Dehydrated

I went for another bike ride with my kids yesterday morning as well as this morning. Even though we go incredibly slow and it's a little stressful watching for cars (there are no sidewalks, so we have to ride in the road), I have so much fun. It's really relaxing and enjoyable. THAT is what I mean by living an active life. Not necessarily training for races and biking as fast as I can to get my heart rate up, but truly enjoying myself while doing something other than sitting on my ass!

I spent a good chunk of the afternoon preparing a budget. NOT fun--but because I'm a math nerd, I definitely was enjoying myself a little ;)  A few years ago when the economy got really bad, my husband's job cut his hours way back and we basically had to live off of a credit card for a while. We went from zero debt to about $15,000 in credit card debt over a period of about 18 months.

We have since quit using the credit card, and my husbands hours are back to normal, but we haven't done much to pay it down--paying only slightly over the minimum every month. We don't have a lot of money; my husband is a laborer and I am a stay-at-home mom. But I am normally very frugal when it comes to spending money, so we manage okay. But I was reading some blogs yesterday about paying down debt, and it really inspired me to work on paying ours down.

I went through our previous 2 months of bank statements and figured out how much we spent and where it went. The majority of our spending is DEFINITELY on groceries. I was shocked to see that we spent about $1,000 per month on groceries! That doesn't include eating out, but we very, very rarely eat out. I can certainly cut that back to about $500 per month, possibly even less if I get really creative.

My older brother Brian is a pilot for Delta, and he is on call fairly often to go on last-minute trips. They can call him and give him just a few hours notice that he has to go on a trip somewhere, often for a few days at a time. Because of this, he realized that he was throwing away a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables because he could buy them one afternoon and then get called out on a trip shortly after.

So he bought a food dehydrator and started dehydrating his fruits and veggies, making them easy to pack to take on trips with him. When I tried some of the dried fruit, I was really impressed with how good it was, so he bought a dehydrator for my family. I, also, tend to throw away a lot of fresh fruit because we just don't get around to eating it.

So I'm going to make it a point to throw away as little food as possible. I raided the fridge today, and sliced up 6 bananas, half a package of strawberries, 4 kiwi fruits, a peach, and an apple and put it in the dehydrator. It takes a lot of time to prep everything, but it's worth it when you get to eat the dried fruits!

Here is what it looks like prepped and ready to dehydrate:

Layer #1

Layer #2

Layers 3 & 4

Layer #5

And this is what it looks like after dehydrating for about 5 hours:

This is a gallon-sized bag, and upright, it's only about 1/3 full

 See how much fruit it takes to make a small amount of dried fruit?! I could eat that whole bag in one or two sittings, I'm sure. It tastes SO MUCH BETTER than the dried fruit you buy at the grocery store. My favorite fruit to dehydrate is actually starfruit. It's kind of expensive, so I rarely buy it, but it tastes awesome and it looks cute in the shape of stars. So anyway, I'm going to be cutting way back on expenses and hopefully getting really creative in the kitchen.

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What is one of your favorite super-cheap meals?

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One Year! (Video)

It was a year ago today that I reached 100-lbs lost. The time has absolutely flown by, and I can't believe it's been so long. This video is similar to my weight loss video, only it covers my first year of maintaining 100+ pounds lost.

In the last year, I've learned a lot about myself:

• Maintenance is HARD. I was expecting it to be hard, but it's ridiculously hard sometimes.
• Don't get too cocky. When I reached my lowest weight in December, I felt invincible. My weight was decreasing rapidly, and I wasn't counting calories. Well, DUH--I was on a liquid diet for a broken jaw!! Of course I was going to drop weight. I got too cocky thinking I had it all figured out, and when my jaw healed, I gained back some weight. 
• The fat girl in my head is still there, probably even louder than before. I still think I look fat, I still see all my imperfections, I still feel "unworthy" of wearing cute clothes or shopping in athletic stores or calling myself a runner. The fat girl is always telling me that I'll never keep the weight off and that I'll let everyone down.
• I've also learned that there is a skinny girl in my head, too! She tells me it's okay to eat ice cream, because I'm thin now. She tells me it's okay if my size 4 jeans are tight, because a size 6 is thin too. 
• Old habits are hard to get away from, but there are some habits I used to have that completely disgust me now. I cannot imagine eating some of the things I used to eat--even on a horrible binge day, I am too far removed from my former fat-self to eat that way.
• I'm still a binge eater  :(  I went a YEAR without a single binge. Then I started doing it again, although I'm not sure why. 
• I still eat for emotional reasons, particularly stress. 

