Sorry.

If you want the honest answer as to why I haven't been posting, it's because I feel like there's nothing exciting going on in my life and I don't want to bore you with the same posts. I ran, it was okay, I worked, I didn't eat very well, a good weekend, blah, blah, blah.

Truthfully, we did have a great weekend and we went to Hershey Park with my cousins. We took my 8-year old cousins on all the roller coasters. Man is that girl tall!  She's already at my chin! But anyway, we convinced her, and bribed her to go all the roller coasters, and she loved it. She was nervous, but she knew that her options were side with Grammy & Aunt Kathy, or ride with the adults, so she sucked it up and she loved it.

That was my exciting weekend. I'm sure something exciting will come up in the next few weeks or something. Until then, I'll just be taking a break if that's okay with you.

Tell me:


What do you blog about when your life gets in a lull?

10 Week Challenge: Places

Happy Friday! Ah, six places. I'm wondering what kind of places these are supposed to be. Places you want to go? Places you've already been? Favorite places? I'll do a mix of the three.

1. Walt Disney World. My favorite place on Earth, truly. I could live here and never get sick of it, especially because you just can't be upset there. Families are having such a great time. The employees are happy and enjoying themselves. I know it's all cliche, but it's true for me.

2. Home. Home is where the heart is, and when we were in Maryland, our hearts weren't there. Home is where the family is, and because my family and Mr. Skinny's family both live locally, this is where home is. I don't love living with my parents, but this area is home and I am so grateful I have family that let's us live with them, no questions asked.

3. Italy. I want to go to Italy so badly. There is not a drop of Italian blood in me, but I just can't explain the desire to go there and eat all the delicious food. I don't know that I'm ever going to get there, but a girl can dream, right?

4. Greece. Same reasons as Italy. I want to see the history of these places, and the cultures.

5. Africa. I want to see where the oldest cultures on our planet come from, the most simple cultures, which is also the most complex. Thousands of years of history, millions even. Also, I want to help, these cultures have been hurting for a long time, and between colonialism and slavery, among other things, these cultures need help.

6. Heaven. My goal is life is to be able to spend the rest of eternity here, and every day, I try to strive to be the person that God created me to be so that I can spend eternity in heaven with my Creator.

Tell me:

Where is your favorite place to visit?

Where is one place you dream to visit?

Feelings About Running.

Some people learn to love exercise. They find the form that appeals to them and give it their all. They love the way they feel after accomplishing something new and they look forward to it. I thought I was becoming one of those people, but my recent hiatus from just about all forms of exercise taught me that's not true. I am a lazy person, I truly am. I know it's not a good thing, but I don't like doing work, any kind of work really. Over the past year or so though, I thought I was teaching myself to enjoy running. It's really the only kind of exercise that I'll do. I do need to step out some strength training and yoga though. Anyway, I'd run, but I don't love it. I love how it makes me feel, and I love to be able to say that "I run." I also love the amount of food I can eat because I burn the calories running. I don't love running itself though. I'll keep going at it, just to continue saying that I run, and to continue loosing weight.

Although I will say that this morning's run was definitely on the side of liking running. Since I haven't gone running for over 2 weeks, I convinced myself I needed to try this morning, if nothing else, just so I could try and see if it hurt my back. It didn't, but I never had any proof that my back pain was a result of my running. Since backing off running though, it hasn't been as painful, but it always hurts at work. I'm going to take this as a sign that my current job isn't my dream job. But we all knew that, right?

I was worried to head out this morning, thinking that my running endurance would slip away into nothingness again, and I'd be stuck doing the Couch-to-5K program again. For the third time. But I guess 2 weeks isn't too bad. I was able to run one mile, then walked another mile - ish and finished up running another half mile before my cool-down walk. I was so excited when I was finished. I really didn't think I could do that. Now, time will tell if my back pain is caused my running.

Weights should be my friend. I always have such good intentions, but then I never follow through! I need to come up with a schedule for including strength training, but I get nervous when people are home and watching me use my weights. I know, I'm home, and they're my family but it doesn't help when your brother looks like this...

No lie, he's about 10x more ripped than that this summer. I can't believe how small he looks there!

Yeah, he hits up the gym at least 3x each week. Ain't nobody ever gonna mess with my little brother!

