New Nails!

I woke up to RJ sleeping by the bedroom door, belly up. I have no idea why since there was no sunlight to lay in nor did it look particularly comfortable. What a weirdo. Anyway, I went to the 8:30 AM spin class and then went grocery shopping next door. When I got home, I did my nails with some nail stamping. This is a combination of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Mint Sprint and Sally Hansen XtremeWear in WhiteOn with Bundle Monster Plate 321. I cranked out a FitnessBlender workout (Total Body Strength Training with Dumbbells - Challenging Dynamic Superset Workout) before meeting up with Stephanie's mom who gave me 10 bahzhangs to share with my family. :)

Treadmill Day

My fridge was feeling pretty sad this morning, so I went to Costco this morning to get some fruit and I'll get the rest of my groceries after going to spin class tomorrow morning. I also went to Target to get some shampoo because I'll be needing a new bottle soon. I found some Pantene on clearance and one of the Target clerks asked me if I had used it before because she wanted to buy it for herself too.  Nope, haven't used it before.  When I checked out, the cashier handed me the Pantene coupon that the registered spit out.  Meh, I won't be needing it so I walked back to the cosmetics aisle where I found the clerk and handed her the coupon. She was appreciative.  Yay, random act of kindness of the day. :)

I made another batch of the oatmeal that I made on Monday when I got home. Then off to the gym!

I cranked out 2.6 miles in 30 minutes (this is quite an improvement from my previous "PR" of 2.45 miles). YAY!  I wandered around some of the stores around the gym: CVS, Marshalls, and Ulta. I found these cute mugs at Marshalls, but I didn't buy them.  I don't have any more space for that kind of stuff in my cupboards.

When I got home, I cranked out a FitnessBlender workout...Kelli's Superset Total Body Strength Workout: Calorie Torching, Muscle Building, Fat Burning Workout.

Meeting Day

At the meeting today, we got boxed lunches from Panera.  I promptly gave up my cookie and chips to my boss because I wanted to keep to the clean eating challenge. She was shocked.  It was like ripping off a bandaid, and then it wasn't so painful after all. I also didn't eat any of the candy and chocolate that was offered during the afternoon sessions. I did eat a few of my Altoids though, but I'll make an exception for those.

I was debating on what to do after the meeting because I knew that traffic was going to be bad around rush hour.  Initially, I was going to go get some steps in at the nearby mall, but a wave of exhaustion came over me and all I wanted to do was get to my parents' house so that I could get RJ and go home. I ended up staying there for a little bit because my cousins came over to visit.  Mom had made some salmon fried rice to share.

I was a little annoyed that I was asked to come to this meeting because my role was not clearly defined.  I spent the whole time basically listening to everyone else talk,  Blah.  I did my part before the event, holding conference calls with the partners to make sure they'd be ready for it.  I will say that seeing the partners happy made me feel fulfilled and relieved though.  Yay, this is going to be the last work trip until July.  Whew.

Busy FedEx Day

Today was a very productive day.  At the Indianapolis meeting, I had given framed certificates to those states and locals that have participated in a program that I manage for work. Most of the people gave their certificates back to me so I could ship them when I got home. So that's what I've been doing today and yesterday.  FedEx has been getting lots of business from me!  I also was asked to put together some stipend paperwork for 21 people.  By the time I was done with these two tasks, it was time to leave for VA.  My boss and I have a meeting there tomorrow first thing and instead of the possibility of running into traffic in the morning, we got hotel rooms near the site.

Since we can claim dinner as an expense, we went to an Italian restaurant near the hotel called Dolce Vita and I got the scallop/crab pasta and my boss got the chicken marsala.  Yum!  I cranked out the rest of my Fitbit steps in the hotel gym when I got back.  Whew.

Happy Hour with Surili

My former coworker Surili and I caught up at Happy Hour at Uncle Julio's tonight.  Well, I dunno if I can really call it Happy Hour since she's pregnant and therefore can't drink and I didn't want her to feel left out so I got water only as well.  We both got the chicken quesadillas and they were yum!

