13.1 & the most wonderful time of the year!

Less than two weeks. That's all I have until I complete my years resolution. I have to admit, with injury and excuses a mile long, it nearly got away from me. But I'm paid, signed up and *gasp* AL-most ready to run my first half marathon. I'll be there, lets see if I bring my A game.
On top of all that jazz is the holidays...Lets be real, its My season. Cold weather, gifts and baby Jesus. Oh yeah. Ive been prepping since August. One thing I can not get enough of is stationary, specifically cards. I love me some holiday cheer. Ive used Tiny Prints in the past and lurve, lurve, lurve their products. I signed up thing year and kept my fingers crossed for a chance win some fantastic holiday cards. Well looks like finger crossin' and wishing worked!!! I mean check out these fabulous designs Here and Here. Oh my gosh, I'm loving them, I'm thinking my fave is the ornament "bliss" one, but I'm not sure if it will work with my picture....Decisions, decisions. This will take me a while!!! But I want to keep my decision under wrap until the big reveal comes in your mailbox. Its not too late to order your own, but good luck finding a photo subject as cute as this....



Check them out HERE
Normally I have a garland that I attach all my holiday cards to; but this year I intend on displaying all my cards on a ribbon attached to my cabinets, sort of gift wrap style. I blame pinterest for all my new ideas and complete time loss due to my new projects. It's super cute!
Speaking of holidays...are you planning any new traditions this year? We are..well I am but I'm intending by guilt and goodwill that my family will follow suit. I intend on starting 25 Random acts of kindness for the 25 days of Christmas.
I love Christmas and all its traditions! Share yours and let me see which TinyPrints cards you are loving!

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This post is worthless.

Why? Because it has no pictures. I am in decorating turmoil and have somewhere somehow misplaced the camera. Not working out is killing my budget. I'm so over the top with anything I do, moderation is for wussies I say. If its good then overdosing will be just.about.right. when I'm enthralled with my compulsive nature to get Pippa Middletons rear or Kate Middleton's, well...anything; then I can barely focus on getting much more done in a day than my three workouts. But this Christina has been bored, so I tear crap up.
I have repainted the "office" and I am currently in the "oh my gosh how is this ever going to get organized" stage. but I am doing some pretty rad work with some faux baseboards that I can't wait to show off and some crown molding. Sweet! I also wanted to turn my daughters now un-used closet into a book nook, that is until I realized that well, shes 4 and can't read (minor details in my opinion), so for now I have turned it into a pretty cute extension of her room.
But here's the good part....next week is going to be my attempt at making my way back to the gym...back to yoga and I will start walking on the treadmill, maybe even adding a few weights along the way. I wrote it on the calendar so now it HAS to happen. That's how it works, if something makes it to my calendar its for real. I need to add in addendum to that...I will count my freaking points. Repeat after me...count your freaking points. I am no longer an "official" WW, but I know the plan and intend on re-focusing my lifestyle and focusing on what I eat and how it makes me feel. Geesh. I need to quit slacking, I am almost to August and if I'm ever going to have hopes of even walking my half marathon I better get my buns in gear, I'm so nervous about what my return to running has in store. Waah, waah wahh. Whining gets you no where.

“While others may argue about whether the world ends with a bang or a whimper, I just want to make sure mine doesn't end with a whine”~Barbara Gordon

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I feel like I’ve been hit by a MAC truck. It wasn’t from hours of burning it up at the gym or logging miles on the treadz. I wish. It was from my weekend, it kicked my butt. I have NO moderation, I do everything in waves. No…tsunamis. I work up the other morning and decided that I hated this wall:


Seven years I’ve been looking at this DIY disaster and I’m sooooo over it. Seriously, when you watch HGTV and you see a project that you think “Oh, I can so totally do that and it would look AWH-Some.” The next question you should ask yourself is how long is it going o take to get rid of it. Holy hell. 13, yes THIRTEEN hours later I had this crap off the walls.

