Two Things...

ONE) I can't believe I forgot to send some blog love to my dear Cheri at Staying In The Pink. She's joining the banded sisterhood today, so please stop by and send her some love!

TWO) I was able to (mostly) eat lunch! I'm currently completely obsessed with Panera, and have been getting their Classic salad (no onions!) plus Chicken with the sweet, sweet nectar of the gods that is the Honey Tangerine Dressing. I ate super slowly, finished most of the chicken, and ate probably only about 1/2 cup of the greens total. And I had two teeeny tiny pinches of the inside of the baguette. But I was able to eat! I started feeling a tiny bit stuck after about 5 minutes of eating, but just waited for a few minutes and it passed. And, rather unfortunately, I've just discovered that my band has ABSOLUTELY NO PROBLEM letting Whoppers (as in the malted milk balls, not the Burger King sandwich, eww) slide right down. I'm cutting myself off. Right now. (Okay, I just popped one more in, but seriously. Right now.)

NSV and Being a Preppy

Happy Monday morning to you!

Hope you all had a great weekend. Mine was spent sans husband and child (lovely!) running errands, cleaning house, and working on school stuff. The school situation still looks bleak, but I'm trying to stay get positive about it.

No matter how dreary and depressing the school situation might be, I've got an NSV to tell you about that definitely put me in a good mood!

MFN (My Friend Natalie, the lovely lady who did the Shamrock Shuffle with me) has a birthday two days after mine. We were even born the same year (1982 represent!), so I'm officially two days older than her. So naturally, having a BFF whose birthday is so close, we usually celebrate together - usually by NOT running 5ks - and get each other small gifts.

MFN is going to school right now, so she works two part time jobs. One of those jobs is at The Loft outlet. And I can honestly tell you that I've never set foot in The Loft in all my life. Because I have always known that it was futile. Nothing there is going to fit me, so why put myself through the drama? But at our post-what-we-thought-was-a-5k-but-later-found-out-was-a-4.5k breakfast, Miss Natalie handed me a shopping bag from the store.

I thought she was just re-using a bag and never expected the gifts inside to actually be from The Loft. But they were. Two super cute shirts. And Natalie is super supportive of the whole Lap Band thing, while also being the friendly kind of realistic, so she told me that the shirts were something to work toward. I had no expectations of being able to fit into something from a "regular" store in a "regular" size, so I thanked her for the motivation and went about my day.

But yesterday, I was trying on a bunch of other clothes that I already owned, and figured I'd give it a "what the hell". Do you see what I see?

Blurry pic, and I'm looking slightly zombie-ish around the eyes. Makeup, Anna! 

Your eyes are not deceiving you.

HO-LY HELL. This is seriously mind blowing to me. I cannot believe that shirt actually fits ME. Now, the universe making sure I don't get too cocky about anything, made sure that the other XL shirt MFN gave me was a completely different story not fit for public consumption. But this shirt. It fits. A size XL from a regularly-sized-people-shop-here store. NUTSO.

In other news, and on the topic of being a preppy:

Remember my recent post about being lazy? A lot of you had great suggestions about preparation being key to actually getting shit done. So I took advantage of a recent grocery shopping trip and the fact that The Hubs and The Kid were gone, and got my prep on.

Thanks, LoganMan, for donating your snack cups to the cause. 

I bought some lunch meat and portioned it out into 3 ounce portions. I used chicken and turkey. I also bought a quarter watermelon and sliced it up into chunks. Wow, that was a juicy job, let me tell you! Easy enough, but definitely messy. It then got packaged into containers of about 4 ounces each. Then I packed two tablespoons-ish of my current obsession, Dean's French Onion Dip, into small containers to go with pretzels that I keep in a drawer at my desk. Combine these with an EAS protein shake for breakfast and some yogurt for a snack, and I am ready to go! 

Lookie here, all organized and shit. 

And then, I took it all one step further, and pre-bagged each day's lunch. I packed for four days of lunches, figuring I'll give myself Friday as a day to eat out as a treat.

Middle row, pretty Kroger bags all ready to go! 

Oh, and if you're wondering what those brown things are sticking out of the beer bottles at the top left, The BFF made The Hubs Beer Reindeer for Christmas. Those are pipe cleaner antlers. LMAO. 

Anyway, it felt great to be so prepared and ready to go. It was awesome this morning to just be able to pick up a bag and walk out the door. The only downside is that all that prep came at a cost to my school work - I had to choose which thing I wanted to spend time on, and prepping and packing four days of lunches (including cutting up a watermelon and peeling/slicing four baby cucumbers for The Kid) isn't really a quick process. I'm happy to have done it, though. Can't wait for lunch today! 

