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Monday, May 30, 2016

Memorial Day

 Today we honor those who have given the greatest sacrifice for our freedom. 
Thank you!
They Did Their Share

On Veteran’s Day we honor
Soldiers who protect our nation.
For their service as our warriors,
They deserve our admiration.

Some of them were drafted;
Some were volunteers;
For some it was just yesterday;
For some it’s been many years;

In the jungle or the desert,
On land or on the sea,
They did whatever was assigned
To produce a victory.

Some came back; some didn’t.
They defended us everywhere.
Some saw combat; some rode a desk;
All of them did their share.

No matter what the duty,
For low pay and little glory,
These soldiers gave up normal lives,
For duties mundane and gory.

Let every veteran be honored;
Don’t let politics get in the way.
Without them, freedom would have died;
What they did, we can’t repay.

We owe so much to them,
Who kept us safe from terror,
So when we see a uniform,
Let’s say “thank you” to every wearer.
By Joanna Fuchs 

Saturday, May 21, 2016

Weight Loss Journey Week 10

This is my last week of the SparkPeople X-Weight Challenge!!! 

I lost 4 pounds last week! Woo HOO!

I was the biggest loser again this week - overall and for my team!

Week 7 results for X-Weight Challenge:

OVERALL WEEKLY RESULTS 
8.3 pounds Weight Loss 
13,385 Cardio Minutes 
3831 Strength Training Minutes 

OVERALL TOTALS TO DATE 
199.6 pounds Weight Loss 
103,847 Cardio Minutes 
26,992 Strength Training Minutes 

BIGGEST LOSERS 
4.0 - THINK2BFIT (Sondra)
2.0 - DTHOR, B0BBIE & 1TIREDWALKER 

Here is how my team did!

2ND PLACE - Cruisin' For Losin' 

-0.08% Weight Loss 
2.8 Pounds Lost 
59.0 Total Pounds Lost to Date 
14 Members reporting in 
5 Losers 
-1.74% Total Starting Weight Lost to Date 
Biggest Loser 4.0 - THINK2BFIT 
ATC 1299 

2 Weekly Place 4,566 Weekly Minutes Cardio 
3 Overall Place 33,053 Accum Cardio Minutes to Date 

3 Weekly Place 901 Weekly Minutes ST 
3 Overall Place 7585 Accum ST Minutes to Date 

3 Weekly Place 1299 ATC points 
3 Overall Place 4249 ATC points to Date 

Here was my nutrition this past week - I'm still staying in my calorie range.
In preparation to exiting the X-Weighted Challenge this week, I've joined another walking team called VirtualWalking4Fun team. On this team we go for a virtual walk on a trail. I'll put in the distance I've walked daily and it will move me along the trail giving me pictures of what I'd see if I were really there. 

I'm virtually walking the Pacific Crest Trail. I wonder how long it will take me to go from Mexico to Canada. 
 Anything to keep me motivated to meet my goals is great. 
I probably mentioned that I joined the 10K Steps A Day Team. Here are my steps for May that I have logged:
May 1: 8095 steps - 3.39 miles 
May 2: 9221 steps - 3.86 miles 
May 3: 9498 steps - 4.04 miles 
May 4: 9412 steps - 3.98 miles 
May 5: 10,924 steps - 4.63 miles (date joined team and challenge) 
May 6: 10,095 steps - 4.27 miles 
May 7: 10,321 steps - 4.39 miles 

May 8: 16,593 steps - 7.07 miles (great day!) 
May 9: 15,587 steps - 6.64 miles 
May 10:15,632 steps - 6.66 miles 
May 11:15,667 steps - 6.67 miles 
May 12:11,814 steps - 5.03 miles 
May 13:11,884 steps - 5.06 miles 
May 14:15,590 steps - 6.64 miles 

May 15: 10,468 steps - 4.46 miles 
May 16: 10,768 steps - 4.58 miles 
May 17: 16,392 steps - 6.98 miles 
May 18: 10,718 steps - 4.56 miles 
May 19: 13,158 steps - 5.60 miles 
May 20: 13,036 steps - 5.55 miles 

These goals make me want to move my body. It's exciting to see how many steps I can do. It also is amazing at how many steps other team members log. Some do 20K - 30K daily - Wow!

