Back to Running and Treadmill Bingo

November 30, 2018November 27, 2018 / Amy / 2 Comments

I recently mentioned that I need to procrastinate more effectively, and I’ve been doing better at that! I read a book, Wonder, and started two others. And, I’m almost completely done with Holiday shopping (!!!). I’ve also been attempting to post more often.

And, last but not least, I started running again! I thought my first post baby run was going to feel momentous (it did after Mr. Toddler) and also terrible. But turns out it was pretty uneventful. I walked to warm up, then ran until I felt uncomfortable, then walked, then repeated until I hit 30 minutes. I read while running, which was the best part I think. Overall I feel pretty ‘meh’ about the whole running thing right now.

Where are my sneakers??

That is, until I came up with the idea for TREADMILL BINGO!!

As part of my procrastinate better resolution, I created this totally awesome Bingo board with 24 different runs and a free space. When I get Bingo, I get a reward! (Yes, I am a child.)

Rewards:

First Horizontal Line – Starbucks drink
First Vertical Line – Starbucks drink
First Diagonal Line – Starbucks drink
Four Corners – Starbucks drink and Breakfast Sandwich
X – Starbucks drink and Breakfast Sandwich
Full Card – New Running Apparel!

Rules:

I have two months: December and January
Only one space can be marked off per run
To complete any “wear X, Y, Z” space, normal running shoes are allowed
I cannot purchase Starbucks for any other reason (However, I can use rewards to get free drinks)

Pretty, simple, right? Feel free to join me! (Please join me, it will be so fun!!) And if you do, feel free to make modifications to the Bingo card.

Flashback Friday:

Check out this post from November 30th, 2013 (5 years ago!) 2013 Holiday Running Streak – Day 3

I Need to Procrastinate Better

November 12, 2018 / Amy / 4 Comments

After my last post, I honestly thought I was going to be able to get back into the blogging habit…wrong again! I’m not sure why, but I’m eternally hopeful that I’ll start posting regularly again. I really enjoyed having the blog back when I was posting often, so that has motivated me to keep it and to keep trying to get back to it.

The same goes for running. It’s been quite a while since I’ve run consistently, (or at all) but I enjoyed it so much when I did that I am confident I’ll get back into it again. A lot of my hobbies are like this right now, actually: reading, knitting, playing board games. Honestly, a lot of this stuff took a backseat when Mr. Toddler was born. I’ll pick something up again from time to time and then drop it again. Right now, I’m in the habit of mindlessly scrolling my phone and binge watching TV when I have a free minute. I’m either exhausted or literally have only a couple minutes free. It’s hard to get into a book if you can’t even read an entire paragraph in a sitting. It’s hard not to screw up a knitting project when you have to stop in the middle of a row. And, it’s tough to get anywhere with running if you barely have time to lace up your shoes (or find them…it’s been THAT long)….you get the idea.

BUT I’d say that my main problem is that the times that I feel like doing any of these things rarely line up with when I have the time to do them. And there really is nothing I can do about that. What I NEED to do is make more of an effort to do something when I don’t feel like it, and just trust that I’ll enjoy it.

I also have the issue that I have so many things that I SHOULD be doing that I feel like I can’t pick up a book or project. However it’s easy to procrastinate doing something I should with an episode of something on Netflix. Then I end up not doing an activity I enjoy but also not getting X, Y, or Z done. It makes NO SENSE! I really should procrastinate more efficiently. 🙂

Miss Newborn is stirring now, and I’m working on borrowed time, so I guess I better wrap this up. I know that if I try to save it and come back, I’ll hate everything I’ve written and delete it.

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Catching up again…again

August 27, 2018August 25, 2018 / Amy / 2 Comments

It’s been 5 months since I last posted. (Yikes!) It has also been that long since I have run. (Double yikes!)

So, let’s get caught up, shall we?

In March I was starting a couch to 5k program to get back in the groove of things, but that got bumped fairly quickly as I started devoting more time to studying for the exam I took in April. Progress on the couch to 5k plan was already fairly sluggish, so it wasn’t hard to drop it all together.

