Product Review: Quaker Breakfast Flats

I feel like my life has calmed down enough that I’m finally able to accept  VoxBoxes from Influenster again. I usually am on top of accepting their surveys and trying out their products that they send and writing a review. But with how busy life has been recently, I haven't wanted to get busy and forget about doing them!

This last time, I forget what the survey questions were, but the box was a pack of the Quaker Breakfast Flats. I got a cranberry almond flavor. 3 flat bars come per pack.

I ate all 3 within 10 minutes probably as a mid morning snack between breakfast and lunch. They were a bit dry, and makes me wish I had some coconut milk or almond milk to go with it. But they were super tasty, and not as crummy as the Nature Valley bars (where crumbs go EVERYWHERE). I do like them, and with some further research into how healthy they are (for my diet goals, not diet like cutting out food, but changing the diet to healthier options)

Here are the bars peeking out of the package. They were the entire length of the packaging, so well worth what the price would be, I think.

Probably could have cropped this picture, but I wanted to take the picture before I devoured the food, and at work, I didn't have much time to make a nice background.

So, after eating these, I definitely have to say "Thanks!" to influenster for opening the door to a new product I may not have otherwise purchased to try.

Product received complimentary through influenster, I did not pay for the product. Opinions are my own, I am not being asked to provide anything specific other than my opinion.

Get it Right Get it Tight: Kickboxing

Last time we talked fitness, I was raving about Kaia Fit, and how amazing it was and how amazing I felt. I still stand by those statements. It is a great program, however, it's not for me. What I wanted was to gain strength and muscle. What I got was cardio workouts that equaled body shredding of fat and endurance; Not a bad thing at all, just not what I was desiring out of a workout.



So I stopped going. I cancelled my VIP membership and just went line dancing. I lost a lot of endurance I had, and while dancing is great, again, it wasn't doing what I needed to change about my body. I couldn't quite pick up running again. A few things contributed to that. First off, when I was doing squats in Kaia, no one mentioned to not drop your knees over your toes. I had my weight in my heels yes, but my knees had leaned forward over my toes, rather than sitting back like I was sitting in a chair. Secondly, I danced so hard and frequently in the beginning of the year in addition to Kaia, so I think the combination of improper squats and dropping it like it's hot to a few line dancing songs killed my knees.



I've been trying to let my knees heal, but in that song Whiskey Drinking SOB when they say "One step two stepping out on the floor, you pop lock and drop it till you can't anymore" it's hard to not drop it when everyone else around you is. I've gotten better about it. Just need to keep telling myself if I don't stop dropping it, I'm going to have to have my knees replaced. So that's a process.



So, my new form of working out? Kickboxing. One of my coworkers talked about a banging deal for 3 kickboxing classes for $20 ($19.99 if you wanna get technical with it) and a free pair of gloves through ilovekickboxing.com. I thought that it was a good deal and decided to sign up. Well if you go through Yelp.com, there's a deal for 5 classes for $30 and gloves. Groupon is also running a special for the Reno classes. So it's a great way to test and see if you like it.



Sure enough, I did. There's a great grueling 15 minute warm up, which the more I go, the shorter it seems. Following that is stretching, which I think could use a little improving maybe? Its always the same stretches but I don't know what other ones could target the same muscles. And then the rounds begin. Rounds are varied with punches and kicks. Based on ability level, you can control your own workout. You can hit the bag has hard or as soft as you want. A few girls have kicked the bags over. I'm surprised that in the classes I've taken, no man has yet.



After the rounds, there's a short partner workout for a couple minutes, followed by a final round of stretching.



It's a great workout, and I truly enjoy it. I see the type of results I want. I know I'm not getting a ton of strength in my upper body, that would come from the gym and lifting. But I'm happy coming from where I was and getting to where I am. I got a full year membership there. But with all the moving and what not, finances weren't really supporting my working out, so I put it on pause. And Feb 9th, 2016, I made my return. Life had finally calmed down enough to where I can make time to go work out again. And let me tell you, I had forgotten how sore I was. Hoooo baby. I'm feeling it. But, it just means I need to keep on plugging to get back to where I was before I paused. (Can't say I quit, because I'm back!)








I'm really excited for the results I've seen, and excited for what's to come!

Until next time
-S

PfWo Project: Moving Day!

I'll let you in on a secret. I hate moving. I really do. As nice as it might be to some to pack up their life and go through things as they're putting them away nicely, I don't. Trying to pack plates and cups and all that flatware...utterly stressful!

I'm all for tips and tricks and hacks to make moving and packing easier. While I know I have plenty of friends who would probably gladly help me move with their trucks, I'd rather just fork out $80 to rent a UHAUL and put all my stuff and move in one fell swoop.

