8 Weeks of Boot Camp Complete!

I finished up my second tour of Boot Camp this past Friday… I have now completed 8 straight weeks of pain and agony at 5:30am in the morning each and every weekday. Truthfully, it has not been THAT bad…. I enjoy self torture tactics… no pain no gain, right?
I improved in all areas of my final PT test on Friday… I am most proud of improving my one-mile run by almost another minute! I ran it in 10:13 minutes… and I thought I was going to die! Sweat was just pouring off of my head… the salty stuff just stinging my eyes… I seriously need to invest in a sweatband. We get this coming week off and then start back on July 7. I am a little sad that we are not reporting back this week to be honest though… I have two big travel trips for work this month too- Denver all of the week of the 14th and El Paso most of the week of the 21st. But, the good folks at Operation Boot Camp are working with me on my crazy schedule and I will still get to boot camp all around my travel days. I just have to make sure I work out while out of town and on the weekends too.
In the meantime, after a nice ½ mile swim at the Aquatic Center this afternoon and our weekly trip to the grocery store this evening, I am preparing meals and such for the upcoming week. Oh and as of Friday morning (before the PT test) I am 21 pounds lighter and I am feeling great! Yes, life is good.

Burn Baby Burn!

I am feeling the burn this morning... What is the burn you ask? The burning in my legs, knees, feet and hips after running 4+/- miles this morning at boot camp! I only slowed from a run to a power walk on the two hills and then ran the entire trip WITHOUT STOPPING!! I am stoked at my progression in my running game! I never dreamed I could run non-stop for 45 minutes in my entire life. It is very exciting for me to achieve this and all of my other fitness goals. This Friday marks the end of my 8th week of boot camp and the last day of Month 2. I have a PT test on Friday morning to measure my improvements on running, push-ups, sit-ups and dips. After the 4 miles I ran today, the one mile on Friday should be cake walk. Can I get a Hooah?

Water Does A Body Good

I have another idea I wanted to share with my readers... it kind of goes hand-in-hand with the new Water Cooler concept at our home. In my quest to improve our diet habits, we have quit purchasing flats of bottled water and replaced them with our Camelbak bottles.



I have two different ones- a 24 oz. and a 32 oz. I try to drink at least 100 oz. of water a day. So I drink at least 4 of these a day...if not MORE. I fill up both of these before I leave the house for boot camp every morning and drink both bottles of water before I get to the office- that is 60 oz. of water before the sun even rises! I truly believe that water really helps boost your energy level throughout the day... so drink up!!

Lions, Coyotes, and Bears Oh My!

This morning I am pulling out of the driveway when I noticed Hubby had called a few minutes before... must have been when I was drying my hair. I returned his call and he told me to be safe on the way to work. I am thinking to myself, 'what is he talking about?'... I ask him what does he mean and he informs me that he heard on the radio on his way to work that someone had hit a bear in front of Lassiter high school this morning. I ask him is he is serious and he says yes about the bear and that he was joking about my being safe from bears... My only question is: What is the deal with all the bears in Cobb County these days?
I googled the Google News site and came up with this article just posted 3 days ago!

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Cobb County residents spot another bear
(Published June 20, 2008)
MARIETTA, Ga. — Residents in east Cobb County have spotted another black bear roaming through neighborhoods and commercial areas.

State wildlife biologist David Gregory says the 1-year-old male with a tracking collar was spotted three times on Thursday, but managed to elude capture.

A state Department of Natural Resources ranger fired a tranquilizer dart at the bear but missed.


The animal was spotted once behind an office park,at a workout gym's swimming pool and behind a woman's home.

The DNR averages about five bear sightings a year in Cobb County. This is the third one in the past month to be seen in Cobb County.

In late May and early June, bears were struck and killed on Interstate 75 at Interstate 285 and on Barrett Parkway at I-75.

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Well, I figure that the bear hit this morning must be the bear referred to in this article! Surely there is not another one running around our area. And I thought coyotes were ridiculous... now bears? It just does not make sense to me... I googled bears being actually "hit" in Cobb County also and two total have been killed by motorists on separate dates- May 30th and June 3rd. And now today's hit is # 3 in the past month! Can anyone explain this phenomenon to me?

You Say Tomato, I Say Tomato Too

We planted some tomato plants and herbs a couple of weeks ago. With the rain the past couple of days, the cherry tomato plants are really "running"... they are running so fast that we had to go buy a tomato screen for them and stakes for the big tomato plants too. So today I spent some quality one-on-one time with my tomato plants.... showing the them the correct direction to run and soft-tying them to their supports. I also planted oregano and rosemary to try my green hand at herbs.

Death By Flip Flops

Sometimes it just seems like bad luck follows me every where I go... here I am at the end of week 7 of my "lifestyle change"... you know getting fit and losing some weight... and then I go and injure myself AGAIN. Yes, tonight I decided to run up the stairs from the garage to the den in flip flops no less... and then BAM I tripped at the last top steps and broke the top half of my big toe nail off! The pain was/is UNbelievable! I was dancing around whooping and huffing with Hubby watching me all along. Needless to say, my bloody toe looks awful and the throbbing has not stopped yet. This just proves my theory that flip flops are seriously dangerous and detrimental to everyone that wears them. End of story.

I Just "Flat Out" Love Them!

In my quest to get fit and find my inner-much-smaller Kelly, I am always looking for great products that fit into our diet and still taste good too! I wanted to share one that a fellow boot-camper told me about last month- they are called "Flat Outs". These are tortilla-like flat breads that you can use to do burritos, wraps, sandwich roll-ups, etc. And the best thing about them is that they are not just round like regular tortillas- they are more retangular round so they are long and you can actually "wrap" your food with no problem! Ever tried to construct a burrito at home and you just cannot fully close the burrito because the tortilla is just not big enough? Well, Flat Outs take care of that! And they are healthy and tasty! They come in different flavors and their website actually offers many GREAT recipes for not only burritos, wraps and sandwiches, but, they have recipes for quesadillas, pizzas, grillers, appetizers and baked chips- all made out of these amazing flat wraps! Oh, and they don't break when your taco sauce or salsa gets runny and mushy. Go check them out at this link: Flat Outs

May I Speak To Dewey? Dewey Decimal?

Today I went to the library closest to our home and signed up for a membership card. Now I have not had a library card since I was in elementary school…and today was a huge milestone for me considering the events that happened in my life over 25 years ago revolving around my first library card. Let’s rewind back to some time around 1983…

1983 was not a good year for me. Well, to be honest 1982 wasn’t good either. Nor 1984… I was going through a rough patch in my life at that time… parents had just divorced, I was entering into Middle School, I was a tomboy BIG time and knew that physical changes to my body were going to be happening just around the corner. I had been playing little league baseball with the boys for over three years and I had to give this up before heading to Jr. High because Jr. High school girls just don’t DO that! My parent’s divorce really threw me into a tailspin at that time and my mother had moved us twice already before I started 6th grade. And then my maternal grandmother died and that just crushed me even more.
Well, with no sports to keep me busy, and no friends down the street to hang out with, I either watched TV or read books. (Remember that we did not have cell phones, internet or computers to occupy us back then. And you could not even call 30 minutes up the road because it was long distance!)
I really do not remember how I got to the library in town to check out books back then, but I did. Well, one day early in my 6th grade year, I decided to move to my Grandparents’ home in Pine Mountain ( I do not want to bore you with the details) but, did not really take anything with me from my mother’s house but clothes and a few cherished belongings.
One day many months later, my mother got a late notice in the mail from the County Library claiming that I had overdue books and the fees were over $100! Needless to say, I did not know WHERE the books were (remember I moved out) and you can imagine how pissed my mother was about the fine. I really don’t remember how it all played out, but we wound up paying for the costs of replacing the books (since I could not locate them) and they deleted my library account.
So, for 25 years now I have been carrying this scar of having my library card taken away from me in the County where I grew up because of those overdue books and their sky-high fines. I did worry for a about a minute today (when I registered with the Cobb County Library system), that they might find my past record and not accept my membership. Surely they don’t keep records for that long!, I thought. I signed up with no problem and man, what a nice facility! It has been YEARS since I even thought of the dewey decimal system...I did not realize that there are actually three libraries within 5 miles of our home. I checked out two novels and I can renew them on line if I am not finished with them in the 3 weeks due date! How cool is that?

Chatting Around The Water Cooler

Hubby got his annual bonus this week. So we splurged and purchased us a water cooler for our house (and the rest goes into savings). Now we can enjoy cold or hot refreshment any time we want! No more buying flats of bottled water or those 2.5 gallon jugs that take up so much precious space in our fridge! We now buy refillable 5 gallon bottles for the water cooler... just like at the office. We both use our Camelbak bottles now instead of buying so many plastic bottles. This is our new way of contributing to the environment.

