Treat Yourself Tuesday: Back on Track

Today, I’m linking up with my favorite lady Becky (who I get to see in 1 month minus 1 day at BLEND!!!)  for Treat Yourself Tuesday. As Becky puts it, Treat Yourself Tuesday is a way to reflect on the ways you’ve treated yourself lately:

“Do whatever feels best for you. Do something that will make you feel relaxed and loved and happy. Treat yourself well and treat yourself often so that you will become the best you possible and in turn be your best for others in your life!”

With things as busy as they’ve been lately (as I mentioned on Friday), it’s been more important than ever for me to remember to slow down and take care of myself. Now, while that often includes indulging in comfort food (or dranks), sometimes the best way for me to treat myself is by treating my body AND soul well…and that is just what I did this Sunday! It was a great way to start my week on the right foot and get back on track.

It all started with a nice early morning bike ride to the Farmers Market. Tulips, rainbow chard, sweet potatoes, portobello mushrooms, medjool dates, and sugar snap peas…all for about $20. Win. I don’t do it all the time, but I love treating myself to flowers!

Next up was a longggg overdue pedicure. I hadn’t gotten one since December (due to the whole being on a budget thing), but I decided my poor feet couldn’t go any longer without! I calculated it out, and I had run over 300 miles since my last pedi. DANG. My feet are much happier now!

After bringing home my loot, I changed into gym clothes and checked out the brand new California Family Fitness (CalFit) on K Street. This crazy ab machine has had my core in a world of hurt ever since I took it on!

The gym literally just opened on Friday, when my friends and I went over to look at the facilities:

Ummm yeah, that’s a ROOFTOP basketball court. There will also be a bar with wine & beer. Needless to say, I was sold! I now have my first actual gym membership for the first time in almost 3 years! I am really excited about it and am pumped to try out some group fitness classes and switch up my routine a bit. Did I mention the gym is only 3 blocks away from my office? There was really no downside to joining!

After a good stair master & core workout, I headed home to be even more productive! I prepped some food for the week- made more curry patties (this time with white beans instead of chickpeas), chopped up broccoli and bell pepper, made snap pea baggies to bring to work for snacks, and par-cooked a couple of sweet potatoes.

I did this all in about 1 hours time while I chatted on the phone with my mom. Easy peasy, and it feels good to know I won’t be eating out or skipping any lunches this week!

And to top off a seriously perfect day…we arrived at the dodgeball gym only to be greeted by FREE BEER. The gym is located in a German cultural center and they had leftovers from a fundraiser. Twist my arm, why don’t ya.

I felt so energized, healthy and productive on Sunday that it really put me in a perfect place to start the week off right. I had 3 good meals yesterday thanks to meal prepping (OK, and the fact that Yvette hosted ladies Dance Central night and made spaghetti 😉 ), and I woke up bright and early for a quick work out at my new gym this morning before work. Happy body = Happy Katie!

What are your favorite ways to treat yourself?

How do you get back on track after days/weeks/months of slackin’ off?

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Treat Yourself Tuesday

It’s time to TREAT YO SELVES, friends!

Every Tuesday, my dear friend Becky over at Olives n’ Wine hosts a linkup encouraging bloggers to share in which ways – big or small – they have treated themselves over the past week. I love this idea and think everyone should find at least one way to treat themselves each week!

As I mentioned yesterday, tomorrow is my first day of work. As you can imagine, I’ve been taking advantage of my last days of “freedom”, aka too much free time on my hands.

I started last night by spending some time catching up on all the TV shows that are back this month- New Girl, How I Met Your Mother (OMG, does everyone else love the Mother as much as I do?! I have such a girl crush. Can’t wait for them to meet!), Girls (ugh the premieres were so so good! I laughed out loud too much!), and I got through almost half of the Downton Abbey premiere before I got kinda bored and went to bed…oops. Haha. I normally love it, I think I was just in the mood for comedies last night, so I wasn’t feeling Lady Mary’s doom and gloom.

