Goodbye...Till Next Time!

Oh y'all.

Today sucked.

My mom and my sister went home.

They were in town this past week and left for home today. Living 10 hours away from your family is just...sad.

So when we are together, we soak it in, do the normal fun things we do, and make the best of it. Par for the course, the weather in Atlanta was deplorable, so we found ourselves indoors till yesterday, when we spent the day at the lake.

When they first arrived of course the gals were shy. But after the first hour of the gals being weird and trying to remember who everyone was, the air was soon filled with their calls for "Grandma" and "Rachel!"

So many books were read. Grandma's are good at that.

New tutu's were acquired. Grandma took part in the fun.

When Rachel and I were small there was the "Mummy Monster" and the "Bucking Bronco." Amelia gladly learned about the bronco and held on for dear life.

Rain = Puzzles. Of course only one piece was missing. Rachel showed her displeasure. 

A trip to the local Mexican restaurant showed our gals exquisite dining skills.

We moseyed back into Dunwoody to visit one of my mom's friends, so of course we went to Wright's Gourmet and of course we ran into someone we know. This time it was a notorious substitute teacher named Mrs. Dimenstein. Oh man did she have a hatred for footsie under the table. She still haunts any Austin Elementary grad's dreams.

Finally the sun came out and we went to the lake. When we were kids my mom always took us to the Buford Dam Park, so it's pretty cool to come full circle and bring my gals here too.

 

There were so many tears today when my family left.  

Of course we can't wait till we can see them again.

Breaking the Routine

Routine. I usually thrive on it. Schedules are fabulous and very necessary in this household. It's what gets us through our days and leaves us with at least a small bit of sanity.

Over on Instagram I've started doing an Atlanta Mom's Blog photo a day. It's been fun to check out the hashtag {#atlmomsblog} to see what other local moms are doing throughout their day.

Today's picture was asking for your morning ritual. Pretty standard here, wake up, get dressed, eat breakfast, drink coffee, and go to work. If I'm lucky, 3-4 times a week I go to the gym.

I'm a standard gym rat. I run, walk, and lift. Nothing too fancy. Every now and then I'll throw in a HIIT class or some cross training on the Arc Trainer. Oh and I catch up on Twitter, but y'all already knew that. When I started my whole weight loss journey, I simply did what worked for me to get the weight off & that was it. Nothing extra. Now that I've lost 90 pounds, I'm no longer striving for shedding the lbs, but maintaining my hard work, building muscle, and having fun. 

Here's where I'm going to break my normal routine. While I want my gym visits to be entertaining, I also want them to be social. There are lots of mommies who take classes at my Y, so I'm going to force myself to take all these crazy classes they offer, have fun, and make friends. Today's class? Zumba.

Oh Zumba Y'all. For those who don't know me, I'm 6 feet tall, pretty athletic, and have zero dancing ability. So picture this giant in the back of the room, taking her first Zumba class, looking like a complete jackass. 

I started out a hot mess. I was slow and concentrating too hard on the footwork. I couldn't understand why people took this class. 

I'm not sweating. 

This is dumb. 

Then the instructor yelled "stop looking in the mirror!" It woke me up and I realized that if I wanted a good workout, and if I really wanted to sweat, I needed to not worry about the steps and just move. As soon as I did this, I was able to relax and step it up. Now that is when I began to sweat.

I danced, I jigged, and I just enjoyed the music. I had a blast watching the only gentleman (who looked about my dad's age) in the class bust a move. I pushed myself hard & got a good workout in. I will definitely take this class again, and next time I want to wear my heart rate monitor to compare it to one of my normal workouts. 

Lots of the mommies were chatting after the class, but I scooted out quickly and skipped the friendly banter. Let's just do this one step at a time. 

Crazy dance class first, new friends next.

I promise I will push my social comfort zone future!

There's No Overthinking When You Are On the Trail

Today was one of those days that I needed to desperately get out of the house.

I needed to be by myself.

I needed to just get away for a few.

I wanted to go for a run, but my foot & knees have been bugging me lately. So a jaunt around my hood wasn't what I was up for. Not to mention, our new locale is just not very running friendly.

As soon as the gals' heads hit the pillow for nap time, I was in my car heading for the Laurel Ridge Trail.  It's just around the corner and follows the shoreline of Lake Lanier, the Chattahoochee, and the Buford Dam. It's well shaded and good for any type of hiker or runner. While it doesn't have a lot of traffic, it does have a lot of beauty.

I haven't done a true trail run in ages. I'm going to rectify that and do this more often, because I had a blast. I needed some time out of my own head, not to worry about the day to day, and a trail run was just what the doctor ordered. I couldn't be bothered by my problems, because I was too busy concentrating on not busting my ass while dodging all the roots and rocks! I felt like I was back in Maine at summer camp bouncing all around the trail. I was having fun.

The trail is a loop and with the direction I go, the Dam is close to the finish. This makes for some steep running at the very end of your run, but it was a good challenge! I was beat!

The best part about this trail is that it starts and ends right on the lake. So it was nice to cool down after my run right by the shore. I will definitely be coming back to do this trail again, even though it was a challenge, I wasn't bothered by my usual nagging knee and foot pain.

I'm probably in the market for some trail running shoes now. Anyone have any recommendations?

Welcome Back!

Ah, it's been too long! Too long!

I've really just used this space as a place to update my family about the gals, but I hope to evolve it into something more.

I liked updating my blog with news about the gals because I've always been kinda anti-Facebook. More or less because I felt that some things just aren't meant to be shared. When I spent a month in the hospital hoping that the gals would stay put just a few weeks longer, I couldn't bring myself to post anything about it. Instead, I stuck by my family, friends, and my twitter ladies (who understood what I was going through more than anyone else). These people kept me hopeful. That's all I needed.

The gals came 9 weeks early, and again, all I could post on FB was a quick pic of the gals. I'm not a fan of searching for likes, for comments, and for prayers. I wasn't ready to hear the sympathy from a person I hadn't talked to in 10 years. I just wanted my family and friends to know they were okay.

However, over the past few years FB has evolved into something more and more of my "older" family members have embraced, so I'm gradually letting my guard down and posting more pictures there.  I must admit, I love it when the Grandmas get excited about the latest gals post.

I've been thinking that this place doesn't just need to be an "update" blog. I want to branch out a bit more.

So here's what I want for this blog:

Obviously I want to talk about the gals. I'm with them all day, everyday, and they are embarking on such an amazing part of their development. These enthusiastic 2 year old could fuel any blog for centuries.

I want to talk about ME! Me?!? Isn't that selfish? But of course!! What are blogs for? I'm pretty proud of my accomplishments over the past year and half. Mostly because I put my nose to the grindstone, lost 90 pounds, and have kept it off. Yea. Pretty proud of that.

My family. All of us. What we do, where we go, and what we enjoy in our fun town of Atlanta and beyond.

And anything else interesting. Captivated yet?

There I've blogged it. That means this will all totally happen right? I won't forget about this blog again will I?

Nope...no way.