Friday Eve

My Road ID came in this week. If anyone wants to order one use this link & you'll get free shipping.

 Mine has my name, birth year, address, Dean's name & cell & my mom's name & cell. I still had a line left & a lot of people put funny little sayings. My friend Cindy's has "If you're not first, you're last". I went with "Never say never". It's kinda my mantra lately. I'm doing a lot of things I swore I'd never do - run, wear a swim cap, wear a helmet, etc.....

Cindy sent us the picture the other day. It's the view from the backyard of our next vacation spot!

We're going to Colorado! We leave June 21st. This was a spur of the moment thing. We just booked the flights Monday night.  Thank goodness for Southwest! Our friend Cindy has a friend whose parents have a condo in Winter Park & they're letting us use it. How awesome is that? There will be 6 of us. We're planning to hike, go white water rafting & to a Rockies game. I've never been to Colorado so I'm really looking forward to it.

I've been keeping up with the 30 day Challenge I'm doing & I ran Tuesday morning.

It was super hot & humid. 81 degrees at 5:00 am. I had to keep reminding myself of this while I ran.

Today I had an early meeting at work so I wasn't able to run. I'll do that in the morning. I need to swim when I get home. Rocketchix is quickly approaching.

It's that time of year again - we have to watch for snakes when we go outside. Dean took the trash out last night & he was gone forever. That would be because he spotted a snake. He attempted to kill it with no luck. I swear I think someone was punking us. Dean thought the snake took refuge in the rim of my truck. I had to get in on the passenger side & climb over to start the car hoping when I backed up he'd fall out. Of course not. There was poking, prodding & even driving around the block with no luck. Who knows where the stupid snake is.

At 12:30 this morning I woke up to the sound of a car horn blowing. You know like what happens when the panic button is pressed on your car remote? My first thought was that the snake fell out & somehow managed to make it go off. It was actually my neighbors truck. It just randomly went off. It's happened before but during the day. It's annoying when it happens in the middle of the day, you can imagine what it's like in the middle of the night when you're in a deep sleep!

Toodles!

Moonshine Jungle

Saturday morning Dean was going to his parents & he left at 5:45 am so that he could go with his dad to run crawfish traps. I couldn't go back to sleep so I got up & got ready for a bike ride.

I went 12 miles at an average pace of 3:43  per mile. I pushed myself but I did it. Next up was Day 7 of the 30 day challenge & then I got ready for our day in New Orleans. Allison has an aunt that lives "uptown" in NOLA so we stopped in to see her & then the 3 of us went to lunch. We had poboys at Parasol's. HOLE IN THE WALL but sooooo good! The firecracker shrimp poboy was amazing.

Literally, a hole in the wall. Parasol's has a smoky bar room that we mistook for the restaurant. The bartender knew we didn't belong & asked if we were looking for the restaurant. I use restaurant in the loosest of terms. It was next door. If you wanted a cocktail to go with your poboy you just opened the little door & ordered. I had ice tea. The ice was in a small ice chest sitting on the counter.  NOLA is full of these type of places but the food is so good.

Next up was the Swizzle Stick bar. It's inside the Loews hotel.

We had some "champs" as Heather Dubrow of Real Housewives fame would say.

Then I had a French Martini. It was delicious!! Allison's sister & another friend met us here.

Allison, me, Amanda & Christina. We hung out here for awhile. The A/C was cold. It was 100 degrees in NOLA Saturday & it felt every bit that hot.

We checked into our hotel & got ready for dinner.

We had to pass the time while we were waiting on the street car. This is probably pic number 973 that we took at this location. My eyes always looked funny. They were either closed or halfway closed. I'm in serious need of an eye lift. That's where the sunglasses came in.

We had dinner at The Palace Cafe. If you're familiar with New Orleans restaurants, this is a Brennan Family restaurant. I'd never been.

More drinks while we waited for a table. Champs & Chambord is seriously my favorite drink.

On to the food. SOOOO GOOD! This my friends is crabmeat cheesecake.

Incredible!!! For my meal I had the Shrimp Tchefuncte.  

Popcorn rice (I don't know what the difference is between it & regular rice but it was soooo much better), shrimp, mushroom sauce. Soooooo good!!! 

Of course we were running just a tad late so we grabbed a cab outside the restaurant & he brought us to the arena for the concert. This cab driver has a lot to learn about getting someplace in a hurry. We made it in time though. 

That's a picture of Bruno on the screen. Our seats weren't the greatest. When I say not the greatest I mean we were 3 rows from the top. We were on the side of the arena so we didn't have the worst seats. We could see & hear so it was fine.

Bruno with The Hooligans.

