Did you know I ran a marathon?

I did.

That was me, crossing the finish line, hugging my husband with the "official" clock reading something line 5 hours and 25 minutes.

(And I say "official" clock, as it wasn't the big clock hanging over the finish line - that crapped out at 4 hours and 72 minutes... so they had another clock that they had taken from hear the beginning of the 10-mile race set up right next to the finish line - I know these things, as my husband runs the clock at the finish line.)

And how do I feel about it?

Honestly? Kind of ambivalent. Isn't that a funny sentiment? But that's it folks - my feelings are kind of, been there, done that. Crazy that 6 months of training will get you a feeling that is best described as "eh". I thought I would feel different, like I had really accomplished something, but .... you get the picture.

I guess it comes from having the IT band problems through the last half of the race, and all of the walking I had to do because of the pain. I really wanted to RUN the marathon. Not walk more than a quarter of it. Maybe that's it. I know I can get a better time, but I don't really want to spend the time training for another marathon. I want to run because I enjoy running.

I guess it's back to the short races, like 10K's and half marathons. Now I just have to get off my ass and get back running.

Minnesota weather - can you please help me out?

~a

New shoes

I got myself a new pair of running shoes on Tuesday, but that's not the really interesting part of the story....

So, Curtis (my stepson) is in town, between his AIT and his assigned duty station in Texas. and he wated to see us, go out to dinner, that sort of thing, and in talking to him I mentioned that I needed to get a new pair of running shoes. He said that he needed a new pair too, so we made some plans to go shoe shopping before we went out to dinner.

I took him to a local running store, where I just happened to have a 25% discount coupon, which turns into 30% if you donate a pair of old shoes so he could be fitted. We get there, and I know exactly what I want, but say that Curt needs to be fitted. I should also mention that he is wearing his army uniform, and he was very cute walking around the store...

So we start talking about what he has had and what he would like. I say that we got him a pair of Asics in December, a stability shoe. Curt says that he wears a 9.5. I pipe in and say that the shoes we bought him were a 10.5. The lady helping us has him walk a bit to see how he walks to get him in the right type of shoe, then goes to get three different brands of shoes for him to try on. In a 10.5. As he is trying on shoes, I am talking to him about how he sould really get some good socks along with the running shoes, because socks really do make a world of difference. The store helper agreed with me.

After Curt had decided on a pair of shoes, a pair of Saucony's this time, she says to him: "if you like this shoe, but don't remember what kind it is, we keep the information in our store computer, so you can just tell your mom to pick you up another pair of shoes".

Yep. I'm a mom. I guess it had to happen sometime.

~a

Work

So I was intereviewed at work, about a visit we made to another railroad, and they sure made me sound good!

Sharing industry best practices makes railway operations safer for all

It is common practice for railway companies to share industry best-practices -especially those that work to improve the safety of our employees and the communities that are close to railway tracks. One such instance recently happened on August 18 and 19 when Norfolk Southern hosted CP in a benchmarking session designed to identify best practices and areas of improvement.

Some of the areas that were covered included:
* Management/Supervisor accountabilities and responsibilities related to safety
* Proven safety practices to lessen train accident and personal injury frequencies * Practices and rules used to prevent collisions between on-track maintenance equipment

CP shone brightly with respect to the quality of our safety programs and processes. One area of opportunity was in the consistent delivery and execution of safety programs and processes. This is currently being reviewed and will be incorporated into our 2010 Safety Plans. "Having the chance to observe Norfolk Southern's industry-leading safety practices and processes was reassuring in that our focus on safety is very similar. While NS has the lowest frequency of personal injuries, we know that with time and consistent effort and dedication, CP too, can attain similar levels," explained Anneke S, safety advisor, based out of St. Paul, MN.

"Fundamentally, all railways are similar in that they try to do everything possible to ensure the safety, health and well-being of their employees. At CP, we will continue doing what we've always done: strive to do better." Working together and sharing best-practices not only benefits our employees with safer working conditions, it also makes the communities along our right of way safer. S added, "the sessions are about everyone sharing information and helping each other out -they're not about being critical, or laying blame; ultimately, these sessions exist to make the work environment safer for everyone, regardless of which company you work for. In the end, it's not about us vs. them; its about the railway industry being safer as a whole."

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thought I would share...
~a

Dear Blog

No, I am not breaking up with you... it's just been a long time, and I thought it was time to spend a little time here.

