Moving

I tried to make it work with Blogger, but I'm switching over to Wordpress.

http://echoingmetaphor.wordpress.com/

I want your everything, As long as it's free

I can't believe I have been away for so long. Yikes!

A couple of updates:

Health
I went and met with the ENT specialist this week regarding my sinus issues. The news wasn't great but also wasn't bad. I've basically exhausted all of the non-surgical options so the last resort is surgery. I'm scheduled for Endoscopic Sinus surgery at the end of April. I really wanted to avoid surgery at all costs but if I do then I have to live with my sinus issues for the rest of my life and it's super unpleasant. The surgery only takes about an hour, I'll be put under and there should be no cutting. He's going to go in and scrape away all of the cysts in my various sinus cavities and then he's going to drill larger holes so that they'll drain better. Those 2 things should considerably improve my quality of life and I cannot wait.

The only downside is I won't be able to run in the 5k I wanted to do in May... but I'm ok with that. This needs to get resolved ASAP. And the sort of good thing is I'll get 4 days off work and he says recovery won't be bad.

Life
I found out today that our household has been selected for the Nielson Homescan panel. I went and checked the mail tonight and our scanner had already arrived. I am a giant nerd and can't wait to get started on this! The scanner is charging as I type and starting tomorrow I scan everything that gets brought into the house!

This week was my bf's birthday. He turned 31 which he wasn't particularly thrilled about but what can you do? I overspent again on his gifts. I gave him the X-Files complete series boxed set (which now he says I have to watch with him... ugh!) I also gave him a leather coat which I'd purchased at Danier after Christmas. He LOVES his coat which makes me SO happy! At the last minute I also went out and bought him a video game which cost me an insane $80.

Because of the birthday this whole week has been TERRIBLE in terms of food :( There was lots of delicious cake. Also, I was kind of, not depressed but unhappy re the surgery news so I had Subway for lunch one day which included cookies and pop. No more though. Tomorrrow I get back on track. Clean and healthy eating. My birthday is in a few weeks so there will be more cake then, but then that's it!

With the cleaner & healthier eating comes be getting back on track with my workouts. The wii has been severly neglected these past few weeks. I need to fix this ASAP! Tomorrow I`m going out shopping and I need to find some kind of better resistance band for the EA Sports Active. I think I might also jump on the same bandwagon as everyone else and dust off the 30-Day Shred and get that started.

Since my goal of running a 5K in May has been put on hold, my new goal is to lose 10-15lbs before my surgery. I have 3 months to do this so it`s totally realistic.

And that`s about it for now. After tomorrow`s shopping outing I`ll be able to finalize my January spreadsheet for my budget and then I`ll post my February goals. I`m kind of excited January is almost over. It wasn`t a terrible month or anything but lots of bad happened and I`m ready to put everything behind me and start fresh.

So I've been pretty much off sick with the flu all week. That was unpleasant :/ I did go back to work yesterday to try and get caught up on some work but missing 3 days meant I fell WAY behind on everything. I'm seriously contemplating going in on Sunday to get some uninterrupted work time. We'll see though because I also need to start my course if I want to write my exam before March 31st.

This week I got paid which is always fun. There's still a week left in this month and I already know I'm going to be way over in the grocery section. I talked about it with the bf yesterday and for the month of February I'm going to try something different. Instead of shopping at the Sobeys by our house I'm going to head over to one of the cheaper stores, either the No Frills or Food Basics and see if that makes any difference. The interesting thing, in January we have my bfs bday so we buy some more expensive food for a meal. In February we have both Valentines Day and my birthday.

In the mail yesterday I also got my renewal notice from Costco. My membership is due in March and for the last 2 years I've paid for the Executive Membership. Up until about a year ago we would shop at Costco on a weekly basis and most of my groceries would come from there. I've slowly changed my habits though and don't spend as much at Costco anymore so this year I will downgrade back to the regular membership. One of the advantages of the Executive one is that you get some cash back. I got my voucher and it's for $55 so that's enough to cover the lesser membership. Yay!

Birthday

So my birthday is coming up in February and my bf has been asking me for a couple of weeks now to provide him with a list of things I want.

Well.. given that Christmas just happened and I had a hard time coming up with a list for THAT... I'm having an even harder time trying to find things I want! I love my bf very much but he's not very imaginative when it comes to gifts. Also, he's not one to go out and purchase something, he'd likely find a way to order it online. This makes coming up with ideas kind of hard.

I honestly have no idea what I want. Maybe I'll just ask for an ipod to use for running. I already have one but it's one of the big & heavy ones and I love, love, love it but running with it kind of sucks.

