Sunday, July 27, 2008

End Of Week Two

It was a pretty good week. I didn't miss any exercise sessions and did a few of them at 10:30 or later at night! Funny thing is, I actually pushed myself harder when working at night. Maybe it's the lack of distractions or that I wanted to prove to myself that exercising at night doesn't have to mean moving slower.

Yesterday I managed to shave off another 10 seconds from a mile. My best is now 13:15 which is not bad considering I was doing a 16/17..ug, maybe 18 min. mile before the challenge. I'm trying to make the switch from walking to running and it's HARD!!!! After I do the first mile, I slow down for a couple of minutes and then force myself to get back to running and then finish the 20 minute session going faster than my previous top speed. Yesterday I pulled off a 6.1 mph for one minute. Thought I was going to fall off the treadmill!

I am working on 2 projects, nope, 3 projects at one time. There is a method to my madness! The first project is a baby blanket for one my younger son's therapists who is expecting her first child this fall. It's a simple pattern using super bulky yarn and I can work on it even with chaos going on around me because it's so simple.

The second project is the tunic and I am working on this every time I have pockets of time without distraction, and of course that would be about 1 a.m.....:)

The 3rd project is actually a top that I am trying to make for my dd who is 20 months. I wanted to make her something to wear to the rehearsal dinner for the family wedding at the end of August. I got a pair of white capris for her and plan to make some edging and floral appliques to put on the capris to go along with the top. I'll ask the designer if I can post a pic and link to her pattern (for sale on ebay and I think etsy). Lots of little motifs so I do those anytime I have 5-10 min and race to see if I can get one done fast!

At some point, all 3 projects will get done! I have a small list going of future cold weather projects to make, but have room for one more so I need any last entries for my contest! I'll wrap the contest up at the end of the week, so PLEASE keep looking for something awesome for me to make to wear!!!

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

I Might Electrocute Myself, But...

I might electrocute myself with all the sweat I am dripping on to the keyboard LOL:), but I had to write a quick post before I hopped in the shower. I just completed my cardio workout for the day (yes at 11:09 pm!) and I did the fastest mile I have done in months!!! I ran a 13.25 minute mile which is awesome for me. I had been doing around 17 minutes when I was doing a 60 minute cardio routine. The Body For Life plan requires 20 minutes of really intense cardio and man, did I accomplish that!! I managed to hold a 6.0 mph run for 30 seconds and stayed at 5.6-5.7 for several minutes in the workout. I am really proud of myself right now.

Our boys are getting used to their half-day homeschool routine. They are getting to bed WAY too late. Tonight they made a tent out of blankets in their room with the top of their fooseball table being the "secret door" complete with password. I, being the ever clever top secret Mommy agent that I am, quickly guessed the password (name of the youngest son :)) and I was allowed top secret clearance. Daddy was at a meeting tonight so they had ice cream, a movie, and I let them sleep in their tent. That lasted about 10 minutes and they were back in their own beds. Too funny!

Each day we do lessons in handwriting, spelling, english, and double math and phonics lessons. Both boys are making great strides in their math and reading! I started to read a loud to them yesterday but I don't want to get ahead of the schedule too much. We don't officially start until August 4th and we still have summer activities like swimming and soccer to work around, so I don't expect to be on our true schedule until September. Until then, we just tackle our daily schedule by fitting it in where we can, making sure it all gets done each day. So far, so good. I'll probably write more about school in the weeks to come, as I imagine there might be a few of you with questions of what they will be learning and how it will all work, so I'll continue to expand on our homeschool adventure as we go.

I had to rip out my tunic WIP!!! Ug!! I could tell it was going to be too small so I ripped it out and am starting over tomorrow with a bigger hook. I crochet with a tighter tension these days and I think that's the reason it wasn't working. Oh well, like I haven't ripped out a WIP before.

Ok, off to the shower and then bed. We have a full day of swimming, school work, and playing buccaneers ahead of us tomorrow and if I don't get enough sleep, I'll be walking (crawling) the plank!!

Monday, July 21, 2008

Finally, My Second Bit of News!!

So sorry I didn't post right away. You'll probably understand why when I tell you the news I spoke of last post. First, NO, I am not pregnant. I need to lose a couple of dresses sizes before I visit that topic...:)

Before I tell you, I should back up and say that we made this decision a while ago, but I wanted to make sure all of our family was told before putting it on a blog. After lots of prayerful consideration, we pulled our 2 boys out of school. There were lots of reasons for doing this. Some were school related and I don't want to get into bad mouthing anyone, but we absolutely knew that our youngest could not and would not go through what his older brother did. We wanted to include other subjects into their studies that just aren't possible otherwise. So, here's the news: We are homeschooling our boys this Fall. For the last several months I have been blessed with a great friend to help mentor me in this process. She has homeschooled her children for several years and has done it well. She has been guiding us through all of the aspects of homeschooling, coursework, and scheduling issues. I feel REALLY confident that we can do this. I don't know if I have mentioned before, but I was a high school religion teacher for 4 years prior to having children and taught adult students at a local college for a few years in the recent past. Lesson planning, teaching, grading, juggling students isn't anything new to me.

