Hoarding Much??

Thank GOD that Katie (Runs For Cookies) warned us all about the upcoming peanut shortage!! Apparently, the south had a drought (90 days+ of 90* or more temps. for Central Texas this year!), and that affected peanut crops. Lower yields means shortages on the shelves and higher prices. A few weeks ago, Brian Williams from NBC's Nightly News spread the word that peanut product's prices could increase as much as 30-40%!!! My family LOVES peanut butter. We go through at least 1 regular sized jar a week. My husband eats peanut butter toast every morning because it's one of the only things he can eat that will give him lasting energy so he won't get the "low blood sugar shakes." The kids (mine and those I babysit) eat pb & j quite often, too. Not to mention I enjoy pb, especially baking with it!!

So, I did the only rational thing anyone (including Katie) would do! Every time I went in a store I bought at least 1 jar of the pb on sale. The last few weeks Planters brand has been my BEST FRIEND!! They've been either 3/$5 or 2/$3 at the little market or Walgreen's. If they were out, I got a raincheck! This coming week CVS has Jif 3/$5!!! Guess who will be hitting them up a couple of times??? Again. if they don't have it I'll get a raincheck and buy it when the prices become astronomical. I'll giggle when they have to take $2 or $3 off the price of each jar!!!


Here's my stash so far! That's 15 jars, almost a 4 month supply.



Loving Me Some Tastefully Simple

My loot!

I hosted another TS party last month to help my niece out. She's a consultant, doing this on top of working at 3 different dance studios to save for her wedding that's almost 10 months away. Anyway, if you've never heard of them, they have great food products that you either add 1 or 2 ingredients to prepare or items that you just open and enjoy. I went to my first party a few years ago and love everything I've purchased. What's nice about a TS party is that it's like a cocktail party where you get to eat, drink and shop. The items are all very affordable, most less than $10, unlike the skincare/food storage/food prep/jewelry home parties that are out there. I love to entertain and cook and bake for my family. Sometimes I have the time to start from scratch, but other times I just want to add some water and butter and have a foolproof perfect cake!

My free plus half-price items!!





This is the perfect time of year to get all of these goodies since the holidays are rapidly approaching! ONLY TWO MONTHS UNTIL CHRISTMAS! *GULP* How the heck did that happen???

Sunday breakfast- Cranberry Orange Scones and Oh My Chai tea! Perfect!

Geez, maybe I should sell this stuff!

Not Much Going On...

It's been business as usual around here. Getting up at 5:30 am to get the high school kid out the door for 6:30 am and waking the girl up at that time to get her out at 7:15 am. Then it's either babysit the munchkins and shuttling them around or hitting the gym, running errands and cleaning house on my days off. I frigged up my hip during my interval run on Tuesday, (maybe 7.0 at 5 X 400 and then continuing to run between 6.0-6.5 for a grand total of 4.5 miles was a little too ambitious???), so I've been on the arc trainer since then. I get the BEST workout on that thing!!! Yesterday, I went for an hour and here's what I did:



That's 3.96 miles and 1,524 calories burned. This is on the Level 1 Weight Loss Program, with my weight entered. Forgive the suckiness of the picture- I wanted to take the picture quickly before anyone realized what I was doing!



The sweat was POURING off of me. I even had a small puddle under the machine. *ick.* Today I think I'm just going to pop in a Leslie Sansone DVD and walk for "5 miles."  I know for damn sure I am NOT walking a 12-minute mile while I'm doing it, but I AM wearing a 2-lb weight belt and between 2 and 4 pound hand/wrist weights during the workout. Using the Walk Away The Pounds dvds is really how I lost the majority of my weight (a FEW times- insert sad face here!). It's easy, cheap, convenient and you can modify it to your fitness level, which includes kicking it up a notch with the weights.



This is just my Leslie DVDs.

The money I spent on exercise DVDs is the best money I probably ever spent, regarding health and fitness. I have been exercising at home forever. I guilted my mom into buying Richard Simmons' Deal-A-Meal off an informercial back in the 80's with his Sweating to the Oldies VHS tapes. I have one of The Firm's workout packages on VHS with the 2 piece "Fanny Lifter" (step). That is also an EXCELLENT workout. I also LOVE my Gilad Step Aerobics DVDs. Remember Bodies in Motion that filmed in Hawaii? Gilad is H-O-T!! I'm not proud of this, but I have sunk so low as to buy Greer Childers' Bodyflex program off of HSN. (I'm not embarrassed by the HSN part- I LOVE shopping, so shopping at home is a bonus!) Look that one up when you have a chance. You supposedly could melt the fat off of your body just by this ridiculous deep breathing while you flex your muscles. The Lion pose is the funniest- it's even on YouTube!

Now picture a fat person doing this with 2 toddlers and a dog running around her! Oh, yeah, and throw in my husband laying on the couch laughing hysterically at EVERYTHING I was doing!!!

