Attacked by a bird of prey…not my idea of fun.

I don't know what it is about me and blogging. I start writing, have to put it on hold and then never seem to get it posted that same day. Wait, that sounds like my life. Yup, I am a procrastinator if ever there was one. I'm trying to work on that, but I'll get back to that later. HA! So for funsies…I will just alter what I wrote instead of trying to make it sound like it just happened. (That SO didn't make sense. I'll just do it and you see if you can keep up. See?! It will be FUNNNN!!!)

I was so proud of myself yesterday Saturday for sleeping in until 7:30am. I almost managed to do that again today Sunday. I have this horrible habit of waking up in the middle of the night and checking the clock to see how much more time I have to sleep. Saturday morning is the day I do my long runs and 8 miles was on the books. It was looking pretty frozen outside so I was vomiting in my head at the thought of running 8 miles on the treadmill. BUT, when you are such a great procrastinator (HEY LOOK I FORSHADOWED myself without knowing it!!) like me and you go to JoAnn Fabrics to use your 60% off coupon AND pick up fixins for the kids to make their own breakfast…the temperature has a way of creeping up from a frigid 22 degrees to a rather toasty 28. Woot! That kind of bikini weather meant that I was running outside!

How fun does that not look?!

I finally set out to run at 11am. I was pretty pleased with how I had layered my clothing. It's my ongoing science project to learn what works best for me and at what temperatures. My hardest mile to run was 3-4 with the wind in my face and mile 7 (11:00:08 pace) which was uphill. Between miles 3-4 I was arguing with myself about calling my hubs to have him come pick me up. At mile 5 my iPod ran out of juice, CRAP! And that is when I saw the biggest hawk? I think it was a hawk…staring down at me from his perch on top of the telephone pole. That's when I told myself, "Don't make eye contact and try to not look like a mouse while you're running."

Pleased with my eight miles, I got giddy remembering that I had chocolate milk to refuel with at home. I contemplated the podcast I had managed to listen to about race recovery and I wondered if you ran in freezing weather, if that constitutes as an active ice bath. What do you think? I was a pop-sicle by the time I got home so I threw myself into the shower as soon as I walked in the door. Well as soon as I poured myself a glass of chocolate milk, that is.

This is where I wandered away from my computer and then never got the rest of the blog finished or posted. Saturday really was a great day…relaxing but busy. I got the house cleaned, laundry done, all my Scentsy pots refilled with fresh Autumn scents, AND I started working on a craft project that I'm SOOO excited to share with you when it's done, but you can't tell my mom since she's getting it for her birthday…or Christmas.

Lastly, Shampoo and I had a date night at home. Plus a small miracle…all of the kids were gone. Nearly all. Just one remained, holed up in her room with a movie. She wanted the alone time so don't feel too sorry for her. Her had a busy week. (That's how I talk to babies, animals, and people acting like babies, so no, I didn't type that incorrectly.) OK, so date night! I made Creamy White Chicken Chili and a crumb cake. All domesticated and flashy like a nightclub. Then we snuggled down for a marathon of Grey's Anatomy and other shows that I only make it through the first 10 minutes of before I fall asleep. Such party animals!

Creamy White Chicken Chili

This chili is amazing! I love it sooo so much! (I found the recipe over on Eat, Live, Runand stole her picture too. Go check out her blog though!) I haven't tried it with a reduced fat sour cream. Oooh or could you substitute Greek yogurt for the sour cream? I'm scared to try as I would hate to ruin a batch of this deliciousness.

 

Anyone else obsessively check the clock when they should be sleeping?

Although I wouldn't want to be attacked by either, I would much rather engage in punching shenanigans with a hawk versus a grizzly bear. How about you?

The Peon Version of "Normal or Not"

Sometimes it's necessary to just get out there and mingle with the public. You know, to be "normal" and all and stay connected with your roots. I chose a pair of jeans and a long sleeve t-shirt, paired with my jacket you know, to blend in with my surroundings. I wore shoes too, duh.

So a trip to Fred Meyer's it was! My basket was laden with all the essentials:



Runner's World magazine (Because I've get to break down and subscribe, and really, what would be my purpose to leave the house if it was delivered to my doorstep?)

GUM! (Because gum is perfection.)

A notebook (Because I don't have enough partially filled ones lying around the house to start taking notes at a moment's notice.)

