AJMcCormick.com

Gooood morning! Still feeling puny today but trying to convince myself that I feel chipper…it’s kinda working. Got three days until school starts aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh and my to-do list just keeps growing and growing! The major things on today’s is to clean out my closet/finish unpacking (we only moved here in May haha), plan a menu for next week (I really fell behind on my nutrition last semester because I never planned ahead), and work on little “handbooks” for my newspaper staff. We’ve got our first meeting/orientation next Saturday and I haven’t even started prepping yet.

What sucks the most about school starting back up is that I actually have to start getting ready in the mornings and can’t just wear my workout clothes all day. Sure I could wear them, but I’ve promised myself I’d never be one of those people. Also, its practically a gateway to letting yourself go. Next thing you know I’ll be walking into Wal-Mart with fuzzy bunny slippers, that used to be light pink but are now more a gray, and pajama pants- -blech.

I’ve been working on mastering my “extreme berry smoothies” and have almost got them down. Here’s my current recipe:

– 3/4 to 1 cup pomegranate juice
– One large handful of frozen raspberries
– Two large handfuls of whole frozen strawberries
– One small handful fresh blueberries
– 8 ounces (or 1/2 a cup) of low-fat vanilla yogurt

I make sure to only buy unsweetened fruit as the added sugar is completely unnecessary (if you really want extra sugar, maybe try agave nectar). I was using fresh raspberries, but they are now out of season here. I do try to always use at least one frozen fruit; it helps with the texture of the smoothie and is much better than watering down the smoothie with ice. The frozen fruit needs to thaw for at least 10 minutes or you’ll have chunks, so I usually add the frozen fruit and juice to the blender, then clean the kitchen or find some other chore to do, then return to the smoothie. According to an article I read in Delicious Living, raspberries, strawberries and pomegranates are 3 of the 5 top fruits (the other two being plums and tomatoes….I don’t care how good for you they are, I’m not putting tomatoes in my smoothies).

Well my thoughts are wandering and my post is getting pretty scattered, so I’m going to sign off for now.

-AJ

So I woke up feeling pretty crappy today. Let myself sleep in an extra hour but it didn’t really help much. Got zero sleep last night…after staring at the ceiling for a few hours I finally fell asleep, only to awake and 3 a.m. even more wide awake–just got too much on the mind! Going to go buy me some extra strong nighttime tea today, that is if I ever get my act together and shower so I can leave the house without scaring any children away…which wouldn’t really be a bad thing teehee.

I said I’d ramble about school today and the stress I’m fearing, but yesterday I decided to put my game face back on and found that I’m actually kind of excited. *Sigh* I’m such a geek. Well I’ve got four days left of summer and will most likely spend it cleaning and prepping for next semester (I still have two garbage bags and one box of clothes in my closet that I haven’t even opened since we moved).

I’ve actually got the house to myself for a little while this morning, so I think I’m going to blast some music and try to trick myself into believing that I feel better than I do so I can be productive. Sorry this is such a lame post, but even with my yoga did and my second cup of coffee consumed, my brain is just not with the program today. Sooooo I’ll share a video I love. How about: “Percussion Gun” by the White Rabbits (which is currently my favorite song).

-AJ

School starts next week, BAH! I have had such a fear of the stress I’ll most likely encounter next semester that I went into denial over the summer. I have done absolutely nothing and it has been absolutely glorious! After a week of two or summer, it finally soaked in that I could do whatever I wanted, on my own schedule. So what’d I do? I went and bought season 2 of True Blood and watched it straight through, then again with the commentary. That kept me entertained for a few days and then I decided to go buy all of The Sookie Stackhouse Series by Charlaine Harris and didn’t leave my room, now tauntingly called “The Cave” by my family, for a week.

After finishing the series, I read them again haha. A little less obsessively as the first time, but still. By this time I had completely quit turning on my laptop and lost pretty much all touch with the outside world. My Dad managed to get a hold of me and I went to stay with him and my step mom, Sandy, at their home in Florida for the month of July. It’s always nice being there, and over the years it has become my home away from home. For the most part I continued my lazy streak there but did get one beach day in (I had some freak reaction to the sun, which is extremely odd because I lived in Hawaii for almost two years and never experienced anything like that. Anyway after that, I couldn’t bring myself to return to the beach, as much as I love it). After returning from Florida, my reading log count, including the stuff I read twice, was at 42.

