Jeff-fuh-fuh Dun-Ham! TeeHee!

My last week has been busy. Between the flu and work it has made me a little run down. I have still been trying to get my work out in every day and have done a decent job of it. I am still having a bit of a problem with shortness of breath and coughing, but other than that I've been trying. I start week 4 tomorrow. I hope I can remember that things change next week and the week after that. I'm excited. I have 9 more days until its picture day again. I really hope that I can see a difference. When I look in mirror I really can not tell a difference, but my clothes are fitting differently so that seems like a good thing.

So I had to switch my schedule around and worked a Monday. I don't normally work Mondays. It wasn't horrible, but it was busy. I switched my schedule to be able to go to the Jeff Dunham show in Fort Wayne last night. Mike and I went with my brother and sister in law. Mike and I started watching Jeff Dunham on Comedy Central several years ago. His shows are those that you always stop on and watch no matter how many times you have seen them.

We met for dinner before hand at Ruby Tuesdays. Mike and I both had the Cowboy Steak. It was really good. I had the barbecue sauce on the side and didn't use it at all. I also had a salad and the grilled green beans. I definitely recommend the green beans. I had been to Ruby Tuesdays before and  it was okay, but not my favorite. I really enjoyed dinner last night. I hadn't eaten a lot through the day knowing we were going out and everything tasted good.

We then drove across the street to the Coliseum and braved the cold again to hike inside. By the way, it was really cold last night. Here's a shocker, we were on time. LOL. We had seats on the floor pretty close up. A little after 7:30, the first act came out. It was the Dancing Trombone player. I definitely recommend that you check out some of his clips on his site or on YouTube. He was awesome. My sister-in-law and I were both dancing and laughing. It was great. I think I could have watched him perform for a lot longer. The next act was the Guitar Guy and he was pretty good. Man could he play. His songs were pretty good and I laughed quite a bit. We then had a 15 minute intermission.

Once Jeff-fuh-fuh came out I think I laughed for the next 2 hours. It was great. We all loved it. He did a bit to start out showing old pictures from his past and they were hilarious! OMG! Then we got to see Walter. I love Walter. He cracks me up. Then came Peanut and his craziness. I love purple guys! I also got to see Jose Jalapeno on a Steek. I know that I'm weird, but he may be my favorite. Mike's favorite came out next Achmed the Dead Terrorist. Complete craziness, he is insane. LOL! There was a new puppet last night. It was Achmed's son. I can't remember his name today though. He was different. We didn't get to see Bubba J, Sweet Daddy Dee, or Melvin the Superhero. I was hoping that we would get to see everybody, but figured we wouldn't. I love the other guys too. I would definitely recommend his show to anyone. It was great. Mike and I were still laughing on the drive home.

I downloaded these images from the website. Just so you could see the characters if you were not familiar with them.

Have a great night!

Homemade Chai Tea Concentrate

Yay! I don't know about you, but I love Chai Tea. Anytime I am close to a Starbucks I stop and pick one up. Usually it is the humongous one with some whipped cream. Love them! I like the mixes that you can buy too, but they always seem so expensive. Not that the Starbucks ones are not crazy expensive.

I have been noticing recipes on the net to make your own concentrate. Now this intrigues me, because looking at the list of ingredients I have most of these spices in my cabinet. I have not used much of anyone of them, so they are just hanging out in my dark cupboard. I decided to give it a try. If I did not like it I wasn't out much right?

I found the recipe here. I love Tasty Kitchen. They have some awesome recipes and ideas on here. I studied the recipe. I'm not sure why. It looks really very simple, but I have never made anything like this before so I wanted to make sure I had everything straight in my brain.

It was very easy to make. Basically you throw everything in a pot of boiling water and let it steep for 15-20 minutes depending on how strong you want it. I wanted mine a little stronger so I left it in there the full 20 minutes.

It was awesome! Tasted great, was not overpowered by the milk, and just all around good. My only words of caution would be to watch how much ginger you put in there. I think I may have put to much. It has a bit of a bite. I did not take any pictures because I basically forgot. I will next time I make it so that you can see what I did. I definitely recommend that you try this if you like chai tea, but do not like the cost.

