A Merry Life

The battery died and my charger was forgotten when I visited a friend.  So for now I am computer and internet free.  Sad day.  I have so much to talk about and no time now.  But soon my beloved computer will come back to life and me and the blogging lifestyle will reconnect.

So, Willow asked me a few questions and I am going to answer them today.

“How is everything going? Decided what place to move to yet? Any prospect/plans for a new job?”

Everything is going well.  At least thats what I am telling myself.  I have never tried to do any of this before so I am not exactly sure how these kinds of things are supposed to go.  So I think it is going well.

Have I decided where to move yet?  Well, yes and no.  I know the general area that I want to move to, but I don’t know exactly where yet.  I am going to meet four or five different people this weekend that have rooms for rent and see what they (the rooms AND the potential roommates) are like.   I am looking for the cheapest possible place which may lend itself to crappy rooms and sketchy roommates, so I need to see how comfortable I am with these places and then make a decision.  I might pay a little more per month than I want if it will make me comfortable.  We shall see how all that goes and hopefully after this weekend I will know exactly where in the Nashville area I am moving.

Of course there are plans for a new jobs, but these plans are even muddier than the actual new job prospects.  Not knowing what I want to do or what kind of job I would like to have hurts my cause in this search.  I most likely will end up doing temp work which will be perfect because it will let me try some things out and I don’t plan on this being a permanent move.  This is just a baby move that hopefully will lead up to me moving somewhere else that is bigger and better.

Willow also said, ” And, I for one would love to see your bridesmaid photographs!”

My reply… ME TOO!  I haven’t seen any pictures from the wedding yet!  Of course, the couple is on their honeymoon this week so they aren’t really thinking about getting their pictures back.  I haven’t gotten a chance to get the pictures from the other bridesmaids either, so whenever I do I will post them.

I like answering questions.  Ask me more.

I am being blog lazy.

But since this is check in day… I will give you the weight from Saturday when I finally weighed in before the wedding. 232.

This is actually good, because in the few weeks where I didn’t weigh in I had gained a little bit but now I lost all that and Im down two pounds from the last time I remember weighing in.

How annoying that weight loss is a up and down cycle to the bottom. I hope I get closer to that bottom soon!

L’s wedding was on Saturday and it was a major NSV for me. I fit into my dress with a lot of help from a corset like contraption, my feeble pre-wedding weight loss attempts, and both the bride’s and the groom’s mothers who helped zip me into the dress. It wasn’t easy and it definitely wasn’t pretty, but it happened. Yeah yeah.

I will have pictures from the wedding in a week or two. I didn’t remember to take my camera to the church… I was too stressed about fitting in the dress and wearing heels and all that. The camera was the last thing on my mind. But the photographer took a lot of photos (oh no) and one of the other bridesmaids took a couple of me in my dress for this purpose. Whenever she sends them to me I will put them up here for your enjoyment.

So, I have a million feelings of anxiety and worry swirling inside my head now for a different reason. Yesterday I had a TERRIBLE day and decided that I needed to move out of my house. I have many reasons behind this decision. It has actually been coming for a long time but it kept getting put off so I decided no more putting it off… I am just going to force myself to do it. So today I am quitting my job (well, putting in two weeks notice) and in two weeks I will move out of my house.

The reason I am all anxious and worried about this is because despite moving out being a GREAT thing, I actually don’t know where I am moving to. I have a vague idea of the city I want to live in or near, but I don’t have a ton of money and have no job set up so its a little bit scary for me. I like adventure and change but all of it at once with no forseeable future is a little bit scary. So I am going to try to focus on doing everything one step at a time.

First step. Quit my job. This one kind of sucks because I love it and this job has been very good to me despite the many problems that exist with it (its only part time, doesn’t pay well). But to leave I have to quit. Therefore, I am quitting.

Step two. Make, find, beg, borrow as much money as possible in the next two weeks. (Anyone feel the need to click on a google ad *click, click, thanks* or make a donation to poor pitiful Mary?) I am going to try to sell off as much stuff as I can through ebay and other means and hopefully create a bigger cushion for myself so I won’t go broke before I get another job in this unknown location I will be in.

That is as far as I have gotten. Quit job. Make some money. I guess I could add pack my stuff and leave, but that is really the last step and I know there are other ones in between. I just can’t think of them. Ahhh, my brain is actually tired from thinking about any of this stuff. I am ready to just get it all done and start something new. New is good, right?

Today should be wordless wednesday, but I am too excited to forgo an explanation.

I signed up for my first 5k.

Yep, I did it!

Remember back when I was in school last semester and had vague plans to run a 5k?  I never registered for one so I never ended up doing one.  But now I have committed my time, paid my money, and am telling everyone about it. 

I can’t wait to get my slow butt across the finish line on Dec. 6!

The race I chose is the Memphis Grizzlies House 5k.  Its on Dec 6 as part of the St. Jude marathon weekend.

The race benefits Memphis Grizzlies House, the short-term housing facility for St. Jude patients.  I have never been there (I used to volunteer at Ronald McDonald House which offers a place to stay for patients and their families for longer durations) but I hear it is very cool and a great place for patients to stay close by the hospital.

[Runners pass the Memphis Grizzlies House.]

The 5k is on the same day as the St. Jude Marathon and Half-Marathon, and I know several people running those.  Meredith the Ironman will be running the Marathon, and a few more people I know will be running the half (I am trying to talk my brother into running the half… he is more of a runner than I’ll ever be). 

[The runners on Beale Street where the race starts.]

