Growing Up Without a Cell Phone

I thought this was pretty funny! 

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious  diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning….Uphill….Barefoot…BOTH ways…yadda, yadda, yadda. And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to laya bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had  it and how easy they’ve got it!  But now that I’m over the ripe old age of forty, I can’t help but look around and notice the youth of today.  You’ve got it so easy!  I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia! I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don’t know how good you’ve got it!

1. I mean, when I was a kid we didn’t have the Internet.  If we  wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!               
2. There was no email! We had to actually write somebody a letter – with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there!  Stamps were 10 cents!
3. Child Protective Services didn’t care if our parents beat us.  As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our ass! Nowhere was safe!              
4. There were no MP3′s or Napsters or iTunes!  If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!  Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and mess it all up! 
5. There were no CD players!  We had tape decks in our car.  We’d play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it  useless.
6. We didn’t have fancy crap like Call Waiting!  If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that’s it!
7. There weren’t any freakin’ cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn’t make a damn call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your "friends". OH MY GOSH!!!  Think of the horror
8. And then there’s TEXTING.  Yeah, right.  Please! You kids have no idea how annoying you are.              
9. We didn’t have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was!  It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, the collection agent…. you just didn’t know!!!  You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!
10. We didn’t have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics!  We had the Atari 2600!  With games like ‘Space Invaders’ and ‘Asteroids’…  Your screen guy was a little square!  You actually had to use your imagination!!!  And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen…Forever!  And you could never win.  The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died!  Just like LIFE!
11. You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!!  NO REMOTES!!! 
12. There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday morning.  Do you hear what I’m saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little brats!
13. We didn’t have microwaves.  If we wanted to heat  something up, we had to use the stove!                           
14. And our parents told us to stay outside and play… all day long.  Oh, no, no electronics to soothe and comfort. And if you came back inside… you were doing chores!              

See! That’s exactly what I’m talking about! You kids today have got it  too easy. You’re spoiled rotten!  You guys wouldn’t have lasted five minutes back in 1970 or any time before!

Regards,

The Over 40 Crowd

Something’s Gotta Give

This morning I wanted to stay in bed (this TENDS to be a common theme) but knew I’d feel better once I was  up and moving…and sure enough…I did.

Works. Every. Time.

I went to Spin, and L showed up at the last minute…classes are so much more fun with friends!

Too Much On My Plate

I have counted the days I have taken off from work since I started with the company last December.

1. 1 day off for moving
2. 1 day off to take Ryder to the vet (and I worked from home)
3. 1 day off for my grandmother’s funeral
4. 1 day off for helping with my grandmother’s estate
5. 1 day off for getting my hair done and running a 5k

 

4 1/2 days off total (the vet doesn’t count as a whole day)!  And most of them were for not fun stuff!  Needless to say, with no vacations in there, I am tired and ready for a break. 

I did get to travel a lot for work in the last month or so…

Vegas…California…New Orleans…Baltimore…and I am about to head to Vegas again next week.

HOWEVER, traveling for work is not as much fun as traveling for pleasure and it is exhausting switching time zones back and forth for weeks on end.

 

I have really noticed how drained I am in the past couple of weeks.  I get headaches mid-day, I can’t wait to get home, I find myself stalking blogs browsing the web more often…

I am still getting my work done, but I am just tired and drained at the end of the day.  It also doesn’t help that I have very long hours—I get up at 5 to get to the gym by 5:45 or 6 am, get ready at the gym, get into work around 8 am and don’t leave until 6 pm.  I am in bed by 9 pm at the latest, meaning I generally get about 2-3 hours to myself A DAY!  That is kind of insane.  I can feel my schedule wearing on me!  Whether it be shorter hours, or taking some more time off…something’s gotta give!

In the meantime, I guess I will just super charge myself with pumpkin spice coffee…topped with ff whipped cream!

At least I have YOU to keep me sane whipped cream coffee.

Or not.

Brownies for Breakfast

Want to know the best picture EVER to start off a post with?

I mean really…is there anything better in life than brownies?

Why yes…there is…HOMEMADE brownies!