At the time I was also feeling pretty exhausted ALL THE TIME, because (surprise!) I’m pregnant with baby #2 and that was the first trimester. So, I traded running for an 8:30pm bedtime or relaxing on the couch.

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By the time I started regaining energy, I was in super study mode and it was also quarter end; making for a very hectic time at work. April passed in a blur. I never started up running again since it just wasn’t at all appealing to me. Currently, I can’t wait to get back to it; but it’ll be a couple months before that’s a possibility.

We travelled in May for my niece’s birthday, which was a blast, and then also took some time off to get potty training started (this was very decidedly NOT a blast). We’ve celebrated several birthdays over the summer— still actually have some decorations up in our house that went up in June and were last applicable about a month ago. They are part of our décor now. 🙂

On the exam front, I found out that I failed (sigh) the April exam – for the 3^rd time. And made the depressing decision to start studying for the October sitting. I’m not enthusiastic about studying/sitting for an exam with a newborn, but I think this was the right choice. Time will tell.

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At the beginning of August, I rotated to a new position at work (!!!). I’m still settling in, but so far I’m enjoying it. It is not the best timing with maternity leave right around the corner, but as far as deadlines go, I think things should work out just fine. And no more quarter end work…huzzah!!!

So, that’s been the last 5 months around here – work, study, play, grow a baby 🙂

Monday in the Life – Part 2

January 9, 2018January 6, 2018 / Amy / 1 Comment

~Yesterday was Part 1, but in case you missed it…this is from way back on March 13th, 2017~

12:30 – Now that I’m a little hungrier, I grab my lunch, computer, and study materials and head to the room I’ve booked for a productive lunch hour. Unfortunately, there’s someone in there. (This is one of my biggest pet peeves, and I get unreasonably furious every time it happens). I don’t want to kick the woman out of the room because she’s on the phone, so I find another open room. I end up reading advice columns all lunch hour instead of studying (oops!)

1:30 PM – I head back to my desk to find that I’ve been invited to a 3PM meeting and have an email requesting I do some research to figure out why some numbers are looking different than we expected. Before I get started on this request, I want to finish what I was working on in the morning, but I get sidetracked when my coworker who sent the request starts talking to me about it.

By 2:15 PM I finally escape the work talk and decide it’s time for some coffee. In the kitchen I run into a coworker I haven’t seen for a while and we chat a bit. Then on the way back to my desk, I stop and talk to my manager about time I’m hoping to take off the next week.

2:45 PM – After over an hour of distractions, I am able to get back to what I was working on in the morning. I decide not to go to the 3 PM meeting, and instead finish up what I’m working on and then begin the analysis I was emailed about. Unfortunately, I barely get started on that when my manager comes over with a more pressing request. I switch over and review a file he created so he can send it out today.

Suddenly, it’s 4:00 PM and I wrap up my review and send one last email before shutting down my computer and heading out for the day. I listen to the radio on my way to pick up Mr. Baby from daycare. Traffic is wonderfully calm again (Mondays for the win!), so it’s a quick trip.

I arrive at daycare at 4:35 PM. When Mr. Baby sees me and gets all excited at pick up, it’s one of the best parts of the day.

5:00 PM – Mr. Baby and I arrive home. Jeff meets us at the door to help bring everything in the house. A lot of days MB falls asleep on the ride home, but he’s awake today, so we play on the floor while Jeff makes dinner “for the grown-ups”.

By 5:30 PM we shit down to to eat (sausages and potatoes) while MB plays in his saucer (this is not always guaranteed), and once we finish it’s his dinner time. He gets a bottle and 4 tablespoons of food (today it’s oatmeal with banana and yogurt). Once he’s done eating we head upstairs to get him ready for bed. Tonight is not bath night, so it’s a quick change into a night diaper and some PJs, and then we read a bit.

Mr. Baby falls asleep early (the time change?) at 6:45 PM, and I head downstairs to relax a bit. I watch some TV and play around on my phone until 7:30, at which point I manage to transfer my Netflix watching from the TV to my tablet for a 3.5 mile run on the treadmill. I’m not sure I would have run if I couldn’t watch TV while doing so…actually, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have.

