Friday, December 28, 2012

Resolutions?

First of all, I wanted to tell you about something I'm super excited about!  Run with Jess is hosting a weight loss challenge on DietBet that starts Monday.  The buy in is only $10 and so far the pot is up to $1980!!!  All you have to do for a cut of the pot is loose 4% of your weight in 4 weeks.  I already bought in!  Will you??


Do you make resolutions?  Last year I told myself I would get down to my goal weight and lead a healthier lifestyle in 2012.  Well, while I did not get to my goal weight (I am pretty sure I'm the exact same weight as last December!) I AM leading a healthier lifestyle.  I started running in May of this year and have done four 5ks since then.  

My goals for 2013 are:

1. Get to goal weight!! 
2. Tough Mudder.
3. Half marathon.
4. Work more efficiently.
5. Figure out how to cut loose and enjoy myself!

What are your goals for 2013?  

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Long Time No See!!

Sorry I've been MIA!! The holidays kept me busy!! The juice fast did not last long. :(. I made it about 7 hours and the bathroom issues got to me!! I joined the gym on Saturday though! Really glad I did. I've gone 3 times so far and I love it!!

LOBSTAH face!!!

We stayed home for Christmas and had a nice relaxing time. I got some cool running related stuff I'm excited to use!!







Now I just need to lay off the holiday goodies!!




Have a great Thursday!!

Friday, December 21, 2012

We're not dead!! Yay!

Well, the world did not end, which is good because I bought a crap load of produce last night.  I started my juice fast today and I will do it through Christmas Eve.  This morning I had apple, carrot ginger juice!  Very yummy!



Today I will be working and then taking Milo to the vet.  He needs one more set of shots before we can get him fixed.  He'll be 7 months in January and I'm afraid he's gonna start spraying. :/  I'm going to the gym tomorrow with a friend.  I'm gonna run on the treadmill and maybe do some stationary biking!  Yay for getting back to running.  It's been TOO long.  Happy Friday!

Update: 

 Here's mid-morning Mean Green snack juice! I had to substitute zucchini for kale because I couldn't find any kale last night and I forgot to get spinach!  It made almost double what's in the cup, and I still have lunch juice, snack juice and dinner juice to go!  This is crazy!



Wednesday, December 19, 2012

WOW



I've been meaning to watch that documentary Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead for months now, and I finally did tonight. WOW. WOW. WOW.  Truly amazing stuff.  I even teared up a couple of times.  :)  In fact, I'm making a grocery list as we speak.  I've been wanting to do a juice fast for a while so watching this was perfect timing.  I am only doing a 3 to 5-day fast because of the holiday coming up. I'm excited though.  The only thing that's worrying me really is the cost of the produce.....

(It's my grocery list and I can misspell things if I want!!!)

We shall see!  The plan is to head to the grocery in the morning and check it out!  I may have to modify to fit my budget. 

Day 3


Snow day today! No school!
Whelp....day 2 went down the tubes around 3:00 p.m.  :(  I could not stop snacking!! I did do my workout last night though, with some major pushing from hubby.  Not sure how I feel about it.  It seemed too simple.  I will try day 2 and then decide if I want to continue with it.  Milo was not terribly impressed with it either.  During the foam-rolling portion he was intrigued....but quickly lost interest.  Smart kitty!




For breakfast this morning I had carrot apple juice and it was so yummy.  I LOVE the color.  It's so vibrant!!  Check out that awesome mug too.  I got a set of them in December's PopSugar Must Have box.  Way cool!

I just want a big fuzzy blanket this EXACT color!








Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Project Mudder- Day 2

Day 1 went well.  I almost lost it in the afternoon and drank an entire bottle of champagne, but then I pulled it together.  (Really, when the UPS man delivers a bottle of champagne it's HARD to resist! But I did.)


