Fit Friday

Sans photos - again. I'm sorry! MrHoppy has been working a TON this week and is working 17 hours today (yikes!) so I couldn't bear to wake him up to take my photo this morning. Not to mention he worked last night too so didn't get to bed until after 1AM. Good luck today husband!

So, let's get down to business:

Fitness: I did well this week even though I had plans Monday night and last minute plans last night. I worked out early Monday morning at home with Jillian Michaels. 30 Day Shred baby. Tuesday night was running and lifting. Wednesday morning consisted of my 30 minute core class at the gym, a run and upper body. I was going to hit the gym last night since MrHoppy was working but met up with my sister, BIL and nephew at the mall instead. :) Fridays I'm off but I'll run outside tomorrow morning. I'm going to attempt a long-ish run (for me) of 4 miles. We shall see!

Nutrition: Ate well this week although some days were kind of random. I need to focus more on vegetables and could use some ideas of how to incorporate them more into my meals. Ideas anyone? We have plans all day tomorrow (drinking, eating, drinking more, eating some more and going out on the town) for my BIL's birthday so portion control and making the best choices possible will be key.

Weight: 118 today. I was 117 all week and I'm happy with my progress. Swim suit season is almost upon us and I need to continue my toning to rock a bikini soon!

Happy Friday everyone, what plans do you have this weekend?

My New Favorite Dinner

Happy Thursday! I usually talk about diet and healthy eating on Fridays but thought I would include a post about a dinner we had recently that I loved!

Elk tacos. Yes, we eat elk. And we drink beer as you can see in the background. We are in the micro-brew capital of the nation. Of course we Colorado folks LOVE our beer. :)

Details on this delicious-ness are below...

A little sidenote... MrHoppy was born and raised in the mountains of Colorado so hunting has been part of his life for many, many years. I am not going to pretend to like it but I'm not against it either. I am OK with hunting as long as the meat is eaten and as much as the animal is used as possible. Just don't be thinking that I join in or have any part in it. I do, however, eat the meat. Our freezer is full of elk meat from last Fall so we try to use it instead of buying beef at the store.

Elk meat is super lean. As far as red meat goes, it's pretty good for you. It's wild, grass "fed" and about as natural as you can get. The taste is a little "gamey" for me so we usually include it in dishes with seasonings and sauces.

In this meal MrHoppy marinated 2 elk steaks for a couple days. I'm not 100% sure what all he used but I believe it was a concoction of Italian dressing, red pepper, Srichacha, and some other seasonings and spices.

He put the meat on the grill and when it was cooked through we diced it up into tiny pieces. While he grilled the meat I steamed corn tortillas, diced up tomatos and made guacamole (just avacado, garlic, onion, tomato and Srichacha). We put the meat on the tortillas, added tomato, spinach, sour cream and guac. The meat was spicy and had great flavor. I love adding lots of veggies to my tacos.

So what do you think? Does this look and sound good? It could be done just as easily with lean beef steaks. It's pretty "clean", low in fat and you are getting protein and vegetables with your dinner.

Easter in the Ol' Wild West

On Friday morning the Hoppy house packed our bags and headed out. A weekend in the Wild West (Wyoming) was in our near future... We geared up for the 5+ hour drive with a big breakfast and a pep talk to the dogs:

"OK pups we have a looooonnnnnnng road ahead of us, it's time to snuggle in and be good." Once on the road we realized the wind was going to be an issue. 70MPH winds made for an interesting afternoon.

This is probably the only time MrHoppy smiled the whole time... This was 5 minutes into the drive.

Wide open spaces...

One of the many coal trains we saw on our drive. It's a big part of the economy in Wyoming.

The weather was (just a little bit) less than beautiful when we finally arrived.

After hardboiling about a million eggs MrHoppy's little sister dyed them while I supervised.

Big yawn from Cricket

The weather was much nicer on Saturday. After a pedicure with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law we headed down to the ol' barn to take care of the horses.

They come up pretty quickly when they know it's time to eat

Wyoming does have it's beautiful moments...

