Sunday In Pictures Vol. 37

Hello friends! I’m back. After taking last week off to enjoy time at home with family and friends, it’s back to reality today. I’ll do a little recap of our trip tomorrow but today I want to get back into the swing of things with my usual Sunday in pictures. Have a great day 🙂

Breakfast was some fried eggs courtesy of Alex and an apple donut courtesy of the farmer’s market that I went to on Saturday.

“Mom, can I help you make the chocolate cake?”

For lunch, I had a ham sandwich, carrot, pretzels and hummus.

I read more of Losing You by Nicci French.

By some miracle, the nail polish I had on since my pedicure over Memorial Day weekend was still on. I updated it to this fun mint color though.

Alex’s parents were so sweet to have a little family party to celebrate my birthday that was July 3rd. We had a barbecue with spinach salad, coleslaw, green beans, ribs and chicken.

For dessert I made me own cake. It was chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting. It was SO GOOD!! Rich but absolutely delicious.

Question of the day: What’s one highlight from your weekend?

Puppy Alarm Clock + Pizza

Hi friends! How are you doing? As I write this it is absolutely pouring out. The roof is getting absolutely pounded at work. It’s crazy! As long as the rain ends before the weekend though then I won’t complain. Hopefully the sun is shining by you! Have a great day 🙂

Once again Bailey acted like our alarm clock at 5 am to wake us up. For some reason, I feel like she is suddenly freaked out by our alarms because that’s when she starts going crazy. It definitely works to get me out of bed though! After getting ready for the day, I scrambled eggs to have for breakfast. Plus a muffin, because carbs 😉

During lunch, I read more of Before We Were Yours. It’s such a good book! It’s the story of Avery who is a politicians grown daughter who is with her father at a nursing home when one of the residents, May, acts as if she knows Avery. May has a picture in her room that contains someone who looks exactly like her grandmother. When Avery visits her grandmother to inquire about May, her grandmother acts perfectly coherent despite having dementia and living in a nursing home. Avery goes on the hunt to figure out the family’s connection with May. I feel like I’m finally getting to the best part and I can’t wait to find out what happens.

After work, I changed and headed out for 5 easy recovery miles. My hips were feeling a little achy so I stretched and foam rolled before hopping into an epsom salt bath. It was much needed! I think epsom salt baths need to become a normal part of my routine. Honestly I have no idea if it actually helps but it feels good so why not keep doing it right?

We were still on the leftovers train last night which meant more pizza for dinner! I just threw it in the oven to warm it up and then enjoyed it while we watched an episode of Billions. Alex and I just finished the second season and man it is good! The season ended with certain things wrapped up enough but still a lot of questions for you. It was a good one.

Alex and I hung out a bit then decided to turn on Coco. Unfortunately I started to doze just a tiny bit so I decided to get ready for bed and read a bit more before calling it a night.

Question of the day: If you have a dog, does it act like an alarm clock for you?

 

 

A Hot, Humid, And Hilly Run

Good morning everyone! I hope you had a great Monday. I’m just going to jump right in this morning. Have a great day 🙂

My Dad jokingly made fun of the fact that I have scrambled eggs all the time when I called him for Father’s Day. So naturally I had fried eggs for breakfast actually. Then instead of my usual muffin, I had toast. That was solely due to the fact that I was too lazy to take them out of the freezer and stick them in the fridge on Sunday night.

Alex ended up working from home last minute yesterday so lunch was the two of us and Bailey. I think our little pup was a little confused since we are rarely both home for lunch during the week. It was the perfect midday treat to start off the week.

During lunch, I decided to pack a gym bag with my running clothes. I had to do some hills and decided to try one that I remember from the 5k I did back in September. The town we live in is pretty flat and I didn’t feel like dealing with rush hour traffic to get to a hillier town nearby. Luckily the hill was as I remembered it and worked perfectly. Y’all…it was so dang hot out!! I had 2 easy miles for a warm up and I was so sweaty just from that. Hills are hard enough but man it was hot and humid out. I ended the day with 6 total miles.

After laying in the grass for a few minutes outside Alex’s parents house, I hopped in the car and ran to Costco quickly before heading home. When I got home, I grabbed a much needed shower before starting dinner. We had turkey tacos which hit the spot after that workout. We watched some Billions after eating.

Later on, my sweet tooth starting calling for the ice cream that was in the freezer. When we went to Alex’s coworkers house on Saturday, his oldest daughter asked for chocolate ice cream for dessert. I used this recipe and only added 2-3 tablespoons on cocoa powder. The tub was almost done so after I measured the first tablespoon I just dumped the rest in haha. Making this ice cream was incredibly easy and it tastes amazing. In the bowl, I put some strawberries and a few sprinkles because I can 😉 We watched an episode of The Office and headed to bed.

