It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

So in my last post I was puffed up like a peacock - too bad that boost of self-confidence from reliving my marathon didn't last. Nope. I'm back on the train to Chubsville and it is moving at full speed. I won't go into it but let's just say things haven't been pretty. Here's what I've been up to when I haven't been stuffing my face.

Job number one has been craaaazy. Not crazy busy. Just craaaaazy. We terminated our Music Director's contract two years early, which has forced everyone at the office to battle a storm of media and morons. It's been half entertaining and half a huge headache. I'm not supposed to express my opinions, so I will just post this picture and let you guess what side Anna, Lisa, Andy, and I are all on. ;-)

No Comment

Saturday proved to be a very long day. I started off working job number two an hour earlier than normal. Then immediately after my shift, it was time to hop in the car and head to Toronto with Andy. Andy has been playing here and there with the Toronto Symphony and I was finally getting to go up and hear one of his concerts - an especially exciting one because he had several solos!

Canadian Christmas

It was fun to be in a big city again - I miss that atmosphere a lot. Unfortunately we didn't get to spend much time there because traffic getting to Toronto was TERRIBLE... we pretty much parked, got coffee, and then it was concert time!

My ticket :-)

The concert hall was maybe not the most attractive, but the orchestra sounded pretty good, and Andy's solos were amazing (obviously). Seriously though I was VERY proud of him and very glad I was able to hear his performance.

Look closely - he's getting to take a solo bow!!

Sorry that picture is not the greatest quality but since you aren't supposed to take pictures I had to sneak it really fast and didn't have much time to make sure I was getting a good shot, haha. We ended up driving back that night. See? Loooong day.

Sunday I slept in until close to 11:00am. WOW! I haven't done that in years, but I was tired from getting in so late, plus I haven't been sleeping well at all for over a week now. Bad bad dreams every night (had another last night in fact). Thankfully I woke up with barely enough time to make it to Zumba! Andy and I spent the rest of the day running a few errands and then just hung out at our apartment where...

X-Mess err, I mean X-Mas!

I decorated for Christmas!! Since I'm going home for Christmas, I needed to decorate asap, otherwise I would barely be around to enjoy it. It's always a pain to do, but it looks nice now and I'm glad I took the time to do it.

And now it's Monday. I'm at job number one. I'm trying not to be upset that the Royal Palace announced that Kate Middleton is pregnant today (I know I know it's wonderful, but I just don't feel excited to see her in maternity clothes...). After work is job number one's Holiday Party. Job number one is poor which is why we are having it on a Monday night. I'm more irritated than anything since it means I will be missing Zumba, although with the recent events that have been going on, this one might actually be slightly entertaining.

One last thing - today is Phoebe's birthday (I think she would have been 20 today??). I still love her very very much. :-)

Phoebe Heimer Doggie

One Month Anniversary

My marathon was exactly one month ago today. It makes me sad to think that it's been that long! I miss you Marine Corps Marathon!!!

You were all probably hoping you were done hearing about it, but TOO BAD! Let's recap the experience with some official race photos. :-)

Entering Runner's Village

I was lifting my shirt so the camera could record my number, not just to be weird and lift my shirt, haha. It was chilly out so I still had on some extra layers. This will probably sound strange, but I think of all the pictures, I am most proud/inspired by the girl in this picture. She had a dream, trained for it, and is just about to see it come to a reality... she doesn't know what will happen, but she's going to give it all she's got and try. I'm pretty inspired by me!

The race begins!

I will never forget the energy, the excitement, or the emotion I felt at this moment. It was really really cool.

Mile 10-ish

Andy and I ran most of it together. I was SO glad to have him by my side.

Mile 18-ish

I love how the guy next to me is giving a definite thumbs down, and that my poor running form makes me look like I'm giving a thumbs up!! It's an accurate reflection of how I was feeling... pretty good. :-)

Mile 23-ish

I won't lie, this section was tough. Thankfully the festive atmosphere of Crystal City was somewhat distracting. Notice how the guy next to me is walking? I'm happy to report I ran the whole way! Amazing!

Finish Line!!!

That is a truly happy smile on my face. :-)

Finisher!!!

