Another ...

New blogs on my website. Don't forget to change your subscription to Eat to Live, Live to Run. I will be deleting this site soon. Thanks :)

New Blog Posted.

I posted an entry on my new blog site.

If you haven't already made the switch now is the time. I will no longer be posting on Inside Every Thin Girl.

Follow me to Eat To Live, Live To Run.

Mental To-Do List

Well, its Monday again and back to the grind for another 3 nights at the hospital. Since I work 12 hour shifts I don’t really have time to do anything around the house before I go back again, so I try to get everything done ahead of time.

I found myself making a mental To-Do list this morning while I was cleaning up the kitchen after breakfast. You know how I love my lists!

Iron scrubs for the next 3 nights.

Fold and put away the rest of the clean laundry.

Make fajitas for Tim and Lincoln for dinner.

Pack my dinner.

Elliptical training or Strength DVD this afternoon.

Straighten house as much as possible.

Before I get started on my list I had to fuel up:

Quaker Oatmeal Squares and Vanilla almond milk are quickly becoming one of my favorite go-to breakfasts. They taste great seperately, but put them together and magic happens!
I better go get down to work on my list. Have a great Monday!

Great Eight!

After my overindulgence at dinner last night, I decided to have a simple breakfast this morning. An Egg Beaters Garden Vegetable omelet with sauteed red onion, spinach and red bell pepper and half a grapefruit. I like dipping my omelets (or eggs in general) in ketchup, is that weird?

About 10:00 I started getting really hungry again and when I typed in my points for breakfast and realized I had only eaten 1.5 points for breakfast (about 150 calories) I realized why. I normally eat about 5 points or 250 calories in the morning. Tim and I were getting ready to go running and I didn't want anything very heavy on my stomach so I had a chocolate graham cracker with 1 Tbsp of reduced fat peanut butter on it.

The peanut butter actually sat really heavy on my stomach and I felt like I had a rock in my belly the entire time I was running. I won't do that again! Stupid PB!

I've run 8 miles before, but only once so I feel super accomplished today. It was a really good run other than the heavy tummy. I wore my knee brace and I didn't have any pain. The weather was nice and the road was flat. We ran an out and back route (x2). On the first trip out I was feeling really good but I kept thinking, "Yeah, you feel good now, but you still have 7 miles to go!" Luckily the good feeling stuck around.

Mile 1 - 8:49
Mile 2 - 8:56
Mile 3 - 8:57
Mile 4 - 8:57
Mile 5 - 9:05
Mile 6 - 9:10
Mile 7 - 9:12
Mile 8 - 8:49

While I waited on Tim to finish up his run I made sure to stretch really well, so that hopefully I won't be too sore tomorrow.

I was really suprised to see how late it was after we finished running. It was already 3:00 and we hadn't had lunch yet. I'm never very hungry after I run for atleast 2 hours, so I decided we'd just skip lunch and eat a huge dinner. I made Shake N Bake Chicken, sauteed onions and squash, steamed cabbage and cheesy potatoes. It sounded like a really good idea at the time, but it turned out really .... yellow. Yellow and delicious! I ate an enormous plate and finished every bite.

It really bother me when the food on my plate isn't colorful enough. I never think about the color of things before I cook, but once I plate it up I make sure not to put things of similar color beside each other. Weird? Yes? No? The funny thing is that I almost made corn on the cob instead of the cabbage. What a yellow mess that would have been! That would have been almost unbearable.

Dont forget to make sure you switch to my new blog Eat to Live, Live to Run. I'll be double posting for a while, but not long! Have a great night! I'm off to watch a movie with the hubby.

New Blog Site!

I've been working on getting a new blog site set up through Wordpress.com, but I haven't actually been able to follow through with it until today. Please take a minute to bookmark my new blog and subscribe to it at Eat To Live, Live to Run.

I will be posting in both places for a short period of time until all my readers join me on WordPress.

One of the reasons for this change is because I wanted a new blog name. I feel like "Inside Every Thin Girl..." served a purpose for a while, but the focus in my life has changed from losing weight to living a healthy life through diet and exercise. While I still have a few pounds left to lose I want to focus more on my life, my running, my recipes, my family, etc than only weight loss.

Thanks for reading what I have to say! I hope you will join me at Eat to Live, Live to Run.

Not In The Plan!

