Workin It

I can't really recall a time in my life where I was happy with my body.

2 years ago I did weight watchers and I lost some weight and I was pretty happy about that, but still very uncomfortable in my skin.

Lately, I have been pretty stressed at work and trying to balance home life (and as I wrote this, at 2pm on a Sunday I got a work call. See?) Wine didn't seem to be the healthiest way to deal with my anxiety...

I decided the first step was exercise and "me" time. Though pricey (in comparison to a regular gym), I joined a pilates studio less than a mile from my house.

Go visit the site here - Pure Body Studio

This is exactly what I needed. It's fun, it's different every single time I go in, and the classes are MAX 16, though that has only happened once so far.

Through Houston Mom's Blog, I entered to win a Passport with PeerFit and won! I never win anything!

I had already tried the ROW place with Tiffanie, and it kicked my butt. I grabbed my friend Lauren, who is also my right hand at work, and we hit Big Yoga as our first free class.

If you know me, I mean really know me, you will know I HATE being hot. Winter time is my comfort time because while everyone else is bitching and wearing fuzzy boots and hats, I am walking around in leggings and a sweater like HOLLA!!

When I walked in and the room was 90 degrees, I looked at Lauren like - great. I knew it was hot yoga but nothing prepared me for the wall of b-o-scented heat that would hit me when I walked in the room.

In the end, I enjoyed it, but was very hot for a few hours. My face stayed the color of a tomato for at least 3 hours!!

The next try is Pure Barre this coming Sunday. I am excited about this one because I can never attend the barre classes at Pure Body because they don't fall in a time slot I can hit. I have my sticky socks and am ready to go!

The next step in my journey here is to work on my eating. I eat like a boy. Cheeseburgers. Hot wings. Pasta Pasta Pasta.

I am considering My Fit Foods or Snap Kitchen for my work lunches, maybe a juice cleanse here and there, to get things kicked off. Lee and I are also about to join the YMCA so we can work out on weekends and Logan can run off some steam with other kids.

Lee and I also just joined Weight Watchers, so we can keep each other accountable and motivate one another.

I don't consider this a new years resolution, seeing that I started in November.

What are you doing to like your body and de-stress?

Also, I realize this post is directly after a post related to very unhealthy food. I see the irony, don't worry!

Updated Nostalgia

Back in college, I could barely boil water. My go-to meal when I was home was a totino's party pizza.

When Lee and I met, I started to cook a little more. Fancy nights were always Stouffers Lasagna and the garlic bread that comes in the foil (still the best!).

There was this one meal I can remember making for us that I thought was just the best thing ever. BBQ chicken and mac-n-cheese. I basically would throw chicken tenders in a glass dish with barbecue sauce and bake them until they were cooked. Finish it off with the Blue Box mac and woohoo!

Friday, the snowpacalypse hit Houston - so all schools were closed and we were stuck in the house. I set out at dinner time to make something hearty and warm. I had chicken breasts in the freezer and decided to try and upscale some of our nostalgia from college while warming our bones.

I started out they way every meal should:

Butter in a skillet...

Then I added some sliced onions

I let these get soft and a little brown and then removed them back to the cutting board.

My chicken breasts were massive so they were not 100% thawed. I threw them in the skillet to get them browned on the outside.

Since they were a little frozen I let them cook in the skillet a little longer to make sure they were thawed when I put them in the oven.

I basted them with a little barbecue sauce and put the onions back in the pan and put them in a 375 degree oven, with the goal of about 25 more minutes cook time.

Now, don't forget our mac-n-cheese.

I dug really deep to upscale this portion of the meal...

I mean - it's BETTER than the boxed kind...
My poor sauce pot has seen better days in the last 10 years, as you can see.

When the mac was about done, I checked on the chicken and added more sauce

It wasn't really bubbling for me so I upped to 425 for 10 minutes. That did the trick and allowed me to make a salad. I also put a little grated cheese on the macaroni and put a lid on it to melt.

In the end, my plate looked like this

It was a very filling meal that really hit the spot. Logan didn't want the chicken but he sure hoovered the noodles!

I did NOT like college, or Nacogdoches. But Lee and I often look back at our lives in our 500 square foot apartment and think of how much fun we had there.

Being Happy

Starting the day Logan was born, I changed.

Don't look at me like that, I am not going for the cliche here. I'm talking that I really changed.

While becoming a mother has something to do with it, it's not just that. Maybe I never fully got out of the PPD thing. Maybe I should be on meds again. Who knows. All I know is, I tend to lean towards the bitter and snappy side of things these days and I don't like that at all.

For now, I am doing my best to take the steps I need to get myself back on track again.

Step 1: Doing something that is good for me. I started Pilates at Pure Body Studio in November. I get an hour doing something that makes me happy and is good for my body and soul. I actually look forward to going back.

Step 2: Read more. I used to be a book hound but working 40+ hours a week and then being a wife and mother, reading just barely fits in. On top of reading for pleasure, I am also starting this book:

 I have read the first few chapters and I am ready to dig in like she did. In January she gets rid of mindless clutter, cleans out the closets, and makes sleep a priority. I can tell you right now, my sleep is all out of wack right now. I really need to stop at 9pm, crawl into bed, read for a little while, and then go on to sleep.

Step 3: Relax and just enjoy it! We took Logan to Preston's birthday party at Home Depot. Logan was a little all over the place but I decided to just go with it. We stopped and walked around the store so he could look at tools - more than once. In the end, we all had more fun than if I had tried to make the poor kid sit in his chair!

I'm still looking for ways to reduce my stress and learn to roll with things. One step at a time, right?

Holiday Recap

I do want to blog more often. It is in my 2014 Goals to "feed a hobby." I will try to be around more this year and do a better job at documenting our life!
The rest of our November was pretty eventful.
My little guy turned 3 on the 30th! We had his party a few weekends before that. We had scheduled it at a local park but the weather didn't cooperate so everyone ended up at our house.
It was a little much but everyone seemed to have a nice time!

 We finally conquered potty training, though we still have some accidents from time to time and he really isn't good at telling us when he needs to poop.
Not fun. Not fun at all.

 On his actual birthday we celebrated by going to see the zoo lights. Here is my favorite blurry shot and it's on my phone as my background too.

December came and went pretty quickly. I am knee deep in a very hectic project that consumes most of my days and dream-filled nights.
Logan really wanted to know all about Christmas this year and Santa. We had Mervin the elf, who helped us convince him to act nicer. On occasion.

 Lee's sister Laura came to town and Logan found a cheetah he liked at Whole Earth. When you have kids, you start this list of things you never thought you'd say...

"LOGAN! Don't ride the cheetah" is high up there.

Christmas day came and Santa brought a soccer goal and ball. He was also gifted a super hero costume so later on in the day I looked outside to this:

 One of my favorite things he got was headphones.

Finally, I don't have to listen to Dora!

He liked helping me open my presents. Especially the colander.

 Before Laura left town, Gail made sure we got a family photo:

 My days require a lot of coffee.....

 But I enjoy weekends where we play on the floor and look at the crabs

 Or play with the "wizerds."

I hope you all had a happy Holiday and more posts will come soon, especially with photos of my wild and crazy project!