Do you miss me?

Cause I miss you guys!!!

It's been awhile since I've posted...a little over 3 weeks actually!  Time sure does fly!  Last time we talked, I was sick.  I finally got over that after about 5 days, thank goodness!

The first weekend in June, I was in a wedding!  It was a ton of fun, and I had a blast celebrating and dancing the night away.  Since then, I've been busy planning and sorting out all the little things I've neglected for my own wedding.  I've definitely been busy.

And last weekend, again, I was in ANOTHER wedding!  It was pretty fun, and Dustin was also in it, so we got to practice walking down the aisle together before our wedding in July.  I've definitely been really critical of these weddings, only because it helps me figure out how I want my wedding to go!

Half-marathon training....well, it hasn't been going as planned, but now that I'm not in another wedding until my own, hopefully I'll have more time (excuses, excuses) to get in my training.  I got in a nice run last night in my brand new running skirt!  I loved it, but I think my parents thought I went nutty when they saw I had a skirt on to go exercise.  They just don't understand the phenomenon.

I also just invested in one of these babies:

I bought it used on Ebay for a pretty good price, so cross your fingers that it actually works!  I've been wanting one since I started this blog and saw that all of YOU had them, but I couldn't ever get it in the budget.  I still really can't afford it, but I splurged anyway!

Eating has not been passing the bar lately, but since the wedding weekends have come to an end for now, I actually invested in items that I can COOK, and things that are GREEN!  That's right, folks, vegetables have made their way back into my life!  It was a great reunion.

On tap for today and the rest of the week, I've got a run planned for today and tomorrow, and on Friday I'll either rest or do some cross training.  We've got a weekend home for once, so we're going to get some much needed landscaping and cleaning stuff done around the house.  I think we might also be branding calves, something that needed to happen about a month ago!  Someday we might actually be caught up with all our work!

So glad to be back in blog world!

The Weekend

I had a great weekend!  I went out on Friday night for dinner/drinks/dancing with friends for a birthday.  I probably had a little too much fun, but that's ok.  Dustin and I woke up on Saturday feeling less than perfect (well, me at least), but we had a good day at home getting some stuff done.  I probably should have done more, but my alcohol-induced headache wasn't so fun.

I was thankful that I got my drinking out of the way on Friday night (wow, I sound like an alcoholic!) because even though I wasn't on top of my game on Saturday, I still had all day Sunday to get stuff done.  I cleaned the house and my parents came to visit, and then we went for a hike!  I love living next to a giant mountain!  Except for the fact that I can't hike on my own because I'm completely afraid of cougars and bobcats attacking me.  Minor details though.

After we got back in, I was trying to figure out what to have for dinner.  When you live 30 miles out of town, you really have to plan or at least stock up on food for dinners.  Well, I definitely had nothing planned, so I grabbed some chicken out of the freezer to defrost.  Still unsure what to make, our saving grace, aka Dustin's parents, called an invited us over (as in across the driveway) for dinner!  I love it when that happens, because it usually lands on a day that I have no clue what to make!

Dinner was great, and some family friends ended up showing up, so we talked and had a good time together.  Then Dustin and I got in the hot tub for awhile, then gathered up our dog and headed home for the night.  All was great until this morning, when....

Dustin woke up with a horrible sore throat!  So, needless to say, I'm either having sympathy pains or I'm so paranoid of getting sick that I feel like I'm getting sick, or I REALLY AM GETTING SICK, because my throat almost kinda hurts!  No!  I've got my 5k on Saturday, so I'm really hoping that it's all in my head and that I'll be fine.  Until then, I'm going to stay away from Dustin (no kissing allowed), get my workouts in, eat good, and get mentally ready for this race.

Hope everyone had a good weekend!

2009 Recap and Weekend Results

Happy New Year!  Let's kick our 2010 into gear and have a  fulfilling and awesome year!  I've got several things on my plate this year, including my wedding (YEAH!).  I've got a lot to prepare for, and a lot to be thankful for!

