Everything Changes

So it has only been half a year since I posted so I figure it is time for an update. I am now a mother to THREE wonderful little boys and my little family is complete. I forgot how exhausting those first few weeks can be-especially with a baby that was only sleeping when held. Thankfully we have worked through the kinks and we seem to be getting to more of a schedule. This means that I should be able to start incorporating some workout time while the baby take his long nap. Speaking of the little bundle...

Cyver Matthew Born April 21st-my lightest boy at only 8lbs 7ozs and longest at 21 3/4 inches long

My three sons :o)

So sweet

Now the real challenge for me begins-NOT gaining 50 pounds while nursing him. So far I am up 10 so I really need to get to work! I am looking forward to getting in some Wii Fit time-I have been trying to up my fruit and veggie intake but my pocketbook feels the pinch. Thankfully, we chose to start a garden this summer and some of the veggies were ready to be picked today. I popped a couple pea pods and snapped some green beans-it made me feel like a kid back in the large garden we had on our small farm. Camden even enjoyed the peas...I think the beans were iffy though as he didn't want another piece when I offered it to him.
I am ready to start setting small goals and then move on to bigger ones.
Goal for tomorrow: Play 30 minutes of Wii fit or Just Dance (I want to start easy)

An Organized Life!

I spent a good chunk of my day yesterday creating a home management binder to help myself and my family be more organized. I modeled it after some that I had seen used by a couple bloggers that I follow (Money Saving Mom and Motherhood on a Dime). I used some things I liked and modified some others-the thing I really liked about creating my own was that I got to put in everything that I wanted (and I enjoyed a little graphic design time!). It is now fit just for my family-the photos I am posting are actually modified versions (I removed personal info) and they are all designed to be printed and inserted into a binder (complete with room in the margin to three hole punch). I can only post the entire PDF documents on this blog if I upload them and link them so I am just posting a few pics to give you an idea of what it is like!

Above is the cover-this PDF document is just the cover and dividers for each section.

This document is just a two page spread that shows each week in a bit more detail. 

I designed the margins so that my binder will sit open showing the whole week all at once.

New week? Just print another!

Fill the month in at the top then write the dates in the little circles.

The bottom lines are for tasks or reminders that occur on a daily basis. 

Mine are typed in and all the same.

This is part of the bulk of the binder-yearly planning!

This is what the calendar looks like. 

There is a page for every month-it is a nice way to write things down so you don't forget something that you planned or paid for a few months in advance.

 It is also a place where you can track pay days etc.

Goals are a great way to stay organized! 

I have a page for financial, family, organizational, and personal (one page for each person in the house) goals.

There is another page for monthly and yearly chores as well.

That about sums it up! I am going to print all the pages on white card stock except for the week by week which I will print onto regular paper because I will need 2 pages for each week! If you would like to make your own Microsoft Publisher was a HUGE help (the calendars were super easy!). I would also be happy to share the PDF files with friends-just let me know. I hope you find this post helpful and inspirational to get you off to an organized start to the new year.

Winter Update

Since it has been a while (oh say since the beginning of the school year and tomorrow starts the beginning of the second half of the school year!) since I last posted I thought it might be time for a bit of an update.
My summer fitness plan and goals were pretty much ruined by a bum foot. It started with problems with a cyst on my joint at the end of last school year and bloomed into tendonitis on the outside of my right foot. It was incredibly painful but, thanks to some help from my foot doctor, new tennis shoes (that I now have to wear all the time bleh!), inserts, tape, ice, and a wedge for my shoe, my foot is now feeling much better!
I did however still participate in the Susan G. Komen 5K in September-it was a wonderful experience with both of my boys along for the trip. We walked pretty much the entire thing and finished in about 54 minutes. I was able to raise $250 for the cause along the way.

Race Day

I am very happy that my foot is better because I need two good feet to carry around the little baby in my belly! I was actually pregnant at the time of my last post (barely) and I am due at the end of April. This will of course be a big fitness challenge for me to face as pregnancy weight is usually not an issue for me but I gained about 50 pounds with both my boys while I was breastfeeding them. I am hoping to keep that better under control with baby number three but only time will tell. It will be a big challenge! I am hoping that with a bit more planning and preparation for my household (with menu plans and such) I will be able to keep myself on track.
I will be creating another post shortly with my home management binder pages that I created yesterday to get myself organized for 2013 and a family of FIVE! Best wishes to all in the new year!

My baby belly at 3 months

A Busy July

So I feel like I have (once again) fallen off the fitness wagon. I am still riding my bike a few days a week but I need to really step things up! July was a crazy busy month that seemed to throw everything for a loop. We went camping, it was hotter than hell, we had a rummage sale, and I had a mini vacation to plan. I also had some lovely outings with friends. Also, as July hits the beginning of the school year looms in the not so distant future and beckons me to return to my classroom to prep for the start of another year. This is of course when the real challenges begin-if I am going to have any level of commitment to this, I am going to need to get my butt in gear so that I am motivated to continue during the school year. With all that said...this post is going to be about my summer in review-it has been an absolutely amazing one!

We ate some ice cream on occasion!

 Camden got his first buzz cut after his wild mane could no longer be tamed!

 We spent more time at the outdoor pool than ever before-it was a HOT summer so it worked out well.

 I experimented with some healthy recipes and found one heck of a great one!

 The boys enjoyed their new outdoor table-it has been great for play and picnics!

 Cohan saved up for an iPod touch

 The boys learned to play together with less fighting!

 We cleared the clutter (and made a little money) with our rummage sale

 We got silly

 We challenged gravity

 We played with friends

 I gained a quite place to be crafty

 The boys merged into one happy toy-filled room

We hit the road and Matt and I experienced seeing one of the Great Lakes for the very first time together

 We relaxed and enjoyed some peaceful time together

 We saw a friend enter into a new, wonderful walk of life-MARRIAGE! Congrats Jay and Andrea!

