Lots going on...

Wow, it has been a while since I blogged...

Well Tommy's 10 lb Shred totally didn't happen.. let's see.. where we left off, I was getting ready to go to Hawaii.. that happened.

The trip was good, we had a lot of fun, but I was a little mommed out at the end. Monday we walked down to the Waikiki Aquarium. It was smaller than the Vancouver Aquarium, but it was neat to see all the live corals and tropical fish, mostly taken from Hawaii's own waters.

Tuesday, we went to the Polynesian Cultural Center, and did a circle island tour. That was totally worth the money at $140 US per person. We were busy from 8:30am when we were picked up, until about 11pm when we got dropped off at our hotel.

We stayed at the Miramar at Waikiki. It was ok, I understand now why they say that it was basic. It was about a block away from the beach, so it had a good location, but we spent most of our time in the swankier hotels. I think if I am going to spend that kind of money to go down there again, I will spend a bit extra and stay right on the beach. That's what you are going for after all.

Wednesday we went to the Waikiki Zoo, which was pretty good. I felt sorry for the elephants though. They had chains on their legs. There were lots of monkeys and tropical birds, and it took us a few hours to go through it. The problem was I think I might have got a bit too much sun, because I was sick all of Thursday... it was gross.

Friday we just started to get packed up, did a load of laundry and sat by the pool. Every night we went over to this bar at the Moana Surfrider. It was outside, and had live entertainment every night. It was right on the water so you could hear the waves crashing into the shore.

Holy expensive Batman! A drink, a single pina colada was $10.75 US.. for A SINGLE.

Everywhere you went, the booze was expensive. A single Malibu and pineapple was $9 US, but you really can't beat the scenery.

It was a good break. I wish I'd gone longer than a week, but I would have been broke when I came back. Everything was pricey.

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EVERYTHING ELSE...

Well I say it was a good break because I could get away from my hectic home life and everything going on here. Don't worry, the marriage is still good!

On the 19th of March, my brother was arrested for assault causing bodily harm. The way he tells it, is that he and his roommate were drinking and something happened and the roommate came at him with a knife. A fight ensued. The other kid took the brunt of it. He claims that my brother kicked him in the head about 30 times. Had that happened, I think he would be dead instead of just having a chipped tooth.

Just days before I was hanging out with my brother and he told me that this kid had moved in with him. He and the kid have a history. I told my bro that it wouldn't end well. What a surprise, it ended with my brother in the clink!

So anyways, then all this nonsense starts with Duty Counsel calling me and hounding me to bail my bro out of jail. I tell them that I am not bailing him out because I am leaving the country in a couple of weeks and can't look after him, plus, where is he going to go anyway? He can't go home, that's where the roommate is, and he can't live with me.

Turns out that C (that's my bro) can't get bail anyways because he has a history of failure to appear. He's not a bad seed, just a kid that can't seem to make any good decisions.

Days go by and I get a call from the correctional facility and C tells me what happened. I tell him that the room mate sent me a message on facebook telling me what happened, then I started getting harrassed by said room mate about whether I have talked to my psychotic bro and that he hopes he rots in jail. Nice friend hey?

So right now C is awaiting trial. Should be happening on June 7. I've been talking to my dad again too just for C's sake, because Dad says he wants to help C. C will need a place to stay when he gets out, and I think my dad is going to flake out. Apparently his g/f doesn't want C staying with them. Guess what, you are his dad. I am his SISTER. I am NOT the parent and this is unfairly all being heaped on me.

Who knows what is going to happen. The plan is to help C find a place when he gets out. My Dad has some hairbrained idea that we can get C a place before he gets out and then just take him there and be done with it. It's frustrating.

And, I think that's pretty much it.

Work is work. Same ol' same ol'.

Going to Hawaii! Yay!

It was a good weekend.

Friday night, I went and got my hair did, which was nice, since I haven't had it done since the wedding. I chopped it all off and it's all freshly dyed.

Saturday C and I headed out to the Grand Villa Casino since we have never been there before. We were actually heading out to North Van for a 60th anniversary party for a coworker of mine. We left the casino and headed to the party, which was nice. I hope I make it to 60 years married.. that would make me 87.

After that, we went to Metrotown and I picked up a signed copy of Tommy Europe's 10 lb shred and I'm going to do my own sort of variation on it. Basically I'm following the meal plan and hitting the gym, so hopefully I can lose the 5 lbs I picked up in the last 6 months. I weighed in on Sunday morning and I'm back up to 173... ack! I started my weight loss before my wedding at 178.. I only have 5 more pounds to gain and I'm back at my heavy weight. Time to reverse this.. NOW!

