The Best Laid Plans...

I had big plans of working out and running and getting things done and this week none of those things have happened.  Starting out the week I was sick with a cold (actually, I still am).  I figured I'd take a couple days off and get better quickly.  I know better than this.  I have three kids.  I know by now that I need to do things no matter how bad I feel because it can always be worse.  I should have worked out those days, but I didn't, and then very late Wednesday night/early Thursday morning I awoke to the sound of a child throwing up in the hallway.

And ten hours later:

Awesome.

Now it's Saturday and she's still sick.  I'm so thankful no one else has caught what she had, but with the husband out of town, it still meant I was homebound for days.  No working out, no grocery shopping, no getting out of my germ infested house.  After two days of this, I had to at the very least drag all the kids to the grocery store for some essentials.  Maybe tomorrow I can get to the gym...

I started back to my own school on Monday.  Luckily, I only have two classes for this session, and so far they're not excessively time-consuming.  All the extra time at home this week has provided time for school work for me as well as lots of extra internet-surfing and kids' movie watching.  A friend introduced me to an app called ibotta. 

 Have you heard of it?  I used to cut coupons for grocery shopping, but I just don't anymore.  Whether I don't have time or I'm lazy or I just don't feel like it even if I do manage to tear a coupon out, the chances of me remembering to use it before it expires are slim to none.  So I do my grocery shopping at Walmart Neighborhood Market and at the very least I use their SavingsCatcher to get the lowest prices.  Ibotta, though, is like cutting coupons without having to actually cut anything or take anything with you to the store.  You just scroll through, choose which things you are going to buy (everything from produce to dairy products to name-brand groceries), and then once you have bought them you go back into the app and mark them and scan your receipt.  Once you have $20-$25 in your ibotta account you can order a gift card or have it deposited to your paypal account.  I'm currently at $17 and can't wait to get some free money!

I'm working on a post about some of my current most favorite things.  And a few new happenings that I'm super excited about.  And hopefully this coming week I will be back to working out and running and having a germ-free house.  I (don't) love the smell of Lysol.

Playing Catch-Up Already

It's still the first week of the year and I'm already playing catch-up.  I had hoped to update the blog every day or every two days, but that hasn't happened.  So here it goes:

Monday I ran 3 miles again.

And it was so cold.  I wore long sleeves and pants, and luckily I had gloves in the car, but I had nothing to cover my ears and no jacket.  Typical poor planning on my part.  I think it was in the 30s.  Speaking of gloves, these have been my favorite for running for years:

The flap that opens is perfect for when you warm up a little bit but it's still freezing outside and you don't want to take them all the way off.  One of these days I want to do a My Favorite Things post.  I have so many essentials that I need for my "free" sport.  Speaking of essentials, I not only forgot to wear warm clothing on Monday, I forgot to take my Garmin with me.  I remembered as I pulled into the gym parking lot.  By then, it was too late to go back home.  The littlest girl was ready to go play at the childcare and I at least knew the three-mile route well enough to not need the Garmin for distance, but I totally felt lost without it.  I don't enjoy not knowing or planning my pace, which I think must have been pretty fast since I was dying to get out of the cold.

After that on Monday, the big kids had karate and ice skating in the evening, which involves a lot of coordinated time management and hours in the car.

Tuesday I did something I've wanted to do forever:

I ate salad for breakfast.  The only thing I'd do different next time is add some tomato and cucumber (I just didn't have any yesterday).  How could starting the day with green veggies be wrong, even if it's not traditional breakfast fare??

It also snowed on Tuesday, and was so cold:

I was thankful it was a gym day and not a running day.  The littlest girl and I went to the gym in the morning.  I laughed when I printed out my workout:

280 pound leg press!?  I regularly do 230 as my heaviest set, and I had never done more than 250.  So I tried.  It wasn't happening.  I wound up doing 260 and was pretty happy with that.  My legs aren't so happy about it today.

Then I did the dreaded TreadClimber for 25 minutes since I had signed the littlest up for story time and it wasn't over yet.

That machine is awful.
Dinner was in the crock pot since I knew we would be busy with more kids' activities in the evening,

but lunch was with friends at Chick-fil-A.  I don't care what diet you're on, if it doesn't include Chick-fil-A fries you're missing out.

And no, I didn't use all of those honey roasted bbq sauces ( I gave one to my friend).  While we were there, the littlest girl's friend said, "You're my best friend forever!"  Super cute.  My awesome child responded with, "Yeah!  I'm not going to hit you."  What??

After all that last night all three girls started swim lessons.  The big girls did swimming this summer and do a fairly decent job.  The littlest had never done lessons, and she did so good.  I figure with the prospect of moving to an island this summer, they better be proficient swimmers!  I had one kid in every lesson level, and it was so convenient to have them all in the pool at the same time.

I just wish the lessons were an hour instead of a half so I had enough time to workout!

I've been thinking a lot about my running goals for this year.  The under two hour 1/2 is still my main goal. However, if that happens in one of the spring half marathons I plan on doing, what's next?  With the move likely happening in early July, I will still have plenty of time to plan for a fall goal, and if the move occurs as planned to a year-round warm weather locale, I won't have to consider seasonal constraints at all.  So many options!!