Shiny and Pink!

Alas, its been 2 weeks since my last polish change. So this afternoon (after the boy's 11 year old well boy check-up), I plan to hit the nail shop to have a new shiny pink nail job to replace the old no-longer-shiny- pink nail job. And I bought 2 new pinks to choose from! All it takes to make me happy is a $1 bottle of pink nail polish. Luckily, the variations of pink are many. :-)

The scale? 155.5 - argh! Will I ever see anything below that number? I've been trapped here for 3 months people - and I've given up beer! Why isn't the weight falling off?????

Admittedly, between 2 illnesses and a sprained ankle, there hasn't been much exercise lately. I walked outside for an hour yesterday, which was fabulous. I plan to walk an hour again today. Tomorrow is the gym. Exercise has resumed - maybe that will give the pesky old scale a nudge!

Hub is headed out of town for his D&D game. Mom and I plan to start painting the celtic knotwork I drew on my kitchen walls. reDesign last night (on hgtv) featured a medieval kitchen. I loved it. Now I want to re-do my kitchen. I may not be a clothes horse, but I would be a re-decorating horse if I could afford it! I'll take pictues and try to post them before the turn of the decade. :-O

For our date night tonight, I thought the hub and I might go to one of those paint your own pottery places and each do a dish we can take with us to Pennsic. I'd like to make one for our friend JuJu as well. Hub is surprisingly creative at times.

I did a no-so-good thing last night. I fussed at hub. When we first signed the annual contract for this gym, he said he wanted me to sign him up as well and swore he'd go. It's 24 hour access, so he can go at his convenience, no matter what his work schedule. I bought him his own alarm clock so he can go whenever. We had a bunch of work done on his road bike. He uses both infrequently at best. He is overweight and is on medication for high blood pressure. I would think that would be incentive to take care of himself, but its not. He told me he was "working on it." I looked him in the eye and replied "I see no evidence of that."

Its not that I want him to lose weight for asthetic reasons, I want him to get healthier for his health. And I know I can't do it for him or motivate him. I just wish it would click for him, and its so frustrating that it hasn't. When we're older, I don't want him to not be able to do the things we like to do because he hasn't preserved his health. I'm afraid he's going to realize that lesson too late. He's 37 - he has time to turn it around, but so far, no real movement. Sigh.

Hope you all have a fub weekend filled with fun & activity!

The Avon Walk and TGI March!

Even though this past Tuesday was the boy’s birthday (11!), I gotta say February sucked and I’m glad its over. Five sick days out of the office and a sprained ankle to boot. I wasn’t sick 5 days last year! This crazy weather is really affecting people’s health around here – the amount of sickness going around is crazy. Today and tomorrow are in or near the 70s, so I am looking forward to a couple of nice walks outside today.

I ate real food for dinner last night, and a normal breakfast this morning. I’m feeling okay and will start back exercising today. I did a slow 30 minute walk outside yesterday, but that was it.

I have decided to work as a “volunteer” at the Avon walk in October. I still pay the $55 entrance fee, but don’t have to raise money. It’s not the walking that’s holding me back – it’s the fund-raising. Anyway, I figure by volunteering I can get an idea of what its like. Thoughts?

Have a great day!

The Gatorade Diet

Friday my hard drive crashed - so no computer. :-( Monday I got a horrid intestinal bug and was home in bed miserable for 2 days. Thanks to Immodium, I'm at the office and I'm up to eating peanut butter sandwiches today. But the ankle is feling better! :-)

Help, I’m trapped inside a country music song!

The last couple of days have been a string of unfortunate events. I made the mistake of walking yesterday, and left the office in excruciating pain. I asked for some data, finally got it, and it wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to get some info to my boss by Friday and I was very upset about that. He isn’t, but I sure was. Son’s dog faced puffer died this morning. Computer wouldn’t work when I got to the office. The IBM help desk does not work like the one in the commercial, and you know I had a binge when I got home last night.

Whew. Okay, pick myself up, dust myself off, and start where I am, right? I have reconciled myself to the fact that my ankle is sprained and I need to elevate, ice, use ibuprofen, and stay off it for a few days! So, no exercise for the Neca. Not the end of the world, but I was really fired up about getting back into it. Sigh. Other than last night, my eating habits are coming along fine. I think it kinda scared me though, I guess I thought maybe the stress eating was over, and last night reminded me that its not gone, just “in remission.”

Good stuff includes son’s birthday party this weekend, the nice weather outside, and a family that loves me. I mean, how many husbands would lovingly wipe the asphalt out of a crying wife’s gouged up hand? Or double bag the fish so he could be saved for a weekend funeral? Life’s pretty good, even though it can get frustrating.

Face, meet pavement

I woke up this morning at 5 with a song in my heart and a spring in my step. It was a nice 38 degrees outside, and I quickly dressed to go outside for a little jog. I made it 2 houses down the street when I tripped on the side of the pavement, wrenching my left ankle, giving myself road rash on both hands and one knee, and eating dirt. Lovely.

I limped home (crying) for my husband to doctor me up. My ankle is swollen but not discolored under the ace bandage. My right hand is sporting a combination of bandaids and that Nu-skin liquid bandage. So, no walk this morning, no walk at lunch. Hopefully with the aid of lifting gloves I will be able to lift weights this afternoon.

On the food front, things are going quite well. I had a healthy dinner of home made lentil soup and corn bread after sticking with my prepped food during the day. I have another good dinner planned tonight – roasted chicken, rice, and steamed broccoli – cauliflower - carrot medley. If I can get the food and the exercise to both come together, I’ll really feel on track. Giving up beer has been surprisingly easy.

I ordered a “Magic Bullet” off e-Bay this morning. It has blender and juicer attachments. I am tired of having to hand wash the blender every morning so I can make myself a protein smoothie. I am excited – I’m not much of one for kitchen gadgets, but this is one I’ve wanted ever since I first saw them on the infomercial.

I hope you have a good day!

A very long weekend

There was a lot of stuff crammed into this weekend for me, which isn’t necessarily a good thing.

One very nice thing was going to the spa with my mom and using her retirement gift gift certificate. We each got massages, sea salt body scrubs, & lunch. Very luxurious! I also got my nails done and they are looking good. Those little luxuries were nice. Another good thing was a fast 35 minute walk Saturday morning before the winter weather started. I really enjoyed being outside, and the weather was nice until about 10, when it cooled down quickly & began to snow. It didn’t stick, but was pretty coming down.

Ginger’s funeral was of course a bit sad. Since she had been declining for months and had begun to suffer, it wasn’t that horrid shock unexpected kind of death that can be so hard. The service was lovely. A large group of us went out after and visited & reminisced.

One unfortunate thing about the weekend was the number of times I ate out – every meal yesterday, dinner Friday, lunch and dinner Saturday. That was insane! Some times the choices were decent, other times not, but the overall result was I ate too much! But I never totally pigged out or over-ate, so that is a good thing.

I also managed to get the house cleaned and the groceries purchased, but it was hard to shove in around all the commitments. The funeral was in Wilmington, so we were gone from the house all day – 9 am to midnight. Ouch. My crazy week at work is looking relaxing! :-O

My food for the week is planned, purchased, and healthy. The menu looks like this:

B: protein shake
S: cottage cheese & berries w/ crushed macadamia nuts
L: turkey & cheese with tomato & spinach on rye, and a pear
S: lowfat string cheese and 100 calorie bag of microwave popcorn
D: various
S: pudding or shredded chicken quesadilla

I came in late last Friday and didn’t weigh, but I will do that this Friday.

Hope you all have a great day.

Chunky Monkey has a plan!

Rather than focusing on the scale right now, I am focusing on good behaviors. Beer has been out for 2 weeks. Next week begins in phase-out of what is threatening to become a major diet Pepsi habit. Next week also marks the return of morning walks/runs, winter be damned. I will continue this week's focus on limiting post-dinner snacks. Meals are planned and shopping with hopefully be done tonight.

It's 69 outside, but they are calling for wintry mix in the morning. How bizarre is that? I am slowly feeling my energy return - whatever crap I've had has been a real bear to shake!

Have a great weekend!

It’s always something

Things in my little corner of the world are bumbling along. We are headed to Wilmington Sunday for Ginger’s funeral, so I am planning to take a half day off tomorrow so I’m not trying to cram too many chores into too little time this weekend.

One the food front: I’ve been beer-free for about 2 weeks now. That has to be a good thing. I am working on my emotional eating and nighttime snacking, both of which are improving. Next week I plan to continue to work on the snacking and also look to cut back on diet soda. I am hoping that by cleaning up my food intake, the weight will eventually follow.

Exercise? Not so much. I may still have a sinus infection or something hanging on because I just still feel really low energy. To make matters worse, my schedule got a bit off track while I was sick and I’m not getting up early enough to jog in the mornings. I need to re-align my schedule this weekend. I have to see my doctor in a couple of weeks – if I’m still feeling draggy then I’ll talk to her.

House: We are talking about using part of my bonus money next month to remodel our hall bathroom, which is stuck in the 80s. It’s better than when I bought the house – the horrid linoleum is gone and I covered the mauve velvet roses wall paper, but it’s a little nondescript beige box. My son first proposed the idea, and hub and I agreed it would be a good investment in the home. But of course our vacuum died this morning, and with loads of carpet + 3 dogs, a good vacuum is a necessity. I am not willing to spend money I don’t have, especially since this is a nice to do, but not a necessity given that we don’t plan to sell for several years.

Overall, I give myself a “B”. Trying not to get discouraged by the stuck scale, and take pride in the accomplishments I am making.

Mid-week check-in

I had a nice day yesterday, although I did eat the chocolates the boss gave each of us. Thankfully there were only 4.

My friend Ginger passed away yesterday afternoon. The funeral is this Sunday. I’m glad it didn’t drag out a long time. I don’t know what else to say.

There’s plenty of stuff I could write about our 2nd bath remodel, exercise, my food plan for next week, but I’m afraid my heart isn’t in it today.

I’ll be back tomorrow.

Wow.

First off, thanks for your generous comments about Friday's post. I'd never seriously considered doing one of the events before - frankly fundraising isn't my strong suit. But after reading all the supportive comments, I feel about ready to take the plunge. I'll keep you all posted!

