Hello July! ..What Happened in June?!

Holy smokes it's July 4th already! I hope you had a wonderful holiday and the fireworks were spectacular by you.. whether you saw them at the park or made some of your own at home. ; )

Well, I sure am starting to sound like a broken record, but dang it.. life has been busy, leaving me too few minutes in the day to read or blog and blog hop as much as I'd like. I thought the school year was never going to end there for a while, but it finally did on June 20. I swear we were the last schools in session in the whole country by then. Both girls brought home awesome report cards. My youngest ended 7th grade with all A's and a few B's.. honors in several of her classes, high honors in Language Arts. That's my girl! My oldest finished 11th grade--her junior year with a stellar report card. Also A's and a scarce B, most of her courses being honors and honors AP courses. She did so well, she boosted her overall GPA a smidgen and now has over a 4.0 GPA! YES! My girls are some smart cookies! So proud. ^_^

I imagined summer break was going to be lazy, easy, breezy, but alas it's been quite hectic. All good things, but my time management skills are forever a work in progress so I'm not very methodical about getting stuff done. Everything always seems half finished and I can't seem to carve out a decent block of time for myself to read or blog. I always think I'll get to it in the evening after dinner, but I don't know what happens. Well, I do know. I end up being too tired to be on the computer, so I decide to read instead, which ends up being pitiful anyway because I fall asleep after just a few pages. It's a vicious cycle.

My youngest is away at sleep away camp for the first time ever this week. We were busy getting ready for that last week, including packing, shopping for some supplies and getting a physical, etc. No phone calls to or from camp are allowed unless it's an emergency. It drives me batty not being in touch with my kid, but I'm trying not to worry about the little things and trying instead to picture her having a great time, making new friends, trying new things and basically having a really positive experience. I admit I'm looking forward to picking her up on Saturday.. seeing her face, hugging her and hearing all about her adventures.

My oldest landed a nice nanny/babysitting job three days a week for a family with three young girls... ages 10, 8 and 4, I believe. Even though it's a lot of work caring for and playing with the girls, taking them to the pool and activities, I'm not sure who's having more fun here... the little girls or my teen! She loves it. She's also in Volleyball training three nights a week and on her days off from babysitting she's out and about with her friends or her boyfriend. Never a dull moment.

Before I forget, here's a quick look at what I was up to in June. My memory's already getting fuzzy. :/

In fitness & health: 
My workout schedule has been pretty similar each week lately. Strength training, a weekly kickbox class, running and biking. I've spent most of my workout time on the bike, having ridden 274.6 miles in June! My longest single ride was 70.4 miles which was nearly five hours of cycling. Boy, was I tired that day!

I finished June with 133+ fitness challenge miles where 1 fitness mile = 1 mile run = 15 minutes of other cardio or strength training.

I have also been participating in the weekly Reader's Workout Meme hosted by Joy. Check it out over at her blog if you're interested in joining in. It's a low-key, casual thing.. and very welcoming. In the Reader's Workout Meme, some of the participants are tracking their exercise in total minutes spent exercising. I clocked in with 1884 minutes in June or 31 hours and 24 minutes! That averages to about 63 minutes a day. Not bad!

I recently recommitted myself [again, I know] to losing 20-25 lbs. between now and Thanksgiving. I'm working on a few aspects of my diet plus I want to add more strength training to my weekly workout plan. I'll keep you posted.

What did you do to keep moving last month?

In books: 
I read only five books in June.. I guess it's indicative of how busy I was with other things last month. Still, the five books I read were pretty darned good so I'm not complaining!

Romance .............. 4
                  Historical .... 3
                  Paranormal...1
Children's Lit........1

1. The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie by Jennifer Ashley
2. Lady Isabella's Scandalous Marriage by Jennifer Ashley
3. Odd And The Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman
4. Tangle of Need by Nalini Singh
5. Caine's Reckoning by Sarah McCarty

My favorites are The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie and Tangle of Need--both books get five stars from me.

What noteworthy books did you read in June?

In photography: 
I had fun participating in a photo-a-day challenge hosted by the Fat Mum Slim blog, or @fatmumslim on twitter. The fun daily prompts helped me stay on track taking a picture every day and the best part? I made some new friends on Instagram! Yay! :) I've decided to do the #photoadayJuly challenge too. As well as a fun daily picture challenge for book-mided people hosted by Cassandra at Indie Reader Houston. You can follow this challenge on twitter or instagram using the #dailybookpic hash tag.

