Three Week Challenge

A friend of mine from high school (the big guy in this photo) who runs his own bootcamp has given us a challenge. No bread, pasta or dough products for three weeks. He's also asking us to journal our food. I generally try and journal my food but I haven't been good about that lately.

I went grocery shopping today. I need to pick up a few things that I forgot but basically I think I picked up a variety that I think will keep me satisfied.

Cravings and stress will be my downfall. Please pray for me. I'll try to remember to post updates.

Really?

A major storm blew through Friday night. Most of this area had no power and cell service and even 3G & 4S data on our phones is sketchy. This whole area is bored and scrambling from joint to joint to charge up electronics or loitering just to stay charged.

I couldn't get local channels on my Dish Satellite when I left the house this morning.

We can hardly survive.

And I'm thinking of doing a 1-2 day hike out that includes camping and I can't handle not having Internet for a few hours.

I must be crazy.

Hikes I'm researching

McAfee knob
Sky Meadows
Old rag
Crab tree falls
Billy goat trail

Great falls - both VA & MD

Wild, AWOL, Lost & Found

I've been 42 for 5 days. Businesses plan their years based on the govt calendar (Oct 1 - Sept 30). Some people plan their years based on their additional calendar (Jan - Dec). I plan mine based on my birthday. June 24 - June 24.  


Two years ago I decided I wanted to do something on my bucket list. I wanted to shoot a gun. I joined a women's club (www.shecanshoot.com) and learned to shoot.  Two years later and I'm a pretty good shot and have gotten my certification as a Range Safety Officer and an NRA Instructor. In July I plan to teach my first class. I'm very excited.  That's a long way to come in two years. I hope my next item doesn't take me as long.

Saying you want to do something because you always wanted too seems somewhat circular, but its as common as any other.~ quote from "AWOL on the Appalachian Trail"

I love reading books about people who have climbed mountains and trails. I recently read "Wild: From LostTo Founf". She hiked the Pacific Crest Trail (1100 miles) alone.  The book isn't written well and she makes tons of mistakes but dammit it inspired me. I hate Cheryl Strayed. I hate that her book and mistakes have me thinking of doing something that feels crazy.


I want to go hiking.


I want to do a long-distance hike. Not one that takes three or six months to finish but may be out a few days. 


I've done short day hikes but it's been 10 or more years. That was 100 pounds ago. I've slept in sleepy dives but I've never done something like this.


I don't even know how to hike or camp for real.  


I've signed up for a backpacking class and will probably take a camping class. My nephew said that's lame. He's right. Who takes a class on camping? He says you just buy you tent and head out one weekend. Ack! 


So, here's my bucket list for the next birthday year:
I want to hike a short stretch on the A.T. 
I want to go car camping. 
I want to hike & camp
I want to hike some place that has a beautiful view. 


I'll be blogging about this over the next year. We'll see where I end up a year from now.

Gun Show Finds - earrings

I went to the C&E Gun Show at the Dulles Expo Center in Chantilly yesterday. Gun shows are interesting. In my opinion they are a cross between really cool guns & supplies and a flea market with tables of crap. :-) I found some pretty cool items.

The first I want to talk about are my earrings. I bought some handmade earrings from Jenuinely Jeni (www.jenuinelyjeni.com) she takes the brass from various calibers and makes the most beautiful jewelry. She sells necklaces and earrings. She's always at this show in Chantilly. Her table is usually off to the left near the wall. She's worth looking for.

This set I bought is actually my second set from her. I'd like to have 1 of each kind of earrings that she makes and sells.

This set I bought comes in 9mm and 40S&W. I bought the 9mm.

A new chapter

This weekend begins a new chapter in my life. today is Day 1 of the NRA Instructor course. The instructor is a great woman and friend. She founded She Can Shoot (www.shecanshoot.com). I've been shooting and hanging socially with this group for over a year now. The whole experience has been life changing for me. Who knew it would take me until 41 to find seething I'm good at and like.

Wish me luck in class.

Mobile Blogging

I finally downloaded the blogger app. Now i can blog on the go. This will surely make me either more or less annoying.

My only questions: Why did it take me so long to look for this? Why is it not an iPad app. Com'on Blogger let's get an iPad app rocking.

Finished Project

I finally finished my lapghan. I wanted this to be a full blanket but decided to stop. I stopped for 2 reasons.

First, I ran out of yarn AGAIN. I had no idea how much yarn was needed to make a full sized afghan. I have been working on this lapghan for almost a year.  Crazy, right?  For this size, that's crazy.  Here's what happened.  I ran out of yarn, set it aside and decided I'd buy some more yarn and then finish the rounds and make it bigger and bigger.  Everytime I went to the store for additional skeins I ended up finding other colors and buying other colored skeins of yarn.  Something else always struck my fancy.

Second, I did this by using a traditional granny square pattern and just kept increasing ouwards in rounds. The result is that the lapghan is square, but most beds are rectangle. If I keep going and going until it is big enough to cover the length of my bed, then it’ll hang too far off the side. Here's what a traditional granny square looks like.

