Vacation! WOOT WOOT!

Emma and Izzi relax on their pet bed.

I typically take three weeks off a year. The first week in April for my Anniversary, a week in August for my husbands Birthday, and a week in November for my birthday. Which means I AM ON VACATION! Heck yeah! Sadly my hubby cannot join me on vacation - since he does not get paid time off in his job, but that doesn't mean we aren't going to have some fun this week.

I injured my wrist a bit from all the work I was doing on my "Fugly Blanket" (Apparently I cannot crochet for hours a day every day for weeks on end and not have my wrist protest! Lesson learned!) So I have not worked on any knitting or crochet for a few days now. It was really depressing as I really wanted to crank out more yards of scrap on my blanket! But I have been keeping myself busy enough that I haven't had time to be too sad.

Saturday after weight-in and work outs, we drove down to an outlet mall in Southern Minnesota and did a little shopping. I had a sales lady be so aggressive with me at one of the stores that I put my credit card back in my purse and walked away from my shirt (a shirt that I had taken the time to try on and make sure I really wanted) and left the store without purchasing it. I don't know why people have to be SO aggressive with the sales promotions, suggestive selling, etc.... It was insane.

The rest of our shopping there was pretty uneventful. We talked to a woman in one shop about knitting which was fun. And I purchased a little summer dress and a really cute vest at a store that I thought was way to young for me to shop at until I shopped at it. (Apparently dropping out of plus sized opens a lot of shopping doors!) And then we stopped at Bath & Bodyworks and got some shower gel and hand soap.

We also ran to Cabella's to look at their shoe selection for men. No purchases there. I had a few choice words to say about the Mini-donuts being sold at the entrance of the shop though. The smell was INSANE and I WANTED them. But I held strong and did not cave in. Go me! Go will power! I haven't talked a whole lot about my weight loss in here lately - but I am on the cusp of a 50 pound loss. I have been slowly slowly losing this weight and I feel like I really need to step it up. I am still overweight and still have too much weight on my joints. And the stronger and healthier I get the more I want to do and the better I feel - physically and mentally. The extra weight I carried for so long was really being carried in my heart and soul as well as my body. So I am feeling the weight coming off in every sense of the word!

To that end we went for a bike ride yesterday. I have a really nice bike that my hubby purchased for me when I graduated college. I have barely ridden it in the years I have owned it and have been a little fearful of it in honesty. I road bike A LOT in the first 20 years of my life. I would bike out to see my boyfriend when I was a teenager and he lived 15 miles away and over a lot of country roads. I didn't get my license to drive until I was 18, so I had to bike to get around. Anyway, yesterday we took out bikes out to a really nice bike trail in Cannon Falls, MN. It is a railroad track that they paved and it's a really smooth and easy ride, and it was a wonderful reintroduction into riding my bike. It was so easy in fact, that we put on 20 MILES! We road 10 miles down to the station in Welch, and then road into town and stopped at the ice cream shop and we split a Strawberry Smoothie. Which tasted like heaven! We sat out on the steps and watched the world go by while we took turns eating the smoothie. It was wonderful. Then back on the bikes and 10 miles back to Canon Falls where we parked our car. It was just the most perfect day. :)

We were both pretty quiet on the ride back home as we were both pretty tired. Today I am feeling it. My butt hurts and I feel a little wind and sun burn (because of course we never thought of sun screen!) and all my muscles have that lovely ache in them that speaks toward some really good use.

And now it's Monday morning and I am NOT at work and life is so very very good! YAY VACATION!