Come back later for my favorite photos from my Project 366.. [I'll post them in the morning.]

As always, you can follow my photography challenges on http://web.stagram.com/n/thehappilyeverafter .

In the garden: 
I finally finished the new vegetable garden. For the most part, anyway. You're never going to believe this.. but I'm not so crazy with this location anymore. I think I might be re-re-establishing my vegetable garden to the backyard next year. So indecisive, I know. In the meantime, at least I have some tomato plants in the ground and growing! Finally! I'll edit pictures into this post tomorrow.. I want to post this now before I delay it another day. And it's time for me to get my beauty sleep. Zzzzz...

Thanks for reading about my June adventures. Here's wishing you a jubilant July! ^_^

My May Adventures

If you stopped by looking for my Neverwhere Read Along discussion, I'll be posting that tomorrow.

It's June! June! Three more weeks of school and then summer! This is such a busy time of year around here. I'm sure it's the same for all of you as well.

I posted earlier this month about my youngest daughter's dance recital--such fun! She's also been busy with girl scouts as her Cadette troop is working towards their Silver Award. I am starting to feel tapped out as a leader, so I'll be glad to have a bit of a break from it over the summer.

My oldest has been busy, too. Mostly with schoolwork and a very busy social life. Last week we attended a small Academic Awards ceremony at the high school at which she received an award from Brandeis University for outstanding academic achievement and civic service. She also recently completed a wonderful project for her high school orchestra for which she filmed, photographed and edited a video about the impact of water on our community that accompanied the orchestra's performance of a beautiful piece by Philip Glass. The video was projected on a large screen behind the orchestra. It was quite moving.. especially given the devastating effects Hurricane Irene had on our community last August.

Lots of proud moments in May! While I couldn't possibly top the accomplishments of my kids, I may as well tell you what I've been up to last month. ; )

In fitness: 
I easily met my 100 fitness mile goal for May with a total of 120 miles. Interestingly, I took quite a few rest days this month, but apparently I made up for it on the days that I did workout, especially in cycling. Most of my rides these days are 30-40 miles which is at least 2 hours on the bike. On Memorial Day, my cycling partner and I clocked just under 4 hours to bike 59.4 miles---my new longest distance in a single ride.

I mentioned last month [in April] that I wanted to increase strength training and aside from my Monday powercuts class and maybe 15 minutes of abs, light weights at the end of kickbox class and a bonus TRX class, I haven't been doing any other strength training. I need to work on increasing that. Here's a look at what I did in May:

Run 23.07 miles :     ~241 minutes
Bike 170.54 miles :   ~705 minutes
Kickbox & Abs : 300 minutes
Spin & Abs :       150 minutes
Strength training:        240 minutes
TOTAL:   1636 minutes     or     27 hours 16 minutes

What did you do to keep moving last month?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

In books: 
I read eight books in May and from quite a few different genres, too. I'm pretty happy about that.

Non-fiction ...... 1
     [Health & fitness]

Romance .............. 2
     [Historical]
Crime fiction ....... 1
Young Adult ....;;.. 1
Fiction .................. 1
Fantasy ................ 2

1. Creation in Death by J.D. Robb
2. The Governess Affair by Courtney Milan
3. Saving Grace by Julie Garwood
4. If I Die by Rachel Vincent
5. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
6. Food Rules by Michael Pollan
7. Cold Magic by Kate Elliot
8. Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

I have to say that I loved all of these books and would recommend each and every one. If I HAD to pick favorites? Hmm... The Governess Affair by Courtney Milan is a wonderful novella and the first in a new series. I have a review partially written that I hope to finish, but know that I did love it. It's Kindle lendable, too, so let me know if you're interested in borrowing it. I think I can lend it out at least twice.

Saving Grace by Julie Garwood. A timeless medieval romance and a favorite among so many romance readers. You can read my review HERE.

Attachments by Rainbow Rowell is a really solid, engaging read, too. A lot of readers classify it as romance, but it's not exactly. It's more general fiction with romantic elements. Not quite chick-lit either because most of the book is really about the male protagonist, so it's really more dude-lit which is a brand new sub-genre coined by Brie from Romance Around the Corner. You heard it first from her, folks. Remember that when dude-lit goes rampant. ;o)

Gigi likes Cold Magic by Kate Elliot!

