Insomnia is so last night

Not my sheep.  Not my photo.

I’m not sure how it happened, but I didn’t sleep last night.  Ok, I maybe slept for 5 hours straight and then was awake for a solid 1 ½ and then …well we don’t have to get all technical or anything.  We’ll just leave it as I’m rather cranky today.  Oh and my eyes feel like they are filled with sand.  I’m trying to find a positive way to spin this and the only thing I can come up with is that there are much more worse things that could have happened than to lose a good night of sleep.  Now if I can just make it through the day….(I did make it, but just barely.)

Not me.  Not my photo.

Last weekend was the first for me in months that didn’t involve a volleyball tournament.  I almost didn’t know what to do with myself and all the free time.  Except that a good chunk of Sunday was spent in the car, picking my girls up from their dad’s house. 

Not my tunnel.  This IS my photo.

A six hour round trip…too bad the scenery stinks.

Oh, today was supposed to be my big comeback at the gym.  At 4 am this morning, I gave myself permission to skip since I had been up and awake since 2:30am.  I think that’s finally what allowed my mind to drift back to sleep...giving myself permission to skip.  Then I woke up at 5:30am instead of 6 because I was mad at myself for letting myself skip.  Had I gotten up to run anyway, would I still be this cranky?  WE WILL NEVER KNOW!!!

Movin’ on!

So check this out.  I bought this really awesome book called “One Yard Wonders.” And in an effort to USE the book (rather than let it just collect dust) I have challenged myself to making something out of it each month.    This month, I kind of cheated.  It WAS in the book but it didn’t involve any sewing. 

This used to be my tv stand way back when.  That hole was for the card.  I was such a handyman!

Awesomesauce!

So, a yard of fabric, adhesive spray, some poster board, and some packing tape.  I'm pretty happy!  It wasn't rocket science and was a super easy and quick project that had I not challenged myself to complete....I'd still be looking at that stupid hole.

The end. ZZzzzzzzzzzzzz

A round up of pins!

I’m glad that I finally went running on Saturday. It was just one day before I was about to change the name of my blog from “I do stuff and I run rarely”. I intended to run with my Garmin but I forgot it at home. I had my chest strap on though. Genius! So I made my hubs carry his cell phone so we could at least know how long it took us. After not running for, what?, two weeks? I’m not going to tell you how long it took. So sue me!

Since the weekend is not quite over and because I expect much more fabulousness to happen, I’ll save those hijinks for tomorrow’s post. Mainly, I want to pop my head in, brag about running and share a few things that I’ve pinned recently.


For starters, don’t these roasted chickpeas look so amazing?!?

Source: cupcakeproject.com via Amee on Pinterest

 I love this and have finally given in to stripes and blue. In love. My fear of the maxi length dress is that can easily hide a multitude of eating sins.

Source: Uploaded by user via Amee on Pinterest

I was in love with chandeliers long before they became trendy. I'm such a trendsetter...if you can be a trendsetter when you don't have the trendy item.   And I think this one is quaint. And just maybe I might get around to making this? Or at least setting the house on fire.

Source: sunset.com via Amee on Pinterest

For when you're feeling a little fluffy and need to hit the lunges and squats a little harder

Source: ffffound.com via Amee on Pinterest

And lastly...a big fat duh slap in the face.

Source: someecards.com via Amee on Pinterest

Have a great rest of your Sunday and don't forget that you will be exhausted an hour earlier than norm!

Dumbing it Down

I have exactly no clue what happened last February.  I’m too lazy to go back and read through my blog to find out.   My goals from February:

• Track allllll of my food.  (I use Sparkpeople! And by tracking I mean, count my calories and keep it within my range.  Which we can talk about in a separate blog.)
• Exercise 30 minutes for 29 days straight.
• Finish Unlimited - only seven more chapters to go.

