No Excuse September

I just looked back and realized I haven't updated this blog since April.  Makes sense, because that's right about the time I fell off the wagon in my diet and exercise regime.
It really defies common sense.  When I was working out, practicing yoga regularly, and eating reasonable healthily, I felt happier, more mentally alert, and much more patient with my fellow human beings.
But once I started falling off the wagon, it felt impossible to claw my way back on.  This led to less energy to exercise or run.  So my descent continued.
I did find a new yoga studio that I like okay.  I still do want to try crossfit, but I'm afraid I will physically die if I try.
And I'm trying to decide if I want to try weight watchers with a friend, or if I just want to go back to My Fitness Pal, which was very successful for me before.
I absolutely hate people who are constantly getting super excited about the next big weight loss thing, only to drop off of it a week later, so I have tried just to not even discuss my setback and how blue I'm feeling about it.
I don't like to be perceived as feeling sorry for myself, and that's not really how I'm feeling about it.  More like, just irritated with myself because I know I can do it, I have done it, but I won't do it.
But I'm definitely working my mind around to doing it again.  I signed up with some really great friends to run the Princess in February so I need to get my head in the game.   Getting picked up by the "slow people" cart would absolutely suck.

The one thing I will say in my defense is summer in Arizona is like winter in the rest of the world, only backwards.  Too freaking hot to do anything.  But it's starting to cool down now, it was only 103 today.....so no excuse September is here.

If you are what you eat, I should be tanner, like beef jerky.