This was right before the encore which was Gorilla. Bruno puts on a really, really good show. I'm soooo glad we went. After the show was over we just wanted water. We were hot & thirsty. Luckily there was a Rouse's nearby. We also ended up with 32 oz. fountain Dr Peppers at 1:00 in the morning. That could have something to do with the not sleeping very good Sat. night. That & the party in the hallway outside our door at 3:47 am........

Sunday we had brunch at Tivoli & Lee. The service was awful.  

Allison had a bloody mary & I had a mimosa. It took 20 minutes to get the drinks. The food was fine. Nothing special. I wish we would've stuck with our original plan to go to Atchafalaya. I've never heard a bad word about it. Oh well. Live & learn.

We stopped at PJ's to get a coffee treat for the ride home.

This is a Wedding Cake Velvet Ice! Delicious!!!!

Once I got home & crashed on the sofa I realized that I was awake for 20 hours on Saturday. WHA???? No wonder I was exhausted.  In retrospect starting the day with that 12 mi. bike ride might not have been my smartest move.

Toodles!

Friday Five

I don't about y'all but I'm ALWAYS ready for the weekend & this week is no different. So I'm linking up with Carolina Charm.

1. This week we booked a cruise! YAY! We'll fly to San Juan & then cruise to St. Croix, St. Maarten, Antiqua, St. Lucia & Barbados! We've never been to any of these places so I'm super excited. The only problem?? The trip isn't until May. Yes, like 11 months from now. Ugh!!!

2. I absolutely love the fact that our office closes at 2:00 on Friday's! Love, love, love!! On the agenda today is a mani & possible pedi!

3. I'm very excited about being in New Orleans this weekend. Allison & I are going tomorrow & hanging out before going to the Bruno Mars concert tomorrow night! So fun!!

4. I LOVE my new bike! I went for a 12.6 mi. ride Wednesday & I was so much more comfortable on it since it's actually my size.

5. Last but certainly not least is Caliente! I love the food but more than that I love the fact that everyone knows us there. I love being a "regular" & I love, love, love that I can text the owner ahead of time so we'll have a table & won't have to wait!

What are y'all loving? Any plans for the weekend?

Toodles!

Up for a Challenge???

I mentioned that my friend Cindy & her friend came up with a 30 day challenge for June. There are a lot of challenges all over FB but some of those have you doing the same exercises everyday. I'm no expert but everything I read says not to workout the same muscles on consecutive days. That led them to come up with their own.

Each day you do either the Upper Ab Workout, Lower Ab Workout or Chest/Tri Workout & you do a plank & superman everyday.

It's a short workout which is great too.

The first few days you don't do anything longer than 30 seconds. If you want to make it more of a challenge you can do multiple sets. Yesterday, I did days 2 & 3 because LSU played Monday night & I didn't have time to do it before the game & I surely didn't do it after when I needed to sleep. BTW, they lost. So annoying.

I haven't ran since last week. Between the rain & the games causing us to get home late I haven't been able to drag myself out of bed. After work today we'll go for a training ride & then run. Apparently, in the triathlon world that's called Bricks. So that's what we'll be doing today. Tomorrow I'll get up early & get day 5 of the challenge in & I'll throw in some weights. Friday morning I'll run & Saturday morning I'll ride.

Sunday is up in the air at this point because Saturday Allison & I are off to New Orleans for the Bruno Mars concert!! I'm sooo excited. We're staying in NOLA Saturday night. I tried to convince Allison we should bring our bikes & go ride through Audubon Park Sunday morning but she's not jumping on that bandwagon. HA! Sometime soon I'm going to have to suck it up & swim. I've swam some laps but I need to get serious about that part of the training. It's the part I'm most concerned about too.

OH - Have y'all seen these things?

It's called a  Road ID. If you want to buy one, use that link & the shipping will be free. I'd heard about them when I first started running but didn't think I needed it. A couple of friends posted about them on FB in the last couple of weeks & I decided to order one. I'm by myself a lot during my runs & now that I'm biking I thought it was a good idea.  They have lots of colors & several different types. Of course I got pink!!!

Congratulations Aishlea! You win the algae!!

Happy National Running Day!

Toodles!

Wow What A Weekend!

I can't believe another weekend is over. I also can't believe it's June. Thursday night we went to Caliente with a portion of our usual group. 225 is a local free publication in our area that covers all sorts of things that go on in Baton Rouge. They had a Hot Off The Press party Thursday night for the latest edition at Caliente.

Jordan, Steph, me, Cindy, Jackie & Allie 

Friday when I left work I went straight to the LSU game. I hate that they play the first game of regionals at 2:00 but thankfully, this year our weather is so crazy it wasn't hot. After the game we went back to Caliente for dinner. Yeh, 2 nights in a row but the thing is it's convenient & doesn't take forever. Dean wanted to go back & watch the next ballgame so we ate & then he brought me home.

