2014 Year in Review

It’s been a while since I published anything so figured what better way to start off 2015 than to recap our year in 2014.  For the most part, 2014 was a great year for us.  I did have some health scares in March, November & December that have tested me in many ways.  I am physically much better now and I know the mental part will follow in time.  But for now I am SO ready to see what 2015 has in store for us.

January:

-      We closed on our new house.  I call it our forever house because not only do I love it, but I am NEVER moving again.

-      The Hudson Valley (and most of the country) had record breaking freezing temperatures.  Per weather.com, the core of the cold came Monday, Jan. 6 (the day we closed) and Tuesday, Jan. 7 (the day the movers came with our things).

February:

-      “Snowpocalypse 2014” was in full effect this month.  We received over 30 inches of snow here in the Hudson Valley that month. The 2013-2014 winter was the 7^th snowiest season in 120 years.

-      Our son and I attended the Valentine’s Day dance held at his school (on one of the few days it didn’t snow).

 

March:

-      I had surgery to remove the left half of my thyroid.  Thankfully all tests came back normal and I am doing just fine now :)

-      Hubby and I celebrated our birthdays!

-      The snow and cold continued…..

April:

-      The start of a new t-ball season

-      Our son turned 6!!!

 

 

May:

-      Our son attended his first Take Our Daughters & Sons to Work day at my job

-      Our son had his kindergarten artwork displayed in a district-wide art show at the town library.

-      Completed my second Spartan Sprint and beat my previous year’s time!

 

 

June:

-      Myself, our son, my sister and my nephew participated as extras in a movie being shot by my friend locally (check out Mother of the Week here)

-      Our son graduated from Kindergaren (yay!) and started summer camp

-      We welcomed the birth of our friends twin boys

-      The end of t-ball season

-      We held a housewarming party to welcome our family & friends to our new house 

 

July:

-      Spent 4^th of July at home watching fireworks in our neighborhood

-      Spent a week with my family on our annual family vacation.  This year’s destination was a resort in West Virginia

-      Attended BBQ’s and birthday parties for family/friends

\

 

August:

-      Weekend trip to Virginia to celebrate our nephew’s birthday

-      Spent the day in NYC with just our son and I having a “Mommy & Son” day complete with a trip to the Avengers Station & Museum of Natural History

-      Held our annual clam bake BBQ party with our friends

-      Attended 1^st grade orientation at our son’s new elementary school

 

September:

-      Our son started 1^st grade in a new school       

-      Apple & pumpkin picking at Barton Orchards

-      Attended my very first US OPEN (loved it!)

-      Took our son to the Shriner Circus in Orangeburg, NY

-      My company was announced to Working Mother Magazine’s Top 100 Companies to Work for and I was named as Ogilvy & Mather’s Working Mother of the Year

 

October:

-      Received my Working Mother of the Year award from Working Mother Magazine at their annual Gala Dinner in NYC

-      Spent Halloween trick or treating with our best friends

  

November:

-      We took our son on the North Pole Express train ride in CT

-      Spent Thanksgiving with my husband’s family here in NY

-      Took our traditional black Friday trip down to Arthur Avenue in the Bronx to buy seafood for Christmas Eve

 

December:

-      Our son participated in his very first Holiday Concert at school

-      Hosted our very first Christmas Eve dinner in our new house with both of our families

-      Took our son to see Aladdin on Broadway with my family and were privileged to get a backstage tour.

 

A Long and Overdue Update

This update is WAY overdue.  I’ve had only one post since the New Year (bad blogger) and to say a lot has happened since Jan 1 would be an understatement.

Besides our normal work schedule and holidays, over the past six months we’ve celebrated our birthdays (mine and hubs); Anthony turned six!! (omg); I trained for and finished another Spartan race – beating my previous time;  Anthony came to my job for his first Take our Daughters & Sons to Work Day; Anthony was chosen to have his artwork displayed in a district wide art show;  Mother’s Day;  Father’s Day;  and on June 13th Anthony graduated from Kindergarten (omg again!)  We’ve been quite the busy family that it’s left me barely any time to catch my breath, let alone time to blog about it all.

