Fill No. 4 (A really long post.)

Holy moly, chickadees. This fill has been an experience.

A tiny bit of background: my surgeon used to be a private practice. Shortly after having my surgery, he joined a large, university-based group. So now, a lot of things are done "centrally" through the group, like making appointments, etc. Last week, he moved his office to a different building in the hospital/surgery center/medical building complex that they've been in. Previously, the office was in a section of the complex that was similar to a strip mall type set-up, where each doctor's office had it's own outside door and was it's own individual space. Now, they've moved into one of the medical buildings, so you have to walk into the big building and then find the "suite" for your individual doctor.

So on Saturday, I arranged for MFN to watch The Kid and I went to the new building to get my fill. My appointment was at 1:30 and I showed up at 1:20. I walk up to the building doors and...they're locked. I knock, nothing. I do that whole hands covering the sides of your face as you creepily peer into the building thing. Nobody. I notice that there's another set of doors directly across the atrium on the back side of the building - maybe those are unlocked? So I get back in my car, drive around the building to the back side, park, get out, go up to the doors, and...locked. WTF? My next thought is to call the office, so that's what I do. Only, remember how I mentioned that as a part of this new group everything is more centralized? Yep, I get an automated system saying that the group's normal business hours are Monday through Friday, blah blah blah, thank you, good bye.

Again I say, WTF?

Seriously, what do you do in that situation? I know the office is on the second floor, so it's not like I can go all peeping Tom in the windows to try and find somebody. I can't get in the doors, and I can't call. What the hell?

Very luckily, as I found out later, the receptionist had been taking two other women back to their appointments and heard me knocking on the door (Even though she couldn't see me because they were up on the second floor of the open atrium. She could hear me, but couldn't see me) so she came down to let me in. I only had to wait about five minutes. As opposed to the two other women who had just been taken back, who had been waiting and knocking outside for more than an hour, with everyone inside completely oblivious to the fact that the doors were locked. The receptionist and my nurse apparently just thought that those two ladies didn't show up for their fill appointments, and the consensus was that the doors must have automatically locked on a timer because other people were able to get in earlier in the day.

I finished all my paperwork and paid my $75, then sat down to wait for my appointment. At this point, it was already 1:45 - 15 minutes past my original appointment time, and had we been at the old location, I would have been in and out by now. But since the other two ladies waited outside for the entire duration of their appointment times, I now had to wait for both of them to have their fills before it could even be my turn. I finally went back at 2:20, almost an hour past my original appointment time.

My fill was with a different nurse - not the one I prefer to go to. But to be honest, that preference is really based off of "inside tips" from other people who heavily suggested I not let her do my fills. I, personally, didn't have any problem with her on Saturday, so maybe I won't be so selective in the future unless I start to see things that worry me.

I told her about what I've been eating and how my weight isn't going anywhere. She told me that according to their records, I had lost 8 pounds since my last visit in February. Not sure where they're getting those numbers from, because my records show that I had only lost 2.6 pounds in that time. I weighed in at 245.2 fully clothed on her scale.

We settled on 1.0 cc, which was the maximum I was willing to get. She said that since I'm getting up there (I'm now at 10.4 {probably really 10.5cc) in my 14cc band) I would probably start getting 0.5cc or 0.2cc fills after this one. And that's FINE BY ME. Oh, and if you're Lap Band Gal's friend on FB, you'll remember some recent conversation about a photo she posted of a recent fill where her surgeon didn't wear gloves to administer it. My nurse didn't wear gloves for my fill on Saturday, either. And I can't remember them wearing gloves any other time. Do yours wear them? Are you grossed out/worried that some don't? I'm not, but now wondering if I should be. LOL.

The fill itself was painless - nothing like last time. She found the port in one stick and was in and out in less than a second. Sah-weet!

However, afterward, this fill has been ridiculous. As I've come to discover, for me, my fills are SUPER tight for the first 2-3 days, then they tend to relax. Well, I think I'm getting close to my maximum comfort zone, because the first two days with this fill have been seriously RED ZONE for me. Saturday, I couldn't even keep down water. Sunday, for lunch, I made it through about 5 spoonfulls of chicken noodle soup and then had to stop. Finally, by Sunday night things were relaxing a little bit and I made it through some protein - a cookout at my Dad & Bonus Mom's house where I had about 1/3 of a hot dog, no bun, in TIIIIIIIIINY bites, a couple bites of hamburger patty with ketchup, no bun, and a few bites of baked beans. Other than eventually having to PB up a bunch of slime, the food never came back.

