Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Keep on Keepin' On + A Weigh In

So this month has not been ideal.  First the car, then the job, then I got a car, thought the job was in my grasp, but that is not so.  They started interviewing other people and said if I can speed up/change the way I do one set of tasks (which is 40% of the job) that I might have a shot.  Lord Almighty!  I was just ready to be in or be out.  I have had 3 days off all year (that’s days within the work week).  Those were the 3 days that they hired someone else and he quit after 2!  I was not interested in the job at that time.  And my aunt is my boss at the temp agency, so she freely let me have it for at least a half an hour yesterday. 
Basically, I am doing all I can to save my sanity and my job so blogging isn’t at the top of the list.  Whew. Keep on keepin' on!
I have been doing well with eating, although the Fast Food Monster tried to ensare me for about 2 weeks.  That was awful.  Last Monday, after Pilates, I went to CVS which is across the street from a fast food place and the smell, the greasy nasty smell, smelled sooooo good.  I had to sit in the car and talk to myself OUT LOUD and remind myself that fast food was the opposite of what I needed!  I had mostly vegetarian food for lunches and such last week.  I am having food burnout at a rapid rate!  I can only eat something a couple of times before I am tired of it.  Lame!  Smoothies have been saving me too.  One day last week I called SwimSis to see if she had anything planned for dinner that night.  She did.  Those were the only words I needed to hear to steer myself past the 9837432 fast food places on my way home.  She didn’t end up cooking until later in the evening, but I filled my belly up with a fruit smoothie and was good to go. 
On the exercise front, I have pretty much just been doing Pilates and Swimming.  That sounds like a perfect world to me!  I swam last Monday, Friday, and this morning.  I didn’t want to go this morning, but I knew that the outdoor pool was only open for one more week.  Do or die!  I swam in the lane that is next to the deep end and it was creepy.  And then leaves kept touching my legs.  It made me swim faster when that happened! J  Not much can top doing backstroke and looking up at the stars.  I love it and am sorry I only found out about this when summer is almost over!   We'll see if this morning workout thing keeps up!

And finally, weight as of last Saturday: 256.6!
I have only stepped on the scale twice this month.  A week ago Saturday I saw 258.6, so 2lbs in a week is awesome!  Thus far in my journey, I have been losing about 5lbs a month.  This Saturday will be 6 months after I started my blog!, so it looks like this:
Starting weight 3/1/12: 280
Current weight: 256.6
6 months = 26 weeks
Roughly 1 lb a week lost = Super happy Em!

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Feta? You Bet-a!

There is a small list of food items that can turn my head on a menu. First on that list would probably be bacon!  But sitting at a solid second is feta cheese.  (and then mushrooms and onions would follow).  But I haven't always loved feta.  In fact, growing up, I thought the only types of cheese one could have where the little square American cheese slices or something like shredded mozzarella (for pizza).  In high school, I did discover provolone at Subway, lol. (Even now, if I want to cut calories, cheese is one of the first things to go, but not my feta!)

It wasn't until I was 22 years old and living on my own in that other Midwestern city that I first had feta.  My "team" from work was having a potluck.  I had a recent soup obsession, so I made chicken soup with pasta stars (still love it!).  The girl who was hosting made a salad.  And that fateful night, feta entered my life and we have nary a day been separate (in spirit).  A couple of us stayed later than the buses ran, so we stayed the night and in the morning, for breakfast, I had leftover salad.  My friend who hosted us had some more soup!  LOL   We must have been desperate for someone's cooking other than our own.  For the next 6 months at least, I had feta at least once a day.  I'm going to dig on fb, for a picture of a typical meal for me (don't LOL at my lack of portion control!)

Eh, didn't find it.  It would have been about 1/4 of a large plate filled with spinach/lettuce, feta, almonds, cranberries, with poppyseed dressing, 1/4 instant mashed potatoes, and 1/2 cheese ravioli in spaghetti sauce.  And then I would wash it down with sweet, sugary iced tea.  And then have a massive bowl of ice cream with nuts and chocolate on top.  Yeah, I entertained myself with food, ugh!

Anywho, this past week I found myself with SwimTot near Whole Foods with time to kill and a gift card to spend.  And low and behold, I came across this:


Does anyone else hear the angelic "Ahhhhhhh"?  haha!