On Sunday morning the weather was even better. We had quite a drive ahead of us but decided to take advantage and ride the horses. I don't ride often so I was nervous at first. Riding Maggie is simple though... For the most part she follows the other horses. Except when she wants to stop and try to nibble on green grass!

We had an absolutely wonderful weekend with his family. I truly wish that they lived closer so we could see them more often. We spent time catching up, playing games, watching movies and relaxing. Since it's graduation season we'll be seeing everyone again in a few weeks!

Busy Bees

We have been busy at the Hoppy household! I haven't had much time to blog or take photos this week, let alone download and organize them!

Last weekend was kind of a blur and that spewed over into this week for some reason.

I've been at the gym a lot and then last night was able to surprise my husband with something amazing. More on that to come... I will say that this morning he said it's the coolest thing I have EVER done. Wow! He surprised me with something amazing last Friday and there will be more on that soon also... I just want to include photos in the surprises and there aren't any yet! I'm really not trying to be vague!

Today is my last day of work this week. 3 day weekend, woo-hoo, par-tay! We are planning to veg out at home tonight, we haven't really seen each other since Sunday night. And it feels like longer than that! There is catching up to do and hopefully I'll have time to organize photos and be a better blogger next week!

Happy weekend everyone!

Infertility A to Z's

I haven't written much about IF recently but though this was kind of fun. :)

Stolen from a fellow blogger, MrsSmoke, check out here blog here

A. Age at Which you Started TTC: 27

B. Baby Dancing or Sex: Sex, seriously who says "baby dancing"??

C. Children Wanted: We wanted 2-3

D. Dogs/Cats/Fill in Babies: 2 dogs and a cat

E. Essential Oils/Vitamins: Eh, I just take a multi-vitamin

F. Fertility Meds I've Taken: Clomid and Ovidrel shot in my boot-ay

G. Gain, What have I Gained from Infertility: Strength. If I can make it through the emotions of IF I can make it through anything!

H. HSG: Yep, all clear. Pretty uncomfortable procedure

I. Infertile Pet Peeve: I'm so much better now that I'm not doing treatments, honestly.

J. Job Title: Insurance Agent

K. Kids Names your are Afraid will be Taken: I used to be afraid "Sam" for a boy would be taken. Now I hope someone uses it because I love the name!

L. Lengh of Time TTC: We tried for 2.5 years

M. Miscarriages: None, I have never seen 2 lines on a pregnancy test

N. Number of Times you have Switched REs: None, we stayed with our "in-network" RE

O. Ovarian Quality: Great, I always ovulated on my own and produced a good number of eggs from minimal medications.

P. POAS or Wait for AF: Wait for AF

Q. Quote from an Obnoxious Fertile: Go on vacation, that's what worked for my friend!

S. Sperm: The few sperm he has aren't great swimmers and are mis-shapen. Poor little spermies :(

T. Time you Tried Naturally: One year

U. Uterus Quality: Good, it is "tipped" though. Can make for a tricky IUI catheter placement

V. Vagina: Um... Yes?

W. What Baby Stuff do you Already Have: Not a thing, I never bought anything actually!

X. Xtra, Xtra, Hear all about it! How many people know about our TTC Journey: We are pretty open about it. Most of our friends and family know. We "came out" pretty early on. The support was nice and people finally stopped asking so many damn questions!

Y. Yearly Exam: Still have 'em!

Z. Zits: ? Never really got them, still don't. What does this even mean?! :)

Fit Friday

This edition is going to be sans photos. MrHoppy took them and I downloaded them and then I looked at them... Um, no thanks.

Do you ever have a day where you look at yourself and just think you are fugly? That's the kind of day I'm having. My body looks fine but I thought my hair, makeup and face looked terrible. :::sigh:::

Just one of those days I guess...

Anyway, moving right along...

Fitness: I worked out Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. All were excellent workouts. I might go for a run outside tonight, we'll see. I will definitely be hitting the gym tomorrow though. It was a good week for fitness, I'm happy with my progress but know I need to be lifting more. Tone, tone, tone!

