Trying Something New

Less at Less of Less turned me on to Friend Makin' Monday, which is put on by Kenlie at All The Weigh. It's a series of questions posted every Monday that a blogger answers and then links back to in the comments on All The Weigh. This week's fill-in-the-blank style tickled my fancy, so here we go:

I like romantic comedies.

I don’t like movies that make me cry. Even in the "good" way. 

I love my husband and son. A shocking, surprising, and unbelievable amount. 

I dream of travelling to every state in the union. 

I wonder if this weight loss thing will ever really click for me. 

I know how to fold my hands into the shape of a frog's face. If I had three hands, I'd take a picture to prove it. 

I went to Austria for 10 days during my sophomore year in high school.

I think about everything way too much. 

I plan to become an elementary school teacher. 

I regret everything related to my first go-round of college. 

I do night-night time with my son every other night. It's my absolute favorite time of the day.

I drink amaretto sours or moscato when I'm in the mood to imbibe. 

I wish on falling stars, repeating numbers on the clock, necklace clasps that have turned to the pendant, wishbones, loose eyelashes, and birthday candles. Two wishes if the clasp on my wishbone necklace turns to the front. 

I am a music lover. 

I am not an adventurous eater. 

I need to stop being lazy. 

I hope the earth doesn't implode (either by natural or man-made causes) before my kid has a long, full life. 

I want a decent job for my husband in his chosen field. 

I sometimes sit in the bathtub with the hottest water I can stand pouring down on me from the shower and just cry. 

I always find the positive. Eventually. 

I can crochet. 

I cannot dive head first into water. 

I avoid people I owe work assignments to. 

I will finish my freaking degree, for once and for all. 

Wasn't that fun? If you want, you can participate in Friend Makin' Monday by answering all the questions on your own blog and then returning to All The Weigh to leave your blog link in the comments for others to check out. 

TTT - Pet Peeve Edition

So thanks to the lovely (and pregnant with a sassy baby girl) Laura Belle, we've got Ten Things Thursday - wherein I get to cheat and still feel like a productive blogger. Love it!

I've been stressed lately, which usually makes annoying things stand out as even more annoying than they would be on a regular basis. So it's not very hard for me to come up with a Ten Things Thursday full of things that annoy me. Here goes, in no particular order:

{1} People who "pimp" out their babies on Facebook for "I'm the cutest baby in the whole, wide world" contest votes. I don't care how much I like you, or how cute your baby is - I'm not going to go vote so that he/she can "beat out" other one-year-olds for the title. Quit asking me to!

{2} People who drive on the shoulder when traffic is stopped on the highway. Unless someone in your car is having a baby or a heart attack, get your ass back in line and wait like the rest of us! 

{3} People over the age of eight who shuffle their feet when they walk. For some reason, that irks the crap out of me. Pick up your feet, it's not that hard!

{4} People who say/post things (on FB usually) to fish for attention. There's one girl on my friends list who does this constantly with status updates like, "Heading to Children's with DS", or "OMG, I am so stressed out and I just don't think I can take any more of this!", which comes off to me like you just want somebody to ask what's wrong with you and give you sympathy/attention. 

{5} My husband, who, after putting The Kid to bed last night promptly fell asleep in his clothes with the lights on in our bedroom. I came in and laid down while checking blogs and FB on my phone. After about half an hour, I woke him up to tell him that he needed to set his alarm because I was going to bed. He says, "You're going to bed?! I thought we were going to talk about X,Y, and Z?!" Um, yeah. We were going to talk about those things before you spent the past hour passed out. Now it's WAY past my bedtime! Gah. Men. 

{6} The fact that a fricking salad costs me eight dollars at Panera. Or anywhere else for that matter. Who in the world decided that it was fair to charge $8 - $12 for a few ounces of chicken and a bunch of lettuce? How many bags of lettuce could I buy at the store for that money?! Ugh. Also, {6A} that I can't buy Panera's Honey Tangerine dressing in the store and there doesn't seem to be anything similar on the market. I need it in my life and don't want to pay $8.08 every time I feel the craving. 

{7} Being on the weight loss teeter-totter. I really can't handle all this bouncing around. I just want to be able to post some sort of loss consistently. I am beyond frustrated by this. 

{8} That people/society seem to be in a pretty big hurry for MY son to grow up. He should have been off the bottle the second he turned one (he is off the bottle, but it was more like 15 months when we kicked the habit completely - gasp!). He should be off the pacifier by now (we just did this one a few weeks ago, at 27 months - gasp!). He should be potty trained by now (we're not even close to trying this and I'm not even remotely concerned about it - gasp!). He should be sleeping in a "real" bed by now (my kid likes his crib and I like the safety of it. he's not moving out of it any time soon - gasp!). Stop it! Stop trying to rush my kid into being an adult! This time is already flying like crazy, and I don't feel the need to pressure myself, my family, or my freaking two-year-old into thinking that he's falling behind already. He has been a person for all of two years, for jeebus' sake. Give the kid a break and let him (and me) enjoy being a baby for the short time it lasts. [End Mama Bear rant.]

{9} That my grocery store NEVER has enough lines open. I went grocery shopping last night. Two lanes open - that's all. Srsly? Ugh. 

