Getting Fit and Fitting Back into my Jeans

It has been a little over a week since I started tracking my food and exercise via myfitnesspal and I am 2 lbs closer to my goal.

Seeing a smaller number on the scale this morning somewhat makes up for my experience getting dressed on Easter.  I pretty much live in sweats and yoga wear.  The problem is, these items are quite stretchy and forgiving of a few extra pounds.  Easter morning I decided to put on some 'real' clothes...unfortunately that proved to be quite the challenge.  If you look at my picture with the Easter Bunny, you will see I ended up in a loose peasant style shirt - perfect for hiding the fact that the button on my jeans was contemplating shooting across the room.

courtesy of Google image search

My husband has been very supportive this week regarding my modified eating (I wonder if that has more to do with all my whining, complaining and tears on Sunday or the threats to buy an entirely new wardrobe).

courtesy of Google image search

I have cut sugar out of my diet...not all sugar...just candy, cakes, cookies, etc.  I am still eating fruit and drinking milk, but I did stop putting creamer in my coffee.  If you saw the amount of candy I normally eat...cutting that out alone should make a significant difference so I don't need to be extreme and cut all forms of sugar.  If you are wondering...I try to avoid artificial sweeteners.

courtesy of Google image search

I was going to completely cut alcohol out, but decided I would allow myself red wine.  The whipped cream vodka mixed with orange soda adds an enormous amount of calories especially when I can easily drink 2 or 3 a night, but when I drink wine I rarely have more than one glass.

courtesy of Google image search

I am also limiting how much bread and pasta I am eating, watching all my portion sizes and not turning to fast food when I am too lazy to cook.

Now that I am on track with the diet stuff, it is my exercise that is suffering this week.  I did work in the yard with my husband all day Saturday.  We pulled out three huge shrubs and took out a large pine tree, transplanted another tree and planted 5 new shrubs and a new tree.  We also raked up all the leaves left from last fall.  My husband had to run down to work for a bit and after he left I spent 2 hours digging out a tree stump by myself - that did me in and I haven't done anything since other than walk the dog.

courtesy of Google image search

My goal this week is simply to stick to my new eating plan and get a little more exercise in.

I will start by pushing a cart around Costco!

Not likely!  They don't sell wine at Costco in Utah!

The Easter Bunny

While at a family party this evening, the Easter Bunny came for a visit.  I was little angry at him for not leaving me a basket this morning, but let him have a photo with me anyway.

If you are wondering why the photo looks a little weird, I will tell you:  The photographer didn't know how to take a picture flash totally washed out the picture and my photoshop skills suck so I used the Poster Edges Filter and called it good.

Cat Claws, Marijuana and Possible Death

Remember when I told you about my husband's heater?  You can refresh your memory here.

Last night, he left it on all night so our bedroom was about 5 million degrees.  Devil Cat Stanley likes to sleep at the foot of my side of the bed.  Normally I like to sleep under a blanket to protect myself from Stanley.  You see, Stanley thinks its fun to randomly stick his claws in my lower extremities while I sleep.  Obviously one does not need a blanket when they are sleeping in a sauna...so multiple times throughout the night I was awoken by Stanley and his game.  Sometimes I jerked my legs away so fast his claws stayed stuck in my skin and he ended up getting flung off the bed.  Stanley took this to mean I was enjoying his game and wanted to play more.

If I had ever fully woken up, I probably would have gotten up and turned off the heater and locked Stanley in a closet, but instead I spent the whole night in a weird dream state.

What was I dreaming about?

I assume this was due to Bruce's post yesterday.  Check it out here.

In my dream, you stored your drugs like I store my embroidery thread.

Everyone was walking around with these bobbins of marijuana in their pocket and as you walked by you would flash a bit of your pocket contents to try and entice someone to buy from you.

I stayed up late to finish my current cross stitch project so that must be where that part of my dream came from.

Didn't that turn out nice?  Now if Rancher Mom could get her internet to work and would send me some photos, I could get started on a much over due gift for her.

I am sure it will come as no surprise that is is raining again, but I have a few projects outside I am going to finish regardless.  I am also going to take my kids on a field trip to the local nursery.  One nice thing about the rain - you end up with the entire garden center to yourself.

Another nice thing about this weather is there are no bees around.  When you are allergic and your doctor has told you the next time you get stung there is the possibility of death, being able to work outside bee-free is a good thing.

Now that my son is feeling better I am anxious to get away from the house so I am off to look at plants.

Have a great Thursday!

Would You Believe It's Raining?

Mollie at Ok in UK has a little weight loss button on her page.  After watching her lbs lost continue to grow, I decided to check out the myfitnesspal site.  I now have a little weight loss badge on my blog...see it over there on the sidebar?  I will update my weight every Wednesday and hopefully I will have the same success Mollie is having.

