Celebrate Good Times!

Chris and I had so much fun last night celebrating our three year "dating" anniversary.  Due to the power outage earlier this week and the fact that Comed told us we were going to be without power until today we ended up doing a priceline and getting a pretty good deal on a hotel for 3 nights.  So we've been staying at the Marriott Oak Brook Hills Resort.  Last night after I got "home" from work we decided to go down to the bar for a drink and some appetizers.  I said happy anniversary when we toasted and the bartender over heard us but didn't say anything about it.  Then later in the night the bar manager came over by us and asked what we were "in town" for and we said power outage and anniversary :)  We left the bar a little while later and when we were walking into our room we passed the manager and said hi.  When we got back to our room there was a bottle of champagne and chocolate covered strawberries.  We immediately went to thank the manager but it wasn't from him, so we were a bit confused.  When we checked the card we realized it was from the bartenders.  So nice of them!  When we woke up this morning there was a card under our door from the manager with a note that breakfast was on him!

I told Chris we're getting more preferential for a 3 year dating anniversary than we did on our honeymoon :)  Maybe we need to pretend it's our anniversary all the time!  LOL only kidding, but we did greatly appreciate the treats and great hotel!

Black Rice

The power is back on!!  YAY!!  Last night we went out to dinner and had sushi.  Chris is pretty sure that he has a gluten allergy, in fact he went to the doctor yesterday to get a bunch of tests done, so he's been trying to stay away from gluten.  The sushi place offered black rice which is gluten free so we tried it.  Not sure I'll try it again, but it wasn't horrible.  It was a little chewy and not as sticky as the regular rice so it was a bit difficult to eat.  At least we tried it.  We also had some of the sparkling sake, now that was delicious :)

Three years ago today, this picture was taken:

It was the day I met Chris and (for the most part) I haven't stopped smiling!  This has been the best three years of my life!  I knew we were meant to be by our mutual love for cheese :)  I think that's where I hooked him.  After the game all of my friends, Chris and I went back to my condo, the first thing Chris did was open my refrigerator and check out my cheese drawer.  Good thing I had some in there otherwise he may not have stuck around :)  LOL!  I love you Chris!

A Power Outage and a Hawks Win!

Yesterday I posted that I was going to Zumba, I was actually excited about it because I really do like it.  I got to the gym, was about 1/2 way through the class and then it happened..............complete darkness.  There were some pretty wicked storms passing through so that caused a power outage.  We waited a bit and then they canceled the class and closed the gym.  At least I got 1/2 a workout in?  Anyway the plan was to meet Chris at a bar and grill down the street from the gym to watch the Hawks game.  I got there and.............complete darkness!  Chris was sitting at the bar, on his computer working, having a drink waiting for me to show up :)  We waited there a little bit and decided to drive to where there was light!  We drove by our house to make sure grandma was ok and then went to where we usually go anyway Chuck's bbq.  The problem with that was that the bar was PACKED already.  Luckily they had a big screen in the restaurant so we watched it from there.  

What a game!!  I will be the first to admit that I jumped on the Hawk's bandwagon when they got into the playoff's but I look at it this way, I'm a Chicago fan!  If any of the Chicago teams were in the championship I'd root for them, including the Sox, which I did when they won.  The only time I wouldn't would be a Cubs/Sox World Series, but honestly who am I kidding, not in my lifetime!  Anyway back to the game, the bar and restaurant went nuts!  It was a lot of fun to be a part of.  The fire department across the street opened it's garage doors and put the lights and the siren of the fire truck on.  There were fireworks going off all over the place.  I'm proud to live in a city that has so much pride :)

Then we went home, all was good.  We went to sleep and at 4 am I was woken up by Chris who was trying to find a flashlight because.........complete darkness, our power went out.  I probably would have slept through it, but Chris's sleep machine stopped working and that of course woke him up, no sleep machine = no sleep for Chris :(  Comed says that we'll have power by 11 pm on THURSDAY so to a hotel we will go.  The hotel has a gym so my gym clothes are packed and ready to go! 