Ginger can't hear or speak - they are using a white board to communicate with her. The end is close, but she seems to be okay with that. She struggled through breast cancer, brain cancer, the treatment etc etc. She was a nurse at Duke and I know she got very good care - sometimes there is no "Lance Armstrong" ending.

Hub is sick with what I had last week, so we wound up staying home this weekend. We cleaned the house, prepped food for the week, had our moms over for a Valentine's dinner last night, and watched some tv.

Here is the intersting thing - I have been on this medicine since last Sunday, so just over a week. I know I have been sick, but I was okay this weekend. I haven't had a binge since I started it. Nope, not over the weekend. I ate some foods that aren't normally in my rotation - I bought a pint of lowfat ice cream and ate about a third of it - spread out over 3 days and 3 servings. I dunno - I just never had that panicky "I gotta soothe myself" feeling. I've lived with that so long that NOT feeling that way seems strange.

We went to the gym Saturday morning - I did one lower weight exercise for each body part - only 1 set. And 15 minutes on a treadmill. I was tired when I was done, so I was obviously still recovering this weekend.

We got some very pretty snow - just enough to make the grass white and its gone today. That's my kind of snow storm! :-)

Hope you all have a groovy day.

Stopped Cold

I got on the scale this morning and was up a pound. I was already formulating the rant in my head as I logged on my computer. A really good one all about how I have saved my size 8 jeans and if I had to choose between running a marathon and wearing those jeans, I’d pick the jeans. Then I checked my e-mail.

My friend Ginger was moved to Hospice yesterday. If you’ve been reading for over a year, you may remember that last January I attended the funeral of my friend Michelle who died of breast cancer. Looks like this February I’ll be attending another funeral, for another friend lost to breast cancer.

Suddenly the jeans don’t seem so important, and the $1800 I would have to raise to participate in the Avon 2 day walk this October doesn’t seem insurmountable.

Return of the living dead

I am back at the office today for the first time all week. Oh, I lasted 3.5 hours on Monday before slinking home. I have had what I can only describe as a "super cold" - cold symptoms plus fever, chills, & exhaustion. If I never eat Campbell's chicken noodle soup again, it'll be too soon.

Why didn’t I stock up on Sudafed?

Did you know that when the major retailers threatened to put Sudafed etc behind the pharmacy counter, Sudafed reacted by changing its formulation? Makes sense if you are trying to sell medicine, but the new stuff sure don’t work like the old. I should know. I am sick!

This is the first cold I’ve had in a while, but its been a doozy. The weekend started off good – Chinese take-out & beer while watching Stargate Friday night. Yes, that was our date. We agreed that from now on, we leave the house for dates. But still, it was fun.

Saturday I went to the store early since K0hl’s was having a bid early bird sale & I desperately needed some new bras. I came home & hub was going great guns on the housework. I pitched in & the house was clean when he left at 10. (It was his D&D weekend.) After that, I piddled around – ran a couple of errands, got my nails done etc. Dinner was a grilled chicken salad from McDs. I colored my hair, gave myself a pedicure, and watched Sci-Fi.

Sunday I got up early to do the shopping. I had felt a little tired on Saturday and Sunday I knew the cause – I had a cold. :-( I paced myself and took plenty of breaks, but thanks to getting the shopping done so early (I was home by 8:30), I had the pre-cooking for the week done by 1. I had eaten a Lean Cuisine pizza for breakfast, had a can of chicken soup at 11, and had another can at 2. After 1, I spent the day on the sofa. Luckily my mom brought over a quiche & the hub grilled shrimp & veggies to go with it. I wasn’t up to cooking by last night – that’s for sure!

I came in to the office to check email & pick up some work, and I plan to spend the rest of the day working from home. I am coughing a lot (despite the Robitussin), so I’m pretty tired. Plus I doubt my co-workers want my funk. I doubt I’ll make the gym today given that I feel pretty craptacular.

I made a great breakfast casserole this week! I had wanted to make the chile relleno casserole out of “Eating for Life”, but a) I couldn’t find whole canned chiles at W-M, b) it seemed like a lot of work, and c) it seemed not super healthy.

Here’s my version of chile relleno casserole:

3 cans diced green chiles
1 c cottage cheese (I know – but its useful!)
4 eggs
4 egg whites
4 oz. shredded lowfat monterey jack cheese (I used the kind with jalepenos)
2 chopped green onions.

Mix well. Bake in a Pam-ed baking dish at 350 for about 45 minutes, or until solid in the middle.

This was great! I had a side of grits since it needed a carb – the portion was really big!

My mommie is the best, and another use for cottage cheese!

I started having nasty cramps with a vengence yesterday, so the only exercise that happened was my lunchtime walk. Ugh. And we had mexican take-out yesterday. I had a cheeseless burrito meade with steak - not the best choice, but not the worst. But no beer! Still feeling craptacular today, but I'm gonna try to hit the gym this afternoon.

My mom retired last month and last week they gave her a retirement party (which she really didn't want). When they asked her what sort of gift she wanted, she told them a massage. (You'd want one too if you'd taught 8th grade for 30 years!). They gave her a $200 gift certificate to a local day spa! So she invited me to go with her! We are each getting a 45 minute massage, a body scrub, and lunch. Woo hoo! I can't wait! See how nice she is - she could have shared it with anyone, but she chose to share with me. :-)

Here's another cottage cheese idea for people who hate cottage cheese: when mixing up ranch dressing mix, use pureed cottage cheese in place of the mayo. What's in ff mayo anyway? CC has to healthier - and you don't even taste it. I'm impressed, both with the recipe and my own creativity! I gotta figure out a new snack though - cottage cheese & berries is getting old. Maybe a tuna patty?

Hanging in there!

Another decent food day yesterday. I had some pretzels and a faux beer after dinner, which would have been okay except I'd already had a fudgecicle... Right now I am too easily tempted to have trigger foods in the house. I plan to send the pretzels to the D&D game with hub if there are any left.

I went to the gym yesterday. I finished about 2/3 of my lower body workout - my legs are sore! I knew it had been long enough that I would regret doing the whole thing, so I didn't. I also walked at lunch. Today is walk at lunch plus intervals on the elliptical after work.

Hub will be gone to his D&D game this weekend. I often use this time to eat without being observed (A glutton in her native habitat as it were). Yeah. I WILL NOT DO THAT THIS WEEKEND!!!!!!!!

I know what I’m having for lunches next week!

I made a yum-o dinner last night! It’s from the “Eating for Life” cookbook. The recipe for shrimp scampi was fabulous! I still have this book out from the library - I will buy it eventually. Anyway, I will make that for lunches next week.

Food yesterday was fine. I hit the gym AND got up and walked this morning. My mood is lifting already.

Work is still very busy. My new boss seems to think I’m doing a good job. He pushes people to push themselves, if that makes any sense. I like it.

If you gonna talk the talk, at least try to walk the walk

A lot of different thoughts, so I’m just gonna number them & call it a post.

1. I am obviously a master of maintenance, coming in again last week at 155.5. Given this weekend, I hope I maintain again this week. Sigh. More on that later.

2. I am glad I never gave up on cottage cheese. It’s not that I like it or anything, but it’s such a great source of protein and is versatile. If I put a half cup with a half cup of mixed berries, cinnamon, and a packet of splenda it’s not bad. I made “pancakes” this morning – 3 egg whites, ½ c cottage cheese, ½ c oats, a dash each of cinnamon and vanilla, and a packet of splenda. Blend to make your batter & cook em up. Yum-o!

3. Hub & I talked Saturday. So much has been put on my shoulders – I told him how let down I felt when he didn’t pick up the boy so I could go to the gym. I’ve been working full time at a new job (which is much more demanding), doing boy duty, the shopping & cooking, and at least half the cleaning. How is that fair? He has agreed to take on more responsibility at home. Until the next time we have to have this conversation. Oh well, it’ll help for a while.

4. I am fat & I’m not happy about it. My body looks yucky.

5. We have to keep the trigger foods (beer, pretzels, crackers) out of the house for a while – with my stress levels as high as they are, it is waaaaay too easy to fall into a vat of food. Hub agreed.

6. We went on a date! We had an inexpensive but very good dinner at a Mediterranean deli, then hit a used book store, then B&N for a coffee & hub bought a book there. We got 3 movies & a CD at the used book store, and I scored 7 Star Trek books. Some women read romance novels – I read ST in much the same way – it’s a mindless diversion.

7. Other than the fact that I consumed too many calories, it was a good weekend. I’m trying to forgive myself but stay firm on making this a priority. The stress is tough, but I have to deal with it in a more productive way.

And the number one reason I don’t look like a fitness model…..

Yesterday morning, I asked my husband if he could pick up the boy so that I could go to the gym. No problem. He was helping a friend on a job, so his time was flexible. He gets there, and tells D he needs to leave in time to pick up the boy. I call after work – D wants him to work late and could I pick up the boy? Needless to say, I was super pissed off. He could easily have said “I’m sorry but I have to go” with no consequences – he was working yes, but doing a friend a favor by helping on this guy’s job.

I’m left feeling like I am always the bottom priority and any stranger that happens along is going to have their needs placed higher than mine. I’m getting teary just sitting here typing this – I’m so tired of feeling like I get exactly no support from my husband.

I could have salvaged a little something – I could have squeezed enough time to go do 20 minutes of HIIT on the treadmill. Instead I stopped by the grocery to pick up some bread to go with dinner. I guess I don’t have to tell you that I had 1.5 candy bars, plenty of that bread, and popcorn in addition to my healthy soup last night. And a couple of beers. I went to bed at 8, angry, depressed, and not even interested in looking at my husband.

So, let’s dissect this scenario for a minute. Yes, my husband acted like a total a$$ and was wrong. But I chose to react the way I did. That, coupled with a bad experience with an Amazon seller was enough to throw me over the top. I don’t handle a change in my plans well. So I reacted by eating Tokyo, and now feel remorseful and angry with myself this morning.


I mentioned briefly I was reading a book by Geneen Roth. For people with emotional eating issues, I highly recommend her books. Here are a couple of things she wrote I thought worth sharing. These quotes are from the book “When Food is Love.”

