This made me laugh so hard!

Watch "Doritos `Finger Lick` Super Bowl Commercial 2011" on YouTube

My billion dollar idea...

If you are like most people, there has been at least one point in your life where you were counting calories to reach a desired weight goal...maybe it was for sports, or prom, or a wedding, or maybe it was just to look better naked.  If you've never counted calories for weight loss, congratulations on having a fabulous metabolism...people like me are super jealous of people like you.  


Anyways...EVERYONE knows that counting calories is a pain in the tush, right?  These nifty apps like Lose It! and MyFitnessPal are great...they make calorie counting easy as pie (mmmmm, pie) but what about that fun size Snickers bar at night that you forget to log?  Those extra 100 forgotten calories every now and then really add up... Now, for my idea (prepare for your mind to be blown - it's a good one).


Someone in the medical community needs to invent some sort of digital device that can be implanted in the mouth, throat or stomach that sends caloric intake information to a database that can be viewed either on a smartphone, tablet or PC.  The nutritional data would then be viewable by permissions only insuring that people who need to see it (doctors, trainers, etc) have access, but others do not.  The device would have to be small, durable and require no maintenance once implanted.  I have ZERO medical education, so really have no idea how the logistics to this would work, but wouldn't a device like this be awesome?


Imagine not having to micromanage every morsel of food that enters your mouth.  With this device, losing weight the good, old-fashioned way (by eating less) would actually be kind of fun. This device would reduce the amount of people going in for lap-band or gastric bypass surgeries, by forcing people to be accountable for what they eat.  Accountability a HUGE problem for me (and one of the reasons I started this blog, actually).  If I can sneak a bowl of cereal at night without tracking it, I will...that's the kind of behavior that has kept me the "fat friend" for most of my life.  (Don't pity me, I've learned how to make it work...I'm a fabulous wing woman)


So, thoughts?  If this type of device was developed and safe - would you get one?

I'm a people collector...

Yep, I collect people. If you know me at all, I can assume you know this to be true. I hold on to people, often for way longer than their health "expiration date." I adore the diversity and variety of the people that I know - if my friends need something (from a new car to an unemployed plumber to an expert on short sales to a medium and anyone in between), I've usually got their answer just a phone call away.

 See, I love knowing people - learning their story and being able to take something from their experiences and apply it to my own life. My mom likes to say that I've never met a stranger. Apparently when I was a little girl, she had to keep an extra close eye on me because I would wander off to have conversations with grown ups about the weather or Christmas or whatever happened to be on my pre-school mind. She was always scared that someone would scoop me up and steal me...but I'm pretty sure they would have brought me back once they discovered what my 5th grade teacher would later describe as "diarrhea of the mouth" a/k/a incessant chatter, constant talking, unending chitchat.

So, because of my hyper-social behaviors, I began people collecting. Over the years I have encountered many people with toxic relationships and friendships. They have people in their lives who are emotionally draining and exhausting to deal with. I can sympathize, but I am no good at giving advice on this topic.

My questions to you are: When do you know when it's time to let go of someone? When has the relationship (whether friendship, family member or acquaintance) has truly reached its expiration date? Please leave a comment and let me know your thoughts, I am truly very interested.

Saturday Morning Sacrifices

On our way to my daughter Carmen's round robin basketball tournament in Aurora this morning I got to thinking about the sacrifices that parents make for their kids. This was not a random thought - I did NOT want to get up early and drive over an hour on treacherous roads this bitter cold Saturday morning. BUT I know how much being involved in school activities means to her, so I sucked it up, bundled up and took one for the team (ha, literally).

So here we sit in front of Resurrection Lutheran Church and School (an hour early) listening to my Florence + the Machine station on iheartradio. Carmen is half asleep on the seat next to me and I am feeling very grateful that God chose me to be responsible for such an amazing kid.  I seriously could not have asked for a more loving, intelligent, empathetic and sweet child.

Back to the making sacrifices part of this rant...everyone makes sacrifices for the people and things that they love, but being a parent is the biggest sacrifice of all (in my opinion).  When I first saw the faces of my babies, I knew it was all over...they already had my heart wrapped around their teeny tiny pinkie fingers. I guess that's what being a parent is...being able to give up who you are for who you were destined to be.

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

But wait, Christmas was LAST month and it was 50 degrees in Chicagoland. One awesome thing I looooooooove about the snow is the awesome workout I get shoveling. How many wives argue with their husbands and beg to shovel the driveway? I simply adore it...except the freezing cold fingers, snot running down my face and fogged glasses. In fact, my new handy dandy Android app Lose It! says that I burn almost as many calories shoveling the driveway for 35 minutes as I do on the elliptical for 30 minutes. 

Sweet...

Here, have a super flattering picture of me after shoveling the driveway! 

Let's DO This!

So, my good friend Kelly Olexa suggested that I welcome myself into the new year by starting a blog about life, family and my fitness journey - so here I am. Please be gentle.

My goal is to blog at least once a week and to eventually purchase my very own URL - ah, the dreams of a a grown up tech goddess. No more Barbie mansion fantasies or astronaut dreams...I just want my own URL. I really don't think it's too much to ask for...especially considering I could probably get it for dirt cheap since its so unique.

I plan on blogging about lots of different things...the life of a 30 year old mother of two who works full time while trying to squeeze some time in for herself to work on her fitness has got to have SOME interesting bits that I can share with the interwebs, right? We shall see.