Ribbit!

The Fellsmere Frog Leg Festival, my little cow-town's claim to fame, is this weekend. It's like every other town's festival; scary carnies and their even scarier rides, tons of fried food, and crafters selling weird shit no one needs. All that, with of course our own little twist...Frog Leg and Gator Tail dinners.

This year's logo.

You with your Strawberry and Pumpkin Festivals wish you were half this cool.

In other news, the No-Diet Diet also known as the just-stop-fucking-overeating-you-cow Diet is working quite well. Down about 7 lbs so far since the new year. Unlike in the past, I'm not writing everything down and planning exercise and everything else up the wazoo. Just trying to act like my skinny friends. You know, making "good choices" like your mama taught you (mine didn't teach me that). And working in exercise as I can...basically letting loose the "all or nothing" approach and just acting like a healthy person who gives a crap about her body.

With the Frog Leg Festival and its' temptations of fried foods etc, (fried oreos anyone?) I have decided that if I go, I have to walk there. It's only about 1.5 each way. So, even if I do have a bite or two of something nasty I won't feel guilty about it. 

Oh and another thing....I found out another friend had the lap band. Seriously, people??? WTF? I swear I am going to be my last fat chick I know who hasn't had it done! Gah! 

But I promise not to be smug when I slim down a bit without the use of surgery.

Fuck it, who am I kidding? Of course I am going to be smug.

Milo & Otis, Redneck Addition

So yesterday was my last day off work due to the GB surgery.  I felt great.
However, my spidey-sense told me it would still be in my best interest not to ride the motorcycle or the horse quite yet. I wasn't so bored that I would want to clean the house or anything so I figured why not go for a hike. With the AR in mind I feel more inclined now to hike, not walk....ya know on trails...in the woods....not the boring dirt roads or park tracks.
So I leashed up Badger hopped the ditch and decided to hike in the State Park. Joey, the cat, decided to join us. It is not unusual for him to start out on walks down the road with us, but he always turns back by the corner.
Not so today. He marched through the woods and all the way back to the house with us the whole way. A good 2 mile trek, at least.
The first 1/4-1/2 mile was great and looked like this:

After that he lagged behind and meowed at us the whole way. It was the feline equivalent of, "C'mon guys! Slooooooow dooooown!", "Waaaait up!", and  "Are we there yet?" About 2/10 of a mile from the house he gave up and flopped on the ground and I had to pick him up and carry him most of the way home. Until he decided he had suffered enough of these indignities, scratched and bit me and marched the rest of the way home.

We also saw some interesting poop on the trail. You know your friends have interesting jobs/lives when you can text them a picture of poop and they do not think it is odd. I'll spare you the poop picture. We think it was bobcat, possibly coyote.

After school, Holden and I went to the SW part of the Park and went on another mile hike. Which could have been longer had we not run into a lonely and chatty, albeit harmless, old hiker and ran out of day light.

And then I made grab-random-crap-out-of the-pantry/fridge-and-cook-it-pasta for dinner. It was surprisingly good.

Wherein we find our heroine.....

5 days post gallbladder removal surgery. 1 month past the worst back pain "episode" of her life. At least 70 lbs overweight (and that's being kind) and pretty freaking sick of feeling like her mother sounds.

Yes, I have one of those. If you have a cold, she has the flu. If you have a breakout, she has leprosy. She means it as a way of sympathizing...however, it's annoying. But I digress. (I'll be doing a lot of that.)

Back in the fall, I had deemed 2011 to be the year of "less obligations." I am coming off almost 3 years of being the President of both the local chapter of a national women's motorcycle club and the President of the support organization for my local State Park. This school year we have become Den Leaders for our son's Cub Scout Den. I've resigned from being a Board member of the motorcycle riding club and am trying to delegate more in regards to the State Park. The goal being to spend more time concentrating on the Cub Scout stuff and enjoying myself/my family/my friends more. In other words, more FUN, less work. Well, less of the work I don't get paid for anyway.

That said, in the past two months I've been weathering a shit-storm of health issues. Nothing life threatening, but just a lifetime of not getting enough exercise and  too much bad food catching up with me. I've since gotten my back straightened out and vow to keep that up with the Chiro. I've already mentioned the removal of the "more mineral, than animal" gallbladder. (Stupid little fucker) Which brings us to today.

Where I have now declared this to also be the year of "getting healthy." What? It's my freakin year I can give it as many cliche'd names as I want.

Since I can't ever do anything like everyone else does...(I'm special that way) I decided that I needed to find some sort of fitness goal to work towards. 5Ks don't appeal to me as they are too short to be considered an accomplishment unless you're really trying to win...which I know I'll never be able to do. I suuuuuuckity suck suck at running. So I thought...what about walking a 1/2 marathon? Sure enough, all of the walking 1/2 marathons anywhere within 5 hours is either too soon or not until the Fall. Fark! So down the rabbit hole I fell until I stumbled onto the Pangea Adventure Racing website.

And there you have it. On April 30th, 2011 Dave and I are doing the Missing River Adventure Race. I'll post more details in the future.

Till then, here is where we shall begin....250-some pounds. Too sore post surgery to jog at all yet, but probably only capable of 1/4-1/2 mile or so. And looking like this: