Workout Week Three

Note: This was supposed to have posted already, but didn't so I'm back posting it for Sunday. And yes I missed Sunday Stills again. :(

Week Three

Strength Training: Wednesday, Friday & Sunday
Yoga/Pilates: Monday (about ten minutes)
Biking: Tuesday (5.1 miles), Wednesday (4 miles) & Thursday (1 mile)
Walking: Tuesday (1.4 miles)

On the dog exercise side of things I did much better. The 1.4 mile walk on Wednesday was with the dogs, the one mile bike on Thursday was with them and at that point Jackal started limping because he scraped one of his paw pads so we took a break from the biking. My husband took them for walks on two other days when I was busy so they got out a little more. I still need to get more consistent with their exercise, but even though Jackal wants to go I want his paw to heal too. He's looking much better though now that he's lost some weight again. :)

I did my Bowflex workout three times, so that was perfect. I left the lower back extensions out on Friday because I was a little sore, but other than that I did the full workout of two reps at thirty pounds of each exercise (8 total exercises). I've been focusing mainly on my form on the exercises and now that I've got those down I'm going to increase the weight by five pounds.

Also on Sunday we spent two hours at a friend's swimming pool and played a really long game of pool volleyball so I'm sure that counts as exercise. :D

Jackal's July Trick - 1st Session - Video

Jackal did great yesterday with his July trick. It was his first session with it and I'm using pure shaping, no luring. I have a short video to show you the very beginning stages of teaching it. I start out clicking for him showing interest, then lifting his paws and finally holding a paw over the bucket. I ended it there because he was doing really well concentrating and I didn't want to frustrate him or have him get bored. I have no doubt I could have gotten both paws in the bucket in one session, but I'm trying to learn to break behaviors down more. My timing is off because I'm tired and I was having trouble seeing the paw that wasn't on my side, but he still did great even with my mistakes (or misses, whatever you want to call it). :)

Here's the video.



I'll update soon. I'm going to try to get his poll for his August trick up on the first because I've been waiting way too late. :)

Operation Brush Stormy!

I'm going to brush Storm every day this week and take a picture of the fur pile to see how much fur I can get in one week. I'm keeping each day in a separate grocery bag. I meant to get a before picture of Storm and forgot. I've brushed her twice last week. You should have seen her before that lol. Here are the pictures of what I got last night.

Jackal decided to pose for perspective lol! I think I could make him a sister out of all of the fur. :D

P.S. I made three posts today, but backposted them. I meant to post the day of, but I got busy so I just decided to do it all today on my day off. So don't forget to read those too. :D

Workout Week Two

Jackal goes from person to person and encourages them to keep working out. :)

Week Two

Strength Training: Thursday & Sunday
Yoga/Pilates: None. Oops.
Biking: Monday (2.1 miles) & Thursday (2 miles)
Walking: Monday (very short walk with the horse)

I didn't do so well this week! I was so much busier than I thought I would be. However the two days that I worked on the bowflex I did my whole routine 2 sets of 10-15 reps on 30 pounds of weight. :) I'm starting to notice a difference just with the things I have to carry on a daily basis. It's so much easier. I also have more energy. I just have to carve out the time. My husband took the dogs biking once without me so they got out three times last week. That's not great. I'll just have to keep working on it. I have a friend who is going to start doing aerobics and Yoga with me on Mondays so that will help in the motivation department. :)

Storm is always ready for Yoga.

A New Roof!

It took three months (and I officially hate banks now), but we finally got our new roof!! I love it. :) We went with a metal roof because it was cheaper (since they didn't have to pull shingles or redeck), will last longer, has an energy star rating and looks great too. :) I just wish it would rain now so we can see what it'll sound like. I love the sound of rain on a metal roof. Now the bank is insisting we have 60% of the repairs done before we can have the second third of the money (and the roofer hasn't even been paid in full, makes no sense to me), so we have to fix the hen house, tool shed and fence before we can get the money to finish paying the roofer. Then we're probably going to have to pay for the horse barn out of pocket before they will send the last third of the insurance money. Like I said, I really hate banks right now. So it'll probably be another three months before I get my new barn. :(

However check out this gorgeous roof. Now I just have to figure out how to get rid of the ugly green paint that the previous owner put on the grout. I can't decide if I want to sand blast it or just repaint it a different color . . . oh and sorry for the mess. :)

So what do you think? The color matches our old barn (probably go with red on the new one too). I was thinking of staining the wood around the windows and the supports to the front porch a dark brown color. I'd probably paint the green part above and below the windows the same color. The grout I can't decide if I want it a natural color or if I want to paint it dark for the contrast with the light stone. Any ideas guys? I'm not known for my decorating abilities hehe.

Quick Update

I took half (sensitive to medications) a muscle relaxer last night and it helped me sleep, but I did wake up every time I had to turn over. And I flop around like a dead fish at night so it wasn't just two or three times. However I feel good so the muscle relaxer probably kept me sleepy enough that it didn't really affect me. I think flipping and flopping actually helped me out because I'm not nearly as sore this morning as I was expecting. It's really bruised and painful to touch, but I have full use of my arm and neck. :D I just have to remember not to kneel on my knee, which I keep doing, because that hurts! So just wanted to let everyone know I'm doing okay.

