A midday well spent!

I told you I was going to do better, two posts in two days, WIN!

I've been meaning to do deep cleaning in my apartment for a while now. I become a slacker over the winter and keep my place picked up but I don't get the heavy duty stuff done the way I do when it's nicer out. I started last weekend and finished the bulk of my apartment on Saturday. However, when I went to start on my bedroom I promptly changed my mind because there was no way I had the drive to do the kind of work that needed to be done in there. Of all the rooms in my apartment, my bedroom suffered this winter the worst. It was awful. I can't believe that I'm actually going to show you this (please, judge me if you need) but I want you to understand why I had to spend pretty much an entire day cleaning one room.

I didn't cut any corners while cleaning in there today. I washed all of the bedding, moved all of the furniture, dusted, vacuumed, tossed a bunch of crap, wiped down the baseboards and I even pulled the crevice tool out and sucked up what was probably years worth of dust, hair and only God knows what around the edge of the floor (eeww)!  I really love my mom but she could have kept her poor housekeeping skills to herself; that sort of thing doesn't need to be passed onto the next generation. Oh yeah, I also tightened up all of the screws in my mirror as it's gotten quite wobbly over the years.

Anyway, after a few hours of cleaning, I have a butt load of laundry to sort through but I'm pretty pleased with my final product:

p.s. I just love the panoramic function on my iPhone. Everybody said it was hard to use but I think it's user friendly and I get to take nifty pictures!

I have no excuse...

except that I'm a slacker. I could try and come up with some fancy-schmancy reason that I haven't blogged in OVER TWO MONTHS but that would just be a lie. Sure, I've been busy but you're all busy and manage to blog. Therefore I offer my sincerest apologies and promise to try to do better.

Although it's been a while, you haven't really missed out on much. I've been doing a great job with my workouts. Between spin class, boot camp and going to the gym I've been managing to get four to six good workouts in each week. Thank God too because my eating has been so abysmal it's the only reason I'm maintaining and not gaining. I go through spurts where I do really well for about 10 to 15 days and then I'm really crappy for the next week. Then I realize that I just lost all of the ground I gained, get disgusted with myself and hop back on board. When I don't see the progress that I think I should I say fuck it (yeah, I gave up on that not swearing thing a few weeks after the new year) and start eating poorly again. It's a vicious cycle that is leading me to believe I should just throw my scale away. Anyway, I'm working on the eating thing. I've decided to become a part-time vegetarian which amounts to me maintaining a vegetarian diet every other week. I'm not one of those people who feels that a meal isn't a meal without meat and I eat a fairly plant based diet when I cook for the most part so it's not such a big leap for me. I have a lot of really tasty vegetarian recipes and I so love to cook. I know that if I just get a little discipline I'll be doing much better.

I'm really loving my exercise classes right now. Sadly I'm over half done with my boot camp. On the bright side, they just released the catalog for the next Mhealthy session which starts at the beginning of May. I'll have to take a look at what's being offered and see if there is anything I'd like to sign up for. I also just purchased my next 20-session card for spinning. I think once the summer rolls around I'll only spin once each week instead of twice. I want to try and take advantage of free, outdoor activities if at all possible. The one thing that I really want to do is get back into running. I honestly haven't been running consistently in months and will probably just need to start over. However, now that I've made the shift to working out at night, I want to focus on outdoor running as opposed to treadmill. There are a lot of really nice trails, paved and otherwise around Ann Arbor and I've never taken full advantage of that. I hope to rectify the situation this coming outdoor season.

Outside of fitness things are going well. I'm happy to announce that we survived our Joint Commission visit at work this week without me going homicidal so that's good! I'm looking forward to my back-to-back visits this spring from Jessica and Jenny!!  I cannot wait to have some quality bonding time with two of my best girls! I'm also counting down the weeks (it's still a bit early to start counting days) until my trip home this summer. As of today it's 18 weeks!  I know that might seem like a lot but it's been a long time and  I'm chomping at the bit to get back.

I've been doing a lot of reading and a lot of watching between my bouts of physical activity. I finally managed to finish the second, painful season of The Walking Dead. I have been reassured by several people that season three is so good it makes season two worth the effort. If they've lied to me, I will hunt them down and do unpleasant things to them. I also started watching the first season of Breaking Bad. I don't remember who recommended it to me but it's been pretty good so far. I'll let you know what I think when I've watched more than a handful of episodes.

As for reading it's been mostly of the supernatural persuasion. The latest book in the Kim Harrison series was really good and I'm just finishing up her collection of short stories. For the most part it's a pretty solid read. I'm also trying to work through Max Brooks' books. I listened to the abridged version of World War Z (the movie comes out this summer) and it was fantastic. It's told in a series of vignettes from various people affected by the zombie war. It intrigued me enough that I'm now waiting for the full length book from the library. While I'm waiting, I'm reading The  Zombie Survival Guide. For something that reads like a how-to manual, it's actually quite fun.

Holy crap, time really does fly when you're having fun. I have to get ready for spin class so I should go. Have a great weekend and I look forward to catching up with you as I read through the many unread posts I see before me.

Maiden voyage at Planet Fitness

As my title suggests I made first trip to Planet Fitness this morning. As far as I can tell, I think I'm really going to enjoy having a membership there. I arrived around 7:20 (after wandering around Meijer for 20 minutes looking for a lock for the locker room) and there were about a dozen or so other patrons in the gym. I was able to easily get on a treadmill and get my week 3, day 1 of C25k finished. I took a look at both of the circuits they have set up, a 12-minute ab routine and 30-minute whole body resistance circuit but I didn't get a chance to try either of them. Mostly because I'm not really sure how you're supposed to go about it. I mean, I know what a circuit is but everything is driven by this light system which my early AM brain was not capable of figuring out. There is a class on Tuesday and Thursday nights that focuses specifically on using the circuits so I figure I'll swing in on one of those to figure out what I'm doing. I might as well get the most out of my membership, right??

Even though I skipped the circuits I did manage to get a pretty good lift in. I focused mainly on machines this morning because, while I know how to use equipment, every brand is just a little different and sometimes it's hard to figure out how certain pieces of equipment work. If I'm going to get stumped by the machines I'd much rather do it without 70 people watching or a line forming behind me. I have to admit, I'm really glad I did it this way because I could not figure out the leg press for the life of me which is sad because the leg press is, or at least should be, one of the most intuitive pieces of equipment in a gym. Oh well, I managed in the end so I guess it all worked out :-)

After lifting I was going to head out but I just felt really good so I thought I'd give the elliptical a try. I have a love/hate relationship with ellipticals. I loved the ones at Luther. They were perfect for my stride. I was able to use them, find a good rhythm and not feel awkward at higher speeds. Every other elliptical I've tried has been a let down. I just can't seem to make them work. I don't know if it's the stride length or the angle but something just doesn't fit. I didn't have high expectations when I got on the elliptical this morning but was promptly surprised. The machines at PF fit me exceptionally well. I only planned on doing 10 minutes but ended up going 25.

All in all, I was very pleased. Very pleased indeed!

Boot camp baby!

OK, I did it. Even though it scares the holy bagpipes out of me (see, no swears) I signed up for my first ever boot camp. I'm going to be honest, when I woke up this morning I had no intentions of joining a boot camp. However, after a brief chat with another supervisor in my department, I suddenly had an overwhelming desire to sign up and see what I could get this old body of mine to do.

My original intention was to sign up for the same class that four other women in my department are doing. It meets on Thursday nights for one hour starting at 5:15. It would have been perfect because I could just walk over with the gals, get my sweat on and then catch the bus home for a shower. However, when I went to sign up, the class was already full...boo. I was just going to give up on the idea but then I decided that I was really looking forward to the prospect of getting my butt handed to me on a platter for 15 weeks. So, I did a bit of investigating (read Google-mapping) and found that on Wednesday nights I could easily take the class at the NIB building. It's no more than a half-mile walk to the building on an outdoor route and if it's cold, I can cover most of the distance (a little less efficiently mind you) by cutting through the other hospitals. Again, it meets at 5:15 and will get me out just in time to catch a bus back to my car!

I figure that two nights a week of spinning and one night of boot camp will offer some nice variety to my workout routine. I got a chance to check out Planet Fitness tonight and I was really impressed. They have a good number of what appear to be really nice cardio machines but they also have this 30 minute cardio/resistance circuit set up. I still haven't had a chance to get to Anytime Fitness but I think I'm strongly leaning towards Planet. The price is right and I really liked the facility.

Anyway, I think that's it. I'll let you know how my first boot camp goes next week. I just hope my instructor doesn't resemble this guy...

Year end and looking forward

Happy 2013! I have to admit, I'm really glad that the Mayans were wrong and that the world didn't end last month. I have so many things left to accomplish in life and I'm hoping to get a good start on that to-do list in 2013.

The end of 2012 ended without much flourish or bang. I had a fairly nice Christmas and new year. I spent Christmas with a friend and her family. It was very nice to have a place to go as opposed to staying home alone. I did that one year and it was awful. However, I think this year it wouldn't have been so bad. After being away from home for so long I think I've gotten used to spending major days on my own. I think that's part of growing up. I've come to realize that any days spent with the people I love most in the world are special, regardless of where they fall on the calendar. Anyway, Santa was good to me this year. I got a new Blu-Ray player, a few movies, an insulated water bottle that I've been looking at FOREVER and refused to pay for, a lovely care package and socks, socks and more socks!  I also got a really nice bottle of sparkling wine from one of our doctors. Oh yeah, did I mention the chocolate? I LOVE chocolate!

