The End.

If you read the post from last Thursday, you probably remember reading that I wanted to take a weekend to spend with myself. To take some time out to reevaluate things, and find my happy place.
I'm afraid to say this... but this blog is no longer a happy place for me.
I can't pinpoint it to a single event, a comment, a post, there's just nothing that really happened.

I've kind of mentioned a few times that I struggle to come up with posts. I stress about it, about putting out a product for people to read. And sometimes I wonder what for?? If I'm no longer enjoying blogging here, then why am I doing it? If I give you motivation, that's fantastic, and I'm happy to.
But I don't feel like this blog is fulfilling for me anymore.
I think the bloggosphere is a great place, very positive, but a few rude comments to wear on you. And why would you subject yourself to that? And then there's also jealousy. Everyone wants their blog to get more readers, more comments, more followers... and I found myself caring about those things.

That's not why I started this blog. At all! I rarely compare myself to others in my daily life, I'm really happy with who I am, and all of the things I've accomplished in my life. I've worked hard to get where I am, and I refuse to let something petty like blogging make me doubt myself. I'm many things, but I'm not a jealous person. I'm a giving person, a caring person, and feeling stupid jealousy doesn't work for me.

I started this blog 2 years ago to document the amazing thing I accomplished - Losing 85 lbs. to be healthy. I've done that, and sometimes I think this blog has served it's purpose. You all see how I live my life, the struggles I face, the way I pull myself back up, the way I set a goal and push to reach it, and the way I also fail. I feel like I have nothing else to put out there.

Right now, I'm flailing. My goal was to lose 100 lbs. I've tried countless times to get myself motivated to do that. This blog, unfortunately, isn't working. I lost all of the weight prior to the blog, and in the 2 years I've had the blog, it's just fluctuated from -75 to -85.
So I think, for the time being, I'm going to put the blog on a hiatus.
I'm very happy with all of the other aspects in my life, and see them continue to grow and flourish, I don't regret a second I spent writing this blog, and I do want to keep in contact with many of you and follow you in your quest to be the person you want to be.

My cooking blog is still an integral part of my life, so you'll always be able to follow me there.
I will do one thing - I'll write one post the day I reach my goal of -100 lbs.
See ya then :)

The Climb

How was your Monday?? Mine was pretty good! I have a confession though, I was up until 12:30am watching Lost on Sunday night, and I broke one of my most important rules - get your sleep! I was really tired all day yesterday, and almost decided against spinning. But as I was getting off the highway exit, I just naturally went to the Y. They say that it takes 30 days to make something a habit, and this is week 4 of me taking classes at the Y... so maybe subconsciously I just knew I had to go, and it's what I do now on Monday.

I am cool with change. However, once things change, I make a concrete routine. I like routines, I like dependable. I pack the same lunch every day, I do the same route on my weekend runs, I do a lot of the same things until it just doesn't work for me anymore. The Y is now part of my life and my routine, and that's a great thing! Now there are some days I miss because of Bite Club or other unforeseeable random events, but for the most part, I'm happy with this routine.

So spinning - My instructor last night was very much into the climbs and the jumps, so at the end of class, with the resistance being around 7-8 the entire time, I was spent! I definitely gave 110%

For dinner, I once again made the tomatillo enchiladas. This time I remembered to photograph them, but the corn tortillas were not cooperating, kept breaking, and I ended up making a layered dish. This meal is against me! 

After dinner, I mentioned to JJ that there's a TCBY not far from here, and I had a coupon for a free cone. He was excited, and said we should go right away... so we did. We definitely took the LONG way there, and it was a fiasco. What should have been a 15 minute drive was about 1 hour. Ugh. But it gave us some time to spend together, so it was worth it in the end :) 

I got a chocolate/vanilla swirl cup with raspberries, my favorite combo! 

Well that's all for Monday, have a wonderful Tuesday! 

And to answer from the previous post - the running chart is from Nike+, you can read about the nike+ running system at www.nikerunning.com

My Epic Weekend!

I hope everyone had as great of a weekend as I did! It wasn't very eventful, but it was full of great, healthy food (all we be on the food blog this week) and lots of errands and spring cleaning. 