In that same magnificent brainstorm I decided we have not been using our house efficiently. We have a spare bed room and I decided that it should be converted into a family closet. This is the best thing I have EVER done to my house. Its right next to the laundry room, awesome- now clothes can pile up for days in laundry baskets and be easily hidden with a closed door. Kidding, maybe. By doing this I created a windstorm of closet cleaning out and conversion, I think my husband thought about killing me under piles of clothes several times this weekend. But thank God he didn’t, I wouldn’t want any future new wife to enjoy my fabulous closet.

I enjoyed a shrimp boil this weekend. Actually we have done this about three times in the past two weeks. I bet my cholesterol is through the roof, but man was it good!



Do you see you see those fabulous blue babies in that fruit salad? Picked them myself! On Wednesday, little bit and I went and picked fresh organic blueberries. I probably lost 2 lbs in water weight, but hey it was worth it. Living on the face of the sun sucks. What sucked is that I was able to get about 2.5lbs before my child melted and by that evening I had about um, 0.5lb left. Looks like I’ll be heading back soon.


I sort of worked out this week; I did a wii, floor, ab workout 2x this week. It included 30 minutes of hula hooping while holding 10lb weights, 200 crunches and 4 sets of different plank holding poses. It hurt so bad and felt so good.
I’m totally holding to the fact that even though I didn’t track points or workout this weekend, that I totally burned 2000 calories by sweat and exertion alone, that’s my story.


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My coping skills suck.

I need to work on those I suck at dealing with things. So I got hurt. I havent been to the gym in 5 weeks. WEEKS!!!!!

Obviously I took it out on my blog when I got hurt. I was in step class 5 weeks ago and fell off of the step and hurt myself badly. Like sprained ligament, MRI, ankle brace type of bad. THEN to make things worse, I re injured myself one week later. I have not been able to run, and the way that I dealt with this is by avoiding my workouts, my eating and generally falling out of sync. I have paid dearly. I have not felt like myself. Although I have lost weight. Its not even about that though; in getting hurt I feel like I had lost my identity. I was becoming who I wanted to be, I was a fixture in the gym, I longed to workout and due to one injury I let it get the best of me and I dropped out. So in the famous words of this family I need to suck it the hell up and get back to work. And that is just what I'll do. Take that broke stupid ankle.

Here's the next thing. I haven't been honest in my bloggity blog. I haven't been writing to make myself happy, I was journaling the most boring aspects of my life and keeping it uncharatersitic to me. So from here on the deets will be 100% Christina-ized. the words will surely be made up concauctions, get ready because I will write as I talk and I'm sure I'll have all sorts of grammar erroz and what nots. I may even cuss, if we are lucky. *ACK* This is my journey and I want it to be reflective as to who I am. I will continue to post food updates, but mostly of new foods/recipes that I fall in love with.

WHEW! I feel better. I read my blog a few times while on hiatus and I was bored.to.tears.

To put things into perspective a dear friend told me that when you play hard you hurt hard and asked me how many times I hurt myself just sitting on the couch.What a great way to think about things! Life is meant to feel, even if that means that you have to sit in the sideline due to injury every once in a while.

Today in an attempt to slow the growth of my butt to the couch, I did the Wii Fit. I strapped on my trusty HR monitor and hula'd like a champ. I was trying out my ankle, with a low impact cardio activity. I really, really want to hit the weights, I know Im only a couple of reps away from showing the boys how its really done, like this um, chick?


oh yeah.



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Half of a Half=Hella HARD!

