New Beginnings

I love New Years! I think January 1st is a fresh start and I always like the idea of a year full of promise and excitement. :) It's going to be a wonderful year and I certainly wish a safe a festive NYE to everyone!

I'll be blogging on January 1st with my 2010 goals. I hope you will all share some of your goals here with me.

Until then, please be safe and have a wonderful NYE! Love to you all!

Climbing Out Of A Hole

Yes, I am clawing my way out of the holiday food and calorie hole I have been residing in. I FINALLY got my tushie to the gym this morning and it felt great! And even better, I found that since Thanksgiving I have only gained 2.5 pounds! If you saw what I have eaten, you, too, would be in awe! So I can knock that off fast and get back to the business of getting healthy!

Kim and I are trying to find a worthy 5K for the early spring. (I am not a winter walker!) Our rule is that the 5K has to be for a good cause. If you know of one, let me know! Oh, and this is an open invitation for anyone who wants to come and do a 5K (Kim who is chasing rabbits, I am talking to you!!) to join in the fun! I am NOT a runner, so if you are a walker, come walk with me! I might try and jog some, but my endurance isn't there to do too much of that just yet. But set the goal and come and cross that finish line! It's like nothing you've experienced! I will post details when we've picked on and anyone who wants to come is VERY welcome! The more the merrier!

I hope everyone has had a great Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa, etc. It's been lovely for me, but I think I am ready for the new year. 2010 is full of promise, and I have lots I plan to achieve. I am setting goals, not making resolutions. On January 1, I am going to post my goals for the year. I hope you'll think of some for yourself and post them in the comments that day. Let's all make 2010 OUR year!!!

Love to everyone!

Where Is My Mojo?

My workout mojo is MIA. I haven't done anything and my eating? Well, it's been less than stellar. So I am pledging to do better today. Baby steps, people. I just came off vacation! But tomorrow I am off work, so I am getting my butt to the gym. This is a must for me if I am going to get myself back in the groove. (And believe me, I want to be back in my groove...it's a really good groove when I am in it!) So good food choices today and a good workout tomorrow. These are the two things I am promising myself.

Had a great time with my dearest friend, Christine (aka Chris) last night. After years of being out of touch, we have reconnected in a beautiful way and it's like having my sister back, even though I don't have a sister. Chris has always been the sister I didn't have, and it feels so wonderful to be back in each others' lives. :) This is the best Christmas gift I could hope for! She is living in OK with her husband and two twin baby girls, and she is down here to spend Christmas with her Dad. This has been wonderful! I wish we had more time together, but it's just such a busy time. I think once we get past all the holiday craziness we'll need to plan a get together. They bought and restored an old farmhouse outside of OKC, and I'd love to drive up and see it so maybe I'll have to do that before I get too deep into the semester. (You know once that semester gets going I will fall off the radar for a while!)

Anyhow, it's been a wonderful week and I am looking forward to tomorrow. David and I are going to do some baking together, and then dinner and church with Mom and Dad.

I hope everyone, no matter what your religion or how you choose to celebrate this season, has a wonderful Christmas! I hope you feel all the blessings of the season, and please know that you are all in my heart!

Getting Back In The Groove

It's so hard to get back into the swing of things when you've been on vacation! However, I am slowly getting there. I've been enjoying food a bit too much, so there's no telling how much damage I have done in that department. Getting my booty to the gym tonight for the SET class will help a lot. I had visions of working out on vacation, but it didn't happen. However, we did walk a LOT so I am hoping that helped out some.

I am finding that I don't want to be at work. The good news there is that I am here today and tomorrow, and then off until the 31st. Yay! Lots to do to get ready for Christmas, but it's all good stuff.

I had lunch with my very dear friend, Christine, yesterday. We met in 7th grade and had been BFFs for so many years. We had been out of touch for longer than I'd like to remember. She had been like a sister to me and practically grew up at my house. (Mom and Dad called her their other daughter!) And now here we are, older and wiser, and in wonderful places in our lives. Being back in touch is wonderful and I am so excited about so many things for her. She and her husband have twin daughters who are delightful, and they are a very happy family. We are going to meet for coffee tonight and soak up as much time as we can, as she is here for Christmas and then goes back home to Oklahoma on Saturday. So needless to say, I am excited to see her again tonight!

