Morning kiddos!

Started today with coffee…

Power Toast and water (to recover from yesterday’s sweaty workout and to hydrate for today’s big workout).

Power Toast on Whole Grain Goodness:

• TJ’s sunflower seed butter
• sliced almonds
• chia seeds

Nomalicious yo!

Took Bailey to the Farmers Market this morning. It was muggy outside and looks like it’s going to rain but at least it wasn’t terribly hot.

Found some good stuff, but light on veggies, heavier on fruits. Hubby is burnt out on squash and zucchini and those seem to be the most prevalent veggies at the market these days.

We got pesticide-free blueberries, organic purple pepper, organic banana pepper, organic cantaloupe and…

Fire Roasted Garlic with Spinach Gourmet Ravioli from the Pasta Wench.

This is going to make for a fabu dinner tonight!

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Did you know today is National Dance Day?! I’m hanging with my dance crew today and we’re going to learn the NappyTab dance! Not sure what that is? Click here to view a bunch of videos on the dance, which was created just for today’s special event!

Are you celebrating National Dance Day? Don’t have a crew to dance with? Why not just turn on some dance tunes and dance around your house? C’mon…you know you want to!

Wow you guys are so inspirational!

I loved reading your Own Your Strength stories! Click here to view them or add your own.

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I heard an interesting song on the radio today – “Head Full of Doubt” by Avett Brothers. Good tune. The line that caught my attention was:

“Decide what to be and go be it.”

I love this quote. It’s so simple but so true. I think sometimes we hold ourselves back from achieving a goal because we let self-doubt, worry and fear get in the way. Sometimes we think we need to put 10,000 years of planning something before we move forward with it. Sometimes we procrastinate. Most of the time, I’m guilty of all of these things. And sometimes the problem isn’t the “go be it.” Sometimes the problem is being able to decide what to be. Know what I mean?

Do you know what you want to be?

Hubby made breakfast today – scrambled cage-free eggs and WW toast with coffee.

I had lots of water and a banana to help recover from my double-workout-day (yoga and zumba in one day!) and they totally helped. Especially the water – it really helped my muscles loosen up.

Later in the day I remembered I had 3 precious Green Monster muffins left in my fridge. I heated (in my over-fresh-encore style) 2 up for me and 1 for hubby.

Someone help me- I think I’m addicted!

Lunch started with a huge veggie salad: baby spinach, farmers market cucumber, carrots, celery, tomatoes from our garden, and sunflower seeds.

Lookie what Girard’s sent me! I got 4 salad dressings (*): Champagne, Peach Mimosa, Creamy Balsamic and Apple Poppyseed. (there will be a chance for you to win these same flavors very soon, so stay tuned!)

Hubby and I decided to try Girard’s best-selling Champagne dressing (*). We both really liked it. Hubby said it reminded him a bit of Italian. I could see that except minus all the spices. The dressing was sweet but not sweet. Light yet flavorful. It was really good, even though it’s a bit hard to describe.

I also had leftover Lemony Lentil soup and more WW toast but with a dab of real butter.

A Cashew Cookie Larabar was my pre-workout snack today.

Pre-workout for what??

For teaching my FIRST Zumba class! I mean, I’ve led songs solo and I’ve even led classes solo, but tonight was the first class I led as an official instructor. It was too cool! Class was with a local company who signed up for some private sessions so sorry if you’re local and were hoping to go. I’m hoping to have a public class soon.

Anywho, here are some of my fave songs from the night:

• La Colegiala
• Let Me Think About It
• El Alacran
• Billionaire (my cool down)

Class was a blast! I surprised myself with all the energy I had give my intense workout schedule the last couple days. Guess it’s easier to find energy to share when you have so many people to share it with! Luckily, I have a rest day planned for tomorrow. Phew!

This is the exact type of place where I put the above quote to good use. I decide to be an energetic, enthusiastic, loud and fun zumba instructor and just be that way in class. Seriously, that’s what I try to do for real. Since I have a little stage fright, this is easier said than done for me, but I try to push out of my comfort zone to be a better instructor. It makes things more fun, too!

Post class I had a half scoop of Vega Whole Healthy Optimizer mixed with just water to help recover from class.

Then I hit up the grocery store.

Here are some buys:

They had this Pacifica body butter $6 off!

Chocolate syrup to top my homemade vegan ice cream. Also on sale.

Sweet Cacao nibs were on sale.

A mini Justin’s Natural Maple Almond Butter.

Organic spelt flour

More hemp seeds.

Organic cherries.

And plenty of applesauce so we hopefully don’t run out next time I’m baking.

Got some other stuff, too, but you don’t need to see everything….riiight?

Dinner was Robin Miller-esque. I roasted 4 chicken breasts – 2 to eat tonight for me and hubby and 2 to make something different tomorrow! Need it twice, cook it once, right?

And since I went to Earthfare for groceries tonight, I definitely got a vegan WW chocolate chip cookie for dessert. (Hubby got a PB Choc chip). Nommm!

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I get the feeling I’m going to be saying the quote in the title of this blog post a lot. Could it be a new motto for me for awhile? Maybe?

What’s your current motivational motto/quote?

Alright! My camera has charged and I’ve got the other photos to share with you guys!

Here are some from Saturday’s farmer’s market:

We found some great stuff: organic purple okra, organic bell peppers, silver corn, cage-free eggs, organic jalapenos, and organic blueberries.

