Projects

As stated, EZ was building a desk in our loft area and it is all complete. He did a wonderful job and it looks great. Here is the new desk:



We started the process of cleaning out the office. Really this was our room upstairs that we had our computer in (on just a table) and lots of boxes of crap that we have yet to really do anything with since we have moved here. We spent a few hours the other day going through all of the office stuff in the room so transfer to the new desk. Throwing out all sorts of stuff and shredding what seemed like thousands of documents dating back almost 3 years. We are still going through lots of stuff and putting together the donation pile and figuring out what we can sell on ebay/craigs list. Then we can start loading in all the baby stuff we already have!

Here is a photo midprocess of cleaning out the room:



As for goal setting...we both went through step 1 of Nick's plan for goal setting of basically creating a bucket list of what we want to accomplish in life and then broke it down into 5 year intervals. Here are a few things on my 30-34 age group list:
Be a Good Wife and New Mom
Have an all natural birth
Spend more time with family/friends
Eat Healthy(er)-more local/organic/environmental and make better food choices
Work on Patience
Start a Garden
Learn to Sew and Knit and make more Crafts
Work on Yoga and Flexibility
Break 22min in a 5K

I think it was a really good process of just taking the time to write out things you want to do/accomplish in life and prioritizing them. It also helped (I think) both EZ and I just focus a little more on ourselves and really just being present with life.

Goals

Our friend Nick has given up triathlons (he was intensely serious) and is starting to live what I would think of as a more well rounded life. We had lots of conversation about how he spent all his time training even with people he thought were his friends only to find out now that he is not training they don't really care to see him. In the meantime he has laid out a whole new set of goals-and he has a lot to say about creating 1 year goals versus 5 year goals and setting weekly goals, etc.

EZ and I then went to discussing goals last night and that maybe we should sit down and think about 5 year goals and short term goals and the discuss what we have together. These can be all sorts of goals in different areas of life-athletic, personal, work, health, etc. We both decided we needed to spend a few days thinking to ourselves about our own life and different goals we might have and then sit down together to talk about them. I am a firm believer in spreading out your life to not be so 1-dimensional. The whole idea of training so intensely (or working 100hrs a week, or spending all your time with 1 person not leaving time for other people you care about, etc) for something only to not have the time to devote to learning other things or spending time with friends and family or traveling or doing something else you enjoy and all other sorts of things.

Or maybe that is just my philosophy, maybe some people can do mainly 1 thing and feel like that have everything else too. I guess it all comes down to what would ultimately make me (or you) happy right. If what makes me happy is spreading out my interests than that is what I should do, or if what makes me happy is winning a triathlon than that is where I should spend my time, or if I enjoy studying mathematics and publishing papers than focus on that. I think each person has to evaluate for themselves what they would enjoy doing best. But I do think Nick is right in that there a lots of things that I (or people) want to do in life but something always seems to get in the way. I had always wanted to go Europe but EZ and I let school and then triathlons become more important and it took giving that up to say "lets go to Europe" and actually go.

Either way, I think it is important for everyone to sit down every once in a while to think about who they are and what they want out of life and set goals, however small or large or personal or not personal at all they may be.

Fun Weekend

We headed down to Charlotte on Friday afternoon to spend the weekend with some friends. We ate some great food thanks to Nick's new cooking skillz and played a few games of Risk, 3 to be exact and everyone one a game but me. :) We had lots of down time hanging out and chatting and it was nice to catch up with them as it has been quite awhile since we have seen them. The next time we do, Jen will probably have had her baby (due at the end of March) and we might have a little one running around too.

I went out on Saturday morning for a run/walk and I ran a total of 22 min in two intervals of 10 min run, 5 min walk and then 12 min run. I felt slow and sluggish but that is ok, it was nice to be outside and get some more running time in. If I wasn't going to yoga tomorrow I would try again for maybe three intervals. So maybe Tuesday if the weather is nice.

And for those who wanted to see my bump, well I took a picture today and it just looks like I am fat and I will not be posting any baby bump picture until it looks more like an actual bump then me just looking fat. Sorry about that! :)

The Terrible Tarheels

We have 1/2 a season of UNC bball tix and last night was our first ACC game of the season. Now I know the heels haven't been doing well at all, I mean a loss to College of Charleston and a few others. Even back when they were playing in the fall, the games we saw were very sloppy. The ball handling skills of the team are horrific and it is a shame that they are just not that good this year. Who knows how they managed the win against Michigan State in the fall, that was unreal. Makes me think that we should have passed on tix this year. But oh well. I am excited that we have UNC vs NCSU tix and so for those of you who think I am a traitor for liking UNC, I always root for NCSU when they play against each other and I will wear red to that game.

I had a doctors appointment yesterday and all looks good, heartrate of BZ was 156 and the doctor said it sounded strong. All other things were good too. And I did not know that me mentioning the baby bump would cause so many comments. I will take a pix this weekend at 15 weeks and post it.

