Father's Day Card from Shutterfly!

One of the blogs I follow is called www.southernsavers.com.  On that site, I found out that you could get 5 free cards from www.shutterfly.com if you used a specific code, so I did!  Here's the one I made for Punkin to give to her dad for Father's Day!  Isn't it cute?

 

Chalkboard Heart Dad Father's Day 5x7 folded card

Click here to see graduation announcements by Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

Up The Down Staircase

I can't believe I haven't posted since February!  That just astounds me for some reason.  I'm actually a little sad about that - because last time I posted was when I hit 280 pounds and was super excited... I'm now about 268, which means I've only lost 12 pounds in almost 3 months.  I knew the weight loss was going to slow down, but I didn't know it was going to slow down that much.  I'm stuck on a plateau right now and I hate it.  I'm fluctuating between 268 and 272 with a brief dip to 266 right before we left for D.C.  I REALLY want to get down to 260.  I was hoping to be there before school gets out, but that's only 3 more weeks and I don't see myself losing 3 pounds a week between now and June 10th.

I'm excited for summer for several reasons - no more work, our CRUISE!, being able to spend all that time with Punkin, but I'm also really excited because without working constantly, I'll actually have time to get to the gym.  I've been trying to get to the gym, but it's hard because some nights I'm working at BRU and other nights I'm so exhausted just the idea of going to the gym makes me want to lay down on the couch.  I don't know if more exercise will help me drop more weight (more exercise in the past has not always proven to do well for me) but it can't hurt - maybe it can help me get over this plateau.  I would like to start school in the fall at 250 or less.  That's 12 weeks from now... an average of 1.5 pounds per week, and let's not forget I have a cruise stuffed in there.  Which means I'll gain weight, and then I'll have MORE than 18 pounds to lose.  Sigh.  I feel like I'm working so hard and I'm not getting anywhere... like trying to run up the down escalator.

I'll weigh in on Monday just to see where I am after the weekend, then Friday is my official WI day.  Fingers crossed.

What you (thought) you knew about me

A lady on one of the blogs I follow suggested we tell a bit about ourselves, so I decided to do it!  P.S. I can't, for the life of me, figure out how to get the italics off of here.  And I love technology.  Go fig.
 
1) I never drive with shoes on.  Ever.  Even if I'm wearing tennis shoes, I always take the right one off to drive.

2) I have a secret desire to act on a stage, but I also have terrible stage fright.

3) I could eat spinach at every meal... cooked, raw, frozen, canned, creamed, you name it!

4) My toes ALWAYS have polish on them.  I can't remember the last time they were naked (it's been 10 years or more)

5) I would love to have a whole houseful of kids... 4, 5, 6... as many as God sees fit to give me. :-)

6) My dream car is a mini-van with all the extras, complete with car seats in the back.

7) I love to sew, but I find I rarely have time for it anymore.

8) I would LOVE to be a surrogate mother, but I don't know if I could ever let go of a baby I carried inside me.

9) Julianne saved my life.  I truly believe that.

10) I can't wait to own my own home one day.

11) I love to wear dresses but it's hard to find them in a style that flatters my figure.

12) I love fresh air and being outside, but I hate being hot.

13) I have never wanted to change my name... I always loved that it was spelled differently.

14) Sometimes it drives me crazy not knowing what my future holds.

15) I desperately want to win the lottery... I have so many plans to help so many people!

16) I hate the sound of my cat licking his fur.  I don't know why, but it gives me the heebie-jeebies.

17) Speaking of cats... I'm not really a cat person.  I definitely love dogs more than cats.  But I tried to have a dog in this apartment and it just didn't work out for me.  I still wanted a pet, though, so KittyMax came to live with us.


18) I like being a teacher, but my true love is educational technology.  I want to work for a book publisher and write the technology curriculum that goes along with their materials.  I think I could do a lot better than those people do now.


19) Cockroaches scare me so much I can't breathe when I see them.  I literally freeze with terror.


20) When Punkin is at her dad's house, I miss her so much my chest literally aches.