I felt HORRID yesterday. Dehydrated and exhausted from no calories or protein. Obviously, that's not the way you're supposed to feel with the band. That's obviously RED ZONE behavior. And I'm considering going in for a slight unfill if things don't loosen up today or tomorrow. Like I said, I can tell that things are relaxing a bit because I was able to eat some protein yesterday, and I had a protein shake this morning just fine. We'll see how lunch and dinner go today and then I will make a decision.

I kind of feel like you have to find your red zone in order to find the green zone, you know? Like you have to hit a point where you can say, "WHOA. Too much. That's my limit." so that you can then back it up a tiny bit into the green. I'm not saying you should do crazy fill amounts to try to get red, but that hitting the red, while uncomfortable and unpleasant, is actually pretty helpful in terms of gauging where you're at in the process. I think being red during my initial fill phase tells me that once things settle down, I'll be pretty close to green. Of course, if I'm not able to eat any real food at lunch or dinner today, I'll be going back in to take it down a notch. But for now, we'll see how it goes.

There is ONE thing to say about being in the red: it's conducive to weight loss. I weighed in at 239.8 this morning. Obviously not the optimal, sustainable, or healthy way to go about weight loss with the band, but I'm not gonna lie: seeing the 230s this morning was kind of awesome. I'm sure it will bounce back up a bit once I'm able to eat again, but fleetingly, I'll take it.

Mish Mash

Randompants post ahead. You've been warned.

1) The scale is being nice to me right now. Let's hope it sticks around for Wed-nes-day Weigh-In time. I'm pretty sure it's mostly because I've been drinking TONS of ice cold water while at work. Like, TONS. Did you know that drinking very cold things helps you burn more calories? Your body has to work harder to regulate your internal temperature when you do, thus, calorie burn! I don't know exactly how many more calories it burns, but I can totally attest to the temperature regulation thing. I have been FREEZING at work since I've been drinking all this ice water. And like I said, the scale likes me right this very second, so I'm gonna go with it.

2) Easter weekend was weird, but in a good-ish way. For literally the first time EVER, we didn't spend the holiday rushing between families and worried about whose feeling were getting hurt by us not being there. We spent the weekend with just the three of us, doing whatever we wanted to do. It was so nice. We gave The Kid his basket Sunday morning, then enjoyed the breakfast bar at Frisch's Big Boy, then had an in-home egg hunt. Nice and relaxed, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

3) That's a lie. Most of the weekend was nice and relaxed. Except for the part where we decided that since the whole family was home and we had no plans, this would be the weekend we finally broke The Kid of his pacifier ("passer" or "nuk nuk" to him) habit. A long time ago, we restricted his passer use to what we call "night night and naps", so he knew that unless he was sleeping in his crib, he couldn't have them. And I've known for a while that we need to kick the habit completely at some point, but I haven't wanted to do it.

Well, since we put in our 60 day notice to our apartment complex and will be moving in with my in-laws soon, and I knew that every weekend after this would be me and The Kid alone while The Hubs is working on getting the in-laws house ready, and I wanted to have the habit kicked before we moved, this was the time. (Nice run-on sentence, Anna.) So I cut small holes in his nuk nuks and left them out for him to find. He realized they were "broken" and I asked him if he wanted to throw them away. (That kid LOVES throwing things away.) So all was well and good until it was actually time to take a nap or go to bed.

OH the pity. "Mama? A new nuk nuk? Pwwwweeeeeeeeeease?!" It's a good thing we had thrown them all in the trash or I would have totally given in several times this weekend. It has been a challenge, to say the least, but he has taken naps without his passer both days, and fell asleep (after a long bout of crying) both nights. It helps that we gave him Buzz Lightyear and Woody action figures instead. LOL

4) It's Opening Day!!!

