2011 in review - yes I know everyone is doing them.

Nothing like taking a look at the year and see where you did well and where not so well. So I pulled up my post from 1/1/11 and this is what I wrote...

Family wise - Hope to add to our family this year with a baby :) And turn myself into a minivan driving mom :) We welcomed our beautiful little girl, Breanna, at the beginning of December. I hated the newborn phase with my son... I dont know if its because she is so different then G was, that its my last baby, that hubby is home to help or what but Im loving it this time around. And yes I got the minivan too - granted we wrecked it but still.

Work wise - Continue doing what Im doing. Like I mentioned - I LOVE IT! I want to continue to grow in the role and become more independant in my decision making. And go to a conference. The conference didnt happen but I still LOVE my job and the independance came in full force. I was sent to our sister hospital where for 19 hours, besides the ER doctor, I was the only in house provider. Had to pick up my game quickly. In the last week I have ran into several families of patients while out and everyone of them has come up to thank me - yesterday someone came up to me at the grocery store to tell me how thankful they were to have me there while their dad died.

Health wise - First and foremost, stick with it! Work on my overeating issues. Continue to put my gym membership to good use :) RUN my first marathon and all the training that goes into that! Be a healthy role model for my son. And if I am lucky enough to get preggo then have a much healthier pregnancy then I did previously. Do you notice that my yearly goal isnt to get to a certain size, a certain weight. Yes I have goals for that but all in all I want to be healthy. I ran the marathon - it was AMAZING and I loved it and I am now hooked! I found out I was preggo the next week. I started the pregnancy super healthy but I lost my way and ended it not so much. I havent been to the gym in months. Im so ready to get back there!

Personal - Continue to realize that I am lucky to have everything I have. Dont take things so personal and dont always see the bad side of things right away. I have to continue to remind me of this and its a work in progress.

And what does 2012 bring???
I have already set my goals and you can find them on the side of my blog so that they continue to remind me through out the year.
1. Run my second marathon
2. Learn to really really swim
3. Run 1000 miles total this year
4. Lose 40lbs
5. Put my relationship with hubby up their on the priority list and work on improving the romance.

What are your 2012 goals?

I have been AWESOME today!

I know its only one day but I have totally rocked today in the health department. And you have to start with day one anyways right???
Today has been the first day in a LONG time that my food has been on check and I have stayed within my daily weight watcher points... and havent felt starved!

Breakfast was a first for me - made old fashioned oats and topped it with alittle cinnimon, 1/2 a packet of splenda, 1/2 a banana and a few spoonfuls of fresh berries. Texture and taste is completely different then the quick microwaved version, way less sugar, and I felt fulfilled for quite a while! (4 points)

Lunch was super yummy too - used my sons sandwich thins and made a mini pizza with 1 oz of goat cheese, mushrooms and fresh baby spinach. Finished it off with a large water and an orange.  (6 points)

Had the munchies mid day and made some 100 calorie popcorn and since I decided to roast some speghetti squash and made some roasted red pepper soup  - had a bowl of that too. ( 3 and 2 points)

Dinner was also yummy and and very quick and easy since little man is having a sleep over. I picked up a rotisserie chicken (ate 3 oz's - yes the scale is back out), steamed brocoli and my new favorite veggie - some roasted brussel sprouts with 1/2 oz of goat cheese on top - sooooo good!  (4 points)

That leaves 8 points for the day still... crazy.

Had a pretty successful grocery trip too - besides some poptarts for little man ... the cart ONLY had fresh veggies/fruits, some hummus and a ton of chicken to stock up the freezer.

Once my stomach has digested and we get the boys settled in their sleeping bags (so they can talk and giggle forever) - Im heading downstairs to get day 2/week 1 of the couch to 5k done and then plan to take the dog for a walk.

Yes I know not every day will be this successful. And I also know that the day isnt over - I need to not ruin things come the end of the night which is usually my bad time of the day. But what I do know is you have to start somewhere and I chose today!

And please check out this blog post   - it completely inspired me today.

A healthy friday...

Regardless of my best intentions things went alittle off the last few days - being stuck in Jersey with desserts EVERYWHERE didnt help. Then yesterday I had a GREAT day out with my bff seeing the new twilight movie, pedicures, and dinner out and the BEST margarita ever... margarita mixed with sangria. YUMMY. But I only had one.

