Monthly Archives: June 2013

Our First Official 5K!

Good evening!

I would normally wait until tomorrow to post this since it is already so late this evening, but I am just too excited to wait to share our fun news!

Tonight my sweetie and I ran the Willamette Valley Road Runners Salem Summer Solstice 5K at Minto Brown Park here in Salem! 🙂

Instead of sharing all of the juicy details in just words, I thought I would share the pics that my sweetie and I accumulated this evening! 🙂

5k 1This is my sweetie, who was soooooo excited to get to complete his first official 5K that it was hard to get him to not speed the whole way to the park!! I was impressed that I got him to hold still for this picture – he was practically jumping out of his skin with excitement!! 🙂

5k 2I would like to tell you that I was as excited as Jason, but in all honesty, I was here under protest! I was tired, I had already done almost three miles this morning, and it was less than an hour a way from my normal bedtime – not to mention, I was worried that I would either not be able to completed the course, or I would fall and make a complete fool of myself!! But, not to be left in Jason’s dust, I was determined to run the 5K too! 🙂

5k 3THIS is what he came for!! He wanted a NUMBER SOOOOOO BADLY!!! Can you see on his face how happy he is??? It is good to see him this happy!! 😉

5k 4Yep! I got one too!! 😉

5k 5I was more excited about the electronic tracking devices that they gave us to wear on our shoes! They measure your times as you cross the start and finishing lines! They were pretty nifty!! 😉

5k 6There were sooooo many people! That fact just jazzed Jason more, and made me more terrified, but I was excited to see if I could spot some new peeps in this crowd!! 🙂

5k 7They had all of the participants broken out into two crowds. The first was the 10K runners (next year, love, we will definitely be in that group!!), and here you can see those guys just taking off!!! Us 5K-ers took off about 5 minutes later!! 🙂

5k 8Jason caught me coming across the finishing line!! I was so tired. There were times that I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to push through, but there were little kids passing me up, and I knew I just had to keep going!!! I was excited, however, because I had ran my fasted mile this evening, and that was a 10 minute mile – I couldn’t even do that when I was in high school, and my fastest in the last couple of months was a 13 minute mile!! I am calling that PROGRESS BABY!!!  😉

???????????????????????????????I practically collapsed into Jason’s sweaty arms as soon as I spotted him!! I have never been so happy to see him again!! 😉

5k 10Jason is such a stud!!! He beat my time by about 10 minute – HE RAN THE WHOLE THING!!! I am just sooooo proud of him!! He TRULY is my HERO!!! 😉

5k 11After the run, the organizer had a ice cream sundae bar for all of the participants, and although I couldn’t eat very much, Jason was very VERY happy to enjoy almost his whole sundae!!! He knew he had earned EVERY SINGLE SPRINKLE!!! 😉

5k 12Tonight was such an AMAZING night!! One that I am sure neither one of us are sure to forget!! I really am proud of us!! I can’t wait to see what hurdle we tackle next!! 😉

Here is to a VERY FABULOUS EVENING!! 😉

Signature Line

If you want to have a different life, you have to live differently!!

 

A Weight Loss Progress Update!

???????????????????????????????Good evening!

I thought I would just stop rather quickly this evening and give you all an update on how my weight loss progress has been going!! Since April of 2012, I have lost a total of 105 pounds. For the past couple of months I have been fluctuating between a loss of 102 pounds and 106 pounds lost in total!! So….with that in mind, I take body measurements every week. I measure my neck, underbust, waist, hips, right thigh, right calf, right bicep, and right forearm, and so far I have lost 50 inches in total! To me, that is more astounding that the 105 pound loss, in all honesty!! 🙂

My actual pounds lost is still going really slowly, but, and this a BIG BUT, my sweetie and I have started running most every morning!! We run a couple of loops in our neighborhood, one is very hilly and extremely difficult, and the other is hilly but a little more rolling hill in nature, AKA easier!! This has been really exciting to me, because what started out taking me 40 minutes to complete, now takes me about 32 minutes to complete. I can feel myself getting stronger and my recovery time is much faster than it has ever been. I am starting to get a taste of what being fit actually feels like – and let me tell you…all of the hard work is sooooo worth it!! 😉

???????????????????????????????

Not only have we been running, but this past weekend my sweetie, and one of our nieces and nephews went on a 10 mile hike out at Silver Creek Falls, and let me tell you, that was NO SMALL FEAT!!! In all honesty, I was so surprised that I was able to do it that I almost cried when we got back to the car!! Who knew how much life I was actually missing being 330 pounds??? All I can keep saying is that life is so good. LIFE IS SOOOOO VERY VERY GOOD!!! 😉

My sweetie was so inspired by our hike that even thought we were dog tired by the time we got home, my sweetie started looking for a 5k to get us signed up for, that very evening!! So, without my knowledge or consent, he has us signed up for a 5K run tomorrow evening!! LOL!! I say that jokingly because on one hand I was like, “hey, you wanna make sure I’m game before you go throwing my name in the ring???” but then again, I am pretty excited about running a 5K with him. I have run an unofficial 5K already, but I am going to do it again, because my sweetie doesn’t feel like he can cross this off of his life list until he has an official number from his run (you know the kind of number that you wear when in a race??) Well, that is what he wants, and so here we are!!