Sorry for rambling. Moral of the story? I'm lazy and don't love any kind of exercise. I suck it up and do it because I want to be healthy. And I should start lifting weights. Who wants to be my personal trainer?

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Tell me:


Do you really love exercise? 
Do you strength train? At home or at the gym?

Date Night Weekend.

Sorry I've fallen off the blogging wagon a couple days. Honestly, I just needed a break. Nothing exciting happened. I still haven't run, although my back feels better, I'm afraid to run and hurt something again. My back hurts sometimes when I'm sitting, especially at work because I'm sitting for long periods of time. It usually helps if I sit Indian style, but not always. If I'm active, then it doesn't really bother me. However, I am enjoying my time of just being lazy. After my getting back on track last week, I successfully lost 2 lbs. last week. Now I just have to keep it up for this week. Last week I had my goal at loosing .5 lb/week, so this week I upped it to 1 lb/week. I know I can do it. I have before, I just have to focus on it, and getting the most food for my calories. And by that I don't mean sugar free/fat free processed garbage. I mean real food, fruits/veggies and all that good stuff. I'll let you know how it goes.

Seriously though, it's fall. The weather is colder, and the only good thing about fall (other than it being closer to Christmas(!!), and pumpkin roll), is that when I try on all my sweaters from last year that I were a little too snug for comfort, they all fit this year! And I feel fantastic when I wear them!

Anyhow, back to the point of this post, Saturday was date night. I love date nights. Because we live with my parents again, we don't have the privacy to enjoy a dinner by ourselves, or even watch a movie unless it's in our room, which means laying on our bed where Mr. Skinny promptly falls asleep in 10 seconds flat. Also, since we have no movie playing devices in our room (the Blu-Ray, DVD player and VCR [yes, we still have one, don't you] are all in the living room), the movie has to be on TV, or DVR'd. Yeah, so we don't have a ton of choices. Nevertheless, I love date night and we've been trying to do date night once each month. But the last time we had one was July so knowing that The Lion King was coming out in 3D, I knew I had to see it. Perfect for date night! Well, more for me than Mr. Skinny, but he loves me and my Disney fanatic inside!

We had to pick somewhere for dinner. Since learning how to cook healthier, not processed foods, we've been trying to pick local restaurants to go to instead of chains. If I'm going to spend a good amount of money for dinner, I don't want it to go to a chain. We chose Vanderlyn's, a local owned restaurant which is owned by one of Mr. Skinny's family friends! The chef is the father of a girl Mr. Skinny and I graduated from HS with! That's as local as you can get, and let me tell you, the food was delicious! We were there once before for the luncheon after Pop Pop's funeral, and the food was good, but I don't really remember it so well. That was more enjoying the company. We've been meaning to go back, but just haven't had the time. Well, we made the time this weekend and it was worth it. Pricey, but worth it. That was the most money we've ever spent at a restaurant for just the two of us!

I should have taken pictures, but I will tell you what we got:

First course was a delicious hot and cold mozzarella plate. The hot was fried mozzarella, but it was so good, not like something you'd get at Friday's or something. The cold portion was mozzarella rolled up with proscuitto, basil and sun dried tomatoes, topped with balsamic vinegar.

Second course was a tableside made Caesar salad. This was a huge salad, and a little spicy, maybe the pepper? but very good. It was more of a vinegary dressing than a creamy dressing, and Mr. Skinny preferred the creamy, but I thought it was a good switch.

The main entree for me was stuffed shrimp! Mmm! The crab mixture over top of the shrimp was perfect and while I think the shrimp were a little overcooked, it's wasn't a huge deal. It was served with mashed potatoes and veggies. The veggies weren't tender enough for my liking, and didn't have any flavor, but the mashed potatoes were awesome! Red skinned potatoes, just enough lumpy potatoes left, oh they were perfection! Mr. Skinny got a chicken topped with crab meat. The chicken was super tender, but there wasn't lump crab meat on the chicken like we thought, it was more mixed in with the sauce that topped the chicken although it was very good though!

I had a little room for dessert, but we knew our bill was high enough, so we chose to decline dessert. Let me tell you, if you're ever in Northeastern PA for any reason, check out Vanderlyn's!

