Snowmageddon Day 3!

It's Day 3 of this crazy response to snow in Hampton Roads, and I'm loving it! I had ran a leave chit to stay home with Ryker until we figured out our nanny situation and I wound up with way more extra time off because of this crazy snow! Luckily, Vic got time off from school too, so it's been a great week of snow and fun! 

When I was a kid, I stayed with my grandparents and aunt in New Jersey for a portion of the school year, that was the first time I got to see snow at the beach. For this California girl that was pretty amazing! So, of course, as soon as the snow fell here and I got my mountain man to agree to man the Armada on the crappy roads, we headed out to the beach! 

We got Ryker that adorable puppy suit while I was pregnant, and luckily we found the perfect time to use it! 

The beach was actually the one place that didn't have a ton of snow, if you could see closer to the boardwalk there was about ten inches of snow. 

We went to one of our favorite restaurants in Virginia Beach, Catch 31, for a snow day lunch. My friend, Jade, and I recently started a Whole 30. I was horrible and on day two at Catch I cheated and had a glass of wine. I'm back on track though at started over and have been perfectly clean since. Here's the link to the Whole 30 site if you're interested! It's just what I needed to clean up a bit. 

The #amileaday challenge is going great! The snow makes things a little messy, but luckily I have a treadmill for those days where I just don't want to go outside. 

Day 7

I love the way that this challenge and taking the pictures have gotten me to pay more attention to my surroundings. I'm tempted to start running with my camera to get better pictures than the ones my phone can take. 

Day 8

Day 9

Day 10

Day 11

Well, it's finally Super Bowl Weekend! I think we've got some chili and paleo buffalo tenders in our future (shhh, don't tell Vic I'm thinking of trying the paleo version for him!). Go Broncos!

On a quick Ryker note, that little guy has started trying to talk more! He's got yayayaya down, I'm just hoping he throws in a mamma soon :)

The ServPro guys are supposed to be back this weekend, we still haven't had any progress on our kitchen. Hopefully we have a sink for this weekend, otherwise the Super Bowl cooking will be way more difficult. Hopefully, I have some news on that soon! Have a great weekend everyone, get out there and get moving!

Janus and I are not good friends.

As most Americans know, winter storm Janus just rolled through. Not wanting to be easily forgotten, that lovely lady froze my outside pipe solid...and then had it burst. We were already having a rough week, since our nanny's car broke down and she hasn't been able to get to work to watch Ryker and Mackenzie. Thursday morning, I went to work to put in leave paperwork so that I could stay home with the baby until Elizabeth gets stuff sorted out. I was literally gone for an hour and a half, maybe two hours. We made coffee that morning, our pipes were fine. We dripped the faucets all night into pots so that they wouldn't freeze, and the water wouldn't be wasted. But oh no, Janus was determined, and attacked the hose spigot on the other side of my kitchen sink. Excuse my language...but what a bitch! 

My floors, cabinets and countertop are all on the chopping block. Luckily, ServPro was able to locate the bust in the wall and we were able to shut a valve that let us have water again. Twenty four hours of no flushing toilets and camping in my house was enough! We drowned our drowned-house sorrows in Red Lobster biscuits and tall boy Blue Moon's yesterday, Ryler was jealous. Don't judge!

The #amileaday challenge is still on, of course, so I used my frustration to fuel some runs. I also used CrossFit Rife as a run starting and end point so that I could shower there and fill up some water bottles! Everyone at the gym has been great, offering their homes and their help. Reason #6325883 I love CrossFit Rife! 

Day Three, a chilly 5k.

Day Four: Creepy, beautiful two miles behind the airport by Rife.

Day Five: 27 degree 5k, I was actually too warm in a vest and hat!

Day Six: A post hangover, late night treadmill mile. No more, no less!

