NSV and Being a Preppy

Happy Monday morning to you!

Hope you all had a great weekend. Mine was spent sans husband and child (lovely!) running errands, cleaning house, and working on school stuff. The school situation still looks bleak, but I'm trying to stay get positive about it.

No matter how dreary and depressing the school situation might be, I've got an NSV to tell you about that definitely put me in a good mood!

MFN (My Friend Natalie, the lovely lady who did the Shamrock Shuffle with me) has a birthday two days after mine. We were even born the same year (1982 represent!), so I'm officially two days older than her. So naturally, having a BFF whose birthday is so close, we usually celebrate together - usually by NOT running 5ks - and get each other small gifts.

MFN is going to school right now, so she works two part time jobs. One of those jobs is at The Loft outlet. And I can honestly tell you that I've never set foot in The Loft in all my life. Because I have always known that it was futile. Nothing there is going to fit me, so why put myself through the drama? But at our post-what-we-thought-was-a-5k-but-later-found-out-was-a-4.5k breakfast, Miss Natalie handed me a shopping bag from the store.

I thought she was just re-using a bag and never expected the gifts inside to actually be from The Loft. But they were. Two super cute shirts. And Natalie is super supportive of the whole Lap Band thing, while also being the friendly kind of realistic, so she told me that the shirts were something to work toward. I had no expectations of being able to fit into something from a "regular" store in a "regular" size, so I thanked her for the motivation and went about my day.

But yesterday, I was trying on a bunch of other clothes that I already owned, and figured I'd give it a "what the hell". Do you see what I see?

Blurry pic, and I'm looking slightly zombie-ish around the eyes. Makeup, Anna! 

Your eyes are not deceiving you.

HO-LY HELL. This is seriously mind blowing to me. I cannot believe that shirt actually fits ME. Now, the universe making sure I don't get too cocky about anything, made sure that the other XL shirt MFN gave me was a completely different story not fit for public consumption. But this shirt. It fits. A size XL from a regularly-sized-people-shop-here store. NUTSO.

In other news, and on the topic of being a preppy:

Remember my recent post about being lazy? A lot of you had great suggestions about preparation being key to actually getting shit done. So I took advantage of a recent grocery shopping trip and the fact that The Hubs and The Kid were gone, and got my prep on.

Thanks, LoganMan, for donating your snack cups to the cause. 

I bought some lunch meat and portioned it out into 3 ounce portions. I used chicken and turkey. I also bought a quarter watermelon and sliced it up into chunks. Wow, that was a juicy job, let me tell you! Easy enough, but definitely messy. It then got packaged into containers of about 4 ounces each. Then I packed two tablespoons-ish of my current obsession, Dean's French Onion Dip, into small containers to go with pretzels that I keep in a drawer at my desk. Combine these with an EAS protein shake for breakfast and some yogurt for a snack, and I am ready to go! 

Lookie here, all organized and shit. 

And then, I took it all one step further, and pre-bagged each day's lunch. I packed for four days of lunches, figuring I'll give myself Friday as a day to eat out as a treat.

Middle row, pretty Kroger bags all ready to go! 

Oh, and if you're wondering what those brown things are sticking out of the beer bottles at the top left, The BFF made The Hubs Beer Reindeer for Christmas. Those are pipe cleaner antlers. LMAO. 

Anyway, it felt great to be so prepared and ready to go. It was awesome this morning to just be able to pick up a bag and walk out the door. The only downside is that all that prep came at a cost to my school work - I had to choose which thing I wanted to spend time on, and prepping and packing four days of lunches (including cutting up a watermelon and peeling/slicing four baby cucumbers for The Kid) isn't really a quick process. I'm happy to have done it, though. Can't wait for lunch today! 

Everyday I'm Shufflin'...(a long semi-rant)

Saturday was my 31st birthday. I decided long ago (never to walk in anyone's shadow) to do a 5k to celebrate this wonderful occasion. So I picked The Shamrock Shuffle. It turned out to be a HUGE race, with over 5,000 participants.

MFN and I before the race. It was COLD.

This race was so poorly organized, but I didn't really realize how bad it was until later that night. Random things would happen throughout the experience that I would kind of question, but because of the excitement of being there, I just kind of let them go. But now, after the adrenaline is gone, I'm really kind of bummed about a lot of things. 

1) The "festival" area where the before and after block parties were held was A MESS. Everything was tightly packed in a small space, when they had tons of room that they could have spread out into. They were giving away free food both before and after the race, but it was stuff that I would NEVER consider eating at 8 am - Cool Ranch Dorito Tacos from Taco Bell, Chips and Guacamole from Qdoba, Frozen Yogurt from Menchie's Frozen Yogurt (it was like 30 degrees outside!). Re-donk. 

2) The starting line for the races was a short walk away from the festival area, but (this is hard to explain, so I'm going to try my best) the only way to get to the starting line was from one direction. But the direction we were all coming from headed straight for the front of the pack, the front of the starting line. So people didn't realize that they had to keep walking and go to the back of the pack if they were walkers/with strollers/with dogs, etc. They just walked up to the mass of people and stopped, not realizing that they were in the front of the line. The start and first half mile of that race was a complete clusterf***. 