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Tell me:


What's the most expensive dinner you and your SO ever had?
Do you do date nights? What kind of dates do you tend to do?
We have always done dinner and a movie, I love eating too much! Although I would be up for something different if there were any choices around here!

On Track Again.

I promised you an update, and an update I shall provide. Well, I've been hovering around the 147-150 mark for a while now and truthfully it's because I've been slacking. It was summer and while the fresh fruit and veggies were plentiful, so were the cook-outs. I was okay because I was running and working out enough to offset the bad weekend eatings of hot dogs and chips. Now that I'm experiencing some back pain, I'm currently not running at all, instead focusing on weights and yoga. And, there is no exercise to offset any bad eating.

On September 1, I thought that it would be good if I could not weigh myself at all in September and wait until October 1 to do another weigh in. Yeah, that lasted about 4 days. I knew that since I haven't been exercising I wanted to see what the scale was saying, so I stepped on it this morning. And... it said 150. That's a little too close for comfort. I still have at least 10 pounds to go, although I'd like to lose another 15 - 20, but we'll see how that goes.

There's no reason for me to not loose more weight. I'm not finished yet, and I need to get as healthy as I can before we either get pregnant, or try to get pregnant in January, or whenever we decide to try again.

Today was day 1. For the first time ever, I think, I measured my peanut butter this morning. I weighed my apple, and tracked everything as accurately as I could today. I can do this. I'm going to focus on each day, each meal, whatever food goes in my mouth. I'm not going to slack off anymore. I'm going to focus on my fruits and veggies and not eating dessert. Listening to my hunger signals and choosing healthy options. I talked to Mr. Skinny and he's on board, too. He's going to help me out. I can do this.

The good thing is that I caught myself before it got too bad and I gained a ton of weight back.

Tell me:


When was the last time you had reality hit you in the butt?

Floods, Fairs & Christmas.

Yes, you read that right, floods, fairs and Christmas. You see, I love Christmas, and I'm not sure if it was once Mr. Skinny and I started dating or got married, but my father-in-law is just as big of a Christmas fanatic as I am. And well, he starts decorating for Christmas early. We've both already started playing Christmas music, much to the dislike of most of the family and both our spouses. But they love us anyway and put up with us. Well, my father-in-law wanted to put an archway over the driveway with a Merry Christmas sign and what better time to start decorating then this weekend..? So yes, it might be the beginning of football season, but we were sweating putting this archway up. 

Mr. Skinny's grandma said she "crossed the gate to the west."

Onto the more serious stuff, my area of Pennsylvania, just a week and a half after Hurricane Irene swept through the area, was devastated by the remaining rain of Tropical Storm Lee. It rained for days straight, no lie. In just a few days we racked up over 9 inches of rain in certain areas. Luckily, we don't live by the Susquehanna, but we do live on a lake. The lake crept up to the house, but we were okay. It didn't come up far enough. I still haven't seen the lake that high since 2006 when we had another flood. Again, it was a reminder of the harshness of nature and the reminder that we can't do anything about it. If you've seen anything on national news about the Wilkes-Barre flood, that's the flood I'm talking about. Here's a slideshow if you'd like to see. 

My brother walking in the expanding lake.

Well since I'm not going in chronological order anyways, Friday night Mr. Skinny and I went to the local fair. I didn't pig out, but I did eat more than I needed to. We walked around though, but I'll be writing a post for tomorrow (hopefully) about my current status in my weight loss journey. Saturday we spent it over Mr. Skinny's house including the most likely last cookout for summer. Especially since we put Grandma's furniture away yesterday. I have a few bug bites from the get-together, but I am so blessed to have wonderful in-laws it was absolutely worth it in my eyes. I am slowly accepting that summer is over and fall is coming. Fall reminds me of when Mr. Skinny and I started dating all the way back in 10th grade. I will say, I do love this time of the year. 

Tell me:

What's your favorite season?

Have you ever been in a flood?

What did you do this weekend?

9/11.

I know I don't normally post on the weekends, but this weekend is special. The 10th anniversary of 9/11. I can't believe it's been 10 whole years since that happened. I wish I was a better writer and could write a beautiful post thanking the average people who stepped up and turned into heroes that day and the days after. I'm just not eloquent like that.