I didn't have time to do my workout until around 7 p.m. I was looking forward to it all day!  I fed the kids and got them squared away and then went and locked myself in my bedroom with the iPad.  I pulled up the Streamfit site and.....NADA.  I got an error message.  So I went and got my laptop and had the same problem.  Major bummer.  So then I tried 2 other sites that I had coupons for.  No dice.  Finally I downloaded the Women's Health Personal Trainer app....not impressed.  I used it, but I'll be deleting it soon.     Totally not worth the $14 a month or whatever it is.  Thank goodness for free trials!!

This morning's breakfast was the last of my Nature Box granola :( with some milk heated up.  Super yummy!! Tonight I'm going to try again with the Streamfit site, as of this morning it seems to be working again!

Hubby had been telling me about the "mustache man" for a while, and I finally checked out his blog last night. Holy crap!!  Dude is awesome!  Check him out!

my new hero.

Monday, December 17, 2012

Banana egg pancakes

When I was in Alabama my brother made some awesome pancakes out of only banana and eggs!! These are probably old news, but I had never heard of them. He and his wife are doing paleo, and this is one of their go-to breakfasts/snacks.  I was skeptical before I tried them, but they are good!  I made them this morning since today is officially day one of Project Mudder.  All you do is mash one banana and then mix it with two eggs.  I decided to add cinnamon to the batter......but I was really tired.....Here's a tip: Pepper in your pancakes is not half bad!

these look exactly alike!!!

Here's the finished product.  I topped them with Activia vanilla yogurt and some granola from Nature Box.  Very good breakfast!!

Sunday, December 16, 2012

It begins!!

I got a $25 coupon for Streamfit in my December Klutchclub box and I'm starting their Beginner Bootcamp 28-day training program tomorrow!!!


I'll let you know how it goes! 

I had coffee today with a friend and it was great.  Always nice to get out and have adult time!  Then I hit the mall and did some Christmas shopping for the kiddos. :)  Happy Sunday!

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Decisions....

So, I have been harboring a secret goal for the last few months.  I was afraid to commit to it (and acknowledge it "out loud") because it will be SUCH hard work to get ready for it.  However, in the car on the way to the airport hubby and I talked and he gave me the push I needed to say what the hell!!!!  So.....in June 2013 hubby and I will be doing:

I've got a lot of work ahead of me to get ready, but I'm up for it!  I need to lose weight and get fit enough to manage the obstacles.  I'm trying to put together a "work-out schedule" for myself right now.  I also need to focus HARDCORE on eating clean because I know it will be a lot easier if I drop a good bit of weight.  So, there it is.  I said it.  



Snow!!!

We woke up to snow this morning!!!! Not a lot, but enough to alter my plans for the day :/


I was supposed to be hosting a jewelry part at my house today, but the snow put a kabosh on that.  For some reason my daughter is acting like she was raised by wolves so maybe it's for the best?  Anyhow, that gives me time to post pictures from my trip for you guys!!  More after the jump!

Friday, December 14, 2012

I'm HOME!!!!

Finally!!!  Sorry I didn't post while I was gone, but there just was not time!  I had to work while on vacation, so that left very little time for anything else except hanging out with family!  We had a BLAST and I have tons of pictures to share with you, but right now I have to get to work.  I will do a big post later today about the trip!  Until then here's a picture of my parents with my kiddos.  <3


And I know you missed Milo!  I sure did! 

notice the lip gloss kissy marks on his neck LOL.
Hope your Friday is excellent!!  I started back to "clean" (for me) eating today because I've got some exciting news that I will share with you when I post next!  <3  Missed you blog.


Wednesday, December 5, 2012

One more sleep!

Good morning!  One more day until we leave!  I have SO MUCH to get done so just a quick post!  I had to run hubby's clothes to the dry cleaner this morning so we stopped in at the new bakery in town.  I got this goody:

ham and cheese croissant with grumpy coffee
It was very good!  Flaky!  Will be going back to try other stuff.  Their staff was very friendly too!  Little man settled for a candy bar....really...a candy bar..instead of a pastry.  Not sure if he's my son....

Have a great Wednesday!

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Hairy little men....

