Dan Hugo

gah!!! i am sick. again. seems like i am sick a lot. but it started sunday right after i drank a beer, like instantly!! and then got worse on monday and then yesterday, ugh. i went into work, was actually quite productive but the time was crawling. left early to go to a school conference. but then got to the school just as eric and the kids were walking out - i missed the conference! omg, i almost started crying. not only was a sick, but i felt like a bad parent, not there to hear about seamus's progress and her goals and her school work. when we got home i went right to bed and slept for 2.5 hrs.
and wow, back into obesity i am falling, upwards!! i was only a tiny bit on the brink of not being obese but then eric had to go to leavenworth for a weekend to ski and now i am sick and we all know that leads to huge amounts of cereal and other crappy things being put in my carmelita hole. although that is partially how i got into this mess in the first place i think. no win.
so i have been a little depressed and weepy lately. ever since the crappy swim last week and then with being sick its just gotten worse.
so i decided i should post some photos of my boyfriend Dan Hugo. i love him. i am pretty sure he loves me too. its totally mutual. here are some photos of dan from the internets.

here is dan hugo thinking about me. he is in some tropical location as is apparent by the palm leaves in the background, and he misses me.

this is one of my favorites, i ask him to run for me some times. just for fun.
and since i am such a craptastic swimmer, he is planning on helping me.
this one is funny because he is trying to make me jealous by talking to these girls.
xoxo

swimming blows

oh, i got myself into such a swimming pity party this morning that i almost started to cry. not while swimming, but after, while sitting at my desk at work. woe is me and how sucky of a swimmer i am. as for the aqua jogger - she wasn't using a floating device, the pool is shallow so she was moving along touching the bottom.
today i thought was going well, i was kicking and keeping up with the old lady doing butterfly in the lane next to me. maybe i was even gaining on her occasionally.
but then everything fell apart after that. lots of drills, but its not helping, hence the almost cry and the pity party. maybe i need a new swim suit.
i did wear my new top to the gym last night while i ran. i was looking good in it, too. i left work at 5 and didn't get home until 7:50, but only ran for 1:10. how is that possible? what was i doing that other hour and 50 minutes?
lets break it down:
5pm - leave work
5:04 - arrive at the gym and get a quick parking spot which is pretty impressive!
5:06 - waiting in line for them to check me in.
5:07 - duck into the pool area to avoid being blocked behind the slow walkers on the way to the locker room.
5:08 - arrive in the locker room before the slow walkers, yay!! hit the jon and change my clothes.
5:24 - check the cinema room for open treadmill, none available, but hang out long enough to see that Hanna is playing.
5:27 - get on a treadmill out in the open, tune into a show about Tupac, Biggie and Suge and start my 20 minute warm up.
5:47 - get a drink, pee again, head into the cinema room to do some drills and watch some Hanna.
6:03 - manage to get back on a treadmill because somehow ALL of them were occupied when i was done with my drills and stuff. ALL of them, with a line even. 3 were broken, too.
6:04 - tune into Toddlers and Tiara's and start up my workout.
6:34 - intervals done
6:35 - head to the locker room because i decided i needed to change back to my old orthotics
6:38 - stop at the water fountain and stand there waiting as two girls just stood there infront of them
6:41 - found a free treadmill, tunned back into toddlers and tiara's and started 20 min cool down.
7:01 - done! whew! finally
7:02 - see that the stretching area is totally full so head to the "ladies only!" section and just lay there for a few minutes
7:06 - start stretching and doing some PT
7:20 - head to the locker room to shower
7:35 - get in the car and start the drive home
7:50 - arrive home
gracious. that was a long 1:10 run.

so today, for lunch, i had this:

because i knew i was going to have this directly after:

what is that you ask? its a carmelita from Whole foods. Unfortunately i love them. and like the poptarts in the vending machine, once i start thinking about them, there is a certain gravitational like pull that puts them in my mouth.
oh dear. well, at least i managed to not also take down my afternoon snacks.
but i got on the trainer when i got home and eric made a penne bake which is da'bomb so i ate two big bowls of that. when he first started making it back in the day he would use the good sausage, im talking the good stuff, and we would easily go through it in a night. until i did some math and figured it has like 100 grams of fat and 1200 calories in that package.