{10} That money makes the world go 'round and my dreams of being an intrepid world traveller/travel show host/owner of my own far away island where I can run naked on my own damn beach (in slow motion, Baywatch style) and get sand in unspeakable places will never happen. Oops, did I say too much?

Over it.

Last Week: 239.6 lb
This Week: 244.6 lb
Gain: 5.0 lb

And I'm over it.

Especially over it when I gained back five freaking pounds and yet, I'm still PBing at almost every fucking meal.

I can't eat "normal" foods. I can't live on protein shakes.

I'm calling for a serious unfill today. I want it out. Everything I just got and more. 2cc, 3cc, I don't care at this point. I just want to get to a point where I know for sure that I'm not going to be PBing on anything.

And I am going to stay that way for a month. And during that month, I'm not going to weigh in. The weigh ins have just become something I dread, and something that makes me feel like crap. So I'm not going to do them for a while.

This sucks.

Unfill

I decided yesterday to see how lunch went before I made any unfill decisions. So when I couldn't get down more than four bites of some chili, my decision was pretty much made for me. 

Luckily, someone had cancelled their 3 pm appointment, so I was able to get it. I noticed as I left work and was driving there that I was starting to feel some uncomfortable tightness in my chest. Not quite the same feeling as being stuck - I'm guessing what I was feeling was my esophagus/stomach feeling swollen and inflamed from everything that has been going on. Yet another sign that an unfill was necessary. 

I ended up seeing Kim yesterday. She's the nurse I originally liked going to, but not the nurse who did my fill on Saturday. We discussed what was going on and she mentioned that she would probably take 0.5cc out. I said that I was thinking more along the lines of 0.3cc because I didn't want to just end up paying for more in a couple weeks, but I also conceded that I've never been in this position before so I don't know what kind of relief I would get for 0.3cc vs 0.5cc. 

Kim said that we would see "what her syringe told her" and make a decision as to how much to take from there. I gave her a really puzzled look and she explained that if you're really irritated, as soon as she gets the syringe in the port, the saline will start coming out on its own because of the pressure from the swelling and irritation. So she said that she could gauge how irritated I was by how much and how fast saline pushes up into the syringe. 

Huh. Who knew?

If you'll remember, last time Kim did my fill, she ended up sticking me three times and jabbing at the side of my port a lot. It was not the most comfortable fill experience. On Saturday, Kristina got my port in one single, quick stick, which was wonderful. Well, I don't know what's up with Kim, but she ended up doing the same thing this time! It is so painful! She does the initial stick, and then a zillion tiny sticks while she's in there, hitting the side of my port and trying to get in the right spot. I'm not sure if I want to keep going through that with her, even though our personalities mesh. 

Once she actually got the needle in the right spot, she said, "Yeah, you're really irritated in there. It's coming right out." I had over 1.5cc push its way out into the syringe on its own, which I guess is a bad sign. Kim struggled for a bit, trying to figure out how much to take out - she even said at one point that she wanted to take the whole 1.0cc out, which I had to practically beg her not to do. 

In the end, she took out 0.5cc and I'm on liquids/soft & mushies through today, plus an ibuprofen regimen to reduce the swelling. 

I think it's going to be a few days before I'm going to be able to get a true read on where I'm at because of all the swelling and irritation. Right now, I feel much better because the general tightness in my chest is gone, and I'm doing fine with liquids - they're going through like nothing. I'm just going to baby things for a few days and then start paying really close attention. 

I'm glad I got the unfill, but I'm sad to think about how the weight loss isn't going to be so stellar. But in the end, it's more important to keep the band & my body healthy than it is to have quick, awesome weight loss, so I feel like I did the right thing. 

Wednesday Weigh In and Thoughts on My Fill

Last Week: 245.2 lb
This Week: 239.6 lb
Loss: 5.6 lb

Yes, you read that right. Five point six pounds. And after struggling for weeks and weeks bouncing up and down the same few numbers on the scale, surprise! Here are the 230s! Which puts me this many pounds down from my HNPR weight:

On one hand, I'm super stoked to have lost that much, and super stoked to be in the 230s, which my brain just isn't quite registering yet. On the other hand, this fill is STILL rough. I made it through lunch yesterday without an issue, but can't say the same for dinner. Nothing stayed down. A little while later, I tried some cereal because {1} I was hungry, dammit, and {2} I just wanted to chew something. The cereal slid right through, as I had hoped it would, which was such a relief that I really had to work to limit myself.

If I'm honest with myself, I think I need a tiny unfill. Maybe 0.2 cc. At the same time, though, I'm enjoying the benefits of being where I am. I haven't been snacking nearly as much - partly because I'm just not hungry, and partly because I'm scared to death that whatever I choose to snack on will make me miserable in five minutes. I haven't been eating breads, pastas, rice, etc. because I'm afraid to. And knowing I'm teeter tottering along the red line has made me super cautious as I eat (which I should be anyway, but am not the best at remembering). So there ARE good habits that are being forced upon me by this restriction. And there are also not-so-great consequences, like the fear and possibility of PBing up every single meal. (Which mentally makes me feel bulimic, and that's definitely not the mindset I should get from the band.)