Everyday I'm Shufflin'...(a long semi-rant)

Saturday was my 31st birthday. I decided long ago (never to walk in anyone's shadow) to do a 5k to celebrate this wonderful occasion. So I picked The Shamrock Shuffle. It turned out to be a HUGE race, with over 5,000 participants.

MFN and I before the race. It was COLD.

This race was so poorly organized, but I didn't really realize how bad it was until later that night. Random things would happen throughout the experience that I would kind of question, but because of the excitement of being there, I just kind of let them go. But now, after the adrenaline is gone, I'm really kind of bummed about a lot of things. 

1) The "festival" area where the before and after block parties were held was A MESS. Everything was tightly packed in a small space, when they had tons of room that they could have spread out into. They were giving away free food both before and after the race, but it was stuff that I would NEVER consider eating at 8 am - Cool Ranch Dorito Tacos from Taco Bell, Chips and Guacamole from Qdoba, Frozen Yogurt from Menchie's Frozen Yogurt (it was like 30 degrees outside!). Re-donk. 

2) The starting line for the races was a short walk away from the festival area, but (this is hard to explain, so I'm going to try my best) the only way to get to the starting line was from one direction. But the direction we were all coming from headed straight for the front of the pack, the front of the starting line. So people didn't realize that they had to keep walking and go to the back of the pack if they were walkers/with strollers/with dogs, etc. They just walked up to the mass of people and stopped, not realizing that they were in the front of the line. The start and first half mile of that race was a complete clusterf***. 

3) My second biggest pet peeve of the whole thing - they had no mile or km markers along the whole race! Who "professionally organizes" a 5k and doesn't put up mile markers?! Natalie and I aren't cool enough to have runner's Garmins or anything like that, so we had to go off of our estimated time. It's a really good thing that I thought to look at my phone as we were crossing the starting line, or we would have had absolutely NO idea about our approximate location on the course. 

4) The finish line signage was backwards! We were moving along and I saw a big thing of signage up ahead of us, but it was facing the other direction, so I thought there was no way we were headed for the finish line. Usually, the word "FINISH" is facing you, and that's how you know. Not with this ass backwards race. The "FINISH" signage was facing the freaking spectators! WTF, dude?

5) They were completely unprepared for the waves of finishers at the line. Nobody was manning the water stations, so people were piling up trying to get water out of big plastic cases. There was nobody directing people to/where to turn in their timing chips. As a result, Natalie and I didn't even realize we still had ours until we were eating breakfast at IHOP later! Now we have to waste time and a stamp to mail them in. 

The backwards finish line. High on thinking we had completed our goal. But did we?

6) And my biggest pet peeve about this stupid race? The organizers posted on their FB page later that evening that the 5k course was actually shorted. Remember back up at number four when I said I thought there was no way we were actually headed for the finish line at that point? I knew something was wrong. I knew the numbers didn't add up. I thought we had to keep going around and head into the finish corral from the front, because it just didn't feel right. And our race time seemed really freaking good for two girls who hadn't trained much at all and who walked the vast majority of the course. Well, la ti da, no wonder our times were so good - instead of doing 3.1 miles, we only did 2.8. They shorted the course by three tenths of a fracking mile! Instead of a birthday 5k, I did a birthday 4.5k. I was robbed. 

And you know, I try to stay positive. At least I got out of bed. At least I paid the $30 entry fee. At least we did it even though it was butt ass cold. At least. But at the same time, there's something about that distance. Something about officially going 3.1 miles, that I feel like we didn't really accomplish our goal. Even though we thought we were doing it at the time, we didn't. It's a bummer. 

But we did have fun. Natalie worked really hard to distract me through the parts where I wanted to die. We gossiped about girls' jiggly butts in their too-tight running pants and tried to figure out which ones were wearing underwear and which ones weren't. At one point, we started singing songs to keep our brains occupied. We would sing until we forgot the words, and then pick up another song. I'm sure the people around us hated us, but I really don't care. We traded sweaty gloves back and forth when our hands got too cold or hot. We plotted our outfits for next year, if we decide we're crazy enough to do this again.

We did have fun, and that's what birthdays are supposed to be about. Not-really-a-5k-5ks and all. 

Wednesday Weigh-In

Last Week: 247.8
This Week: 247.8
No change

And I'm all, "eh, whatever" about that right now. It's not a gain, and it would have been nice to see the numbers I was seeing on Monday after a weekend of being so sick that I didn't eat anything for almost 48 hours. But that is the chance you take with being a daily weigher, and I also knew that once I was feeling better and started eating again, some of that weight would come back. It is what it is - I have too many other things on my mind right now to be disappointed in a wash week.