“Being able to move from apparent confidence to utter desolation in the time it takes a star to fall is one of the symptoms of being in an adult body and experiencing life through the shattered eggshell of childhood.”

“When you grow up believing that you are loved because of what you do, not who you are, your survival depends on doing the right thing. If you make one wrong move you believe you will die.”

“We eat the way we live. What we do with food, we do in our lives. Eating is a stage upon which we act out our beliefs about ourselves. As compulsive eaters, we use food to somatize our deepest fears, dreams, and convictions. Something is wrong when we find ourselves reeling into paroxysm of despair from eating a piece of garlic bread or three éclairs. Something is wrong when we feel we have to deprive ourselves of foods we love because we believe we would abuse them – or ourselves – if we allowed them in our lives. Something is wrong and we are using food to express it.”

So, to my question yesterday – if feeling healthy and exercising feels good, why don’t we do it? There is the answer. The part I struggle to figure out is how to change it.

I haven’t finished the book yet. I’m sure it will offer some insights, but overcome the behavior I must. Perhaps medication to level off those feelings, so I don’t go reeling into despair when I eat a candy bar or my husband lets me down will help. But to be healthy in body and spirit, I have to apply the understanding I have of what is at the heart of this behavior.

Hello hello hello.

Yesterday gets a B+. Food was good, although I had a NA beer and a sugar-free fudgecicle after dinner (100 calories total). Exercise was not quite as intense – I bailed on the gym and took advantage of the terrific weather to walk outside. I’ll hit the gym today.

I have nothing profound to say today. My MIL is over at my mom’s. She is applying for a job up in Va, which would be closer to the grandkids. We’ll see what happens. Hub’s work is up in the air again. He wasn’t getting enough hours with the company he was with – they were new & just didn’t have enough work coming in. Construction is just not stable employment.

I’d like to set some running goals – but for right now I know I just need to focus on getting back into a good routine and then I can work on adding to it. I did get up at 5:30 again, in spite of the fact that the alarm wasn’t set.

To recap, short term goals:

This week get up at 5:30. Next week get up at 5:15 and add an AM walk.
Drink 3 (32 oz) glasses of water at work daily.
Afternoon exercise.
100 calorie limit post dinner.

I know it isn’t the first time I’ve said it nor am I the only blogger to say it, but if doing the right things feels so good, why don’t we?

(Drum roll please) THE PLAN!!!!!

I am baby stepping my way back to a better place. Driving up to Ohio Friday afternoon, I realized how long it had been since I felt just… happy. Enjoying the sunshine & music, looking forward to visiting dear friends. That reality check prompted me to make some changes and some plans.

1. I spoke with my doctor and after a very good discussion, she prescribed Welbutrin to help me through some of the temporary stress (new job, MIL). She also prescribed making the gym a priority and date nights with my husband. You see why I love my doctor!

2. Building my base back up. This week I am getting up at 5:30 and using those 15 minutes to catch up on stuff around the house. I am getting in my water during the day, and going to the gym after work. Next week I will add in an AM walk. Food is planned and prepped for the week.

We had a nice visit with our friends, but they aren’t exactly the healthiest of eaters. Between road food & their house, not a single vegetable was consumed other than the lettuce on my Wendy’s chicken sandwich. Unless you think mashed potatoes (made with 3 sticks of butter!) should count! Uh, no.

Anyway, working hard to re-join the human race. I will keep posting.

Also reading a very good book "When Food is Love" by Geneen Roth. That's the book I would have written if I were articulate.

The tale of the scale

I don't believe I lost 3.5 pounds this week any more than I think I gained 3 the week before. I might as well confess that I weight 155.5 or no one will be able to follow the bouncing ball - even me.

I did okay last night - I did have 2 beers but didn't follow through with any munchies thankfully. Exercise is still spotty, but that will change after I get back from Ohio Sunday. I have some healthy meals planned for next week and its back to BFL.

This week has been tough, but I think a weekend away will help to revive me & hubby both.

Have a great weekend!

C is for Cookie

Recipe I wanted to share:

Chocolate oatmeal "cookies"

1/2 mashed banana
1 Tbsp peanut butter
1/3 c oatmeal
1 pkg diet swiss miss coccoa
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 scoop protein powder

Mix together. Form 6 cookies & bake 10 minutes at 300 degrees.

These were very good! They were a little dry. Things I will try:
Grind some of the oatmeal for a smoother texture.
Use 1 Tbsp coccoa powder and a packet of splenda instead of coccoa mix (cheaper)
Add a bit of applesauce if it’s still dry.

Foodwise, I’m still making good choices. I didn’t get to the gym yesterday – a walk was all that happened. I know I need more exercise, right now I’m just toast. I am FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) at work and FOG (fear, obligation, guilt) at home. (No, I didn’t make those up). One or the other is okay – both at once is tough. Work isn’t bad – just new. Even good stress is still stress. Sigh. But things are better than they were.

I plan to return to the gym next week. In the interim I will walk & try not to eat Tokyo.

Hey, thanks

Thanks for all the great comments. Bill's pancakes are on my "to try" list btw - they do sound good.

SIL called yesterday, basically to justify her position to MIL. My MIL realizes she needs help. I know she misses the grandkids, but right now that environment would not be very good for her and she knows it. Given that she plans to split her time between our house & my mom, it should be more tolerable as everyone will get a periodic break from one another.

No, I didn't get to the gym. I had to help unload the moving truck. Hub picked the boy up right after school so we would have his help too - it was an "all hands on deck" afternoon. I didn't bring my gym bag today either - I plan to take a walk. I think being outside for exercise will be more helpful given my mood.

Eating was okay yesterday. I had an O'Douls, a fudgecicle (suagr free), and a small serving of baked beans after dinner. But that's so much better than I've been doing lately that I consider it a victory.

I think we are still going to Ohio this weekend. Hub wants to. I do too, but I hate missing the gym. Not that I'm going much this week. But food & walking is a vast improvement.

Fiddle dee dee, tomorrow is another day – so let’s toast marshmallows while Atlanta burns

What can I say? Exercise is a distant memory, my caloric consumption closely resembles that of a 20 year old frat boy, and my weekend was everything I expected and so much more. Let’s just say my husband doesn’t want to see his SIL any time soon, which is fine because I’m not thrilled with his brother.

Where to start? See, MIL doesn’t rent her apartment, so once they fire her she automatically gets evicted. NC is a “right to work” state, which means people can quit or be fired with no notice and for no reason. Since the apartment was part of her “benefits package”, there ya go.

My MIL has some mental health issues. She has been “marginally” functional her whole life – holding down a job but never keeping her personal life together. Lately she has been depressed, suicidal, and not taking care of stuff. I think she had a breakdown to be honest. She managed in her job, but her apartment was a mess, her finances are a mess…

My BIL is one of those people that is reactive, high strung, and does before he thinks or talks. So he basically decides that MIL should move back to Maryland and in with him & his family, without talking to her, his wife, of any of us. SIL is angry because of the way MIL acted last time she lived with them and had no idea that MIL never even asked to move up there with them. So she is angry & resentful, BIL is a raging banshee, and my Mil first feels betrayed and violated by her employer, and then is robbed of her dignity & rights by her family.

SIL came down & told her she had no rights since she was “homeless” and they began dictating to her what she could do with her stuff. By the time I got her to tell them Sunday afternoon that she wanted to stay here it was too late – they had thrown out 2 storage units worth of her stuff, not to mention her apartment. She is a total packrat, probably has OCD and compulsively buys stuff so there was plenty that needed to be cleaned out, but imagine boxing up the contents of your home and throwing it in a dumpster. That’s what they did. My son came running to the front to tell us BIL & SIL threw out 15 boxes of books my mom promised MIL we’d hang onto for her. We had the kids in the dumpster trying to salvage the books. I shudder to think what irreplaceable items wound up in the trash. It was like watching a city being pillaged.

MIL is with us right now and will stay with my mom for a bit. I don’t know what will happen long run. I feel wrung out. I saw a number on the scale Friday that scared me, and frankly I only added to it this weekend. I have my gym bag packed. I have my menu planned. Not sure what else to do.

Whoa.

The past couple of days have been tough. I have been feeling a lot of pressure this week - the new job plus hub has been working evenings. I binged Wednesday night. Thursday I woke up with a bit of a stomach bug and stayed home. Hub called - his mom got fired from her job yesterday. No warning and no reason given. The really bad part is that she manages a storage unit rental place and lives on the property. She has until Sunday to move out. Hub's brother & family are coming down this weekend to help her move. Knowing him, I expect this weekend to be very drama filled and stressful. And I am worried about her. She has been depressed and this sure won't help, although I think it will be better in the end. She has wanted to move up to Maryland to be closer to the grandkids, and this will push that along.

Needless to say, food has been spotty, gym nonexistent and this weekend will be nuts. I need to get back on track before things slip too far. Yikes.

Still Alive

Just a quick note. I haven't fallen off the bandwagon or anything. The home computer is dead, and the laptop for my new job is supposed to be delivered this morning. Give me a day or two for the dust to settle. Other than Sunday afternoon, BFL is going well. Sunday afternoons are my downfall. I need to change my "free" day from Saturday to Sunday to deal with that issue. I am trying that this weekend.

Take care.

Cooldown

Wrapping things up here at the old job. Everything is moved but my tea & thermos, mouse pad, and flying Mojo Jojo pencil topper. They have to move my phone and computer - that will happen next week. I think it will all seem real next Wednesday or so.

Good workout yesterday - biceps, triceps, and 20 solid minutes on the treadmill. They had the doors open at the gym, which felt good. I left work tired & headachy & not wanting to go to the gym. As always, I left the gym feeling better than when I walked in the door. Isn't that amazing? I just remember that feeling and put the car on autopilot. :-)

Eating was fine too. I stopped by the library and checked out "Eating for Life" - the cookbook by Bill Phillips to go with his "Body for Life" book. I am loving it so far! I think this is one I will buy. My mom & the boy & I are going out for mexican tomorrow while hub plays his D&D game. BFL gives you a free day, but I had an incident involving crackers Wednesday night, so I am counting that as one "meal", giving myself another free meal, and calling it good. I will eat different but on the BFL plan Sunday. This cookbook has a lot of yummy looking stuff I can't wait to try next week.

