First, let’s start with the winner of our Minted Giveaway!

Congratulations Blythe! I will email you with information on how to claim your prize! Thank you everyone for entering, and hopefully there will be more giveaways in the future.

Here are some randoms from our week:

Had pizza for the first time in forever. Still my desert island food for sure. If you’re local, Pizza Tree is the shiznit.

Garden is planted! Keeping it super simple for now, lots of green and 4 types of tomatoes. Stuff we know we eat a lot of. If Neil’s dad makes it up this way again, I’d love for him to build us another bed. Just not enough room for peppers.

Since we’re redoing the deck in a few weeks (yay!), I haven’t done a lot of potted stuff. Just a few things for some color. Neil actually picked everything out for me.

Tons of random reading…

Paleo banana bread via Peanut Butter Runner’s recipe…yum! I’m only a little embarrassed to admit it only lasted about a day and a half.

Felix has been glued to this spot most of the week, as evidence by the growing cocoon of fur. He’s turning into the sweetest little old man.

I feel like I am literally crawling into this weekend. I totally need these 3 days for a good “reset.” You know you are crazy busy when old friends from high school take notice and message you on Facebook to ask how you’re holding up. I’m not kidding. It feels like my first real weekend in a long time, and to make sure I do all the things I really want, I’ made myself a little bucket list:

Help teach a CrossFit class
Make these lemon bars
Cheer on some half marathoners at the Go Girl Half Marathon
Drink a smoothie
Complete “Murph” in under an hour
Work on some cool websites
Make a loaf of sourdough bread
Enjoy at least one cookout
Try this quick bread recipe
Go to the library
Plant some spinach in our garden
Walk the dogs on the trail
Read purely for recreation. Preferably in a hammock.

Do you have a bucket list for this weekend?

As Jessica mentioned on Friday, that afternoon we loaded up the trailer and Jeep and headed to Omaha, NE. For what? A track day of course! At about 5 1/2 hours drive time, this was the furthest we have traveled to do a track day.

We also took the dogs, which always makes a trip more work, but also more enjoyable. We’ve been really lucky, Clive and Matilda are really good sports when it comes to traveling. Even with the added noise of pulling the car on a trailer and alongside noisy semis didn’t seem to upset them too much. They were in a constant cycle of naps and begging for road snacks.

This was my first time to Mid America Motorplex and I can say now that I really enjoyed the track. After the massive floods in the area in 2011, I wasn’t sure quite what conditions would be like, but for the most part the track was still in very good shape and enjoyable to drive on.

This particular event was put on by the guys at Find The Line. I got a chance to talk with Find The Line owner Damian Dela Huerta a good bit about the track and how to drive it. Damian has a race car of his own and was a great resource to have, and I definitely took the opportunity to pick his brain about how to find the good racing lines at Mid America Motorplex.

Mid America Motorplex is a 2.23 mile circuit (about double the size of Gateway!) and as you can see has a lot of really great turns. There is a little bit of something for everyone at Mid America. You have two straights that are good for well over 100mph, you have a couple late apex turns, and you have two sets of slower speed technical transitions that allow the lower horsepower cars to gain some time on the more powerful cars if you get those turns right.

Some of my favorite things about the track would be turn 3 to 4 where in my car I can exit turn 3 in 3rd gear and hit 4th and have the pedal to the floor all the way through turn 4 before braking for turn 5.

Turn 5 to 6 is a sweeper that since the track sweeps outward you can carry a lot of early exit speed because you will not have to worry about going off track there. Turn 7 comes up very very fast!

Turn 7-8 was perhaps the most tricky for me to get right. As you can see you can do a “double apex” on the turn where you hit the turn apex on 7 and then hit the turn apex on 8. OR you can give up turn 7 apex and track out to the left and then late apex turn 8.

9-10-11 and 12-13-14 turns were such a joy to drive and really reminded me of my Autocross days in that if you got these smooth and efficient you could make up so much time on someone who was not very good at those transitions.

