mama wants to fit into her skinny jeans!!

Hello dear readers!

I hope you had a lovely weekend. I did. My book club got together for a board game night and has a blast! Book club? Board games? Nerdy? Some may say yes. Hells yes!! :)

Anywhoodle. The point of today is thus:

I've started another blog. Its different than this one, so no need to reset your Google Readers to another website or change your favorites. I'm starting on a weight loss journey. I can't believe I just said "weight loss journey". Who am I?! Anyway, I read somewhere that blogging about your *cough* journey, can help you "stick to it", and be more accountable. Sounds good to me!

So -- if this interests you at all, feel free to check it out! Its the same old me, funny & sarcastic... just talking about food and exercise. I won't be sad if the sound of this bores you. It honestly kinda bores me too. But I'm tired of being a fatty. If anyone wants to head on over I'd really appreciate your support! If not, no hard feelings :) I still heart all of your faces.

http://mcgriddlepants.blogspot.com/

Back to the usual, come tomorrow! Peace out!

questions!

Waaaaay too late to be polite... here's a list of questions and answers from the New German Girl (P.S. I love her, if you haven't read her, you must must MUST!)

1. If you could give your readers one piece of advice, what would it be?
 Write for yourself. You're never going to make everyone happy. I started my blog to keep friends and family posted on my life, without having to send out mass emails. Obviously its evolved a bit since then, but I still write for myself. Post as often as I like, about things that I like. Its the best way you'll stick with it, and honestly earn more readers because you're being who you really are as opposed to being a phoney boloney.

2. Name the three things that you love the most about your life.
--I love getting paid to do nothing (ahhhhhh the beauty of unemployment insurance)
--I know someone everywhere. Having lived around the country, I can find someone to get a beer with, or crash on their couch, in nearly every state!
--I have good looks AND personality. Whoop!!



3. If you could switch places with any one of your friends or family members for one day, who would you choose and why?
I honestly like my life as is (most days) and wouldn't switch my life with anyone's! Cheesey? Who cares! :)


4. What is one trend that you wish didn’t exist or that had never caught on?
 I can only pick one?! Today, I'd say jeggings. I'm sorry. Wear skinny jeans. Wear leggings. Jeggings are just hybrid idiot looking pants.

5. Name three inventions you consider to be ingenious.
fermentation (beer... DUH!)
the internet (Thanks Al Gore!!)
Q-tips

6. At your funeral, you want people to remember you as…
 Fun loving, caring and loyal. I have no spouse or children, so my brother gets my life insurance, and the instructions are to have a giant party, in my honor. Wake style. Lots of booze, food, music, telling awesome Anne stories.

7. If you could be famous, what would you like to be famous for and what celebrities would be in your posse?
Being Awesome.
The cast of How I Met Your Mother and Betty White. That's how we roll.

8. If you were going to host a blogger house party which bloggers would you invite and what would go down?
Well most house parties I have include Beer Pong (we play the Beruit Version) and Guitar Hero. My guest list would include:
Heather @ Boyfriend Challenged
Jon @ 1000 Tiny Things I Hate
All the Guys @ American Drink
Ashley @ One Crazy Brunette Chick
Sofia @ The Brewery
and
The Faux Trixie @ The Faux Trixie

vegetarius maximus

Oh Lord. Its finally happened.

I've gone vegetarian.

For a month.

Stop! Stop!! Don't run away! WAIT!! Here me out!

I'm not a "Meat is Murder" kinda gal. (Although I do think some of the U.S. meat industry's standards are extremely sub-par and unhealthy) When you get to the point that your "fat pants" are now too tight, its really time to do something. A few months ago I was on a exercising kick, which I fell off that wagon with an earth shattering THUMP! So I need to take some drastic measures and get my life on the right track. This includes eating better and smarter. Here's where the vegetarianism comes in...

Everyone always says to stop drinking to lose weight. Now I don't generally drink a lot but I do really loves my beers. I'm a beer afficionado, and I just love beer. Not the Natural Light, Coors, or Budweiser kind, but the craft brew ultra delicious kinds. Can't get enough of 'em. Soooooooo... I've decided to keep my beers, and cut out meat. Mostly red meat, but I'm going to try for all meat except for fish for one month. Hamburgers are the real culprits. Those and chicken wings (soooooo good) so I'm going to give it a whirl. Don't worry, I'm not going to become a tofu/garden burger junkie (no offense to those of you who are *winks*) cause that's just not my style.

I've been doing good so far, almost been one week. What's really funny is, I haven't even had any beer this whole time either, hahhahaa! Double whamey! I'm also doing pretty good with my workouts. Haven't missed any yet, and am trying really hard to stay active even when not working out. Less couch time for me!! I mean seriously, I've been unemployed for about a year now, and have put on about 15 pounds. This is not a coincidence. For serious.

All of these things, on top of the fact that my mom was recently in the hospital for Congestive Heart Failure. Yeah, for serious. She goes on her "Vacation of a Lifetime!" trip to Greece for 3.5 weeks and one week in, she is hospitalized. So not only is she in the hospital for heart problems (scary enough) but she's in the hospital in ATHENS GREECE! So I can't go visit her, she's 10 hours ahead and its virtually impossible to get a hold of her.

She's doing much better now, is home and looks good. There's no damage to her heart muscles, arteries or veins and is on heart medication now. Mom was in relatively good shape and has never had any heart troubles before, so you can see how this was a little unnerving.

So the point of this story is, its time for me to start taking better care of myself! Exercising and eating better. GO ME! I'm hoping I can shed some of this "unhealthy belly fat" and get into a little better shape so that if I need to go for a hike or a bike ride, I won't be passing out after the first half mile. Plus I'm getting old enough that when I get out of bed in the morning I have to hobble myself to the bathroom because my joints are all stiff and seized up. How fun it is to get old!!

Wish me luck! And thanks to everyone for the well wishes for my mom (here, and in person).

brain puddy

I seriously think facebook has ruined me for blogging.

I have been having a really hard time writing blogs recently. I'll hit the "New Post" button, and stare at a blank screen for 20 minutes, and then log off. WTF? I can usually think of 93,495 things through out the day to post, but can't even seem to verbalize them when I get here. I've also been really really bad about reading my bloggy pal's posts. Its nothing personal mind you, but I've just not been feeling it. I'll get about 2 sentences in and click away. WTF! Is that weird? Today I think I figured out why.

Stupid facebook lets me read statuses, articles and whatever in about 3 seconds, all in one single page. I can comment and move on the the next post with ease. Am I getting too lazy for blogging? Please God say it ain't so.

I'm going to try to be more diligent about my blog reading. My friends deserve better than that! :) I think that the lack of stimulation in my life is causing my brain to go soft. Not working has made me so unbelievably brain dead its scaring me. SOOOOoooo

Less internet time! NO WAIT! This is a good thing! Usually I watch movies or TV with my laptop on my lap the whole time. I spend way too much time dicking around on the internet that I really don't need to. So now, its quality internet time only. Like quality family time, but with my blog friends! Hahaa! I'm also going to try to read more books, and IF I'm still unemployed this winter I'm going to take some classes at the local community college to raise up my GPA in case someday I ever decide to go to grad school. At this point my GPA is a little low... so a little help wouldn't hurt. Right?!

I guess the changing seasons are making me rethink a lot of my life decisions thus far. Its fall, so time to turn over a new leaf!

McGriddle Pants Anne

Climbing Mt. St. Helens, July 3, 2009

We started off at 430 in the morning. I was so excited about the climb that I really didn't much sleep the night before, waking up about every half and hour. I had been very excited about this hike for several weeks before. I've heard stories from different climbers about the experience. They all varied from, "Wow, you be hurting" to "It'll be cake walk." Granted the former came from a former college athlete, so you could say I had a few mixed messages about what to expect.

Now let me correct any of your thinking... I am not, in any sort of form, "in shape." Yes, I work my buns off at Lowe's every night, but its nowhere near cardiovascular. If you want me to lift 54 pound bbq's or sinks or weed whackers, I can do that for hours! But run a marathon? no.

So Scotty & Rob (friends from Germany) and myself started early in the morning. We went to Fred Meyers and picked up Scotty's friend Scott and we headed to washington. We stopped and picked up our passes at the Lone Fir Resort. Hahaaa, resort in the loosest form of the word. Ready to set off, now officially "checked-in," in case we went missing and we headed to the Climbers Bivouac (according to wikipedia pronounced Biv-wack). At the start of the trail at Climber's Bivouac, there is a great view of the mountain. I bit daunting as well. The first part of the trail is through the woods for about 3 miles, with a mild uphill grade. We were trucking along at a good pace, and I started to feel my heart beating in my chest. I was thinking to myself, "what have I gotten myself into?!?" I was already beginning to sweat and we'd barely even started.

Once through the tree lines we took a break. The view was gorgeous and the weather really was perfect. Warm but not too hot, with a slight breeze. Looking up at what we had to climb, I remember what happened 19 years ago and pray she waits one more day before doing it again. YIKES!

