I've decided that my health should be a relatively high priority for me.  It's because of this that I've started working out more often.  I've had this book "Smart Girls Do Dumbbells" for several years, and I've used it off-and-on, but this time I really want to keep up with it.  I have been, for the most part.  I only took a break from it for a week or so because I managed to injure my left shoulder and I didn't want to make it worse.  In addition to the weight-lifting, I've also been playing DDR on a regular basis (aka Dance Dance Revolution).  I usually play for about an hour, which gives me a great aerobic workout without making me feel exhausted at the end.  Add on top of those two things the Wii Fit activities I do and I think I am pretty well-rounded.  I usually end up doing about 15-20 minutes of yoga, which always makes me feel absolutely wonderful.  I highly recommend yoga for anyone and everyone because it truly does help release the tension in your body and I promise you will feel great if you do the poses properly.

All this working out is how I justify the occasional brownie I eat at work, or the occasional cheating at meals (like the chicken tetrazini, pistachio cake and cheddar bay biscuits I had on Saturday and the stuffing, mashed potatoes, roll, and slice of coconut pie I had on Sunday).  Yeesh I had a lot of carbs this past weekend.  Needless to say I did not weigh myself this morning - I was too much of a chicken to do so.  BUT, I don't feel too horribly about eating poorly because I worked out both on Saturday and on Sunday.  I've found, so far, that if I do that then I still manage to lose some weight, just not as much as I would have if I'd worked out and not eaten too many carbs.  I do still work out when I don't cheat, so that helps counter-act it as well, I'm hoping.

I set a goal for Shaun and I that we would both lose 20lbs by our birthdays, which is 4 months away.  That means 5lbs a month, 1.25lbs a week.  I think that is definitely do-able, considering I tend to lose 0.7-0.9 per day when I'm behaving.  The trick, of course, is to lose it and keep it off.  Tricky indeed.

... I wrote this HUGE entry, it was way bigger than the 4000 character limit I have on my entries, and it all just got deleted.  Hooray for my smartness in copying and pasting the text into a notepad document.  *mwahahaha*  The post is saved!  Do read on:

Well hello there!  The experiment with updating the blog from my Blackberry worked, obviously, however my follow-through with that is a bit lacking (as usual, I know).  If you're tired of hearing the same old excuses let me say: so am I! It's been brought to my attention that I should update more... on Facebook, on here... to keep people up-to-date on things.  Perhaps I will do like my friend and post my blog entries as notes on Facebook... that might work.  We'll see.


So let's see... not a whole lot has changed (there I go saying the same things again!).  I lost all that weight and put the stupid weight back on again AAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH.  If it were easier to lose it I wouldn't be having this issue, but I have issues with my willpower when it comes to party days at work and my boss's random sweets that she brings in (hot brownies fresh from the oven are FANTASTIC on a Friday morning!!!!).  My cubicle isn't right in front of where we keep the food anymore, so that helps, except for when I need to walk by it and it just looks so good and what if I just have one bite........ and then I'm gone.  I'm very proud of myself though because on Thursday my boss brought in this delicious pineapple coconut cake and I only had one piece.  I drank a lot of water to keep down the effects of the sugar/carbs on my system (cause it makes my head feel funny if I have too much), and I worked out that evening when I got home.  The next day I still had managed to lose 0.7 pounds - hoorah!  I can eat sweets and not go crazy and eat 20 pieces and still lose weight!  I just have to have that strong willpower to resist it.... *le sigh* Oh, and not do that every day either. ho hum.


Oh hey I forgot that we got a cat! <3 His name is Casper and he is a white/ginger colored cat. According to a friend who works at the animal shelter and an old couple who used to breed cats for show, Casper has some siamese in him based on the shape of his face and the fact that he talks a lot.  It also might explain why he has such a sweet temperment.  He doesn't bite or claw.... the worst he's done is hiss at us but that was because he was feeling cornered.  He was neutered when we got him, and he is very friendly.  He wandered into the library and we adopted him, initially just until the owner(s) claimed him, but since that never happened he has become part of our family.  I have pictures posted on Facebook... I may add some here at some point.


