The Weekend

I had a kick ass weekend and can't believe it is already coming to an end. I hate Mondays. I never despise Mondays more than I do now. I don't know if it's because I'm getting older and I know I have PLENTY of Mondays left in my working life, or if it's the 9 a.m. meetings I have every Monday, or if it's the fact that I have to face that wretched bitch of a scale to see what havoc ended up on my thighs from the oh sweet treats from Lil Italy. But none the less I'm already coming on with a case of the Mondays.

Lets reminisce for a minute shall we? I had one of the best weekends ever so far for 2010. One of my bestys came in town, and we had a ball. It was nice to have a little piece of home for a couple days I must say. Friday night we chilled at the Mansion, ordered pizza and caught up over the past couple of weeks. Saturday we got up, ate some diet pop cake (recipe and review below) and got ready. We did what every girl on a girl's weekend must do...we got beautified. We decided to go over to Regency Beauty Institute and get our nails and brows done. As always nothing but shenanigans ensued as we had supervised students training in cosmetology working on our precious piggies. Overall I had a great experience, and not to mention we were helping out someone in their dream of becoming the next Sheer Genius. Heightened levels of fear began to overcome us as we were getting closer to the brow portion of our Regency experience. But we were relieved to find out that a certified educator of cosmetology was going to shape our brows. Watch out ANTM...we are back...and the runway ain't ready for this! Grrrr...

After spending 2 hours at the beauty institute we mozied on down to Coventry for an early supper at Winking Lizard, followed by drooling at all the delectable pastries in Lil Italy. Then we headed to Beachwood Mall for a little shopping with our final stop at Harry Buffalo for a night cap. It was really nice to have a piece of home for the weekend. I haven't been back to Cincinnati since the end of December. You never realize how much you miss and appreciate your hometown until you've been away from it for some time.

Sunday I decided to get out and enjoy the nice weather with a five mile walk around Painesville and snap some pictures of some of the crown jewels of the town. I was never a picture person up until this year, and I might as well as submit for my paparazzi license. Hopefully over the course of this year I can save for a really sweet ass camera like they use for National Geographic pictures.

DIET POP CAKE REVIEW

As most of you know, I decided to make diet pop cake. You are probably wondering what is in diet pop cake...hence diet pop. All you do is buy cake mix, your choice of diet pop, and fat free cool whip for icing and wha la! Diet pop cake! I used devil's food cake mix and Diet Pepsi. Some recipes say you can use an egg white to help hold the cake together more, but that's optional. I how ever did use an egg white. At first I was pretty skeptical about how this would turn out...seriously, diet pop and cake mix? The verdict...deliciously moist and fluffy! You could taste a hint of the Diet Pepsi, but it wasn't over powering, and the cool whip made a nice frosting! I do advise that if you are making this, it won't last more than a day. The cake did start to dry out after we cut into it. I think the next one I make will be something fruity and I will deck the top out with strawberries for a light, cool springy treat. Nutritional info...roughly 180 calories a slice and under 5 grams of fat!

MARCH GOALS

I probably should start posting my monthly goals on here...I should probably keep them on a piece of paper and cross them off.

Goal 1: Lost 20 pounds for a total weight lose of 50 pounds. I know this is going to be somewhat ambitious, but my goal is to be down another 20 before I visit home in April. Which means I have to lose about 4 to 5 pounds over the course of the next 5 weeks.

Goal 2: Increase veggie and fruit intake by one a day. This will be a huge challenge. I eat a fair enough veggies and fruits during the week but I could really amp that up a bit. My goal this week is to eat at least 5 salads...in the long run, this might be a bad idea...

Goal 3: Step up to Level 2 of the 30 Day Shred. I've gotten so use to Level 1 that I fear what Level 2 will have me do. Level 1 was no walk in the park, but I'm getting into my groove with it. My goal is to alternate Level 1 and 2 every other day. Lord, pass the icy hot...

Goal 4: Take a new class. I've been tossing around the idea of doing kickboxing over the last month. I inquired with a couple karate places. I think I need to start mixing it up some because my attention span is starting to shorten.

Goal 5: Finish Mindless Eating book. I'm terrible when it comes to finishing reading books. I'm bound and determined to finish reading this book. So far it's kept my attention span for 63 pages.

I think five goals is enough to start with. I'm sure I will be adding to this list as the month goes on.