Saturday! Yay for Weekend!

Its Saturday and that means so many things to me. Saturday is the one day a week I sleep in without worry. If I sleep in on Sunday too late (which I often do!) I have a really hard time going to sleep Sunday night and Monday morning is pretty yucky. Monday already sucks without being exhausted to boot! It's also weight in day. I love that too as any sins I committed the week before (Like that donut that accidentally fell in my mouth last Thursday, eh hem) are washed away and I am reborn with shiny new points to start the week off with. I am still bouncing with the weight. Lost two pounds two weigh-in's ago, last week I gained almost as much back, this week I lost almost a pound despite the donut incident.

I had another really busy week, with much garden work and much knitting. Managed three Zumba work-outs this week. I had to skip my Thursday night Zumba as I finally went in and got my hair did! I am kind of blond now. Not true blond - but we really went light for me with the foil work this time. It's taking a little to get used to it, but I think it looks like summer fun. Makes me want to be tan - which is pretty much a no-no, so maybe it's time for some of that fake tan lotion.

I also made some really good progress on my KAL shawl. I know it was supposed to be done in a week (insert derisive snort here) but two months is apparently more my speed. I finished all the knit portion and am now up to the crochet portion. I am really happy with how it's looking. Here is a shot just after I did a Russian Join (which I LOVE!) and bound off all the stitches. It's 22 inches along the center spine and the top is 50 inches across.

Naturally anything I lay out is just a place for Emma to place her furry little butt, so right after I snapped that picture I snapped this one.

She is so helpful with the holding projects down so they don't run off. That's always a bummer when you spend two months knitting something and then it escapes out the fence. Her services are invaluable.

And then there is this. I am still not sure if I am going to make this into a felted pillow or a large bag? When I told Tom I was thinking about making it into a pillow he stared at me and said why? That center bit is scratchy as hell since it's mohair - so I guess a bag would make more sense. This is one of those projects that is sort of getting away from me and I still work on it but I can't see it's final outcome. Huh. We shall see what it turns into.

This morning will be spent watering my plants, then an hour of Zumba. Not sure yet what this weekend will bring, but hopefully some good stuff. I really want to finish my shawl this weekend - so hopefully I will have some pictures of it all finished in the very near future.

Have a wonderful weekend all!

How does your Garden Grow?

Part of the joy of having a mild winter and a warm spring is that all of our garden's have gone insane much earlier than normal. My Growth Hardiness Zone is in the 4 range here in Minnesota. The rule of thumb for us is that you don't stick a plant in the ground until after Mother's Day - which is the second Sunday in May here in the USA.

 It's still getting cold at night here, but that doesn't seem to stop the perennials from thriving. Which is wonderful! I love looking at my gardens and seeing what is coming up and what made it through the winter. The downside is that I am anxious to get in some annuals and my veggies. I spent a good chunk of time yesterday at some garden centers. They are scrambling to get stuff in. I ended up coming home with 10 bags of cedar mulch for my gardens. Got 7 bags down and the lawn mowed before it rained - which just made everything all that more lush looking.

My Lupine is very happy this year and there are lots of babies shooting up all over the place. I suspect I will be having to transplant some lupine out of this bed in the next year or two as they take off.

I have been slowly scattering my ornaments as well. We can't keep them out over winter or they will shatter, so ever spring I get to put the whimsy back in my gardens. And since the plants grow (and occasionally die) every year things are never the same year to year.

I struggle with hitting the right balance in my beds. This bed is a bit more shrub and fall blooming - so I should really plant some bulbs in here or something to get some Spring blooms. Although in the fall this bed looks really great. Balance is tough.

Our Strawberries are looking pretty good this year and we already have lots of blossoms. There are more bald spots in the bed this year that last year - but I suspect the lack of snow is partly to blame. If we don't get enough snow the plants seem to freeze out a bit. I have some plants in my new butterfly garden that I don't know if they made it. One has come back strong - but two others are barely there. I sort of can't tell if the plants have come back or if I am looking at weeds. Time will tell.

