One Woman Learning to Live Her Best Life

July 2008Monthly Archives

50 Days

Yep, I did it! Yesterday was day 50 of no slips and/or cheats on my eating plan. In that 7 weeks, I even managed to drop 11.2 pounds (another 0.6 this week) which averages out to 1.6 pounds per week. I’ll take it! 8) Even though I’ve come to the “official” end of my 50 day challenge, I don’t really feel the need to splurge of go off plan. I’m just going to keep on keepin’ on.

As I’m sure many of you have heard by now, we did indeed have a pretty good shaker here in southern California yesterday. According to the US Geological Service, it registered 5.4 on the Richter Scale. Even though my office was approximately 40 miles from the epicenter, we were still evacuated for safety reasons. They did a quick inspection of all the buildings to ensure they were safe.

When I got home last night, I had to do a bit of quick clean up since my home was only about 15 miles or so from the epicenter. I mostly just had to pick things up from the floor and put them back on shelves, straighten pictures on the wall that were askew, and straighten things on the countertops that had “wiggled” out of place. For the most part, everything was OK with the exception of one of my candles which did not survive the fall.


In stitching news, I did manage to finish another item for my WIP Killer Challenge. This piece is from the 2006 ornament issue of Just Cross Stitch magazine. It’s called Sampler Noel and was designed by Jane Timmers of Fancy Work. It’s stitched on Vintage Light Examplar from Lakeside Linens using Gloriana silk in Rosewood. It’s a combination of over-1 and over-2 stitching, with the alphabet all being over-1.


Well, I guess that’s it for now. Until next time …

The Same

Regardless of our differences, when it comes down to it, deep down inside we’re all the same and language barriers just don’t matter.


Where the Hell is Matt? [2008] from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

If you have a fast connection and prefer to see the HD version, you can find it here.

Another 5k in the Books

What a hellish week I’ve had! Work has been as busy as ever. Two coworkers in my department were in a car accident on Wednesday (they got t-boned in an intersection by a man running a red light doing about 60mph) — thankfully, they’re both OK, but the Range Rover they were in was totaled.

Then, as if I didn’t have enough stress in my life, the person who sexually abused me for many years of my childhood decided to make an appearance in my life via email in a discussion over politics and religion. Other than seeing him briefly at my grandmother’s funeral several years ago, we’ve had no direct contact for nearly 13 years, so it was very odd to suddenly have communication with him.

I’ve had a mixed bag of emotions ranging from anger to just severe emotional pain/trauma from the flood of memories it brought back, including having nightmares pretty much every night since the initial email. After a few emails back and forth, I’ve thankfully not heard from him again since I told him before he started lecturing me on the state of freedom of religion in our country that perhaps he should take a look at his own faith since he has called me a liar over the things that happened to me as a child.

Anyway, moving on to more pleasant things ….

Praise be to the deity of your choice (see how I linked that back with the whole freedom of religion thing? ) ), I am DONE with 5k races for the summer. It’s just too hot and painful (for me) to do races in the summertime. My next race probably won’t be until the middle to end of September.

Today’s race was the Cypress 5k/10k put on by the nearby city of Cypress. I did have a good race overall though. I think I may have even set a new personal 5k record. I missed getting my Garmin started at the very beginning of the race and didn’t realize it until a couple of minutes into it. When I passed one of the mile markers, I heard one of the volunteers calling out the race clock time. I remember thinking at the time that my Garmin was approx. 2:15 off the race clock. Like a ninny, I forgot to look at the race clock when I crossed the finish line.

According to my Garmin, I finished in 48:58 which gives me about 3 minutes of “wiggle” room to beat my old PR of 51:47 which I set back in 2006 just before all of my back woes took control of my life. I’m figuring I have 3 minutes of wiggle room since it was probably 15-20 seconds after the gun that Darla and I actually crossed the starting line.

If you are a numbers geek and want to see the data from my Garmin, here’s the link to my race details on their Motion Based site. It’s a bit odd though on some of the data. The display on my watch said I had gone 2.9 miles, but when I uploaded the data to the Motion Based site, it shows 3.04 miles.

Cypress 5k Garmin Data

For a comparison, here is a Google pedometer map I put together of the actual race course. I definitely wasn’t off very far before I got my Garmin started:

Cypress 5k Race Route

From looking at the race website, it looks like the official results aren’t posted there, but are on the Active.com website. I’ve never done a race where the results were solely on Active’s site. Anyone have any idea how long those typically take to get posted?