I just know that I need to make a decision soon, because I've been told that if I go in for an unfill within 7 days of a fill, it won't cost me anything (I haven't tested this out yet, and am skeptical, so I guess we'll see). So I have to go back before Saturday if I'm going to do it. And what I want to do is just say, "oh, well, let's see how lunch goes.", and then if lunch goes fine, "let's see how dinner goes", and I'll just keep doing that until Friday night when a free unfill isn't an option anymore. I just need to decide, but I don't want to. I don't want to give up good weight loss numbers and go back to jumping around the scale for weeks on end. But I also don't want to PB every other meal and be hungry, but miserable at the thought of eating anything.

I just want to make smart decisions. What's best for my band, my body, my bank account, etc. It's just not an easy decision to make. I don't want to go back and get some taken out, only to need it back in a couple weeks and have to pay another $75 to get what I already had.

And now I'm rambling and talking in circles. So I'll take that as a sign that I need to end this and just hit "publish" and let all my wonderful bloggy pals comment to help me figure all this out. GO!

Two Things...

ONE) I can't believe I forgot to send some blog love to my dear Cheri at Staying In The Pink. She's joining the banded sisterhood today, so please stop by and send her some love!

TWO) I was able to (mostly) eat lunch! I'm currently completely obsessed with Panera, and have been getting their Classic salad (no onions!) plus Chicken with the sweet, sweet nectar of the gods that is the Honey Tangerine Dressing. I ate super slowly, finished most of the chicken, and ate probably only about 1/2 cup of the greens total. And I had two teeeny tiny pinches of the inside of the baguette. But I was able to eat! I started feeling a tiny bit stuck after about 5 minutes of eating, but just waited for a few minutes and it passed. And, rather unfortunately, I've just discovered that my band has ABSOLUTELY NO PROBLEM letting Whoppers (as in the malted milk balls, not the Burger King sandwich, eww) slide right down. I'm cutting myself off. Right now. (Okay, I just popped one more in, but seriously. Right now.)

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.

Wednesday Weigh In

Last Week: 244.0 lb
This Week: 245.2 lb
Gain: 1.2 lb

Two things:

1) I can NOT wait for my fill on Saturday.

2) I have GOT to figure out a way to stop snacking all. freaking. day. long.

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!

Wed-nes-day Weigh In

Last Week: 246.6 lb
This Week: 244.0 lb
Loss: 2.6 lb

Am I the only person who says "wed-nes-day" in her head while she types the word? I hope not. I also use "S.U.C.C.E.S.S. that's the way you spell success" when necessary. Thank you, elementary school.

Aaaaanyhoo...

I knew the weight would go away. Stupid Rally's fries. It was a teeny tiny little bonus that another 0.2 lb went with it, so I'm happy with this week's results. I'm now down this many pounds from my HNPR weight:

I made an appointment for a fill on April 6th. Can't wait to get in there and see Kim. I'm thinking 0.5 cc this time, but we'll see what she recommends. And apparently, my surgeon's office is changing things up now - the lady I made my appointment with (a new girl - Teresa) said that they have a new policy that if it's been "a while" since you've been in the office, you have to get a barium swallow before you can come in. She didn't specify what "a while" actually means, so I'll have to find out when I get in for my appointment. Apparently it means more than 9 weeks, since that's how long it will have been for me.

Originally, I was annoyed that they might make me do the barium swallow, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the only reason I didn't want to have to do it (besides having to pay for the damn thing) is fear that they'll find something wrong. This is me working through my instinct of sticking my head in the sand in the face of a problem. (Go me!) So I said to myself, "Self. If there's a problem (yo I'll solve it), you need to know. That's how things get fixed. Get over it."

In the end, I don't have to get one this time, but there might be a time in the future when I do. And then Self is just gonna have to deal. And maybe listen to some old school Vanilla Ice.

In crappy news, my Diet Bet ends tomorrow and I'm not gonna make it. $20 down the drain. I'm really interested to see how many of the 400+ people did meet their goals, though. Good on them.

In slightly-less-crappy news, I completed enough classes this term to remain eligible for financial aid next term. I'm technically in "warning" status for next term (April 1 - September 30) and have to complete a certain percentage of my classes in order to stay enrolled in school. Blargh. Mess. But I always do much better in the April - September term because things are calmer during that time of year. And I don't want to go through the stress I've been going through for the past 2 months again. So I'm convinced that this next term is going to go much more smoothly.

Oh, and bonus - one of the classes that I actually DID complete this past term was my LAST MATH CLASS EVER. Hallelujah, praise the lawd.

I'm carrying over three courses into next term - Science, History, and Human Development and Learning. And I'll be adding two more classes to that - Diversity and Inclusion and Testing. Human Development, Diversity and Inclusion, and Testing are all Foundations of Teaching courses. Science and History are liberal arts requirements. Can't wait to be done with those two because then I'll be past all the gen ed courses and only doing education courses. Woo!

Wednesday Weigh In and Meeting A Blogger Crush

This is my 300th blog post! What do I get for that?

Last Week: 244.2 lb
This Week: 246.6 lb
Gain: 2.4 lb

I was doing so well. Bringing my lunch, tracking my carbs, calories and protein. And then the french fries happened. I picked the absolute worst time (10 pm the night before a weigh in) and the worst food (Rally's french fries and a Hi-C - carb city much?) to give in to a craving. And today I'm super bummed about it.

AKA: "The Devil"

But look! I didn't hide from it! I didn't pretend it doesn't exist. It's here. And it will go away.

