Welcome to May!  We had a rainy start to the month.  Guess April showers will continue as May showers.

I had a funny comment at the gym today.  (Those of you on FB probably heard this one already). I was doing my usual routine and was re-racking my 30# DBs.  There was a woman there who was working with a personal trainer and I am pretty sure it was her first visit.  Anyway, she was standing by the dumbbell rack and when I put them back she says, “Well look at you, Fancy Pants”.  I wasn’t quite sure what she meant by that, so I kind of just laughed and went about my business.  I heard the trainer say to her, “We’ll get you there”.

I certainly don’t show off at the gym or anything like that.  Yeah, I was using 30# DBs.  So what? I earned the use of them by consistent training.  I just do my thing and leave.  I am very focused.  John said she was probably trying to be friendly, but it was more awkward than anything else.  I swear, I get the oddest remarks at the gym.

I came back and made another breakfast ‘cookie‘.  I didn’t grind up the oats in this one and I am trying to decide which texture I like better.  Once I get it figured out, I will put up a recipe page for it.

This one is topped with a mashed nana.

It was a busy day today.  I ended up picking up my dad at the car shop when he dropped off my mother’s car and then taking him back later to go get it.  I am lucky with my job that I can do this for people.  I am the ‘go-to chauffeur’ around here.  However, that does mess with my work schedule  🙂

The breakfast cookie lasted me to lunch, so yay on that.  I definitely will be keeping that one in the rotation.  If I can figure out how to make it less dense and chewy.

Lunch was:

Egg salad! I remembered to boil up some eggs last night, so lunch was easy.

It’s time = the goals for May!

1. Continue with the Fit Female program.  I will be starting the 3rd stage in about 2 weeks.  I may have to alter the days with more biking, but we shall see.

2.  No scale weighing.  Now my scale doesn’t have numbers, but it does tell me if I have lost or gained.  It sat still during April, which was a bit discouraging because of how hard I worked.  So, I don’t want to hear anything from MaryLou this month.

3.  In keeping with the cleaning theme from last month, I am going to cull some books and donate the to the Friends of the Library book sale.

4.  Start work on the driveway project with crack patching.

5.  I will try at least 2 new veggies this month.  This can either be done by cooking at home or having them out at a restaurant.  Stepping out of comfort zone!

That should be good for this month.  Note I am not putting stretching in there again LOL!

I had just returned from the second trip with my dad and John had a latte waiting for me.

Yet another vote for John for husband of the year.  I also added a pineapple slice:

Showing my thighs some blog love today.  They worked hard this morning.

I had a simple dinner tonight.  Leftover cooked chicken on top of a baked potato with laughing cow.

I put a few shakes of A1 steak sauce on it, which actually was good.  This was a satisfying dinner.

I had to work for a while after dinner, then I took a 1 mile walk and John and I are now settled down for coffee:

Starbies and WiFi.  Coffee and the internet.  It’s kind of my life in a nutshell.

Last day of April. Unbelievable!  Time just goes by so fast.  I woke up feeling a little tired this morning.  I think all my cleaning yesterday wore me out 😀

I made up breakfast of oats with egg whites cooked in layered with blueberry sauce.

Hot! I burned my tongue.  I hate that.

I worked as much as I could in the morning.  Then I was supposed to meet my literacy learner for the new meeting time of 11 am.  We meet for 2 hours and that would have gotten me home close to 1:30 and I knew I would be way too hungry, so I had a protein shake before leaving.  My usual workout shake of pumpkin, almond milk and protein powder.

(needs haircut) Bottom’s up!  We meet at McDonalds and find a quiet place, which is a half mile from my house.  It’s a nice little walk.

My learner called to tell me that he had car troubles after I got there, so we decided to cancel today and reschedule at some other time.  We have more scheduling issues…

I was able to get home and do some more work before eating part B of my lunch, which was the original plan this morning.

Yummy mango!

Last day of April  and here was my list of goals for the month.  So, how did I do?

1.  Continue with the fit female program.  Doing awesome on this. Haven’t missed a workout.  I struggle some with the eating, but overall doing well.  No scale progress. I stayed exactly the same during the month. I have not taken my measurements this month.

2. Work on hills with my bike.  I did a lot of hills, but that was more just from the riding we did to the lake and to Saratoga.  The weather was not as cooperative for weekday riding this month. Overall pleased with my month of biking.

