Jugglers in the parade. 

Ren Fest!

Ren Fest was very fun! We saw jugglers, jousting, costumes and were even entertained with the King and Queen.

I took a slew of pictures so I will find a couple of the best to post here. My favorite parts were the big turkey drumstick, the Juggling and the costumes. Might even find something to wear myself for next year, anyone take bets on if I can get Brandon into tights? Can't get something made by Halloween at this pint, but I can shoot for Ren Fest next year!

Huzzah!

Friday Night

Happy Hour before the movie was definitely a good idea! Not only did I have fun chatting with folks, the ones we invited and the ones that were there for the New Hire event, but the Dukes of Hazzard was more enjoyable after a couple of drinks!

It was an OK movie, lots of car chases of course. Jessica Simpson was NOT the Diasy Duke that I envisioned. She seemed to get the intelligence of the character but not the sublety. Her manipulations were too overtly sexual. I liked the Duke boys ok, and was suprised that Burt Renoyds as Boss Hog kind of worked. I loved the parts with Willy Nelson and Linda Carter, I dont remember that character from the origional dukes of hazard but thought she did a great job.

The weekend ahead.

Exciting weekend planned!

Friday: Happy Hour at a fairly new bar in town, then a movie ( I want to see Dukes of Hazard but am up for suggestions)!
Saturday: Renaissance Festival followed by dinner in the cities somewhere!

Sunday: Day of rest…. More realistically a day of catching up on housework, yard work and some TV shows I hope.

Post weekend update should be forthcoming.

Another one bites the dust...

WoHoo! Another pound lost. It’s not really that exciting to lose just 1 pound, but for me I was at a plateau of about 150 for so long its great to break out of that.

The excitement of being solid in the Healthy range on the weight charts AND of having a thinner body now is far from wearing off. I was actually accused of being vain for being so excited the other day, but I really don’t think I am going to become some diva girly girl or snobby jock type person. Also there is $ savings with all my bringing lunch and eating from our garden which has been essential to this weeks success. As an added bonus I have had a refreshing cleansing of my closet, getting rid of things that are too big, worn out, or just plain not looking good on me anymore.

This weekend I had a serious exercise Saturday… about 6 hours of volleyball, one game after another, with one 30 min break, and about 3 min in between games (unless we won/lost right away).

We were visiting friends in Iowa and they were wonderful hosts! We had company for Saturday night with a great effort by Tom to get together enough food for part of the volleyball crew. Sunday a Thai food fest was planned for mid-afternoon so Brandon and I could take part. He and Tom made regular egg rolls and spring rolls, and about 3 others brought dishes to share. One was a tad too spicy for me, but I tried everything else and the flavors were wonderful!

Thanks for the wonderful weekend guys!

Word Up!

I’m publishing from word, aren’t I cool! I’m not an uber Microsoft fanatic or anything but I’m a hotmail user, as well as MSN Groups for sometime now and I prefer to use Word when editing text. Call me crazy.

Here is an article: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1849777,00.asp
Here is the link to blogger to get the program: http://buzz.blogger.com/bloggerforword.html
Wonder what it is going to do with these different fonts?

• Or some more complicated formatting?


• Like bullets.


• And stuff.

Chilling at the Lynx game, so close I had the camera guy in most of my pictures! 

I tried so hard...

Bedtime: 11:45
Snoozing: 30 min

Stop the insanity! Back to my 10:30 bedtime target for tonight I guess.

Yesterday was a nice slow day. We got another harvest in including beans, cucumbers (big bucket), lettuce and a few hot peppers of some sort. I mulched the lawn today as we were serioulsy behind our neighbors in the "keep the lawn trim" game. Brandon built a new pantry shelf in our basement to hold some of his newly canned goods and a bit of our pantry overflow. Also I got a birthday gift from Brandon (he was waiting for me to come pick it out) a new watch!

I am stil LOVING the fact that I eat a healthy salad for lunch and cucumbers for a snack and its from our garden instead of the store. Brandon is more into the pickling of cucumbers and peppers and looking forward to canning tomatoes every which way. Once those tomatoes start to ripen we will have some serious work to do!

