Happy March!!

It's pretty amazing to think that I haven't posted a blog for 2 months, it must be the crazy, busy, amazing lifestyle I have... there is just no time between the parties, spa treatments, shopping trips, vacations and all the other glorious details of my life to find time for blogging...   :) 

Back to reality:  Let's start with me.  I pretty much lost track of everything in February, there was no exercising, no healthy eating, no blogging, lots of stress and blah, blah, blah... so now that it is March I am really trying to focus on regular exercise and healthier eating habits (now that it's in writing I have to stick to it).  I went and signed up for a free 30-day pass to Snap Fitness last night, it is $10 less a month than my current gym membership, smaller facility, and much less people.  I tried out the treadmill last night and their equipment is definitely not the same quality as at Gold's, but I guess I can't really expect it to be, right?  The treadmill worked just fine, it turned on, tracked my distance, told me how many calories I burned, which is what matters.  I am going to try it out a few more times before I decide what to do.  I was also thinking about checking out Anytime Fitness to see what they are all about.  If I am going to go through the hassle of finding a new gym I might as well check out all my options. 

I am also trying to do more regular workouts at home using my lovely collection of workout dvds.  I had to buy a new copy of The Biggest Loser Cardiomax cause mine quit working, and that is really the only dvd I enjoy doing lately. 

I am signed up to run the Team Ortho Get Lucky 7k on March 19th... 9 days from now!  I'm doing it with my regular running buddies.. Emily, Carly and Kathy.  I am sure it will be a grand old time, although I am still scared of the distance, it's 4.35 miles and I usually only ever go 3.1... so that extra 1.25 could really kill me.  I had plenty of time to prepare myself for this race, but of course I didn't... so wish me luck! 

One last note about me.. I have officially lost 14 pounds this year, whoop whoop!

Let's move onto Kara.  She is absolutely, by far the most dramatic child in the history of dramatic children.  She will cry and cry and cry over the littlest things and there is no settling her down!  Our daycare provider has also commented on her dramatic nature.  She said that most kids will cry for a minute, then move on with their lives.. not my little Kara, she just doesn't quit.  On top of being dramatic, she is also incredibly smart, silly, loving and absolutely hilarious!  It's so fun to watch her personality grow, and see how similar she is to Joe and I, she really is the perfect mix of the two of us. 

Kara is and has been potty trained for quite awhile now, she wears big girl undies and rarely ever has accidents.  The only funny thing is that she absolutely refuses to poop on the potty chair, so when it's time to go #2 she asks for a diaper, then goes and hides in a corner and tells us not to look at her... it's pretty hilarious! 

We are also working on breaking Kara and her sucky (pacifier) apart.  She is absolutely 100% addicted to that thing, and I just want it gone!  I, of course and the softy parent and give in and give it to her even when I know I shouldn't.  It's just so much easier to give it to her than listen to her cry and whine about it!  She was doing really good without it for awhile, but now that she is sick(poor baby girl has strep), I just feel bad and give it to her... I am an enabler... 

Things that I think Kara might be when she grows up:
Musician - she loves playing her guitar, drums, recorder, xylophone, she just loves music!
Songwriter - when she plays her guitar she is constantly making up her own adorable songs about random things
Baseball player - she is obsessed with her Twins baseball shirt
Brew master - she recently told me that I need to buy her a beer t-shirt so that she can make beer with daddy!

She can also identify the following bands within seconds of their songs starting:  Trampled by Turtles, Mumford and Sons, and Jeremy Messersmith.  I can't wait until we can bring her along to some concerts.  I have a feeling that she is going to love music just as much as her mommy and daddy do!  If Joe and I are headed out to a concert and we are dropping Kara off with Grandma/Grandpa to babysit we try not to tell her where we are going, cause she wants to come with us!