Lets check in on the To-Do List for the day:

1 hour Elliptical
Buy fresh fruits and veggies (we have none!)
Make BBQ pizzas for lunch with leftover chicken.
Take Lincoln to the zoo or the park.
Clean and organize pantry.
Fold and put away about 4 loads of laundry.
RELAX!
Make Spaghetti Squash with meat sauce for dinner.

I definitely didn't accomplish everything, but I got a good amount done. I went to the Y and banged out an hour on the elliptical, it actually went by really fast. Ever since I wrote the blog about podcasts a while back I've been listening to them alot while I workout. My favorite one that I have found so far is called 2 Gomers Run a Marathon, but today I listened to one called Savage Love. It was ok, but not my favorite by any means. Basically people call in and ask advice on sex or relationship related things. I thought it might be funny, but it wasn't as funny as I expected.

After my workout I went to the grocery store and spent $50 on fresh produce (and a couple other things). It hurts my heart to spend that much money at the store now that I'm all into couponing, but I got ... apples, bananas, cabbage, green beans, grapefruit, asparagus, bell peppers, lettuce, spinach, onions, zucchini, squash and carrots. I should have taken a picture, it was a pretty impressive bounty!

The BBQ chicken pizza turned out pretty fantastic. I've never made (or eaten) BBQ pizza before so this was a first for me. It included: Raspberry Chipolte BBQ sauce, shredded BBQ chicken, mozzarella cheese, spinach, red onion and red pepper.

Toys R Us had a special sale going on today on all of their bikes so we thought instead of going to the park (it was getting dark anyway) that we would go see about getting Lincoln a tricycle for Christmas. It was pretty much a bust though because we discovered that an 19 month old (ours atleast) can't really pedal a trike. So we left empty handed.

I've been craving to go out to eat really bad for the past 2 days. Not any specific restaurant or any specific food really, just the experience of going out to eat. So we decided to go to dinner at Bonefish Grill. In hindsight it probably wasn't the best idea for our budget (financial or caloric). I had Grouper with Mango Salsa and asparagus with a side salad and .... key lime pie!

It was heavenly, but I'm definitely regretting it now. Its a good thing I'm running 8 miles tomorrow!

The Plan

Happy Saturday! It feels so nice to be at home with the family on such a beautiful day. Lincoln even let me sleep until almost 9:00 this morning which is highly unusual, we are usually up by atleast 7:30.

For breakfast this morning I decided to have just a simple bowl of cereal. Quaker Oatmeal Squares with Almond Breeze Vanilla Milk.

I bought Almond milk a few days ago because I've been wanting to give it a try. I'm definitely not vegan (or even vegetarian) nor am I allergic to milk, but I love trying new things so I figured why not? I think it is now one of my new favorite things on earth!

There was a 5K this morning that I thought about running in, but I decided against it for a couple of reasons. I'm running in one next Saturday and didn't really feel like getting up super early two weekends in a row, and I have an 8 mile run scheduled for tomorrow so I thought I'd give myself a break today. I'm planning on going to the gym to do the elliptical today for a change of pace. I miss the elliptical sometimes.

As of right now the plan for the day is:

1. 1 hour Elliptical
2. Buy fresh fruits and veggies (we have none!)
3. Make BBQ pizzas for lunch with leftover chicken.
4. Take Lincoln to the zoo or the park.
5. Clean and organize pantry.
6. Fold and put away about 4 loads of laundry.
7. RELAX!
8. Make Spaghetti Squash with meat sauce for dinner.
   

What are your plans for the day?

Sometimes You Need Simplicity.

I finished up my third 12 hour shift for this week at the hospital, so now I have a little more time to write. Yay! I think about all these things I want to say but I don't have time to blog while I'm working so by the time I get the chance to I forget what I wanted to talk about.

I went grocery shopping this morning after I got off work (see receipt below, Yay again!), and got a really good deal on boneless skinless chicken breasts for $2.99/lb. I eat my fair share of chicken breasts, so I stocked up.

Tim has been craving this recipe for Slow Cooker Buffalo Chicken Sandwhiches for a couple of weeks now since he ran across it on All Recipes one night. I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to make it. You know I love me a crockpot recipe! But the wing sauce that we had was Thai flavored and I had forgotten that. I didn't know if that would be good or not and I definitely wasn't going back to the grocery store, so I decided to do something different.