Nutrition: Ate well this week. Pretty clean until last night. We met my brother in law and nephew for happy hour. Shared nachos but I'm happy to report that I didn't over-do it in the least! Now the weekend will be the tricky part...

Weight: 117 today. No complaints!

How did everyone else do? Any new recipes or workouts you would like to share? I'm always looking for suggestions and love to read about what works for others!

A Look Inside

Good morning! A couple weeks ago my darling MrHoppy took a big trip to the grocery store to fill our refrigerator with healthy items. He does the grocery shopping most of the time and I have a love/hate relationship with this set-up. I love it because he stays on budget and gets everything on the list I give him. I hate it because I myself love to grocery shop! Yes, I'm crazy. I love going up and down the aisles, reading labels, loading my purchases in the cart and organizing everything when I get home. I'm weird like that.

I have mentioned before that I have been reading blogs and doing research on clean and healthy eating. I wanted a few new items to try out some ideas I had. Not only did he get everything we needed but he also did some organizing to make my life easier.

Exhibit A: The Freezer

Ignore the Patron on the left side of the freezer. :) If you look just right of that in the individual tupperware containers you will see cut up chicken breasts. Some plain, some marinated. At the beginning of every week we cut up 2 chicken breasts and bake them for easy and protein packed meals. I had been thawing the breasts out and cutting them up each week. MrHoppy took care of that part all in one afternoon! Now all we have to do is pull out the container, let them thaw, slap them on the baking sheet and cook for 20 minutes. Easy and healthy eating made simple. You will also see brussels sprouts back there, a large container of homemade green chili (yummy!), ground turkey and ice cream. Which I avoid of course...

Exhibit B: The Refrigerator

In the bowl you will see another easy, healthy and fast protein. Hardboiled eggs. We try to keep them on hand for breakfast or to whip up low-fat egg salad sandwhiches. The Stonyfield organic yogurt and almond milk go into our new breakfast of choice. Overnight Oats. See where I read up on these bad boys Here. We add frozen fruit, bananas, peanut butter and MrHoppy puts maple syrup in his. Delicious! You'll also see low fat cottage cheese, 2% Fage greek yogurt, and of course my Orange Juice. I have a new love affair with OJ and the Trop 50 is actually pretty good!

What you don't see is the bowl of fresh fruit that sits on the counter. Or the drawer full of vegetables that we keep on hand. I have to have healthy options easily available to keep eating healthy. If I make it easy for myself I won't stray.

I have also started shopping at our local Sunflower Market (check them out Here )on Wednesdays when they do "double ad" sale days. The previous week and next week of sales overlap and I get some great deals. It takes preperation, list making and deciding what to buy and where, but I think it's helping with the grocery budget. I got 3 bags of fresh and organic food yesterday for just $19!

What does your refrigerator look like?

Project Big Screen!

As I have said before we are kind of in a slow-moving update of our house. We love our house (for the most part) but after being here for 5 years there are a few things we just aren't content with anymore. One of those things is our living room set up.

As you can see the fireplace and media space are kind of funky. They are in front of the stairs and there is a large open area above. This has always been a difficult space to decorate around and we didn't know if we could have a large TV in that room. The allotted space in the wall just wouldn't allow for it.

When MrHoppy finished our awesome basement he chose a big TV to complete the Man-Cave. The only problem is that we don't spend much time there together. It's always kind of a mess which bugs me to no end and it's cold in the Winter. Plus... spiders. Yuck. It's his XBox heaven and I'm fine with that. :)

But, we watch TV in the living room most often and had the bright idea to move the big TV from the basement into this room. The only problem? The media center area isn't big enough for the TV. Solution? Hang it on the wall above! Another problem? The area in which a mount can be hung is small. Because of the cut out media space and the crazy open space above all of this.

In a random Saturday trip to Costco we found a mount on sale with a $30 rebate. Score! We purchased the mount and drove home while discussing how we were going to make this work...