Here are some videos of my laps. Sorry about the terribly shaky camera. I tried to dampen the camera mount the best I could but the exhaust note/vibration is just too much for it. I will be ordering a new mount soon that will eliminate this problem for next time.

5-18-2013 Mid America Motorplex Open Lapping HPDE from Kohler Created on Vimeo.

5-18-2013 Mid America Motorplex Open Lapping HPDE – Session 2 from Kohler Created on Vimeo.

5-18-2013 Mid America Motorplex – Open Lapping HPDE – Session 3 from Kohler Created on Vimeo.

Here is a slideshow of the pictures of the day! Unfortunately due to how large the track is, it is quite hard to get good on-track photos so we do not have any of those.

Since there were only around 20 cars there we were able to get over an hour and a half of track time! That is about the most track time I have had at any event. The kind of focus and concentration that is required to keep getting faster and faster on the track and the heat inside the car I was quite tired by the end of the day.

Packing up is always bittersweet because while you are quite tired and typically feeling pretty accomplished with your day, you know that what comes next is the wait for the next track day.

I hope you enjoyed the post and until the next track day I will leave you with this:

This giveaway is sponsored by minted.com. I’m receiving a credit to the site for hosting the giveaway, and they are supplying the prize as well.

Two giveaways in two weeks!? Who are we? We were thrilled when Minted emailed us late last week offering us the chance to offer you guys and awesome prize, $50 toward a Minted purchase!

I find myself on Minted quite a bit, looking for inspiration and ideas for my own work, which isn’t hard, because there is definitely no shortage of amazing talent there. I love the global community they’ve assembled, and how they vote in new work.

I’ve recently spent a lot of time there while designing my best friend’s wedding invitations. Two of my absolute favorites from their collection:

{source}

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They also have gorgeous journals…

And wall prints!

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Suffice to say, there is NO way you will not find something you love and really want on Minted. Ready to win a chance?

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Prize: One lucky winner will receive a $50 credit to Minted.
Deadline: Entries to this giveaway will be accepted until Thursday, May 23, at 11:59 p.m. CST
To Enter: Enter via the rafflecopter entry above AND leave a comment below in the comments answering the following question:

What would you choose from Minted if you win?

Winning: One comment from this post will be picked at random and the author of that comment will be the winner!

Good luck!

This giveaway is sponsored by minted.com. I’m receiving a credit to the site for hosting the giveaway, and they are supplying the prize as well.

Off on a little adventure this weekend! We packed up the dogs and made our way to Omaha tonight. Tomorrow morning, Neil will be racing his car at Mid-America Motor Plex. It’s our first time at this track, so there’s definitely some nervous excitement in the air, but I beyond thrilled to see my brother Eric, who I haven’t seen since Christmas.

I’m excited to announce that the winner of the Jawbone UP giveaway is Chrissy! Congratulations!! Drop me a line before the end of the weekend to claim your prize!

Thank you to everyone who entered. Look for more giveaways in the future, you never know what might pop up!

What are your plans this weekend?

Happy Wednesday! I’m still major de-load from my trip to Adobe MAX (which I’m still writing about — slowest blogger ever award please), but I wanted to pass along the recipe for the awesome quinoa salad Neil put together for our BBQ at CrossFit this weekend. It was a complete hit, so much so that we made another batch the next day and took it to my parents for Mother’s Day dinner.

We found the original recipe via Pinterest, and then tweaked it a bit to make it more “us.” I think the other version would obviously be equally as good, but I’m partial to the addition of bacon in ours.

