3DogCasa

Quickie List

2011-12-20T09:00:00.000-05:00

1. I don't like candles that smell like cookies or pie or ingredients in either of those things.

2. I love the Beach Boys, even though my hipster music friends look down on me for it, and even though Brian Wilson is a tragic fellow.

3. I wish my house had a fireplace, but I'm ever so glad it has heat.

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Merry Christmas, Darlings!

2011-12-18T18:59:00.001-05:00

We're apart that's true, but I can dream, and in my dreams, I'm Christmasing with you.

It's been a wild few months. We'll see what the New Year brings - certainly no promises from me, not not now.

Let's all wish each other peace, love and joy this holiday season.

Much love from DP, Maverick and Goose.

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Thanksgiving Thanksgiving

2011-11-28T09:00:00.000-05:00

Sorry for my abrupt hiatus. I keep getting into this, "I'm going to be the best blogger ever!" thing, where I think that being the best blogger ever means posting 5 days a week, and commenting on others' blogs, and playing on Twitter. That is fun for a while, but eventually I'm sitting on the couch, no pants on and no clean laundry done, no lunches made for the week to come and no blogs written, and I think, "I'm a blogging failure! I suck! I must go away and hide!"

That's silly.

Also, I spent the last couple of weeks being very social. I haven't gone out so often in a long time. My budget was not thought of, or at least not given the sort of serious thought that would lead to me NOT paying $7 for a drink, or staying out until ungodly hours on a school night. Ahem.

Back to reality.

I need to realize that I don't have to post 5 days a week, and that there is no valedictorian of blogging, and if there were, it would be Dooce anyway, so I need to get real. I'm going to try to post at least once a week, and try to continue to visit my bloggy friends. Deal?

Deal.

In other news, ny mom and I traveled to Washington, D.C. for Thanksgiving. My time with my mom in the car was wonderful - we cracked each other up. My time at my extended family's house was made way, way, way more pleasant by the little airplane bottle of Smirnoff Citrus I brought with me. My mom thought it helped, too.

I caught some sort of Black Friday related fever this passed weekend. I think I caught it from the enormous newspaper my mom brought in the car with us. I cannot believe the volume of advertisements there were. I ended up getting my brother and my mom gifts at Big Lots this weekend. No, it's not local, but it was frugal. Brother got new dishes, mother got a really cool weather radio that she admired while we were shopping. I also made out like a bandit at Big Lots...

You see, my sweet mother, she has very strong opinions about many things. One of those things is the state of my living room. In addition to being in nearly constant disarray, covered in dog fur, and dusty, my living room is lacking furniture. I have been living for several months with an old futon mattress perched on top of a pile of shipping pallets. Four pallets makes for a nice high perch. It was hideous, but functional.

Hideous, but functional, right?

I think it actually caused my mom physical pain.

She mentioned it every time she was over here. I would always tell her, "Well, it was free, and buying new chairs isn't a priority." Isn't a priority - I tell myself that all the time. Many things are not a priority right now.

Apparently, new chairs were a priority for mamacita que bonita. She had coaxed me into imagining what I wanted several times, and I kept coming back to the idea that a couple of slipper chairs would do just the thing. The room is long and rather narrow, and small by today's standards, so larger furniture like a loveseat would be too much. Those tub chairs that are very in right now aren't comfortable to me. Recliners aren't my thing. So slipper chairs, I told her, they'd be just the thing.

Inspiration from www.tailored-interiors.com

Enter the Big Lots ad. Saturday morning, these puppies went on sale for $97 a pop. Holy guacamole.

Paisley is one of my favorite patterns. Do you have favorite patterns?

Mom and I were there at 7 a.m. - we didn't want to miss out! We loaded them in her car and took them to my house - she didn't want them to camp out at her place and I was desperate to get them! I Craigslisted my futon mattress (yay!), moved the pallets to the backyard (perhaps to become one of these fun projects?), and got to work rearranging the living room and assembling my darling new chairs. Thanks to a $1 connector from Big Lots, I was able to attach a longer coaxial cable to the rooftop digital TV antenna. Now that my tv could slide down the wall, I had real furniture design options! Oh, the joy of it all! Behold:

I was going to move the coffee cans, but I'm keeping it real. The coffee cans are empty save a few nails or screws. They make a noise that scares my dogs when they move, and they keep the dogs off of the furniture. I call them, "Mr. No." I pushed the two chairs together for now. They are adorable that way. They also look adorable with the end table between them. I'm in love. I had the Ikea throw blanket and pillow floating around in my linen closet. They look nice, no? My mom spoils me rotten. I'm a happy girl.

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Gah!

2011-11-16T20:31:00.001-05:00

Real life has intervened. I'll be back to a more regular posting schedule as soon as I can. Until then, XOXO, darlings!

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Friday, Holla!

2011-11-11T09:00:00.000-05:00

Monkeys, I'm spent. I don't know about you, but I've had a rough week. Allow me to vent and list.

I'm a Penn State alumna and an adult survivor of childhood sexual assault. I'm not prepared to add my blogger voice to the cacophany right now, but I commend these two sites to you: Proud to be a Penn Stater and Open Letter to the World from a Penn State Alum. I've been grieving.

I've worked out every day this month, until last night. So 9 days in a row. That's not really a big deal, except that, coupled with work deadlines and everything else, it meant that I was actually dreading leaving the office last night - I didn't want to just bounce home, let the dogs out, and go to the gym. I did something radical instead: I stayed home. I picked up the book I requested at the library (please increase my frugal living Klout! ;-)) and I stayed home. It was just what the doctor ordered.

This picture doesn't do it justice.

