Happy Halloween!

Here are a few pictures I wanted to share :) I'll be back with an update on me tomorrow...

Enjoy :)

Pneumonia

Yes Pneumonia, actually Bilateral Pneumonia - oh and did I mention I have been in the hospital since Sunday...yes in the hospital since Sunday. I am currently writing this from my hospital bed. Things went downhill on Sunday, even after I thought I was feeling better on Saturday. I came to the emergency room Sunday night when I couldn't really get a deep breath and here I stay...hopefully coming home tomorrow...because I MISS MY DAUGHTER SOMETHING TERRIBLE. I haven't been without her for more then a night since she was born...and today she turned 8 months old. It sucks. They can't even tell me when they think I will get out of here, because they don't want to get my hopes up and they keep saying - "we know when you go home you aren't going to get any rest, so we need to get you as well as possible before we let you leave" they are right, but it makes me sad. I just want to see my baby.

Sorry about the sad and pitiful post, but here I sit waiting for my sleeping pill to take effect and wanting a few hopes and prayers that I get to go home and see my baby girl tomorrow.

Just wanted to let you all know I didn't fall off of the face of the earth, I'm still alive. Hope everyone else is having a great week...mine will turn for the better soon enough. I just hope it is tomorrow.

**Thanks to Jeannie for posting this for me as the hospital internet barely lets me on email!!**

I've been tagged...

By Margie over at The Paper Treehouse...but first a little update.

Went to the Dr's after 2 days of sweats and chills and sweats and chills and being miserable to find out...

a. I don't have the flu. So I guess I need to get on getting that flu shot.

b. I have a virus.

c. They can't do crap for a virus, so I have to suck it up until it goes away.

d. She said it might be 3-4 more days of this until I start feeling better!!!!

Thanks for all of your well wishes, you guys are great.

Now on to my tag...

oh by the way Margie...no exercise for me this week...so I am good ;) and I LOVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY and WRAPPING JOBS! I tell Jimmy all the time how amazing you are at packaging things and how I want to wrap gifts like you!! I'll start bringing you my unwrapped gifts to package and I'll pay you to wrap them :) Sound like a deal!??!!

7 Random Things About Me...

1. Every job (except for 6 short months) out of college I have worked with all men. All men who are a good 20+ years older then me. I am used to it now - it is normal - getting picked on and picking right back, it makes work a lot more fun actually.

2. My favorite color is orange. It has been since high school and my husband seems to think of it as a sickness...though he has given in on some occasions to my likeness - our wedding colors were orange and yellow, Charley's room is orange and yellow :) I wanted to paint our kitchen orange...but I lost that one :(

3. I want to have a horse farm some day. Not a huge farm - just a farmette type, where there is a big field for about 2 or 3 horses and room for the dogs to run. We want to live more out in the country and this will be perfect.

4. All 4 members of my immediate family's first names start with C - Charles, Carol, Chris & Carrie - my parents used to sign cards etc like this "From the 4 C's" And to come to think about it, I don't know if I have ever asked them if they did this on purpose. I am assuming so, but have never asked. I will have to ask now.

5. I would love to open a dog daycare one day. I love working with animals, and couldn't think of a better way then to own and operate a dog daycare and get to take my dogs to work every day. It would be wonderful. So if any of you out there want to invest in a business....just let me know! :)

6. And since I am sick...here is something random...when I am sick all I want to do is drink apple juice. No water, no gatorade, no food really - just apple juice. Why I have no idea. But I think over the last 5 days, I have drank about 2-3 gallons of apple juice.

Well I started this post 2 days ago and now it is Friday and I am just finishing it - it was a lot harder to come up with 7 random things then I thought. Oh and I am still sick. I am hoping that the Dr's "you should start to feel better in 3-4 days" will be tomorrow. I really hope so, because I am so done with feeling like ultimate crap.

Thanks again for all of your thoughts.

I am going to tag a few people so if you have time please participate!

1. Jeannie at Points and Pounds
2. Sarah at Elephant Steps
3. Mommy from the Midwest
4. Tiffany at Colorado Mama

4 words

Sick as a dog.

So needless to say, my 1/2 marathon training isn't starting this week. No journal either, since I don't have an appitite. :(

Goals, Travel, Menu, Etc...

Ok, I think I am going to hit this bullet style as I think I have a lot to say, but have TONS to get done and it is already 10pm! oh and the Phils are on...GO PHILS!

GOALS:

• I am aiming to run a 1/2 marathon and a full marathon next year
• I want to run the Shamrock 1/2 Marathon in VA Beach in March just 2 days before my 30th (eek) birthday
• I want to run the full Baltimore Marathon next year in October (right before Jimmy and I are planning for baby part duex)
• I have found a 1/2 marathon training plan (with a little help from Roni) that I am currently modifying in a spreadsheet to follow until March
• Roni and I are going to go at this together which will make it even more fun! It is great to have a running/workout partner with the same goals!

TRAVEL:

• Jimmy is running in his 2nd Mens Health Urbanathlon this weekend in Chicago so we are off to the windy city
• We are heading to my parents tomorrow night to drop the dogs off and spend the night, then are headed to the Philadelphia airport for a REALLY early flight
• oh, we are flying standby on both flights, b/c we have free seats (a perk of Jimmy meeting flight attendants while he is bar tending) so keep your fingers crossed for us and that we won't be entertaining Charley in the airport all day Friday and Sunday
• We are going to stay with my girlfriend and her husband Saturday night in Chicago - I can't wait to see them!
• Needless to say I won't be blogging after tonight, most likely, unless I can type up a post at work tomorrow and post it from my parents house

Menu:

• Here it is, I am under by a few points and am going to have a little snack I think in a few, so that will make up for those extra points
• I am going to go to a WW meeting by work tomorrow morning just to weigh in. So I should have some great weigh in news tomorrow too.
  
  

  Food	Units
  greek yogurt with granola plank	4.5
  carrots	0
  sandwich thin w/ ham & laughing cow	4
  jello	0
  ff pringles	1
  dove chocolate	1
  fiber 1 toaster pastry	3
  ff hot dog and bun	2
  apple	1
  french onion soup	4
  baybel light cheese	1
  breyers light ice cream	3
  Total:	24.5

Table provided by Roni's Food Tweet, Eat, Post Generator.

Until tomorrow...

WOW...

This is my 201st post! I can't believe it.

I don't have anything exciting to post today...Charley and I went out for a run/walk today at the park since the weather is so nice and I have been going non-stop since then...and I need a break.

So here is my shout out to all of the great losses this week for BLBE!!

And to Jeannie for keeping her head up! You need to go to her site and check out the pictures she posted!! There is such an amazing difference! She is kicking butt and looking great!

Tomorrow is my Dad's 70th Birthday and we are having a little dinner get together, so I might not get to post tomorrow night. But will be back as soon as I can.

Here's my menu...

Food	Units
greek yogurt w/ granola plank	4
cheese square	1
hostess cinn mini muffine	1
tomato soup w/ skim milk and goldfish	10
run/walk with charley	-4
pretzels	2
1 fiber1 toaster pastry	3
chicken stir fry	9
breyers free ice cream	2
Total:	28

Table provided by Roni's Food Tweet, Eat, Post Generator.

Oh...I have 5 weekly points left for dinner tomorrow night and plan on getting out for another run/walk tomorrow too to earn some APs. Also, I work this Wednesday which is out of the ordinary, so it looks like I won't make it to a WW meeting until Friday!

GO PHILLIES!!!

Also, Happy Thanksgiving to all of my Canadian friends!

Pumpkin Patch

This morning we got up and headed to the pumpkin patch! The weather was gorgeous! Actually a little too hot for the cute outfit we had for Charley, but we made it work, we just didn’t use the jacket – but the shirt was too cute anyway, so we probably would have left the jacket off anyway, for the pictures at least.

We had a great time. We went and grabbed a few pumpkins and set up our own little photo shoot and took a bunch of pictures. Then we picked out our pumpkins, then we went and got our tickets for the hayride and to get into the kids fun zone. Charley is too little for the stuff in the fun zone – but since she is under 1 she got in free anyway. We then went and got on the hayride.

It was kind of a short cheesy hayride, but it was ok. A nice lady was sitting next to use with her kids and she had a little girl who was 13 months old…and was ½ the size of Charley, who is only 7 months old! Anyways, this lady took our family picture on the hayride, Charley wouldn’t smile because there was too much to look at and see, so she would barely look at the camera…this is the best one of the 4 she took, at least Charley was looking in the general direction of the camera.

Then we walked around and looked at all of the animals and took a few more pictures of Charley on a cute little kids tractor. It will be so much fun next year when she can run around and play with all of the things they have there and feed the animals.