Maintenance is not all bad, however! ;)  Here are some of my accomplishments over the last year:

• I ran a Ragnar Relay, my first 5k race, two 10k races, a half-marathon, and an 8k race.
• I went on (I think) 5 different trips/vacations--some of which I gained weight, but I lost it after.
• I made it through the most trying time of my life (so far) when I broke my jaw. As horrible as it was, I learned a lot about myself. I also became so much closer to my family, and learned just how great my true friends are.
• I faced some fears--flying in an airplane, dancing, zip-lining.

My goals for the next year of maintenance:

• Find a happy weight and maintain that within about 3 pounds. I've been bouncing up and down with 10-15, and that is way too big a range.
• Run a sub-2:00 half-marathon.
• Work on my emotional eating and binge eating. Possibly start a food journal that focuses less on calories and more on how I'm feeling when I eat.
• Live more actively. Not just intentional exercise, like running and cycling. But enjoyable activities that involve movement, like walking to the mailbox daily (my mailbox is about 1/4 mile away), yard work, etc.
• Step out of my comfort zone a little more--join a club or some activity that makes me overcome my shyness. When I was fat, I always said that I would be outgoing if I got thin. Well, what am I waiting for?! ;)

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Flooded

So I curled up on the couch in my pj's this morning, opened my laptop to check my e-mail, and discovered that my inbox was FLOODED with Sparkmail messages, Sparkfriend requests, and comments on my video blog that I had posted in January. I was really confused! I'm used to getting 2-3 of these things daily, but there were over 350 e-mails this morning, so I started trying to figure it out.

I noticed that this blog had a ton of page views overnight, also:

Usually I get about 70-100 page views per day... look what happened last night!  Wha?!

Then a Sparkfriend of mine clued me in. Apparently Sparkpeople posted my weight loss video on Facebook last night:

Crazy, right?!  I had so much fun drinking my coffee and reading all the comments. You know what the first thought that went through my head was, however?  "Oh no! I think I said "fuck" in my lastest blog entry! THAT is what all my new readers are seeing!"  LOL, sorry, but I do have a potty mouth sometimes. Anyway, thank you to all my readers--new and old--and for all the super nice comments! 

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My kids and I went for a really nice bike ride this morning. I still didn't get to go fast (my kids are small and quite slow!) but we took our time doing about 2.2 miles and stopping to take pictures and stuff like that.

My boys on their bikes

Lake Erie

And, just to show you how slow this ride really was...

I WALK faster than that ;)

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So I warned you about my horrible weigh-in I was sure to have today. It was so bad that I won't even tell you that I gained 7 pounds. I won't tell you that my weight was 149 way up from last week!  However, I've been doing really well today, so hopefully we won't jinx it.  I'm getting so far behind on my calorie bank thingy, so I'm deleting it.

I'm also going to delete my Summer Challenge page. The only goal I was doing very well at was the exercise--I exercised every day in June! But I definitely re-injured my knee, and my body was screaming for a break, so I don't want to push it. I enjoy tolerate exercise way better when I only work out 3-4 days per week. I'm going to try and be more active on a daily basis, however. Like today's bike ride with the boys. It wasn't a "workout", but definitely an "activity".

I've been working on a video to post tomorrow, for my one-year anniversary of 100 pounds lost. It's probably not as fun to watch as the weight loss video, but it sums up my first year of maintaining a large loss.

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Since I have some new followers after the whole Sparkpeople tada last night, why not introduce yourself in a comment below?? Please include a link to your blog or Sparkpage or website or something too, if you have one; and tell me how you came across my blog! I always read my comments and check out blog links, even though I rarely respond to comments--I guess I always think that a response will get lost and you'll never see it! But seriously, old reader or new, introduce yourself! :)

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Bright and early

I woke up at 6 this morning to throw on some running clothes and shoes and be sitting on the porch when Jerry got home from work at 6:30. I wanted to get a 3-mile run in before it got too hot today. I love the 3-mile runs, because they seem so short and they go by fast. I actually brought my ipod with me today, which I normally don't do. I got to the point where listening to music or talk radio was more annoying while running than anything, so I started going without; and I got used to it.

