Oscars party!

As you may remember, Special K gave me the opportunity to host an Oscars party--they sent me Special K Popcorn Chips, a red carpet for decoration, some OPI nail polish, some beaded coasters, and a $100 Visa gift card to buy party supplies. They even generously allowed me to give away the same package to a reader! I was super excited to invite my girlfriends over for some snacks, wine, and of course, the Oscars.

On Sunday evening, Stephanie was the first to arrive, which was convenient since she's my own personal photographer ;) (Thank you Steph for all the pictures I'm about to post!) She looked AMAZING in her jeweled pink gown...

She wanted to get a picture of each of us girls on the red carpet, which was fun...

Me, in my "Vanna White" gown

Tammy

Jessica--I said on the invite that black-tie
attire was optional, and Jess had a long day...
So she chose comfort ;)

Renee

Emma (she made this dress in about 15 minutes
 from a huge choir gown)

Rachael (she came in the best of both comfort
and classy--a dress on top, and pajama pants
underneath)

(Not pictured is my friend Alicia, who would prefer that her photo is not on the blog). I had lots of snacks and wine to go around...

This Olive Tapenade with Crostini was a big hit, and I totally
blame it for my weight jumping two pounds the next day ;)
The rosemary makes it unique and delicious! This was 1 PP for
2 Tbsp, and a little goes a long way.

This Red Pepper & Feta dip was my personal favorite (I used
fat-free cheese, and this came out to 1 PP for 1/4 cup!) I liked
it best with tortilla chips, but it was also good with vegetables--
particularly the red pepper strips.

Citrus Tahini Hummus (a typical hummus recipe, only it
includes adding an orange to the food processor with the
rest of the ingredients--it was good!)

And of course I included the Special K Popcorn Chips--but rather than just throw them in a bowl next to all this food, I wanted to take them to the next level--Oscars level. (The chips they sent me were the Sweet & Salty variety). Since I had recently bought some chocolate-covered potato chips from Trader Joe's, I thought, "Hmm... I bet these would be great dipped in chocolate!"

So I melted 3/4 of a cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips in the microwave until it was dip-able, and I dunked one corner of each chip in the chocolate and laid them out on foil to harden the chocolate before putting them in a bowl.

They turned out to be really good! I did try the chips plain, and I also like them that way. They are kind of like a rice cake, but they're really thin, so they're crunchier; also, you get a lot of chips in one serving. I actually bought these chips before, so I already knew I liked them before Special K contacted me.

Anyway, I calculated the PointsPlus in the chocolate-dipped chips, and I could eat four chips for just 1 PP--awesome! I estimate that I probably ate about 16 of them, however--whoops. I was sitting right next to them, and it was hard not to keep reaching for "just one more".

I did make the Guacamole Deviled Eggs I'd mentioned, but they were so ugly that I just couldn't bring myself to take them out of the fridge. I used chili powder instead of the minced serrano chile, so the red powder + yellow yolks + green avocado made for one really gross looking filling. They tasted really good, though! Thankfully, Jerry loved them, so he took them all to work with him yesterday.

For dessert, I made single serving Boston Cream Pie in jars. They were very easy to make, and I love single-serve desserts, so that I don't go overboard.

And what Oscars party would be complete without champagne, right? So we did a champagne toast...

I had so much fun chatting with my friends that I didn't pay too much attention to the Oscars! But I hadn't seen any of the movies that were nominated, so I just blindly picked my winners, and was wrong with all of them ;)

I did pretty well in regards to staying on plan, but I ate more than I'd counted on. I kept picking at the Special K chips and the tortilla chips, which were right in front of me. I plugged everything into my tracker after everyone left, and I was 13 PP in the hole for the week! So I've been working on earning extra activity PP to make up for it. Regardless, I had fun and I don't feel I went overboard, so I wouldn't change anything.

(Very big thanks to Special K who made this happen--I wasn't paid for this post, but like I said, Special K sponsored the party in exchange for my reviewing the chips. This was, by far, the most fun review I've done yet!).

