Helloooo?

*taps mic* Anyone still here?

Ok, so I pulled another one of my disappearing acts. I swear my intention is to post regularly! I just swear I see squirrels and rainbows and get distracted lol

I have started Bullet Journalling (more about that later). One of the reasons, is to be less squirrely. One of my goals for May is to get back to blogging regularly. The whole point of this blog is so people can learn about our journey and so me and the kids can have this cool diary of sorts to look back on. I also really enjoy writing!

Teeny up-to-date on us...
Joshua - as of his last speech assessment, he is up to 2.5 years old in speech. This is fantastic as a year ago he had 4 words and relied solely on sign language. He's *finally* starting his 2nd block of speech therapy next week so hopefully we can get that number even higher! We're also waiting on referrals and assessments from the Ottawa Children's Treatment Center for autism, sensory processing disorder and occupational therapy. Joshua also starts soccer this month!

Olivia - in February she joined Brianna in Time4Learning after completing Reading Eggs and Math Seeds. She has already completed Social Studies for Gr. 2 and is 3/4 done science and math in Gr. 2. So we're mostly focusing on English, which has always been her weaker spot, but she's more than half done Gr. 1 there. She loves Brownies and is excited to do her first camp with them this month. She also starts her 3rd year of soccer this month.

Brianna - finally finished all her Gr. 6 work and I swear it's like a light bulb clicked. It took her almost 3 years to finish Gr. 6 yet she's on course to finish Gr. 7 by the end of July! She is absolutely thriving in Pathfinders and graduates to Rangers for next year. She's been working her tail off to sell cookies and fundraise to pay for their trip to England in 2019. She squeezed into her final year of science camp (technically she ages out 5 days before camp but they've allowed to to take part this year). She's been encouraged by the River Institute to volunteer with them next summer (most likely helping with the younger campers group).

Isaac - graduates this year!!! How the hell did that happen! Wasn't it just like, last year, that he started Kindergarten!? He's been accepted into 2 programs at one of the city's best colleges (!!!) and currently plans to do both, double majoring. He's also working with a program there to work over the summer. He may possibly get a couple hours sleep. He has also almost completed a completely drawn by hand, D&D style game with a friend of his. We tested it out this weekend and it was pretty damn fun!

Dylan - has been working full time at the same place Lee is since the fall and has been doing great! While they work for different companies in the same building, he and Lee see each other a couple times a week. Everyone thinks they're brothers lol He had some nerve wracking trips home in the winter due to storms (he has the same anxiety that Lee does and this was his first winter doing any kind of distance driving).

Lee - after a round of (fairly low) winter blues, his anxiety appears to be doing much better. He's in his happy little world at work in wash bay without anyone breathing down his neck. There's a possibility of promotion to days wash bay late in the summer due to someone's retirement that he's really excited about, so we've all got our fingers crossed for that one!

Me - I fell into a food-happy slump over the winter and gained 9 of my hard-earned 40lb loss back. However, now that the weather is nice again, I've been getting out for multiple mile walks a few times a week. My business is slow, as it always is in spring and summer but I'm happy with that as it gives me time to selfish sew! My goal is to have 75% of the family's summer clothes be mama made this year.

So that's us for now. I hope to have a LOT more frequent postings, including a pile of the drafts I was working on last fall. How's everyone else doing in blog land?

Taking Health Seriously Pt. 2

This is a follow up post to my March health post.

I am now at 42.6 pounds lost (!!!!), at least 4 clothing sizes and (going by bust+waist+hips) 10.5 inches smaller. All since January.

I am SUPER stoked. I haven't been this small since I was about 5 mths pregnant with Isaac (17 years ago,,,). I am only 12 (!!!) pounds from my ultimate goal (which is still technically "overweight", but I have a large frame and have no interest in being "skinny", just healthy).

January to the end of May I worked really hard. I've never done so well for so long and my new clothing sizes proves it. In June I had 2 surgeries 11 days apart, one of them major abdominal surgery. I was on restrictions for 6 weeks and even after that still felt like a zombie.

While I didn't get much exercise done over the summer, I still worked really hard to keep my eating good. 95% of the time I stayed below my calorie goal on MyFitnessPal. Even with the lack of exercise, I managed to lose 10lbs over the summer.