Holy Hell, I haven't posted in a long time.  And there has been a reason for that.  I have fallen off the good eating wagon.  For a while, it was just a "taste", or just a "little cheat".  Then pretty soon, I was still counting calories but eating crap (but I'm still under my 1500 calories, so it's okay if it was all in Ruffles and french onion dip, right?).
But today was a banner day for me in bad eating.  Seriously, it was like if I wasn't putting something in my mouth with at least every third breath, I wouldn't survive.  Today, Hershey's Kisses were apparently my substitute for a ventilator.
This feeling is always so weird.  I'm not hungry, in fact, I get to the point where I'm actually nauseated and feel like I have filled my gullet up with food to the back off my throat.  Like it's chimney packed solid.
I'm sure you think I'm exaggerating so I'm going to list everything I shoved in my pie hole today.
I started with a Venti Skinny Frappacino at Starbuck's because I was using my reward for a free drink so you have to take advantage and order the largest size, right? It's only financially savvy.  Then I got a piece of lowfat cinnamon swirl coffee cake, because if I wasn't paying for coffee, it would be cheap not to order something, right? The lowfat label must mean that the 340 calorie count that My Fitness Pal gives this obviously healthy treat (duh, remember I said "lowfat") is incorrect.
I got to work and felt a little pudgy, so the answer to that is to start cleaning off my desk.  This is when I discovered that I may be a hoarder.  I had 4 tiny size 00 mac and miller blades in my overhead cabinet.  Did i think I would be intubating a newborn in between typing up corrective actions and granting PTO requests?  What ever made me think this was something that I needed to have nestled between my copy of "Good to Great" and a box of tampons?  I had a baggie full of 1.5" 20g IV's that we use for ultrasound.  I do sometimes start lines for my nurses, but I'm not sure I need my own private supply kit, tucked behind a bag of trail mix that looked suspiciously old.  I found my professional portfolio next to a box of hospital maxi-pads.  I must have anticipated a water leak in a pipe to need the 4" inch thick hospital pads that absorb absolutely nothing.
Well, these findings began to stress me out.  Why was I keeping this stuff, why was it all so dusty, why did the hospital cut housekeeping so now I have to take out my own trash? Obviously, the only thing that would make this better was a mouthful of gobstoppers. 
I keep bowls of candy and gum for my staff.  Normally, I can resist but today it was like the jelly belly's were coated with a light dusting of crack cocaine.  I was chewing gobstoppers when I realized I had a meeting.  I started walking down the hall unwrapping a Dove chocolate, when I realized my mouth was full of gobstoppers which I needed to at least FUCKING SWALLOW before I started preparing the new piece of candy to go in my mouth.
Because I'm trying to be healthy, I wanted to make sure I got my protein, so I made sure to alternate my chocolate with Teriyaki beef jerky.  Obviously, these are two tastes that are meant to go together (at least for people like myself,  with multiple personality disorder.)
Whatever, I moved on.  Went to my meeting, like a champ, then wandered to the cafeteria to see what slop they were passing off for food today.  Because even though it's disgusting, I didn't want to miss it.  Lo and behold, they were in the break between breakfast and lunch so I couldn't do any harm, but I did see they were serving corn chowder soup for lunch.
I moseyed back to my office and did some paperwork, all the while popping gobstoppers in between typing.  Then I looked up and saw a half hour had passed and my corn chowder would be available now.  Okay, here's the thing, our hospital used to have great soup.  Then the old lady who made it retired, so now it sucks.  But it doesn't stop me from eating it everytime, and then acting surprised that it still sucks.  It's like having your second child and acting like it's a big shocker when it hurts to pass a watermelon through your innards. The new soup lady lets me down everydamntime.  But I keep filling up my bowl like a damn Charles Dickens orphan, like I've got a diagnosed short term memory problem.
Anyway, as I'm eating my soup, my friend says that the guys went out for Taco Bell, do I want anything.  I'm like of course, get me a Doritos Taco.  Now, as my friends know, I DON'T EAT TACO HELL!!! I freaking hate Taco Bell, with it's hepatitis, long fingernailed workers (yeah, I'm looking at you, Dekalb).  And, I'm eating a corn based soup, with chunks of potatoes.  So obviously, that couldn't possibly be filling with the three packets of crackers I've crumbled into it.  I MUST have Taco Bell or I will die.
I eat the Taco Bell, and honest to Christ, I'm so full, I can't even make it go down my throat.  It's literally packed down my esophagus like a goddamn Thanksgiving turkey. Gobble, gobble, motherfucker.
Off to the rest of my day.  Cupcake for a staff member's birthday? Of course, I'll even go across the street to buy the rainbow colored messes. Handful of candy for the drive home and is that a Cadbury egg I see in the pocket of my purse?  Yum yum, piggy piggy.
Then I'm obviously not full, so I decide to take the kids to P.F. Chang's, where the waiter walks over with free lettuce wraps for us because he is obviously a caring individual who sees that I haven't eaten a thing all day. A spring roll, Mongolian beef and brown rice later, and here I am sitting by the pool, wondering how many days it will take to digest the absolute mountains of food I consumed today.
I'm hoping this mental/verbal purge will get me back on the right track tomorrow, otherwise, I fear I will have to be rolled into work like the blueberry girl from Willy Wonka..

Please tell me I'm not the only Violet Beauregarde here.............

Change the record....what's your soundtrack?

