Still waiting

We are still waiting for the puppies and Missy looks like she is about ready to pop! Michael and I have worked out our schedules so that one of us will be able to be home at all times so that one of us will be there when it finally happens. I'm hoping that I'll be home since Michael hasn't prepared as much as I have. :) I got a fancy new camera for Christmas so once I figure out how to upload photos I'll post some picture of her belly.

Puppies! (plural)

Today we took Missy in to get her x-rayed to see how many puppies she'll be having. The vet tech started off by hurting her feelings (I know my feelings would be hurt if someone put a thermometer up my butt!) and so she sat in my lap and hid her face in my arm until it was time for the x-ray. Emily (our vet) said she did a really good job and didn't wiggle at all. We were able to see two puppies for sure, we could see their spine and heads mainly and Emily said that she thinks there may be a third one hiding behind the others. I won't lie, I was hoping for an answer like "you will be having x number of puppies" instead of a maybe, but now we are at least a little prepared. We only have about two and a half weeks to go so we are trying to think of names. I like the names Harley and Brutus, Michael wants to name them nerd names like MegaTron, Kal-El (superman) and any other name he can think of from a comic book or his wizard books. I veto the majority of them pretty fast but told him I'd think about naming one Bond (yeah, like James Bond). Good thing we have some time to think...

Snipped

Petree is getting fixed today. Michael dropped him off early this morning and we'll go back this afternoon to get him. They called after they had put him down and said that he still had his baby canine teeth, so they had to pull those in order to avoid problems in the future. Poor guy, he gets teeth pulled and his manhood chopped off all in one day. Missy is getting bigger every day! We only have about 3 weeks left and we find out in a week how many she'll be having.

Pregnant!!

So we took Missy in for her appointment today. Our vet, Emily, who is awesome (even though she did go to OSU), felt around for a minute and said there is at least one puppy in there, maybe two. The first time (that we know of) that they did 'it' was Halloween, so we are about 32 days into the pregnancy. Around 45 days is when the puppies would show up on an x-ray, so we are going to take her back in around then so that we will know just how many puppies to expect. The gestation period for dogs is only around 63 days and they say smaller dogs usually have shorter pregnancies. SO, we may be having New Years babies. We are excited but a little nervous too. I have been reading up on it online though, and it seems pretty straight forward. They say to start taking her temperature twice a day, and then when there is a drop in temperature of a degree or two, then she'll go into labor in the next 24 hours. So a heads up will be nice. Missy isn't the only one having all the fun, though. We are making an appointment for Petree to get fixed, probably in the next couple weeks as well. Missy will get fixed, too, probably about 2 months after she's had the puppies and they're weaned. Thank goodness we have their health plans!

Babies??

We will see! We've made an appointment for Missy so that they can check her out. Her boobs have been getting bigger but I'm hoping that's just because she's now a "woman". She has also been sleeping a lot longer than she usually has. Usually it is just Petree who is still in bed at 10am, but lately it has been her, too. So, the appointment is for December 2. I'll keep you posted.

Birthday Boy!!!

So, today is Petree's birthday, one year old!!! It doesn't seem like we have had him for a year. I will have to post pictures later, but yes, I did get him a birthday cake. And you can save your comments about how dumb it is- I am obviously not the only person who does this considering the pet store I went to had an entire pet birthday display. The cakes are super cute- I got two- one for him and one for Missy. He totally loved his birthday present and can't wait to try it out the next time we go for a walk. Petree LOVES having us throw the tennis ball for him to fetch when we go on walks BUT, Michael gets tired of bending over to pick up the ball (weiner, I know). So we got one of those cool ball picker-upper, flinger things.
On a side note- Missy went through her first "womanly cycle" these past couple weeks. GROSS, even if she did look cute in her tiny diapers. We tried keeping them apart but Petree is quick (we have pictures of that too, but I'll keep the blog PG). So we may be having some New Years babies. Who wants a puppy as a late Christmas present?! The gestation period is only about 63 days, so we should know fairly soon. For those of you wondering, there is no pee test for dogs, they go through the same hormonal cycle pregnant or not (I looked it up). The only way to tell is taking her to the vet and getting an x-ray in about a month. If she isn't pregnant then we are getting her fixed, because once again, gross. If she is, then we'll wait and do it once the hoopla is done.

A little bit of paradise...

The hot tub.

This is the entryway into the front of the house.