I can't remember if I mentioned it, but next week my parents and sister and brother in law are coming to visit, so I've been trying to get a lot done to be ready for their visit! I am so excited, Kris arrives Sunday afternoon, my parents arrive Monday, and Dan will get here Thursday. I'm really looking forward to some time off work (3 days) while they're here, and I'm excited for them to see the new house, car, and my life down here in general! 

So let's start with Friday night... 

I made myself this delicious dinner, a salad with wheatberries, spinach, strawberries and feta. It was awesome! I also had some plain greek yogurt with a sprinkle of frozen raspberries. 

I watched 5 episodes of Lost, and loved it! 

Saturday morning I was up and ready to go on my run. I should have pushed it and went a little further, but I didn't. Oh well, I figured I'd make up for it on Sunday morning's run. Lesson learned: When you're on a run, feel great, and it's going well, keep going! 

Breakfast was an Oikos and a banana, followed by Starbucks Iced Coffee and food shopping. I'm excited about this week's menu, I've got some great stuff planned, and will finally be getting great new recipes on my cooking blog. I've had quite the dry spell! 

So some of you have asked about Folio Weekly, the magazine I write and blog for. Here's a few photos. The first is the ad that runs weekly for the Bite Club. This is in every week, and changes depending on the event location. 

Then this is the interview article in last week's "Bite by Bite" issue, which recaps all local restaurants and the food scene. This was a one time thing, all of my content is on the blog, and not in the magazine on a weekly basis. I'm not sure when the article I wrote will be in Folio, but I'll post it when it does! 

So after unpacking the groceries and cleaning the kitchen, I called the dogs in because I was ready to shower. I could not find Pumpkin anywhere though, until I looked under the bushes... there she was, sleeping in the sandy bed she dug up. Awesome. 

That meant bath-time for the dogs! 

I decided to tackle all 3 at once, because if I do the twins first, Pumpkin hides. It was easier than I thought it would be. Belle jumped out once, but other than that they were great! 

After bath-time, I was starving! I made a napa cabbage blue cheese slaw, strawberries, and 3 hardboiled eggs (I hate 1 whole and 2 whites). It was a TV dinner-ish, I took it outside with the laptop and watched another episode of Lost!

I ran a few errands, and found myself at Mochi. Don't know how that happened.... 

Plain with strawberries, blackberries and blueberries. YUM!

I stopped by Lowe's to get some potting soil because I was ready to transplant my herbs to the pots. Lowe's on a Saturday afternoon in April with gorgeous weather... a nightmare!!! I waited on line for 40 minutes to check out. There were so many people there... it was awful! But I got my soil, and moved my herbs. I've got basil, mint, rosemary, chives, sage, dill, cilantro and oregano.

Here's a garden update. I am so so so proud of my little garden that I started from SEED! 

The back row is a variety of tomatoes, then I've got broccoli, red cabbage and beets.

Another row of tomatoes, cauliflower and bell pepper varities

And finally snap peas, pumpkins, beets and peppers

I ate dinner really early, I was starving! Chana Masala with Cous Cous and Snap Peas.

Watched some more Lost, and snacked on yogurt and an apple.

Then it was off to bed! I was exhausted, but couldn't fall asleep. Lost is a little eerie, and makes you think! 

So I ended up sleeping in pretty late! I really didn't feel like running, but now that I'm at the gym on weekdays, weekend runs are even more important. About 2 miles in, I wanted to stop. But I pushed myself, and decided to do the 4.4 mile route. This is exactly why I wished I kept going on Saturday. 

I had some pain in my right ankle, and it was really hot - which I guess will continue to get worse. Oh, Florida... we're going to have a love/hate relationship... 

After I got back, I had breakfast which was Strawberry Oikos, strawberries and a banana. I was extremely sweaty, so I tried to drink a lot of water.

I stopped by Starbucks for my coffee and read the paper for a bit before church. It was not good though, everyone around me was smoking and it was gross. I left pretty quickly and ended up reading in my car in the church parking lot. 

I stopped by the farmer's market after church. I got some great stuff, but they didn't put my lemons in my bag! It's so annoying because almost every meal this week needs lemons! 

Lunch was a potato salad, orange and tea...