3) My second biggest pet peeve of the whole thing - they had no mile or km markers along the whole race! Who "professionally organizes" a 5k and doesn't put up mile markers?! Natalie and I aren't cool enough to have runner's Garmins or anything like that, so we had to go off of our estimated time. It's a really good thing that I thought to look at my phone as we were crossing the starting line, or we would have had absolutely NO idea about our approximate location on the course. 

4) The finish line signage was backwards! We were moving along and I saw a big thing of signage up ahead of us, but it was facing the other direction, so I thought there was no way we were headed for the finish line. Usually, the word "FINISH" is facing you, and that's how you know. Not with this ass backwards race. The "FINISH" signage was facing the freaking spectators! WTF, dude?

5) They were completely unprepared for the waves of finishers at the line. Nobody was manning the water stations, so people were piling up trying to get water out of big plastic cases. There was nobody directing people to/where to turn in their timing chips. As a result, Natalie and I didn't even realize we still had ours until we were eating breakfast at IHOP later! Now we have to waste time and a stamp to mail them in. 

The backwards finish line. High on thinking we had completed our goal. But did we?

6) And my biggest pet peeve about this stupid race? The organizers posted on their FB page later that evening that the 5k course was actually shorted. Remember back up at number four when I said I thought there was no way we were actually headed for the finish line at that point? I knew something was wrong. I knew the numbers didn't add up. I thought we had to keep going around and head into the finish corral from the front, because it just didn't feel right. And our race time seemed really freaking good for two girls who hadn't trained much at all and who walked the vast majority of the course. Well, la ti da, no wonder our times were so good - instead of doing 3.1 miles, we only did 2.8. They shorted the course by three tenths of a fracking mile! Instead of a birthday 5k, I did a birthday 4.5k. I was robbed. 

And you know, I try to stay positive. At least I got out of bed. At least I paid the $30 entry fee. At least we did it even though it was butt ass cold. At least. But at the same time, there's something about that distance. Something about officially going 3.1 miles, that I feel like we didn't really accomplish our goal. Even though we thought we were doing it at the time, we didn't. It's a bummer. 

But we did have fun. Natalie worked really hard to distract me through the parts where I wanted to die. We gossiped about girls' jiggly butts in their too-tight running pants and tried to figure out which ones were wearing underwear and which ones weren't. At one point, we started singing songs to keep our brains occupied. We would sing until we forgot the words, and then pick up another song. I'm sure the people around us hated us, but I really don't care. We traded sweaty gloves back and forth when our hands got too cold or hot. We plotted our outfits for next year, if we decide we're crazy enough to do this again.

We did have fun, and that's what birthdays are supposed to be about. Not-really-a-5k-5ks and all. 

How YOU Doin'?

We're almost two full weeks into 2013 now, so I figured it's a good time to check up on my 2013 Commitments. If you'll remember, I came up with a list of six "commitments" (not "resolutions", patooey!) in this post. Here's how they're shaping up so far:

1. Fills every two weeks until "sweet spot": Even though I've had a couple stuck episodes since my last fill, I still don't think I'm where I need to be. I can still eat MUCH more than I'm comfortable with, and the weight has been just kind of hovering since then. I do think I need another fill, and I would totally go in this Saturday, but they're booked up. Boo! I can't go during the week because I have no vacation/sick time until the end of April, and they don't have late hours. And now they're telling me they're not open every weekend anymore, but only "certain" weekends during the month. So I have to get with them and find the next available weekend that I can go in for a fill. Blargh. 
2. Bringing my lunch to work: I'm actually doing pretty well with this. I brought a couple times the first week, twice last week, and I packed today. With Commitments number 4 and 5, I am going to have to bring my lunch more because I won't have time to actually take a lunch at work. More on this below. 
3. At least one 5k: In progress! I signed up for the Shamrock Shuffle on March 9th (my 31st birthday, by the way. Gifts accepted.) Knowing that a 5k is paid for and looming over my head means that I actually need to prepare for it a little bit so that I'm not COMPLETELY miserable the whole time. See below. 
4. Moving more/acknowledging work fitness center: See above. I've had a slight hiccup on this one, since I seem to have shaken my booty a tad too hard on Just Dance 4, and found my way into a herniated disk flare-up. I am noticing that the flare up isn't as bad as it had been when I was 30 pounds heavier, but it's still no fun. So I'm babying things for now, but The Hubs and I did take Bubbers on a 30 minute walk over the weekend, and I brought clothes/shoes/etc. to get some treadmill time in at the fitness center today in preparation for my upcoming birthday 5k. Lookie there, all prepared and shit. 
5. Following the bandster rules: My fill has really forced me to comply with several of the rules - eating slowly, taking small bites, and chew chew chewing. I find that I'm sure to get stuck if I bite into something rather than cut it up and use a fork to eat it. I guess I just can't gauge a "small" bite by actually biting into it. I'm still having difficulties with no drinking while eating. One, because I hate the gross feeling of food in my mouth, and two, because I'm trying really hard to get water in, and find it difficult to do if I have to "lose" a few hours of prime drinking time because of eating. It's all new to me and I'm still working it all out. 
6. Focusing more on school: Excuse me while I hide in a corner. I have until the end of March before this term is over and I haven't. accomplished. anything. GAH! I'm stuck in this math class and I can't get past it. And it just makes me frustrated so that I don't even want to acknowledge its existence. But I have to get my butt in gear if I ever want to move forward and away from my current job. Blargh.  