Here is a pic of Kara with her guitar and new guitar strap that I made for her, notice that she is wearing her Twins shirt and her baseball hat, she thinks she's a boy:

Finishing touches of the guitar strap:

Shall we talk about Joe for awhile?  Where do I start?  Joe is currently laid off, and has been since the end of November.  He has been picking up hours at his part time job, but I just want him to get back to his full time job!!  We have had to cut back on how often Kara is in daycare, so she currently is going 2-3 days a week, depending on which days Joe works.  When they are home together they are typically busy cleaning the house, doing laundry, cooking dinner for mom watching cartoons?  Yeah, I guess I'm not really sure what they are busy doing... haha!  Hopefully Joe doesn't read this, he will probably kill me :)  Joe and his friends have continued brewing beer, there are currently 4 or 5 batches sitting in our bathroom waiting to be bottled, which I believe is happening this weekend.

Joe and I have been to quite a few concerts this year, and they have all been pretty awesome...  I'm not going to go into much detail, but here is what we have been to:

January:  Cash Only - A Tribute to the Man in Black, The Current's 6th Birthday Party with Trampled by Turtles, Roma di Luna, Jeremy Messersmith, Brother Ali and Free Energy

February:  Justin Townes Earle (This was on Valentine's day, and it was a really great show!) and the cd release party for Sims of Doomtree, where we also got to see Mike Mictlan, POS, Cecil Otter and Dessa... again, another really great show!

March - Gayngs Affilyated Showcase - ok, I have to talk about this one a little bit.  Gayngs basically took over First Ave and brought along all of their friends, and it was amazing!  Gayngs has somewhere around 23 people in the group, most of those people belong to other bands, and just about all of the other bands were on the bill to play that night.  They took over the mainroom, the Record Room and 7th Street Entry, it was pretty much like being at a music festival inside of First Ave, we will not be forgetting that night anytime soon! 

This is a bad picture, but this is how close we were to POS when we saw him in the Record Room, it was the coolest thing EVER!

Upcoming Shows:  The Rural Alberta Advantage on March 25th, and also possibly Volcano Choir the same day, and then Bright Eyes on April 4th (an early bday present to me!)

I can tell that this is going to be a great year for concerts!! 

So I think that is all for now!  Happy March everyone!!

Road Blocks

My plan to complete the 30 Day Shred and run 500 miles this year has hit a road block that I would like to call shin splints.  It all started while I was shredding, my shins were absolutely killing me, I was hoping after a few days it would go away.  I made it to day 8 and had to quit.  Since I wasn't shredding I tried going to the gym for a run, it had been almost a week and a half since my last run.  I couldn't run longer than 2 minutes at a time, and those 2 minutes were absolutely miserable.  My shins felt like they were on fire, they were killing me, so after 20 minutes and 1.5 miles I gave up.  It was quite disappointing, I can't remember the last time that I had a run that bad.  So for now I am going to put running on hold, maybe I will try outdoor running, I have a 7k coming up in March, which is 1.25 miles longer than I am used to running so I really wanted to get myself prepared for it.

In the mean time I have been doing the Biggest Loser Cardio Max.  Level one is pretty tolerable, and it will definitely make you sweat!!  Level one is 30 minutes including the warm-up and cool-down.  The moves are pretty basic, they incorporate some weights, it is Bob as the trainer and then contestants from past seasons.  Sometimes its hard to follow what they are doing on screen, they aren't very well coordinated and some of them have bad form...but if you can get past that its really a good workout!  I really like it, its a nice change from the shred, which is the only workout dvd I have used recently....well, except No More Trouble Zones, but we don't need to talk about the pure hell that that dvd is...ugh....

Also, I have started a team for The Biggest Loser MN Challenge, our team name is Hotties With Naughty Bodies...Thanks Carly!  There are 3 different challenges, weight loss, exercise and nutrition.  You can sign up for one challenge or all 3... I plan on doing all 3.  The challenge starts on January 24(you have to be registered by jan 23) and goes until April 15th.  I am pretty sure our team is going to kick some major butt with this, and we will all be Hotties with Naughty Bodies by the time we are through!

I ordered 3 new dvds to use during this challenge... They are all Biggest Loser dvds.  I ordered Power Sculpt, Last Chance Workout and Weight Loss Yoga.  I will let you know what I think of them once I get them and have tried them out!

