The Daily B-Dizzle

If you still check this...

2011-12-29T15:23:00.002-06:00

Hey peeps, if you still check in here every now and then...please head over to my newish blog which is where I moved everything this past year. Daily BDizzle has been inactive for quite awhile now so update your links please!! It's now Random BDizzle, same BDizzle craziness, just updated differently. :P

http://randombdizzle.blogspot.com

Also don't forget, you can still check out D's photoblog and see what we've been up to over at:

http://www.myliferunsfast.com

Frustrated

2010-06-18T08:45:00.002-05:00

So my body hit that 299 mark, and I hit a wall. It's not budging. Everyday these last two weeks, my weight has fluctuated between 301 and 297, and it will NOT get moving downward again. I've been good at calories too. There has been a day or two where I went up closer to 2000 cals, but even then, that's still under what I CAN have. For the most part, I've stayed around 1400-1500 calories, and have rocked at making sure to calorie count EVERY SINGLE THING.

Granted, my exercise has REALLY lacked in motivation, but it seems to me that the weight should still be moving?? We've had some good swimming days and usually that keeps it moving. It's very very frustrating and this morning, I seriously considered chunking my scale against the wall. Would it have done any good? No, not really. Would I have felt better? Nah...but man, I thought about it.

In the meantime, I'm holding on to the hope that it WILL move again. I refuse to give into the cravings and go back to where I was just a few short months ago. And I keep telling myself, this is only temporary, this is ONLY temporary.

This better be only temporary.

I shouldn't have doubted

2010-05-31T18:57:00.002-05:00

I was REALLY starting to doubt that I would hit the goal that I set. Esp since my weight stalled out not long ago at 310, BUT it got moving very quickly again, and this morning, the last day of the month, I'm pleased to announce that I weighed in at 299.4 lbs! Nailed it!

What definitely helped a lot was being able to start swimming this weekend. We spent two full days in and around lakes and loved every minute of it! We found a lake near us with some really good parks and swim beaches, so we very well might be enjoying that more than our local pools this summer. It's cheaper too!!!

Some goals met, more to go!

2010-05-20T09:47:00.002-05:00

I'm excited to announce that I hit the minimum fundraising goal for my 3 Day Walk!!! We had an awesome Pure Romance party this past Saturday as a fundraiser and that topped me over the $2300 mark. Woohoo! This means I can actually get checked into the walk, however, NOW I hope to actually be physically able to do the walk.

My foot is still constantly aching, with occasional stabs of pain. Last week, I walked every single day, at least 20-30 minutes, and had a ton of pain in the evenings. So this week, I'm trying a new strategy. Last night, we ended up walking 50 minutes total (did about 2 miles), and the pain while walking was no worse than having done just 20 minutes at the time (the pain over night and this morning though? Yowza.). SO...I'm going to try completely resting it today (will do my trainer workout tonite which keeps me off my foot for the most part), and then tomorrow do another 2 or so miles, as far as I feel I can go. I'm hoping that this might strengthen it a bit more. Or it could be a huge fail. Ya never know until you try. I was really losing motivation for walking, so it feels good to have some sort of "plan", if nothing else.

As for the headaches, they still come and go. In fact, Monday and Tuesday of this week were especially bad for that. I REALLY need to take my doc's advice and go back to my TMJ doctor. Once she mentioned that, I started paying more attention and yeah, I HAVE been grinding my teeth more, making my jaw pop more (it pops everytime I move my mouth, but it's becoming habit to MAKE it pop while idle), and she thinks it could be causing the headaches.

So there's my update. I don't know if I'll hit the goal of being under 300 by Memorial Day, but darn it, I'm doing my best to accomplish it. My calories have been really good lately. I've had a few minisplurges, but nothing to derail me, they were all very much controlled, and I feel good about them. And if I don't hit that goal, it's ok. It's not going to stop me in this.

Vision statement

2010-05-06T23:06:00.005-05:00

I'm not active on sparkpeople.com but I still get their newsletter, and today's was regarding making a vision statement for weight loss. I perused the article, and want to start working on this on my blog here. Today I'm going to focus on my motivations.

My number one motivation:

is this little man.

I want to BE there for him, be able to run with him, and never get weary. But also, I don't want him thinking that "THIS" is ok. I've worked really hard since getting him to make sure that he gets fruits and veggies and likes them, but he definitely doesn't see me eating as much of them as I'd like. And imho, that's a big part of kids loving them longterm, is seeing their parents enjoy them, modeling that behavior. I never want him to have to struggle with his weight the way that I do, I want him to be healthy, and happy.

My number two motivation:

is myself.

I want to be able to enjoy life ALL the time, to not have a lack of energy, to be able to move with ease, never have to worry about a seat being too small. I'm tired of feeling like the odd one out because of my size, tired of seeing pics of me in a group and just being astounded at how much bigger I am than everyone else. Last year, I discovered a passion for trailwalking. It soothes me, those long walks, and I want to be able to do them all the time. And now, with my heel spur, I want to get this weight off, to have more pressure off my heel, so I can take part fully in the 3 Day Walk. Someday, perhaps, I want to run or be able to get on a bike that doesn't get bogged down by my weight. I want ME to be able to come out and play, and so I'm writing all this down, to keep as a reminder of everything I want out of life. I'm doing really good right now with the diet and plugging along day by day with it, and the weight is moving off, but I want building blocks already laid in a solid foundation, so that when the weight stops for a bit, I don't get bogged down in it like I did last time and backslide. So here I am.

More to come in a few more days as I compile and sort through my thoughts.

Two month update

2010-05-02T18:32:00.003-05:00

I neglected to come update this two days ago. So will update from today. I'm happy to say that I am down 25 lbs since March 1st. Woohoo! 23.2 lbs was the official two month loss though.

I think I'm in a decent groove on eating. Awhile back, I ended up upping my cals to about 1400-1500 a day. I'm also eating more throughout the day, more fruits, more veggies, and while i still eat a lot of processed foods, esp for lunch, this is working. Yeah, I still have mild cravings, but they aren't near as bad as they used to be. I'm also eating little amounts of splurgy type foods as it happens, allowing some things and avoiding other things all together, but not having true splurge days where I don't count calories. Everyday, I count calories. Since this seems to be working, I'm rolling with it.

My foot still hurts quite a bit at times, but I'm managing. It has meant that I can't walk more than about 30 minutes straight, BUT I've been walking that 30 minutes a lot of days. This past week I walked every single day for 20-30 minutes. So that's just going to have to work for now. I'm hoping to start slowly bumping it up soon.

And in 3 Day news, I have less than $300 to go to reach my goal of $2300! The dinner/raffle fundraiser that Dina and I did was super successful! We raised $730 that evening, and had a lot of fun.

Not just plantar fasciitis

2010-04-19T23:00:00.002-05:00

I went to the podiatrist today, who did xrays on my feet, and it turns out, I also have heel spurs. No bueno. So my doc put me on a fairly conservative treatment plan which includes new shoes (which I already have), heel inserts, more motrin, aspercreme, and then in a couple of weeks I can come back and get a cortisone shot if needed. Worst case scenario would be surgery, but she didn't think it'd come to that. She did say I could start slowly adding in some walking up to my comfort level. I asked about a mile a day, and she said that would be fine as long as I'm not hurting much. Basically, I can't make it worse, as it's not the spur itself hurting, its the tissue around it. So I can make my pain much worse on ME, but not the condition itself.

We did talk about the 3 Day. She said it really depends on how treatments go. She didn't rule it out though, which gives me hope! And she said I'd need to be willing to not be afraid to use the medics if necessary to ice it or wrap it. So it's still def a possibility. I'm going to work my hardest to make sure I can safely train and be prepared for it, while encouraging healing. I need to get down in weight as much as possible between now and then too, which will help take some of the pressure off too.

Plantar Fasciitis

2010-04-14T22:27:00.003-05:00

Total suckage here. I'm working on healing up my foot now thanks to plantar fasciitis. I walked almost 6 miles on Saturday, 3 on Sunday with quite a bit of pain, and then a slowish 1.77 on Monday, and by then, I was in a LOT of pain. I can't walk at all barefoot, esp when I first get up in the morning, so have to have shoes on even at home (thank goodness for my crocs!!). And doing any kind of light walking (like going into stores for instance) leaves me in pain. So for now, all walking has been halted to let this heal. I've also begun doing stretches, icing it, etc. And I'm shoe shopping again, and will be headed to a podiatrist soon. On the one hand, I'm glad to know about this now so I can be prepared come November for the 3 Day, but I'm also extremely frustrated. With the added walking, my weight has really begun dropping, and the weather has been so beautiful, I want to be out in it. I don't want anything derailing me!

My basic plan right now, is to baby it til this weekend, and then maybe get in a slow mile in new shoes. A very slow mile. If that feels ok, I'll add more distance, though certainly not the 6 miles I WANTED to do this weekend again. :( But hopefully, if I do this the right way, I'll be back doing long walks in no time.

Slight change

2010-04-11T22:17:00.003-05:00

If you look at the right side of the blog, I made a small change to the ticker. It was originally setup to log miles walked this year. Well, the first part of this year wasn't so good so I restarted it to log since March 1st, when Beth and I restarted the Losin Together blog. It's not super impressive yet, but stay tuned, it's gonna get GOOD. :)

A walk to remember

2010-04-10T22:17:00.002-05:00

Last year, with all the long training walks I did for the half, I learned a lot of valuable lessons about nourishing my body and providing it with energy. Yeah, apparently I forgot all of those lessons since then. D and I headed out on a 4-5 mile walk today. I did try to be semi-prepared. I had carby snacks, ate a PBJ before going, had 2 bottles of water in the stroller, and had on sunscreen and a hat. But then, an old friend caught up to me on the trail, and we chatted some as we walked so I ended up going a mile further than planned. On our way back, at 4.22 miles, I stopped to let D go play on a playground right off the trail. He took off running, immediately tripped and scraped the mess outta his knee, blood everywhere. As I cleaned him up, my body felt weird. I knew what was coming then. It was hitting an energy wall. I immediately started munching on carbs and sucking down water, but it wasn't enough. We ended up sitting til the dizzyness passed, but were still 1.5 miles from home. So we got up finally and started walking. I didn't get far before I hit that wall again and had to sit down. At this point, I came very close to calling a friend to come get us, but wanted to give it one more try. Again, didn't make it far. As I was sitting down on the curb, the color purple in the stroller caught my eye. It turned out to be a bottle of Propel. Score!! Even though it expired in Feb, I quickly downed 1/4th of it. The resulting energy surge, and drinking the rest of it on that 1.5 miles, got me home. So...lesson remembered. Water is NOT enough for me. I think I was feeling a lot of that at the half last year too. My body needs those electrolytes. Moral of the story: know your body and be prepared, you can't afford to get stuck out on a trail somewhere!! (This is not the first time I have learned a hard lesson out on the trail...sheeesh) But despite it all, I feel great about having done a total of 5.78 miles today.

Welcome to April

2010-04-05T20:39:00.003-05:00

It's April 5th but close enough. Easter was this past weekend, and despite how I felt all day, D and I had some really good discussion about it. I found a video online that we watched together, and then I read him the easter story from his kiddo bible. This is the first year that he really asked more questions, and while I know he still doesn't understand it, nor can he grasp it, I loved some of the questions he had.

I also changed my Heels and Hills walk in May to the 10K. I'm so not ready for the half, and that was a tough choice to make but, I feel it's for the best. I HAVE started training for the 3 day in November, and have gotten in a couple of decent 3 mile walks. We have lots more distance to travel but I'm making a good start.

Despite AF being a PITA this week, my weight has been coming down this past week and weekend, esp with the upped walking. I am loving that and will definitely continue on this path.

And finally, I reached over 50% in my 3 Day walk fundraising!!! I def have my team, The Boobie Battalion, to thank for helping in that, as it was the garage sale that threw me over. We work so well together as a team, and I can't wait for the walk!

A good reminder

2010-03-26T08:00:00.003-05:00

So I get the Jillian Michaels emails in my inbox, and just wanted to share this as it struck a chord with me. I didn't even need to read the whole article...lol just the teaser caught me.

"Who doesn't want to look totally hot? If you asked 100 people who were starting to exercise for the first time (or returning to regular workouts after a long time off) what their main motivation was, the majority of them would say something like, "I want to look good," or "I want to fit into a size __ again." And hey, whatever gets you on track initially is good enough for me. But when that scale hasn't budged in a few weeks, it's time to remind yourself that there are lots of other reasons to make exercise a habit."

You can read the rest here.

That struck close to home, even though it hasn't been weeks, but this week my body has been quite weird about the weight. On Wednesday, it jumped UP 2.4 lbs, and I've eaten REALLY good this week. SO I was getting frustrated. It's just SLOWLY come back down the last two days too. But I keep reminding myself that that doesn't give me the liberty to say screw it and eat whatever and not exercise. That this is a day by day process, and even if I lose NO weight at all, I'm doing what is right for my body so that I can lead a HEALTHY and more productive life. I'm eating healthier, making better choices, and getting my workouts in. As such, my body IS getting stronger. I do things in my workout with my trainer that I couldn't do 3 months ago. I can feel the changes slowly but steadily. So for now, I'm good...that email was just the motivation I needed to keep at it another day. And I thought I'd share.

Not so daily anymore...

2010-03-22T20:26:00.002-05:00

I have SO slacked this month posting on here...sorry! I have been posting on Beth and I's Losin blog daily, recording what I eat and my activity. Since March 1st, I'm down 6 lbs. Well, 8, but our weigh-in today was after a lot of carbs etc for me on Saturday, so 6 "official" lbs. Regardless, despite some emotional stuff going on, I've been sticking to the diet for the most part and am feeling pretty good about my choices.

I started walking again today. D and I got out for a 3.27 mile walk tonite. It was tougher than I thought it would be, but did include some decent hills.

I'm pretty much having to admit that I likely won't make the Heels and Hill Half Marathon in May. It saddens me, but I just don't think I'll be ready! I'm going to keep pushing forward as if I'm still doing it though, and might make a last minute decision to go ahead, but as of now, I'm not seeing it happen. I still weigh 29 lbs more than last year's half, and can only imagine how much harder it will be. So that's my big announcement. However, the September half is definitely still on, and I'm excited about having all summer to swim and get in good training walks, now that the majority of my eating is under control.

And finally, our 3 Day team fundraising is going really well! We just had a garage sale this past weekend, and will continue it this coming weekend since we still had so much stuff left. Despite the rain and cold, we were quite successful!! So...on we go towards hitting our goals!

It's never too late...to start over...

2010-02-28T21:46:00.002-06:00

So...Beth and I decided to restart the Losin Together blog today. Goodness I've been struggling, and she has as well, so it's about time. We've talked about it in the past, but now, it's on!

I haven't posted food on here in awhile anyway, so this blog will stay about the same...I'll keep doing updates a couple of times a week, or every day if I really make some improvements.

So as of tomorrow, head over to our Losin Together to check out our progress or search for us on Facebook, we have a fan page!

In other updates, I'm still diggin training with Janie. She just upped my reps again, and while OUCH, it's a good feeling to be stronger and know I couldn't have done this three months ago.

We ate crap yesterday, BUT we got some good walking in. Two friends, me and our kids walked to eat lunch at a restaurant, which is 1.2 miles from my house. We walked back, hung out a bit, and then walked up to a football game half a mile away from my house. We got in a total of 3.4 miles roughly. It was such a good feeling! Too bad I ruined it with the food choices I made.

In memorium

2010-02-24T22:24:00.002-06:00

So yesterday was D and I's 3rd anniversary of the adoption being final. Well, today, is the 3rd anniversary of my grandad passing away. He'd been in a coma for a week or so, the end stages of Alzheimers, and I almost rescheduled the adoption hearing, but we had no idea when he would go, he could have gone another few days. And I really felt that with everything going on centering around my grandad, that D deserved "his" day.

The day that he died was interesting though. We were waiting on my uncle to get back in town to say goodbye. My grandparents have 5 kids; 4 girls and one boy. I had this feeling my grandad was waiting on my uncle to get there, and sure enough. We'd been at their house most of the day, and as soon as my uncle showed up, D and I left to go to my other aunt's house so D could get a nap. As we were headed to her house, it was right as a massive sandstorm blew through Dallas, and as we got to her house, we got the phone call that he had died. The sky was all orange and brown, it was surreal.