Push the boundry..

That is what I do. Bedtime 11:15, snoozing 21 minutes (three snoozes). I keep pushing how late I stay up... sigh.

Commence pickling! 

Crop on a good day. 

More fruits of our labor. 

Ive been told this photo is to make Brandons mom jealous, I just hope we dont get the hail that she did! 

In bed at 11 PM.. not too shabby!

I had to rush quite a bit when I realized it was 10:45 and I was still not getting ready for bed, but I made it!

Fast change and got though my nightly routine in 10 min flat! Didn't quite get up with the alarm *like I ever do*

Anyone else a snoozer? This morning it was 30 min of snoozing, I am pretty sure it was only 15 min Monday morning. Must be a sign of how rested I was?

For all those who know my typical up past midnight schedule, it is no more so dont call past 10 !!

I love Comedy! (and Sleep)

So I was browsing the channels and ended up on some night of comedy, Ev. Lvs. Raymond then Two and a half Men.

I like laughing. I'm quite enjoying a night of comedy on tv tonight, nothing like laughing your head off to shake off the blahs.

Sleep is good, sleep is good. Repeat that 50 times. 12:30 am had become my new bedtime lately and I am sick of it, it doesn't feel so good at 7 in the morning. After a weekend of good sleep I feel GREAT... now have to get to bed on time a few more nights in a row to make a habit out of it.

Old Faithful just past the peak of its eruption. Didnt think to take a picture of me with it in the background till I had been watching it for a bit! 

Actually leaving the park here, didn't get a chance to stop by the park sign till the last day. 

Brandon and the Nephew. 

The Nephew! 

I'm back!

Everyone,

Had a wonderful vacation! Between ND and Yellowstone there was lots to do, see and take pictures of.

10 Year High School runion is over now. Had a great time there and caught up with a few ole frineds. There were a lot of people not able to make it though so I hope to keep catching up through my website with those that could not be there.

I had never been to Yellowstone before and there are so many beautiful views there. No way I can show them all but I will try to pick out a few of my favorite pictures to post here later.

On the way back home we had a 2 day stop at Brandons family's house for his new nephews babtism. He was the sponsor so he is now responisble for the religious eduation of this little boy.

Thanks to everyone I got to hang out with this last week, it was a great vacation with exciting and relaxing portions.

I need a vacation from my vacation!

You ever feel like your vacation doesn't give you any rest? We have spent so much time cramming in visits with everyone and doing my 10 year reunion stuff that I have had almost NO sleep.

Had a BLAST so far though. Friday night was a Mixer for my class, Saturday had a lunch in the park and played some frisbee. Then swimming and later a snack at the Urban Stampeede (old High School haunt) and finally on to the main event itself. Dinner and dance for the reunion was OK, not a lot of crazy dances like myself and Jenny in my class I guess. As usual I managed to have a good time. Wandered around to visit with lots of different tables and was happy to make a connection again with a few great people.

I tried to harvest as many email addresses as possible while I was there so I can invite everyone to my website. We can share pictures and pass notes there. Also that gave me an excuse to walk all around the room and introduce myself to all kinds of people.. some I didnt remember till talking to them.

Today I got a special Birthday breakfast at my parents. Complete with bacon, eggs, toast, juice and an ice cream cake. I LOVE DQ ice cream cakes! Moved on to fargo around noon and visited with a friend and my little brother as well. Played a killer game of Speed Scrabble... killer because my friend Jenny beat the pants off us!

Now we are into the West... western ND anywyas. Using Brandons parents house as a wayside rest we are going to head out in the AM to Yellowstone.

Had to post this one because the other one of the 2 of us Brandon had his eyes closed! 

Here is me climbing at Prarie Walls! It was for Brandons Birthday but I had just as good a time. Good thing I am all fit now 

Our pretty tree out front has some friends! 

Current Goal

Current Weight
Your weight is 154 lb as of 07/12/2005.

