels sprouts.

Dinner

Roasted asparagus, baked parmesean chicken w/ tomato sauce and ff mozz on top of a pile of roasted broccoli slaw with more tomato sauce. Weird as it may seem, hubby looked at me last night after eating this and said “I’d eat this again.” That was all I needed to call this dinner a success. 😉 It really was delicious!

Night snack

1/2 an Enlgish muffin with almond butter. (That’s an old picture with peanut butter)

*******

Annnnd moving on to today!

Post-workout protein action in the Kennington home!

You’re welcome for the quality of this picture.

Breakfast

Egg whites, fat free mozzarella, and spinach

*******

And that’s what we’ve got so far! It’s getting close to morning snack time around here, but I’m going out for lunch with mommy dearest before we go see my brother in a show this afternoon, so I my try to hold off on the snack.

Here’s a look at me and hubby’s workout this morning.

Arms 4 sets of 12

Curls 10lbs (each arm)

Preacher curls 15lbs

Concentration curls 5lbs (each arm)

Pull-downs Level 4

Kick-backs/Tri extensions 10lbs (each arm)

Skull Crushers 30lbs

Chest 3 sets of 12

Press 30lbs

Flies 10lbs (each arm)

Incline press 20lbs

Push-ups to failure (15 reps, 8 reps, then 7 reps)

*******

Have a great day!

My BIG Decision

Remember this post??

This is when I talked about making a big decision based of God’s plan for my life. Sometimes God will tell you something that you really don’t want to hear, but you know that you should follow Him because, well, He’s God and knows what’s best for you. We all have to do things that we don’t want to do. I think everyone knows this, but when you’re faced with having to actually make a really difficult decision, it’s harder to follow that advice.

After writing last week’s post, I knew that I had to bite the bullet and just go through with this. And, so I’m finally going to tell you guys what it was that I was asking you to pray about.

I’ve decided not to continue getting my master’s degree in education, and here’s why…

When I graduated in December 2011, I decided to continue my studies and pursue a masters degree in music education. The only reason I chose that degree is because my university doesn’t offer any other music related graduate programs. When the spring semester started, I was only taking two classes, Opera/Musical Theater Workshop and a voice lesson. This worked out well because I worked 3 days a week teaching, and the other two days I devoted to learning music for my lesson and my role in the opera Hansel and Gretel.

The truth is, these were the only classes I was really interested in taking. The degree I was pursuing though, required many education courses and some other music courses, but didn’t even include the opera class I was taking. I just kept telling myself, “I’ll sign up for the education courses in the summer, or next semester.” When it came time to sign up for classes again, I didn’t put a single education course in my schedule. Once again, I planned on taking voice and opera. Deep down I knew that a master’s in education is not what I wanted or needed. My true passion is in vocal performance/general music, but since UNA doesn’t offer those programs, I’m out of luck. So basically, I was going to spend a lot of money to take graduate level classes that would not have counted towards my master’s degree. Silly? Yes. But that’s how much I love singing and performing.

I could tell that God was trying to tell me something, even during the spring semester when everything seemed to be going well, but I didn’t want to listen. Just over the past couple of months, I really started listening and knew that I was going to have to give this up to Him.

So that’s where last Thursday’s post came into play. I wrote it hoping to vent a little and get some advice and prayers. It worked in a way I wasn’t expecting. I got a message from my AMAZING professor, encouraging me to do what’s best for me and assuring me that I wouldn’t be disappointing anyone. It was the greatest message I had ever gotten! 🙂 I felt so happy and relieved and knew that I was making the right choice. I felt a rush of excitement knowing that I was following God’s plan and that only good things could result in this situation.

So there it is. My big decision. Probably not as big as you were thinking, but it was definitely a huge decision for me. The good thing is, I know that this is NOT the end of my studies. I fully plan on returning to school in the future to pursue a degree in voice/performance. Some how, some way, I know it will happen. I just have a feeling. 😉

But for now, I’m going to enjoy this time away and commit fully to my job, to my husband, and most importantly to GOD!

Thank you to everyone who’s supported me and prayed for me. You guys rock!
And a special thank you to the Browns for everything you both have done for me. I’ll be back SOON! 🙂 🙂 🙂

3 Weeks Left

I seriously have to stop getting used to having all this free time.

I officially have 3 weeks left of summer vacation before I start my very first full time job! I’m excited to start working, but it’s a little bittersweet having to say goodbye to summer.

Anyway, remember my busy day yesterday?? Here’s how it went down…

7:30-11:30 CHURCH- Early service, Sunday school, late service (I left early from the 2nd service)

12:00-1:00 Drive to Shiloh, TN

1:00-3:30 Rickman family reunion!

