Month: October 2017

Happy Halloween!!!!!

by Ariana Peters, posted in healthy lifestyle


(Images from google)

Happy Halloween!!!! Today is my favorite holiday!!!! Unfortunately I have to work tonight which is super depressing, adulting blows sometimes lol.

Went for a run and it was cold! The wind dropped the temp a few degrees so I had planned on wearing this

and changed to this…..long sleeves, also do you love my bed head hahaha

Got my best time to 8:11!!!!!!!!!!!! still only a 90 second interval but still! That is rock’em sock’em fast for me.

Kept a good heart rate for me, was dying a little at the end hahaha

Now for more Halloween fun.

Halloween is fun and magical and mysterious and wonderful. Today people remember/believe that the impossible may be possible. This is also the day that the veils between the world of the living and dead are the thinnest. Remember a loved one that has passed today and set out a cup of juice, wine or beer for them and give them a toast. It is the perfect day to remember my dad since his birthday was yesterday, I love and miss you always dad.

Service announcement: remember to keep all your black fur babies inside tonight, especially cats! There are cruel people out there that love to hurt/kill black animals tonight so be vigilant!

Other than that have fun tonight, be safe and remember, there is a little magic in all of us…………

I hope you have a great night!

Have fun and be safe!!!!

Monday Motivation **October 30, 2017

by Ariana Peters, posted in food, healthy lifestyle, school/studying, training

(Image from google)

Happy Monday!!!!

I will be doing Couch-2-5k Week 2 day 3 today which consists of a 5 min warm up walk then alternating 90 seconds running with 2 minutes of walking for a total of 20 min (which comes out to 6 intervals) then a 5 min cool down. I am really trying to push myself during those 90 seconds, On Saturday my best time was 8:32!! I am pretty stoked about that. I am also doing pretty good at keeping my heart rate up there when I am doing the intervals right now so all is well!!!

This afternoon I have work and have leftover homemade shepherd’s pie for dinner. Not too bad for a Monday.

Weekend Wrap-Up

by Ariana Peters, posted in Uncategorized

How often do you have one of those weekends that ends way too soon (always hahaha) and not only does it end too soon but it ends just terribly! Where you come back from the weekend more stressed out then you went into it?

That was me this weekend. But lets start from the beginning.

I did bad meal prep last weekend and bought too many expensive snacks, example the $4 salad below

I did get some running in though which was good. More couch to 5k for the win!

Glad I kept my heart rate up.

Look at that best!!! That is awesome for me, even if I only held it for 90 seconds but still!

Friday (which is my Sunday) The bf and I went to his grandparents house (they live on a small farm and I love it out there. Friday night we went to the local high school football game, the bf’s grandfather does the chains for the game, (he volunteers and holds the sign for 1st down and 2nd and all that stuff). Everything was great even though we stayed a little late meaning I was going to lose some sleep but that was ok.

The really bad part is that my stupid car has been acting up lately. Yep the first car I ever bought on my own has to have issues, like major issues, there is a class action lawsuit about this model. I have an appointment at the dealership this coming Thursday so it just needs to keep running until then and be a cheap, easy fix. Send my car healing thoughts please……as well as my bank account in case it costs an arm and a leg. Anyways the terrible part is that the car is starting stall, at red lights……while driving…….it is a manual transmission that shifts automatically……..really Ford? That will teach me…..Ariana read reviews about cars before you buy them!!!!!! Boy I am learning a lot of life lessons, especially financial ones this year, if only those lessons didn’t cost so much. No matter what happens I will figure it out.

So today after work my plan is to go home, go for a run, wash a few dishes and hide in my room watching movies and not thinking about anything finance related.

Back home

by Ariana Peters, posted in food, healthy lifestyle, training

I had an amazing time, obviously hahaha, but it is so good to be home. But I am not going to lie it took a few weeks for me to get back into my normal rhythm. Even now I am just starting to get a running regimen back down. And even with taking melatonin and not sleeping on the flight back, it took a good week to get back to a normal sleep pattern.

I am taking all the puppy cuddles I can get. I missed my little girl so much but she did pretty good which is awesome.

I am taking all the cuddles and fun I can get from my man as well. I missed him a lot. I can’t wait to travel with him.

We had a fun fall day of taking a country drive, picked out pumpkins, ate some caramel corn, and carved pumpkins while watching “Pet Cemetery”. Oh and the boyfriend made an AMAZING roast that I have been living on for the past week. Finally finished the last bit for lunch today.

He makes me pretty happy.

Trying to get back to smoothies or juice for breakfast. Been using the bits and pieces that I have to make it all though, I need to get a good grocery shopping trip in soon.

Got my run on. The days right now are pretty nice. I anticipate another run tomorrow.

Using C25k (couch to 5k) to get my butt moving and in the groove again. Fun fact: this is how I started running in the first place! It is a free app, you should try it!!! Thankfully it isn’t as hard this time as it was my first time hahahaha, but now instead of struggling to finish 60 seconds of jogging I am struggling by making myself run a few minutes faster than I normally would so I am still winded by the 3rd interval hahaha and never quite recover completely until the end.

Enjoying the foliage here in Oregon………or should I say the death of the trees. It’s so pretty!!!!!

And yes, I am enjoying my fair share of pumpkin spice coffee!!!!!