No spend November has been going OK. I buckled twice this week, and there isn't an excuse for it, but I"m way more aware of my spending in general than I was before. I've decided one lunch out a week for sanity's sake is OK. One dinner out a week is OK if there is cash left, but if there isn't cash left, it's obviously not happening. There is definitely room to improve here. Yesterday I grabbed a Bojangles Cajun Chicken Filet biscuit for lunch for myself - not part of my sanity lunch! Not on the No Spend November plan! But damn, those suckers are good.

I'm down a pound. I'm drinking way more water than diet Coke these days, well, if you include tea I am, anyway, which brings me to my next point.

My Precious!

I'm seriously considering giving up buying diet Coke altogether. I KNOW, it's blasphemy. But it's an insane chunk of my relatively small grocery budget - I'm spending $12 a week, easily, on my precious. I do not have $12 a week to spare. Seriously. I need to own up to the fact that I cannot afford my diet Coke addiction, and unless diet Coke comes a'knocking with a sponsorship, I'm going to have to give it up. Somehow, I don't think that me and my five devoted readers (love you guys!) will be garnering a lifetime's supply of my beautiful bubbly elixir any time soon. Brace yourselves, this isn't going to be pretty.

I had my performance review at work. I've been there three years, or three years next month, and this is the first one I've had, so I can't describe it as an annual review. It went very well and I left feeling really warm and fuzzy. I'll be getting a bonus, which I was TOTALLY not expecting. I'd given up hope that we had any margin for bonuses, actually, so it is a really pleasant surprise. Plans for the bonus are to be determined, but they will definitely include (1) new tires for the car, (2) paying off my overdraft line of credit with my checking account, and (3) a haircut - I don't think I've had one in six months.

Poppies are worn to remember the soldiers of the First World War.

Speaking of work, I'm not there today. Our office is closed out of respect for Veteran's Day. I'm grateful that others have served this country so that my brother and I have not had to serve, and I'm grateful that other serve under presidents they agree with and presidents they disagree with, and I'm grateful that others serve so that we can continue to enjoy the democratic republic we live in.

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Operation Sweet Potato

2011-11-10T09:00:00.000-05:00

Have you ever had sweet potato biscuits? A local chain, Cafe Carolina, sells amazing biscuits. According to the intertubes, their recipe is just Bisquick, sweet potatoes, and brown sugar. That's kind of lame, don't you think?You know what else is kind of lame? This awesomely bad picture of mashed sweet potatoes, with the masher still in it. LAME.

I decided to try making a lighter version of sweet potato biscuits with some of the freebie sweet potatoes. Miss Goose has also been enjoying them - she eats them raw!

My copy of Mr. Bittman's fabulous book.

I used a recipe from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything, one of the best cookbooks there is. I don't want to reprint the recipe here - I'm not sure what the copyright rules are - but biscuit recipes aren't rocket science. I'm sure you can figure it out. I didn't bother adding the brown sugar that the Cafe Carolina recipe includes - I figured I could always add that in as a topping. I did make some substitutions:

Instead of butter, I used Brummel & Brown's yogurt-based spread.
Instead of full-fate buttermilk, I used low-fat buttermilk.

I could definitely taste the difference with the butter versus the butter substitute, but you know what? It was worth it. I rolled out this dough fairly thin - somewhere between 1/4 inch and 1/2 inch - and made two dozen biscuits. By my calculations, or rather, my calculations on Livestrong.com, these little puppies worked out to just 40 calories a pop. Cute, no?

Sure, there is a lot of flour on them, but that's how you know they're homemade, right? They are kind of yellow looking on my computer, but in real life they are more orange. If you added in 1/4 cup of brown sugar, you'd get a nicer brown color in your biscuits.

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(Nearly) Wordless Wednesday with Enchilada Sauce

2011-11-09T09:00:00.000-05:00

Cooking for one presents its own challenges.

I decided to make some chicken tacos the other day. I still had some of this discounted chicken, you see.

And I had some enchilada sauce. I let the chicken simmer in 1/4 cup of the sauce . . . but what to do with all of that leftover sauce?

Problem solved! I ate the tacos with a little bit of goat cheese (1 ounce split between 3 tacos) and shredded spinach. Delicioso.

Sorry about the horrific lighting. I'm not food photographer. I take pictures with a very used Canon point and shoot and I don't have a light box and if I did, I wouldn't know what to do with it. Please do not report me to the blogging authorities.

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Goose Caboose

2011-11-08T13:00:00.000-05:00

This dog is just gratuitously cute. I'm so damn smitten with her - it's a good thing, too, as she is still quite destructive. But look at how CUTE she is!

Wrasslin' her little zebra that's already been ripped to shreds . . . I swoon. I cannot quit this doggeh.

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Updating the Meal Plan & a Food Windfall!

2011-11-08T09:00:00.000-05:00

I made these Splenda Pumpkin Waffles the other night. They are delicious! I'm going to add them to my dinner options. I'm a big fan of breakfast for dinner, so I'll have these with some scrambled eggs and sliced apples, or maybe with some Greek yogurt. Delicious! That will definitely be on tap for tonight.

For the nights (and days!) to come, I foresee lots of dishes involving sweet potatoes.

This is a truck bed full of sweet potatoes. Awwww yeah.

Let me explain. One of the folks I work with has no idea he's not a farmer. I mean, he comes to work every day and investigates cases and bosses people around and goes to court, so he has to know, on some level, that he doesn't make his living as a farmer anymore. But long ago, he did, and he just cannot stop growing food. Way more food than he and his wife need. All summer, my colleagues and I reap the benefits of this lovely man's inability to realize he is no longer a farmer. Behold, my haul:

I should weigh the bag. It feels like a lot of taters. Perfect timing for me, though, in my month of self-imposed austerity. What to make? I love sweet potatoes baked, and I love them as a base for chili. I have found a really delicious sounding recipe for sweet potato brulee, but it makes 14 servings and I'm not sure how it is going to reheat. It doesn't look like it's designed for leftovers. It might not be the right dish for a singleton like yours truly. Maybe I could roast some, a la this Ellie Krieger recipe - it looks scale-down-able. I effing love sweet potato biscutits, I wonder what the calorie breakdown in this Paula Deen recipe is like? Those are fatal last words - since when is any Paula Deen recipe a reasonable choice for someone watching what they are eating? But pumpkin is moist and low calorie, maybe I could substitute some pumpkin for half of the butter? I'll keep you posted. Sweet potato recipe suggestions welcomed!

