HEY THERE

Posted on August 11, 2014 by Jen @nutcaseinpoint

Hi there! How are you? I sure do wish we had another 3 day weekend. Working 5 days in a row is HARD.

Recapping stuff from the past week (or so):

Hot yoga: I haven’t gone in over 5 months and I returned by taking a BV class. And did an upper body workout the next day. Umm, bad idea. I couldn’t use my arms for the rest of the week because they were so sore. I was this close to having Tyler help me wash my hair a couple of times.

Hiking: Susie and I hiked Ha Ling in Canmore on Saturday. Crazy part is: I thought I would be massively sore from the serious incline of the hike…but I wasn’t! How was a hot yoga class more painful than a hike that lasted a couple hours? Who knows, I won’t question it. Other cool things about the hike: yelling “HEY BEAR’ instead of carrying bear spray–> even though it’s a heavily trafficked path, YOU NEVER KNOW. Also, I needed to bring more water. Also, big horn sheep have big balls (I think they should have an interchangable name: big horn sheep/big balled sheep). Also, beer and nachos at Grizzly Paw afterwards is a GREAT way to refuel. One more thing: charge your phone before you climb a mountain. That way you can upload more pics to facebook. Because everyone knows it’s priority to facebook what you do rather than actually ENJOYING THE MOMENT. I’m being half sarcastic/half serious here.

Sangaritas: omygod do it. Mix 1/2 sangria, 1/2 marg mix and tequila and BOOM. Instant happiness.

Beagles and water don’t mix: This one just makes me sad. We took the pups to the river on Sunday and there are so many people with their dogs. All of them go in except for the damn beagles. Seriously, I saw other beagles/beagle owners standing on the shore watching as other dogs cool off and splash around. I tried picking Reggie up and putting his feet in the water a bit, but I’m pretty sure a part of his soul died when that happened. So we brought the water to him.

Hair: I put blonde back in! Phew, I feel 102491824x better. I don’t know what the heck I was thinking by making my hair gradually darker. It just doesn’t suit me. Although I almost wish it did because it would be WAY less expensive to maintain.

Highlight: I booked a flight home to New York for a week in October! I’m also planning a road trip to Boston for a day or two. The older I get, the more excited I am to fly home. And have mom wash my bras and make me food.

Hope you have a great week! My pup buddies say hi

Going on a Ramble

Posted on January 2, 2014 by Jen @nutcaseinpoint

I’m going to ramble a bit because I seem to be pretty good at that. The less fluid I can make a post, the better. It keeps you on your toes. Here goes:

I’ve posted this on instagram and on my personal fb page, and since I think it’s hilarious, I’mma post it here, too. Backstory: I made a batch of The Pioneer Woman’s cinnamon buns this past weekend. They were extra sticky because I improvised on the icing ingredients. Ok, boring part of the story out of the way. Reggie (the beagle) hopped onto the center of the dining room table and got to one of the pans. Since he is a master of hiding things, we suspect he ate between 8-10 of them (10 are missing and we only recovered 2). He is obviously the worst dog ever for doing this, [No he’s not] so I subjected him to a bit of dog shaming. Also, Layla is jealous of everything, so I had to make her a sign too. Please note: she was not an accomplice.

I went to hot yoga yesterday. NEW YEAR’S DAY. And my sweat stunk of alcohol. Pro: I actually worked out and didn’t die. Con: The yoga instructor actually massaged my feet at one point during savasana and she probably went home and chopped off her hands. Also, the following picture is so true:

Except I’m probably way worse.

So, my office building just opened a gym which is great for a butt-ton of reasons:

it’s cheaper than any other gym
it’s convenient and I can workout at lunch
can free up my evenings
d all of the above

Only little qualm I have about the whole thing is now I’ll have to lug yet ANOTHER bag into work with me everyday. I have my trusty Lululemon bag that I’ve been using for a couple years, but I found out this morning it’s not conducive to public transit. Meaning, I practically take up a whole bench seat with me and all my bagcessories. [Can I make that a new word? Yup, just did.]