In Health News, I am still going strong with my new healthy life style. I am doing my Zumba 2 for my Wii 4 days a week for 45-60 minutes a shot. Still love it! Am still amazed that I can be dripping with sweat and smiling. It feels good to feel strong! I am still struggling with water consumption. I have no problem drinking a lot of water when I exercise, but on a normal day I struggle a bit more. I know it's important - so I am working on it. I have been taking my vitamins more consistently. I have to take them with food and it pretty much has to be my lunch meal. The vitamins really upset my stomach and breakfast is too light (and too coffee rich) to take vitamins with, and I suspect my taking them with dinner been a factor with my insomnia. So I am trying to remember to take them with lunch every day.

I tell myself every week I will track my points on Weight Watchers, and never make it through a week. I am still trying to drop weight and I know being accountable for what I put in my body will make a difference in my weight results at the end of the week, and yet I fizzle off a couple of days in. So that needs some work. I have shown a small weight loss the last two weeks, so that is moving in the right direction.

OK - This is getting kind of long, so I think I will sign off.  Everyone have a wonderful weekend!

Health, Weight Loss and Feeling good

I haven't talked a whole lot about my health and weight loss lately. I am still trucking along!

Here is a picture of me on Easter a couple weeks back. I am feeling really good and loving all the new clothes I have been having to buy in smaller sizes. (I loved writing that!) There are so many things that I am loving about getting my weight managed, making healthy eating a way of life, and making exercise a part of my life. Things you don't think about or just take for granted.

I have been somewhat stagnant in my weight loss and am still hovering in that ALMOST to 50 pounds mark. I haven't crossed that threshold yet, but I will get there and beyond. Even though the numbers aren't moving much on the scale, I am still shrinking physically. I admit, it's frustrating to weight in week after week and to bounce up and down over the same 5 pounds, but I am still moving in the right direction, and I know plateau happens!

I have been working out with the newest version of Zumba for the Wii. I love it! It's really different in it's graphics, music and exercise then the last one so it was a bit of a shock, but I have to say I find this one far superior to the first at this point.  I am sweating, panting and soar from the exercise - and I LOVE IT!

I still have hopes that I will fall back in love with bike riding, but so far the 20 mile trail ride a few weeks ago is all I have under my belt. Since then I have just been the Zumba Queen.

I am still doing Weight Watchers online, but I have not been tracking my food. It's not shocking that my weight has not progressed much right around the time I lost my will to track my food. I know I need to buckle down on that, I just can't seem to get there on that one for some reason. Something to think about.

Saturday is my weight in day for Weight Watchers, and I used to blog about my weekly journey every Saturday. I would like to get back in the habit of doing that. I think I have been letting myself off the hook with accountability by moving away from that and away from tracking my food. It's too easy to gobble Skinny Cow treats when you don't have to put it on your daily points tracker!

SO....Back to blogging about my health journey every Saturday and back to tracking my food. (See what happens? You put it in writing and YOU HAVE TO DO IT!)

A return to normal

This is our last morning with our mother-in-law's Dog Minnie. She will be gone when I get home from work today. It's amazing how fast you get used to having another critter in the house. We developed a routine and I have to say I think I will miss the little beast. :)

Conversely I cannot wait to come home today and hit my Zumba! I have only been able to do it once in the last week with Minnie staying with us. Tom took Minnie out of the house for an hour so I could get a workout in. Minnie is a great dog but she is so excitable - we just new me flaying around like a crazy Zumba Warrior would cause her to go into fits - so I did more on the treadmill this week. I miss my Zumba!

I have had a lot of insomnia this past week. I woke up at 11:30 pm one night and could not go back to sleep. Last night I woke at 2:30 and could not go back to sleep. Hopefully that stop pretty soon. It's hard to not be crabby when you are sleep deprived. I suspect it's also hard on the diet and health in general. I am more prone toward a binge when I am in a Zombie state. Zombie eating is nobodies friend!

Where you at?!?

Time management is a bugger sometimes. I want to blog on a close to daily basis. Like 5-7 times a week. Lately I can barely squeak a weekly post in. I thought once the holidays were over I would settle down, but I don't feel like I can find a rhythm lately. It's tough.