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Off the Wagon

2011-11-07T13:00:00.000-05:00

I found it much harder to cut down on the diet Cokes over the weekend.

I went nuts for some generic diet cherry coke on Saturday . . . whoops. At least it was generic, so it was less of a wallet-punch than it could have been. It was so delicious, so cold, so bubbly!

Sunday wasn't much better, unfortunately. Oh well. I'll be back on the wagon today. I've got to remember that less diet Coke over the course of a week is still better for my wallet in the long run, even if I do have a weekend binge now and again.

Less diet coke, more money in my checking account. Got to keep that in mind.

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November Spending Fast: Snowflaking Prescriptions

2011-11-07T00:04:00.000-05:00

One of the two grocery stores I usually shop at has had a promotion going for a while now where if you transfer your prescriptions, you get $25 off of your groceries. Why it took me until this past week to take advantage of this, I have no idea. Inertia is a pretty powerful force, I suppose. If your local grocery store has one of these gigs running, I suggest you look into it pronto! My store had a couple of qualifiers, like government insurance didn't count and you had to be actually transferring a prescription, not getting a new one. I was eligible, so maybe you will be, too.

All I had to do was bring in my current prescriptions. I have two generic drugs I take every month. I filled out a new customer card with my birthday and phone number and such, and the pharmacy tech made a copy of my insurance card. I got my card bag and left the store. A few hours later when I came back to pick up my prescriptions, I had a new month's supply as well as my old bottles waiting for me. And my customer loyalty card had not one $25 credit but TWO $25 credits!

I didn't read the fine print, so I totally missed that the $25 reward was per prescription! It almost makes you wish you took more medicine! $50 is about what I try to spend on groceries each week - that is a huge budget stretcher for me. The trick is to send this saved $50 to savings and not to piss it away elsewhere....yes, that's the trick!

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WOOT the weekend update

2011-11-06T10:00:00.000-05:00

1.There have been more donuts in my life during the last two days than there have been in like the whole last two years. GAH! Krispy Kreme's at work - I ate not one, not two, but three. ^$^%$^$! I KNOW. Then there were more donuts on Saturday. They torment me. They need to leave me alone.

2. I went for a wonderful swim on Friday night. I swam right up until the pool closed at 7:30. Part of me felt like I should have gotten out earlier, even if just a few minutes earlier, but most of me was like I NEED EVERY MINUTE IN THIS POOL. Obviously, that part won. 45 minutes of laps and drills. Felt like a million bucks when it was over. I am loving the combo of cardio + resistance that a pool workout provides.

3. My neighborhood is awesome. It's about 55 years old and we don't have a homeowner's association, but we do have a listserv and lots of concerned folks. Some of them got a grant together for us to get some landscaping done at the entrance to our little corner of heaven, and we had a work day today to do the planting. I spent 3 hours out there digging up grass, digging holes for plants, planting plants, and shoveling mulch. This is also wear some of the aforementioned donuts of doom were lurking. :-) But I had a blast in the chilly sunshine, and I'm truly grateful to make my home in a place full of unique, caring folks. Check out some of our work:

4. I learned last night that you cannot blindly follow the directions on a package of corn taco shells. I mean, I think I knew that before, but I was reminded of it when I hit 45 seconds, threw the taco shells in the microwave, and walked over to my washing machine. I started to smell something funny, and by the time I got back to the kitchen, the darn taco shells had caught fire! WHOOPS.

I guess my microwave is stronger than the average microwave. I tossed these burned shells out and decided to forego warming the rest of the shells. They aren't a bad calorie deal at 50 calories a pop.

That's it for my brief weekend update. I need to head into the office for a few hours today, finish some edits that I didn't complete last week. Weekends go even faster when you have to spend part of them finishing work you didn't get done during the week. Imagine that.

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I'm an Inspiration

2011-11-04T13:00:00.000-04:00

I wrote this morning's post a few days ago - I do that sometimes, it's like I'm actually planning ahead, very strange -- but then, last night, the universe gave me a sweet karmic reminder that everything I wrote was true. I'll tell you about it, since you asked. :-)

A little background: yesterday was a looong day. I got up extra early and put on a suit, which I get to avoid most days. I went to work to join a colleague on a trip 3 hours away. The trip went really well - I got a sparkly shiny award! - and we even stopped at Ikea, palace of shiny prettiness, on the way home. We did get stuck in some stinky traffic, and by the time I got home, it was after 6. I fed the dogs and paid the bills. That took me to 7. I realized I was really hungry, so I opened the fridge, but found that my go-to snack, Fage yogurt, was expired. Hrm. I grabbed the turkey pepperoni and had 8 slices - how odd is that? But they held me over as I opened up Angry Trainer Fitness and grabbed a workout. By the time I got to the gym, it was 7:45. I ran into a friend, we chatted. 8:00 before I get on the track . . . I just wasn't feeling it.

But you know, I knew I needed to be there. I knew I'd feel great afterwards. And so I pretended I was into it, and I began jogging around the track. The routine is go 1/4 mile, then do 30 seconds of some exercise, and repeat. I only did it 8 times, for a run of about 2 miles, but between the running and the intervals, I was there about an hour. Sometimes instead of doing an exercise for 30 seconds, I'd do 30 reps, like with my beloved squats. Whatever, that's not my point. My point is, my ass was dragging, but I kept going. Sometimes I felt like walking 1 lap and then jogging 3 laps, so I did. I definitely started faster and then slowed down. I did not feel like a rockstar, I felt like little old me, slogging through. I finished my last quarter mile and grabbed my water bottle, heading back towards the kettle bells for a final set of side lunges (ooooh they hurt so good - lunges of all kinds are really hard for me), and this STRANGER comes up to me.