Would you like to step inside my head? Draz did something similar recently, and I found it fascinating. But really, I just have way too much crap going on and can't focus on any one thing, so I'm gonna write them all down to try to make sense of them. Here's the shit storm that is my mind, in no particular order:

1. Work. I'm not particularly happy in my job and I also don't work as hard as I could. Guilt plus general apathy does not equal the most productive Anna, which creates more guilt. Also, February has been and will continue to be a whirlwind of training events that I just don't have the energy to organize and host. 
2. School. I have seriously hit zero hour with school. My term ends on March 31st, but I have to have all of my "tasks" (19 - yes, you read that right, 19 - papers and one science experiment) finished about a week before that to give them time to get graded. How many of my 19 papers and one science experiment do I have finished? Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada. None. And it's all my fault. 
3. Moving. I haven't really talked about this at all because I have a really hard time forming words around it. After MANY protests and tears, I have finally agreed for our family to move in with my husband's parents. For an unspecified amount of time, but probably at least a year. There is so much emotion surrounding this for me that I could probably write a year's worth of blog posts about it. I'm grateful that they're willing to take us in, but apprehensive and anxious about the change. Suffice it to say, I just don't want to do it.
4. Moving Logistics. In addition to the fact that moving in with my in-laws is not high up on my bucket list, there is A LOT  of work that has to be done in order for it to be possible. All by April 30th. The in-laws and The Hubs have to strip out a storage area down to the bare insulation and completely renovate the room. They have to add heat to one side of the house. They have to run wiring for internet. They have to go through three large rooms of accumulated gark and sort/store it all. Then we have to pack up our entire apartment and either move it to what storage area they have left or to a storage unit. I am paralyzed by the weight of it all and can't really see how it is all going to work out right now. 
5. Valentine's Day. Probably the least of my worries right now, but something that keeps nagging my brain like a gnat on speed. I completely forgot about the holiday until I started hearing all the commercials on the radio. And now it's the day before and I will have to brave the Hallmark store with all the last-minute husbands. 
6. Over-Estimating Time Constraints. Again. Sometime in January, I decided to make a gift for a person who may or may not currently be reading this blog. The time to deliver the gift is rapidly approaching and said gift is nowhere near complete. I had time, then I still had time, and now I have no time. I have been stressed out about it and working on it like a mad woman every day at lunch and after work. Mom guilt is killing me right now because my eyes are plastered on this project all night instead of on my kid. The Hubs has been super helpful, though, with trying to keep Logan Man occupied so I can make some progress. As of right now, I believe I will be able to finish it in time, but it is going to be very close. Probably something like crocheting the last of the Christmas dish cloths at 3 am Christmas morning. Something like that. 
7. A Rapidly Approaching 5k. It's coming and I'm not ready for it. I have been so lazy/preoccupied with other things that I haven't given much time or thought to training. I am sad to say that I haven't been back to the fitness center since those two days in a row sometime back in January. I need to suck it up and take five minutes at night to put my lunch and workout clothes together so that I can get some training done. However, if I train during lunch, I can't work on my gift project during lunch. So right now, because the gift deadline is much closer than the 5k deadline, gift is winning. 
8. Crappy Sleep and Vivid Dreams. I haven't been sleeping well lately, and it seems like when I finally get to sleep, all I'm doing is having very vivid dreams about things that I don't want to think about. So even when I'm sleeping, I'm stressed out. I am exhausted and feel like I just can't win. 

I can't think of anything else right now, but this almost qualified for a Ten Things Thursday...maybe I should have saved it for tomorrow. Oh well. It's here now, so it stays. 

This is just one of those oh so joyous times in life where it just seems like everything is being piled on top of me so fast that I can't dig out and can't breathe. I know that it will all work out, and I keep trying to remind myself that once the gift is finished, I can work on the school and the 5k. And once The Hubs' parents get rooms cleared out, I can start packing and moving our crap ton of stuff. And once May 1st comes around, everything on that list except for work and my crazy dreams will have come and gone. Nothing is permanent. These things are temporary. 

It's all temporary. Right?

Ten Things Thursday

It's time for Laura Belle's Ten Things Thursday:

1) Thank you all for your kind and thoughtful comments about my freak out yesterday. I'm feeling much better and reminding myself that it's okay to be scared, but more important to be brave and give myself the chance to succeed.

2) Today is my 4th wedding anniversary. It feels like it has been two days and two decades all at the same time. Time is flying, and I don't like it. But I do love that husband of mine.

3) Here are 10 wedding day pictures, because I'm feeling nostalgic.

Best. Day. Ever.

The Dress. 

Me and my MOH, The BFF.

The Hubs and his boys.

During the ceremony.

He's mine! 

Our first dance. (Michael Buble: "For Once In My Life")

Getting the garter. The Hubs is an ex-racecar driver. 

Cutting the cake. That cake was AWESOME a year later, too!