 We ate some sweet treats

That about sums it up! We will still have some fall fun but the summer fun is almost done!

Getting back into the swing of things

I completed day 5 of Couch to 5k a week ago but was so busy prepping for our family camping trip that I didn't have a chance to write about it. I did better on the second day of week 2 than I did on the first...the increased jogging is still going to take some getting used to but overall it went pretty well. At one point I stopped jogging just a few seconds early to get a drink...partly because I wanted to stop jogging and partly because I was thirsty...I knew that my jogging had to be just about over ;o)
Depending on how today goes for day 6 I may repeat week 2 as I am not sure I am ready to step things up to week 3 after a week off. I had planned to do at least one day of training during our camping trip but the weather was not in my favor-every day it was 100+ with temps not even dropping below 80 in the evening/morning add some humidity to that it was great swimming weather but terrible running weather. I did swim quite a but so I wasn't without some activity while in vacation. I also had some fun on the jumping pillow which is quite a fun workout but rough on the knees. The teeter-totter led me to tweak my ankle a bit but it is feeling better now.
I went on my usual morning ride and was able to enjoy a beautiful sunrise:

On a different note-I ordered myself a  Wii Fit Balance Board on ebay for $51. I got it in the mail last Monday and as a family we have discovered that it is quite fun! There are many different activities and games to choose from. While I purchased it for myself, it has been a big hit for the whole family-even Camden found a game that he can play by himself. My Wii Fit age came out at 31 (only 1 1/2 years older than I actually am). I am looking forward to having one more tool to help me along the way!

Couch to 5k Day 4

Yesterday I started week 2 of Couch to 5k. The jogging was upped to 1 1/2 minutes and boy could I tell the difference! I have to say I had a much harder time keeping myself going but I am happy to say that I DID complete it! More than once I thought to myself-there is no way that I can keep jogging...it just isn't going to happen. Then a LOUDER voice chimed in and said-it isn't that much farther! YOU CAN DO IT! I am a bit amazed by myself because I completed the day successfully. I thought for sure that I was going to give in and walk a bit when I was supposed to be jogging. Part of what kept me going was the fact that I didn't want to come back here and write about how I didn't completely finish day 1 of week 2. I hope that Friday feels a bit easier now that I got the first day of transition out of the way!
Today's ride wasn't too eventful. Matt also got out and went for a ride after I got back. I didn't ride across the bridge today because I was feeling a bit tired (darn work) but Matt did and he told me that you can't exit the top of the bridge on the Yankton side-something that is always good to know. It ended with him going across the bridge twice LOL. I did see a possum on my way home today. It ran off into the tall grass after waddling down the path a bit.
It was too cloudy in the west for there to be much of a sunrise although I did snap one picture of a neat little break in the clouds. It is on my camera rather than my phone so I will have to wait a bit to upload it.

Heat, Fish, Bugs, and Cucumber Salad

It is going to be a blazin' hot day today. It was nearly 76 degrees when I went for my ride this morning and that does not include the humidity. The bugs were out like crazy this morning but the beautiful sunrise made up for it. A cool thing about it being such a buggy morning-there were tons of fish sitting at the surface of the river! As I rode along the trail and into the park I saw ans heard the fish splashing every few feet. Sometimes they were hanging out in little lines just waiting and other times they were all spread out. I wish that I could have gotten a picture of one of the fish jumping up to nab a bug but I guess you just had to be there.

You can see the splash of the fish going under. Also, if you enlarge the pic and look carefully you can see all the little places where there are fish just under the surface-there are quite a few in the upper right corner.

As I mentioned earlier, the sunrise was very beautiful today. The sky was filled with pinks and purples (which you can see reflected in the water above. I had to keep stopping along the way and snapping pictures. 

It was such a great morning to be outside. What I really need to do it bring my actual camera instead of my phone and maybe I can take some pictures that I can hang up in my house as art :o) These picture really only have resolution to be printed up to 8x10.

Last night I read my latest issue of Women's Health magazine and I was happy to see a nice little article about tips for women cycling. I was also happy to read that I already do many of the things suggested-I have my seat and handle bars in the correct positions and I have a wider seat. I have to say that I didn't really learn much from the article other than the fact that I am doing many things correctly but I enjoyed it just the same.

One thing that I mentioned that I still need to work on is food-I am still working on this! I did find a great recipe for one of my favorite things that it worth a share. I love cucumber salad! It is cool and refreshing and the perfect summer snack. I had never actually made it myself before a couple weeks ago-after discovering how easy it is I am kinda kicking myself for not doing it sooner! The version that I made is only worth 2 Weight Watchers points for the ENTIRE BATCH! I could eat the whole thing in one sitting but I usually try to save some for the nice people that I live with :o) I adapted this recipe from a recipe that I read on Allrecipes.com

Cucumber Salad

3 cucumbers peeled and thinly sliced

half an onion thinly sliced (or more or less depending on your level of love for onions)

salt

1tbs vinegar

1tsp sugar

1/4-1/3 cup of non fat Greek yogurt (depending on how big your cucumbers are)

1tbs olive oil mayo (pretty much the only kind we use)

some dill weed to taste

Salt the cucumbers and let them drain for at least 30 minutes (putting them in a container to drain over night in the fridge works too. Mix everything else together then add the cucumbers and enjoy! I usually put it in a bowl that seals up nice and tight so that I can just shake it all around to evenly coat everything-it is much easier and quicker than trying to stir it all up.

Today starts week 2 of Couch to 5k and, as I said before, I plan to run over lunch so that I can fit it in even though I have to work. I will share more about how that goes later today.

More pictures from this morning: