Super Slacker

Meh. Sooooo maybe I'm behind by a few (18: 9 NaBloPoMo and 9 365 posts) blog posts. No big. I always catch up one way or another. So here's my typical blah, blah, blah, I'm a slacker post. Onward and upward!

Broncos And Seahawks Who?

Do you watch football? Because I just don't.  I watch the Super Bowl but I get so bored watching football on TV.  Live football is another story.  I love live football.  So this game that just happened, Seahawks vs. 49ers.  I was (apparently) rooting for the Seahawks.  Thats how much I care.  

I actually spent the first hour of the game deep frying things with a friend.  We deep fried all the veggies, then we did oreo's, twinkies, reese's, snickers, then it got weird and we deep fried a PB&J, and birthday cake.  I feel like a grease trap that needs cleaned out so I'm drowning myself in water. 

Anywhosels, I'm off to do more homework. I hope everyone had a great Sunday.

Daily Workout Doubles

I just learned that I have to start doing daily doubles. BOOOOO! :( I don't want to.  But, I have too.  I'm doing the Jillian Michaels 30-Day Shred and in a couple weeks I'm going to start T25.  However, I have some 5Ks and such coming up so I have to start running also.  Workout DVD's can only give you so much endurance.  Lets see how this goes.

Handling Pressure

Do you think you handle pressure well, or do you usually fall apart?

I think I handle pressure well.  Stressing about things doesn't get the job done any faster.  Why would you want to fall apart? What good does that do anyone? Just get it together and get the job done.  

Who Puts Pressure On You?

Who puts the most pressure on you -- yourself or others?

I put the most pressure on me.  I want to be better. I compare myself to others. I set my own goals.  Nobody else.  

No Excuses

I have no excuses for missing the last couple of days. January is just kicking my butt.   I hate trying to get on a routine.  I can do one thing or the other but something always gets left out.  The last few days has been the blogs. I added working out and prepping some stuff for the next day but then the blogs drop off.  Sooner or later I'll get it together and I'll do it all everyday. On the plus side, I always make up for missing.  I always do however many blogs I missed. 

Game On Mom!!

My Mom made a bet with me and I am going to win! My goal is to lose about 50 pounds by June. Crazy I know.  But it will happen.  Not optional.  

Wanna know the bet? Ok I'll tell you!

If I do my Jillian Michaels 30-Day Shred for 2 weeks straight, not missing even a single day, she will buy me the Shaun T's T25! I didn't think I could do it, then I watched some videos and knew I could.  I'm so excited!!!

Have any of you done the T25? It looks intense but I can't wait.

Chicken Almond Stir Fry

Yeah. I'm doing the same thing I did yesterday.  Judge me.  But when I find a good tip or recipe I can't help but share it.  Me and my mom are eating clean and she wanted stir fry so I searched for clean stir fry and I found it and it was glorious!!!!!   So I'm linking Leigh Ann's blog Your Homebased Mom. The Chicken Almond Stir Fry. 

My modifications: 

• Added teriyaki stir fry noodles, minus the teriyaki seasoning.
• No mushrooms.
• Made half the batch since it was only for 2 people.

It was seriously amazing. Go try it. Give Leigh Ann some major kudos while you're at it.

The Best Steak Ever

So today, instead of writing out a bunch of stuff I'm just going to post a picture and a link.  This is the best way to cook steak ever. These guys are awesome. Next time you make a steak, follow these instructions.

Apparently this is as big as the picture will get so go to THIS LINK and check it out.  Seriously, the BEST way to cook steaks.

My 24th Birthday!!!

So today is my 24th birthday. I'm ready for bed.  My last few days have been pure crazy so I've slacked on the blogs.  Apparently my body refuses to be a night owl AND a morning person at the same time.  Eventually you crash.  And I did.  For a couple days.  So now I'm writing 6? 8? blogs tonight. I've lost track.  I have one more after this and I can sleep! 

My birthday has always been shared with my Dad because his birthday is the day before mine so we just do one birthday party for us.  Today we went to a buffet at the casino and then watched a show with the family.  It was pretty cool.  After I lost my $35 my Mom gave me her $9 she won off of $1 and I won $50.  (Mind you I've only even won 1 other time. My family is super unlucky.) So after I paid my mom back her money I came out $6 ahead for the night. I was pretty excited.  I hope you all had a great Saturday!

…I just read this back to myself and I apologize.  That was a whole lot of rambling about nothing.  But there's no takesy-backseys. Mostly because I don't have the energy to make this post better.  

