I'm terrible at titles. And I ramble in this one.

So my eating hasn't been good this week. It started with a birthday party chips and squares, then a baby shower cupcake, then two beers at the Glass Tiger/Roxette (with four girls i went to grade school with and have known since I was 6 years old- we sang our hearts out- holla!!!) then Chinese food, arghlespla!!! I went for a 40 min run today with Andrea and let me tell you that first 20 was SO SLUGGY! I can definitely tell when my diet has been disgusting... But the last 20 minutes were much better after I'd gotten all the crap burnt off and taken a pee in the bushes. In the ravine. Crawling with dogs and people. While Andrea stood watch. In the middle of the city. Of almost a million people. What can I say? I'm a small town girl at heart.

Also I gained a pound back. Booooo :( well that's a lesson to me for sure!

My brother went to Europe yesterday with his partner for a whole
month. He is hiking across the entire country of Spain from The French border to Santiago. The St. James walk. It's a pilgrimage of over 1000 km and he is going to do this epic journey for a week with E then she is leaving and he is continuing on by himself the last 3 weeks. Walking about 35-40 km a day I think that works out to. I'm so incredibly proud of him! He has been training for weeks running on his treadmill, walking around Cooking Lake loops of 32km- and he went to mec and got himself all sorted for gear, boots, sleeping bag, light hiking clothes. I'm so jealous I would bleed green if I got a paper cut (now that i said that i better not get one - why is paper such a vindictive, passive aggressive bit€h?). So we discussed me coming on a trip next time. Mt. Kilimanjaro? Why not. Maybe when Huxley is a teenager we can take him too! Agh! I get so excited about all the things I want to show him! I hope he shares my interest in adventures!!! If he starts dressing goth and baying at the moon though ... Well I'll still love him and probably take him to Romania then :)

Here is some photos- my brother and kiddo, bro and E the night before the trip, and my beautiful friend E at the Roxette/Glass Tiger concert!

I GOT AN AWARD!

So a friend of mine whom I admire greatly (she is an awesome momma and always dressed the way I would dress if I could fit my fat arse into those clothes) writes a great little blog about her family, life, and her and her husband's autobody business that I believe they built from scratch (kudos!) You Auto Know. She graciously gave me a Liebster blog award and wrote up a way too generous referral for IBTWYPDB so I'm passing it on and answering her questions. I am going to get to passing the reward on and the referrals asap but I found her questions really fun and wanted to answer them today because I have that sort of obsessive personality.

1.Why did you start a blog?
This is an excellent question. I have no idea. Maybe my type A personality? Maybe my need to share the wonders of life with the internets? Maybe a need to express myself a la Doogie Howser? Probably most likely the need for some accountability in my weight loss and exercising goals. I'm going to go with that one.


2. What's your favourite thing to write about?
My kid, but since I fear posting how he pooped so bad the other day it went up the back of his shirt, was stuck to his back, and almost got in his hair... might come back to haunt him and thus me- I restrain myself. So I settle for little things in life I experience and of course keeping my walrus metabolism in check. Like for instance look forward to a post on my very first experience at the sport of squash soon!!

3. What's your own favourite post?
The one so far where I list my motivations for why I am trying to lose weight. It helps me and I find it keeps me off the vino very theraputic to write out what I'm feeling and discussing the difficulties of driving past the cupcake store eating healthy to be hard sometimes and I want to share it so that girls everywhere don't feel so bad when they sit on the couch eating mayonnaise from a jar watching Storage Wars miss their goals. Solidarity.

4. What's your favourite Edmonton festival?
Edmonton Folk Music Festival. Acoustic music, dirty hippies, sunshine, and beers. If you haven't ever been I strongly discourage you start going as it's getting more popular and I don't like waiting in line for tickets.

5. What website do you visit every day?
Facebook, work stuff, real estate agents for tropical countries, youtube for cat videos.

6. How long do you spend online every day?
Probably a few hours but most of it is work related.

7. Where would you move?
Well this is something I struggle with. I love Edmonton, what a beautiful city- winter and summer! But I know there are cities with beaches out there. Where I can let the kid build a sand castle and I can drink moijitos... but to be honest I don't move because of my family and rich group of friendships I've built up. I love each and every one of them and would miss them dearly. Hence why I'm not tanned and learning how to surf. Damn you people.

8. What type of business would you start?
Some sort of travel writing/touring thing that involves children, photography, fitness, and saving the planet as well. Sounds legit right?

9. What's your favourite thing about Fall?
Colours! School! Pumpkins! Crunching leaves! The smell of Staples!

10. What's the most domestic thing about you?
I love being a mommy. Also I LOVE doing laundry. I love the smell of it, I love how you can start it and go sit down and read a couple chapters of 50 Shades of Grey, then go empty it. Voila! Martha Stewart has nothing on me.

11. What's the least domestic thing about you?
I hate cooking. And dishes. And pretty much everything kitchen related. Except pie.

