It’s Tuesday!

That means it’s Tuesday Trainer day!!!

Later today, Lindsay will post another kick ass workout, so go check it out!

Meanwhile, I will be at work giving one of the biggest presentations of my life!!!!!!!!!! I talk a little bit about the project I’ve been working on for the past year here. Even though it has been such a great experience, and my team has been out of this world, I’m really excited for it to be over. It really has taken a lot of extra energy in addition to my regular job, and the next week is going to be crazy, so I’m glad I won’t have to worry about this presentation anymore after today.

Wish me luck! My team is hoping to “win” this morning so we will present again this afternoon to some of the upper-management personnel at the university. I’ll hopefully do a recap of it tonight or tomorrow.

Enjoy your Tuesday

Thankful

This Thanksgiving, I wanted to take some time to reflect on all that I have to be thankful for.

• My honey and our pup

There are no words to describe this type of pitiful...

• Our beautiful, warm, perfectly unfinished house

• My job

• My able body which allows me to work hard and stay healthy

• This beautiful place I get to call home

• My wonderful family (even though we live in four different states and don’t get to see each other often enough!)

• Having enough food to eat this holiday season, and being blessed enough to be able to give so others can eat. I was inspired by Mama Pea the other day and bought a box of food at the grocery store to donate to the local food bank. Best $5 I could have spent! You should do the same if you’re able!
• The blogging community- I have had such a great time these past 5 months learning from other bloggers, finding recipe inspiration, getting to know other bloggers, and being able to share my life and recipes with you all. Thanks for always stopping by to read and comment!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope your day is filled with lots of family, food, and laughter

Check back tomorrow for recipes from my first gluten-free Thanksgiving!

I heart mountains

The hike yesterday reconfirmed why I absolutely love living where I do.

My honey and I have been on numerous hikes all over our beautiful town, as well as other areas in Virginia. Each time we hike, I am amazed by how beautiful the mountains are. Especially at this time of year when the leaves are so gorgeous!

I took a few pictures out of the sunroof of the car as we were driving towards the trail. These three turned out amazing!!

We weren’t sure how Titan would do on the trail, so we stopped quite a few time. Mainly to take pictures of him!

We started on the trail with an older couple. They stayed ahead of us until we got up to Kennedy Peak.

My honey did what you always do in situations like this and asked if they were from around here. Turns out they live on the river where we did some waterskiing over the summer. They own a barn that has been transformed into a weekend lodge. We had heard about this barn and were really interested in seeing it. Luckily they invited us over to see it! So we followed them home to it and took a tour, which was awesome! I didn’t take my camera in, so no pics, but maybe if we stop by again to see them. They were so sweet for inviting us over to see it!

Anyways, up at Kennedy Peak is this little structure. There is an area to get in out of the elements and you could even set up your tent inside.

And lots of people have been here over the years, leaving their mark on it.

We also went up top to see the 360 view. It is incredible! Here are a few pics from up there and from right in front of the bottom part.

The river you see here is the Shenandoah.

The lighting on the hike down the mountain was absolutely stunning. I kept stopping to take pictures and ended up with a few good ones.

We were also very thankful for the couple we met on the trail because they took a new family picture for us! Titan looks great, but the sun was killing me and my honey, so we have sort of funny looks on our faces!

Not only was the hike great for us to spend so much time together (and get some exercise for Titan and ourselves), but it also took my mind off of my family….they are all in Cabo San Lucas right now! My honey couldn’t take time off from work and financially it just wouldn’t work for us right now, otherwise we would totally be there!!! The fam is staying at the resort where we went for our honeymoon. In talking to my honey about it, I mentioned that I could just picture myself laying in our little cabana area where we spent so much time…

I’m so sad I can’t be there because one: Cabo is absolutely gorgeous! And two: I wish I could be with my fam enjoying such an awesome vacation! Oh well, there will always be a next time!

Quick Sunday Recap

We had quite the eventful day today, but I’m super tuckered out from it, so I’m going to make this quick!

Thanks everyone for the well wishes for my honey! I greatly appreciate it He went to sleep at 9pm last night…then I remembered that I had to set the clocks back, so really he went to sleep at 8pm. He woke up at 8am this morning…he must have really been tired! Although he wasn’t feeling 100%, he said he was feeling better. I gave him more tea and more supplements to start the day.