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Motivational Monday #4

Motivational Mondays make me so happy! I absolutely love to read all the positive changes that you have made for yourselves. No accomplishment is "insignificant"--that's why I like to focus on one week at a time. All those little accomplishments add up to BIG accomplishments in the long run :)  

Here are some super inspirational readers and their photos to prove it!

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Libby Dilard (who lost 90 lbs last year!!) completed her first marathon--the National Marathon To Finish Breast Cancer (a.k.a The Donna).

Libby, you look fantastic, and I absolutely LOVE how happy you look in that photo! Great job!

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Laura has lost 60 lbs over the last year, and celebrated with her sisters in Orlando by doing the 5K on Saturday & Princess Half on Sunday! 

Congrats, Laura--both on the weight loss and the races. What a great way to celebrate!

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Allison ran a 10K with her son (who is just 7 years old!) on Sunday. Her son placed third in the 20 and under division!

I got goosebumps when I saw this--he looks so tiny to be running a 10K! That is SO amazing. Congrats to both of you!

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Amber rode her stationary bike over 60 miles last week after nearly a year of not working out. "I feel so great and strong--I started riding 30 minutes, then went to 40, and then 45... today I'm going for an hour!"

Amber, I imagine your picture is blurry because your hands were shaking from all the work you just did! ;) What an AWESOME accomplishment--great job!

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Britt tried on some designer skinny jeans... "I'm not longer too big for the biggest size!!" 

That is such a fun milestone, Britt! You look great in those skinnies!

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My motivational event happened Saturday night at a local 5k. It was called Freezin' For a Reason and the money raised was to benefit a friend of mine who has cancer. He is a volunteer firefighter and a paramedic. I would have never been caught dead in a costume let alone wear one for a race. But I made my costume top to bottom and wore it all night for the race. After the race, myself (I am a firefighter and EMT), his manager at the ambulance base, and two other friends/coworkers took an icy plunge in to a dump tank of water at 8 pm in 20 degree weather as a show of our support to Chris. There was a huge crowd there to watch but I sucked up the courage and jumped out of my comfort zone the whole night. It was a huge success and I am proud that I stepped up and dressed up in a wild costume and also took the plunge.

First off, your costume is ADORABLE--you should be so proud to show that off! And I know just how hard it is to step out of your comfort zone, but you went all out for this. How fun!

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For Motivational Monday, I like to focus on small mini-goals (which is why it's a weekly thing); but I got a few e-mails with before/after photos that were very inspiring, so I'm going to share those as well today. I think that soon, I'll do a special version of Motivational Monday that is just before and after photos, because those are always fun to look at!

Emily lost 12 pounds (2 pant sizes!) in 6 weeks. "I worked out 4 times a week and stuck to my 1 month vegan diet challenge! My endurance has increased incredibly."

That 12 pounds made a huge difference--you look fantastic! Although I have to say, you look great in the "before" photo as well... ;)

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Ashley has lost 47.6 pounds, and is super excited to reach the 50-lb. mark soon!

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From Margaret:
"I teach in an elementary school - each spring we do a 'Colonial Day' with our 4th graders.   Teachers, kids and parents dress up in colonial costume, play colonial games, create colonial crafts and even dance traditional colonial dances. Seven years ago, a parent made this costume for me - LOVED it and wore it each year.   Last year it barely tied...this was just before I made the decision to really get serious about losing weight and running. I started last year on President's Day--this year, I could only wear the hat from the costume!   The apron wrapped all the way around and the vest and skirt just wouldn't stay on! One year and nearly 100 lbs!"

Margaret, that is AMAZING--I'm stunned at what a difference a year can make! Congrats on all your hard work!

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And as always, you can find a ton more on the Motivational Monday Facebook post, so make sure to check that out. Here is a small snippet:

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Anyone have a small goal that you hope to accomplish this week? Please share in the comments!


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First day with the ActiveLink

Finally! My assessment phase for the Weight Watchers Active Link is done, and today I was able to use it to earn PointsPlus. I plugged it in right when I woke up, just to check out what it said before I started my day.

