Crazy Skipper

Is there something wrong with me?

2010-08-15T18:56:00.002-05:00

So, life has been going pretty darn good lately. The show went really well and on opening night, the choreographer pulled me aside to tell me what a great job she thought I did and to tell me that she is doing another show and she thought I should audition for it. So, I'm currently in rehearsals again and having a great time. I even feel pretty good about the fact that I'll be on stage in this one wearing something along the lines of a belly dancer outfit. But, I've lost about 20 pounds since the beginning of the year and I've been hitting the gym and working on toning up a little more, so I'm feeling pretty good about showing it off on stage. The hair is also looking good, which has been nice.

And then things came kind crashing down- psychologically speaking. I had gone out for a drink and then dinner with a guy I met on match.com just as I started rehearsing for the first show I did this summer. He was a very nice guy and conversation was fine. But, I just didn't feel that "spark" with him. He didn't really make me laugh a lot and I just got the feeling that life with him would be dull. I was kind of open to taking it a little further to see if there was anything there, but I was so stinking busy, so when I had to tell him that I really didn't have time the following weekend to get together, he texted back that I should let him know when I had time and that if I wasn't really interested in getting together again that he enjoyed meeting me. He was actually pretty nice about it, but I just didn't feel anything still.

I took a little break from the match thing too much while I was still doing the show, but some time in July I got a message from someone else on there that seemed like there could be something there. We messaged back and forth a couple of times, and this past week, we finally met for drinks. Again, he was a really nice guy. He has a good job, owns his own house, and seemed like someone who would treat me really well, but again, nothing. No "spark" and no real laughter. This time though, he texted me about getting together for brunch this weekend and I texted him back that I thought he was very nice, but that I didn't feel a "spark" and that I felt it was better to end things now than to drag this on. He, however, wasn't as nice about it and texted back first asking me what I was looking for (I would love to know, myself) and then he texted me something about "heaven help the men out there". Well, thanks, just because you aren't the right one for me doesn't make me some sort of maneater- I guess I figured that it was better to end this before any feelings developed on his part, knowing that I wasn't feeling it.

The problem isn't that I don't feel a "spark" with anyone, its that I don't feel a "spark" with the right guys. That's two nice guys that I've met on match and nothing, however, back this winter, I went out with my brother and some of his friends for his birthday. We had a bit to drink and towards the end of the evening, walking my brother back to his place, his really good friend held my hand. At first I thought he was just being nice since it was icy outside and I was in heels. But he held my hand all the way back to my brother's place and when we got inside, my brother went upstairs and his friend kissed me. It was brief, since my brother came back down, but stupid me, the next day thought that maybe that had meant something. This was the one friend of his that I have always thought was cute and fun. But, the next time I ran into him, he couldn't spit it out fast enough that he was really drunk the night of my brother's birthday, which pretty much says to me that he chalks that all up to drinking too much.

Then came this summer and the show I was in. The guy who got cast opposite me was really great. We got along really well and became really good friends. He works a night job and we had quite a few long text conversations after rehearsals. And once the show ended, we continued our friendship. We did actually kind of admit that there was an attraction there, but there are two major problems with that. First, he's significantly younger than me, I mean, not like illegal younger, but still way younger. Second, and way more of a problem is that he has a girlfriend who while he's attracted to me, he is completely in love with his girlfriend. So, yeah, while we're still trying to be friends, that relationship is never going past friendship.

This brings me to my issue. Why can't I feel something for these nice guys and yet I am attracted to the unavailable guys? What is my problem? While the easiest question is to ask if there is something wrong with me, I don't really think there is. I just still can't quite figure out what I want. I thought I knew, but I also wound up not listing anything as an absolute "must-have" in my match.com profile. I don't know why- I guess it goes along with my desire for people to like me and to not offend anyone. I didn't want anyone to think I was a horrible person for saying that being overweight is not acceptable to me. (although with that one, it's amazing what some guys think "about average" means)

So, in my recent soul-searching I've been reevaluating some things. First, I'm not going to rely too much on this new friendship. I found that I became very dependent on our conversations and that's not good. I shouldn't be relying on someone who won't always be there for me. Second, I'm going to change up my profile. I'm going to list that I absolutely don't want someone who is overweight, or over 40, or who doesn't believe in God. I also am going to state that I want someone who can both enjoy and support my love of theater and music but who also makes Packers games a priority. (This last guy actually said that while he likes the Packers, he sometimes chooses to do his grocery shopping during game time, since its not crowded- that would never survive with me or my family.) I want someone who while he may be settled in a career, he can be spontaneous and random. Finally, I am going to continue my inner evaluation. I think I may start meditating and I've been reading the book "Eat Pray Love" which so far as phenomenal. While I don't have the time or money to do what she did, I think I can pick up a few things from her. What I do know for sure is this: I will not settle for anything less than the absolutely perfect man for me. I refuse to put myself in a position like Elizabeth Gilbert, where I wind up crying on the bathroom floor because I don't want to be married. As much as being single sucks- and quite a bit more these days than it used to- I would rather be single forever than settle with the wrong person. It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from Sex and the City, "Some people are settling, some are settling down and some won't settle for anything less than butterflies." Well, I want butterflies and I'm going to just keep plugging along until I find them.

Just feels right...

2010-06-26T20:54:00.002-05:00

So, my last post was a pretty big downer. I'm still dealing with the hair loss and keeping my fingers crossed that the Rogaine will work.

On a much happier note, at the end of May I auditioned for a musical through one of the area community theater companies. I've done a number of shows over the last 10 years through my church and another church in the area, but I've never auditioned for community theater. I was pretty nervous going into the auditions, and even more so when I got called back. But, the day after call-backs, I got a call from the director letting me know that they were offering me the female lead in the show! Needless to say, I was very excited!!!

The last month has pretty much consisted of rehearsals almost every weeknight, but I don't mind. I love doing this. While I'm nervous about how I'm doing and hoping that I can keep up with the people in the show who are getting degrees in theater, I feel very at home up there. It's kind of tough to describe, but it just feels right. I know I've been giving up a lot of other things so far this summer to do this, but I can't imagine myself being anywhere else.

Sometimes life just sucks...

2010-05-18T20:33:00.002-05:00

So, I have been having a fairly emotional few weeks which culminated this morning in a trip to the doctor where I have been diagnosed with female pattern hair loss. It royally sucks to be on Rogaine at 32. Thanks mom and dad for another set of fabulous genes.

A few months ago, my mom commented that I must not have taken enough time when I put my hair up, because I had bald patch where the bobby pin was. I kind of just figured that I must have rushed that night. But, over the next few weeks, I noticed that I had to take longer to style my hair so I didn't have any open patches. Then just a couple of weeks ago, I started to notice that when I left my hair down, the way it naturally lays, you can tell there are thin areas. After a few emotional meltdowns, I finally called and got an appointment to see a dermatologist. Thankfully, she said that with most women the Rogaine really works. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Good Deal

2010-04-21T20:55:00.002-05:00

So, in the last six months or so, I've really gotten into eating Greek yogurt. Partially because it helps me get a little more protein in my diet- I don't eat a ton of meat when it's just me at home, so any extra protein that I can get is great building muscle mass, which will help burn more calories. Anyway, my love of Greek yogurt is dampened by the fact that it's much more expensive than regular yogurt. So, imagine my excitement when I went grocery shopping last night after work and discovered that both Dannon and Yoplait have now come out with Greek yogurt. Granted, these are still a little more expensive than regular, but not as bad. Especially when like last night, I caught a sale. A nice man was stocking the shelves and mentioned that the Yoplait version was on sale for $.79 each. I guess the store got in a whole pallet of it that was a little over a week from its expiration date. Not a big deal for me, since I like to eat it every day, so I picked up a bunch of them. I tried it out today at lunch and it tasted great! Yeah for cheaper Greek yogurt!!

New Toy!

2010-04-14T21:26:00.002-05:00

I hit the big 3-2 recently, but I'm still celebrating- I figure I get the whole month of April. Partially this year because my birthday fell on Holy Saturday which meant that a good portion of my actual birthday was spent at church. I went out with a couple of friends for dinner on Friday night and then two of us went for pedicures and then out for a little wine- well, I had a little wine and she watched (she's pregnant). Saturday I met my parents for brunch- where I got carded- so the celebration continued:) And of course, the best part about being on Facebook is that you get tons of birthday messages from friends and family- and those people who are just your "facebook friends". On Sunday, I celebrated with the whole family- Easter dinner was specially made to be completely gluten-free including gluten-free birthday cake!

And then of course, I got my gifts. My parents gave me a Barnes and Noble Nook!!! And under my mom's suggestion my brother got me a Barnes and Noble gift card so I could buy a few books to read on my new Nook. I LOVE my Nook!!! I love having a book with me to read any time and it gets difficult with the size of some of the books that I read because they don't fit in my purse very well. This is the perfect size to go in the purse at all times. Plus, I always have another book waiting for me to read it when I finish the one I'm currently reading. And to top it all off, they have all of the Google ebooks available for free so I have been able to download a whole bunch of the classics that I have on my list of books that I want to read. So, now for free I am almost finished with Northanger Abbey which will complete my journey through the Jane Austen novels. This has got to be the best birthday gift I have gotten in years!!!

Nothing to do with Basketball

2010-02-20T23:20:00.002-06:00

So, back in November, I was looking for some sort of part-time job that would make me even a few bucks more a month. It didn't have to be a lot of money, but a little bit more would really help. My mom mentioned in passing one day that one of her coworkers worked on the Buck's promo crew, meaning, they hand out the freebies at the entrance for several of the games each year. It doesn't pay a ton, but it's a little bit and it helps, so I managed to get a job with them. At first, it seemed great that I would get paid, plus get free parking, and I would get a ticket to go to each game that I work. I used my free ticket for the first game or so that I worked, but eventually I realized that my brother works at the bar across the street from where the games take place. I started going over there when I was done working instead of going to the games. I certainly don't need to have a couple of drinks each time I work, and I do like watching the Bucks games, but I have started making a habit of skipping on the free game ticket and going over to see my brother each time I work. He is so busy, that it is difficult to find time to spend with him. So, over the past few years as much as I would like to get to know him more, I haven't had the chance. I kind of see this opportunity as my chance to get to know him. It's really been a great experience the last couple of months. I know once in awhile he and his coworkers must wonder why I skip on a free game ticket and head over to the bar, but it is just so nice to get to spend some time with him. So, I guess my take away from this is that, as much as I love sports, it is just way more important to me to get to spend time with my brother and I am so grateful to have gotten this job not for the extra money or anything like that, but for the chance to spend more time with him.

Trader Joe's

2010-02-17T21:11:00.002-06:00

I can not say enough good things about this store! In the past, I had gone down to Illinois to pick up some Two Buck Chuck and a few other items, but I didn't pay much attention to their food selection. Then, a couple of years ago, we finally got a Trader Joe's in Milwaukee. But, it's on the north side of town and I don't get up there all that often, either. When I went gluten-free, I was trying to taste a lot of different foods that were out there, to get an idea of what I liked. One of my coworkers suggested I check out Trader Joe's and I went on their website to see if they commented on a gluten-free selection. Not only did they comment on it, but they have a 7 page list of everything in their store that is gluten-free.

So, I made a trip up to the store to check out the products. See, while they had a lot of options for me, I was concerned a what they would cost. Gluten-free items at a regular grocery store seem to be obscenely priced, so I wasn't getting my hopes up until I saw some prices. I was very excited when I got there and found things reasonable as well. I was able to get a large bag of rotini-shaped rice pasta for a couple of bucks. Then I saw the holy grail- Gluten-free Mac N Cheese. It looks just like the Kraft- powder cheese and everything, but with rice pasta. Again only a couple of bucks for a box, so pretty good. I did make a couple of adjustments from the instructions- they don't call for any butter, but I added a little margarine, and I tossed on a little of the cheese powder that you can use on popcorn- with my tweaks, I would definitely say it is a rival to the Kraft, and I would know because I used to consider myself a connoisseur of macaroni and cheese. Anyway, I am a huge fan of Trader Joe's now. I'm taking a trip up there this weekend again to stock up on stuff, can't wait!

My New Journey

2010-02-09T21:45:00.002-06:00

I'm not sure if I've commented in the past about my migraines, but pretty much everyone who knows me is aware of the problems they have caused in my life particularly the last couple of years. I've always had headaches, but a couple of years after college, I started getting what was diagnosed as migraines. I didn't know what they were at first, but I was getting really bad headaches that would center behind one eye or the other, I would be very light sensitive and many times wound up nauseous. I was taking off about a day a month because I couldn't get out of bed from the headaches. My boss actually asked me if I was depressed or didn't like my job because I was calling in sick so much. Once I finally got diagnosed with migraines, they got me some hard-core medicine to take care of the headaches once I got them. And that pretty much got me through the next several years. I would get a couple of migraines a month and would take the meds and get past it. But, a couple of years ago, I started getting the migraines more often- 3-4 a month at first. Then by this past year, I started getting them in bunches, 5-6 in a week with up to 8-10 a month. I was going broke just paying co-pays on my medicine and I would spend days in a drugged-up state once I got rid of the headaches, but still had so much medicine in my system.

I knew I had to do something with this and my doctor's suggestion was to go on preventative medicine for them. My concern with this is that these meds aren't designed for migraines. They are anti-seizure and hypertension and depression drugs that they have discovered have a side-effect of getting rid of migraines. I don't have any of those problems that the drugs were made for, so I have an issue with taking them for this. So, I spent two months this past fall trying to track everything that I ate, or did, and how much I slept to see if I could figure out what my triggers are. Nothing stuck out. No sleep connections, no food connections, nothing. There was only one thing that had a slight connection- any time I mentioned having stomach "issues" it seemed like I would get a migraine. But it wasn't always and since my migraines brought on nausea, I didn't think much of it. Until mid-December when I was talking to a friend about the headaches. I mentioned the connection and she asked if I had ever considered trying gluten free. I guess one of her co-workers had really bad migraines and she went gluten free and her migraines went away. I didn't think that I had the willpower to do something that drastic, but I kind of remembered the conversation.

Right after Christmas, I had another bout of migraines. This caused my doctor's office to call me because they had gotten so many requests for additional refills on my medicine. I also found out that my insurance was switching my medicine from a tier 1 to a tier 3- which meant going from $12 for 4 pills to $55 for 4 pills. Ouch. I started doing some research. Googling migraines and gluten turned up several small studies that looked at potential links between gluten and migraines. One of the many symptoms of gluten sensitivity is headaches, so it made sense. Plus, I ate a ton of gluten- bread, pasta, breaded foods, that type of stuff, so it would be tough to see that as a trigger.

So, I made a decision and on January 5, I went gluten free. I decided to give it three weeks and see what happens. I was honestly hoping just to see a decrease in the intensity or frequency of migraines. I really didn't think getting rid of them was an option. But, I decided that if I was going to do this, I would do it all the way. So, no low-gluten diet for me, I went gluten free. Now, I haven't taken things to the extreme of someone with severe celiac disease where they can't eat anything prepared on the same grill as gluten full food. But, I haven't eaten anything with gluten since January 5. During the first week, I had two migraines. But since then, nothing. I've had a couple of headaches which I've been able to take care of with just a couple of Excedrin. I haven't gotten rid of a headache with Excedrin in a couple of years. This has been nothing short of a miracle. I'm slowly adjusting to my new lifestyle, but it still gets pretty difficult at times. But, since this seems to be a big part of my life at the moment, hopefully I can update this blog a little more frequently and it will probably focus on gluten free. I'm over a month with this, so hopefully I can keep this up.

Fiber-One

2009-10-26T23:10:00.003-05:00

So, one of my current favorite companies is Fiber-One. One of the main things that I have been struggling with in the past six months or so is just how expensive it is to eat the way most of the diet books, blogs, tv shows tell you to. Aside from the fact that they all want you to eat lots of fresh fruit and veggies- both of which are not cheap- they all give you these food plans that involve cooking these meals each day that have a whole bunch of ingredients, many of which are not found in most people's kitchens. So, you wind up having to go out and buy all these funky ingredients each week to make these meals. And not only is this expensive, but it takes a lot more time than I have on most nights to make.

As a result, I've been on the hunt for food that is nutritious and inexpensive, while not taking a ton of time to make. For instance, I've gone back to the grade school lunches, which I figure got me through a whole lot of years fairly healthy- the good old peanut butter and jelly, only now, on wheat. But, the company that I love is Fiber-One. They now have Fiber-One pop tarts. Each one is only 180 calories, has 5 grams of fiber and 3 grams of protein which makes them more filling than a regular Pop Tart. Plus, they taste really good. The chocolate fudge actually tastes just as good as a regular Pop Tart, which is shocking to me, because normally when healthy food is available in chocolate, it usually doesn't really taste like chocolate, but this does. My other favorite new product from Fiber-One is their pancake mix. Again, one serving has 5 grams of fiber and 6 grams of protein. Last weekend, I had three pancakes for brunch around 10:30 am and was full until around 6 at night. And one great thing is that Fiber-One has now launched a website where you can find out what products they have available and if you can't find them in your local grocery store, you can order them online. So, hopefully, this will help me eat healthy on a budget.

I've been thinking quite a bit lately about the fact that I will be turning 32 in April. The last couple of years I didn't really want to celebrate my birthday. But, I've come to the decision that if I can get back down to my "fighting weight" (the weight I was when I graduated college), I will be celebrating this coming birthday. So, my bike is on the indoor trainer in my living room and combining the workouts with my new healthy diet, hopefully the pounds will start to come off again. Fingers crossed:)

Fighting Irish

2009-10-04T15:17:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I got to fulfill another item from my life's to-do list. I went to South Bend, IN and saw a Notre Dame football game. It all actually came together by chance a couple of months ago. My church's liturgist rode on Team Wendy, the bike team, for the MS 150 this year. My mom drives the team sag wagon and at one rest stop she was talking to him about his summer. He had been taking classes down at Notre Dame. He mentioned that they had offered the summer students the chance to buy tickets to a couple of games, which I guess never happens, so he took advantage and got tickets for him and a friend to one of the games. My mom merely asked if he could get any more- knowing that our whole family are big fans and that while my brother and dad went to a game about 6 years ago, I have never gone. When our liturgist got back to school on Monday, he called my parents and told them he could for sure get two tickets- my dad asked if there was a chance he could get four, and by some miracle, he could. My mom very excitedly called my brother and I and the planning started.

Now, I my parents and I had to be home for church on Sunday morning and my brother couldn't get both Friday and Saturday off from his bartending job, so we decided to just make a really long day of it. I was up on Saturday morning at 4:15am and my parents picked me up just after 5:30am. We headed to my brother's place and I drove us down to South Bend. The drive down went really well, hardly any traffic to deal with so we made good time getting down there at about 11am est. The non-reserved parking lots are about a 20 minute walk to the stadium area, so they have shuttles that take you to campus. No problem getting to campus at that time of the morning. They dropped us off next to the library- that's the building that has the large "Touchdown Jesus" on the side of it. After a few pics in front of "Touchdown Jesus", our first stop was of course, the bookstore. Man, that place was packed! They must sell at least $100,000 of stuff on home game weekends. I mean, we bought a bunch of stuff, but I saw people there with stacks of stuff- and none of it is cheap. Anyway, from there it was off to the fieldhouse. The second story houses their hall of fame. We got to see the National Championship trophies for all sports. My brother made my dad do the Heisman pose for a picture in front of the Heisman trophies. Very funny stuff:) We then walked across campus to the "main hall" not sure what the official name is, but it's the golden dome building. Very cool to see that up close and of course next door is the church, another gorgeous building. We found the Knights of Columbus building, where they sell awesome steak sandwiches and soda for only $6. Then we headed to the "Irish Green" area which is the only place on campus that you can get beer on game day unless you are tailgating. It was nice to sit down and relax a little bit. However, in retrospect, I should have had more than just the steak sandwhich and I should have had water- I have learned my lesson. Anyway, then we hussled up to the stadium area to see the player walk in for the game- the whole team goes to a private mass before the game and then they walk over to the stadium in their suits. People line up the whole way to cheer them on. We got there to see about half the team- it was pretty cool to see everyone cheering them on lining the whole walk about 3 or so deep. Then it was back towards the golden dome to meet up with the guy that got us the tickets. We thanked him for helping us have an awesome day!

