Whoa, it's going to be May by the weekend! That snuck up on me!
It was so weird to wake up to no 3FC yesterday morning. Whatever was I to do while I drank my coffee?? Quite disconcerting!
I planned a great leg workout as I was falling asleep last night, so if I can remember it all, that will be my morning workout. I put together a new gym mix (no Leonard Cohen ) and can't wait to try it out. My rule is that I can't listen to my gym mixes anywhere except the gym, no matter how much I like the music. So it gives me something to look forward to.
It was a pretty quiet weekend for us with a few nasty thunderstorms but fortunately no more tree branches came down! How was your weekend?
Yay for early morning 3FC!!! Glad you were also up early yesterday, Meg, so I didn't think it was my computer alone getting the Data Base Error. Also neat to be reminded not to try aerobics with Leonard Cohen, LOL.
My plan for the week is to get back on track with some nibbling that's snuck in. I was reminded by a nutritionist speaker that one good weight loss strategy is to skip just 100 calories a day (say, an orange) for a nice slow loss. Oooops - that implies that just 100 calories a day would be a nice slow gain. Gotta get my head back on track that 100 calories matters.
DH and I had a very quiet weekend. I "spent" my credit card bonus points at a book/music store yesterday and got a couple of good R&B "mixes". Two really good books as well and one fun beach read (which I'm reading already).
I don't listen to music when I work out - 6 a.m. is too early to make noise while DH is still sleeping. But these two recordings should be good for my new boxing workouts.
I'll do those in the evening, mostly as very short bursts to avoid eating in front of the TV. DH brought home the padded stand up bag and my hot pink wraps and gloves are coming from Amazon on Friday. Got a DVD to get me started too! I'm hoping DH joins in. He's interested and I'm encouraging him.
My weight is down 1 lb. from the last recorded one so I'm putting $5 in the "weight loss fun" kitty. I discovered that a lot of restaurants close to us are participating in a prix fixe/movie ticket promo so I'm taking DH to dinner and a movie on Tuesday night.
It's almost May! Holy cr*p! The next month is looking like a busy one already. I always take off my 5 "winter sulking" lbs. in May and am looking forward to fitting into what are pretty tight shorts right now.
My son has some allergy related asthma and we had him in the ER for about 4 1/2 hours yesterday. Then I came home and engaged in some classic stress eating, which I need to nip in the bud right now. He'll be home with me today, and the contractor will be here, too (no gym). Eating crap really does nothing to improve a bad situation, does it? On a good note, the bathroom looks beautiful and is almost done.
I had a pretty good weekend and caught up on laundry, scrubbed the bathroom, etc. (all the chores that piled up in the last month or two during my insanely busy time) so I feel a little more ordered. I've always been like that - if my house is in order, I feel like I can get my life in order. If BF would just mow the darn yard... After a week of letting myself "take it easy" I had a big burst of energy Saturday and ran a few miles and went back to the weights at the gym. It felt good (and made me sore!). I'm going to try and make running my summer workout. I'm bored with food and cooking, too, so I need to go to the grocery store and look around at what healthy things I feel like eating. I think it's just a seasonal change. I don't know if BF will go for the idea that we should eat fruit smoothies for dinner, but I might be able to just feed him carrots and raw onion. He is a rabbit sometimes.
Ward, I hope your DS is ok. Glad your bathroom is almost done.
Dagmar, I know, where did April go? I thought it was still March... nothing like some new music to get a workout going!
Bill, I need to cut out some nibbling, too. Let's try to help each other.
Meg, did you remember your leg workout? Hope it was good! We had some nasty thunderstorms here, too, but no damage or injuries thankfully.
Meg, that's a good rule. Your music stays fresh that way. Glad it was only thunderstorms and not tornados.
BillBlueEyes, you've got a good strategy going.
Dagmar, boxing workouts always look like fun when I see them on the Biggest Loser. Have you done them before? Sounds like a good plan.
Wardhog, glad your son is okay now. That must have been scary.