The day we closed was a Thursday evening, Max and I grabbed our dog, stopped by Jimmy John's, my go to for first meals in new places, and went to the new house and had dinner.

Did I mention it was in the dark because I forgot to schedule the power turn on for that day. Whoops.

Friday, we did a mini move of some items. And we began the painting process.

But Saturday, that was the big move. Happy Halloween to us.

These pictures were taken a couple days before. Max helped with the packing (Thanks to his UPS skills). I was so caught up in directing the move, that pictures were scarcely taken.

The first of the packing began October 25th, 2015.

The living full of boxes for sorting.

 

The bed which was a sorting spot.

 

THIS IS BY FAR MY FAVORITE PACKING HACK! Saves so much time. Just use trash bags to bundle your clothes. Then it's easy to just get them rehung at the next place!

 

Ruger was very concerned that we were going to leave him. Actually, he had no idea. He'd never gone through a move before. After all, he was only about 6 months old. He just had fun hopping in and out and darting around the boxes. That's a collie for you.

 

Amidst the chaos, this was the ONE picture I managed to get on moving day. Max just backed the truck into the front yard of my old place so we could load all right from the door into the truck, which he oh so strategically packed. He was amazing.

 

 

Aside from Max, we had our friend Lance help, and my friend Cody. Great team of people. It didn't take us that long to move, ok, well maybe 3 hours. But we made it in one trip! Oh, the only thing that didn't fit in the Uhaul was my couch, which Lance was able to fit in his truck. And some breakables we could have fit in the Uhaul, but didn't want to because they were breakables.

 

Overall, great easy morning. The hardest part was the unpacking...which to this day, isn't done. We had some other obligation that day where we were gone most of it. And by the time we got home around 9, we had trick or treaters. We ran out of candy...who knew there were that many kids in the new neighborhood?! Yeesh! we'll plan better for next year :)

 

So, guess that's it for now. Until next time...

Let's Get Personal: The Lenten Season

Lent is just for Catholics.
You can't eat meat on Fridays.
You HAVE to give up something luxurious.


These are just a few of the things I have heard over the years regarding Lent. It wasn't until this year, that I decided I wanted to participate in Lent, and know why I was doing it. So I researched, I talked with my friend who researched it. And, I ordered the study book from shereadstruth.com to go through. And so far, today is day 2, but already I've learnt so much.


This season of Lent isn't just giving something up to better yourself. I think it varies from person to person, and thanks to Jesus, we're free to partake, and we're free to not. So I've chosen to give something up that could be considered 'bad' for me, and add something to the 40 days to better my walk with God.


I'm giving up Facebook. I spent A TON of time on there, just wasting time. Scrolling and scrolling and scrolling on my feed to read pointless articles about this news trend, or that cute animal video, etc. When that time could have been so much better spent: with Jesus, cleaning, running, etc. So I won't be on FB until late March. I'm taking that time to grow my relationship with Jesus, to stop letting the world distract me from getting to know my God.


And the addition? I've decided to add a daily gratitude. Philippians is full of "Rejoice" and "joy" so many times, and that key verse most seem to know "Rejoice in the Lord always". So many times at the end of the day, I moan and groan and bitch and gripe about that aspect of work, or this person, or that defendant, or that pooper on the freeway. How much more joy would there be if I stopped focusing on the negative and focused on the positive?

I kind of failed yesterday in my abstaining from Facebook, but, then again I didn't. I popped on real quick to post in the kickboxing group I'm part of asking a question, then only popped on to check the notifications until I got an answer. And then I was off the rest of the day. So we'll see how the rest of the 40 days go.

I'm stoked to see what God's going to do, what I'm going to learn, and how much closer my boyfriend and I will grow, Oh, did I not mention that we're doing this together? He's got the hereadstruth.com version of the Lent study. We've done the Philippians and Colossians together, so it'll be cool, as it was before.

So, are you participating? What are you giving up? Why? Are you adding anything in?

Until next time

-Samantha

PfWo Project: House to Home - The Introduction

I think I'll call this series about the house PfWo Project: House to Home. We'll see how well the title sticks, or if Max likes it too. [Maybe he'll be a guest blogger. Though his blogs are more poetic here's how I feel posts. Less the DIY, Tried it and here's how it turned out, Fashion posts.]

Title derives from our last names. First two initials of our last names, mine being "Pf" and his being "Wo". And then since it's our first house, it'll be how we take it from just a house, to our amazing home. (Eventually the names in the title may change, if I'm lucky!)

So first off, welcome to the PfWo house when we moved in eons ago (Being October 2015). These were the pictures I took on our final walk through before we moved in:

Here's the kitchen and laundry room. Hideous color! Blech.