My mom and I booked a trip to Hawaii on Sunday. Boy, am I excited! That's most of the reason why I want to take off a few pounds. I'm going to be in a bathing suit.. ack.

I can't wait to get there. It's hot and sunny. Not this depressing non-stop rain that we have had here. I really want to do the tour of the dole plantation, visit pearl harbor, the Polynesian Cultural Centre and climb Diamond Head.. I was looking on the Lonely Planet site this morning and there are lots of fun things to do. I think I'll skip the shark dive though. They actually have this package where they stick you in a cage with the sharks swimming around you for half an hour. I think I would freak out.. Hel-lo claustrophobia!

So day one of the meal plan is ok so far, and everything I have to take to work fits in my bento box I ordered from www.laptoplunches.com.

I started my day with 3/4 O% Vanilla Liberte Greek Yogurt and 1/4 cup of Granola. Sorry Tommy, I am not giving up coffee, but I'll meet you half way and put milk in it instead of creamo. I had sugar in it too. I also had a banana.

For my mid-morning snack, I had 1/2 cup of cottage cheese (insert Mr. Yuck face here. I hate cottage cheese), and an apple.

For lunch, I had a sandwich on a multigrain Dempster's Thinful bun, with 2 slices of deli turkey breast, mustard and alfalfa sprouts and a 1/2 cup of baby carrots.

My afternoon snack before I go to the gym is a cut up red bell pepper with 1/3 cup of vegetable hummus.

I don't know what's for dinner, and that's where it always seems to go wrong. My husband cooks, which is great, but we mostly have frozen meals from M&M's during the week. He usually does lots of vegetables though, so that's good.

I'm planning on doing the fit fix again. Basically because I don't want to drag Tommy's 10 lb shred book to the gym with me, and there's not a ton of room in my gym. It's pretty small and crowded. So I'll just do the fit fix and then do about 35 mins on the stairmaster and go home.

Munkeebizzness is open for Business!!

This weekend was a blur, it went so fast, even with the lazy day I had yesterday, my head is spinning and I can't quite believe it is Monday already.

I finally opened my Etsy Store, Munkeebizzness. Check it out!

Friday night went to karaoke down at The Ranch with a bunch of my friends. It was fun. I sang four songs: If you're not in it for love (I'm outta here) by Shania Twain, Baby Love by Diana Ross and the Supremes, Back in Baby's Arms by Patsy Cline, and I was picked to close the show with Fever by Peggy Lee, which my friend L joined me for.

I think my boss thinks I am crazy when I'm not at work. He just asked me if I wore singer clothes. I think he was picturing sequins for some reason.. lol. He mentioned a hat or a fancy scarf.. lol.

Saturday, C slept until 1 and I used the time to catch up on my TV watching and finish up one of my sock monkeys. Then I had a shower and researched etsy a bit more. Then we went grocery shopping, and then it was time to go to my parents for dinner.

Sunday we were totally lazy all day. I opened my etsy store, did some laundry and spent the majority of the day in bed in front of the TV.

And now I am back to my desk. Boss is away at the conference and it looks like I will have some time to catch up on things around the ol' desk.

Should be a good week.

Bleh..

It's Wednesday, which is good, because we are half way through the week.. and it's actually been going by quite quickly.

Hopefully the rest of the week goes by quickly too, because I am ready for another weekend.

This weekend was pretty good. We went to the Canucks game. I posted a picture from the warm up.

It was a good game. It's always nice when the Canucks win, when you actually pay for seats, because hockey tickets are expensive. Those seats were $125 a pop. I don't know how families afford to take kids to hockey games. I think my future kids will only get to see the Giants and Abbotsford Heat if they are into that.

Sunday, we just bummed around and didn't do a lot, and I had Monday off.. woo hoo! Well, kinda. I had to log into my work computer and do a few things. Was going to go to the gym, but then it started snowing like crazy, so I decided to stay home and read instead.

Yesterday I came home and it was snowing like hell, so I decided just to go home. Oh well. Supposed to snow again tonight, but it's already halfway through the week and I haven't gone. Ah, to be lazy.. lol.

Must resolve to blog more often...

Not that anyone actually reads it, but oh well.



Not much new these days (that's probably why nobody reads this blog), been sick pretty much since after the new year, which has been a pain in the butt as it's really eating into my gym time.



I didn't go at all last week, and haven't gone so far this week. Rats!



