After breakfast I got a good full body strength workout in! Thanks to Burn Bootcamp for streaming all the workouts! I will admit its not the same as actually going to workout, and I miss the floating floor (my heel and bottom of my foot are starting to hurt from all the jumping), but at least its something!
& Now I am sitting on the couch getting work prepared for my students for next week listening to Piano Guys on Pandora! 🙂
I hope everyone has a good weekend and that the weather stays nice so you can at least get outside for some fresh air! 🙂
Happy Friday! Its been a while! Life happens and its been crazy around here!! I hope you guys and gals have been doing good! This weekend we have zero plans on the agenda since everything got canceled due to Corona virus (No soccer, no St. Patrick’s day Parade, etc). I was suppose to go to “The Bachelor Live on Stage,” tonight with my best friend but sadly it got canceled.
I am a lot bummed about it but a relaxing weekend sounds pretty good to me too! Let’s dive into things I am loving this week!
Beauty Brands Deals
If you are like me & use dry shampoo like 4x a week this deal is for you! I love the stuff! I workout everyday sometimes 2x a day and I try not to wash my hair every time I shower because its a pain in the butt to blow dry it and straighten it after every wash (also I heard it’s not very healthy). Dry shampoo to the rescue. Beauty Brand’s is having a sale all dry shampoo and hairspray is $8.95! That mean’s you can get $29.99 dry shampoo for less than $10!
2. Panera Coffee Subscription
Panera now has a coffee subscription for $8.99! You can get unlimited coffee for a month for less than $10! I am not a math person but I am pretty sure that’s somewhere close to $0.28 per cup of coffee if you drink coffee everyday like I do. Sadly, there isn’t a Panera that is directly on my way to work but I have a couple that I could go to and it would only be a little bit out of the way. Also if you use the code: WWCOFFEE you can get your entire first month free & cancel after that! So regardless you can get free coffee for a month (even if you go one time its worth it)!!
3. Jessica Simpson’s Book
I am obsessed more than I was already obsessed! For anyone who knew me in high school and basically my whole life after high school knew I was obsessed with Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson (pretty unhealthy stalker status I admit 😂😬😬).. well after all these years, I finally found out why they got divorced…….and I’ll admit I’m an emotional wreck! I also feel like I can rest easy at night because I finally have my answers.. just thought u guys should know! All things aside this book is amazing! I can relate to Jessica Simpson so much and a lot of things she has gone through I have too so it is almost like a self help book for me! My sister said you can get the audio version and its even better than the book so I just got that too! It is definitely worth it!
3. The Bachelor Finale
I am so deeply saddened on how this season panned out. I was not a fan of the entire season I will be honest but holy cow the finale was insane. Peter’s mom should be ashamed with herself about how childish she acted. If my mom ever said anything negative about the man I was in love with, and he was sitting right next to me.. we would have a huge issue, but that’s the thing my mom has class and most parents do so that would NEVER happen, but Peter’s mom clearly does not, she is psycho! (Sorry Barb you suck!) Regardless I am sad Peter didn’t find love. I know its a sappy reality show but I am a hopeless romantic and I wish everyone happiness in finding love!
4. Cook Once and Eat All Week
Hand’s down the best cook book around! I am not going to lie I am not a huge fan of cookbooks because I usually find them hard to follow (maybe it’s just me being blonde) I also find them wordy (is that a word?) and also find that you need 100000 ingredients for most recipes so I dislike them. Oh and the fact, I don’t cook much (sorry Jeff) but I do like to think someday I am going to start to cook a lot more! After I got this cook book at the library to flip through I was immediately inspired to cook more. The recipes look easy to make, you do not need 1000 ingredients and I like the pictures (yes I am childish)! If you ever need a cook book you should get this one!
I hope everyone has a good weekend! Wash your hands and stay sick free!