I told her about the clean eating challenge that Julie and I were doing and then she pointed out "Well, aren't those chips junk food?"  Crap.  Well, I was kinda envisioning Doritos or something along those lines.  Nah, it's not like I ate the equivalent to a bag of them anyway. :P

Healthy Oatmeal Recipe

I really enjoy having oatmeal for breakfast because it's filling and easy.  I usually get the instant packets from the grocery store, but they can tend to have a lot of sugar. While I was looking online for some healthy recipes yesterday, I found this one that includes smashed bananas in it and no sugar. I made a batch of it this morning and scooped a portion of it for breakfast and included a scoop of peanut butter. Yum! (I guess I could imagine that it's a smushed oatmeal cookie or something...).

I went to the gym to do some running on the treadmill. I cranked out 2.43 miles in 30 minutes.  Ugh, so close to my current record of 2.45 miles. I came home and eat some more of the oatmeal that I made this morning. In addition to the peanut butter, I threw in some blackberries. Extra yum!

In addition to the run this afternoon, I also cranked out a FitnessBlender workout: Kelli's Superset Total Body Strength Workout: Calorie Torching, Muscle Building, Fat Burning Workout. Lots of deadlifts in this one!

21 Day Eating Clean Challenge

While I was in Indianapolis, one of my CDC colleagues mentioned that she was doing a 20-day vegan challenge. I was inspired to do something similar, but vegan was going to be too tough for me (read: not appealing at all) because I like chicken and cheese (separately, not necessarily together). On my walk with Julie yesterday, we talked about doing a challenge. We decided on eating clean for 21 days, which basically means no junk food (mainly ice cream and candy for me. Chips and salty stuff for Julie) and minimal processed foods.  Ugh, this is going to be tough, especially when I'm at work because I use snack breaks as an excuse to go outside and/or socialize.

"Hey, you wanna get FroYo?"  Um, YES!

I'll be substituting all the candy that I would be eating for more fruit and cheese.

We'll see how this goes.  Will I be able to make it to June 14?? 

Good thing I bought that mini blender a few weeks ago.

In other news, I watched Robocop via Netflix tonight. Not the best movie ever, but entertaining. It actually was kinda creepy if you think more deeply about the movie's concepts. Part man, part machine...can be controlled by someone from the outside. Yikes.

Busy Bee Saturday

Today was really productive.  I thought I would be the first person at Costco this morning when it opened, but it looks like 20-30 other people had the same thought that I did.  It made sense since this is Memorial Day weekend and I'm sure that lots of people will be barbecuing. I bought containers of strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, a platter of cheese and kitty litter. I also went to Giant to do some more grocery shopping.  When I got home, I cut up all my fruit so that it'd be smoothie ready. I went to my parents' house to take a walk around the block with Julie. Before I went to the house, I went to the car wash to get it cleaned. This was the first time I've gone through the car wash, and wow, I felt quite claustrophobic in there! On my way home from my parents' house, I went to the gas station to vacuum the car. Good as new!

I also cleaned some of my tarnished silver jewelry with some aluminum foil, boiling water and baking soda.  Also good as new! 

While I was waiting for Julie to finish up some work before the walk around the neighborhood, I went outside to take pictures of Mom's roses and irises.

Back to Normal

Yesterday, we got an email saying that we'd get released from work at 2 PM today.  YAY!  How did I celebrate?  By taking a long nap, of course!

When I woke up, I went to Baskin Robbins to get a quart of Baseball Nut ice cream to give to Mom as a thank you for taking care of RJ while I was in Indianapolis. Julie and I also went on a 2 mile walk around the neighborhood. When I got back home, I felt compelled to do a FitnessBlender workout, the first one in about 2 weeks: Total Body Strength Training with Dumbbells - Challenging Dynamic Superset Workout. I was definitely feeling it in my thighs and the back of my legs. It felt good though.

