Muscle Mama: 2012

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Long time coming...

It has been ages since my last post. I kept hoping I would have time to post occasionally during the past few months...but life has just been moving so fast!

Fall is my favorite time of year AND my favorite time to cook...so even though I don't actually have much time to blog these days -- I'm just going to when I get a chance.

Okay so here is the rundown of the past 7 months:

I signed a contract to write a high school Spanish textbook called Tejidos for Pre-Ap/Pre-IB level courses and have been investing most of my free time working on that.
I graduated with my Master's in May--- woooohooooo!!!
I passed my AFAA certification and am now teaching Tuesday night Step Interval and Wednesday night Barbell Strength at my gym
I started a new job at the same school as the Technology Administrator -- a 12 month position with no more track outs :( ...but I get to coordinate a 1:1 iPad initiative for 480 high school students!
My baby sister got married in seriously the most beautiful wedding ever in July

Forrest and I have done a few things to fix up the house -- I'll do a post on that soon
My niece gets cuter by the second

And the most exciting thing is that Forrest and I found out in May that we are expecting and in August we got the very exciting news that it will be a BABY BOY!!!

I am loving being pregnant (most days) and am so excited to get started on the nursery and making the house ready for him. I also am reading a lot about natural childbirth, and even though I will be birthing my little man in the hospital I am praying that I am able to do it all without meds.

Okay there is so much to catch up on here that I will have to gradually share more info with you guys in each post.

I am off to grab our groceries this morning and I am super excited about our menu...and I just really wanted to share it with someone. :)

Tomorrow we have some friends dropping in for the 4pm football game so I am going to cook up some chili, wings and chipotle bbq sausage bites. Check out the pins below to see the recipes. I will be replacing venison for beef in the chili recipe.

Source: passthesushi.com via Jessica on Pinterest

Source: bigoven.com via Megan on Pinterest

Source: myrecipes.com via Megan on Pinterest

The chili should definitely last us for lunch for the week. Then on Monday I am going to make some good ole chicken-pot-pie. Since I teach fitness classes on Tues/Wed I always try to make enough on Monday night so that I don't have to cook again until Thursday.

Source: realsimple.com via Megan on Pinterest

Thursday I am going to cook up some baked (lasagna style) penne. I couldn't find a picture of this anywhere to pin to Pinterest...but I'm thinking the recipe will look like this:

1 package whole wheat penne
2 cans marinara sauce
Ricotta cheese (about 10 to 12 oz-ish)
mozzarella (1.5 cups to melt on top)
ground venison or beef (whatever I have in the freezer still)

This should last us through dinner on Friday and lunch Sat/Sunday. For breakfast I have been packaging up some of those daily smoothie freezer bags to last the week.

Source: fitness-is-sexy.tumblr.com via Megan on Pinterest

And baking one of my favorite quiche recipes that I will share soon.

Okay...my plan was to get to shopping before the all the crazy Saturday traffic starts. Ooops! Have an awesome Saturday (it is soo good to post to this blog again!)

Monday, February 20, 2012

Time Management

There is nothing I enjoy like writing this blog and reading about what life looks like for the bloggers I follow.

As much as a heart project this blog is, I have realized over the past month that I need to re-prioritize how I spend my time. When I prioritize my blog I get behind on graduate school work and I minimize my time in prayer and reading the Bible. My house gets really messy and I eat more dessert. I workout less and I feel more stressed. That is not what I wanted to happen when I started writing this blog again this fall.

So this weekend I kind of took a good look at how I am spending my time. I charted out a weekly schedule to allow for Bible study and prayer, graduate school study time, workouts, creative time, and work. When I finished that schedule there was no extra time during the week. It is a reality for me that there is not physical time available for me during the week to work on the blog.

So what does this mean?

Well...primarily it means that I will not be doing any blogging / posting during the week. Even just posting pre-written posts and linking up to linky parties take time that right now does not exist in my schedule. However, I have allowed myself kind of wide-open weekends to give me time to finish up any grad school assignments...and to blog. That way I can stay connected, but the pressure to post daily is removed so that I don't feel like a failure when time passes and I haven't had a chance to drop a line.

Please don't give up on this blog. I plan to pick it back up full force when grad school is over in May and the 7 to 10 hours a week I spend doing grad school work will be focused it on sharing recipes, crafts and talking about life with you guys. Thank you so much for supporting me in starting this blog and stay connected so that in just 2 and 1/2 short months you can be involved in the re-launch of the Casita Cory blog. I plan on remodeling the site, having a revamped blog schedule and I will have so many recipes to share that there won't be enough days of the week to write about them all!

Thanks again for reading!

Love,
Megan

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Here's What's Cooking {No. 5}

SHE'S BACK! And it feels so good. Whew. This week was a little stressful, but the big chunk of my portfolio project has been submitted. Now on to having a little bit of fun today!

