Transformation Tuesday #83

Happy Transformation Tuesday! I had a busy morning babysitting Luke and Riley, and I am writing this before I go to cross country practice. I'm looking forward to today's practice--I'm going to talk about proper running form (so fun! haha) and then we'll do a light run (I'm sure they're sore from yesterday) and play some active games.

I'm sure I have some before and after photos to post of SOMETHING, but I really need to go through my phone and delete a lot of photos. If I ask Jerry to take a picture of me (or if he just does it on his own) he takes literally about 50 pictures! I don't even look at them all--it's like a moving picture book. Anyway, I've been doing some fun stuff with clothing so hopefully I can find pictures.

Here are a couple of readers' transformations for this week!

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My husband and I bought a two family home. This is the bathroom in the tenants unit. The house was built in 1931 and remodeled in the 1970s. This bathroom had the vanity replaced at some point, but was otherwise unchanged since the 1970s. The wall tile is mounted directly onto drywall and in some places in the shower the drywall was rotting and tiles were falling off the wall. 

In the shower, we repaired the falling tiles and rotted drywall, then glued click together vinyl tiles over the old tile. This will stop further water damage to the walls. We kept the yellow cast iron tub, the flooring and vanity.

We sanded all the remaining wall tiles and then painted them white. We replaced the toilet and medicine cabinet, added towel rings and bars and painted the room grey. Total cost was about $500 but it totally transformed the room. We're hoping to get 3-5 years from this mini remodel before we need to fully gut and completely redo it.

-Meredith

Meredith, I am completely stunned that you transformed the bathroom like that for about $500! It looks absolutely amazing and so modern. I'm impressed with all the work you put into it, too! -Katie

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I’m not very crafty and don’t have much time for home improvement projects since I work full time and have two boys (ages 7 months and 3 years) but it was important to me that our baby have his own space so I changed our guest room into his nursery.

Then I showed my 3 year old who gasped and said “Mommy! I need a blue wall too so I can match my brother!” (Impossible to say no to that…)  I also took everyone’s advice and swapped his generic bureau knobs for some Star Wars ones and they make me smile every day.

-Liz

Liz, I love the dark contrast in colors on the walls! If Jerry and I *ever* finish remodeling our bedroom, I've already planned to do a very dark accent wall. Your kids' bedrooms look fantastic--and I love that your three year old wanted to match his brother ;)  (Jerry said the Star Wars knobs are a fantastic choice, haha). -Katie

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As always, thank you so much for sharing your transformations with us! If anyone has a transformation to share, just email me a before photo and an after photo, along with your name and a description of the transformation, to: katie (at) runsforcookies (dot) com. Let's see the goods! ;)

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First Cross Country Practice of the Season

A few months ago, I started thinking about cross country; if you're new here, I used to coach cross country (as a volunteer) with my friend Renee for third through fifth graders. My last season of coaching was in 2019, and Renee took over for two years. When I started thinking of it recently, the idea kept nagging at me--should I coach again?

I mentioned it to Renee and we both got excited by the idea of coaching together again. We talked about it when Jerry and I went to Dave and Renee's house and as the weeks passed, I started to feel regretful that I said I'd do it. I was really nervous to start fresh with a new group of kids (the other kids I coached have all moved on to middle school).

Renee and I work really well together--she is great at gathering information, passing info to the parents, setting up the meets, etc. I thrive on creating running plans and creative ideas to get kids motivated. Also, Renee is very sweet to the kids while I am a slightly toned-down version of Jillian Michaels ;) 

I absolutely LOVE coaching kids who love to run and who want to get better at it. Of course, not all of the kids who join are there for those reasons--there are usually only three or so--but they are my favorite to coach. There was one boy today who asked me after practice if he could run at home as well and count it toward his mileage. He is one of the kids who is serious about running, so I told him to talk to me at practice tomorrow and I'd help him figure out a plan to safely get some extra running at home.

Anyway, a rundown of today's practice:

It was my second-favorite practice of the season--a one-mile time trial! It's awful and everyone hates it because it's SO challenging (the kids run a mile as fast as they can). My favorite practice, then, is the time trial at the end of the season--we get to see how much the kids improved their time from the first day!

