My Journey 2015: This Time Stronger and Smarter!

LJ, I'd wanted a boxer for years before I got my first in 2002. Ever since then I've been hooked on the breed and swore that as long as I'm able to have a dog, it would be a boxer. They are amazing dogs with such great and unique personalities.

LM - The issue is we don't know where she's staying. We know she's with her boyfriend, but we don't know where he lives. So getting food to her isn't possible right now. We could technically send them some gift cards to order out though. That's an idea. Last night I did a bit of searching and found some nice pendants. My mother and aunt want to pitch in to put a care package together so we'll be getting something figured out over the weekend hopefully.

Mystic - Thanks! :D

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Weighed in at 212.2lb again this morning. I went to bed planning to get up at 4:45am to get a Taebo session in before work. Well, that didn't happen. I don't know if I slept through my first alarm or what happened, but I woke up at 5:30am which is too late to get it in. Maybe tonight I'll do it or both days over the weekend.

This weekend should be less busy. I'm thinking of going to the Butterfly Place to do some photography. I was hoping to get to the beach, but the weather isn't looking promising for tomorrow and Sunday I'm already booked to do a lunch with my mom, aunts, and a few friends. We'll be going to a new (to me) restaurant called the Texas Roadhouse. I've already looked at the menu and decided what I'm going to get (6oz steak with veggies). Should be fun.
 
My wife really wants a boxer, too. I'm reluctant due to their health issues, but I agree that they're great personalities. I see one guy and his dog sometimes on my way to work, and it's got to be the coolest looking dog on earth, but I have no idea what breed it is, it looks like a cross between an African wild dog, an Aussie cattle dog, and Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Good call on the lunch choice. Be aware that they keep your table stocked with peanuts when you get there, they'll offer a blooming onion as you sit down (they'll be holding it, ready for you), and their bread-and-butter is ridiculawesome and should be avoided. Now you know!
 
I completely understand your hesitation. Boxers do come with health issues. I lost Riley, my first in 2011 to cardiomyopathy. He was just over 9.5 years old. I swore when he was going through his ordeal that I was done. Never again! When I lost him, that lasted about 3 weeks and I was looking again (that's when I found Logan). My 2nd boxer Mason just passed last August to insulinoma (pancreatic cancer) at almost 11.5 years old. Now I have the two I just posted. It stings like hell to lose them, but the good memories and time while they're here are well worth it. The key is to go through a reputable breeder who carefully health tests their dogs before breeding and are active in the show ring trying to preserve the breed standard, not pet store puppies or people who just throw their pet boxers together to mate. It's pricier going through a reputable breeder, but as with everything else you get what you pay for when you go through a lesser quality breeder. If and when you ever get ready I can definitely help you find a breeder, if you want to go the puppy route. I have some great connections and have a good idea of which breeders are legit. I also started a group on Facebook called the Holistic Boxer - the name pretty much speaks for itself. :)

Thanks for the tips on the Roadhouse. I'm not much of a peanut person, but the onions sound fab as does the bread and butter! I shouldn't be having either, but we'll see if I can be strong enough to say no. Oy! Tempation starting already.....
 
It's so nice to see someone talk about how to get a puppy the right way! So many people think 'well, I don't need a show puppy' and get some random poorly bred backyard breeder puppy then end up with health and temperament issues galore.

Hope you get the exercise in the weekend that you want to! Enjoy the lunch!
 
Mystic, I learned my lesson! I was very much in a hurry to get my first and went through the first breeder I found. I paid for it in the long run as did my dog as he had many health issues. Never again, only reputable breeders going forward although I am also interested in doing rescue and fostering at some point as well. :)

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So yesterday didn't go as planned. I actually had a pretty bad day for food intake and I cheated. :( For nearly the whole month I didn't have any chocolate, but I gave in and had some dark chocolate nuggets. I had a couple too many, but it was only dark chocolate which is the best to have health wise so hopefully it's not as bad as it seems. Then I ended up out and about shopping with mom and I cheated again for dinner. We stopped at Panera and I got a sandwich. The good thing, is that they allow you to order half of a sandwich now so I only got half, again so it's not as bad it could've been. I'm disappointed in myself a little bit because I haven't quite hit the 30 day mark (today would've been day 26) of no cheating, but it is what it is. My body won't know that it was only 25 days vs 30 days. I just need to listen to see if I feel any ill effects from it. So far, I don't.

My morning weigh in was 212lb even. Hoping to go for a walk, but once again our weather sucks today. It's snowing right now, but it won't stick. If it clears up in time I'll be walking.
 