Oh holy HECK that’s funny.  I read through my list and fell off my chair in a fit of laughter.  Ok, that was a lie.  As I type this, I’m hunkered down in the basement of a building somewhere I won’t tell you.  There’s one other person here too, and I won’t tell you who that person is either.  BUT, if I really did fall out of my chair laughing, I really don’t think I could ever face this person again…without wetting my pants in embarrassment.  And the pants wetting would only increase my embarrassment.  So there.  I lied. Except for the part about being in a basement with one other person.

I DID however raise my eyebrows at myself.  I hesitate now to set goals for March.  I mean, if I didn’t keep any in January or February, then maybe goal setting just doesn’t work for me?  WRONG!  It does.  It really really does.  My past success with goal setting was achieved when I was consistently using my day planner, keeping a to do list, and marking things off my list.  My goals were always in front of me.  It’s easy to forget about your goals when you don’t see them every day, a couple of times a day even.

I think for March, I’m going to dumb it down.  For me, not you.  So my goal for March is to write a to-do list, every stinkin day.  I still really want these too.

The question is HOW BADLY do I want them?

Microwaved elephant

Boy do the weekends fly by or what?!  We had our last volleyball tournament of the season and headed over the mountain the day before as a special treat.  It was really nice not having to get up at the butt crack of dawn to drive an hour and a 1/2 to get to our destination.  Somehow my little stadium chair found its way out of the minivan and boy howdy do those bleachers get hard.  Our “ladies” did a great job and it was sooo much fun to watch them play and improve over the season.  I’m sad that it’s come to an end.  How will I ever get used to sleeping in on the weekends?  (Not that that’s going to happen. Ha!)

Here are some snippets and tips from the weekend:

When leaving the mall, at night, make sure your headlights are on.  Thank you officer for not giving us a ticket and believing us that we do have current car insurance.   (Now to find the current cards.  I swear I didn’t get them!  Come to think about it…doesn’t that mail go to the hub’s P.O. Box?)

Yotopia, I love you for having coconut flavored frozen yogurt.  I thought you would disappoint me and make me wish I had gone to Yogurt Hut.  It will be a sad day if you ever run out of coconut and make me drive all the way over to Yogurt Hut.

Turquoise and Caicos Essie nail color…very trendy and cool for weekend wear.  A little out of place in the office?  Maybe it just says, “I’m edgy and current …now let me tell you what you should do with your money.”  Yeah, that’s what it says.

I should be a hand model huh?

Don’t eat a whole bag of snap peas in one sitting.  Two and ½ servings is too much for one person.  You will be very unhappy the rest of the evening. 

“Anonymous” the movie.  Have you seen it?  I enjoyed it.  Now I’m wanting to go watch some Shakespeare like right now.

Oooh hey....do you remember when I said I wanted to try the chocolate "cupcake" recipe?  Yeah, well it was a huge flop of a portion of an elephant's trunky looking flop. I mean serious.  Flop.  I almost cried.  Sort of.  Both my daughter and I double checked the recipe and I followed the recipe to an awful T.   Anyone know what I might have done wrong?  Maybe my microwave is too powerful for it's own good?

Do you see to the left in the picture what it was "supposed" to look like?



Cross section of the elephant's trunk. Or I just figured out how to make stuff that looks like brain matter.  Go me!



It tasted mildly like a chocolate flavored egg that you scrambled to death in the microwave. 

Bubble Up Bloody Stump - yeah weird title huh?

Made you look!

Ok so this really sucks to admit, but I didn’t work out one time this week.  If “thinking” about working out counts then I worked out a whole buncha times! I have many excuses for why the workouts didn’t happen but the main reason is that I wasn’t getting enough sleep.  I’ve said it before but I don’t do well on less than 7 hours of sleep.  Every night or morning this past week seemed to have something going on that I latched on to as an excuse.  A headache, 4 inches of snow, ice, windstorm that kept me up, power outage that complicated matters, running on empty from not getting enough sleep…all those excuses=me not driving to the gym in the morning.  Next week starts my training plan for the Pear Blossom and now I “have to” workout.  We shall see….wheeeeee…….

