Mid-Summer Progress on Cookies Summer Run/Walk Challenge

My annual Cookies Summer Run/Walk Challenge started on June 20th, and yikes(!) the time has been going fast. I really really wanted to complete the list this year--running or walking, either one was good.

Considering I've been doing so much walking lately for 75 Hard (two 45-minute walks per day), it's been the perfect opportunity to get the items on my list checked off. 

If only I planned ahead.

There is still time for me to do the rest of the list (I'll go over the ones that I've done so far), but I did miss some of the ones that are supposed to be completed on particular days. I can't do anything about that now, so I plan to do them on another day. Better than nothing.

There are 56 items on the list, and I've completed 21. That means I still have to do 35 walks! In order to complete them, however, I really need to plan ahead (at least a week at time). Most times I just head out on a walk and forget that I'm supposed to be checking items off the list.

Here are ones I've done so far:

1. Beach Walk (along a body of water):

2. Bridge Walk (over a bridge): A ginormous bridge in my neighborhood ;)

3. Early Bird Walk (before 6:00 AM):

4. Explorer Walk (in a city I've never walked/run in before). This was in Mackinaw, MI, and we happened to come across an amazing park with a view of the Mackinac Bridge. 

5. Generous Walk (leaving a few quarters in random places during a walk for others to find) - I don't have a photo for this.

6. Penny Pincher Walk (find a penny or other coin during a walk). I happened to find all of these coins on the same day.

7. Podcast Walk (download a new podcast and listen to it during a walk). This is when I tried Six Miles to Supper, about intermittent fasting, a really like it!

8. Progression Walk (walk 3 miles with each mile faster than the previous). (The items in the picture I collected on the walk--a penny, a washer, and a guitar pick. Haha! Eli was looking for a piece of plastic just like the guitar pick so that he could use it while making fishing lures. And the washer was for a laugh because I'd been going crazy searching for a washer just like this one when I was doing something in the garage).

9. Race (enter a race and complete it). I entered a virtual race where you have to complete 20 miles between July 26-August 8. I have completed much more than that so far! I got my medal and bib in the mail today. Because it was an official virtual race, it counts. I chose this one because the medal totally sums up 2020 so far.

Here are all of the walks that make up the virtual race. I've done nearly 54 miles out of the 20 that were  required!

10. Rainy Walk (walk in the rain). You can't tell here, but I was pretty wet. It was lightly raining during the whole walk.

11. Rover Walk (with a dog)

12. Lunch Walk (start walk between 12 and 2 pm):

13. Selfie Walk (take a mid-walk selfie)

14. Tempo Walk (walk slightly faster than an easy pace)

15. Treadmill Walk (on the treadmill)

16. Solstice Walk (start before summer and end it after- 5:43 PM on June 20)

17. Creative Ice Cream Flavors Walk (enjoy a creative ice cream concoction for Creative Ice Cream Day on July 1st). I made a strange concoction--chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, peanut butter, coconut, chocolate chips, raisins, and dry oats. It was good!

18. Independence Walk (4 miles on July 4th wearing red, white, and blue):

19. Buck Full Moon Walk (walk during the Buck Full Moon on July 5)

20. Chocolate Walk (enjoy something chocolatey post-walk for World Chocolate Day). The item I chose was not very exciting. I actually forgot about chocolate day, and I just so happened to be eating these after dinner anyway, so I just counted that as my chocolate.

21. Run for Cookies! (celebrate with a chocolate chip cookie on National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day, August 4). Sadly, I have no picture and I did not eat a beautiful cookie. I know, *I*, Ms. Runs for Cookies, wasn't prepared to have an amazing chocolate chip cookie. Instead, I had a small package of Famous Amos cookies. They were still good!  (But I don't have a picture of those)

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And there it is! My mid-summer progress on the challenge. With 75 Hard now a thing, I have lots of chances to still get in all of the walks. So, I'm going to keep working on it. I think tomorrow I may do a Fartlek Walk!