Oh my word I had forgotten how I love feta so!  And the brine keeps it nice & fresh.  After having salad at a Greek place a couple of weeks ago, feta has been on my mind.  I got feta, lettuce, red onion, cucumber and balsamic vinaigrette.  Delectable!

I also picked up these bad boys:
Mmmm!  I grilled up one of these and had it with a little bit of feta, cucumber and some bbq sauce.  Had to eat light after a binge that included margaritas, almonds, dark chocolate, and bbq chips, oops!

I also bought a blender a few weeks ago from Kroger that was on clearance.  It was $15.00 down from $50!

I made sure I got red!
I saw these on clearance at my new Kroger for $35...suckers!  At Whole Foods I picked up some frozen fruit, so hopefully I will be making some smoothies soon.  I got a Green Bean Delivery last week and wanted to make sure my broccoli didn't go to waste as it sometimes does.  I remember Gordon Ramsey making broccoli soup once with just broccoli, the water you boil it in, and sea salt (blended).  It is fantasticly delicious and tastes creamy.  Although it just looks like a monster green smoothie:
Not much to look at!
I love it as a starter or side, as it is not super filling.  I made this Saturday at lunch and by Sunday at lunch I had eaten it all (started with 1 bunch of broccoli).





I knew my exercise had been lacking this month and I actually had a decently open schedule this weekend, so I wanted to make sure I ran once and swam once.  On Saturday I took SwimTot to "our forest" as she calls it, and I asked her if she would want to run with me.  She said yes!  She ran a lot farther and a lot longer than I thought she would.  We never ran over 2 minutes at a time, but after several weeks of little exercise, I was feeling it before 2 minutes was up!  I think we ran trails for somewhere between 10-12 minutes, 30 minutes total.  I love bonding with her!

Sunday I wanted to swim, but my new (part time) job doing childcare at a church left me exhausted.  3.5 hours, spanning 2 services, not sitting down was my exercise!  At least those kiddos make the time go fast!  Then I decided to look up what time the YMCA had lap swim on Monday morning.  The one that is my regular YMCA has their indoor pool closed for repairs and the outdoor pool doesn't open till 8.  I looked at the other YMCA.  Their indoor pool didn't open till 8 either!  I was getting VERY frustrated!  I decided to check out their outdoor pool schedule on a whim.

HOLY SMOKES!  Outdoor lap swim starting at 5:15am!  Woah, woah, woah EmDub, aren't you the girl who gets out of her bed at the last second?  Well I packed and prepared Sunday night so I would put my swimsuit(s) on and leave for the pool.  I actually kept waking up throughout the night and checking the clock to make sure I didn't oversleep!  haha My alarm went off and I had built in time to snooze, but seriously weird dreams had already startled me awake.  I got to the YMCA and I thought I could hear/see a swimmer or two but I wasn't sure.  I made my way outside and was in the pool at 6:10am!  I should have looked at the weather so I don't know what temp it was but someone told me it was in the high 50s.  I like to be hardcore like that!  There were few swimmers, so I got a lane to myself.  It was a 50 meter pool, so that was different too.

My workout was based on this workout. This was what I actually did:

Warm up: 200m reverse IM drills (50 freestyle drills, 50 breastroke, backstroke, butterfly)

200 Freestyle
6x50 on 1:10
200 Kick
6x50 on 1:07
200 Pull
6x50 on 1:00

100 kick w/board

100 IM

100 cool down

That adds up to 2000m, which was good considering my time constraints and me being weenie on the 50s!  I was barely making the 1:07s, but when I had nothing left to lose and turned it out on the 1:00s, I was touching the wall with several seconds to spare.  I was working VERY hard on the last set of 6x50s and near the end it was "workout painful", but I got through with a smile on my face.

Hands down highlight(s) of the morning was swimming outside!  I got in the water at 6:10, so it was still dark out and as I was doing backstroke, I was staring up at the stars.  I loved loved LOVED it!  So amazing.  Then, later, as the sun was coming up, steam started to rise off of the pool and the sunrise plus the steam made it beautiful too.  Surely not something I will do everyday, but perhaps once a week?  Well, idk, the outdoor pool might close soon anyway, I should check on that!

As Monday wore on, it became aparent:  I was getting a cold!  Awe snap, was it from swimming outside when it was cold?  Oh em gee body, chill out!  This confirms my story that exercise is not good for you I should not share drinks with other people and maybe, just maybe, my mom was right when she would scold me to not go outside with wet hair.  But swimmers usually ignore that rule!