We've been experiencing artic temperatures here (39 degrees when I wake up!), and I have really slacked on my running.  But my 5k arrived last Saturday and even though I wanted to hide in my bed and pull the covers over my head, I laced up and headed out.
I arrived at the park and realized that I forgot my fitbit, my flipbelt and my earbuds so that I could listen to Jeff Galloway coach me through my race. Not a good start.
The race started and without my app in my ears, I didn't follow my normal Galloway method of a 3 minute warm up.  Big mistake, because I felt my legs start getting tired early in the run.  Galloway says the first mile is the most important time to do measured walk/run intervals, and after this experience, I believe him.
About a mile into the race, I told my friends to go on ahead of me (they hadn't stopped training like this dummy so I didn't want to affect their times).  As I jogged along on my own, I looked up and saw a heavy girl walking back towards the start line.  What struck me was the angry, defeated look on her face.  I was so bummed for her, because it wasn't the physical run that was stopping her, (she could have very easily walked the rest of the race) it was the voice in her head that was telling her she couldn't finish.
So I kept plugging along, even though I was beating myself up in my head for slacking on my training.  I  kept thinking about how I could be running faster, how my legs shouldn't feel so heavy, about how far ahead of me my friends were.....you name it, if it would make me feel worse, it was going through my head.
When I came to the final bridge to run over, I was feeling pretty bad about myself.  Then I looked up, and my friend's husband and his parents were standing halfway on the bridge cheering for me.  And her husband came and ran that final bit with me, pushing me to the end.  And finally, my inner voice shut up.  Because I realized that even if I wasn't the fastest, even if I struggled the whole way, I finished.  I had some great friends that were there cheering me on, giving me their support.  I didn't turn around and allow my negative self voice to win the battle.
So the next day, I was all dressed up, feeling like I looked reasonably cute when I ran up to Safeway for a few things.  I was over in the bakery aisle, looking at the bread when a cute guy bumped into me.  He smiled and said "excuse me", and I smiled back, opened my mouth to speak when the dairy commercial playing overhead let out a "MOOOOOOO".  FML.  I just turned and walked away without saying anything.
I couldn't stop laughing as I walked out to the parking lot, and of course shared this with my friends, who were anything but amused.  They didn't think I should have automatically compared myself to the cow in the speakers.  But that negative voice in your head has been playing a long time, and they know just the words to say to get your attention.
I need to learn how to change the record, but it's definitely something that you have to actively practice, just like running or healthy eating.  I hope I'm up to this challenge!!

Finding a new yoga studio......

I'm losing hope that my old yoga studio will reopen, so I broke out of my depression and forced myself to start looking around for other options.  I found that in a few weeks without yoga, I was becoming increasingly negative, having trouble sleeping and losing motivation to run or do any other form of exercise.
So I took my sad ass out this weekend, (thanks, Windee for marching along beside me! You are a trooper!) and tried two new yoga studios,Yoga Breeze and Yoga Pura. 
I really wanted to love Yoga Breeze because it's closer to my house, and I did like the studio and the two teachers I tried.  However, it's in a busy strip mall, and in my first class, they didn't utilize their music in a way to cover up the outside noise, which ended up distracting me. 
I even tried Yoga Breeze a second time (I wanted to love it that bad!), and when I walked in and hear music playing, I was pretty relieved.  Until I realized that the same song was on repeat for the entire class. I wanted to roll my head up inside my mat after the fourth time it started over.  Then for savasana, she just turned the music completely off, so we listened to the conversation of a couple of preteen girls outside the window.  Not a bit relaxing for this mother of girls.  During savasana, I like to tune out my real life, not be reminded of how annoying teen girl conversations are. I kept trying to tell myself if I was keeping my mind quiet, these things wouldn't bother me, but it was no use, I was irritated.
On Saturday, we went to Yoga Pura.  It didn't look like much from the street, just a storefront set into a little strip mall.  But when I walked in, it looked like a yoga studio, it smelled like a yoga studio and they were welcoming like a yoga studio.  I felt great when I left there, although I would have to say that this teacher didn't utilize music very effectively either, but we were able to hear the gongs from the other studio, so that was cool.
I think for me, yoga is more than the physical stretching, it's the emotional stretching.  I have a pretty stressful job, and it's easy to get overwhelmed and bogged down in the negativity.  When I go to yoga and they start talking about the theme of their class that week, it's a time for me to open my mind and allow positive thoughts to flood me.  I find if I can allow a positive phrase into my brain, I can use it all week.
One of the things said this weekend is that "You are the sky, the emotions you feel, the bad moods of others are the weather.  And the weather always passes over the sky, it always changes, it never covers the sky for long.".  I've heard it expressed another way, that you are your own ship and everything around you is the ocean.  Will you allow others to capsize your boat? Or will you steer it into safer waters?
And for me that is true.  I'm very influenced by the moods of people around me.  If they are stressed, it's easy for me to become stressed.  If people are unhappy at work, I feel like it's my job to fix it and it stresses me out if I can't.
But if I go to yoga regularly, I am able to have a much more zen approach to other people's feelings. I don't own them, I can't fix them, it's not mine. All I can do is live the best life that I know how, and for me that means laughing as much as I can.