i do like on the jimmy dean site, right above this image there is the following:

gross, right?? anyway, eric uses some sort of turkey sausage now which is still not good for us but better.
now i am patiently waiting for the kids to go to bed so i can have the last of the pinckney cookies that the evil eric brought home yesterday, or maybe a bowl of cereal. i think my metabolism is finally kicking back in, or something.

skiing

we went skate skiing again today. it is exhausting. so fun but wow, i am really tired. eric was trying to tell me that for every hour of skate skiing, its the same as 3 hours of cycling. not sure that is right, but considering i have yet been able to manage 2hrs of actual ski time, its probably not too far off.

yesterday was uber productive! despite having imbibed lemony goodness friday night, and dreaming about sodas all night long and when eric woke up in the morning i asked him to get me a coke and he said no but sho' nuffs when i did get out of bed eventually i got a coke which while i was drinking it the kids were like - omg what are you doing!! since they haven't ever seen me drink the coca colas before. but i got out the door and swam for an hour. man, i am the slowest swimmer in all of the universe. how do i know this you ask? because i was doing a hard 100 and the aqua jogger in the lane next to me was keeping up. :(
but then i got on the treadmill and ran for 1:10. i was tired of running in the snow and slush and since i had escaped the cul de sac, i decided to take advantage of the treadmill. it was a good run, nice and easy, trucking along.
after i had to head into seattle to get my eyelashes did but did some shopping while i was there. i picked up this tank:http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

only in black with black camo underneath. maybe i will look cute next time i go to the gym. or maybe when i am out running this summer? i normally wear my old race shirts, and i tend to get those shirts in big big sizes, so i think maybe this will do a good job.
then i picked up a pair of jeans. they are one step away from jeggings i am afraid. i think, maybe.
but today while i was out skiing i thought of my new favorite blog, from the land of cheese and sunkist. she is working on improving her backside and has named it operation booty pop. well, while i was hiking it up yet another one of those hills, all i could think was too bad she lives in florida because i am pretty sure my booty is popping from today.
back to work and reality tomorrow.

its goes a little like this

i was just bragging about my 20 days on the wagon when i fell off. whoops!

a little bit of being snowed in, a little bit of loss of electricity, heat and internets. omg, beyblades are going to be the death of me. hot water was on, so that was good, and it all came on today, but add that to a rest day, an attempt at escaping only to high center the car on a block of ice/snow and then to have the brush guard broken and torn off (how much is that going to cost?) followed by jumping into the most giant monster truck imaginable and then hours and hours of waiting, well that results in the consumption of the strongest lemon drops ever, along with the tastiest mucho macho nochos and bbq burger followed by ice cream with 8yr old hot fudge. oh yummy, or something.

20 days was a good run, but it was, one could say, our anniversary celebration, right. we'll see how i feel in the morning. gotta swim, gotta run. omg, let's see if i gained 1000lbs. ah, joy. i have to get my eyelashes fixed. my right eye is almost eyelash free while my left eye still has them all. i am looking good, kinda like this, only opposite.

snowblast 2012

first, this is me getting the tiny, invisible E.

we spent our anniversary at home. we tried to go out but we couldn't get out of our hood. plus, we're pretty sure the place we were heading was closed due to the weather. i was on a business trip for our 5yr, and for 10yrs we are snowed in, which was nice after all.
next, this is fuzy laying on the Sky Mall rug. he loves it. he just walks right into the kitchen then falls onto his side with a thud. plop. he has one of his pompoms there with him. he loves them and carries them all over. yesterday i found about 10 of his toys in the fireplace in the living room.

today is day 3.5 of being snowed in. yesterday was exciting because there was no electricity, no heat, no internets, no cell receptions. good times. eric had the fire going all day which was nice. i went for a run outside which was nice, and then got on the trainer. i warmed my chamwow butter by the fire since it was so so chilly from being in the garage.

later we tossed both kids into sirus's bed, each in their sleeping bags with flannel sheet, quilt, blanket, and another quilt and of course footie jammies. we had our flannel sheets, down comforter, blanket, blanket, blanket. eric reminded me that although it was chilly in the house, we have been camping in much colder. the toughest part for me was no internets!!! we were lucky though that it was only for a day and that we had so much firewood. eric also moved all of our perishables out onto the deck, and while i was worried that the bears would come drink all of his beers and eat our yogurt, but alas, they did not.
speaking of which, today is day 20. i have not had any lemon drops, margaritas or beers in all of those days. wow, that was uber tough last night when eric pulled one of the beers from the back deck and began to chug it, all super frosty and super, omagosh, i wanted a sip. but i held strong, but he is very mean.

