Catching Flack

So this week at work has been interesting. I've been an incredibly good girl in terms of eating healthy and keeping track of my points, and I'm SO excited about my weigh-in tomorrow morning. But man oh man have my coworkers been flicking me crap about my food. Especially when I'm eating things like salad with chicken and spritzer dressing, or Campbell's Soup-In-Hand.

Until I tell them I've lost almost 5 lbs in a week.

That shuts them up pretty quickly. HA!

I kind of have to feel for them though, I mean it wasn't that long ago that I was making fun of all the "health freaks" too. But I've seen what sitting in dispatch for 12 hours at a time and eating junk food can do to your body, and I don't want that to be me!

I was looking through some photos of my high school years this morning. How in the world did I think I was fat back then?! I honestly thought I was a lot heavier than most of the girls in my class, but then I found a photo of a bunch of us from our Senior Party night...I was just as skinny as all those girl!!! And I'm going to get back to that size! Which just excites the heck out of me! So stay tuned, tomorrow I will post my official weight loss for the week.

Losin' Weight and Feelin' Great!

Well, as of Monday I am officially a member of Weight Watcher's Online. I had been using my mom's account, but for some reason it stopped letting me access all the tools so I decided it was time to branch out on my own. The great part is that my friend, Carly, is also doing Weight Watcher Online. We're both online every day, so we've been supporting each other via gmail messenger constantly.

With that support, I've been motivated to work out every day this week so far. I've been keeping close track of my daily food points and I've been losing weight! Mondays are my weigh in day, and I'm SO excited to see what my weight is on Monday. I KNOW there's going to be a change, because I've done so well on eating right and working out.

But the best part is how good I feel, physically, mentally, and emotionally. I have so much more energy that I've been able to stop drinking soda. Now it's rare if I drink anything besides water most days! I want this to be a life-long change, because of how much better I feel. I'm getting less headaches, less stomach aches, and I'm less grouchy. Gotta love those endorphins!

The hardest part has been refusing the sweets at work. The other day was a coworker's birthday and there was the inevitable cake passed around. But I was able to resist, even when another coworker set a piece of cake down right next to me! I know saying no to that piece of cake will feel soooooooooo good when I see my weight on Monday!

The Last 20 Years

Carly and Arly both tagged me, which means I'm required to do this, right?

20 years ago.....1988
I was about 4 1/2. I believe we were still living in Elgin, OR (a town even tinier than Baker outside of La Grande). Dad had sold his Elgin dental practice, had bought his practice in Baker, and was commuting to Baker every day. I think this was about the time that Mom and Dad had decided that it was time to move to Baker. Which was sad, because that meant leaving the log house my parents built on a beautiful piece of property outside of Elgin.

10 years ago.... 1998
I was 14 years old. This was my first year in high school. I was just getting involved in theatre, I had gotten into the all-women select choir, and was really enjoying it.

5 years ago....2003
I was in my freshman year of college. I was staying up until about 4 am spending time with friends. At this point I had realized that I didn't want to be a pre-med major and was trying to figure out what the heck to do with my college career.

3 years ago.... 2005
Nathan and I had just started seriously dating after knowing each other for 6 months. I was in my junior year of college, a theatre major, and was living off campus (thank goodness!).

1 year ago....2007
I had just started working at the dispatch center and was starting Academy in Salem. Nathan was still working at the Credit Union. Marla had pass away a month ago and we had just moved into her house that she had left us. At this point, we only had Bandit.

Yesterday I....worked, had a pretty relaxed and entertaining day. One of our officers had seen the meteor that went over Baker at around 5:30 am and didn't know what it was. So my partner and I put together an Alien Survival Kit for him, filled with various survival necessities made out of tin foil. Awesome.

Today I...slept in until 9:15 (3 1/2 hours past when I wake up on work days). Now I'm sitting in bed, watching tv and typing this. At some point this morning I'm going to go work out, and then I'm going to go grocery shopping. Oh, and laundry is going to be in there somewhere.

Tomorrow...will probably be very much the same as today. Sleep in, work out, probably clean the house.

Yah, I know. My life rocks. I have no idea who to tag, so if you read it and want to do it, go for it!

Heavenly Occurances

This morning while I was driving to work at 5:40 am, there was a HUGE yellow moon that was about 3/4 full, just hovering above the Elkhorns. It made me wish I had my camera and tripod. By the time I got half way to work, the moon was starting to set behind the mountains and all you could see in front of it was the sillouette of the peaks. It was absolutely beautiful. It only lasted for about 3 minutes, and then it was gone, but I felt special to have gotten to see something so amazing while most of the town was still asleep.

Here's the link to a Portland news station's story from this morning's meteor appearance. They even mention Baker!

Evidently about half an hour before that, our officer had seen a really bright flash of light in the sky. Of course when he reported this, there was the inevitable "alien invader" jokes, but it turns out that he wasn't going crazy. After I got to work, I got a call from Union County asking if we had seen a bright flash of light. Apparently they had also seen it and had gotten a report from some official agency stating that a meteorite had fallen out of the sky pretty close to us and that it had caused a bright flash of light. I still like the alien theory, myself. Or maybe it's some secret government agency conducting tests over Baker County. I'll let you know if we start getting reports of people disappearing or twitching.

I Admit It...

...I'm addicted to changing our blog details. The background, the fonts, the margin settings. I will sit and stare at it until I find something else I can do to make it look better. I'm sure no one else notices the little changes, but it makes me feel better.

Or maybe it's just the fact that there's NOTHING to do at work today. Yeah, that could be part of it.

But definitely not all of it.

Valentine's and Snowshoes

Whew, what a busy weekend! Since both Nathan and I worked on Thursday (Valentine's Day) we had decided to celebrate on Friday instead. However, Nathan still did manage to surprise me with breakfast and a hyacinth plant, which smelled SOOOOO good all day while I was working. That night, we exchanged gifts...Nathan managed to track down some pearl earrings that match perfectly with the pearl necklace he got me for a wedding present. Yes, my husband spoils me and I'm not afraid to admit it!

Nathan took Friday off and the plan had been to spend the day skiing up at Anthony and then stay the night at our friend's cabin up there. Unfortunately, when we got up there in the morning, we found the driveway plowed and approximately 4 ft worth of snow between the driveway and the cabin front door. Strike one. While Nathan set to work shoveling a path to the front door, I took a quick trip around the back of the cabin to find the outhouse we would be using, since the pipes in the cabin had frozen. I found it...approximately 100 feet behind the cabin, half buried, with no path between the two. Strike two. After that, I venture inside the very cold cabin to build a fire. I got a good start but then both Nathan and I noticed that there was an unreasonable amount of smoke collecting in the cabin. Nathan discovered the source...smoke was pouring out of the chimney about halfway between the stove and the ceiling. Strike three.

Oh, and have I mentioned that one of the dogs threw up in one of Nathan's snow boots on the way up the mountain. Somehow the dog, which ever one it was, managed to not get any of the mess ANYWHERE except in the boot. Needless to say, that boot was ruined and Nathan was without snowboots. Not good when we're tramping through over 4 ft of snow. So we gave up and headed back down the mountain. Nathan remembered that there was one of his coworkers who was said to have extra snowshoes that people could borrow. So we called them and borrowed two sets from them. But instead of going back out, we ended up taking a nap all afternoon and then making a lovely fondue dinner, drinking some great wine, and watching the Jeff Dunham dvd I got Nathan for Valentine's Day. If you've never heard of Jeff Dunham, look him up on YoutTube, he's hilarious.

On Saturday, we slept in, lazed around, and then finally got our butts in gear to head back up to Anthony Lakes to try out the snowshoes. After we schlepped around the pond below our friend's cabin for a while, we then went back to the ski lodge to hang out with our friend Dana and listen to the live band they had that night. The band was incredibly good and we got to see a lot of friends. When we got home, some friends came over, stayed until around midnight, and then it was finally bed time.

Today, we woke up and went to a new church called the Harvest Church. It was...interesting. Don't get me wrong, we actually like it and there seemed to be a lot of couples around our age, which is great! Today there was a "prophetic singer" instead of a message from the regular pastor, so we're wanting to go back to hear the pastor speak in two weeks (I have to work next weekend). After church, we did more lazing around, watched a couple of movies, Nathan took a nap, and now I'm watching Becoming Jane and writing this.

And now...some pictures from our snowshoeing trip.

The pond we snowshoed around.

Shadows.

Nathan with his snowshoe gear.

Me being a goober.

Ok, fine. I'll be good. Wow, these make my legs look so SHORT!

Our tracks.

Our friend Dana in the ski lodge bar.

From the ski lodge parking lot at sunset.

The Eagle Caps at sunset. Sorry they're so blurry, it was getting fairly dark.

Goodness Gracious Great Balls of....Fur?!

I've never had a German Shepherd before. I once stayed with someone who owned a German Shepherd. We now have a German Shepherd. We got her as winter was beginning. This means that she already had her winter coat when we got her. And now spring has tentatively sprung. Which means that Heidi's winter coat is beginning to shed...and DEAR GOD! I've seen horses that shed less than this dog! Between Nathan and I, we brushed her for over an hour and barely made a dent. Here is the result (note that I put an Xbox controller in the picture in order to give you something to compare the pile to)....

The side view.

The top view.

The darn dog is STILL shedding. In clumps! We literally have clumps of soft blond hair all over our house. Arly, do your German Shepherds shed like this?! I'm contemplating having it made into yarn and selling it.