An End and a Beginning

December 31, 2013 Kim 58 Comments

Today’s 44 was another fun one with my resistance band. I stood on the band and crossed the handles to make the resistance greater. Then I stepped out with my right foot, out with my left and back in with each.

In the video you can see that I switched lead legs while doing this move – I’m not sure my hips could handle 44 each side. (now I sort-of feel like I should go do another set!!)

I pulled out one of my favorite workouts today – Les Mills Combat – Ultimate Cardio Fighter. 60 minutes of sweating while kicking, punching and jumping = awesome!!!

Looking Back at 2013:

I have seen similar posts to this and decided that it would be a fun to end 2013 with a recap of the year.

January:

I finished up a long-term sub job at an elementary school library – super fun!
Packing away Christmas was a bit of a disaster –

Another shopping trip and a little assembly later, the problem was all solved!!!

February:

I decided to do a little personal challenge during the month of February. In addition to my daily 43 and my regular workouts, I did 1 minute wall-sits to correspond to the day of the month – so by the 28th, I did 28, 1-minute wall-sits!

March:

We had a special Hobbit themed meal to go along with the DVD viewing of the movie. This was mostly Jordan’s thing but I enjoyed planning the meal with his help and then fixing the meal with the help of both boys!

April:

The biggie from this month was more of a huge mistake and learning experience on my part. I had vein surgery on April 24th and feel like I’m still paying the price for that decision!!

May:

Chris and I celebrated our 17th anniversary!

June:

The boys and I went to Texas and enjoyed what would end up being our last summer visit with my Poppa!

July:

We took a great family trip to Florida!!! The driving (22 hours each way) wasn’t really my favorite part but lots of great memories were made!!

August:

The boys started another school year – Jordan went to high school and Hunter to middle school.

Jordan kept busy with marching band!

I made a quick trip to TX to pay tribute to my wonderful Poppa.

And, our lives completely changed when we became business owners!!!

September:

More high school football games and plenty of middle school cross country meets.

Hunter walking through the end of the chute

I celebrated another birthday with another birthday run – and started doing daily 44s.

October:

HaHa – I couldn’t think of anything from October and then I remembered – the epic fail!!! I attempted my first ultra – not pretty!

November:

Hunter started his wrestling career.

Sam, Stacy, Isabel and Hays came up from Texas to spend Thanksgiving with us!!December:

We hosted our first (probably annual) Christmas Day open house at the Governor’s Row House.

We have enjoyed a much needed family reset time while we celebrated Christmas and prepare to start a new year!

Tonight we will have our yearly New Year’s Eve party (we started doing this after Jordan was born so that we could have a family oriented way to celebrate the start of the new year) and tomorrow we will wake up ready for a great new year!!!

Do you have big plans to celebrate the start of 2014?

Happy Tuesday – the final day of 2013!!

Kim

Biceps, Fitness, Running, Shoulders, Treadmill

The Elusive Quest for Sleep

December 30, 2013 Kim 43 Comments

For today’s 44 I used a resistance band and did a wide curl to a shoulder press. I had to keep my feet fairly close together to complete all the reps on the overhead press portion!

Don’t mind the sweat – I had to do the demo after my workout since the boys are still in vacation mode!!!

I did my final run of 2013 this morning.
1.5% incline – 5miles in 34:49 + 1 easy cool down mile

Sleep – Garfield makes it look so easy!!!

And, actually, you would think that something as natural and necessary as sleep would be easy! However, in my world, there is nothing easy about sleep.

I’ve read hundreds of articles that give tips for better sleep and tried pretty much all of the tips.

daily exercise (YEP!!)
keep the room cool – I try!
follow a schedule – almost all the time
don’t eat late
and on and on and on…..

The other day I even dragged Chris (and the boys – they loved it) into the Sleep Number store.

Lately my back aches most of the time so I thought maybe a Sleep Number bed would help and since I get hot at night and Chris doesn’t I looked at the new dual temp pad also.

Then we saw a price list!!! Ummm….I don’t think a Sleep Number bed is the answer!

Chris keeps telling me to take Ambien but I would rather not (not sure why?!).

Lately, besides not being able to sleep, I spend most of the night feeling crummy – maybe because I’m tired and my body needs sleep?! I don’t know what the deal is but I’m over it!!

Well, on a positive note – I do get quite a bit of reading done in the middle of the night!!

Chris is pretty much the opposite of me – he falls asleep within minutes and stays asleep all night long (what a novel idea!)!! All the little noises and things that bug me are completely unknown to him!

Do you have sleep issues? What have you found that helps you?

Happy Monday!!!

Kim

BOSU, Core, Fitness, Plank

Favorite Traditions

December 29, 2013 Kim 59 Comments

Today’s 44 was another plank variation – using my BOSU!!! I flipped the BOSU over and did a plank with my toes on it. Then I alternated stepping my feet off and back on.

My arms were shaking by the time I finished all 44 reps – between holding plank (2:10) and the balance challenge from using the BOSU upside down – this was tough!!!

I know that everyone develops their own traditions over the years – some are passed down from generation to generation and others are new. I thought today I would share a few of our favorite Christmas traditions.