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At 8:30 PM, I hit the showers, then eat some dessert while (you guessed it) watching a little more TV before heading up to bed.

At 9:20 PM I get ready for bed and finally….sleep!

Phew! Writing it all down made my day seem really full! I loved keeping track of myself and then writing it all out. And it was super interesting reading it over almost a year later. Keep an eye out for “Tuesday in the Life” one of these days. And please consider doing a day in the life post yourself because I LOVE reading them.

Monday in the Life

January 8, 2018January 6, 2018 / Amy / 1 Comment

I love reading day in the life posts and have been wanting to do one myself for years! Finally, I remembered to keep track of myself for an entire day, and this post is the result. Because I am a huge blog slacker this day was actually March 13^th, 2017 and it has taken me eons to get it posted.

5:25 AM – First Alarm goes off. Ten minutes later I manage to get myself out of bed. I wash up, then head downstairs. I pack my bag for work and Mr. Baby’s bag for daycare, and grab his morning bottle. Then I head back upstairs to make the bed and get dressed for work.

6:00 AM – I wake up Mr. Baby. Most days he’s already awake and I get him up and feed him before I get dressed, but on days he’s still asleep I wake him up by 6. Today was the day after the time change, so I wasn’t surprised he was still sleeping, and it took a little “prodding” to get him up. I play around on my phone a bit while giving him his bottle.

By 6:15 I pass him off to Jeff and gather my things to head out the door. If I get on the road early enough, I can avoid a lot of traffic. I attempt to call my sister on my drive, but it looks like she hasn’t left for work yet so I listen to the radio instead.

Traffic was miraculously clear this morning; this sometimes happens on Mondays, so I get to work at 6:45 AM, earlier than usual. I take advantage of this by playing around on my phone for 5 minutes before heading to my desk. I dump my stuff at my desk, put my lunch in the fridge, and boot up my computer before heading to the kitchen to make breakfast (a giant English muffin with butter and jam).

7:10 AM – I have camped out in an office to get some of my study hours in in the morning because I won’t be able to take a full day of study hours this week. I alternate eating and studying, and I read some blogs between practice problems and lessons.

At 9:00 AM I head back to my desk to get the workday started. The first 8 business days of the month are always really busy for me; since today is day 9 things have calmed down a bit and I’m able to ease into the day. I read emails, make a cup of tea, and place my CSA order for the week. I also sign up for the next session of the CSA.

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By 10:00 AM, I’m finally ready to really get down to business. Today I’m working on pulling together financial information for a monthly meeting. I don’t present or even attend this meeting, but I gather a lot of information for it and set up a draft of the PowerPoint slides. The numbers are already crunched at this point, it’s just a matter of pulling them together and organizing, so I listen to an audiobook (Harry Potter 7) for the formatting part of the task. And I have a second cup of tea.

11:45 AM – I can’t believe how fast the morning goes when I study for 2 hours. I’m not even close to hungry yet given the giant English muffin I ate for breakfast, so I decide to push back my lunch by a half hour. I book a room for 12:30 so I can get some studying done during lunch, and then get back to work for a little while.

— To Be Continued! I was VERY detailed in my Day in the Life notes, so this is getting excessively long. Part 2 will be up tomorrow.—

3 Things

January 3, 2018 / Amy / 4 Comments

Hi again!
I mentioned in my last post that getting back to blogging was one of my 2018 resolutions, but really the bigger resolution is to do my “hobbies”. There are a lot of little things I enjoy that instead of doing I often just read stuff on my phone, so in 2018 I’m going to try and do those things more often.

Some of them (like coloring in my adult coloring book) don’t necessarily need to turn into habits, but some of them (like meditating) I’d like to start doing routinely. My plan is to focus on one of these hobbies each month; January is (you guessed it) blogging. I’m hoping to make blogging a habit and I’m hoping that it will keep me accountable when I move onto some of the other things on my list.

