Monday, October 27, 2014

Monday Miscellany

Happy Monday! Hope you're enjoying this last week before the time change. I'm sort of dreading it, because I love our evening walks so much. Terry usually gets home from work between 5 and 6, so those walks will need to shift around a bit. No way am I walking with a baby in the dark around here--the speed limits near our place are way too high for that.

Still, we plan to get creative with our workouts to stay in shape for the winter. Here's what we did at my parents' place over the weekend (we visited them in Palm Desert, so the problem there was that it was too hot outside--over 90 degrees one day!):



*Notes:
  • (3-2-1) Squat: Lower down in three increments, then stand up in one count.
  • Squat (3-2-1): Lower down to a squat in one count, then stand up using three counts.
  • We rested at least a minute between sets. 
We're definitely still feeling that one three days later. We also did a quick and fun family workout, and my parents even joined. Every minute on the minute for 20 minutes, we did 5 push ups (100 total). (We agreed we could do any style of push up we wanted, so tricep, incline, wide-arm, clapping, etc.) It wasn't too crazy challenging, but I am surprisingly sore today! My core and chest are really feeling it. I liked the workout because after the 5 push ups we had a lot of time left to rest, so we all scattered after each round: Dad played with Marshall, Mom cooked breakfast, Terry and I packed. I need to do more workouts like this on busy days. Think of the possibilities! EMOM burpees might me in my future...

I'll share more about our little getaway later this week, but it was lovely. Now we're glad to be back home and not planning on going anywhere (unless I'm forgetting something, which is more than likely) until close to Christmas. But can you believe how soon that is? Less than two months away already! Yikes! Sadly, a lot of our Christmas decorations are up in northern California in a storage unit, and I don't know how feasible it is that we'll procure them before the season begins, so it might be a bit of a lighter Christmas around here. Either that or I'll suddenly feel the need to make our apartment into a Winter Wonderland for Marshall's first Christmas, and HomeGoods won't know what hit it.

Speaking of decorations, my brother is ridiculous with his, even for Halloween:



Crazy, right? Children on his street are going to have nightmares for sure.

Tonight when Terry came home from work I mentioned that I needed a few items from the store, so we all walked down to Trader Joe's. I made one of our new favorite super easy dinners, Nutty Noodles from Kath Eats Real Food. I had two bell peppers on hand (thanks, Mom!), and I was able to prep the peanut sauce and the peppers before Terry got home from work. We even ended up eating dinner before Marshall went to bed! I can't remember the last time that happened.


We drank sparkling wine with it. Why not? There's always something to celebrate.


While Terry put the kiddo to bed, I whipped up a batch of my favorite brownies and also decided it was a good idea to make some homemade whipped cream. I didn't even have any berries on hand, so I can't begin to pretend this dessert was anything but an indulgence. But it was awesome. Perfect for a Monday night. Or any night.


And on the other side of the health coin, have you heard about the gallon of water a day challenge? I saw it on Facebook a while back and, while I didn't participate in the actual 30-day challenge, I started upping my water intake. I love drinking from my 32-ounce Nalgene bottle, and I really do drink a lot (especially while I feed Marshall), but some days it's easy to just forget or not drink enough. I try to push myself to drink one full bottle by 10 am, 2 pm, 6 pm, and 10 pm. That's about 8 ounces per hour, which is totally doable. I really feel a lot better on days I drink a lot (of water). Maybe this will help make up for the lack of sleep to which I am probably permanently doomed.

What's your favorite indulgent dessert?

Do you go all out with holiday decorations or keep it simple?

How do you encourage yourself to drink more water?

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