2009: The Recap

In keeping with tradition, here is my 2009 Recap (or what I can remember before I get too hungry for dinner)

January: Oof. So long ago. My cousin Erin has a baby. She's early, but an amazing fighter and is now getting ready to celebrate her first birthday. What a blessing! I decide to start making more home-cooked meals and do a fairly decent job. My parents dog, Tanner, dies after a fairly short life. He was Missy's bestest bud and my dads constant companion so we are all a bit broken up about it. I resolve to start working out more and lose 10 pounds. Zach starts new job and works until midnight. We only see eachother on the weekends.

February: I consider entering a triathlon but chicken out, numerous times. Things start getting stressful at work. We celebrate Zach's 29th birthday. I made the worlds richest (and definitely the most unhealthy) peanut butter brownies for the first time and it looks like they will be a staple for every birthday from here on out. Walk Missy every single night, even in the freezing cold, because DAMN that dog is wild.

March: Run in the 1st annual Drumm Farm Run. It was an off trail run and holy hell, it was hard, but I finished. My "official results" say I came in 4th place and even though I know that's SO not right, it makes me happy. Oh and I won a free pedicure (that I let expire before using it. Dang!) We start thinking about adding to our family in the canine sense. Zach draggs me out to look at English Mastiffs. No way. Too big. Ha! I go out for my friends 29th birthay at the Power & Light district and have a total quarter-life crisis and leave in tears. Realize I'm getting old. It was a tough month.

April: Survive my frist round of layoffs at work. Realize I need to step up my game. Do. Get noticed. I compromise and tell Zach we can LOOK at Great Danes. Find Ted. Heart melts. Sign papers. Wait for him to grow up a smidge. Run the Trolley Run for second year in a row. Get the exact same time. Become very frustrated with working out. Consider, for a second, training for a half marathon.

May: Bring Ted home. Don't like him much at first. He bites and Missy won't leave him alone. Zach goes to visit friends in Sioux Falls and leaves me the puppy on his first weekend home. I cry, a lot. At least he slept more than Missy did. Zach starts summer break and we start training dear Ted. He learns fast. I grow to love him. Decide to run Hospital Hill 10k instead of Half Marathon. Hate training with a firey burning passion.

June: Run Hospital Hill 10k. Finish with a decent time and have fun. Shoes really hurt my feet. Vow to run Half Marathon in 2010 (unless unable to...wink!) Zach's mom and sister come visit and spend most of the time babysitting Ted. He's a hit! Zach joins the Nelson Atkins "fan club" and says we'll go all the time. We haven't been yet. I turn 28 and am deeply saddend. Get a new bike and ride it all the time. Still very frustrated with working out. Ted starts puppy school. He's the shy kid in class.

July: Trade in the 'ol Neon for a Ford Escape. LOVE! Spend the 4th of July at my parents and nearly get killed by renagade fireworks. Go to a couple Royals games with friends. Really like the new stadium. Start baking "healthier" desserts. Ha!

August: Take the pups to the lake. Missy loves it and wants to explore the whole time. Ted falls off the deck and will likely never go near water again. Try laying out and drinking, realize it's not for me. Get a Costco membership and feel like a "real" adult. Decide to switch gyms. Ted "graduates" puppy school. Barely. Mom is diagnosed with cancer.

September: Start taking working out seriously. Join new gym down the road and start to get my groove back. Go on vacation with Zach to Chicago. We have a blast. Have a mole removed and can't workout for two weeks. Gain a million pounds. Get chosen to do the Ink Magazine fitness challenge. Start working out all the time, which totally helped with all the stress that was starting to build. Realize Ted hates other dogs and stop going to the dog park and taking him on walks by myself. Very sad.

October: Work out and diet like a crazy person and love every second of it. Ted tears up our carpet, eats our bannister, chews our couch and destroys countless other objects. I nearly lose my mind. Purchase my first "little black dress" and go to second cousins wedding. Looking fabulous. Spend Halloween in Atchison, KS hunting ghosts. Sad that we didn't find any. Make it through the second round of layoffs.