The evil nasty horrid scale was down 0.5 pounds today. The human body is an amazing thing, but hormones can be a real pain. I am sticking with my plan anyway. Stupid scale.

Have a great weekend!

Blah blah blah

I’m tired. The boy has poison ivy & had to go to the doctor yesterday. Gym didn’t happen. Work is stressful. Next week will be stressful in a different way as I learn a new job.

Things I need to remember: Food is not my friend. Yes, it will make me feel better in the short run, but the price is too high in the long run. Take some tea bags home for a cup of hot tea at night.

Weights & moderate cardio this afternoon. The gym bag is in the car. I will be more interesting in a couple of weeks when I have the time & energy to string together coherent thoughts that don’t involve statistical modeling. I promise. My family is probably more tired of me than you are.

A kind reader sent in a link for a recipe for a chocolate martini. I’m not looking!!!!! :-)

A rant and some suck suck suck

I believe that PMS-ing women should not have to go to work. They should not have to train a new employee, worry about whether their laptop for their new job will get set up before the old PC gets re-imaged (and computer company HAL will lose 6 years worth of stuff), or go to the gym and do HIIT training. We should be at the spa. Or on the beach in Mexico, being fed chocolate martinis by a thong wearing male bikini model. Really. (Is there such a thing as a chocolate martini? There should be.)

Food and exercise were both on track yesterday. Today is bis, tris, & abs, followed by 20 - 30 minutes on the dreadmill at moderate intensity. Yesterday was HIIT - thats an acronym for "Kick yo' a$$". My goal? To get through this stay and stick to my plan. Trod trod trod.

Need some joy? Me too. I cruised over the fat Cyclist & took the "Tour de France Personality Test" - aaahhh, some good memories from the summer. What are you waiting for? http://spaces.msn.com/members/fatcyclist/Blog/cns!1pUmGvi9idWgOodsIbhHUOQA!324.entry

Day 1 BFL

Things went pretty well. I made a change to the workouts for the first 2 weeks. Bill has a 2 day split, with you lifting 3 days per week. So, week 1 you would do 2 upper body and 1 lower body workout. Week 2 you would flip and do 2 lower and 1 upper. I split the upper, so I now have a 3 day split which I will do the first couple of weeks to ease myself in. I am pushing myself much harder. Dude, I was doing db rows with 50 lb weights! I did 20 min on the treadmill after.

On the food front, I continue to find ways to disguise that super food cottage cheese to make it palatable. The search continues. My mom took us out to dinner, I had chicken fajitas, eating only the chicken & grilled veggies, with a couple of bites of the rice & black beans & guacamole. I avoided the chips like the plague. My dinner was good. I bought a George Foreman to do my supper since I am eating different from the family at dinner. My other meals are pre-prepared, but I want my dinner fresh. It's not bigger than other meals, but that will make it tastier, and I can personalize it each night by varying the seasoning.

Todat I go back to my WW meetings. I don't think I'll sign up again - its just not for me. But maybe the support will help. The jury is still out.

Valences!

Finally the pics I promised!

This is my body for life

Since this is the only one I got issued, I better take care of it! The title is also a play on words - I am starting the "Body for Life" eating plan today. My 6 meals a day are planned for 6 days. See how clever that is? I've planned my food for Saturday. Not until the weekend and then its a free for all/scavenger hunt search for food. It's all planned until my free day Sunday. Woo!

As for exercise, plan to hit the gym Mon - Thur and again on the weekend once. Plus a long run on the weekend. I've got buy-in from my support staff (aka "family"), so I should be able to make it barring bad weather or sickness.

Had a great party NY eve. I love sour apple martinis! Who knew? Thank goodness I don't drink licquor on a regular basis or I'd need to lose a lot more weight than I do!

Okay, not too exciting I know. From dead to slammed here at the office. Back to work with me. Happy New Year everyone!

"New Year, New You"

That's the headline over at msn.com, and that's the rub isn't it? Some people gain a little weight because they are busy or something happens, and then they realize it, tighten up, and lose it.

But for some of us, we identify ourselves as "the fat girl." Or boy. But that's who we are. We eat for emotional reasons, maybe have an eating disorder, but we get some payoff from remaining overweight - and it's who we are. Remove my fat, you take away my identity.

Sometimes I go along and lose a fair amount of weight. But as soon as I realize I'm approaching my own mental FEBA (forward edge of the battle area) of 150, the kiss of death occurs for my program as I go into red alert and every system is employed to get us back up to a "safe" weight.

I've analyzed the underlying causes, I've faced many fears this year. The war between "fit girl" and "fat girl" has raged most of the year. Fit girl has held what she has but hasn't really gained any ground.

I won't say this is the year I do it - I can't look up at that goal line, it's too scary. Instead I'm going to watch my feet, point them in the right direction, and take a baby step.

Want a really cool read on dealing with emotions from a Buddhist perspective? Check it out: http://www.hussmanfitness.org/html/TMEmotional.html

I don't mean this to be a downer. I'm not down. I recognize that the end game is just too scary for me to handle right this minute, but I can handle the next 5 pounds.

Legally blond, the fitness juxtaposition, and a year end review

Since I have several thoughts to share, I’ll just use the good old bullet format so I don’t actually have to write transitions. Yes, I am feeling that lazy.

Legally blond

Remember the song “Cause I’m a Blond" from the movie “Earth Girls are Easy”? You don’t? Then never mind. The point being that I am a total flake. If it weren’t for notepads, I’d never get anything done. We are going out of town on 2 weekends in January – once up to Ohio to stay with friends and beat on them with sticks, and the second trip is to Maryland to visit the brother of hub & his family. We won’t hit them with sticks. Naturally I booked the hotel in Maryland for the weekend we will be in Ohio. Thank goodness Frederick Md isn’t a terribly popular destination (I hope). Should be able to correct that error.

On a completely unrelated note, does it mean anything when you wake up dreaming about giant bug-like space aliens attacking the earth and the army trying to fight them? The army was passing out frozen eggnog.

The fitness juxtaposition

I was thinking last night in the tub. Right now I am overweight. Am I fit? What is fit? I can bench press over 100 pounds. I can squat a couple hundred. I can jog/walk (mostly walk) several miles. But I don’t feel like I can say “Yes, I am fit.” I feel like I am neither fit nor unfit, just in the spot in between. The truth is I am fitter than I was when I was stationed in Germany, and I managed to get a decent score on the Army fitness test back then. I run slower, but I can run farther. I can do as many pushups and situps as I could back then (although not as many as I could at my peak fitness in Hawaii or Texas). Part of the reason is because of my weight. I don’t think I believe I can be truly fit unless I am at a healthy weight (defined by my bodyfat % & provided by my doctor). Fit & overweight? Not me. I can’t believe that for myself.

Year end review: the good, the bad, & the ugly (in reverse order!).

The ugly:

Last week the scale said 154, this morning it said 156. Oh my God. I wasn’t that bad this week! To date, my weight loss looks like this:

2001: 6 pounds,
2002: 1.5 pounds
2003: 11.5 pounds
2004: 2.5 pounds
2005: 0.5 pounds.

Ouch. Last week that would have been 2.5 pounds. I would have been okay with that. I need some of that ’03 mojo back. Had I lost 2.5 pounds, I could be philosophical and point out that while the weight isn’t falling off, I’ve consistently lost for several years and that I am headed in the right direction. Right now I just feel like a dork. A pudgy dork. Who ate a greasy sandwich for breakfast. A stupid pudgy dork who needs to adjust her attitude!

The bad:

Two words: my family. If you’ve been reading long enough, you know what I am talking about. I end the year cut off from half my biological family. Their loss, but I won’t say I’m not still angry about this one.

The good:

Several factors pushed me out of my comfy complacent little shell and I “spur of the moment” applied for two jobs, one of which I got. Same company of course – I love this place! I am just moving upstairs – I’ve packed up most of my stuff & moved it to my new office already. I’m looking at something like a 14 or 15% salary increase next year. Some of that is going into ye olde retirement fund, but that’s pretty good IMO.

My mom retired, my marriage is good, my son is healthy & doing well in school. Life is good in all the areas that matter.

Other than the “food storage facility” around my waist, life is pretty good. Must keep perspective.

Unleash your creative energy - draw on the walls!

Weights are on hold this week. :-( Before the boy gets back and we get back into the usual routine, I want to accomplish 2 things: 1) get the house put back together and 2) finish drawing on my kitchen walls.

This is a project I've had in my head for a while. I am using an overhead projector to trace celtic knotwork designs onto the band of blank wall space above the cabinets & doorways in the kitchen. Right now I am still in the drawing process. Then I will paint. It's either gonna look fabulous or bizarre. If its the latter, I'll just use the solid color wall paint to hide my experiement gone awry.

I am still walking, and food is back on track. But weights & extra cardio have to wait while I have the overhead projector out on loan. And I am going to finally upload my pics that I've been promising for forever so you can see the valences I made for the living & dining rooms.

No worries - I think I've finally got a resonable school week schedule going on that will let me get to the gym and my beloved iron more. And I'm reading a chapter of Dave Draper a night to keep me inspired. I have two of his books - I highly recommend them. You can order them over at davedraper.com.

See ya!

Just a quickie

I hope everyone had a great weekend/holiday/etc. Mine was very nice. My sneaky family bought me a cuckoo clock! I have been wanting one for years - I almost bought myself one while on vacation in Bavaria many years ago. It was a real surprise!

The boy's big gift was a Nintendo DS - the new generation of Gameboy. He was pretty excited about that. Don't worry - he got plenty of other stuff too. That was the biggest thing - I don't believe in spending a fortune at Christmas. Saturday we went to the afternoon church service, then a light supper over at my mom's, and then we rode around a looked at Christmas lights. After that, we got my mom's dogs & all went over to our place. What fun! How can you not be happy with a lapful of doggies? :-)

Oh, and Friday we went out to the fondue restaurant for a belated job celebration. The thing is, because you are cooking your dinner at the table, you are eating for about 1.5 hours or so. You don't feel like you've eaten a lot, but its more than you think. And it starts with cheese fondue and ends with chocolate fondue - can I just say I had a serious tummy ache? But the food was really good, just waaaay richer than I am used to! Actually, the overeating started Friday and didn't end until bedtime last night. I'm not waiting until the new year - the gym bag is in the car!!!!