I will say this though, I may not be so patriotic all the time, but that's because I take advantage of the blessings that we as a county have. Growing up in America, I don't see what it's like other places where they don't have the freedoms we have. Yes, there may be some controversy about it, but America was founded on Christian concepts, and God has blessed us as a nation for these many years. I'm a believer in everything happens for a reason, and I think this devastation happened for a reason. To bring us closer as a nation, to realize what we have and how blessed we are. To realize that any day could be our last, love each other, and help each other out.

Thank your family for raising you. Thank your friends for standing by you. Kiss your husband, your wife, your mom and dad. Kiss your kids and your grandparents. Be kind and genuine. Take each day one at a time and make life a masterpiece. Live for others, not yourself.

If you want to know my experience on 9/11/01, I typed it out last year, it's not as nicely written as I might have written it this year, but it gets the general experience across.

--------------------------------

Tell me:


What was your experience on 9/11/01?

10 Week Challenge: Wants

Seven Wants: These can be fictional, right?

1. A baby. Pretty explanatory.

2. To be at my goal weight. I know I'm getting there, but it's taking so long. Yes, I know that means I probably won't be gaining my weight back, but it's still frustrating!

3. Our debts paid off. We'll get there. In about 45 years.

4. A house. Again, we'll get there, I'd just love to have the money to build our house now.

5. A personal shopping assistant who pays for the clothes they pick out. A girl can dream, right.

6. A better relationship with God - I'm working on it.

7. To appreciate each day and not spend each day looking forward to the next step in life. Seriously. Look at these wants. They're all eventually going to happen (hopefully), except for the personal shopping assistant. Life is going to fly by if I don't appreciate each day for what it is. Spending time with my family and loving where I'm at, even if it's not where I want to be.

-------------------------------

Tell me:


Do you appreciate each day, or spend too much time looking forward, or backwards for that matter?
What are some of your wants? Real or off the wall crazy.

Pause.

I owe you guys an explanation. You see, I kind of left you hanging after our unsuccessful month of TTC. Since we were unsuccessful, it made us think a little bit about our decision. I've gotten 2 "surprise" loans in the past few weeks, and it's making me nervous about our financial situation. And on Friday night we brought home our new (to us) truck. I know Mr. Skinny needs a truck for winter, and we talked about the money and we'll be okay. We have a plan to pay off our credit cards, and I hope my parents don't get sick of us because we'll probably be living here for a few years before we have our house.

I've said this before and I'll say it again, if we made my parent's house a mess when we moved in and people had to switch bedrooms to let us have space, I would feel really bad about moving in. But, my parents have a whole extra bedroom, with its own bathroom, and walk in closet that is private from the rest of the house and that's where we're living. My parents would like to move back down to that room eventually, and if they ever told us they wanted it, we would just take their room upstairs. It's no big deal at all.

So, back to the baby plans. I usually think people are crazy when they say they aren't trying to get pregnant, but they aren't preventing, but that's the situation that we're in now. We aren't going to be actively trying again until January, maybe, but we aren't using any form of birth control in the meantime. I'm not tracking when I'm supposedly ovulating, even though my cycle is so screwed up I don't think anyone could predict that anyway. If it happens we'll be thrilled, it if doesn't, we'll wait until January or so and see where we are then.

It's taken me a while, but I'm not worried about it anymore. After a month of sex every. other. day. I'm done with that, I can't do that. We'll do it when we want to, when we're in the mood. It won't feel like a chore and we would make a better baby that way anyway, if it's meant to happen.

I finally realize that there is a difference between trying and not preventing to get pregnant. I do get it and we just won't be trying. Everything will happen when it's supposed to. It might throw a loop in our 2012 summer plans since my brother is graduating from HS and he wants the whole family to go to VA Beach as his graduation present, but we'll figure that out if and when I get pregnant.

In the meantime, I'm just going to focus on working my way toward healthy. Eating right, hopefully trying to keep exercising, however I can, loosing weight and it will happen when it's supposed to happen.

BTW - go give Jana a congratulations - she's pregnant!

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Tell me:

Do you stress about your financial situation?

Are you more carefree about life? How about your significant other?

Back Pain & Running.

