Mutual Weirdness

This past month has not been a good month. I've not posted any updates recently because there simply hasn't been any progress on my end. At the moment my weight is nearly exactly where it was a month ago. In fact some days it is up. I simply have not been able to get below 290lbs. But it is my own fault. The image above explains some of it. If I have a bad day I end up just going ahead and making it a "really" bad day. And I need to stop doing that. The other issue is that my walking has been sporadic at best. Several weeks ago the hubby got sick and we slacked off walking until he felt better. Then shortly after that he sprained his knee trying to start running. He was barely able to walk for about 2 weeks. And because I don't like to walk alone I of course wasn't walking either. His knee has been better for a couple of weeks now but we've not gotten back into walking regularly. We've been going to the zoo on the weekend still, we've even

So I figured I'd take a few minutes to post an update about what has been going on. It seems like I've been busy yet when I think about I can't really thing of much. We've been going to the zoo most every weekend since I bought a membership. I have taken more lovely pictures of the animals but to be honest they are not much different than the ones I've already shared. This past weekend we went to the Mosley Street Melodrama and caught their uncensored show. Was very good and will have to do it again. No pictures from that, and even if I had some they wouldn't be appropriate to share! We'll probably wait until the Christmas show starts though. We also hit up the local Renaissance Fair the weekend before which was a lot of fun. The hubby bought a replica of the sword "Sting" from Lord of the Rings. And I got a sunburn! Here are a few pictures from it... And it seems you can't have a Renaissance Fair anymore wit

For a while now I've wanted to buy an activity tracker, one that I can wear on my wrist. Pedometers require  you to remember to attach them to your clothing and I'm not good about remembering stuff like that. Problem is there are still a lot of choices when it comes to wearable activity trackers. Some of the most popular are Jawbone and Fitbit and I was looking seriously at the Runtastic Orbit since I use their apps but I kept waffling on which one I wanted. The Runtastic one is completely water proof and comes with 2 bands and the ability to put it into a clip if you want. But I had also been looking at the Samsung Gear Fit which is what I have decided to go with. It is part activity tracker, part smart phone assistant. It is a pedometer and workout tracker and has a built in heart rate monitor, but it also has a timer, a stop watch, and can control some of the apps and media on my phone. So, while I'll still need my phone with me for GPS and music while working out,

This is getting serious! Hubby and I decided since we will be running a 5k and in general trying to actually jog that we needed real shoes that are made to do the job!  These are what I got, Saucony Ride 7. The picture doesn't do them justice as the colors are a lot brighter. The yellow is very neon. Brian got a different brand and his are neon orange. They didn't have black ones in his size but he says he's ok with the orange. As for me, I'm just glad mine are not hot pink! They are going to take a bit for me to get used to as I've not worn shoes that actually have laces in a couple of years. Plus these go up around my ankle more (as they should) than what I am used to. It's new all around but I am determined! I actually jogged a very short distance in them last night and was happy that I was able to. It's been so long since I've tried to do any running that I wasn't sure my body would remember how! But it did. So soon we'll be starting a

As my husband and I are working to lose weight I keep thinking about starting a Couch to 5k program. The problem is that unless I have an actual 5k to go run at the end I'm not going to stay motivated to keep it up. Knowing this about myself I started wondering how to go about finding a 5k event. Over the Labor Day weekend my sister and brother-in-law answered the question for me when they told me about the Resolution Run. It is a 5k event happening on December 31, 2014. It is part of a larger event encompassing 3 5k runs and a half marathon. My sister said that they will be running this 5k so we decided to join them. We will not be doing all of the events, that is just way to much all at once. They told us about another 5k happening in October, but we decided that isn't far enough down the road for us to properly get ready for it. The end of December is just under 4 months from now. We can currently walk for 3 miles fairly easy doing approximately a 3mph pace. Not bad for wh

At the end of June my parents set the date for our family cruise next year. This event has been the catalyst I've needed to finally get off my butt and start getting healthy. I am at least 150lbs over weight and I want to be able to enjoy the vacation next year. Now I don't plan to lose it all before then as that would not be healthy, but I would like to lose at least 50lbs before then. That is 1lb a week over the course of a year. So far I have managed to lose about 20lbs. It's a good start and I hope to keep it up. Sharing helps keep me motivated. Before: June 28, 2014  307lbs                  Current: September 1, 2014  292lbs    My husband and I have been doing our best to walk at least 30 minutes 3 times a week. Some weeks we manage to do more others less. We are using myfitnesspal to log our food so that we make sure to not over eat, at least not often. And we are using Runtastic pedometer to log our walking. It all helps keeps me going.