Born and raised a Cincinnati girl, today is the second best day of the year. I didn't realize until recently, though, that other cities with major baseball teams don't go crazy for opening day like we do. We love our Redlegs. Did you know that we're the oldest baseball team in America? And did you know that because of that, we ALWAYS get to play at home on opening day? It's a BFD. (Big effing Deal, if you're not down with the language. LOL)

It is really depressing to me to not be a "true" Cincinnatian anymore. Even though it will always be my home town and I will always love that city, I (very unfortunately) keep moving farther and farther north to be with my husband. I'm from Cincinnati, he's from a town north of Dayton, so when we moved in together before we got married, we chose a town in the middle. Now that we're moving in with his parents, I'm going all the way up to his hometown. And for people there, Dayton is the closest "city", so they consider themselves Daytonians. I don't want to be a Daytonian. I am a Cincinnatian. Ugh.

Anyhoo, Go Reds!

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! 

Bad Pictures of a Recent Project

But before we get to that -

I have a slight obsession with these:

And I will usually have two or three (five is 200 calories, so 40 calories each) after lunch at work. And y'all know that Dove is famous for their little affirmations or sayings that are printed on the inside of the wrapper. You know, they usually say things that aim at getting you to slow down and indulge in a "moment" or whatever.

However, I have noticed two recently that really kind of irk me. One that says "Chocolate Loves Unconditionally", and this one that I just unwrapped today:

Really, the "Chocolate Loves Unconditionally" one is the one I have a major problem with. I could totally be a Debbie Downer who thinks too much about this stuff, but when obesity is such a problem in this country, and when eating disorders so often center around emotional needs, it seems so irresponsible for a chocolate company to feed into that with these "comforting" messages of love by chocolate. Chocolate does NOT love unconditionally. Chocolate doesn't love at all. And an overweight person who is dealing with their emotions by way of comfort food is probably going to read that and go, 'Aww....chocolate loves me. I should eat more of it because it makes me feel good!" While they're not addressing their emotional issues at all.

I don't know. It just bugs me.

But on to my project that has been taking up all my time for the past couple of months. My friend Tonja is pregnant with her second baby (another girl!) and The BFF threw her a shower this weekend. I decided a couple months ago, because I apparently didn't learn my Christmas Dish Cloths lesson and I'm an idiot who is a glutton for punishment, that I would crochet her a baby blanket.

Unlike dish cloths, I was not up until 3 am the morning of the shower working on the blanket, amazingly enough. I finished it at 11:30 pm the night before, thankyouverymuch. I wanted to make a ripple/chevron afghan, so I scoured the interwebs to find a simple pattern, and totally scored with an amazing Youtube tutorial for a pattern called "Lazy Waves". If you're a crocheter, the whole thing is nothing but Double Crochet (DC) and Double Crochet Together (DCTog or DC Decrease) stitches. SUPER simple, even I could do it!

Anyway, as I began working on it, I slowly started falling in love with it, even though it was a huge PITA (Pain In The Ass). Even though it was simple, I was using very fine/soft baby yarn, so the stitches were super small and slippery. One row, at the beginning, took me more than 30 minutes to do. There are 82 rows in this blanket. So even when I got a little faster, and each row was taking me about 20 minutes, you're looking at at least 1,640 minutes of work on this afghan. Not to mention all the weaving in of ends I had to do after changing between colors. And if you're curious, like I was, 1,640 minutes is more than 27 hours. Tonja's lucky I like her.

So by the time I was finished and had invested 27 hours of my sweat and tears into this thing, I was kind of sad to see it go. Before I wrapped it up, I took a bunch of pictures of it. But the lighting in my apartment is horrible, so they don't really show how pretty it really was. If you're interested, I used Bernat BabySoft and Softees yarn for this project. I used one whole large skein of hot pink and less than one large skein each of the Burl Gray and White. The final size was probably 2.5 feet by 4 feet-ish. I forgot to measure.

Without any further ado, the bad pictures:

It was a huge hit! Tonja loved it, and the little girls at the shower all wanted to be wrapped up in it at once. It was so worth all the time I put into it, and I hope her baby girl enjoys it! 

For now, though, I have to force myself to not start any more crochet projects because I have so much else going on. And I know that if I did start one, I would totally use it to procrastinate from doing any of the things I really need to be doing...*cough*SCHOOL*cough*. 

What about you guys? What is your go-to procrastination method? Crafts? Books? Hiding under the covers and pretending everything outside the bed doesn't exist? Tell me! 