Thinking hard about the solution. See what I mean by awkward area? Please ignore the ghetto media center that was purchased simply because we "needed" something there. No more of that for this girl.



2x4's will make the  mount possible. I was nervously watching while he drilled away, confident in his manly skills

The mount is up and while he moved the TV into the living room to hang it I painted the 2x4's

This bad boy isn't going anywhere!

Final product.

So... It is awesome to have this TV in our living room. We already watched a Blu Ray video (a Sony player, also purchased at Costco, on sale with a $15 rebate!)and it looked so good! The room does just look "different" though and it's taking me some time to get used to it. I feel like the TV is now a huge focal point which I don't know if I like. Also the 2x4 above the TV (that holds the top part of the mount) doesn't look great but I haven't come up with a solution to that yet.

MrHoppy is going to be building pull out shelves in the media area where the stand is currently. It looks terrible right now but I'll be sure to keep updating that process. He wants to get it all done at once so we don't have a mess in our main room. Probably on a day I'm at work which is fine by me!

I'm so lucky to have such a handy husband.

Welcome to Crazy-Town

Or casa-de-Hoppy. They are interchangeable at this point.

We have been on dog-sitting duty for pretty much the last 2 weeks. And it's not over yet...

My parents were gone for 9 days so we kept their silly Doberman-Lab mix Schatzi while they were gone. She was going through a puking thing while we had her so her bed was washed practically every day. But our dogs had a fabulous time playing with her.

Kitty has been spending a lot of time avoiding the crazy play time but she likes to watch from high above

Let's play!

We had a couple days off before our next house (dog) guest arrived.

Someone is obsessed with the cat...



Lala is MrHoppy's cousin's French Mastiff. She gets to stay with us for a week and a half while her parents are in New Zealand. The slober and drool is something new for me but the messy water drinking is something I got used to with Schatzi. How do dogs make such a mess while they drink water? It makes me thankful that our dogs are such clean and tidy drinkers.



So sleepy from playing

Tired out

How do the pictures look? I'm still learning how to use our new camera and it's been fun so far! Most of my subjects have been furry friends. The Saturday morning classes are helping a lot. We talked about taking interesting photos yesterday so I hope to work on that this week. And I think I have an idea of how I'm going to stay organized while making sure I'm including lots of photo updates on the ol' blog.

On a side note, how the hell is it Sunday already? Where did the weekend go?

Fit Fridays

TGIF! I'm so happy the week is coming to an end. I'm ready for 2 days off to enjoy MrHoppy. Since he was gone last week and worked the beginning of this week I feel like I haven't seen him in forever!

On to Fit Fridays...

Workouts: went pretty well this week. Tuesday was thrown off due to MrHoppy's infusion of Remicade. The dogs were alone all day so I had to go straight home instead of hitting the gym. It was nice (but windy, of course) so I took B out for a run around the neighborhood. So glad we went, she enjoyed those 3 miles as much as I did!

Nutrition: I ate really well this week. I've been reading several clean and healthy eating blogs lately and I enjoy them so much. I ate clean all week. We have been making an effort, especially during the week, to cook at home and I'm proud to say we did so all week!

Weight: today I was 117.5. Nice to see that number, but not what I am focusing on.

MrHoppy called me the other day while I was at work. He had been going through pictures on our computer from last Fall (random!) and wanted to tell me that he can see the difference in my body. He said he can tell I'm toning up. What a sweet man I am married to. This is just extra motivation to keep going! I think I've been kind of "skinny-fat" the last year or so which is NOT what I want to be.

Quick pictures from this morning. I was running late but didn't want to miss this post today! Pardon the crappy iPhone pics... and double chin... and bloat from AF arriving this morning... and the messy room...

I think I am seeing progress in my abs. MrHoppy said I need to be working more on my back so I need to figure out how to incorporate more of that into my routine. My arms are where I really want to start seeing more definition but it's slow going.

Have a fabulous weekend!

