Good morning and TGIF! This has been a whirlwind of a week for me. For starters, I had to go in the office on Monday, but on top of that we were going live with a new program so I was in trainings/testing of that for pretty much all of Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday which really threw a wrench in my normal schedule! But, everything went well and the program developers are super cool guys so it could’ve been a lot worse. I also had some good workouts and made some headway with a new fitness adventure, so all is good!
For now, though, let’s focus on the fact that it’s FRIDAY! Anything good planned for the weekend? We have RM’s sister’s going away party tonight (she’s moving to Atlanta) and then I’m teaching tomorrow morning and then hopefully meeting my parents for lunch in Portsmouth before visiting my friends Kia and Christy and their brand new baby girls 🙂 Whatever you have on the agenda, I hope you have a blast, smile and laugh a lot, drink some vino and get some movement in!
Five on Friday:
1. Chin-ups- I may not have reached my goal of 10 unassisted pull-ups/chin ups, but at this point I am just focusing on what I CAN do. The other day, I went to the gym and ran and then decided to try and do some chin-ups. I hadn’t done any in a while and was surprised to find myself able to do 4 with relative ease (last one was a little tough!). I’ll take it!
2. Meal Prep– Although this is a time consuming activity, I’ve learned over the years how worthwhile it is for me to spend time doing it. Whether it’s prepping a bunch of root veggies, chicken and kale or actually making a meal (casserole, soup, meatloaf, etc.), knowing I have the ability to go in the fridge and grab healthy food quickly and easily is a really good thing. I’m often busy during the week between social engagements or teaching so it’s hard for me to spend time making fresh dinners each night. Meal prep leftovers for the win!
3. I can’t get rid of my cold! I know I am not alone in this because RM has had a cold for going on two weeks and I know of a bunch of other people who have also been sick, but it doesn’t make thigns any better! I haven’t been sleeping well and I’m tired of blowing my nose. Womp 😦
4. Dry weather doesn’t bode well with my hands- Throughout the warmer months, I always forget how DRY my skin can get during the winter, in particular, my right hand. I mean, look at this! Does anyone have any good lotion/moisturizer suggestions? I’m so bad at using hand creams, mostly because I hate the feeling of lotion on the palms of my hands (weird, right?), but this is so not sexy so I need to do something!
5. Getting back into a consistent training routine– Although I’ve worked out consistently even throughout the holidays, my training schedule hasn’t really been consistent. My workouts over the past month or so have kind of been all over the place and while that is absolutely better than not working out at all, I am excited to get back to a normal and planned routine and schedule. I was finally able to make it to the gym during my lunch break yesterday and was so happy when I stumbled across Stephanie’s Burpee Bookend Full Body Circuit earlier in the morning. Some days I’m really focused and know exactly what I want to do, but there are others (like yesterday… and lots of days over the past month) where I really have no direction with regards to what I want to do. Her workout not only made me excited to get to the gym to try it out, but it also left me with shaky legs as I walked down the stairs after the workout was finished. The 50 burpees to start and finish the workout were killer… and I loved it!
Burpees to Bubbly 
I’m totally with you on the meal prep! I used to hate doing it which always led to eating out, spending way too much money on unhealthy food, and therefore feeling pretty crappy. Meal prep is SO worth it. It takes so much time (especially living with your S.O. holy moly!), but it gives me SUCH pleasure to have a fridge stocked full of healthy eats and meals for a few days (wish I could say a week, but I don’t prep that much!).
For lotions, I’d recommend trying O’Keeffe’s Working Hands hand salve. My mom swears by it and she gets really bad dry skin and cracked knuckles. I’ve only tried it a few times, but from what I remember, it doesn’t leave your skin oily and soaks in pretty quickly if you use a small amount. 🙂
Congrats on the chin ups! That’s awesome! Random question: how do you imbed Instagram posts like that one into your blog posts? I’d love to know!
Yes! It’s totally a lot of work to do, but the reward of having a fridge full of healthy eats is worth it. We go through food so fast since we both love leftovers so it’s been challenging to know how much to buy and prep at the beginning of the week! Thank you for the lotion recommendation! All i did was put the link from Insta right into the post- i don’t do a hyperlink or anything, just copy and paste and then it spits it out in the imbed format!
I LOVE Kielh’s Ultimate Strength Hand Salve!!! I also hate the feeling of lotion but this is seriously moisturizing and absorbs super quick. I have tubes by the bed, in the car and on my desk at work. It’s the best.
I have some Kielh’s lip stuff and love it! i will have to look for that- thank you!
I’m the same way- I HATE lotion on my hands. Since getting pregnant I use bio oil on my stomach/thighs and Palmers concentrate lotion (concentrate is the key here- way better than the lotion!) on the rest of my body. Since I apply it with my hands (duh) it’s really shown a HUGE improvement in dry skin! And living in high altitude made for some really bad skin 😦
Interesting!! I will have to look for those, i didn’t know there was such a thing as concentrate lotion- who knew!
I LOVE Khiel’s Ultimate Strength Hald Salve. I also hate the feel of lotion on my hands but this stuff is seriously moisturizing and absorbs super fast. I have tubes in the car, at work and on the nightstand. I highly recommend!
Hi Nick, I am so with you on the dry hands thing–along with every other part of my body!! I tend to use whatever hand lotion that’s in my purse–if I think of it! So many things made me smile this week–my little first graders are so darn funny–they make me laugh every day. I will so miss them when my long-term sub position ends in 2 weeks! So sorry we couldn’t meet today–such bad road conditions! Mom
It must be so fun to have the little first graders all the time- they are so funny! I’m sad we couldn’t meet, but we will see you soon!