This week I planned to get my exercise working in the yard which normally would be more strenuous than anything I could do at the gym.

Yesterday I pulled out a small, but deep rooted shrub

and temporarily put down a row of bricks to get an idea of how wide my brick driveway edge would be. 

I would have done more, but it was supposed to rain and I didn't want to get caught in the middle of a project.

The shrub was hard work.  I was quite sore when I went to bed, but thankfully, when I woke up the pain was gone.  My elbow looks normal today as well.

Today was supposed to be a nice sunny NON-RAINY day.  Around 10 a.m. I went outside and took out another shrub.

I finished around 11:30...right about the same time it stared raining.  It has been raining steadily since.  It is not a heavy rain, but it is enough to make raking leaves and cleaning out my garden areas an impossibility.  I can't dig out the area for my bricks because it is too wet and I certainly can't paint my trim in the rain.

I am now sitting inside going crazy.

Sitting inside going crazy with my sick son who will probably get me sick.
 

Can Plastic Spiders Bite?

Yesterday I showed you the cute joke my little bear played on me.  This morning I woke up and my right elbow was double the size of my left.  It was red, swollen, and felt hot to the touch...and it hurt.  Over the last few hours, the swelling and redness has gone down a bit (I can now feel my elbow bones), but the heat is still there and now it is feeling a bit stiff.  I have always been super sensitive to biting and stinging creatures (I have to carry an epi-pen), but I cannot find a bite mark anywhere on my arm.  I told Bear that it must have been the fake spider so I must have a fake bite mark.  Her response was "If you want to be stupid..."

Last week I received three awards from Katie at Chicken Noodle Gravy

. 

I have so much on my to do list, that I really don't have the time to follow all the rules and do everything I am supposed to with these awards.  I did want to take the time to thank Katie and tell you to check out her site.  Katie's blog is very well written and always a pleasure to read (she was an English major...I bet she cringes at some of my grammar). She is a tom boy and has three cats...just like me.  She also leaves great comments.  I haven't been following her for too long, but once I was, Chicken Noodle Gravy quickly made it on my list of favorites.

One of the things on my to do list is to fix the mud pit next to my driveway.  In order to have room to open my car doors and not hit my house, I have been driving a bit off the driveway.  

I have been telling my neighbor (we share this portion of lawn) for the last 2 years that I would expand my driveway.  I decided to use bricks to match the walkway my husband and I put in when we first bought our house. 

Cleaning up the leaves and painting the banister is also on my to do list. 

On Saturday, I finally purchased the bricks with the intention of completing the project this week.  

The only problem is the weather...it has been raining.  There is supposed to be a break from the rain today and tomorrow so I am headed outside now with the intention of having the project finished before the rain returns on Thursday.

I will let you know if I am successful.

Update:  It may not be raining, but it is COLD!  I just pulled up a weather update and it is 45 degrees and RAIN is back in the forecast for this afternoon.  Maybe I will postpone this project one more day.

Funny Little Bear

My youngest daughter goes by the nickname of Bear.

She thinks she is pretty funny.

Friday night, my oldest asked me to get her a suitcase for her Spring Break trip.  The suitcases are kept in a storage area in our basement.  This particular storage space is long and narrow and unfinished.  The suitcases are behind a large stack of storage bins.  It is easier to have my youngest climb over the bins to access the luggage than to move them out of the way.  Bear had been standing behind me and as I traded her places so she could begin her assent over the tower of plastic bins, I happened to look down.

I scream...and bear starts laughing.  Ha Ha Ha...that was real funny.

Getting Fit with Cinnamon Rolls and Alcohol

That diet thing is still not working out too well.  I did lay off the cake this weekend, but I made up for it with another attempt at cinnamon rolls.  You can read about them here if you want.

I also completely pigged out on sushi and wine on Sunday night.  I would do that every night if I could afford it.

To make up for my weekend of gluttony,  I went to the gym Monday and Tuesday morning for a spin class.  I pushed myself to my limit both days.  I had plans to go this morning, but when I got up at the lovely hour of 5:00 a.m. my body said "please crawl back into bed and snuggle with your husband."  I have found it is wise to listen to my body when it wants rest, because when I don't my body finds a way to force me to rest usually in the form of a nasty cold or something equally unpleasant.

Tomorrow morning I will play around with some weights and Friday I will hit another spin class.

The weather is beautiful right now and I should get outside and enjoy it, because the forecast call for MORE SNOW this afternoon.  The golf course not too far from my house posted some pictures on facebook that were taken on April 30th of last year.  What did they show?  SNOW, SNOW and MORE SNOW.  Not feeling too optimistic about spring-like weather any time soon and if we go from winter temperatures to summer temperatures the possibility of major flooding is quite high, although I doubt I will see anything like the flooding that happened here when I was a child.  They had to create a river right through downtown Salt Lake City.

