5 for Five - The Gym!

Hiya friends!

Generally 5 for Five is a Monday post but I didn't get around to typing this up until late Monday night so you're getting it on a Tuesday.

And you're getting two posts in one day!  Feel special peeps. ;)

As the title of this week's 5 for Five post suggests I'm going to be focusing on the gym this week.

I just joined my very first DietBet game and in order to reach my goal of losing 4% of my starting body weight I know I need to get back into the gym!

So my goals for the week are this...

1.  Sleep in work out clothes!

This will make getting to the gym in the morning just that much easier because there is no hunting around for a sports bra, pants, or t-shirt since I'll already be wearing that stuff.

2.  Pack "gym bag" before going to bed.

I say "gym bag" because it's not really a bag for the gym.  It's a bag for after the gym so I can get ready for work at my aunt's house.  This bag includes clothes for work, makeup, hair products, shampoo & conditioner, and towels.

3.  Plan & Prep breakfast before going to bed.

I've found that I don't feel as well while working out if I eat something beforehand.  Even just a banana is too much for me.  So that means eating breakfast after working out which means I need to take it with me when I leave my house in the morning.  Planning and prepping my breakfast the night before means it's just grab and go the morning of, super convenient!

4.  Take water!

I'm horrible at drinking water on a regular basis.  But we all know hydration is important for our bodies.  If I take a water bottle for my work out in the morning this also means I have a water bottle for the rest of the day.  {We have new water machines at work so I have no excuse not to drink water at work!}

5.  Work out 3/5 days.

I'm starting this week off with 3 work outs in 4 days.  If I'm feeling good and decide I want to go for 4 I will but I don't want to over commit this first week back and "fail" at my goal.  I want to set myself up for success so it's baby steps for now.

Ideally if I accomplish #5 I will accomplish #1-4 because those all lead up to #5.

What's one of your goals for this week?

TOATS April Sponsor Giveaway

It's giveaway time!

I sponsored Allie from Tales of a Twenty Something for the month of April.  Her sponsors pooled together to giveaway an awesome prize so be sure to keep reading and find out what it is!

And don't forget to enter! :)

********************

Today's the day y'all.

These lovely 20 ladies below have come together and are giving away one awesome prize!

Allie // Kelley // Sami

Brin // Jenn // Ricci

Katie // Dara // Kelsey

Angie // Rebekah // Stephanie

Crystal // Brittany // Jenni

Amy // Meighan // Sara

Sarah // Meg // Betsy

Thanks to these wonderful ladies, one lucky person will win $115 dollars CASH! Enter below via Rafflecopter! All entries will be verified.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Weekend Shenanigans

If you didn't guess by the huge button up there I'm linking up with Sami to share my weekend shenanigans.

Sadly I don't have a bunch of pictures from my weekend to sum it all up for you so my words will have to do.

Friday night after work I met up with my parents, brother, uncle and his girlfriend to eat dinner.  Fish Fry Friday = fish for me.  It was delicious as always.  And mmm, those twice baked potatoes were amazing!

I ran into some friends in the bar area and since I had my own car (I came straight from work) I ended up hanging out until about 12:45am.  An unexpected late night but sometimes unexpected is a good thing.

Saturday my mom, brother, and I hit up town to do a little shopping.  I wanted to get The Sims 3 for the Wii, which I did.  {Highly addicting FYI!}  We also got a new DirecTV remote since the one upstairs is a bit touchy with the 2, 6, and 9 button {all buttons we use a lot}.

My mom and I some how managed to convince my brother to let us eat lunch at Olive Garden.  He had steak and potatoes but the seasoning wasn't his thing.  I told him I wouldn't ever make him go there again since he was nice enough to try it.  {My mom & I are the only ones who really like what's offered there so we don't get to eat there as often as we like since more often than not it's not just the two of us in town.}

As I mentioned before The Sims is highly addicting so you can guess where I was all afternoon and evening.  I surfaced from the basement only to eat dinner.  Well that is until I decided to go out.  My friend Lauren bar tends so I stopped by for a drink before checking out another bar where a friend was DJ-ing/running karaoke   It ended up being pretty quiet there so I headed back to the bar Lauren works at for one more drink before calling it a night.