Happy Tuesday!  Nothing much going on over this way.  Just trying to get all the laundry done and get the house in order.  Me and the kiddos are leaving on Thursday and flying out to Alabama for my brother's wedding reception!  I haven't seen my family since June so it will be great to see them!  I will still be posting while there, and I plan on taking my running gear so I can get a couple of runs in too.  We will only be there a week.  I'll also be working while there :/  Working from home is so cool....

I took the kids to the library yesterday to return their books and get new ones (they have not fully embraced e-books as much as I have lol).  While we were there I grabbed The Hobbit.  I had been toying with the idea of reading it to them, but did not want to buy it on my Nook.  I've never read any of Tolkien's books before.  I did watch the LOTR movies, I might have missed the last one, not sure.  Anyhow, I remember my Nana reading Charlotte's Web to me when I was little.  We would read a chapter before school; so, I thought this would be a great idea!  Wrong. lol.  My eight-year-old daughter wanted nothing to do with it.  She was like C-YA!! My four-year-old son sat with me while I read it out loud, but he played games on my phone the entire time lol.  Oh well. I guess I'll be reading it alone.  Who knows, maybe I'll read the LOTR books next!


Saturday, December 1, 2012

Happy 1st Caturday in December!!!




I've been up since 2 a.m. for some stupid reason!  At about 3 a.m. I gave up trying to go back to sleep and got up, made coffee and started working a bit.  If I can get all my catch-up work done before anyone else gets up it will be like a REAL weekend!  :)

Today is the 1st day of the advent calendars!!!  Do any of you do these?  When I was little we did them occasionally, mainly the chocolate candy variety.  I've done them with my kiddos for as long as I can remember, but we always do some sort of toy variety, Playmobil, Polly Pocket, etc... Last year I bought goodies from the dollar store and wrapped each individually (NUTSO!!).  This year we are doing Lego advent for little man and girly type stuff for girl child.  I got smart this year and bought manila envelopes  though!  So, she's got a basket of 24 manila envelopes to open lol.  BORING.  I'll post pics of their loot later. ;)  I'm hoping to get in a run today if I'm not too wiped out by my early wakeup.

Here's your Caturday fix!

I'm drinking coffee out of my Tard mug as we speak!


he really likes wood chips....






Friday, November 30, 2012

13 in 2013

Today on Facebook I came across this challenge:  13 in 2013!  The challenge is to run 13 races in 2013.  I figured I might as well do it since it fits so nicely with my blog name lol.  Even if I only do virtual 5ks I'm still doing it!! :)  Now to make my list.


Friday Friday Friday!

Well, the weigh in last night didn't go as well as I hoped.  I did lose 4 pounds, which is great!  However, someone lost 8 pounds....5% of their body weight.  I really wanted that $40.  lol.  I really a big fat cheeseburger to drown my sorrows in too, but I settled for a turkey sub.  I did have chocolate though.  A LOT of chocolate.

I picked up our Christmas cards yesterday.  I know you're dying to see them yes?  After I ordered them I realized that husband will probably hate them.  I think that's an added bonus!  ;)



Hubby has been out of town all week and gets home tonight so I took this morning off work and cleaned up the house.  I even made banana bread!!  Can you please tell me how Milo can manage to look astonishingly cute while messing up my trash pile?? (Don't judge my trash pile!  I have 2 monsters kids.)



Also, he's a creeper.  I was shaving my legs in the shower and noticed 2 little orange eyes peeking in at me.  It's okay though, he's a cute creeper.

I'm hoping to convince hubby that we should go out for dinner tonight.  One of the local restaurants is doing a Cajun boil and I haven't had crawfish since we were in Louisiana this summer!




Thursday, November 29, 2012

Hopped up on the juice.

Weigh in is tonight!!!  I didn't mention it before but I'm participating in a weight loss competition locally.  I had to pay $40 to participate and whoever loses the largest percentage each week gets $40 and then the overall winner gets $160.  I needed some motivation!!  Anyhow so I'm trying to keep it to liquids today lol to help with the weigh in.  My tummy hates me right now too so liquids are probably better anyhow.  For breakfast I had a Shakeology chocolate shake. I had gotten 3 samples of this in my last klutchclub box.  It's good.  I like it, doesn't have as much of an aftertaste as other protein shakes.  Here's what came in that box. (Hint - hemp hearts are AWESOME.)