A lot of people ask me about running with an ipod, because you'll notice that I'm not wearing one in any of my race photos. I know it's very common to listen to them during a race, but I actually find it a little rude. There are tons of spectators cheering on the runners, and I just feel like it would be insulting to have earphones in while they're cheering for me. Also, I love to listen to the sound of feet hitting the ground, and breathing, and I've overheard some seriously funny and/or ridiculous conversations while running races. But that said, I don't judge the people that DO use earphones.

After my run, I had to take the kids to their dentist appointment. I swear, the universe was making it very difficult for me to get there on time! About 2 minutes after we left, I realized I forgot my coffee sitting on the table at home--so of course I had to turn around to get it ;)  Then we got stopped by a train just before we got on the expressway. We were cruising for about 5 miles when all traffic came to a complete stop. Awesome. We crawled along for about 20 minutes, and at the front, I was expecting a huge 10-car pile-up because they reduced everyone to driving on the shoulder--all 3 lanes were closed! When I got to the front, this is what I saw:

Nothing! Absolutely nothing except for a van and some cones, blocking the entire e-way! When we got to the exit we needed, it was closed for construction (of course) so we had to take a detour. And finally, we were stopped by another train. A 45 minute drive ended up taking an hour and 10 minutes or so.

After the appointment, we had to drive right by Sam's Club, so naturally I had to stop in there! My kids were dying for lunch, so I let them get pizza. And I drooled watched them eat it without getting anything myself :(   Is it bad to give your kids slushees just minutes after getting their teeth cleaned? lol

I bought some of the usual crap: Fiber One bars, cheese, batteries, chocolate chips, nuts. I decided to check out the price of coffee there, because I noticed that the price of coffee has gone way up over the past couple of months. I told my husband yesterday that I was going to quit drinking coffee, because it costs more than my damn wine does. So I was checking out the coffee, and then it was like the heavens opened up and shined a brilliant light down while trumpets sounded... on THIS(!!!!), my friends:

MACKINAC FUCKING ISLAND FUDGE flavored coffee!! If there is seriously ONE reason that God chose to have me be born and raised in Michigan, it was for this reason alone: Michigan (particularly Mackinac Island) is known for their fudge! Someone at Paramount Coffee is completely brilliant, in my opinion, because I was completely sold when I saw that. Thankfully, it worked out to about $7/pound, which is about $5 cheaper than what my "regular" brand has become. So Eli nearly got a concussion when I threw that bag in the cart and headed for checkout.

I was already jittery from my coffee that morning, so I didn't try it yet. I will give the verdict tomorrow on how it tastes. Speaking of tomorrow, it's my Wednesday Weigh-In. And I must warn you, it's NOT going to be pretty. Probably horrifying, actually. I think I ate my weight in ice cream this week. If today was the day of reckoning, I would definitely be going to dieting hell. But I promise next week will be awesome!

Oh, and my internet has been going wacky the past few days. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The cable guy came today, and said he needs to send someone else tomorrow. So if you don't hear from me for a while, that's why. Grr.

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Do you drink flavored coffee? What's your favorite? And how do you drink it? I like my coffee with 1 Tbsp. of coconut milk creamer (or 1/2 Tbsp. of half & half), and without sugar or sweetener. I'm totally fine having it black, too.

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Sweet Potato Wheels

Sure enough, we didn't do much yesterday, but it was a nice day to relax at home. I had a sweet potato sitting on my counter for a while, so I decided to turn that into my lunch yesterday. It was SO GOOD that I just have to share--it's not much of a "recipe", more of a "method". But either way, you've got to try it!

Sweet Potato Wheels

1 large sweet potato (mine was 12 oz)
cooking spray
salt & pepper to taste


Set the oven to 'broil' (mine has high and low, so I chose high). Peel the sweet potato and slice into thin slices (about 1/4 inch). Spray a baking sheet with the cooking spray, and then lay all the sweet potato pieces out on the sheet.

Lie the wheels on a sprayed baking sheet

Spray the tops with a little cooking spray and then sprinkle generously with salt and pepper. Put the sheet under the broiler until the tops are starting to burn darken in spots, like this:

When they look like this, flip them over

I think it took about 10 minutes for mine. Flip each piece over, and put the sheet back under the broiler. When you can smell the sweet potato goodness, and they look like this, they're done:

Pile them all on a plate and devour them. Share them with someone, because this is probably at least two servings. I ate the whole batch for about 280 calories, which was totally worth it. These taste just like sweet potato fries, but they are so much easier to make--they cook more evenly, they don't stick to the baking sheet, and they take less time overall.