The Serv Pro manager and the plumber finally got out here. Serv Pro was like "oh yeah, ALL of your floors are coming out, you can try and find the same ones or pick out new ones." Yesssss. We'll see what happens with the rest of the kitchen, the contractor comes tomorrow to see what the damage is. Luckily, the plumber finally got here and the leak was definitely caused by the weather so USAA will cover the cost to fix it. That's extra awesome, if it was because of anything but an Act of God, we'd be responsible for the $1200 bill. Yikes. 

The snow is almost melted and the streets are pretty much clear of ice. Today is looking pretty beautiful so the run should be nice! We're making our weekly Whole Foods trip today, I'm pretty excited to load up on fruit, we've been out for a few days and it's killing me! 

Snow Day!!!

Brrr, it's cold!! The temperature here in Hampton Roads has been steadily dropping for the last few hours. We even got sent home from work today at 11:00 to make sure that everyone got home and prepared for this winter storm that we have coming. Now, living with someone from Denver makes Virginia snow storms kind of funny. Hampton Roads is scrambling to prepare for 2-4 inches of snow. They salted last night and when we went to get some formula for the baby tonight, the grocery store was PACKED like it was pay day. You'd think we were headed into the winters that they talk about on Game of Thrones. Oh yea, I dropped that nerd reference. Besides enjoying a Broncos Win this weekend, as you can see from this happy boy...

We also got hooked on Game of Thrones, thanks to my friends at work. My friend, Ryan, lent us the dvd's and we basically spent any moment that Ryker was in bed watching the episodes. Now, of course I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but by the time we started season two we were like "WHAT THE F***!". That show sneaks up on you. 

But, I digress. After getting sent home from work early, while it was still 55 degrees and sunny, I went to pick up the baby and since it was so beautiful outside I decided to load him up and finally break in our Bob stroller. Not that we haven't used it, I just hadn't actually used my jogging stroller to jog with yet. That is a workout! I felt so slow and out of shape, but I was keeping a decent 6 mph pace with the wind and the baby, so I wasn't too sad. I found this "Mile a Day " blog post on Pinterest from Lululemon and fell in love with the idea. So, my friends at CrossFit Rife and I have decided to take up the challenge. We're thinking of it as more of an "At least a mile a day" challenge, since we'll still be doing WODS and training for the Shamrock Half.

 See, no reason to sit on your butt with a busted shoulder! I've gotten lucky enough to be able to keep training, which is awesome. 

This weekend, between the Game of Thrones marathon and football, Vic and I decided to use our Monday off to take the pups and the baby to First Landing State Park. It was beautiful out! We wound up doing just shy of five miles. The baby knocked out in his carrier around mile three. Words of wisdom...fashionable snow boots do not double as hiking boots. My feet were not too happy with me. I had plans to meet with Misty at 3 pm Monday to workout at Rife and go for a run, and that's when we officially decided to copy that Lululemon blog post and take pictures to log our runs! We got in a quick two miles after having worked on squats for an hour. 

Today, I had something amazing happen. I had posted my picture from my run today on Facebook and Instagram. Then, I got a post on my news feed from a friend from high school, who I am Facebook friends with, but we haven't talked much in years. Well, she posted on my page that somedays she wakes up and might not have the most motivation and when she sees my early morning workout posts or pictures after a run she gets motivated and gets to the gym for a workout! That meant so much to me, for someone to say that I've inspired them to take the time out of their day to workout. I'll be stoked on that one for a little while!

I've got dinner in the oven now, a pork loin roast with italian seasoning, minced garlic and olive oil shoved into slits in the top. It smells pretty tasty! After some frozen pizzas with Pat and Misty while we watched football, it felt good to get back to our boring eggs and bacon breakfast and leftovers, fruit and Larabar's for lunch. Being back on track always feels best! Time to get on making tonight's side dish, a spinach/apple salad with maple mustard vinaigrette. We decided to celebrate Champagne Thursday tonight, for Champagne Snow Day! Vic just let me know that the snow has actually shown up, so the weatherman here that swore on his baby's eyes (weird, right?) doesn't have to worry about being called a liar. Time to go watch some big ole flakes come down. Stay safe and warm if you're in the area, Virginia drivers are crazy!