3. Spring cleaning! I cleaned all of the windows.  I just squeaked it in, too.  I did the majority yesterday!  😳  If I hadn’t written it down as a blog goal, I wouldn’t have finished it.  They look good, though, and I am very happy about them.

4. Do more stretching.  Lame. Just lame.  I do bits of stretching here and there, but for whatever reason, this seems to be some kind of sticking point with me.

Not a bad month.

Latte time!  Drizzled with some chocolate sauce that John made yesterday.

I am all over the dried pineapple of late.  It’s sugary, but it doesn’t seem to set me off like chocolate does.  John bought coconut M&Ms and yesterday I had some of those, and then got a huge snack attack last night.  I actually went to bed full, which is pretty unusual for me.

Uneventful working until dinner time  My mother had brought over some brussel sprouts the other day.  She went on a cruise this week – her first!  So, she knew my father wouldn’t eat the brussels and brought them over to me before she left 😀

After dinner, it was nice enough to take a bike ride.

Mid to upper 50s, no wind – I will take it!  Rain was on the radar, so I left right after dinner to squeeze it in. I did an easy loop around the path:

Then through some tree-lined streets.

I actually ended up passing my dad at the end of this road. I had stopped at the stop sign and his truck drove right by me LOL!  I don’t think he saw it was me, though, or he would have stopped.  He almost never leaves the house, so it was pretty funny to actually cross paths.

Ali thought I should post my monthly bike miles, so here goes:  I did 215 miles on the bike in April, which gives me a total of 318 miles outside on the bike so far this year.  Almost all of those miles took place on weekends.  I should hit up in the 300s for May with better weather coming.

My evening snack tonight?

Ricotta and applesauce, which I will eat at 8 pm.

Question: How was your April?

New month, really the time that officially starts to feel like spring.  My garden is popping up a little more each day and I can’t wait for the tulips to bloom, even though that is a few weeks off.  My brussel sprouts are back!

Okay, the sedum.  I wonder how hard it is to grow brussel sprouts? Everything is coming up a little early in the garden, even though we have had a cold spell.

I gave the chia seeds another try (waste not, want not).  This time I just threw them in a pot with about 3/4 cup of water, brought to a boil and added 1/2 cup of pumpkin and whisked in some liquid egg whites.

Kind of like pumpkin custard.  I put a little drizzle of honey on there, but you can’t really see it.  Guess I should have just taken a photo of the bowl again.

This was decent.  Again, it did not last me very long.  After 2 hours I was sooooo hungry!  I had a morning snack of 1/2 cup of applesauce with 1/4 cup of part-skim ricotta.

I really liked this, actually.  Good to know.

Lunch break:

More of the chicken apple sausages.  Easy.

The cucumbers reminded me of my facial yesterday and I was going to rub some on my face, but then I just ate them. 

So, new month and you know what that means! Here are my April goals:

1.  Continue with the fit female program.  I am loving this so far and seeing some change in my body, even at this early stage.  Goes to show you how changing up a program can really light a fire under one’s butt. Stage 2 of the 4 stage program will begin in a week and I will post those workouts.

2. Work on hills with my bike.  April can be a little touch and go weather wise for biking, but I should be able to do a good amount of this.  I will have to see how it fits in with my lifting program and weather.  I can’t do hills on lifting days.

3. Spring cleaning! Okay, really just cleaning our windows.  We had those new windows put in a couple years ago and they are tilt in windows, so It’s time to get the outsides clean!  If I just do a 1 or 2 every other day, I will be done at the end of the month.  I think we have somewhere around 18 windows.

4. Do more stretching.  Do you ever have one of those goals that you just continually have trouble with?  Stretching is mine.  It’s not like it is that hard or takes that much time – I just don’t do it like I should.

I was trying to think of another one, but I think my eating plan goes hand in hand with #1, so I didn’t want to repeat it.

The afternoon went by pretty fast.  It was a tiring day of dictation today.  Not sure if it was because it was Monday or some of the doctors were just having difficult dictations today (perhaps both).  I needed my caffeine hit.

We bought more salmon at the store on Sunday so that was on the menu for dinner.  I am just being so adventurous! I have appointed John the Official Cooker of Salmon, so I don’t have to worry about messing it up.  He started out with it on the grill, but then the grill ran out of gas.  Don’t you love when that happens?  So we finished them off inside. John mixed a little maple syrup and soy sauce together to baste the fish.  I don’t know as I tasted either.

With my brussels.  Shredding them and  pan sauteing is really the quickest way to cook brussel sprouts.  Plus they get that little bit of crispiness on the edges that I like.

