03/11/2010 21:08
No no no no.....
So, I'm feeling better today.....however, I have cramps now!! Ugh. I was 3 days late and woke up with cramps this morning. Great. Oh, well. Whats one more day of feeling like crap. Tomorrow I have a tennis match. I have an alternate player who could sub for me if I need her to, but I am just going to bite the bullet and hope that I still feel well enough tomorrow. Its been a long 10 days of being sick. I've gained about 6 pounds...I think? I never did weigh in on Tuesday! Why? I've just been eating my way through being sick. I even had ice cream last night! So unlike me. I'm really uncomfortable and need to get back down to my 5 pound range.
So, I'm feeling somewhat better, yet, I'm still in bed doing nothing. Its sunny outside and I should go out and take the dogs for a walk or something. But I really need to get my house cleaned up. I've tried to do a little something every day and my oldest daughter has been helping me, but I need to do some deep cleaning.....and am still feeling too weak to tackle it. Maybe I just need to force myself into action. I've been such a sick, weak, slug for so long now, its like all I remember. I can count on one hand how many times I've left my house in the past week and a half.....and I can count on one finger how many times I wore makeup! lol Oh, no, wait, two. Once to the movies and once to a tennis match on Sunday that I had no business playing in. I was like a zombie.
Ok, enough complaining. I'm gonna go jump in the shower, put on my ham pants, and take these poor doggies out for a walk. Somewhere......then I'll do the dishes and vacuum. Tomorrow, real life begins.
03/07/2010 00:59
Sick of being sick
I've been so sick since my last post. Just logged on to read my comments; thank you so much. I'm going to make it my number one priority to respond to all messages/emails/facebook/EPinbox asap...just gotta get over this weird illness. I've had everything in the book: sore throat, achy body, headache, chills, fever, vomiting, and congestion. I was tripping out when I spent Wednesday throwing up...I cannot remember the last time I've ever thrown up, years, I'm guessing. I think I went from being dehydrated, to possibly having food poisoning, to having a stomach flu, to now just a common cold. I'm just really weak and congested now. I have slept so much the past several days and yet, I'm still tired. Today I've managed to do the dishes, take a break, take a shower, take a break. I think its the ultimate in grossness to skip a shower....I've had one every day except for yesterday. I just couldn't muster the energy to get myself out of bed. I laid on the couch and watched two movies last night to be sure that I could sleep through the night. Course, I was falling asleep the last 15 minutes of A Serious Man (a big snore of a movie, anyway!) We also watched The Hurt Locker last night. Trying to knock out as many nominated movies as possible. I'm forcing myself to go the movies tonight with DH. Its taken me 2 hours to get dressed, but I'm gonna make it! lol I can't imagine that I'm contagious at this point. We're gonna see Up in the Air. That will leave us with 8 movies unseen before the Oscars tomorrow. Sucks that I've been sick because usually this is the week that I do a movie marathon. Oh, well. I love the Oscars and always do a huge spread. This year its going to be simple because a) I don't have the energy and b) I don't need to add insult to injury (see below).
One thing about me when I get sick is that I don't even remotely lose my appetite. No, no, no. I eat everything in sight!!!!! I get ravenously hungry!!!! I refuse to weigh myself until Tuesday, which is my normal weigh in day, and I'm hoping that I'll no longer be sick by then, and that my body will have settled down a bit. My husband bought one of those Tanita body compostion scales. Fun. I know from experience that its going to be at least 2 pounds higher than my current scale. I'm just not really sure I WANT to know my body fat or water weight or whatever else it does! I think I'm in for a rude awakening. However, having said that, assuming that I am no longer sick on Tuesday, I intend to record all that the Tanita keeps track of, in addition to including my measurements. I have a goal date of 4/20 since thats when I leave for my annual Spring shopping spree in Southern California and will be reuniting with my ex-best friend who I have just started speaking to a couple months ago, after not having spoken for 6 years, after 11 years of being best friends. Some of you who have been reading my blog for a few years, may recall me driveling on about this relationship. I need to look and feel my best for this reunion. She saw my article in Health magazine a few years and apparently it inspired her to lose weight, too.
I am ready to get serious about running and watching what I eat again after spending the week sick in bed. I cannot believe I have a tennis match tomorrow. I was hoping it would get rained out. I should think about contacting the alternate to maybe take my place. Or I can forfeit. Tennis season is upon me big time, so its also time to think about fitting into my skirts! :0
Catch up with yall soon! :) xoxox
03/02/2010 21:37
New Orleans
We got back from New Orleans yesterday afternoon. We had a blast! We got in late Friday night and went straight to dinner at Emeril Lagasse's restaurant, Nola. Loved it! My rib eye was not the best, but overall, it was an awesome dining experience. The staff are pros!!! I did not save time for dessert, even though I wanted the banana bread pudding with drunken monkey ice cream and caramel sauce! :( After dinner, we took a cab over to a place called Check Point Charlies to listen to some blues and have a beer. Interesting crowd. Very dead. Must've been early (11:30 pm!) or late? lol This town never sleeps.
Saturday we slept in longer than we had hoped, but we were jet lagged and didn't get to bed until late. I was having a hard time sleeping and didn't feel very well, so It must've been about 4am by the time I fell asleep. We left the hotel around 11:00 and walked over to Cafe du Monde for beignets and cafe au lait. OMG delish! I can't stop dreaming about them!! I'm going to order some online so that I can make them myself at home and indulge! :) After that, we walked around the French Quarter for a bit, went in some shops on Royal Street, and then headed on the 45 minute walk over to Parasols, which is a place we had seen on Drivers, Drive-ins, & Dives on the Food Network with Guy Fieri. It was an interesting walk! We went through some eery neighborhoods in the Garden District to get there, but it was well worth it. Its this tiny little dive (the restroom was so disgusting!) with about 9 tables all crammed together on one side and the bar is on the other side. I ordered the roast beef po'boy and DH had the Italian sausage po'boy. I wanted him to get the ham, because on TV it looked awesome, but whatever. ;) It was sooo good. I slathered it with Louisiana Crystal hot sauce. Yum.
After lunch we headed back over to the French Quarter and Bourbon Street. What a sight! Bands playing in the street, people walking around with open containers....you can order your beer or whatever "to go"!! This was shocking to us and took us a bit to get used to! But we had fun people watching. All together, we walked for over 6 hours. We went back to the room and changed for dinner, which was at Ruths Chris. Yum. We wanted something more local but didn't plan in advance and couldn't get in anywhere within walking distance! lol I was done walking at that point. Got to bed around midnight, cuz I can never sleep the night before a race. I got about 5.5 hours, so it was fine.
Sunday we got up at 5:45 to get ready for the race. I was feeling pretty determined. We walked 15 minutes to the starting line and ran together for the first 2.5 miles, then Corey took off and left me in his wake. I plugged along and was doing pretty good until about mile 6 when my left knee started hurting really badly. But I just ran through it and just kept telling myself to put one foot in front of the other and keep running. The pain intensified around mile 11 and I was getting kind of worried but I knew I had to keep running because walking would a) make it worse and b) I was afraid I wouldn't be able to start running again. I stopped at mile 4 to use the restroom but thats the only time I stopped. No walking this time. I was very happy to cross the finish line and although I thought at several points throughout the race that I would be able to make my personal best, I missed it by 5 minutes. So, I finished in 2:25 and it was my second best time out of the 6 half marathons that I've done in past 2.5 years. My best time was my first half in San Jose 2007 (2:20).
After the race I hung around the finish line a bit....iced my feet, went to the medic to have ice packs taped to both my knees (my right knee of course started killing me eventually, too, especially when I stopped), went to pick up my tote bag with my sweatshirt, got a beer (at 10:00am! lol it was free), then sat down and cried for a few minutes. I get so emotional when I finish a race!! I have thoughts like "I run because my mom can't" but then I think, heck, she couldn't even run when she was alive! lol But for me, the emotions just race to the surface....relief, happiness, sadness, etc. I knew that my husband would be a couple hours (he did the full marathon) so I took the shuttle back to the hotel and took a shower and a nap. He got in about 2 hours after me; his time was 4:33. We got dressed and hobbled (I could barely walk but we slowly made our way the few blocks) to get some lunch. We shared crab cakes and a muffaletta at Pierre Maspero's near Jackson Square, grabbed a beer in a to go cup (because we can!!! lol) and then went back to the room and took a 4 hour nap!!! We woke up at 9:30, ordered room service, watched a show about haunted houses in New Orleans, and then went back to sleep because we had an early flight in the morning.
And now we are home! I loved New Orleans, I'm proud of myself for doing another race, and I'm happy with my time. I might not be doing a half marathon any time soon....I've learned that my knees just cannot take more than 6 to 8 miles, so I might be only doing 10K's in the future. I had a rest day yesterday and might rest my legs some more today....we walked sooooo much and then ran and then imagine being on an airplane all day yesterday....yea, my legs hurt!
02/25/2010 00:32
wow time flies!
Where in the heck have I been? (on facebook! lol) Hows everyone doing? Is anyone blogging anymore? I keep saying I'm gonna blog more....I started a new WordPress blog in January but its pissing me off. I get more "comments" (read: spam) there than I care to receive. Its really annoying. I wanted a place to write about stuff a little bit more anonymously and not necessarily about weight. This one is for weight maintenance, but I have a food blog, too, and then my new one that Ive only posted a couple times. So much for streamlining. I like you guys here so much better anyway!! :) You guys rock. Its hard to believe that in May I will have been blogging here for 4 years!!! 4 years ago I weighed 180!!! Crazy. So, I've had my ups and downs, currently experiencing a slight "upage", but I don't want to go into it right now. I've been struggling with my eating lately. And exercise. I don't know why I expect to see the scale go the other way! Basically, I've been traveling a lot and eating out. Thankfully I've been able to avoid fast food for 63 days now!! :) I try so hard to avoid bread, but once I eat even a little, its like crack for me and I can't stop. We recently went from buying only organic produce and dairy to now meat & poultry. I don't worry so much about bread and grains, though. I buy whole wheat bread for sandwiches and I figure thats good enough.
So, I had the luxury of going down to Palm Springs for Valentines Day Weekend to meet "GirlNextDoor"!! I adore her!! She was so sweet and pretty and happy!! Even after running 13.1 miles!!! Anyway, we ran the first 10 miles together and then she ran like the wind and left me in her wake! LOL My knees were killing me so I had to stop and walk a few times. Plus, I had the misfortune of ToM that day, so I had to stop at the porta potty twice. Anyway, my time was 2:40 and I was only behind Donna by about 3 minutes. I sure wish I could have forced myself to catch up and cross the finish line with her, but it wasn't meant to be. :(
I'm leaving for New Orleans on Friday to run another half marathon. I'm excited about it because I've never been to NOLA before and I've always wanted to go. After Katrina, I had pretty much given up on that dream, but they are working so hard to get tourism up...so much so that they are doing their first Rock & Roll race!! Which is what brings us finally to The Big Easy.
.......my dog just bumped my arm and made me accidentally post before I was ready....
Oh, well, I guess I'm ready afterall. I need to go start making my spaghetti sauce for dinner and I need to walk the dogs and go for a run. I'll try to be better at blogging and keeping in touch. 
01/26/2010 21:55
Dreary
Ok, so I never got a callback on the Gordon Ramsay thing. I'm sure its because I was nervous and just not outspoken enough. I was too reserved and polite. I should have been like the girl next to me and claimed to have dreamed of having my own singing chef show! lol There were some real whack jobs there. They loved my prawns, though. It was a fun experience.
So, my stupid husband woke up sick this morning. Ugh. I look so forward to Tuesdays and Thursdays when he actually goes into his office!!! So, I'd been looking forward to today since last Thursday!! And now I will just have to look forward to this Thursday and hope and pray that he feels better!! I need my space!! He was very sweet to go with me to the audition on Sunday, though. I wanted to go alone, but he thought I'd like to have his company while waiting 4 hours in the rain. I will admit it was nice to have been dropped off in the city downtown and not have to worry about parking. Plus, he held the umbrella. lol So, it was fine.
Today begins week 2 of me and my husbands little The Biggest Loser challenge. I was 140 last week and 140 again this morning. I got ahead of myself by putting 139 in the other day. Wishful thinking. I had a stressful week and ate too much. Do you know that the last time I had fast food was well over a month ago??? It was the Monday before Christmas, so December 21st. And it was a Double Double cheeseburger from In N Out and some fries. Thats about the last time I played Farmville on Facebook, too. Anyway, my loss for week 1 was 0 and my husband, being sick, did not weigh in, so his is "?" He is so puffy and swollen. Freaky. He is not a good patient. I think I will read for a little bit then head out to see who might accept my $50.00 Amex gift card. ERG!! No one takes Amex. Whats the point?? Oh, and I'm reading the most boring book by Elizabeth Gilbert. Its called Committed. I don't recommend it. I'm about 75% through and I need to be done.
I am going running at 5:30pm. Period. Tennis has been rained out two weeks in a row. I think we get a break in the rain for a couple days. It just stopped a minute ago. I am so behind on emails. I need to sit down and respond to everyone here and on Facebook. Sorry, just got busy! I took my daughter out for a little shopping and a movie yesterday. It was nice. She loves to shop with me. We got cupcakes at "Frosting" and I got some Valentines.
Alright, rambling over.
01/24/2010 08:38
Big day tomorrow!
