Gym Diary

Today, I made my way back to the gym. Let me tell you how that sh*t went. 

• Walk in the gym. Greet my homegirl who works there. Yup, that's right, I know people. I be in here and stuff. Wig still on so I'm feeling light weight sexy... For about 7 seconds. I talk it up with my girl and walk back to the locker room
• Cue a number of pics to demonstrate how much I've let myself go. I haven't just let myself go, I released me like Rose did Jack in Titanic. *Chucks Deuces*

• That's right. Madame gross guts in the house. I immediately regret taking these pics. But I realized that I have to have evidence once I start stunting on these fools. 

• Ok, now that the evidence is posted. It was time to get on with the damn things
• Exit Locker room, make a B-line for the the stair step. Think to self "I'm about to dominate this stair stepper".
• Get's on stair stepper. 1 minute in- I hate life. I am dying. I am Shaina's burning lungs. 
• 3 minutes in- Counting down the seconds until my death. Wondering if the music I hear comes from my headphones or the Angels coming to take me away... And I'm ready to go.
• Cue my self consciousness making me wonder if everyone notices how absolutely wide my ass has gotten. I see my old trainer and he reminds me that we have 6 sessions left. I am bipolar as hell about this new information. He tells me to get my life together. 
• I start speaking positivity into my life and concentrating on my high vibrations. I did a pretty decent arm workout 

• Then I talked myself into getting on the treadmill. Keeping the incline at 15 and going between 2-2.5 and trying not to die. But I failed. I was watching "Supernatural" on my phone to keep me distracted. I just kept thinking about getting back to that body.  You know the one. 

• Yes, I kept thinking skinny thoughts and willing myself to make it through. And you know what, 

I MADE IT!!!

 

I burned 1000 calories today. I was really proud of myself because I wanted to quit so many times. I kept thinking "Baby Jesus, please save me from this machine", but I felt good, and I was happy to be back at it. 

Not a bad look for today. Let's hope tomorrow goes as...smoothly...as it did today.  

We bought a house!! (Picture Heavy)

I can honestly say it's been a rough couple of months. The end of December until the end of January proved to be trying on so many levels, but out of line that struggle, came our new house.           

We decided it was time to plant some roots. Those are words I never thought could come out of my mouth. Plant + Roots has been the biggest fear for the Neals. We are free spirits - Hippies if you will- and the idea of staying in one place didn't sit well with us. My husband and I have been together for 9 years and we are so lucky to be growing and coming to realizations at the same time. We both decided that with a little more planning and saving, we could have the luxury of having both lives; the travelers and the homeowners!!!

My work family helped us figure out all the details and paperwork for buying a house, and we had an amazing realtor that helped us through the process, and we also realized that together, he and I could deal with anything. 

We are competed in love with our home. It's a 5 bedroom, 2.5 bathroom house on .5 acres of land. There's a screened in patio and beautiful front porch. The house is surrounded by trees and we're at the end of a cul de sac. There's also an extra room that I'm going to turn into a mud room- right now, it's a dog room because there's a doggy door! Can you believe it, a doggy door!?

The master bedroom is huge! And my absolute favorite part of the house is the spiral staircase in the bedroom that leads to the loft. Aka my book nook.

This is what the nook looked like before we bought it.

  The living room is huge and there is a gorgeous reading window that looks out onto the porch. The fireplace is surrounded by stone and we've mounted the tv there. And the carpet it AHmazing. And the doorbell has the most adorable song!

And without further chit chat...

 

 

Front porch!

Inside workroom

Fire pit

Kitchen has been painted!

 

Laundry room

Bedroom 2

Bedroom 3

Bedroom 4

Bedroom 5 man cave

Dining room

  Needless to say, we are in love. I can't wait to post up to date pics of all my little DIY projects. I've already put a lot of little things together for my humble abode, but I have plenty more ideas. Pinterest and the app Houzz have been my bread and butter for decorating tips. I'm just so glad we are blessed enough to call this beautiful house our home!!     Are you a homeowner? What's your favorite space in your home?

This is my 100th blog. I think its fitting that I make my come back with this post. 

 

I'm sitting at work drinking a glorious green smoothie and watching my kids gruel over their unit 7 tests. This, and when the get their scores back, are the only times they actually think about studying. Any other time, it's just some magical word the teacher uses that has no meaning. Sigh. The life of a teacher. Anyway, life is good right now. We bought a house. (You can expect that post very soon. I'm just trying to get all the pictures together). I plan on doing a series about my decorating- attempts at decorating. But I wanted to check in.

 

I've been missing my blog. I always think of things I'd like to write about and then I don't. Simple as that. I've been out of commission for about 4 months. I know. Once upon a time, I had something to post every week. But life has been so hectic that all I want to do it go home and sleep. I even went to counseling about it. It's helping. But spending time with myself; taking time to just do what I want to do, that's what has helped the most. 

 

So now I'm good. I've had friends come in from out of town, parties, hangovers, and laughed until I cried (and cried until I laughed). I finally feel like I'm in a place where I can get the blog up and running again. And surpriseeeeeeee. 

 

We got a new doggy!! Her name is Gina and she fits right in with the family!!

 

 

My next post will be all about my new house. I am in love guys, really. It still doesn't feel like it's mine. I need a whole spring break and a summer to get the feel for it. Until then, I'll keep drinking my green smoothies and writing in my dori! See you guys in a few days!