My new years eve was very quiet. I had plans with friends and they had to bail at the last minute. I was bummed because I didn't really have time to make new plans (3:00 on NYE is too late for plan making) but I had a decent night. I ended up cooking a nice dinner and drinking the aforementioned bottle of wine. I didn't set out to drink the whole bottle but before I noticed it was gone, it was gone.  The only downside to drinking the whole bottle is that it made me overly sleepy a lot sooner than I was hoping. I tried to make it to midnight but at some point I must have passed out because I was awake and watching a movie and the next thing I know my phone is vibrating on the sofa arm next to my head. I'd have to ask Jessica to be sure but I don't think the 'I wasn't just drooling on my couch pillows' tone that I was attempting to pull off was very convincing. At least she had the good grace to not call me out on it. I really hope I wasn't on speaker phone...

Now it's back to business as usual. Work has been really slow through the holiday week. It's nice to have a day to catch up on things but by the end of the fourth slow day in a row it starts to get old. I did find a website online where I could read the Hunger Games books for free so that was at least a nice way to spend some of  my time, even if I should have been working. Although, in my defense, there was literally nothing to do. We got all of the stocking, cleaning and paperwork done on slow day one. Basically we had no busy-work left and no patients to fill our time. It was bad. I could have used PTO but I hate wasting PTO when I could save it for fun times with my friends from home. Oh well, if a few slow days is my worst complaint at work I'm pretty lucky.

As 2013 was approaching, I was thinking a lot about my resolutions for the year. Last year I set two real goals, one fitness and one life resolution.  I didn't do well on either. I'm not saying last year was completely wasted, I did run my first 5K, however, I followed it up with my second 5K which was a disaster (excepting the fabulous company I had). It's really frustrating to me that I'm in worse shape right now than I was at this time last year. I have nothing and nobody to blame but myself and my lack of dedication. So, my fitness resolution is very simple: do better in 2013 than I did in 2012. I figure this can't be that hard to accomplish but it's open enough to grow into what I want.

I think that my other resolution, my life goal, is going to be the harder of the two. I've recently decided that there is simply too much profanity in my life. I feel like the well placed swears that are meant to really show impact no longer do because I curse too freely otherwise. Because of this, I have decided that I am going to omit profanity from my life. I don't know that I will be entirely successful, this could be a very arduous task but I want to really cut down on my sailor talk. I'm 36 hours into the new year; so far, so good!

Lastly, I'm currently searching for a new gym. They still haven't fixed the equipment in the exercise room at my apartment (I would really like to use a few vulgar words at them) and I'm tired of waiting for them to get around to it. I've put my feelers out and I'm going to be touring the Anytime Fitness and Planet Fitness gyms closest to me. As far as I can tell the only really difference is the price but I'll hold off on judging until I see the actual facilities and talk about the options I'd have available at each.

Back and ready to kick ass!!

I can't believe it's December, mostly because it means that my vacation has come and gone and now I'm trapped in Michigan until July. However, I have so many fond memories to keep me company that I'm sure the next eight months will just fly by...

My plans didn't work out exactly the way I was expecting but there isn't much that I would change about my most recent trip home with one major exception, I needed to spend more time with my friends to detox from my family. Don't get me wrong, I love everybody in my family to bits and pieces but by the end of the second week I could have used some friend time a day sooner and probably a few of Kevin's magic margaritas! Can I just say how much fun I had my last night home? Honestly, we didn't do anything too spectacular, well with the exception of a bit of hip waggling, but it was a perfect night nonetheless. It was the same the night I spent hanging out with Jenny in Ankeny. I sometimes forget out here, where I truly prefer to be a bit of  a hermit, how much fun it can be to just hang out with the people you love. God I miss that.  I don't think it's ever been more difficult for me to get in my car and drive away from home than it was this time. That includes leaving after my mom's funeral...I think that means something. I really need to move home. I even told my boss today. I don't think he believed me. I hope to shock him one of these days ;-)

Just a brief recap:

Opened in Iowa with Cody and his family. He's finally cleared to drive with his knee and Tasha got a job...PARTY!

Turkey Trot with Rishy (AND BEN!!, color me surprised) which just increased my love for my friends and proved to me that being a lazy lump does not pay off. Fixing the situation pronto!

Thanksgiving with Rishy and her family. Not planned but awesome just the same.

Back to Iowa to see the Stefanovic clan and spend some quality time with my family.

Two thanksgiving dinners, one trip to the salon to chop my locks, one girls day out with Karla and Kim, lunch with my favorite per-kindergartener EVER (school lunches have not changed much), my first solo dinner with my little brother Brad (need to do this more often), a fabulous day with my Jenny who I NEVER get to see, a day spent with Cody, date night with two of my favorite little men (Wreck-It Ralph is really cute btw) and one fabulous evening playing with some of my favorite people in the world (even though Kevin kept cutting off the circulation in my fingers, we watched too many bad SyFy movies, Ben downloaded the bouncing boobs ap and Kevin, Ben and I invested way too much time trying to find tasteful sideboob which I'm still not convinced really exists despite what the boys claim).