The "great room", one whole wall was windows/sliding doors, the view was awesome.

The pool....

The creek running through the golf course, there are a bunch of waterfalls just a bit further up.

So one of my best buds from college, Cherron, got engaged this past summer. They decided to do a joint bachelor/bachelorette party at her parents house down in Palm Springs. Her dad was super generous and paid for everyone to fly down for the weekend. We got there Thursday afternoon and returned Sunday night. It has been getting colder here so it was SO fantastic to spend a few days in 90+ heat. It was all in all a very relaxing trip, a lot of laying by the pool drinking margaritas, sitting in the hot tub at night and turning on the outdoor fireplace for smores! Their house is amazing, they just finished building it this past spring. Here are a few pictures...

Inspiration

Sometimes it comes from weird places. So I had Paige and Rory over yesterday while Chad was bowling and Kayte was at work. We took the dogs for a walk, but "only for one hour", per Rory's request (he has been dying to finish watching Spiderman II at our house). After they left I made some popcorn and got a soda. It was "SmartPop" and diet orange soda, for the record. I was flipping through the channels and found a show on TLC called "So Young to be So Fat", it was about morbidly obese teens. Apparently there is a special school where you can send your super fat kid. Half of the show was about two kids at the school and the other half was about a 340 lb. 16 yr old who wanted lipo really bad. I won't get started on bad parenting vs. bad genetics, lets just say these kids are really fat. The girl wanted lipo, but then got 'grossed out' by a simple steak and salad dinner that her mom made while commenting "i've never had a meal like this". Then when they went on vacation with a cousin to a casino, she was complaining about how much she wants to lose weight while eating plate fulls of fried food and desserts at the casino buffet (while her mom was off gambling all day). Anyhow, the two kids at the school actually did really well, they were on a diet and exercise program along with counseling and it really seemed to help. I sort of see myself in the girl, I will bitch about being too chubby and wanting to lose weight and then turn right around and ask Michael to bring me some fries when he comes home from work. The ending shot of the show was of the two boys at the school on a group run. SO, my new mantra is "if the fat kids can do it, so can i". Needless to say, I am off to go on a run.

New stuff!

Sitting in their favorite spot- in the sun.

Petree loves our new couches- it makes it easy for him to look out the window.

Ten dollars if you can find both puppies... We got these couches not too long ago, love them! Way better than the old one!

Our farm...

So we were at Target the other night and found some Halloween costumes that we just HAD to have. I don't think they agree though...

Missy is our little pig...

Old and Moldy

That is what I am now, old and moldy. My birthday was this past Saturday and I'm now 25. Which I suppose won't be all bad, now I can rent a car without paying a ton of extra charges, and my car insurance should go down, too. Because apparently I matured leaps and bounds the second I turned 25. Since Michael had to work Saturday afternoon we did my birthday dinner on Thursday. I was going to do sushi, but we're trying to save money so we made our own hot wings, they were so good. I knew I was going to 'cheat' for my birthday so I didn't feel bad about eating them. For dessert we went to Outback (I got the fudge brownie w/ice cream). It was all really good, but I think I'm glad we don't eat like that any more. Eating all that just made me feel gross. So I only had the one cheat dinner and I'm back on the program now. I updated my weight loss tracker after I last weighed (before the cheat dinner, of course), I'm over 16lbs now. So now my birthday resolution is to work out alot more. I am going running after work today and made plans to go on a 10 mile hike this weekend. I will try and post some pics from the hike this weekend if I get any good ones.

Twelve Pounds!

Today is end of week two of my "experiment" with NutriSystem and so far I have lost 12 pounds. I have gone from weighing myself everyday to just once a week. I was starting to get too obsessed with the scale every morning, so I moved it to the bathroom downstairs (out of sight, out of mind). The awesome part is that I only worked out a couple of times this past week and still lost weight. So this next week my goal is work out at least 4 times and we'll see what kind of difference that makes. I still have not cracked and 'cheated', although I did have a work party this past Monday (bbq/pool party) and did eat a few tortilla chips and a bit of salsa, but I steered clear of the cake, hamburgers, etc. I am however planning on eating out next weekend, it's my birthday on Saturday and I really want sushi, which is actually really healthy, so I am not too worried about it derailing my diet.
I do have some friends coming to town this weekend, so we will see how it goes with them wanting to eat out and such. I can still stay on the program when I eat out by ordering smart, I just know that I have zero will power when I go out to eat. :)

