Shoutin’ from the Rooftop

On Wednesday night during dinner, I received a phone call from a frantic Weight Watcher leader. She was leaving yesterday for California and her sub for her meeting had moved to Florida without telling anyone. Yelp. So this leader was desperate. I knew how desperate she was for a sub if she was calling little ol’ me who has never been to leader training. Leader training is on my to-do list once Megan is in school. Right now I am enjoying by girls because I know how fast the time goes.

Since this leader was in such a pinch, I took pity on her and agreed to lead her meeting. What? Yes, lead her meeting. I didn’t even find out the meeting topic until two hours before the start of the meeting. It is an understatement that I was nervous. 

As members walked in to the meeting my anxiety grew. Thankfully the meeting topic was something that I was intimately familiar with: exercise-the benefits.  The members were so kind. They rolled with the punches and were easy on me since I was filling in. I even opened up the floor for questions.  I was honest with them and I pray that I didn’t scare anyone off. I even had FIVE new members. What? Yep. Five new members. I felt like those five people were my little ducklings that I started leading across the street to their new life. I hope to find out how my little ducklings do on their journey.

OK. Enough rambling. Got to get moving. Today is Megan’s first day of preschool for the year. I have been super emotional since this is her last year of preschool. I cannot believe that my days as a preschool mom are winding down so quickly. ::::SIGH::::

Note to self…….

Keep your chin up. You had sick girls for a week. You still managed to work out THREE times during that week.  Once you are feeling better and no longer sick yourself, you will be able to start working out again. Don’t let this bump in the road discourage you.

It was a crazy week trying to get ready for vacation. Our family along with four other extended family units all headed to Michigan yesterday.  We were excited to spend time with our family. In the back of my mind I have been nervous with the thought of vacation eating.  I think you all know what I am talking about.  The endless eating, unlimited availability to “special” food.

So on our way to the beach house we made a stop at Gino’s East Pizza. If you are not familiar with Gino’s it is amazing Chicago style pizza. We had Gino’s twice on our honeymoon so it also has some sentimental memories.  When we got to Gino’s I was hungry. Hungry and needing to eat but I had a small taste of freedom. One piece of pizza was enough to pleasantly fill me up and satisfy me. One piece. Only one piece. I cannot remember a time in my life that one piece of Gino’s was satisfying. Not one memory of leaving Gino’s not stuffed and miserable.

I am praying that this new freedom is not a  temporary taste. This freedom and lack of emotional eating is something that I have been searching for for some time.

Tags: freedom

Ever have those times in your life that “blah” describes it best? I am not talking about life in general but more a certain area of my life. My eating. It has been an insane few days/week.  Out of town company, cookout, more company, birthday party for our oldest, going out of town to visit previously mentioned company, painter at the house painting, and now today a kid’s party. And believe it or not, I left out more than half in my description. It is kind of like the perfect storm. It wasn’t planned to be that busy. Several things were moved from different times to this.

 In the midst of it all, I did go to my cycling class both days this week. It helped keep me sane. I would go six days a week if they had the class. It is a great frustration release. But my eating……that is a different story.

I am not going to eat today just because the clock says it is the typical time to eat. I am going to eat because my body requires it to function not as a result of some emotion that I might be experiencing. After last night’s amazing pizza, it could be days and days before my body is ready for some food. Ugh.

So this morning with my new determination, I knew I had to have a reality check and weigh myself. I was expecting it to be really bad. Hmm. Quite shocking but in a good way actually. Not as bad as I was expecting.  I am using that pleasant surprise to be motivation for a great week as we get ready for vacation on Saturday. Vacation is going to be challenging in itself. A beach house with food readily available. Thankfully I am taking plenty of my “own” food. Food I know I can trust myself with. And I am hoping for some great workouts, walks/runs in the sand.

I found a great quote that I wanted to pass on in closing. It kind of sums it up. I am pulling out of the parking place that I have been stalled in for the last week.

 ”The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking places.” -Author Unknown

Tags: temptations

Note to self……… stop beating yourself up over the ice cream. You worked out yesterday. It was Saturday and it was crazy crazy busy (work, errands, taking the dog to the vet, picking out paint for the girls bedroom, working out, and going to Indy in the afternoon for the rest of the day) day.

You had a half of a salad for dinner at the restaurant. You by-passed the hamburgers etc. You had the kid-size serving of ice cream. So drop it. It is over.

ENOUHG.ALREADY.

Wow. Our whirlwind of a weekend is over. I am taking a deep breath.

