11 months gone for 2012.  Only about 3 weeks left until Armageddon, too, and I still have a lot to do 

Billy had his big adventure at the vet’s today.  He was quite the trooper and is now back home and singing soprano.  Such a good kitty.  Officially up for adoption now.

Without further ado, here were the goals for November and how I did:

1. Do several days a week of lower-carb/grain-free.  I did okay here, but this last week was a trip to Snack Town. Ugh.

2. Organize the bedroom.  Oops. I did go thrifting for dressers, but couldn’t find anything in my price range (aka cheap). This is a work in progress

3. Run a 5K on Thanksgiving.  I did not run one on Thanksgiving, but did run one the week before. I did walk for at least a 5K on Thanksgiving and now I have given up running yet again.

4. Get out and do more.  I have felt so busy this month that I don’t know if this was a success or not. LOL

5.  Going with the no-grain days in goal 1, I will also make some new grain-free recipes and post them.  I posted 2 recipes. Parmesan crackers and the banana puff.

Goals were definitely underachieved this month. That’s okay, though. Plenty of goals are always available to work for!

This weekend is more craft show shopping, taking John out for his football meal (again!!! Ahhhh!!!), and who knows what other trouble I will get into.

Happy Halloween!  You all know why I like this sign, right?

It was raining this morning, so no biking for Wednesday bagels.  We decided to go to Panera Bread for the first time in a loooong time for a change.  They have pumpkin pie bagels!!  Wow!

Yum.  I wonder if this is in place of the gingerbread bagel?

Drizzly start to the day, eh?

I can’t believe it is the end of the month.  Then again, I think I say that every month.  Here were my goals for October:

1. No weight gain.  I just squeaked by on this, although the scale was a little lower earlier in the month, so that was sobering. Given all the candy corn, though – I am lucky.

2.  Finish the flooring.  Done and dancing around on the floors. Love!! Yay!

3.  Make and post 3 crockpot recipes.  Done. Cinnamon Chicken (I liked, John didn’t), Red Beans and Rice (winner), Potato and Corn Chowder (winner)

4. Eat more vegetables.  Complete and utter fail, unless candy corn counts as a vegetable – then I have done stellar. I haven’t even been eating my usual amount of broccoli.  

5. Post a pink picture for every post. I think I only missed one or two posts.  Hopefully a lot of people clicked through and helped give those free mammograms!

Now to get some new goals lined up for November!

The little kids had their parade up the street in costume today.

I would have zoomed in, but I didn’t want to get any faces of the kids on film.  I think this one is popcorn – very cute, although how she sat in class I have no idea.

They go up the street and then back to school.  Very cute.

I was inspired for my latte after seeing the parade:

Can you read the “Boo”? 

Time to get  greeting the candy monsters!  Have a happy and safe Halloween everyone.

The very last pink picture of October! My piggy bank

I managed to get enough pink things without resorting to my undies or Pixie’s litter pan, so consider yourself lucky!

Gloomy outside today.  It has been kind of drizzly and all that for a while now.  I have not been on my bike in a week and I miss it!  I was able to get some walking in, though.  You may have noticed that I haven’t been posting lifting routines, but I haven’t been in a while since I hurt my shoulder.  I can’t even do weighted lower body exercises because of the pulling pressure with the weights in my hands.  So, just air squats 😀 .  I am seeing a doctor this week, although I will share my self diagnosis tomorrow LOL.

I made up some oats with apple topping for breakfast.

In the candy corn bowl!  Is it kind of sad how many people tell me they think of me when they see candy corn?

The morning was busy with work and went by so fast.  I like days like that.  Lunch:

BBQ pork.

Now on to the goals for October:

1. No weight gain.  Not trying to lose this month, just not gain any in the month where we start making all kinds of good food and I start exercising less because I can’t bike as much. Like most people, this is a hard time of year for me.

2.  Finish the flooring.  This is a bit of a softball as we are pretty sure we are going to finish up. 2 rooms done and 1 to go. Then trim work.  Yay!

3.  Make and post 3 crockpot recipes.  I will post them no matter what the results LOL!

4. Eat more vegetables.  I feel like all I eat is broccoli.  Okay, really I do only eat broccoli any more.  I have gotten away from other veggies as I just haven’t felt like eating them. So, I need to do better with that.