Ingredients

¾ cup uncooked quinoa
5 or 6 strips of uncured bacon, cooked and chopped
1-2 cups shredded red cabbage
1 red bell pepper, diced
½ red onion, diced
1 cup shredded carrots
½ cup chopped cilantro
¼ cup diced green onions
½ cup cashew halves
Squeeze of fresh lime

Dressing:
¼ cup all natural almond butter
2 teaspoons freshly grated ginger
3 tablespoon Dr. Braggs Liquid Aminos
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon coconut sugar
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 teaspoon rice vinegar
Water to thin, if necessary

Directions:

1. In a mesh strainer, rinse quinoa thoroughly with cold water until the water runs clear. Bring a 1 1/2 cups of water to a boil and then add quinoa. Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes or until quinoa has absorbed all of the water. After 15 minutes remove quinoa from heat and put in a large bowl and toss to help cool. Allow to cool for 10 minutes.
2. If you did not cook the bacon beforehand, now is a good time to fry it up until crunchy/chopp-able.
3. Heat dressing ingredients in a small saucepan over medium-high heat until smooth. Mix dressing in with the cooled quinoa until thoroughly combined, adding water to thin if necessary.
4. Add all of the vegetable ingredients and bacon to the dressed quinoa and fold over to mix so that the dressing coats evenly.Add cashews and fold over again until combined. Cool thoroughly in the refrigerator before serving.

It’s the perfect summer cold salad. It’s packed full of veggies and flavor and it complements other dishes as well. I haven’t made a ton of things I’ve found via Pinterest, despite pinning nearly everything in sight lately, but I’m so happy I gave this a try. So with that being said…

Have you found any Pinterest gems lately?

***This giveaway is now closed! Find out who won here!***

I stole away from work on Saturday for a little BBQ at CrossFit United. It was to celebrate the culmination of the Whole 30 Challenge as well as send the students off as we begin summer break. While I’ll definitely miss them, I’m happy to have a little peace and quiet. A few pics from the day:

How CrossFit does buffets, with boxes!

We made an awesome Quinoa salad we adapted from Pinterest. So good!

Paleo cookies and bars. The cookies were right out of the oven, to die for!

And the BBQ pork, beef and turkey…

Laura and Boone. Isn’t he the cutest kid ever!?

Sake

Lee catching some sun…

Charlie and Nate

Earlier that day a few of the girls and I had gotten on the topic of fitness inspiration. While it seems there is no shortage of places to find it these days, as it turns out, we all revealed that we look to specific people to stay committed to our goals and motivated to push ourselves in workouts. Each one of our idols was different, from Christmas Abbott to Andrea Ager.

I absolutely love Jenny Labaw. Not only has she managed to overcome the challenges of epilepsy to become the 6th fittest woman in the world, she completed all of the 2013 CrossFit Open WODs with a broken foot. Badass!

And Now a Giveaway!

So with fitness motivation in mind, I wanted to offer you guys an amazing giveaway! Through my ambassadorship with Verizon, I’m giving away one UP by Jawbone! ($129.99 value)

{image via Verizon}

What is UP? UP is small, flexible and strong to accommodate an active lifestyle and help people reach their goals for a healthy lifestyle. Some of the features of device include:

• Designed to be worn 24/7; up to 10 days of battery life
• Tracks sleep and activity using advanced sensor technology
• Log what you eat and drink, and track nutritional info
• Get personalized insights that help you set and achieve your goals
• Set a Smart alarm to help you wake up feeling refreshed
• Set Idle Alerts to remind you to move and stay active

I am so jealous of you guys! So, ready to win an UP system? Here’s what you need to do:

Before midnight CST on Friday, May 17, answer the following question in the comments below:
“How has technology helped you reach your health and fitness goals? Or if it hasn’t, who is your fitness idol?” Also be sure to confirm your comment with the Rafflecopter giveaway widget below!

I will randomly choose one winner from the comments to win an UP by Jawbone and I’ll announce the winner Friday morning. Good luck!

Side note: You might come across other UP wristband giveaways around the blogosphere this week. Verizon requests that you only win on one blog.

Disclosure: I am participating in the Verizon Health and Fitness Voices program and have been provided with the Motorola Razr HD and six months of service in exchange for my honest review and opinions about the product.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure: I am participating in the Verizon Health and Fitness Voices program and have been provided with the Motorola Razr HD and six months of service in exchange for my honest review and opinions about the product.