Our next stop was the Grotto. This is just a beautiful place. Tons of people were down there lighting candles. We got a little chuckle out of the one Washington fan lighting a candle. My brother wondered whether he thought his prayer for his team could beat all of our prayers- we pointed out that maybe he was praying for something else. When space opened up, each of us knelt down for a brief prayer. After the game we were talking about prayers being answered and my mom said she didn't pray for Notre Dame to win. My brother and I laughed and said we both did. I said that I told God thanks for a really great day so far and that it would be even better if Notre Dame could win. My brother said that he just said- make them win. Short, sweet- pretty typical for him. Anyway, from the Grotto, we headed over to see the band perform on the steps of one of the buildings. From there they move to in front of the golden dome. One of the coolest moments of the day came next. The band lines up and starts to play the Victory March and they march to the stadium and the fans file in behind them. Pretty much the band marching across campus with the fans behind them all the way to the stadium. It gave me chills. Oh, a quick comment on the weather. It had been chilly most of the day, with a couple brief showers, but nothing too bad. It actually looked like the weather would hold up for the game. We got into the stadium and found out we were in the south endzone 53 rows up. Not bad at all. We were pretty packed in there, but everyone around us was pretty nice. The game started off kind of rough- while the offense moved the ball well, they couldn't get in the endzone, settling for field goals. People were getting a little upset, which got worse when it started raining. Then the rain got harder. My raincoat went on and the hood went up. At halftime, the game was still close, but it started raining much harder. I was ok, except my coat didn't cover my legs and those were getting soaked. The guy sitting next to me had a poncho on that covered his legs and when he looked over and saw me getting drenched, he offered me his coat to use to cover my legs. A very nice gesture that saved me probably from pneumonia. Things got pretty exciting in the fourth quarter when we made a huge goal-line stance and then we went back and scored a touchdown. We stood for pretty much the whole fourth quarter. Then the game went into overtime and we went nuts. I'm surprised I wasn't hoarse this morning. When Notre Dame won in the first overtime, the place was crazy!

The only downside to the whole day was that after all of that, I had a raging migraine that was made worse by the over an hour-long wait to get on a shuttle back to the parking lot. I won't go into much detail but it was a rough car ride home that involved me holding a plastic bag in front of my face. I'm feeling much better today and even the rough evening can't ruin an incredible day! The fact that I got to share it with my whole family made it even better.

Calming....

2009-09-29T20:47:00.002-05:00

I'm a type A personality, and I'm an Aries. Both of those are typically very high-energy, and when you look at what types of illnesses each of these are prone to, both list headaches and neck problems. Well, I get very tense in my shoulders and neck, which has a tendency to result in a pinched nerve running up my neck. This combines with migraines to cause some very painful days every month for me. Now, in the past I have gotten these a couple of times a month; however, lately I've started getting these much more frequently. And they seem to be clustering. A couple of weeks ago, I got 7 in one week. I do have medication that I take for the migraines, but I don't like taking it so frequently. Plus, my insurance will only approve 4 pills every 15 days. I've decided to start stockpiling the pills to make sure I don't run out like I did during my string of 7 migraines. I can't quite pinpoint what brings them on- other than the stress definitely contributes. I've started keeping a journal of everything I eat, medication I take, how I feel, and what times I wake up and go to sleep. The only thing I have come up with is to try and somehow calm myself down- relieve a little stress.

This is why I'm trying Yoga. I've been recording episodes of Namaste Yoga on FitTV. Of course I only record the episodes that are for beginners at the moment- even the ones that say they are for beginner/intermediate are a little too challenging currently. Now, I haven't thought much of Yoga in the past. The little bit of experience I had with it wasn't all that great. When I did the Adventure Bootcamp last summer we usually did a couple of poses which were nice for stretching, but I didn't feel very relaxed after it. On Sunday night I decided to try out the Namaste Yoga and when I started out I was still not feeling very relaxed. I had the all the lights on in my living room to see what I was doing, but I finally decided to try something. I lit a few candles and turned off the lights. Suddenly, I was able to focus on the movement and relax. I felt like I was in a studio, not just my messy apartment. It's been a very nice was to end the last couple of days. I'm not sure if this is going to minimize the number of migraines that I get, but it at least seems to be lowering my stress level- at least for a half hour. Anyway, I would highly recommend trying a little Yoga if you need some stress relief.

Popcorn

2009-09-10T23:58:00.003-05:00

So, quick post. Just a small observation. I love popcorn, but while eating it, I always have a bit of a problem. No, not the kernels in the teeth- although that is annoying. Particularly during summer, I tend to wear a lot of tank tops and other shirts that have lower necklines than your standard t-shirt. So, the issue I run into is that I have a tendency to drop some of the popcorn which inevitably winds up going straight down the front of my shirt. This is fine when I'm in the middle of a dark movie and I can discretely remove the popcorn. However, the other day, I was really hungry around mid-afternoon. So, I went to the vending machine at work and got a package of microwave popcorn. As I was enjoying my afternoon popcorn at my desk, of course, I dropped a few kernels down my shirt. Now, I'm stuck, you can't just fish popcorn out of your cleavage at your desk. I wound up heading to the bathroom to clean up. I am guessing that I just need to come to terms with this happening, as even when I'm aware that I have a tendency to drop the popcorn, I still do it. Oh well- just another thing to entertain my coworkers- my klutziness has broken the ice on many a tense morning at work.

2.5 lbs.

2009-09-03T11:27:00.002-05:00

Whoo-hoo! I've actually managed to lose some weight! Seeing as this blog started out with my weight-loss attempts, I have to share my breakthrough. Just over a month ago I was reading something online and they mentioned Bob Greene's Best Life Diet. They talked about how it eased you into dieting instead of forcing you to count calories from day one and follow really strict plans where they told you exactly what to eat day-to-day. I've decided that diets like that don't work for me for two reasons. 1: I get really gung-ho about the new diet initially but after only a week, the time-consuming meal planning and preparation takes its toll and I find myself no longer interested in keeping up with the plan. 2: I lead a very busy life, even more so now that fall has arrived meaning the beginning of choir rehearsals again. I just don't have time to be cooking dinners every night and then prepping for lunches the next day. Even on Sunday afternoons, I can spend some time cooking for the week, but not enough to make separate meals each night.

I decided to give the Best Life Diet a go. You get the first month, or more if you need it, to ease yourself into the thing. You are supposed to just exercise more than you were when you started the diet, so if you were maybe working out once or twice a week for a half hour- kick it up to 3 times a week. That's not too difficult and I have managed to to that in the month I've been on the diet. The next point is to stick to 3 meals a day with one or two snacks and to not eat within 2 hours of going to bed. I have done really well with the not eating close to bed. It's been difficult, but it made me realize just how many calories I was taking in during those hours while I sat watching tv at night. Finally, you need to cut out 6 food groups: alcohol, soda, trans fats, fried foods, full-fat yogurt and milk, and white bread. A few of these I have already mastered- I rarely drink soda, always buy skim milk and light yogurt and wheat bread. However, when I go out to eat, often I will have something with a plain white bun and fries. I did ok with cutting that out. I was opting for the fruit salad or veggies instead of fries and finding items that were served on something other than a white roll. So, that leads me to the one group that I had major difficulty in eliminating- alcohol. Now, I don't drink daily. I live alone and don't drink by myself, but august was full of events where I was with people and everyone was drinking. I currently do not have the willpower to completely eliminate the alcohol. However, I did try and opt for the new lower-calorie beers if I had the option. I'm guessing that's why when I weighed myself after one month on the program, the loss was only 2.5 lbs (Bob Greene estimates that you will lose about a pound a week during stage 1). I figure I will continue on stage 1 for one more week and see if I can manage to lose any more weight. If I do, I'll stick with this stage until I plateau and then move to stage 2. I'm hopeful that this sticks and I am really determined to lose the weight this time. I have set a realistic goal for myself. I want to lose just over 20 pounds by June 1, 2010. That's about 2 pounds a month, which is definitely within reason. So, wish me luck, I'm starting up with a big push here. And I'll try to post more often about what's working and what's not.

Kind of freaking out.....

2009-08-30T23:25:00.002-05:00

So, I sucked it up and finally decided to try online dating. I joined CatholicMatch.com tonight. It's not as expensive as some of the other sites and it's pretty important to me that the person I am with be Catholic- I guess I would take Christian, but Catholic is preferred. So, I got my picture in there, not too bad and I filled in all the crap about what my favorite stuff is. Although, it's kind of funny using the Catholic site because they ask questions like: Who's your favorite Saint? Anyway, I'm pretty nervous about this. I called a very good friend when it came time to write in my "about me" section. She gave me some very good suggestions as to what I should include, which made writing that thing a little easier. My only problem now, is that I couldn't think of a catchy opening line. I pretty much just jump in to the thing, but on the site, they only show the first sentence or two with your picture and someone then has to click into your profile to get the rest, so I feel like I need something good for a first line. So, any thoughts? I will take any and all suggestions into consideration. Thanks and wish me luck!

Not all Pick N Save's are created equally...

2009-08-10T22:19:00.002-05:00

Whew- it's been a busy few weeks. I traveled to Michigan in July for a week of chaperoning the youth group from my church at work camp. The week was great fun and a very uplifting experience. I always say that I get at least as much if not more out of the experience than the kids. It's a very spiritual and moving week. My crew this year was assigned the project of painting the house of 77-year old Harold. Now, this place really needed much more than a paint job- in all honesty, it could probably be condemned. But, Harold just wanted to have it painted for the first time, probably since it was built. So, we painted the place- the color was called Respite, however, basketball fans out there would call it Carolina Blue (and us Duke fans out there call it F***-ing Carolina Blue). You can imagine my displeasure when on the first day, I dropped a half a can of paint and it splashed ALL OVER ME. Half of my face, my shirt, and my entire calf were covered in Carolina Blue paint. While it sucked, it did serve to lighten everyone up and we wound up finishing in plenty of time and having a little extra time to watch a re-run of Law and Order with Harold on Friday afternoon.

I wasn't fully unpacked from work camp, when I had to re-pack to get ready for the MS150 bike tour. This was my 6th year riding the tour. Saturday was rough. The morning was not too bad and everyone was feeling pretty good heading out from lunch. We rolled into lunch around 10:30am and were halfway through the day's ride. Unfortunately, the wind kicked up and made the afternoon hell. We all kept looking down to see if we had a flat tire or had somehow shifted the wrong way. You just kept thinking, "No way is this my easiest gear." Somehow we all made it to Whitewater Saturday afternoon and got some much-needed massages and beer. Sunday morning was again pretty tough. Lots of hills and we were all hurting at lunch. Thankfully things just seemed to go much more smoothly after lunch and we finished in Madison feeling really good. Another successful outing! But, finally, my travels were over and I have been able to get back to regular life.

This leads me to my Pick N Save title. I made a list on Sunday morning of what food I needed to pick up at the grocery store that afternoon. I happened to be at my parent's house helping with some projects and so my mom and I decided to do our grocery shopping together, which meant going to the Pick N Save near her house. I have realized over time that not all grocery stores are the same, even within the Pick N Save or Sentry families, but I never really realized just how different mom's Pick N Save in New Berlin is from the mine in 'Tosa. I like to have a little cottage cheese with my lunch- I feel like it fills me up more, and lately my preference has been the new Fiber One cottage cheese- not only does it have the protein, but it also has added fiber and is lowfat. Mom's Pick N Save- didn't have it. I also love getting packages of frozen edamame, and of course, this place didn't have that either. I was getting very frustrated when I realized that along with not having a lot of the newer "trendy" foods, this Pick N Save was charging significantly more for the Organic foods. While the Pick N Save near my place charges a little more for Organic, it's usually not all that much more (quite possibly because they are competing with the Outpost Organic Food Store across the street). And my Pick N Save has a lot more organic and low-fat options. I came to two conclusions: A- I'm very happy that I live where I do and that I have an easily accessible place to grocery shop that serves the types of foods that I love eating and B- if I shopped at my mom's store regularly, I would wind up getting very frustrated at not being able to find any of the foods that the healthy eating websites and magazines that I read are always suggesting. So, I guess the key is that if the place closest to you doesn't offer something, that doesn't mean that all of those stores won't offer it. Here's to living in a health conscious area and having readily available healthy foods:)

Pampered Chef

2009-07-07T22:37:00.002-05:00

A couple of weeks back, I attended a Pampered Chef party. It was the first one I had been to in quite awhile. I actually wasn't invited to this one, my mom was and she asked if I wanted to tag along. The woman who was hosting is someone I know and the Pampered Chef seller was another of my mom's friends. Well, I totally enjoyed the party and the food was awesome. I have a long list of items that I would love to purchase, but there were two things that I did buy that night. Just last week, they arrived. The first was a rice cooker. Not one of those things that you have to plug in and is kinda large and tough to store. This one fits in your microwave and is designed to allow you to microwave long-grain non-instant rice. It is so good. Very easy to use and makes awesome rice that is so much better than the instant stuff I normally eat at home. (On a side note, along with figuring out how to use the rice cooker, I finally figured out how to set the power level on my microwave- only took three years.) A big plus with this rice cooker is that you can use it to cook other things as well. I plan on trying it out for cooking rice-a-roni tomorrow. And at the party, they actually cooked a chocolate cake in it- can't wait to try that out sometime. The other item that I bought has resulted in my new love of a fruit that until now I typically avoided- pineapple. Pampered Chef has a new item called the pineapple wedger. Pretty much it is the apple wedger in a large version. It takes out the core and that outside brown stuff leaving you with two semi-circles of fruit. Plus, you can lift it up, turn it 90 degrees, and cut again giving you four quarters that you can then slice into chunks easily. In the past, I was the one who would avoid pineapple in fruit salads- it was sour and not all that appealing. Well, when you cut it fresh, the fruit takes on a whole new taste. It's actually kind of sweet and very juicy. I have become a big pineapple fan and a big Pampered Chef fan. I'm actually hosting a show now in August- hopefully it will help me get some free stuff off of my long wish-list of products:)

RIP MJ

2009-06-25T22:54:00.002-05:00

The first cassette I ever bought with my own money was Michael Jackson's "Bad". I remember that I knew who he was at the time, but it wasn't like I was dying to own that album at the time. I with with my mom and we were walking around Best Buy. I had some money from something- I'm not sure if it was Christmas or my birthday or what. Anyway, I wanted to get a tape. I looked all around and when I passed by the top sellers area, there it was. A friend of mine had played "Beat It" once while I was over and so I pretty much knew who Michael was, but I was more familiar with him from commercials at that point. My parents didn't listen to popular music- we listened to oldies and classical in our house, and without an older sibling, I didn't really get exposed to new music when I was younger. I brought that tape home and opened it up and put it in my little cassette player and I listened to it from the first to the last track. I was in love. Now, I never remember being in love with Michael the man, but I was in love with the music. Dirty Diana, Smooth Criminal, Bad, Man in the Mirror- I played that tape so much that I'm shocked it didn't wear out. It was my introduction to the world of pop music. These days, there is no doubt that a Michael Jackson song will see me singing along if it's on the radio, or jumping up to dance if it's being played at a wedding or some other event. While he may have had some very unsavory parts of his personal life, there is no denying the man was a musical genius. He truly was the King of Pop and I thank him for so many fabulous songs and the fact that those songs run as part of the soundtrack of my life. Rest in Peace, Michael, we will never forget you.

Summertime and the Livin's Easy...

2009-06-19T22:45:00.003-05:00

So, while I haven't had a summer vacation in quite a few years now, I do get a break in some respects. Both of the choirs that I sing for take a break during summer- meaning every Thursday and every other Monday night are now open. Plus, I'm no longer obligated to go to the 11am mass on Sundays, so I guess my Sunday mornings are now more open as well. At first, I wasn't quite sure of what to do with myself. You would think I would be used to this, but after spending the last 9 months running from rehearsal to rehearsal, it's tough to remember what I did before all of this.

Well, first, I got back on the bike. Once my tired spells after surgery finally went away, I hopped back on the bike. I did 25 miles this past Saturday, so I'd say my energy is totally back after everything. It felt so good to get out there again. Now, I need to start running again. I've also gotten back to reading more. I never stop reading, but when I have stuff going on after work most nights, I typically only get a chance to read over lunch and right before bed. The books go much quicker when I have time to read. I've been reading this series that a friend from choir recommended to me back in February. It's historical fiction/romance (it's in the fiction section not romance at the bookstore). The author is Diana Gabaldon and while they don't really name the series, the first book is called "Outlander". I'm now on book 5 and I have book 6 sitting on my shelf waiting for me, plus, book 7 is coming out this fall. There's a little sci-fi stuff thrown in because this woman accidentally travels back in time and the first book at least is basically the story of this woman from WWII-era trying to survive in Scotland in the 1700's.

I've also been making more use of my Netflix membership. Catching up on some new movies and some movies that I always wanted to see, but never got a chance to. So, I saw Bride Wars- that was pretty funny. Then I got Tropic Thunder- that was a bit of a disappointment. I thought it was going to be much funnier- on the level of Zoolander, but just wasn't feeling it. Although Tom Cruise's cameo was really good. I saw August Rush which was great until the ending. Why couldn't they wrap up the story a little more? It felt like just as the audience was getting what we were pulling for, they ended it. I hate it when movies do that. Little Miss Sunshine was by far the funniest of the ones I've seen recently. I don't want to ruin anything, but the ending made me laugh out loud and snort a little:) And tonight I watched Thank You for Smoking. I thought it was going to be funnier. It was much more tongue-in-cheek than laugh-out-loud funny. But I enjoyed it.

And that's what I've been doing so far on my summer vacation. Nice and relaxing. Tonight I even pampered myself while I was watching the movie- I gave myself a nice pedicure. Now my feet will look really cute in the strappy sandals I'm wearing to a friend's wedding tomorrow. And the plans for Father's Day on Sunday will be relaxing as well. We're grilling out and watching the US Open- a perfect afternoon.

Surgery

2009-06-01T21:16:00.002-05:00

So, I wasn't sure that I wanted to blog about my recent experience. However, the week before I went in for my thyroid lobectomy (which I'm pretty sure I blogged about scheduling earlier this year), I went online to try and get a feel for what people had to say about their experiences with this type of surgery and what their recoveries were like. Unfortunately, all it wound up doing was freaking me out more than I already was. Apparently the only people who have felt the need to write anything online about this type of surgery were people who had absolutely horrible experiences. I wound up losing it during the confirmation mass at my church, because I pretty much convinced myself that it was going to be one of the last times I would ever sing. I mean, there were people who talked about their voice never being the same, one woman who went from a soprano to an alto/tenor, and probably the best-case scenario that I read about were the people who said it took several months before she had anywhere near the voice she had before. Plus, there was the woman who didn't return to work until day 17 post surgery. I was flipping out.

Now, on to the reason that I decided to blog about what I went through. None of that happened to me. And I wanted to at least have something out there that if anyone else searches for information on thyroid lobectomies, they will come across one positive experience.