Today, we did a short warm-up jog (I didn't want them to get worn out before they even started) and some dynamic stretching. Then I explained the time trail.

Side note: If you're a coach (I get a lot of coaches who read my cross country posts) I have a life-changing way of keeping track of mileage--the humble rubber band. Just a regular old rubber band that are like 100 for $1. Each rubber band represents one lap of wherever they are running; where we practice, three laps around the park is a mile. Since I wanted the kids to run one mile (three laps) I gave them each three rubber bands to wear on their wrists. Each time they pass the starting point, they take off a rubber band and drop it in a bucket. That makes it easy for them to see how far they have left. 

Also, the rubber bands work great for long runs--instead of giving them the bands before they start, they take one and put it on their wrist each time they pass the start. Then at the end, we add up their rubber bands and figure out their mileage that way. If I have a goal for one of them to run X number of laps, then I'll start them with that number and see if they can do it. There are so many ways to use them!

For the time trail, I gave them each three rubber bands for their wrists. Then Renee blew the whistle and they were off! As always, some of the boys took off like a bat out of hell (that phrase reminds me of Mark so much) and then they slowed WAY down just a minute or so into it, haha. Teaching kids how to pace themselves is the hardest part about coaching them--seriously.

To keep track of each kid's time requires a little more effort. I had some index cards and I wrote a number on each one (1-20, because we expected about 15-20 kids). I kept them in a stack in order. I used a stopwatch app to keep track as each kid finished--when they finished their third lap, Renee handed them the card (the first kid to finish gets #1, the second gets #2, etc.). The laps on my app are numbered, so when everybody is finished, I look at their card to see what place they were in and then compare it to the times on my app. That way, I can get accurate times for them without trying to write anything down while the trial is going on. Sounds complicated, but it's actually much easier than trying to shout out numbers that the kids don't understand at all.

I was very impressed with this group of kids! They all put in a great effort and there was very little walking. I told them that if it feels too hard, they should slow down, but keep running.

After the time trial was a game of Sharks & Minnows (a version of tag) and then some static stretching. I explained about prizes this year--last time, I did a points system where they could earn points and spend them on prizes. It got tedious trying to keep track of their points, so I'm going to keep it simple this time: as they accumulate miles, there will be awards for reaching numbers like 10 miles, 20, etc. I figured that this will motivate them to run more at practice.

I have a few prizes left from the last time I coached (I cannot thank you enough for donating prizes/reward!! It was SO helpful! And your retired Garmin Forerunners--the kids love using them and it makes them feel so special to wear a "fancy" running watch.) The Amazon wish list for the team a couple of years ago was so fun--the kids loved seeing the prizes people donated--and I *think* I may make another one for this season. I always feel bad asking for donations for anything, but I feel like donating rewards for kids' cross country is a selfless wish list ;) 

The first practice went great and I think we have a good group of kids this season. It'll take me forever to learn their names (I wish I was good at that!). We have practice tomorrow and again Thursday (I'll be coaching on my own on Thursday).

Anyway, today's practice was just what I needed to forget about all the stress I have going on right now. Hoping for a fun season!

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VEGAN RECIPE REVIEW: Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies

Normally, I don't avoid flour--so it wasn't the "flourless" that drew me into this recipe. I just happen to love coconut in cookies, and the ingredients here are some of my favorites: coconut, chocolate chips, peanut butter, and oats. How could it be anything but delicious?!

Oh She Glows is a super popular vegan blog, and while I like to try to pick recipes from lesser-known sites, this recipe had great reviews and it looked like something the whole family would really like. (Even Eli, who doesn't like "vegan food".)

The recipe I chose this week is called Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies by Oh She Glows. (I'll link to it again at the end of the post.) And as usual, I made the recipe as-written, with the exception of the fact that I did not use gluten-free oats--I eat gluten so I never buy gluten-free oats). The ingredients are similar to what you would typically expect of a cookie (minus eggs and butter!): ground flaxseed, water, shredded coconut, rolled oats, brown sugar, baking powder, salt, non-dairy chocolate chips, natural smooth peanut butter, vanilla extract, and maple syrup.