Today is back on track - enjoying my morning coffee now. About to make some old fashioned oats and plan to top them with the awesome raspberries and blackberries I have in the fridge. Plan to do some healthy food prep. Plan to make this roasted red pepper soup (super yummy and easy!) but this time I plan to roast the red peppers too. Im making extra speghetti squash this time to use through out the week. My little man is having a sleep over tonight - normally that would mean ordering a pizza or something but hubby and I already talked about it and we decided instead we would go pick up a rotisserie chicken and make some veggies. The boys will eat that and dont need the junk!

Im going to try my best to keep a food journal on here and will be updating as the day goes on or will update before I go to bed at night.

Hoping to get some organization done today - my room is a disaster with clothes everywhere and as much as I love my xmas stuff Im ready to have my house back.

Hope everyone has a great friday!

SO we headed to Jersey this year for my husbands family xmas. Normally they all come to Maryland but since we are both off for maternity/paternity leave we thought it would be nice to head there. Had a great time getting the kids together.

The weather was getting yucky  - dark, windy and rain. Normally we stay , but we opted not to stay the night because we left our dog at home.

Are you counting the things that are different on this trip?

1. we went there

2. we didnt stay over night

So we head out around 7pm or so to get home. The GPS decides to take us a different way (#3) - we normlaly would make it change its mind and go our normal way but we both said - hey lets see how it takes us. (#4) Then we approach a circle and BAMMMM we get hit from behind with someone doing 40-50 mph... with two kids in the car. The pic doesnt do it justice

My back window shattered - glass everywhere. Thank god I made little man move to the center row for the trip. He normally sits in the very back (#5). You cant see but there are cracks near the side back window that go all the way towards the driver door. The guy that hit us was in a pick up, air bags deployed and its totaled. Luckily besides G being TERRIFIED (he had just fallen asleep), both kids seemed 100% ok. Hubby and I were a bit sore the next morninng but all in all ok.

The van wasnt drivable so we opted to have it fixed in Jersey and get a rental to get home. On the way home GPS decided to try to take us our normal way - weird. We opted to go back to the circle though to see it during the day. Major busy road, 55 mph getting to the circle. 2 lanes entering to a one lane circle. And no... NONE, NADA ... NO signs in the circle at all. No signs to say who yeilds, who has right of way, NOTHING. We got new carseats that morning. When we took another look at her old one - the base was bent. Crazy.

We are very lucky to be ok. It could have been WAY worse. If you believe in fate - maybe if we would have went our old way - maybe the accident would have been worse. 

Christmas is over - let the fun begin!

So besides my "OMG I cant stand my family" post from yesterday - up until the last minute with my side of the family the day was actually pretty awesome!

And now Xmas is over and its time to get back into the swing of things. I started the day with packing up the rest of the fudge/cookies to go to my SILs tomorrow and get them out of our house and we cleared out all the other junk food given to us over the holidays. Not to mention clearing out all the toys little man has outgrown... he did so well deciding which toys he didnt need anymore.

Then it was off to weight watchers for a weigh in - 184.5... down 5.5 lbs in the past two weeks. I would normally pat myself on the back but that was 100% losing water weight post baby... definately not my eating! Then it was off to the grocery store to buy a ridiculous about of fruits and veggies. And I ended the day with doing the first day of couch to 5k - yaaa me! Now off to log my points for the day.



horrible family

Had a great Christmas until the last 30 min spent with my side of the family. I want a new family. Cant go into details but so incredibly disappointed in my family and their lack of respect and I could go on and on and on but I wont.

My immediate family - my husband and two wonderful children - are amazing and we arent like them.

Tomorrow ends my holiday eatfest... we are throwing out the rest of the junk. Starting couch to 5k tomorrow too :)

made a plan :)

I know I have said it over and over but I do SO much better with a plan. So tonight I sat down and made a workout plan ... granted it is only a fraction of what I used to do but you have to start somewhere. Im starting next week (12/26) with redoing the couch to 5k plan. I scheduled myself to restart weights when I hit 6 weeks post partum and spin at 7 weeks if I get cleared from the doctor to restart. I miss spin so much! I also specifically scheduled long walks with my dog... yes I walk her daily but these scheduled ones are to be a bit more robust of a walk :) So hopefully the plan will be getting back to 5k ability by Feb 1st then go into 1/2 marathon training. That will give me 14 weeks to train before my first 1/2 of 2012.

Im nervous about getting back into running. I was at the point where I could run HOURS and it felt amazing. I could let my mind completely wander. I finished 10, 15, 20 miles and felt HAPPY afterwards and in a great mood. Starving but in a great mood :) Now I know that when I restart it will be back to feeling miserable at first - side pains, difficulty getting my breathing under control, knee pain, calf pain. I know exactly what it will be like and I know until I get back to where I was. The only good part is I know exactly how amazing the feeling is when you get there and the hurting portion of relearning to run is temporary. I can do this.

homeward stretch...