And let me tell you, my Monday night Pilates felt A LOT harder after swimming in the AM.  Sore girl!

Now I"m off to eat some more feta work!  Have a lovely day everyone!



Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Single Parent for a Day

I know, for a whole day.  Really tough, right?  Well, not actually a full day.  Just the evening hours.

SwimSis is working a conference in addition to her job and Coach is...coaching!

I picked the SwimTot up from preschool at the Y.  She was full of energy and was walking a bit ahead of me out of the classroom.  When she got to the corner, and I was 10 ft behind, she gave me this look.  That look that this afterschool thing was a game and I was going to have to chase her.  Ugh.  I said "No, do not run, you need to stay with me".  I turned the corner and she was not in sight.  Well, there were a million places to hide.  On the sides of the vending machines, under tables, did she sneak into another classroom, etc.  No.  I searched for at least a full minute and starting to go into panic mode.  I'm pretty laid back so it takes a while to get me there.  And as I approached the man at the front desk I see her.  Coming down the next hallway, in a full sprint, from outside.

Who?  This sweet little thing?
PS I loved her hair that length!  That was 3 yrs ago, not 4!

I tried to put on my mean face like SwimSis does, but SwimTot was not fazed.  She tried to dart up the stairs to a workout room.  I sternly told her to get down and then sat down in a chair with her to make sure she knew she was in the wrong.  She tried to wrestle from me and then I did it.

I declared that she was in a time out.

Now, that may not sound like much, but it is not something she gets from her parents.  No TV or toys?  This girl lives for her "shows".

Nope, no way.

In between cries and begging for ice cream, I talked to TeenSwimSis (yep, flew back from camp today, lost 13.5 lbs while there!) and that kept SwimTot awake, whereas she would have zonked out most days.

We entered the house and she sat on the stairs and declared she wasn't moving.

Guuuurl.

We went up to her room and she was to lay on her bed no TV or toys.  I didn't have a specific amount of time down, but it was 10 mins.  When I was a nanny, one of my biggest pet peeves was asking/whining to get out of time out (my nanny time outs were shorter!).  I made her wait 2 more minutes until she stopped asking.

Then we got on with our evening.  We took a Pluot outside as a snack (I bought some last week - 2 lbs for $1.50!  Plus I got some in my delivery) and the corn I got in my Green Bean Delivery.  We shucked the corn and it reminded me of going to my grandparents and preparing food straight out of their garden.  I want that someday!  But for now, this would do.

I think kids are much more independent and capable than their parents can realize sometimes.  SwimTot can't get her own dinner, but she can clear her place, rinse her dishes, etc.  Well, I let her cut her own strawberries with a butter knife!  She was so cute too.  So proud.  I always give lectures on safety, lol.  I made sure she knew she was using a butter knife and where they were located and why she got that one.  I told her was not to use the other knives and why.  She seemed to get it.  Around this time, she tried a cucumber I was cutting up.  She didn't love it, but she kept taking small nibbles.

No TV did not mean no entertainment.  We put on music.  She said she wanted just instruments, so we listened to the symphonic channel and before dinner we put on the Be-Tween channel (age appropriate pop songs).

Love this kid!
We got through the evening with some sassiness and Barbies.  We did watch a little TV, but it was what I wanted (Trading Spouses!).  She wasn't very interested.  We did a modified bedtime routine (hers usually involves TV) and she was out around 9:30.

And I still had to clean up dinner, and make my lunch for tomorrow, and follow up about a car on Craigslist.

Geeeesh parents.  I don't even know how you do it.  Extreme admiration from this single lady!

After all of my nagging and reinforcing safety with her today (like every half hour!), hopefully she will not run away from me at the YMCA, or outside like she did twice yesterday while we were home.

At the end of the day, it was an "I love you so much!  Best Friends!" Can't get enough of this kid, even if she is a brat!  Today was good for both of us, and for that, I am thankful.



Monday, August 13, 2012

Pilates owned me!

Oh sweet, baby Jesus!  I was the only one to show up to pilates tonight!  And the instructor knows I come every week and know the flow of most beginner exercises, so we went at a faster pace and higher reps.  Ouch!  Jello legs!  And she always throws in some back stuff too, which always makes me feel sore on Tuesdays!  So thankful for Pilates!  Even though I won't be getting my 20 days of exercise in this month, I am glad I am sticking with Pilates on Monday nights.  It really is my "happy place". 