After we were done in the kids fun zone, we got some lunch. Jimmy and I shared a pit turkey sandwich and fries and I got my favorite an apple cider slushy. Oh and we split a cider donut, Charley got a few tastes of it too :) It was a little more then the amount of points I wanted to spend, but it is only once a year and I decided it was something I wanted and would only have this one day and I had the weekly points left for it, so I enjoyed every bit of it!

Here are a few of my favorite pictures…

And my menu…

Food	Units
egg beaters w/ lite english muffin	2
1/2 chai tea w/ skim	1
cider slushy	3
1/2 cider donut	2
salad, brown rice, salmon	7
chocolate & caramel	1.5
1/2 pit turkey sandwich and 1/2 french fries	9
coffee	2
bites of dessert	3
bad snack	5
Total:	35.5

Table provided by Roni's Food Tweet, Eat, Post Generator.

The Marathon Relay

WAS AWESOME! I had so much fun! The atmosphere was amazing! All of the people out on the streets cheering and yelling for us. The 6 miles flew by! I was shocked when I was at the end of my leg. My goal was to only walk at the 2 water stops while I was getting water and I did just that and then when I got to the 5 mile marker my knee started to hurt, I told myself I'd run through it (I have had this before - tendinitis) then it got really bad, so I walked for like 15-30 seconds and it was fine for another 1/2 mile, then I walked a little more, then finished strong (it was the down hill that bothered it).

Here is a picture of our relay team...oh and my sleeping baby girl :)

My Nike+ says it took me 1h 7m, but I started that when the blew the starting horn and there were so many people we had to walk for a few min before we got to the start then once we got to the start we jogged for a little while until it spread out. I am trying to find the split results online, but haven't located them yet. Though we did get our team official time which was 4h 12m 59s. Not too shabby! Though Jimmy let me know that the 19 year old Kenyan who won the marathon and set a new Baltimore Marathon Record, finished the 26.2 miles in 2h 11m :) UNREAL

My mile pace is about a minute higher here - but that is a little off with all of the walking I had to do at the very beginning of the run.

Funny thing happened - I am standing at the start with about 10,000 or so other runners and I look directly to my right and it's Roni! She was right next to me! We chatted for a quick second then we started our walk towards the start line and after we crossed that, we lost each other. I thought it was such a coincidence that out of all those people we were right next to each other!

So let me just fill you in on some of the eccentric runners we saw today.

• There was a guy in a full light blue tuxedo with tails, a bow tie and cumber bun


• There was a guy who was juggling as he was running - I think he did this the ENTIRE race!


• There was a guy in a speedo bathing suit


• There was multiple people in Halloween costumes - I saw a clown, ladybug, crabs and a few more


• There was a guy in a full wool kilt minus a shirt who ran the marathon

So needless to say after my leg was over there was PLENTY to see! :) My amazingly wonderful friend L came to watch Charley for us, then after my leg was over she hung with us the entire time and we walked to the start of the next leg and saw our 2nd teammate come in and our 3rd leave. Then we went and walked around celebration village and got a snack since I didn't eat that morning before the run - oh and it worked! I felt great after the run! And then we went to the finish to watch and look for Jimmy coming in on the last leg.

Tonight we had a Halloween party to go to, we didn't stay long, since we were beat from being out and about all day and so was Charley - she was a trooper as usual, but she was at the end of her rope with exhaustion at about 8pm.

Tomorrow we are going pumpkin picking! I can't wait to take some great pictures of Charley in her adorable Halloween outfit we got her :) I am sure I will be posting some pics early this week of her :)

I am beat and need to get to bed! Thanks for all of your well wishes on the run! I will get around to visit some of your blogs soon!

oh here is my menu from today...not great, but I tracked to the best of my ability and that is all I wanted to do!

Food	Units
pretzels	3
smoothie	4
banana 2/3	1
2 bagel quarters	3
french fries	4
post race beers	4
activity points per ww calculator!!!	-11
party food est	15
greek yogurt w/ granola plank	6
Total:	29

Table provided by Roni's Food Tweet, Eat, Post Generator.

Husband Time...

Tonight I am going to spend some quality time with my hubby (see usually I am typing on the computer when he is sitting on the couch next to me) so this is going to be short, just a menu and a comment...

