One of the ladies I recently attended bootcamp with at Made in L.A. Fitness put together an awesome video. It’s a collection of photos that were taken over the course of the weekend. Here it is, and I highly recommend watching the high quality version:

If you’re wondering about the music in the video, it’s “Love Will Come to You” by the Indigo Girls. It was the perfect choice, Becky!!

My heart is hurting right now for my dear friend Terri. I found out last night that she lost her beloved pup Bandit on Tuesday. Here’s a photo I took of him a couple of years ago sitting on the back of her stitching chair.

Terribelle’s Heartbandit ~~ August 26, 2003 – February 11, 2009

You simply could not have asked for a sweeter dog than Bandit. Every time I would drive down to visit, Bandit would greet me at the door with a plethora of puppy kisses. He would occasionally curl up next to me when I was stitching, but he generally would head over to keep his Mom company just like he was in the photo above.

I’ll miss him so much when I go down to visit. I know it will be nothing compared to how Terri, her DH, and their other pup Harley will be missing him though. You guys are in my thoughts!

I’m having an AMAZING time with my friends in Hawai’i. So much so that we’ve decided to come back again next year! I’m not going to take the time to post details right now, but I thought I would share a few favorite pics. Mahalo and enjoy!

View from the lanai at our condo:

International Market Place and surrounding area:

Picking out pearl settings at The Pearl Factory with the help of Cousin Grant (left) and Cousin Wayne (right):

Result of our efforts:

Paradise Cove Luau:

Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve: (place we went snorkeling)

Well, that’s it for now. I’ll write up more details after I get back home on Sunday.

in my beautiful, my beautiful …. balloon! I had an AMAZING experience yesterday! My friend who is visiting surprised me with a sunrise hot air balloon ride over wine country in Temecula, CA. It was awesome!! Here are a couple of pics taken during the ride. As always, you can click on each photo for a larger view.

Wilson Creek Winery

If you want to see all of the pics, you can view them here.

I’m not sure if I’ll have a chance to update my blog much over the next week. I’m leaving tomorrow for vacation in Hawaii with Terri and Tracy. I can update my blog from my iPhone, so I might try to at least post a couple of updates, but there probably won’t be anything substantial until after I get back.

So, until next time …

I met up for dinner last night with a stitching friend I’ve known online for several years. Alison lives in Sydney, Australia, but was in the U.S. for the Shepherd’s Bush retreat a few weeks ago and for some general holiday fun. She was in Los Angeles as her final stop before hopping on a plane to head home today. My friends Darla and Nick were also able to join us. We all hit it off immediately and had a wonderful time together. I couldn’t believe how quickly three hours passed!

Here are a couple of photos (click for larger view):

Clockwise from lower left: Alison’s mum, Alison, Alison’s DD, Me, Darla

Left to right: Me, Alison, Darla

My very dear friend Nick is once again riding in the Bike MS event in Michigan. This weekend marks his 6th year riding in this event. It’s a pretty grueling 150 mile ride over 2 days. This is just one of many such rides and walks sponsored each year across the country by local chapters of the National MS Society. Participants ride/walk for, and in honor of, people with Multiple Sclerosis so that hopefully one day they can find a cure for this debilitating and, sometimes, fatal disease.

One of my those people with MS is my sister Marilyn. She was diagnosed with MS about 8 or 9 years ago after she began experiencing “floaters” and blurriness in her vision. She went to see her eye doctor about this issue. He had, thankfully, recently attended a conference where the link between vision problems and MS were discussed. He referred her to a Neuroimmunologist at the MS Clinic at Vanderbilt Medical Center who ran a battery of tests and ultimately confirmed she had MS. At the time of her diagnosis, she was both a fairly recent newlywed and a new mom to my niece Casey. It was devastating news.

She has done fairly well over the years with treatment and has been able to lead a somewhat “normal” life. It hasn’t been easy though. Several years into her treatment, a routine test panel revealed that the Interferon was adversely affecting her liver (a somewhat common problem). So, she was forced to make a decision to lower her dosage of Interferon which increases the likelihood of experiencing the MS symptoms, or to continue with the normal dosage and run the risk of potentially needing to have a liver transplant down the road.

My sister opted for decreasing her dosage. This has resulted more symptoms, but she’s still doing fairly well otherwise and her liver panels are holding steady. The one symptom that has gotten noticeably worse is her balance. Even without drinking a drop of alcohol, she would be unable to pass a field sobriety test simply because she doesn’t have the balance capacity necessary to pass the tests. If her balance continues to deteriorate, she will eventually lose her driving privileges and, if it gets bad enough, end up having to use either a walker or wheelchair.

About 3 years ago, she was unexpectedly fired from a job at a small to medium-sized wholesale distributing company where she had worked for well over 10 years. Even though nothing was ever able to be proven definitively, the vast assumption by everyone involved was that her employer let her go due to the ever-increasing costs of providing my sister with medical insurance. Since her husband and his father owned a small trucking company together, he also did not have medical insurance, so they were forced to start paying for all of her medications out-of-pocket. There were many times, however, that if it was a bad month for the trucking company, that she went without purchasing her medication because they simply couldn’t afford it.

Fast forward to the end of January of this year. My brother-in-law was killed in a single-car accident on icy roads on January 31st. My sister was now an unemployed widow at the age of 45 with MS and two children under the age of 10. (In addition to my niece, my sister and her husband had taken responsibility a couple of years ago for raising his great-nephew, now 3 years old, because the mother had a drug abuse problem.) Finding a job in our current economy can be difficult enough on its own, but try finding a job when you tell the potential employer that you have MS. Fortunately, her father-in-law basically created a position for her at the trucking company to give her enough income to be able to feed her family, but she still doesn’t have any medical insurance and can’t afford to pay for an individual policy because of her pre-existing MS.

I’m not telling you guys all of this so that you will feel sorry for my sister. I’m sharing this to give you just one of the many faces of people living with MS. She’s just one story. There are so many more out there, some much worse than her own, since there are currently nearly a half million people in the U.S. living with MS with approximately another 200 people each week being diagnosed. This disease affects about 2.5 million people world-wide, most of whom are women since women are 2-3 times more likely to have MS than men.

So, if you are so inclined, I would be ever so grateful if you would make a donation to my friend Nick as he is riding his heart out this weekend, not only for my sister, but for all the others like her who are living with MS. The money does not go to him, but goes directly to the MS Society. Here’s the link one more time:

Nick’s Donation Website

The MS Society is an wonderful organization that not only helps fund amazing research, but also uses the money raised to help support those already living with the disease. They locally fund both educational and recreational programs for MS patients and their families. They also assist patients financially and through advocacy as needed. They truly are an amazing organization and I’m honored to work with them at my local chapter here as well.

If you decide to make a donation, please accept my most sincere and grateful thanks! If you are inclined to help even further and want to participate in future events, check out the Walk MS, Bike MS, and Challenge Walk websites to find an event near you.

I went to my first weigh in today since rejoining Weight Watchers last week. I was down 4.2 pounds!!! The most amazing part of that is that in the past couple of days I’ve eaten some very out of the norm foods for me.

On Sunday, I went to a Chinese buffet with my outlaws (former in-laws) for Father’s Day. I did really well with the situation and only had foods that were steamed and avoided anything with much of a sauce. The only real “bad” thing I had was 1 small veggie egg roll. All in all, I considered the meal a great success for my weight loss journey!

Yesterday was much more of a challenge. I attended the wedding & reception of my coworker Kelly which took place on a Carnival cruise ship. Pretty much all of the food was fried with the exception of some sushi, the deviled eggs, and the fruit. Oh, I almost forgot, the cake wasn’t fried either. Since I knew I had the event coming up, I had reserved all of my extra weekly points allowance just for this occasion. I did dip into them quite a bit yesterday, but didn’t exceed my budget, so my OP string continues.

