Nothing New...really

I'm still sick...or I should say sick again! I had a bad cough for a little over a week and was feeling almost completely better for a day and then last night I suddenly started getting really congested. I can barely breathe out of my nose...snot is pouring out...my eyes are constantly watering, and there is so much pressure in my head I wish I could pop it!

So needless to say I have not been able to get back to my exercising yet. I'm getting very frustrated with my health and my lack of weight loss. I know that a lot of things are within my control so the only person I can blame for those things is myself...but I can't stop myself from getting sick. I have been sick almost constantly since winter started...really my whole family has been. I'm sure it has a lot to do with Jacob now being in all day kindergarten and Nathan going to preschool...but man...can't we catch a break??? I'm thinking that I might be getting so sick more often is because of the medication I am on for my MS. Part of its whole purpose is to weaken the immune system so that my body won't attack itself which is essentially what MS is all about...your immune system attacking yourself.

I turn thirty next Sunday, March 3rd. I have so many mixed emotions about it. I'm pissed at myself because since I've been overweight I've always said to myself that I KNEW I would be back to a "normal" weight by the time I was thirty. Yet here I am a week shy of my thirtieth birthday and still 222 lbs.!!! I'm trying to look on the bright side and am focusing my energies on looking (and hopefully feeling) my best for my birthday. I am horrible with fashion and while I can appreciate someone's well put together outfit I've never been able to do it myself. Whether it be because I don't feel I should waste my time because I'm so overweight or more I portably that I just don't have the money to put together outfits. I've been on Pinterest looking up plus size outfits and have really been having fun looking at everything. I'm hoping to go shopping some day this week to pick out an outfit that can pull double duty. David and I are going to a wedding on the 2nd...so I need an outfit I can wear to the wedding but then also wear it for whatever we do for my birthday. I know David is cooking something up...because I've basically told him over the last five years at least that he was required to throw me a surprise birthday party for my thirtieth. I guess it's not truly a surprise because I know he's planning something but oh well. :)
I'll be sure to post a picture of whatever outfit I come up with. If I can't be skinny for my birthday I might as well be a put together chunky girl.

This is REALLY getting old!!!

I am sick...yet again!!! Is this happening to any other family??? We keep getting sick and spreading it around to each family member! I have not run since that 'first' workout because I am wheezing, hacking, and coughing. I can't breathe out of my nose and taking deep breaths makes me cough...so exertion isn't really an option right now. I really hope it goes away soon! I really hate that I can't seem to get back on track!

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Last night was the first day of the 90 day fitness challenge through David's work. Quite a bit of good information...much of which I've learned before...but some new insights. They were also peddling their products; supplements, protein shakes, and teas. Even if I wanted to get into all of that stuff, David and I just don't have the money. That stuff was expensive...even with the 'generous' 20% discount we are getting thanks to David's company. We were given some samples of a few of their products and I am trying them but I'm pretty skeptical. I don't doubt that some people benefit from them...but I often wonder if its really the products themselves or the overall lifestyle changes that a person normally goes through when they start taking these products. I guess we'll see.

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I watched the documentary Forks Over Knives the other night and while I've never really considered being a vegetarian it really made me think about my eating habits and those of my family. I borrowed the book of the same name from the library and plan to see what it all entails in more detail. I definitely recommend watching the documentary though. Its in the "instant" movies on Netflix.

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Since I've been sick and resting I finally made a new winter hat for Nathan. He has been asking for a Lightning McQueen hat. I hadn't been able to find a pattern that I thought looked 'good' enough...so I ended up improvising my own pattern from bits and pieces of different hat patterns and just my own creation. I think it turned out pretty good.

I hope everyone has a good Wednesday! : )

New Year, New Start

...or at least I hope so. I know I am not unlike many other people out there who try to lose weight and then fall off the wagon and I'm not going to claim to be. I can look back at my old posts and see how I gradually started to go downhill. I'm sure it was a combination of several things but my mood slowly disintegrated over the past few months. It actually makes me sad to see how happy I was and how good I was doing just to see it all go downhill so quickly. I seemed to hit rock bottom just about two weeks ago. I was severely depressed. More so then I have ever been in my life and for no one apparent reason. It was more a combination of several things with one final (insignificant) thing that just caused me to completely crumble.