5. Post a pink picture for every post (except the recipe posts) this month to raise awareness for breast cancer.

And now, my afternoon is complete:

You know I post that no weight gain goal for the month and I have had horrible snack cravings today.  I did nibbling while dinner was cooking. Potato chips and some granola.  Sigh…

John cooked up a cajun seasoned salmon for dinner.

What was that I was saying about broccoli?

Tonight I am going out with my mom for mother/daughter night and doing  a little relaxing!

Pink picture today? My shirt!

Don’t forget to click!

On to a new month and fully into fall now.  I love the month of October.  Not sure why.  Maybe the fall colors, cool weather, pumpkins, football… oh, and candy corn!

So, here is what I wanted to accomplish in September.

1. Lose 4 pounds.  I lost 2, which I am pretty pleased about.  I didn’t actually do that great sticking with my 1500 calorie budget. Imagine what progress I would have made if I had actually  done that LOL.  But, I didn’t whine about it, which was also a goal.

2. Do jog/walk intervals.  I have been doing these.  I ended up downloading C25K podcasts and have been following those again. I am still up in the air about how I feel about it, but then again, the run segments haven’t been long enough to cause too many issues with my leg.

3.  Get started on the laminate floors in for the downstairs!  Yep – we started these and are about halfway done. I am loving them already.  I haven’t kissed the floors yet, but I just might.

4. Read 3 books in September.  Done!

I did really well this month with those goals.  The 3 books I read in order of enjoyment.

Great Gatsby

Water for Elephants

War Brides.

The funny thing is that I picked period books almost from the same time period!  Gatsby is set in the Depression era, as is Water for Elephants. War brides was set in the late 1930s and 40s.

I reviewed the other two books here.  War Brides is basically the story of 5 women from different backgrounds and countries whose lives intertwine with the war.  The author really brought the story very much to life of what it was like liking in wartime Europe.  Kudos to her for good research.  The ending of the book seemed a bit rushed, though, which felt odd.  Overall a good read once I got into it.  It took a while for the 5 stories to come together.

Tomorrow will be October goals, one of which includes the pink picture for breast cancer awareness!  Like this:

My knockout rose.  Now click the link to help fund free breast cancer screenings for those in need. The more clicks they get, the more funding they get.  Free to you to do, so click as many times as you like!

Monthly goal time! I can’t believe summer is over already.  I love fall, but the end of August is always a bit sad.

I had a new visitor at the garden today!  I took a billion pictures and finally got the ‘money shot.’

This is a great spangled fritillary.  I ran out with my butterfly ID book to find out what this was.   I think it is wonderful how many butterflies there have been this year.  Maybe it means something good environmentally is happening.  Less pesticides, perhaps?  Or maybe it was the mild winter.  Anyway, I am just glad they stop by.

Here were my goals for August and how I did.

1.  Bike 400 miles this month.  Done!  I had to put in some “just grind it out” miles during the month when I might have wanted to do something else (like lifting), but I managed it without any super long rides. I think our longest was 58 miles this month.

I started the month at 1639 and just made it today!  That’s the total miles for the year so far.  Nice.  The final ride of the month to celebrate?  To yogurt!

This was rum cheesecake topped with coconut. Cooper’s Cave stops selling the Only 8 after this weekend.  Booo….

2.  A week with no ‘land meat’.  Done.  This wasn’t that hard, especially after I OD’ed on poultry the week before.  I do like my meat, though.

3. Paint the front porch floor.  Half way done.  One half.  Looks good!

The other half:

Lots more scraping needed to be done on this side, plus we have to fix some boards that were rotted, so it put us behind. Now we have a hole.

We should be mostly done with it by the end of the holiday weekend if I get off my duff.  Just a little bit more scraping, scrub it down, fix the boards and paint.  Easy peasy.

4. Get fully back to 90/10 eating instead of living in the 10%.  I give myself maybe a B- here (being generous).  I had some days very on and some snacky days. I probably am closer to 80/20 at best.  Definitely need work here

5. Treat my hubby to a great birthday!!  Done.  At least he seemed to enjoy it 😀

So that’s the wrap!  The month went by awful fast. I plan on enjoying the weekend – hope you all have a great holiday weekend!