Hi guys! So I’m a month into my ambassadorship with Verizon (Parts 1 & 2 of the kick-off event if you’re just joining) and having a blast with the devices they’ve provided me to use abuse. Getting to know he Motorola Razr HD and using the Fitbit One has not only given me the opportunity to explore new tech, but also how I use tech within my lifestyle.

I make it sound polite, but I’ve been pretty tough on these devices. CrossFit isn’t exactly gentle, but so far they’ve not only held up, but been really useful. Here are a few of the phone’s features I’ve found especially helpful so far:

Google Now: Think of it like voice-activated Google. To activate it, hold the bottom home button, then slide your finger toward the Google logo in the circle when it appears. You can also access it from the lock screen or the Google search at the top of the home screen.

Since your phone knows where you live and work, it can send you traffic updates, or remind you of flight times or changes via alert. I’ve especially found it useful when I travel and am looking for boxes, parks, or places to get in a great workout. I’ve also used it to find workouts or look up my programming for the day.

Multi-tasking: I have a horrible habit of leaving apps engaged and having multiple open at once. To manage them on the Razr HD, I simply hold down the software button (square) and close them by swiping them to the right.

SmartActions:  This feature has been the most fun to play with. Simply put, SmartActions (emphasis theirs) are a great way to avoid time spent menu hopping. If you have certain routines or behaviors, you can set SmartActions so that your phone acts a certain way when it’s triggered by an event you define (think cause and effect). For example, when I’m in the gym, I want to completely shut out the rest of the world. I can turn off notifications and have my favorite playlist load when I plug-in my headphones to start rowing.

Hotspot: As a web developer, much of the work I do requires an internet connection. As a web developer who travels quite a bit, this can prove to be somewhat tricky. I’ve attempted to use 3rd Party apps to turn my Galaxy S III into a hotspot, but have received scary litigation threats from AT&T and pricey options to add the service to my current plan.

With Verizon, the functionality is a simple click-to-enable feature, and the service is complementary with whatever plan you choose. For the past few weeks, I’ve been living the dream of being able to work from anywhere with awesome speeds thanks to 4G LTE. This alone has given us immense pause in considering a re-up with AT&T.

Battery Life: By far the feature I adore the most. I am a heavy user. I usually have to charge my Samsung Galaxy SIII before I work out in the evening so I can use it for music/video recording. It doesn’t make it through the day, even on battery-save settings.

So when Verizon told me the phone had a 2530mAh mAh capable of some pretty unbelievable talk and browsing times, I was definitely skeptical. However, the battery has lived up to its hype. I’ve gone two full days between charges. TWO! None of our smart phones have ever lasted that long. And the phone wasn’t just sitting around. I’ve worked on blog posts while adding photos to Flickr. I even used navigation to go for a run in a new area while listening to my favorite playlist. The battery barely budged. It’s incredible.

Lest you think I love everything about the phone, there are a few things I haven’t enjoyed…

The Camera: While I’ve taken some great photos, I often miss shots because the camera is slow to take the picture. The camera also seems permanently zoomed in, making some shots difficult to get. It also tends to blow out photos and videos even when set to lower exposure. It just lacks a crispness that my Samsung Galaxy SIII has.

Its weight: It’s smaller than my Samsung, but heavier, which I find interesting. It hasn’t been a huge detriment, but I’d second-guess wearing it on my arm if I were running.

The accessories: Even though the Verizon store staff has been extremely helpful, there just don’t seem to be a lot of accessories (mainly cases for this phone). When I bought my Galaxy SIII, the options were endless.

This post speaks only to the native features of this phone, not any of the apps I’m currently trying out, or the Fitbit I was also given to play with. Those posts are coming up next!

What is one phone feature you’ve found you can’t live without?

