Closet DONE!

It's done!  I am so stinkin' thrilled with how the closet turned out!  It feels so fresh and clean and I can find stuff and did I mention clean??  I no longer walk in there and feel my blood pressure rise.  Now I feel totally calm and actually say, "Ahhhh".  Such a great feeling.

Yes, yes I do color code my clothes, doesn't everyone?

 The dressers that we got at Ikea, Hemnes, also come in black which my husband originally wanted but I'm glad I stuck to my guns (and won) with the white.  We bought both the 6-drawer chest and the 8 drawer dresser.  

His side - apparently no, not everyone color codes.

My beautiful dresser!

At the last minute, we decided to also get the Brimnes 4-drawer chest.

It matches the Hemnes pieces perfectly, fits that small space by the door and is perfect for both our towels and my sports bra collection of approximately 9 bazillion.  We swapped out the handles for those little silver numbers to personalize it a bit more which I really love.  I have to say that all three of the pieces are really nice.  They look way more expensive (especially the dressers) than they were.

It feels so bright and big in there even though it isn't a huge closet.  I still need to hang the bar for my necklaces but other than that, it's totally complete!  At this point, the only thing I would have done differently is to have had my husband hung his shirts higher.  I don't love that they kind of brush the top of his dresser but whatever...now I'm just gettin' picky!

Once we got all out clothes back into the closet, it made me take a hard look at our bedroom.  Holy clutter batman.  I have 9 million books on a shelf by my bed and in a basket on my nightstand AND on the floor in between.  90% of them I have already read, several more I started but didn't like. So why do I still have them all?  I don't re-read books so it is time to donate.  I purged like a mad woman and now, I get that same, "Ahhhh" feeling from my closet when I look at my side of the bed.  I wish I had taken a before picture of that mess...you can kind of see it in this picture (can't see the bookshelf but you can see my night stand with the overflowing basket-o-crap):

And now:

Yay!  When Purple Heart comes on the 17th, whoever is driving that truck is not going to like me.  I have so much stuff ready to go.

All those brown bags are books!

Totally not closet related, I got my Sweaty Betties sprint challenge done yesterday (that's a first for this week...4 more to go)!  I'm loving this challenge.  It forces me to get on the treadmill when I really don't feel like it.  My mojo has been non existent for a while now.  Yesterday I did the challenge plus a few more intervals along with some lower body strength training (squats and lunges).  It was a short run but with the sprints and intervals plus the squats and lunges, I felt pretty good after.  Today I get to go to Body Pump again - second time since Sunday, I feel so spoiled!  My plan is to get there a little early so I can do the sprints.  Five times in a week remember!

Go USA!

I ate a decent meal and went to bed early last night only after triple checking that my alarm was set for 5:45 so I wouldn't miss a second of the women's marathon.  Being a spectator involves proper preparation too!  Davila has already dropped out due to a nagging injury but Kara and Shalane are hanging tough!  Go USA!

Operation Closet Re-Do Part II

The mess in my bedroom is getting worse by the hour.  There are clothes and shoes and crap covering every surface including the floor.  I'm a bit of an organization freak so this is making me totally crazy.  My husband just keeps saying, "You are a bit out of your comfort zone, eh?" with a smirk on his face.  Ugh.  Fortunately my youngest has a full size bed so we slept in his room last night kicking him to the futon in the playroom.  This shit better get done fast because getting dressed after my shower today was crazy difficult....lots of digging.

This morning I decided to get my Sweaty Betties sprint challenge done at the beginning of a regular run.  The plan was to run 7 miles with the first 12:30 being the challenge.  Got the challenge done (even increased my sprint speed from 9.0 to 9.3) but then started running out of steam.  I think it may have had a little something to do with yesterday's happy hour:

Sun and sand and a live band just makes beer go down easier.  That and thinking about the mess in the bedroom....I may have been drinking to forget.  I felt totally fine this morning until I got to the end of those sprints.  Blah.  I managed to get 4 miles in but felt like I had run a marathon.  Apparently I'm getting really old.

Look what arrived in my mail this afternoon!!

I'm super excited to give this a try.  I've read a lot of positive reviews on J Core.  There are 6 DVD's.  The idea is to do a 20 minute workout 4 days a week.  I really like the shortness of the workouts especially now when I'm not getting to the gym very often.  I figure I can squeeze his workouts in when the kids are still half asleep in the mornings before we make a plan for the day.  I plan on writing up a review after I've done at least 2 or 3 of the DVDs.  Between J Core and the sprint challenge which is getting my ass back on the treadmill, I should be feeling much better any time now.  As long as I ease up on the sandy happy hours!