Weight Goal
Your goal is to weigh 145 lb by 09/01/2005

Goal Progress
You are currently 9 lb above the target weight.

The deadline for your goal is 51 days (7 weeks, 2 days) away.

To meet your goal you need to lose about 1.24 lb per week.

All the above info comes from my Fitday Journal. So this is my new goal.

Reward Options:
1) buy myself a Dresser (needed/wanted one for a long time)
2) buy myself some Nice Jewlery
3) Weekend away with the Girls (Fargo, Madison, Milwauke)
4) A new computer
5) Day at the spa.. Massage, Facials, Mannicure, Pedicure

Ohh either 4 or 5 would be awesome!

Rose Garden up in Duluth, we timed it just right to see most of the bushes in full bloom! This one is from a rose bush that was trained to look like a tree. The colors and scents were beautiful! 

Current State of Garden: Growing growing growing! "harvested" some lettuce and raddishes so far. Quite fufuilling eating stuff grown in your backyard... most of the credit goes to Brandon at this point but I did cut the lettuce :) 

What should I do?

So I knew my old analog bathroom scale was not 100% accurate, but I was always basing my accomplishment on how much weight I lost. My recent goal to get to 150 was equal to a 17 lb weight loss since I started this journey back in April. SO that good news is only slightly soiled by the fact that I finally found a decent digital scale for a reasonable price at Menards the other day but this one says I am 155! B checked it agaisnt what the doctors office weighed him at just the other day and its accurate.

While I am not at 150 lbs I still consider my goal reached and NO I'm Not Giving Back the iPOD! I'm trying to cook up a new goal/reward but have not had the time to give it much thought.

Any ideas? My next goal will be 145 (on the new scale) or another 10 lb loss.

Its Lean and Greeen!

My iPod Mini arrived last week, just 1 day before our out of town trip! Its small and green and has an engraving on it.

Danielle Burkhart
YEA ME!

I had one night to set up some playlists and download music to it before we were off for the weekend. I also picked up on Wednesday an attachment that will allow me to play music from my iPod over any FM radio. It didn't work near a couple of towns that had a station at 87.9 already but it worked great other than that.

Saturday SPA-ter-day

Well it was heavenly! A friend knows some ladies in New London MN who started a company that is all about Pampering yourself and they supply products for do-it-yourself SPA time.

Do-It-Yourself and SPA dont generally go hand in hand, at least not for the well to do, or people like me who never considered spending any $$ at all on a day at the SPA. It makes it quite a bit easier if you have a significant other for actual back massages but there are plenty of relaxing things you and I can do with good products that will feel quite nice.

There's bath stuff, foot scrubs, back massagers, lotions and oils for massage, lotions for shaving, body washes, hot/cold pads (come to think of it I'm going to start microwaving mine right now), exfoliating mitts... SO much stuff!

Enough evangelizing, I got a hot/cold pad, and some massage oil, I think I'm going to go to the website after pay day and get some of the sea salt foot scrub.

Check out www.spatagious.com if any of that sounded good. Its all about taking care of yourself!

Well Today is now Monday and since then I have gone to a cookout B-Day party for a friend of mine, watched "The Passion", went to Jazzercise again and planted some Ferns on the E side of our house with B.

I'm getting all riled up for my visit to GF this weekend. We are going to drive at night to try and avoid traffic, I figure if we go through Minneapolis around 8 PM it shouldn't be too bad. Ive already started collecting stuff by the door that I need to bring with me and I have been harassing B all day to do his laundry now so we dont have to spend all Wednesday night waiting for laundry to come out of the dryer.

Friday night I guess I will be watching the kids, I'm going to suggest a movie but we could do whatever we want I suppose. Swimming, or just running around out at the farm with the kids and pets. Like I said, I cant wait!

Saturday AM

Another early Saturday AM :)

I am heading to Jazzercise at 8, then have a couple of hours at a "do it yourself" SPA day. Not quite sure what this means, but I know they sell Home SPA products. Maybe I can find one special item as a small gift to myself.