Saturday morning Cindy & I went on for a training ride.
Cindy lives a couple of blocks away. It's exactly 12 miles for us to leave from her house, go to the levee, ride to the Mississippi River Bridge downtown & turn around & go back. I love riding on the levee because you don't have to deal with cars! Just people running & walking & other bikers. There was a terrible head wind on the first part of the ride. You don't realize how tough it is to keep up your speed with that kind of wind. On the other hand we were really going fast on the way back.

I've been thinking that I want a new bike. I have a mountain bike - not that I've ever ridden in any mountains but that's what I have. Anyway, it's old & I've really enjoyed riding the road bike that I've been borrowing. I started thinking that I'd really like to ride more & I would need my own bike. The road bikes are a funny thing. Each brand sizes differently so a small in one brand might be a medium in another. It makes it hard to shop online.I didn't know what size I was. Just that the borrowed bike was a little bit small for me but was totally doable with what I was using it for. I decided to get sized at a local bicycle shop. So Cindy & I went after our ride Saturday. Remember I was just getting sized unless there was a great deal.

Guess what?? There was  a great deal!! This is the same bike Cindy has, just a newer model & she loves her bike. I didn't want the fanciest of fancy & I don't plan to do a bunch of crazy races so this was perfect for me. There were only 2 left & they were on sale for almost 35% off. The only catch was whether or not it would be my size. I rode around the parking lot & lo & behold it was perfect! I'm excited! Now I just have to learn to clip in.......

Since LSU won Friday they didn't play again until Saturday night.

Dean's never overly thrilled to take a selfie but he indulges me. My hair wasn't fixed like that, we had hurricane force wind Saturday night. Not that I'm complaining because day 2 of regionals was almost perfect weather. I swear that never happens! Usually, it's in the upper 90's with crazy humidity, I get sunburned & I have no make up left by the time I get to our seats. LSU won again so the next game was Sunday at 7:00.

I'm sure y'all have seen all of the challenges going around on Facebook. My friend Cindy & a friend of hers came up with an ab challenge. We did Day 1 yesterday by the pool.

It was challenging but doable & the best part was that it didn't take long. I can feel it this morning too. It's always more fun to workout with friends.


Me, Cindy & Steph. After the workout we went for a shorter, slower, just for fun bike ride so I could ride my new bike. It's amazing how different it feels than the little bit too small one I've been riding.

Last night we were at the ballpark until like 10:45 because LSU can't seem to hold a lead. We left after the 9th inning with it all tied up. They lost it in the 11th so we'll be back tonight. I needed to run this morning but there was no way I was getting up after going to bed at 11:30.

What did y'all do this weekend?

Toodles!

Algae anyone??

Soooo, awhile back I saw on a blog that this chick eats these little things of algae. Yeh, I know. WIIEERRDDD! Well, I read a lot & I find myself reading a lot of exercise & food blogs & articles & I keep coming across algae. There's a real name for it which escapes me at the moment & of course it sounds better than algae. There are all sorts of studies that show algae is the most nutrient dense food in the world. The name of this product is ENERGYbits.  Anyway, I'll try just about anything once. Especially, if it promises to give me energy. Y'all know I like to nap but most of the time it's because I'm tired! Not just because I want to sleep. About a month ago one of the blogs I read was hosting a giveaway for ENERGYbits. I tweeted about the giveaway so that I could get an extra entry into the contest. When I did Jonathan tweeted me back asking if I'd like a free sample to review on my blog. Well, nobody ever gives me anything free so I was definitely in! Especially, something I'd been wanting to try.

About a week later my ENERGYbits arrived in the mail. They look like little pills, about the size of an Advil - the little round ones, not caplets & they're green, you know, like algae. It says on the can that you can chew them but they "taste really green so we don't recommend it". Hey, you don't have to tell me twice. These things are 100% natural, organic & all that stuff.  They only have one ingredient & it's organically grown spirulina algae. They are 1 calorie per "tab". They are not supplements. Algae is a food. The directions say to take 30 tabs before you exercise, are hungry or just need energy.  I tried it the first time before I ran my last 5K at Logan's School/Church. Not only was it a PR but it was also the first time I ran 3 miles in less than 30 minutes. Coincidence? Possibly but I don't think so.

I wanted to try them again before I reviewed them.  Today, instead of having my morning snack I decided to try Energy Bits. I wanted to see what it did for my hunger. It definitely made me feel fuller & it held me over until lunch. Now, I won't say that I was stuffed by any means but I was just as full as if I would've eaten a granola bar or oatmeal. This way I'm saving calories & eating something 100% natural.