It's been 3 years and half the time I still feel like he's here. When I'm at my grandma's house on Sundays, sometimes it seems like he's going to come out of the bedroom at any moment. My dad and I have gotten closer since I got D, but my grandad was so much more like a dad to me growing up. He was a great man, quiet, solid, always there. I miss you, Grandad. We'll never forget you, but I so wish you and D had been able to get to know each other.

Happy Gotcha Day!!

2010-02-23T23:13:00.002-06:00

Today is the 3rd anniversary of D and I going before a judge and promising to mommy and son forever! He never promised to be good, and I never promised to be perfect, and we're an even match. I *heart* that kid!!

How did we celebrate? Well...I put him to bed early, and left him with my brother to go see one of my favorite shows: Phantom of the Opera. Yes, I'm a mean mommy, it's ok, we'll celebrate tomorrow. POTO was AMAZING. I've listened to the music of it for years, and have seen the movie, but none of those could compare to seeing it live. We ended up getting 6th row seats from another momma who was not able to use them. It was TOTALLY worth the expense.

Rough, emotional week

2010-02-21T22:47:00.002-06:00

I got some bad news regarding after school care for D on Wednesday and it really made my week spiral. And as such, so did my emotional eating. :(

I also know that this coming week is going to be an emotional one (stay tuned for posts on that). SO today, we hit up the grocery store, got lots of fruits and veggies, lean proteins, etc, and I am ready for a good week. I tried to make sure to be as prepared as possible.

We did have a good weekend though even though it was busy. Some babysitting, two trips to Ikea, hanging out with good friends, and busy work on my living room (pics to come), made for a very tired Brandie!!

Best snow EVAH!

2010-02-16T10:52:00.005-06:00

So I purposely waited til today to post again. I noticed that as it got closer to VDay this past Sunday, I got increasingly DONE with it. And all I wanted to do was rant about the day. So, to spare your eyes that, I stayed away from here. I'm better now. We did end up having a fairly busy weekend, but the HIGHLIGHT of it was that the weather made it a 3 day weekend!

This past Thursday, around 3am, it started snowing, and kept snowing. We got about 12 inches of snow! So work let out early on Thursday, and most schools in the area shutdown on Friday. No work! The best part, was that really, the roads didn't ice. It never got low enough in temp to, so we were able to get out and about on Friday, and just enjoy the day! D loved playing in the snow, I think it was a once in a lifetime opportunity! I'm 30 and have never seen that much...so...YEAH.

We also got to meet my cousin's new baby girl! They were visiting this weekend from Colorado, and she is just PRECIOUS...

I topped off the weekend with a trip to Ikea for a new coffee table, side table, and rug. I'm revamping my living room some and can't wait to see it completed!

One simple change

2010-02-10T13:53:00.002-06:00

It's amazing to me how one simple change in the order of my workout, can be so much more effective. The last week, it had been getting easier to do one full round of the workout and then do it all over again a second time. Well, last night, my trainer had me double each set as I do it, and omg I was hurtin. I finished strong, but man, I could feel it SO much more! It was still the exact same workout as this past week, but just changing the timing of it, wow. So while I'm not truly sore, I have a few twinges in places, esp my triceps. It's more of a feeling tho that they got worked, not really "sore". I love that we are changing just enough each week to keep it amped. I'm not getting complacent in this, thanks to my awesome trainer!

A big S day...

2010-02-07T23:12:00.003-06:00

Sunday...Sweethearts...Superbowl...Satisfying food at Twisted Root? Ok that last one is pushing it a bit with the "S".

Despite AF trying to ruin my day, we made the best of it anyway. It was a rocky morning, but D had sweetheart pics with his little friend this afternoon. So he got all dressed up for that, and I do have to say, even though I may be a bit biased, I have NEVER seen cuter children!! :) Yeah I'm biased.

After that, we hit up Twisted Root for dinner. And even though money issues were the main reason for what I got, I did NOT get a burger. *gasp* That's right, though I can't say that what I got was a TON better...a grilled cheese sandwich with curly fries. And I had some Twisted Root Beer. But I did plan for it today, had only had about 300 calories all day before that. And really haven't had much else tonite so I figure I'm ok for the day.

This past week, I wasn't the greatest with food portion-wise, so this week I'll be tightening up big time since Valentines Day is this next weekend. And that is a tough day for me typically. I hate it, basically. I hate the reminder EVERY where of what I don't have, and I can't escape it. And I have to say, it's now a huge pet peeve of mine when married peeps say they "don't really get into V Day"...yeah, because you HAVE someone. Urrggh...ok vent over. But it's how I feel.

So yeah...I'll get over it. And it will be Feb 15th, then 16th, and so on and so forth, soon enough. Now to get through this week.

Our 3 Day Team

2010-02-07T01:48:00.003-06:00

I'm now part of a 3 Day team...our team name is The Boobie Battalion, and we are ready to "Fight Like Girls". Please check out our team page and we would love your support!

We've got some really great fundraisers planned, including a large garage sale coming up in March, so stay tuned for details on that!

What a week...

2010-02-06T23:59:00.000-06:00

From D's MRI, to him being sick, to waiting for results, to a really good workout with my trainer, to a few evenings spent with good friends, to putting together an outfit for D for sweetheart pics this weekend with his little girlfriend, to AF being a total PITA, it's been one heck of a week!

That's the basics of it. It's continued to be pretty busy at work from the new software we rolled out, which is fine. It makes the days go by fast.

Aside from Friday evening, we still stuck to eating at home, and did good with that.

And...I officially registered for both Heels and Hills Halfs in May and September! I'm making the commitment now that I will be ready for them. I HAVE to hit the 4 hour mark, and I can't wait to get another half under my belt.

Another 3 Day Announcement

2010-02-02T19:19:00.003-06:00

Come join us on Monday Feb 8th at Tin Star on Coit and 190 from 4-9pm. I get 10% of all sales that evening donated to the 3 Day under my name, which will help me in being able to walk in November! This includes, food, alcohol, even take-out, so please come get some yummy quesadillas, tacos, or even a margarita!

And if you can't make it, but still want to donate a couple of dollars, you can still easily make a donation here: http://www.the3day.org/goto/justbrandie

Crazy weekend

2010-02-02T18:55:00.002-06:00

But yet I can barely remember most of it. LOL

Friday, we had guests over for dinner. The boys had a fantastic time playing, and a new friend and I got to chat some more. We even ate the meatloaf fail...which wasn't bad with some ketchup. Saturday, we were supposed to go to a birthday party but D fell asleep IN the cart at Target. Yeah there went that idea. We did have dinner with some friends on Saturday evening. And then Sunday, I actually got a Mom's Night Out! My brother came over to sit with a sleeping D, and some DAM chicks and I hit up Olive Garden. To top off the evening, a late night "no kids" trip to Walmart...woohoo!

Monday...was D's MRI. He's been complaining of head pains lately, and has had at least one seizure lately, so aside from upping his seizure meds, the neuro ordered the MRI. It went well. The last time he had one in 2007, he went nuts when the sleepy meds hit him, flopping around all over the place, eyes rolling back in his head. This time, he raised his hand, like he didn't like how the meds felt going in, then reached for me, laid his head on my shoulder, and was knocked OUT. I was shocked at how easy that was! Afterwards, he was so sleepy/drunk for about 2 hours, which is funny as all get out. But this time, too, he was crazy nuts in the evening. Like over the top hyper. Goodness, I was ready to get him to bed!

He had what I think was a bad reaction to the meds, which was not fun, threw up a few times, but by this evening, seemed to be doing fine again.

So that's been our last few days. I can't say eating has been GREAT, but I've passed up some desserts that I could have easily gotten. I brought home half my ziti from Olive Garden. I've made some decent choices. I don't know tho that I will be down in weight a LOT this week as I had hoped. But I still have 2 full more days before Friday's weigh-in to compensate.

3 Day Sponsorships

2010-01-29T09:28:00.002-06:00

Important 3 Day Announcement!!

I'm now offering sponsorships in return for a donation to the 3 Day under my name! This will involve the opportunity to have your business/nonprofit logo on one of the 3 shirts I will wear during the 3 Day walk in November. I have small, medium and Prestige options for logos. Please contact me for pricing information. It's first come, first serve, on which day your logo is worn, so let me know soon if you are interested!

Brain freeze this week?

2010-01-29T09:11:00.003-06:00

I realized this morning, I haven't posted all week! Sorry, to my two whole readers...lol It's been an INSANE week at work. We rolled out new software, and I have barely come up for air. Plus, I've been so tired in the evenings, I can't even think.

I've been doing ok with eating, and am down 1.8 lbs this week, which is ok, but I do need to tighten it up more. I'm still cooking at home and really enjoying it, but I've been letting portion sizes go a bit. So that will be very much controlled again this next week.

This past week, I made the Swiss Chicken from the E-mealz and it was delicious!! We are having company over this evening, so I wanted to make the E-mealz meatloaf last night ahead of time, but...I forgot to get egg beaters, and D was already in bed. So I searched online for an eggless meatloaf recipe, and found one that looked good. Yeah, not so much. It's basically salsa-flavored HAMBURGER. :( FAIL. I've been assured that they'll still eat my hamburger meatloaf, but uggh I feel awful about it.

Anyway...in other news, I'm gearing up for some fundraisers for the 3 Day. I've got some great ideas, so stay tuned for news about that, including maybe a raffle or two on here.

A lovely weekend!

2010-01-24T19:38:00.002-06:00

We rested, we got outside, we had fun...it was a great weekend!

On Friday, I weighed in for the DFW Area Mom's Biggest Loser competition, and am down 4.2 lbs this week. Go me!

Friday night I hosted an MNI (Mom's Night In) at my house, and a wonderful group of ladies came. We had so much fun...we played a game and talked and laughed all night long. It was awesome!

Saturday, we didn't leave the house even once. It felt weird, since I am so used to us being on the go, but I enjoyed it anyway, and got my workout in. D was in an EXCEPTIONAL mood, and we just had THE best day at home. He was sweet, and funny, and goofy (but not over wild goofy), and gah...I *heart* my kid.

Until he woke up today in an arguing mood. lol Yay! Ok I still *heart* him, but I also considered pitching him out a window a few times. Maybe just a first floor one?

Anyway, we still had a lovely day, I was just definitely ready for him to be in the bed tonite. We hit up Campion Trails for a 3.5 mile walk, and then joined some friends for lunch and a movie. We saw The Tooth Fairy, which was quite cheesy, but cute. And who doesn't wanna see The Rock with no shirt on??? *drool*. D was in the bed right on time tonite since he did not get a nap, and I did half of my workout. After the workout on Saturday and the walk this morning, I was feeling weak so only did one set. But that's ok, tomorrow is a rest day for my muscles, and then Tuesday night, my trainer comes back!

The choices we make...

2010-01-20T22:56:00.002-06:00

I had the option and the opportunity to grab fast food this evening. Well, I guess I always have the option...but anyway, yeah, I had a chance to. And a very valid one to most people. I think a lot of people would have been like yeah that's understandable. But I pushed past it.

We took dinner out to a friend who recently had surgery, and stayed longer than I intended. That led to us getting home around 7:45. I very easily could have grabbed fast food instead of worrying about cooking or eating at home. But I wanted, really wanted, to rise above that. So we came home, and had cereal for dinner. lol Hey, its not fast food! I ended up having some toast with I Can't Believe Its Not Butter and some parmesan cheese, later this evening, as I was low on cals. I just kept thinking, that I have foods in my house that I do want sometimes in the evening, like the cereal and the parmesan toast, but I can never have them since I'm usually at my cal limit already. So I was able to HAVE those tonite since I didn't eat other crap. It worked!

This was also great for me considering it was a stressful day. D had another seizure today at school, and those days are hard. It took every bit of control I had in me, to not leave work right then and go get him. But I knew he was ok and that there was nothing I could do. I just couldn't comfort myself with knowing he was with me, nor could I comfort him, which does leave you feeling pretty helpless!

Kick butt and take names?

2010-01-19T23:59:00.001-06:00

Not yet...LOL but I think I've found just the right trainer to help make it happen!

My trainer came by tonite and we ended up doubling all my sets, plus adding in reverse crunches, and last week, had already upped my weights. It was a great workout! She's not a Jillian Michaels so doesn't holla at you or anything. But she definitely inspires me to keep going, and doesn't let me slack with it along the way! And she even does the workout with me! How's that for inspiring?

Check out her website if you need some help accomplishing some fitness goals, getting into fitness for the first time, or just need some help gettin a great looking butt!

http://www.wellnessformama.com

I did good for dinner tonite. I've been CRAVING Red, Hot and Blue's pulled pork nachos, so...I made my own healthier version! I used baked tostitos scoops, pulled pork that I'd let sit in the crockpot overnight, some Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce, reduced fat shredded cheese, and fat free sourcream. Oh and PLENTY of salsa!! MMMMMMMMMMM It wasn't near the size of the portion that Red, Hot and Blue gives, but it was just perfect! (Though, it does help that I knew Janie was comin over, and didn't want to be puking during the workout, so that REALLY helps keep portion sizes down!!)

Manic Monday

2010-01-18T23:59:00.002-06:00

So...today is a holiday. Martin Luther King Day to be exact. I knew it was a school holiday but was sure that D's afterschool care would be open, and hadn't heard otherwise. Yeah, not so much. We showed up to a dark, locked down church. And D got to join mommy at work. He LOVED that, except for one point he said "mommy, this is just boring" lol that's life, kiddo.

He made it til about 11am, which was fine. I was able to at least get SOME work done. We headed out from there to enjoy the rest of our day. And of course, we enjoyed the nice weather! Well, my allergies didn't enjoy it much, but the rest of me did.

I did great on food today, despite the abrupt schedule change. We had sandwiches and apple slices at Beth's house for lunch, while hanging out with them. And then cooked one of my E-mealz over there...beef and broccoli...YUM!! I had been wanting to try it, but was abit overwhelmed at the amount of meat. It CALLS for 1/2 a lb. But its sold in a little over a lb packages. Don't laugh, I really do get overwhelmed very easily in this. So we made it a fun dinner with all of us, and now that I've DONE the meal, I feel more comfortable with splitting that meat up, or just cooking all of it at once. Progress is good!

Starting over weekend

2010-01-17T23:59:00.001-06:00

Well, it felt like it anyway. We hit the trail for a bit this morning (the first trail walk of the new year), and only did 2 miles, but to me, it felt like I had basically started completely over in walking. I felt every one of those footsteps, and every pound that I have gained. I hate that feeling! But I'm using it as more encouragement to get back into the 3-4 mile walks every other day or so...esp as it starts staying light longer, and the weather changes some.

We had a busy, active weekend tho, which felt great. On Saturday, D had a dentist appt, which he did pretty good at. After that we walked around the mall a bit, met some friends for lunch (my eat out day!!! We did Aparicios which is some delicious mexican food!), and then spent 3 hours at IKEA. Yeah, 3 hours. And then we hit up a house party for a bit to top off the night! We ate there, so only ate out once on Sat.

Today was just as busy. We had the 2 mile walk in the morning, then lunch at my grandma's. After lunch, we hit up the zoo for a couple of hours! We did eat out again for dinner (Jasons Deli tho, and both of us can eat there for 10 bucks or less). And then this evening, we joined my best friend and her little boy for a grown-up (although PG) movie. We didn't get home til late, but it sure was fun!

Whose idea was this???

2010-01-15T23:11:00.002-06:00

So, my trainer came by on Tuesday night, and we discussed upping my light weights from 3 lbs to 5 lbs. Well, I worked out Thursday night with the 3 lb weights, and really, yeah, they are too light now. So I decided to do my workout again tonite. Mainly because I doubt I'll do it tomorrow (Saturday) and I don't want to miss two days in a row. And I decided to use the 5 lbs weight. Yeah...I struggled. It's amazing what just 2 extra lbs in each hand will do! For the most part, it wasn't awful, but in the shoulder raises, I barely made all my reps!!! It doesn't help that I do those reps while standing on one leg. lol I have a feeling, I'm going to be a bit sore. BUT, it's done. YAY.

Dinner tonite would have been SO easy to pick up something again, but I thought ahead this morning. I pulled the container of baked ziti that I set aside last week from the freezer and let it defrost all day. So...we had a yummy, easy dinner of baked ziti, salad, and garlic bread (bread with "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" spray, garlic salt, and a bit of reduced fat parmesan cheese).

Tomorrow is eat out day, woohoo!!! I made it another full week of no eating out!!

