How My Jeans Got Me to Boot Camp

Random weigh-in 204.0 - down 1.2 pounds.  I'll take it!!

Last night, I slept like crap.  TOTAL CRAP.  Kept waking up, laid awake for too long.  When I was JUST falling asleep at around 5 am, I heard two strange bang sounds which woke me right up again.  Dozed off about twenty minutes before my alarm and felt like I hadn't slept in a week.  I decided there was no way I could do lunch hour boot camp at work.  I was semi-okay with that decision because I really couldn't imagine doing it.  I continued to get ready for work.  Then I pulled on my jeans.  I haven't worn them in a about a week and a half. They were freshly washed.  They were noticeably looser.  NOTICEABLY LOOSER!!  I immediately packed my things for boot camp.  It's working.  I will not stop now.

I was going to run after work today but we did so many squats and lunges in boot camp and my app does say that I should wait till tomorrow.  I'm not kidding, it really does.  

Yesterday, I went to Bulk Barn to get a few things plus ingredients for Go Go Glow Mix from Oh She Glows.  This trail mix is delicious.  Basically, combine a half cup each of mulberries, dried cranberries, goji berries, almonds, & cacao nibs.  After mixing it up, I stored it in a mason jar.  There was some that wouldn't fit in the jar and I hadn't had supper yet.  It had to be quick so I went with oatmeal and I topped it off with 1/3 up of the Go Go Glow mix and a drizzle of maple syrup.  It's official, I am on an oatmeal kick.  And even better, it's dirt cheap.

The Go Go Glow mix and supper!

I was so hooked on oatmeal, I gave the overnight oats a shot.  I put oats, almond milk, water, chia seeds, and vanilla in a container and stuck it in the fridge.  I should have just put it in the jar but I'm a little slow like that.  I like to make things difficult for myself.  In the morning, it was a little too liquidy for my tastes so I tossed in some more oats and hoped for the best by lunch.  I put it in a jar, topped it with the trail mix and some maple syrup.  It was so delicious and filling for after the lunch workout.  I'm definitely doing that again.  And at 80 cents for a huge container, it fits the budget.

The chia seeds make it look weird but it's tasty!!

So tonight, I'm going to enjoy some pasta of some sort.  Some healthy sort.  I'm going to watch a couple episodes of Game of Thrones season one.  I've seriously had this season from my co-worker for too long already.  And I'm going to look forward to going to visit my niece who I love more than anyone else in the world (don't worry, they all know it).  In a couple weeks I get to see her.  I can't believe how much she's grown in just the last six weeks.  She crawls now and her little teeth are bigger and she sits on her knees and plays with toys.  Aaaah!  I can't wait!!!

LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE

Registered!!

I mentioned in my last post that I experienced some knee pain on Monday's run.  It started about halfway through the run in both knees in the same spot.  I suspected either that I was weak or that it was my shoes.  Last night, I had a massage and she mentioned that my hamstrings were really tight.  I took special care today to warm up, then stretch, then run, then cool down, then stretch.  I also tried my "newer" running shoes today and I felt great.  No pain.  By "newer" I mean, that I used them for about a month before my ankle injury and then since then, they've just been sitting in a shoe box all sad and lonely.

Hello Lover.

Ironically enough, the day after I was experiencing knee pain, I got my monthly email from Runner's World magazine and the title was "A Strength Routine to End Running Pain".  Well well, what nice timing you have RW!  I scoped the website and there is a plethora of exercises as well as videos specific to each important part.  Excellent resource and I'm definitely going to add some of the exercises and take more care with stretching.  

And here we are with . . . TODAY'S RUN!  Which is actually the end of week two so I'll be starting week 3 on Friday a few days ahead of schedule.  I was super excited to increase my mileage.  I've been challenging myself to increase the distance covered in 30 minutes.  I was at 2.08 miles, then a few times at 2.10 miles and today . . . 2.16!  Woohoo!  Oh and I let the timer go to 30:01 before stopping it because I really wanted to see 300 calories, hahaha!

It is forty-effing-two degrees today.  That is one hundred effing eight degrees fahrenheit.  After today's run, because it was too hot to even consider making toast, I stopped at Subway.  I would have taken a picture of the awesomeness that it was but I inhaled it.  INHALED.  

In other running news, I bit the bullet, took the plunge, put it all on the line, and registered.  I had already booked my hotel room a few weeks ago because they fill up fast.  I figured with a no charge cancellation policy, it was worth it to book it.  But now, I've registered for the race too.  Gulp.  I'm doing it.  I didn't want to be a one-hit wonder with the half-marathon so may I present to you, half-marathon number two!!

I added the OH YEEEEEAAH!  They are only mildly excited.

Interestingly (sort of), I just noticed that in the picture of my shoes above, that shiny tab thing is my timing chip from the 10km Fargo race in 2010 which is when I bought them for super cheap at the expo!

Here is my plan in a nutshell for the Fargo Marathon weekend.

I'm excited!!

I'm Boring.

For the most part though, I'm okay with being boring because I'm kind of a hermit.  So because I'm a lame hermit, I did not in fact get out on my bike on Saturday.  I know.  My bike is making me feel guilty.  Like that Special K commercial.

However, I did go for Run 4 on Sunday morning.  It was really good, I felt great.  

Today after work, I went for Run 5.  About halfway through, both of my knees started to hurt.  Right above my knee cap.  I suspect my shoes.  Only because they haven't hurt to this point and both started at the same time in the same place.  While my shoes don't have a ton of miles on them, they do have some miles and they have been sitting for over a year.  I have a newer pair that have next to zero miles on them but they too have been sitting for a year or more.  I will try those on my next run on Wednesday and if not, I may have invest in a new pair :(  Unless anyone else has any suggestions on my knee pain!!

Tried another recipe from my Happy Herbivore cookbook.  Enchilada Casserole.  Pretty tasty.  Loved the Queso sauce on top of it too.  Pretty sweet to have lunch for the next couple days all ready to go.  

And tonight after my run, I was so hungry so naturally, I had a Gardenburger.  It's my quick and easy meal that I can be eating in exactly ten minutes.  I loaded it up with so many veggies, it was probably equal to a side salad on it.  Added some corn and some refried beans.  TASTY.

My plans so far for this week:

Monday - run - DONE!

Tuesday - elliptical and then a freaking massage!  Giddy-up.

Wednesday - weights with the girls & run - test out the other shoes - please oh please oh please no pain.

Thursday - elliptical

Friday - boot camp at lunch and run after work.

Saturday -- BIKE BIKE

I suppose I could get a bike ride in on any day that's nice . . . 

Anyone else experience the knee pain and if so, what did it end up being?

Mmm...Oatmeal

My intention for Thursday was to go to the gym and use the elliptical.  I got home from work, I was kind of tired and my condo is a disaster.  I quickly talked myself out of the elliptical.  I justified that with the fact that run #3 was scheduled for Friday and so was lunch time work boot camp.  Instead, I tackled the laundry, the dishes, the kitchen, the litterbox, and the television :)

Friday, boot camp was tough but I did more of it than I did the week before only modifying a couple things (ie jump squats became squats for the last two rounds).  My friend Nicole and the instructor noticed that I did better than I had the week before and everyone in the change room was talking about how they thought this week's class was harder.  Thank goodness it's "casual Friday" because I was looking pretty casual in the afternoon.  No way was my hair coming out of that wet ponytail!!

Disclaimer: that is not my ass.

My plan was to do run #3 right after work.  I got home, made the mistake of sitting down and then telling myself I'd do it Saturday morning.  Hmmm... here's how it starts.  By 8:20 pm, I was annoyed with myself.  I didn't work out Thursday because I was doing two on Friday and now I was bailing on the run??  As soon as I get into the habit of bailing, it snowballs, then all of a sudden, I'm just someone who doesn't work out.  Then it's hard to get started again.  I thought of that poster<<<<.  I jumped up right then, threw on my stuff and was at the Y by 8:30.  I did the scheduled run and after taking my photographic evidence at the end of the 30 minute mark, I walked another 1/2 mile just to cool down some.  I just had to remind myself that for me, the starting part is the hardest part and if I keep starting over, I have to keep doing the hardest part over & over.  I don't want to do that!!

