Gimme a G!

I am such a blog slacker! Things have been hectic around here. Elliot's tummy bug lasted for 2 freakin' weeks and ended with us collecting a stool sample. What a fun little activity kit that was... barf! No results yet, but it cleared up on his own so we're assuming he doesn't have a parasite or a vile disease. But he is sick again - both boys, actually. Started with low grade fevers and nasty smoker's coughs over the weekend. Fun times at our house!

It's been raining here for days. Work is getting more intense, as we're down to the final crunch - the tax filing deadline for Canada is May 2 this year and, like every year, the number of people who leave it to the last minute astonishes me. But hey - I'm one of them, this year. Shhhhhhhh.

To make my rainy day a bit more enjoyable, I made it to the post office this afternoon to pick up a parcel that had been waiting for a few days. It was certainly worth the wait.... the GMBOA is in da house!

So pretty! This is the outer wrapping....

So what is the GMBOA you ask? Well, it's the Golden Minion Box Of Awesomeness, of course! It's a fun little contest started by Whimsy over at The Creamery.  Quick - go check out the rules - and become a Creamery minion, er, follower. The GMBOA has been all over the place. I first tried to win it from Bethsix, and then followed it around for a while - I missed it at Eight-Twenty-Eight but then it was my turn for Awesome over at Amy's.

I *love* the pink duct tape

I brewed myself a cup of sinfully delicious Bengal Spice tea (I've been drinking buckets of this stuff. I'm addicted!) and started going through my goodies...

Such an odd little lady, caught my eye right away. She's red. Elliot's going to claim her if I'm not careful.

Look at that haul! I feel very spoiled. Can't wait to go through it all in more detail to get the full effect, but I'm pretty excited. I'm also excited about the next step. The GMBOA will be leaving me within 3 weeks, which means it might be coming to YOU. Look for a contest post on May 3rd, once tax season is over and done with and I can sleep again without seeing shoe boxes full of receipts and blood-thirsty staplers that have a mind of their own. Then you can win it and it will be yours. Full of all new goodies of course,  I'm not parting with these!

In other news, my weight loss has stalled. In fact, I've gained back about 4 lbs. I'm discouraged but not giving up. My FitOrbit membership expired a week ago. I'm not losing any sleep over that one, that's for sure. I just joined a new site, a free site called My Fitness Pal. It had been suggested by several people and I'm finding it very user friendly and informative. I'm set at a 1200 calorie day, but on the days I work out, I can eat more. Just as long as my calories in minus calories burned doesn't total more than 1200, I'm golden. Day 3 and still hanging in!

I've been working out in the mornings, finally, thankfully. Give the boys their breakfast and then hubby monitors them while I hop on the treadmill. This is strictly necessary as otherwise they tend to clamor too close. I won't be paying to fix a boy-sized hole in the wall, thank you very much.  I am up to running an impressive (to me) 6.0 mph. I can only sustain that for 5 or so minutes, but I've been maintaining a run at around 5.5 for a full 22 minutes. This is awesome!! And impossible for me for the last 5 years.  I'm in a wedding in less than 4 weeks, wearing a rather form-fitting dress. I don't want to be getting dirty looks for being the irresponsible pregnant lady chugging wine at the reception. I need that belly to disappear! Or at least to shrink enough that strapping it in with Spanx for a day won't kill me. Oh the things we do for beauty.

Happy Easter, everyone! Eat lots of chocolate for me. But don't tell me about it.