Along with all of these workout dvds I have also started counting calories again, that seems to be the only way that I can really lose weight.  So far I have lost 8 pounds(most of which were gained between Thanksgiving and New Years....)  Once I hit 20 pounds lost I am treating myself to a manicure and pedicure, for a few different reasons...1. because 20 pounds lost is awesome 2. I have only had two mani/pedis in my entire life and I owe it to myself to have another!!  3.  my weight at 20 pounds lost will be an all time low weight for me since I had Kara, and that is definitely worth celebrating!!  Only 12 more pounds to go!!  When I hit 40 pounds I am treating myself to a massage, which I have never had before!!!

Let me know if you are interested in joining our MN Challenge team, and let me know what your goals/rewards are!!

Happy 2011: Screw Resolutions

Happy New Year everyone, hope you all had a safe and happy new year!  This year my resolution is to screw resolutions.  I tend to forget what I have resolved to do for the year by about January 6th, probably because I dream up great big giant resolutions while I am intoxicated.  So this year rather than resolutions I am going to have challenges, and I want you all to join me...I tend to keep up with challenges better when there are more people involved, so here is what I am thinking:

30 Day Shred Challenge 4 times this year.  Complete your first 30 Day Shred Challenge by February 15th. Then we can all start the next 3 together.  With start dates of April 1st, July 1st and October 1st.  Just so you know.. I already Shredded today so I am one day ahead of you :)

Next Challenge - log 500 miles of running/walking this year.  This is a very achievable goal - it would take 2-3 run/walks of a 5k distance per week.  Or maybe you could run/walk 10 miles one day and take of the rest of the week....it's up to you, just get to 500 miles however you can!!

Alright, let me know who is in!!  I know you all want to do these challenges with me!!

PS - I will try to get a Chirstmas/2010 year blog post up soon!!

Snowmaggedon 2010!!

In case you haven't heard, or you live in Minnesota and you haven't looked out your windows in the past 36 hours, we got hit with a mega blizzard this weekend!  The tags that people created for it on twitter include snowmaggedon, snowgasm, snOMG, snowlyshit, snowpacalypse and the list goes on and on.  We went to bed Friday night knowing that the snow was coming our way, this is what it looked like at about 1:00 am Friday night/Saturday morning:

I woke up around 7:30 Saturday morning and peeked out the window...there was a little accumulation of snow, nothing major, my car probably would have got stuck if I had tried to go anywhere, but thats cause my car just plain old sucks in the snow!  So I went back to bed and woke up around 10:30, by that time we had quite a bit more snow!  Sistafriend called and said she wanted to come over with the kids and hang out with us so that we could all be stranded together.  By about 12:30 they arrived and were greeted by a massive snowdrift in our driveway, I am honestly amazed they made there way through!

Throughout the day the snow continued, and the snow drift in our driveway grew and grew and grew!  Everything was closed or canceled throughout the day, plows were being pulled off the roads, airport was closed, city buses were called back in..it was pretty crazy!!  We were joking that we were all going to be stranded, turns out the joke was on us, cause we ended up stranded!  We made a lovely meatloaf for dinner, hung out and watched Christmas movies, did lots of looking out the window and just chilled at home.  Around 9:00 pm I made the realization that we were almost out of toilet paper and there were 4 adults and 3 children at the house.  Joe and Dre decided they were going to try to defeat the snowdrift and go to the store...please note that we pay an association fee, which includes snow removal, and at this point there had not been a single plow that had come through!  This is what happened when Joe and Dre tried to leave.  They realized quickly that they were not going anywhere and spent a good 30 minutes trying to get the truck back in the driveway.

Once they got the truck back where it belonged we decided it was time for the adults to play in the snow... it was much too cold outside for the kids, so they had to stay inside!