The rings.

4) My kiddo is heading to his grandparents' house today and I won't see him until Tuesday of next week. Sadness.

5) The reason he's at his grandparents' house is because The Hubs and I are going on a little getaway to Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Happiness.

6) I have literally been waiting for months for the steak I am going to get at The Park Grill on Saturday night.

7) I start my pre-op diet next Wednesday. Eek.

8) Ten things are hard to think of. I was doing well until number eight here.

9) I started my second term at WGU at the beginning of October. I finished 13 credit hours last term and I'm signed up for 14 for this term. Math, Science, History, Classroom Management, Human Development and Learning. Fun times.

10) The BFF started her first term at WGU at the beginning of October. I am super excited for her to be on her way! If all goes as planned, she and I will graduate at the same time, even though we are in different degree programs.

And that is all! Happy Thursday, my friends!

Just another typical work email conversation...

Today, the lovely MFN (My Friend Natalie for those of you not in the know) sent me an email, and if you can ignore our complete overuse of the term "LOL", I think it proves a pretty good point as to why we're friends.

MFN: Umm I just read a yahoo article on feminine products – have you heard of vajazzling!? And hair dye for the nether regions!?

Me: LOL, yeah, it’s all a bit strange to me. I’ll just let mine be what it wants to be and if it leaves me alone, I’ll leave it alone. LOL

MFN: LOL. I’m slightly tempted to get the hair dye as Christmas gifts for my girlfriends – it’s just so ridiculous I think it would be hysterical to see everyone’s reaction. “This is…what!?” Just be prepared.

Me: Lol, you’ve ruined it for yourself. Now I’ll totally be EXPECTING vajayjay dye, so I’ll be all, “oh, yeah, that.”

"Every day I'm shufflin'..."

("Party Rock Anthem" by LMFAO)

I'm sending out the warning right now that this will probably ramble and not make much sense and cover a bunch of random topics. Consider yourselves forewarned.

~Blog~
My lovely blog re-design is thisclose to being finished. PayPal actually pulled through and sent the correct amount of money to Miss Tricia. She sent me a sample yesterday and she's just making a few minor tweaks to the design. I think it will be up and at 'em in the next day or so, and I can't wait! Now, once it's up and purty, all I have to do is force myself to update it on a regular basis. I haven't really updated because I have been absolutely sucktastic on the diet front. Which segues nicely into...

~Diet~
I thought for sure that when I stepped on the scale today it would read 280 pounds or more. How sad is it that I was pleasantly surprised at 275.8? Seriously, girl, get your shit together. I almost weigh what I weighed when I was pregnant. And ten pounds of that weight was actual baby! Two-hundred seventy-six pounds.

It's flicking ridiculous. I never expected to weigh this much in my life. Even when I was at 250, I never thought I'd hit a weight as high as this. And here it is in all it's glory disgustingness. (It's a word. I made it one.)

The BFF, yours truly, and Tonja at Jimmy Buffett Tuesday night.

Do you see that freaking monster truck tire around my midsection?! Wanna know the worst part about that? I'm wearing Spanx. It's being sucked in. For serious.

I have more to say on the whole fatness issue, but I think that's better left for another blog post.

~Job~

I wish I didn't have one. I like my job on most days, but I am feeling lately like it's pointless. The Hubs is in between jobs right now and "gets" to stay at home with Bubbers all day. I can't help but feel like that should be me. Selfishly I want to be the one who doesn't have to get up at 6 am. I want to be the one who doesn't have to deal with office bureaucracies. I want to be the one who could wear sweats all day if I chose to. But most importantly, I want to be the one who gets to spend time with our son. I want to feed him and dress him and take him fun places, and teach him things all day, and watch him play. I want to get to see him for more than 2 waking hours every night. But it's just not in the cards, I guess.

My dream is that The Hubs will land his dream job, making enough money that I can quit mine and be a SAHM. People do it, somehow, they make it work, and they can't all be top executives at big companies making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. I want that to be me!

(Whine over, I promise.)

~Life~

As you can see from the picture above, The BFF, Tonja and I went to see Jimmy Buffett Tuesday night. We try to go every year, but I didn't go last year because I was pregnant and the weather had been pretty bad prior to the show. This year's concert was fun - I took the day after off work so that I could drink and not have to worry about the hour long drive from the concert venue back to my house. (Which is a good thing, because I probably wouldn't have gotten home until 1 am!)

Bubber Man sprouted a third tooth, on the top right side of his mouth. He looks like a jack-o-lantern now, which makes me giggle.

The rest of life is normal. Nothing major going on. I'm sorry for the long and rambling post, but that's what you get sometimes.

How about ending this post with a picture of Bubs to make it up to you?

Keepin' it classy.