The temps were in the low 50s and I thought about going for a ride and doing a hill workout after dinner, but then the wind was like this:

I will ride in the cold, but the wind – no way.  I hate riding in the wind.  Just ask John.  I become the  Whining Queen.  Instead, I did a metabolic workout in my Fit Female book.  It’s just intervals of body weight exercises.  Sure gets the heart rate up, too!

** A note on the google reader and comment feed.  If you have not done so, unsub and resubscribe to the feed. I am hoping it is all better. I haven’t gotten any feed since  Saturday, so while I hope I didn’t just jinx it, I wanted to make sure that you do this if you are still getting feed. **

Tonight’s snack ready for later- pear and peanut flour mixed up.

Monday night already – today sure went by fast!

The end of the week and just about the end of the month.  I have a fun weekend ahead of me, so I am really looking forward to that!

Breakfast today – oats cooked with some peanut flour and egg whites and topped with coconut butter.  I decided just to photograph the bowl because what was in the bowl didn’t look appealing (although I liked it).

Bowl by local potter.  I have to say that I am finding oats don’t really last me as long as I would like.  Even with protein added.  I was really hungry after a couple hours and had some nuts with  dried pineapple.

I was kind of hoping to make it to lunch without the morning snack because of going out to dinner at night, but I was way too hungry.

Maybe it was a hungry kind of day because I was stomach growling again an hour and a half later for lunch!

Chicken (surprise, surprise) cooked with a bit of tomato basil sauce, which came out of a jar.  Quite good, too.

Anyway – here were my goals for March and how I did:

1.  Finish the 28-Day Shapeover workouts.  Finished and assessed.

2. Follow my 90/10 rule for eating.  Doing really, really well with this. I am on a roll!

3. Cook a few dishes out of my comfort zone.  I did 2.  I made sourdough english muffins and we cooked (John cooked) salmon at home.  I could have done more in this area.

4. Start a new lifting program.  Yes.  I started the Female Body Breakthrough, which I am loving!

5.  Go bowling.  Yes!  Did this once.

I actually did well on my goals this month!  And you know what?  I feel great!  I am loving the new workout program and how I am eating.  John said to me last night that I was looking especially healthy – and who doesn’t love a compliment?  😀  The other bonus this month was how much outdoor biking we got in.  I put just over 100 miles on the bike for the month.

Speaking of biking, I had to get out and ride today.  The weather is looking pretty crappy for Saturday and Sunday I will be busy at the spa (!!!), so today it was.  The temp was 42 degrees, but sunny.  I bundled up with a technical turtleneck, 2 jackets, double gloves and sweats over biking shorts.  I was the Michelin woman!  It was really cold LOL!  It was only annoying when the wind picked up, but when it was calm, the sun felt good.

See my red face from the wind?

I got in a good 10 mile ride today, plus extra calorie burn having to wipe my nose so much.  I was still pretty chilled when I got back inside and John made up some warmth for me.

Wake up kitty!

Okay, this is my attempt at Fashion Friday.  I am not as good as putting outfits together like Shelley is (or posing, apparently).  John and I are going out to a nice dinner tonight and then to a guitar concert at Skidmore College.   We have a Groupon for dinner and decided to make it a nice dinner and music evening.  So, I got dressed up a wee bit.

Top and slacks are from consignment for an outfit costing less than $20!  The slacks are Docker Curvy.  The pants are flared at the bottom – which I didn’t get in the shot.  Good thing I am not a paid photographer.

Anyway, that’s a nice change from always posting me in bike gear.

Posting early as we are off for a fun evening.  Hopefully we will love the food and get some good pictures.  Sunday my mother and I are taking my sister to the spa as a birthday present.  My weekend is going to be awesome!  Hope you have a good one, too!

I almost wrote Friday fun day. Whoops, it’s only Thursday! And hello December. Can someone please slow life down?  I swapped my gym days this week because of scheduling.  I may keep a T/Th/Sat lifting schedule now anyway.

I did the last 6 exercise as supersets where I would do 2 sets  in a row without a rest.   Shweaty! Then it was treadmill walking.

It was cold and I decided on a warm bowl of banana oats this morning.

Topped with some coconut butter and a bit of cinnamon.  Yummy!  I could never really give up grains completely forever.  I love my oats.

