Kick in the pants

I've been working out during lunchtime for the past several months, but I just can't seem to get in shape fast enough - or AT ALL!

I was recently moved to a different project within my company, but it happens to be located in the office building farthest from my house. I was not very happy about this since I would have to join the leagues of people who really commute every day to work, however, after I got here and checked out the workout facility, my mood brightened.

I have since been down at the fitness center every single day and I'm loving it. It's not because they have treadmills with individual TV screens for you to choose which program you would like to watch (which is really cool and would mean that I wouldn't have to watch Fox News while working out like I had to at the other office building) and it's not because they have elliptical trainers with individual TV screens. It's because they have one of these.

I'm totally hooked. I get a good workout and I'm not continuously checking how much time I've been working out, or how much time is left on the machine. I just ride and listen to the music (which is set to the XM satellite 80's music station) and remember what I was doing when each song was popular and then I climb another hill and check out the sheep or horses that they have programmed into the scenery. The people who did the programming must have a sense of humor, too - on one of the circuits, they included the abominable snowmonster off to the side.

So it has seemed that my pants are starting to fit a little better, but every time I weigh myself, I'm not making any progress. It's possible that I am losing some fat and gaining muscle, but Thanksgiving pretty much wiped out any progress I had been making!

However, I'm a reader of the Fat Cyclist blog (look over to the right on my "Blogs I Read" list) and it seems he has just given me the kick in the pants that I needed. He's laid down a challenge to lose 10 pounds before Christmas and I've signed up! I really have no hope of actually achieving that goal, but I might as well try.

I've started tracking my food intake through the Livestrong MyPlate website again and I might even use it for more than a couple of days this go-round. So far today, I've eaten 418 calories and burned 238, so I have 729 left for snack this afternoon and dinner tonight. (And I'm starving! Time to drink some more water...)

Tune in next time, when our topic will be... Rice

There's a skit on Saturday Night Live called The Delicious Dish that always cracks me up. The most famous episode, apparently, is the one where Alec Baldwin is playing a character called Pete Schweddy and he makes cheese balls for the holidays. The best line from that particular skit is when one of the lady hosts says, "I can't wait to wrap my lips around your Schweddy Balls." They do such a great job with the double entendre and never once break character. I think the sign-out for that sketch was, "Tune in next time, when our topic will be (they pause, smile, and together say...) Rice."

Which brings me to the topic of the post: Rice. Fellan finally tried and loved some whole grain rice earlier this week. How can you go through 7 and a half years of life without trying and liking rice? Really. Rice. The most important food staple in much of the world? Boggles the mind, doesn't it?

Well, that's not to say that Fellan has never been forced to try rice before. It's just that he would eat one grain of rice and refuse to eat the rest.

The stars must have aligned, however, earlier this week. He took a bite and literally gobbled down the rest.

We're going to be having rice again tonight. I'm interested to see if he has finally acquired the taste for rice, or if that was just a strange anomaly.

Halloween

I've been lazy this week and haven't posted a picture of the kids from Halloween yet! Well, here it is:

The kids decided to go with an Asian theme this year, I guess. I sprayed Marxo's hair with black temporary hair paint and put a little bit of makeup on the corners of her eyes and then wondered if this would somehow be considered being politically incorrect for some reason. I'm actually not sure why it would be, but I'm certain someone could come up with a reason. Instead, I just decided I wouldn't worry about it. :)

I was also lazy and didn't post anything about Marxo's birthday party. It was very fun and much less work that last year. My mom was very happy to find out that we wouldn't be making anything in the middle of the night like last year!

Except...

Well, I went to Whole Foods to order the cake on Friday after lunch and they told me it was too late to order something for Sunday. Actually, what they said was, "Well! It's a little late, isn't it?!" Uh, obviously I didn't think so, but I guess you've answered my question.

So! I set about trying to figure out how we were going to make the butterfly cake that Marxo had requested for her birthday. She wanted a cake with a blue butterfly on it. I knew I could make a chocolate cake and put chocolate chips on it, but I wasn't sure how to frost the cake, or make anything that looked like a butterfly.

Luckily, on Saturday, we went to Arne's (I love that place! My mom thinks it's a very strange place, though. She's right, but I still love it.) and found a cake pan with 6 butterfly molds and the husband insisted I get it to make Marxo's cake. I ended up making 3 butterflies and then outlining them with "blue" frosting (all-natural food coloring doesn't make nearly the good colors that artificial coloring does!) and I think it turned out OK. It tasted good and that was the most important part.


I'll try to be a little better about posting more frequently, but I say that all the time... :)