Add road!

A couple of months ago we joined a local fitness club. It's been a very good thing for us - especially because we get out of the house and stop working at a reasonable hour. I've been a member of other fitness clubs but one was before the days of spinning and while I was at the other I think the trend started. I was too intimidated to go. Thankfully for me Sevren had been a member of a club that offered spin and went to their classes and loved it.

Guess what our new club offers? Spin. Sevren was excited, I was nervous and still intimidated. Thankfully my first class is behind me and I'm now somewhere in the double digits although it still takes me like 10 minutes to set up the bike. I also have to admit that I'm hooked. Even though I can't always "add road" when the instructor tells us to, I try.For those who don't know what "add road" means while spinning (or riding a one wheeled stationary bike as hard as you can) it means to add resistance aka make your workout harder/more intense. I also can now stand up during the ride - which wasn't possible to begin with. Baby steps or whatever they should be called in spin. Do I have a favorite part of the class (besides the end)? Why yes, it's the music. It's pumping dance music most of the time which is awesome.

Here's a picture of the dreaded, I mean dreamy, spin bike that I'm  glued to for an hour (as long as sweat doesn't make me slip off!) at least 2x a week.

4th of July Celebration

Our 4th of July celebration this year was fantastic! Here's what we did:

1. Enjoyed the pool. It was awesome!

2. Had a yummy BBQ'd dinner.

and dessert

3. Watched the fireworks that were shot off at a local college. The good news this year is we could see them without having to stand on a table! There were some trees in the way but overall we could still enjoy them.

Helping Hand

Sometimes you need to help - even if you don't know the recipients. It makes everyone feel good.

Lovely Kitchen Decorating Idea

I haven't posted in forever but I came across this idea for a vignette for the kitchen counter that I loved and had to share it! To give proper credit this is from the HG OpenHouse Blog.

Isn't it awesome! I would love to do something like this on our kitchen counter. We have dark granite counters, similar to what you see in the picture. One of my challenges would be coming up with ideas on what to put in the jars, besides wine corks. That filler would come pretty easily! :)

2011 Goals: Fun Stuff

I posted the other day about exercise and nutrition goals which are sorta fun. I wanted to post about something more fun that I'm looking forward too.

1. Redoing the front yard. If you've seen it you know why. It will also make mowing less of a chore, which means we might do it more often. We usually mow just before we start looking like the house that no one lives in.

2. Sharing more. This blog is part of my goals. I'd love to be able to grow into sharing stuff. I'm not sure what stuff it is, since right now it's random babbling but maybe by um, October I'll have some direction. I also want to share more of my gifts with others too. Not sure how to do that but I'll put it on the list and see what comes of it.

3. Vacation. I'm not sure where we're going - there is one big idea and one smaller idea floating around - both are fabulous. We'll see where we end up. :-)

I think 3 is a good start to a good year. Hopefully I can stay inspired and enthusiastic. I think it's loosing a little of each of those and time that really makes us forget about our well intentioned goals.

Cheers to a great 2011!

2011 Goals: Exercise & Nutrition

Happy 2011!!

It seems like the older I get the faster the year goes by. I can't believe it's already the beginning of a new year! I thought that sharing my goals for 2011 here might help me stay motivated and keep me updating this blog. I'm going to have to figure out how to add pictures from our home computer though because all this text might put us all to sleep.

Exercise & Nutrition Goals
At the end of last year I committed to run a 5K early in 2011, well early 2011 is February 5. Looking at the calendar that's only about a month from now. eek! I haven't run in a while, I've been on 2 walks but that's a long ways from running 3 miles or so. I better get moving, huh?!

I'm hoping that this first 5K goes well and I sign up for another after it because I can see them as a good motivator to get not only me up and moving but my hubby too. He's not running but the exercise is good for both of us.

When we're not out run/walking the plan is to have our "friend" Tony Horton on in our living room getting us moving with P90X. We did the program for 4 weeks last year and liked it. My thought is if we can alternate between Tony and run/walk we'll be moving most days of the week and that's a good thing.

Of course with all this exercise it means that we better be eating right so, we're going to try to get on the SBD (South Beach Diet) bandwagon again too. We did this 2 or 3 years ago and had good results. I think only one of our eating habits from that time didn't change too drastically - dinner. The rest of the meals, you guessed it, no longer look like SBD or even closely related. The good thing is this time is that we've done it once so we know what to expect and I understand most of the cooking challenges I will be facing. Thankfully, I've found a good website with some recipes to make breakfast a little easier. It's my favorite meal of the day but so hard in Phase 1.

Next time I'll share a few other goals for 2011...

Random Ramblings

Holy smokes! Has it really been this long since I sat here in front of this empty box and scrambled through a quick post? Time really does fly doesn't it?!

It's been busy around here since I last blogged, we had a loss in my hubby's family, celebrated a couple of birthdays, met one of my colleagues for dinner who is moving to SoCal and made it through work and life.

Of course we can't forget the DVR that's been purring along! My hubby got me suckered into loving The Vampire Diaries on the CW. Of course it's from Kevin Williamson which is probably why I got suckered in. He started all the shows I was addicted to in the 90's so why not now?! I'm also testing out the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. I'm still waiting since it's only the 2nd episode but not sure that I'm going to dig it. And then there's Nikita. I think it has potential (I definitely like it better than RHBH). It remindes me of   Alias with twist.

Well this has turned out to be a random post. I promise next time will be more interesting with pictures! Now I just have to plan ahead.