Snowpocalypse Now

Good evening/morning/2 AM on Monday night and therefore technically Tuesday morning. In my mind, it's still Monday because I haven't gone to sleep and woken up on Tuesday yet. Anyway, I'm blogging so late because I have a snow day tomorrow AND Wednesday. I basically have another weekend inside my week. We're getting hit with a Blizzard of '78 level snowstorm (which, if you don't know what that is, is basically a huge effing snowstorm) that's supposed to last into the wee hours of Wednesday morning. According to what I've heard and the weather maps I've seen, my area is expected to get anywhere from 18-36 inches of snow. The weather report even said something about "thunder snow," which I find to be a slightly hilarious term. Luckily, I parked my car in a garage on campus and won't have to deal with any shoveling. There is a god.

The snow started tonight. One of the perks of living in a school-owned apartment is that a lot of my friends live in the same building, so we don't have to step foot outside to hang out. It's only been snowing for a few hours, and already the plows are out and we have some accumulation.

View from my window. Not a soul in the parking lot (I think the Christmas lights in the reflection are a nice touch, right?).

Backing up to this morning, I ended up waking up at my parents' house. I have an internship at my old high school's guidance department on Monday, and I figured since I was already there and had all my clean laundry, I might as well stay over and have a shorter commute to my internship (this is the best part about my hometown being 20 minutes away from school). Of course, I was going to utilize those delicious fresh berries they had in the fridge. Thus, my breakfast was a blueberry Chobani topped with banana, strawberries, and blueberries.

I hoped using a yellow bowl would somehow make me feel awake (it didn't).

While my day got off to a healthy start, it ended with wine and homemade cookies. My friend Maddie and I made white chocolate plus caramel chocolate chip cookies. Not surprisingly, neither of us remembered to get baking powder at the grocery store. We consulted Google, and found that we could substitute in baking powder. While we were a little worried about how our substitution would affect the cookies, we took the dough tasting delicious (I may or may not have eaten like 3 cookies-worth of dough) as a good sign. Thankfully, the cookies came out tasting just perfect. I think the baking powder actually made the texture better. They weren't super doughy or heavy, they were light and moist, but crisp.

Starting off Snowmageddon right.

The rest of my night was spent drinking wine and chatting with friends. It was the epitome of a girls' night in. I have a feeling tomorrow will be more of the same. I plan on hitting the gym in the morning (yet another perk of living in a school-owned apartment building: there's a gym in the building, no going outside necessary), being productive and getting homework done in the afternoon, and baking and wine-ing at night.

Good luck to everyone else dealing with the snow! Stay safe peepz.

What's your ideal snow day?

Kulie Julie

Gettin' on schedule

Hello there! Long time, no blog. BUT I've been super busy. I moved back to school, classes started, I'm actually working at my new job and not training anymore. I know, excuses, excuses. I'm sucking at my own resolution just like the damn resoultioners at the gym that I have such ire towards (speaking of, the gym at school is super crowded right now and I'm not okay with it). SO in order to not be one of those people, I'm back and ready for action. I've decided the best way for me to stay motivated is to make a little blogging schedule for myself (it would also be cool if I had a readership, but I suppose that comes with time and effort). I'm going to try and stick to a different theme each day (a la Daily Grace when she was Daily Grace, only probably not as funny and amazing, I'm going to try), and here's what I'm thinking:

Monday: Miscellaneous! I feel like the at start of the week I won't want to feel constrained to a certain topic (I don't want the man holding me down on my blog every day). Also (and more importantly), I like alliteration so Miscellaneous Monday it is.
Tuesday: Cool recipe/new workout day! I'll share any recipes or workouts I've discovered lately that I think are worth mentioning.
Wednesday: What I Ate Wednesday! This is a thing bloggers do, right?
Thursday: Real talk day! I'm probably just going to ramble about my anxiety. I already see a therapist, but why not consult the Internet as well.
Friday: OOTW and more random musings! I'll share my outfits of the week (prepare for mirror pics), and then just chat it up with y'all about whatever.
Saturday/Sunday: Long run recaps! I usually do my long run on Saturday or Sunday depending on my work schedule and weekend plans, so I'll share with you all how it went and how my weekend is going. On the day I don't have my long run, I'm going to take a rest day (this is a healthy living-ish blog, so I can call my off-day a rest day, right?)

