Three Things Thursday

Whew, when I don't blog...I don't blog - yikes.  Only half sorry about that.  Well, as my swim coach would say "sorry, not sorry!".


1.  With this blog, and with running and biking, I have had a mentality of "oh, if I do it at all, I have to do a super long catch up post, or 6 miles running, or 15 miles on my bike".  Then I don't do it at all!  I have to remind myself that even a little bit is enough.  I don't have to clear out an entire hour/hour and a half in my schedule to exercise.  Tonight I did 2 miles - 26 mins and I was done!  Enough to feel accomplished and a wee bit tired.


My exercise has been pretty solid these past 2 weeks.  Working out 5/7 days.  Last Saturday I was going to run/bike and I couldn't figure out which.  So instead I laid in my bed and watched Netflix for a couple hours.  :/  I ended up doing yoga in my backyard and it was perfect.  Sunshine plus "afternoon grounding yoga" was awesome.  I have started doing some you tube yoga workouts at home and I love the price and the convenience.

 
2.  My food has been hit or miss.  Here is a belated "what I ate Wednesday"!


Breakfast (not pictured - duh!):  I had fruit punch Spark and meal re placement shake from my Advo care stash.

Lunch was hummus chicken (again) but w/chicken thighs.  Not joking - 2 stores were out of chicken breasts around here on the day I grocery shopped!  Plus zuchinni basil soup with asiago cheese.  I used a bigger side on the shredder due to laziness and it just isn't the same.  Finely shredded tastes better! (yes it is the same brand of asiago).

 

2 after lunch chocolates from my admin assistant day gift.  One was walnut yuck - super duper sweet.  The other was dark chocolate carmel goodness.  No, I don't know what the acutal names are! :) 

Dinner:

My old stand by for the couple days before giving blood!  Spinach and red meat to get the iron up!  This is taco salad with ground beef, mushrooms, onions, mango habenero cheddar (ugh, too sweet), salsa, ranch, baby carrots and spinach. 

 

 Not pictured, but after this "dinner": a lone strawberry, half a piece of SwimKid's pizza, plus the crust of her first piece.  Ugh, weak moment.

3.  I'm signed up for an open water mile race in the middle of June.  Very excited!  There are literally 2 of these races in my mostly land-locked Midwest state.  One opened up for registration in the middle of last month and the other didn't even have their information updated on the website (like  no race date - just saying when last year's was!).  So I signed up for the open water mile.  This other one is up to a 5k - which would be awesome, so I just checked back last week.  And guess what...THEY'RE ON THE SAME EXACT DAY!!!  Ugh, dagger to the heart!  I haven't checked the start time of each yet, so there is a very small, minute chance that I would be able to do both.
The only other thing I'm signed up for right now is my big race of the year which will be an Olympic distance tri at the beginning of August.  It's downtown, which should be flat (thank you Jesus!).  I signed up to be in the Athena category (women over 165lbs - still over 200 right now...onederland soon?).  I had scoured previous year's results and there seems to be 0-3 women in this category every year, so if/when I finish, I would likely place.  Whereas I would definitely not place in my age group.
Still looking for something to do in July. 


Why are there like a million things to do in June and August, but July has like 3 events, none of which I want to do!  Let's see what other adventures await!  

  Some random pics:

After my first outdoor ride of the year - TERRIBLE winds.  7mph never made me feel so tired.

Obligatory dirty legs after cycling photo

These plus tulips were my gift for secretary's day - my department is so generous!

Losing Steam

Well every since my last post I have been losing my desire to exercise while simultaneously increasing my desire for bad food.  Blahhhhhhhhh.

Last week SwimSis & fam were on vacation in the nice Florida sun, so I had the place to myself.  I went into full out lazy mode!  I had 3 workouts all week - 2 yoga sessions and a 2 mile treadmill run on my lunch.  I sat around sooooo much and had a million excuses for why I wasn't working out, and why I was indulging my food desires.

Even today, I brought my workout clothes to work, so I could go run or lift afterwards.  Did I do either?  Nope, just made a quick stop at Target (for something non-edible, at least!) and came home, had a good dinner, and now I'm blogging.  Sigh.

I think I either need something that I find fun to do or at least something that is motivating.

I don't know what would be new or fun (perhaps this hip hop spin class? at the Y by my work?) or I might just sign up for the tri here in my town on the 26th of this month.  I'll be honest, the cycling part might break me, but I might be motivated to train for the next few weeks if I do have a race coming up.  We'll see!

One thing that I've been eating a lot is Chicken Tortilla Soup.  My friend sent me the recipe years ago and I didn't make it until this year!  I've changed the recipe to suit my tastes.  This time, I was making some for me and a friend who want a veggie packed chicken based soup, here it is:

-2 quarts chicken stock
-1 lb chicken
-1 jar salsa
-1 can of chickpeas
-1 can of black beans
-1 medium onion
-20 baby carrots :)
-10 stalks fresh asparagus
-1 yellow squash
-bay leaf
-cilantro both to add and some to garnish with
-shredded cheese for garnish
-sour cream for garnish
-tortilla chips

Add bay leaf, chicken stock and chopped onion to pot and bring to a boil.  Let simmer for 45 minutes.

Cook chicken and cop into pieces.  Chop rest of veggies up.  Add chicken, veggies, chickpeas, salsa, and cilantro to pot. Simmer for 45 minutes.

Garnish with extra cilantro, shredded cheese, sour cream, and tortilla chips as wanted.  Enjoy!

I love this soup because it is delicious and super filling and doesn't leave me with cravings for bad things later in the evening.

I thought the squash soaked up the flavors so well and the asparagus was delicious too.  Glad I added what I had on hand!

Random Story
My brother in law showed me how to use the grill last week, which is in our backyard up against the shed.  The first day they were gone I decided to fire up the grill.  I was going to cook some chicken thighs, which I had never bought before.  I tend to be a worry wart about things so I told myself just to put the chicken on grill, go inside and wait 7 minutes - I was waiting till 8 minutes.  I was just minding my own business, chopping up some lettuce so I could be a good girl and have salad and chicken for dinner.  I heard a popping from outside.  I ran to the back door and I saw...part of the shed ON FIRE!!!  It wasn't a huge part of the shed on fire, but it was definitely ON FIRE.  I ran to the front of the house again and grabbed the fire extinguisher.  As I ran to the back, I pulled the pin and I wondered if I would actually work, so I squeezed the handle, it worked...inside...oops!  Right after that I got to the back door and went to town putting that fire out.

Talk about my heart racing!!!  So, I was like "well, I should grab the chicken off the grill".  I picked up the tongs that had been sitting there the whole time and took the chicken off the grill.  Sadly, those tongs were covered in fire extinguisher chemicals, so I had to go inside and throw it away!  My dinner of salad and chicken quickly took a turn into ice cream and a brownie.  It doesn't look too terribly bad, but when it was on fire...woah!

This was on April 1st, but thankful SwimSis and my friend know that I don't do April Fool's Day and this was real! 

In the daylight later in the week

See the fire extinguisher chemicals there on the bottom piece of chicken?

Right after the fire was out!