Hello Monday.

When I was a kid I related The Simpsons to a horrible feeling I would experience every Sunday evening. The feeling of “oh crap, tomorrow is Monday and I have to go to school.” The Simpsons was the last show we were allowed to watch before helping pack our lunches, making sure the last of our homework was finished, and getting ready for bed. And then HELLO MONDAY.

These days I normally am introduced to the start of a new week at 5am…awful. But then good because two hours later and I’ve already finished an amazing work out in the pool, I feel refreshed and ready for the day…for the most part.

What helps you guys out there?

I find that dressing up just a little bit extra helps. This morning for example I threw on a really bright floral cami and a yellow cardigan on top, some purple ballet flats, styled my hair, and applied the new eye shadow I had purchased the week before. It was nice to feel that much more confident about my day knowing that I left the house a little more polished than usual.

Something else I find that helps is having an interesting lunch packed (i.e. yummy leftovers from Sunday) or even eating out at lunch with a friend/family. Today I did both, I packed chili but then was treated to lunch by my mom…where to you ask, TORCHY’S yum yum yum. Except now my tum-a-lum is doing somersaults all over the place! Sometimes you can’t win.

Anyone out there have tips to beat the Monday Blues?

The Best Owl I’ve Ever Seen

I’ve only seen one owl in person, I saw it while I was traveling at approximately 70 mph and it was standing still, far away, in a tree. Thank you Ohio for that experience. This however, is the best owl I’ve ever seen…on the internet. Thanks Alec, you always know what I like. The wallpaper isn’t bad either.

Happy World Nutella Day

It’s that time of year again…the week that I have a jar of nutella in the house for a recipe and consume it all within 3 days. I purposefully thought up a concoction that wouldn’t use the entire jar…so I could have ample spoonage time with my favorite treat.

This is my third year to participate, you can see last year’s crazed post here…and the year before that here.

I made nutella cupcakes…..from a Betty Crocker box mix. I KNOW. shame. But they were still kick ass and were enjoyed by the masses. That’s right….I shared, with my office, my parents, Alex, and a friend who brought some home for her three other roommates. These cupcakes were distributed to the masses…not bad for a $2 box mix!

Rather than go into details about how they were made I’ll simply state that I made chocolate cupcakes with chocolate butter cream frosting and then dolloped gobs of nutella on top. Please drink with an ice cold glass of milk :-)

Enjoy, and Happy World Nutella Day to all of my fellow addicts! To see year’s past Nutella recipes go here, careful it’s a bit overwhelming!

note: the pictures were taken in haste…I couldn’t wait to stuff my face, so they’re blurry. oh well.

Health Care Horror

Alex and I like most Americans have had our companies offer us new health care plans this year, and like most new health care plans out there theyr’e worse than the ones we had currently. We’re all now paying more for less, which is infuriating.

I’ve had a taxing past two days on the phone with my doctor’s office, pharmacies, and my new insurance company. YAY. If you were to ask me what happened with those phone calls I don’t think I could tell you, it’s now a blur of back and forth and back and forth and back again. I’m tired and done with what I need to do. I could possibly find better prices and more convenience elsewhere but I’m incapable of BS anymore and the thought of picking up the phone one more time and pressing ‘1′ to speak to the pharmacist makes me want to vom.

The bottom line, I’m now paying $100 more for three months of a prescription than I was three months ago. amazing.

FACT

One day I will bake this cake. Just throwing that out there…if only I owned some fancy piping bags and tips. I’ll think of something. hoot.

Fitness-Week 1 wrap up

If you refer back to this post from last week you can view my suggested day by day plan. I’m happy to report back that I followed that to a T and am on track this week to do the same, had a very challenging pool work out this morning with lots of sprint work and kick board drills.

My body feels surprisingly great, last Monday’s boot camp gave a whole new meaning to the word “sore.” But the soreness has gone away and I’m ready to do it all over again :-)

Moroccan Patterns

I could spend all day in this mosque examining and enjoying the insanity of these patterns. Sheesh I can’t even imagine the blinding amount of time that took. But thanks to whomever with the patience of a god.

Getting My Fitness On

Last week I was contacted via Facebook by a good friend from High School that I used to swim with. He informed me that his cousin runs Camp Gladiator here in Austin and that I should come out and give them a shot. For those of you not in the know Camp Gladiator is a boot camp (something huge here in Austin) where a group of people gather in a parking lot, park, soccer fields, etc before or after work and do a wide range of running drills, ab work, jump rope, weight training, basically any form of conditioning that will kick yo ass into shape. Oh, and did I mention that Ally (owner of Camp Gladiator) won American Gladiator in 2008…no?

I went last night with a group of co-workers and friends to my first camp at a close by grouping of sports fields. I definitely used muscles that I hadn’t used since high school and came home with freezing hands and sore muscles. A hot bath and a couple of Tylenol seemed to do the trick as I wasn’t completely immobile this morning.

I’m pairing these boot camp work outs with my swimming of course. Schedule goes as follows:

Monday: swim 5:30 am (2.5ish miles) boot camp at 6:10 pm
Tuesday: long walk with hubs and Saci and AMERICAN IDOL BABY :-)
Wednesday: same as Monday
Thursday: work out at office gym on lunch break for 45 min.
Friday: swim 5:30 am (2.5ish miles)
Saturday: Jazzercise with mom at 9:30 am
Sunday: work out at Cedar Park rec center for 1 hr.

The above has definitely been the most I’ve worked out since high school. Don’t know how long it will last or why I’m on this sudden kick…but it feels good!

This Condo Sings Sweet Nothings to me

Upon scouring one of my favorite blogs the above image provided me with shear comfort, pleasantries, and WANT of everything in the space. An artist in Chicago lives here and MUST call me first when he decides to have a fire sale. The colors, textures, and composition of everything in his home sends chills through my designer bones. Help me.

Go here to see the entire house tour. be careful.

FOUND!

We searched new and obscure places last night to find my ugly doll key chain. It was really important to me :-) ha. And we found it after Alex suggested a spot that at first I deemed silly…Saci’s kennel. Yes, my dog is a thief, she deemed the plush key chain so similar to her other toys that it must be hers.

Because our dog is perfect and amazing there was no damage whatsoever, she just needed something to sleep with at night. So cute. Mystery solved.