But probably our biggest news of all is that we moved!!  You may have caught it at the end of my 2013 recap post (if you read the whole thing LOL) where I mentioned that we were packing up the old house and were closing on the new house.  We sold our townhouse on December 27^th and on January 6^th closed on a gorgeous 4 bedroom home a couple towns over.  We are beyond excited and are in love with our new space.  We truly lucked out finding our dream home. 

taken the day our offer was accepted (November 2013)

Moving was one of the most stressful experiences of my life and to do it in the middle of snowpocalypse 2013/14 made it all the more challenging.   We were scheduled to move out of our townhouse on the day a blizzard decided to descend upon New York.  Luckily I was able to get the movers to come a day early and they kept our things stored on the truck for the weekend until we closed on the new house.   It was a good thing we were able to do that because the day after the blizzard all of the moving company’s trucks were frozen solid because the diesel fuel in the trucks had frozen!!  You seriously couldn’t have made this stuff up.  It was just insanity.  Certainly not the time to be moving, but we had no choice.  We had to go.  The day we moved into the new house it was minus 5 degrees outside.  I felt so awful for the moving guys.  I bought a few boxes of coffee and some doughnuts and that helped make for happy workers (and a faster move).  Although I’m sure the cold certainly helped them work a little faster.

So as you can imagine, a lot of whatever free time I’ve had over the past 6 months has been spent focusing on the house and doing projects.  We were lucky that the house didn’t need any renovations, but of course there were cosmetic changes we wanted to do to make it our own.  Slowly each room is coming together and it’s starting to feel like home vs a rental vacation home.  More to come on the house as we finish off rooms (and more pics too!)

For now, I’ll leave you with some picture highlights from the last 6 months and the promise that I really will come back to blogging, even if only for short quick updates.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Weeks 37 Results

Pounds Lost this Week:  -1.8 lbs
Pounds Lost to Date:  -38.6 lbs

GGGGOOOOOAAAAAALLLLLLL!!!!!!!!

I finally made it! WOHOOOOO!!!!!  I’ve reached my goal weight (plus a teensy bit).  After almost 9 months of weight watchers I can say that I am the lightest I have been since graduating college 13 years ago!  While it’s true that I probably could have gotten here a month or two earlier if I had stuck to the plan a bit better, truth is that life sometimes happens (and it did).  But when it does you can’t let it completely derail you.  I kept working at it and continued to remind myself that if the pounds didn’t come off as fast as they did in the beginning then that was OK.  When I look back at a summary of my loss it’s quite obvious that I had a strong start with my first 4 months being great loss months and then I tapered off in the summer which was when I was searching to try and get

my momentum back.
 
January:  - 9 lbs
February:  - 8.2 lbs
March:  -4.8 lbs
April:  -6 lbs
May:  -2.4 lbs
June:  -0 lbs
July:  -3.8 lbs
August:  -2.6 lbs
September:  -1.8 lbs

Half of me wants to go for another 1.4 lbs to make it an even 40 but I don’t know if I should push my luck.  Ha, ha!  I’m pretty psyched to be down 4 pants sizes and 2 shirt sizes.  At this point, I’m just going to let nature take its course; continue to eat healthy, exercise & monitor my weight weekly.  I won’t be posting weekly updates anymore though since I reached my goal.   This whole experience has changed my eating habits (for the better) as a lifestyle change and I need to keep it that way if I want to maintain the body I’ve worked so hard to achieve.

 

A Letter to my Son on Kindergarten Eve

To my number one man,

Only five short years ago we brought you home from the hospital and tomorrow you will embark on a whole new journey. While maybe it shouldn’t be that big of a deal since you’ve been attending an all day program since you were 17 months old, tomorrow morning marks a different kind of a milestone.  You will start your academic career which (I hope) will last for the next 14+ years.  I am such a mixed ball of emotions tonight as I sit here and listen to you sleep.

Excited:  I’m excited for all of the new things you are going to see, hear and learn.

