Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Hello July! ..What Happened in June?!

Holy smokes it's July 4th already! I hope you had a wonderful holiday and the fireworks were spectacular by you.. whether you saw them at the park or made some of your own at home. ; )

Well, I sure am starting to sound like a broken record, but dang it.. life has been busy, leaving me too few minutes in the day to read or blog and blog hop as much as I'd like. I thought the school year was never going to end there for a while, but it finally did on June 20. I swear we were the last schools in session in the whole country by then. Both girls brought home awesome report cards. My youngest ended 7th grade with all A's and a few B's.. honors in several of her classes, high honors in Language Arts. That's my girl! My oldest finished 11th grade--her junior year with a stellar report card. Also A's and a scarce B, most of her courses being honors and honors AP courses. She did so well, she boosted her overall GPA a smidgen and now has over a 4.0 GPA! YES! My girls are some smart cookies! So proud. ^_^

I imagined summer break was going to be lazy, easy, breezy, but alas it's been quite hectic. All good things, but my time management skills are forever a work in progress so I'm not very methodical about getting stuff done. Everything always seems half finished and I can't seem to carve out a decent block of time for myself to read or blog. I always think I'll get to it in the evening after dinner, but I don't know what happens. Well, I do know. I end up being too tired to be on the computer, so I decide to read instead, which ends up being pitiful anyway because I fall asleep after just a few pages. It's a vicious cycle.

My youngest is away at sleep away camp for the first time ever this week. We were busy getting ready for that last week, including packing, shopping for some supplies and getting a physical, etc. No phone calls to or from camp are allowed unless it's an emergency. It drives me batty not being in touch with my kid, but I'm trying not to worry about the little things and trying instead to picture her having a great time, making new friends, trying new things and basically having a really positive experience. I admit I'm looking forward to picking her up on Saturday.. seeing her face, hugging her and hearing all about her adventures.

My oldest landed a nice nanny/babysitting job three days a week for a family with three young girls... ages 10, 8 and 4, I believe. Even though it's a lot of work caring for and playing with the girls, taking them to the pool and activities, I'm not sure who's having more fun here... the little girls or my teen! She loves it. She's also in Volleyball training three nights a week and on her days off from babysitting she's out and about with her friends or her boyfriend. Never a dull moment.

Before I forget, here's a quick look at what I was up to in June. My memory's already getting fuzzy. :/

In fitness & health: 
My workout schedule has been pretty similar each week lately. Strength training, a weekly kickbox class, running and biking. I've spent most of my workout time on the bike, having ridden 274.6 miles in June! My longest single ride was 70.4 miles which was nearly five hours of cycling. Boy, was I tired that day!

I finished June with 133+ fitness challenge miles where 1 fitness mile = 1 mile run = 15 minutes of other cardio or strength training.

I have also been participating in the weekly Reader's Workout Meme hosted by Joy. Check it out over at her blog if you're interested in joining in. It's a low-key, casual thing.. and very welcoming. In the Reader's Workout Meme, some of the participants are tracking their exercise in total minutes spent exercising. I clocked in with 1884 minutes in June or 31 hours and 24 minutes! That averages to about 63 minutes a day. Not bad!

I recently recommitted myself [again, I know] to losing 20-25 lbs. between now and Thanksgiving. I'm working on a few aspects of my diet plus I want to add more strength training to my weekly workout plan. I'll keep you posted.

What did you do to keep moving last month?

In books: 
I read only five books in June.. I guess it's indicative of how busy I was with other things last month. Still, the five books I read were pretty darned good so I'm not complaining!

Romance .............. 4
                  Historical .... 3
                  Paranormal...1
Children's Lit........1

1. The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie by Jennifer Ashley
2. Lady Isabella's Scandalous Marriage by Jennifer Ashley
3. Odd And The Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman
4. Tangle of Need by Nalini Singh
5. Caine's Reckoning by Sarah McCarty

My favorites are The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie and Tangle of Need--both books get five stars from me.

What noteworthy books did you read in June?

