Feb 26, 2011

Jillian Michaels: Sadist for Hire

I really think that could be her resume. Her entire resume. Level 1 has been boring me and I've been getting tired of it. So I watch Level 2 and think "yeah, if I use light weights I can do that!"

hahahaha. Level 2 should be subtitled Death via Planks. I'm panting and dripping sweat. Which is just sad really. I should be able to do this for 25 mins! It is getting easier, but not that easy. I have decided to just enjoy Level 1 for my remaining 2-3 days.

Feb 25, 2011

Slacker

this has been me this week. A slacking eating machine.

I have reasons. Good reasons. But meh. I had a nasty infected tooth that got up into my maxillary sinus. How lucky am I to have a husband who can name my sinuses? And then tell me stories of CTs he has read that were sinus infections that infiltrated the brain. INFILTRATED THE BRAIN. THANKS SO MUCH, HONEY. SUPER HELPFUL. And when I get grumpy and sick, I think I should eat everything.

So I have been pretty low key in terms of running/shredding. Yesterday I did bowl, so I'm counting that as strength training. Until yesterday, every step I took jostled my head and made my face and teeth throb. I'm back to 30DS today. I have to say, I'm pretty bored of Level 1. I'm thinking of trying Level 2 soon. So far I have done it 7 times in 10 days which isn't too bad. I knew there was no chance of me doing it 30 days in a row. Above all I have to worry about my back and knees, so there are days I just can't do it. (like after bowling, omg, huge mistake. leaning over throwing 10 lbs balls. always a smart choice for people with lower back problems. ow.) But I'm trucking along b/c I put it out there. I know all 10 of y'all are just dying to see my results!

Feb 23, 2011

Wrong!

I think I have the opposite of body dysmorphic disorder (from wiki: a psychological disorder in which the affected person is excessively concerned about and preoccupied by a perceived defect in his or her physical features/body image.) If I work out a few times or lose a couple pounds, I start thinking I'm a fitness model with a 6 pack. And then I look in the mirror and am so confused and disappointed! I guess this is a better problem to have than horrible self-image.

Feb 22, 2011

Blog change

It is almost SPRING here. Well, I'm pretending that it won't be cold ever again and this is Spring for real and forever. Which, shockingly, makes me want to spring clean. I, um, never ever want to clean so this is big news. It also makes me totally want to redecorate my house. And M is going out of town for a month. So I'm going to go crazy on the house while he is gone. shh, he doesn't know. I want to paint everything and change EVERYTHING. Painting is like cardio, right? ; ) You guys, all 10 of you reading, may be subjected to my house thoughts and pictures! 

Long winded talking about myself

Good afternoon, kids!

Here are some random thoughts and pictures. Likely in no rational or logical order.

Lets start with dog pictures because you know they are cuter than I am.

This is Mabel (or MayBelle as my husband likes to call her. It is catching on, and now I say it with my ridiculous southern accent.) We have a big couch and then a big love seat. The love seat is where everyone sleeps. I have so many pictures of M and the dogs sleeping in crazy positions on this couch. I call it the napping couch. All living things are knocked out within minutes.




This is Bean. My dogs need haircuts badly. This is why it can be difficult to stretch or do 30DS with dogs. They think if I'm sitting on the floor than I must want to play. I can't tell you how many times they have dive bombed me from the ottoman to my belly as I got down to do crunches. They are tiny, but it still hurts! They are both silly and insane and I love them a ridiculous amount.




So yesterday was beautiful, so I decided to haul it around outside. I'm really kind of fascinated and confused as to why running outside is SO MUCH HARDER than the treadmill. I am not a good runner. But, I can't stand to walk on the tm so I try to run on it. I'm getting better at running on the tm and can actually run for a decent amount of time continuously (for me, that is. I'm sure others would laugh b/c it isn't good at all!) Outside, however, I feel immediately like I'm dying. My form feels spazzy, my legs barely work, my knees hurt, and I'm gasping for breath. I need a new word for outside running. At first I thought of slogging-sloooow jogging. But that doesn't really convey how slow I'm going or how difficult it appears to others or how lethargic and slothful I feel. So then I came up with slothing. But that just sounds like me slothing around the house (i.e. the other 23 hrs of the day.) Finally I decided on slogothing. Which doesn't seem as awesome when written. It makes sense when you are talking to yourself in your head while trudging around. Slow+jog+sloth+ing. Slogothing. (slogathing? slogithing? I don't know.)