Honorable mention goes to Cold Magic by Kate Elliot. I originally shelved this book in young adult, but it really straddles into adult fantasy fiction. The protagonists are not minors at nineteen years old and older and in fact at the marriageable age. The setting is Victorian-England-esque alternate history with a steampunk component. A lot of fascinating people--powerful mages, princes, spiritwalkers and others-- cultures, histories and politics between peoples and three main characters whose fates get personally entangled with each other and those of power. There is a lot of information to digest in this book, but the story premise, setting and characters were so interesting that it was so worth reading. I'm looking forward to reading the second book in this trilogy, Cold Fire. The concluding book in the trilogy, Cold Steel comes out in 2013.

What interesting books did you read in May?

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A bouquet of African Roses

In photography:
My Project 366 is now a Project 362. Yes, I missed another TWO days in May. Ugh. Oh well. I decided to have a little bit of fun this month by participating in the photo a day challenge hosted by blogger fatmumslim who blogs at Fat Mum Slim. There's a daily prompt every day for the month and users post their photos on instagram, twitter, facebook, a blog, flickr or pinterest using the hash tag #photoadayJune. Fun!

As always, you can follow my photography challenges on http://web.stagram.com/n/thehappilyeverafter.

Are you on instagram? Friend me!

In the garden: 
The deer are in my yard almost every night munching on anything and everything green. I know what they're all saying..

"Hey, have you been to that organic salad bar down the street yet? It's amazing! They've got a wide variety of plants to choose from, loaded with tender shoots, plump flower buds, and lush leaves. Not only is it 100% organic but it's all you can eat AND open 24/7!" 

Nice. I woke up one day last week to discover they ate most of the tops off my budding purple coneflower plants last week. This means my coneflowers will be blooming late and won't be so lush this year. Again. I know they have to eat, too, but sheesh, I sure wish they knew how to show a bit of restraint so I could enjoy a few flowers. I have an inkling that the day lilies are on this week's menu. I haven't seen a day lily flower bloom in my yard for a couple of years now. But really, what are you going to do? They're only doing what they're supposed to do, right?

I started converting that section of my perennial flower bed into a new vegetable garden, but I haven't yet finished. In fact, that's on my to-do list for this week. A friend of mine gave me several pots of tomato seedlings that sprouted up in her garden from the seeds of last year's dropped fruit and I've got to get them in the ground soon. I'm already a couple of weeks late. A few of them even have flowers already. Oh how I love the promise of homegrown tomatoes! I'm not sure what else I want to try to grow this year. At this point, I'll be happy just to have a nice harvest of herbs and tomatoes.

Are you growing an edibles in your yard?


Thanks for reading about my month! Wishing you a joyous June! xo

My March Adventures

Time sure does fly, doesn't it? March was a good month, busy as usual, but aren't we all? The biggest adventure around here last month was having my baby turn 13 years old! A teenager! Now husband and I are the parents of two teenage girls. Wow. Talk about adventures! :D

In health & fitness: 
Have you noticed the Crazy Sexy Eat Your Veggies, Ignite Your Spark, and Live Like You Mean It! Diet book by Kris Carr on my sidebar that I've been reading for the last couple of weeks? I read most of it last month and just finished this morning. It's a fabulously inspirational and instructional book on revamping your lifestyle choices for optimal health, happiness and overall vitality.  I have to admit that my focus on healthy eating has slipped in the past several weeks after having completed that WholeLiving action plan back in February. Crazy Sexy Diet has helped (re-)inspire me to get back on track. Today I did a 24 green juice fast as prescribed by Kris Carr in her book and starting tomorrow I am back to 'Crazy Sexy - Whole Living' eating. I'm not doing the 21 Adventure Day Cleanse in Kris' book. I'm just not ready for another cleanse after having done the WholeLiving one in January. But I am going to use it as a guide to keep myself in check. I know I've said this often, but this time I mean it. :o)

March was a good workout month for me. I stepped up the running quite a bit and was kept extra motivated by my husband who has been joining me once or twice a week. We came up with a 5 km loop from our house, so that's the minimum distance we do now. I'm still biking and can't believe that I biked all winter long. I'm looking forward to the earlier sunrises so we can get out on the road nice and early on the weekends, ride 40-50 miles [64-80 km] and be home by lunchtime. Here's a rundown of what I did in March to keep my body moving:

Bike 80.78 miles | 22 fitness miles | 5.5 hours
Run 30.57 miles | 30.57 fitness miles | ~5.5 hours
Kickbox . . . . . . . . 14 fitness miles | 3.5 hours
Spin . . . . . . . . . . .  16 fitness miles | 4 hours
Powercuts . . . . . . . 16 fitness miles | 4 hours
Cardio Interval . . . . 4 fitness miles | 1 hour

Total fitness challenge 'miles'* = 102.57 miles

Which is approximately 23.5 hours of biking running kicking spinning lifting and cardio blasting. Yeah, baby!