Night world!

4 Challenges And Counting

I'm doing a lot of challenges.  Lets list them shall we:

• Blogher, January NaBloPoMo - Pressure
• Another Girly Blog's 2014 Blogger Challenge
• 365 Challenge - Books
• Saida Cane's Sweet Snap Challenge - Weekly when I feel like it

So 4.  Thats seems like a lot. Is that a lot? I'm not sure. I'm new to the blogging world. Whats a "normal" amount of challenges to do at once? My problem is I don't want to wait say a whole year to do different daily challenge so why not do it now.  But then I find more and more challenges that I want to do.  

What I'm saying is, I found another one I want to do.  It's more of a reading challenge rather than a blogging challenge.  However, I'm not sure of I want to do the Series Challenge, TBR (To Be Read) Challenge, etc.  There are a ton of them. I know I want to do one of them.  Now I have to decide which  one. Whats one more challenge?!

Daily…Octoubles...

Octoubles? Is that even a word. No. No it's not.  Do I care? No. No I don't. Anyways, here we go, making up for time, because I'm sucking at life this month. Go figure. So here today/tonight at 9:30 P.M. is my 8 posts. Here we go!!

Can peer pressure be positive? Why or why not?

Well of course peer pressure can be positive! Who in their right mind would think otherwise?! If you have a friend that is super healthy and you have a steady diet of McDonalds, then chances are you are going to feel some type of peer pressure to be healthier and to live a healthier lifestyle to fit in better with your friend.  I'd say getting healthier is a positive effect of peer pressure. 

Cock-A-Doodle-NO

What kind of person are you? An early bird? A night owl? I'm a total night owl. I cannot understand how you morning people do it.  I feel like death early in the morning.  Not even death warmed over. I'm always freezing cold.  It's horrible.  Then you go to take a shower and you have to pep-talk yourself out of the shower because for some reason the entire temperature of the bathroom changes with the weather outside.  It's ridiculous. Then you have to do stuff when your warm bed is calling your name. 

I love Gilmore Girls

But thats basically how I feel about mornings.  You people should get an award or something.

Slump Day

Slump day! I don't want to write about the January post and I'm sitting here watching Next Great Baker not even attempting to figure out what I'm going to write about.  It's one of those days where no post is probably better than this post but…I just don't care.  I'm not giving up on January's NaBloPoMo which is ironically pressure. I feel the pressure from myself to complete it.  I completed December's so I know I can do it. I missed yesterdays for both NaBloPoMo and my 365 day challenge but I'm doing a daily double today. That's 4 posts. 

End Ramble.

"Those Days"

Everybody has "one of those days".  Yesterday was mine. Hence the lack of blogs. So today I'm doing a daily double.  Yes, I'm counting this as a post. Please forgive me. This is how I feel most days.

Routines

Do you have a daily routine? I try all the time to get into one but it's so hard. Mostly because most routines start fairly early in the morning.  I have so many things I need to do in the morning but I don't wake up soon enough.  Ok, maybe not that many things to do but things that I would rather do in the morning. Like workout for example.  Prepare dinner. Or lunch. Blog. Ya know all those little things you hate to do last minute? Yeah, I do them last minute. I don't want to anymore!!! I'd rather have them done ahead of time.  In the morning minimum.  So my goal: wake up at……6:00 A.M…..that sounds horrible thinking about it.  ...I guess I shouldn't be up until 10:00 at night doing my daily blog then.  With that being said, I'm off! Night all.

Eating Clean

I challenged my mom to clean eating for a week.  Minimum. We both struggle with losing weight and the like so I figured it can't hurt to try.  A lot of those "pretty people" you see walking around eat clean. 

There's a sort of saying: "If you want to be rich, do what rich people do. If you want to be skinny, do what skinny people do. If you want to be popular, do what popular people do." The list can continue.  

Now, I'm sure that 1 week won't do a whole lot for our weight loss but I'm curious to see. I think this week will be like a cleanse really.  Cutting out sugars, white breads, processed foods, etc.  We shall see. This is one of the most helpful things I found to understanding it.

And this is the most helpful thing I found to slowly learn how to eat clean.  Of course, we are just jumping into because, well, why not?

If you are interested in eating clean, I definitely suggest researching it.  I found these things on Sharee's Tumblr: I Wear Black When I workout. It's A Funeral For My Fat. She's pretty inspiring.