The boy's on vacation, and so are we!

The boy is on vacation this week and next. Since the hub and I have been working, he has been bouncing between grandma & grandpa. This week my day has gone something like this: wake up at 6 or so, head to office. Leave office, go to gym. Lift & do cardio for an hour. Head home for a bath & a Lean Cuisine. Watch a movie. Lather, rinse, repeat! I never knew people had this kind of free time! Woo hoo! I've missed him (don't worry - he's coming home for the weekend of course! :-), but I must admit I feel like I'm getting as much of a break as he is.

Went to the gym yesterday afternoon for shoulders & core, followed by 30 rockin' minutes on the elliptical. No cardio tonight because I am doing legs and that will wear my butt (and the rest of my lower body) out!

Tonight we are going out for our family "Neca got a new job" celebration at the fondue place here in town. I am looking forward to it! Mom & the boy are coming with us, of course.

I weighed 154 this morning - same as 2 weeks ago. While I'm not exactly losing vast amounts of weight, holding my own is a victory. Next week I will post my total loss for the year, and years past for the curious.

Have a great weekend/holiday/whatever you celebrate!

In Honor of Chris

Chris Brogan has taken his fitness blog and morphed it into an overall "self improvement" blog. I have a link to his blog, go check it out! I found some very good links to a couple of sites concerning Power Point presentations, the bane of my existence. (smirk).

In keeping with that spirit, here's a link to some of my favorite office inspirational quotes:
http://www.despair.com/viewall.html Enjoy!

p.s. Please don't kill me Chris! :-)

The gym report

That whole putting the gym bag in the car technique worked awesome yesterday, meaning I actually went to the gym! Yesterday was biceps & triceps – when I am lifting, my arms look fantastic. If I could lose some fat they would rule. Seriously.

After lifting I did 30 minutes on the treadmill. There was no good show on, and I was really flagging there at the 20 minute mark. But then the “Rocky” theme came on the trusty MP3 player, followed by the theme from “Blade II”. Let’s just say the final 2 minutes was me running up a 10% grade at 5 mph. I felt amazing! I can’t believe I am running on a treadmill. The same girl that last winter was so proud of the fact that I ran outside all winter!?!? But I tell ya, when I wake up its like 16 degrees and I’m like “no way.” We’ll see how long it lasts – the first day I bail I will make myself run in the neighborhood, which I utterly despise doing in the afternoon. Do ask why. For one, I hate for people to see me – I like to be out there alone. I am a freak.

Dinner was a South Beach frozen whole wheat crust pizza with a big salad on the side. I added a little garlic powder & some red pepper flakes. YUM!

Last night we watched “Serenity”. My husband totally loves the show and was dying to see the movie. This is a show that on paper looks like I should adore it. And I do like a lot of the characters, it just never really clicked with me. Anyway, pretty good movie even if you’ve haven’t watched the show. Tonight’s movie special is “Nightmare Before Christmas.” We’ve been ripping through that Netflix queue, but since it has about 90 movies in it, I think we’re safe for a bit.

Getting the gym bag in the car is a critical step!

So, I left my gym bag at home yesterday morning. I was running late, and walked right past the darn thing. Arg!! Yesterday afternoon, I had a couple of errands to run before I went home. Naturally, by then I really wasn’t up to going to the gym so I took a bath instead. The good news is twofold: I didn’t follow that up with overeating and also, I left the house this morning WITH my gym bag. No worries – 4 out of 5 days is still darn good!

We watched “The Brothers Grimm” last night – it was pretty cute. Here’s the sad part though: after watching “Team America”, every time I see Matt Damon I turn to my husband, replicate that blank look of the Matt Damon puppet, and say “Matt Damon.” We probably did that 15 times during the movie last night. I’ll never look at poor Matt Damon the same way again after that movie. But the Brothers Grimm was pretty cute – not appropriate for young kids though (much like the original stories!).

I sure hope there is something interesting on the t.v. at the gym so I can manage some cardio – I hate running in the daylight hours and the mornings have been a bit too chilly lately!

Untie those “nots”

Lee wrote a terrific post about achievements. Go read it! I’ll still be here. (Go!) See how she turns that “not” around? I love it! I was getting a little blue about the things I hadn’t done this year. Then I started thinking about the bad things I haven’t done either: I have NOT: regained the weight I’ve lost, returned to my crappy eating habits (for more than a few days at the max anyway!), abandoned my exercise, quit planning and preparing healthy meals for my family. All of a sudden, I feel pretty far ahead in the game.

Have I ever mentioned how much I love lifting weights? Like most working moms, I struggle with fitting in gym time, but when I go I’m in heaven! Like yesterday afternoon for example. I love working my back & chest – I feel so powerful moving around lots of heavy iron. I get a warm fuzzy Conan feeling inside. :-) Then I got on the treadmill. Stop laughing – yes I did! And thanks to the “Dirty Harry” marathon on the USA network, I managed to stay on board for 30 minutes! After that I went home, had a healthy supper (salmon patties, baked sweet potato, and salad), then plonked down to watch “White Christmas” while finishing up the cards with the hubster. He made me skip the musical numbers, but it was still good.

I slept in this morning – I was tired (I moved a lot of iron!), it was cold outside, and my Chihuahua was using her “Reiki paws of power” ™ to keep me warm & drowsy. But that’s cool cause the boy is with grandpa, and the gym is there for me this afternoon. Have I ever mentioned how much I love working biceps? It makes me feel like Conan. :-)

The weatherman was wrong!!!

We didn't get any of the nasty Mr. Weatherman was calling for! Yay! I ran on Saturday and walked outside Sunday. I was feeling a little down & lethargic, but just a little time fast walking in the bright sunshine fixed me right up.

Weekend was good. Eating was better and the gym bag is in the car. The boy is off with the grandparents this week, so I bought Lean Cuisines to eat for dinner (with a salad) and made a big pot of chili for the hub. I'll make him a pot of chicken & dumplings mid-week. That should help get some of the bloat off. Could I have eaten better this weekend? Yeah, but it was a vast improvement over the last week or so.

Hub & I made a decision - we spend too much of our weekend time doing chores around the house and not enough time on fun stuff. So we've agreed to spend 15 minutes each evening (the whole family) tidying up a bit around the house. That's 45 minutes per night - that has to make the weekend easier. Between doing all the housework, planning, shopping for, and pre-cooking for the weeks meals, and errands, there isn't a lot of time left for fun. And I need fun!

I'm hitting the gym every day after work this week doing a body part a day plus some HIIT. Yow!

Runners who Rock

Bless Jack for mentioning me in this fun new meme. I needed the motivation – we’ve had ice here, so no exercise has occurred. But, sun this afternoon should clear the roads for a morning run tomorrow! Of course, then they are saying more ice Sunday. :-(

The Mission:
1. Create a post titled Runners Who Rock.
2. List three runners who rock and tell us why they rock. Make sure you provide a link to their blog!
3. Tell those three runners about the meme and tag them so they can keep it going.
4. Link to runners who rock and to the blogger who tagged you so we get a ping and can keep track of all the participants!

I would put Jack high on my list – despite the weather, swimming, whatever, that man has gone from couch spud to marathoner with lightening speed. His enthusiasm for running is infectious! But since he tagged me and I can’t put him, here is my list:

VJ may not technically be a runner (she’s a walker), but creative ways of incorporating exercise into her lifestyle is always on her brain. She has Christmas lights on her bicycle!

Lynne was one of the first running blogs I ever read. But hers isn’t just a running blog – she hikes and canoes and camps & is generally the kind of outdoorswoman I aspire to be. She can articulate why I love to run. While she doesn't post as often any more, her gems are worth the wait.

Lee again was an early blogger I read who showed me that there are plenty of moms roughly my age out there who are kicking butt in the gym & on the roads. From a lady scared of a bike turned spinning instructor, Lee is proof that you can make your fitness dreams your reality.

Way to go! Reads like these are why I know that while I may struggle with my weight goal, I will NEVER give up my new lifestyle.

Exploding Pants

How sad is it that I was much happier at yesterday's holiday luncheon where the food was utter crap? Today's food was yummy and I ate too much!!! Ice on ground, no exercise can occur (it's too dangerous to go to the gym even!). Sheesh. I think I'll pretty much skip dinner tonight!

More Human

Hello. I am beginning to feel more like a human being. I have not been to the gym. I haven't not exercised other than walking. Eating hasn't been all that, but I'll be climbing on the scale come Friday. I hope to feel up to lifting Saturday. I hate feeling like a bag of cat barf.

I ordered a great poster of a Tahitian beach for my new office. :-) And I am pestering the support dept about my new laptop. I have a case of the "short timers".

Blech.

I’m not feeling so hot – took a half day off yesterday and didn’t even make the boy’s Christmas program at school. I hope to feel human in the next couple of days, until then “blah!”. On a brighter note, I got all my Christmas shopping done, and everything but one gift is wrapped. Ha!

Movin' On Up

Hub starts his new job Monday. :-) This is the kind of work he enjoys (high end residential remodel & repair), an excellent salary, and a company that appears stable. Those three items coming together seems to be very rare (at least where we live!), so I am very excited for him.

In related news, I also have a new job (hence some of the stress this week!). It's a promotion to a new position in a new department, but with the same company. Very exciting, lots of changes, new boss, new friends, lots to learn etc. I've been in the same position 6 years, so this is huge for me!

Thanks for all the good thoughts - they seem to have paid off!

Hello there.

Dorky husband + work stress = 3 beers & saltines. There, I said it. I ate it. Forgive me blogfather, for I have noshed. I ran 2 miles for penance (and they felt good!). I will go forth and eat only the healthy food which I have prepared for the day.

Lynne wrote a great post (see link on side.) I have included a portion here (but please go read her whole post) because the words she wrote are so universal. I have a friend in a wheelchair, and my thoughts are with him for a portion of every run I do. If I could sit in his chair for a time so he could run, I would gladly do so.