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? 

Awesome Anniversary

A wee bit o' background for ya - October 21/22, 2006: The Hubs and I had been dating for less than 4 months and decided to take an impromptu day trip to Bowling Green, Kentucky to tour the Corvette manufacturing plant.

Ah, six years younger and 50 pounds skinnier...

Since we were already half-way to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, we decided on a whim to just head down for the night and come back the next evening. We had very little money, no hotel reservations, and the time of our lives. 

Smoky Mountain Pit Stop

Fast forward two years, and you're at October 20th, 2008 - two days after our wedding and the first day of our week-long honeymoon in...Gatlinburg, Tennessee. 

(Pretend you see pictures here of us, just two years older and a few pounds heavier.) 

Fast forward four more years, and you're at October 20th, 2012 - the third time The Hubs and I have been to Gatlinburg together, and also, somewhat coincidentally, the third time we have been to Gatlinburg on that EXACT SAME weekend in October. I now consider it our lucky weekend. The weather is always fantastic, and things just kind of seem to fall in place for us there and then. 

Yep, it's hanging off the mountain.

We arrived at our chalet around 3:30 pm on Saturday. See that gorgeous 2013 Chevy Equinox? It's not ours, but we wish it was. The Hubs and I have had our hearts set on one for a while now, and he jumped through a thousand hoops to find one for us to rent for the trip as a surprise for me. One Thousand Awesome Husband Points for him! 

We settled into the chalet and changed clothes for dinner/sightseeing around town. Remember how I had said I had been waiting for a steak from The Park Grill for months? It TOTALLY didn't disappoint. I had a combo 5 oz. filet mignon and pineapple moonshine grilled chicken - mouth orgasms all around.

After dinner we did a little sightseeing around Gatlinburg. Bought some fudge, which is a requirement down there, and also visited a moonshine distillery. They were offering free tastings of their 12 flavors of moonshine, so The Hubs and I gathered all the courage we could muster and saddled up to the bar.

They started - STARTED - with 100 proof White Lightning moonshine...

HOLY HELL.

Seriously, The Hubs and I thought we were gonna die, y'all. After a too short recovery period, the next sample was White Lightning marinated cherries. Yum, cherries! This can't be bad!  

Um, not so much. We are total losers! I couldn't get my 1/2 cherry down, and The Hubs suffered through his. From there, we decided that we are not cool enough to be moonshine junkies, and gave up on the tasting. But, I have to say, I am dorkily proud of the fact that we both even TRIED the White Lightning. I bought us a magnet and Christmas ornament to commemorate our bravery. LOL

Sunday, we had a train excursion from Bryson City, North Carolina, which is near Cherokee. To get to Cherokee, you have to drive through (up, down, around, into, etc.) the Smoky Mountains. Great views, hell on the inner ears.

How do you like his $3 sunglasses we bought during an emergency WalMart run the night before? LOL

The train excursion was through the Great Smoky Mountain Railroad, and was a 4.5 hour trip through the mountains. The Conductor walked our engine to the front of our train and we boarded our swanky first class car.

I think I can, I think I can.

First Class, y'all. It's how we roll. 

Our first class ticket came with lunch and desert aboard the train, a free souvenir tumbler with free pop/tea/coffee for each of us (which you can see in the above picture), and a free embroidered tote bag each. We rode about 1.5 hours out and had a layover at the Nantahala Outdoor Center, where we watched amazing kayakers make the river their bitch. 

No kayakers here, but you'll just have to trust me. They. Were. Awesome.

Then we took the train back to Bryson City and did a little shopping there. I got The BFF some Pumpkin Butter and we got ourselves some Sweet Potato Butter. So delish! 

After leaving Bryson City, we went back to Cherokee to the Harrah's Casino on the Reservation. No pictures of this, but I totally won $70 on a 30 cent bet on penny slots. Boo-yah! I ended the night up $40, Jack ended down $15. Not too shabby for us novice gamblers! Then we drove back through the mountains (much more scary in the pitch black night) and ended the night with wine (me), beer (him), and cigars (both) in the hot tub on the chalet deck. 

Monday, we partook in a Gatlinburg tradition - the Sky Lift. 

One cable and one tiny little yellow bar protecting you from sure death.