A very well-spent 280 calories!

In the afternoon, my kids wanted to ride their bikes up to the liquor store to buy a popsicle. I took my bike, and I'm so in love with it! I haven't had a chance to really ride it like it's meant to be ridden, but I will definitely be able to when my kids go back to school. For now, I've been taking it out to ride with the kids, which is extremely slow. So slow that I feel like I'm going to tip over.

I went grocery shopping in the afternoon. Our refrigerator was practically empty, but I couldn't figure out what we were missing. We had the essentials--milk, almond milk, eggs, etc. I bought a shitload of fruits and veggies, because I haven't been eating many lately.

For dinner, we cooked turkey burgers on the grill. I got some Jennie-O burgers on sale for $1 (4 patties) because the sell by date was in 2 days. I also got 6 packages of Jennie-O turkey sausage for $1 each for the same reason--I just threw them in the freezer to use when we want. Awesome deal! Anyway, we also made corn on the cob. I really wanted baked beans, but in order to save calories, we rounded out the meal with watermelon and a dill pickle.

415 calories for the plate

Today's plans are pretty much the same. Jerry has to work, so it'll just be me and the kids. My knee is killing me, so I'm going to try to rest it as much as I can today.

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What's your favorite thing to cook on the grill? As lame as it sounds, mine is probably hot dogs! If we're being very specific, I like brats, cooked until a little charred. Then I load it up with mustard and onions.

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At least it works

Well, I only made it through half the day of counting calories yesterday before I made a batch of blueberry muffins and ate half of them. I told Jerry that I need to make "the deal" with him again. I have to count calories 6 days per week, and if I go over my calories on any of those days, he can withdraw $500 from our savings account to buy whatever the hell he wants. It sounds like such a stupid deal, but IT WORKS. It has kept me on track for weeks at a time! So starting today, it's on.

The kids spent the night at my parents house, so I got up early and went for a long run. Last night, I was looking up ideal heart rate zones for running, and decided to try and keep my heart rate within the recommended zone for long runs--which for me, was 150 to 156 beats per minute. Normally when I run, my heart rate is about 158-160. It was surprisingly difficult to stay within the 150-156 zone. When I slowed my running, it went slightly under, and then when I deliberately sped up, it went a little over. Then, of course, every time I saw a dog my heart rate shot up because I'm scared of dogs. I've been bitten 3 times in the last year of running by dogs wandering around unleashed.

Anyways, I thought keeping my heart rate between 150-156 would mean my pace would be super slow, like 11:00 min/mi. It ended up being just over a 10:00 min/mi pace, which isn't fast, but it's faster than I expected.

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I haven't heard anything new from the cop about Friday's incident at Wal-Mart. It's been on my mind almost constantly, though. Thank you for all your comments on that post. Some of your stories are horrifying--I cannot imagine seeing or enduring that kind of abuse and the aftermath of it. Until Friday, I've only ever read about or heard stories of abuse, but seeing that happen was absolutely horrible. It makes me feel so sad. I've been trying to be more patient with my kids the past couple of days, and giving them extra kisses and hugs. Kids are just so innocent and precious!

My boys playing in the rain recently... they thought it was GREAT!

Jerry is off work today, and I'm so excited to spend some quality time with him. He's been working a lot lately, and while we need the money, it sucks not being able to see him more than a couple of hours a day. We have no plans for the 4th--today OR tomorrow--so we'll probably just spend some time outside with the kids, and maybe cook dinner on the grill. Hopefully something worth blogging about! ;)

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Do you pay attention to your heart rate while exercising? I only recently have started doing that, but I guess I don't see the point. I'm a numbers person, so it's interesting to see patterns, but I exercise is exercise, right?!

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Disturbed

Yesterday morning started out great. The kids were riding their bikes, and I actually found a 5-leaf clover. Yes, 5 leaves! I've found many 4-leaf clovers in my life, but this was definitely the first 5-leaf clover I've ever seen...