I set out to make today equal parts productive AND treat yo self worthy. I woke up bright and early (I’ve been going to bed and waking up early lately to get back into my routine!) and did my weekly 3 mile run. It’s always strange to go from my long run on Saturdays to only 3 miles on Tuesdays.. But I know it’s important not to overdo it! Plus, I have 5 miles to look forward to on Thursday morning 😉

It was super chilly when I went, but check out the high temp today.. 71 degrees?! Isn’t this January?! Not great news for that drought California is experiencing right now..

Next up was a movie date with myself! I actually did this for my own version of a Treat Yourself day back in the day…I decided since American Hustle was playing downtown and I’ve been wanting to see it, I’d take advantage of the opportunity while I still had some free time! It was SO good. Amy Adams was phenomenal.. Actually, the whole cast was!

Afterward, I made the mistake of walking past Express…

I know I may be on a budget.. But I have been eying this LBD (little black dress) for over a month! I tried it on twice, and put it back twice, because of the $80 price tag… When I spotted it today, there was 1 left, it was in MY SIZE, and it was only $30. It was meant to be. #treatyoself #amen

I also ended up with this tank and this sweater. They were both on sale for half off the sale price! I couldn’t resist.

Speaking of shopping..

Did anyone else check out Target’s C9 sale last week? Love that stuff! I pretty much anticipate only wearing workout clothes and work clothes for the next…forever 😛 Seriously. That’s all I wear.

In sum: TV shows, running, the movies, and shopping…Definitely sounds like a successful Treat Yourself Tuesday to me!!

What TV shows are you loving right now? I love all the ones I mentioned, but my all-time fave is Mad Men.

Last great movie you saw in theaters?

Treat Yourself Tuesday

One of my favorite hashtags to see pop up on my Instagram feed is #TreatYoSelf.

Moooooostly because I absolutely love Parks & Rec, and the Treat Yo Self episode is one of my faves.

The other reason why I love to see the hashtag is because I love to see my friends taking some “me” time to enjoy themselves every once in a while!

When Becky decided to do a link up celebrating Treat Yourself Tuesdays, I knew I had to participate. Love this idea, Becky! Head on over to her post to see some other bloggers that have linked up today to share how they have been treating themselves this week.

Anyway, on to my #treatyoself moments of the past few days 🙂

I have mentioned this before, but when my boyfriend and I broke up a few months back, I started to carve out time for myself every Saturday for some “me” time. Ever since, my Saturday morning routine has become something I look forward to every week!

I usually roll out of bed around 10 on Saturday morning (or earlier if I make it to sleep early, but this week I had friends over on Friday night), and this week was no exception. Normally, I will start my day with a long run, but since my 10K was the next morning, I decided to pass this weekend.

The next stop in my Treat Yo Self routine is always the Farmer’s Market! This was my first time being back in 2 weeks, since I was stompin’ grapes last weekend…since I hadn’t been back since my cast came off, 2 of my favorite vendors that I always pass through (Soil Born Farms and Crazy Gringo Taco Wagon Salsa) both commented on my cast being gone! They were so happy for me, haha. I love the community atmosphere at the Midtown Farmers Market.

Got a pretty good haul: Sunflowers, a dozen local eggs, 2 pattypan squash, my FAVORITE salsa (it was already half gone 1 day later), frying peppers, cherry tomatoes, purple potatoes, and corn, Somehow, I actually ended up with all Organic items this week, and the price wasn’t too bad- about $26 for all that you see here. (my beloved salsa is $6 and the flowers were $5, which accounts for a lot of it!)

The best part about Treat Yo Self days? Wearing what I like to call my “Saturday clothes” AKA lounge/gym/WTF attire 😛

For the rest of the day, I took my sweet time running errands and basically just doing whatever came to mind. I was planning on making a pizza from scratch on Sunday, and fancy Mac & Cheese (a Cooking Bucket List item!! More on that later!) for Monday Night Football…so I ended up at Grocery Outlet twice and Safeway once on Saturday, ha.

I also picked up my shirt and packet for my 10K, and some amaaazing leopard print duct tape to fix my bike seat (the fabric/covering on it has been ripping for months, and the stuffing finally started falling out.. oops!). I think it looks pretty fabulous 😉

I ended my “Me” day with an attempt to carb load before my Sunday morning race. I cooked up some whole wheat pasta with zucchini, tomatoes, corn, and turkey meatballs, and shredded some cheese all over it. Sooo good. I followed it up with a beer, practiced some songs on our piano keyboard (one of my favorite things to do to relax) and called it an early night!