Coconut water (Because Duh! On sale for .99 cents! You'd be a moron to pass on that.)

Beeswax candles and oil (Because my ears hurt and Hilliary tried it and loved it and because I've been curious if it would help with the damage that the ear plugs may be doing?)

Coconut scented lotion (Because I love coconut EVERYTHING! Coconut fro-yo, coconut water, milk, oil, candy, everything coconut I heart. Seriously. Except a coconut bra. I don't think I like those. Nor could I fill one up.)

Walnuts (Because coconut in my oatmeal each morning...well now, that does sound delicious. Hmmm...!!??!)

What's missing in the picture? Ooooh maybe my newly cleaned ring that was getting all shiny while the shopping shennanigans were underfoot? And definitely missing is the box of tampons which really was the whole reason I set out in the first place. $6.19 purchase turned into $40ish dollars. That's how I roll.

This should leave you dizzy

 

Why the random dog picture from this summer? Because it sums up this particular post in one perfectly grammar erred sentence...


This post don't make no sense!


You've been warned. And you should probably stop reading now.

This morning as I ran, I listened to a podcast and I had a mini wake up call. The gist of it goes something like this:

Losing weight is sexy. Maintenance is boring. Losing weight is cool....the more amount you lose, the bigger the recognition. No one is really amazed when they find out your weight loss transformation was a total of 10 pounds. So let’s say you’ve lost upwards of 50 pounds…pretty cool. Ok very cool. Awesome even. The transformation is easy to witness and typically, an outsider will see the transformation of the person’s insides. Wait, did that make sense? For example…the big loser used to be shy, now they are not. Please don’t be offended that I seriously dumbed that down. I just couldn’t find the right way to say it.

When you’re a rock star like me, just saying, someone that has lost over 75 pounds, or in my case 100, you knew you were dealing with more than just an eating problem. AND, unless you got help with those problems, or even if you did, like me, you lose the weight, you go in to maintenance and you now have to learn to deal with your issues without turning to food and inactivity.

Realizing now that I’m going off on a tangent…or at least not pulling my thoughts together (And that is REALLY easy when you’re like me and so easily distracted!)…what was my point?

I lost the bulk of my weight back in 2001? So technically, I’ve been maintaining for a decade. Yet, in that 10 years, I can remember certain weights…180 in 2001, 175 in 2004, up to 200 in 2006, down to 175 in 2007. 155 came in 2008. That’s the lowest I remember as an adult. I want to get back to there. I was extremely happy with my body at that size and this will shock you, but that was when I was also the happiest and most at peace with myself. I’m being sarcastic about the shocking part.

Because I blog, that doesn’t mean I can write well. But I learned today, or rather, I was reminded that I blog to find accountability. I blog to vent. I’ve been avoiding blogging…and we’re talking like in the last few years, because I was censoring myself. I felt like a failure I guess? Because I gained 20 pounds back? I’m certainly not always a chipper and positive person so I felt like I was being a hypocrite by blogging when my mind was in it’s own little black hole. I guess cuz I lost all the weight, and had quite a few people impressed with my accomplishment, I put this pressure on myself to appear to have it more together than I really did?

CRAP, I really don’t know what I’m trying to say anymore. Ha!
1. I’m gunna blog.
2. I will probably always ramble on and on.
3. I need the accountability
4. If you don’t like what I write, then don’t read it.
5. Yeah, I can be kinda sassy. A lot. But I’m pretty good at keeping my mouth shut most of the time.

PS Today I polished off the bag of miniature Reese's PB cups that my mom gave me on my birthday, which was Tuesday the 8th, and no it's not too late to still send presents! Oreos used to be my crack. Now my black tar heroine appears to be the choco/pb combo. Obvi.

Are you dizzy? Do you even remember why you clicked on the link to this blog to begin with?

The adventures of Butt Bunny

Once upon a time, at a website far, far away, I made some friends on the internet. My family pretends that they are imaginary while I repeatedly weave their names into my conversations. My family is all very aware that I will be finally meeting this crew a year from now in VEGASSSSSS of all places. I should back track to how we met. Maybe? You probably don’t really care so I won’t be hurt if you stop reading now.

Bunz…this is for you! Our little group formed back in the early spring of 2008 at a little place called Sparkpeople. It’s like the Facebook of fitness and weight-loss. We’re an odd assortment of women-young to old…guess who’s not too happy about being the oldest? Guess who’d certainly not the mature one of the bunch?

