Running.

This week running had been hard. So has everything else for that matter. I have the head cold from HELL! It feels like someone poured cement in all of the openings in my head and now its all dried and there is no way to get it out. I have had a bad headache all week too. I did manage to run one day and I did it one speed up! YAY!! I'm itching to try it again, but I just cant breath. So I don't think that would work. I might just try any way. I have tons on energy but I just can't breath. I'm contemplating putting TNT up my nose just to loosen things up. I think I'm going to go out and pick up extra strength cold meds.

Watch me shrink.

This week I lost 3 pounds! I now weigh 204. I have no idea how I managed to do this. I slacked big time on working out, and I had a few badish eating days. My sechedule was so messed up this week. I worked two shifts that I don't normally work, because the guy who is our afternoon security guy had a tripple bi-pass. This just sorta proves my point that my body is just plain weird. I have now offically lost 31 pounds! I'm pretty excited about that!

I decided to set a goal for the next few weeks. I want to lose 10 pounds before June 15th so I can see a 1 in front of my 3 digit number. That would bring me down to 194.

I'm going to work out better this week. The one time I managed to make it to the tread mill I did run the first burst faster 1 speed up. IT. WAS. HARD. I'm also adding that to my goal for June. I want to be able to run at that speed the whole time. (Through all of the running bursts.)

For this week I think I am going to stay on the same week of the couch to 10 K and work on my speed.

What a Night.

So last night, I went up stairs and I was reading in my room, and it was about midnight. Someone started banging on my door like to the point that I thought they would knock it down, and they were also ringing the bell like crazy, and screaming. So to say the least I was freaking out. I went into the spare bedroom that over looks my front door and of coarse I couldn't see anything. So I stood there really scared in the dark room watching the walk way for a while until this lunatic finally left. He walked around into the alley behind my house, and I continued to freak out. My neighbors were out back in their yard, thank goodness, because when they saw that man they called him over and distracted him. Turns out he partied just a bit too hard and forgot where he lived. So they pointed him in the right direction. But geeze! I think I could see my heart pounding out of my chest!

Welcome ICLWers! I <3 you!

A
- Available: nope
- Age: 23
- Annoyance: My neighbor's loud base.
- Animal: Dogs...

B
- Beer: No thanks...
- Birthday: September 22
- Best Friend: Phil, My mom, Julie...
- Best feeling in the world: being in love
- Blind or Deaf: Tough one... I'd rather be deaf... I'm an artistic person so seeing is inportant.
- Best weather: sunny and warm : )
- Been on stage: Yes... more times than I can count...
- Believe in Magic: Yup... not the look at the guy as he disappears the air plane magic... but real magic... yup...
- Believe in Santa: sometimes...

C
- Candy: peanut butter cups...
- Color: blue, pink
- Chocolate/Vanilla: Usually chocolate
- Chinese/Mexican: Today I'll pick Mexican... but that's a tough one...
- Cake or pie: Cake
- Continent to visit: Europe or Austraila.(someday)
- Cheese: Provolone

D
- Day or Night: Day
- Dance in the rain: Sure...

E
- Eyes: Blue
- Everyone has: crazyness...
- Ever failed a class?: nope...

F
- First thoughts waking up: I miss him...

G
- Greatest Fear: Not achieveing my dreams...
- Goals: mom, Teacher, novel
- Gum: yes please...
- Get along with your parents: My mom is my best friend.
- Good luck charm: don't have one...

H
- Hair Color: Blondeish redish brownish with Hilights... ( I'm a mess...)
- Height: 6'1
- Happy: Yeah..
- Holiday: Christmas or the 4th of July
- How do you want to die: painlessly and of old age in my sleep.

I
- Ice Cream: Thunder Cloud or coffee cookies and cream.
- Instrument: Guitar, I wish I could play.

J
- Jewelry: wedding rings, flower necklace, gold ring, toe ring.
- Job: Office Assistant. Wanna be Teacher... ( Yup I decided... I'm pretty sure this time..: ) )wanna be novelist.