Sad:  Truth is, it makes me a little sad to see my baby boy growing up so fast.  Tomorrow may only be the first day of kindergarten but it snuck up on me so quickly that I can only imagine how fast your elementary school years will fly by.

Nervous:  I know what a caring & gentle soul you are and I am nervous that others won’t treat you right and that bullies will try to take advantage of you.  I know that you need to learn for yourself who to listen to and how to stick up for yourself but the protective mother in me wants to shield you from all of that.

Proud:  Our hearts are just bursting with pride when we think of just how successful you will be.  You are growing up to be a sensitive, strong, independent, talented little man, who spreads joy to everyone who spends time with you.

I know we can’t protect you from everything.  You will have good days, and bad days.  You will get tempted to make bad decisions.  Not everyone will want to be your friend and there will be times when your feelings will get hurt.  I will help to soothe your broken heart and do my best to arm you with the tools you need to make your own decisions.

Always do your very best and treat others with respect.  Remember your manners but don’t forget to come home and hug me tight every day after school (until you graduate from college).

I love you to the moon & back.

 

 

200th post! Well, close enough ;)

I just realized that I missed my 200^th post.  Oops!  So this is really post #202.  Eh, it’s close enough ;)  It’s a little sad that it’s taken me almost 3 years to hit 200 posts (not to mention my 100^th post was just about 2 years ago) but who’s counting, right??  Happy 200!!

 

 

Week 28 Results

Pounds Lost this Week:  -3.8 lbs
Pounds Lost to Date:  -36.0 lbs

Only one week back on the plan and what a difference!  I had to do a double take (and triple weight check) yesterday morning just to make sure the scale wasn’t lying.  I wasn’t expecting this much of a loss this week so I’m ecstatic and highly motivated to keep it up!  I’ve surpassed the 35 lbs mark and only have 2.2 lbs to go to hit the “goal” weight I had set for myself on Weight Watchers.  Even though I haven’t been obsessing about hitting a certain weight, at this point I really want to hit that number since I’m so close I can taste it (no pun intended).  I’m hoping that by week 30 I can report back that I’ve hit my goal and have switched into maintenance mode. 

Here’s this week’s dinner menu. 

Sunday 7/21:   Lobster Rolls (6 pts+)

Monday 7/22:   (I moved this from Saturday b/c we ended up going out with our friends instead of BBQ’ing at home)
Asian Grilled Chicken Thighs (6 pts+)  I used skinless boneless thighs instead of breasts with Asian Cabbage Mango Slaw (2 pts+)

Tuesday 7/23:  Grilled hot dog (no bun) with baked beans & grilled corn on the cob (8 pts+ total for everything)

Wednesday 7/24:  Skinny Lemon Glazed Chicken (6 pts+) with ½ cup brown rice (4 pts+)

Thursday 7/25:   Grilled chicken sausage (5 pts+) with grilled zucchini (0 pts+)

Friday 7/26:  Spicy Shrimp Fried Rice (8 pts+)

Saturday 7/27:    no cooking (attending a party)

Week 25 Results

Pounds Lost this Week:  -2.0 lbs
Pounds Lost to Date:  -32.4 lbs

I feel great about being down this week.  I fully made up for the pound I had gained last week and then some.  Hopefully this is a trend that I can continue.  Although I am leaving for vacation this coming weekend so I am going to try and not let that derail me.  I’m packing my running shoes and already used my running app to map out a 2.5 mile course around the neighborhood where we are staying so that I can keep up with my exercising.   On a positive note I have hit my wedding weight!!  If my dress wasn’t all packaged up in a storage box I would pull that sucker out and wear it.  Ha ha!! 

Here’s this week’s dinner menu.  I’ve already made the first two items below and I can say they both were delicious!  Hubby especially loved the Penne dish.  He already wants me to make it again.

Sunday 6/30:   Grilled Chicken Thighs with Pineapple, Corn and Bell Pepper Relish (6 pts+) with brown wild rice & salad.