It's one weigh in. One give-in to a craving in an otherwise great food week (so far.) Meh, whatevs.

In other totally awesome news:

Last night, I got to meet one of my girl crushes - Jenny Lawson, The Bloggess!

Darn you, Books & Co. employee, for not being able to take clear pictures!

If you're not familiar with her blog or her memoir, Let's Pretend This Never Happened, Jenny kind of comes with a warning. She finds humor in very offbeat things. She says things people just don't say. She's wonderfully weird. She cusses. A lot.

In fact, Books & Co. told her she couldn't cuss during her reading and talk, so she decided to replace all of the cuss words with "hippopotamus". She chose to read aloud the third chapter in her book, called "Stanley the Magical Talking Squirrel" (in which her taxidermist father scars she and her little sister for life by making them believe that a roadkill squirrel is alive and speaks to him...seriously, you just have to read the book.) Originally, she was going to read a different chapter, but it had too many hippopotamuses in it, so she chose the "cleanest" chapter, which was still chockablock with hippopotami.

As a side note, one of the things I absolutely LOVE about her book is that she tells these completely outrageous stories - and remember, it's a memoir, so it's supposedly a recollection of her life - and the stories are so ridiculous that you think, "No way. You're making that up. That didn't really happen." And then you turn the page, and there's a picture showing that they really did have a pet raccoon named Rambo that they dressed up in pajamas.

One of the funniest parts of the book signing was when she went on a small side tangent about fellatio and Texas law. And how her friend got her father to pay for a ticket by telling him that fellatio was Spanish for "speeding". Probably a "you had to be there moment", but hilarious nonetheless. 

On a serious note, though, Jenny struggles with mental illness on a daily basis - anxiety disorder, impulse control disorder, and depression are among the illnesses she has dealt with, spoken about, and raised awareness of. She shared some great advice that someone (I can't remember who now, which bothers me) gave her when she was about to have a panic attack over recording her audio book. She sent a frantic email to this person (ugh, who was it?!) and they sent back one sentence that changed her life:

"Pretend you're good at it."

Now, Jenny uses that advice when she's near a panic attack, an agoraphobic woman faced with standing up in front of hundreds of people on her book tour. It was totally a takeaway for me, applicable in so many areas of my life. I'm going to try to remember it from now on - whatever may come my way, whatever paralyzes me with fear, whatever I think there's just no way I can accomplish - I'm gonna just pretend I'm good at it and see where it takes me. 

It was a great night. I'm glad I went. 

And you should totally read that book. 

Because, Who Doesn't Love Progress Pics?

The picture on the left is from August 2011. On the right, this past Sunday. Almost 40 pounds...NUTS.

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! 

TTT (Around The World Edition)

Oh, dear pregnant and beautiful Laura Belle, what would we do without you and your Ten Things Thursday? The wonderful time in bloggy mcbloggerton land where I get to drone on about randomness and still feel accomplished. (Oh, wait. That's pretty much every time I post.) But I digress...

Uno: What does "prime the band" mean? I have heard some people say that drinking a certain amount of water before you eat "primes the band". What is that exactly? Just something I've wondered for a while.

Deux: Thank you all for the kind comments and responses to yesterday's post. Often times, we are our own harshest critics, and it is so wonderful to have you all here to remind me that I don't have to be so darn mean to myself all the time! Plus, y'all had some great tips on organizing and getting stuff done which I'll be trying to implement in the near future.

Three: Do you know the blog Young House Love? On a post yesterday, they linked to a company called A Vintage Poster, wherein I found this gem which was so apropos to my Whiny Wednesday post. I just need to pick a place to start and get to gettin' rather than feel so paralyzed by everything.

Vier: I'm running out of languages, gonna have to start googling soon. Did you even notice? :)

Fimm: School continues to stress me out. It just doesn't seem possible that I will be able to complete all my assignments, turn them in, and have them graded (which takes 3-5 days for each) by the 31st. Darn me and that procrastination monster.

Sex: (Well, Latin, you saucy minx...) I'm not having any. (badum ching!)

Sette: I have been obsessed with Olive Garden lately. I wish I were kidding when I tell you that I have had it four times in the past seven days. Cheese ravioli rocks my socks.

Juróom ñett: I once worked with a guy from Senegal. His native language was Wolof, which is just fun to say. (Pronounced "WOHL-ahv"). He was also fluent in French and English. He got very offended if he called your name and you answered with "What?" In his strong Wolofian/French accent, he would say, "Don't say what to me. It is rude." I am reminded of him several times a week when Logan calls for me and I say, "What?" 

Nau: The Bloggess is coming to Dayton next Tuesday for a book signing. I'm going with a friend from high school. Although, I bought the electronic version of her book, so short of having her sign my Kindle, I think I'm going to have to shell out more moolah for a book I already own. Blah to that. 

Tō: I work for a regional group of retail furniture stores. Many times in the almost-two-years I've worked here, I've had friends or family ask about getting my (pretty decent) discount. I'm too chicken to do it for them because I don't really know how the process works and I'm afraid I'll get caught. Wimpy McWimperton, right here, buddy. Not sure why that popped into my head as a TTT, but thereyougo.

Blogger challenge: List all 10 languages in the comments! I gave you lots of hints...