All in all, I think I'm doing pretty well for two weeks in. This week starts my 5k prep, and even though my back is one unhappy little camper, I'm still going to try to get in there and get a t5k (treadmill 5k) done 3-4 days this week. I guess we'll see how it goes today, but I'm hoping it will actually HELP my back instead of hurt it more. 

Did you make any commitments or resolutions? If so, have you checked your progress? How is it going? 

TTT

Thanks, Laura Belle, for the wonderful-ness that is Ten Things Thursday. Wherein I get to take the lazy way out and still feel like a good blogger.

 1) Work is nutso. Part of my hodge podge of a job description involves recording training videos. I spent the last two full days recording. And I mean, literally, videotaping seminars from 8 am to 5:30 pm. It is exhausting and no fun.

 2) Speaking of work, I got "spoken to" today about the fact that I come in between 5 to 20 minutes late every day. Bummer.

 3) My work to do list is re-donk. Just shoot me now.

 4) No stuck episodes since Tuesday's lunch! Huzzah! And thanks for the comments on the last post. I am in agreement with y'all. No unfill for this lady. Just a whole bunch of slow down and small bites for me! Seems to be working now.

 5) My spaz of a 2-year-old has decided that any time between 3:45 and 6:30 am is a great time for a crib party. Seriously. All week long, he has woken up between these hours and has a grand old time carrying on a conversation with himself. It wouldn't be such a big deal if his head and my head weren't separated by about 4 inches of paper-thin wall.

 6) I have an official goal to weigh in at 231 by my March 9th birthday. It's a slightly crazy goal that would require me losing more than two pounds a week, but I really think that with my new-found restriction and upping the exercise ante (which I haven't done yet, oops!) I might be able to do it. Or at least get super close. If you will recall, my highest NPR (non-pregnant recorded) weight was 281, in March of last year. If, by my birthday, I get to 231, it will be 50 pounds down in a year. Which would be total awesomesauce, if you ask me.

 7) I had to change the comment settings for my blog because I am getting SO MANY spam comments! It is so frustrating! Hopefully, the change that I made (allowing only registered users to comment) will stop the stupid spammers, but not be as frustrating to y'all as if I had turned on word verification. I really HATE word verification, and it's the last option for me as far as this goes. So let me know if you have issues commenting, please!

 8) The Hubs and I are going to see "Shrek: The Musical" on the 18th. I'm super excited for this because {1} It's Shrek! and {2} The Hubs actually agreed to go to the theater with me, which is like a "hell froze over" kind of event!

 9) I know I've said this recently, but the whole learning how to follow bandster rules thing? It's hard. But I'm kind of glad that I had two stuck episodes, because I'm so much more careful now about chewing and small bites-ing since I know that pain. And me no-likey the pain.

10) Biggest news of all: I done gone and did it. I signed up for my first 5k of 2013!!! On my birthday, no less! So even though it will definitely be cold, and there's the possibility that there will be snow - believe me, we've had blizzards on my birthday weekend in March before - I will be at the Shamrock Shuffle, shufflin' my 5k worth of buns off. And it's already paid for and everything. So I have to do it now! I've got about 8 weeks to get my butt in gear, so we definitely need to come up with a plan up in here. But I'm super excited to get back into running, and to have a goal to work toward. Woo! 

Wednesday Weigh-In

Last Week: 256.6 lb
This Week: 255.0 lb
Total Loss: 1.6 lb

Now that's more like it!

You should have seen the comedy in my bathroom this morning as I was weighing, though. Normally, I'm a "one and done" weigher. Whatever I see on the scale the first time is what I take. But this morning, when I stepped up, the first reading was 253.8. Now, while that's a totally awesome number and I would TOTALLY take it, I just had a feeling that it wasn't right, so I hopped back on. This is how that process went:

Step on. 255.0. Hmmm, I think I preferred the first one. Step off. Step on. 255.0, Okay, at least we got a double confirmation, guess we'll go with that. Let's brush our teeth and get on with the day. Step off. Teeth and hair brushed, and the scale is RIGHT THERE. Let's just check one more time. Step on. 253.0. WHAT THE CRAP?! Step off. Ok, last time, and then we're hopping off this crazy roller coaster, dude. Step on. 253.0. *facepalm*

Since I know that I didn't do two pounds worth of teeth and hair brushing exercise, I decided just to go with the 255. And this morning when I got to work, I hopped on the doctor scale in our fitness center and weighed 256 with light clothes on, so I'm thinking the 255 was the closest. Whatevs, a loss is a loss is a loss, and I'll so take it. I am accutely aware of my desperate need for a fill, and that is scheduled for bright and early Saturday morning. Hopefully we'll really start seeing those numbers move after that.

In other news:

We finally received our Thomas Kinkade last night. To refresh your memory, we bought it along with another painting back during our anniversary trip to Gatlinburg in October, but it stayed in Tennessee so that we could have it professionally highlighted at the gallery. Our gallery rep sent us pictures of our painting getting highlighted at the event, which I think is really kind of cool to have photo proof and to see it happening.

She did a great job with the highlighting, and it was fun for The Hubs and I to look over the painting last night and try to spot all the areas she did. It really adds some dimension to the canvas, not to mention value, too.

The only bummer is that our frame has 3 pretty noticeable dings on the left side. I have to email our rep the pictures today and see what she says. It's a bummer to have your pretty (and expensive) painting finally home, but not be able to hang it and enjoy! Blargh.

Also in other news: I hate dish cloths with a passion. I have seven more to make, and no time to make them. I have resorted to eating lunch at my desk and then using my full lunch hour to crochet like a madwoman in the break area. Which happens to be directly across from the glass doors to our fitness center, so I'm pretty sure people think I'm some crazy crocheting stalker lady with a fitness fetish. Fun times.

In true Grinchy spirit, I abandoned ship on Christmas cards this year, too. I just had to give SOMETHING up, and cards got the ax. I haven't wrapped a single thing. The Hubs hasn't shopped for me, and can't until we get paid on Friday. Nothing like waiting until the last minute. I have to make birthday cupcakes for Sunday (Logan turns the big TWO!), and a pumpkin pie with whipped cream for Tuesday. I have to pack and ship Grandparents gifts, like, yesterday. And we haven't even started the thirty-something ornaments that we're making as part of our gifts this year. Oh, and did I mention that Bubbers got the flu last week and has been miserably and pitifully sick since Thursday? And my MIL, who is our daycare provider, got the flu too, and has not been able to watch the kiddo, so The Hubs has had to take two days off work without pay this week?

I don't know why people keep complaining that the holidays are so stressful.  Pffft.

But we will survive. We will put on happy faces. We will be those parents who are up until 4 am on Christmas Eve putting together the comically large train table for the kiddo. And we will enjoy every. single. minute. of it. Because I have the luxury and gift of being able to watch my child wake up on Christmas morning. And that is a gift that I am so much more aware of and thankful for this year.

Meet Me In St. Louie (via Instagram)

I briefly mentioned it before, but my specmazerful husband surprised me with a trip to St. Louis for my 30th birthday. (Insert collective "aww"s here.)

The trip itself wasn't a surprise - I told him that I wanted to leave the city for my birthday, because logically, if I wasn't there, my birthday couldn't find me and I wouldn't ever actually turn 30. (It was my crisis and I dealt with it nobly, obvs.) However, I didn't want to know where we were going. Even though I didn't want to know, that didn't stop me from guessing and deductively reasoning and pestering. Just ask The Hubs. Truthfully, though, I did not figure out exactly where we were going before we were on the road. I had a couple of guesses, and St. Louis was one of them, but I didn't know for certain. (This is a big step for me because I *love* a challenge and am generally VERY hard to surprise).

I left work early that Friday and we set out on the road.

The first directional choice we could make was to either go north toward Columbus or south toward Cincinnati:

South it is!

From there, we went west until we hit:

The sun was so bright at one point, The Hubs decided he needed two pairs of sunglasses:

And I still wasn't exactly sure where we were headed once we hit:

But eventually, I figured it out! (Before we came to this sign, even. Give a girl some credit.)

See the arch?!

We arrived at our hotel pretty late, so we hung out and ordered some of "St. Louis' Best Pizza", which was totally gross. The next morning, I was so excited to see the view from our 17th story window:

Morning, Archie! 

The first thing we did was to walk down to Laclede's Landing on our way to our trolley tour of the city.

The trolley was going to pick us up at Lumiere Place, so once we got there, we looked around the hotel and casino for a bit:

And had one of the absolute best meals I've ever had:

The trolley tour was really great - $20 per person and lasted like an hour and a half. The tour guide took us all over the city and told us all sorts of interesting tidbits about its history.

The Basilica of St. Louis, King of France ("Old Cathedral") .

We toured Forest Park, which is the site of the 1904 World's Fair, and is one of the many absolutely FREE parks and attractions in St. Louis. The (absolutely FREE) St. Louis Zoo is in Forest Park, as well as an art museum, tons of green space, and this statue of Louis XVIIII (and his horse):

After we left Forest Park, we drove down "Millionaire's Row" where St. Louis' most affluent residents live. Part of that drive was along an original portion of Route 66, and stopped somewhere along that road, I saw this cathedral. I don't know the name of it, though. (Sadface). 

After the trolley tour, we walked to the Arch in order to take a ride to the top. Apparently, it sells out, so we weren't able to go up just then. Instead, we sat around, enjoyed the beautiful weather, counted no less than three wedding parties getting photos taken, and took some dizzying pictures of our own:

Then we walked back to our hotel to get ready for the evening's festivities.

Back at Laclede's Landing, we had an incredibly underwhelming dinner at Jake's Steaks, where at least my $30 steak was free after being completely overcooked and us having to wait for a zillion years for service. The best part about Jake's Steaks, however, was this gigantic metal Beyonce signed by Ron Jeremy:

The last surprise The Hubs had up his sleeve for the night was an hour-long carriage ride through downtown St. Louis. We had a wonderful driver (?) and a beautiful horse named Hercules who took us on a freezing, but beautiful, tour of the city.

