Home Sweet Home

Just thought I would do a quick check in... Nothing much going on to be honest.  It was rough going back to work on Monday after having two relaxing weeks off.  Andy and I didn't have anything planned but to just workout, relax and watch football.  Which is exactly what we did for two whole weeks... it was bliss.

Then Monday hit and it was back to work.  Oh well... it was great while it lasted!

Our next time off is scheduled in August.  We will be celebrating our 10 year wedding anniversary on August 11th and we will be celebrating it in.... (drum roll please).... Rome!  Can not wait for this trip, it is going to be a blast!  We were in Paris in May and that was a great 4 days but we have a whole week in Rome and it is going to be awesome!  I think we may take the train for a day trip to Florence and Pisa also.

Since I was MIA from my blog in May when we went to Paris I'll post a link to the photos from our trip.

I would first like to apologize to you that find my new obsession with exercise and calorie counting boring but it's hard to find other things to write about right now for the simple fact that it is a 24/7 lifestyle change and so much of my time is centered around this right now.  I hope you don't find it too boring!

Anyway... Look what I got today.

This is my new heart rate monitor!  I have used it four times already and I can not say enough about how much I love it!  The chest strap is just worn during any kind of exercise and it transmits your heart rate to the watch. You are able to keep track of calories burned, heart rate, laps and much, much more.

After you are done you can go to the Polar website and by putting the watch next to the microphone on the laptop it will transmit all of the details it recorded directly to your profile where you can monitor your progress.


This is my main diary page. It loads the data into the time in which it was recorded and then you can click on it for more detail.


These are the overall details from the exercise. This was recorded during a 30 minute exercise video 'Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred'.  As you can see it shows my average heart rate and my maximum heart rate.

When you click on Training Zones...


It then breaks down the data into even more detail.  It will show you what percentage of time was spent in each Training Zone. I had no idea before starting all of this that there are better zones in which to keep your heart rate in as it will burn more fat in those zones.  For me the best zones to be in for this are Zone 3 & 4 (Green & Orange).

I would also like to say that of course when you do things such as exercise videos you have no idea how many calories you are burning as everybody is different. But on some machines, such as my treadmill, it has a calorie counter.  It had always told me that 3 miles = 424 calories. However now with my Heart Rate Monitor I know exactly how many I am burning which turns out to be more around 280! That is a big difference!

Okay enough about this... I think you guys get the idea of how much I love it!

At work we had a collection for Laura C. She is leaving us to go on maternity leave and won't be back for nine whole months!

She is a very creative crafty person so I knew she would appreciate something with a little thought and effort put into it.  So I discussed my idea with my co-workers and they all agreed she would love this gift.

Here is the before shot [after a long day of shopping in the 68° heat]...

After I found the colorful polka dot tea towels I knew that they had to be used and that it would be bright and beautiful.

Here is the after shot...


I couldn't really figure out a way to get the digital thermometer in the cake without taking up much needed diaper space so I decided to wrap it on the side.

So each level is made from folding and pinning the tea towels together and then rolling up diapers inside. It officially held around 85 or so.  Then all around the tiers, as you can see, I added little goodies for the baby.


My favorite part of the whole cake was the cute little caterpillar... how adorable?


I was off work on Friday but I took it in for Laura's last day and she LOVED it!  As we all knew she would.  I'm so glad it turned out so nice cause she deserves the very best!  I'm going to miss her loads over the next nine months. But I've already told her that there will be lots of visits.

This past Friday was our last day at work for two weeks! That's right... 16 whole days off with nothing planned but lots and lots of relaxing and football watching.  *bliss*

As I am sure most of you know (even if you don't follow football/soccer) the World Cup has started. Last night was the England vs USA match.  As I am sure you all know I live in England but I still support USA and there has been quite a bit of banter at work regarding this match.  I would have loved to have had a win but having a draw at 1-1 was about the most politically correct score there could have been.  We kept up with England even though they planned on blowing past us and now nobody has bragging rights.  Good stuff!

As you can see in my previous posts I had started Couch 2 5K but I have decided to put a hold on it.  I made it through Week 1 Day 3 but noticed that my right knee was not liking it at all.  I had to take three days off from walking because of it and that is not want I'm wanting to do.  Right now I'm trying to lose at least 2lbs a week and yes working myself up to Running 3 Miles straight would help with the exercise but if it stops me from even being able to walk then I'm not going to get any exercise done.  So for now I am going to hold off on running and just keep walking as much as I can.  My knee still hurts a little a day after a long walk (did 5 miles yesterday) but I'm allowing myself one day on and one day off to rest and it seems to be better then.  After I have gotten myself to a comfortable weight then I will look to start the program again.

When Andy and I started tracking all of our calories I thought it was going to be a pain in the butt to track every little thing but honestly we find it so easy now.  We are both tracking them at My Fitness Pal and it has to be the easiest thing to use ever!  Almost all of the food we have come across is already listed and only a few things have had to be corrected. 

I have also found my measuring to be much easier than I first thought because of me purchasing the below cutting board.

When I first moved to England I found it so hard to cook here.  I am used to using tablespoons, ounces, cups and Fahrenheit.  Now everything is in milliliters, grams, liters and Celsius.  It has been a learning curve to say the least.  Well know with this handy cutting board I just have to look down and compare. 

I love it!