Tag Archives: blueberries

Comments at the gym

Wednesday workout time! I had a quick protein drink and headed out to the gym.

Treadmill warm up, then the iron:

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
Barbell Split Squat 3 set of 10 at 65# Lower body
Straight Arm Lat Pulldown 3 sets of 10 at 50# Back
Barbell Chest Press 1 sets of 10 at 60#

2 sets of 8 at 60#

 Chest
Planks 3 sets of 75-second holds (dying) Core
Seated Calf Raise 3 sets of 10 at 140# Calves
Nose Breakers 3 set of 10 at 30# Triceps
Face Pull 3 sets of 12 at 30# Shoulders
Good Mornings 3 sets of 10 at 55# Low Back and hammies

I then walked on the treadmill for another 15 minutes and called it a day. My thighs are tight and a little sore. Think it was 5 miles with the speed work in there from yesterday.

Guess today is Waffle Wednesday because that is what I had for breakfast 😀

Not sure why this picture looks small, but it was my usual batch of waffles.  Yum. With some good Sumatra coffee that I roasted up. I got some new green coffee and it is quite good.

Back to the gym for a moment or two.  The comment I got wasn’t regarding taking up a machine.  When I did my run, there were 4 empty treadmills next to me, so I wasn’t worried about someone wanting the equipment. My gym doesn’t have set time limits on cardio equipment. It is a very small gym and there is an unspoken rule of 30 minutes of use if people are waiting. If no one is waiting, then you just have at it. Very rare to have anyone waiting for cardio equipment except sometimes Saturday mornings.

I will say hi and bye to people or I might say “good workout” or something like that. I don’t mind when people make comments like that to me. What bothers me is when people say things like I am actually doing something weird. Comments like “Another crazy cardio workout?” or “I could never run that long, it’s so bad for your knees”. I have gotten comments that I don’t need to do cardio. I have been told that I should use the elliptical and not the treadmill.  I overhead 2 women saying I looked like a monkey when I was doing my chin ups.  My favorite one is the ‘personal trainer’ at the gym who will come up as I am finishing a set while strength training and say “give me 5 more, come on!” Funny at first, but he really means it and expects you to do it. Then he will proceed to say “now try this move”. At least he does that to others as well and not just me.

It’s one thing for me to put my workouts and videos up here, because I expect comments, suggestions, critiques, etc.  Just not when I am by myself.

Sometimes I think I am just hypersensitive about the comments (probably correct to a degree).  Maybe that is just some people’s way of being friendly? I don’t know if the person who told me I don’t need cardio tells that to other people or not. I do need cardio. You can’t just go out and run or bike miles with only strength training. This person doesn’t know what I do outside the gym. Or frankly neither does anyone else. Hence why I wouldn’t offer advice unless asked (even though I do want to sometimes 😉 )  I just want to do my workout not noticed or bothered, really, which doesn’t seem too much to ask.

Anyhoo – that’s enough of that!  Ready for a lunch break?  I just could not arrange this plate at all and have it look right.  This is some homemade parnsip/squash soup (recipe coming Thursday) with a tuna pita.

Note 2 clems, I had the 3rd later 😀

I was a busy bee with work today.  I am leaving tomorrow to go to King of Prussia, PA for a dog show with my mom and sister.  Colleen is showing Storm (who you have seen me with on the blog) and we are going with for a girl’s weekend.  Only it is at the end of the week and not the weekend LOL.

So that means working hard to finish up so I can do laundry and pack stuff and tidy up loose ends around here.  I told John he needed to remember to be Crack Master for Pixie in the mornings, aka dispenser of the wet food (like she would let him forget that).

I own this place, any questions?

<insert latte drinking here>

Dinner time!  This plate was pretty full.  Chopping things into pieces really takes up a lot of room.  3.5 ounces of chicken and 4 large brussel sprouts and they take up 2/3 of the plate!

Delicious, though.  And the anjou pear was perfectly ripe!  Love it when that happens.

Done with work and need to get packing, practice guitar, catch up on blogs, and all that.  Snack will be this x2 😀

The last of the Christmas cookies!

Question:  What is your favorite waffle/pancake topping?