Here in Wichita we have one of the top 25 Zoo's in the country. Not sure exactly where it ranks but it is a wonderful zoo. If you are ever in Kansas you should check it out. Last weekend and this weekend we were able to get into the zoo at a huge discount so we were able to actually go and have a nice walk around. Normally it is too expensive for us because well, we're poor, so I was really happy to get to go. I'm a bit like a kid in a candy shop and I love to take pictures of the animals. I took about 100 the first day and a few more the next week of a few animals that were in better positions or more active. Because I took so many I thought I'd share some of my favorites. I happen to be a big fan of the cats, so I have a ton of pictures of them. But I'll start with my Lion King pictures as I like to call them! Now for some others :) A Kookaburra I don't remember what this was called, but I thought it was really pretty. This looks li

So apparently I'm all about change right now. Or something. In addition to trying to lose weight I've decided to learn a new language. While going through the Yuku Support forums the other day I came across a link left by Arizona for duolingo. It is a language learning program much like Rosetta Stone only it is completely free. You can do it on the computer or via app on your phone or tablet. I've decided to start with German since I took a few years of it in high school, a semester in college and spent 18 days there one summer. With all of that I still only know a few words and phrases and not even very well. When I first started on it, I tried to test out of the first lesson. Half way through I realized that I needed to just start from the beginning because I wasn't getting very many of the questions right. So I am currently learning some new words, remembering ones I used to know and still trying to figure out how to spell all of it! The other neat thing about thi

Over the last several years I've gained weight. A significant amount of weight. I realized that I was gaining but didn't pay attention to it. I was happy with my life so it didn't matter. I'm still happy with my life but I've realized that if I don't make some changes it won't always be happy. I've actually known this for quite some time now, but I've not found the motivation to actually do anything about it. Any reason that I could come up with to lose weight was always one that I could put off or shrug off as not really all that important. But now my parents have decided they are taking the entire family on a cruise next summer. That gives me a little less than one year to lose some weight. I don't really have to weight to go on the cruise but I know I'll be able to have a lot more fun and do more things if I do lose some weight. So I've made a commitment to myself to lose at least 50lbs before the cruise. My over all goal is much la

A while back I decided that I needed something to set on the edge of the patio area of our apartment to keep people from using it as a short cut to their front doors. I decided that a long flower planter would do the trick and look really nice. Only problem is that I've had no money to buy anything of the sort. A few weeks ago I told my dad about it and what I would like. I didn't intent for him to make me anything but he then surprised me with this: He made it himself out of the the posts he removed from their deck railing. He was replacing them with metal ones so that it will be safer for the grandkids so the wood would have gone to waste if he hadn't made something out of it. I'm so glad he thought of me and went this route. Now I just have the job of trying to keep the plants alive. The one in the middle is a geranium while the others are rose moss. It stands about a foot tall and is about 2 feet long. The little pot you see on the ground beside it is what is cl

The past week our town has been having its annual Riverfest celebration, basically just a big party along the river that goes through town. You have to buy a button to get in and then there are a lot of free things to do. There are some not free things also. I have a friend at work, Nikki, who told me before Riverfest started that she wanted to go paddle boating as it is her favorite thing. If you don't know what a paddle boat is, it is a small fiber glass or plastic boat that seats 2 people side by side. they have what is similar to bicycle pedals in front of each person that are used to turn a paddle to make the boat go with a small handle to steer it. When Nikki told me about her desire she told me that she normally ends up having to go alone as she never has anyone to go with her. I thought about offering to go at the time but I was just getting over being sick. After the weekend passed and we were back at work I asked her if she had gone to which she told me no and wasn&

So my husband and I have to do our laundry at the public laundry room at our apartment complex because our washing machine broke a good 2 years ago and we can't afford to replace it. Anyway we went down to do our weekly chore found this posted to the bulletin board... In case you can't read it, it says: --------- Dear A******, I hope you enjoy my jeans, running shorts, dress shirt, tan sock, and black sock. I hope you're wearing them when you are met with karma. DIE, Thanks! P.S. DO NOT LEAVE YOUR CLOTHES UNATTENDED, residents. --------- Now I don't know about anyone else but we always sit on the nice comfortable couch that is provided down there and wait for our laundry to be done rather than just leave it. Obviously we are in the minority since we always see other loads running down there but never anyone else hanging around. What we find even funnier about all of this is the randomness of the taken items. It makes me think that these items were not taken

So yesterday was a bit scary. As you may or may not know, I work in a county government office that is housed inside of a courthouse. I do not work for the courts, I just work in the courthouse. Our building has security that every non-employee has to go through before being allowed into the building. Any guns, knives or other dangerous objects are confiscated. I work on the third floor of an 11 story building. My desk sits in the hallway so that I can help direct all the lost souls and make sure they get where they need to go. The main reason I get so many lost people on my floor is that the city courthouse across the street has courtrooms on the 3rd floor over there. So I'm very exposed to anything that might happen. Yesterday I was at my desk helping an employee set up a package for FedEx when all of a sudden a member of the Sheriff's office come dashing up to my desk from down the hallway. "We have word of a man with a gun in the courthouse. Everyone needs to