I am speedy

I tried my attempt at running outside today since it was so nice out. I walked for 10 min pretty fast to warm up and then ran 1 1/2 miles at 9:00min/mile pace! Maybe it is just that treadmill but it was nice to know that I am not too terribly slow...yet.

Hopefully the weather cooperates and I will be able to amp up to the 20-30 min mark.

Oh, and today my coworker said that I had a nice baby bump and was looking preggers. It is too early!!! At this rate I will be huge come July!

Lovely Weekend

It has gotten a little warm here in the south, thank goodness. I was so over a few weeks of the bitter cold. Although the 40's are coming back later this week, the 60 degrees and sunshine has been wonderful. Made it out for a nice walk on Friday and again today which was great.

I was up at the gym on Sunday morning and I managed a whopping 15 min on the treadmill at 9:40pace! Don't be jealous that I can run that fast! I was pleasantly surprised that it went so well and am still hoping to increase my running eventually to at least 20-30 min so that once it does get warmer I can head outdoors instead of going to the gym.

We drove to G.G's (grandmas) house on Sunday for a little visit with her and a couple of my aunts and uncles. It was been a while since we have seen them, and it was time. I told her we would hopefully be back for Easter and then again maybe in the fall after little BZ is born. I am starting to think that it is a little girl in their while EZ has gone from thinking it is a boy to not having a clue.

On the "to-do" list for EZ is a bunch of things and one of them is to build a desk in our loft area since we are going to move our "office" (which really is just a table with our computer and filing cabinets and boxes of crap that we haven't even unpacked since we moved in 3 years ago) out and it will become the nursery. We went to Lowes and Home Depot on Saturday, bought the cabinets and countertops, hardware and a few other things and low and behold...the desk is already almost done. EZ was up in the attic when I came home today and I asked him what he was doing...well he was running the cable through the wall of course. I asked him why and he said well if we move the desk out here and our internet is through the cable, I need a cable outlet. He is extremely handy. When the desk is done in another day or so, I will have to post pictures, as I am extremely impressed by it.

He also told me that he found a solution to our kitty litter situation. You see, our littler box is in our spare bathroom upstairs, where eventually our kid(s) will be using. He told me he was going to cut a hole in the wall in the bathroom, put in a door and build out an extra little room/storage/closet thing where he will put the litter box and then put a kitty door in the door. Apparently there is just empty space behind this wall that is over our garage that he can reinforce enough to have a little room there. You can add that to his growing to do list. (The patio still needs to happen this spring too!) Lots (for him) to do while I grow a baby inside of me. :)

8am classes are exhausting

I haven't taught an 8am class in a while but I have a Tues/Thur 8am class this semester. I think I have gotten use to sleeping in a little (by that I mean until like 6:45 or 7), but in order to make it to work I really should leave by 7 for my 8o'clock class. I have taken to setting the alarm at 6:20. Really, this shouldn't seem too early for me, but my whole system has gone out of whack. I go to bed now before 10 and sleep until 7 and I am tired all the time. Hopefully in a few weeks the tiredness is suppose to go down a little and my 6:20am wakeup won't be too bad. Now I am eating breakfast earlier and that pushes up my lunch. It is 11:30 right now and I am already hungry (and I had a snack about 45min ago). :)

I ran for 10 min again yesterday after my 25 min on the bike and elliptical. I had to go slower than 10min pace which was a mental downer for me, but maybe I was just having a bad day! While I have been on the bike and elliptical I have been reading Animal Vegetable Miracle which has inspired me to do all sorts of things. EZ has come to accept my level of craziness and said he would be willing to try anything I want to make. The latest of these is making my own cheese. I even search around NC for a cheese making class! And speaking of classes, I am suppose to start a sewing class soon but I wasn't paying any attention and it turns out the class interferes with 2 of our UNC bball games that we have tix for and since we paid a lot for those, I called up the Community college and they are just putting me in the next class that starts mid March. I did find another class though on making homemade all natural products that I might take. We'll see.

As for the pregnancy, other than being tired, not too much else. I have never in my life experienced heartburn and even a few weeks ago asked EZ what it feels like. "Like burning in your heart" is what he told me. But what does that feel like??? Funny I should have asked because a couple days ago I came home and told him that I had heartburn for the first time and it really was like a burning in your heart! It wasn't too bad though and it didn't last long, so no big deal. But I know that means it probably will be coming back to haunt me!

Back to Work

School starts back up tomorrow and we have to be in our offices today for students. it has been a nice and very quick three weeks. I spent most of it with family so it didn't seem like I really got a break for myself. My mom was in town this weekend with my grandparents driving them across the country to their CA home so we just kind of hung out and ran errands and stuff. Nothing all that exciting. We did buy a few gender neutral sleep sacks and a couple onesies but that was about all.

