farm hangover

A little warning, this post will have nothing to do with healthy living... I am seriously in a fog right now from eating, drinking, and being merry. I am still recovering from a truly wonderful weekend at a farm and bed and breakfast in the middle of nowhere, Virginia, so get ready for photo overload. This place was absolutely breathtaking...

 

 

 

 

 

That cow, her name is Butterscotch (named by me), and she wanted to come home with me. :) Darn CRV wouldn't fit her though...

Mike and I did get 1 run in while we were there, a hilly and tough 3 mile run, but a run none the less. I stopped to take pictures quite a bit, so I really wouldn't even call it a work out.

I have a slight obsession with cows... those who have known me my whole life will remember it.

Yup, there I am, in my bridesmaid's dress, trying to get close enough to a baby calf to take a picture with it. Those suckers are fast though... and the mama didn't really like me chasing after her babe and made it known by mooing like crazy at me.

It was the best weekend ever... good food, good friends, and good times.

Oh yeah, and Mike was there. He had a lot of fun too.

Now, it's back to reality... and HALF MARATHON TRAINING!!! That shizz starts tomorrow! EEK!

the crystal coast

I guess since I have to do a lot of real work lately, I will have to try to squeeze in my posts at home. :)

We decided to stay at home last Friday night before heading to the coast for the weekend. We just wanted a night to take our time getting our things packed and relax before a packed weekend.

While we packed and finished laundry, we made ourselves a delicious and easy dinner. We grilled some chicken on the grill in bbq sauce, chopped up a few veggies, and threw everything on tortillas and sandwich thins to make some small personal sized pizzas. They turned out super good.

Along with our pizzas, we enjoyed some white wine.

When we woke up on Saturday, we packed our things and headed to New Bern, where my mom and her boyfriend live. We hung with them for a while, enjoying the back patio and then heading to the riverfront for some lunch.

It was really windy on the patio of the restaurant we went to, but the weather was so nice, and the food was amazing. We had a few beers, so I decided to have Mother Earth's kolsch style beer, Endless River. It is made locally in Eastern N.C., and I really like it.

I went with the fish tacos and they were the best fish tacos I have ever had in my life. They tasted so good! The fish was perfectly seasoned and cooked, and I loved them.

The place we went to was called Persimmon's and I highly recommend it if you are ever in the New Bern area. It was so delicious and has such an awesome view.

After lunch, we headed further towards the coast to meet up with my brother and his family. We all hung out for the evening at a corn hole tournament before Mike and I went on to the house we were staying at. We were pretty tired, so we went to bed relatively early.

We woke up on Sunday and headed out for a run. We had wanted to get a long run in, but the weather was really humid and hot, even for 8 am, so we just did 3 miles. Luckily we got to run around water. :)

Mike and I were so hot and miserable, but I am glad we went. Considering we didn't run any more last weekend, it was the only amount of exercise we got.

My shin is still bothering me a little, but all in all, I think the break helped. I hope that when I go for my run in the morning it is feeling even better, but we will see.

We spent all of Sunday on the beach and we are paying for it now. Even with several applications of sunscreen, we both still got burnt quite a bit. :( I wish I had a picture of how we looked, but I forgot. Sorry, I wasn't really in blog mode down there.

The sun was HOT!! My family all met us down there and we just hung out and caught up. After the sun started to set, we headed in to have a cook out. It was a great day.

Since we were off on Monday, we had lunch with my brother and dad before driving back to Raleigh. I picked up a 4 hour shift at the hospital last night, since they always need help on holidays, so we had to head back kinda early.  It was a pretty easy and quick 4 hours, and I am glad to already have my shift over with for the week. When I got home after my shift, I was starving. I didn't really eat dinner because I was still full from lunch, but running around the hospital worked up my appetite.

I didn't want to eat a full meal when I got home, so I whipped up a little snack. This is my favorite bedtime snack after work. PB & J crackers with milk. :)

I hope you all had a great Memorial Day weekend too!

G'night!

100 miles

Hey there! I am going to try my hardest to post everyday this week, but I have a lot on my plate, so we will see if that happens. :)

I know I have been running long before March 5, but that is the day that I used the Nike+ GPS app for the first time. Since then, I have been hitting the pavement with that app and it slowly counted up all the miles I have completed. On Friday morning, when Mike and I went for a pre-work run, I hit the big one.

In a little over 2 months, I put 100 miles on these legs of mine. That is certainly something I can be proud of. :)

We ran the route over by his work and decided to reverse it this time. Bad move by me. The hills were 10x worse going the opposite direction that we usually go. It was rough.

We only did 3 miles, since we both planned to get a long run in on Saturday up in Virginia. We headed to Virginia Beach on Friday night after work to celebrate Mike's sister, Haylie, and her fiance, Tim, at their wedding shower.

Saturday morning, Mike, Haylie, Tim, Jay (our friend), and I headed out early in the morning to go for a run. Or in Haylie's case, a "blading session."

Mike and Jay made a lot of fun of her for roller blading, but she took it pretty well. At least she came with us!

We went running along the waterfront of Virginia Beach and it was so gorgeous. Running is so much easier when there are new and exciting things to look at and take pictures of. :)

Along our run, we went past an aquarium so, of course, I had to stop in to see the seals.

It was awesome to see them swimming around in the open tank. They are so adorable!