Megan, what a great weekend! I know what you mean about having more order. I get overwhelmed when my desk gets cluttered.
I planted another row of snow peas--the first ones are about six inches high--and put in onions, too. Planted spinach in a container. Today I'll put in radishes, beets and lettuce. It's supposed to get down to 36 degrees this week so I only want the cold weather crops. I also took my dahlias out of their winter storage and planted them, too. Some had already started growing in the peat moss.
Looked at my compost for the first time. Black gold! I don't have a whole lot that's decomposed, but what I have is dark, crumbly and wonderful. I haven't made compost in a long time so it's pretty exciting. I must lead a boring life if I find compost exciting!
Have a good Monday, everyone! I'm off to the gym for cardio, then to my trainer for a beating, I mean, a workout.
We had a pretty busy weekend. This is the last weekend that the in-laws are in town, so next weekend will be a sort of transition. It's always hard to change routines--we do it each fall when they arrive and each spring when they leave.
Saturday morning I cleaned my desk. That doesn't sound like much, but boy was it work! First I dismantled my desktop PC, cleaned it up and moved it to DD's room. Then I cleaned the desk--removed EVERYTHING from it and gave it a good cleaning (boy can dust and do g hair accumulate in corners!) and then set up my new cinema display for my MacBook. Then DS and I went to Best Buy to buy a new keyboard, mouse and stand for my MacBook. We got it all put up and connected and it is SO nice! That cinema display is incredible! I really didn't think that all that was a lot of work, but obviously I used muscles that aren't used in walking or elliptical-ing and that evening I was feeling it in my thighs (must have been from all the squatting I did which I normally don't do because of my knees). I started getting tight and Sunday morning I was really sore!
Saturday evening we went to see Kick ***. What a funny movie (but you really have to know what you're in for before you go).
Sunday we golfed with my in-laws. I keep getting better and better but can't seem to get more than either 3 pars or 2 pars and birdie. But my drives are much longer and straighter and my putting is good. I think I've figured out my chipping problem, so now to put it all together and stop getting all those double and triple bogeys! Sunday afternoon I helped MIL with her iTunes and then we had a nice BBQ dinner.
Next Saturday I plan on cleaning out my bedroom hall closet. This one was designed as "his" closet where the walk-in was called "hers." We actually share the walk-in and use the hall closet for storage. It's gotten quite messy in the past 5 years or so! That will be a huge job.
News for me: I've made a mental list (should write it down though) of hurdles that I must get over in order to get back on track. Last week I managed hurdle #1 and in a couple of days I'll tackle hurdle #2. I'm thinking there are about 5 of them and once they're all tackled I think my weight will start reducing (I sure hope so anyway!).
Bill~those 100 calories are one of my hurdles--one I plan on tackling this week. We keep a jar of pistachios on the kitchen counter and I find myself dipping in while fixing dinner. This must stop!
Meg~glad to hear there was no damage with the storm! This sure has been a strange year weather-wise. Blame it on El Nino.
Dagmar~I am NOT looking forward to fitting into tight shorts, and shorts weather is here! Tight jeans are bad enough. Have fun boxing!
Ward~so glad your son is better, but that has got to be a horrible experience for everyone. I bet he was as scared as you.
Megan~don't you hate when chores pile up? I have a stack of bills that need to be recorded and filed and I can't seem to find time to get that done.
Sheila~I so envy gardens! I can't grow anything here and really miss my garden back in SLC where it seemed anything grew! We had a nice compost bin when we lived in Palm Springs but "donated" it to the new owners when we sold our house. No room for a bin, really, at our new place and I don't know what I'd do with it anyway.
Sheila, I won't laugh at your for being excited about compost -- remember I'm the one who bought her husband a worm compost bin for his birthday! (The worms are still alive and munching, but haven't turned out much compost yet, in case anyone was curious. Maybe we should get more worms since we are producing more veggie waste than they can eat.) Our snow peas are probably 4-6 inches high as well. We planted our radishes, beets, and lettuce a few weeks ago (carrots too) and they are coming up nicely.