*[My monthly goal is 100 miles where 1 fitness challenge mile = 15 min of cardio or strength training = 1 mile run.]

What did you do in March to keep moving?

In reading adventures: 
I read 13 books in March! Hooray! This puts me on schedule to reach my goal of 101 books this year. Assuming I keep this pace, of course. And the year is young, so really.. it doesn't mean a whole heck of a lot. Of the 13 books, 3 were novellas and 4 were graphic novels.. but the other 6 books were full length novels, including the 500+ page book Eona by Alison Goodman which is the second book I vowed to read for this year's Big Book Challenge. Which means... ta da!!! I completed my 2012 Big Book Challenge! One down ... um.. a lot more to go?

Here's a look at which books I read last month:

1. Capturing the Silken Thief by Jeannie Lin  
2. Eona by Alison Goodman
3. Ecstasy Unveiled by Larissa Ione
4. Eternity Embraced by Larissa Ione
5. Sin Undone by Larissa Ione 
6. American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang
7. A Lot Like Love by Julie James
8. Where She Went by Gayle Forman 
9. Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones 
10. The Good Neighbors Book One: Kin by Holly Black and Ted Naifeh
[RE-READ]
11. The Good Neighbors Book Two: Kith by Holly Black and Ted Naifeh
12. The Good Neighbors Book Three: Kind by Holly Black and Ted Naifeh
13. Eternity in Death by J.D. Robb

My favorite books this month are: Eona by Alison Goodman, Sin Undone by Larissa Ione, Where She Went by Gayle Forman and Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones.

I couldn't narrow down to just one! Interestingly, they're all SO different. I like that.

What great books did you read in March? 

Other projects and adventures: 


Behind the lens:
I'm still plugging along with my iPhone instagram Project 366. Well sort of. I had a Project 366 fail when I forgot to take a photo on March 16. Ugh. I'm really bummed about this. I decided to give myself a get out of jail free card just this once because it's leap year. Lame excuse, I know, but if I still take a picture every day until the end of the year I will have completed a Project 365. I know it's not the same as going 365 days STRAIGHT but it is what it is. :/ The following is my favorite photo from March..

The view at the park on one of my March runs.
Camera: iPhone 4S

In the garden: 
I'm still hoping to finally re-establish a vegetable garden this year before it's too late. I had a backyard vegetable garden for years but our home addition a few years ago took over where the garden was. I don't really get enough sunlight anywhere else in the yard except my flower garden between the house and the driveway, which is kind of a weird place for a vegetable garden since it would be visible from the street. I think I can still make it pretty. Well, until I have to put netting around it all to keep the deer out. Hopefully I'll carve some time this week and next to start transplanting the flowers to other areas of the yard to make room for neat rows of vegetables. I can't wait! :)

Do you have a vegetable garden?

So that's about it for my March adventures. Thanks for reading all about it and I wish you an Amazing April! xo

What I Read Last Month

May 2011

Finally getting around to posting what I read last month. I'm kind of late, I know. Nath, go ahead and poke fun of me now. I deserve it! ;)

But first! I've been playing Words with Friends on my iPhone a lot lately, thanks to Linda and Lisa who both brought the game to my attention a couple of weeks ago. For those who don't know what that is, it's a Scrabble-like game app on the iPhone (and maybe on other smart phones, too?). Anyway, it is very, very rare occurrence for me to beat my husband at Scrabble. And Words with Friends. And pretty much most games. And sports... Last night, luck was on my side and when I got the following set of letters, I was thinking this had to be my game. [Check out my letters at the bottom of screen shot]

I RUNNER. What are the odds, right?

Well.......

I WON! I FINALLY WON!!!!!! It only took about a million games. Okay, maybe 20, but it sure felt like a million. ;)

The nicest part is that I think he was just as happy that I won as I was. He's sweet like that. :)

Now about the books I read last month. I read a total of 7 books in May. Here's a break down of the genres:

Crime fiction ............ 2
Graphic novel ........... 1
Young adult............... 1
Romance .................. 3

I usually list my monthly books in the order that I read them, but this time I'm going to follow Hilcia's method of listing the books in order of favoritism.