The best part of logging my Weight Loss Journey is that it is keeping me motivated. I'm still going strong and am motivated to reach the end of my goal. I'm feeling strong and great! I can do this for the long run.

Monday, May 16, 2016

Weight Loss Journey Week 9

This week I lost an additional 1 pound. 

Slowly but surely the weight will come off. It's not a sprint, it's a journey and it takes time. I'm also choosing to do this in a healthy way.
I ended up popping the blister and wow was there a lot of fluid in it. Now I just need to keep the area clean and hope it doesn't get infected. 

The good thing is that I have joined a team to get 10,000 steps in per day. This has been a huge motivation for me and so far I've met the challenge consistently. If I don't have enough steps in at the end of the day, I either ride my exercise bike or walk more until I've met my 10K steps. It's great motivation.

Here are my nutrition totals for the past week. I don't think I'll continue to post my meal plan unless you want to see it week after week. It's pretty consistent. But, if you want to see it - leave a comment and I'll continue to post my daily meals.
Unfortunately I caused a little drama in my team leadership. As I indicated last week, our team is falling apart and most have quit participating. My leader asked me if I had any ideas on motivating the team. My response wasn't very nice but here it is:
*******************************
I don't have a clue on how to get this team motivated. I don't know if you saw the message I gave to all the inactive members last week. Here is what I posted on their sparkpage: 

"their name", we need you! 

 Team Cruisin’ For Losin”, we need to rally together. We need all 22 of you to join in the discussion page, support each other, and post your numbers. We are half way through the challenge and we all need to be active. Let’s do this! We need everyone on our team to join in the weekly challenges, help us post our numbers. So, If you’ve been absent, we are begging you to rejoin the challenges and conversations. We miss the members of our team that are absent. Please come back and join us. It’s much more fun to do this together. We need you! 

I don't know if you really want to know what I think about this team, but I'll tell you. 

This team has completely broken my spirit. The reason I went into total depression and just didn't care last week was because of this team and the leaders. Sorry if this hurts your feelings. Last Saturday when the Optionals were posted -- I just said forget it and ordered a pizza. I crashed bad because why should I try to succeed on this team when I just can't win. 

When I started on this team I was gung ho. I was so excited and just posted everything I did. Then when it was posted that the "Optionals were not a competition", I thought maybe I am over doing it. I looked at what other people - the winners were doing and trying to emulate them and tried to do better for the team every week. Every week, my motivation got weaker and weaker to post stuff because I felt like I might be hurting people's feelings - that is why I was being shunned. 

I am so mad that no matter how much I work on the challenges, cheer others on and try to stay active on this team I am never recognized on the ATC / Optionals. It wasn't until last week when you caught up on a cheer message of the weekly results. 

However, the Optional winners send me in a rage every week. No matter how I try to improve and succeed on this team I am never a winner. Do you really think that I don't go and compare my results to the winners? 

The same people win every time: 

Wk 1: Hollystormcloud, Bontazzie, Kamee720 
Wk 2: Jiminyc's, Kamee720, Chance04 
Wk 3: Kamee720, Chance04, Hollystormcloud 
Wk 4: Kamee720, Hollystormcloud, JiminyC 

Wk 5: All week it was just me and Chance04 working on the optional challenge. I thought maybe, just maybe I'll be a winner. But, no - at the end of the week (Wed) more team members put their numbers in. And low and behold, I still can't be a winner because "Everyone is a winner". 

I wasn't even going to post my optional page this week until Tuesday because this whole competition is all about being in the inside click - maybe previous team members ... I just truly don't understand. 

Also, one last thing. I have never understood why you and Linda never fill out a form and join in with the challenges. I don't understand this team at all. Why should I be motivated to participate when our leaders don't and when you are not recognized for what you do. 

I decided that I would find other teams to join to get motivation from and thank goodness for me, I found a great team - where I can post and work on the goals for myself and not for a team that no one really participates in except for the clicky winning girls. 