Brought the kids to their Safety City class (the last class, thank goodness). While they were in class, I decided to walk into town and find a little restaurant for lunch. I walked in the 85 degree heat (in my jeans and cute top) about 1.5 miles and there actually weren't any restaurants right in the heart of town, which surprised me. I thought there'd at least be a diner or something. I just walked back to the car, and was sweating like a beast by this time. Drove to Panera (ugh, just went there the day before). Had a bagel and iced tea. Then went to a frozen custard place and got fat-free sugar-free ice cream before picking up the kids.

The kids went to my parents house for dinner, and Jerry was off work, so we decided to go out. We went to a coney island, and it was SO GOOD. I hadn't eaten there in a couple of years. I got a Patty Melt and deep fried mushrooms, which I shared with Jerry. After we ate, we decided to go to Wal-Mart to get a couple of snacks to bring on the boat with us. The fireworks were at 10 pm, and my parents always take us out in the boat to watch the fireworks over the water.

At Wal-Mart, I saw something that shook me to the core.

Jerry and I saw a display of suckers, and we were picking out which flavors our kids might like, when I heard a little boy (probably about 3 years old) crying kind of hysterically, yelling a name (we'll say 'Michael'... I don't want to use the real name). His mom was yelling for Michael also, looking very worried. I said to Jerry, "Jerry, they're looking for their kid--let's help find him! He's probably scared to death."  I have two little boys, so I know how terrifying that can be for both parent and child.

We were at the front of the store, near the women's section of clothes. I was standing on my toes, trying to see over the racks of clothes to see if I could find this little boy. A moment later, a boy of about 4 or 5 was in front of me. I said, "Are you Michael?" with a smile. And out of the corner of my eye, I saw a man (his dad? Mom's boyfriend? whatever) run up to him, I thought to give him a hug (which is what I would have done in that situation!)  Instead he yanked the boy's arm, and the boy fell on the ground. Then the dad, using his FIST, started BEATING the boy in the back (who had curled into a ball on the ground). He was yelling something about staying with them, and not getting lost.

I started screaming, I don't really remember what I was screaming, something about how he (the boy) didn't do anything wrong. Jerry flipped out too, yelling "What the hell is your problem?" etc. Jerry and I were causing such a scene that other people started looking. The man knew he fucked up, you could see it in his face. He got quieter and picked the boy up and threw him in the shopping cart. Then they stood in line to pay. I was trembling and hysterical at what I just saw. It was NOT a "spanking", or even borderline. The man was truly BEATING his little boy. I told Jerry to call the police.

There were tons of people around, but everyone kind of averted their eyes, like it was none of their business. Well, fuck all of them--they are just as bad as the boys father, as far as I'm concerned. There were 2 other people that came up to Jerry and I and were very disturbed by the incident too. We all stood outside waiting for the police. I saw the family leaving, and I followed them to their car. I wrote down the license plate number. The police took almost an hour to show up--seriously. The other two witnesses had left, but I said I'll wait all night if I have to. When the cop showed up, we gave a statement and the license plate number, and then we left. The cop said he was going to view the footage of the surveillance video.

We then went to the kids graduation from Safety City. I was still very shaken up and couldn't stop thinking about what happened. When we were at the boat docks, about to get in the boat, my cell rang and it was the cop. He said he wanted to let me know that he followed up on the incident, and the man was actually on probation for domestic assault! The cop had checked out the little boy, and said he had older bruising around his waist. The dad told the cop it was because the two boys wrestle with each other. The dad also said that he gave his son a "light spanking" at the store. The cop (who has seen these cases numerous times) could see right through the lies. He said that Child Protective Services will be out to check out the house, and the man's probation officer is going to get the report. Most likely, the cop said the man will wind up in court (and we could get subpoenaed).

I'm SO GLAD that we spoke up for the little boy and that we waited around for the police to give a statement. I'm very glad that the cop actually followed up on it and that he called to let me know that he did. I'm extremely angry at all the bystanders who did absolutely nothing except avert their eyes while a little boy was beaten. And I really hope that the asshole gets what he deserves. I wish the boys' mom would leave him, but you could see she was scared and embarrassed about the whole thing.

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Anyway, I felt a little better after the cop called. We went out on the boat and fished a little (I caught 5--but mostly silver bass, which we don't keep), then watched the fireworks. By the time we got home is was midnight, which is late for me. Today is definitely back to normal as far as food goes. I ate way too much yesterday.

