A Productive Weekend

My weekend started off with a little anxiety on my part–I had absolutely no plans and nothing to really do, and I wasn’t sure what to do with myself!! You see, completely free weekends are very rare for me. I’m usually on the go. But with race training on hiatus for right now (thanks, runner’s knee), and cutting back on agility trials, I don’t have much to keep myself busy.

Luckily I came up with enough stuff to keep myself busy.

Part of Saturday was spent with my friend Merinda and the dogs at a herding workshop, where the Stump Kids and I watch Merinda work Porter on sheep and we watched some of the instinct tests. LaMesa will have her testing next month, and I can’t wait! The rest of the day was filled with grocery shopping (I bought an avocado for the first time! Now what to do with it??), and lots of cleaning the house.

I scrubbed the floors and washed bedding. Then I got a creative bite in the butt and started hanging up some things we were given for wedding presents, as well as Christmas presents. This included rearranging some things on the walls in M’s office and our spare bedroom. Here’s the finished product:

I got this awesome PACH bar holder for Christmas from my sister, so I could display Dally’s bar and ribbon from her championship. It’s now hanging in our spare bedroom over the two dog crates. Perfect!

I let M reclaim the wall that had a lot of my certificates hanging on it. Now he has his Colts mirror hanging with his Air Force basic training photo and a few other mementos from both of us.

Sunday included some errand-running, followed by mowing the lawn (first time using a push mower, thank you very much!), cleaning the back porch, planting flowers, and washing the car.

I love having pretty flowers in front of our house! I think it adds character.

Our back porch isn’t much, but we try to enjoy time outside. The fire pit was purchased for the wedding, and now we can use it for s’mores and hanging out!

Now’s time to actually relax a little and get some writing done. Dally’s being featured on The Daily Corgi this week, so I have to choose the right photos and write-up her bio!

Hope your weekend was productive, or relaxing, or whatever you wanted it to be!

What should I do with my avocado that I bought yesterday?

A Weekend Full of Running

I know it’s Wednesday, but I’ve been meaning to post a quick weekend wrap-up!

Over the weekend I was back up in Ohio for another dog agility trial. I know, I know, I had just returned from Oklahoma from Nationals, but this was a fun trial and I was surprised I got in, so I went ahead and took the dogs to have a little fun. Because it was also the last weekend before my half marathon, I knew I needed to try to get some sort of long training run in. (I didn’t run at all while at Nationals because my hotel ended up not having a workout room–fail.)

So after doing four runs with the dogs (two each, which is mainly a lot of sprinting, turning, etc., for about 40-60 seconds a piece), I gave them some extra water and told my friends I was heading to a local park to get a long run in. They were going to stay behind and watch more of the competition and would keep an eye on the girls for me.

Now I love this park! I have to say that Ohio takes great pride in their parks, and this one is no exception. Every time we’re at this particular trial site, we always take the dogs for walks in Sharon Woods Park. There are plenty of trails, plus a beautiful creek that comes off the lake. The dogs can swim in the creek during the hot days and enjoy hiking on the trails to unwind after a competition.

This place is so beautiful, every time we’re here there are professional photos (wedding, engagement, senior, family, etc.) being taken all over the place. How can you not enjoy a run here??

But I had never gone for a run there until Saturday. I parked in our usual area, warmed up a little and then took off. My goal was to get in at least six miles, but I wanted to try to go for more. I started on a steep uphill climb on a gravel trail (that’s one way to knock you back into running reality) that we usually just walk the dogs on. That was tough! The sun was out and it was a little chilly, but after only a half-mile I had shed my pullover and was in short sleeves for the rest of the run.

I then got onto a paved trail with varying inclines. I ran along Sharon Lake and under highway overpasses, but it was still pretty peaceful. (I didn’t have my headphones with me, but I didn’t really need them.) There were plenty of other people out enjoying the rare sunshine, probably trying to get some exercise in before the snow that was supposed to hit Sunday.

I ended up going about three miles when I decided to turn around and go back the way I came. There was more after where I stopped, but I wasn’t sure how much longer it would take me to make it all the way around the park and I didn’t want to leave the dogs at the trial site too long.