Here are a couple of pics from the wedding. As always, you can click on the images here in the blog to see a larger version of them.

The ceremony:

The reception area:

Cutting the cake:

The kiss at the end of their first dance:

I think Kelly was such a beautiful bride and her dress was gorgeous! Here’s to wishing Kelly & Adam and long, healthy, and happy marriage!

In closing, here are my WW stats for yesterday:

Total Points: 45
Exercise: Walking – 2 APs
Weekly Points balance: 23
Water: 64 oz
Consecutive Days OP: 7

Until next time …

Just wanted to take a minute to send out good race vibes to a couple of local friends who are racing this weekend. Yanti is doing the Redondo Beach Triathlon, and Darla is cycling the half century distance of the Los Angeles River Ride.

I hope you both have a great day out there!!

Well, I did it. I broke down and ordered a wetsuit today. I’m already dreading trying it on when it arrives, but I just keep reminding myself that really no one looks good in a wetsuit. Well, ok, so maybe fitness models and elite triathletes look good in wetsuits, but pretty much no one else does.

Since I live in southern California, I opted for a spring suit instead of a full suit. I ordered an O’Neill Reactor suit (part of their multi-sport line) from Becker Surfboards. I pretty much decided on the spring suit for a few different reasons:

1. It should provide plenty of warmth for the waters here.
2. It was more affordable than a full suit.
3. It should fit better since I had to order a men’s suit.

Yeah, that third item was the most depressing. For anyone who cares to know, it’s pretty much impossible to find a women’s triathlon wetsuit if you are a plus size. Even though I’ve lost over 75 pounds, I’m still very much a plus size and there just isn’t much to be found out there in my size as far as tri gear goes.

My friend Nick flew back home yesterday. We had a great time while he was here. The trip to Palm Springs & Joshua Tree was amazing! As feared, when we took the aerial tram up on to Mount San Jacinto, we did face temps around 30°F and falling snow. We didn’t let it deter us though as we still went out and had a nice hike for just over an hour. Here are a couple of pics (click on each for a larger view):

Snow … in May?! WTF?!?!?

Me at the mountain station of the tram (8516′ elevation)

I came from Detroit to southern California for THIS?!

Tram up to the mountain (definitely click this one to see it full size)

After enjoying a day in the snow, the next day we headed into the desert at Joshua Tree National Park. The temperatures there was definitely far below the norm as well. Normal high temperatures for this time of the year is in the low to mid-90′s F. It was in the 60′s most of the day, but did dip down into the upper 50′s at one point when we went up to Keys View (5185′ elevation). Here are a few pics from that day:

Joshua Tree Welcome Center

Beaver Tail Cactus in Bloom

Forest of Joshua Trees

Self-Portrait of Nick Chilling Out

Hiking on the Lost Horse Mine Trail

Well, I guess that’s enough for now. I really need to head off to bed since it’s back to work full-time tomorrow. After working part-time the past couple of weeks while Nick was here, working a full week again is going to be a rude reality check.

Until next time …

My friend Nick and I arrived safely in Palm Springs after driving through a horrific thunderstorm in Moreno Valley. We heard later there was apparently a tornado that went through not long after us, so we’re really thankful we didn’t caught up in that!

Our plan for tomorrow is to take the aerial tram up to the top of Mount San Jacinto. Imagine my surprise when we got out here and found out there’s still SNOW up there and the forecasted high for tomorrow is only 40°F. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr!! I’m not sure I brought warm enough clothing for those conditions!

The hotel we’re staying at doesn’t offer free WiFi, but I managed to locate a signal out on the balcony. So, after having gone to one of my favorite vegan restaurants for dinner, I’m now sitting here on our balcony enjoying all the hub-bub from an English pub on the street below and doing a lot of people watching on a very pleasant spring-like evening. Nick is inside doing a bit of cross-stitching while I finish this post. After that, we’re planning to play a bit of Gin Rummy or Canasta. Life is good.

Until next time …