Hi guys. Thank you so much the love that you offered on yesterday’s post. I have to say again that I am grateful for a space where I can can share both the highs and lows of life openly and be met with support and understanding.

My week is off to a brighter start. Tanner and I are starting a three-week series of childbirth/infant care classes at the hospital tonight and I’m taking off tomorrow for a blog trip that I’m REALLY looking forward to. It might be the last travel I do in pregnancy unless I decided to hop down to Florida for another quick weekend visit. My grandmother hinted yesterday that she’d like to like to see the bump in person. 😉

I’ve got a weekend recap for today along with the reading on happiness that I shared with my yoga classes on Saturday morning and this morning. It’s pretty special and even got a round of applause from my yogis this morning.

FRIDAY

I had a photo shoot on Friday with local photographer Scott Broome to capture some prenatal fitness photos as well as to shoot two workouts that I’m going to share here soon. He was super awesome to work with and I love the preview selects he sent. I can’t wait to see the rest of the shots!

Since I was at Metro Fitness and in the vicinity of Cupcrazed, it seemed only right to pick up some treats for the weekend. I went with coconut blackberry, strawberry and peanut butter and banana. The PB cupcake had bacon on it (it was called “The Elvis”) and I scraped that off. I can’t do bacon on cupcakes.

Later that day I taught and took yoga and then headed over to Dorie’s house for dinner with her and her two gorgeous girls. Dorie just got an Instant Pot after they were quite the topic of conversation at our girls weekend wanted to try it out. Man, that thing was a little intimidating to figure out but our meal turned out great. Thank god we decided to read the actual manual instructions instead of just the recipe instructions! We made pork that was cooked in a mojo sauce that we shredded for tacos.

All together! It was delish!

SATURDAY

Sleep has been so hit or miss lately that I lounged in bed until around 8:15 on Saturday. I got up and had a smoothie bowl for breakfast.

It was a beautiful morning so I took the girls out on a long walk before heading to the studio to teach.

Back at home I made a salad for lunch and hung out with the pups for a couple hours before heading back to the studio to lead teacher training from 4-6 p.m. We went over how to sequence for standing postures. It was a fun session!

Saturday night dinner was PaleOMG spaghetti pizza pie with another friend. My drink is a Spindrift sparkling raspberry-lime seltzer. 😉

SUNDAY

I woke up with pancakes on the brain so I made a big stack of blueberry pancakes.

And ate them with bacon and grapes. YUM!

The craziest thing is that I was still hungry about an hour and a half later so I decided to make a green smoothie to hold me over for the afternoon. It did the trick. I joked that Baby G must be having a growth spurt because I’ve been extra hungry the last few days.

The rest of my afternoon was spent at the studio where I led another two-hour chunk of teacher training and then taught a class.

I swung by Whole Foods on my way home and grabbed a few things. I didn’t need to do a big trip since I’ll be gone for a few days this week but there were some things I needed…including cereal! I’ll talk about that more in my 31 week pregnancy update tomorrow.

Dinner was rotisserie chicken from Whole Foods with cilantro-lime rice, sauteed mushrooms and green beans.

I was trying to make it Viva Chicken-esque so I made a srirach/lime/cilantro sauce to go on the chicken and rice.

The night concluded with more Shameless. Now on season 2. OMG Frank Gallagher.

HAPPINESS READING

(Source – Reverend Crystal Boyd)

We convince ourselves that life will be better after we get married, have a baby, then another. Then we are frustrated that the kids aren’t old enough, and we’ll be more content when they are.

After that, we’re frustrated that we have teenagers to deal with. We will certainly be happy when they are out of that stage.We tell ourselves that our life will be complete when our partner gets his or her act together when we get a nicer car, are able to go on a nice holiday, when we retire.

The truth is, there’s no better time to be happy than right now. If not now, when?

Your life will always be filled with challenges.

It’s best to admit this to yourself and decide to be happy anyway.

A quote comes from Alfred D. Souza. He said,

“For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin – real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, or a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.”

This perspective has helped me to see that there is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way.

So, treasure every moment that you have and treasure it more because you shared it with someone special, special enough to spend your time…and remember that time waits for no one.

So, stop waiting until you lose ten pounds, until you gain ten pounds, until you have kids, until your kids leave the house, until you start work, until you retire, until you get married, until you get divorced, until Friday night, until Sunday morning, until you get a new car or home, until your car or home is paid off, until spring, until summer, until winter, until your song comes on, until you’ve had a drink…. there is no better time than right now to be happy.

Happiness is a journey, not a destination.

QUESTIONS

Have you jumped on the Instant Pot train yet? I was so surprised by how big that thing is! Where do you keep it? 

What did you have for Sunday breakfast/lunch?

Favorite pancakes mix-ins or toppings?