Day 15: Ole

Well, last night went well. I had supper out, but I stuck to a steak and salad and diet coke with lime...and 2 spoons of iced cream and a shot of Baileys....and WAY too much coffee :). Pretty good all things considered. It was my favourite mexican restaurant with a huge selection of import beer...and I managed to resist. It was a fun evening with good people, so I didn't miss it...and I'm starting to find healthy menu things at my favourite restaurants that I love...who would have thought?

My stomach has been bothering me off and on lately. I don't know if my vitamin B12 is low again or what, but I'm trying not to eat too much and really keep to healthy stuff, as it makes my innards much happier. Maybe it's stress...don't know. I'm taking vitamins again as of this week, as I know I get this when my B12 is low. I'm hoping that gives me the kick I need. Nothing says holiday relaxing like stomach gas and cramps. Fun fun...on the plus side, it amplifies the blech feeling I get when I eat crappy foods and removes the whole munching urge...still not worth it in my mind.
ANYways...
This morning I did my ball DVD and relaxed with the cats and had a nice breakfast of (surprise surprise) oatmeal and blueberries. Today I get to hang out with my brother and his wife. His exchange student is going back to Japan next week, so I've gotten her a gorgeous black and red hipscarf with red gold and silver coins and beads...she's been curious about bellydancing and they don't do it much there. Her favourite colour is red. I thought it would be a nice Christmas gift and not take up too much space in her luggage :) It's always sad when their students go home right before Christmas...every January they get a new student. Every one is so unique and distinctly different. I'm so curious to meet their new student, but will be sad to see Yukiho go home - she's so incredibly kind and happy :).

I must be off. We are playing tetris in one of the labs trying to get a biosafety cabinet to fit against the far wall and trying to arrange and move it around all the protruding lab benches. It's about 2 inches too long - I'm hoping the pro movers can fit it back there. It's turned the lab into a gong show and we need to get it in place. Sure it could go back where it was but that's like giving up. :) I'm giving it one more solid tetris try today to see if we can fit it in. Our one tech is VERY pregnant and she cant use it where It is...she can't fit in there. It's funny, but not for her...so we're trying to fix things for her. We'll see how it goes...

Gotta go. Have a good day!

Day 14: Brrr...

I found it rather hard to believe, but this AM I weighed in and the needle was between 131 and 132. Cool! Seeing as I went out saturday night for a few beer and I nibbled some natchos, I sort of expected nothing...but hey! I'll take it! Cool! I have been good otherwise, so I guess it all balanced out.

This AM I was up and did 40 minutes on the elliptical plus a cool down. I almost made the whole time with resistance 2, but switched back and for the the last 10 minutes...still burned 525 calories. Not too shabby.
I made some insanely good pumpkin curry soup on the weekend...I had a pumpkin I'd bought to carve on Halloween but never did, so it became some muffins and some soup. The soup was deadly good and really healthy, so some potato bread (thanks bread robot) and pumpkin soup were yesterday's and today's main food. It's been stupidly cold here (-44 with the wind) so I've worked on my sewing for gifts and I am trying to finish off my MSc talk I have to give Wednesday. It's getting there...I have a bit more time to tweak it so it should be good. I haven't given a talk in years...

I'm going out for dinner tonight, but I will be very good. No beer (sniff) and healthyish meal. I'm excited that I might actually make it to 130 by Christmas.

Mee hee.
Have a good day everybody!

Day 13: Nitty Gritty

I love this song...the whole album is funky funky stuff...makes you want to shake your groove thing. It's in one of my workout mixes on the old iPod.

I'm in a great mood. After the furnace adventure things have gone rather well. I am officially a graduate student. My Mum is home from the hospital (and she loved the big poinsetta I sent her) and last night at bellydance class we did lots of zills and hip drills and I got to balance my very own sword on my head for a while :) Yippedee!
I got up this morning, after a snooze button or two and did my ball DVD and had a good breakfast. The cool thing about it was as I was drying my hair after a shower I noticed something - you know the top front part of your shoulders? Yeah, I have *muscles* there. Noticable pronounced muscles. When did that happen! I haven't had muscles there in a while...me hee. I literally stopped and stared and started moving my arms around a bit and flexing my arms. It's so cool! I haven't had muscles there in a long time. It was all I could do to not go and wake J up to make hom look at my shoulders...but I figured that'd be mean :)
So yeah. It's a good day really. I am quite happy. My parents are going to come visit next week for a few days. Mum still ahs lots of doctor's appointments over the next few weeks, so Dad is going to come up in January and do the renos then. No biggie. It'll be nice to have a visit with them.
I'm looking forward to a weekend of sewing and relaxing...yeah yeah. Have a great weekend!

It's the boodiggity

I am officially a graduate student!

They can't get rid of me now...(just take all my $$ and time!)

My first committee meeting is next week. I start my research in January.

YAY!

As my J would say - "it's the boodiggity!" :)

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Day 13: Today's workout is cancelled due to weather

I can honestly claim my indoor workouts were cancelled due to temperature!

