Summer Lulls. Haute Dog.

"A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a confession." - Albert Camus

This quote makes me think of my life.  When you are on track, life is beautiful, when you are off, the only person you really have to face is yourself and that is the biggest beezy of judging of them all.  I myself decided to jump off the wagon.  I "needed" a break from being healthy.  It sounds much more ridiculous when you write it down than it does when you actually think it... 

Jackalope and I lacing up for a run... a much needed run...

I seem to always hit this summer lull when I think I am done wearing a bikini and ready for nachos, margaritas and whatever the eff sounds delicious and naughty.   I feel it coming on.  I feel myself letting go of my morning runs and my menu planning.  I feel myself reaching for the cookies at BBQs that were previously ignored.  I feel myself being a jerk, so I should soon feel my foot in my own arse.

Mommmm move your ass!

I don't like feeling bad about myself.  I don't like being angry at myself for skipping my run and sleeping an extra 35 minutes.  And neither does Sir Jackalope, so he starts barking at 6am and my lazy donk gets out of bed.  Not for him, but for us both... Though mostly him because I cannot sleep anyways.

 Lights Out!

I returned the favor with an extra long, extra hot afternoon run.  Jack prefers morning runs, Emma prefers just sleeping and having cute photos taken of her.

Emma Lillian the Lioness!

She also got a hair cut...

Someone's gotta play the part of the pretty blonde...

Today we are almost back on track, minus the 2 homemade margaritas I've sipped.  They are Skinny Girl margaritas, sooo that's fine eh?  Jackalope and I ran this morning, we will be running tomorrow, and we're getting back on track.  Sometimes I am just lazy, and sometimes that is just the way it is.

xo

Bikini = Chia Choco Peanutty Blues Protein Pancake

"Be careful about reading health books, you may die of a misprint."

Do you ever find yourself being a bit too obsessive about reading everything there is to know about being healthy, eating well, working out and being overall ridiculously awesome? Probably just me yet again. So at the end of last week I was preparing to head out to the river so was obviously working out a ton, eating for a bikini, and mentally preparing myself to relax and just be in my bikini. Not easy for me to do at all.

Ordinarily I feel the pressure of eating too healthy and find myself reaching for anything sugary salty and delicious to ease my pain. But this week was different. This time I was armed with Chia Choco Peanutty Blues Protein Pancakes. This is a recipe I have created in adaptation of various protein pancakes I've tried from Tone It Up, PB Fingers, and a few others. This recipe is delicious, nutritious, packed with protein, fiber, antioxidants and to me tastes better than the daily morning Pop Tart I'd rock my day out with in high school.

Start with 1 tablespoon of Chia Seeds

Add a tablespoon of Flax Meal (grounded flax seeds), and a scoop of Chocolate Protein Powder

Add 1/4 cup of Organic Egg Whites

Start mixing it up!

After the mixture is smooth, start folding in a handful of blueberries. About 1/4 of a cup. It helps to scrape the bowl with a pastry spatula!

Cook it up like a regular pancake, you will hear it start to pop and sizzle, and just ease your spatula underneath the pancake to see if it's ready to flip. It helps if you use one spatula to flip, and a spatula or spoon to help guide the pancake on the flip spatch!

Add a teaspoon of Organic Peanut Butter after it's cooked!

Avoid peanut buttah face!

After a week of working out, eating well, and setting yourself up for success every morning with a Chia Choco Peanutty Blues Protein Pancake, go enjoy yourself at the river! Jump with your friends, and remember you work your arss off everyday to feel good about yourself. So ACTUALLY feel good about yourself, or what is it all worth? xo

Chia Choco Peanutty Blues Protein Pancake

1/4 cup Organic Egg Whites (Whole Foods)
1/4 cup Organic Blueberries (Whole Foods)
1 scoop Chocolate Protein Powder (Sun Warrior is the BOMB DOT COM)
1 tablespoon Flax Meal (Henry's)
1 tablespoon Chia Seeds (Whole Foods)
1 teaspoon of Organic Peanut Butter (Whole Foods)

Mix all ingredients except blueberries and peanut butter. Fold in blueberries, fry it up like a pancake. Add Peanut Butter as syrup. Nom nom nom away!

Nutrition Facts:
265 Calories
26.5 grams of Protein
10 grams of Fiber
4 grams of Sugar (that's it!)

catching up with summa summa

"Basstrackers, bayliners and a party barge, strung together like a floating trailer park, anchored out and gettin loud all summer long, side by side there's five houseboat front porches, astroturf, lawn chairs and tiki torches, regular joes rocking the boat that's us, the redneck yacht club!" - Craig Morgan, Red Neck Yacht Club

So it's been a haute minute since I last posted.  I've been pretty busy between staycationing, playing OTL, and running head on full speed with my new job.  This summer has felt a bit like a comfortable warm red neck yacht club vacation with the ones I love the mostest.  Being with family and the friends in low places I call my own, really made me stop to think and remember to be thankful for all I am blessed with.  Including the ability to still dive and roll through the sand in my quest to one day win OTL...