I had to run to Wal-Mart (the horror!!!) today while the kids were in school instead of running because I had to pick up the stuff for their advent calendars!!  Boy child got a Lego calendar and girl child is getting makeups and other girly type things.  When I got home I was starving so I busted out my juicer and made lunch!!  I drank 1 carrot, 1 apple and 1 pear.  Yum!! 

 I'm a little nervous about the weigh in!  I want the moneys!!!  I'll let you know how it goes.  Cross your fingers and toes!


Or if you could do this; that'd probably work too.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

Let's play a game of spot what's wrong in this picture!!!

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Back on the horse...

So, this morning I had pretty much convinced myself that I was not going for a run.....I was tired and cold and tired.  I was really tired. Then I started thinking about a breakfast burrito......So, I thought if I want one of those I better run or else my entire day of calories is blown!!  The plan was to pick up the burrito after dropping off daughter's class pet back at school (It didn't die!!!), but I drove right by Durango Joes and thought...yea I don't NEED  a burrito.  I had to run to the store real quick and get some gloves though and ear warmy band thing because as I said I was COLD.  I also got some cottage cheese and apple cider tea. YUMMMY.

perfect for grumpy cat mug!

I also found these things:


I grabbed them because they were just $1 and I thought they might be good to keep me from snacking while working.  These suckers taste just like eggnog!!  Awesome!! I had one and I felt like I just had dessert.

When I got back home I headed out for my run immediately before I lost motivation.  I started the 5k to 10k training program.  It was 10 minutes of jogging alternating with 3 minute tempo runs.....definitely different for me.  It was hard.  I was going to try and do a virtual 10k in January, but I think that might be too soon!


Reading List

Since it's Bookish Tuesday I thought I'd share with you some books that I love.  You know the ones that get hung up in your brain and stay with you forever, or at least for years?



1.  On The Road - Jack Kerouac: This is the first book that "changed my life." I read it while I was in high school and I LOVED it.  Rabidly loved it. I reread it a million times and made notes in the margins, etc.  I tried to reread it recently and the grammar/writing style drove me up the wall.  I could not get past the first few pages.  :(  In high school I remember embracing the stream of conscious writing in it......but I guess if you proof read 8 hours a day as your job then it's harder to embrace it.  I read quite a few of his other novels and liked them a lot also (back in the day).

2.  The Winter of Our Discontent - John Steinbeck:  This was another I read in high school (I spent all my free time in the library searching the card catalog for weird books).  Now, Steinbeck is a TIMELESS author.  I've been meaning to re-read some of his books.  (Travels with Charley - hint Charley is a doggy, Log From the Sea of Cortez - I always wanted to be a marine biologist, East of Eden - think family saga).

James Agee

3. A Death in the Family - James Agee:   I remember I stumbled upon this one in high school one night while looking through the encyclopedia (yea...I don't know.....this was before we had a computer).  The picture of the author caught my eye, he looked so interesting.  I must have drawn his portrait in art class because I specifically remember studying this picture.

4. Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice:  I feel like this is so cliche, but this is another book/series that I read in high school that absolutely blew my mind.  I remember standing in the book aisle in Wal-Mart looking for a new book to read, when a woman also looking suggested I read Interview with a Vampire. I can still remember the way those books smelled.  For me, it was my generation's Twilight except for not as candy ass ;).  I tried to re-read this series a few years ago and I couldn't stomach the flowery writing and seriousness of it all.  :/  I have read other books by Anne Rice since with no problem.  In fact, I am contemplating reading her book The Wolf Gift.

5. Sookie Stackhouse Series - Charlaine Harris:  Yes I know, not really the same caliber as Steinbeck, and it's another vampire series, but I still love Sookie.  :)  This series is quite lighthearted at times.  A lot of tongue-in-cheek humor. This series is a more recent find, as in within the last couple of years. (Google - Eric Northman.  You're welcome.)

