Sorry for being gone so long everyone.. major life changes and all.
:p

moving was stressful.. apparently the only thing more stressful in life is the death of a parent and that is something I hope not to experience any time soon.

we are mostly settled into our new home... and it's HUGE! I never would have even looked at a place this size in Calgary and with the yard wow. Maddy loves the yard more than anything.. even her pretty pink princess room (I had a blast hunting for things for it!). We've got more space than furniture which is a fun problem to have - our living room has been converted into Maddy's playroom and is full of toys. We're madly painting and doing some small renovations to make the place more homey for us.. there are some major renos to do, but we'll need to save up for those.

New job's great... the whole point of this move was to improve the quality of our lives.. more time together as a family, biiger house, close to my folks, etc.. and we have not been disappointed. I work much shorter hours, traded in my 30-45 minute commute for a 5 minute commute, have enough time to workout in the morning before work and then spend the entire evening with my little family. We've gone to the Children's Festival and make weekly trips to the farmer's market now that it's open, take Maddy to the pool, go garage saling with my folks.. it's wonderful. I don't rush for anything any more and my stress levels are way way down.

I've been able to keep going to my pole dancing classes and it's still a hell of a workout and it is starting to show. even with the vast amounts of eating out in April & May, I've been able to maintain the weight loss from earlier in the year, so I'm still down 10 lbs, with 10 more to go by the end of october. With all the extra time, I may add another workout into my rotation of 4 days in the pool for aquacize and one day on the pole... I had hoped to take Salsa Tots with maddy, but they only have it during the day.. maybe I'll give Pilates another go..

All that's missing are my friends and I miss you are dearly.
Unknown "Loving Lioness" Sleepy - 16 years, 6 months, 13 days ago

so I've got a new job.. and my little family needs to move. Now I moved a lot as a kid, every 3 years we went somewhere new.. but I've been in Calgary for 11 years now.. hard to believe that it's been that long and moving is going to be a challenge.

I'm excited for the new job, it's going to be great for me and my career - much better than sitting at a desk doing nothing for days. And the move is going to be fantastic for my family since we'll be closer to my folks and aunts and even my grandparents, so we'll have a bit more freedom too.

It's just weird to me that I actually was settled here.

Things are hectic as we madly prepare for this move. I start April 1st, so I'm going to be up there staying with my folks while Mike and my Maddy are going to be in Calgary. it's going to be really hard to be away from Maddy again, but hopefully this will be the last time that a job will drag my from my girl for any length of time. And it's going to be hard on Mike to be alone at home with Maddy 24/7.. I don't think he really realizes how much better off he'd be if they came up and stayed with my folks too.

ah well.. it's an adventure and a new chapter in our lives.
Unknown "Loving Lioness" Sleepy - 16 years, 9 months, 19 days ago

WOOT.. had my monthly weigh in to see if I had met my goal for February in my lose 2 lbs each month from January to October when we leave for Mexico..

I'm almost halfway to my goal already (down 9.4 lbs of the 20 I wanted to lose) and feeling great about it..

I know that I can't maintain this pace.. cos well.. I don't have 50lbs to lose, but maybe dropping 30lbs isn't so unrealistic. That would put me down to almost my weight in high school. in freaking high school.. wow

so anyhow.. here's hoping.. I know ti will getm ore difficult as time goes on and with some big changes coming to my life, it may become more difficult to get my workouts iin (either that or I'll be soo freaking bored with nothing to do that I'll be able to workout everyday)
Unknown "Loving Lioness" Sleepy - 16 years, 9 months, 24 days ago

so we had the first of our 6 weeks of pole dancing level 1 on Saturday..

the class was fun and is really gonna do some good work on the ol' baby belly and thighs. I think we all had jelly legs coming out of the class and we didn't do anything overly hard. the fireman spin next week is gonna be interesting ;)

and WOWZA is our instructor HOT.. she's smokin hot... one of my girlfriends that I went with and I both felt kinda fugly around her..

I bet she makes a killing working on the pole.
Unknown "Loving Lioness" Sleepy - 16 years, 9 months, 28 days ago

Vegas.. well... it was Vegas.. in some ways it was everything I thought it would be, in others really disappointing and still others impressive.. weird, huh?

the lights of the strip as the plane approached was neat.. this flat dark area suddenly beams with light.. and you can tell where the strip just ends and the dark, flatness of the rest of Vegas starts.

We only saw a couple of cheezy wedding chapels - 1 down the north end of the strip and I think 2 out the south end.. I kinda expected more of them.. we had been thinking of renewing our vows while we were down there just for the cheese factor of doing it in Vegas with an Elvis impersantor of course (only saw 1 of those too).. but alas, not to be.

and it was very odd when we got to see Vegas from a couple of blocks off the strip.. how right behind those bright lights and huge resorts are rent by the week apartments, run down buildings and trailers.. there's a reason that they tell you not to get more than 2 blocks off of the strip.. it's a bit sketchy back there.

I'm not much of a gambler myself.. I view it as putting the money in the machine to be entertained with it and not to actually win anything.. when I got bored with the music the machine played, i went and found a different one :p

I think I ticked off the people around me jusddt because I didn't take it seriously AT ALL.. bopping my head and humming along with the music, laughing at the various little side games some of the machines offered.. celebrating spins that covered more than my 9 cent bet like I had won something bigger.. I just couldn't take it seriously and I think I enjoyed my time there that much more because of it.

We went to a couple of shows.. saw O which was fantastic.. absolutely amazing with the things they did with the pool and the stages.. and Blue Man Group.. really interesting, they had some really slow pieces to their show which was tough.. especially in an almost 2 hour production, but the other parts of the show were fascinating and loads of fun.

And I shopped (of course).. I shopped A LOT. Some very neato stuff to be found.

All in all.. a great holiday.. 4 days (well.. practically 5 days) was just the right amount of time. I think with 3 days I would have felt like I missed doing something and a week would have been way too long.
Unknown "Loving Lioness" Sleepy - 16 years, 10 months, 18 days ago