Life is Short Make it Count #14

Since our last update we climbed Mt LeConte in Great Smoky Mountains National Park! Scott took a half day on Friday, May 26th, we drove up and started hiking around 3:30 PM. It's a gorgeous but very difficult hike (I shared more pictures on Instagram). After the 10.5 mile hike, we drove into Gatlinburg to eat at Mellow Mushroom. If we are eating pizza, it's going to be Mellow! ;-) We don't often appreciate the things we have close by and we are so lucky to have the Smokies less than three hours away. Yes, we drive 4-5 hours total to hike! Sometimes we spend the night and hike two days but often we just drive up there for a day hike.

We also just got back from Chicago. As you know, we are Cubs fans (I even wrote a post on what your fitness journey has in common with MLB players!) so we like to go to Chicago at least once a year to watch a game or two. Scott has a cousin that lives in Chicago that let us use her condo while she was out of town. We went to Wrigley on Friday and Saturday. They won both games and we got to see Kyle Schwarber hit the first grand slam of his career! Look for a post on how to save money while attending baseball games coming soon! ;-) Tickets to baseball games are not cheap anymore (especially Wrigley!) but that doesn't have to mean that you spend a lot of money either!

We ate at a restaurant called Lyfe Kitchen on Saturday after the game. It was delicious! Most of all our other meals, actually ALL of our other meals, came from Whole Foods.

Be sure to follow us on the following social media accounts (and snapchat under hesheeatclean) and also sign up for our newsletter so you never miss anything!

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Workouts:

I've started our She Sweats Extreme 4-Week Shred! As I shared in the challenge post, I finally feel like I have enough energy for workouts that are a little bit more intense. I haven't done anything that intense for almost a year. I'm loving it so far! If you want to join us, you have until June 15 to enter the challenge (but you don't have to have the challenge to get started, just do it!). Learn more about the challenge here.

Food Prep:

Visit this link for our shopping lists and this link for ways to save money grocery shopping.

Since we've been traveling lately, we've been doing super easy food preps...but that's really all we ever do. ;-) We typically grill a few pounds of chicken (Zesty Grilled Chicken), make bison burgers (Lean Mean Cheeseburgers) and make a few batches of Sweet-Sweet Potato Cubes and Scott's Green Machine. If I ever remember again, I'll try to snap a picture next time!

Until next week, have a good one! Let us know if you ever have any questions or comments! I've loved hearing from you about the updates! Click here to read all of our updates.

Life is Short Make it Count. #13

Since our last update we've been trying to get back into our routine. We've done food prep each weekend and we've also hiked each weekend! We love it that we are about 30 minutes closer to our favorite hikes since we moved. The last three weekends we've climbed Blood Mountain. It's a short hike but a fantastic workout (with killer views!). The trail climbs 1,400 feet in elevation at 2.15 miles (total hike is 4.3 miles). It's the highest-elevation summit on the Appalachian Trail in Georgia. Two weekends ago we had blue skies and great views from the top (picture above) and last Saturday it was pretty spooky (picture below) but beautiful in a different way. We're still doing the She Sweats 12-Week Run Builder and we can definitely tell we are getting stronger on our hikes (we swap some of the running for incline training and/or hiking). It's good to be back on a plan!

P.S. I've shared these pictures on Facebook and Instagram so make sure you are following us there!

Be sure to follow us on the following social media accounts (and snapchat under hesheeatclean) and also sign up for our newsletter so you never miss anything!

Home Updates:

We had our mattress on the floor for over a month because we didn't have any bedroom furniture. I sold our last set before we moved because I wanted something new. So after we got back in town from Arizona and Chicago we had to find some furniture! I wanted someone to build me a farmhouse style bed but a lot of the people I spoke with had a crazy long wait time and I'm not a fan of waiting... ;-) We found some furniture that we both loved. We were told that our new furniture wouldn't be in until mid-June but it thankfully came in early! We also had to get a new couch because ours was too large for this house. We gave our old couch and recliner to my parents. So we ended up having to buy a new couch, king bed (headboard, footboard, rails) two nightstands, and a chest (good thing I sold so much stuff before we moved!). We knew the set we wanted but because I hate spending money I called the outlet center for the store we were shopping at and knew that they had the gentleman's chest (that's what they call it!) that matched the bedroom set. We ended up getting that at the outlet for $400 off because of a small scratch INSIDE of one of the drawers. It gets better though, when we went to go pick up the chest we saw the exact same couch we just ordered full price at the store for $800 less at the outlet because of a small stain on the side (which came out immediately). We canceled the order for the new couch and ended up getting the couch at the outlet! #winning. I had a family member that owned a furniture store so I had our last furniture since my first year of college (over 13 years!) (yes, I had a king bed in college!). While it was still nice, I was ready for something new. We also went from having a chest, dresser (and mirror) to just sharing the gentleman's chest. I'd say we did a good job at downsizing!

