a day in the life...

Sorry I've been away for a few days. I've taken on some freelance work that's kept me busy in the evenings. But I had something real exciting happen last night. I took my first cake decorating class!

Okay, the first thing you're thinking is, 'wait a minute, isn't this girl on a diet?'. 'How can she bake and decorate cakes and stay on her diet?'

Well, I'll tell you... I have a new found passion for baking. So much so that I want to start doing it more and more to maybe even pick up some side jobs on the evenings or weekends to make a little bit of extra money. Or if I can't get paid for it, I'll still want to do it. But if I'm going to do it, I want to make sure I do it right. So this is my first step down a long journey to becoming a great cake and cupcake baker!

But that's a whole different blog that I'll start one of these days.

Until then, I'm taking it one cake at a time and one batch of cupcakes at a time. And so far it hasn't really been all that bad. I haven't wanted to indulge at all. I even walked into a cupcake bakery the other day (to talk to the owner) and when i was accosted with the overwhelming smell of butter cream icing, it didn't make me one to eat it at all. Not one little bit. I was just so excited to look at all the different creations that the thought never crossed my mind to actually eat any of it.

But other than the cupcakes and cake decorating, life has been very hectic and I'm so tired. I've been trying to keep up with my exercise, though. I walked yesterday and today and then tomorrow I'm going to do more of the c25k thing. I'm still aiming for being able to run (or rather jog) a 5k by summer solstice to make it through Carolyn's challenge. I haven't ran since the middle of last week, but I'm not stopping. I'm back on the wagon tomorrow.

It's funny, I was reading Jennette's new book "Half Assed" and a funny thing she said was about how she was "back on the wagon" (talking about back at trying to lose weight again) was how in 100 years from now when we no longer even use cars to get around in, I'm sure we'll still be saying something about getting back on the wagon or falling off the wagon. No one even gets around in wagons any more but we still use that phrase. I thought that was funny.

My diet is still going strong. I'm steadily losing this week. Whew! Not much, but at least it's going down rather than going up and up like it did the last couple of weeks.

I'm even thinking about starting an online 'walk across America' challenge. If I can find a good one. Does anybody know of a good one? I've found a couple online where you sign up for it and then log your steps and it keeps track of your progress and shows how far you've walked (across town, across the city, across the state and across the country). It draws a walking line across country as you progress through more steps. I got the idea from Yoni's post about the Walk Across Canada challenge. Sounds like a great way to stay motivated to walk for a very long time.

On another, slightly different, subject, I've been craving Mexican food lately. It's like all I can think about. About the only thing I can find that's low-fat and semi-good for me it bean burritos. I found some fat free flour tortillas and I'll fill them with maybe some ground chicken (with taco seasoning) or fat free refried beans (or maybe both) with reduced fat sour cream and 2% skim milk sharp cheddar cheese. Oh and of course fresh onions, tomatoes and salsa. But there's got to be other "good for you" Mexican food out there isn't there? The only things I can think of are loaded with cheese or guacamole or deep fried. There's got to be healthy Mexican food out there somewhere!!!