Now, like I said I didn't chew them but by swallowing them you can tell they may not be real tasty if you did decide to chew them. They're a tad bit chalky, well, I don't know if chalky is the right word. I don't generally have issues swallowing pills but when you have to swallow 30 it's not the easiest thing in the world. I swallowed 3 at a time for the most part & it was fine. When I tried to do more at a time is when I had a little bit of problem.  

So Jonathan said I could offer a discount code & a giveaway. If you use the code "BLOG" there's a  10% discount.

The sample comes in this little tin that's perfect to throw in your purse.

Just leave a comment & I'll enter you in the drawing. I have a busy weekend planned so I'll draw on Tuesday, June 3rd.

Getting stuff to try is all new to me but apparently I have to say that ENERGYbits sent me a free sample of the bits in return for my review but this post is my opinion based on my experience.

Toodles!

Memorial Day

I love long weekends! Especially, when they start at noon on Friday. Normally I get off work at 2:00 but since so few people were going to be in the office my bosses closed at noon. I was able to run a few errands & do a little shopping. Friday night was a low key night at Caliente. Most of our group was at Bayou Country Super Fest which is a big deal in Baton Rouge Memorial Day weekend.

Saturday morning I ran in a race.

We've become a little race group! Cael did the 1 mile fun run. Shauna Amy, Allie, me & Karen did the 5K & Allison was our cheerleader & holder of our crap because she's on Injured Reserve.

Me & Allie before the race. Pretty much all of the races in Baton Rouge are downtown. This one was went behind the Governor's Mansion by one of the lakes so that was pretty. This was a smaller race & we didn't have bibs or chip timing. There was someone at the finish that gave you your time as you crossed the finish line & then you turned it in. It worked fine. The only issue is that if you weren't in the front to start your time was a little off. I didn't start in the front but I wasn't all the way in the middle either. I may have lost a couple of seconds. No biggie.

The race started at 8:30 & I was concerned that it was going to be crazy hot & humid but it wasn't bad & it was overcast so that helped.
At this point I was happy to be finishing. I started way too fast for me. When I looked at my watch I saw that I'd ran the first mile in 8:44. I've never ran a mile that fast.

Allie finishing. I was too busy guzzling water & trying to stop sweating so I wouldn't be so red to take anyone else's picture!

We did get a group pic though. Amy, me, Allie, Karen & Shauna

The course was short. Only 2.72 miles instead of 3.05 that the website said. I'm not sure why they would only do 3.05 rather than 3.1 but it didn't matter. All the proceeds of this race go to St. Jude. My official time was 25:23 & definitely my fastest ever. That 9:21 average pace is faster than what I ran at the 5K earlier this month. I was excited!

That isn't a finishers medal. That's a 2nd place in my age group medal. I was super excited!

Cael got in on the action too. He came in 2nd place overall for the 1 mile fun run!

Once I got home I did a short weight workout & stretched. I've been really good about stretching & foam rolling & I can definitely tell a difference in my recovery.

Saturday night Dean fried fish & shrimp & we ate on the patio.

I opened a bottle of my favorite wine, La Crema & had some gouda to go with it. Delicious!

Sunday morning was a work outside day. Before we got started I cooked one of my favorite breakfasts.

Southwestern style egg beaters & I added artichokes, chopped veggies, feta, spinach & avocado. So so good! We worked for a long time. We pressure washed, washed the siding on the patio, pulled weeds & washed all the patio furniture. The rest of my afternoon was spent floating in the pool.

After 2 trips to Walmart - I hate those stupid things they have the bags on - I ended up leaving a bag & didn't realize it until I got home. UGH!!! All because I wanted to make garlic bread. Anyway, we ended up having another nice dinner on the patio with friends.

Monday morning I had a date with the bike. Cindy & I rode on the levee again. I currently have a flat tire because of a minor incident with some gravel. I haven't gotten turning at high speeds down yet. Especially, when other bikers are headed my way. I'm happy to say I DID NOT fall! I just ended up in a little gravel area instead of on the road.
All that & we still rode 12.5 mi. at 4:15/mi. pace. Not bad. I think we picked up a little speed when we rode right by the snake that was alive in the street! Several hours after the ride I discovered the flat. I should be learning how to fix that sometime this evening.

When I got home this happened.

Floating with a mimosa. Doesn't get much better!

This morning I got up bright & early, as much as I didn't want to because I didn't sleep good at all, & I ran.

Only 3 miles, 3 very slow miles. I had some very tired, heavy legs. The good news is it was harder so my heart rate was up so I burned more calories. I'll take it! The 87% humidity didn't help either. This may be my only run this week because it's supposed to rain the rest of the week. We'll see. 

How was y'all's weekend?

Toodles!