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I'm so upset with myself. I gained back 10 pounds over the holidays and completely stopped running...but I am NOT going to dwell on these things. I feel like my mood is slowly improving and I am determined to move forward from here. I have put a few things in place that should help me to continue on the road back to feeling better all around.

My husband and I are starting a 90 day fitness challenge through his work tomorrow and I restarted the Couch 2 5K program tonight...on the dreaded treadmill...YUCK! I can't wait till the weather gets better so I can hit the road again. I also signed up for round 2 of Run With Jess's Dietbet challenge and am hoping to win some money for my weight loss efforts there.

Another way to help me get back my running back into full swing is that I signed up to return for the Crim Training Program this year! You may remember that I won a scholarship to participate last year and I had a ton of fun training to walk the 10 mile event. This year I am biting the bullet and signing up to train to run the 5k or 8k course...but I registered for the 10 mile RUN event!!! I don't know that I'll be ready to run 10 miles by August but I'd rather sign up for the longer distance so that I can decide whether or not to continue on past the 8k course. I plan to train with the group but to also train on my own for the 10 mile run...much like I did last year when I trained to walk the 10 mile event but I did the C25K program on my own.

My eating habits are horrendous and I just can't seem to get myself to get back on track. I don't understand why its so hard and why I just can't seem to just say 'No Erin, you don't need to eat that!' Its so maddening! I'm just going to try and make small changes a little at a time.

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I've been making crocheted hats fairly steadily since I last posted. Mostly the owl hats, but I've had a few others. This shark hat was a special request. Pretty different, but cute.

We started going to a new church that is really close to our house. The church that I have been a member of since I was a very little girl is pretty far away and unfortunately doesn't have a children's program. (Well, they didn't for years, but we attended service at Christmas and were told they were going to be offering children's Sunday school again) I think our family will be really happy here at this new church. We've only attended a few times but its great to actually look forward to church instead of feeling like its an obligation.

So that's a very abbreviated take on what's been going on with me. I would go into more detail...but I've been wanting to post because it has been WAY too long since I last posted. I just needed to get that first post up. I can always go into more detail about these things in upcoming posts...after all, it is MY blog. : )

Santa Run Race Report

*Started writing this post on 12/2/12*
I was dreading this race when I got up this morning. Mainly because I've hardly ran in the last several weeks, but I was also worried about how it would be to run in a Santa suit. The weather was suppose to be pretty mild so I wasn't sure what I should wear since I knew I'd be putting the Santa suit over it. I ultimately decided to wear pants and my UA cold gear shirt because it hadn't warmed up that much by the time I was leaving.
My neighbor and my friends T and J (aka Ellen and Ryan...btw T was disappointed...he said he wanted to be Brad Pitt...next time T) did the race too. I made sure to get there early so that I could pick up my Santa suit. I had forgotten that I also ordered a hoodie sweatshirt, so that was a sweet bonus!!! The suit was so cheaply made that it was falling apart as I was trying to put it on...and it was WAY too big. They had said to order a size bigger because they run small. I guess I didn't take my weight loss into account because I was swimming in it! I'm not going to complain about that!

I lost my friends and neighbor as soon as the race started and within the first half mile my belt broke and fell off and my pants were falling down. I was able to get my pants to stop falling but my Santa coat kept flying open throughout the race. I have to be honest and say that I walked most of it. I am so off with my training that I was just happy to finish! I finished in 43:00 which I was thinking was an awesome time (I'm pretty sure it would've been a PR) until I saw that it wasn't anywhere near a full 5k course. My Garmin said I had gone 2.84 miles...and I made sure to check the route that the GPS picked up when I got home and it was accurate. It wasn't a timed event so its not a huge deal...but its a real bummer when you first expect to do poorly...then think you actually did really good...only to find out that you actually did even worse! lol

Don't I look thrilled? I'm actually smiling but doesn't that suit look like a karate uniform gone horribly wrong? lol

All of the red was a little overwhelming, but it was so cool to see so many people dressed the same.

