Week 1- Christmas Challenge Weigh In

Down .8! Pretty good, given I only worked out once because of my knee. Speaking of my knee, I can do the eliptical, as long as I don't put much resistance on it and zero incline, but I CANNOT run! I was trying to run for 5 minutes (I read somewhere that to get back to running after this injury, you should run 5 minutes every other day and then increase it by 5 minutes every week). Yeah, I got to 2 minutes and had to stop cause the pain started right up! Yeah for me! I just wish I didn't hate the elliptical so much.

Christmas Challenge

I love blogs. I love to read them and see where other people's links lead me. The other day I was reading one of my favorites, Sister Skinny, and she mentioned that one of her readers had posted a Christmas Challenge to lose weight (as much as you want) by Christmas. I decided to join in. The 2 bloggers in charge of the Challenge are taking it seriously, they've posted every one's names, websites and goals on their blogs and are expecting to update the participants weight every week. Every time I've thought about eating a cookie or some other form of crap this weekend, I thought of them. Carolyn and Randi will be posting my weight on their blogs, for everyone to see, if I'm the only fatso that doesn't lose weight, I will be so embarrassed, so I'm in for real. My goal is 14 pounds. I have 91 days. Let's see what happens.

http://canadiancarolyn.blogspot.com/
http://thenextthingtotry.blogspot.com/

I went to the orthopedic doctor last night to see why my knee hurt so bad when I would run or do anything really. And I found out that I have IT Band Syndrome. The IT band in my right knee is so tight that it rubs against my femur and causes huge amounts of pain. Most people wouldn't think this is good news, but I do cause I can fix it! I can keep running! He said this is a very common runners problem. The doc gave me stretches and anti-inflammatory pills to take. In 2 weeks, if it isn't better I have to go to physical therapy. So there's another reason to work out. I have to call the doctor in 2 weeks and let him know if it still hurts. It only hurts when I work out, so I have to work out and see if the things he suggested help. Ah, having someone to report to really does help, who knew!

Up, Up & Away!

Last week at work, I was assigned a job to do about 60 banners and a 16 page event guide for a new festival at Antelope Island called the Balloon Stampede. I begrudgingly took the job, even though I only had a total of 5 days to finish all the necessary pieces, and boy am I glad I did! As a reward for all our help (All my work was free) the people with the Stampede committee gave me two free tickets to ride in a HOT AIR BALLOON! We had to wake up at 5 this morning and drive out to Antelope Island to meet our pilot. Brett and I stumbled into the pilots meeting and heard how iffy the the weather was and that the pilots were to be very observant. Well, if I wasn't scared enough after hearing this story, now I was petrified! But I knew this was a once in a life time opportunity, so I did it. It was AMAZING! The pilot kept trying to scare me more by bouncing up and down in the tiny little basket, but it was fun non the less. At one point we started to drift into an area that we weren't allowed to be in, so he had to bring the balloon down fast and hard. We managed to skid about 6 feet and almost tip over, but even that was fun, even though I was still holding on for dear life. here are some pics of the balloons getting ready to fly, Brett and I inside our balloon, our view from above and the balloon deflating after the ride.

STELLA!

Here's our new baby, Stella. She's 8 weeks old. She likes to bite with her sharp little baby teeth and she loves to play. She does not like to sleep. But we love her anyways. She weighs 2 lbs and is about 10 inches long. The doctor thinks she will only get about 12 inches tall and no more than 15 lbs. We weren't sure if we wanted a dog, unitl we saw her. She's a boston terrier/schnauzer mix. She's just perfect!

Lightning stike!

Yesterday afternoon, here in Utah there was a a pretty big rain storm. I didn't think it was that bad and it really only lasted about 15 minutes, so I thought nothing of it. As I was leaving work, I looked at my phone for the first time all day and noticed I had NINE missed calls. I immediately knew something was wrong. I listened to my messages and found that my brother's house had been hit by lightning and was on fire! I rushed up there to see if I could help with anything and this is what I found...









































This is where the lighting hit and then the fire spread through the attic and roof.
















Everyone was OK, they were in the house at the time, when the neighbors came pounding on their door yelling for them to get out. They all got out, but they can't live in the house until it's fixed. Surprisingly most of their possessions survived too.