Anyone out there?

I'm pretty sure anyone who might have read this blog got the memo that I've moved. But just in case:

Hey! I've moved. Come on over here (http://pointsandpounds.wordpress.com/) and play :)

It's a lot prettier... promise! Oh! and when you're there, update your google reader, bookmarks or whatever you use.

Thanks!

Psst Over here!

Just a friendly heads up that I moved a while back. So check me out over here. And update your google readers, sidebars, blog rolls etc if you don't mind.

Thanks!

It's Official!

I'm moving! I've decided to give wordpress a chance. So going forward you can find me at:

http://pointsandpounds.wordpress.com

But I won't be deleting this. Not that anyone would want to come read about the past 4 years of my life... but you know, just in case it'll be here.

Whew! So please update your blog rolls, google reader, bookmarks, etc. And thanks for dealing with my little move :) AND for all of your support over the last FOUR years. (That's a really long time...)

Moving

I'm thinking of moving. No... not my physical location... but my url. I'm thinking of moving to wordpress......

I've started pointsandpounds.wordpress.com

But I've been here for so long... almost 4 years (holy crap...). But it might be time for a move. I'll let ya'll know if it becomes official. But feel free to check out the (very bare) new site and let me know your thoughts on a move!

Win Free Essential Oils!

My cousin over at All-Abode is hosting her first ever contest! It's a great one if I do say so myself. She's giving away some Peppermint Essential Oil. I can't even begin to tell you all of the uses for this... so just head on over and check it out for yourself. And then enter the contest. See? It's a win/win for everyone!

Puppy Love

Just came across these pictures of Maddie when she was a pup. She used to be so little and tiny and sleep on my stomach at night. Now she's big and huge but still tries to sleep on my stomach at night. It doesn't quite work out as well as it used too. ha!

Faux Thursday

Since I'm off on Friday today is my Thursday! 4 day work weeks really are the best. I don't know why we can't work 4 days and have off 3. There would be so much more balance in the world. Sigh.

In random TV news, does anyone else watch Army Wives? I totally got hooked on it the first season... and I've been watching ever since. I love that it's on during the summer so I have something to watch!! And I always forget about it so when I check my DVR on Monday or Tuesday it's there waiting for me... and I get oh so excited. Man I'm pathetic. ha!

Other than watching Army Wives over a Lean Cuisine last night I went to boot camp and did some laundry. I know, ya'll are totally overwhelmed by the exciting life I lead. I got up this morning and went for a quick 40 min bike ride. Probably did about 6 miles? Which is not really that much at all. Especially considering on Saturday I need to knock out 15 miles AFTER swimming in a river and then run after it. Oh man it's going to be entertaining. But at least I know my bike works... that's a start.

Tonight on the agenda is my last boot camp before the tri and then packing!! I'm hoping to get out of work tomorrow around 2ish and get on the road to Philly. Hopefully it won't take much more than 9 hours... keep your fingers crossed!

I know had more stuff to say... but I don't remember now. Woops.

Former Fat Girl

Michelle over at Secrets of a Former Fat Girl chose me as her first Former Fat Girl of the Week! How freaking cool? Totally honored.

As for my weekend it was a bit of a bust. Did I go to boot camp on Saturday? Heck no. Did I ride my bike? Nah. Did I run or swim? Of course not! Do I have a triathlon in 5 days? YES! I know I'm stronger than I was last year but that doesn't mean this race is going to run itself! So the plan for the week is as follows....

Tonight: Boot camp (then out to dinner with friends haha)
Tuesday: AM Bike Ride... shooting for just 10 miles
PM Boot Camp
Depending on if my legs are still working maybe a swim after that!
Wednesday: PM Boot Camp then home for a swim
Thursday: AM bike ride

Then Friday is a day of REST and Saturday is the tri!