Top of the Morning to you all!

The Garden, finally done. On another note this is a Pre-Sunburn picture of Brandon :) 

So Close!

Well my friends, I have almost reached my weight goal... seriously 1 pound to go! I'm going to weigh myself again after typing this.. maybe it will be 150 then!

I feel good and prepared for all the physical activity that summer brings. The gym we have Jazzercise in doesn't have A/C so it's getting harder simply because of the heat. No thoughts of stopping though, we are in the middle of another little promotion. If I go to 36 classes in three months (May,June,July) I will win a Jazzercise beach towel :)

So far I'm on track to get it but July is full of vactions and I have had to start going on Saturdays to get in enough points.

For those of you who dont know I have decided to buy myself an iPod Mini MP3 music player when I hit 150 so I am very excited to order one. If I can get it before the 4th of July holiday I will be able to load it up with music for the drive :)

Coming up soon will be pictures of our completed garden, as per my last post all plants are in! Now its just a matter of making sure they don't get too warm or not enough water.

Whew...

That was hot and sweaty! Putting in a garden is hard. First we were too busy, then we had bad weather, then we were out of town...

Finally we are in town and its not raining on a non-work day :)

I'm quite pooped now because I started my day with an 8AM Jazzercise class, Yea ME!

Annual party tonight hosted by some friends so I'm going to need a nap before we head over there to get the festivities started.

Pictures pending of the garden and the garden tender.

Plans plans plans.

We've got camping, birthdays, 4th of july, Yellowstone park, Pamperd Chef party, High School Reunion, LOTS of stuff.

I hope to keep up the blog throught the busy summer, forgive me if I dont get here SO often.

SO I'm not hating reality shows as much as I used to....

Dancing with Stars, Hit me baby one more time, Beauty and the Geek :) But then again I'm a TV Junkie and happen to not have as much going on Wednesday nights as other nights.

Also caught my first ever "Lost", pretty good. Whats with the creepy guy, the bald white guy who carved the dog whistle?

Out for now.

Weekends and Weddings...

Well the wedding I was at this weekend was So much FUN :)

The dance was great, the chapel they got married in was awesome, the family and friends all seemed to get along together. A good time was had by me.

There were a lot more people I knew at this wedding than the last one I attended so that helped a lot towards having a good time. Also as a part of the wedding party (I was guestbook girl) I got to interact with everyone else at the Rehersal Supper Friday night, and the whole afternoon Saturday while helping with Pictures. I didn't have to do a whole lot but I stood around and looked for someone that needed help holding something, or moving something :) Made me feel useful.

So Conrats to my friends who are now... Old N Married!

Going Hot Tubbing

Staying in Willmar and going Hot Tubbing first thing in the morning.

Ahhhh, its going to feel nice :)

Fully Intended...

So I go into Barnes & Noble today for one thing. One book and I had a cupon for 20% off AND a gift card to use. Forgot to use BOTH of them!

Doe!

Had some shopping to do to get ready for a friends wedding this weekend. New dress, new shoes, yea!

Back to Willmar we go!

Viola, the deck (and one of its builders)! 

After Garden.... A 3 Brick high retaining wall now surrounds the compost and some tilling has even been done! 

We have achieved Deck (sans Stairs and Railings) !!! 

Before garden.. Just a pile of compost at the back of our yard. 

The first Tree Ring! Eventually we will have rings around each of our 7 tree's and some will have other things planted around them. 

Morning... YAAAAWWWNN

Good Morning.

Its been a busy last few days with visitors in the house. I agreed to go to 8 AM Jazzercise Saturday to make up for missing Memorial Day class and it was not too hard to get up at that time since 1/2 the house was aleady up.

Our guests have been a HUGE help with the deck, these ND small town farmers are hard workers! They arrived on Thursday night and we already have a retaining wall all the way around our 25x10 ft garden AND the deck surface boards are all good. Just the Stairs and Railings left!

I will try to get some pictures out here shortly before the work of the day begins.

