End of An Era

Today I wrapped up an era of my life here in Colorado. . .

Almost two years ago, in the middle of the night on a Wednesday morning, Zach, the furballs, and I packed up our lives in Chicago and moved here to Denver, CO.  Zach got lucky enough to get the opportunity to work from home, and the both of us had always wanted to live near the mountains.  When I got an opportunity to work at the Action Center, we took the leap and made the move.

We packed up and drove on Wednesday, and by Thursday morning I was at work.  And today, almost two years to the date, I left the Action Center for the last time!

I haven’t spoken about my work much here on the blog, because well, it hasn’t been all that fun to talk about.  For awhile, I had struggles with different elements of my work there while at the same time loved the work that I did.   Two weeks ago, I was blessed enough to get what seems like an amazing offer that has great potential for career growth.

While I will still try and keep the bulk of my work life separate from the blog, expect some fun updates on the new job and how things are changing around our lives during this busy time 🙂

Back to Business:  Food and a Run

Last night’s dinner:

A small side salad with garden greens, squash, celery, grapes, carrots and goat cheese.  YUM

Plus a tuna burger with udi’s toast and some GF crackers.

Run

I split my run today

3 miles with this speed demon

One mile with this slow poke.

Not a bad day 🙂

When was the last time you changed jobs?  Was it tough to leave?

Our Garden and A New Package

Who’s doing the HappY FridaY DancE?

THIS GIRL! 🙂

I’ve got a half day of work planned, followed by a nice easy hike (hopefully the weather cooperates with me this time) and then a Whole Foods donut to celebrate a good week.

those aren’t the donuts I got, but don’t they look GOOD? Must make them.

I’ve been even more strict than I anticipated with the “no gluten, no processed goods” diet this week, and am feeling GREAT.    Sure, it’s only been a week so I can’t know anything specifically at this point, but what I do know is I feel good and am planning on keeping as much gluten as possible out of my diet for the time being.

Now, with that said, yes I picked up a small cake donut from Whole Foods, and no I do not believe it is gluten free.  I plan to eat it slow and use it as a test to see how my little body reacts.    My honest hope is that I do NOT have a serious intolerance, but that my body just functions better eating more real, whole foods and less gluten.  We will see :).

Yesterday

I started the morning with a 15-20 minute self guided yoga practice, solely hoping to hold stretches and work out the kinks from my sore muscles.   It worked 🙂 Lots of forward folding, side stretching, and deep breathing, perfect for first thing in the morning.

I was missin’ Mom and Dad a bit, so I spent my afternoon lunch break walking the park near my office and chatting with my main man, Daddio.  Notice the clouds in that picture?  Not 30 minutes before I headed out the skies opened up with a HUGE thunder storm.  Welcome to Denver!

Core Power

I had to be into work early yesterday for a special program, which meant I also got to leave early (YAY).  The timing was perfect because it opened up a 430 Hot Power Fusion class at Core Power.

Unfortunately, I had run out of my free week so I took the plunge and picked up an (expensive) 10 class package.  I spent the 60 minute classes trying to keep the sweat from burning my eyes and loved every detoxing second of it :).  Totally worth the investment.

I got home early, so showered and then enjoyed the evening on our back patio, rehydrating like a pro

Ok, at least there was water included….

Until my hunger finally hit around 730.  On the menu, Chicken kabobs and salads with feta and edemame.

Dinner

The salads were simple greens and tomatoes from the garden, mushrooms, and the edamame and feta mix from Sprouts. YUM.

Zach also grilled up some DELICIOUS chicken that totally hit the spot.

All together now.

Mmmmmm….making me hungry and it’s not even 930!  Notice the doggy tail in the bottom right corner of that picture?  Fail, Gus!

More Office episodes and gluten free cookies wrapped up the evening.   I think I fell asleep on the couch by 10 PM last night.  Man I’m exciting.

Zach’s Garden

And because my family is far away and love to see the progress that we’ve done on the house (don’t worry, I’m planning  a little house tour next week), here are some pictures of the garden I wanted to share with everyone.  So proud of the hubby :).

The main view of our largest garden area.  Our goodies include lots of lettuce, raspberries, carrots, onions, tomatoes, etc.

Close up shot of the lettuce

Close up shot of our raspberry plant

And Zach’s newest creation, a new garden bed that Zach built, painted and set up totally from scratch.

A larger view, and of course, gratuitous picture of my fur lady.

Just a quick tour of the garden.  Who knew the boy had such a green thumb?

Do you have a green thumb?  Do you like to garden?

A Great Day To Be Outside

First off, thank you to everyone who commented on this morning’s post about What I’ve Been Trying.   If you haven’t already, go through some of the comments (and add your own two cents, please!).     I want to stress again that I am FAR FROM an expert, and am NOT cutting gluten out completely from my diet (unless this REALLY works, then I may consider going to a doctor and getting tested/discuss a nutrition plan).

There was a really good point made in the comments about balance, and being careful when cutting ANYTHING completely out of your diet, which is why I wanted to once again stress my point here.  In reality, the only “bad” gluten that I really struggle with in my diet is in the form of processed bars and foods as work snacks, which like I mentioned, nobody really needs.  And these are the foods that I’m most focused on this week.

Let’s backtrack to yesterday, shall we :).

Yesterday Afternoon

We had a bit of an overcast afternoon/evening, which made perfect Summer weather for outdoor activities.   I managed to sneak out for a 2 mile or so walk during my lunch break at work to take advantage of the weather.

Walk

And hit the road for some hill work the moment I got home.  I was lucky yesterday and had a partner in crime in the form of my hubby for the first two miles, followed by a little under 3 miles of hill work on my own.

RUN

Overall the run looked like this:

• 2 miles with Zach
• 1 mile to get to a hill
• Repeats of 1 minute up hill, 30 seconds downhill, until I made it up the hill and back home.

Zach and I’s new neighborhood is right on top of a pretty serious hill, so I have been taking advantage of that and doing these hill repeats about once a week.  I can definitely tell a difference already, especially this weekend in Breck!

Dinner

We got back from our run about 615 and both had a couple things we wanted to get done around the house before dinner.  Right around 7 PM Zach started the grill and I got to making the salads.

On the menu last night was grilled flank steak, veggie burgers, and salads.

Plus hunks of rosemary sourdough bread for Zach and carrots chips from Whole Foods for me.

Num num!

We both washed down dinner with a glass of wine and enjoyed the cooler than normal evening outdoors until the misquitos started getting at Zach.  At which point we headed indoors and watched a Jim Gaffigan special while I ate some new-to-me Gluten Free cookies.

I’d never seen this brand before but they were pretty solid.  Unfortunately my sweet tooth took over and I ate 2.5 cookies.  What can I say, I’m a cookie monster!

This Morning

I woke up feeling good this morning and did a 30 minute arm routine including:

• bicep curls (20 lbs)
• push ups
• overhead tricep curls (13 lbs)
• tricep kick backs (8 lbs)
• chest press (20 lbs)
• shoulder press (20 lbs)

I did these work outs in super sets, completing 3 rounds of two of the work outs together.  It took about 30 minutes overall and my arms felt nice and tired after.  I’m shooting for a hot yoga class tonight since it’s the last night of my free week at Core Power Yoga, so hopefully I can sneak out work.

I got a huge bunch of baby carrots, pineapple and strawberries to munch on all morning, so I’m about to head that way! 🙂

What are your favorite hill work outs?  Do you love/hate hills?

Favorite fresh fruit?