Fat Club

In mid August Debbie and I were having lunch at Gathering Together Farm and bemoaning our mutual chubbiness.  We came up with the idea to start a biggest loser club and found a few other like-minded girls to form The Fat Chick Biggest Loser Club, aka Fat Club, Chubb Club, etc.  On Tuesdays we all weigh in, calling out our weight for the room to hear and then we do some sort of activity together.  For the past 4 or 5 weeks we've been going on a run together, either before or after weigh-in.  I've been eating better but really haven't stepped up my workout game much and this was readily apparent last night, at the half-way point weigh in. 

We've been at it for 12 weeks now and Allyson and I have lost ~3 lbs each, Ashley and Candace have both lost ~5 and Debbie is about the same as when we started.  This whole fat club thing is sort of a competition, we all put money into the pot to join and every week we add a dollar for weigh in fees and we pay a dollar for every pound we gain, so the pot's up to about $225 and we've got some weird rules about winning, but needless to say at least one is going to win the pot.  If more than one person wins the pot, they split it evenly.  The pot will probably be around $300 by the time we finish and for monetary reasons and a sense of pride I'd like to be a winner. 

Winning (for me) means working out regularly, eating right and hitting my somewhat ambitious, but still reasonable, goal weight.  Last night I realized I need to step up my game if I want to be a contender.  To that effect, I finally got up early and went to the gym for a weights workout and today at lunch I'll squeeze in a short run with Ashley.  I'm not going to tell any of the other girls I'm doing double workouts so we'll see if I can surprise then with my next few weigh ins!  It's on!!!

Plus, it would be really nice to be in shape when I finally get around to getting pregnant....

Pumpkins!

Last weekend I made this delicious brown butter pumpkin layer cake.  It was a hit and I managed to exert enough control as to only eat two small pieces.  Tomorrow ye olde husband and I are off to the Davis Family Farms for tractor rides, pumpkin patches, fresh donuts and hot cider then it's home to make these pumpkin cookies.  I love fall!  Stay tuned for pictures.

Running

I was running pretty regularly before my return to grad school.  Not surprisingly, running faded away to a distant memory as my indentured servitude school progressed (not unlike visiting family and friends, reading, eating dinner with my husband, etc.).  I started running again a few months ago, once I was free, but the running was painful and ugly.  I ran a 10k in August at the Scandinavian Festival in Junction City and it was not good.  But I've been slowly getting back into shape.  I basically starting all over from scratch.  Then, last weekend I ran in the Great Pumpkin run 10k and it was good!  I felt sluggish and tired for the first two miles, as is usual for me, then warmed up and by mile 4.5 I felt loose and was hitting my stride.  I actually ran the last mile faster than any of the previous miles and I could have kept going!  Riding that high, I did a local trail run that has a tough (for me) mile long hill climb and it wasn't as bad as I remembered, from years past.  In fact, it was so not awful, I'm doing it again tonight. 

My bucket list

For a while now I've been dreaming and planning, coming up with a mental list of things I'd like to do someday.  I'm starting to lose track of things so I'm making a formal list by which to track my journey through life's wonders.

1. Ride in a hot air balloon
2. Travel in Ireland
3. Travel in Italy
4. Visit Paris
5. Visit England
6. Visit Mont Saint-Michel
7.  Take a Caribbean windjammer cruise
8. Visit Sanibel Island
9. Run a marthon
10. Run a sprint triathalon
11. Participate in Cycle Oregon, either weekend or full week trip
12. Fall in love and get married
13. Have a baby
14. Own a pet rabbit
15. Own a pair of goats
16. Go skydiving
17. Go on a helicopter ride
18. See a glacier
19. Buy an SLR and take photography classes
20. Go on a photo safari in Africa
21. Travel first-class on an airplane
22. Take an overnight trip by train
23. Stand on the Great Wall of China
24. Go white water rafting on the Wild and Scenic Rogue River
25. Read War and Peace
26. Own a different copy of Pride and Prejudice for each year of my age
27. Visit the Grand Canyon
28. Visit the Pyramids of Giza
29. Learn how to use my sewing machine
30. Learn to play my piano
31. Read every novel that has won a Pulitzer Prize in the fiction category
32. Own a bookstore
33. Own a beach house
34. Go on a photo safari to Antarctica
35. Visit Thailand
36. Ride an elephant
37. Visit Macchu Picchu
38. Camp in the San Juan Islands
39. Ride on a ferry boat
40. Own a house with a fireplace
41. Own a house with a second story
42. Own a white westhighland terrier
43. Go on a birdwatching tour on the Kenai Peninsula
44. Plant peonies
45. Plant dahlias
46. Learn to arrange flowers
47. Be able to do 10 chin ups in a row
48. Be able to do 50 push ups in a row

That's all I've got so far, but it's a pretty ambitious list.   Quite a few