E-mealz Fantastic Enchiladas

2010-01-14T19:13:00.002-06:00

Ok, I'm no Pioneer Woman, so these pics are not great at all. But I really wanted to document these and the recipe. Tonite's dinner was another E-mealz.com wonder. Fantastic Enchiladas. First of all, they smelled DIVINE. OMG my whole house just made me drool. These are creamy, with a bit of spice to them, and both D and I devoured them. I purposely made exactly enough for us because I had a feeling they would be dangerous. D cleaned his plate too! The meal plan actually called for a side of tortilla chips, but I decided I wanted a 3rd enchilada instead, so no chips for us! This was plenty!

Ingredients:

Inside Mixture:
1/2lb cooked/drained extra lean ground beef
1/2 cup thawed frozen spinach
1/2 cup salsa
4oz (half a package) of fat free cream cheese, cubed
dash of cumin
dash of salt

Other:
6 Fat free Tortillas
1 cup salsa
1 cup shredded 2% cheddar cheese

Mix ground beef, spinach, 1/2 cup of salsa, cumin, salt, and cream cheese in a saucepan until heated through. It should look like this:

Spoon 1/3rd cup of mixture into each flour tortilla, roll up tightly and put in lightly greased pan. I made 6 but had enough for 7. Pour a cup of salsa over top and spread all over.

See our plates? Cute, huh?

Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes to heat through, then spread shredded cheese on top and put back in oven to let cheese melt. Enjoy!!!

More lessons learned and a bittersweet moment...

2010-01-13T20:06:00.003-06:00

We decided to skip Awanas for D tonite so that I could go grocery shopping and continue to make sure I'm doing ok on food without eating out. Next week, I think I'll be more prepared with food that D and I can eat on the way to church, but this week, I needed the freedom to not have to be anywhere. I just don't want to chance relying on fast food right now!

I did good again at the store. Stuck to my E-mealz list, plus food for lunches and breakfast. Right now, for breakfasts, I'm doing oatmeal and fruit. And then a frozen meal with some kind of addition to it (more fruit, nuts, something like that) for lunch, and then a yogurt for an afternoon snack. Then whatever I cook for dinner. Tonite I chose the Hawaiian Bacon Pizza to make. But...I don't do bbq sauce or pineapples on my pizza, so...I made bacon/spinach/cheddar pizza and added a salad on the side...lol It was YUM but I ate too much...:( Totally killed it on portion size. I'm still "ok" on calories but I was disappointed in myself. I should have wrapped the rest of the pizza up IMMEDIATELY and stowed it away...oh well, another lesson learned.

Funny story though. On the way home from the store, D asked what we were having for dinner, and I told him I was going to make pizza. He goes "how bout we order it?". And I told him, no...we're going to eat at home and Mommy is going to make it. He asked me why, and I said "so we can make our bodies stronger and healthier, with better food. You want to be STRONG, right?" He goes "yeah! I'ma lift sumthing!!" lol Silly boy. But it's also bittersweet to me.

I've made sure the last 3 years that D be very much exposed to veggies, as I didn't want him growing up like I did, and he has no problem downing bowls of steamed broccoli/carrots/asparagus, whatever. But the fact that he immediately assumes we need to order or eat out, hurts me. So I'm glad I'm doing this, he's one of my biggest motivations.

A new week of Emealz

2010-01-12T23:59:00.002-06:00

I was excited today to get this next week's Emealz. And it turns out, the recipes look pretty good! One or two, I'm not real sure about, but I'm definitely willing to give em a shot. I can't wait to go grocery shopping this evening and get all the items together, then figure out what I can go ahead and cook ahead of time. That REALLY saved me last week, getting several meals mostly done at once. We enjoyed the baked ziti I'd already cooked tonite for dinner with a salad.

I'm happy to say that I've lost 8 lbs (8 LBS!!!!) since last Tuesday, and have only eaten out once in that timespan. Go me! I'm planning on the same thing this week, eating in all week, and enjoying a meal out on Saturday. I think this could really work! I'm excited to see how the weight keeps going with this.

My trainer came over this evening and I got in a great workout with her. I hadn't seen her since before the holidays so it was a much needed visit. We're getting back into regular weekly sessions so that should start showing in the weight loss as well.

Glad to have a meal plan

2010-01-11T23:59:00.002-06:00

I'm keeping this short and simple since I'm about to go to bed, but I'm SO glad I already had most of a meal ready for tonite. Some late afternoon stressing about D could have made my eating go downhill, but just knowing that I had that there, kept me from saying screw it all and grabbing fast food. I feel like this past week, I've been presented with all the different situations that might make me bomb in eating, and so far I'm pulling through it. That gives me confidence to keep going in this. And I like that.

Another tough situation conquered

2010-01-10T23:59:00.000-06:00

In the past with the diet, I dreaded weekends. With us being so much on the go, its hard to not cave to it and grab fast food. Plus, on Sundays at my grandma's, you never know what she's going to make, BUT its reasonable to assume there will be butter involved. It's all good home cooking.

So, I've been good all week, was good yesterday on Saturday, and here comes today. But...I made a plan. I can't control what my grandma makes, but I most assuredly could control what I eat there. And while it was still semi-higher in cals, I did good on portions, and even turned down dessert.

We had a scheduled playdate after that, which could have been a toss up on eating. But it was at least at the other person's house, not at like a McD's or CFA. And I already had that baked ziti I'd made this past week, defrosting in the fridge. Planning ahead is a wonderful thing, isn't it? So our playdate was at 2, I grabbed a Sonic unsweet Iced Tea beforehand to tied me over (D had a small snack there). We left a bit after 5 and were home by 6 to eat dinner and get D in the bed. It worked out great! And while at times my thoughts did turn to grabbing fast food on the way home, knowing I already HAD food ready to go there, was a huge help.

So yay...weekend 1 of the New Year...conquered. Done deal.

Eat out day...and go Cowboys!

2010-01-09T22:40:00.000-06:00

The Cowboys just won against the Eagles (AGAIN, YEAH!), and I am ecstatic. But this evening was much more than that. I decided we were going to go out to eat this evening, since we did great all week. Well, we went to Buffalo Wild Wings to eat with some friends. I prepared for it. I ate a light lunch, and planned out my calories well ahead of time for what I wanted to get, and stuck to it. BUT I was also faced with a tough decision. As the Cowboy game started at BWW, my friends had to head out to go to a Moms Night Out painting thing. I had two choices. 1) Stay at BWW with just D, watching the game...or 2) Go home and watch it. The problem with Number 1. If we had stayed there, just the two of us, the odds of me ordering more food, went WAY UP. I did so good with ordering what I had planned on. I got the Grilled Chicken Buffalitos (basically, grilled chicken tacos, no sauce, just ranch on the side which I didn't use much of it, I mainly dipped it in the salsa), and they were fantastic.

So...we made the best decision, I believe. We left BWW when Casey and Shana did, grabbed a "bessert" as D calls it, from Braums, and headed home. I had room in my cals for a little treat, just not what I would have eaten if we had stayed at the restaurant...lol That was definitely the right thing to do for tonite. And the Cowboys pulled off the win!

Pieces of a puzzle

2010-01-08T21:14:00.002-06:00

So I'm starting to figure out how some of these food puzzle pieces fit together. I've made some realizations the last few days of some things, and I'm liking it. This evening (after letting the pork loin cook all night in the crockpot, and then tossing it in the fridge this morning), I took half of it, shredded it and mixed in some Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ Sauce, added some scalloped potatoes and a salad with fat free ranch, and ooooooooooooh boy was it DELISH! I had two servings of bbq pork. Holy cow, it was so tender! That will definitely be in our regular rotation now. The other half of the pork is going to be bbq sandwiches at some point either over the weekend or early next week. And that's what I love about this! The key thing, is that these recipes are keeping it manageable for me, so I don't get overwhelmed and go straight back to the crap food.

Tonite marks 5 straight days of eating dinner at home. I'm so proud of myself!! Monday for lunch was a breakfast burrito and a banana at Sonic, but other than that, I've not eaten out even ONCE this week!!! Go me! So, this weekend, I'm planning to go somewhere out to eat with D, maybe during the Cowboy game to go watch it, I dunno. But this might work, to eat out once on weekends, and be good during the week. I like it! And can't wait to get the new Emealz menu on Tuesday to see what is coming up next!

In other news...AF is wrecking havoc right now, which I am NOT happy about as its curtailing a lot of the working out I want to do to go with the better eating. But hopefully, it will ease up by Sunday, and D and I can get in a good walk. And if this chest cold/allergies/drainage would clear up, I'd be SET. I am SO freaking tired of coughing, and esp with AF! Bad timing, very bad timing. BUT, if AF and a nasty cough/cold are all that I have wrong with me, I'm doing pretty darn good.

Oh goodness...

2010-01-07T21:03:00.002-06:00

So...grocery shopping with a good list yesterday. Today...I modified one of the recipes into something even healthier but SO much more delicious. And then this evening...I put a freakin pork loin into the crockpot. The world might just be ending. lol

First, our meal tonite...was going to be "Easy Beans and Rice". It consisted of a mixture of ground beef, black beans, and Rotel, served over rice, with fat free sour cream on top, and then a side of Baked Tostitos Scoops. But the rice just didn't sound appealing to me. So I threw the tostitos on a plate, and topped it with some of the beef/beans, then added abit of 2% milk mozzarella cheese, and added the fat free sour cream on top. Instant nachos! A side of sliced oranges completed the meal, and both D and I thought it was a huge success! Score one for mommy! (Can you tell I was proud of myself?? lol) And saved probably around 100 calories by eliminating the rice. Woo!

TWO of the Emealz for this week include shredded pork. So tonite, I busted out the crockpot that NEVER gets used, and tossed a pork loin in it.

Now all this sounds very simple, but to me, this is HUGE for me. The majority of our meals consisted of processed foods, boxed meals, drive through, eating out, etc, and so this is a novelity to me, to really be putting together foods. And while a lot of this is probably nothing to most people, it's big to me. I'm not saying I'm going to completely cut out the rest as I love to eat out and be social, but at least I'm enjoying this cooking stuff. So...progress is good. And yummy too. *grin*

Proud of me!

2010-01-06T22:38:00.003-06:00

Today I decided to sign up for E-mealz.com. It's $5 a month and it basically sends you a dinner menu plan for 5 days every week, complete with grocery list! I figured it was only $5, that'd be worth it to test it out. I ended up choosing the Lowfat Walmart option for 2 people. So I got my menu plan for this week and really liked it! I went shopping tonite and got everything, plus the staples it asks for, and then stuff for my lunches, D's lunches, and snacks.

We got home a bit late, and sadly enough, even with all those groceries in the car, I still considered grabbing a quick dinner on the way home...lol But I held off that impulse. Our first meal tonite was "Cheaters Chicken and Dumplings". It certainly wasn't my grandma's dumplings, but it was passable and we both filled our tummies.

The part I'm proud of the most, is that I went ahead tonite and made two MORE of the meals, and got them ready to go in the fridge, withOUT eating them! lol One is baked ziti which is a weakness of mine with all that cheese. And then the other used part of the meat from the ziti in a beans and rice dish. They are currently all cooling on my counter. One thing I like about this, is that since they are geared towards two people, its not huge amounts of food, so I have less risk of overeating. That's HUGE.

Needless to say, no workout tonite, as I've been moving around all evening and just now sat down (plus a load of laundry, load of dishes and cleaned my kitchen up after all that cooking!). AF started today so the rest of the week/weekend will be interesting but we'll see how it goes. At least I have a few meals made to tide us over, and the food for several MORE meals!!! Woohoo!

Day two down...wavered bigtime but came back strong...

2010-01-05T22:07:00.002-06:00

I did really good today despite leaving my tunafish for my lunch at home. Disappointing, sure, but I worked it out, and made up for the protein lack in both my snack and dinner.

My biggest wavering though, came at the grocery store this evening. Originally, dinner was going to be made FOR us in return for some computer work. But that got canceled, and I had no meat thawed or anything, so we went to the store to get salad stuff, and ground turkey. Well I always get the 93/7 tube of turkey, and they HAD NONE...and the 83/15 turkey was a dollar more. I was like crap...went to look at ground beef...the 93/7 of that is TWICE as much as the turkey...so...we went wandering around the store. I kept thinking, well maybe I could make something else, went down the canned chili aisle, the pasta aisle...skirted REALLY close to getting so frustrated that I almost said screw it and went with standard crap food. I was already off track since original dinner plans were sunk. But finally I made myself go back to the meat section...and get the 85/15 turkey (I prefer ground turkey now which is why I wanted to stick with that) Yeah...it was a few more cals...but I stuck to my menu plan...we had chili and salad for dinner...so proud of myself!!!!

I didn't get in a work out tonite but I did do my devotional. (And the next TWO nights will be workout nights so I'm good).

Overall today, I felt stronger with my choices. I have very few choices to make with this plan, so the ones I CAN make, make me feel empowered. And I like that.

Day one down, some lessons learned

2010-01-04T20:32:00.002-06:00

Well, today was the first day of my official DOWN year. I weighed in this morning and it was not a pretty picture at ALL. I don't even know if I want to post it on here yet...lol I did tell my trainer though.

I did decent on eating, but learned that I am definitely a people pleaser. I didn't stand up for myself assertively in a situation today and it led to me struggling quite a bit this evening. I am so thankful that I made those meal plans, as I was able to stick to it for dinner, and not cave in to my cravings due to me not wanting to decide on dinner. I've learned that too many choices, is no bueno for me. I need NO choices or as few as possible. So I do think that the plan I made for eating is going to work very well. I'm also working on having a few "contingency plans" in a note on my phone. Basically, a few fast food places, the one or two things that are healthier there, and calorie counts for them, plus calorie counts for the "bad" things I want at those, to keep me from wanting those. lol Since we are out and about so much, or on road trips, etc, I want to make sure I'm prepared for the event that we'd need to stop somewhere.

I got in 20 minutes of cardio earlier, as well as 20 minutes of my devotional book, plus I'm still working on decluttering my house. Two big bags of stuff got taken to the Collin Cty Children's Advocacy Center's drop off today, and I have lots more to go!

All in all, it was good day. I really felt strong most of the day itself in what I am doing, and though this evening has been tough craving-wise, I've been coping with it well. On to day two!

Our New Years Weekend

2010-01-03T22:53:00.002-06:00

So we hit up Oklahoma City from New Years Eve til today to see my dad, his wife Liz, and family up there. We had a great time, and stayed busy, so I'll just summarize our long weekend.

New Years Eve: played in the snow (the drifts left from CHRISTMAS and the 14 inches they got), got reacquainted with Molly (the dog). We then hit up the OKC Thunder vs Utah Jazz game. Right before the game, someone my dad knows invited us into their suite. Well, part way through the game, the mascot Rumble came into our suite! He did scare the bejeebies out of us by slamming the door, but D was in HEAVEN that he got to meet him!!! It was totally the highlight of the trip for him. After that, we hit up downtown to see the ball go up and the fireworks at midnight. Happy New Year, y'all!!!

New Years Day: D and I slept REALLY late...lol it was nice. After that, my half brother/his wife, and half sister joined us for a New Years Day lunch complete with blackeyed peas. There was quite a bit more snow play after that, plus a visit by my grandma's house up there. And once it got darker, we went to go see Christmas lights, specifically a street that has 15 houses set to lights, so amazing! Then back to the house to put D to bed, and the adults played some Farkle!

Jan 2nd: Off to drive by the Train museum (which was closed so we just drove through it), and then to the Firefighters Museum. It was neat to see the old fire engines. D ate his weight in pizza after that...lol and then later, he helped Liz make a cake for my dad, and then we watched my dad play some soccer! And finally, we hit up that chocolate cake (since we left early today), so D could sing to him, and after D was in bed, more Farkle! (I won that game...lol woohoo!)

Jan 3rd: Home, home, again. D and I slept most of the way home while my bro drove. It was uneventful. After that, we had some Chera pics in Deep Ellum, and topped it off with hanging out with Beth and her family for dinner.

This evening I'm getting my mind all set for tomorrow New Year DOWN kickoff. I didn't really have time or $$$ to go big grocery shopping like I had planned on, but I grabbed a few items that will keep me on track for a couple days, so I'm ready to go. My fridge/pantry was already cleaned out mostly, so it too is ready to go. Time to get this new year started off right!