Oh and here is a picture of the cutest thing ever 😉
Happy Friday! This week flew by and I couldn’t be happier that it is already Friday and it’s pay day for me! (that just means I pay all my bills and have $0 left over) Oh the joys of being an adult! Tonight I have a trivia night with a few friends, tomorrow I am going to do a little shopping, get a workout in then celebrate my Nana’s 91st birthday and Sunday I plan to go to church then a hike because the weather is suppose to be perfect! I hope you all have fun weekend plans! For today lets jump into the things I am loving this week!
Passport
My passport arrived in the mail! Jeff and I booked an all inclusive vacation on a whim a week ago and we forgot that since we are traveling to another country we needed passports that weren’t expired! Opps! We freaked out a little bit and had to pay $70 to expedite the passport process but thankfully they came in the mail this week! It only took two weeks! 🙂 I couldn’t be happier they arrived, it def made me stress a little (ok a lot) less! 🙂
2. Zucchini Lasagna
On Tuesday night Jeff and I were craving Italian food so we decided we wanted to make lasagna. I am trying to be conscious of what I am eating since I have to be in a swimsuit on our vacation coming up so I had the grand idea that we should make the lasagna with zucchini noodles! The lasagna turned out amazing. We made two different lasagnas a regular one and the one with zucchini and I am not going to lie I thought the zucchini noodle one tasted better! All we did was substitute the noodles with zucchini and left everything else the same (sauce, ground turkey, cheese mixture)! We took the leftovers to my Nana’s house on her birthday and even though she thought it was a pasta dish and not lasagna haha she said she loved it too! (That’s a 91 year old for ya!)
3. Girl’s on The Run!
This week kicked off the first week of Girls On The Run! I love this program and I highly recommend it for girls ages 8-14! Girls on the Run is about being active and becoming more confident, strong, secure, and connected so that you can be empowered to do anything that you choose to do! I am so excited for this season because we have an awesome group of girls! This week we ran for 10 minutes and every girl did a great job! On May 9th they will all run a 5k to showcase how hard they have been working!
4. Cotton Candy Grapes
These grapes are the real deal and they taste identical to cotton candy! I have zero clue how they can be healthy for you because they taste so good but they are grapes so they have to be right?!? My only question is where is the wine these grapes produce?! I need it!
5. Cheesecake Factory Cheesecake
Jeff and I went to Cheesecake Factory on Wednesday night to get some cheesecake for my grandma for her birthday! I was a little sad they didn’t have sugar free cheesecake because my Nana is diabetic and cant have a lot of sugar, but they did have a low carb one that is made with splenda so I got that one to try! (Sadly we didnt get Nana one but Jeff and I sure did enjoy a piece)! The low carb one was really good, the only crappy thing is they dont give you whipped cream with it! Ha I guess the whipped cream has too many carbs.. bummer!
We grew up Catholic, however, no longer practice Catholicism. I still feel like it is important to give up something for Lent. I believe it is good to sacrifice something for a bigger reason other than yourself. I am a strong believer in God and I use Lent to sacrifice things as God sacrificed His life for us. This is not a religious post. Just telling you a bit about the why.
Things I decided to give up this year:
Tortilla chips- this is something I do most every Lent because it is my favorite thing. Being the Mexican-food lover I am I frequent Mexican restaurants on a weekly basis. I also eat tortilla chips a lot during house parties. Who doesn’t like chips and dips. For me this takes a lot of will power, but here we go Day 1 of 40.
Secondly I am going to give up being on my phone while on the road. This is a safety reason. I realize that even when I am stopped at red lights or stop signs, that it still is dangerous.
I use to be one of those people who wouldn’t wash their face unless I was showering. In November I decided to make a change and started a daily skincare routine. I was getting dark spots all over my face and they were embarrassing, I also just felt like my make up wasn’t applying correctly. Today I wanted to share my face care routine for those of you that are in the same position I was.
Cerave Facial Wash- the Today show dermatologist rated this their favorite cleanser. I agree. Very light and refreshing, and this bottle lasts FOREVER.