You can see they usually consist of 4 or 5 rounds.  They can be solid or multi colored

.
Because I stuck with the traditional granny square pattern the lapghan is rather holey. I didn’t think it would be a very warm blanket. Well, I have to say, this blanky if quite heavy and warm. So, maybe if I’m inspired, I’ll buy some more yarn one day and add a few more rounds and make it just a tad bit bigger. Until then, here is my finished product.

It actually is almost as wide as a twin-sized bed

No photo is complete without at least 1 of my beasties nearby.

The colors are hard to distinguish.  Think I need to take pics in better lighting next time.

Zumba Zumba Zumba

I haven’t written in a long while.  A lot has been happening.  I’m still faithfully going to the gym and exercising with my personal trainer 3 days a week.  I also go 2 additional days a week.  I’ve checked out Zumba twice.  I have to confess I’m not sure this latin dance class can really be called “exercise” but it’s definitely a good way to burn up cardio for 60 minutes.  So, hats off to the guy or gal or who brought Zumba to the gym.  I haven't yet decided if I'm going to make it a regular part of my exercise routine. 

OLW 2012 - Reluctantly Chosen

In 2010 my small group at church decided to work on a One Little Word study together. It’s based on several sites/bloggers but the best site is the http://www.oneword.org/ site. The idea is to adopt one word each year and focus your biblical studies, prayer and meditation on this word.

In 2010 I chose the word Transform. I was going through a bit of transformation both mentally and physically. I had a great accountability partner. We met several times during the year and talked through the worksheets and our successes and failures related to our words and to other goals in our lives. We grew to be close friends. Today she’s one of my closest friends.

In 2011 I chose the word Trust. As I have worked with my therapist one theme that comes up is trust. I have a hard time trusting people and myself. So, I thought this would be a good word to spend some time looking at and seeing what the Bible and God has to say about it. Well, it was a disappointing year word-wise. For the first month or so I had no accountability partner. I tried to partner with a woman in our group but she didn’t seem to have much interest in connecting and, honestly, I didn’t make many, if any, attempts to connect with her. At one point in the year, I actually forgot what my word was. Ack! That wasn’t supposed to happen.

So, for 2012 I’m struggling with picking word. It’s just not coming easily to me. I wanted my word to be commit or commitment. I have a habit of starting something and not finishing – diets, afghans, organizing, bible studies, books. The list is almost endless. You name it I can name a time that I committed to doing it and then didn’t. As I started researching the word commit I kept getting pointed to Ephesians Chapter 6 and other verses. There was a common word or concept throughout the verses. The word is Stand.

I’ll be honest, I don’t really like it as my Word. There are so many things that can be done with the word Stand:

• Stand firm
• Stand up
• Stand alone
• Standing
• Stand out
• Stand by
• Stand for

The list is almost endless.  How many ways can you think of to use the word Stand?

I just have no idea where God is taking me and my OLW this year. I’m not really sure which scripture I will be using. I had one picked out (which I lost) but it turned out that the word Stand in that scripture didn’t mean standing with God or righteousness. It dealt more with standing with evil. Yikes! So not only do I need to pick a scripture still I need to do very careful research and make sure the verse(s) mean something positive.

Regardless of all of that, I am making the declaration.

My
One Little Word
for
2012
is

Stand

Day One

Today was day 1 with the personal trainer.
I arrived thinking how bad could it be?  What could she do to me in 30 minutes?
Ha! I'm already sore.
Here's a pic of me now.

January 2012

I plan to blog and take pictures as I travel on this fitness path this year.
Not sure how often I'll blog but I think I'll take pics and see if we can see the progress.

The 2012 Bucket List

As I've already told you I don't do resolutions.  I do however have bucket lists.  I don't know if I'll accomplish all of this but im certainly going to try.  

Thankfully the list isn't very long.

• Meet with the personal trainer 3 days a week every week.  I've already signed up with the PT at my gym.  The only exceptions to this are vacation or work travel.  
• Get certification to teach the NRA Basic Firearms course.
• Buy inexpensive .22LR (a Ruger or a Browning hopefully) to use to teach students firearms basics.
• Go skydiving 
• Lose 80 pounds - this is pretty agressive but I think I can do  it.  I'm on track to lose my first thirty pounds by March 1.  That gives me 9 months to lose the remaining 50  pounds.  
• Finish at least 1 of the adult afghans that I have started.  I have pieces of at least 2 afghans in my box.  
• In support of the above, I am not allowed to buy any more yarn until I've used up all of this yarn.
• Go to the movies more.  I think I have been to the movie theater 3 times in the past year.  That's pathetic.  Yes, movies are expensive, but life is short and movies are better on the big screen.  

If this year is anything like last year, this is going to be a great year and I'll have plenty to blog about during the year and a great summary at the end of 2012.