Poker, rain storms and playoffs

Woops, fell off the wagon for the weekend! I hit a downward spiral super hard. I worked out pretty hard Monday through Wednesday last week and was like "oh, since Thursday is my last day off before going back to work, I'll use it as a rest day and workout the rest of the weekend!" Should have known that one was going to fail! 

After a pretty short Friday at work, I had to go to the Naval hospital to talk to my orthopedic surgeon's nurse. She gave me a pretty legit LLD chit (Navy speak for an I'm hurt note) that has me allowed to train my own way at command PT. This is awesome because I can continue focusing on training for the Shamrock Half and it shouldn't interfere with CrossFit too much. The only lame part is that I am doing the 5 am classes Monday, Wednesday Friday now. Man, that is sooo early!

Over the weekend we got a good amount of stuff done around the house before the playoff games and our power outage Saturday. I'm so excited to have Valentine's Day decorations! Gotta love Target.

We got all of our frames there, too, for our new gallery wall. It's taken me forever to get up some engagement and wedding pictures. Of course, Ryker is well represented and I even got a great one of me cheers-ing with my college friends at the wedding!

Back to those silly Virginia storms, knocking out power 10 minutes before kickoff of the Seahawks game. What were you thinking?  Luckily, our friends, Pat and Misty, took us in until halftime, when Vic went home to check on our power and prep for poker night. Our poker night wound up being just the four of us, but we had a lot of fun! Of course, we had to do a #weheartLogan and #Fernstrong picture for our friends' baby girl in the NICU!

We also caught up on some movie watching and finally rented Man of Steel and LOVED IT! Even Ryker, who normally doesn't get to watch TV, was allowed to sit up and cuddle with me for a while because he was so enamored with what was going on. He fell asleep that way and completely melted my heart. He's good at that!

Vic taught me how to play Gin this weekend, too. I'm usually really bad at card games, but lately I've been catching on pretty quick! Gin was a perfect game for the slow parts of a football weekend. So, what could have been a workout heavy weekend turned out to be an even better poker, decorating, cuddle Fest of a weekend. 

Monday was my first double day of CrossFit and command PT with a 4:20 am wake up. The WOD and my coach, Jade, had me pretty skeptical since it was behind the neck jerks and I've got a pretty useless right arm. But, alas, one really can wear themselves out working on their split jerk stance with no arms. After my hour at Rife, I went to command PT with the intention of running but wound up on my favorite elliptical for the better part of an hour watching Baby's First Day and Make Room for Multiples on TLC. 

I was dragging by noon! I made an amazing soup for dinner though, if I must say so myself. It had way more packaged ingredients than I usually like, but it was perfect for a "quick, get dinner ready" kind of night. 

Beef curry soup with apples

2 cups chicken broth

1 can pumpkin purée

1 can diced tomatoes (no salt added)

1 can full fat, unsweetened coconut milk

1 large sweet potato, microwaved and then scoop and chop the insides

1 can kidney beans

1 pound ground beef (I had this already browned from the weekend, great prep trick!) 

2 tbs minced garlic

1 tb curry powder

1 tb chili powder

salt and red pepper flakes to taste 

Dump it all in a pot and let it simmer until the flavors are well mixed!

So, the beans aren't paleo friendly, but the soup needed some more substance, I figured if they were the worst ingredient then I wasn't doing too bad. I just can't make a habit of adding them! Served with some of the premade Crostini from Whole Foods, this meal was legit. Again, crostini = not paleo, so sue me, they're delish in smaaaaall quantities! Perfect leftovers for lunch, I left out the tasty, toasty bread for today though. 

Tonight's WOD was too good to pass up. Normally, I don't go to night time classes, but I didn't get to go this morning so I showed up to the 5 pm. Here's the WOD:

Buy in: 50 ab mat sit-ups

then...

10 Rounds

10 Sumo Deadlift High Pulls (I just did Sumo Deadlifts)

10 pushups (I do mine on the GHD machine to help out my shoulder)

then...

another 50 sit-ups

The RX weight was 65 pounds for the SDHP, but since I was only deadlifting, I did it with 85 pounds. I never would have thought after 100 reps that I would say this...but I should have done a little more. Oh well! I'll try even harder tomorrow morning, when I'm back at the 5 am! I hope you guys had a good Tuesday. I love Tuesdays, once you get past Tuesday it's all down hill from there! Here's a picture of the teething little cutie, showing off his new trick-

Squats for days!

I finally made it into the gym today for a 5 am workout! I set both alarms last night, thinking there is now way I'm actually getting up that early. It seemed especially impossible since I'm still on leave and have nowhere else that I "need" to be today. My friends Misty and Stephanie started a squatting program today and were planning to squat at 5:15 and then do the 6 am WOD. So, like a crazy person, I decided to join. I will be SORE tomorrow! I hate how low my squat weights are right now, but I'm just not too comfortable with getting 100+ pounds on the bar with my shoulder mobility and back flexibility not being what it was two months ago. But, work in progress right?

The WOD was four rounds of a 400 meter run and 50 air squats. Yep, we decided to squat and then run and squat. I thought I wasn't going to be able to even shuffle along for the last 400 meter run, but Danny offered some much needed motivation while we were running in the 15 degree, dark morning. I sped up to try and beat him and guess what...I did! Those last 5 air squats got me though, and he ended the WOD a few seconds before I did. All before 7 am!

I think I mentioned it before, but some CrossFit friends just recently had their baby girl at 25 weeks. There had been some complications with the pregnancy so she's here just a tad bit early. The good news is that she's doing great! They are working with the same NICU team that we did when Ryker got here early, and while he wasn't as early as she was, I kind of understand some of what they are dealing with right now. We were talking about everything this morning after the WOD and it brought back all of the memories of Ryker's first few weeks while he was staying at the hospital. When I got home this morning to my two sleeping boys, I was like a little kid on Christmas morning waiting for them to wake up. When I finally heard Ryker making noise in his room, I was happy to go get his morning started. I held my strong little man and thought about how crazy it is to think of Ryker with a CPAP machine, IV's and the bili lights. I was so excited for him to get bigger and now I wish I could slow down time! 

Ryker, his first week in the hospital.

This silly little guy is still on the lower end of the weight scale, but he's so strong and getting bigger, way too fast, every day!

Vic and I are headed over to Target for some basic shopping and I'm hoping to check out some frames, shelves and a little decor for our big wall that our entertainment center used to be on. It used to be full with that furniture and now we just have this gorgeous mirror from Pier 1 and our chair, so it needs a little love. I'll definitely do some before and after pictures!

Breakfast: Post WOD Chocolate, Strawberry Protein shake with one scoop of that Carnivor protein, one good handful of frozen strawberries, two tbs of ground flax seed and a cup of unsweetened almond milk. After I dropped the baby off with the nanny, Vic made our eggy, chorizo goodness. I know, we're boring, but I'm telling you that breakfast is the s**t!

Lunch: Instead of a taco salad today I just ate the taco meat like nachos with my plantain chips. You don't even miss the sour cream and cheese that much!

For dinner we're doing a meatza out of the Well Fed cookbook. I'm interested to try this meat crust, cheese-less veggie pizza. Cross your fingers that it tastes as good as it looks!

Row, row, row your boat!

Have I told you how I hate rowing? I really hate rowing, but at the same time I love the challenge it presents. Today's WOD was four rounds of 500 meter sprints with a three minute rest between each round. I kept around a 2:05 pace for each round, coming to a 17:05 total. It sucked. My legs are pretty tight from yesterday's workout so they were ON FIRE! My method of madness for these kinds of WODs is to count down for my strokes, so for 500 meters I start counting at 60, and try to finish the 500m before I get to zero. 