"I run because I am able. There are millions of people who do not have the use of their legs who would love to be able to run. Because I have the use of my legs, I should use them.

I run for all of the people who say, "Wow, I could never do that," including the fat chick I used to be. As long as one says "I could never," one never will.

I run because I figured out that the only thing stopping me from running was me.

I run because running has allowed me to visit places I never would have dreamed of previously.

I have more reasons, but I also have to run to a meeting. Excuse me now."

Thanks for the inspiration Lynne. I can't wait to run tomorrow!

"Situation Normal. We're all fine here, how 'bout you?"

That's a line from the first "Star Wars" movie - remember the scene where Han & Luke are busting Leia out of the detention cell? Ah, youth. :-)

Seriously though, things are okay. Hub is working, I am exercising, stress has not caused me to fall into any pizzas or kegs, although I am using the heck out of my garden tub! He had an interview this morning he said sounded promising, so I am hoping good things are around the corner for us.

What's up with Blogger not wanting to take you to someone's blog on the first try? Is it just me?

Food's okay and my gym bag is in the car. I am sure I am much more exciting when angst fuels my creative juices, but right now I'm just in my little WW rut. Frankly, I wouldn't mind staying here for a while.

Take care all!

Not much new

Didn't make the gym yesterday. Boy wasn't feeling well after his flu shot, and I was stuck in traffic forever trying to get home thatnks to the president visiting our little town yesterday. Given my activities over the weekend, a day off isn't that bad.

I was down 2.2 pounds at WW today. Yay me!

It was icy this morning, so running will occur tonight.

Carmen seemed like she wasn't feeling all that hot this morning, and hub doesn't know if he has any work for the rest of the week. Sigh. But eating chocolate won't help either of those things now, will it????

Sometimes continuing is a victory itself

I had a total binge yesterday afternoon, set up in the typical way: too much work left for not enough weekend left. It involved Mexican & beer, and I probably went a good 15-20 points over for the week. So, this morning I woke up an immediately begin beating myself up (as usual). What is unusual is that I rejected that line of thinking. I immediately called up a few facts:

- I had an amazing workout at the gym Saturday morning! I was there an hour – it was just me & the hub, and I could have worked out forever! It felt fantastic. I left there feeling like an animal – I focused on back & chest, but got in a great total body workout.

- We went out of town for the day Saturday, and despite stops at Jack in the Box and Dunkin’ Donuts, I stuck with my plan. I enjoyed what I had, used a few flex points, but kept track.

- Sunday I got up and ran! It was the first “long” run of Galloway’s marathon plan (2 miles), but I did the whole first week of the plan. Instead of lamenting how far my running has fallen off, I’m just glad to be back at it again.

- I am signed up for a spinning class tonight, and plan on taking the 30 min ab class beforehand.

I can still succeed at losing weight and gaining healthy without being “perfect” (whatever that is). It happened, and as much as I hate that, I can’t undo it. I can just keep on trying to make better choices.

How was your weekend?

Sorry bout that

Didn’t mean to not post yesterday, I just got busy. I ran again yesterday morning, walked at lunch, and hit the gym after work. It must’ve been a good workout because I was so tired this morning! I went to bed at 9, and barely dragged my butt up at 5:45. That is a sign that I had a good session at the gym. I did shoulders, back, and abs. Tomorrow morning I am doing a total body before heading out to Greenville SC for the day.

My husband’s work is a little hit & miss right now – the last 2 weeks have been mostly “miss”, but next week looks like it will be better. Exercise and meditation is keeping him more positive than he would have been in the past, and I am keeping positive too. Freaking out won’t help a thing, but it is hard I’ll admit. I’ve eaten well all week, haven’t had a beer since Sunday, and seen to have found some energy. Motivation is still lacking, but if I waited for motivation, I’d look like Jabba the Hut!

I slept in today because 1) I was pooped! And 2) I’ll be getting up early both days this weekend. I will walk at lunch and do something this evening. Dinner is in the crockpot, so I’m sure I’ll appreciate that when I get home!

Last night I used the turkey broth to make the best chicken & rice soup in the crockpot. Tonight is chicken & dumplings, and tomorrow when we get home I have some leftover beef vegetable from earlier in the week. The soup diet! Ha!

Wednesday

This week is going fast. So, food was fine yesterday thanks. Stuck to my points like a good girl. I walked at lunch yesterday, then got up to walk again this morning. Even though we are having a pizza party for lunch today at the office, I brought in a mini “chef” salad (protein, but no cheese and low cal dressing) to go with one slice of veggie pizza. I’ll be able to stay within my points again today.

Physically, I am feeling better already. Emotionally, a little blah. Money is waaaaay tight right now due to hub’s work getting spotty (all too common this time of year in construction/remodeling), and Carmen is having a tough time. I am calling the vet this morning to see if we should bring her back in. She’s not wanting to eat, and is still having a tough time due to poor balance.

A run report, a link, & the random walk

I got a comment regarding my Starbucks post, where the commenter agreed that they didn’t like that you had to specify so many things about your drink. It goes back to my post about choices yesterday. Another good point from my comments (I love comments – they are so helpful!) was that too many choices in anything could be bad – money, clothes, whatever. I agree. To Jack’s point, without setting boundaries or structure, we in effect lack goals. Its like the “random walk” problem in statistics: How long does it take to get from a to b if at every step you are equally likely to walk in any possible direction? The point being it takes an awfully long time to get anywhere if there isn’t anything keeping you going in the right direction!

So yesterday I wrote down my food, and ate within my points. I went to the gym and lifted weights. It felt good. I’m still down. I have stress in my life right now. But the structure helped keep me moving in the right direction. Structure creates the freedom from getting bogged down in the minutae.

People, it was 62 when I went running at 5 am this morning! Forget about shock over the temperature (But we all know it can’t be global warming because George Bush says that’s not real! :-) – I ran! I did my run/walk alternating bit for 2 miles. It felt great, even though I got soaked in the rain. Amazing what a little exercise can do for ya.

Here is a great link I got over at the Skinny Daily – why am I reading so many things by Buddhists lately? It’s about mindfulness:

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2005/11/28/findrelig.DTL

2 for the price of 1

Debra wrote a great post today (which is no different from any other day really) and you should read it! She talks about the importance of setting boundaries and how freeing she finds this. I can relate. I believe we humans were never meant to process the amount of information or choices to which we are regularly subjected. Our brains go into sensory overload. This is the only possible reason I have to explain how I can wander around a house which contains hundreds of movies, CDs, and even more hundreds of books, oh yeah, and craft projects, and still feel bored. It’s like its so much I can’t take it all in.

Which is why I’m glad I’m back at the office, with my cheesy little Weight Watchers food tracker and my points counting and the absence of food other than what I packed in my lunchbox. Too many choices is dangerous for me. I choose it all!

It’s also why I am going to start a marathon training program again. I haven’t picked a marathon to run, but without that structure my running (“running” – there’s a joke – leisurely strolls when the fancy strikes is more accurate) suffers. I plan to start this weekend, use Galloway’s “newbie” schedule, and once I get to 15 miles or so, pick a marathon & commit. I’ve got to do something before my idea of exercise degenerates to driving to the gas station for a 6 pack.

Look for genuine run reports to start appearing soon!

Just a quickie

1) The 24 hour access door at the gym is broken! A couple of cardio workouts, but no weights all weekend! Gah! Which I really needed because

2) My sweet doggie Carmen had another stroke. :-( She is feeling better, but is recovering much more slowly this time. I wish I had used the gym instead of the fridge for stress relief. I'm so glad to be back at work and away from the kitchen!

The pies and the T-day meal were a big hit. It was a nice holiday. I feel like I got a real break from work, which was nice. But I am glad to have the structure back.

Take care all!

Starbucks Virgin Discovers New Vice!

Darn that HungryGirl! I got an email yesterday talking about the grande pumpkin spice frappacino light for less than 200 calories. So, while I was driving around yesterday looking for the store to pick up my mom’s birthday gift (I knew the road and general area, but hadn’t been over that way in a while) and I drove past a Starbuck’s, I stopped in… Oh my! Yum! And I don’t even like coffee! My only peeve? Why would you put whipped cream on top of a light drink? I didn’t know I had to specify “no whipped cream”, but I just scraped it off into the trash.

I went to WW yesterday – her scale had me down 1.8 pounds (153.2, compared with 152.5 last Friday before breakfast on the work scale. WW weighs before lunch). Not bad. I am counting my points like a good girl, and only used 1 Flex point yesterday. Exercise still sucks a$$ though, I won’t lie. Well, it would suck if it existed. Sigh. Tomorrow early I am hitting the gym!!! And hub is going to Bikram yoga. Must make time for myself! I am also going to a walk this afternoon. “Quitting is not an option” was the theme of our meeting yesterday. I needed that meeting.

I baked 2 pumpkins yesterday, so I have plenty of pumpkin to make a couple of extra pies for my mom to take with her to the nursing home. She is taking Thanksgiving dinner to my grandma & the husband of another lady over there. There are folks there that don’t have anyone to bring them Thanksgiving dinner. I can’t make a whole meal for all the residents, but I can make darn sure they & the staff have some homemade pumpkin pie made with fresh pumpkin from the local farmer’s market. Maybe I’ll pick up a few apples as well, and make my apple cranberry walnut pie too.

I have suckage in my life, just like we all do. A good chunk of my family is that special mean kind of dysfunctional and money is tighter than is comfortable. But I have many things to be thankful for. I can make these folks a few pies. I have a nice job where I can use some vacation to take some time off today and do some cooking.

Would you like a muffin?

We are taking care of my MIL’s doggie – he is the brother of our dog Bess. They are both little (10 pounds), and it has been so funny to watch the way she is territorial of her “parents”, her place on the bed, everything. My dogs make me smile.

This morning, the boy & I are at the table having breakfast. I made a batch of “one point” muffins to go with breakfast. Hub walks across the kitchen, with a vegetable bag in his hand. I ask him “Where are you going with the whole bag of muffins?” Only to realize he had just cleaned the littler box. Ugh, no thanks. I don’t care for those sprinkles!

I wrote down my points for yesterday, but exercise is still not on track! I am getting very frustrated – this whole new afternoon routine is not working very well for me. I’ve got to get it figured out! My exercise is totally hit or miss, which is very frustrating!