Remember when I mentioned in my Maybe, Baby post that I had back pain? Even after my lady friend came and told me I wasn't, I still had back pain. At first, it was lower back pain, but now it's crept up to my central, leftish back. So weird. It hurts when I sit, when I stand, and sometimes when I lay. I didn't mention it to Mr. Skinny for the longest time because I didn't want him to think I was getting out of something and I really try not to complain. It doesn't hurt really bad, but I have no idea where it came from. It's more of an inconvenience. It started, I think, when I started working again in mid-July. That doesn't give me a cause of it though. It's so weird.

When I mention it to my family, the first thing they think of is running. I don't know if I believe that, and I don't want to stop running. No, I don't love it, I'm not super fast, but it's the only type of cardio I really do. If I don't run then what will I do? It goes back to being scared of gaining all my weight back. I know you can eat right and loosing weight is 80% diet and 20% exercise, but I don't want to stop running.

I've thought about it, and maybe I have bad form when I run. I've been known to have awful posture when I run, but I didn't think it would lead to near-constant back pain. The only time it doesn't hurt is when I'm sitting Indian-style (I know it's not the politically correct term, but I'm not saying "sitting like a pretzel - that's weird), and who can sit like that all day without their legs going numb?

What can I do? I've been thinking about laying off running a little bit, maybe 2 runs a week or so, and adding weights. I've wanted to add weights for months and months. I even have them in my living room, just collecting dust. I only have free weights, and I need someone, or a website, DVD, something to teach me how to do a whole body work-out with just free weights, any suggestions? I've also thought that maybe I have a weak core and that's making my back hurt, would that make sense? I want to stick with some yoga too, maybe add it something a little more hard core than relaxing hatha yoga. I dunno, I like going for my runs, and I'm not ready to totally change everything and changing my schedule. I feel like I've just gotten in a schedule and now I'm totally changing it.

We'll just take it one day at a time. That's all we can do.

--------------------------

Tell me:


Do you go to the doctor's when you have pain? Or try to fix things yourself?
Any suggestions for free weight workouts?
Would a weak core cause back pain?

Labor Day Weekend.

I am horrible at taking pictures. For real, please forgive me. I don't like reading picture-less posts either, so I'm adding some pictures that are not mine. Just taken from google. Anyways, I hope everyone's weekend was really good and an enjoyable "last weekend of summer" like they've been saying. The wonderful they who no body knows who they are. Wow, I'm really good at randomness this morning. Sorry about that, I'm kinda tired.

Friday night we picked up our new truck. Yes, we got a new truck. We looked at our finances and Mr. Skinny does need a truck for winter, something with 4-wheel drive. It might take us a little longer to pay off our credit cards then, but we have the money for a truck payment each month and we found a perfect truck for Mr. Skinny. 2009 Toyota Tacoma. Same color as this picture.

The color is pyrite mica, but it's just gray, right?

Saturday morning, Mr. Skinny and my brother helped my dad put the door up on our shed. My dad hurt his back a few weeks ago, and he hasn't be able to finish the shed that is thisclose to being finished, so they helped him out. Then we headed to the farmer's market for some awesome fresh fruits and veggies. After that we went to a wood party. Get your mind out the gutters, we stacked firewood for Mr. Skinny's family. With the hurricane, there's been a ton of trees down, so that means tons of firewood for us folk who have fireplaces. Saturday night we just chilled at hung out with my family.

Sunday morning was church, followed by some hard core movie watching. We watched RED at Mr. Skinny's parent's house, which was pretty good. Then went over to Grandma's house for a cook-out, and visited with the family. Back over to Mr. Skinny's parent's house for another movie - The Other Guys. It was okay, but nothing special I thought. When we came home, I watched Definitely Maybe that I had on the DVR which was another okay movie, a good TV movie, but I'm glad I didn't pay to see it in theaters. 

Yesterday, we slept in, Mr. Skinny and my brother finished the inside of the shed, and got all the boat stuff in there for my dad. Mr. Skinny went to do some stuff for his dad while I cooked dinner for last night and tonight. I made some london broil, and my plan was to grill it, but the grill ran out of gas, so I just had to broil it. I don't think I cooked it long enough, I'd say it was between rare and medium rare, which kind of grossed me out, so I learned my lesson with that. And I caught up on Keeping up with the Kardashians. I know, super lame show, but one day that I didn't have internet last week I started watching it and now I'm hooked. The bad part is, I've never watched or followed along with what was happening in their family, so I have no idea what happened to them ever. I need to catch up on all the episodes, haha! 