But it was beautiful and there were many puppies in the park. About a mile from me there is a little community park with a soccer field and a track. It is pretty rundown and sketchy. But, it is close to a main street and there are usually people around during the day. I live in a...transitional neighborhood, let's say. I don't like to walk around by myself. Two women were attacked while running alone over the hill from me in the safest, and by far the richest area of the town. Both were running alone early in the morning and were attacked by the same person. I won't go into the specifics, but they are pretty horrifying. So I try to stay around other people, even though I'm embarrassed to have people see me slogothing. Plus, it is paved, not in danger from traffic (a local runner was struck and killed a few weeks ago while training for our marathon), and relatively flat. Of course, that means it is kind of a boring little run.

I used my new Runkeeper app from Android and it worked well! Told me how far and how fast I'd gone even with me just going in a circle. Yay for free stuff!

My little park. There are some adorable little kid soccer and teeny football games they play in the middle. Mostly people just let their dogs run around in it. Watching the dogs is the best part about going to the park.








You can see the main road on the top/left part. I figure no one can steal me away if I'm close to a main road. I wear headphones, but I'm still watchful. Plus, and I think this is probably from like an epi of Oprah from 1997, but I always look people in the eye and say hello as I see them. My thinking is "yeah buddy, I see you. I'm memorizing your face to tell the cops later. And I'm not shy or scared of you. I am totally badass. Please ignore the copious sweating, red face, and obvious exhaustion from the slogothing. I could still totally take you. In like an hour or so, if I can sit down for a bit. Be afraid."


See what I mean? Attractive! I am not one of those people that exercises and looks great. I sweat. My face gets bright red. I immediately need a shower. There isn't a possibility of me running and then going on about my day without a shower.


(I should cut the bench out. I was done for the day! No sitting for me!)










AND THEN I CAME HOME AND DID 30 DAY EVIL. AM SO HARD CORE AND FIT. BE IMPRESSED PEOPLE. IT SUCKED, I CAN'T EVEN PRETEND.
I have more stories to tell, but I've been typing forever and this thing is kind of ridiculously long. I will be impressed if anyone reads the whole thing.

So help a girl out! How can I get better at outside running? Just practice and pushing myself? C25K? work on the treadmill hard and hope it translates to outside? I am not a natural runner (obviously) so I will take any advice!

Also: slogothing? -athing? -ithing? Which makes more sense...if any?

Feb 21, 2011

No.

An open letter to Jillian Michaels

Dear Jillian,

I will never ever ever do jumping lunges. Ever. You are clearly just mean. Why would you do that to us? What have we ever done to deserve this?

Sincerely,
Someone who values her knees

(I kind of watched/fast forwarded through Level 2 and 3 just to see. I may never do level 3. I think I can do most of Level 2. I'm bored of 1. And jumping jacks seriously annoy me. I just pick some kind of jumping activity. I prefer to shake my ass back and forth. Also, I really don't see how I'm ever going to do even modified pushups.)

Feb 20, 2011

30 Day Shred. A daily timeline.

10am-wake up. nah, go back to sleep.
11am-wake up. Actually get up. Eat breakfast.
12pm-Think "oh crap. I have to do 30 Days of Evil. Again."
12:05pm-More TV.
1pm-Yep. Still have to do it. Oh, hey! TV.
2pm-Ok. Really going to do it! This is it!
2:05pm-TV
3pm-This is happening. I put on my exercise clothes. Which are very different from my pajamas.
4pm-You should really do this before the entire day is over. Hey, a Friends rerun!
4:30pm-I should stretch or something. That takes a very long time.
5pm-Sigh. Let's do this. Just get it over with.
5:05-I really hate jumping jacks. More than is rational. It is just jumping. But they annoy me.
5:10-Lunges are of the devil.
5:20-Oh hey! We are almost done. I'm barely warmed up!
5:30-Yay! done! Yay me. That was so easy and short. I don't know why I dreaded it all day. I am going to go run on the treadmill!
5:40-Oh look, a Friends rerun.

