Best Day Ever!! (Hank and me updates)

After four crazy, emotional roller coaster days of searching for Hank, posting signs, checking the live animal traps, I received the following email this afternoon:

BEST DAY EVER!! Hank has been caught! We can’t believe our eyes and there are plenty of tears from this exhausting long haul. The work is not done yet, as off to the vet he goes.  He is tired, dehydrated, scared and hungry.  But he is alive.

We have paid the homeowner a reward (which they made sure to ask for!) and Vashti and Jessica are ready to take him to the vet.

We will keep you posted through the day and send a picture. We are not done thanking you ALL!

A happy ending!

Me update
It turns out that setting a goal of losing ten pounds in three weeks was kind of stupid. I know when I put crazy deadlines on myself they backfire in my face, so I don't know why I do this. It never works. You know the definition of insanity, well, that's me...insane.

My food has been pretty good, but not good enough to lose weight (I'm down a couple pounds to 180, but that's not the number I wanted to see). I've been eating very healthy food, but my portions are too large. Same old story with me. I eat too much of the good stuff.

Exercise is rocking. Today was a pure cardio day. I do those about once a week, where I only do cardio and no weights.

Thirty minutes at a steady pace on the StairMaster, 121 floors, average step rate 68. Thirty minutes on the stationary bike. At lunch I went over the Sea-Tac Doubletree. Fourteen floors from the basement to the top. Each jaunt up was 225 steps. I did it four times, or 900 steps. The Big Climb is 1,311 steps.

After 14 floors I had to turn around and go back down the stairs, back to the first floor, then start over. So I get a break every 14 floors. It was still hard. The first time it wasn't bad, second time a little bit more difficult, third time, ouch, it's hurting me. Fourth time, OMG I'm going to die! No way can I climb 69 floors non-stop.

My co-worker that's done the Big Climb three times in the last three years keeps telling me it's a mind game. He said it's really 70% mental and 30% physical. If your mind believes you can do it, then you can do it. I know today my mind kept saying 'you are so screwed Diana!'. If only I'd lost that 20 pounds or even 10 pounds, this would have been so much easier.

Since I can't lose a lot of weight at this point (only 18 days left!), I'm going to focus on the exercise. I'll continue my gym workouts as usual, adding in the exercise bike more often since it's good for the quads and quads are good for the stairs, and add in a daily DoubleTree stair workout during lunch. I also need to focus more on my core, a strong core is good for climbing stairs.

Mind over matter, mind over matter. Yes, I can do this!