I can’t let you in on our our sordid little secrets, but we do lovingly refer to each other as bunnies. And eww, not the skanky playmate ones either. Seriously. We have class. Class=dressing up like bunnies for our marathon adventure at the Really Big Free Marathon in Vegas, November 2012.

Along came our traveling bunny…Derry Hare. Our bunny version of Flat Stanley, you could say. I received him about a week ago for my new marathon PR. He and I are tight. We went running yesterday.

The adventures of Derry Hare and the oldest, most immature, yet classy bunny not playmate:

 

I let him drive.

 

My scary now makeup face, so divert your eyes to the cute bunny and/or my newest head band I made.

 

All geeked out and ready to go.

 

He took one look at the trail and decided since he didn't have his Yaktrak's that we would run the roads since they were mostly clear.

(So I didn't really take him on the run with me. There were too many other things that I had to deal with. Like my ipod. It wasn't working. Something was wrong with my headphones...or maybe it was the podcast? I could hear people speaking but it was super muffled. I unzipped my fleece to check out the pod, and realized I didn't have the headphones in my ears. Right there is when I should have turned around and gone back to bed...at 12pm in the afternoon.)

I really hope that house wasn't looking out their window with binaculars

This week has been all about me stressing out too much…and me eating too much sugar. Last week, I made it about three days total without any HFCS and minimal sugar in the form of KIND bars. I really like sugar a lot and one of my favorite ways to eat sugar is in the form of a Reeses PB cup. I’ve tried the all natural, Newman’s ones…and they just aren’t the same without all of the extra chemicals. Boo to that, I say!

Stress…so back to that, nothing major…it’s just that some people can be so unpleasant. And stupid. But I can and will do all things through Christ who strengthens me to “kick butt” as needed. Kick butt=handle things in a mature, adult-like fashion. Of course.

OH and the countdown to my new phone…!!! I started counting down the days at 17 days…then that made me sad. Then when it was two weeks to go, I thought it was only one week…and I cried. No biggie though! I had been dealing with my crapberry for two years and I could handle one more week. Well, on Monday, my phone stopped working. I didn’t really think too much about it as I discovered this late in the afternoon. I thought my texts just weren’t going out-Got home, changing out of my workclothes, and Shamu comes busting in the door and sez, “Oh HAI! Ijustcouldn’twaitherezurnewphonesorry.” Ta-da!

I’m in luuuurrrvvvv! Hello Amee and welcome to the Android! It’s sooo awesome and pretty and fast and big. (That’s what she…wait, family show!) It’s a Samsung Galaxy S2 and this phone makes me feel older and stupider each day.


Is bigger better? I don't care! It's not a stupid piece of Blackberry crap and I finally can play Angry Birds! Wheeee! Mine is the one on the left...(I mean my other left. Geesh!) the "not the iphone" one. The bigger one. Except, I don't have that button thing down at the bottom. It's all touchy feelie.

Running…I have GOT to get back into the game here. And by game, I mean weights. I have been dragging myself to the gym (We just got our first snow!) at 4:30 every morning, but this week, I skipped Monday and Thursday. Monday was understandable since I ran 6 miles on Sunday. Thursday, I was just being a puss.

Today, I was supposed to make it seven miles and I only made it to four. Why you ask? (As I divert your attention away from the topic of weight lifting.) Well here’s a list of why I’m a weenie tot and only ran four miles today.

Why I’m a weenie-tot and only ran four miles today list:
1. It was snowing
2. I waited until too late in the day (fueling issues)
3. I over-fueled with too much coffee and delicious but empty carbs and not enough carbs
4. My ipod crapped out at mile three
5. Snow was flying into my eyeballs
6. I really had to pee

So, I did what any normal weenie-tot would do and I called for a cab. My cab driver was Indian. He called me honey and said I was adorable. Should I be concerned? He’s taking me out to the movies tonight. I obviously haven’t learned my lesson yet.

Speaking of peeing....see #6 right above. To the house on Crystal Springs...if you were being all stalkerish or just happened to be looking out of your front window with binaculars, I am truly sorry.

PS Do you like my new picture banner? I worked on it for waaaayyy tooooo long this morning. It's not perfect. It will do.