After reading all the crap online, I called the surgeon's office to get a little reassurance. The first thing the nurse told me when I mentioned what I had done was, "Don't go online- it'll scare the bejeezus out of you." I guess they are fully aware that only people with bad experiences tend to blog this kind of stuff. So, this past thursday, I got to Froedtert Hospital just before 6am. Both my parents came with me and we got into the Day Surgery unit where they checked me in and gave me one of those buzzers that they give you at restaurants when you are waiting for a table. When the nurse was ready to take me back, my buzzer went off. My parents got to go back with me and they took down not only that people were waiting for me, but their names as well. Then they gave my parents the buzzer to hold because when the surgery was over, they would use that to let my parents know that my surgeon was ready to speak with them. (My parents later said that the staff were so nice and considerate to them. They were very impressed by how well they kept them informed of what was going on.) Once I got in back, they got me in a gown and went over just some general stuff about the surgery. Very cool was that the nurse asked me what I was there for and when I responded that they were going to take out the right half of my thyroid and she said that was good, because that was what she had down as well. I guess they have found that it's best to ask the patient first to make sure that everyone is on the same page.

Next, my surgeon came in to check in with me. She is so very cool. Young- my parents were a little concerned at first as she looks about my age, but very nice and intelligent. She did an endocrine surgery fellowship at Yale, which made me feel very comfortable. One of the directors at work mentioned that the key when looking for a surgeon for something like that is to make sure it isn't just a general surgeon. He said that with endocrine surgeries, you really want someone with specific training. Anyway, after she stopped in to check in, the head anesthesiologist stopped in. He asked if I had gotten a call the night before from a resident and when I said I hadn't, he apologized saying that I should have been contacted by a resident. I did feel kind of bad, I figured I wound up getting the resident in trouble- but he stopped in shortly after and seemed fine. He was a very nice guy as well. Asked how I was doing and when I said that I was pretty nervous, he said that was ok, because it was his job to take care of that. He also overheard me talking to my parents about still being nervous about my singing, and he said that he would also do everything he could to make sure that the tube they put down my throat didn't harm my vocal cords. He put in my IV- which barely hurt at all- and then gave me something to calm me down a little bit. It pretty much felt like I was kind of drunk.

Shortly after that, they rolled me down to the OR. I know I was awake during that, but I don't really remember anything past rolling out of that little room. The next thing I remember, I was waking up in recovery. Now, my mom tells me that I woke up at some point before that because when my surgeon came out to talk to them, she said I was awake and talking- but I don't remember that. In recovery, I remember the nurse telling me where I was. I also remember the anesthesiologist telling me what was going on. For a little while, everyone just kept on hovering over me. Which was very cool, but the more I came out of the haze, the more I wanted to be left alone so I could try humming a little. Finally, the nurse walked away to check and see if my bed was ready and I was able to get a little humming in. I was so happy when it sounded just like it should. I finally let myself sleep a little then. And shortly after that, they took me to my room. I was in a new section of the hospital which is called the extended recovery unit. There are only 8 beds there and it's just people like me that have to stay overnight after surgery, so there is a lot of personal attention from the nurses- especially that night because there were only like three of us there.

I got to my room and just wanted to get into my pajamas. So, the nurse helped me get settled and then my parents came in with my pajamas and stuff and I got to change. I was much more alert than the doctors and nurses said I would be. I was up pretty much all afternoon. Actually, my parents both took naps in the chairs in my room while I watched tv. My pain wasn't too bad. The nurse finally came in and kind of insisted that I try a little morphine- so they gave me that and then I got to order my lunch. Very cool new feature at Froedtert- I got to order my meals. Pretty much whenever I wanted them and whatever and how much I wanted. I mainly just started with broth and jello and pudding. During the afternoon, they gave me some vicodin and after another short nap, a friend stopped by and then my aunt, uncle and cousin stopped in to visit. I was actually talking quite a bit and not really very tired. When my mom finally left around 9pm, I still wasn't tired. So, I read a little and they gave me more vicodin around 10pm, which allowed me to sleep a little, but they woke me up around 11:30 to take vitals. Then I was up and read a little more, and they woke me up once more when they took vitals around 3:30am.

I woke up for good just after 6am. Unfortunately, I was back on no food or water restriction because they were waiting on the report from the pathology lab and should that come back with any questionable cells, they would have to take me back in for surgery to remove the other half of my thyroid. My throat had been rather sore the day before especially when swallowing. However, in the morning, it was worse because my throat was dry from not having any water. So, the pain was worse actually than thursday. They did keep me hydrated through my IV- which kept me peeing quite frequently. Thankfully, once the nurses realized that I was good to make the ten feet or so walk to the bathroom, they let me unplug my IV stand and head to the bathroom myself. Friday morning brought visits from the surgical resident and my surgeon. They both pretty much said the same thing- that everything looked good, but that I just had to wait for that lab report. They were both pretty optimistic though, and around 10am, we found out that they were right. The lab report said that I was clear- no cancer! However, the nurses wanted me to eat something before releasing me. So, once I got some food in me, they took out the IV, got all the paperwork signed and I could change and go. I got a script for some vicodin and instructions to take the tape off of the incision on saturday morning, which is also when I could shower. Over the incision were also steri-strips. Those I have to leave on for at least a few days after which I can either take them off, or just let them fall off on their own. The incision itself appears to be about 2 inches long- not too bad.

I have a follow-up appointment next monday with the surgeon. Everything has gone really well so far. I'm not in too much pain- I have started just taking tylenol for it a couple times a day. I get a little hoarse every once in awhile, but for the most part my voice, both speaking and singing are back to normal. My energy is the big thing that is an issue- after lounging around for several days, I'm just trying to slowly get going again. I'm headed back to work tomorrow, day 5 post operation. I'm just going to go slow and hope that all goes well. I'll update as things come up, but hopefully this helps anyone who comes across it looking for information about this type of surgery.

My $400 Graham Cracker

2009-05-09T19:53:00.002-05:00

So, a little over a week ago, I learned a very important lesson. Never, ever, eat while using my laptop. See, I have a very nice MacBook Pro laptop that I got about 3 years ago, but since purchasing it, I haven't been all that great about taking care of it. I habitually eat while sitting on my couch, laptop on my lap. Unfortunately, last thursday, I was at home and had a snack- a couple of graham crackers and I was checking my email. When I was finished, I glanced down and noticed that a chunk of the graham cracker had broken off and fallen into my lap, only to wedge itself into the CD drive of my computer. Part of it was sticking out and I tried to pull it out, only to wind up pushing it all the way in. So, the next day I took it in to the Apple store to see if they could open the computer up and get the graham cracker out. Unfortunately, the guy at the genius bar informed me that most likely the cracker crumbs have ruined the laser in the CD drive which would mean that it won't work again. When I asked him if I could just have them remove the cracker, but not replace the drive- I would just get an external drive- I was told that Apple has a policy that they won't do any repairs that don't bring the computer back to warranty quality- ie. they won't do a half-fix. So, as much as it sucked, I figured I might as well just suck it up and get the whole thing cleaned out and if needed, replaced. So, $400 later, I have a new CD drive and no more cracker in my computer. And I have learned the lesson that I will never again eat anywhere near my laptop. Oh, and apparently I gave the people at Apple something to talk about last weekend, because when I went to pick up the computer, the woman at the checkout asked what happened that I had to have the drive replaced and I told her about the graham cracker. At which point, she replied that she had heard something about a cracker in a disk drive- I guess I was the talk of the Apple store.

Mindless Entertainment

2009-04-20T19:58:00.002-05:00

A few days ago, I listed a new status for myself on Facebook. It read something like- "Yeah for a new season of the Real World/Road Rules Challenge." One of my college friends replied by saying- "Really- you still watch that?" Well, my response to that, is- Yes, I do. Here's the thing. I like watching mindless television. I like reality TV and sitcoms and those teeny-bopper shows on the CW. This also holds for the movies that I prefer to watch. I typically don't watch anything that requires a lot of thought. If it's subtitled, it's a no-go (I don't like reading my movies). Similarly, I don't like those artsy-independent movies where it takes forever for things to come together and finally in the last few minutes, you figure out what's going on. Ugh. Too much work. This stuff is supposed to be entertainment.

I'm not completely sure why I like mindless entertainment. My best guess is that I spend all day at work thinking on a high-level. So, by the time I get home, I just want to sit and not think. I want to laugh at stupid people competing in ridiculous challenges to win a few bucks. I want to giggle at the bumbling guy who has had all the CIA's secrets downloaded into his brain. I want to fall off my couch laughing at the geeky physicists who live across the hall from the cute blonde. And I want to visit my favorite zip code- 90210. The thing is- other than my family, I haven't figured out if people who have less mentally challenging jobs appreciate more intense television. My dad likes that Fringe show and he appreciates the CSI shows much more than I do. But maybe it's just me- maybe I just like crap TV. And really - who cares. Now I have to go- The Hills is about to start.

Here we go again.

2009-04-15T20:42:00.003-05:00

I'm changing the name of the blog. Mainly because I'm not just going to talk about the weight loss. I'd rather just get to share random stories, many of which will be weight-loss and exercise related, but some other things, too. Plus, just over a week ago, I turned one year older. I was shockingly unsuccessful at losing that freshman 15. Thankfully I did not gain too much weight- only a couple of pounds. Unfortunately, it was just enough that the pants that used to just fit, no longer do. My wardrobe has been cut in half. So, I'm back on the wagon. Granted, I had some really good excuses as to why all exercise and weight loss failed over the past several months. One being- I live in Wisconsin. Winter sucks. At least as far as working out goes. It's hard to get up early when it's still dark outside. By the time I'm done with work, I just want to curl up under a blanket on my couch. The other main reason was that I had a very busy winter. I was in a musical. My church put on a production of Godspell. What part did I have? Well, in short, I played the whore. I was the adultress that they wanted to stone, and the flirt who got reprimanded, and to top it all off, I had a whole song and dance number where I was flirting with Jesus. It was pretty fun- as in the past I have always played the good, wholesome characters. Then, once the show was over, I was involved in the MS fundraiser that my bike team throws every year. So, another couple of weeks was shot. Which brings us to Easter....

Since I sing in church, Holy Week is very busy for me. I always like to look nice and put-together when I sing for these big masses, so I had planned out the outfits that I planned on wearing ahead of time. Thursday, Friday and Saturday went off beautifully- both the singing and the clothes. Sunday morning was another matter. I had planned on wearing this cute white top with a pink skirt- but when I was ironing the shirt, I noticed a small spot. It looked like I had hit it with a pen or something the last time I wore it. After 20 minutes of trying to bleach the spot out, I gave up and found another top that I thought would do with the skirt. By this time I was running out of time before I had to be at church. I took a look in the mirror and was convinced that what was looking back at me bore a resemblance to a whale. Now, I'm sure it wasn't that bad, but I just felt fat. My fragile mental state was not helped by my mother- when I asked her if I looked fat- her response was that I didn't look fat, but I also didn't look as skinny as I did in my black dress the night before. Fabulous. I had a mini-breakdown. But I recovered before I had raccoon eyes from my mascara.

So, this leads me into the fact that I have vowed to work out every single day from here on out. I don't think that I've been eating too bad, just lacking in burning calories, so I need to burn some more. Monday I was back at the Y. I did a 20 minute treadmill workout with intervals that's supposed to be good for fat-burning. Then I hopped on the upright bike and did 30 minutes on the random setting, so I got some good resistance in there. My legs felt it the next day. Tuesday I lifted weights- doing core and upper-body stuff. Now today, I had my final pilates session. I bid on an introductory pilates at the MS fundraiser- it included an evaluation and 2 private pilates sessions. These have been killer. Very good workouts and I think that if I can keep up with some of that- I'll be in good shape. At least I'm three for three in the workouts.

This year's goals. I will not be running any marathons or half-marathons. I might do a sprint length triathlon in September. I will be doing the MS 150 in August- no major bike rides prior to that. So, what - other than not wanting to look like a whale- is my motivation? I need to be in optimal health by May 28. At 7am that morning, I will be undergoing surgery to remove the right half of my thyroid. About 8 years ago my primary care doctor found a small nodule on my thyroid. Over the years, it has been tracked for the size and I have had 2 biopsies done. It is thankfully benign, but has now grown to about 3.5 centimeters. That's pretty big. At that size, it starts to pose a risk of pressing on other structures in my neck. The big thing, too, is that the larger it is, the more the chance for a false negative in future biopsies. I just think it's not worth the risk of cancer even though I am completely freaked out about this. The biggest worry that I have is that the laryngeal nerve- the one that goes to the voice box- runs directly behind the thyroid. The surgery carries a 1% risk of permanent damage to that nerve which could result in my never singing again. That scares me so much. The surgeon was trying to tell me all about how she can be really careful to not cause much of a scar and I pretty much told her that I didn't care if I looked like one of Sweeney Todd's victims, so long as I can sing when this is done, I'll be ok. So, I want to get myself in great health so that my body can completely focus on healing after surgery. So, keep your fingers crossed that my surgeon doesn't have too much caffeine that morning. I'm back and I promise to try and be more frequent.

5 years

2008-11-18T22:47:00.002-06:00

I've been a little introspective of late. Things in general have been good. Nothing major going on. Trying to lose a few pounds still. I've cut way back on snacks and have been cooking a large dish on Sunday afternoons and then aliquoting that out for lunch during the week. Much cheaper and healthier than going to Jimmy Johns a couple of times a week when I don't have time to make a sandwich in the morning. So, that's good. 2 pounds down. The job is good. And I get to travel to San Francisco in a couple of weeks for a few day to attend a conference.

So, what has me feeling introspective is a post from Loricious a while back. She was commenting on whether or not she had a 5 year plan. Which of course got me thinking about if I have a 5 year plan. To be honest, I don't. I had one back in college, but that shifted a couple of times and wound up looking nothing like what I'm going through now. So, does that make me a failure or does it just mean that things shifted and that's just how life goes. For my sanity's sake, I think that life just shifts and not reaching some of those goals you set coming out of college doesn't mean that you are a failure.

Upon leaving college, I was heading straight to grad school. I was going to get my PhD and should have been finishing that after 5 years. But, once I got into school- only a month after my graduation from college, I wasn't happy. I came to realize that I wasn't ready to be back in school so soon and I didn't really like the program I was in. So, after a year, I left. That resulted in me hitting the 5 year mark after college, and I was just starting back to school- again. Only it was to get my Masters degree. While I didn't wind up fulfilling the actual goal, since it was so specific, I achieved a higher level of education. So, work-wise, I would consider things a success so far. Which is really what counts these days.

Now, on to the more difficult part. I got very caught up for a time a few years ago with the thought of getting married and settling down. Partly, I think, because that's what you're supposed to do. But, I realized that I wasn't ready for the settling. I hadn't quite finished figuring out who I am. Several years later, I am pretty sure I know who I am. Of course, I'm constantly growing and changing, but I think I have a good handle on me now. And this is where my thoughts carried me while reading Loricious's post. The thing is, now that I've figured me out, I can't guarantee that there is someone out there for me. So, setting a goal of getting married or having kids doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It just seems like I'm setting myself up for failure. I have no control over other people. I can't make that one person come into my life. Or who knows, maybe while I was finding myself, I missed my chance.

Which leads me to my 5 year plan. 5 years from now, I want to be happy. That's it. I want to be happy. In my job- whatever that is at the time. With my relationships- be it family, friends or possibly something romantic. I want to continue giving back- volunteering, fundraising, etc- because I believe in it and it makes me happy. I want to keep challenging myself physically- because it's good for me and it makes me happy.

There you go. Nothing specific. Just be happy. I can't control if I get specific promotions or anything at work. I can't be sure that there is someone out there. I can't even guarantee that I will be able to run one or two more marathons. But I can guarantee that I will be happy. If I just keep going and making choices that I feel are right, then I know I will be happy.

Living Proof

2008-10-25T19:20:00.003-05:00

So, to anyone who has access to the Lifetime Channel, I have a viewing recommendation. I had DVR'd their new movie a week or so ago and finally sat down today to watch it. Living Proof stars Harry Connick Jr. and a plethora of famous females in various roles. It is based on the book, Her-2, which I read in graduate school. Both the book and the movie describe the story of Dr. Slamon, a researcher and oncologist at UCLA who is working on what he believes can be really the first big breast cancer drug. Other than surgery and chemotherapy, there was nothing else doctors could do to help women with breast cancer. Dr. Slamon designed the drug, Her-2 neu (marketed as Herceptin) based on the theory that 1/3 of breast cancers express a protein called Her-2. It is a growth factor that aids the uncontrolled growth of the cancer cells. He thought that if he could grow an antibody targeted to the Her-2 protein, it would block the growth signals of the cancer cells. While it would not be a cure, this would be a treatment that would give women with Her-2 expressing cancers a chance. (Her-2 breast cancers are fast-growing and do not respond well to chemo- essentially a death sentence prior to Herceptin.) While I encourage people to watch this movie, definitely bring your tissues. The world of drug trials is not pretty and I found myself crying both when women succeeded and when Dr. Slamon had to inform some women that they couldn't be included in the trial. And of course, as a researcher myself, I cried when he finally succeeded. This is pretty much what every researcher dreams of- discovering or designing something that saves lives. So, if you get a chance- watch it. The science is for the most part given in simplified terminology, and obviously things are omitted in order to make it watchable and understandable to your average viewer. But, the way people came together to raise money, get participants for the trials, and get this drug approved really shows what is possible in cancer research (and other research for that matter) if we could all just work together for the common good.

Odds 'n Ends

2008-10-22T14:46:00.003-05:00

Nothing major to blog on, but just a few tidbits that have come up over the past few days.

For starters, I tried my hand at red velvet cupcakes from scratch on Monday night. Dirty Girl and I have been getting together on Tuesday nights to watch the show House and she has been providing dinner and dessert. Last week I brought brownies in order to contribute something. This week, I saw a recipe for red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and decided to give it a whirl. Aside from red food coloring on my clothes, the recipe was rather easy to make. The frosting would have been smoother if I had a hand mixer, but I managed to get it pretty good the old fashioned way. The only problem was the cook time. I put the first batch in for 20 minutes. I checked them halfway through and they looked not done. But, I wound up pulling them out a minute early when I smelled them burning. Just the bottoms, so if you pull that off, the rest is fine, but still 24 burnt cupcakes. So, I made a second batch. This time, I cooked for 15 minutes. When I pulled them out, I was disturbed to smell a little burnt-ness. Not all, but several had slight burnt bottoms again. I'm not sure how much more I could cut back on the cook time before the things don't cook all the way through. Anyway, I had 48 cupcakes with the majority burnt. I've given away most of the un-burnt ones, and am now left with the burnt ones. I guess I'll slowly eat them until they get too old. I hate tossing away food, but I can't give out the really burnt ones and I can't eat all of them. Oh well.

I was very happy to note that the hiatus for Diet, Schmiet is over! Loricious discovered that she could blog from work now. Her most recent blog says some very nice things about my determination to exercise. While I certainly like hearing that she admires what I do, there are times when I definitely feel that the admiration is unwarrented. I've been struggling with the workouts lately. I managed to get my long runs in for the marathon, but didn't really do much more. However, I'm kind of excited to get back to the basics with exercise. I don't have anything planned for the next several months as far as goals, so I can work out at my own pace and just do what I enjoy. If I feel like running 2 miles, I can. If I feel like running longer or just walking on a particular day, I can do that, too. I'm done with training plans for awhile.

There is a new book that I'm reading. It's called, "The World in Six Songs". I picked it up at Barnes and Noble a couple of weeks ago. The bright blue color actually caught my eye first, but once I read the summary I was hooked. The author, Daniel Levitin, has looked at music throughout history and feels that all songs can fit into one of six categories, Friendship, Joy, Comfort, Knowledge, Religion and Love. He then goes back through history and talks of how each of these categories of music has helped to shape human nature and history. For instance, in the chapter on friendship songs, he talks about percussion and how drumbeats were used to get a group of people to keep time. In modern times they keep a marching band in step. In ancient times, they kept slaves rowing at the same time or moving in the same rhythm to build something. He argues that without music, the pyramids may not have been built and empires may not have risen and fallen as they did. Very interesting stuff. Anyone interested in music would probably get into this one. I plan on picking up his first book, "Your Brain on Music" one of these days as well.

