Pioneer Woman

Yesterday I met the Pioneer Woman.  It was an adventure and an experience I won’t soon forget.  I went to her new cookbook book signing at Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park. Having only been there once or twice, I wasn’t sure how this book signing would go, so in typical Jenn fashion I was 2 hours early.

Being 2 hours early though granted me a rare look into the frenzy that is Pioneer Woman and the women (and some men) who follow her.  Somehow I sat outside this chaos and did not include myself in the craziness that was this book signing.

I found a seat as close to the area where she’d be doing her speaking, sat and watched the tables around me fill up.  The store employees were setting up the chairs for the speech and had blocked that area off.  I was sitting right by this area and so knew I’d be first to get a seat – or among the first.

The room began to fill as more and more women showed up for the signing.  The hum in the air was of excitement and a little bit giddy.  I could over-hear misc conversations all around me about “did you see that show?” and “Did you read her blog about XYZ?” and it went on and on. Everyone talking about Pioneer Woman.  Every person had one, two, three, or more cookbooks in their hands and were eagerly looking through them commenting on the recipes.

“Oh I made that one. It was delicious. Isn’t she clever to come up with that combination of flavors?”

 
“Oh look at that photo of Charlie. He’s so cute.”

It dawned on me, that we talk about this person as if we know her. She’s invited us into her life through her blog, her recipes, her cookbook, and her cooking show. And somehow, we all feel a kindred spirit to her and feel like she’s “one of the girls.”

And that sums up how I felt about her. She’s just an average person who’s worked very hard to get to where she is. And somehow she’s managed to hold on to herself in spite of all the fame (and I’m sure fortune).

Anyhow, back to the signing.

The store employees motioned that the seating was opened. I got up and started walking towards a seat and was shoved, pushed, crushed, etc by a stampede of women trying to get a seat.  You would have thought that a major designer was giving away clothing for free.  The frantic feeling of these women to “get the best seat” was insane. I’ve never seen anything like it and never want to again. 

I ended up off to the side, but in the front seat. I had a perfect view of her as far as I was concerned.

She spoke for about 30 minutes and told her story.  I’m sure everyone in the room knew her story but she told it anyhow. She told us about how she ended up in Oklahoma, how she had 4 children, how much she loves her dog Charlie, and her dog Walter, and the other animals on the ranch. She spoke about how far she’s come with her food photos over the years, and gave us some examples, of then and now.  Truly an amazing transformation.  I wished, for a moment, I would make that transformation too. She sang a little song to Charlie the Basset hound, she smiled, she was gracious to us for being there. And I think still a little stunned at how much people have taken to her little cookbook, blog and story. She seemed genuine.  She seemed real.

After she spoke, the store employees called for signing group “A”, which I was a part of because I was Johnny on the spot to get my signing ticket back in March.  The employees asked everyone else to stay seated while the A group gets through, then they’d call each group individually.  Naturally, no one listened to them and everyone got up. I had to force my way through the crowd to get to the signing.

As I got closer to where they were checking the signing tickets, this rude woman says to me, “HEY! The line starts back there.” So I asked her if she was waiting to go in as an “A” ticket holder. Her response was a resounding no. So I flipped my little signing ticket in her face (not really that close) and said, “Well I am an A ticket holder, so I’m going to go on through.” (In my head I ended that last sentence with the word “bitch”).

Once “on the other side” I was about 15 back from getting my book signed. You could feel the excitement in the air. All of us women grasping our books and waiting patiently.

The woman in front of me turned around and asked me what my favorite recipe of hers is.  I couldn’t possibly answer that. There’s so many.

Finally it was my turn.

I approached her and she smiled so fully and said, “Hiya.” 

First it was the photo – I asked her to hold Puck. She commented that Puck was an original name and how did I come up with it.  My response was, “It stands for Pink Duck.” Of which she replied, “Clever!”  

Then as she started signing books I mentioned to her that I was a finalist in one of her photo contests. I had my wits about me and had brought a copy of the photo to job her memory. She looked at the photo and said, “Oh I remember this one. I loved it. “ She asked for the story behind it and I briefly told her. 

Then she thanked me for coming and sent me on my way.

It all happened so very fast, but I’m so glad I did it. I got four books signed … and I know each of my friends will pay me handsomely for their books…if they want them that is.

For Mom because she asked nicely.

For Heather because she and I talk PDub stuff every day.

And for Megan for giving me the first PDub cookbook and getting the craze started.

