The Beholder of Beauty

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

I'm baaaaack!

Hey guys! Did you think I had fallen into a hole? I haven't been on here in what seems like forever... neither blogging nor reading your blogs. Once again, I let "life" take over, which basically means I feel like I have no free time of late but have little to show for it. : ( But I'm in the process of re-prioritizing, so hopefully I'll be more diligent with my blogging now. : )

I have quite a few things to catch up on from my 101 in 1001 list, including the cruise Matt and I went on at the beginning of May. It was so much fun! But I'll save that for another post. Let's see... what's been going on lately?

Matt and I both joined the choir at our church. I've been wanting to for a while, but while I was still in the nursery, it wasn't plausible. I was in Advanced Choir and Show Choir in high school, and I was in my home church's choir growing up as well, so getting back into a choir was pretty easy for me. I can read sheet music, which helps a lot too... Matt's never been in a choir before and can't read music, so it was a little bit of a shock to him. But I think he's enjoying it, and I love him being there with me. : )

I think I may have food allergies. I've been having stomach issues for a while now and thought at first I may have a gluten allergy. But when I tried to set up a doctor appointment to be tested, they told me to keep a food diary for two weeks first. So, I've been keeping a journal of everything I eat/drink and any ill feelings I have, and now I'm thinking I may have developed a lactose intolerance... I have an appointment next week though, so we'll see what the doctor says.

Speaking of next week, Matt turns 30 on June 5th! I planned on having a huge 80's themed party for him where everyone dressed up in classic 80's style, but Matt wasn't keen on that idea (BOO!!), so we're just having a low-key party. He did say he wanted karaoke though, so that should be fun/entertaining. : )

I am now a member of a Bunco group that some church friends invited me to join. This month was my first time attending, and it was my first time playing Bunco at all. For those of you not familiar, Bunco is a group dice game. People play it differently from what I've heard, but I think most of the time your goal is to roll all 6's, which is a "bunco." And if you roll all 1's it's a "small bunco." I'm not going to try and explain the whole game, but you end up tallying points you earn, and the person/people with the most points at the end gets a prize. I enjoyed my first time, so I'm looking forward to doing that each month. : ) Do any of you play?

And I guess I'll leave it there for now. I'm happy to be blogging again and can't wait to catch up on all of your blogs! I hope you all had a wonderful Memorial Day, and a big THANK YOU to any of you who have served or have a loved one who has served to protect our freedom!

Friday, March 23, 2012

Another Lovely Mail Day

Hi guys! Sorry I haven't been posting much lately, but if you've been following me for a while, you're probably used to that! ; ) I'll try to do better though...

So I've decided that at the rate I'm going, I'll never get caught up on all my mail posts. Therefore, I'm going to post some of my favorites from my overdue pile and start afresh.

Here are some of my favorite incoming overdue missives:

And here are a few of my faves from my outgoing pile:

Alright, so I'm all caught up now... Yay! : ) Now I just have to not get behind again. Ha, ha!

I'm going to see Hunger Games tonight (FANGIRL SQUEAL) so I'll try to remember to post a review tomorrow. Hope you all have a great weekend!

Monday, March 19, 2012

30 Day Shred

Another week down... My cruise is in 40 days, so a little over 5 weeks to go! This past week wasn't the best. I stayed with Level 2 on the DVD and did well except for a few of the moves. There are 4 sets of "plank" moves on this level. If you're not familiar with "plank," it's where you get down like you're going to do a push-up, but you put your arms directly under you... Here, I'll find a picture:

Courtesy of Sparkpeople.com

Ok, so that's a plank. For the first round of planking, you start out standing up straight, then bend over and walk your hands out until you're in the plank position, then you walk your hands back up and stand up. For the second round, you start in plank position, then hop both feet in towards your head and back again, keeping your arms still. For the third round, you start in plank, then hop your feet out and in, like you're doing jumping jacks on the ground. Then for the final round, you start in plank, then bend one knee and twist it inward, then back to plank and do the other leg. That one works your abs... You're not doing all these plank moves back to back, but as I have spaghetti arms, that doesn't matter! I can only last a few seconds in a plank without my arms starting to shake, let alone maintaining a plank while doing all that other stuff! So once my arms give in, I switch to moves from Level 1...

Unfortunately, I ran into another issue this week. Tuesday night during my warm-up, I started doing jumping jacks and felt a very sharp pain in my right knee. I worked through it, but my knee was sore the whole next day. That got me a little worried, so I decided to take Wednesday off. (I also didn't feel well in general that day, so that helped my decision...) I think the knee issue may have been from A) working out with all this extra weight, putting more strain on my knees, B) not doing some of the moves correctly, C) being wobbly from poor balance, or D) a combination of all of those. So on some of the lunges, I've not been going down as far to take it a little easier on my knees. That's helped...

I'd like to say that was the only break I took last week, but I'd be lying. When I got home Friday, I was so exhausted that I could barely hold my eyes open, so I just went to bed. Then last night I didn't feel well again, so I was a punk and didn't work out. So I only worked out 4 days last week. I did play golf with Matt Saturday, so I got an extra workout in there... And I guess it helped some, because I lost 2.9 pounds. That basically just covers what I gained last week, but I'll take it! : )

# of Days: 21

Weight Loss: 5.2 lbs

Inches Lost:

Waist - 1.5

Hips - 1

Thighs - .5

I was running late this morning, so I didn't take my measurements... I feel better today, so I'm definitely going to work out tonight when I get home! And hopefully there won't be any breaks this week! ; )

Monday, March 12, 2012

30 Day Shred

Well, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that when I weighed in this morning, I had gained 2.8 pounds. I think there are two reasons for this: #1 is although I've been staying under my calorie intake goal this week, the food I've been eating hasn't been the healthiest. And #2 is I'm probably gaining muscle due to the crazy strength moves I've been doing on this video. Gaining muscle is a good thing, but I'm definitely going to strive to make smarter food choices this week!

And now for the good news... Firstly, I moved up to Level 2 last night. While it's still only a 20-minute workout, the moves are more advanced on all three areas: strength, cardio, and abs. It totally kicked my butt, and I struggled with a few of the moves, but I got through it! : )

The other good news is that I also took my measurements this morning, and I've lost inches! Yay! So that makes me feel a little better about gaining this week. But I really hope next week there's a - instead of a + when I weigh in on my Wii Fit! Here are the numbers so far... They're totals for the whole 2 weeks, not just this week.

# of Days: 14
Weight Loss: 2.3 lbs

Inches Lost:

Waist - 1.5

Hips - 1

Thighs - .5

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Another Lovely Mail Day

Hey guys! I'm still playing catch up on these, so be prepared for lots of pictures with little commentary... ha, ha. ; ) I'm mostly behind on incoming, so I'll focus on those for this post.