May 5, 2009

Today was day one of my "lifestyle change". I have gotten to the point that I actually want to do something about the weight and am committed to spending the time doing it. So, today I started The Biggest Loser 30-Day Jump Start. I think it's a good program for me because it gives specific meal plans but uses REAL food (not the nutrisystem stuff I tried a year ago that was DISGUSTING!). So I've been following the meals today, as much as I can without all the shopping complete. Hopefully, that will all be done tonight. And I dug out the workout bag and the 24 HR. Fitness membership card and hit the treadmill and bike for 40 minutes today. The plan suggests starting at 20 minutes, but I knew I was capable of more, so I did it. It suggests adding 2 minutes a day to your cardio. . . my plan is to add 5 minutes. Frankly, I could've gone longer today with the exception of my ankle that I twisted a month ago . . . it needs some time to build up.

I have an iPod that is dedicated just to working out. It is my original iPod Nano that Andy gave me for Christmas way back in 2005. I quickly discovered it wasn't big enough to keep audiobooks and music on and ended up with a bigger iPod at the end of 2006. But this one is perfect for wearing while exercising, and this past Christmas I asked for the Moto Roker S9 headphones with a bluetooth attachment to use for working out. They work great and I don't have to worry about pulling the headphones out of the headphone jach when I'm working out.



Here is my current playlist set up for working out. It's quite the odd assortment of music. And I will say, not all of the music is okay for kids' consumption. I got the clean versions when I could, but there were some songs that I knew the beat would drive me, but there was an occasional word. Tehehe, then some of them ARE kids songs, but I like the tune. I have to say I think the most unlikely song on my workout mix is Eddie Coker's The Happy One. I just love that one for some odd reason. I put it on shuffle songs, so I never know what song is coming next.

1. Ain't No Other Man Christina Aguilera
2. Boom Boom Pow Black Eyed Peas
3. Disney Mambo #5 Lou Bega
4. Double Dutch Bus Raven-Symone
5. Drama Queen (That Girl) Lindsay Lohan
6. Get Ready for This 2 Unlimited
7. The Happy One Eddie Coker
8. I'm Yours (workout mix) Junior Torrey (this is the Jason Mraz song but upbeat)
9. Independent Woman, Part 1 Destiny's Child
10. Love Somebody Mandisa
11. Low Flo Rida
12. Men in Black Will Smith
13. Move it Like This Baha Men
14. Oh Yeah Yello
15. Our Lips Are Sealed The Duff sisters version
16. The Party's Just Begun The Cheetah Girls
17. Proud Heather Small
18. Pump It (Radio Edit) Black Eyed Peas
19. Pump Up the Jam Technotronic
20. Sexyback Justin Timberlake
21. Shut Up and Drive Rhianna
22. Single Ladies Beyonce
23. So What Pink
24. Stronger Kanye West
25. Superstition Raven-Symone
26. Together We Can The Cheetah Girls
27. The Woo-Woo Dance Eddie Coker

Hmmmm . . . .a 3rd of them are from my kids' iPods. . . how sad is that? Oh, and I have an audiobook on there that I accidentally added, so I need to get that out of the mix!

I'll gladly take suggestions for songs I should add. I've already had someone suggest I check the Biggest Loser iTunes workout mixes, so I'll be headed that way soon to check those out.

Sisterchicks in Wooden Shoes!

One of my favorite authors, Robin Jones Gunn, has a new book coming out this upcoming Tuesday, May 5th. From the time I read the 1st Sisterchicks books, I knew I was hooked. I even wrote an entry on my blog about my closest Sisterchick. And this series made my favorite things when I did a knockoff of Oprah's favorite things show.

These books follow different sets of Sisterchicks traveling all over the world and the antics they get in are hilarious! Plus, you really get why the women are such good friends, how their relationships are ones of sisterly love, compassion, and frankly telling the other like it is. Here's a summary of the newest book: "Summer and Noelle, two pen pals since 4th grade, meet for the first time in the land of tulips and windmills. An abnormal mammogram sends Summer on a quest to fulfill her lifelong wish before she begins the same struggle her mother fought against breast cancer. The story of these two Sisterchicks is brimming with hope and cheer and will bring encouragement for any woman who has faced a fearful future."

