The wonders of a walk

A walk doesn't have to be about fitness, or beating a previous time or distance. If doesn't have to be about rushing to get it done. Sometimes it's nice to take your time and enjoy the scenery and that's exactly what I did today.

I got home early and decided it was the perfect time to take Blue and Ozzie to the park after being cooped up all week. I put their leashes on and and off we went, in no hurry to get home. We walked to our beautiful park, Eagle Lake park, which we are so fortunate to have right across the street. We walked the entire length of the park, north to south and back. We stopped to take pictures, even sat down in the grass which Blue and Ozzie loved.

It was a nice way to end the week and I'm so glad we went!

Do we really get to walk the WHOLE park?

So happy to be at the park!

Enjoying a break!

Can we have a treat?!

What a view!

So lucky to live across the street.

Not much of a breeze today, but look at that blue sky.

Yay for walks!

Me and my happy boys!

We love you, mommy!

Aren't I incredible handsome, mommy?

You know you want to give me a treat!

Love my shoes.

Walking buddies, love to be together.

Wrapping up 2011

It's hard to believe there are only a few days left in 2011. I remember when I was little and being so sad the day after Christmas, just thinking about how long it was until next Christmas. Time seemed to pass so quickly back then. Now, it seems like I blink and a month has passed.

2011 was a good year, despite the sadness that enveloped our family the end of 2010. Much of our family remained close as each month passed without my dad. My dad was a true family man, loved having everyone together. When he was in the hospital, we pulled together even more, leaning on each other for suppport. Stronger bonds were formed out of heartache. We celebrated holidays together as a family, an important tradition my dad would want us to keep up.

Ozzie joined our family in April. When I saw his picture on the Humane Society Facebook page, I had to go and visit him. Hubby and I had been discussing adding a second dog, a brother for Blue. When I met him, I knew we had to have him. Someone else had already placed a hold on him but for whatever reason, she could not take him right away and of course their goal is to place the pets in their forever homes as quickly as they can. After taking hubby back with me, and Blue, to meet him, we brought him home. He was very shy the day we brought him home and we were still a little unsure of how he would get along with Blue. He has fit into our home so wonderfully, it seems impossible now to imagine him not being there. He is such a handsome boy, my sweet Ozzie. He longs to be loved and is happy just being by our side. Ozzie and Blue are quite the perfect pair, just like brothers.

Two of my fabulous aunts visited for a week in the summer. Time with them is always a treasure. There is much laughter, Scrabble-playing, and enjoying our time together.

 Hubby and I celebrated our 10th anniversary in October. It doesn't seem possible that we have already been married for 10 years and together for 12. We had a wonderful anniversary dinner. I am so lucky to have my wonderful hubby who loves me so. I love him so very much.

In November, we had our fun trip to California. It was a great time, even with the flying part which I do not like. I fly so rarely that I am just not a good flyer. I hate taking off, literally have to close my eyes and not think about it. It's silly, but it's how it is.

And now Christmas has yet again come and gone, and we are looking ahead to 2012. This Sunday we are having a New Years Day family dinner at my brother and sister-in-law's house. It will be another great family day. I enjoy time spent together, catching up, and time with Autumn and her little laugh that is so contagious. Family, food, and fun - my kind of day.

And the scale says...

I went to WW yesterday, unsure what the scale would say. After being sick and missing the meeting last week, and only walking twice in the past two weeks, I thought it might be up. I was pleasantly surprised to see a 1 lb. loss.

Weight:  154.4 lbs.
Total loss:  11.4 lbs.
I am 0.80 lbs. away from my lowest which was on 06/03/11. I had two gains since then so this loss made me happy. I am still trying to get to my next goal of 16 lbs. total, which will be 10% and almost halfway to my goal of 130 lbs..

I walked this morning at the park with hubby and the dogs. With the heat we've had, I have not been walking the dogs like I used to. But there was actually a cool breeze this morning and I thought it would be a great start to the long weekend. We walked 2.16 miles in 59 minutes - very slow but still a great walk. Blue and Ozzie enjoy getting out as much as I do.

My goals for this coming week are:
- keep up with my 64 oz. of water a day, which I have done very well with
- restock the fridge with fresh fruits for 0 point snacks
- make garden vegetable soup for lunches which is very filling
- walk at least 4 days this week

What are your goals?

Monday randomness

I can't believe I haven't blogged since last Wednesday. Last week was such a blur, so much going on. This week I hope to not be in such a state of constant running and hoping to be able to stick to my more normal routine. I definitely do better with structure.