I am pretty much ready for Christmas. The shopping got finished up last night, and now i just have to wrap a few things and we are all set. We got some hot chocolate and looked at Christmas lights last night, and that was a lot of fun. I am going to miss all the holiday magic when things go back to normal after all the fun. And once Christmas passes, it's just a couple of weeks and school begins again!

Where does the time go?

What A Week!!

We got back yesterday afternoon, and although we had a wonderful trip it is so good to be home! Our kitties, Zak and Kaylee, seem very happy to have us home again, and we always miss those little furballs when we're gone. We got to the airport early yesterday and American got us on standby for a flight that was much earlier, so we got home before we were even supposed to leave Orlando, so that was a nice surprise.

Our cruise was great! We had two ports of call, Coco Cay and Nassau. Coco Cay is a private island owned by the cruise lines, and that was a great stop! It was just beach and little craft markets and food and drinks. We did a little shopping and then parked our silly selves on beach chairs and relaxed with a fruity drink. It was something called a coco loco, and it was yummy!

Next stop was Nassau. Leave it to me to find the MAC store...ah, I am truly a lip gloss junkie. Did I buy anything? I most certainly did!!

The beaches in Nassau are beautiful! We stayed for a while and got some sun and then headed back to the ship. It was a great stop, but Nassau is a lot like Jamaica in that you are reminded that there is a lot of poverty there. I hope we did our part to help the economy!

Our last day on the ship was windy and overcast, so I didn't get quite as much of a tan as I wanted, but it is way better than getting burned!! We encountered some incredibly rough seas, and I was so seasick I couldn't eat dinner. Poor David - I had to leave him to finish dinner alone. But laying down helped, and I was fine when I woke up the next morning. Not how I wanted to end the cruise, but we had so much fun that it's okay. (Apparently there were tornadoes out on the water, nowhere near us, but they probably contributed to the rough waters!)

What a great vacation!! Now we have to get ready for Christmas! Hope everyone's shopping is finished!!

Just a quick check in...Disney was amazing! We had the best time at Magic Kingdom and Downtown Disney. We are currently en route to Port Canaveral to board our ship and set sail for the Bahamas! We will be in Nassau for the day tomorrow, and plan to spend the day on Cable Beach with our toes in the sand and fruity drinks with umbrellas in our hands!!

We'll update as we can!

Recapping A Good Day

So I did much better yesterday. The food choices were better, and I got to the gym after work, which really needed to happen. I pounded out 30 minutes on the elliptical, and another 15 on the treadmill. I would like to have done more, but my legs are still beat from Tuesday's SET class at the gym. Hey, it's okay! I went and I got a great workout in! We were up late last night packing, so I didn't get up early this morning to work out, but we are going right after work today. I carpool, so I just have Leah drop me off at the gym and David meets me there. If I don't go home first, it all works out just fine! (Going home first just makes me want to stay there!)

We're packing our workout clothes for our vacation. Yes, we do plan to use them! We think we'll either hit the fitness center for jog the track on the top deck of the ship at least three times during the cruise. Will we work out every day? Probably not, but I think if we get three workouts in, we're doing good. :) Last year we didn't go food crazy on the cruise, and I think we'll be fine this time as well. I'm just happy for the chance to get away!

It's going to be a long day at work today. I'm ready to begin the Cruisemas fun!! We've had this planned since May, so it's been a long time coming. I'll post pictures when we return...hopefully we'll have lots of them! Somehow we never take as many pictures of each other as I'd like. Maybe we'll change that this time around! Being 75 pounds lighter makes me a little more interested in having my picture taken. :)

Everyone have a wonderful Friday! The weekend weather here looks like it will be great, so get out and enjoy!! (Kim, your race day looks like it's going to be perfect!! See? I told you I'd pray for good weather!)

Good Deeds

Last night David and I went shopping for our two Salvation Army angels. We picked out cute clothes and cool toys...a dollhouse for one and a very cool and girly looking Big Wheel type of thing. I think they'll have a good Christmas morning! (My hope is that they also remember the reason for the season!) I was stunned last Saturday when there were over 15,000 angels left to be adopted, but as of last night there were 6600. I am hopeful the good people of the DFW area will pull together and take care of all the angels. There are a lot of good people in this area!