One of the reasons I have stopped chatting, is that I feel like I don't have a lot to say.

Of course another reason is that I have cheated on you a bit, with that thing called "Facebook".

So what has been going on? Really, this and that. Seems like my time gets put somewhere or another...

But really my life as of late, has consistede of mainly three things: Work, Running, and Jaycees.

Work:
It's been busy. My counterpart in the U.S. decided to go back to his old job, so I have been trying to do some work on that service area, and keeping tabs and calm the two people that they have working a temporary assignment in our department. And they keep throwing more projects at me. And my managers have finally decided to take my advise, and have me help them out with their incident investigations. Shocker of shockers - do it right the first time!

Running:
Had a bit of a time there... the right knee has given me problems the last couple of weeks. Did a killer of a run about 5 weeks ago. 18 miles, in stinkin' hot humid weather. I was that girl with a fork in me, I was DONE. So much so that I managed to FORGET MY iPOD on the ground at the place where the running group meets. Luckly, one of my friends noticed it and I got it back. That would have put a topper on the day, let me tell you!

But back to the knee. Had a 19-mile run set up with folks from our group, doing a fair portion of the marathon route, for traning and all that sort of thing. My knee started giving me problems at about mile 14 or 15, but I preservered. At about mile 16, where some fabulous ladies from the running group had set up a water/encouragement stop, I debated if I should continue or not. And I did. The last mile was killer. Until my whole knee went kind of numb. But I got to 19 miles. I could have gone further, had it not been for the knee. It stiffened up, so I took it easy that week, and then I tried to run 12 on my birthday, the 5th of September. Not good. Ran 6 walked 3. Went to visit the chiropractor, who told me he could get me in shape to run the marathon... it was an IT band problem.

So, I've been seeing him 2 or so times a week, and I've kept exercising and running. The only thing that bothers me, is that I wasn't able to get in that 20-miler I should have done last week. I feel right now that I started my taper too early, and I'm not gonna be able to do as well as I should.

Saturday, when we were up at Lake Itasca, I went out for a long run - after doing a pretty good 5-miler on Friday. I did about 10.5 miles. Was expecting to do 12-15 miles, but holy hannah... the hills. I ran on the bike path.... I was thinking "bike path I run on those all the time... 12 should be easy peasy" but this was not your rails to trails path. It was a path in a state park where the lake was formed by glaciers. Hills, hills, with a side of hills. But that day, in addition to the run, we hiked at least 4 miles, and went up the stairs to look out the top of a fire tower.

Jaycees:
Since I'm on the board this year, I've kind of felt that I have needed to participate in more events than I have in the past couple of years. Not a bad thing, but it takes up time. And next year, I will probably be busier, since I will be the Administrative Vice President. (Basically the President's bitch, or right hand man, whatever you prefer.) I felt kind of guilty not volunteering at an event this weekend, but I gave up last weekend's activities and running for convention...

Throw in the mix some assorted projects: gardening, canning, freezing vegetables, doing some alterations on a frend's bridesmaid dress, working on an afgahn for a friend's wedding, and general houscleaning, and that is what I have been doing.

Yep. And starting to get a little freaked out.

The marathon is in two weeks.
~a

I've been boring lately

Seems like all I have been doing is going to work, exercising, and doing stuff with the Jaycees.

The workouts have been going pretty well. I like to tell people that I'm on the 6-month plan for the marathon.... which is true, since I have had a training plan for a couple of months now, and have been mostly following it...

This week, I flip-flopped a couple of the workouts - I wanted to run with one of the TC marathon sponsored running events for National Running Day, so I headed out to join the event at Como at 6pm.

The group started out slower, but built up to doing about 9:30 miles, and I kept up around the lake for the first lap, slowed down for about half the lake, then found another group of poeple that I ended up talking to, and did 9.5 to 10 minute miles... when all was said and done, I averaged 10 minute miles. Not too shabby for me!

And tonight, I rode my bicycle to book club. And I took the long way there, because I wanted to get in more of a workout. So I put in about 10.5 miles tonight on the bike. 50 minutes or so... I guess I supposed to do some "intensity" workouts (pedal hard for 1 min, recover for 2 min, etc.) but I find that really hard to do when I am out on the trails and city streets, with stopsigns and hills!

I'm also trying to use a new program I downloaded on my i-Pod, which lets me track calories and exercise, and gives me a calorie goal for every day so I can try and lose about a pound a week, since I managed to eat mindlessly enough for too long to gain 5 pounds.