Last night when I got home from the run, I was hungry.  I'd had supper though earlier and I really didn't  NEED to eat.  I stayed up a little while longer but then finally decided that if I wasn't going to have something to eat, I should get my butt to bed.  I woke up hungry this morning and decided I needed something hearty and filling.  I almost made pancakes but then thought it had been a REALLY LONG TIME since I had oatmeal.  I worked off of this recipe for overnight oats from Oh She Glows.  I used quick oats and cooked them in unsweetened almond milk.  While cooking, I added some chia seeds, cinnamon, & vanilla.  I only had some frozen fruit so I sliced half a frozen banana and tossed in some frozen blueberries and topped with a little maple syrup.  I could not believe how freaking delicious this was.  I already know I'm having it for breakfast tomorrow too.  It was so damn good.  

So my goal for this weekend . . . I want to ride my bike today.  My bike is sad and lonely and feeling useless.  It's not living up to its destiny.  And tomorrow morning, I'm going to start Week 2 of the running.  The suggested date is Monday but I think Sunday morning and Monday evening are far enough apart that I can do the first two runs of Week 2.  

Hope everyone had a great week!  And have a great weekend!!

Not a Dreadmill Yet!

Random Weigh In: 205.2 -- down 1.8 lbs.  Oh Onederland -- come to mama!

Went to boot camp again yesterday.  It was good.  I made it a little further than I did last time.  There's a warm up and cool down and twelve stations and you do each for a minute, THREE TIMES.  Last week, I skipped my last 5 stops and grabbed a mat and did push-ups and ab work in the corner for the last five minutes.  This time I stayed on the circuits, however I skipped the burpees the last two rounds and opted to do extra planks.  I DESPISE burpees.  I was exhausted and I didn't really want to go for a bit but I knew Nicole would go if would go and vice-versa so we went!  So happy too.  I actually downed 2 litres of water during that class.

On the way home, I just kept thinking Subway.  But then decided that if I tossed a gardenburger on the stove, I could be eating in ten minutes.  Pretty much less time than it would take for me to get my sweaty red-faced self to Subway and order and home again. This loaded gardenburger and coleslaw was so tasty that I thought about it for an hour afterward.

I left work a little early today because I had my appointment with the insurance company to do the estimate on the damage to my car.  $1200!!!  Insane.  Thank goodness for a $200 deductible with the chance that the other party will have to pay it.  After that appointment, I went right to the autobody place to book an appointment to have the work done.  They offer courtesy cars for free but the deductible on their courtesy cars is $500 so if something happens to it while I have it, $500.  No thanks.  I have a bus pass and a bike.  I'll do without the chance to spend another $500. They could get me in next week but I opted to wait till next month.  I will be out of town for 6 days so I'm dropping it off before I leave. Less days car-less!  

After that, I grabbed my stuff and headed to the Y for run #2!  I started off in the exercise studio with some skipping, a barbell and some free weights.  I did 3 sets of 12 each: chest presses, chest flys (flies?), skull crushers (triceps exericse), lateral raises, shoulder press, upright row, back flys (flies?).  Then I headed to the treadmill, again, not going to do it when it's this hot & humid out.  Before you call me a wimp, you can meet me outside in -40 with my frozen eyelashes.  My run went really well.  In the middle though, my heart rate was pretty high and I was really out of breath so I slowed my walking minutes from 3.8 mph to 3.5 mph and left my running minutes at 5.5 mph.  I didn't want the distance to be too much less than it was for the same time on Monday so during the cooldown minutes at the end, I actually added another running minute and cranked it up to 6.0 mph, whoop whoop!  And I didn't fall off or die!

And lastly . . .Katie over at Runs for Cookies and other inspiring people could be featured in a documentary called From Fat to Finish IF it gets funded on Kickstarter so we need everyone's help, even if you only do $5 but really, it would be great to just pre-order the DVD.  The beauty of Kickstarter is that if they don't meet their amount you don't get charged.  You lose nothing for trying.  If it gets to the goal, you get the package you pledged for.  WIN WIN!!!  It's not a risk!  It looks amazing.  So go have a look at their Kickstarter page and watch the preview video.  I think that this weight loss and lifestyle blogging community has what it takes to make this happen!!  The preview gives me goosebumps so I can't imagine how awesome the whole feature would be.