Namaste.

Winter Blues............

Raise your hand if you've hit a winter slump.  Back when I lived in Illinois, I was usually in the depths of despair by February from a lack of sun and failure to be outside.  Since I moved to Arizona two years ago, I don't remember having my seasonal depression hit.  But it has made a surprising comeback in 2013.
I have to admit that I've hit a rough patch.  Due to the intense cold in Arizona (some mornings is was 36 degrees!), I stopped running at 5am before work.  But I felt like it was okay, because the 40 day yoga challenge had started and I had just done 12 straight days of 75 minute yoga classes.
Then I suddenly received news that my yoga studio was closing (hopefully, only temporarily) due to financial issues, so on a Friday morning, I found I had nowhere to go after work.  I am not a person who enjoys change. I've been going to yoga classes at least three times a week since last June.  So to suddenly have this gaping hole in my routine really shook me up.

Now I'm sure you would think, "okay, dumdum, that's your cue to get your ass out there and run again!".  But you would be wrong (you knew that, right?), because I suddenly found myself too tired to get up early in order to run before work.  This was really bad timing, because last Saturday, I ran my first 5k, the Color Run. 
I've been training for this 5k since October.  So it was weird that in the week before the race, I totally lost my drive. The more I stayed in bed longer, the worse I felt.  And I knew that not running was making me feel worse, but I felt helpless to change it.
The Color Run came on a very un-Arizona like day.  It was rainy, cold and miserable out.  I felt completely unprepared and like a complete poser even being at a 5k.  Thankfully, I had three friends (Windee, John and Andrea, you rock my socks!) run it with me because without them being there, I would have stayed at home with my head buried under a pillow.
So, not to say that I'm still not struggling with the blues, but this past weekend I did a 5+ mile walk/run interval, and I've run twice this week.  I don't want to do it, but I keep telling myself that even though I still feel blue, I'll feel even bluer if I don't get some endorphins moving.
Whenever, my brain gets to this point of glum bitchness,  I think about this scene from, "City Slickers". 

But like Billy Crystal, I just keep trying new things and hoping to find my smile.  Hopefully, it won't involve birthing a calf.

If your students leave crying, they probably aren't coming back.....

The other night I was walking into my yoga class, when I passed a young yoga teacher speaking pretty intensely to a visibly upset student, who wasn't meeting her eyes.  She was telling the teary girl that "exercise is supposed to be hard, you're supposed to hate it and then when you're done, you are glad you did it.".  The girl was sniffling and nodding, and looking totally defeated.
I skirted around the drama and went into my class with my usual teacher.  But I couldn't get this scene out of my head.  It made me think, "Am I doing something wrong?  Do I have to hate my workout in order for it to be effective?"
For me the answer is no.  I don't enjoy being forced to do things that I don't want to do. I can try to talk myself into it, but I pretty quickly move into "dig in and resist" mode.  I loathe feeling forced into doing things that I don't want to do or spending time with people who make me feel stupid (I spend a good portion of my day feeling stupid, no assistance is required, thankyouverymuch!).

I was very fortunate when I started yoga at Blissful Yoga studio, I took classes from some awesome teachers who encouraged my practice from the ground up.  Teachers who supported and guided my practice, but still made me feel as if I was doing well (even if I now know that I started out horribly inflexible). 
I still go to Intro to Yoga classes simply because I love the teachers.  And I continue to learn from them as I improve my poses in each class.  A great yoga teacher encourages progress, while altering each class to match the level of the students, offering modifications so that no student is left feeling badly about themselves.
If I were to give any advice, it would be for you to find the exercise that makes you happy.  Yes, there are days you just don't want to work out, but it's even worse if you have to force yourself to do a workout that you hate.
I don't love to run.  I don't always love getting ready to go to yoga class.  But I feel good about myself while I'm doing it and after I'm finished.  And I believe that is the key that has finally kept my workouts consistent. 