Being Honest (and a Wednesday Weigh-In)

Even with the Lap Band, this weight loss thing is difficult. Things haven't been going well for the past two-ish weeks, and I purposefully didn't weigh in last week because I knew the numbers were going to be bad. Like, up three pounds kind of bad. So I didn't weigh in. I didn't want record of that. And part of the reason is because I know how much my weight fluctuates (scale whore, much?) and I knew that my weight probably wouldn't be as bad the next week.

And the worst part about sticking my head in the sand like that? It worked.

While my weigh in last week would have shown me up more than three pounds, my weigh in this week shows me down almost one pound.

Two Weeks Ago: 245.0 lb
This Week: 244.2 lb
Loss: 0.8 lb

*edited: accidentally posted my weight as 244.8, but it was 244.2. Thanks Connie for checking my math!*

Obviously this isn't discouraging me from skipping bad weigh ins, now is it? Ugh. The scary part is that those are old habits - avoiding accountability, pretending like nothing is wrong, hiding from the truth, etc. Those are Fat Anna habits, and I have got to get better at working through them. The Lap Band isn't going to fix any of that for me. I have to do it on my own. (Scary!)

It just sucks. And the root of my problem is nothing but sheer laziness. Sure, I could blame it on stress (because I am stressed beyond belief). I could blame it on my schedule (because I have a lot on my plate right now). I could blame it on the band (because I think I'm still a little outside of the green zone).

But really? It's just laziness. I'm too lazy to pack my lunch. I'm too lazy to pack workout clothes. Even if I did pack clothes, I'm too lazy to actually go to the fitness center and work out. I've been too lazy to take my Bydureon injections, so my hunger has returned full force and I can feel my blood sugars getting a tiny bit out of whack.

Do they make an anti-laziness pill? Hell, who am I kidding? Even if they did, I'd probably be too lazy to take it!

How do I change this? How do I make myself do the things that I need to do? Even the things that most normal people do on a regular basis? (Like vacuuming more than, oh, maybe once a month. Or doing laundry before the entire family runs out of clean socks and underwear. Or dusting, like, ever.)

And I can hear my awesome friend Heather whispering in my ear right now that I need to show myself a little grace. So I'll move on from Whiny Wednesday...

In other, less frustrating news, the DietBet that I'm participating in now has more than 400 members and is worth $8,380.00. I have five more pounds to lose by March 28th to be eligible for my share of the pot. I really need to up the ante (bad pun intended) on myself to get there. 

I'll do it. And it will be super-redonk-amazeballs to be in the 2freaking30's. I can't even tell you the last time I was in the 230s. Don't even know. But I'll get there soon. (I did, finally, force myself to take my Bydureon injection last night, so hopefully that will help some.) 

Ugh, I feel like this post is all over the place, so I apologize for my schizophrenia. Have a great day, y'all! 

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. 

Place Your Bets!

Have you ever heard of DietBet? It's a website where you can join a group of people in betting that you'll be able to lose 4% of your weight in 28 days. If you succeed, you win the money in the pot. If multiple people in your group succeed, you all split the pot evenly.

I had never heard of this until Jen at Prior Fat Girl mentioned that she and a couple other women were hosting a DietBet. I was skeptical of joining for a couple of reasons. 1) Four percent for me is 9.8 pounds. In 28 days. Not impossible, but not easy peasy mac n' cheesy, either. and 2) I didn't know if I was eligible since I have had weight loss surgery.

I messaged Jen on Facebook to ask about the Lap Band thing, and she was very supportive. She encouraged me to go for it and join the DietBet. After all, it's not a direct competition with other girls, I'm only "competing" against myself to lose the 4% and my share of the pot.

So, I joined. And as of right now, there are 267 other "betters" in this particular game, with the pot up to $5,340. Now, of course, DietBet gets a percentage of that money, and the organizers get another percentage (which they are graciously donating to charity), but after that, the pot is split between everyone who manages to lose 4% of their body weight.

And you know what? Even if I only get back the $20 I put in, I'll say it was worth it to kick my butt in gear and lose 10 pounds in 28 days. Because if $20 is what it takes to get me that much closer to goal, it's well worth it.

Wednesday Weigh-In, A Day Late

Last Week: 246.2 lb
This Week: 245.0 lb
Loss: 1.2 lb

Woot!

And that's really all I have to say about that. I had a fill scheduled for Saturday, but I cancelled it. I think I'm doing pretty well now and we don't really have the $75 to spend. If I were chowing down and not losing any weight, I would have done it, but everything seems to be moving along slowly but surely.

Yesterday's weight marked 36.0 pounds lost from my HNPR weight. And it also marks a spot firmly in new territory for me! All the way back in 2k9, when I was trying to do c25k and ended up doing (not running, doing) five frickin' 5ks, I recorded my lowest weight. 246.4. And yes, technically, I was in new territory with my last weigh in at 246.2, but 0.2 pounds wasn't really a comfortable enough distance for me to celebrate it. Now, I'm a full 1.4 pounds away from my lowest weight and I. AM. CELEBRATING.