Giddy-Up!

With my running clinic cancelled, I've been put in the 5km/10km clinic starting in September.  Because that clinic doesn't start at running a minute or anything, I need to get up to speed before then or else jumping into that clinic won't be possible.  I'm using an app called Get Running and I really like it.  I love the little screen, I love that each workout is also written out on the screen so you know what you're in for.  It suggests dates for your runs and then gives you a little check mark once that run is done.  Another cool thing is that there is a non-obnoxious voice that prompts you but not overly so.  I love the 30 second warnings because that's right when I'm feeling like I want to stop but then I don't because I can do anything for another 30 seconds.  Also, it works while listening to music.  At the time of the voice prompt, the music decreases in volume but continues, and then goes back to normal volume.  I like that I don't have to keep watching my watch or watching the time on the treadmill, I just run when she says run and walk when she says walk.  

Today's run was 29 minutes.  It included a five minute warm up walk which I did at 3.8 mph, then alternated running one minute with walking 90 seconds 8 times.  I ran my minutes at 5.5 mph. Then a 3 1/2 minute cooldown walk, again at 3.8.  I tacked an extra minute onto the workout to make it an even 30 minutes.  I paused the machine at the 30 minutes to take a picture and then walked another 5 to cool down because my heart rate was still quite high.  

The 45 seconds is the pause countdown timer, not a World Record.

I will do my weekend run outside when it's cool in the morning.  For now, it's still too hot in the evening for me to get it done outside.  I'm a heat wimp.  Especially starting out, I don't want it to discourage me.  

Totally got caught taking pic in change room.

So right now, I'm really happy and quite proud of myself and I have to remind myself of this feeling when it comes to Wednesday and it's time to run again.  Tomorrow evening:  BOOT CAMP!!!

Cancelled

I shared in this post about how I'd signed up for a running clinic.  I shared in this post about how I wanted to be a runner again.  I shared in this post how nervous and excited I was for it to begin on Monday.

Sigh.  Got a call today, it's cancelled.  There were only a couple of us registered for it.  The same couple of us that were registered for the one that was supposed to start two weeks ago. On the message I listened to, she said that because I'd been a runner before would I be interested in a spot in the 5km/10km clinic starting in mid-September.  First, I don't want to wait that long.  I'm registered for a 10km race in October.  OCTOBER!!!  It would have been fine if the first clinic started.  And second, I can't string three running minutes together yet so I'd have some work to do before jumping into the 5/10.  Anyhow, I didn't sleep well last night and I'd already gotten all my running gear together like a kid awaiting the first day of school, so naturally, I shed a couple tears.  Then went for a drive with loud music and went grocery shopping and by the time I got home, I'd decided something.  I'm taking the spot in the 5km/10km clinic and until then, I'm going to run the shit out of it on my own.

It's Going Down!!

Let's talk about the scale --- I have a love/hate relationship with the scale.  I know many say that you need to go by the way clothes fit.  I do to an extent.  I find that sometimes at this size there are 10 - 20 pounds that need to go before I move down a size or start to see a real difference in my clothes.  This is why the scale is important, when I weigh myself and I see that I've gone down a pound or two pounds or three pounds, I feel awesome and it gives me a little motivation to carry me for the next few days.  I see those results on the scale but don't yet see them in my clothes.

When I was doing WW and I'd go to the meeting and weigh in, it was always so tense.  Because that was THE DAY that I wanted to be down.  If I weighed myself at home and noticed I wasn't yet down, I'd curb my eating or barely eat the day of and knock off the water around noon so I'd be my lightest possible by the time of the evening meeting.  Then after the meeting I'd be starving and I'd be lying if I said that a drive-thru wasn't involved.  What the hell kind of sense does that make???  I find I've been doing a little of the same in the past with just having to weigh-in myself on Mondays or Fridays or whenever THE DAY is.  So what I'm doing now in the name of consistency in my eating is not having a specific day.  I generally weigh myself a 2 - 3 times a week.  Always first thing in the morning, never any other time.  So any one of those days could be my weigh in.  And in this idea, I decided today I will weigh in.  The last time I updated my weight on this blog I was 208.4.  I know I got up to 211 - 212 in the last month.  So when I saw 207.0 yesterday, I was THRILLED!!  I even stepped back on to make sure and then this morning to make sure.  Yep, 207.0.  UPDATE the ticker!