Well, on the job front.  I don't know.  Last week was a frickin' roller coaster and toyed with my emotions so bad!  I didn't eat as bad as I would have in the past, but I did amp up my sleeping so as to avoid real life!  Oh snap.  But basically my aunt/recruiter from the temp agency told me to have a conversation with my boss, then my pal in HR told me something unexpected about the job, and then when I went to have the conversation with the boss, her reaction threw me off so I had to improvise and scrap my aunt/recruiter's plan.  The coversation with the boss was vague.  In the end, she said she "pretty much knew what she wanted to do" she just wanted a few more weeks to be certain.  So I take that as yeah she wants to hire me, she just wants a few more weeks to make sure I'm solid, but it could totally be that she wants to hire someone else and wants to be certain of that.  In the end, I'm at a point of "eff that!".  The emotional toll was ridiculous.  I've been there since the beginning of the year and was just now learning how to do some of the things.  Crazy.  30% sure I'm just going to run away and join the circus.  Yeah, I'm a runner - from my problems!  bahaha, I crack myself up.  I'll be honest here (because I don't feel like I can be in my real life).  Stability is awesome and all, but I like/borderline love events.  Just all the planning and the day gets there and you're going for a million hours straight putting out fires and helping people.  Love that rush!  I was hoping I'd have been hired on at this place before now so I could put in some hours for the temp company at a conference this week.  I miss them so!

On the car front - this is like my most weak area in life.  I pretty much HAVE to look for a car on Craigslist.  For $2000.  People are ridiculous!  One was all like "this car is great and drives perfectly, so don't try to low ball me on the price...here are the issues with the car" and they listed like 8 issues.  Wow!  And on that one 2 of the issues were #1 no air #2 windows don't roll down.  Sounds like a real winner - they would take you to jail just for having your kid in the car WITH you! 

I can't go to a dealership because I DON'T HAVE A FULL TIME JOB!!!  Yeah temp agencies don't win you gold stars on applications.  In April, I saw the car I wanted the most out of the whole wide world (this was like a 7 year old car for under $10,000 - not super fancy), I put the name of the temp agency, which does not indicate that it is a temp agency.  And of course the dude is the one person in all of the dealerships I visited who recognized the name and turned me down. Supid Julian. (his name - called him out!).  My dear friend, who's mother died recently (and father died a few years ago) said  that she would definitely sell me her mother's car for a down payment and monthly payments.  I can't get my hopes up tho, things like that almost never work out in real life! 

I had a trip on my calender this past weekend and maybe I should have been responsible and stayed home, but I needed a freaking break from reality.  I went to (drum roll please)....CLEVELAND!!!  Oh it was so fabulous!   I have a couple of friends in the city and they all wanted to chill, nothing major.  Lovely!  Friday night I watched the Olympics (poor Morgan Uceny!) and caught up with a friend.  I stayed with that friend and we had some iced coffee and more good conversation Saturday morning.  Then I went to meet up with another friend and we went to lunch.  It was sooo off of my normal routine!  I usually eat like 3 times before 2pm, but that is when we had lunch and I was so hungry! I definitely ate all of my food, which had not been the norm lately at restaurants. 

And guess what?  Cleveland was cold!  I wasn't smart enough to look at the weather, but assumed it would be blazing like the rest of the midwest.  I had planned on wearing a dress, instead I had to go buy a sweatshirt at Target!  But it was lovely to not be hot all the time.  We met another friend in the evening, had dinner at a Mexican place (2 pitchers of margaritas between 3 people!).  I either held my liquor incredibly well or was pretty dehydrated because we were there for hours and I did not have to pee and walked out just fine.  Probably both.  The rest of the night was us around a bonfire with beers for them and mixed drinks for me, but I cut myself off pretty early.

Sunday I met up with the friend I stayed with the first night and we went for a fantastic walk!  We walked a little short of an hour and covered over 3 miles with her dog.  Why hadn't I gone on walks/hikes with that friend when we lived close to each other a few years ago?  Guess I just wasn't open to weight loss - or sweating.  Then we went and sat by the beach for a few - Lake Erie is pretty!  Here are some pics!

Friend and her dog

Us after our quality walk

Lake Erie - Rocky River Park - I think
 Have a beautiful week my friends, I will try and keep my head up!  You all do the same!


Monday, August 6, 2012

Bleck.

