I'm here, I'm here. Haven't fallen off the turnip truck, or the weight loss thingy...just INSANELY busy. I always am @ the end of the month. Plus the pollen has been falling steadily and wiped me out a few days.

I need to tweak my mission about for the next 3 - 4 months, I'll be moving again (3rd time in a year) so finding a place to live is my first priority. However, unlike the last few moves, that's not going to push my fitness focus out the window. I'll have more later, but won't be able to do daily updates for a while. Maybe once or twice a week. I have a food review for tomorrow then sometime next week I'll get into more specifics about what I plan to do.

Thanks for the emails!

Very appropos to read this today...

It can be tempting to lower your expectations when things are not going your way. Yet the most realistic response is not to lower your expectations, but in fact to raise them higher. It may seem that lowering your expectations so they're more in line with your reality would protect you from disappointment. Yet lowering your expectations is sure to bring on even more disappointment.

If you're disappointed with the results you're getting, it's not because your expectations are too high. It's because those expectations are not high enough to pull you forward.

Raise your expectations to the point where they become so meaningful and compelling that you cannot help but fulfill them. Choose those expectations that will drive you in each moment to do what must be done to reach them.

When the going gets rough, the answer is not to give up on your dreams. The answer is to grab on to those dreams, and to put them front and center in your life.

Set your expectations high, connect solidly and consistently with them, and those expectations will give a positive, effective direction to your life. Expect the very best, and let those expectations drive you to live out your most cherished dreams. - Ralph Marston

[Warning: A rant ahead. Rant = To vent, spew, gnash ones teeth while shaking a trembling closed fist @ the sky. A string of loosely connected thoughts in an attempt to clear ones head and heart.]

I am so angry right now. I want to hit someone.

Last week I took Callie to be spayed. The entire experience was extremely traumatic for me, much less for her. To make it worse thinking she pulled out the stitches. the next day I frantically took her to her vet. The poor cat was in such a frenzied state, they had to gas her just to be able to look at her tummy.

As I sat in the waiting room, I'm thinking of all the ways I was going to break it to people my 7 month old kitty was dead b/c my negligence killed her. Luckily she was fine. Oh and the $130 charge I was hoping to avoid from her own vet for the spaying, which the clinic charged me $45, I ended up bending over any old way and paying $70 for a 10 minute check up and to be casually told, "Oh she's fine". So $15. I saved $15 freaking bucks overall. Wait. No I didn't b/c I spent $12.50 buying dust less cat litter, she refused to use and an e-Collar I would've lost an eye trying to wrap around her neck.

Then I lost all her wet food was in that stupid recall. I buy top brand/top dollar food b/c I don't want her to eat ground up pig snout and still I lose. All she had left to eat over the weekend was Pounce and cat nip. Which led me to start researching ways to make her own food or feeding her all natural food.

So last night, she was napping, and I was going to use the quiet time to trim her nails, when I noticed it was very short and ragged. I looked at another nail, same thing. I checked her entire paw. All her nails are gone. Both paws. All ragged and real close to the skin.

I just about hit the roof.

• Walk, jog, run, elipp, arc train, stair climb or precor 175 miles (14.6 miles per week in 12 weeks)

Week 1: 5.59
Week 2: 8.54
Week 3: 9.38
Week 4: 15.20
Week 5: 20.07
Week 6: 19.48
Week 7: 17.34
Week 8: 6.36
Week 9: 19.25
Week 10: 23.48
Week 11: 20.68

Weeks to go: 1
Miles to go: 9.66 (9.66 miles/week)

Sooooo close to those new sneaks. The current ones are starting to make a clicking noise when I walk

When I started my 30 days of 1 gallon water, I knew I wouldn't have any problems drinking that much. I rather like water and am always toting around a 33oz bottle and filling it up @ any water fountain I come across.

Typically, I'm a purist. When I said 1 gallon, I mean pure water, but, I relented a bit. Tea drinking is something I've always wanted to incorporate and what better time to do it than now?