I went to boot camp at the Y on Tuesday and yikes!  Twelve stations, one minute at each station, and do it three times.  I was wheezing.  But motivated enough to go back to the Y on Wednesday after work with my evil fit people friends.  I mentioned to Nicole that I wanted to do a Barbell Blast style workout like my favorite class.  When the rest of us arrived at the gym, she had our benches, free weights, barbells, mats, skipping ropes waiting for us and on we went.  Squats, lunges, skipping, plank, and every arm & shoulder exercise you can think of.  Felt great.  Proud of myself.  I have tomorrow (Friday) off so I'm going to go to the gym in the morning-ish.  My running clinic starts Monday evening and I'm really excited and really nervous.  My little chant being "please don't let me be the slowest".  I'm excited to have the schedule start.  Clinic Monday night, group runs Wed & Sun, boot camp on Tuesday.  And come September my favorite class starts again on Saturday mornings.  I love doing that class on Sat morning.  Gets me up and dressed and the day started.

Pad Thai from Happy Herbivore - if you're
adding stir fry veg - double the sauce.

Last Saturday morning, I woke up really early and couldn't fall back to sleep.  I decided to get up and tackle my fridge.  It's been plaguing me for weeks.  I knew there were plenty of containers of inedible food in there.  The fridge was full but it seemed there was nothing to eat.  After I cleaned it out, it looked empty.  But it also looked like it should when only one person lives here.  Immediately I started thinking that I should go grocery shopping but opted instead to see how long I could go WITHOUT a grocery store.  That was Saturday morning.  On Friday I'd picked up a few fresh things for salads.  It's now almost bed time on Thursday and I still haven't had to go to the store.  I've made every breakfast, lunch & supper.  With the exception of a few fresh fruits and veggies and some wraps, I will probably be able to make it another week.  How crazy is that!!!!  Clearly, I over shop.  And I cater way too much to cravings rather than what I've already purchased in the past.

Assembling my veggie and black bean wrap!

So I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing and cleaning out the fridge/freezer and going to the gym.  Meal planning and not letting a craving rule all.  It certainly helps the wallet too.  Hope everyone's having a great week!

Can I Fit Through a Car Window?

Probably not.  Or maybe I actually could if it was closer to the ground, hehe.  Yesterday I went to see a movie.  I parked my car at 1:30pm and came out to my car at 4pm.  Short version of the story:  I suspect the jerk next to me hit my car because it is dented, has beige paint on the scrape and my fricking door won't open more than 8 inches.  So until it's fixed I will be going through the passenger side (so classy) or the window (no Dukes of Hazzard here).  I took a bunch of pictures.  I have an older car that already has a scrape on the other door from a parking lot jerk (unidentified) so at first I was just going to get the dent banged out so the door would work but then I decided I should go through insurance and get it fixed properly.  When I called the insurance company, they told me to bring the pictures with me to my estimate and that they are going to send the other person a letter and make contact in the hopes that they admit to hitting me.  If so, I won't have to pay my deductible.  If not, I'm out the deductible but I guess that's why we have insurance.  I also have to go make a police report and take pictures to them.

Yesterday I was so angry and sad about it.  I'm trying to save money to see my sister and sweet niece in September and to go to Vancouver to see the rest of my family for Christmas and some douchebag hitting me in a parking lot does not fit into those financial plans.  On my way home, it started to pour, hard rain, I thought at any moment it would turn to hail.  I did what any normal, self-sufficient, independent woman would do -- I started to cry my eyes out.  It only lasted a few minutes and it was a big release of the frustration.  It helped because then I just started to think that it could be worse.  My car could be not drivable but it's not.  I could have a higher deductible but I don't.  I will call this segment "of course you hit me!"

My car is the blue civic.

My drivers side front panel.

Looks like beige paint to me!

Looks like they've met a yellow drive thru pole too.

Jerk.

