Workin’ Hard

Considering that I had no significant plans for today, it wound up very productive. Thanks mainly to another beautiful day, a handy neighbor, and a desire to be active.

After posting this morning I made myself a pineapple spritzer (pineapple juice and seltzer) and sat on the front porch reading in the sun for a bit. Eventually the bug for coffee hit me so I took myself out to Starbucks for an iced coffee with skim milk (note: these are supposed to be sweetened with their classic syrup, but mine wasn’t…what a shock taking a big swig expecting sweet and getting bitter!)

I perused a few garden centers while I was out. I literally pass five on the way to Starbucks. No one really has much in the way of annual bedding plants yet…I’m holding out for impatiens for my planters, but I did get two lovely hanging baskets for the front porch. Purple Calibrachoa…which look like tiny petunias to me!

I brought my iced coffee home (to add sugar!) and made lunch. Turkey and avocado wrap with chips and salsa. Deeeeelish.

In the tortilla: light mayo, grainy mustard, deli turkey, avocado slices and grated light cheddar.

Still wanting to tackle the weed wasteland that is our lawn I asked my neighbor if I could borrow their mower until FH gets a chance to look at ours when he gets home. She suggested her hubby have a look a mine, so I took them up on that. After a few minutes poking around and several pulls on the rip cord, he got it to start! He didn’t do anything different than I was doing, so his guess is that there was some old gas in the line that just needed to be flushed out. Nice!

This was awesome because I was then able to tackle the dead spots on the front yard like I had wanted to early in the week. Three bags of lawn soil and I could have used at least three more…but I raked it out carefully, sprinkled with a ton of new grass seed, raked a little more, and watered it carefully. My new pet project will be to watch and see if it works!

The back yard is a huge task, so that will definitely be a Summer-long project for FH and I to worry about a little later.

Three hours out in the sun made me a little hungry so I came in for a bowl of Liberte Svelt vanilla yogurt with a handful of Organic Daybreak and some of the leftover fruit from last night. This gave me enough energy to change my clothes and head to the gym.

Run + full body strength training…

Treadmill: 2 minute warm up, 18 minute run, 3 minute cooldown

Upper Body: 2 sets of 12 reps (I upped my weights and went for fewer reps today)

- Tricep pulldowns (17.5lbs)

- Bicep curls (30lbs)

- Military presses (30lbs)

Lower Body: 2 sets of 12 reps

- squats on upside-down bosu

- stationary lunges with 2 x 10lb weights (each leg)

- hamstring curls on the ball

Core:

- 30 regular crunches

- 30 bicycle crunches

- 30 reverse crunches

- 30 second plank

- a few yoga stretches for my lower back, legs, etc

When I got home I walked up the block to get the mail, then came in and immediately made dinner. Stuffed a chicken breast with a smear of light herby cream cheese and leftover spinach and sprinkled it with s&p and fresh parmesan and baked it in the oven.

Served with a simple tomato salad (just added a smidge of minced red onion, a little EVOO, sea salt and ground pepper to a whole chopped tomato), fiddleheads, and two mini slices of baguette leftover from last night (thanks Lynn!).

All that has led to this crazy long post and now I’m zonked. I just got out of the shower and plan to give myself a little mud mask action before relaxing with a cup of tea and a few more Butterfly cookies. It will be a reasonably early bedtime tonight so I can be bright eyed and bushy tailed tomorrow….because FH IS HOME TOMORROW!! Weeeeeeeee!!