Sky Mall

i love it. it brings hours of entertainment with every flight.
i have even made two purchases from the sky mall catalog! TWO.

one was this rug a long long time ago. possibly pre-eric even. the color here is bad, but you can get the idea of what is going on. darling kitties drinking milk all at the same time. i like that some of them are laying flat on their bellies with their feet sprawled right behind them.


the other this the garden yeti. this was a father's day present for eric. the yeti is proving to be a little bit of a wuss as he isn't holding up too well in the severe weather of the pac nw. now he is wintering in the garage.


but today the catalog showed up and the cover totally grossed me out. i can't find it online, but its of a waterproof keyboard with coffee being spilled on it. only the coffee has cream in it, so its kind of that yucky coffee color and it looks terrible and gross on that cover. they should have dumped a soda or a black coffee or something. totally grosses me out. but i am thankful for that cover because i decided to look for a photo on line and although i couldn't, i found this which you may purchase from the catalog.

could you imagine pulling that thing out and blowing it up? better yet, at the end of your flight, deflating it, blowing all that stale air all over your row mates? ew, makes me shiver and laugh each time.

AND then for some reason while looking for the coffee spill cover photo, these photos came up and they are my very new most favorite favorites ever:


you never see football players doing this. or race car drivers, or not even golfers. i love cyclists, but they just need to stop doing this to themselves, although it does bring me great joy, so carry on, boys! carry on!

tilda

today janet braved snowblast 2012 to join me in the garage for some riding of the bikes. we did her favorite workout full of ILT, Spin Ups and Spin Outs. I was convinced she was going to be snowed in and live with us forever after but she must be an expert snow driver because she drove away with ease. however, i showed her my tattoo. she let out her awesome laugh to the point at which i thought she might begin to cry. then she semi composed herself, and asked, was that the wrong response? no, it was definitely not the wrong response, it was perfect. when i showed it to my mom, she couldn't even see it. i had to be like - right here, right here where i am pointing. oooh, now i see it.
the kids and i then went to the gym and then to get seamus's hair cut. she has been growing it out and it was a little past her shoulders. i loved it when she would let me put it in pig tails or most recently in one big pony tail in the back, i love when it is off of her adorable face, but she prefers to have it hang down, not even ever tucking it behind her ears. it drives me crazy. finally on friday she had a little breakdown, because brushing her hair twice a day is too much for her. so i scheduled an appointment and we got it cute. super short and stacked in the back, angling towards the front to a max length of right below her earlobes, and of course her bangs, she loves her bangs.
on the way to the hair cut, sirus was singing i'm sexy and i know it. seamus of course had to burst his bubble by telling him how he didn't even know what sexy meant. so of course he asked her. she said it was the same thing as sixty but he wouldn't buy it. she didn't know either, so he asked me if i knew what it meant, good lord. i said it was when people think you look good, so he continued to go on and on about he was sexy and he knew it.
i am fascinated with tilda swinton. here she is at the golden globes, fascinating!!!

40yrs and going strong

back in ohio there was a german deli right by our house. the deli always smelled weird, like terrible but there were always interesting things to look at in there. plus, the deli had two of the most tasty things every - first was a sandwich, kind of a sub i guess. i remember that it had some sort of pickle on it, i think. can't remember much more than that, but i remember that it was tasty and i could go for one right now.
but most notable is that they had a nut roll. what is that? its tasty goodness. my mom would send them to me when i went away to college and every time i came home to visit after moving away i would buy one or 4 to bring home with me.
sadly the german deli went out of business. so sad, it was where tasty goodness came from.
xtie found a nutroll once at a farmers market. she gave me some and i thought she told me where it was from, but i never went there. but i look for them. i figured we would find it in leavenworth but alas, there is none there. we even asked the people in the bakeries and none of them even knew where we could find it.
but yesterday, because eric hates me and loves me, made the nut roll.