Welcome to 2010

2010-01-01T06:00:00.010-06:00

So here we are. 2009 is done for, and 2010 has just begun. As I posted in my last one, 2009 was so full of ups and downs. Well, I have one goal for 2010. That is, for it to be all downs. Down in weight, down in eating, down in spending, down the trails, with blessings coming DOWN from Heaven, and down on my knees in prayer. Down is the key word this year.

With that in mind, I am writing DOWN some plans for all this.

1) Down with weight/eating: I have been working on set meal plans. 12 set meals that I rotate every 2 weeks, leaving one day a week for eating out. Once a month, I will remove a recipe if we are really tired of one, and add in a new one to the rotation. 2 of the meals are ones that can be frozen, taken out, nuked and eaten in the car (fully portable) to help us not rely on fast foods for Wednesday church. The meals aren't necessarily super healthy BUT I will be modifying them with healthier things as I go. The key for me was to get the meals down on paper (well, spreadsheet) with the key ingredients to more easily make shopping lists. This will also help with spending as we won't be eating out near as much.

2) Down the trails: As the days get longer again, we will be starting up our evening walks, as well as starting back the early Saturday morning long walks. I miss those dearly, and really enjoyed having that time for reflection, prayer, communion with nature, and it just felt good. I also have planned several half marathons, and one 10K, plus various 5Ks thrown in, as I can afford it. I definitely am planning on both of the H&H Halfs, one in May and one in September, plus I would like to do the Rock N Roll Half if I can afford it before it sells out (assuming it will, it might not though). And in part with this: down on the floor. I will be continuing with my personal training with Janie, and working to enhance my body as the weight comes off.

3) Down in prayer: one thing I have also slacked on lately has been my devotionals, my Bible reading, aspects of my spiritual life that I feel are vital to my wellbeing. I have two devotionals already that I kept "intending" to do, and will be starting the first one "Lord, is it warfare? Teach me to stand." on January 4th. I'm going to treat it like spiritual exercise, alternating nights with my workout.

SO there you have it. All my plans for this new year. I will be starting this on January 4th, which is a Monday. The majority of Jan 3rd will be spent cleaning out my fridge and pantry, along with a grocery shopping trip to stock up on the good foods.

I can't wait to get going on this! I have a feeling that this year is going to have quite a few surprises, but I'm praying they are all good ones, as I continue along this journey.

As 2009 comes to a close...

2009-12-28T12:01:00.002-06:00

2009 was such an up and down year. It was the year that I trained really hard for something and actually completed it. It was also the year I gained back most of what I had lost. It was a year of strengthening friendships, testing bonds, and letting some things go that just don't matter.

A big portion of the first of this year was wrapped up in health issues for D. He had his surgery, then the hell of the months with the sponge up in his sinuses. Countless doctor visits and another surgery for tubes and to clean all that out, as well as lots of worry over if his hearing would be permanently affected, were to follow. I am happy to say that the second half of 2009 has been great for him for that. Aside from minor allergies still, he's been healthy enough (aside from a bout of bronchitis we both had).

Then, my little man started kindergarten. He looked so grown up and I was so nervous for him. I'm very fortunate that so far they seem to be handling him wonderfully. They've made modifications in the classroom to help him out, and he's not just being set aside. I'm very grateful for that. You can tell he's learning so much, new letters ALL the time. And lately he's been spelling things constantly. He might actually read before middle school! lol

It was also a big birthday year. I turned the Dirty 30 this year and enjoyed an amazing trip with one of my best friends to New Orleans, with no D! I will never forget that trip.

I learned a lot about myself this year, and have grown immensely. We started training in May for the half marathon. Training for that, which I completed in September, was rigorous. We had lots of early morning weekend walks (that I want to get back into). I found out that I could definitely do that once I put my mind to it. It was one of the biggest mental challenges I'd ever faced. Sure, a lot of it WAS a physical challenge. But at mile 9ish when my feet were killing me, and I didn't think I could go a bit further, somehow I managed to stand up and keep going. I want to feel that again, I want to experience that again. But more on that in my 2010 post. I think finishing the half was very anticlimactic for me afterward and I lost a lot of my vision for it. Because I had such awful shoe/foot problems that I had not been having before, it was a bit of a letdown. And I let that kill my determination. But no longer. I'm bringing that back!

So here I am, half way through my 30th year on this earth. Someone on DAM asked us to rate 2009 on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the best. I put 4 at the time I answered. And after thinkin about it, I stand by that. 2009 has definitely had plenty of crap happen, lots of stuff that I'd rather never see again, but...we do have a roof over our head, food in our tummies, and I have one sweet kiddo who drives me nuts half the time, but whom I wouldn't trade for the world. I am blessed.

This will be my last post of 2009, so stay tuned for a post on Jan 1st about my goals/thoughts/and plans for 2010. I'm excited about the possibilities! I pray that all of you had a wonderful Christmas, and have a marvelous New Years! Stay safe, stay happy, stay healthy, and most of all, stay in prayer!!!

Merry Christmas!!!

2009-12-27T01:13:00.002-06:00

I hope everyone had a wonderful, joyous Christmas!

We got to experience a "Texas blizzard". On Christmas Eve, we headed to my aunts house, about 45 miles away from us, and it was snowing. By the time we left 3 hours later, we were in full assault. A trip that typically takes less than an hour, ended up taking us 2 hours to get home. But we were blessed in many ways. Several overpasses were blocked already due to cars sliding, but we found the one that was not too bad. And while I had to take a detour into downtown, it worked out because I missed a BAD overpass and was able to get back on the highway with no issues. But other than that, we had a nice Christmas Eve with family.

We woke up Christmas morning to snow on the ground still. I was determined this year that D and I would have Christmas morning at OUR house. And I had asked my best friend if she would take D shopping with a bit of money from me, so he could pick some things out for me to open. D loved his gifts, and I loved getting to experience that with him.

After that we headed to my other aunts house for Christmas Day brunch which was also the one time a year I see my mom. And then we headed to my best friends house for Christmas dinner. There was lots of laughter, lots of kiddos running around screaming, it was hectic, but it was a blast, and I wouldn't have missed that for the world. Even got to get my baby fix in. *heart* It was, while not without its issues, an overall great day, and we topped it off with a special RAK.

This weekend, I took a few big steps in some things, a few great strides emotionally for me, and the rewards I felt from those, let me know it was well worth the effort. The Christmas spirit was alive and well in my heart this weekend. :)

Today felt a bit like a let down though, with it all being over. We bummed around the house all day, and then met a friend for dinner and then made a Target run, so it was a quiet day for us. D slept until 10am!!! That is SO unheard of for him! But he didn't get to sleep til about midnite, so he needed it. He also took a GREAT nap! It was, all in all, a day to recover from the festivities, and prepare for all that this next week and the new year will bring. I'm currently preparing a post about some plans I have for 2010 and I'm very excited about it. The goal this next year will be to get this weight off once and for all!

Another quiet weekend

2009-12-21T16:31:00.002-06:00

The title is pretty self explanatory. We did get out and about a bit, but got in some good rest too. We did hit up Santa's Village on Sunday evening for it's last night with Beth and her family. We had a great time! D did good, with NO STROLLER, even! I was impressed. I mean, he was still D...still had some minor things, lots of reminders, etc, but for him, it was great. lol

My workout is getting easier still, so I think I need to have my trainer bump up my reps again or something. I like the feeling of my body adjusting to it, and I like feeling strong. Now to get the fat off so I LOOK strong too, not squishy. lol

I've done ok with eating as well, so I think tomorrow I might actually have a loss from last week. Woohoo!!! I just need to keep sucking down my water today to combat salt intake...lol

Good workout yesterday!

2009-12-16T21:07:00.000-06:00

I got in two sessions. One was a walk at the Galleria at lunch, and while it was still only 3 times around (on my lunch break, and roughly 1.5 miles) it was at a much faster pace than I am used to since my trainer was with me and uhhhh, she doesn't cut me much slack...lol I got back to work completely redfaced, but it was a good feeling.

Then yesterday evening I went through my workout with the increased reps and timing as last week when I struggled so bad (ESPECIALLY with the bridges), and I was able to skim through them easily. However...today I paid for it. My whole backside was sore all.day.long. I could barely sit most of today! I keep repeating that it's a good pain. Ouch! But I'ma do it all over again tomorrow. It's been interesting to see my body adjust so quickly. I knew that it typically DOES, but I've never done this kind of training in order to really see it. Most of mine in the past has been straight cardio. So I'm enjoying it, despite the soreness. My trainer gave me good tools for stretching too, so that does help some.

I'm still struggling to get back on eating. I will say, I have NOT done too bad these last two days, despite all the crap up at work. There were one or two things that I had a small bite of and left alone otherwise, and some things I just had to say "no thanks" to. It's gonna be a rough couple weeks though at least up at work, eating-wise. I'm ready for the new year to be here so things will settle down!

A quiet weekend

2009-12-14T20:06:00.002-06:00

It was AF having WAY too much fun, so we didn't do a whole lot the last few days. Thursday and Friday nights we joined Beth and her boys to go see Christmas lights. We had such a fun time!!

Saturday morning, I took D to a Behavioral Center for a consultation. We were there almost 2 hours, and I think it was a good visit. I can't wait for him to start some of the things they are recommending and see the plan they are drawing up. The rest of the day was quiet as AF was being a pain, so I just chilled and worked on the teacher's gifts I'm making for Christmas.

Sunday we didn't do much else except for a couple of store visits for things to finish the teacher gifts with.

Tomorrow is a weigh-in and I'm dreading it after AF this week. :( I don't think I've gained but I sure haven't lost. I haven't eaten that great this week either. I did get in one extra workout aside from Tuesdays, but not the 2 I need. So will have to buckle down this next week. I'm so glad AF is about gone so I can go for a good walk at lunch tomorrow!

Planning for next year

2009-12-10T14:43:00.002-06:00

I've been thinkin about some of the things I want to do next year, walking/running related at least. Here's a list of them:

March - Rock N Roll Half
April - Tyler Azalea 10K
May - HEELS AND HILLS HALF
September - HEELS AND HILLS AND HIM HALF
October - Great Urban Race - Fort Worth

I thought about the OKC Half but it is literally the weekend before the H&H Half and I just don't see that happening, and I'm not willing to miss the H&H Half.

So that's my big race plan so far. I'm sure there will be plenty of 5Ks thrown in there too, and we'll see how the year goes. I'm excited about the possibilities though esp as I continue with the trainer.

And speaking of, I had a good session with my trainer on Tuesday evening. She only had to correct a few things in my form, but otherwise I had decent form on most of the exercises. We even bumped up a few things for my 3 times a week workout. Weight did go back up today thanks to AF, but it's not too bad, and I know it will go back down. I'm just making sure to stay hydrated, drinking LOTS of water!

Gettin there

2009-12-08T10:01:00.002-06:00

Still a bit sick, yucky cough, but overall I'm feeling ok. My personal trainer comes back tonite and I'm happy to report I've lost 7.2 lbs this week. That may not last long as AF showed up today (oh joy), so I expect it to go up a tad, but at least by next week, it should have evened out.

I'm glad I backed out of the White Rock Half when I did, as it is this coming Sunday. No way would I be able to do it with AF here! Just want to say GOOD LUCK to my friends who are doing the Full, Half, and Relays!!! I'll be thinking about you guys!

Feeling somewhat better

2009-12-06T20:01:00.002-06:00

This was the first morning in a week that I didn't wake up feeling like I was choking. You can tell some of the infection is slowly going away. I still have issues with my voice, and a yucky cough, but this is much progress.

We had a decent weekend though I slept most of Saturday, lol. I only got up finally to feed D some lunch, then we both took naps. It was very much needed rest for me! After that, we got our 3 year old houseguest who spent the night with us, and I put up our Christmas tree while the two boys played. I didn't get much sleep but part of that was my own fault for not going to bed til 1245am and part of that was my 5 year old who woke up at 6am and was WIGGLY after that. Sheeesh. Good thing I got all that sleep on Saturday!

We had a fun Sunday today. However, we were a bit disappointed in a planned trip to take cookies to a nursing home and visit with the residents. First, the activity director forgot we were coming so was not there to greet us. Then, the staff acted like we were in the way. It def felt like they were understaffed and couldn't spare anyone to show us around, or even help us out. We could have wandered the halls ourselves but had we just started handing out cookies, we had no way of knowing who was diabetic, who was on a special diet, etc. So we stood around awkwardly for a bit and finally left. :( After that, we had a yummy late breakfast at Denny's, where D ate the whole restaurant. He needs to finish this growth spurt! After a Heels and Hills Run Team late lunch, we did a quick RAK, and then headed to see Santa! D was quite excited that he had a reindeer there too, and loved getting to pet it.

This evening I did my workout to make my 3rd one for the week. I finally managed to find the foam roller that my trainer asked I get so used that too. And now just mentally prepping for the week ahead. It's gonna be a good one!

Day 2 and 3

2009-12-03T23:27:00.003-06:00

And still sick! I ended up having to miss work today due to it, and it sucks. I wish my meds would kick in a little faster! But I have some decent cough meds now so we'll see how things go. I really hope this is mostly gone by this weekend as we have some fun plans!

This afternoon, I had a bit of energy come about so I decided to do the workout plan that my trainer gave me. She said to do it 3 times a week, so I could either schedule specific days or I could do it every other day, etc. I figure I'll just plan to do it every other day for now. None of it is really cardio so I can do it without being able to breath that well, though there is an add'l cardio component that I will start doing as I feel better. I felt a bit weak during it, but just made sure to take it slow, make sure I was getting my form correct, and concentrating on the muscles. Afterward, I had NO energy again, but felt good that I got it done. After Tuesday's workout on it, yesterday, I started out not really sore but as the day progressed it got worse. Thankfully by late last night, it wasn't bad again. So we'll see how tomorrow goes.

My food intake has been good but mainly because I don't have much of an appetite. Last night I made some healthyish enchiladas from Beth's recipe: lean ground turkey, whole wheat tortillas, 2% milk cheese. They were good! But today was simple foods because of my throat. I had chicken soup, a banana, some mac n cheese. All very bland things.

So *cough**cough**hack**hack* off I go to bed. Maybe I'll get some good sleep tonite. Or not.

A new month, almost a new year, and a new beginning

2009-12-01T23:41:00.003-06:00

Its December 1st...and I've come to the realization that I've now gained back most of what I had lost. I decided a few weeks ago to start with a personal trainer, and found an awesome chick who was willing to, well, personal train me. We had our first session this evening, did all the first stuff like weight, measurements, etc, plus a full run through of my plan. I knew from this mornings weigh-in (I had not weighed since the half marathon over two months ago), that it was going to be bad, so I was prepared. But I sure am not happy about it. So I am using this as further motivation. Our session went really well! She has a plan for me all drawn up, that I will be doing 3 days a week, and its going to WORK ME. I feel really good about it tonite though. Like I'm abit achy, but its a GOOD achy, I feel energized. So I can't wait to see where this goes!

I'll start posting updates again, so might as well get real here. I started this whole process over a year and a half ago at what I think was 350-360 lbs. I don't know for certain as I didn't have a scale at the time, but based on where I am now, and knowing I'm not quite back to that yet (we originally assumed 330), that's my best guess. In a sense I feel like I'm starting over, and in many ways I am.

Starting weight today: 335.8 lbs.

I'm not sure whether or not I will start posting food intake on here again, it gets tedious to do it in two places. But I am going to start counting cals again tomorrow on my phone. And I will keep posting my weight every week, I think. We'll see, I need to tweak it as I go.

That's all for tonite, I'm also battling an Upper Respiratory Infection, so it's been a few long nights! But hopefully I'll start getting better there too.

Not done with me yet

2009-11-30T14:32:00.000-06:00

I think I can safely say that God has great plans for me, and that He's
not through with me yet. This is evidenced by the accident yesterday.
Looking back on it all, I feel there must have been some angel hands
moving my car, guiding it from flipping over, and from hitting the
retaining wall, then stopping us in the median. Plus slowing down the
other cars that were headed for us. I don't see there can be any other
reasoning why we didn't incur some serious damage.

You know the bumper sticker that says "Never drive faster than your
guardian angel can fly."? I wholeheartedly believe in that. That we
were saved for a purpose, that either I or D has a much greater purpose
here on this earth and that God wants us here longer. You come out of
an accident like that supremely grateful for your very breath of life, a
renewed appreciation for your loved ones (most of em, anyway...lol).