Thanks for indulging my trip down memory lane. I wish I could relive this experience everyday. Even though it's over it has definitely changed me. Whenever I am doing some sort of exercise that is hard, now I think - if I can run for 5 hours straight, I can do "fill in the blank" for a few more minutes. I'm more confident trying new challenges and less down on myself if I'm not that great at them, because hey - I ran a marathon. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

Wanted: Motivation to Work

Look at me trying to be a good little updater! Sadly I don't have much to say, haha.

Monday I scratched my eyes out at work. Honestly I've had next to no motivation to be productive at work this last month, which is not good because, well... I actually have things I need to do. Somehow I managed to make it through the day and then it was off to Zumba! After class I went to... Zumba! Haha. I got a little extra psycho/stalker-ish and followed Sarah to both of her classes. I mean... she knew I was following her. I wasn't really being a stalker, lol. I had nothing else to do so why not! Plus after my summer of super duper long runs, an hour of exercise sadly doesn't seem like enough anymore... It was a fun way to spend my night. :-)

Less than 12 hours later Sarah and I were back in action for partner personal training this morning. Today Vinny had us play games, like playing "tag" while in the push-up position (I did not win) and tossing a ball back and forth while standing on one foot (that's harder than it sounds). It was very fun, which is a relief because I was tiiiiired when I first got to the club - I've been having a lot of bad dreams lately and haven't been sleeping well.

And now I'm at job number one. Determined to get out of my lazy-work-funk I went through all of my papers and post-it notes and created a master work To Do List!!

Festive!

I put post-its over the phone numbers just in case any of you had the urge to give Alice Pratt or Barrie Rabson a call - however if you had decided to call Barrie, the joke would be on you. ;) But clearly since I am updating my blog at work, I am not getting things crossed off my list. I better get to that...

Tonight is job number two. Tomorrow is more job number one and then boxing! Oh, plus I need to buy a lottery ticket. 425 million?!?! If I win I am taking everyone on a Lululemon shopping spree and then we are all going to the Biggest Loser Resort. Now you really hope I win, don't you!

Weekend Wrap Up

Well it's Monday and I'm back at work. :-(

If you'd asked me a week ago, I would have told you I was worried that I would be bored and lonely over my holiday weekend since Andy was playing 8,000 Nutcracker shows. I figured I'd clean the apartment, maybe go through my closet and get rid of some clothes, and hopefully work on my running scrapbook to keep my hands busy and out of the kitchen cupboards. Friends... there was no need to worry. I was so busy I didn't have time to do any (mostly) of that stuff!

Thanks to some quick shift switching I was able to go to MXT on Saturday morning with Sarah. It was so much fun and now I'm extra sad that I normally work while that class is going on - at least I got to try it though! For you non-locals, MXT is "extreme training"... kind of like bootcamp mixed with cross fit, disguised to look like PE class in elementary school (think stations). While it wasn't my favorite station, I do wish I had video of Sarah and I trying to flip one of those gigantic tires. Those things are heavy... and extra hard to lift when you're laughing. ;-)

After class I went home to shower and eat lunch, and then it was time to head back to the club for job number two. The people that work in the afternoons have a cush job! It wasn't nearly as hectic as my morning shift, which was nice, but also made the time go by pretty slowly. Once my shift was finally over I resumed my Sarah-fest and headed to her parent's for dinner. I love her family! I'm glad they've adopted me. :-)

Sunday morning I got up and headed off to a Weight Watchers meeting. I give myself a gold star for going because I was tired and had a headache, plus I mean... who wants to weigh-in in front of someone on Thanksgiving weekend? While it wasn't a ton of weight, I'm happy to report that I lost another 1.2 pounds this week, bringing me to 162.8 - almost where I was for the marathon! Now I'll let my crazy come out a bit... I was actually a little let down that I didn't lose more. I know I know it was Thanksgiving blah blah, but I worked out a lot more than I normally would (since I had time off of work). Oh well. I still feel like this is a good program for me. Not weighing myself everyday has definitely helped my attitude throughout the week. And now for the details about the meeting:

Once again I went to a different meeting, and I think this is going to be the one that works for me. The day/time work well with my schedule, the people that attended were a little younger than the others I'd been to, and after talking to her afterwards I realized the leader and I are probably going to be friends - she struggles with binge eating handfuls of dry cereal and searching for things she can dip in Nutella (sound familiar?) and she also has done 3 half marathons! She even gave me her email address so I could send her the training plan I use. :-) It was meant to be!!