My final note today- I am very excited that I will be attending the New Kids on the Block concert tonight at the Bradley Center! I was lucky enough to get to see them at the height of their fame in 1990 at the same venue. Last night I located my old New Kids t-shirt (which may be the same one I wore to that first concert) and although it is a little yellowed from the years, it still fits. So, I will be reliving one of my favorite moments of my adolescence tonight.

Taco Bell

2008-10-18T23:25:00.003-05:00

I went out tonight with a friend. We headed over to UWM to see a play that another friend of ours was the assistant stage manager for. But, we had to get there early as we had not bought our tickets yet. So I wound up eating a late lunch, but then nothing before the show. So after I dropped my friend off at her place, I decided to grab something quick just to get a little something in my stomach. Unfortunately, at 10pm, your choices are a pretty limited as far as what's open. I opted for Taco Bell since I knew it was open late and is relatively cheap. I was rather surprised when I pulled up to see a new feature on the drive-through menu called the Fresca menu. They have 9 options on this menu that are all under 9 grams of fat. Great, but how do they taste. Well, tonight I played it safe and just picked up two Fresca Crunch Tacos. They each had 8 grams of fat- not great- and 150 calories, which makes for a 300 calorie meal- which is ok. Then to the taste. They are really good. The crunch taco is pretty much like a regular crunchy taco. Same shell. Same ground beef. Same lettuce. No cheese. The addition is salsa. Fresh salsa, with real tomato chunks, not like jar salsa. It has a little bite, but is not too spicy, which was good as well. I definitely think I need to try a few of the other options on this menu. Obviously I can't eat Taco Bell every day. 9 grams of fat is still quite a bit, but compared to other fast food options, this seems to be a good quick thing that can fill you up and not totally kill the diet.

The Office Candy Dish

2008-10-16T14:12:00.002-05:00

So, I've come to the conclusion that the inventor of the office candy dish must have been the Devil himself. Who else could possibly come up with something that brings so much temptation on a daily basis- under the guise of some neighborly sharing. We have a dish that sits in our office. Everyone kind of takes turns bringing in stuff to fill it. There's no list or anything, just every so often, you pick up a bag or two of some sort of candy to put in the dish. Typically it is filled with chocolate of some sort. We are big fans of Reese's minis here. And with Halloween approaching, everyone is getting stuff on sale and brining it in. Then there is the time during the day- usually mid-way through morning and again a few hours after lunch where everyone starts to get a little hungry. You'll see one person get up and grab something from the dish. Then someone else will think that's a good idea. Before you know it, we're all grabbing something from the candy dish. Also, we rarely grab just one. I mean, who ever heard of eating one Reese's mini cup? So you usually grab two. I had been doing pretty good with resisting the dish, but I've fallen back into the trap lately. I know I need to resist, especially since I'm still not working out, I can't afford to add those extra calories every day. I've been trying to chew gum when I get the chocolate cravings. It helps a little bit. But then I see everyone else grabbing the candy, and I just can't help myself. I think I need help. Of course, according to the Dove wrapper I got the other day, "Chocolate therapy is, oh, so good."

Yep, I'm a klutz.

2008-10-12T21:59:00.002-05:00

As my director so eloquently put it this morning- she made it 26.2 miles running last weekend and she falls and skins her knee in the church parking lot. I was walking in this morning in my cute sundress (since I figure it's probably my last chance to wear it this year) and heeled sandals. Let me point out that I have never fallen in these heels before and really don't fall when I wear heels in general, so I don't think that really played a role in the incident. I was walking across the parking lot and someone said hi to me and I saw a car coming towards me. I was briefly distracted from looking where I was going and just tripped. I didn't really have time to catch myself, so I went down pretty hard in my right knee. I pretty much knew immediately that I had skinned it pretty bad. Once I got inside the few choir members who had seen me fall of course came over to see how I was. Yes, my knee hurt and was bleeding, but I got it bandaged pretty quickly, so that was fine. However, worse for me was just the embarrassment factor of having all these people know that I took a header in the parking lot. Once I got out of church, I was able to properly clean my knee and get it bandaged better. That was when I noticed that my knee was not the only casualty of the morning's spill. My left foot has a prominent lump on the side of it. Pretty much directly across from the arch, there is a big bruise and swollen area. It's a little stiff when I walk, but I think that has more to do with the swelling than any other damage in the area. At least I'm hoping that's the case. Anyway, I've been getting a little antsy with my first full week of rest coming to a close. At least now I'm forced to follow through on my plan to give myself two full weeks of rest. With any luck, after the week is up, the foot will be good-to-go back to exercising. And I am making a vow to pay more attention when I am walking through parking lots.

26.2

2008-10-08T11:10:00.002-05:00

I completed my third full marathon this past weekend- October 5th. I ran the Lakefront Marathon in Milwaukee, which I chose because it was close to home- for the first time I was running a marathon after sleeping in my own bed the night before, and it was cheap- I think registration was in the neighborhood of $50 (although I could be a little off as I registered several months ago). Of course as per usual for me with these things, training started off awesome and then slacked a bit down the home stretch. I typically managed to get the running in, but didn't quite hit all my training runs in any given week during the last month or so, which means my total miles was down from what it should be. Now, I did complete a 20-mile training run prior to the race, so at least I had done some long mileage, but I wasn't feeling overly confident as far as training in concerned. The one thing I had going for me was that being in my home town, I am fairly familiar with the area and landscape that we were running. I knew a good portion of the run would be flat or downhill. I also figured that since I am very familiar with the roads we were running for the last 6 miles or so, that I would be able to envision the finish getting closer and keep myself going that way.

Well, my response to that is - HA! The joke is on me. The stretch of road from Silver Spring Road down to the Lakefront seems not so bad in a car- when you are running it, however, it is the longest and most boring area ever. Of course that is after already completing 19 miles that morning. My goal for this marathon was - I thought- rather simple. I wanted to break 6 hours. The last full marathon that I ran was the Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati in May of 2006 and I completed it in 6:06. So, I figured that if I could beat that by a few minutes and break that 6 hour mark, I would be happy. The first 20 miles were great. Really. I was running my own race. I didn't try and stay with my friends who were taking a much quicker pace than I knew I could maintain. I just kept going at my own rate. I was running for 8 minutes and walking for 2 minutes. And I kept it up for 20 miles. My half marathon split was actually pretty good- 2:42, which is the fastest half marathon I've ever run. Even my 20 mile split wasn't bad. 4:24. Definitely slowed down in those 7 miles, but still should have been able to break 6 hours.

Then I hit "The Wall". Until I started running these long events, I had heard of the wall and thought that these people just obviously gave up at that point. Who trains for these things and then just stops and walks or quits altogether? Unless you have experienced this, there is really no good way to explain what the wall feels like. In my first full marathon- Disney in January of 2006, I hit the wall at about mile 18. Of course, I was competing in the Goofy Challenge, which meant that I had run a half marathon the day before, so my body was pretty spent. Mile 18 consisted of me trying not to cry and telling my running partner that I hated this. Finally, at mile 22, my body and mind, in combination, forced me to add a bit more walking. But, I finished. And I was pleased with just completing my first marathon. In Cincinnati, I felt great at mile 18, I even felt great at mile 21, despite some killer hills, but at mile 22, my body forced me to walk a good mile or so as the tendonitis that I had been fighting in my knee decided to flair up. Again, I made it to the finish, but had hoped to complete the run in a little better fashion. Now, this year was the year that I was going to keep to my 8 and 2 the whole way. I was going to keep going and not let anything get me to stop. Of course I was hurting prior to mile 21, when you push your body that far, pretty much everything aches at least a little. But, at mile 21, something in my brain just ordered me to walk. After going that far, there was no way I was stopping, although the thought did cross my mind. It was tough to keep going- getting passed by people now that I had passed a few miles back. Finally, after walking almost a full mile, I was able to start running again- at least a little.

My watch battery had run out a ways back and I was stuck with estimating the 8 and 2. Run for a couple of songs and then walk for one. Then it became, run to that fire hydrant, then walk to that stop sign. But, I kept going. Friends and family started calling to see where I was. I just kept telling them that I would see them soon. I finally saw the lakefront. Of course that meant that I still had another 3 miles to go. But I could do it. I got a little surge in me and thought I could run most of those last 3 miles and still break 6 hours. As I got to the base of the hill heading towards the lakefront, it started to rain. Just a little at first, but you could tell that it would get worse. Plus, the wind picked up, too. I was cold. And wet. I passed the mile 24 sign. The race volunteers were wonderful- still out there after all those hours, still cheering for you, telling you how great you looked (even though you knew you looked like hell). As I passed Bradford Beach, my running partner called. I told her I had 2 miles to go and would see them soon. I said I was hurting, but still going. I hung up the phone and suddenly I couldn't breathe. For the first time in my life, I had a full-blown asthma attack. It took a second to realize what was going on. I got out my inhaler (thank God I had it with me) and took a couple of puffs. I could catch a mostly full breath again. There was an aid station coming up, but I knew that if I stopped and told them what had happened, they would have made me stop. Dumb? Maybe. But, the lakefront, even in the rain was rather populated, so I figured that if I had more problems, I could easily flag down assistance. And I was so close. But, I had to walk again. Actually, I had to walk most of the last two miles. I was frustrated with myself and my body. I wished I hadn't walked so much earlier- then I would have a little more time now to work with. The rain had really picked up and I was thankful for my sunglasses, which were keeping my eyes shielded now. And hiding the tears I was fighting back. I was never so happy to see a finish sign.

Crossing that finish line didn't feel awesome or accomplished, it was just a relief. My official chip time was 6:06. Just missed. My friends and family were still there, even though my running partner had finished over 45 minutes before me. They all gave me big hugs and heading to the car, the emotions took over. Which brought on another asthma attack.

Now, 3 days later, I'm finally feeling good again. I had migraines for 3 nights in a row and I couldn't hold down food until monday morning. This one took more out of me than the others. Not sure why that is. I'm proud that I finished. I didn't quit. But, in the interest of safety, I'm going to have to carefully think about whether or not to do another full marathon in the future. I think some shorter distances may be called for at least for awhile. In the meantime, my training goal right now is to become the best couch potato I can be- for two weeks. Then I'll get back working out. Back to lifting and light running. Back to spinning classes and maybe even some swimming (I'd love to do a triathlon again next summer). And for one week, I am allowing myself to eat anything in sight. Big greasy cheeseburgers, onion rings, Doritos. Anything. Starting this sunday, its back to healthy eating. Re-evaluating diets, etc.

Fruit Flies

2008-09-30T22:16:00.002-05:00

First of all, I apologize for the lack of posts. But, to make up for it, I have a little story to share that will allow you all to laugh at me:)

Let's start off with the fact that I am not really the neatest person around. At least when it comes to my apartment. At work, I do a great job keeping my desk tidy and my lab bench is in very good order, but at home it's another story. Growing up my family knew that I was rather untidy- but I had my brother around and he was messy also. In comparison, I didn't look too bad. Then of course there was college. I lived with Loricious for two years. The stories of her messiness in college are legendary. But, they are her stories to share- and while I will typically share all her stories gladly after a few drinks, I will refrain from telling them on the worldwide web:) Senior year I had a new roommate, who luck would have it, was also messy. Again, I didn't look too bad when she left out a cup of milk until it curdled. After college, there were a few different roommates and we all managed to keep things fairly clean. I won't say it wasn't messy and cluttered, but you know, the bathroom was clean and the dishes were typically done. Even when I lived with Loricious again for a year, the crappy place on the East Side was far cleaner than one would think it could have ever been.

Anyway, back to the current story. I've been really good since moving into the current apartment, so the new story was a result of an utter lack of thinking lately. I've been pretty busy and occasionally things like laundry getting put away and dishes getting done have slipped. I finally took the time on Saturday to do the dishes that had been piling up in the kitchen. Things were going well, although I noticed that there were a few fruit flies buzzing around the kitchen. Every time I killed a couple, there seemed to be a few more. I couldn't figure out where they were coming from. Until I turned around. I had made a protein shake a while back. I'm not totally sure when I did that, but I would guess it was a couple of weeks. (Yeah, I know....) There is usually just a little bit left in the blender after pouring it in my to-go cup. That morning, I was in a rush, and instead of rinsing the blender, I just put it back on the base. When I saw it on Saturday, it looked like the little jars that we used in genetics when we were doing our fruit fly labs. The interior was covered in fruit flies. It was completely disgusting. I closed the top all the way and went to look for something that I could use to kill them.

However, I have stopped using cleaning products with chemicals, so I didn't have anything that would definitely kill all the bugs. I also didn't have any bleach. I found a half-full can of Scrubbing Bubbles from the old place. I also had a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. So, I took the blender into the bathroom and put it in the tub. I opened the top just enough to pour in the hydrogen peroxide and then filled the rest with water. I was fairly certain that this had killed everything, so I opened the top. However, a bunch of flies were clinging to the lid. They must have found a little air pocket up there. When I opened it, I grabbed the Scrubbing Bubbles and sprayed them down. Once I was sure everything was dead. I then had to clean the whole thing out. I have now washed the blender about four times to make sure there are no remnants of the chemicals left.

Now, after a few days, I have finally killed just about all the flies that had escaped. I have made a solemn vow to rinse the blender right away no matter how little time I have in the morning. So, now you can all continue laughing. If you need a few more laughs, you can picture me crouched over my tub pouring stuff into my blender. Well, I hope to post more often again. Wish me luck- I'm running the Lakefront Marathon this weekend.

What the hell bit me?

2008-09-08T21:14:00.002-05:00

Saturday night, I was at Dirty Girl's 30th birthday party. It was held at her father-in-law's place, which is right on the Milwaukee River. We were outside until the last hour, when we moved inside due to the mosquito population. I had on jeans and a short-sleeve shirt and added a hoodie when the wind picked up and it got a little chilly. This left my feet, which were in flip-flops, as pretty much the only exposed part of my body. While at the party, I had no feeling of being bitten or stung my anything on my right foot. I got home, got ready for bed, and the top of my right foot was a little itchy. Nothing really bad, just a little itch. I figured I got a mosquito bite, no big deal. That was until the middle of the night, when I woke up because my foot was itching so bad. After scratching it until I thought I might have actually broken through the skin, I managed to get back to sleep. Sunday, though, I woke up and the scratching the night before had taken it's toll, as the top of my foot was actually a little swollen. I put on some cortizone anti-itch cream and got ready for church. By mid-way through mass, my foot again was itching like crazy. I was trying to be subtle and scratch with my other foot when I could. By mid-afternoon, the swelling had increased and it was actually getting a little painful to walk from that. Also, the area that was itching increased. By Sunday night, it covered pretty much the right side of my right foot- from the middle of the top of the foot, down to the pinky toe and all the way down to the edge of the bottom of the foot. I started actually icing my foot to bring the swelling down. After careful inspection, there is no actual spot where I can see a bite or sting. Now today, I spent quite awhile scratching at work and then trying to ignore the itching that I felt. I had taken benadryl last night to get the itching to go away- no luck. After work today, I picked up some stronger cortizone cream- the strongest stuff I can get without a prescription. That worked pretty well in the main area where the itching had previously been. Now, it seems to be moving along the base of my toes along the top of the foot. Unbelievable. I have no idea what could have bit or stung me, but I'm hoping this will go away soon. At least without scratching as much tonight, the swelling seems to have gone down a little. Keep your fingers crossed.

Quick note.

2008-09-07T22:38:00.002-05:00

Just a quick note. 12 lb hand weights are not all that easy to find. Everyone has 10's and 15's, but not 12's. After looking at a couple of places, I actually entertained the idea of ordering them online. Of course, they were going to charge me as much as the hand weights in shipping. Finally this morning, I stopped in at Sports Authority and found them. They were even on 20% off. So, now I can begin working out with the new weight.

My first "Clean" food...

2008-09-03T12:52:00.002-05:00

Ok, so obviously this wasn't my first clean food as I've eaten plenty of raw veggies and fruit before (both clean) and I'm pretty good at the chicken on the Good Ol' George Foreman- Lean, Mean Fat-reducing Machine. But, last night I actually cooked something that was made with the intent of having a clean meal. I had my chicken and some tomato slices (cause during the summer, that is my favorite treat- fresh tomato) and then I made baked sweet potato fries. Actually very easy, too. Just take a couple of sweet potatoes, peel 'em and cut them into wedges, like the big chunky fries you get at Fuddrucker's (mmmmm....- so not clean eating, but sooooo good). Anyway, you lightly coat the wedges with olive oil and then season them. I used some garlic pepper- which is quickly becoming my favorite seasoning- and a little Lawry's seasoning salt. Then bake them at 450 degrees for 30 minutes. That's it. I had several wedges with my chicken and tomato and they were fabulous!

Overall, it was a wondeful night, too. It did have a bit of a time warp feeling to it, though. While I was preparing dinner, I had my itunes on and it was playing the new New Kids on the Block album that was just released yesterday. Then, while I ate my clean dinner, I sat down to watch the new episode of 90210. Ahh, junior high all over again. Only this time, my mom wasn't asking me if I had any homework while I tried to enjoy some mindless TV.

Getting Clean

2008-09-02T11:36:00.002-05:00

So, for starters, the post-boot camp me is doing quite well. I ran 12 miles on monday morning as part of the marathon training and felt pretty great right until the last 1/4 mile. I pretty much ran out of juice which is due to not taking in enough calories during the run. I'll have to remedy that situation this coming weekend when I have to run 15 miles. A big plus to the early morning run, though, is the addition of EndoRush to my long workouts. This was recommended by my drill instructor and works wonders for giving you a nice boost when getting going on a long run, or otherwise strenuous activity. You can purchase bottles of this at most health stores. However, the main thing to keep in mind is that one bottle contains four servings. This stuff is high in caffeine, so I actually take less than a 1/4 bottle right now while I'm getting my body used to it. (I drink very little caffeine these days- no coffee, no caffeinated soda- the only caffeine I get is in green tea.) Oh, and it doesn't taste all that great, but it works well, so I'll take a few chugs before my training runs.

I also had my post-camp evaluation last night. The instructor noted that I was doing well with the 8lb weights during camp. She also commented that she would like to see my shoulders widen a little more (which would happen with more muscle) and that would not only lift my upper body, but it would make the extra weight I currently carry in my abdomen less noticable. So, she recommended that I pick up a set of 12 lb weights and start doing some of my workouts with those. I'll be swinging out tonight to get them and am anticipating a rough first week with the new weight- just like I had initially with the 8 lb's.

So, the long weekend was spent well. I had a great friday night out with some friends. We were celebrating two birthdays and had a fabulous dinner at LuLu's in Bayview. Then they asked if I knew where we could go for a couple more drinks and I mentioned that my brother has a friend who owns a new place just down the street called Telluride. I did warn them that I had never been there and had no idea what the atmosphere was like, but I knew they had a large patio where we could sit outside. So, we headed over and had a great time there as well. The patio is huge and is actually the entire lot next door to the bar. Drinks were reasonable as well with a good selection of beers. Plus, one of my friends was very impressed with the Chardonnay they were serving for only $4 a glass. (far more impressive than the $6 they paid at LuLu's for a much smaller glass of wine) Saturday was also a great time. Mom and I made a run down to Kenosha to the Prime Outlets. I was very excited that Nike had some great sales, so I got some new running apparel. The evening was spent celebrating the birthday of my running partner. Her daughter cooked dinner for everyone and we had a couple drinks around a fire later in the evening.

