Oh it's raining

Oh great, it's raining!

Nothing like some rain when you go for a run. Maybe that's why I have yet to get out the door? It's not that I hate running in the rain. I just dislike the first mile in the rain being all cold and wet. I'll get over it. Good thing I don't work till later this afternoon. I have time to stall on going for my morning run. 

I could just curl up next to Zoey. She has the right idea for a rainy day.

I was thinking about all the things I could do with my day after my run of course. 
-Get my hair colored
- Get a pedicure
- Make a trip to the library to get some books to read
- Go shopping for clothes

Or do what I need to get done.. more home organizing. 

 I went through all the kids books. There is a big bag of books for Evan. I'll save the other bigger kid books for when he is older. My kids are done with these books and its time to pass them on. I will hold on to some books, I just don't need them all. 

I'm all happy to keep purging and we have 16 years of kids stuff to get rid of. It's hard to part with their childhood. I would like to save it all for their kids but I need to clear out space. Glad Evan can have some of it and the rest must go. Speaking of going.. I've got to get going on my run. 

Random Wednesday

I quickly made some chocolate chip cookies with peanut butter chips on top. I ate 3 for my morning snack. I'm already not eating healthy snacks and its only 11am!

My popovers turned out super yummy on Easter, I decided to make them again last night. I love how they are super easy to make, as long as you warm up the milk before cooking. They puff up HUGE! Add honey butter and they are delicious! There I go again, eating white breads. 

After my trail run Tuesday morning, I was all okay feeling till after working. My body just ached all over. I finally gave in and took some Advil and did more yoga. I woke up without any of that sore feeling. My Fitbit said I went up 43 hills yesterday and most of it was during my run. No wonder I get sore from running trails! 

It's raining and 40+F. I could go run outside but I decided to go to the gym and bike. Plus, I can lift more weights there. I'm going to do this right after I do some home organizing. I have books to get rid of and an office to clean. I actually have too many things to organize but I have to start somewhere! 

Zoey and I are just going to have to hang out at home today since it's all raining. Which reminds me, Steve and I looked at fences again last night. We had a fence up around the entire yard but were into park land so we took it down a few years ago. No dog and the kids were grown so no need for the fence. Well, now that we have a dog. She needs to roam free. We decided that I will dig the holes to put in posts and Steve will build the fence, exactly like the one we have now. It's 100 feet across the back, plus we would like a door/gate to get out in the back yard to the path. We have fence left over from when we took it down, the rest went to Steve's parents house. We probably only need to buy 50 feet. We are trying to do this easy and not spend too much on it. Steve didn't want to dig posts so I offered. It's better then the other option we looked at since I just don't think it would keep in our dog for long. It should be a good arm exercise and a great workout digging holes. We have a neighbor that never does any of their outdoor or indoor work. They hire out everything. Their loss on a good day spent outdoors and some exercise that never feels like a workout. Plus, it's good family bonding time, working together. They are the ones missing out. I don't care how much money you have, some things are worth just doing yourself! 

Preplan

I try pretty hard to figure out my week before the week starts. I want to know exactly what days are busy work days and activity days. Plus, I don't want to forget any appointments or bills that need to be paid. It's a great way to get me to check some things off my todo list each day too. Of course, I'm good at just carrying over my todo list to the next week when I don't want to do it.

What I don't plan is my workout. I just have a workout spot to be checked off. I leave that flexible to be able to run, bike, ski, swim or do whatever as long as I get in at least 30 to 1+ hours of cardio. This morning, I took my run to the park to run around my favorite two lakes. I sure could mix it up more and run different trails to go deeper into the woods. like I do when cross country skiing. I just like sticking close to a bathroom and my car where I can grab water. I do need to go back to running my 4 mile dirt road route. Its extremely hilly so I'll save it for a weekend when its at least 50 outside. Two years ago, I ran this route every day two times to get in 8 miles of running. Now, I'm just happy my feet last 6 miles. 

I'm no longer obsessed with running exactly 6 miles. I'll stop at 5.88 miles no problem. I've already been running over an hour at this point and I'm fine with having an odd number. 