Sunday I slept until noon, something I haven't done in a long time.  I meant to read but never got around to it because I was hooked on watching Alpha Dogs on Animal Planet.  Then of course we found a Duck Dynasty marathon on so we had to watch that.  I am fairly confident I have seen all of the episodes from season 2 at least twice now.

And as always I went to bed wondering where the weekend went.

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

Do you ever get hooked on TV show marathons or video games so you're sitting for hours watching/playing?

Pit & Peak - Spring is Here!

**I wrote this post Friday at work and then ended up not making it home until 1am which lead to not being posted until now (Sunday).  So imagine it's still Friday when you're reading this!**

TGIF people!  Every week I am so happy when Friday rolls around simply because it means I only have to get through 8 more hours of work until I have two whole days off to do whatever I want.

I’m linking up with Brin and Allie for Pit & Peak so buckle up and let’s get going.

Pit(s)

My work friend Ashley was offered a job closer to home last weekend and Tuesday she put in her two week notice.  I’ve only worked with her since December but we’ve become friends and she helps me  make it through the work day.  While I’m sad to see her go I know that it’s the best decision for her.

While I’m feeling better than last week when I Was An Emotional Hot Mess I’m still not 100% because I’ve been doing some things I know aren’t the best for me on my weight loss plan.

It snowed the morning of April 25^th.  Can you imagine, it’s almost May and Wisconsin is still getting winter weather?!  It sucks!

Peak(s)

Spring has finally decided to show its face around here!  Just a day after receiving 2 inches of snow we’re supposed to be reaching a high in the 60’s {ended up being in the low 70's!!} and it’s supposed to be even better in the upcoming days!

I rocked a dress to work!  Normally I don’t choose to wear a dress just because.  But after last summer when I would roast my ass off while Chelsea was cool as a cucumber {okay that’s an exaggeration but she was still cooler than me} I decided to take her advice and look at dresses for the summer.  Old Navy pulled through for me the other weekend and I found one that I liked.  Definitely sad I didn’t rock dresses before this!

I was contacted to do my first product review.  I am pretty pumped about it and cannot wait to get the product and then review it for all of you to read!

Fish Fry Friday happened.  Love me a good fish fry.

Hope you all had a great week that was filled with more peaks than pits!

{I know I didn't vlog my Pits & Peaks but I couldn't find the HTML code for the regular one.  Sorry!}

I Was an Emotional Hot Mess

Last week I took an unplanned break from blogging.  Not that this was the first time it has happened but it was the first time it happened for the reason it did.  Normally I just get kind of lazy about it all and don’t take the time to write something up.  Last week was different though; I wasn’t in a good place emotionally and decided I needed to just focus on me.

I know sometimes bloggers only post {or it seems that way} about the good stuff going on in their lives which then paints a pretty picture that their life is perfect.  I’m guilty of it too sometimes I admit.  But I want to share what was going on last week so I have a record of it {should it happen again} and who knows, maybe someone else out there can relate to it.

Whether or not you care to know I am on the pill to regulate my monthly friend.  Before the pill I was irregular, skipping months and never really knowing when I should expect it.  You can imagine this was not something I wanted to deal with in high school, especially when it was softball season.  I also would have really bad lower back pain during my TOM.  Going on the pill was pretty much the best decision for me because it took care of both issues.  I still have some lower back pain but it is nowhere near as bad any more, much more tolerable.