And the author . . .I'd love to claim her as a relative, but as far as I can tell, she's not. But doesn't she look so cute in these shoes?

April 29, 2009

I've taken quite the vacation from blogging, but am feeling like I want to get back to it again. I know that part of my lack of blogging was due to Elaine's diagnosis, treatment, and her passing. I just didn't feel like writing posts about the everyday goings on in our lives. I miss her terribly, and not a day goes by that I don't think of her in some way or another. Just tonight, we were talking about wired jaws and we talked about how Elaine and I made Chris a horrible malted milk when his jaws were wired shut when he was in college.

So, I don't know how often I'll blog, but it will be much more often than once every 6 months! I did pre-date one entry from April 25th that you can find below.

April 27, 2009

When you make plans and start a new day, you never know how that day will end, do you? The past reinforced just that for us.

This past weekend, Andy and I went with the church youth group to Mt. Lebanon in Cedar Hills for a youth group retreat. I'd teased Ian before we left that if he didn't socialize with the other kids, I was going to wave my hands, yell I had a spot for him, and hug and kiss on him. Tehehe . .he's teenaged enough to not want that! We tried to give him his space. We, being me. That mother hen, know where your kids are thing is hard to shake! I didn't really think I liked knowing that the boys were "mattress jousting" in their half of the cabin Friday night. They were sliding standing on mattresses towards each other. Ian apparently went against a senior. Hmmm. I said nothing and hoped the mattress jousting wouldn't occur Saturday night.

The kids were supposed to play some organized games shortly after lunch on Saturday. Something to do with throwing cantaloupes. I'm not exactly sure of the rules of that game, but the kids seemed interested in playing it. Ian and several other boys headed out to the field and did what middle school boys do. They found a way to entertain themselves with what they found around them. In this field, apparently that was a couple of cinderblocks and a 1x4. They apparently decided they wanted to see how far they could sail one of those cinderblocks through the air. From what I can tell, they rigged up a seesaw with the 1x4 and one of the cinderblocks. Then they were placing the other cinderblock on one end and someone jumped on the other end. They did this 4-5 times before the experiment went awry. The last time, Ian was bending down to place the cinderblock on the seesaw and the kid on the other end didn't realize he hadn't stepped away. Up the cinderblock went, right into Ian's mouth! Shortly thereafter, they chased Andy down in the family van as he was headed out to coach Alaina's soccer game. By the time I got to the field, Andy and about 10 or so others were searching the field for Ian's tooth. He was now without 1 (and 1/2). Here's the photo we took of him before we left the retreat. You'll notice he's not upset. . .boy was I surprised!



We drove together back home and dropped Andy off at the fields, then continued on to the dentist's office. The dentist was able to fix the chipped front tooth, and cleaned out the one to the left of it and put a dental bandage on it and gave us a referral to an endodontist. Monday am we got him in quickly (amazing how quick they'll get you in when you mention the words "#10 broken at the gumline" and "cross-section" in one sentence!), and she verified Ian would be needing a root canal. That has been scheduled for May 6th. In the meantime, it's a lot of eating on the right side of his mouth and retelling his story at school.

After the root canal, we'll be going through the process of getting Ian a retainer with a fake tooth (called a flipper -- anyone seen toddlers and tiaras? tehehe. . now Ian can compete!). He will get an implant around the age of 21, when they are fully sure that he will no longer grow.

Ian's take on the day -- if he could redo one day over, that would be the day. Not that they wouldn't try and flip cinderblocks off their homemade seesaw, he'd just make sure they had an all-clear signal! He's hating that he did something so permanent. I keep telling him I'm so glad he didn't get hit in the head. This could've been so much worse. It's just a couple of teeth.

I didn't realize it at the time (of course!), but this is now the last photo we took of Ian with his beautiful teeth. We took this in San Antonio on April 18th at the state science meet.