Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Monday, February 25, 2013
Monday, February 18, 2013
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Flower Garden
Having a hard time deciding which flowers I should purchase to accent my herb garden that I will begin growing in the next few weeks. The choices are:
Columbine Seeds - "McKana Giant Mix"
Sulphur Cosmos Seeds - "Bright Lights"
Cornflower / Bachelor Button Seeds - "Tall Mix"
California Poppy Seeds - "Ballerina Mix"
Poppy somniferum Seeds - "Double Mixed"
Zinnia Seeds - "Peppermint Stick Mixed"
Zinnia Seeds - "Candy Stripe Mixed"
All of them are just so beautiful. I'm not too knowledgeable on the different flowers and different growing conditions that each of them require. So if you have any suggestions or input, please leave a comment below!!
Monday, February 11, 2013
Love McMuffin
Ok, I decided to post a quick little recipe for one of my favorite breakfast/lunch meals. I call it the
Love McMuffin
1. Preheat oven to ~176C/350F
2. Bake 3 pieces of BACON for 15 minutes, remove and wrap in paper towels to remove grease
3. Use a muffin tray, spray one hole with cooking spray, crack egg into it (add seasoning to eggs as necessary)
4. Bake in same temp. for 15 minutes
5. Cover both sides of the English muffins with shredded cheese, one half with Canadian Bacon on top, place in oven for ~5 minutes to let cheese melt, take out of oven
6. Spread some honey mustard (or condiment of your choice) on Canadian Bacon
7. Break bacon into 3 pieces each, place strips on other half of English Muffin into a triple layer
8. When egg is done cooking, use a spoon to scrape the edges of the tin to remove egg, place on bacon and place other half on top
9. Smoosh it down to make it flat enough for bite size
10. ENJOY!
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Exercise = Happiness??
WARNING: this is an actual journal/diary entry... I need to get stuff off my mind.
Anywho, I also woke up realizing that I had a homework assignment due tonight, which entailed reading a lot of pages from my textbook. Being a slow reader of books that I enjoy sucks; when it comes to textbooks, I take that slow reading pace and multiply it by a million, so it literally takes me ~10 minutes to read one page from my textbook. So that stressed me out a lot today. I had maybe close to 80 pages to read, so basically I ended up skipping around the chapters getting the gist of the info. Ended up completing my assignment around 12:30am. Not bad.
THAT MEANS, I had no time to work out today. My body feels like crap, my mood was crappy, everything was poop. I have noticed that no matter what mood I am in before I work out, I always leave the gym with an immensely positive outlook on life, and I feel great about my body. So I wonder if I am relying my happiness too much on exercise, or if I can use exercise as a positive outlet to relieve stress in my life. The thing is, I have worked out every day for the past week at least, so today was my first day off from working out and my day was shitty. I don't want to HAVE to work out every day, just so it's a good day. I want to WANT to work out because I just want to get healthy. Maybe I'm becoming addicted, because even looking at myself in the mirror today made me want to punch someone... in the face... hard. Not really, because honestly I'm a wuss and my fist would probably shatter before I bruise someone's face... and I'm not really a violent person. But you understand; I was feeling inadequate and had negative thoughts about my physical appearance. Which is strange for me, because usually my self esteem is semi-high/average, even when I'm out of shape; and I'm currently in the best shape that I've been in in easily over a year or two, yet I just feel... not good enough.
And back to my dream again. It left me wanting more out of my life. I feel like I am doing a perfectly good job of going through the motions of becoming something; I'm currently working on my master's degree and working on loving my husband the best way that I know how to. Yet, I still feel so unhappy and unsatisfied with the direction I see that my life is headed. I used to have hopes and dreams that would make me intrinsically happy (if that makes sense), but I feel like I have pushed those dreams so far down into my subconscious so that I can obtain the false, shallow happiness, to the point that I just have no real meaningful purpose anymore. Yet I am so afraid of changing my current situation to obtain my internal happiness. Besides, by bringing the things I want into my life would be selfish and unfair to my husband. I won't explain what they are, but don't get any crazy ideas. I want to make my husband happy, yet I am struggling internally. So, there's my painfully boring dilemma.
I'll stop blabbing, now. I'll just blame my crap day on my stupid dream. And maybe because of my awkward sleep schedule. Going to bed at 3:45am and waking up at 12:45pm can't be good for my mental health. I need to learn to push my sleep schedule forward a few hours. But at the same time, I don't want to. I enjoy staying up late. I have no reason to wake up at 9am every day. I don't have a job!! Meh.
Ok, really... I'll shut up now. I apologize to everyone who just wasted 5 minutes (or 20 minutes, if you read like me) of their day to read about my pItY pArTy. I really just needed to vent.
Good night!
Apologetically,
Lauren
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Tom Hardy Appreciation Day!
It is coming up (or has already passed) of my 1 year Tom Hardy obsession... some time between late-January/early-February. So in honor of his great beauty and talent, I have provided a poll (with pictures!!). It is your choice:
WHICH TOM HARDY LOOK IS YOUR FAVORITE?
No pressure... they're all great choices.
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Monday, February 4, 2013
Today's ACTUAL workout
Ok, so we didn't do the "Booty Circuit" like I had originally planned. Instead we did a better circuit which contained one circuit of cardio, one of arms, and one for butt. This is the order we did them in:
Cardio
Each 1 Min.
High Knees
Mountain Climbers
Jump Lunges
Burpees
Lateral Jumps
"Brazilian Butt"
25 Squats
25 Plie Squats
25 Donkey Kicks (left)
25 Donkey Kicks (right)
20 Split Jumps
50 Backwards Lunges
45 Sec. Wall Sit
"Lean Arms"
10 Push Ups
30 Alternating Bicep Curls
20 Tricep Dips
60 Sec. Plank
40 Reverse Crunches
30 Alternating Hammer Curls
40 Oblique Crunches
30 Front Dumbell Raises
And then we repeated the Cardio workout one more time through.
Overall, it was a great workout. We got our heart working and were building stronger muscles. Although, I have to say that the "Brazilian Butt" workout really did a number on our thighs, and the original circuit was to do 50 regular lunges, but we switched it up to backwards lunges to work different muscles today.
AND big news, I finally switched from knee push ups to regular push ups. We'll see how long that lasts, I was feeling daring today. My form is still a little off, but I'll get there!!
This workout lasted about 45 minutes, to make it more effective we probably could have done a couple of reps of each circuit, but we were a little pressed for time. There's always tomorrow...
Butt and Thighs
Ok, provided is today's workout, focusing mainly on butt and thighs. I did this workout one time through before I went to brunch on Friday, just so I didn't feel completely useless. Today I think we might attempt a 2-3 time repetition to get the full effect. I call this the
BOOTY CIRCUIT
30 jumping jacks
20 lunges
10 squats
10 plie squats
20 side lunges
20 glute kickbacks
15 short bridges
10 side leg circles (each)
20 glute kickbacks
15 squats
10 plie squats
20 jumping jacks
I'm thinking about starting at the beginning and for my second repetition just reverse the workout since it starts and ends with jumping jacks. Or I can just suck it up and do 20 jumping jacks then 30 jumping jacks. DO WORK!!
Interesting facts about Abs
Here's some facts about abs. Don't be discouraged if you are not getting the "body builder" abs that you so admire in the magazines... there are healthier, more useful ways to build abs, and every BODY is different. Check it out!
Original Source: Interesting facts about Abs
Original Source: Interesting facts about Abs
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