I don't know, but I absolutely hate this team and this challenge. I am doing this journey for me and not the team anymore. I am not a quitter and always measure up to any commitment I make, so I will finish out this challenge. But, I will never join one again. It has completely broken my spirit being on this team. 
************************************
What I found out was that I was posting my score for the optional challenge in the wrong place and even though the form was completely filled out to the max, the leader didn't look at what I did but only where the score was supposed to be logged and didn't question that there wasn't a score posted. 

Basically, even though there have only been 2 -7 people joining in the challenges, the leaders haven't even noticed what we were doing. To me that says a lot about how engaged our leaders have been on the team and why it has fallen apart. I feel really sad that they never noticed that I was filling out the form incorrectly after 6 weeks of participating. They should have caught my error on the 1st or 2nd week and guided me on how a new person to the team wasn't filling out the form correctly. It's very frustrating on my part. I'm also assuming that others have felt the same problem and just quit. 

I also realize that being a leader is volunteer and not a paid position, but if you volunteer, you need to do the job and keep the team motivated. 

I didn't want to cause drama, but after they realized that they had been shunning me, they apologized in front of the whole team causing me total embarrassment. I just wanted to be part of the team and recognized as doing my part.  

Here is what was placed on the team page: "My apologies to Think2BFit...I need to spend a little more time reading all of the posts in the optionals. I honestly did not see the score posted at the top. She has been scoring nearly perfect scores each and every week, and she needs to be acknowledged for her great work!!! Everyone give her a great big cheer!!! She deserves it!!! Woo!!Hoo!!!"

This week when the winners of the optionals came through I was the winner:
Since everyone has finished posting in the optionals, here are the results:
First: Think2BFit
Second: HollyStormCloud
Third: 2 BSXYKitten
Other winners were: Kamee, Chance, CBrinkley.. Everyone is a winner that participates in optionals. Optionals help all of stay focused on the week. Great Job to everyone and keep up the good work!!!

Anyway, I'm better now and have gotten over the embarrassment. I will continue to participate in the next 2 weeks of the challenge and then I won't sign up for another. It's just not been motivating for me - but something that has caused me frustration which leads to food comfort. I'd rather be on a team that motivates me and where I can just compete against myself. 

2 more weeks of the challenge and I'll move on with my journey on my own. I do love SparkPeople and having the tools to track nutrition and fitness for free. I also love the many teams to motivate you. Really, it's a great free program for my weight loss journey. 

I can do this!

Sunday, May 15, 2016

Blister

This lovely BLISTER started last Sunday on Mother's Day when I walked a lot. Unfortunately I ignored the pain and kept walking. Here are my steps this week: 

May 8: 16,593 steps - 7.07 miles (great day!) 
May 9: 15,587 steps - 6.64 miles 
May 10: 15,632 steps - 6.66 miles 
May 11: 15,667 steps - 6.67 miles 
May 12: 11,814 steps - 5.03 miles 
May 13: 11,884 steps - 5.06 miles 
May 14: 15,590 steps - 6.64 miles 

AND the blister has just kept growing. I think I am forced to take some time off and let my poor foot get well. 

I hate having to rest. I'm not sure if I should just go ahead and pop it - as it is getting pretty large. 

Drat! I feel guilty taking a break from my routine! But, I guess it's my body's way of slowing me down. 

Saturday, May 7, 2016

Weight Loss Journey Week 8

Weight loss for week 8 was 0.4 pounds.

From last week through this week I've been dealing with some depression. 
It may be because I've been working some really tough jobs and am totally exhausted. 
Losing weight is hard - and depressing to have to keep doing it over and over again. 
I don't like the extra money I'm spending on diet food.
And like I said last week, I haven't been very motivated on my SparkPeople weight loss challenge because out of 21 people on the team, most are not active on the challenge - which doesn't make it any fun when only a few people are trying to win the challenge against the other teams. 