The hobbies list:

Knitting
Reading
Blogging
Coloring/Other Crafts
Meditating
Running (not sure this should be called a hobby)
Painting my nails
Playing Board Games
Playing Video Games

I’ve already started doing some of these things more often because I’ve been thinking about this, but I’m really going to try and focus on the blog this month, and not worry about making habits out of any other things on the list. Except maybe running.

I also have some more “boring” resolutions related to cooking and cleaning and work. Meal planning/prepping is THE BIG ONE for 2018 for me/my husband. In addition to blogging, that is going to be a big focus in January. And lastly, I want to finish the last online course I need to take (Macroeconomics) in January.

Meal planning, blogging, Macroeconomics. It’s only 3 things. I can totally do this.

Last Week Running: 1st Edition

June 24, 2017June 23, 2017 / Amy / 2 Comments

In an effort to make my “week in review” posts a little more timely, I’m going to try something new by switching up the order! It seems like most running blogs I read have a standard formula of posting a workout review on Monday and some kind of brain dump on Friday. While I know this isn’t mandatory, it is nice to have some kind of schedule/direction, and Monday certainly feels like a good “recap” day.

Unfortunately, I just can’t maintain this schedule. Actually, I can’t really seem to maintain any type of blogging schedule. All I know is that I WANT to blog, the what/when/how isn’t really quite as clear. I also think it would be nice if I wasn’t posting weekly recaps that are more than a month old, but that might be setting the bar too high.

I’m hoping that by freeing myself from the idea of “mandatory Monday”, I’ll have an easier time. Now, with no further ado…The 1st Edition of “Last Week Running”

Saturday – I ran a 5k! (Recap coming soon!) It was my first road race in a while, and it was a pretty good time. After the race, we had my in-laws over for lunch to celebrate Father’s day. That was also a pretty good time with some delicious bagels and Buffalo Wing Doritos. These were the last “events” in a very busy month, and after our guests left I was pretty happy to have the rest of the weekend to relax.

Sunday – We woke up with no plans and no guests, so since the weather was nice, we went for a family run. My legs were pretty sore so we took plenty of walk breaks! We ran to the playground at the local elementary school and took Mr. Baby out of the jogger to play for a bit. The playground is a bit old for him, but he enjoyed a “controlled” ride down the slide and some swinging on my lap. It was a great way to break up the run, but we should have brought water or gatorade…next time!

Monday – I decided to skip my run because my legs were still sore from Saturday. Originally, I was going to push the run to Tuesday, but then I just skipped it.

Thursday – Speed Work, Week 2! I increased to 5x400m (well, .25 mi). My plan (that I made up) is to increase to 8 intervals and then start over at 4, at a faster speed. Right now my speed is 10 min/mile. This is much slower than I’ve ever run intervals before, but my other runs are all at the 11 – 12 min/mile range, so I don’t think it’s an unreasonable place to start.

Step Goal Progress: My goal is currently 8,000 steps and I’m increasing by 1,000 every time I manage to hit my goal every day for a full week. As I write this on Friday night, it’s the last day I need to hit 8,000 before moving up!

Bunny seen on my walk

Study Goals: I’m on a 3 week studying “break” and it NEEDS to end.

Around the House: After living here for 2 years, I’ve finally set up the record player! We organized the basement which included setting up our old video game systems and the record player. I also set up a puzzle at the card table. It’s a fun place to hang out these days.

Fun Fact: A lot of people work from home on Fridays in my office, so each Friday my team tries to guess how many people that work in our area will show up. I have gotten it exactly right two weeks in a row! 🙂

Now this week:

Running: Easy Run, 5 mile long run, Stroller run, 6x400s
Studying: GET IT TOGETHER!
Around the House: Organize my clothes
Step Goals: Move it up to 9000
Food Stuff: Don’t eat like crap, make banana muffins and bbq chicken chili

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In like a Lion…

March 16, 2017March 15, 2017 / Amy / 2 Comments

I decided this morning that I am going to start using my lunch hour to write blog posts. At least some lunch hours. I haven’t been terribly successful at blogging in the evenings; most likely due to my intense desire to do basically nothing after Mr. Baby goes to bed, so I need a better time for the writing. (Currently, I attempt to use my lunch hour to study, so that’s a small hiccup in my plan, but let’s not worry about that just yet. ) So, in any case, here I am in Collaboration Room 3, eating my chili mac, and trying to figure out how to transition from this unimportant and unexciting announcement to whatever this blog post is actually going to be about. Which I think is going to be me whining about how snow days aren’t fun anymore.