Eli, fishing

Gorgeous sunset

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Have you ever witnessed something in which you had to call the police? Today's incident was, by far, the worst for me.

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Such a stressful day

Sorry for the lame pictorial post yesterday, I just didn't have time to write a "real" post. The day started out normally, and I took the kids to their Safety City class. My runner's knee was flared up and hurting badly, and my body was really wanting a rest day--even though it was the LAST DAY of June, and I had worked out every single day so far in June. I decided not to do any running or even hard walking.

While the kids were in their class, I walked to Panera--just 2/3 of a mile away. I ordered lunch (black bean soup, 1/2 a salad, and a piece of bread). I only had half the bread, so my calories for lunch were just about 350. Not bad!  I never ever eat out, but I've done Subway twice and Panera once since my kids have been in that class. I have to occupy 2 hours of my time, and it happens to be lunch time. Anyway, the salad wasn't great--it was a strawberry and poppyseed chicken salad or something like that. I liked the soup and bread though (whole grain baguette).

My lunch at Panera

After the kids class, we had to go home and clean up the house quickly because my friend Renee was coming over for wine later that night, and we had a birthday party to go to in the afternoon. We weren't home for even 15 minutes when the first problem occurred. I went to the Jeep to get out the birthday present I had bought about a week ago for the little boy's party. I had to wrap it. Well, one of the kids had put their water bottle on top of the gift after t-ball, and the water bottle leaked. The gift was completely soaked through with water (it was a slip 'n slide and a beach towel). The towel was totally saturated and the cardboard box on the slip 'n slide was soggy and wet. I panicked because we had to leave soon and we had no gift.

I looked up directions to the party to discover it was 1 hr and 10 minutes away!! The house was still messy, but my husband was home (he had to work, so he wasn't going to the party). My husband told me he'd clean up the house. I didn't even have a chance to shower and get ready. I got the kids loaded into the car and we left. I was really upset about the gift. We decided to stop and buy a card and just put $20 in the card. I don't like to do that for little kids, because they'd much rather open a gift, but I didn't have time to go buy another present. We picked up my mom, because she was going with us, and then drove to the farm where the party was.

Once we got there, I started feeling (mentally) a little better. The farm was really cool! They let us hold, feed, or pet all the animals, including a huge turtle, a snake, a hedgehog, deer, a baby alligator, ducklings and chicks, pigs, baby skunks(!!) and all kind of fun stuff. My favorite were the baby skunks--they were so pudgy and adorable.

The baby skunks were SO adorable!

Noah holding the snake

The deer was pregnant and ready to deliver any moment

I was STARVING and after all the stress, I ended up throwing calories to the wind and eating too much last night. At the party, I had a small sub and small bag of Doritos. Then two servings of dirt cake. On the way home, Eli had to go to the bathroom, so we stopped at a gas station (gross). I ended up buying a small bag of chocolate covered cashews (my favorite candy ever!!) and a small bag of Twizzlers.

At home, I took a super quick shower and put on my PJ's just as Renee got here. We opened a bottle of Kendall Jackson Summation, a dry red blend, and it was really good. Reminded me of Fall, so I'm going to keep that in mind for later. We polished off the bottle.

Renee amazes me. She's about 125 pounds--very small and cute--and she doesn't have to count calories or diet or anything to stay her size. She definitely does her share of work for it; she's a runner, and she's the one who got me into running. She definitely eats healthy food, but she doesn't worry about portions or calories or anything like that. And her weight is CONSTANT. She said her weight is the same as it was before she had her 3 boys, the oldest of which is now 9. We were looking through the What I Eat book I bought, and she found it so interesting. She had no clue how many calories were in certain foods, when I could list the calories in my sleep! I really wish I could be like that--just not care about calories, enjoy food, and maintain a healthy weight.

Renee and me on Halloween in 2010

Today is going to be a crazy day too. Safety City class, then Safety City graduation this evening, then going out on my parents boat to watch fireworks tonight. I'm taking a 100% rest day as far as exercise, and I'm not counting calories today. I just need a break mentally and physically. Back on it tomorrow, though!

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How to eat a marshmallow (a pictorial)

Load the mallow on the stick

Make sure it's on well, so it doesn't fall off in the fire

Get close to the fire, but not too close

Stick the mallow into the flames until it burns (while showing your bra to the internets)

Check the outside to make sure it's crispy

Carefully peel off the carcinogenic outer layer

It should come off in one piece, looking like a shell of the mallow

And gently place the shell onto your tongue

Close your mouth and let the mallow dissolve into sugary bliss

Prepare to repeat the sequence with the rest of the mallow

Stick it in the fire. Close, but not too close.