 

We have plans to remodel this bad boy and make it more efficient. Now after living there 3 months, we have a good idea of what we want to change. (By the way, that handsome devil is Max, the awesome boyfriend I have in my life :))

 

Our living room. Still a weird yellow color. We have since painted the whole house.

 

The unique full bath in the hallway

The tiniest room in the house, it's 8x9. Max and I think we're going to make it workout/prayer room. And we're going to repaint it. But we haven't decided yet which color we're going to.

This is the master. It isn't a horrible color. But we've repainted since we've moved. Look for future posts to see the aftermath.

 

 

This is the unique half bath in the master.

 

Walk in closet in the master. I have since taken over the left side, and Max has the backside.

 

This is the guest room. We've left the color as is so far. And it's also my cat Smidge's room lol.

 

This room will be the office. We're not going to keep the purple color. I've ordered a desk (last week) and I'm assuming Max and I will paint it before the desk gets placed.

 

The house wasn't awful. But does need a little TLC and conversion from the way the previous owners had it, to the way we want it. There are also some big renovation projects to be done: aka big money depleters. But Max and I will work on saving up for those. :)

So until next time...

Let's Get Personal: An Update in the life of Samantha

So I’m quite irregular when it comes to blogging. I’ve tried writing as many posts as I can when I feel inspired, and then set them to post on a schedule, when I was posting daily a couple years ago, I think I might have done a couple things wrong: 1^st off, not picking a theme for my blog and 2^nd just trying to do too much. If I would have spread things out, I might have been able to make it work. 3^rd is that there isn’t a specific space to work. I live in a one bedroom, 610 sq ft house and don’t have a desk anymore, because there simply wasn’t space. My laptop usually lives on the coffee table amongst clutter I can never seem to conquer.

I do have a hard time with habits. After a couple months, whatever I’ve been doing has seemed to just stop. I miss one time and then I feel like I’m incapable of resuming.

But! There’s hope! A new wind is about to blow in, a new season, which may leave room for consistency in blogging!

Drumroll please!

I bought a house! Well, not me by myself, but that wonderful boyfriend of mine and I did. And we mostly got it for our dog, Ruger, so he'll be able to have a nice backyard to run around and patrol. He's also been going to agility training, so I'll be able to invest in those "obstacles" and train him at home.

It’s got 4 bedrooms and is over 1000 sq ft. There will be plenty of space to set up shop. I’ll be able to take consistent outfit of the day photos, because I’ll be able to leave my camera set up. I’ll be able to have a desk, so my laptop will always be ready to be used. I can make that whole space an office, so that when Max and I are in there, we mean business. No fun goofing off time, it means working time. We’ll be blogging, or I’ll be working on photos (I photograph as a hobby). I’m really excited for it. I’ll never have to try to make space, or have cords draped all over the place.

Along with having this new house will mean remodels and revamps and painting and pinterest project-ing the place. It’s not a brand new freshly built house. It’s about 30 years old. But it’s not a crappy starter house that will need a TON of TLC. So look forward to fun house posts to come.

And finally, thank you to any loyal readers I have out there. I know I’ve been inconsistent, but I promise to be better about blogging and voicing my opinions and projects. If you’ve stuck around, and read this through the years, please please please comment below. Readers are why I blog. If I actually don’t have any, and the random one a day page views are random stumbles, then how will I know? If you think I’m doing something wrong or something could be done better, please speak up! Constructive criticism is crucial.

With that, until next time

-S

Book Review: Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives,

Disclaimer: I received this book free from Birchbox for their Birchblogger book club.

I don't remember exactly when I received the book, but I do think I tried to start reading it a few times before I finally put my brain to it and started reading in June. I got pretty into it and was reading fairly consistently, until I wasn't. Life got really busy (new puppy, bought a house, life itself) so the reading dwindled. And finally, yesterday, I finished it. Oh what a sweet relief to finish a book.

As far as the book was concerned, it was only OK to me. I definitely had a struggle to finish it the more I read through it. The text just seemed to get a little repetitive. I think the information was well presented and very thorough.

If I could have made a change to the text, I think that once I had laid out the 4 tendencies, I would have then broken the rest of the book down by those tendencies and how habit forming works best for them. As an "obliger" (according to the mini test at the back), I don't really care about how Rebels and Questioners and the 4th category (Which I can't remember the name) form habits. If I needed to interact with them to form a habit, then I would indulge in that section.

If you're interested in reading this, click here for the author's page about the book.

I'm not a huge fan of Self Help books. I feel they're not quite as helpful to me as they may be to others. While I did highlight a few things in the book, I'm not sure it's one I'll be going back to read again and again.

I'm thankful for Birchbox to have been able to receive it and read it.

I know this is probably one of my less thought out reviews, but I just don't know what to say about a book I didn't love.

So I'll call this good here.

Until next time.

-S