This is your brain on Pinterest

In an effort to give a little more emphasis on the “do stuff” part of this blog, I thought I might bless you with my offerings of craftiness. But first, lemme tell you that I survived some last minute, Christmas shopping! (And I guess I should fess up now that I intended to post this on Christmas Eve BUT, wrapping presents and showing up on my parent’s doorstep for a surprise, “Hey do you have any leftovers for dinner?”…well it all got the best of me. PS Mom, the lasagna was amazing!)

The survival must all be in part to my super Ghost Protocol spy skills I picked up. Great movie! For however long the movie was, I forgot that I think Tom Cruise is a whack-job. He is THAT good of an actor, I guess. This guy is the one that I was curious about and almost forgot that I needed to google him when I got home. Google not ogle. He’s no Will Smith. For sure. He’s ok. The end.


Oh! Guess how my morning started?! I was reading a favorite running blog of mine called Shut Up and Run. Beth, my new BFF (Cuz I asked her if it meant that we were and she said yes. The proof is in the email!) was announcing the giveaway for a sports endurance drink called Zipfizz. So I was reading who the winner was, and I was all like, “Hey the winner spells her name just like me. Weird.” Oh and “Hey, her blog has the same name!” And then I read, “and she’s lost 100 pounds.” And I was all like, “HOLY CRAP that ISSSS me!” Completely excited and mortified at the same time!! Cuz it’s not everyday that someone announces for you to the internet, “This chick used to be fat!” So yeah, that’s me. All lucky and crap. With a new BFF that has encouraged me through her blog that it is fine and dandy to share TMI issues when it relates to running. And even when it doesn’t. Lucky for you that only consists of tinkle triumphs. Like this one. I’ll be sure to tell you all about the Zipfizz when it makes it’s way to my doorstep.

Wrapping up a storm here in the Sandhu house. I always say I won’t wait until the last minute. Haha!! I wet my pants laughing. (See, I told you it doesn't always relate to running.)Maybe next year?

The "Do Stuff" part:

Behold, the snazziest and easiest Christmas decoration I have made in…well, years. I put the crafty side of my multiple personalities away for a long time. It’s BREAKIN’ FREE I tell ya!

I also discovered after making a few of these puppies that olive oil does in-deedy remove spray adhesive and will unstick your thumb from your pointer finger. That or you could wear gloves. I LURV me some glitter. I’d say the shiny stuff and not the movie, but I haven’t seen the movie. And I will never.


Next up on the agenda is a little money/gift card holder that I made for our secret santa exchange at work. Plastered all over the “About me” sheet I received from my coworker was the word Farmville. Hey, whatever floats her farmyard. I couldn’t NOT get her a gift card yet I wanted something to snazz it up a bit. I followed this tutorial that I found on Pinterest. Yes, Pinterest is my new black tar heroine. And don’t be silly, I’ve never touched the stuff. This was rather easy to make…next one will be easier. She got the guinea pig you could say. But very cute, no? Ooooh the ideas to make more!


Laps make the perfect backdrop for small homemade gift items.



After I purchased my first no slip headband, I was all like, “Hey, I could make these.” And so I did. Everyone around me has been getting them for gifts. Girls mainly. With hair…to keep out of their face. And ones that like to work up a sweat. Although, I have worn different versions to work. I even sold my first three headbands. Rather I was coerced into selling them. Basically she said, “I want three and I WILL PAY YOU!” I was way too scared to shout back “NO YOU WILL NOT GIVE ME MONEY!!!” And besides, I’m really not that much of an idiot.

Because laptops might be a better backdrop than laps. I just keep getting better and better!

It’s obvious that the day we call Christmas has come and gone. I’m sincerely hoping that all my friends don’t hate me because I didn’t send out “Merry Christmas” texts nor did I post a thing on Facebook. I moped around a bit because it was my first Christmas without my girls. You should feel sorry for me. HOWEVER THEY DOOOOO COME HOME TODAY!! And we will pretend it’s Christmas day all over again. Complete with monkey bread! And probably less tears on my part.

And now, I need to quit wasting my time with this blog and go shoot up some Pinterest!

Especially Stupid

I knew that you would all be highly entertained or just mildly interested in knowing that I have a slight obsession with perfumes. I am definitely NOT one of those that wears perfume to the gym so don't get your spandex in a bunch!

A recent order to Sephora online scored me a deluxe sample of perfumes for free. Freeeeeeee! There were 12 samples but 4 of them were for men. Boo to that but yay on the cheap yet maybe tacky stocking stuffers for the hubs?

(Sephora is awesome for peeps like me that only have access to fine establishments like Walmart when you run out of your favorite eye shadow. Shipping is free when you purchase over $50 and the samples and specials are always fun little extras! I have been known to go in to a Sephora to try stuff out but then purchase the items online cuz you get way more freebies.)

Ummkay, long winded squeal about Sephora over. Here's my somewhat opinionated but not too in depth blabbering:

The first one I tried a couple of weeks ago was Jennifer Anniston's new fragrance. Guess what it is called?!?! JENNIFER ANNISTON! (All caps and the exclamation point are all my own emphasis. I know, I'm cool.) I'll have to save that one for later, but I'll leave you with this. Sadly Sadly. Unimpressed. But I'm not saying I've given up hope on it yet! The next sample I reached for after breaking up with Jen was Escada's "Especially".


