Good Morning! I woke up from a dream where I was running a marathon, stopped to pee and suddenly it was 5:30pm and I was super late to finish! I think this dream is because I am on a mission to find my next race. I want to train for something! I have a few options I’m considering and should make a decision this week 
Unfortunately today is not a running day. I’m trying to keep it to four running days a week. So, Ben and I went for a walk. When I came home I wanted to do something else so I looked up my favorite old school abs workout – 8 minute abs!
My ex-boyfriend randomly gave me a DVD with this when I was in college (I think he found it at a garage sale?). It was really the only abs I ever did back then. I like that you can bust out an ab workout and move on with life.
After all this time I still have everything the guy says memorized. “C’mon gang!”
Breakfast: I have been craving pancakes at the most random times – but not in the morning. Around 3pm I’ll think… “I want pancakes! I wish I ate them for breakfast.” So, today I did.
These are a little burnt, but at least they didn’t fall apart this time!
This weekend I bought some holiday potpourri as a decoration. I LOVE Thanksgiving and Christmas and am really looking forward to the holidays! I’m digging that this decoration smells so nice too 
Sure it’s a little early to bust out the decorations, but this is all we have out. Plus, we are going to Florida Dec. 23rd so I want to get the most out of it while I’m home!
Question: When do you decorate your home for the holidays? Do you have a tradition like buying the tree on Thanksgiving?
We don’t have a decoration tradition, but I want to start one this year. Ben and I are just starting to feel like this is home (over our parents homes) so I want to establish a few new traditions.
Don’t forget to share your Pile on the Miles progress on twitter with #POTM
I’m away at college and my brother has his own apartment, so it’s just my parents at home. We’re big on Christmas decorations & my mom has way more fun doing it with me (plus I would be bummed if I missed it), so we usually whip out some decorations during Thanksgiving break before I go back to school for the rest of the semester. She does some decorating while I’m gone, of course, but the final touches are left for when I return a few days before the holiday in December!
My friend and I are the same way with the old school Buns of Steel video. But it has to be on VHS 🙂
okay I want that poppuri, i will send you my address and you can ship it! 🙂 Too funny about the old school ab video,got to love it!
Ooh i love holiday decorating! But i hate when (stores especially) jump the gun and start putting Christmas stuff out before Halloween even hits. Let us enjoy one holiday at a time!
8 minute abs rule! I love those 8 minute series. I use to have the whole set but now I can’t seem to find them. Thanks for bringing some workout video nostalgia back!
Too funny! I used to do 8 Minute Abs all the time! Now I stock to P90x an ripper. It’s awesome and not too long 🙂
This is my boyfriend and my 2nd year living together so we haven’t established many traditions yet. This year we are leaving to be with family 12/22, so we’re going to have to get a tree early and take it down before we leave – so sad! But I refuse to not have a tree 🙂
the entire 8 minute series is ridiculous..Holy Spandex. I get just as much an ab workout from laughing than I do completing the exercises.
As for the decorating..I am holding off for Christmas decor until post-Thanksgiving but my fall festive wear (compliments of my dad and his obsession with Michael’s and Home Goods) is in full force!
I start to decorate just after Thanksgiving. I think it’s too early that they’re showing Christmas commercials already!
I love the holidays. 🙂
I DIE for 8 minute abs!! Love love love. “These moves are effective and they are FUN!!! C’mon gang!”
I totally have that DVD! Well, I did. Now I want to look for it!!!
Where did you get that potpourri? It’s so pretty!
Marshall’s 🙂 and I got that glass thing too!
Typically we wait until Thanksgiving weekend to set up the Christmas decorations, but screw it. This is our first Christmas in this house and I’m doing it next week and I can’t wait 🙂
I am trying to decorate by season instead of by holiday. So “autumn” goes from Labor Day to Thanksgiving. Then “winter” from Thanksgiving weekend until the end of Feb. And then “spring/summer” until Labor Day. No traditions around the tree since we normally travel for the holidays.
The Kidless Kronicles
OMG 8 minute absss!! I used to do that all the time! That was actually my first interest in exercise way back in the day. Good flashback. 🙂
my roomies and i used to do 8 minute abs in college—though we spent more time mocking the video than toning our abs 🙂 now i usually do the p90x or insanity abs videos and i just bought a new bob harper ab dvd 🙂
If Ben’s around when I do that video we just end up laughing the whole time 🙂
Well, laughing is great for the abs, so either way you get it done.