I also finally mailed off the $70 to attend my HS reunion. Most of my close friends from High School who I still see on a regular basis are not going to be attending the official reunion
events, but I'm going to do my best to get everyone who I want to see together one day.

So what did YOU do this weekend?

Reunions and Buffy

No I'm not talking about the dog Buffy I met this weekend, I'm talking about the Vampire Slaying Kick Butt woman Buffy Summers :)

I can’t explain it just makes me feel good to watch it and now I own Season 3 and Season 7 as well as the first one which I bought last year.

They are the big reward for reaching my first big weight loss goal, Yea ME!

I also sent the $70 bucks to the Reunion committee (one of two girls in my HS who I can’t say I knew very well at all). It remains to be seen whether I have a good time. Most of the people I want to connect with while there I’ve already tracked down and a lot of them are too far away to come :(

The $ goes towards Dinner and renting a place to have a dance one night, and drinks or some social hour another so I guess its not SO much money. We have spent more than $70 bucks for 2 nights entertainment for B and I on some occasions before. More than that if we were drinking :)

So Cheers to tracking down old school friends, whether they can make it to the reunion or not!

Maybe its me?

Maybe its me.. I dont post very frequently....

I sat here with a blank blog staring me in the face once or twice over the last week but never found anything worth talking about. Today is different.

First, we have achieved Deck! Well the pieces are delivered anywyas and B is 6 inches on the last whole away from being ready to pour the concrete. Thanks to all those that gave us a hand (and will in the future)!

Second, I have a HS Reunion coming up in July... and in trying to get ahold of frineds from back then I managed to track down an old friend. He lives down south now, has a wife and is looking to buy a home. While I know most of the people I want to connect with will not be at my HS reunion, I plan to make as many of those connections online as I can. If they are there then great we get to chat again, but if not I will still be able to get caught up with where their lives have taken them. I am a big nostalgia person.. Love it! Getting ahold of people I havent seen for years and years, finding out how they are and were they have ended up.

Speaking of ending up... I am out of lunch break :)

SO Tell me, did you go to a HS or College Reunion lately and did you have a good time? Any insights into life that came out of it, yours or someone else's?

Hello World!

Now that I have turned on anonymous comments my blog might get a bit more action. Please continue to tell me who you are when you comment.

Having quite the thunderstorm right now, I like lightning and thunder :)

Kinda need it to stop raining so we can mow our grass and pull up sod for the garden B wants to put in.

Yeee Haaaw!

Not normally a cowgirl yell kinda girl but I was exposed to country music quite a bit this weekend at a friends wedding :)

So I'm There! Goal #1 to workout and eat healthy has gotten me to 160 lbs! My knee has been giving me a bit of pain this morning, bad combination between a lot of walking/standing/dancing and long hours in the car I think.

This week my ChangeOne plan has me focusing on Dinner, while I maintain the healthy Breakfasts, Lunches and snacks that I have been doing for the last 3 weeks now.

Other things going on:

• Getting ready for a Yellowstone Camping trip in late July, purchased some hiking boots on Sunday so we could start breaking them in now.
• Also have another couple of weeks of preperation for the Girl Scout end of the year trip. Trying to make the girls take part in the planning of the trip so I have delegated some responsibilites.
• Weekends till the end of July are nearly all booked up and a friend asked that I pencil something in one of those free weekends, so any Summer Plans will have to be in August!

The parents new Homestead. Lots of grass to mow! 

Snow in May!

Monday May 2nd and I woke to find snow! Some sticking to my car, roofs of houses in my neighborhood, speckled on the ground and some still trikling down from the sky!

Yesterday some friends and I got together and walked in the MS walk-a-thon. 5 miles in stocking hats, winter coats and gloves. Took 15 min or so for the exercise of walking to warm me up but it was a great experience overall. Thanks to all who walked with us and donated to the cause :)

And Guess What! I even got a great new pretty blue water bottle! Seem to be getting a collection of them and I raised at least $25 for MS and walked the 5 miles to earn this one.