I then found myself on this Parcourse Trail, which had stations where you could stop and do different activities like log hops, squats, balance beam, etc. It seemed like something fun you could do to mix up your run, but I just wanted to push on and just run. My Garmin beeped 7 miles and I was still feeling great, so I pushed for 7.5….which then turned into pushing for 8. I wound up at the parking lot where I left the car, so I decided it was probably best to leave the run at 8 miles. I hadn’t brought my foam roller with me and I needed to be able to run the dogs tomorrow morning as well. Plus, I didn’t want to push too hard with the half marathon just a week away.

I was proud of my last long run. I was amazed at how easy the 8 miles felt and how I was finally one of those runners who was just running to run and not just run a couple miles, but running 8 miles!

Here were my splits:
Mile 1 – 9:36
Mile 2 – 9:01
Mile 3 – 8:58
Mile 4 – 8:47 (umm, who am I??)
Mile 5 – 9:17 (I think this is when I realized how fast I was going and toned it down a little)
Mile 6 – 9:31
Mile 7 – 9:07
Mile 8 – 9:20
Total – 8 .01 miles in 01:13:45 (about a 9:17 average pace)

After stretching I headed back to the agility trial to pick up the girls and then I met my friends back at the park to take them for a walk. We ended up covering about 2.25 miles on our walk, so overall I did more than 10 miles on Saturday (not including the courses I ran with the dogs in the trial). My legs were a little tired, but not too bad. Nothing a cold beer at dinner couldn’t cure!

The “Stump Kids” (as I call my pups) always love getting in the creek to get a quick drink and cool their bellies. (Dally, the Corgi, like to swim, LaMesa not so much.)

I really enjoyed my Saturday doing that. I think I might have to run around that park more often when I’m in town. At agility trials we tend to eat a fast food breakfast (Egg McMuffin for me) and then snack until we have dinner. You end up feeling like poo at the end of the weekend, but this run refreshed me!

Have you tried to combine two activities like an agility trial and long training run like I have?

Parents Weekend Wrap-Up

This weekend was a pretty relaxing, which is pretty good because I needed it with how crazy this month is going to be. My parents came into town Friday, and M started working second shift that same day, so it was a little weird at first. I had some already baked, semi-mashed sweet potatoes in the refrigerator that needed to be used up, and since it was Lent, I decided to try my hand at making a curry sweet potato soup.

I found the Roasted, Curried Sweet Potato Soup recipe on Pinterest and had to go buy curry powder for the recipe, but that wasn’t a big deal. I didn’t include the yellow onion (just some chopped, dried onion). And, since I had already baked the potatoes, so there was no need to roast them (but it’d be interesting to try this recipe with them actually roasted with the coconut oil). I served the soup with a very veggie salad mix and whole wheat biscuits to my parents. They liked the soup, as did I, except we all agreed there was too much curry powder in the recipe and it wasn’t very sweet. I didn’t want it to be very sweet, but this had way too much curry powder. Next time–less curry, roast the potatoes, and maybe add a little bit of brown sugar.

That night I decided to make sweet potato bread quick bread with the remaining sweet potatoes for us to have for breakfast all this weekend. I was excited that I had all of the ingredients listed, so I dove right into the recipe. This was a great success! When I came home from my 13-mile run Saturday morning, this was a great breakfast, along with some chai latte. Sooo yummy! I am totally going to make this recipe again (recipe to come later this week).

Sweet Potato Success–Roasted, Curried Sweet Potato Soup and Sweet Potato Quick Bread

The rest of the day, Saturday, was spent enjoying a big lunch with M and my parents, followed by camping out on the couch while my parents read and I dozed–exhausted and starting to have sore legs from my run. We splurged and ordered a pizza for dinner and watched Sherlock Holmes (with Robert Downey, Jr., and Jude Law) on television–so good!

Sunday, after polishing off the sweet potato bread along with some scrambled eggs with sautéed spinach, low-fat shredded cheese, and some turkey), mom and I set about to check out Kentucky Crafted: The Market, to see if it was a show she should try to get a booth in for her shop. It was a fun outing with her, checking out different artisans and some of the unique foods (apple salsa and pineapple chutney?? So good!) while it snowed outside. Then we met M and my dad for dinner at a barbecue joint before they hit the road back up to Indiana.

