The countdown, the break-up, and..who knows what else?

My last final (ever?!?! Sure is the PLAN!) is on April 21st. April 21st.

Ohmigosh, that's so...so.... SOON!!

That's only 44 sleeps from now. (I totally just pulled up my Google Calendar and counted with my finger bouncing from day to day on my computer screen. I'm sitting in the hall in the PhysEd/Kinesiology wing of the school near the entrance to the gym, counting days. That's right, I really AM this cool.)

Yeah. I'm just a little excited. AND although I'm hitting crunch time for this semester (how crunched can it really get with 2 classes + 1 independent study, I mean, REALLY?) I'm looking forward to it - crunch time is when I have no life, no time to breathe hardly, I alienate friends/would-be friends/nice people who may have otherwise wanted to say hello to me, my house gets lost under dust bunnies and ridiculous amounts of clutter, we stop eating properly (and I sometimes stop eating 'cause there's only enough food in the house to feed Little Miss... hahaha) but it's ALSO the time where I learn the most, I'm the most productive, I re-discover WHY I'm still in school, WHY I love this major program, how smart I really AM beneath all my disorganization and insanity, and really EARN my grades.

Crunch time, I wish I could figure out how to exist properly without you, but oh how I heart thee for so many other reasons.

BRING. IT. ONNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!

Okay, on a totally different note, not school related at all, I'm OFFICIALLY OFF SUGAR again. I told you about my downfall with those wonderful dark-chocolate-covered Polish marshmallow goodies The Jedi gave me during a study session last semester, yes? And then...the bandwagon...it just took off without me! I just COULDN'T catch back up to it to hop back on!! PHEW! BUT after it's lapped me a few times around now I've CAUGHT it and I'm ON BOARD.

I know I know some of you think I need to be less drastic, but I really find this the most effective for myself. I'm so horrendously...UNABLE to turn it down once I've tasted it.... I just keep eating. Like, coming home from rehearsal a few weeks ago with RaeDawn we stopped at a corner store to get the KIDS in the car a snack....and we bought ourselves a box of flakies to split. On the 40 minute carride I downed two flakies without batting an eyelash, and had my third almost the instant I walked into my house, as soon as Mr. Man was out of my line of sight.

See...when I wrote this post about losing control the other day...it wasn't SUPPOSED to be funny! hahaha I got some feedback about it being a good laugh or whatever but I'm like, DUDE! That was like, me spilling my eating-disordered innards all over my keyboard! Which is totally fine - I'm learning about myself that I'm at least viewed as a constant jokester (come on people, I don't laugh ALL the time!)

Anyway, so as I was saying, it's EASIER to just cut it out completely, for me, than to treat myself occasionally. The occasional TREAT turns into the occasional ridiculous BINGE session and they become less and less occasional and more and more FREQUENT. The more I allow myself to binge the more I CRAVE a binge session and it's just not WORTH it.

(Gaaaaahhhhhh.... as I'm writing I'm sitting here with my iPod plugged in and turned up way too loud listening to the soundtrack to GLEE and I just got some wicked chills - these are like, the BEST CDs EVER! Okay, sidenote over. Okay, not over - I'm having a wicked-difficult time not busting out singing....HELP!)

SO....here's how my "sugar fasts" work - I just...STOP. I don't eat it. EXCEPT "big" events which are to be celebrated with the addition of sweet food at my discretion, but usually should ONLY include birthdays...and Christmas, but that's a good ways off at this point. Now, I recognize that sugar is EVERYWHERE and in SO many things and there are natural sugars in fruits and vegetables and blah blah blah.... I'm not NEARLY that crazy with this - I just won't eat like, DESSERT type sugar. Or candy. Or THAT kind of stuff, okay?? Raisins and dried fruit, apple sauce and regular fruit and whatever is totally allowed. Candy, ice cream, icing, cookies, fruit-snacks, baked goods, whatever - totally NOT allowed. Juice? Pop? ABSOLUTELY not allowed!! (shudder - haven't learned about it yet?? CLICK HERE or contact me and you'll never give your kid apple juice again!)

Okay, is that it? I think that's it for now. Let me know if you have questions about my...not eating stuff. hahaha I can totally eat anything else - I don't often have the same PROBLEMS with other food. SOMETIMES I'll go for a total binge on something if I absolutely LOVE it, but it's more a wow-this-is-so-good-I-don't-WANT-to-stop-eating-it-even-though-my-belly-is-killing-me (happens with some of my mom's cooking and a few of my signature pasta dishes - mmmmmmmm......) but I'm still in CONTROL then soooo not as worrisome. And if I need to re-evaluate later and expand the scope of my plan then I absolutely will. At the moment I'm back to regular running and doing 300. Keep your fingers crossed life stays more or less normal so we don't run into any further scheduling complications and I can keep THAT aspect of stuff on track.

Aaaaaaaand...what else?? OH! Any of you who pray?? PLEASE put Mr. Man in your prayers! He's doing FINE, but he has a job interview this week for HIS DREAM JOB which I am just WAY too excited about - he currently commutes about 1.5 hours from home.... this one would literally be a 10-20 minute WALK from home (depending on if there's snow on the ground! hahaha) and, well, it's what he dreams of doing.... sooooooo.......... yeah. I'm trying REALLY REALLY hard not to put the cart before the horse, but him getting this job would just be, unreal. Amazing. AMAZING. Anything that will give him a leg up, including random folks' prayers, I'm ABSOLUTELY doing it.