We did some shopping and looking around, and then we hit up another Gatlinburg tradition for us - going to the Thomas Kinkade Gallery. Ever since that very first trip to Gatlinburg, we make it a point to go into the Gallery and drool over the expensive beautiful-ness. Back in 2006, we literally fought over two paintings that we couldn't have afforded in a million years - Evening Majesty (which is now sold out unless you want a gigantic one for $2200, btw), and Mountain Paradise. 

The Hubs pulled me aside in one of the gallery rooms and told me, very sweetly, that he knows how badly we've both wanted a Kinkade, and that he doesn't do enough nice things for me (not true!), and that he wanted to surprise me and purchase which ever one I wanted as an anniversary gift. 

I was floored. My husband is frugal. My husband handles the finances and gets upset when I eat out for lunch. My husband wears underwear until you cant figure out which hole the legs go into because he doesn't "need" to spend the money on new ones. (TMI? Sorry 'bout that.) But the point is - here was my sweet, sweet man, telling me that he doesn't do enough for me, and offering to buy me any incredibly expensive painting I wanted (within our pre-determined budget, of course.) Seriously? Tears. At the art gallery. In public. But I don't care. 

We had an awesome dealer working with us, who was able to help us figure out a way to stay within our budget and accomplish two things: (1) Get the Mountain Paradise Kinkade that we have been wanting for so long (24x36, and framed), and (2) Get another painting that we had seen in the gallery this trip and fallen madly in love with. This one is by an 18-year-old, self-taught artist named Abraham J. Hunter, and it's GORGEOUS. And all mine in an 18x27, also framed. 

The Hunter piece will be arriving this week, but we have to wait until December to get our Kinkade. The piece has to come from the warehouse, which takes 3-4 weeks, but our gallery is hosting a highlighting event with a Kinkade Master Highlighter (a painter who was taught by Thomas Kinkade himself, who highlights certain areas of the paintings with an additional layer of paint, adding value to the piece) in early December, so they are going to keep our painting there so that it can get highlighted, then ship it to us. I can't wait!  

After dropping a redonkulous amount of money on artwork (how "adult" of us! LOL), we went to a few more places and then headed out of Dodge. We finally arrived home a little after midnight this morning and promptly passed out. All in all, my trip was fabulous. I love my husband, I love that city, and I love my life. :)

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!

BYOC

It's Friday! I guess you know what that means...

BYOC – Bring Your Own Crazy….5 little questions we ask to get to know each other better and to give our blogging brains a break. Copy and paste to your own blog and enjoy!

1. If you have a camera and have the time – take the contents of your purse out – and take a picture of said contents and explain them. If you don’t have time or a camera – please describe the contents of your purse.

I usually keep my purse pretty empty, much to the delight of my MIL. There's little in life that she likes more than to feed her superiority complex when I don't have something completely random in my purse that no normal person could ever foresee needing, and yet, somehow, we need. What ever it is, she's got it. It's like Mary Freakin' Poppins in there. Need a coat rack? I'm pretty sure she'd have it in her purse just incase you need it and her daughter-in-law didn't come prepared for just such an occasion. 

But I digress. 

In my purse currently, there is:

• a pink wallet (with a debit card sticking out)
• my phone (had I not used it to take the picture)
• loose change
• 8 used fake fingernails (don't ask)
• my keys
• a leopard print pair of tweezers in a plastic tube
• 4 hair ties
• 3 earrings (one and a half sets, lol)
• a bobby pin
• a tiny plastic baby from a Mardi Gras King Cake 3 years ago (which I put in my purse when I left my old job and have forgotten to take out)  
• two pens
• miscellaneous receipts
• a bottle of this
• business cards
• a container of Sensa
• a notepad that I got from St. Jude Children's Research Center

Random. And note the complete lack of essentials like tissues, medicines, bandaids, Tide to Go, etc. that my MIL likes to remind me I don't have. What can I say, lady? I like to live on the edge. Neener neener with my tongue stuck out.

2. Repeat question: I’m going to pick a person not knowing if you have a relationship with this person or if the person even exists and you try to describe the person in 5 words or short sentences. Your kindergarten teacher.

Seriously, how do you remember that person?! I have no recolection of kindergarden, except for making way too many art projects out of uncooked macaroni (some of which still get hung on my mama's Christmas tree, thankyouverymuch).