1. Blaze of Memory by Nalini Singh A-

Another fantastic installment in the Psy-Changeling series, this is book #8. This story featured a Psy-Psy pairing. Dev Santos who is one of the Forgotten Psy who survive with others of his kind on the ShadowNet and Katya who is a pure blood Psy who has been tortured and broken by an elite and powerful member of the Council and programmed to infiltrate The Shine--an organization founded to find and help other Forgotten Psy with their psychic gifts. If you're not reading this series, you should!

2. My One and Only by Kristan Higgins B+

Yet another funny yet emotionally stirring contemporary romance that borders along the genre lines of chick lit from one of my favorite authors. The protagonist was a bit cold and harsh for liking in the beginning, but she sure grew on me as I learned more about her past and boy was I routing for her happily ever after by the end.

3. It Happened One Season by Stephanie Laurens et. al. B+

A charming historical romance anthology with misfit war heroes and atypical heroines in their final season. You can read my review HERE.


4. Remember When by Nora Roberts and J.D. Robb B+

A Nora Roberts romantic suspense about a diamond heist and a J.D. Robb In Death futuristic crime fiction story relating to the very same heist and families fifty years later. My review can be read HERE.


5. Will Grayson, Will Grayson
by John Green and David Levithan B

Slightly over the top in the believability factor, yet all the teenage emotional drama rang perfectly true in this fun and touching contemporary young adult novel about friendship and sexuality and broken hearts and love.



6. The First Cut by Dianne Emley B

A suspenseful crime fiction thriller lead by the female Pasadena police officer Nan Vining who has just returned to the force after recovering from the physical and emotional wounds of an brutal attack while in the line of duty. The story started out slow for me, but took off towards the end. I felt the characters were not developed to their full potential when I wanted to be emotionally invested in them, particularly with the protagonist, Nan Vining. I still may read the next book in the series as the series arc is promising. My review can be read HERE.


7. The Odyssey by Gareth Hinds A

A spectacular artistic interpretation of Homer's epic poem "The Odyssey" that can be understood and enjoyed by readers of all ages.

I realize it doesn't make any sense that The Odyssey is listed last when it has the highest grade. It's the combination of the beautiful illustrations and the classic epic story that makes this book stand out, but it didn't induce the same level of personal satisfaction as the other books this month.

June reading is off to a bit of a slow start. Not what I had in mind... but isn't it always the case that there's too many books, too little time?



Do you play Words with Friends? 

find me on goodreads!

I've packed up my books and moved to goodreads! I've catalogued my books on Shelfari for three and a half years and I've had a lot of fun there, but turns out all the cool kids (except my Shlefari friend Jen...) are hanging out at goodreads! Plus there's a goodreads app for the iPhone and we all know how much I lurve my iPhone... so I moved!

I imported 880 books into goodreads this morning and see that my shelfari tags created all kinds of interesting "shelves" on goodreads, some of them making no sense whatsoever, so I'm sure I'll be spending a lot of time cleaning all that up. I also have a record of 908 books on Shelfari, so I guess I'll be trying to figure out which 28 books have gone missing! Something I find a little too life-like... losing a box of books in a move. Am I Right?

In the meantime, I'm trying to get the hang of navigating around on goodreads, adding friends when I see people I recognize and then stopping when goodreads tells me I've reached the maximum number of friendship requests for the day. Clearly goodreads doesn't realize how popular I am and that yes, I should be able to add 50 friends in one day, not FIVE! ;)

Seriously, if you're on goodreads and would like to be my friend there, please add me! You can find me at my goodreads bookshelf. :)

If you're not on goodreads yet... come join! :)

Book Smuggling* just became a piece of {birthday} cake!

*Book smuggling per the definition of my neighborhood book smugglers, Ana and Thea of The Book Smugglers and Carolyn Crane of The Thrillionth Page as witnessed in this video HERE.


It was my birthday last Friday {see my birthday post for a chance to win a Kiss My Face mini facial kit!}, the evening of which I spent celebrating with my husband and daughters. We ate Thai food for dinner and splurged on birthday cake for dessert. My husband also came home with two movies from redbox for a family movie night that never quite happened. There was a gift wrapped birthday present on the dining room table all day long on Friday, and I waited patiently for the everyone to be home so I could open it. I only picked it up and gently shook it once. ;)


After dinner, I finally got to open my birthday present and was incredibly surprised, practically speechless, and very, very excited about this gift . . . it's an iPad!!!!