I woke up at 5:30am to let Titan out and feed him. I decided to just stay up and get some stuff done around the house. Plus, I wanted to do a killer upper body workout, so I took advantage of the time alone. I did the following workout, which is a combo of a few Oxygen mag workouts.

• Bench Press 2×15
• Seated row 2×20
• Bent-over row 2×20
• Lat pulldown 2×12
• Good morning 2×15
• Arnold press 2×15
• Seated press 2×15
• Reverse curl 2×10
• Hammer curl 2×12
• Biceps curl 2×12
• Triceps kickback 2×12
• One-arm triceps extension 2×10
• Triceps pushdown 2×12
• Dumbbell pull and press 2×10
• Rear delt row 2×15
• Lateral raise to front pull 2×12
• Overhead dumbbell arc 2×12

It was awesome and I’m pretty sure I’m going to be feeling it tomorrow! I did an upper body workout on Friday, and although I hadn’t planned on doing another one today, I figured I might as well since it had been 48 hours since I did the last one. Plus, I wasn’t sure when I would have time to do such an intense workout again.

As I mentioned the other day, I set out a 5 day plan for my workouts. Today, I was supposed to go for an 8 mile hike with my honey. However, I sort of forgot that we had nursery duty at church at 11am. Because the hike is about an hour and a half away and would take approximately 5 hours to complete, there was no feasible way we could make it out there and back before it got too dark. So instead, we took our pup for a 4 mile hike closer to our house. This was the second time we’ve done that hike, but it was Titan’s first time!

I’d say someone was excited!!!

Actually, he wasn’t…he seemed so tired, but he surprised us all by making it the whole time and still had energy to spare at the end!

Before we headed home for the hike, we went out for pizza at a local restaurant that now serves gluten-free meals. I haven’t had pizza in quite some time, so I was excited to try it out. Check out what I got with the pizza.

My very own pizza slicer! The server even let me take it home with me! The pizza looks really appetizing doesn’t it? It was actually pretty good, but you could definitely tell that it was pre-made and frozen…oh well. At least I got some pizza!

Anyways, back to the hike. I took almost 300 pictures on our hike, so I am going to have to recap the whole thing tomorrow. But for now, I will leave you with my favorite picture from today.

How was your Sunday?

 

Crazy Week

Last week was one of those weeks where everything else is more important than blogging. I felt a little uninspired to post, but also, there were just so many things going on that it was impossible for me to spend time on here when other things were more pressing.

Let’s review, shall we?

I got to meet my new Goddaughter (and saw her three times last week!), I went to bed after midnight more than once, only made one new recipe, did an awesome newborn shoot with said Goddaughter (pics to come!), AND….

My honey and I got Smartphones!!!!

We discussed this decision the entire week…seriously, we talked about it every single night. I finally went to the store on Saturday and made the switch.

As I’ve mentioned before, we didn’t have cell phone service at our house or in our town. Recently, a Sprint tower went up and we now get good enough service at our house (not great, but it works) to justify switching carriers and getting Smartphones.

Sprint just got the iPhone and it seemed like destiny…until you figure in that you actually have to spend an extra $100 on top of the price of the phone for insurance. I want the phone, but gotta find the funds first!

Luckily, my honey visited a Sprint store and found out that a few in the area were offering some EVOs for FREE! Now that is a nice price We obviously couldn’t pass it up!

I’m loving my new phone, but I have a ton to learn about what all it can do. My fave thing is playing Words with Friends with my little brother Anyone know of any other good apps that I need to have??

I hope to have a few recipes for tomorrow and be back to regular blogging this week! I’ve missed catching up on all of your lives, but I’m scared to open my feedly to see how many posts I’ve missed…

Hope your Monday is off to a great start

A new baby and Tuesday Trainer

Yesterday, my good friends welcomed a new baby girl into the world! I was fortunate enough to go see them just a few hours after she was born and get some great pics.

My friend Amanda is only 4′ 9″ and this darling was nearly 9 pounds!!!

Such a sweetheart! I will definitely share more pictures in the upcoming weeks because we’re going to do a little photo shoot

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It’s Tuesday Trainer day! Don’t forget to check out this week’s workout- chest, shoulders, and triceps- over at Lindsay’s List!

Day off

I’m taking the day off tomorrow and couldn’t be more excited! Last week I spent most of Saturday at work, and then had to work late on Monday night. Luckily I get to take that extra time and make it into a whole day off.

My plan is to be in the kitchen as much as possible and to also work on my recipe page for the blog. I’ll be making a new cookie recipe tomorrow and will hopefully share it if it turns out okay!

I’ll also be making a dish for a big event on Saturday. My honey’s family has been doing an Apple Butter Festival for years and years. It is truly my favorite time of the year and when the weather is nice, it is my favorite day of the year

This is where it is held…my honey’s aunt and uncle’s farm about 10 miles down the road from us in our small town.

I can’t wait!

What I learned from my car accident

It’s been a little over two weeks now since I was in a car accident. My car is totaled, but I’m fortunate enough to have my little brother’s car to drive for awhile (plus, it has all sorts of amenities that mine didn’t! Like power locks, windows, and mirrors; cruise control, and a sunroof ).

In the two weeks since the accident happened, I’ve been thinking a lot about it and trying to make some sense of it. I learned a few things and I wanted to share a little about them because I think they are things that most people have to come to terms with at some point in their life.

1. I’m not invincible. I’ve gone through life without any major incidents. I’ve only had a few minor injuries from cheerleading and I had only ever been in minor car accidents or haven’t been the one driving when an accident occurred. Therefore, I truly thought I was invincible (especially in my car). I try to teach the college students I work with that they aren’t invincible (especially when it comes to drinking), but for some reason, I never took the advice myself. I always said to myself (usually subconsciously) “oh, that couldn’t/wouldn’t ever happen to me.” Not true! It doesn’t matter how careful I try to be when driving, you never know what could happen to you.

2. Expect the unexpected. I’ve always loved this saying, but I tend to forget about it until something unexpected does happen. We should be prepared for the unexpected things in life because you never know when they are coming. If we can’t truly be prepared, we should at least know that we aren’t in total control and all sorts of things can happen to us, especially when we least expect it.

3. It doesn’t matter how healthy I eat…I could die tomorrow. This one may sound controversial, but hear me out. I focus on eating a healthy diet 99% of the time. I do it because it makes me feel good. I feel more energetic, less crabby, happier, and overall just have a better outlook on life than when I eat unhealthy. I want to live to be 100, and I want to be a healthy 100 year old so I make sure I eat healthy and workout regularly. However, my accident really opened my eyes to see that I could easily be taken out of this world tomorrow by something other than my health. Does it mean I’m going to stop eating healthy? Absolutely not. But, it is going to make me that much more thankful for being alive and for the healthy food I have to eat every day.

4. I can’t control everything. I’ve mentioned before that I really like to plan. Part of it is so that I make sure I get stuff done, but the other part is being in control. I like to know what is going to happen next so I can be prepared for it. The accident happened so quickly, and I surely wasn’t expecting it, so there was no way for me to prepare and I couldn’t control a single bit of it. It taught me that as much as I might try to plan things out and be in control all the time, sometimes it just won’t go my way. I need to let go of the reins a little bit and be better about accepting the things that come my way that I didn’t plan for.

Have you ever been in an accident? What did you learn from it?

100th post

I can’t believe this is my 100th post!!

I started this blog nearly four months ago as a way to converse with other people who were interested in living a healthy lifestyle. And, as a place for me to share my recipes (and to keep them since I tend to make stuff and forget how I did it ).

I ended up getting so much more than that!

I’ve made friends I never would have met any other way. I have learned tons of new recipes and baking/cooking tips, plus great workouts too, from all of the awesome blogs out there that I never would have known about otherwise. I love reading your blogs and gleaning new things every day from how you live your life and the foods and workouts you try. Thank you for sharing your life through your blog and allowing me to get to know you that way.

I can’t thank you all enough for coming back every day and reading what I have to write and the crazy recipes I create. I also thank you so much for leaving comments and actually making this a two-way thing instead of just me posting and feeling like no one is out there. It really is the motivation to keep up the blog even when there are days I don’t feel like posting!