Now for some randomness:

My boss boss told me to watch his coffee because he didn’t want anyone to stick their fingers in it.  He didn’t say anything about a bloody stump of a hand though!

Not my hand...or anyone's hand that I work with.  That IS my jade plant though.

Bubble Up Enchiladas – these were rather delish!  I followed this recipe.  And then added about a tablespoon of jalapenos.  Oh AND I seasoned the ground beef with my own taco seasoning that I made using a recipe that I stole. I also made these the night our power went out.  It was a sad sad evening to smell this in the oven baking and then lose power.  We resorted to McDonald’s that evening.  Re-baked the next night, the enchiladas were a poor excuse for a meal.  I don’t recommend baking this way.

The dim lighting adds ambiance, dontcha think?

The hubs and I went out for a dinner date last night.  My BBQ chopped salad was delicious but I wanted it to have more chicken but you don't get to see a picture of it.

 We shared this cookie zookie, though his share was more like 5%? 

Heather, I’m sorry at our last girls night out that we had the asphalt pie instead.  From now on until forever, it will be the cookie zookie, without nuts for you though since we don’t want you dead.

His 5% was getting to lick the tin.

Oxygen's February Issue Review (Cuz it's still February in my world.)

(You COULD and if you were wise, you would probably just skip to the PS part at the bottom.)

Umm, could someone please tell me where February went?  I thought it might be a good idea to hit up the February Issue  of Oxygen Magazine (Vol15 Issue 2 (#151) if you want to get exact) before March got here.  Good thing there’s one more extra day this month. (This is the part where you're supposed to pretend that it's not March 2nd.)

The cover with Erin Stern is awesome and I'm much happier with this cover versus last month.

I stole the picture from their website

Here's what I've pulled and gleaned from this issue.

Qunioa and Edamame recipe - page 57 This looks absolutely delicious…but it calls for 1/5 cups of carrot juice.  I’m not a super huge fan of carrot juice so I thinking, like the tuna recipes I always try and like, that this would be a big flop for me.

Sinfully Clean Chocolate Brownie - page 67 A "God-send" recipe with a two minute “cup” cake version.  Um…I’m thinking I’m trying the cup cake one tonight!  All I need is an egg, cocoa powder, baking powder and 2 T of milk.  Got it!

Early Riser Fat Blaster - page ?? Finally a recipe for a protein shake that doesn’t include a banana.  I liked the little blurb on matcha tea.  I’m going to get some of that as ASAP as I love my green tea.  What’s not to love about an extra 100 calories torched off throughout the day?!

Alter Ego, pg 74-75 is about Erin Stern and it was cool getting to learn more about her.  I especially like that she is shy and so she create’s a different personality for herself when she’s o stage.

Your Essential chest move pg79…is the push up this month.  I used to be able to push out quite a few at a time.  On my toes, no less.  I must get back to that level of fitness.  It sure makes shaving your armpits trickier though with all the muscle you have to work around. Ha!

Quinoa and Lentils pg 80, no carrot juice in this one.  Score!

Month Two of your best body…woot!  I love more “at home” workouts.  These come in handy during the summer when I don’t have to go to the gym to run.  They also come in handy now too since I’m going through a phase where I don’t like to share weights or turns with other people at the gym.

Your 12 minute ABS program pg 102-103 I did this workout and two days after, it KILLED to laugh. The workout is no joke. haha!  Get it?  Cuz if you laugh it will hurt.  Shut up.  You had to be there.

I noticed there seemed to be quite the focus on the lower body/legs with workouts are so of course, I loved this.  My upper body responds very quickly to weights.  My lower body takes awhile to come out of it’s coma.

PS I've been working on this blog for over a week now.  Things have been rather crazy around here.  SO I'm just posting it to get it done with.  My bad. ha!  If you take anything from this blog, just know that there will be a sinfully brownie report soon, and go read my joke at "Your 12 minute ABS."  Don't hate me.