Ryan Seacrest looks so out of place here!

This morning I'm back to work. Awesome. Working for a financial advisor who thinks you shouldn't get a truck and telling him you got one isn't my idea of a good time. But looks like I'm gonna do it anyways. 

Tell me:

What was something you did this weekend?

Do you like reality TV?

How do you like your meat cooked?

10 Week Challenge: Fears

Eight Fears.

1. Snakes. Anything that can move on land without feet totally creeps me out, and that includes worms. And how they float in the water? Shudder.

2. Gaining all my weight back. And then some. Even when/if I get pregnant, I'm terrified of gaining all my weight back that I worked so hard to loose. I know it's a natural process, but I have a feeling I am going to dread stepping on the scale when I get pregnant.

3. Horror Movies. 'Nough said.

4. The end of the world. I don't know why, but I get super freaked out about this. I just like to believe the Bible that no one knows and therefore, I won't know. It will happen when it happens.

5. Controversy. Seriously. If I'm around you and you start arguing with someone, I make a run for the bathroom. I'd rather not say anything than have someone argue with me.

6. Loosing my family. I know people die, and that's just a part of life, but I get really scared about loosing all my family. I don't have any friends, really, my family is chock full of my best friends, and I'm scared about what's going to happen when they aren't here.

7. Getting to the point where I can't be independent. I see Mr. Skinny's grandma and how she has to depend on everyone to help her out. And while her family is more than willing, she still gets frustrated that she can't do things herself. My dad, too. He recently hurt his back and can't do much for himself. I don't ever want to get like that.

8. Being an awful parents. It's not the getting pregnant part that scares me, because I know that's in God's hands. It's the I could be an awful parents part that worries me. That's all in my hands.

Tell me:

What is one of your biggest fears?

I Survived.

First day of September, who else is missing the Hogwarts Express? I have to say, I love my college roommate, I texted her last night, "meet you and King's Cross at 10:45, right?" Her response? "of course, don't forget your dress robes!" Yes, I'm a huge Harry Potter nerd and I don't care who knows it.

Anyhow, back to the main event. Irene. I am very, very lucky in that department, I must say. Around here, we got hit hard. There were 2 deaths in the area, and numerous trees down. I know people that are still without power. We never lost power, surprisingly, but my in-laws did, including Mr. Skinny's 2 aunts, and his grandma, who is on oxygen. Luckily, Pop Pop bought a generator, and that made its rounds for 2 1/2 days to keep everyone's refrigerators and freezers going, so no food was spoiled. The only thing we lost at my house was internet, which is why I haven't been able to write a post all week. I know that there are worse things than loosing internet, but it's amazing how much you rely on the internet for entertainment. I'd rather have my laptop than my TV!

On Monday, we went over to help a woman from our church who's husband suddenly died back in May - he was only 46 - and she had a tree down in her yard. We loaded up the chainsaw in the truck and went to cut it up. I spent all day Monday hauling brush and loading firewood. It was exhausting. I should have worn my HRM, I bet I burned at least 1500 calories doing that all day.

We still have trees down around the lake I live on. In fact, I can still hear chainsaws going to cut down trees. When I went on my run (mostly walk) yesterday, there were still power lines across the road and still trees on houses. We actually had a tree fall on our old barn, totally cut through the roof. It's just for storage, but it's still damaged.

It's amazing to think that while there are wars in the world, that can be prevented. Mother Nature? Nothing can stop it. Water can be so calm and gentle, and other times it can be so violent and damaging. It's humbling to think about in my opinion.

It's September, a new month, and I actually have a few posts lined up for you guys next week. Everything I didn't get to talk about, baby planning, debt, lots of exciting stuff, not really.

Tell me:

Did you experience Irene? Or any other hurricane for that matter?

I was chased around Florida by Hurricane Charlie in 2004. It was a super fun experience, not really. At least I never had to leave my vacation, I got to see more of Florida thanks to Charlie!