Wow, Time Flies!

Can’t believe I haven’t posted in almost a week.. oops! Things got super busy around here this weekend so I will just hit some of the highlights 🙂

Workouts:

Thursday- Rest

Friday- Interval Run 2 min easy / 1 min hard x5

Saturday- Swimming workout with my husband! 100m easy / 50 m kick / 50 m easy / 16x25m hard with 5 sec rest / 200 m cool down (800m total)

Sunday – 3.5 mile run at the park.. this was supposed to be at least 5 miles but I was too sleep deprived from working floor set the night before that it just wasn’t going to happen..

Monday – 10 min bike warm up / NROLFW (New Rules of Lifting for Women) Workout 1A / 10 min elliptical cool down

Tuesday – Tempo run!

Food:

I made the worlds most delicious chocolate chip cookies this weekend!

They were the most deliciously perfect cookies I’ve ever had.. the secret ingredient was CORNSTARCH!

It made the cookies have that soft/fluffy texture that I love. I will definitely be making them again! I will pass along the recipe 🙂

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I also made some lasagna to eat over the weekend. You can never go wrong with pasta in this house.. I did marry an Italian 😉

Reading:

I finished the book “Blackberry Winter” by Sarah Jio in less then 24 hours this weekend! It was such a quick easy read and I would recommend it to anyone. I will do a full review in a later post, but it was such a good read I had to put in something here too!

NROLFW:

I have seen a lot about this lifting plan online so I figured I would incorporate it into my workout schedule. I have been looking to add some strength training in the mix, and this seemed like a good fit! It is about a 6 month program total and it is divided into 7 stages. The first stage is 16 workouts total so it will last about 6 weeks of 3 workouts a week. I did Workout 1A on monday and I can definitely feel it today! You basically start doing a set of A exercises and a set of B exercises then as the weeks progress you increase the weight and decrease the reps. Sounds like a plan to me! I have never been on a legitimate strength plan before, so I will be interested to see how my body responds.

Those were some of the highlights of the weekend. I am really looking forward to the Army 1st Cavalry Ball on Valentine’s Day, Thursday! I will definitely post pics and do a blog just for that but here is a picture of the dress I will be wearing:

I am so excited to get all dressed up and have a night out. This is the first Valentine’s Day we have actually got to spend together the past four years. It is long over due and we can’t wait!

 

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Who wants to foot the bill?

Grocery day.. definitely not my favorite. I don’t mind doing the shopping so much, and I LOVE having all the fresh and fully stocked food in the house, I just wish I wasn’t footing the bill!

Oh, and the whole carrying all the bags into the house.. total bummer..

After I got all that nonsense taken care of, I made myself some much needed lunch! After lunch I worked on homework a little bit, then decided to hit the gym and get my workout in for the day.

10 mile bike ride @ 17-18mph pace. Good enough for my first bike workout of the year!

I decided to take part in PB Fingers February Book Club! The book this month is Blackberry Winter by Sarah Jio. It sounds really interesting so I’m excited to dive into it on my nook 🙂

For dinner tonight I was really craving pasta alfredo but didn’t have any alfredo sauce on hand.. Thank God for Pinterest!! I found an alfredo recipe that I had the ingredients for and whipped it all up in about 15 minutes. It was so delicious, I will definitely make it again.

Are you reading any good books right now? Have you ever read Blackberry Winter?

It’s “A” Mystery..

Today hasn’t been bad for a Tuesday. I started off the day with a great run this morning! I have a hard time pushing my pace when I run. I tend to have the same pace whether I’m running a 5k or a Half Marathon! This year I really want to step my running up to the next level, so I’m trying to push my pace below 10:00 min miles on shorter runs. My “comfortable” pace is around 11:30, so 10:00 is a big difference for me!

This morning on my schedule I had a tempo run:

1/2 mile warm-up

2 mile at Tempo

1/2 mile cool down

I wasn’t too sure how it would go, but I gave it my best effort. I ended up surprising myself!

Its hard to get my true splits because I changed paces at the 1/2 mile mark.. but I was so proud of my second mile, 9:56!! As I was watching my watch, I was able to keep my Tempo race right around 10:00, so I would say I had a successful run!

After my run, took a shower and made breakfast. Breakfast is definitely my favorite meal of the day..