I was too slow to get a good picture but if you look into the far distance you can see that the street area is nothing but red.

I had to make sure I got some shots of me dressed as Santa for my kids. They didn't come because they would've gotten cold waiting around for me...and I'm pretty sure it was more because my husband didn't want to try and watch all three of them amongst the crowd.

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My cousin had her baby shower a few weeks ago and we have been pretty tight on cash so I couldn't do my 'usual' baby shower gift which is a laundry basket FULL of baby essentials...diapers, wipes, soap, lotion, powder, gas drops, baby Q-Tips, etc. I did buy a few essentials...but I decided to try my hand at crocheting an owl hat. I've seen pictures of newborn babies wearing only an owl hat and thought they were just adorable. My cousin loved it and after posting a picture of the hat on my facebook page along with an adult size owl hat I made for my husband (at HIS request) I started getting people asking me if I would make them one and they would PAY me!!! So I've gotten a couple orders and have been crocheting my little fingers off! I had been planning to open my own etsy shop next fall but I'm ok with making a little extra money now!

Owl Hat Pattern Created by Sarah Zimmerman

Newborn owl hat...first attempt ever. :)

 

 

Adult size hat I made my husband.

Adult hat pattern can be found here.

Here's two of the ordered hats I just made.

Newborn size

Adult size

I haven't run size Saturday...I NEED to! Just trying to figure out how I can trudge through another run on the treadmill! Any suggestions?

World Run Day

Written: 11/24/12

*I've been sick for the past few weeks with a horrible sinus infection. If nasal secretions were valuable I'd be a BILLIONAIRE!!! I finally went to the doctors this past Monday...not because I was sick though. I had an appointment set up for my monthly weight check...which didn't go well. : ( He put me on antibiotics and an antihistamine and I'm hoping that I am finally feeling better.
I'm one day shy of not having run in two complete weeks!!! When you can't breath out of your nose and it feels like your head is about to pop you can't really run. Plus my husband was gone for an entire week for hunting so I used whatever energy I could muster to keep the kids alive on my own. *Single Moms out there...you ROCK!!! I have no idea how you do it!!!*

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I FINALLY ran on Tuesday night. I used my treadmill for the first time and I completely understand why Katie at Runs for Cookies calls it a "dreadmill"!!! I only ran a mile and I was SLOW!!! Of course I have no idea if the treadmill is at all accurate on its distance or speed...which is irritating...so I might not have been that much slower than normal. I'm going to have to figure out something to 'do' while running on the treadmill because staring at my basement wall is just not going to cut it!!! I'm so angry with myself for not having run in two weeks because I felt like I was going to die after just one mile!!!

I have a 5k race coming up this Saturday and I'm dreading my pace and time! I'm going to try not to worry about it because its a fun run. The registration fee includes a five piece Santa suit and everyone runs in them. A couple of my friends are doing it at well so I should be able to just have fun and not try to be competitive with myself. I'll be sure to get a picture of me in the Santa suit to share with you.

Way back when I last posted I had promised to show you a picture of the pumpkins I carved after David had carved his. Well, he never carved his so I'll share a picture of the pumpkins I carved. The two in the middle are my sons pumpkins. They drew the faces they wanted on the pumpkin and then I just carved it out. I did scale Jacob's up because he had drawn a tiny face in the middle of that huge pumpkin.

Left to Right: My pumpkin, Jacob's, Nathan's, and Isabel's.

The day before Halloween the boys had their friend Brooklynn over to make this Halloween cookie scene that Nathan saw in the Schwan's Food Service holiday catalog. I think it turned out pretty cute.

Total sugar coma waiting to happen!

On Sunday November 11th I participated in World Run Day by running a 5k distance at a trail near my house with a few friends. I realized just how slow of a runner I am! My friends, J and T (super sweet married couple), ran along with me. T has been suffering from an injury that has caused him to not be able to run for quite some time and J got a super bad side cramp shortly after we started running. Even injured it still seemed like they were struggling to go as slow as me. J was even WALKING alongside me at one point while I was RUNNING! Once I get back into a regular running routine I'm really going to have to work on speeding it up a little.