I know 5 pounds isn't much, but when you are running, it is! I seem to be using the program (since Tuesday) and we will see what happens. At least it will make me eat enough calories... like last night, seeing that I hadn't had nearly enough, I had some milk and an oat muffin. It made me much more satisfied, and I think helps me to stay on track better.

We'll see what next week brings, right?

~a

garbage in, garbage out

You know, if you eat all sorts of crap, your workouts turn to complete crap.

That happened last week on Thursday. It sucked. Big time.

After a day of eating all sorts of candy, empty carbs, etc. I decided it was time to get out and run... So I geared up and headed out the door. The first mile wasn't terrible, but it wasn't good. Then I started pushing the pace a bit (as that is what my training plan calls for...) and ran to a nearby park. Considered stopping at the conviently located port-a-pottie, but decided against it, and kept running.

In hindsite, that was a bad choice.

After about 2.5 miles... I coudn't run any more. As in, my body was telling me that I needed to get myself to a bathroom, and to be quick about it. So I had to walk carefully home the rest of the way.

Eric asked how the run went...

My reply?
"Crappy, literally."

Good times.
~a

the power of 10

10 years ago. May 7th, 1999.

It was a Friday. I was moved into my first house, which I had offically bought on April 15th, and I decided to go to the Jaycee event, the first ever Meet and Greet (basically a happy hour...)

While there, I asked a guy, who I thought was kind of cute and nice, to be my partner in a game of darts. I had met him in July, when he was looking for volunteers to do crowd control at the marathon, as he was a course marshall. He had come to my "I have a house but no furniture" party on the day I closed. I asked him to play darts.

And one thing led to another...

And we've been married now for 7 years. It will be 8 in September.

Happy Anniversary to us!

~a

over doing it

So last Saturday, I had a pretty full day scheduled. And wanting to get in my long run in the morning, I headed out the door at 6:30am. The plan was for 8miles.

4 miles in, at the turn-around point, I decided to run a loop, rather than an out and back. But I didn't realize that the street that I took to do said loop, weaved around quite a bit. My 8-mile run turned into a 9-mile run. Quite unintentionally...

So my timing was off for the next place I had to be - helping out with a garden/grounds cleanup at a local community center. It's a project that I have chaired in the past, and the person who was in charge didn't really do much, so I felt like I was in charge again. So there was about 2 1/2 hours of pretty active "gardening" involved.

After that, it was off to a friend's house to help her with cleaning up her yard/pool/patio. She had been in an accident last fall, and is not able to do as much physical work as she used to, since she is still recovering from the head injury.

Eric and I came home after that, rested a bit, then headed out to a friend's birthday party. It was a pretty full day, to say the least.

So what did I do on Sunday?

Went for a 30 mile bike ride.

Yep. 'Cause I'm kinda insane.

~a

And so it begins

Last Friday, I registered for the Twin Cities Marathon. It's in the works, baby!

Saturday, I was scheduled to run 9 miles. And suprisingly, I did! Wasn't really feeling it when I got there in the morning, but decided to head out and see how I felt, it was going to be an out and back run. Ran the first 3.5 with a couple of women who were going to do 7, then actally caught up with another group that I knew was planning 9. We were pacing somewhere around 11 minute miles, which felt really comfortable, and I was good with that.

Turned around, we were all chatting and having a good time, and at about mile 6, I decided I wanted to push it a little more. I pretty much finished up the last couple of miles doing a 10 minute mile pace. Which pretty much made my day. And the best part: I was totally good the rest of the day - a lot of times when I do longer runs, I tend to crash and nap in the afternoon - and I didn't do that! Score!

I have a good training plan put together, which will encorporate both bicycling and running. I just have to prepare myself when I travel to put the bike in the back of the truck! Totally didn't get in the mid-week bicycle ride this week.

~~~~~~
On assorted other news - my mom and aunt met with my grandmother's doctor, and after grandma had told us that she had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's I guess the meeting went really well - if she does indeed have Alzheimer's, it is in the very beginning stages, and should be controlled with the medication she is now on. I hate to say it, but this grandmother has always been a bit of a confused lady, and what probably happened when the Dr. initially talked to her was that she told Grandma that it was possible that it was Alzheimer's.... and all she heard or understood was that it WAS Alzheimer's.