JJ 'fixed' the garden fence last weekend, but somehow Belle got in. When I climbed in to rescue her (she was unable to get back out), I saw something amazing.... my snap peas have grown!!! I had my first harvest of the year, 5 snap peas!!! 

I spent the rest of the afternoon turning a curtain into a table runner with some of the iron adhesive tape, and figured since I had the iron out, I might as well iron all of my cloth napkins that I've been putting off. I think I spent 2 hours ironing... it was not fun! But I was watching The Masters, so it was ok. 

Again, I was starving for dinner. I made a cous cous salad-y thing, and a pear and gorgonzola salad based off the delicious one I had 3 weeks ago at the Cheesecake Factory. These will be blogged! 

I ended the evening with a bowl of cheerios and almond milk, unpictured. 

It was a long but great weekend, however this post was epic, so I promise I'll try to break up my weekend posts. I was too enamored by Lost to post! 

Have a wonderful week :) 

Friday, I'm in LOVE!

I've been so tired this week! Last night I was pretty much out by 9pm. I'm sure it's because I was up late watching the Duke game Monday and at Bite Club Tuesday, and never fully recovered. I did something bad though, and skipped Body Pump last night. I literally was having to make an effort to keep my eyes open driving home from work on the highway. Not good! 

I also think there's a possibility that the excess of chocolate and over-eating all weekend kind of ruined my week. I don't know why at the holidays I seem to throw it all away. It's seriously one of my biggest vices. I feel like it's my free-for-all and it won't count... but it does! I'm pretty sure I gained 2-3 lbs. from last weekend. Some water weight, but many, many excess calories. 

So this weekend, I've got another body/mind/soul clean weekend planned. After I had a bad week a few months ago, I deployed this strategy, and I felt so much better (here's the post) the next week up until last weekend. While I eat very little processed food and alcohol in daily life, about once every few months I have a bad weekend, and with last weekends wedding+easter, there was a lot of junk, which I feel like has dragged me down all week. So the next weekend I was extremely diligent to keep my food clean, exercise a lot, drink tons of water, and spend time reflecting. 

I am so proud of myself for being able to make it through the better part of the year with daily exercise, moderation in food and living a healthy life, but I still really struggle with events, occasions, and holidays. I guess in my mind since I work so hard every other day to keep things in check, it's my time to let loose. The next week or two I spend feeling gross and trying to get rid of the weight, and then I'm good for another month or two. Why I let this process keep happening, I don't know. I have made progress, but when I let go, I really let go.

Maybe in my reflections this weekend I'll find some answers...

So what will my weekend entail? 

Well, there's the normal weekend routine stuff - laundry, deep cleaning kitchens and bathrooms, grocery shopping, church and farmer's market, washing my car, bank and post office.

Then there's the body part - mani- and pedicure (done by myself, of course), and dying the hair (i'm prematurely gray, with my sister visiting in a week, gotta be sure to get that covered!). 

For exercise I'm planning on a 7 mile run Saturday and maybe trying out Jillian's Yoga DVD. Sunday I'm planning on a 4-5 mile run and maybe a shred workout. It's been ages since I've shredded. 

For my spirit, I'm planning to spend some time in my garden, potting my herbs that I started from seed, weeding and prepping my new plant beds and getting some more seeds started. While many people may not think of garden time as spiritual time, for me it is. Gardening is something that is important in my family, it's been passed down from generations, and my dad has always instilled the gratitude and wonder of what a tiny seed can produce in my sisters and me. It still boggles my mind to look out and see how much my plants grow each day! 

Also, I'll be attending church Sunday, as always, and lots of cuddle time with my dogs. They always bring my spirits up, and since the week days are hectic, I try to give them extra love and affection on the weekends.

Ok, finally, my little indulgence for the weekend evenings is this....

I have so many friends that talk about it all.the.time. And from what I've heard, season 1 was just awesome, so I'm going to spend my evenings watching a few episodes on hulu. 

I hope you all have a lovely weekend! 

Yawn.

For some reason I've been so exhausted today.
I didn't get to bed until close to midnight last night because JJ had a 7pm game, and had to pick the dogs up from his parents house. He got home around 11:30, and we had to move some furniture back. On the bright side, the carpets look fantastic! I love clean carpet.

