No Stress

"Fully 95 percent of your emotions, positive or negative, are determined by how you talk to yourself on a minute-to-minute basis. It is not what happens to you but the way that you interpret the things that are happening to you that determines how you feel." - from the book, Eat that Frog by Brian Tracy.

It seems like such a simple statement, but it is SO true. Could we be stressed to the max because we just ripped out our basement and we're less than 4 months away from the biggest life change ever? Yes. Could we complain that everything in our basement is currently taking space in the baby's room? Yes. Could I stress because I come home and see a huge hole in the ground? Absolutely.

However, this gets us nowhere. Instead, we're motivated to finish because when this little guy comes and turns our world upside down, we want to be ready to devote 100% to him :o)

Plumbing. Yipee!

My tub. White. American Standard (love the brand). Deep. Wonderful.

And the toilet. American Standard. Cadet. Space Saver. Elongated bowl (a must for the dudes).

Adam turned the bookshelf into a nice organization station for his plumbing needs.

Door becomes a work table. Notice Yuengling in the forefront of the picture.

He has no idea what is happening here. We are doing quite a job to his mad pooping space.*

Gravel from the hole.

Adam's dad let us borrow his big a$$ air compressor.

2x4's and 4x6's; a must for framing.

*Mad pooping space = when the dog gets mad at us (for leaving the house or some other unspeakable action), he poops in the basement.

weekend progress

The demo is almost done...dude. Adam and my mother worked very hard to knock everything out and schlep it out of the house. Next step after some cleaning is finalizing the layout!

Basement Before

Goo! The black hole known as the basement....

I'm going to get back on this horse...

Because we have some exciting rides in 2012! Our first project that will be tackled this weekend is (finally) rehabilitating the basement. I love our house, but the basement is a large, black (and stinky) hole that we avoid like the plague. Jake enjoys it for his bathroom when he's mad at us for leaving the house. I begrudgingly do the laundry in the area, but hate every second (because it's a hole, not because it's laundry). Adam does his stinky...er, I mean, wonderful, beer brewing in the bathroom of the basement. And because that toilet is never used, it loves to provide a pungent, sewer smell that mixes nicely with Jake's business...you get the point. Operation Basement begins this weekend with demolition. Pictures to come.

You may ask why we are motivated to do the basement after 2 years of neglect...well, we need some additional space since the Partee family is expanding! We are expecting a little baby boy in the Spring (I'm destined to be surrounded by dudes) and we couldn't be more excited! I'm 5 and 1/2 months and outside of some all day nausea in the first trimester coupled with extreme tiredness, I feel pretty darn good. He's kicking around in my belly and it's such a surreal process. Thus, we're getting our act together to provide some play space for him (and Adam and Jake of course) and we need to have an alternative space for guests since the baby will take the guest room (now nursery).

All righty 2012, let's do this.

Ugh, sickness!

So, my grand plan of training went down the drain last week when this nasty sinus infection crept up on me and lingered. Blah, it was bad. It didn't help that I had to work until 10pm Tuesday and then until midnight Wednesday. After a weekend of not moving a muscle and staying in bed (watching Sex and the City and Top Chef reruns), I finally started to get back on the road to recovery.

Tuesday I braved a 3 mile run at the gym (but had to stop after every mile to blow my nose).
Wednesday I was able to spin, but my heart rate was a little higher than it should be, yet still did another mile run.
Today I was able to do 3 miles again (on the treadmill, blah) and some strength.

The key has been rest though. My biggest problem is that I put sleep at the bottom of the priority list. Work, working out, having fun, saying "yes" to everything always takes precedence. I just need to realize I'm no spring chicken anymore and that rest must happen! This week I've been in bed by 8 or 8:30 each night; not always sleeping, but at least resting where I'm usually around 10:30 or 11 for bed time. If I'm going to be serious about this year, I must get my rest! Now, there will be lots of fun too, but I just need to make wise decisions.

6 miles Saturday! I've already talked Hartong into joining me and now I can't back out!

Half Marathon Training Starts Tomorrow!

This past week I accomplished my goal of doing 5 for 7 - working out 5 of the 7 possible days...YAY. I did a mixture of running, spinning and strength and I'm feeling pretty good at this point.

Half marathon training begins tomorrow! I like to call the race the "halfie" and I really believe that if I keep up my commitment to training, I could possibly get a PR....it's early, I know, but I'm feeling pretty good. I downloaded a training plan online and the first week holds the following:

Monday - Strength and Strengthen - I'll probably do some warm up on the AMT and then full body circuits
Tuesday - 3 miles
Wednesday - 2 miles or cross train
Thursday - 3 miles + strength
Friday - Rest
Saturday - 5 miles
Sunday - Rest or cross train

I highly doubt that I will follow this to the letter; but as long as I make sure I get the long runs in, I think I should be a-okay.

4 for 7

That's how many days I worked out last week if you start the week with Monday. Not too shabby, 4 mornings in a row, but by Friday, I was Pooped (with a capital P). I work out with my good friend Katie some mornings and we used to be competitive swimmers....we ask ourselves "how did we get up every morning at 5:15am and practice, go to school, then practice again?" Where did we get that energy? I guess we have silly things like responsibility (e.g. mortgage payments, dogs, husbands, etc.) that get in the way now, but still, it was an impressive feat. Perhaps we trained our bodies though? That's what I'll need to do if I really want to do this marathon.

The workout I'm loving right now is (and I can't believe I'm saying this)...on the treadmill. I used to avoid treadmills like the plague; the feeling of going nowhere fast and staring at the news or my own reflection in the window, blurg! However, Miss Hartong taught me this great way to have an awesome workout and avoid boredom. You start out at a jogging pace for 5 minutes (usually around a 5.6 or 5.8, depending on the feeling of the day), then for the next 5 minutes, you alternate between a sprint (7.6 for me) for a minute, then a jog (5.6) or walk (4.0) for a minute. The next 5 minutes, you sprint at 7.8 and for the last 5 minutes (if you only do 20 minutes), you sprint at 8.0. I know that many a good runner out there may laugh at these paces (since I see these chicks hammering out the 7.6 as their normal pace), but to the middle of the road runner (such as myself), I become SUPER sweaty and my heart rate gets up there. I worked my way up to a 30 minute version this week and I really believe interval training torches the cals and makes you a little faster for the long runs.

Tomorrow my game plan is to work off those weekend calories which consisted of pizza, beer, a Reuben (maybe some tots! woops) and a few rb&vs (red bull and vodkas). Not a healthy weekend whatsoever; but next week, we start again! (And the treadmill torch...which I just named this fun workout will be my cardio of choice tomorrow).