Spinning Class and Veggies

In an effort to get more in shape, I’ve gone and done something drastic. I signed up for 6am spinning classes at a new gym. AHH. What’s wrong with me. 6 am is ridiculous. Seriously. I’ve just been getting a bit crazy needing exercise and feeling all psycho without it so there we go. The last time I signed up at a new gym it helped me knock of some good weight, so I’m hoping for some more success again. I’ll step on the mean old scale in the morning and report back with the Courtenay Weight exchange, which I’m glad doesn’t affect finances because Id never put it down when things aren’t going so well. I had planned on running a marathon this summer, but that got knocked out of the picture after a few short runs and a big dose of “I hate running”’s so now we are working with biking, which I really do like. Maybe for Emily’s birthday someone will get her one of those strollers that goes behind your bike. Those nice ones from MEC. That’d be cool then because I’d already be conditioned for biking. YAY. So here’s hoping this is helpful to my goals of being fit and eating good.

Speaking of eating good. Man it has been nice to be back home and not eating out for every meal. As part of my eating habits changes I made one large change to my diet. Morgan and I were driving along and I said “Honey, theres something important I have to tell you, and I’m not sure if you should be driving while I do, but I’m just going to say it anyways”. He got all nervous like I was going to tell him something crazy like Id killed someone or bought a puppy or something(odd analogy I know). Then I said “I want to be a vegetarian”. So there I said it out loud. Or out type. I haven’t told many of my carnivorous family, but I will one day. I decided to be a vegetarian and see where that takes me. It’s a bit weird at this point in my life to make such a big change, but thats what I’m doing. It might not be forever, and I might be a bit of a hypocritical Vegetarian once in a while, but thats life. So there you go. Wow what I typed doesn’t even sound like me. a 6 am cycling class and a vegetarian. hmmm…I may have been abducted by aliens or something…I dunno. The best thing ever is that every time I typed vegetarian (haha including this time) The spell checky said I spelled it wrong. haha. Typical. Well anyways back to school I go.

Someone turned up the speed on my life.

Someone put my normal life somewhere and I can’t find it. I think I’ve looked everywhere. I’ve sat down at my computer almost everyday in the last week. “I’m going to blog” I say to myself, desperately wanting some time do just be silly and write. Twice I made it two sentences into my post and randomly closed the browser and walked away. Which I could do right now, but I wont. Life has just turned into this crazy cycle of school, babysitters, meeting, classes, screaming toddlers and quizzes. So here I am. I’ll try and catch you up the last week. AND I’ll try and make it coherent. I think I’ve been over tired forever.

I’ve still been going to the gym. I really didn’t feel like it today so I’m blogging and enjoying some very expensive me time instead. I did a good job working out, but I’ve had a harder time eating good this week due to reading so much and sitting in a chair all day long. I have bad study eating habits. So my goal it not to get the freshman 15 in the next few months. haha. I’ll go weigh myself soon and put up the CWX.

I got 18/20 on my first Psychology quiz! I’m pretty happy with that. Nothing else I’ve handed in has been marked yet. I’m finding I need sooo much more time to work on school than I thought I did. I’m a bit stressy about that, but I think I’m starting to figure it out. Morgan has been really awesome about giving me extra time and just sending my upstairs to study.

I’m going snowboarding tomorrow! YAY! I probably shouldn’t just because I could use the day to study, but I’m taking a day off to enjoy my day and be with friends and fam and not take everything so seriously. I’m going to help Morgan and Roxy get better at snowboarding and Coco is going to come with us too. It’s going to be soooo awesome. I’ll try and get some pictures or something.

Emily is waking up so I have to go deal with real life now, but maybe, just maybe, I’ll post again before next week.Cheers.

?WX

I’ve decided to start a new blog meme. Its called the “?WX”. Its the weight eXchange. Kinda like the TSX (Toronto stock exchange) or some other stock exchange. But this way I can post weekly stock in my weight gain or loss. Silly I know, but a way for me to keep tabs on where Ive been and where I’m going. Then just like when they say why a stock crashed or rose I can put the causes beside it. Please feel free to have your own ?WX. Mine will be the CWX. Courtenay’s Weight eXchange! I like Pluckymama’s “Weight Loss Wednesday” report so I think Ill try to update my stock on Wednesdays or days when I do so great I have to put it down.

CWX™ = down 2.4↓

Made it to the gym again today thats 3 times this week. They were only open that many days, or I’d have gone another time. My back is a bit sore today. The squat machine has a hit out on me. That sucker is mean. Why I otta… It was a great feeling to make it so much this week. The fall was so hard to kick my butt. My whole body feels better already. I slept way better last night too. I decided to stop whining that my gym doesn’t have any cardio and just use the treadmill we have here. I have to stop making excuses. It’s like I’ve made my old gym into this perfect place where workouts were easy and all the machines were great and I loved it more than Disneyland. So not true. There was at least 2 machines that I loathed! They only had 1 elliptical so if it was in use I was out of luck. Although I kind of had a personal trainer and it was like 5 dollars cheaper a month, it wasn’t Fitness World by anyones standard. SO. No more excuses Courtenay.

Emily made me laugh so hard I cried yesterday. She looked at me and said “18 months.” I said “pretty close. You are 20 months” So she said “20 months”. Then I followed that up with “How old are you?”. Emily looked up from her high chair and said.”I’m fine thanks, how are you?” It was one of the funniest things she’s said this week. She got 2 Robert Munsch books and 2 Phoebe Gilman ones for Christmas. So we’ve been letting her read them. She’s has gotten alot less rough on paper books. It’s so fun to read full stories to her and especially the classic books that I read when I was little. So she walks around the house saying”Murmel, Murmel, Murmel” and “Jillian Jiggs pigs”. It’s really cute. I didn’t even remember Jillian Jiggs until Jenny read Em the story with the line “Jillian, Jillian, Jillian Jiggs! It looks like your room has been lived in by pigs!” Took me right back to the good ol days.

My Feta Chicken with Zucchini turned out pretty good. I would probably add less lemon next time, but overall I quite enjoyed it. I took a picture for you. Tonight is Canton Beef. It sounds really tasty. I forget what the side dish is, but I’m sure that’ll be great too.

Oh and here is the song that is stuck in my head…Thanks Morgan!*sarcasm*

I’m cooking Fish

Well, I’m already down 3 pounds! 3 in 3 days. Not even like I’ve been crazy about it or something. Just extra Christmas weight I guess. I went to the gym again today. 2 days in a row. It was a bit harder today, but I couldn’t sleep in any longer. I made myself go to bed early so I could get up without feeling so tired. Another FlyLady tip! Sensible enough, but why do I always ignore sensible things…dunno.

I’m enjoying working with FlyLady tips. Theres lots to do, so I just end up cleaning everything my way. But I have been shining my sink and getting dressed to the shoes (crocks). It seems to be working. Our house is WAY cleaner and MK is even inspired to clean up stuff. It’s really relaxing to have a clean house. I never thought I’d care as much as I do. When my kitchen is clean, I’m way more inclined to make something healthier to eat. So bonus #2. I took a picture of my FlyLady sink today for your very much optical pleasure.

Tonight is our first night with our new meal planners too. Thanks Grama! Got a subscription to Savingdinner.com for Christmas. Tonight is Feta Chicken and zucchini. It’s gonna be delish. I’m really hoping it will help us eat healthier meals and keep our grocery costs to a minimum. Nothing like saving money whenever you can right? If It turns out pretty I’ll take a picture.

Emily has decided she hates having water poured on her head. She used to do just fine in the bath with water on her head. Now she stands up and says “It’s ok” and shakes her head. It’s kinda sad. We are just going to have to figure out a better way to wash stinky’s hair or else she’ll have to keep showering with daddy. She was sitting in the tub playing with her toys and she started pretending she was cooking. Here is word for word her conversation with me.