Sunday was not quite as fun, but I accomplished a lot. I cleaned my apartment. It took about 6 hours. It's not a large place, so you can just imagine the state it was in that it took that long to get it all done. During August with boot camp and full weekends and whatnot, I did minimal cleaning. So, I got everything in order and cleaned and dusted and vacuumed. It has been really nice to come home to a clean place for the last day. Of course, this leads me into the second way that I am getting clean....
I am reading a new book called, "Clean Eating". It isn't a diet. It is a lifestyle change. There are many aspects to this new lifestyle, but the basics of it is that you cut out the processed crap from your life. When you go to the grocery store, you mainly stay in the periphery of the store and avoid the interior. (with a few exceptions- that I'm still reading about) The meal that my running partner's daughter made was a Clean Eating recipe and it was fabulous. Pasta (yeah- I get to keep eating pasta!!!!) with some seasoning and boiled shrimp and tomatoes. Very simple, but delicous and satisfying. So, that's the new plan. I have to finish the book, and once I do, I'll blog about a few more of the rules, but I'm really going to try with this one. I know it won't be easy- I am very ingrained in my processed life- but I think this will help me continue my journey towards being a healthy individual.

I'm a survivor!

2008-08-29T09:39:00.003-05:00

Yes, it's true- it says so on my official boot camp dog tag that I received this morning upon completion of the month- "Adventure Boot Camp Survivor". So, I made it. It's been plenty rough. Getting up that early has literally been hell. And while I got a little more used to getting up early, I never quite got the hang of going to bed early. About the best I could do was falling asleep at around 10pm, which just meant I was getting less sleep. I missed a few days along the way. The bronchitis set me back a bit and there was one day where I slept straight through my alarm and two days that I had to go in to work early. However, despite the set-backs and misses, when we had our final fitness test today to assess our progress the results were awesome! My mile time dropped from 9 min. 7 sec. to 8 min. 39 sec. - pretty impressive considering the fact that I've been trying to run faster for years and just couldn't quite get over the hurdle of moving from jogging to running- this morning felt really good for once. My push-ups went from 25 (all done on my knees in modified position) to 44 (with the first 12 done on my toes and the next 32 done on my knees). I think that impressed me the most- my upper body strength was not so great coming in to this month. My mom actually noticed last weekend that it looked like a had more definition in my shoulders, so it seems that things are starting to look better, too. Then we had to do sit-ups. The instructor tells you to as many as you can, no time limit, but that once you hit 100, you can stop. My initial sit-up reps was 100 (as I commented to a friend- I have great abs and if I could only lose a little of the fat on top of them you could see how strong they are). But, for good measure, this morning I did 120. Probably could have done a few more, but I wanted to save some core strength for the final test. The plank hold. My initial time was 1 min. 3 sec. which I wasn't that happy with, so I really wanted to double that this time. I fought a valient fight against gravity and fell just short of my goal- I wound up holding it for 1 min. 56 sec. Not too shabby, but those few seconds just irk me. At least it's something I can work on as I move forward.

No, I'm not going to keep doing boot camp. While I enjoyed it, it's far too expensive for me to do every month. But, I definitely learned a lot of really good exercises that I can use in the future. I definitely know way more moves to strengthen my shoulders, biceps and triceps. We also learned lots of core exercises. While we did a lot of leg work, most of it revolved around various forms of lunges and having some sort of resistance while running- be it on the beach, up a hill, or on stairs. There were some moves that I will probably never do again, and a few things that we did with the hand weights that I think will be better at home using either my medicine ball or my kettlebell.

So, now the goal is to keep this up. I have to keep running as I'm just over a month away from the Lakefront Marathon. I pretty much just want to finish, but I would love it if I could finish in under 6 hours (which is what I ran my last full marathon in). Plus, I want to keep up with the weight training. Ideally, I could sleep in for an additional hour (meaning getting up at 5:30 versus 4:30am) and then have an hour to either do resistance training at home, or go for a short run each morning. I'm going to spend the next month focusing on running and resistance. Once the marathon is done, I'll go back to the cycling, and I would like to get back to some swimming as well. So, that's the plan. We'll see how well I do. Keep your fingers crossed!

Been awhile...

2008-08-22T14:13:00.002-05:00

I was doing really good with the updates... and then I got sick. I'm pretty sure I know exactly how I got sick, too. I have a friend that is a priest and for the last two years (as long as I've known him) he has tried to convince me to take the communion cup at mass. Now, being a scientist, I have a huge issue with sharing a cup with that many other people. Especially when I see people walk up there every single week coughing away and then moving straight into that cup line. I've heard all the reasons, that wine is used, so the alcohol kills any germs- ha. We're not drinking 151, its a little table wine- not gonna kill much of anything. The fact that they are supposed to wipe were you drank from and then turn the cup for the next person. Again- ha- so I'm going to get the germs from someone about six people in front of me instead of the one directly in front of me. The hearty bugs can live for quite awhile- there's a reason that surgical equipment is sterilized under extreme heat and pressure to kill everything- it's because some of that stuff takes that much to kill it. And of course, the best one is that since after consecration, it is Jesus' blood, it won't get you sick because God wouldn't let you get sick from that. Now, I'm a pretty religious person and I believe that God will help me out and protect me and whatnot, but given all the wars, and famine and natural disasters going on these days, I find it pretty hard to believe that God is going to make sure I don't get Strep from the communion cup.
Unfortunately, I put my better judgement aside on the 9th while I was in Green Bay attending the wedding of my college friend, fondly known as *ucker. (Ah, the days when you could just yell that out across campus and no one even blinked. Now, everyone has kids and such and you have to be very careful who you use that nickname around.) Anyway, the wedding ceremony was very nice. The bride's mother is the personal secretary to the Bishop of the Green Bay diocese. So, he and the other Green Bay bishop, presided over the service. I somehow felt obligated in the midst of all of that to take the cup. Not a good call. As two days later, I started coughing all. the. time. After a miserable few days, while still going to bootcamp of course, I finally went in to see the doctor. Bronchitis. So, now I've been on antibiotics for just over a week. I'm feeling much better, although I am still coughing a decent amount. I'm hoping that goes away pretty soon here. A couple more days of the drugs to go.
The only plus on the whole sickness thing is that it gave me an excuse to do nothing but veg on the couch and watch Olympic coverage pretty much every night and all weekend long. Gotta look at the bright side:) So, hopefully I'll have more fun stuff to post soon. Bootcamp is done on the 29th, so one week left to go. It still hurts, but not quite as bad as the first week. I guess that means it's working. Either that, or my pain threshold has gone through the roof these days.

Observation...

2008-08-12T13:44:00.002-05:00

So, as you can tell from previous posts, I enjoy cycling. I really only started about 5 years ago and am pretty pleased with how well I do these days given the short amount of time I have been doing this and the amount of time I have to train. Anyway, I have tried to not only learn how to ride, but to ride safely and using proper bike etiquette. It amazes me these days at how many people ignore one or both of those factors.
The first one is annoying, but not horrible. Bike etiquette. Just like most other sports and activities, there are a few things that are common curtesy for a cyclist to do on the road. The first is that when you are riding on a busy road, you should stay single file. It's both a safety and a curtesy factor as cars can pass you as well as faster cyclists. When cycling with a group and a car is coming from behind or in front, you should notify the riders around you by yelling, "car, front!" or "car, back!". That way if someone is talking or not really paying attention, they are aware of the approaching vehicle. The last basic rule of etiquette is to notify a rider when you are going to pass them. A simple, "on your left" suffices to just give them a "heads-up" so they don't move over as you pass next to them. Along the same line, "passing on the right" is not acceptable in most cases.
You would be amazed at the amount of times on these bike tours and other charity rides that I do, that people completely ignore these "rules". Frequently, too, it is the better cyclists that are zooming past people quickly who completely ignore the "on the left". I understand that it probably gets annoying to continually tell people that, but it's for everyone's safety, so suck it up.
The other set of rules are obviously more important. The ones that are essential for your safety. A cyclist is expected to follow the same rules of the road that a car does. You must stop at stop signs and lighted intersections and signal when you are turning. And of course, you must wear a helmet. Now that a lot of people are trying to bike to work to save gas money, I am seeing more examples of poor safety on the bike. Many times, it is cyclists who refuse to stop and wait out a red light. And of course, I so often see people without a helmet. Helmets are so important. We had a team member on the MS 150 fall this year when his front tire got caught in a rut in the road. He had some bad road rash and hit his head hard enough to crack his helmet, but thanks to the helmet, he was able to get back on his bike and finish the weekend. Often, I will see people riding without a helmet. Sometimes even attempting to carry something in one hand or the other as well. But the one that takes the cake occurred yesterday and is what prompted this post. On my way home from work, I was stopped at a red light and a bike was crossing the intersection. The man was not only riding with a grocery bag hanging off of one of his handlebars, but hanging on his other handlebar... was his helmet. Sorry buddy, but it does you no good if it's not on. (and we're not talking a young kid who promised mom to wear his helmet and has now removed it once he is out of mom's sight- this was an adult man) I've been wracking my brain to try and figure out what would prompt someone to carry their helmet and not put it on. I have no idea. He had short hair, so helmet-hair is not an option. And he was crossing a major intersection, so it's not like he thought he wouldn't be at risk of getting hit by a car. Who knows- some people are just stupid. But those people make the rest of the cyclists look bad, too.

Ibuprofen is my friend.

2008-08-07T09:18:00.003-05:00

I'm having trouble moving the last two days.
The morning after the big storm that ended bootcamp early, our instructor ran us through what would have been the previous day's workout. She calls it base building. I call it pure hell.
All of the paperwork for the class states that you must come with a workout mat and a set of hand weights that are at least 5lbs each. I had a set of 5lb'ers, so I brought those on monday. My friend, who took this in July as well, quickly pointed out to me that while in writing it says 5lbs are acceptable, she really doesn't like people using the 5lb weights. She suggested I get a set of 8lb hand weights. As I had to work on monday and was busy that evening as well, I called my mom when I got to work and asked if she had time to run to Dunham's and grab me a set of 8lb weights.
So, tuesday morning, armed with my 8lb weights- which are really heavy- I arrived at bootcamp. We did some warm-up stuff and stretching and then moved into shoulder and arm work. Oh. My. God. The shoulder stuff was tough, and then the biceps work, and by the time we hit the triceps stuff, I was hurting. After all this, she decides that we should learn the proper position for push-ups. I got down on the ground and my arms were so sore already, that they were shaking while I attempted a few push-ups. The core work we did wasn't as bad, but my arms are still sore today.
This explains why I cringed this morning when she told us to pick up our weights about half-way through the workout. I am hurting- my coworkers noticed that I was moving a little slowly today. I got home and sat down on the couch and it took awhile to convince myself to get up and shower.
Well, I'm almost done with one week. Once I get myself out of bed, the whole early morning thing hasn't been too bad. Of course I go to sleep at about 9:30 every night. But, I really can't wait until this base building stuff is done. And until that happens, ibuprofen is my friend (600mg every 4 hours on the dot).

Update:
There is a new committee at my work called the Wellness Committee. Today they held a Health Fair for all employees. Lots of pamphlets and info from the health insurance company and stuff about dealing with stress, plus healthy snacks. But, they also had 10 minute chair massages that you could win. And I won one! It was heaven. (well, actually it kind of hurt in some areas where he used a lot of pressure, but afterward it felt great) And I can now move my arms like a normal person again! Yeah for free massages!

Workcamp to Bootcamp...

2008-08-06T16:07:00.002-05:00

It's been a crazy few weeks. Absolutely crazy. But completely incredible, too.
On July 19, myself and three other chaperones (yes, people actually entrusted their teenagers in my care) left with 18 youth aged 14-20 to head to Wheaton, MN for a week of mission work. Where is Wheaton? Well, it's pretty much as far as you can go in MN and not be in the two Dakotas. Kind of where all three come together. Anyway, the drive there wasn't too bad. We rented luxury mini-vans which included a DVD player, Satellite radio and an MP3 player plug-in. Everyone was entertained- well, mostly everyone. One member of my van pretty much pouted whenever his ipod was not the selected ipod for listening. Things became better when they decided to pop in a movie. Great. Except that for safety reasons, the view screen is not anywhere that the driver can see it. However, I can hear the movie through the car's speakers. Great if you are in the van that opted to watch Aladdin, which the driver had seen multiple times and therefore had no problem following the action. Not so great if you are in my van- where they chose "She's the Man". It stars Amanda Bynes and is a modern-day, teenage take on Shakespear's Twelfth Night. I have never seen this movie. Multiple times, there was laughter at which point, I had to ask for a clarification as to what happened. Oh well. Such is the life of a chaperone.
Anyway, we got to our destination just fine and on Sunday got all checked in. Everyone had time for showers before the afternoons programs began. The first day went very well- met my crew (which is made up of kids from other groups in an effort to force everyone to meet new people) that I would be working with all week at our designated work site. They were great kids and all got along very well. Monday rolled around and we headed to Dumont, MN where Bernadine, our resident lived. We were to scrape, prime and paint her 2-story house. The sheet we got listed the house as requiring "light" scraping. When we finally located the house (in the town of 122 people with absolutely no street signs) there was nothing "light" about the scraping required. The task seemed overwhelming from the start. Not to mention that with a 2-story house, there was a lot of areas that had to be done while standing on the roof or on a tall ladder and Skipper is afraid of heights. Ugh. Again, as the chaperone, I had to suck it up and to quote Nike, "Just do it". Well, by the end of the week, we made it. We finished the house for Bernadine who was just like most grandmas- offering desserts and treats every time we turned around. We had a little extra help from another crew for a day and a half, but by 2:40pm on friday, we had finished the whole thing. I had heat rash on a good portion of my body and bruises all down my legs from leaning on ladders, but it was done. Of course, then we went back to the Wheaton High School where we were staying to be greated as we were every day by a freezing cold shower. Apparently, the high school has something like a 150-gallon water heater. There were 384 people staying there for work camp, so if you didn't get one of the first 20 or so showers of the day- you pretty much felt like you were polar bearing every afternoon. There are tons of other stories from that week- but telling them would make this post ginormous, and many of them are probably only funny to those of us that were there:) But, the week was an amazing experience and I feel like I grew just as much as the kids did during our time there.

Anyway, I made it home. Had a week off and then had the MS150 bike tour. This was my 5th year riding the tour. You leave from Waukesha on Saturday and bike approximately 75 miles and wind up at Whitewater. Then we stay overnight in the dorms and get up on Sunday to bike another approximately 75 miles to Madison. Now, with all the travel lately, the training on the bike has been lacking. I knew my legs could make it, I wasn't so sure about my butt. Saturday was great- awesome route, relatively flat, great weather, everyone in good spirits. Sunday, not so much. Very, very, very hilly. And people just wanted to be done. But, as a team, we finished. Along with my friend, Wendy, who rides on the back of a tandem bike as she has for 6 years now. Her MS has gotten worse every year, but she keeps going with rarely a complaint. One funny story from Sunday, though. They decided to have us ride around the capital building this year. Traffic-wise and everything, just not a great idea. But, as we are riding up towards the capital, we passed some sort of alternative club or bar. Really wasn't paying too much attention until I saw the people standing outside, cheering for us and high-fiving our riders. Only, these weren't your average cycling patrons, these were well-decked-out transvestites. But, hey, at least they clapped and cheered for us. Just not what you are expecting to see after that many miles on a bike.

Now to the last section...
So, after 150 miles over the weekend, on Monday morning I was awake at 4:30am to go to Bootcamp. No, not the real bootcamp. I didn't enlist or anything. It's this workout program called Milwaukee Adventure Bootcamp. A friend convinced me to do it with her. (well, didn't really convince me, she took the class in July and called me several times telling me how great this was and how in-shape she was getting- she knows how to convince me to do something:)
Anyway, 5 mornings a week, from 5:30-6:30 from August 4-29, you will find me down on Bradford Beach doing Bootcamp. Day one was rough getting up. I was sore from the bike tour and still very tired. As we were heading down to the lake, we saw some lightening, which made my friend comment that class would probably be canceled as the instructor doesn't do class with lightening. Well, wouldn't you know, since it was the first day, she decided to chance it and keep an eye on the weather while we got started. It actually wasn't raining when we started, so we did some warm-up stuff and in the middle of stretching, it started to rain. At which point, she informed us that rain will not make us melt and to keep going. I truly felt like I was at bootcamp. Finally after 15 minutes, the weather got too severe and she canceled the rest of class. I went home and was cold and tired and decided to reward myself with an Egg McMuffin. Oh well, the diet can begin again tomorrow- that was a damn tasty sandwich.

Too much of a good thing...

2008-07-13T21:07:00.002-05:00

Today was a beautiful day. Not too hot, sunny and just enough wind that when the sun got too hot, a little breeze would blow by and cool you off. So, naturally, I decided to enjoy the sun. There was also the thought that if I got a little tan on my stomach, it wouldn't look so large in my swim suit next week. I am off to work camp with the youth group from my church and on wednesday afternoon, we have free time. So, our group is heading to a nearby state park to swim and cook-out. Anyway, the plan this afternoon was to just get a little color to match my arms and legs which got rather tan walking around New York. However, to make the time pass quicker, I popped on my ipod and grabbed a book. Yeah, that was great, except that I wound up getting totally hooked on the book (The Other Boleyn Girl- no I haven't seen the movie yet, as I've been waiting to read the book first). I totally lost track of how long I had been outside. When I went inside, though, I really didn't look red. I thought I had escaped without any major damage. I was sitting outside on my parent's deck, and on my way home, I decided to stop and get groceries for the week. As I'm walking through Pick-N-Save, I glanced down at one point and noticed some red on my chest. So, I figured I had gotten a little burned. When I got home, I checked out the extent of the damage. It's not horrible. It's not like it's blistering or anything. But, it does look pretty funky. Apparently the way I was sitting, one side of me got more sun than the other. My chest is burned all over, which looks funny only because it's like I have a big red V on my chest. My stomach is another story. The left side of my stomach is burnt, while the right side doesn't have much color at all. So, I'm a little lopsided at the moment. I'm hoping with some aloe I will be evened out soon. Keep your fingers crossed.

Start Spreadin' the News...

2008-07-11T15:05:00.002-05:00

So, I've returned. From New York. I flew out on July 5th and got back July 9, so a nice 5-day trip. I had never been to New York, so the plan was to pretty much hit all the major tourist spots in the city. There were lots of little things that people told us to do, that I might enjoy someday, but really, I just had to get in the major stuff on this trip- Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, etc. Now, my mom and I planned this trip figuring that if we went over the weekend of the 4th, we could save me some PTO. Of course, we could have flown out on the 4th and saved me another day off of work, but I don't like flying. Actually, I pretty much hate flying. I am completely paranoid to the point that I clutch a St. Christopher medal in my hand during the entire duration of any flight that I am on. I even held it in one hand, while I ate my Midwest chocolate chip cookies with the other. I am convinced on each and every flight that I take that something horrible is going to happen. This fear was present prior to 9/11, however I'm pretty sure it's gotten worse since then. Now, not only am I afraid of engine trouble, or turbulance, or the brakes or landing gear not working properly, I'm also afraid of hijackings, bombs, and various other methods that someone might use to harm the plane. I will fully admit to rather intense scrutiny of all my fellow passengers prior to boarding, and once the flight is in progress, if you should move towards the front of the cabin, I'm watching you like a hawk until you take your seat again. Like I said, I'm paranoid. So, flying on the fourth wasn't happening, as I didn't want to fly into New York on this huge holiday, even though everyone tells me that dates like that actually don't mean so much to the terrorists.