Instead I made shredded bbq chicken. This is hands-down the easiest thing I've ever cooked (can you even call it "cooking"?). Two ingredients - chicken breasts and barbeque sauce. It doesn't get simpler than that. I cooked the breasts on low in the sauce for about 6 hours and then shredded it and served it on hamburger buns with some veggies.

I can't believe I haven't done this before! It was the easiest thing ever and it was DELICIOUS! I think I'm going to use the leftover meat to make BBQ Chicken Pizzas tomorrow for lunch. That will be another first for me. I'm loving the simplicity!

Coupons Rock, Part Deux!

I'm officially addicted now!

Coupons Rock!

I've been totally obsessed with coupon shopping lately since I've learned how to use them in a way to get things for free or nearly free. This morning I went out to Publix to get my deals before the sale items change tomorrow.

Here's what I got:

2 Bird's Eye Voila! meals
Almond Milk
Gallon Whole Milk
Aunt Jemima Frozen Pancakes
4 Boxes Betty Crocker Potatoes
Egg Beaters
2 Tylenol PM
1 Tylenol Arthritis
Kashi Frozen Meal
2 Campbells Select Harvest soup
Progresso Chicken Broth
Gorton's Grilled Shrimp
Lean Pocket
3 lbs Jonagold apples

Price before coupons and sales: $77.04
Price after coupons and sales: $19.37

Like I said, coupons rock!

Here are some good websites to get you going if you want to get in on the action:
Southernsavers.com
afullcup.com
iheartpublix.com
organicgrocerydeals.com
coupons.com

Enjoy!

Manic & Boring Monday

I woke up this morning at 6:20 in a panic because my husband's alarm was suppose to go off at 5:00 am for his business trip today. Oops! Lucky for him he was driving today instead of flying so he didn't have to worry about missing a flight.

I made a yummy Green Monster for breakfast.

Yep, I've used that picture before ... so sue me! I love Green Monsters, but one thing I don't like about them is that they don't keep me full until lunch. I snacked on some semi-stale Kashi Heart to Heart crackers around 10:30.

I ran around my house cleaning like a mad woman for about 2 hours after breakfast. I always get really behind on my housework when I work several 12 hour shifts in a row. I had about 4 loads of laundry backed up. I actually have a housekeeper that comes every two weeks on Monday and does the deep cleaning stuff, but I'm so self conscious that I pre-clean for her. I know I'm crazy! I just don't find it fair to make her do 4 loads of laundry and pick all my things up off the floor, so I do most of that stuff before she comes.

Lincoln took a nice long nap this morning, so I was able to run on the treadmill while he slept. I just did an easy 3 miles today. I swear I would rather run 7 miles outside than 3 on the treadmill anyday. It is soooo boring! But it comes in handy on days when the weather is bad and when I don't have anyone to keep Lincoln while I run.

For lunch I made a yummy homemade pizza. Its really becoming a staple around here. Yep, I've used this picture before too ...

It was really quiet and boring around the house without Tim here today, so Lincoln and I decided to go to the playground to work off some of his "energies". The poor little guy really took a beating at the playground. He fell several times and then went down the slide on his face. Before we left I pushed him on the tire swing for a little while and I made the mistake of grabbing his sides while I was pushing him (he's incredibly ticklish) and he let go of the chains and fell flat on his face ... again. He looked like he had been beaten by the time we left, but he had so much fun he never cried once.

For dinner tonight I decided to make one of my E-Mealz recipes. This one wasn't actually a Weight Watchers friendly recipe, but I altered it to reduce the points value as much as possible. It was called Italian Casserole. I used 96% Lean Ground Beef, Light Sour Cream, 2% Mozzarella cheese and Reduced Fat Crescent Rolls, but it still came out to 7 points per serving. But it was worth it! I definitely recommend checking out E-Mealz if you haven't already, their recipes are really simple and delicious.

Does anyone recognize a theme? Yes, I had spinach for every single meal today. I think I've definitely met my green leafy quota!

World Run Day 2009

Today was World Run Day. If you aren't familiar with World Run Day, it is basically a day to bring the world together in running for charitable causes. I decided to dedicate my run to my son Lincoln and I chose The National Children's Advocacy Center as my charitable organization. If you would also like to donate to their cause please click on the link and donate online.