Hercules dropped us off at our hotel, but at close to midnight, I got a hankering for some Key Lime Cheesecake. If Key Lime Cheesecake is what your wife needs to drown out her sorrow from turning 30, Key Lime Cheesecake, she gets! So we drove to The Cheesecake Factory, got my life affirming nectar of the gods, then went back to the hotel to crash before another full day and a long trip home.

Day two of my amazing 30th birthday adventure later!

Too Good To Be True?

Hi all!

I'm going to breeze right over the fact that it has been, oh, a zillion-and-a-half years since I blogged, and jump right in to the reason for my post...

I just discovered that band surgery is tax deductible. According to IRS Publication 502, you can deduct any medical or dental expenses over and above 7.5% of your Adjusted Gross Income. For us, this would mean that we would be able to "claim" about $8000 of the cost of my surgery.

Did any of you bandsters out there take advantage of this? Is it too good to be true? (Please tell me it's not, because I'm super excited about my new discovery...)

And in other news, Bubbster turned one last Friday, which I totally can't believe and am in denial about. He's still my little bubby baby boy, right? (Say that one three times fast.) We had one small family birthday party for him and his GiGi (great grandma on my step-mom's side), and he'll have his big birthday party on the 7th. It's Mickey Mouse Clubhouse themed, y'all. Oh, Toodles!

He also had seven (yes, onetwothreefourfivesixSEVEN) Christmases, and not by choice or by my doing. I would have been happy with one, but darn it for family and friends! The kid received NO duplicate toys, either, which has to be some sort of Black (Christmas) Magic or something. We're going to put some of the toys in a closet and pull them out throughout the year for him.

I've missed you all and have been a bad blogger. Sorry, y'all. Life's been a royal bitch for the past six months or so, so I've been doing pretty well to not climb in a hole or drive my car off a cliff or something. But I'm here. I'm alive. I'm doing.

So anyway, let me know about the tax deduction thingamajig, because that's so flipping awesome if it's true!

Hugs to you and yours, and Happy New Year, too!

Oy to the vey.

Hey y'all. I'm alive. I'm here.

I'm exhausted.

The traveling portions of my trip can only be classified as a clusterf*ck. My second flight home was delayed twice. I got home late Tuesday and worked all day Wednesday, then for some reason Bubbers decided that last night would be the night he turned into an insomniac. He finally went to bed after 2 am.

I took a personal day today, and I'm going to use the opportunity to get him to his (very past due) 6 month well check visit.

At any rate, this is a post about nothing, except to say that I'm here, I haven't forgotten about you, and I'll be back as soon as my brain can formulate complete sentences without strenuous effort.

Oh! And I would be remiss if I didn't send a birthday shout out to The BFF!!! Happy 29th birthday!!!

Love, my lovelies.

Coming Attractions

It's almost March, which means some good stuff is coming my way...

February 28th: Family birthday party. As if I'd let you forget, my birthday is March 9th. This party is for my cousin who turned 16 on Valentine's Day, The Hubs, who turned 31 on February 1st, and me.

March 7th: Oscar Night Gala. Remember how I posted about my volunteer day with People Working Cooperatively? Every year, they host one of the 50 officially sanctioned Oscar Night parties across the country. My company bought a table at the Gala and MFN and I (plus 8 other work peeps) are getting all dressed up in our fanciest-schmanciest dresses and partake in free booze and gourmet food. Plus we get to watch the Oscars on the big screen and get an official Oscars program.

March 9th: My 28th birthday. Woot.

March 10th: Bridal Show at The BFF's reception location.

March 11th: MFN's birthday. Have I ever mentioned that I'm exactly 2 days older than her?

March 13th: MFN and I are celebrating our birthdays with a little dinner and game night with our peeps. Should be a good time.

I'm excited!

Part 1: The Early Years of Us (Continued)

(Labor Day fireworks one year after the proposal.)

(MFN's and my 26th birthday cake. Made by The BFF.)


(Cornhole game The Hubs and I made for my dad's birthday.)

(Where the infamous proposal happened. Yes, we had a wedding date before we had an engagement.)

("I Hate War" monument in Washington, DC.)

(The Wienermobile! How cool is that?!)

(A baby gorilla about to get in trouble by big daddy.)

(My most recent -and fourth- tattoo. As a tribute to my mamma.)

Waisting time...

(Heh heh, get it? It's a pun. About how I'm wasting time, and it's affecting my waist? *Tap, tap*...Is this thing on? Crickets.)

249.8

I'm up a 1/2 pound, which is to be expected. I've boycotted diet and exercise this week, just because I can. Now that's dedication for you...

Actually, I've been doing a very physical project at work that involves LOTS of lifting and moving and general running around. It basically means I leave work at the end of the day feeling like I got hit by a train. I just couldn't bring myself to go through c25k this week. I knew the consequences, and this morning, they were staring me in the face.

Unfortunately, until I took a look at the calendar this morning, I didn't realize just exactly how much I was counting on this week to help me get to the -20 mark by May 23rd. Now I have made it so that I have to lose over 3.2 pounds per week to reach that goal. I'm not going to say it's impossible, but...