D had been driving me NUTS all morning, just hyper, and at the end of a
long weekend, I was needing a break. But after that, a whole new light
shined on him, and I was able to enjoy him the rest of the day. We had
an art contest at my grandmas, and then I took him to a movie to help
our nerves. I don't know if it was the new attitude about him, or if he
really WAS being this good, but he did GREAT through the movie. Not a
peep was heard from him, and he thanked me on the way out for taking him
to a movie. It was just such a Mommy/Son bonding moment that my eyes
welled up.

I'm probably glamorizing a lot of this, but it's also really hard for me
to describe the accident itself, at least how serious it could have
gone, and how terrified I was at the time. I want to downplay it, but
all night as I relived it in my dreams, I thought about all this stuff,
and just needed to get it written out. I thanked God all night that we
had no damage, no injuries. And will continue to count my blessings!

Thanksgiving has come and gone!

2009-11-30T11:33:00.002-06:00

And what a whirlwind it was!!! I'll skim through the highlights for ya. Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving, I hosted an MNI at my house. Some of my fave chicks came and we had a great time. We played games and watched a movie, lots of laughter and, well, it was just fun!

Thanksgiving was busy! We did the Turkey Trot with my friend Dina, then joined my family for lunch. After that we met up with my best friend and her family for dinner at Cracker Barrel for dinner, then went back to their house to help put up their Christmas tree. We decided to hit up Toys R Us opening for Black Friday at midnight! So we got there at 11 and the line was wrapped around the building. We didn't get out of there til 3am. But, I got D all set for Christmas, and got some good quality time with my girl, so it was worth it.

On Friday, we slept in, and then got in a bit of mall shopping, and then joined Dina and her girls for a yummy dinner. Then we hit up a Dickens Christmas in Mckinney but it was pretty late and by the time they closed, the kiddos were DONE. (But I did take D by Kohls on the way home...lol)

Saturday, was sleeping in again, and then we hit up the Galleria to see the gorgeous Christmas tree, eat some dinner with friends, and walk the mall a bit.

And finally Sunday. Sunday morning, D and I were in an accident. We're ok and sustained no car damage, praise the LORD, but it rattled us both pretty bad. We were coming off a ramp into downtown dallas, hit a slick spot, careened towards a wall, and finally ended up spinning around and going backwards up over a curb onto the grass median. I still am in just amazement that we didn't hit anything or anyone! The rest of the day passed uneventfully. We had lunch at my grandmas, and then I took D to a movie (Planet 51, which was pretty cute) to try to take his mind off things, he was quite edgy and anxious the rest of the day. Neither of us slept good last night and I'm pretty sore today. D hasn't complained but I gave him some Tylenol anyway.

So that was our weekend in a nutshell. It's back to work today, and I can DEF say I am ready for Christmas! I hope all of you had a wonderful blessed Thanksgiving with your family and friends (and friends who are family...lol)

Busy weekend!

2009-11-22T18:48:00.002-06:00

But a fun one. Saturday was THE busiest sat we have had in a while. We were out the house around 8am to head to the Dallas Zoo for the Alzheimers Memory Walk. It was fun! My friend Helen and her family joined us and the boys had a blast! At noon, we headed to Gattitown for a birthday party for my best friends son. I can NOT believe he is 7 now! I remember the day he was born and going to visit Stacy in the hospital. *sniff* The years sure have flown.

After that, we headed to Farmers Branch for Chera pics! I can't wait to see them! And finally after all that, we hit up our first Single Parents Game Night through our new church. It's really hard to enjoy it when D is acting up and you know people don't understand "him" (though I wouldn't expect them to, with us being new). So I ended up leaving after about 1.5 hours, to keep him from going into total meltdown mode, so we could leave on really good terms...lol And NOT have me dragging him out of there screaming. It was great to meet some of the other single parents, I hope to keep being able to join them!

It was a good day overall though, despite D having had blue dye in the birthday cake, and you could DEF tell at the Chera pics. Oy vey.

Today was pretty good. We spent some time at my grandma's for lunch, and then headed to go spend some time with my friend Beth and her family. It wasn't near as busy, but it was just as good of a day, and good to reconnect for a bit. We haven't seen them in awhile and have missed them!

Yay for a Blue Day...or two...

2009-11-19T21:35:00.002-06:00

Ok so D didn't have to get pitched out a window. He got a blue day yesterday and today. Whew! I don't have a clue what all that was about, but at least it seems to be over, for now.

It hasn't been the greatest two days food-wise, but I'm trying. But there was a cookie in there yesterday. And a brownie in there today, and uhhh well...yeah.

On a good note, last night, while D was in Awanas, Teresa and I got in an hour walk at the mall. And this evening, D and I got in a 20 min walk at The Walmarts this evening before doing our shopping. We have Chera pics this weekend so having to get prepared for that. I can't wait! And since Saturday morning is the Alzheimers Memory Walk, we'll have our 3rd hour long day for this week.

Turbulent Tuesday

2009-11-17T23:59:00.001-06:00

I'm gonna need you guys to pray for my child. Because he has now had 3 red days at school in a row, and I'm fixin to pitch him out a window. :( His school is on a color behavior system (blue, green, yellow and red...you can guess which one is badddddd). I'm not sure WHY he's acting out this much, we've had no med changes, no major changes at home, he's been getting his sleep, he already got his 6 year molars. I just am clueless. I did talk to his neuro's nurse yesterday about his meds. We've been on a waitlist for a neurobehavioralist for awhile now, and she's going to see about referring us to one outside of Children's. We'll see how that goes.

Food was a bit crappy today. I ended up not eating breakfast, and had a doughnut that was at work. Blah. That kind of set the pattern for the whole day. I had two tacos and a pintos and cheese for lunch. Then in the afternoon, dill pickle chips. Dinner was ok. I had chicken with ketchup, steamed carrots, and mashed potatoes. And then later in the evening, I had some chips and salsa. Not a "great" day, but definitely could have been worse.

I had wanted to go on a walk again this evening, but with D's red days, I needed to get him home and in the bed. I did get in a 20 min WATP workout in the evening though.

And so, training begins...

2009-11-16T13:55:00.002-06:00

50.5 weeks until I walk the 3 Day. Yes I'm counting down. I need to, I won't be able to do this otherwise, or at least not do it very WELL. And while I have no problem needing to take the sweep van for a few miles of it if absolutely need be, I really would prefer to keep that to a minimum.

So, that said, training begins today, which includes, getting in more walks! On the blog itself, I changed my ticker on the right side here to log miles walked in training for this. I'm also going to take off the weight loss ticker, clean some of my blog lists up, and you'll see a few other minor improvements over the next few weeks to the blog (plus some cute pink stuff show up to be able to donate to the 3Day *grin*)

Food today has been good. I had a cereal bar and some sugarfree hot chocolate (with a shot of coffee in it) for breakfast. I had some pickle chips for a midmorning snack and then a Weight Watchers ziti meal for lunch, and a bottle of Vitamin Water. My afternoon snack is a fat free yogurt. We have to go to the mall tonite so dinner will likely be a CFA chicken strip salad with light italian. Then I think we'll stop by Braums for a kids size orange sherbet to end my day at 1275 calories.

Output: since we'll be at the mall tonite, I'm going to make it an hour workout day with a good walk, after we do the shopping we need to for a picture session this weekend.

Weekend of possibilities and social strides

2009-11-15T21:16:00.002-06:00

Anyone who knows me well at ALL, knows that I do not like social situations. I love them but I don't like them. I get very anxious and nervous. Well, on Friday, I took a leap of faith and put myself out there for a big social encounter, and while I want to hyperventilate about it, I'm actually looking forward to it next weekend. I know I'm gonna be a nervous wreck all week about it, but I'm trusting God that He gave me the courage to step up and step out, that it will be worth it.

Food was not good this weekend. I treated D to IHOP since he was apparently needing pancakes from there. Its hilarious, he's been CRAVIN them apparently. Asked for em all week, then Sat morning while eating his cereal bar, said "raise your hand if you want to go eat pancakes somewhere!" then while at the store that evening (not knowing I had plans to take us there) he goes "so I guess we have to go to ihop"...the boy was seriously feignin!!! lol He ate his eggs, his sausage, all 5 of his silverdollar pancakes AND one of mine (I got the 2x2x2 (2 eggs, 2 bacon strips and 2 pancakes, but gave D one of mine)! And he got offended when I left half of my ONE pancake on the plate. Silly kid. Then, I hosted an MNI at my house last night, some friends came over and we ate pizza, chips and dip, brownies, and watched Tyler Perry movies. We had a great time and they were over til about 3am. Late night! But totally worth it! It was great having people hanging out to chat with.

Today we went by my aunts house for lunch with the family. We had beef stew, cornbread, and cake for dessert. I was quite full!! D and I stopped by KFC on the way home. I got a grilled chicken meal with mashed tatoes and green beans. Then I had the piece of cake that I brought home this evening and some chips and dip later.

So now its Sunday night, and I'm preparing for a long week. Expect to see some good workouts coming! We're coming up on the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day, which I'm looking forward to! I'm still hanging on to this challenge with Teresa (barely but doing it!). I do need to stop the WATP and biking, and get more of my workouts done as WALKS. I can definitely feel that there's a difference and with having gained weight back, walking should be TOP priority right now, or I'm really going to struggle at the Trot. Here's to a great week! AF is coming to an end slowly but surely so I should be able to get moving around pretty nicely. I've been relegated to the bike the last few days.

Two big decisions

2009-11-13T16:12:00.003-06:00

One...I decided to withdraw from doing the relay team at the White Rock race in a month. With the way its looking, it will be the worst day of AF, and with others depending on me, I don't want to chance that. If I had signed up for the half itself and ready for it, I'd be more inclined to chance it. That was a tough decision, and it was really hard to write that email. But I'd rather have done it now than a week before WR.

Two...I might be crazy. I decided to sign up for the Susan G Komen 3 Day next November. It's 60 miles in 3 days to raise money for breast cancer research and programs. My aunt is a breast cancer survivor and I do this in honor of her. As part of this though, in order to participate, I have to raise $2300 over the next year. If anyone reading this feels led to give to that, even just $10, here is my fundraising link: Donate Here. I greatly appreciate any and every donation!

Happy Veteran's Day!

2009-11-11T21:31:00.002-06:00

Today is a day to remember those who have served our country, fought for our freedom, and preserved our rights. Today I think a lot about my grandad and the price he paid for his country. I have nothing but pride for our troops, those who have served and those who continue to serve.

Last night I found out that D was one of 5 kinder kiddos picked to get up at the school assembly this morning and lead the Pledge of Allegiance. I'm so proud of him! I went into work late so that I could be there to see it. And yes I got it on video. Senator Florence Shapiro was there as well as a lot of veterans and active duty military. It really made my heart swell to see that, and I'm so glad I made it a point to go. But I wouldn't have missed D doing that for the world! You could tell he was overwhelmed as he got quiet, and didn't say much, but he stuck it out. He even kept sneaking glances at me to make sure I was still watching, so cute!

Tonite, D went to Awanas for the first time at our new church. He absolutely loved it and mommy loved having 1.5 hours of Out Of The House Mommy Time. I'm still getting used to this church and didn't quite want to start in the middle of one of their classes, nor did I want to go to the bible study yet. I thought about going to Target or Starbucks, but wanted to stick close to the church tonite, so I ended up in their cafeteria. I ate some dinner, read my book, listened to music and just relaxed til it was time to go get him. I am loving this church, still trying to find my place in it, but their special needs ministry has welcomed D with open arms.

Food today was not the greatest. Due to schedule change for this morning and not planning for this evening, it threw my whole day off. I did have a cereal bar for breakfast. But I forgot to bring my lunch, so I ended up ordering in with coworkers. I had sweet n sour chicken, but didn't eat but half of my rice, and none of the sauce. I had a fat free yogurt for snack. Then this evening, I didn't plan well for eating at home since we had to rush straight to church, so I grabbed D something on the way. I ate at church, a slice of pizza and then a romaine/tomato salad from the salad bar there with some ranch. No snack tonite.

Output: right after I got D in bed tonite, I did a quick WATP, which is about 20 minutes with the stretching you do.

Tuesday

2009-11-10T23:17:00.000-06:00

Not too much to say for today, as it was a typical day, though I have lots more to say about Wednesday so keeping this one short.

I crapped out on logging my food so I don't know cals on some of it, but here it is: breakfast was a cereal bar. Lunch was a Lean Cuisine pizza. In the afternoon, I was CRAVING chocolate and ended up having a Hersheys bar with almonds. Then I had my yogurt. Dinner was the rest of the porkchops plus spaghetti, green beans, oranges. Then in the evening, I made some iced tea, but ran out of sweet n low. I had a bad caffeine headache so I ended up making sweet tea with actual sugar, and then had a 100 cal bag of popcorn to go with it. Not all great choices, but I did promise to write it all down, I think that kept it from getting worse.

Output: I got up early to work out, did the 30 minute WATP. Then in the evening, I did 30 min on the bike to finish up my hour.

Manic Monday

2009-11-09T14:20:00.003-06:00

Ok not so Manic, but still a Monday. And I went to bed too late last night to catch up on sleep from my night out. My own fault, totally...lol

Otherwise, it's been a decent day. I've been making some changes lately: spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and part of that, is that I'm now committing to posting EVERYTHING I eat on here. I don't want to allow myself the leeway to think that its ok to not post a day and just say "it was a bad day". I think that has made it easier and easier to slide. So, I don't want to be able to get away with it anymore. If I eat crap, I HAVE to post it now, even if I just don't post the calories (if it was something awful at a restaurant where it'd be tough to calculate cals). But the food itself must be written on here.

Like I said yesterday, I went to the store and got prepped for eating this week. I have my food mapped out for the day and should be fine. Breakfast was a cereal bar and about 6 oz of Gatorade (was finishing up a bottle from yesterday). Lunch was a Weight Watchers ziti and a side of green beans. My afternoon snack was a fat free yogurt, and then dinner was broiled porkchops, mashed potatoes and romaine salad with zesty italian light dressing. This put me at 1105 calories. That's room for a small evening snack if I choose to have it, but I'll come back and update this tomorrow if I did.

Output: I was active a LOT this weekend (1 hour walk, night out standing up, 20 min brisk walk at zoo, and then walking ALL over the zoo) so today is not an hour day. I'll be doing a 2 mile WATP this evening to get my 20 min in.

A much needed weekend

2009-11-08T21:00:00.003-06:00

It started out Friday evening. My sweet boy had 4 blue days and one green day this week (blue being the best, then green, yellow and red). I was so proud of him! That's HARD for him. So he got 5 crisp dolla bills to do with what he wanted at Toys R Us. We met our friends Teresa and her lil man J for dinner and then the 4 of us headed to the toy store! D got a math lesson, though I'm not sure how much it sunk in. We talked about how much things are, how much he had, etc. I left taxes out of it for now and just threw his purchase (a big claw pick-up hand) in with mine and had him give the cashier his moolah. I still need to figure out how I want to move on with this, how much for him to save of it, etc, so I kept that night SIMPLE.

Saturday morning, we were HONORED to be able to hit up the Heels and Hills cheering station for the Susan G Komen Breast Cancer 3 Day Walk. Two of my fellow Dam'ers, Jackie and Kandi, were walking it, and if you don't know, this walk is 60 miles in 3 days, 20 miles a day. I am just in awe of them. But the whole experience of cheering just had me weepy. D was in rare form, highfiving people, tripping a few of them with his clumsiness...lol But he was definitely charming. Eventually I tossed him up on my shoulders and he was able to highfive (and high ten) with no clumsiness. He kept accumulating stuff from the walkers: bunny ears, undereye stickers, a bracelet, beads. They were all so sweet! People kept thanking us for being there, but all I could say was "thank YOU for DOING this". My aunt is a breast cancer survivor so its near to my heart. And all of these people put in a huge commitment to help keep it from happening to anyone else. Gives a new meaning to the word "hero". *heart*

After that (plus a nap for D and then a 3.5 mile walk for us to get my hour in), it was time to start getting ready for my night out! A week ago or so, my best friend Stacy offered to baby sit overnight for me, and after half a MILLISECOND of contemplating it, I took her up on her offer. The original plan was to hit up a hip hop club and maybe some karaoke. Well, plans soon did a complete 360 as my friends sister is in town and is only into country. So...the plan changed to Billy Bobs. But first, we met up with friends for dinner, before D went with Stacy and we headed to Ft Worth. The 4 of us had a great time at Billy Bobs! Travis Tritt was performing there and while I can't say I totally LOVE country music, I do really like it, and am a fan of quite a few of his songs, so I enjoyed it. Just being around other chicks was really enough for me. lol A night out of the house is ALWAYS a plus.

