Boring

Sometimes, I feel like I have nothing to offer here - things are a lot of the same old same old... Since we last talked to our heroine, she was talking about boot camp and exercise. As always... exercise seems to be the focus of my life sometimes. One thing I will say, my running is getting faster. I have done both 4-mile and 5-mile runs, running slightly under 10-minute miles. I guess losing 30 or so pounds might have that effect on you. This weekend was a bunch of getting stuff done: Laundry, dishes, putting the trim back up in the small bathroom (bathroom refresh!), putting up a new border around the garden, and putting back up the chicken wire fencing, regional awards, WW meeting (yep, up after my week of crap eating). Tonight, we are going out to eat with my MIL, my SIL, my step-daughter, and my husband. We were all busy yesterday for Mother's Day, so tonight it shall be. Let's hope I can find something relatively healthy to eat. And that's about all I got - like I said, boring.

The good kind of sore

I went to boot camp last night, have not been for a while, so I'm kinda feeling the muscles again...

It was actually quite a bit of fun, I could really tell that I am slimming down a bit, I didn't feel like I was impeeded by my gut. Sorry if that is tmi! The other thing was that I wanted more action, more cardio, less rest between the sets, so I kind of walked in circles, and boogied a bit to the music when others were resting.

I guess some of it is trying to make up for the weekend of crap that I managed to eat. Sunday was not good. Peanut butter m&m's, a tub of buttered movie theater popcorn (at the movie, of course), veggies and dip (wanted the dip, ate veggies rather than chips or pretzels) crackers, salami and cheese, more m&m's.... I ended up tossing the rest of the m&m's because I could not seem to stay away from them!

And the scale showed it the next morning. It's a work in progress.... I was hoping to be somewhere around 20 pounds down for Valentine's Day, but I'm not sure that will happen.

The bright spot is that I can tell that I am trimming down, as in the way clothes fit, and people are noticing that there is a bit less of me around. And I can run faster... did 6 miles on Saturday in an hour and four minutes. Which is excellent for me, as I quite often run about 11 min miles.

Three months down, 9 to go.

~a

Weekend indulgence

Spent the weekend in Chicago.... went there to help out with a Team Ortho race, which indcidently, was postponed. There is a story:

So the weather folks were predicting snow. So the police chief thought it might be a repeat of "snowmageddon"... and on THURSDAY morning, said that TO could not hold the race that weekend. 48 hours before the race. Seriously, this is the midwest people, and if you don't like the weather, wait a few hours!!!! Saturday dawned as a good day for a race - but it had already been moved to the following weekend. TO got a bit of a black eye from people, for something that was not within their control. The police have control over the streets, and if they say you can't use them - you can't use them.

Anyhoo, they still had a packet pickup on Friday, which I worked. About 10 hours on my feet. With not a lot of food involved (I did try to contain myself during the day) but at the end, I was exhausted, and hungry, and out with the group... I indulged in a pulled pork sandwich on a pretzel bun, a couple of beers, and Ice Cream cake.

Saturday morning, since E had spent the night with me downtown, we decided to go someplace for breakfast. I had crepes filled with eggs scrambled with avacado, mushrooms and cheese. With fruit and pancakes. Ate one of the crepes and half of the pancakes. Crepe was interesting, would have been a better meal if it would have been more of a savory rather than a sweet crepe, but I went for something really different....

Saturday afternoon I wandered around downtown Chicago for quite a while. I was thining I wanted to find a local-type place for a beverage and a snack, and wandered into a place that had a promising name: the Tilted Kilt. Not so much. Think of a Scottish take on Hooters. I decided that I didn't want to give them my money! Of course by the time I got back to the 'burbs, I was starving.

So I at food at the bowling alley where E was attending a swap meet (muskie stuff). Beer, chips and cheese, and chicken fingers. Not the Chicago food I was looking for! So later, I had some pizza. Yep. Kind of overdid the grease factor.

Sunday was a trip back, a stop at a brewery for a tour and a taste, and lunch in town. A wonderful Reuben sandwich with REAL corned beef.

And for all of the indulgences, it would appear that I am up about 5 pounds. So this week will consist of tracking and exercise, again... which is what needs to be done anyway!

