Our Tree & Mr. Silly

We ventured out of the house the other day to get our Christmas tree.  It is usually our tradition to get this after we return from our Thanksgiving travels.  Unfortunately, Quinn and I were pretty sick when we wanted to go so we had to wait until this weekend.

A storm was headed our way on Saturday so we got the tree just as the snow was starting to fall.  It was very pretty...driving over to Walmart North parking lot, passing Gander Mountain and finding our parking spot just across the street from Kwik Trip.  Ok, it might have been a little bit better if we were actually walking through a forest or a place that had trees we could cut ourselves but this works for us.  Plus, we had a coupon!  :)

The tree is up and we seem to have a leak somewhere in our tree stand so we delayed decorating until we knew that our tree was safe and secure and watertight.

Here are a few pictures of our adventure.

And...then the storm hit.  In about 2 hours we got enough sticky, wet snow to build things...and it kept snowing and we now have about 5 inches of snow.   Here is some of the snow that we got and the snowman (Mr. Silly Snowman) that Sid and the neighbor built that afternoon.

Jessica's Journey...December 1st...stats!

Today is the day.  I am seeing what progress I have made over the last year and over this last month.

I can go through all the measurements that I have taken but I'm not going to do that.  It will just bore you to tears :)  I am just going to share one specific measurement because it is pretty crazy...I think.

I started this new program on October 31st, 2011 that Jeff Burbank has set up for me.  Before that I had been working so hard with everything that I knew how to do to keep slimming down.  My progress was getting very slow and I hadn't seen any results for months.  Since I started this plan in October I have lost 2 inches in my waist.  2 inches!  I thought that my jeans were fitting differently and now I know why.  I guess those planks are working :)   (This kindof sounds like one of those radio commercials that I hear when I come back from the gym...just take this pill and you will lose inches all over, or just eat this before you sleep and the pounds will melt off of you without exercise.  Sorry, people...exercise is pretty important if you want to lose the fat.  And no, this isn't an infomercial.  I am telling the truth.)

Overall, some of the other measurements are pretty small in comparison but still very important.  Some didn't change at all and my measurement for my thighs actually went up in the last year (not the last month though)...hopefully because of muscle.  I did write a blog post about my measurements back in December 2010.  If you would like to read that blog you can view it here.

Isn't that crazy?  2 inches.  I think I am still in awe a little bit.

So, here is a photo of me back in December of 2010.

Here is me now (me what I look like just about 2 minutes ago...I took my hair out of my ponytail just for the picture!)

I still look like the same me but my face isn't quite as puffy as before and my hair is a lot longer and darker.  Who knew that getting healthy could change your hair color  :)

I did get to the gym this morning and went to a spin class.  Love spin!  I was very careful though today because my asthma is not quite ok and once I start coughing I tend to cough for awhile.  I tried not to push too hard but it is so tempting to go as fast as I can and increase that tension to as high as possible.  I didn't though today.  I still worked hard but did back it down just a bit today so I didn't have to be assisted by an ambulance.

Tomorrow is day 4!  Then my week is done and I will just have one more week of Phase 2...and the plan is to run on Saturday.  Sid can now join me at the gym too if I get a note from her doctor.  That reminds me...I have a phone call to make.