My Friend, Jeff Galloway Teaches Me to Love My Slow Ass.........

I do not like cold weather.  Not one bit.  I made a deal with myself that I didn't have to run in the mornings if it was under 40 degrees. And it's been straight up freezing in Arizona for the last couple of weeks.  So between the subarctic weather and starting the 40 day yoga challenge, I haven't run in over 10 days.  But I really wanted to try the Lotus Run class at my yoga studio.  The class description said that it was running mixed with yoga poses.  It was very specific in saying it was for all skill levels including beginners (I don't go to any class that doesn't declare it's love for beginners).
When I got there, I chatted with the teacher, who told me she had fallen while hiking yesterday so she felt like it was going to be a short run today since she was one big bruise all up her left side.  (Is it wrong that my heart jumped in happiness over someone's fall?).  Two other girls joined us, and they looked normal, but then of course Super Marathon Man had to come in.  Everyone knows him, wearing his running shorts over his tights, bright green PF Changs marathon shirt, and all the iPod accessories strapped up his arm. The teacher mentioned that there were some beginners in our class, and he said that was fine as he had already run a few miles before arriving (of course he had).  We did a few warrior poses and off we went. 
I don't run unless my friend, Jeff Galloway is coaching me (yes, I believe that he made his app just for ME and that he is speaking specifically to ME),  so I began following his instructions for my walk/run intervals, and I immediately fell behind.  Like way behind. Like, so far back that the teacher said she was worried I would be kidnapped or attacked by a javelina, so she kept jogging back to check in on me.  I told her I was fine and she should feel free to go on without me. But she kept coming back, trying to encourage the pokey little puppy.
I finally looked at her and said, "You know, I'm fine.  I know I'm a beginner and I'm really comfortable with where I am."  She looked a little shocked and said it made her feel bad to have me so far back.  I said, "I've lost 30 pounds in the last six months, I know I'm a work in progress, and I'm really comfortable with where I am.".  I told her that I was following Jeff Galloway's program and it turned out she was a big fan of his also, so we chatted about that and off she ran to catch up with the others. 
But here's the funny thing, I was bringing up the rear for the first half of the run  but on the home stretch, I looked up and I was only a few yards behind the other girls, and then I pulled ahead of them for the remainder of the run. And that felt great.
This is exactly what my friend, Jeff Galloway says, by doing walk/run intervals, you are much less likely to get injured and you are much more likely to finish strong, and not run out of steam towards the end of your run.
These girls ran fast in the beginning and then they got tired and were unable to sustain their pace.  Me and my friend, Jeff Galloway were the tortoise in this race (except Marathon Man was the rabbit on crack, he had left all of us behind and wasn't looking back.).
No, I couldn't do the step ups on the high benches, but my standing triangle was amazing.  I couldn't do a straight line of hops, but I can fold myself in half like nobody's business.
My point is, that after six months of yoga, and lots of therapy, I'm getting comfortable with my body.  I can't do everything perfectly, but I can do a lot of things really well. 

If you are reading my ramblings, and you take anything away from it, I hope it's that anything you are doing to get your body healthy is awesome, and you should feel great about where you are in this moment.  Don't compare yourselves to anyone around you, don't compare your progress to anyone else's, just take pride in every step you take towards a healthier life.

Day 1 of 40.....or How To Know When You Really Aren't Trying.....

Well, I did it. I signed up for the new 40 Day Yoga Challenge at Blissful Yoga.  I was pretty nervous about doing this because I already know how hard it is after completing it last fall.  But I have a few friends who wanted to do it with me, and ain't peer pressure a bitch?

I seriously feel like my hands look like this.