I’ve been a little busy the past few weeks, but I do have a few posts on the horizon: what I learned from my accident two weeks ago, a pulled pork recipe, a GF brownie recipe and another guest post from my brother!

PLUS, I’m going to be working on a recipe page which will be titled “eat healthy.” After 100 posts, I have way more recipes than I ever thought I could create, so I want to put them all in one place. Look for that soon!

It is a gorgeous fall day today and I’ll be outside enjoying it for most of the day! Even though this is an old photo, this is what it is starting to look like here I will definitely be sharing more photos like this soon!

Have a wonderful Saturday

7 things

I typically don’t share my day to day life because it isn’t all that exciting. I get up, let the dog out, maybe workout, make breakfast and pack lunches, then go to work. I come home, let the dog out, make dinner and do dishes. It’s really not much to write about…except for the recipes I make! So, it is much easier for me to post a recipe than it is for me to recap my day. Because of that, I find that I don’t actually share too much about myself here. Fortunately, I now have a reason to share!

A week or so ago, my dear friend Julie from Spinach and Sprinkles tagged me as a Blissful Blogger.

In return, I have to write 7 things about myself. This was tough since I feel like I’ve shared a lot of the interesting things about me and the rest of the crap I could share is kind of boring. Alas, I was able to find a few interesting tidbits.

1. I was the Prom Queen in high school. I was pretty miserable that night because of the 70+ bobby pins in my hair! My date (who was new to the school) was really sweet afterwards and told his mom “Guess who I took to the prom!” After her initial silence, she said “I’m pretty sure you took Kristin” to which he replied “I took the Prom Queen to prom!” with the biggest smile on his face. While we waited to get this picture taken, the Prom King told me that winning this made his life.

2. I use coconut oil or olive oil as my face moisturizer. I started out using the olive oil and really liked it. However, my skin is not what one would call clear. In reading about coconut oil, I found out that it is an anti-microbial and an anti-fungal. I thought maybe it could help clear up my skin a little bit, so I have just started using it in the past few days and am happy with it so far.

3. I was born in Milwaukee, WI. An extra fun fact: my parents’ house when I was born was the size of my porch. Seriously, we have a huge porch and they had a tiny house! I moved to Cincinnati when I was 6 and then moved back to Wisconsin when I was 10. I then moved to Virginia when I was 12 and have been here ever since (and definitely won’t live anywhere else!!)

4. I was captain of the cheerleading squad in high school. I cheered for five years and absolutely loved it. I was also a gymnast, so I would tumble at games when our team would score.

Not my best picture ever but for some reason I have always liked it.

5. I’m a huge introvert and need quiet time to recharge. Sometimes I’m very thankful for my 50 minute commute from work because I’m surround by people for most of the day. It is my time to just be and think about the day and the evening ahead. Sometimes I’ll even ride home with the radio off because I just need peace and quiet!

6. I forget how old I am at times. I was going to wait until my birthday in January to talk about my age, but I decided to just go for it. I’m not one of those people who is afraid to get older. As long as I’m feeling good, I don’t care how old I am. I always thought it was weird when people said they couldn’t remember how old they were, but now I’m one of those people! When my little brother turned 25 back in March, I had a hard time believing that’s how old he was since I was 100% certain that’s how old I was! How could he be 25 if I’m 25?? Also, on a few surveys I’ve taken online and I’ve had to put in my age, I have literally selected 24 or 25 and thought I was right. It took me a few minutes to realize that I was actually 27…here’s to hoping my memory stops fading!!

7. I had a vision of my honey before I met him. When I was a senior in college, I was thinking about what type of guy I would end up with. After dating a few guys who all were fairly similar, I had this vision of a tall, athletic (read: skinny ), blue eyed, brown haired guy. I pictured him in my head along with distinct features such as the way he stood and the look on his face. It was months later after I actually met my honey that I remembered this vision. Kind of weird, huh?

So there’s seven things about me that you probably didn’t know! I hope you enjoyed this little peak into my life

I’m supposed to tag a few other bloggers to do this as well, so here they are:

Lindsay of Lindsay’s List

Mindy of Finding Time to Breathe

The girls at Naturally Sweet Recipes

Katie of Peace, Love and Oats

Amy of Nutrition by Nature

Tell me something about you that I don’t know.