If I get there, that's great. If I don't, don't expect a big, whiny post about it. It's my responsibility, my job to do the work. If I don't reach my goals, I have no one to blame but myself.

And that's all there is to say about that.

Current events-wise, Tonja's birthday bash is this weekend, which The Hubs and I can't afford to go to. Bummer! I'm sure it will be an awesome time.

Since The Hubs has to work on Mother's Day, we're having The In-Laws over for Mother's Day dinner this Sunday. Wish me luck, as this is my first chance to prove to her that I'm a capable, adult, human being. I'm going to cook a family favorite that I've made about a thousand times. I had better not mess it up, since she already has about zero confidence in my cooking/baking/breathing ability, and she's not been shy to make it known. The hope is that this will turn her attitude around, without The Hubs having to have the talk with her. Wish me luck!

(p.s. While she can be a little too much to take sometimes, she's totally cracking me up lately. The woman keeps asking me how my 'marathon' is going...no matter how many times I tell her it's just a 5k, it's a 'marathon' to her. Okay, Jack's mom, sure...I'm running a marathon in a month. Let's go with that.)

The Biggest Loser Challenge final weigh in by my boss is on the 18th. I know I haven't won the challenge, but I just really want that fricking scale in her office to tell me a number below 250. It seems as though I've been going down, down, down on my home scale. Every fricking Friday, I try the scale in her office, and every fricking Friday, it says 251.6. How is that possible?! I figure, losing those 10 pounds by the 23rd, maybe...just maybe I can get that scale to say 249. Ugh!

Aaaand...I had 115 chances to become a millionaire on Tuesday, and it didn't work. Mega Millions was up to $181 mil - $117.4 mil cash option, which would have worked out to just over $2 mil after I shared it with the other 56 people at work who put in money. I have 129 chances tonight, and would have to share $220 mil ($143.5 mil cash option) with 58 people. In case you're wondering, that would be just about $2.5 million dollars.

Don't you worry your pretty, little blogger-friend heads...I will blog, even if I become a millionaire. I promise. :-)

Wish me luck, because my good karma from last week - I saved a girl from walking out of a bathroom with her skirt stuck in her underwear, and I saved a deer from getting hit by my Speed Racer of a husband - didn't help at all!

Guess that's all the news here in Mrs. B-ville. Hope you have a great Friday!

"..these are a few of my favorite things..."

("My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music).

Tonight, I'm going to see Avenue Q. I'm going with The BFF, her mom, and her "little" sister to celebrate said sister's 19th birthday. (You probably don't read this, but "Happy Birthday, Puddy!")

I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am to go to the theater...I'm a huge music/musicals buff, and I have been lucky enough to see several in my lifetime. I was in choir from 6th grade through high school, and was in my high school show choir. (If you don't know what that is, it's a mixed choir that performs a 20-minute program of songs and dance. It's very athletic. And challenging. And uber fun.) And, a bonus to that was that they took us to the theater when ever they could.

I'm also lucky enough to have a BFF who loves musicals just as much as I do. Probably half the shows I've seen, have been with her. Thanks, Sammy Sue!

You know how people make those 101 in 1001 lists? I'm pretty sure I'm not patient enough to come up with 101 things I want to accomplish, but I can (and will) rattle off a long list of musicals I am determined to see before I die.

First, what I have been fortunate enough to see:

• Avenue Q (as of tonight)
• Chicago (a long time ago, before the movie, and when BeBe Neuwirth played Velma Kelly. Awesome!)
• Grease (a college performance)
• Jesus Christ Superstar (I took my mommy on a girl date. Sebastian Bach was a very screamy Christ.)
• Les Miserables (amazing!)
• The Lion King (I took The Hubs to see his first musical. He liked it, but I didn't realize that he had never even seen the Disney version of The Lion King...who hasn't seen that?!?!)
• Miss Saigon
• The Most Happy Fella (another college performance)
• My Fair Lady (with The BFF and Puddy)
• Oklahoma (one of my favorites!)
• Show Boat
• South Pacific (with Robert Goulet...oooh! LOL)
• Ragtime

Now, the shows that I should have seen, but somehow got thwarted. It is because of these experiences that I now refuse to buy tickets to a show more than a month in advance:

• Phantom of the Opera - I had 9th row, center tickets, and it just so happened to coincide with the year's biggest snowstorm. It took me over 3 hours to get home that night, and they did not cancel the show.
• Wicked - The BFF and I had tickets, and then I ended up having to have my gallbladder removed two days before the show.