Our crazy weekend started with dress rehearsal for the girls’ dance recital.

Can you see that Sydney did NOT want her sister in the picture with her. Oh the drama of girls.

 Hair done. ”Makeup” on. Time to go to the recital. We were running late after a crazy day but I couldn’t resist taking the girls outside for a few minutes to snap some pictures.

Showtime for Megan. I was the ”class mom” for her class so I wasn’t able to snap very many pictures but I did snag this one. Talk about stress. Trying to keep nine 3-4 year olds quiet back stage by myself. 

For some crazy reason, I didn’t take any pictures of Sydney’s entire costume on recital night. Not sure what I was thinking. I was so nervous for her but was not letting on. Her class had worked soooo hard to get their song ready.

We got home from the recital so late. The girls were troopers. When we got home, I got a phone call from one of my dearest friends asking if her & her son could spend the night at our house on Saturday. ABSOLUTELY!!!!! (I was freaking out in my head because we had been gone non-stop and my house showed it. ) Of course I was working my usual Saturday morning meeting then heading straight to Sydney’s softball game. They won their first game of the tournament on Wednesday night. So far undefeated!  I was just praying that they would win the first game so we didn’t have to turn around and play a game immediately following this game.

They won! Go Seminoles. 

So after we got home from the game, I cleaned, straightened up, picked up, and moved non-stop. Plus I answered the questions “How soon will she be here?” about a million times. My girls adore this friend. It broke their hearts when she moved so far away after living right across the street.  

After I had fixed breakfast for everyone,  I noticed how warm it felt in our house. I went to the thermostat and looked to see that it showed it was 78 degrees. Hmmmm. Not good considering it was only 9am and we were going to be leaving for another crazy day.  We had to scrap the church plans and call a heating/cooling tech. THANK GOODNESS we asked for a home warranty when we bought the house. I know we were both secretly hoping that we needed an entire new unit.

Then in the afternoon we headed to the ballpark for Sydney’s championship game. If they won the game they would win the entire tournament. If they lost they would have to play a second game because it was a double elimination tourney and they were still undefeated.  We got to the ballpark and the game was just starting when a storm cell snuck up and it started getting nasty. Long story but the game finally got moved to Monday night.

So we headed home again. Wow was it steamy.

This wasn’t the highest it got. We were so thankful for the storm that rolled through that brought the cooler air. We had all of the windows open while we waited on the AC guy aka our hero to come back to see if the unit had literally thawed so he could work on it. Thankfully it had and by 9pm we had air conditioning.  If it hadn’t been fixed we were going to sleep in the basement where it was a nice cool 72 degrees. Amazing how nice & cool basements are.

So that was my crazy fun packed weekend. I thought this week was going to be quiet and calm. No such luck. We have a plumber coming to work on a problem we have had since we moved in, Lowe’s is coming to deliver and assemble the girls play-set, and we have company coming (my dear friend again and her family) for five nights!!!! I will take this out of town company any time for any reason. Somewhere in this mess, I have to continue to get my work outs in. IT is going to be challenging. I have a bike for this morning’s cycling class. Just hoping the girls are awake in time. After our crazy weekend where they weren’t in bed any night before 10pm (which is totally not normal), I would hate to wake them. I have determined that I will go to the Y every day this week just like I would any normal week. Crossing my fingers that I can make that happen.

Tags: busy

I have really been working hard. Cycling Class still on Mondays & Wednesdays and the elliptical on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Yesterday, I pushed out 5.5 miles on the elliptical. I am finding that my trips to the Y are saving my sanity this summer. The girls have been picking at each other and some days I feel like I could lose it. 

Now I just need to find time to add in some strength training/weights. I know that I need to. Those stinkin machines just intimidate me some. There are too many benefits of strength training to ignore them. So that is next on my agenda in the near future.

Hope that everyone is working hard and enjoying their summer.

Tags: exercise

Man is it sometimes hard to change my mental mantras. Continually I catch myself saying to little old me “just keep trying”. NO! I stopped trying. I am doing it. Trying wasn’t getting me anywhere. I have been writing everything down that goes in my mouth. Making better choices. It sure doesn’t hurt that all of the wonderful produce is available. Too bad we can’t have that year around. My exercise has IMPROVED so much.  Monday-spin class. Tuesday- 4 miles on the elliptical at a higher intensity and farther.  Today- Back to spin class (if I can walk there). My legs are so sore.  But I am just doing it.

Sorry this is short. Got to get Sydney up so she can get ready for her third day at dino camp at school (which she is loving).

Tags: trying