It is so amazing to me when I stop and think about where I really am, weight wise. I mean, I know that I still weigh over 240 pounds, and that I'm still obese, yadda yadda yadda. BUT. I weigh more than 15 pounds less than I did on my wedding day in 2008. I weigh more than 15 pounds less than I did when I got pregnant with Logan in 2010. I weigh 36 pounds less than I did last March. I believe I am right at or close to the weight I was when I met my husband seven years ago. (Although I'm not officially sure how much I weighed back then, but I believe it was in the low 240s.)

I feel like I'm turning back the clock. Soon I'll be partying like it's 1999! (When I weighed around 182 pounds as a senior in high school...)

Wednesday Weigh-In

Last Week: 247.8 lb
This Week: 246.2 lb
Loss: 1.6 lb

Loving that loss! I think I'm close to "sweet spot" territory with Tim Gunn. I'm not getting stuck if I follow the rules, and I'm eating very small amounts of food at meals. I think the most I've eaten at once lately has been one slice of thin crust large pizza, or one good-sized bowl of cereal, which was way more than one cup. But cereal is such a slider food that I could probably just sit down for an hour and continually eat it and never feel full.

But for the most part, I'm eating very small amounts and feeling satisfied. Last night I had one and a half small chicken tenderloins (marinated and cooked in the crock pot), a couple of spoons of creamed corn, and a couple rolls with butter. After the past couple of fills, I haven't been eating much bread because it just doesn't sound good. (Who the hell am I anymore?!) But last night, the hubby made some brown and serve rolls and I just couldn't resist. They were SO good, and I chewed the hell out of them and didn't get stuck. And I don't regret them one tiny little bit.

The numbers part of this whole process is such a mind game, and it's driving me crazy! On one hand, I feel awesome that I'm losing weight, and I love waking up and seeing that I'm in the 240's, which just seemed so unattainable a year ago. But on the other hand, when I sit down and actually think about the numbers, I'm totally bummed that I've only lost 11 pounds since surgery - 15 weeks ago! I like to focus on the "big" number, which is when I look at how much I've lost from my HNPR weight of 281.0, because telling myself I've lost 34.8 pounds makes me feel awesome. But when I think about it in terms of what I've done since the surgery, I feel like I haven't really accomplished anything. It equates to something like .73 lb per week, which just doesn't impress me one bit.

And the other mental block I'm having? I keep transposing the numbers in my head and thinking I weigh 264.2 instead of 246.2. Obviously, it's because my mind accepts 264 as a more plausible weight than 246. And I keep having to remind myself that it's the other way around. The four comes first, dummy! This whole thing is so much more mental than physical! My brain totally needs to catch up!

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! 

Lap Band is Tax Deductible...With a Catch

Let's begin at the beginning, shall we? 

Way back in the days of my original Lap Band research, I discovered that the cost of the surgery is tax deductible. And because I'm not a tax law expert or a numbers person in general, I asked you smart Bloggie McBlogerton's about it. Lap Band Gal answered the call, and several subsequent questions about it, to the best of her knowledge, and I'm grateful for the help. But it had been several years since she went through the process and she couldn't quite remember all the details. (Totally understandable.)

What I knew was this: all out-of-pocket medical costs not related to your Health Savings Account could be itemized and deducted from your taxes. And the amount that can be deducted has to be more than 7.5% of your Adjusted Gross Income.

So by all accounts, The Hubs and I went into our tax prep appointment thinking we were in for a large chunk of a refund by the IRS. Pay up, sucka!

Not so much.

What we DIDN'T know was this: in order for you to be able to use your medical expenses as a deduction (and for it to actually HELP you, instead of hurting you), your medical expenses have to be in excess of the standard deductions that the government already gives you. For us, our standard deduction was $11,900, so in order for my surgery and medical expenses to help, it would have to be more than $11,900, and we would basically get back the difference.

All of my out-of-pocket medical expenses for the last year ended up being about $11,700. In my case, my surgery IS tax deductible, yes, but it is less than the standard deduction I already get, so it's useless.

To add insult to injury, we actually OWE the Federal Government this year. So I went from thinking we were going to get thousands of dollars back, to realizing that we owe hundreds of dollars, in a matter of minutes. Needless to say, I was not a happy camper. 

I'm totally bummed out about this, but it being tax deductible was not one of the major selling points of my decision to get the band. I don't regret my decision one bit, I just wish I had done a little more research before getting my tax refund hopes up. So I thought I would post my drama and heartbreak here, so that any other self-pay bandsters might learn from my mistakes and have a little more information than I had.

The bottom line? Taxes suck. 

Finally Noticing Things

Over the past year, I've lost more than 33 pounds, which at times seems like a huge number, and at other times seems like a minuscule drop in the bucket. But it is what it is, which is 30 pounds of fat - gone. But also, over the past year, as I was losing this weight, I never really had a moment where I looked in the mirror and thought, "Oh, yeah! I can totally see it!" (Or, not see it as the case may be.) I have noticed pants fitting differently. I am conscious of the fact that I had to "retire" a pair of work pants because they literally won't stay up. I noticed that the t-shirts I wear to bed (usually my husband's) aren't as tight.

I've seen these little things over the past year, but nothing monumental. No "oh wow!" moments.

I think they're starting, though. I'm normally a mirror avoider. I mean, I glance in the morning to make sure that all my bits are covered, my hair is somewhat orderly, and that I don't have anything in my teeth. But other than that, I tend to run in the opposite direction of them. But lately, after putting on an outfit, I'll glance in the mirror and something will catch my eye to make me linger a bit longer. I can actually see now that I look different. That my top belly tire (I'm lucky enough to have a spare set, woo!) is less pronounced. It doesn't stick out quite so far anymore.

