Just Do It!

If you're not wearing a heart rate monitor while doing cardio then start! I finally did and found out I'm pushing myself way too hard (and possibly burning muscle as a result.) My heart rate was 170+ less than a minute into my cardio session. And I was just getting started, normally I'm about ready to pass out by the end of my session... I shutter when I think about how high it must've been getting all these months. I have Exercise-Induced Asthma and so I really struggle with cardio. Well turns out I've just been making it worse. I'm now going at a lesser speed and am able to stay in my target heart rate zone (with lots of deep breathing to help me out) and I feel much better throughout the day as a result. Less ongoing chest tightness, exhaustion, etc. I'm really focusing on being a better breather... HA! So just do it! Wear a heart rate monitor. It may tell you that you need to push harder or maybe not so much like me, but at least you'll know and be able to maximize the productivity of your time.

Note: The picture was taken shortly after I realized I was pushing too hard and had lowered my speed and started to try and get my heart rate lowered down to where it should be. Sorry about the poor picture quality, it was taken with my phone while I was doing cardio :)

Tuesday 4/5/11

Busy Busy Busy...

January and February are usually my least favorite months of the year. The weather is just yucky, there's nothing really going on, the kids are usually sick a lot and I'm so ready for it to be Spring so we can get out of the house and enjoy nice weather and have fun. I usually end up with a mild case of the "blah's," but I think I managed to dodge it this year. We've been staying really busy and I think that has helped a lot. We've been busy painting all three bedrooms and our master bathroom as well as doing some deep cleaning and organizing along the way. Since finishing our basement almost three years ago and painting our main living areas about two years ago, we have painted all the rooms in our house except the laundry room and the main bathroom (which we plan on painting soon.) I guess you could say we love painting! Steve and I have also been busy working out (Steve has been getting ready for a photo shoot and I finally decided to take advantage of my Trainer/Dietitian-of-a-husband and let him train me and do a meal plan for me.) He's been training me five days a week (I know I'm spoiled) and we also completed the 200 sit-up training program together. We also finally got some enlargements done to hang in our house and I absolutely love them! Here are some pictures of the rooms we've painted and the enlargements we hung in them...

We painted the accent wall "Robin's Egg" (Glidden) and painted all the other walls "Silver Dust" (Glidden.) We left the ceiling, trim and doors white. We also painted our master bathroom the "Silver Dust" color. All the "Silver Dust" walls used to be a light tan color that just looked dingy after we painted the accent wall. The "Silver Dust" really brightened up the room and made it look a lot better. I know I've already posted pictures of these pictures but I thought I'd post them again on the painted wall (because it looks so much better and makes them really pop.) The wall they are on looks more grey in the pictures below-the true color is closer to the above picture and the pictures are b&w not sepia...

18x24

24x36

18x24

I'm not really a fan of the whole pink/blue girl/boy colors but those are the colors that were in the kids bedding so those are the colors we ended up painting their rooms...

I actually wanted to go really bold and do a really bright pink on Avery's wall and we tried but it was a disaster... think Pepto Bismol pink. It was so bright, it reflected off the white walls and you could see the pink glow way before even entering her room. Needless to say we found a "softer pink" and redid it. The color we used was "Pink Chintz" (Behr.) We left all the other walls, ceiling, trim and doors white and it looks so soft and girly! She loves it and I guess that's what matters. I did a small collage of b&w photos of her to hang on her wall (they are all done on a 3/4 in. "standout" mount because I didn't want to frame them)...

11x14 (4)

We painted all of Maddy's walls "Waterfall" (Martha Stewart) and left the ceiling, trim and doors white.

11x14 (3/4 in. standout mount)

Maddy wanted a picture of him in his new blue room :)

Avery was sick most of the time we were painting and spent a lot of time sleeping on the couch.

Maddy of course had to be in the middle of it all and help :)

I was at Pro Digital Photos ordering our big family picture for our living room (pictures to come shortly) and the kids were being crazy and touching things. The employee told them he had balloons for them if they were quiet... it worked like a charm and they sat on this chair and didn't make a peep the rest of the time. Maddy asked me to take of picture of them behaving so I took one with my phone...