3:30-4:30 Drive home (in a sugar coma)

5:00-7:00 Back to church for our community choir concert. (Went SO good!)

7:30-9:00 Out to eat Mexican food with our youthies

9:00-10:00 Watch Chad get really mad at our new TV because it wasn’t working.

10:15 BED

A long day indeed!

*******

Today hasn’t been so bad compared to the past two. Hubby and I were up at 5:30 to get to the gym for LEG DAY. Our least favorite. 😉

But after two weeks of low weights and high reps, I was really interested to see how much weight I could use doing lower reps.

4 sets of 15 of the following:

Leg press 175 lbs

Extensions 50 lbs

Squats 100 lbs

Curls 50 lbs

Lunges bodyweight 

Lunges really hurt my right knee for some reason, so it’s hard to get through all of them. 😦

RECOVER!!

Breakfast

By the way, we are going through egg whites like CRAZY over here. We used to go through a carton of eggs every two weeks or so, but now we’ve got eggs for days but have to keep buying liquid egg whites. haha

This morning I had to run errands for Chad and do a little grocery shopping for some things we’re out of. (EGG WHITES!!) While at the store, I picked up something that I’ve been meaning to buy for a while now.

Foam roller!!

I proceeded to foam roll my entire body before lunch. How was it you ask?

Well……

Yep. Hurts. A LOT. But it also felt good?? All I know is that I will continue to do this since my mileage is getting pretty high.

After painrolling foam rolling, I made some lunch!

Egg, spinach, and hummus on wheat. Baby carrots. Bowl of sad looking blueberries (I call them BLOOBS because Chad hates it) from the fridge. And a Peach Chobani.

When Chad came home from lunch, I gave him all of my expert foam rolling tips and advice that I had learned since I had been using it for over 12 minutes. He was grateful.

********

For all of you Big Brother fans out there, as you now know, I wasn’t home last night to see the episode, so I will be parking my butt on the couch for the next hour to see what happens when Frank finally gets his revenge on the evil Willie. (Even though I already know what happens because of stupid BB spoilers on Twitter and Facebook!! GRRRR.)

Have a great day, and if anyone wants to give me an idea for what to cook for dinner tonight, please send it my way because I don’t feel like making my brain work hard enough to come up with a meal on my own.

🙂

A Spouse’s Worst Nightmare

Morning! It’s early on a Sunday, and normally I’m not writing a blog post, but since I’m going to be busy for the entire day, I thought I’d go ahead and share the equally as busy day I had yesterday!

🙂

I started the morning with my longest run yet, 8 miles!

It wasn’t the prettiest run. By the time I got to mile 5, I had to incorporate some walking. I ended up walking one block (which probably ends up being about 50 yards) during miles 5, 6, 7, and 8, which didn’t slow me down too much. I was pretty glad to have this run over with, and I know next week 8 miles will be easier!

After a protein shake for recover, a shower, and lots of stretching, I had breakfast.

This was my first time having passion fruit. The seeds were weird, but I like it!

I had a church choir rehearsal most of the morning for a concert we have tonight! It lasted right up until lunch time.

For lunch, the only thing I had was an apple and a light string cheese (for a little protein) because we had a family reunion to attend at 1:00, and I knew there would be food! 🙂

This family reunion was for my mom’s mom (Mimi) side of the family and was held at the local park downtown.

We were under a little pavilion and even had this awesome (and very quiet) fan to keep us all cool!

It was catered by the some woman who catered mine and Chad’s wedding reception! We had a buffet style lunch, and everything was light and fresh which was perfect for the hot weather.

There was chicken salad, croissants, pasta salad, fruit, meats and cheese, crackers, and a dessert table. I never got a picture of the desserts though.

I had a bit of almost everything.

chicken salad, crackers, pasta salad, and fruit. No dessert for me though. My run kind of messed with my appetite. 😦

The reunion was a lot of fun, and I got a chance to catch up with all the “cousins” who I never get to see!

After it was all over, Chad and I had a mission for the rest of the evening.

We were buying a new TV! 🙂

Now don’t be deceived. Chad and I don’t tons of money to throw around for new things like this all the time. We’ve actually been saving for a while and decided Friday night that this needed to happen. Our old TV has a HUGE spot on it where the bulbs are going out, and it really REALLY messes up the picture. We watched “The Grey” on Friday and could barely see anything because of that stupid spot!

First we went to Walmart to check their prices. Eh.

Then we went to Best Buy where we new we’d probably end up choosing one.