apparently, when he picked sirus up from school, the crossing guard had a plate full of international treats. eric spotted a nut roll on that plate and instantly asked her about it. apparently one of the parents had made it for international day at school! she got the recipe for eric and then he made it!! 1st attempt was good, but not really right. i still ate the whole thing. for those of you who don't know. its like a loaf of bread. the whole loaf of bread. but then today when i came home, he had made another one! and this one is perfect!!! and i am trying not to eat the whole thing so i can share it with xtie and my mom this weekend. it might not make it, he might need to make another one. and begin mass production so we can sell them and make our millions. SO TASTY!!!

so last night when i was brushing my teeth before going to bed i decided that maybe i would get another letter of eric's name tattooed on me every 10 years. so his name will be complete on our 40th anniversary. when i told him this plan, i paused and was like, but then he'd would probably leave me when his name was complete. but he said no, he would leave me right after i get the I, so i would have just ERI. today, i was thinking, really i should have gotten a C and then just added the letters backwards. that would have worked, too.

i was like, wow. stop it.

haha!! so happy!! someone found my blog by searching for janet jackson armpits. i gag a little every time i think about those pits.

today sirus cleaned up the playroom. he did it by himself without being asked. but tonight, i overheard him tell eric that it was almost too big of a job for one man to handle. luckily, sirus is quite the man and was able to take care of it. he has been wearing his handsome vest the past two days. today he wore it with his handsome pants, which is kind of funny. he's got style.

other news. today i got a tattoo. i already had one. i got it in like 1997 i think. its been a long time and i forget that i have it. but! when i was having kids it was good because it points right to where the anesthesiologist plugs in the epidural! i was thinking ahead!

i had planned to get the new tattoo last april when i was in the SF area. we were down there for team summit which is always fun, but doubley fun was that i got to hang out with allie. never mind that she has moved into the deep deep south way far away and i won't get to see her this year, but she did all kinds of research and calling around to get me a tattoo appointment while i was there, only to discover that you really shouldn't swim with a new tattoo. what? who would have thunk it. so it was canceled. when in the world would i get around to it again?

if i would have been quick on my feet, i would have taken the opportunity when i first was getting treatment for my back and wound up taking some time off from training all together, but it didn't occur to me then.

then i could have gotten it done with i had my most recent surgeries since seeing as i wound up not swimming for like two weeks do to the resulting blood and guts, but again, i didn't think of it.

so, the tattoo was an anniversary present. to eric. from me.on me. really to retaliate against him for getting my name tattooed on his shoulder. he's had it on there for a long long time. not sure if it was before we were married or not, can't remember, that was a long time ago, but i do remember it was when he was at a race in wisconsin. he came home and was like ta-daaaaa! and i was like, wow! um, wow! i had told him i'd never get his name on me. not because i didn't love him, but just because, why would you do that? so for our 10yr anniversary i decided that the letter E would suffice. the size of a penny, in white, on my hip.

i went today at lunch and had it done and wow, it really hurt. i remember my other one being more of a buzzing, but this one, i was like, wow. stop it. luckily it is very small and it really didn't take any time at all.

when i came home i showed it to eric. he was like, huh? you got a scar? and i was just like, see, its a little awkward when someone gets a tattoo for you. and he was like, but its just an E. That could be an E for anything. to which i responded with, exactly, and E in almost see through invisableness. so we had a few laughs. he thinks its cute. it is pretty cute.

i showed it to seamus and she said she won't ever get a tattoo. internets - here it is, documentation of her saying that on 1/11/2012. please internets don't become technologically obsolete before she is 18!

speaking of technologically obsolete, while watching the star wars movies with the kids, eric had a good point. how is it possible that c3po and r2d2 remained functional and relevant for all those years and years when my phone is like only a year old and is totally obsolete already?

trying really hard!

really i am! i am trying to stay on track but alas, it is very difficult. especially when faced not just with a rest day but an entire rest week! the week still involves plenty of activity but not enough to warrant the pinckney cookie (at least now they are all gone) and trader joe's candy cane jojos (yikes, there is still an entire row of them left!!)that were just consumed. a bit of a binge today since there were some reese's peanut butter cups taken down earlier PLUS two hershey kisses, each propped on it's own spoonful of peanut butter. gah!!! at this rate, i might as well drink the entire bottle of patron that has been taunting me.
at least i had no resolution about sweets, only the alcohol, and i am doing pretty good with that one.

while looking for the candy cane jojo image, there was this photo of a mini cheesecake that was was made sitting on top of a jojo. we have made those where you put the nilla waffer under there, but an oreo like cookie would be wonderful!