So work was normal, but around 4pm, I was crashing hard. I was so close to skipping spinning, but I dug deep and went. I mustered up the energy to push through class, and boy was it hard! I had my endorphin high, and a burst of energy, but now I'm barely able to keep my eyes open!
I love when I feel like I've left it all there in the gym, pushed as hard as I could. For some reason, it's easier for me to do that in classes at the Y and not when I run on the weekends. I feel like I never give it 100% because I'm scared I won't make it to the end.

So whenever you work out, do you feel like you pushed it to 100% every time? Just certain workouts? Or only at races?

I know when I run races, I give it my all... except for the half marathon. I definitely wasn't pushing hard because I wanted to make it to the end, and had I tried to run faster from miles 1-10, I don't think I would have survived 11-13. However, when I run on the weekends, I don't feel like I'm running really hard and fast. I'll start out pushing my speed, but then towards the end I slow up a bit and feel like I'm on cruise control. When I do strength training, I always feel like I gave it my all, and leave with jelly-arms!

Spring cleaning

First of all, thank you so much to everyone who left feedback for me! I really appreciate your honesty.

After thinking about it all day, here's where I stand with it.

First of all, I absolutely love blogging, and I rarely find that I don't have the time for it, so I apologize if my last post made it sound that way. Usually what happens is on a mundane, run of the mill sort of day, I sit on the couch with blogger open, and blank on what to write. Then the minutes pass by, and before I know it it's 11pm and I need to get to bed with no post written. That's when I stress about the time!

However, it sounds like the majority of you like to read that I too have mundane days where I go to work, go to the gym, make dinner, watch some tv, and go to bed. If that's what you're cool with reading, then I'm going to keep posting on even those boring days! And it sounds like you enjoy seeing what I have for dinner because it gives you some ideas. 

As far as giveaways and product reviews, we're pretty much in the same opinion there. I'm not fond of them, and it sounds like you all would read my blog regardless. And I don't need to bring readers here who only read for free stuff. If I find products I love and believe in, I'll continue to share them. And if say, Stonyfield Farms wanted to do a giveaway, I'd be all for that... but I'll continue to turn down giveaways for things I don't personally use. 

Lastly, I just want to say how much I appreciate all of you. I have a hard time walking the line between blogging for myself, and blogging for an audience.... but everyone that reads and comments is so kind, supportive, and friendly. And when you tell me that you take what I write and use it as motivation, it really touches me. I'll say it until I'm blue in the face, the bloggosphere is really a wonderful place! 

Ok, enough of the logistics... and mushy stuff... onto my day!

As I said, tonight was a Bite Club event. It was really fun, great company, and the food was wonderful. I don't like seafood, but I tried a few bites here and there. I didn't eat much, and wanted so badly to stop on my way home and grab some fast food, but I knew even if I had good intentions I'd falter and order something bad, so I waited until I got home and had yogurt, pineapple, and some snap peas. I have no clue what my calories were like for the evening, but I don't feel full, so that's probably a good sign! 

I didn't get to go to Body Pump, sad, but tomorrow is spinning and I'm excited for that! 

Our carpets were steam cleaned today, and they look fantastic. Hopefully Char and Belle can keep their accidents to a minimum :) I'm going to really focus on some spring cleaning this weekend, from the ground up, so the carpets were #1 on the list! 

ok, I'm spent, time for bed, but first here's some Bite Club....

The oyster bar... eek! 

Lou and his/my friends

Pumpkin, Charlotte and Belle's babysitter, Fawn, came to the event! (right)

My favorite part of the evening, key lime meringue pie and key lime cheesecake. 

To blog or not to blog

I'm having a hard time right now with deciding whether to blog daily or not.

It was my New Year's Resolution to blog daily, and I really want to stick with it. However, during the week it gets really hard to blog at times, and I also struggle with feeling like I'm going to bore you! 

I walk the line between blogging for myself, and blogging because I know there are some amazing people out there who tell me I inspire them and my words help push them to continue on in their journey. 

When your readership on the blog grows, so do opportunities. I've had a lot of companies contact me about doing giveaways and testing their products to review on here. I don't want my blog to be a billboard, but I also do want to give you all opportunities if that's what you'd like. 

So I'm asking you all to please let me know what you think! You can answer these direct questions, or just share your thoughts...