It is 2 days before xmas. My 5 year old is officially home for 10 days... omg no clue what Im going to do with him for 10 days!

And today is going to be a super busy day. We got up this morning and made monkey bread - its in the oven and smells delish. The boy is playing his version of chess by himself, baby girl is sound asleep after getting up at 630 to eat and hubby is asleep too after staying up until 5 am (yes 5 am) playing with a new computer he is building/fixing.

We have a busy day planned - need to do a few last minute pick ups... pictures, crab meat and some bigger bills from the bank for a money gift. The boy and I are making fudge and healthy meringues. And we may even brave chuck e cheese with him later this afternoon.  oh yea and my super religious 5 year old (no clue where he gets it from) wants to make a bday cake for Jesus.

Tomorrow is dinner with friends and doing those xmas eve things with the kids. Xmas will be awesome. I love love love Christmas.

Alittle bummed its so freaking warm outside and all the rain last night wasnt snow :(

2012 running

**haha as I type this my 5 year old is in the bathroom singing religious xmas carols while sitting on the toilet **

My dad made me laugh last week. They are coming up from Texas in February to meet the new baby. My step mom is AMAZING and has been doing triathalons for 2-3 years now. She has wanted to run an event with me for a while. He asked if there were any half marathons I had my eye on in February when they came up - that she would run with me and my cousin (also a triathalon queen) would fly up too. UMMM NO! I havent ran in months. I wont be "cleared" to officially train until mid January. I SO will not be ready for a half just a few weeks later... expecially to run with two amazing athletes! So not happenning!

But the conversation did spur me to get moving on a plan... if you know me in real life then you know I am all about a plan. And if I have a plan I stick to it... for the most part. So I have found my big events and based on those events I will make my training plan. Im hoping to start back on the couch potatoe to 5k plan in the next two weeks... figure it will be an easier transition to my body then when I officially get cleared to train I will rank it up a bit. So the events...

May - half marathon St. Michaels, MD running festival
http://www.runningmaryland.com/registration/event_details.php?eid=23

September - half marathon in amish country... massive hill training will be needed!
http://www.active.com/running/bird-in-hand-pa/bird-in-hand-half-marathon-2012

November - Philadelphia Marathon! My second marathon!

And the best thing about these events - they are all pretty close to me (within 2 hour drive) and are all good locations for some couple time. We plan to have long weekends on each of these runs and leave the kids at home :) And Im pretty sure hubby will run the half at all of the events.

Now to make a running schedule. Thinking a 12 week plan for the first half... keeping up a 5-7 mile base after that first half then a 12 week plan for the full. I will post them once I have them. Im excited!

12 days post partum

I wasnt planning to come back to the whole blogging thing. It was very time consuming and was hard to keep up with. But today I noticed why I did it to begin with. I went to post something on my moms board and realized I really didnt want anyones opinion on what I had to say - I just wanted to get it out. And ding ding ding... it hit me... that was why I started blogging to begin with. A way for me to get whats in my head out. And here I am.

Its been a LONG time since I have been on here... my beautiful amazing daughter joined our family 12 days ago via scheduled c-section. She is the BEST baby ever - completely different then her big brother. And I dont know if its because she is a calmer baby, our last baby, that hubby is home with me to help or a combination but the bonding has happenned so much faster and easier. And post partum depression hasnt shown its horrible head this time around.

Now for what I wanted to get out of my head... I am a medical professional. I understand I had major surgery 12 days ago. I understand the changes that are going on in my body from a medical stand point. But my heart and body are NOT agreeing with my head. My head will win but it sucks. I feel amazing. The recovery from this csection was a piece of cake - I was up moving within a few hours, home 2 days later and getting around pretty well. Fast forward to the last few days - I have started taking very brisk 2-3 mile walks with my dog but my body is yearning for more... I want to do some weight lifting, jogging and spin... I miss it so much. I understand Im at risk to get a hernia if I do to much but it 100% feels like my body is ready for something more than walking. Its not like Im trying to push my body harder then it wants... its my body that is asking for more. Like I said my head will win - but it sucks. I think I will lengthen the brisk walking and maybe do it twice a day instead of once for alittle extra umph. My dog will be very happy... granted it is freaking freezing outside.

On another note - I went back to WW aswell... sort of. But that is a whole other story.

A few pics... HAD to share :)