~~~~~~
I'm frustrated with Eric. I feel like the cranky mom more and more lately.... pick up your stuff, put your laundry away, and quit spending money you don't have. I got mad at him again last night... a couple of weeks ago, he spent about $500 on some more "fishing" items. Out of the joint account. Money that I had counted on to pay some bills. So I had to do some financial tap dancing, again. I was traveling at the time, and when I saw it on the bank statement, I spent about 20 minutes "yelling" at him on the phone (If you know me, I get more and more quiet when I'm angry...) with me basically telling him: Quit. Spending. Money. You. Don't. Have. And last week, he put another $150 on a credit card I had told him not to use anymore. So he paid $90 on the balance... It keeps going the wrong way. And I don't know what to do. And it seems that he just can't return any of the stuff he bought. How convenient.

So right now, I have a bunch of Post-it notes with the amounts we owe in diffrent areas (truck, boat, HELOC, Credit Cards) and they are on the bedroom mirror. So he can have a reality check on what we actually owe, instead of him having no clue, since he doesn't ever think about it.

And the credit cards are all put away, and hidden where he doesn't know where they are. Same with the "emergency" stash that he keeps dipping into because he is overspending his weekly "allowance". Yes, my husband has an allowance. It was one of the ways that we decided would help him manage money - I have no say about what he spends that on... because you have to have some money for that sort of thing...

Can you tell I'm about at the end of my rope? I told him last night I was thinking about disowning him. (Somewhat in jest... but you know....) He and his ex-wife many years ago went through a bankrupcy. You would think he would not want to go there again, and I'm scared that we are headed there if I don't get things under control.

On that note, I need to shower and go to work - We owe, we owe so off to work I go.

~a

A plan

My running coach sent me a training plan for the next three months. I didn't have the nerve to open it up to look at it. I think I'm kinda scared. But I am gonna look at it. And follow it.

Related to that... it was a long day, but I didn't let that be an excuse not to exercise. Even after getting in my truck at 6:15 this morning, driving 2.5 hours for a day of work meetings (form 9 to 4) then driving back and getting home, oddly at about 6:15 this evening. I put on my running clothes and went out. the thought in my head was an easy 3. Which actually turned into 4 miles. And even though I was trying to sit back and not push it.... I averaged 10:21 miles.

Sa-weet!

I feel like I have just been a bit of a lump lately, and I needed that.

On that note, time to hit the shower.
~a

Baby's got a new pair of shoes

I bought two new pairs of shoes this weekend, actually. A new pair of running shoes, because I'm gonna need them for marathon training, and our running group got a wonderful discount at the store we were at on Saturday.

And a pair of bicycling shoes. And pedals. Anneke has finally gone clipless, after talking about it for about two years. Eric and I brought my bike to the store on Sunday for them to put on the new pedals, and to have them show me how to get in and out of them on their trainer. Then they had me ride for a bit (on the trainer) and checked the fit of the bike, and looked at the adjustment of the seat and handlebars. And it was spot on. I guess I did something right!!!!

This weekend, I started over, or recommitted, or whatever you want to call it. The scale was creeping up to a scarier place, and it had to stop. I actually spent a lot of time in the kitchen this weekend, cooking, cleaning, prepping food, and getting rid of some of the crap I have around. I tell ya, sometimes it's hard to stay on track when your husband can pretty much eat whatever he wants with no ill effects.

And I will have a new training plan on Saturday, so there's no looking back.

~a

greetings and salutations

It's definately been a week.

Went for a great run last Monday after work... went and explored another park in my area, and got in about 3 miles. Felt great.

Then the plague set in. Headache, sneezy, stuffed up. Can we say YUK! And I just was feeling sluggish all week.

Good news is that I got up to meet my running group on Saturday morning. I wasn't sure how things would go, but figured if nothing else, I would walk. I ran. Set the pace for the 4 of us in the group, probably doing 11 to 11 1/2 minute miles. And when we had gone about 3.5 miles, we were back a Lake Como, and I decided to kick it up a step. 10 minute miles. For a mile and a half.

Not bad for the sicko who hadn't run since Monday!

I talked to the running coach of the group, and we are going to work on putting together a 6-month plan with the goal of running the Twin Cities Marathon in the fall. We'll put together a 3-month plan, encorporating some bicycling in it (to help prevent another knee injury), then will do a 3-month marathon training plan starting in July. It's gonna happen.