Last night, Cooper was craving something sweet, and since he can’t eat me, I decided to use the opportunity to bake!

Browned Butter Brownies

To be quite honest with you, I am not sure where I got the recipe for these brownies from, but I assure you they are delicious!  Cooper didn’t seem to have any issues polishing off a couple piece.

Browned Butter Brownies Recipe

Ingredients

• Nonstick vegetable oil spray
• 14 tbs unsalted butter
• 1 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs, chilled
• 1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon unbleached all purpose flour

Directions

• Preheat to 350°F. Grease 8×8 baking pan with nonstick spray. Melt butter in medium saucepan over medium heat. Continue cooking until butter stops foaming and browned bits form at bottom of pan, stirring often, about 5 minutes (NOTE:  I used margarine, and APPARENTLY you can’t turn that brown, so mine stayed yellow!)

• Remove from heat; immediately add sugar, cocoa, 2 teaspoons water, vanilla, and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Stir to blend. Let cool 5 minutes (mixture will still be hot).

• Add eggs to hot mixture, beating vigorously to blend. When mixture looks thick and shiny, add flour and stir until blended. Beat vigorously 60 strokes. (Note: you can add nuts if you want, I hate nuts in my baked treats, so I added chocolate chips…yum!)

• 

• Transfer batter to prepared pan.

• Bake brownies until toothpick inserted into center comes out almost clean (with a few moist crumbs attached), about 25 minutes. Cool in pan on rack. EAT!

• 

I may or may not have had to eat a few “crumbs” for breakfast…since they don’t count and all, I figured what harm could there be?

Heavy Hair Dryer

After my nutritious breakfast, I headed to the gym for some Pump!  I kept my weights at the same increased weight as Monday, and let me tell you…it is amazing how adding 5 lbs total (2.5 to each side) feels like 1 million extra pounds.  That extra weight makes my hair dryer and straightener feel a lot heavier when I am getting ready afterwards!  One more excuse to NOT wash my hair.  No wet hair=no heavy hair dryer. 

Winning!

I rounded out Pump with 13 minutes of ellipticizing before class and 12 minues of ellipticizing after class, for a total of 25 minutes of celeb gossip.

Done and done.

Now I am off to enjoy another “treat”…quite similar to yesterday’s!

Tricks and Treats

Tricks

Two.  That is the exact number of trick-or-treaters we got last night.  AND I wasn’t even there for one of them…they were walking away from the house as I was pulling into my driveway from work.  So I guess technically, Cooper and I each got ONE trick-or-treater.  Thankfully, my little girl was dressed up as Luna from Harry Potter…I won the “coolest trick-or-treat costume” competition between Cooper and I I was having with myself.

Blake and I celebrated the win with streamers and balloons.  (Side Note:  I lied… that picture is from my grandmother’s surprise 75th birthday party we threw earlier last month.)

After peeking out my window 34,565 times Cooper told me, “Taylor, there are NO trick-or-treaters coming.  Give it up.”  Hmph!  Good thing I bought gross candy since I have so much of it left…I planned ahead so that I wouldn’t be tempted to eat all the leftovers!  Tootsie rolls and Dots just don’t do it for me…Snickers and Milky Ways would have been a whole OTHER story!

Push Past the Pain

This morning’s workout was tough, and now that my calves are feeling super tight, I am rethinking not stretching afterwards (bah!)  Although I wasn’t really in too much physical pain, I did run 6 miles on the treadmill and it was no joke!  My breakdown of the miles looked a little something like this.

 

MILES	SPEED
Mile 1 – 3	6 mph
Mile 3 – 3.1	4 mph
Mile 3.1 – 4	6 mph
Mile 4 – 4.1	4 mph
Mile 4.1 – 5	6 mph
Mile 5 – 5.1	4 mph
Mile 5.1 – 5.5	6.4 mph
Mile 5.5 – 5.6	4 mph
Mile 5.6 – 6	6.4 mph

It ended up being an average of a 10:37 pace, by FAR not my fastest running time ever, but I was proud that I got through it.  I find it so hard to run in the mornings…especially on a treadmill!  I keep telling myself that I need to force myself to do at least ONE run a week that is 6 miles, that way once I start training for the Disney Princess 1/2 in February, my body will be used to running again!