In the meeting we focused on "holiday survival." Katie (the leader) suggested we print out a calendar and only write down the special events we have for the month of December - that way we can get a visual of what days we will need to plan for, rather than saying "I have events all month, why bother trying?" because the truth is... you don't have events all month. Sure, you have more than normal, but there are a decent number of days that have nothing going on, so it's important to recognize those and stay on track whenever you can.

Why are my Mondays and Tuesdays so busy?

She also prompted us with these questions (I took notes on my phone like a geek):
1) What tempting foods are hardest to control? Could you avoid them? How?
2) Which everyday foods could you lighten up?
3) When could you add extra activity?
4) How do you want to feel January 1st? (think of that answer when you're faced with a challenge)

Not exactly mind blowing questions, but I do think taking the time to think about them will at least make me more aware.

Friends - do you have any advice for surviving the holidays?

My biggest challenge is always all of the baddies that people bring into job number one and number two. They always look good, and at some point at work I get irritated and stressed out and just want to shove my face in the middle of a tray of cookies (I love cookies...). WW Katie suggested I bring extra snacks to the office during the holidays. Even though I might eat more than I normally would, at least the snacks I would bring would be healthier than the garbage that gets brought into the office. I suppose I could also use Alyssa's tactic and just imagine they all baked the treats without washing their hands (maybe they sneezed in the dish too... you never know!).

Ok I got carried away with my WW meeting recap so I'll rush through the rest of my Sunday. Went to Zumba (fun) and then spent the rest of the day driving Andy back and forth to the Nutcracker so he wouldn't have to deal with parking, doing laundry, doing dishes, and watching Downton Abbey Revisted on PBS - sort of a sneak peak of season 3 that starts on January 6th!!!! It made me so excited!!!! Let's get these stickin' holidays over so Downton Abbey can start, haha.

All in all it was a super fun Thanksgiving weekend. :-)

Thanksgiving Festivities

Hello (insert your name here). I am thankful for you. :-)

I'm not doing so hot on keeping up with regular blog updates. Time to catch up!

Wednesday (day before Thanksgiving)
The office was open so I went to work, but this was basically a big joke. Aside from some people doing last minute Nutcracker preparations, NO one was in the mood to be productive. I don't even remember what I did, I just remember that I was happy to be wearing jeans since it was the last work day of the week. Oh, if only I could wear comfortable clothes to work everyday...

Wednesday night meant boxing with Rebecca! We went to the girls only class again - the basic format was the same, but "Coach Dana" mixed it up and Rebecca and I were pretty much dying. Sorry Rebecca if I overstated your level of exertion, but if that's true, I think I was dying enough for the both of us. :-) Thankfully we had enough energy at the end to document our hardcore awesomeness with a sweaty picture.

Doesn't it look like I don't have teeth? Like I took out my dentures
or something? Gross. Also, why does my head look so small?

We had a good time, and I'm glad I had Rebecca to go with because I really wasn't feeling like going - but you know what they say... you only regret the workouts you don't do (or something like that).

Thursday (Thanksgiving!!!)
Obviously Thanksgiving started with an intense need to burn some calories, and I must say I did it in my favorite way possible... running and Zumba with friends!!! Andy, Anna, Alyssa and I started off with a 5 mile run. The weather outside was perfect for a fall run. Our pace was good (around 9:30) and we had fun trading off who we ran with and catching up with each other. I freaking love running with friends!!!

We run marathons (just in case you forgot lol)

Lady Runners!

You'll notice Anna and I are holding zip lock bags - Alyssa made us very cute (and very delicious) turkey cookies! Andy got one too but I think his had already been consumed before we took these pictures.

We said goodbye to Alyssa, then Anna and I ran inside the club to get ready for Zumba. Get ready? Yes friends. What better way to kick off Thanksgiving than with 80's Zumba!! Sarah traded in her cheetah status for the day... with her crimped hair she looked more like a lion. It was awesome! And thankfully the yoga class for the day was an hour and a half instead of an hour, so Lisa bailed on yoga and joined us for Zumba (I only  wish we had extra 80's attire for her!).