Other than that, things have been kind of quiet around here... work keeps throwing meetings and activities at me that are in town, and I have not gone out of town for work since the beginning of February. I spent two weeks jetting about the country for "fun" but it's been kind of weird not to have gone anywhere for work. And my boss is in town this week, and using my company vehicle to save on rental car costs, so I'm in town all week too. I'm sure things will be starting up soon, but I'm enjoying my time at home!

Eating has been kind of okay - I'm back to almost where I was before all of the vacation. The past two days I have been doing well with all Phase 2 south beach foods, but then I have book club tonight, and I am not sure what will be served. Gotta work it into real life, right? I'll accept it, and move on, and get up and exercise in the morning. No biggie.

On that note, gotta get moving and out of the house.
~a

Crappy food and no exercise make Anneke a cranky girl

Wow.

stepped on the scale this morning, knew it would not be fun, but I needed to get some accountability going. And there it was. It scares me that that number can go up like it does.

I'm guessing the beer and pizza last night didn't help. But that was an end to two weeks of really "eh" eating. And I didn't exercise at all last week.

So what's been going on, you ask? Well, Feb 27th to March 8th we vacationed in Florida, staying with my parents in their 5th wheel for all of that time. I did actually get out and run 4 mornings, and they were all pretty awesome runs - the last one being a little over 6 miles (6.8 according to my garmin) in an hour and four minutes. My best time for a 10 K race is an hour and 4 minutes, and this felt like a easy run for me... in fact I consciously slowed down a couple of times because I thought I was going too fast for a long training run.

Then we were home for 3 days. And then on the 11th, we caught a plane to Atlanta, rented a car, and drove to Columbia, South Carolina, where my stepson was graduating from basic training. We got home yesterday afternoon (the 14th) and having been gone for so long, I didn't want to scrounge through the house for food, and I wanted some non-family interaction, so we had an inprompto pizza night at a local bar.

Ugh. That's about all I can say about that.

Anyway, I know I have not updated in a while. Life has gotten a bit crazy, and I had to give up something, and it was mostly trying to not log on to the computer at night after work (and I can't blog at work).

So other interesting things that have happened in the last month:

My niece won a literary contest. It's a program through the national library of congress where school age children write letters to authors about how reading their book changed their outlook on things. And she won in her age group in the state of Oklahoma, and then it gets reviewed at the national level.

I fell down when I was running one morning in Florida. Kind of scared the crap out of me... I hit a big rock sticking out of the ground with my toe, stumbled, flailed about, figured I was gonna biff, tried to tuck and do as little damage as possible, and ended up landing on my shoulder and hip on my right side. All of my clothing survived, along with my i-Pod, and only scraped up the side of my right hand. I was more shaken up than anything. Which is definately a good thing!

Went to a Twins game in Florida. Spring training, of course. It was fun and a beautiful day to be outside watching a game.

I got my taxes done, and we got refunds from both state and federal. And they are in the bank... okay, so they are gone already (we went on vaction, you know!)

My dad had his 70th birthday. They had a celebration for him in Florida, in the park where they spend two months out of the winter. Mom organized a spagetti feed.

My stepson grauated from basic training - Eric, Eric's mother, and I flew down to attend family day and graduation, and my parents drove up from Florida. Curtis' mother (Eric's ex-wife) and Curt's cousin were also there, and we all spent Thursday (family day) together. It was very weird. As Eric put it, he never thought that he would spend an afternoon bowling with his son, his wife and his ex-wife. And on the last game, both his ex and I bowled a 107.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm sure there's more stuff, but I need to get ready to meet a friend - we're going hiking this morning. gonna try to work off some of that beer and pizza!

~a

box of clothes

I have a box of clothes sitting in our spare bedroom.

Mostly pants, all size 14 or larger. They are going to get stored away, and hopefully I will not need them again.

This weekend consisted of a lot of cleaning and organizing. Seriously.

I swept and mopped the kitchen. Cleaned the bathroom. Stripped our bed and the guest bed, washed the bedding and remade the beds. Did 8 + loads of laundry. Organized my husband's closet, including cleaning the floor. Got rid of the dust Rhinos under our bed. Tried on a bunch of clothes, and evaluated if they fit, were too small or too big, and put them away appropriately. Sewed buttons on my husband's shirts. Organized some extra buttons so now if I need one, I can find them easily!

