Number Crunching Time....

Today I met with my trainer bright and early... Some decent news with my monthly measurements - am actually down a little for body fat %, even in the evil month of December! I was hoping to stay even (not go up!), so was happy with that. However, the plan is now to get serious with diet to get my #s down: down another 6% in body fat by the time races start coming around in a few months. So, Jenny has to start back into strict meal planning, including: 1. 6 meals a day 2. More calories to boost metabolism (but not too many!) 3. Supplements, supplements, supplements 4. Monitoring ratios of fat/carbs/protein pretty strictly 5. Writing down everything....crunching numbers. grrr! 6. Keep lifting and building muscle! Tomorrow I'll post up my new years resolutions...if I have any! Tee hee....

Dead Vacuum

Last night I 'de-Christmas-ed' the house while Jake was working. Tore down the tree, put away all the nic-nacs, etc. Well, of course there were a zillion little needles that needed to be cleaned up after packing up that tree so I ran down and got out the vacuum. Turned it on and zilch! No running little sweepers - just a burning smell and maybe some sparks. Turned the thing over and was gunked up with hair and string. So I tore the thing apart and cut away all the crap. Put 'er back together and revved her up again. Nadda. It's official - vacuum is dead. Sniff sniff!

So, today I get to go shopping for a new vacuum. I would LOVE the Dyson Pet Hair one, but am not willing to shell out 500+ for a stupid vacuum. If it doesn't fit on Pink Lightning and make me ride over 20 mph - am not going to shell out that sort of cash (thick reference here to my future Zipp wheels... oh yes they will be mine!!!).

Second on the list of things to do today is cleaning out my cupboards and refrigerator - we are officially purging all "bad" food from the house and stocking up on healthy foods for training. (Me, along with 9 zillion others getting ready for the new year!)

Lastly, have to go do our annual Good Will donation before the end of the year. Gotta clean out some of the closets and get that done soon! I figure all this will keep me busy enough that I won't have to watch the Vikings blow it today against the Giants. I am such a pessimist with those guys. Grrr....

Some of my Favorite Things...

Thought I'd post up a couple of my presents from Xmas this week - race related, of course. Mom and Dad got me another plaque for my Accenture Chicago triathlon race results, since I got one for 2007 and smashed my time (by 8 minutes) and place (5th place to 4th place) in 2008. I definitely needed another one for the wall! Jake got me a great Nike running shirt for my outdoor runs this winter to keep me toasty warm. (now I just have to get outside and run here....)

Today I did some spinning and am proud to say I hit 300 watts - for about a minute or so. Short lived power outage for me, but hey! I hit the mark! Then with about 2 seconds left in the last set for the day, my tire blew out. Ha ha! Gotta go get the training tire fixed up, I guess. Never had a flat on a trainer, but a first time for everything.

Merry Christmas!

Well, the holiday is finally upon us...I am currently putting in a few hours of work this morning/afternoon, hit the gym quick before it closes, and then it is off to my cousin's house in Lindstrom to do Xmas with my side of the family. I can't wait to watch my little nephew on his first Christmas. I do recall that he really liked opening presents a few months ago. This should be hilarious! Tomorrow Jake is working in the morning/afternoon (maybe I'll work some too...we shall see) and then we go over to his side of the family to celebrate. Wishing everyone a safe and happy holiday!!!

No Driving For Jenny

I attempted to go to spin this morning and got all geared up and out the door - just a light dusting of snow to contend with. As I passed my 3rd car in the ditch on Hwy 10, I decided that this probably wasn't really worth it. If I got to spin, I'd still have to turn around and come home again a few hours later and I'm sure the roads would be even worse. So, I made an executive decision to flip a U-turn and head back home.

So, Pink Lightning got setup in the basement and we rode a bit to the Ironman Madison video that I have. I was noticing a bit of shaven rubber coming off my back tire today, so I might have to take 'er in and see if my wheel isn't rubbing my frame a little and get 'er fixed up. Add to the list of things to do today...

I think the rest of the day will be finalizing last minute Xmas gifts and wrapping, a little house cleaning, maybe swinging over to Erik's with Pink Lightning, and then dinner tonight with Jake and Erik & Chi. Jake is gonna love his present I got him, I think I outdone myself this time. Not telling what it is yet though. Hopefully the roads get plowed and salted for tonight's excursion....sounds like our limo option fell through - so we're gonna have to drive ourselves through the wintery wonderland that we live in (since it's Jake's birthday - driver = Jenny, I'm assuming... Fun!). Wish me luck!

Winter Sucks

I officially am on the "winter sucks" bandwagon this week with all of the time I spent in my car in traffic commuting to and from work. I am not even going to try to add up the hours that I could have been billing clients vs. trying to plow through slippery roads. That would just upset me if I knew the grand total. Hence, I made the executive decision to work from home today and save a little time and frustration. Seemed to work out OK, except for my dog had the urge to constantly beg for t-r-e-a-t-s all day long! Usually she just lays at your feet and sleeps - not today. Oh well...  

On a happier note, I did get all of my Christmas cards/letters out this week. Was a little late this year, compared to my usual promptness of this task right away after Thanksgiving - but that will just have to do with the stuff I've been up to lately. Tonight is lifting at the gym, if I can wake the husband from his nap on the couch... and then probably dinner & hanging low. Tomorrow night we are going out to celebrate the hubby's birthday coming up on Sunday. Plans include a limo and dinner down at Pittsburgh Blue in Maple Grove. Can't wait!