I tried a new motivation trick today, last night I set my alarm for 5:20 am and changed "Alarm" to "Get up and make yourself proud!". Guess what? It worked! My alarm went off, I snoozed it and tried to fall back to sleep. It lasted about 30 seconds and I thought about how dumb I would feel if I didn't get up, so I wrapped up in gloves and my new bang buster headband from Lululemon, took a blanket and coffee and made my way out the door!

 I'm so glad I did! Most of my favorite 6 am crew was there, shivering with me. You just can't beat good friends for motivation.

Breakfast: Chorizo, sweet potato, eggy goodness! I also had a protein shake post WOD. I mixed one scoop of Carnivor Protein with a cup of unsweetened almond milk. That protein tastes just like a chocolate cake batter shake, it's lactose free and delicious!!

Lunch: Taco Meat, made with 1lb of 85/15 grass fed ground beef, 1 can of organic tomato paste, 2 tbs of cumin (I LOVE cumin), 1 tsp of chili powder and a big heaping spoonful of minced garlic. No need for store bought taco seasoning with all it's crazy additives! I put the taco meat, about 3/4 of a cup, on a bed of arugula with salsa and crumbled plantain chips on top. Delicious! I may have snacked on a good amount of those chips, too!

Dinner: Well, it's still in the crockpot, but it's my first pot roast. It's taking FOREVER. The good news is, the sweet potato fries I made smell delicious! Those two with a glass or two of red should make for a tasty night!

I'm sure you're all experiencing this gnarly cold snap. Our pipe in the kitchen froze this morning! It doesn't affect Sam , though. He 'a outside, staring at the stars and refusing to come in. Crazy Mountain Dog! 

Monday: Flex Day!

Breakfast: Two eggs, fried, with half a sweet potato and half a chorizo sausage from Whole Foods

This is one of Vic and I's favorite breakfasts, it's the perfect mixture of flavors and has a good amount of all the fat, protein and carbs we need to start the day. Yum!

Workout with Vic at Flex: I had kept a running tab of my sets during the workout...and then I didn't save it. The highlights are:

I discovered I can do hang power cleans again. This is a big step for my shoulder mobility. I did at least 100 24" box jumps and like seven sets each of 10 front squats and back squats, building from 55  lbs to 85#. I kept them light since both front and back rack are new for my shoulder. I definitely felt my back flexibility being worse than pre-injury, gotta work on that! Vic had me do leg press, working up to a set of 10 at 230# of plates. We did some extensions and curls and I finished with a 500 m row. All together it was a good leg day, long, but good!

Late Lunch: Chipotle salad with chicken and barbacoa, guacamole and salsa, a side of plantain chips.

We ate a late enough lunch that I didn't want much for dinner, so I went for a little dessert of dark chocolate coconut ice cream, some fresh fruit and red wine! Indulgence that I don't have to feel bad about!

We got to meet Baby Emma today, our friends Taylor and Nicole's beautiful daughter. She has the best chubby cheeks and gorgeous dark hair! We also found out that the owners of my Crossfit box had their daughter yesterday, sending our thoughts and prayers their way! So many new girlfriends for Ryker!

1/4/13-1/5/13

Man, is eating healthy while in airports for 15 hours rough or what? We had packed some food, so I was able to stick to my guns and not get McDonald's breakfast when I was ordering Vic's McMuffin for him. I had a LaraBar instead, and by the end of the day I realized that I had made an epic Paleo mistake and had eaten that LaraBar, a salad with salsa and maybe 6 ounces of turkey and ham that we had packed. I had Ryker on my chest all day, so I didn't even get drinks when the attendants came around during our flights. I also had two beers, Michelob Ultra's, at Chili's, after Vic and I got off our delayed flight from Colorado and began our five hour layover in Dallas. 

Overall, the day was lazily clean, except for the beer but I think I ate less than 1000 calories which is never good. When we got home, I ate one of the Hubs' Jimmy Dean Delight sandwiches because the kitchen was totally empty and I could feel my stomach eating itself. Oh well, what's a girl to do but be better the next day?