I don't want to tell you all about the job unless he gets it - seems a bit of a bother, frankly. hahaha And that's cart-before-horse type behaviour soooo if he gets it I'll tell you about it.

Cross your fingers for us!!!

I'm done for today. (Thank goodness, eh??) I'm going to eat my sandwich and go get changed for my next lab, and then a run with Steph. Good day so far. :)

The first illness of the schoolyear and...lots of other stuff!

So I got sick. It's actually been a good while, hasn't it?? I mean, I've had under-the-weather days, of course, but relative to my usual sick-for-two-weeks-every-five-or-six-weeks it has been FOREVER since I had a cold!!

Until now, of course.

My throat was giving signs of not-feeling-goodness last Wednesday night, but nothing too concerning. My darling mother gave me some Oil of Oreganol to choke back when I feel the I'm-getting-sick tickle (it is HORRID HORRID HORRID stuff - UGH! BUT the latest scientific data presented by my mom - so-and-so said to take this - suggests it is THE latest anti-cold miracle non-drug.....hahaha I take the relatively harmless ones JUST IN CASE one of these days so-and-so gets it right!) and at the first onset of throat-tickle I DIDN'T TAKE IT!!! THAT was my problem. Thursday morning I woke up with definite throat's-off-ed-ness, but nothing too big. I TOOK the Oreganol Oil, went to school went to the gym with the Jedi (ohmigosh - we did lunges, jump-lunges, single-leg knee curls and extensions, more lunges, calf raises, abductors & adductors [top outside and inside of thighs] and THEN he made me JUMP up on this bench repeatedly, after my legs were beyond gelatinous and no longer working I had to JUMP on a weight bench.....aaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrghhhhhh..... Whoa, was that a tangent???) and then.......(remember, we were at school working out with The Jedi)....I DIED. I was done. I felt like DEATH. Friday I was like a walking germ factory. But I TRIED to keep my potentially-H1N1 to myself, soooo here's hoping no one dies because of my I-will-never-cut-class-ed-ness.

Anyway, since then I've been just chillaxin'. Well, doing my homework, writing tests, starting a new business (don't worry - DEFINITELY more on THAT coming!), playing with the kiddo, playing with friends, working my butt off on Christmas cards to sell at an upcoming craft sale (I have 18 done and am hoping for at least 100....hahahaha)...... Yeah, even the sick me is probably a little too busy.

BUT I haven't run - my head's been too fuzzy or achy or swimming-in-gunk, and I only went to the gym with the Jedi once this week.

I ALSO haven't been eating sugar, again. It was delicious and wonderful at my birthday, but we're done again. Sugar and I are breaking up.

Until my MOM'S birthday. ;)

She's supposed to do it with me. We decided that birthdays and things are TOO much fun and we LOVE a REALLY REALLY good birthday cake (none of the homemade kinds - I don't like homemade or box-made cake. But the super-dee-duper amazing bakery cakes that cost too much money and are slathered in sickeningly sweet butter cream icing) with some good vanilla ice cream on the side....mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...... SO for NOW we're going birthday-to-birthday. My birthday was in September, Mom's is in October. So going about a month sugar-less. Then we'll go from Mom's in October to Bravo's in December - a little MORE than a month... see, we even get to WORK UP our sugar-fast goals as we go! Cool, eh?? Anyway, that's enough of that. I broke up with sugar. We just acknowledge that we may (will) occasionally hook up for some serious NCMO in the future. But our dependent relationship is FINISHED.

The OTHER thing that's been going on, that I am WAY WAY too excited about, is that Mr. Man and I have gone into business together! Hooray!! Too much fun.

So it's a bit of a long story but a sister-in-law of a good friend contacted me about this new company/product she'd heard about to get my opinion, 'cause apparently I'm a genius or something. hahaha We talked LOTS and did LOTS of research and talked lots and lots to each other (Mr. Man and I) and we FINALLY came to the conclusion to be:

YOLI DISTRIBUTORS!

We are TOO TOO excited about this.

Yoli is a fantastic, in our humble opinion, NEW network-marketing company that we think is going to give QUITE the shake-up to the beverage industry, specifically health/energy beverages. They've developed this great technology, called "blast caps" where all of the ingredients to their delicious juice formulations are FREEZE-DRIED at the peak of ripeness to immediately and indefinitely LOCK IN the nutrients. This process completely eliminates the need for hot-fill/pasteurization (which kills OODLES and OODLES of vitamins and minerals in our regular fruit drinks), chemical preservatives (ever look at exactly what sodium benzoayte actually IS?? Read the WHOLE THING if you click on it...) AND it's TOTALLY natural - no SUGAR (hello, obesity epidemic?), no artificial colours or flavours, LOW glycemic index (diabetes, anyone?)...I could go on and on and on.

AND if you understand at all how network marketing works you know WHAT a fantastic opportunity it is to have a shot at the TOP - Yoli isn't even IN Canada yet and we're already in!! We're SOOOOOOOOO excited. WE are the people telling all the other people about it! WOOHOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! (If THAT sounds interesting to you, in ANY country, visit our website and let us know!! Or leave me a comment with your e-mail address and we'll send you some info).

Okay, so THAT is what's going on with us lately. I'm sick, but hopefully almost over it, I broke up with sugar (in my drinks, too!) AND I'm in LOVE with YOLI! hahaha

What's new with you??