Things I'm Loving Friday XLVI

Happy FRIDAY! We don't have summer school on Friday, and we had Monday off for the Fourth of July, so I'm sitting pretty at only three days of work this week. I was waking up at the crack of dawn so that I could walk Mack before leaving him alone in the apartment for almost eight hours, in the hopes that he would be worn out and just lounge on the couch with his favorite toys. He did great, despite my initial concerns, and he only chewed up a couple of paper towels and empty toilet paper rolls. Not bad for a puppy! Anyway, it was nice to wake up without an alarm this morning, though my internal body clock (and my energetic puppy) didn't let me sleep in much past 6:30am. Which is fine with me. I don't want to get into too much of a habit of sleeping in, and I've got lots to check off the to-do list. The earlier I start getting after it, the better!

Body Pump
I talked a lot about Body Pump when I was living in Austin because the gym closest to my house had an excellent Body Pump instructor. I fell in love with the class because I'm not often motivated to do any strength training on my own, but with this class, I work my entire body in one hour. I moved recently, thus, ending the long-standing Kelli-MAC relationship, and I now live minutes away from a gym that has multiple Body Pump classes a day, thus contributing to my recent decision to pick the Body Pump habit back up. Though I make the effort to go at least twice weekly, the squat and lunge tracks never stop being killers.

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My last day at the MAC - also known as my second home

Museum of Fine Arts
If you are a Houston resident, or if you happen to be visiting, you have to experience the Kusama Universe Exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts. I'll be the first to admit that I am not the biggest museum goer, nor am I the biggest art enthusiast. In fact, my favorite part of the annual elementary school MFAH field trip was rolling down the hill at Miller Outdoor Theater after eating lunch. But I had heard nothing but good things about this exhibit, so I had to check it out. It's colorful, it's ethereal, it's abstract, and just overall visually pleasing. It's a very peaceful, almost trippy experience, and I found it to be more than worth the wait. It's here until mid-September, so be sure and check it out! And an insider's tip for you guys: Reserve your tickets online prior to going. It's very possible that it will be sold out if you just show up hoping to catch a glimpse.

Love is Calling

Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity

7 Reasons You Should Travel Solo
I resonated with this article on such a deep level. As most of you know - and I really am going to do some kind of recap - I recently spent three weeks traveling solo through Argentina. And I was telling someone at school just the other day that I'm not sure I'll ever take a big trip like that with another person again. That might be taking it to extremes, as I love traveling with my family and friends, but as I am such a people-pleaser, it was so nice to be able to do what I wanted to do, when I wanted to do it. I got to do everything that I wanted to do while I was in Argentina, and that was because I only had to answer to myself. I am also a very quick and timely person, and when I'm ready to go, I'm really ready to go. Give me a time, and I can 99% guarantee I won't be late. I didn't have to wait on anyone, I didn't have to worry about running late anywhere, which, if you know me, is a huge pet peeve of mine. I got to walk everywhere, I met so many new people along the way, and I got to spend time with my own thoughts, and learn how to handle situations on my own. I believe everyone should travel alone at some point in his or her life. And it doesn't have to be out of the country! A quick solo trip to a city down the road should do the trick.

The Olympic Trials
I am obsessed with the Olympics. Every four years, my life shuts down and everything I do revolves around what Olympic event is taking place that morning, afternoon, or evening. And while I love the actual Olympics because it brings a few weeks of unity to such a typically broken world, the trials are so much fun to watch because you get to watch these athletes' dreams come true. Most of them have been working for this moment from a very young age, and I know it was not without sacrifices along the way. And then you have athletes like Michael Phelps, who is just an absolute phenom.

Kassidy Cook and Abby Johnston - both from Texas! ( Source)

Simone Biles - guaranteed to stick! (Source)

Michael Phelps - the greatest Olympian of all time (Source)

Fruit
I love eating fruit year-round, but I absolutely devour it in the summer. It's juicy, it's refreshing, it's healthy, and it's delicious. I cannot get enough. Cuties, blackberries, blueberries, strawberries, watermelon, canteloupe, plumcots - you name it, I'll eat it. And while obtaining fruit is not quite as easy as it was in Argentina, where you could walk to the next corner and be faced with a beautiful display of all the fruit you could ever want, I find myself making multiple trips to the grocery store each week so that I can replenish my supply.

And I can't end this post without mentioning my heavy heart for the events that have taken place in this country this past week. It seems as though every morning we wake up and there's a new #hashtag taking over the social media world, and I'm just so sick of it. It's hard for me to wrap my mind around such senseless violence, and my heart breaks for those whose family members were taken from them too soon. And I've read so many beautiful words regarding these acts, but I want to end with some great words shared by Houston author Brené Brown:

I woke up this morning looking for someone to blame. Someone to hate. Someone who I could make the single target of my fear about the officers killed in Dallas and what happened to Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. It was such a desperate feeling to want to discharge the uncertainty and scarcity. Then it dawned on me that this is the exact drive that fueled what's happening right now.