Totally forgot that I dropped the baking powder on the floor before I took this pic

First thing's first: Preheat the oven to 350 F. Then line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.

Then, it's time to make the flax egg. This is the "glue" that holds the cookies together like a chicken egg would do. You mix the ground flaxseed with water and let it sit; and eventually, it forms a more gel-like texture.

This is what it will look like later:

Next, you mix the coconut, oats, brown sugar, baking powder, salt, and chocolate chips to a mixer. This is where I had a little problem...

The recipe calls for 1/2 cup packed brown sugar (or 68 grams). I like recipes that include the weight of the ingredients because I like to measure that way for accuracy. When I packed the brown sugar into the half-cup measuring cup, the weight was WAY more than 68 grams. So I measured the 68 grams into the half cup measuring cup and this is what it looked like:

It was a HUGE difference. So I'm not sure if the recipe meant a packed 1/4 cup and the recipe had an error, or maybe that's just what a half-cup looks like when you weigh it out. I went with the 68-gram measurement instead of packing the half-cup and hoped it would turn out!

Thankfully, there was no problem with the peanut butter. It said 1/2 cup (or 125 mL) and it was spot-on when I measured/weighed:

Anyway, first you mix the dry ingredients (plus the chocolate chips, which I found a bit odd--usually they are added at the end--but I went with it).

Then you mix the wet ingredients together--the flax egg, peanut butter, vanilla extract, and maple syrup. It makes a thick, sticky-looking peanut buttery deliciousness that I could probably eat right out of the bowl. 

Once that is smooth, you stir the peanut butter mixture into the oat mixture and mix until combined.

Then you drop the cookies onto the parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Since the cookies don't really change shape in the oven you are supposed to flatten them a bit.

The recipe said I'd get 13 cookies, but I got 14. Bonus! Before and after baking:

I let them cool completely before eating one and holy cow--they were so delicious! 

They are very chewy and dense, and a tad bit sticky (in a good way). The peanut butter is perfect--not too much, not too little. In fact, all of the ingredients seemed to be the perfect proportions--including the brown sugar. So I would definitely measure that by weight and not volume.

Jerry, Noah, Eli, and Eli's girlfriend were all here and they tried them as well. They all loved them--even Eli! They absolutely don't "taste vegan"--you could serve them to a room full of people and nobody would ever know that there aren't any eggs or dairy.

Overall, if you like chewy cookies with a variety of textures (and peanut butter), you'll probably like these. Adding nuts would be great, too, to give them some crunch! It makes a relatively small batch, so you don't have cookies lying around for days to keep grabbing when you walk by.

These cookies are a winner, and I will definitely make them when I bring a dessert to share somewhere.

You can find the full recipe for the cookies on Oh She Glows - Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies.

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Red Lights

I hate to do this sort of non-post post (where I don't really write, but post pictures or memes or whatever instead), but sometimes I have days where I really need to take a break from writing. Today is one of those days; I just feel extremely stressed out.

There are times in my life that seem so easy--it feels like hitting all the green traffic lights on a long drive through a city while your favorite song is playing on the radio. Lately, I feel like I've been hitting all the red lights and the radio is playing nothing but ads. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about--where nothing seems to go right for a while. (Yes, I know I'm probably being dramatic and I'm trying to focus on the positive side of things, but I'm having a very hard time doing that right now.)

Anyway, I don't want to make this a downer post (I hate writing those!). Instead, I caught up on my random facts calendar--I was super far behind--and I found a lot of very interesting ones, so I thought I'd post those today. Hopefully you'll find them as interesting as I did!

Well, tomorrow is my last day before cross country starts on Monday and I haven't even put together a plan--so I need to get to work on that!

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Friday Night Photos

Man, this week has gone by so fast! I have been up to my eyeballs in construction work for the bedroom and bathroom. Lucky for anyone reading this, I won't be posting more pictures of it this week ;)  It's killing me not to go in there and start framing the closet walls (which I have no idea how to do!) and install the bathtub/shower (also don't know how to do). I can't do the cosmetic stuff (flooring, painting, trim, etc) until everything else is done.

