Hi, my name is...

Hi, my name is Ditty and I am stress eater.

Be Ditty

With 2012 being a year, where I focus on self-discovery. I have been looking at what I like doing, what makes me happy and how I can just be me. Here are a couple things from the weekend that I enjoy and make me happy.

Thursday night and all day Friday I focused on Taxes and Volunteering. 

I know that might not be fun for other people, but I really enjoy it because I like to be able to help others and this program gives me that opportunity.

On Thursday night, I went to the orientation for the site that I am going to volunteer as a tax preparer. I had been doing the program for 4 years and then I took last year off. I really like the program so I am excited that I can participate again this year. On Friday, I took an all day training with a test to be an intermediate tax preparer. I passed! This is the first year I did the intermediate class.

To learn more about the program, check out Campaign for Working Families. It helps low income families file their taxes for free. It helps people take advantage of the Earned Income Credit. It is a really cool program!

Friday Night, I met EVA.

Five rounds for time of:
Run 800 meters
55/70# Kettlebell swing, 30 reps - I used 35#
30 Pull-ups

42:10

I only did 3 rounds, but I did all 90 pull-ups with no band. 

This was my pull-up bar. I was prepared with 3 bands for when it got to hard, but I didn't need any of them. I made a decision for me that doing a little less weight and only doing three rounds was worth it to me to get to work on pull-ups. It was a hard WOD to keep the intensity because it was long. But I kept telling myself to "Be Ditty". For me that means, having fun with the workout, cheering others on, and doing my best and I felt like I did that. 

On Saturday, I worked most of the day, but I  rewarded myself with a manicure and pedicure. I know pedicures are silly in the winter, but I love when toes have a fun bright color. It makes me smile and then my feet look nice for yoga. It was my time to relax!

What do you enjoy doing? What makes you happy?

Happy Thursdays at 4!

Happy Thursday at 4!

Enjoy the Free Hugs video and then take the time to show someone you love them with a hug!

See The Happiness Project agrees with me!

Pizza!

Paleo pizza that is. 

Tonight, I made Prosciutto and Arugula Pizza from the Make It Paleo Cookbook.  

I love this cookbook. The recipes are really easy to follow and there aren't too many ingredients necessary. I get overwhelmed with really long recipes. The pizza was awesome. The crust was pretty sturdy. I could even fold my pizza in half.  When I make this recipe again, I will probably make two pizzas. C. Varied can really eat so he needed a second meal after 1/2 of the pizza. 

Other than that it was delicious and reminded me Italy.  

Here is photo journal from making dinner.

The Secret to the Crust

 

We didn't have flax seed meal, but we had flax seed so I used the nut grinder to make flax seed meal. 

 The hardest part was flipping the crust. It was really hard to pull the parchment paper off the crust to flip it. I don't know if that is because I over cooked the crust or if is just hard. Next time, I might put olive oil on the parchment paper before cooking the crust to make it easier to flip.

 

 The Final Product...Paleo Pizza!

The key to cooking tonight was working to change my mood. It had been a long day at work and then there was a lot of traffic on the way home so I need something to change my attitude. Usually that is what my workout is for, but today was a rest day. So I need to get excited about cooking and put on Taylor Swift Pandora station and danced around the kitchen. I need to do something fun to shake off the day so cooking, dancing and singing was exactly what the doctor ordered.

This is yesterday from my Happiness Project page-a-day calendar.

I really like this saying. Finding sources of feeling good was my goal for tonight as I cooked and sang in the kitchen. I was trying to just enjoy the moment.

P.S. More to come about this book. I am going to try a 12 week program based on this book. I am going to try to use this plan with Paleo and see how I do. Maybe I will learn a thing or too.

Seven Wonders of The World

C. Varied and I want to see the Seven Wonder of the World. So tonight I decided we should write down the official list, but little did we know there are a lot of lists. The original list is as follows:

Great Pyramid of Giza
Hanging Gardens of Babylon
Statue of Zeus at Olympia
Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus
Colossus of Rhodes
Lighthouse of Alexandria

The only one still standing is the Great Pyramid of Giza.

