thirsty

I really don't know where to begin.  I haven't blogged in a while, and things have been happening.  Let's start with the fun, shall we?  Tonight I baked cookies for my colleagues for Valentine's Day.  I, apparently, cannot make cookie-cutter cookies on my countertop with success.  I don't know what is wrong with it (or me), but it wouldn't work at all tonight.  I decided to just slice and sugar instead.  Still tasty.

But I might have eaten one or two (or cookie dough) myself...

I have a lot of colleagues in a LOT of school buildings.  I always want to do nice things for them and feel like a part of each school community.  However, that would require me to plan for about 20 buildings in 6 school districts each week.  That's realistically not going to happen.  So I'm doing Valentine's Day to show how much I love everybody.  I might even take some to my boss. ;)

Besides the cookie goodness, I've tried to get back on track with my nutrition plan.  You might not know it, but in November 2005 (seems so long ago), I joined a local gym and paid (a lot of $$$) for nutrition counseling and personal training.  I lost 40 pounds in 3 months.  As a result, my self-esteem increased dramatically, I started dating like crazy, and then I gained the weight back.  I just couldn't pass up free drinks and desserts from cute boys.  I now find myself in the reverse situation.  My confidence is pretty high, and I'm dating, but I want to be healthier and try to get back to my fighting weight. :)  So...I'm going to try it without shelling out all the moolah.  I've already started detoxing from soda.  I didn't do this last time, but I'm pretty sensitive to artifical sweeteners, and diet soda really messes with me.  So, I'm doing the water thing.  I've never really been a big water drinker, but I'm starting to get on the bandwagon.  I'm already feeling better.  I'm also getting back to my nutrition plan diet.  It's kinda boring, but it does the job.  Here's what I ate last night:

Oh yeah.  That's a spinach salad with oil and vinegar.  What you can't see is the grilled chicken and tomatoes at the bottom of the bowl.  It was quite tasty.  Tonight I had something a little off the diet, but not crazy bad for me:  homemade turkey soup from my Mom.

I only ate about a third of it because I was full pretty quickly.  Other than the diet change, the only other thing I'm trying to do it remember my vitamins and supplements each day.  I'm BAD about taking vitamins, but I'm trying!  The exercising will come along as soon as I get the food routine down.  I don't want to set myself up for failure, so food first, then exercise.  In all honesty, the diet part is the most difficult.  I had gotten into a bad routine of eating breakfast at McDonald's every morning and eating fast food for lunch when I was out and about at work everyday.  It's no wonder I felt like poop a lot of the time.  I remember how I felt when I was working out and eating better - pretty good!

Wish me luck!  I need some encouragement!