Last “Weekly Workouts” Post of 2012

Posted on December 31, 2012 by Achieve with Athena

Good morning, friends. Can you believe it’s the last day of 2012? At least the world didn’t end, right? I am thankful I took the day off from work to have an extra day to relax and just get some things done before ringing in 2013 with our friends tonight. This weekend’s social life included my work holiday party on Friday night at Julia’s house and going out for dinner and drinks with our friends Pete and Andrea on Saturday night, but other than that I’ve been in a crazy must-organize-my-life mode. I cleaned out my entire closet and dresser and have two full bags of clothes to donate. I organized my entire desk and threw away an entire bag of trash. Like, what was IN there? I also did five loads of laundry, re-organized the kitchen, organized my personal and Y email accounts, and pre-wrote a few new blog posts. Probably sounds like zero fun at all, but I feel happy and refreshed accomplishing as much as I did.

Out with the old, in with the new. I’m ready for 2013!

I know that I’ve bombarded you all with tons of holiday party updates over the last few days. It probably seems like I haven’t made any time for fitness at all, but that’s not true! I actually did really well with making my workouts a priority last week.

Weekly Workouts

Last Week’s Workouts

Sunday: Off

Monday: Taught Cycle class

Tuesday: Off for Christmas Day

Wednesday: Inspired by this post from Jen, I rocked a 30 minute treadmill interval workout.

I know the routine here says 25 minutes, but I just did one extra round so the workout totaled 30 minutes with the 5 minute cool down. I also did this core strength circuit three times through:

Thursday: Taught a resistance band circuit workout in my 6am class, per Jen’s request!

Friday: Did this 40 minute elliptical workout.

Saturday: 20 minute treadmill sprints + the upper body Tabata workout from the last round of Best Body Bootcamp.

For the sprints, I did my first 5 rounds at an 8.0 sprint with a 6.5 recovery pace. For the second 5, I did an 8.5 sprint with a 7 recovery pace. Phew!

This Week’s Workouts

I’m not too sure yet with this week has in store. Last week I felt really good not thinking about my workouts too much and just DOING them or deciding right before I went to the gym what I was going to do. That’s not always easy for me with my schedule though. Sorry for not a ton of detail below, but we will see!

Sunday: Home workout
Monday: TBD
Tuesday: New Year’s Day “secret” sweat sesh with my gym friends. I can’t wait!
Wednesday: TBD after work
Thursday: Teaching Sculpt at 6am. Any requests?
Friday: Most likely off?
Saturday: Morning workout TBD

I hope my Weekly Workouts posts have helped motivate you each week, whether it be to help keep yourself accountable, help you plan, help you get new ideas, or whatever. I know they definitely help me, and I plan to continue writing them into the new year. If you have any suggestions on ways I can make them better for you as readers, let me know.

How are you ringing in 2013 tonight?

I’m off to enjoy the last day of this year!

Christmas Day 2012

Posted on December 30, 2012 by Achieve with Athena

Like I mentioned last week, this Christmas was one of the better Christmas’s I’ve celebrated in a while. Tim and I celebrated Christmas Eve with his mom’s side of the family at his cousin Kelly’s house (his dad’s side celebrates earlier in the month, so we already had that under our belts), and we celebrated with my family on Christmas Day. I was pretty worried this year about being able to see everyone, but somehow it all worked out which I was really happy about.

Last year was actually our first Christmas morning together, but this year was our first Christmas morning together in our own place. Big difference!

We started the day by exchanging our stocking stuffers. I seriously love filling stockings for people. Can you guess whose pile is whose?

We then exchanged our gifts to each other.

I didn’t get a picture of everything, but we somehow ended up with four gifts each for one another (unplanned).

For me: A kindle, an immersion blender, new tips for my frosting gun, and the Peanuts holiday special DVD set (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas).

For Tim: A new backpack, a water bottle, slippers, and two cookbooks.

After we exchanged our gifts, we continued the tradition we started last year of making a fun and different holiday breakfast. Last year we made green apple cinnamon protein pancakes. This year we made a mushroom spinach baked egg casserole with maple pepper bacon on the side. Recipe coming soon!