Week One

Today is the end of week one on NutriSystem and so far so good. I was slightly skeptical at first because when the box arrived and I unpacked everything it seemed like the food portions were really small and I figured I would be starving a good part of the time. But, I'm not. The way the program works is you eat their food and add in certain extras, depending on the meal. Like for breakfast I eat one of the meals (scrambled eggs or the granola cereal are good!) and add in a dairy/protein serving and a fruit serving. It's five small meals spaced throughout the day, so I am never stuffed full but I am never really hungry, either. And I can drink all the diet soda and crystal light I want, so that is a plus. It is really fast and easy, most of the meals are ready in a couple of minutes, which is awesome. On NutriSystem online I can plug in everything I eat in a day and it will give me my calorie count, so over the past week I have been eating between 1,100 and 1,400 calories. So far I have lost almost 8 lbs. I know I won't lose that much every week (lame), but it's a good start and I'm happy so far. I have also been working out every day, I usually go in the evenings once it's cooled down a bit. I haven't felt the urge to go "off diet" yet, but it has only been a week. And since Michael has been in Portland all week we'll see what happens when he gets home. I plan on doing the program for at least three months and depending on the results I get, I may do it longer. I figure I've got about 70 lbs (62 now!) that I can lose.

Puppies

They love to snuggle together.
Two little pigs!
Missy sleeping- looks like Petree is trying to bring her back from the edge.
They're not big fans of baths...

I know, it has nothing to do with my chub, but they're so cute!

Trying something new...

So it has been awhile since my last post, but not much has changed. Yep, still chubby. It wasn't so bad in the winter when it was freezing, but it has been pretty hot here the past couple weeks. Fat and heat don't mix. That and it was totally dissapointing to not fit into any of the clothes I was wearing last summer. We have still been working out as often as possible. Walking the dogs, running, etc. I was riding my bike to work everyday, but I haven't for awhile now. SO, I decided to try something new and I signed up for NutriSystem a couple of days ago. It is $300 a month for an entire month of food (breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks/desserts). It seems like a lot but when I look what I spent last month on food, which was $500 on eating out and $300 at the grocery store, it's a fraction of that. It seems like a pretty easy program and it will be easy to take meals to work, etc. Part of my problem is that when I get hungry I think of everything that sounds good, which is everything I shouldn't be eating. With this program, meals will be right in front of me, so I won't have time (hopefully) to dream about what sounds good. I should get it within the next week, I'll let you know how it tastes!

My 'green' attempt

Drinking all of that bottled water is finally starting to help, it's supposed to be around 90 this weekend! Nothing better than going from freezing to frying in a week. We have been doing pretty well lately. I got my wisdom teeth out a few weeks ago, which was awesome, but I missed a few workout days. We've been going on walks quite a bit and getting out of the house a lot more now. We also got a new puppy about three weeks ago, so we've been dealing with that too.
So I won't go into gas prices because we've all heard it a million times before, I really haven't noticed the increase lately though, I was only filling up about once every two weeks. But, in an effort to save even more gas and maybe lose a little chub, I've started riding my bike to work. It only takes me about twenty minutes each way, so I only have to get up a little bit earlier than usual. So far it has been awesome and I've been riding almost every day. It's awesome to get in the exercise in the mornings and the roads are usually pretty quiet. The only bad part is coming home, I have to ride through downtown and a couple of busy intersections that get crazy during Bend's version of 'rush hour'. It is about equal in steepness each way but for some reason the ride home KILLS me. I've only been riding for about a week or so, so hopefully it will get easier as the weeks go on.

Total B.S.

It's April 8th and I woke up to snow today. Whoever is pissed off about global warming can move to Bend, because at this point I would welcome ANY type of warming. In fact, I am going to drink as much bottled water today as I can (and then throw the bottles away, into the landfill for 30 years!) AND leave my car running as much as possible. I'm not going to leave a weenie 'carbon footprint', I am going to leave a 'carbon snow-angel' by the time I'm done. Ha!

