Weight Loss Journey

So it seems like in the last year of my life, about the only new thing going on has all been health related.  I've been exercising and trying to lose weight, etc.  But I haven't really shared much of that on here because I kept thinking that people wouldn't want to see nothing but weight loss stuff on my blog!  Plus, if I was going to share that kind of info, I would want to do it in a way that I could share with anyone, and not be sharing lots of personal info on the same blog.  Does that make sense?  So, finally, I started a separate blog.  It's going to be nothing but my weight loss journey.  And hopefully on this side of things I can start sharing some other parts of my life!  In fact, I actually have some really big news (job related) that some people are already aware of.  But I'll be waiting another month to share it because I don't want to jinx myself before everything is official.  If you are interested in checking out my other blog, I'd love that.  The address is http://www.kas9913.blogspot.com I'd also majorly appreciate any advice people can give.  Sorry again for the long absence.  Hopefully that will change soon!

2 Races

When you start going to the gym on a regular basis, one of the first things that happens (or at least for me) is you start hearing about all of the races, marathons, bike rides, triathlons, century rides, etc that everyone either has or is going to participate in.  It's a bit intimidating!  I keep hearing about all of these plans that so many of my friends have for the summer.  Overall I don't feel ready for most of the things that they are going to do, but there were two events that did catch my eye. 

The first is called the Dirty Girl Run and is held at Wheeler Farm.  It's a 4 mile obstacle course with lots of dirt and mud!  It's not a timed competition and is basically just something to go and have fun with your friends!  The 4 miles part has me a bit intimidated, but I still have about 5 months to prepare!

The other is a couple of weeks after the first and is called the Utah Tour de Donut!  This one is a completely fun and crazy bike ride.  Ok, here's the gist of it.  You ride your bike over a 7 mile course.  Then you stop......take a break......and eat as many donuts as you think that you can hold down!  Get back on your bike, ride the 7 mile course again, and repeat the rest stop/donut eating!  Lastly you ride the course one more time!  So basically, you are riding for 21 miles, with a couple of donut rest stops in the middle!  Then at the end, they take off 3 minutes from your final time for each donut that you ate.  Sounds crazy, sounds fun, sounds like something that I want to try out!

Even though I'm going to have to push myself to make sure that I am physically ready for both of these, they just don't seem as scary to me as some of the other more "serious" events that I know of.  I think that's probably why I am willing to give these a shot.  They are more for fun rather than for a serious competition!

Wish me luck!  BTW - I made up a couple of little count down tickers for both of these events and posted them at the bottom of my blog.  Help me keep track of how long I have to prepare!

Comfort Books

Just about everyone who knows me, knows that I am a MAJOR reader!  I was one of the few kids growing up that got yelled at for reading too much!  After the first time that I moved, my Uncle informed me that he'd gladly help me move any time I needed him, but that he refuses to ever move my books again!  I have a LOT of books!

Normally I am always reading something new.  Yes, I have some favorites that get read over and over again.  But at the same time I am always looking for a new story.  But the last few months have been a bit odd for me.  Anytime that I start something new, I find myself very quickly flipping back to something that I've already read and love.

I think part of it might be the time that I take out of my schedule to go to the gym.  It's made most of my days so tightly scheduled that I just don't have that time to sit and read.  But I can't blame the gym entirely.  I mean, the vast majority of the "reading" I get done is during work when I listen to audio books.  I was looking through my iPod this morning and I have 67 audiobook on there that I either haven't started or have only listened to the very beginning of!  (This might also be a sign that I've become addicted to Overdrive.com through the library!)  But every time that I flip to one of these many new stories, I find myself craving one of my favorites by Patricia Briggs, Kelley Armstrong, J R Ward, Karen Marie Moning or Vince Flynn.  I'd have to say that 95% of the books that I have read/listened to in the last 3 months are by one of those 3 authors, none of which have a new book out!  So, obviously I am just going back through the ones I've already read.

Not sure what's been going on with me!  But I apologize to those of you that typically ask me for book recomendations!  I just don't have anything new to recommend.  All that I am reading right now are my comfort books, the ones that I know will put a smile on my face!

Word of the Year

The other day I was reading the blog of one of my friends and she had done such a fun thing that I decided I wanted to copy it!  I wish that I could take credit for the idea, but no such luck!  Rather than making the same old, same old New Year's Resolutions, she picks one word each year to focus on for the year.  It's not as easy as it seems to think of just one word that you would want to live for an entire year!  But I took the challenge and found my word!

My word for 2011 is going to be DETERMINATION.