21) I can't wait for the day when I reach my goal weight... I think I might just have a heart attack and die of happiness. :-)

Diet FAIL

Yesterday was a shitty day at work.  I mean, really shitty.  Boss Lady wrote me up because evidently I don't straighten the department well enough.  TBPH, on some level, I guess I might agree with her.  I hate that department.  I'm not a "department" kind of worker... I belong on the front end.  Even though it's just a PT job, I know that my talents are being wasted sitting at the stupid furniture desk.  And I hate sitting back there, because not only is it boring since most people can't afford to order overpriced baby furniture these days,  the majority of my job consists of straightening overpriced toys for spoiled little rich kids, vacuuming, and taking out the trash.  If I wanted a janitorial job, I would have applied at Disney where at least the fringe benefits rock.  I HATE straightening toys... because two seconds later, some little kid is going to come along and jack everything up and if I don't notice it, I'll get in trouble for not straightening things. 

Today was not the first shitty day I've had since I've changed things up and started losing weight, but it was the first shitty day where my first thought was to grab every 3 Musketeers bar in a 6 mile radius and eat them one after another, kind of like chain-smoking.  I even said to myself, "Screw this damn diet... I don't weigh in until Friday, I have time to get back on the bandwagon."  So I marched up to the front of the store, grabbed a 3 Musketeers bar, and scarfed the entire thing.  It. Tasted. Delicious.  I wanted four more.  And then a Snickers.  And then half a dozen packs of Twizzlers Pull-n-Peel.  What's crazy is that I'm not even a sugar fiend... I never have been, not even when I was huge (huge-er).  But the site of all that candy sitting there, calling to me, when I had tears drying on my face and I was absolutely exhausted from working so much and ready to just lay down on the floor and die... it was almost too much.

I stopped myself, though.  I'm not exactly sure what it was that stopped me... I think part of it was guilt (towards myself) that I had worked so hard for my weight loss and I was about to throw it away for 6 ounces of nougat.  Part of it was having the forethought to know that if I chowed down on candy and then I didn't have a loss at WI on Friday, that I would likely get frustrated and give up.  But I think the biggest deciding factor was the fact that my stomach was already starting to hurt from ingesting junk.  I hadn't had anything like that in a long time, and my stomach let me know it.

So I went back to my desk, put in my points in my points tracker, and moved on.  Even with the candy,  I still stayed under points.  It still feels like a fail because I gave in to the stress and ate crap, but I guess I should be proud of myself for not giving up completely.

Blah.  Let's hope today is better than yesterday.

High Roller

I've been on an emotional high since yesterday morning... and I'm hoping it continues. :-)

I decided to go to the gym yesterday simply to get out of the house and give Punkin something to do.  She totally destroys the place when we're home and she likes going to the gym daycare, so we headed over.  We stopped at Wal-Mart first to get a cheap set of headphones so I'd have something to use to listen to the TV while I was on the elliptical.  I totally love the little TVs on the machines, but not when I can't hear what's going on.  So I found a pair for like, $2.  They'll probably be destroyed sometime soon by a short person the moderately resembles me, but that's okay - I don't mind because they were so cheap.

I didn't really have a workout in mind and the only class they were doing was Silver Sneakers yoga (yoga for older folks, using chairs for balance and whatnot) so I just jumped on the treadmill and walked at a 2.0 incline for about 10 minutes to warm up.  Afterward, I climbed on the elliptical (my fave!) and watched a combination of the noon news and Supernatural on TNT (GOD, how I miss cable!) while I worked out for about 20 minutes.  When I was done, I decided to weigh myself even though when I was on the scale on Saturday morning, it said 285.  I figured I'd see maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe 284 or 283 if I was super lucky.  Instead, do you know what I saw?

Guess.

No, really, go on and guess.

I'll wait.

:crickets chirping:

Okay, I'll tell you.

It said....

2...
8...
0!


That's right, folks, the scale said 280!  And just in case you had any doubt about whether that scale was accurately calibrated, you can rest assured - I weighed myself on the scale at school and it said exactly the same thing!  280!  I could have died and gone to heaven!  Do you realize what that means?  It means that I have hit my mini-goal of 280... and I am only 10 pounds away from my next mini-goal (and my BIG goal) of 270!  Which will officially be WAY below any weight I've ever been as an over-18 adult!  And look!  Do you see that little number under the 280?  Where is says 38.5?  That's my BMI... for the first time EVER, my BMI is out of the Obesity 3 range!  It's now in Obesity 2!  I know that seems like the weirdest thing ever, to be excited about being labeled Obesity 2, but after Obesity 3, there's nothing else.  So someone who is 6 feet tall and weighs 285 pounds is in the same obesity category as someone 5'2" who weighs 497 pounds.  I can officially no longer be lumped in the "too-fat-for-a-number" BMI group!