In less than 48 hours from now, David and I will be well on our way to Florida to start Cruisemas '09! (Our annual Christmastime vacation!) We are very excited and will start packing tonight. We're going to be home tomorrow night, relaxing and having a glass of wine and celebrating the upcoming week of doing as little as possible. We're not even packing our snorkeling gear...we're just going to dig our toes in the sand and chill! I can hardly wait! And when we come back it will almost be Christmas!

We've already paid for Cruisemas '10...we're going to spend a couple weeks in Europe!! Starting out with a river cruise up the Danube from Vienna to Nuremberg. That's the first 8 days, and then the train to Paris for a few days, and then on Christmas eve he head to London and midnight mass at the Westminster Cathedral (being good Catholics for David). On Christmas day we will go to Westminster Abbey (to celebrate me being a good Protestant girl!) and then enjoy the city. We still have to figure out how long we'll be in London, but we're so excited about going! I am hoping to see snow somewhere along the way...I bet we will in Austria! Wow...I can't believe we're going!! It's a lot of saving money and planning, but it's something we've wanted to be able to do for a while now, and we're excited to make it happen!

But make no mistake, I am beside myself with happiness that we're spending next week in the Bahamas! Oh, and one more cool thing - one of my favorite restaurants used to be Bahama Breezes here in Las Colinas, but it closed a couple of years ago. BUT...there is one in Orlando!!! So Saturday night you can bet we'll be dining there, and I will be having my salmon tostada salad. YAY!!!

Everyone stay warm...it's another chilly day out there!

Workouts and Cookies

So we'll start with cookies...the cookie exchange was fun. I ate six cookies, which isn't necessarily a total train wreck, but it wasn't smart. However, they were awesome and I loved every bite. And what did I do to balance this? I went to my SET class at the gym last night. I am very sore today, but I feel good and I am glad I went. I am going to the gym when I get home tonight because I was sleepy and didn't make it this morning. We've been getting to bed late which has made me very sleepy in the mornings. Yes, this pretty much means my workouts have been slacking off. No more...gotta get back to it. So I am going to suck it up and go to bed early to start getting up at 4:30 again. I felt better when I was doing that, and I felt more in control. I need to really keep myself in check and get back on the ball. This 1/2 marathon won't go well if I don't.

I've been pondering this 1/2 marathon. I still find myself feeling so nervous about it, but it's something I really want to accomplish. I can't jog for long at all, and I worry that even with walking it will be tough to finish, but I am determined to do this. This is one of those things that's just for me. I'm not trying to win, but for me winning will be crossing that finish line. Now, it may be after everyone else has gone home, but I'm doing this!

So I think that's it for today. Stay warm...it's really cold out this morning!!

Today Will Be A Challenge

We are having a cookie exchange here at work. Not wanting to be the girl that didn't participate, I made S'mores Bark to bring. I chose this because I am the weirdo that doesn't like marshmallows. It's melted chocolate chips mixed with mini marshmallows and then sprinkled with graham cracker crumbs. Not anything I am into, but I am worried about what is coming my way. I have decided that I am not bringing any cookies home, but I have to figure out how to get rid of what I end up with. I think I am going to give them to other co-workers. I just hope no one is offended! It's been a rough enough time with the food, and I don't need any help getting off track...I do that well enough on my own. So all will be fine, I just have to be gracious about this. Maybe I can politely decline accepting any cookies...after all, people know I've lost 75 pounds and I think they'll understand.

I have been lazy with the workouts. However, that changes tonight. I have the 24 SET class (Strength Endurance Training) tonight at the gym. And yes, I am going! My SIL teaches it, so she is expecting me to be there. It's good to be accountable to others! So I am going to class, coming home to clean up, and then I am going shopping for the two Salvation Army angels I picked. David and I don't exchange gifts because we're going on our vacation next week, so since we have been blessed this year and are able to do so, we are taking care of two little Angels who aren't as fortunate as we are. I hope they have very Merry Christmases...we'll do our part to help!

