Why is the fall season so busy???

I'm kind of looking forward to September winding down. The fall season is always so busy! And I'm not even a teacher or someone with children! My days lately have been so long and exhausting. I'm currently being pulled in so many different directions; most of it my doing, but not all of it. Most of it related to work, but some of it personal commitments. So once again I find myself on here just writing another quick update while I have some time. I hate feeling like I'm leaving this blog stagnant, but I just don't have the energy right now. Anyone else know what it's like when simple tasks become overwhelming? I just keep reminding myself, "this too shall pass". That is one thing that I'm good at: recognizing the temporary and fluid nature of stress in life. I don't get too hung up on it and I'm optimistic that it will pass eventually. I just wish it was sooner, rather than later.

My knee is still healing. I'm walking fine on it again, but it is still sore while doing things like walking up stairs. It's also still tender to the touch. I've eased into exercising this past week, with some walking. No C25K for me yet, but I'm itching to get back at it. I've just been listening to my body and doing whatever doesn't hurt. That being said, it's amazing how quickly you get back into your lazy habits of not working out. It's been tough to get my butt off the couch lately. Truth be told, I haven't weighed myself since I blew out my knee. I'm kind of worried about it now, but I'll have to get on and face the music. I'm expecting a gain, but whatever it is, I plan to continually work on my healthy habits as my knee heals.

And on a completely unrelated topic, I'm super excited that all the new television shows are starting up again this week! I hope Tivo is ready to do her job again! I must confess that I probably watch entirely too much TV, but at least with Tivo I can choose when to watch all the shows at my convenience :)

Quick Update!

Just in case anyone out there in cyberspace was actually missing me, I thought I would post a quick update. I'm still here and trucking away, but it's been a rough week and a half since my knee injury. I'm still healing and haven't actually worked out since the accident, unless you consider lazily walking around the dog park with my pup exercise? I'm thinking about getting back in the saddle and attempting a light workout to see how my knee holds up. I was hoping to do that today, but the hours ran by and now it's time for bed!

Unfortunately I have a week from hell coming up with several different stressful commitments that I now loathe I made. Why do things sometimes occur all at once like this? It's like the universe comes together every once in a while to test your stamina and coping skills. In other words, I feel a cluster-fuck coming up this week. (Sorry for any of your virgin eyes out there, but given my week ahead, a swear word was in order). Don't you hate it when you start your week on Sunday wishing it was Friday tomorrow? Oh wait...I forgot that my commitments continue until the end of Saturday. Damn it!

Ok...enough complaining. It's time for some positive self-talk. I am perfectly capable of successfully managing all that I need to do this week. I will get through this week and make it to the weekend. I can totally handle one day at a time!

PS...I was really excited to see that I was awarded 2 blog awards last week!!! I definitely I'm going to comment and post them, but that will likely have to wait another week :)

Just another post

I'm sitting here in the wee hours of the morning on labour day, thankful it's a long weekend, but feeling antsy. My knee injury is still painful, though I am able to walk around on it better than a couple days ago. I haven't really moved around too much this weekend and I suspect that I'm making a permanent dent in our couch. It's amazing how much I love sitting on this couch when I have so much work to do, but when I have an injury and need to actually sit on my ass all day, I'm annoyed and longing to go do some kind of activity. To sum it up, I'm bored. It's been a boring weekend and I've watched entirely too much TV (caught up on my Tivo) and surfed countless websites. Of course I did purchase a few cute items from Etsy.com. LOVE that website :)

I did manage to do a little baking over the weekend. I made banana muffins, but instead of butter, I used coconut oil. My brother is allergic to dairy products, so I used the coconut oil so he could eat some of the treats when he came over. I'm not one to mess around with my recipes by using substitutions, but they turned out pretty much exactly the same! I used 3/4 coconut oil to what I would use for butter. I was impressed! I think I'll likely use this substitution as al alternative to butter more in the future.