November: Continue to workout and diet like a crazy person. Totally succeed. Vacation in Vegas for Thanksgiving. See The Beatles "Love". Get an awesome suite at Bally's for nearly nothing. Work gets insane. Missy and Ted start behaving a little more and life with two dogs becomes manageable.

December: Enjoy "Girls Christmas", bake lots of cookies even though I said I wouldn't. Work gets REALLY crazy. Dread Christmas. Hate Christmas shopping. Half-heartedly decorate the house. Vow to enjoy the actual Christmas holiday. Mom starts having seizures during Christmas Eve dinner. Spend Christmas at the hospital. Go to Christmas mass in the hospital chappel. Worry, worry, worry. Get ten million grey hairs. Experience first blizzard. Stress, stress, stress. Mom has cancer surgery. Wait, wait, wait. Try out new Garmin GPS. Enjoy new Slanket. Plan to eat lots of cheese and dink lots of wine for New Years Eve. At home, alone.

2010 Goals:
-Maybe run that half marathon? Eh. I wouldn't bet on it. At least do 4 runs.
-Maintain weight loss and maybe get in even better shape.
-Continue home improvements.
-TBD.

Holiday Ho-Hum's: Part 2

Well friends, things didn't get much better after I last posted.

My family spent our Christmas visiting my mom in the ICU. I don't really feel like going into all the details, but we had to rush her to the hospital when we were halfway through our Christmas Eve dinner. She's doing 'OK' now. Finally got moved into a regular room and might get to come home tomorrow. Only to go back to the hospital for surgery (for another issue) on Monday. She'll be in the hospital for 4-7 days just for that, plus a lot of recovery time at home.

Le Sigh.

I don't care that we missed "Christmas". It's just a day, but man alive, it was scary.

On top of the stress of my mom being in the hospital and not knowing what is going on. We were struck with a full on, actual, blizzrd. A BLIZZARD! And not the kind you get a Dairy Queen. Everyone that knows me knows I turn into an absolute wreck when it comes to driving (or riding) in the snow. Basket. Case.

So the past three days have about done me in.

The good news is that my whole family was together on Christmas, just not where we planned, and it looks like my mom is going to be ok. I guess that's about as good as you can ask for given the circumstances, right?

Onward.

The Holiday Ho-Hum's.

I'm not sure what my deal is, but I'm totally not feeling this Christmas. Not at all.

I've tried, really I have!! I've baked cookies, I've decorated the house, I've gone to holiday parties, I've listened to the music (is it just me or are the KC Christmas stations playing REALLY boring Christmas tunes this year..?), I've even driven myself around to look at Christmas lights. It's not working.

I mostly blame my job. It's Christmas 24/7 at that joint and whoa baby, we kicked it in to high gear for 2010 (yes, 2010) and are in the middle of a bunch of crazy. Maybe that's it?

Either way, Christmas Eve is tomorrow and it's traditionally tied for "Favorite Day of the Year" in my book (duh, Halloween!), so I'm going to try my best to enjoy it. I'm going to start my day off with an intense cardio session followed by my annual McDoanlds double cheeseburger and french fry lunch (with a Diet Coke, naturally). What? Everyone has different traditions people! Zach has to work that night, so he's going to miss out on the Conwell Family Christmas. We are even having Jack Stack (and hopefully Scotcha too!)! Boo. It will be a bummer without him there, but hopefully he'll be home in time for late mass. We'll see.

Then Christmas Day I think Zach and I will exchange gifts first thing in the morning and spoil the dogs rotten. After that is our big breakfast at my parents and opening of presents. That afternoon we head to the Anello Family Christmas where we are not having manicotti this year(sad), but instead having ham (meh.). I'll probably just pick at my plate and save room for the 10,795 desserts people always bring. (What diet??) Then it's home to spoil the dogs some more.

That is, if we don't get the "Snow Of The Century" that they are currently blowing out of proportion on the news.

Merry Christmas All. Maybe the spirit will hit me tomorrow.

Merry Christmas from the whole gang!

Ho Ho Ho!!! We hope you have a great Christmas week!

Viva Thanksgiving!

Yes, I know this post is terribly late.

