[helena handbasket.]

I am so horrible at taking photos on trips. Mostly, because I tend to leave BOTH of our cameras behind. However, I did capture a couple of highlights over the past couple of days.

Jonny was sent to Helena on a last-minute trip for work. I had Wednesday and (most of) Thursday off from work, so I decided to drive out and meet him. We had a pretty good time, and Helena is a quaint little town. We ate some delicious food (Chili's and Macaroni Grill! I love civilization!!) and visited with friends. And that was about it! I did get a pass to go down to the local health club, so I did a Les Mills BodyPump class. Our old gym here in Missoula had these classes, and I LOVE them!!

 I found out that Gold's Gym in Hendersonville offers Les Mills classes, so I am excited to join for a month when I visit! I am so sore and it feels so good.

Also, I discovered a doable way to wear a top knot/sock bun. Life changing. I may never have to wash my hair in the morning again. Tuesday, I wore it slicked back and high with pearls to work. Last night, I wore is loose and down with an oversized cardi for a relaxed look.

Mirror shot, camouflage, hotel bathroom. I redefined class with this one.

I got home and had a few hours to kill before a grueling workout. So I snuggled with my dog, DUH.

I am feeling a little odd (but awesome) after a 4 mile walk-to-sprint interval workout, so I settled for a shake for dinner.

Chocolate protein powder, strawberry greek yogurt, fresh raspberries, & almond milk.

Sadly, I have a couple hours of work tonight ahead of me. However, it is the Glee premier tonight and my client insists on watching it. I'm not complaining!

[bad dog.]

Well, she isn't bad, but she is difficult.

I'm dippercult.

Dipper has social issues. We tried very hard to socialize her when she was a puppy and paid a lot of money for obedience school, but her Beagle instincts are just too strong. We can't take her for walks (she yips), can't take her to the dog park (will sniff away until she's lost/in the Clark Fork river) and can't go on "play dates" with other dogs (because she doesn't even know they are there due to sniffing). 

I woke up today feeling pretty icky and didn't go to work today. Dipper was restless, so I decided to take her down to the baseball fields to run around like a crazy puppy. She is really bad at fetch, too! She gets the general concept, but doesn't understand she is supposed to bring the ball back.

 Look at her little booty up in the air. She's so cute.

 Here I come! 

 I actually forgot the ball. Oh well. What's that over there?!

Imma go sniff over there.

And for my friends and family back home that don't know where I live, these baseball fields are in one of the best spots in town to see the mountains around Missoula! 

This was meant to be a panoramic view.

Also, it is not always this hazy and gross out. Hello, fire season!

As soon as we came in, she ran right up onto the couch and puked up everything she has eaten/drank today. So, now I'm gonna go figure that out :(

[friday's 5... for fall!!!]

Happy Friday! I spent most of the day relaxing and enjoying a day off from BOTH of my jobs. I did have a few meetings this morning, but they came complete with lattes, so they were easy to get through. Most of my "highs" of the week came today. The rest of the week was okay, but today was awesome! 

1. Jonny and I went to Bed Bath & Beyond to grab some mats for the kitchen. We left with no mats in hand but we did hit up a 75% off Tervis Tumbler sale! Does it get any better than this?! HE even got a Rockies tumbler (surprise, surprise that it was the only MLB logo in the clearance bin;-).)

2. Pumpkin Spice Lattes are back. That's all I have to say about that.

3. Jonny got off work early today, so we made it to Mustard Seed in time for lunch specials! Woop! We followed it with a 2 hour nap, which was the only thing that makes a Chicken Teriyaki bowl better.

4. This was a view of the Clark Fork on my run tonight. Complete perfection.

5. Jonny and I are going on a surprise vacation next week! Okay, maybe I am exaggerating. Jonny has some job training in Helena and I am going to drive up to tag along halfway through the week. I am going to stay here for a night before hand to do some crafty stuff with a friend. Can't wait to share that ;-)

[good smells]

Happy Tuesday, that is like a Monday!

I only had to work one job today and it was a.... ahem, "crappy" day. But that's ok, because I got to sleep in and watch Michael Strahan's first day on Live! with Kelly (& Michael!). I am such an old woman. I think I will handle retirement just fine in 50 years.

I skipped breakfast today. Okay, fine, I didn't, but I did have a popsicle. At lunch, I made a strawberry banana smoothie that tasted JUST like Smoothie King. Working there years ago has made me quite the smoothie queen. :-D

For dinner, we had greek yogurt pancakes... again! I swear we eat other things, but these are SO easy and good for you!