Not to worry... I caught it... But it hurt like whoa.

I found something else this summer, my age, at least it was the first time I have felt myself getting older.  I used to be able to run, dive, be dehydrated and bounce right back the next day on a couple hours of sleep.  The funny thing is I am much healthier now than I had ever been through my youth and athletic career.  I used to live off of cereal, chocolate, and no water.  These days my favorite nosh is baked kale chips, and dessert consists of a piece of fruit when the craving surfaces.

Hubs and my cousin's son Brandt Man.  Stud to the muffins.

There's a good chance hubs will not like me posting this photo, but it makes my heart warm so we'll deal with that later if need be...  This past week I was spoiled with a staycation with my family.  Although hubs insisted on bringing the deep fryer along for nightly meals, they fried everything, dough, onion rings, french fries, you name it.  Mix that with my family's shared love of kale, and our obsession with wine and beach fire s'mores, and I was obviously feeling more than fabulous in my bikini... pause.  Nyaattttt! 

 

It's Wine o'clock somewhere!

I don't know if there is anything more beautifully relaxing than wine and a sunset off the water.  Not to mention running by the water is more relaxing.  It may have been my dad who insisted on riding his bike alongside me as I trudged through miles each morning to prevent me from being kidnapped of course, but running at the beach was easy and I woke up every morning before 6:30 on my staycay to run.  What's more, I really, really looked forward to it like it was a treat.  Totally not a treat on most days in the real world.

Blonde Beezies on Court 27

I think I also liked running in the morning because it was like my morning workout preparing for our weekend of OTL ahead of us.  Yeah... I really take this OTL business seriously...

We coulda had it all... Rollin' in the dirt...

This was the one that really hurt, actually stills hurts as I sit here typing 5 days later...  I somehow landed on my back on the end of this dive and my neck still ain't feelin' quite right. 

Most amazing lady lovelies I know...

In the end, the neither the Blonde Beezies or the Bruin Bombshells won it all, despite our diving triumphs.  The ridiculous competitive blood in my veins still boils a bit just thinking about it, but oh well, 364 more days until next year's OTL World Championship, gotta keep in shape, and perfect my swing...

Thanks to my fam and all the beezies that keep me grounded and provide an enormous amount of love and happiness in my life.  Thanks for making fun of me for eating protein pancakes every morning instead of cinnamon rolls, but still making sure there was a healthy vegetarian option alongside all that was fried and glorious.

Hat says it all...

I look forward to aging with all of you and one day soaking it all in while flubbin' and remembering how we used to could.  Here's to one day taking the 'ship at OTL.

Exercise Guilt and Multi-Tasking Workouts

"To be awesome, you have to be good at multitasking." - Shakespeare? Lies, that's a Whitney original...

I myself am indeed a great multitask-er and as we know am super awesome. 

How many people do you know that can chug wine AND take a picture of themselves at the same time?

The skinny of it is, my workout routine has been a bit disjointed.  Jack and I sneak in our morning runs, but the length of each run has been all over the map this past week.  Mostly short and sweet ranging from 13 - 38 minutes all just depending on how much time I have to get to work.  I have gone in a bit early to play catch up but obviously felt no need to adjust my alarm clock.

Run mo fast, Run mo long!

Short workout or long, by 8:00am I am a real hungry girl devouring my protein shake and already dreaming of my mid-morning snack.  By 4pm however on the day I ran 13 minutes my body head starts to get real upset with me, telling me mean and nasty things about myself for slacking on my morning run.  On Tuesday, the day Jack and I sprinted for 13 minutes, my day was literally filled up by the hour until 10pm.  I had to have my car smogged, and it failed so that's a plus, so I decided when I dropped my car off to do a 25 minute run around the neighborhood.  Good idea, though the man at the smog shop was not particularly impressed and thought I was a bit odd.

 Scrapping the bottom of this delish barrel

This past weekend we played in an OTL tournament so I ran around in the sand all day, but since my working out was not measurable, and I stuffed my face with snacks and cheez-its all day, my body head told me I needed an intense workout on Sunday.  Sunday comes, jam-packed with a to-do list around the house complete with a trip to the laundry mat.

While my clothes were drying I thought it was a perfect time to run for 35 minutes.  Also a seemingly brilliant plan, though it was ridiculously hot out, I didn't bring glide, wore a thin tank top from Forever 21 (no it was not sweat-wicking) and ended up chaffing... under my arms which has NEVER happened to me.  Killer.

