Week one, Day one.

My goal this year to is run (or jog)...OK let's just say COMPLETE the Whale of a Run, which is a local run in Silverdale as part of Whaling Days at the end of July. It's 4 miles, which for some of you may sound like easy-peasy stuff. For me, it makes me want to cut my legs off from the knees down. 
Every year we go to the parade which is right after the run, I see the the runners all sweaty and tired and think, "I could do that, if I started training now. I could do it." I think I've been talking about doing this for at least 5 years. I have been trying to get to the Y after work for the past week and a half, but be the time I get home at 5:30, sitting on the couch with my hubby and dog with my feet up sounds much better. Well, this morning I got my tired fat butt out of bed and headed to the YMCA. AT 5 AM! 
I've been referred to a couch to 5K program by my buddy John who is a runner, and so this is what I am using to get back into shape. It's an 8 week program that lays the ground rules for each one of your workouts to minimize injuries and burnouts and maximize success. It's 3 workouts a week, for 8 weeks so I am going to stick with Monday/Wednesday/Friday.

Week	Workout 1	Workout 2	Workout 3
1	Brisk five-minute warmup walk. Then alternate 60 seconds of jogging and 90 seconds of walking for a total of 20 minutes.	Brisk five-minute warmup walk. Then alternate 60 seconds of jogging and 90 seconds of walking for a total of 20 minutes.	Brisk five-minute warmup walk. Then alternate 60 seconds of jogging and 90 seconds of walking for a total of 20 minutes.

As I was jogging, and feeling EVERY SINGLE SURFACE OF MY BODY JIGGLE I realized just how out of shape and big I'd let myself get and I became embarrassed. Embarrassed because I knew better, I was just in denial. So much in fact I thought I'd realized the enormity of the situation I'd put myself in before, but that 20 minutes on the treadmill this morning was extremely sobering. It made me want to keep jogging until I almost flew of the back of the machine, but I didn't. The program's website says you may feel this way, but to do exactly what's outlined for you at the beginning because pushing too hard will only hurt you. So, I did my twenty minutes and walked out of there with my chubby face held high because I finally felt like I'd had my breakthrough. 

Beauty

There is beauty around us, we just have to take the time to enjoy it.

Microwave Chocolate Cake!

]I was being totally lazy today while the hubster was out with his buddy. I wanted chocolate cake pretty badly, and a store bought cake didn't sound great and neither did making a whole cake (well because eventually I'd be the one eating it by myself). I had been playing around on pinterest and found a whole ton of microwaveable "cakes" in a mug.

It was super easy, and in less than 3 minutes, I had a steaming mug full of brownie/chocolate cake! Here's the recipe::

 

Thursday Laughs

Just some of the hilarious images I've come across lately!

Kendall's photo shoot!

A couple weeks back I had Kendall for the day and I gave her my phone to keep her distracted briefly. She somehow figured out where the camera was and made it so the front facing camera was in use because I found these photos in my photo stream!

Tv Woes & TV WHOAS!

We've had a casualty in the Garcia household. Ricky's beloved 42" plasma TV, the very first one he ever bought for himself (which if you know him at all, you know how important that decision was LOL) is now this....

We were taking this TV to Best Buy to get serviced when out of nowhere, we almost got hit on the passenger side by a vehicle who's driver chose not to check her blind spot and came right over into our lane. Ricky slammed on the brakes to avoid the collision. The force of having to stop almost immediately caused the TV to shoot forward and it slammed into the back of the front seats. It shot forward so hard it felt like we were rear-ended. Needless to say, Ricky was HEATED. We pulled up to the lady's vehicle and she didn't even look over at us. Probably cause she realized she cut us off and she saw Ricky having a full scale meltdown behind her!!!

Anyways, long story short auto insurance wouldn't cover it because there was no collision. Our warranty through Geek Squad at Best Buy wouldn't cover it either. As a last ditch effort, Ricky spoke with the manager at the Best Buy in Silverdale who said he would look into seeing what he could do. After a couple days of "seeing what they could do" we kind of lost hope. Next thing we know the assistant manager called us up and told us to come in and they'd either replace the TV or give us the current value for it to get something else! We were thrilled! When we got there, they didn't have the replacement TV, which was not in stock, so they decided to do us one better. They found the newest version of our TV (which we bought 5-6 years ago) all upgraded and gave us that one!!!!! We had to pay a nickel for the TV cause they couldn't zero it out completely and of course we bought the warranty for the new TV and we had gift cards to cover that. So in all, we got a $700 42" HDTV Plasma  1080P for $33 out the door, 4 year extended warranty and all!

We thanked the manager and he turned and told us, "No. Thank you guys for being such loyal customers!" I was floored and so pleasantly surprised. They went way above and beyond for us, when they absolutely did not have to. Amazing. I'll be making sure to send a lengthy thank you letter to not only the local store but the regional manager as well. There are still genuinely nice people in the world and apparently they are found at the Silverdale Best Buy!

Annual cold time, pretty much!

I have been down with a nasty cold since Saturday night. Coughing, fever, sinus pressure and congestion, all the lovely symptoms. I was browsing through old mobile uploads and status updates from last year at this time on Facebook and it appears I was very ill about a week earlier last year. A year before that, give or take a week off as well. I've officially put a reminder to up my intake of vitamin C for the month of February 2013, and hopefully I can break this cycle. I hate being sick!
Ricky on the other hand is perfectly fine and will probably continue to be fine because somehow he avoids getting all the trash I drag home! Does anyone do anything specific to avoid the seasonal sickness? Please don't tell me to get a flu shot either because every time I've gotten one as an adult I get sick 10 times worse than I did without one.
Is it Spring yet?!