Today I had 2 scrambled eggs, whole grain toast with strawberry jam, and a strawberry banana oatmeal smoothie!

The smoothie is so easy to make!

Strawberry Banana Oatmeal Smoothie

1 cup ice

1/2 cup frozen strawberries

whole banana

1/2 cup old fashioned oats

1/2 cup organic vanilla yogurt

1Tb. local honey

Blend until smooth. Enjoy!

We have a Ninja Blender that works great with smoothies, I definitely recommend.

After class I came home and have been working on my to-do list all evening.. One thing I am really looking forward to tonight is watching Pretty Little Liars! I don’t know why I even enjoy the show.. it’s so cheesy but I just can’t help tuning in to see what happens every week! I really want to figure out the whole “A” mystery!

Anyone have an theories? Do you think you know whats going on with “A”?

Super Bowl Fun!

Mondays always seem to creep up on me! I had such a fun weekend with my husband that I was NOT ready to go back to class today. I had to hit the snooze button three times before I could drag myself out of bed.

How ’bout that Super Bowl last night?! Jordan and I went to a friends who just moved into a new house! It was so fun to just veg out on the couch and stuff our faces with wings and other goodies. The couple who hosted the party ordered BBQ wings from pluckers, and everyone else who came brought side dishes and/or desserts. I made our favorite Salsa Dip! The recipe is from Jordan’s mom and we just love it. It’s so simple you just can’t go wrong!

Salsa Dip:

2 blocks Cream Cheese

16 oz jar of your favorite Salsa

Shredded Cheddar Cheese

Diced Tomatos

Green Onions

Let the cream cheese blocks sit out to soften to room temperature. Combine the cream cheese and salsa in a bowl and mix with a blender until the consistency is even. Spread the dip into a pie plate and top with cheese, tomatoes, green onions, and any other topping you would like. Refrigerate for an hour to let it get solid again. Serve with Tortilla Chips!

This dip is a favorite in our family and everyone at the party loved it too! I also made cake balls dipped in chocolate for the first time ever! I used vanilla cake and vanilla icing dipped in milk chocolate. Then I decorated the tops with the laces like a football 🙂 They were so yummy I kept snacking on them while I was making them and they were a hit at the party!

The game wasn’t really my main interest during the party, but I LOVED the halftime show by Beyoncé! When I was growing up, Destiny’s Child was one of my favorite groups. It was so fun seeing them reunite on stage for the show. Beyoncé rocked it and I loved every minute of it!

Well I guess I better start working on that homework that is calling my name!

What was your favorite part of Beyoncé’s half time show?

Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch

Since I’m new to this whole blogging thing, I figured I would do random posts about some of the main aspects of my life! First off my husband, Jordan 🙂

Jordan and I started dating my senior year of high school. He had recently finished Basic Training in the Army and gotten out of a long term relationship. I also was moving on from my only other long term relationship so the timing was just right! We had always known of each other before but both of us being in other relationships had kept either one of us from pursuing anything.

At first it started out as a friendship, just kinda getting to know each other.. After two months of talking on the phone and “Skype-ing” (he was at AIT in Alabama, and I was home in Ohio) he came home for two weeks before going to his new duty station at Fort Hood, Texas. During those two weeks we had our first official Date, but we had already started falling for each other through the last two months. We instantly clicked and he asked me to be his girlfriend 🙂

Here is a picture of us on our first date! (we went to his brothers wrestling meet, then to see the movie “Dear John” after.. how corny? lol)

Throughout the next year he came home on the weekends as much as he could, and was even able to come home for my high school graduation!

That fall I went off to college and things got hard for a few months, I wasn’t sure if things were going to work out with us. I found out he was going to deploy to Afghanistan in the Summer of 2011 and I was really scared! I didn’t know if I could handle that! But we decided to stick it out and Im so glad we did 🙂

In April of 2011, during his pre-deployment leave, Jordan got down on one knee and proposed! Of course I said YES! I knew the next year would be one of the hardest of my life, but I knew that he was a great man and I wouldn’t want to ever loose him!

When Jordan left for Afghanistan on June 1, 2011 we weren’t sure when we wanted to have our wedding. I was still in college and we originally wanted to wait until I graduated, but about halfway through his deployment I knew I wanted to get married when he got home. I couldn’t imagine waiting a few years to start our life together! So in December 2011 I started wedding planning and set the date for July 3, 2012.