I shared that with you since last week was my TOM.  And it isn’t unusual for me to be a bit more emotional the week leading up to and the week during my TOM.  But last week it felt like it went to a whole new level.  I don’t know if it has anything to do with being on the pill.  I know there are women the pill just doesn’t work for but for me it’s worked fine with no noticeable changes to my moods.  But in the case that this starts happening regularly I would like to be able to track when it’s happening so if it is pill related I can explain it to my doctor.  {See why I wanted to record this?}

Driving to work I listen to my iPod.  I use music to express myself a lot since I find that there is usually a song out there that can explain what I'm thinking/feeling better than I can with my own words.  It isn’t unusual that while listening to music I can feel a change in myself emotionally.  But normally it’s just a little bit.  I guess because I was already feeling a bit down songs were hitting me harder than normal.  I was almost tearing up a couple of times last week during my drive to work.

I also remember having dreams about relationships, some totally fictional {Damon from The Vampire Diaries and I were in one!} and some possible but not likely {A guy in real life and myself.  More on that another time.}  This would set the mood for my drive to work and then the music on top of that just was too much in addition to the 30 minutes of thinking I do while I drive.  Being honest with you all, I’ve been single for 2+ years now and it is starting to get to me.

Then it got pretty bad Saturday night when I went out for a friend’s surprise birthday party.  The story behind the guy that caused my emotional drama deserves a whole post another day but to make a long story short after talking with a friend I realized I need to just pick myself up and leave this guy alone because I’m only dragging myself down by thinking anything will change.  Vague I know, but this is getting long already so I want to wrap things up.  I ended up crying during my drive home.  Over what?  Probably my hurt feelings.  It might seem like that's normal but really I hold myself together pretty well most of the time and I'm not sure that I should have lost it over what happened that night because it wasn't really that bad {in my opinion} and it wasn't unexpected.

I’ve been doing better ever since Saturday night happened.  For the most part I feel better but in looking at how my week has been going I would say I’m still carrying something around. 

I’m staying in bed later than I should every morning because I just don’t want to get up.  Granted some of that comes from the slowness at work which isn’t exactly enjoyable since we aren’t supposed to really do anything to fill the time. 

I’m back to my old horrible habits with Mountain Dew and soda in general. 

I skipped my weigh in yesterday morning because I haven’t been to the gym in I can’t remember how long now.  I just didn't want to stand on the scale and see a gain or no change. 

And I’m stuffing my face with crap.  Today thanks to a meeting at work where sweets were offered I took too much cookie cake, ate more than I should and am now debating whether I should just eat the rest of what is sitting on my desk staring me in the face.  {I ended up eating it.}  I also brought popcorn for lunch.  Not exactly the worst to have but not really the greatest, especially considering my other food choices today. 

I just seem to have given up at the moment.  And I hate that that is how I feel!

What gives?  I feel like I’m split in two right now.  One side of me is screaming for me to just get with the program, pick myself up, dust myself off, and move in the right direction.  The other side of me is pulling me down and begging me to just forget about losing weight or anything else that the other side of me wants to do because it’s easier to just keep doing what I’ve been doing.

Has anyone else ever experienced something like this?  Any tips for how to pull yourself out of whatever it is I am going through?  Words of wisdom?  Whatever you got, I want to hear it!  Please.

Paws to Claws

Well hello there!  I know it's been a while since I posted last {I'm going to post about that soon, promise!} but I'm back today with an awesome link up thanks to Mallory who blogs over at From California to Kansas.

When I first saw this link up floating around Twitter this morning I went right to the source, Mallory, to ask what it was all about.  And basically it's just a chance to talk about those adorable pets of ours!  How awesome is that?

She's also hosting a pretty awesome PET SWAG giveaway so be sure to head on over there to enter for your pet's chance to win!

In order to give you the full story on Bo I'm going to refer you back to a post I did in January.  God Bless Outlaws Like Me was highlighting one of my favorite artists, Justin Moore.  In that post I shared the short version of what happened with Duke, our last family dog.  Honestly, as I was thinking today about what I wanted to share and how every time I thought of Duke I would tear up and I'm definitely doing that now.  He's very much missed by everyone in my family.  So, as you read the beginning of Bo's story I hope you keep that in mind.