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Sadly, it’s true. The magic and fun of snow days is officially gone. (Spoiler Alert: I have a plan to bring it back, so stay tuned). Yesterday was particularly unmagical because the task I was doing was not well suited to remote work. I had to open up 4 files for each month going back to January 2016 and paste data from each of those file (56 files, I think. Whatever 4 times 14 is) into a new file I was creating. And over the remote connection it took way longer to open each of them than it should have. And then excel kept crashing, and it was just really frustrating, and hard to get anything done. At one point I had finally made a good amount of progress and excel crashed and I hadn’t saved in over 45 minutes, so that was really disappointing.

“But wait!” you say, “At least you could work in your PJs! From the couch! Maybe even watch a little TV!” And you have a point. But realistically, I was mainly sitting on the floor, near the couch, “throwing” toys at Mr. Baby to keep him occupied while my computer took an eternity to open my files. Add that all up and I end up feeling like I didn’t get anything done (although in the end I did finish gathering data, it just took forever) while also feeling like I ignored Mr. Baby all day (which is also ridiculous and untrue).

Really, the day was not by any means a failure. And the way I feel about how it went is way more dramatic and harsh than reality calls for. It’s just. Well, I just wish snow days could be more fun. More like they used to be. I never even got to go outside in the snow, what the heck?!

So, now what?

Well, I am apparently a drama queen who throws even the slightest wrinkle in my plans why out of proportion. And I am also a bit of a whiny child who wants my snow days to be actual days OFF. BUT I am not the kind of person who just complains and doesn’t try to come up with a solution for next time. So even though it’s March and it’s unlikely (though not impossible) that another snow day will come my way before next December, I have a PLAN! And here it is–

OPTION 1: Have a schedule – Jeff and I split our time taking care of Mr. Baby, but not by a schedule. I think I would have benefit from knowing exactly what times I could expect to be productive (work wise).

OPTION 2: TAKE THE DAY OFF. Make it an actual snow day. Yes, this won’t always work, but yesterday I probably could have taken at least a portion of the day off. So, next time, I need to consider that option.

OPTION 3: Drink a glass of wine and eat a HUGE bowl of ice-cream after Mr. Baby goes to bed. I enacted this part of the plan last night, and it really turned things around.

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So, next time. I will be better. My snow day will be better. I am an eternal optimist.

Now, back to work!

My Popcorn Thoughts

March 1, 2017March 3, 2017 / Amy / 8 Comments

When I was in high school I had a live journal, I called it “My Popcorn Thoughts” because I used to think of my thoughts as popcorn. Lots of random things just popping into my head out of seemingly no where. I don’t know what happened to that live journal, but I still sometimes think of my thoughts in this way when I’m having trouble concentrating on what I’m supposed to be focused on. Or when I’ve had coffee and my brain is zipping about. Today is turning out to be one of the first kind of days. I’m supposed to be studying (and I am), but I keep thinking about blogging and running and doing chores around the house instead. And it’s hard to keep my butt in my seat and my mind on practice problems.

