Friday Faves Edition 55

Friday.

Hey! Hey! It’s Friday!!

You all know what that means.

 

Friday Faves.

I’m rounding up my Friday Faves for the week. This week has been a productive week on many levels. Spring is trying to creep in, but winter keeps reminding it not to be so pushy.

Motorcycles.

We had a motorcycle (that I never rode), but it was made for on-road and off-road and the hubby wanted more of an on-road only bike.  He and Big Mr. took a motorcycle class a while back so that Big Mr. could get a motorcycle permit. We recently got the motorcycle in the above background picture. Big Mr. promptly went down to the DMV to get his actual motorcycle license now that he is 18. I haven’t been on the motorcycle yet. We had one when we were engaged (20 years ago), but I haven’t been on one since (edit: I have driven a dirt bike when we still lived in Naples, but I switched over to a four-wheeler). As you know, my teens are adventure lovers so Miss Sunshine was more than happy to have her dad take her for a spin.

Shopping.

Soccer.

Miss Sunshine and I did some shopping on Saturday. School soccer season has officially started. For home games, the team is expected to dress up for school. Miss Sunshine prefers to wear a dress on these days. This is about the only time you will find her in a dress. She still has a few from last year, but since she grew some inches I suspect they are too short. She found two really pretty dresses.

Aruba.

We were also in need of some clothing for our trip to Aruba…which is now only 4 weeks away!! I had already picked up a bathing suit but needed some shorts. Sometimes I wear a coverup over a bathing suit, but I’m more of a jean shorts kinda girl. I picked up the ones in the photo to wear on the beach. I also found a few more pairs that are slightly longer to wear about town. Miss Sunshine found a bathing suit and some shorts as well. I actually picked up the tank top to wear to the gym over my sports bras, but I think it’s cute enough for Aruba. I’m one of those people who border between two sizes, so the tags aren’t coming off until we get closer to leaving.

Weather.

It was a gray and rainy weekend. On Sunday, the hubby and I drove over to Lynchburg to visit my mother-in-law. We had a lovely visit with her and our niece.

Earth Fare.

I ran over to Earth Fare after the gym because I was out of protein powder. I am not one of those who goes to stores in her workout clothes and was very self-conscious doing so.

You can’t go to Earth Fare and not find other things. I picked up some Carob Spirulina energy bites and they were so tasty. I also had been wanting some sprouts and they had those as well.

Fermented Foods.

I often read about the benefits of fermented foods, which are touted for gut health. I have a strange obsession with sauerkraut. I’m a believer that if you are in tune with your body, it will tell you what you need by its cravings. I could probably eat tons of sauerkraut, but I only eat a few forkfuls because it contains so much sodium. It’s okay if you think I’m strange. What is a strange food that you like? Do you like sauerkraut?

Wait! That’s Mine.

I actually had a funny incident happen while there. I was looking in the egg section, deciding whether or not I was going to be lazy and buy the package of boiled eggs (I was…and I did). I’ve been making up egg salad and putting it on top of avocado toast (and now sprouts too). I turned around and my cart was gone. I looked around. I was wondering if I would find it because there were so many people. And then I spotted the yellow packaging of my Ezekiel bread. The lady, who had accidentally taken my cart instead of hers, and I had a good laugh over it.

 

Big Mr.

On Tuesday, Big Mr. had Senior sleep in and early release…and it was sunny…so he drove the motorcycle to school.

Prepping for the Challenge.

Run/Walk

I decided to prep for the March Challenge and went for a run/walk on the treadmill at the gym. It was more walking than running and I covered 3.41 miles in 45 minutes. However, I was able to see how many steps that included.

Plank Challenge.

I also was curious how long I could hold a plank.  Apparently, one minute 31 seconds. I don’t think trying it an hour and a half after running was the best choice. It wasn’t my core that did me in…it was my quads.

Travel.

I’ve been productive, but that can sometimes lead to stress. So can raising teens. And other things. Such as the fact that I’ve shared that most of my and my mother’s trip to Scotland has been booked. We were just waiting on the train schedules to become available.