Does anyone have any bag recommendations that are easy to carry for my commute and somewhat roomy? I’m thinking enough to hold my sneakers, outfit, iPod, and 3,564,785,642,345 baby wipes for dry showering. For the record, the gym has showers. And for the record, I never use gym showers. Shall I go on a tangent? YES I SHALL.

Picture it (Actually, PLEASE DON’T) it was junior year of college and our volleyball team had a weekend tournament in Pennsylvania. So it was like a billionty hour bus ride. Since this is a shower story I won’t go into the fact that our coach hoarded our travel money and spent it on Wal-Mart rotisserie chickens, Oreos, and peanut butter for us to live off of. (One of the many reasons we did not do well at that tournament). Anywho, after our last match on the last day, we all agreed we’d rather shower in the gym than waste time going back to the hotel and getting back on our own campus even later. Cut to the locker room where it’s a GROUP SHOWER. And it was ONLY COLD WATER. And we only had ONE tube of shower gel to use and maybe 2 towels. There was a lot of screaming and a lot of ‘don’t look at me-s’ and basically just terror.

So yeah, I’m not a fan of any public showers. And here’s a pic of me playing volleyball. I was really good at it.

Also on the topic of recommendations, let’s hear about your favorite headphones. I am sick of my earbuds that fall out when I jump too much or get too sweaty. Yurbuds maybe?

Today, I got added to a group on facebook for my friggin high school 10 year reunion. Yes, you totally just did the math to figure out how old I am. And no, I’m not going to it. For a few reasons:

Just NO.
I only went there junior and senior year.
I really only remember about 10 of them.
I live in Canada and that’s a stupid ass waste of airfare.
Refer to #1.

Except now that I think of it, I WOULD be staying at my parent’s house if I went…

No, Jen. NO.

And to end on a happy note: In just over a month from today, my best friend from high school (ok, so I did make at least ONE friend at that high school) is coming to visit! Do you understand my excitement that I’m actually getting a visitor in Canada?! I’ve on been here for 675 days. Who’s counting? There are so many things I want to do, I can’t even stand it.

Let’s all laugh at my little motivational snippet taped to the dresser: “Running. Good for you.” Bahahaha.

Weekend Wrap Up

Posted on August 19, 2013 by Jen @nutcaseinpoint

Breakfast was enjoyed on the patio.

(This plate is only enjoyed on the weekends. Otherwise my cholesterol would be stupid)

We ventured over to Nose Hill Park to stretch our legs and exhaust the puppies. It worked. The sun was super hot and we guessed we did about 3ish miles from the various paths we chose.

I was pretty uncertain what I wanted to do for my workout for the day, up until the very last minute. I signed up for a 6pm Traditional Hot Yoga class, but was VERY reluctant to go since the instructor for this particular class really isn’t my favorite at all. In the end, I was glad I went because my body felt goooooooooood (Even though I rolled my eyes a few times throughout).

While I was gone, Tyler refilled the toiler paper holders, emptied the dishwasher, and went to the grocery store. Crazy, I know.

When I got back, I threw together a pasta salad for dinner. A lot of our meals lately have been super easy to make. Here are some:

From top to bottom, L-R:

Turkey Taco Salad
Buffalo Marinara Bacon and Shredded Chicken
All beef hot dogs topped with DIRT DOG SAUCE and Southwest Salad
Tukey Meatballs over No Yolk Pasta and sauteed zucchini and asparagus
Chicken Fajita pressed wraps
Pasta Salad
Jalepeno Burgers and Taber Corn
Turkey chopped salad from Subway
Grilled Sausages and slaw
Homemade pizza

Last night, we finally got caught up with Breaking Bad. I’m kind of sad to be caught up (even though this last season just started) and now I have no idea what series to Netflix next! Maybe Californication…

Soooooooo, the last week or so I have been doing Hot Yoga. It’s annoying to keep typing, so I imagine it’s annoying to keep reading about. ANYWAYS, I have pretty much only been taking those classes each day with some days having an additional cardio workout at the gym. I’m finally ready to combine yoga with sore of my own strength training workouts- even though some of the BV classes are pretty strength-intense. When I got in bed last night, I just had the urge to do either supersets or pyramids or tabatas…so that’ll probably happen a bunch this week.

end rant. wake up.