Should Have Taken a Picture

Went to the gym in the hour and a half between putting the 6 year old boy I babysit on the bus and picking up his sister at pre-k. Today I worked out on the arc trainer. I LOVE that machine. I pretty much run on the treadmill and use the arc trainer every other day. The burn you achieve on the arc trainer is like no other. So, today, I decided to do an hour straight on "Program 1- Weight Loss." 

This is how cute I look on it, too! NOT!

I can usually do 1.8 miles in 30 minutes at that level. So today I threw down a challenge to myself. Get 4 miles done in an hour. The sweat was pouring off me. I see a guy on the arc trainer occasionally with a puddle underneath him, and that makes me gag. I wasn't THAT bad. My shirt was drenched, though. ANYWAY, I fell short of my goal with 3.96 miles, but it said I burned 1,296 calories! That sweaty guy usually gets those kind of numbers! Go Linda! I wish I had my camera so I could have taken a picture of the display! (Now I'll try not to eat back all of those calories!)

DAMN YOU...!!!!

'Nuff said.

I NEVER Thought I'd See The Day!!!

Ok, my husband is a skinny-minnie. He has a "problem" GAINING weight. At 6' tall he weighs a whopping 150 pounds, with all of his clothes on and NOT after a visit to the restroom. ASIDE: Don't all women do that? I weigh myself naked, after visiting the bathroom and possibly removing all my jewelry. Too bad my scale is in the dining room under the buffet. That's why I weigh-in at 5:30 am when everyone is still asleep and it's dark! ANYWAY, Charlie wears a W30 L34. They are loose on him, but I can barely find them in the store, let alone search for a W29 L34! Just for kicks, I took a pair of his pants from the pile of clean laundry waiting to be put away, and tried them on. THEY FRICKIN' FIT!!!!!!



You can tell they're his with all of the extra material at the bottom!



I always told my husband he needed to gain weight so it wouldn't be so damn difficult to one day weigh LESS than him. But, I never thought I'd get into his pants, LITERALLY! Now I weigh less than him and I can wear his clothes. I am in SHOCK! I'll have to get a picture of me in them!




 

New Day, New Month, New Goals

Well, I guess I should go back to my September list and see what hasn't been crossed off and add that to my October goal list. I started out all gung ho and once school started and the running around began my enthusiasm kind of fizzled out. This is what was left on the old list:

1). Clean upstairs rec "room."  10/2/11
2). Sort through and organize Charlie's closet.
3). Sort through and organize CJ's closet.
4). Sort through and organize Chelsea's closet.
5). Sort through and organize Chelsea's desk.
6). Spray paint coffee table.
7). Spray paint end table.

Gee, it seems like I didn't get very much accomplished since there was only 11 things on the list. I did go through the closets and take out all clothes that don't fit or aren't worn anymore and I now have several bags to donate to charity. Now I just have to organize the crap that's left, like games and things I'm saving from the kids' younger years. The spray painting has to wait for a day when I'm not babysitting AND good weather. Those don't always happen at exactly the same time! So, I guess I'll tackle #1 on the list today! Keeping up with the fall clean-up on the yard should probably take some kind of priority this month, as well.

There were some fitness goals in my September post that never made "the list." The first was to run the Smith Point 5k in under 30 minutes. Because I thought I would be running the 10k a week later without my music, I attempted the 5k without it as well. MISTAKE. All I heard was my breathing and the voice in my head telling me I couldn't do it. By some miracle I came in at 30:36, which is under a 10 minute mile, my personal best. It still irks me, though.

The second fitness goal for September was to run the Hampton Bays Lions Club 10k under 1:10:00. I had run 6 miles on my 40th birthday (the 13th) in 1:04:39, but that was at the track, a nice flat course (and without the .2!). When I considered the bridge I was going to have to conquer, I thought 70 minutes might be too optimistic, so I was aiming for under 1:15:00. Who would have thought that "No Headphones" on the registration form doesn't actually mean no headphones? I brought my iPod just in case, and I'm so glad I did! Everyone else had theirs, so I ran with my beloved playlist blasting in my ears. I also had my new Forerunner that kept me on track for the pace I was aiming for. I came in at 1:04:09!!! Under my 6 mile run, WITH the .2 miles added AND the bridge!!! I'm still in awe of it!

So, October fitness goals? Well, there are no races on the horizon yet. I would like to do a run that's on the same course as the Smith Point Bridge race and kick that 30:00 wall's ass, but my husband doesn't want me to do it. I still don't have a clear understanding of the reason why. I did run 7 miles (on the treadmill- always need that disclaimer) on Thursday (the 29th), so I'm thinking my goal shall be to do an 8 mile run, either on the treadmill or outside. I'm working on getting ready for a half-marathon next year!!