18 March 2012

On the Move...Again

Ever since I went to college, I have moved nearly every year. Recently it's only been every 2 years and honestly when Tim and I bought the house we're in now, we said "this is our forever house."

I guess "forever" doesn't hold up to job opportunities. Tim and I found out last week that we'll be moving again after three years in what is perhaps my favorite house ever. It's a great open floor plan, hardwoods throughout the downstairs, on a cul-de-sac, fenced landscaped yard, screened porch, great neighborhood and good neighbors. Alas we're headed west...to Colorado. Tim's been offered a great opportunity in Boulder with his current employer, so it's hard to pass up.

We're both pretty excited about it, but very nervous at the same time. Both of our families are here in NC. My parents live about 10 minutes down the road, Tim's parents are a little over 1 hour from us and his sister and our niece live only 5 minutes down the road as well. Having family close has been extremely helpful and nice for the kids to be able to know their extended family, so it's going to be a change for us to not have that. We'll be a bit closer to my sister and her husband, who are in San Francisco, but still we'll be away from everyone.

We are looking forward to the atmosphere, activities, scenery and just a change, but we are not looking forward to having to prepare the house to sell on such short notice. It looks like Tim will have to be out there sometime in mid April to the beginning of May. I'll have to stay until Ryan's school year ends at the end of June. Here's to hoping we can get the house on the market in the next 2 weeks and somebody really likes it!

If anyone out there is looking to move to NC, let me know...there's a great house that I'm going to miss dearly up for sale.

01 March 2012

February Fitness Challenge - how it went

So really the only goal was to work out every day in February and the rule was "anything greater than 10-15 minutes". I have to say that when my friend first made that rule, part of me said, "oh this is going to be easy then...is 10-15 minutes really long enough to constitute a workout?" But honestly, toward the end of the month, I cherished this rule. Two years ago I would have found it ridiculous that I couldn't do at least 15 minutes of exercise a day...but now, with juggling 3 kids, a house and a husband (in no particular order), well it's just hard to find the time or make the time. But that's what I had to do, make the time.

So for the month of February:
1. I worked out 26 of 29 days with a total of 29 workouts. There were 3 days where I did a morning and "after the kids are in bed" workout.
2. There were 2 days where strength training on my living room floor for 20 minutes was my workout.
3. There was one day I ran stairs in my house to get the workout in.
4. I ran approximately 45 miles.
5. I swam approximately 10,000 meters
6. I rode approximately 75 miles.
7. I hiked for approximately 2 hours.
8. I got in approximately 6 hours of strength/core training.

I didn't really meet the goal of working out every day...but what I did do was manage to workout more this month than I have since I was in my regular training. Even though my workouts were not serious training and mostly aerobically based, I found myself really tired and needing rest. This was when I ended up doing the easy strength stuff at my house or taking 1 of my 3 days off. I felt better the farther into the month I got, but it really was mentally exhausting just trying to find/make the time to workout every day.

Another little tidbit, if you count the days prior to February that I had workout, I actually worked out 33 out of 36 days. So it really wasn't bad at all. When looking at March, I jokingly said to Tim "So there are 31 days in March, what should I aim for". And being the loving and encouraging husband he is "30" was the answer....Oh boy.

So I'll try it. I might have to sit down and come up with a schedule that looks the same for each week to help me plan and I will definitely go ahead and put light days in where I'm just doing the strength training at home. As of now I'm 1 for 1....hehe. Problems I foresee for this month, our (or I should say Tim's) race schedule picks up this month and 2 weekends out of town. The other thing is that Ryan tracks out of school at the end of the month so the extra kid in the house will be interesting. Due to this, I'm going to keep the rule of 20 min. constitutes a workout, and acceptable alternatives to the swim/bike/run/weights will be hiking, playing tag, and yard work...okay, maybe not yard work but definitely playing tag....my boys can run fast.