Working Out - 104 Weeks Into My Fitness Journey

Another 4 weeks down, people!

At 104 weeks completed, we are officially in June.

I'm still maintaining a 116-117lb weight. 

It does fluctuate and I find it's on the weekend that it's generally higher because of my food/beverage intake.

I did however, buy a bunch of yogurts and stuff so I can make my shakes now that the weather is warmer and I won't be FREEZING after I eat it. 

Anyway. 

Boat season is upon us and I've got a bunch of new suits to wear this summer. 

I'm not mad at my current physique because I do feel stronger.

Workin' them #quads

I'm tryiinnnnng to make gains on the booty. It's a sloooow process lol. The struggle is real with eating enough food to make those gains and not wanting to eat so much food. 

I bought those 25lb dumbbells recently and I'm loving them.

I mean, other than they were super cheap, so they are GINORMOUS. So a little awkward. 

But I successfully used them during my back workout and it was glorious. It was hard, but dang it felt good!

I'm also using them when doing deadlifts. I can use the barbell, but I'm not good with that yet. 

I know I can go up in weights for deadlifts because I can do 3-4 sets of 12-14 reps without completely dying. 

First Time On The Boat!

I forgot to post this last week!

We took the boat out on our first voyage of the season and it was amazing.

This early in the season, the air temperature really fluctuates depending on where you are.

On Memorial Day, it was 88 degrees and sunny in our town.

Our friends who live a few towns north of us, they only got up to like 74! 

We were invited to go to a party up there and maybe take the boat up, but we opted to stay on our lake.

Being our first time out this season, we wanted to make sure everything was working as it should.

And we wanted to enjoy the hot temps in our area. 

The water was freezing but the girls had no issues going in.

Luckily the air temp was so hot that as soon as they got hot, they warmed up. 

We had to move out of the way to let the Canandaigua Lady through. 

It was an awesome day on the water and I absolutely cannot wait for more!!!

No more hot days in the next week's forecast...so we wait. 

Glad our first time out was successful! 

Foster Fail

I signed up to be a foster parent for a local rescue organization. 

I got set up by a client of mine, actually.

I initially just wanted to be able to love on a dog, give it some love and send him/her on its way.

But I also needed to make sure that whoever I brought into our home would fit into our home.

Having two kids, two dogs, there are lots of personalities here.

It's obviously also more work.

I kept up with the rescue organization's facebook postings for all the dogs coming our way.

A few popped out, but nothing really stuck.

Then I got tagged in an "urgent" need for a 6 year old female dachshund that was coming from a puppy mill. That's all anyone knew about her. 

The first picture came in and I almost lost my shit.

I immediately sent it to Steve and then ran down the driveway - like ALLLLLL the way down since he was mowing our front field area. 

He rolled his eyes, shook his head, then smiled.

It was my dream dog.

Mini.

Wiener.

Adult.

Multi-colored (black and tan piebald).

And she's an absolutely DARLING.

This was the first pic I saw - but there were a lot of dogs/puppies being picked up, transported and other foster parents picking up at pick ups along the way. I wasn't sure if this was her or not, initially. 

then they confirmed this tiny (maybe 10lbs?) girl is the one I'm taking in!

I got an area all set up for her.

Scared baby when I picked her up at 9:30pm at Cracker Barrel's parking lot. She had traveled from Ohio and spent one night at a foster's home midway before making it to NY. This was her final ride. 

First night. I stayed with her for a little while. 

Meeting Mr. 

Meeting the girls for the first time

She's terrified of everything. She will take treats out of my hand and she did eat some softened kibble out of my hand as well. She has terrible teeth and needs a dental and spay. 

Everyone seems to be getting along just fine!

I went downstairs to do a workout and we had some thunder. Steve said she was shaking, so he put her in the blanket and that calmed her down. 

Ava's dream come true

She spent the first night in the pen and seemed to do ok. We let her sleep in bed on night #2 and she didn't move a muscle.

Literally the same exact spot.

Day 2. She seems to be slowly adjusting. 

She came from a puppy mill in Ohio. 