K
- Kids: god, please soon...
- Kickboxing or karate: kickboxing
- Keep a journal: Blog...

L
- Longest Car Ride: Hasn't happened yet... We are going from here to MI, then from MI to FL... Stops in PA, Nashville, and New Orleans.... * Sigh* then from FL to MI ... only a cupple months latter...
- Love: is amazing.
- Letter: He sends me post cards. : )
- Laughed so hard you cried: Not in a while.

M
- Milk flavor: Like it some times... Especially when it's the chocolate kind.
- Movies: Love em... To many to list...
- Motion sickness: Never.

N
- Number of Siblings: 1 Brother , 1 sister in law... Soon to be 1 step sister, 1 Step brother...
- Number of Piercings: 2 in each ear
- Number: 17

O
- One wish: To be a Mom.

P
- Perfect Pizza: Beach Pizza... From the hole in the wall place on 286 in my home town.
- Pepsi/Coke: IBC root beer...

Q
- Quote: “If life gives you limes, make margaritas.” - Jimmy Buffett

R
- Reason to cry: IF, cancer....
- Reality TV: sometimes...
- Radio Station: 97.3, 103,1, 93.7.
- Ring size: 7.5

S
- Song: Lately anything Jimmy Buffett... just try to be in a bad mood when Jimmy is on... : )
- Salad Dressing: Blue Cheese.
- Sushi: Volcano Roll, and Monkey Brain roll.. not really monkey... or brains..
- Skipped school?: Only on Senior Skip Day...
- Slept outside: Yeah... Camping...
- Smoke: NEVER... not even once...
- Skinny dipped: Yup
- Sing well: most of the time...
- Swear: too much... I married a sailor...
- Strawberries/Blueberries: strawberries Yummm... they are ripe right now... and I cant wait to go pick some...

T
- Time for bed: When I'm tired...
- Thunderstorms: Love em' thats the best time to sleep.

U
- Unpredictable: not offten.

V
- Vacation spot: Anywhere diffrent.

W
- Weakness: food...
- Which one of your friends acts the most like you: My mom.
- Worst feeling: helplessness
- Wanted to be a model: Me... uhmmmm... see stage question...
- Where do we go when we die: I'm not sure... I'm not dead yet...
- Worst Weather: SNOW...YUCK!!!

X
- X-Rays: I've had a few....

Y
-Year it is now: 2009
-Yellow: sun... sand...

Z
- Zoo animal: big cats...

Watch Me Shrink.

This morning I weighed in at 207 agian. I think I have developed a pattern of good weight loss for a cupple of weeks then I stay the same for a cupple of weeks. I have no idea why this is happening. I have been writing everything I eat down in a food journal and I'm not going over the calories I've alotted myself. In fact, there have been days that I've had to force myself to eat just so I would have at least 1000 calories in my system. I know anything less than that is not good for you. I also ran 5 times this week insted of my usual 3, plus I did all of my strength training. I guess I just have a strange body.

My goals this week:

I am going to up the speed of my run. I find it getting too easy, but I dont think that I am ready to move on to week 3 just yet. I hope to be running one speed higher than I have been by the end of the week.

I am going to continue my water intake and salad goals. Thats really it... I cant think of anything else. Oh... If anyone has any ideas why I am in a holding pattern every few weeks or how to get out of it, I would love to hear them! : )

I am working the second shift which is not my normal thing at work on tonight and tommrow. Its sorta messing with my head. I didn't work out this morning,I usually run, but I really didn't have the time. By the time I did everything that I usually do in the afternoon I didn't have any time to. Tommrow I am going to get up and do that first. Today I feel bad, almost sick because I didn't run. I even have a headache, which oddly I haven't had to many of since I started running.

I did it.. it was hard... but I did it.

Today after work, I had a really hard time getting on the treadmill and doing my work out. It took me about an hour to finally get on it. I felt awful for the first five minutes or so, then a strange thing happened. I felt really good... I was even smiling while I was running. I did 1.3 miles. I'm kinda proud of that. I hope soon that urge to put off running goes away and I just can't wait to do it. After I get into it I actually like it. I never thought I would be one of those people, but now I am.