Lifting Move of The Week – Squat to Row

Happy Hump Day! Sort of. When you work 6 days, where is the hump exactly? Guess that would be tonight. Anyhoo, I decided to chance the gray skies and bike to the gym. First I quaffed a protein beverage:

Then headed out.

The air in the gym was all wavy from the amount of testosterone today. It was kind of funny as there was a group of 8 young men and one was obviously the ‘leader’ as they all followed him around the gym like chicks after a mother hen. I was not going to let them intimdate me out of free weight area, either. I made sure to scrub down everything really well that I used before I touched it. There was so much testosterone around that I didn’t want to grow anything unwanted…

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
Barbell split squats 3 sets of 10 with 65# bar Lower body
Dumbbell Chest Press 3 set of 12 with 20# DBs (40# total) Chest
Seated Lat Row 3 sets of 10 at 55# Back
YTWL 3 sets of 4 (each letter) with 8# DBs Shoulders
Cable Squat-to-Row 3 sets of 12 at 50# Full body
Horizontal Wood Chop 3 sets of 12 at 20# Core
Seated calf raise 3 sets of 10 at 110# Calves
Arnold Press 3 sets of 12 with 10# DBs (20# total) Shoulders

I notice I did 2 shoulder exercises today. Ooops. That’s what happens when there are so many people in the gym that you forget where you were.

I biked home to brekkie and some protein waffles!

Topped with a little honey fluff. I’ll get a recipe post of this up. It’s life changingly good. I put it in the recipe book, too (which is almost done).

Lifting Move of the Week: Cable Squat-to-Row. I have posted this before a long time ago, but I do love this move. Short on time? Work the entire body with this. You could also do it at home with a resistance band around a door knob (or something to that effect).

I love how the weight on the cable allows me to get all the way down for the squat. Today I did lighter weights and more reps and it got my heart rate up. It’s sort of like doing the rowing machine only standing.  Obviously an older video with the longer hair 😀

Workie, workie!  I am getting much faster with job #2 as I get more and more familiar with the doctors.  That makes the days a little shorter that way.  It’s a good thing.

Took a lunch break for some greek yogurt and cereal!

One serving of Newman’s Own Sweet Enough cereal on the bottom of this bowl. Dang a single portion size is so tiny.  This is why I don’t have cereal with just milk as the serving is too dinky.  I like to bulk it up with yogurt and fruit.

Payday for one of my jobs was today, so I socked that right towards the new bike.  Just a little more craziness and I might make it.  I had a latte for a snack, plus a couple of these.

Think I am going a little crazy?  You wouldn’t be incorrect.

One thing I have noticed in all of this is that I am really not stress snacking.  I would say I am proud of that, but to be honest I just hadn’t noticed I was not snacking and was not consciously trying to avoid it.  Maybe that is pride worthy in itself…

Another fast dinner.

The baked crab cakes I use are Smart Option brand, which I believe is a store brand for Hannaford.  This is one of those things that I kind of close my eyes on the ingredients.  The nutritional stats aren’t bad, and they are inexpensive – hence they enter the house for quick meals.  Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.

I am posting from Starbies tonight.  Needed a break, so after I got most of my work done, we are here now and I can internet and catch up on emails and blog stuff.

This bush is outside.  Does anyone know what it is?

Decaf!

Plus I snagged half of one of John’s chocolate grahams.  Most times he doesn’t mind me taking some of his dessert, as long as it is too many bites :mrgreen:

Jam or jelly?

Thank you for your comments on my Team Challenge ride!  I need to figure out how to put a donate button or something on this site, but the page you can do it from is here, and click on the support button to the right.  It will be a bit different from our longer rides we take here because I can’t be dawdling over lunch or yogurt during the ride LOL!

I was thinking about going for a run this morning, but my legs felt a little sore and I realize that I have not had a good solid rest day in a while.  Just walking for me today.  Sometimes I feel the need to go,go,go with the exercise or that I have to fit in X number of runs/lifting/biking sessions in a week.  Not sure why that is.

Anyhoo, I made up protein pancakes today!  Not in waffle form for a change up.  😀

Then I sat down and got right to work.  I like starting early because I usually finish early.    Last night I chose to read and not work.  Good choice!  The book is good so far.  I think I will finish it.  I used to finish books no matter what, but John said to me a few months ago “Life is too short to read bad fiction.”  He is so right.  There are so many good books out there that I don’t have to finish the bad ones (bad to me, at any rate).  A book has to catch me in the beginning now for me to want to continue.