Disclosure: I am participating in the Verizon Health and Fitness Voices program and have been provided with the Motorola Razr HD and six months of service in exchange for my honest review and opinions about the product.

In the absence of personal photos from the gym last week, I thought I’d link a great video I came across last week. If you’re unfamiliar with Barbell Shrugged, it’s a great video/podcast for not only CrossFitters, but athletes or the fitness-enthused altogether. Lots of great info and tips, and in this case, some ways to adjust the Paleo/Primal diet for active lifestyles.

For those who are training heavily or looking to increase load or overall training volume, some have found a strict Paleo diet is difficult to maintain without feeling like you’re eating all the time or just not getting enough. We’ve fallen in this category and have adapted our diet as necessary to include rice, oatmeal and some homemade sourdough bread just to feel satisfied and energetic enough for our volume. While it’s definitely not a reason not to engage a clean eating or Paleo/Primal lifestyle, realistically we’ve found it difficult to do without some accommodation.

I’m currently in LA for AdobeMax, so posting is a bit slow as I try to write entries for what I’ve been doing here, and just taking in the sheer amount of information to be found everywhere. I packed my conference scheduler with everything they’d allow me, so literally back to back sessions from 8:00-5:00 every day.

That being said, last week was a great week for programming and I am still really enjoying the OPT programming. I’m feeling stronger, and definitely more sore than I have in a long time. I can’t wait to see how I feel at the 6-week mark, and as we head into the summer and into a few competitions in the fall.

Neil’s hamstring is still sore, but as you can see below, he really didn’t let that stop him from doing whatever he could in the gym. Lots of upper body, with some light lower-body work. He messaged me today and said he managed a 145 lb squat and that he was only feeling a little sore, so I think he’s on the mend.

I’m excited to get home this week because we’re having another Friday Night Lights as well as a BBQ on Saturday. It’s crazy just how much I miss everyone!

Monday

Jessica

A1. Press; 12-15×5; rest 30 seconds (65 lb)
A2. Weighted chin up clusters @50×1 (1 set of as many as possible to tax), then 5×5; rest 15 seconds/rest 3 min

B1. Bench press 3×5; rest 10 seconds (75 lbs)
B2. Incline dumbell bench press 3×10; rest 10 seconds (2 20lb weights)
B3. Static headstand hold; amsap (as many seconds as possible) unbroken x3; rest 3 min (30 seconds each time)

C. Bent over supinated grip barbell rows @41×2 or 6-8×4; rest 2 min

Neil

Strength:
3×5 Squat – Air squats due to pulled hamstring
3×5 Strict Press @ 120lbs

WOD: 21-15-9
Horizontal ring pulls
Hand-release push ups

Tuesday

Jessica

A1. Front squat 3×5; rest 10 seconds (115 lb)
A2. Back squat; 3×10; rest 10 seconds (115 lb)
A3. Barbell walking lunges 3×24; rest 3 min (45 lb)
+
On the min for 20 min:
Odd- 30 seconds max double unders
Even- 30 seconds max goblet squats 1.5 pood (55 lb – managed 12 per round)

Neil

Rest Day

Wednesday

Neil

WOD: 3 Rounds Each For Time

250m Row
10 Roll-Outs
10 Abmat sit ups
10 Wood Choppers

Thursday

Jessica

A. HSPU eccentrics; accumulate 30 perfect reps with as slow of a tempo as possible (full range of motion)
+
7 TnG push jerk (75 lb)
Row sprint 20 seconds @100%
rest 3 min
x3
+
7 unbroken chest-to-bar chin ups (amrap if this above pr)
Row sprint 20 seconds @100%
rest 3 min
x3
+
Row sprint 30 seconds @100%
rest 3 min
x3

Neil

Strength:
3×5 Squat – Air squats due to pulled hamstring
3×5 Strict Press @ 120lbs

WOD: 21-15-9
20 inch box jump
Ring dip

Friday & Saturday

Travel days, no scheduled workouts

Have you had to adjust your diet to accommodate your fitness goals?