Anyway, we get in to New York safely on saturday and of course there is a light rain, but not too bad, so after dropping off our luggage, we set off. Now prior to the trip, we sat down one day and planned out each day. What we wanted to see and based on where they were located, roughly the order we would go in to hit all our spots on a given day. Day one was to first head over to the UN building which was pretty out-of-the-way from most other place we were going, so we threw it in on saturday. When we left the hotel, it was drizzling. By the time we got a few blocks, the drizzle had turned into a downpour. Mom and I both had on raincoats and umbrellas and were still soaked by the time we reached the UN. As a result in all pictures from saturday afternoon, I look something like a drowned rat. It was kind of cool to see the UN, and once we finished up there, we were off to the Empire State Building. We had purchased our tickets ahead of time online to save us time waiting in the ticket line. Many people had said that the wait at the Empire State Building could be up to 3 hours. So, we figured on saturday we didn't have any shows or anything to get to, so we could just wait as long as we needed. At the ground level they had a sign out that said the observation level currently had zero visibility. We weren't quite sure what that meant, but again, everything was planned out for each day, so skipping the building on saturday meant that we would have to figure out when to squeeze it into our packed schedule. So, we went up. At least we would be able to say we were at the Empire State Building. Well, we get to the top after only a half hour of waiting and it really wasn't too bad. We could see probably four or five miles. Actually, by the time we got back down, they had switched the sign to read "limited visibility". So, it was cool to see all that and since we didn't have to wait very long, we were way ahead of schedule. We stopped at Macy's, just to see what the building looked like- since we have a Macy's here, there was no real need to shop there. By that time, we figured our hotel room should be ready and headed back in that direction, as both of us desperately needed at least dry socks. The rain had pretty much stopped, so it was looking like it would be a pretty nice night. We checked into our hotel, The Belvedere (and yes, the fact that it had the same name as a classic '80s sitcom did somewhat sway my decision to stay there). It was a really nice place, and we were getting complimentary full breakfasts each morning- in other words, non of that continental crap, we're talking eggs, bacon, french toast, etc. So, after checking in and putting on dry socks and blow drying my hair a bit, we were off again. This time our destination was much closer, Times Square. We were actually only a couple of blocks from there, so it was a quick walk. We spent the next couple of hours wandering around, stopping in some stores, checking out where the shows we were seeing were located and just taking it all in. A stop at the Times Square visitor's center earned us a map, which pointed out a section just west of the Times Square area called restaurant row. We headed over there for dinner, hoping to find a little pub or something as we weren't dressed for a fancy saturday night dinner. Found a great little Irish pub that had this awesome Granny Smith's Cider. Good food, too. This time we headed towards 5th Avenue and Rockefeller Plaza. The Plaza looks pretty cool at night and we saw several stores that we wanted to check out the next day when they were open. Now, several friends had told me prior to this trip that I had to check out the awesome designer knock-offs that they sell out in New York. I had been looking at these little carts on the sidewalks all afternoon, and they didn't look all that great as far as knockoffs were concerned. I mean, the "Coach" purses had a G on the them instead of the signature C motif. So, I was a little confused until it got dark. As we were walking down 5th Avenue, I saw these guys with like shopping-type carts and inside them, they had a large sheet that obviously had something inside it. Well, they would ask people if they wanted to see purses, and if someone said yes, they would lay out the sheet and all these purses were inside it. Now, these were the good knockoffs. "Coach" purses that had the C motif, Louis Vuitton's with the VL pattern. So, I finally decided that I had to stop and check some out. I saw this really cute "Coach" purse that had white straps and the design was a pink, purple and red C pattern. Very cute. I wound up paying $50 for my "Coach". After I bought the purse and started walking away, another guy comes up with sunglasses and necklaces in his hand. He asks if I want to see something else. He has these really cute "Chanel" sunglasses, but when I ask him how much, he says, $40. After explaining to him that I had perfectly good sunglasses- that were actually on my head at the time- and threatening to walk away, I paid $20 for my new sunglasses. We were both pretty spent by this time, so after a little more wandering, we called it a slightly early night and went back to the hotel.

Sunday morning was an early one by my standards, but we had to both get ready, eat breakfast and get over to St. Patricks in time for 9am mass. We got over there in plenty of time and even had some time to wander a bit around Rockefeller Plaza and saw the Today show getting ready to film a segment out in the plaza. Must have been some sort of fitness thing as there was a woman sitting on a exercise ball out there. There was a decent crowd to see what was going on, but nothing like what I'm guessing you see on the weekdays. Mass at St. Patrick's was really nice and then we wandered down to Central Park. After walking around in there for an hour or so, we made our way to Tavern on the Green for brunch. The food was excellent and it's such a nice place. After brunch we walked back over to 5th Avenue for a little shopping. Our first stop was FAO Schwartz- which my mother kept calling by the wrong name, those darned initials got her every time, first it was AJ, then FSO, the FOA- it was a day or so before she finally spit out FAO. Anyway, my purchase there does not anywhere state that it came from FAO (unlike the teddy bear mom got), but they were so fun looking, I couldn't resist. They are called carpet sliders. You put them on your feet and you can slide across carpet. (This made unpacking much more fun than in the past- the trip from the bedroom to bathroom was way more exciting when you slide between the two) The next store was the one I had been waiting to shop in for years. Tiffany's. I have walked through the Tiffany's in Chicago, but there is a whole different feeling when you walk into Tiffany's knowing that you are going to buy something. It makes looking at those glass cases so much more exciting. While we looked at quite a few of the cases, I had done a little pre-shopping research at home and had my eye on a couple of necklaces. So, once I found those, I asked to try them on. It was hard to tell online what the difference between the two was, other than the clasp. As it turns out, one was a choker and one was a necklace. The choker was a little tight, but the necklace looked awesome. It has a thick, chunky silver chain and a heart charm on it that says, "Return to Tiffany & Co." The charm doesn't hang too far, it hits right about at the base of my collar bone. And then of course, they put it in that pretty blue box with white ribbon and then into the pretty blue bag. Of note- the Tiffany's purchase was mostly a gift for my birthday- mom and dad told me they would pay $200 towards anything I wanted- I did have to supplement with a little of my own money, but it was well worth it. Now that we had stopped in the store I really wanted to shop in, it was time for mom's favorite store- The Disney Store. The one on 5th Ave. really impressed mom- it was three stories of Disney merchandise. They sell shirts similar to the I heart NY ones that you see everywhere (and that we had already bought the day before in Times Square), but these ones replace the heart with the Mickey icon. Right up mom's alley. Once the shopping bug was satisfied, we made our way over to the Museum of Modern Art. I'm not a huge modern art fan- most of it seems pretty weird to me. And the first couple of floors did nothing to change my opinion. It's just strange. At least the last couple of floors had some more of your standard art, which included some of the impressionists, which is my favorite period of art. After MOMA, we headed back to the hotel to rest a little and change before the evenings Broadway show. Sunday night was Mary Poppins. I have been a fan of the movie since I was a little kid. I would alternate between that and the Sound of Music whenever it was my turn to choose a movie. So, I was pretty excited to see this on stage. I had heard that there were some changes made to some of the lyrics and a few changes to the plot of the story, so I was prepared for this not to be exactly the movie brought to life on stage. First of all, we had incredible seats. The first row of the mezzanine, center section. The show was incredible. I couldn't believe how much I enjoyed all the changes they made along with the staging. The way they figured out how to show that house and the nursery and the rooftop scenes was just wonderful. And at the end, when Mary Poppins flys off over the audience and into the rafters, she flew almost in front of us. So cool. We hit a little Italian place for dinner after the show and then back to the hotel.

By day three, I was tired, but we were heading into a different part of the city today. Down to lower Manhatten. We were taking the Subway down to Battery Park where we would catch the Ferry to Liberty Island to see the Statue of Liberty. We pre-bought tickets again, as only a certain number of people are allowed in the base of the statue each day, and we wanted to make sure we got in there. The subway ride went smoothly and we got down near the ferry. Of course, here is where mom and I have different temperaments. She is a little more laid-back when it comes to time and as a result, is frequently late for things. I am not. I am type-A all the way, and do not, under any circumstances, like to be late. Now, our tickets stated that we were to be at security by 9am, but they didnt' say if that was security to get on the ferry, or security on Liberty Island. So, I wanted to be early, just in case. As we're walking over to the line, we came to this area, where we could either go up these stairs and cut across this garden-y area, or turn a little and go around it. Mom made a move like she was going around it, so I turned also and we walked smack into each other. I'm fairly certain I took the brunt of the hit, as she's taller than me and I smacked my jaw on her shoulder. However, I was a little tense and instead of apologizing as I should have, especially with everyone in line looking at us, I rather loudly exclaimed, "Jesus! What are you doing!". Yeah, great, go me. (I did later apologize for my overall behavior that morning) Well, we made it on the ferry and over to the island ok- thanks in no small part to the wonderful workings of dramamine. Seeing the Statue of Liberty up close was very cool. We walked around the island a bit and then took the ferry over to Ellis Island. We walked around a bit and grabbed some food, then headed back to the mainland. Once we got back, we walked into downtown. Our first stop would be the Stock Exchange. I checked the map to see how to get there, and we were off. Of course, this prompted the following exchange:
Me- we're going to turn on Broadway up here
Mom- is the stock exchange on Broadway?
Me- (looking at mom like she has two heads) Nooooo. Mom, it's on Wall street.
Mom- no, it's Wells street
Me- (now looking at mom like she has grown another two heads) Uh, it's definitely Wall street.
Mom- the map said it's on Wells street
Me- (rather out of shocked looks) I don't care what the map says, I can assure you that the New York Stock Exchange resides on Wall Street.
Once we arrived at the Stock Exchange- on Wall street- she admitted her mistake. (and then asked that I not tell anyone that story:)
Then we stopped at the Federal Reserve building and finally walked over to Ground Zero. It still has a weird sort of feel to it, but there is lots of construction there these days, so it's not quite as reverant an atmostphere as I imagine it was in those first couple of years. Although, I don't think I have ever seen a construction site that had an American flag flying in the middle of it. Kind of cool to see that. From there we hopped back on the subway and got back to the hotel to rest up and clean up before the show that night. We changed and stopped at a sushi place just down the street from our hotel. It looked a little sketchy from the outside, which made me kind of nervous, but once we walked in, it was a very nice place. Linen tablecloths, candles, etc. The show that night was Phantom of the Opera. I had wanted to see one classic broadway show on broadway. It was also great. Our seats were in the orchestra section this time. A little off to the side, but not all the way over. Plus, since these tickets are easier to come by, I waited a bit and managed to get them at a discounted rate a couple of weeks ago.

On Tuesday, I wanted to head up to the Bronx to see Yankee Stadium. We weren't going to a game, or even on a tour, but I at least wanted to see it once before it was torn down. Plus, we got to see the new stadium being built across the street. The stadium store wasn't open yet, so we had to wait a bit. Mom wasn't thrilled about being in the Bronx, but we made it just fine. Picked up an All-Star game tank top for myself and All-Star t-shirts for my dad and brother. Then we took the Subway down to upper Manhatten. We started probably our longest walk of the trip. We walked by the Guggenheim museum and the Metropolitan Art Museum. Walked across Central Park and stopped in the Museum of Natural History. Then we headed over to see the Metropolitan Opera House which is right next to the Lincoln Center and finally saw Carnegie Hall and then back to the hotel. Now that means we walked from 86th and Lexington, up to 88th and 5th, down to 79th where we cut across the park to ~8th Ave. Then down to 62nd, where we cut further west to ~10th, back to 8th and down to 57th and 7th, and finally back to our hotel on 48th and 8th. We were both hurting by that point. So, a nice little rest was in order for about an hour, and then we walked up the block from the hotel to this little Mexican place that we had walked by every day. We stopped in there and had some chips and salsa and a pitcher of sangria. Then got back to the hotel in time to change and walk over for dinner at Cafe Un Deux Trois. It's in the Times Square area and had been recommended on several sites for pre-theater dinner. We had a really great Prix-Fixe meal there and headed to our final show, The Little Mermaid. The show was supposed to start at 8pm, but by 8:15, it still hadn't started, the announcer came over the PA to inform us that they had technical difficulties and would be starting shortly. About 10 minutes later, they came on again to tell us to please be patient that they were working on it. A few more minutes and the stage manager actually came out to tell us it was a problem with the set and that they were working on it. He would be back out to let us know if they would be able to put on the show that night. Wow. I was already bummed. I really had been looking foward to seeing that show as it is so new and I had heard really good things about it. Now, I was also concerned, because as you can imagine, there were a lot of children in the audience. It would be a bummer for me to not get to see the show should they have to cancel, but I didn't want to see a theater full of children be told that they wouldn't get to see the Little Mermaid that night. Thankfully a few minutes later, the stage manager reappeared to tell us that the problem had been resolved and the show would start in a few minutes. I have not heard such loud applause at the beginning of a show when the orchestra started playing finally. That show was magical. It was so fun. It really felt like you had been transported into the movie. They did a great job of maintaining the movie appearance and everything. So great. And a great ending to the trip.

The next morning, it was breakfast, a little walking around Times Square and back to get our bags and get to the hotel. Another nerve-wracking flight, pretty much only for me, as mom commented on how smooth a ride it was. And we were back. I would have to say that in the rankings of all my vacations, this one solidly ranks by itself in third place behind the first place tie of the road trip of '04 and the Ireland trip of '06. Just a great time. Everyone was nice, none of the rudeness that some people warned me about. I didn't think it was as dirty as people had said either. Plus, we saw everything we had wanted to and walked a ton. I definitely got my exercise. Now, back to real life.

Movement

2008-06-18T13:03:00.002-05:00

So, this post has two major parts that both fall under the same heading- Movement.
First, to the whole weight-loss issue. It's slow, but going ok. I have kicked up the workouts a bit as we are now in bike season and I have begun my training for the Lakefront Marathon in October (had to add a couple weeks to the plan to compensate for the vacation times and such when the long miles won't be possible). However, the weight wasn't coming off. I also have been monitoring the caloric intake. I have to be careful to take in enough calories that I can complete my workouts, but not too many that I'm adding more pounds. At times, this feels almost like a full-time job. One thing I have found food-wise that I like is the Fiber One yogurt. It's not a light yogurt, which means it does have regular sugar, but I detest aspartame, nutrasweet, and even splenda, so natural sugar in small amounts is fine by me. It's a smaller container than your usual Dannon stuff, so less calories that way. Plus, it helps me get my daily fiber intake up. Everything I keep reading about weight-loss harps on the fiber issue. Most of us in the US don't take in enough in a day. But, it doesn't taste high in fiber, so I give it a thumbs up.
Anyway, back to movement. I read something recently that talked about how it's really good to have regular workouts, but one way to increase your calorie burning every day is to increase your movement in general. This makes sense to me. I read once that people who fidget burn more calories in a day than non-fidgeters. I actually am not one of those people who can go through an entire meeting sitting in the same position. If anything, I at least uncross and re-cross my legs a few times in a hour-long meeting. But, in order to rachet up this movement thing I have looked at my day and where I could add a little to it.
Now, I live alone, which makes my living room set-up work for this. I have a papazon chair in the corner that holds my stability ball- not a big deal for me as I have elsewhere to sit normally. Plus, next to the chair is my array of at home workout equipment. There's a yoga mat, 5lb hand weights, a medicine ball, a resistance band, and my newest addition- a kettlebell. However, until recently, most nights that all just sat there on the floor. Now, though, I have started using it on a regular basis. It's not too difficult to get a little workout in while you're sitting in front of the tv at night. In the least, I've been trying to do some ab work and just at least move around a little so that on the nights when I'm not running to meetings and the Y, I don't just sit on my couch all night doing nothing.
I'm also aware of how much I walk at work. Now that it's nice out, no more delivery from Jimmy Johns on the days I don't pack a lunch. I can walk it quickly enough to get back and eat. Plus, I walk the stairs. My rule of thumb, three floors or less, I always take stairs. More than that, it depends on how I'm feeling.
Finally, I am trying to move more in general. The article I read mentioned some simple things like dancing a little while getting ready in the morning. This is actually pretty easy. I always put music on anyway while I'm getting going, so why not shake it a little while I walk into the bathroom? Anyway, I'm hoping this is all helping to keep the fat burning high so I can start to actually shed these pounds. I feel great, but I just can't seem to lose.
Now, all this movement talk brings me to my other issue. It reminds me to appreciate that I can move. Nothing is preventing me from moving, and when I think about taking a step, my leg does that. No problems. It's not like that for everyone out there. There are many diseases around that prevent people from moving like everyone else. Multiple Sclerosis is one of those diseases. The National MS Society has an ad campaign out these days. The campaign and slogan was done pro bono by the same ad group that came up with Nike's "Just do it" slogan. There new motto is: "Multiple Sclerosis stops people from moving. The National MS Society exists to make sure it doesn't. Join the Movement." The ads are extremely powerful, especially if you know anyone with this disease. They state that moving is a part of who we are. I think that this is so true. I don't know what I would do if I suddenly woke up one day and couldn't move like I do now. I know that movement becomes more difficult with age, but to experience something like that in your 20's and 30's? Wow.
How can people help? Well, you can certainly donate money. I ride the MS 150 every year and take pledges and such. That helps to fund research so that we can cure this thing. And of course a great way to help is to educate people. This is an epidemic in many areas of the country- including Wisconsin. Everyone should know what this disease is. So, tell people, or if you don't know much, find out about it. Ignorant people get MS, too.
But, I really think, that a great way to acknowledge this is to appreciate that you can move. To make the most of what you are able to do. Not to sit on your couch, but to get up and do stretches, and shake your a** while you get dressed. We take moving for granted. And it's time that it stopped.
So, Join the Movement.

LIVESTRONG

2008-06-17T13:41:00.002-05:00

So, I have a bunch of updates on what I've been up to that I will save for later tonight as I'm at work right now. But, I did want to post about an awesome new site that just launched today. As pretty much everyone at least in the US knows, Lance Armstrong, the cyclist who won the Tour de France 7 times in a row is a cancer survivor. His foundation started Livestrong several years ago and with a partnership from Nike started selling those yellow wristbands that you see people wearing all over the place these days. They have become acceptable accessories for athletic events as well as with business suits. Anyway, I digress. I check out Lance's livestrong blog every couple of days and while he doesn't always post, usually someone on his staff at least will post every day or so, typically with info on what the foundation is up to and such. Today, Lance himself blogged on the launch of their new website, Livestrong.com. This is not just a cancer website. This really is about living strong. There are articles and recipes on there for eating healthy. Info to help you live an active lifestyle. There is tons of stuff on there already and they plan on adding to it. It is designed to be interactive as well, so you can meet other people across the country with the same goals as you. From the little bit I have checked out, it seems really great. So, there's my healthy recommendation for today. I'll catch up later.

Sex and the City and a very dirty Skipper

2008-06-08T14:50:00.003-05:00

Quite the weekend and it's still not over. For starters, finally got to see Sex and the City on friday night. Totally lived up to my expectations. I won't say too much about the plot as I don't want to ruin it for anyone, but in the end, things turned out pretty much how I would like for them to. The girls and I (plus one guy- who is a big fan as well) got all dressed up and headed to the Majestic Theater in Brookfield. BTW- my new shoes looked absolutely amazing with my little black dress. Anyway, we went to the lounge at the theater and had martinis- they made a mean cosmo- and ordered some appetizers. They wouldn't let us take the drinks into the regular theater, but we could take the food. So, saw the movie- we laughed, we cried (although we each cried over a different scene) and left very happy with everything. Then we got some custard at Oscars. Unfortunately, we also got stuck in traffic on our way home due to construction lane closures. It was about 12:30am when I finally got home.

I was up bright and early - as in 4:50am. That was rough, but once I got going, I was ok. The Trek 100 bike ride was on saturday morning. I had to get my bike at the 'rents place and meet some friends by 6:10am to head out to WCTC for the ride. It was a great day. Beautiful weather all morning. In the morning, Lance Armstrong spoke briefly before they started the ride. We were probably about 120 feet or so from him, which was really cool. There were about 20 people from the bike team there. Most of us ladies opted for the 37 mile route this year. We just haven't been on the bikes all that much. No need to kill myself right off the bat. Great food at the rest stops and at the finish. We got done and just cleaned up a little and got regular clothes on. Then just sat around for a couple hours drinking beer and enjoying the great day. Not too shabby of a morning.