Since I ate breakfast so early, I needed a mid morning snack:

This was m’eh.  I like mint dark chocolate way better.

Lunch time included some fresh baked bread from the 5 minute bread cookbook.  Easy stuff when you don’t have to knead.  It’s just a matter of waiting.

Last of the pomegranate jelly. I need to make some jam.  I like jams better than jellies because they are thicker with fruit and not so sweet.  This pic is for you Jody!

I have started working on the cookbook and boy howdy!  It is going to be kinda long.  The oatmeal section alone takes up several pages LOL!  (surprised? I didn’t think so).  I may have to take a couple vacation days just to work on it.  I am trying to decide whether to keep it in word format or PDF.

The heat and humidity are on again here.  Pixie just stretches out to try to keep cool.  Glad I don’t have that much hair:

Afternoon snack and I still had a hot latte.  Why I can drink hot drinks when it is in the upper 80s, I don’t know.

Plus a couple squares of Lindt Intense Orange:

Damn good stuff, I tell you.

Work slowed down with both jobs this afternoon, so I was able to get in my walk before dinner tonight.  I just have a wee bit to finish up later.

It’s the return of the BBQ chicken salad!

Almost out of chicken.  All meat, actually, so a trip to the smokehouse is in order.

Tonight I need to wrap John’s bday gifts and water the garden and work on the cookbook!  One step at a time, though.  😀

I’ll be back tomorrow with the lifting move of the week!

Question:  Do you like jam or jelly better?

What’s blooming and last of the blues

Friday!  Only a little work to do today.  I headed out to the gym for some lifting this morning.  It was a good workout:

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
Barbell squats 3 sets of 10 at 55# Lower body
Wide grip lat pulldown 3 sets of 10 at 50# Back
Single-leg deadlift 3 sets of 10 (each leg) with 20# DBs (40# total) Legs
Reverse Crunch 3 sets of 15 Abs
Push ups 3 sets of 10 Chest
Seated Calf Raise 3 sets with 10 at 110# Calves
Reverse fly on bench 3 sets of 10 with 12# DBs (24# total) Shoulders
Triceps pulldown 3 sets of 10 at 30# Triceps
Hammer Curls 3 sets of 10 with 12# DBs (24# total) Biceps

I thought about running after the workout, but changed my mind.  I really don’t like to run right after (or even before) my lifting.  I just do it when I need to get it done.  Today, didn’t need to get it done early.

Cooler morning, and had pumpkin to use up, so I made some pumpkin custard cream of wheat:

Topped with toasted pecans and crystallized ginger.  Yummers!

My mom and I went blueberry picking today, and the bushes were pretty bare.  The season is ending early this year (started early), so I’ll have to go back to store bought soon until the price goes back up.  Sigh….

Came back to snarf a quick lunch.

Then had to run out and get my hair trimmed Came back and did some work for job #2.  Dang I feel busy sometimes.

After work I had a snack:

Here is what is blooming this week.  I am also going to include a video at the end of this post, which I will say is pretty long and the sound is not great because of the traffic on our road.  The camera picks that up like crazy.  This video is just a little tour of the garden as a whole so that you can see it and I talk a little bit about some of the plants and our plans for different areas (if you can hear it).

Globe thistle:

Primrose:

Another color:

The sedum have their buds – looks like broccoli!

Flowering tobacco are going again.

Cool snapdragon color:

Who says purple and orange don’t go together?

I had an urge to make cupcakes, so I did a half batch of devil’s food.  This made 6 small cupcakes – which is good because I don’t have a ton sitting around (and John likes all things chocolate, so he will eat them).  I tried a real buttercream frosting too.

Went to cook chicken for dinner and it was still rock hard frozen, so we walked up the street for a slice of pizza.  I got the white pizza with sedum broccoli:

Pretty good.  Very friendly staff here, and you get 2 slices plus one drink for $4.50.  We each have a slice because they are really big and I bring my own water.  What can I say, I am a cheap date!

After dinner was one of said cupcakes.