My Friday morning weigh-in at WW showed a 1.2 lb. gain. I was not happy about it but there is no one to blame but myself. The scale MUST go in the other direction this week and I know that for the most part, that is up to me. Like I said before, structure.

I did not work out at all last week. My only physical activity was when we took the dogs to the park Saturday morning. It was our first time taking Ozzie and we were pleased to see that he loves the park as much as Blue. And they walked great together. He really fits in nicely and it's already hard to imagine him not being here. Anyhow, I DID work out today - did my 36 min. TaeBo Cardio Circuit 1 workout. While doing it, I decided that I need a new plan of attack this week. Still wanting to walk 15 miles a week and do TaeBo twice a week, I am going to split it up. I am going to get my walk in in the morning. Whether outside with the pups, on the treadmill, or Leslie Sansone workouts on ExerciseTV - I wll get my walking in. Then in the afternoons, 3 days a week, I will do TaeBo. This will serve a couple purposes.... One, in the morning it will keep my from going back to sleep on the couch after hubby leaves. Ironically, I think this may be making me more tired. And two, it will let me spend more time with the pups in the afternoon and time to do other things that need to be done. Tomorrow will be day 1 of walking in the morning.

I have a new obsession - the Kindle app. Hubby recently got an iPad and in my playing around with it, I decided to give the Kindle app a try again. I used it once on my iPhone and while it was neat, it was just much too small for me. Too small to read on a regular basis. I also love books - real ones. Something about the hardcover and the feel and smell of the paper. And how they look so neat on our fabulous IKEA bookshelf. But a book that I've been wanting happened to show up as a FREE download. I love the word FREE. The download was super quick. And I immediately started reading it. Much of my day yesterday was spent on the couch reading Fixing Freddie, a book about a woman and her son and a dog. No shocker that I love books about dogs. Anyone who has the Kindle, I highly recommend that you go on Facebook and "like" the Pixel of Ink page. They have alerts every day for free or discounted e-books. Just what I need, another addiction.... Now if only my hubby would get home with the iPad so I can get back to my book.

Welcome Ozzie!!

Okay, so I admit, my hubby has been more about getting a brother or sister for Blue then I have. I wasn't totally sold on the idea. We looked at potentials online and it was definitely cute imagining what it would be like to have 2 dogs.

On Wednesday, the Humane Society of Pinellas County posted a picture of a 5 year old Mini Aussie named Ozzie. He was so cute!! I showed my hubby and he thought so too. Then yesterday, they posted a video of Ozzie. Oh goodness... They know what they are doing when they post videos. I mentioned to hubby I was resisting the urge to go meet Ozzie, he said he'd check out the video. Within an hour, my mom and I were at the Human Society to meet Ozzie, He had a temporary hold until 2, someone was bringing their dog back to meet him. For whatever reason, it did not work out for them, so I put a hold on Ozzie myself, so that I could go back with hubby and Blue to meet him. Blue and Ozzie pretty much ignored each other in the pen there when we returned in the afternoon. Blue was excited to be somewhere new, with dog toys all over the place and all kinds of new scents. And Ozzie was distracted by all the people there. We had a choice to bring him home or think about it overnight. We brought him home.

I was wondering how Ozzie would handle the car ride. I know that Blue LOVES to ride in the car. He is always going places with us. Ozzie answered my question immediately by jumping right in the car. He does the same thing Blue does - he sits up and looks out the window when the car stops and lays down when it's moving.

When we got home, we took them both right out back to run around the yard. Ozzie reminds me of a little bear. He is pudgy and doesn't do much running, but he loves it outside.

They did well throughout the evening. A couple times Ozzie gave Blue a little warning snap when Blue was being his obnoxious puppy-self but other than that it was all good. At one point, we were all laying up on the couch. Good thing we have a big sectional!

For Ozzie's first night in his new home, we decided to put Blue's crate in the kitchen and leave the door open. We closed off the kitchen so Ozzie had the run of the kitchen and could go in and out of the crate as he wanted. We didn't hear one peep out of him all night (even during the thunderstorm during which I was a little concerned he'd be scared). Blue slept in bed with us as he is accustomed to after many months of being King Snuggleboy of the house. Blue woke me up to go out at his usual 5:15am and we went to get Ozzie. Ozzie didn't make any messes in the kitchen overnight. I took them both out, they both did their business, and then back inside to play.