Tim chose the American Diabetes Association as his charity. He was diagnosed with Type II Diabetes a couple of years ago, since then he has lost over 70 lbs and has completely cured himself of Diabetes through diet and exercise.

I worked the last three nights from 7pm to 7am, and when I woke up this afternoon I really wasn't feeling like going to run, but I knew that the cause was important and I felt like this was really something I needed to do. I had commited to running 6.2 miles, and Tim commited to running 7 miles. I decided that because he was going to run 7, that I would also and it also fit into our Half Marathon Training program. So we got dressed in our World Run Day tshirts and headed out to the park.

The run went pretty well. As you can see from the picture I'm wearing a knee brace on my right knee. It has really been achey and sore lately after my runs. My last 7 mile run really did me in, and I bought the knee brace that day. My knee felt great today with the brace on. Unfortunately my right hip is starting to hurt also though, and it bothered me some during the first few miles but felt better after about the 4th mile. I ran 7 miles in 63 minutes.

I'm really glad I got up this afternoon and decided to fulfill my commitment to myself, World Run Day, and the National Children's Advocacy Center even though I was tired and didn't really feel in the mood because I felt so refreshed and invigorated afterwards.

Did you participate in World Run Day today?

My Early Birthday Present

My birthday isn't for a little over 3 weeks, but I was in desperate need of a new iPod. I actually have two iPod Classics, but they have really been acting up lately. The first one randomly dies and says it has no battery power left when it has been charged in for hours. The second one started giving me a strange error message that I can't get rid of. I probably could have sent them back to Apple to have them fixed, but I figured this is a good excuse for me to get a new model.

I give you my new iPod Nano ...

My favorite colors are pink and purple, but I see those colors around all the time. I wanted something different so I chose green. I had read that the new 5th generation iPods had FM radio and video cameras built in, but I forgot about that until I bought mine. Super cool features I must say.

Caitlin over at Healthy Tipping Point wrote a blog earlier today about people who listen to podcasts while running instead of music. Several of her readers said they prefer podcasts for various reasons to music while running, so I thought I would give it a try today. I downloaded several different podcasts. One I was really interested in trying was called 4 Feet Running. I also downloaded The Biggest Loser Fan Podcast as well as a couple others. I started off my 5 mile run trying to listen to the 4 Feet Running, but I found the sound quality so bad that I couldn't deal with it. I don't know if it was just that specific episode, or if that is the way that all of them are but I had to turn it off. I ended up listening to the Biggest Loser podcast. It was pretty interesting commentary, the actual recap of the episode was boring because they are discussing the show from 2 episodes ago. I might start listening to podcasts more often if I can find some really good ones. I get bored with my music so quickly it would make for a nice change.

We planned to grill out BBQ chicken breasts tonight for dinner, but I'm still really confused with the time change and before we could get out to cook it was completely dark. Instead we made homemade pizzas. I've made these several times before, but they are always delicious. Tonight we didn't have any goat cheese since we ate it all last night, so we used regular ol' mozzarella instead. We had spinach salads with mushrooms, onions, tomatoes and apple slices on the side.

I've thoroughly enjoyed my 9 days off, but its almost time to go back to work. I have to work Thursday, Friday and Saturday this week. So I'll see you guys on Sunday! In the meantime ... what are some of your favorite podcasts to listen to? I need some ideas.

Back on Track and The Best Dinner EVER!

This morning I woke up and hopped on the scale to assess the damage I've done recently, and it was definitely as bad if not worse than I thought it would be. I gained 9 (yes, nine) pounds! Normally I would cut myself a little slack and chalk it up to being on vacation, but lets face it ... I was only on vacation for 4 days. There is no way I should have ever let 9 pound slip back on in 4 days! I think the bigger problem is that I temporarily lost my motivation as I discussed here.

The good news is that I had time to reflect on what was going on, and made a recommitment to myself. Sometimes I think that its necessary to backslide in order to ultimately keep moving in the right direction and not lose focus. Sometimes you just need a break! Whether it be from counting points, exercise, weighing and measuring food ... whatever the case may be. I came back from this hiatus with a brand new attitude and an excitement that I haven't had in a while.