And that is how it is done, folks-5 hours dreading approximately 25 mins of activity. Good plan!
    

Feb 17, 2011

Alright kids!

I'm doing it. I'm going to commit to doing 30 days of 30 Day Shred. I definitely need some strength training in my life...if you can call little 5 lb weights strength training! Or the fact that I can do like 8 modified pushups where I maybe move 4 inches. I'm pretty sure that is how Jillian does them.

Today was my first day. Well, I guess I did it last weekend but I'm not counting that. I think I'm still going to get some walking hard core running on the tm/outside just because I enjoy it. And, let's be honest here, I need to burn some extra calories!

I think after 30DS I'm going to do a month of boot camp. Which I'm sure is going to kick my ass, badly. I did get a sweet Groupon deal, so at least I'm not hemorrhaging money in return for someone causing me physical and emotional pain. Hopefully Jillian + running will be a nice base so I don't embarass myself too badly in front of other people. At least Jillian's abuse is in the comfort of my own home!

Feb 15, 2011

dang. Running outside versus the treadmill...kicked my ass. I felt like a giant spaz. At least it was a beautiful day! Got some vitamin D : ) My D is tragically low. I now supplement it like crazy.

Just realized, uh, yesterday my husband is about to have to go to DC for a month. Boo on that.

Feb 13, 2011

Mistake

So I wasn't too sore before the run...not the case now. Ouchie. My legs no longer bend at the knee.

Please be true

According to the Weather Channel, it is supposed to be 68 and sunny tomorrow! Please, please, please. I may take my little dog and pony show outside to run! Even though I run at an incline on the treadmill, I know that it isn't the same as running outside. I feel like maybe each mile on the treadmill is equal to about 1/4-1/3 of a mile outside.

Sore after 30 Days of Evil today, but not too bad. Mostly shoulders and inner thighs. I'm going to do a quickie inside run just to loosen up if my husband ever gets off his computer. Not really looking forward to that!

So I posted yesterday about doing the 30 DS here and elsewhere-it seems I made it sound like I was actually doing all 30 days. Which was not my intention! Funny thing I noticed-I had googled 30DS to get an image and some of the suggestions were 30DS results, before and after, etc. I took a look at the pictures of the results and looked at a few blogs. What I found FAR more in those results?? Before pictures. No afters. Seems most people get gung ho and put their before pics out there and talk it up...and then, um, stop. No surprise, it is pretty evil. I just thought that was funny. Let me tell you, I will never be putting up pics of me in my sports bra unless there is a super ripped after version of me (i.e. never.) But, I have to admit it made me curious. I think I might do an actual 30 days. Well, probably more like 20-25 days. Does anyone want to commit to doing a full month with me? I know Megan has been doing it pretty regularly already. I still want to run though, so I don't know how that all fits together. I'm sure I will figure out something!

Feb 12, 2011

30 Day Shred

AKA Jillian Michaels is Satan's Mistress. I'm just saying. She's pure evil, let's be honest here.

After my two last terrible runs where my back was killing me and I had side stitches from Hell (um, I guess everything bad is coming from Hell today. Stitches, Jillian, etc.) I decided to just do a workout dvd and call it a day. I've done 30DS many times...but super sporadically. Like, oh, once every 3 months or so. But, I know I need some actual strength training in my life so I'm trying.

My problem with the 30DS is my horrible, terrible, crazy weak knees. My knees are held together by some ground down cartilage and a prayer. Of all my many maladies, the knees were the first to go. In 4th grade. I'm not even kidding. So I have extreme joint laxity all over which means parts of me just dislocate at random. My kneecaps started dislocating in the 4th grade. That is literally all I can type about it b/c it is so traumatic and I have a sick, visceral reaction when I even think about it. So short story-knees pop out. It is terrible. Has been happening since I was a kid. Last happened the night I drunkenly stumbled met my husband at a college party. So I'm a terrible lunge-er. One-I have terrible balance and am klutzy. Two-ow, ow, ow my knees are dying. Three-how can I try to keep my balance while lunging and do something with my arms. Jillian, you are high.