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They're Not Babies Anymore!

This summer is flying by, and I just realized that we've had the kittens for three months now! It feels like we've only had them for a few weeks. I was looking at some recent photos of them and then started comparing those to photos from three months ago, and I am stunned at how much they've grown. They aren't babies anymore!

These photos show a three-month difference, on the same bed:

When we first got them, they both looked like little puffballs of fur, especially Chick. Chick has long hair and Duck has short hair. According to the rescue we adopted them from, their mom was pure siamese. I knew nothing about Siamese cats, but after reading about them recently, I am convinced that Duck definitely has the character traits (and the body structure) of a Siamese. Chick likely took after his dad. 

Duck is very people-oriented and loves to talk to us in little chirps. He plays fetch--his favorite thing to fetch is either a crumbled up ball of paper or a little plastic clip that I use for sewing. He'll bring it to me and then I throw it down the hall and he chases after it at full speed before sliding into the wall as he picks it up. Then he returns it to me and drops it for me to throw it again. It's so cute!

Chick, on the other hand, is more subtle when it comes to affection. (Duck demands it; Chick politely asks.) Chick doesn't play fetch and he's not as fast as Duck, but he is killer when it comes to jumping and climbing. His balance is amazing. And he can spot and catch anything--if there is a fly in the house, Chick will not give up until he catches it.

In this photo, Eli was dangling a t-shirt and Chick was determined to get it. He can jump so high!

He will also climb in order to get treats. Eli was giving him treats and he literally climbed up Eli's leg. He looks like a squirrel in this picture:

One night, I was lying in bed reading, with the cats on my legs, and I could see that Chick spotted something above my nightstand. His eyes were totally focused on it while he jumped up on the nightstand and grabbed whatever it was (it ended up being a teeny tiny moth, about the size of a mosquito!). 

Right after he grabbed it, it fell down behind the nightstand. He jumped down on the floor to try and get to the moth, but the nightstand is tight against the wall and he couldn't reach back there. I continued to read my book, and 10 minutes later, I happened to notice that Chick was STILL staring like this. No matter how I said his name or tried to distract him, he was so focused and didn't move a muscle.

I felt sorry for him, so I looked between the nightstand and the wall, and sure enough, the tiny little moth was on the floor right there, out of his paw's reach. He'd been waiting for it to fly again, I guess. It took some maneuvering, but I got it out for him and he was happy as a clam! Then it flew above my nightstand again, and Duck noticed it, too. Both of the cats were mesmerized.

Chick finally ended up catching it and probably eating it.

Duck likes to stand on top of the refrigerator and look up at the skylight. Occasionally he'll see a bird or something and he's at full attention. I love this photo of him:

I took this photo of Duck while he was keeping me from reading my book, and I thought it was hilarious how much he looks like "anxiety cat" from the anxiety cat memes. 

He also likes to lie down on the floor in the most awkward position... I've never seen a cat do this before! It makes his belly look huge.

Estelle is starting to hate me less now. She was attached to me at the hip for years and when we got the kittens, she was SO mad at me. She was sleeping on my legs in this photo, and Duck came up behind me over my shoulder and then quietly laid down without Estelle noticing. I love how he's looking at her, haha. This lasted about 30 seconds, and then Estelle noticed him there and she took off. 

I'm still hoping that Phoebe will accept the kittens, but she is more of a loner cat. She likes people, but she's never warmed up to Estelle and they've been living together for 10 years. 

Anyway, I am SO SO happy that we adopted the kittens. The timing was perfect, considering the quarantine, so we've gotten to spend a lot of time with them. 

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What I'm Reading, Watching, and Listening To

Since I started 75 Hard, I've been doing a lot of reading (books), watching (shows), and listening (to podcasts and audiobooks).

