End of June updates

Over the weekend, I got to the last day of my 6 weeks and won the President's Active Lifestyle Award! (You have to be active at least 30 minutes 5 out of 7 days for 6 weeks.) Someone at work asked if I had cut my hair. Nope, just wearing a headband, the same one you can see in this picture. I made 6 of them (plus several for myself, of course) for the Hair Accessory Swap. I'm waiting with baited breath for everyone to get theirs in so we can see what all we got!Did I tell you I found nearly-new Brooks running shoes at a garage sale for $6!? I was in such need and there they were! I had to go back with socks so I could try them on and they are SO comfy, what a wish granted.Tonight I made Pink Purl's pesto tabbouleh, since she was so nice as to share her recipe. Wow, what flavors! I whipped up some spinach pesto in the blender with the last dregs of the spinach from the garden. I think bulgar is my new go-to grain, so fast and easy!
Here's another meal I gobbled up this week. A salad full of carrots from my garden, purple and white and orange ones! The lettuce and spinach are from the garden as well, only the onion is from the store. The main dish was an egg scramble with veggie italian sausage, tomato, fresh basil and cheese with crackers on the side. I'd thought about having it on a tortilla but when it came together, it was enough on it's own.And for breakfast one morning, I had oatmeal with almonds, dried cranberries and some Kashi granola (Cocoa Beach flavor) on top. YUM!

Next week is our last week of 4-H dog obedience class for this year. The show is on Friday, the 10th, so everyone is busy prepping their dogs and worrying over what will happen. I'm sure they will all do fine, we have a great group this year, just like last year!

Giving Challenge and a plea

I am in my third week of the 29 Day Giving Challenge. I am blogging my daily gifts over there, check it out if you like. So far, I only flubbed on one day. Since then, I have been trying to plan my giving at least a day in advance so I don't forget. :) This stuffed bunny was one day's gift, left at the Post Office with a Toy Society tag so that the recipient would know it was alright to take home.

It has been really fun, finding little ways to give each day. But later this year, I have a larger give planned! As I mentioned last time, a Habitat for Humanity house is being built in our neighborhood! We also have new neighbors to the south and the house across the street now says sale pending so we will have lots of new faces to meet at that ice cream party! But back to my plan! The family moving into the HFH house is a single mom and her 9 year old daughter. I have been given the ok to make a quilt for the daughter, who has requested an all PINK room! So I am making an all PINK quilt. Here is where I need your help!

Do you have scraps or little dabs of pink fabric? I am making a strip quilt so I need a good variety of pinks to make it look awesome! I would greatly appreciate ANY pink fabric you could spare. Any left over fabric will be used to make another all PINK quilt for Project Linus! Just comment or email me if you're feeling generous with your pink stash and I will be forever grateful!

Wanna see my new outfits?

My splurge I mentioned last week, my new workout clothes!
And to top it off, I was at Walmart because ours is selling out their entire fabric stock at 75% off. What was back there next to the fabric? $3 workout shirts! So I picked up two new shirts to go with my new SportSkirt!

As seen on many fitness blogs, I have been trying my hand at making Green Monster smoothies. My first attempt was pretty terrible, I tried to make a pumpkin pie falvored smoothie with spinach in it. The spinach was NOT the problem, the whole pumpkin pie idea was. This one is strawberry banana and LOADS better! And just like everyone tells you, you can't taste the greens (kale and spinach here).
It's been hot here, and a nice, cold smoothie sure was tasty tonight!

I just found out that a Habitat for Humanity house is going to be built one street over and have contacted them about how to help out. I have signed up to bring lunch/snack to the crew. And I am planning a little craft project as well, more on that later!

On a completely unrelated note, I added a Follower button over there on the left so if you want to follow me via Blogger it is easier to sign up. :)

Monday!

Start Weight: 215
Current Weight: 187
% lost overall: 13%

Earlier in the week I made corn and black bean salad (recipe from the book "Eat, Shrink and Be Merry"). I ate it with a veggie bologna sandwich one day. This weekend, it was grilling time! Grilled romaine salad inspired by the one we had a few months ago at the Spice Box.

We grilled up some vegetarian Italian sausages
I had mine with grilled onions and peppers on top!
Mike picked up some MINI Krispy Kremes on Friday. A box of 20, but they're so cute! And under 100 calories each!

Monday Weigh-In

Before I start this long post, check out this giveaway for Chobani yogurt. I just found it at a store locally and it literally made my day!

(Ok, so this is a few days late. I kept forgetting to upload my picture of my new workout gear!)

Start Weight: 215
Current Weight: 190
% lost overall: 11.63%

I am going to keep with the Monday weigh-ins despite the challenge being over! I got so used to checking in on Mondays that I just can't stop!

I am so bummed out that our Boot Camp instructor is moving and our class is canceled. I was starting to like the P. E.-type exercises and running. I am replacing it with at-home Boot Camp! I found this website with links to free workouts. Fitness magazine lets you customize your own workout routine, complete with videos (though I was not wholly impressed with this). And I started a run-walk plan a while ago but sort of quit so I am starting again with this one, Couch to 5K in 9 weeks, since I've heard really great things about it.

Since I didn't win the $400 prize from the Spring Fitness Challenge, I decided I deserved a prize of some sort. I got myself a new, PURPLE workout outfit! And I bought this skirt/capri combo online because it was 50% off! I've been wanting a workout skort/skirt/leggings type thing for a while (ok, ever since my Athleta catalog came) so I couldn't pass up this deal!

Here is my re-cap of my Spring Challenge results:

What did I do well?