Bye, bye July!  This month went by fast, didn’t it?

I did not set any goals for July.  I was away at the beginning of the month and then just never bothered to give myself anything to do.  So, I was a bit of a loose canon 

I started off the month with the Becoming An Outdoorswoman weekend and tried some new things.  That was fun and I hope to do it again next year.

I finished up the Female Body Breakthrough program.  That was, what 4 months? Almost 4-1/2 months?  I definitely got stronger during that time.  I really could have been better with the eating.  For about 2 months, I was  really doing 90/10, but then I got more lax once June hit.  C’est la vie!

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to get into lifting or already lifts and wants something to challenge themselves.  You can take it to whatever level you want.  It certainly did that for me and now I have new moves to add to my lifting regimen.

Bike mileage this month:  319 miles. I would like that to be around 400, but I there was heat this month.

Total miles for 2012 so far: 1339  

2000 at least in 2012. I think 2500 in 2012 might even be a possibility if I get a leg on, or wheel on as it were.

I also got to meet Lynn in person!  That was a big highlight of the month.  One item on bucket list crossed off.

Of course, there is the new driveway. That came a few weeks early and I am glad.  Not that I haven’t posted any pictures of it for you all to see or anything.  You know, like this one?

It’s funny, we can drive on it now, but I still feel like if I walk on it that I will sink down for whatever reason.

I’ve got some goals in mind for August, just need to choose which ones to actually commit to.

Hello insomnia!  I woke up around 1:30 a.m. and could not get back to sleep.  After laying in bed for a little over an hour, I just got up and started doing work.  May as well be productive if I can’t sleep, right?  Ugh!

I think it was because I had buttercream icing last night.  Made a cake for my dad and had leftover frosting, which you all know I love the most.

I nibbled on a few things while I worked and then decided to get my butt to the gym at 6:45.  I did get a lot of work done prior to that at least.

Lifting was a bit tiring being tired, but I still got in a good workout.  I had my post workout drink (aka protein mainline) and headed home.

Breakfast later in the morning – banana oats with PB.

Classic and good.  I worked for a while, then took a 1 hour nap before lunch.

Here was my goal assessment for May.

1. Continue with the Fit Female program.  Still going strong with the lifting part of this.  The eating not so much.  I have been about 70/30 compliant with the eating the last couple weeks.  Weekends have been my downfall.

2.  No scale weighing.  Done.  I decided that I really need some accountability, no number scale included. Clothing just doesn’t do it for me. I really felt huge all month like I was gaining a pound a day, which isn’t true, but strange.  Not that I need to weigh every day, more like once a week, but I guess that is a tool I am more comfortable with.

3.   I am going to cull some books and donate the to the Friends of the Library book sale.  We donated about 20 books!

4.  Start work on the driveway project with crack patching.  Making slow progress.  Some of that is from weather because you need rain-free days.  I have come to the realization that this will be a summer long project and not just a couple weekends. 

5.  I will try at least 2 new veggies this month.  Success!  I tried Swiss chard (fairly successful) and celery root (FAIL!!).  I will confess to purchasing taro root and when I peeled it, the smell was horrible and I just couldn’t try it.  It also felt soft, so maybe it was a bad one.

And the season tally on the bike:

Miles biked in May: 364

Total miles on the year:  682  – Woo Hoo!!

My schedule is totally out of whack today with the no sleep thingie.  Excuse my incoherence today.

A little birdie visited today while I was working.  She sat right on the window sill and peered around looking in.  This cracked me up!

I wonder what she saw?

She sat there for about 5 minutes and then flew away.  Good thing Pixie didn’t see it or her liver probably would have exploded.

I could have had 3 of these today:

Do you ever get so tired that you can’t sleep?  I hate that.  I also got really snacky from being tired, which irritated me.

I had to get on the bike and ride to the bank to clear my head.  John said I haven’t been myself today.  I guess that is what happens when you can see a 4th dimension.

Dinner was a stir fry of chicken thighs, coleslaw mix (great for stir fries!) teriyaki and  white rice.

(plus unpictured potato chips and some peanuts).

Now I have to think about some goals for June, other than getting more sleep!

It will be an early bedtime for me.  I for sure am going to let myself sleep in tomorrow.