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I’ve given myself a goal to get through 8 videos and work on 5 sets of practice problems. The 8 videos is realistic, the practice problems may be a stretch. And I’m hoping to bribe myself with breaks for blogging and other activities. (I’ve already got some laundry going, and am dying for a run). So here are some popcorn thoughts for you as I make my way through my day:

February has gone by in a blur…and I’m not entirely sad to see it go. We’ve been on this seemingly never ending carousel of sickness over here where Mr. Baby gets sick then passes it along to Jeff, and then the process repeats. I have (with lots of luck and excessive amounts of airborne) made it out unscathed, but the whole thing has been stressful and exhausting nonetheless. It seems like we may finally be on the upswing, fingers crossed. I’m ready to put this experience behind us.
After taking a year long hiatus on my blog, I have like zero followers now, and it’s bumming me out. Even though I didn’t start the blog to get followers/likes/comments, I liked the little community that was built up. And I miss it. I’m working on getting back into it, but it’s tough sometimes when it feels like I ruined it for good.
I bought new running sneakers!! My current pair is from March 2015 (I had to take a look in the way back machine to figure that out), so it’s been nearly 2 years! I have no idea how many miles I have on them, but recently my feet hurt when I run and that’s usually a sign it’s time for new kicks.

Old friends.
One of my best friends recently started teaching me yoga via Skype, and it’s AMAZING. The only time I’ve ever enjoyed yoga. Even better, though, the last two weeks we’ve just chatted instead. This week, I had a glass of wine during our chat. I don’t know why we didn’t do something like this sooner.
I LOVE buying books for Mr. Baby. While home last week, we found an old Barnes and Noble gift card with $30 on it, and I bought 6 books for MB. Yesterday we read, “I Love You, Stinky Face” and it was hilarious. Our all time favorite over here is “Pout Pout Fish”, and we also really like “Don’t push that button”and “The monster at the end of this book”, but some new material is always nice.

Harry Potter is the best one. Haha
The bright spot in February was the week of vacation time Jeff and I both took last week. We didn’t go anywhere, we just stayed home while sending MB to daycare, and it was GLORIOUS. I feel a little like I’m supposed to want to travel and I’m supposed to want to keep my baby home with me when I’m off, but really I just wanted some time to get a haircut, go out to lunch, cook up some freezer meals, clean the house, and go running without a baby monitor mounted to the treadmill. Yes, traveling and hanging out with your baby are great activities, but this was the vacation I needed.
My friend and I are planning to do a selfie challenge in March. One selfie per day sent to the other. I’ll probably post some here. And I’m planning on coming up with some selfie challenges for her, but she doesn’t know that yet. ;-

This face is gonna rock selfie month.

So there you have it, some random thoughts. Now tell me: how was your February? ever take a vacation with no plans? what was your last pair of running sneakers? do you have a favorite book to read to your kids? ever do long distance yoga or wine dates? and last but not least, how good are you at taking selfies?

Lean, Mean, 2017!

January 6, 2017 / Amy / 7 Comments

Hi There!

Anyone still out there? If so, glad to see you again; I hope 2016 treated you well. 🙂

Let’s see…how do I do this again? I think I might have forgotten how to blog. I suppose should give a little explanation of where I disappeared to. You see, I feel weird writing in my running blog when it’s not about running, and 2016 did not see a lot of running. And certainly not a lot of exciting running. So, I thought about blogging many many times, but never actually put pen to paper (so to speak). The second reason is just not having time. I know I can make time, but since I wasn’t particularly sure what to write about, I didn’t. That’s pretty much it – not a lot of time and not much running news.

The thing is, though, 2016 was a big year around here. HUGE, actually. There were honestly a million things I could have written about. Non-running related things, but also little running adventures, hurdles, and victories. Lots of things I could have shared that I just didn’t. My bad. I’m going to try to be better about this in 2017. Pinky swear.

So to catch you back up, here’s a short list of the most important things that happened in 2016-

I HAD A BABY!

Yep, you read that right. I had a baby. Nope, I didn’t even breathe a word about this on the blog. But it happened, I SWEAR.

PROOF!

And, I still have that baby; he lives with us now. Which is just fine because he’s the best baby. I’m not just saying that because he’s mine and I’m biased. He is actually the best baby.

SURPRISE!

Good list, right? It was a good year.

On the running front, the short version is I ran until it sucked, then I stopped. I started up again when I was cleared by my doctor, and ran consistently until Christmas when I took a short break that I’m hoping to end this weekend. At some point, I’ll try to do a post on running while pregnant and about my not so glorious comeback.

Until next time….