...and BREATHE.

camping was fan-diddly-tastic!

i love the fresh air, the water, the trees, the mountains, the meat on a stick, the grizzly bears roaming the campground.....oh wait, scratch that last one.

i didn't get to see them them with my own eyeballs, but everyone else sure did.  there were several GRIZZLY BEARS wandering around our campground this weekend, some as close as 25 feet from our tent.  i was stressed for most of the weekend, and we were all on edge, constantly looking around us - but we survived.

it definitely won't stop me from going back to gorgeous K Country, but i need to not think about bears for a while before going again!

i ate a lot of crap this weekend, but i didn't eat a ton in general.  sure, i had bacon and eggs for breakfast, many smokies on a stick, some Turkish Kofte (mini hamburger patty type things) and chips....oh and a 3 litre box of wine....but i wasn't out of control.

i was puffy when i got home (i stopped taking my blood pressure meds/diuretic so i wouldn't have to pee in the middle of the bear infested night), and have had some wierd indigestion/heartburn from all of the meat and stuff.....but am getting back into my regular scheduled healthier eating.

i will be happy to stay the same at weigh in on Friday since last week was such a great loss (i don't think i posted about that)...so we shall see.

yeee-hawww!

i want a pair of cowboy boots.  i live in Cowtown now, this should be allowed.

i love love love the sundress and cowboy boot look and i would love to get away with it.

...and she who does it all so well, Taylor Swift.  she may not be able to sing, but the girl can dress!

i may take what she has and run with it...my new fashion inspiration:

lions and tigers and BEARS - oh my!

well hello there.  so sorry for the delay, but one cannot update one's blog when one is stuffing food into one's face for weeks on end.

in actuality, it has been a lovely few weeks -  if you ask anyone but the scale.

in a last minute decision i ended up going back home to ontario to surprise my mom for Mother's day!  it was abosolutely fabulous, and the look on her face was absolutely priceless!  i have never seen her so shocked.  it was wonderful!  we also went to visit my 86 year old grandma (who lives in a home) on Mother's Day and she was thrilled as well.  she can't see very well (macular degeneration), but as soon as she heard my voice and saw my shape move into the room her jaw dropped.  she said so many times that it was the best day of her life and she will never forget it.  it just warms my heart and i feel so good about my decision to go home.

me, grandma, my sister and my mom

so i stayed in ontario from saturday - wednesday and it was a nice little reprieve.  i hadn't seen my mom and sister for a long time and it was great to spend some time together!

i arrived back home on wednesday and half heartedly got back into work.  i am still not loving how things are going with work right now, but am working towards getting some advertising going.  i think in order to really love my job, i need to get into some niche market that i love.  whether it be arranging wine tours, or trips into the mountains...or god-forbid, destination weddings.....i need something more than sending people to minneapolis for business.  i will think on that.

right now what is keeping me busy and happy is getting ready for the first camping trip of the season!  because of a ridiculous long weekend liquor ban at most provincial campsites, we are trying someplace new and are going to a fairly back country campsite at Kananaskis Lake.

the sites look absolutely gorgeous.  they are heavily treed, right on the lake with mountain views.  HEAVEN!

we are meeting our good friends H&S who are still back in Fort McMurray, as they are always our camping partners and we will have a grand time!

i am a little nervous at the beginning of each camping season as it is usually cold (it almost always snows in the mountains) and the bears are hungry.  i have never actually seen a bear on our camping excursions, but i have an irrational fear of getting mauled.  so, in order to combat my fear, i am reading a non fiction book on bears called "Grizzlyville", which surprisingly is making me feel a bit more educated and less scared.  granted, there are some awful mauling stories in the book, but a few statistics always leave me feeling a little better.  out of 750 000 black bears in Canada, there are "only"  three bear related deaths per year.  compare that to the fact that 1 out of 50 000 humans have committed murder* 

*i am not sure where this stat came from, and if it is factual, but let's just pretend it is, because it makes me feel better.

soooo....the sleeping bags are washed, the tent is airing out in the sunny backyard, and i am stoked.  let the summery fun begin!!

seriously now.

well, yesterday had a little Good Day/Bad Day action going on.

the day started well, when i woke up and it felt like my cold was almost gone!  my throat wasn't all coated and my nose wasn't all stuffy - score!  ..but then, after a few minutes of being mobile, the stuffiness came back - with a cough!  lovely.

so after a gloriously hot shower, i went down to my office with tea in hand, and promptly won 2 tickets to the David Gray concert on the 17th!  i love my radio station.  i got a $50 gift card AND concert tickets within a couple of weeks.  sweet.