The excitement came at a good time because I decided that today I would make up for my long run that I missed on Sunday. 7 miles! I've done 7 miles (and even 8) before, but its been a while and I wasn't sure how I'd do after such an off track week. I did really well though, I'm not saying it was easy but it was a good feeling to get back out there. My iPod died during my 2nd mile and that was a bummer, but after a little while I got used to listening to myself breathe and got caught up in my thoughts. It actually turned out kinda nice to not have the music. I compared my run time today to my previous 7 mile run and was very surprised to see that I beat my time by a full 6 minutes!

My splits for today were:

Mile 1 - 8:46
Mile 2 - 8:49
Mile 3 - 9:00
Mile 4 - 8:56
Mile 5 - 8:57
Mile 6 - 9:01
Mile 7 - 8:52

After our run we ate lunch at Roly Poly. I ordered a small Ultimate Veggie wrap with hummus instead of ranch dressing and a bag of Baked Lays. It was yummalish and very low in points!

Tim and I decided to let the little man spend the night at his grandma's house tonight so that we could have a little break and some time together at home alone. I wanted to cook something special tonight that I haven't made before. I browsed the internet for a while looking for something that seemed right, and then I remember the Eggplant Spinach Stacks that my fellow blogger Allison from Balance in Bites post a few days ago. I've been salivating over these since the day she posted them, so I thought this might be the perfect opportunity.

I went to the grocery store and got all the ingredients, plus stuff to make roasted fingerling potatoes and Proscuitto Wrapped Asparagus. I must say this was the best dinner I've made in a very long time if not ever.

I used goat cheese on both the Eggplant stacks and in the asparagus instead of the feta and cream cheese that was suggested. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a sucker for goat cheese and I'll fit it in wherever I can get it. The eggplant was the clear winner, but I have to say that the asparagus bundles were quite divine as well!

My husband would probably divorce me if I didn't show the picture of the eggplant that he picked out. Lets just say, it was happy to see us. My husband especially found it quite amusing.

And on that note, I think I'll say goodnight!

100th Post!

I just realized today that I had written 99 posts so far, so this makes number 100!

We finally made it home from Gatlinburg. We left at 9:30 am and arrived home at 9:10 pm. I packed a big picnic lunch before we left the cabin this morning so we wouldn't have to spend any extra money eating out on the way home. We started getting really hungry about 11:45 and decided to stop at the next rest area to eat. When we finally saw a rest area sign it said CLOSED. There was nowhere else in close proximity to stop so we ended up eating our picnic lunch on the side off the hood of my car on the side of the road.

We decided to stop in Birmingham and visit for a while with my best friend, Vanessa, and give Lincoln a chance to play and stretch his legs. Vanessa has a son that is only 6 weeks older than Lincoln. We all ate dinner at my most favorite restaurant ever, Surin West. I had decided this morning that I was back on track 100% with my eating plan, but that went out the window as soon as I decided on Surin West for dinner. I could have definitely stayed on track, but as I mentioned before it is my most favorite restaurant of all time. I only get to eat there maybe once or twice a year. I ordered Surin baskets for an appetizer and Chicken Masaman with Avacado for my entree. It was divine as usual.

I was planning on going straight to bed as soon as we got home tonight (I actually fell asleep in the car). But when we finally got home I remembered that I had recorded the NY Marathon yesterday and I've been dying to watch it. It was absolutely inspiring! I don't know that I could ever be a marathoner, but I would have never thought I would have been able to run as far as I can now or that I would have ever lost over 100 pounds, so who knows?! Maybe one day!

I was so happy for the American that won for the first time in over 20 years. It was amazing to watch! I felt so bad for the British woman who was the favorite to win because she had some kind of hamstring injury and ended up finishing 4th. As soon as she crossed the finish line she grabbed her left leg and started crying. You could tell that something was wrong because she was so far behind the leader, but you couldn't tell from watching her run that her leg was hurting as bad as it was. I can't imagine running through that kind of pain. She never gave up though.

Anyway ... I'm headed to bed. Tomorrow is "get back on track" day. For real this time. LOL
Have a good night!

Creative Exercise

I still haven't been able to find any decent places to run in Gatlinburg. I'm sure there are some, but I don't know where to look. I even tried to find a gym that might let me come use their treadmill without a membership for a few days. I can't even find a gym!

So after not working out yesterday and eating entirely too much last night for dinner (10 oz steak, bleu cheese grits, baked macaroni, spinach and cheese, side salad, spinach artichoke dip with tortilla chips, and 2 Long Island Iced Teas), I decided I definitely needed to find a way to exercise today. The best thing I could come up with was climbing the stairs in our cabin. So thats what I did ...