For Thanksgiving this year Zach and I went to visit his dad and step-mom in Las Vegas! Well, not really Las Vegas, the suburbs of Las Vegas. Mesquite to be specific.

I've been to Las Vegas a few times now. Mostly for fun, spring break, girls trip, first vacation with Zach... And yet, every time I go my dad would ask me if I was going to go see the Hoover Dam. Nevermind all the shows and casinos and partying I was going to do, I NEEDED to see that damn dam! So finally, when Zach and I decided to go visit his dad for Thanksgiving I told him we were finally going to see that dam!

So we got off the plane and in the car and drove straight there! No time to waste people! I had a dam to see!



Oookie-dokie. That about does it! No really, it's a dam. I guess I just don't get it. Oh and did I mention I'm deathly afraid of heights? Kind of a problem when standing on the ledge WAY UP THERE looking down on a big concrete death trap! Oh and see that one picture of the BRIDGE they EXPECT PEOPLE TO DRIVE ON someday? Yeah, ok. Good luck with that, bridge people. Needless to say I passed on the dam tour. Maybe some other time.

The rest of the week we spent at his dad's place. Zach and the family mostly just sat around and relaxed. I got a major case of ants in the pants so I decided since I was fresh off the fitness challenge, the weather was gorgeous and I brought the appropriate gear, that I'd go for a run and see the sights in Mesquite. It was great! Soooo pretty!


Zach also got to visit with his sisterdog, Ripley! She is a major sweetheart. Even though she hadn't seen Zach in something like three years, she totally remembered him and immediately wanted to play some fetch in the back yard! She made me miss my crazy furballs the whole time.


Friday after Thanksgiving we went down to the Strip for dinner and a show. Zach's dad generously got us tickets to see The Beatles Love show! It. Was. Fantastic!


That night we stayed at Bally's. I'd never stayed there before, Zach had never stayed there before, but we thought the price was right for one night. Apparently we won the lucky hotel lottery that we always seem to win and got a hugnormous suite for the night! I won't bore you with all the room pictures, but trust me, it was awesome! Check out the view!
It even had a workout room! A work. out. ROOM. Duh, of course I was going to try it out!! The bike? Totally broken. Apparently nobody really works out on vacation....


Too bad our show got out close to midnight and we had to leave for the airport at 8am the next day. I could have stayed in that room forever!!

So that's it. Thanksgiving. Pretty typical, just out of town!

Now it's Christmas and I'm TOTALLY Christmassed out. All I work on ALL DAY LONG every day is Christmas. So when the actual season rolls around, it's a bit much for me to handle. Total Christmas overload. I'll still try to post something about it anyway.

For now, that's it. I'm on Zach's computer and it's totally wacking out and moving the cursor around without my telling it to, so pardon the typos!

Fitness Challenge - The Final Issue

I'm not going to lie, it was a little lackluster. I was expecting this big grandiose issue with full articles about each participant and lots of pictures of everyone.

Apparently I've let fame go to my head.

What there was: A two page spread in the back of the magazine with a small before and a small after picture along with a couple sentences for each person. Really?! That's it? I knew I shouldn't have brought my wedding dress. You can't even really tell how much weight I lost because it's a huge ballgown. The picture I posted here is much more telling. But, what can ya do.

Everyone I've talked to about it is seriously impressed and I feel great, so that's really all that matters right? Except people keep asking me "when's the wedding". Then they look at me like I'm an idiot when I tell them "two years ago". So I have to go into a big explanation about how MY goal was to "Be back to the same weight I was when I got married" THEY spun it into "fit into my wedding dress". Eh. Whatever.

I'm thankful I had the opportunity and it was just the kick in the pants I needed. Now if all these holiday parties could stop, things would be great! It is so tough right now with sweets at every turn. I will say, I've done really well so far. I think this might be a successful Christmas after all! I've also had a few people tell me that I've inspired them, and honestly, that's really cool. I've shared my plan with a few people and maybe they'll jump on board, but like I've always said, you have to do it for you. So, good luck! I'll be sure to keep the blog updated with my future endeavors. I gotta keep the momentum going!

Click HERE for the "full" article.