1983 Flood 'State Street River' courtesy of Google images

Google Images

Google Images

Wow - I completely got off topic!

Back to the diet topic...the other night my friend and his daughter joined us for dinner.  After dinner we were sitting in the living room talking and watching TV.  I got up to make myself my 3rd or 4th another drink and when I returned to the couch he made the following comment "I don't know how you stay so skinny with all the alcohol you drink"  Was he complementing me on my figure?...or was he telling me I drink too much.  I am really not sure how I was supposed to take that.  He doesn't drink so he is probably just jealous of my yummy vodka concoctions.

In closing (and off topic again), I want to share a cute photo I took of my friend's daughter while they were over.

Handwriting Meme and an...Interesting...Award

First off, please notice the use of italics in my title.  I am very proud of myself for figuring our how to do that since clicking the "I" button is not an option for the title. 

Rancher Mom over at Rancher Mom's Realm passed on this Handwriting Meme to me.  I planned on tricking impressing you with my perfect penmanship, but I decided that was too much effort so I just sat on the couch and attempted to write while balancing my floppy notebook on my knees.

1) What's your name/blogger name? 
Trice/Cakeologist

2) What's your blog's URL? 
notaboutcake.blogspot.com

3) Write The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

4) Favourite quote: 

"you should never, never doubt what nobody is sure about"  Willy Wonka

"As you walk down the fairway of life you must smell the roses, for you only get to play one round." Ben Hogan

5) Your favourite song?   
If You Leave by OMD

6) Your favourite band/singers? 
Too numerous to list

7) Anything else you want to say? 
Nope

8) Tag 4 others to participate: 
Maybe later...

When I got home from Bunco Friday Night,  I discovered I had been given an award by Mrs. Hyde over at A Bitch Called Mom.

Before I get to the award, I have to mention that this week Rancher Mom and Mrs. Hyde have been conspiring to kill me (click on their names to view the evidence of attempted murder).  I have mild asthma that tends to be at its worst in the spring (I guess my asthma goes by the calendar, because continuous snowfall says winter to me).  During this time, one of the things that can set it off is laughing.  Twice this week, my children have been running around the house trying to locate my inhaler while I convulse in a strange combination of laughing, coughing and scary sounding wheezing.  What if I had been home alone?  You would be going to our reunion all by yourself dear Rancher Mom!

Now back to the award...

Here is what Mrs. Hyde had to say about the requirements

"Ladies, I'm not saying that this award requires you to show us your rack, but this award requires you to show us your rack. I promise I won't tell a soul."

I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to share this photo

We had just brought Selena (a hairless rat named after Selena Gomez) home from the pet store and I was letting her sit on my shoulder while my son used my phone to take a photo that I could send to my friends and family to introduce them to our newest pet.  Selena must have been camera shy...

This post is getting really long so I am going to end it now.  Make sure you visit Mrs. Hyde and Rancher Mom and if you have laughter induced asthma, make sure your inhaler is nearby!

Another Frozen Friday

So far today is really annoying me.

This is my yard.

This was my yard last week

Hey Mother Nature...IT IS APRIL!

All day a wet mix of rain and snow has been falling from the sky.  Just enough to really piss me off...and mess up my hair.

Last night my daughter painted my toenails in a cute pink cheetah pattern.

How am I supposed to show them off with all this snow?

At least I get to look forward to tonight.  Tonight is Bunco!  I get to get drunk hang out with a great group of women and roll dice for money.  I also created a new cake recipe for them to critique for me, but I will write about that tomorrow on my other blog.

Since I don't have to go anywhere for the rest of the afternoon and I plan on being chauffeured to and from Bunco, I think I will enjoy a nice warm pitcher glass of hot chocolate spiked with my new favorite - whipped cream flavored vodka.

courtesy of Google image search

Rancher Mom:  I am still planning on doing the Handwriting Meme.   Maybe I will make it more interesting and do it after I finish off my bottle of whipped cream...either way, I will get it posted this weekend.

I thought I would add this video I just took

Getting Fit...Just Not This Week

My spin camp is over and so it seems is my motivation.  That's not quite true...I have the motivation

courtesy of Victoria's Secret

I am just not acting on it.  I bought the above suit last year, but have yet to wear it.  I still feel most comfortable in my super-suck-it-in-power-slimming-mommy-miracle-suit.

There has been no improvement on the diet (thank you again, Ben & Jerry's) and I need a plan.  I do best with structure, but I need someone else to provide it.

courtesy of Google Image search

There are a few diets I am considering, but haven't made a decision yet.  I will let you know when I figure it out.  Feel free to pass on any recommendations.