My sweet potato chicken curry recipe was great. I found it here and it is a slow cooker recipe which I love. My chicken was local and so was my sweet potatoes, so I thought that was pretty good. Everyone seemed to like it. I did only use 3 tsps of curry powder instead of 4 and it has plenty of flavor.

I have been able to start getting a little bit of working out in. And I managed to run for 10 min the other day after 30 min of cardio. It was very slow but I help up as opposed to my 6 min of running earlier in the week. But I hadn't worked out in a couple weeks so I expected to be slow and dragging. I have gotten lots of sleep this past week and I am starting to feel less tired which is good since teaching starts back up tomorrow. Hopefully I can stay on top of the working out thing with classes. I typically like to workout in the morning but with 8:00am classes on Tue/Thur and 9:00am classes on M/W/F I am not sure if I will be able to get the workout in in the morning depending on my tiredness level.

It's Alive

We had an ultrasound the other day and here are some of the better photos. EZ said that the baby looks like a boy now. Even though little baby didn't move around too much, it was fun watching all the movements on the monitor. Baby has two arms and two legs and the little heartbeat was racing away. Enjoy the photos of BZ (baby Zack)!






School is getting ready to start up and I have been busy getting all my classes prepared. I am almost there but have a little more work to do. And on the cooking side of things, the granola I made turned out pretty good. And when I priced it out, it cost maybe $4-$5 for the gallon of granola that I made, which is cheap considering how much granola in a box costs for like 14oz, plus it is probably healthier since there is all natural ingredients and no added sugars! Here is a photo of the granola when I was done and I kind of halved this strawberry-banana granola recipe I found. Here is a photo of what mine looked like at the end.



I also sent EZ to the co-op in Carborro to get some local meat and I made tacos one night and use the leftover ground beef and we had taco salad another night. I even made my own taco seasoning, which was super easy! This weekend I am going to try the local chicken with a sweet potato recipe I found. Yum!

2010 Schedule

I know many of the people that read this are triathletes, and since this started out as a triathlonish blog, I guess I should update on my 2010 schedule. I didn't do anything in 2009 for many different reasons. One being our 3 week trip to Europe and I started training lightly when we got back but never truly got into anything. As for this year, there is only one date scheduled:

July 17th(ish) - giving birth to our first child

I am currently 12 weeks preggers and all things are looking good. I waited this long to post anything for many reasons and we even surprised both of our families at Christmas by waiting to tell them until then.

We gave EZ's parents are card that said to Grandma and Grandpa....Love EZ, LZ and the baby. They were very excited that we will be giving them grandchild number 4 (in hopes that maybe it will be a boy since they have 3 granddaughters already). Then after just a few days earlier telling my mom that EZ and I didn't think we were going to have kids, we gave my parents a picture frame with the following picture inside:



Now I think the picture is pretty self explanatory, don't you??? And yes that is full on baby razorback gear! This is what happened when my mom opened the present. (Sorry for the quality of the video as the lighting was terrible):



It was pretty funny and my whole family is very excited (I bet they hope for a boy too since they already have little Amelia!). As for EZ and I, we both have no preferences to a boy or a girl and it seems that girls might be running on both sides of the family, we are scheduled to find out the sex on Feb 17th.

I haven't been able to do all that much exercising at all. I still am going to yoga and have been able to go ride the stationary bike or get on the elliptical for 30-45 min a few times a week but running has been shot out the window. I have had some serious asthma issues and then while they got better, it seems that running exhausts me to the extreme. I can manage 10-15 min at best a couple times a week but since it has become so exhausting I have stuck to the bike and elliptical. I need to do something so I can keep eating ice cream! Speaking of which, the sis bought me some excellent Lemon Custard ice cream from Moomers and it survived the drive home from MI so that is on my dessert list tonight!

Here is to a great new beginning to our family in 2010!

Happy 2010

We finally made it home last night after what seemed to me like the longest trip ever. I have only been gone 1 1/2 weeks but it seems much longer. After leaving Buffalo, I headed to my parents for a few days while EZ flew home to work. He then flew back up to MI and we headed up further north to Traverse City for New Years with my sister and her family.

New year's was nice...some hanging out and some Rock Band were all we needed to have some fun and lots of good food including homemade sushi and homemade pizza and homemade granola. Although I didn't like the granola that much because of the coconut, I found a totally different granola recipe I will be trying out tomorrow. If it works and tastes good, I'll be sure to post up the recipe.

After a fun few days up north, we traveled back to mom and dads for a day before driving home. Man it was cold up there and tons of snow. When we left Ann Arbor yesterday it was 3 degrees out! Not that it is too much better here in NC. But a high of 36 and SUN is pretty nice after a week of bitter cold and snow.

More coming soon from our trip!