Per 75 Hard, I read a non-fiction self-improvement-type book (10 pages per day). I'm really surprised at how 10 pages per day adds up! It sounds so easy--just 10 pages--but I finished one book and I'm on to another, just two weeks later.

I have been trying to go to bed earlier, and I found that reading before bed helps me to get tired. I used to watch TV or play a game on my phone, which could keep me up super late. Reading in bed has helped me to have an earlier bed time. So, nighttime reading is my "for fun" reading.

One of my 75 Hard workouts each day has to be outdoors, and I've been doing a ton of walking. I've done all of them outdoors until last week when I had to do a very early morning workout. While I walk outside, I listen to podcasts or audiobooks. On the treadmill, however, I like to watch TV shows.

So, I've been doing lots of reading, watching, and listening! Here goes... (I'm linking to these on Amazon, which are affiliate links--meaning if you happen to buy them through the links, I may get a small commission.)

Reading

For my non-fiction books to meet the 75 Hard daily requirement:

I just finished 'The Gifts of Imperfection' by Brené Brown. This was a great read (particularly the first half or so of the book). I first read it in 2017 and it really helped me to stop caring what other people think of me and to just be a more authentic me. I stopped trying to please other people all the time and it felt so freeing. I chose to read it again for a refresher and because I'd only read half of it in 2017.

When I finished that, I moved on to 'Can't Hurt Me' by David Goggins. I wrote about this on yesterday's post. This man pretty much invented the word "discipline"--to the tenth power.

I've also been reading a little more about intermittent fasting. I really liked 'Delay, Don't Deny' by Gin Stephens, which inspired me to give intermittent fasting another try. My mom just lent me 'Fast. Feast. Repeat.', also by Gin. I've been flipping around in that book rather than reading it straight through, and it's a good reference--it's answered several questions I had.

(This isn't normally spiral-bound; my mom took it to Staples and had it bound this way. I had no idea you could do that! It is so much easier to read like this. While it cuts off the left edge of the cover a bit, the pages don't get cut off.)

For my "fun" reading, I downloaded a new book by Suzanne Collins called 'The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes'. It's a prequel to 'The Hunger Games' series. I love it! Not as much as 'The Hunger Games' (which is one of my favorite books of all time), but just reading something new about The Games is fun.

Watching

When I jumped on the treadmill last week, I just picked a random show on Netflix called Sweet Magnolias. I loved the first episode so much that I have done the last couple of days' walks on the treadmill (I do one outdoor walk for 75 Hard, and then my second has been on the treadmill). I don't want to binge watch it, so I am only going to watch it while on the treadmill. I just finished the third episode during my second walk today.

Listening To

I've been listening to a few podcasts and audiobooks. I have been mostly listening to podcasts when I work in the garage (it's slow going, but I'm still making progress!) and audiobooks when I walk. I've always loved true crime podcasts, but I started listening to a couple of intermittent fasting ones recently. I really like Six Miles to Supper--she shares a lot of the same viewpoints that I have.

As far as audiobooks, memoirs are my favorite. I love hearing people tell their stories, whether they are sad, funny, inspiring, or anything else. I listen to some podcasts where people tell their stories in a nutshell; but the memoirs are great because they are so detailed.

I recently finished 'Running Man' by Charlie Engle. I'm really surprised I'd never heard of him before! I haven't been keeping up with who's who in the running scene for the last few years, but after listening to this, I was interested to learn more about him. I'd like to watch the documentary that this book is based around, called 'Running the Sahara'.

When I was done listening to 'Running Man', I started listening to 'The Killer Across the Table' by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker. I chose this because I really loved the book 'Mindhunter' (and the TV series). I didn't end up finishing this one because I just couldn't stay interested. This might be because I've listening to lots of true crime podcasts so the stories weren't new to me.

And that's about it right now... anyone reading/watching/listening to something interesting??

