The Results Are In

Good morning!

Once again I am sorry for the week delay in my next post.  Here's a little catch up with what's been going on in my life.

Wednesday I worked, nothing spectacular.  Watched Survivor Redemption Island with the family and probably thought about working on homework but never got around to it.

Thursday I had my first Managing Global Organizations class from 11-1:30.  I think I will like the professor but it sounds like this class will be a lot of work :(  Prior to going to class I was trying to read all of chapter 1, that didn't go so well.  After I got home I can't remember what I did so obviously it was nothing productive, whoops!

Friday I worked from 8-2 and planned on coming home and getting my homework done that was due that night.  If you're thinking "Yeah right she didn't get it done" you are absolutely correct.  I've mentioned in a previous blog that I'm a NASCAR fan so when my dad had practice on I was getting hooked into watching that instead of working on my homework.  My mom had won a basket at church (it was a silent auction) that had a $25 gift certificate to Homestead Inn (a bar we go to occasionally for Friday night fish).  At work she had already mentioned wanting to go there which is part of the reason why I was planning to get the Friday night homework done right when I got home.  But anyways, we went out to dinner and ended up staying out until 11.

Saturday morning I wake up at 8 and am thinking to myself gotta bust out this homework you didn't do last night.  Of course plans changed.  I ended up going to town with my parents for the morning before meeting up with Jackie and her two children Lane (7) and Lauren (3) to go see the movie Hop.  We had seen them at Homestead the night before and when Jackie mentioned she had no plans for the weekend I asked if she would want to take the kids to the movie with me, she said yes obviously.  It was a cute movie and I thought it was good.  I was a bit frustrated though, Jackie mentioned that she'd pay for my ticket and we'll figure out something for food when we get in there.  I'm thinking OK that's fine.  But when we get in the theater she's just like "I'm going to get food" so I give her $15, which is all I had on me in cash.  I didn't expect her to use it all!  She comes back and had gotten the big bucket of popcorn and the two big sodas and didn't give me any change!  Lane ate 3/4 of the pop corn and the one soda was for the kids to share, the other was mine because of the caffeine.  I would have rather paid for my $7 movie ticket than $15 for the food.  I know she had to pay a lot more for tickets because she had herself and two kids (which are $6.50, 50 cents cheaper?!) but she didn't ask if it was OK if she just used my money to pay for the food.  I guess that's what irritates me the most is that she didn't communicate what her plan really was for the food situation.

Finally when I got home from the movie I got my homework done that was due Friday.  After that all of my productivity went down the tubes.  If I recall correctly I spent the rest of my weekend with my nose stuffed in a book.  I finished Riding Lessons towards the end of the week, started and finished Flying Changes probably Thursday/Friday-Saturday, and then started The Horse Whisperer Sunday.  I'll see what I can do about writing up some reviews.  I forgot to stop at the library yesterday to pick up Water for Elephants so I will definitely be doing that after work tomorrow!

And now onto yesterday!  I worked 7:30-2:30 so I could arrive at my doctor appointment on time.  At the end of the visit my doctor talks to me about my cholesterol, which I had blood drawn for last week (mentioned in So much to say, so little time).  It's a bit high, 236 when it should be 200 or less.  But on the bright side my good cholesterol is good at 66 (I can't remember what it's supposed to be over).  And then again on the downside there is something that is a bit higher than it should be, but because I have 0-1 risk factors it's OK where it is.  I'm sorry I don't have a better explanation for you all, this is just what I remember.  Anyways, she wants to check it again in a year.  Oh!  And she brought up my weight, said it had gone up since last time.  I was like "Yeah and your scale sucks because just last week I was 187 and now I'm 195!"  We decided it was the shoes and clothes because when I weigh myself at home I only wear shorts and a t-shirt, nothing heavy.  But still she wants to see my weight go down, and the dieting and exercising would help the cholesterol go down.  Guess I'm now under a bit of pressure to really see some results in a year with my weight loss.  Wish me luck!

Now it is time to buckle down on my homework.  I am not turning the TV on today so it cannot be a distraction.  I have so much to do so if I can make today really productive I will have a weight lifted off of my shoulders.

Questions...

When you're unmotivated to do something you have to do, like homework, do you set up a reward for yourself to help motivate you?

I'm kind of thinking being able to watch TV with my family in the evening might be a good reward for me since that's what I like to use to distract myself from homework.

How do you deal with what feels like an overwhelming work load?

If I made a list of everything I need to get done this week it would be super long, and just seems like I can't get it done unless I ONLY work on homework whenever I'm not in class or at work.

Looking forward to reading your answers about these questions!


Until next time...

So much to say, so little time

Hey there bloggers...I started this post on Monday after work but saved it as a draft without publishing it because I had homework I needed to get done, and I had planned this whole productive afternoon and evening out which didn't include blogging until after I was done with my to-do list.  Unfortunately, I never got around to finishing the post.  And then yesterday was not the day I thought it would be either but more on that in a bit.

Sunday I had planned on working on my assignments for history of rock and roll that are due next week.  But because of the fact that those assignments are due next week, meaning I was (or would be) working ahead, I gave myself an excuse to not put in as much effort as I should have.  I got nothing done yesterday :(  I read one section of the assigned reading and then just kind of messed around online and watched TV.  So in a nut shell, nothing got done.