But, I refuse to wallow and not succeed!
I think I've come to an epiphany to stop dieting. No, that doesn't mean I'm stopping my weight loss journey - it means I'm going to stop eating special food. I need to get back to the way I like to cook and eat. What I'm going to do is limit my portions. I'm going to use a smaller plate, measure everything out and learn what an appropriate portion size is for someone my age. I need this to be a life style change, not a diet where I am going to gain it back again after I lose it. 

It's always easy to be motivated and doing well at the beginning of a diet. I've done really well and have lost quite a bit of weight - lost 25.2 pounds in 8 weeks is great! I just need to make some changes so that I can continue to be successful for the rest of my journey.
I'm back on track and motivated again. I'm not depressed anymore - thank goodness! Life happens and it's always a choice to wallow or pick yourself up and live a happy life with a grateful heart. I am so thankful for the weight I have lost, I have a great life and I know by getting ALL the weight off will make me happier. I can do this!

I am still riding my exercise bike 30 minutes and walking outside for 30 minutes every day. On top of my work schedule - that is a lot of movement my body does all day long. I also am trying to put in more strength training with my hand weights. I wish it were easier for my body to lose weight, but I know it's my age and metabolism that I have to deal with. But, I can lose weight with a lot of energy put into it. I'm thankful that my body is healthy and allows me to be this active. 

My steps per day were:
Sunday: 8095
Monday: 9221
Tuesday: 9498
Wednesday: 9412
Thursday: 10924
Friday: 10035

Nutrition this week:
 Sunday:
 Monday
 Tuesday
 Wednesday
 Thursday
 Friday
 Saturday

Even though I had some tough weeks, I haven't gave up. I'm still moving forward. I know there will be good days and bad days - although I prefer only good day. I'm going to do this! I'm going to succeed.

As an added on note - this came in from our team leader (which confirms my frustration with our team):

I hate to say it but we are currently in 3rd place in all categories, both for the week and overall. We actually had a gain overall of 0.1 pounds this week, which is a first for this team (both of the other teams have recorded gain weeks before).

Overall we are 1200 cardio minutes behind the 2nd place team, 1300 ST minutes behind the 2nd place team, and 200 ATC points behind the 2nd place team. We also would have needed to lose another 7.8 pounds to catch up to the 2nd place team overall in weight loss.

Weight loss winners: CHANCE04, MOLLIEJEAN2, KAMEE720, and KKLIONESS013 all lost over 1 pound

Cardio champions: THINK2BFIT, DAVENPLK, MYSPARKLER, and 2BSXYKITTEN all accumulated over 400 minutes

Strength Training superstars: KAMEE720, THINK2BFIT, MYSPARKLER, and GREBJACK all totaled over 150 minutes.

Thanks for all your efforts. Remember, this is a team effort. We're all working together on this. No one should feel bad if they had an off week. It happens to everyone. Part of being on a team is encouraging others, especially if they are struggling, and cheering when other team members have good weeks. Let's put week 5 behind us, we can't change it, and just focus on the remaining weeks of the challenge.

The Results:
3RD PLACE - Cruisin' For Losin'

0.003% Weight Gain 
0.1 Pounds Gained 
51.9 Total Pounds Lost to Date
14 Members reporting in (out of 21 people)
7 Losers
-1.53% Total Starting Weight Lost to Date
Biggest Loser 2.8 - CHANCE04
ATC 350

3 Weekly Place 4,202 Weekly Minutes Cardio (I did 765 minutes of this number)

3 Weekly Place 1152 Weekly Minutes ST (I did 198 minutes of this number)

3 Weekly Place 350 ATC points
(ATC points are earned from the challenges we do each week.
 I earned 125 of these 350 points - that means the other 20 people only earned a total 225 points - divided by 20 people averages 11.25 points per person. This is so very sad!!)

It's so frustrating to be on a team where your teammates who made a conscience decision to join - have not lived up to their commitment. One more week of this challenge. I'm not sure I want to do it again - especially when 3/4 of the team members refuse to join in. Argh!

Sunday, May 1, 2016

April 2016 Financial Wins

April 2016 Financial Wins!

Blog Advertisement Check was: $135.48
Thanks for clicking on those advertisements!