Well, something got into me after I posted the message above. I ended up throwing in a Taebo DVD and did a good workout. I put the toughest one in. The one I started on and I think I did pretty well. There are a few moves that I've always skipped because of the pressure on the knees, but aside from those I did the rest of the moves even though I had to pause it to catch my breath a couple of times. It feels good! :)
 
I've been to the butterfly place! My boyfriend took this amazing picture there that I use as my desktop background and get tons of compliments on.

Taebo, yay!! You talked yourself into doing it without even realizing. And it's still early, so now you can go through the day knowing you already worked out.
 
I agree Oaks! Morning workouts are the best. They really set the tone for the day. :) We ended up not going to the Butterfly Place. Our weekend ended up being crazy.

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Well, this weekend was not pretty. I completely blew it eating wise. :(

It started with the half sandwich at Panera on Friday night. Saturday we ended up with a house full and ordered pizza. I told myself only one slice, two at the most. Well, I had three slices! Then to top that off I also had an ice cream cone. Sunday came and we went to the Texas Roadhouse as planned. My original plan was to get a steak and veggies. I made the mistake of looking at the menu one last time before ordering and ended up getting fried chicken. I still had veggies and opted for water instead of soda so at least that was kind of a compromise. Thankfully I'm not feeling poorly physically after the binge I did, but my weight this morning certainly reflected what I did. I weighed in at 215lb. I know it's not a true weight gain though. I just need to wait for my body to process it all. My plan this week is to get back on track and drink lots of water. The good thing is that weekends like this are few and far between. I'll be fine. :)

On a different note, my cousin who lost her baby last week stopped by for about an hour. There were some tears shed, but she's doing well considering. She's still waiting for some tests to come back to see if she'll get answers on what happened. I'm hoping she gets answers, but we also realize that there may never be any answers to get. Time will tell.

I also wanted to add that I did exercise both days this weekend. Taebo early Saturday and a long walk yesterday. The Taebo literally kicked my ass! My legs, back, and sides have been so sore since Saturday night. I knew it would happen so I was expecting it, but damn I could barely move yesterday. I'm hoping by tomorrow it'll feel well enough to do Taebo again. Right now I'm lucky to be able to get walking in.
 
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This will be a rant, but I need to vent. One thing I haven't talked about here and I have no idea why I've never mentioned it because it's been making me absolutely miserable, is that our neighbor subdivided her property so her son could build a house on her land. Last year they cleared her land of all of the trees and that's where they stopped before winter hit. The way we understood it, the new house was to be built at the far end in the back. We even gave them permission to cut down some of our trees at the rear of our property because they were concerned about them falling onto their new house. The trees were already on their way out otherwise we never would've ok'd it.

Well, we got home Thursday afternoon to find their foundation had been set literally right next door to us, approx 25' from our property line (attaching a pic). We will now have a nice view of a huge new house (we're assuming it'll be a double story since it'll be a 4 bedroom house and the foundation is that big) right outside our living room window. We're all absolutely disgusted, but unless the town has an issue with it, there's nothing we can do. At this point, our town is turning into a city and they're seeing more tax dollars coming in so they won't help. It's so infuriating to see our country setting turning into a city right before our eyes. Since we moved here in 2007 we've had a HUGE church move in behind us (you can see it in the photo I attached in the back), down at the end of our road they cleared a large corner lot of trees to put in a Dunkin Donuts, a liquor store, a restaurant, a school, and a senior citizen community. On the other side they're getting ready to clear that lot to put in a ritzy hotel. Across the street they cleared more trees to put in 6 new houses and now our neighbor's bullsh*t. All of the wildlife we had, gone! Haven't seen deer, turkeys, raccoons, etc for months.

I did some research Friday afternoon and found some trees that we may put up. They're called Thuja Green Giant trees and they can grow to be 50' tall. They're fast growing (3-5' per year) and we're thinking we'll plant about 48 of them all along our property line. Close enough together so that we'll get our privacy back. The spiteful side of me is taking a little bit of pleasure in knowing that once these trees are near full grown, our new neighbors won't get much sunlight in their yard. I do not feel bad at all. Had they built their house at the rear where they were supposed to, this would be a non issue. End of rant.

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Sorry about the crappy neighbors, completely uncalled for. Maybe that was the only spot they could use, but they still should have consulted you. As far as fast-growing trees, try a black locust, too. They may be considered invasive, so check that out, but we had one knocked down in a storm (that took down a lot of trees, regardless of specie). It had 1" tree rings some years, and it was about 18" across and 18 years old. It was, to say the least, a fast growing tree.
 
Grrr, that´s where big government would be a plus! People aren´t allowed to build that close to the property line here and certainly nothing high! Doesn´t help you though...
 