Yum.  The buttercream is not very sweet.  It was the cooked kind with the egg whites, sugar and butter beaten in.  I added some cold coffee, too.  I am used to a powdered sugar version.  Nice small size, though.

Then I decided on an evening run, which I am just about to go out and do at dusk.  It is a gorgeous night!

Here is the garden video:

B&D Toaster Oven Review and Blueberry Cornbread Muffins

I received my Black and Decker Toaster Oven from CNS stores last week.

I have to say that it shipped really fast, so kudos to them! Pretty sleek.  This is also a convection oven, which is pretty cool.  We were doing the standard bread toasting in it at first, but I wanted to see how the convection works.  A couple really nice features on this toaster oven are the long timer option (60 minutes) plus an “always on” option.  Good for baking things that need a longer time.

Not impressed with the baking tray, as it seems flimsy:

Seeing as we are awash in blueberries and I wanted to test the convection properties of this oven, I decided to play around with a buttermilk blueberry corn muffin!

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup buttermilk
  • 1 large egg
  • 2 tablespoons of sugar
  • 2 tablespoons of unsweetened applesauce
  • 1/3 cup cornmeal
  • 2/3 cup of whole wheat flour
  • 2 tsp of baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp of salt
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/2 cup of fresh blueberries

Spray a 6-cup muffin tin with nonstick spray (or use cupcake liners).  Preheat oven to 350 F.

In a medium size bowl, mix together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt and set aside.

In a small bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, egg, applesauce, and sugar.

Add the wet ingredients all at once to the dry ingredients:

Mix until just barely combined and then fold in the blueberries.  It is really important not to over mix this.

Divide up into the 6 muffin cups:

They will be pretty full.  Pop into the oven – or into the toaster oven:

I could hear the convection fan cycle on and off while this baked.  Guess that means it works 😀

Bake these for 20 to 25 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.

Voila!

One nice thing about the convection as that the tops didn’t burn like can happen in a regular toaster oven.

Muffin stats:

Calories: 115 per muffin (awesome!!)

Fat: 1.5 g

Carbs: 22.5 g

Fiber:  2.5 g

Protein: 4 g

Best served warm.  These are a nice dense muffin.  With the low calorie count, these make a great snack (or have 2 for breakfast 😀 )

** Disclaimer:  I was provided a gift certificate to review a product from CSN stores.  All opinions are my own, however.

What’s blooming today

Weekend time! Sort of. I still need to do job #2, but whose counting at this point?

I was looking forward to a calorie busting workout today and I got one. I had a piece of yummy toast and jam prior to leaving.

Then I biked to the gym and hit the iron:

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
Cable squat to row 3 sets of 10 at 60# Full body
Stiff leg deadlift 3 sets of 10 at 75# Lower body
Barbell chest press 3 sets of 10 with 55# bar Chest
Dumbbell pullover 3 sets of 10 25# DB Back
Captain’s chair 3 sets of 10 Abs
Lower back extension 3 sets with 10 at 100# Low back
Seated calf raise 3 sets of 10 at 110# Calves
Ahnold Press 3 sets of 10 with 15# DBs (30# total) Shoulders

Then I hopped on the treadmill and did 3 miles. I alternated the speed a little and progressively set it faster. I left it at 5.7 mph for the last mile. I was sweating buckets. I totally soaked my entire shirt above the waistband:

Cue Tom Jones “She’s a Lady” Fashion Friday here I come 😛

I felt so awesome when I was done. Then I biked home and proceeded to have a hot breakfast. 😕

I had soaked some steel cut oats overnight, so I made banana custard oats and topped them with toasted pecans and 1 tbsp of maple syrup.

What an awesome combo this was!!  Why I have never done it before is beyond me.  Maple must be a superfood, right?

Then I rushed to do some blueberry picking.  Storms were rolling in by radar, so I hit the picking early.  This is along the row I was picking in.

The acoustics in the blueberry patch are very odd.  You can here someone talking and it sounds like they are the next row over, but then you see them far away.  It is bizarre.

I so wish I could share the blueberries with all of you.  They are so amazing and wonderful.

It was lunchtime when I got back.  I made a quick wrap with scrambled eggs, laughing cow and hot sauce.

No fruit on this plate because I probably ate a cup of blueberries while picking and driving home.