Oy to the vey.

Hey y'all. I'm alive. I'm here.

I'm exhausted.

The traveling portions of my trip can only be classified as a clusterf*ck. My second flight home was delayed twice. I got home late Tuesday and worked all day Wednesday, then for some reason Bubbers decided that last night would be the night he turned into an insomniac. He finally went to bed after 2 am.

I took a personal day today, and I'm going to use the opportunity to get him to his (very past due) 6 month well check visit.

At any rate, this is a post about nothing, except to say that I'm here, I haven't forgotten about you, and I'll be back as soon as my brain can formulate complete sentences without strenuous effort.

Oh! And I would be remiss if I didn't send a birthday shout out to The BFF!!! Happy 29th birthday!!!

Love, my lovelies.

Break up buddies

I'll be honest. (As usual).

I have been considering weight loss surgery. Specifically, The Lap Band. And again, to be honest, if I had the $14, 000 I would do it tomorrow. However, this post isn't really about that. Through researching the Lap Band, I stumbled across some a-frickin-mazing bloggers, and I thought I'd give 'em a little shout out.

If you're interested in learning about WLS, or you're just looking for some fun, fresh new blogs to read, check out the following peeps:

Catherine at Chronicles from Band Land.

Breanne at Lady Lap Band.

Lap Band Gal at Lap Band Gal!.

And one of my personal favorites, Amy at Once Upon A Time in the Land of Cheese and Sunkist.

Of course, I always have my favorite fitness bloggers to enjoy, too!

If you don't know Jack Sh*t, then you don't know... well, jack sh*t!

And a personal friend of mine who is (literally) kicking ass and taking names: Nicole at Future Healthy Girl.

So take a few minutes, head over into their little worlds and see what kinds of fun they've got going on!

Busy bee...

Life and work are both crazy busy this week. What with trying (in vain, might I add) to get used to this whole pregnancy thing and what havoc it's reeking on my body, to trying to get used to sticking a needle in my stomach 3 times a day, to trying to keep my husband from finding the nearest ledge to jump off of, to trying to stick to 60 carbs at dinner time. (Side tangent, do you know what 60 carbs will get you at The Olive Garden? Two breadsticks. Seriously. How ridonkulous is that?!)

At any rate, yeah, it's busy.

(The Hubs is fine, just overwhelmed with school, work, and now a pregnant wife to add into the mix. Poor Hubs...)

Work-wise, I'm scrambling to put together a training presentation for a group of co-workers that I'll be training next week. They are going down to Gatlinburg, TN for their annual retreat and I get to tag along for a couple of days and teach them some stuff that they will have forgotten by the time the drinks and dinner start flowing. One of the major plusses, however, is that it just so happens to be MFN's department's retreat, so I'll get to spend some time hanging with her and a lot of the other awesome people in the group.

Semi-sadly, the retreat has a slight reputation for being a fun-filled booze fest, and Preggy McPregerton here can't partake in any of that, now can she? But that also means less chance of me embarrasing myself infront of 40 co-workers, and more chances of having ammo to hold over other peoples' heads.

Would I do that? Of  course I would. And they would all do the same to me.

The point here is that:

1) life is busy
2) The Hubs is overwhelmed
3) I get to go to Gatlinburg.
4) I can't drink booze.

Love, my lovelies. :)

The time has finally come!

Remember this?

Well, look at it now...

MFN's Hubby is in the United States after a year in Iraq. He actually comes home home on a plane tonight. I am so excited that she gets to have her husband back, and so grateful for his sacrifice!

Brianne Marie

Brianne Marie arrived last night! Six weeks early, but doing good! 5lb. 1oz. and 18" long.

Congratulations, Tonja and Jason! She's absolutely beautiful.

I want one

Ketchup

Random things:

1. I have to have my 3 remaining wisdom teeth removed next Thursday. One of them is completely impacted into my jaw bone and the other two have partially broken through the skin. Fun times, kids. Fun times.

2. I hate Actos. This medicine, besides costing me a small fortune, has made my hands swell to the point that I can't wear my wedding rings, and makes me constantly hungry. Like, starving. Excellent.

3. Tonja is in labor right now. She's been on bedrest now for about 5 weeks since she started going into pre-term labor 11 weeks prematurely. At 33 weeks, last Wednesday, her water broke and she was admitted to the hospital. They told her that they would induce her in a week if Miss Brianne didn't come on her own. And here we are. Poor Tonja has been sitting in the hospital for a week, leaking amniotic fluid (it regenerates, did you know that?!), and now she's having a baby! Yay for little Miss Bri. The BFF and I are VERY excited for her arrival.