I went over 4 points tonight - used some of my weekly points, but dinner was my last meal before my 6 mile leg of the marathon relay tomorrow. So I needed to get some carbs in since I am not going to eat before I run tomorrow. I had the extras to use, so I used them. Could have definitely done without the cupcake, but I will remember that next time! :)

Food	Units
light english muffin w/ cinn. honey butter	2
munchies!	3
leftover yummy pizza	8
apple	1
cupcake! what was i thinking!	4
z bar	2
family walk	-1
jerk chicken, brown rice, squash, sweet potato	10
piece of dove chocolate	1
Total:	30

Table provided by Roni's Food Tweet, Eat, Post Generator.

2 days...

Well, I went tonight and picked up my packet for the marathon relay on Saturday! The race is in only 2 days! We went and walked around the expo for a little while and then had our relay team dinner. I used some of my weekly points allowance, but that isn't too bad, as it is the first I have used all week and don't plan on needing any until at least next Monday, so I should be good! Here is my menu, then I am off to cheer on my Phillies in the bottom fo the ninth then to bed.

Food	Units
oikos honey greek yogurt w/ � granola plank	4.5
wasa w/ 2 laughing cow wedges	3
hostess mini cinn muffins	1
cheese square	1
carrots	0
cornbread	3
z bar	2
amy's organic no chicken noodle-yuck i think i only had about 4 bites of it!	.5
handful of m&m's	2
crab pizza - i only ate 1/2!	8
beer	3
breyers free	2
from earlier in the afternoon...apple	1
granola yogurt sample at the marathon expo	3
Total:	34

Table provided by Roni's Food Tweet, Eat, Post Generator.

Wednesday Weigh In

Busy Day today, Dr's appt, WW Meeting, Dentist appt, some shopping, baby food making and catching up on blogs night.

Weigh in this morning...Down 1lb! I had a great on plan week, even with going out of town and being sick, so I can only hope for a better week this week! Keep up the great work BLBE ladies!

Wow, I thought I had a lot more to post about, especially since it is my night home alone and I can blog to my hearts content...but I am drawing a complete blank!

I made Charley a bunch of baby food tonight, I still need to make more, it seems she is eating it now faster then I can make it!

Tomorrow is a long day at work, then off to pick up our race packets for the Baltimore Marathon Relay. It is this Saturday, I can't believe it is here already. I think I am ready...

I am going to go and watch my tivoed Private Practice since I can't think of anything else to write...

Here is my menu from today...

Food	Units
z bar	2
z - fruit	1
hostess mini muffins	1
pizza bagel	10
side salad	2
apple	1
cheese square	1
1 chocolate covered oreo	3
mcd's ice cream cone very small	2
2 spinach feta potato pancakes	2
breyers free	2
walk with 20lbs of charley in the carrier	-2
Total:	25

Table provided by Roni's Food Tweet, Eat, Post Generator.

uh oh...

No Food Journal...I forgot to do it before I went to bed. So now when I go to Roni's site, it doesn't load my menu since it was from yesterday...sorry guys. I was exactly at 26 points though! I will be back tonight with my first WW Weigh In results!

Have a great day!!

The Weekend...

Well the bachelorette weekend was a success...well partially. Here is what all happened :)

Friday night we make it to the beach around 10 when everyone is coming back from the bar, so we all hang out at the house and chit chat until about 12 or so and then get to bed.

We wake up on Saturday and my friend Katea (who is part of my relay team) and I go for a 4 mile run. I didn't want to overdo it since I was supposed to run 60 minutes or 6 miles with Roni on Sunday evening. Well after we got back from the run it hit me. A MAJOR stomach bug. I was in bed for the rest of the day trying to get better so I could go out with everyone that night. I did get better enough to go out, after a trip to the drug store for some meds, but I still felt like el crapo.

We got pizza for dinner and I had 1 piece (that tells you how I wasn't feeling good) and then we went out around 9. I was the designated photographer so that helped with not drinking like everyone else. There was a band and we were worried that they weren't going to be any good, but they were AWESOME! They played early 90's and some 80's cover songs...but ROCK style! It was great! And it wasn't too crowded and the bride ended up having an awesome time!

When I got home on Sunday I still didn't feel all that hot and wasn't sure if I was up for a long run. So I waited as long as I could to decide, and decided to tell Roni, I wasn't going to run. Which really sucked, because I wanted to, and needed to, but still felt to iffy to do it and I had to be at work on Monday because we had a class starting that day, and couldn't risk not feeling better by Monday. I felt better come Monday, but today I am back to feeling like crap. Not my stomach though which is nice...it is my sinuses which is normal for me as I have had 2 sinus surgeries and have my 3rd scheduled for November 17th. Eh.