Jeff's bday is actually coming up next week but I, being more organized bought his gifts during the boxing day sales. I always spend more than our limits on him so it's good I get things at great deals!

In better news, Pay day is in 2 days!

Weekend Update

I have had such a lazy and unproductive weekend. I actually hurt myself SNEEZING. Wtf is that??! I have managed to get some cleaning done, but as my movement is limited due to my sneezing injury (so ridic) I haven't been able to workout. It seems as though every weekend a different excuse comes up and that needs to stop.

I wish they would stop playing Christmas commercials on tv. That being said, I still need to take down my decorations.. but I guess they don't feel all that Christmas-y since they're purple.

I'm trying out my new crockpot for the first time today. I made some Boeuf Bourginion and it's making the house smell AMAZING. I also plan on using it more time this week to make some pineapple pork. I really need to find some more recipes so I can get in the habit of using it a few times a week to free up some of my time when I come home from work.

Catching Up.

I've been on a course all week which has me going into work at my regular time but getting home about 2 hours later which is kind of making things sucky right now.. but it's only temporary so I'm trying not to let it stress me out. It doesn't help that this course is keeping me away from my regular work so when I come home I spend a couple of hours playing catch up with all of my emails. It's only temporary. It's only temporary!

On monday I was able to get a quick run on the treadmill in. I only got a mile done again because I accidentally wore the wrong shoes. Whoops! The good news is I ran most of the mile and shaved a minute off my time. Progress is good however slowly it comes!

Over the weekend I joined the X-Weighted National Challenge and woke up monday morning having had a nightmare that Paul Plakas had kicked me out of the program for having a bad attitude! That was weird. Anyways, my weight-loss goal is 25lbs in 26 weeks which seems more than attainable to me. I actually wanted to up it by 3lbs but it wouldn't let me as it didn't feel it would be a healthy weight for me. If I manage to lose to weight i'll be down to 168lbs which seems reasonable for my 5'11 large build frame. From there I would probably want to tone up but not really lost much more.

Money-wise my spending has been pretty good this week since I've been too busy to do anything! I did spend $10.61 on monday at the Pharmacy, I needed a new toothbrush, toothpaste and some peroxide for my poor toe. These last 2 days I have also spent a total of $2.50 on coffee. I've resisted the urge to buy a bagel or muffin or fritters which I'm super proud of! Good for the wallet and good for the waist-line!

Today is supposed to be grocery day but since I hadn't made a meal plan or list yet we're going to go tomorrow. I'm thawing some fish right now for us to eat, I'll throw together a salad and roast some b-sprouts and that'll have to be good enough. My homework after dinner is getting that list done!

And that's pretty much it. I pvr-d The Biggest Loser last night so I'll try to get through that at some point tonight, I find that show so motivating!

The shape of things to come

This weekend went by WAY TOO FAST! I can hardly believe it's almost 10pm on Sunday!

I spent zero minutes working out this weekend which makes me mad at myself. Normally I wouldn't beat myself too much over it, but I'm working late 3 days this week and won't be able to work out then either! Such a terrible way to fall off the resolution so early in the year! I'm not giving up though, I'll figure something out.

I did however have plenty of time to go shopping. I bought 2 workout tops, 1 wii game on sale and a bunch of grocery items that were all on sale at costco. I ended up spending about $80 on the grocery stuff alone! But it was on things like PB, bread, V8 juice, cereal, things I would have needed to get at the grocery store eventually. The only other thing I bought myself was a COSCO cup for cold drink. It kind of looks like a Starbucks cup, it's actually super awesome and I can't wait to try it out tomorrow morning for my smoothie!

Today was brunch at my aunt & uncle's house. My uncle is also a runner and I've roped him into running a half marathon with me to celebrate my 30th, which is in 2011 so we have plenty of time to train. I had mentioned it to him on Christmas Eve and he was all over the idea.. but he was also inebriated so I didn't expect him to actually be up for it. Today I found out he's quit drinking and he's dead serious about training! I'm very excited to have a running partner!

After brunch we sat around and watched Fanboys and then I came home to try to get the house as clean and tidy as I could. I got all of my laundry done and put away. I vacuumed the bedroom, hallway and stairs. Vacuumed the main floor and dusted. I still need to get all of the Christmas stuff put away but that won't happen until I get some storage bins.

I also started getting to work on my meal plan for the week. My mother got me a crock pot for my New Year's gift, but I just got it today so I'm SUPER excited to use it! I haven't had a crockpot in over a year since I broke my last one. And this one is even better, it has a timer!

Ok, I'm off to watch the rest of Chuck and then to rewatch this week's Dollhouse. Goodnight!