Oh blogging...

I have such a love/hate relationship with blogging lately!  I think it's really all in my head, I feel like if I can't blog more than once a week then I just shouldn't blog & then I get months behind & then I haven't blogged since Christmas & now it's February & well, here we are.

Here I am, somehow months behind, but somehow still wanting to come back!  I put so much pressure on myself to blog & then it begins to feel like a chore & I end up just skipping it all together. I do most of the social media work for the gym as well….so maybe there's little left in me to blog after that!?

I should really figure out how to get over all of that, though!  It's all pressure from myself.  So silly, really!  What the heck!?

And I really don't know where to go from here…most likely a few picture dump/catch up posts?? That way I don't feel like I completely skipped Christmas, New Years & January in general?  Haha

Here's a short recap of January & I'll be back later this week to picture dump recap Christmas :)

We celebrated NYE with 2 other couples!  We went to Napa on Providence (very good!) & then to Bradshaw Social House (our neighborhood favorite!)!  Our friend Lauren is preggo so we had a built in DD ;)

Fun dress & NYE nails!

Richy Rich!

My fav!

Happy 2014!!!

 The first weekend in January we hosted Fight for Fitness as part of the Greater Charlotte Health & Fitness Expo!  It was a long, but great day!!  We got to meet lots of CrossFitters from around Charlotte, give back to a local charity & show tons of people that CrossFit can be for anyone!

If you haven't noticed, it's been super chilly this winter!!  At least for most of the country!  We don't use our heat at the gym so there have been many a cold day at the box!  I wear lots & lots of layers, sometimes my ski pants, and more layers.  I'm SO ready for warm weather!  I can't wait to sweat ;)

This view doesn't get old though!

This spunky nephew of mine turned 4!!  4!?!  He was just born, I swear.

We attempted to go to our 1st Panther's game of the season!  I say attempted because we failed miserably at going.  This was the 2nd round of the playoffs & tickets were stupid expensive!  I was very sad about that on the way home, but it turned out we didn't do so hot & B made the most delicious bacon sliders while I snuggled white thing & watched the game from the couch.  Not too shabby after all!

We spruced up our downstairs half bathroom with some floating shelves we got for Christmas!  I just love our little Westie figurine from B's mom!!  I think it's the cutest thing & goes so nicely with the bouquet from my bridal portraits!

We hosted an "After Holiday Party" for all of our CrossFit Pineville peeps that night.  Sadly, I didn't take a single picture!  Too busy enjoying everyone's company outside of the gym & in regular clothes & makeup!  Ha

I've told a couple people lately, and I think it's true with the CrossFit community in general, but there are so many people at our gym that, otherwise, I most likely would have never met in my life.  We're different for different reasons, but CrossFit made our paths cross & I've gotten to know them.  Really, I'm so glad to have met these people because I just love them!  It's such a joy to know them & I truly look forward to seeing these people every day!!

Brandon & I competed in War of the WODs the last weekend in January!  We both competed individually, a first for both of us, B in RX Men & I did Scaled Women.  I was definitely nervous, but it was such a fun day!!  We each did 4 workouts that day & boy was it exhausting!

I finished 18th out of 30!  I was pretty happy with that, as I landed out of the bottom 10, but really I had no expectations & just didn't want to come in last!  Haha!  I did take 7th place in one of the workouts & I PR'd my hang clean at 120 lbs (the top pic)!  That is my body weight so I was excited :)

Brandon finished in 6th place overall out of 40 men!!!  Isn't that awesome!?!  The top 5 went to the final WOD so he just missed it!  I'm so, so proud of him!  He took 2nd & 5th place in 2 of the events that day!

B's been traveling a lot for work, which is a little stressful knowing how much he wants to be at the box!  Right now we're just putting our head down & doing a good work!

This guy is my snuggle bug & I just love him to pieces!!  We snuggled up tight during the snow last week!

Phew, ok, January recapped!  Hopefully I'll have Christmas recapped sometime soon…maybe before Valentine's!? ;)

Five on Friday

Time to link up again with April & Christina for Five on Friday!!

1 - My new schedule!

I'm getting into a good little groove every day going to the box!  If I'm coaching the early morning classes, I bring my breakfast with me, get my own workout in pretty early and have the afternoon to run errands, nap, or whatever.  If I'm not coaching early morning, I get to sleep til about 7 {glorious!}, make a smoothie to drink on the way in, and workout a little later in the day.  And I get to do my dream job. Definitely can't complain :)

2 - ModPaleo Meals - Yum!