Also, I was trying to organize some things today. I decided to get crafty and make Scentsy bars out of old candles that the wicks are too short to burn. Frosted Cranberry is my FAVORITE winter scent, so I always have it in candle form, Wallflower, room spray, and anything else they make for the year. We have our Scentsy warmer on about 90% of the time, so it makes sense to have the bars instead of candles. (Don't get me wrong, I love candles.... for some reason, they are so comforting when it gets cold and dreary and snowy here!) This was not a difficult process at all, either.

I just melted the entire candle on the warmer and poured it in to an old bar carton! I think the candle will make 4 or 5 more, so I just tucked it away in the closet until next time.

I have a few more small, inexpensive projects on deck for the week, too! But I am also working all day, e'rday :-/ BUT, Saturday will be full of football, so I have light at the end of the tunnel!

[pen-woman-ship]

Living in Montana has made me deal with things that have NEVER crossed my mind before. Such as rolling up my windows at night so I don't get a ton of ash in my car. And, on that subject, the fact that we have to reschedule our location for bible study due to the smoke outside. Who knew? Similarly, this morning, though the temperature was perfect outside, I had to run on the treadmill because the air outside was just too risky for someone with asthma.

This graph from our local news is weeks old. No telling where we were yesterday/this morning.

So, to beat boredom on the treadmill, I get pretty creative. I can't run at one speed and incline for 50 minutes straight. This week, I tried the following which (literally) kept me on my toes the entire workout.
Begin at 4.0mph for 1 minute. Increase to 5.0mph, 6.0 mph, 7.0mph, 8.0mph for 1 minute each. Repeat for as long as you want! 
It averages out to 10:00/mile, but it really kicks my butt more than running a steady speed.

In other news, I am feeling a bit cynical/defensive/combative and all the other emotions that come from politics. I try to stay out of conversations, because I know my opinions will just fuel other fires. It seems like our country is set on being divisive these days, so keeping my mouth shut and prayerfully following what I believe seems to be easier. Anyways, I am pretty sure anyone who knows me is aware of how I feel, so that is really all that matters.

I promise I won't turn this into a "my-opinion-is" blog. HOWEVER....When things are ridiculous, I can't help but criticize it as openly as possible. I just can't let America get stupid, ya know?

First of all, I'm obsessed with pens. I am a pen stealer. I will leave a bigger tip to take the pen at a restaurant if it writes nicely. So when I Saw the Today Show discussing a new pen made for women (smaller barrel and bright, girly colors) I got giddy. I listened in only to start rolling my eyes.

Apparently these pens are now a women's rights issue. (?????) Apparently, we are taking a step back in society by forcing women to use women's products. One woman commented, "Great, now I will just wait for husband to get home from work so he can show me how to use the internet and order these!"

Gracious.

Is anyone else seeing something wrong with this? First of all, I have small hands, so I appreciate the small barrel. I have a guitar designed for women with a more slender neck.... my fingers don't reach all the way up on the frets of a normal guitar, so I like that.

Secondly, I LOVE BEING A WOMAN. What is wrong with that?! I like pink things. I like stereotypically spending large amounts of my paychecks on hair supplies, make-up, and clothes. I like that someone took the extra thought of what women may desire. That makes me feel special.

And guess what? If you are a woman that doesn't like these things, then you don't have to use them! You can use the men's pens! Or you can use pencils! Or a typewriter! 

I always try to keep an open mind, so if anyone has an educated, decent, well-formed dissent (wait, what's that?), let me hear it. Otherwise, I'm going out to buy some pink pens.

[hiawatha trail]

So a few Fridays ago was the last day that I had off from work :( We made the best of it and went to the Montana-Idaho state line to bike the Hiawatha Trail. This has been on the top of our to-do list since..... well, since we started dating almost. You can read some history here. It began as a railroad track started by some non-profit groups. However, it was abandoned and never saw any commercial activity. In 1998, it opened as a recreational area. It is just over a 15-mile ride and has 9 tunnels (the first one is 1.7 miles and pitch black. Terrifying, I tell you.) You also going over some trestles. These were beautiful as long as I made it a point to look out over the scenery and not down!