I wish I had something wonderful to post, but I just needed to vent my exercise frustration!!!

3 months in just one weekend!

I sure crammed a lot into this weekend. The boy’s tae kwon do test (which he passed), shopping for and taking him to a birthday party – not just any party either. His girlfriend’s party. Yes, at (almost) 11, he has his first “girlfriend.” And my MIL had to put her dog to sleep Saturday night. He has been with her through a couple of moves, a rough divorce, etc, so he has truly been her best friend. It was tremendously difficult.

I had a lot of fun working on two single block quilt square wall hangings for a family friend. That was very relaxing. I am glad we got up and walked Saturday morning as that was the only exercise we got this weekend. Hub worked Saturday, and then wound up working most of Sunday as well. That wasn’t planned, but they decided to go ahead & get this job finished up. It worked out fine. We had gotten up early Saturday, walked, and gotten the house mostly cleaned before he left. It felt so good to spend the weekend puttering around a clean house.

Food was okay – I ate more than I do during the week, but no out of control episodes. Socks spent some time walking around the house when the dogs were outside. Butchie still hasn’t gotten used to her, but we’re still working on that.

That’s about it. Planned the Thanksgiving meal & did the shopping for that. Our next door neighbors are coming over, so that should be nice.

When did I stop noticing the roses?

I had a very profound conversation with my husband last night. What prompted it isn’t important to anyone but us, but what we had to say serves as a poignant reminder about the inherent frailty of humans and their relationships.

In a nutshell, we’ve both been so focused on our own worries and esteem issues, that we’ve somehow failed to support each other. Like two oxen, bound together pulling the cart, but somewhere the ropes came undone and we’re each in our own little world, trying to pull the load on our own.

Writing that makes me profoundly sad. We love each other and we both deserve better, but we’ve both been too tired, too hurt, too busy to notice, let alone put a stop to it. But we noticed. And we’re putting a stop to it. Even in a good marriage, a solid marriage, indifference can be the silent killer. I am thankful we noticed. I am thankful we know some things to do to turn this around now.

Today the scale read 152 – that’s down 2.5 pounds from last Friday. I plan to carry that into next Tuesday’s WW meeting.

Have a great weekend.

Feeling Good

A little more positive today, despite the fact I seem to be coming down with a cold. I got home to a working toilet and clean bathroom yesterday. Hub is working today. I got up and walked this morning, even after I told myself I could sleep in if I wanted.

I recently ordered 3 meditation CDs from http://www.brainsync.com/. I highly recommend their discs – I ordered 1 guided meditation (which I have been listening to in the evening), 1 just music (put on going to bed), and 1 subliminal message disc (I have been using at work). Either due to my hormones leveling out, meditation, or whatever, I am feeling better. I don’t want to forget about the bad things in my life, but I am looking forward to the day when painful events are further toward the back of my brain.

Is anyone concerned about Thanksgiving? I’m pretty lucky – no one is going to push me to eat, and since I’m doing most of the cooking, I know the food will be basically healthy. I am hoping for good weather so we can take a nice walk around the neighborhood. The Y always had a class that morning, but my new gym is closed Thursday and Friday – the goobers. My MIL is going out of town this year (at least, I think so), which means a small, casual long weekend. I am looking forward to it very much.

I am also looking forward to this weekend. Boy’s tae kwon do test Saturday, hub is working that afternoon – I plan to putter around the house, tidying up a bit, but also chilling out, getting a haircut, and hitting the gym. Sunday is shopping and cooking, but there won’t be much prep work since I’ll be prepping again on Wednesday. So that’s nice.

Looks like we will be out of town 2 Saturdays in a row, then for a whole weekend. Gotta figure out when I’m going to make holiday gifts (soap, etc.). I am not doing any cross stitch ornaments this year I don’t think. I also have two quilt squares to make sometime. Need to make my list, check it twice, and start getting on some of that stuff. Thanksgiving weekend would be a good time to do that. I love laying all the homemade gifts out on the dining room table to be wrapped. It makes me feel good. I don’t give a lot of expensive gifts, most of our holiday budget goes for the boy, but we have such a good time making stuff together. One year he invited a friend over to make Christmas cookies – they had so much fun! I love stuff like that.

Really

There are times when I truly despise my hormones. I realize I turn into a raving lunatic, but really, what kind of person puts kitty litter crusted kitty poo down a toilet even after his wife has told him it would stop up the toilet? If I weren’t so cranky, I would be laughing my butt off at my husband right now. I can hear his inner Neanderthal now “Og say no need put poo in bag and carry to trash can. Just dump poo in toilet next to litter box. Toilet made for poo, right? “ My inner good husband would say “Yes, but wife said it would stop up the toilet.” Og would respond “Take away her shoes and make her cook chicken pot pie. Og know what he doing.” I wonder how late my husband was up, trying to unstop the toilet with a not-quite-long-enough snake???? One day this will be funny, but not to-day. BTW, he has had to take up the toilet to get it unclogged.

Luckily my meditation CDs arrived – I meditated for 30 minutes and that seemed to help. My husband is miserable this week, and I am trying not to make him feel worse. Although I am feeling pretty rough myself, so it’s just hard all around.

I had a great breakfast this morning! Cooked ¼ c oats & added some mixed berries, sugar free pancake syrup, and 3 walnut halves. Then made and egg & egg white omelet with a slice of cheese. Very satisfying!

It was very blustery when I got up and walked this morning, but very warm at 65 degrees. Strange weather. Still hanging in there with WW. I maintained last week, and really, given my hormones, that’s pretty good this week.

Who do you want to be when you grow up?

I always hated the questions "What do you want to be when you grow up?" A car is a what, a person is a who. To use what is to imply that you are identifying yourself by an inanimate object.

Having cleared up the grammar, it's a question I've been thinking about. Not so much in relation to my job (that's a post for another day), but more in terms of my behaviors. "I want to be a person who...." It all comes back to being a person at peace with her self and her body.

Jack sent me a very throughful comment regarding yesterday's post, reminding me that anger isn't useful and encouraging me to look for the silver lining. My first response was "What silver lining? No way!" There is a hole in my heart, where a father's love for his daughter should be. But that was never filled, through no fault of mine.

But there is a silver lining. I have taken every parenting lesson my father taught me, turned it around, and used it on my son. For example, my dad used to always tell me how important fitness was - then I would be forced to sit, bored out of my mind, on the side of a tennis court while he played with a friend. So I asked my son to do a triathlon with me last year - not just wait while I finished it. My dad thought putting me down would motivate me - instead I try every day to build my son up. I let him know that he is a good son, that I love him, and that I enjoy spending time with him. I'm not saying everything my father did was wrong, but I'm trying to find something I can use in those negatives.

I hate times of hurt and introspection. I know they serve a purpose in life, but they aren't enjoyable. And I want to enjoy my life - I have so many wonderful people and things. I don't like the way sadness acts like novicane, numbing everything.

Food & exercise were fine yesterday. Today is WW. Walked this morning, will walk at lunch, weights this afternoon. Thank you goddess for Midol. :-)

New shoes & 19 cent turkey

Good weekend. A little overeating yesterday afternoon, but generally stuck to the WW thing. Went shopping for the boy - found some great shoes for me for 10 dollars. I'm wearing them today. Got a turkey on special for 19 cents a pound. I have 2 - one for T-day and one just cause I can make 3 or 4 meals off of that - pretty good for less than 3 dollars. I'm a pretty frugal shopper - I'll pay for some ceonveniences (like salad), but I save it back where I can.

Great session at the gym - very good upper body workout. That's the first weekend in 3 weeks I've actually exercised. I'm slowly finding my way back to doing good things for myself.

The valences are finished! Only 4 cheesy movies to completion! They look very nice and I will be taking pics this week.

Socks is getting her stitches out this morning, which means its about time she moved out of my bathroom and met the rest of the family.

Husband's work ran out of materials and he's been home since Wednesday night. While this is nice, making money is also good. The materials are supposed to be in today. I can't decide if I want to find him home when I get there or not. I mean, of course I do, but it would be nice if he could work some today.

I slept lousy Friday. I was up in the middle of the night for a couple of hours, just feeling angry about my whole family situation. I have, at times in my life, treated people more shabbily than they deserved. I am sorry for those times. This is not one of those times. Being angry is not helping me in any way.

I needed more weekend. Don't we all, every week? :-)

Drop sets, iron-ese for “whip yo a$$”

Eating was fine yesterday – I used one flex point (you get 35 per week). After work I hit the gym for some drop sets. If you don’t have a lot of time, you have a lot of stress, or both, this is a great workout. I don’t have my book with me, but it looked something like this:

Roman chair, low back hyper ext – 15 each
Db row drop sets 40/12 35/12 30/10 25/10 20/8 15/6
Chest press drop sets 35/12 30/15 25/10 20/8
Decline sit-ups – 15
Bi curl: 20/12 15/15 12/5/10 10/8
Overhead press: 35/10 30/10 25/8 20/6
Decline sit-ups – 15
Front raises: 15/12 12/5/15 10/10
Roman chair, low back hyper ext – 15 each


The key you do one exercise without stopping between the sets – you do as many as you can at the weight until you feel like either your heart will explode of your arms will fall off, then immediately drop to the next lower weight until you feel the same, etc etc until you are a little shaky and have a weird pit feeling in your stomach. It helps if you go from biggest to smallest muscles of whatever groups you are working as they will be beat. See how I was able to do a lot more chest & back than bi & tri since I did them first? By shoulders I was whipped.

This morning I got up and walked an hour, making an effort to move quickly up the hills.

The scale this morning said 154.5 – down 0.5 from last week. Given that this is the week I retain water like crazy, I shouldn’t gripe. I just wish this process were faster. Sigh.

Have a great weekend!

The sweetest boy in the world

I counted my points yesterday, using 3 of my flex points, which was pretty good given that we ate dinner at Sonic. While there, the hub called. They ran out of materials on the job, so he came home last night. Yippee! He’d put in a 30 hour week already, but was going to call this morning and see if there was one of the local jobs he could go & put in a few hours on. We’ll see.