I had this crazy notion that 6.5 miles wouldn’t be that much harder than 5. Considering that I’ve run 5 twice now, I “reasonably” thought I had 6.5. Hells NAH! Much different animal!! I freaking did it, but I was working my a$$ of literally. I felt like big bowl of jell-o afterwards. It was seriously mental mumbo jumbo and sincere prayers that got me through it. I can’t even think about next Monday at this point. In my afterglow I am pretty stoked that I ran a half of a half. That is kind of cool!
I hit yoga today and had a pretty good exercise week, burning a total of 5652 calories. Here’s my HR breakdown:
5/3 Step 564
5/4 Run 793
5/5 Step 704
5/5 Larks Killa Workout 909
5/6 Run 197
5/6 yoga 395
5/6 Run 1776
5/7 Yoga 314

I can honestly say I didn’t track one single point. That being said I know without any doubt that I was well within my point values, mostly because I spent the week eating repeat meal plans, so I knew what they point values were. I enjoyed this chicken Marsala of sorts (wine, onion soup base, feta, spinach, mushrooms, onions and chicken)



And then we ate a wonderful cranberry, walnut and feta stuffed chicken breast served with sautéed spinach and mushrooms.


I enjoyed a wonderful Mothers day, on Saturday my hubs and I painted the outside of my mom & dads house; this lead me to believe that since I worked myself to the core that I was entitled to enjoy my brunch guiltfree at a local historic hotel that was nothing short of awesome. I will definitely return to check out their other special event offerings.

I don’t think I have actually explained my intentions. I am tentatively planning on running a half marathon this year. I really have my eye on a FEW! Geez…Did I just write that? I’m following a training plan and crossing my fingers that I really can do this. I have a few friends interested and I’m totally stoked, I’ve said if before and I’ll say it again. I will be an athlete, even if it kills me….;)



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The B*#&@H is back!

Okay so the tooth is out. No big deal. What sucked more than the tooth was the re-occurrence of the ick. I had to go to the doc and get some antibiotics for the strep/tonsillitis. And lord only knows how you rip a tooth out of my head and I don’t eat for two days and fail to lose any weight . What.The. Hell.
Whatevs. Screw the scale this week. What I did rock was another 5 miler. That makes me super happy! I was going to move it up to 6.5 but decide that since I didn’t get in my other running that I would just repeat the 5 mile week. I guess I missed yoga all week, I honestly don’t remember (they must have given me good drugs;) But here are my stats:
•4/26 Step- 590
•4/28 Step- 723
•4/28 Run- 413
•5/2 Run- 1335

It was ok. I missed two runs and missed yoga. I did manage to burn a total of 3061 calories though.
We went food shopping and I am so excited to have fresh fruit back in this house. Watermelon, strawberries, grapes, clementines, apples, oh my! Tonight I made a quick and easy chicken salad, probably higher in points than I would like, but who am I kidding, I have not counted my points as I should. I’m so thankful that a new points week starts tomorrow.
Here’s to a new week!

Quote of the week:

Putting a pretty shirt over your muffin top does not make you a cupcake ~ Stewie Griffth

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I ain't got no shoes.

I'm so mad at myself. Tonight I was all prepped to run my 4 on the tread. I search all over the house and can not for the life of me find my shoes. Most people would simply think to put another pair on, but I have none here. I took my extra kicks to the beach house and now I apparently have no foot wear. I called the gym...."yes, ma'am there is a pair like that in the lost and found". AWESOME. Well at least they aren't lost but I couldn't run tonight. So now I have to do my step class and then get my 4 in before I get my freaking wisdom teeth out. Yay. Do you feel my sarcasm?

So tomorrow I get my wisdom "tooth" out. I only have one, but nonetheless I am not excited at all about being in any amount of pain. I have no idea what is store for me in terms of food, and especially in terms of exercise. I have eaten ok, I started yesterday in hopes of clean eating, well that lasted all of 30 minutes. I was lucky to meet one friend for "coffee" but instead of getting a black coffee or tea I opted for a sugary disaster of a drink. Then I was able to be quite the socialite and have dinner with another friend and chose the chicken/beef teriyaki. Oh well, I always have tomorrow and the hope that getting a tooth ripped out of my head will keep the ol' appetite down.

Heres to hoping tomorrow doesnt hurt!

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