You no take me to smog shop for run, I eat your shoes and wake you up so you can't sleep in.... EVER!

The short of it, I got my workouts in, randomly but I got them in... Until this morning.  I was out late last night playing 3 games of slo-pitch, one of which was the championship, we lost and I was upset.  I did not sleep so well so vowed to sleep in the extra 3 minutes this morning by the time Jackalope started barking relentlessly wanting his morning run.  I basically just laid there in bed thinking about how I should have been running.  At 10am sans run, I was even more exhausted than before and feeling even more upset for not running this morning.

No cup of coffee could save me today...

My 'tude made me think of an old PB Fingers post on how to handle exercise guilt. I revisited this post and this quote stuck out for me, "Our life should be our priority.  Sometimes family members, friends or our job require our time and attention more than the gym."  True story morning glory.  As I type now I am accompanied with a glass of wine and a sigh of relief.  I do the best I can to take car of this old body of mine, but I am probably not doing it any favors if I am running into the ground and obsessing over every minute of movement or lack there of.

Take a breath folks, stick to your routine, listen to your body, and when in doubt there's always Tiger Balm.  Time for some dessert... Hmmm popcorn?  Yogurt? 

xo

Family. Crazy. Balance.

"Commitment is like being pregnant, you either are or you're not.  You can't be kind of pregnant." - Susie Q. 

I have been trying real hard to implement balance in my life over the past few months, and for some reason it reminds me of this saying my coach liked to say now and again.  Pretty sure she used it with two purposes, to scare us into how committed to the game and our team we needed to be, and to also remind us to not get pregnant.  Either way, that ish worked.

 Susie herself! 

 She had some brilliant one liners and analogies, but of all the important things she taught me about character, responsibility and life, this one was my favorite.  You have to commit yourself to being balanced.  If you limp in one day out the next, then you're technically out of balance right there.  It's a tall order when you think of the balls we all have lobbed in the air at any given time:

work workout.healthy eating.hubs.dogs.running.running with Jackalope.cleaning the house.yoga?writing a blog.watching TV .not stepping in the ish that is drama and dragging it around the house (it smells).flossing.being a better golfer.perfecting protein shakes.slo-pitch (2 teams).getting ready for OTL.grilling out this Sunday.fixing up the new house.rocking your new job.making sure Jackalope doesn't drop a dooce on the neighbor's lawn...

In the end it's family that can hold your hand to keep you balanced so you don't fall, or laughs with at you and then helps you up.

Balancing this family can be a challenge wicked awesome good time.

You don't get to pick your family at birth, but you can as life goes on.  My real extended family is crazy.  We're talking out of control ruin your Christmas, birthday and funerals type crazy.  Luckily, at my core, my mom, dad, brother and hubs are awesome and have attracted the awesomeness of others to create our own brood. 

Someone's gotta hold Jackalope... Granddaddy loves his Granddogger, and refuses to hold his tongue about wanting a real Grandchild.

What I really appreciate about my melting pot of a family is that they just let me be.  They let me be cranky.  They let me eat bird food.  They let me go on rants about eating healthier as a family.  Most of them are just as competitive as I am (which is a whole 'notha level of crazy)...  My family takes enjoying-life pretty seriously, and in the summertime the sentiment is heightened.  We are known for volleyball BBQs in our back yard and have only been shut down by the cops twice in the 15 years or so I can remember playing for noise violations... 

My serves are as well mannered as my popped collar...

We are also known for food.  You cannot come to our house and leave feeling like you don't have to vomit from over eating.  It's not okay, you will want to vomit.  But in the past I have found that I gain weight every summer during the time when I am supposed to don a bikini and parade with these crazies at the river.  It doesn't make me happy, and I have yet to stay in balance through a summer.

My happy place is bringing thai lime cashews to the party...

But this year is different.  I am not going to kind-of be in balance, eat well during the week, and feed the screaming bloody murder chubby kid in my stomach on the weekends.  I am bringing healthy indulgences to the party like thai lime cashews, and eating what makes me happy, but not on behalf of the entire population because it's a "free day" and I will likely never see food again.

See only crazy sometimes.  Lies, crazy doesn't just go dormant...

And again, the fam dam taught me something about myself.  Balance in my eating, in my health, in my life and in my relationships comes down to commitment to each of those things separately.  It's not my family's job to yell at me for eating a plate of cheese sauce, they'd probably knuckle bump me, but they do make it their job to tell me when I am being a buzzkill to their good time.  I.E. Me overeating and then complaining about how terrible of a person I am for hours to come.  And mind you most of this self bashing happened to the old me, before I committed to a healthier me inside and out.  But when Jezebel gets out of her cage from time to time, I am thankful my family has no problem smacking her back into place.

Xo