On a side note: we went for our first bike ride yesterday, it was pretty fun and the trail was good. I kicked Michael's ass up the hills, he had to stop and push at a couple of spots. Haha, sorry Michael, but it was funny. What wasn't funny is that we noticed a bunch of problems with his bike. The pedal started falling off, it's not shifting gears correctly, the seat wasn't on right and the brakes needed to be tightened. So, we took it back to the store last night so they can fix it. We bought it at Joe's and apparently they don't return bikes unless they're defective?! A lame return policy if you ask me. Then the kid helping us rolled his eyes and looked totally put out when I asked him for a receipt or something to prove I had left the bike. Call me crazy, but I wasn't going to leave a $300+ bike there with nothing but my name and phone number that he had written on scrap paper. What a turd. Anyways, hopefully everything will get fixed and not be a problem anymore. I called and spoke to the gm this morning and he said if we have problems again after the bike tech fixes it all that he would take it back and get us a new one. It's not like we could go for a ride today, anyways. Stupid snow.

A new month...

So March did not go as well as planned in the diet/exercise area. And no, Kayte, I'm still not telling how much I weigh, let's just say it's too much. I'm hoping April is better for a few different reasons. Reason #1 is that the weather is getting somewhat warmer. They still say that it may snow and it does get pretty cold at night, but overall it is a lot warmer during the day and it stays light fairly late now. Reason #2 is I got some cool new workout clothes this weekend. Hey, it helps! Reason #3 is we also went and got mountain bikes this weekend so the plan is start riding them a lot. There are a bunch of trails and parks around here and Bend is a bike-loving town so it should be fun. I haven't had a bike in a long time, but always liked having one. I would ride it to work but I would get wayyyy to sweaty and we don't have a locker room or shower here that I could use. It would be nice, though. Reason #4 is we also got a juicer this weekend. (Wow, we spent a lot of money this weekend! But we haven't done that in a long time, so what can you do?) It's one of those Jack LaLane Power Juicers and it is pretty awesome. I made some juice with an apple and two pears and it was really good. Maybe I will just start juicing everything. :) And Reasons #5 and 6 is that Michaels brother is getting married at the end of June and Michael has a family reunion and high school reunion later in the summer. I can't be the chubby girlfriend!! Well, that and it will be summer, so that means shorts and tank tops. And my annual Cove adventure. I will try to post some more pictures, too. Maybe we'll take some with our new bikes! :)

A visit from Death...

I went on my first run yesterday in what seems like forever. And I about died. I had found out about this cool trail not to far from home and so Petree (my puppy) and I went on a walk a couple Sunday's ago to check it out, we didn't get all that far because it got muddy and I was wearing flip flops. So the next day we went back prepared (and with Michael). I noticed that there was a trail running along both sides of the river, which I thought was way cool. But it was even cooler to find out that at the 'end' of the trail on one side of the river there was a footbridge that you could cross and come back down the other side. Once we had done the loop we noticed a sign that said it was 1.5 miles to the footbridge, so the trail is pretty much an even 3 miles. Perfect for running! Even though I've done it quite a bit I still don't understand how people can run on a treadmill, especially when it's nice outside. Running on a treadmill is so boring to me, I would much rather be actually moving and getting somewhere so I love, love, love trail running. What I don't love? The burning pain in my lungs, burned so bad I just wanted to stop breathing, yet I couldn't stop sucking wind fast enough! It's the Catch-22 from hell. For the first quarter of the run I felt like poo, just felt REALLY out of shape and loser-ish. I knew I wasn't going to be able to run the entire way without stopping so my plan was to run for as long as I could stand it, then walk/recover and keep repeating that until I had finished. So like I said, the first quarter of it was pretty bad, but after I had crossed the bridge and started back down the other side my lungs weren't hurting nearly as bad and I was able to run more than I walked. It took me 40 minutes to do the loop. Not fantastic, but it could have been a lot worse. Afterwards I had this awesome asthmatic/smokers wheezing cough. I think it was my body letting me know how pissed off it was with me. It's going to be really mad when I do it again today, ha! I am not nearly as sore as I thought I was going to be. So now my plan is to keep running and to get back into it slowly, it has been a while so I don't want to go balls to the wall and end up too sore to work out, or injured. Eating better has been going pretty good, I think the daily run will help a lot, I'm way more conscious of what I eat when I'm working out harder.