The thing that really pisses us off is that we were under the impression this WHOLE time that the house was going in the far rear. Not one of the plans that we had even showed the house and our neighbors claimed that they hadn't decided yet where everything was going. Yesterday afternoon we found out that they had plans drawn up in 2011 where the house is shown clear as day in the location they were building it in. If the plans were drawn up in 2011, why were they never shown to us? Why did they give us the plans without the house on it? I'm talking about the town here, not our neighbors. This whole thing has been shady to say the least. Our street will look so stupid. All of the houses have good spacing between them except for these three houses now. The down doesn't care though. They're getting their tax dollars so it's perfect for them. We'll be going to a few nurseries this weekend hopefully to learn more about the Green Giant trees and when we should plant and how to take care of them. I have to say, I do get a giddy feeling knowing that once these trees are fully grown this new house will be lacking a LOT of sun. Oh well. Shouldn't have built right next to us like that I guess.

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Anyway, I weighed in at 214.2lb this morning. On a good note, I started my TOM yesterday so I'm hoping that some of this extra weight has to do with that as well as my horrible eating habits over the weekend. Although I know my eating habits didn't help. I always "gain" weight when I eat poorly, especially pizza.

I'm leaving work earlier than usual today because I can. LOL I'm getting out at 12:45 instead of my normal 1:30. It's supposed to be in the upper 40 - low 50 range today so I'll be taking the dogs on a nice long walk this afternoon. I'm going to check the mapmywalk site and do a few routes and whichever one is the longest is where we'll go. I'm hoping to do at least 2-3 miles.

I'll try to catch up on diaries later. I'm at work now when I usually have downtime, but since I'm leaving early and have deadlines to make today I won't have time. Hope you all have a great day.
 
Just thought I'd pop in to thank you for the bacon slaw recipe. To make it a meal. I added a pound of diced chicken to the process (after bacon done and before the veggies). Wow, really good!
 
Within a three minute walk from my house I also have a huge church, Dunks, liquor store, restaurant, and senior citizen community, and they're trying to break ground soon on an apartment building next door. Too weird that we have so much in common, especially because I DO live in a city! That's awful that you aren't able to maintain your expected level of country living. Hopefully you got a nice long walk in with those doggies, I made sure to get outside at lunch to enjoy the sunshine, too.
 
LJ - Glad you liked the recipe. Great minds think alike because I made up a batch for my lunch this week (need a break from salad!) and I also put chicken in mine to get some added protein. It actually tastes better with the chicken in it I think. I made it a different way this time. I fried up the bacon as you normally fry it up and saved the grease to mix in with the slaw while it was heating up. Then I added the bacon in so it was crispier. Mmm mmm good!

Oaks - I'm guess I'm what most people would call a tree hugger. I HATE seeing the destruction to the environment. I almost feel like it's a personal attack. It just infuriates me to no end. What's worse is that they keep putting in useless stuff. Do we really need another Dunkin Donuts? Really? Is it really providing more jobs? Not many so what's the point? I wish I could just win the lottery and buy a HUGE chunk of land to preserve. It just seems like all of the trees are getting cut down. It's worrisome to me. This whole situation with our neighbors... blood boiling! I cannot wait to get a landscaper to our house to tell us what we need to do and when we can plant the trees.

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So my weight this week has been steadily going up and up. This morning I was at a whopping 215.8lb. Oddly enough, I'm not stressed or concerned in the least. Between my binge over the weekend and my TOM, I know it'll be gone in short order once I get back on track for a while. Last night I roasted some broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots in coconut oil and layered bacon on top. OMG.... It was soooooo good!!

I intended to get up at 4:45am this morning to get my Taebo in. Once again apparently my alarm went off, but I don't remember it. I woke up at 5:41 which leaves me about 10 minutes to get a workout in. LOL Not gonna happen. So, tonight I'll be walking for sure. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to get up in time. I won't have time after work to walk.
 
Yay for peace of mind on the weight front! Getting up for a morning workout is really hard this week due to the time change around here but the feeling afterwards is totally worth it :)
 
Oh that sucks about the house next door LaMa. I just couldn't think of anything positive to say about it. I can't imagine how I would feel if that happened here! Good thinking re the trees. Try not to let it get you down sweetie xo Cate
 
Well, today was a complete and utter failure with food. So much chocolate which should be absolute off limits! I had one, which turned into two, which turned into a third, which turned into a fourth.... you get the picture. I won't say how many chocolates I ended up having. Truth is, I lost count. Ugh! It was so bad! It was a stressful day at work and boy did that stress eating return with a vengeance. :(

I did go for a walk after work which seemed to have calmed my nerves a bit. I'm trying to get my workout done in the morning. If I keep planning on it, I'm hoping my head will be in the right place and I'll actually hear the alarm in the morning.
 
Not much to report this morning. Weighed in at 215.8lb. Will be working on digging out of my funk today. Serious effort today.
 
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