After the parents left and M headed off to work, I decided to add some layers and hit up my new friend, and fellow blogger, Nicole to meet up for a dog walk around the University of Kentucky’s Arboretum. We’ve chatted online and text for a while, and we’re both training for the Run the Bluegrass, we just haven’t gotten a chance to meet up. Luckily she and her vivacious Goldendoodle, Bentley, were up for a cold walk. Nicole writes over at Fruit N Fitness about her half marathon training (this will be her first race ever–brave girl!), and healthy eating while still studying for her graduate degree. (Plus she’s a horse girl, too–can’t beat that!)

The walk was a brisk one, but we got in 2.4 miles (perfect to stretch out our legs from our long runs the day before) and we got to know each other a little better. Thanks for meeting up with me, Nicole!

After the walk and a little cleaning, I tackled some food prep for the week, part of the HealthysELF challenge for the weekend. Unfortunately I didn’t get to do much prep, because I had an interview for a story I forgot about, but I was able to get a double batch of the Chunky Turkey Veggie Soup prepared and a few hardboiled eggs made for dinner and snacks this week. It’ll be interesting to see what I do while I have most nights to myself–I’ll still need to make dinner, so I can continue to eat healthy and make M dinner to take to work with him the next day. So while I figure it out, I’ll have to do more food prep later.

My extent of weekend food prep: double batch of Chunky Turkey Veggie Soup and hardboiled eggs. I’m going to do better next time, I promise!

Now it’s time to tackle yet another week!

A Fun, Educational Weekend + New Year’s Clean Fest

This weekend I had the opportunity to attend a dog agility training seminar in Southern Indiana. Agility seminars are usually pretty expensive to have a working spot in, but I was lucky that my parents paid for me to have a working spot on Friday and auditing spot on Saturday for my birthday present a couple months ago. So my friend, Merinda, and I packed up our pups and set out to learn so much. If you’re interested in learning more about dog agility, follow my training blog: Agility On Stumps.

This morning M and I went out to breakfast and then came home to tackle Christmas decorations and rearranging the living room. When we moved in together into the house we’re renting a few years ago, we basically combined all of our stuff–so we have two couches (which remarkably go well because mine’s blue and his is cream with blue accents), his old recliner and dining table set, my coffee table, etc. (We’d love to get some new furniture, but we want to wait until we buy a house of our own, which is now further from our sights with the job situation and uncertainty of where we’ll be settling now.)

The new living room layout will take some time to get used to, but it opens up the house so the dogs can play and just opens up the front part of the house. This setup should also allow plenty of space for me to do my yoga videos and hopefully M and I can get back to play with out Kinect and do the exercise games we got a while ago.

The new setup opens up the front of the house so much more.

While we moved things around, M and I worked together to sweep, vacuum, dust, and mop (scrub) the living room. It was basically a New Year’s clean fest. It was nice to do some heavy duty cleaning together and it just makes things so much nicer around the house when everything’s clean. Next week we’re planning on tackling our spare bedroom, which became “wedding central” the months leading up to the wedding, and then has been a place for us to just put things to get them out of the way. I’ll be sure to take before and after photos of this project!

The afternoon was spent interviewing a source for a freelance article, cheering on the Colts  (who, unfortunately, lost to the Ravens in the Wildcard Game), and grocery shopping.

This will it’s back to the grind–working all five days! I was lucky to only work two days the past two weeks each, so to work five days will be hard! Haha But tomorrow night we’ll be cheering on the Notre Dame Fightin’ Irish to a national championship against Alabama! Go irish!

Now I’m off to watch the premiere of The Biggest Loser–I love this show! What do you think of it?

A Peaceful Winter Weekend

This weekend was the kind of weekend that you need during the winter some times.

While we were sleeping Friday night, it snowed about 2 inches. Yay! I was supposed to go on my first training group run Saturday morning, but it was cancelled, so I met a running/agility buddy at the gym and got in a little more than 4 solid miles on the treadmill, rather than worry about the slick roads and slush. I stopped by our favorite local coffee shop and bought M and I are favorite drinks (him–camp fire cocoa, me–turtle-dove chai) and woke M up with his drink.

Later that morning M and I bundled up and shoveled the driveway and sidewalk, including our elderly neighbor’s driveway and sidewalk. While M was doing more of the heavy stuff (hey, I had just run 4 miles!) the pups and I made a small snowman:

Our little snowman–it’s been a long while since I made one, but at least I found a use for those darn “spiky balls” our tree tends to drop everywhere!