I got home last night around 10 after a LONG day to a freezing cold house. It was about 12 degrees...turns out the squeaky noise the furnace was making was rather important. The motor had gone on our furnace. Thankfully where J works there are a lot of space heaters we could borrow so we kept the house from freezing up overnight and arranged for someone to come in first thing 7AM to fix our furnace. Saved ourselves about $200...

I heartily recommend and thank the guy we hired - Integrity Plumbing and Heating in Saskatoon. An independent contractor who's a journeyman for plumbing and heating. He was really nice (no bullshit to me as a girl - that's *huge* in my books), and did everything he could to save us what he could and his labour was reasonable. It wasn't too expensive in the end and we now have heat again...

But needless to say, I didn't get my workout in this morning. Ah well. I have bellydance class tonight, so it's not a total loss. And I had breakfast...
I am exhausted though. After class I'll be glad to come home to a toasty house and go to bed very early.

Moral of the story? Change your furnace filters so you don't wear out your motor....And if your furnace starts making odd squeaky noises don't go "huh, that's odd"...have it looked at! Where I live a broken furnace is critical. -35C is not kind to you. I'm quite relieved to have it all fixed and glad we have a rainy day fund for stuff like this now...makes it a bit less freaky.

And now I must play catch up on my day...later taters...

Day 12: creaky me

Last night I spent the evening on the living room floor cutting out fabric for 3 bunny hug patterns that I'm sewing as gifts for my 3 nieces this Christmas. They're pretty simple, so they won't take too long to sew, and once I got into a groove, I figured I'd cut everything out so that I would be able to sew at them whenever I had time. I have 1 a week to do until Christmas. Hopefully they'll be done with time to spare and it won't be a late night Christmas eve sewing fest (like last year...*cough*). We're doing Christmas on a low scale this year, so homemade things for the girls suits the time. I like it better too...more thought and heart.
When you spend 4 hours bent over on your knees your back gets sore. Go figure! At the end I just laid down on the floor for a bit to let my back relax. I'm fine this morning, so no harm done, but I was so intent on what I was doing I didn't think about getting stiff. I'll have to set a timer for breaks next time I do that sort of thing...I felt very old for a while.
I got up this morning to work out but I was tired. I did it though, I'm proud of that. I did 40 minutes on the elliptical at 15% incline and went back and forth from resistance 1 to 2 until I sort of hit a groove at the the last ten minutes and finished off at 2. Then I did 4 minutes of cool down. My mind kept wandering so the extra resistance helped me focus.
My Mum is still in the hospital after a week in for diagnosis and tests and they're still trying to find a medication to help her weak old heart out a bit, so I admit I'm a little preoccupied. I finally have a phone number for her so I can call her today. Dad says she's bored, as she was hoping to be out on monday...she has a great doctor who doesn't want to let her go until they've tried all they can. I just hope they can find something to help her, otherwise she'll be a much much slow er lady than before, and she's already slowed down a lot. She's done addressing all her Christmas letters and is now looking for something to do to keep alert. I bet she's crocheting up a storm as we speak.
It's a catch 22 really - you have a defective heart valve and a flutter so you take medication to strengthen your heart and thin your blood to help your heart beat stronger and faster to compensate...and then your heart gets tired from all that extra work after years and years. A few years ago Mum's heart started to tire out from all the extra work and those meds didn't work very well anymore. I just don't want to think about the fact that perhaps her heart has just gotten tired and from all those years of extra work, so it just can't beat like it used to anymore. This may be "her" now from now on. Doctor's aren't magicians. My Grandma had the same problems when she got old...I guess we'll see. She's still in good spirits, altho frustrated and getting bored. I'm sending her happy thoughts. Dad is keeping himself well and he is concerned, but there's nothing either of us can do really. If I was closer I'd visit, but they're too far away. They won't be coming up tomorrow as planned, which is too bad. I'm still hoping they'll be up for Christmas...Dad keeps apologizing about the renos being delayed. Phah. The renos can wait...

I do think I will send her flowers today though. She'll like that...

Day 11: frosty day

It's another cold day today - what a change from last week! -34. Brrrr.
I got up to a chilly house today to do my exercise ball DVD workout. I actually counted the "on-the-ball" push ups I did in the workout: 38! Split up into two 1 minute intervals, and with my body up on the exercise ball, with the ball at about mid thigh, but still! Woot!
I had a happy weigh in this AM. I stepped on the scale (once before and once after the workout just to make sure it was real) and the bouncy needle is now between 122 and 123! Me hee! Slowly but surely. I'm particularly pleased, as even though I've been good with workouts and generally eating well this week I have had some munchables, and a night out. Plus it's PMS time...I was sure I'd be holding some water in me too...not too shabby. There has been a beer here and there and little extras like a warm glass of hot chocolate last night before bed. And still it goes down! Mee hee. Made me smile...it's good to see the diligence counting for something.

I'm inspired to keep at it. It'll be hard as this week is "all my bosses take me out for nice lunches week". As a bonus, I haven't had my expected monthly PMS attack of the munchies yet. Perhaps this will be one of the good months where I don't want to eat everything I see for a few days. Especially around all the buffet tables :) Here's hoping...
Gotta keep at it. I have 2 and a half weeks to lose 2 and a half pounds...I'm curious to see if I can do it, especially around holiday time.
We shall see my little pretties. We shall see...