Definition -
* A quality that makes you continue trying to do or achieve something that is difficult
* The act of officially deciding something
* Firm or fixed intention to achieve a desired end
* Firmness of purpose; resolve
* A fixed intention or resolution

I have a lot of plans and goals for 2011 and I know that it will take great Determination in order to accomplish those goals.



What word would you pick to live by for a year?  I challenge each of my friends to come up with one word that they want to focus on in the lives for the rest of 2011.  Let me know what word you would choose!

Thanks for the idea Tib!

Kickboxing Therapy

I've found a great new therapy!  Kickboxing!  I take all of the stress that I've built up over the week, all the frustrations over rude people and people that are mad at me for something that I have no control over, and I pour all of the frustration into my kickboxing.  There's nothing better than kicking and punching your frustrations out!  Of course, the last couple of weeks I really probably could have used two classes a week!  It's just a fantastic therapy for my own mental health, and hey, I get a great workout too!  Plus, plus!  Love it!

New Year's Resolutions 2011

I looked back at last years resolutions and realized that I made it less than a month before giving them all up!!! This year I'm determined to keep them all, so I need to make sure that I am realistic in my expectations!


#1 - Workout for 1 hour, at least 300 times during the year. As long as I keep up the schedule that I have been doing for the last month or so, I shouldn't have a problem with this one! I made a little ticker countdown thing that's at the bottom of my blog to keep track of how I'm doing!

#2 - Be more aware of what I'm eating. I'm going to start counting calories. I'm not going to say that I will stay on a diet all year, or that I wont ever have that piece of cheesecake, or that greasy hamburger. But I really need to be more aware of what I'm putting into my body!

#3 - This one isn't as straight forward as the other two, and yet it really covers them as well as other things in my life. I want to start living my new motto! "Figure out the results you want, and do what you can to get them!" I need to stop being so focused on the here and now. Need to look towards what I want out of my life and what I want for my future. And then I need to start taking the steps to get there!

There are a million other things that I could add to this list, but like I said, I want to be realistic this year and actually keep my goals! So here they are! Once or Twice a month I'll do an update and let you know how I'm doing!

I think that I'm addicted!

I've got a new addiction!  Thankfully it's an addiction that is actually healthy for me. I really hadn't planned on sharing this.  I was even a bit worried about mentioning it on facebook.  But I decided that I no longer care, and I want to share!

I have become addicted to exercise!  About 2 months ago my doctor decided to put me on a medicine for 6 months that while helpful, also does some bad things to your body.  A couple of those things are bone loss and weight gain.  Both of which can be countered by exercise.  I have NEVER enjoyed exercise!  Typically you have to drag me kicking and screaming to any type of exercise.  Because of my back issues, I never even had to take a normal gym class in junior high or high school.  I've always avoided it and came up with excuses for not doing it.   I've even had doctors order me to exercise in the past to help my back, but it just never happened.  This time, my doctor convinced me.  She was just the kick in the butt that I needed!!!

So I looked around at the gyms by me.  I narrowed it down to Gold's Gym and the County Rec Center.  I ended up going with the County Rec and I am very happy for that decision!  It's just a great environment.  Nice people, great equipment, clean, and I don't feel out of place among a bunch of super models and body builders!

The first two weeks I started out pretty slow.  Walked on the treadmill, used the elliptical, and went to some water aerobics classes.  Didn't really feel any different, wasn't really excited to keep this up for 6 months.  But then came a lucky chance!

When I first joined the gym they handed me a schedule of aerobics classes, both land and water aerobics.  I barely even glanced at the regular aerobics and just focused on the water.  I was TERRIFIED to even think about the regular classes.  I was assuming that I'd need to get in a lot better shape before I attempted them.  But 2 weeks in, there was a Monday that the ONLY time I could work out that day was the 5:30am kickboxing class.  So I showed up expecting that this wasn't going to go well!  First thing I went to the instructor and asked her if it would be even possible for me to do or if I'd be better off heading to the fitness room and the treadmill.  She was great, very encouraging, and told me that I could do it, and anything that I had issues with I'd just need to modify to my own ability!  *That's been the biggest tip I've learned since!  Modify, Modify, Modify!*  Surprisingly, I had a lot of fun!  And better yet, I could tell that I had gotten a LOT better workout than anything else I'd been doing for the last two weeks.

But this was going to just be a one time thing......right?  lol, a couple of the people that were in the class that day started trying to convince me to come the next day at 5:30 again.  I kinda brushed them off, went home thinking that there was no way I was going back the next day!  While I'd had fun at kickboxing, I knew that the Tuesday class was Sports Cycling.  That sounded even scarier!  But all night at work I kept thinking about how encouraging they both were and the things that they had said to me.  I somehow found myself heading back over there the next morning, and almost every morning since.  I just finished my 5th week of going to the morning classes, and have only missed once!  I'm loving it and am completely and totally addicted! 