1. Since we have trees in every room, we use the tree in our down-stairs living room to put presents under.

sometimes the presents go around more than under

2. We open presents on Christmas Eve and we always just do 1 at a time. I like doing it this way because we can actually watch everyone opening their gifts and take time to really appreciate all of them!

Hunter's big gift this year was a keyboard!! — Hunter’s big gift this year was a keyboard!!

I might be as excited about this one as Hunter!!! Maybe I can learn to play again, too!

Jordan is into all thing Medieval – like weapons!

Jordan with 3-D glasses – nice!!! Funny, no pictures of me – I have the camera(s)!!!

3. On Christmas Eve we use our raclette grill and have a fun contest! We all cook shrimp, chicken and steak and vote on the winner in each category and the over-all. It is fun to make different seasonings and marinades.

There are times that Hunter will put some of each seasoning in his mixture – fun times!!!

Jordan and Chris were the top winners this year. I didn’t get a single vote!!

4. On Christmas morning, we get to check our stockings!! We always have stockings in our upstairs living room.

This tradition has changed as the boys have gotten older. Now they get dressed first (notice how Hunter went with red & green?!) and I’m wearing my sweaty running stuff because I had already gotten in almost 6 miles! Still a fun tradition!!

5. We always have Reindeer Bread for breakfast after stockings!

I think a lot of people call this Bubble Bread or Monkey Bread but in our family it is Reindeer Bread no matter what time of year we have it!

So, just a few of our favorite ways to enjoy Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

What are some of your favorite family traditions?

Happy Sunday!!

Kim

BOSU, Cardio, Fitness, Lunges

Games, Movies, Snacks and Plenty of Relaxing!!

December 28, 2013 Kim 34 Comments

Today I used my BOSU for the 44 and did jumping lunges! I counted a right and a left lunge as 1 rep.

Clearly my memory is slipping after several days of no routine because I sort-of forgot that I just did a lunge move yesterday! Oh, well – they were totally different!

This past week has been full of fun – doing things that we don’t do very often!!!

We have played games – all 4 of us!!! We just got Logo Party –

this week and we’ve already been through over half the cards! We also tried –

This game is fun but I think it will be more fun at our New Year’s Eve party with a group of adults!!!

The boys have actually had time to play the X-Box and have enjoyed that since they hardly played during the fall with school and other activities keeping them busy.

Chris and I have watched a few movies in the afternoon (so much better than night-time movies since I get tired at night!!).

One day we watched The Way Way Back –

It was really a cute movie! It made me cry a little at the end but I enjoyed it. (thanks for recommending it, Shashi!!)

And, to show you how far behind we are on movies, yesterday we watched –

I liked this one much better than the 2nd one!!!

I haven’t cooked since Tuesday when I did all of the prep work for our open house on Christmas Day – we have had left-overs and snacks!!!

We have all enjoyed sleeping in (some more than others – Hunter and Jordan!!!).

Over-all this past week has been the perfect mix of activity, get-togethers and plenty of down time so that we start the new year refreshed and ready to go again!!!

Happy Saturday – I hope it is fun and relaxing in your world!!!

Kim

Butt, Cardio, Fitness, Lunges, Quad, Running, Treadmill

Standing Makes Me Happy!

December 27, 2013 Kim 61 Comments

Today I decided to do a fast moving 44! This was a good one for feeling a burn in my quads!!! I did a lunge with a floor touch.

This 44 went quickly!! Of course, after I did 44 on one side, I had to switch and do another set of 44 to stay balanced!!!

And – check out my shirt in the video – recognize the color?

Hunter gave me this shirt so that when we run a half marathon together in the spring (he wants to do one to celebrate turning 13!!!) we can match!!! So excited about it!

Today was another running day. I wanted to go further so I slowed my pace from the past couple of runs! I used 1.5% incline and did 10 miles in 80:15 + 1 easy cool down mile. I started out much slower and increased the speed every half mile for a nice run!!!

Over the past year, I’ve found myself sitting a lot more than I want to. And the reason is my computer and the time I spend blogging and doing other things on it.

I knew that I wanted to make a change but I still wanted to be able to spend time on the computer so…..

I told Chris awhile back that I wanted a standing work station but not a big one because I wanted it to be portable. This one is perfect!!! It is on wheels and very easy to move so I can have it in the kitchen, living room, dining room or wherever I want to be!!!

writing my blog (this was yesterday morning)

I love it since I always write my post for the day after I finish working out and I hate to just plunk myself in a chair – perfect solution!!! Now when I’m ~~being productive~~ reading blogs I won’t feel like such a slug!!!

Have you ever tried a standing work station? Do you prefer to stand or sit?
In the past I tried our kitchen table and the island – both were too low!!! I feel much more productive when I stand, too!!! (might be mental but….)

Happy Friday!!

Kim

Day With KT

Monthly Archives: December 2013

An End and a Beginning

The Elusive Quest for Sleep

Favorite Traditions

Games, Movies, Snacks and Plenty of Relaxing!!

Standing Makes Me Happy!

Fitness – Food – Fun