First, it said that I'd earned approximately 3 PP per day while I was in the assessment phase. I was surprised by that! I thought it would be lower. I didn't wear the ActiveLink during a couple of my runs, because I've been running farther than usual to reach my 100 miles in February goal. Here is what it said I earned last week:

The days that I wore it on a run were Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday. I ran 4, 4, and 5.4 miles respectively. The other days, I either didn't run or I didn't wear it while I ran. If I had been counting activity PP manually, by the book, I would have earned 5, 5, and 6 PP on those days; but the ActiveLink gave me 7, 7, and 9... I'll take it! It said this was my activity pattern...

Basically, I do get in a good workout most days of the week, but other than that, I'm not very active. Which is exactly what I expected it to say, and that's the reason I'm looking forward to using the ActiveLink--to motivate me to move more!

From now on, I have to reach my "baseline" of activity each day--this is a fixed number calculated by my age, weight, sex, etc. It has nothing to do with how much I moved during my assessment. So each day, once I've moved enough to reach the "baseline", any movement beyond that will earn Activity PointsPlus.

They've also set up a challenge for me--since I earned 2-4 Activity PP per day during the assessment phase, I'm supposed to gradually increase that until I'm earning 5 PP per day in 12 weeks.

At the end of the day, I can plug in the ActiveLink and it will automatically add those earned PP to my tracker, so I can eat them :)  Today, I started the day off with a four-mile run on the treadmill.

As soon as I was done, I plugged my ActiveLink into the computer to see if I'd earned any PP for it, or how close I was to reaching my baseline. It turns out that I didn't need to run very far to reach my baseline, because I'd already earned 4 PP and it was only 9:00 in the morning! Since I'd reached my baseline, any movement for the rest of the day would earn me PP (not as much as running, but every little bit of movement helps).

So I spent most of the day cleaning, prepping more food for tonight, and moving around a bit. Just now, when I plugged in the Active Link, it shows that I've earned 6 PP today.

This shows that I woke up at around 6:30, moved around in the morning (got the kids ready for church), ran on the treadmill, then went to the grocery store for a couple of last minute things, and cleaned the house during the afternoon.

I'm happy with the results of this! I was worried I wasn't going to be earning as many PP as I was used to, but it looks like it will work out to be about the same, if not a little more. And it certainly is an incentive to move more during the day!

I hate to cut this short, but my computer is running on battery alone and I have no way to charge it--Jerry accidentally broke my charger today :( 

See that little metal piece? It broke completely off. I called around to buy a new one, but nobody carries it, so I wrote Microsoft to see if they'll let me exchange it. I can use Jerry's computer (my old one) to blog on if needed, but I hate not having all of "my stuff" on the computer.

I'm excited for my girlfriends to come over tonight to watch the Oscars with me! I've actually never watched the Oscars before, so this is new to me. But any excuse for wine and girl talk is a good excuse, right?

I forgot that tomorrow is Motivational Monday, so I'll post about the Oscars party on Tuesday instead of tomorrow.

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Causes of binge eating

I didn't wake up until 8:00 this morning! I never sleep that late. Last night, I took a sleeping pill so that I could sleep through the night--lately, I've been waking up constantly, feeling like I'm wide awake, and it drives me crazy. It worked like a charm, but I felt super tired when I woke up.

I sat and watched a movie on Lifetime for a little bit with a cup of tea. I am loving the David's Tea that I bought! I love all the flavors, and really can't choose a favorite. Today I had the Toasted Marshmallow flavor, and it was heavenly.

That's Phoebe in the background. She really likes Lifetime movies, and she sat and watched with me ;)

Once I got a little more energy, I got to work cleaning the house for my company tomorrow. It's funny, whenever I start doing the cleaning that I normally don't do very often (dust, for example) my kids always ask me, "Are your friends coming over?"

I was really in the mood to organize, so I ended up cleaning out the pantry. I have a really big pantry, and we somehow acquire a lot of food in there that I forget about. So I went through, checking the expiration dates of stuff, and throwing out things that have been forgotten. It looked much better when I was done.

This afternoon, I got to work on preparing the food for tomorrow. I chose to make things that I could do ahead of time, so that I don't have to be in the kitchen while my friends are over. I started by making the dessert. I've seen a million recipes for different desserts in a jar, and I thought that would be very convenient to make ahead of time. I decided to make a Boston Cream Pie version. They turned out pretty cute!