Question of the day: Is it hot and humid near you?

Tips For A New Puppy

Happy hump day friends! In the comments on Monday, Tracy asked me for tips on a new puppy since she just got an 8 week old pup. After typing out a long email (sorry girl!) I thought I’d compile my tips into a blog post as well. In an attempt to keep it short, I’m using bullet points and have it sorted based on categories. If you get a puppy or are thinking about it I hope these tips can help you out!

Before we jump in though, please keep in mind that I’m not an animal expert. This is just from the experience we’ve had with Bailey so far. When we picked her up, she was 14 weeks and is just shy of 6 months. Technically she’s still a puppy but we’ve gotten past some major hurdles that happen when puppies are really young.

Potty Training

• Make them go outside from the start. Dogs get used to the texture in a place they pee so if you use potty training pads, then your puppy may have a hard time going outside.
• Give LOTS of praise and a treat when they go outside. Alex and I have had success with Crazy Dog brand of treats and there’s a few flavors.
• If they go inside, yell “NO” and clap to startle the puppy before bringing them outside immediately.
• To clean up accidents, I find stains don’t occur if you blot them with a rag (if on carpet), spray Resolve pet stain remover and after sitting for a few minutes blot with a rag to remove the scent and any residual liquid. For tile or wood, wiping up the pee is sufficient.

Crate Training

• Due to space constrictions, Bailey has always slept near us in the bedroom in her crate. We always leave one toy with her at night just in case she wakes up. Aside from waking us up the first night to go to the bathroom, she never cried at night which was just dumb luck for us.
• Train them to go into the crate as their safe space. Never put them in the crate as punishment as they will associate the crate with something bad.
• Use treats to get the puppy walking into the crate on their own from the beginning. We tell Bailey to go to bed and would put a treat in there until she learned what “go to bed” meant and doesn’t need a treat.
• The first few times Alex worked from home, he put her in the crate to make calls so he didn’t have to worry about accidents. Bailey would whine a bit and try to get his attention. Instead of giving in and letting her out, we let her cry it out and would occasionally “go to the bathroom” so she would see that we were there but she had to get used to being in bed.

Basic Commands

• Give them time to adjust! It’s a new home, new people and new schedule to learn. Don’t start training right away. Except for going to the bathroom. Definitely start right away with that.
• Instead of long sessions daily, Bailey responded best to short intervals (5-10) minutes that we would do twice a day every 3 times a week. Alex read multiple articles as well as Youtube videos that included studies to show how dogs respond best to this.
• Start with the basics! Sit, stay and lie down are great commands to know.
• When the command is followed give praise and a treat so the puppy knows that it’s a good thing. Positive reinforcement is the name of the game!
• Use hand signals for the commands. Alex and I had a lot of success with this. Determine what hand signals will be for which command and stick with it. The hand signals helped her listen to my family giving commands when we visited them.

Miscellaneous

• When you leave, give your dog some toys to keep in their crate. We give Bailey 2 toys when we go to work. Sometimes I will give her 3 when I go for runs in the afternoon if I feel particularly guilty about leaving her again haha.
• Determine ahead of time if you want to dog to be on your furniture. For example, we don’t have an expensive couch or anything right now nor do we feel attached to it. We know that in a few years, we’ll be buying a nicer one which we don’t want Bailey to ruin so she isn’t allowed on the couch unless once of us has a weak moment and picks her up.
• Be consistent! We feed Bailey first thing in the morning and at 4 pm. After a week or so, she figured out to expect food then since her body had become accustomed. Even when we were traveling to my parents for Memorial Day her schedule was the same.

 

If you’re getting a puppy and want more in depth tips or to know more about our experience, don’t hesitate to reach out!

Question of the day: If you have a dog, what’s one of your best tips for a puppy?

Sunday In Pictures Vol. 34

Happy Monday! How was your weekend? Ours was spent at Tucker and Allison’s wedding, Alex’s brother and new sister-in-law. It was a fun weekend but late nights so we were ready to be home yesterday.

In typical Monday fashion, we’re taking a peek into my Sunday through some pictures. Have a great day 🙂

Instead of eating at the Airbnb we stayed at, we opted to head home early and grab breakfast sandwiches from our favorite place near home. A bacon, egg and cheese was a welcome sight!

Picked up Bailey who we missed the past two days.

The song of choice while heading to the grocery store.

Someone did want to be far from us for a while…

A tortilla pizza and some veggies for lunch.

Free flowers are the best flowers.

Some tea and magazine reading while it rained outside.

Pizza for dinner because pizza is always a good idea.

To finish our lazy Sunday, we watched a little over half of American Made.

Question of the day: What’s one highlight from your weekend?