EM: “Im cooking fish!”(she put her soap bottle in a cup and stirred it around)
” Oops I drinked it all”(drinks some bath water)
“I’m making more” ( fills the water up again in the cup)
(Then she offers me some and I pretend to drink it) “Ooops. Mommy ate it all. Silly Mommy. “

It was pretty hilarious.

We’ve started potty training! Em has already gone pee 3 times on the potty. As soon as she found out she gets a treat for going potty she was soooo excited to go. We can hardly keep her in clothes now. We bough some pull-ups and she likes her “special panties”. The little dragons go all blurry if she pees her self. No poopies yet, but she hasn’t had any while not in her bed either. So we’ll see how this goes. If anyone has any tips they’d be much appreciated.

She’s also decided she doesn’t want to be fed at all. She will only eat if I let her “Scoop it iself”. It’s made for a bit of a messy transition, but she’s actually quite good at it. She can even eat cheerios without making to much mess. She is best with yogurt or cottage cheese, but she will eat anything if she can “scoop it iself”.

I think I’m going to make some Chai tea and fold laundry while watching Big Trouble with Tim Allen and Kronk!

January Goal Update!

Well I was mistaken on my blogiversary date. I thought it was at the beginning of January, but its at the end so you’ll have to wait longer for the special celebration. It has been a year since I started working hard core at my goals. So today you get an over all goal up date. I’m afraid it’s gonna be a real date and I’m going to own my stuff, instead of telling you that I made it 100 percent. I have to look back on the last years goals so I can work towards setting this years goals. Statistically most people don’t complete there goals, but statistically those that set them do better than those that don’t. So here is my update:

Goal 1: “I am going to get healthy.” - Rough percentage of goal completed…64%. (I used a calculator) I started the year at 214 pounds….AHHHH. I worked my butt off (Literally) until April. I worked less hard at eating goo in the summer, but Emily and I put some serious miles on the stroller so that worked out ok. The fall wasn’t so good so I hit a plateau. Followed by a rough Christmas season. I’m a sucker for guacamole and chocolate. Today I went to the gym and did a weigh in and although I am up almost 12 pounds…Today I weigh 182 lb. Yay! Total loss of 32 pounds! I’m feeling a bit crappy about the disaster called December, but I’m already working away at it again. I won some battles and lost some. My gym, that I loved, closed. I join a gym I don’t love, but kept going. I won an inches lost competition at my new gym. I ate alot of guacamole. I ate alot of salad. I learned lots, and I haven’t quit yet! I decided I’d rather fight this battle at the low end than the high end of the scale, so There is more work to be done. I am now officially 22 pounds away from my goal weight. So this goal carries over into 08. I think this is a lifelong goal.

Goal 2: “I am going to grow in my relationship with Jesus.” Rough Percentage completed…How do you measure something like that?? I guess the bible says you can measure things by their fruit. There have been alot of good things that have happened this year. I think it was a good year for doing things. Lots of preaching and worship and traveling with crazy youth. I still don’t feel like I’m growing to the place I want to be yet. I think it’s ok to be frustrated with a lack of spiritual growth. I think it causes you to seek to grow. I love the paradox or opposites of not needing to strive to be good enough, but wanting to be at the same time. I think this years goal is going to have to include learning to BE with Jesus not just DO stuff for Him. Confusing yes! Exciting YES!

Goal 3: “I am going to get my house organized.” Rough Percentage of goal completed…75%. I think I did pretty good on this one. The only cardboard boxes in my house are ones that Christmas ornaments came in that are easier to put them away in. I de-cluttered all the rooms in the house. Currently my basement is a disaster because Christmas is only shoved down there. It needs to be tetris-ed back into the shelving units. I got new shelving units and clear bins and did a pretty good job of organizing everything down there. I even had a laundry station there for a while, until “Somebody” decided we needed another table in the office. So overall I think I did a pretty good job. I’ve still got a few ideas up my sleeve that will finish the job off, but we have made huge progress.

SO… overall I think it was a pretty great goal year. I did all that and I have a toddler. Crazy I know. Hopefully by next week I’ll have my new goals up. and we can look forward to another productive year. Cheers!