Perhaps I shouldn't have just had that piece of cake loaded with icing. Ooops :)

Insomnia

With the exception of last night (due to a little Tylenol PM), I haven't been able to sleep straight through the night for about a week. It's the most frustrating thing ever, especially because I generally pride myself on my ability to sleep for 12 hour periods at a time if need be!

I got in bed tonight at 10:30. I turned my light off at 11:30. At 12:30 I was still awake. I fell asleep at some point but woke up at 1:30.... and have been tossing and turning ever since. My alarm is going off at 6 to start a 12 hour work day.

And I should mention I'm not one of those people who can function on 5 hours of sleep. It's not pretty. Eeek!

So I guess tomorrow night I'll be popping some Tylenol PM again? Not sure what else to do but I'm totally up for suggestions!

Balance

Remember this post a while ago where I talked about having to kneel on the stability ball?

Well check this shiz out....

I'm balancing on that bitch like it's my job. We have to take a little 2 pound blue ball and pick it up, switch hands above our head and then put it back down and repeat. I love feeling a sense of accomplishment!

For more boot camp pictures go here.

Comparing

Perhaps it's because I had a donut for breakfast and Chick-Fil-A for lunch... but I feel like I need to remind myself of the progress I've made. I did a little searching for some old photos and here's what I found.

Oldest:
Oh my, will you look at that? My shirt and pants hardly cover my stomach! Though I do miss that kitchen... my avocado green and bright orange kitchen. But I certainly don't miss looking like that in my clothes!

Middle: I might still have this shirt. If I do I'm going to put it on and take a picture wearing it. My oh my... check out the bra lines in the back. I think my boobs are also half the size now. But that's ok because I think my stomach might be as well. I'll take the good with the bad!

This Weekend:
Granted it's not the best shot to compare to the other ones. But I think you can still see that at least my midsection seems to be somewhat under control. Even if I AM ordering soft serve ice cream in the picture. At least I got a kids size!

Today:

I figured since I had my camera at work I'd try to snap a shot. I got two.... they are both headless. But yall know what my face looks like. (Though I AM having a super good hair day that you're missing out on). But this is much better. Now I need to stop eating donuts so I don't go back to looking like picture number 1!

So to recap.....

Summertime Craziness

Just a quick check in! Life has been pretty busy lately, but that's not a bad thing! A quick recap...

Last week...
Wednesday night: Went on a date! That's all the info you're getting though :)
Thursday night: Saw Phantom of the Opera here in Charlotte. Such a fun (free) night out! Score for getting tickets from work
Friday: Headed north for a weekend with my cousins at my aunt's beach house. We had a blast!! Proof and pictures here.

Speaking of, can we take a second for me to be vain here? Ok, thanks. I used to LOATHE my arms. But check them out in this picture. You can really only see my arm poking out (I'm wearing a grey shirt)... but dare I say it's skinny? Crazy.

Got home at 1am on Sunday night/Mon morning.... so needless to say I've been a little sleepy lately. We also started a summer fund drive at work. We're in a bit of a deficit for the first time ever... so we're hoping to get a few bucks to help us end the fiscal year in the black. That means working 12 hour days and lots of unhealthy food around. It's only 3 days though instead of the usual 8... whew!

Food has been way out of control. But I've been keeping it to just meals... no snacks. My meals have been crappy, but at least I'm not snacking too, right? Right.

Ok that's my (very) brief update for today!

Lesson Learned

For the first (ok maybe second) time ever I almost puked at boot camp tonight. I never get sick to my stomach working out. I mean maybe once the first week I was a little queasy but that was 6 months ago. So why was I feeling so horrible today? Most likely a bunch of reasons -- but the number one was what I ate! I had 10 M&Ms for breakfast. Talk about the breakfast of champions! I was busy at work and didn't really get hungry and when I did it was 10:30 and I had lunch plans for noon so I didn't want to eat my big breakfast. So instead of getting the grapes in my lunch bag.. I had a handful of chocolate. Smart move. At lunch I had a great salad. Grilled chicken, avocado, lettuce, tomatoes, cukes and some bacon. It was perfect and filling. I also had a few rocket tots (think tater tots with cheese and jalepenos in the middle!) before my salad. For an afternoon snack I had a few peanuts. And that's all I ate. Granted my lunch was pretty decent but... it clearly wasn't enough food to fuel me through a hard workout.