Isle of Skye.

WELL.. the day trip to Skye that we had booked through Viator was canceled. The tour operator isn’t doing that trip anymore. Most of our trip has other parts locked into place. Finally, last night, we came to the conclusion for our replacement day trip and have booked it through WOW Scotland. We will still be leaving from Inverness and seeing everything that we originally planned, except for the tairy pools. It’s slightly disappointing that we’ll miss them…but my motto is “let’s just return again next year!”

Now we just need to book a few trains.

Relax.

Perhaps now you can relate to why Tuesday’s post was about relaxation!

Rx Bar.

My Pilates days are shortly after the morning rush of getting the teens out of the door for school. I can’t work out on an empty stomach, nor can I do Pilates on a heavy breakfast or my go-to protein smoothie. I discovered Rx Bars during one of Miss Sunshine’s soccer tournaments. I needed to have a snack available for myself, but didn’t want a bunch of strange ingredients. Rx Bars are right with that thought process…hence, the no B.S. in the ingredient list.

I’ve had the blueberry and recently picked up a box of mint chocolate.

I decided to order a sample pack box from them. I haven’t tried them all yet, but I did have Coconut Chocolate this morning and it was super yum!

Since I did order from them, there is a link for a special. It only offers me an option of email, Facebook, or Twitter…so here it is if you’re interested:

 

Get 25% off & free shipping on your first @RXBAR order, the Whole Food Protein Bar with No B.S. using my link- https://t.co/Pcxz4sUGfz

— Amy Lyon Smith (@AmyLyonSmith) March 2, 2018

Photography.

Lightroom.

More behind the scenes stuff has been working on getting Lightroom set up on my laptop. I’ve finally cleared enough space to add the desktop version, but haven’t tested it out yet. After my post on the Glaciers of Greenland, I watched some beginner tutorials on Lightroom. I was very excited by what I saw because I think that I’ll have much more control over my creative vision during the editing process.

Importing.

On Thursday, I was all prepared to do some work in Lightroom. I thought I’d try my hand at editing the photos for the Houseboats of Amsterdam post. I went to import the photos…it can’t see the iPhotos library on my mac. I’m sure there’s a way to deal with this. Hopefully ,one that isn’t overly convoluted. However, that didn’t help me yesterday. I went back to my standard place of editing and today’s task will be discovering how to import my photos into Lightroom without needing to save them to the desktop or documents or wherever else it looked for photos.

Challenge Accomplished.

My body was so sore from holding that plank on Tuesday that I had to sit out some reps in Pilates on Wednesday. Due to all that, I decided to take it easy on Thursday. I still achieved my 10,000 steps for Day 1, but it was mostly by pacing the floor while I read or taking breaks to march in place, plus my normal household errands and house cleaning.

We decided to follow the plank challenge from the start and held one for 10 seconds last night.

Reading.

You may have noticed that I mentioned pacing the floor while reading. While February’s Challenge is officially over…I have a few things to share about reading. Be on the look out next week for my recap and thoughts on the challenge. I have started a new book. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. I haven’t seen the movie yet. Have you? I did choose this book for a specific reason, which I’ll share in that post next week.

Full Moon.

Did you see the full moon last night? Ours was covered in a haze of clouds that made it appear quite magical. It was a full moon in Virgo. I’m a Virgo. Hmmm… does that mean there’s some magic in store for me? I’m thinking it’s a definite yes… especially when I go visit those Standing Stones of Callanish in May.

Music.

I still haven’t had much time this week to hunt for “new to me” music. It’s been enough to fit in a 15 minute meditation each day. This also means that YouTube “recommends” quite a few meditation videos to me and many of the other “recommendations” are popular songs which I tend not to choose for this space.

The singer behind Iron & Wine is Sam Beam. His roots appear to be some of my stompin’ grounds. Not really…but close. South Carolina…Virginia…Florida…North Carolina. I am partial to the East Coast of the U.S. That may be because I haven’t been any farther west than Arizona.

I hope that you have an adventure filled weekend and smooth sailing for the week!

Let your light shine!

Amy