We then ended up rushing a bit, but were only 20 minutes late to my parents’ house where we exchanged gifts with my immediate family (parents, brother, sister). I got some more really fun stocking stuffers. ~~My mom~~ Santa puts together a mean stocking.

My parents gave me some really nice things including a Keurig (woo!)…

…a cover for my Kindle (took some collaboration with Tim), a new workout top, red pants, a new scarf, and a nice serving bowl for dip. My sister got me some Bath & Body works things and my brother got me a set of 15 pound weights for my apartment since the weights I own (8’s and 10’s) are way too light.

After the present exchange, we helped my parents get the house ready.

And do some prep work in the kitchen.

Then my mom’s side of the family began to arrive.

We had dinner first, which consisted of avgolemono soup, a holiday ham (Tim cooked up the one my company gives us every year), pastitio, tiropita, salad, rice, bread, and souzakakia. So good… and Greek!

We opened some more presents after dinner, but by that I mean we watched my almost four-year old god-daughter tear through all of her gifts at record speed. She’s the cutest thing, but phew, does my cousin have her hands full!

How cute is Layla?

She’s getting so big!

Here are some more pictures from the day!

Me and my dad:

Me, my dad, and brother:

Me, my mom, and brother:

Me & Tim:

Annual 5 cousins photo:

Around 5:00, Tim and I packed up our stuff and drove down to see my dad’s side of the family. My immediate family all took Wednesday off to see my grandfather, etc. but Tim and I did not have the day off from work so we wanted to make sure we could see everyone on Christmas Day itself. I unfortunately didn’t take any people pictures on Christmas night while we were visiting them, just of the cookies I brought down.

We were very happy to get to visit with everyone, and had a great time catching up with everyone.

Twas a very Merry Christmas, but I can’t believe it’s all over! The season always comes and goes so quickly, and then BOOM it’s over. Don’t you think?

Leave a comment on this post telling me what the best part of your Christmas this year was!

13th Annual Home Friends Christmas Party

Posted on December 30, 2012 by Achieve with Athena

Yes, that’s right. 13th annual! Like Shannon said in her recap post, who knew that one little party she had during freshman year of high school would turn into a tradition that we continue to do year after year? I can honestly say that Shannon’s home friends Christmas party is one of my favorite days of the year. I don’t think many people stay in touch with as many friends as I do from high school, so I consider myself lucky that at the very least, we still all get together on this day to celebrate and see each other.

Some of the traditions include:

A $20 Yankee swap
Typically the swap is full of horrible gifts, but I guess this year’s weren’t THAT bad even if I did end up with a board game that I ~~regifted in Tim’s family’s Christmas Eve swap~~ will never play. This year, a few people decided to put a few theme gifts in there. The theme being Matt. There was a painting of Matt as a centaur, a t-shirt with a picture of Matt on it, and a Rubric cube that when finally put together will display a picture of Matt in a pink robe. And that was three separate gifts! Luckily, Matt got the picture of himself, but poor Shan got the Matt t-shirt!

Here are some more pictures of the Yankee swap:

Back to the traditions.

Johnny always bringing the worst gift
Think twenty $1 cassette tapes, a 5 pack of Heineken because he drank one on the way to the party, a t-shirt that said “I’m Rick James, b*tch.” The list goes on.

Delicious food
Shannon always cooks and bakes up a storm for days before the party and she always has the best displays of food.

A re-circulating Chia Pet
A Simpsons Chia Pet makes its way back into the grab year after year. I seriously will be devastated the year that someone doesn’t bring it.

A signature cocktail
Last year’s was the cranberry pomegranate Christmas punch, but this year was dedicated to Merry Margaritas. So good, Shan I need the recipe! Post please. 🙂

Some foodie pictures from this year:

I brought my Pita Christmas Trees, but I didn’t snap a picture of just them. You can kind of see them in the first picture above. This is what they looked like when I made them last year:

As usual, the home friends Christmas party was a great time!

Please note new outfit from The Limited: Green pants and fun new black shirt! Both were 50% off.

Just like Liz’s party, some people cleared out on the earlier side, but somehow I am always the last one to leave? I have FOMO (fear of missing out) if I leave before others do. Tim and I stayed pretty late, along with Matt and Katie, Baka and Esk, Chris, and Johnny.