By the end of Sept, I was feeling 100% again. The temps were cooler. Workouts could happen again! We all love walking and have a great bike path that's only a block away. I put together a daily workout to try to tone, since losing all that weight has shrunk a lot of parts but also made a lot of parts floppy.

We joined AquaFit now that beach season is over. While AquaFit is MUCH harder than it looks, it is still fun. And it's something different than the usual sweaty reps. We walk there while the weather is still nice so we get a 2 mile walk in as well.

As winter comes, it'll be tempting to get lazy. I really hope I can keep the will power to keep going!

A Walk in the Fall

I used to do a link up (that bombed when I slacked on my blog) called Wilderness Wednesday. Every Wednesday I would post the link up with a post of the things we did in nature that week.

I should probably start that again. But with Canada going into winter, nature can be a little white and a little cold. Not to say that winter isn't beautiful! It's just cold. Last winter was amazing. Normal winter... the hair in your nostrils can feel like they're gonna break off.

So maybe come spring....

However FALL in Canada is incredible. We have all the beautiful colors and the perfect temps. The girls and I went for a walk along our local bike path (a gorgeous 40+ kilometer path along the St. Lawrence river). Now that the temperatures are better, we get out walking a lot. With the healthy lifestyle we're working on, it's perfect!

We found a swarm of super cool looking bugs on a tree. The 2nd pic is of the bottom of the trunk. We discovered a few different ages of the bugs. The youngest ones are red and as they get bigger they turn more and more black.

Research proved that they're Boxedler bugs, thankfully harmless.

In several areas along the bike path are crab apple trees.The girls like to pick them and toss them into the water for the seagulls (who happily scoop them up!). Olivia also just likes to demonstrate her monkey skills while Brianna paranoidly watches.

We found a turkey vulture in the park along the bike path. Seeing them closer to our house is pretty uncommon but I've never seen one in the park area which is just off our downtown.

The St. Lawrence river is a huge river system. There's load of different wildlife including the ducks, seagulls and a heron hanging out on this rock.

Weekly Wrap Up - 9/30/16

Olivia loves to curl up in our lawn chairs (since she's small enough she can actually curl up) and read books.

Olivia has been riding biking with the neighbour's children in the evenings. She became quite the pro at riding a 2 wheeler this summer and helped teach her year-younger friend how to as well.

Olivia was recently shown how to properly use a steak knife to cut. Joshua loves this as it means that she is willing to often cut up strawberries for him!

Brianna got a note from the local organizer of the Terry Fox Run thanking her for her continued fundraising and offered to make sure that her run is officially recorded (as Brianna was sick on the actual run day).

Olivia finished up her apple experiment with all sorts of gross success.

We recorded our "day in the life" post for iHomeschool Network.

Brianna has really taken a big change in responsibility in her school work this week. She went from needing more prompting (and arguing) to do schoolwork than Olivia, to really buckling down and getting it done. Her chores still take a lot more prompting, but I'll take it!

We all began working out again this week. Because of my surgeries in June, this summer was way too laid back. Brianna really fell short in the healthy dept. We have a dedicated workout room that we share with the neighbours (we have the equipment, they have the space) so no excuses!

If you've been reading my blog for a while (or just read back to a few years ago), you'll remember my niece Tanya used to homeschool with us. She went back to the public school route and is not working on dual credit courses at the college that Brianna plans to attend. Today was her Sweet 16.

Linking up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers and Hip Homeschool Moms

The Ultra Sick Week

As it's been all winter, everyone seems to be sick. I don't think we've had the entire house healthy since November.

I got slammed suddenly with the worst strep throat I've ever had. Friday, I was fine, felt like maybe I was coming down with a head cold by bed time. Sat morning I woke up and thought I was dying. I was sweating profusely like it was a heat wave in August, to shivering uncontrollably like it was -50 degrees. My thermometer battery is dead, but Lee says I had a pretty high fever. Went to the ER to get meds (we don't have regular clinics that are open on the weekend), dr saw I don't get flu shots and tried to insist it's the flu "because I don't get a flu shot" *roll eyes*. How about you LOOK at my throat, since that's my biggest complaint?? Finally convince him to look - oh! Looks like strep throat. Gee, really?? Other than going to the ER, I pretty much slept Sat-Mon. By Wednesday I was finally starting to feel slightly on the mend.