Doing What You Love

I recently had an email conversation with a friend who said he can't seem to find what it is he wants to do with his life.  He's worked in and out of Hotel Californiasoft for years and just can't seem to pinpoint what his life passion is. 

I questioned him a little about what he liked to do in his spare time.  What did he read? What movies did he like to watch? What TV did he watch? Did he game? etc. I was trying to figure out what, if anything, in his life was a common denominator.

After and exhaustive three day email thread it finally dawned on me, he just wasn't that interested in living his life. He was a passenger in his life and at this point he wasn't interested in taking over the driver's seat.

It got me to thinking about this on and off over the last several days.  I wondered if I was doing what I love, and if I wasn't doing what I was currently doing, what would I be doing?

I happen to be fortunate that I do love what I'm currently doing. I worked hard to get to where I am and I'm enjoying the heck out of it. 

But would I do something else if I could? 

So many fantasies ideas pass through my noggin daily.  Many are just that, fantasies.  Its fun to think about it, but I'm not that interested in actually doing a lot of them.

As I continued to think about this and wondering am I really doing what I want and more importantly, am I doing the fun stuff in my life that I want to do.  Time to pull out the life list and refine and adjust.

At the end of the day, I'm quite happy where I am. I'm thankful that I've put in the effort needed to get myself to a happy place of work, and play. And more importantly I'm happy that I question, almost every day, am I doing what I want to do? If not, what needs to change.

Are you living the life you want? No? What needs to change?

This too shall pass...

I am, of course, referring to the blasted rain that's back in the Great Northwest.  After a beautiful, sunny weekend, the rain has returned. And oddly, I'm okay with that. Allergies were out of control this weekend, so the rain helps some.

This weekend FLEW by. I had a ton of stuff on my agenda to do, and I did about one-third of it. But that's okay. Nothing major got left out.

Saturday, bright and early, okay, so not early. I took Sparky off to get her new bling!  Dropped her off and met the Pantry Goat for breakfast. We went to a little dive we'd gone to before. It was almost 11am so I ordered lunch and the Pantry Goat ordered dinner.  More specifically Liver & Onions. Blech.  Puck wanted to make an appearance too so we set him up as the cherry on top of the Pantry Goat's ice cream that came with her dinner.

After breakfast, the Pantry Goat dropped me off at Starbucks so I can wait for Sparky to be done. I anticipated having to be there for a couple of hours, but turned out I was only there for like 30 minutes. I literally got my iced tea, sat down, flipped through a couple of pages of my book, drew a few items for the game I'm addicted to and the phone call came in that Sparky was done.

I hoofed it a half a mile to pick her up. She looked good. Sitting in the sun all sparkly with her clean outside and her new bling.

Smokin'!!!

You'll notice the sun is out too. Rare in Seattle in the Spring.

Ah, the new windscreen. 

I drove the long way home to "test" it. And I may, or may not have drove 70+ MPH to see just how well it did work. With the windows down, the wind is like a breeze.  With the windows up, it's like an oversized sun roof. Sunshine, and a little breeze. It's awesome. I'm so glad I did this.

Sunday, I was up early thanks to the Canadian Geese that frequent Lake Jenn (aka the pond out back). They honk their way in to the pond every morning about 5:15am. It wakes the cat. Which, anyone who has a cat knows, means I am next to be poked awake.

Sunday was Sunday Dinner day. I had all the makings already so I got to it. By 9am everything was done with the exception of grilling the chicken.

I tried to keep it light again this month.  Sunday dinners were originally about comfort and cooking all those large comfort food type of meals.  I'll get back to that I'm sure, but for now I'm trying to keep it light.  Dinner consisted of:

Open-faced Chicken Sandwiches with Basil Mayo. I swapped out the ground chicken, for chicken breasts. And I marinated them in homemade pesto for the day. OMG they were so good. The mayo for this sandwich is weird in that it has basil AND dill pickles. The first time I made this recipe I was all, "That's an odd combo." but I tried it and was surprised with just how good it was.

Along side I made a Caprese salad - using a little of the homemade pesto and some balsamic vinegar. Yum.  And I made Balsamic Green Beans and Mushrooms.

THAT recipe was awesome.  Putting the green beans and mushrooms in a marinade, then baking them at a high heat made the ends and outter edges all caramelized.  OMG. So good.

Finally, I did the Flat Apple Pie again for dessert.