They are 11 PointsPlus each--not bad, for a decent-sized dessert. (I'll post links to all the recipes that I use when I post about my Oscars party--probably Monday).

I also made a Citrus Hummus, Roasted Red Pepper and Feta dip, and Olive Tapenade. Tomorrow, I'm going to make Guacamole Deviled Eggs. It was SO hard to make all this food today without eating it! I did a few tastes, and snacked on too many tortilla chips while I was making everything, but I counted the PointsPlus for it. The Red Pepper dip was so amazing that it's going to be my new go-to party dip.

Jerry posted this little cat chart on Facebook for me, and I thought it was hilarious, so I wanted to post it here. If you have a cat, you will probably get a kick out of it (click to enlarge it):

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I haven't posted a "reader question" in a while, but here is one that I got recently:

Q. What do you think causes your binges when they occur? Difficult emotions? Love of food? Both? Something else entirely?

I have been in binge mode lately. I am still maintaining because I binge, then eat healthfully, binge, etc. I can't figure out what is up with me all of a sudden! I know this is a slippery slope.

A. Well, I'm happy to say that my binge-free streak is now at 167 days and counting :) But, I really wish I knew the answer to this question! I've noticed that when I feel really anxious, binge eating usually makes me feel better, so that's one reason. Stress is another reason--if I feel stressed out for any number of reasons, binge eating relieves the stress. I've tried other ways to relieve stress and anxiety, but nothing works the way food does ;)  And since someone always asks how I define a binge, here is a post that explains it.

 

I do have other binge triggers, though--food blogs are one of them! I can't read/view food blogs or browse Pinterest because then I fixate on food and it almost always leads to a binge. Since I've started this binge-free streak, I've only used Pinterest to bookmark certain things I find online--I don't browse through it like I used to. 

 

And, there are certain binge-triggering foods that I can't have at home. Ice cream, graham crackers, regular sized chocolate chips (the mini ones are fine to have a home, but nothing bigger--strange, I know), Biscoff Spread/Cookie Butter, and Marshmallow Fluff, to name a few things. 

 

I think it's important to find out what your triggers are--maybe stress, boredom, food porn, any number of other things--and then find ways to eliminate them or make the best of them. If your problem is boredom, then maybe make a list of things you can do when you feel the urge to binge--play solitare, read a book, go shopping, whatever. If your problem is food porn (food blogs, Pinterest, etc.), maybe it's time to eliminate it, like I did. 

 

Binge eating is SUPER hard to overcome--I was binge-free for a whole year when I was losing weight, and then I started doing it again. This time around, I'm trying to learn from my mistakes and hopefully I'll keep this streak going even longer than before. But it's a very tough road! 

 

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Great start to the weekend

Oh, Friday. My long run day. I tend to dread Fridays all day on Thursdays, because I just don't want to run long. But after I've done the run on Friday, I just feel SO great all weekend for doing it!

This morning, I woke up and checked the weather on my phone while I was roasting under the electric blanket.

Hmm... snowing, feels like 7 degrees, with 20 mph winds? I clicked on that little red alert button, which basically said, "Go back to sleep. You're stupid if you're thinking of running outside right now!"

I thought about putting it off until tomorrow, but then I would just dread it all day today and be mad that I was being such a baby about it, so I decided to just get up and run on the treadmill. All 12 miles. I put Sons of Anarchy on Netflix, set the treadmill to 6.8 mph, and just started running.

I really like Sons of Anarchy, so it certainly helped to pass the time, but I was still looking at the distance way too often. I made it through two full episodes and one partial episode of the show--that's a long time to be on a treadmill! But I was SO happy to be done, and I felt good.

My ActiveLink is still in the assessment phase right now, so my Weight Watchers account won't let me add my activity points. But when I run 12 miles, burning nearly 1,000 calories, you better believe I'm going to add some PointsPlus to my day! So I just looked up the points in the WW book, and I've been keeping track on a little notepad on my phone:

The book gives me more PP than the formula I was using (calories burned divided by 80)--but since my weight has dropped a little, I figured adding a few extras won't hurt. Once I run out of my weekly PointsPlus, I will start dipping into these. Tomorrow is the last day of assessment on the ActiveLink, so on Sunday, I should start to earn PP again.