I do have to say, there were definitely a couple of highlights in today’s race. The first was the family who hooked up a water mister to their garden hose and had it hanging on a street light. As we all passed by their home, we got a quick little mist to cool us off. That was awesome!

The other highlight was that in addition to the typical banana, water, etc., they had Big Stick popsicles for all of us at the finish line. I generally don’t like anything with pineapple, but I have to say that may very well have been the best damned popsicle I’ve ever eaten and was the perfect way to cool down after a hot race! Even better, it was only 90 calories. yes

Ok, that’s it for now. I hope everyone has a lovely rest of the weekend!

Frozen Food Recall

I saw this in today’s Hungry Girl newsletter and thought I would pass along the word.

Lean Pockets Recall! – The folks at Nestlé, makers of Lean Pockets, are recalling about 350,000 packages of their Spinach Artichoke Chicken Lean Pockets. These all have a “Best Before” date of Nov. 2009 and package codes beginning with 8144 544616. These products may contain pieces of plastic! DO NOT EAT THEM! If you have purchased recalled packages and/or have questions, you can reach Nestlé’s consumer hotline at 1-800-350-5016.

Tomato Update! – Hooray… apparently all tomatoes are safe to eat again! The FDA announced last Thursday that it is withdrawing its warning against eating certain types of tomatoes, as it’s recently been determined that tomatoes are not associated with the salmonella outbreak. The FDA is warning those considered high risk for illnesses (elderly people, infants, and those with weak immune systems) to avoid raw jalapeño and raw serrano peppers, though, as they may be linked to the outbreak.

Stitching Update

Since I’ve been focusing so much lately on my weight loss & fitness journey, I haven’t provided a stitching update in quite some time. I am still stitching, but obviously not as much since a lot of my free time is now spent either at the gym or in the pool.

I have finished a couple of pieces since my last update. One is the very first painted canvas piece I ever attempted. It’s an ornament called “Lilie’s Quilt Corner” from SHEAR Creations. Here’s a pic of my finished piece (as always, you can click any of the photos below for a larger view):

I also finished another cross stitch piece as well. It’s the Halloween design from the La Petite Holidays series by Curtis Boehringer. I made a couple of fiber changes from the charted design. I used an over-dyed fiber for the jack-o-lantern, and I used a combination of DMC 310 & black Wisper for the cat.

I’ve put in a big more stitching time lately on my Taj Mahal Mandala Garden by Chatelaine. I’d forgotten just how much I love this design until I picked it up to work on it some more. Here’s my latest progress pic at 72 hours of stitching time:

I’ve also been taking the opportunity at the last couple of stitching Sundays at my LNS to learn some new techniques. I’m learning to do Hardanger, and I also learned how to stitch a plaid design in needlepoint. Here are a couple of pics:

In one last bit of stitching news, I have decided I am clearly a stitching masochist. As if I didn’t have enough BAP’s (big ass projects) already, I picked up the supplies for yet another one. It’s Nova by Genny Morrow Designs. The chart book calls for using 18-count canvas, but I’ve decided to stitch mine on 24-count Congress Cloth instead. This project will also be my first experience with using scroll bars.

Well, I guess that’s it on the stitching front for now. Until next time …

Some Lighter Fare

Since my last couple of blog entries have been on the serious side, I thought I would post some lighter fare that I saw on TB’s blog. I’ll post a more personal entry tomorrow with updates on where I am on my journey and what’s going on with me lately.

5 Things in your bag:

I opted for my gym bag rather than my purse since the category said “bag”.

1. Swimsuit
2. Speedo swim cap
3. Goggles
4. Running shoes
5. Gym membership card

5 Things in your bedroom:

1. Queen Size bed
2. Bookcase
3. Two large cabinets to hold my stitching stash
4. Laundry sorter
5. Bose wave radio

5 Things I have always wanted:

Well, these are aside from obvious choices of world peace, end of world hunger, cures for diseases, etc. Any of those would take a much higher priority for me than the 5 items I’ve listed here.

1. Be loved unconditionally by my family
2. Love myself unconditionally
3. Vacation in Europe (Ireland, Paris, & Rome specifically)
4. Finish my degree
5. Learn to ride a bike (working on it!)

5 Things I’m really into:

1. Getting healthy – this includes weight loss & physical activity
2. Needlework – both cross stitching and canvas
3. Helping people – I love to volunteer with Habitat for Humanity, MS Society, etc.
4. Pogo – love playing games there!
5. Gadgetry – love my iPod, BlackBerry, Garmin GPS watch, DVR, etc.

Until next time …

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