Despite not getting home til 345am or so, getting in bed at 445am, and then waking up at 830am to go get the D-man, no nap for mommy either, it was still a good Sunday. I made a last minute decision to take D to the zoo, so after lunch at my grandma's, we headed there. D was ECSTATIC to see the elephants, the giraffe, and the gorillas. Those were his top picks today. We had a great time. There are a few pics over at D and I's Adventure blog. We started out our zoo trip with a brisk 20 minute walk to get in my output for the day, before browsing the animals. After that, we hit up some yummy mexican food (I was good for once), then a grocery store trip and finally, blissfully, home.

And while food this weekend aside from dinner tonite was less than stellar, after my grocery store trip today, I am fully prepared for a great week. There is absolutely no good reason, other than meeting up with friends for something healthyish, that I should be eating fast food this week or eating any kind of crap food, at all. I'm PREPPED.

ARD meeting from...well you know...

2009-11-06T13:40:00.002-06:00

So apparently I called an ARD meeting yesterday at D's school, from a simple question I asked via email. Since this is a public blog, I won't go into details, but I will say one thing. It was awful and very unprofessional. At least on the part of one person there. The only reason I'm not protesting it or fighting it, is because the end result was the answer to my simple question. I got what I wanted. But it left a very sour taste in my mouth.

However, on a good note, in talking with a coworker who has been dealing with this with her daughter for 21 years, it has now opened lots of resources for me for figuring this special ed route out, AND I now have someone who is willing to go to future ARD meetings with me who has been navigating the system for YEARS, someone whose ONLY job is helping parents with this stuff). I won't be ambushed again. So there *insert juvenile thhppptttttt*.

Food is still sucking pretty good. I had a decent dinner last night but then succumbed to the rest of the candy corn in my house. Not good.

Output: I got in a 20 minute walk with D yesterday evening as soon as we got home since due to the ARD meeting, I was a little early picking him up. This morning, I got up early (my mind was restless all night and all over the place, so I didn't sleep much) and did the 30 minute WATP. I will likely get in another 30 tonite to complete an hour, which will leave me with only having to do an hour one day this weekend. That's a good thing because I actually get a night out, I'm so excited!!

Halfway through this rough week

2009-11-04T13:49:00.003-06:00

So I skipped posting here on Monday and Tuesday. Food has not been pretty this week thus far, as it's been a rough week for me. Well, I say that, so far today has not been bad, but its not daytime that's getting to me. It's the nights that suck. I HAVE been getting in my output, though just barely. Monday and Tuesday both, I squeaked by with the bare minimum 20 minutes. Today is going to be an hour day (and well, it HAS to be...lol). I got in 30 minutes at lunchtime, a walk at the Galleria with my friend Teresa. And tonite I doubt we'll get home in time to walk this evening, but maybe if traffic (HAHAHA!) is decent, I can swing it. Otherwise, it will likely be a 2 mile WATP once the D-man is in bed.

Monday was a rough day overall. On Friday, I found out D had failed his hearing test TWICE at school. So we had to go see the ENT. When I called the ENT, they acted like it was urgent that he come in asap this week. The audiologist did a hearing test and PTL, everything came out fine. He passed it, a bit low but definitely within normal ranges. She tends to think its because, since he failed on the higher decibels, that its just his inattention especially with other noises. They do theirs in a soundproof booth, which helps. So...whew. The way the school nurse and the ENT office acted, there was something wrong with the tubes or some kind of blockage. I don't like to fret like that! That was one worry I was able to set aside. Now to deal with the rest of em...

One crazy kid...

2009-11-01T19:49:00.002-06:00

Gosh, my child was nuts today. I kept wondering if I really gave him his ADHD meds, sheeshh. He only had 3 pieces of candy last night. And while he did have sugar today, he woke up crazy. I was glad to get him in the bed this evening, at 6pm. Whew!

It wasn't a bad day overall. Just tiring due to him and emotional from some other things going on. We met up with my aunt and bro at PF Changs for a yummy lunch, and then headed over to my grandmas. D wanted to wear his pirate costume again to show her, and I was fine with that, so he got to dress up another day.

Output: I barely got in my hour today. I hate that I let it wait til the LAST day of the week to do it because it meant I HAD to. So we did a 30 minute light walk this afternoon, and then I did 30 minutes on the bike this evening. I'm pretty sore from yesterday so nothing was at a brisk pace...lol but its done.

Happy National Candy Day!

2009-10-31T21:58:00.003-05:00

Well, ok, it IS halloween. And I DID let D TorT tonite, (at the mall). And I am now enjoying the fruits of my labor. Hehehe, we got some good candy.

Our day started out with a really long walk. My coworker Matt, my friend Dina, and I had planned on doing 13.1 miles out at White Rock Lake today. Yes, its been a month since I've walked a LONG walk. I knew it was going to be hard. And oh it was. So while Matt went on ahead at a potty break stop for the rest of us, we only did 9.3 miles and did the full loop around the lake. Now thats nothing to sneer at, 9.3 miles IS tough, but it's no 13.1 miles. I SO need to go get new shoes. Again, my feet were killing me around mile 7, I think. That last 2.3 miles was awful. But we did it. And afterward, Dina, D, and I celebrated with a yummy brunch at Barbecs, a little restaurant down near White Rock.

After getting home for a nice nap for mommy, D and I hit up a fall festival this evening. It was at a big outdoor mall, so there were bounce houses, all kinds of games, plus the stores were doing TorTing. And apparently, mommy isn't as set in her beliefs on TorTing as I had thought, as I let D do it...lol Oh well. It was fun and I'm reaping the benefits of some of that tonite. It was a good day!

Crazy week...

2009-10-30T11:08:00.002-05:00

Of course the weather hasn't helped. I am sick and TIRED of all the rain we are getting! It could stand to move along to areas that are in an actual DROUGHT. lol I really try to thank God for it as we typically need it so bad, esp during our 100 degree summers, but I think it's bringing everyone down. Traffic has been awful, people just seem to be more aggravated, and I know we are all ready for some sunny, cool fall days here in Dallas.

After my post on Tuesday about what we had PLANNED for dinner, things got thrown for a loop. When we got home, we found that construction on the street near us, had knocked out power to half our street. So D and I ended up at a hotel for the night. It wasn't bad really, was clean (enough...lol), had a hot shower, and D slept all night (the best part!), so I have no complaints on the experience. It just would have been nice to have slept in my own bed, and had my computer.

That did throw off my week in terms of eating though. And I have a feeling the weekend is not going to be much better, especially with tomorrow being National Candy Day. Oh wait...well...some people call it Halloween. We don't "do" Hween but I am going to let D dress up this year to go to a fall festival (not sure which one yet, I need to make a decision!) tomorrow evening. He's going to be a pirate! Arggggh matey! This whole week has been dress up week at his school for Red Ribbon Week (encouraging staying drug free), so I'm throwing it all in with that. There will be pics soon on our Adventure Blog soon of what all he dressed up with this week for each day's theme.

I've been getting in my challenge time though. Although both Wednesday and yesterday, I squeeked by with the bare 20 minutes. This morning though, I got up and did the 30 minute WATP, and either at lunch or this evening, I need to get in another 30 min. Tomorrow, my coworker and a friend and I are walking 13.1 miles. So we'll DEFINITELY get the 3rd hour long session I need for the week (times about 4.5!) and then Sunday, I can do a light 20 min to work out the kinks from the long walk.

What I did TODAY

2009-10-27T13:39:00.004-05:00

So...in focusing on the "daily" concept, I can say, today has been a decent one so far. I did accidentally leave my frozen meal at home, but instead of grabbing crap food, I planned out a grocery store run at lunchtime, complete with getting a few things to have for dinner tonite. So I've made good choices.

Breakfast was a banana and a cereal bar. I had a cup of no sugar added hot cocoa with a shot of coffee midmorning. Lunch was a Stauffers meatloaf frozen meal and some baby carrots. My afternoon snack is going to be a fat free yogurt. Dinner is going to be homemade pizzas (whole wheat tortillas, Ragu, reduced fat mozzarella, and pepperoni/canadian bacon, plus a romaine lettuce/tomato salad with Zesty Italian light dressing. My evening snack is going to be grapes to end my day at 1132 calories.

Output: I hadn't planned on getting up early this morning, but my eyes popped open at 5:15am and I was wide awake. So, I got up and worked out, ended up doing the 1 Mile WATP since with the stretches she has you do at the end, its 21 minutes total. I don't think I even broke a sweat doing it, but I could definitely feel it in my arms and thighs, it felt really good.

No more promises!

2009-10-26T20:35:00.002-05:00

It seems like everytime I post on here about how I'm "gonna do good this week" or "have plans to do good", I mess it up. So I guess I need to really take the name of this blog to heart. "Daily". No more promises of what I WILL do. Just...doing it. And as of today, I have one day down, and a lifetime to go.

I've been doing AWFUL lately with eating, but I really tried "today" to be good. Slacking off on utilizing people for accountability, I think, has been a big part of that. So this evening, when I kept wanting to change my plan, I texted a friend, (can I phone a friend? lol), and her swift reply got me through what I WANTED to do, and through to what I NEEDED to do. D had a rough day at school and ended up getting on red, and all I wanted to do was grab crap food and go home to put him to bed. But I kept repeating to myself "don't let his sad choices affect YOUR choices". So as soon as I texted her, we headed to the mall. I got in a 40 minute walk first. It was a bit slow as my foot is still bothering me, but we kept going. After that we stopped to eat dinner, and then completed it with another 20 minute walk before heading home. Whew!

So back to posting my food intake. Breakfast was a granola bar. My lunch was a Weight Watchers ziti meal and a banana. Afternoon snack was a tbsp of peanut butter. Dinner was CFA. I had a grilled chicken sandwich, no sauce, and a side salad with light italian dressing. This evening for a snack, I had two whole wheat tortillas with some sprays of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter to end my day at 1154 calories.

Output: a total of an hour long walking. The challenge between Teresa and I restarted today since I bombed it last Thursday, so we are BACK in gear on that.

Outdoor weekend

2009-10-25T23:59:00.000-05:00

I'm so glad the rain went away for a weekend! We had such a great weekend, and got to spend some time outside enjoying the weather!

On Saturday, we hit up a big DAM playdate, (but really late, on purpose), so got to see a few mama's we don't normally see. Then we met up with a new DAM friend to let our two boys play (she has a 6 year old). They did so great together! I was cracking up though. At first, they were both saying "I'M the boss!" at the top of the slide/"office" as they called it. And we waited with baited breath to see how that would go. Well, finally her son said "Hey! Why don't we BOTH be the boss?!" D thought a second and goes "ok!" And they were fine ever since. It was hilarious to watch, but I'm glad we let them sort it out on their own, they just needed to come to a mutual understanding...lol. My arms/shoulders are SORE though from pushing them on the tire swing, but they loved it. It was a little scary though as twice D slipped right out under the swing and fell on the ground. Silly boy, keep your booty on the tire and hold on!!

After that, we joined our friends for dinner at a new southern cooking place. The kids were so cute "taking turns" to tell the others to "go to sleep". It was funny.

Sunday was quiet enough. We hit up my grandma's house for lunch, and my cousin and his wife were there as well, so we all played outside with D for awhile. You know he loved the extra attention, especially with Erin there. He LOVES her. After we left there, I wasn't quite ready to go home and wanted to go do something fun with D, so we ended up seeing Astroboy at the SMG. I really liked the movie, it definitely kept D interested the whole time, which is always a plus!

Food and output both sucked this weekend. Output for me was off because of my foot. The place where D dropped the bowling ball on it has been nicely bruised and swollen all weekend, so we didn't get out for the long walk we wanted to do. There was just no way. At least next weekend looks good weather-wise to get out on a long one.

Well I "think" its Friday...

2009-10-23T23:19:00.000-05:00

After being off on Thursday and up all night Wednesday, today def didn't seem like Friday! But ummmm I'm def not complaining!

I realized that I did not do a THING on Thursday as far as exercise, so I am out of the challenge that Teresa and I were doing. So congrats to her!!! We're starting it up again on Monday though, its such great motivation to keep moving!

It worked out well for that though, my foot has been bothering me since D dropped the bowling ball on it the other night. When I got home tonight and took off my shoes, the top of my foot was a VERY pretty shade of purple and swollen. I don't think its broken, can move my toes and stuff, but it is badly bruised.

We had a fantastic evening at Movie On the Lawn (in the church)...lol they moved it inside due to all the rain we've had lately. D had a great time chowing down on hotdogs, popcorn, and watching Bolt. He did really good, though I knew he was still pretty tired. It was great to see some of my favorite mamas and kiddos!

D's EEG Part Two

2009-10-22T19:49:00.002-05:00

Well, we ended up leaving the house around 5amish to slowly head our way to the hospital for D's EEG. He'd been trying to go to sleep at home, so I'd promised him we could go play at McDs for a bit. Only one problem, the McD's playarea here doesn't open til 6. And we got there at 515, and D was already asking for the music to be turned up in the car so he could go to sleep...lol I headed towards Childrens, in the rain, having to keep D awake, being exhausted myself, and praying we'd find a McD's. We found two of them nearish the hospital, but no play area. So at 6am, we went ahead and went in to see the trains there. And we found out they don't run til 7am. LOL Oh what a trial that was. So we ended up just going up to the EEG unit around 6:30ish and just sat and waited. I let D play on my phone and he did just fine.

All that said, we finally got to 8am, our appt time. D did great. He resisted a little bit at first, and tried to bring his hands up some as she was putting the nodes on but as soon as I caught ahold of one of his hands, he settled right down. After the nodes were on, you could tell he was just about to go to sleep, in that blissful state right before you pass out. She did make him wake up enough to start the test, which included blowing on a pinwheel for 3 minutes (apparently it stresses the brain). Then she let him pass out asleep for 20 minutes, and finally woke him up to put a stroble light in front of him while blowing bubbles at him. He had his own little rave going! LOL He was SO not awake through all of that. But its over now. I'm a little concerned at some of what she told me she was seeing, not really understanding what it is (but I know its something that was on his previous EEG), and not sure if it will mean an automatic abnormal EEG or not. But I have to wait til Monday to see that.

The rest of our day was peaceful, we got home and both passed out asleep around 10am. I slept til 1230 or so, but then was wide awake, and I woke D up at 3pm. We hit up a playground with some friends of ours, and then tried a new diner, Rockin Rogers, for dinner. And D is now passed out in the bed for the night, and after a quick load of laundry, I will be joining him!

What a Wednesday

2009-10-22T03:40:00.002-05:00

Today was just LONG. Traffic was AWFUL this morning with the rain and so it took an hour to get to work. Work itself wasn't too bad. We had a costume contest and I dressed up in all my walking gear, including my medal, race bib, and garmin watch. It was so much fun seeing what everyone came up with! With the weather bad and a big class up at corporate, our lovely Career Services Dept ordered in pizza for everyone. That was nice, and I really tried to be good. I had 2 pieces knowing that the evening might be a bit higher cal.

Tonite, however, was the longest part. I had to keep D up all night long so he'd be sleep deprived enough for his EEG Thursday morning. They need him to go to sleep during it, and sleep deprivation increases the risk of seizure activitiy which they need to know about. This is no easy task!!! After I picked him up from school, we went to go get him a fresh haircut so it'd be easier to put the nodes on his head (the "stickers" as I've been talking to him about it). Then we grabbed a light meal and headed home for a bit. I had both of us take a nap from about 7:30pm til 8:45pm, so we did get one whole hour of sleep. lol Then we met up with our friends Chera, her DH, and D's little buddy, her daughter, at IHOP for a late meal. So much time to kill! We hit up Walmart after that for awhile, and I'm glad I posted it on facebook! Someone suggested midnight bowling on there, so after we grabbed Slurpees (mommy badly needed a coke slurpee....lol), I drove us by a bowling alley near here and found out its open 24 hours. YAY!