Babs, Lisa, and Anna - check out our leg warmers!

I'm sad I didn't get a picture with Sarah's hair down,
but working out in sweatshirts and leg warmers makes a girl hot!

Our pyramid attempt was an epic fail

While the ladies got their 80's on, Bipul and Andy manned-up and lifted weights. So recap: I got to spend my morning with Andy, Anna, Alyssa, Sarah, Lisa, and Bipul. The only person missing from the puzzle was Katie, but she was too busy kicking serious butt at the Webster Turkey Trot! Friends - Katie averaged an 8:02 pace over 4.4 miles (strangest race distance ever). She is from the same Cheetah tribe as Sarah and Anna! I will try to work on becoming a Cheetah too. Maybe a three-legged Cheetah with a limp and ADD, but a Cheetah nonetheless.

After the fitness extravaganza, Andy and I stopped at Starbucks for some holiday latte action. I love those skinny peppermint mochas! Then it was time to get cleaned up and the hit the road - we were on our way to Buffalo. Side note: on the drive we listened to Alec Baldwin interview Dr. Robert Lustig on "Here's the Thing." The whole podcast was about sugar and obesity - very interesting although a little silly considering we were on our way to eat lots of pie. ;-)

Thanksgiving dinner was spent at Andy's Aunt Carol's house. It was nice to see everyone again, especially Andy's sister Ali who I think was most definitely meant to be my sister - she liked my spinach and kale greek yogurt dip from Trader Joe's and likes Lululemon. What more can I say? Anyway, I was very pleased with how I handled food at Thanksgiving. I let myself try everything I wanted, but kept my portions reasonably sized and didn't go back for seconds. Victory! I was even controlled with my desserts, which was not exactly easy since I had all of this to choose from...

Wall o' Pie

Andy and I both crashed as soon as we got back to our apartment. It wasn't even 10:00pm, but I suppose our morning of exercise and our full bellies were too much to handle. There aren't too many nights when I'm in bed before 10, but that was definitely one of them.

Friday (aka Black Friday)
Since I went to bed so early, I woke up early on my own. Well... might as well go shopping! I hit up two stores before it was time to head home to change for Zumba. I love not having to work and being able to go to Sarah's class on Friday. If only I could quit my job... haha. Anyway, then it was time to shower, eat lunch, talk to my mom on the phone, and then... MORE SHOPPING! It was another short trip because I had another workout date planned with Katie at 5:30. Admittedly I was late (but it was for the sake of a deal, I swear!). The class we were doing was called "Cycle and Core" = 30 minutes of spinning and then 30 minutes of core. I missed about the first 10 minutes of spinning, but it was still a good workout. The core stuff was hard!! It was worth suffering through to get to hang out with Katie for a bit. :-) Then I went home for dinner, hung out around the house... I figured the day's excitement was over. WRONG!

Happy Birthday Jackson James!!!

Congratulations to Elizabeth and Andy (not my Andy haha)!!!! At around 10:30pm I got the text from Elizabeth that JJ had arrive and was 8lbs 11oz. Wow! I'm so happy for them. :-) And I know this isn't the important part, but doesn't Elizabeth look great?? Yay Elizabeth!!

So much has happened and the weekend is only just getting here (of course I have to work job number two as always). Stay tuned for more!

Not Thankful for Faux Thanksgiving

Happy day before Thanksgiving! Today is a great day because 1) it is my last day at the office until Monday!! and 2) I get to go to boxing tonight!

Since nothing of note has happened yet today, I will tell you all about my super busy day yesterday - I was exhausted by the time I got home from job number two... my excuse for not posting last night.

Tuesday started bright and early for partner personal training with Sarah! Definitely the highlight of my day. Vinny took us back to the Kinesis room, but he mixed it up with some other things too. I like how every session is different, although I've not been even close to as sore as I was after the first time when we used the TRX straps. It's still a good workout though, and the best part is it forces me to do weights, which I never want to do on my own.