All in all, I think it was worth it. Food was pretty good, and the company was nice!

~a

Sunday

Weekend update

without Kevin Neeland...

It was sort of a different weekend. But not in a bad way.

Went for a run on Saturday morning. Had to make up for the 30 minutes missed on Friday. Ran 5.5 miles. In an hour. I would consider that pretty decent. After that, it was back to the house to shine and buff. Myself. Then I worked on some sewing repair projects (hemming my dress, fixing Eric's belt) Eric and I went to the annual gala for the Saint Paul Jaycees on Saturday evening. I think I looked pretty good, if I do say so myself - the dress I got on Thursday was very lovely, and I got lots of compliments. Objective achieved!

Sunday, after my WW meeting (down again!) I worked on getting all of the Christmas decorations taken down, sorted, organized into bins, and put back into the attic. Sometimes I think it takes longer to put them away then to put them out! And while I was at it, I ended up re-arranging the living room. I'm kind of digging the new layout.

It's a beautiful day, and I think I am going to go home, change, lace up my running shoes and head out for a run... because I need to move!

~a

It's been a long time, baby

I don't know if anyone is here, but honestly, I don't mind... this is more for me than anything.

As always, there are the best of intentions, but when push comes to shove, things sometimes get shoved out the window.

on a few topics:
Weight Watchers - re-joined again in November. Said I would give it a year. And I watched and logged and tracked over the holdiays. The result? At my last WI, I am down a total of 12 pounds.

Running - my group is doing "100 days of activity" and we are to do 30 minutes of activity each day for 100 days. Have kept up so far, but we will see what tonight brings... was going to get up this morning, but didn't want to rouse myself out of the warm bed.... we are going to see Curtis tonight, at my MIL's house, and who knows what the food plan will be. I might just have to go out for a walk at some point to get in my minutes. Not that that is a bad plan.

Work - yanno, people are sometimes idiots. We moved into a new building, and while the new office is nice, there are just some bugs to be worked out. As in we cannnot go into the office area upstairs where the mail room and supplies are after 4pm on weekedays, and there is no access on weekends. Seriously. Like what am I going to do other than try to get my mail, or a ream of paper if I need it? And don't get me started on the heat - for two days it was 62 in the office because the fan had somehow been shut off. Glad I still had my lap blanket!

Husband - sill more of the same. I love him, but he drives me nuts sometimes. I told him the other day - I would like you do do more. Like instead of laying down on top of the folded laundry on the bed... put it away! And the dishes in the sink, don't just add to the pile, load the dishwasher! But he is very sweet about a lot of other things. I just wish he wasn't so giving.... he gave both me and my mother his cold. I told him that my mom does not like him anymore!

Races - am only registered for one race this year. Ragnar. Should be interesting.

Jaycees - I am aging out. I am done with my board committment, and cannot be on the board any more. Both happy and bittersweet. In some ways, a bit of a relief - now I can work on me, and house projects.

And on that note, I need to run, have an appointment for work, then I get massaged this afternoon!

~a

GSD

Gettin' Stuff Done -

It's the theme of the moment.... but I did feel like I didn't get much done last weekend, while I was sitting on the couch crocheting like a mad woman to get an afgahn done. Of course, when I reflect back on it - I did get a bit accomplished:

Friday, I went to the Sportsman's show at the Rivercenter. Got some info on houseboating in Voyager's National Forrest, and bought a couple of camping things - a stadium chair, and an small axe.

Saturday morning, I went for a run with my running group, worked on fixing the shower surround, did 4 loads of laundry (including my delecates) cleaned the bathroom, changed the sheets on the bed... and watched movies while crocheting.

Sunday, I worked on reading my book club book, worked more on the shower surround (as I didn't use enough "glue" the first time), did some more laundry, made bread (healthy bread in 5 minutes a day - whole wheat brown rice bread... had all the ingredients on hand, like vital wheat gluten, and ground flaxseed), picked up around the house, cleared out some stuff that went into "donate" bags that will need to be dropped off at some point, went to a movie with a friend, and worked on the afgahn...

