hot stuff

We're experiencing our first real heat wave of the season as I type this.

On Friday, I was on a day off from work and we were out doing errands and I really felt gross. Moving around in the humid, dirty air, was not fun and really reinforced for me, how important it is to get into better shape this summer. When I am more fit, the heat doesn't bother me as much.

Over the weekend, I must say that heat wave and all, we were more active than we've been in a while. As tempting as it may have been to just sit in front of the television, eating popsicles and enjoying the air conditioning, we got stuff done. On Saturday, I spent four hours (yes FOUR hours!) sorting through clothes. It was finally hot enough to pack the sweaters away and get the summer things out. When I was done, I had 3 bags of stuff (some of it belongs to my hunny) for the Value Village donation bin and 5 bags of stuff for the trash (although I'm trying to find a quilter or textile artist who might want it - it's not good enough for donations but I don't want it to end up in a landfill).

I realized that some stuff I was hanging onto "until I lost weight" was just taking up valueable real estate in my closet and dresser. I kept a few things that I really love which are too small for me (I live in hope!) but for the most part, I realized that when I lose weight and need new stuff, I'll want to buy stuff so there was no sense hanging onto this stuff that someone else could use. Getting that done felt amazing. Having room in my dresser again is such a treat.

In addition to that, we took the puppy out to a park in the country we really like. We were up quite early yesterday and I felt like we owed it to him (and to us) to have some kind of outing that required physical activity. He really enjoyed being near the water and walking around in the park (on his leash) and meeting some other dogs. We enjoyed the walking and the gorgeous lake shore breezes and all felt better for having done it. Every Sunday that it's not raining, we're planning to repeat this activity. We won't necessarily visit the same park each week but it'll be good for all of us to be moving around on the weekends.

So yeah, that's it for me. I think I missed a wrap-up last week but things are going okay. I'll definitely have a wrap-up this week so stay tuned!!

snow more

We need more snow around here like we need to have gigantic holes in the middle of our heads.

It snowed here for about 36 hours over the weekend. Part of that were actually ice pellets and freezing rain but the accumulations were crazy. Aside from shovelling here and there, not much exercise was done. Unless laundry counts. Walking on ice is a bit tricky, that must burn some calories.

Honestly, it’s stormed here every other weekend since Christmas. We end up hibernating in the house until the storm passes. Unfortunately, snacking is often done while waiting for the snow to stop.

As much as I love the break from work, weekends are just my downfall right now. It’s happening because I’m letting it happen, I know this. For whatever reason though, I can’t click it on the weekends like I can Monday to Friday.

do it right

Here is a little tip, from me to you: if you are going to treat yourself to a little bit of chocolate, make it worth the splurge. Over the weekend, I was having a hormal rave-up and I bought some of those little chocolate foil wrapped easter eggs. I figured that this would be a good, controlled treat. Unfortunately, I think that they were leftover from last year. They were a little waxy and entirely unsatisfying. Fortunately, I kept my cool and didn't run off and bake brownies or a double-batch of chocolate chip cookies but I could have.

Unfortunately, over the weekend, my ass never touched the recumbent bike. I felt really achey and full of the cold over the weekend. A couple of folks in my office had it bad last week and I felt like I may have picked up a lite-version of it. I still don't feel 100% today, I can't keep warm no matter how much tea I drink or how tightly I hug the rads.

My hunny felt like shit over the weekend too. He found out last week that he has a couple of kidney stones. This absolutely explains his bouts of feeling crappy recently. He was in a lot of discomfort over the weekend so we didn't go too far. We also didn't "crap out" on food like we could have. I mean, we did order pizza at one point over the weekend but there was leftovers for lunch yesterday and I had a slice today for my lunch. It's strange though, ordering a medium and having some leftover, that's real progress for us. I cooked dinner last night (normally my hunny prepares the lion's share of our meals - which is why we had pizza on saturday). I made a casserole with lots of veggies, tuna, some pasta and fat-free cheese. I was a little heavy handed with the black pepper but it turned out okay. Tonight we should be back to normal because I had a call about 90 minutes ago from a very happy camper who had just passed a stone.

