P always smells so nice. Yeah- a lot of women do- but she ALWAYS does.

We were in Santorini for one of our cruise stops a few years ago, and it was so bloody hot. We were surrounded by donkeys. We were surrounded by sweaty people. We had walked through a sandy beach and had black sand stuck to odd places of our body. And she still smelled like a combination of fresh flowers, warm amber, and heaven. Not only that, but she wears a million different kinds of perfume so you never know how amazing she will smell. And no matter what it is, it’s always amazing.

I’m sure the people at the gym where I work out wished it ran in the family.

In honor of my sister’s upcoming milestone of turning the big 2-1, I thought it would be fun to do “21 Days of P!” Each day leading up to her big day I’m going to post a little something about P- from reasons why I think she’s so great, to funny memories, and everything in between! It should be a fun couple of weeks, and hopefully P won’t kill me when all is said and done!

So- for our first post I thought I’d go simple and small. Be sure to check in daily for more fun!

Day One. Here goes-

P can read, write, and speak Arabic. I think that’s pretty amazing and is something I really admire- especially since I freaking lived in the middle east for three years and never ventured to do the same. I think I should take her on The Amazing Race with me. She could be a very valuable asset. Plus she’s really cute and I’m sure that has its benefits when trying to hail cabs. 

Will and I were homebound today and will be tomorrow as well.

Victims of the blizzard.

I use victims very loosely because I sat on the couch in grey sweatpants with my computer on my lap working from home while watching old CSI Miami episodes.

It was rough I tell you.

The bad thing about blizzards, however, is that they make you fat.

I can’t prove it- but I may seek out a grant to do so.

Poor Will. I think I’m ready to go to the gym? Ha-

WILL is ready for me to go to the gym. If I don’t, The Shining could very well manifest itself at my house.

I can’t even begin to tell you all the crap I had while I was at home today. I started strong with oatmeal but before long I was having french bread, and Ruffles, and frosting, and pretzels… It was an out of control carbicide I tell you! It was if I didn’t think I was going to be able to eat for days or something and was trying to all Black Bear myself through the storm incase I had to hibernate.

The trouble with this issue is that:

1. I’m at home tomorrow again

2. It’s Super Bowl weekend which means I needed to save my cheat day for Sunday.

Oh and let’s not forget that later this month I will experience an entire weekend of gluttony when I go see P for her birthday.

It’s official- February is Faturary.

Elliptical, here I come. 

It only took us almost seven years, but Will and I recently joined the league of married adults- actually… adults in general- and purchased our first alarm clock.

Yep. Seven years. No alarm.

Weirdos.

We’ve used each of our phones as our alarms throughout our entire marriage, but after a couple of malfunctions we decided we probably should grow up and get a freaking alarm clock so we can slam the crap out of the snooze button in style.

I suddenly feel much more responsible and self aware. As if I’ll be on time to all events now. All because of our alarm clock.

I’m lying.

I just seemed like the right thing to say.

Speaking of time. I’m not making good use of mine.

Well… I guess I wouldn’t go that far. Blogging is defintiely good use of my time!

However, I could probably make better use of my time by working on this stupid paper I have to do for school.

That’s what I need. A life alarm. Like one that has my entire day rigidly scheduled- 2 hours for my paper, 1 hour 8 minutes to get ready in the morning, 13 minutes to post to my blog.

How great/annoying would that be?

Instead I’m forced to be my own time manager.

Which means I probably need to stop droning on about alarm clocks and start droning on about cyber bullying. Both equally entertaining. Ha.

More to come…

In one month from today I’ll be headed to Chicago for what feels like a monumental sort of occasion.

P turns 21.

21/

It just doesn’t feel real for so many reasons. It makes me feel old! I remember her in nothing but my mom’s heels and a blue tu-tu. I remember her having Memorial Day concerts in our living room for our family. I remember her puking in my hair when we were on vacation in Iowa.