I am so happy... and so proud of myself for sticking with this and accomplishing what I have so far.  So many people today told me how great I looked... I know I'm still significantly overweight, but to hear people tell me I look great, they may as well have given me free money!  That's how good it makes me feel!

Tomorrow... ZUMBA!  At least 10 Activity Points right there!!!

Life is SO FABULOUS!!!!

I made it back to the gym!

I went to the gym yesterday!  I'm really proud of myself... I didn't realize I hadn't been there since August.  I guess after starting back to work, I slacked off, and then when I started working at B.RU, I REALLY slacked off.  Because let's face it: Who wants to work 40 hours a week at one job, 30 hours a week at another job, come home to a full-time single mom job, and still go to the gym?  If you know of someone, please let me know, because I sure could use their motivation.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanyway.... they didn't have any classes at the gym yesterday that I was interested in going to, so I almost didn't go.  They usually only have Bo.dyP.ump on Saturdays and I'm just not into it.  Group weight training is great, but not what I like.  So I decided to just do my own little workout instead.  I did 21 minutes on the Elliptical, 5 minutes on the treadmill and 7 minutes on the bike.  I would have stayed longer on the treadmill but truth is, I got bored, lol.  If I want to walk, I'll walk outside in the fresh air where there's scenery and I can take the Punkin along in her stroller.  And I would have stayed longer on the bike, but after 6 months of not being in the gym and then 20 minutes on the elliptical, my legs were killing me.  So I got off, did some crunches, and called it a day.  I wound up earning 4 activity points, which is more than I'd earned TOTAL since I started WW again.

I'm very pleased with my weight loss!  When I weighed in on Friday, I was 283, which makes me sublimely happy!  I'm below my pre-pregnancy weight and only 3 pounds from my next mini-goal, and only 13 pounds from my all-time adult low (and only 83 pounds from my ultimate goal!)  I'm not struggling with WW like I thought I would... I'm sticking to my points (for the most part), attempting to get exercise, and I'm seeing results, which is all that really matters to me.

If I don't post before next Friday, I'll update then with my next weigh-in.  Wish me luck!

And the slacker award goes to...

Okay, okay, I know it's been a long time since I've posted.  I could offer a million excuses (Punkin was sick, the internet was down, I work two jobs and I'm a single mom and it's hard to find time to breathe let alone post, etc) but I won't.  I'm just a slacker.

I have been OP every day since I've started WW, back on January 3rd.  So today has been one full month!  Yay!  Go me!  There were a couple days this week where I know I went over my points (not by many, maybe1-3) and I didn't track them, but to me, that's okay since I never use my weeklies anyway.  So I know all told I didn't go over my points by 49, which is what my weekly allowance is.  I'm very anxious to see what my weigh-in will be tomorrow.  I've weighed myself almost every day this week and that scale still says 287 - there's no moving it.  I didn't weigh today because the scale I use is in the guidance counselor's office at my school and I was at a training at another school, but I'm nervous about tomorrow's weigh-in.  I know a gain is not the end of the world, but knowing myself, I hope if I DO gain, it's not going to throw me off.  Fingers crossed... not much else I can do.

I had chicken breast and fat free refried bean burritos for dinner tonight.  I had 2, for a total of 15 points, and they were SO yummy.  I don't know why, but for the last several days after I eat a big meal, my stomach hurts like nothing else.  Not cramping, not nausea, but actual pain.  I don't think I'm stretching out my stomach, but if that's not it, I don't know what it could be.  I'm under my points tonight by about 6, I think, which is enough for a chocolate banana peanut butter smoothie, but my stomach is still hurting and I'm not hungry, so I'm going to just let them fall, I think.

I've had a rough night with Julianne so I'm going to bed, I just wanted to write SOMETHING to let you know I'm still alive.  I'll update tomorrow with my WI results!