I have been continuing to work on my health goals. I am proud to say I lost weight every single week of the holiday season and am now over the 40 lb loss for my overall weight loss and over the 25 lb mark on weight watchers. I often think about how much that weight is and try to savor it NOT being on my body anymore. So when I pick something up (like the 25 pound box of cat litter this weekend) and I am grunting away trying to get it into the grocery cart, I try and stop and say "this is how much you were walking around with on your body last August - and you dropped 15 pounds more to boot!" It's so easy to just see yourself as the same weight when you are slowly melting it off a pound or two a week. So I think it's good to step back and appreciate the enormity of the accomplishments.

Over the last couple of weeks I changed my work out routine and I now set a goal of 6 days a week. I do three days of tread milling for an hour session and three days of Zumba on the Wii (45 minute session.) I still love Zumba. Still smile while I am sweating my butt off. Love it.

And just so this post isn't all about me sweating my bum off, here are a few gratuitous pet photos.

 Emma is our dog and she is looking at me like I am a nutball for snapping her picture. You can see the curtain is parted - she loves to scope the front yard for raccoons and paper carriers in the mornings. (Not much else going on at this hour of the morning - you can see it's still dark out....) Izzi, our cat, is curled up in the heated cat bed and just happy to doze.

This is a day or two later. I think it was pretty cold out this morning. They were both curled up together in here when I came out for my coffee refill. (Please excuse the ghost eyes - it was dark in here and I had to use a flash.) My girls are just too cute.

Saturday Morning - Health update and goal setting

Saturday morning weight in and health evaluation time. I like to take time to think about the week ahead on Saturday mornings and how I can make it a better week. What can I do to be stronger and healthier? What are my concerns?

This last week was a struggle with food. I didn't go crazy - but I felt a little out of control. The voice of justification (It's ok - eat a cookie!) was in my head too much and usually that means other things are going on that make me feel like I need extra. Extra love, extra food, Extra stuff to fill the holes in my soul. I try to be mindful of that voice - it's a trickster and will lead me astray.

So I did the "Please let me not have gained" prayer as I stepped on my Wii this morning and was happy that I saw a little loss. Not even a pound, but it's the right direction and I consider that a win.

I have noticed my Zumba workouts aren't destroying me as much anymore, so I want to step up the workouts. Either the intensity of the short work-outs (Since I am on beginner) or trying the 40 minute work outs. I am not sure what makes sense to do yet - but I need to change something there.

I only have three more work outs to go on my 2nd tread-mill afghan and then I can be done knitting on my treadmill. I have been wanting that to be harder too, and I just can't go too fast while knitting. Visions of being impaled on my pretty hard wood knitting needles fill my head. No thank you! I have the incline at 50% and walk for an hour every time. It's enough that I drip with sweat every work out - but I am to the point that I really want to work harder.

I REALLY need to finish putting together my first tread mill afghan. I pretty much just have to finish stitching on the seed stitch borders surrounding the blanket and it's done. I run screaming from finish work.

I thought I would include a couple pictured of Emma in the cat bed. We purchased the largest heated bed we could thinking the girls might share. We find Emma in the bed as often as the cat. They have a nice view of the bird feeders from the bed and some nice sunlight. Pretty sweet spot.

This is how she curls - all her feet together in a pile of cuteness. She is giving me the "What? What now? I just want to nap!" look.  Love my fur-babies.

Hang in there - It's almost the weekend!

My weeks are really flying by quickly lately. I think this is in part due to my increased work out schedule. I went from tread-milling three times a week for an hour (Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday) to Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday (still an hour a session) and added a 20 minute Wii Zumba session after each tread mill session. My days are just FLYING by!