Sometimes

I have a framed photo of my Dad we call Grandpa and yesterday we were driving in the car and H leans over out of the blue and says in his punctuated speech "Momma-Grandpa's- house- wanna" and because we call Shawn's dad "Guido" I knew exactly what he meant. And I wanted it too baby- I wanted it too.

Travel difficulties!

So I'm in a small northern town doing some live trapping for work. On a good day I hate this town... It's an oil and gas town that is surrounded by oil and gas leases (not an acreage, farm, or ranch to be found- which is too bad as it's beautiful country)- but they've covered this place in industry and it started long before the environment was something people worried about- so it's a mess... Check out the roadkill young of the year bear we found...Poor thing ... But I digress. Since it caters to a certain clientele you're hard pressed to find a vegetable in three of the four restaurants and this is no good for me. Because of the labour day weekend and our 9pm finish time the restaurants were closed except the burger baron. So I almost started crying in the truck. To think I've come this far and worked this hard to be FORCED to eat greasy junk made me incredibly sad. However, I was lucky enough to have a field partner with some dietary restrictions more restrictive than my current ones so she not only understood but jumped out of the truck to find the grocery store open with five minutes left to do our shopping! A couple bags of salad and some microwaved rice and a banana we were out the door and I was saved! And even though I drank a Gatorade today I still came in under my limit of 1476 calories today! I was so happy and grateful to her for helping me solve my problem without a blink of an eye and not even a chuckle at the chubby girl almost in tears desperately trying to heal herself. Thank you M.

This cannot wait.

I woke up this morning and rubbed my thighs and realized- saddle bags gone!!! GONE!!!

Might have something to do with my new scale that I got yesterday that told me since I've started this- Three months ago- I've lost 14 pounds!!!!! And that's just from the running, the eating makeover is new. Sure makes it easier to go running in the rain this morning!

Also super extra, wonderful bonus-it hopefully will mean I will fit better in this tiny space my bed partners leave for me...

Nailed it!

My friend came to Folk Fest with us this year and had made pancakes shaped like teddy bears and they were soooo good! So this morning I thought- pancake teddy bears! I used whole wheat flour, free range eggs, almond milk- then added the baking soda and powder (what are these made of? How do i not know that? I'm going to google out of curiosity)... Then I put in shredded squash from my friend Laura's garden, shredded apples from our tree, blueberries and flax for good measure or something. And used peanut butter for topping! So yummy!

Here is the photo of my thalidomide teddy bear pancake. Well it resembles one right?

Pirate Ship and booty = motivation

So went for a really long hard run tonight with a friend- her statement this afternoon- "yeah, I'll come with you but can we go hard tonight?" so I got home- had a salad and whole wheat butter chicken pizza from panago (oh my god so good) and drank a tonne of water in preparation. We watched a pirate cartoon with H and put him to bed and off I went. Took the dogs- Annie is terrible on the leash but has the recall of a boomerang! Nanook has no recall but runs beside me like a dream so it's a bit chaotic till they get into the rhythm... Anyway ran hard- then ran some more... 39 minutes with three walk breaks hard out. I feel good but might be stiff tomorrow... A good epsom salt soak should fix that Shawn says.

Also- quick story- H and I were at my friend Laura's horse boarding farm awhile ago and there was a pile of horse poo him and her daughter were playing on and he kept yelling "pilaship" which I thought meant pile of shit!!! I was getting mad at him and in wonder where he knew that from- when he started yelling ahoy ahoy and realizes he was saying PIRATE SHIP... Phew!!!!

Which brings me to the cumulation of these ramblings tonight- my motivations. I am motivated by three things-

1- honestly? Three of my favorite stores in the world are here now in Edmonton- lululemon, J.Crew and Anthropologie. And guess what? I'll be honest completely- I can't fit into a damn thing in any of them. J.Crew and Anthro? Forget it. Lulu? Overpriced sausage casing. I just want to walk in and try something on and be able to wear it. That's all.

2- my fathers passing of stomach cancer. Now not to say my dad was unhealthy or fat- he worked hard and had a secret spin cycle in the garage where he'd sweat to the oldies... But watching a loved one suffer is not only gut wrenchingly heartbreaking but also incredibly inspiring to know that absolutely nothing I do is harder than what my dad went through. And to say "oh my god it's so hard I can't do it" - I just think of how scared we were of the radiation and chemo and how brave and honest and unflappable my father's strength was. And how he'd put on his game face- For himself and all three of us huddled in the waiting room.

3. For my kiddo. Every single time I put something bad in my mouth I get this guilt that I'm robbing H of a happy, healthy momma who needs to be able to chase him, pick him up and tickle him till he screams- then do it all over again... I want to take him hiking, kayaking, biking, and show him the world. But most importantly I want him to be healthy and happy and he needs me. Every piece of junk food takes that away from him. And so I guess my biggest motivator is love...

I hope you got to the end of this one. I feel like it's my best one yet :)