4. Spring has sprung, which makes me happy!

5. I started a new blog. Not the other new blog, a different new blog. I changed my mind...I'm a woman, I'm allowed. So instead of the mushy "letters to my baby" blog, which wasn't going to work with my desire to post about the ins and outs of my pregnancy (I doubt my kid wants to hear about my ovulation and fallopian tubes, lol) I started The Progeny Project. It's a lovely little TMI-fest, so consider yourself fairly warned. Also, come be a follower if you'd like to know about my cycles. :)

6. I miss blogging. That is all.

Thoughts on yesterday.

Crazy day at work - my first MRI training session was a disaster (I'm training company-wide on a new software roll-out. Fun times). On the good side, it took up my whole afternoon so I didn't have time to get bored & hungry. Not sure if it's starting the Metformin again, but haven't really felt hungry today. No problem with eating today, but am a little sore from yesterday's workout. (That means it's working, I guess!)

Didn't work out at all today since I was dress shopping with The BFF and got home late. At least I had a good day calorie-wise (1100) and was still up and running around helping The BFF pick out dresses and get in and out of them - a workout in itself!

Surprised at how little calories were in my Noodles & Co. dinner - a small spaghetti and a ciabatta roll with 1 teeny tiny pat of butter = 550 calories! Good stuff! And a victory for me with making the right decisions when I'm unprepared. I'd never been there before, and didn't have a chance to check out the nutrition information before we went.

Trying not to feel guilty about no cardio today, but I'll get back to it tomorrow - it will be easier since I have no after work plans.

_______

Here in the mid-west, we're gearing up for a HUGE (read: 3-6 inches, lol) snow storm that is supposed to ruin our day tomorrow. It's all people at work can talk about, of course. It seems like snow storms absolutely RUIN our tri-state commutes about once a year - and on that one day, it takes 45 minutes to go two miles down the street (last year, no joke!), or four hours to make the 25 minute commute home. Those days are always fun and always make me lose my faith in the intelligence of the human species.

This year, I'm preparing. I'm packing my bags and some snacks, and if it's horrible out by the time I leave work, I'm going 2 miles down the street to the nearest hotel. Screw that four hour drive with stupids stuff. We'll see how it all goes, I guess.

Getting into the swing of things.

I love lists and forms. I'm one of those crazy people who actually likes paperwork. Crazy, I know. But anyway, I created a daily sheet to fill out. I'll upload a picture of it later, when I actually have one, but suffice it to say, it's amazing. It rocks. It's a Diabetic, OCD dieter's dream. (She said, ever so humbly...)

At the bottom, there is a place for notes from the day - how I was feeling, what I did, what's going on in my life, etc. You know, what people did before blogs - using pen and paper to write things down on...archaic, I know, but it's quick and simple.

At any rate, those notes will probably make up the majority of my blog posts while I'm working hard on losing this weight so I can get pregnant and miserable.

So here you go - yesterday's notes:

Day 1. Good so far. Felt hungry during the day, but had snacks handy to combat. Surprised at how little food I had with it still adding up to around 1500 calories. Still good, though. Tried 5-6 new poses on Wii Fit Yoga (love it!). Harder than it looks & harder than the "live" class I took. Can't do the "one knee lift" pose at all, or "tree" pose very well. My foot keeps slipping down my pants - lol. Surprisingly, completed the "chair" pose, but my legs shook the whole time. It's tough! Did three, 3-minute Wii runs and did 1.5 miles total on the treadmill. Ran the whole last half mile non-stop @ 3.5mph. I'm pretty stoked about that! MRI Training this week at work has me stressed, plus The Hubs going back to school. Feeling slightly overwhelmed but trying to stay positive. Wedding dress shopping with The BFF tomorrow should be a fun stress-reliever. Not sure how I will fit in the workout or what I'll be doing for dinner, though. :/ Bummed that I'll miss the first episode of TBL, but excited for The BFF to finally get to try on dresses rather than be a bridesmaid watching the bride.

2009...

Sure was an interesting year for me...

I started a blog and maintained it much more and longer than I thought I would.
I started and stopped (and started and stopped, and started and stopped) eating right and working out.
I lost (and kept off) 10 pounds for the first time ever.
I participated in FIVE 5k races.
I learned how to deal with a husband who is a full-time college student and a full-time third-shift employee.
I made a ton of new internet friends. (Hi y'all!)
I had a minor breakdown when I learned what it really meant to have Diabetes and want to get pregnant.

The BFF spent the year dealing with the big, honkin' tumor in her uterus. She also got engaged on Christmas Eve!

Tonja got married and is expecting her first baby (a girl, to be named Brianne Marie) in April.

MFN has somehow survived almost an entire year with a deployed husband. (Who will be home for two weeks at the end of this month! Yay!)