Sprints Challenge!

Because my workouts have been so sporadic this summer, I feel all
nasty and bloated more often then not. This is all in my head, I know,
because despite the fact that I'm not in the gym anywhere near what I
am when the kids are in school, I still make a big effort to eat
clean. Yesterday morning I was feeling particularly blah but had zero time
to try and squeeze in a treadmill run because I had to take my son to
the doctor.

Morning cocktails

I started the day with the usual 24oz glass of water, my
Tone It Up Meta-D drink and 2 cups of green tea. I pulled out a packet
of Perfect Fit Protein with the intention of making a protein pancake
but then I remembered a link Workout Mommy posted on Facebook
the day before....it involved sprints.

I found the link she posted and was
excited to see that it was a super quick sprint challenge on The Sweaty
Betties site. The August challenge (in addition to giving up
artificial sweeteners) is to do five 30-second sprints (with a short
recovery in between) five days a week. For the entire month. Wowzers!
I'm so in!!  I probably shouldn't say this until the end of the month
but this workout really seems like a zero excuses workout. Check out
the time on my treadmill:

Done before I had time to think!

Twelve minutes and thirty seconds. Who doesn't have 12:30 they can
spare to get this done?  I warmed up and cooled down for 3 minutes
each. My warm up pace was 6.5; sprints were 9.0 and my recovery was for
60 seconds at 7.0. Done!  I'm certainly not saying this should be your
only form of exercise but for a quick wake-me-up first thing in the
morning, the 'I'm a badass' feeling cant be beat!  And yes, I know if
I really were a bad-ass I would have set my alarm, gotten up super
early and gotten this challenge in plus full body strength training.
Stop judging me.

After the sprints, I had just enough time for a quick shower and a
smoothie before heading to the doctor. This morning's concoction
featured 1/2 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk, 1/2 cup water,
Tone it Up Perfect Fit Protein Powder, 1 tsp chocolate PB 2 (I'm so obsessed with
PB2!), 3 big handfuls of spinach, 1 carrot, 1/2 apple and 1/2 of a
frozen banana. Yummmmm!

Later in the day, right after my lunch my mother in law was nice enough to let me drop off my boys so I could get to the gym.  The plan was to run then take Body Step.  About midway through my run, I knew I wasn't staying for the class.  I'm a total moron and ate lunch about a half hour before getting to the gym and was experiencing quite the heartburn.  It was all I could do to get 5 miles in before I decided to stop.  So frustrated with myself because I very rarely get to the gym in the summer and I totally screwed up my opportunity.  Today is another day though!  Going to get my sprint challenge done then head to the outlets to take advantage of tax free shopping!

Closet Re-Do

Project time.  My husband tends to get a bit antsy when he doesn't have a project.  I bitch and moan about our master bedroom closet on a regular basis so I shouldn't have been surprised when he announced last week that he was going to completely redo the sucka.  Our closet, while a decent size (although would be better if all his shit manly garments weren't in it), only has the standard builder one shelf deal all the way around.  A long time ago I bought one of those double closet rods which I thought was the best invention ever for about two weeks.  It's cool and all but I am still totally unorganized and need more help than this little rod is giving.  I also put a dresser in there which is overflowing with workout clothes so much that finding a sports bra is like going on an architectural dig.

My husband sketched out "The Plan" and off he went to Home Depot.  My garage is now full of shelves and bars and racks and hardware.  Then he immediately went out of town.  Huh.  The good news is that has given me until tomorrow night to go through all my stuff in preparation for the big demolition.

Mid-way through the clean out.

Some survivors!

I am convinced that I never have anything to wear.  Because of that, I spend way to much time in places like TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Target and the nearby outlets.  If I had to guess, I'd say I don't wear 80% of what is in my closet but I bet I'm way off and it's closer to 98%.  I decided that this closet re-do was a big smack in the face/ wake your ass up and donate at least half of my clothes mission.  In an odd coincidence, the same day that I was going to start purging, I read about the Stylebook app on a blog.  Woah.  This app is seriously some Jettsonion shit!  Basically you take a photo of everything in your closet, organize in the app then make outfits or 'looks' as the app calls them.  I'm in!  I downloaded that sucker and went to work!  Have I mentioned that my gym and run schedule has been non-existent with the kids being home for summer?  This clearly isn't a good thing.