Jerry was off work today, and the kids were off school (all week), so we wanted to take them somewhere fun for their last day of winter break. They wanted to go up to this jungle gym place, but it's an hour away, and the roads were really bad from the snow. Instead, I took them (and Jerry) to the ice skating rink and dropped them off. While they were skating, I went to the store to buy the groceries for Sunday (my Oscar's viewing party!). I'm trying out a few new recipes, so I have no idea how they will be, but I bought lots of wine, so it shouldn't matter ;)

I picked the boys up, and we ate lunch at Wendy's (a large chili is only 7 PP and very filling!). Then we went to Mrs. Fields so I could spend my activity PointsPlus on something fun. I earned it after 12 miles on a treadmill! I got the same thing as last time--the Peanut Butter Dream Bar.

I would be happy ditching the crust and just eating the peanut butter and chocolate ganache layer. I don't think there is a better match than chocolate and peanut butter... it was so good! When I brought the bar home, I weighed it on my kitchen scale just to see if the portion size was the same as it is for the nutritional information I was able to find. It was only one gram off (stats are for 134 grams, and mine weighed 133 grams), which is pretty impressive! Here are the stats, if you're interested:
Calories- 670
Fat- 42 g
Carbs- 70 g
Fiber- 3 g
Protein- 10 g
PointsPlus- 19

It's kind of amazing that they can pack so many calories and so much fat into one tiny little rectangle! I used to eat two of them back in the day.

I had the worst headache ever today, and I'm sure it was from dehydration--that usually happens when I run in the heat or run on the treadmill--I get overheated, dehydrated, and my head throbs all day.

Yesterday was my last day on call for Jury Duty--and thankfully, I never had to report! I had to call an 800 number every day after 6 PM, and they told me whether or not I'd have to report the next day. It was kind of nerve-wracking, wondering if I'd have to go, but yesterday I was told that I'm no longer on call. I think it would be kind of fun to serve on a jury, to learn more about the whole system, but I'm a little relieved I didn't have to go.

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The top is done!

Dinner at La Pita last night was so good--I was starving when we got there, however, which made it hard not to scarf down my food. Usually, I eat dinner early, at around 4:30. But Jerry got home from work at 6:30, and it's a 45 minute drive.

Our server brought over warm pita bread and deep-fried pita chips to snack on while we waited for our food. Normally, I have no problem resisting those, but I ate some of the pita chips because my stomach felt like it was going to start eating itself if I didn't eat something. Finally, my yummy dinner arrived:

That's the lunch portion chicken kabob--the dinner portion is twice as much food! I calculated that I ate 25 PointsPlus total (yes, I included the pita chips I snacked on). Totally worth every PP!

This morning, I decided to run on the treadmill instead of outside. I started a new series on Netflix (did I mention that I watched the first four seasons of Breaking Bad already? I swore I'd only watch it while I was running, but I got too sucked in one day, and it was all over then...). I started Sons of Anarchy a few days ago on the treadmill, and this time I am going to ONLY watch it while I run. So today I watched the second episode.

I was scheduled for 4 miles, so I just set the treadmill at 7.1 mph and didn't touch it. I was absorbed in the show, and the time passed quickly. I really wanted to finish watching the episode of Sons of Anarchy, so when I hit 4 miles, I just kept running. The episode was 45 minutes long, so I managed to get in a little over 5 miles. A little closer to my 100-miles-in-February goal.

This afternoon, Noah was complaining of not being able to eat his pear because his tooth was too loose. He freaked out when I mentioned pulling it, but I told him I had to do it. So we worked on wiggling it for a long time, and I sneaked in a few hard pulls, but it just wasn't coming out. I even used some lidocaine that I had from after my jaw surgery to numb it, but he complained that it still hurt.