Great blooms happening right now.  Gazanias are popping out all over:

Ageratum have gotten big!

Impatiens.

Potted geraniums and allysum

My blackeyed Susans are out of control.  I did not plant any of these in the front.  All volunteers.  As they are along the walk way.

I am starting to lose the weed battle right now.  With the heat and my schedule lately, I haven’t spent as much time weeding as I should.  Must remedy that this weekend.

Love this pic:

Pixie just watched me take pictures today.  Lazy..

Then I headed out for some birthday shopping for my BIL.  Success!  Starbies was in the next plaza over.  So that meant I got to stop and relax with my netbook for a bit.   I was actually quite hungry at this point.

Reduced fat berry coffee cake (320 cal), plus a cup of coffee on the side.  Hot coffee because it was cold in here.  Every place is cold around here inside.

After some relaxing and going over the paperwork on my new account with job #2, I headed home.   Dinner was a yummy chicken breast with laughing cow, BBQ sauce and topped with caramelized onions.  Tasty!

I’ll be doing a little more work later, but first is time for some fun:

😀

John raised the question as to where Dopey comes from as he is the only dwarf under the age of 50?

Tomorrow is a long bike ride, and maybe a cupcake stop!

Question:  Any exciting plans for the weekend?

Lifting Move of the week and biz-zay!

If you haven’t checked out some of the comments on the IE/ME post, you should. They are interesting! I think they really are 2 different approaches to eating.

It was still hot this morning, but not too bad for riding to the gym for my workout.

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
Barbell squats 3 sets of 8 with 65# bar Lower body
Dumbbell pullover 3 sets of 10 with 25# DB Back
Push ups 3 sets of 10 Chest
Decline sit ups 3 sets of 10 Abs
Upright row 3 sets of 10 with 30# bar Shoulders
Cable squat to row 3 sets with 10at 60# Full body
Bench dips 3 sets of 10 Triceps
Barbell Good Mornings 3 sets of 10 at 55# Lower back and hammies

Strength Training Move of the Week: Upright Row. This exercise is for the shoulders.  You basically just pull the dumbbells or bar up to about your chin.  You want to try to not raise your shoulders up to your ears doing this. Also keep your elbows up and don’t let them drop down or you won’t be working the shoulders.

Please note the lovely tan lines I have from all that biking (yes, I wear gobs of sunscreen).  I really need to work on slowing down my reps.  Note I also figured out how to edit the video so you don’t have to see me turning on the camera and getting into frame!

Then I biked home for breakfast.  Too busy to go bike for the usual bagel on Wednesdays (wahh!).  Of course, we are actually going to be moving bagel day to Thursdays anyway most likely.   I’ll be biking there tomorrow, though, rest assured.

Instead, I had some pumpkin cream of wheat.  Totally craving the pumpkin again, which is weird since it sure doesn’t feel like fall.  Wishful thinking maybe?

I did let the bowl sit for a bit and cool down well.

Started work early because of the amount of stuff to do right now with John gone.  Mid morning hunger hit, and I decided to have some blues!

I also had the Tour on muted while I worked (muted0.  I almost never have the TV on during the day except to watch Jeopardy during lunch, but cannot resist live Tour TV.

Speaking of lunch, I broke for lunch when I was hungry, which ended up being about 20 minutes before I normally break for lunch on a time schedule.  Another cool lunch.  Like yesterday only with blueberries instead of strawberries:

We have worked our way through 3/4 of that big bucket of blueberries from Friday.  Of course, I shared with family, but a good deal ended up in my tummy 😀

I had phone training this afternoon for my new job.  Mostly just how to use their specific platform.  Right before training started, I made an iced latte to drink during it.  This is our little cheap espresso machine:

Mr. Coffee.  It’s functional at least.  This is cooled espresso.  I put some milk and ice in a glass, then slowly pour in the espresso:

That makes the pretty layer.  It’s just to look at for a moment, because I stir it up to drink.   Served with a mini dark chocolate mint cup from the fridge!

I did some work for my new job for a while.  I am limited as to how much I can do because they need to audit everything I do line by line at first, just to make sure all is okay.  I’ll probably be released from QA in a couple days.  Then I went back to the  other job and did more work there.  I started to get really hungry an hour before dinner, so I decided to have a pear:

Cold and refreshing straight from the fridge.  This heat is making me want smaller, more frequent feedings.