But I did it, dammit. Well, a kind of wussy version. I can't do push-ups! I have the upper body strength of a 5 year old...actually that is probably generous, kids can be crazy strong. I mostly just hobbled through it. I think next time I might turn sadistic trollop Jillian down and listen to music. Maybe that would help!

I did inadvertently discover that there are some exercise options from Instant Netflix. They are from like 1997, but I may give them a go at some point.

Feb 10, 2011

Diet Soda and Heart Attack/Stroke Risk

So, one of my initial plans when starting this blog was to talk about nutrition topics in the news and various research that has come out. Instead, it has been mostly random rambling b/c that is who I am. In an effort to be more educational and helpful, today we are going to talk research. Specifically this new study that has come out linking diet soda and stroke risk.

Let me preface this with I LOVE DIET COKE. A lot. I don't even pretend. I know it isn't good for me. I don't care. I need it to live.

I've seen several articles and posts mentioning this study. I feel the media tends to take research and make sweeping statements as to why we're all going to die immediately. They like to jump on "study results" and go nuts. There is much, much less information about the study methods, results, and actual statistics. When I went to grad school I thought I would be learning *more* about nutrition, since that is my field. Nope! It is all research. How to analyze, perform, and interpret whatever research is happening in your area. Y'all, I hate hate doing research. I don't mind doing a nice lit review or meta-analysis, but I would rather be punched in the throat than have to design and actually do my own study. The moral of this story is: grad school wants to teach you how to be a good consumer and interpreter of data. It is your job as the expert in whatever field to look at the actual study/stats/methods and turn it into easily understandable, meaningful information for your target audience.

The number one rule of interpreting results is Correlation does not imply causation. It is very, very difficult to prove that one variable causes anything. 

So let's talk about this study, shall we? To be fair, I can't access the full actual paper yet since it is from a meeting and hasn't been published yet. Interestingly, there is exactly 1 result when "diet soda stroke" is searched for in PubMed (and it has to do with epilepsy.) So there obviously aren't tons of studies out there on that subject. Researchers at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine found that in a group of 2500 participants, daily diet soda drinkers had a 61% greater risk for stroke/heart disease than drinkers of regular soda.

First the good stuff: 
-It is longitudinal. It took place over 9 years which yields much more information.
-It has a large-ish sample size-2500 participants.
-It identifies soda vs diet soda drinkers, not soda vs non-soda drinkers. (Also, it is very hard for my extremely southern self to call it soda. Everyone knows Coke=any soda.)
-Sample was diverse. 
-Researchers did control for age, history of stroke/heart disease. 

Now, here are some criticisms

-Yes, the study had 2500 participants. Of those, 900 participants claimed to drink no diet soda. Only 160 (8%) said they had diet soda everyday. Results found in 160 participants aren't necessarily applicable to the general population.

 -They gave a food intake questionnaire (and I've spent literally months in epi discussing the efficacy of each possible intake tool. not sure which one they used or it's validity.) at the beginning of the study and then never followed up. They just assumed intake remained the same over a decade.

-The study used self-report to identify intake. Self report is just a bad idea in nutrition research. People vastly overestimate the good and underestimate the bad stuff. Or they lie, b/c they think it is what you want to hear or they are embarrassed. 

--It is hard to tease out and quantify, but there is a segment of the population that eats terribly and drinks diet coke. Diet coke is associated (meaning it doesn't cause) obesity, in some part due to the fact that those who are overweight can be trying to cut calories by drinking diet. There is discussion on how insulin responds to artificial sweeteners and whether or not that can be linked to insulin resistance/ diabetes.


-They didn't look at sodium intake which is a known risk factor for vascular problems.  

-They did not look at weight/obesity over time. Which again, is a known risk factor for heart disease/CVA.