And I cooked.

soup. Chili. muffins. pancakes. eggs. hot cereal. coffee. tea. hot chocolate (no, did not eat all of that, some was for Eric.) I wanted to make some food that I could take with me on the road trip to points west (Northern Minnesota, North Dakota) this week. Pretty much a dog and pony show for work. Woo. Definately no hoo there.

I'm just kind of worried about hotels. I guess there is some sort of Ag convention, and the admin person was having a heck of a time finding us places to stay. Not sure if I'm gonna have a treadmill, and it's supposed to be COLD, so I don't know that I will get outside.

But on a happy note, it appears my appetite has come back. I was worried, actually. How do you eat when your body doesn't crave any food? And you have to eat if you are going to work out, otherwise you have a nasty tendancy to get light headed and pass out... which was my fear this last week - I was in pretty bad shape Thursday after all of my activity (clearing out the snow dam in the driveway - or perhaps it should be called damn snow).

Just wish me luck in ND this week. I hear there are drifts up to 20 feet high. Glad I'm not driving by myself.

~a

Not Hungry

that's me.

And it's kind of weird, and starting to concern me, actually.

I followed my plan yesterday. Made myself a smoothie which I had on the way to the work meetings, and when I was done, I was full. Stuffed actually, which I found a somewhat pleasant suprise, as a lot of times I want a little bit more. Talked to one of the hotel staff, and made sure to order myself a salad for lunch.

Lunchtime rolls around. I'm still not hungry. But since I specially ordered the salad, I thought I should eat some of it. Now usually, I completely clear the plate of food when I get a salad. But this time, I just ate about half. And the diet coke I took to drink with my lunch - didn't finish the can, because I couldn't deal with the extra volume.

that's all I ate yesterday.

And it's Thursday morning, and I'm still not hungry. While I can't deny that not being hungry should really help in the weight loss arena, I know it's not healthy for me.

Not sure what to do now. Other than I'm heading off to work with a packed lunch bag. I might have to force myself to eat something. Scary.

~a

Day 2 BOT

It was a pretty good day yesterday.

The work meetings went pretty well, and I stuck to the plan. On a side note to that: The pants I was wearing yesterday were too big.... I kept trying to tighten the drawstring on the waistband, but they were, yes, too big.

So this morning, I went throught a number of pairs of pants, trying them on, and the ones that were too big got put in a box. I don't know that I am necessarily going to get rid of them - I know I should, so I don't have "something to fall back on" but last time I did that, I had to eventually go out and buy bigger pants. And that also sucked. But right now they are in a box, and will be stored out of sight. Because, you know, sometimes things happen.

Nuff Said.

I think my biggest accomplishment yesterday was running. a little over 3 miles. I wanted to take it somewhat easy, because I have not exercised, I hate to say it, for a week and a half. And it was good. I ran into two folks from my running club there, and me taking it "easy" had me running faster than both of them. Me. I know! Not the slowest one out there! But definately room for improvement.

And I'm considering a gym membership again. A good friend of mine is the lead Personal Trainer at the community center near me, and I just might have to join so I can have her kick my butt on occasion.

Today's food plan:
Breakfast: Smoothie
Lunch: (They are having pizza buffet for lunch at the work meetings) I plan to order a salad off of the restaurant menu. MMMMM Cobb Salad (minus the bacon)
Dinner: Probably Tacos. I have some great Whole Wheat tortillas from TJ's that are South Beach.

~a

"I'm just a stomach flu away from my goal weight"

yep. Watched The Devil Wears Prada this weekend. Funnily enough, as I was couched out with the flu... the whole shebang, nausia, tossing of cookies, headache, body ache, chills. Good times.

I was feeling better yesterday, Monday, so I sucked it up and went to work. And it kind of wiped me out. Last night was another repeat of couch sitting, chills and body aches. Took a hot bath and crawled into bed.

The good news is - I feel almost human this morning. Other than the fact that I'm nervous about eating. Hmmmm, sick, and south beach diet. What do you eat???? Ummmmm, chicken broth, tea, applesauce (no sugar added, of course).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

But otherwise, things have been kind of "eh".

I didn't exercise at all last week. It was just too frickin' cold. Didn't want to get out of bed in the morning, where it was warm and toasty. Evenings last week were spent cleaning/organizing as we had our annual party on Friday. "Thank God the Holidays are Over" was a good success. I figure we had somewhere around 50 people show up throughout the evening. and I allowed myself a break from the GADO for the night. Someone brought home-brew porter. I had to have some!