I came back to *lovely* Amarillo near the end of July and have been working my butt off trying to make up for all my laziness. I’ve been cleaning like crazy, rearranged my room a few times, cooking a lot, walking the dogs whenever it gets below 90 degrees, doing Yoga daily, and then walking an hour on the treadmill or doing an additional Yoga session in the evenings. I still wind down too early in the evenings, and starting today I’m going to try and start to change that. I kinda exhausted myself with the leisure reading (thanks to the last two semesters of school, it had been over a year since I read a book for fun), and have only read one book since I got back: Every Demon Has His Day by Cara Lockwood. It wasn’t an extraordinary read, but it was entertaining and kept my interest enough that I’ll buy her next book in the series. Her writing kind of reminds me of Christopher Moore, just a little less out there.

Next semester, I’m going to have a class at 5:30 p.m. so I’ve really got to get out of my 6 p.m. “wind down.” Anyway, this entire post was supposed to be about next semester and I started rambling SO I’ll post about next semester tomorrow…

-AJ

Oh! P.S. Went to Chick-Fil-A yesterday to try and get a Veggie Cool Wrap and was informed that “they are pre-made with the chicken,” which contradicts what a letter from headquarters said that I had found on the Web…major bummer =(

     So, I am officially addicted to Yoga. I have tried multiple times over the past two years to start up a regular Yoga practice, including taking an actual class, and I think it is finally sticking!

Last Christmas, my dad and step-mom got me a beginners Yoga kit that included Rodney Yee’s Yoga for Beginners. The DVD has a 10-minute, I believe, a.m. Yoga, as well as a 30-minute daily Yoga. The daily Yoga has his own version of Surya Namarskara, or Sun Salutation, that he leads into some warrior poses and balance practices and then finishes with some relaxation meditations (I’m not going to look up the proper names right now, as every time I go to look them up I get distracted and it takes me at least 15 minutes to get back to the post).

Yesterday marked almost two weeks that I’ve been doing the routine every day and I’ve started to feel quite comfortable with the poses. The transition I was having the most trouble with was going from push-up position, to upward facing dog, to downward facing dog. So that was the transition I’ve been most determined to improve on and finally think I have, so I went ahead and purchased Yee’s Strength Building Yoga and Yoga Burn.

I was so excited when I got home, that I immediately popped in the Strength Building Yoga. A review I read about it warned that it was “strenuous”, and they were not kidding. After going over a few “simple” sequences, we then went into a 2-minute hold of downward facing dog, as well as extended triangle holds, (on the beginner’s DVD we were holding for about one 8-count, I used to take dance so I still count in 8-counts for a lot of things), some headstand preparation stretches, and a supported shoulder stand that I think we held for 2-minutes as well (again not looking up proper names in order to keep my trail of thought).

I made it through the first 45 minutes and then had to give up before he began arm balancing poses. I have very weak wrists so after doing my morning yoga, and the 45 minutes of strength building, I would’ve been sitting in child’s pose for the duration of the DVD.

I realized that I may be getting addicted when I sat down to watch the new episode of True Blood last night, which was pretty FAN-tastic, and had a yearning to hop on my yoga mat, which now has a permanent residence in the center of my room.

I woke up early this morning, excited to try out some more of my new DVDs, only to be hit with the beginning of the dreaded cramps. I’ve been doing a lot of reading this morning about how you are not supposed to do any inverted poses during your menstrual cycle, inverted being anything that requires your head to go below your heart, so pretty much all that’s left are floor stretches and relaxation/meditation poses. I like those plenty enough, but I was really on a roll–ARGH!

I’m going to put in the Yoga Burn dvd here in a bit and see if, and hope that, there are enough sequences that I can do and still feel a little accomplished. If not, guess I’ll hit up the treadmill for an hour while I watch General Hospital.

-AJ

OH! P.S. I just read yesterday that Chick-Fil-A will make veggie-only cool wraps by request!!! I am uber excited to get me one =D