This week, I tried to take a lot of pictures--and several of them are from the pets. But I can't help it! They are too cute.

This morning, I went to some garage sales with my parents (I haven't gone in YEARS--it was so fun!) and one of the things I bought was this cat bed. You can see Duck took it over immediately. Not at all surprising.

 

I fell asleep while Jerry and I were watching a movie and Duck decided to come sleep by my head. I miss when he used to do that every single day! Now it's more like once a week. But I really love it when he does.

For some reason, Chick decided to come lie on my lap as well (this was actually before Duck did). Did I ever mention how much I love cats? ;)

Phoebe is still hanging in there. She's been eating less and less and she's starting to look greasy again, but as long as she seems happy, we'll just keep doing what we've been doing.

It's shedding season, and you can see just how disgusted Joey is that I waited so long to brush his undercoat, hahaha. He looks so sad! But honestly, he was thrilled. He LOVES getting brushed and I'm always amazed at how much fur comes off of him. I use the Furminator brush and you can see the big pile of fur next to him. (Here is an affiliate link to the Ferminator on Amazon--it is the BEST brush to get the undercoat of dogs!)

Even if you're not a cat person, you have to admit this is adorable. I wish I could be that comfy!

Noah has really gotten into disc golf with Jerry, which I think is awesome. Eli hasn't shown any interest in it, but he's been regular-golfing a LOT this summer. (If you ever want to get Jerry all riled up, call disc golfing "frisbee" and watch his reaction--hahaha!)

Jerry insisted on taking my picture outside of The Container Store--where we went for our 19th wedding anniversary, hahaha. 

We spent probably two hours in there looking for containers for our closet (ones that didn't cost an arm and a leg). We didn't buy each other gifts, so this was a combined gift to each other. An organized closet! Just what we always imagined for our 19th anniversary. Next year for our 20th, we really do need to plan something nice ahead of time. Maybe a weekend getaway.

And the next day, we busted out the containers and got to work folding and organizing. It's not totally done (can you believe we didn't get enough containers?!) but it'll be nice to have it done soon.

My neighbor has a garden like nothing you've ever seen, and lucky me--she gives me a lot of her extra harvest! Recently, she gave me several eggplants--they're mini-sized, which is perfect. I hoped to love eggplant, and I tried it, but I just don't care for it. I told her I'd try them again though.

I thought this was hilarious. You know how channels will make suggestions for you to watch? Well, this was one that they suggested for me:

I happen to love pesto sauce, but it's not vegan unless you swap out the parmesan. However, I love olives, and when I saw this vegan black olive pesto sauce, I just had to buy it. I haven't tried it yet, but maybe I'll have some with pretzels later for a snack.

The township had our road repaved! Not exciting for the most part, but I am thrilled. It'll be much better for running and/or riding bikes.

Yesterday morning, I spent some time making pre-made mixes to keep things simpler when I cook. I made Nacho Popcorn Seasoning, yellow cake mix (for one-serving mug cakes!), a seasoning for scrambled tofu (like eggs), a vegetable bouillon powder, vegan mac and "cheese" powder, and one (not pictured) vegan parmesan. I made a mug cake today for all of us to try and it was SO good! Something to keep in mind when I want to pig out on sweets. It was very satisfying. Even Eli liked it!

In the hopes of winning over my mom with tofu (and *really* hoping my dad would at least take a bite of hers, I made my mom a salad with avocado, tomatoes, cucumbers, and lemon pepper tofu. Then I made a tahini dressing. It looked fantastic! I hope she liked the taste of it; she and my dad are used to the food they've always eaten, so it's hard for them to try new things with an open mind.

I ordered some more nutritional yeast from Amazon (it's amazing how fast I go through it!) and the seal looked a little weird. I didn't open it, but I wrote Amazon and got a refund for it. They told me just to keep the package, so I ordered a new one. Today, I opened both because I wanted to compare. Well, the one on the left was the one with the wonky seal. So clearly, it had gone bad. It's not supposed to look like that.