Ah well, on the plus side, the movie Hope Springs was AWESOME.  I cried a couple of times and laughed my ass off numerous times.  Amazing movie and I so love both of them.

In my last post, I talked about that boot camp class at work.  I tried it on Friday.  Holy sh*t.  It was HARD.  And fast.  It did go by fast.  I was still aching from the circuit at the gym two days before so by Saturday, it hurt my abs to cough and my legs to just sit.  I feel better now.  Still stiff but better.  I want to try the boot camp at the Y tomorrow night.  I might leave work early tomorrow so I can go make the police report and have enough time to make it to boot camp.  Fingers crossed. 

I don't want to make this post too long so I'll stop here and just add this little picture.  I video called my niece the other day and she was so so so sweet.  She was imitating me, reaching for the phone, she even licked it once, baha!! My sister had to wipe it off.  She can almost make the little kiss sounds, she concentrates so hard.  Love love love her.  

Now I'm going to make something hopefully healthy & delicious for supper and settle in to watch Bachelor Pad.  Hehe - deliciously gross and addictive.

Workout Wonder

...As in, it's a wonder I ever work out!!!  I went to the gym!!  Right after work, I met a couple of evil fit people friends there.  One of the evil fit people them got a copy of some "bootcamp homework" from a co-worker of ours so we went through the three circuits.  It only took 30 minutes but I was toast.  My legs were wobbly walking down the stairs to the locker room!  Basically, from what I can remember, it was a blur of squats, lunges, planks, push-ups, jumping jacks, stationary running, knee drives, dead lifts, and I don't know what else -- does there need to be anything else?!  Geez.  Hehe - I did say to my evil fit people friends that I was only there so I could blog about it later.  :)

Getting home from the gym.

In more working out news . . . at work we have one to two classes offered per day at lunch.  There is a committee at work that is in charge of arranging for instructors and selling tickets for the classes.  You can only buy tickets a few times a year for a certain session and I've never done it.  I was always too concerned about looking all gross and sweaty in the afternoon.  But I've decided that I just shouldn't give a rat's ass.  Today a girl at work was selling some tickets that she won't have enough time to use before the end of the session August 31st so I acquired three tickets to use for the boot camp class offered Fridays at lunch.  This will work great because I get to try the class and to see how going back to work sticky turns out. :)  If it's great, I'll buy tickets for the next session.  I would probably just do the friday boot camp because it is casual Friday so I could get away with a ponytail and a cap for the few hours in the afternoon.  And I do still have a gym membership and in September my favorite classes start up again.

And in running news . . . I registered for a running clinic!  I'm very excited.  It was supposed to start August 4th but seeing as how that is the Saturday of a long weekend, very few people were registered. The store manager called me and asked if I would move to the August 20th group.  This actually does work out better for a number of reasons.  My favorite class at the gym (barbell blast) is Saturday morning so that's a conflict!  I'm registered for a 10km in mid-October so I've got to get my ass in gear!!  I've loved doing running clinics in the past.  I've done the Learn to Run, the 10km, and the half-marathon clinic.  All of them great.  I'm looking forward to running with and hanging out with all the old running crowd.

I don't know about you all but I've been hooked on the Olympics.  I've recorded hours and hours per day and I come home from work and watch it.  A bunch I watch on FF if it's something I'm not interested in or if it's a segment I've already seen.  After over a week of that, I'm Olympic'ed out.  I needed to watch something without cheering or commentators.  I turned to another game.  Game of Thrones!!  I keep hearing all these awesome things about it.  I borrowed season one from a woman at work and finally started it.  It's pretty great but boy do you have to pay attention!  And one character was driving me crazy.  I kept trying to figure out where he was from, I just kept recognizing his voice.  Finally!  I figured it out.  I hate looking these things up because it's just so satisfying to come up with the answer.  This guy!  Mark Addy.  Unbelievable, the sweet guy from the Full Monty is this crazy bastard!!

Now because of this new affection for Game of Thrones, I'm considering getting HBO Canada.  There are quite a few shows that I've either borrowed from friends or watched online that are on HBO.  Girls, The Newsroom, the first two seasons of True Blood, and I'm sure there's others.  Might have to bite the bullet.  It also comes with a few movie channels, you know, so I never have to leave the house. 