More Snow, Still Sick, and Week 3 Day 1

So I woke up this morning late again. Still feeling bad, but hopefully I'm going to start feeling better soon. As I was getting up I look out side and see that it is snowing again. Yay! At the time it looked like it was just flurrying. I did not think to much about it. I was hoping that my BFF would be up and wanting to do CoreX today. I have still been trying to work out as much as I can without falling over or coughing my head off. I missed 2 days last week, but made one of them up. Today was supposed to be Core. I did it, but it was rough. I coughed and coughed through part of it. That's core work right? I did not really fall over either. I did have to stop afterward and take a nap. It absolutely wore me out. I'm happy I made it through it though.

After working out, I looked back out the windows and realized that we had gotten about 2 inches of snow. Ugh, this is on top of all the snow we already had. Ugh. As the day went on it just kept snowing. Now we have about 4-6 inches. I went ahead and fed the horses early so that I could see what I was doing. It was not easy. Still had to worry about the layer of ice underneath the snow and falling through that to the snow underneath. On top of that though you had to trudge through the extra snow. Once I was finally inside, I snuggled up on the couch.

So I'm kinda proud of myself that I've made it to the 3 week mark of P90X. I really wasn't sure if I would put up with the time commitment for this program. I'm glad I have so far. I put on a belt Thursday that I wear all of the time and it went right past where I always wear it and went 2 inches past that hole. It was great. I actually wore it on that hole all day long and did not feel uncomfortable. So I am thinking that this is working for me even though I have not seen the results myself. I just have to keep going with it. I do not see this as a problem right now. So I am gonna just keep plugging along, even through the Himalayan Death Flu.

Snow, Ice, With No Possibility For Parrole

It has finally stopped snowing for the present time. I have heard mixed reports that the storm that hit us last night is swinging back around and is going to hit us again sometime tonight. I sincerely hope this is not true. Mike and I both made it to work okay today. It was a longer trip than usually, but kinda fun. Mike had the truck and went out first. I followed closely behind. He told me not too close though, that way if he got stuck then he could use my car to pull him out.

I wish I had been riding with him so I could have been taking pictures. It was gorgeous out this morning. Cold, very cold, but it was so pretty out. Ice had caked most of the snow drifts, so some of them you could walk on top of. Others not so much, you just sank. I scraped and scraped at my car windows, until finally Mike got out of his truck and showed me how it was done. LOL. Who knew that the groves on the other side of the scraper busted up the ice so well. I think he has to show me this at least once a year.

So I got to work and my technician showed up shortly after me. She's such a sweetie. We are both sick. We got through the morning with ease though. Only had one person call in. We were dead though. We stayed busy all day though.

On my way home from work I had no problems at all. The roads were not clear, but were not slick. All of the snow drifts my Jeep took with ease. Well at least until I get to our drive way, I looked over the situation. It doesn't look that bad. I'm thinking no problemo. I pull up, then start backing in. Okay, looks like I'm in the driveway. Everything is going good. Then, I feel the back end of the Jeep slide right (and yeah I really mean right, well my right as I was sitting in my car). UGH! I was stuck. I just missed getting in the driveway right. Had to wait on Mike to get home to help me get out. Sucks. How do you drive through snow drifts a couple (2-4) feet high and get stuck in the driveway? Just have the name Jeri. LOL

So once inside the house, I slept, and slept, and slept. I was wiped out. Then I got up and went out to feed the horses. So last nights trip with me was nothing. The layer of ice on the snow kept cracking, so then you had to pull yourself out of the snow and the ice. Carrying buckets was next to impossible. It was made worse by the fact that I was hacking my head off. I got it done though. The boys are happy.

Mike got home and we got my Jeep out easily. Thank goodness! We came inside and watched some Ghost Hunters. One of our favorite shows. I did not do my P90X workout tonight. I'm going to make it up though. I am just having some shortness of breath so I an exhausted even with my nap.

Hope everyone has a great night!

Trudging Across The Frozen Tundra, Again

So we are experiencing some extreme winter weather here in our area. The snow is blowing, the wind is howling, and I'm freezing. Well can't say that 100% as I'm still sick, maybe sicker, and I go between freezing and sweating like crazy. I really thought I was gonna feel better today, but this morning I think I passed out for a while . I was getting ready for work and it happened. I didn't fall or anything else that you expect to hear from me. I managed to just lay down on the floor until the most of it passed. Finished getting ready, then headed to work.

So back to the weather. As most of you know its bad out there. I still needed to go out and feed the horses, so I thought I would take you along with me. I only took my P&S as I really didn't want to screw up my nicer camera. So here we go.