View of Mt. Adams

Taking a breather, watching other climbers on the trail

Still smiling... barely

Climbing up

Skipping some rocks, and walking up the snow path

Shale and ash, all the way up

After our break we began the "real" climb. I've been hiking before, but I've never been "climbing." I mean, honestly the trail is uphill, between a 30-45 degree angle most of the way, literally climbing over lava boulders. All along the trail the USGS has put fence posts sticking out of the rocks to guide you up the trail. Other than that, you're pretty much on your own. Honestly, we were scrambling up the whole way. Climbing over boulders, occasional snow, shale and ash. Quite a time! Basically I was on a stairmaster for about 5 hours. At one point I was stopping to take a break for every 20 yards or so. Seriously. And the higher you got the harder it was to catch your breath because of the altitude.

The climb was rough, but the views were spectacular!! As you can see from my pics, you can see Mt. Hood and Mt. Adams the whole way up. And once you reach the summit you can see Mt. Rainier. Quite breaktaking!!

Finally at the top! Rob, Scotty, myself and Scott

View of Mt. Rainier, from the rim

Sweet taste of success

So I'll spare you the gruesome details of the last mile, which by the way feels like its straight up. About one mile walking, climbing almost 600 feet. STEEP! NOt to mention that the last 1/2 miles is on ash and shale, basically like walking uphill in sand. Yeah, that was fun. So once at the top, views were spectacular!! Scotty had brought along a flask of Maker's Mark for a celebration. To be honest, that sounded not at all appetizing once we'd climbed for 5.5 hours. But we passed it around, ate our lunches and enjoyed the view. It was funny, since the summit is honestly about 20 yards long and about 8 feet wide, with roughly 30 people milling about. People come and go, everyone cheering on everyone else as they reach the summit. Its a touch climb for anyone. We even ran into a girl who was "training for Rainier" who had 3 gallon water jugs in her back pack just for added weight!! Maniacs.

Finally ready to make our way down we notice people "sliding" down the snow face to the right of the actual trail. People were just sitting down and going for a ride. Most were not very graceful, but they seemed to have a good time, so we decided to give it a try. We must have been quite a spectacle as we slid down, I noticed many flashes to my left of people taking photos of us. It was so much fun!! wheeeeeeeeeeeeee sliding down the hill!!! We were all laughing so hard we could barely stand up. It was awesome. Once the trail seemed to end, we'd see it pick up again a few yards down the way and we'd go again. Wheeeeeeeeeeeee down even further. We could see landmarks of the trail passing by us on the left too. We knew we were near the trail so we weren't too worried about getting lost. a few more yards and wheeeeeeeeeeeee down some more. Somehow Rob must have greased his behind, because he was flying down faster than any of us. I was actually run over several times!! So much fun!!

Sliding down!!

I was really quite relieved to know that I wouldn't have to stumble down the mountain face the whole way down. And after an hour or so of sliding my common sense starting kicking in and I thought... hmmmmmmmm... do we really know where the trail is? are we going to end up on the other side of the mountain? My fears were confirmed when I looked up. The entire trip up the mountain, Mt. Hood was directly behind us. Now as I looked out, it was wayyyyyyyy to our left. Uh Oh Shaggy.

OF course we were at a point where just hopping on over to the trail was nearly impossible. Rob scuttled himself up and took a look. Well, we could either jump down about 9 feet onto wet rocks (not a good idea in my book) or climb up some rock and shale at an ungodly angle to head back to the trail. So up we went. Please note: I have never rock climbed. Why? Because I have a fear of heights. Not debilitating, but enough that I don't put myself into situations that I know I can't handle. Thank God my climbing partners were calm and cool, even if they weren't on the inside, they were on the out. Scott was great telling me where to put my foot, where to grab, where to go next. I was on the other hand, nearly hyperventilating. Visions of rock and land slides filling my head, knowing that at any moment I could be crushed until hundreds of pounds of lava rock. LUCKILY that was not the case, and we made it to the top. ONce there I nearly broke down into tears and I had to take a few moments to compose myself. It was at this point that I really just wanted to get back, get home, take a shower, and have a beer. We had about 3 more climbs and decents ahead of us as we traversed the mountain back to the trail, but none were as scary or as extreme as the first one. As Rob said, It was fun sliding on the ice, but we paid the price.

After that, the rest of the journey was uneventful. We finally made it back to the trail, and to be honest, we made about the same time as we would have if we'd walked the whole way. All said and done we were on the mountain from 7:30 to about quarter to five, not a bad day though. After we took our stinky shoes off and stripped down our of our sweaty clothes we piled into the car. Exhausted, hungry and a little wiser, we headed home.