I'm Such a Klutz!!

Ugh, I'm such a klutz! Today was supposed to be my day off, but I got called into work as usual. I went in and was there for only an hour when I somehow managed to get my feet tangled in the rubber mat behind the counter and fell. I landed on my knees and slammed by collarbone into a metal shelf. It hurt sooooo bad! I got really dizzy from the pain and thought I was going to black out (or vomit *shudder*). I had to go to the doctor to get xrays and luckily nothing was broken! He said tomorrow I'll feel like I've been in a car wreck with whiplash. :( Luckily he prescribed muscle relaxers (I declined the pain pills) so I hope that will help me sleep at least, because I usually fall asleep on my left side. That's going to suck. He said to use the muscles as much as possibly to prevent too much soreness. I've been putting ice on it too. So far so good. I hope this is my last time to be injured this year lol.

New Workout Program

My new workout routine loosely is strength training three times a week, yoga/pilates two to three times a week, daily bike/walk and long distance bike one to two times a week. I'm going to start doing a weekly update on Sundays (separate from Sunday Stills) reporting what I accomplished during the week. That way if I slack off you guys can give me the virtual kick in the pants I need to stay motivated lol. :D

Week One

Strength Training: Tuesday, Thursday & Saturday
Yoga/Pilates: Tuesday (15 minutes - arms too tired after strength training) & Saturday (10 minutes - again did it after strength training - need to do it on a different day)
Biking: Tuesday (1 mile), Friday (1 mile), Sunday (5.7 miles)
Walking: Friday (1/2 mile)

So not bad for the first week. I need to be more consistent on the cardio for sure. Especially since that's the dog's exercise too. It's been really hot, so I've done what I can. :)

My strength training consists of a beginner workout (because I have no muscles) on the Bowflex (approx. twenty minutes). I've been doing approx. one set of ten reps (need to start doing two sets soon) of Bench Press, Seated Lat Rows, Crossover Rear Deltoid Rows, Biceps Curl, Triceps Pushdown, Leg Extension, Standing Back Extension and Seated Abdominal Crunch, most of it at twenty five pounds. I can do the shoulders at thirty pounds, but my arms and back are pretty weak. I can do abs at thirty pounds, but I don't like it because it burns (I know I'm a wimp) and the legs depend on how long of a day at work I had since I'm standing all day lol. So I've mostly been doing twenty five pounds. Next week I'm going to add a second set of ten reps to everything and then the week after that increase the weight. I don't want to push too hard and injure myself so my plans are definitely not set in concrete. :)

Sorry if this is boring, but I think it will help my motivation. Maybe, just maybe, I'll do before and after pictures when I finish the six week challenge on the Bowflex.

We Have Rain!

I forgot to mention that we finally got rain!! It rained for almost two days. Even the roads in town flooded. They had to shut some of them down. We had mud puddles in our driveway for three days. The reason I'm so excited is because we haven't had rain in months. Here are some pictures I got while in town. I wanted to get some pictures of the horses in it, but of course by the time I got home it had slacked off. Oh well. Sorry the pictures aren't great. I was using my cell phone.

The parking lot was flooded. :D

Unfortunately it's already back up over 100F with high humidity. Oh well, better than ice and freezing cold. :D

Jackal's July Trick

It looks like the winner is putting his front feet in a bucket. This should be easy unless he has a bucket phobia I wasn't aware of, just kidding. :) I'll get started on it this morning since I have some time before work. Thanks for voting everyone!

Why You Don't Shop When You're Hungry!

This is why I try not to go grocery shopping when I'm hungry lol. I try to shop healthier and smarter than this, but it's still not the worst I've ever done. :) I hope this isn't horribly boring. I'm having trouble thinking of things to blog about. Since getting back in shape and being healthy has been on my mind lately I figured I would share my shopping trip with you. If you have any suggestions of healthier or cheaper (healthy food seems so expensive unless it's made from scratch which is what we normally do) options I'm happy to hear them.

I stopped eating fast food and processed, prepackaged food in August of 2010, but lately I've been slacking because I've been so busy. I decided to get some quick options for when we're too busy to cook a meal from scratch and I tried to go with the healthiest options I could find, except for some weaknesses I caved to. I'm proud of myself for not getting sugary sweets or candy though, since I'm a total sugar addict lol! So here we go . . .

This is all of the items from the shopping trip except for non food items like toilet paper and laundry detergent. We will look at each group up close.

This is pet food. The Mackerel is for the dogs for their fish meals and the green beans are to try as treats for the horses. I hope they like them, but if they don't we'll eat them. :)

We normally do our meat shopping elsewhere so there isn't much. I use the ground turkey for a lot of things like tacos because red meat is sometimes too harsh for my stomach (I have a picky digestive system lol which is why I stopped eating fast food). The turkey pepperoni is for a snack to eat with cheese and cracker. Yummy!

