Fitness Frenemies, Anniversaries, and other Adventures in the Last Week

Trying to blog more than once a week, I'm sneaking in a post at 11 p.m. on Thursday, a mere 6.75 days after publishing the last one! Let's seen what's happened since last Friday.

On Saturday, I woke up and dragged myself to Orangetheory for the first time in 18 months. I've gained a stubborn and clothing-size-significant 12 lbs. in those last 18 months and after spending 6 months vacillating between a resigned "the nachos are worth it" acceptance and a dark spiral of self-loathing when something new didn't fit, I decided I needed to step up my diet and exercise game.

Hello Old Frenemy

I always enjoyed the OTF workouts, it's a well-planned and intense hour, goes quickly, and is the only way I can make myself run or lift heavier weights, adding more cardio and weight-bearing exercise that I need. I'm now on the 2x/week plan and regardless of the superficial, it already feels so good to be pushed beyond my comfort zone again, even if I did have to go buy new running shoes because all my workouts have been barefoot for the last 18 months.

Speaking of my barefoot workouts, my 3rd Yoga Club Box (affiliate link!) arrived on Saturday too!

I continue to love the surprise and value of each box and the little monthly boost to my exercise drawer. This time I decided I didn't want the tie-back tank (I lay on my back a lot when I work out with yoga and barre and I don't like feeling the knot) and it was super easy to switch it out for a top I love (the same one I got last time in a different color; it's my absolutely fave) that will ship out with my next box along with a bag to send back the one I got this time. So that was nice and easy!

I'm tweaking my diet in addition to shaking up my exercise routine. Nothing crazy, but I do well with guidelines and, nachos notwithstanding, whole and healthy is my preferred way of eating. I just need to be more purposeful about all my meals. Apparently, this is 36. Ugh.

Also on Saturday, Maggie got to go to the vet! All three kids came along for emotional support, regardless of the fact that Maggie adores the vet and likes to go as often as possible.

This time it was for a goopy eye and major skin itchies. She's now on medicated eye drops and a steroid/antihistamine pill.

Oh Mags.

Then, still on Saturday, James and I went out to celebrate our 14th wedding anniversary! I had fun with Urban Decay palettes and a youtube video for my eyes and wore a bright pink dress and a necklace James gave me for Christmas several years ago.

It was the 18th anniversary of the night we met, now exactly half my life ago, which seems both impossible and exactly right. It's so amazing to sit next to a person you've been with for that long and enjoy every moment of your fancy night out.

On Sunday we were determined to reinstitute a family tradition of Sunday morning togetherness. Now that the kids sleep in, get up on their own, eat something, and watch a show together without any adult supervision, we've gotten WAY lazy about getting up to do our usual family adventures. And that's been fine- wonderful even- but we miss the purpose to our mornings, so this Sunday we were in the car and on our way to the park at 9 a.m.

It was already 90 degrees and the bulldog was panting after a few minutes, but what a lovely few minutes it was!

Looking forward to much more of this in the fall when Maggie can go on long adventures with us without a risk of instant heat stroke.

On this round she took one trip down the slide took the rest of the day off to recover.

The rest of the holiday weekend involved some workouts (OTF again!), card games, reading, movies (finally saw Avengers Endgame!!), and lots of cooking.

Landon is continuing his diligent work on Don Quixote. In his usual Landon way he's quietly going about it, armed with a plan and set pace (200 pages/week, apparently), interspersing it with shorter books of his choosing. I found this on the kitchen counter and he said he's writing major plot points so as not to forget them when it comes time for the test on the 1,000 page novel. The quiet, self-motivated, practicality of it is just 1000% Landon and it made my heart squeeze.

Tuesday was our actual anniversary and we exchanged gifts and cards at 7 a.m. while getting the three kids off to school and joining efforts to get 2 eye-drops into our objecting bulldog before I ran off to work, armed with a giant cup of hot tea and my workout bag to teach at TCU on my way home. It felt exactly right for 14 years.

James delivered flowers to my office which were a beautiful and cheerful surprise, and then I set up our "fancy picnic dinner" (as the kids have dubbed our traditional charcuterie) post-barre class and before everyone got home from swimming.

Once a tradition started before we could afford a sitter or fancy foods, the meat and cheese night is now one the kids get to join because we can have a separate fancy night out just for us on an adjoining weekend. We get a good bottle of wine and/or champagne and toast to another year, telling the kids stories of when we were dating or our early married years.

Fall 2002, the college dating years

We found our wedding DVD and fired it up for the first time in forever. The kid had never seen it and it was so fun to hear their commentary (like, "Mom! Your voice is different and so is your face! You're so beautiful!"). Fourteen years is enough time for everyone involved to look just a little different...

And so the rest of the week continued, with far less wine and cheese, and more work and the kind of busy that now feels pretty mundane. On Wednesday I bought a piece of art of our neighborhood buy/sell page and Maggie rode along to keep me company. Her little face trying to stick up to see out the window never fails to make me smile.

#ShortLegsBigHeart

Tomorrow my mom comes to visit for her birthday (yay!) and I'm taking off the afternoon to take on our local clearance Dillards with her leading the way. We have some birthday surprises for her at home and are super excited she'll be here to celebrate. As the birthday girl she'll get to pick our dinner (which will almost certainly be Mellow Mushroom pizza), but here's our other meals for this week! Hope you've had a great one!

Sunday: Crockpot Chicken and Wild Rice Soup (SO GOOD; the easiest version of this I've made and the best. I added extra carrot and cut the roux mixture in half and it was still plenty creamy.)

Monday: Oven Jambalaya

Tuesday: Fancy picnic dinner!

Wednesday: Vegetable Chow Mein (Delicious! I doubled the sauce, tripled the noodles, and added tons of extra veggies, and served it with an over easy egg on top of each bowl)

Thursday: Easy Crockpot Creamy Chicken Enchilada Chili