Some of the neighborhood kids came over yesterday and one little boy asked "how do you like having a dog?". What's not to like, just look at that face. It would be easier without a dog. My house wouldn't have baby gates up all over, I wouldn't have to block off our porch carpeted room. I wouldn't have to pick up Zoey every time someone opens the door. I would have my rugs down and not all rolled up. Not to mention all the dog poop to pick up and the holes she's dug out front, the fence we need to install, vet trips etc.. I'm okay with life being a little all over the place right now. The puppy phase will not last and I can trust her not to pee in my house. 

Getting back to planning. I even have to plan to wash  my hair and curl it. I might wash my hair but I'd never curl it if I didn't have it on my todo list. I'll save it for Friday and Saturday nights. Far too much work to fix my hair every day. 

I planned to clean my house, and then go for an afternoon bike ride. It's going to be in the 60's today and I plan to take full advantage. Lets just hope Steve wants to bike, since he wants to take the afternoon off from work. 

A warm spring Monday

We have a few nice days before the temperatures are going to drop back into the 30's and 40's. Today was a nice 50+F. I took Evan to a new playground. He had a lot of fun running around with the other kids. 

We had breakfast at Mc'd so he could spend sometime at the play-land. It didn't last long. He didn't want to eat and he didn't want to play there either. We had the whole place to ourselves. 

Sunday was not only Easter, but Steve's father, Wayne's birthday.  We had two pies to celebrate. 

A few more cute Evan Easter pictures. 

Happy Easter bike ride

 Happy Easter 2016. 

 We took some puppy photos and then got everything ready to have Easter Brunch at our house. 

I made another apple German pancake in a much larger pan. Turned out really good. 

After stuffing myself at brunch. Everyone went to the Mall of America while I went for a 11 mile bike ride. A cold ride! It was very windy and chilly. Glad to be back home. The bottom of my right foot was hurting and I'm guessing it was because I wore some new sandals out last night. 

Steve and I drove out to Cannon Falls to pick up some on-sale wine for dinner tonight. We are celebrating Wayne's birthday and Easter dinner. The singer was pretty good, he played the latest songs. We drank a bottle of my favorite Gogo red then went across the street to have some dinner at The Tavern. 

We both had a burger, but of course, I forgot to take a photo. 

Candy for Evan.. and the kids. 

I never think, "Oh I wasted that hour".

You'll never hear me say after a run, "Oh, I wasted an hour". Time is going to go by anyway, might as well run when you still can. That's my motto anyway to get out the door some days. I've been stalling in the mornings I run. I take my sweet time waking up doing my yoga then I take far too long for those daily exercises that I don't really enjoy doing but need to keep doing every day. Would we really do anything if we didn't have to. Well, I guess you don't have to workout but then I don't want to be one to not be fit and healthy as I can be. I did that and it didn't work out very good for me. 

Running is never going to be easy. I do think it helps my mood, makes me feel a lot better about life, in that I feel like I'm capable of almost anything I set my mind to. It's been my therapy to get through the hurt and pain from my mom rejecting me and helped me forgive as much as I can. Some things you can never out run and this is one of them. I'm thankful for all those hours on the road running to think clearly and run out the hurt and pain it's caused. I'm not sure how many years its been but it makes no difference. At holidays, birthdays and just family events bring back all the "whys". I do take full responsibility for being me. Questioning motives and not backing down. I'm who I am and I will remain true to myself. Take me or leave me, I'm okay with who I am. 

I did get out to run the neighborhood. Forty one degrees felt pretty nice. I was happy with my mile times all in the 9 minute range. 

1 mile 9:56
2 mile 9:45
3 mile 9:52
4 mile 9:54
5 mile 9:53
6 mile 9:10 (shorter .90 miles)
I might have faster times because this is the 2nd time this week I've done any running. Could it be from fresh legs? 

How is it that this puppy of ours is getting so big? She is a big baby and I'm so happy we have her in our family. 