Wow, what an amazing gift. I think I'm still reveling in the shock and thrill of it. :) 

Now I can use iBooks on my iPad which is so much easier to read than on my iPhone, plus I can do a million other really cool things, too! Typing a lot of text--for example, an email more than a few sentences long, isn't the easiest thing to do on the iPad, but maybe it's just a matter of getting used to. I find it very easy to type paragraphs on my iPhone, so hopefully it will get be just as easy on the iPad the more I do it. Anyway, this is one cool gift. My husband still knows how to wow me after all these years. xo

Screen shot of my iBooks shelf 

on my iPad:

A week or so ago, I read the short novella, The Taming of Mei Lin by Jeannie Lin using iBooks on my iPhone. I really like the way the books are displayed in color on my iBooks bookshelf and how easy it is to buy books through iTunes. Turning pages, leaving bookmarks, making notes, and looking words up online are extremely easy in iBooks. I can see myself using iBooks exclusively to read ebooks, but I'm then limited to what iTunes sells.


I have several other ereader apps on my iPad that I've had on my iPhone for awhile, although I admit never having used them other than to poke around in the main menus now and then. The other ebook reader apps I have are the Amazon Kindle, B&N ereader, Borders ebooks and Stanza. I plan on trying each one, but at this point, I want YOUR opinion on these different platforms. 


What ebook reader device(s) or iPhone-iTouch-iPad app(s) do you use?


If you use more than one, which is your favorite and why?


Which bookstore has the best prices for ebooks? I'm guessing Amazon has the monopoly on cheap?


I'm looking forward to your thoughts and recommendations, AND I'm looking forward to reading shelves and shelves of books on my iPad!

Xxtraordinary Blogger Award!

A couple of weeks ago, I had the happy surprise of being awarded the XXtraordinary Blogger Award from the wonderful Gina of Hott Books! Thank you, Gina!!! I think you and your blog are pretty extraordinary, too! :) Sorry for the delay in acknowledging the award here!

Gina and I first "met" when she joined the In Death Reading Challenge that I host here on my blog and I've enjoyed getting to know her over the last several months. Gina started blogging last October and has done a wonderful job of blogging regularly about the books she reads--mostly crime fiction, mystery and romance--, about the blogs she discovers via a weekly blog hop event, and every now and then about herself and her family. She's one of those bloggers who never cease to impress me with her combined supermom and superblogger powers. She's incredibly busy taking care of her husband and three kids; driving all over to timbuktu and back for her kids' soccer practices and school events; volunteering at her kids' schools; keeping up with household chores AND she works full time, too! Yet she still manages to find time to read, blog AND blog hop regularly. How does she do it?!!? We exchanged a few emails recently in which she shared some tips with me, but she still made it sound so easy! I'm thinking I need in on the secret super powers. Maybe if I start wearing a superhero cape.... ;o)

The bottom line is that I'm very flattered to have received this xxtraordinary blogger award from someone so xxtraordinary herself! Now it's my turn to pay it forward.

The Award Criteria:
This award is awarded to those bloggers who:
1~post almost every day, if not every
2~reply to every comment that's posted
3~just down right LOVE blogging!

The Award Rules:
Share one extraordinary thing that's happened to you then pass this award to 5 Xxtraordinarly bloggers.

My Extraordinary Thing:
The most extraordinary thing that's happened to me is by far having made a life of love and happiness with my husband and making a family of our own with our two wonderful daughters. That is pretty extraordinary in itself to me, but it's even more extraordinary to me that after having spent all my young life of twenty-two years under the influence of a narcissistic and controlling parent essentially following orders without question, not standing up for myself with my voice or actions, or even making my own decisions... I finally had a reason ...a reason whom I married a few years later... and found the strength to follow my heart and do what was best for ME. Now that's a happily ever after. :)

5 Bloggers I believe are Extraordinary:
I happen to follow a ton of extraordinary bloggers, but today I'm going to acknowledge the bloggers who possess those supermom-superblogger powers. You take care of children, adult family, chores, jobs, and yet you always manage to find time to read, blog, blog hop and probably have other personal hobbies, too! You know who you are! I'm calling you out....

