Eggplant, Costumes, and T-Scores... Oh My!

On Sunday night I made Eggplant Parmesan. It was delicious! Everyone enjoyed it (and by everyone I mean my family and Nick). I didn't end up using Jennifer's recipe, mainly because I didn't want to make the sauce myself, so I used a Martha Stewart recipe. So yummy!!

Well, I just found out another friend of mine is pregnant! (and I'm totally going to talk about it here even though not everyone knows yet, because really... only like 4 people read this blog, and none of them are related) I swear, there is something in the water! haha... I'm happy for the families of these 2 precious fetuses.

I'm going to a Halloween/Birthday Party and am very excited about my new costume. If you recall I went to a Halloween Costume Party/Dinner a few weeks ago at the Fratellanza club and my parents won 2nd place with their Popeye and Olive Oyl costumes!... wait, did I post about that? Let me go check... Oh, hmm... I totally didn't talk about that... well... now you know. I went to a Costume Party/Dinner/Dance thing at an Italian, Members Only Club, with my family a couple weeks ago. I helped plan my parents costumes (re: I told them they were going to be Popeye and Olive Oyl) and I helped plan my sister's costume (re: I told her she was going to be Cruella De Vil). That left little time for the planning of my costume, so I ended up going as Beth Chapman... again. I was Beth last year in SD. I figured since no one from SD will see me, it's cool if I wear the costume again. Well... I didn't really want to do that again. I could have recycled my boxer costume from 2 years ago, but I wanted to do something new, so I decided on a fairly decent and easy costume. I went to JoAnn fabric and craft store today for some material and Party City for some hair color and lastly WalMart for 33¢ knee high panty hose!! (Those were a great find, I'm just going to wear them on my arms, so I didn't want to ruin something expensive... but 33¢ is amazing!) I'll probably post a picture later. I hope it works out. That's the most hint I'll give you. I won't spoil the surprise. :)

Oh, this morning I got my T-Score breakdown in the mail. Remember the POST test I took that I passed. (I know I wrote about that, so just scroll down some if you don't remember... go ahead... I'll wait.... .... ... okay, ready? good.) I got the breakdown of my score, which basically means that instead of just "Pass/No Pass" I got a score. My score is 68.3. (The different categories had scores too, but I"m just posting the overall T-score) I have no idea what that means. I went to the site it told me to go to for more information on interpreting the scores, but it wasn't super helpful. It was helpful in boosting my confidence though because it told me that I am "above average" of other test takers. :) What I think it means is that, of the questions I answered, I only got a few wrong. The test added points for correct answers, deducted points for incorrect answers, and did nothing for no answers.

I haven't heard back yet from the Oral Board Interview, but it was less than a week ago, so that's not surprising. I'll keep you posted (no pun intended).

Sometimes things get in the way... sometimes, like tonight, they don't!

I wrote the following on a piece of paper Sunday Morning around 5am at my friends' house...

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I've been trying to write a post for a while now, but things get in the way. I dog/house sat for my friends Veronica and Dawn this past weekend. Their dog, Doc, is adorable but somewhat needy. He wants love almost 24/7 and while I'd love to pet him and talk to him a ton, I just can't. I need to sleep and eat too you know! Ha Ha! He's still a puppy so of course he wants attention, but please stop jumping up on me or nibbling on my knee when I ignore your tactics. But I had a good time with him... except the last day.

I feel so bad for the poor guy. He's got a bad case of the runs. I described it in a note to my friends as "It was like he has a water gun strapped to his back filled with dirty water." It was that bad... like projecting and the sound... let's just say it was gross.

How can you possibly discipline a dog for going in the house when you know he couldn't help it... well... you just don't.

I hope he's okay, but also I'm excited to be able to sleep through the night/sleep in tomorrow. =)
I haven't worked out in a while, to be honest, I've been really busy and on the few days I haven't been busy I haven't been able to use the TV or wii as someone else is using it/them. I did a lot of walking the past few days though by walking Doc around a bunch, so that should have made up for at least a tiny bit.

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All in all, I feel like it was a pretty complete blog post for being sleep deprived. I wrote it after I cleaned up poop at 3am and washed off the dog.