Indianapolis, Day 5

Yay, it's time to go home! It was nice to see the members at the meeting, but I'm ready to go back to my routine. The meeting ended at noon today, so I packed up and waited for some coworkers in the hotel lobby and passed the time by working on some emails. By 1:30, we were in the cab headed to the airport. When we got on the plane, there were about 8 or 9 of us from work, half of us were in rows 8, 9, 10 and 12.  Not like we haven't seen enough of each other already. Finally, a plane ride that wasn't delayed by weather.  I've had enough of those already.

I took the metro to my parents' house and Julie got home around the same time. We caught up over Five Guys cheeseburgers.  I decided to leave RJ at the house since I'd have to come back tomorrow to return the large suitcase. I didn't think he'd mind.  Since I slept a little on the plane, so by the time that I walked through my door, I was feeling quite awake, so I caught up on Southern Charm and unpacked.

It's good to be home!  Next year, Albuquerque.

Indianapolis, Day 4

This morning was a little stressful.  I had to turn over some of my roundtable responsibilities to a coworker because I had to get the certificates that I framed from the hotel office to the exhibit hall in time for the awards breakfast.  It was 4 boxes and they were kinda heavy, but fortunately, I could use the hotel cart to wheel them around.  After the awards breakfast, I had to wheel them out to the lobby so that I could hand them out and people could take pictures with them. It felt a little disorganized, but I think we made it work. Lots of people gave me their certificates back so that I could mail it to them when I got back to the office.

Sessions, sessions, sessions. Nothing interesting...

I wasn't planning on going to the leadership reception the whole time so I snuck off to go to my hotel room to take a break. I set an alarm but was woken up by my phone ringing.  I picked up and my boss asked me what time dinner was.  My brain was scrambling to boot up after being asleep. "Umm, we're meeting at 6:45 PM, dinner is at 7."  "Are you here at the reception?" "Um, I'm making my way there..." I told her as I bolted out of bed to change out of my pajamas and into more public appropriate clothing.  I talked to a few people at the reception but then it was time to meet my committee for dinner at Palomino's. We picked up a few Board of Directors members along the way since they didn't have any dinner plans. I was a little nervous that dinner would take forever with a group this size, but everything went fine. Many of the dinner attendees chose the scallops, but I went with the rissoto and it was delicious! I also got a strawberry drink called a Supernova. In an almost food coma, I went back to my hotel room to start packing and look forward to going home tomorrow.

Indianapolis, Day 3

Nothing really interesting happened during the meeting today, but one amusing thing that happened today at lunch was...

One of the committee members and I were going to sit together for lunch today so that we could talk about next steps for one of our projects. That's what we agreed to do yesterday when we saw each other at the poster session. I spotted him halfway through lunch sitting with some other people.  Hey, no socializing!  We have work to do!  I walked over there and when I sat down, he said, "Oh, Tina's here. That means that we have to do work."  Hah. 

For dinner tonight, I went with 7 of my coworkers to St. Elmo's Steakhouse.  It was one of the places that was highly recommended that we go to while we were in Indianapolis.  Jennifer and I shared their world famous shrimp cocktail. We were warned by the waiter about the freshly grounded horseradish that they put in the cocktail sauce, but wow, that definitely packed quite a punch.  My mouth felt like it was on fire. The heat went up my nose and made my eyes water. After I ate the first shrimp, I was kinda scared to eat another one, but I ate my share so I could get my money's worth. While many of the others got steaks (it was a steakhouse after all), I got the fried shrimp platter with the loaded baked potato and the navy bean soup.

World famous shrimp cocktail

Fried shrimp platter

Indianapolis, Day 2

Oh, I forgot to include this text message from Julie that I got yesterday about RJ.  Apparently he wasn't not being well behaved.  Actually, I take that back.  How's he supposed to know that he wasn't supposed to touch the defrosting fish?  It was out in the open, so that's fair game as far as I'm concerned.

Today was the first day of the meeting.  It didn't start until 1:30, which was great because I had the morning to put my certificate in their frames.  30+ of them.  Good thing that my boss was around to help me.