It's likely she was bred over and over again for puppies and didn't have much of a life.

A few awesome things about her though - while she's scared, she will warm up to people. She flinches when hands come in quickly or above her head.

She knows how to do stairs, which is huge! 

She's ok being held, although a bit scared when you move in to pick her up. I try to talk gently and softly to her and move very slowly so she knows what I'm doing.

The girls are trying, but they get so excited to see her. I'm trying to remind them to be calm and move slow.

She's eating well, drinking well and going potty just fine. She didn't poop all day her first full day (as far as I know - Steve took her out a couple of times) but she did poop for me the morning of day #2. 

It was within 24 hours I knew we couldn't let her go.

So, there it is.

Our 3rd dog. 

And her name is Cupcake.

Summer Days Are Ahead

You Guys.

We are in the season of end of school activities for both girls.

Lots of trips involved.

The park. 

The Zoo.

A museum.

Two kids.

The next two weeks. 

It's a lot. 

BUT.

We are SO excited.

Ava hasn't gotten to experience any of this yet.

Mila hasn't done it in 2 years - like everyone else. 

I was planning to take the day after Memorial Day off, just to extend the long weekend.

Then Mila told me her class is going to Genesee Country Village and Museum the day after that, so I decided to extend it by one more day.

Then Steve informed me that Ava's class was going to the Zoo on Thursday and she really wanted me to chaperone.

Sooo....I decided to take off yet another day to go to that. 

Then I found out that my company is having our summer picnic on Friday and we are allowed to take the rest of the afternoon off. 

So. 

I'm working Friday morning next week. lol.

I'm very much looking forward to spending 1:1 time with each of my girls. 

And?

Steve dropped the boat off to get "un-winterized" or whatever and we should have her back in a day or so.

I'm really hoping to be on the water during some of these hot days. 

Bring on Summer!

Smoke a Little Smoke

YEARS ago I bought Steve a smoker for Father's Day.

I put that sucker together myself and smoked him ribs that day.

I didn't just buy him the smoker and let him open the box. 

I was pretty proud of myself! 

He's never used it.

I have used it maaaaybe 5-8 times? 

Not that I didn't like it. It's time consuming.

We don't have the fancy blue-tooth smoker that allows us to check the temp from wherever. 

It's a regular, schmegular Weber smoker.

#webersmoker

Shucking corn together 

Ava helping

These were amazing. We did chicken wings (duh) and some hot Italian sausages. SO GOOD. 

I can't wait to grill and smoke more this summer! 

Looking forward to trying different things and getting some use out of it this year. 

First Time In The Pool

We opened the pool last weekend.

We filled it almost all the way up.

Then we let the massive rain storm take over.

Steve shocked it, added chlorine and then we let it sit for a few days.

The water was pretty clear, but all the gross stuff settled to the bottom, so it was time to vacuum. 

We had nice weather this weekend but the temp was supposed to drop pretty dramatically. We told the girls - who had been BEGGING to get in the pool for DAYS now - they should probably go in while it was nice out.

The water was way, way, WAY too cold for us adults. 

The air temperature was like 83 by like noon. 

I got most of the gunk out of the bottom of the pool but it could use another pass. 

So exciting! It definitely feels like summer when the pool gets opened.

And I'm glad we got it opened before Memorial Day. 

Pool's Open!

We did it!

I'm surprised we did it, actually.

I thought it'd be closer to Memorial Day before we had time to get this sucker opened.

BUT, the weather has been nice, like no rain for DAYSSSS. So we thought it'd be smart to do what we could while we had the weather and time.

So Sunday morning Steve and I got up and he just was like "hey, let's do it" - ok then!

We got the cover off without much trouble. We also didn't syphon all the water out like we (Steve) did last year. LOL. He pumped out so much pool water it took forever to fill it last year. 

We get water down in Cheshire. $.25 cents for 75 gallons

This trailer has proven to be incredibly useful. We did only like 2 trips before we took a break and ran other errands. 

Now we need to shock the water, put chemicals in and then we'll be done!

We should be able to get that done in the next day or so.

It's supposed to hit 87 degrees on Friday. Wut.