Monday 7/1:   leftovers (volleyball night)

Tuesday 7/2:  Penne with Chicken & Spiced Tomato Sauce (6 pts+)  

Wednesday 7/3:  Skinny Meatloaf (5 pts+) with skinny garlic mashed potatoes (5 pts+

Thursday 7/4:   Grilled Citrus Chicken (4 pts+) with grilled squash (0 pts+)

Friday 7/5:  Spicy Basil Chicken (7 pts+) with side salad (1 pts+ for dressing)  

Saturday 7/6:   leftovers (leaving for vacation)

I am a Spartan!

I did it!!  On June 8, 2013 I completed my first Spartan Sprint in Tuxedo, NY and became a

Spartan!   As I had mentioned before, I wasn’t competing for a time (which was good because mine stunk. lol) but only to complete the course as an accomplishment of my strength.  I did exactly that and was extremely proud to cross that finish line. 

 

Call me crazy, but the race itself I found to be kind of fun.  Mastering the different obstacles was my favorite part (except for one obstacle).  However, all the hill mountain climbing I could have done without. Thankfully we had a perfect temperature that day so it was perfect running weather.  I started off the race with a clear head and high expectations.  That mindset was crushed not even 5 minutes into the race when we were hit with our first obstacle - running through 3 trenches of waist high muddy water while you got sprayed with more water.  Well, that certainly woke us up!  It also made for some nice sloshy sneakers to climb the steep hill of rocks that was up next.

 

It POURED the entire day before I was scheduled to run the race.  All this extra rain made the race site an (even bigger) mud pit and also made all of the rocky trails we were running on dangerously slippery.  I watched as other racers slipped and slided past me twisting their ankles as they ran the course.  It wasn’t worth breaking an ankle so we walked a lot of the trails where it was extremely slippery and ran in the places where we could.  This of course slowed our team down quite a bit.

 

Some of the other obstacles that we had to overcome over the 4 miles included: 

-  Monkey Bars

-  Lots and lots of walls (5, 6, 7 & 8 feet tall)

- Herculean Pull (using a pulley lift a concrete block 10 ft off the ground & back down)

-  Tractor Pull (drag a concrete block connected to a chain up a hill & back)

-  Tire Pull (drag a huge tire down a hill then using a rope pull it back up)

-  40 lb Sandbag carry (up & down a hill)

-  Hurdle jumps

-  Cargo net climb

-  Tire Drill (running through tires like the old football drill)

-  Log carry (up & down a hill)

-  Spear Throw

-  Rope Climb

-  Transverse Wall

-  Muddy “slip & slide” under ropes & into a trench of water

-  Barbed Wire Crawl

-  Fire pit jump

 

For any obstacle that you are unable to complete the penalty is 30 burpees.  If you don’t know what a burpee is check out HERE for an explanation.  Luckily I only failed 3 obstacles (rope climb, spear throw & transverse wall).  The barbed wire crawl was by far the worst obstacle in the entire race.  I was dreading it the entire day and couldn’t wait to get across it and put it behind me.  You can see the “oh s**t” look on my face in the pictures.  That’s pretty much exactly what I was thinking. It hurt like a mother crawling over the rocks and I have the bruises and scratches to prove it.

Crossing that finish line was one of the most satisfying moments I’ve experienced in a long time.  My hard work training certainly paid off and I couldn’t imagine having done this at my previous weight.  Although I was sore and a bit bruised and scratched up afterwards, it was completely worth it. 

The scratches will heal.  The bruises will fade.  My muscles will loosen.  But the experience will stay with me forever.

I can’t wait until next year.  Aroooo!!!!

Race to the Finish

As I had mentioned in an earlier post a few weeks back, I signed up for a couple races in the coming weeks/months.  My first one is in less than 3 days (!!)  This coming weekend I will be running the Reebok Spartan Sprint in Tuxedo, NY.  If you’ve never heard of the Spartan Sprint, it’s a 5K muddy obstacle race.  Think wall climbing, rope climbs and crawling through mud underneath barbed wire.  Why would I want to do this you may be asking?  I’m asking myself that same question this week ;-)  It's going to be an adventure to say the least.  I’m not competing for a particular finish time.  I’m doing the race simply as a personal accomplishment.  I’ll be sure to report back at some point next week with pictures & an update on how it went.