It was a busy work day today.  And a good day to get it all done.  This week I have had a lot of schedule interruptors.  We had a girl’s night out on Tuesday with my mom and sister. We got all dressed up and fancy, too!  Then I met with my literacy learner for the first time this week.  That was exhausting, I have to say.  It is going to take time to get used to doing that. Then I got called to make another last minute soap order this week.

Phew.  Not to mention the nagging headache that I have had for the last 3 days.  Just won’t go away even with pain reliever.  I used to get those headaches years ago and now they have returned.

Lunch today was not turkey for a change!

Shrimps!  And yes, eating at the computer here.  The table is full of soap as you see above.

So anyway, it is December and time for some new goals for the month.  Other than just getting through this week, here is what is planned:

1. No weight gain over the holidays.  I am not going to gain any weight! That means being extra diligent on most days.  I will probably lower my calories a few days a week to get some wiggle room.

2. Do some no added sugar days.  This will help with #1. I have been snacking on chocolate chips a lot lately and I need to get out of that habit.

3.  Make a video of me playing guitar to post on the blog.  Eeep!  That original New Year’s Resolution made in January has come to fruition! A year of practice and now you will all get to hear it.  Actually, I might do a couple videos since I have been working on a lot of short pieces.

4. Relax more.  I am really a bad girl when it comes to relaxing. I was getting some tough love from John this week about that, so I am going to do it.

In the vein of relaxing, I think that is enough for goals this month  😉

I took a break today to make the lattes with the new uber machine.  I am almost ready to kiss our new machine.  I love the lattes that we are making!

One more thing going on this week is a garden club meeting tomorrow for lunch.  I just found out my town had a little garden club that meets once a month by accident.  A woman that I met very briefly a couple months ago called me the other day and invited me to their year end party to get to know everyone.

I have to say that while I am looking forward to meeting other gardeners,  I am really shy in person and am quite nervous about this.  It’s one thing to have a group of strangers meet, but a totally different thing to be the only one who doesn’t know anybody at a party.  Awkward. Now that is social anxiety in a nutshell.  I decided against taking pictures of my food at the lunch because I certainly don’t want anyone to know how weird I am!

John called dinner tonight to grab a slice of pizza.  I was so hungry that I forgot to take a picture!

I had a slice and half.  No weight gain this month, remember! LOL.  At least we got in a nice mile walk round trip.

I do get a little relaxing tonight.  John and I are booking our Disney accommodations tonight for the end of January!  I cannot wait for vacation!

Question:  How is your December looking?

Last day of November!  Wow.  Thanks for all of your comments yesterday on the ‘mirror’ post.  I am so much harder on myself than I would ever be on anyone else.  It is such a fine line to walk between pushing yourself hard enough to see progress and starting to expect perfection.

We had one of those rare nights in the Adirondacks where the overnight low was not really cold.  We checked the Weather Channel and the temp was 48 degrees.  You know what that means!!  Biking to breakfast!  Only it wasn’t really 48 degrees.  I thought it was a little colder than that as my eyes were watering a little.  The temp when we arrived at breakfast –

Hmmmmm…. not sure what the discrepancy issue is there.  I want to work in weather where you can be wrong a lot and still keep your job –  and get raises!

North Country Cafe:

My bagel – a little over toasted.

See the bikes in the background.  They finally finished the work on the street.

12 miles for the day.  Okay, now this was probably the last outdoor ride of the year.  I keep saying that and the temps pop up a little.  Very rare this time of year and I am glad I haven’t put the bike on the trainer yet.

I was a little cold here.  It was  a stiff wind on the way home!

So, here were my November goals and the progress I made on them:

1. Go grain-free 4 days a week. I did pretty well with this except for  Thanksgiving week where I ate grains on Thursday when that was a day I normally did not.  A-

2. No eggnog lattes until Thanksgiving Day.  Done!  I have only had 1 and it was on Thanksgiving Day. A+

3. Walk 3 miles a day 5 times a week. I did really well with this goal.  Other than when I sprained my foot and this weekend with 2 days of biking, I walked a lot. A

4.  At least 2 different vegetables a day. I did okay with this.  Veggies are still a struggle for me other than broccoli.  I would say a B- for this goal.

5.  Spruce up the website.  This is really hard.  I was working on the recipe section, but time really is a problem as I need to spend hours  on it.  C-

Quite a good month goal wise.

Pixie met all of her goals this month:  bird watching, sleeping,  rolling in cat nip, and lots of lap time.

I am feeling swamped and busy right now.  I feel like my schedule is really out of whack.  I hope to have some goals for December lined up for tomorrow.

Have a great night!