Meg, I'm glad no more trees came down!
Bill, I was reading an interesting article in this month's Cooking Light about the 100 calories phenomenon. It was about how in New York they have a law saying restaurants have to post calorie counts on all their menus, and how many chains have cut back calories on a lot of dishes because even they didn't realize how caloric they were and people didn't want to order them (Starbucks' Iced Lemon Pound Cake was the main one they were picking on). They had a nutritionist who was saying that if posting these things leads to people shaving off just 100 calories per day, it adds up to 10lbs in a year.
Dagmar, have fun with the boxing!
Ward, I hope your DS is feeling better now. ER trips are scary!
Megan, I am laughing about your cleaning spree -- DH went on one in our house yesterday. He came downstairs, declared, "This place is a pit!" and proceeded to clean everything, including vacuuming. To be honest just vacuuming makes it look a lot better, because our floor gets totally covered in little bits of dog toys that Carter has ripped up. Are you still running HIIT? How is it going?
This weekend DH and I took Carter to the Mutt Strut! It's a fundraiser for the Humane Society where everyone takes their dogs and you get to walk around the track at the Speedway (where they do the Indianapolis 500 race). It was pouring rain, and we got totally soaked, but we still had fun. Carter is such a nut, even though it was raining he hopped in the kiddie pool and lay down to get himself totally soaked.
We're still looking for a dog sitter. I narrowed it down to 4 options based on online reviews and the recommendations my vet gave me. I asked a couple members of my cooking club and they said they would send me recommendations as well. Also one of my coworkers came up to me this morning and said that if we can't find someone she would be willing to either stop by the house to check on Carter or if he gets along with her dogs take him to her place (with the understanding that we would take care of her dogs next time she's on vacation). So we have a couple possible backups if things don't work out with a dog sitter.
Dagmar, do you have any recommendations about how I should determine which dog sitter will be best for Carter? I assume first I should just check to make sure that they do overnights and are available on the dates in question, but after that I imagine we will be interviewing and calling references, and I'm not sure what the best questions to ask are.
Allison - (we posted at the same time) good luck with cleaning your closets! My parents are coming to visit in a couple weeks and we need to get to work with cleaning closets and things like that. The other day I dug up a jacket that had fallen on the floor of the coat closet (underneath all of Carter's things that are on the floor in there) and it was so covered in dog hair it was nearly unrecognizable.
Meg, cool idea to allow your gym mix only when working out. That would definitely be motivation for me. Maybe I’ll do that with my next audiobook (one that’s being released tomorrow – a third in a series). Hmm, I think that’s a good idea.
Bill, good translation on the 100 cals added is a slow gain. I’ll keep that in mind.
Dagmar, what book is your fun beach read? I’m always looking for good, light books.
Ward, to you and your son. Asthma is horrendous. I hate being at its beck and call on what I can and can’t do.
Megan, I’m all for fruit smoothies for dinner. I add French vanilla whey protein to mine and they’re nutritious all the way around.
Sheila, I’m envious of your compost so I lead a pretty boring life as well. Did you buy a compost set up or build your own?
Great weekend for me. DD and DGS made the weekend excellent. Although I slept through my alarm this morning, probably out of exhaustion. So now my morning elliptical workout will be moved to after work. We went to Crater Lake Natl park and it was so beautiful. You’ll have to take my word for it because I remembered the camera, had put it in my purse, and then left my purse at home. So no cell phone pics either. The lake was like glass and reflected the snow etched crater. We snowshoed but DGS can’t go far so I’m pretty sure that didn’t even rank as a workout. But it was fun, sunny and around 60 degrees. Perfection in every way. Marie
Decent weekend. DSS ate meatloaf for dinner on Saturday night, which stunned everyone and was fantastically exciting. Then on Sunday we went out to lunch with my parents and he locked down and had to be threatened into eating a kid's cheese pizza that he has had before. I just don't get it.