i had pondered a little yesterday about possibly going home to surprise my mom for Mother's Day.  i get fairly inexpensive Air Canada passes (my dad worked for AC for 43 years), so i thought i could swing it.  but alas, it was $200 that was better spent elsewhere, so i abandoned the idea.  i casually brought up the idea to my sister and she thought that Mom really needed a pick-me-up and offered to pay for half of the flight home!  so off to Ontario i go tomorrow!

the last time i saw my mom was 9 months ago during a stopover on the way home from Turkey.  that was only for an hour.  before that, i saw her for a day about a year and a half ago!  i miss her.  she will be totally thrilled and i can't wait to spend some time with her!  this also means i get to see my sister (and her new fiancé i haven't met yet) and my best friend and her new baby!!  HURRAY all around! 

so i hop on a flight tomorrow morning and am giddy about it.  i want to look super cute, as i am still very self conscious about my newly huge size around my family, so off i went to Superstore to pick out a couple of cute Joe items.

i was there shopping, with a few items in hand, just minding my own business.  i stopped to look at some tshirts and this large older gentleman man came up behind me and very matter-of-factly said, "Those are too small for you." 

ARE YOU KIDDING ME??  WHO SAYS THAT??  who decides that it is okay to go up to a complete stranger in a store and basically tell them that they are too fat to be looking at clothes there.  seriously now.  i was shocked.  i didn't know what to say or do.  i stood there, silent, and didn't even turn around to look at him.  i said "Huh."...becuase that was the only thing i could manage.  and off he shuffled.

at this time, of course, i thought of a bajillion different comebacks for him from, "Thanks for the tip, DOUCHEBAG" to "I don't believe i asked for your opinion, ASSHOLE".. *sigh* ..  it was not a good moment.  but i didn't let him ruin my day, and went off to the changeroom to try on a few items, ALL OF WHICH FIT, thankyouverymuch.  and i even ended up buying a couple of cute peasant tops.

my heart was beating hard and there may of been steam coming out of my ears, but i pulled myself together, finished my shop, and went back home to the man who loves me.

*sniffle*cough*snort*whine*

excuse my lack of posting but with all of this snow on the ground, i thought that maybe we had gone back in time to DECEMBER and i didn't even have a blog back then!

it is pretty gross outside.  snow, in may.  these are the days where i just want to cuddle under a blanket with some tea and arrowroot cookies.  AND.... i'm sick.  just a little sick.  but i NEVER get sick (it has been more than 3 years).  so when i am sick, i am whiny.

nothing too extraordinary to report though.  my eating has been mediocre.  i have decided to give points-counting a bit of a break, and have been trying to just eat heathy foods in normal portions.  *gasp*  a shocking concept, i know!  it is going okay, except for the belly full of whole wheat pasta and mozza i have going on right now.  it is comfort food, cut me some slack.

i have been seriously pondering (instead of only half-assedly pondering) joining a gym.  i have spent the last month looking into Aquafit classes (i realllllly want to do this), but everything just seems to expensive and too far away from my house for me to actually do it.  if it isn't convenient, i ain't going. 

but low and behold, C just found out from his coworker, that the Gold's gym that is less than 10 minutes from my house has a pool AND Aquafit classes!!  hurrayyy!!  this is a brand new 32,000 sqft facility with the largest cardio area in Western Canada.  can you say, yes please?  this is a full service gym, and i think it might be reasonably priced.  i have even found some folks on kijiji looking to transfer memberships out that are even cheaper than what they are charging now.  so i think we shall look into this.  a treadmill, a pool, and a tanning facility (yes i know it is bad for me, but i love it), that's all i need.  i will let you know how this pans out.

as the one year anniversary of my engagement rapidly approaches, i am thinking it is time to try on some wedding dresses.  i thought by this time i would be down 80lbs and stoked to go try some dresses on, but instead, being down only 20 - it is not something i am looking forward to.  on a wedding forum i frequent, someone said that i shouldn't wait until i have lost the weight to try on dresses, but to try on the dresses now, in hopes that THAT will make me want to lose weight.  that, or make me ragingly homocidal, i guess.   i will give it a go.

i am so, fully, completely, ridiculously excited that camping season is almost upon us.  the long weekend is only 17 sleeps away and i am raring to go!  i have spent the last couple of days researching new campgrounds to check out and that has made me even more excited.  sadly, the majority of them are either fully booked, or have an alcohol ban in place for every single long weekend.  c'mon now, i am a responsible, mature, semi-alcoholic and i like to drink boxed wine around the campfire.  don't penalize me for that!

so...we are going into the back country and are REALLY roughing it.  no flush toilets, no showers.  just us, the mountains, the river, and a hole in the ground.  BRING IT ON!  we are going to be dirty.  we are going to be cold.  but we will have a blast, i'm sure.  i am just hoping it doesn't snow like the last two times we went camping.  please mother nature - work with us here.