I also made some frozen chocolate covered bananas on a stick and they were AMAZING! I love how frozen bananas taste like ice cream. I melted dark chocolate to coat them, so they were a pretty healthy, but sweet and yummy treat. A whole banana is quite a bit though, so next time I'll half them.

And finally I made a treat that I call "freezer fudge". It's made from almond butter, cocoa, coconut oil, vanilla extract, and some honey. I found this recipe online on some doctor's website. It's kind of in between fudge and brownies, but you need to keep them in the freezer, otherwise they get soft and gooey. They're actually quite chewy when they're frozen. My husband loves them and my brother is always excited to see them, because he can actually eat them (he has so many food allergies it's not even funny!), and it's great because they are a healthy treat. If anyone wants the recipe I don't mind sharing it. I'm thinking about trying the recipe with peanut butter next time, because I think peanut buttery fudge would be delish. I'm a peanut butter addict!

After writing about all this food I made, I think I must have been looking to make some comfort food for myself because of my injury. At least I made some healthy options. I am definitely going to make those chocolate covered frozen bananas again!

I'm actually going to experiment in the kitchen tomorrow and create a dish using eggplant. I have NEVER cooked or eaten eggplant in my 30 years of life. I picked a couple up at the farmer's market on Saturday and I am determined to cook something. I'm leaning towards eggplant parmigiana. I'll have to remember to let you all know how this food experiment works out for me.

Woman Down!

Today I had a wee accident. While at work I tripped over my own feet and landed very hard on my knee. I actually think I tripped over my clogs, but I'm not exactly sure of the cause of my fall. I was rushing down the hallway to go get something from my office and I went flying. And boy did I land HARD! I have injured my knee before, but this was much worse and more painful. I even saw stars when I stood up after my fall. I've always heard people use the expression "seeing stars" after a hit to the head, but I've never experienced it before. The weird part is that I didn't even hit my head! Anyway, I ended up going to an urgent care clinic to get my knee checked out. The physician was a little worried that I might have fractured something and sent me for xrays. Thankfully all bones are intact! :) I'm in pretty rough shape though and can barely walk. I wonder how long until I'll be able to workout or run again. I guess I'll just take it a day at a time and see how I feel after resting and icing for a couple days.

Ugh! I'm so annoyed with myself for tripping over my own feet! In case I haven't mentioned this before, I'm a total clutz! LOL And I guess the hike I had planned during the long weekend won't be happening :(

On a brighter note, when I stepped on the scale today I have lost another pound! I was actually thrilled to see the 1 lb loss, because I've totally stalled with my weight loss recently. I've tried not to focus on the scale too much and instead just focused on increasing my stamina and activity. It looks like that and patience has paid off. Hopefully I'm not sidelined with this knee injury for too long. I'm off to ice it some more!

C25K Week 3 completed

So I finally got around to doing the 3rd session of the C25K's Week 3. I'm not going to lie - it was tough. I was worried before I did it, and now I'm wondering how the heck I'm going to be able to do week 4! I think I could benefit from repeating week 3, but I don't know if that's kosher with the program. I had to reduce my speed a little bit toward the end of the 3 minute runs, so I'd like to complete the week at a steady, regular speed. That being said, I'm feeling pretty good about working out today because I was dragging my butt all day long...make that for the last couple days! I don't even know where I got the energy to do the C25K tonight, but I forced myself off the couch and put my workout clothes on. Sometimes I bargain with myself...like I'll tell myself that if I still don't feel like working out once I'm actually on the treadmill or elliptical for like 10 minutes, then I can call it a day. It seems to work because once I get going, I'm usually pretty good and feel like I want to make it worth my while since I went to all the trouble of getting changed into my workout gear and warmed up on the machine.

I'm not exactly sure why my butt is dragging so much lately, but I'm sure it has to do with going back to work this week after have some time off. It's been tough getting my head back in the game. I'm always a little hazy when I go back to work after a vacation. I also need to get my sleep schedule back on track...speaking of which I should start getting ready for bed and get my ass to sleep at a decent hour tonight! Staying up late on the internet is pretty much a guarantee to not get much sleep ;P