Took a break for dinner.  I was not horribly hungry, but I have a busy work night tonight ahead of me still, so it was time to eat.

I was going to have a nice cold salad, but my lettuce decided to get soupy.  Ick.  So, I just had the chicken with some sauteed brussels.

I am keeping up so far, but I have at least 2 more hours of work to do tonight, plus some order packing for the business.  I am going to take a break later for some banana soft serve.  Nana is already in the freezer!

Maybe John will bring me a nice present from Atlantic City for doing all this work 😀

Question: Have you ever worked 2 jobs?

Heat wave and the single life.

Heat wave!  Are you keeping cool?  Pixie is trying 😀

I knew I had to get the exercise done early unless I wanted to go to the gym and do the treadmill, so I was outside at 7 am to run at the track.  It was a nice quiet 3-mile run, although warm already at 70 degrees 😯   I will spare you the picture of what I looked like when I finished.  I was ready for a cold drink and made up some iced coffee with my protein waffles.

To make the cold brewed coffee, I just put 1 cup of ground coffee with 4 cups of water and let it sit overnight.  Then filtered it this morning.

It tastes so much better than brewed coffee that you let get cold and ice.

I have a busy few days coming up.  John left for Atlantic City on a spur of the moment trip with a friend for a couple days.  That means that I need to take care of the business, along with my own work – not to mention that I start training for my new job on Wednesday.  It all depends on how busy each of those things is.  So, I may not get around to some reading some of your blogs for a couple days!  I had better make a bunch of the cold-brewed coffee.   :mrgreen:

More cool eats for lunch:

Vanilla greek yogurt, low fat granola and berries.  The classic.

Finally turned on the AC when the living room thermometer said 86 degrees.  I didn’t even want to see how hot it was upstairs.  This is why I could never live in the South.  Then we had a brown out.  At first while I was working, I noticed it got very quiet in the house.  The AC kicked off, as did my fan.  Computer was still on because of the battery, so it took me a bit to figure out what happened (duh).  I have no car, as it went to Atlantic City, so that nixed the idea of trying to go somewhere cool like the library because I was not biking in this heat!  Funny that the TV would come on, but the internet, AC and fans would not work, or the fridge.  It got pretty hot soon:

I checked the status with the power company and they estimated about 2 hours for the power to come back up.  It ended up being 1.5, so that was good.  Of course, I got hungry during this time and the espresso machine would not power up…. booo!  So I just had a slice of bread and nut butter.

I was going to toast it, but the toaster oven wasn’t working and check out the state of it:

Door isn’t supposed to open like that….

CSN stores is going to let me do a review of a toaster oven for them.  They have several websites selling a lot of things like dining room furniture, cookware, etc.  Good thing I am going to do this review, because we use our toaster oven a lot!

My plumerias are blooming.  They are indoor plants and are getting a little unwieldy now, but they smell heavenly when they bloom:

This particular one is about 4 feet tall.

Dinner time and I poked around the fridge to see what to use up.  With John gone, I am going to need to eat up a bunch of produce!  I decided to use the last bit of hamburger and put it on a sweet potato with laughing cow and caramelized onions (good thing I am a bachelorette tonight!).  It actually was surprisingly tasty.  And I managed to not burn my broccoli tonight.

I need to work tonight and pack orders and try to keep from snacking without John here.  Isn’t that what swinging singles do?  I can’t even remember LOL!   I decided if I get hungry I can have a banana 😀  Maybe that will keep me out of the cereal…..

If you haven’t checked my mindful/intuitive eating post, here is the link if you are interested.

Time for the bachelorette lifestyle!  See you tomorrow….

All in a day’s work.

Another day, another dollar, right?  My plan was to bike this morning, but then I laid there and thought I would go out later.  So, I just got up and made some brekkie!


I have a problem wolfing down my waffles.  I think it is because they are never as hot as my oat dishes, so I can eat faster.  That’s a project to work on.

We are getting set up for the new windows.  I think we chose the right company, which actually happened to have the best price, too!  We got a very good vibe from them, and the person that came in to do the final measure this morning was great and answered every little question.  It will take about 5-7 weeks or so before our windows are done.  They have to be made.  Nice that these windows are made in the US, too.  Plus we get the tax credit on them.  The company better appreciate doing 17 windows!  That is a chunk of change.  Once the windows are installed, I will talk about the company.  Don’t want to recommend before the job is finished!