What’s a super easy meal you like to make?

Latest favorite workout?

Hot Yoga, explained.

Posted on August 14, 2013 by Jen @nutcaseinpoint

For those of you who have never attempted Hot Yoga, I thought I would give a brief explanation of how the classes usually go. And for those of you who have endured the practice, I think you can relate to the following.

I’m SO excited to go to YOGAAAAAA!

I have arrived to the yoga studio and I’m ready to go

Oh dang, it’s hot in here.

No, it’s REALLY hot in here

Ok, time to stretch

And stretch some more

There is a lot of stretching going on

Please don’t fall, please don’t fall, please don’t fall

Seriously, it is so hot in here

Phew class is over!

I’m friggin tired

IT’S OVER AND I FEEL WONDERFUL AND WHY DID I THINK IT WAS SO HOT??!! VICTORY DANCE!

And with that, I’m off to class.

(What’s your favorite type of yoga?)

Exercise & Eats

Posted on June 17, 2013 by Jen @nutcaseinpoint

Hey there. I swear to God there were at least a half a billionty things I thought of over the weekend that I wanted to blog about….and then I forgot like all of them. DAYUM.

Last week’s eats: all of them were easy peasy. Honestly, I forgot what the hell I ate on Monday. And I’ve tried jogging my memory all morning (jogging a memory? Don’t get how that came to be a phrase).

Tuesday: Roasted veggies with brown rice and chicken breast. Seriously, so easy. But it was a well rounded meal.

Wednesday: Pesto Chicken Paninis. I made some homemade pesto, added thinly sliced cooked chicken, tomatoes, and monterey jack.

Thursday: Scrambled Egg Sandwich. With leftover monterey jack, ketchup and sriracha! I had loaded up on veggies during the day, so I didn’t miss them in my dinner.

Friday: Pizza. Lazy man’s dinner, but so tasty! Tyler had football practice and I went to yoga, so we were both pretty happy to plop on the couch with a few pieces o’ pie.

Last week’s workouts were good, too!

Monday: Hot Yoga, 20 minute HIIT on the treadmill (90 seconds brisk walk, 30 seconds ALL OUT SPRINT), Women’s Health Big Book of Exercises pre-wedding workout.

Tuesday: Hot Yoga, 20 min spin, another WH Athlete’s Workout (used lots of cable exercises and core work!)

Wednesday: Hot Yoga, sprints outside up and down the street (followed by one cat and a big ass bunny), another WH Athlete’s Workout- completed at home and SUPER sweaty.

Thursday: Hot Yoga

Friday: Hot Yoga

Saturday: Hot Yoga

Sunday: Off

Yes yes, lots of hot yoga. But um…I paid for a month unlimited, so I’m stretching my dollar as far as it will go! So far, I have only stuck to the Traditional Hot Yoga class (same format every class) and I have LOVED it. Today I am trying the Baptiste Vinyasa class. Super excited! Plus, you guys…this yoga business is getting my bod ready for the upcoming trip to NY. wink wink

Also, today is the start of the next round of Best Body Bootcamp. I have participated in the last four rounds, and just really like getting 8 weeks of pre-determined workouts. I find I always get myself in ruts: I either stick to some of the same exercises, or I am not seeing any benefits or results from my workouts. By changing it up with what BBB provides, it really just keeps me motivated to workout because I love trying new stuff.

Things totally unrelated to exercise and eats that I feel necessary to share:

I CANNOT stop listening to this song. Over and over. And over. And….over. And yes, I’m dancing to it like a loony in front of my dogs. They are not entertained whatsoever.

If I were to go camping, I would NEED to do so in this tent:

(Source)

The puppies actually got to get some sun yesterday! Cute little beasts

We managed to watch all of season 2 of Spartacus. HOLY. The show is crazy intense and I love it. Plus, male full frontal. I mean..c’mon. (yeah yeah there are naked ladies in it too)