Life Lately....

I'm nearing the end of the school year, so I've been super busy trying to get things done. We've decided to take a vacation right at the start of the break. This year, the hubby is going to use his vacation time during the summer. I've been testing students all week at school, getting grades together, and getting paperwork signed. I've got 2 more weeks of this craziness. I'm getting ready for a busy week at school this upcoming week:

• Tuesday: EOY writing test
• Wednesday: awards ceremony and baby shower for a team mate (Yay baby Caroline!!!)
• Thursday: Field Day (hello hot and humid....I'll be a sweaty mess that day I'm sure)
• Friday: finish up reading tests, grade writing tests, enter in grades

I'm so thankful for the ladies at work who keep me sane everyday. That next week I'll be trying to take my classroom apart and do some de-cluttering (is that even a word???). The Saturday after the final day of school is our annual pizza pool party with the gang. Then Sunday afternoon we head to West Texas for a week with my family. Yay baby Jude time.....yeah, yeah and everyone else.

So last week marked all the season finales for most shows I watch. It'll be late September/early October before they come back. There's not a whole lot in the summer that I watch. I usually binge watch something on Netflix and/or read a ton of books. Both of which I plan on doing this summer. A couple of girls at work convinced me to watch the Bachelorette this season so we could give commentary during and after the show. I watched this show when it first came on, but I quickly got tired of it because the person I wanted to get chosen never got chosen. I caved in and started watching this season. The girls told me their husbands would secretly watch and give comments here and there. When I told this to Mr. B, he said "absolutely not!" I thought I would catch him glimpsing every so often, but nope! He was dead serious about not watching. Monday night's premiere found him like this:

Since it was a 2 night premiere, night two found him in a similar position:

I love how Dixie is also in the exact same spot. I kid you not, this was two separate nights. This is our life pretty much every evening. We may watch some shows together, but we are usually on opposite sides of the couch multitasking on the iPad and watching TV. I do usually always have my constant companion with me when I'm couch sitting:

Wednesday we picked up our friends' kids and took them to Bible class. We had them sleeping at our house after church until their dad picked them up. I should have got a picture since they are oh so adorable while they sleep. 

Thursday we did some lazing around after work. Mr. B did some yard work while I cooked a simple dinner. I just threw some sausage and BBQ sauce in the oven. We had shells and cheese with roasted brussel sprouts. I decided to tweak my usual recipe with brussel sprouts:

• I get the baby brussels from spouts and cut them in half.
• I threw in the last few cherry tomatoes we had
• toss with olive oil, grated Parmesan cheese, seasonings (I use onion powder, garlic salt, pepper)
• place on a baking sheet
• I then chopped up 4 pieces of uncooked bacon and sprinkled on top of veggies
• bake at 400 for 30 minutes

They turned out delish! I just finished the leftovers as I was typing this. I added a touch of butter, a dash of garlic salt and Parmesan cheese before microwaving. Even better on day 2:)

Friday is errand running day (much to Mr. B's disappointment). He hates running errands, but he is such a trooper and always goes. He was really a trooper yesterday since he didn't feel well with his horrible allergies. We ate at Chili's so he could have a burger (of course). I ended up ordering something new....Fresh Mex Chipolte Bowl

The Chipotle Chicken Fresh Mex Bowl has marinated grilled chicken, house-made corn and black bean salsa, rice and chipotle pesto layered with cheddar cheese, house-made pico de gallo, fresh field greens, chopped cilantro, tortilla strips, sliced avocado, and a drizzle of cumin-lime sour cream.

This was absolutely delicious...and healthy, too!

We went to the grocery store, Bed Bath Beyond, and Target. It was a long evening. Mr. B came home to get shower, take some allergy meds, and have a hot drink while we watched some Family Feud.

Saturday: I had my final workout with my trainer. I learned that I am much stronger and motivated in the morning. Usually I work out after work when I'm exhausted. I was fresh and ready to go. I can't believe how far I've come in these 10 sessions I've had with the trainer. I started out only being able to use the bar with no weights for exercises to having multiple plates on the bar. Here's what I did for my last session:

• incline bench press: warm up with 10 reps with bar only, 2 sets of 10 with 10lb weights on each side. My trainer thought I could add more weight...I was skeptical as usual. I was able to do 2 more sets of 10 with 12.5lbs on each side!
• shoulder presses with 20lb dumb bells: last time I did this exercise he upped my weight to 15lb dumb bells. I thought he was crazy then because I was hurting bad. So imagine my shock when he walked up with the 20lb weights. He said I'm stronger than I think I am. Once again, he was right. I knocked those out in true #beastmode. 4 sets of 10!!!
• balancing on stability ball while doing rowing exercise on cable machine: I started with only doing 30lbs. Way too easy, so he upped it to 55lbs. I don't remember how much I finished with, but I know that I only had 3 more plates to go before I stacked the machine. Hello strong back!
• triceps exercises: still on the cable machine doing 4 sets of 10 with 35lbs. Goodbye Oprah arms!!!
• biceps curls: started out with the 30lb curl bar only to find out that it makes a great warm up because I knocked out 4 sets of 10 with the 40lb curl bar!
• squats with weights: I went to the squat machine and did squats with the bar. Each new set he would add a 10lb plate to each side. I made it up to 4-10lb plates on each side.
• Fianlly, my favorite leg press machine: I've actually made it up to 6-45lb plates on each side. It's doable...but today we only did 4 plates on each side. I did 4 sets of 10 before the ladder set. After the last set with 4 plates, he removed a plate from each side and I immediately jump into another set of 10 with no rest until I'm down to 1 plate on each side. Today, he had someone help him remove plates so the rest time was non-existent between sets.2-3 plates on each side feels like nothing to me now!

Now I just have to keep it up and maintain my strength. I'm capable of so much more than I give myself credit for. The rest of my Saturday will be spent doing a few things around the house, doing the budget, preparing for Bible class, maybe attempting an article that's due in a few weeks, or maybe just some relaxing.....(I'm thinking the latter will win out).

Sunday will be my day of rest. Church in the morning, song practice and evening church service, followed by our monthly BOGO Spring Creek BBQ dinner.

Monday I plan on relaxing some more. I have to make a dessert for our dinner with Mr. B's parents. A simple dinner of cabbage salad, hot french bread with butter, and my Orange Trifle dessert and any other surprise menu items that may appear!

Come on summer!!! You're so close I can almost feel you. Speaking of feeling good.....here's another precious picture of my sweet nephew: