things i did on my "stay-cation"

1. read a book
2. camped by a pretty little creek
3. ate great food
4. drank delicious beer
5. went to the coast
6. caught up on some DVR
7. petted the cat
8. slept
9. hung out in our boat drinking beer
10. walked (a little)
11. went to an amazing concert
12. celebrated theboy's bday
13. got engaged!

i'll say it was a very successful time away from work making it even more difficult to come back.

i didn't mean to, honest....

i didn't mean to disappear after i'd finally gotten things up and running again. and i especially didn't mean to disappear after throwing out the question of how to exercise with theboy in my life and my eating diaries and all that. i promise.

it's just that since i wrote that all sorts of crazy happened. crazy like construction on my condo and a new car and my parents visiting. and then things like drains clogging and talks of buying a new house and tons of work crazies and suddenly i was having little to no time to blog.

i will tell you that operation "less fat girl, little pants" (lfglp) is going well over the past couple weeks. i've been hanging out with the doctor/trainer when our schedules allow but have also done a good job of reintroducing running into the mix.

it's been 5 years since i ran my first marathon (3 since my last) and at some point a couple years ago after my knee injury, my body just stopped wanting to run, so i let it. but then a couple weeks ago i was out for a walk and i suddenly had this urge to run. so i ran my normal 3 mile walk course and was amazed at how great i felt, how strong my body is and how unbelievable it is that our bodies can do that. another marathon's not on my list right now, but i'm pleased to be introducing the running back into the mix.

i've also been doing so well with my eating! even on my bad days, i'm still eating much smaller portions and lately have been extra enjoying my weekly organic fruit and vegetable box. (plus my work started a small farmer's market and i've been picking up some extra produce there from my co-workers gardens). last night i made dinner for theboy - a yummy whole wheat pasta with roasted tomatoes, zucchini, shallots, basil and olive oil (all but the oil from co-workers or organics). yum! and i'm excited to have leftovers for lunch today.

theboy and i are taking a stay-cation next week complete with a couple days of OR camping and whatnot, but i hope to get back on the regular update train soon.

in other news...

avocado watch 2009 is still on. i've eaten through my whole stash, but theboy just let me know that we have plenty more. (for those of you not following me elsewhere, we ended up with something like 26 ripe avocados so it's been all we've eaten morning, noon and night).

however, i did accidentally eat at mcdonald's two times while we were camping last weekend. well, not accidentally. that stuff is like crack to me and i try not to eat it, but twice (driving both ways) we ended up in a total bind and it was the easiest thing to shove down my hatch. (read: not exactly the best weight loss program).

the next few weeks are a bit chaotic for me with work travel and family visits and whatnot so i'm banking on the end of July and August to be the official kick-off to get yourself back together 2009. my biggest struggle is how to manage working out and being in a relationship. in the past (like when i was training for marathons or super fit or whatever), i was always in a relationship with healthy eating and working out. now, although theboy is super supportive, we have bowling league and family/friend engagements and the hope to just sometimes spend time together which makes the whole in a relationship with the gym bit more difficult. i've cut almost all drinking out of my diet, but man my ass needs to get on a treadmill and be introduced to the gym more often than the once a week when i pay for a friend and a workout. ugh! any thoughts on this one? and before you spout off telling me to get up earlier, let me just point out that i am not a morning person (just ask my mom - it's not even worth speaking to me before i'm awake much less asking me to get up earlier).

the upside is that i randomly found my silver matte dome ring previously thought to have been misplaced at the hilton hotel in bellevue, wa plus i got a couple other cute fun rings...

listy

in an effort to keep myself on track from a dietary perspective, i though i might sometimes share what i eat each day (this will also help me post regularly).

and, i'd like to mix these food lists with someone other random dribble.

for instance:

so far today, i have consumed:

• Breakfast:
• 2 TJ's banana waffles with syrup (mmmm, these taste like yum!)
• one handful of bing cherries secured at last thursday's local farmer's market
• 1/3 of my cup of decaf coffee with splenda and skim milk (mostly b/c whomever made the coffee today, made it so weak that it was like milk flavored water - ick!)

• AM Snack:
• 1 stick reduced fat string cheese
• one handful bing cherries (see above)
• 5 saltine crackers (free from work)

• Lunch:
• one whole wheat tortilla
• one can tuna
• some mayo
• copious amounts of spinach
• 1/3 of my water bottle, plus a can of sparkling water (free from work)

My bi-weekly delivery of organic fruits and vegetables arrives today so that will help dictate what i inhale for dinner. i also plan to attempt my old 3-mile running course plus do some home weight lifting in my living room. this may or may not be jillian michaels style (just kidding, i never make myself work out hard enough to puke).

in other related (or actually completely unrelated) randomness, last night we started our new summer bowling league and boy oh boy are we in for a treat. some of our old league friends are still playing along, but we have some interesting new characters including old bedazzler (a man who was wearing an eagle bedazzled on his t-shirt and a "503" baseball cap), hard core bowler (an 18-year old who has been bowling every saturday since he was 4) and everyone will hate me guy (the tatooed loud mouth who announced during our team meeting that everyone would either love or hate him by the end of the season).

can't wait to see who we play next week...

Loser

i seem to be losing things left and right lately, mostly accessories. In the past few weeks, I've lost all of the following:

• 2 of the 5 rings belonging to my stackable ring set - one fell into the deep wastebasket in the women's bathroom at work, the other i lost in the LA airport. for the record, i did dig through a portion of the wastebasket, but then go embarrassed and just let it go.
• my silver matte dome ring. i took it with me to seattle a couple weeks ago, i did not return home with it
• my fabulous silver flower ring, the last time i saw it was on my cruise

the good news is that none of these was expensive (thankfully), but they were some of my current favorite accessories, no more.

in other good news, today i'm wearing a button down shirt and the ladies aren't busting out of it so if that's not a good monday, i don't know what is.

Fatty McFatterson

i haven't been posting here b/c i haven't been feeling particularly inspired to share the sordid details of my weight gain with the world.

the boy and i recently took a cruise and then i came home and managed to binge on things like cheeseburgers and beer with no exercise until suddenly i realized about a week ago that i now weigh as much as i did when i moved to pdx 4 years ago (and was also very unhappy) and that i only have two pairs of pants to wear which is why i've actually been wearing dresses to work 2-4 days a week. not, as i previously thought, because i suddenly enjoyed how feminine they make me feel.

since i lost about 15 pounds 4 years ago, i've, for the most part, been really good about eating well and exercising and have managed to stay within about 3-4 pounds of that weight until recently. last week i realized that i've gone so far past the point of no return that i no longer have the motivation to fix this on my own and that i needed to go back to training with a professional to keep me on track.

enter last night:

last night i might have fibbed to my trainerfriend about how much i had been working out and also maybe told her i wanted to be sore today. so, as asked, she kicked my fat little ass and went all jillian michaels on me, to the point where i almost threw up on her gym floor. (thankfully, she suddenly realized i was white as a sheet and made me go lay down and do ab exercises lest i projectile vomit while lifting weights).

i'm pleased to say that today, i feel only moderately sore with what i'm sure is a complete freeze up of unused muscles coming tomorrow. my biggest discomfort today comes in the form of a pain between my two seemingly gigantic ass cheeks where they rubbed up the bicycle seat for far longer than they would've preferred. yep, you heard it here first, my ass cheeks are a whining.

anyway, since i can't regale you with dating stories since theboy is pretty much fantastic and even cooked me a healthy dinner last night for my post-workout nutritution, you now get to spend the next few months with me figuring out how to get back into my size 4 clothes and dealing with my body whining every time i deny it a beer and offer it a 12-lb weight.

cheers.

ps - i totally have a little girl crush on jillian michaels. her angry demeanor seems to work for people and her 30-day shred is a great quick workout when i don't have time for much else.

tight skin

one of the side effects of a year of bliss with TheBoy, is the recent tightness of my skin. as in, the wee bit of weight i've gained.

even though we drink much less than we did in our initial months of courtship, we now cook and eat dinner together 3-4 nights a week and occasionally splurge on celebratory dinners, bday dinners and other such nonsense.

while i love the opportunity to be able to have dinner with him (and damn is he a good cook), we can't really eat my skinny girl diet of veggies with a blip of protein. he's a meat and potatoes kind of guy and now i have a meat and potatoes kind of ass.

we're headed out on an adventure in a couple months and my goal is to at least not to feel all fat girl, little pants by then.

ah, bf bliss.

just a thought really

i know it's february 2nd and we were all pretty excited this morning to see if punxsutawney phil would see his shadow (and send us 6 more weeks of winter) or not.

and, i admittedly, was hoping he wouldn't see his shadow b/c i'm ready for the spring/summer and light nights and camping and outdoor goodness.

but, i'm also a realist, and it was 30 degrees outside my house today and i had to scrape some ice off my car.

so...i'm still wearing my winter clothes. and no sandals/ open-toed shoes to work...yet. so, WHY did you?! it's freezing!

side note, i know this thing is dying a slow death. the boy and the stable/non-datingness that is now my life has sort of, no really limited, the amount of fodder i have for this place. there's not much to share about things like cooking dinner together and then watching our favorite show on dvr or say, watching the super bowl with all our other married friends while eating pizza and buffalo wings or running errands for things like new car batteries and laundry detergent on a saturday. boring for the blog, but domestically blissful.

my most exciting news...we joined a bowling league and got new bowling balls and shoes!


see where i'm coming from here? i promise i'll sporadically update this thing if/when i have something to report. (like the open toed shoes in feb.!)

ummm, i guess...

this just in! there are some very strange people out there, innernets. take this for example...

remember this guy? well i do. i remember him and all his creepy texts and i tell his little "story" whenever someone needs to hear some sort of dating nightmare a la moi.

friday night i get a random text "where u at?" from a number i don't recognize.

i respond "who is this?"

response: "this is {shortened version of creepy texter's name} u {my name}"

i spent a good 15 minutes trying to figure out who this person was when finally it dawned on me that creepy texter is now going by the shortened version of his name.

i did not respond.

guessing he was spreading a little holiday cheer. um, i guess it's normal to reach out to people that never responded to you in the first place....especially a year later.

and a happy holiday to you too, ct!

dreamy

innernets: i'm back. done with all of my work related travel for the year. yippee! (well aside from that one quick day trip to seattle next week, but who can really call that a work trip).

i've changed my routine a bit (to deal with what i affectionately call the chunky monkey) and for some reason i've been remembering all sorts of crazy dreams.

three snippets from last night:

1. i'm floating down the river (on a giant rock no less) and i call over some cattails to ask one of my reports to work on something. when i get to the bottom of the river i begin to push the rock back up the hill.
2. my evil stepmother (from my childhood) goes into a bakery with my half sister and my then, step sister while i wait outside. when they return everyone has a big dreamy cupcake but there's not one for me. when i ask why, she says she didn't have money to get me one so she didn't
3. the boy and are on some grand adventure and there's a sick puppy (or maybe a sick kid?). it finally goes to sleep and i go to snuggle up to him and he turns me away.

what does all this crazy subconscious thought madness mean. can't a girl just get a solid sleep?

nope, not stressed at all

wanna know how i know? b/c i just went to the bathroom to pee and looked down at my underwear only to realize they were on backwards. yep, i've been wearing them backwards since 6:30 this morning.

clearly my head is in a great place (not!).

side note, i'm going missing again. it's time for my crazy work travel schedule where i will be flitting around the US and the world until early december.

see you later alligator.

why i love working in cubeland

i just printed out some items to take to a meeting that i have in a few minutes. when i walked over to the printer to pick them up, the printer was not working b/c it was jammed.

fear not. one of my trusty co-workers had printed out instructions on how to fix the problem with the printer (from another printer i can only assume), then found some tape and taped them to the inoperable printer. my co-worker did not, however, fix said printer with said instructions.

really?! really. you took the time to print out instructions on how to fix and managed to find tape to print them to the printer but you didn't actually fix it? c'mon.

note: i chose not to fix the printer either. i will always fix the printer/ copier when i break it, but i am above this nonsense.

instead i'm telling the innernets.

must be skimping

i literally just looked at my elbows (no idea why i was looking at my elbows other than an excuse not to work for a few mins) and on both arms elephant elbows!

i've never had elephant elbows in my life! ever! and i'm from CO, the driest place on earth. i now i live in pdx where it rains 98% of the time - i can't even keep my hair straight, how can i have elephant elbows?!

have i been missing this spot with lotion for the last 47 months?! that's pretty much the only explanation.


side note: there is zero exaggeration in this post. and also zero sarcasm. but seriously?! elephant elbows?!

now i know...

• that if told the only way i can go to sit down in my seat AND have a beer, i will put a lid on my beer and drink it through a straw. i will also hate every minute of it and feel like a plastic cup ruined my $5+ beer.
• that if i accidentally run into my ex (who incidentally asked me to never speak to him again) and his new wife, i will pretend i did not see them both to protect my new beau from the awkwardness and as a mature way of dealing with the above never speaking.
• if an experience seems to be truly amazing the first time you experience it, it might be best to just let that ride and not try to recreate
• donning an apron and cooking dinner for the boy, plus putting together a little leftover set-up for his lunch the next day will not insult the feminist side of me, but instead make me feel sexy
• cleaning gutters on a saturday, in a raincoat and an oversized tee will bring lots of giggles and an unexpected closeness
• the words "you do more for me than you even know..." can give me butterflies in my stomach.