Rodan and Fields Reverse Yes, I hoped on the bandwagon. I was VERY hesitant about the price, however, I started using this November 1st and as of now (2/24) I still have much of these products left. It is well worth the cost. Again to only be used in non-summer months.
These are great on the go and I use them after I go to the gym. They are gentle but effective. Also I found these to be less expensive on Amazon compared to drug stores.
Happy Monday! I hope you had a great weekend! I had the best weekend!!! I got to spend time with a lot of my girlfriends (two of them I haven’t seen in 2 years) and we had the best time! Friday night Micah and I went out with two girls we played soccer with in college and then Saturday I went to dinner and got drinks with my best friends Jenna, Beth and Molly! Sometimes it is so hard to coordinate times to get together with friends because work, kids, and all the other things but it sure is nice when you find time to do it! I am going to try to make it a goal to find time at least once a month to see my girlfriends because it made my heart very happy!!! I also got to spend more time with Jeff’s parents this weekend and that made my heart happy as well! Quality time is priceless and I enjoyed every minute with them! Maybe one day they will move closer 😉 Wishful thinking!
This week is National Eating Disorder Awareness Week and although at times the topic is VERY difficult to talk about, I will gladly help raise awareness for a disorder that so heavily weighs on my heart.
Sadly, eating disorder have the highest mortality rate of all mental disorders and the worst part about it is that help is hard to find, very expensive and extensive….however it is curable if the right help is found! I think one of the things that helped me the most when I was suffering was group therapy! It was very difficult to find a place that I felt comfortable with/at and a place that I felt supported me and did not just waste my time with textbook comments and worksheets, after several failed attempts with with counselors and therapist I found a therapy group that I loved! The best thing about group therapy was that I felt like I belonged and everyone at the group understood everything I was going through. I think the hardest part about eating disorders is that you feel alone. You are trapped inside a body that isn’t yours (or I guess you could say a body that doesn’t even feel like yours), yet everyday you are trying to please the voice in your head that tells you, you aren’t good enough and that no matter what you do, you will feel like crap. I remember multiple times thinking, Mandi this isnt right? Why are you doing this? But I couldn’t stop because I always had a thought in my head telling me I couldn’t. So hard to explain! But its real and its hard!
I remember looking back at pictures of myself in 2011 and I can tell you exactly what I ate the day the picture was taken, how I thought I looked, and how many hours I spent working out that day. Sadly, looking back now all I see is the hurt and all the pain I went through daily, but I remember the day the pictures were taken I thought I looked huge. I fought myself daily to get to a place where I was content with my body & I can honestly say that never happened and I won’t lie its still hard every single day but IT IS WORTH IT! If you know someone that is suffering and/or you are suffering! Please reach out to someone because talking to someone that knows what your going through helps! Also https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/ is a great resource!
My heart goes out to everyone and anyone suffering and my prayers to you is that you get the help you need! 🙂 Have a blessed Monday!!!
I hope everyone had a great week! This week flew by and I am more than happy it is Friday! This weekend I have dinner plans both nights and I am excited to see some of my best girlfriends! Tonight I am meeting a couple girls I played soccer with in college at a Mexican restaurant & I am so excited to catch up because its been a long while since we all got together! Saturday I have plans to workout in the morning with my fiend Beth then we have plans to get dinner at my favorite place. I may also be meeting Micah down at Mardi Gras at some point if the weather is nice!!! Hopefully today goes by quickly so I can get this weekend started! Let’s dive into the things I am loving this week!
Virgin River
A few of my friends have been talking about this show on Facebook so I knew that at some point I wanted to check it out. I must admit the first episode was just ok, so I wasn’t real excited to continue watching it but I gave the second episode a shot anyways and ended up getting hooked, I have been eager to watch it every night this week because I can’t wait to see what happens! It def has me on my toes! If you are currently looking for a good show about a small town and all of its drama this is a good one!