I watched a couple of YouTube videos to see if there was an easy way to pull it, and I decided to try dental floss. I tied a little loop around his tooth, and then pulled on the ends. That sucker popped right out! Noah looked super cute with the gap in his teeth ;)

That was only his third tooth to come out. He's 8 1/2, so he's pretty far behind his classmates as far as missing teeth go. I was the same way when I was a kid. And Eli hasn't lost a single tooth yet--he's 7 years old. Eli desperately wants to lose a tooth, and he even asked me to ask the hygienist if she could pull one of his teeth out. He would have gladly traded places with Noah today!

After that drama, I spent the afternoon finishing up the quilt top. I actually got the whole top done!

It was hard to get a picture of the whole thing, because it's pretty big. Also, Estelle  couldn't stay off of it long enough for me to get a picture.

Now that the top is done, I have to do the hard part--backing it and then actually quilting it. The quilting is when you sew all the layers together, and I'm terrified to do that. In the other quilts I've done, I've tied them instead of quilting them, which is where you tie the layers together in random spots--you can see on this picture of my denim quilt. All the white ties are holding the thing together...

Anyway, I love how the top turned out, so I'm afraid of screwing it up! It may be a while before I'm brave enough to finish the thing.

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Quilt progress and Wed. Weigh-in

I woke up SO SORE this morning. My legs feel like they did after Pete's Bootcamp! Well, maybe that's a big exaggeration, but I couldn't believe how sore I was for no reason. I didn't start strength training or anything--the only reason they were so sore is because I was working on the t-shirt quilt for so long yesterday, which involved crawling around on my hands and knees, and sitting on the floor all day.

Phoebe was fascinated with the rotary cutter

The quilt is coming along... this morning, I tried to figure out how to piece the whole thing together. My squares and rectangles were all different sizes, and I planned to put black sashing in-between the squares, so just the thought of all that math made my head hurt. Someone should create an app that allows you to plug in the dimensions of all of your quilt blocks, and then the app will generate a pattern for you, piecing them together like Tetris. I would buy that app for sure!

Here is what I eventually came up with:

Those aren't sewn together--they're just lying on the floor, after my hundredth attempt at fitting them together. Once I got that figured out, I started with the sashing (a border that will go around each block, so the quilt won't look so busy).

This morning was my Wednesday Weigh-in, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that not only did I drop the pound I was up last week, I also lost another half-pound, bringing me to 130.5:

I'm getting used to the fluctuations--I don't get upset when it goes up, and I don't get all excited when it goes down. It just is what it is. I'm happy to be maintaining in a small window of wiggle room!

I didn't really do anything different this week. I ate all of my daily, weekly, and activity PointsPlus, like usual. It was a very tough week for me at the beginning, because I was feeling very binge-y, but thankfully, I didn't binge. A few people asked me to talk a little more about my history with depression/antidepressants. I've been pretty open about it here before, and it's not something I'm ashamed of.

I've had clinical depression since I was a child--probably around 8-9 years old? It wasn't "caused by" some event or anything in my life--I believe that it's physiological, which is why I take antidepressants. I didn't start taking them until I was 20. I've gone off of them a few times, trying to "naturally"cure depression with exercise, but that doesn't work for me.

Depression makes me extremely sensitive and I cry at the drop of a dime. I also lose interest in anything and everything that I like to do. Basically, I'm like one of those people you see on the antidepressant commercials, hahaha. The pills don't turn me into a zombie or anything--they just make me feel what I think normal feels like...?

So anyway, that's the story behind the depression. Most of the time, I feel totally normal, but sometimes I go through bad spells. I know now that the bad spells eventually go away, and I just have to get though it until they do. Moving on...

Last night, I walked into my bedroom, and caught Chandler in the most awkward, funny position. I hissed at Jerry, "Bring me my phone!" I was afraid to move, because I didn't want Chandler to move. He gave me the funniest look:

Naturally, I posted it to Instagram, because it was begging for a funny caption; but I couldn't come up with anything clever, so I asked for suggestions. I genuinely laughed out loud when I read some of these responses:

 

The funny thing is, he was actually facing the TV like that, although it wasn't turned on.