I had an interview on Thursday. I feel good about it, so I hope the interviewers felt the same! :) I should know in 1-2 weeks. *crosses fingers*

Oh, and I booked a trip to go to Georgia and visit my friend Charlie. I'm really excited to see him. I haven't see him, or even talked to him in over a year... in WELL over a year... omg... has it been 2 years?? I think it's been like... 1 year and 10 months or something crazy like that. I hope he hasn't forgotten about me. I saw a picture of him in his Halloween costume recently:



ADORABLE isn't he!?!!? I still keep in touch with his parents, Lizzy and Matt, and his grandma, Nancy, but I haven't talked to him in a long long time. Matt posts pictures of him on Facebook every now and then...

HaHa! Yes, I booked a trip to see Lizzy and Matt. It was a good price and when really will I have time in the future? The only thing that could get in the way is if I get the job and have to go in for a psych exam, poly graph test, or medical exam (a job with a police department is very thorough). I am banking on getting the job, but not having to go in for those things until after I get back. :) We'll see I guess.

...I just punched myself in the face...

WTF self? How could you punch me? What did I ever do to you?! I mean yeah, I might try to fill you with crappy, but delicious, food and I might have missed a couple work outs, but you don't have to be so aggressive about it.

So I guess I was really tired tonight. Sleep deprivation likes to creep up on me sometimes. As I was waking up, from a "nap," I wiped the sleepies from my eyes (okay, maybe you don't call them sleepies, but doesn't that sound so much better than something like "eye crust"), stretched, and promptly knocked myself on the jaw.

I either wasn't awake enough to control the function of my arm and just let gravity pull it back down towards the bed (and thus my face), or I'm angry with myself subconsciously and decided to knock some sense into myself. I'm inclined to believe the later. Besides, if it was the former, then I'd have to be mad at gravity for taking part in the abuse and I can't have a grudge against gravity lest it find out and decide to reek even more havoc on me. Can you imagine? I'd be walking along and then WHAM! HELLO GROUND! because gravity got the sudden urge to exert its full potential on me without warning? No thank you!

Gahh!! Where have the posts been?

I hoped I would be able to update if not everyday of the 30-day challenge, at least every day I worked out and keep a record of what exercises I did and how they made me feel... well, I failed at that. I've been oddly busy lately. Well, I suppose I didn't have to go to Happy Hour tonight with Jen and Alyssa, but come on, I need some semblence of a life!

I helped my dad build our new side fence. It's not completely done yet, but so far it looks good. :) I'm way proud of my dad! The day we put in the most work, I decided to work out with the Wii Active. I had skipped the day before and I started to fear the trainer would yell at me or be like "where have you been missy?" but luckily it's just a game and she didn't. Still, I felt good working out afterwards.

I hope to find time to work out this weekend, but I'm a little worried I won't. Tomorrow I'm going to bake a cake for Nick's birthday and I have costume dinner party to go to and then on Sunday I'm going to my cousin's girlfriend's baby shower and then out to dinner (if we get back in time) for Nick's birthday. When I write it all out, it doesn't seem like a lot, but each thing takes a long time, so it really is a lot. Ohwell, if I can't work out, I'll just work out more on Monday.

This is seriously the longest that I've still felt motivated to exercise. Like I said before, I might not be doing a lot, but I'm at least doing something and that says a lot for me.

Day ... uh, I'm not sure what day this is?

Should I classify this as day 3, even though I already had a day 3 post, since technically this is day 3 of exercising? Or should I classify this as day 5 since it's 5 days into the 30-day challenge? I don't know if the program counts 30 days of working out or just 30 continuous days. I should look into that. Maybe I'm thinking too much into this.

As you know, Saturday was my rest day. I fully intended to workout Sunday as the program stated, but as you well know, things happen. I came home from Jen's house and had a snack. It was between football games and I was going to work-out then, but my dad didn't really want to relinquish the TV. That coupled with having just eaten, I decided to postpone the workout and use it as another rest day... and rest I did. I think the antihistamine I took early wasn't fully out of my system. I basically slept from 5-8pm. It was glorious! :)

Anyway, I'm back on the wagon now. I worked out today while my parents were at the store looking for new fencing. Today was mostly an upper body workout--not very much cardio so it was so much easier. I got a little winded during the side jumps and inline skating exercises, but I was fine. We did bicep curls, shoulder presses, and other arm/back/shoulder exercises that I can't remember names of. Some of them really made me burn. What I mean is there were a couple times were by the end of the reps I could feel the lactic acid in my muscles and it was increasingly difficult to do each rep as smoothly as the first. It was great. I'm excited for tomorrow's work out. I really can't remember the last time I was excited about working out. I know I've been excited before, but it's never lasted a whole week! haha. Since today was so cardio-light, the program says I only burned 110 calories. But I'm optimistic and know that every little bit counts! The point is that I'm getting my body moving and using my muscles.

Afterward, I helped my dad a tiny bit with the fence. I say I only helped a tiny bit because he was mostly done by the time I got dressed and found my gloves. We're going to build the fence this week and weekend. Whenever he's not working. Should be fun. I've never built a fence before, so I'm excited. I just hope my dad still has some work to do on it by the time I come home from my cousin's baby shower, so I can help!

I guess you can call them pumpkin pie bites.

I have no idea how Bakerella got her Pumpkin Pie Bites to look so darned good! My pie crusts didn't look as round and pretty, but I think I did an alright job, especially for someone who has never made a pie before.

Something went wrong though, as it always seems to with me. The cream cheese didn't "cream" as well as I hoped it would. I think I need to whip it a bit more next time before I add the other ingredients. The pie filling ended up with "chunks" of cream cheese floating in it. Not like... big chunks, just like... small spots of it. So it didn't look as smooth as Bakerella's. But they taste good to me. :) Mine also fell more than hers did, so some of mine look like they have craters! hahaha! Practice makes perfect though and I fully intend to make these again. I'm sure they'll turn out better the second time around. I have a bad-quality photo of them, taken with my webcam, so unfortunately it doesn't help them look any better. hahaha.

Also, I went to multiple stores and non of them had canned pumpkin. They only had the pumpkin pie filling (to be made with condensed milk). I used that instead of the canned pumkin. Maybe that had something to do with it falling so bad? I dunno. Better luck next time, right?

Actually, now that I look at them further, most of them turned out pretty round looking. :) But, you can clearly see what I mean about the whole "crater" thing. Ohwell, like I said... practice makes perfect! :)

--- edit---

Okay, I just took another bad-quality shot of them with whipped cream on top. See? don't they look better! :)

Day 3 - Rest!

I didn't really intend to update every day of the challenge, but I find that I have the time to, so I might as well. I am doggy sitting. It's fun! :) I <3 Juno! So far we've played who is that at the front door?, talked through the back door, played follow Hammy's finger along the back door, played how do we get Lisa into the house? (Jen won that game by telling me how to get in. THANK YOU JENNIFER!!!!!), played "omg, I thought you were never coming inside, let me jump on you and lick you and dance with you" (I didn't do any licking... or jumping), chased each other in the yard, danced some more, played tickle monster, played tug-o-war, and played belly-rubs! I won tickle monster and belly-rubs, but Juno won tug-o-war. (Don't tell her, but I threw the game. I totally let her win.) We may have a rematch later tonight!

So... as you may have noticed, I seem to have gotten locked out of my friend's house. When I called home freaking out about it my mom gave me two very good pieces of advice. 1. Call Jennifer to find out how to get in. ("but mom, I don't want to freak her out." "Lisa, you need to call her! It's her house" LOL!) and 2. Always try a key when giving it to someone or taking it from someone, before you leave. I shall not forget that in the future.

I'm glad it's a "rest day" in the "challenge" because I am sore. Not super sore, but sore enough to feel it when I crouch down or when I stretch out. It's that good kind of sore, you know? The kind that tells you that you're alive and mobile and that you're actually using your muscles. I can't remember the last timeI enjoyed being sore. hahaha!

So, other than dog-sitting, what am I doing on my rest day? Well... resting of course! ha ha. No really, I'm going to make Pumpkin Pie Bites! Yeah, so I probably shouldn't make junk food if my goal is to lose weight and exercise, right? Well to you I say, SHUT UP! I'M MAKING THEM ANYWAY! O:-)

I'll let you know how they turn out. :)

Day 2 - Check!

