A Snowshoe & Me Wearing Pink...

Myself and Diane with the beautiful view of Millcreek Canyon.

Yes, here I am in PINK; believe it or not!  I will admit that I'm not a "pink" type of gal.  In fact, I often go out of my way NOT to wear the color.  I just in general see the color pink as a "prissy girlie" type of color; which is not something that I classify myself as. 

Ollie, the "Super Dog"!  He's such a cutie!

Recently, I received a vest from my bicycle club as a "thank you" for assisting my friend Diane in the position of volunteer coordinator for the Little Red Riding Hood Bike Ride.  Would you know it!  It's a dusty pink! Diane picked it up for me.  She texted me right away and warned me that I got a pink vest. She was so sure that I would be donating it or trying to sell it on eBay.  But I decided to tolerate the color because it was such a nice vest and it did after all come free.  And thus, I took the vest for a trial run during a snowshoe this last Sunday. 



Penny looking cool in her shades!



Sunday morning was a gourgeous day to be out enjoying some snowshoeing.  It snowed Saturday and there was a nice new layer of snow.  Diane, Penny, myself, and the "Super" dog; Ollie went on the Overlook Trial up Millcreek Canyon. Ollie is Diane's new puppy and he was having a ball running around in the fresh powder.

Penny and Diane with a wonderful view of the canyon!

Feeling Fat Friday...

It was with a huge amount of trepidation that I approached the scale this morning for my weekly weigh in. I was feeling fat! You see I know I wasn’t good this week at all. I basically took Sunday and Monday off from being aware of what I was eating. I completely ate what I felt like and what I wanted with no regard for consequences. Oh boy!

Tuesday came and I watched what I ate but still went over my allotted calories for the day. But that night I purposely worked out harder at the gym. I ran 3.1miles on the treadmill and did 25 minutes on the elliptical machine. The sweat was just pouring off me towards the end of the workout.



Then, Wednesday arrived and I had a left over white chocolate macadamia nut cookie that one of my co-workers left in the lunch room. Then for dinner, I ate at a restaurant near where my watercolor painting class takes place. I ate half a sandwich, a cup of my favorite Fire Roasted Tomato soup, and a cookie at Paradise Bakery & Café. It doesn’t sound like a bad meal but the half sandwich was the Chicken Walnut Salad which comes on honey wheat bread and I should not have had the oatmeal raisin cookie (which of course, comes for free with the half sandwich & cup of soup combo). Course, I guess it’s better than fries.  I did not have time to work out that night.

The french fries came on Thursday.  I had with a burger and beer yesterday when I went for lunch with a co-worker. Talk about calories galore! BUT I will say I worked extra hard at the gym last night. I ran 2.6 miles and then did 35 minutes on the elliptical, hoping to make up for some of what I ate for lunch that day.


So, that was the state I was in as I stepped on to the scale this morning. I was terribly worried and I must admit that I was feeling fat because I knew I hadn’t been good during the week. When I got on the scale, it wavered between the same weight as last week and being one more pound up. It bounced between the two numbers.  It's neon red light not wanting to choose either one.  So, I’m figuring that I’m up half a pound more overall. This wasn’t as bad as I thought. But I did swing by the grocery store on the way into work and picked up my planned meals/snacks for today. I avoided the Friday donuts that were brought into work, and stuck to the plan. Now, to stay back on the plan and start working on losing the rest of these 21.5 lbs.

5th Annual Black Widows Valentine's Day Dinner...

The Widow's-- Laura, Madame Mary, Mrs. Goodbar, and Mrs. Vader.

Happy Valentine's Day!  This used to be the one commercial holiday that I used to hate.  But each year with the Black Widows Valentine's Dinner Party; it seems that this holiday gets better and better every year.  For those of you who wonder about this whole event, let me explain it in a small nutshell.  It's an annual Valentine's dinner party in which some of myself and some single girlfriends get together, dress up like widows, and make up stories & obits about pretend deceased husbands.What FUN we had this last Saturday night. It always amazes me what all of the gals come up with for this night.

Here’s Laura explaining a Ferris Wheel accident in which her deceased husband Sky went disappearing off into the great blue yonder sky.

Madame Mary showing us ballet position #1 while talking about her talented former hubby.

Next, was Madame Mary trying to recruit some ladies into her household. She explained how her late hubby who was a very talented Giant Short Faced Kangaroo perished doing the loop de loops through hoops while on fire at a circus entertainment.

Mrs. GOODBAR talked of her SNICKERS.

Then, the Ever Humble Mrs. GOODBAR told her story of her NUTRAGEOUS-ly funny Hubby with the first name SNICKERS who inherited 100 GRAND from BABE RUTH and disappeared to HERSHEY Pennsylvania for another woman’s HUG & Kisses. She wished him dead!

Mrs. Darth Vader telling her saga.

Mrs. Em Vader talked about her former hubby Darth and showed us with a whirling flash light his story. She quite often would break into that deep husky voice. But she has switched over because she revealed to us that now she’s dating Yoda. This really shocked quite a few of this.

Mrs. Vader wearing the photo badge of her new boyfriend.  SHOCKING!

Mrs. Mad Hatter at front left.

Then, there was myself, Mrs. Mad Hatter who was out for a short evening pass from the Prison of “It’s a Small, Small World” situated in Disneyland. I had been quickly accused by the Red Queen of murdering the Mad Hatter and “THEE” Alice; but no one would believe me that when I told them that it had been the Jabberwocky. The Cheshire Cat had conspired with the Red Queen and I was given the choice of “Off with my head” or “Off with me”….and thus, I’m going MAD while serving time in “It’s a Small, Small World” Prison.

Enough to Turn You Off Breakfast...

Or How Many Jars of Peanut Butter Does 1 Person Need?

I’m one of four women that work in office full of men; most of whom have Mechanical Engineering degrees. They are brilliant men but a few of them have their “quirks”. One of them has a "quirk" of some very interesting food choices.

Each morning, I watch this male co-worker put together a breakfast that makes my stomach want to gag. This breakfast consists of oatmeal (or granola) combined with frozen berries, nonfat sugar-free vanilla ice cream, and egg beaters. He mixes and stirs all these ingredients in a bowl. Then pops the bowl in the microwave until the egg beaters is of scrambled egg consistency. My stomach turns as he takes it out because it rather reminds me of a chicken egg experiment gone bad. But I guess the good thing of this experience is that it suppresses my appetite for breakfast most mornings.  Of course, it probably doesn't help that I've never been too fond of eggs to begin with.


Peanut butter seems to be the other food thing he’s been doing lately. He’s been on this organic peanut butter kick. The company kitchen now has four jars of organic peanut butter sitting on top of the refrigerator; one of which is organic Almond butter. Four jars?! How many jars of peanut butter does one person need? I was teasing another co-worker that there was a potential meeting for peanut butter anonymous group. “Hello! I’m a peanut butter junkie!”

Oh, and did I mention that he has a jar rotation process for the Almond butter. Every other day the jar is upside down on its lid. I guess this is to help with the oils circulating in the jar to help maintain the Almond butter correct consistency; a bit anal if you ask me.


He’s mostly been putting this peanut butter on celery stalks. I call them stalks because he doesn’t cut the celery into short pieces. He just tears a couple stalks off the bunch of celery. The other day he was putting the Almond butter on to a celery stalk and it wasn’t pretty. To me it looked like diarrhea on stalk. EWwwwh! Be still my stomach! Gee, I might be swearing off breakfast and peanut butter.

Weighing In & Questions....

Me being silly during this last Sunday's snow hike.

Bad news!  I got on the scale this morning and discovered I'm up 2 lbs. WHAT!?!  I'm not sure why...a whole lot of questions come to mind---

Could it be the one night I took off from the gym to go see about art supplies for my watercolor painting class?  Or could it be the mile swim instead of the 4 mile run on Saturday morning?  But I went for a bike ride later in the day?  Is there too much salt in my diet that I'm retaining water?  Or is it that my body is forming more muscle and we all know that muscle weighs more than fat?  AND this could go on forever and ever and ever...

BUT a look on the positive...
Overall, I'm still down 7 lbs.  I've managed to get rid of most of that upper inner thigh flab.  My stomach is starting to look flatter.  My waistline is starting to work its way in, and I can now run .75 mile before the sweat starts trying to blind me.  I've been having fun doing the "Stevie Wonder" on the elliptical when no one else is in the gym room.  Did I mention that a guy's been showing up and I haven't been able to do the "Stevie Wonder" as much as I would like to?  Ooooo, could that be possibly why I gained?  I'm not burning as many calories per minute on the elliptical because I haven't been doing the "Stevie Wonder"? Hmmmm...oh honey, if it was only that easy! 

But maybe I need to mix things up a little or is my body readjusting and clenching on to some of those fat cells a little harder than I thought it would.  But I'll hang in there and work through it as much as I can.  And it looks as though I'm going to be swimming one more time in my old baggy swimsuit... So if you hear about the Bag Lady at the pool-- It's me!

Happy Ground Hog Day & January’s Progress…

Happy Ground Hog Day! Good news! It looks like an early Spring this year. I guess that the famous Punxsutawney Phil didn’t see his shadow. Of course, my co-workers and I were wondering if he couldn’t see his shadow due to a HUGE blizzard that hit the Northeast. I can imagine the man with the hat had to bribe Phil BIG time to even come out to take a look around. I imagine Phil would much rather be warm and driving around in that truck with Billy Murray in the 1993 movie version of Ground Hog Day. That was one of my favorite scenes where Bill’s character says, “Now don’t drive mad!” Sorry, I get a kick out of the idea of Road Raged Ground Hog.




It’s kind of hard to believe that January is over. I’ve managed some progress on my New Year’s Goals within the month’s time. I’m on track for my saving money so far but one month is only a bit of wading into the 2011 year. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to see a good tax return and add to the savings. Of course, I need to get my act together, sit down and do the tax return before I can coup any kind of gain.


I’m down 9 lbs. in weight as of last Friday and I’m working hard on this goal. I’ve put in a total of 4 hours 7 minutes on the elliptical for the month; as well as 29.10 miles running on the treadmill. I’ve been out for a couple of 3 mile snow hikes and even swam a mile. And there was enough sunny and low-40’s temperatures this last Saturday that I got an 8 mile bike ride in. That felt really good! I’m watching what I eat but I will admit that I’m still struggling just a bit with my evening snacking. There’s something I need to work on.

I'm progressing along with using my Nook.  I've read 3 books this month.  Two of those books were 600 plus pages; which means I'll read more books (shorter) books this month.  I know this wasn't really one of my goals but I thought I would throw something in here just to mix it up a little.


Tonight, I’ll get a good start in my watercolor painting class on #15 porch of the Salt Lake City Porches Art Project. Check out my Allgood Art Blog if you get the chance. I added a whole page where you can view the porches from the beginning. It’s rather interesting watching the progression of the porches. I think the project is helping my skills as a painter.


I’ve been working on getting rid of the clutter in my life. Right now, I’ve got a pile that’s in my living room that needs to go to the good will. Earlier this month when I was putting away my Christmas décor I took what I didn’t use and started the pile. Then, found some odds and ends in the front closet that I haven’t used in probably two years. It was all just sitting in there taking up room in a corner of the closet. Then, this last week I read a Better Homes & Garden on-line newsletter that talked about getting rid of clutter in the kitchen by going through the utensil drawer. Yep! I went through my utensil drawer and added to the pile. Now, I just need to get the pile of clutter out of my living room!