Afterwards I drove out a friend’s place to train the dogs over some drills for agility with my other dog agility friends. We felt pretty lucky that even though there was 2-3 inches of snow on the ground, upper 20s, and still snowing, we were able to get in an hour of training with the dogs because of our friend’s indoor agility ring with soccer field turf. I’m going to have to remember to take some photos of the place to share with you–we really are lucky! I was working LaMesa in preparation for a seminar we’re going to this coming weekend, and Dally was getting the rust knocked off for upcoming trials and Nationals in March.

Saturday night M and I headed out to dinner using a gift card we got for Christmas (grilled salmon at Texas Roadhouse–yum!) and went to see “This Is 40″ at the movie theater. “This Is 40″ is a great movie–very funny! I totally recommend it.

Today was about being lazy, with a chuck roast in the slow cooker and the Colts game on the television. The Colts won, which is awesome since it was Chuck Pagano’s first game back since he overcame leukemia–it’s been a great year overall to be from Indianapolis and be a (lifelong) Colts fan! No one saw them going to the playoffs, let alone finishing the season 11-5, so this is just icing on the cake!

I hope your weekend was a good one!

 

A Christmasy Weekend

I hope everyone had a great weekend…can you believe that next weekend is Christmas??

After a fun Friday in Louisville with a great college buddy (and one my bridesmaids) for a girls’ night, M and I enjoyed a fun morning of holiday drinks at Coffee Times Coffee House, a fun local coffee shop that has some awesome drinks and great service. They also have a massive selection of coffee. We got my brother-in-law some coffee beans and a grinder for Christmas last year and he loved it, so we decided to do the same this year, only add a couple of different flavors.

Then we went to Bed, Bath & Beyond to spend some of our gift cards we got from our wedding, as well as the store credit we received when we had to return some stuff. Unfortunately we didn’t really get much from our registries, and there were things we really needed, so we decided to treat ourselves. After about an hour or so, we walked out of the store with $350-worth of stuff…and we didn’t pay a dime! It was pretty fun. We got a new mattress pad, some new cookware, bathroom stuff (so excited about that, so I’ll show pictures soon), and I got some new bakeware. We still hope to get some stuff for Christmas, though, and still have quite a few things that we need and would like to get.

Then we took the girls to go see Santa at PetsMart. The girls were so excited about the chance to go shopping, but LaMesa wasn’t too sure about going to see Santa. The poor little thing was shaking like a leaf and wasn’t too sure about the man in the beard. I barely got both girls to look towards the camera at the same time. I chose this photo because M and I got a kick out of the look LaMesa was giving Santa (meanwhile Dally was just waiting for her treat).

Seeing Santa is old hat for Dally, however LaMesa’s not too sure about the fake beard…

That evening we went to a friend’s house for a party and Dirty Santa. I lucked out getting the last number (28–there were a lot of people at the party!) and wound up going home with a bottle of Evan Williams and some eggnog. The eggnog is pretty ironic considering M and I had said talked about eggnog and how neither of us had never had any. Looks like we’ll have to have some to celebrate the holiday some time this week… (I took a little Christmas decoration and made some of my dark chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, which I’ll post the recipe soon.)

Today’s activities included a long run (56* on Dec. 16??) and agility training with the dogs and my dog friends. I tried a new cookie recipe, which I’ll post later, and whipped together some turkey chili–home run!

Now it’s time to relax, watch a little “The Devil Wears Prada” (who doesn’t love that movie??) and icing my foot… Ready to tackle Week 4 of Elf4Health!

Elf4Health Challenge – Week 2

Happy Sunday! I hope you’ve all had a good weekend. Mine has been good, minus not getting a run in as planned today. But, the Colts won in the last four seconds of their game against the Detroit Lions, so that makes everything better!

Tomorrow starts week two of the Elf4Health Challenge. Yesterday’s challenge was to clean out your closet and donate clothes to Goodwill. My husband and I had already cleaned out our closet about a week ago, and we’re donating the clothes to the Bluegrass Farms Chaplaincy, a charity my company works closely with. I always feel better about donating my clothes/coats to charities that could use our stuff instead of Goodwill. Here’s the bag of clothes (it’s a huge trash bag–probably the size of 2-3 regular black trash bags):

Every season M and I clean out our closet of clothes we no longer wear, or shouldn’t wear (if they’re damaged, they’re thrown out). So Saturday’s challenge was easy.

