Getting better

I'm taking the day off from exercising! I have been to the gym three days in a row and I'm worn out. I am in a pretty happy place at the moment though. I weighed in yesterday and I am have lost 7lbs so far! I was hoping to lose a little more after three weeks, but I will take what I can get. They post the names and percentages of the contestants at the gym every week. I am not at the top of the list, but I am not at the bottom either. Over the last couple of weeks a couple of things have happened that really make me aware of my weight and how badly I need to lose a lot of it. One was seeing Leslie try on a tshirt of mine that doesn't fit me. It is a 3X and is really tight. She wanted to wear it to sleep in and when she came out wearing it, I found myself speechless. It was enormous on her. All three of my kids could have easily fit into it and had some room left over. The other thing that really let me know that I was so out of shape was having to chase after Sophie when she ran off from the splashpad the other day. We have been there a couple of times and the kids are usually good and stay right in the area with the water. I went there with my mom, charlotte and Sophie. It was a little crowded but not too bad. We were there about two minutes and I noticed Sophie walking on the sidewalk off to the side of the area. I got up to walk towards her and she just took off down the sidewalk. Once she knew I was after her, she ran even faster and laughed like it was the greatest fun in the world. By this point I am in a dead run and not even close to catching her. She made it all the way down the sidewalk where it turns right before it gets to the street and just followed the corner. Then she ran back towards me in the parking lot. I finally managed to catch her there and let her know that she was not supposed to do that. She just laughed and tried to get down and run some more. No amount of reasoning or disciplining works with her sometimes. She just doesn't understand that she is doing anything wrong. She just thinks we are playing a game when I am chasing her and she is way in front of me.

First Weigh In

I am officially 3lbs lighter!
I had a bit of an unmotivated week. And I really didn't think I had done enough or had eaten well enough to have lost anything. I thought for sure that the number on the scale was going to be higher than when I started. Seeing that I had actually done some good gave me a brand new optimism for this whole project. After weighing in, I actually wanted to get out there and work out. And time flew by. Before I knew it I had been on the treadmill for 30 mins, the elliptical for 15 and then doing some weights. I had been there for and hour and half. And I felt great. I was in a lot of pain, but it was the kind of pain that comes from accomplishing something that requires hard work. I was proud of myself. That isn't something that I say very often. I am trying to get better at congratulating myself for things no matter how small they are. I originally had no intention of going to the gym today, but Charlotte begged for me to go. She just really likes the kids play area and wanted to go hang out there for a while. If she hadn't insisted, then I probably wouldn't have gone. Way to go Charlotte!

On a fun note, I went to the Bowling for Soup concert on friday and had a blast! I discovered a couple more bands that I am crazy about now. They all put on awesome live shows. And after the show I hung around and got pictures with some of the band members and picked up a couple of new cd's. I am now a huge fan of Patent Pending and Freshman 15. The top picture is Chris from Bowling for Soup, second is Mike from Freshman 15 and third pic is Joe from Patent Pending.

So, to recap, I am in a super good mood, I saw some rockin' bands and I am going to sleep like a rock tonight. Good night everybody!

Not too shabby!

Turns out exercise isn't as awful as I think it is. I made it back to the gym yesterday and I plan on going again this evening. I find that the reason I don't look forward to exercise is that I get bored easily and if I don't have something to watch or read while walking or running, I tend to not do it as long. Thanks to Hulu on my phone, I can watch just about any tv show ever made and that seems to help. I am one those easily distracted people. I can see something shiny and completely forget what I was doing right before that.

This has been a fun and busy week for me. On tuesday, Michael and I went to see Roger Waters from Pink Floyd. He was playing in Houston at the toyota center. They did the whole Wall album. It was a great show! I haven't heard a lot of those songs since I was younger. My parents have always been big fans of them. I can remember when I was a kid, going to see the laser pink floyd show in the planetarium at the science museum in Houston. Michael and I have gone to see it a couple of times also. I know my dad would have loved to have been there. Hopefully he had a good view of the show from heaven.

Tomorrow night I get to go watch my absolute favorite band, Bowling For Soup. They are playing at Fitzgerald's in Houston. I have seen them 5 times! They have never dissapointed!

Blah....