2. Love is Blind
Another Netflix favorite (goodness you guys are going to think all I do is watch Netflix). Love is Blind is kinda like the Bachelor but way better! Couples have 8 days to get to know each other and fall in love, the catch is they are not allowed to see each other. Basically they are trying an experiment to see if love can solely be based on an emotional connection. If the couples get engaged, then they are allowed to see each other in person and its pretty comical when they do! The only downside to Love Is Blind is you can only binge watch so much because the episodes aren’t all released yet!! In the meantime I am stalking all the couples on Instagram! I may be a little crazy but I am so anxious to see what couples last and which couples end up breaking up. I think that some couples are matched perfectly so I am hoping they last and a couple other couples are train wrecks and I can’t wait for them to break up because I feel bad for them! One couple already broke up and it was pretty funny to watch! I highly recommend this and I will be super sad when it’s over because its been addicting and has given me something to look forward to!
3. Golf The Card Game
Jeff’s parents are in town this week and I have been enjoying my time with them! One thing we love to play when they are in town is the card game, Golf! It is addicting and so much fun! The good thing about this game, is you can play at any age! So if you are looking for some family bonding time, try this game out!
That concludes the things I am loving this week!!! I hope you guys have a great weekend!!
Good Morning! This week flew by and it is already Thursday! I guess because we didn’t have school on Monday (President’s Day) I’ve felt like I was a day behind all week! I was suppose to be at a PE conference all day today but I got called into work because I did not have a sub for my classes so I was pretty bummed. Sooooo I am going to try and make the best out of today by recapping our weekend!
Saturday Morning Jeff and I got up early to start our drive to Branson! Branson is one of my favorite places to visit because it has so much to do and I use to go there a lot in college because it was so close to Springfield, so I was super excited when Jeff said he wanted to go! We started our drive with Starbucks and talked the entire way to Branson!
Once we made it to Branson, we headed to Top of The Rock. Top of the Rock is one of my favorite places because its so beautiful!
Once we got to TOTR we signed up for the golf cart tour. If you are heading to Branson I highly recommend the golf cart tour! It takes about an hour and it is so beautiful!
You drive a golf cart around the property, I would say its a mile or so and you get to see all the incredible views! Plus you get to go through a cave which is really neat!
It was such a good time (I recommend going when its a little warmer outside because it was cold)! I cant wait to go back and do it again, hopefully when it is warmer! We opted to do the golf cart that wasn’t covered because I figured it would be easier to take pictures, but boy it was cold! Lesson Learned! After our golf cart tour we headed to the Bear Lounge to grab drinks and food!
I got a vodka drink with lemonade and grapefruit juice & Jeff and I shared a BBQ pizza!
The pizza was amazing! I highly recommend it if you go! After lunch we headed to our condo, checked in then bought tickets to The Legends!
The Legend’s is a tribute music concert that has some of the world’s greatest performers! We saw Elvis, Garth Brooks, The Temptations, and the Blues Brothers! The talent from the performers amazed me and I couldn’t believe how realistic they were to their characters! After the show we headed to the Branson Landing for food, drinks and the light show and that concluded our night!
Sunday morning we got up early to workout! Then headed to Hurt’s Donuts!
Jeff saw Hurt’s Donuts after the Legends show and he said we must go there to get donuts in the morning, so that is just what we did and I am so glad we did because the donuts were heavenly!
We took a bite out of each one and compared each flavor! My perfect date! After we ate the donuts we headed to Springfield, Mo to the World’s Largest Bass Pro shop and then we stopped at, The Breakfast Bar, for breakfast 2.0!
Although our trip was nice and short, it was the perfect get away and I highly recommened Branson! 🙂
Well it finally happened. I got my first cold of the season and it is LITERALLY knocking me out. Let’s just say I went to bed at 7PM on Sunday and slept until 6:30 AM and still felt like I could’ve slept more. Last night I got home from work at 6PM and didn’t make it off the couch the entire night, after I took an hour nap at lunch. Today was another two hour nap today. Soo I have been trying to battle this darn cold with a few remedies that I wanted to share that I think are helping.
