More Loss and Lessons Learned

I am now well into week 2 (it really is 17 days) and have mixed emotions on the number I pulled this last week. My goal was to get out of certain digits which I did (barely), however I am a little angry with myself because I know I could have done better :-( Let me back track and talk a little bit about some of the "enlightening moments" I had last week.

I was checking my mail one afternoon and saw my neighbor with his AC guy outside. I asked him what was going on and he told me that since he is now retired and totally bored he thought it would be entertaining to have his insurance adjuster come out and see if there was any damage done by our last hail storm that he can claim. He ended up with $12,000 worth of repairs. He then told me that our neighbor across the street was able to claim $14,000. Naturally this got me thinking and as you can imagine a call was made to our insurance agency. To make a long story short our house has been hit and we have been awarded $20,000 worth of repairs. The repairs include: two new windows, new screens, two new AC units, roof repair, and the outside and inside of our house painted.

I am soooo happy about getting the house fixed (don't get me wrong, it does not look like a complete train wreck, but our AC units have been on their last leg for some time!), however the stress involved is something that I must learn how to manage and could sabotage my weight loss efforts. I did not even realize how OCD I was until I found out just what had to be repaired and I could not eat my stress away.

Side note: from here on out please pray for my family because the emotional roller coaster they have had to live with this week has not been healthy for anyone.

So, getting back to my story, did I mention that I am having a few of my gal pals fly in from around the country to spend a scrapbooking weekend at my house at the end of Feb? I also homeschool and can not teach out of the house when the roof is being repaired (to loud) or the house painted (to many fumes). My stress level and wanting to eat started to rise when I started sorting all of this out in my head.

Then to top it off, I had a break down in communication with my sister and that was the hair that broke the camel's back. I did not go off the diet per say, but I could have made a lot better choice. However, the whole week did shed some light on some of my underlying issues and now I can work on them.

1) I thrive in routine and structure.
2) I want people to get along.

Now, that I have recognized those I can deal with it -- that is a good thing, right? I am still sorting through my first issue. The best thing I have come up with is that I need to accept that life can not always be planned (I had a few contractors that I had to deal with this week that came while I was teaching. So, guess what? I am beating myself up for not being a "better" teacher/mom because our day was interrupted. How messed up is that?). In the mean time as a short term fix I have plans to take Logan and myself to the library when the work is being done and learning there. I also accepted how I am (even if the rest of the world thinks it is crazy...it is who I am and I can't live in my body if I try to conform to society)and made a commitment to not schedule things during school hours. I am not bending over backwards and sacrificing my child's education or my peace of mind to be more convenient for another person or company anymore. After all, these contractors are gonna make bank off of us, so they need to do what is in my family's best interest.

Regarding the second issue....sigh....I wish I could say that is all sorted out. I thought it was, but come to find out it is not and I have just got to accept the fact that sometimes people are just going to find the wrong in things and believe what they want to believe. No matter what I do to rectify the situation or deal with it they are just gonna think what they are gonna think and that is on them....not me. I am done apologizing for assumptions made off of something that was not meant (and in some cases even said). If something that I say or do is hurtful than of course I will try to right the wrong. However, if an apology is made and the person does not respond the way I think they should (there is my OCD nature coming out again) than it is okay for me to be done with the topic at hand and move on....that is on them.

I must applaud you if you managed to sit here and read this huge blog entry. Why have you stuck through this whole thing? Oh, right! You want to know if I failed miserably this week or was successful. Well here it is:

I lost 2.4 pounds this week. That brings my total loss to 10.2. I have 69.8 pounds to go until I reach my goal.

Now that I have had the opportunity and taken the time to sort through this I am determined to do better this upcoming week. I want to pull more than 2.5 pounds. I will pull more than 2.5 pounds!

Three Cheers for my Little Cheerleader!

Look at this cute little sassy thing:

This is my little Annie and she is eight. Every day at lunch her and her friends put together cheers and dances. You can only imagine her excitement when she was invited to attend a cheer clinic at the H.S. with real cheerleaders!

The cheer clinic was held from 9:00 - 12:00. She was so cute and really into it. I am thankful for this opportunity for her to "try it out" before we get committed into it and then have her say "Mom, I really don't like this...." She will be cheering at the basketball game next Friday night!

I also had an opportunity to talk to some of the moms of the cheerleaders and they all recommended that I get her into dance. The dance academy they recommended is right by my house! Sweet! After practice today we grabbed a bite to eat, found a new scrapbook store (well new to us) and then visited the dance academy. It looks like she will be taking dance and perhaps me too????

Now, for a not very good transition........

Last night I went from this:

To this:

I am sorry folks, but I tried to go back to more of my natural color, but at the end of the day I much prefer myself blond so that is what I am sticking with. Plus it hides all my greys. Isn't that what it is all about? Hiding greys? LOL!

I have my weigh in on Monday so stay tuned. I had quite a bit to say about this journey I am on, but am still processing it and forming my thoughts. Honestly, I also am tired of posting "this is so hard" and "woe is me and my sufferings". I am not a sad person and my last few post have been bummers and I just don't want anymore bummer post for awhile. KWIM?

See you on Monday :-D

This is Me in the Raw....Being Real...and Dealing with Some Hard Truths

Today has been a tough day. My sister and I had a bit of a falling out over something really stupid. Instead of shrugging my shoulders and not talking about it I did and that was uncomfortable. The last thing I want to do is hurt her. Well, I am glad we dealt with it because it was a huge huge misunderstanding. Like we really did not understand at all. So it is resolved, but it got me thinking about some underlying issues. Issues that I did not even know existed. Those issues have to do with the fact that I am comfortable in my own skin. Like I am used to seeing myself everyday. I am my friendly face and I know what I will see in the mirror. I know who I am and I find comfort in that. Here are a few pictures of me over the last three or so years:





Well with all of that being said (and seen) this is an E-mail I sent her today. I opened up a lot more than I am comfortable with. Like I don't want anyone to know these dark deep secrets. My thought in posting it here is that I can get further clarity and deal with it even more. This is tough. This is raw. Here it is:

I gotta admit with all of this I see how not ready I am to in some regards. Like the comment about "clothes" that was made (not by you). Do you know that comment completely freaked me out? I *love* my clothes and often times have not lost weight or attempted it because I would have to get new clothes. I like my stores (Lane Bryant and Torrid). I know where to go and what size to get and what will look good. It sounds stupid, but the fact that I have been looking at me in this skin...in this fat..for so many years it is just "me". Having to watch this body transform is going to be hard because I don't know what that is going to be at the end. My OCD tendencies don't like being out of control and for the next year or two that is exactly what is going to happen. I noticed today as I was walking back from the kids' school that I felt more "jiggly". Then I put on my real clothes for the day and did not like the skin I saw and just where it was flapping. My skin has to catch up with my weight loss because I had lost the initial so quickly. See, in my world I would rather look fat and young then skinny and old. I must confess that I have fallen off the wagon today because of it. Not horribly bad like I still ate a healthy lunch and did the protein shake for breakfast, but I did just eat banana with peanut butter (that is so not on my point allowance!). I am "grounding" myself until church tonight. I really want a Starbucks but I know that if I go I will go by DQ or Sonic and will pick up a blizzard. Right now....at this very moment....I don't want to lose weight. I want to stay fat. I want to stay in control. I want to stay comfortable. I just don't want to change. That is what I want right now. However, I also have enough wisdom in this game I play with myself to know that if I do totally go off the wagon (I can recover from a banana with peanut butter -- oh and I even measured the peanut butter! LOL!) then I will be off of it for weeks and I will kick myself and then get mad at myself, so I will "ground" myself and try not to kill my family :-)

Panties in a Knot

Just a small suggestion. It really is ever so slight. Really. It is such a tiny suggestion, yet will have a huge impact on those you care about the most. When someone comes to you with good news please just say something like "that is great!" or "way to go" or "I am proud of you". Please don't turn it into an opportunity to express your view on the problems you see with a program, someone, or something. It really dampens the success of others and hurts feelings. Then, if it brought to your attention that this was done don't turn it into an opportunity to be a victim.

Opinions are like butt holes -- we all have them and often times the air that comes out of them is just stinky ;-(

Thanks for letting me get that out and my small vent.

xoxo

Such a Loser!

Yippee for me! Guess what? I lost 7.8 pounds since Jan. 1! Woo-hoo! Do you know what else is so great? I lost 5 inches! I am shocked about the inches! Of course I lost 1.5 in my chest (that is not an area I want to lose in!) and hips. I only lost .5 inches in my waist :-( I really want to lose it there the most, but I am happy overall!

With all of that being said there are some areas that I want to improve on. I have come up with this weeks goal to help me along the way to overall health and wellness. For this week I am going to work on exercise! I am going to walk my kids to school and home (a total of 40 minutes a day of walking) 5 days this week. I am also going to challenge my dear daughter to a dance competition 4 times this week using "Just Dance" on the Wii. I am pretty sure that accomplishing these two things will make my week successful! :-)

Please stay tuned!

C & C in Scottsdale AZ

Last month our uncle posted on his wall over on Face book that he was going to something called C & C in Scottsdale (Coffee and Cars) and put up an open invitation. We could not go last month, but we could go this month and we did! It was a lot of fun and really cool to see the rarest cars out there! Jeff (uncle) owns a few Lamborghinis (the one he brought this time was his silver Diablo) and (I think) one of the original car owners to start C & C in Scottsdale. I must confess that his car was the coolest one there :-P Here are a few pictures of the cars we found cool at C & C:

This is a motorcycle that has a JET engine on it! When this thing fired up it sounded like a jet plane....no joke! So cool!


This is the plug for a new electric sports car! San Francisco is where they are designing these cars. Apparently they are silent and can go 210 miles before needing to be plugged in. It then take 6 hours to charges with this plug...or 12 or 14 hours with another type of plug????

Loving the flames on this car! Then, when you lifted the hood there was an amazing dragon tattoo looking painting....actually there were two!

A few of our favorites:







I think this is that electric car I was telling you about:


One of my favorites!

If you live in AZ or are in the Scottsdale area the first Saturday of every weekend check this event out! It is free and really really neat. The car owners are super nice and there is a "Coffee Bean" on sight! It is on the southeast corner of Doubletree and Scottsdale Rd from 9:00 - 11:00.
Thanks for checking in on my blog :-)

McDonald's Apple Pie

I know it has been forever since I have been on this blog. I even thought I would just let it go, but I have made a commitment to shed 80 pounds and need a place to talk about my journey -- which is really my life. So here I am. I am back. I have debated on if I would start talking about my diet this time around so soon, but I am afraid I am gonna go crazy if I don't record my thoughts and feelings. So here I am. I am doing the old WW point counter program. Basically, because I know how it works, it has worked for me in the past and I don't have to invest any money in it because I already own it. I am happy to say that I have been doing great on it. I have lost 7 pounds so far (73 more to go!). However I am having struggles and I just had a break through today. I sent the following PM to my WW partner (gal pal from HS) on FB. Hahahahaha.....PM, WW, and FB all in one sentence and to think you know exactly what I am talking about (FB Face book, PM personal message, and WW Weight Watchers....sorry I just chased a rabbit....anyways, back to the PM I sent my friend. Here it is:

I don't know about you, but I am really hungry and only have 12 points left for the day! Why 12 points? Well because I knew we were going to go out to eat and I wanted to save as many as I could. I would have more points, but my kids wanted to go to McDonald's for lunch.....well....actually I promised them McDonald's. So, I had it figured that I would use 6 points on the grilled chicken sandwich with no mayo and a large diet coke. Which I did! I did my usual protein shake for breakfast and that would have left me 18 points for dinner out tonight. I decided to be nice and buy my kids an apple pie because they were on sale and I was trying to be nice. So, what does my little one say? "Mom I don't want the apple pie. Sorry." I tried to give it to my oldest and he said he was full. DO you know that I almost sat there and begged my child to eat it so I would not throw it away or eat it myself?!?!?! How messed up is that! Luckily, I caught that crazy line of thought and turned the frustration that my kids would not eat it into happiness that my child was listening to his body and not over eat ting. So, what do I do? Well, I could not let the darn pie go to waste....after all I spent a whole 50 cents on it so I did what every fat penny pinching chick would do....I ate it. And do you know what? I don't even like their apple pie! I just ate it so it would not go to waste (my heart diseased ridden mother would be so proud!) true now it will go to waste on my hips...but not really because I calculated the darn points for the Flipping pie and deducted it from my day -- it was 6. So, not only have I been hungry alllllllll flippin day, but I don't get as good of a dinner as I hoped and will be hungry all night too :-( But at least I am staying on this damn diet! I better have a big number on Monday.......just sayin!

Thanks for letting me vent. Now go back to your regularly scheduled FB ;-)

Until next time......

I totally know why there is a saying "Skinny Bitches!" They are so hungry!