CrossFit Pineville is a delivery site for a local meal delivery service, ModPaleo.  We don't profit anything from them as a box & I'm not getting paid to endorse them or anything, I'm just seriously loving their food right now!  Since I don't get home til about 830 or later most week nights, I don't have time to pull together a healthy {Paleo friendly} meal.  I order 5 meals a week from them.  It's delivered every Monday to the box & all I have to do is boil it or heat it in the microwave.  This is the perfect solution to the busy lifestyle I have right now!!  All of their food is local, organic, grass-fed/free range protein, etc.  And it's all SO good!!  They are a lifesaver!

3 - Surprise/unplanned visits from airport stranded cousins!

My cousin Erin was flying through Charlotte Tuesday night when her flight back home got cancelled due to weather.  She hopped in a rental car & came over for a sleep over!  We stayed up way to late chitchatting, but I hadn't seen her since Christmas so it was long overdue!!  I'm sorry her flight got cancelled, but not sorry it happened to strand her in Charlotte!

4 - Planned lunches with BFFs & family traveling through Charlotte!

One of my lifelong BFFs just moved into her brand new house!!  I stopped by Panera after leaving the box yesterday & brought lunch over to Ashley's gorgeous house!  We played with her sweet babies, I got the house tour & we got all caught up on life :)

Today, my aunt & grandmother are on their way back to VA from my parents house in GA.  They're pit-stopping through Charlotte so we're meeting for lunch!  It'll be short & sweet, but I'm so glad to see them, even if it's only an hour!

5 - A Friday afternoon nap!

Oh yes...a nap is calling  my name!  Even if it's only for an hour.

Happy weekend friends!!

Officially official...

Welp...it's officially official!  Cat's out of the bag!  

My Ben cat :)

Today I told my school I will not be returning in the fall.

Starting Wednesday, I will be a full time trainer, office manager, marketing {and whatever else needs to be done} gal for CrossFit Pineville!!!  I'm sad and excited and thrilled and a little scared and super pumped and then a little sad again.  Basically, I'm a ball of emotion!

If you've been around here a while, you may remember this post I wrote last fall.  Suddenly, I feel like I'm a flip flopper and going back on everything I wrote in that post.  But I know in my head and my heart that's not true, I'm not flip flopping.

My principal summed it up well today when she said "You're not running from something, you're running to something."  At the end of the day, even with all the mess going on in the educational world - all the politics, low teacher moral, terrible pay, standardized testing, 21st century teaching, yada, yada, yada - I'd still be going back in the fall if CrossFit Pineville hadn't been born.

I was fortunate to work at a great school with great people and great kids!  And I will sincerely miss the people and kids!!!  But will I miss the mess and the stress?  No sir-ee bob! :)

So tomorrow, you may hear me squeal with glee as I leave the school building and I'll be doing my happy dance all the way to the box!  Haha

In non-box/CFP news...

Brandon and I finally got to meet our sweet baby nephew, Weston, in Michigan this past week!

He is the cutest little man!!  And feisty!  So glad we could meet him before he was walking and speaking in full sentences!

And our sweet new little niece, Scarlett, was born yesterday!!

Born June 9th at 3:20am, 6 lbs 14 oz, 19.5 in long.  She's a little peanut!

And a doll baby!  I can't wait to get my hands back on her!!

These baby nieces and nephews give me fever....

But then I remember how I like sleeping through the night so we'll wait just a bit longer ;)

Happy day friends!

Big Huge Super Fun & Exciting Announcement!!!!

Friends!!!  I have a Big Huge Super Fun & Exciting Announcement to make!!

I have been {sort of} patiently waiting to make this announcement since January!!!!  January!  That's 4 whole months y'all!!!  Seriously, this has been the hardest {and worst kept} secret to keep from social media because it is life changing and so, so exciting!!

It's definitely contributed to my lack of blogging/blog content over the past few months as there's been so many days I've wanted to write about this venture so far, but I just couldn't yet!

But, now I can!!  The time has finally, finally, finally come where I can make my Big Huge Super Fun & Exciting Announcement that I have been holding in for 4 long months!!!

No, I'm not pregnant :)  Guess again!!

Brandon and I are going into business with our brother in law, Warren.  As of this month, we will be opening the doors to CrossFit Pineville!!!!!!

Crazy right!?!  So here's the {semi} quick & dirty back story on how all this came about....

Brandon and I are both obviously very passionate about health and fitness!  Unless you're new here, you've probably figured that out after reading about the races we've been in, the workouts I've done, the diet (or lifestyle really) I follow, etc.

We've always dreamed of being in the health and fitness industry, but just really didn't see how that might ever manifest itself since we both already had well established jobs in other fields.  However,

we were finally turned on to CrossFit towards the end of last year {even though a few of our friends have been preaching it to us to no avail for quite some time!} thanks to a killer workout at our friends' box {box = CF gym} in Michigan.  So much so that we were looking to get involved in a CF here and Brandon started looking into getting his CF Level 1 Trainer Certificate.

At my nephew's 3rd birthday party, Brandon was talking to Warren {who is not technically our brother in law, my brother Josh married his sister Callie, but for all intensive purposes it's so much easier to just call him our BIL :) } and they landed on the topic of CrossFit.

In talking with Warren, he'd been involved in CF for almost 2 years & had been coaching some classes up at CrossFit Huntersville for about a year.  He mentioned to Brandon that he'd been thinking about starting up his own CF, but just didn't have the money to do it at that point.  We left that party and that was sort of where the conversation stopped.

But about a week later, B finally told me about this conversation with Warren and thought maybe he should call him....Warren's CF knowledge, passion for health & fitness, & capital + our passion for health & fitness & our capital....this could maybe work!

Brandon and Warren met for dinner in mid January while I was out with some girlfriends and decided that night to go for it!!!  Let'd do it!  Let's open our own CrossFit Affiliate!!

So here we are!!  It's been a long, and fun and crazy experience already....and we're just getting started!!!

B and I spent my birthday weekend taking our CF Level 1 Trainer Course!

And we passed!!!

We have our location in Pineville & are currently working to get it WOD {Workout of the Day} ready!!

This past weekend, I took a Kettlebell course down in Atlanta and received my CF Level 1 Kettlebell Trainer Certificate!!

You can look up CrossFit Pineville and like us on Facebook here.  

Our website should be up and running in the next week or so & we hope to be open for some free workouts by the middle to end of this month!!  So if you're in the Charlotte area, I better see you in for a trial workout!!! :)

We are so excited for this adventure we're embarking on!  We feel so blessed and thankful that we're even able to do this!!

I'm so glad to have finally shared my Big Huge Super Fun & Exciting Announcement with y'all!!!  Super exciting, right!?! :)

Weekend Recap!

Welp, even though it was a 3 day week, I sure was happy to see 4pm on Friday roll around!  Love walking out of work on a Friday...feels good!!

Even though I spent a good portion of Friday night doing school work.  Yuck!!  But a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.  I'd much rather do work on my couch anyways!

That was only after a good workout & then some delish turkey burgers & sweet potato fries cooked by my favorite man.  Yum!  I left the bun off and topped mine with some bacon & avocado to stick to my Paleo ways :)

Saturday was a big day!  We got up early (for a Saturday) and headed to the gym, then it was time to celebrate this cutie's 3rd birthday!

Sadly, we were an hour late to the party because we were REAR ENDED in Brandon's BRAND NEW TRUCK!!!  Unbelievable right!?!?  We'd had it a total of 5 days.  5 days!!  But thankfully, there were only a few scratches on the truck bumper.  Can't say the same for the guy that rear ended us!

We finally made it to the party!  This little guy is always sleeping through the action.  It's tough work being a baby  :)

Roen was there to make sure he didn't need any help!

He got lots of fun new toys, even a remote control Ford Raptor, just like Uncle Brandon's!!  We didn't even get that for him, ha.

They had fun checking out the real thing, too!

We headed home to shower up & head off to the second party of the day - Rob & Gale were having their gender reveal party!!!

They found out the gender Wednesday at lunch after their anatomy scan & had known for 3 whole days!!

It's a....

Girl!!!!

This picture is awesome!!  Rob already knew what was coming out, but by the look on his face you would never know!  Haha, he has said all along he really didn't care, boy or girl, as long as the baby's healthy!  His face is saying "Oh, boy, what are we in for!?" hah!

We're so excited to welcome a new little niece!!  She'll be our 2nd niece out of 6 nieces and nephews, it was about time for another girl!  :)

We picked up some dinner and planted ourselves on the couch for the rest of the evening.  There was nothing on, so B indulged & let me watch Pretty Woman while dog slept in between us.  It was bliss!

We slept in today, boy did we need that!  Then barely finished out a long run.  It was hard today! We ran our normal Sunday errands, I did a little food prep & then more school work.  Womp womp. Now we're relaxing on the couch & watching The Biggest Loser!

via

We love Bob & Jillian (and Dolvett now, too)!  I want to be them!  My dream job :)

Happy Sunday evening friends & happy TV watching!

Busy Summer Days

Welp, it's officially summer now!  Sadly the days will only just get shorter and I'm already down one week of summer vacay ;-( Tear!

But the days are still long for now and I've been taking advantage of that summer day light!

I'm 11 days into my 60 day Insanity workouts!!  And...I'm really loving it so far!  It's hard. Like, sweating out of every pore in my body, heart beating out of my chest kinda hard.  It's high cardio interval and resistance training which I think is just what my slow metabolism body needs!

I took before pics and while it's hard to visibly see a lot of changes in my body yet, I definitely feel a lot of changes!  Things are feeling tighter!  :)  So that's definitely a good sign!