Peel off the outer layer

It gets trickier as the mallow gets smaller

Eat the second shell of the mallow

Repeat until the mallow is too small to layer, and pull the whole thing off

Savor. Every. Second.

Lick your fingers

Peel off any goo that might remain on the stick

And eat that too

And repeat the entire sequence again... and again...

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I did it!

After pussing out yesterday at the bike shop, I decided to go back today (thank you, Sarasael, for your comment--that pushed me into going back!)  I was still super nervous, but I went in and a super nice guy helped me out.

He asked what kind of riding I wanted to do, and I just told him that I'm a runner and I want to cross-train a couple of times a week. No racing or huge mileage or anything, and only on the road (no trails). He introduced me to some hybrid bikes, which (from what I read online) sounded like the way to go for me. He asked if I wanted to test ride a couple bikes, which I was nervous to do, but I figured I probably should before I drop hundreds of dollars on a bike.

I loved the first one I tried. It felt so much better than any other bike I've ever ridden--very smooth. He suggested a bike with a longer length, which I tried, but I still went back to the first one. And $487 later, it's now mine :) 

When I got it home, I was excited to ride it right away. I was thinking I'd do about 6-8 miles, but good LORD--my thighs were burning! I have a tempo run scheduled tomorrow, so I decided to call it quits after 3.5 miles. Hopefully I won't be TOO sore tomorrow. It was so much fun though--I felt like I was flying. Now, I know that 13 mph is on the slow side for biking, but that was my average speed (I took the Garmin, of course!)  I probably should get a helmet (and maybe not wear flip flops next time, lol).  I also have no clue what different gears are for. This has 21 gears, but I've no clue what to do with them. I'll have to read up on it.

The only thing that really sucks about owning a bike now is that I don't have a garage to put it in. So I'll have to keep it in the house. I also don't have a hitch for bikes on my Jeep, so I'll have to get one or I'll be sticking around my house to ride.  I felt kind of guilty spending so much money, but I justified it by telling myself that it's a present to myself for maintaining 100 pounds lost for an entire year.

Shortly after that, Jerry glanced out the window and went flying outside. I heard him yell, "Phoebe!" kind of sternly (Phoebe is one of my cats) and immediately I knew she had a bird or something in her mouth.

I ran outside and sure enough, she had a DUCKLING. It was alive and unhurt, thank God, but the poor thing's mother was nowhere to be found. I live right across from the woods, as you can see in the pictures, and there is some swamp there, so I'm guessing that's where she got it. But I looked and looked, and there was no sign of a duck or more ducklings.

See how tiny it is? Poor thing!

Jerry called the vet to see if they knew of someone that would take it in, and got the number to a guy who specializes in wildlife. He didn't answer the phone, so desperately, I told Jerry of this house that I pass on my runs who takes care of the wild ducks there.

They have a fence set up with shelter and everything, but it's open to where the ducks can come and go as they please. I told Jerry to bring the duck there, knock on the door, and ask if they know what to do with it. The guy actually took it in, and said that he cares for the abandoned ducks and other animals until he can let them go. What luck is that?!  So now the sweet little duckling has a home.

Oh, I seriously had the BEST breakfast today. I just chopped up a peach and dumped a packet of Emerald Breakfast On The Go on top. Then I nuked it for 1 minute in the microwave. The peaches got hot and melty, and the granola topping stuff was so yummy.

I picked out the yogurt-covered raisins (and ate them separately) because I didn't think they'd fit in with the peaches. The only thing that could have made it better would have been a scoop of vanilla ice cream, but sadly, I cannot trust myself to have ice cream in the house.  I've made this dozens of times with apples, but I never thought to use peaches! It was SO good. I'll definitely be making it again.  I'm sure it would be good with any kind of granola or crunchy cereal. I love a nut and dried fruit combo.

This was 222 calories.

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Have you ever taken in a wild animal or just a stray animal? I seem to be doing it a lot lately! First Estelle, then Paolo (both cats), and today the duckling. Thank goodness we found someone else to take the duckling, otherwise I'd be nursing it here until it was big enough to go back in the wild.

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