WOO HOO! I can’t believe it, but I actually managed to decrease my total number of WIPs (works in progress) by ONE last year!! Hey, that’s realllllly good for me as most years I end up with more than I started. ;) On top of that, of the 21 new starts I had in 2008, I actually finished 12 of them within the same year which is also equally amazing for me!

In looking over my spreadsheet, I definitely have some older, more long-standing WIPs that I need to pull out and show some love to in the near future. One of my stitching goals for 2009 is to knock some more off my current WIP list and cut back on the number of new starts. Ideally, I would like to get my outstanding WIPs down to 15 or less which means finishing at least 7 more projects that I start in 2009.

There is a tradition among the online stitching community of having “Guilt-Free January”. During the month of January, you are free to start as many new projects as you like free of all guilt. I haven’t actually decided yet if I’m going to participate this year. I have plenty of projects I really love already started. I think I want to focus on them for a while instead, especially since I’m sure I’ll be starting a couple of new class projects in early February when I go on the stitching cruise with a group from my LNS.

In case you are interested in a bit more detail of how my 2008 stitching year went, here are the numbers & info:

WIPs Beginning 2008	23
New Starts in 2008	21
Finished/Retired in 2008	22
WIPs Beginning 2009	22

2008 Finishes:

Quaker Quarterly Exchange – Ackworth
B is for Bunny – The Sweetheart Tree
Tiny Little Quaker - Papillon Creations
Stitcher’s Chicken – Sisters & Best Friends
Broom Hilda’s Hat - Margaret Bendig
Hannah Beeby test swatch (finished into floss tag)
Dazzle – Margaret Bendig (needlepoint)
Lilies Quilt Corner – SHEAR Creations (needlepoint)
La Petite Holidays Halloween – Curtis Boehringer (shop model for LNS)
Samplar Noel – Fancy Works
A Christmas Wish – Blue Ribbon Designs
Gingerbread Cottage – Country Cottage Needleworks
Coffin Buzz - Plum Street Samplers
Peace – Elizabeth’s Designs
November Twirls – Bent Creek (adapted to say Autumn Twirls)
Where There is Hope – Little House Needleworks
Christmas Tree – Jane Chandler
Snowman – Prairie Schooler
Ellen’s Hat in Noro yarn (knitting) – all 3 hats are pictured together (l to r)
Ellen’s Hat in Paton’s SWS (knitting)
Ellen’s Hat in Bernat Satin (knitting)

Hopefully I can have an equally productive 2009 with my stitching. Of course, since getting my Kindle, I haven’t been stitching nearly as much as I’ve been reading.

Hey everyone! Sorry for not posting for a couple of days. I’ve been pretty busy and when I wasn’t busy, I just didn’t feel like making the mental effort to post. I’m still going strong on my OP streak. Today is day 12 for me, so no worries there.

I arrived in Del Mar this afternoon. I’ve already picked up my race packet for the Iron Girl 5k tomorrow. Right now I’m just relaxing in my hotel room and trying to avoid the chocolate chip cookie they gave me at check-in. Yes, I’m at the Doubletree.

My toe is still hurting, but not nearly as badly as it was earlier in the week. At this point, I’m pretty sure I’ll just walk the whole race and not try to do any running. It’s REALLY HOT down here right now as well, so that’s another good reason for making sure I don’t overdo it tomorrow. My only plan for tomorrow’s race is to just enjoy my first women only race, listen to my body, and have a great time.

I did pick up a few goodies for myself at the expo today. I’ve had my eye on a few things at the Iron Girl online store for a while. I was holding out purchasing anything because I figured I could get them at the expo and save myself some shipping. Well, not only did I save shipping, but everything was cheaper at the expo, too! Here’s a list of the things I picked up:

Transition Bag
Performance Visor
Nutrition Pack
Hydration Carrier
CompetiTowel

Hope everyone is having a great weekend! I’ll post my race report either tomorrow night or sometime on Monday.

Here’s my WW stats for today:

Total Points: 37
Exercise: 1.5 miles walking (2 AP’s)
Weekly Points balance: 30
Water: 56 oz
Consecutive Days OP: 12

Later!