Life is good!! I know we are both feeling better than we have at any time in either our twenties or thirties (up to now), and I just couldn’t imagine ever going back to where we started from!!!

By the way, these pictures that I have posted this evening are just two of a plethora of pics I took while out on our hike! I will have a BUNCH more pictures from our hike posted hopefully in the next day or so! So stay tuned!! 🙂

With that, here’s to a VERY FABULOUS evening!! 😉

Signature Line

If you want to have a different life, you have to live differently!!

Random Post Monday!

CrownGood evening!

This post is for my sister Alex!! Thank you for encouraging me to get back out there and hop back on my own bandwagon!!! I love you girrrrrl!!! 😉

I know it has been a while since I have last posted anything! I would love to tell you that I have been off accomplishing some great dream that I have been sworn to secrecy about, but really, I have just been keeping busy. Very busy!

Besides trying to get my literal house in order, I have been spending a lot of time getting my mental, physical, and financial house in order.  I have been spending a lot of time reading, working, walking, jogging, spending time with close friends, and seriously doing some more reading!

For those of you who may have followed my blog for quite some time, you may remember me saying that I have a lot of books, and when I say a lot, I mean A LOT of books. Over 2000 at last count, which was quite a while ago (so  I am sure there has got to be WAAAAY more than that by now!!!)!! It has come to my attention that we have way too much stuff in our little condo, and even though we have been cleaning out and purging, it just still never seems to be less stuff! Part of the problem, at least in my mind, is that there is really nothing to do in this little po-dunk of  a town that we live in. You either walk the parks, which can be quite nice when the weather is cooperating, eat at restaurants that my sweetie and I now have a difficult time eating at, or you go shopping, so naturally I have usually chosen shopping! This can and is a problem!! I have decided that for a while I will have to start shopping my house whenever I feel the need for something new, because inevitably I am sure to find something I didn’t know that I had in the first place!! Right now, that has been “shopping for books”. I have read probably 4 or 5 books over the last 3 weeks, and it is quite startling because they were REALLY GOOD books and I didn’t even know that I had them on hand.

I realize I am rambling, but I think this is what happens when you don’t spend enough time with your inner dialog. When you finally do tap into it, it just kind of bursts out of you!! At least that is where all of this randomness seems to be coming from right now. So bear with me, I am sure that once I get it all out, when I blog again in a day or two, my thoughts should be more cohesive!! I hope!! 😉

What else? Well, in the last week or so my sweetie and I have started jogging every morning! I have this ginormous life list that I want to tackle, and one of those things is to run a mile (that is without stopping/walking/passing out/or kicking the bucket!!). Well, after walking jogging the hills in my neighborhood for the past week, my sweetie and I decided that we should go to one of our local tracks and try a measured jog to see if I could go at least one mile!! Well, I was ABSOLUTELY SHOCKED when not only could I jog a full mile, I actually jogged an entire THREE MILES STRAIGHT!!!! Who would have ever thought I would actually be able to do this, once seemingly impossible task???? Well, apparently ME!!! 😉 To make this whole walking/jogging/running thing work, we have to get up an extra half an hour early, which means we are up and at em at 5 am, every morning!! but, really, it is sooooo worth it!!! For as long as I can remember, I would see women jogging along the street, and I would always mention to my husband, “man, I want to be one of those women!” (you know healthy, vivacious, alive???) Well, I can see that women in me starting to come out into the world! I really am learning to LOVE HER!!! 😉 She is much stronger and braver than I could have ever imagined, and she is quite balls-ey!! Who knew????

Getting up so early means that we are also going to bed as if we were an old 90 year old couple nowadays too, but it is worth it! Don’t bother calling the house after 8 PM, we are probably sleeping our little heads off, but don’t worry Jason and I are truly happier than we have ever been!!!

My sweetie is working like a fiend, six days a week now that his busy season is picking back up again, (hence all of my reading time!!) but he is happy being so productive, and I am seriously proud of all of the work he is doing! He is remodeling interiors and exteriors, and I have always known how good he is at what he does, but I am still so pleasantly surprised when I see him doing his thing – it makes me proud to be able to call him “my husband”!! Have I mentioned that life is good???

Well, it is!!

One last piece of news before I log off for the evening, and that is that my second to youngest sister, Jennifer, is going to have her first baby in December!! I am so EXCITED for her, and can not wait to meet my new little niece or nephew and start spoiling the heck out of him or her!!!! Isn’t that what favorite aunties are for???? I am thinking that us sisters may have to go to Women of Faith again this year – the next time we will have the opportunity is when the new baby is a bit older, unless we can talk Uncle Jay-Jay into babysitting for the weekend????? That could be fun for both my “child”, and Jennifer’s – HEE! HEE!!

Anyway, that is enough rambling for one night!!!

Until I see you again!!

Have a FABULOUS evening! 🙂

Signature Line

If you want to have a different life, you have to live differently!!