Today was also the first day of my strength training and it went well. My abs and arms are pretty sore, so I think I gave them a good work out.

Dinner isn't going to cook its self so I better go.

Watch Me Shrink...

Ok... I stayed the same... I still weigh 207... I'm happy about it, at least I didn't gain.


I started doing my strength training yesterday and I. AM. SORE.!

If your interested, this is what I did:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yev3RErAaV4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u83bMnU-9tE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7n66uPHBhY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxm-PtHHgto

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT33szUOMhU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0G7A14-q7k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7AW6WuTvL0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwGqKvSnY1Y

Yes... I did do all of this yesterday. I know what your thinking, WHY?! Well, I had to try them out and see if they were good exercises. They are, I know this because EVERYTHING hurts.

My plan is to do arms and abs one day, then butt and legs the next, on days that I don't run. I'm sticking to week two, of the couch to 10k this week.

My goals this week:

* To exercise everyday, except for Sunday.
* To drink more water. ( Yeah I'm still failing at this... but it's really hard, and I never should have stopped.)
* I am going to eat a salad everyday, in an effort to get more veggies in my diet.
* I would like to lose 2 pounds this week.

Oh, does anyone knows how to make a link people can click on?

We interrupt this Watch Me Shrink post...

To let you know that I will be doing it tomorrow. My scale died, well its batteries did. So I’ve got to go get some.

Till tomorrow.

Looking Forward.

Let me start this post by saying that I love summer. I love it more than any other time of the year. To me it feels like you have more freedom, and there is always something fun to do. I grew up in New England on the coast. Where, despite popular belief, we have three seasons, Snow, Mud, and Summer.

I hated Snow, from a very early age. I never really had that love affair some people do, where they mistakenly believe that the falling snow, and a world blanketed in sparking white is somehow magical. In my house growing up Snow was a four letter word, right up there with the other ones mom used to wash out mine and my brother’s mouth for saying. Snow meant shoveling , and ice, worry about things like frozen pipes, and long very cold days, spent mostly inside the house crowed with eight people. Not to mention the enveloping darkness that consumes New England that time of year, and the enviable, dreaded, Nor Easter.

After the snow comes mud, because well, all that snow has to go some where when the days start to get warmer. My yard, and neighborhood, growing up had terrible drainage and we ended up with a huge lake like puddle in the back yard. If you were to go out in any part of the yard that was not flooded, you ran the risk of loosing your shoes to the mud monster. The mud covered everything, cars, windows, homes, even people… if they dared to venture outside.

Summer time was the only time my mom didn’t mind turning my little brother and I loose in the neighborhood, and surrounding woods, that were our playground. We would build forts and climb trees. We discovered creeks and the marsh and even an abandoned campground out back in the woods. We ran from the guards on top of Rock Mountain, the big pile of granite boulders that the nuclear power plant used in the 60’s to burry waste, back when misguided towns people actually believed the waste was not harmful to the town and its inhabitance. If not for summer those treasured childhood hiding spots would never had been found. Later in my teenage years I would not have had a place to escape to when my father, then later a boy friend turned abusive, mean, and violent, if summer time had not allowed me the chance to explore I never would have found that most secret of spots.


The last week of this month is going to be a busy fun filled week. Not only is it the second ICLW I'll be participating in, but Hub and I have a whole ton of things planned to welcome summer back the right way.

I love living in this area, especially this time of year. There are so many festivals that happen it is pretty impossible to be bored, and the best part is most of them are free! The Strawberry Festival is coming soon, we might not go to the actual festival because of Hub's schedule, but there will be berry picking in mass amounts, followed by freezing and eating loads of amazing fresh strawberries.