I made those stairs my bitch for 45 minutes! It was actually a really decent workout. I was afraid that my heart rate wouldn't stay high enough going down, but it stayed right around 160 the whole time. I burned 441 calories. It wasn't nearly as fun as my 7 mile run would have been today, but atleast its something and now I don't feel as bad about indulging last night.

So when I finished my stair climbing and was absolutely drenched with sweat, I came into the kitchen to talk to my husband about what he decided we should do for our last day in Gatlinburg. He says, "I want to go hiking!". DOH!

Pumpkin Cider Pancakes

Sticking with the pumpkin theme from yesterday, I decided to perk up my pancakes a bit this morning with some pumpkin puree. I just threw a few things together and came up with a really great recipe. Actually my husband said they were the best pancakes he has ever eaten and suggested that I submit it to a recipe website.

One of my favorite websites for recipes is All Recipes. So this afternoon I submitted the recipe. The last recipe I submitted (in Dec 2004) never got reviewed or published, so I'm hoping that this one will. The link to my recipe for the Pumpkin Cider Pancakes is here. Give them a try and rate/review them on All Recipes. Hope you enjoy!

Greek Yogurt Giveaway!

Go get your Greek Yogurt! Now! Do it!

Day 2

I'm too exhausted tonight to write much, but I took some great pictures that I wanted to share. We went to the Smoky Mountain National Park today as I mentioned in an earlier post, these are some shots I got.

Tonight for dinner we decided to stay at the cabin and cook out on the grill. I was pretty nervous after seeing the 4 bears earlier this evening on the back porch but they decided not to join us for dinner thankfully. We made: BBQ chicken breasts, grilled mushrooms, peppers, tomatoes and pineapple, creamed corn and leftover rolls from the steak place last night. It was delish! It was just exactly what I wanted and it was much cheaper and more nutritional than going out to eat.

After dinner I was craving something sweet so we drove down the mountain to Downtown Gatlinburg to find something to satisfy my craving. There were all kinds of fudge shops, ice cream shops, candy stores, and bakeries. I almost decided on a funnel cake, but at the last minute I changed my mind and we ended up at Ben & Jerrys. I've been craving pumpkin lately and Ben & Jerrys had Pumpkin Cheesecake Icecream.

It was heavenly! Now if I could just figure out a way to make myself not feel guilty for eating it. I keep going back and forth through my mind between "You are on vacation, relax! You can work it off next week" and "You don't need that and you are not hungry. Have you learned nothing?" I wish I could find a better balance.

I still haven't found any good running spots. I guess I'm gonna be doing some trips up and down the staircase tomorrow to get my cardio in if I don't figure out something quickly. I'd really hate to miss my long run for the week on Sunday, but if I can't find a place that I can safely run with a baby stroller then I'm just gonna have to put it off until I get back home.

But for now ... I'm going to retire to the bedroom with a good book. Goodnight!

Bears!

Hot Tub + Sangria = Heaven.

Seeing 4 bears where you were just relaxing with your Sangria = super scary but super cool.

I had just gotten out of the hot tub and was drying off when I looked up and saw that! A momma bear and her 3 babies. They came really close to the porch and I was able to get a few decent pictures.

We went to The Smoky Mountain National Park today. We were planning on riding our bikes around Cade's Cove, running our 3 miles for our 1/2 Marathon Training and having a picnic in the park. Things didn't work out exactly as I had planned though. Turns out the road around Cade's Cove where bicycles are allowed is very narrow and its also a road shared with cars ... very slow moving cars. There is no way we could have had fun biking around at 2 mph pulling Lincoln in the bike trailer. It also wasn't a very good place to run for the same reason.

We ended up driving through the park and then heading to the picnic area. We ran laps around the picnic area to complete our 3 miles. I have to say that I was very disappointed. I really thought there were going to be lots of great places for biking and running in the park. I felt like everyone was staring at me the entire time I was running and it was really awkward and uncomfortable. I don't know what I'm gonna do tomorrow when I have another 3 miles to run and then 7 miles on Sunday. We aren't having much luck finding any runner friendly places around here, I'm sure there are some ... I just don't know where to look.

What do you do to find places to run when you are out of town?

Vacation Day 1 - Done!