A few weeks ago, I went to lunch and had dim sum, for drink, there was black tea. It was so yummy and what impressed me most was the pot was already made and stayed hot. I wanted the same thing, I didn't want to have to boil 8oz of water and dunk & squeeze tea bags all day.

By chance, I caught someone cleaning out a thermos, which they filled w/coffee and told me it stays the same temperature till the afternoon and sometimes was still warm the next morning. Perfect! A thermos hunting I shall go.

Topics covered:

• Update on Callie
• How I'm doing despite lack of scale progress
• Final week of my 6 weekbootcamp
• Updating the Ultimate Reward Clothing Jar!

This week's random cameo of Callie

• Walk, jog, run, elipp, arc train, stair climb or precor 175 miles (14.6 miles per week in 12 weeks)

Week 1: 5.59
Week 2: 8.51
Week 3: 9.38
Week 4: 15.20
Week 5: 20.07
Week 6: 19.48
Week 7: 17.34
Week 8: 6.36
Week 9: 19.25
Week 10: 23.48

Weeks to go: 2
Miles to go: 30.34 (15.17 miles/week)

It's easy to get cocky @ this point, but I won't. I tend to do my mileage 5 days a week, so if I can eek out 3 miles a day this week, it'll be smooth sailing next week. ::knocks on wood::

I interrupt this schedule of non-weight loss related posts to bring you a post specifically about my non weight loss.

*fumes*

I had to dig thru my archives to find this gem b/c today, for no real reason, I feel stuck.

This time, reading it again as if for the first time, I'm going to chime in w/exactly how I'm feeling today.

I know, I know. In recent days I've been bombarding you all w/book reviews. I just got a glut of book sent my way, to which I'm extremely grateful, and out of courtesy I try to get the book read and review posted in a timely manner. This book was given to me courtesy of Dr Fitness and The Fat Guy.

No, I'm not married to the Smoothie King...though if he asked me...::voice trails off wistfully::

I've had a handheld blender for the longest time, just too lazy to actually use it. Lately however, I've been craving smoothies. Not sure why. Oh I know. I bought some expensive healthy drinks and realized I can make them my own self. Plus they'll be fresh and cheaper.

Also, my stash of eggbeaters ran out, leaving me w/nothing to eat in the AM and I figured not only will a smoothie be easy to get down, I can use all my almost ripe fruit, that I usually gag @ eating.

I wanted an easy to make recipe. Something w/6 or so ingredients and no more than 2 pieces of fruit.

Armed w/my recipes and a brand new blender I was ready to go. Here was my first concoction:

Full disclosure: I ♥ Martha Beck! If you subscribe to O Magazine, she's a columnist there. That's where I found her a few years back. She writes the way I think. Both her style and POV resonate w/me. While Oprah is my favorite person in the whole wide world, don't tell her I read Martha's column first. I'll deny it.

That said, I leapt at the opportunity to get my greasy mitts on her new book.

Topics covered:

• How I eat
• Cat woes

No pic of Callie this week, next week, or the week after that. See: Cat woes

• Walk, jog, run, elipp, arc train, stair climb or precor 175 miles (14.6 miles per week in 12 weeks)

Week 1: 5.59
Week 2: 8.51
Week 3: 9.38
Week 4: 15.20
Week 5: 20.07
Week 6: 19.48
Week 7: 17.34
Week 8: 6.36
Week 9: 19.25

Weeks to go: 3
Miles to go: 53.82 (17.94 miles/week)

Man on man...3 weeks away from a new pair of sneaks. I'm really needing them @ this point. I don't even want to look inside, but last week something started sticking me in that soft area behind the ankle bone. On both feet. I think I've walked through the cushioning. Well, that and sometimes when I'm feeling lazy, I shove my feet and mash down the back of the sneakers and walk around in them. Just for kicks.

The last 30 day goal was to love & be nice to myself. How'd I do?

I wasn't lying when I said it was going to be hard. It was.

"Once the 'what' is decided, the 'how' always follows. We must not make the 'how' an excuse for not facing and accepting the 'what.'" – Pearl S. Buck

"Many things which cannot be overcome when they are together yield themselves up when taken little by little." – Plutarch