So yeah, that was the weekend for me. Nothing exciting, nothing very great to report but nothing too horrible either. Considering how tough I find the weekends, I am pretty happy with this one. Next week will be even better I'm sure.

I so owe ya one!

Just recently, I've not felt like actually sitting down in front of the computer and writing much. I have been sitting in front of it reading or playing the odd game of free cell but I can't get into writing. I have bits and pieces of stuff that may or may not make for an interesting post swirling around in my head at times. By the time I get settled in front the machine though, the thoughts are gone and the interest in creating a post has followed it off to where ever it is that lost thoughts wander to.

That said, I stepped on the scale this morning. It hadn't moved. Not up. Not down. This is good I suppose, static is always better than up, right? Of course, down would have been good but it would also been a fucking miracle. My knee has been giving me some bother (it's work related - I'm getting a new chair which should help) so I've found that my normal exercise type stuff is not easy or comfortable to do. It feels better today than it has in a while though so I should be able to groove back into that exercise mode again tomorrow.

Eating has been touch and go. We've been doing very well as far as eating at home goes. I think we've only eaten out 4 times since the beginning of the year. This is a massive accomplishment for us and I can see the difference in our bank balance. We were spending way too much money on food that was not always that good for us. Eating at home has been challenging too. I'm baking more (bread, muffins, cookies) with healthy ingredients so we have something to spice up our snacks with. I don't have any guilt whatsoever about this because I'm practising moderation with those. What I do feel badly about is the brownies. Yeah, I made brownies in a weak moment and basically demolished them. I've also been eating too much microwave popcorn. It's the "smart pop" stuff so it's not like extra buttery/chemically/whatevery but I sure didn't need to munch on two bags of the stuff over the course of Sunday afternoon. Touch and go...see?

Reading that over, I see why I'm not that inspired to write recently. I feel like I'm making the same posts over and over again "I did okay for a few days...then I blew it so I'm being good again" gets boring for me after a while, I can't imagine how boring it is for you! I guess it's my job to stop dicking around and start doing it again. It'll make me feel better about writing and it'll give you something inspiring to read about (and I won't have to mention the "b" word here). We'll see, huh?

whoot!

I had every good intention of posting on Friday but my computer at home would not see the internet for some reason. My hunny was able to figure it out but by the time that happened, I was beyond wanting to sit in front of the machine, even to just write a quick little entry.

So, the weekend. It was weird. We had planned to use our "one meal a week out" for a lunch over the weekend but we ended up not doing that. In the middle of shopping on Friday night (we wanted to get all of our errands done after work on Friday instead of spreading them out over the weekend), we had a hot dog and diet cola at Costco. My hunny had LBS and I was feeling wonky so the break and some food sounded like a good idea. Unfortunately, it didn't sit well with me and I felt nauseous all day Saturday. I'm not sure if the two were related, or if I had already picked up a touch of a bug and the hot dog just made it worse (I've eaten costco dogs before and this one tasted just fine). In any event, it was a huge effort to just do laundry on Saturday so I didn't do much else.

Oh, but I baked a loaf of bread. Well, threw stuff in the machine. That was Saturday. Sunday I felt a little better, made another loaf of bread... loafed around a lot too. Generally I felt much better.

While we were out shopping on Friday, I'm happy to report, aside from the hot dog, we only bought good stuff. I went to the bulk barn and did not buy chocolate. This is huge for me, I did buy wheat germ, oat bran, dates, walnuts, coconut, cookie ingredients basically, but no chocolate.

Not bad huh?? Unfortunately, I did break down and buy some chocolate later in the weekend, but that's another story... I can smell my dinner calling my name.

Happy Monday kiddos!