I forgot to tell you guys that I won $60 bucks from my office Superbowl squares!  I won one quarter for $20 bucks and I won the last quarter, which paid out $40.  Since I was the big winner, I treated the office to Panera bagels yesterday.

Best bagel ever . . . the everything bagel with light roasted veggie cream cheese.  Lori, I always think of you when I have a bagel!

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There is a woman at the gym who has always caught my eye.   She is super fit, always smiling.  She wears her silver hair in little curls around her head held in with tiny bobby pins.  Sometimes she wears two small pony tails.  Her legs are muscular.  I’ve seen her do push-ups on the bosu, leg kicks while balancing on the bosu, walking on the treadmill at high inclines, riding the bike. 

She’s always got her duffle bag with her, a small lunch cooler and a giant book.  I’ve said hello to her nearly every day for months.  I was trying to get around her stuff when she apologized for taking up so much space with her clutter.  I just laughed and said “you haven’t seen my kitchen when I cook, it’s a disaster!”

I finally had the courage to ask her how long she worked out every day.  She’s always there when I get there, and is still there when I leave.  The answer?

THREE TO FOUR HOURS A DAY!

She said she loves working out.  I then found out that she has two children, her oldest is 48 and her youngest is 36 – yep, her kids are 12 years apart in age, which makes me think this woman at a minimum is 68 years old, but possibly in her early 70’s!  I only hope I can look as good as this woman when I am in my 70s!  Her name is Linda, and I hope to have many more conversations with her about her fitness routine.  She’s fascinating!  I am hoping she’ll let me interview her and maybe I can take her picture for the blog.

In any event, she inspired me to give it my all in my workout.  My blood sugar was 278 (thanks to the bagel!) before working out, so I knew I had some room to really push myself.  I ended up walking at 3.7 mph at a 10% incline for 40 minutes.

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Guess what my blood sugar was when I got back to work?  82!  It dropped nearly 200 points from my workout!

Lunch was super quick to put together.  Two ounces of ground beef taco meat, 1/4 cup pinto beans, 1/3 cup cilantro rice, some chips and some of my salsa that I grilled in the snow over the weekend.

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I picked up some skinny New York strips off the 50% off rack – our two steaks cost $2.30.  The trick with skinny steaks is to not over cook them.  I cooked the first side for 90 seconds, and the second side for 60 seconds, and let them rest.  I cooked them on our cast iron grill and it was super hot.  Tony declared my steaks perfectly cooked!

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And looky there – I had a vegetable for dinner!  I nuked it on fresh vegetable in the microwave, then finished it off on the grill while the steaks were resting.  And believe it or not, each steak was only 4 ounces.

Well, today is not going to be a good day.  We have to put our dog Ed down today.  His seizures have become more frequent, and being that he could be as old as 15, we don’t want him to suffer anymore.

I was a basket case last night.  I was giving him my scraps from my dinner plate, and I started crying, realizing that was the last time I was going to do that after 12 1/2 years.  I’ve never had a dog before, so I had no idea how hard this was going to be.  I was going to take a half day and go to work this morning, but my eyes are all puffy from crying – not a pretty look!

We love you Ed!

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