I’m tired. I’m getting overwhelmed.

Life is life. There are ups and downs. Busy times and busier times. During busy/stressful/overwhelming times one tends to reevaluate priorities. There are some priorities that cannot be overlooked…like feeding, bathing and generally caring for my children, work, sleep, laundry…and there are some priorities that, during busy times, become less and less of a priority…like this blog.

I think it’s time to give myself a little break. Cut myself some slack. From now until I get back from vacation, I’m on a blog break. If I post once, 10 times, or none I’m not going to stress about it. {hint: it will be closer to the none than the 10} I started this blog for fun, so it’s certainly the last thing I should be worrying about, ya know?

I realize that not many of you probably care too much…this is more just a sweeping declaration to make myself feel better about not keeping up my blog as regularly as I would like.

And so…happy Friday, happy start of summer, happy Father’s Day, happy 4th of July, etc-etc-etc.

I’m starting to feel better already…

Over the course of the last 6 months to a year, Andy and I have been noticing the deteriorating quality of our bed. Like, valley in the middle, lumpy all over, just generally uncomfortable bed. And with Andy’s bad back, it was just compounded by sleepless nights or nights spent on the couch instead of in bed {him, not me}.

A friend mentioned it could be the box spring, so we tested that theory out by putting the mattress on the floor in the living room for a weekend camp out. No dice, the mattress still sucked.

It was decided at that time that while yes, we needed a new mattress, we’d wait until the end of summer, after we’d taken care of all of our household projects, and assess our financiers to see if it was still in the cards.

The Monday after that decision was made, Jill shared info about a giveaway from another blog I follow called How to Be A Dad. They were giving away a new mattress and box spring set in honor of the launch of their new book “The Guide to Baby Sleep Positions“. Apparently the giveaway had been open for close to a month but it would be ending that evening at midnight. I figured, why the hell not, and I entered…simply by liking their Facebook page.

On May 1st I received an email telling me I’d won the mattress! No kidding! Holy crap! I was stoked!!

I worked with the mattress company, gave them our info and four weeks later? Boom,a brand new mattress was delivered to my house!

You guys? It’s gorgeous. I’m not even kidding….I’ve never seen such a pretty mattress.

It’s a Sealy Posturepedic Hybrid Series Mattress. It’s got fancy features like OptiCool Gel Memory Foam, SolidEdge HD System, a CoreSupport Center, ForeverFlex Fabric and it’s made in the USA!

Looks fancy. Sounds Fancy.

And comfortable? Oh my…it’s like heaven. I have slept better in the last 4 nights than I have in a while. The true testament though is Andy. He’s slept in bed all night every night since we’ve had it. Saturday morning, after the very first night, he woke up and said that was the best he’s slept in months. MONTHS! And it’s the first time in months he hasn’t woken up with his back flared up.

He was less than thrilled having me take our picture, but don’t let his face fool you, he loves the bed! Pretty sure he’s never allowed to say that my “blogging junk” never benefits him again, am I right or am I right!?

Disclosery-type stuff: I was not compensated for this post by anyone. I won the mattress set by complete chance and I just thought it was way too awesome not to share it.

You guys? Hawaii is coming up…quick. According to my countdown app, at the time of publishing this post, we leave in 30 days, 2 hours, 2 minutes and 37 seconds…

Up until this point my “get ready for Hawaii” has looked like this:

Get it? the was nothing. Impressive huh?

Well I guess that’s kind of a lie…my sister, cousin, best friend & I did all decide to do a 30 day squat challenge. That lasted about 9 days for me. Ok less. Whatever.

I’m kind of a procrastinator at heart. When we started the last squat challenge there was more than 2 months until our trip. Pfffft….plenty of time. Well, now here we are 30 days out. It’s time to get cracking!

I’m not looking to lose any weight. I don’t have the time to go to a gym or a trainer to do any “real workouts”. Scratch that, I’m sure I could find the time but I’m not willing to give up the already limited time I have with my kids. And I’m still nursing/pumping which means I want to be careful not to inadvertently hurt my milk supply…and lunchtime workouts are out because a) I’d have to join a gym in order to have access to a shower and b) I don’t like taking too many lunch breaks because of the amount of time I spend pumping.

Long story short? I want some sort of routine that’s quick and “easy”.

Enter my squat-plank-crunch plan.

For the next 30 days I’m going to follow the squat challenge and the AB challenge and throw in a plank-a-day just for fun. You know the ones. You’ve seen them floating around Pinterest, right?

Part of the problem I had with my last squat challenge was that I was constantly forgetting how many I needed to to that day, what was the rest day, etc. This time, since I’m combining 3 challenges in one, I decided to do something that would help me keep track speak to my “must mark things off a list whenever possible” soul. So I wrote out each days’ exercise on a sticky note. Once I’m done with that day’s set, I get the satisfaction of crumpling up a piece of paper and tossing it in the trash. A sense of accomplishment.

As the month goes on, and the exercises get higher in number (for example 220 squats on day ) I’m going to try and keep it interesting by not only doing traditional squats, but throwing in some sumo squats, side squats, squats on a step, etc. I’ll do the same with the crunches. And for my planks, I’ll use my stop watch, hold it for as long as I can, then 30 seconds longer after I want to stop.

I am obviously no exercise expert but I figure, even if I don’t end up even a little bit toned from this it’s done 2 things for me: it’s got me moving, which is more than I can say for my current routine, and it’ll get me back into the habit of working out, which is something I’ll definitely need once I’m done nursing.

Day 1? Check!

Wish me luck!