This post is already long enough, so I'll tell you about the different things that I'm doing some other time.  For those of you wondering why I was reluctant to share this, it's because I always worry that people are going to start watching how I'm doing and judge if I'm not progressing fast enough.  Please don't ask me how much weight I've lost.  Most of the time, I probably couldn't tell you!  I'm not focusing on the weight.  In fact I usually only weigh in once or twice a month.  I'm keeping track of how I am feeling.  Can I workout harder this week than I did last week?  Are my clothes feeling less tight?  Do I have more energy?  And am I just overall feeling better?  As long as I can keep saying yes to these questions, then I feel great about what I'm doing!

Not a fan of Mother Nature right now!

So for anyone that has either watched the news or followed me on facebook, you probably have heard that there was a bit of a storm in the northeast US this last week.  In fact, it was one of the largest storms in decades!  I found that one of the few downsides to having JetBlue's main hubs in New York and Boston is the fact that when weather paralysis those two cities, we pretty much can't fly ANYWHERE!  It made for more cancelled flights then I've ever seen in the close to 3 years I've been working here.  As well as massive numbers of phone calls, stressed out customers, every flight for a week sold out, mandatory overtime, and very little sleep.  I really haven't been a fan of Mother Nature all week, even though half of the customers I talked to think that's my name!  Can you control the weather?  Hmmm...me either!  But for some reason people just assume that I can!  Oh well!  Thankfully it appears that things are back to normal!

Now if only she'll be nice enough to not send us any new storms for a while!

Flying Standby to Hawaii

So clear back in May I finally got a vacation that was VERY long in coming!!! My family went to Hawaii! Sorry that I haven't blogged about it before now! And honestly, I can't give you a day by day accounting at this point since I don't really remember everything we did. But here are some of the high points. In this post I'll just tell you about the joys of flying standby and then I'll do another post with stuff from Hawaii!

First off, while the rest of my family was flying first class to Hawaii, I was flying standby! It was the first time that I've used my flight benefits with a different airline than JetBlue. It was a bit nerve wracking and I spent more time in airports than I really would have liked, but it all worked out in the end! I flew Southwest down to Vegas without a problem. Ended up missing the Hawaiian Air flight though because I didn't realize that the airline wasn't in the regular terminal! So I had about 8 hours to kill in Vegas, but since I was lugging a suitcase around I couldn't do anything fun like take a taxi down to the strip! So instead, I hung out in the airport and read. Nothing too exciting! But considering how busy with work I'd been for the 5 months before this trip, I was VERY fine with just relaxing and reading! I made it on the late night Hawaiian Air flight to Honolulu and then an hour later got a connection to Kauai. If I'm remembering correctly, it ended up taking me a total of 18 hours to get to Hawaii. Not too bad.
Coming home was where the real fun began! I had built in a couple of extra days on my trip so that I could be a bit flexible about flying standby. Like, I flew out on a Thursday, got in Friday morning, but the majority of my family didn't get there until Saturday. Coming home, Scott and Kelli-Rae, along with some of her family, had flights to leave Saturday night. My parents, cousin Amy, and the rest of Kelli-Rae's family were all coming home Sunday night. So, I decided that I should attempt to go home Saturday on Scott's flight. If I didn't make it, then there were a number of options to try for Sunday. Scott then gets a phone call from Delta saying that their flight has been delayed 12 hours! Instead of leaving Saturday night at 6pm, it's leaving Sunday morning at 6am. So I ended up getting my extra night in Hawaii but had to leave very early the next morning. As for standby, the delay worked in my favor for getting on that flight. Lots of people had Delta move them to different flights because of the delay. So the flight went from having about 10 open seats to being half empty! Worked great for me. Well......it worked great until we landing in LAX!

BTW, I did learn that if I was paying for a flight, I'd proably pick Hawaiian Air over Delta.  Their plane was much nicer and the people lots friendlier!

If the flight had left at the original time, we would have landed in LAX early enough that I had about 10 options that day to get home via Southwest. Only the last one of the day was currently sold out, so I wasn't worried at all! But, with the delay, we only got there in time for that last flight and of course I didn't make it on! So, we landed in LAX at about 4pm (if I'm remembering correctly) and the first option I had to get home wasn't until the next morning! Most sane people at this point would be finding the least expensive hotel in the area and checking in for the night. But the whole reason I was going standby was to save money! I don't want to now waste part of that getting a hotel! Instead, I decided to wait it out at the airport.