Miranda Lambert's song Over You, in addition to Justin's Heaven, does a pretty good job of summing up my feelings with Duke.
But you went away
How dare you?
I miss you
They say I'll be OK
But I'm not going to ever get over you

Love you always and forever puppers!

Okay...

Now that we have the sad part out of the way we can move on to the happy stuff.

My dad and I were ready for another dog, my mom not so much.  But thanks to a little pre-marital agreement between my mom and dad we would be getting another dog.  While still incredibly sad about losing Duke two weeks later my mom, dad, and I were looking at puppies!

And on my birthday!

We saw two litters that day, one litter older quite a bit older than the other.  After seeing the parents of the older litter we decided they weren't what we were looking for in a Gordon Setter.  And after seeing the mom of the second litter and having a pretty good idea of what the dad looked like thanks to similar blood lines as Duke we decided we would go with them.

As we were looking at the second litter I was constantly picking up the same pup, boy #7.  Boy #7 was also the biggest of the bunch.  I may have biased since Duke was 83 pounds but I wanted a bigger boy.

Not that I had a lot of say in which dog we got since it wasn't going to be mine it would be my dad's hunting dog that would double as a family dog but we did end up picking boy #7 to be ours.  I can't remember if it was later that day or the next that my dad called and reserved boy #7 as ours but it happened quickly.  He got a real collar so other interested parties knew he was spoken for.

We went a month without a dog.  And let me tell you it was the longest month of my life. Especially since those last two weeks with Duke he was in the house all the time so it was eerily quiet when we didn't have him, or any dog, around.

We also had strange things happen around the house without a dog.

Like the time we had a turkey take a stroll through the yard.  That definitely did not happen while Duke was here and it hasn't happened since we got Bo.

Food scrapes we normally saved for Duke sat untouched on plates and ended up being thrown out once we realized he wasn't there.

Finally the day came that we could pick up our eight-week-old boy.  I came up with the name Bo during that month we waited and it was agreed upon that was the name he would have.  Some other possible names had dealt with the TV show NCIS and are definitely in my head for when I get a pet of my own in the future.  {Gibbs anyone?!}

My mom, dad, and I picked Bo up with his tiny blue color and leash.

We ended up stopping at the vet on our way home to make his first appointments with us.  He weighed 12 pounds.

He is now almost 2-years-old {May 15th} and weighing in around 60 pounds.  Not quite as big as Duke which I'm thankful for since Bo thinks he's a lap dog sometimes and I cannot imagine 80 pounds of dog on my lap.

Bo is also the first pretty much full time house dog.  Spring time = mud around here so he regularly gets carried to the tub to be rinsed off so we don't have muddy puppy tracks all over the house.  Imagine carrying 80 pounds up stairs and putting him into a tub...yeah, not easy!

I wish I could invite you all over to hang out for a day to experience the personality that is Bo because let me tell ya, he has quite an interesting and funny one!  Pretty much daily he does something that makes us laugh.  And sometimes he turns to look at us while we're laughing as if to say, "what?!"

I'll leave you with some pictures I've snapped over the last two years.

Please let me know if you have any questions or just want to talk more about pets!  I am definitely one of those dog people who believe with all of my heart that Bo is a member of the family and is almost a people. ;)

Weekly What?

Good morning readers!  It’s the weekend which I am super stoked about just because it means I can enjoy some time at home getting stuff done and reading a good book.

Yesterday was my bumming around day.  I had an eye appointment yesterday and then I did some shopping.  Today I have no plans other than to do some laundry, paint my nails, start a new book, and maybe do some cleaning.

The wonderful Allie, Jenn, and Ricci host the lovely Weekly What? link up so you can easily find all of my posts from the week with a short little blurb about the post.  Hopefully this makes life easier for all of you weekend blog readers.