As I say that I was trying to be better, I have to admit to indulging in 4 of Vic's chocolate Krispy Kreme donuts, the itsy bitsy ones in a bag. I know, I know, I'm really crawling my way back onto the right track. I swear he's not as horrible of an eater as I've made him sound! We finally made it back to Whole Foods with a healthy bunch of recipes in hand today and it felt so good to stock up on fruit, veggies and legit meat. We had some shredded BBQ chicken for lunch during the Chargers game, which he had with biscuits while I had plantain chips. I LOVE plantain chips! For dinner, we BBQ'd a pork loin with lemon and garlic and had an arugula salad with bacon and carrots. I'll put the how-to on the recipe tab. 

I'm getting back to Rife tomorrow and can't wait. Oh man, it is SO GOOD to be home! 

Making 2014 Count

I'm really excited to be getting involved with this awesome blog project that I learned about over at Little Baby Garvin. It's all about how we are going to make 2014 count for us, and the goals and changes that we hope to achieve in the new year. As a sociologist, you'd think that I would be totally over writing anything involving a prompt, but I'm actually really excited to have a direction to guide my post for the new year. So, here it goes!

Goals and changes in 2014:

I'm hoping to learn how to take it slow this next year and stop always thinking about tomorrow, next month and next year when I should be focusing on now. I'll literally be sitting down, full at the end of a meal, and think to myself "I wonder what we're having for dinner". I'm obsessed with stressing about what is to come. The funny part is, that ever since I met my wonderful husband even when things get chaotic and off course, they always seem to work out for us. So, why am I always so concerned with stressing over things? It's time I learn to just live for each minute, as cheesy as that may sound. 

On that note, my workouts and my diet (meaning what I eat, not a temporary plan to lead to weight change, etc...) will revolve around what I need that day and I will focus more on eating and working out to feel good about myself. I know that I feel best after a good workout and a clean meal. Will an indulgence kill me? Will I lose everything if I skip a workout? Nope. However, I will not allow my shoulder to keep me down. My impending surgery had me sitting out too often over the last few weeks and it is time that I get back to focusing on what feels good instead of thinking about swimsuit season!

I also hope to spend more time with friends. Vic and I created a bad habit of bunkering down in the house for weekends of movie marathons, which I love, don't get me wrong! But, I also love having my Rife family over for game night and running with girls. That's why we're having poker night next weekend!

My word(s):

I couldn't come up with just one word to focus on, so I went with two that work together for me. Vic is constantly telling me to relax. It usually has the same effect as telling a woman that she is being crazy. It's like "oh you think I'm crazy? I'll show you crazy!" Well, I get way un-relaxed when you say relax. I'm basically a professional stresser. I could gold medal in stressing if it was in the Olympics. It's time to just breathe and relax. Like I said above, everything has seemed to workout for us, not always any where near how we planned, but I have a beautiful, happy life so what is there to stress about? 

That brings me to my next word: Savor. I want to savor the moment. This weekend, flying with my boys, I thought about this post and what I wanted to write about while I had my hands full of a sleepy, teething, gorgeous seven month old boy. I want to learn to get better at relaxing and being able to savor those cuddles. Savor Saturday mornings with Vic before the baby and the pups need our attention. Savor the sunshine, the sweat after a good workout and the taste of a great, home cooked meal. I need to stop thinking of so much of my life as work and just enjoy what I do on a day to day basis. Once I thought of this idea on the plane, it was amazing how I relaxed, my heart rate and breathing slowed and I went from being anxious about my crying baby on the plane and he and I both drifted off to sleep for the next two hours. Nothing makes me love being a Mom more than sweet, baby snuggles. 