And, the wish list:

• Fiddler on the Roof* - I have never seen it, or the movie, and I'm absolutely dying to!
• 42nd Street*
• Aida
• Annie
• Annie Get Your Gun
• Anything Goes
• Beauty and the Beast*
• Cabaret
• Camelot
• Carousel
• A Chorus Line
• Grey Gardens - sidenote: I have got to find a way to see the Drew Barrymore version that's coming out on HBO!
• Guys and Dolls*
• Hello, Dolly!
• How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
• Into The Woods
• The King and I
• Kiss Me, Kate
• Legally Blonde*
• Mama Mia*
• Mary Poppins
• Les Miserables (again)
• Movin' Out
• The Music Man*
• Oklahoma (again)
• Phantom of the Opera* (Damn you, Mother Nature!)
• Rent
• Seussical the Musical
• Spamalot*
• Sweeney Todd
• West Side Story*
• Wicked* (Damn you, gallbladder!)
• Xanadu

(*shows I have promised myself I will buy tickets to next time they are available)

Anyway, tonight is sure to be a difficult night with the eating/exercising. We're eating at Cadillac Ranch downtown, and they don't have a full menu OR nutritional information on their website. So freaking annoying!!! And, of course, the show starts at 8pm, so who knows what time I'm getting home. There will definitely not be any 5k's tonight, but that's perfectly fine with me. I get to go hang out with some raunchy puppets instead!

"Everyone knows an ant, can't, move a rubber tree plant..."

("High Hopes" by Frank Sinatra).

258.

Back to the drawing board. My free-for-all birthday week has caught up with me, as I knew it would. Today was the 4 week/5 pound challenge for the work TBL contest. I 'officially' gained 1 pound - the work weigh in was 257.2. I am 18 pounds over my goal weight for today. Whatever, man.

Everything went down the tubes last week. I quit taking my Metformin again, which means I get to go through the gastrointestinal delight that comes with re-starting. I didn't test my sugars all week. I didn't count calories. I didn't make any good choices. To say it was a bad week, would be a generous understatement. What is wrong with me?!

I'm so over it right now.

This weekend flew by faster than any weekend I've had in a really long time. That's probably because I needed it so badly. Friday, The Hubs and I went to MFN's husband's surprise Bon Voyage party - he left today for his pre-deployment training. MFN's having a rough time, which is to be expected. I'm trying to be there for her as much as I can...I'm not sure exactly how good I am at that. Hopefully, she knows I'm trying.

Saturday was my non-birthday party birthday party. (And I promise you, after this post, I will do my best to refrain from using the word "birthday" for as long as I can...I'm sure you're sick of it!) Anyway, we had a good time. I finally got to play Guitar Hero for the first time ever. And, yeah, I suck. The awesome part about that game is that even if you suck, it's still fun, so you want to keep trying. We played games, we ate, we drank, and all was right with the world.

Sunday, The Hubs and I lounged around, and did a little post-party cleaning. I forced him to watch an entire day of Jon & Kate Plus 8, which I'm sure he's silently resenting me for. The dynamic between Jon & Kate is so strange, with her being so mean to him sometimes, but I guess that comes with the territory. I think they really try to be great parents to all 8 kids, though, which is totally commendable. The reason I watch, though, is totally because of the kids. They are just too freaking cute...and Aaden melts my heart with his little glasses. I just can't take it.

He's too cute!

Anyway, hopefully this week is better than the last. I'm going to try to have my Cardio Dance class again, and we'll see how that goes. I'm going to try to stick to my medicine and foods. We'll see how that goes. I don't have anything on the calendar that I'm particularly dreading this week. We'll see how that goes. I think it won't be very hard for this week to be better than the last.

I've got high hopes, people. High, apple pie in the sky, hopes.

"Pour your misery down, Pour your misery down on me..."

("Only Happy When It Rains" by Garbage).

Oh, what a week. Seriously, I was pretty done with it by Wednesday, and then yesterday just made it worse.

Monday was the bday, as you all know. It was very nice. The Hubs and I went to Olive Garden, where I could imbibe on my traditional birthday drink of choice: Berry Sangria. So freaking yumm-o!

Tuesday, nothing much happened, except for the fact that I spent hours prepping for my Wednesday Cardio Dance class. I taught myelf a new dance, and The Hubs helped me make cds with all the right songs.

Wednesday is when the shit started hitting the fan. All it took was one event to make all of the subconscious stress I had lurking around in my head/body bubble up unavoidably to the surface. I honestly did not realize that I am as stressed as I am. That is, I didn't realize it until people started disappearing from work. A good friend of mine came up to me and told me that she was heading out - she had been "let go". And then I realized that the guy two cubes in front of me never came back from lunch. And the picture of him and his girlfriend was gone from his desk. And then the panic set in. One of the HR guys kept passing by my desk with employee files in his hand, and walking into my boss' office. Every single time he passed, I thought I was for sure the next one to go. My job isn't totally something the company HAS to have. If they're so desperate that they are firing some of the best employees we've got, what's to stop them from getting rid of me?

I can honestly say that for the first time in my life, I actually had a small panic attack. My heart was racing for the whole last hour of the day. In the end, I did not get fired, but 8 others did. And who's to say that I won't be in the next round? Even the owner of our company told us all in a meeting the next day that he can't guarantee that anyone's job is safe. Now that's reassuring!

So, I couldn't wait to leave on Wednesday, because that meant I wasn't getting fired (at least until tomorrow, anyway), but I had to stay and teach my very first Cardio Dance class. The same class that several people had committed to coming to, and countless others had patted me on the back for..."That's such a good idea!", "Oh, it sounds like so much fun!" "Great thinking!".

Aaaaaaaand...no one showed up.

At the time, I wasn't really upset, because it meant that I didn't have to go through the whole "let's teach my peers something that could make me look really stupid" thing. But then I got home, and just broke the fuck down. Poor Hubs.