In photography: 
I had fun participating in a photo-a-day challenge hosted by the Fat Mum Slim blog, or @fatmumslim on twitter. The fun daily prompts helped me stay on track taking a picture every day and the best part? I made some new friends on Instagram! Yay! :) I've decided to do the #photoadayJuly challenge too. As well as a fun daily picture challenge for book-mided people hosted by Cassandra at Indie Reader Houston. You can follow this challenge on twitter or instagram using the #dailybookpic hash tag.

Come back later for my favorite photos from my Project 366.. [I'll post them in the morning.]

As always, you can follow my photography challenges on http://web.stagram.com/n/thehappilyeverafter .

In the garden: 
I finally finished the new vegetable garden. For the most part, anyway. You're never going to believe this.. but I'm not so crazy with this location anymore. I think I might be re-re-establishing my vegetable garden to the backyard next year. So indecisive, I know. In the meantime, at least I have some tomato plants in the ground and growing! Finally! I'll edit pictures into this post tomorrow.. I want to post this now before I delay it another day. And it's time for me to get my beauty sleep. Zzzzz...

Thanks for reading about my June adventures. Here's wishing you a jubilant July! ^_^

6 comments:

  1. It seriously amazes me how much you got going on in your life!
    And YAY for smart kids! ;)

    And the books you read sound pretty good. Were you wow-ed by Lord Ian McKenzie? I'm on the fence about reading that.

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  2. Your girls are amazing! I've been pretty bad about keeping track of the books I've read per month. Thank goodness for Goodreads.
    Your exercising has been fantastic! I can't imagine biking for five hours straight. I've tried a couple of new classes at the Y (Zumba Sentao and Kickboxing) and loved them and added swimming laps into the mix, too.

    Hope your July turns out to be a bit more relaxing for you!

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  3. June has flown, as will July : ( great report for your girls!

    I've posted some pics on my blog of my garden, pretty happy with it. Reading wise June was decent. I think busy or not the summer flies by.

    Paula

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  4. Congrats to your girls - great report cards! Is it your eldest's last year at school next year? I hope your youngest is enjoying camp!

    WTG on your exercise! I'm...going to have to start again :) I keep falling off the exercise horse :)

    And I'm looking forward to seeing the tomato photos :)

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  5. Christine, this summer has been crazy! I thought I left a comment here and hmm... did not. I'm so glad you loved Lord Ian's book. :) Now you must read Cam's (I loved that one!). *g*

    And, although I don't always leave comments on your garden related posts (since I don't have one), I always look forward to the pictures. I live vicariously. LOL!

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  6. I can't believe I never replied to comments on my June Adventures post. How embarrassing. So sorry..

    Alex, I don't think I have that much going on in my life! It just sounds like I do. ; )

    You know, YES! I was pretty WOWed by The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie. His character is very unique, compelling and realistic. HE was interesting, the story was interesting and the romance was really good. I liked the writing, too. I believe I gave it five stars on goodreads. I've read the second book in the series and liked it very much--maybe 4 stars? I'm definitely reading this whole series now.

    Brandy, Thanks! :)
    Five hours on the bike is a lot but it goes by quickly, believe it or not. The scenery is constantly changing and usually nice where we ride, so it's really enjoyable. Plus my cycling partner and I chat along the way here and there, so it feels social, too.

    Paula, I bet your garden is a jungle by now! Mine went a little crazy while we were away on vacation for 12 days. I didn't even ask anyone to water it or anything and it went wild all by itself. :)

    orannia, September will be the beginning of Maria's last year of high school. Cannot believe it. sheesh. Anna did really well with camp but doesn't think it's for her so she probably wont' do it again next summer. Fine by me.. it was a small fortune!

    Tomato plant pics to come!

    Hilcia, This has been a crazy fast summer. I cannot believe it is August 8 already. So sad. lol! The extent of my veggie garden is very limited this year but at least it's something! Tomatoes and basil .. a few herbs. That's it. I love it though and hope to do more next year. Pics to come--I promise!

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