So I got to take D for his very first bowling experience, in a noncrowded experience (pics to come on our adventure blog). He did have somewhat of a difficult time staying on focus, so I had to constantly be calling his name, but overall he really enjoyed it!! He got frustrated a few times and fell on the floor whining, but considering it was 1am, I wasn't too surprised...lol We made it through anyway. It's now 4:20am on Thursday morning, and we're at home watching Dora for a bit. D's hanging in there ok. He keeps going back and forth between wanting to dance to Dora, and laying on the couch in a stupor til I encourage him to get back up and dance...he's NOT going to sleep!! I'll update later today with what else we did this early morning and how the EEG goes.

Even longer day...

2009-10-19T19:10:00.002-05:00

I didn't get much sleep last night either so today was a really long day. I did keep my eating really good though, I need a few low days to counteract some of the crap food days. I also really need to get back to logging my food on here. I do much worse at eating when I don't. So here we go.

Breakfast was a cereal bar. Lunch was a Jimmy Johns Unwich (ham, provolone, lettuce, tomato, and mustard in a lettuce wrap), plus Salt and Vinegar chips, and a pickle. I'd never tried the Unwich version before, but it wasn't half bad. I don't "do" warm foods inside of a lettuce wrap, but I can do cold ones, so this was ok. I did get tired of all the lettuce eventually and just unwrapped the rest, though. My late afternoon snack was half of a pbj. Dinner was ramen noodles, blackeyed peas and half an apple to end my day at 1155 calories. Since its a lighter workout day, that feels like plenty.

Output: AF is still awful so I didn't feel like a walk this evening even though it is GORGEOUS outside. So as soon as D was in bed, I hopped on the bike to get my 20 minutes in. I'm hoping tomorrow I will be able to get up early and get in some of my 1 hour.

Long weekend

2009-10-18T18:54:00.002-05:00

But it wasn't a true long weekend. Just felt like it. AF is wrecking vengeance these past two days and oh, I am so over it! I'm so miserable.

My dad and stepmom had asked if we wanted to join them for an earlyish dinner (they were in town for the TX/OU game, (sorry, OU!) and were about to head home to OKC). So I loaded up all three boys (I babysat for my friend's two boys overnight) and we hit up On The Border. Her 3 year old fell asleep before our food even arrived and ended up sleeping through dinner. Both 5 year old boys did really good, though I probably would not have attempted that without knowing there would be extra hands.

Today was pretty stressful as we were late getting to my grandma's, and almost weren't able to pick up some things that we had to for it that I couldn't get yesterday, but it worked out I guess.

I do have to say, (and I have a few cute pics to post on D's blog, but I've been slacking on those since we haven't really had any "adventures" the last 3 weeks with it raining so much and then AF this weekend), but D has been doing really good lately behavior-wise. Obviously he still has impulse control issues etc, but overall, he hasn't had any major behavior issues. He's been busting out the yes ma'ams and the thank yous in the best places, like in front of his neurologist the other day. Love that boy.

So eating obviously has not been good this weekend. I'm not happy about it, at all. But tomorrow is a new day. I have been barely managing to squeak by for the challenge. Yesterday midmorning I got in my first half of the hour by doing 30 minutes on the bike, but never got the chance to finish it out. So I had to do an hour today. And it so sucked. I took a 15 minute walk this afternoon with D, it was about as long as I had before having to hurry home with AF. And then did 30 minutes on the bike while watching Extreme Home Makeover, and then this evening, did another 15 minute session on the bike. So I made it the week. Now if AF would hurry up and finish, I could get some really good sessions in without having to stress over it!

Tomorrow is a new day, I'm repeating over and over to myself, tomorrow is a new day.

Finally Friday...

2009-10-16T23:41:00.002-05:00

It was such a stressful week! I'm glad its over!

Today was the parent teacher conference at D's school. I really wasn't surprised at the results of the testing they did on D, even though it did jolt a little. D is below the lowest bounds of where a child his age should be for both math and phonetics. Like I said, I pretty much expected it, he doesn't even really know half of his letters. But it still does hurt this momma just a bit. :( I will say, I AM noticing him learning though. The last two weeks he has been so excited about counting syllables, it's been so neat to watch. He's really good at it! So I am content enough in the fact that he is who he is. He learns pretty easy when its something he can figure out as he goes, like clapping out syllables. His major issue is when he has to rely on his memory. There are so many GOOD things about D, he's so freakin clever, his personality is just off the chain, and he is so joyous about things! One of the things his teachers said was that all the teachers at his school know him and just love him. I LOVE that!

My eating was ok yesterday. I did end up snacking some late in the evening that I did not intend on. And so far today has been pretty good! We hung out for a bit at a friends house this evening and there were snacks there but I barely touched them. Woohoo!

Output: yesterday and this evening, I got in my 20 minutes on the bike. AF started yesterday, and so this weekend is going to pretty much suck. I hate that its the first gorgeous weather weekend in awhile and we can't enjoy it!! I need to get in an hour of exercise tomorrow so I will likely do 30 on the bike midmorning and then another 30 after lunch or so. I won't be doing much of anything else though.

Stressful week so far

2009-10-14T22:46:00.004-05:00

A summary of our week so far:

Monday was good. I did really well with my eating. Then came Tuesday. I got free tickets from a coworker to go see Darlene Zscech and Hillsongs Australia at a local church. So D stayed at Beth's house with her sitter, and the two of us went. The concert was A-MA-ZING. I've loved them since I became a Christian back in 1998, Shout to the Lord was one of my all time fave songs back then. It still is pretty darn close in my top list.

This is another one of my fave Hillsongs songs:

LOVE IT!

Unfortunately, halfway through, I get "the phone call". The one saying that D is actin a straight up fool, which he tends to do with new people. We ended up staying for the rest of the concert but that totally ruined the rest of the concert for me. The thought kept going through my head "don't let this steal your joy", and I just couldn't keep it from happening. Needless to say, I came home and ate some junk food. That coupled with the stress of today's doc appt looming really did me in.

I endeavored for today to be a better day and overall it has been, but with my schedule being off from taking D to the doc, and AF about to start, this evening hasn't been great eating. Tomorrow is bound to be a better day. We already have dinner plans, ones where I know I can eat healthy, so I'm prepping now for it.

Like I said above, I took D to the doc today, we went to see his neurologist. We're concerned there is still some seizure activity going on despite being on two seizure meds, so he ordered another EEG. I am NOT looking forward to that. He also explained to me some of the images from his MRI from 2 years ago as he was looking at them in the room. I learned a lot that I didn't know and it just blows my mind how D FUNCTIONS on a day to day basis with everything he has going on in that little head of his. It seems like he has some kind of issue in every part of his brain, and I just marvel at this child who's brain has managed to make a way where there is no way. They didn't think he would ever walk or talk when he was born, but now he runs and yells, lol. He amazes me and despite all the mess he has going on, the stunts he pulls, the future uncertainties, it's things like this that remind how blessed I am to be his mommy. So thank you, Lord, for the reminder, the day after D gets me all riled up with his behavior. I needed it.

A new challenge!

2009-10-11T23:18:00.003-05:00

And this one with someone else to keep the motivation going!

Teresa and I are starting up a new exercise challenge, which began this past Friday.

The terms: At least 20 minutes a day EVERY DAY of exercise, with 3 days a week of at least an hour. Whoever wins, gets a gift card to a sporting goods/athletes store like Luke's Locker or Run On, whatever, from the loser. Since Friday, I've done the bare minimum of 20 mins (a walk at Firewheel on Friday evening and then 2 stationary bike sessions this weekend) which means I need to get in 3 days this week of an hour. First up, getting up early tomorrow morning (Monday) to do the 45 minute 3 mile WATP to get as much done as I can. I won't have anytime tomorrow evening to do it, so will make up the rest at lunch.

I feel like I've lost a lot of motivation to get in the long walks, and I hate it. So this week, I'm going to splurge a bit, and go get a Garmin Forerunner. I got tired of using MapMyRun on my iphone since it zapped my battery if I walked more than 7-8 miles. So I'm going to get it off of that and on to my wrist! I've been doing research on which model to get, and I'm really hoping this will be just the jolt to my motivation to get me up and going the trails again! I miss those early weekend mornings of distance walking!

Food has NOT been good this weekend. We had a slumber party on Saturday evening at Beth's house and totally enjoyed (til after the fact, LOL) a junk food evening and some movies! Today was lunch at my grandma's and she had some homemade lasagna which was da bomb! But I went to the store this evening to get some healthier options and tomorrow will be back in business. D and I will be having leftover lasagna for dinner tomorrow night but I only brought home a small amount and going to be adding a big salad with Zesty Italian light and some fruit to it.

Dropped the ball...

2009-10-09T11:11:00.003-05:00

I realized yesterday that I had not posted all week, and then was busy last night getting some BFF time in so it didn't happen then either. I've done ok this week on food, HAVE logged it, just haven't posted it.

One night I went a bit high on cals, though not awful. I made some kind of thrown together homemade chili. It turned out great and I was able to get rid of stuff in my pantry! I added in drained canned chicken (sauteed first in abit of Pam spray), brown rice, tomato sauce, and ranch style beans (lightly drained), and a plethora of spices, let it simmer for almost an hour, and it was awesome! D and I both ate big bowls of it. I'm not sure what to call it...Chili Surprise? Ha! I dunno.

I also discovered that same night that we had a carrot cake deluxe (with real carrots and raisins) mix in the pantry and I actually had eggbeaters in the fridge, so I made a cake. There was no icing in my house so it lacked that but it still was quite a yummy treat, and semi healthyish. We're still eating on it, so I've done good. D has gotten to take big slices each day to school with his lunch, he loves it! It's no Aunt Donna's carrot cake, but it's satisifying for those cold weather cravings.

As far as training goes, I've slacked this week more than I intended. I HAVE done a few nights of 2 mile WATP, but goodness knows last night I didn't do anything. My next post will be announcing a new challenge but joining back up with Teresa for it. I did so much better when there was a prize involved. lol Stay tuned for details on that!

Food for today is going to be fairly good. I ended up trading my breakfast for hot chocolate this morning, and I had a light brunch of food that was served up here. It was chicken mini's and fruit, I ended up getting a handful of the loose chicken nuggets and apple slices (no biscuits!) and left it at that. So I will probably eat my tuna sandwich later this afternoon. For dinner, we're planning to go out to the mall and get some clothes shopping done for both D and I, so we'll have to grab something light.

And output today: I'm going to get in a 30 minute walk at the mall before we hit up the stores.

Sick weekend

2009-10-05T08:40:00.002-05:00

So much for only missing ONE day of the challenge. All I did this weekend was sleep and cough. I was glad D was feeling better by Saturday aside from a cough, but man, bronchitis had me laid out most of the weekend. We did get out once to run to the store for some essentials, but that was it. Saturday night, I finally broke down and took some of the GOOD cough meds so I could really rest.

I ended up deciding to not go to my grandma's for lunch as usual on Sunday. I was still feeling like crap, and we were exposed to the flu on Friday night, so I didn't want to take the chance of her getting sick too. So far so good on us not having the flu though...*fingers crossed* I did take D outside in the alley to run around some, since he had SO much energy by then, but other than that, it was another day of laying around the house. Yeah, I'm pretty sick of my house now.

Anyway, its a new Monday, a new beginning. I still have a cough, and still feeling fairly out of it but I'm at work today if nothing else. I'm well prepared to have a decent food day. This weekend was all about comfort foods, so I can def say I did NOT do that great. But today is going to be a good day. I had oatmeal for breakfast. I'm going to have a cup of chicken noodle soup for a midmorning snack. I brought tuna and bread to make a tuna sandwich at lunch, plus baby carrots, and I'll probably add some chips to that. I brought a granola bar for my afternoon snack. Dinner is going to be Mickey Mouse shaped chicken nuggets, mashed potatoes and sugar snap peas, with a little ketchup to go with the nuggets. That will put me at 1157 calories for the day, so I will have room for an evening snack.

Output: I'm going to do the 2 Mile WATP tonite but no weights again. I don't think I have the strength yet to start running with the c25K, and probably need to wait a few days for that.

So that challenge..

2009-10-02T11:41:00.000-05:00

Yeah, it got killed on Day TWO! D and I now both have bronchitis and I was whipped today. It took every little bit of energy I had to join our friends at Magic Time Machine for dinner to celebrate a birthday. And other than a doc visit for me to get antibiotics, that's about all I did. I'm hoping the Zpack will kick in quick. So I've now missed one day of this challenge. Tomorrow is supposed to be a beautiful Saturday, so maybe we'll get outside for a light 20 minute or so walk, to keep the challenge moving. One day missed of it, ok...but I refuse to have two days missed.

The October Challenge

2009-10-01T09:36:00.003-05:00

Yay, October 1st is here! And so begins the challenge for myself that I've been mulling over. It's a 2 part challenge.

1) C25K: I'm starting a C25K program today to work up to being able to run most of the Turkey Trot in November. If I'm not ready by then, of course I'll walk when I need to, but that's my goal, is to run that, even if its slow. I'm also hoping it will help get more weight off, help me with my endurance and stamina, and just in general, get me in better shape. I'll mainly be doing it Tuesday and Thursdays and woven into one other weekly walk to do it 3 times a week.

2) The REAL challenge: I'm going back to every single day workouts. That's the hard one. I'm challenging myself to do something every single day in October (we'll talk about November later...lol). Back when Teresa, Jamie, and I were doing the competition, I was doing great every day but have slacked a LOT since then. So its time to "put up or shut up." I WILL NOT do another half marathon in December, if I can't get it in less than 4 hours. By sticking to this challenge, I think I'll be able to get a lot more fit by then. This will include walking as much as I can on the training/C25K schedule (and I really love outdoor walking, so that won't be hard for me), the stationary bike on AF days, and then the Walk Away the Pounds dvds on bad weather days. Granted, there will be days that I do a light bike ride, or a light walk, to rest my muscles, so I won't be overdoing it or risking injury (these will be majority of Sundays and Fridays for a true rest), but I'm setting a standard of at least 20 minutes a day in whatever activity.

So there you have it. I'm putting this out there for accountability in this. I need all the help I can get so feel free to post comments if you see me starting to slack. It's raining today so tonite ended up being a Walk Away the Lbs 2 miler, even though I WANTED to go for the first day of C25K. D is sick today with bronchitis so I'll be off work tomorrow with him. I'm starting to feel like I'm getting sick too, sore throat, just run down, feverish feeling (though no fever), so it was pretty hard tonite to suck it up and do the WATP. But I finally got up off my butt and did it. I'm glad I did and I felt pretty good during it! My hip had a few minor twinges but I just reduced the movement til it felt better and kept going. Tomorrow will be a tossup of what I do depending on how I feel. I'm going to my own doc at 10:30, so we'll see if I get outside or not.

Foodwise, that's a whole other story. I won't be challenging myself on that one yet, but I am definitely working on the eating side of things. Today WAS lining up to be a decent day. I had oatmeal for breakfast and then a cup of instant chicken noodle soup as a midmorning snack. However, I had to head during lunchtime to get D and take HIM to the doc so I didn't get the lunch I had planned out. We ended up grabbing a late lunch since I was starving by the time we got done and it all kind of went down hill from there. Tomorrow is a new day though. And I foresee lots of grocery shopping in our future.

Output: the rain scrapped my outdoor c25k plans for this evening, so I ended up doing the 30 minute Two Mile WATP dvd.

One final rest day

2009-09-30T21:57:00.003-05:00

Today is my final rest day before beginning my personal challenge tomorrow on October 1st (will post details about that tomorrow, so you must wait!). We ended up going on a wild goose chase this evening to get D and I flushots, and unfortunately, neither of us ended up getting one. I'll have to go at lunch tomorrow to make sure mine is done, and then I guess I can take D next Tuesday to his regular doc if we can't get it done over the weekend.

However, we did hit up Run On for a bit, and I got some decent advice from the chick there about my shoes. I'm going to take them with me and go back to try out some of her suggestions. It sounds like I might not have to get a whole new pairs of shoes just yet, though she did suggest another pair about a month before my next half as a backup.

Food was just ok today. I'm eating out WAY too much, but did try to make decent choices. Today I had oatmeal for breakfast and a granola bar about midmorning. Since I had to run errands at lunch, I had no time to go by the store, so I ran by Taco Bell and got one taco and a pintos and cheese. In the afternoon I had a tbsp of peanut butter. Dinner ended up being Sonny Bryans BBQ. I had the pulled chicken, with mac n cheese, and I ordered green beans too. She didn't bother to TELL me though that they only have green bean CASSEROLE. I only ate a few bites of that, and had one roll to end my day at 1232 calories.