Brianna has had a horrible hacking cough. It has gone no where for weeks. It's not even getting better. She just sounds like she's going to cough up a lung several times a day. Otherwise she was fine. Wednesday she suddenly got very cold after she finished her schoolwork and asked to take a nap. We didn't see her again until about 10pm. Thursday and Friday she went up and down on fevers and bathroom trips.

Olivia likes to over-do everything and get multiple illnesses. On Sat, she developed this odd rash. Looked like simple hives, an allergic reaction. Except she's not typically an allergy kid and hasn't been exposed to anything new lately anyway. Then Sunday, starts popping up with an impetigo-like rash on her face (not surprising as a friend had it last week). Monday, starts having a "scratchy" tongue. *sigh* By Thursday her rashes we gone but she was still "turning into a cat" (since our cat, Bacon, has a scratchy tongue and so does she, she must be turning into a cat).

Joshua spent the week spreading snot everywhere and coughing on people (we are *trying* to work on nose blowing and covering his mouth).

Thankfully, mom and Lee seemed to be mostly spared. Lee got a bit of a cough but nothing else and mom seems to have escaped completely.

We did minimal school this week. A mix of the stuff even Olivia could do on her own and the stuff that she would allow Brianna to help her with. The basics for Brianna. Throw in a few movies (French for Kids, Dogs with Jobs (which was really enjoyed!)) and that was about it.

Daddy got to help out with schoolwork too

Linking up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers

I WILL Take This Year's Weight Loss Seriously

Several times now I have done the common "New Year, new ME!" fad. I've lost as much as 40lbs (3-4 years ago and starting from a much higher weight). Last year I lost 14. Then gained 9 of it back.

Last year I started buying sewing patterns. I don't want to waste money and time buying fabric and making myself cute stuff for it to flip flop being too big and too small. I want to be able to enjoy my hard work for a long time!

I have the added bonus of a new friend, who kinda lives next door (she actually lives on the street behind me but our back yards share a fence so that still counts!). She too is overweight and wants to be healthy for her family.

She overeats but has loads of energy. I eat pretty healthy but am lazy. We bounce off each other great! She yells at me to get off my butt, I yell at her if she grabs a chocolate bar.

I have loads of fantastic online friends who have been my weigh loss buddies for years. I love them to bits and would probably be a lot heavier right now if it weren't for them. But there's just something that makes you extra accountable to have someone right there in your face telling you not to cheat.

This year, I'm already down 11lbs.

All I've done is the same thing I always do - eat better (and less) and move more.

I use MyFitnessPal to track my calories. Calorie counting in general isn't a big thing as it doesn't take into effect good and bad calories. A banana and a half a chocolate bar are both roughly 100 calories. But counting calories works for me as I can see, first hand, portion control. Which is my big food issue. I eat fairly healthy stuff, but I eat way too much of it.

For exercise, I track my steps via the S Health app, built into my phone (an S5 but is now available for download for some other Android phones). Again, the visual helps me see my progress and motivates me to make the numbers go up. I also occasionally use a treadmill and an exercise bike, but I really dislike exercise equipment. I can't wait for the snow and ice to vamoose so I can get back to walking outside!

I'm still 43lbs from my goal. Will I see goal this year? Maybe. But I will get a hell of a lot further than I have in the past!

Weekly Wrap Up - Feb 19th

We started the week with Family Day and a day of laziness. Then on Tuesday we got hit by a nice winter storm that had Brianna shovelling majority of the day. Freezing rain > snow > freezing rain > snow does not make for a pretty property.

My car ate my snow brush

Olivia's friends finally came back from their European trip. You'd think they were gone 4 years instead of 4 weeks!

We finally caught up on Mystery Class. I've lost 10lbs so far this year. Brianna started a new chapter in math. Olivia is doing a science unit about the senses.

Linking up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers

Loooong Awaited Update

So since I only blogged a whole *2* times last year, there's kinda been a lot missed. The somewhat condensed version...

Dylan: 19, lives with his mother. Dylan graduated high school. He took an intense 8 week course for heavy equipment operator. He is now working at his first full time job, which he loves!