Old Lady Beat Down

Good news on the cereal front, Cheerios! Still not the best flavor but alot easier to eat than those cardboard squares I was choking down. The dog wouldn't even eat them. We also got some Grape Nuts Flakes cereal which isn't too bad, either.
So things are starting to turn around, I've gone to the gym two days in a row and am sort of (key words sort of) starting to feel better. And my calendar is so much better looking when I'm able to put my stickers on it! :) Then Michael sent me this e-mail on "how to eat more and still lose weight". I told him it's painfully obvious I already eat too much as it is so I will start by eating less and working out more and see how that goes first.
At the gym I always hated the person who just walked on the treadmill the whole time, they're taking up valuable treadmill space just to walk?! Well, I am now THAT person. And what's even worse, is the old lady on the treadmill next to me last night totally kicked my ass. She was all jogging along with her old lady shoes, and here I am, just walking along while I watch Reba on Lifetime (love that show!). And what's even worse is that my leg muscles are slightly sore just from two days of walking for an hour each day.
My next weigh in will be at the end of the month, so I have a little over two weeks before I can see what progress (if any) I have made.
I am also thinking about working out in the mornings. I have done it in the past and once I get into a habit of working out in the mornings, it makes the day better because I don't have a workout hanging over my head. I would like to run a couple mornings a week. It would be alot easier if it would quit snowing (it's March!).

Diet starts Monday...

First off, do you know how hard it is to find healthy cereal? Even the "healthy" ones all list sugar in their top 3 ingredients and I'm beginning to see why. I finally found some cereal that is really low in sugar, it's just plain shredded wheat cereal, I don't think it has any sugar at all, actually. Sadly, it's disgusting. I had a bowl this morning and couldn't even finish it all, I was wishing we had some brown sugar to put on it. So, back to the drawing board, I can't keep eating that. This weekend was so-so for diet/exercise. The diet, not so good. I was sick last week, so Saturday was a really lazy day for me, all I did was lay on the couch and blow my nose. And then we went out for dinner, not good. Sunday was a bit better, I ate a little better and we hiked out to Tumalo Falls which is a waterfall just outside of Bend. It was about 5 miles round trip. Then we went to the movies and ate popcorn. I think my problem is that if I'm not working out, it's almost impossible for me to eat healthy. And since I've been sick, I've just wanted to sleep and relax, not go to the gym. SO, this week I hope to do a lot better. My calendar on the fridge needs some more stickers!! I am switching up some shifts at work this week, too, so I will be getting off at 3pm instead of 530-ish for the next few days. Hopefully this makes going to the gym after work a bit easier. I better get a move on, my next weigh-in is a week and a half away!

Before picture

Ok, so here is me, this is one of the only full body shots that has been taken recently, but you still get a good shot of my chub! :) This was taken in Vegas just a few days ago.

The Beginning

Alright, so I've gone back and forth about making a blog. Then I figured 'what the hell', maybe it will put more of a fire under my butt. So the whole point of this blog is so people can read about me and my chub. Provacative, I know. But I'm hoping that knowing people will read this will make me more honest in my attempts at diet and exercise. Up until about six months ago I was doing fantastic at losing weight, I had lost over 25lbs in about 6 months. Then, I met Michael and it all went to crap, I will blame him for now. Needless to say, I have gained back that weight and now just feel really fat. I even had to go buy new work pants because my old ones were just to tight. Lame, I know. And now with summer and warm weather breathing down my neck, I figured its time to start again. Hopefully this time it's for good. Although I will admit, it was really fun eating whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. But I miss the feeling of being happy with my body and knowing that I could go run 3 miles without stopping. I could make a lot of excuses about gaining the weight (besides blaming Michael, which is true) but the truth of it is, is that I just got lazy. You might be wondering about the name of my blog, My Holiday Layers, funny story actually. Back in college when I lived with about eight other people, my friend Kelly and I were fans of asking our guy roommates all the questions that guys are terrified to hear. So we asked one of our roomies, Mat, if he thought we were fat. He looked at us for a minute and then said, "No, you just have some holiday layers." And from then on our chub was known as holiday layers. So, today is Day One of the new diet and exercise program. I have made a calendar that I've posted to the fridge with all my meals already planned out for the month. I have gotten all the food I will need, and being the anal organizer I am, I even got stickers to put on my calendar when I achieve my daily goals. I got star stickers for when I eat right and hand stickers for when I work out. I weighed myself this morning (sorry, not telling what it was, but it was bad) and will weigh myself every two weeks. Maybe once I lose some chub I will tell you what I weighed at the start! I have decided to do a modified version of the South Beach Diet, lots of vegetables and protein but I am eating carbs as well, just not a lot. So far, so good.