OMG I'm Sore!

Last week I said I was going to try out Piloxing on Thursday, well that never happened.  Because I'm using a Groupon I have a punch card.  Well I switched purses last week and my punch card was in my other purse :(  so I couldn't take the class.  I did take a class on Friday morning called "Circuit Training".  OMG that was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life!!  It was a class that utilized some weights, but primarily used body weights to do squats, wall sits, planks, lifting, etc.  I left there exhausted, by Friday night I was already sore.  I could hardly move Saturday or Sunday.  Today I'm still a bit sore!  I was talking with some of the women after class and the one said that of all of the classes offered at the gym that one is the hardest by far!  So I guess it's a good thing I "survived" the class and I put that in quotes because I didn't do all of the moves by any means, however I did do the best I could!  Tonight is Zumba and then we're watching the hockey game, GO HAWKS!

Workout Re-Do

Yoga didn't happen last night.  Nerves coupled with a bad day at work resulted in me allowing my brain to talk me out of going.  However, today is a new day and I am going to a Piloxing class at 6!  I am a bit nervous about this one too, but I'm going to do it!  It's a combination of Pilates and Boxing, neither of which I've done before.  New adventures.  I'll report back tomorrow to let you know how it goes.  Also, as a result of that "bad day" yesterday I didn't make the best food choices.  Not the worst ones by any means, but the wine and cheese blew it, it was good though :)  

Namaste

Namaste - I think that's what people say at the end of Yoga classes?  I've never done Yoga before, but I think I'm going to give it a try tonight.  My Groupon gym has a class tonight from 7 - 8 pm called "Gentle Yoga".  I'm hoping it's like a Yoga for beginners.  Here is the description - Rejuvenate your body from the inside out with Yoga.  Yoga will help you to develop strength and ease of movement through flexibility and relaxation.  So we'll see how that goes, wish me luck!  :)

Back to Zumba!

Well after some encouragement from those of you who read the blog and a groupon that Chris bought for me for an all women's fitness class bundle, I went to Zumba last night :)  It was a lot of fun!  As I mentioned (in this blog post) Chris saw a groupon for 20 classes at an all women's gym in LaGrange, not too far from our house.  I have 40 days to complete the 20 classes.  I did my first class last night.  It was really nice to be in an all woman's facility.  I wasn't nearly as self conscious as I am at our regular gym.  The class was small, maybe 10 people which was great, because usually at the Zumba class at our gym there are around 50.  I had room to move and see the instructor.  All of the women were really nice.  The first song they played "Can't Hold Us" by Mackelmore and Ryan Lewis always makes me think of Chris so that was an added boost of energy :)  At the end of the class I almost fell over when I looked down at my heart rate monitor!

705 CALORIES BURNED!!  I was pretty darn excited to see that.  It was a tough class, but it was a lot of fun and if I can burn 705 calories for dancing around for an hour I'll take it.  I am a bit sore today, especially my upper body.  There was a lot of focus on arms in yesterday's class.  My foot does hurt today from the planter fasciitis but I think part of that is my doing, I did not stretch as much as I should have after class and I did not ice my foot when I got home.  I will need to try that next time.

As promised yesterday, the food journal is back!

I'm Tracking Food Again

So after a way too long from food tracking, I'm tracking again!  Starting tomorrow you can expect to see my food logs again.

