Hey, something different!

I know lately I don't have much to talk about other than walking and weight loss.  It's winter... there's really not much else going on, to be honest.  I haven't gotten even close to my sewing machine (although Easter creeping up makes me want to sew), and I honestly don't think I've made one bit of progress on anything crochet since I last mentioned it.  So really, that's about all that's going on.

But, luckily for all of us, today I have something else to talk about!

A few weeks ago, I got an email from a friend that I play Pokeno with (not that I play hardly ever, but still...).  Rhonda has a 10 year old step-daughter and said she'd like to get all the girls together for a play date.  She wants to get to know my kids better so she can babysit for me sometime.  I was seriously touched...  I haven't had anyone watch my kids other than my sister in years.  

We finally picked a weekend and she arranged it all.  Boy, can she arrange a play date!  It was all about Pizza, Puppies, and Ponies!

After eating pizza for lunch, we headed over to one of her friends' farm.  She takes in a lot of rescue animals.  They had rescued a chihuahua from a man living in his car doing drugs and he ended up getting busy with one of her dogs and, well, you know how it goes.  She had 5 two-week-old puppies.  My kids loooooove little dogs.  Isabelle and Zoe are terrified of anything bigger than can fit in their lap, though.  They were nervous around the chihuahua... he was a full-sized one, not one of those little tiny ones.  



My sister came along to check out the puppies.  My parents recently had to put down their 14 year old dog, and haven't decided yet if they want another dog.... but just in case, Rhonda thought we could check out the puppies and see if we thought my parents might like one.  Honestly, I don't think my parents are up for a puppy, but they certainly were sweet little things.



Heck, I wanted this one and I don't even want a dog.  Look at that face!



The puppies were definitely a hit.  =)

Then we headed off to see the horses!  They also take in a lot of rescue horses.  I have to admit, I'm not much of an animal person, but I would never in a million years hurt an animal and can't understand why some people do.  And horses are just so beautiful and gentle creatures....



They fed some of the horses treats before we headed off to the ones that were more used to being around kids. 



Of course, Isabelle was terrified.  I literally had to carry her into the barn.  They found her some toys to play with in the tack room, but we did eventually get her outside to see the horses.



This is Rolex.  I liked Rolex.  He was the least friendliest horse and would usually walk off if we got too close, but my sister and I both managed to make friends with him before the end of the day.  He'd been abused, so you just had to be really quiet and slow around him.  He stayed away from the kids altogether.  Can't blame him, they are never slow or quiet.



Jewel was very friendly.  She had the most noticeable winter coat, too, so she looked like a big teddy bear.  Olivia liked the horses... from the ground.  



Not so much from the saddle.  



Zoe absolutely loved riding, though.  Of course.... she's my fearless child.  You'd think Isabelle would be the fearless one, not little Dodo, but that child is not afraid to try anything.



We managed to get Isabelle on a horse, but only if the horse didn't move.

After all of that, the girls got to ride around in the golf cart and they built a fire to make s'mores.



Can't go wrong with s'mores!

It was just so much fun!  Everyone was so nice and the girls were completely worn out.  Me, too.  =)

Numbers

Twenty-five.

That's the number of pounds I've lost!  I am so excited about that.  It's actually 50 lbs from my absolute highest.  8 lbs towards my 50 lb goal for the year.

Twelve.

That's the number of miles I walked Sunday (consecutively... it was more than that for the whole day, obviously).  And I realized that this entire experience is just as much mental conditioning as physical conditioning.  My body will walk until I collapse, it won't stop until my brain tells it to stop.  Those last 2 miles Sunday were brutal - not so much physically, but mentally. 

The half-marathon is in less than 3 weeks!  I have an 8 mile walk this coming weekend, a 6 miler the next, and then it's the big day!  I cannot wait to get that medal in my hands.  =)  It's 4 inches...  not as big as the huge 8 inch marathon medal, but still!  The Little Rock Marathon is known for its medals.

Four.

That's the number of days next week that Mr. Bill is going to be out of town.  This is a dilemma of epic proportions.  He's the one who get the girls up and ready for school, and takes them to school.  I have to be at work at 5:30am.  They have to be at school at 7:30am and 8:30am.  How on earth am I going to make this work?  It wouldn't be so bad, except we're short-handed at work and if I'm not there, the other girl is all by herself.  The only thing I can think of at the moment is getting the girls up and taking them to work with me, and then taking them to school, but that's going to seriously screw up their sleep.  The other girl at work closes, so I can't really ask her to come in and open, too.  I just don't know what to do.  I'll figure it out... that's what I do...

Around and around and around...

If you haven't figured it out yet, if I'm not blogging, it usually means I'm keeping on track with my workouts.  If I have time to blog, I didn't work out.  =)  Today is a rest day, since I walked 10 miles yesterday. 