I've got some pretty famous friends, right? lol I asked my J to tell me her favorite male and female celebrities and this is who she told me. : D haha

As you can see I haven't been up to much the past few weeks. Hopefully I'll have more health and fitness related things going on soon to write about. I'll try not to wait so long to post again and I'm going to try and catch up on all of my favorite blogs that I have been neglecting as well.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Running Update

*I started writing this post on Sunday*

I'm thinking I'm going to just plan on only posting once a week from now on. That seems to be about how long I'm going in between posts anyways. Then any additional posts will be surprising extras!

This week was CRAZY and I again did NOT run!!! Sunday was the first day that I ran since the previous SUNDAY!!! RIDICULOUS!!! I really didn't even want to go...and I mean SERIOUSLY didn't want to go! However, I knew that part of that was simply because it had been 7 days since I ran last. The longer I go without running the more I don't want to go out for that next run, but I made myself go. I didn't plan on doing the 2.75 miles that I had "scheduled" though. I didn't want to have a horribly crappy run like I did the last few times because of having so many "rest" days in between....but of course my husband had to chime in that I should go for the full 2.75 miles. Ugh...why can he never just agree with me??? I'm not sure if he's intuitive enough when it comes to my thought process to know that I will do one of two things when he tells me what he thinks I should do. 1) I'll do the complete opposite of what he suggests or just completely ignore his advice; or 2) I'll do exactly what he suggests because I figure he doesn't think I'll actually listen to him so I want to prove that I can do it! Today I opted to listen to him and prove to him (and myself) that I could do it. I kept my pace slower than normal (or so I thought) and surprisingly I didn't feel like I was going to die afterwards! I was REALLY tired at the end...but it didn't take forever to recover like has been happening after my most recent past runs. Shockingly...I was even a little bit FASTER than my previous couple runs!!!

Since I wasn't planning on doing the whole 2.75 miles I didn't use my C25K workout I have programmed into my Garmin so I have splits for every mile instead of just one for the entire 2.75.

Here are the splits from my last couple runs...as promised. Be sure to just look at the average pace from Lap 2 in each of these splits to compare to the 14:13 time I had yesterday...it was the first time that I didn't have a warm-up walk before hand. I did walk a little ways as a cool down (because I had to get back to my house) but I just decided not to count that.

Sunday, October 28th

Friday, October 26th

Sunday, October 21st

Long over due!

As promised I am here with a new post! : ) *A long post!*

Life has been hectic and overwhelming the past several weeks. I went back and read my last few posts and it seemed to be a trend. I think its worse because of all of the holidays coming up. Just pray for me that I am able to get out of this funk and soldier on! : ) I'm sure I will...but praying never hurts!

I have actually been back on the healthy eating wagon over the past week or so and lost 3 pounds!!! I am now 3 pounds away from hitting 40 pounds lost!!! That's the number that I REALLY need to make it past! I lost 40 pounds the last time I tried to change my lifestyle and after hitting that 40 pounds everything fell apart and I gained it all back plus 10!!! I'm determined that this time will be different. Even though it may not happen on the timetable that I have set for myself. As long as I keep moving in the right direction on the scale I know I'm doing something right.

The shorter days are really killing my running schedule. Since my last post about the Great Pumpkin 5k I have only run three times!!! I thought maybe I should just switch to morning runs...but my husband leaves for work long before the sun rises so my only option as of late has been to try and go as soon as or shortly after he gets home from work. The problem with that is that I'm usually trying to finish dinner at that time and as a result either am not able to leave soon enough or completely forget about going. (More about my horrible memory later) I've also been pretty busy and that has caused me to not be able to go either. Now, I know that this can all be solved by implementing some new things. I could start dinner earlier or make meals in the crock pot on running days, set a reminder on my phone so I don't forget in the chaos that usually occurs around the time my husband gets home from work, and ask my Mother-in-law if she could come sit with the kids for an hour so I can run during the day. Its just a point of getting those things implemented...which I plan to do. Sounds easy, right? Your probably asking yourself why I don't just do it? Am I lazy? Am I a procrastinator? yes I agree...these things sound easy to change...but these are not the only things that I am currently trying to "implement" into my life to make it better, easier...in some cases necessarily harder. Any woman who isn't Martha Stewart...especially mothers...should be able to comprehend what I'm getting at here. I think what everything REALLY, TRULY boils down too is that I am feeling completely...totally overwhelmed lately...with EVERY aspect of my life. That goes for my personal relationships as well. Sometimes I seriously just wonder WHAT THE F people are thinking??? Of course maybe its just me...and I should be asking myself WHAT THE F I'm thinking or expecting!!!