The Hubs and I came thisclose to buying a house. And then we didn't. We did buy a Wii, though. :)

I didn't do everything I set out to do when I wrote my first post. But I did lose weight, and I did do five 5ks, and most importantly, I learned A LOT. 2010 is just going to have to be the year I put all that learnin' to use. I have more tools at my disposal than I ever have, and I will never have a better reason than getting pregnant to motivate myself.

This is the year that it all happens. It has to be.

Five.

I was happy with four, really I was. That there's my problem, you see. I started out this year saying "Hell yeah, I'm gonna run five 5ks this year!" The first one sucked, but was exciting. The second, third and especially the fourth, really sucked and weren't quite as exciting as that first 5k high. I had the fifth one scheduled and then (miracle of miracles) I had to go to my Grandparents' 50th Anniversary that day and couldn't go to the race.

And you know what, besides a little disappointment, I was perfectly okay with not reaching my goal of five 5ks. I had made my peace with it, especially after the Cheetah Run absolutely kicked my ass.

Sure, there was a little nagging voice in my head saying "look, you need to do another one. You said you'd do five, and you need to do five." but he was so easily squashed by the memories of the suckiness of the previous ones that I really wasn't worried about it.

Then The BFF (bless her little, pea-picking heart) sent me an email at work one day a couple weeks ago.

"Any interest in doing this 5k with me?"
"Yes, actually." (Where the HELL did that come from?! That couldn't have been me!)

And then the dread set in. My thought process went something like this: "Oh my God, I have to do this again? What the hell am I thinking? Although, it would be nice to actually accomplish my goal. Yeah, but dude, they suck! I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this."

And most of the way to the course, I repeated that mantra. "I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this."

But, I did.

Here's The BFF and I with the Mayor of Santaland! Who knew that (1) there was a Santaland, and (2) it had a mayor who frequented 5ks? (ps...does he not look like a Willy Wonka character?! lol)

Yeah, it's all fun and games before the torture starts.

The 5k was through a local drive-through holiday lights display. Most of the first mile was a nice flat loop out and back, and then it went two times up through the loop where the lights display was. OH. MY. GOD. the hills. I will have nightmares about those hills. One hill that went up for ever and ever and ever. Then down a steep hill, then up a smaller hill, then down a steep hill, then up another freaking hill that went on for ever and ever and ever again, then down a steep hill.

I have never been so close to giving up in all my life. After the third hill on that loop, I really thought that I was going to finish the first lap around and give up. I very, very seriously considered stopping when I rounded the corner and saw the first hill looming in front of me. And the two-mile marker midway up was just a slap in the face. I couldn't do it. I couldn't face doing those hills again and going through that hell. It was cold. I couldn't feel my hands, I couldn't breathe, and when I did, it was icy daggers in my chest. I wasn't even two miles in yet, and had three huge, crazy-ass hills standing in my way.

And I didn't want to do the damn 5k in the first place.

Luc,kily, as I rounded that corner and saw that hill, I also caught a glimpse of two of my co-workers just a couple steps infront of me. They had started the race as walkers. As walkers, and they had passed me. Which isn't really that scandalous, since I'm used to getting passed by walkers when I do 5ks. But they were my co-workers. One, I didn't want to look bad infront of them, since they knew I started as a runner, and two, I was so focused on catching up with them that I temporarily forgot about my determination to give up, I turned the corner and started up those damn hills one last time.

And I finished that damn race. I finished my FIFTH 5k of 2009. As much as I didn't want to, I accomplished the goal I set back in May. I have actually completely completed a goal. Other than my wedding, I am almost 100% positive that I can't say that about anything else in my life.

I didn't want to, but I did, and I'm glad.

I am

It's been a month since my last blog. I'm still here, lurking around everyone else's posts and following along silently. Some of you have commented or emailed to check in on me, and for that, I am grateful.

Work is crazy. Apparently we've done our own version of the Louisiana Purchase, and that means everyone runs around like nuts and attempts to deal with the fallout. But, alas, I have a job, and for that, I am grateful.

The weight is the same. I'm back to taking my diabetes meds and trying not to pig out quite so much. I still haven't managed to step one foot on the treadmill. I blame pogo.com's Yahtzee. I have not gained, and for that, I am grateful.

Fall is here, and brings with it changing leaves, sweatshirt weather, and the ability to take comfort in warm drinks, and for that, I am grateful.

The Biggest Loser is back, and for that, I am grateful.

The Hubs is fine. Busy, overworked, and frazzled, but fine. In 10 days, we'll celebrate a milestone, and for that (and him), I am grateful.

Everyone in our families is healthy and as happy as their circumstances will allow. And for that, I am grateful.

I am alive, free, and happy, and for that, I am grateful.