All in all, the good friends, good conversation, and good food resulted in another successful Sunday dinner. Know how I know it was successful?

An Artist I Ain't

Yesterday while watching Ellen, she discussed a new app out for iPhone/iPads called Draw Something. It sounded interesting, and fun. I'm a horrible drawerERER...I mean bad. I have a vague recollection of playing Pictionary in college where I was drawing a typewriter and my partner guessed moose. 

Like any good follower I downloaded Draw Something.  I discovered several facebook friends who are also part of the crazy. Let the games begin.

I spent most the night laughing my ass off at some of my attempts.  How my friends guessed any of them is beyond me...other than they are awesome.

The app is very simple to use.  You start by downloading it - der. There's a free version and a $.99 version.  I recommend signing in under your FB credentials, then you can see all your friends who have it downloaded and can start games with them.

Once you start a new game you're given a list of random, in some cases VERY random, words.

You get three levels.  Each level offers more "coins" if completed successfully. The coins are used to buy other colors or other "get new words" if you're using the free version.

So once you decide which you can draw without looking like a total lunatic, you begin drawing. After a couple of tries you figure out there's an eraser, different colors (which by the way, colors make all the difference sometimes), and different size pen strokes. 

This photo was "borrowed" from the Internet and does not in any way represent one of my drawings. Though this masterpiece could be one of my drawings...I'm that bad.

Once you hit that you've finished "drawing" you send it to your unsuspecting friend. They receive it and receive a number of letters in the word, and letter options to choose from. You'd think that'd be helpful. Not so much.

This photo was "borrowed" from the Internet and does not in any way represent one of my drawings. Though my friends WISH I was that good.

So far, the one main downside I can find so far is it doesn't store any pictures you draw to look at and laugh at later.  I've been talking about this app all day and trying to explain to co-workers just how I drew a "shrimp" that looked more like a caterpillar on crack. According to their help section though that feature is coming, so Yay.

In the meantime, I may have to have a camera handy to snap some shots of these "drawings" I'm making and receiving. Let me give you an example.

It took me, my officemate, and Heater to figure this out. And I figured it out only AFTER the MomUnit gave me a hint. Because I couldn't find a way to copy this, I "drew" it basically in PaintBrush to send to Heater to help me.  So keep that in mind, but this is a pretty good rendition of what the MomUnit sent me. Her cow was a little skinnier than mine.

Even with the "it has 5 letters to it" clue and a bunch of letters provided, I had no idea what this was.  I did finally figure it out after the MomUnit gave me a clue.  Any guesses?

The Keg

Traditions are something I love.  I have a lot of them that only I am privy to and won't share them with anyone, even if you ask nicely.  (Though I'll admit sometimes my "traditions" get mingled with "process"). Every family has traditions, at least I hope every family does. They're fun. They remind you that you have something solid to look forward to.  Maybe it's a tradition your great-grand pappy passed down to your grand pappy who passed it down to your pappy who passed it down to you.  Maybe it's one that you just created in the last week/month/year. Either way, I like traditions.

One of my favorite recent traditions is Sunday dinner.  I love that I started this.  The tradition of getting friends/family together on a regular basis to eat good food...does it get much better?

Sometimes there are traditions INSIDE traditions.  For example, Sunday dinner is a tradition in and of itself.  EVERY Sunday dinner we take two photos: one "normal" one "not so normal".  Anyone who has attended more than one knows this to be true.

Another of my favorite traditions is going with BigBro, Seattle SIL, and Blueberry to The Keg in our birthday months.  We all signed up for their birthday deal (if you haven't you should, it's a good deal. A free meal up to $23.95 in the month of your birth.). Which means every April, September, October and December one of us gets a free meal, and the other three tag along ... because it's a tradition.

I hesitate to also say that the discussion of signing up every family member we know for each month of the year every time we get our free meal could also be a tradition. We'll sit and rattle off family members who's birthday's fall in months our's don't. For example, the MomUnit would give us a November free meal.  We'd never do it, of course, cuz that would be fraud.

Last night was our traditional Keg meal for Blueberry's April birthday. I won't say that she'll be OLDER than me, but she'll officially be older than me in a week.  Then for 8 months I can give her crap about being old.