Of course, I'll probably share with you my daily workouts and interesting meals whenever I feel like it, but I think these themes will keep my blog interesting, and help me when finding out what direction I want to head in with my blog post.

Right now, I'm at my parents' house. We had Sunday dinner of homemade chicken pot pie, which was absolutely scrumptious.

 I feel like this is the epitome of a home-cooked Sunday meal.

I also ate some berries and watermelon a little later. I never get that when I go grocery shopping (because I'm cheap and buy frozen berries), so it was a nice treat!

Looks like summer, I'm going to pretend we're not getting 2 feet of snow on Tuesday.

Finally, I weighed myself for the first time in a couple weeks. I've been keeping up with my calories on My Fitness Pal, and my goal is set to gaining 0.5 pounds a week. Most days, I don't hit my suggested calories because it still freaks me out to be eating so much. But I doing better, and apparently I'm doing something right because I'm up to 127, and I have three more to go until I reach my goal. In some ways I'm proud of myself for actually doing this, but I can't deny the fact that it is weird to want to gain weight. I feel like society tells me I need to be skinny, skinny, skinny, and even though I know 1. I'm still skinny and 2. this is to be healthy, it's still weird for me. I also worry that I will keep gaining even once I hit the 130. Obviously, as long as I set my goal to maintain instead of gain on My Fitness Pal I'll be fine, but I can't help this weird anxiety.

Well, on that note, I'm heading off to bed! I have my internship bright and early tomorrow morning, and don't want to be completely reliant on coffee to get me through (I mean, of course I'll be someone reliant. I'm very much addicted to that sweet, sweet caffeine).

Please give me any feedback on my new schedule, and let me know if you've had any experience having to gain weight!

Kulie Julie

Rest day guilt

This speaks to me.

Ah yes, rest day. I've turned Mondays into my new rest days because Mondays are going to be my busiest days during the semester and I won't have time to work out. However, every rest day I find myself feeling a little...guilty for not working out, which is so stupid. Anxiety, man. So I figured as I sip on my Morning coffee, I'd chat with you guys a little about this weird rest day guilt.

Ready for some crazy-eyed coffee chattin'

I work out 6 days a week. I deserve a rest day. My body literally needs a rest day. Yet I can't help feeling like I should work out. At least, like, do a Blogilates ab video or something. The normal, rational side of my brain is saying "you should not work out today, it's a rest day, your muscles are in need of rest." Yet the annoying, anxious side of my brain is telling me "you're lazy, at least do some yoga or something, it's not like you're eating any less today than you are when you work out." Oh, food. That is probably a part of it too. I know I need to gain 10 pounds, but for some reason on rest days I feel bad that I eat pretty much the same amount of food as if it was a work out day. Why do I care?! I eat pretty healthy, and just because I'm not working out today doesn't mean my body doesn't need fuel. I'm burning calories just from sitting at the table, typing these words (woah, meta), and, like, breathing. Not to mention, fueling my body today means that my workout will be better tomorrow. 

Perhaps part of the reason why I'm feeling exceptionally guilty today (as in, guilty enough to write a little blog post about it) is because it's my mom's birthday (happy birthday Momita!). We're going out for Mexican food tonight and then having cake when we get home, neither of which I would consider healthy (especially because my parents are paying, which means I'm prooooobably gonna get a margarita). I know I'm going to be feeling guilty for eating so much when I did not work out.

I should probz look at rest day like this.

It's almost harder for me to force myself to not work out. However, I am not going to let myself work out. I refuse to roll out my yoga mat for an ab video. My muscles need to recover, and I need to be less crazy. Maybe once school starts up again and I have more things to distract me on Mondays (like I said, they're going to be my busiest days), I'll feel less guilty. From a quick Google search of "rest day guilt," I know I'm not the only one who feels like this, but that doesn't stop me from feeling annoyed about feeling guilty (I just have a lot of feelings).

Me.

Does anyone else get rest day guilt? What are some coping strategies you use to deal with it? Let me know in the comments!

Kulie Julie