Hilcia, Leslie, Brandy, Mariana, Lori, Angie, Kenda, Michelle, Phyl, Renee, Tracy, Holly, Jessica, Jill D., Rowena, Patti, Lisa, Mandi....

.... wow there are so many of you!

And to anyone else I may have left out.... consider yourselves tagged with the Xxtraordinary Blogger Award. You all rock!

Hope you all have a fantastic weekend.

Any fun plans in store for you?

My weekend is going to involve bike rides, swimming at the pool, hopefully logging some solid hours reading, maybe making some cherry jam and playing my vuvuzela because I'll most definitely be ... watching the World Cup!!! GO USA!!!

Got an iPhone? Download the vuvuzela app and show your world cup spirit! ... or annoy the heck out of your friends and family. LOL. I happen to love it.

I have the one with the icon shown here. Fun stuff! ^_^

New Beginnings

I love the first day of a month. I don't know why, but it always seems like a fresh day to start something new, like a clean slate. Today I made a new beginning and added something new and important to my health and fitness routine. I am counting calories. It sounds easy, but I've decided it's about time I be more mindful of my actual daily caloric intake. I have been pretty diligent about working out 4-5 days a week for the last couple of years, and figured out a long while ago that burning calories through these workouts wasn't enough of a change for me to get to an ideal weight and the older I get, the harder it's getting. I do know that I am in better cardiovascular shape today than I was six years ago, but it's still not enough. Over the last couple of months, I have made efforts to increase my fitness levels even more by adding the running and aiming for 5-7 workouts per week, but it has been challenging getting those few extra workouts scheduled in each week. So the bottom line is that I really need to eliminate more calories from my diet to make the healthy changes that I want. It's not a new revelation for me, but a simple lack of discipline to just do it. Well today is the day I pulled some determination from somewhere within and decided to put myself to task.

Today I started using the Lose It! app on the iPhone that I downloaded months and months ago to create a diet program. I know I've only used it for one day, but I'm pretty excited about this app. It was so easy to set up and start using right away. By entering my current and goal weights and the number of pounds per week I want to lose, the program came up with a daily caloric limit for me. Then I log whatever I eat that day and the app tracks the calories for me. There's a huge database of foods available to choose from or you can customize your foods and enter the nutritional information yourself. So many foods are already in the database though, it's pretty neat. For example, the Lemon Zest Luna bar I ate this morning for breakfast was right there in the Lose It! database and all I had to do was click on it and the basic nutritional information was added to my daily log. Pretty easy!

In addition to logging calories you consume, you can also enter your workouts for that day and those calories burned are subtracted from your daily calories. Just like the food, there are activities already available to choose from, but you can also customize your own workouts and the calories you burn for those activities yourself. Using a heart rate monitor that calculates this during your workout is a great way to get that information.

If nothing else, Lose It! is going to keep me honest with myself about whatever I eat and make me think twice about "cheating." I did have a mid morning and mid afternoon snack today, but I really thought about the quality and quantity of what I was grabbing knowing I was going to have to record it.

If you have an iPhone and want to keep tabs on your calories in and calories burned, check out Lose It! You've got nothing to lose but unwanted pounds! Ha ha. So clever.

For more information about Lose It!, visit iTunes or check out the Lose It! website at http://www.loseit.com/. The site has a lot of different screenshots of the app there that showcase its usefulness. Oh, and did I mention the app is FREE?

As much as you all know by now that I love to talk about running and biking here on my blog, after this post, any diet talk will be over on my little fitness blog that I've been silently maintaining since January. It's called See how she runs... Stop by and visit me there if you're looking for some motivation or inspiration to exercise or if you see me slacking, please get on my case, okay?

If all goes according to plan, and the Lose It! app is as effective as I hope it as at keeping me on task, I will have reached my target weight by December 23, 2010. Wouldn't that be the best Christmas gift I could give myself? :)

A Slush Run

Sounds like a post about an impulsive run to the local quickmart to get a slushy drink, doesn't it? ;)

It's actually in reference to a really great run I had the other day at the park after we had that snowstorm last week. Since we can't leave my father-in-law home alone anymore, I had asked my husband to come home two hours early the other day to watch over his dad so I could get the girls to a 5 pm appointment, and he surprised me by coming home even earlier than I asked so I had a few extra hours to myself. Awesome! So what did I do with that time? Go running, of course!