That being said I am always so grateful for Friday to arrive. I am pretty tuckered out at the end of a work week and look forward to a little rejuvenation on the weekends. Sleeping past 4:45 am and getting more than 6 or 7 hours sleep is wonderful. I always seem to be short on sleep and I know I will have to work on that as part of my health quest. Being on Weight Watchers is helping with that as well - I have cut my coffee back to one cup most days with only an occasional Starbucks Skinny Cinnamon Dulce Latte as a treat. I have cut way back on my wine drinking (although I always like wine better in the winter - so we will see how that goes....) which seems to bother my sleep quite a bit. And I am training myself to be able to get up and use the restroom in the middle of the night and go back to sleep. I am increasing my water intake quite a bit - so this has become a needed skill. And I feel like the more I exercise the better the odds of me getting a good nights rest.

Sleep is so important but it is so readily sacrificed.

Health Quest & ZUMBA

Today was my 5 week weight in on Weight Watchers. I am down -10.3 pounds on WW and just over 25 pounds less than my highest weight two years ago. GO ME! Am very pleased with my progress and am still in love with Weight Watchers online.

I confess - I was initially a little disappointed in my weight loss when I got on my Wii this morning. And I blame The Biggest Loser on my unrealistic expectations. I watched the first two episodes of the new season this week and I think watching these people drop such massive amounts of weight on week 1 and then still pretty amazing amounts week 2 (although almost all of them were in tears for ONLY dropping 2-10 pounds.....) it kind of skewed my perception of what reality is for a normal mortal. I am averaging a 2.1 pound loss per week since starting WW. Before Weight Watchers I would drop weight one week and then gain it back the next. Boing Boing Boing. So I need to use caution on my brain when I watch shows like that. I do not have Bob Harper standing on my throat and screaming at me. (Nor would I want that! Yuck!) Inspirational? Yes. Expectational? - NO.

So I am very pleased with how this week went. I did increase my Tread Mill from 3 one hour sessions to 4. AND!!!!!! I got my Wii Zumba in the mail this week.
LOVE IT! I got it in the mail on Tuesday and after my tread mill session I turned it on and started on it. I found it a little confusing to navigate the menu. And the tutorial would either stick on a step forever (if I did it without the wii stick in my hand) or skip through at lightning speed if I did hold the Wii stick, but once I got into the actual work out I was a happy girl. I was dripping with sweat at the end of the 20 minute beginner routine and panting for air. (Whether that is a commentary on my level of fitness or how good this is for a workout - I don't know. Either way.....) So on Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday I added a session of Zumba to my workouts. After the first day I was VERY sore in my upper body and back. Day 2 was hard. I was sore and my list of excuses was mighty. Told myself to "Woman up!" and did it. Day three I wasn't as sore as I thought I would be and was looking forward to getting my three days of exercise behind my belt. When I woke up on Friday I was surprised at the lack of stiffness in my back and body in general. Nice!

So my new exercise schedule is: Saturday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and I am doing one hour of knitting/walking on my treadmill at a 50% incline and then hitting my Wii when I finish on the treadmill for a Zumba session. Sunday, Monday & Friday are rest and recovery days. If I stick to this for the Tread Mill schedule I will be done with knitting on my Afghan in 7 more weeks. I am anxious to be done with it so I can ramp up my speed and change my focus. I can't go too fast on the tread mill when I am knitting so I have jacked the incline up to compensate and make it harder. I drip with sweat every session and my heart rate goes up - so I know I am burning calories and doing some good to my body, but I really want to keep ramping up the work outs - so that means this will probably be my final afghan on the tread mill.

I am trying to focus on the little things to see my success on the health quest. Like my pajama bottoms are all dragging on the floor now. And when I went to put on a long sleeve T that I lived in last winter I was sure it must be a 2XL because it was just too big. When I took it off and looked it was a 1XL - which means I am sneaking slowly into Large girl territory and will soon not be an XL girl. (Happily said goodbye to 2XL Jen awhile ago.) My jeans fit better every week and I foresee needing to go shopping for the holidays. And I am excited about being more comfortable in my own skin this holiday season. AND my 40th Birthday is 5 weeks away and I am excited to see where I am at on my 40th birthday! Go me!

THIS WEEK:
I want to stay on my exercise routine that I started this week.
I want to keep ramping up my water consumption. (I drink more water when I exercise!)
Take all my vitamins every day.
Try a new WW recipe.
Get. More. Sleep.