Well life has been sucking lately! 

I had a jam packed weekend and with my car breaking down and not being good enough to drive it to work (but being able to get rides), and my temp job telling my recruiter that they were going to be considering other people for the position (and they will consider me to, but not only me). 

Today I just wwanted to stuff my face and sleep forever.  And run away.  I thought about that too. 

But I borrowed SwimSis's car and drove to Pilates class.  So sad it's not 5 mins away anymore, but I am glad to have it.  It was hard to focus between all of the crap I was thinking.

I was going to write a bunch of lovely beautiful things with flower, hearts and rainbows, but this blog is just not that right now! 

Back to trying to improve myself/ignore my problems! :/

And I have been doing so much work at work that I just read a few blogs from last Monday/Tuesday - yikes!

I hope to return with news of great weight loss, a solid job, and working car.

ha!  If only the stars aligned!

Friday, August 3, 2012

Late Night Bloggin'!

Well, I would love to tell you all about how July was for me as well as the trip to take TeenSwimSis' weight loss camp, buuuuut I'll save that for some other time.

We moved today (yeah mid-week, really sucks!) and on the way to the new place my car had a little breakdown.  Oops!  Could potentially be my fault for not getting the oil changed in a timely manner.  Bigger oops!  But the jury is still out on that one.  I was VERY proud of myself that (1) I did not bawl when my car broke down and (2) I did  not call my dad bawling!  He gets sooo annoyed.  Oh and of course today would be the one flipping day I forget my cell phone at home!  Geesh!  I was about 1-2 miles away from a friend's place, so I made it there and the car died when I was pulling into a parking spot.  Thank goodness those friends were home!  Then I don't know SwimSis' #, (she's had the same # for years, I just don't remember it).  All I know are my grandma's phone # and my dad's, which was my # growing up.  So I called my grandma and got SwimSis' #.  I'm sure the entire family knows by know that my car broke down...that's how fast word travels!  Coach was kind enough to pick me up, well he drove my car (and '89) and I drove his 2013! :)  

That was so random that I wrote that (it is currently 3:11am!).  And here comes some more randomness!

We came back to our current apt and I was packing and hanging out with SwimTot while SwimSis and Coach took a couple car fulls over to the new place.  She was kind of annoying and getting in my way.  "Anna (that's what she says when she calls me Aunt), let's place dress up.  This will be so gorgeous!" I could only hang on for one round of dress up, especially when I was trying to pack, not get stuff out! 

So I put her to work!  I told her to get a laundry basket and gather up clothes that were scattered about (that is the nicest way anyone could ever describe being messy!).  So she goes to work and I'm doing my thing.  A couple of hours later I went with SwimSis to take more stuff over (we're just moving the the next suburb over) and I got a pop on the way back so I could stay up and pack, but more importantly, finish editing this craaaazy long, crazy important application for work.  Thankfully we will submit it tomorrow.  So I'm tired-ish and get things together for tomorrow.  I laid out my clothes for Friday on Wednesday night.  And I find my undergarments, shirt and sweater.  But where are the pants?

WHERE ARE THE PANTS I AM GOING TO WEAR TO WORK TOMORROW?????

Oooooh crap.  2am, new place (where my clothes are) is 30 min round trip.  No freaking pants for tomorrow.  My options are the skirt I wore today or sweatpants! Noooo!  I realized I stuff 2 dresses that were in my dirty pile into my nightstand (pshhhh, boxes?).  One was my bridesmaid's dress from SwimSis' wedding, the other way my dress from her bachelorette party.  Plain black dress.  But it has white fuzzies on it from a ridiculously comfy blanket I took a nap under the last time I wore it.  Okay, okay I can make this work!  Unfortunately, the only sweater I have to wear over it is gray and I don't have any accessories, but I will have to make it work!

I am so pale!  That's me, my dad, TeenSwimSis, SwimSis and SwimTot!



haha best shot of the dress!  We did a couple jumping pics!



That was from TeenSwimSis' confirmation in May.  And the last time I wore the dress.  And I haven't washed it/dry cleaned.  I need a personal assistant!  Oh and I'll throw in one from SwimSis' bachelorette party!

 I hope to have a real blog update soon, not just one inspired by misplaced pants and caffeine.  This weekend I have a zillion social events (which in my world is just one a day!).  If not this weekend, I'll see everyone on the new work week!  (ewwww, who says that on a Friday???)