Isaac: 16, lives with his grandmother. Isaac got his drivers license over the summer (which he is super proud of). He got Honours on his most current report card. He is still very geek/computer driven.

Brianna: 13, at home. Brianna had a slow start to the year. We did minimal core subjects and otherwise unschooled. My brain just wasn't having it. While this helped heal my brain, it didn't do much for Brianna. She does great unschooled learning for self taught or guided learning but anything that is required, but she doesn't particularly want to do, she NEEDS to be "sat on" to do it. Thus, she did poorly to failing miserably at several things. After a summer of normal summer schedule, we got back to business for school. She is doing great in all areas other than math. Don't get me wrong, she is actually good at math! She just doesn't like it, so she slacks off.

In November she again took part in NaNoWriMo. Last year she wrote nearly 10,000 words. This year she more than doubled it to 20,000+ words by the end of November and isn't even done her story! She took a couple month break from it and starting next month will be working on finishing it and editing it. She story is Minecraft fan fiction.

Brianna started working for our neighbour, being a regular babysitter and also doing random jobs around their house. She saved half her money all year and did really well with what she kept. She even took on a couple other babysitting jobs and is building herself a good reputation.

She finally started Rosetta Stone French and is excelling in it. The program doesn't "pass" you unless you have set grade (I believe 75 or 80%), but for most lessons this is easy as pie for her. She is struggling with the writing portion as she's a horrendous speller, even in English. And she has some issues with the grammar portion but French grammar is hard.

Brianna really didn't do all that well in her training or races last year. It's a goal she's working on for this year and thus far she's doing pretty good!

Brianna took part in a science fair with our homeschool group. She put together a project on Earth Sciences, focusing on various rocks. She did really well with the project and even did a presentation in front of the group! She is very stage fright and didn't want to do the presentation portion (not required anyway), so I was super proud of her when she chose to.

Brianna got an undercut and then a short bob in the battle of her amazingly thick and heavy hair. The undercut did a lot over the summer for heat control but the knots she was getting in the remaining length was still a lot to take care of. Once we chopped her hair to jaw level AND kept the undercut, she is both cool and able to take care of it better.

We've started looking into high school and college requirements for the course she wants to take (Environmental Technician). I am not looking forward to high level math. Or writing transcripts. Or high school in general *sigh*

Olivia: 6, at home. Olivia has been working hard at learning to read. She's got a list of 22 words she can fluently read and is excellent with sounding out phonetic words. She is confused over a lot of the English rules, but they ARE confusing.

Olivia took, and failed, swimming lessons last spring. I am very glad she failed as she didn't do well enough to pass. She practised hard over the summer though and I have no worries that she will easily pass this spring.

Olivia joined soccer last year and just loved it! Her favorite position is defence and even got a Player of the Game award for her defensive skills. She can't wait to join again this summer.

She is still excelling in math. She is flying through her Gr. 1 work and will easily be into Gr. 2 work before the school year is done. She loves doing Khan Academy like Brianna.

We chopped off all her hair last year from being almost to her butt. She wanted it "short like Daddy". We convinced her to get a cute bob with bangs. Not good enough, she still wanted it shorter. She now has a short pixie cut, which she loves.

Olivia has started learning French. Brianna's Rosetta Stone requires fluent reading so for now, we'll just be working on the basics. Brianna is doing a lot of the teaching. Olivia can't wait to use Rosetta Stone too!

While Brianna was doing her NaNoWriMo, Olivia decided to write a book as well. She drew pictures then dictated to me what to write. She's not quite done yet but she's done really well so far!

She also lost her first tooth (and now 2nd)! It had been wiggly for a while and the adult tooth was even growing in behind it, but she was very worried about pulling it out. Finally when it was barely hanging on by a thread, she let me pull it out.

Joshua: 2.5, at home. Joshua is not doing tot school yet (though he probably could!). He is mute. No particular reason for it. He checks out medically, has perfect hearing and is at average or is advanced for normal toddler development. Except in speech. Because of this, we are holding off potty training and schooling until we can get some better communication, which is our current focus.

He is excelling in sign language. He consistently uses 22 signs on his own and is learning many more. The girls are also using/learning sign language with him. We (Lee and I) are currently in a parent to child class and after that we'll be doing further speech therapy with Joshua.