Tomorrow morning I am venturing into the city to submit my prawn
dish and application to participate on Gordon Ramsay’s new show,
MasterChef! I only just found out about it on Thursday and it was on a
whim that I decided it might be fun. The first and most important
question is: can I be gone for potentially 5 weeks????? My answer is: I
will miss my dogs and my family. I only put the dogs first because I
know that my dogs will miss me soooo much and my kids and husband will
be fine without me. I’ll miss them so much, though. If I get chosen, I
don’t really expect to make it too far, and I certainly don’t expect to
be the last man standing! It just sounds like a great opportunity and I
won’t know if I have a shot unless I try! So, wish me luck! I’m
bringing my Chile-Cilantro-Lime Prawns. I did two presentations and am
still undecided on which one I’m going with.
01/22/2010 23:56
Ouch!!!
I have a really bad kink in my shoulder and it got 100 times worse when
I put my T-shirt on after taking a shower today. I am in debilitating
pain right now and I can't even believe I can type! In fact, its one of
the few positions that it doesn't hurt quite as much. Anyway, I am in a
lot of pain. I took a pain pill that I have for my knees. I don't take
pain pills unless I absolutely have to. I feel like crap today. I was planning on going out to run a few
errands, but I don't think driving is a possibility. I'm going to have
to get my husband to pick up my daughter.
Exercise? What exercise? Pretty much non-existent. I wanted to go
running so badly yesterday, but it rained all friggin' day. 4 days in a
row of rain! Crazy. Its not raining now, but hello, my shoulder! Theres
no way I can go running in the pain I'm in. What I need is to get a
really good nights sleep and tomorrow will be a much better day. Except
that its 2:30 pm.....and bedtime is a ways off. I might take a nap.
Oh, my list. I ordered some new sheets last night and I have the paperwork filled out for the cap and gown. Just need to write a check and mail it in. I also ordered her announcements and instead of a ring, we decided on a necklace. A whole lot cheaper, too!! So, I'm very slowly getting stuff done. I love the sheets I ordered. I think I found a comforter, too, but god they are expensive! Just the sheets alone were $100.00. I don't think I've ever paid that much for sheets, but I had to have these. They have coral colored shells on the hemming. Cute.
To Do List:
- Take my jewelry in to be
repaired
- Update my running song list on my iPod.
- Drive up to the boot consignment shop.
Ok, I'm going to try taking a nap now. The pain pill is making me drowsy. I have a big weekend ahead that I need to be at my best for. I'll write about it later. Oh, and my weight was 139 this morning. Getting there.
01/17/2010 07:29
Updated List (for me)
Things I need to do:
- Take my jewelry in to be
repaired
- Buy new sheets, bedspread, pillows
- Order my daughters cap, gown, & class ring!
- Update my running song list on my iPod.
- Drive up to the boot consignment shop.
01/17/2010 01:19
Weekend
I took my daughter shopping today. She needs teacups and saucers for a school project, so we went to an antique shop, Goodwill, Tuesday Mornings, & Marshalls. We only found one set, plus a sugar bowl, and a little teapot. We're gonna have to check out the Salvation Army and another Goodwill one of these days.
Since we were out, I dragged her to the car wash! Woo Hoo! Crossed that one off my list! :)
Ok, I'm starving. Gotta go find something to eat. Also, I either need to go the grocery store or convince my husband to take us out to dinner tonight. I do not have the energy to go running today. Tom arrived and I have cramps. I will make my best effort to go running tomorrow. I need to wash my new workout stuff anyway.
Shelley
01/16/2010 03:21
Accomplishments
I crossed a few things off my list today. I tried the jeans on and one pair is way too big and the other ones fit and aren't as long as I thought. I just need to wear heels. I'm washing them to see if that helps. Duh. I was going to take them in to be altered before washing them! lol So, I think that one just took care of itself!
I got some new workout clothes today. I needed long pants and long sleeves.
I returned my black tennis skirt, but JCrew didn't have the top any more. I'll have to order it online and then send the other one back.
I visited Carmen!!! Jim wasn't home. I lied and said I had a dentist appointment and had to rush! Its the only way. Actually, Donna, I do what you suggested all the time. We usually stop on our way to the dentist or orthodontist. The kids dread visiting them. But they love us so much and they are getting old. Jim just turned 79. And he has the hots for me! lol I stayed for an hour. So glad I went!
I didn't run today. Loser. But I did play tennis last night for an hour and half and had a blast!
I'm about to order the cap and gown in a bit. I feel better just having gotten those few things done!! :)
