Surprise from Hubby

Hubby has lost, and kept off, 97 pounds over the last 2 years and I am so proud of him. Unfortunately, I have slowly gained weight. I always used the excuse that my back was hurting too much or that I was too tired. While that was true, I could have pushed myself a little harder. I am really tired of feeling tired all the time and truly do want to unload the extra pounds. A lot of extra pounds actually. Now, that I have no more excuses, I have been trying to be more active and eat better. I have been trying to either go walking or doing crunches with an exercise ball. I feel like I get more of a work out when I go walking, so that is really my favorite (those crunches are killers). When I go walking, I use my MP3 player that hubby bought me a few years ago. It is nothing fancy, but it worked for what I needed. When he met me this week for our normal Wednesday lunch date, he brought me a nice surprise. A new water bottle to take walking with me and inside the water bottle was a new MP3 player that does both audio and video. He knows that I am not good at buying things for myself (I don't even like to go shopping for clothes), so I love it when he brings surprises for me - even when they are not big ones like an MP3 player.

Wookie

Today I was getting into my comfortable clothes after work and washing my face when I hear these noises coming from the living room. I had no idea what the sounds were, but it sounded just like a wookie for the movie Star Wars. When I peak my head into the living room, I see hubby talking to Riley and her answering him in this wookie sound. It was totally hilarious. She loves to "talk" and just kept going as long as he would continue to talk to her. When he stopped and she felt like she was being ignored, she made the wookie sound first and then went straight to a bark. Unfortunately, she will not talk like this with me. I apparently don't know the wookie language.

She is definitely a handful, but she has been a positive influence on the whole family - especially her sister. Abbie was getting a little pudgy since being on the epilepsy meds and keeping up with Riley is slimming her back down to her normal weight.

Family Walk

Even though it looked like it was going to rain, the whole family went for a walk. Hubby handled the dogs so I could go at my own pace and get a good walk. Both dogs had their tongues hanging out before we really got going good, but they managed to last for the whole walk. We walked for a total of a mile. I was totally beat, but it felt good later. Even the dogs were worn out - they slept the rest of the evening.

Hands

I loved my grandmother (I called her Nan) dearly and was always intrigued by her hands. She did not have feminine hands, but they were not masculine either. She had hands that showed she had to work hard in her life. My hands have always looked like my grandmother's hands; however, I have not had to work near as hard in my life as she did in hers. When I was coming home from the hardware store today, I looked down at my hands and arms only to notice that I also have her arms. Not very feminine, splotchy, and scarred. A part of me was a little sad that my arms are not more attractive, but a part of me is proud that I have the "McCoy" arms.

In the Zone

Riley loves it when her Daddy rocks her to sleep at night. She gets totally relaxed and zoned out. She is now up to 16 pounds, but still skinny enough to fit through the fence.

Exercise Ball

I have been doing reasonably well with my walking, although the scales seem to be moving in the wrong direction. Today was supposed to be my day to go walking, but stayed home because hubby wasn't feeling well. On the days that I do not go walking, I work on stretching and strengthening my back muscles by using an exercise ball. Those things give you more of a work out than you realize. Today I tried doing one of the twisting crunches (not sure what it is really called) and that did not feel good on the back at all. That felt like someone was trying to rip my spine out in little pieces. Clearly I was doing it wrong, so I need to stick to the basic crunches for a while.

Tomorrow is back to the walking and I am going to try a new path that I picked out. On this one I can even take Abbie. She would enjoy getting away from her rowdy sister for a little while.

Fire

Today there was a fire in our building. Thankfully it was at the other end, but it still is a little unsettling. The apartment management at first did not even try to evacuate the building. They tried to pass it off as sprinkler issue. When the fire department finally showed up, everyone was evacuated. I am so thankful that the hubby was home. He was able to keep the dogs calm and get them outside. I can't even imagine how scared they must have been with the alarms going off and everyone running around like crazy. To make it even crazier, it decided it was time to start pouring rain just as everyone was being evacuated.

This type of thing always makes me think about all of the things I would like to get out should this happen. I know realistically that there would never be time to get everything I would want out of the apartment. I guess as long as my husband and my "babies" are safe, everything else doesn't matter - although some of it could never be replaced.