Ate too much on Sunday, but I'm rolling with it. I know why it happened, and I can learn from it. (Pizza for lunch, Chinese food for dinner, chocolate marshmallow bunny & a homemade dark chocolate cupcake my mom brought me). Didn't get my run in either - exhausted after the drama of the afternoon. Planning a run this afternoon if the weather doesn't turn on me, as it looks like it might do. Strength training and bike if that happens.
DH & I are taking a short trip to the mountains next week, a last minute getaway kind of thing. We first scheudled it for the week of my birthday (5/15) but realized we had appointments we had forgotten, so moved it up to next week. Renting the cabin in May allows us to take advantage of a buy two/one free on the per night rental. Of course, I had picked a cheaper cabin originally, by the time I was done I had bumped us up to one that is $155 more than the first one because it had a few more features I wanted.
Meg - glad you didn't have any storm damage! And, I do the same thing with my workout mixes. Time to make some more, actually.
Bill - I've heard that about the 100 calorie difference. I try to forget the slow gain part.
Dagmar - enjoy the boxing! Make sure you wrap your wrists tight, but not so tight that your fingers go to sleep. I use separate cloth wraps, not the ones built onto boxing gloves. I have weak wrists, though they are much stronger now than they were.
Ward - asthma is terrible. How are you guys feeling today?
Megan - I always feel better after I clean and organize, too. And I love fruit smoothies! I sometimes have them for lunch or dinner if DH isn't home. I have them pretty much every day for breakfast now.
Sheila - gardening, I'm so jealous! I want to plant a garden this year, but am somewhat paralyzed on where to start.
Allison - making the list of hurdles to overcome is a great idea. Gives you tangible things to shoot for and accomplish to get you back in focus.
Jessica - I have a cat, and if I leave the closet door open I find all of my clothes on the lower racks covered in hair after just a few hours.
Marie - sounds like a great weekend! How old is DGS?
Meg-- I'm glad I missed 3FC's being down yesterday. I work early Sundays so by the time I checked in it was up and running. I like your gym music plan too. I listen to Pandora on my iphone when I work out. I like that it mixes up music that is to my liking. I missed it when I was on my cruise without internet and had to revert back to my ipod.
Bill-- those pesky 100 calories! There are plenty of times where I will eat something thinking "it's only 100 calories". I need to think in reverse and eat 100 calories less sometimes!
Dagmar-- a weight loss fun kitty sounds like fun! Is that what you are using to go to dinner and a movie or are you saving for something else? Do you know what you're going to see?
Ward-- hope your son is better now. Asthma is so scary. And, no, stress eating does nothing to help.
Megan-- I'm jealous you found time to clean your house. I definitely feel more organized in a clean house and I haven't had time to give mine the attention it needs. Dh and dd gave me a "one time maid visit" for my birthday in March and I still haven't done anything to set it up. I think I'm going to wait until summer when I'm not working during the day so I can take the dogs to the dog park and the cleaner won't have to deal with them.
Sheila-- sounds like a great garden. Dh and I were just discussing yesterday what to plant. We tend to plant mostly tomatoes but we eat tons of tomatoes so we may do that again.
Allison-- you had a busy weekend! Great job golfing. Your new mac display sounds cool! I would love to see pics!
Jessica-- LOL at the visual of Carter trying to get more wet at the Mutt Strutt! Sounds like a blast! I was looking at meetup.com after the discussion last week and I found a great dane club. I'm debating checking into that. I was hoping to find a good supper club but I didn't see anything that was what I was looking for. I'm also going to look at angie's list to look for pet sitters but I haven't had time yet. My suggestion would be to interview potential sitters at your house so you can see how Carter reacts to them and see how they react to him. You can tell a true pet lover pretty quickly.
Marie-- that does sound like a beautiful weekend. Too bad you didn't have your camera. I have never been to many of our countries great parks such as Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, etc. I found out that Yosemite is only a few hour drive from me so I talked to dh and he is planning a mother's day trip for the day there. I have to work on mother's day so we'll do it on a day I don't have to work so hopefully it won't be too crowded. Anyone have any Yosemite tips? We thought we'd pack a picnic and go explore.