I headed to my favorite running spot to check out the trails, not sure what condition they'd be in only a short day or two after the snowstorm. This is what I found:



A lot of the paved trail is covered with soft packed snow or slush and a few patches of ice.

Sounds crazy to run on, I know, but wow was that fun!

I started out walking cautiously on the hard packed or icy spots, but found that it was actually really fun to run on the soft packed stuff. Almost like running on sand, which is more work than running on pavement, that's for sure.

My pace turned out to be pretty slow. I ran 4 miles in 51 minutes. Ugh. I probably shouldn't even admit that in a public place!

I'm sure I was so slow because of the extra caution I was taking on the mixed conditions, but it was almost like interval training, in a way, as I frequently changed my pace depending on the conditions underfoot. Either way, fast or slow, it felt so good to be out there. The temperature was in the mid 30s (around 0 C), the sun was shining, the sky was so blue, and I was loving it! The run was both exhilarating and relaxing. And what pretty views, too.

Speaking of pretty views, here are a few photos I took of the yard during last week's snowstorm.

This is the side yard where my feathered friends dine on berries and hide from the mean hawks. This was taken a few hours into last Wednesday's snowstorm. Six inches down, eleven more to go.

This photo was taken maybe two hours after having just shoveled the first 6 inches off the cars, driveway and sidewalks and it was still coming down strong.

The next morning, my husband took this photo of yours truly, finishing up the third shoveling in under 24 hours. I love the smell of the air and the clear blue, sunny skies the day after a snow storm.

It was snowing again last night into this morning. I took this is a photo the backyard this morning when I ventured out to the compost pile with an overflowing bucket of a week's worth of kitchen scraps. You'll see and read more about my compost pile in the coming weeks and months because I started an experiment this morning. I'm sure you're all dying to know more about it. ;p

The house looks a lot different now compared to back then, huh? Or even then? Or wow... way back then!?

I mentioned the other day in my Snow Day Chili post how much I love snowstorms and snow days. How magical it is to watch the landscape outside turn into a glittering winter wonderland. Well, just so you know, that prettiness lasts about two days, if you're lucky. Soon all those piles of snow along the streets and sidewalks become so dirty from mud, pebbles, street grime, piddled yellow from dog pee and children's snow sculptures start to keel over, and it all looks like such a big ugly mess. Lucky for us, though, it snowed another 2 inches last night to cover all that ugliness with a fresh, clean white coating. The beauty of it is that this snow isn't sticking to the pavement. Except by some cruel intervention by mother nature, because our driveway is the only one in the whole neighborhood on which the snow stuck! As I drove my youngest to school... NOT ONE other driveway or sidewalk in our neighborhood had snow stuck to it! What the heck is up with that? Even my neighbor called out to me as I was shoveling and said, "Hey, looks like it only snowed over your house last night." Followed by a laugh! What the HECK? I know I said I actually enjoyed shoveling the snow, but COME ON!

Anyway, while I'm on the subject of fun in the snow.... are you watching the Olympics? I love watching the Olympics, both summer and winter, but I think the winter games are my favorite. Maybe because my husband and I were big time skiers back in the day B.C. (before children). Now we are lucky if we go once or twice a season. Or at all. :(

My husband and I vacationed at Whistler Blackcomb ski area back in 1993. I know that sounds like a long time ago, but it feels like just yesterday for me. Anyway, such a beautiful place with some really great skiing.

So we've been watching the games every day and night. When I was a little girl, I absolutely loved the figure skating. Now I enjoy watching it, but it's not my favorite. My favorite events are all of the ski and snowboard events. The freestyle ski and snowboard events are so fun to watch, as are the cross country events, the combined events, and the races. Oh, and I like to watch the speed skating. Curling is an interesting event, too. I'm going to try to catch some of those events on t.v., too.

What's your favorite event?

One more thing. If you have an iPhone and you're into following the Olympic games, you need to download the free NBC Olympics app. It gives you access to just about anything you want to know about the games including the daily schedule of events, what's going to be broad casted on television or online and when, the medal counts, stats about the athletes and countries, news stories, and so much more.

I think that's all the snow talk I have for now. I hope you're enjoying whatever kind of weather is in your corner of the world. :)

iCake

I made this cake last night for my husband. I made it look like an iPhone by rolling, cutting and shaping colored fondant to make the icons and laying them on a simple chocolate frosted cake that was baked in a 9 x 13 inch pan. I'm so happy with how it turned out!



Happy Birthday to the man I love . . .