I ordered a couple of new tech shirts recently from the Run Athena website. They arrived earlier this week, but I’m just now getting around to posting about them. Here’s a photo:

For those not into the crazy world of endurance sports like marathon running or triathlons, there is a separate category at races for those us who are *ahem* larger than the typical athlete. For women, that category is called the Athena category and is compromised of female participants in excess of 150 pounds. Please don’t even get me started on what a ridiculously low weight that seems to me for an “Athena”. Oh well, at least Athena sounds pretty cool. For men over 200 pounds, their category is called “Clydesdales”. Yeah, Athena sounds much better. ;)

Anyway, back to the shirts. I was really pleased with the quality given they were only $12 + s/h each. The shirt itself is from Bike and they come in size L and XL. I ordered the XL knowing it would probably be a bit before I could actually wear them. Well, I was really surprised when I tried them on to see that it won’t be long at all! They are cut quite generously. It actually fits me already, but it’s tighter than my current comfort level would allow for me to wear in public. I’m think they’ll be just about right in about 10-15 more pounds. I will wear them proudly!

I’m still in the (hopefully) final stages of recovery from the tonsillitis/sinus infection. I still have a bit of congestion, but it’s a lot better than it was last weekend. As a result of still being in recovery, I didn’t get in very much training this week. I got in 4.05 total miles of walking/wogging (walk/jog combo) and 3 miles on the stationary bike.

My wogging miles will definitely increase tomorrow since I’ll be doing the Coaster Run 5k with Darla. I went by and picked up my race packet earlier today, so I’m all ready to go. After the race is over, we’ll be heading over to the LNS for an all day stitch & bitch and potluck, so tomorrow should be a really fun day all around.

This morning was also my weekly Weight Watchers meeting. I went to it hopeful for a bit of a loss, but realized that it might not happen since I’ve been on Prednisone for the past 8 days. I was THRILLED when I stepped on the scale and saw I was down 2.2 pounds this week. It’s the first time I’ve EVER lost weight on Prednisone! So, this now brings my total loss thus far for my 50 day no cheat challenge up to 13.4 pounds.

Today is actually day 41 of my challenge. It’s amazing to realize that I’m already over 80% done with it! Things have been going so well lately and I’m feeling so good where I am on my journey that I may just keep going with it for a while. I don’t know that I’ll extend it out to another specific point, but I figure since I’m not really struggling and wanting to have a cheat day then it only makes sense to stick with it. I have just over 6 months until the Subaru triathlon and I would really like to be about 35 pounds lighter by then, so sticking with my no cheat plan will definitely help with that.

Ok, this is starting to get crazy long, so I’ll finish off for now. As usual, I’ll close with my WW stats for the past 2 days since I didn’t get around to posting yesterday.

Thursday:

Total Points: 28
Exercise: Cycling (1 AP) & Wogging (2 AP) – 3
Weekly Points balance: 34
Water: 88 oz
Days OP: 39

Friday:

Total Points: 29.5
Exercise: Walking – 1 AP
Weekly Points balance: 34
Water: 72 oz
Days OP: 40

Until next time …

It’s a Beautiful Day!!!

I’ll start by offering my apologies to U2 for stealing their lyric, but why is it such a beautiful day you might ask? Well, for one, I live in southern California and so most days are actually beautiful. Aside from that, it’s a beautiful day because 1) I’m alive, 2) I have a good job and nice place to live, and 3) I was able to get out this morning to wog (walk/jog) and bike.

The reason #3 is so significant is because 1 year ago today, I went into multi-level spinal fusion surgery at 12:15pm PT. I went in with the guarantee of a long painful recovery with no guarantee of success. If memory serves, the doctor gave me 70/30 odds that the surgery would resolve my spinal issues which had already been plaguing me for quite some time. Making the decision to have the surgery wasn’t easy and I tried many other methods of treatment before going that route.

So, here I am 1 year later. Do I consider the surgery successful? Yes. Is my back perfect? No, but it’s light years better than it was before the surgery. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve EVER had a better workout than I did this morning just because of being so grateful to actually be in the gym. So, even if there were thunderstorms or snow today, it would STILL be a beautiful day to me.

Wednesday’s WW stats:

Total Points: 27.5
Exercise: None
Weekly Points balance: 34
Water: 80 oz
Days OP: 38

Until next time …

Wow! I feel SO much better today! What a difference a day on the proper medication makes! Granted, I’m still far away from being 100%, but this is the first day in several days that I actually feel BETTER than I did yesterday. It was getting very frustrating earlier in the week to be taking medication and still waking up each morning feeling worse than the previous day. I finally feel like I’m on the road to recovery.

