The Good, the Bad and the Ugly...

I'm pretty sure I've done a post with the exact same title before but it fits today!

The good...
My tea from Kate arrived yesterday morning..


There was so much tea to choose from, I didn't know where to start! Since I've never had white tea before I went with that. It was nice, I probably wouldn't pick it over green tea but you have to do something really special to knock green tea off the top spot! The teas came with a really cute card too. Thanks Kate!
I got my W2D2 push-up challenge done this morning 14-16-12-12-18... Thank goodness I pushed the final max reps this time! I would have felt so defeated if I'd had another 'bad' attempt! I need to test my max again soon.. hope I can do above 20 now!

The bad...
Mike forgot to change our ebay address so all our ebay items for the new house went to the old address which I really didn't want to go back to after the messing about over the floors and shed. Luckily Mike's dad went for us and retrieved most of it. Hopefully they won't try and keep anything!

The garmin ran out of battery just as I finally got the motivation to leave the house meaning I had to wait and charge it, which meant breakfast was a looooooong time before my run..

I can't find my headphones - running is so much better with a soundtrack!

The ugly...
My run fail! First the garmin ran out of battery so I had to wait at home to charge it and I was already hungry so nutrition wasn't right. Started off as intervals, then turned into tempo, then became argh eff it just run. I was going to start a 10 mile training plan yesterday but this run just confirmed my body isn't ready. I'm going to start to try and build my milage back up so that when it comes to training for my half marathon in June I will be totally ready to tackle the milage and do the training plan 100%.

I ended up doing 4 miles in 37.12 an average pace of 9.16 - way slower than I was a few months ago :-(
8.10 - this was going to be a warm up but I set out too fast and it became a tempo mile.
9.32 - this was supposed to be a second tempo mile but I just couldn't keep pace. I also tried my cherry gel from mule bars in this mile and choked on it... embarrassing!
9.11 - started feeling a bit better
10.09 - and lost it again... self fullfilling prophecy maybe? I think too much about these things perhaps I should have just gone out and run! In fact the more I look at the stats from this run the more I feel like I must have just given up in mile 4... Hopefully my next run will be better, I need to find my headphones and get out there for a LSR.

More ugly - I have an 11.5 hour shift today :-( not excited about that! Wish me luck!

Lost: One Motivation

If found, please return to Laura.

I've been feeling really lazy since the move. I'm not sure if I'm just still a bit tired or if it's the cold weather but I've been really struggling to motivate myself to do any kind of training. Yesterday I managed my push-ups W2D1, 14-14-10-10-15 and some gymnastics but it was one of those workouts that just kind of felt really difficult.. I don't know if it's all in the head!

I opted for an equally lazy tea, pasta alla anything!! It will not be seen in any Italian kitchen I'm sure but it's a really nice one-pot meal we enjoy from time to time. It only takes about 15 minutes to make so it's perfect when you're feeling a bit tired or in my case, lazy! (sorry for the bad photos btw, it was going dark.. my camera does not like the dark.. or I have not figured out how to successfully use it in the dark)

I even had my handy floor cleaner on hand for any bits of veg I dropped ;-)

Get all your ingredients out ready to throw carelessly into the pan... Of course the pasta also includes pasta but I seem to have forgotten to photo it...

To your simmering pan of pasta add whatever frozen veg you happen to have, chickpeas, and any other veg you fancy

When it's all cooked add a tin, or packet of chopped tomatoes and a generous amount of hummous to make it lovely and creamy.. This dish is vegan until you top it with feta.

Top it with feta, or not, and enjoy!

Not very authentic but very tasty and very simple, packed full of veg and beans for protein it's healthy fast food!

Afterwards I had a nice cup of tea

I tried to have two nice cups of tea but spilt the second one.. ahh well :-(

What's everyone up to today? I'm heading out for a run soon. I've told you all now so I can't chicken out 'cause of the cold... What is up with me lately, I ran in snow regularly last year, this year I'm a full blown wimp!

I'll be back later to let you all know how far I went, also I recieved another fab tea prize in the mail this morning.. more of that later!! Aaaand CSN giveaway and review is coming up this week :-)

Hill Sprints are Back

Thanks for all the lovely comments on the new house! We're settling in well and I'm starting to get some energy back after a tiring few weeks.

Since we moved I've only really done a bit of running and some push-ups.. not as many as I should have done though, I think I'm going to start week 2 again, last week was a bit of a write off. My running has felt really labored too, I hope it's just 'cause I was tired from all the lifting and moving related sleepiness.

