H2O day 2

Today I drank 11 glasses of water and a glass of milk. I hope I'm not up all night peeing!

H20

I drank 8 glasses yesterday.

Body After Baby

It's been 16 months and I haven't lost one pound, that's right, not ONE pound since 2 weeks after I had Isabella. It's getting a little ridiculous. I went to get dressed for work today, it was cool morning, so I was trying to find pants to wear and I don't have one pair of pants that fit me that aren't maternity. 16 months and I'm still wearing maternity pants! Something's gotta start happening. So I found this Body After Baby challenge on Mama Notes , it starts today and goes for 8 weeks. Each week they give us a challenge to get healthier and we are supposed to blog about it to keep us accountable. So hello friends, random strangers, world, who ever happens to stumble across my blog, here is my quest to get my pre-baby body back!

I'm not posting my beginning weight or measurements. I'm only going to post how many inches and pounds I lose. I'll post my before pictures if the after pictures look good! My goal in the 8 weeks is to lose 16 lbs. That would put be within 15 lbs of my pre-baby weight. Pre-baby weight is probably too thin for me, I could stand to lose about 25 lbs total. That's my goal. I've decided, just now. I love thinking "outloud."

Our challenge this week is to drink water. This is something I've been trying to work on. I'm the worst at drinking anything unless it's Diet Coke, I can drink LOTS of those! Although I try to keep those to one a day and I've been making them even less frequent because I don't think they help my breathing when I run. I'm down to about one a week. I get 1 point for every glass of water I drink, so I'll be posting my points each evening.

See Jane Tri

Today I competed in my first triathlon. It was a sprint triathlon, but a triathlon none the less.

Alyson had talked me into training for it. I'm not a great swimmer and didn't think I could do the swim. I tried to talk a couple of different friends into doing the swim for me, but they wouldn't do it. So Alyson, graciously said that she would do the swim. I really appreciated this, because I knew that she wanted to do the whole thing, but there was no way I could train for all three portions of it, especially the swim, in the 6 weeks we had to train for it.

So I half-heartedly trained. I was training for my 5k that was last weekend and I rode my bike, I think a total of 5 times, if that. The farthest I went on my bike to train was 9 miles, the triathlon was 11 miles.

I went to bed last night at 9:30 after a warm bath and a chamomile tea to help me relax, and hopefully get a good night's sleep. Instead, I was up every hour starting at 11:30. I was SO nervous! I woke up at 5:00 with a pounding headache wondering what I had gotten myself into!

Alyson picked me up at 5:55 a.m. She didn't tell me that part of the triathlon until the night before. I wouldn't have signed up for that!! I couldn't figure out why we needed to be there so early, the race didn't start until 8! We pulled into the parking lot and it was PACKED! I couldn't believe it. The race last weekend, I got to 45 minutes before it started and I was WAY early. I was getting more nervous now, these people were serious about this!

We got all checked in and waited for the race to start. I was starting to get really nervous and didn't know how I was going to make it. Alyson did the first portion, the swimming, really quick! Much too fast, it didn't give me time to bail out!

She came out of the water and it was my turn to bike. YIKES! We didn't transition very fast, but fast enough.

I took off and got to the start line which was at the bottom of a hill. I didn't have my gears in the lowest gear so it was hard to get up the hill and the gears weren't shifting very well, I finally got them going and made it to the top. About 1/2 mile into the bike ride I was again questioning why I signed up for this. After about the 1st mile I got my groove on and biked along. I kept a fairly good pace, not too fast, not too slow. I just kept telling myself to not push it, I still had the 5k to do. At mile 6 there was a pretty good size hill, I didn't have any way of knowing what mile we were on, so I just kept waiting for that hill. I made it up the hill, no problem, including passing a few people. After the hill it was easy sailing.

When I turned the corner and saw we were almost back to the beginning, I was really excited and decided it wasn't so bad! Coming down the hill to people standing there was a little scary.

I was really excited when I got back and was ready to do the run. I had asked Alyson to bring her running shoes in case I needed her to pace with me so I could finish the run. She asked if I needed her and I told her to meet me at the end.







A quick kiss from Isabella and Frankie and I was ready to go again!

The first 1/2 mile of the 5k was difficult because I couldn't get my legs to move in the right direction. They kept wanting to go up and down and I wanted them to go forward. From .5 miles to 2 miles I was doing okay. Not great, but okay. I had to stop a walk to catch my breath and I had to keep reminding myself to breathe deep and not short little quick breaths. Breathing deep is my biggest problem with running. My legs never tire out, my lungs do. I'm sure it doesn't help that I've had bronchitis and some kind of cough for the last 4 weeks.

Olivia and Isabella waiting for it all to be over. Excuse my messy daughter, Daddy got her ready today and he doesn't know how to fix her hair.