It's just ocurred to me that I talk about my weight a lot.  I feel slightly annoyed with myself by this.  I guess it's because I've always been annoyed with those people at work who go on and on and ON about Weight Watcher's points during the lunch hour.  GAH they annoy me.  No one cares how many points you had for dinner last night or how many points your salad today is or how many points blah blah yak yak.  Or maybe the problem is that I don't really like the person who is saying all of that stuff... so it's not that I am annoyed with the subject but rather that I'm annoyed with hearing her talk.  If you're annoyed by me, at least you can stop reading.  In the break room, I can't just stop listening.

(more in the next entry)

I recently (last night at 11:40pm to be exact) finished reading a really great book I picked up at Books-A-Million for $3.50.  It's called The Sleeping Beauty Proposal.  It was in the clearance bin and sounded interesting so I bought it.  It was hilarious... I loved all of it except that the end felt rushed.  The book had a lot of mystery to it, in the sense that you were just as confused as the main character about what might happen next and about the truth of what happened in the first place.  I will definitely be checking out another of the author's books, The Cinderella Pact, and I am hopefull that it will be just as enjoyable.


Well, I am typing this at a friend's house on her partially broken lap top and all of a sudden everyone is looking at me and I"m like "uh, hi!" and of course I laugh nervously.  I was so engrossed in typing this that I have no idea what was said about me.  Apparently Shaun made a comment about my mad typing speed and everyone looked over to watch me intently typing.  Hooray for my fast fingers - it's part of how I landed my current job!  The other part is my awesome smiling personality and the fact that I took the time to research something that was brought up in my first interview so that I could tell them the answer in my second interview.  They fell in love with me then, so I've been told, and I also hear they wish they could clone me. That makes me smile.

Well I was going to have to stop but since I've gone and created a second entry and I have a little more than 2000 characters left, let's just keep going!

I think this year will be great.  I have high hopes at least.  I mean, sure we're on one-per-payperiod mandatory furlough days until at least September, but if the new budget propsal passes those will be able to stop.  It sucks that I had my review last week and they love me and I'm doing great but I can't get a raise.  But there are worse things, like not having a job at all, so of course I am grateful that I have an employer who truly cares for his employees.  They do everything they can to keep our health insurance costs down and to keep as many of us employed as they can. 

I turn 30 this year.  Yeah.  30.  I'm actually pretty excited about this.  It feels like reaching a monumental milestone, or a high-point in a career.  I didn't really care when I turned 21 because I don't much care for alcohol, but for some reason to be turning 30 is something I'm looking forward to.  Maybe I'm hoping that I will be taken more seriously by my family once I hit 30.   But I hightly doubt that... I am and always will be helpless little baby of the family.  Yay.

Oh but I hate to end an entry on a sour note!  Kim and Declan are singing the ABC song in the kitchen and it's adorable, and the others are in the living room rolling many dice and killing things viciously.  It's an entertaining sight, and for once I don't feel alone amidst the chaos.  I can smile in it and be glad.

So the diet kind of faltered a bit around Christmas, then with all the house hunting, moving from our apartment to Shaun's mom's house, then moving into our new house, and all of the things that happened in-between all of that, the diet sort of never got completely back on track.  There was much cheating, and it was delicious.  A conversation with my boss about who had the highest score at hula-hooping on WiiFit got me to pull out the balance board and put in the game to see what the damage was.  I have to say, not too bad.  I managed to only gain back half of what I had lost... well, maybe a little more than half... I had lost around 30 lbs, and have gained 16 lbs.  So now it's hard-core back onto the diet again.  It's not particularly hard to do - I enjoy salads, for the most part - it's just getting into the right frame of mind that's difficult.  I am the type who can't really let herself have "just a little taste" of something that's non-diet-friendly; once I take that step, I'm done, I'll keep going back for "just one more little taste" until I've had way more than I should have and then I'm just being counter-productive.  And darn it all, my boss makes such delicous sweets!!  And she makes them a lot!  On top of that, the central location for storing said delicious sweets is right behind my desk.  I could literally roll my chair a foot or two and boom! there they are.  And when she makes brownies she bakes them just before she comes to work so when you take off the aluminum foil the whole area smells like freshly baked brownies..... and they're super-gooey with melty chocolate chips inside and every decadent bite slowly melts in your mouth... *drool*  It's so evil!  I'd be fine if I could just eat a tiny bite and then stop... but the problem is that cheating tastes good.