I'm looking in the mirror and actually stopping to see that...I look better! I haven't gone so far as to say that I look "good", but I'm definitely better. Things fit differently. The jeans I bought back in October fit me much better. There are real changes going on up in here. And even if it's hard for me or anyone else to recognize, it's really there. It's really happening. And it's only going to get better from here.

Wednesday Weigh-In

Last Week: 247.8
This Week: 247.8
No change

And I'm all, "eh, whatever" about that right now. It's not a gain, and it would have been nice to see the numbers I was seeing on Monday after a weekend of being so sick that I didn't eat anything for almost 48 hours. But that is the chance you take with being a daily weigher, and I also knew that once I was feeling better and started eating again, some of that weight would come back. It is what it is - I have too many other things on my mind right now to be disappointed in a wash week.

Would you like to step inside my head? Draz did something similar recently, and I found it fascinating. But really, I just have way too much crap going on and can't focus on any one thing, so I'm gonna write them all down to try to make sense of them. Here's the shit storm that is my mind, in no particular order:

1. Work. I'm not particularly happy in my job and I also don't work as hard as I could. Guilt plus general apathy does not equal the most productive Anna, which creates more guilt. Also, February has been and will continue to be a whirlwind of training events that I just don't have the energy to organize and host. 
2. School. I have seriously hit zero hour with school. My term ends on March 31st, but I have to have all of my "tasks" (19 - yes, you read that right, 19 - papers and one science experiment) finished about a week before that to give them time to get graded. How many of my 19 papers and one science experiment do I have finished? Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada. None. And it's all my fault. 
3. Moving. I haven't really talked about this at all because I have a really hard time forming words around it. After MANY protests and tears, I have finally agreed for our family to move in with my husband's parents. For an unspecified amount of time, but probably at least a year. There is so much emotion surrounding this for me that I could probably write a year's worth of blog posts about it. I'm grateful that they're willing to take us in, but apprehensive and anxious about the change. Suffice it to say, I just don't want to do it.
4. Moving Logistics. In addition to the fact that moving in with my in-laws is not high up on my bucket list, there is A LOT  of work that has to be done in order for it to be possible. All by April 30th. The in-laws and The Hubs have to strip out a storage area down to the bare insulation and completely renovate the room. They have to add heat to one side of the house. They have to run wiring for internet. They have to go through three large rooms of accumulated gark and sort/store it all. Then we have to pack up our entire apartment and either move it to what storage area they have left or to a storage unit. I am paralyzed by the weight of it all and can't really see how it is all going to work out right now. 
5. Valentine's Day. Probably the least of my worries right now, but something that keeps nagging my brain like a gnat on speed. I completely forgot about the holiday until I started hearing all the commercials on the radio. And now it's the day before and I will have to brave the Hallmark store with all the last-minute husbands. 
6. Over-Estimating Time Constraints. Again. Sometime in January, I decided to make a gift for a person who may or may not currently be reading this blog. The time to deliver the gift is rapidly approaching and said gift is nowhere near complete. I had time, then I still had time, and now I have no time. I have been stressed out about it and working on it like a mad woman every day at lunch and after work. Mom guilt is killing me right now because my eyes are plastered on this project all night instead of on my kid. The Hubs has been super helpful, though, with trying to keep Logan Man occupied so I can make some progress. As of right now, I believe I will be able to finish it in time, but it is going to be very close. Probably something like crocheting the last of the Christmas dish cloths at 3 am Christmas morning. Something like that. 
7. A Rapidly Approaching 5k. It's coming and I'm not ready for it. I have been so lazy/preoccupied with other things that I haven't given much time or thought to training. I am sad to say that I haven't been back to the fitness center since those two days in a row sometime back in January. I need to suck it up and take five minutes at night to put my lunch and workout clothes together so that I can get some training done. However, if I train during lunch, I can't work on my gift project during lunch. So right now, because the gift deadline is much closer than the 5k deadline, gift is winning. 
8. Crappy Sleep and Vivid Dreams. I haven't been sleeping well lately, and it seems like when I finally get to sleep, all I'm doing is having very vivid dreams about things that I don't want to think about. So even when I'm sleeping, I'm stressed out. I am exhausted and feel like I just can't win. 

I can't think of anything else right now, but this almost qualified for a Ten Things Thursday...maybe I should have saved it for tomorrow. Oh well. It's here now, so it stays. 

This is just one of those oh so joyous times in life where it just seems like everything is being piled on top of me so fast that I can't dig out and can't breathe. I know that it will all work out, and I keep trying to remind myself that once the gift is finished, I can work on the school and the 5k. And once The Hubs' parents get rooms cleared out, I can start packing and moving our crap ton of stuff. And once May 1st comes around, everything on that list except for work and my crazy dreams will have come and gone. Nothing is permanent. These things are temporary. 

It's all temporary. Right?

New Food Find

Strapped for cash and time yesterday, I ran to Kroger to find something for lunch. And maybe these little babies have been out for years, but I just discovered them yesterday, and I'm in love.