Of course, the downside of feeling better for me is that I’m chomping at the bit to still do the 5k race tomorrow. There’s no way I have the energy to run any of it, but I really find myself wanting to get out and at least walk it. I’ve been feeling so cooped up the past few days anyway that a walk by the beach is VERY appealing. Of course, the doctor told me to lay off training for a few days, so I’m guessing that would include walking in an organized race, too. Of course, she wouldn’t have to know now, would she?

Even if I don’t actually walk it, I’m definitely considering heading down to at least watch some of the races. There are some Olympic hopefuls who will be running and I would love to see them. Alan Webb is one of the elite runners who will be out on the course tomorrow. Speculation is that he even has a good shot at breaking the American record of 13:24 for a 5k road race that was set back in 1996 by Marc Davis of San Diego. It would be pretty cool to be on hand to see a new American record being set.

As I pretty much figured, the Prednisone has already reared it’s ugly head on my scale. I actually ate 4 points less than my target yesterday and yet the scale still jumped 2 pounds this morning from where it was yesterday. Thankfully, I know all too well how Prednisone affects my weight, so it’s not going to let me get of track. Once I finish the 12 day regime of it, the scale will rebound and start moving downward again.

In case you might not have noticed, I’ve also added a new page to my blog. If you look up above this entry in the black toolbar, there is now a “Lingo” page. This page includes a lot of the lingo/jargon that comes up in the worlds of running, cycling, swimming, triathlons, etc. I figured since that’s becoming more of a focus in my life right now that I would include that page for those who read my blog who might stumble across terms with which they aren’t familiar. For those of you who are familiar, please feel free to let me know of any egregious omissions I may have made.

Here are my WW stats for yesterday:

Total Points: 27
Exercise:
Weekly Points balance: 35
Water: 64 oz
Days OP: 33

Until next time …

Back from the doctor … again. After not getting any better after being on antibiotics for a few days, actually I’ve been getting much worse, I went back to the doctor this morning. Turns out she kind of misdiagnosed me earlier in the week. While I do have a bit of a sinus infection, that’s not what has been causing the severe throat pain. I was wrong yesterday as well though, I don’t have strep either. I have tonsillitis. So, in addition to the antibiotics, I’m now on Prednisone for the next 12 days, too. Unfortunately, this also means no Carlsbad 5000 for me this weekend. In fact, she told me to hold off on all training for at least 5 days.

Since I know how Prednisone typically affects my weight, I weighed in today instead of tomorrow. I was down another 1.6 pounds this week which brings my total loss to date up to 76.2 pounds.

They also did blood work on Wednesday and I got those results back today. She was VERY happy with my numbers with the exception of my glucose. She said it might have registered slightly high though due to the fact that I hadn’t been on a 12-hour fast prior to the draw since it wasn’t scheduled in advance. Here are my results:

Blood Pressure: 118/73
Triglycerides: 124 (recommended is < 150)
Total Cholesterol: 192 (recommended is < 200) – it was 249 when tested last May
HDL Cholesterol: 49 (recommended is >= 40)
LDL Cholesterol: 118 (recommended is < 130)
Chol/HDLC Ratio: 3.9 (recommended is <= 5)
Glucose: 105 (recommended is 65-99)

All in all, pretty good numbers especially given my current weight. She told me to keep it up with my weight loss and exercise regime and they’ll only continue to drop and get better.

Until next time ...

WOO HOO! I’ve completed 30 days with no slips, cheats, or tweaks to my diet. I can barely believe it’s been a month already since I started this latest challenge with myself. Things have been going really well and I actually managed to drop 9.6 pounds for the month of March. So, I have 30 days down, and 20 to go to meet my 50 day challenge.

I really want to thank everyone for the kudos for me signing up for the triathlon. I can’t believe just HOW excited I am about this venture. So, I’ve got about 6 weeks to get really comfortable on my bike before my formal training plan kicks in on May 18. It’s a 22-week plan that will take me right to race day.

My walk/running miles for March were much lower than normal because I was taking part in a bike challenge on the tri board where I post. Virtually all of my cycling miles were doing on a stationary bike, but that was allowed for this particular challenge. Here were my final totals (time & distance) for the month of March:

Bike: 6h 30m – 78.9 Mi
Walk/Run: 4h 12m 22s – 15.9 Mi

I’m also taking part in another challenge during the month of April. It’s a multisport challenge, so you had to set a goal for a minimum of 2 sports for the month. I set mine for cycling and running. I’m really hoping to make good strides in my bike riding confidence this month, so hopefully there will be more miles done outdoors and less on the stationary bike during April. Here are my goals:

Bike: 50 miles
Walk/Run: 30 miles

On the stitching front, I haven’t really done any stitching in the past several days. I did get in 4 days of stitching time last week for the Hannah Beeby SAL. I think I made really good progress for round 1. Round 2 will take place on April 20-27. Hopefully I can make as much progress during the next round as I did this time. Here’s a photo of where I ended round 1 (again, pardon the wrinkles):

Well, I guess that’s it for now. I’ll close with my WW stats from the past couple of days.