So I just finished Day 2 of my 30-day Challenge. According to the program, I burned 172 calories today, which is curious because I decided to do the low-intensity workout instead of medium today. I feel so much better today than yesterday. I mean I don't feel entirely defeated and I don't need to go lie down in front of a fan! LOL I am perspiring and I feel hot and I feel like I am stinky (TMI?), but I don't feel like I'm going to vomit or like I'm close to death. hahaha I feel really good. I also took a hint from yesterday and got water handy ahead of time and turned the fan on before I started working out. :) Kept me much cooler. Duh, that was a stupid rookie mistake yesterday.

Now, I'll again admit I took a little break in the middle of the workouts, but that wasn't because I needed a break. My mother called and I was talking to her for a little bit. Actually, I talked to her while I was doing kick-ups for a little bit, then that portion ended, so I just finished our conversation before continuing on to the next exercise. All in all, I think it was a 15 minute break. I can see how difficult it is now for mothers with newborns or toddlers to get their exercise in! I got interrupted and I don't have a job or kids!!

I feel as though I could continue to workout. The program allows you to keep working out and pick your individual work outs if you want, but I'm not going to do that yet. I will take the dog for a walk later, I suppose that counts for something, right?

My side lunges today were so much better! I assume it's because of having the previous ones as practice. In any case, I'm improving on those. yay! But, we did forward and alternating lunges today... those will take some getting used to. I noticed the program holds lunges for 2 seconds when I have to step with my right leg and 3 when I step with my left. I find my left leg lunges more difficult to hold and I don't know if it's because that leg is weaker for some reason, or if it's just holding it that extra second. Strange. I know my right arm is stronger than my left because I use that arm more often, but I use my legs the same amount, so I don't necessarily believe my left one is weaker.

Looking at the calendar, my "trainer" says tomorrow is a Rest Day. It looks like ever 3rd day is a rest day. That's nice.

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On to other things. I passed my POST test. This means I now have an Oral Board Interview, which to me means I have an interview in front of multiple people who will be judging how well they think I'll be able to perform the job. I assume the Interview will take about 30 minutes as there is 45 minutes schedule between the start of each interview. It looks as though there are 41 people who have an interview schedule and there are only 3 open positions. That gives any one of us a roughly 7% chance of getting picked. I don't have any dispatcher experience, but I do have a lot of phone experience and a lot of experience dealing with different types of people who are in varying degrees of stress. We'll see how it goes... Cross your fingers!

Day 1- check!

So, after my surge of motivation, I decided to buy the Wii Active. I set up my fitness profile last night and decided to start it today. It allows you to do individual work-outs or select the "30-day challenge" which is basically a 30-day structured workout plan (including rest days). I opted to start the 30-day challenge today because I didn't know what work-outs I would want to do at first. I chose the medium intensity because I wanted a good work out... and boy did I get one.

The exercises themselves were easy, but I miscalculated just how out of shape I am. Omg! I also apparently have weaker knees than I thought. During the first set of squats I thought I was going to seriously hurt my knees, but during the next set later on, I felt fine. I guess they just needed to get back into the swing of things. During the side lunges, I realized that I SUCK AT SIDE LUNGES! I swear the chick on screen kept telling me to "try again," "watch me," and "hold it a little longer" and here I am talking back to my tv going "I'm trying!" and "well, how about you not hold it as long?" I'll admit, I may have half-assed the second set of side lunges that we did... hee hee hee... I'll try harder later.

Sadly I had to sit down and cool down a little in the middle of the exercises. I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, drank a little and turned the living room fan on before I got back into the program.

...

okay, I didn't want to admit it, but I really should hold myself accountable. There was 1 exercise left. It was a cool down run/walk.... but I just struggled through the exercise before because I was so hot/tired/just not feeling good... that I walked away from the TV. Yeah, I went and lied down on my bed with the fan on me for 10 minutes, then I went back in the living room and finished the "cool down" after my own personal cool down. I know that's not the proper way to do things, but I also know that if I'm going to work out on my own, I'm not going to push myself harder than I think I should. I seriously felt nauseous for a moment there and lying down helped. After the last run/walk, I felt good.

I feel good now, I feel like my thighs, primarily my left thigh will be a little sore tomorrow, but I feel good. I actually feel more energetic than I did earlier today (whether that's just because of the time of day it or or because of the work-out, I don't know). The program says I burned 169 calories during the work-outs. That doesn't sound like very much, but hey it's something, right?

I feel good about this 30-day workout and so far about the active in general. I'll be keeping up with this, but I think tomorrow I'll change it to a low intensity work out! :)