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75 Hard: Week 2 Recap

Today is Day 15 of 75 Hard. (Here is the post with the details of 75 Hard.) When I started this challenge, I really didn't believe I'd get past a few days, let alone this far. At first, I planned not to write about it on my blog "just in case" I quit. When I gave it some thought, however, I realized it would give me a way out--if I wanted to quit, I could quit and nobody would ever know. That would make it easy!

By posting about it publicly, I kept myself from quitting several times over the past couple of weeks. Overall, it's certainly do-able and the moments where I feel like quitting don't last very long. Yesterday on the way home from from the U.P. is a good example--after waking up early to walk 45 minutes before packing the car and then spending 11 hours on the road, the LAST thing I wanted to do was walk another 45 minutes. I wanted to go home and eat dinner and watch TV and go to bed early.

During the ride, I kept thinking about how really thought I may quit the challenge because of how badly I didn't want to do my second workout. When I had the idea to have Jerry drop me off 45 minutes from home, I felt like that was the perfect solution. I still didn't want to do it... but afterward, I was so glad that I didn't call it quits.

Anyway, here is a look at my Week 2 of 75 Hard...

Drink one gallon of water every day.

This was a little tougher to do this week because I was away from home Thursday through Sunday. Jeanie's cabin has running water, but because they have a tank that has to be refilled, we had to conserve water as much as possible. I brought five gallons of water with me to drink, but I didn't want to have to be using the bathroom (and therefore flushing the toilet) all the time!

My body is used to drinking a lot of water, and I found that from the two 45-minute workouts daily, along with just being active in general, I actually didn't have to pee all that much. A gallon a day--done!


Take a progress photo every day.

I've been doing this faithfully as well. At home, I just take a full-body selfie in the mirror right before my first workout. Jeanie's cabin doesn't have a full-length mirror, so I had her or Jerry take a photo of me each day. And as silly as it looked, I posed the same way that I would if I was holding the phone up in front of the mirror, haha. I want all of my pictures to have me posed the same way.

Today, I looked at my Day 1 picture versus today's (a two-week span) and I was really surprised at how much of a difference I see already! I will share the photos eventually, but I want to wait a little longer. Maybe I'll do Day 25, Day 50, and Day 75 (assuming I make it!). The pictures are not at all flattering (the point of them is to see changes in my body, not to look pretty for the camera, haha).


Diet of choice + no alcohol.

As I mentioned, I am doing intermittent fasting. I wrote a lot about that in my Week 1 Recap. This week was a little more challenging at first. Being up north, I had to adjust my "usual" eating window to a later time. The first day we were there, I think we ate dinner at 9:00 pm or something--and I usually eat at 4:00! We ate dinner on the later side the next couple of days as well, but it wasn't as tough to wait like it was on the first day.

As far as no alcohol, it was a little hard to sit around the fire at night and not have a beer--campfires and beer seem to go hand-in-hand during the summer--but I had two 0.0% Heinekens on Saturday night after dinner, and that was satisfying.


Read 10 pages of a non-fiction/self-improvement-type book.

I finished reading The Gifts of Imperfection (again, I wrote about that last week). The second half of the book didn't speak to me as much as the first half did, but I still really liked it. It was a nice refresher from the last time I read it.

Yesterday, I started reading 'Can't Hurt Me' by David Goggins (Amazon affiliate link). I had read some of it before, and I LOVED it, but I got caught up in something else (likely a Netflix show or something) and stopped reading it. I started it from the beginning yesterday, and I'm excited to read the whole thing. It's so good!

I love that he hates the word "motivation". I've always hated that word because motivation is only temporary. I wrote a post called The Difference Between Motivation and Determination that explains my thoughts on it.

Here is a video that shows his "motivating" story in a (very small) nutshell:




Work out 45 minutes twice a day (at least one must be outdoors).

Yes! I did this, and it was NOT easy. Being up north on vacation made this a tough one for me this week. Getting in the first workout isn't so bad. I've kind of enjoyed it, actually! But when it comes time for the second one, I really have to push myself to just do it. It was no different while I was up north. However, it wasn't so bad once I started my walk.