2009 Recap:

• February - Traveled to Australia with my good friend Liz.  Had a fantastic time, and now I'm wishing I could go back and do it all over again!
• May-August - Worked in fire again, and semi-loved it, but was grateful to find a new venue
• September - Started a detail into my current job
• October - Moved in with Dustin (MY FIANCE!)
• December - Finally found out that I got my job!  Permanent, full-time.  Benefits!  Yay!
• December - Got engaged!  Dustin proposed on Christmas morning!  It was perfect!
• Lost 5 pounds...not as much as I want, but a start

So, all in all, a pretty good year.  Some ups and downs, but mostly ups.  And good ups at that.  Wow, my writing skills are great today!  Sorry about that.

New Year's Eve was pretty fun, although I feel like an old fart, because as soon as the clock struck midnight, Dustin and I were pretty much passed out and ready for bed!  I think booze had a little bit to do with it, though.  I didn't exactly eat well that night and I consumed quite a few tasty adult beverages, but it was fun!

New Year's Day was considerably uneventful.  In fact, we pretty much laid in bed all day, watching football and napping.  The good thing was that I didn't eat much; the bad was that what I did eat wasn't that great for me and I did not hydrate myself well from the night before.  Bad Caitlin!

Saturday was a different story!  We were having my parents (and his) over for dinner that night, so we frantically cleaned the house all day long!  It is amazing how our cleaning habits seem to work that way.  I love having a clean house but I don't take the time to do it very often, resulting in piles of crap everywhere.  But when you say someone is coming over, it is balls to the wall (excuse the expression) cleaning time, and I get a clean house as a result.  The only exception to this is that damn spare bedroom that you can hardly walk into because of the clutter.  I need to get on that goal of getting it organized!

Yesterday Dustin, a friend of ours, and I went and cut firewood all day long!  We have some juniper trees on our property that his dad had previously knocked down with the cat, and all of this good firewood has been brewing as a result.  So we packed up the chainsaws (yes, I can run a chainsaw, which is something I'm extremely proud of) and headed out to cut.  It was a great day with perfect weather; it felt like April, not the first of January.  I also got a great workout in, as I discovered that running the saw is a great core workout!  My abs are sore today, as well as my forearms.

After we finished that project, we checked some traps of ours and went home and SHOWERED.  I was in desperate need of one after how much sweat poured out when cutting firewood.  Now here comes the best part of the day:

Even though I got a great workout in all day, I still went to the gym!!!!!!  Needless to say, I'm pretty excited and proud of my decision!  Most days, I would have called it good after cutting, but yesterday I knew that I wanted to get a good run in.  Maybe it is the New Year resolution motivation coming out, but I think there was something more to it, like maybe my mind and my body are answering to the same voice in my head that says I want to be fit and lose weight!  Non-scale victory right there!

Speaking of the scale, my next weigh-in is Wednesday.  I'm pretty excited about it to be honest.  Not sure if the scale is going to budge, but I know it won't go up, and I'm in the process of making it go down.  Just keep swimming, as Dori would say.

By the way, I'm 4 miles down on my 60 Mile January Challenge.  56 to go!

January Miles Challenge

I could not get up this morning.  I woke up about 20 minutes before I had to leave for work, and I was so sluggish that it took me about 10 minutes to even get dressed.  Needless to say, I made it to work on time, but anyone who looks at me probably thinks my personal hygiene habits suck.  My hair is pulled into a bun, and you can totally tell that I didn't pick up a brush or comb this morning.  I have no makeup on and I forgot to put on deodorant before I left, so I probably stink.  Well you can't tell I stink at least, and I have big plans to put some on when I go to my mom's for lunch.

The only good thing about this situation is that there are only two other people at work and no one has came in, leaving my just-woke-up look unnoticed by almost everybody.  And I have nothing to do today, so here I am blogging and wishing I would have packed my curling iron so I could at least make an attempt to look decent.