I got the first of my grades posted, and I made an "A" in Crisis Intervention! Now I am waiting for my Humanities and History grades. I should get an "A" in Humanities, and History might be a "B". If it's 2 A's and a B, I am still on the Dean's List, and that will be just wonderful! :)

Everyone have a great day!! Stay warm, friends!!

Chicken Recipe

Okay, just a quick share...

This is a recipe for very easy and VERY tasty chicken, courtesy of my dear friend Sandra:

1 Tbsp red wine vinegar
2 Tbsp light olive oil
1 packet ranch dressing mix
4 chicken breasts

Mix the vinegar, oil, and dressing mix together in a large Ziploc bag. Then add the chicken and toss around in the bag to coat. Put the whole bag in the fridge and let it marinate for about 30 minutes. Then put the chicken in a baking dish and set under the broiler for 7 minutes, then flip it and let it go for another 7 minutes. Voila! Tasty, easy, and quick chicken!! And healthy, too! About 5 WW point per chicken breast! Pair with a salad and some green beans and you're in for a healthy meal!!

Had to share...this is my new favorite way to enjoy chicken breasts!!

Paying It Forward

I have been so very blessed with all the support I have from friends and family through all the weight loss stuff. Some time back I randomly stumbled onto a blog written by a woman like me, who is dealing with weight struggles. She's a great writer and has a wonderful blog. Anyhow, I finally decided to post a comment on her blog. (I hadn't before because I didn't want her to think I was a psycho stalker!) Anyhow, I thought it was time for me to try and encourage others the way that so many people encourage me. She has a desire to do a 5K, and I remember how I felt when I was preparing for my first one. (And here I am training for a 1/2 marathon!) Anyhow, I left her an encouraging post, and she has posted a very nice thank you on her blog, so I am glad she felt the support! I responded, and then noticed that when I signed my name at the end of my comment, I misspelled it. Yes, I misspelled my own name. Yeah, I rock.

Anyhow, it feels good to send some positive energy to others. Losing weight is difficult, and sometimes we need someone to give us a little something to help us keep going. I am blessed in that I get that from the people in my life. I just needed to share some of that love!

I am drained today. It's that drained feeling you get after you're passed something stressful, so it's a good drained. I am having dinner with my personal cheerleader, Kim, who is a rock star in her own right. She is doing a relay race a week from Sunday. I am bummed that I cannot be there to cheer her on, but I think she knows my heart is with her each step she takes. :) We're going to sushi at my very favorite place tonight, and she's going to come see our Christmas decorations. She's the first person I get to show them off to! Thankfully I have time before she comes over to get all my shoes out of the living room and wash my coffee mug in the sink!

I think that's it for now. I hope everyone has a great Friday!! :)

Finals, Concerts, and Struggles

Tonight is my Crisis Intervention final, followed by the TCC Community Choir concert in which I have a tiny solo. First, I am hoping that when I get in to take my final all the studying I have done doesn't leave my head. That's a fear of mine, you know. I just need a 75 on the test to make an A in the class. This should be easy enough.

The choir concert tonight is something I am looking forward to, but I would be a liar if I said I wasn't nervous. I haven't had a solo in years, and although it is 8 little measures, I just want to do well. *insert prayers for courage and strength here, please*

And lastly, I am yet again struggling with the food. I've been feeding my stress all week, and none of it has been very good. Oh, and I haven't made it to the gym in a few days. All this usually spells disaster, but not today. I've done okay today, and I'm going to push through. It seems that I have really had my share of tough WW weeks, but with 75 pounds gone, I'm going to keep moving forward. It's just what I do! :)

So it's been a tough week. I've written 2 Humanities papers, I have a final and a concert tonight, and then my online History final to complete before Sunday night. I can do this. After all...in 9 days I am on my way to the Bahamas with the Best Husband Ever and we're going to relax!!

Breaking News...

SNOW! In Texas! This is so great! Too bad I have to work. But it isn't sticking, so I suppose it's not such a big deal. But it looks like a snow globe out there!

Good day to be home with hot chocolate!

That's it. No big news...just trying to keep my head above water during finals week. Ugh!