Eventually we'll care about school for him. Right now, him being able to communicate is our number 1 priority. He's only 2, we're not worried about the rest.

Lee and I: As we're fairly open about, you may know that Lee has Generalized Anxiety Disorder. On average, it's well controlled. Sometimes he has bad days, some times he has really bad days. Last spring he had several bad months. He was actually so bad he was off work for 5 months. It was hard for everyone, most of all him. He was raised in a "man-up" generation and has always had a hard time dealing with feeling out of control or depressed. With a LOT of support, he made it through. He's back to work, though his first month was really rough, but now is going great.

Towards the end of his time off, we went on our long planned cross-Canada road trip for his best friend's wedding, in which he was the Best Man. It was so awesome to get away, just the 2 of us. We missed the kids like crazy, but thankfully Skype kept us in touch. I'll have a big blog post about this trip later.

I have been busy with my business. I've been trying out new fabrics and techniques in me sewing to try to get past that "beginner-novice" title. It's been surprisingly easy in some areas, and really tough in others.

My grandma died just before Christmas. She'd been struggling with various health problems for years and open heart surgery (which completely fixed her heart!) seems to have sped up some other issues. The girls, Olivia in particular, took it really hard. It makes me sad that Joshua will never really know her. It makes me sad that we don't get to see her any more. But I'm glad that she's not struggling with her health any more.

Weekly Wrap Up

We had a pretty physical week, but a slower "school" week.

Brianna started her new healthy lifestyle, which she has been doing great in! We went to the beach and practised her swimming portion for her triathlon (mama is out of shape! lol). On Thursday, we went mini-golfing and then on to the driving range (much more of a workout than it looks!).

On Tuesday we had quite the morning thunderstorm. We all love to sit on the porch and watch the storm. Brianna knows how lightening works but asked about thunder. She was mind blown over the idea that the lightening creates a hole/tunnel in the air and thunder is the sound of this hole/tunnel collapsing. Most of the talk was over Olivia's head, but she liked looking at the different pictures on Weather Wiz Kids.

Brianna and I are still working on our story and she's moving through Gr. 6 Math Mammoth. Her algebra is advancing, learning how to use 2 variables. She sees them a dumb, but I like how Math Mammoth shows how they apply to real life.

Linking up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Brianna's Fitness Change

Brianna had a big week fitness wise. Last year, around this time her and Tanya did a fitness test. Brianna did pretty damn good considering her age and that it was an adult fitness test. This running season Brianna has done as little as possible in the training dept and as much as possible in the food dept. As an end result, has gained a scary amount of weight and is very much out of shape.

Her triathlon is next month, Aug 23rd. She agrees that in her current shape, she probably couldn't complete it. So enters, boot camp (12 year old safe). I am doing a fitness challenge with one of my healthy mama groups (Joshua is 13 mths old, I'm losing ground on the I just had a baby excuse) and Brianna will join me! Brianna will also be running a LOT more regularly. Since her season started in the middle of April, she has run a total of 6 times. That includes the 3 races she did. Not cool.

Swimming has always been her struggle area for the triathlon. She goes to the local pool 3-4 days a week, but it's a free swim, so it's packed with other kids. So we hit the beach. One area of fitness that I've never had a problem with is swimming, so this is one area that I can train with her. Her 2 main strokes are breast and back. She has no real swim training, so these are the ones that come naturally to her. I hope to get to the pool that they do the triathlon swimming in at least a couple times before the big day.

So Brianna has made a list of goals (with my help) for this week and this month
Week:
- lose 2lbs (should be easy water weight)
- exercise every day
- 1 non fruit/veggie snack per day
Month:
- lose 4 lbs
- walk 45 mins 3x per week
- 4L of water per day

I felt it was important for Brianna to make her own goals to "own" her lifestyle change. She's old enough to take part in keeping herself healthy.

Weekly Wrap Up - End of the Regular School Year

We school year round but we do move to a much lighter schedule in the summer. In part because Brianna has several activities (Park Leaders and swimming for example) but also, simply because it's summer! However, even our last few weeks of "regular" school are much slower. Partially because of just having a busy time this June, but also just because the weather's getting warmer and we want to be outside! So this weekly wrap up is a couple weeks

After a few months of refusing, I finally convinced her to write in her notebook. Here we worked on her name, drawing 4 shapes and writing our phone number

We did our Iceland country study.