Tonight. Hmmmm. I think we are going to look for a new computer. Ours, I believe is dead, Jim. It won't power up anymore. Although, it's probably not as bad as it seems, as all it is really used for is for Eric to e-mail and surf the internet. I might have lost some photos, but most everything was backed up not too long ago. I don't know if it's worth it to take it somewere to see if they can recover anything. And the computer - we got it before we got married, so it's at least 9 years old. It was time!!!!

I'm hoping to finish the afgahn this week. Then it's on to the next project. What it will be, I don't know at this point... perhaps it will be time to work on me.

~a

A free weekend

Nothing much planned for the weekend - other than going for a run on Saturday morning... not sure what I am going to do with myself, as my husband left for Chicago this morning, and will be gone until Sunday.

I might finally try and "fix" the shower. The surround was never sealed correctly when we put it up a year or so ago, and I can bathe in the tub - Eric doesn't want to do it because then he can't shower for two days...

Perhaps I will cook up some meals - doing pretty well at using stuff up - last night made chicken and shrimp in a wine sauce. Protein from the freezer, tomatos that were canned from the garden, celery that needed to get used, as it's a bit limp, over some brown rice I got when Tom was cleaning out the cupboards.

We even emptied out some of the fridge drawers, and washed them and the bottom of the fridge last night. What is it about having things clean that makes me happy? I don't really enjoy the "cleaning" part, but after it's done, that's what I enjoy.

This week has been "eh" for both food and exercise. Work meetings, with lunch and snacks brought in (I know I don't have to eat the afternoon cookies... but I do anyway!) and I have just a bit of a cold, which means I wake up with a sore throat and congested sinuses. I know. Excuses. At least I'm admitting it to myself.

Just getting back into the groove of things - and let me tell you, I am glad I am not on the Jaycee board this year. I am still working on things to wrap up last year!

Anyhoo, not much else to say, other than I am sick of all the snow here in Minnesota!

~a

Making things work

with what you have...

I think one more thing I am going to make an effort at is to utilize what I have.

With food - we have a freezer full of meat and frozen vegetables, and other things. The cupboard is full of canned goods. We have lots and lots of rice and pasta. So one of the things I am going to make an effort at is preparing food from what is in the cupboard/fridge/freezer.

Last night I made a slab of pork spare ribs. I had gotten a couple of slabs of ribs when they were on sale at Cub Foods, and they have been in the freezer for a while. I put one package in the fridge on Sunday night to defrost. Made them last night for dinner - using a bit of "rub" that I had gotten as a freebe at a convention a couple of years ago. To go with the ribs, I made some Trader Joe's Harvest blend cous cous blend (that I had gotten when my grandmother and her husband were clearing out their cupboard), and some yellow summer squash that I had blanched and frozen.

And it was good. And I made it from stuff I had on hand.

Another thing I was thinking I would do is get a new dress for the Saint Paul Jaycees annual gala. But I'm not feeling the clothing love right now - plus I have all of these scabs on my arms from the bug bites... so I am going to wear a dress with a jacket that I already own. I tried it on last night, and it fits and looks decent, so there you are, no need to spend more money!

And not spending a lot of money right now is a good thing... with the credit card bill that has the car repairs (to the tune of about $1500) and just after Christmas... well you know how that goes.

I'm just in a moood to use things up, clear things out, and use what I have. And I will be content with that!

~a

A New Year

I don't know where my motivation went.

In November, I started WW again. Went to 4 meetings, then the work travel and Christmas/New Year's holidays set in.

I've had intentions of going to a meeting, but post New-years, I'm just not wanting to deal with the crowds. I was thinking that perhaps my "New Year" would start in February... in the meantime, I am making a great effort to get all of the crap food out of my house - but by eating it myself..... probably not the best of plans. Seems like the days start out good - and then I get home and things get thrown out the window: Yesterday I had breakfast of yogurt and granola. Lunch was a cobb salad. Dinner? Cheese curds, chips and salsa, 4 pieces of chocolate and a bowl of granola and milk. All eaten by wandering through the kitchen, and picking up something else to eat.

