A Very Surreal Day

**Edited to Add** I actually wrote this post on Wednesday, but Blogger was acting wonky and wouldn't let me post it.


After spending Sunday night, a good portion of Monday and then all day Tuesday glued to my television watching all of the inauguration activities, it's very surreal to be here not even 24 hours after the inauguration.

The city is still bustling with tourists and as I walked around today, I saw nothing but smiles.

I walked up to the White House to get photos, unfortunately, the bleachers and viewing platform that the President and First Lady used to watch the parade are still up and are blocking the north side of the White House. I did take pictures of the viewing platform, which was really surreal considering I had just watched them LAST night sitting there watching the parade. I stopped and asked a DC policeman if the south side of the White House was better for picture taking, but he said "Not really, not right now". I'm hoping to go back on Friday and maybe some of that stuff will have been taken down and I can get a good shot of the White House.

I forgot my card reader, so I can't upload the photos that I took today, but I will share them once I'm back home.

My hotel room is very nice, small, but I have a king size bed with fabulous linens and it's very comfortable. The hotel is surrounded by shopping, but I MUST NOT SHOP, I MUST PAY FOR BRACES, which BTW, Connor did NOT get the other day.

Dr. Rovner has decided after taking the mold and xrays of Connor's mouth that he needs 4 permanent teeth pulled and his 4 wisdom teeth extracted before we can begin orthodontic treatment. So next week, we have a consultation with an oral surgeon.

YES WE DID!

President Barack Obama.

Did anyone see the concert last night?

We watched the "We Are One" concert last night that was held at the Lincoln Memorial. It was awesome! Great performances by a variety of performers. I think my favorites were Garth Brooks, John Mellencamp and U2.

Got to sleep in this morning until 8:00am....and have had the house to myself today. Went up to the gym around 10:00. I like going there during the day on my days off. Today, I started back on my strength training. I did a 5 minute cardio warmup, 25 minutes of strength training and then 20 minutes of interval cardio training.

iPod Playlist:
1. New Tatoo - Saving Abel
2. Walk Like A Man - Grand Funk Railroad
3. Hand that Feeds - Nine Inch Nails
4. Gotta Be Somebody - Nickelback
5. Why Can't This Be Love - Van Halen
6. God Is A DJ - Pink
7. Blurry - Puddle of Mudd
8. That's Not Her Style - Billy Joel

I can't wait until tomorrow!

I have a new toy!

I spent the last of my Christmas gift money today on a new external hard drive. I had originally asked for one for Christmas then changed my mind. Best Buy had a great deal on a 320GB passport with a free iTunes gift card. I decided on silver so I could "alter" it...lol...it looks great with my Pink Dell laptop.



I've copied and moved a bunch of stuff over to it and cleared out my recycle bin. Part of my "simplify" style of life for 2009.

I'm staying up late tonight because tomorrow is a federal holiday and I don't have to work! The boys will be getting up around 6:00am, but I'm going to try and sleep until 8:00 and then I'm going to hit the gym.

I'm working on my first organizational challenge for all of you and hopefully I'll have some photos and tips for all of you.

Even I'm not THIS organized!

Nor would the boys stand for it....boy kitties, not humans...lol

Birthday Party Day!

Since Connor's birthday is December 27th, we never get to have a party for his friends. It just too hard to get kids together then what with other family obligations for the holidays. Connor also doesn't get a birthday party every year. In fact, the last one was when he turned 10. Since he became a teenager this year, we thought a small party was appropriate.

In a little more than an hour, I will have 5 boys invading my house to play video games, eat pizza, drink soda pop and have cookie cake. THAT should jack them all up nicely....LOL!

Two of the boys are spending the night and I'm hoping to closet myself in my scraproom and finish a project that has to be done by next Saturday and I leave for Washington Wednesday.....thank goodness I have Monday and Tuesday off.

Went to WW this morning (missed last week because of the weather) and I'm happy to report I'm now down 15 pounds! My fitness center weighted me on October 7 and I started back to WW the first of November, so I was down about 3 pounds by the time I started WW. I really happy with my progress so far, mainly because I haven't had to starve myself. In fact, yesterday I had a fabulous breaded pork tenderloin and onion rings from Smitty's Tenderloin Shop on Army Post Road and I still lost weight this week. I can't remember the last time I had either of those food items.

After my weigh in, I stopped at the gym for a workout. Here's what I did today:

Treadmill
3% to 10% graduated incline (10 intervals of each)
35 minutes

iPod Playlist
(I ADORE shuffle - you just don't know what your going to get:
Listen to Your Heart - Little Feat
I'll Wait - Van Halen
Me & My Gang - Rascal Flatts
StormTroppers Coming - Ted Nugent
Holding On To Yesterday - Ambrosia
Just the Way It Is Baby - The Rembrandts

Well, I hear the knocking on the door.....the boys are here....say a prayer for my sanity!

Thanks.

It just too damn cold!

What a week so far!

My week started with being woke up at 2:15 in the morning by my good friend Cheri alerting me that she was in labor. I've had the honor and pleasure of being Cheri's doula for her and Jeff's second son Michael's birth and again for this one.

I got up to Ames around 3:00am (missed the bad weather, it hadn't started yet) and at 11:34am, William Aiden Theilke made his appearance. He took a bit longer than his older brother Michael but not as long as his other older brother Christopher.