It was awesome. Until the last rocky, bumpy, dusty, dirty mile. That wasn't fun. BUT at the end, a lady called me out because I had on a Tennessee shirt. After a few minutes of talking, we realized that we were from the same city, went to the same church, had the same friends, and attended some of the same events back home.... so it was a sheer miracle that we had never met. Their family now lives in Washington state doing ministry there. It was so nice to talk about home together for about an hour on the shuttle ride back to the cars!

[quick saturday workout.]

I am bad at this blog thing. Whatever.

Our lives have been a bit monotonous lately.... sleep, work, eat, workout, eat, sleep, work, blah, blah.

Today isn't much different, but it is Saturday, so it is a little bit more fun. I went into work early and it was soooo busy. Which was fine; it flew by! Before work, Jonny made some super easy Greek Yogurt Pancakes from pbfingers.com. I LOVE this girl's blog and check it out quite a bit for workouts and recipes. She is really good about making simple recipes that use ingredients that we usually have, or aren't expensive/difficult to buy. I hate finding a clean-eating recipe and thinking "What? I have to go buy xanthum gum?" No, thanks.

Of course I put chocolate chips in there. It is sinful to not have chocolate chips in your pancakes. These are super filling.... It is 8 hours later and I am still not really hungry yet!

I got home and wanted to work out, but after working on concrete all morning, the last thing I wanted to do was pound pavement. So I do what all confused exercisers do: Pinterest! I came across the following workouts. They were GREAT. I did them all, and took little breaks in between. During each break I cleaned something in the house (the front windows, swept the living room, etc.). Oh and I skipped the million burpees at the end. Who like burpees? NO ONE, that's who. It all took me about 35 minutes and it was just enough to feel accomplished!

We are about to head to a wedding. It is cool (and awfully convenient) to go to the wedding of a friend from Tennessee in Montana :) We hope to celebrate quickly before I have to head back for a dinner with friends. I am so excited to spend time with these ladies tonight! They are fellow students from the CSD program, and we all have to go separate ways :( But they are incredible and I so love their company. It will be so so good to be together for a while!


Until the next time something decently exciting happens in the Claxton home.... au revoir!

[pinterest fail]

So, for 22 years now, my hair has been the same: stick straight. There was a slight change in the pattern when I bought a miracle curling iron (meant to be used to style weaves and fake hair pieces) and was able to change it up a little. Otherwise, my hair lives a volumeless, textureless, straight, boring life.

Until Pinterest!

I mean, there are thousands, millions of pins of cutesy girls with YouTube videos and fancy blogs with step-by-step instructions to make my life easier. brilliant. except none of them so far have worked.

So, this weekend, I woke up early both days for work. I could have gotten up, taken, a shower and fully-styled my hair, but who wants to do that at 6:30am on the weekend? Not me. So, this pin that has been circulating for some time seemed encouraging.

So maybe I can't get a perfect sock bun, or voluminous beach waves, but this seemed fool-proof. My hair is finally long enough to give a try, so Saturday night I took a shower, let my hair air dry, did this, and plopped down to watch the Olympics until I fell asleep.

I woke up the next morning and was so excited that it had stayed in place overnight. I put it off until the last thing to take it out. Then, the moment of truth came.

Hilarious. What even is this?! I laughed really hard and loud, threw my hair up in a bun and made it to work. I suppose my hair will not be changing or becoming more cooperative any time soon! 

[friday's 5]

1. Summer term is over!! Next step: grad school and working towards a real career. :-)

2. I just ordered a starter kit of bareMinerals! I have been wanting to purchase their stuff for years now, but always put it off. While I was in Seattle, I stole borrowed some of my friend's, and I felt so pretty and clean. Now, it is mine!

3. My goal for the week was to juice all of this and eat it. I didn't quite get there, but I had way more servings of fruits and veggies than I normally do! And I can definitely tell a difference in my body. (However, tonight we are ordering pizza, so I'm gonna ruin it all :-/ )

4. I have been waking up earlier and not sleeping in as often! I hate wasting the day, but some days it just feels so good to stay in bed. I have kicked myself out earlier and, therefore, sleeping better at night. (In other news, I didn't get to see the Madea movie because it didn't show long enough in Missoula. I am anxiously awaiting its arrival at our local Redbox.)

5. Today, I got Jonny and I some Olympics graphic tees from Old Navy! They have quite a few styles in stock right now; you should check 'em out if you are Olympics enthusiasts like we are!

Since school is OVER and I am not working crazy hours, I hope to be bringing lots of posts about our house becoming organized over the next few weeks! Here's to hoping. Enjoy your weekend!