My weekend was busy as usual and very marred by my back seizing up Saturday morning. I was at work and I could just feel it seize up in knots. I could barely move. I know I didn't injure it-- it just feels like it's in the muscles. It is much better today but I'm still wearing the icy hot patch on my back, taking motrin, and a muscle relaxer at night. My darn weight is still up and I can't really blame water weight 2 weeks after the cruise! I'm charting my weight for the first time (thanks Shannon!) so it will be interesting to see how things track over the weeks/months.
Michele, I love love love Yosemite! DH and I are going for a few days at the end of August (part of the trip we need a pet sitter for). If you are going to go in May the waterfalls should be really full and pretty. If you go a bit later so it's the summer season, you can take a raft trip down the river which is really nice. They have a rental place, and you basically get in a raft, float down the river, and get picked up at the other end. You get to see a lot of scenery and it is very relaxing. Unfortunately for me by the time I'm going in August it is already closed for the season (probably because the water level in the river is too low then). They also have bus tours. The people at the visitor's center can give you lots of information about the different hiking options. Some of them are easy and some of them are extremely strenuous.
Shannon, have fun on your weekend getaway!
Marie, sounds like you had a nice trip, even if you didn't get photos!
Michele - glad the chart works! I forgot to put in my email but you probably noticed that columns C & D are narrowed and colored yellow, they are the ones I used to hold the values for top and bottom redline. I had it in one cell at the top originally, but then it started to change. Hope the icy hot and the motrin helps your back!
So, in my same spreadsheet I sent Michele my average weight for April to date is down a pound from March. Now, today's 3 pound swing might drag it up for the next few days, but the average is still lower. And, I'm not appearing to lose any muscle mass. It is the higher number of meatless meals and the extra yoga, I'm sure. I can totally feel it in my upper arms.
Last edited by Shannon in ATL; 04-26-2010 at 12:57 PM.
Allison, when you’re done cleaning your house for the spring, mine could use your help. When DH and I were doing our Christmas pics with the dogs. I was up and down between the dogs and the self-timer and my quads were so sore afterward. The elliptical didn’t prepare me for that either.
Jessica, the mutt strut sounds great, even in the pouring rain. I know I’d ask a potential dogsitter their views on training (positive feedback, yanking on the leash, food, harsh voice, etc) because one week can really screw up your training with your dog.
Shannon, I always tend to increase options from the original price I mention to DH as well. BTW, DGS is 4 years old and basically a couch potato. So having he snowshoe is amazing. His custodial parent believes the TV is enough activity.
Michele, I hope our back settle soon. That’s sure to screw up your maintenance plan. Yosemite is one of a few NP I haven’t been to but I sure want to.
So I begged DD to bring her Wii fit because I thought I wanted one. I must admit I was ready to nap while doing it. I thought it was boring. Now I see why many “experts” say they aren’t much of a workout. That saved my about $300. Instead I bought shoes for my new dress. Marie
Maintainers Chat: Week Of April 26 - May 2
Quite disconcerting!
I put together a new gym mix (no Leonard Cohen 
) and can't wait to try it out. My rule is that I can't listen to my gym mixes anywhere except the gym, no matter how much I like the music. So it gives me something to look forward to. 
Good morning all!
R&B "mixes". Two really good books as well and one fun beach 
read (which I'm reading already).
workouts. 
shorts right now.
After a week of letting myself "take it easy" I had a big burst of energy Saturday and ran a few miles and went back to the weights at the gym. It felt good (and made me sore!). I'm going to try and make running my summer workout. I'm bored with food and cooking, too, so I need to go to the grocery store and look around at what healthy things I feel like eating. I think it's just a seasonal change. I don't know if BF will go for the idea that we should eat fruit smoothies for dinner, but I might be able to just feed him carrots and raw onion. He is a rabbit sometimes.
to you and your son. Asthma is horrendous. I hate being at its beck and call on what I can and can’t do.