So I was off to Candice's Bliss Flow class.  And I found that my muscle had some memory, but mostly it remember how to be lazy.  My boat pose was abysmal, I could barely hold it for 15 seconds, my side plank had a knee to the ground (which was like a knee to the groin of my ego).  I can't lift my entire body off the ground with only my ridiculously short monkey arms that end in freakishly small hands.
After the last 40 day challenge, I continued to go to yoga at least twice a week and started running, but lately, I've had to admit, at times, I am phoning it in.  I'm not pushing myself as hard as I could.  When I first started yoga, I would just drip sweat on the mat (and not in a hot yoga class!).  Lately, I'll break a little sweat, but nothing like last year.  When I run, I'm running longer all the time, but I'm still doing walk/run intervals and I'm not pushing myself to make the intervals longer.
So even though I'm putting in the time, I know in my heart that I'm not putting in the maximum effort.  When I'm running I often think of something Joan Didion wrote in her essay, "On Self-Respect", " Most of our platitudes notwithstanding, self-deception remains the most difficult deception. The tricks that work on others count for nothing in that well-lit back alley where one keeps assignations with oneself; no winning smiles will do here, no prettily drawn lists of good intentions. One shuffles flashily but in vain through ones’ marked cards the kindness done for the wrong reason, the apparent triumph which involved no real effort, the seemingly heroic act into which one had been shamed. The dismal fact is that self-respect has nothing to do with the approval of others – who are, after all, deceived easily enough; has nothing to do with reputation, which, as Rhett Butler told Scarlett O’Hara, is something people with courage can do without."
When people tell me they are exercising because I've inspired them, it makes me feel like a fraud.  I'm flattered but all I can think of is, "I'm no one to emulate, I'm not trying as hard as I should.".  But I have three people doing the yoga challenge with me, and I have people that are running the C25K and mention me as inspiration.  So when do you stop feeling like you aren't good enough to inspire?
This self-criticizing voice in my head is one reason that I love ending yoga class in Corpse Pose. It's almost like a little period of Happily Ever After.  It silences the voice that says, "you aren't working hard enough, you aren't inspiring, you aren't making progress.". It allows you disconnect from the reality of how difficult the class was and think, "oh, that wasn't so bad, I'm pretty relaxed." ("until next time, sucka!" thinks every yoga teacher as they watch you limp out of class).
Corpse pose helps balance your body, your ego and your treacherous mind. I like it when you are reminded to thank your body for all that it did for you today.  A healthy body that can even attempt yoga is truly a gift to be thankful for.
And since I didn't blog Sunday, this weeks nails are OPI "My Private Jet", a gift from my sweet sister, Wendy, who understands that nail polish is like a baby blanket to my soul.

Hot Yoga or At Least Now I Know What Hell Feels Like.......

Today I went to Yin yoga at 9:30 and then my friend, Windee convinced me to stay for hot yoga at 11:00.  Hot yoga was everything that I imagined (dreaded) it would be. I was pretty grumpy when I came in, moaning to Windee that I didn't want to do this, and she ignored my whining (which is one of the reasons she's awesome).
I don't like to be hot.  I don't like to sweat.  And I don't like vinyasa flow yoga.  So obviously a hot yoga class sounds like something you should take me to, right??  It didn't help that everyone in that class was all Lululemon and perfect bodies. I was annoyed immediately.  
Fortunately, work was having some issues so I got to leave the class twice to take a call (look Lululemon bodies, even though I'm wearing Old Navy yoga pants, I'm really busy and important!). Unfortunately, work said what they needed to say and refused to talk to me on the phone for long.  So I had to go back in.
I kept giving Windee the side eye, which made her laugh (another reason she rocks).  Class should be finished at 12:15, but not today!  Today we got our money's worth and stayed until 12:30!  Have you ever noticed massages never go over their scheduled time, but exercise class? Let me give you another 15 minutes of torture! On the house!
As we sat sideways and did a seated fold, I whispered, "I haaatttteeee yoooouuuuu" to Windee's back.  This only served to give her the giggles (final reason she rocked today).  She didn't seem to understand the depth of my despair.
Anyway, Blissful Yoga? A Introduction to Hot Yoga class might be a good idea for those of us who almost went home to their maker today.
The Sunday manicure has commenced.  Last weeks color, Gobsmacked by Butter is history.  I would give that polish a "C".  I painted two coats on Wednesday, along with a top coat and Chip Skip by OPI, and it still chipped a little by Friday, and was really chipped today.  I have found that Butter is a good "occasion" polish.  They have some kick ass colors, but no staying power (kind of sounds like an ex of mine.....).
OPI continues to be the Sunday staple.  Tonight, I used Midnight in Moscow. It's an awesome deep dark red.  I call it the red "Lincoln Park After Dark" (another all time fav).