The Patriotic festival is Memorial Day weekend, and its biggest feature is FREE concerts on the beach (like actual sand with water less then 100 feet away) by people that I've actually heard of. This year Gary Allan and David Cook are playing and we will be going to both I'm pretty sure I might even buy the special seats that are $10 each, they are up front and they include dinner so maybe... Oh and there fireworks... I heart fireworks...

Plus there are like 5 movies that are coming out that we wont have a chance to see until then. We are HUGE movie people, pretty much if it comes out we see it, unless it looks like complete crap. Plus there is sleep (precious sleep) and life, including work (busy beginning of summer in a condo on the beach work) wrapped up in that mix... I am looking forward to an awesome kick off to summer!

As an aside I feel like if someone poked me with a pin I would fly around the room like on of those cartoon characters as I deflate... I hate that feeling! Anyone have a pin handy…. And a oversize butterfly net to catch me in… TMI I know... I'm sorry!

life.

I have been on this path since I left school a few years ago, where I've been trying to decided what I want to be when I grow up. I've always sorta had it in the back of my mind that maybe I wanted to be a teacher. I had some pretty good ones growing up. Being infertile sorta put a kink in that plan though. I don't know how I would feel being around all those kidos all day, and not having one of my own. I know that sounds a little crazy, but like many things infertility has cast a shadow over this part of my life too. Are there any IFers out there that are teachers? How do you deal with it? Is it even an issue?

I am definitely starting school when I get to MI this winter. I've been trying to narrow my many interests into something I could have a career in and be happy with myself. I keep coming back to teaching. The bottom line is that I really want to do something that matters, and will make a difference in people's lives. I've almost narrowed it down, but I'd really like some input.

The "C" word

You follow like a dark cloud just waiting to rain on a happy day.
Your weak, and powerless.
You rob others of strength, you have none of your own.
Hiding in the shadows till you've become a distant memory.
You strike like a garden snake,
meaningless and empty.
Hoping to instill fear in the inflicted and their loved ones.

Your nothing, with out the power you steal.
You wont take ours,
Not again, not this time.

You wound and shock at first,
But you've picked a fighter.
Your tricks have been revealed,
We watched while you tried them on her.
You failed then too.

Your nothing, with out the power you steal.
You wont take ours,
Not again, not this time.

You've planted your evil seeds,
But they will never grow.
Its you, not your intended victim,
this time that will fade away.


for Mom and for Jim.

Monday

Hi! So it's Monday, and that means it's weigh in time. This week I lost another 3 pounds! I can't believe it! This brings me down to 207.There's an "0" in the middle... see it?

This weeks goals:

I noticed this past week that I am having a hard time drinking all my water. So I'm going to work on that. I should be drinking I should be drinking 113 oz a day, that's 14, 8 oz glasses a day. It's really not as much as it seems since most of my cups are 3 or four times that size.

I figured it out by doing this formula:
To maintain normal, adequate hydration, a simple calculation of bodyweight, multiplied by 0 .55 will equal the amount of water a women should drink in ounces on a daily basic. For example, a women who weighed 110 lbs, should drink 60.50 oz. (110 x .55) of water every day. If you are indulging in strenuous activities which involve more sweating, such as long-distance running or exercising in extreme heat, the water amount should be increased by multiplying the bodyweight by 0.66.

So In light of this I am going to shoot for drinking more water. (Get the hose! : ) )

I started the second week of the couch to 10 k on Wednesday. I'm going to continue to do that again this week.

My weight loss goal for this week is 2 pounds again.

This weeks exciting news:

Yesterday, I bought my self a new pair of pants, because my work pants were falling down all day. I bought a size 14 from Target!!!! I couldn’t believe it!!! ( yes I did a happy dance in the fitting room, and yes there was a muffled scream... so what?!)

My mom came back from Jamaica an engaged woman! YAY! No details about the wedding yet. She wants to have it in Jim's yard. His house is amazing and surrounded by woods. I'm so happy for her, and those two are so cute together I gag ... just a little. I'm glad she's happy, and he's a great guy!

I really need a new more creative title for this weigh in update I do every week. Any ideas?