Swagbucks status:
Started April 2794 or $27.04
Earned in April: 7473 or $74.73

Cashed in: $55.00
April 11: 2200 for discounted $25
April 12: 2500 for $25
April 25 for $5

Ending April with 2273 points or $22.73.

I planned not to do anything on Swagbucks in April to earn points because of this:

This just makes me so angry!
 I already had to up my plan to $80 per month for internet service only. 

I hate that this area only has 2 options for internet service. CableOne who is currently scamming customers who do not subscribe to Cable TV by penalizing them for the amount of data they use to download movies from Netflix and Hulu. They are trying to earn customers back to TV cable service.

The other option for this area is CenturyLink. Unfortunately they only offer 12mb Internet speed. I tried it and it just doesn't work for me - it's too slow. 

So, for now I have to be over charged by CableOne and I am NOT going to pay more for internet service.

I really don't watch TV - I read all the time. I know a lot of the usage comes from Jason living here and from me doing Swagbucks.

I quit watching anything video related on Swagbucks. I am not going to pay more money to earn pennies with Swagbucks.

I did try to earn money from completing surveys - and surprisingly enough I was able to make money from surveys last month. 

I didn't get 3rd notice from CableOne, which means that playing on Swagbucks is using data. 

It looks like the Swagbuck earning potential is going to stop soon. Like I said, I won't pay more money to CableOne to earn pennies from Swagbucks. I'll do what I can and try to complete surveys because I do like to earn free money, but I don't see this being a huge money earner anymore.

Extra Money earned from my Cleaning Business:
I earned an extra $330 this month!

I did a new clean for one of my customers who purchased a new house and did the move out clean on the house rental they moved out of. Earning me $250 more than their regular cleaning price. 

Also my 90 year old customer came back to a bi-weekly cleaning $80. I was able to clean him one time in April - which was extra money I didn't count on in my budget!!

Random Earning $20
KBOI Channel 2 and the Idaho Lottery had a Wheel of Fortune daily game to earn some scratch off tickets on facebook. I solved the puzzle a couple of times and submitted it on facebook. 

On Friday I when I returned home from work I had a phone call from KBOI telling me I won $25 worth of Wheel of Fortune scratch tickets. Quantity 5 - $5 tickets. 

Two scratch tickets won me $10 each and so I ended up winning $20. 
Unexpected but completely fun!
April was a great extra earning month!

Weight Loss Journey Week 7

This week I lost 3. 6 pounds!

Here are the steps I walked this past week:
Sun, April 24: 7320 steps
Mon, April 25: 9867 steps
Tues, April 26: 14054 steps
Wed, April 27: 9280 steps
Thurs, April 28: 10734 steps
Fri, April 29: 9461 steps
Sat, April 30: 7166 steps

I had to do a mental shake down this week. I've been pretty discouraged about my team. The challenge has been going on for 4 weeks and we are half way through the challenge - 4 more weeks. Unfortunately the members of the team are not participating in the challenge anymore. I am so gung ho on meeting every aspect of the challenge and it's sad to be one of the few of our 22 team members who are active. In fact on the optional point earning challenge this week, it's only me and 1 other team member participating. Very discouraging. 

When we signed up for the challenge - these were to rules:
All members are expected to be ACTIVE - 

1) post points to the Weekly Challenges 
2) post exercise minutes 
3) do Weekly Weigh Ins. 

Please consider this before choosing to join the X-WEIGHTED Challenge and be ready to commit to this Challenge for 8 weeks. 

I had to reevaluate why I'm doing this. I decided that I'm not doing this for my team anymore - but really I'm doing this for me. 
 Even though I lost 3.6 pounds last week, I haven't been doing too well on my goals this week. 
I think a little discouragement about the team made me mad and I just didn't care anymore.

Also, my work week was a lot harder and I became exhausted and stressed. These 2 things combined made me want to reach for comfort food. Also stress shuts my body down.

Wednesday was a long work day with one of my largest house - who had guests staying with them and they had a huge party - so every inch of the house was very dirty and it took extra time to get it all clean.