Alyson came and met me at mile 3. It was a good thing she did. I wanted to run into the finish, but I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to make it! Having her there next to me helped push me, she was all fresh and full of energy! We didn't mean to wear matching outfits, but we happened to. Finishing the race was very emotional. As soon as I saw Alyson standing there I started to tear up, as I crossed the finish line, I really lost it. It was so much adrenalin and then just a release. It was a great feeling to accomplish it. I can't wait for the next one!

fun on the slide

Our friend Alyson was getting rid of her kid stuff, so we were lucky enough to get the Little Tikes slide and play house. Bella loves them both. Mallory came over to play last night and they both had so much fun on the slide. Bella is quite the little daredevil. She will stand on the top of the slide and jump in the air and fly down the slide. Twice yesterday she fell off the top of it, once onto her back and once onto her belly and both times when I asked her if she was okay, she said, "Yep" and jumped up and climbed up it again.

Oh, notice the grass? It's the in backyard! FINALLY!

Puppy Love

As worried as we were with Bandit and Isabella, he has really been a great dog with her. She loves to pet him and climb on him. Of course we always watch her when she's with him and if he gets irritated he'll just stand up and walk away. Smokey on the other hand is NOT her biggest fan. He doesn't like her coming anywhere near him. It could be that he has hair she likes to hang on to!

5k run

I did it! I can't believe I did! During the race I wasn't sure if I would. There were a lot of hills, I've never run on hills, where I run it's completely flat. The only time I walked was when they were handing out water, I couldn't run and drink at the same time. It was difficult enough to walk and drink.

I finished in 32:22. I was pretty excited about that! I have never run more than 30 minutes all at once.

It was a bitter sweet race. I was glad I did it and I finished, with a good time to boot, but Frank wasn't able to be there and so I didn't have anyone greeting me when I crossed the finish line. I didn't think it would really bother me, but it made me really sad. My neighbor was there supporting his ex-girlfriend that's when it bothered me that Frank wasn't there. Oh well, I did it. I'm VERY happy about that!

C25K

Stephanie, my sister, recruited my other sister, Alesa and I to run a 5k with her about 10 weeks ago. I didn't really want to do it, but I said ok. I half heartedly started running a couple times a week. I started out barely being able to run 3 minutes. We were doing an interval training program called Couch 2 5K. You would run 3 minutes, walk 90 seconds. Each week the running times would increase. Each week I would think that I was going to die before the podcast would tell me I could stop running and start walking. I've never been a runner, even in middle school when we had to run the mile I jogged/walked it.

Well, this Saturday is the 5k. I'm REALLY excited about it! I haven't yet done a complete 5K in my training. I've been really close, but not yet. I'm off this morning to do it. Wish me luck! I would like to finish the race in 30 minutes, but if I can run the entire thing, I'll be pretty excited.

Because of this, I've been training for a sprint triathlon as well. Although, I'm not much of a swimmer, so Alyson (who asked me to do the triathlon with her) has graciously said she would do the swimming and I will be doing the biking and running. That's next Saturday.

Master Bathroom (this is for you, Alesa)

As most of you know, we have been working on remodeling our house for about 5 years now. I've only been involved in 4.5 years of it, but it's still been WAY too long!

3 years ago, this month we started on the master bathroom. I'm VERY happy to say, it's FINALLY complete! There is one room in our house that is 100% complete. Oh wait, there still isn't a door, I can live with that though. I can now do everything it takes to get ready in the morning in one room instead of walking between bathrooms and on mornings we are both getting ready, there are now two sinks and two mirrors that we can get ready in and I no longer have to get ready in the closet mirror. I also LOVE all the natural light that comes in the windows next to the mirror!

I met a celebrity

Okay, maybe not really a celebrity, but I feel like I did!

I've been blog stalking this girl for a very long time. She's a friend of this girl and this girl, who I actually do know and am friends with. I've been reading her blog and definitely feel like I know her. We have a lot in common, mostly the fact that we are both, as she says, lovers of fine foods such as Diet Coke and Oreos.

Stefanie's baby shower was tonight and Ashley was supposed to be coming, I have been quite excited. I've been reading her blog and definitely feel like I know her. We have a lot in common, mostly the fact that we are both, as she says, lovers of fine foods such as Diet Coke and Oreos.

We forgot to get a picture together, so can't prove it, but it was great to meet you Ashley!

P.S. I just went back and reread this and it sounds like I'm a little crazy, but it's not as scary as it sounds!

Arachnoid takeover

I was sitting at my kitchen table feeding Isabella breakfast yesterday morning. I was looking at the pond and the flowers, all the sudden something moved and caught my eye.
















That's right, is a TARANTULA!!!! Excuse me?!!? I thought they only lived in the desserts or South American jungles??!! Are you freaking kidding me?!?! It was on the wall right above our pond. I'm usually not an animal killer and think that even spiders are great in the outside world, but one this big??? NO! It was about 5" across. Frankie took care of it and it's now living in spider heaven!

sick

It's been a yucky week around here! We went boating last weekend and Sunday we woke up and all felt crappy. We all laid around all day being sick, Monday was a repeat of the day before. Frank and I started feeling better, and Isabella still had a little runny nose. I was feeling better Tuesday and Wednesday. Yesterday my throat started to hurt again and today I'm KNOCKED out! My throat feels like I swallowed glass and every time I cough my lungs burn. BLECH!