SLEEEEPPPPPP….
Honestly I haven’t found anything better. When I am sleeping I am not sneezing 1000x nor am I blowing my nose every other minute. Its a time to rest my eyes and rest my entire body.
I swear by this stuff and sometimes just take one packet/day during flu/cold season to boost my immune system. I usually just put the packet in 6 oz of water and take small sips of it.
Thera Flu K Cups
I instantly feel better when drinking these. Flavor is average but the heat makes you feel good.
DOGS.
They read our minds better than we read our own. My boys have been by my side the last 3 days and took multiple naps with me. They aren’t even begging to go on a walk because they sense how I have been feeling.
Favorite Recipe
Shalane Flanagan’s Flu Fighter Chicken and Rice Stew
Happy Valentine’s Day!! I hope you all feel extra loved today! We don’t have anything too crazy on the agenda for tonight but hopefully pizza somewhere yummy! Nothin’ fancy, but sometimes simple is the best, right!? This weekend we are going to Branson to celebrate US! & I can’t wait! This is the first trip we have ever taken with just the two of us, no friends, no kids, no dogs so I am beyond looking forward to it! Hopefully the weekend is filled with love for all of you too! Even if you aren’t in love with a significant someone, you can always love yourself, your friends or your family.
Growing up my Uncle Buddy use to make every holiday special by doing a little something. Valentine’s day somehow was always my favorite! It didn’t have to be anything big like a dozen roses (because lets be honest roses are insanely pricey on this day) or an expensive gift but he always had something! Rather it was a card, a piece of candy, a small teddy bear, he always knew how to make my day! Not only did I love the special things he did for me, I loved that he always made the day special for my aunt. Every year he got her the same thing and I loved asking her every year if she got her dozen roses, her favorite chocolate and her card. Without fail she always said Yes with a smile! (I think she told me that he never missed a year.) I always find it interesting the things you take from your childhood into your adulthood and/or the lessons you have learned from your past to make your present better and this little will always be apart of me! I will always do a little something for the people I love because I remember so much how it made me feel! So thanks Uncle Buddy!! 🙂 Besides Valentine’s Day lets jump into things I am loving this week!
Things I am Loving Friday!
Just Jessie Jessie James Decker’s Book
Last week I was searching the library for something good to read and as always I stared with the autobiography or the biography section. I honestly didn’t know much about Jessie but I liked the cover of the book, so I got it! I ended up really loving it. I was shocked when I read how much she was bullied as a kid and how it effected her. Poor girl! I also loved reading about how her relationship is with her husband! They seem very sweet and so much in love and it makes my heart happy!
2. Aldi Sweet Red Wine
On Tuesday, I went to Aldi like I do every Tuesday because I love to see what new Aldi finds they put out and I ran across this wine! I couldnt pass it up for less than $5 and I am glad I did because it was really good! It is sweet but not too sweet!
3. Cute little Flower Pot
Another Aldi find! How adorable is this flower and flower pot! I bought one for my desk at school and it adds a little pop and homey feel! I love it!
3. Coca Cola Energy
Not going to lie I am not an energy drink kind of person, but this was really good and it gave me just the right amount of energy when I was crashing around 1:30pm! I think it taste sweeter than regular coke but I like sweet so it didn’t bother me! I must say that its probably not the healthiest but every once in a while it could be a nice pick me up!
I hope you all have a great Valentine’s Day & a great weekend!
After breakfast I got a good full body strength workout in! Thanks to Burn Bootcamp for streaming all the workouts! I will admit its not the same as actually going to workout, and I miss the floating floor (my heel and bottom of my foot are starting to hurt from all the jumping), but at least its something!
Yes, I hoped on the bandwagon. I was VERY hesitant about the price, however, I started using this November 1st and as of now (2/24) I still have much of these products left. It is well worth the cost. Again to only be used in non-summer months.
Story Time 