Below are our "before and after" pictures. I'll share more once we get the other items into the rooms. You can't really tell from the pictures but all of the walls are gray. It's called Agreeable Gray by Sherwin Williams. We are thinking about painting an accent wall in the living room and one in the bedroom but we haven't decided yet.

I'll share more of the house once we have more of it put together. Since this house is a lot smaller than our last house and is laid out differently we've had to change quite a few things but we are loving it so far!

P.S. You can read more about our moving situation here.

Grocery Shopping:

(Visit this link for our shopping lists and this link for ways to save money grocery shopping.)

Costco:

• Cottage Cheese (We eat this plain, add to oats and eggs --- it's so good!)
• Greek Yogurt (We eat this plain and also use it for Clean Eating Chicken Salad)
• Organic Orange Juice (Copycat Chick-Fil-A Egg White Grill)
• Frozen Wild Blueberries (Scott uses these in his shake every single morning. It's this shake.)
• Organic Kale (Juice)
• Balsamic Vinegar (Marinade for grilled chicken - recipe coming soon!)
• Energy Bars (Those are actually for my cousin we used to live with - he loved them!)
• Avocados (Used in Scott's breakfast shake and also for avocado toast.)
• Eggs & Egg Whites
• Pistachios

We also went to Publix but I didn't take a picture. ;-)

Until next week, have a good one! Let us know if you ever have any questions or comments! I've loved hearing from you about the updates! Click here to read all of our updates.

5 Reasons Why We Didn't Buy a Tiny House

Let me start off my saying we are not against tiny homes, we still LOVE them and want one in Montana or Wyoming. We probably would have bought or built one if we moved to Montana (remember that one time we almost moved to Bozeman?!) or if we already owned a large piece of land to do with whatever we wanted. We posted on Instagram and Snapchat (hesheeatclean) the many times we went and looked at tiny houses so we wanted to explain our decision. The tiny house just wasn't for us at this time and below are the reasons why.

5 Reasons Why We Didn't Buy a Tiny House

1. It's hard to find a place to actually park it.
   • Some states and cities might be different but we couldn't find any county around us that would allow a tiny house. While fighting the government sounds like fun, we just weren't up for that at this time in our lives. A friend of a friend (you know these stories are always good) ;-) actually had a container home and the county made them move it. They literally could not live in their own home. We live in the outer suburbs of Atlanta but I think some rural communities or even more urban areas might be easier to work with regarding parking.
2. It's hard to find a vehicle to actually pull it.
   • We both have cars. These tiny homes are heavy and usually require a large truck to pull them. Sure, we could have someone pull it and park it for us but what if we wanted to move it somewhere else? We aren't up for buying a truck right now. Be sure to do your research on actually transporting the home before buying!
3. The resale value.
   • Tiny homes seem to be something that is a fad right now. We feel there will probably not be a huge market for it later. I had a feeling we would have a hard time "getting rid of it" when/if the time came.
4. The price is too high.
   • Have you looked at the actual price of a house that is 250-300 square feet? The prices are crazy high! If you want anything remotely nice it's going to be in the $50,000-$80,000(+) range. That's pretty expensive per square foot. While the overall price sounds great, it's not a great price per square foot. We don't have carpentry skills or the space to build our own so we would have to pay someone else to do it.
5. They are too small.
   • While we wanted to downsize (and did!), we didn't want to downsize quite that much just yet. The house we ended up buying is larger than what we wanted (we wanted something around 1,200 square feet) and our new house is 1,700 but it's 700 square feet less than our old house and perfect for us right now. When we moved from our old house most of our boxes were food items, kitchen supplies, and hiking/backpacking gear! We do try to live simply so the things we do have we love (like food and hiking!) :-) and it's just too much for a tiny home. We could have rented a storage unit but doesn't that defeat the whole purpose?!

As I mentioned before, we are not against tiny homes we just want the conversation to be open and wanted to share our thought process. We encourage anyone thinking about downsizing to do so. It's SO freeing! Downsizing and living simply do not necessarily mean living in a tiny home or even moving, you can get started in the home you already own! Use some of the resources we've shared like our 30-Day Minimalism Challenge and our list of 10 Things to Get Rid Off for a Clutter-Free Home.