STRANGER DANGER!

Ahem. She didn't look familiar to me, meaning she isn't one of the regulars I'm used to seeing at the Y all the time, but she and her young son had been walking laps for about 35 minutes. I had lapped her a couple of times, which was fun for me, even I was jogging and she was walking. :-) I take my wins where I can get them, you know? Anyway, she came up to me, and smiled, and said, "I just want to know, how do you do it? How do you keep going? You're just out there running and no one is making you."

Y'all, I smiled sooooo big. I had a blast chatting with her for a few minutes. I told her there is no secret, you just do it, and then when you're doing it, you ask yourself, can I do a little more of this? And if the answer is anything other than, No, doing more of this will kill you, then I try to push a little harder. I told her that no time is the perfect time to workout - the right time is the time you get there. And I told her that what keeps me going is a combination of seeing results, feeling better, and really truly enjoying it. I told her that I've lost 50 pounds in 10 months, run my first 5K, and a few other things. I told her I believed she could do it, too.

And she told me I was an inspiration to her. She'd been watching me, and she couldn't believe I just kept going. Ha!

I'm going to live on that comment for days.

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Progress Beyond the Pounds

2011-11-04T09:00:00.000-04:00

If you looked at the scale, and nothing else, it would look like my health journey has been stagnant since I hit 53 pounds lost. If you were only looking at the scale, it would seem like I have been going no where fast since August.

There is so much more to this journey than the numbers on the scale. Yes, I still have lots to lose, and yes, there is a numerical range I have in mind as a goal over time. But . . . over time. Over time! Over time.

It took me 30 years to get to 312.2 pounds. In the last 10 months, I have shed 53 pounds. But let's look at what I've gained:

- I've dropped three sizes and gotten back into clothes I haven't worn in years.
- I've trained for and run my first 5K in a super-speedy-for-me time.
- I've shrunk enough around my hips so that I can comfortably slide into a yoga chair to practice supported backbends, like this:

Image from www.fullcircleyoga.com

     - I've come to think of myself as an athlete.
     - I've inspired other people.
     - I've taken my "easy" level on the elliptical machine from 65 RPMs to 140 RPMS.
   - I've taken my "hard" level on the elliptical machien from 135 RPMs to 212 RPMS.
     - I've zumba'd and loved it! I've bellydanced and loved it!

It's harder to bullet-point my non-scale food wins, but they are around, too. I am so much more conscious of what I am putting into my mouth. I am way less likely to use food to numb myself than I was a year ago. And I am much more aware now that there is always a good choice available. Let me give you a for instance.

One night last week, I came home late. I fed the dogs and dealt with the days dog-related mess. I changed into gym clothes, started a load of laundry, and headed to the gym for a good old-fashioned sweat fest. I headed home by way of the grocery store, which is always a mistake. I know better than to go in there when I'm hungry, but I do it anyway! I needed a pumpkin. I was tempted, though, by the prepared foods in the deli case. It was late, so a lot of them were marked down.

My beloved chicken wings were there, delicious, lathered in honey barbecue sauce, oh yeah. They were so sweet, lying there in their little plastic container. We're only $2.99! You'll enjoy us with fat-free ranch!

I love you, barbecue chicken wings, but you are dirty hussies, you know that?

Anyway, I stood there for a long time, picking up the chicken wings and putting them down again. Hmm, maybe I should reread the ingredient list. Hmm, I can't pronounce that word. Oh, you're teriyaki spiced? Hussy competition!

After lingering an indefensibly long time, I finally saw it: my healthy choice. There was a rotisserie chicken marked down to $2.99. I can take the skin off of that and voila! Ready to eat, reasonably priced, and a way better choice than the barbecue wings - a girl next door rather than a wanton hussy, if you will.

I never would have made that choice a year ago, and I'm so grateful that I made it that night and that I make a dozen choices like it every day. That is real progress, progress that cannot be measured on a scale.

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Swimming is Ouchy

2011-11-03T13:00:00.000-04:00

I forget if I mentioned this here before, so I'll just mention it again, because I'm lazy like that. After I finished physical therapy for my lat/rhomboid injury, I started noticing more rotator cuff pain. Wop wop, cue the sad music. Now that it is a new year for my Flexible Spending Account, I am going to call up my shoulder dude and go see him again about it. I am! I promise!

All of that to say, I went swimming last night, and now I'm a wee bit sore. I'm afraid I might have irritated my shoulder a little bit more. DAMN IT! I haven't been swimming in forever - just fell out of the habit, really - and I did some laps tonight and remembered that I freaking LOVE the pool. Like I am going to marry it and have 10,000 of its babies, like I'm a spider.

Sorry, that was a little much, even for me.

Anyway! Gym. Loved it. Swimming is a great workout, great for confusing ye olde muscles. I felt like I accomplished my goal of upping my gym intensity last night! Speaking of which, I was just talking about how as you get more fit, you need to switch up your workout more, and one of my gurus just posted a blog about it. Go see what Alfonso from Angry Trainer Fitness has to say about it! It's not just me talking crazy over here - or maybe it is, but at least that bit wasn't all nonsense.

And, finally, a little diet Coke update: I only had 4 cans yesterday. That might be a lot to a normal person, but it's nothing for me! WOOT! I'm consciously reaching for tea rather than diet Coke and I'm also finding myself just wanting more water. WIERD. I'd love to get down to 1 can a day, maybe even less?!?!?! I can't believe I'm writing that, but the money I'd save is a really good incentive. Funny how it's always been the case that drinking less diet Coke would save me money, but only now am I hungry enough (so to speak, ha!) that it is motivating me to cut down. Curious.

