Indiana, Day 1

Today has been pretty low key. I stayed away from watching any kind of news, and I'm glad. I just felt so awful yesterday, and watching the news made me feel even worse.

This morning, I was up early, and I've been kind of scared to run in the dark lately, so I got on the treadmill. On the schedule was four miles at an easy pace. I set up my computer in front of me, and just tried to forget I was running--not easy, when I really didn't want to run today! I kept increasing the speed throughout the run so that I could be done faster.

I guess that would no longer make it an "easy pace" run, but I really wanted to be done.

When I finished running, I packed for our trip to Indiana. Phoebe and Estelle helped me, obviously.

The cats knew something was going on, because they were all over me. A family friend is going to be house sitting/cat sitting while we're gone, so they won't be alone too long, but when we get the suitcases out, they know something is up.

We got on the road shortly after breakfast. The rental house is three hours from our house, so the ride wasn't too bad. My parents and younger brother, Nathan, were already there when we got there, and my sister arrived shortly after. We had a very relaxing afternoon, just hanging out and chit chatting.

My sister brought a little game for the kids to play. She wrapped a gift with many layers of wrapping paper and tape. Then the kids had to wear gloves (to make it harder to unwrap the gift); Eli started by rolling dice until he got doubles, and meanwhile, Noah was working on trying to unwrap the gift. When Eli got doubles, Noah had to pass the gift to Eli, and Eli had to try to unwrap it before Noah got doubles. And back and fourth, until the gift was unwrapped. A cute game for the kids!

There is a ton of food here. My dad, whom I got my sweet tooth from, brought doughnuts, Reese's Cups, Coffee Crisps (the full-sized ones!) and other stuff. My mom brought a ton of chips. But I don't want these few days to turn into the disaster that was Tennessee last year, when I gained all kinds of weight in this same situation.

Yesterday, I wrote out a meal plan for all three days, mapping out exactly what my meals and snacks are going to be. That way, I don't overdo anything, and I don't gain weight while I'm here. I bought running clothes to go for a run tomorrow and Tuesday. My mom made tacos for dinner, so I made my Mexican Lentils and Rice, and made a huge taco salad with it for 10 PointsPlus. (The PP would have been lower, if I had thought to bring my fat free sour cream and fat free cheese, but I had to use the full fat stuff that my mom brought).

It's been really hard to resist the candy--I just wrote about how much I love Coffee Crisps!--but I know that if I start, I won't stop. I was also worried about spending all of my PP on alcohol, but I decided to buy those little single-serving bottles of wine, and I brought six of them with me--to have two per day. I wanted to keep my routine here almost the same as at home, with just a little splurge. And my little splurge is an extra glass of wine each day ;)