After listening to the podcast episode about sprouting from Plant Powdered People, I just had to give it a try. Nothing fancy; I just bought the mesh tops for the mason jars (Amazon affiliate link) and a bag of mung bean seeds (also on Amazon). First I had to soak them, then drain and let rest at an angle (enough for the water to be released but also so that air can get to it). Then each morning and evening, I water them (I don't even have to take the lid off) and then flip it back over to drain. The top picture was on Tuesday. The bottom was today--that's how fast they grew! 

And finally, today is the 13th year anniversary of when I started losing weight. I cannot believe it's been 13 years since that first picture was taken. I remember exactly what I was thinking when I saw the photographers taking pictures. Looking at my neck still blows me away! I think I lost over four inches in my neck alone.

This morning, I was feeling kind of brave and I took a few pictures of me in bra and underwear. I was thinking about posting (no filters, no photoshop, etc--I never alter my appearance that way) a picture of what a 40-year old mom, having had two large babies, having lost 100+ pounds, having had surgery to remove excess skin, and who still has large amounts of excess skin. I would be setting myself up for mean comments, but I think it might be helpful, too. We'll see if I'm brave enough to actually post it!

And that's all I've got. Have a great weekend! xo

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Running Recap: August 12-18, 2022

It's kind of pointless to continue calling this the "Return to Running" recap like I was before, because I pretty much feel like I'm starting over from square one! I hadn't run in a few months prior to Monday.

I don't know what possessed me on Monday, but the weather was a little bit fall-like and I had the urge to go run. Before I could talk myself out of it, I hurriedly threw on some running clothes and my Garmin and headed out.

I know I always have some sort of plan for running (whether I follow it or not) and I usually have an agenda, whether it's lowering my heart rate, getting faster, or running farther. 

Well, I'm stating right now that I have no agenda. My biggest goal is to run three miles, three times a week until I'm confident that I'm running regularly. No matter the pace or time or heart rate, my only goal is to hit three miles. That takes a lot of pressure off! And since I'll be coaching cross country again this year, I want to be able to keep up with the kids.

I discovered a cool new feature on the Garmin Connect app that allows you to add your runs' stats to your photos. I figured that would be super efficient on my running recap posts. 

On Monday, I ran outside. It felt hard! My legs were tired and my throat got very dry to the point that it hurt to swallow (I definitely need to drink water before I leave the house to run). I did one of my favorite routes and I was happy that I managed to do pretty well! It was hard, but do-able.

I was actually really surprised by my pace--I was sure I'd be logging 13-14:00 minutes per mile. Still, it wasn't easy!

My second run was today. I was tempted to skip it, but when I was complaining to Jerry that my stomach just doesn't seem to be shrinking right now, he reminded me that I was in my best shape when I was running. That kind of lit a spark in me--I am eating really well and getting my shit together (I was hit with bad news a few times over the last three weeks and it's been emotional). I think that getting back to running will help me to feel a lot better about things (or at least forget for a while).

Today, it was miserably hot outside, so I chose to do the treadmill. There was quite a bit of dust on it! The first mile felt like *forever* and I waited and waited to hear the beep that signaled a mile. Finally, I looked at the Garmin and saw that I'd run 1.32 miles--I guess my auto lap wasn't turned on (usually I get a notification at each mile).

I varied the speed quite a bit as I was running--faster and slower--to make it feel hard but not TOO hard to where I wouldn't want to do it again. I was so hot when I was done! But I'm really happy that I'm still able to run three miles. I honestly wasn't sure if I could.

I'm curious to see if eating vegan has any effect on my running. Jerry went for a run today and he said it was one of his best runs yet and he wonders if it's because he's been eating vegan for about three weeks now.

Okay, so if I can just keep on running, I'd like to start posting my weekly recaps again (Wednesday through Thursday, so today will mark the end of this week). My body feels really good about it and it helped me to take my mind off of everything for a little bit. Maybe it'll even help me get back into reading! I used to read on the treadmill, but I haven't finished a book in a long time because I just don't take the time to read anymore.

Anyway, I did not only one, but TWO runs this week and I feel great about that :)

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