It’s been a while since I posted on a Monday but I decided I wanted to share my  Weekend Shenanigans with you.  My shenanigans included Fish Fry Friday, Garlic & Herb Beer Bread, a night out, and watching the ACMs.

I almost didn’t weigh in because I had a bad feeling about how it would go but I stuck it out and got on the scale.  Weight loss doesn’t last without some effort.  You can read about how my weight loss didn’t stick around in this week’s Weigh-In Wednesday post.

I’ve been loving the Random Thursday topics lately and this week’s was no exception.  Curious what I’m addicted to?  Find out by reading  Random Thursday – I’m Addicted To…

Every week we have our ups and downs and now thanks to Allie and Brin we have a place to share those ups (peaks) and downs (pits) to receive some encouragement and congratulations on them!  You can read this week’s Pit & Peak post here.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Pit & Peak

Hallelujah It’s Friday!  I know I say this every week but it seems like it took forever for Friday to get here.

I’m linking up with Allie and Brin for Pit & Peak.  So here we go!

Pits

Work is still slow which leads to staring at the clock and watching the day drag by.

I saw a pretty significant gain on the scale.  Knew it would happen but it still put me down in the dumps Wednesday.

Two of my friends from high school (a boy and a girl who are a couple) had a house fire this week and lost their two dogs in it.  It breaks my heart to think of what my friends are going through; not only did they have a house fire but they lost their pets so they truly have nothing (or not much) left but each other.

My DVR freaked out and wasn’t going to record some new shows this week even though the series is clearly set up to record all new episodes.  Nashville was one of them.  Luckily I caught it and was able to manually click record on the new episode so it ended up being recorded.  Hopefully I didn’t miss any new episodes of my shows!  With shows being on weird breaks from new episodes it’s hard to tell if I’m missing any or not.  Clearly I rely on my DVR too much.

Peaks

Conversations with Chelsea that prove distance doesn’t matter.  We were meant to be best friends and we will be for a long time regardless of where she lives.

Kicking my cold to curb!

Getting my very first button swapper!  Thank you Jenn for being the first!

I finished HP #2 over the weekend and am cruising right through HP #3.  Yup I listed this as a peak.  Why?  Well, since I had to give up reading at work I haven’t had or taken as much time to read so I was happy to take some time to sit down with a good book and lose myself in it for a while.

What’s one of your peaks of the week?

Random Thursday - I'm Addicted To...

It’s Thursday which means we’re one day closer to the weekend!  It also means it’s time for another Random Thursday topic.  Lately the topics have been really fun ones for me to write about and I’ve really enjoyed this awesome link up with Em, Lin, and Meg!

First of all I would like to say how thankful I am that I have never battled any real addictions to anything like drugs or alcohol.

But on to the fun stuff which is what I am addicted to.

The very first thing that came to mind was Mountain Dew.  I even mention it in the blurb about me and my blog on the top of my side bar!  Caffeine is the real culprit here though.  I do get a headache when I don’t get my daily dose of caffeine.  Mountain Dew is just the way I choose to get my caffeine more often than not.

Hoodies are another addiction.  I don’t even want to begin to try to count how many I have.  9 times out of 10 when I go on vacation and am looking for a souvenir of my trip I end up with a hoodie.  My trip to Maryland was a prime example; I already had a NCIS sweatshirt in hand but wanted to get something that said Washington D.C. on it.  I was hemming and hawing between getting a t-shirt and a hoodie.  I truly love hoodies so I wanted to get one but decided since I already had one in my hand I didn’t need another and it helped that I didn’t like the Washington D.C. hoodie design as much as the t-shirt and I had to make sure all of my purchases would fit in my carry on in order to get it all home.

You could probably say I have a slight addiction to nail polish as well.  I have plenty of nail polish and I love to go look at it in stores.  Thankfully I use great restraint and don’t buy some every time I take a peek at it.  Funny thing is, I don’t particularly enjoy doing my own nails, probably because I’m not very good at it.