I have only eaten 10.5 points so far today and am not really hungry. I need to eat though, so I am off to the kitchen for some grub. I will post my menu later.

Woah...

Ok, so I ate way too much today. Well I don't really think I ate too much, just some bad food choices. I don't need a meal for lunch that costs me 11 points! I need to get back to my 5 point lunches, which is where I will be tomorrow.

Also I need to not assume that all types of greek yogurt are the same points, the ones I bought at the store the other day were 4 points each! I thought they were the same as the TJ's ones, which were 2 points! Looks like I am heading back to TJ's to stock up later this week!

Lessons learned...tomorrow will be a better day. And I WILL MAKE IT TO THE GYM!

Food	Units
honey greek yogurt with granola	6
clif kid fruit twist	1
2 glazed munchkins ahh!	3
sugar free jello cup	0
leftover ww pasta w/ turkey meatballs	11
cheese square	1
chicken with crab-inara and couscous	8
bryers free ice cream	2
Total:	32

Table provided by Roni's Food Tweet, Eat, Post Generator.

Menu...then on the Run!

Here is my menu...I am momentarily taking off for the beach for one of my best friends bachelorette party! I can't wait. Though it is my first night (well two!) away from Charley :( but I am sure we will be busy enough that I won't even have time to think about missing her...though I will terribly! I have saved up all but 1 of my flex for the weekend and have planned a long run for tomorrow so that I can earn a handful of extra AP's just in case!

Have a great weekend everyone! See you Sunday night!

Food	Units
honey greek yogurt with granola plank	4.5
corn chips	3
Roni's turkey meatloaf	8
cheese square	1
sugar free jello cup	0
canned chicken w/ light cream cheese, hot sauce and sandwich thin	6.5
maybe a beer or two at the bar	4
activity points from hour walk	-4
Total:	23

Table provided by Roni's Food Tweet, Eat, Post Generator.

Just my Food Journal...

No time for a real post tonight...but here is my menu. 2 points over - earned 1 AP on our nightly walk with the dogs - plus I had 20 lbs of Charley in the carrier on my chest. So I used 1 of my Weekly Points. Not a bad day at all! Hope you all had a great day!

Food	Units
TJ's honey greek yogurt w/ 1/4 of granola plank	5.5
hostess mini 100 cal muffin pack	1
1/2 a clementine--it had seeds!!	.5
Roni's turkey meatloaf	8
carrots	0
grapes	1
cheese	1
motts sugar free apple sauce	1
fiesta chicken	9
1 dove chocolate	1
Total:	28

Table provided by Roni's Food Tweet, Eat, Post Generator.

Plan A, Plan B and Finally Plan C

Hello all. Well today didn't go exactly as planned but I did finally make it to a meeting. The plan was to get up and go to the 8am meeting...well Charley let me sleep until 7, so by the time I got her up, dressed and fed, it was 10 til and there was no way I was going to get her stuff together, get myself together and get to the meeting in time.

So I looked online and saw that they had a 9:30am meeting -- so the new plan was to hit this meeting. So after Charley ate her breakfast we went into the living room and played on the floor for a while...well about 15 minutes into this she started fussing, so we tried something new and she still fussed. She was TIRED. So we went upstairs and took a nap. We woke up at 9:30.

On to plan C...they also had a 7pm meeting. So the newest plan was to go the 7pm meeting - with the future planning of going to the 8am meeting. I just like weighing in the morning.

So here is my menu for the day. Roni has come up with this new tool, where if you put your foods in a specific way into Twitter and then go to her website here, it will create a table for your blog instantly! It is awesome! I had never used twitter before, but it is simple and there is no way now that I shouldn't be able to post my menu every day since it is SO EASY! Go and check it out!

Ok, now off to clean the kitchen...so much to do! Keep up the great work everyone!

Food	Units
hostess mini muffins	1
chick fil a chargrilled chicken & fruit salad with ff honey mustard & croutons	7
peanut butter z bar	2
cream corn	3.5
baked lays cheddar sour cream	3
Roni's turkey meatloaf	7.5
2 dove chocolate bites	2
Total:	26

Table provided by Roni's Food Tweet, Eat, Post Generator.