--But here is the key: THEY DID NOT CONTROL FOR OR ANALYZE THE DIETS OF THE PARTICIPANTS. So the participants might be drinking 1 Diet Coke with the 3 Big Macs, supersized fries, and apple pie daily. We don't know. -



Studies like this make headlines because the results are sensationalized. The media makes it sound like "If you are totally healthy, run 5 miles per day, are vegan, and a healthy weight...but drink 1 diet coke/day you are 60% more likely to have vascular complications." Which is just not possible to say based on these results. Again, this is the first study to link diet soda and vascular disease. If there is a link, it will be be able to be duplicated in studies that come after.

The biggest problem with nutrition research is that it is so difficult to isolate effects. Disease risk is multi-faceted, and sometimes we just don't understand it. Scientists are able to agree that it is better to get your nutrients from foods vs supplements, but they have been unable to determine exactly why. There are so many individual components of food: vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, macronutrients, etc and they all work together in a unique way that isn't found artificially. Good health is a combination of so many genetic, environmental, and behavioral components that it is very hard to isolate the effect of each little piece.


I'm obviously not making a case that Diet Coke is good for you. It isn't. Go drink some water or green tea instead. What I'm trying to do is help people be informed consumers of research. Look at the methods, use common sense, and above all trust an RD ; ) Anyone who looks at the methods can see they didn't analyze or control for diet and realize that makes the results pretty weak. Just not everyone goes that next step. I would encourage everyone to really try to examine the study, not just the 'results' the media grabs on to. You might look at the methods and find them convincing. That is great! Just make sure it is an informed decision. Or just ask me and I will tell you what to do.

What do you think? Is this study significant enough to cause a change in your Diet Coke consumption? Am I completely wrong and blinded by my love for coke? Have any questions? 

I'm a winner!

I won a blog giveaway from Karissa at Cardio Foodie for mascara, which is seriously my favorite makeup product. I am forever buying new mascara looking for that magical one. So I was happy to win a new one! I never win anything.

I thought I would take some pictures and give a mini review for y'all since she was so kind to send it to me : )

I won Loreal Voluminous, which I love and is a great, basic volumizing mascara, and Maybelline Great Lash Big. Great Lash is supposed to be this amazing, classic mascara...and I think it sucks. It just doesn't do anything for me at all. But people rave about it and it is one of the all time best selling mascaras! I don't get it. So I was moderately skeptical about the supposed Big version.




You can see how fat the Big wand is.

Now for the scary part! On me. Let me tell you, taking close up self portraits is humbling. "Why is my face askew? Do I have that many freckles? My nose is totally asymmetrical. I should put on some concealer. Dude, I am radioactively pale."





Without any mascara. Or enough sleep, apparently.







Using Great Lash Big










Wow, that is a lot of pictures of my face. Anyway, I surprisingly really liked the different Great Lash! It has a fat wand which is good for volume. My eyelashes are longish but thin, so I use volumizing mascara. It has the right amount of mascara on the wand from the start-not too runny, not clumpy at all. It wasn't OMG AMAZING, but was pretty great for a $4 mascara. It would make a great everyday mascara. I didn't take pictures of the Voluminous, but it is one of my all-time favorites. I do think that it can be too thick/runny right when it is opened. It works great on almost everyone, so I didn't think it warranted pictures. The Great Lash was surprising, so I took some pictures : ) 

Thanks Karissa for the giveaway!!


What is your favorite mascara? Have you ever won anything? Are you working out today? 


I think I'm taking today off, my legs are just too sore from a good run yesterday!





Feb 9, 2011

Pretty sure I'm an official Runner now

I think I'm going to lose a toenail. That makes me hard core, right? I'm not sure how, but apparently I'm running on the tips/tops of my toes. Like a ballerina! Am so graceful! I was just slogging along and it felt like my toenail was bending at a 90 degree angle. It didn't hurt, just felt weird. Now my toe feels kind of bruised and numb.

Feb 8, 2011

Boot Camp?

The Living Social deal today is for 5 boot camp classes for $20 which is ridiculously cheap. I'm thinking of doing it, even though I fear I may die during. Has anyone ever done a class? I would like to be stronger, and obviously be super skinny and all ripped. Should take, what, 2 classes until I look like Giselle? I'm really not sure if my knees could handle it. I imagine it is a lot of squats and lunges which are just tough for someone with wimpy knees. Or if my back could handle it. I'm basically held together with silly string.