I’ve heard the St. Jude Marathon is an AWESOME one.  And of course it supports St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, which is a great reason to participate.

If you are interested in running with me or running any of the distances check out the St. Jude Marathon website.

Well, well, well. We meet again. Since I am writing this post at 6 am instead of 6 pm, like normal, maybe I will actually be higher up on the list when checking in. I am so terrible about doing anything weekly (lets not even start about doing things daily) so its amazing that I even check in with the challenge every other week. But I have some down time now and I am awake and ready to write and read some weight loss blogs.

I feel that I am well on my way to becoming a healthy me. I have been eating way less than I normally do when I am at home and I have been having great workouts. Yesterday my workout consisted of 30 minutes on the elliptical, 20 on the bike, and an hour of swimming (10 laps)/kicking with a kickboard (26 laps). It was a great workout that made my body feel so tired but so good at the same time… I am loving swimming. I am so glad I added it to my workout schedule.

The bridesmaid dress fiasco gave me a reason to really NEED to lose weight and break the unhealthy cycle that has gripped me while I have been living at home. The motivation to fit in the dress for L’s wedding - so I wouldn’t let her down or completely embarrass myself in front of my friends - has proven to be a powerful motivator for me. The wedding is this Saturday so I have motivation to continue this through at least Saturday afternoon. I can’t promise I will be good Saturday night though, I have a date and a desire to eat something unhealthy after two weeks of nada in the yummy goodness department.

But don’t fret my friends. Although I am on an accelerated, amped up healthy living plan right now I don’t plan to abandon it any time soon. I will add back a few hundred more calories a day though and let the weight loss slow to a more appropriate speed. If I want this to be permanent I will just adjust what I am doing now to make it slower, but ultimately more lasting.

So how much weight have I lost exactly? I can’t tell you. It’s not that I don’t want to tell you, but that I really can’t tell you. I don’t know how much weight I have lost. Once I decided that fitting into L’s bridesmaid dress was my goal I started focusing on that instead of the scale. I haven’t been weighing myself and have instead been basing my efforts on how my body looks, feels, and fits into clothes.

I am doing well in that aspect since my clothes all feel a bit looser. I received a compliment from one of my bosses yesterday about how I looked like I had lost weight and that I looked thinner in areas…. including the area where the dress didn’t fit! I know I have lost a few inches at least. I love that she told me this because honestly it is impossible for me to judge my size and whether or not it is actually diminishing.

I may have to buy a corset or something like one for this weekend (just so I don’t look so flabby, ya know?). I will definitely post a picture of two to let you guys see if all this worked or not. So look forward to a future bridesmaid fashion show with yours truly.

For now we will have a little food show. I don’t do this every week but sometimes I will plan out my food for the week and cook everything and separate it out to help make sure I am eating only what I need to eat. As an example of this here are the pictures from one of the weeks when I did this.

My veggies all cooked and in their containers: peas, corn, green beans, mixed.

My breakfasts and snacks: cereal, oatmeal, fruit.

I also cooked up some bacon! Well, turkey bacon!

The fish I cooked that tasted soooo good. I love fish.

This is where I am going today. Woot.

Turns out there is free wi-fi and tons of down time at work. These things together equal a lovely post from yours truly. You are excited, I know.

I am adding free internet access to one of the things I love about this job. I can’t get internet at home except for on the old slow computer of my brother’s that I hate to use, so having internet here is perfect! I will add this to the list of free gym membership, free personal training consultations, etc. Great stuff.

Another perk? Free fitness magazines. These are actually from someone I met at work, so its a more indirect benefit. She gives me her old fitness magazines when she is done reading them. She just gave me five plus an issue of Cosmo with Rihanna (I love her) on it. I am pretty excited to read lots of good fitness information!

I discovered the pool at my work is much better than the pool I went to swim at the first time. It definitely caters to swimmers. The other pool was nice but it had fewer lanes and was more focused on achieving balance between lots of kids, seniors in water aerobics, and the swimmers. That is a good thing, but not as cool as a pool almost solely dedicated to lap swimmers.

I got to use a cool kickboard and fins that my pool at work provides. That was a different experience but really cool. I used those yesterday to swim laps for a while and did a ton. I also just swam backstroke and freestyle for a few laps each. Overall I ending up kicking/swimming 36 laps… which is more than a mile (1 mile=35.2 laps). Hurray!

The best part about it was after I finished when I was putting the fins up, Aquatics Dude, who was filling in for an absent lifeguard, asked me how many laps I did.

“36.”

“Wow.”

He was clearly shocked and told me that he could honestly say he had never swam a mile. I tried to tell him that I didn’t actually swim the whole mile, but he said that I kicked through the whole thing at least and he had never even done that. I felt so proud of myself for doing it! It took an hour and I almost gave up 6 million times, but after talking to Aquatics Dude it was so worth it. It made me crazy sleepy yesterday after I did it, but today I feel GREAT!

I just want to give a little shoutout to Meredith, the awesome running girl, who completed her first IRONMAN race. I am pretty proud of that kid… she did all 140.6 miles in under 17 hours. That is stinkin awesome… and I can’t even imagine 17 hours of hard work. She is ridiculously cool and so awesome helping for helping me stick with workouts and try to be a runner (still working on that). So, here is the new IRONMAN!!

As I sit here getting ready to blog about being healthy, or at least trying to, I realize I have not worked out yet today. I normally get my workout in after I get off work at 8:30 am, but today I went back to work sooner than normal and didn’t squeeze in a workout. So, as of yet, I am a lazy girl. But I can’t justify whining on about anything if I haven’t worked out …. so here I go!