Yesterday was the day to officially register for the biggest loser contest at the gym. They did a couple little breathing tests that are supposed to tell me body's age vs. my actual age. I didn't do as bad on that as I thought. My real age is 34.4 and my body age is 39.7. Then came time to get on the scale. My starting weight is 327. The contest is over at the end of June, so I have a couple of months to make that number a bit smaller. I stayed there for about an hour for my first work out. I forgot how much I dislike exercise. I hear people all the time saying they had such a good work out. Boooo. To me a good work out is one that doesn't happen. I do not like to sweat and I do that very easily. I am going back to the gym today at some point. I had planned to go after work, but I had zero motivation. I was already hot and sweaty and just couldn't convince myself to go do it some more. But now that I have had time to cool off a little, I think I can be persuaded to go. I am having one of those afternoons where I can't seem to do much right. Tomorrow I will have a peppier attitude! 

Welcome Back!

Please forgive my absence from this blog for the last few years. I hadn't realized it had been quite that long until I logged in tonight and saw 2009 as my last posting. I am making a second quarter resolution to get back into it and hopefully entertain people with my never a dull moment life.

In the last few years things life has had its ups and downs but nothing I can't handle. I have a super duper awesome job that I look forward to going to everyday! I really enjoy what I do, and the people that I work with. Couldn't ask for anything better than that. Michael has changed jobs a couple of times, but is now teaching in a great school district that he really enjoys as well. The kids are all enjoying school. Leslie is about to finish 4th grade. I am not old enough to have a kid that is about to be in intermediate school, am I? Charlotte will be starting Kindergarten next year. And Sophie just started PreK at the same school as Charlotte, but is in the younger class. She has been through a lot this year so far. She is very close to being diagnosed as having Autism, but because she is only 4, they want to wait a little bit longer before they put that label on her. She is super smart and has a big imagination.

Most people that know me, know that I have struggled with my weight for as long as I can remember. Starting on Sunday, I will try yet again to get that under control. The gym that I go to is having a Biggest Loser contest. I have tried this previously at this gym, but it didn't work out too well for me. This time is going to be different. Not sure just how yet, but I have a really good feeling about it. For the most part, everybody around me is very good at supporting me during my dieting days. After I go tomorrow to get registered for the contest, I will be posting my starting weight and keeping y'all posted on my progress. Putting that out there for everybody to see scares the crap out of me, but I need to do something like that out of my comfort zone. And it will make me even more determined to post a smaller number each week. I have been inspired by a friend's blog about a personal journey and I decided that I wanted to share mine. I can use all the encouraging words that I can get, so if anybody is reading this, please give me a thumbs up every now and then!! 

I'm Falling for Fall!

