Unidentified Flying Garden Shed

The first half of last week was rain, rain, and more rain, but by Thursday the sun came out and a short time later something new began to take shape in the garden.

Any guesses? How geeky are my blog friends?

My parents and baby bro came to stay for the long weekend and build me a garden shed. How awesome are my family? We had a perfect sunny weekend and everyone worked hard,especially my Dad.

It was amazing to watch it come together and take shape. My Dad & brother started on Friday morning and by Saturday evening all that was left to do was to put a lock on the door.

My Mom was peeking out the door on Saturday evening and noticed that the work was being  inspected.

Frank thought it looked like a good lookout post, but he didn’t seem quite sure how to get down and Dad ended up having to rescue him.

It really was a fantastic weekend. It was so nice to finally see the sun and we actually had record high temperatures on Saturday & Sunday. I’m sure everyone was tired out by the end of the weekend but I think we all had a good time too.

And seriously, how awesome is this?

September Summary

I don’t know what to say about September. Our unpredictable weather has continued. Things have been busy- as usual. Exercise has been off and on. I’ve just been doing my best to keep up I guess. And now it’s October. How’d that happen?

Stealing a photo from my last past as this is indeed a good representation of September’s workouts.

Though of course, there have been some other activities thrown in there for variety.

I’ve done 4 New Rules of Lifting workouts (2 different plans, 2 x each) and the biggest surprise is how short the workouts are. I worked hard, but it was over fast.Even though I actually followed the instructions and rested between sets, which I normally wouldn’t do (I usually turn these types of plans into a circuit where I move from one exercise to another, instead of completing all sets of one with rests in between – based on this post by Charlotte I’m not alone). Nothing in either of the workouts I did was new to me, and yet I finished the first workout thinking “something was different about that workout”…Then I realized it was only 5 exercises. Huh. That’s different.

My feeling thus far is that I am happy to have another option for getting in a  good strength workout in a short amount of time. The more options I have, the more I can switch things up, which I like. Keeps things interesting.

September’s Summary:

Sep 06: Zumba Rush DVD[20 mins]
Sep 07: Jackie Warner Xtreme Power Circuit DVD + Treadmill walk[45 mins]
Sep 08: Walk[24 mins]I
Sep 10: Jackie Warner Power Circuit Training DVD + Treadmill Walk[60 mins]
Sep 12: Treadmill Walk w/Intervals[30 mins]
Sep 13: Jackie Warner Power Circuit Training DVD[30 mins]
Sep 14: Zumba Cardio Party DVD[45 mins]
Sep 15: Treadmill Walk + NROLFW Phase 1 Workout A[50 mins]
Sep 20: Treadmill Walk + NROLFW Phase 1 Workout B[45 mins]
Sep 21: Zumba Activate DVD[40 mins]
Sep 22: Ellen Barret Barefoot Cardio DVD[45 mins]
Sep 24: NROLFW Phase 1 Workout A[30? min]
Sep 28: Jackie Warner Xtreme Power Circuit [30 min]
Sep 30: Yoga For Weight Loss #1 + Zumba Live DVD[75 min]

Other than that, I shall leave you with photos of sleeping cats…

Frank

Zappa

The sad amount of tomatoes I’ve been getting from my garden this year…

And Sunflowers. I planted a bunch. Only 3 came up. But it’s nice to see something cheery in my poor garden.

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

We had absolutely fantastic weather last weekend – there was a bit of rain, but mostly it was sunny! And warm! I like warm. :)

It turned cold on Sunday night, and it stayed chilly until today which was another warm and sunny one. I was pretty tired when I got home from work today, but I couldn’t resist going outside for a few minutes.

So I exchanged my St. Paddy’s Day green leather boots…

 

For my Smurf Blue rubber garden boots…

And made my way out to the yard.

There’s still snow in spots, but it’s melting causing the usual swamp effect at the bottom of the yard. Happens every year in the spring.

 

Spring! Did I really say spring? Maybe it’s not quite here, but when it starts to get all warm and sunny I want to soak up as much as I can. So do the Fabulous Felines; they really didn’t spend much time outside over the winter, but now they are wanting to go out. Even if they have to head to high ground to keep their feet dry.

I definitely saw some paw shaking today. Poor guys. I bet that snow melt is cold.

But hang on guys. Spring is definitely coming. So say the Snow Drops.

  

 

I confess, recently I have been going back and visiting the early posts from last year’s garden blog. I needed to see colorful pictures of sunny days and growing things. It helped. Right now I’m just hoping that the warm weather is here to stay. We’ve had quite an intense winter and I’m ready for it to be done.

In case anyone is wondering about the fitness & diet stuff – things have been up and down. I’ve been really busy and feeling overwhelmed a lot of time time. I had a couple weeks of headaches and stiff neck, so I’ve been trying to take things easy and do the best I can (also why there hasn’t been much blogging going on). I’m hanging in. That’s about all I can say.