This puts a whole new meaning to "chatting around the water cooler" at home now!

Another Day, Another Trip to Denver

So I traveled back to Denver again this week. My flight to Denver left Atlanta at 11am on Wednesday morning and what a trip it was for me. First of all, I went to Boot Camp early that morning and then returned home to shower. Then, I traveled to the airport and when I went to check-in at the kiosk, the Boarding Ticket they issued me had no seat assignment. Instead it said in really BIG letters: SEAT REQUEST. So of course I was instantly nervous that I might not get a seat on the plane! I made it through security so quickly that I got to the gate almost an hour and a half before flight time. As soon as I got to the gate, I stood in line two or three times to try and get my seat assignment- to no avail. They were not talking to any passengers about the Denver flight until one hour before flight time… Eventually, I got my seat assignment and waited to board. Since we boarded around 10:45am, I decided it was too early to eat and would just buy a bag of animal crackers on the flight to tide me over until I arrived in Denver. Well, wouldn’t you know that idea backfired on me… First of all, the crew did not even start the cart service until after one hour in the air…. So by the time the cart got to my row I was STARVING. I could have eaten the tail end of a horse! I had my dollar ready, passed it to the cart lady, ordered my animal crackers and anxiously waited. As she is handing me the bag, she says, “Ma’am, you can buy these but, you cannot eat these in your seat”. “Excuse me??” She says, “Unfortunately, there is a passenger behind you that has a severe peanut allergy and no one in the three rows in front of them or the three rows behind them can consume any product that MIGHT have been packaged in a plant where they also package peanuts”. Now I am livid… on top of my starvation- NOT a good mix in Kelly’s world at this moment. I ask, “your kidding, right?”. No, she is not. I then venomously reply, “Well, is there ANY thing on that cart I can eat within their guidelines?” She only allows the free cookies. Now I am simply peeved. I tell her to give me the cookies and the crackers and be gone. Well, you should have heard the elderly lady in the row behind me when she got the news about her cheese crackers… it was obvious she had not heard my conversation with the cart lady and she was ANGRY. I pondered this whole situation the rest of the trip. Why couldn’t that person put on a mask? Or an oxygen mask? Why not move them to the rear area away from the 40+ other passengers you are infecting with your issue? Why did they not tell the 40+ others this at the gate so we could grab a bite to eat before boarding? Poor planning on every one’s part if you ask me... but, they cannot help it so what is the point in getting so upset, right?
After landing, I grab my shuttle to the rental car place. I notice the lack of vehicles parked in the rental lot when I get there and start to worry when I get inside the building and find the waiting line about 100 folks deep. What if they run out of rentals? After an hour of waiting, I get up to the counter and the guys asks me if I would be willing to take a small SUV instead of the Intermediate level sedan I was signed up for (at the same rate). I agree- and they give me a Hummer! I am in shock. I tell him that I cannot drive a Hummer to work because every one will make it into a big deal and joke incessantly about it. He just says, “Enjoy yourself! You are in Colorado!” And I reply, “Whoopdee Doo, I was here last week too so who cares about Colorado?” So off I go to Denver in my white Hummer H3 rental. I call Hubby and tell him what happened. He just laughs and tells me to be sure and park it out front of the office so every one can see it. Needless to say, I parked it between two large white pick-ups and hope that it is hidden enough.
One of my co-workers from Atlanta and I had a good time taking it to supper and around Denver that night. Unfortunately, we were not the low bidder on the project we bid on Thursday, so the trip did not really have a happy ending. And then, my flight home got a late start from the Denver airport, so we did not arrive back into Atlanta until almost 1:00 am… What a crock.

Zumba!

One of the instructors at my workout studio talked me into trying out a new exercise class they are promoting called "Zumba". The first class was last night after my usual class time. The definition of Zumba is "Zumba fuses hypnotic latin rhythms and easy to follow moves to create a dynamic workout system that will blow you away"... which to you and I means crazy Latin dances moves incorporated into a workout. And if you are like me and have NO rhythm and NO coordination, then you look like a freak trying to gyrate and rotate like the double-jointed instructor... she could definitely be an excellent belly dancer in her second job. We did a lot of gyrating, some salsa, some merengue, some mambo, and a lot of shimmy-ing! Yes, we did the whole cowgirl lasso stint. Yes, people Kelly actually shimmy-ed and lasso-ed it up last night...
Check out a video sample of Zumba for insight.

How Sweet Is That??

I have to share something with you today. Sunday is always laundry day around our house and I have this little game I play where I get to keep any loot I find in Hubby's pockets. He is notorious for leaving pocket change and dollar bills in his jeans pockets and I get all excited when I occasionally hit the "Jackpot". Well, I made the mistake of telling him about my little game a while back and since then the "booty" has lessened tremendously. I joked with him and told him that I looked at the loot as tips for all my great housework. But, he has gotten smart and remembered to empty his pockets before throwing them into the hamper (or leaving them in the floor for me to pick up later).
Well, this afternoon I was sorting laundry and had already combed through 3 pairs of jeans with NO loot... and when I picked up the fourth pair (quite near the bottom of the hamper) I heard coins jingling... I thought to myself- "Woohoo! Show me the money!". So I reached into the pocket and I pulled out a wad of bills (5's and 1's) and a receipt was wrapped around them with a scribbled note. The note said, "Sweetie, here is a tip. Miss you & love you. Mike" It made me tear up a little and then I took off to find him... he just smiled and said he did that on Monday night (just one night after I left). How sweet is that?? Man, I am blessed or what.

Whew! What A Week Out West

I flew to Denver last Sunday and have been in training for work all week there. I finally made it home at 2:00am Saturday morning. And what a week it was…
The training was for a new software that our company is converting over to; therefore, the training was chock full of information and if you did not keep up, you were LOST. And I hate being lost. It is just not in me to ever be lost. So I was drained pretty much the entire week after sitting all day in front of a computer and the Instructors listening, typing and trying to understand this complex program. We “go live” on July 1 and I have to say that July 1 will be a very interesting day for our employees.
Anyhoo, other than the training classes, we did have an eventful time away from the office… when we arrived late on Sunday night, we discovered in our hotel packets that the company training department had issued us $20 vouchers for suppers at the hotel bar. Yes, a BAR. Now who in the right mind would make us eat BAR food every night during training? Needless to say, I was peeved. Since I was issued a company pool vehicle, we ventured around Colorado for our suppers. We did try the bar food on Monday night- not too good! Especially after I watched the waiter give my steak salad to a gentleman at another table and then 5 or so minutes try to bring it to me to eat.
On Tuesday night, we ventured up to Boulder and met one of my dear ol’ friends from college, Janice. We ate at this funky, hip little brewery in downtown (after the initial shock that they only accepted cash!). It was so good to see her! We had a great time together even it was for an hour and we had not seen each other in over 7 years!
On Wednesday night, we ventured to downtown Denver. After finally finding a parking lot, we wound up walking quite a distance in pursuit of an eatery that would appease all palates in our party. I also discovered that one must watch where they step in Downtown Denver because of the massive amounts of horse poop!
On Thursday night, we took off to the Park Meadows mall area just south of Denver and met up with another dear ol’ college roommate of mine, Tracia. We had a great time catching up since our last backpacking trip in the Tetons in September 2003. And then on the way back to the hotel, we found ourselves caught in the middle of an ongoing high-speed chase off the access road in the midst of some road construction. The cop was chasing an old geezer on a motorcycle… it was especially unnerving when we witnessed one of the construction workers throw an orange cone at the motorcyclist as he was going by us. I was envisioning this guy hitting us and having to explain to the company how we damaged the pool car- they would never believe our story!
The weather was CRAZY while we were in Denver too… hot and sunny the first couple of days and then by Wednesday night, it was cold and rainy! I wore a fleece on Thursday and Friday. And it was around the 95-degree mark here back home at the same time… WEIRD.
I tried to stay on target with my food while out there… no adult beverages, no sugar, only good foodstuff. And I figured out how to sleep at night- I was drinking 100-125 ounces of water each day. And it worked! Hydration is KEY at that elevation.
On Friday, they let the class out early and they hauled us to the airport early in hopes of getting on the earlier flight home… no such luck. So we were stuck at the airport for over six hours! What a crock…
I am just so glad it is over and when I arrived home at 2am on Saturday morning, hubby had a bouquet of flowers and a sweet card waiting for me on the den end table welcoming me home. Life is good.
PS
Back to Boot Camp tomorrow morning… 5:30am!!!