Pretty Sure I'm Losing It

Well, I think it's time for me to take a break or vacation of some sort - think I'm totally losing it. Monday night I went over to campus for my 'last night of class' - yeah!!! If you recall, the previous week's class was skipped by Jenny due to horrible driving conditions. Well, as I walked into my classroom this Monday night, I was greeted by no one. Empty classroom. Huh? So, I scrambled onto my laptop trying to find a wireless connection and check my email. Was there a change in location? Maybe the last night was at the local bar? Nope! No emails. I dug out my syllabus and called the Prof. I guess the last night of class was LAST week! Duh!

Then tonight, again a lovely evening of a promising snowy commute - I decided to lift weights down in Bloomington near work and wait for the rush hour crowd to pack down the roads before venturing out. When I got to the locker room to change, I unpacked my bag and found that I had grabbed two DIFFERENT shoes! What the hell? Luckily I had both a left and a right pair - so I threw them on and got my workout in. I hope nobody looked too carefully at my footwear.

I did meet a nice guy at the gym - he commented on my Liberty Half IM tech shirt and we got to talking triathlons. He had done Madison IM and basically started spouting out tips and suggestions, which I gratefully accepted. He said that Madison was one of the 3 best things to ever happen to him in his life, including Marriage and Kids. He was very interesting to talk to and made me even more excited for next September - hopefully my experience will be as great of one as he described his. In the mean time....hopefully I can grab the right shoes!

Cookie Night! Yum!

Last night I met up with the girlz (Maggie, Lyndee, Angie, Andrea (Reece & Jillian), Heidi & Beth) to do our annual cookie exchange. I got my lift in down at the Eagan Lifetime after work and then went over to Angie's to partake in the evening's festivities.

Angie's husband Ryan was a peach and made each of us 'personal pizzas' as we hung out and partook in some wine, good conversation, and making faces at the baby (who was an angel!) I think I have Heidi talked into a Half IM this summer with us - go Heidi!!! We had to do some creative decoration on the gingerbread cookies to denote my triathlon obsession and to put on the blog.

Mags had her gingerbread men in full force and Heidi begrudgingly made 3 batches of her famous peanut butter balls. I think chocolate and peanut butter were prevalent in many of these cookie creations that were brought together. We all agreed that these are all fat-free and low calorie assortments (yeah right!).

The Luther girlz all wore their LC attire - totally random, but kind of funny. At the end of the evening, I scooted over to Heidi's townhouse with Mags and we checked out her 'painting' that she has been contracting out for getting all the walls in her new place spruced up. Looked really good! (even though it wasn't 'toast'! ha ha)

This morning I got up and went to spinning, hoping to burn off the calories consumed the night before. Now, I'm waiting to be picked up by Mom and Stacy to head out to the first annual Girls of the Family shopping trip/weekend. Planned activities: shopping downtown, Holidazzle parade, Bucas for dinner (again....no calories there!), and staying overnight in a hotel down there. Should be fun!

Winter Driving - Gotta Love It

Yesterday, I had class at 6:00, so leaving work at 4:30 I figured I'd have plenty of time to get over to St. Paul through a little sprinkling of snow. I thought wrong. I swear, the first winter snow for Minnesotans hits and people forget how to drive! It isn't that hard people!

It took me almost 1:45 to get up 100 from 494 to 394 and at that point I had to make a decision. Go East to St. Paul to class (which I'd be late for anyways) or head for home. I chose the latter - making my drive time a total of 2:30 upon finally making it home.

On a better note, I ended up going to the gym and having a really good workout. Not sure if it is the new supplements recommended by my trainer, or the new workout I got last week - but I had a great lift with some running sets thrown in for good measure. Probably one of my best weight training sessions I've done in quite a while.

This morning I had another 2 hr commute down to work again, even though the roads were perfectly fine. I give it another week for people to relearn how to drive. We shall see if it catches on.

Weekend @ Luther

This weekend I went down to Decorah, IA to my alma mater, Luther College, with my mom and my aunt to see the Juletide Christmas concert. This is a yearly tradition (usually) for us to make the trip down to Decorah to partake in the following activities:

1. Shop at the cute shops on main street in Decorah

2. Eat at Mabes Pizza (Canadian bacon & sauerkraut pizza! Yum!)

3. Visit the college book shop so Jen can get her Luther apparel updated for the year

4. Check out the new building updates on campus

5. Go to Marty's coffee shop and have a coffee

6. Realize how frickin' old I'm getting

7. Go to the concert & listen to pretty Xmas music

It was cold this year, as usual, as we were walking around downtown. Brrr! The pizza was fabulous, as usual. The concert was fairly good, we've definitely seen better performances, but it was fun. They were filming this concert for the airing on TV, so was fun to watch the cameramen and the big boom trying to get all the good shots of the choirs and orchestra. Mom almost got us kicked out, when she was trying to get some mints from her purse (quietly) and couldn't do it. She started giggling and I thought she was gonna lose it. Luckily she simmered down and we didn't get the boot.

After the concert we drove up to Preston to our hotel, which was a bit of a hole. We had a little party going on next door that we had to call to the front desk about, but that simmered down eventually.

On our way back home, we stopped up in Rochester and did a little bit of Xmas shopping before heading home. At least I got a few things purchased and off my lists - which will be helpful in the coming weeks here.

Rock 'N Roll Marathon Video

Here is my video clip of my finish at the San Antonio Marathon a few weeks ago. Of course I'm the one in the pink top crossing the finish line!

Wicked

Last night mom and Sarah and I went to go see Wicked downtown at the Orpheum. Such a good show! I had to laugh, as Heidi (who saw it a few weeks ago) claims Glinda the Good reminds her of me. Toss! Toss! (insert hair flip here) I have no idea why, except that she's blonde and has a few pink outfits! Too funny!