So we needed another list. Here is the list we are going use for our bucket list goal of seeing the 7 Wonders of the World on: 

Great Wall of China

Petra

Christ the Redeemer

Machu Picchu

Chichen Itza 

Colosseum

Taj Mahal

 Great Pyramid of Giza (Honorary Candidate)

Back in 2001, there was an initiative to pick new Wonders of the World and the list above is the final list. We have actually already been to two of them.

Chichen Itza - August 2009

Colosseum - July 2011 on Our Honeymoon

Photo Courtesy of C. Varied

We were pretty excited when we realized we had done two. We knew when we went to Chichen Itza that we were seeing one wonder of the world, but we didn't realize that the Colosseum was one too or at least I didn't. ; ) I love traveling and seeing new places. I thought it was pretty cool that there were other lists too like Seven Natural Wonders of the World, Seven Wonders of the Underwater World, etc. (Source: Wikipedia). All of these places look amazing and I want to go to every one. A girl can dream.

What is your dream vacation? What travel plans are on your bucket list?

WOD

2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2

45-50-55-60-65-70-75-80-70-65

Shoulder Press with 60 sec rest in between in set

It is amazing how quickly muscle fatigue sets in your shoulders. We did 50 hand release push-ups as a cash out. I did all of them without going to my knees. I definitely might have been snaking and it took me a while, but I did it! Push-ups is definitely something I need to work on. 

Still doing the no sugar challenge, the special treat tonight was I made butternut squash soup on Sunday so we had some as sweet treat after dinner. Love it!

Weekend in Review

My weekend included hanging out with a lot different groups of friends, some good workouts and great food.

Friday night 

We hosted two couples over for dinner. We had one person who was a vegetarian, who ate seafood and another person, who didn't eat seafood, so we had to get creative. Here's what we ended up doing:

Appertizers

Chips and Salsa

Guacamole and carrots or chips

Entree

Stuff Peppers with ground beef or fake ground beef

Broccoli soup

I think it worked out well.  It was fun to hang out and catch up with friends that we hadn't seen since last August.

Saturday

It started with a great workout with the Super Sectionals Training at KOP. We did a team WOD. Within the WOD, I did "Elizabeth" (21-15-9 Squat Cleans and Ring dips). I scaled and used 75# for the cleans and a band for the ring dips. I am working on keeping my intensity up and working within a short time domain even if that means scaling so I keep the speed up in the workout. After the WOD, I stayed for intro to Westside Barbell class. It is a really cool program. I am need to decide what my goals are for 2012. I am strongly considering focusing completely on Strength. 

Picture taken by Aimee during Elizabeth

After the workout, I had a friend date with my friend Sarah from the gym. We so much fun getting to know each other. We went for coffee and were just chatting the whole time. It is so much fun to really get to know a new friend. I told Sarah about this blog I have started reading and book I want to read, MWF Seeking BFF because I felt like we could be part of the book.

After coffee with went to a friends' house for dinner, we had a great dinner of broccoli soup, sweet potato fries, brussel sprouts, and pork. It was delicious. It was a night full of laughter. 

Sunday

Today, I went to the 9 am workout. It was good one and really to tried again to keep the intensity up, but I used the RX'd weights. I tried hard to break it into sets and not take too much rest. I think I did pretty well. I was happy with my performance.

21-15-9
Calorie Row
Dumbbell Thruster 25#/45#
Hand Release Push-up

15:17

I made a yummy breakfast when I got home, No-at Meal (pronunced "Note Meal") or No Oat Oatmeal. The recipe is enough for 2 servings. It was delicious and nice to change it up.C. Varied made me a latte with coconut milk with the new espresso maker. It was so good. I wish Starbucks offered this.

No-atmeal

The rest of the day was spent meal planning, grocery shopping, and prepping food for the week with some football watching. 

How do decide your goals with your workouts? Should I work on getting stronger or faster during workout?

Happy Sunday!

Happy Thursdays at 4!

I thought this week I would share the opening song to the original Thursdays at 4! One Moment in Time by Whitney Houston. Listen to the lyrics!! The video is extra special because it includes the Olympics, which are my favorite. I am so excited for London 2012!! The weekend is almost here.

Happy Thursday at 4!