Instead of feeling hurt we act out our hurt. Rather than acknowledging our pain, we inflict it on others. Neither hate nor blame will lead to the justice and peace that we all want - it will only move us further apart. But we can't forget that hate and blame are seductive. Anger is easier than grief. Blame is easier than real accountability. When we choose instant relief in the form of rage, we're in many ways choosing permanent grief for the world.

35-Minute Cardio + Strength Workout

Happy Monday, party people! I hope you all are enjoying a lovely weekend. I know that I certainly am. A volleyball game on Friday night, one of my volleyball players' quinceneras on Saturday night, a picnic at Hermann Park last night, and a whole lot of rest and relaxation have made up my weekend. I've been productive, yet lazy, and I don't even feel guilty about it. I have been absolutely exhausted, falling asleep right when my head hits the pillow, so a low-key weekend is just what I needed. Even though I'm missing my best girls while they're on a weekend trip to LA. But, duty calls. And I know there will be plenty more trips to take. Besides, as fun as that would have been, it would not have taken away any of my exhaustion. So, I'll just keep telling myself that!

And while I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time on this post, I did promise you guys a blog post today, so I'm sharing another quick workout with you guys. The other night I planned on meeting some friends at House of Pies for dessert, but I wanted to squeeze in a quick workout before heading back down Westheimer. My original plan was to swim, but an hour of sitting in traffic slayed that plan. No matter, though, because sometimes a time crunch is all I need to do something a little bit out of the ordinary. I don't typically gravitate toward doing these types of workouts, unless my original plan doesn't pan out, which is why I have to share them with you guys when I do. It looks very similar to most of my cardio and strength combination workouts, but maybe this one will resonate with you and get you moving on this Monday morning. I know after this gets posted, I'm going on a leisurely bike ride around my neighborhood, as I gear up to run 10 miles this evening. The marathon training is very real.

As usual, let me explain. I did ten total sets - six of round one, and four of round two. The only thing that changed in the round one version was the squat jumps, jumping lunges, and burpees. The first time through, I did 10 squat jumps. The second time through, I did 20 jumping lunges (10 on each leg), and the third time through, I did 10 burpees. Then I started the sequence over. Once I had done each of these exercises twice, I moved on to round two. I think you'll recognize all of these exercises, except for maybe the one-legged sit squat. For this exercise I grabbed two 8-lb dumbbells and found myself a bench. Using only one leg at a time, I squatted down to the bench, and then lifted myself back up. I did five reps on the left leg, and five reps on the right leg. Don't knock this one until you try it, because it's much harder than it looks!

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This workout is quick, it's sweaty, and it will leave your upper body feeling it the next day. But that could be because I'm bad about regularly incorporating upper body strength into my workout regimen. September goals? And on that note, can you believe it's already September? Time flies!

Upper Body Circuit

Happy Saturday! It's rainy, rainy, rainy here in Houston, and while I would love to see the sun because I would love to work on getting a tan, I'm strangely okay with the rain. I'm in the middle of a great book, I'm working on a little project for my students, and of course, I'm engrossed in March Madness. Though I had picked Baylor to win, and one more after that, I think my favorite moment has to be when the Georgia State coach fell out of his chair when his son shot the winning three-pointer to give his team the unexpected victory. If Georgia State went all the way, though it would absolutely bust my bracket, I wouldn't hate to see more celebrations like that!

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Anyway, I'm just popping in to share a quick upper body circuit with you guys. I learned the hard way that neglecting cross training and strength training can quickly lead to injury. For the first part of the year all I was doing really was running, and we see how that turned out for me. Though I am doing much, much better on the shin front. Anyway, strength training is beneficial in more ways than one, and I'm slowly but surely re-integrating it into my regular workout routine. I completed the following upper body workout, but let me explain it a little bit. I completed three sets of round one, resting one minute in between each set, before doing the same thing with round two.

I was in and out of the gym in about 20 minutes, meaning there's no excuse for not squeezing in some upper body strength training. And I think most of these exercises are either self-explanatory, or they have appeared on the blog before, let's talk about thrusters. Typically a Crossfit exercise, meant to combine both the front squat and the push press, they can certainly be modified a bit for those who aren't comfortable lifting that much weight (or who struggle with front squats - I'll be the first to raise my hand). My thrusters looked like this, and I still felt like I was getting a total-body workout.

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And with that, I'm off to get done some of the things that I neglected to do all week. Happens every year, doesn't it?