Besides working out...I've been quite a busy housewife!  I've decided it's definitely my favorite job, even though I don't get paid a dime for doing it!  So far, here's what I've tackled this week...

We ran out of the floor cleaner we bought after first moving into our house back in April and I've read tons between blogs and other sites on the internet about cleaning with vinegar.  

So Tuesday at Target, I figured for $2.64 for this giant gallon of vinegar - I wouldn't be out too much money if I hated it.  When I got home, I diluted it with water in my spray mop and mopped away.

I'm hooked, y'all!  The floors look amazing and shiny and I'm sold!  I'll never buy floor cleaner again.

Wednesday, I had a hair appointment...

It was time.  Time to chop off some of that long length.  It was too much and just had to go!

So here's the finished product after I showered last night and straightened it.  I love the choppiness & long layers :)

Today I put Pinterest to good use & tried out two recipes I'd recently pinned.  And they're both keepers, so check 'em out!

First I made this Skinny Vanilla Mocha Iced Coffee.  The recipe actually calls it a frappe knock off and blended it using coffee they had frozen.  

I, however, did not freeze my coffee because I needed instant gratification, so I just made mine iced coffee.  It wasn't Starbucks, but it was a close second!  The recipe made a bunch so I had half today, and half left for tomorrow!  And, bonus, it's way low cal - no guilt :)

For dinner I made this Cheesy Chicken & Rice Bake.

Super easy and B & I loved it.  Basically it's a burrito bowl casserole.  And it will definitely be a keeper in our house!

The flower beds in our back yard along the house have been begging for attention!  They need some weeding like whoa.  {And since you can't see the back yard, this task has gone on the back burner, unlike the completed front yard :) }

I didn't get a before picture of this bed, but I hacked the h-e-double-hockey-sticks out of it this morning!!  And it is now weed free :)  See all the hacked up area in front of the old pine needles?  That used to be crab grass - not anymore, my friends!  

It was too daggum hot to tackle the other bed.  That's now on next week's to do list!

Today is an easier video in the Insanity workout schedule, so this afternoon I met Andrea for a run at the greenway...

And it was hot!!  We managed 35 minutes (with a bit of walking!) in the scorching heat - Drea probably could've gone longer, she's quite the runner - but she slowed down for me cause she's sweet!

Tomorrow I'm planning to touch up the trim in the kitchen from when we painted it a few weeks ago.  And tomorrow night, I'm looking forward to trying this recipe out, also on my Pinterest board...

Twitter & the blog world have been raving about these grilled avocados so I'm really excited to try them!  I love avocado and this just seems like the perfect side for a summer night's meal :)

It's been a busy summer so far, but I'm loving it!  My summer to-do list keeps getting longer, too :/  I have a few projects I'm hoping to tackle, so I'll share those soon!

Hope you're enjoying these long summer days, as well!

Lazy Dayz

After a successful Friday of renewing my license & babysitting adventures (and a fun surprise! for another post), our weekend was pretty lazy!  And that was just fine by me :)

Saturday morning started out rather productive actually!  My friend Lisa has been working out at a CrossFit gym (or box as they call it) and invited me to join.  It was so much fun!! Definitely a good challenge and different than anything I've ever done!  I really liked it & might have to go back soon or join and become a CrossFit trainer one day!  (<----dream job!)

I've beens super sore today - in an "Ahhh what a good workout!" kinda way!  For more CrossFit info and info on the particular "box" I visited, follow the link - its hard to explain, especially for me since I've only tried it once so far.

After our workout, Brandon and I had an impromptu little day date - Men's Warehouse to get him some new dress pants, a little froyo action, and then the grocery store!  Super romantic right?

Some Girl Scouts were all set up selling cookies outside the grocery store, so we couldn't help but buy a box of Samoa's - only the best girl scout cookie of all!  Yeah, that box is already gone!  Whoops, sorry that we're not sorry - just sorry we didn't buy more than one box!  Ha

We had a yummy dinner at home, complete with some amazeballs Sweet Potato Fries from Skinnytaste - try these ASAP if you have not!!  We were planning to go bowling for a friend's birthday, but Brandon's knee was killing him & he was just feeling achy in general.

So we spent the evening on the couch, watched a few movies, and went to bed early!  Oh what exciting lives we lead ;)  But sometimes a little R&R is needed!  B seems to have slept off whatever was plaguing him last night, so that's good!

Today, we got a good run in, which I was very pleased with since I haven't been running as much lately doing my P90X.  We did a little cleaning, a little laundry...you know the typical Sunday stuff!

Tonight, though, there are no Sunday night blues for this gal!!  Which is not typical!  Of course I'm sad B leaves for the work week tomorrow, but Monday & Tuesday are teacher workdays so it feels like a short work week & I get to sleep in a whole hour later!

I'll take it!!  It's the little things, y'all!