Jerry sent me a text from work today, asking me if I want to go to La Pita for dinner--it was very random, because we never just go out to dinner for no reason. Of course I said YES. Yummmm.

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A new project

Yesterday morning, I had intervals on the running schedule--but since I really want to hit 100 miles in February, I decided to skip the intervals (which would only have totaled two miles) and run 4-5 miles instead, at a tempo pace (push myself a little harder than usual). That turned out to be a good choice! I waited until almost 10:00 to head out, because it was supposed to just keep getting warmer through the day. It was about 25 degrees when I went out to run.

The sun was shining, and I just felt happy to be out there. Usually, I grumble about it and just go get it done, but I actually tried to enjoy the moments of my run yesterday.

I ended up going out just shy of three miles before turning around (if I was to keep going in order to hit three, I would have had to cross a busy road).

At mile 3.11, I looked at my Garmin to check on my pace--I had hit a new PR for 5K distance, with my time at 25:40 (previous best was 25:44). I still had almost three miles to go, and I still felt good. I pushed myself pretty hard, and certainly wanted to slow down, but I felt good.

I reached home at mile 5.67. The "type A" in me wanted to run around the block and call it an even 6 miles, but I restrained myself and just called it what it was. ;)

An 8:15/mi pace for almost 6 miles?! I'll take it! I'm excited to get some new PR's--I just need to start racing. I'm supposed to be doing a 10K next month, so I'll be going for my PR then. I have a half-marathon in April, where I can (hopefully) make my sub-2:00 "official".

After my run and shower, Jerry and I took the boys and went out for a little bit. We stopped at a house that my parents have been working on. This is a long story in itself, but here it is in a nutshell: My dad's friend was stricken with Guillain-Barre Syndrome several years ago, and it was (is) really severe. He's been a quadriplegic ever since. Anyway, the caretakers at his house were horribly unprofessional, and trashed the house. There was graffiti everywhere, garbage, clutter, and just STUFF. The house was completely trashed, and he had to be moved to the hospital because of his living conditions.

My parents asked their church and some friends to help them clean up this house so that it's liveable again. So my parents, along with the members of the church, and some friends who are great carpenters, have been putting LOTS of time into painting, redoing wood floors, replacing cabinets and appliances. The carpenter-friends even bought brand new appliances with their own money!

The whole thing has just grown to be really awesome. So yesterday, Jerry and I stopped over at the house to take a look, and it looks great! I saw the before pictures, and it looks like a completely different house.

While we were out, Jerry got pulled over for speeding. He hasn't been pulled over in years! The cop wrote him a ticket for impeding traffic, which has a fine but no points on his license. Not as good as a warning, but the ticket was deserved, because Jerry was speeding. It was a small section of road that was 25 mph, and he was going 39--the cop said if he wrote the ticket that way, it would have been 3 points!

After that, we went to JoAnn Fabrics so I could pick up a couple of things. My mom gave me a gift card for my birthday, and I decided on a fun project--so I needed the supplies. I've acquired way too many race t-shirts, and I rarely wear them; so I've decided to make a quilt out of them! I spent the afternoon cutting them up (it was SO very hard to make that first cut!) I've cut them ALL except for two sweatshirts, which I wear all the time.

This is just a few of them... I think I have 20-25 altogether!

So far, I've gotten them all cut and backed with interfacing to keep them from stretching. Some of the tech shirts would have been hard to work with otherwise. Now I just have to figure out how to lay them out, and start sewing. I'm going to put black sashing in-between each block. I love that there is a story behind each shirt, and I will love looking at them rather than having them sit on a shelf like they have been!

Last night, I went to the CPR/AED/First Aid certification training class. It was a breeze! I had to take a first aid course in college, where we spent ALL SEMESTER learning the same stuff in great detail. In that college course, we had to master our rescue breathing down to the breaths per minute (we had to hit exactly 100--not 99, not 101--100. If we didn't, we failed). We were certified after that course, but I never kept my certification current.

Yesterday's class was so relaxed and basic (considering it was only 3 hours, versus the entire semester in college). So anyway, now I'm certified again, and ready for RRCA coaching certification next month!

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