I will make 2014 count by:

Slowing down. I run around the house and work like a crazy person, like it's all a WOD for time and I'm going to lose if I don't move faster. It's silly really. I need to sit down and let the carpet be full of dog hair and the dishes be dirty and not think about the carpet and the dishes, and just enjoy my day more. Ryker will only be an infant for so long. Vic will only have the schedule he does at ODU for so long. The funny part is that I manage to stress about learning to not stress, so I will breathe my way through my silly thoughts and cuddle my boys and the pups more often. Cuddling is always the answer. If things are really nuts and I'm too wound up to cuddle, a run always helps, too!

I also really hope that I can continue logging our journey via this blog. When Ryker first got here, I fell off the wagon big time. I really enjoy the outlet, and even Vic says that I seem more excited on a day to day basis when I'm working on it. I hope one day to figure out a way to save all my posts so that I can have this forever, I'm sure one day when I'm 80 I'll get a good laugh at looking back on our life as newlyweds and new parents!

Well, thanks for reading about my hopes for 2014, maybe it will help you think about how you can make the most of the new year!

1/2/14

Breakfast: Cleanish, 3 eggs scrambled, one bite of Vic's waffle with fresh strawberry sauce

Snack: Clean! Chocolate Chip LaraBar

We went on am awesome 45-60 min walk around Lake Evergreen and even wandered across the icy lake! I strapped Ryker up into his Baby Bjorn with a blanket to keep him warm and he definitely helped make the walk a workout. It was nice getting out of the house and just enjoying the surroundings. 

After the walk we went to Keys on the Green, a restaurant off the golf course by the lake. It was super cute and very woodsy.

Lunch: Cleanish... I split a kale/spinach salad with Maple Dijon vinaigrette and split a bowl of green, pork chili with Vic. I also ordered a bunless burger with green chile and avocado. I may have had a few fries ;) Two glasses of Chardonnay, too.

Snack: 4 oz of turkey, a hot apple pie (the cocktail with sugar free cider and Tuaca)

Dinner: two Portillo's sandwiches and some red. I was very, very bad here. But, if you've ever had Portillo's you know you can't turn it down, especially when it's been flown in from Chicago! I promise to be better tomorrow, tonight that's the best I can do :/ 

Happy January 2!

I think one of my main resolutions for this year, and all the years to come, is to celebrate every day with the excitement and hope we have for January 1. 

I saw a post on Facebook today about how yesterday's food fuels today's workout and tomorrow's body. As boring as it will probably be for you guys, I've decided to use the blog as my own personal paleo challenge log, so I'll be documenting whether I ate clean or had cheats and what my workouts are. I did pretty good yesterday with the New Year's Day party food. I avoided all of the cheese! Well, except the little bit on the broccoli casserole, but I put effort into picking the less cheesy parts. I definitely had more than the necessary amount of champagne, but hey, I did way better than I have the last  6 weeks! Instead of beating myself up every day and bugging Vic about "how fat do I look today?" I'm going to think about the good choices. I think it was on the Against All Grain blog or one of the others that I follow that mentioned how each clean decision is like money in the bank to be spent on cheats. Just like in real life, I need to work on saving money!

Speaking of saving money, have I mentioned before that we're doing the 52 week money saving challenge? You just transfer $1, $2, $3 and so on for each week of the year, adding up to something like $1400 at the end of the year! With hoping to make an easy transition to Colorado in 21 months, I figure every dollar saved will help out. The good/bad news about Ryker being so dang loud and impatient these days is that we can't go out to eat without being embarrassed. That should end up saving us lots! 

I'm also resolving to focus less attention on TV and more on being outside. We're not those crazy people that ignore the baby to play World of Warcraft or anything, but we do enjoy our Modern Family, Parenthood, movies, blah blah blah and a million other shows. Vic and I talked about turning the TV off and playing some good tunes while we play board games and cards more often. Also, we're always trying to be outside with the pups more!

I'm so excited to start today, fresh and new, with a hike here in Evergreen. Of course, it's gorgeous this morning. I hope you're all having a lovely morning and enjoying the new year and don't focus too much on the pressure of starting the new year off right. Just make today the best possible day and start over tomorrow!