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Stupid Costs Money: The HP Printer Edition

2011-11-03T09:00:00.000-04:00

There are a lot of problems that can be solved with having more disposable income. They're not the really hard problems, they're just nuisances, but the thing about a nuisance is if you ignore them for long enough, they can become giant festering pus-filled sores. Ahem.

Last year, during the frenzy of pre-Christmas sales, I snagged what I thought was a great deal on an HP Officejet 6000, model E609A printer. The 10 year old laser printere I inherited from a friend who moved away was konking out, and I got the new HP for $50. Free shipping. I felt pretty damn proud of myself. It had decent reviews and promised duplex (double-sided) printing - how green!

This thing has been a dud since the day I got it. It has never gotten through a single print job without incident. I have only successfully printed with the thing a handful of times - maybe 3 or 4? Not an exaggeration. This thing is a total dud. From trouble-shooting it online, I have determined that it is having a "non-recoverable error." I follow the directions to no avail. I follow the directions for the other problems, too, just in case a ink cartridge problem is masquerading as a non-recoverable error.

Nothing.

It's not a huge problem. I am going to print one piece of paper at work tomorrow. I feel bad about using an office resource for a personal print job, but not so bad that I won't do it. But over the last year, it has become a giant festering pus-filled sore problem. I hate it. It's driving me batty.

I just wish that I had the cash free to go buy a different printer. A printer that worked. A printer that I could return to a store if it didn't work, rather than one I bought on uber-discount from an online retailer before last Christmas. I wish I had the cash for it. I wish, I wish, I wish.

$50 seemed like a good deal, but crap, it hasn't bought me anything but a large, ugly dust-collector. Stupid decision.

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I be up in the gym.

2011-11-02T13:00:00.000-04:00

So I've got my spending fast going on and that is helping me to watch my calories more, and I'm also trying to kick it up in the gym this month. It's nice timing, since the season of culinary debauchery is upon us (AKA the holla-days), and I'd really like to jump start my weight loss again.

Today I read something, somewhere, probably on Shape.com, that after you've lost weight, your metabolism stays slower. How about that? That would mean that you would be able to maintain your new weight with fewer calories than you would think, or that the straight up math would imply. TRICKY, human body, you are very tricky. Now this was just a little blurb piece and it didn't really address how increasing your lean muscle mass with strength training would affect that - there has got to be a way to rev your metabolism back up, right?

Right?

I don't know. All I know is the article did make me feel a little bit better about my stagnant weight for the last couple of months. Maybe my metabolism has slowed a little bit, and that in combination with my food has done the trick (or not done the trick, as it were).

Exercise so far this week:

Monday: Iyengar yoga for 90 minutes

Tuesday: Ran/walked 1 mile as a warm up
35 Minutes of weight training
20 minutes of interval work on the elliptical

I also sneaked in a little 10 minute walk around the block in the middle of my work day today. I need to do that more often. Sunshine is magic. After my gym work out tonight, I decided on a whim to see if I could leg press my weight, 260 pounds. I can. :-) I did 260 pounds at 9 reps. HOLLA.

Not sure what my workout plans will be for the rest of the week. Tomorrow will probably be a dance class or yoga. Thursday I'll probably be back upstairs doing weight training and maybe some work on the treadmill. And at some point, these dogs of mine need a long walk!

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November Spending Fast: The Addiction Edition

2011-11-02T09:00:00.000-04:00

Listen, monkeys, I know I promised you a post where I'd talk about the rules for my spending fast, but I haven't written that one yet. But, I promise, that since I am the one making the rules, my behavior thus far has been impeccable under my rules . . . that I have yet to decide upon. See how well that works? I could be a politician.

Instead, I want to share with you something that should show you how serious I am about this spending fast thing. You might think I'm not serious enough, you might get that, to me, this is a big deal. That's OK by me - everyone has different deal-breakers. What is gazelle-intensity in Total Money Makeover-speak for me might not be what is gazelle-intensity for you.

I love diet Coke.

But I bought diet Pepsi.

Please don't shun me, fellow diet Coke afficionados. I had to do it. Diet coke wasn't on sale, I was all out, Costco was closed, and I could not force myself to pay more than $3.50 for a 12-pack, which is what I can get them for at ze Costco. If I had had more time, I would have gone to another supermarket, but, per usual, I was running late.

Pepsi products were on sale, 3 for $10. $3.33 a 12 pack. Diet Coke was outrageous at full price - $5.69. Faced with spending more money or trading my sure fix, my beloved diet Coke for an inevitably inferior substitute, I chose the lesser of two evils: tastebud dissappointment.

If you're not addicted to a particular soda or coffee or whatever, maybe this won't mean much to you, but it was truly a big deal to me. I can count on my daily diet Cokes. I love how they taste when they are ice cold, love the cold can, love the snap of the lid popping open.

I know, I'm weird.

But I also know that drinking just water would be better for me and would be a lot cheaper. I've talked about kicking the diet Coke habit with my nutritionist, and she told me not to worry about it. And I totally get her point. I'd like to lose about 90 more pounds, and that's a much bigger priority to me than kicking my soda habit, so I'll focus on making and maintaining the behavioral changes rather than cutting out my diet Coke addiction.

That works until my budget crunch crashes head on with my addiction. You already know how this has ended: I picked the cheaper soda, addiction be damned. Maybe soon I'll transition to generic (blech!) and that will help me taper off altogether? Think of the money I'd save. I'm too embarrassed to tell you how much I'd stand to save if I could get off the ~~crack~~ diet coke, but let's just say I'm feeling more motivated than usual. I'll keep you posted.

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And They Lived Happily Ever After

2011-11-01T09:00:00.000-04:00

I've never been to, much less been in, another wedding that more completely reflected the personalities of the bride and groom.