After the poster session, I went to dinner with a CDC colleague to PF Changs.  We had just eaten some snacks that they put out in the exhibit hall, so we weren't that hungry.  I got some way overpriced dumplings (pish, mine are totally better) and an Asian pear mojito (delicious).

Indianapolis, Day 1

Dad and I headed to the airport around 6 AM and there were a surprising amount of people there on an early Sunday morning.  I'm not really sure why since Memorial Day is next weekend.  Where is everyone going?  Anyway, it was only a 2 hour flight, which I slept most of the way.  Complete with lots of head nodding.  I would have leaned my head against the window, but I got an aisle seat.  At least I didn't sleep with my mouth open.  Two other coworkers were on my flight so we cabbed together to the hotel.

The meeting doesn't start until tomorrow, so I wanted to have fun today before I have to be officially "on." The Indianapolis Zoo was about a 1 mile walk from downtown, so off I went!  The weather was warm and humid, but I've been in worse.  It was worth it to get the exercise and see the animals. My favorite exhibit was watching the dolphins in an underwater dome.  Wow, do they swim fast!  I mean, I knew that, but it's different to see them swimming from underwater. 

I came back to the hotel after about 2 hours of walking around the zoo and fell asleep.  I woke up and walked to the meeting registration so that I could pick up my staff badge.  Then I headed to Noodles and Company for some macaroni and cheese with meatballs. I figured I'd go with something low key tonight since I have dinner plans the rest of the time I'm here.  It's the one time that I can be a hermit and watch NCIS and write out my postcards to friends and family. 

Yay, I made it!

The giraffes looked excited that a huge line of people were waiting to feed them carrots.

Peek-a-boo, I see you.

It's tough to see in this picture, but the cheetah is sticking out its tongue.

Silver Diner Dinner with Julie

I had a busy morning today! The first thing I did was make some cards and envelopes for Suzie for her birthday. I posted this picture on Facebook and one of my coworkers said that it looked like the cards were talking to each other. "Happy birthday!" "Thank you!" Ha ha. I didn't think of it until she said something.

After I went to the post office to drop off the package, I went to the library to return some things.  I saw my uncle while I was there, volunteering with the Master Gardeners.  I could see the gears clicking in his head as I walked towards him. Who is this?  Why are they walking towards me? Oh, it's Tina.

Then I went to the mall to get my eyebrows cleaned up. I bought a tan blazer at JCPenney (it was already 50% off and then I also used a 15% off coupon). I'll probably only wear it once or twice during the meeting tomorrow and then I won't wear it again until next year.  Heh.

I packed this afternoon and then headed over to my parents' house. I figured it would be easier to sleep there tonight since Dad was going to drive me to the airport tomorrow morning. We went to Silver Diner for dinner because she had a buy 1 entrée, get 1 free coupon.  I got the country griddle (eggs, mushrooms, sausage) and Julie got the meatloaf.  I had the same coupon and as a good deed, we gave it to a mom with 3 kids at the table next to us.  She was so happy.  :)

Prepping for Work Travel

I took RJ to my parents' house so they can take care of him while I'm in Indy next week for work.  He didn't waste any time climbing on the counter tops to look for a snack or getting on top of the fridge to look at his minions below.

Mom made spaghetti and meatballs tonight and I needed to get a larger suitcase so those were other reasons to go over to the house.

Mom went to feed Harry outside and RJ got all excited when he heard the kibble. All he thinks about is food!

In other news, I've been having a lot of luck lately selling some of my things on Ebay to clear out some room.  I sold a lot of 6 paperbacks, a hardcover copy of Life of Pi and a lot of 5 workout DVDs. With YouTube and the library, I feel like having these hard copies take up unnecessary space.

Happy Mother's Day

I went to my aunt's house after spin class this morning to give her some Mother's Day flowers. The flowers nicely matched the other gifts that she got. Hah.

As for my own mom, she wanted something low key today, so for dinner tonight, we got burgers from Five Guys and my cousin came over with a Godiva chocolate cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory.