Treats

Since my night was filled with tricks (no trick-or-treaters came by), I decided to start November off with a TREAT!

 

Just look at the whip cream on that sucker!

Coffee sweetened with almond milk, a splash of Pumpkin Spice creamer, and topped off with FF whip cream!  Sweet!

So good it makes you cross-eyed.

Now I am off to go get my second cup o’ “treat”.

P.S.  Anyone else sad to hear about Kim Kardashian’s and Kris Humphries’ split?  I was honestly surprised it happened…especially so quickly!

Official Candy Inspector

First and foremost…Happy Halloween!  This holiday was much more fun when I was a kid and got to go door to door begging trick-or-treating for candy.  Now I am lame and run 5k’s instead…

This weekend I went to Melbourne to run the Pumpkins in the Park 5k.

It was kind of a dreary evening…it was rainy and humid, but it wasn’t too hot, so I was psyched!  Not to mention the costumes made it very entertaining.  One of the funniest couples?

Source

Bacon and Eggs!  Ironic that there were food items running a 5k.  I didn’t have a clever costume, but I did go as the “Official Candy Inspector”. 

Ryder was upset that I stole his idea, since he wanted to be the “Official Ice Cream Inspector”.

I ended up finishing 3rd for my age group (ages 20-24), and since there were four more than three people running in my group (thirteen to be exact), I considered it a win!

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

Earlier in the day, I got my highlights done and a good 2-3 inches of my hair chopped off!  It looks so much healthier now!  (Note to self:  do not go four months without a haircut again…dead ends halfway up your head is NOT in style.)

No more roots?!  (Cooper didn’t even notice…ugh, boys!)

After Ryder finished his rubber icecream sandwich, I made him run the race with me.

Which basically wiped him out.  He couldn’t handle the heat (and by heat, I mean my speedy pace *ahem* not the weather).

Trick or Treat

Since today is Halloween (yay!) I decided to bake a “treat” my coworkers rather than trick them and stay home *sick*.

I made chocolate chip cookies, spread a little icing on them, and topped them off with candy corn, chocolate chips, and these adorable little pearl sprinkles my mom bought me.

How festive, right!?  Hopefully today goes by quickly so I can go home and pass out candy to all the little trick-or-treat’ers.

Body Pump

My workout this morning felt great.  I started off by doing 13 minutes on the elliptical before heading into BodyPump.  The weekend off always makes Monday’s Pump class seem that much harder. 

I was definitely feeling the burn today!  I also increased my weights on most of the tracks, which may be why it felt harder than usual (why yes, that IS what I am telling myself to make myself feel better). 

I finished off the class with another 15 minutes of ellipticizing and called it a day!  I am trying to fit in cardio before/after Pump this week, since last week I slacked off and only did Pump Mon/Wed with no cardio!

Shew!  Long post…off to do the work thing now!

QUESTION:  Did you go out this weekend for Halloween?  Are you going out tonight?  What is your costume?

Massage and Sushi

This morning was easier than normal to wake up since I knew that today is really my Friday.  Sweet!

I also scheduled a re-do of Tuesday’s workout with L and today we met up for Spin again.  It was a good workout and I ended up extremely sweaty and gross, so I guess that means it was a success.

However, the music still kills me!  It is not my favorite, and it makes such a huge difference.  The instructor just isn’t into pop songs so he goes all tribal on us, and I just don’t like it nearly as much.  I am pretty sure the class is upset too since they don’t get to watch me sing, dance, and spin…multitasking at its best!

Regardless of the music, I still managed to work up a nice sweat and I sang anyways.

Massages and Sushi

Yesterday there was a Groupon that I just couldn’t pass up.

I absolutely LOVE massages.  Cooper is an awesome boyfriend and will rub my back, legs, and feet (gross! poor guy) a lot of nights while we watch TV.  How did I end up with such a great guy?

Oh, that’s right…I am awesome *ahem*  (Please note Cooper’s face in the background.  This is our first date.  NEVER drink on the first date.)  Anyways, the other night Cooper was complaining his back hurt, and then complained when I tried to massage him that my hands are too small and my massaging skills stink.

Needless to say, I immediately stopped giving him a massage, and told him that I guess he’d just have to continue massaging me in that case, and passed him my feet. 

So yesterday when my co-worker mentioned this Groupon, I instantly thought about myself of Cooper, and bought him an hour massage!…I am awarding myself +6,000 girlfriend points.

Don’t worry, I got a $5 voucher for buying the massage, and bought myself a little something as well.

Now I may not be a math genius, but $8 minus a $5 voucher = $3 lunch (for $16 worth of sushi!)  Sounds like the best math ever to me!  Needless to say, betcha can’t guess what I’m having for lunch today!

New Tunes

Since my “big race” is tomorrow night, I decided that tonight my homework is to download some new music to my iPod for inspiration during those “tough miles”.  I always turn to the “Billboard Top 100” when I am looking for new songs, because I can never remember what I hear on the radio.  Works like a charm!  On my list so far?

1. Pumped Up Kicks—Foster the People
2. Stereo Hearts—Gym Class Heros
3. Sexy & I Know It—LMFAO
4. Super Bass—Nicki Minaj

I am ALWAYS open to your ideas too!  Know any good songs for me?!

I’m a Wimp

Woo!  After spending the day in Tampa yesterday for work, I had a hard time waking up this morning.  What is it about travelling that wipes you out?  Even though Tampa is only about 1.5 hours from Orlando, I still feel like the trip took its toll.  Does anyone else notice this or am I just a total wimp?

Killer Pipes

Despite being tired this morning from my trek over to Tampa, I hauled my booty out of bed to go to the gym.  Monday I decided I wanted to up my weight for some of the BodyPump tracks…so I did.  I added a couple pounds to the warm up, chest, squats, and triceps.  It burned so good on Monday, that I decided to give it another go this morning!  It is kind of amazing how much of a difference a couple of pounds can make (like literally an extra 2.5 lbs on each side).  I struggled, but managed to push through the tracks.  Again, maybe I am just a huge wimp!  But hopefully I will be a wimp with giant muscles soon….kidding.

Tuesday, my friend L and I coordinated to go to Spin together.  She has 3 little girls, so it is hard for her to make it out the door in time for the class without being late.  Knowing she has to meet someone there helps get her there on time…and let’s be honest, there are some morning’s I can use a little motivation myself!

It worked so well, we are planning to do the same thing tomorrow!  It makes a class so much more fun to have someone else being tortured right next to you that you know!

I decided not to run tomorrow since I have a very fun run planned for Friday night... 

Pumpkins in the Park

I decided to take off Friday because I have a hair appointment– My roots are starting to haunt my dreams.  I had a dream the other night that I was standing in line at the grocery store and a little girl pointed out my hair to her mom saying, “Look how bad her hair looks.”  Scary…yes. Superficial…absolutely. I will take it as a sign that 4 inch roots are not okay.

Anyways…back on track.  When I told my mom I would be coming to Melbourne to get my hair done, she instantly told me that her and my dad were running in a “fun run” that night called “Pumpkins in the Park” and that I should do it.

Source

Although there were numerous reasons I should have declined….

• I haven’t been running lately
• I might pass out from exhaustion after the 3 miles
• It is supposed to rain
• I’m a wimp
• AND ESPECIALLY that I am getting my hair done that day, and it will look perfect, and I try not to wash it for at least 4 days after they style it because it will never look the same

…but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity…it just sounds like way too much fun… and 3 miles shouldn’t kill me.  Not to mention this will be a good indicator of just how out of shape with running I am, and may be the kick-in-the-butt I need to really get back into my running groove.

So wish me luck, because I sure can use some!  For now I am skipping ahead to Christmas and have on my Christmas music pandora station while sipping on some warm coffee, flavored with my new “Warm Cinnamon Sugar Cookie” creamer.

Delicious!!