Perfect groomsmen apparel for a perfect autumn wedding day.

I'm not talking about a cake topper that matches their foxhunting hobby (though how cute would that be?),

The bride's impulse buy: sweet cowboy boots from the feed store to wear during the wedding. Comfy! And we were all wearing boots by the time she came over to the sweet, all-leather, low-heeled side of wedding apparel.

See? His and Hers. Luurve. That's style.

I'm talking about a celebration that is totally in line with their values, their joys, and their wishes for their guests.

Something old, something blue: bride shortened her mother's veil and added blue flowers.

There was the local food -- the farmer who raised a lot of the foods was a guest and to all-local beer and wine at the vineyard, the location for the ceremony and dinner.

Vineyard location - gorgeous. See the hay bales in the background?

The musicians who used to play in a band with the groom provided the music for the ceremony.

At the post-wedding party at their town's pub, a fantastic quartet the bride and groom love played, rock, jazz, blues and funk all night long. Hay bales that provided the seating at the vineyard will be used in the couple's garden.

Flowers from the Farmer's Market made lovely seasonal bouquets.

They provided transportation from the ceremony to the after-party in a bio-diesel powered bus. Lots of homemade touches - centerpieces, the guest "book" (see below), the wedding cake (seriously! my bestie is amazing. delish carrot cake recipe from smitten kitchen), and more.

I painted this - guests left their thumbprints as leaves. So sweet!

Friends did hair and make-up. We danced late into the night, then continued partying at the Bed and Breakfast around the corner from the after-party. My feet hurt and my muscles were sore from dancing the next day. Best. Wedding. Ever. I wish them every happiness.

Yours truly. Yes, I'm wearing a crinoline under my dress.

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Meal Plan Monday

2011-10-31T09:00:00.001-04:00

Part of getting though my November Spending Fast happily will be avoiding getting bored with what I'm cooking for myself. Boredom with what's in my fridge often leads to temptation which leads to delicious takeout. Let's see if this does the trick this week:

Breakfasts all week: my standard oatmeal with a banana, raisins and peanut butter. I reserve the right to sub out different fruit for the bananas and raisins - I have options in my remarkably full small freezer.

Lunches:
Monday: Sweet potato and chicken curry, 2 apples (one for a snack), laughing cow light cheese, wasa cracker
Tuesday: grilled veggie quiche slice, 2 apples, 3 ounces of rotisserie chicken, laughing cow light cheese
Wednesday: chicken quesadilla with flat out wrap, laughing cow light chipotle queso (really good!), onions, and salsa, 2 apples,
Thursday: lunch at an event, $10 says it's a variation on chicken marsala
Friday: repeat Monday's meal

Dinners . . . Totally open to suggestion! Looks like my menu planning Monday is more of menu-flail. Oh well. Lunches are out of the way. I always like breakfast for dinner, and I have a lot of pumpkin around. How bad would it be to make pumpkin waffles and scrambled eggs and eat them for dinner all week?

Apples are in season right now, so apples are cheap. Hence, I'm eating a lot of apples. I need to buy some greens, I don't have any salads on my menu as of right now. Will have to amend the meal plan to add them in, but that's not a big deal.

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Playing Maid of Honor

2011-10-28T09:00:00.001-04:00

I'm addicted to Polyvore. I promise to actually write some posts next week. :-) I've been really busy this week with celebrating my birthday, work, and the occasional Maid of Honor treats, so you'll have to give me a pass. Next week I want to tell you about training for my next 5K and a bazillion other things! Until then, join me in wishing my friends a happy marriage. :-)

Playing Maid of Honor by dogcasa featuring locket jewelry

2011 Birthday Celebration Outfit

2011-10-27T09:00:00.000-04:00

I figured out how to make better use of the tools on Polyvore! Fun site to play around on if you like clothes. I wore an outfit kind of like this on Tuesday night to celebrate my 31st birthday.

Cuppycakes!

Flowers!

To celebrate, I picked a bar that's a favorite of my coworkers and I for its amazing $2.50 draft beers and $2.95 appetizers during the week - and the appetizers include a burger or bbq sandwich, so it's totally a meal. That made all of my friends happy since they didn't have to shell out a lot of cash. Very reasonable prices for good quality food - this isn't a scuzzy dive bar. And they put us in a private room, which was lovely, because there were a lot of us and we were loud. I was happy because I didn't have to clean my house to play hostess and because lots of folks came out to wish me well. I felt so loved! A good time was had by all.

2011 Birthday Celebration Outfit by dogcasa featuring skinny leg jeans

Talbots boat neck sweater, $99
Forever21 bomber jacket, $35
True Religion skinny leg jeans, $345
Naughty Monkey wedge boots, $69
Alexander McQueen leather hobo handbag, $2,090

Giving Credit Where Credit is Due

2011-10-26T09:00:00.000-04:00

Remember the Great Cell Phone Debacle of the Summer of 2011?

It might not have been that important to you, dear reader, but it was a giant pain in the butt for me. It was a reminder of how inconvenient it is to live paycheck to paycheck - funny how those reminders are all over the place, and yet, somehow, I never need help remembering that the situation stinks, don't you think? My Blackberry was rapidly dying, losing calls, and my Sprint plan was way too costly to justify keeping - $90/month for unlimited text, talk, and web. I had to do something, so I did a lot of research, and that led me to Straight Talk.

Unfortunately, it didn't occur to me to Google, "Does this company send out refurbished phones that it knows won't work and then jerk you around like a fish on a line, flaring out its gills, desperate for the sweet relief of water?" But if I had, I would have realized that that was exactly what they did. Their customer service telephone line had me on hold for HOURS while I was trying to work this mess out. I got better results from send e-mails to their online customer service reps, but my laptop was in the shop during this time, too, so that was very tricky! Also, contrary to what this Gen Xer has come to expect, e-mail was SLOWER than the phone. What the what?