Avengers: Age of Ultron

Julie and I went to see the 10:30 AM showing of Avengers: Age of Ultron.  Overall, I liked the first one more, which was surprising to me because I thought the second movie would be kicking things up a notch.  I just wasn't buying the Black Widow/Hulk relationship or the Hawkeye family/safe house situation.  They seemed just out of place and a strategy to making these characters more down-to-earth (?). The one thing that I did like was the introduction of the Scarlett Witch because she was pretty badass.  I hope she appears in future movies.  I would probably rent the movie on Redbox when it comes out, but I wouldn't buy the movie.

I've been loving the mini blender that I got from Best Buy last week. I should have gotten it a long time ago!

How Old Website Results

I've seen stuff online about the How Old website, where you can upload a picture and the website will guess how old you are. I submitted both pictures from yesterday, both before the haircut and after, to see what the results would be.  Both were younger than my actual age :)

New Haircut

In preparation for my work's upcoming annual meeting and summer weather, I wanted to get a haircut. After a post-work nap, I looked up some shorter hairstyles. I pulled up a picture of Jennifer Aniston on my phone and went to Hair Cuttery to get this done. I'm so happy with the haircut because it feel so much lighter and will take less time to dry.

New Purchase: PowerBlock Weights

I've been wanting to up my FitnessBlender game and invest in some new weights. I have a set of 5 lb. dumbbells and a set of 8 lb. dumbbells, but I've noticed that with some of the exercises, especially anything involving the lower body, I need a heavier weights. I didn't want to invest in several different dumbbell sets, so I went with the ones that Dan and Kelli use in their videos.  It helped that they recently did a video on them and the PowerBlock set also got good reviews on Amazon. I like they are adjustable and don't take up a lot of room. They arrived today, right after I got to work...so excited! After a 45 minute spin class I tested out the weights with Total Body Strength Training with Dumbbells - Challenging Dynamic Superset Workout and I'm sweating so much. I think the heavier weights made a difference. I took some progress pics today, so we'll see how this goes. I feel like my arms and legs are getting more toned in the past two months, but I don't think it's that evident in the pictures. Also, if I can get less squishy around the middle, that would be a big accomplishment. :P

Empties #8

Finishing this huge Costco sized bottle of shampoo was quite an accomplishment.  I'm also glad to be done with the Bath and Body Works soap.  The dental floss sample was a little weird because the floss was stretchy, when I was expecting something that's like...well...string.  Very strange.  I decided to toss the Urban Decay lip gloss sample that came with my Naked palette.  It's very sheer and it's kinda separating.  Nope, no thanks!  I would repurchase the Vaseline lotion.  As for the hand sanitizer, it's one that's at my desk at work, nothing exciting there.

Volunteer Activity #2 of 2015

I went back to St. John's to volunteer at packet pick-up for the race. It's weird that I can jump out of bed early with no problem on the weekend, but I would totally drag my feet on the weekdays if I don't have morning meeting. :P  The people at the school must have had a lot of faith in me because there were stretches of time that I manned the registration pick-up table all by myself.  Good thing I was there last night to learn what was expected of me.

After race pick-up, I went home and made my first smoothie with my new mini blender. Strawberries, banana, blackberries, peach Greek yogurt and some limeade. Yum!  Then I went to my parents' house and got some Fitbit steps in with Julie with a walk around the neighborhood.

I got the movie Neighbors from the library. It was pretty funny...and Zac Efron is easy on the eyes, heh.

Volunteer Activity #1 of 2015

I feel like I'm a little behind on my volunteering goals for 2015, so I started looking up some races a few weeks ago.  I signed up to do packet pick-up at a 5K race near home from 6-8 PM tonight.  What I learned was that the race benefits the school, specifically their scholarship program. The 5K was established to help families that were affected when the economy was badly hit.  The scholarship allowed some students in need to stay at the school, since it's a private school.  It was cool to see so many families there to help with the race preparation. I felt a little random though because several times, someone would come up to me to ask what my affiliation with the school was and if I had children there.  Nope, just in the "neighborhood" and wanted to help.