It’s a sad story. Our garden progress thus far this spring has been almost non-existent. The weather has been absolutely abysmal — persistently cold (like in the 50s during the day, 30′s at night), windy and rainy, not like any April I’ve seen in quite some time. By this time last year, we had a great garden going, a plush yard and plenty of days we’d spent outside working in it. This year, we’ve only been in the yard working once — and it was a muddy, disgusting mess. The past few days have finally been sunny and in the 70′s and 80′s, however tomorrow it is forecasted to dip back into the 50′s with rain, and possibly even flurries!

To be fair, I could put up our cold frame and dutifully go out and nurse some plants along until it gets warm. But for me, the enjoyment of gardening comes from cultivating plants and being outside in the weather to enjoy them, not merely trying to rescue them from it.

So over the weekend, at the height of my desperation at yet another Saturday hampered by cold and rain, I ended up at Ace Hardware on another errand and came across the most gorgeous selection of succulents. They were absolutely beautiful, and there were so many I’d never heard of. I couldn’t resist, and rationalized that if I couldn’t garden outside, I’d do a little inside instead.

I bought six succulents, along with some new potting mix, and set to work potting them and finding them places to live in the house.

While I was at it, I also repotted my oldest houseplant. I took it under my wing while they were living in Texas for my dad’s job. My parents have had it since I was born — so, it’s old. The winter was kind of rough on him.

Freshly potted:

And in their new homes:

(Yes, I realize the painting is upside-down)

Goes well with Neil’s brakes doesn’t it?

I figured the turtle should live in the bathroom.

And look! A bird decided to nest in our bathroom window. Hopefully this nest works out. The little egg unfortunately didn’t make it.

Edited to add: Still have the rock/sand layer to add to each of the pots.

Sometime last week, Neil woke me up to watch a YouTube video of Chef Jacques Pepin deboning a chicken. Before you ask, this is totally normal for us. Despite being groggy, I was completely enthralled by how little time it took for him to completely debone a chicken making minimal use of knives. When the video was over, Neil was all “we are so trying that this weekend.” I nodded, still staring at the screen in a daze.

So on Friday night, we picked up the chicken and watched the video several more times. On Saturday we decided what we wanted to stuff it with, and went back to the store and picked up those ingredients. On Sunday, we prepped, deboned and baked the chicken. Somehow this little ‘experiment’ spanned our entire weekend and required two trips to the store. It was both hilarious and somewhat embarrassing that the grocery store cashier knew what we were making for Sunday dinner. We definitely amuse them sometimes.

Deboning a chicken was actually as easy as Chef Pepin made it out to be — with the exception with our added stops along the way to clear more countertop space and wipe down areas affected by the chicken.

I’ll spare you a full tutorial since working with meat isn’t exactly picturesque, but here are a few highlights of the deboning:

Removing the lollipops…

Fancy!

Separating the meat from the rest of the carcass…

The filets..

Butterflying the meat..

Trimming the filets…

Removing the last of the bones…

We salt and peppered the chicken both inside and out.

We then turned our attention to the stuffing…

We stuffed it with:
4 strips of cooked bacon, roughly chopped
5-6 cups of spinach that we sweated in the pan after cooking the bacon (adds great flavor)
1 1/2 cups mushrooms, roughly chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup pecans, chopped
salt and pepper to taste for both the inside and outside of the chicken and the mixture

We then tied it together as Chef Pepin instructed and placed it in an oiled roasting pan

We baked it for…

To die for. We’ve made stuffed pork loin before, and don’t get me wrong, I love it. But this chicken was life changing. And despite the fact that our process looked a bit more like a felony than preparing a meal, it really wasn’t that bad. We could have spent the same amount of time and effort removing the meat from a baked whole chicken (bone-in). Deboning it ensures the flavors and stuffings you choose get closer to more of the meat.

Served with a little asparagus!

And completely Paleo!

Have you amazed yourself in the kitchen recently?