Since Haylie and I stopped to see the seals, the boys left us. It was fine with me since they had planned to run 11 miles that day and I only wanted to get in 5. When we got to the aquarium we were right around 3 miles, so Haylie and I turned around and headed to the boardwalk to finish up.

We ran along the boardwalk for a little while before we finally hit 5 miles. Then we enjoyed the beach for a few minutes.

It was quite windy, so I was getting pelted by sand in order to get this picture. When I got home, I had sand all throughout my scalp.  Oh the things to get a blog photo...

It was a really fun run and I am so glad the weather allowed for us to enjoy it. It was nice to catch up with my sister in law too.

We did about a 2 mile walk after this to get back to the car, so my legs were nice and stretched by the time we got home. I actually wasn't sore at all on Sunday either.

When we got home, I had to rush to get ready so I could help set up for the shower at one of Haylie's friend's houses. I was in charge of the chalkboard signs and paper poms, so once I was dressed, I hurried over there to get started. Those poms take forever to puff out!

The backyard was perfect for hanging poms from the trees and everything turned out so nice. The food was also amazing. The party was thrown by myself and two of Haylie's bridesmaids and I think we did an awesome job.

Those spicy thai noodles were banging. Yesterday, after we got home, I couldn't get them out of my head, so I tried to re-create them with stuff I had on hand in the house. They didn't even come close to tasting like the noodles at the party, but they were still ok.

Since Tim's family is from England, we tried to sneak in at least one element for their sake. The host of the party found a recipe for a traditional drink that is called "Pimm's Cup." It uses Pimm's gin and fruit juice, along with fresh fruit, mint, and rosemary to make a sangria-like drink. It was really tasty.

The favors were mason jars, so I had mine in one of those. There is something about a drink in a mason jar that just makes me so happy. Especially being outside with paper poms hanging all around.

The party was a lot of fun and I think the bride and groom really enjoyed themselves. We had a blast getting to know their friends and hanging out with the family.

Of course, Mike and I had to get a photo together. It is mandatory.

We all passed out at roughly 9:30 pm after the party. Running + a few drinks + entertaining others = exhausted.  Oh, and I forgot to mention we had to clean up a huge mess from my little puppy dog who decided he didn't want to stay in his cage while we were at the party all day. He somehow wedged himself out of his cage and tore up the entire house. Needless to say when we went out for lunch on Sunday, we had to get creative.

Little punk...

Have a good week!

and we're back.

I haven't been to bed before 11, my Google reader has over 100 posts unread, and you poor people haven't had the privilege of seeing my meals and post work out photos since Monday... I know, it is a travesty.

I wish I could tell you something really exciting is going on in my life that has kept me from this place... but, I don't. Work has been crazy lately and my free time at home has been anything but free. Between working at the hospital last night, crafting for my sister in law's bridal shower that I am assisting in hosting on Saturday, and all the other random errands I have been running, I haven't had a moment to blog.

I miss g-chatting with friends, reading blogs, and e-mailing my sister and husband. My days feel like they are minutes lately and each time I look at the clock it is almost time to go home... to start on some diy project that I should have done months ago to prepare for this shower... oh, procrastination!

Lucky for you, I decided to take some time away from the things that I should be doing to compose a quick blog post to let you know what I have been up to. Even with all the craziness at work, I have done a pretty good job of getting out for runs and to the gym.

Monday night, we headed to our bible study group for casserole night. I had to hold back a little on this one, since casseroles are such sodium filled meals, but I had a little of each type and then ate a salad to finish me off.

On Tuesday morning, Mike and I went running around his building. I did not have a very good run, but we finished it, 3 whole miles. 

Tuesday night, we made the best chicken nuggets ever with some roasted sweet and red potato wedges.

Right after eating, Mike and I spent the next 3 hours making paper tissue poms for his sister's shower. Mike completely sucked at doing this, btw. He is pretty handy, but ask him to fold a stack of tissue paper in an accordion and he starts acting like a 5 year old who was just asked to clean his room. Goodness. Wish I would have gotten photo documentation of the poms he made, but I just wanted to get to bed.

We woke up Wednesday and Mike headed to work and I went to the gym. I told you all the other day about how I am following an app on my phone for a pretty good ab workout, so I did that when I got to the gym, along with some push ups.

Mike is doing the 100 Push Ups plan and asked if I wanted to join him. Apparently you follow the plan every other day until you can do 100 real push ups. Since I really want to tone my arms, armpits, and back area, I figure it wouldn't hurt. Plus, there is an app for that. :)

I also did a little foam rolling for my hamstrings... and creepy gym room picture taking.

We had planned to go for a 3 mile run after work on Wednesday too, but I didn't leave work on time and had to be at the hospital at 6:45, so we went and got some dinner instead.

Which also became my lunch today. :)

Breakfasts lately have been the grand return of overnight oats. My most common concoction lately: rolled oats, strawberry slices, chocolate protein powder, vanilla chobani, and skim milk. Left overnight in the fridge and then adding banana slices in the morning. So good!

Alrighty, y'all! I hope I can return to normal daily scheduling soon! If you want, you can check out my sister's blog, since she has been posting way more frequently than I have been. Her latest post talks about me naked... thrilling. :)

Yesterday's Stats:

Calories (+) 50
Sodium (+) 442
Protein (+) 30