Dinner last night was party my idea. To add mushrooms, cherry tomatoes and asparagus on top of pasta. We really should have had it on top of zucchini noodles. 

I ate far too many of these. My only down fall. Well, for the rest of my meals and snacks I did great. Just need to work on the total calories, giving up white bread and limiting junk foods to treats once in a while. 

Vacation Envy.

Okay.. So the lets have a Stay vacation for spring break isn't all that fun. It was a working kind of week and then of course hearing about all the great places people are traveling to, mostly warm, beaches and sun shine. I'd like some of that too! 

Instead of warm and white sand beaches, we got a foot of snow on the beaches and some 40+f temps, but yes, we do have sun shine, or partly cloudy days. 

Thursday I skied, today I worked, came home and cleaned our house. I'm a bit exhausted and don't have the energy to run or bike right at the moment. I'll regret that come Saturday when we are expecting rain all day long. I have a back up for that! In stead of running, biking or driving to the gym, I'm going to be burning calories painting. I have yet to decide the room. 1/2 bathroom, mud room/laundry and hall closet, or Logan's room. They all need to be painted. I'm just not sure where to start? I'm thinking mud room hall since there isn't much to paint and not a lot to move out of the way. It's a bad color back there anyway and I'd like to paint it in the trendy gray. 

I forced myself to try a new hair style. I purchased a new large curling iron along with new hot curlers. I'm always wearing my hair with a side part and I thought why not try a center part. I'm not sure I'm a center part person just yet. Plus, this curling hair takes up more time then I like. It's good to try something new and who knows, I might just start to fix my hair more often. 

I asked Steve how he like my hair this way. His text back " did you color your hair?", I was just looking for a yes, it looks good or no, it's not you. Ugh.. Men! 

New flat shoes. I don't really like them but I wanted something to wear besides my gray slip on tennis shoes this spring. 

Zoey likes my rugs. This is why we moved all the rugs till she is 100% potty trained. I did buy some small rugs we could put down at the doors and still easily wash if she has any accidents. Instead of accidents, I have to worry about her chewing the rugs up. Seems she would rather tare them apart then pee on them. We have made one day of no accident progress. One down many more to go! We are getting there with the potty training!

The kids and I were on our own for dinner last night. I didn't pre-plan ahead so we ate some Chinese takeout. I had some left overs for lunch. Well, it was a lot of veggies, chicken and some noodles. I should have skipped the cream cheese wontons. It's all balance right? 

Time to do some power napping. I'm exhausted. 

Diet is my new hobby and So much SNOW!

I saw a Pinterst pin that said "Diet is my new hobby". I needed a new hobby anyway, might as well be a diet to lose weight. 

We got a foot of snow on Wednesday afternoon to evening. My run of course did not happen in the snow. I opted to shovel our driveway 3 times. I wondered why my abs were a bit more sore this morning then usual. 

The streets are wet and still have some ice/snow on them. I decided to get my ski's back out again after we just put them up in the garage rafters for the summer. I just followed the already made ski trail through the woods. I was pretty thankful that they didn't go my normal route all around the outside of the park. It's a long, long ski trail and I was pretty tired already. I was fighting every step since the snow was wet and just dragged me down. I was still pretty happy to get in one more time skiing. 

I had to stop to take a few photos out in the woods to catch my breath. 

Since I only skived for 50 minutes, I took Zoey for a walk in the back path behind our house. 

She was taking me for a walk most of the time. I need to read up on how to train a puppy to walk with you and not take me for the walk. 

She just loves it out in the snow. I had a hard time getting her to stay inside. She just wanted to run around and play in the big piles of snow. 

Friday, I'll be back to running but not till evening. I have a busy work day and I'm sure that's going to exhaust me! It's also suppose to rain so we shall see if I run or not. I might just save up for a longer run/bike on Saturday. All the snow should be melted by then. 

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See, I said it was slow going every mile. 17.. almost 18 minute miles. Plus, I skied just under 3 miles and it felt like 10! Almost 53 minutes and that was enough cross country skiing!