And they were also filming a cooking show at the market! Too bad it wasn’t for my cooking show.

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And about that “weird” outfit (click to view)…

We went to the…

DERBY!

The roller derby that is. I danced with my fellow dance fitness and zumba instructors at the half time of the game! Here are some photos from our fun-filled afternoon:

Seeing a theme? lol

I wore my pink converse again – guess they were a good purchase afterall!

Photos from our dancing (thanks to Alex!)

The last photo is my fave – great action shot!

Gosh I love our demos. As I slowly conquer my stage fright, I find that these group events are one of the easiest to swallow – probably because I have the safety net of the group. Hey, it let’s me have fun instead of worrying about all the people watching at least!

After our performance, I grabbed a homemade lemonade at the concession stand. So refreshing!

Post performance a bunch of us headed out for a night on the town! My camera died at the derby so I have no pictures to share. Sorry!

Fun times!

Hi from my parents’ house! We’ve had a relaxing but busy weekend so far.

Bailey always loves a good trip to visit “grandma and grandpa”.

I love the area behind their home. There’s always so much growing.

My mom took me on a tour of their garden to show me updates from the last time I saw it.

Baby okra.

Zucchini.

Baby bell pepper.

Eggplant.

Yellow bell pepper.

Green beans

And quite the assortment of tomatoes.

After a simple breakfast of bacan and egg sammies on WW rolls, we headed out for some more home-grown food adventures.

First up – the farmer’s market.

They had quite the assortment of dried beans, most of which I believe are local.

Mom and dad did the shopping and I just wandered around scoping out stuff.

Sis bought boiled peanuts for us to snack on as we headed out to our next destination – the peach farm!

My parent’s found a place that grew Red Haven peaches.

The farm was pretty busy with people picking their own fresh peaches.

Squashed peach.

The weather was perfect for being outdoors – warm but not too hot and with a slightly cool breeze. It felt like heaven outside.

Unlike last year’s blueberry picking adventure, it took us no time to fill up a basket with farm-fresh peaches.

And then we headed off the farm for lunch.

Not before checking out at the peach stand of course.

Have you been to a local farm this year? What did you get?

Saturday is turning into more than just a market trip. Chalk up a visit to Great Harvest because I’m addicted to their delicious baked goods. lol

Hubby and I picked up a loaf of cinnamon swirl bread that was so hot and fresh, they had to put it in a paper bag instead of a plastic bag so it didn’t get soft from condensation build up.

Of course, as soon as we got home, we had to rip into the bag to enjoy.

Delicious layers of whole wheat bread and sugary cinnamon. So tender and so right!

Hubby and I took Bailey to the market again, too. Here’s our stash: collards, peaches, a green pepper, a tomato, a fun squash in green and yellow, and more of those fabulous blueberries (because I’d like to enjoy another week eating these juicy little treasures).

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In the afternoon, I had a super cool activity planned – a Hip Hop Hustle class!!!! You guys know I love my Zumba, but today I tried a new format of dance fitness. HHH is a class broken into 2 sections:

1. Learning 2 short dances (ok, there’s a real name for this part but I forgot)
2. The Show – Learning and then doing a short performance (longer than the sections learned in the first half of class).

There were definitely some differences between the format of dance fitness I’m used to and HHH. In Zumba, you don’t really learn series of steps, you just follow the instructor and the moves are usually pretty repetitive. In HHH, you could be doing a particular move for 2 or 4 counts before you move on to the next step. Zumba is typically done with very little to no verbal cueing. HHH has a lot of verbal cueing (and thank goodness because I know I needed the reminders to remember all those moves!!! )

The class was so FUN! I had a blast and can’t wait to do another HHH workshop! If you like Zumba, I definitely recommend trying out a HHH class!

***

Post class, I stopped a restaurant (that shall go un-named) to see about potentially using an expired Groupon. It expired 2 weeks ago, so I wanted to see if they could possibly honor 50% of the Groupon value (aka the amount I spent on the Groupon) just so I could pick up lunch for myself (I wasn’t trying to go all out or anything). I know the Groupon was expired and all, but I thought it would be fair if they could at least give me what I paid for. I always say it doesn’t hurt to ask. Anywho, I went in the restaurant and made my proposal to the lady working behind the bar and she said that the managers weren’t there and she didn’t really think they’d go to that. She was pretty snippy about it too and very unfriendly! I’m not upset they wouldn’t honor my Groupon, I’m dissatisfied with how unfriendly the lady was about the whole thing. Customer service is big in my book and that customer sucked! She could have at least been nice about it! Needless to say, I will never be going back there…Groupon or otherwise. There are plenty of other restaurants in town that have NICE people.

***

I went home and had a fabulous, much better and healthier lunch.

Hubby was a doll and heated up this frozen soup from my mom while I showered and changed. I spruced it up with some fresh parsley from outside.

Plus, I had some more yummy cinnamon swirl.

Saturday evening I went to PROM! My dance fitness friends had a little prom event so put together a non-standard look:

Ruffly Dress + Converse = Prom!

We were going to be doing dances from class all night so I picked converse for my prom shoes to be comfortable. I was surprised how many compliments I got from random guys about my shoes. One said “Nice kicks!” and another said my shoes were “super cute shoes!” I have to admit wearing converse and a dress was pretty fun. If you haven’t tried the combo I think you should!

What types of non-standard outfits do you like to rock?