Books are another addiction of mine.  I have a lot and like with nail polish love to go look at them in stores.  The addiction has probably worsened since I got a Kindle 2 years ago for my birthday.  Luckily a lot of the books I read on there are free ones but I do spend my fair share of money with it as well.  It’s especially easy to spend more money than I should with the ease of the 1-click purchasing system since I have my Amazon account linked to a card.

Thanks Em, Lin, and Meg for hosting another great week of Random Thursday!

What are you addicted to?

Weigh-In Wednesday - Nothing In This World Lasts

Normally I would start this post off with a Happy Hump Day everyone, but I’m going to be honest it is not a happy hump day.

Let’s start off with the fact that it snowed overnight here in central Wisconsin and I woke up to a winter temperature of 32 feels like 23.  So to all of you people enjoying spring or even summer weather I don’t want to hear it! :)

Next up is the fact that weigh in was not a good one this morning.  I knew my weight loss wasn’t going to stick around without effort on my part so I don’t know why I am surprised or upset by it.  I have continued on this path of not doing a damn thing to work for a loss on the scale so it shouldn’t be surprising that I gained this week.  It wasn’t pretty.

Initial Starting Weight (highest recorded weight): 205

January 2013 Starting Weight: 202.8

Last Week’s Weigh In (4/3/13): 198.9

Today, April 10: 203

Told you it wasn’t pretty…that’s a gain of 4.1 pounds!  But what did I expect?  More miracles to occur every week just because I think about losing weight and say I want to lose weight?  Maybe.

But I know that it doesn’t work like that.  Anyone who has had success with weight loss will tell us there is no magic pill or diet to follow that will make the weight melt off.  It takes hard work, determination, will power, and drive!

Last week I mentioned how I had been sick and was still congested so I wasn’t sure when I would go back to the gym.  This week I have just been plain lazy and haven’t even tried.  While I’m still dealing with a slightly runny nose it is a lot better than it was last week so I need to stop using that as an excuse.  I need to just plan and prepare so I can go to the gym.  Excuses are going to get me no where.  It needs to be done, period!

I’m going to end this post with letting all of my readers know (and reaffirming myself) that I have not given up yet.  While my actions are not supporting my words right now I haven’t thrown in the towel.  I will get back to the gym!  I will start watching what (and how much) I eat.  I will start putting in the time and effort!

**My title comes from Jason Aldean's song Fast**

Weekend Shenanigans

I would say happy Monday but let’s be honest, no one is really happy that it’s Monday.  I know I’m not.  Especially when I found out it was raining this morning which means it’s the perfect day to lay on the couch under a blanket with a good book or movie.

To add fuel to my Monday hating fire only about the first 30 minutes of work were really busy.  Since then I’ve been checking Twitter and reading up on some blogs on my phone.  Thanks to all of the blog reading I was doing I saw everyone posting about their weekend shenanigans and decided I wanted to join in on the party.  So here we go!

Friday after work I went to Phil’s Round 2 with my parents for a fish fry {it’s a Wisconsin thing ;) }.  It had been 2 weeks since I had their fish so I was especially excited about going.  The whole meal is just amazing; from the coleslaw to the fish, to the beer battered French fries!

Coleslaw gone, Fries hiding under the fish :)

Saturday morning I woke up to fresh snow on the ground.  Despite the fresh snow on the ground it was time to pick up flea and tick medicine for Bo to help prevent him from getting any as it warms up and through the summer so my parents and I left earlier than normal for our chiropractor appointment in Antigo to make a pit stop in Birnamwood to visit the vet’s office.  We also traded in our empty case of glass bottles of Sun Drop at the grocery store there for a new full case.