Feb 7, 2011

Little Things

--Do you ever forget to eat dinner? I never, ever do as I want to eat 95% of my calories after 8 pm. But, I was waiting on M to get home from his 5th job and it just got late. I'm making up for it in pretzels.

--I had a super fantastic run yesterday despite my legs turning to lead midway through. But, I totally kicked ass. Well, kicked ass for me.

--TJ Maxx is the best place for workout clothes. IF you can find what you want in the correct size! I got two great Fila capris for like $10. It is very feast or famine, though.

--My puppies have been insane today. They have cabin fever! They are such little princesses that they don't like to go outside when it is raining...or has rained in the past 48 hours.

--It looks like we are going to Chicago again in May. Apparently all radiology conferences have to be held in Chicago. At least it will hopefully be warmer than it was in December. Though with the winter they have been having, that might not be the case. Sadly M's work won't be paying for this one, so no $2k hotel stay for us.

--My poor, hardworking husband. He took a half day of vacation to go moonlight at a site 1.5 hrs away. And to get the time off for Chicago, he is taking call tomorrow. So he will be on for 24 hours, then spend his post-call day off at 2 different sites moonlighting (at least they are close and he only has to physically be there, doesn't have to actually do anything. Thank goodness!), then at 5pm he is on pager call (so he is home at least and gets breaks when there aren't patients) for another place until the next morning. So he is basically working the next 48 hrs. Then he's on pager call again Friday, and maybe Sat I can't remember. Then is on call again on Tues. I seriously do not understand how he functions. But, I am incredibly thankful that he does!! He is seriously a robot or something. I don't know how he is going to find the time to plan a romantic Valentine's Day, take me out somewhere fancy, AND buy me a present.

I need this shirt

This needs to be in my life, immediately. M says that I exaggerate a lot. Can you imagine? Just because the phrase "this is literally what dying feels like" roughly 5 times a day about various pains and injustices.

Feb 6, 2011

The happiest place on Earth

Technically, that is Disney and Harry Potter is at Universal. But I don't care. Twas magical. I'm waiting on M to actually run so that I can. He is doing the taxes, so I can't really complain. Not sure how a former accountant managed to give the job of taxes to her MD husband, but I'm pretty proud of my accomplishment. Since he has like 6 W2s I think this is fair.

So I'm posting pictures to kill time. Enjoy! A bit of warning-these are really only interesting if you love Harry Potter. There are so many little details from the books/movies!


Hogwarts Castle! I'm in full on pushing and running mode at this point. Out of my way small children!


 

I'm pretty sure this is what Heaven looks like. At Honeydukes. There was so much glorious candy. I never wanted to leave.








Candy Stairway!









House points. These are all in line in the castle for the Forbidden Journey ride. It has so many little details and cool things. But it is super dark!
Several of the portraits are actually screens, so they are moving and talking just like in the books. It goes up quite high! Several were complaining about Dumbledore letting so many muggles into Hogwarts.






Dumbledore's pensieve 




His office. You can barely tell but there is another screen projecting from the balcony. Dumbledore talks to you! It actually looks 3D when you are there. The line is all twisty and you go into multiple different rooms. I literally gasped "DUMBLEDORE!" loudly as we walked in. I am such a nerd. 





In front of the castle. There is a nice little bridge where you can take pictures. 

This one is for you, Naomi!!!





We went through the castle twice. The line was super short, so we were moving quickly. If you are going, definitely go through the rides more than once. I saw so much more the second time. Like the dragon skeleton hanging from the ceiling.  Of course, the second time the ride broke while we were on it! We just sat there for about 30 mins until they just turned everything off and drove us out. It was pretty interesting to see all the behind the scenes stuff. The ride was broken for the rest of the day though, so we didn't get to do it again.










 Hogsmeade.














Enjoying a delicious butterbeer! They were like a butterscotch icee. Even M liked it and he doesn't like sweet things.