At long last, and at not an insignficiant cost, I decided to bite the bullet and switch to Virgin Mobile. I've been a happy camper ever since, and I am paying $45/month for more talking minutes than I use and unlimited text and wireless. The phone is good, the phone coverage is the same as with my Sprint phone and the wireless is adequate. I'm saving $48/month, so I like all of that. I'm happy.

So happy that I almost forgot that I was due a big honking refund from StraightTalk. I negotiated and got them to agree to comp me for the dud phone AND for the phone minutes I had purchased, which are not supposed to be returnable. Ever the skeptic, I saved the e-mail promising me the refund and didn't hold my breath. But I saw the credit in my bank account ledger, so here I am to give credit where credit is due: Straight Talk came through for me.

I'm going to spend this moolah on a wedding gift for my darling best friend, getting some of my clothes tailored (they need to be taken in like, yesterday!), and on a birthday gift for my Mamacita que Bonita. The spending fast isn't scheduled to begin until November, right? . . .

I'm sharing this at Works for Me Wednesday, because persistence and patience when dealing with monolithic customer service departments really works for me!

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Spending Fast

2011-10-25T09:00:00.000-04:00

Do you guys know about these Spending Fast things? Anna Newell Jones from And Then She Saved spent a whole year spending her money only on necessities, nothing else. She saved a crap-ton, go figure! I am thinking it is time for that season in my life.

Remember when I freaked the eff out because my student loan repayment assistance program lost its funding? Yeah, I remember that too. It sucked. I had to go to the Bank of Mom and get yet another loan to make it through. I guess my Mom wouldn't help me out if she didn't want to - I'm not forcing her. On the other hand, she's 65, the stock market is in the sh*tter, and I feel like I am taking cash from her that she should have for retirement. I feel guilty, is what I'm saying, and like I'm not a real grown-up. Booo. Thankfully, last month, I got word that funding had been restored, but at a lower level than before. Yay! I am in a much better spot than I was in September.

That said, I have work today. I feel like I kvetch about this all the time, but I find my work to be very stressful. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy it, I don't find it extraordinarily rewarding, because I do both of those things. What I have noticed, though, is that during times when I find work takes a lot of emotional energy from me, I have less energy to give to other things.

I will stop while you ruminate on that magnificent revelation. My energy is limited.

I have not made great inroads on either my weight loss goals or my debt reduction goals during the last three months. My energy has been going elsewhere! Work and working out. Now, working out takes very little emotional energy from me -- actually, it is really energizing -- but it does take time, and that time is the same time I would spend working on budgeting decisions or being more aware of my food choices. I'm not so much of a moderate person - maybe you've noticed that? But now I find myself at the end of October, looking at November. It's time to take stock and shift course.

In the last three months I have maintained a weight loss of about 53 pounds, increased my cardio endurance, rehab'd one shoulder injury and unearthed another, and completed my 1st 5K. I went from financial emergency land - loss of loan repayment assistance + devastating doggle emergencies - to being back in a place where it is at least possible to save. I write all of this to remind myself that even though I'm not perfect, I'm not in a terrible place, either.

I'd like to lose a couple of pounds in November, even with Thanksgiving, and I'd like to work on replenishing my emergency fund. I'd like to buy two more new tires for my car. I'd like to continue to increase my fitness with a combination of strength training, yoga, and cardio (dance, zumba, water aerobics, running, elliptical, you name it!).

And in order to get the ball rolling on this emergency fund replenishment phase, I am going to do a Spending Fast. I haven't quite figured out the contours of my spending fast yet, but I am planning on doing one for the month of November. The only thing I am sure of is that I will not eat out unless someone else is paying. The rest I will think about between now and November 1 and I'll try to throw up some more plans on here. Then we'll all watch with baited breath! I'm definitely going to take a page from my weight loss though, and that is this: messing up isn't fatal. If I fall of the spending fast wagon, I won't give up. I'll just confess my sins and move on. Deal?

Deal.

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Race Day Run Down

2011-10-24T09:00:00.000-04:00

GUYS!

I did it.

I finished a 5K!

It was way harder than I thought it would be, and for none of the reasons I thought it would be. Then, when it was over, I felt way better than I imagined I could. That is my nutshell summary. Brace yourselves for the incredibly long-winded version.

Not the 5K I ran! But don't they look fierce?

I laid out my clothes the night before the race. I wasn't sure if I needed to have little gloves or not, so I brought them. I had my alarm set for 6:20 a.m. and I was supposed to meet my coach, Allison, at 7:00 a.m. I live about 5 minutes from the race start . . . what could go wrong? Well, how about waking up 3 or 4 times in the middle of the night thanks to a barking wonderdog? Goose was going crazy. But I made it up on time and was only 10 minutes late to meet Coach Allison -- and she had planned for that. More on Coach Allison later. I locked my car and threaded the key to my Civic onto a hair tie, then tucked that up into my hair.

I met up with Allison and gave her the swag bag - I picked hers up the night before for her. She stashed that in my car and we commenced aimless wandering. There was a tent with coffee, a tent with water bottles and Cliff bars (I wish I'd taken more of them!), a tent with the sound booth, a tent to get your face painted (if only I weren't such a prolific sweater), a tent with kid's crafts, and a couple of other sponsor tents which I forget. And there were port-a-potties. And a line for the port-a-potties. Woot.

The race was scheduled to start at 8 a.m. I saw a few familiar faces while doing pre-race wanderings. I was so nervous. I felt like I had to pee the whole time, but Coach suggested we wait until right before the start to get the most bang for our buck, so to speak. We ran down the block and back just to warm up a bit and did some stretching, and then, Boom! Start!