I must share this . . . I made these Chocolate Peanut Butter Chews from oh she glows twice over the last week.  They're great.  Just the right amount of sweet and peanut butter without being overly so.   The recipe calls for brown rice syrup but I didn't have any so the first time I made them I used corn syrup and the second time, I used half & half corn syrup and honey.  Both worked fine.  If you've never checked out her blog or recipes, you must.

Any favorite light treats?  When do you prefer to work out?

Summer Lovin' - Um, no.

Hello!!!!  I know, it's been way too long.  I just looked at the date of my last post -- two months ago!!  I totally thought it had been just over a month.  I don't blame any of you if you don't even read this.  I haven't written but I've still been reading a bunch of blogs quite a bit.  I've had a tough summer.  In my last post, I shared that I had to put my cat Georgie down and also that my sister, her husband, and my wonderful, adorable, couldn't love her more if I tried niece moved away.

Well, the week after they left, my amazing Grandpa passed away.  I loved him so much.  He was so funny, so smart, so loving, and did I mention funny??  He was totally with it till the day he died and his stories were awesome.  If I had to choose the way he passed away, this would have been it.  He watched a Clint Eastwood western on Netflix, and he went to sleep at home, in his own bed.  And that was it.  He was an amazing person and I will always miss him.  I was so lucky to have him as long as I did.  He was 93.

Grandpa a couple years ago & me and him this past Christmas.

Us a couple years ago.

A couple weeks after that, my sister and her husband had to come back for a weekend for a wedding and I got to keep my niece for the whole weekend!!!  Worked well for both of us, they wanted to party with their friends and I just wanted to hang out with the baby.  Win Win!!!  It was a great weekend although it was so hard to say goodbye again.  I'm planning to gas up the civic in September for a visit. I think it will take about 16 hours to drive.  I've done it before to go visit a friend so I'll do it again! Here's a couple pics from the weekend -- trust me, i'm sparing you, I probably took a hundred.  The bottom two are when i'm trying to put her to sleep but she just wants to play with me and I'll do whatever she wants.  I turned my iPhone screen so she could see us in the picture and she LOVED it.

I just love her soooo much!

And just to add to the tough stuff this summer . . . let's talk about the heat.  It is insane.  This kind of heat and humidity makes me angry.  And I know we get it every summer, but this summer seems to be the worst in a long time.  Since the beginning of July it's been in the high 30's to mid 40's with the humidity.  I think that's 100 - 110F.  I'll tell you what the "F" stands for and it's not fun!!  I can barely breathe in this kind of heat.  Especially the humidity actually.  I have an inhaler for asthma and the only times I've ever used it was once on a long run when it was really hot out and other times when it was just hot out.  So mostly, I've been inside in the AC.  And knocking on wood every time it seems like my little window a/c unit isn't as cold as it used to be.  Please baby, just hang on!!  Other than a few stray run/walks and a couple bike rides, I haven't been doing anything activity-wise.  Here is some proof of my activity (lame) and my misery.

And this was 7:30 in the morning.

I've been eating pretty well though so I have actually lost a couple pounds since I last posted.  Making some really delicious healthy dishes too.  I must get better at meal planning though.  In fact, as soon as I'm done this, I'll make a plan for this week!  Here's just a few things I've been trying out . . .

1. Just a stir fry -- sauteed veggies in vegetable stock, then added some spicy peanut satay sauce (bottle) and some coconut milk, then served over brown rice.  I tossed a few cashews on top too.

2.  Whole wheat tortilla with hummus, gardenburger, and veggies.

3.  Veggie wraps from Oh She Glows.  I used the spicy peanut satay sauce, not the homemade.

4.  Portobello mushroom burger!

So that's all for now and I WILL post again this week.  If you're still here, thanks for sticking around.

How has everyone else been surviving the heat??  I know it's been especially hot everywhere this year it seems.  

ps.  I have a huge sense of relief as I'm about to hit "publish".  I almost decided to just let it go but I like doing it and I think it helps.  And I've made a few friends!  Natasha -- when I go west in September, we must try to meet up!!  Sushi perhaps?