It was a trainwreck...

a sweaty trainwreck.
Have I mentioned that I'm a stereotypical "white girl with NO rhythm"?  And I can't dance?
Yep, I am.
Which is why this is tragically funny.  I've decided that first things first is to get my butt moving.  The best way to keep it moving is to have fun.  So I dug out the Wii

(I had 'grounded' myself from it until we got some unpacking/organizing done, which we have)

and put in the new game I picked up on my way home from work:

The result?  Fun, yep.  And a trainwreck.  But a sweaty, fun trainwreck.  And one that I will be feeling tomorrow.

Just gotta keep in mind to only play this 
when I'm home alone! lol

The Fruit of the Dead, but its good for you!

Pomegranates... It is fitting that they are in season from October - January (well at least around here, in supermarkets)
According to Greek mythology Persephone was kidnapped by Hades and taken to live in the underworld as his wife.  Her mother, Demeter - goddess of the harvest, was so grief stricken that in her mourning all the green, living things stopped growing.  Zeus commanded Hades to return Persephone.  However the Fates decreed that anyone who ate or drank in the underworld was doomed to eternity there, and Hades had tricked Persephone into eating 6 pomegranate seeds.  Because of this Persephone must return for 6 months every year and rule the underworld alongside her husband.  While her daughter is in the underworld Demeter goes into mourning and ceases giving fertility to the earth. 
That's how it all fits together, pomegranates are a winter fruit and the reason for winter... well at least according to the ancient Greeks ;)
Ok so that's why they are "the fruit of the dead" but why are they good for you?

There are a host of benefits to pomegranates: high in antioxidants (up to 3x that found in red wine & green tea!), combats LDL cholesterol, studies show it helps reduce risk of certain cancers, reduce the inflammation from arthritis, improves heart health & lowers blood pressure.  On average a pomegranate has 105 calories.

You can get the benefits of pomegranates by drinking the juice, however if you want to eat the fruit things can get a bit messy... to help keep things a bit cleaner my father-in-law taught me to do the following:
Cut off the crown and score the fruit, but don't cut all the way through!
Place the fruit in water (sink, plastic tub, etc)
Break apart the rind & membranes and discard
Scoop out the arils/seeds and enjoy!

Things to do with those arils... sprinkle them on your oatmeal, add them to cookies, bake them into muffins, add them to salads, use them in a salsa, add them to yogurt.  Seriously, there are SO many things you can use them in, just google pomegranate recipes!

Reboot time

Call me a slacker.  Or a procrastinator.  Or a 'fall off the wagon'er. 
Yeah, its time for me to say it again... I need to get my butt in gear and work on what I'm eating and on working out.
There are a few things lining up that will, hopefully, help things stay on track this time.
I think I finally have Pie on board.  He's always been supportive but also a stumbling block.  However he is a tad competitive and his brother joined a gym, now he's got it in his head that he needs to work out too and maybe eat a bit better (yay!)
We're still "on vacation" so I have more time to cook.  Because of that I hope to have a stock of freezer meals ready for when we go back to work and I'll set some time aside each week to keep adding to that stock once we're back to work.  That should help curtail the poor lunch choices.  I'll have to get back on track with my suppers at work, I have a few 'go to' meal choices there.  The problem is I start to get bored eating the same things over and over.  I'll need to take some time to plan better options that I can choose without pissing off the cooks.
Another benefit to the vacation time is that we have FINALLY had time to start getting our house organized, which means (insert drumroll) my treadmill is unburied and in a usable area again!!  Or I should say the area around the treadmill has become 'de-boxed' and I can use the treadmill again ;)
Something else is a motivator, it occurred to me that if I want to have any degree of success barrel racing then I need my horses to perform like athletes (duh).  And if I expect THEM to be athletes then I need to be an athlete.
So there ya go, I'm rebooting.  And if I fall off the path feel free to come boot me.

What the twit said

Hey guys, I know we're all busy and don't have a bunch of time to post... and some of us haven't had a lot of time to "work on ourselves".  So I've added a twitter feed to the sidebar and set it up to show tweets from some health/fitness/beauty/foodie twitter accounts. 
If you have any suggestions of accounts to follow let me know :) 
Oh and if you tweet you can follow _CLFC on Twitter (someone already had CLFC boo!) or send tweets to us.
The hope is that even if you don't have time to post or read a blog entry that you can pop by and see what The Experts are doling out as advice