Of course the afternoon was vastly different. I got back and dropped my bike back off at my parents' place. My mom was the only one home and we decided to go to the budget theater were they were showing "Horton Hears a Who". For two bucks, not a bad movie. What I saw of it- I did take a little nap at one point- not because it was boring, but I was just really tired from lack of sleep and then the whole 37 mile bike ride. Well, we got done with the movie and as we were walking out to the car, it looked very dark. By them time we got back home, the tornado sirens were actually going off. So, we went into the basement to chill out while the storm passed. My dad got home about a ten minutes later and joined us. We were listening to the radio and it became obvious that it wasn't going to pass over too quickly, so dad grabbed a beer and mom and I popped open some wine. Not too shabby for a tornado warning. Of course, keep in mind that I still had not showered and was wearing the kinda sweaty clothes that I had on while sitting outside with everyone earlier. As soon as the tornado warning ended, I decided to head back to the apartment. It was still raining and there was a flash flood warning, but I thought if I got going quickly, I could make it. Ha. Not so much.

After getting turned back three different times because of flooded streets trying to get back to Tosa, I finally gave up and went back to the 'rents place. I was not happy. I had no clean clothes, had not showered since friday morning and had a headache. Plus, mom and dad don't have an extra bed, so it was the couch for me. (Well, kind of by choice, as dad did offer to take the couch and let me sleep upstairs, but mom snores, so that was a no go.) By the time I got up this morning, I was dying to a shower. I looked like some kind of hippy freak. I had on wrinkled shorts and flip flops along with my t-shirt that I had rolled the sleeves up all the way on. No make-up and pretty tan from saturday morning, plus the lack of washing left my hair looking like I was trying to get some sort of dreadlock look. I was so happy to get a shower once I got home. Managed to get to church and went for breakfast afterwards. But, as we were eating breakfast, it started to rain again really hard. I had to make a run for the car and the roads were getting worse as I drove home. At least I'm here. They are saying more rain is coming and I'm debating if I want to attempt leaving the premises until tomorrow. We will see. At least I'm clean and can sleep in my own bed tonight.

What can brown do for you?....

2008-06-05T18:40:00.002-05:00

Yeah, brown can bite me. Seriously. Now, I do tend to get upset or annoyed with things often, but when dealing with people, I have found that being nice gets me a lot further than yelling. So, when I move into the area of yelling and being rude to someone, (outside of family and good friends, as they deal with whatever my mood all the time) you know that it must be pretty bad. Thus is the case with me and UPS this week.

This all started exactly a week ago when I was surfing the internet and found the cutest, wonderful shoes. I actually quoted Carrie when I saw them..."Hello, Lover". They are dark pink patent leather. Open-toed with a strap that crosses just above my arch and a silver buckle on the strap. And four inch heels. And I had to have them. Now, I did just receive my federal stimulus check and I figure that it would be wrong for me to spend all of it paying bills and not use it to actually stimulate the economy. So, I ordered them. I wouldn't normally order shoes online, but these were from Nine West and I own three other pairs of their shoes and they are all the same size, so I was pretty safe in what size to get. However, they are brand new and would not ship until Monday the 2nd. So, when I placed the order, I forked out the extra ten bucks for 2nd day air shipping. Here is where the fun begins.

On Monday, I received an email from Nine West with my tracking number for the package. It was sent out on Monday and according to the UPS website, it was scheduled for delivery on Tuesday, the 3rd. I was very excited. Until I got home Tuesday night at about 7:15pm and there was no note at my door telling me that they had attempted delivery (as UPS seems to always need a signature, they never leave packages at the door and I must go pick them up at the service center). I checked online again only to find out that the package was supposedly still out for delivery. At 7:45pm I called UPS and they told me that occasionally the drivers will still be delivering past 7:30pm, so I should wait a while longer. By 9:30 though, I knew they were not still coming over. So I called again. This time they told me that sometimes they don't get through all the boxes, so it's probably still sitting on the truck and they will attempt delivery tomorrow. I was annoyed, but still holding it together. The next morning, I had another package to pick up at UPS that I had been holding off on getting so I could pick them both up at the same time. I figured while I was there, I could just see if they had the shoes. So, I told them the story and gave them the tracking number. They went in back to figure out where it was.

And then I waited for almost 40 minutes. They could not find my shoes on the truck they thought they would be on. They claimed that they could be on another truck and the only thing I could do is wait the day and see if someone tries to deliver them. I asked if there was anything else that I could do and they said no, just wait and see. Ok. I'm more annoyed. I head to work and have a meeting in the morning. When I get out of the meeting, I check the status online thinking maybe by chance they attempted a delivery. Imagine my shock when I see that at 8:28am my packaged was scanned out for delivery in Elm Grove- I was standing in their lobby at that time. And then at 9:45am it was scanned as misdirected/sent to the wrong location in Ironwood, Michigan!!!!!! How the hell did my shoes get sent to Ironwood, Michigan?!

I am now pissed. I called UPS and pretty much yelled at the woman on the phone to explain to me how this happened. She had no explanation. She told me that the service center in Elm Grove would call me back. And they did and then I yelled at that person. No one could explain to me how my shoes got sent out of Elm Grove while I was in the building and were now in another state. I asked how I could get my money back and they told me that I had to call the company that mailed them as they were the ones that actually paid UPS. So, I called Nine West. I was nice to them, as they were in no way responsible for what happened. They actually agreed to refund not only the extra that I paid for the 2nd day air, but all the shipping costs.

Now, the final infuriating point was that while the shoes scanned in in Michigan at 9:45am, it wasn't until after 8pm that they were scanned as leaving Michigan. So, it apparently took just over an hour for them to get there and almost 12 hours for them to finally send them back.

At least this morning, I got a call that my shoes were finally in Elm Grove. I ran over there right away as I didn't want to give them any chances to accidentally ship my shoes off somewhere else.

Anyway, I have my shoes now. They fit and they look amazing. They will look wonderful tomorrow night with my little black dress when I go see Sex and the City with my friends. But, I can assure everyone that if given the choice, I will not use UPS in the future and I definitely will not fork out extra money for the faster service.

New Lunch Stop

2008-06-02T21:47:00.002-05:00

So, about a month ago, I was commenting and probably complaining a little to a couple of my coworkers about the fact that there was no place in walking distance of our building to get a healthy wrap or salad or something like that for lunch. About the healthiest we could do was Subway or Jimmy Johns. Not bad, but one gets sick of subs after awhile. Other than that, it is limited. We have the Dogg Haus, Real Chili, George Webbs and the like. Oh, and up the street is a new pizza place that sells pizza by the slice. Good pizza, too, but not good for the diet. Well, for the last month or so, I have seen this place being set up on the east end of the building that houses the pizza place. The sign outside said it was going to be called "The Broken Yolk & Sandwich Shop". I've been very curious as to what this place was going to serve. Obviously eggs, but what kinds of sandwiches. Only breakfast sandwiches? Or lunch type stuff as well? Well, when I drove past this morning, they were open and I knew where I was headed for lunch. One of my coworkers walked over there with me and I was quite pleased when we walked inside and saw the menu board. There were wraps and salads and good healthy sandwiches. I had a very yummy BLT today for lunch. Just filling enough that I wasn't hungry for a few hours, which is kinda unusual for me. And they gave me the option of having it on wheat bread, which was also really good. I will definitely be making this my new lunch stop- of course just on days that I don't have lunch at home to make. And I would recommend it to anyone in the Milwaukee area- it's on Wisconsin Ave and about 20th Street. Happy eating!

Back on the bike

2008-06-01T17:28:00.002-05:00

And back to blogging. It's been awhile. I was suffering from severe migraines pretty much from the Thursday before Memorial Day through until Memorial Day. Not fun and my whole sleep schedule got really off because I spent a good portion of the days doped up on my meds. The plus to this was that my migraines make me nauseous, so I actually lost a little over a pound. Unfortunately, once I started eating regular meals again, I gained it back.

As far as the dieting, I have been trying to monitor my caloric intake and when I am rushing in the mornings I now grab a slim-fast shake. They are actually much better than I remember from several years ago. My dad had been trying slim-fast and I remember him complaining about how bad the shakes tasted. I told him that they couldn't be that bad and I bet him a few bucks that I could drink those shakes every day for a week without complaining. Wow, did I lose that bet. Those suckers tasted awful. I could barely choke down the first one. So, I was pleased when after seeing commercials for the new Optima line of shakes (these are supposed to keep you fuller longer) that they tasted pretty good. Not great or anything, but they are good. Certainly edible.

And now I finally got back on my bike today. For the past few months, I kept thinking that I needed to take my bike in for its yearly tune-up. Of course, I wait until just after Mother's Day to finally drive it over to a shop on the east side. They did a great job on it, but it took two weeks to get it back. So, today, I rode outside for the first time since last fall and it felt great. It was the perfect day for riding. Went out with my dad, so we took a little slower pace than the team normally does, but it felt good. We only went about 15 miles and although my legs felt great afterwards, my ass is a little sore. It'll take a little while to get used to being in the saddle again. Nothing like jumping right in, though, because next weekend I'm supposed to ride 42 miles on the Trek 100 bike tour. I'm sure I'll be fine, just maybe a little sore on Sunday:)

Plus, this week, I'm starting my training for the Lakefront Marathon. I had to add in a couple of weeks to the training plan to make the adjustments for the week I'm chaperoning work camp in July and of course I won't be able to do long runs on the weekend I'm in New York or the weekend of the MS 150 bike tour. I'm determined to follow the plan this time- and if I do, it'll be the first marathon that I run with the proper amount of training. Here goes nothin'.

Yet another lesson-

2008-05-16T23:10:00.002-05:00

So, my vanity got the best of me the other day and I decided to give at-home waxing a try. I figured that if I could wax my legs, then I wouldn't have to deal with the hair issue as often this summer. Now, everything that I read said that the new at-home kits are much better than those that were previously available. They are supposed to be easier to use and much safer, ie. it is more difficult to burn or hurt myself while I attempt to yank out my leg hair. Now that I'm writing it, I realize how odd the whole thing sounds. That I wanted to put hot wax on my leg, let it set so that the hair gets stuck in the wax, and then pull the whole thing off, ripping out the hair along with the wax. Anyway, I did a little research and it sounded like this new kit from Nair would be a good option. It's supposed to be easier on the skin, using a more pliable wax and it doesn't use cloth strips, rather once the wax sets, you just grab an end and rip. So, I picked it up at Target. Now, the other plus with this kit is that it is supposed to work on shorter hair than your standard wax kit, meaning I don't have to wait until I look like an amazon woman before I can wax. I did a patch test last night and it went pretty smoothly. No problems with my skin and it appeared to take most of the hair off of the area. Now tonight, I went ahead with the whole thing. Alright, I should know by now that when it's supposed to be easy, it never is. I now have wax drops and wax strings all over the bottom of my tub. The insert makes it sound like you use the stick to get a glob of melted wax and after a single wipe on the edge of the tub, you will just lift the wax over and put it on your leg. Ha. You get this globby thing on your stick and you try to wipe off the excess on the edge, but instead of just wiping off, it gets all stringy. So, now I take the whole tub and start holding it over my leg. I proceed put strips of wax on my leg and wait the recommended 20 seconds before I pull it off. I wait, and I make the skin taut, and I pull. Not too bad. And then I look at the wax, and there are like 20 hairs visible on the wax- from a section of leg that was about 4x2 inches. Yeah, not a good percentage there. Ok, I'll try again. Still not so good. I pretty much get done with my right leg, even though there is still quite a bit of hair there. I start in on my left leg. But, now, the wax is starting to get a little harder in the tub. I don't want to have to get up and heat it up again in the microwave, so my solution was to pretty much cover my whole leg in wax. One big huge blob of wax. Yeah, in hindsight, not a good idea. At all. Can I just say, ouch. At least I didn't lose any skin, which was kind of my fear once I started pulling the mass of wax off. So, my foray into waxing is over. Back to my handy-dandy razor, which while it may not last forever and there is the occasional nick, I don't wind up spending the better part of an hour removing what probably only amounts to about 25% of my hair. So, there you go. Another fabulous evening in my life:)

Life's Lessons...

2008-05-12T20:27:00.002-05:00

When running a half marathon, it is advisable to check out the amount of hills on the course at some point during your training and not finding out while you are actually running.

All I can say today is, OUCH! I ran the Lake Geneva Half Marathon on saturday morning. Had to get up super early that morning as my friend was picking me up at 5:15am. I was actually pretty awake and ready to go. We got down there and got our numbers and timing chips and stuff. So, 8:00 rolls around and they start the run. It was a beautiful morning. Sunny, not too cold, not too hot. Just awesome. Of course, this is what I'm thinking during the first couple of blocks. I'm thinking that until about block 4, when we turn a corner and I look up and see this ginormous hill in front of me. And that was when this run stopped being really fun and nice and started being a test of my willpower and endurance. Miles 1 to 7 were continuous rolling hills. I ran all of those 7 miles, slowly but surely, but it took a toll out of my body, particularly my knees, which have been a bit of an issue in the past. Unfortunately, the right one decided to start hurting just as the route flattened out a bit. So, I was forced to take some walk breaks, although I did get a chance to chat with some nice people who were going at about my pace. Well, I did finish in about 2 hours and 45 minutes, which is actually a little faster than my previous fastest half marathon. I was tired saturday afternoon, but by that night, I was wiped. I actually fell asleep at 9:20pm. I don't think I've gone to bed before 10 when I wasn't sick in a long time. By sunday, I was so sore and stiff, that I had some difficulty walking. Stairs were very painful, particularly going down them. Today has been better, but I still was walking a little stiff, kinda limpy. So, I will never again participate in a run without checking out how hilly or flat the course is well in advance of race day.

One Stomach Flu From My Goal Weight...

2008-05-07T20:38:00.002-05:00

Okay, not quite. That is, however, my favorite line from "The Devil Wears Prada". Anne Hathaway's character tells the bitchy first assistant girl that she looks really good and must have lost weight and the bitchy first assistant says, "I'm one stomach flu away from my goal weight." Great line. That was the one and only plus on Sunday after about 12 hours of losing my meals. Ugh. Initially, I figured it was just a little hangover as I had a few drinks and jello shots at an MS benefit bowling event on Saturday. I started drinking at about 10:30am and when I got back to my parent's place around 3:30 or so, I took a nap. Woke up feeling ok, but then over the next couple of hours, started feeling worse and worse. After throwing up once, I figured it was done, but I barely made it home and pretty much proceeded to get sick again several times through the night and ran a low-grade fever for a few hours, too. I so don't envy my neighbors, who must have heard me at about 2:30am. I would so not be a happy camper if I was woken in the middle of the night by someone dry heaving in the apartment next door. (the walls in pretty much just the bathroom area are very thin as I can hear them coughing in the mornings- pretty sure they smoke) Anyway, long story at least a little shorter, by mid-Sunday I was up and moving around and had lost 4 pounds. They are back now, but I felt a little better knowing I could wear cute pants for my mom's birthday lunch.

So, the diet is off this week. I'm running a half marathon on Saturday morning and while I don't plan on carb loading, it's also not healthy, or good for my time to go carb light. Come Sunday, its back on calorie limits and such, but at least for a few days, I'll indulge myself.

Anyway, there's the update. Not much else going on at the moment- oh except very funny story from work this morning. I was a little out of it this morning when I first got to work and this girl in one of the labs downstairs stopped me in the hallway and asked me "how I feel about being drawn" meaning blood draw, but I thought she asked "how I feel about being drunk" which seemed a rather odd question for a wednesday morning, so I looked a little confused and said "okay". Well, as she continued explaining that they test for certain types and are always looking for new people to test, it finally dawned on me that she said, drawn and not drunk. I didn't say anything, but I figure when I see her to get drawn in the morning, I'll probably fess up as to my confused look when she first asked me. I hope you all had a bit of a chuckle at that. Later.

Skinny Bitch

2008-05-01T22:23:00.002-05:00

So, sometime last fall, I picked up this book at Barnes and Noble (I can never leave that store without buying something). I had heard the title before, but really couldn't remember where and didn't totally understand if it was a diet book or self-help or what. I powered through it in about a week. It was very interesting and funny. So, Skinny Bitch is a diet book written by these two friends who, by looking at the picture on the back cover, are definitely skinny. I can't tell from the picture if they are bitches, but really, aren't we all, at least on occasion? What I definitely didn't realize when I bought it, was that this is a vegan diet book. The two women are pretty straightforward and very sarcastic and funny. Those of you who are Brewers fans may recognize this as the book that Prince Fielder read (it was his wife's) and caused him to decide to become a vegetarian. (It also apparently gained a lot of recognition after Posh Spice was seen purchasing a copy of it- however, what that woman is doing with a diet book, I don't know. I know the kind of looks I get when I tell people that I'm trying to lose weight- what kind of looks does Posh get when she says that?) Ok, back to topic. They are unbelievably descriptive about what goes on in animal processing plants. I guess it was this section that resulted in our vegetarian Brewer. Seeing as other people that read that section could never eat meat again, I'm not quite sure what that says about me as I continue to enjoy my burgers and chicken. Anyway, I just couldn't make myself become vegan or vegetarian. I just enjoy my dairy product and meat too much. I am a true Wisconsin girl! However, there was one section that I took to heart. The one about cutting out caffeine. To quote the Skinny Bitches,

"Don't talk to me until I've had my morning coffee. Uhm... pathetic! Coffee is for pussies. Think about how widely accepted it has become that people need coffee to wake up. You should not need anything to wake up. If you can't wake up without it, it's because you are either addicted to caffeine, sleep deprived, or a generally unhealthy slob. "

Ok, that's the funny part. But they do bring up many good points about how caffeine causes headaches and ulcers, raises stress hormones and has been linked to depression and diabetes. So, based on all of this, I decided to give up caffeine. Back in college, I didn't drink much caffeine. I had never been a big coffee drinker, so it was mostly soda. But, when I was finishing grad school, I got completely addicted to coffee. Unfortunately, it wasn't just the caffeine (which kept me awake), but I still didn't like the taste, so I dumped in a ton of creamer and sugar adding scads of calories. Sometime in the fall, I think it was around the beginning of November, I went cold turkey on the caffeine. No coffee, no regular soda. The first week was rough. I had a few migraines and really couldn't seem to get up in the morning. But, after that, things got much better. I sleep better and am not dependent on something to keep me going. Now I'm going on six months off of caffeine. I have had two regular cokes (when I donated blood) and I drink caffeinated green tea on occasion, but that doesn't have anywhere near as much as a regular coffee. So, I guess the point of all of this is that I would recommend Skinny Bitch to anyone who wants to laugh at themselves or become better educated about what you put in your body. And I highly recommend the cutting out of coffee.

Back to the drawing board...

2008-04-27T21:34:00.003-05:00

So, the last 7 days were pretty horrendous as far as the diet goes. So, for starters, my mom is a 2nd grade teacher at a Catholic grade school, which means that at this time of the year, every year, they have first communion. Now with the amount of kids at our church that go through this, they hold it over 2 weekends. Of course, with any major event in a child's life, comes a party, and the teacher and her family always get invited to several. So, I got free meals last weekend, saturday and sunday and this weekend, saturday and sunday. And cake. Lots of cake. Those parties, in and of themselves are not too bad, but this past week was National Lab Week. At my place of employment, we celebrate this week, pretty big time. I was on the committee this year and it pretty much revolved around food. Monday was bagels, tuesday was appetizers, wednesday brought a little relief with healthy snacks (veggies, fruit and hummus), but by thursday it was on to the dessert bake-off and friday was a catered lunch by mamma mia's. Ouch. And to top matters off, after eating a full plate of food at a communion party this afternoon, I went to a good friend's surprise birthday party and gobbled down some beer, pizza and cake. Hey, at least when I break the diet, I go all the way:)

Tomorrow brings a new week and I'm back to losing the freshman 15. Back to counting calories and running several times a week.