I have always been a giving person. I'm not trying to toot my own horn...I have always gotten joy out of seeing other people happy. The selfish part of that is that I like to know that people are happy because of something that I did for them or said to them. Its not my main motivation for doing it, but its definitely a perk. I had never expected anything in return, the joy and happiness they felt was enough for me...but over the years I have noticed that it has become an expectation of me...that I will give of myself...my time, my money, my attention, my advice...without ever expecting anything in return. In some cases, not even a thank you. While this never bothered me before, it has become more and more bothersome to me over the last few years. Maybe since I've had kids? Since I've had kids my time, attention, and money are more precious. The time that I spend on others is time not spent on my kids. This is just a suggestion as to why it may bother me now. I really have no idea why it has become an issue recently. Am I being selfish to want to be treated the same way I treat others...to be put on the same level as I put them? I feel like I should just mention that I am not talking about one specific person here...I have gotten this from many people. Wow, I've really gone off on an unexpected tangent here. I guess Leigh and Lynn were right about needing to talk about what I'm struggling with.

Another issue I have...which really is MY OWN character flaw...is liking to have things go my way. When they don't, I get upset...sometimes REALLY upset! When I've put time and energy into something and it seems like no one else cares or has the same level of commitment to it I get very upset. I really need to work on understanding that people aren't always going to want to do the things that I want to do or they just may not put the same importance on something that I do and its ok. Although I would argue that if you don't feel that its of much importance to you, then don't agree to do it in the first place!

Ok...enough of my venting...jeez!

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Back to happier, if not relevant information. I really thought I had mentioned crocheting a wig for Isabel so that she could be a Cabbage Patch Kid for Halloween, but I can't find it...so maybe I just planned to post about it but never did? Anyways...I crocheted a wig for Isabel so that she could be a Cabbage Patch Kid for Halloween. : ) A friend of mine from high school who is AWESOME at crocheting and even has her own Etsy shop was nice enough to give me the pattern so I could make one for my daughter. In hindsight...I should have picked another color because everyone thinks she's Raggedy Anne...but either way...she looks adorable. The hat/wig turned out really good! I may even try selling them next year for Halloween! (My friend gave me permission to sell my creations from her pattern....thanks Jen!)

Before it was "finished" with bows on the ponytails.

I love that being a Cabbage Patch Kid means that her "costume" is the hat/wig and any of her normal clothes. :)

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David and I got new cell phones...and although I would have MUCH rather gotten the new Samsung Galaxy S III we ended up getting the iPhone 4. They were "free" with a 2-year contract. We had "basic" phones before so we are new to the smart phone revolution. I really love being able to go online whenever and practically where ever I want or need to! The apps are cool too. I have the Blogger app but haven't really used it obviously since I haven't been posting, but also because the app won't let you turn the phone sideways for the "full" keyboard. I wish it had a better camera...but its the same mega pixels as our digital camera so I'm happy with that.

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We carved pumpkins with the kids the other night...correction...I carved pumpkins the other night. Actually Jacob helped clean out his pumpkin...Nathan wouldn't touch the guts...and then they drew the faces they wanted on their pumpkins and I carved them. David decided not to carve his pumpkin that night so all four pumpkins are pretty. I'll share a picture once if he carves his and let you pick out which one he carved. ; )

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I'll write about my last few runs in my next post since this one is long enough already. I hope everyone enjoys their Monday as much as one can enjoy a Monday. I'll be taking Jacob to school, getting my blood drawn, and running some other errands. Not very fun...but I'll try to make the best of it. : )