Mom and I had chiropractor appointments at 9am but thanks to our pit stop in Birnamwood being so quick and the roads not being terrible we arrived early for our appointments so we were adjusted and out of there before 9am.  Since we were in town we stopped at Wal-Mart for a few things.  I ended up picking up some makeup removing cloths, a file organizer for work (which I forgot to bring with me today), Venus razor refills (those suckers are expensive!), and Breaking Dawn Part 2 on DVD.

We hit up the grocery store next.  I added a few things to the cart like Skinny Cow ice-cream bars, frozen meals I can microwave for work, minced garlic, and Mrs. Dash Garlic & Herb seasoning.  Those last two items I was most excited about because I would be making Garlic & Herb Beer Bread with them once I was home.

Our final stop was Fleet Farm for a new collar for Bo.  The one he had was beginning to fall apart.  We went from blaze orange with a reflective strip to red.  There’s something about a red collar on a black dog that just looks sharp if you ask me.

The first thing I did when we got home was start baking my beer bread.  I got the recipe from Jen who blogs over at That’s What She Read {Go check it out, it's awesome!}.  I didn’t follow her recipe exactly because when I was mixing everything together I was following the original recipe for plain beer bread and I wasn't paying attention didn’t realize that for the Garlic & Herb Beer Bread it changes slightly.  Everything still turned out pretty darn tasty though so I would say it was a success!

Garlic & Herb Beer Bread

A lot of lounging around the house watching TV or reading HP #2 occurred after that until I made a last minute decision around 8:30 to go to Homestead to see a band (Tuscan Road) play.  I knew the band would be playing weeks prior but I hadn’t fully committed to going until that night.  I decided I would go without specific plans to meet anyone there.  I figured I would know at least some one there, and I was right.

It wasn’t the most fun I’ve had on a night out but it wasn’t the worst either.  After stopping at one other bar with some friends I called it a night and was home by 2am.  Bo even came to snuggle in bed with me for a little while which was nice.  He used to sleep with  me every night when he was younger {HA! I say that as if he's old, he's only 2!} but then I think he changed his mind about that arrangement after I went out a couple of nights and wasn’t around for him to go to bed with.  He now sleeps with my parents every night.

Sunday was a beautiful day as far as weather went but my yard was a mess thanks to all the melting snow and rain we had gotten the day before {yup, it snowed in the morning and was raining in the afternoon, wonderful Wisconsin weather}.  I took advantage of the nice weather and cleaned out my car.  My mom volunteered to vacuum my car for me which I was grateful for since that’s my least favorite part of cleaning a car.  My car is now ready for someone to buy.

My mom got a new vehicle {GMC Terrain} a couple of weeks ago so we’re selling the car I’ve been driving since I was 16 and I am driving the car that was my mom’s until I buy a new vehicle of my own.

I also did some much needed laundry.  It seems as though the laundry fairy skipped my house a week or two so I was in desperate need of doing laundry.  I meant to do some other chores around the house but I was lazy time got away from me so that didn’t happen.

I ended the weekend on a great note watching the Academy of Country Music Awards (ACM).  The first hour or so was awesome because Chelsea was texting me throughout.  But with her being on the East Coast she called it a night before they were over so I lost my texting buddy.  It was through our texting conversation that our friendship was once again solidified {not that it needed it!} because we would be thinking the same thing about so much of what was going on during the ACMs.  It’s almost scary how much we’re alike.

Only BFFs can have this kind of conversation :)

My man Jason Aldean won Male Vocalist of the Year (Go Jason!) and my other man Luke Bryan won Entertainer of the Year (Yay Luke!) so it was a great night.

What were you up to this weekend?

Weekly What? Lazy Blogger Edition

I was a lazy blogger this week so I don't have much to share in my Weekly What? post but here we go.

Weigh In Wednesday happened...wrote about it while I was at work...then didn't post it until Thursday morning.  Like I said, lazy blogger.

Prepare yourself because I wrote my Random Thursday post on Thursday but then didn't post it until Friday.  [Lazy blogger!!]  Curious what a day in my life looks like, or should look like?  This week's Random Thursday post was about just that so head on over to this post to check it out!