I'm sure my kindergarden teacher was a very nice person.

3. What’s your favorite guilty pleasure / trashy TV show you like to watch?

Much to my chagrin, I do not have cable. However, I do enjoy trashy reality shows. I loved "Love In The Wild", and still love The Amazing Race, even though I wouldn't really consider it trashy. I heart pretty much any reality show you'd find on TLC, plus any of the documentaries on addicts, prisoners, and serial killers.

What does that say about me? Eeek.

4. A lot of you told me about your first day of school experiences when I posted about how my 5 year old going to kindergarten wasn’t causing me too much heartache. So now I’m officially asking – tell me about one of your first day of school experiences that sticks out in your mind the most. Who put you on the bus? Did you ride the bus? Did your parents take pics? Did they walk you into school? Drive you there? Cook you breakfast?

I can't remember any of my personal first days of school and I haven't had the pleasure(?) of sending Bubbers off yet. I'm sure it will be filled with pictures and tears.

5. Repeat question: Summarize your week in real life and in blog land.

In real life, I made the decision to get banded, which I posted in blog life here. I'm also going through a work/life/husband crisis where I just can't be happy with anything in any situation. (It's a fun time over here in BatShitCrazyLand, won't you join me? My husband sure would appreciate it.) I'm looking forward to the 3 day weekend, and to starting it a little early - I'm leaving work at 12:30 to go pick up Bubbers and take him to his 8 month check-up. Yay!

In blog life, we finished the remodel! Yay! Thanks, Tricia! For some reason, the post fonts aren't working on IE9, but I think she's working on that. I've been catching up on banded bloggers' stories, usually starting from the beginning of their blogs or band journeys. It takes a lot of time, but the information is incredibly helpful. I hope that my blog will be a source of information for possible bandsters one day, too. And also, in Blogland, I'm growing insanely jealous of those BOOBs who are going to Chicago. Hopefully I'll be an attendee in 2012, ladies, so save some fun for me!

Guess that's it, lovelies. Have a wonderful 3 day weekend if you get one!

"Everybody's working for the weekend..."

(Working for the Weekend - Loverboy)


The past six months have brought about a lot of changes. I have a new baby, which y'all know about. But I also have a new job, too.

My return from maternity leave was definitely unpleasant. For one, I was leaving a gorgeous seven-week-old baby, and for two, I was leaving a gorgeous seven-week-old baby to return to a job that I was really unhappy with.

I stayed there because it was good money and easy work. I liked the company, I liked (most of) the people. I really, really disliked my day-to-day tasks, my overall contribution to the company (or lack thereof), and the lack of direction I was receiving. When I came back from maternity leave, I was basically told that I was lucky I had a job to return to, and that I wouldn't be receiving any sort of raise or bonus.

That's not exactly an incentive to stay somewhere you're unhappy with in the first place.

So, in typical Mrs. B's OCD fashion, I obsessed over job searches. Any free time I had was spent on Career Builder, Indeed, Glassdoor.com, and any other job related website I could think of.

My MIL sent me job listings when ever she saw something that might be pertinent, and early on into my search she sent me a link to a training job. I brushed it off because it was located at a business that was farther away (and in the opposite direction) from where I was hoping to work. I searched and searched, and sent in resume after resume. It was definitely slim pickings, so I eventually decided to go ahead and send in my resume for the position my MIL found.

I ended up getting call backs for two places. Two. Out of dozens of applications and resumes.

The first was a training position at a downtown bank. Yay, downtown! Where I used to work, and where The BFF and several friends work, and close to my hometown roots. Boo, downtown traffic, gas costs, and exclusively training the collections department. Ultimately, I interviewed twice for this job, but was not selected. No big loss.

The second was for the job my MIL found. While I was in the process of interviewing for the bank position, I was also going through the process of interviewing for this job. It's a local retail company with 10 brick and mortar stores. They were looking for a corporate trainer with knowledge of Learning Management Systems.

I went through an initial phone screening, an in-person interview with the Director of HR and the COO, a second in-person interview with the Director of HR and the Director of Stores, and a third in-person interview including a powerpoint presentation with all three of those guys. After that, I had two phone interviews with members of the board. And finally, finally,  I was offered the position. When I came in to sign my offer letter, I also had an impromptu meeting with the owner of the company.

