Where's S0utherngirl?

Hi Blogland,

I have been a busy bee lately and haven't been blogging lately. Life is fantastic... with the exception of me being out of work after being laid off just before Thanksgiving. Despite that I'm happy and feel like I'm in a really good, happy place. I don't have much to say about my hair, other than that it's on the grow. Somewhere along the way I discovered that my hair was long enough to rock a full on ponytail. Here are a couple of recent pics:





Now for the exciting stuff :)

On my birthday one of the goals that I set for myself was to run the 2010 Disney Princess Half Marathon... but then I didn't do anything. No running, no training, nada. Well, I registered for the race back on the 15th and have been training for it since then. I'm now in Week 2 of Hal Higdon's Novice Training Program and so far so good. I'll keep you all posted on how my training is going.

Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays everyone!

My Poor, Neglected Blog

I feel like I haven't posted in forever! I hope everyone is okay in Blogland. My locks and I have been busy since my last posting. Each year for my birthday I pick a couple of goals that I want to reach for the following year. My goals for this year (which started in May) are to lose 30lbs and to be more sociable.

My weightloss isn't going so great. I got off track AGAIN! But this is a new month and I'm hoping that the next time I post I'll be able to tell you that I've made a lot of progress with that. The being more social thing is going a lot better. I started going to events for groups on the Meetup.com website and am having such a great time meeting new people and doing all kinds of fun things. Here is a small slide show from the past few months... ignore the crazy faces in some of the pics =)

Progress!

I wanted to share my weightloss progress with you all. I rejoined SparkPeople back in March of this year and didn't really do anything with it. On May 25th I got on the scale and was so upset because I had gained another 4lbs... Grr! So, I started following the SparkPeople plan again, as far as sticking with my calorie range and actually working out. That was 24 days ago and here's a summary of my progress since then:

Weight -10.8 lbs
Bust -2
Waist -2
Tummy -2
Hips -1
Upper Thigh -0.5
Thigh -1
Total Inches -8.5

I haven't been running... I don't know, I just began feeling like that was more of a chore than anything else. I guess I fell out of love with it. My results are actually a result of doing workout dvds at home. I currently have a mini obsession with FIRM workouts. They alternate cardio and sculpting (with dumbells) intervals, which I think helps to keep me from getting bored.

Anywho, I wanted to share because I am so happy with my results. I feel like I am doing the right thing and making a lifestyle change, instead of just doing something short term like dieting. I can't believe I'm down almost 11 lbs already. Here is a "before" shot that was taken a couple of days ago. I'll be back with my after pics before you know it :)



I really need to take hair pic, but this is the closest thing that I have for now.



P.S. I put a link to my SparkPage over to the right. If you're ever wondering how I'm doing, I've been updating there frequently.

Warning about OTC Flea Medication!

I just wanted to give everyone a heads up about topical flea treatments that are sold OTC. Apparently the boxes do not disclose all of the known adverse reactions and the result can be deadly to our pets. I will preface this by saying that I am one of those dog people and my furbabies are family.

Here's a copy of the email that I sent to Wal-Mart (the Sergeant's site limits the amount of characters that you can use so I have to parse it down to send to them):

I am writing to you concerning a distressing experience that I am having after using a product purchased at my local Wal-Mart. After noticing fleas on one of my two dogs earlier today, I purchased Sergeant's Gold Flea & Tick Squeeze-On For Dogs. Within an hour or so of applying 1/3 of the application to each of my dogs (I'm always cautious with any new medication) I noticed that the youngest one was drooling excessively and not being her usual active self. She was just sitting and watching me and her brother, which is TOTALLY the opposite of how she is. I immediately grew concerned because of the drooling. I wondered if it was some sort of allergic reaction and something told me to wash it off of her... I'm thanking God that I felt the need to use something stronger than her regular shampoo and used dishwashing liquid (I happened to have Dawn on hand). It's a few hours later and she's no longer drooling but she's still not totally back to normal.

As for my other dog, he started gagging up globs of spit about an hour ago and is very restless. I've washed him with Dawn several times as well and I'm praying that my pets are ok by morning. After I washed them both again I sat down and googled the symptoms and was surprised to find that there are entire blogs and sites dedicated to this issue. Some pet owners even report that their pets have died after coming into contact with these products and that they’ve contacted Sergeants directly to notify them of the issue.

I'm extremely distressed and concerned for my pet's health and I'm ticked that these problems are sold OTC with the only warning being a possible rash or hair loss. I NEVER would have purchased the product if I had known about these other possible reactions. These allergic reactions (I'm assuming that's what they are) can be life or death situations and consumers should be alerted to watch out for these symptoms and given instructions on what to do when they arise. The ethical thing for Sergeants would be to list these reactions on the packaging (or as a package insert) but since the issue still isn't resolved I would love to see Wal-Mart look out for the furry members of our extended community and pull this product from it's shelves. I would appreciate some sort of response from your company addressing my concerns.

Signed,
A Concerned Pet Owner
Altamonte Springs, FL


I don't know if I'm more ticked off that I seriously doubt that I will receive a response from either company and Sergeants will continue to poison other pets. Or that this could have been avoided... My dogs are on Sentinel so the fleas would have probably died within a few days but I didn't want them to suffer through bites in the meantime. I think the fleas were brought into the house by a friend's dog that I dog-sat a week ago. My instincts told me not to keep him but she swore that he had been completely checked out by a vet and had no problems. The final straw should have been when she was dropping him off and said that he wasn't fixed... now this chick knew that I got my female dog a couple of months ago and that she hasn't been fixed yet because she hasn't reached the minimum weight. I really try to be a good person but why do good deeds come back to bite you so often?