Challenge Accepted!

laurasnyder411

Life has challenged me this week. And like Barney in HIMYM, I have accepted it's challenge with (less than) gleeful, enthusiastic optimism. Let me recap what has led to this week's challenge. (Please feel free to imagine these scenarios in an old-timey silent movie style with the reel sped up and overly dramatic hand gestures. Also, rag-time music. I watch too much tv.)

I was in the bathroom applying make-up when the lights dimmed in my craptastic rental house. I knew immediately something was amiss when I heard the loud "POP!" of the circuit breaker. As I opened the door, the smokey scent of burning plastic permeated the house. I walked into the kitchen through the haze of acrid smoke. My attention was turned to the black soot on the wall behind the stove. My boyfriend then informed me that in his quest to make football day nachos, he turned the empty oven on and it zapped, shorted-out, caught fire, and he unplugged it. Luckily, the fire put itself out, not-so-luckily I'm out of a stove/oven until the landlord figures out how he's going to repair/replace it.

Next, in my quest for fitness I have taken up the fine art of running. Strapping on my running shoes and hitting the trail for the first time in two weeks, I expected to come short of the 13.1mi half marathon I had accomplished in my last run. I set out for a perfectly reasonable 6 miler. (I took the time off after the half to heal (or heel, if you are into puns ha ha) an unrelated foot injury I sustained at the music festival following the half marathon). Unfortunately, I did not notice the creeping ache of foot pain sneaking into my run until I was 3 miles down the trail, at which time I mentally convinced myself I could certainly ignore the feeling of running on nails until I got back. At mile 4 I came to a hobbled stop and gimped the 2 miles back to my car (also muttering *gleeful enthusiastic optimism* under my breath).

So as any reader can imagine, my two challenges this week are as follows:

#1- How to "cook" healthy for the week without a stove/oven.

#2- How to burn calories while giving my foot injury the time to heal so that my new work nickname doesn't become "Tenderfoot" or "Limpy" while maintaining my weight loss.

If anyone has any suggestions on how I can win this week, I will heed any good advice. So far, I have failed at "getting butt out of work chair" and "not eating ice cream for dinner".

Cortelli

No advice but well-written - an entertaining read over morning coffee (sorry it has to be at your expense!).