We got home and while the boy did homework, I washed up the breakfast dishes and went in and gave my master bath a thorough scrubbing! He was so sweet – he kept apologizing that he hadn’t gotten his homework done in time to help clean the bathroom. He’s a gem. I feel a lot better having a clean bathroom, even though I had no energy to actually do the job.

When we got home, Socks was sitting in her chair by the bedroom window, as opposed to hiding under the bed. Maybe she is beginning to adjust. Butchie didn’t destroy anything else last night either.

This morning I slept in until 5:30! Heaven! I was really pooped people. This is the week where I cry over the Snuggle fabric bear, feel like a cow, and really just want to take a 24 hour nap every day. Next week I feel like crap and hang onto a cup of sugar free cocoa for dear life. The joys of being a woman. :-O

This afternoon my mom is picking up the boy from school and coming over for dinner (which is in the crock pot already.) I am hitting the gym for some mild weights and a little cardio – maybe the elliptical.

No thanks, I don’t care for any cheese with this whine.

Food & Exercise first:

Food was good yesterday, despite a cup of canned chicken & dumplings consumed immediately before bed. I came in right at 1500 calories for the day. I’m starting to count WW points today.

Exercise was good, although plans changed slightly. Walked 40 min in am & 30 at lunch. I didn’t go to the gym – I got a flu shot yesterday and my the afternoon I was feeling pretty ragged out. I got up and walked an hour this morning, I’ll do my usual walk at lunch, and I’m hitting the weight room while the boy is at tkd. While walking this morning, I made a point to really power up the hills to get my heart rate up. It’s a start.

Now for some whine:

I had a lousy evening. First, I got a call from my husband at work – the boy had called him wanting me to be sure & have a white button down & khakis ready so he could perform at a conference that evening at school. Excuse me? 1) His khakis are at his grandma’s (he goes to church over there) 2) He doesn’t own a white button down 3) We had no plans to go back to school 4) I assumed (correctly) that he had a bunch of homework. So when I picked him up (feeling lousy from the flu shot remember?) and told him no, he was really angry, which made me really angry.

We went by the grocery for a couple of items, went home & ate, then I tried to get the cat out from under the bed. It took me an hour of tries to get her out. Now that she is feeling better (a week since surgery) she is unhappy being locked up in the bathroom. I give her the run of my bedroom during the day, but put her back in the bathroom at night so the dogs can sleep in the room with me. Anyway…. I get her out & back into the bathroom, the dogs are fed, the kitchen is cleaned, and I am sitting down helping the boy with his homework, when I hear strange noises from the back of the house. My darling Butchie (aka “Curious George”) had knocked over the bedside lamp, rummaged around on the bed, and chewed the bed skirt – complete with holes and ripped fabric. I guess it smelled like cat.

I decided I need a bath. Only my bathroom is no longer a relaxing retreat – it is a stinky cat farm smelling place with a crunchy floor and a bitter cat who stares at me. I hate it. I wanted to cry so badly and couldn’t even relax enough to give myself that small release.

I wanted to call my husband, but I knew if I told him he would only feel worse and he hates being out of town. I didn’t want to burden him with my problems. As soon as the boy was in bed, I put on a relaxing CD and laid in the dark until I drifted off.

This morning, the boy tells me he needs a spiral bound notebook for spelling. Uh, thanks for all the notice, I always keep a couple of spares lying around…. Right. And I wrote his teacher a big long note with a bunch of questions about his state project, and after telling me he has no other info, whips out a packet that answers my questions. I let him live, and we were okay by the time I dropped him at school, but I was pretty ticked with him this morning.

I did call the hub this morning, but there was little comfort to be had there. Instead he wanted to gripe about how little sleep he had gotten since he’s not home. I’m afraid we didn’t help each other much.

As I got out of the car, I looked down. Instead of putting on my nice kitten heels slides when I got dressed, I put on my skanky leather house sandals since I had to haul the trash to the curb. Guess what shoes are on my feet right now????

The three stooges do budokon

Remember a while back I wrote about a workout DVD I got called budokon? It’s yoga, marshal arts, & meditation in a one hour workout. Well, the hub is out of town & I’m not sure how to use the DVD player in the bedroom (I’m so pitiful I am still trying to figure out how to tape on my VCR a show on my Tivo I promised VJ last July. Good thing she lives far away or she’d kill me! Ha!), so I decided that a) I would do that this morning and b) I would do it in the living room. Imagine if you will a chubby blond in downward facing dog – a shepherd scratching at her arm for breakfast and a beagle/basset/boxer “helper dog” showing his mom how much he loves & supports her efforts by licking her heels. Needless to say, 5 minutes into yoga I put on my shoes & went outside! On my to do list for tonight is figure out the bedroom DVD player so I can shut the dogs out while I work out! Hopefully, it will be easier than the whole taping fiasco….

There is a really aggravating situation at work that was worrying at my brain. Usually I’m good at not taking work stress home with me, but this was nagging at me. I found myself getting really angry during my walk, so of course my thoughts turned to my dad & that whole mess…. I realize I would make a lousy Buddhist monk, although I wish I could cultivate just a bit of that calm. Maybe I should take up creating those sand mandalas as a hobby, but I digress… Anyway, just in time a song from the “Blade 2” soundtrack came on – the one playing in the vampire club. I visualized myself in a boxing class for a few minutes, and just felt the anger washing over me. Then I took off running and ran for a while, ending with the steepest hill in the neighborhood. I’m still ticked about the work thing, but my boss is working on getting it fixed and at least I can joke about it now. The only down side was I realized how much my cardio fitness has slipped. Must find a goal to work on….

Anyhow, food was good choices yesterday, and I walked 40 minutes + 30 at lunch. Today I walked 40 this morning, 30 at lunch, and am hitting the weights after work. I’m using the gym at the boy’s school so we have more time in the evening. Homework is taking up a lot of his time these days. It’s smaller, but more convenient. I’ll use the other gym Thursday when my mom picks him up.

My first WW meeting is today, so I will let you know how that goes. Right now my focus in the weight room is to keep the muscle I have as I try to lose some of the flab. Hopefully, WW will help get my flab under control.

On the road again

Well, not a bad weekend. I got the valences done for the french doors while hubby was out of town at his D&D game. It took the entire "The Stand" DVD, but those babies are done! Now for the living room windows....

Kitty is still hanging out in the sick ward - she seems a little lonely, but until she gets her stitches out, she's on bed rest. :-)

Exercise was non-existent this weekend, but food wasn't too hideous. This isn't the way its done...

Hub is working out of town again, which I hate. The company is local, but they needed him on a job up in the mountains. Two to four weeks. After that, I sure hope he gets something closer to home. I hate the whole "living for the weekend" mentality. Life's too short to wish most of it away.

Hope you all had a good weekend. The weather here is gorgeous.

More scale suckiness

Up another pound. Can I please get off this merry-go-round from he!!???

The cat is doing pretty well – still living in our bedroom-bathroom area until we get her sutures out. We’re trying to give her time to relax and recuperate without the stress of the dogs etc. I’m sure it’s a huge change, and I know that while being hungry and cold weren’t great, I’m sure she enjoyed roaming around outside. Butchie is intensely curious. Bess is intensely afraid.

I lifted weights yesterday as well as walked. This morning I slept in – I was pooped. WW starts next Tuesday. I think I need it. I’m feeling pretty discouraged right now.

Beef & Vegetable soup – free bonus soup recipe! :-)

1 lb lean stew beef
1 c chopped cabbage
2-3 carrots, sliced
2 -3 stalks celery
1 onion, chopped
1 white potato, shopped
2 cans V-8 or tomato juice
1 can beef broth
½ - 1 c water (enough to cover)
1 T. Worcestershire sauce
1 t. chili powder
2 bay leaves
some minced garlic (a teaspoon or so)

Put it all in the crock pot on low for the day.

White knuckles, Halloween candy, and an update on my new feline friend

Socks spent last night at the vet’s again as she was still rather groggy from the surgery. According to the nurse this morning, she ate well last night and this morning and will get her vaccinations this morning. She also said the cat had a few ringworms so they are going to de-worm her this morning. Attention cat people: what do you know about ringworms???

My son’s school is attached to one of those mega-churches here in town. It’s a good school, and we’ve been pretty happy even though I admit to having a rather negative perception of church schools going into it. Anyway, they had a ”trunk or treat” at the school Monday – people decorated their car trunks in the parking lot & handed out candy. We teamed up with the mom of his pal (the ones we went camping with). We gave out our candy, her candy, and ran out of candy! I called to my son that we were out of candy & he handed us his bag to give out, and ran off to play with his friends. He came home with some candy left. I took one of those mini one bite Snickers yesterday, I don’t know that he has eaten any. He put it away in his room. I suspect it will wind up in the trash.

Yesterday I amazed myself by sticking with my food plan. I wanted to eat after dinner, but the funny thing was it was because that’s what I “should” be doing, not because of any craving. Habits are not always helpful! I was a bit hungry (I’d eaten a small dinner), but limited myself to a no sugar popsicle.

This morning I got up and walked for an hour. While I am proud of the fact that I have kept off a significant weight loss through some tough times, it sure would be nice to stick with this long enough to see some progress.

Weight Watchers was postponed for a week – I guess maybe the leader was sick or something. So now it runs from next Tuesday through the end of January – 13 weeks. The funny thing is my reaction to the email was “Cool. That gives me time to lose some weight before I get on the scale.” I am a freak.

Have a great day!

Update on Socks

According to the vet, Socks had already been fixed, but he didn't see a scar so he found this out during her surgery! Hopefully hub will be able to pick her up this evening.

I have never had a cat. I've never really wanted a cat - I'm an unrepenant dog person. I hope she will get along with the dogs - I'm a little unsure of this. Plan B will be to see if she works out at my mom's house. We got our dog Butchie when he didn't work out over at mom's, so it would be poetic justice! But hub really wants to keep her. La!

The most expensive camping trip ever.


While camping this weekend, we happened to wind up in the site (out of a billion that were available when we arrived) that had a cat living in it. The sweetest, prettiest little kitty you've ever seen, who instantly bonded with my husband.

Welcome to our family Socks. I'll share pictures when they are available.