Tim and I woke up early yesterday morning at 4:30 am to get ready to leave for our Gatlinburg vacation. I wanted to leave home at 6:00 am, but of course nothing is ever on time when you have a baby. We didn't end up leaving until a little after 7:00, but who's counting?

The trip was suppose to take about 6-7 hours driving time, but I knew we would have to make fairly frequent stops to let Lincoln stretch his legs. The last time we tried to travel with him was to Destin, FL (only 4 hours) and he screamed a good portion of the way. I decided this time that no matter what happened I was going to make a conscious effort to be patient with him even if it took us 10 hours to drive.

I could not have been more impressed with the way the trip went. Lincoln slept for the first 2 hours of the trip, then we stopped for snacks and a bathroom break. Luckily we brought our secret weapon that we swore before we were parents we would never have ... a DVD player in the car. With that he was entertained until lunch time.

I really wanted to stop somewhere new and exciting for lunch that I had never been before. But hunger hit me hard and fast and the only thing nearby was Cracker Barrel. I ordered grilled chicken fingers, green beans, whole kernel corn and sweet potato casserole.

Excuse the hair, it was raining.

After lunch Lincoln fell back asleep and slept all the way to Knoxville, only an hour from the cabin. I took some random pictures on the way down out of boredom. Here are a couple shots of the pretty fall colors on the way and our first view of the mountains in the distance.

We finally found the way to the cabin thanks to TomTom our GPS navigation system. I was absolutely in love. I started getting worried on the way up the mountain because there were some pretty shabby looking cabins around, but there were some really nice ones as well. I didn't get any pics of the outside, but here are a few of the inside.

After getting settled in we spent a few minutes in the hot tub, and then got ready and decided on where to go for dinner. We chose The Peddler Steakhouse. It was rated the #1 place to eat in Gatlinburg so we thought we'd give it a try.

Tim and I both ordered the Blackened Tuna with Hollandaise sauce, and I got sauteed mushrooms as my side item. All entrees come with unlimited trips to their enormous salad bar and a basket of yeast rolls. We ordered a bottle of Kendall Jackson Pinot Noir to help us relax after a long day in the car.

I ordered my tuna medium rare and it was more like medium well, but it had good flavor and the salad bar, mushrooms, and wine made up for what the tuna was lacking. I also stole Lincoln's tartar sauce and it was HEAVENLY on the tuna. I've never had tartar sauce that tasted so good!

Unfortunately Tim and I ended up eating most of our meal alone because Lincoln was exhausted and finally had the meltdown I anticipated all day. While one of us ate the other walked him around the restaurant. A waitress (not ours) saw that we were having a really hard time and she came over and offered to walk with him while we enjoyed our dinner. Normally I would never let someone do that, but I was tired, frustrated and hungry and it sounded like a great idea at the time. We were able to finish up our meal and enjoy our wine. We really appreciated her help!

Today we are going to the Smoky Mountain National Park for a picnic, bike riding and my scheduled 3 mile run.

What's Going On?

I don't know what the deal is lately, but I have completely lost my willpower when it comes to eating. Thankfully so far it hasn't caught up with me on the scale yet, but I'm sure my day is coming. Lately I have been eating anything and everything in sight, especially at work. I was doing so good at being strong and resisting temptation but all of a sudden I've been chowing down on cookie cake, Halloween candy, Chex Mix (OMFG the Chex Mix!!), and pretty much anything else I can get my hands on. I wish I knew what the problem was.

I wonder if I'm subconsciously sabotaging myself because I'm so close to my goal. Hmmm ...

Thankfully I've still been doing great on exercising. The 1/2 Marathon training program is going great so far. Today I did another 4 mile Fartlek, actually it was really only about 3 miles of Fartlek and 1 mile of easy running. I cut myself a break on that one though because I feel mentally and physically exhausted from some situations that I have been dealing with the last couple of days and not sleeping well, and I know thats why I tired out in my run so quickly.

The good news is that fall vacation begins NOW! Tomorrow we will be packing and preparing for our trip to the mountains. I couldn't be more excited! I can't wait to relax in the hottub with a glass (or bottle) of wine, picnic in the Smoky Mountain National Park, run in the mountains, grill out, and just spend time with my family without any other worries.

I don't have any food pics today so I'll leave you with this picture of my son and I snoozing in his crib together. Isn't he the cutest thing you ever saw? I love that boy!