I'll also say that doing ladder drills in the 80+ degree heat nonstop for 20 minutes didn't help either. There was lots of reverse and turny moves which I'm sure helped my stomach turn a bit.

But I got through the workout without puking. And I was actually quite proud of that! But now I know NO MORE chocolate breakfasts and eat something substantial (maybe with carbs?) for lunch!

Dinner was a nectarine and a small bowl of cereal since tummy still wasn't feeling well. Hopefully tomorrow all will be better!

Weekend, Bakery Love and HELP!

Shall we recap the weekend? Yes, I thought so too!

Fri Night: Went out to dinner with friends and their 2 kids. I got an AMAZING salad at a place called Crisp. So freakin good. Then the husband went to a concert, the kids went to bed and Leah and I made chocolate muffins and ate them warm with Hagen Daaz BAILEYS ice cream on top. Amazing. We also watched He's Just Not that Into You. Cute, but nothing amazing. I got home at 1am! LATE night for Jeannie.

Saturday: Boot camp, nap, pool...So nice! Then a bunch of friends and myself met uptown for a fun night out! We went to Taste of Charlotte which is a big street fair with all the CLT restaurants so you can taste their food. Then we went bowling at a new nice bowling alley. It was a BLAST! I was driving so I didn't drink but every one else got quite trashed and it was hysterical. I'm so happy to have friends in Charlotte!

Sunday: The pup let me sleep in until 9:30!! OMG it was amazing. I dog parked it up and then hit up the slightly ghetto but cheap grocery store, then hit up the POOL. It was great. Just hung out in the pool and chatted with peeps.

Then came more fun.... A friend and I decided to go to this amazing bakery for dinner. Yes, a bakery for dinner. It's called Amelies. It is my new favorite place in all of Charlotte. It is SO adorable... and open 24/7!!!! WHAT??? It was a lovely impromptu girls night out. It's a french bakery and they have baguettes, croissants, EVERY baked good, and home made soups and sammies. I got a roasted turkey sammie. It was cheddar, turkey, crisp bacon, herbs de provance, olive oil mayo on a croissant... all grilled up and toasted. Holy heck. Orgasmic. Then I had a caramel salted brownie for dessert. And my total came to 7 bucks. WHAT? Cheap. Adorable. Delicious. And open all the time. Yup, I'm in love. If you are even in Charlotte be sure to go. You won't regret it. Even if your meal has a jillion calories.


Ok moving onto the HELP section of today's post. This weekend I'm heading to my aunt's beach house in South Jersey. It's just going to be all of the cousins though. It should be a blast -- we're all quite close. Anyway, one of the couples is getting together a little trivia game. I need to come up with some trivia questions about myself (which you're more than welcome to help with... but really I should be able to handle that), but then I need to come up with a 'challenge' of some sort. Here are the instructions:

The other thing that we need you to do is to create some kind of group challenge. There will be five teams playing (4 of 2 and 1 of 3). Your group challenge could use 1 person from each team or everyone all together or something in between... whatever will work for your challenge. Note: your challenge does not have to be about you. I imagine that with this group I don't need to tell anyone what kind of challenges will work but for the heck of it, I will say that it could be anything from a jello eating contest to a physical challenge to a name-that-tune quiz to a bird trapping contest (although I would not recommend that last one unless you are me or Stevie, since we have experience and we will rock it a little too hard). You should write out the directions to your challenge as well (also not showing anyone) and you should bring / create any 'props' that are necessary to execute it.

So bring on your brilliant challenge ideas! Get creative and help me out here!

Jealous!

I was jealous of Carrie's package from the last big swap... so I'm joining in this time! So fun!!