We had a great weekend!  Friday we went to The Twin Hearts autism fundraiser.  We go to this every year and always have a great time.  We danced, hung out with family and drank.......a little too much, but in our defense we had already planned on taking a cab home so we could both have a bit of fun.  We lucked out though and my cousin Kara drove us home.  Thanks K :)  Saturday was spend nursing a bit of a hangover and then doing some running around and watching the Hawks game.  Bummed about the loss!  Yesterday we celebrated Father's Day with my dad/brother and Chris's dad.  In the morning we went to my nephew's lacrosse game and met up with my dad, brother, sis-in-law and nephews.  After the game we went out for a "quick" bite to eat.  That "quick" bite ended up taking almost 2 hours.  We got seated pretty quickly but the services was slooooooooooooooooow.  I was ok with that though because it meant more time with my 3 favorite little people.  :)  After that we drove the 1 hour 45 min drive up with McHenry to hang out with Chris's dad/family and went out to dinner.  One of my favorite kind of days, lots of family time!

Planes, Trains and Automobiles!

That was my life yesterday!  I was in NYC Mon - Wed this week.  I HAD to be back in Chicago today for a very important meeting with the CEO of our parent company.  If you live in Chicago you know that they were calling for a weather apocalypse!  When I checked on my flight out of NYC that was scheduled for 8:55 pm was already delayed by 2 hours so I called our corporate travel department and asked them to try to get me on an earlier flight, which they did!!  So I got to the airport with plenty of time to spare, boarded my flight and then we sat there for almost 45 minutes before we took off.  We were 30 minutes outside of Chicago (I had a flight tracker on my iPad) and all of the sudden we made a left turn, and started heading south and an hour was added onto the travel time.  I thought "this can't be good".  Captain comes over the mic and says we're being diverted to Louisville.  I thought it was a mean joke, of all places Louisville!  I mean we were passing over Indy at the time, why didn't we go there!  So we landed.............and sat on the plane.  There were 10 other Southwest planes that had also been diverted from Midway to Louisville and only 3 Southwest gates.  When we finally got to the gate they told us that our flight was cancelled to Chicago and we needed to talk to a ticket person to try and get home.  Well that ticket person said it may be two days before we got home, so I did what a lot of others did and ran to the rental car place and got one of the last available cars.

I plugged my phone in, pulled up the GPS, called Chris and started the almost 5 hour drive home.  I got home just before 1.  Chris talked to me the whole way home and even acted as my weather tracker to let me know when I'd hit storms....or blobs (on the computer screen) as we call them.  He was a great co-pilot even though it was over the phone.  He kept me updated on not only the weather, but also the score of the Hawks game!  Go Hawks!  So I made it home, took a quick 6 hour nap and made it to the office in time for my meeting!  Thank you honey for being the best husband ever!

In other news, today would have been my Grandma Barry's 90th birthday.  This afternoon we're (my mom, aunts, cousin and Papa) carrying on a tradition of meeting at the cemetery to have champagne and appetizers with her before going to her favorite restaurant for dinner.  Happy Birthday Tone!  Have an extra splash today :)

New Food Love

Last month I mentioned the new oatmeal I found (http://thatsitnomoreexcuses.blogspot.com/2013/05/new-food-find.html) well I found this peanut butter and the combination of them together is AMAZING!!

I've read about powdered peanut butter on different blogs, but I've never seen it in a store.  When Chris and I went to the vitamin store the other day I saw it.  It's only 45 calories for 2 tbsp (which doesn't really make 2 tbsp when it's made.)  However it adds the perfect amount of peanut butter flavor to my oatmeal.  Score!

Herb Pot

Every year we usually try to grow something in our garden.  Lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, green onions, strawberries, etc.  Each year the strawberries take over more and more of the garden.  They used to be contained to a small area, but they've pretty much taken over 1/2 of the space now.  That coupled with the idea that we weren't going to be living at the house this summer we didn't plant anything.  Well, plans changed and I saw a really cute thing on Pinterest for a herb pot, so I decided to try it out.  It's working out really well!!  I planted basil, mint, chives, dill, parsley and rosemary in a big pot and as you can see below they are growing like crazy!

Last night we grilled up some salmon and corn.  The pot is right next to the grill so I grabbed some dill and chives and put them on top, it turned out great!

Oh My Achy Feet!