I happen to love the Keg.  I've never had a bad meal there and have always had exceptional service.  Last night was no exception.  My steak was ordered medium - which in Keg terms comes out just as I like it, usually.  This time it came out WELL DONE.  It was still tasty and still edible. When Jenny, the waitress, came back to check to see if our steaks were cooked ok, I mentioned mine was WAY over cooked. She offered to cook me a new one.  Not wanting to waste anything, and not wanting to wait another 15 minutes for a steak, I said no thanks. It was fine. But thank you for the offer.  She asked a couple of times to make sure I was sure.

After Jenny walked away convinced I didn't need a new steak, Ian, the manager stopped by.  He "heard" that my steak wasn't cooked to my satisfaction and could he have another cooked for me. Again with the, "No it's fine, but thank you for asking." Ian then said he'd take my meal off my bill.

Now, it should be said that I did not say my steak was not cooked right to get a free meal. Didn't even cross my mind in fact.  Jenny asked how our steaks were, and I told her.  The Keg and their service did the rest.  I love when they don't even balk at giving you another steak or offering to take it off your bill.  They showed they believe in their product and if I'm not satisfied they will make it right.

It got even better though...since it was Blueberry's "birthday" meal, Ian brought her a piece of ice cream cake with a candle. THAT put the customer service over the top for me. Never before have we ever got a piece of birthday cake for going because it was our birthday's!! Bigbro, Seattle SIL and Blueberry all but licked the plate too.

I refrained. 

Prior to going to the Keg, for the first time ever, I looked up their menu items and the calories for items I would normally eat.  A normal meal I'd have there, without any concern of calories ranged at about 1400 calories. Oy vei.  That's almost my entire days worth of calories.

So I looked, I plotted, I planned. And eventually came up with three options.  I knew 1) no salad would be permitted. Too many calories there. 2) had to not get any potato of any type, and not get the rice pilaf (500+ calories for that alone).  Eventually I opted for steak and steamed asparagus.  I managed to get to the gym before meeting the fam, so I had some room to work with. Still wasn't going to waste the effort on a salad and potato.  BigBro shared a bit or two of his potato and Blueberry shared her sauteed mushrooms.  At the end of it all, I was pretty happy with my decisions and I wasn't stuffed to the gills like I normally am.

So to Let me 'splain. [pause] No, there is too much. Let me sum up. (movie reference?). 
1. Traditions are awesome. Make some.
2. The Keg is awesome. Eat there.
3. I'm awesome. Period.

Thanks Easter Bunny - BRAUCK BRAUCK

Whew, what a weekend. 

Saturday took all the emotion out of me and left me dangling dry and empty for Sunday's Easter dinner.  Thankfully some usual suspects were on hand to help celebrate Easter. Thanks to BigBro, Seattle Sister-In-Law and The Pantry Goat for coming to Chez Jenn's - oh and Millie too - and spending a couple of hours laughing, and chatting about everything and anything.

I didn't make the traditional Easter ham. I'm not a huge ham fan and it cooks WAY too much. So I opted for my go to marinated flank steak, potato-bacon torte (basically potatoes gratin in a pie shell - does it get any better than that?, asparagus and a peanut butter sheet cake that was, in my opinion, to die for.

BigBro a couple of days prior had mentioned Peeps.  I remembered I had wanted to get some Peeps to do some photographing with.  I'm not a fan of Peeps either, but for the BigBro and for photography I'd get some. 

 I have also, secretly, always wanted to do special table settings for big occasions. Sometimes I get creative and can think of something. Most the time I do not. So spur of the moment, I decided to do little chocolate bunnies on everyone's plates.  They turned out pretty darn cute I think.

 But the star of the show was Millie. She belongs to the Pantry Goat - temporarily - and is the sweetest dog. So patient and so willing to do anything just to get some attention.  Naturally, I had to see if she would balance Peeps on her head.  Naturally BigBro was in on helping me.  My accomplice.

Look how sweet she is. He eyes are saying, "Really?" But she sat still as we placed those Peeps on her head.

Then we had to test to see if she'd sit with one on her nose.  Such a good girl.  She let me snap off about a dozen photos, and even then she didn't go after that Peep. She waited until we took it off her nose.

How many can she balance? After the fact, we realized we had one more Peep, but decided we'd tortured her enough and so balancing three was the new house record. And the only house record for that matter.

But we weren't done with her yet. We had to test it on Puck. She did try to eat Puck when I offered her a smell to meet Puck.  One lick and she decided it was not covered in sugar goodness.  BTW she did get a Peep for a treat for being such a good dog.

BigBro couldn't be out done by a dog. 

It was a good day. I so enjoy, and have missed, cooking a big meal.  Sunday dinner is this coming week and I can't wait to see the crowd that's coming for that.

I realized I haven't had my camera out for a while. I've decided to not do Project 365 this year. While it was fun, it was a bit much. On the other hand, it did have me taking a lot more photos.  I need to get the camera out this weekend. I'm taking Sparky in to get her new light bar for the windscreen and it promises to be a sunshiney day.

In other exciting news, my trip to Vancouver is just around the corner. Blueberry isn't sure she'll get her passport in time (don't get me started on this) and so I have the Seattle SIL waiting in the wings.  Either way I'm sure it'll be fun. I have a bunch of stuff in my head planned to do.  Now I just need to get there and do some of it. 

RIP Beautiful Lourdes

The morning broke with a sunrise that was full of color and promises of a beautiful day here in the Pacific Northwest.  The sun was shining down on all of us today as we remembered the beautiful, life filled woman, Lourdes.

A few of us "girlfriends" met for brunch to get caught up, tell stories, remember Lourdes with laughter and smiles, and of course to drink a Bloody Mary.

None of us could remember if Lourdes even liked Bloody Mary's, but we all knew she'd love the fact we were drinking one in her honor.

Its what Lourdes would want.

Friends, Kara, Julie, Kim and I sat and chit chatted about so many wonderful times we spent with Lourdes.  We cried a little, well Kim cried a lot, we laughed a little, and we told each other how important they were to us.  It was cathartic. It was needed. It healed our broken hearts just a small bit.

Its what Lourdes would want.

The Celebration of Life was held at a local golf club that overlooks the area and shows, in my opinion, just why Seattle is so beautiful when it's sunny.

If you look real close in the middle of the photo, those tall buildings...that's Seattle.

I mean just look at that. The light green lawn of a well manicured golf course, with the dark evergreen trees standing proud in the back ground, to the blue, BLUE sky we had today. Gorgeous.

Its what Lourdes would want.

The Celebration was amazing.  Several friends and family members spoke and told stories about Lourdes.  We laughed. We cried. We sang along to a goofy ukulele version of "Hey Soul Sister" by Train.  A song that was definitely written for Lourdes and now whenever I hear it I will think of her.

We laughed. We cried some more.  We watched her Zumba friends get up and do a little dance in her honor.  We cried a lot when they showed a photo montage of Lourdes and showed just how full of life she truly was.  After that we were treated to a hula by her hula group.  Just beautiful and so heart felt. The large reception room was filled and standing room only.  If ever there was a doubt that she was loved, one just needed to look around this room.  Red, teary eyes every place you looked.  So much love and admiration spilling out from everyone in that room. I felt humbled just to be included in this group of people who can say they knew Lourdes and was a friend.

Its what Lourdes would want.

After the Celebration there was a reception. Us girls giggled, laughed, cried, drank wine, laughed, cried, and so on.  We promised to see each other more and, without doing a blood oath, meant it.

Left to right: Julie, Kim, me, Kim, and Kara

 We all met Lourdes during our early years at Microsoft in the early 90's and we all made an effort to get together as often as we can.  We found that life sometimes gets in the way of living life.  Families, kids, jobs, etc all got in the way of us seeing each other as much as we wanted to. But that's about to end.  We are going to start the Happy Hour Club.  Come hell or high water we are going to get together and keep caught up on each other's lives.  We have to.

It's what Lourdes would want.

Speaking of what Lourdes would want.  One of her relatives from Hawaii brought over hundreds...HUNDREDS of plumeria flowers for the attendees.  The smell of plumeria wafted through the hall and with every whiff you were reminded of Lourdes and the flower she always seemed to have in her hair.  We raised our glass one last time in memory of our dear friend. Who may be gone from this world, but is now and forever will be imprinted on our hearts. 

Its what Lourdes would want.

I'm Christain, Unless you're gay

A few weeks ago I let loose about my opinions on an article that was sent to my niece and nephew.  I’m sure you all remember it.

I’ve been struggling with understanding how homosexuality is a bad thing.  I’m not religious and so therefore cannot understand how a person’s choice (or not a choice I should say) of who the love is a bad thing.  I don’t understand how people who claim (and I’m generalizing here because I have SEVERAL friends who are Christians and who, while disagreeing with me often, still love all despite who or what they are).

I have a family member who is a devout Christian. DEVOUT. And I respect his belief and his way of life. I truly do. I do not, however, respect him when he pushes his beliefs onto me, my niece, my nephew or anyone else for that matter.  

