When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. ~FDR

I am extremely touched by all of the encouragement & support that has come pouring towards me since Friday's plateau meltdown.  So many people close to me have chimed in reminding me how far I've come & offering suggestions on how to get my motor running again.  Plus, Angela mentioned my struggles on her fitness blog and people from there were quick to remind me that it happens to everyone so I shouldn't give up.  I'm definitely not giving up, I'm still a little put off by the situation but things are bound to get better.  My dad sent me a bunch of different articles about how to break out of a plateau so I may try a few of their suggestions, one of which was cutting 200 calories from your diet (as long as you're still at at least 1200).  My eating has been pretty out of control lately, I need to reign it back in.

I was really trying to get my posts done on time over the weekend, I even managed to get Friday done on Saturday!  Alas it was not meant to be, I had a busy day on Sunday and didn't get to do anything but upload Saturday's pictures.  Oh well...Joe had to work early all weekend so if we wanted to have breakfast together it had to be by 8am.  Luckily I'm used to getting up at 6:30 so 8 is still considered sleeping in!  We went across the street for breakfast & so I could get my W2, I'm hoping to get my taxes done this week.  I had 2 banana pancakes with turkey bacon and sugar free syrup = 607 calories.

I wasn't really sure how I wanted to spend the rest of my Saturday, it was raining pretty much all day so working out outside was definitely not an option.  What else is there to do on a rainy day off?  I know, go shopping!  Our shower head has been spurting water from the back for a while now, Joe has tried to fix it a few times without much luck so we knew it needed to be replaced.  So, I called my mom and asked if she wanted to go to Bed, Bath & Beyond with me.  We wondered the store for at least an hour picking things out then rethinking & putting them back.  When we got to the bathroom section I wasn't sure how much to spend on a shower head, they range in price from $30 to over $100!  I called Joe & asked for his thoughts, he said that he thinks you get what you pay for when it comes to those kinds of things.  With his blessing I added the $100 ($80 with my 20% off coupon) 3 headed monstrosity to the cart.  The picture is really hard to see but we were trying to use my Amazon.com app to find a better price, if it doesn't recognize the bar code it asks you to take a picture of the item...it didn't find anything, lol.

I ended up spending just over $100 picking up odds & ends that I never knew I needed.  Then we stopped at Home Depot so my mom could pick up some paint samples for her  bathroom renovation.  By this point it was just after 2pm and we were starting to get hungry.  We stopped at the Wendy's drive thru, I had a 5 piece chicken nugget = 230 calories.

After "lunch" we decided to call it a day, I dropped my mom off & headed home.  I was pleasantly surprised to be greeted by 2 packages on the front porch.  One was my size 10 dress pants from The Limited, I couldn't believe how fast they got there, I just ordered them on like Wednesday or Thursday.  Anyway, the pants fit spectacularly, I mean no muffin top, no sucking in, totally fit like a glove!  It really helped up my spirits from the incident with the scale!  The second package was from Woot, it was the electric blankets (btw Shana still hasn't mentioned she read about her present)!  I immediately opened mine up and tried it out.  It's the best invention ever, I didn't want to leave the couch the rest of the evening.

In fact Beans even joined me to watch some Grey's Anatomy.  I have to explain, this cat does not sit with me very often, Joe is by far her favorite.  But I guess the lure of the warm blanket beat out her dislike for me.  You can see she's still kind of glaring at me...

Joe ended up getting out of work about 2 hours early!  We had talked about maybe having our February date night and going to dinner and a movie but the dreary weather nixed that idea.  We did get some cheese steaks from Sugar Hill though.  I only ate 1/2 of mine = 420 calories.  I would also like to let everyone know I behaved myself & just had tomato & fried onion on it, no mayo!

We decided to spend a big part of the evening really cleaning the house.  I worked on putting away a lot of the clutter that had accumulated in the living & dining rooms.  Because I entertain so regularly most of our serving platters end up being left out and stacked up instead of put away in the cabinet.  I also stashed the new gravy boat & butter dish I had gotten shopping earlier.

Once we were happy with the way the downstairs was looking we headed upstairs to tackle our bedroom.  If we don't stay on top of the clothes in our bedroom they'll take over, and they had really reached that point.  I put away clothes & jewelry that were left around and Joe installed our new shower head & dusted.  My allergies are so bad that if I dust I usually can't breathe very well for a few days so Joe is always nice enough to take care of it.

I moved on to our spare bedroom where we keep our shoes.  Mine are usually in a giant pile right outside the closet doors, it doesn't take long to put them away and I really should try harder to put them back when I take them off.  The problem is that I take them off downstairs and end up bringing them up in piles instead of one pair at a time.  When I emerged from the bedroom Joe was nowhere to be found, I finished up putting some other random stuff away and went downstairs to fine him.  I found him laying on the kitchen floor taking apart/cleaning our vacuum cleaner.  Apparently he does this once or twice a year but hasn't since we moved in (2 years ago).  Now, I wasn't even aware that you should be taking apart & cleaning vacuums, lol.

A little while later Lou stopped by with some sliced up candy apple and invited us over to hang out, I had about 1/4 of an apple = 84 calories. 

Once we finished up with our cleaning we went next door.  We hung out for a little while just chatting and watching some tv.  After a while Nicole took Jack upstairs to sleep and I got tired of watching Lou & Joe drink so I headed home to watch some more shows on the DVR and mess around on the computer.

How did I do on my February goals?

1. Read 2 books: Didn't read anything...

2. Burn at least 750 calories a day for at least 20 days: 1882 burned - 1410 eaten = 472 total burned, 3 days total

3. 1000 fitness minutes, not allowed to count walking at the restaurant: 0 minutes today, 225 total for month

4. Eat 1 fruit or veggie with each meal for at least 20 days: banana w/breakfast, nothing w/lunch & tomato w/dinner, 2 days total

5. 10 spend free days - bed, bath & beyond, 1 days total