I have learned a couple of tricks. First off, instead of eating some of the way overpriced fast food in the airport, I took a hotel shuttle to a nearby hotel and walked around and found somewhere close by to eat. Then took the shuttle back! Also, thankfully since I am an airline employee it was fairly easy to get what's called a gate pass so that I could go back into the terminal and back through security. Lots more comfortable sitting in the gate area rather than the check-in area!

And when I got to the point where I could barely keep my eyes open, I walked, and walked, and walked! The LAX airport is basically in the shape of a U. The road running in that shape with a bunch of terminals along the way. I walked outside back and forth along the whole thing, over and over again! I lost track of how many times, but probably at least 10-15 times! Finally I just couldn't walk any longer and went inside one of the terminals. I was terrified of sleeping, thinking that someone would come steal my stuff! But then some security guards came and sat at a table not far from where I was. I asked them how long they'd be there and they said a few hours. So, I took a nap!

Luckily I managed to get on the first flight out of LAX Monday morning. But here was the really sad part. My parents and Amy had all Sunday in Hawaii, flew out that evening, landed in SL, got all the bags, got the car from long term parking, took Amy home, and made it back to the airport just in time to pick me up!

Hmmm...I'm still debating on if it was worth it or not!

The rest of my Hawaii stuff will probably take a few days to put together, so stay tuned!

Very uninteresting life!

One of my friends, who is a great blogger, keeps teasing me about updating my blog!  I guess that I just always feel like I don't really have anything to talk about!  Basically my life is work job #1, work job #2, sleep, and repeat.  But for Chelsea, I'll attempt to think of some things to talk about! 

First off I just realized that I still have never talked about Hawaii!  It's been 7 months since we got home, so I really need to get on that!  But that'll have to be a different post, too much to say!

What else has happened in the last 7 months? 

We completely redid the living room/kitchen at my parents house.  Finally tore down the wall between the two rooms!  My mom has wanted that done for years!  I love how open it makes everything.  Now when we have people over, we aren't so cramped in either the living room or the kitchen.  Good thing that dad's really good with electrical things!  Otherwise we could have had a real mess with the plugs and light switches in that wall!  About a week after we pulled out the wall, we had a family dinner with the 5 of us, plus Grandma.  And you can't forget Trinity, and Scott and Kelli brought Ali too!  We had a big crowd for us!  Even though none of the remodel was done other than the wall coming down, we could already tell that it was going to be great!  I took some mid-project pics but I'm not sure where they are right now!  And I've never taken any after ones.  So I'll have to post those later, but it looks great!

Work at JetBlue was beyond crazy for the first 5-6 months of the year, but luckily since then things have finally calmed down and somewhat gotten back to normal!  Thank goodness!  I just about wanted to die during those months!

Hmmm...anything else?  Oh, I completely chopped most of my hair off!  I've had pretty long hair for a VERY long time.  I have extremely thick hair and it takes forever to do!  I finally just got fed up with all of it!  I had basically been wearing it in a ponytail for about a year and I figured that short had to be better than that!  Turns out that I love it short!  It's so much quicker to get done!  The only hard part is that I can't just roll out of bed, throw it back, and run to the store!  Yeah, don't have any pics of the hair either!  I'm really bad right now!  But I'll be taking pics at X-Mas and will post them so you'll see the short hair.

Also, my parents finally bought a camp trailer!  My dad loves to camp but since before I was born all that my parents have had is an old pop-up camper.  My mom just isn't a fan!  She put up with it for a number of years while Scott and I were growing up and then she just told dad that she wasn't camping any more until they got a real trailer!  It's really nice!  They bought it towards the end of the summer and still managed to use it 3 or 4 times.  I'm happy for them!  Of course, I have yet to go camping with them in it.  I keep getting stuck at home taking care of Trin!

Speaking of Trin, back in March (on my birthday of all days!) she was diagnosed with diabetes.  It's been really tough on all of us, her the worst I'm sure.  You can't explain to a dog why it is that they no longer get all of the treats that they are used to, or that they don't get bits and pieces of whatever we are eating, and that 2 times a day she has to lay down and let us jab her with a needle, and let's not forget the weekly visits to the vet to check her levels.  Amazingly enough, she has been lots better about all of this than I had expected.  I think that she'd been sick for a very long time before it got bad enough for us to realize that there was a real issue.  So maybe she understands that what we are doing is making her feel better.  She certainly acts better!  Sometimes I think that she acts like she's a puppy again!  It's been pretty fun!

Well, I think that's all the big stuff that's happened!  See, I told you, I have a very uninteresting lfe!