Quirks

I definitely have my fair share (plus a couple other people's fair shares) of quirks. If you're a "real life" friend, I'm sure you've been exposed to these at one point or another. If you're The BFF, and you lived with me, you're in line for sainthood.

No, seriously, be expecting a call from the Pope soon. I already talked to him, and he said he was cool with the fact that you're not Catholic. He said they're trying to open things up to "the masses".

Anyhoo. I know that I've got some strong opinions on some strange stuff, and those that love me, know me, and deal with it. Bless their little pea-picking hearts.

Iyam what Iyam, as Popeye would say, so I thought I might share with you some of the things that make me what Iyam. Enjoy my neurotic-ness.

Oh, and don't judge. You're neurotic too, I promise.


~ I refuse to buy a car that has the gas tank on the passenger side, on sheer principle. It's inefficient engineering and it shows that the car maker does not take the convenience of its' consumers into consideration. Soapbox down.

~ I cannot stand the sight or touch of popcicle sticks or unfinished wood of any kind. It literally causes a physiological reaction where my lips get dry and I start to break down in chills. Just thinking about it while writing this has made my lips dry up and tingle. Seriously.

~ I hate the sound of fingers scratching the fabric on the roof of my car. I recently not-so-gently reminded The Hubs of this when he haphazardly grabbed the Oh Shit handle and it sent me into a tizzy.

~ I can't stand it when The Hubs takes my car somewhere without me. The next time I drive it, it's on a different city's radio stations, he leaves the odometer on one of the trip meters instead of the main number, and he knocks off my seat belt hook, which usually lands under the seat never to be seen again. Every. Single. Time.

~ Background: At work we have one communal women's restroom with stalls, and one separate single restroom with a locking door. When ever I use the single room, I check the lock at least twice before doing my business. I will literally walk away from it, and back to it to double- and triple-check that it's locked. It's the one place that I really see my OCD come into play. Oh, and emails and blog posts.

~ I re-read emails and blog posts multiple times before I send them, and then even more afterward. It's a VERY obsessive compulsive behavior, and I don't know why I do it.

~ I love the southern tradition of eating salted peanuts in Classic Coke. I grew up with it, but people 'round these parts seem to think it weird. Huh.

~ I only like Andes mints after Olive Garden, and York peppermint patties after Skyline. They will sit around my house for months afterward if I have extra.

~ Except on very, very rare occasions, I refuse to see a movie that has a reputation for making people cry. The Notebook? I've heard it's awesome, but I've also heard that people cry like a baby at the end. Sorry 'bout your luck, Nicholas Sparks. Million Dollar Baby? Wouldn't see it even though everyone else was. (However, I've seen movies that I didn't know would make me cry, and were totally worth it. i.e. Pay It Forward, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, etc.)

Okay, I think I've shared enough of my neuroses for now. Do you still love me?

Anything but the diet...

Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for another installment of "Anything But the Diet", starring your pal, Mrs. B!

~This weekend, The BFF and I get to go visit this lovely little bundle of joy -

Little Miss Olivia Grace...can't wait! She's about 7 weeks old now.

~I was at Hallmark this weekend picking out a bridal shower card for Tonja and an anniversary card for The Hubs' parents, and came across this section. It makes me very, very happy.

(if you can't tell, they are same-sex wedding cards. The one with the tuxes is labeled "For the Grooms")

~ The Hubs and I saw this movie a couple of weeks ago. It's hi-freaking-larious. And Betty White - she carries the movie.

~As I mentioned above, The Hubs' parents are celebrating their 31st year of marriage tomorrow. We're taking them out to dinner on Sunday, but I'm not sure where we're going yet. They are truly an inspiration to me, seeing as my parents have divorced (my mom's married to her third husband, my dad to his second wife).

~Speaking of anniversaries, I'm in the process of planning our big to-do for our first. I'll update you more as plans get made, but I'm super excited. We aren't going on a trip or doing anything huge, but I think it will be super fun!

~On September 12th, Tonja and Jason are getting married! The BFF and I were at Tonja's bridal shower this past weekend, and had a blast. Their wedding date also happens to be the day my step-grandparents are having a party for their 50th wedding anniversary. (Their actual anniversary is in October). We are super sad that we won't be able to go to their party, but they are taking the entire family out to dinner at the most famous restaurant in Ohio on their actual anniversary.

~My company is big into volunteer projects and recently gave us the opportunity to sign up to work with People Working Cooperatively for a day. On August 19th, I'll be attempting to do home repairs for the needy. Hopefully I will get a project like screwing in lightbulbs or something that I can't screw up. I'll let you know how it goes...

~On September 19th, a big group of us are going to the Ohio Renaissance Festival. It will be a fun-filled day of costumes, midieval games, and giant turkey legs...what could be better?!

Guess that's all for now.