Brianna moved into volume in math and pouted that the world wasn't full of little cubes (a la Minecraft?) to count. After spending 10 minutes whining about not being able to figure out volume without the cubes, she finally read the instructions and asked "is it really just area times the height?!?!?!" Insert mom giggling in a corner.

She finally finished her Gr. 5 Math Mammoth curriculum (as said in earlier posts, she repeated it due to not fully understanding and shoddy work ethic). I base our homeschool on Mastery, which we view as 80% or higher. Brianna got 74% on the curriculum's provided final test, but as the last time she got 51%, I passed her because of the fantastic improvement!

Olivia is more and more interested in time. She knows what the clock looks like for morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack and supper, but doesn't really understand how that corresponds to "time". We're also working on the span of time - yesterday, today, tomorrow, ect...

Brianna occasionally joins me for my walks. This week we did a 3.5 mile walk and enjoyed some of the beautiful scenery in our city

Brianna did her final English essay as an argumentative essay on her bedtime. After explaining what she needed to do (on her choice of topic), she ran away with it. She did fantastic!

By the way, she won. Her bedtime was moved :)

Brianna loves Report Cards. I don't "issue" one at specific intervals, but I do generally at least provide her with one at the end of June, before we move into our summer schedule. Not surprisingly, she was very happy with this one!

Olivia chose to do Pirates for her next unit. We got some great printables from Homeschool Creations, 1+1+1=1, Over The Big Moon and Homeschool Share.

She LOVED this pirate game I found

"Ps are eeeeeeeasy"

Olivia is not completely ready for the You Can Read program. She enjoys the work but doesn't seem to grasp the concept of remembering that this specific combination of letters = this specific word. No biggie. We'll give it another go in the fall. As she would only be going into Senior (or 5 year old) Kindergarten this September if she were in public school, I'm not at all worried about her "lack of reading".

Linking up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers

Weekly Menu/Fitness Plan

I walked 9.46 miles last week. I was actually doing really good and then it rained, and I mean RAINED, for 4 days straight :(

My menu plans are a rough guesstimate. I don't often "feel" like what I've planned lol But this is generally what we'll eat this week.

Monday
leftovers

Tuesday
Pork roast

Wednesday
Lentil tacos

Thursday
Brianna cooks

Friday

Ofnsteiktur fiskur með lauk og osti - Easy Icelandic fish casserole, Brúnaðar kartöflur - Caramelised potatoes, Icelandic brown bread, chocolate soup, pepper cookies - Country Study - Iceland

Saturday
Joshua's 1st Birthday Party

Sunday
Serve Yourself

Linking up with Southern Living Yankee and I'm An Organizing Junkie

Weekly Menu/Fitness Plan

I walked only 5.57 miles last week. It was a horrible, poopy week, motivation wise. This week WILL be better! 

3 miles of my distance was Sunday where I went out for a walk with the stroller and my radio on my cell. I walked to the beat of the music. It was a great workout! I'll be doing that more often!! Now that we're into hot weather, the humidity levels dictate how much I can get outside (I actually get sick when it's humid), but I'll be doing as much as I can handle!

My menu plans are a rough guesstimate. I don't often "feel" like what I've planned lol But this is generally what we'll eat this week.

Monday
leftovers

Tuesday
chicken kiev

Wednesday
Coq au Vin, Gouda and handmade crackers, fresh real lemonade, baguettes, Bavarian creme - Country Study - France

Thursday

Crockpot Sausage Penne Bake with Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Spinach

Friday
Brianna cooks

Saturday
Out of town = fast food

Sunday
Serve Yourself

Linking up with Southern Living Yankee and I'm An Organizing Junkie

Weekly Menu/Fitness Plan

I walked only 6.98 miles last week. No excuses other than I suck :(

My menu plans are a rough guesstimate. I don't often "feel" like what I've planned lol But this is generally what we'll eat this week.

Monday
Enchiladas

Tuesday
Pot Roast

Wednesday
Fish and chips

Thursday
BBQ

Friday
still undecided - Country Study - France

Saturday
Brianna cooks

Sunday
Serve Yourself

Linking up with Southern Living Yankee and I'm An Organizing Junkie

Menu/Fitness Plan Monday

I walked 9.88 miles last week. Much happier with my miles, but still not what I *know* I can do!