We headed down the street and around the corner. I felt like we were going kind of fast, but I felt good. Allison and I chatted a little bit. I had asked her to run with me because I was scared to run by myself. I had shared my fears with Allison and asked her to yell at me or cheer me on and to help me finish. She grinned and said she'd "challenge" me. My plan was to run with my beloved Gymboss set at 2:30 and 1:00 intervals, but Coach suggested we move that up to 3:00, so I did. Somehow I changed it to beep approximately 700 times in a row, very loud. It scared other runners. I told them it was just my pacemaker going off, they shouldn't worry. That got a few laughs.

I would say the first 10 minutes or so went by OK, and then I started really not feeling it. The voices in my head went apeshit. *Not literal voices, just my internal monologue. You have one of those, right? Please don't tell me if you don't, I'm happier not knowing.*

I hate this.
This sucks.
I don't want to run.
I don't like this.
I'm not going to finish.
I can't do this.
I'm not going to do this.

Where were my happy fitness mantras? They effing left the building, yo! Why? I have no idea. I was very overwhelmed with all of the new things going on, and they just got overtaken by the old negative tapes is my best guess.

My second best guess is that my inexperience and lack of training were catching up to me. I didn't have any idea how to gauge my pace - so I have no idea how fast I was running during my running stretches for the first third of the race (well, or any other third of the race). Second, I didn't do much training on asphalt. Asphalt has hills, you! And the course looks so flat on paper, even seems flat in your car, and then when you are on it, those hills seem tremendous! But you know, I wanted to train in such a way that I'd actually get the time in on my feet, and, for me, with my confidence level the way it is, that meant heading to my beloved YMCA and getting on ye olde treadmill. I don't regret it for a second, but I definitely plan to do more road running in the future.

As the race wore on, the voices in my head got more insistent. I began negotiating with Allison. At one point, she told me we were going to run to a lamp post, and I yelled NO! I was a complete baby.

It was not pretty.

I am not proud of this behavior.

But holy cow, thank G-D for Coach Allison. She did not give up on me, and she didn't let me give up on me. Later she told me that she considered letting me sulk, but then decided that I wouldn't have asked for her help if I didn't want it -- and she was so right. I turned off my beeper around the turn-around point: the 3 minute/1 minute intervals weren't happening. Allison set a smaller goal for me. Well, she did after I INSISTED we were walking to the corner. Then we did just one block. Then we walk a little bit. Then she said, let's do a block plus the next sign, and I said NO! and she came right back at me with a YES! So I did it. I thanked her, and I did it.

Then Allison started alternating her tough love with some hardcore encouragement.

"You are such an inspiration to people that they come up to you at work and show you their baggy pants! [This just happened! I wasn't sure how to respond. So I said, Good for you!] You can do this!"

"Think of how far you have come this year!"

"You are in the gym all the time!"

"Everyone out here does not work as hard as you do! You do yoga, and spin, and dance, and lift! I'm so impressed with you!"

"You have come so far already today! We are more than half-way done!"

"You are going to feel amazing when this is over!"

"It's not even 9 in the morning yet and look at what you've accomplished!"

"You just passed someone!"

"That guy is cheering for YOU!" [Some random wonderful race volunteer. I <3 them!]

"Your mom is going to be so impressed with you!" [And she was. :-) ]

"You can do this."

"You can do more than you think you can!"

We turned the corner for the last stretch of the race, and Coach Allison told me we were going to run the whole way in - maybe another 3/10 of a mile. I responded, "Blerfpft." I didn't have a lot left in me. I think I was jogging at approximately a snail's pace at that point. I schlepped past a cop who looked at me with what I think was just a bit of pity in his eyes. I almost gave up. I asked Allison, "Can I walk?" She said, "NO! You don't want to finish a race with anything left." Well, that made sense to me, so I kept on trudging. I finally turned off my brain and began counting my steps: 1-2, 1-2, 1-2. Why did I only count to 2? I have no idea. I did it.

As we came closer to the finish line, which was a left-hand turn onto the street it was stretched across, I saw the clock. It was counting up (duh) in the 36 minute range. I SCREAMED to Allison, who was a few steps ahead of me, "We're under 40!" She said, "I know!" Then I kicked, as the runners say, and I am really proud to say I finished strong at 37 minutes and 50 seconds.

Guys, I was planning to run a 47-minute 5K; I was planning on averaging a 15-minute mile. We must have been going extra fast in the beginning. That is a 12:20 mile pace over all, and I was crawling during the end of the race. I will not be winning any races going that speed, but holy cow, I am feeling like I won an Olympic event or something.

Without Allison to push me and encourage me, I am positive that I would not have continued running past the halfway mark. I would have let the voices in my head have the last word. I'm so glad she was there. I wish I could thank her sufficiently, but I'm going to have to settle for a card and some flowers from Trader Joe's. I feel like I owe my finish to her help - I'm getting all teary-eyed just thinking about it.

Immediately after the race, I was dumbstruck. Flabbergasted. Gobsmacked. Rendered speechless.

That is so unusual for me. (Do I even need to tell you guys that?)

I couldn't believe that I had felt so incredibly bad during the race, and that that feeling was so far out of touch with reality. My legs really didn't start to hurt until the last half-mile, all of my bad feeling was mental. My issue was totally between my ears. And my issue was complete BULLSHIT. I ran so much faster than I had trained, over harder terrain, and I finished like a star! I must find out if other runners have this experience, if they know what I'm talking about, or if I have managed to be crazy in a new and unique way (always a fun possibility!).

Why, oh why, was my mental soundtrack so completely disconnected from my actual experience?

Why didn't I believe in me? And why was I so dead-set on failing that I nearly let it happen?

I don't know, but I thank Coach Allison for reminding me of the work I've done and helping me to push through that shit. I can't believe I'm writing this, but I am excited to do another one. I'm going to train differently by spending time outside running, but I don't have another race scheduled yet. I need to figure out how you learn to judge your pace, I need to put in time running outside, and I need to find another spare $25 to register.

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