After all that, I'm adding "professional hoop jumper" to my resume.

I've been with the company since April. Currently, I'm developing their Learning Management System from scratch, and they recently decided that they wanted to add an intranet, too. It's two, two, two jobs in one! (Shoot me now!)

I love it there, though. They give me the freedom to make decisions, and they have absolutely gone out of their way to make sure I feel comfortable, at home, and have all my questions answered. They are sending me to Florida, Las Vegas, and Dallas this year for some discovery/training opportunities. 

My only regret is that I'm a horrible, no good negotiator. It's my own damn fault that they've gotten me for a steal. But you know what? There's something to say for not getting physically sick to the stomach at the thought of having to go into work the next day. That's for sure.

I'm still 'working for the weekend', but at least I don't mind the weekdays as much.

Five.

I was happy with four, really I was. That there's my problem, you see. I started out this year saying "Hell yeah, I'm gonna run five 5ks this year!" The first one sucked, but was exciting. The second, third and especially the fourth, really sucked and weren't quite as exciting as that first 5k high. I had the fifth one scheduled and then (miracle of miracles) I had to go to my Grandparents' 50th Anniversary that day and couldn't go to the race.

And you know what, besides a little disappointment, I was perfectly okay with not reaching my goal of five 5ks. I had made my peace with it, especially after the Cheetah Run absolutely kicked my ass.

Sure, there was a little nagging voice in my head saying "look, you need to do another one. You said you'd do five, and you need to do five." but he was so easily squashed by the memories of the suckiness of the previous ones that I really wasn't worried about it.

Then The BFF (bless her little, pea-picking heart) sent me an email at work one day a couple weeks ago.

"Any interest in doing this 5k with me?"
"Yes, actually." (Where the HELL did that come from?! That couldn't have been me!)

And then the dread set in. My thought process went something like this: "Oh my God, I have to do this again? What the hell am I thinking? Although, it would be nice to actually accomplish my goal. Yeah, but dude, they suck! I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this."

And most of the way to the course, I repeated that mantra. "I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this."

But, I did.

Here's The BFF and I with the Mayor of Santaland! Who knew that (1) there was a Santaland, and (2) it had a mayor who frequented 5ks? (ps...does he not look like a Willy Wonka character?! lol)

Yeah, it's all fun and games before the torture starts.

The 5k was through a local drive-through holiday lights display. Most of the first mile was a nice flat loop out and back, and then it went two times up through the loop where the lights display was. OH. MY. GOD. the hills. I will have nightmares about those hills. One hill that went up for ever and ever and ever. Then down a steep hill, then up a smaller hill, then down a steep hill, then up another freaking hill that went on for ever and ever and ever again, then down a steep hill.

I have never been so close to giving up in all my life. After the third hill on that loop, I really thought that I was going to finish the first lap around and give up. I very, very seriously considered stopping when I rounded the corner and saw the first hill looming in front of me. And the two-mile marker midway up was just a slap in the face. I couldn't do it. I couldn't face doing those hills again and going through that hell. It was cold. I couldn't feel my hands, I couldn't breathe, and when I did, it was icy daggers in my chest. I wasn't even two miles in yet, and had three huge, crazy-ass hills standing in my way.

And I didn't want to do the damn 5k in the first place.

Luc,kily, as I rounded that corner and saw that hill, I also caught a glimpse of two of my co-workers just a couple steps infront of me. They had started the race as walkers. As walkers, and they had passed me. Which isn't really that scandalous, since I'm used to getting passed by walkers when I do 5ks. But they were my co-workers. One, I didn't want to look bad infront of them, since they knew I started as a runner, and two, I was so focused on catching up with them that I temporarily forgot about my determination to give up, I turned the corner and started up those damn hills one last time.

And I finished that damn race. I finished my FIFTH 5k of 2009. As much as I didn't want to, I accomplished the goal I set back in May. I have actually completely completed a goal. Other than my wedding, I am almost 100% positive that I can't say that about anything else in my life.

I didn't want to, but I did, and I'm glad.

October 18, 2009

So, I should have written this post yesterday, but I was a little preoccupied with my husband and my anniversary and all...