Monday:

Total Points: 23.5 (skipped usual evening snack for early bed time)
Exercise: 1.3 miles walking (1 AP)
Weekly Points balance: 35
Water: 64 oz
Days OP: 29

Tuesday:

Total Points: 31
Exercise: None
Weekly Points balance: 35
Water: 72 oz
Days OP: 30

Until next time …

I went to my WW meeting this morning. I was a bit nervous going into it because I had a luncheon on Wednesday at a local Mexican restaurant. That was immediately followed on Thursday with a potluck luncheon in our department at work. I tried to make the best choices I could, but you just never know what you’re always getting with other people’s cooking, KWIM?

Anyway, I was THRILLED to see that I dropped 1.6 pounds this week. That puts me at 8.6 pounds lost since I recommitted myself a few weeks ago. I’m really happy with how things are going again.

I’ll have to get creative the next couple of weeks as far as making a meeting. I’ll be in Oceanside next weekend volunteering at the California Ironman triathlon. I’m heading down on Friday to work the registration tables Friday evening, and then I’ll be on the course in some capacity on Saturday morning during the actual race.

The following weekend, I’ll be heading down to Oceanside again to participate in the Carlsbad 5000 race. That event isn’t until Sunday, so I could swing by my regular Saturday morning meeting before I head down for the expo on Saturday afternoon. I’ll just have to see what’s on the agenda with Terri and her DH before I made any definite plans. She’s also signed up for the race, but hasn’t decided for sure if she’s going to be able to participate due to on-going issues with plantar fasciitis.

My plans for this weekend include getting out for a couple of nice walks and, perhaps, some more time working on learning to ride my bike. It’s going to be GORGEOUS weather here this weekend with temperatures in the low 80’s. (My apologies to those who are still dealing with winter snow!). I’m hoping to do some spring cleaning, too. I’ve got the windows wide open and just enjoying the nice weather. (Again, my apologies to those still dealing with winter.)

On the NCAA March Madness front, yes, my beloved Tennessee Volunteers won their game yesterday. So, they will now face off against Butler in Round 2 of the tournament. The women’s tournament starts today with Round 1 action. The Lady Vols are a #1 seed this year, so they’ll be playing tomorrow against Oral Roberts.

I’ve been really impressed with how well the schools in Tennessee have done this year in hoops. There are 5 teams from Tennessee in the men’s tournament, and 4 teams from Tennessee in the women’s tournament. Given there are only a total of 64 teams in each tournament, those are pretty good percentages for my home state.

Well, I guess that’s it from me for now. In typical fashion of late, I’ll close with my WW stats for yesterday:

Total Points: 30.5
Exercise: None
Weekly Points balance: 26
Water: 64 oz
Days OP: 19

Until next time …

Let me start off by saying Happy St. Patrick’s Day!! Being part Irish, this is one of my favorite holidays. I hope everyone has a great day, but be sure not to drink too much of the green beer.

I got really lazy when it came to my stitching. I didn’t put a single stitch into any of my projects. I was productive otherwise though by sorting through some of my stash and getting it a bit more organized. I saw photos on Nicole’s blog about how she was organizing and it got me thinking about my own stash and some things I’d been wanting to do lately to better organize. So, thanks for the push, Nicole. Also, big thanks for chiming in so quickly to my ISO request. I sent you an email.

I had planned on riding my bicycle, but it was pretty windy and threatening rain all afternoon. So, I went to the fitness room at my complex and put in time on the stationary bike instead. I rode for just over 40 minutes and went 10 miles. It always kind of amazes me when I see the distances on the stationary bikes. Even if I could ride 10 miles on my real bike, I don’t see me doing it in only 40 minutes.

My exercise focus for this week will definitely be on walking again. I have the Carlsbad 5000 coming up in 3 weeks and I need to get in some pavement walking time so that I’ll be ready. Treadmills are all fine and good, but walking 3+ miles on pavement is much different on my ankles than it is when I walk that distance on the treadmill. So, by getting in some time on pavement leading up to the race, my ankles should hold up better during the race.