This is me right before stepping outside. Please be kind and remember that I'm sick. Just wanted you to see how bundled up I am. I have on 4 layers on top, 4 layers on my head, 3 layers on my legs and 2 pairs of socks with snow boots. I really did not get that cold tonight except when the wind made it through a layer.

This is our back door. Notice that the door had to push snow out of the way to open. Most of this has came from today's snow.

These were my footprints from where I came into the house tonight. Now this may look like soft fluffy snow, but it was really individual pellets aimed for maiming you.

This is how fast it is drifting. My footprints disappeared shortly after being made.

Mike's car through the snow. I know you can barely see it. It was coming down so hard and fast. The snow here was almost up to the bottom of the car. Don't think he'll be driving this anytime soon.

These are the boys, Buckshot and Frank. They were excited to see me tonight. I keep a door to the barn open for ventilation and the snow was even blowing in here. The boys were still dry and comfy.

Ahhh! Frank, happy as a clam. Here is one relaxed boy.

Buck. The best time to do anything with this horse is when he's eating. He LOVES to eat. He sighs and everything. Makes me laugh. He is very happy right at this moment. You can almost see the bliss in his face. Okay maybe it bliss and a little "Mom get that camera out of my face" action he has going on. What can I say I love him in pictures.

This is Clover. Our new kitten. She is a lover. She is a lot like Buck and always wants fed.

This is her realizing that I have not filled up her water dish yet. She is coming over to complain to me. She can be loud and bossy.

 With the light in my hat it can cast interesting shadows on the ground. Add that to the flash from my camera and you have one crazy kitty. You can't see her hear trying to capture the shadow, but it was quite funny to watch.

Next it was out across the tundra with 2 water buckets and a hope that the wind would not blow me over or I wouldn't trip and fall. Now you know its bad out when the cat that usually follows you to the faucet, takes one look outside and turns and runs. Clover did not want to have anything to do with go out.

Water works at the outside faucet. Check! Love it when the water works outside. Check!!!

Two full buckets of water. Okay so maybe not totally full to the top, but in my defense if I fill them too full then I just slosh a lot of it out and the boys have actually have not been drinking that much. And I headed back to the barn. I was going to take a picture so you could get an idea of how far I had to go, but at that moment you couldn't see the barn anyways, so you still would not have known.


So I trudged back to the barn with my buckets in hand. Gave the boys theirs and filled up Clovers dish. Made sure that I had given all of them enough of everything. Then, I made sure I was all bundled back up. I had to move my car back for my hubby. Made it back inside with only a few stinging welts from the sleet.

So an update on P90X and the diet. Yes I have been sick, but I have still been trying to do my exercises. I have not really been bringing it, but I have done the best that I can do right now. Yoga was tonight and I thought I was gonna die after 10 minutes. I made it 15-20, then I went to the end to the cool down part. I did part of that. Still love corpse pose. So I did some of it if not all. I have had some weight loss though so that is awesome.

Till next time!

Himilayan Death Flu!

So I finally am getting to posting. My husband, after 3 weeks has finally managed to give me his cold. Yes I know I should know better than to stay to close to him, but he's cute and I can't help myself. Anytime he gets sick though the world needs stop so I can take care of him. He always calls it the Himilayan Death Flu and if anyone else were to have what he does it would just kill them outright. I usually end up with whatever he has and it has yet to kill me. I do know that my head has felt like exploding all day and sitting up was a struggle. So I made my way to the couch this morning and pretty much lived there all day long. Only moving long enough to roll over or send a quick message to my BFF on my progress of feeling better so we could do our workout together.

I was really hoping that I would pop out of bed this morning and feel fit as a fiddle and get Cardio in early, Then, I would have all day to what ever I wanted to. I had some grand plans. Yeah I know I shouldn't make any of those. Plans for me never work out. Seems to be a theme I have lived with all my life. So finally tonight I managed to peel myself off the couch, got changed and asked the BFF is she had already worked out. She had, but if you read her latest post she felt fat and wanted to do it again. I made it through most of it. I did almost fall on my face a couple of times and my head started spinning again, but I made it through it all. Wasn't to bad. I picked up the kenpo part better tonight so that was an improvement. Hopefully this means that the Kenpo is going to get easier for me to do.

Well, here's to hoping I feel better.