Even better than that all my exercise this weekend not only offset some bad eating habits (had a Sausage McMuffin with Egg Sat morn) but I still lost 1 lb! YEA ME!

Just another 2 or 3 to go to hit my first weight loss goal.. and Ive been thinking about what my reward will be for the last couple of days.

A season of my Favorite Show on DVD... some new clothes, a night out at my favorite restraunt? Who knows.. maybe all of the above!

Welcome to Saturday Morning!

So its 7:38 am on Saturday... not been up at this time in YEARS!

My Jazzercise friends who I like to call the "Hula Girls" from when we formed our waterbottle teams sent out an emal yesterday.

As with any weekend I'm not actually out of town... I had thougt about going... just didnt expect to get to bed early enough on Fri night.

SO YEA ME, Here I go time to head over to class :)

Nutrition Goal

GOAL: Bring a healthy lunch to work 3 days Every Week. Save money and eat better!

Week of 4/25: Succesful! Today is Friday and I have a lunch packed and its in the fridge at work.

Exercise and Nutrition

I never thought I would see such immediate results from changing what I eat.. In 1 week I dropped 2 lbs (this was officially on Friday last week). Jazzercise gave me the exercise and I have kept up the 3 workouts a week for almost 2 months now.

And now something unheard of before this year, I actually lost weight On The Weekend! No serious working out but I stuck to the nutrition plan from my ChangeOne book for breakfasts (including letting my bf fry up some bacon and I didnt snitch one piece) and tried to slowly begin to improve my lunhes, snacks and dinners.

I also started to record my meals in Fit Day Online again. I dont always get them added to the "My Foods Consumed Today" page but I use the Journal to record what I ate. They provide me with Danielle's Public Page that anyone can visit.

Check it out from time to time and keep me honest :)

Worked some, Played some...

This weekend I had some fun and some work. Everyone I know seemed to be in a Mello mood, so most of our activities were pretty low key.

Friday night I did some prep for my Saturday Girl Scout event while my bf cleaned up our kitchen :) Some friends came over to watch a movie and have some drinks and that was a fun time as usual. They are our "closest" friends... they live in the adjacent neighborhood!

Saturday I got going early and did all the rest of the preperations for the GS event. We were getting the young scouts together with nursing home residents. The girls learned about what scouting was like in the 1913-1918 time period in America and the residents learned about what scouts do today. The residents shared what their favorite indoor activities, outdoor activities, foods, even what money they were allowed to earn and what they did with it. Girl Scouts back then had to save up .50 cents and have it in the bank to move up in rank in scouting. That would have been no easy feat in 1913!

The event went great, the girls, residents and even us hosts had a great time. We made some flags out of paper and chopsticks and then used them to signal out a message using Semaphores, something all Girl Scouts learned to communicate visually across short distances.

More updates later in the week :)

Old bike is already gone, being used in Fargo by my little brother. This IS the new Hotness!

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Old bike, new bike, red bike, blue bike.
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Here are my friends. Their identities have been kept secret for their protection. (This is the only decent photo that shows people but not faces. Proves I had friends along!)
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It was such a nice sunny day!
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Went hiking at a nearby state park. Remind anyone of Dirty Dancing? The "ravine" is a LOT smaller here :)
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Sweet success...

Yee Ha, 2 pounds down! I have been at this diet thing for one week, and even though I was only supposed to change breakfast food my other meals have been getting healthier as well.

SO something is starting to work, the exercise or the food.

Next week is Lunch.. I'm going to have to bring my lunch at least 3 days a week to even hope of sticking to this ChangeOne plan.

So Yea me!

Weekender..

Well my Monday Lunch Break post is here!

This last weekend I drove myself to North Dakota to visit my family. I managed to spend time with my siblings, parents and friends all in one action packed weekend.

Friday on the way through I dropped my old bike off at my little brothers. I just got a new one the week before last and he was in need of some transportation as his car has been broken since the first winter cold snap. I hear he plans to hang around town this summer instead of returning home so I hope he gets good use out of my old bike. Still some miles left in it I hope :)

Saturday 2 of my nephews went through first communion so we started out the day at the church. I made some good use of my video camera which I hope to turn into a DVD to give to my Aunt. The afternoon on into the evening was spent at my Aunts house at the reception. Lots of playing outside with the kids and going for walks around the neighborhood meant some good exercise for me.

