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Lola Loves to be Cozy and Warm!

Lola is that a cigar?

Look at that wagging tail!

Lola Hard at Work

Lola is Ready for Her Close-Up

It's been forever, but I've been busy

Okay, so this blog has gone completely ignored for the last year. Well, can you blame me? This year has been one of tremendous change! I met my sweetie in July 2008, we got engaged on Christmas 2008, married on 5/23/09, and moved into our new house!! Whew! Then, I decided that being in love is grand, but the extra pounds I had packed on during our courtship had to go! I joined Weight Watchers on June 2, 2009 and I am happy to say that as of November 25, I am officially 30 lbs lighter!! Yahoo!!

Why 30lbs? Good question!! My dearest hubby, tired of me complaining about my chubbiness-- asked me "Well babe, how much do you want to lose?" I replied, "It would be great to lose 30 lbs and be back to how much I weighed when I moved here." To which he said,"Lose the weight and I will quit smoking." Now, my hubby does not care at all about the number on the scale or whether I lost weight at all, but knew I detested his habit and also loved a challenge! Well, our wager gave me the motivation and inspiration to see this weight loss journey through! It has been tough, but well worth it! I now feel much healthier and happier!

Now the tough part starts where I actually have to keep the weight off! Hopefully, I've learned enough along the way to keep up the good habits! I would definitely recommend WW has a weight loss tool. I had tried numerous "diets" before, but this one finally stuck. Perhaps, it was just that I was ready?

Something that helped me considerably during my journey was the message boards on WW for both camaraderie and accountability. I started to exercise in July (about a month after I started WW). I began by walking and then wanted to up the ante. I found a message board that followed the "Couch to 5k" Running Program that can be found on: http://www.coolrunning.com/

It is a 9 week program that takes you from the couch to running a continuous 30 minutes. I completed the program in September and ran in the Iron Girl 5k. I feel that I can now call myself a "runner" as I generally try to run 2-3 times per week for 2-3 miles each time. I also added exercise videos, the Nintendo Wii Fit, stationary bike, and pilates to my regimen. I don't belong to a gym, but need some variety to keep me from getting bored.

So, there "in a nutshell" is some of the highlights of 2009. I hope to update this blog more often!

dad and stella

Here is my sister's baby, Stella doing the "chaka brah"-- she's already a cool cat.

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

Wild Kitties in My Yard

Here is "grey and white" kitty and "black and white" kitty. They are living in my yard. We've been feeding them and they are becoming more tame. Unfortunately, one bit my finger on Friday night, ouchie!! Now I have to antibiotics to ward off an infection, blech!

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

Friday Night

Ladies Night Out! Chris, Leisa, Laurel, Noelle, and I enjoyed the sites and sounds of Burien. We went to Vino Bello, 909, and Mick Kelly's. Burien is really coming up in the world!

Check out where Noelle works, pretty cool: http://www.bigfishgames.com/

Trip to the Pet Store

Leisa and I went to A Place for Pets yesterday and I got to visit again with the cutie-pie Cairn, she is such a doll! She loves to play :-)

Take Me to Your Leader- Alien Pugs Invade!

Mom's Pugs, from left to right: Molly, Lucy, and Cassie.

Happy New Year!!

Are you making a New Year's Resolution? I don't know if mine is a resolution, but at least it is a goal: to wake up and get in to work earlier! I have a hard time waking up with the lack of sun here in Seattle, so to try and combat the morning darkness I am using a "sunrise simulator." I just purchased a low-tech one called "Lighten Up" it is pretty cool! Basically it takes your own lamp and over a 30-minute time period gradually illuminates the room to simulate a sunrise. That is supposed to help set your internal body clock. I chose to check this one out first since it was only $30, the other clocks you could purchase were ~$150!! Yikes! Here's hoping this works for me!

Some good reasons to wake up earlier I found on the blog, "How to Wake Up Early" :

Here is 9 most practical reasons for you to wake up early and things to do.

1. Work on yourself
Early morning is an excellent time for personal development. How many times you complained you don't have time to read that self-improvement book, learn new language or try new idea? Get up early and work on it in the morning! Quiet morning time is a god sent gift which you should use for growing yourself - professionally, emotionally, phisically, mentally and spiritually. Use this time to "sharpen the saw".
2. Exercise your body
Do I really need to comment on this reason? Body is the only thing you have in your control in this universe. So exercise at home, go jogging or go to gym (they open early), practice yoga training... The earlier you wake up, the more calories you can burn over the day and the better you will feel.
3. Get ready for big stuff
Clean up small stuff to take it from your way to big things you plan to do during the day. Jump on that bunch of emails sitting in your inbox so it doesn't drag your attention later in the day. Do those tasks you keep procrastinating on, and put a plan in advance of what and when you are going to do on this day.
4. Increase your productivity
If you start early, you make your day longer, you can do much more in one day than you usually do. Got a lot of work pressing on you? Wake up earlier, jump to work, you may be done by the afternoon...
5. Use morning time for thinking

Jim Citrin wrote: "The quiet of the morning is often the time when your mind is at its clearest and most well-suited to solving important problems". Read his article Tapping the Power of Your Morning Routine to get more insight on how valuable morning time can be. In the same article Jim reports that 80% of executives he questioned wake up at 5:30am or earlier. I believe it's what made them executives, though I know few occasions when it worked in the opposite way.
6. Go with the nature
The nature wakes up every day when the sun goes up. So should you because your body is a part of the nature! Of course it depends at what time sun goes up in your area (in some areas, it doesn't go down for half a year :-), but you have got the idea... You can double the effect if you go out and spend some morning time with nature surrounding you.
7. Medidate
Meditation induces well-being and emotional balance. If you start your day with meditation you will carry that balance through the day, improving your life. Morning is a better time for meditation because you are fresh, your brain is relaxed and mind is much sharper. The article at PickTheBrain is a good source of information on why you should meditate and how to get started.
8. Beat the traffic
If you spend too much time commuting to and from work every day, you can actually save time if you wake up and drive to work earlier. Even if you work fixed hours, by arriving to work earlier you can spend the extra time you've got on things listed above - reading, exercising, planning, and so on. It's free time for you, which otherwise you would waste in traffic jams.

9. Do something for others
We all love surprises and you can spend this morning time preparing surprises for other people or just doing something for them. Try to live this extra morning hour for others, not for yourself. Remember, what is given freely with the best of intentions will return in abundance to the giver.

Lunch

Today I ate lunch at La Costa in Burien, delicioso!! I had fajita quesadillas with steak and camarones aquachile. Camarones are shrimp (in Spanish) and I first had this dish at Marsicos Mazatlan in Cabo San Lucas, BCS, Mexico, which by the way is a pretty good restaurant. Here is a description:

Aguachile -- an ancient dish that originated in Sinaloa -- contains onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, serrano chiles, and cilantro bobbing around in the briny shrimp stock with a dozen peeled shrimp.

It is basically like a shrimp cocktail-ceviche, but be careful, the chile sauce can be muy picoso (very spicy)!!!