Whew... and that's just the Reader's Digest version. I could gush on and on but I won't. I'd also post pictures but it's so hard with my new phone so if you want to cyber spy, just check out Facebook.

I got back to Michigan late, late Sunday night and took Monday off of work. It's been really hard to get back into a sleep schedule, my brain is still on vacation, and I'm so tired in the morning. I think my families plague finally hit me so I don't think it's helping me in the feeling rested category. If I'm asleep before midnight tonight (the last two nights have been very late) I plan to get up and run tomorrow morning. I'm also happy to say that I decided to purchase a package at the studio where I've been doing my spin class. Twenty classes for $130 seems really reasonable to me. I think I'm going to be spinning on Monday and Friday nights this winter. I'm really hoping to work on my cardio over this winter, it needs all of the help it can get. Assuming the Mayans are wrong, I have some very specific fitness goals in the next year that I will be meeting, including running the 10K (without feeling like I'm dying) at the Dexter-Ann Arbor run and my half marathon with Rishy in the fall. I won't accomplish any of that sitting on my ass. Also, if I don't look amazing at Andy's wedding when I'm back in July, I just might cry!

Back in the saddle...

No pun intended.

I'm sure you've noticed I have not been faithful to the blog lately. If it makes you feel any better, I haven't exactly been faithful to any part of my weight-loss/health-gain plan in the last few months. Yes, I said it, months. In fact, I just weighed myself in what seems like FOREVER and I gained 25 pounds back from my lightest. It was worse than I thought it would be, but I won't let that stupid number on the scale discourage me and keep me from moving forward again. In fact, it's a bit liberating to finally log the number. I kept thinking this summer, 'once I get back to my light weight then I'll log.' Let me tell you, it doesn't work that way.

I had a really nice talk with Jessica last night and I was telling her that I finally realized what's going on. My backsliding isn't a physical thing. My body wants to move and be good. It's all in my head. I've been trying to figure out where my head is and why it's in such a bad place right now and I honestly think I have a few things to resolve from this summer. I am ashamed to admit it, but I have so much anger towards Dean for what he did this summer. The anger got worse as Alecia's pregnancy was progressing and now that Gracilyn is here, I'm really pissed. I know he was going through something awful and I can't begin to understand the feelings he was trying to work through but I still can't validate the decision that he made. I look at pictures of that little girl, who looks just like Dean, and I get fuming mad thinking that she might not get to know her daddy. Yes, we'll tell her all about him, but it's not the same thing. I get heart sick every time I  hear one of Cody and Tasha's kids tell me how much they miss uncle Dean. When Brooklyn was here with Karla and Justin last month, she kept tell me that Dean got sick and had to leave. How do you help a 2 year old process the loss of someone she loves so much? Especially when he mad the decision to go. I know this all probably makes me sound really cold and selfish but these are the thoughts that are rolling around in my head and I have to deal with them before they consume me. I love Dean with all of my heart, please don't doubt that, and I'm working through this anger that I have. I've been talking with family about it and writing down here seems to be pretty cathartic. I think that working through these feelings and moving forward will be a really good thing, not just for me but for others in my family as well.

Anyway, moving on, I have decided to start NO NONSENSE NOVEMBER! There has been a lot of nonsense these past months and I need to end it now. I have a 5K that I'm running with Rishy on Thanksgiving morning. It's going to be bad and she's going to kick my butt because I haven't been training like I should, or at all. I honestly don't know if I can even run a 5K on the treadmill right now (guess I'll find out tomorrow monring). However, humiliating myself in front of my best friend on turkey day should be really good motivation to get my butt in gear. I've also decided that when my spin class through AA Rec/Ed is up (I only have two classes left), I'm going to purchase a package through the studio and keep going. It's less expensive per class and I'm not locked into going on Friday nights only. It will cost $130 for 20 classes that have to be used within 90 days. I figure I'll purchase the package when I get back from Iowa in early December. If I go twice per week, it should get me through the first part of the winter nicely. When the time comes, I'll decide if I want to purchase another package or maybe try something else.

Finally, I have to stop eating like a hog. I would explain but I think the words I just used describe the situation pretty clearly. It's bad and I need to stop. NOW.

Anywho, I'm going to try to be more active on the blog. I don't make any promises for this month though. I only have two weeks and then I'm gone and things could get really crazy at work (for reasons I can't currently mention in a public forum) but I will try my hardest to check in more regularly.

Now, I have lots of reading to catch up on so I can figure out what has been going on in your lives since last month. Have a great day all!