Shred - Jillian Michaels

I had Joe buy this for me for Christmas. It was only $9.00 at Wal-mart so I figured why not! I was thinking 30 days of workouts, great. I went home to do it on my lunch hour today and saw that it is 3 levels of workouts, no 30 days of workouts and each workout is only 20 minutes. I thought to myself I will have to do the workouts twice to get in a really good workout. Boy was I wrong. Jillian kicked my butt in only 20 minutes. It was a tough workout but quick enough that as soon as I though ahhhh I can't do this any longer we moved onto the next move. This DVD is awesome.

Since I have not been running as much lately (it is too cold outside - see my post from yesterday!) I have been trying to do other indoor things. I think this DVD will get quite a bit of use over the next few weeks.

Warmth

I am dreaming about moving away from Gunnison to someplace warm - Florida, Hawaii, Costa Rica anyone??? It is only the end of December and it has only been super cold for less than a month now, but I am sick and tired of it. Maybe it is because I have been experiencing these winters for the last 12 years, or maybe it is because I ride my bike to and from work every day so I am in it that much more. Whatever it is I want to move! Joe and Mikayla are both with me. I would love to send Mikayla outside to play but it is too cold. I dream of snow because in order for it to snow it has to warm up. I dream of running outside in one layer of clothes instead of 3! I just dream of it being warm enough to run outside. I have at least one more month of the cold but boy I am ready to move. Anyone in a warmer client need a legal assistant and a real estate agent/property manager?

New Year's Resolution

This is the time of year to re-visit our New Year's Resolutions. Actually it is probably better to do this half way through the year than at the end of the year but let's take a look.

I blogged about my New Year's Resolutions for 2009 here.

I had planned on running a total of 3 marathons in 2009. What was I thinking??? I should have just tried to run one marathon. These did not happen due to injuries in the Spring and Summer. I did through participate in the Mountain Air Marathon events and I ran a 10 mile race. I loved it and had a blast.

The Olympic Triathon did not happen as well but I still want to do that.

I did not participate in the 4th of July Race due to the injuries I was fighting as mentioned above.

This final one was not really listed as a goal but I mentioned it. I did get down to my pre-baby weight of 133.

Stay tuned when I decided what I am going to focus on for 2010!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to you. I hope you are enjoying your day with your family. Now get off of the computer and go have some family time!!!

Run Every Day

I have heard of the people who run every day. They belong to the United States Running Streak Association, Inc. Here is there website: http://runeveryday.com/. In order to join you have to run at least one mile everyday for one year. It just sounds cool to me - I would love to be on that list, they even have people on the list that have been doing this for over 40 years!

I thought I would just try to run everyday for one week. Well day three came and I decided that money is tight (like always) and I should go and spend my lunch hour cleaning and making some extra money instead of running. I am trying to get back into running but it has been slow. Maybe that will be my New Year's Resolution, run every day for one year.

Back to Running - Finally

I have taken about the last two weeks off from running. I had a cold one week and then I got busy with using my lunch hour to make extra money cleaning rentals. The weather has not made me want to go for a run either.

Today I finally got in a run. I felt like cancelling it because it was only 7 degrees outside but I said to just go do it since I had layers and I really needed to get some exercise. The run was great. I think I really enjoyed it because I was just going for a run, I had no have to run at least X number of miles, no I have to do sprint intervals, I have to run at X pace. I just ran to ran and I enjoyed it. I even shed my hat and one of my three shirts!

Hopefully I will get my rear end in gear tomorrow and go again.

Skylar's Stitches

About three weeks ago I blogged here about Skylar getting hurt and needing to get a lot of stitches. Finally, here are the pictures. She was not too happy about her picture being taken or for that matter she hates it when we put the tee-shirts on here. But at least with the tee-shirts we did not have to put the dreaded cone on her head.

She is slowly getting better. She had some of the stitches removed last Tuesday. We were hoping that they would remove all of them but where her drain (after surgery they placed a drain so all of the gunk to drip out all over the house - hence the tee-shirt) was it was not healing so they left the stitches in around the hole. We have been flushing her drain hole twice a day and she had been on a different round of antibiotics. Hopefully she will get the stitches out this week.

$50 American Express Gift Card

Check out Five Minutes For Moms blog and enter to win a $50 Gift Card from American Express. They are giving away 5 of them. The contest ends December 18th.

Trailhead Discovery Museum

Since we had kids Joe is the one who goes skiing while I stay with the girls. Skiing is much more important to Joe than it is to me. I would rather go cross country skiing, running, hiking or whatever. Also since we both work full time the only time Joe has to go skiing is on the weekends. Some of those weekends I head up with Joe and the girls and while he goes skiing I do my best to keep the girls busy. It is hard because it is so cold outside and I wish Crested Butte Mountain Resort had an indoor play area (like the kind you see in malls now) for the girls to play in. Well my prayers have been answered.