I'm starting to feel better, but am worried that if I go and work out I will set myself back, and I have this lovely deep chest cough that makes me sound like a seal. I wonder how fast I could clear out the gym just by coughing!



Maybe I will give it another day or two. I should really get back there, because when I don't go, I am bored out of my tree at home!



My dear husband's shift has changed, which sucks! He's gone from starting at 7PM until 5:30 AM to starting at 6PM, which means he leaves for work just after 5, and even if I don't go to the gym, the soonest I get home is about 5:20 and he is already gone. Boo. So I come home, eat dinner by myself, and then proceed to sit around for the rest of the night.



I've been slowly working on inventory for the etsy store. I have one monkey done, and another that just needs 2 arms, ears and a muzzle and he will be ready to go. Once I have the two monkeys I'll post em to etsy and see what happens.



I had my first sock monkey sale a couple weeks ago, so that was exciting. The first craft I have actually been paid to do! I am way behind on birthday gifts and other stuff though.. guh. Maybe tonight I can finish the other monkey.



Other than that, nothing particularly interesting on the horizon. DH is off to Vegas without me at the end of March. Ask me how I feel about that. I will actually have to cook my own dinner! Oh the humanity! Actually - I really enjoyed it when I had to cook my own dinner the last time. I can't even remember why that was... where was DH? I don't know. Weird.. anyway, there was a time back there that I did have to cook for myself after the gym and oddly enough I did enjoy it.



DH usually does all the cooking because he has to eat before he goes to work anyways, so he just cooks for both of us and puts mine on a plate in the fridge for when I get home. It's mostly fast presto food during the week that comes out of the freezer. I'm trying to stay away from processed foods this year, or at least eat less of them than I have in recent years.



We eat a lot of stuff from M&M Meats during the week, which is probably high in sodium. I don't know how healthy freezer food actually is. Maybe I should do some research.

Oh crap. I forgot to mention, I ordered THE COOLEST lunch box yesterday. You can check em out at laptoplunches.com. It's a bento box style lunch kit and it looks awesome. I should have it in 3-4 weeks.

My Somewhat Triumphant Return to the Gym

Well, after a wedding, and the holiday season where you party and eat crap, I made my return to the gym this week. Yep, even after that terrible session I had with that trainer in the beginning of December. Way to go me.

Here's how this week went so far:

Monday: went to the gym. Did 45 mins on the stairmaster at level 8, which just happens to be where I left off. I found it difficult and did have to level down to 7 in the last 8 minutes, because I thought I was going to barf. Finished off with some lunges, squats and abdominal exercise and a stretch. It's not the fit fix, but it's good enough, and like that trainer said, the fit fix isn't really going to do anything for me anymore because my body is used to the movements. I'm a big follower of Paul Plakas too, and he says that those isolating exercise machines really don't do anything for you and he figured they wouldn't even be in gyms anymore by now.

Tuesday: Rode the stationary bike for 40 mins. Did 10.6 miles of intervals on level 9. Ususally I do hill at level 11, but couldn't keep up with intervals at level 11. I was still pretty pleased with my output.

Wednesday: Body Attack class for 45 minutes. That was difficult. Lots and lots of lunge jump lunges and plyometric exercises. Ugh. I also slacked on the pushup track, but I was trying to remember what the trainer told me about doing pushups the wrong way. I was dropping my head. So I guess it's better to do less with proper form than more with crappy form. Still felt good after it was all over. My arms are a little sore today.

Thursday (today): Planning on riding the bike or doing the stairmaster again for about 40 mins. Won't know till I get there.

I'm also tracking my calories again. I'm trying to make myself more aware of what and when I am eating. Hopefully this will help me get back on track.

Christmas is over

And I hope you had a good one.

Mine was ok, pretty quiet, but sometimes that is a nice change from all the running around like a chicken with your head cut off. You actually get to enjoy the season.

Things are good.

I feel kind of boring. I don't have a lot to say these days.

I have decided to open up an etsy store, so I've been busy working on stuff to use as inventory. I still have a whole bunch of wedding stuff I have to do, like get my name change info in to the DMV so that I can get a driver's license with my new name on it, and I should probably tell the bank that my name has changed.

I actually got a letter to Mrs. Newname yesterday which was really weird. It's still not quite sunk in that I am Mrs anybody. I've been writing my name one way for the last 28 years, it's not going to be an easy thing to change overnight!

It's a pretty slow day around the office. Not a lot is going on since it's friday. I have cleaned up my desk and got organized and here I sit for another oh, 5 hours or so. *Sigh*