These were the weakness items that we caved on. The onion rings (gross!) and chimichangas are for my hubby. The pizza rolls (yummy!) and corn dogs are for me. Corn dogs aren't my absolute favorite, but it's something quick and easy to eat on the go when I'm running late or when my blood sugar drops. If anyone has a quick and easy alternative here I'd love to hear them.

The hot dogs are for my husband when he needs something quick to eat. I love the all natural peanut butter and jelly we get. PB&Js are great for a quick sugar craving snack. :D Like I said I shouldn't have gone shopping hungry hehe.

Fruit! Yummy green bananas, nectarines, plums, grapes and my favorite fresh cherries!!

Onion and tomatoes for my hubby's fresh deli cut sandwiches. I eat them minus the onion and tomatoes lol! Cold sandwiches are great in the summer for lunches at work. Yummy turkey with bread and butter pickles. Dang I'm hungry again lol.

Veggies! We usually buy our vegetables frozen because we're both bad about letting fresh veggies go bad. That's why I'm so sad our garden didn't work out this year.

Some quickie, prepacked meals. This is for those busy days. I hate to buy this stuff, but it's so much better than greasy fast food. We still try to make everything from scratch and I actually consider these emergency rations hehe.

Canned fruit because like with the veggies we sometimes forget fresh fruit and let it go bad. I hate letting food go bad because it's such a waste of money.

More snacks I guess. The cereal is for my husband. I can't drink milk. The rice snacks are mine. They aren't too horrible for me. The crackers are to eat with the pepperoni and I especially appreciate the saltines when I wake up with sinus drainage related nausea and need something on my stomach. Sorry for all of the in depth information about my touchy tummy lol!

Well that's all. It wasn't the best job at shopping, but it wasn't too horrible. :) I hope this post wasn't horribly boring lol.

Baby Turkeys!

Our pretty blue turkey hen hatched out three cute poults! They are so cute!

Jackal's June Trick Video, New Blog Layout & Cute Storm!

Some of you may read posts in Google Reader like I do and may not notice my new blog design, so if you wouldn't mind could you hop over to my blog and let me know what you think? I really like the new banner. I hope it works on everyone's screens. Mine is widescreen so it might be too wide if you have a normal screen or smaller resolution.

I finally got a video of Jackal doing his June trick, go to bed. He's only worked on it a few times and already does it really well. It's short so I hope you can all see it.


After taking the video I reviewed all of Jackal's monthly tricks for the year and he did so well!! He did every single one of them! Crawl, Shy (needs work or refreshing), Fetch Leash, Close Door (needed encouragement and review on this one) and Marching Paws. I was so proud of him.

Oh and I also wanted to show you why I don't get exercise and Storm doesn't get trained . . .

She's always stealing my Yoga mat. :D

P.S. At the beginning of the video I was talking about Jackal being sore. He was limping on his left rear leg, but he worked out of it, so either he slept on it wrong or it was from earlier during our bike ride when Storm tangled her leash in his legs. Regardless he's fine now. :)

Sunday Stills - The Letter F

This week's challenge for Sunday Stills was the letter F. I was so looking forward to this challenge because our new horse's name is Faran. :D However due to having to go out of town I didn't get any pictures . . . so I'm resorting to archives which I hate to do, but I don't want to miss another Sunday Stills.


Also a Storm updated . . . she got out again! She was gone for hours and I about gave myself heat stroke looking for her. She finally did come back unharmed thank goodness! The good news is I found out how she was getting out. She was actually climbing over the fence, which I what I had suspected. So she will only go outside supervised or will be tied up from now on, until we can replace the section of the fence that's sagging. I'm just glad she's okay. I've been taking her for runs with the bike every single day. You'd think she'd be too tired to run off. Especially since it's been 102-103F everyday with a heat index of up to 115F because of the dang humidity. We need some rain!! Anyway that's all for now. I know I'm totally late on posting Jackal's trick of the month. I'll try to get a video of his progress on going to his bed soon, but for now I'm going to go ahead and put the poll up. I'm only leaving it up a couple of days because we were already supposed to have been working on his new trick for several days now. Please vote!

Storm is in the doghouse . . .

I'm so upset with Storm right now (but I'm getting over it). She climbed the fence out of her yard, went around the house to the backyard, broke into two of my chicken pens and killed ALL of my chickens. There were three or four mixed breed chickens in the pasture that are still alive, but all of the important chickens are dead. We were using these chickens to reestablish a dying breed so they were pretty special (only three people in the United States have any of these birds). I have no idea how she got into the pens. They were secured really well. So well that we hadn't had any opossums or raccoons get into it. :( So she's in trouble, but I can't scold her because she'll have no clue why I'm upset since I didn't catch her in the act. I settled with brushing her (she's blowing her coat heavily due to firework induced anxiety) since she hates that. I think I'll give her a bath tomorrow. Naughty dog!