The Trailhead Discovery Museum opened its doors this winter. There is a coloring table, art projects, painting section, puppets, the dark room, indoor play ground and a dig pit. It is perfect for the girls because they can both keep themselves busy for hours while Joe goes skiing. The Trailhead is hoping to open a bigger museum in downtown Crested Butte next year. The only downside is the price. They charge $6.00 per person, adults included. I know that they are trying to raise money and it is a tourist town but it would be nice if local parents would not get charged. Even with the price I plan on spending at least one day a month here with the girls.

Cold Bike Ride

This morning it was and still is -20 outside. Yep and I rode my bike to work in that cold weather. What do I wear? First layer is my normal work clothes, then I add ski pants, heavy winter jacket, stocking hat, my hood from my jacket, two pairs of gloves and finally Sorrell snow boots. I have to say that about 1.5 miles into my ride I start to get hot so the hood comes off and the jacket gets unzipped just a little bit to give me more air. Try me though I can't wait for it to snow so it warms up to say oh 20 degrees instead of -20.

Airlines and Children

I spent the last month blogging about diet and exercise and is primarily the point of this blog but I am also a mom to 2 little girls so I also like to talk about them and parenting in general. This blog post came about after reading Metropolitan Mama's blog post here.

Airlines are not kid friendly what so ever. As a parent you have to pack extra carry ones to hold all of your child's toys, snacks, diapers and extra clothes. Then when you carry all of this stuff on the plane the other people glare at you for taking too much room. Then you do your best to keep the kids quiet and happy for the flight. I think every airline should offer the following:

1 – Kid’s Activity Packet – Paper, crayons, paper dolls, cars, trucks, etc..

2 – Kid Friendly movies and a video player at each seat with kid movies or shows – different age appropriate shows as well (0-5), 5-7, etc…

3 – Larger bathrooms with clean changing table

4 – A place to stretch your legs, move around, with windows to look out of.

5 - Wider aisles.

6 - More leg room in coach - because you know first class (even if you could afford it) is not going to want you and your kid either.

7 - Complementary healthy snacks and drinks - offered more often to the kids. Healthy means yogurt, cheesesticks, 100% juice, whole wheat crackers, fresh fruits and vegetables.

What do you think airlines should offer families? They should realize that happy families make for a smoother, quieter and more relaxed flight for everyone.

Magazine Giveaway - Winner

The winner of my magazine giveaway is Becca from Our Crazy Boys. I used random.org to pick the winner.

Thank you to everyone who entered. I am glad to see so many people who entered because I now have some new blogs to read!

Skylar **Edited**

After having two kids the dogs tend to take a backseat but they are still very important members of our household. We have two dogs, Skylar and Teo.

Skylar is 11 years old and Teo will be 11 at the end of this month - so they have been around a long time. Technically Skylar is mine since I got her right before I met Joe (maybe a few months before I met Joe) and Joe got Teo shortly after we first started dating. Skylar and Teo are brother and sister to us and they were even in our wedding. Skylar is a German Shepard, Australian Shepard and Chow mix and she looks like a Dingo. Teo is a big Chocolate Lab mix. Skylar is the one who will still go on a 8 mile run with me and loves every minute of it and Teo is so lazy he gets tired after a one mile walk with me.

Last night I let the dogs outside, as I always do, when I got home from work. We do not have a fenced in yard so the roam the neighborhood just like every other dog in our neighborhood does. They do their business in our direct neighbors yard and there dogs do theirs in our yard. Teo came back inside when Joe got home with the girls. At 6pm we realized that we had not let Skylar in yet. Joe opened the door and she was right there but she was hurt. Skylar had a 4 inch gaping wound. The skin was pulled completely back. We were finally able to get a hold of a vet and Joe took her in last night. She spent the night at the vet on morphine and antibiotics. They are sewing her up this morning. She is my baby and has been around forever. I love her to death and I know everything will be just fine. The vet has not called us yet to let us know when we can pick her up - hopefully I can pick her up on my lunch hour.

We are all out of sorts without her in the house. I did not sleep much last night worrying about her and the cost of all of this. We are super tight financially so I do not need another bill right now. This morning I was up about 5:30 and I came out into the living room and I saw Teo on a blanket and at first I thought it was Sky. Also Teo was out of sorts and he was spending more time being close to us. Normally he does his own thing.

I will let you know how she is once I know.

I went to see Skylar on my lunch hour and she is doing good. She does have a lot more stitches than I thought she would and they sewed up some muscle but no ligaments or tendons were torn. They had her resting on a bed of towels and she was not in a kennel at that time which made me feel good. She was excited to see me and I felt bad leaving her. We will get to take her home tomorrow.