I like listening to podcasts or audiobooks while I walk. It's kind of funny--when running, I couldn't pay attention to an audiobook to save my soul. When I walk, though, I really enjoy listening to them.

Here is what my second week's workouts looked like (all were outdoors except for Thursday morning when I had to fit it in before we left for Jeanie's):

My morning walk is usually a little slower because I like to take Joey with me. You'll notice that yesterday's walk (the one I was really dreading after coming home from up north) is the fastest one of the week. That's because I wanted to get home so badly! (Not that it mattered... 45 minutes is 45 minutes, regardless of my speed). I actually had to walk back and forth a couple of times in front of my house to reach 45.

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I'm happy with how the week went! I really wasn't sure I'd be able to stick to it while on vacation. Even though we were only gone for four days, I am pretty proud of myself for doing it. This week is going to be uneventful, so hopefully it'll go well :)

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An Exhausting But Fun Weekend

Wow, what an exhausting weekend!

Again, I'm going to try to keep this short. We just spent 11 hours in the car! The traffic was bad while leaving the U.P. (upper peninsula) and I just want to eat, shower, and unpack.

It was a really nice weekend--Jerry, the kids, and I went to Jeanie and Shawn's property up north. (In Michigan, "up north" is a place, haha. I try to be more specific on my blog to clarify.)

Isn't this such a pretty waterfall? With all of the pine trees and waterfalls nearby, I was reminded of the Pacific Northwest--which you know I love.

The property is very close to Wisconsin, so it's a long drive for us (we live nearly as far southeast as you can get in Michigan). Interestingly, Jeanie lives in Illinois, but the drive is only about five hours from home for her. Anyway, the drive wasn't bad! I wrote about that yesterday.

We spent the weekend with just Jeanie and Shawn, which was great. It's rare that we see them without a bunch of other people around.

Shawn is working on shiplap for his pole barn, and I was really excited to work with him on cutting down the boards. First of all, this pole barn is amazing. It's enormous! After feeling so cramped while working in my garage, the space in this barn was almost overwhelming.

Shawn had several smaller pieces of shiplap that he'd already finished and he decided to piece those together on a small area. I didn't do much to help with this part... he was up until 3 AM because he wanted to get it finished! It looks awesome though... Shawn likes to use boards that I normally would skip over because of knots or weird patterns. After seeing what it looks like when it's finished, though, I can see why he likes them!

(Obviously this photo is to show the shiplap and not the stairs!)

I did help with getting a bunch of other boards ready to stain, though. I got to use some new tools and that was probably my favorite part of the weekend, hahaha. We used raw cuts of wood and put them through the planer and jointer, then cut out the pieces for the shiplap on the table saw.

Then I took a chill break in my hammock while Shawn sanded them to get them ready to stain ;)  I don't know what it was about being up there that made me so exhausted! It felt fantastic to lie down in the hammock under the trees--I could do that all day.

Jeanie has a small handgun (I have no idea what kind) and I'd never shot one before, but she and Noah were shooting at a target, so I wanted to give it a try, too. She showed me how to shoot it, and it was pretty fun! The first time I pulled the trigger it scared the bejesus out of me. I had no idea what I was expecting, but I was surprised at how strong it felt.

Anyway, I'll write a recap of 75 Hard tomorrow (today is Day 14!) and I am happy that I stuck with it the whole time we were away. I knew it would be hard (and it was) but going home and feeling GOOD (although tired) made it worth the effort. It was raining this morning before we left (just a drizzle, but still raining) and I still made sure to get in a 45-minute walk.

I KNEW I wasn't going to want to walk again when I got home, so I had Jerry drop me off at a spot that I guessed would take me about 45 minutes to walk home. That way, when I got home, I could just stay there.

I hope everyone else had a great weekend!

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