I got back home around 2:00pm and fell promptly asleep for the better part of the evening. Even with sleeping until almost 6:00, it still didn't have any trouble with going back to bed around 10:00pm and sleeping until morning.

I've had a very busy week at work. I'm preparing for my meeting in Washington DC next week along with my regular responsibilites and of course, when you're plate is full is when the fires start that have to be put out and this week is no exception.

I happy to report that I'm back on track at the gym. I'll start back doing strength training on Thursday and I'll see how that goes, but I'm been kicking ass on the cardio. Since I'm working from home today, I decided to use my lunch hour and get my workout out of the way. It was too damn cold last night to go, so I'm making up for it today.

Today's workout:
35 minutes - treadmill
8% to 10% incline
3.7 - 4.0 mph

Today's Workout iPod playlist:
1. Animal - Nickelback
2. Use Me - Hootie & the Blowfish
3. Bittersweet - Fuel
4. I'm Not Jesus - Apocalyptica
5. Nights on Broadway - The BeeGees
6. Someone That You're With - Nickelback
7. Crash Into Me - Dave Matthews Band

Have a good rest of the week and STAY WARM!

Obama Cookies!

I had the pleasure of indulging and I mean indulging in the now world famous Obama Chocolate Chip cookies on New Years Day. There is a little restaurant down in the East Village called "Baby Boomers", about 2 blocks from where I work and right next door to where President Elect Obama had his first campaign headquarters. The story goes that he ate at "Baby Boomers" all the time when he was in town and he and Michelle loved their chocolate chip cookies so much that they would order them from the campaign trail and have the owner ship them to where ever they were.

The press got wind of it and since then, the owners of "Baby Boomers" have been unindated with requests for the cookies from all over the world. There NOT cheap, about $10 buck a dozen. My Aunt decided that she would treat us all to a dozen of the cookies on New Year's Day when they came over to watch football.

The cookies are more of a cake type cookie than a soft chewy cookie (which I personally like better), but they use chunks of chocolate rather than chips and there are still damn good and it didn't stop me from eating like 4 of them.

If you're ever in the East Village, stop by "Baby Boomers" and treat yourself....oh and BTW...their tenderloins are pretty damn good also!

It's a New Year.....

The possibilities are endless with a new year ahead. I don't usually make resolutions, but I do try and work on some areas each year and I usually fail miserably. One thing I've been trying to do lately is cook a little more. I've always known how to cook, I'm a good cook when I do it, it's just that I don't enjoy cooking.

I *think* watching the Food Network as much as I do has helped me start to enjoy cooking again. Plus I really need to get Fred in a better "mindset" of eating and cooking healthier and for him especially, portion control. I've a been a member of Weight Watchers long enough to know how much I'm suppose to eat, but Fred has portion issues.

Unfortunately, I gained 3.2 pounds back this week, but I wasn't surprised because I had not been able to go to the gym because of my back and there was just too much damn food around. I'm back on track now though....

Tonight I made a fabulous Lemon Chicken and Olives. You have to like olives (which I adore), so it you do, this is a dish for you!

Lemon Chicken and Olives
(serves 2)
2 chicken cutlets (we just took one large chicken breast, cut it into two and pouned them with the meat tenderizer
3 Tbsp. flour
1 Tbsp. lemon zest
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. parsley flakes
salt and pepper
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 large shallot
1 cup of black and green olives
juice of one lemon
1/2 cup of chicken broth

Mix the flour, lemon zest, cumin, parsley flakes, salt and pepper together. Dredge the chicken cutlets in the flour mixture and sauteed the cutlets in a frying pan with the olive oil. Remove from pan.

Deglaze the pan with the chicken broth and add the shallots and cook until soft. Add the lemon juice and olives and cook for a few minutes more. Pour sauce over chicken cutlets.

With our Lemon Chicken with Olives, we had a baked potato and a lettuce salad.

The recipe is definitely a keeper!

Happy New Year.....two days late!

Happy New Year to all my family and friends who stop by my blog!

Right now, I'm at my friend Cheri's house scrapbooking! She's extremely pregnant (due January 14th) and we wanted to scrapbook together one more time before the new baby boy comes, so it worked out well for me to come up to her house and spend the day/evening.

I'm working on a mini album of our new house. Well, it's not a new house anymore since it will be 5 YEARS in April that we moved, but I'm just now getting around to doing the photos...LOL.

I've been wanting to share a bunch of pages that I finished while on my vacation and to met some year end scrapbooking goals. This year I did more pages that I've done in the 4 years that I've kept track. I don't set a goal for myself, but I do like to keep track of how many pages I do and which months I do more pages in than others. 2008 the total was 147 pages!

Here's the most recent pages -













Thanks for looking!

Oh, and BTW...my back is getting much better. I ended up at the Urgent Care Center the Saturday after Christmas and after two shots in the ass and two prescriptions later, I was feeling no pain, but still took it quite easy until Tuesday.

Went back to the gym Thursday night and did 35 minutes on the treadmill, but I didn't take it up to the 8-10% incline I usually do, I kept it at 2% at 3.9mph.....everything seems to be fine....I was a bit sore this morning in my lower back, but I suppose it's going to be sore until I can strengthen it again.

2 more days and then back to work.......bummer....it's been a nice 12 days off..