Jordan came home May 28, 2012 and that was the most exciting day of my life! Unless you have been through a deployment yourself, you can not imagine the variety of feelings you are experiencing while waiting for that bus to pull up! I will definitely never forget that feeling.

We had our wedding on July 3, 2012 about a month after Jordan got home. It was so much fun celebrating with all our family and friends! I wouldn’t change a single thing about our wedding day.

After our wedding, we packed up all our things and moved to our first apartment in Texas. Since then we have been living the newlywed life 🙂

So thats the story of me and my hubby! I will try to post some posts about different aspects of my life periodically. Until next time!

Taylor

Whats for dinner?

I feel like this question plagues me on a daily basis! I think dinner is my least favorite meal of the day.. I LOVE having a yummy breakfast and lunch is alright, but dinner always just creeps up on me and I never plan that well for it. I’ve decided that along with tracking my workouts daily, I’m also going to try to start documenting my eating habits. I am 100% not trying to loose weight. Im completely happy with where Im at with my body right now! On the other hand, I know that there is a lot of junk/unhealthy things that I am putting in my body on a daily basis, so I am just trying to minimize that and put healthier foods in my body! I think by eating better foods, that I will workout better, and just feel better all around!

I started off great today with the clean eating!

I started off with some oatmeal with strawberries and blueberries and two eggs on the side..

Then during class this morning I snacked on a cliff bar..

When I got home I had a ham and cheese sandwich with some veggies with hummus and pita chips on the side..

In the afternoon I sliced up an apple and ate it with some homemade granola bars I made on Sunday!

Then for dinner I pulled out a hawaiian pizza out of the freezer and made some salads for the side..

Its funny to look back on all the food you ate during the day! Hopefully I keep keep this up during the week 🙂

-Taylor

New Year, New Things!

I know I haven’t posted since December, but I want to get back on the bandwagon. Its a new year and there are so many new things going on that I had of whole list of things that I could post about!

First of all, we got our wedding photo album yesterday! I am so happy with our photos and our whole experience with our photographer that I would recommend him to anyone! He was so easy to work with and our photos came out beautiful. Here are some of my favorite pages..

I just cant get over how happy I am with these pictures! I feel like they captured our day perfectly.

School has been taking up most of my time lately. Im taking a heavy course load in the hopes that I can graduate on time in Spring 2014. Im keeping my fingers crossed that some of the courses I took in Ohio will transfer for the credits that I need and not just as an elective.. The hardest course for me this semester will definitely be Anatomy & Physiology II. It covers so much material so quickly that it just takes a lot of out of class studying to stay on top of things! As you can see I’m starting off the semester strong, hopefully I can keep it up until May 😉

On the other side of my life is running. Ever since the wedding/move my running has really dropped off. Sure I run occasionally but I haven’t done any races or really trained with a purpose since Cap City Half in May 2012. With the new year came new running ambitions for me. Ive done three women only triathlons in the past few years and I really would like to try and full distance sprint triathlon. I did some looking around on the web and found the Capitol of Texas Triathlon in Austin this May. I feel like with a little training I could definitely work myself back up to this. The sprint triathlon consists of a 750m swim, a 12 mile bike, and a 5K run. I haven’t registered or anything yet but I definitely have my eye on it.

That being my short term running goal for the year, I figured I also needed more of an ambitious long term goal as well! OK, here it comes.. I think I will attempt to train for a Fall… MARATHON!! Just saying the word scares me a little bit. I have completed two half marathons last year so I think if I really worked hard I might be able to do it. It has kind of always been a life goal of mine and I figure this is as good a time as any to just bite the bullet and try! Worse case scenario, if the training doesn’t go well, I will just back down to a half in the fall which I know I could definitely do. I found a 30 week training program by Hal Higdon online. I have used his training before to run my second half marathon so I know that my body can handle his style..

I got a Garmin for christmas from Jordan so I definitely think this will help with my training!! And it is pink so I can look stylish as I am running by 😉

Well I think that is enough rambling on about my life for today!

What are some of your goals for 2013? I’d love to hear from you!

-Taylor