Now there was one plus to this week as far exercise goes. On saturday morning, I hiked 12 miles with the Boy Scout Troop from the church. I have an in with the scoutmaster (my dad) and it made for a good morning of exercise. You do get a little sore after walking for over 3 hours, but at least I didn't whine like a couple of those kids. Wow, you would have thought that we were dragging them across the state as much as they complained. Pretty much knew we were in trouble when the "how much further" talk started after about a half a mile. Apparently the title of Boy Scout does not equal tough.

Apple Cider Vinegar & The Big Bang Theory

2008-04-21T22:19:00.002-05:00

Those two things have nothing in common other than the fact that I have chosen to blog about both today:) First, the diet news. So, things go really well when I eat by myself, but when other people are involved in the food decisions, it doesn't go very well. I still have maintained a single pound weight loss. Now only 13 more to go until I reach the weight listed on my new driver's license. I went to get my new license today as the old one expired back on my birthday and they never asked if my weight or hair color or anything has changed, so they simply listed what was previously listed on my license that I got back in 2000. So, I continue to struggle.

Anyway, on to the topic at hand....

So, in this month's Glamour magazine they interviewed Fergie and during the interview, she mentioned that as part of her diet plan, she takes 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar after lunch and 1 tablespoon after dinner. According to her trainer, it helps stimulate the liver to eliminate toxins, helps the colon eliminate fats and she claims, keeps her stomach flat. I decided to investigate a little as I don't ingest weird stuff before I make sure it won't cause any permanent damage. As I found out, apple cider vinegar has long been one of those home remedies for many things. It is high in potassium and has been thought to be helpful with diabetes, allergies and like Fergie said, weight loss. Now, the key with the apple cider vinegar is that it must be organic and unfiltered. So, after a trip to Outpost, I was ready to give it a try. After dinner one day last week, I took a half shot of it. Ouch. Straight vinegar, not so great. Several places suggested putting it in a huge glass of water and slowly drinking it, but dentists have said that sipping the acidic drink for a long time can cause tooth decay. Other suggestions said you could put some honey in the water and vinegar to cut the taste, but I don't think adding honey is so smart when trying to lose weight. So, I decided to try it in just enough water so I can stand drinking it and not too much that I can't slam it back quickly. I typically need a large glass of water as a chaser, but it's been going pretty well. I can honestly say that I feel good, and I have tons of energy. I'll keep you updated as this goes on.

On to my next topic-

The Big Bang Theory- no, not the actual theory, the tv show. It's on CBS on Monday nights at 7pm. It is hilarious. These two physicists who are just the ultimate geeks happen to live across the hall from this really pretty, kinda ditzy blonde who works at the Cheesecake Factory. Those three along with the guy's two other physicist friends make up the main characters of the show. The main guy played the boyfriend on Roseanne way back when and the girl was in the John Ritter show, 8 Rules for Dating my Teenage Daughter. This show is hilarious, particularly for all you slightly or more than slightly geeky like me. The four guys are completely obsessed with comics and sci-fi. The Halloween episode was great with Leonard dressing as Frodo, Raj going as Thor, and Sheldon dressing as the doppler effect. But, as good as I think the show is, it hasn't gotten much coverage in the press. So, I'm going to do my part to get out the word so that it keeps showing up on my tv every monday. Check it out- I highly recommend it.

The End of an Era

2008-04-16T22:18:00.002-05:00

I remember the first time I saw Loricious. I walked into Intro to Psychology at 8am (it was a morning floater) on a tuesday morning, the first day of my college classes. There I saw several different people, everyone pretty much sitting by themselves, no one really talking much. And among them all was this girl in a t-shirt and jeans and a baseball cap. The cap was cream color with a navy blue brim and a red Nike swoosh on the front. I remember thinking... "what have I gotten myself into". Of course, as the semester wore on, the girl and another classmate, The Dark One, wound up making me laugh on many occasions. As we neared the end of the semester, I found myself wanting to be a part of whatever fun it was that they were having. So, I asked the girl with the baseball hat who had an ongoing battle with the boy to sit in a specific seat every day, to study with me. And she accepted. And that was the beginning of a friendship that has now lasted for almost 12 years. Wow.

We have lived together for 3 years, 2 in college (sophomore and junior years) and one more a couple years after graduation in the centipede-infested place on the east side. I think I have more stories and memories of our friendship than any other. From our days in Sensenbrenner Hall where we would play quarters with shots of vodka and peach schnapps. Loricious slept on the couch most of the year because her lofted bed served as her laundry basket. But, she did clean off her bunk and let me take the couch when I came back from a party shortly after being initiated into the sorority and was too drunk to get up into my own bed. I also remember both of us at separate times, falling out of those lofts. And then junior year when we had bunk beds, I remember stepping on her multiple times as I got up in the morning. (while being awakened by the sweet sounds of New Kids on the Block- mainly just to annoy the crap out of her). We pretty much picked on each other over the years (along with one blow out fight, that we now laugh about so hard it makes us cry)- I annoyed her, she threw water on me.... I let F****er into our room to put masking tape all over her bed, she let F****er and others into our room to hang all my underwear from the tree behind our house, and many, many other instances.

Graduation was really tough for me because I was moving back to Milwaukee and no one else, at the time, was heading here. So, a year later, when Loricious decided to move here to attend graduate school, I was thrilled. Finally, one of my friends was close by. We lived together for another year, battling centipedes and a crappy landlord. The friendship made it through that, too. I remember being at a friend's wedding in St. Louis (back in college, that friend was known as Sac:)). Loricious had just started seeing her future hubby and the look on her face when we got back from the reception and she had a message from said guy. And over a year later after a lot had gone on between them, I remember the look on her face when she told me that it looked like they were getting back together. I know she was cautious, but still so excited. And of course, I remember the day she got married and how unbelievably happy she was that day. Probably happier than I have ever seen her. And how excited I was to be there and be able to witness that.

And now, she is moving forward. On a new adventure with the hubby. I will miss nights with the girls at Mamma May's place. And I will miss meeting her for shopping at the Farmer's Market followed by coffee. Even though we didn't see each other every week or even every other, she was close by and that always helped. She has been a calming influence for me at many times and helped me reason through things. I will be really sad in a couple of weeks when she heads off for another state. But, of all my friendships, I will be damned if I am going to let this one slide. I'm grateful that I will get to see her one more time before she leaves and I'm sure as she's reading this, she's probably crying just like I am. But, I'll miss her so much. And I wish her all the happiness life has to offer in her next adventure.

Loricious, you better stay in touch, because there is no way you are ever getting rid of me. Even if I have to show up on your doorstep for a surprise visit.... or maybe just mail you a rock every once in awhile from an anonymous sender:) Good luck my friend, but not goodbye.

Beware the Pasta Sauce

2008-04-15T23:34:00.002-05:00

No, I'm not about to share some earth-shattering story about how pasta sauce is now believed to cause cancer or anything kooky like that. Rather it's the jar that you need to watch out for....

A few days ago, I got home after running some errands and didn't have a ton of time before another meeting, so in the interest of quick, I decided to make some whole wheat pasta and sauce. Easy and still healthy. I got the pasta boiling and opened the refrigerator because of course I don't make a whole jar at once, so I usually have an opened jar in the fridge. Anyway, I put my hand around the lid and started to open it when I felt something slice through my fingertip. When I looked at the lid to see if the glass was broken, it became clear that what cut me was the little bit of dried sauce around the edge of the lid from the last time I opened the jar. I never thought I would incur an injury from dried pasta sauce. The cut isn't too deep, but definitely deeper than your average papercut and it isn't healing very quickly.

So, to conclude my public service announcement- the next time you are opening a previously opened jar of pasta sauce, please check for dried sauce around the lid to save yourself from a similar injury. Hope that helps you all:)

Random Thoughts from the Weekend

2008-04-13T20:26:00.004-05:00

Nothing major happened this weekend. Went running on friday night at the Y. I haven't totally decided if I should feel good that I'm getting in the workouts, even on a friday night, or if it's just kinda sad that I spent my friday at the Y. Anyway, it was a good workout and I even had enough energy when I got home to do a little weekend cleaning.

The cleaning continued on saturday morning along with a little side-trip to Miller Park. So, I had to get tickets for the Venture Crew that I am advising. We are going in May to see a game for an outing. Anyway, I called the ticket office on saturday morning and was informed that if you buy your tickets over the phone- there is something like a $3.25 fee per ticket. Plus, there is a $4.50 or something charge to the whole order. Does anyone else think it's crazy that the Brewers are charging fees that are on par with Ticketmaster? The only way to get tickets without the fee is to go to the ticket office at Miller Park. So, I hauled my cookies over to the stadium in the middle of weather that couldn't quite decide between raining and snowing. I guess it was a snowy-rain (or maybe a rainy-snow?) and it was cold. Of course, I was not the only person who needed to get tickets on a saturday morning. But, we do now have our tickets for the Spring Madness promotion- for those of you familiar with Brewers promos, it's kind of a combo of the 5-county thank you promo (half off tickets) and the turn-back-the-clock promo ($1 hot dogs and small sodas). So, the new promo is a few days of half price tickets under $26 and the $1 hot dogs- not a bad promo and I'm not the only one that thinks so- the bleacher seats for the game in question are already sold out.

Saturday night, I started catching up on all the crap that I DVR'd this past week. I have a few friend that essentially forced me into watching several episodes of the first season of Rock of Love on VH1. It's another one of these dating shows along the lines of the Bachelor, only in this one, the bachelor in question is Bret Michaels, lead singer of Poison. You can really only imagine the kind of girls who are on a show like this. Unfortunately for Bret, the girl he chose at the end of the first season pretty much dumped him on national tv at the reunion show. So, VH1 gave Bret another season to try and find his "Rock of Love". On wednesday or thursday, they aired a clips show of never-before-seen footage from the new season as the finale is airing right now (sunday night). I've pretty much been thinking through this entire season that these girls are crazy, but the clips show just made that so much clearer. The two finalists- Ambre and Daisy are quite the ladies. I've thought Ambre was pretty decent until I find out during this clips show that during the first day, she was wearing a midriff-baring top and Bret commented on her nice stomach. So, apparently, she would get dressed each morning and then take a scissors to whatever shirt she put on and turn it into a midriff-baring shirt. I've just been wondering what she's going to do when she gets home and all her shirts are cut in half...

And then there is Daisy. Wow. Bret keeps commenting an how hot she is and granted she's thin and has admitted to having boob implants but she really needs to sue whoever did the work on her face. I'm pretty sure she had a nose job and you can't miss her lips. I think she must have gotten like a triple-dose of collagen in them. And of course I can't wait to see which idiot he chooses tonight:)

Ok, enough of my rambling and whatnot. Just a few observations from a rather boring weekend.

.........................................................................................................................................................................

Update: Bret picked half-shirt girl Ambre. At least now she has somewhere to wear all those tops:)

The Biggest Loser

2008-04-10T21:55:00.002-05:00

No, that is not me in any way, shape or form. However, Tuesday night, while on the treadmill, I caught a good portion of the tv show, "The Biggest Loser". I've never really watched that show before, but it happened to be on the tv in front of the treadmill I was using. I'm sure everyone is familiar with the set-up- severely overweight people go on the show to compete at losing weight. Really I think everyone winds up a winner in this show. I mean just about everyone manages to lose at least some weight. Ok, anyway, back to my story. So, they are just about done with this season and the show I saw was the penultimate one. There are 4 people there right now, 2 guys and 2 girls. I watched them work out like crazy and at the end of the show, they each had to get on the scale to determine how much weight they lost this week. There is this one woman, Ali, who looks pretty thin these days. Not skinny, but I don't think anyone would call her heavy at this point. Prior to this episode, Ali had lost 88 pounds. She gets on the scale and the numbers start spinning around and I pretty much almost fell off the treadmill when they announced that she now weighed 135 pounds. There is now a contestant on the Biggest Loser who weighs 3 pounds less than me. At that point in time, I was getting pretty tired from the running. Well, this little piece of information helped me kick it into another gear. I know Ali has spent many weeks working her butt off, literally, to weigh what she does, but still there was some part of me that felt that I should not weigh more than someone on that show. I guess if this is a motivation for me- I'll be running again next tuesday during the finale:)

Yogurt

2008-04-09T18:31:00.002-05:00

Ok, so I made this gluco-granola stuff that they had in the book. It's got wheat germ, steel-cut oats, walnuts, coconut and a few other things to make it all stick together. You could eat it alone, but the book suggests tossing some in a half-cup of plain yogurt.

I remember when I was younger, my mom borrowed someone's yogurt maker to entertain my brother and I one summer. I was really excited about making yogurt and couldn't wait to taste it. Once it finished, I popped the top of one of the containers and took a big spoonful. Ugh. It was awful- which my mother quickly explained was because it was plain. Flash forward to now. Somehow I thought that I wouldn't mind the plain yogurt as much. Wow, was I wrong. It's still awful. Even with my yummy gluco-granola in it. I could barely choke it down yesterday. Today, I opted to try the granola in some low-fat cottage cheese that was in the fridge. Much better.

In the future, I'm thinking it's worth the few extra calories to get the vanilla yogurt.

A brief slip off the wagon...

2008-04-08T17:42:00.002-05:00

I had a couple of days totally off the diet- but with good reason. I turned the big 3-0 last thursday. Or, as I prefer to call it, the first anniversary of my 29th Birthday:) Anyway, to celebrate, my boss took me out to lunch a day early on wednesday and my family took me out to dinner wednesday night. Obviously, no diet at the Dogg Haus and Cheesecake Factory. Then on thursday, the old roomie, Dirty Girl #1, and her fam. took me to dinner. I had choir that night, but several of the choir folks took me out for a few drinks after rehearsal. So, on friday it was way tough to get back on the diet after a couple of days of high fat yummy-ness- but I managed to make it.

The weekend went well and I am actually starting to enjoy leftovers- which is pretty unheard of for me. Awhile back I stopped even taking home any leftovers at restaurants, because I knew I would never eat it.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure if this is due to my slip-ups or what, but I have not lost any weight yet. I'm going to increase my running a bit more this week in preparation for the half-marathon in about a month, so hopefully that will help. I'll keep 'ya posted:)

On the diet...

2008-04-01T18:05:00.003-05:00

Ok, so with Easter and then a week of dog-sitting I didn't have time to blog or to diet. Living at someone else's house doesn't make for the greatest place to try and start a diet. So, I finally started yesterday. Day one went pretty well. My pumpkin pie smoothie in the morning was really good- although I think I need to add a few more ice cubes next time. My mid-morning snack of hummus and carrots was great, but lunch was a little shaky. Grapes and chicken are tough to mess up, but the Caribbean Sweet Potato Salad was not so great. Rather bland and tough to stomach what the recipe calls a serving. But, by the afternoon snack, it was good again- raisins and raw almonds. Dinner, on the other hand, was awesome! I spent a ton of time making this Turkey Shepherd's Pie. It was sooooo good! I was rather shocked as I don't always do great with first-time recipes. Anyway, with all the cooking for this diet, I have been forced to do dishes much more frequently than I typically would. So, I'm doing my many dishes from cooking dinner and in the midst of running the garbage disposal, the sink suddenly starts to fill with this brownish, gunky water. And it didn't go back down. So, I called the landlord and waited- it did drain finally- in a mere couple of hours. Thankfully they did come and fix whatever the problem was today, but with the dirty dishes still sitting there all night- I woke up this morning to the smell of cooked onions. Not a pleasant morning smell.

Day 2 has gone well, also. Although given the lack of a sink, I wound up eating the same stuff as yesterday- ah leftovers. So, two days down. I'm heading out to go running now.

Breakfast #2

2008-03-14T21:11:00.002-05:00

Ok, this morning I had to have the high protein, low carb breakfast. It was 2 eggs, 2 egg whites, and feta cheese scrambled with salsa on top. Now, on the rare occasion that I eat eggs for breakfast, it's usually 2, maybe a 3 egg omelette, but never 4. I couldn't finish all of it. I ate most, though. I felt pretty good. Took my quizzes for the next 3 hours and the earlier scores for how I felt were higher than with the bagel, but not significantly higher. I guess when I repeat this next week, we'll see. I'm really hoping that when this is all said and done, I can eat some rice and bread during this diet. Anyway, it was a good day. Had a Hawaiian Luau at work to celebrate having a great inspection on monday. Watching the VP hula-hoop was hilarious.

The Perfect Body Diet

2008-03-13T17:58:00.004-05:00

Ok, so I had no intention of starting a blog, but I think it was Loricious that once said that she thought the knowledge that her diet failings would be out on the internet kept her at least slightly more motivated. So, I'll try it.

I'm not one to hop from diet to diet. While I do a lot of research on new diets, I don't necessarily follow-through on most of them. I currently sit about 15 pounds heavier than I was when I finished college. Not horrible, and at 125 pounds at that time, I was thin. And happy. Not that I'm not happy now, but I think I would be happier if I felt a little more confident in my weight again. Unfortunately, most of my pants are rather tight these days and I get the dreaded "muffin-top" in more than a few pair. I figure if I can get back to the old weight, I'll fit into much of my old wardrobe and it'll be like a whole new wardrobe again:) Aside from the vanity issue- I have a health concern with this, too. Heart disease runs in the family. I desperately want to stay healthy as far as that is concerned. Plus, I run a lot and the extra weight puts a huge amount of extra strain on my knees and other joints.

I put on some weight during my first year out of college. I was in an intense PhD-track program and had little time for anything other than studying. In the free time I did get, instead of exercising, I was partying with friends from college. Didn't help the weight matter. Back then, losing the weight was not too difficult. I stopped snacking so much and cut out most of my McDonald's runs. Unfortunately, it's not so easy anymore. Over the last probably 4 years, I've been fighting a battle with the same 10-15 pounds. Only twice over that time have I fully dedicated myself to a diet. About 2 years ago, I friend of mine was working with a trainer who practiced the Zone Diet. She convinced me to try it and we had mixed results. I felt great during it, but didn't really lose a ton of weight. A few pounds, but not a lot. I think that may partially be because we excused the beer we had after a workout by following the Zone and since it was a carb, we had to have protein and fat also, so we would add some string cheese:) Pretty much defeating the calories lost during exercise. Then last year, I decided to give Weight Watchers a try. I wound up losing about 8 pounds on WW using the online membership. The main problem was that WW isn't really set up for people under 150 pounds. The 20 points that I get a day was not very much and really difficult to not go over. Plus, now that student loans have started coming due, I can't afford to pump money into WW each month.

This leads me to the newest adventure. I subscribe to Women's Health Magazine and they have come out with a book called the Perfect Body Diet. After reading quite a bit about it and doing a little research, I decided to give it a shot. My goal is to be back down to my old weight by the time I head out to New York on vacation at the beginning of July. I picked up the book at Barnes and Noble and started reading.

So, in the first couple of chapters, they explain how this diet is tailored to each women depending on a couple of factors. First, I had to figure out what body type I am because that will determine some of the exercise regimen. Now, we all know about the apple and pear body types, but Women's Health introduces a new body type. Avocado. The avocado woman gains weight in both her abdomen and thighs equally. I am an avacado. It's based on your waist-to-hips ratio. The plus about being an avacado is that they say when an avocado loses the weight, they can become a banana. Now don't we all really want to be a banana? (hence the title of the blog) I want to fit in with all the other thin little bananas walking around in New York this summer.

The other aspect of diet is dependent on how well you metabolize carbs. There is a little test that you do over a few days at breakfast. One day you eat a high carb breakfast and record responses to a questionnaire over the next 3 hours. The next day, you eat a high protein breakfast and fill out the questionnaire again. You repeat this again for two days of each type of breakfast. Your responses to the different types of breakfasts determine whether or not your body can metabolize carbs well. So, this morning I had a big bagel with raspberry preserves. It was ok, but I'll know better after tomorrow which one was better.

Well, now it begins. Here's to becoming a banana!