*Banned myself from the elevator (and I'm still a stairs-only girl at work!)
*Started wearing a pedometer to quantify how much activity I was getting in each day (and attempt to get 8000 steps or more each day)
*Measured out my food until I had a good handle on what a normal portion of most things is
*Added more lower body strength training after reading the Biggest Loser books.
*Plan meals ahead and track calorie intake on Sparkpeople and also participated in the New You Bootcamp back in January which helped me develop some great habits.
*When eating out, used healthydiningfinder to make healthy choices
*Read Hungry Girl's books, the Biggest Loser books, and lots of cookbooks with lower calorie and lower fat recipes
*I don't eat after 8 pm. Snacks after 8 always tend to be cookies or chips or ice cream so I just don't eat after dinner.
What do I do instead of eat? Garden and if it's dark, I read (I got a stash of books at my neighborhood used bookstore) or work on a craft project. Busy hands are not eating hands!
*On vacation, I took full advantage of the awesome fitness facilities at our hotels! It kind of made me want a treadmill at my house. With a touchscreen tv and fans, of course.
*Upped my fruit and veggie intake to at least one of each per meal (lunch and dinner only). That is one of the SparkPeople New You Bootcamp challenges so I got in the habit early on.

Where did I make mistakes?

*Sugary sweets are my downfall-like the Easter pie and the "healthy" apple-berry crisp that I ate way too much of
*Not scheduling gym time at the start of some weeks so that I didn't get to the gym as often (now I write up a weekly plan at the beginning of each week)
*I need to plan snacks throughout the day since my meals are smaller now. I find myself getting a grumbly tummy before lunch so I need to have healthy snack options ready at work.

A meme and an award

Long overdue as things generally are on this blog, not one but TWO Corgi bloggers passed this Only 8 Meme on to me. Thank you, Infrared Goggles and CorgiTails!

8 Things I am Looking Forward to
1…..Competing in a tracking trial with Sully
2…..Weighing under 180 pounds
3…..Grilling more this summer!
4…..Watching my larger garden grow
5…..Helping with the Corgi Nationals herding trial
6…..Lazy days reading outdoors
7…..Growing old with my husband
8…..Garage sales


8 Things I Did Yesterday
1…..Walked Sully
2…..Made a recipe from my favorite magazine-Healthy Cooking (Taco bake)
3…..Read in bed
4…..Napped
5…..Biggest Loser workout with weights
6…..Got groceries with Mike
7…..Helped Mike fold laundry
8…..Weeded the garden


8 Things I Wish I Could do
1…..A cartwheel!
2…..100 push-ups
3…..Own a hooved animal (or even chickens!)
4...Read faster
5...Grow more of my own food
6…..Work only 20 hours a week but still make the same!
7…..Or just retire completely
8…..Teleport


8 Shows I Enjoy (DVR)
1…..Lost
2…..House
3…..The Office
4…..Scrubs
5…..Law and Order (any flavor)
6…..Masterpiece Classics
7...Jamie at Home
8…..The Simpsons



Expressly Corgi honored me with this award! A big thanks and I'm so happy when people let me know they actually read my little blog!

Orphan

Winnie, the delightful Corgi of Confessions of a Corgi, tagged us to talk about origin stories. I have loved reading everydog's stories! So here is Sully's.

Sully was adopted through the Lakeshore Pembroke Welsh Corgi Club's rescue. It was a hard decision for me to get a dog because while we lived in a house, the backyard wasn't fenced in and we were renters so we couldn't fence it in ourselves. Mike isn't as big a worrier as I am so he convinced me we could make things work. And we did. We applied with the club and had an interview. We were prepared to wait since they match up Corgis as they come in with the family they thing they will be best with.

These are a couple of the very first pictures we ever saw of Sully. His foster mom emailed them to us, back when his name was Scrappy.

A few weeks later (faster than I had thought!), we were told that there was a Corgi they thought would be great for us. We had a phone interview with his foster mom, during which I probably asked more questions than she did. Was he housebroken? No one knew, probably not. Did they know anything about his history? Scrappy (his original name) had been surrendered in Wisconsin with a female Corgi, Stevie. From what the owner told them, they had been kept outside and were a breeding pair. Then we went up his foster mom's house to meet him. He was shy, but he did come sniff us and sat for petting when I sat on the ground with him. I could tell the dog I was seeing was not his true personality. How could a Corgi be so subdued and almost wary. Corgis are bold! Corgis are noisy and bossy and boisterous! But we could also tell that he was a genuinely sweet dog, and quite handsome!
This is our very first family portrait, taken the day we met him at his foster parents' house.

He came home with us that day, three years ago in April. His confidence has grown tenfold, he is bossy, he is boisterous but he is still, in general, the sweet, calm Corgi we met up North.
You can see he loves his dad so much that he likes to dress like him. :)

Toy Society camel!

Toy Society camel!
Originally uploaded by Corgipants

I made my very first toy drop for The Toy Society! Sully and I left this camel at the Arboretum when we were there practicing tracking. Now when someone finds it and contacts The Toy Society, we'll get to learn where it ends up! Hopefully it made someone very happy!

Why yes, I did paint my toenails just for you!

Start Weight: 215
Current Weight: 191.5 (click on the picture for a larger version, I was going to call it 192 until I looked at it close up, it's definitely in between, wouldn't you say?)
% lost overall: 10.930%Today is the last day, the end of our Challenge. It doesn't look like I'll be the winner but I really did win a whole lot! A new wardrobe of clothes that didn't fit properly any more. A new sense of portion sizes and meal planning. The strength and stamina to endure Boot Camp!

The Spring Fitness Challenge may be ending but I'm not done! My next motivation is to keep watching what I eat and win a Presidential Active Lifestyle award. I am in my third week and doing well. After that, I will move on to the Challengers program!