So far, things have been going really well.  At first I was taking pictures of stuff I knew I wanted to keep but that got a wee bit tedious and when putting outfits together in the app, I just didn't get the full effect.  So instead, I have been putting together outfits as I discover new clothes (Haven't seen this shirt in ages! and Wow! This still has the price tag on it!) and then taking a picture of myself in said outfit and saving it under the 'inspiration' tab. The picture I've posted is actually a really bad example because I wouldn't wear those shoes with that outfit because the tank and sweater are charcoal grey and the sandals are brown.  I was just trying to get an idea of those pants with a wedge heel, blah, blah, blah.  I have posted it because of my little helper in the background.  Thank you for taking the time to sniff and lick at this particular moment.  I think I have a future as a fashion blogger.

Better Murphy although still totally in the way.

Things are still a total disaster in there but I have made major progress.  I have filled 3 1/2 large lawn bags full of clothes.  Totally streamlining baby!  I put together a bunch of outfits I never would have thought of before because stuff has been so buried in the closet.

I have extremely high hopes that this is going to turn me into one of those women that always look put together when at school volunteering.  A girl can dream.

August? Really??

Wow.  What happened to June and July?  I know I've said it before...I'm a horrible blogger.  Confession: since my father's passing, I've been all over the place emotionally and mentally.  I've started so many things that I just can't seem to finish.  In an effort to stay busy all the time, (which as I know is really an effort to not deal with the feelings I should be dealing with) I've become completely scatterbrained and totally unproductive in all aspects of life.  Fortunately I'm a stay-at-home mom and don't have a 9-5 job because if I did, my guess is that I would have been fired by now.  One thing that I do realize is that I need to get back to some kind of routine.  To be able to do one consistent thing on a daily, or at least every other day, basis.  I'd love for that thing to be blogging because I really enjoy it but who knows.  Of course coming to that realization during the summer while my kids are still home from school is probably a bit much to hope for.  My summer's with them have always been a bit crazy because we don't like schedules around here while they are on vacation.  Anyway, it's August 1st.  Time for me to try and gather myself.

Tone It Up Nutrition Plan

Have you heard of Tone It Up?  It's this great fitness/nutrition community founded by two trainers, Karena and Katrina.  They have a blog, tons of YouTube exercise videos, a DVD, a nutrition plan and they even recently came out with their own (vegan - yay!) protein powder.  I have been thinking about purchasing the nutrition plan for quite some time.  I really like the trainers from Tone It Up, I watch the videos, read their blog, even bought their workout DVD.  The nutrition plan is expensive though so I had a hard time making a decision.  When my mother-in-law gave me money for my birthday, I knew just what I was going to do with it.

Best Birthday Present Ever!

The cool thing about the plan is that you can purchase the regular plan, gluten free plan, vegetarian or vegan plan.  Once I knew I was going to buy, I spent another week trying to decided between the vegetarian and vegan plan.  I ended up going with the vegetarian plan and I now kind of wish I had picked up the vegan plan.  Regardless, I really like it!  Some great recipes and a lot of really helpful hints about what to eat and when and an exercise plan.

There is also a section called the 7-Day Slim Down in the full plan and the 5-Day Slim Down in the summer edition (when you purchase their plan, you get all the updates as free downloads - bonus!).  Karena and Katrina challenged the community to join them on the 5-Day Slim Down starting this past Monday.  I don't feel the need to drop any weight (I'm more of a maintenance kind of girl) so I wasn't going to do it but then on Tuesday, decided to try it and see how doable it is.  The result?  In five days, I lost 2.5lbs (and to be totally honest, that is without giving up my wine!).  But more importantly, I feel incredible.  It was a wake up call to how much random snacking I was doing.  A handful of gluten free crackers here, a couple pieces of chocolate there.....etc, etc.  While on the 5-Day Slim Down, I stopped the mindless 3:00pm eating and followed the plan pretty much to a T.  The only variation was in the recipes.

My new favorite lunch - tofu and veggie romaine wrap!

I took their recipes and tweaked them just a bit to my liking without adding any additional calories.  My new favorite lunch - veggies and tofu wrapped in romaine lettuce - is now an addiction! I was never hungry on the plan, always felt full and satisfied.  I can't believe how good I feel.  I feel way more toned which I know sounds crazy, but I guess without the excess bloat of snacks/sugar/salt, that's what happens!

If you are interested, I highly recommend Tone It Up.  Check out their website - there are a ton of good recipes on there along with printable workouts.  And then head over to YouTube for some good quick workouts.