I was feeling a little pressed for time, so instead of my normal trails, I opted for the high school track because it was much closer.  I haven't walked long distance on the track.... you can do the math.  1/4 mile track.  10 miles.  That's 40 laps.  Well, actually, it was 38 because I kept switching lanes and the outer lanes are obviously longer.  It was daunting, to say the least.  I thought it would be so boring that I wouldn't be able to finish, but it wasn't bad at all.  Yeah, no change in scenery, but my pace was faster and I didn't have to carry my water bottle and hoodie when I got hot.



Next weekend is a 12 mile walk.  The half-marathon is in less than a month!  March 3rd.  A while back, I took the next day off of work, thinking I'd be just a sore mess after the marathon, but I don't get sore anymore.  I may still take the day off anyway, just as a reward =)

I've lost a total of 23 lbs so far.  6 for this year's goal of 50.  Eating mostly Paleo.  The weekends tend to get me.... it requires so much prep and cooking and when I have a busy weekend, things go off track.  But I feel like my body is changing a lot lately.  I plan on taking measurements tomorrow, maybe pictures (sorry, not gonna share... not ready for THAT).

And, in other news...

I'm working on an afghan for Isabelle.  My original plan was really elaborate.  Sock monkey theme with Tunisian crochet color work.  I got into it and realized pretty quickly that I was going to HATE working on it.  It was just too much.  So, since this is for Isabelle and she loves granny squares, I'm making a giant granny square afghan in sock money colors.  She's loving it so far.  I'm going to make the square until it's wide enough and then add stripes to the top and bottom until it's long enough. 



I had planned on adding 30 roses to my Rose Field throw in January and I think I managed 6.  Crocheting and blogging both suffer when I am working out regularly!

Almost a week in

Did I mention that I'm doing a Biggest Loser competition with my sister, her friend, and a bunch of people I don't know?  Well, I am.  Last Friday was our starting weigh in.  I was 250.4, which is up from where I was a month ago.  I got a new scale for the house because I never trusted the old one and I felt weird weighing at work.  So I get decimals now!

We started eating Paleo (or Primal... I don't really know the difference, I think it's just semantics) on Monday and this week hasn't been as rough as I had anticipated.  Yes, I've been really cranky on occasion.  Yes, I've been kind of tired.  But not as bad as I thought.  And it's not been that difficult to stick to.  The girls are still mad about it.  They feel like I'm starving them because they want cookies and chicken nuggets and cereal.  They'll adjust.  But I haven't had any big cravings or felt like I was going to kill someone over a cookie or anything.  I have felt like killing people, but it had nothing to do with cookies.

The worst parts are #1 - black coffee and #2 - I have to pee all the time.  I will either learn to like coffee without sugar and creamer or I'll just give it up, so that's not that big of a deal.  And the bathroom breaks are just my body letting go of water weight since I've drastically reduced my sodium intake (processed foods have tons of sodium) and that will level off.  Soon, I hope.

The best part....  my weigh in this morning.  245.2.  I know most of that is water weight, and I don't expect such a huge loss all the time, but you better believe I'm stoked about it.  I haven't been able to get past my 20 lb mark since I hit it, so I'm very happy to be almost 22 lbs down now.

I'm currently in 2nd place in our Biggest Loser competition!  Of course, it's winner take all, so 2nd is no better than last competition-wise, but it works for bragging rights.  =)

I am in the process of making a little motivation board, and I have part of it up.  I was really happy to get to use it this morning...



There are 50 clothes pins total (and they're so teeny tiny and cute!)... 50 lbs gets me to my goal for my birthday of hitting 200 (actually it's below 200, but the package only had 50 pins).  I'll still have about 50 more pounds to go, give or take depending on how I feel when I get closer to that.

So, things are going well, and hopefully will just keep getting better.  I haven't touched a hook all week, which is a bummer, but the living room has been a wreck and I just haven't even wanted to deal with it.  Tomorrow I'll get it straightened up and hopefully find some time to sit back and work on something.

Why does it have to end?

I took this week off of work.  We didn't go on vacation or anything, I just needed a break.  I had these grandiose plans of purging the house, getting it all clean and sparkly and organized.

Well, my bathroom is clean.  Mostly.  And you can see more of my bedroom floor.  That's about it.

Monday, I spent the day with my husband.  We don't ever get time alone, but all the girls were in school, and it's the one day he's good and awake during the day, so we ran around, had lunch, and just spent time together.



I promise he enjoyed himself more than the picture lets on.  He was distracted by a bag of turkey jerky.  And can I just say that turkey jerky smells horrible?  He opened it up in the van and I almost had to pull over and let the two of them walk home together.

Tuesday, I needed to get my 8 mile walk in.  I kept putting it off, and just had to get it done.  I was nervous, because my last 8 mile attempt didn't go so well.  But it was a gorgeous morning....