Here’s the line-up for Week 2:

Monday – Do you know how much fiver you eat? Track your fiber intake today!
Tuesday – Have a salad today and make your own dressing! (Will have to look into dressing recipes…any recommendations?)
Wednesday – Pack a healthy snack…and pack enough to share with a co-worker.
Thursday – Let’s life weights! Try a new exercise today.
Friday – Go make-up free today!
Saturday – Make a plan! Plan out your meals for the week and write your workouts down in your planner!

I’m most concerned about Friday and going make-up free at work–I don’t wear a lot of make-up, but at least a little eye liner and eye shadow. This ought to be interesting…

I’m looking forward to Saturday’s challenge–I’ve never really made a meal plan for the week. I attempted once a few weeks ago, actually, but we didn’t stick to it. It’d be nice to have this challenge to make me accountable for the plan. And I usually plan my workouts somewhat early, but definitely make my decisions around lunchtime. A lot of those plans depend on if I’ll have any friends joining me for a run or if my husband ever decides to venture back into the gym.

Tonight my (self-inflicted) challenge is to roast vegetables to bring to a friend’s dinner tonight. I’ve never roasted vegetables, but at the grocery I selected: zucchini, summer squash, red and green peppers, and brussel sprouts. I’ve never had brussel sprouts, but when I see multiple recipes from some of my favorite bloggers using them, it inspires me! M refuses to even try them tonight, so I’m hoping my friends will be receptive! I’ll post more about how they turned out later.

 

A Great Weekend & Yummy Ending

This weekend was one that was desperately needed because it was fun and relaxing, even if it was a little busy.

Saturday, after completing my 11-mile comeback run, M and I headed up to Dayton to meet up with an Air Force buddy of his and his girlfriend to tour the United States Air Force Museum. It was a lot of fun to see all of the different planes from the different eras of the Air Force (or the United States Army Air Force, as it was called before the inception of the Air Force in 1947). I love classic cars, and I decided that the same goes for classic planes. M and his friend regailed us with different stories about their time in Japan together, which was a lot of fun to hear about M’s life before we met.

After the museum we went to a favorite restaurant of mine when we’re in the area for agility trials–Company 7 BBQ in Englewood, Ohio. This place it great, with great beer and food! M has been wanting to go there, and his friend hadn’t been there, so it was fun introducing them to a favorite place. After a few hours there, M and I had to make the 2.5 hour trek back to Lexington and crashed.

After a filling breakfast on Sunday, we ran errands and came home to accomplish a few tasks–mowing the lawn, washing the dogs, washing the trucks (mine and his work truck), laundry, pack away the winter clothes, and clean out the garage. Whew! Lots of things that needed to be done, and we got them done together. So to celebrate, I fixed us a delicious, but healthy and easy, dinner, part of which I found on Pinterest.

Grilled yumminess - grilled bruschetta chicken and grilled zucchini

I made my grilled zucchini with grilled bruschetta chicken, and a side of salad with dried cranberries, slivered almonds, and a new vinigerette. So delicious, and so easy. I can’t wait to make the chicken again (and I’m happy to say that yes, I actually do make the things that I pin on Pinterest!).

Here’s the recipe:

Grilled Chicken Bruschetta

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1/2 cup Kraft Sun-Dried Tomatao dressing, divided
1 tomato, finely chopped (I cheated and got a can of petite diced tomatoes)
1/2 cup shredded, park-skim mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil, or 1 tbsp dried basil leaves (I used dried)

Doesn't this look like a scrumptious summertime meal?? It was!

1.) Place chicken in resealed baggie with part of the sun-dried tomato dressing, seal, and turn over to coat the chicken. (I did one breast in each baggie.) Set aside in refrigerator for at least 10 minutes (I was able to have mine set for five hours–nice!).
2.) Place a large sheet of heavy duty foil over half of the grill and heat.
3.) Take chicken out of the baggies and set on the grill (not on the foil) for 8 minutes.
4.) While the chicken is grilling, combine the diced tomatoes, basil, cheese, and a little bit of the dressing in a container and mix thoroughly.
5.) Flip the chicken over and place on alumnium foil on the grill, then top with the bruschetta mixture. Close the lid and grill for another 6-8 minutes, until the chicken is cooked thoroughly.
6.) Enjoy!!

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