Output: none today, stay tuned for details tomorrow!!

Half Marathon pics

2009-09-29T21:01:00.001-05:00

So here are some pics. I'd like to thank all the people who TOOK pics, as I didn't have any obviously...lol

Well I did take this one...my medal and race bib...

The Heels and Hills Lucky 13 Run Team (11 of us, the other two were in line at the portalets)

About 3 miles or so in to the race...

Jogging the last few steps across the mats, I jumped off the mat right as Stacy took this pic from behind me...

Ok I'ma pass out now...can I get a drink????!!! What you can't really see, in my hand, is the picked flower that D gave me while I was coming up on the finish line....that sweet boy!

Back to moving

2009-09-29T20:12:00.002-05:00

I'm slowly coming back in recovery. My hip/upper buttock feels decent. I do have a few spots that still ache pretty good at times, and I'm a bit stiff still every time I start moving after sitting down too long, but other than that, I'm feeling good. My blisters aren't bothering me a lot, but I'm keeping them pretty well bandaged.

I kept food decent today, though I did eat a bit more than I typically would. I think I made decent choices though. Breakfast was oatmeal. Lunch was a CFA chicken salad with light italian. My afternoon snack was baked chips. Dinner was sliced turkey sausage, mac n cheese, and green beans. I had a bottle of Vitamin Water today, and then this evening, I had a 100 calorie granola bar to end my day at 1475 calories.

Output: not a lot, but I did strap my shoes back on and got D and I out for a 10 minute walk this evening just to loosen up some. I let him run along beside me with no stroller and he did just fine.

Day after a Half

2009-09-28T23:59:00.002-05:00

OW. That's about how the whole day went. I woke up after being passed out all night in the bed to my alarm clock blaring, hopped out of bed to get to it before D heard it, and about went headfirst into the wall when my legs didn't want to take me there. Despite that, I made it to work anyway. My whole body hurt today, and it didn't help that at lunchtime I pulled a muscle in the back of my hip/upper buttock getting into my car. I felt it give and just thought...CRAP! So had to deal with the pain from that the rest of the day. And then tonite I had to drain one of my blisters on my foot, which was fun...or not. But all in all, it was a good soreness, good pain, I felt very accomplished in it, and tried to revel in it. I'm definitely taking another day or two off from any activity to let my body heal some more, before I get moving again.

Want to hear the crazy thing? I want to do this all over again in December. Yeah, I want to do the White Rock Half on Dec 13th. There were two main factors that I think really made this half the hard time that it was. One, was the heat. I don't see that being as much of a problem in December...lol And Two, and probably the most important, my shoes. I screwed up last week with rinsing off the mud from our 12 mile on them and getting the inside all wet. I think I posted yesterday how I started hurting at mile 4-5, and usually don't til at least mile 9 or so, and so that really screwed me over. Lesson learned...big time. So I think I'm going to relegate those shoes to the weekly walk pile, and again go get some more new ones. I hate to spend the money again, but I want to do this so bad. It will be a worthy investment, and really, its not THAT much more money than signing up for a gym or for classes, etc. So, worth it.

So I think with those two factors under control, I can focus on training (I found a 10 week training program to keep me on a schedule, which worked really well for me this last one). Dina has committed herself to doing the White Rock Half as well, so we're going to work on the training schedule together. I did decide to wait a month to register for it though. I want to make sure that I can get eating under control to get more weight off before I do it. In my opinion, had I been focused on that before this past half, and really worked to make sure more weight was off before I did (and not GAINING weight the weeks before), that would have helped a lot too. So while I am committing myself to the Rock, I'm reserving the right to not register for it. I don't want to do it if I can't do it in 4 hours. The Rock is such a huge event, much bigger than the H&H one, that I'm not guaranteed a medal if I don't finish in 4 hours. They could never support me near as much as the wonderful ladies of H&H did, so I want to be in top shape for it.

No calorie counting for me today. I was ravenous all.day.long so I knew I needed to hydrate really well and eat sustenance. No frozen meal for lunch today was going to satisfy me!!! lol I made sure to drink a LOT too, I was just about floating in it all day.

And output today: Ummmm none. lol

Heels and Hills and Him Half Marathon

2009-09-27T19:09:00.007-05:00

Today, after a little over 4 months of training, I finished a half marathon, the Heels and Hills and Him Half Marathon, to be exact. It was blistering hot out there (high of 94 degrees in Irving), and there were honestly times I didn't think I could keep going. I would guess that between 1/2 to 3/4th of the course was directly in the sun. It was miserable. I know one runner who said that they never walk in a run, and today, they had to walk some. Yeah, it sucked, but it was amazing.

I tried my best to stay hydrated, sucking down powerade/water, refilling my bottle that I brought, wetting a washcloth to keep on my neck and all around me, and I think it paid off for the most part. I did have a hat and sunscreen, but they didn't do much good. I also have two very nice blisters on my feet which were the main cause of my issues in the walk. Well, that and the sun that sucked it all out of me. I kept thinking, I SO never felt like this in our 12 mile walk where it was drizzling rain the whole time!! We were SO not prepared for it to still be like this!!

This challenge was the most mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausting challenge I have ever faced. I ended up finishing in 5 hours and a few seconds (17? maybe?). I can't believe it has finally come and gone. Update: My official chip time was 4:58:38, so actually UNDER 5 hours!!

Special thanks go to Tracy and Tammy, fellow Run Team members, who met me at around 2.5 miles to go, and walked the rest of the way in with me and 3 other ladies who brought us more water (I wish I could remember their names but I was so out of it...lol). It was awesome to have that final amount of support, even if I was pretty embarrassed that anyone came back out just for me.

Even more special thanks go to everyone who showed up at the finish line. My aunt and brother, Stacy and her son, Kristen (and the baby), my training buddy Jenn who stuck around to see my finish despite her own finishing at right around 3:30 (way to go, Jenn!!!!), and most importantly, Beth, who brought D so he could be there at the finish line too. I get all choked up about the support I had when I think about it, and goodness knows I cried all the way to lunch after we finished, and have had a few bouts of it this evening...lol

I also wanted to say that I could not have done this alone in another way. I know God was with me every step of the way. There's no way I could have achieved that without Him. There were times where all I could do was repeat the words on my bracelet that my BFF gave me for my birthday: "It was then that I carried you." and inscribed on the inside "He is with you." and just keep putting one foot in front of the other, knowing that it was the truth. Other times, I'd be praying it...and I'd feel a slight breeze dance across my face, and I'd just smile a bit, knowing that He was letting me know it was ok.

I didn't count food today. Obviously with that long of a workout, it didn't really matter. I tried my best to keep nutrients in me before and during the race, and afterward we all met up at Twisted Root burger company for a DELISH lunch of a cheeseburger, curly fries with ranch, and a chocolate shake. OMG I think I ate enough calories for 20 people, and was half afraid at one point that I'd get sick, but it was soooooooooooo good.

So this phase of my fitness goals is now over. And what a ride it has been. Doing the half marathon today actually knocked me over the 200 mile mark in training, so that goal is met as well! The next phase is going to include working on running more, getting MORE in shape, getting more of this weight off, so that my next walks/runs will take even less time. I want to GET THERE FASTER. lol I'm sore as all get out, sunburnt on my legs, arms, face, and neck, dealing with two blisters, keep finding little rashes in the oddest places and I'm totally exhausted, but somehow I already know that I will do it all over again one day. Stay tuned for that.

NOCC 5K

2009-09-27T19:00:00.002-05:00

Today, I pushed D in the NOCC 5K (for Ovarian Cancer). We did this one last year (it was my first 5K ever then) with our friend Helen in honor of her sister who is now a 2 year survivor!

I used it mainly as a warm up walk for the half. We had a lot of fun and it was great to see everyone who could make it out there! Pics will be on our adventure blog soon!

My calories were highish but decent today. I wanted a big carb dinner before Sunday. Breakfast before the 5K was a cup of Easy Mac. At the end of the 5K, I had a banana. After that, we hit up Steak and Shake for some yummy bfast! I had two slices of sour dough toast, plus eggs and bacon (with a little cheese on the eggs). Dinner was at Olive Garden. I had the linguine alla marinara, salad with lowfat italian and parmesan (on both salad and pasta), and 2 breadsticks, and then an Andes Mint to end my day at 1855 calories.

Output: a roughly one hour 5K walk.

Finally Friday...

2009-09-25T23:11:00.002-05:00

YES! And only two more days to go! Well, 1.5 now...lol

This evening, I went and picked up my packet, which included the H&H&H tech shirt, the race bib, and we also got our run team shirts. It all became SO much more real to me! I won't be wearing either of the shirts, I decided. The main reason is that I'm very comfortable already in my usual tech shirt for long walks, and I don't want to mess with that, but also, I could stand to lose abit more to really look decent in that thin and closecut of a "female cut" shirt! These show ALLLLLL your flab. Yeah, I think I'll stay in my comfy men's tech shirt...lol I so don't want to chance having it rub the wrong way anyway and giving me a road rash while walking. I could have chosen the men's style shirt, but I think these will give me good incentive to push harder and get more weight off so I can rock em!

Today was a decent food day. I did let my cals go up because I really didn't eat much yesterday, but I ate pretty decent. Breakfast was oatmeal and an organic fruit bar. Then for lunch I had a Smart Ones Ziti meal and green beans. My afternoon snack was a tbsp of peanut butter. Dinner was at Chilis with some friends. I got fajitas, and then had some chips and queso, and lots of salsa. On the way home, I had promised D some ice cream, as he had FOUR blue days this week and one green!!! I wanted to give him a reward for no yellow or red days. I'm so proud of him!!!! And, of course, mommy gets ice cream too. lol I had a kids capp chunky choc at Braums to end my day at 1684 calories.

Output: none. I'm doin a 5K in the morning which will be a good warm up walk for the half on Sunday.

So many facets

2009-09-24T09:09:00.003-05:00

I'm finding that there are so many different levels of anxiousness, anticipation, excitement and nerves coming up on the half. Lately, its been a bit of anxiousness with a lot of excitement. But last night, I think the whole experience really hit home, and I was up half the night with nerves and anxiety. This is NOT a good few days to not be able to sleep when I need my sleep most...not cool, body, not cool. And with no dam or facebook to take my mind off things, there's not much else to distract me. I think mommy needs a drink tonite to calm the nerves...LOL the no calorie version would be an 800mg pill of ibuprofen, which might be a better option. We'll see.

We actually went to the grocery store last night (*gasp*) so I have a decent meal plan for the day. Breakfast today was oatmeal and an organic twisted fruit bar. Lunch was a Lean Cuisine pizza. Afternoon snack was a tbsp of peanut butter. Dinner was Birdseye 4 Cheese skillet meal. My evening snack was a Kashi cereal bar to end my day at 1045 calories. It's low but I really wasn't that hungry today.

Output: Not much this evening. I have quite a headache so will be going to bed early tonite I think.

Happy Hump Day

2009-09-23T22:22:00.002-05:00

That's about all I can think of for a title, not feeling very profound tonite...lol

I'm still on sabbatical, can't believe that tomorrow morning, it will have been a whole week. It's been difficult these last couple days to keep it up, but I have to believe that I'm doing this for a reason, and that it will have a benefit. I sure wish I could snap out of this funk.

Food today was just ok. For breakfast I had a granola bar. Lunch was Sonic since I had to run errands, but I was good. I had a grilled cheese sandwich and apple slices (and an unsweet tea). Then I had baked chips for an afternoon snack. This evening, a friend of mine was doing a fundraiser at Tin Star, so we ended up there. I got chicken quesadillas (used almost none of the sourcream since I don't really like it), and then chips and salsa, to end my day at 1500 calories. I think I overestimated on the chicken quesadilla, but it was a lot of chicken in there.

Output: nothing but a trip to Kroger this evening.

Just One More Mile

2009-09-22T21:14:00.004-05:00

Don't let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use. ~Earl Nightingale

As I wind down this half marathon training and prepare for the big day (5 days away!!), I find myself thinking back on what has brought me to this point. We started this almost 4 months ago. May 24th. I thought September was such a long way away, and that the odds of sticking with this were slim, but was game for it anyway. I think the key to being successful at this training, was the training program we found and implemented. It was baby steps. The training started us out at 3-4 miles. It kept us at 3-4 miles walking except for one day a week, we'd bump up a mile. One week was 4, then 5, then 6, and then three weeks of 7 to gain confidence in it. And so on. There's no way I could have gone from walking 3 miles to 13 in 4 months without those gradual bumps. I remember every single week we'd bump up a mile, and I'd think, oh its 'just one more mile' than before, I can do that. I can do another 20 minutes max, on up to a 12 mile walk a week and a half ago. And now 4 months have passed since that first 3 miles, and I'm set to walk 'just one more mile'. On Sunday, I'll be walking 13.1 miles, a half marathon. And I have no doubts that I will accomplish this.

Prepped for battle

2009-09-22T13:15:00.003-05:00

The battle of a kid who knows a needle is headed his way with an injection. I took D this evening to get two immunizations that he already HAD over a year ago, but the state of Texas says he was 2 months EARLY in getting (these two are apparently required no earlier than the 4th birthday). So to stay in school, he needs to get them. It was off to the doctor as soon as I got him as they are only open late one evening a week. I girded my loins for battle. The little man has never taken a shot easily. Even when he'd already been numbed last year, he fought through getting stitches put in his ankle AND taken out. And his scream is glass shattering. Lord love him. But it's over. My ears are still ringing, but its done. It took 3 of us to hold him down. OY.

Today was an interesting day food-wise. I had oatmeal for breakfast. Lunch was a Jimmy Johns Slim ham and cheese Sandwich, then baked chips, and a pickle. My afternoon snack was a tbsp of peanut butter as I am in dire need of groceries...lol will probably go tomorrow at lunchtime to stock up on fruits and frozen meals. Dinner...well...I kind of promised D ice cream for dinner once he got past his shots. He asked me a gazillion times if he was gonna cry during them, and I told him over and over, its ok to cry. Well he screamed his lungs sore but in the end, he did not cry. He said to me on the way out, "I didn't cry, mommy!" He was proud of himself. I told him I was proud of him for getting through the shots, but that I'd be just as proud of him if he had cried, because he walked in there with me knowing he was getting shots. Too bad he fought once we got IN the room, but he was brave going into it. I had not tried to hide it from him, he knew.

Output was a 20 minute stationary bike ride again, still working on keeping my legs ready to go for sunday...5 days!

Still on sabbatical

2009-09-21T09:53:00.004-05:00

When will it end? I have no idea. It's been over 96 hours (4 days) since I've gotten on DAM or FB. I'll admit, I've had my moments of really missing them, but I've found other things to occupy my time (that Law and Order:SVU Marathon and the tension of the Cowboy game last night really helped LOL!). I do need to get on DAM sometime this week to get ready for the BLC which starts on Friday and I have a commitment to do that, but other than that, I honestly don't know. I think some of this has been really good for me, but the first two days of it, it was difficult to not want to fill that online void with food. Last night was a lot easier for that though, although it helps that due to AF being awful I can't move around much. Big help there.

The Half is coming up in a mere 6 days...6 days! I have some big plans coming for October to really start working on running more, but I'll announce those on October 1st. No, its not anything SUPER special, but I have been really inspired by Paula and Libby's Running Streaks, and I'd like to attempt a similar challenge.

This morning I wanted a slightly more filling breakfast than just oatmeal so I ended up having a pbj and baked chips. It sounded good at the time. Lunch ended up being Sweet and Sour Chicken (very little sauce on the side) with rice. Dinner was KFC. I got grilled chicken breast with mashed tatoes, no gravy, and green beans to end my day at 1320 calories.

Output: another 20 minutes on the bike. I want to keep my legs warmed up even though I can't walk right now due to AF.

A quiet day

2009-09-20T19:40:00.002-05:00

We didn't do a lot today with AF being a PITA. D and I did get out of the house for a bit to meet my aunt for lunch but that's about it, we came home so he could take a nap, and just relaxed the best of the day.

I didn't eat breakfast since we slept in a bit. Lunch was at Uncle Julio's. I had some chips, salsa, and queso, plus one tortilla, and then my aunt and I split chicken quesadillas. Dinner was spaghetti, chicken nuggets and green beans. This evening I had some animal crackers to end my day at 1422 calories.

Output: not much but I did do 20 minutes on the exercise bike just to get SOMETHING in today.