 

Race #2 in September is The Color Run.  This is a 5k race being held in Brooklyn, NY.  It’s similar to other races such as Color me Rad where you get doused in various colors (colored corn starch) as you run the course.  You start off in a clean white t-shirt and finish plastered in color!  It’s more of a fun race than a competitive race so I’m looking forward to it.  I’m running this with a bunch of friends in a team as well.  Not competing for a finish time, but doing it just to have fun and as something different. 

 

I haven’t done a ton of serious training for this coming weekend other than running, my weekly volleyball, some push ups plus a boot camp class that I started taking about a month ago.  But I feel that I’m in good enough shape to get me through the 4 miles.   We’ll see though.  I may have something different to say come next week.  LOL  Wish me luck….I think I need it!
 

Week 20 Results

Pounds Lost this Week:  -3.0 lbs

Pounds Lost to Date:  -30.4 lbs

Not only did I make up for last week’s bad choices, but I finally hit the 30 pound mark!!   I had hovered so close to it at week 18 that I was thinking I was never going to get there after last week’s minor setback.  I put in some major workout time this week between running & a boot camp class I started and I ran my farthest distance to date – 4.14 miles!  I wasn’t planning on running this far, it just kind of happened.  I signed up for a 5k run at work but when I clocked it with my running GPS app, it clocked in at just a little over 4 miles.  It’s possible that my GPS could be slightly off, but my body could tell that it was certainly longer than 5k.  I also improved saw an improvement on my time per mile. 

While it’s great to see the numbers on the scale moving, even if they weren't I can definitely see a change in my body and am seeing more definition and toning coming out.  According to weight watchers, I’m almost to my goal.  And from looking in the mirror I’d have to agree with them.

Here’s this week’s dinner menu (a couple things fell off the menu last week due to some switches so am trying them for this week):

Sunday 5/26:   Nothing fancy.  We BBQ’d on our own.  Veggie burger (no bun) for me and hot dogs for the boys.

Monday 5/27:  Nothing.  Attending a Memorial Day BBQ.

Tuesday 5/28:  Leftovers (going to subway series baseball game)

Wednesday 5/29:  15 Minute Ginger Shrimp Stir Fry with ½ cup brown rice (10 pts+)  

Thursday 5/30:  Taco Thursday! (using ground turkey & whole grain shells 6 pts+) with fat free spicy refried beans (2 pts+)

Friday 5/31:  Spicy Sweet & Sour Chicken with ½ cup brown rice (8 pts+) 

Saturday 6/1:   Nothing.  (Having a girl’s night out)

Week 18 Results

Pounds Lost this Week:  -0.4 lbs
Pounds Lost to Date:  -29.4 lbs

It may not be much this week, but I’ll take it!  Any loss (or even no loss) is considered a win in my book.  I wasn’t exactly the epitome of weight watchers standards this week and followed my points only about 75% of the time.  I allowed myself freebies on Friday, Saturday AND Sunday when I normally only allow myself some freebies on one day of the week.   I did work myself out much harder than I normally do, but maybe that just helped me from having a gain. 

Sunday morning instead of sleeping in for Mother’s Day I decided to give a new workout a try.  One of my fellow preschool moms told me about an outdoor bootcamp that was being taught 5 minutes from my house.  No sign up required and for $15/class you get an hour long butt kicking workout with a gorgeous view of the Hudson River.  Figuring I needed to do something different to mix up my training I decided to give it a try.  Talk about butt kicking!  lol  My arms were so sore all day Monday.  It definitely was just what the dr. ordered but boy was I not expecting to feel that sore afterwards.  Being the glutton for punishment that I am, I’ll be going back for more this weekend ;)

I’m taking this week off from meal planning because our refrigerator died suddenly late last week.  The new one is being delivered later this week but that means we will have to do take out for a majority of the week.  Hopefully that means I’m not reporting back this time next week with a gain but I am going to try and be as good as I can be – and also go back for more butt kicking to burn off the extra calories!! 

p.s. look how pretty our new fridge is!!  I can’t wait for it to arrive and fill it back up with yummy healthy food!!!