As of this morning, I am down 18 pounds since I started trying to follow SB in October. I'm prettty happy about that, but need to keep going.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

and yes, I know I have not updated in a while. This is what happens when you get new technology that allows you to check email, facebook and blogs without getting on the computer (iPod Touch), when work does not allow you to access blogs, and when the last thing you really want to do when you get home is fire up the work laptop, as it seems that your husband is always on the home computer (as he has no access to the internet at work) when you want to look at something.

I'll try and do better. I need a place to keep myself a little more accountable.

Plan for today:
Smoothie for breakfast
Who knows for lunch - it's a work meeting where they are providing food...
Dinner: Salad, as I have a bunch of lettuce (red, romaine, green leaf) that needs to get eaten up.

and I will be packing my workout bag with me, with plans of running at the Metrodome tonight. I will need to see how the day goes and if I am wiped out again... but I will have my things!

ta
~a

Better, but not perfect

But I can live with the better.

Had dinner out on Saturday, and I stuck to the lean protein (chicken) and ate all of my veggies, some of Eric's veggies, and avoided the bread, the potato and the alcohol. And I did look pretty good if I do say so myself.... I managed to get my hair into a pretty elaborate updo. It only took about an hour and a half...

Sunday, was okay... I ate a couple of SB muffins I had made, and was pretty good, until my friend and I decided to go to the movies. We went to see Valkyrie. It wasn't bad. It was actually quite interesting, and you were still hoping that they were going to succeed with the plan, even though that's not how it ends. Kind of like watching Titanic, actually... you know it ends badly, but you still hold out hope. Oh yeah, and what's a movie without a large buttered popcorn? Not exactly on the South Beach plan. But there could be worse things. And I actually didn't finish the whole thing. I got full and stopped. Chalk one up for me. Okay, half.

Tonight I went to Book Club, where the host had made calzones. So I ate the filling, and a little of the bread (but not much), and drank lots of water. And avoided the box of Christmas goodies that was passed around. I was full, and didn't want anything. Okay, I wanted a cookie with a peanut butter cup in the middle, but I didn't cave in. And I am quite proud.

Since Christmas, I have lost 3 pounds. Nothing earth shaking, but it is a step in the right direction. I now need to not skip two days in a row of exercising. Tomorrow morning, I will get up and ride my bike in the basement. I have stuff on my iPod to keep me amused.

I've been having fun with my new iPod touch. I downloaded some podcasts of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, and started to listen to one at work today. After some loud chuckles and snorts, I decided I couldn't do that - my cubicle neighbors might think I was having some sort of episode... and it was hard to concentrate on work.

Eric's gonna be gone this weekend, and I plan to cook up a storm, to get some meals in the freezer for myself, and I am gonna clean, clean, clean, as we are hosting the 12th annual "Thank God The Holidays are Over" party the next weekend. Should be fun as always.

On that note, if I'm going to get up in the morning, I need to be off to bed.

Ta!

~a

New Year

And what would it be without some resolutions? I'm not that big on resolutions, and why do they need to start on January 1st?

How about some goals?

How about one goal?

I want to run a marathon this year.

There's some various assorted things I need to do to get there, which I suppose could be resolutions: Eat better, lose weight, exercise more. but I know I'm not going to reslove to exercise at least 30 minutes each day. Because, you know, life tends to get in the way, and you need to be flexibile, or things are too stressful. Blah, blah, blah.

I'm about ready to hop back on the South Beach bandwagon. I kind of threw things out the window a bit since Thanksgiving. Like drinking too much beer. and eating Christmas goodies. And more wine than is "allowed" on the diet. Yeah. Spent Boxing Day (I work for Canadians...) recovering from my hangover on the couch in the living room. Drank too much wine at my husband's Aunt's house on Christmas, but I think it was the shot of Tequilla that did me in.

So it starts. Eric and I are going to Florida on February 27th. I would like to drop a few more pounds before then, and I want to make some inroads on building up my endurance. So from now until then (8 weeks or so) I am making a vow to not have any alcohol. Partly because of Christmas, but also for the fact that I seem to be drinking more wine to compensate for the sugar I am not eating. Hi. Can we say swapping one addiction for another?

And I'll try to get here more to write. Seems to make me more accountable for some reason. Whatever works, right?

~a