Lunchables Snack Duos - and before we go any further, nope. This isn't a sponsored post. I just ran into these and wanted to share.

Anyhoo...they come in packs of two, but I had already ripped into one in the above picture, and at my Kroger, the two pack was $1.99 on sale. I believe the tag said $2.49 regularly priced.

What I love:

• Small portion. Perfect for a quick lunch.
• Small pieces. No dicing required, and less risk taking too big bites. 
• Assembly required. My favorite thing about Lunchable-type meals. Makes a little food take a long time, so you feel like you're eating more. 
• 150 calories and 8 grams of protein. 

What I don't love:

• Processed, processed, processed. Ham with water and "smoke flavor" added, "Pasteurized Prepared Cheese Product". Blech. (But boy do all those chemicals taste good...)
• Ran out of mini Ritz crackers well before I ran out of meat or cheese. Come on, guys! 

All in all, I know that there are healthier, more natural options available, but for quick, convenient, and low-cal, this will do. I also bought the turkey and  mozzarella variety, but have yet to give it a try. 

What have you guys found as a great quick meal/snack option? Share, please! 

Wednesday Weigh-In and an Embarrassing Story

Two Weeks Ago: 249.6 lb (I forgot to weigh in last week, oops!)
This Week: 247.8 lb
Loss: 1.8 lb

Inching closer and closer to new territory! Can't wait to get around 245 and start hitting new weight loss ground. My total loss now from my highest weight is 33.2 pounds down, and I'm exactly 16 pounds down from my pre-op diet weight. Wooty doo! It's been a slow, but sure, process.

And I know you really clicked on the link to hear my embarrassing story, didn't you? Don't lie...

So, I'm adjusting to my recent fill, plus it's TOM, and I think that's all adding up to me being REALLY tight. I've been getting stuck a lot and PBed a couple times since Saturday. This morning, I was heading to one of our stores to do some training, and stopped at a drive thru to get some breakfast. I made sure to park and eat so I wasn't rushed. I took small bites. I chew, chew, chewed. And I thought I was okay. A little uncomfortable in the chest, but I thought I was going to be fine. Plus, I needed to get on the road since I was about 30 miles away from the store.

I got on the highway and all of a sudden, the pressure in my chest started to get worse. And worse. And worse. And of course, I was on a stretch without any exits or rest areas. And this whole time, I'm thinking, "Please don't throw up. Please don't throw up. Please just go down. OH MY GOD, GO DOWN!!!"

All of a sudden, I knew that there was no alternative. I was just going to have to stop on the side of a VERY busy, VERY major highway, and get out. Even if I just walked around, maybe that would help a little bit. So I pulled over, put my flashers on, and got out. No sooner had I gotten to the grass, when up it all came. Slime and all. In plain view of many, many passing cars and semis.

Oh how I wish I had someone there to hold my hair and keep it from flying back in my face as I PBed. And also, puking into the wind = not fun. Just so you know. I don't recommend it.

And of course, after all was said and done, I had no choice but to get back into my car, get to the store, and train a bunch of new associates like nothing had happened.

This morning was a bad morning. Bad, bad morning.

Unsettled

Lots of things going on right now which are all adding up to a general feeling of unease and yuckiness.

I went in for my third fill on Saturday. My first two fills were easy peasy mac n' cheesy. I would go in, tell Kim about my experiences, she'd put me up on the table, find my port, stick me once, and the whole experience would be over in less than five minutes.

For some reason, things didn't go so smoothly this time. She could feel my port, and when she went to stick me, I could feel her hit the hard plastic side of it. So she kept moving the needle a bit and trying to get it in, but couldn't. This process repeated three times before she was finally able to get the needle in the port.

Not a pleasant experience. But I'm not bruised at all like I thought I was going to be, so there's that.

Then, I had asked her to pull all the liquid out to measure it because I wanted to see where it was at. Ever since my first fill, I've had a nagging feeling in the back of my head that my band is leaking. It could TOTALLY be paranoia (and that's what I'm hoping you all will tell me), but when she first measured the liquid in my band, she told me there was 0.9 cc in it from surgery. That seemed a little odd to me, that the doctor wouldn't put a round number in. But I'm guessing that it's possible for 0.1 cc to stay in the band/tubing and not come out?

And then, it has been my experience that I feel some sort of restriction for a bit, but it eventually wanes. Now, again, that could just be the saline settling in the band and everything getting used to being in there or whatnot.

So anyway, I asked her to pull the saline out and measure it. According to my past fills, I should have had 8.4 cc in my band, plus the 1.0 cc she was adding at the time, for a total of 9.4 cc. When she took all the fluid out to measure it (including the additional 1.0 cc), I was only at 8.2 cc.

What the eff?!

Now, I don't know if she was just trying to keep me from panicking, or what, but Kim didn't seem to be too worried. She said that sometimes they get the numbers mixed up, or add wrong, or whatever. But I didn't get my numbers mixed up. I went with what you told me you were putting in there. So unless there's a big number of saline stuck in my band/tubing that didn't come out, or you didn't put in what you said you were putting in, it looks to me like I have a leak.

What do you do if you have a leak?!

Naturally, I'm freaking out. Even though Kim isn't. I went ahead and made an appointment for another fill on March 2nd, and she said we would measure it again then to see how it is doing.

Somebody please tell me I have nothing to worry about.