Spring is almost here!

Want to know how I know spring is almost here?! Daylight savings starts on Sunday, March Madness starts next week, my birthday is almost here, St Patrick’s day is just around the corner, and in a month – the greatest week ever happens… MASTERS week! The azaleas and greenest, softest grass everywhere – oh how I love the Masters. Plus, its 70 here today! But of course it is supposed to rain all day tomorrow…

I think I will go soak up the sun and warm weather with taking the pup for a walk/run around the neighborhood!

I have decided to sign up for the Capital City Quarter Marathon on Saturday, May 5^th and more daylight means I can incorporate some outside runs into my training plan.

I have been following a 10k training App that I downloaded to my iPhone and its been great on the treadmill so far – ready to take it out for real life run! Even though a quarter marathon is 6.55 miles and a 10k is 6.1 I figured I can count on my adrenaline to get me the extra .45 miles J

I’m trying to convince, RP to do the quarter (if not half) and the parents to come up and do the 5k – just 3.1 miles! I need people to celebrate with me during the after race party – it’s the best part!

Speaking of running, I’m in the market for some new running shoes and I really like these Nike Free Run + 2 shoes but they are custom designed – code for more mulah… so I think we are going shoe shopping this weekend! I actually think I need to go to a store where they are able to fit my feet to the perfect running shoes for me. I have some research to do, but I really like the gray and turquoise combo with these! And I’m sure they will make me run really fast…!

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Sweet Tea Please Housekeeping

You may have noticed I’ve made some changes to the blog to make it more manageable and its starting to turn into what I have envisioned this blog to look like – finally! I added a new page “The Potters”. Take a look!

On my sidebar to the right I have also added links to my favorite books as well as a list of all the blogs that have inspired me to start Sweet Tea Please. Check them out when you get a chance! This is a work in progress but I’m loving every minute so far and learning soooo much too!

Who can get to 500 faster?

After a long weekend it was hard to wake up this morning! Ryan had to work yesterday so I had the day to myself. I cleaned the condo and went to the mall to browse all the MLK day sales before coming back to snuggle with Reese until Ryan came home.

Workout

After work today Ryan and I decided to go to the gym and see how fast we could burn 500 calories – according to the cardio machines – I’ve heard they aren’t the most accurate when it comes to actual calories burned. I usually go to the gym to do cardio with a goal in mind to achieve a certain time or distance, never calories. So this was a new mindset for me!

We started on the stair stepper for 5 minutes and then we moved to the treadmills. I can’t compare myself to Ryan for obvious reasons but he ended up reaching 500 in about 28 minutes. Me on the other hand..   it took me about 48 minutes! I started off by doing intervals for 15 minutes between 3.8 mph and 5.5 mph and then I ran for 5.0 for 10 minutes. The final 18 minutes I went back and forth between 4.0 and 5.0. In the end I burned 500 calories – sounds good to me!

I felt like it was a great cardio workout for me and I liked that Ryan and I were able to do it together – even though we are on different fitness levels! Baby steps but I’m working towards my 2012 To Do list of working out more!

Mexican Tomato Bean Soup w/ Corn Dumplings

Dinner came together so easy tonight – This weekend I looked through our “Cooking Light – Way to Cook Vegetarian” cookbook and flagged a couple meals for the week. Tonight I was in the mood for some soup (it is supposed to be a cold night – maybe even some snow).  I tweaked it a little bit but I think this soup will make its appearance in our kitchen again!

I had high hopes for the corn dumplings but I either used too much oil or not enough cornmeal.. they disintegrated as soon as I made them in the soup – maybe you will have better luck!

Here is the link to the original recipe – I added a can of Pinto beans and eliminated the limes (just because we didn’t have any).

Off to play hide and seek with Reese! She hides under my hanging clothes in the closet….

Have a good night – Thank goodness for a short workweek!