 Thursday was and extremely hard work day. Here is the rant I had on facebook. I usually try to only post positive stuff and remain positive, but I had to rant. It was a very bad day for me. My rant:

***(I wish I could shake this feeling of annoyance. It's been an extremely difficult week. First a customer needed to change days - which isn't that big of a deal - but did require me to move 3 customers to grant her a change.

Today I was going to do a move out clean 1/2 way and finish it over the weekend before Sunday May 1st. I'm cleaning away and my customer calls and informs me that the landlord wants to finish the walk through today. I move my afternoon customer to tomorrow (2nd time move - as her cleaning day was Wednesday). I work my butt off for 9 hours straight from 8 am - 5 pm. No breaks. Cleaning every drawer, cabinet, closet, baseboard, fridge, stove, windows where their dogs smugged, floors, light fixtures - every thing to make the house look brand new. I'm sure the house wasn't that clean when they moved in. 

At 4 pm the landlord arrives with some staging people and I still have to vacuum the great room and  need to clean the laundry room, bonus room and 1 more bathroom. They want me to leave the floors un-vacuumed and leave. I couldn't do that and leave my customers the tenants at risk of not getting their deposit back and not doing the job they paid me for.

The first thing the landlord and staging people do is go to the areas that I haven't cleaned and plan out what they are going to stage in 1/4 of the house that isn't finished. They leave the 3/4 of the house that IS clean and bug me and get in my way. Pushing me to not do my job - even though they moved the walk through up 3 days - pushing me to work my butt off to meet this unrealistic time line with no notice.

Then as I'm leaving she is in that last bathroom checking it out (by the garage door). Seeing that the grout is still wet from mopping and she is on her knees looking at the floor as they rush me to finish and leave. Like I did something to ruin the floor because some of the grout looks darker because it's a little wet. 

I did a fantastic job cleaning the house and it just makes me crazy that she was acting like such a witch with a capital B! It also brought back flashbacks of being a renter. I'm so thankful that I own my own home.

I wish I could get over this anxiety annoyance. I'm sure I'll have to take a sleeping pill tonight because I am just not settling down. I shouldn't take this stuff so personally - to get my customer their deposit back - which I'm sure they didn't because I believe these people are the kind that pick everything apart so they don't have to pay out the deposit. Oh, the scam and injustice of landlords. ARGH! I really need to settle down. *****

When I got home Thursday my adrenalin was just pumping. I went on my walk and did my exercise bike ride trying to settle down and get tired. It didn't work - but it was a great work out. I also was dehydrated because I didn't stop to go get my cooler from the car and get extra bottles of water.

Friday I was over hungry, exhausted and needed comfort food - although I did stay in my calorie range barely. Saturday I completely went off the wagon. I decided to just have a day off from a diet and just ate what ever I wanted. I paid for it all night Saturday night - with acid reflux from over eating. Serves me right.

 I'm back on track today. This is for me, not my team - but for me. I'm pretty sure I'll have a weight gain this next week. Oh well, it's going to be a long journey to get the weight off and I'm sure there will be hick-ups along the way. The ultimate way to meet my goal is to pick myself up, dust off the guilt and press forward on the journey. 

Here is my nutrition for the week:
 Sunday
 Monday
 Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday - went to Burger King between houses and got a cheese burger. It could have been much worse, and I was proud of myself for just having a cheese burger. 

Also for dinner I had 2 bean burritos. At least I had pre-planned and had low calorie tortillas. I was at the top of my range but at least I was still in range.

Oh, and Jason had a package of Chips Ahoy cookies and I had 9 cookies. So bad, but so yummy. 
Saturday I just went wild. This is not all that I ate, but enough to know that the day was totally out of control. Jason and I decided to have some Papa Murphy pizza's I hate 1/2 a pizza - part for lunch and part for dinner. Yup, it was just one bad diet day. Oh well. I'm not going to worry about it. 
Today is a new day. I'm back on track and determined to get the weight off. 

I'm still on track for my 100 day goal of riding my exercise bike daily. I'm on day 50 of riding it for 30 minutes or more!! Woo Hoo!
In April, I was one of the top leaders for SparkPoints and was the Top leader for Fitness Minutes! Woo Hoo!