The treats didn’t end on Saturday, though…I already shared this pic on Sunday, but I went and got a pedicure after my race. And for a mere $8 more, I upgraded to the “luxury” pedicure which included an exfoliating scrub, minty tingly mud treatment, and looootts of callous removal.

My favorite/least favorite thing about getting pedicures is that they always ask if I’m a runner or dancer, or some other kind of comment that indicates that I have gnarly feet. This time, I mentioned that I had just run a race and the woman asked me if I run every day. Um, no, but apparently my feet look like they do!! Oh well…all the more reason to #treatmyself to pedicures, right?

Hope you all had a great weekend and that you can find ways this week to….

4th of July Weekend in Photos

Hello and welcome back to reality. I remember the 4th of July sucking last year because it was in the middle of the week and I didn’t get any extra days off…However, I think it might be even worse to have a 4 day weekend and then be thrown back into the reality of work! Luckily the whole legislature will be on recess soon, so my days won’t be too strenuous 🙂

I made the best decision ever and chose to escape the 109 degree heat of Sacramento on the 4th of July by taking Megabus to San Francisco. For those of you keeping score at home, we had 7 days of 100+ degree temps, and of those 7 days, 5 were above 105. Worst week ever. The weather in San Francisco on 4th of July? 75 degrees and sunny. Can I get an amen?

I stayed with my old college roommate, So-Ky, and for the daytime festivities we met our friend Meghan and her USF law school buddies in Golden Gate Park by the Conservatory of Flowers to BBQ and celebrate. That would be me sporting Meghan’s authentic 1996 Team USA Olympic warm up jacket and doing my best Kerri Strug. With a beer in my hand, of course.

Daisy chain, patriotic hat, and a Reagan-Bush beer koozie. Amurrica.

After the BBQ, our other former roomie Tyler arrived with our former neighbor Monique and we went out for drinks. We saw a Hello Kitty car (only in SF…) and the boys made friends with a very friendly Brit, who was also very inebriated. I made sure to Snapchat photo evidence to our other roomies (there were 6 of us in a tiny apartment!) and college friends. I had a great time reminiscing and remembering old stories of the pranks the boys pulled on us senior year 🙂

The next day, the 4 of us had brunch at Howard’s Cafe in the Inner Sunset…I got the breakfast special (2 eggs, 2 pieces of bacon, 2 slices of toast, & potatoes for $4.99!) and So-Ky and I went on a 4 mile walk to SF State. Then it was back to Sac for me!

When I came home, it looked like my basil plant had died in the 109 degree heat, but fortunately I was able to revive it! I spent the night finally finishing the last season of The Office and ugly-crying at some amazing Jim-Pam moments. So good!

I dubbed Saturday my own personal #TREATYOSELF day, a la Parks and Rec. I was a little sore from walking so I decided to forgo my Saturday morning run, but I made my weekly farmer’s market trip and bought myself sunflowers and ginger-berry kombucha. Then I cleaned up the apartment and treated myself to a movie – The Heat! Not gonna lie, I was kinda nervous to go watch a movie alone, but I actually kinda liked it! Funny movie too.. I love Melissa McCarthy!

In a kinda off-theme move, I then crashed guys night and watched the UFC fight with 4 guy friends. Although I guess copious amounts of beer and shirtless guys fighting isn’t too far off the theme 🙂 #treatyoself day lives on!

Without intending to, I kinda extended my pampering to Sunday. I DIY’ed an awesome Kings shirt (cut off the sleeves, made it a racerback, and I took in the sides to make it less baggy), got pedicures with my mom (and chose the most obnoxiously neon pink polish I could find- the picture doesn’t do it justice!), and cooked my parents a delicious dinner.

I’m already ready for the next holiday- luckily I don’t have to wait too long, since Becky is coming out to California for a girls weekend with Carly and I in just a week and a half! Can’t wait!

How did you celebrate the 4th of July?

Have you ever gone to the movies alone?

How do you Treat Yo Self?