I took Roxie for her first run last weekend. We did 2 miles and it was one of the hardest 2 miles ever! She kept tripping me up and she pulls on the lead badly... I hope she will learn not to pull soon.. We did 2 miles in just over 20 minutes and I felt like my arms got a workout too.

Mike took Roxie's lead the next time and we did another 2 miles, faster this time. The first mile was about 8 minutes and it was uphill. Well I totally burnt out and slowed us all down for the second mile which took about 10 minutes. Ooops! Rather annoying really as we had planned to do 3 but I felt horrible and had chest pains so we cut it short.

We ditched Roxie for yesterdays run and went to do an old favourite. Hill sprints! 1 mile warm up then 20 x 50m sprint uphill, 50m recovery jog downhill... An old lady said she wished she could still do that as she walked past us, then the second time we ran past she told me off for lagging haha. I mainly kept up with Mike for the first 10 then he got 2 reps ahead of me in the final 10.. His endurance is much better than mine.. That's something I really want to work on before I do another half marathon... Any tips?

Yesterday, just before we set off running a lovely parcel arrived... My Teapigs goodies which I won on Maria's blog, Running Cupcake, thanks Maria!! I so wanted to stay at home and make a big cuppa instead of running! I won the Christmas Cheeky bundle and they sent some peppermint and green tea samples too.

I tried the spiced winter red tea first...

Waited patiently for 3 minutes for it to brew

And then burnt my tongue...Not so patient...

Yum yum! I made my dad a cup too and he loved it, really nice on a wintry morning and definitely christmassy sort of spices. Delish! I'd pick this over mulled wine any day! Although I did for a moment wonder what it would be like with baileys instead of milk!! I only tried rooibos tea recently as my mum and dad bought some vanilla flavoured rooibos back from Amsterdam. I've always been a green tea girl but I could see rooibos featuring more often in my cuppa!

I could spend rather a lot of money on the teapigs website! Must be restrained, the prices mean they would have to be special treat teas on my current budget! I've already made a wish list as long as my arm though... Rooibos creme caramel, popcorn tea, oriental special brew bundle, and of course the matcha all feature on it... Please father christmas!!

How has everyone elses weekends been? Hope you've all enjoyed a break :-)

*disclaimer* Teapigs have not paid me for my review or sent me the teas to review, all opinions are my own and I featured the product on my blog because I enjoyed it.

Virtual Tour

If you don't want to see a lot of pictures, this is not the place to be!! I took 172 over the past few days... Here's the short version, which is still very long!

During the move

We didn't get the keys 'til 5pm as the lady we were buying off didn't get her keys 'til late so couldn't get her stuff out.. It started off with boxes EVERYWHERE...

The piggies did what piggies do best... or perhaps second best after eating

We were surprised to find a welcome hamper from our mortgage company.. I was just running out of coffee so it was very handy!

The unpacking begins...

As does the DIY.. fixing the dog gate for Roxie.

After a few hours and a good dint in the boxes we gave up for the night..

And ordered a curry... which we classily ate off the floor!

Vegetable rogan josh with pilau rice and veggie stuffed naan bread, yum! I easily had half left for Saturdays lunch too :-)

All our rubbish waiting to go to the tip..

So that was the move... Here's the house in it's (pretty much) finished state.. I need to take a picture of the front but it's right on the road and I need to do it at a quieter time so I'll start inside..

Lounge

My mum and dad bought us this tapestry in Bruges when they knew we were moving

The reading corner :-)

Dining room/music room

I'm going to get a piano to go in front of the radiator too (obvs won't have the radiator on in this room!)

Kitchen

I love this little cubby hole!! It even has a light inside!

Garden

Here is the back of the cottage

Scooby has settled in well, and has already escaped once.. he should be called houdini!

Bathroom

This is Tia in the bath... She is an odd cat, there was loads of water in the bottom as I'd just had a shower!!

Hallway
I can't seem to get the pictures to do this little area justice! It's such a cool area it feels like a conservatory but it isn't...



Bedroom 1
The bedrooms still need a bit of sorting.. We ran out of storage space so we need to buy a few bits..

Ooops sorry for the blur...

Bedroom 2/ Roxie's bedroom!

So there it is! Our little house :-) We love it so far! Hope you all like the masses of pictures.. I'm off to do my push-ups and get a hot bowl of porridge in front of the fire.. I'm absolutely freezing writing this!