My menu plans are a rough guesstimate. I don't often "feel" like what I've planned lol But this is generally what we'll eat this week.

Monday
Lemon and Dill Basa

Tuesday
Pot Roast

Wednesday
Bruchetta Chicken

Thursday
Aloha Burgers with cheese fries, sweet tea and flag cake (Country Study - USA)

Friday
Brianna cooks

Saturday
Out of town = fast food

Sunday
Serve Yourself

Linking up with Southern Living Yankee and I'm An Organizing Junkie

Victoria Day 5K

Brianna and my husband, Lee, ran a 5K this morning with the Cornwall Multisport Club. Brianna runs with them frequently, but last year, for the Labour day race, Lee joined her. The race they do on Victoria Day and Labour Day is a "chase". Here's what the CMS site says about it:

"What is a 5k Chase?  The Victoria Day 5k Chase allows for gender/age neutrality.  Your start time is based on your Age and Gender.  The first person to cross the finish line is the winner of the race.

The race [start] times were determined by using the 67% for each age group from this age grading website."

Pre-race

Brianna had a side stitch for most of the race, something we need to work on as that was her problem with her race 2 weeks ago.

Lee did fantastic for it being only his 2nd race since grade school. He ran the entire first lap (2.5km) and most of the 2nd.

The ended up with times of 31 minutes, 24 seconds (Lee) and 45 minutes, 59 seconds (Brianna). Lee plans to start regularly training with Brianna for short runs. I think it'll be a great bonding time!

Mean/Fitness Plan Monday

I walked 5.15 miles last week. I need to up this way more if I want to hit my goal of 500 Miles in 2014!

My menu plans are a rough guesstimate. I don't often "feel" like what I've planned lol But this is generally what we'll eat this week.

Monday
Leftovers

Tuesday
Baked chicken with mushroom and cheese sauce

Wednesday
Apple pork tenderloin, stuffing and mixed veggies (third week this is on the menu... maybe I should actually cook it this week)

Thursday
Chili

Friday
Brianna cooks

Saturday
Lemon and Dill Basa

Sunday
Serve Yourself

Linking up with Southern Living Yankee and I'm An Organizing Junkie

Menu/Fitness Plan Monday

I walked 3.45 miles last week. I REALLY need to up this! I did put in my garden on Sunday/today though, and that's a workout in itself!

My menu plans are a rough guesstimate. I don't often "feel" like what I've planned lol But this is generally what we'll eat this week.

Monday
Chicken in cheese and wine sauce

Tuesday
Muffin Melts

Wednesday
Apple pork tenderloin, stuffing and mixed veggies

Thursday
Chili

Friday
Sloppy Joes (yeah, I know, so healthy!)

Saturday
Out of Town = Fast Food

Sunday
Serve Yourself

Linking up with Southern Living Yankee and I'm An Organizing Junkie

Menu/Fitness Plan Monday

So, I figure since Joshua's almost a year old (!!!!), I can't really use the excuse of "I just had a baby" any more. Time to get off my ass and stop shoving so much crap in my mouth!

I do one of my fitness goals already - to walk 500 miles in 2014. You can join me if you make a free account at DailyMile. So far I've done 28 miles. Seems like nothing, but winter really only ended last month and I walk a LOT in the spring/summer/fall. So I'm hoping 500 miles won't be too lofty of a goal!

My ultimate weight goal is 150lbs. I'm not really that far. I haven't weighed myself in TOO long though, so maybe I'm further than I think! I don't believe in quick fixes or diets, so my weight loss will come by upping my exercise and eating healthier foods (and less food in general, I'm a bit of a hoover lol).

My menu plans are a rough guesstimate. I don't often "feel" like what I've planned lol But this is generally what we'll eat this week.

Monday
Marinated steak, cheese pasta and corn

Tuesday
Apple pork tenderloin, stuffing and mixed veggies

Wednesday
Lentil tacos

Thursday
Chili

Friday
Sloppy Joes (yeah, I know, so healthy!)

Saturday
Brianna's cooking

Sunday
Serve Yourself

Linking up with Southern Living Yankee and I'm An Organizing Junkie