I also need an exercise plan for days I don't feel like going to the gym.  I really want to run again, but my feet won't allow it.  I can run barefoot and would like to pick up a pair of Vibrams, but I can't justify the expense right now.

courtesy of Google Image search

The other night I was told I should look into the Insanity Workout DVD's.  I will have to see what is available at the library because, once again, I cannot spend any money on stuff like that right now.  If Ben & Jerry's would give me free ice cream, I could spend my savings on personal trainers and psycho DVD's.  I could be the Ben & Jerry's Bikini Spokesmodel.  What a great ad campaign...Eat all the ice cream you want and still look like this! (nobody would need to know about the airbrush)

I think I better satisfy my Ben & Jerry's craving so I can stop obsessing about it.  If I walk to the store the ice cream calories won't count...right?

Why I Hate Ben & Jerry's

Here are a few reasons why I hate Ben and Jerry's

Clusterfluff - Peanut Butter Ice Cream with Caramel Cluster Pieces, Peanut Butter & Marshmallow Swirls

Bonnaroo Buzz - Coffee & Malt Ice Creams with Toffee Chunks & a Whiskey Caramel Swirl

Dave Matthews Band® Magic Brownies -  Black Raspberry Ice Cream Swirled with Sweet Cream Ice Cream & Fudgy Brownies.  I don't really think this sounds good...unless the magic brownie bits are green - I will have to look into that

Dublin Mudslide - Irish Cream Liqueur Ice Cream with Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies and a Coffee Fudge Swirl

Mission to Marzipan - Sweet Cream Ice Cream with Almond Cookies & a Marzipan Swirl

Red Velvet Cake - Red Velvet Cake Batter Ice Cream with Red Velvet Cake Pieces & a Cream Cheese Frosting Swirl

Willie Nelson's Country Peach Cobbler- Peach Ice Cream with Cinnamon-Sugar Shortbread Pieces & a Peach Swirl

Carrot Cake - Caramel Ice Cream with Carrot Cake Pieces & a Cream Cheese Frosting Swirl.

I used to walk in the store, grab my Phish Food (Chocolate Ice Cream with Gooey Marshmallow, Caramel Swirls & Fudge Fish) and that was that, but now I am faced with some of the above flavors.  When I am indecisive (which according to my husband is always), I solve the problem by buying one of each.    The container says each pint is 4 servings, but I am calling bullshit.  We all know that those little pints of Ben & Jerry's are single servings.

Thank You Ben & Jerry's

Thanks to them, I also have to drag my ass out of bed at 4:20 a.m. and subject myself to torturous things such as spin camp.

At the very least they should supply me with free ice cream and ask me to review all their flavors on my blog.  Why?  Because my two youngest children are named Ben and Jerry.  Seriously.

That alone should qualify me for free ice cream for life!

Race Day Finale, An Award and Some Other Stuff

Today was the last day of my Spin Camp and to finish it up we had a Race Day Finale. 

courtesy of Google image search

A TV was set up and we followed a training video for the ride.  Right before we started, I realized I had left the watch part of my heart rate monitor at home.  I don't live far from the gym and contemplated going to get it, but the instructor said for this type of class there was no need for it.  I am really glad I listened to him, because I think I would have been scared my heart might explode had I been able to see my heart rate.

I could not have pushed myself any harder.  If the race had not ended when it did, I would have thrown up...I still might.

courtesy of Google image search

Over the weekend, I received The Versatile Blogger award from brucejohnson JADIP.   Thank you Bruce!

He has lots of blogs...If you like blogs that have a Content Warning screen (I do 'cause it makes me feel like I am doing something bad) then visit him at stupid stuff i see and hear.  You can find him at the guy book as well.  Guess what? I'm not done - he has even more blogs!

He also has a blog called Dreamodeling! He is a licensed builder so maybe I can harass him with home improvement questions...I wonder if he would get as annoyed as my husband does.

courtesy of Google image search

There are some rules I am supposed to follow to accept the award, but I was not kidding when I said I might throw up so I am just going to take my award and screw the rest. 

courtesy of Google image search

Some of you have asked how my husband did yesterday after I said he was getting me some of this

courtesy of Google image search

He did okay, but you won't be seeing me shopping on Rodeo Drive anytime soon.

courtesy of Google image search

I have also had a few people ask me how the Latisse is going.  Tomorrow will mark 5 weeks and although I am not seeing much of a difference without mascara, I am loving how my lashes look with mascara.  Even my husband agrees that "the stuff works".  Here is the photo comparison at 4 weeks.

In closing, I will leave you with a video of how my devil cat and my dog entertain themselves.  You can't hear my dog growling in the video, but trust me, he is.  I especially love it when they do this at 3 in the morning!

If you are wondering where my usual Meet Me On Monday post is, you can find it here.  Have a happy Monday!