Loss

Usually on Thursdays I write about what I am thankful for on that day. I am thankful for SO many things right now. I'm in a good place with our infertility and with Summer around the corner I'm feeling downright cheerful.

But I did receive sad news this week from one of my best friends. She let me know last month that they were expecting #2 and everyone was so excited. Then, last week she started bleeding and it was confirmed this week that she lost the baby. When she told me that things weren't going well last week I burst into tears. Which, of course, made her cry too. I have experienced loss in my life, but not this kind of loss. I can't imagine the feeling of having a baby inside you and then having it taken away. As she has done for me SO many times in the last few years I told her I love her, I am here for her and to let me know if she needs anything at all.

She has been a huge supporter of MrHoppy and I along the way. I am so sad to watch her go through this.

In other unrelated news I think I am coming to a decision on how to get this blog organized! I'll be doing some work on it this weekend!

Getting Organized - Help!

I need some help getting organized with my blog. So if anyone reading this has any suggestions - send them my way! Please, I'm begging you!

Pictures are my downfall right now. How often do you download photos? How do you label and store them on your computer? Right now I download every couple of weeks and go by month and year. But I'd like to download more often so that I can easily blog with recent photos. I want to avoid a million folders on our external harddrive. Suggestions?

Now that I have my new camera I kind of want to keep those photos seperate from the pictures taken with our point and shoot. Any suggestions for that? There will be times that we use one or the other and I want to keep them organized seperately.

I feel like I am busy and have so much I want to show you all and so much to talk about and I can't get everything organized in my head. Or on my computer. Between work, working out almost daily, researching home renovations, reading health/fitness blogs my mind is on overload!

I really want to keep this an organized and fun place. I'm not a blogger that writes about any one thing, I want to mix it up and share many aspects of my life.

My goal is to get something figured out this week. Maybe I need to designate an afternoon/evening to download photos, organize them and decide what to blog about for the next week. Does this work for anyone?

help....

Happy April!

I apologize for another lack of Fit Fridays. MrHoppy is in Chicago for a crazy boy's trip so I was on my own this morning and had to wrangle the dogs into the car and cart them to my parent's house for the day. I just felt too bad leaving them for 9+ hours. So I didn't have anyone to take my photo and I certainly don't know how to use the timer (if there is one?) on my new camera.

 

So how's about an update of my week?

 

Work was busy, I'm here alone covering so the week has flown by. This is good news.

 

I stayed on track 100% this week with meals and exercise. I'm feeling great and also really motivated. I love this feeling! I was also down in my weight today, 117.5. We shall see if I can stay there over my busy weekend!

 

When MrHoppy is gone I usually fill every minute of my days and nights. It helps the time go quickly and I can get things done that he doesn't usually enjoy. I even made a "To Do" list yesterday so that I stay focused! Here it is:

 

Friday:

• Work
• Take the doggies home and feed them
• Run to Michael's - I have a 25% off coupon. Off an entire purchse. INCLUDING sale items. Score!
• Organize the office. I have furniture to move and I need to tape and caulk the ceiling. Painting is in our near future!

Saturday:

• 8AM - my first photography class! It's 2 hours long and is kind of a camera and photography 101
• 10AM - go to Ulta. I have a 20% off coupon. Off and entire purchase! There are a few things I'm eyeing... :)
• Go to the gym
• Go to Victoria's Secret. Free panty coupon!
• 7PM - Girl's night! We are going to a lacrosse game and then out on the town. I cannot wait!

Sunday:

• Recover from hangover
• Wait for MrHoppy to get home and snuggle with him while he recovers from his 3 day hangover :)

Once I get more comfortable with my new camera there will be many more pictures on this blog. I just need to get organized and figure out how I want to store them on our hard drive, how often I'm going to be downloading, etc. Plus I'm kind of all over the place in my head right now. The things I'm focusing on right now are diet/exercise, shopping and fashion and our house updates. In my free time I'm researching all subjects related to those 3. I feel like a clothes, shoes, bags, fabric, furniture, DIY, health food, exercise blog reading crack-head!