I really think it was just a combination of getting myself so worked up over the firings, and no one showing up for a class that I worked really hard on, and all this crazy birthday party drama that The Kids keep throwing on me, and trying to plan this stupid trip to Gatlinburg and a camping trip, and I had just had enough. I cried and cried and cried, and then laid down in bed and didn't get back up until Thursday.

Oh, Thursday... if Wednesday was bad, then Thursday was uber bad. Bad on steroids. The Incredible Hulk of bad. Not only was I still stressing out about everything from the day before, but (as previously mentioned) one of the owners of our company came and had a big meeting about how dismal the economy is, and it's so much worse than we thought, and we had to let all these people go, and we may be letting more of you go if it doesn't get any better, but you need to work twice as hard, and do more with less, and that's just kind of how it's going to be. Fun times!

And then I got to spend all day answering the question, "How was your class last night?!" with "Oh, um...It would have been great had anyone bothered to show up. Yep, I'm a loser. Thanks for reminding me. " (Or something like that).

And then we decided to cancel the Gatlinburg trip. One of my favorite things in the whole world, now indefinitely postponed. It's all about money. Fucking money. I hate it. But I understand why we had to cancel.

And then I decided to cancel my drama filled birthday party. Or at least scale it down a bit, and dis-invite the drama filled people. Ironically, cancelling my own birthday bash is one of the only things I've done this week that has made me feel somewhat less stressed out.

And then, there was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. I just found out my job's in danger. I've been repeatedly forced to explain to people that I'm a loser. I'm not taking a trip I was really excited for. I'm not having a big birthday celebration. Now it's time for lunch.

MFN and I walked into our little lunch room (which has basically floor to ceiling windows on every wall) and saw a Mamma goose nesting an egg that she had just laid. The Daddy goose was standing guard, like they always do. MFN and I spent some time talking about how we know that they are annoying, but it's still really nice to see the process of life, and the Daddy being so protective, and how amazing it is that the Momma instinctively knows exactly what she needs to do to have a healthy baby.

In walks our security guard, whos job partly consists of shooing the geese off of our property. MFN tells him that the goose had laid an egg, and he decides to go on an egg extingushing mission. He asked me for the grocery bag I had brought my lunch in, and I refused to give it to him. I told him I didn't want any part of it, and asked him not to do it, because I just think it's cruel to kill something for no good reason. He continued out the door on his mission, and I left the room because I just couldn't stand there and watch him do this. After he came back in the building, I went back in the lunch room to try and eat my lunch. The Momma and Daddy goose came back to her nest like "Where's my baby?!" and I couldn't take it anymore.

I went to the bathroom and cried. Not just over the damn geese, but over everything that has been going on this week. And the damn geese. The way I see it, if it is your job to keep them from nesting, then keep them from nesting. But if you don't do your job, and they do nest? Leave them alone! I just don't think it's right to go and kill the babies.

All this crap has just pulled me down into a really dark funk. Today was a little better than the past two days have been, but I just can't seem to bring myself out of it. I'm overwhelmed. I'm stressed. I'm pissed. I'm annoyed.

I'm ready for the weekend. And a drink.

Birthday Indulgences

I used to be addicted to Weddingbee. I could spend hours on that site, no problem. Sadly, one day, the owner of the site sold it to eHarmony, and I could no longer visit the site with a clear conscience. eHarmony is notoriously anti-LGBTQ (if you're wondering, that stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual, Transgender, and Queer/Questioning). I am not anti-LGBTQ. In the slightest. Several bees ended up leaving the site for this very reason, and I felt in my heart that I needed to do the same. (Which is also the reason I did not make their name 'clickable' above. Every time you click on a page, eHarmony makes money).

What could this possibly have to do with these ring pictures, you ask? Well, I am only human, and found it very hard to quit Weddingbee cold turkey. I only visit the site once every blue moon now, and on one of those visits, they were doing tutorials on how to get great ring shots, and readers sent in their own engagement ring pictures. The Hubs was away one weekend, so I found every object I could that would make an interesting background, and set up a mini studio on our bed. Out of a zillion pictures, I got about 8 good ones. These are the best of the 8.

The reason this post is called "Birthday Indulgences" is because I know you could probably care less about my rings. It may even come off as though I'm bragging. Trust me, I'm not. I just really like my rings, and I pleasantly surprised myself when I got some half-way decent photos.

I'm indulging in things that make me happy today, and this is one of them.

:-)

"...Just one more candle and a trip around the sun..."

("Trip Around the Sun" by Jimmy Buffett with Martina McBride).



Today is my 27th birthday.

Now, because for some reason I've been crying at the drop of a hat lately, rather than get all introspective and thoughtful (because I hate to cry at work), I'll just tell you that I'm a big fan of birthdays. And that my birthday present from The Hubs was Horton Hears a Who (which also makes me cry - I mean, come on - "A person's a person, no matter how small...").

Oh, and that Monday Weigh-In's don't exist on your birthday. That, or I just really, really hated the number I saw today. Either way, it's my birthday, and I'll ignore it if I want to.

You know what would make this birthday great? A comment from you!

Have a great week, all!