Chad scoping out the goods.

We picked a 46″ RCA LCD for a really good price!

Putting together the TV and stand. There’s our old TV in the back!

And there it is! Our new addition! 😉

*******

Okay, I mentioned that today is going be super busy. That’s because we have ANOTHER family reunion to attend! This one is for my mom’s dad’s side of the family. It’s in Shiloh, TN. I always LOVE my family reunion, but I’m pretty sure it’s is a spouse’s worst nightmare. TWO family reunions with you in-laws. Good thing Chad loves my family! haha 😉

Also, tonight is the choir concert at our church. I’m singing and Chad is running the sound, so we both have to be back home for that.

A fun day but a very busy one indeed.

And with that, I’m off to church! Have a great Sunday everyone! 🙂

Just Like WIAW… WIAF?

Hellooooo 🙂 Happy Friday!

A storm came through last night, which always makes staying in even more relaxing than usual. We could hear the thunder in the distance while we were eating dinner:

Two Italian turkey sausages in a veggie stir-fry.

The rain finally came right as we were getting ready to watch Big Brother. Perfect! I had a yummy night-time snack of frozen berries and almond milk while I watched Cara get evicted (yes!) and Frank win HOH! (DOUBLE YES!!!!)

I’m loving Big Brother this season. Week 1 and there’s already been so much drama!

*********

This morning started out with a shoulders and back workout.

3 sets of 35 reverse, side, and front laterals.

2 sets of 50 shoulder presses

3 sets of 40 shrugs

3 sets of 50 lat pull downs

3 sets of 50 close grip rows

3 set of 50 wide grip rows

4 sets of 50 stiff arm pull downs

To top all of this off, Chad and I are going to help put up sheet rock this afternoon. Double workout today for sure!

Before the gym, I tried one of these from my Conscious Box.

It was pretty good, but a lot sweeter than I expected!

Post workout shake!

Breakfast was an egg white omelet with cheese and spinach

Cinnamon roasted almonds for a mid-morning snack

I’ve been getting things ready this morning for tonight’s dinner. I know, already?? But I have a good reason! I’m pulling out the Crock-pot since we’ll be working all afternoon and wont have time to cook later. I’m using this recipe I found on Pinterest for buffalo chicken. The only difference is that I made my own ranch dressing mix so that it’s healthier!

Here’s the recipe that I came up with after looking through different ones.

2 Tbsp dried parsley
1 tsp dried dill
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp dried basil
1/2 tsp pepper
salt to taste

Everything in the Crock-pot ready to go!

Hello parsley! haha

When lunch time rolled around, I knew I would have a leftover turkey sausage from last night, but I couldn’t think of what to pair with it?? So I went in a weird direction with lunch and had it with sliced cucumber and hummus, and also a peach Chobani on the side.

Not very appetizing, but it got the job done. I’m definitely full!

This post has really been a lot like a WIAW post with all the food I’ve just talked about!

And with that, we’re off to help hang sheet rock for our new youth building at church. Wish us luck because I’ve never done this before!!

🙂

Frosting??

Thanks for the comments and prayers from this morning’s post! I know there were no pictures and lots of words, so some of you probably skipped right over it, but I’m really glad I was able to write all of that out. I helped a lot!

So as for today, the morning started out at 6:30 with coffee and blog/email reading. Afterwards I made some breakfast.

This bowl has plain chobani, vanilla, splenda, chocolate protein frosting, and almond butter. The protein frosting is something I’ve seen Katie use on her blog all the time! So I thought I’d try my own out to give my breakfast a bit more protein.

1/2 scoop chocolate protein powder + a little almond milk until the consistency is how you want.

It was different, but really good!

After breakfast I wrote the Thursday Thoughts post which had me crying all over my laptop. I was so frustrated afterwards that I put on my running shoes and just ran out the door. No phone, no iPod, just me and the pavement. I needed to run out all my worries and stresses. I’m not even sure how far I went. Judging by the route, I probably ran a little over 2 miles. Not necessarily what was on the training schedule, but it’ll do!

My favorite way to recover!

When lunch time rolled around, I was in the mood for something different. I made some quick cooking brown rice and added in some precooked chicken, mushrooms, and a little sodium-less soy sauce.

I rounded the meal out with an apple afterwards.

After lunch, I caught up on the latest episode of Big Brother (anyone else watching????) and painted my nails.

Blueberry Chobani for a snack!

And now, it’s time for me to get started on dinner! But, first… look what came in the mail today!!!

OH YEAH! Chad and I are pretty excited to be getting some good health insurance! 🙂

Have a great rest of the day!