Sunday I crammed in breakfast with one of my best friends, and then Lunch with another 2! At 2 PM I was able to see my younger brother in a vocal recital (once again using the video camera). Around 4pm I finally left for the 5 hour drive back home.

Later this week I will pick out a couple of the best photos of my trip, and my old/new bike!

Weekend Fun!

Hello everyone. Blogging is fun we should all do this...
My posts have become less frequent .. been busy. Went to a nearby park on Saturday and hiked my butt off, started out with a couple hundred stair steps up to the trail. It was a great day though and I had SO much fun.
Sunday we got some tree's planted, cant wait till they get to a decent size and give us some shade. The Man is into trees/plants so he got a cherry tree, a peach tree and 2 apple trees, along with the basic oak (red and pin varieties), sugar maple and Scarlet Maple. Good thing we have a decent sized yard!

Between all that exercise and some early Monday night plans I don't feel too bad skipping my Jazzercise class. My ankles were a bit out of whack from the hours of hiking, but feeling good to go for tomorrow.

Blogs horay!

Now my little AND big brothers both have blogs, Yaaa!

I love being able to know what is going on with their lives without making them devote their time to sharing just with me. Mind you little bro (if you even read this) that I dont see any new blog postings on myspace for quite a while now!

So this is about me, not you guys :) I had a GREAT workout today! We do this routine that alternates between push ups (still doing knee push ups) and the yoga/pilates "plank" position. You make you body stiff (like a plank) with only your elbows and your toes on the ground (stomach towards the ground). Then you "stack" your feet on top of each other and rotate your body so your side is facing the ground, still just your one elbow and the side of the same foot on the ground. I can kinda do this manuver... and then we go back into push ups... plank pos facing the other way ... more pushups... and a plank pose (this time without the turning). *Whew*

Aside from the slight bellyache I had before class (I think it was from my afternoon diet soda) it was a great day on more than one front :) And the bellyache went away as I worked out.

Happy Halloween ... 1978 :) I always looked up to my big sis, until I was like 8, then we fought like cats and dogs.
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I love Wednesdays...

No Jazzercise, a whole "me" evening :) Whatever I wanna do.

This Wednesday we have a friend over to watch an Animal Planet Dragons: Bringing the Fantasy to Life. Pretty interesting :)

I also had a financial planner who does house calls visit me this afternoon, helped work out some 401(K) questions.

Crisis Averted

So I was all set to skip Jazzercise today. I'm feeling just the tiniest bit under the weather today and I have not been getting my 8 hours of sleep lately.

I chatted with my workout buddy Jen and she offered to go to the early class with me if it would mean the difference between going and skipping. Yea Jen, Thanks! I said, "You know, its enough that I talked to you so now I AM going".

Heading to the early one so I might be able to catch a bit of time outside, its SO nice here in MN today, I even ditched my coat!!!

Pictures..

Digital archiving of pictures... Mainly my immediate family, birthdays holidays and such. I have spend a significant part of my free time in the last week scanning photos, organizing photos, posting photos online, and rearranging photo collections online.

Starting to go a little crazy I think... didn't end up having any Friday night plans and the bf is working on a big school project .. hours and hours I tell you!

Well time to save the last scanned batch and hit the sack.

There it is, the stellar blue water bottle. I went to class 3 times a week for 3 weeks (along with my 2 teammates) to earn this!
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Go Water Bottles

So its not like I must grind everyone into the ground every contest I enter, but I always try my best to win. And the Jazzercise people pulled out that competitive spirit in me. Mind you the only prize was a water bottle (with the jazzercise stamped logo) but it brought out the spirit and I went all gung ho so far for March.

The trick now is to keep up the 3 times a week class when the only incentive is my health and improving my body.. Here's to Me! SLAUD!