Lunch break included some vanilla yogurt mixed with pumpkin and All-Bran.

Plus a kiwi on the side.

This tasted so refreshing and yummy!

I spent some time this afternoon getting set up with my new company.  The software installation is what takes the time, and I have to fit it in while I am still working the other job.  I was told that nobody runs out of work, but you never really know if that is true or not, because there are slow periods for everyone around holidays.  I should start training on my new accounts later this week.

Time for a chocolate snack with my latte:

Dark chocolate with raspberry bits.  Tasty!

Can you believe it is almost the end of June?  I am going to try something really, really different for me in July as part of my goal series.  At least I think I am, as I have some trepidations about it.   I’ll outline my goals on July 1.  I still can’t believe I am writing out the word July!

Dinner time and I went old school with some seasoned french fries.  John put these in the grocery cart, and I had thought they were sweet potato fries, but they weren’t!  I liked them, too 😀

Chicken topped with caramelized onions.  We made up a bunch and froze some.  I can’t imagine life without a freezer, can you?  That’s a little pluot on the side, there.  So juicy.

After some self debate, I decided to take a day off of exercise.  I have not had a real rest day since last Thursday,  and the rest of the week is booked up with workouts.  So instead, I am going out with my mom for a little R&R!  The question is…. coffee or frozen yogurt???

Fruit-full day

Happy Monday! After taking Sunday off from all but a short walk, I was up to hit the gym this morning. Drank some protein and biked there. My legs felt pretty good, I have to say. 😀

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
Barbell split squats 3 sets of 8 with 55# bar Lower body
Chin ups 2 sets of 2, 2 sets of 1 Upper body
Cable squat to row 3 sets of 10 at 60# Lower body and back
Horizontal wood chop 3 sets of 10 (each side) at 30# Abs
Flat chest fly 3 sets of 10 with 20# DBs (40# total) Chest
Face pulls 3 sets of 10 at 30# Shoulders
Good Mornings 3 sets of 10 with 35# bar Low back, hamstrings
Triceps pull down 3 sets of 15 at 30# Triceps

Then I biked home. I proceeded to have all kinds of problems cooking breakfast, including a cornstarch explosion in the kitchen.

Hungry Lori + no coffee Lori = big problems….

I also pulled my camera case out of the bike bag and it was covered with sunscreen, since my jar popped open and emptied its contents. You can believe I was filling the swear jar this morning.
Breakfast finally happened and I had my caffeine (my personal binky), so I was much better.

I did not even want to log into work after that start to the day. I have to say, my job is getting really, really stressful. They are implementing changes that interfere with production and then are cracking the whip for us to work harder with implied threats. It makes absolutely no sense. I really need to look harder for something else. I have become unhappy here.  I think I would even work at Dunkin Donuts down the street about now.  I miss being my own boss, too.  But that is another whole scary proposition unto itself….

Lunch break and I wanted something refreshing.

Pumpkin protein smoothie!  Made with 1/2 cup pumpkin, 30 g unflavored whey isolate, stevia, pumpkin pie spice, water and ice.  It would be even better with milk!

The carrots were kind of lame, though.  And didn’t I just have blueberries with breakfast?   Oooops….

Pixie has been sleeping through the heat:

I still wanted a latte in the afternoon, though.

Plus a couple of dates and nut buttah:

My appetite still has not come back all the way from Saturday’s ride.  I had a very hard time getting in enough calories that day because of the heat and how much water I was drinking.  John and I joked about our respective water babies we were carrying around during the ride – which then evaporated to thin air.  Anyway, yesterday and today my appetite has been less ravenous than usual.  Guess Nibbler is on vacation?

Dinner time was some toaster oven roasted sweet potatoes, chicken and broccoli!  I haven’t had broccoli in days.

I had thoughts of running today, but I think my legs needed one more day off from cardio, so we went for a 2 mile walk tonight instead.

Then I did want a snack, but I was craving more fruit.  Delicious red pear – come to mama!

Off to relax!

Question:  Does the heat affect your appetite?