while searching for images of hershey kisses sitting on their own spoon of peanut butter i found these totally cute hershey kiss acorns!

i also found this example of nipple cookies gone bad.
and THESE! i am totally going to make these.
but this is what the pinckney cookies look like: totally delish.


save me! save me!!!

pits

i don't want the chef's table entrees even if they are free.

more??

this trend has got to stop.

its a good think i like armpits

what is this?? who in their right mind thought that this was a good photo to use? COME ON. i will admit that i did click on it, but just to see if there were more photos of janet jackson's armpits and you KNOW those nasty things were totally photoshopped. tyra is always telling the top models to stop showing us the pits, no one wants to see them but apparently everyone at nurtisystem thinks that we do and that we must in order to be a success.

progress

making progress i am!! yahoo. hope to stay on this path for a while.

today at work i thought i was having an appendicitis. oh it was horrible. so horrible i started getting dizzy and i was going to throw up and all i wanted to do was lay down. i called eric and was all woe is me. i was almost headed to the hospital and then i felt better and i no longer had an appendicitis. so i went for an hour run. now i feel fine but i think i need to roll around on the tennis ball for a bit. eric thinks its from my new favorite beverage of choice, hot water with lemon.

i ran on the treadmill at the gym. i was at they gym yesterday as well. its crazy there, every treadmill is taken, i watched 10 cars pull into the totally full parking lot as i was trying to turn out of it. new years resolutions in full swim. except for at the pool. yesterday i showed up and there was 1 guy in there. i stood on the side of the pool and was like, eww, its pretty foggy in there. he said yeah, and chilly, but he said he was pretty sure it was totally safe. ha. doubtful, but i got in and swam anyway. today i walked by the pool, only today there wasn't anyone in it except a few little kids sitting on the side with their feet in. but it wasn't foggy any more. so that was good. hoping its clear and not so cold tomorrow morning. gotta get back on the morning training train. today while on the treadmill, i was watching 24. the last time i was there and they were showing 24 jack's wife and daughter were being held captive. this time the wife and daughter were fine, but jack was held captive and then they got his daughter again. i'd be so mad if i were his wife and daughter.

we're watching cowboys and aliens. i sure do like daniel craig. but why does harrison ford talk like that now that he is old?

at the end of the first star wars when princess leia was giving luke and han solo their medals, sirus said that really she was just trying to decide which of them she was going to marry. he also said that darth vader doesn't have a gun like the rest of his team.

progress people. progress!!! moving in a positive direction!

Sparklinglady's Blog Star Date: 2012

the new year is off to a good start.
only 2 of my eye lashes have fallen out which, seems pretty good to me considering the lady was telling me i needed $50 of lash care products and another appointment by the end of next week. i passed on all of that. let's keep these lashes the way they are. although, i haven' yet swam with them, i wonder if they will fit in my goggles. tomorrow is the day to find out.
yesterday we went skate skiing. it was so fun. it was so nice to be out in the fresh cold air, but still so warm and working so hard. what i want to know is why did we feel like we were going so fast when really we were going at what would equate to a slow run pace? my pace was improved from friday, and i don't know what a good pace is, but i was happy with the workout, the weather was fantastic, eric was fun and i am excited to have gotten to try it. now i am trying to figure out when i can go again. apparently it is ok to swap out any bike ride for some skate skiing, but i must continue to run, ya know, to continue to adapt to the pounding. apparently i need to get some new shoes, too.
i wanted to get my haircut today. its a mess. but the guy wasn't in today. now i will likely wait another several months. i am starting to realize why he keeps trying to give me bangs. my hairline is rediculous and i guess he is trying to cover up my non-botoxed forehead. they used to tease me in college that i had a squishy forehead. i dont really remember it being squishy, but now, some days, its so squishy that i a wrinkle it up and then it sticks like that! and in the summer time! i swear it winds up being striped! good thing i live some place where there isn't any sun.
i have come to realize that maybe i am having a bit of a reaction to the neosporin that i have been using on my surgery site. what is strange is that i am less self conscious over the giant red oozing blob that is now there than the red bump that was there before. maybe its my lovely eyelashes.
i go back to work tomorrow, which after a long vacation is always a little scary, mainly because i'm never quite sure if any of my pants will fit. i have worn my house uniform pretty much the past 17 days and that is it. fingers crossed!