So, this past week, instead of posting, I have been teaching. I didn't want the boys to get overwhelmed with work, so we have been doing a modified schedule to get them use to how the day will work and also they now have a head start on some of their subjects. We are doing Math, Phonics, Handwriting and we started Spelling last week. Today we are adding in English. Our first "true" day of homeschooling with all subjects will be August 4th. History, Geography and Science will begin then. Piano for the oldest will come in late September and German (their choice of foreign lang.) will start in the fall as well. They will continue to do Swimming year round as well as sports (Soccer should start within the coming weeks).

I'll write more about it in the coming weeks, but that's the reason for the delay in my post. Ok, onto weight loss...

I completed my first week of Body For Life and was really pleased with how I did. No cheating and no tweaking of the plan. I'll check my progress at the end of week 4. I am concentrating on just following each day as written and doing what's required. It's a great plan to follow for a homeschooler in that it's very straight forward, easy to follow, inexpensive, and I am not eating separate meals from the family at dinnertime. I am using the BFL cookbook and making meals from it. I wrote out a 3 week menu plan of BFL meals so that I can eat with the family and get everyone eating healthier as well!

As far as crocheting goes, I am making a test pattern for a sleeveless tunic for a fellow crocheter on crochetville. I plan to wear it in late August during a family wedding weekend. I can't wait to show you the color!!! I have a few ideas for fall patterns but still need entries into the contest!! Please keep looking for me!!

Saturday, July 12, 2008

I'm Back!!!

There really wasn't any good time to get online and write a post for the blog, so sorry for the wait.

Wow! There is so much to tell you, where to start? Ok, first off, our English Shepherd, Mollie, may be well on her way to having puppies. Seems her "husband", Jack, finally, well, um, you know...anyway, I'll let you know how that one turns out...

The beach trip was fantastic, lots of fun and lots of soul searching.

I have a couple of items to share with you. First, the weight loss war. I truly think I am not any better off than I was when I took my first before pictures. The weight is still the same and I swear the waist in inches keeps moving like a see-saw. I feel like I am just treading water, or more appropriately, moving deck chairs on the Titanic. If you go back to the first entry of this blog, or the description of this blog, you'll find a mentioning of me following the Body For Life Program. It got me thinking, what happened with that? I know what happened with that. I did what I have done all the other 6-7 tries I have given the program: I refuse at some point to totally commit to it and start to tweak the program beyond recognition. Then, I tell myelf it's not working and I look for something else. That, my friends, is my first revelation. I don't want to do what I need to do. Deep down, I want to eat the way I did when I was 20 and a size 10.

I have come to a point where I want to complete the 12 week challenge, not because I might lose fill in the blank pounds, but because I want to say "I did it!". I want to follow the challenge to completion and not tweak it to death. I have no idea what kind of weight loss I'll have, but honestly, is what I have been doing, namely floundering around, been helpful? Nope. So, here I go, Body For Life Challege, try number 8. Eight's the charm, right? I feel different about it this time.

I asked my Mom to stock my frig with food for the program before I got home and I am ready to go, right now! Who's with me? Anyone else out there want to try it? Google the website to read about it. Honestly, you don't need to buy any books. All of the basic info is available as free downloads on their website. I'm not waiting for Monday. Tomorrow I'll start eating according to the plan and then Monday I'll start counting the weeks. I'll retake some pics on Monday, but don't count on me to focus on weight loss at first. I am all about completing each day's requirements and eating "clean" as it's called. One day at a time. One workout at a time.

This is a REALLY long post, so I'll write my second bit of news tomorrow evening!

Keep those entries for the contest coming!!

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Ready to Roll....

The car is packed and we are ready to leave on our, gulp, 12 hour trip to North Carolina with 2 boys and one very obstinate 21 month old girl. Gulp. What were we thinking? Oh well, pray that it goes fast- well as fast as 12 hours can go.

I'll take some pics of me while on the beach, but honestly, there is absolutely no difference from what I look like now and my last progress pics. I've done alot of thinking this week about what I want to do and how I need to do it, and I have some plans to tell you about when I return. Expect a lot of changes to the blog, and to my diet plan/exercise.


Please keep the Cool Weather Clothing Crochet Pattern Contest entries coming in. I'll be sure to write a post or two while on vacation!