I’ve asked the question a number of times of him and others who follow a faith and are very devout Christians how it is that they can believe the Bible when it says homosexuality is wrong, but not believe the Bible when it says things like  sale your daughters into slavery (Exodus 21:7). Or that I may have slaves (Lev 25:44). Or that I may not approach the alter of God if I have a defect in my sight (Lev 21:16-23).

Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27.  How should they die?

My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? -- Lev.24:10-16. Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

You see my point right? And don’t say it’s all how it’s interpreted because you lose that battle as well. 

Back when I was in 5^th or 6^th grade, I started attending the Lutheran Church of the Masters.  I loved that church. I was very involved in the youth group, in singing in front of the congregation, in helping out, and yes, I even got to play the organ during a church service.  I was a Christian.  I was baptised there and I attended all the required classes and had my First Confirmation.  The one thing I remember above all else was what the minister said to me one day.  He said, “Love thy neighbor – regardless of who your neighbor is.”

THAT is what I believe Christianity is about. Love. And since I’ve not been able to put to words exactly how I feel about supposed “Christians” and yet spout hatred toward homosexuals, I give you this video.  You can read what this guy says too. It’s here.

Please take a moment to watch this. He really does have some very valid points.

The part of his speech that really resonated with me is this:


"The greatest spiritual leaders in history have all preached love for others as the basis for all happiness, and never did they accompany such mandates with a list of unlovable actions or deeds. They never said, love everybody except for the gays. Love everybody except for the homeless. Love everybody except for the drug users. Love everybody except for the gang members, or those covered in ink, or the spouse abusers. They didn’t tell us it was okay to love everybody with the exception of the “trailer trash,” those living in poverty, or the illegal immigrants. They didn’t tell us it was okay to love everybody except for our ex-lovers, our lovers’ ex lovers, or our ex-lovers’ lovers. The mandate was pretty damn clear, wasn’t it?

Love others.

Period."

You can teach an old dog new tricks

Since I've made significant changes in my lifestyle, I've been learning, or relearning, things that I'm shocked and stunned I never "got" before.

I like this new learning though. I've been learning a lot about calories and more importantly how many calories are in things.  Let me tell you, it's a shock to the system when you look up calories for something you used to eat on a regular basis and find out its your total amount of daily calories you're allowed now. Ugh.

I track my calories intake and burned through myfitnesspal.com.  I track all my food and water intake there too.  Its a nice little website and iPhone app that allows you to see your progress and keep track of what you're doing daily. 

MyFitnessPal has a huge database of food and exercise.  As I understand it, when you put in your body information, weight, height, age, measurements etc, that it calculates your burned calories based on that and the amount of time you do an exercise.  For example, if I put in 30 minutes of elliptical it says I burn 522 calories.

Woot.

Here's my issue though.

Said elliptical rider - when weight and age are put in - says I burn 282 calories.

Naturally I want to believe MyFitnessPal. I mean who wouldn't.

So to figure out just what I am burning, I bought a heart rate monitor that has a calorie setting.  Today I finally remembered to turn the calorie tracker on. It said in 30 minutes of elliptical I burned 398 calories.

522 or 282 or 398...which to believe.

I'm definitely more inclined to believe the personal heart rate monitor than the other two. 

I can understand just how hard it is now to figure out how much you eat and how much you have to work out to keep yourself in shape.  I know there's a happy medium for every person. I'm just glad that I'm finally figuring mine out.

If you haven't noticed the gadget on the side of the blog, I've lost 16 lbs to date.  I've lost a bunch of inches in the hips, waist and chest area. In fact, I joked with a friend this weekend about having to stuff my bra again since my chest is shrinking.

I'm also learning that working out is really not that bad. I'm finding I miss it if I go too many days without it.  I am only doing 30 minutes of cardio right now, and that's appearing to be enough for now.  I have noticed that my heart rate doesn't increase nearly as fast as it used to. I used to just look at an elliptical and my heart rate would shoot to 140. Now at least I can be on the elliptical for 10-15 minutes moderately before it hits that rate.

All in all I feel good. I can see the progress and I have learned a lot about myself and my habits. For example, last Thursday night when I got the call that Lourdes had passed away, my first thought was, "I need something to eat." And I didn't mean an apple. I wanted something comforting. I was really glad I didn't have anything "comforting" to eat in the house.