... and my ankle didn't give me problems at all.  I even had a slightly better time than normal.  3.8mph instead of 3.7.  =)

Wednesday, I finally got to spend the day cleaning.  Not that you can really tell, but I felt like I busted my butt all day.  As a reward, this came...



It's time to begin the Sock Monkey blanket!  I'm pretty much making this up as I go, so let's hope it goes well.

Then today was a total bust.  The girls had an awards assembly this morning.


Olivia got Principal's Honor Roll (all A's), Accelerated Reader, and Citizenship
 

Isabelle got AB Honor Roll and Citizenship

I didn't get home until after 10am, and it's been really dreary and rainy... I've been stressing out over things.... and I just took a nap.  A long nap.  I woke up in time to eat lunch and go pick up the kids. 

The main thing I've been stressing over is the whole going Paleo thing.  We start it on Sunday and I've been trying to prepare for it.  And then I started second-guessing, and worrying, and fretting.  I finally had my breakthrough (breakdown is probably more like it) and I'm feeling better about it again.  It's just such a huge change. 

Tomorrow is Mommy & Dodo day.  She doesn't have school on Friday, but the other two do, so we'll have some time alone.  She's the only one I ever do get time alone with.... I need to work on that.

So, I didn't get everything done that I wanted to.  Much of any of it, to be honest.  I could seriously take another week off.  Or two.  Or just never go back.  I'd rather not.  People always tell me I would get so bored being a stay at home mom.  But I don't see how I could.  I haven't even watched one minute of TV all week.  Obviously I can keep myself busy. =)  Alas... it is not in the cards for now....

Adding on..

... to my List.  (PS... I put a link up there ^ if you ever want to check up on me)

So, I told you about going Paleo in my last post.  I decided to add that to my List.  I didn't replace anything with it, so it's technically more than 37 things before 37 now, and I am sure it might grow even more, but it's my list and I can do that.  =)

I also added one other thing.



I won't go into all the details on the story, because I just finished crying and don't want to do it again.  But I'm going to make sure that once a month I am in a picture with my kids.  I have already been trying to make more of an effort to be in pictures, but this kind of drove it home.  My kids need pictures of me... whether I live to 41 or 65 or 100.  They need to see that I was there.  

I'll post them here.  In case you want to see my face, too. 

Did that just happen?

One of my 37 things is to read It Starts With Food.  I'm about halfway through it.  To be honest, I can't even remember why I picked that particular book.  It promotes a modified Paleo (Caveman) diet, and I've never had much interest in that.  It's very meat-centered, and Hello!  I'm the one who went vegetarian for a month because I don't eat much meat anyway.  But the book been absolutely fascinating to me so far.  I normally fall asleep reading non-fiction, but I'm reading this like it's a Dean Koontz novel... every chance I get I'm grabbing my Kindle and reading.  I thought, well.... maybe I should at least try the Whole30 plan.  If I don't feel amazing like they say, I don't have to continue it.

In case you don't know what I'm talking about, this is a generalized run down of Paleo.... you eat a lot of meat and vegetables, some fruit, and certain healthy fats.  No sugar.  No grains.  No dairy. No processed foods.

Source: blog.emeals.com via Kaia on Pinterest

I've come to a point in my whole weight-loss quest that I don't flip out over cutting something out that I love.... if there is a benefit to it, I'll try it.  They give very interesting reasons for not eating the things they restrict you from.  If it actually is as beneficial as they state, it would be worth not eating some of my favorite things (Craisins... I love you, but alas, you're sweetened).

I guess I'll try anything once.

I only had two things keeping me from committing to it.  #1 - they even admit that sugar withdrawal is horrid and you're going to have a bad time the first week or so.  I guess, thanks for the warning, but geez.  Not really something I would look forward to.  #2 - doing it alone in a house of people who think junk food is a food group.  I do a pretty good job staying out of the cookies and granola bars and Little Debbie, but how tempting will it be when I'm ready to stab someone for a taste of sugar?

I was going to finish the book before making the decision to commit.

Then, today, I came home from work and Bill was packing his lunch for tonight.  It wasn't very healthy, never is.  And I guess his pants were a little difficult to button today or something, because he started moaning about how he needed to do something about it.  So I just mentioned the book I'm reading and a brief rundown of what a Paleo diet is.

His eyes bulged out when I said "no dairy."  He's a farm-boy... raised on a dairy farm.  He loves cheese more than me sometimes.

But then he said it.

"I'll give it a shot."

Whaaaaaa?

Oh, the kids are going to be ticked off.  The pantry is getting emptied in the next week.  Yes, they have to go along, too.  It's going to be a bumpy ride at first, I'm positive of that.  I hope it's worth it...