In the evening, I spent some time trying to organize my DVDs. I recently purchased 2 large binders (each holds 256 DVDs), but hadn’t gotten around to filling them. I’m still not done, but I got started at least. One will hold the movies I’ve already watched, and the other will hold the ones I’ve not seen yet. I also created an Excel spreadsheet with the title, year, genre, run time, any misc. notes, and the location where it is stored. Eventually I want to organize the holder with the previously viewed titles by genre, then year, then title. For now though, I’m happy just getting them organized in any sort of fashion, regardless of how rudimentary it might be.

I guess that’s it for now, so I’ll close with my WW stats for Sunday:

Total Points: 26.5 – dialed things back a little today due to eating 42 pts yesterday
Exercise: 40 mins stationary bike – 3 APs
Weekly Points balance: 27
Water: 48 oz
Days OP: 14

Until next time …

Saturday was my weekly Weight Watchers meeting. During the month of February, I had gotten WAAAAY off track and ended up putting on quite a bit of weight, especially in the last 2 weeks. So, I dusted myself on March 1 and recommitted myself to my plan. Well, it definitely paid off! When I weighed in at my meeting, I was down 6.8 pounds this week. I was THRILLED! Of course, this now motivates me all the more to keep myself on track.

I haven’t blogged about it yet, but I also set a goal for myself when I recommitted of going 50 consecutive days with no cheats or slips. My goal is to follow the WW plan AS WRITTEN without any of my “Melissa tweaks”. This means sticking with my daily points target, but it’s still OK to use my 35 extra weekly points or any earned activity points since that’s how the program is written. So far, so good. Today will be day 7 for me, so I’m closing in on already being 20% of the way complete. I’ll try to remember and get in the habit of posting my total from the previous day here in my blog. Here are Saturday’s numbers:

Total Points: 33 (used 2 AP’s)
Exercise: 30 mins VERY slow bike riding – 2 APs (still learning how to ride)
WPA balance: 35
Water: 64 oz
Days OP: 6

Another goal I have for myself for the upcoming week is to get back into a better routine with my exercise, too. I have two 5k races coming up back-to-back in 4 & 5 weeks respectively. I really need to step things up in order to be properly prepared. I would really like to beat my 5k time from the event I did in early February, so that’s all the more reason to step things up over the next couple of weeks, too! Here’s my schedule for the end of March & early April for races:

March 29 – Volunteer at the Ford Ironman California event in Oceanside, CA
April 6 – Compete in the Carlsbad 5000 event in Carlsbad, CA
April 13 – Compete in the Knott’s Berry Farm Coaster Run 5k in Buena Park, CA

I’m also considering a couple of other races in the next couple of months as well. I’m not actually registered for them yet, but they are definitely a strong possibility for me:

June 14 – Compete in the Downtown Anaheim 5k in my hometown of Anaheim, CA
June 22 – Compete in the Iron Girl Del Mar 10k in Del Mar, CA

Yes, I realize I have a VERY bad habit of looking at races in back-to-back weekends. I’m not sure why that is, but it just seems to happen. Of course, if I’m training properly for the 10k event on June 22, finishing a 5k the weekend before shouldn’t be a problem. You can always find the links for any events in which I plan to compete in the Countdown Timers section in the right-hand column of my blog over there. –>

Speaking of the columns in my blog, a friend of mine stumbled upon a cool feature of my blog theme that I hadn’t even realized. If you click on the green dot in the right-hand corner of any of the boxes in either column, it will collapse it so that it takes up less room on the screen. So, if you have no interest in my upcoming races, you could collapse the Countdown Timers section by clicking on the green button for it.

Another cool thing is that you can drag and drop all of the column boxes around and put them in the order you would like them to appear. Simply click on the title bar for the box you want to move and drag it anywhere else in that column. Please note that you cannot move things from one column to the other. You can only rearrange items within the same column.

Your system will set a cookie for how you have arranged them, so each time you visit my blog, it will remember how you want it to be displayed. If you access my blog from multiple computers, you would need to arrange it initially on each one as the cookie is stored on your local computer and not on my server.

In close, today is the final game for the Tennessee men’s basketball team before heading into March Madness. It’s very likely we’ll go in as a #1 seed, so I’m hoping for the guys that perhaps they’ll win their first ever NCAA championship! Unfortunately, the game isn’t being televised out here in California, so I’ll have to either track it online or go out and sit in my car to listen to it on my XM radio. Don’t think for a second that I’m not strongly considering the latter option either.