My plan for Monday afternoon to make up for Sunday's lack of productivity was to do the following before dinner. 

• Speech - No speech for this unit but there was an activity needed to be done by Monday.  The plan was to have this completed before my parents came home and we ate dinner.


• Laundry - Put laundry in while working on speech assignment.


• Walk the dog (with parents?) - After dinner take a walk with my dog Duke and possibly my parents if they chose to come with me.


• Watch Dancing With The Stars (DWTS) with Alexis - This one is pretty self-explanatory :)

While I didn't carry out my plan as well as I had been thinking I would I did pretty well.

• Speech - Started reading articles to do the opening activity but did not finish the assignment before dinner.  Because of the walk and DWTS I didn't finish the assignment until around 10pm.  By this time there was still hardly any posts by other students so I decided I would do the response the next day.


• Laundry - Success!  I didn't get all of my laundry done but I did do some.


• Walk with Duke - Another success!  After dinner both of my parents and I headed out on a walk.  I walk faster than my mom so she told me to go ahead, she would walk with my dad.  I had Duke so I wasn't walking alone, even though I had no one to talk to ;)  Duke and I went 1.89 miles in 31 minutes, shaving off 2 minutes from the week before when we did the same walk.  Wanting to get home in time for DWTS was motivating obviously ;)


• Watch DWTS w/Alexis - Success again!  I love watching DWTS and it was even better "watching" it with Alexis.  She is just too funny sometimes, but I love it.  I'm rooting for Chelsea (the Disney star) and Kirstie Alley this season.  I've voted both weeks for them and it has paid off because neither of them were eliminated last night.  Oh by the way, Maks is HOT! I would definitely dance my butt off for him ;)

Yesterday (Tuesday) I had no work and no class to attend so I was thinking it would be a great day to be super productive for my online classes.  I should have never turned on the movie channels yesterday...all my productivity went down the tube then.  I watched The Bounty Hunter with Gerard Butler and Jennifer Aniston, Dear John mmm Channing Tatum!!, The Ugle Truth (love love love Gerard and Katherine Heigle (sp??)), and I rounded out the day with Rock Star which had Jennifer Aniston in it.  I had never heard of this movie until I found it on CMT yesterday.  It was from 2001.  Not a bad movie. 

I did all of this movie watching after I had gone in to have my blood drawn for labs early in the morning.  On Monday (the 4th) I am seeing my doctor for my yearly visit and she decided last year that I should have labs done up, I think to just get a baseline of my cholesterol but I'm not really sure.  I am a bit nervous to find out what the labs say.  I am really hoping that my weight gain and lack of weight loss has not affected my health.

I've finally created a new page on my blog.  I decided to make it My Journey page of my weight loss.  I am going to do my best to take pictures on a regular basis and post them along with posting my weigh ins on this page.  I have never been one for measuring but if I do end up taking measurements I will also post them there.  Basically anything that can serve as a means to track my weight loss will be on this page.  I took my first pictures Monday and posted them there.  You can check it out here.  I also weighed myself on my Wii Fit yesterday before eating breakfast so that is also posted there.

I was browsing through Hollie's blog roll Sunday and chose to check out A Taste of Confidence.  I found a book review of Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen and found myself really interested in the book so I requested it from the public library.  It also helps that a movie based on the book is coming out with Robert Pattison and Reese Witherspoon ;)  It was when I was on the public library's website that I discovered I own a book by the same author.  I have already read Riding Lesson but it was a while ago so I started re-reading it.  It's an awesome book.  I had always been on the look-out for the sequel whenever I saw books at the store but I never found it.  I decided to request it from the library as well along with The Horse Whisperer that was mentioned on the back of Riding Lesson.  The Horse Whisperer is already ready for me to pick up so after work today I'll be stopping at the library.  Unfortunately, Water for Elephants is a popular book right now and I am number four on the request list so I don't think I'll be getting that book as quickly.

Besides the books I am getting from the library I just received the next 3 books in the Pretty Little Liars series on Monday.  I picked up the first 3 from Barnes and Noble when I took Duke in for a grooming and had 3 hours to fill.  I started watching the TV series based on the books last summer.  I DVR'd the whole season the day of the summer finale (they re-aired all the episodes that day).  And then this spring I have been watching the new episode every week.  Sadly the spring finale was last week so now I have to wait until summer for more episodes.  I love the show but from what I've read of the books so far it's pretty different.  I like them both equally though despite the differences between the two.

I apologize for this really long post.  I guess I had a lot to say, and I'm not even out of things to say yet!  But I'm going to call this the end for today before I put you all to sleep ;)

I hope you have had a marvelous Monday, a terrific Tuesday, and a wonderful Wednesday so far this week.

Questions...

When books are made into TV series or movies do you love 'em or hate 'em compared to the book?

Twilight comes to mind for me...I LOVE the books more than I love the movies buuut I LOVE the movies too.  I've read the books multiple times and watched the movies multiple times :)

Is there a book you highly recommend everyone to read??

Until next time...