A {fitness} guest post

Hello everyone! We have a very special guest post for you today. Our cross country/former roomie bff, Amanda! She's here to share about her {current} fitness journey. Since you all know that we are both "working on our fitness" (sung Fergie style)
Here she is:

At the beginning of January I had this extremely persistent (and mildly annoying! J/K) friend that kept texting me and calling me, trying to get me on board the workout train. I resisted and resisted until I couldn't honestly come up with any reason not to get my butt of the couch and do it! I started by walking on the treadmill in our home office. I would walk 3-5 miles at a time...sometimes for almost 2 hours! I decided I needed something to look at while I walked so I went to my wonderful Pinterest board “Motivation” and started printing off my favorite quotes. I found some construction paper, glue sticks and poster board and this is the end result.

I soon got bored just walking and started going to the gym. That ended as fast as it started because my 2-year-old hates the babysitting room. So I started doing Couch to 5K on my treadmill, but soon decided I needed more if I was going to reach my goal by the end of April (and our family vacation to San Diego!) Off to Pinterest again! (What did we ever do before Pinterest?!) I found a workout titled ‘10-Week-Workout Plan’ that I’d pinned on my “Fitness & Nutrition” board. Fantastic! I conveniently had just over 10 weeks until vacation time. It was supposed to take 70 days to complete because they didn’t account for rest days. I did however, and subtracted 10 days to give myself some days to rest. I can’t do anything the easy way and just print it off and there you have it, so I wrote it all down in my ‘Handy Dandy....NOTEBOOK! (And yes, I just said that like Steve from Blue’s Clues. Don’t judge me, I have toddlers!) Here is a link to the ‘10-Week-Workout Plan’ and a few pictures of my notebook.

After 2 weeks of working on this program (and really loving it), I again decided I needed more. (I think I’m really a glutton for punishment, what do you think?) It was also the beginning of March and all the wonderful monthly challenges were popping up. I found a personal challenge to work on through a Google search (I believe I just typed in monthly challenges and scrolled through tons until I found one that I liked) and then also chose the March Challenge that Shannon sent me. (Yes, this is on top of the ‘10-Week-Workout Plan’ I’m still doing...told you, glutton for punishment!) So I printed of my personalized blank calender from CLD and set to work. Here is the finished product.

love her workout calendar? order your own in our etsy shop!

Okay, you’re probably wondering what all the numbers and colors mean, right? The colors mean nothing...except that I like all of my Sharpie Highlighters equally! The numbers on the bottom of each day are my countdown of the ‘10-Week-Workout Plan’. I like to countdown, something about numbers getting smaller is very exciting to me! The top entry on the calendar is the activity from the Google search and the middle entry is reminding me to complete the March challenge. I have that as a reference taped up below my calendar (one can only be expected to write so small!) I also write the number of minutes it takes me to complete the whole program each day. I saw someone that set a goal of working out 1000 minutes in March and I don’t want to set a goal like that until I know what I am typically at. Speaking of goals, i wrote those at the top of the calendar as a daily reminder.

There you have it! From couch potato to wanting more, more, more! I just keep telling myself that I will feel better and have more energy if I keep it up! I wonder if I could squeeze in another 30 minutes each day... ;)

1. We already mentioned that she's our cross country bff. That automatically gets points.

2. She lives on "the cape". Way cooler than Iowa.

3. She is a constant source of motivation and accountability to both of us! We do our best to keep each other on track and at the gym!!

4. If she can do it with two little pumpkins at home, so can we!! 

5. Plus, she's mega organized in her fitness, and we love that!

Living Room Rearranging

We are very proud to announce our very first guest blogger......our mom! (applause)

I Decided to try my hand at this whole beautifying your space thing that my daughters' seem to be doing lately. This is a picture of our family room at Christmas this year. Sorry but no good before, during, and after pictures! I started out the day wanting to clean my floors. Well, as long as your are cleaning floors might as well rearrange things! So I started by moving some of the furniture out of the way in the family room, sweeping, moping, and then waxing the floor. We have solid pine flooring that we love. I thought the Merry-Go-Round pony looked really lonely on that big wall. Although I love the horse. He is from a original amusement park in the Iowa Great Lakes.   As you can see, the love seat was floating, I moved it over to the wall by the double back doors. We don't really use the doors in the winter, but we could if we wanted to. We have never used this configuration, however, the girls have inspired me to be brave.

please note jett in one of his most favorite spots

I then found an antique quilt that has been in my bedroom and I hung that on the wall where the pony used to be. We also moved the kids' senior pictures to the wall with the quilt. We put the antique treadle sewing machine on that same wall with the two chairs. I also put the "lighter" chairs which are both also antiques under the antique pony. Overall, it made a big difference in the room without costing a single penny.  There isn't much that can be done with a kitchen / dining area. I did put a chair on the end of the counter for putting on boots, so on. We switched the kitchen table and the pie safe too for a little different look. The floor is clean too!

Then, on to the living room -- rearranging, cleaning, dusting. I moved some antique quilts, tablecloths, shawls, so on to soften up my wood and more wood!

As you can see, I have a lot of old furniture and fabric items. It's a casual environment, but we enjoy it. I didn't really set up the pictures very well. But my afternoon of cleaning and rearranging did make quite a difference in how our home looks.

Well we might be a little biased since it's our mom....but still.

1. It wasn't planned, it was a floor cleaning that ended up in a major rearranging session. It's more fun that way!

2. We love the quilt having on the wall! And if you knew our mother, you would know that is super brave for her. It's so nice to display family items like that rather than having them stuffed away in a closet.

3. We love the little desk nook that was added in the corner. It's adorable! (see two pictures up)

4. She's invited to my apartment for some impromptu rearranging anyday! (hint, hint mommy!)