European Cruise: Day 18 long day of travel

by Ariana Peters, posted in food, healthy lifestyle, travel

We have a little bit of morning in Barcelona, like just enough to sleep in and have some coffee and a pastry while people watching before we head to the airport. We depart just after 1 and land in LAX around 10pm hahaha, and yet we will be traveling for almost 17 hours.

This was the only photo I took hahahaha. At this point I was tired. We ate lunch at the airport then boarded the flight to Amsterdam, it was about 2.5 hours then we hurried through Amsterdam because we had about 1.5 hours to make our connection and had to go through passport control. But we made it. Then started the long 11ish hour flight. I didn’t want to sleep since we would be getting into LA at night and I wanted to be able to get back on normal time. I watched like 5 movies. We landed in Salt Lake City with 1 hour and 5 minutes to deplane, get through customs, get our bags, recheck our bags and get the third person in our party a boarding pass because for some reason we couldn’t print their last boarding pass in Barcelona and go back through security…….we made it by some miracle however Carra’s and I’s bags did not because we got them checked only about 40 minutes before the flight took off. Thankfully we were already staying overnight in LA so we just picked them up the next day.

We got off the plane spent about 40 minutes waiting for our bags then learning that they didn’t make the plane, then we boarded a shuttle to our hotel, got checked in and walked next door to McDonald’s then ate in our room and passed out for about 5 hours. \

We woke up early, got back to the airport, got our bags and got on the plane to finally get home…….are we there yet????

European Cruise: Day 17 Barcelona

by Ariana Peters, posted in food, healthy lifestyle, travel

Today is our full day in Barcelona and we are going on a tour!

First let’s touch on the Catalonian referendum that was going on. This was Sunday, the day of the vote. We drove by this on the way out of town on the cruise, it was a demonstration. If you haven’t heard of the referendum, Google it. It was very interesting to be here for this……a little nerve wracking as well, we were on high alert the whole time, no way was I going to be caught in the middle of a riot.

We headed out of town about an hour into the mountains to visit a monastery.

It was like a mini little city, there was a hotel and a hostel and a little restaurant

That is the funicular to the top of the mountain.

Inside part of the monastery.

This was supposed to be the most powerful spot, geothermal waters run under it and the original church stood in this spot.

Lots of candles

hiking!

The mist was pretty, it started to burn off as we climbed down.

Back in town, people gathered in a plaza to keep apprised of the situation.

Gelato and a church!

another church!

there is a fair type place near the water, we went and rode the ferris wheel

Bye Barcelona!!!!!

European Cruise: Day 16 Barcelona

by Ariana Peters, posted in food, healthy lifestyle, travel

Today we disembark the ship! The ship docked at 5am in Barcelona. I slept in until 7:30am. Everyone but me is taking a dis-embarkment so i need to figure out what I want to do. Once we get settled into our apartment its time to start cramming in those sights to see again!

I got off the ship and took the bus from the ship/port to the actual town then started walking around to find where everyone else would get let off their tour.

On the way I happened to find the Starbucks!!! And got my 3rd you are here mug!

Then I stopped and had espresso and a croissant then met up with the others and dropped our bags at our residence then headed back out.

By then it was snack time and I may have gotten an espresso with vanilla gelato in it!!!! It was delicious

Time for sightseeing!

Nice view of the city and ocean beyond

Park Guell

Amazing bakery we stumbled upon.

This empanada was so good and only 1 Euro!

Sagrada de famillia

European Cruise: Day 15 Toulon

by Ariana Peters, posted in food, healthy lifestyle, travel

Toulon, France. In port from 7am-4pm. We have an all day excursion through Marseille and Aix-en-Provence.

Today we had to get up early and meet our group at 7:30. Our excursion lasted all day. We got straight on the bus for a 2 hour drive to Marseille…….I may have slept almost the entire ride. Apparently I was getting worn out hahaha. We arrived at Notre Dame (I guess there is more than 1 cause we certainly weren’t in Paris).


 
It was very pretty and you could see Chateau D’if in the background! 


I love the Count of Monte Cristo so this was really exciting to me, if we had had the whole day there I would have take the ferry out to see Edmond Dantes’ cell (fictional character but they have a cell for him hahahaha). Oddly the most exciting thing to me about Notre Dame was that I needed coffee and they had coffee machines that had espresso and it was actually GOOD espresso!!!


 American needs to get those cause our coffee vending machine things are terrible. Then we drove about 10 min away to the dock/port area of Marseille and had 15 minutes to wander around. Now I had done my research and there was a Starbucks in Marseille, 2 actually, so I immediately asked our tour guide if we were near either of them and we were right around the corner from one!!!!! Carra and I booked it around the corner and I got my first “you are here” mug of the trip!!! I was super stoked.


 We even had time to stop and get post cards and a magnet on the way back for Carra and make it back to the bus with 2 minutes to spare.

Next we drove about 30-40min to Aix-en-Provence. Where we went in Provence she said was akin to Champs Elyse in Paris, very upscale and ritzy. We took a little hour tour with her then had 1.5 hours to do what we wanted. I broke away from the group because I had seen a little market a few streets back that was only open for another 20 minutes and what better way to have lunch in Provence then get a baguette, some cheese and grapes! And that is exactly what I did and it was glorious! 



Then I picked up some post cards and found a Hagen Daas shop hahaha and had another espresso while I people watched, it was the perfect last 30 minutes of my day. Oh and I got some coffee caramels that were to die for!!! If they weren’t so dang expensive I would have bought a whole bag of them!!!!! They were so good and rich!!!

Tomorrow Barcelona!!!!