What are my new year's resolutions? I have two: one is to continue to make the bed every day - I made that as a resolution several years ago - and the second is to hang up my coat each time I get home, instead of flinging it on a chair.

Small steps, that lead to a better organized and cleaner house. Which makes me happy.

So here's to happiness!
~a

MIserable Me

I have bites up and down my arms.

And on my hands

And on my neck

And on my face.

New ones seem to be showing up each day... but I still can't see any "signs" that they are in the house.

I have been reading more information on the internet than I actully cared to about bedbugs, how to find them, what they are, what the bites look like, how to treat them, how to get rid of them.... you get the picture. I still have some hope that there are none in my house - even though I keep finding new bites. Because, some of the infomration I have read says that it might take up to 14 days for bites to show up.

That's two weeks.

Of course I read that today. Before I thought it was a couple of days, and I was completely freaked out that new bites kept showing up. And I was paranoid and afraid to go to sleep in my bed, because I didn't want to get bitten again.

The only silver lining:

A clean house. One thing I have seen all over the place is how you need to get rid of as much clutter as you can, and to do a good cleaning. So that is what will happen to the bedroom tonight. The bins of clothes under the bed? They are leaving. The piles of papers that are stacking up next to Eric's nightstand - they need to go.

The living room recieved a throuough cleaning on Monday - pulled out all the furniture, used the wand to clean between the wall and carpet, pulled everything out of the front closet and vacuumed the floor. And while I was at it, I dusted and/or vacuumed all of the furniture, dusted the wall hangings, and the lights, and did a little re-arranging of furniture.

I'm a woman with a mission - watch out!

~a

Sleep Tight

And don't let the bedbugs bite.

Sage advise.

Too bad I couldn't follow it this week. Yep. The hotel I stayed in had bedbugs. I was very unexcited to discover that yesterday morning.

Although - I think they were not in the room the first night for a couple of reasons:
1. After I woke up and discovered a bug crawling across my pillow - I noticed some blood streaks on the bed and pillow. And there were even more after I killed more bugs... I didn't see this after the first night there.
2. I pulled sheets and mattress covers off of both beds, and could not see any more bugs hiding in/around the mattresses/bedframes.
3. I couldn't see any bites on me yesterday morning. This morning (after sleeping at home where I know there are not bugs) I noticed a number of bites on my arms - evidently they took a day to develop.

This leads me to believe that the room was not totally infested. As in, I think the bugs got there when they changed the sheets after the first night.

Even so, I was quite skeeved out to discover the nasty critters sharing my bed.

I packed up my stuff, and threw the suitcase in the back of the pickup truck. When I got home, the clothes (wool pants, Christmas sweaters, wool/leather jacket) that could not be washed in hot water went in a plastic bin, which will remain in the garage for a month or so. The suitcase, laptop bag, and another bag were put there too. The rest of the clothes were put in the washing machine, and washed with hot soapy water, and treated to a high-heat dry cycle.

Cross your fingers for me and hope I didn't bring them home!

Bleck.
~a

Scatterbrained

That was me this morning.

The alarm went off this morning at 5 - I know better than to crawl back into bed if I'm actually going to exercise, but that's what I did.

And I didn't get up quite soon enough to shower, pack a lunch, gather everything together and get myself to work for my 7:30 conference call... as I was driving to work, I wondered why I was having so much trouble seeing things down the road.

And then I realized that I had forgotten to wear my glasses.

It isn't QUITE as bad as that sounds - I am legal to drive without my glasses, but I just prefer seeing things just a little bit clearer.

So that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

_________________

On an umrelated topic, I was not elected to the board of the running group. In many ways, I'm relieved about it. I really don't need any more things to which I need to commit my time. I will still be a member, and that's all I really wanted, to make sure there was still a club.

On that note, I have things at work that I need to accomplish today!

ta!
~a

Accountability

Doing what you say you are going to do. Doing what you are supposed to do.

So Eric was a little disgruntled this morning, because some of his co-worker "couldn't be bothered" to do the work that they were assigned this morning - something that needed to be done before he could do a specific job.