Damn Snow!

Well my bf and his stressed out self advocated on everyones bahalf that said I shouldnt go anywhere...

Then again getting stuck in the driveway was another sign.... The drift was higher than my wheeles and you couldnt tell how deep it was till the car was embedded into it.

He even shoveled out a path, drove my car into the garage, and locked the garage door... hoping righfully so that I would come to my senses. He had been working from home all day :)

SO Everyone, I aint going anywhwere tonight. I dont even know if I will be heading out in the morning since that would mean a 6 hour drive on Sat and a 6 hour drive on Sunday.

Blah Blah. Well at least I can catch up on my sleep!

Worked out!

So I did it, I am on my 3rd week in a row of 3 days a week of Jazzercise :)

It feels pretty damn good!

Im about to go eat a bigish salad :)

YEA ME!

Oops

I think I might have screwed up my blog. I was adding a friends link and accidentally hit send changes, so I hit the Stop button on my brwoser and then made my change. When I went to publish it was all screwed up .

This is a test...

I think it moved!

After a whole month of working out (started with 2x a week and am now at 3 aerobics classes and a brief cardio session) I think the scale finally moved!

It was just since my horrible week of really unhealthy lunches that I have focused more on the eating habits, and I guess I can attibute my apparent 4 lb loss to that! I say apparent because I have an annoying analog weight scale and so I never really know down to the exact pound. Its more of a "looks like 1 tick above the 100 mark" (numbers have been changed to protect my self-esteem).

The only time I bother to look at bathroom scales we happen to be in Bed Bath N Beyond.. and their prices never make me happy.

On a positive note having an analog scale and NOT weighing myself every day lets me focus more on the qualiatative results.
Clothes fitting better,
workouts feeling easier,
being able to work out more intensly,
jogging up stairs without feeling winded,
more energy...
you know touchey feely stuff like that!

Alas the weekend is... Over

Monday morning rolls around again.

I'm looking forward to an eventful week at work, a number of code items are due at the end of the week and weather I get them wrapped up or not my next big poject starts very soon!

Lots of hanging out around the house this weekend but together my boyfriend and I got a lot of different house maintenence stuf done.

The week brings many things...

Message to Readers

Who am I kidding, why did I make Reader plural?

Clickchic - I made Brandon change his theme because he picked the same one as you and I!

I linked to his now so feel free to read :)

Down with Shame!

So Reversal...
4 workouts last week!
2 so far this week with one planned for Thursday and one over the weekend.
Reasonable sized dinners Mon Tues
AND Bananna, yogurt and 1/2 a breakfast burrito for breakfast. While it may not seem small at least it was healthy :)

I'm working on turning it around sam I am.

For SHAME

Posting my shame for all to read.

The last 3 consecutive days I have had the following horribly unhealthy eating habits over lunch. One indulgence like this a week would not be too shameful, but 3 days in a row!

Wed: Pizza Hut Buffet
While I did have a small salad I continued to eat AT LEAST 7 slices of pizza, I say at least because I honestly dont know when I stopped.

Thursday: Buffalo Wild Wings
Boneless wings, breaded chicken fried and then coated in Sweet BBQ. Deep fat fried mushrooms and potato and chive wedges both dipped in tons of Ranch.

Friday: Potluck lunch at work.
Once again small amount of salad, but 2 big bowls of chili (probably 4 servings total), with cornbread, garlic toast, potato salad, muffin and pudding for desert. AND THEN ice cream bar down at the work cafeteria.

My shame has been laid bare, and I hope to never repeat such horrible eating habits in a single week that does not have a holiday in it.

The only plus side is I went to 3 jazzercise classes this week... silver lining :)

No easy instant results...

So I am on week 4 of jazzercise 2x a week. Stepped it up last week by adding some cardio on my elliptical trainer downstairs. I could only go 10 min on there before I had to stop, but I will keep stepping that up.

Goal for this week: Eat less "BAD" food (fries, burgers, pop, toast) and more "GOOD" (salads, fruits, veggies, yougurt, juices).