It hasn't even been 24 hours yet but Ozzie seems very at home here. Blue is handling it very well. If anything, I think Blue wants to play more than Ozzie and Ozzie just wants to be content for the time being and lay around and sleep. I imagine he has some sleep to catch up on.

My favorite moment was this morning when Blue was in his usual spot on the sofa looking out the front window and he barked at a squirrel. Ozzie jumped right up next to him and looked out with him - they were side by side, their cute little Aussie butts wiggling. I think they are going to make great brothers!

Just Do It!

I left work feeling like my brain was fried, literally. Huge project I've been working on the past 2 days has literally depleted all the brain cells I had left. As I'm driving home, I'm thinking how I don't want to walk, I want to just lay on the couch and watch TV. I was trying to think of every excuse not to walk. I called my hubby and told him I was headed home and that I was going for a walk. I figured that was halfway to actually doing it - if I told him I was walking, I had to do it.

Got home and looked at the couch for a minute and really contemplated laying on it and not getting up for a few hours. But alas, I did not. I could not ignore Blue barking, expecting to go on our daily afternoon walk, or the fact that I NEEDED to walk.

So I changed my clothes and off we went. It was hot and humid and I was not totally into it, but the farther I walked, the better I felt. Each step I took made me happier that I did not listen to my inner evil voice and lay on the couch.

I will remember this the next time I don't want to walk and I'll tell myself JUST DO IT! And there will be no excuse because I know I can.

I *heart* Walking

It's no secret that I've been walking alot lately. ALOT. I set a goal of 100 miles for the month of March. I am getting close and WILL meet that goal. I have only missed 2 days this month. That's 20 days of walking out of 22 days, to date. That's a lot of walking.

Doing this much walking makes me wonder why I got off track (no pun intended) and stopped walking. Life started to get in the way and I made excuses that I was too busy, had too much going on, and on and on. But I NEED to walk. It is literally like therapy. When I am walking, all the stress I carry on my shoulders the rest of the day isn't there. I'm not thinking about all the stuff I need to do or work stuff or any of that. I am just focused on that time that I am making for myself and truly enjoying it. And bonus, it's good for me physically, too.

I take Blue with me - he LOVES it. Being a high-energy dog, he needs it. The minute I get home, he is so excited because he knows we're heading out that door. It's great bonding time with him - he is so loyal. He is ready to walk whenever I want and will walk as far as I want. And for that I am thankful because it is Blue that got me out the door and walking again. Thank you, little buddy.

Little Boy Blue

Anyone who knows me, knows about Blue. He is so darn cute, I just have to talk about him and post pictures of him. Fun facts about Blue:

• Blue is a Red Merle Miniature Australian Shepherd.
• Blue's birthday is Jan. 15, 2010.
• We named him Blue because he has one blue eye.
• Nicknames include Little Boy Blue, Snuggle Boy, Blucifer, Mr. Saucy Pants, and Buddy - all can be used in one day depending on what kind of trouble he's getting into or if he's being a little lover.
• He weighs approx. 27 pounds.
• He is HIGH energy and loves to run and play.
• He loves to go for car rides.
• He is my walking buddy - he will walk and walk with me, mile after mile. He also loves to run, but that needs practice.
• He has a baby face when he's tired. His ears go back and he just looks so sweet and innocent.
• Around 8:30 everynight, he gets tired and will lay on the the sofa and fall asleep. This is when he turns into Snuggle Boy.
• He likes to sleep on the pillow above my head at night. Mike says it looks like I'm wearing a hat.
• Blue loves to go to Starbucks. They give him treats there.
• I love how it looks like he's laughing and smiling when he's super happy.
• He loves to learn new - he craves it, in fact. Teach him something new and he'll pick it up super fast.
• He loves to go to the park and he loves to play with other dogs.
• He is my little boy and he is incredibly spoiled. He is our only child.

I could probably go on and on... Here are 2 pictures I took today...

How lucky are we?

We have a beautiful park right up the street - Eagle Lake Park. It's been open almost a year now and I can't tell you how many times I've been there with Blue, my little walking buddy. There are all these little lakes and trails and I could spend hours there. Today I walked from our house to the south end of the park and back - total of 3.45 miles. We were stopped several times by people who just had to ooh and ahh over Blue. He is such a little ham and eats up all the attention he gets. I am trying to get back into running and I know he will make a great running companion. He is easily distracted at times, but I think with some practice he will run right along side of me and we'll both get the exercise we need. One thing for sure, we have the prettiest park to walk at, right here...