6. Lara - Bertrice Small - This is book one of the World of Hetar series.  I really did not want to put this one on the list.  Why? Because it has smutty parts.  Because the author also writes for Harlequin.  However, these books have hung with me since I read them (about a year ago).  They were good.  They were not my usual fare, outer space, fairies, etc...but for some reason I want to re-read them.  I keep wanting to say that they are stuck in my craw, but that just sounds horrifying.  Side note- When I was in high school my aunt gave me a paper grocery bag full of Harlequin romance novels.  I remember sitting beside my window and reading that entire bag of books within a couple of weeks.

Lastly, what am I reading now, right this very second?  I am reading the newest book in the Dulcie O'Neil series, Malice in Wonderland.  It's good, although it hasn't kept me hanging on like the previous books in the series.  It's another paranormal series - although with the humor I appreciate.  The author, H.P. Mallory, has also written another series (Jolie Wilkin series) that is equally as entertaining and somewhat reminiscent of the World of Hetar series.

I hope I didn't bore you to death!  I <3 books, and I love to talk about books.  :)  I have a run planned for this morning so I am sure I will update later with that!

Monday, November 26, 2012

Grumpy mug

Here's my new favorite coffee mug!

Monday Morning You Sure Look Fine!

Happy Monday! (Pat yourself on the back if you got that Fleetwood Mac reference.)  I'm finally caught up on blogging.  Whew.  I have discovered something amazing.  My new favorite breakfast/dessert/snack.

Cottage cheese with cranberry sauce.
Seriously amazing stuff!  On Saturday I started really monitoring my diet.  I have 30 pounds that I need to lose and it's time to get down to business!!  I was going to start with the 3-Day Military diet, but after day 1 I wanted to eat my arm off so I switched over to counting calories. So far so good!  Weigh in is on Thursday night, so I will let you know.

I STILL have not run since the Turkey Trot. :(  I have been having some major negative self talk going on. The bottom line is that I am really embarrassed with my poor performance.  Should I let that get me down? No, of course not!  Easier said than done.  The plan is to start the 5k to 10k program tomorrow.

Last night I decided to make a running shirt out of my pie doodle.  :)


It is a performance micro-fiber shirt, but you can also change the kind of shirt it's printed on if you aren't a fan of micro-fiber.  

Turkey Day Recap



Okay!  I'm finally ready to post about turkey day.  :)  It was really a fabulous day.  We had dinner at our house and invited our neighbors over.  We had amazing food.  Seriously awesome food.  Hubby made a beautiful turkey that was perfectly moist.


I made 2 pies, and burnt both of them....woops, and our neighbor brought a cheesecake that melted on the counter. ;)  They all tasted good though!  If we're being honest, by the time we got to the dessert we had all imbibed a few glasses of wine and did not care about the state of the desserts.  After dinner was cleared from the table we decided to play a game.  We found this one in our closet:


It was seriously hilarious!!  I have no idea where we got this game, but I haven't laughed that hard in a while.  I lost all my body parts except my head and still managed to win the game!  And as it turns out the best way to kick open a door is NOT utilizing the donkey kick method.

As tradition dictates we put up the Christmas tree the following day.  When we were hanging the ornaments I said to hubby "Didn't we just do this?!?!"  This year really flew by!


My Dad made this ornament for us :)
This is Milo's first Christmas so he basically thinks we installed a giant kitty toy for him.  This morning hubby found him asleep on the branches midway up the tree.

do not see me.
I hope your Thanksgiving was equally as amazing!  :)


Sunday, November 25, 2012

Being Lazy!!

Sorry I STILL haven't done my Turkey Day update post.  I'm being lazy on the blog/running front.

Today we went shooting out in the hills and then came home and I doodled.  Fun times!!


Here's my doodle for today.  :)  I was hungry.  Can you tell? I did add it to some stuffs on my Zazzle store.