Aaaaand that's all I wrote.  Lame I know.

If only I could spend my time at work blogging instead of sitting there twiddling my thumbs when there is no work for me to do.  Super frustrating part of my job right now.  I vented in my Pit & Peak post last week about it if you are curious what I'm going on about.

I opened up some swap spots on my side bar.  If you're interested in swapping let me know so I can give you the promo code so it's FREE!

Random Thursday - A Day In The Life...

Every wonder what a normal day is like in my life?  Well you're in luck because this week's Random Thursday topic is all about a day in the life...of me!

I'm going to give you a day in the life of me from the perspective of how things should go on any given day of the week.  Now if you've been following me for any period of time you've probably picked up on the fact that I like to stay up later than I should and then as a result use the snooze button one too many times in the morning.  So, does my day always go the way I'm going to describe it below?  Absolutely not!  But in a perfect world it would.

6:45am Alarm goes off, Check social media on phone while laying in bed

6:50am Take care of any bathroom needs

7:00am Make & Eat Breakfast

7:15am Blogging Time (reading, commenting, posting, Tweeting, etc.)

7:30am Shower Time!

7:45am Be out of shower / Begin getting dressed

8:00am Begin Hair

8:45am Finish Hair / Start Makeup

9:00am Finish Makeup / Finishing Touches on Hair

9:00-9:15am Put lunch into bag, grab cell phone, purse, laptop, car keys to head out the door

9:15-9:45am Drive to work while listening to iPod full of country music

10:00am-6:00pm Work {Lunch Between 12 and 1, ate at desk while working}

6:05-6:35pm Drive home while listening to iPod full of country music

6:40pm After removing shoes and placing everything I'm carrying on the ground be greeted by Bo [wagging tail & overly excited puppy kisses]

6:45pm Change into Yoga/sweat pants & comfy tshirt and/or sweatshirt

6:50pm [or later] Eat dinner with the family

7:00-9:00pm Watch TV/ Blog / Social Media [sprinkle in household chores such as laundry, prepping breakfast/lunch for tomorrow, etc.]

9:00-10:00pm Watch DVR'd shows

10:00pm In bed to either go to sleep, read, or watch DVD (movie or TV episode)

10:30pm Shut down for sleep (if not already sleeping)

Well I got through writing up my ideal schedule and realized that I left out the gym!  I hang my head in shame as this is probably because I haven't been to the gym in about a month.

Here's the revised morning schedule to my day when I go to the gym.  I will definitely need to look into breakfast more because I have found I can't eat before I work out, even a little bit.  So it will take some more planning on my part to figure out what I can make myself after my work out without access to my kitchen and supplies.

6:30am Alarm goes off, get up to use bathroom & put contacts in

6:45am Grab all necessary (already packed) bags for the day

7:00am Drive to the gym

7:30am Arrive at gym, change shoes, begin workout

8:00am Finish work out, Drive to Aunt's house

8:15am Shower Time

8:30am Done with shower, put on essential clothing, start hair

8:50am Finish getting dressed [hair is now blown dry]

9:15am Complete hair, Makeup

9:25am Finish Makeup, finishing touches on hair

9:25-9:50am Drive to work

In both cases my morning really revolves around me prepping what I can the night before, something I am really slacking on.  But the few times that I have actually prepped the night before for the day ahead everything has gone a lot more smoothly and I am less stressed so I definitely want to get into the routine of doing this on a daily basis.  Part of the prepping the night before I go to the gym includes wearing my work out attire to bed.  Most of it is pretty comfy so it's not a big change from my normal PJs.

There you have it folks, a day in the life of me.  Probably more than most of you every wanted to know about my daily life during the week.  As you can clearly tell I am single and have no kids so my daily life is pretty easy and revolves around me.

I'm linking up with Em, Lin, and Meg a day late for Random Thursday. :)