now i know.

the sweetest thing

last weekend i had the opportunity to do/ experience something that i have never ever witnessed.

the boy and i took an impromptu trip to SF - a last minute work trip extended into a weekend trip, some frequent flyer and hotel miles and what would have been an overly costly excursion suddenly became more than financially feasible.

the kicker was that the boy hasn't been on a plane in 30 years (and well, i travel multiple times per month). i'd been planting the plane seed (to someone who's afraid of heights) for quite sometime, but the opportunity arose much more quickly than i'd expected and when i broached the subject, i honestly thought he'd say "no".

much to my delight, he quickly realized that this was a great opportunity and push for him to get over his fear and he quickly committed to the weekend. prior to his departure on friday we had a long discussion about airport check-ins and regulations, what to expect, etc. but i never ever thought he'd have the reaction to traveling that he did.

when i picked him up at the airport on friday night he was the equivalent of a 5-year-old at christmas and could not stop talking about the various aspects of his trip, what he saw, how he experienced it, what he said, etc. it was literally one of the most joyous moments of my life.

b/c i travel all of the time, i forget what it's like for others - the excitement of going somewhere or the take-off of it all and it was so neat to share that sense of wonderment with someone.

it also helped that the weekend was fantastic and we spent the entire time plotting for our next sf adventure.

a doozy

most of my professional life, i've been vying for an opportunity to move to another city or another country. not too awful long ago, i put myself up for a position in london b/c i was dying for a change AND a professional opportunity. the opportunity would have been mine had the funding not completely fell by the wayside.

i just got offered an opportunity to literally take my pick of places to go and i have no idea what decision to make. i have some time to think on it for sure.

i've tried all sides of the coin in the past (b/c apparently coins no longer just have two sides) - moving regardless of the boy's needs, moving b/c of the boy's needs, not moving b/c of my needs, moving b/c of my needs and i don't have the foggiest idea on where to begin here. i don't even know if i should tell him. what i should tell him. how i should tell him.

i'm not even sure we're there....yet. i have some questions to ask on both sides and some thinking to do. but this is a position i don't think i want to be in b/c i don't have a crystal ball and i kind of need one right now.

sigh.

California Dreamin' (or something)

was in LA for a couple days this week. randomly greeted at the rental car place by a white mazda miata convertible. so CA...

spent most of my time driving it, thinking i was going to die in a fiery crash on a CA highway (especially when my face was at the same level of most SUV's mid rim). but yesterday on my way back to the airport, i put the top down, let the breeze flow through my hair and i drove that car!

i spent my driving kind of wishing i was still in my early 20s (and not in LA) where maybe someone would've noticed me, maybe the boys would've whistled or someone would've taken a second glance. i don't miss those times most of the time, but int that car, in that city (where everyone is a size minus zero and frankly, i'm not), i wished to be someone else.

it was fun, but i gladly turned that car in to return to my city, my trees, my fresh air, my boy, my house - all the things that define who i am today.

it was fun to look back, but mostly i'm just excited about moving forward.

one of my favorites

coming off the last great group camping trip of the summer only to realize that fall is really here. it was obvious in the woods this weekend, it got dark so early and i was chilled during the night; glad to have someone to snuggle up to when i got cold.

on our way home yesterday i commented again on the shorter and shorter days and the turning leaves all while we made plans for things like stew and football and movies and winter things. of course when it's in the 90s it doesn't feel so much fall and we'll likely still sneak out for a few more camping weekends before we have to switch to cozy inns at the beach.

mmmm, great winter brews and cozy blankets, snuggling - all good fall things.

this morning i took my first fall shower (the one where it's still dark when i look out the window) and it was cold in the bathroom even though i knew it would be a hot day. it might be my favorite season made extra special this year by people and things around me.

making fall plans is enough to get me through any work week.

things i've lost

this week.

• my favorite hair brush
• a chocolate bar
• my cell phone

for some reason i think i might be under a lot of stress, that's the only way i can explain this as i never lose things.

nope, still nothing

i'm finally back from vacation and whatnot. in town just this week and then out and about for the next two.

i still don't have anything to share here. if this were an anonymous blog and you were all readers who didn't know me or anything about me, i'd have plenty to say but b/c of our circumstances i'm blank.

i'm toying with the idea of retiring this thing all together. all things must come to an end.

i'll let you know what i decide.

until then, this is me, signing off.