I'm Slow, But I Run

This is how I felt today.  I started my Couch-To-5K program.  Let me just tell you, I am out of shape.  Like, WAY out of shape. It's absurd.  However, I completed day 1 which is a big deal.  I've tried this program before and always gave up half-way through day 1 even.  I think I'm finally over being fat.  I didn't give up today and I finished it.  

What is Couch-To-5K? It's a 3 day a week for 9 weeks program.  It starts out on week 1 with 1 minute of jogging hen 1.5 minutes of walking for 30 minutes (or 20 depending on how you want to look at it. 5 minute warm up and cool down.) Then as the weeks progress it slowly increases the amount of running and decreases the amount of walking. 

Seems pretty easy. I know. But it sucked. I ran until I was nauseous and then I ran some more.  It was great fun. But I did it and thats what counts.  

That picture reminds me of this one.

Thats essentially how I felt.  Everything was screeching and I just wanted it to quit. I just wanted that stupid app to tell me it was time for my 5 minute cool down.  Then it did. And I won that workout.

New Years Resolutions Are Crap

I'm not setting NewYears resolutions this year.  They are ridiculous. MULTIPLE FUN FACT TIME:

• Only 45% of Americans make a New Years resolution. (For understanding sakes, lets say that is 45/100.)
• Out of those 45 people, 64% or 29 people make it to the 1 month mark.  
• Only 46% or 20 people make it to the 6 month mark. 
• Barley half of the less than half of Americans that make resolutions make it to June.  (Was that clear as mud? Good!)
• Want to know the top 10 New Years resolutions? I bet you can guess #1:
1. Lose weight (Who would have guessed!)
2. Getting organized.
3. Spend less, save more.
4. Enjoy life to the fullest.
5. Staying fit and healthy.
6. Learn something exciting. (Hang gliding? Parkour?)
7. Quit smoking. (That's all the way at #7?! Really!?)
8. Help others in their dreams. (What does that mean?! My dream is to finish school, get married, and build a house! Is someone donating money or guys to me….that got weird fast. Please don't donate guys to me.)
9. Fall in love. (Can that really be a resolution? You can't make that happen. It just does.)
10. Spend more time with family. (Way to go America. Family is the last thing we are worried about. Seems a little backwards to me.)
• 24% of Americans fail and never succeed on their New Years resolutions.

With all of that being said, I'm not making New Years resolutions, I'm making lifestyle changes.  I don't want it to be a "New Years resolution", I want it to be a "rest of my life resolution". With that, here's 1 more fun fact: 

• People who explicitly make resolutions are 10 times more likely to attain their goals than people who don’t explicitly make resolutions

So, here are my EXPLICIT "rest of my life resolutions":

1. Lose weight! (*gasp* Who knew!!! It has to happen. Not optional. And here's how explicitly)
1. Drink more water. A lot more.
2. Work out minimum 3 times a week. 
3. Less junk, more veggies. (I strongly dislike veggies so heres to learning new things!)
4. Less carbs.  (My family is like carb addicts. We love the breads, pastas, rice, etc.)
2. Blog better. (Or learn how. I'm getting there. Slowly but surely)
3. Stay on track with my Dave Ramsey stuff. (And in walks #3! …I meant up there^^^ but here too's good.)
4. Read at least 50 pages a day. (I've already started trying.)

So those are my main 4 life changes.  I want these to be things that stick with me my whole life.  I don't want it to be just a New Years thing. I want these goals to be long term or until achieved. 

All statistical information courtesy of Statistic Brain University of Scranton 12.13.2013

NaBloPoMo January 2014

Alright, I'm doing it again! 2 month in a row. Call me crazy. NaBloPoMo January 2014.  The theme is "PRESSURE". I think it's a good way to start the year off.  I've almost successfully completed December 2013's NaBloPoMo and I think it went really well.  It ends tomorrow and I didn't miss a day.  I was really surprised because I've seen a lot of people either give up half way through or miss days.  It was my first ever and I succeeded.  I'm pretty impressed with myself. 

I think 1 of my goals as far as blogging go for 2014 is going to be to do a NaBloPoMo every other month or every 3 months.  It keeps you thinking and keeps you connected with other bloggers.

If you want to participate you have until January 5, 2014 to sign up using the blogroll form at blogher. If you want to check out what National Blog Posting Month is all about before you commit,  you can go to the general NaBloPoMo page as well.

We will see how it goes! And good luck to you if you join!