Job number one was a massive headache. The first hurdle was "Office Thanksgiving Lunch" - everyone brought a dish and we all tried to wedge into our conference room to pretend we like each other. :-)

Can you guess which plate is mine?

The office lunch caused a lot of anxiety for me. For starters, everyone brought baddies - I knew that would happen, which is why I signed up to bring a salad. I was very proud of myself for sticking to my plan: salad with turkey. But of course people couldn't resist making comments. WHY DO YOU CARE??? Andy said they just comment because my choices make them realize they should think about their choices, but they don't want to. Could be. But I still don't get it. Keep your thoughts to yourself and mind your own business. Or be glad that I'm not eating all the baddies - that means you can have more!! The reality is, I just don't need to eat two Thanksgiving meals two days apart. Enough said.

Then I had a meeting that will rekindle serious rage if I think about it too much so we'll just say it happened and it was miserable. The meeting made me 30 minutes late to job number two - bring on the next dose of anxiety. Plus two of my coworkers weren't able to come to their shifts at the very last minute! I thought I'd be in for it when I got there (frankly I should have been for being so late) but amazingly my boss was super nice and kind. Job number two can be tough sometimes, but after such a miserable day at job number one, it was almost nice to go there because the people there are really good people and I genuinely enjoy spending time with them, even if some of that time is spent reserving tennis courts for the rich folk.

So that was my day. I will say I am SUPER proud of myself for sticking to my weight watchers points despite the waves of frustration that kept crashing over me all day long. Go me. :-)

I'm a sucker for a sticker

Woohoo! I started my morning with a trip to Weight Watchers to weigh in and...

I got a 5 pound star sticker!

Looks like it works so I'll keep with it. Of course I don't expect to lose five pounds each week - according to the program you will level out to losing 0.5 - 2.0 pounds each week fairly fast. Even still, it was encouraging to see that it's possible to lose weight while not starving and not having to weigh lettuce. :-)

This is a short work week thanks to Thanksgiving, so I tried extra hard to be productive today. I got a lot accomplished, which helped the time pass. After work it was back to Weight Watchers for a meeting - since I had my race the day before I wasn't able to go to the same meeting I went to last week.

The theme of the meeting was Thanksgiving. Obviously! I really liked the meeting leader - she was well organized and I felt like we covered a lot of stuff (I wish I had taken notes because I can't remember it all now). But the general ideas were...

1) Try to set some boundaries before the day comes - it can be anything, as long as you've made a plan like, only one plate, or only seconds on the "special" dishes... or even half your plate veggies, one quarter turkey, and then the last quarter for sides (that way the bulk of your meal is veggies and lean protein).

2) What dishes can you live without? What dishes are must haves? These were good questions for me to think about. Our leader reminded us that we're adults and can get most food whenever we want. Like a dinner roll. If I don't have one on Thanksgiving, it's not like I've missed my chance for the year. But stuffing? I'm probably not going make that or even see it on a menu for another 365 days.... so I'll enjoy my stuffing and try to skip the rolls. You get the idea.

3) Fit in some extra activity. This should be easy enough for me to do. I realized while listening to everyone talk that I am quite a bit more active than the average meeting attendee. At first I felt a little uncomfortable, wondering what they would all think if they knew how much I actually exercise... but then I just decided to consider myself lucky that I've got that part of the puzzle solved.

4) And last but not least she made us write down what OTHER events we had going on this week. I was so focused on Thanksgiving that I realized I wasn't planning how to navigate the other events during my week (like tomorrow's office Thanksgiving lunch). The meeting leader reminded us that while Thanksgiving is only once a year, we'll have little events pop up left and right every week. I think I'll handle Thanksgiving a lot better if I make it through the rest of my week successfully. If I fail to plan for the smaller events, I'm likely to throw in the towel and shove my face in a sweet potato casserole and wash it down with a can of spray whipped cream once the holiday arrives.

I guess I remembered more than I thought. ;-) Week one of Weight Watchers was a success. Now I'm off to bed - Sarah and I have partner personal training tomorrow, I have office Thanksgiving lunch that I have to bring a dish to, I have a really big meeting (that I still need to prepare for), and then I have to work job number two. Yikes. See you tomorrow!