Better late than never, right? So without further ado:

The Hubs was incredibly sweet and sent 18 amazing roses to me at work on Friday. As most women will agree, there's little better in this world than getting flowers at work. It's pretty much the best - and even better when they're absolutely gorgeous, as these were:

It just so happens that we got married on Sweetest Day, which I realize is not a "real" holiday, and isn't even celebrated throughout the whole country. Alas, it is celebrated here in the mid-west, and we now get to take full advantage of the fact that our anniversary will fall on or near Sweetest Day every year.

How did we take advantage of it this year? The Ohio Renaissance Festival's Romance Weekend. One, we love RenFest, and two, what's better than a little medieval romance on your anniversary?

We started out the day with our favorite show: Guido Crescendo (left) and Dirk Perfect (right) as The Swordsmen:

We walked around and meandered through the tons and tons of artisan shops until it was time for the big event: a medieval mass vow renewal. We met at the chapel and renewed our vows in a renaissance ceremony with about 2o other couples.

During our wedding, I somehow managed to hold myself together and made it through the whole ceremony while only shedding a couple dainty tears. For some reason, I couldn't hold it together in front of 20 other couples at the Renaissance Festival! What's up with that?! While I was saying my vows, the tears just started flowing and wouldn't stop. It was very touching.

Here we are with the pastor who performed the ceremony:

And here we are with our ceremonial certificate:

After the vow renewal, we were both starting to get hungry, and you know what that means...

A giant turkey leg for The Hubs! (I personally think it's grosser than gross, but whatever floats his boat...)

For me, heaven is:

Funnel Cake! (Although, this one was waaaaaay too crispy.)

After the good eats, it was time for one of the crowd favorites:

The Joust! This was our side's knight, Sir Marcus. He kind of sucked, as the other guy beat him in all the games of skill and kicked his butt in the actual joust. Oh well, the horses were beautiful, and - bonus - they're rescue horses! Yay!

We had both decided that we would get each other's anniversary presents at the festival, and The Hubs picked out this amazing, hand-made walking stick. As a bonus, the artisan hand-carved his initials in it for us while we waited!

The gift I picked was this beautiful ceramic ring/jewelry bowl:
I love it!

One of my favorite parts of the Renaissance Festival is the fact that they always have amazing artisans there performing their crafts. We watched this glassblower make a beautiful mug:

And then we couldn't resist bringing two home for ourselves:

I'm not sure if you can tell from the picture, but they are HUGE! They probably hold about 20 ounces, and they probably weigh more than a pound a piece! Incredibly heavy and beautiful. (And ex-pen-SIVE, at $40 each, but we couldn't resist!)

There were so many beautiful bowls and ornaments and vases in his shop, we could have easily spent another $200 there, but instead, we managed to just keep it to those mugs and a $20 ornament:

We walked around some more and decided on a whim to stop and watch the belly dancers. OH. MY. GOD. if I could do that, my husband would be a very happy man. I have video that I hope to post sometime soon, but for now, you'll just have to take these pictures and use your imagination...

First, she stole someone's beer and did an entire routine with it on her head:

And then, she moved on to something a little more *ahem* dangerous...

They were amazing, and made a chilly day awfully H-O-T.

When we got home, The Hubs took his pre-work nap, and it wasn't until he had been at work for a half an hour that we remembered that we hadn't done any of the other anniversary things we were supposed to do yesterday.

Oh well, that means two days of anniversary! LOL

So, tonight when we got home, The Hubs made dinner, and we had some dessert...

Two layers of saran wrap and three layers of aluminum foil later, and voila! Year old cake! Yummm...
We were both a wee bit apprehensive to actually try it, but once we did, we were pleasantly surprised at how well it held up. It was a little soggy from the strawberry filling, but tasted and smelled like fresh, yummy cake. Thanks to The BFF one year later for making our delish wedding cake!

After the cake, it was time for us to reaffirm our wedding vows, which we read from a copy of our wedding ceremony. Then it was time for the part I was most excited about...

I'm not sure if I ever told you about our unity ceremony. Our mothers each brought up a piece of ribbon and our pastor held it while we "tied the knot". We made the ribbons long enough so that we could tie a new knot every year on our anniversary...
And that, my dear friends, was my very first wedding anniversary. It was a great day, and I'm definitely looking forward to many more.