I have a fake tree, but I usually try and put it up as soon after Thanksgiving as I can get. Life seems to go full speed once you hit Thanksgiving. Seems like everyday is busy after that.
OMG. I watched (and performed situps) to that exact video during all of my high school summers. I was OBSESSED.
they need to invent a way to make computers “scratch and sniff” so I can smell the potpourri…lol
Travis and I usually decorate when we get around to it, but when I was younger we would always go to Grandma’s for Thanksgiving, and then the day afterwards we would pick out her tree…so much fun wandering the pine “forests” in search of the perfect one! 🙂
Hahahahahaha that video cracked me up!! The music, his lines, the huge grins on their faces while they crunched like it was the most wonderful experience of their lives! I will have to give it a try and see if it makes me feel as warm and fuzzy as they seem to be feeling. Also, I plan to spend my Veteran’s day getting ready with decorations! I usually wait until after Thanksgiving, but I have so much holiday spirit this year that I am just READY!!
I love the holidays too!!! Growing up, my husband’s grandmother didn’t let them listen to Christmas music until after Thanksgiving dinner so we have sort of adopted that tradition as well.
We do the normal traditions – leave cookies and beer (doesn’t everyone leave beer? 🙂 for Santa, make cookies, watch all the Christmas shows, etc. The past few years we have avoided mall Santa and we watch Santa ride into Fells Point on a tugboat, then my son gets his picture taken with him, and then we go to brunch with friends and have mimosas and bloody marys while the kids have juice and pancakes! We usually decorate our tree that same day too, while listening to music and drinking egg nog. egg nog is a must!!!
I totally have my favorite fitness DVDs memorized. All of the cheesy, cheesy lines, lol.
I decorate usually the first day of December. I like each month to have it’s own holiday. I don’t even start to think about Thanksgiving until November, and I like to leave Christmas in December. I put up a few decorations and get out my fake and beautiful tree.
I love this holiday time. I’m already looking forward to Thanksgiving and to spending some time with the family and especially to Christmas. We’ve started a few traditions, one of which is decorating a gingerbread house and making gingerbread cookies with my stepson. We also watch the heck out of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and sing Christmas carols as much as we can stand. I can’t wait to do all those things this year.
I asked my hubby last night if we could put up our tree this week. He said NO! He said we have to wait after Thanksgiving. I pouted and said, “But I want us to start our own traditions. We are gone so much during the holidays!” He said, “Not this year!”
pout pout…but then, he went to the gym with me while I ran on the treadmill! So I was happy again! He did the bike and some weights. His shins have been a killer lately, and he blaims it on the 5ks I drag him to do with me. lol
Love your holiday potpurri decor!
That is all.
We put up our tree last weekend! With all of our crazy holiday schedules, this was the only time that worked for my family. I’m okay with it though- it takes a lot of work to put up the tree so I want to enjoy it as long as possible 🙂
I’m trying to figure out my next race, too. Since I finished my half over a week ago, I have only managed to get out on one 3-mile run. Not good! I’m thinking I’ll do a 5K and try for a PR, and then maybe another half in the spring but I can’t decide.
And now I’m craving pancakes.
Black Friday will be all about the Christmas decorations at the Freeman house! I need to start working on my plan of attack.
I love decorating for the holiday’s. I merge my Halloween and t-day decorations and then right after Halloween, the Halloween decorations go and the t-day festive stays…until the day after T-day…Christmas comes out the the tree goes up that weekend, if not that very Friday night.
And that’s the crazy tradition I started with my kids…we didn’t do that T-day weekend growing up. And I start my Christmas with a little black Friday shopping. Always.
Oh my gosh….when I was in high school, I definitely recorded the 8 minute abs thing onto a tape so I could put it in my cassette player and do it without the TV. Then I got more high-tech, and put it onto my iPod, and still listen to it and pretend to do the ab workout…however, I forgot juuuust how old skool (yes, with a k) this was until I re-watched it in video form.
Rethinking my life choices…but only kind of…
So funny. I’ve been using the Denise Austins 8-minute abs work-outs on my cable company’s On Demand (Exercise TV) for the past week and I forgot how much I loved them! It’s made me nostalgic for Gilad’s Bodies in Motion, which I used to do all the time in high school. Hmmm, wonder if those are on YouTube? I might need to best those out too.
Nothing like the old-school, no-nonesense workouts.