Ok, I have maybe 100 more, but I doubt anyone really wants to see all the minutia of Harry Potter World. It was great! Rather small though, unfortunately. Most of the shops of Hogsmeade you can't actually go into. So the entire park is basically the castle, a dueling dragons roller coaster which has a bunch of stuff from GoF, 3 Broomsticks, a gift shop/Ollivander's, Zonkos/Honeydukes. And the shops are small since that is how they were envisioned. I wanted it to be like a million times bigger. We were lucky and the crowds weren't bad at all. Helps to go on a Monday in late January!

Feb 3, 2011

Putting on my running clothes counts as running, right?

Gung hay fat choy

Happy Chinese New Years! Wishing you a very wonderful Year of the Rabbit. "Gung hay fat choy" is Cantonese for "may you have a prosperous new year". That is how I learned to say it, but there are numerous translations and spellings for the many dialects.

According to Chinese tradition, the Rabbit brings a year in which you can catch your breath and calm your nerves.  It is a time for negotiation.  Don't try to force issues, because if you do you will ultimately fail.  To gain the greatest benefits from this time, focus on home, family, security, diplomacy, and your relationships with women and children.   Make it a goal to create a safe, peaceful lifestyle, so you will be able to calmly deal with any problem that may arise.

It is said that anyone making supplications for wishes to be fulfilled are certain to get what they want... and in the Year of the Rabbit, the wish-granting aspect of the Sun and the Moon combined is multiplied.  





The year of the Metal Rabbit promises to bring some much needed peace and tranquility. If you are like most people, you probably feel like you were on a roller coaster in 2010, the year of the Tiger. That will generally not be the case in 2011, as the Rabbit is everything the Tiger is not.

Let there be peace, and let it begin with me is the Rabbit motto. The Tiger makes waves, but the Rabbit mends fences. Diplomacy reigns. If you want to improve your chances of success, you most often want to negotiate and cooperate rather than try to force your ideas and methods on others. It’s also a time to kiss and make up. Forgive and forget. Let’s all get along. Make love not war. If last year the emphasis was on excitement, it now is on harmony.

Self indulgence is another Rabbit theme. By all means go to the theater, spend time at the spa and patronize those great restaurants you love. On the other hand you do want to be careful about not overdoing it. And, you can bet the Rabbit will put lots of temptation in front of you.There is a common theme here. Active people who always seem to be on the go are likely to be unhappy with the Rabbit’s leisurely pace. They can find themselves in trouble if they try to move faster than the prevailing one. 

I honestly don't really buy in to horoscopes of any kind, but thought I would post snippets from ones I liked for this year. The husband is half-Chinese so his family usually does a little celebration-usually dinner and then red packets. Red packets are awesome b/c they come stuffed with money! It is tradition to give money on New Years to bring about prosperity for the coming year. Bring on the free money, I always say.


Feb 2, 2011

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FOR THE NEXT 5 HOURS ONLY

Orlando

I really, really, really love warm weather. I don't even really mind the swampy hot of the summers. I hate winter. Hate, hate, hate. We had FABULOUS warm weather while we were there. Highs about 72-80. I was in Heaven. Our tentative plan is to move closer to home when M is done with residency...or move my happy butt to the beach. I say if we moved to the beach my parents would come, too. It was sunny and warm and beautiful. And then we came home to cold AL. At least we didn't have to go to a town currently experiencing the Snowpocalypse. The airport was deserted b/c there were really not very many places you could fly to or from!

I'll post a few pics from the awesome Harry Potter World soon. It was magical and perfect and wonderful. I squealed, pushed, ran, gaped, and clapped the whole day. Rode a few roller coasters and realized, yeah, we may be too old for coasters. It was fun like the first 30 seconds, and then I just wanted it to stop. And I LOVED roller coasters. Late January seems to be a perfect time to go to the parks. There was definitely a decent amount of people (and a surprising amount of school aged kids, so jealous. My parents would've laughed and laughed had I suggested that!) but the temps were perfect and the lines were short. We didn't wait longer than 25 mins on anything. The lines were actually shorter than where the Fast Passes would've put you in, so we didn't buy one.

I'll be back soon with pictures and a discussion topic, um, amongst myself I suppose, about orthorexia and about what happens when exercise/diet starts really interfering with your life.