Midnight in Moscow

Make it a great week! Make it OPI worthy!

Hippies

I am simultaneously fascinated and appalled by hippies (keeping in mind there are varying degrees of hippiness, the ones who are pooping in public parks as part of the Occupy movement are just all kinds of wrong.).  I'm talking about the naked bike ride hippies, the yoga hippies, the live on $2000 a year hippies.  I am fascinated by their happiness and their weirdness. Like how does your brain get there? Where do you wake up and think I would like to ride a bicycle with my naked hooha resting on a leather seat in front of equally naked 70 year old men?
But when you start trying to live a healthy life, it feels a little hippie-ish.  When you start talking about clean eating, vitamins, and yoga after a lifetime of meat and potatoes and circling the lot for the closest parking space, you feel like a hippie wannabe.
I was fortunate enough to get into a fb group that was focused on healthy living.  I quickly found some girls that were in different places on their healthy journey, so they inspire me in different ways (you know who you are, Heathers!). Soon a small group of us broke off from the big group and it's been even better! It is a safe place to discuss my "new" lifestyle without feeling like a fraud.   It may seem weird to some people, but think about it, if you can find an awesome husband online, why shouldn't you be able to find awesome friends?  I have!! (hmmm, maybe I should rethink eharmony......).
Don't get me wrong, my long time friends and my family are very supportive of my journey, but it's awesome to have that daily conversation with people who are on the same path as you.  Whether it's sweating out 10k steps a day on our Fitbits, trading Green Monster recipes, or holding each other to weekly weigh-ins, I know I wouldn't have been able to stay on this path without my new friends.
So stay open to new ways of making friends and look for support in unusual places. 
Love, Peace and Hippiness!

Butter nail polish........and Mean Girls

So my 2013 hasn't started out on the most productive note.  Some laundry was done, a bedroom was cleaned, some ceiling fans were vacuumed.  But I kept hearing from fb friends how packed the gym was and it made me feel like a slug.  Like I should be out there with all the January resolutioners.
But I started my better health journey back in late June, so I'm already in beast mode (actually, I'm still waiting to find out what beast mode feels like, I'm more like schizo weeble wobble mode when I'm exercising.).
Now I'm participating in my most sacred ritual, The Painting of the Nails.  This usually takes place on Sunday nights, but with the weirdness of the holidays, I'm off schedule.

Butter Gobsmacked - and chapped hands....

One of my 2013 resolutions was to break my dependence on OPI and to try new polishes. I received some Butter polish as a gift, and I LOVE the color!  The jury is out as to whether it has the staying power of OPI.  I don't have any patience with nail polishes that chip.  Chipped nail polish is for crackers.  Seriously, don't leave the house with jacked up polish.  It just makes you look sloppy because people always look at your hands.  At least, I always look at other people's hands, and everyone thinks like me, right? J/k, I know no one thinks like me.
I'm also watching Mean Girls on TV.  Wondering why I don't just get up and get my DVD out because this editing is out of control.  They keep substituting words and since I can recite the movie by heart, it's doubly annoying to me. Apparently, you can't say Damien is "too gay to function",or tell Cady, "I'm not retarded", when she tries to explain home schooling, but MTV has no problems with the words, "bitch", "slut" or "whore". These are the kind of pc things that make me gag.
So although nail polish and Mean Girls are two of my favorite things, this isn't an auspicious start to 2013.  I promise tomorrow will be better.