Fun Friday: Summer List!

Hey everyone! Happy Friday! I hope your week has treated you well and you are all ready for the weekend! I have one more day of work to go until I get to my day off and I can't wait for Sunday! I'm still planning on waking up really early and taking a nice 30 minute drive to the opening day of one of our Farmers Markets! Assuming I can get up of course. Today I did some more running and I'm feeling really good about it. Starting to build distance. I should be back up to my two miles in a week or two hopefully! I'll also start to strength train after my runs. Gotta get that upper body super strong for all the climbing I'm going to be doing! Who knows, maybe if I can get my arms all buff I'll have a reason to start a half sleeve tattoo ;)

OK so for today's Fun Friday I was inspired by Ingrid's Summer List that she posted a few days ago! Summers are really busy for me because of the wedding season, so I think it is really important to make this list because it will be a constant reminder for me to take the time to do things for myself. It is the best way to keep my sanity, my motivation and my happiness going when things get crazy.

Here's the list!

I'm sure it is obvious that Tough Mudder training is on the list. Running, strength training, endurance are all on the list. My nutrition goals are also tied in to Tough Mudder training.

Spend more time on the beach. I realized this past weekend when we were on the beach for the portraits how much I love the beach and how genuinely happy I was for the 30 minutes we were there. My absolute favorite time to go is first thing in the morning before anyone is awake. I like to watch the surfers and soak it all in and leave before the crowds get there. 

Go to the farmer's market more! I usually only go a few times every season because ours is so small. I should try and seek out larger ones and start buying locally grown produce. I chose this image because it is what I wish my farmer's market looked like! I really wish I had access to the Winter Park Farmer's Market I went to in Florida. It was so amazing.

Experiment with my dehydrator! I finally got it after lusting after it for at least a year so I need to make sure I get use out of it! I'm going to dehydrate everything in sight ;)

Eat mostly beautiful, raw foods. I have been feeling amazing on this cleanse (day 14 today!) and I want to keep it going so I'm going to try and maintain a mostly raw diet as a lifestyle instead of a cleanse. It'll be a little more lenient than the cleanse but I'll be following the same principles :) 

Be creative and crafty and complete more DIY projects. First up is this beachy hair spray! 

Finally (for now), I'd like to try and create more recipes. I feel like most of the food I eat is simple and I never write a recipe for anything because I feel like it doesn't need one. In reality, I should be writing down recipes because it's probably not as obvious as I think it is? And I figured I'd start off on this by including a recipe for you today! This is a recipe for my breakfast Carrot Cake Smoothie (pictured above). I've tried many Carrot Cake Smoothies but decided it was time to make my own!

Carrot Cake Smoothie!

1/4 cup oats (I used gf)

3/4 cup plant milk (I used Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk), plus a few tbsps

1 tbsp raisins

1 tbsp chopped walnuts

pumpkin pie spice to taste

1 giant carrot or 2 small carrots, grated

1 serving vanilla protein powder (I used Vanilla Almondilla Vega Energizing Smoothie Powder)*

As much ice as you like (you could probably also use a frozen banana!)

Directions:

1. The night before, combine oats, milk, raisins, walnuts and pumpkin pie spice in a bowl. Mix and cover and place in fridge overnight. 

2. Put contents of bowl in blender and add protein powder, carrots and ice (or banana).

3. Blend until smooth and add plant milk until you reach desired consistency. I added 2 tbsp.

4. Enjoy!

*I use the Vega Energizing smoothie powder because it has 2 servings of greens in it :) No spinach required in this one!

OK that's all for today! I will try to post something tomorrow before I leave for the long day of work. Tomorrow also officially starts the third week of my cleanse :) Home stretch my friends! 

I hope that you all enjoy your Friday evening!