Let’s just say I have a lot of stories-

as does she.

Anyway, I’m sure we’ll talk more about that next month.

I thought I’d just commemorate that the countdown has begun. I’m pretty darn excited about it. Should we throw her a surprise party? The more the merrier, right? I’m sure all my blog friends in her apartment wouldn’t be weird at all.

Maybe we’ll grease the tracks for next year. 

Good: It was icy today so I worked from home.

Bad: I ate pizza for lunch (um a LOT) and cereal for dinner and totally de-railed today’s goal. I really need structure in my life, as you can see.

Good: I left a piece of cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory in the fridge all.week.long

Bad: In a moment of weakness this past weekend I ripped it out of the fridge and devoured it like a starving panther in heat.

Let’s not lose sight of the fact that I waited a WEEK to do that though, right? I consider this a small success.

Good: I got a super cute new pair of boots during Christmas.

Bad:It is far too cold to wear them with a pretty skirt and show them off. Pants for now…

Good: Will bought several new shirts and they’re so pretty (ahem- I mean manly) and I always feel happy when he wears them

Bad: They suck to iron.

Good: I found some super cute stuff online at New York & Co and was going to use a gift card I had gotten at Christmas to pay for everything.

Bad: The stupid site will only allow me to apply one gift card and so they keep wanting me to put $75 on against my credit card instead of using another gift card. Seriously people! It’s 2011! Figure a way for me to apply both.

Good: I worked out today- which wasn’t a planned workout day.

Bad: See above for what I ate today.

Good: I’m logging my calories on Lose It with my sister

Bad: I’m now friends with Angela so she knows I went way, way over my calories today.

Good: My doggies snuggled with me on the couch while I worked today.

Bad: Boz woke me up at 2:30 this morning puking. That was fun. I cleaned the carpet with very limited light so I wouldn’t wake Will and went back to bed. When I woke up this morning I saw that Boz had barfed three other places- luckily on the tile.

Good: It’s almost Friday

Bad: Let’s not end on a bad note- it’s almost Friday after all! 

I mentioned I started school already, right?

UGH.

Sorry, but I felt the need to lead with that because it’s all I bloody think about. Why am I willingly inflicting this mental pain on myself!?

...

Get it together woman!

Okay- no more talk of school.

So my goal is to post to my blog once a week now that I’m in school. It felt good to have time to do it during break, but I’m not foolish enough to think I’m going to be able to post every few days now that my life is back to “normal.” So- that’s my goal and I really hope to stick with it.

Let’s not talk about that anymore, okay?

I had a really good weekend.

Will is always so tired when he gets home at night, and we hadn’t made any plans to go out on Friday so I figured it would just be a quiet night in. Plus- let’s not forget we’ve been married almost seven years so there’s pretty much zero spontaneity in our lives.

So I was surprised when he got home, hopped in the shower and told me we were going out. What a fun surprise! We ended up taking a little road trip to Chickasha, Oklahoma. There’s a small little burger joint there called Paw-Paws that’s semi-famous around there. I should have used one of my cheats there, but instead I got a salad, which was a really stupid thing to do at a small town sort of diner. I didn’t even dare ask for vinaigrette. I knew better. I took a bite of Will’s burger and it was DELICIOUS.

Yes- it deserves all caps.

So good. I most definitely should have used one of my cheats for a burger. We’ll definitely be back soon. It was worth the trip.

We ended the evening at Dairy Queen. There’s only a few in the state- one of them being in Chickasha. You can’t go there and not stop, right!? So- I had one of my cheats there- and it was well worth it.

Freaking amazing.

Mind blowing.

Over the top.

Sorry- as you can probably guess, I’ve been sticking to my goals pretty well and really relish my cheats.

Plus it’s DQ. It really is all of those things.

I just had a great night with Will. I know as you read this you’re probably like- wow- he takes her to a dive-y burger joint in small town America and then they go to DQ. Fancy!

