August! Like whoa! When did it arrive? I’ve had a pretty busy summer, just like many of you! My husband is a high school guidance counselor which means he’s been off for the month of July, so my house is packed and busy all day every day with my kids and him! I sort of took off July from blogging. I’ve been posting and doing a handful of coaching calls, but my mind has been at home with my family, so my apologies if things on the blog and social media accounts have been sparse! I am a one woman show over here so if I’m not posting, no one is posting! LOL

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So here’s where I’ve been!

1) Vacation!

We were able to take a last minute trip to the beach to visit some friends! It was fun to hit Virginia Beach and Ocean City, MD! I haven’t been to the beach in a few years and my daughter had never been so it was a great trip back!

As usual, I enjoyed my balance of working out and eating foods I normally wouldn’t. 🙂

Holy Cannoli!

I personally love working out on vacation. If you consider all the hours I log at the gym or my house, it’s a breath of fresh air to exercise somewhere different!The goal was about 30 minutes of exercise every day while on vacation–a nice mix of staying active and still enjoying time with the family! Here’s a quick circuit you can do at the boardwalk on the beach, or a park!  (If you can’t see the video, click here!)

– push up with knee pulls
– sprint down Boardwalk (avoid bikes, seagull poop, & other runners 😜)
– knee burner on bench
– sprint back to start
– bench step-ups (not shown)
Repeat circuit 4-8 times. Do 10-20 reps each exercise.

2) Teaching a pilates/running class to my local friends!

I decided to bring back a pilates/running combo class with some of my local friends. As you know, I teach pilates during the school year, but always take off for the summer, then come July, ask myself, why I do that? My lower back starts hurting, my posture stinks, and my tummy and thighs are not as slim. Thankfully, I’ve had a good group of friends who’ve wanted to join me with our outside workouts! I have to say, after 5-6 sessions, I’ve seen the benefits of why I do pilates!  (Note* I’m still lifting weights, eating the same, and sprinting, so the only difference is the addition of pilates!) Yup–better posture, back pain gone, and everything that was a little “loose” is now a bit tighter!

It’s a 60 minute class: we do 40 minutes of mat pilates and then 20 minutes of outdoor cardio/bodyweight exercises. I love this style of training! I’ve missed working out at 6am (although it’s never easy to wake at 5:15!) and it’s refocused me to start back at it once the school year begins! (I’ll get into all that in another post)

Plank Walks up a hill!

3) Popsugar Blogger Award!

After I got back from vacation, I got a fun email that I won an award from POPSUGAR! I am one of over 2000 select bloggers and influencers and won “Team Player” award! (Kind of appropriate considering what I write about! Ha!) Anyway- check out this adorable bag and….a TROPHY! I can’t remember the last time I got a trophy! I love my partnership with PopSugar and am honored to receive this award! Thank you!

And lots and lots of random get-togethers and weekend trips!

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So now that you know where I’ve been, let’s talk about where I’m going! We still have a few more weeks until school starts and my days get a little more routine but as we move into the fall, here are some things you can look forward to with me!

1) More coaching calls

I sent an email out to you last week about some openings for the calls and wow, did you guys hop on that or what?! My schedule has been packed out for the next 2 weeks with calls. I absolutely love talking with each of you so, I’ll be keeping a lot of my schedule open for these calls!

2) Playing around with periscope!

I keep getting readers asking me why I haven’t been on the new app, periscope! I’ve been watching a lot of people but I haven’t been in the right state to start doing them since I have a house full of people all the time! We’ll see how you guys like it, but I think it will be an awesome platform for you to interact directly with me. (If you aren’t sure what it is, it’s an app you get on your phone or tablet and you watch a live broadcast of the person you are following. If you catch the person live, you can interact with them by sending questions to them and they can see them ASAP and answer them! Once the live broadcast is over, then you can view it for 24 hours on the app, then it’s removed.)

If this sounds cool, then download the app and follow me! Search for “Clare Smith”. I’ll let you know when my first one goes up!

3) Prep for the “Living and Active” challenge!

This will be year 4 of the “Living and Active” 5-week challenge! I’ve got a big add to this that I’m working on now and can’t wait to share it with you! (Fingers crossed it gets completed! haha) My goal is to start it at the end of September!

4) An exciting appearance!

I won’t say more because it hasn’t been 100% confirmed but this one made me go, “EEEKK!”

And a whole bunch of other stuff that’s all jumbled in my head! ha

Thank you, as always, for your comments and interactions on social media! That is always the best way to find me and to figure out exactly what’s going on in my life. So be sure to check me out on Facebook, instagram, and pinterest!

p.s. Facebook has made it really hard to follow “like” pages! Just last week, I had a reader contact me to say that she had lost me on Facebook and randomly found me to add back in her newsfeed! (It’s frustrating for page owners because my very favorite part of my ministry is interacting with you and when there isn’t anyone there, it’s so….sad!!!) If you are finding this to be true with your favorite “like” pages, then try this new tip! *Go to the top of the page you like, click the down arrow, and choose, “see first”, and you’ll start seeing their newest updates at the top of your newsfeed! (You can do this on mobile, too!)*