Tonight is the first Saturday night service at our church and we are really excited to be serving and involved in growing our church!

After church some friends are coming over for game night. Here are a few ideas for Mexican-inspired appetizers:

Source: eatliverun.com via Megan on Pinterest

Source: mykitchenaddiction.com via Arlene on Pinterest

Source: simplyscratch.com via Michelle on Pinterest

Coronas and Margaritas are a must.

Source: google.com via Megan on Pinterest

Source: mojitosandblow.tumblr.com via Rose on Pinterest

Here is this week's line up:

Sunday / Monday: Roasted Tomato & Spinach Pasta

Source: howsweeteats.com via Megan on Pinterest

Tuesday / Wednesday: Kale Mock Lasagna

Source: kalynskitchen.com via Megan on Pinterest

Thursday / Friday: Healthy Chicken Enchiladas

Source: christineavanti.com via Megan on Pinterest

Saturday: Clean up & Eat whatever's left over!

Oky doky...I'm off to do some shopping! Hope you all have a great Saturday!

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Nerd Week

Source: justanotherwittyblog.blogspot.com via Megan on Pinterest

I'm sorry I just disappeared like that again. I'm in nerd world this week. I have been hiding away in my office working on my ePortfolio for my grad school project after work each day. I am really excited about how it is coming together...I might even turn it in early! Image that. But it has sucked up basically every minute of my time this week.

Here are the elements of my portfolio I have to get done by Saturday:

~~Index / Intro~~
~~Design~~
~~Development~~
~~Utilization~~
Management
Evaluation
Research
Resources
~~Resume~~
Reflection

I feel pretty good about my progress so far and I think after tomorrow I will only have my resources and reflection pages left to create. I have made the framework for each site and it looks kind of like this...

In my spare time I have been teaching some pretty rocking Spanish 1 and 2 classes during the day, meeting with parents, finalizing grades for interims, watching the mezzanine at the girls and guys bball games last night and spending hours on the phone with my national group fitness certification organization trying to figure out a resolution to the problem that my textbook never arrived and my test is Friday...resolution = postponed to April 21st. praisetheLord.

I realized that the Bible app on my Droid phone also has an audio option. I have been listening to scripture on my way to work each day. Let me just say that Psalm 96 made my day yesterday!

Oh have you seen my new Summit Church swag...

Okay that is all I have time to type up tonight. I miss interacting with you guys and the bloggers I follow and doing the things I enjoy...but I have May in my sights and before I know it this whole grad school thing will seem like a small bump in the road.

Let the weekend get here soon!!!

Friday, February 3, 2012

Get Fit Friday {No. 4}

Join the 100 Push Up Challenge!!!!

Okay....I'm not crazy.

Okay...maybe I am.

But still...I think we should do this!

Source: hundredpushups.com via Megan on Pinterest

Go here and read about the the program. The program takes 6 weeks (or more depending on your starting point...but choose what works for you!) and you will need to commit about 10 to 15 minutes 3 days a week to do the training. I have lots of friends who have done this in the past and really enjoyed it (enjoy is a loose term). I am going to commit to it this year and I hope you will join me in the fun!

Here is a video from Oxygen Mag about different variations on the push-up. Depending on your results on the initial test, you may need to use one of the variations in this video:

So...here is how we're gonna do this...

1) Do the initial test sometime this weekend and comment on this post that you are IN!

2) Each Friday I will post the workout for the next week so you can check in and get your new assignment!

3) Each Friday on the "Get Fit Friday" post leave a comment and tell us what your max number was for the week (I want us to be able to encourage each other in this...so it will be our accountability).

4) On March 19th we will do our final test and see how many push ups we can do. If we get to 100...great. If we get to more than we are doing now...awesome!

Go here to see your WEEK 1 push up schedule for the week of February 5 - 11th. Good luck :)

Here we go! We can do this y'all!

Thursday, February 2, 2012

For the Love of a Cardigan

Have I ever mentioned how much I love my church? (iloveitalot)

I also love that I can wear my jeans to church.

Wanna know what else I love?

My soft, wear-with-everything, camel-colored cardigan.

This is what I wore on Sunday:

jeans -- bke from buckle expensive but worth it (2009)

long sleeve navy tee -- target $8.00 (2012)

cardigan -- ann taylor loft $22 (2010)

scarf -- ross's $7.00 (2011)

ring -- given to me from my aunt claney

this is me being mischievous :)

Okay...let's get Thursday over with and get this weekend started!

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

What I'm Lovin' Wednesday {No. 5}

it's 7:10 pm on a tuesday and i'm in my pjs
to be honest
i actually put on my pjs at 5:30
haha
i'm going casual...not really worrying about capital letters or punctuation (just for today)

here is what i'm loooooooooving! (this week is off to a much better start -yippie-)

1. i'm loving this guy. sometimes i can't believe he's my husband. i pinch myself to make sure i'm awake.