(let’s laugh. That sentence seems funny to me.)

But the truth is, it was such a great night. Mostly because we’re so boring and predictable and a random road trip on a Friday night was so great and fun!

Saturday? Saturday was pretty great.

We did the normal shopping, chores and all that other painful boring adult stuff, but Saturday I had my first experience with a pre-workout formula.

I can’t even convey to you how intense and just how… wow… my workout experience was.I realize the rest of this “section” is going to be WAY boring for most of you and even maybe annoying and confusing, but I feel like droning on- so forgive me in advance.

I’ve always been very skeptical of all the weight training supplement “gunk-” and with good reason. A lot of stuff is full of sugar and calories and CRAP that you do not need at all. However, there definitely is good stuff on the market, but I’ve always just never really tried it because I figured what I was doing was good enough.

But then I started thinking- yes, what I’m doing is good, but if I’m serious about meeting my goals I really need to consider supplement options. There’s a reason why some of the most amazing fitness models look the way they do- they eat right, workout hard, and supplement (not to be confused with drugs or steroids!).

Anyway- so I asked around and looked online and it just so happened that a friend had a couple scoops left of the most highly rated all natural pre-workout mix on one of my most favorite fitness sites. So- I was game.

I took it yesterday about 20 minutes before my workout, and had literally one of the best workout experiences I’ve ever had. Yesterday was a leg day and before I knew it I had spent an hour and a half and felt like I was still on my first set. I really wanted to keep going but for the sake of time I had to move on so I ended with some light cardio. It was such an intense workout and even after all the sets I ripped off and the cardio, I was ready to freaking lift a Mini Cooper afterwards. Ha ha- okay now that does sound a little like one of those crazy muscle women sort of things to say. It would be about right -> ____________ there where I would tell you how you don’t have to worry, that I have no ambition of looking like that, but let’s face it- you all know me well enough by now to know that I love frosting enough for that to never, ever happen.

Anyway, pretty freaking amazing workout and I really think this will help me get past where I am right now, a little extra “oomph” to further my progress and where I want to be. It will definitely make my workouts more efficient that’s for sure! Today I did my upper body and used it again and noticed the same difference. I would continue onwward but I realize this is probably very boring.

So let’s move on, yes?

All in all it was a nice weekend, and it was my last weekend of freedom before heading back to school (ha- I thought I said we weren’t going to talk about that anymore!). Everything seems to circle back to school. Ugh- school.

I better get back to reading.

More to come. 

I start school today.

UGH.

The break was so so wonderful.

Remind me again why I’m willingly doing this?

Don’t bother. I have to go read now.

I posted my upper body workout a week ago, but I did a new lower body workout last week and thought I’d post that too. I created 4 weeks worth of new upper, lower, core, and cardio workouts and am going to do them in 2 or 3 week increments for the next few months. This is what I did last week and will be doing this week. When I created it I thought I might be going too easy on myself.

I was wrong.

It never ceases to surprise me how much simply changing things up can make such a difference. Give this workout a try this week:

3 Minutes of Front Lunges
3 Minutes of Back Lunges
Rest 1 Minute
15 Jump Squats
Sumo Deadlift (1 set)
Inner/Outer Thigh Machines (1 set each)
15 Jump Squats
Calf Raises w/Dumbbells (1 set)
Leg Press (1 set)

Repeat 2-3 times.

Stretch. You’ll be glad you did.

Here’s to a tight butt! 

Fluorescent lights should be banned.

They make things stark and raw and wrinkled and highlight all negatives and no positives.

What good are they!?

I know I’m tired. I know my eyes are droopy. I know my skin isn’t always perfect. Must the terrible lighting in my office remind me of such things!?

Seriously.

From now on I say we institute a soft lighting such as those at romantic restaurants. I’m sure in time our eyes will adjust to starting at computer screens in such dim lighting.

And even if they don’t?

Who cares! At least we’ll look fabulous.