I got a great workout in last night.  I had a warm up/cooldown of 5 min on the treadmill, and ran a 5k in between in 31:03!  How did I do that?  Sheer will, that is how, and my muscles are paying for it today.  I am glad that I did it, though, because it shows me what I can do, and now I have a time to work with for my 5k coming up in March.  That is a lot of time, and I want to shave a good three minutes off of it before then.  After the running, I got on the stairclimber for 15 minutes, stretched, and packed it up and headed home.

This afternoon I'm going to get on the treadmill for about 20 minutes, then do some strength/lifting before heading home.  I need to get a quick workout in before I consume calories for the evening, because we're going to a friend's for the New Year party.  I'm sure I'll need this workout to balance what I eat/drink for the night.

And by the way, I'm hungry!  I'm trying to not snack this morning because I'm going to eat lunch about half an hour earlier today, but I'm struggling.  Twenty more minutes...I can do it!!!

See?

Ok, now to my next point.

I'm going to do a January Miles Challenge.  I'm going to log 60 miles of running/walking (not counting other cardio I do) in the month of January.  That's an average of 2 miles a day.  I can do it!!

See?

Anyone want to join?  Let me know!

Happy New Year Everyone!

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas!

It's Christmas Eve!  I'm pretty excited, I love Christmas and everything about it.  My someday-to-be-mother-in-law was stressing out about everything last night, and I just sat there hoping that I don't ever get like that.  Now, I don't have to cook for many people (although I secretly would love to take that on--I love that kind of cooking pressure) or have people over at my house, so really I have nothing to stress about.  But I hope that even when I get older I will be organized enough to get stuff done so I don't have to stress over what needs to be done.

Dustin and I made two batches of fudge last night (his idea) and also made some candy covered pretzels, which are awesome.  I also sampled the fudge this morning, because I've never made it on my own and wanted to see if it turned out...DELIGHTFUL!  I'm pretty proud of our efforts and I'm looking forward to some more baking when I get off work (ok, so I'm blogging at work, but there is seriously nothing happening here) at noon.  I've for sure got to make some french bread or rolls tonight for dinner with Dustin's side of the family.

Tomorrow will prove to be a busy and fun day!  We're going to start it off by opening gifts at our house, just the two of us.  Then we shall make the long trek to his parents house (about 30 yards away from our house) and have Christmas breakfast with his family.  Then more presents and stockings.  This year we drew names and only had to get gifts for one person (besides his parents) and then we had to get everybody a stocking stuffer.  We wanted to be a little more cost effective instead of getting everybody (me, Dustin, his sisters and his sister's bf) a gift.  Thank goodness, because the bank account is already lacking funds.

After all that funness, we're going to head into town to my parents house to do gifts and stockings yet again.  Then we'll all trek to my grandma's house for Christmas dinner and our famous family gift exchange.  I just got the exciting news that Aunt N will be joining in for the exchange, so that will make for a fun *evil smile* and interesting time!

The only thing I'm a little worried about is how dinner and everything is going to go at my grandma's house.  It will be our first Christmas without my grandpa, and I'm already stressing (ok, so I'm stressing a little) about that, because we haven't really had a family event there since everyone was there during his funeral and the events leading up to it.  *By the way, in terms of New Years Resolutions, I need to visit both of my grandma's more often, like once a week at least.  They are special people!

As far as eating during the holidays, maintaining is what my plan is.  I really haven't been losing much weight, not because I can't, but mostly because I haven't been trying that hard.  I'm ok with that, mainly because I pretty much weigh what I did before college, with the exception of a few pounds.  I want to lose weight, but I'm not fat, and I don't intend on gaining any weight this Christmas.  Just eat in moderation, have fun, and be merry!  I'll get to the transformation phase again after Christmas!

In closing (since I've pretty much written a novel), I hope everybody has a great Christmas and Christmas Eve!  Have fun!