So I asked him: "So you don't like it when people don't get things done that they are supposed to in a timely manner?" His response: "I don't like the direction this conversation is taking..." I was a bit mad at him on Tuesday evening and on Wednesday morning, as he missed his deadline for open enrollment at work. It was on the 30th, and because of that, he does not get some extra long term disability, and has to pay and extra $5 per office visit co-pay.

Hi kettle, meet the pot.

He really hates it when I use logic to make a point.

_________________

On another accountability front - I went out to lunch with a vendor today. Only ate half of the meal that I ordered - I ate until I was satisfied, thought about eating more because it was good, but had them box up the leftovers. Of course now I have to figure out points for a chicken artichoke flatbread pizza. And a bit of baguette with butter.

The scale this morning was not as nice as yesterday, but I can't let the scale hops distract me from the bigger picture. I know it hasn't been that long, but some of my clothes are feeling looser. Or maybe it's just me feeling a bit better. Who knows, but I just need to keep up keeping up.

That will be all.
~a

It might not be a lot, but at least it's something.

Biked on the trainer again this morning in the basement. 8 miles/30 minutes. I say again, as I did the same thing yesterday.

But, I stepped on the bathroom scale this morning, and it shows that I am down another pound. I guess that's what accountability will do for you, and not shoving things down my throat willy-nilly.

Like all of the sweet treats that were in abundance at the meeting I attended last night. I stuck to decaf coffee. The running group I belong to is changing into a member-run club, with a board and a president and everything. I put my name in to be on the board, because I feel strongly that the group should continue. But - this might seem strange - I didn't vote for myself. Still on the fence on weather I want to be on yet another board. If elected, I will serve my term, but if I'm not elected, it's not a big deal.

It's turning out to be a rather quiet week at work, which isn't all bad. Next week, I am in Calgary all week. We will see how that goes. I actually a bit nervous about staying on track, as there's usually a LOT of alcohol involved, and I often indulge a bit too much because I start getting cranky... away from home, etc. The week after that, I am taking as vacation time. Because I have to use it up by the end of the year, or I lose it.

Plans are: house cleaning, putting up Christmas decorations, and in general, getting ready for the holidays. Not sure what they will look like this year - my parents will be gone, they are going to my sister's house in Oklahoma, and we had all of my mom's side of the family in town for Thanksgiving. Perhaps it will be just some quiet time with Eric and I. Which is not always a bad thing!

onward.
~a

It's like the pot calling the kettle fat...

hi.

I wonder if anyone is still out there. I just have not had a lot I've wanted to talk about lately... well on my blog anyway.

This started out as a place to ramble about my running, and some weightloss stuff, and just general randomness.

If you have not figured it out, the running and weightloss have not been going so great. And if you are wondering about the title of the post - well, suffice to say, I have been looking at a number of folks, and thinking about how they have put on some weight over the months and/or years. Then I took a good look at myself, and I hate to admit, but I definately fall into that category.

So, I headed myself back to WW meetings. I talked to a friend, and she also decided to go to meetings with me. So some extra motivation. That never hurts!

We tried to go to a meeting on November 13th - but the location we had planned to go to had moved, and we didn't realize it until it was too late to get to the meeting on time. So we went to a meeting on the 14th. And I HATED the number on the scale. Reality really does bite.

It's going okay. I was quite jealous of my friend who lost over 5 pounds the first week. Me? .6 pounds lost. After a week of travel, and of getting back into some running... but I weighed in after Thanksgiving, and am now down a total of 3 pounds.

The new WW program? I'll give it a chance, but it's not as simple as it used to be. There is this "mysterous" formula for calculating how many points are in food, and you need the electronic calculator to do so. Quite honestly, I can see the need for change, and the rationale, but if it's not simple or something that can be "swag'd" by calorie content, I'm not sure if it's gonna stick. Like I said, I'll give it a try.

On an exercise-related front... I have a thought in my head. I know I said I would not do it again... but I'm actually considering running another marathon. Kind of like a 2-3 year plan. First, I need to take off some of the weight, so I take some stress off of my knees, then I will take it slow and easy. Next year, I'll look to do a couple of 10K's, and perhaps a half marathon.

How about that, New Year's resolutions - a month early!
~a