After all the craziness that goes on around here, I feel like I should put a sign that reads, " XX days since the last accident on the job." Similar to signs found in stockrooms at businesses. Not too much stuff has gone on in the last month, but enough that the sign would have a low number of days. The things that I can think of right off of the top of my head are: Charlotte lost the ball to our computer mouse and for a couple of days we were having to stick our fingers inside the mouse to move the little wheels around if we wanted to do anything on the computer; Sophie got stuck in a different chair, but this time she slid right out; and the thing that was most heart wrenching was that a shelf that had about 30 of my coke bottles on it came crashing down and made the kitchen unusable for a short while. Luckily all the kids and I were outside when it happened, but Michael happened to be near when it happened and got a small scratch on his leg. If you have ever seen my coke bottle collection or heard me gush on and on about it, then you know it's a pretty large collection. I had about 75 of the small 8oz coke bottles with different designs on them. I also had some larger ones that had come from different countries. The one that I am most proud of was one that I got in the Czech Repulic. I loved that one because I went there and got it myself instead of somebody bringing it to me. It did survive, but it had a paper label instead of one that was printed on the glass and it got a little dirty. I also had a pretty good shot glass collection that didn't make it. The glass on those are so thin that they just shattered. The floor was so sticky and so full of glass. It was a couple of days before we deemed it completely cleaned. Even now though, we will find a piece of glass that was hidden in a corner somewhere. On to happier thoughts! How about this weather??? Last weekend was so great! Tues-Thu of this week aren't much to talk about, but when we wake up Friday, the temps will be worthy of finally calling them fall weather. I don't know if the reason I love fall so much is because of the weather or because my birthday is in the fall. I think I get more excited for Halloween and Thanksgiving almost more than Christmas! Since my birthday is right around Thanksgiving, we don't usually do much for it. Which I'm cool with. Now that I have passed up 30, I don't feel the need to keep up with the number anymore. This year though, there is something awesome happening on my bday in Houston! Monday Night Football! I really enjoy football and I have a lot of faith in the Texans even though they have let me down a time or two. I don't know if anybody knows this or not, but I worked at Reliant Stadium for a short while during football and rodeo season selling beer at a stand. I loved that job, but it was so far to drive. I met all kinds of interesting people and had a lot of fun doing it. My stand was on the visiting team's side of the stadium. Since that was the side that was usually winning that year, I had a lot of happy people around me. Anyway, other choices for birthday fun are going to see Tracy Morgan, a comic that was on Saturday Night Live for a while. He'll be in Houston the weekend after thanksgiving. He is hilarious! He is now on one of my favorite shows, 30 Rock. I would also love to go see Train, a band that I really like, and they are playing the night before my bday. Also the weekend before my birthday, Leslie and I will be going camping with her girl scout troop. I'm really looking forward to that and Leslie is kind of looking forward to it. I haven't beeen camping in a very long time. Not since before Leslie was born. I can't wait! So November seems like it might be a little busy. I sure hope so anyway! I love to be out and about. And sometimes I even get to take Michael with me. It's so hard to find a babysitter that we often just go do something by ourselves and then come back and tell the other one about it. We have even gone to see the same movie, but separately. I know we'll eventually get around to getting out of the house together, we just have to hang in there!! I didn't realize that it was already 10:45! Time to hit the bed!! Goodnight!

Oops, there went August!

Wow. I didn't mean to go a whole month and not post anything. It just sort of happened that way. I get caught up in who knows what and the time gets away from me. August wasn't that exciting except for three events that all happened in the span of 8 days. The first event was that Sophie got her head stuck in one of our dining room chairs. I was only standing two feet away from her, but wasn't facing her so I didn't see exactly how it happened. But to make a long story much shorter, I ended up having to call 911 and the New Waverly Fire Dept and some paramedics came out to help her. They ended up having to use the jaws of life to cut the chair to get her out. I wanted to ask if they could cut all of our chairs so they would match. And so that this wouldn't happen again. I'm guessing all of this wasn't as traumatic as I thought it would be for Sophie because she was back up in the chair again that evening. A few days later, Leslie had a friend over and while they were outside, they decided to see if they could throw rocks over the house. Leslie doesn't have the best aim and one of her rocks made it through a window in the front of the house. I wasn't real happy about this, but it was an accident, so she only had to endure a weekend with no tv or computer. The third event was a happy one. Leslie started second grade! I can't imagine where the time went. I remember taking her picture the morning that she was leaving to go to PreK. She seemed so big then, but now looking at the pictures, she was tiny! She's so tall now. The dr estimates her being about 5'10" when she's done growing. And the same for Sophie. He said Charlotte is going to be the short one, but still taller than me. Other good things going on around here....my brother came back through town for about a week. We had a family get together last weekend so everybody could get a chance to see him before he heads out to his next job in Trinidad, which is a country off the coast of Venezuela. He'll be there until sometime in December, I think. I love going to our family parties. I have an awesome extended family. I feel very blessed to have so many aunts/uncles/cousins. Especially ones that are fun to be around. Also, I started selling Avon products. I absolutely love everything that Avon has and I figured why not start trying to earn a little bit of money from that. It's not going to get me rich by any means, but it's fun to do. The real way to make money with Avon is to recruit new representatives, but my main concern was trying to find people to sell to first. Then we'll figure out how to get more people involved. One more thing good that I can think of that happened last month was that we got a dog. I never really have been a dog person, but I couldn't resist this one. Somebody had rescued her from somewhere, but wasn't able to keep her. They put an add on the Montgomery County Freecycle website and that's where I found her. She's probably about 6 months old now. She's part dachshund and collie and she's just beautiful. That's all I can think of to catch everybody up on the latest around here. Good night and Big balls. (we watch a lot of Wipeout)