Not my picture. And much bigger than the little vial I have.

Oh no! I forgot to tell you that I'm not good at describing things well. Certainly not in a way that might make sense...scents HA!...to a real perfume expert. This one smells a little sharp and soapy. Still feminine but not all flowery. I think it smells grown up but not old lady-ish too...classy I guess? But then I am turning into an old lady, so what do I know.

Basically, I like it and have received two compliments from coworkers that it smells nice. Bonus! Just for hoots, I went and read what the "experts" really say about this perfume. Guess I won't ever be working in marketing for Escada.Go buy some and tell them you like my description better!

Would I buy the perfume? Yep
Would I pick it over Jennifer Anniston's perfume? In a heartbeat! Unless you made me say it to her face. In that case, I would give her a dozen cake pops and ask if we could French braid each other's hair.


THEIR Description:

Especially Escada
A luxurious and feminine scent, Especially Escada carries a joyful, spontaneous, and glamorous spirit. Inspired by the glistening scent of morning dew on a sparkling rose, Especially Escada says luxury, but in a modern and light-hearted way.

The fragrance opens with a sparkling top note of pear and combines with the exotic notes of ambrette seeds. A luxurious combination of rose and ylang ylang radiates a fresh and natural aura of floral joy and happiness. Light musky notes complete the scent, adding a subtle touch of femininity.

Notes:
Pear, Rose, Ambrette Seeds, Ylang Ylang, Musky Notes.
Style:
Bright. Delicate. Sparkling.

Oh look! Bar wears this stuff. Maybe my hair, and body, and face will look like her's if I start wearing this stuff?!

My description versus theirs? Leaves room for imagination?

What perfume is your current fave?I've tried a lot but not a ton and now, I can't remember any names of them. If you show me the bottles I could tell you if I've tried it a lot.

PS That reminds me-as a kid, my mom always wore Toujours Moi by Coty I think it was? I would save up and buy her a bottle from Payless...back when it was not a shoe store...and before it was bought out by Rite-Aid. It's wear the cool kids shopped. Shut up.

The Paloooooza of all things that are Weddings/Thanksgiving and Fro-yo!

Paraphrasing to me is like the unedited version of “War and Peace.” But the good thing about me is that I never give up. So let’s try this puppy!

The Sunday before Thanksgiving (too lazy to see what the date was) we had our Thanksgiving dinner. Just our family…all seven of us. And then my parent’s and bro came over for dessert. I was pleasantly surprised that we pulled off the dinner so well and no one got strangled or murdered.

Then there was this whole blur of a week in which the hubs left with a few of the kids and then I joined him with the rest of the kids for a little shindig that we will call, “A small, quiet, uneventful wedding.” SQUW for short. And secretly I’m dying laughing inside at my private joke. It was Shamu’s sister’s wedding. Younger and the only sister. ANYTHING with his side is never small, never quiet, and never uneventful. So combine the younger and only sister part with his family and let your imagination go. The end.

I kid. That’s not the end. But remember…I’m trying to keep this short.

So we drove 5 hours on T-Day to the land that some people like to call California. We ate at Del Taco. Gross! Got a tattoo. Cool!

 

Not impressed with The Taco that is Del, but was thankful that they were open and that I was able to get back to the hotel without getting lost.

 

Here's the mehndi aka henna before. Interesting little note: I slept with my bangles on so it wouldn't scrape the henna off. In the morning, it looked like I had slept with a bunch of rats that had pooped the bed.

 

In the morning after I had picked and scraped off the henna. That's my one daughter's hand. (I don't have two left hands. And that's my hubs in the background. Not wearing pajamas. That's actually part of what he wore to the wedding.)


SQUW Black Friday….wedding. Lots of waiting around. Lots of not understanding what was going on because everyone speaks Punjabi but me. Lots of just observing and staying out of the way…which is easy because we weren’t important, we don’t speak Punjabi, and everyone else was caught up in what they were doing so we got forgotten about. Occasionally I would hear a, “Where’s Amee.” Uh…you’ll find that flower…over on a wall. Hiding somewhere. Wall flower…get it?!

 

Here I am though standing next to my sister in law. She's rather gorgeous, right?


SQUW Saturday…the reception. This day was totally more fun because alcohol was involved!

 

I just adore this fool.

 

My oldest daughter and I. She is wearing her first sari. She has only worn suits and lenghas before.


SQUW Sunday…drove home. Uneventful...exhausted.

I only squeezed in one run on Saturday. However I DID squeeze in two trips to two different fro-yo shops!

 

Running with mehndhi at Maidu Park in Roseville, CA.

 

Guess which one was mine? Hint: the one that is smothered with Almond Roca pieces! Yotopia was our fave fave but the Big Spoon that we had the night before was good...just not fave. Neither place beats Yogurtland but put's Klamath's Frosty Spoon to a pitiful shame.


And then from Monday to today…it’s been a blur of life, trying to recover from exhaustion, and trying not to murder anyone cuz it’s shark week. I have progressed from having the urge to punch people to just, hey let’s just get it over and call it homicide.

Oh yeah, and there was a little addiction I got invited to called Pinterest.

THE END! Woot to the keep-one-eye-open- or- you- might- wake- up-dead hoo!

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.)