It was just insane how much snow was out there!  Around 10 or 11 it became apparent that Michelle and Dre and the kids were going to need to spend the night, so we pulled out the pack-n-play and the air mattress, this is what I woke up to on Sunday morning...the after blizzard party:

We made a lovely breakfast Sunday morning, but realized our resources were slowly dwindling... we were almost out of toilet paper, milk, bread, eggs and pretty much everything else! And the snow plows had STILL not come through.  I think Dre and Michelle were getting sick of us, so they called up a friend to come help them out of our driveway. Their friend arrived in a massive pickup truck with tow hooks, they hooked up Dre's truck and started pulling.... unfortunately a bolt or something broke, the tow hook appeared broke and they got a great big crack in their bumper, but they were desperate to get free, so they tried again! 

And they were finally freed!

After they got out, they agreed to come back with some necessary supplies for us, as there was no way either one of our vehicles were getting through.  A little while after they left the bobcats came to plow us out, and it was the most glorious sight!! 

Snowmaggedon will not easily be forgotten, I just hope it doesn't happen again anytime soon!!

Time To Quit Neglecting My Blog

With the holidays and the new year right around the corner I decided I better give some of my time to my blog, do some updates from the last few months and be ready for a fresh year of blogging in 2011!  I am going to try to re-cap the last few months and keep this one short and sweet, but I make no promises! 

First - here is a picture from back in August at the Michalski Family Reunion.  This would be a 5 generation picture, but my grandpa somehow escaped this one.  This is my Great Grandma, Mom, Me and Kara

 Joe, Andy and I went to see Mumford and Sons on 10/29/10 at First Avenue - the show sold out in about 3.2 seconds, but I managed to get some tickets!  And The Current was kind enough to record the show and archive the audio feed on their website... here is a link Mumford and Sons Audio  and of course, a picture of the three of us at the show!

For Halloween this year Kara was a monkey, which is very fitting as we call her monkey all of the time!  Kara went trick or treating with Jayden and Jayla, and they all had a blast!  Jayla was an adorable little Hello Kitty and could not get enough candy!  We also brought the 3 of them to Boo Bash on Grand for some Halloween festivities!

Jayden turned 6 on November 5th.  It's hard to believe he is 6 already!!  Where has the time gone?  He started kindergarten this year, and is loving it!

Thanksgiving morning Emily and I ran the Turkey Day 5k, and we totally kicked it's ass!  We ran the first 2.5 miles of it, which is an all time record for me - I have never ran more than a mile straight in my entire life!!  It was about 9 degrees outside the morning of the race.  Maybe this will be a new Thanksgiving tradition!  After our race we headed over to my mom's house where we had Thanksgiving brunch, then to Joe's grandparent's house for Thanksgiving dinner.  It was a very fun, long day! 

 Kara with Grandma Julie on Thanksgiving.

 Kara has become obsessed with Eskimo kisses!

 Kara with her new Hello Kitty purse from Grandma Nancy.  She loves this purse!  Maybe there is hope that she will be a girly girl someday!

 

Here are some pictures from our failed attempt of making Christmas cookies at my mom's house, luckily the kids had plenty of sprinkles to eat!

And here are a few other favorite pictures from the past few months:

And I can't forget a picture of Kara putting ornaments on the Christmas tree! 

Final Thoughts:  The last few months have been crazy busy!  Joe is currently laid off, and will hopefully be returning to work in mid January or mid February.  During this time we have dropped Kara down to 2 days a week in daycare, and she spends the other three at home with Daddy.  I think they are having a lot of fun at home together!  Kara has started testing boundaries like crazy, she has the whole manipulation thing down way too well!  She is doing really great with potty training, now we just need to get rid of that dang sucky of hers!! I think she is going to have an absolute blast at Christmas this year, I can't wait for it to get here!  Oh, and Emily and I have registered to run the Polar Dash 5k on New Year's Day and the Get Lucky 7k on St. Patrick's Day weekend!

Some of Kara's recent phrases:

"I was going to do that first"(when Joe or I are doing something that she wants to be doing)

"Mommy, sometimes you're bossy"

Kara's video message from Santa! 

And one last thing.. A little sneak peek of our pictures we had taken with Auntie Emily.  Currently #4 and #7 are my favorites.  Check them out!