Here's a riddle, what do high arches, being over weight, getting older and a touch of genetics get you?  Foot problems!  I went to the podiatrist last night for the first time ever.  I've been having some foot issues on and off for about a year now, maybe even longer who knows.  Thanks to my Aunt Jeanne for recommending Dr. Moore, she was awesome!  So they took x-rays of my feet and turns out that I wasn't making up all the pain in my head.  I have the beginning stages of arthritis on the top of my left foot, heel spurs on both heels and Planter Fasciitis in my right foot.  I'm fairly familiar with Planter Fasciitis as one of my aunts and one of my friends has it, so I was pretty sure that's what was going on.  

So what's the remedy?  Cortisone shots, ouch!  I had one in the top of my left foot and one in the heel of my right.  Thankfully Chris was in the room and I squeezed the crud out of his hand as she did it.  She also gave me some inserts for my shoes and a "boot" to wear at night.  It's not bad, it looks like this:

I don't know if it was the shot, the boot or a combo of the two but my foot felt so much better this morning.  I was able to get out of bed without limping for the first few minutes.  I told her I've been working out more and she asked what kind of shoes I wore.  When I told her, she said those were very good ones, so I'm happy with that.  She also told me when I'm traveling to make sure I wear gym shoes in the airports/for walking around.  I was happy that she didn't restrict me from anything.  She gave me the inserts to start off with and she is going to check with insurance to see if they'll cover custom ones.  The inserts are crazy, I can stick a finger in between where the top of my arch is and where my shoe is!  Takes a bit to get used to but I'm sure they'll be great.  I'm sure a lot of this will either go away or I'll be able to not have to use all of it as I start to loose more weight!  So now the chant (from yesterday) will include, "I want to get pregnant and I don't want bad feet!"  :)  Just one more added motivation!

So to give anyone that reads this a chuckle (I know it worked for my Aunt Jeanne last night) picture me with that boot on in bed and Chris with his CPAP machine, we make one HOT couple don't we, LOL.  

 (picture included is not Chris although it somewhat looks like him)

Just the Right Time.........

Did you ever get an email, or a voice mail or a letter at just the right time?  Within the last few days I received each one of those from three separate aunts.  I feel their love and support and I am so grateful for it!  To say that this has been a struggle is an understatement.  I guess lifestyle changes are never easy!  I'm gearing up for an 8 city in three months with 3+ days per city kind of summer.  That is NOT going to be easy, but I can't put off my goal until after all of the travel is done.  I need to keep chanting "I want to get pregnant at a healthier weight" in the back of my head when I'm feeling tempted.  I will listen to what a very wise woman who used to do a lot of traveling told me............stay at hotels with a gym, make yourself a priority, stay healthy, remember some of your co-workers also want healthy choices, carve time into your travel schedule so you are not flying out late and/or early and allow yourself time to get a workout in and try to destress after each trip.  She's also the same woman who told me when I first started traveling for work at the age of 22 never to let the hotel put me on the first floor and always look to see where the emergency exits are when you get to your room :)  I still do that 15 years later, she's one smart cookie!  

In other news, there was a groupon the other day that Chris signed me up for (after talking to me about it of course!)  There is an all woman's fitness club in LaGrange that was offering 20 group classes at an extremely discounted rate.  I'm pretty excited, the classes include Zumba, so looks like I'll be getting my Zumba groove on again!  They also have Pilates, Body Pump, Cycling, Yoga, Piloxing, and more.  I'm excited to try out some new classes, especially knowing it's all women.  One of the things I get super conscious about at our gym is that the group class room is right by all of the weight machines and free weights where most of the guys are.  There is a huge floor to ceiling window that spans the entire room so anytime we turn around there are anywhere from 5 - 25 guys staring in the room.  That usually stops me from moving as much, silly I know, but true.  So that is my update, I'm still here!  Thank you for the thoughts, notes, prayers, encouragement, etc.  It means SO much.