-Do you like my blogging daily, even if it's just to check in and say had a normal day, worked out, ate well, etc. (which does help me stay a bit more accountable)

-Do you prefer that I only blog when I have things to share or stories that might inspire?

-Do you like seeing photos of my meals?

-Do you think I should start hosting giveaways and/or share product reviews?

I think if I don't  commit myself to blogging daily, it might just be on the weekends and maybe 2-3x per week.

And I do want to note that right now, I only share products that I find in my own personal life that I pay for. I am not at all endorsed by Oikos/Stonyfield Farms, for example, even though I dedicate my life to it... 

So moving on...

Monday was good. Busy at work, spinning after work, had a great dinner. Char and Belle have gone 4 weeks without a pee accident in the house, so we're having the carpets cleaned tomorrow, and hope they'll stay clean for at least 6 months. So JJ and I were moving furniture all night to the few tiled areas in the house. 

Tomorrow night I have Bite Club, it's at a Seafood Restaurant though, so I won't be eating much. And definitely not drinking.... so I'm not sure what my dinner will end up being. I might have to stop and grab something on the way home. I try to eat seafood, but I just can't do it. I don't like the taste or the texture, and I just picture fish swimming around in the ocean in my mind.. and it weirds me out! Some days... well, most days... I just know that I was destined for vegetarianism.

Have a great Tuesday! 

The Weekend Update

What a weekend! It went by so fast. 

I had such a fantastic time, but it was also pretty indulgent, so it's good that it's over with and I'm back to a normal schedule! 

Friday afternoon I got off work at noon, met JJ for lunch at Ruby Tuesday (I think after salad bar 4 times in a month, I'm over it), and went to get a card for the wedding. Then we went over to Jared's house and helped them finish setting up for the wedding reception. 

JJ and his 2 best friends were groomsmen, and luckily they both had girlfriends there so I had people to sit with at the wedding. I didn't know anyone else there, and neither did they. We had a great time together, and I'm happy that his friends finally have girlfriends! 

The wedding was really relaxed, so the guys were able to hang out at our table most of the night, and we had a great time. I drank way too much though, so we'll fast forward from Friday night to Sunday morning...

Saturday was not a good day, I spent a lot of time in bed, then cleaning the house and preparing for my grandparents arrival Saturday evening.

Sunday, Easter!!! 

To attempt at making up for some of the awful eating and laziness that was Saturday, I went for a 4.5 mile run on Sunday morning. I used my Nike+, but didn't load the results. I'll probably do that tonight.

My favorite candy is the Cadbury Creme Egg, so I bought 1. It was delicious :)  

Took some photos with the dogs before church...

Then we came home and I got started on dinner. I made a big German feast and a Triffle for dessert.

Then JJ hid my eggs and I had my Easter Egg Hunt! 

It was a great weekend :) But I definitely ate too much... especially candy/chocolate. 

I'm looking forward to getting back on track this week, and hopefully going on a longer run or two next weekend! 

Grrr, internet!

So earlier in the week I was having issues with blogger, the last two days have been issues with our internet at home. Why is technology against me?!

Anyway, nothing exciting has happened here, spinning on Wednesday was great. Last night I had to stay late at work to close out the month in our accounting software, so no workout. Today I only work a half day since the wedding we're going to is this afternoon! I think I'm going to wear the bright orange dress! It's supposed to be 83 degrees today, yay! So again, no workout...and I have to work hard to keep myself in check with the wedding cake. I do love cake.

Tomorrow I have lots of errands and Bite Club meetings, then my grandparents are coming in for the weekend. I'm hoping to get a 7 miler in tomorrow.
Sunday we're hosting dinner with my in-laws and grandparents, so that will be nice. I'm making a big German dinner.

After lots of water, exercise, and trying to go back to normal, it seems my yucky bloat went away!

So I submitted my article for cooking with kids, and a few photos, and my editor loved it! Also, they asked me if they could start publishing recipes and give me a column in the dining section of the magazine bi-weekly because they had such a great response from the interview article they did with me. I'm so excited, you have to start at the bottom, but I feel like things are looking up for me with my cooking and blogging future!

Hope you all have a great weekend, and if you celebrate Easter - Happy Easter!