H.H. 8/23-29/09

This week I’m full of questions. Here are just a few:
Did the headache cause the nausea or did the nausea cause the headache?
I fight to stay awake while sitting on the coach, because I figure if I take a nap I won’t be able to sleep tonight. So riddle me this batman…why do I get a second wind when it’s time for me to go to sleep?
How can I be two places at once? And how can I possible do all this work they expect me to do? I’m barely treading water with all I have to do and yet the man (aka: the principal) adds more to our (the counselors) work load. I find this illogical, unreasonable and inconsiderate. Despite this I survived the first week of school. It wore me out, I slept 11 hours Friday night and 12 hours Saturday night, and I still feel tired. I’m not ready to face tomorrow, but it’s going to come whether I’m ready or not. I’m so glad next weekend we get three days off.
Tuesday was a good day. Work went smoother than Monday; we actually got a potty break as well as a lunch break, unlike Monday. However, the best part came after work. I took a much needed nap when I got home. I decided that Mondays approach did not work (see above question). After my nap I headed off to my WW meeting. I am now officially down 51.6 lbs!!!!! After lots and lots of hard work and time I finally passed the 50 mark, earning me my 50 lb medal.

If you look closely you will notice that two of the cloth stars are doubled. This is because I had to lose 30 and 40 lbs twice.

For fun I put on my “fat” pants. As I lost weight I got rid of the clothes as I shrunk out of them. But I did keep one pair of pants the largest size I ever bought as well as my comfy sweatshirts. I can’t wait to see how much bigger they look at 75 lbs down and then when I reach my goal weight.

Baggy Butt

Hurry and take the picture before they fall off

Lots of wiggle room.

It made me sick and happy at the same time when I saw these pictures of me at my highest weight. It made me sick to realize that I ever got heavy and happy that I don’t look like that anymore.

Yes those are the same pants as above

I'm glad that I now have a chin, no many chins, as well as a jaw line.

What a difference 50 pounds makes!

I know its a fake cheesy smile, but look, one chin and an actual jaw line!

Saturday was good. First off I got to sleep in, always a great thing. Second, Neal and I went over to Erin & Shawn’s for dinner. The food was great and the company even better. (Even if Shawn did cheat at Mario Cart.)

Happy Happenings...sort of (8/16-22/09)

On Friday I realized that I had not been keeping track of my happy happenings throughout the week. I know myself. I know that I will have to keep track daily or I will forget all the great things that happened. Since I tend to focus on the negatives rather than the positives (my reason for happy happenings) my post would not be so happy. But I decided that even though I didn't create this weeks cheat sheet I would try and do my best.
I am happy to say that I survived this week of work. That is two weeks down, too many to go. I know, I know after the first two weeks of school things will get better. The first month of work (maybe two) for me is extremely busy and stressful. But it will pass, at least until the last two months of school.
On Tuesday my mom was in town and she came and stayed the night. I enjoyed seeing her. I would have enjoyed it more if I wasn't so dead tired. Luckily she was completely understanding of my resemblance to the zombies.
Last Tuesday at my weigh in at WW I was down 49 lbs even. Only one more pound to go. I vowed/bragged that I was going to blow past 50 lbs this week. I supposed my lose of .6 was Carma's way of saying haha that's what you get for bragging. What the freaking crap! Point 6! In the seven days between weigh ins I worked out 5 times and I ate all of the healthy food guidelines. I was PERFECT!!!!! Carma sucks, life sucks and nothing is fair.
On Wednesday I worked more overtime, (I don't get overtime pay, how sick am I?) making me even more exhausted. However, despite being tired life goes on and I still have things to do and commitments to fulfill. Neal and I had our final interview to renew our recommends, I realized on August 1st that our recommends expired on July 31st. Opps! Now that I'm official, once I stop resembling a zombie I will get to go to the temple again. Oh how I look forward to that. (being non-zombie and going to the temple)
I got to go swimming with the young women on Wednesday. I was not going to get my hair wet. I knew if I got my hair wet that I would have to shower when I got home. I also knew that if I showered at night i would use the excuse that I was already showered and clean to skip exercising in the morning. Of course trying to be in the pool with 12ish teenagers and not get my hair wet did not work. And of course I had to take a shower before bed or I would wake up with green hair. And of course I didn't exercise in the morning. As I said before, I know myself. Good new though, I did take a 20 minute break at work on Thursday. I used this time wisely. I did 10 minutes of standing yoga and a 10 minute power walk. Yeah for me.
Thursday was full of more non paid overtime. But when I finally got home I got to do one of my favorite things. Sit on the coach and knit while I watch TV commercial free.(really its DVD's of TV shows).
Friday we were supposed to go over to a friends house for dinner. She had very kindly invited us over. Unfortunately all the overtime had taken its toll (as well as the record breaking heat) and I was feeling very crappy. My dear Friend was very understanding when I called to see if we could do it some other day. I really hope she did understand I felt quite bad for having to cancel. Sorry Erin!
Saturday all I wanted to do was veg on the coach. I also had a whole list of things I needed to do. So I did something in between. I bathed KC, that was on my list. Then Neal and I left the kids home and went to do some things we needed to do and some things we wanted to do. Our first stop was the temple, actually the beehive clothing store. After losing 49 lbs I was in desperate need of some new under garments. You know your in desperate need when you have to yank your bottoms up to your boobs just so the crotch will not be half way down to your knees, but where it belongs. After that we headed to the outlet mall. However, after driving up to the top of the parking structure and then back down without finding a spot we decided we could live without going there. After getting something to eat, we headed over to the RV dealership. No we are not buying anything, we just went to look. Someday we will buy one and we just wanted to get an idea of what we liked and wanted. We want a 5th wheel toy hauler, with a garage. I really like the raptor. If I was rich, I would buy the Raptor, but I'm not so I will just have to be content to dream about the Raptor. You might find it funny (I know I do) that we went and looked at trailers when we don't even have a truck. We had a good time though, and you can't argue with free entertainment. Maybe next time we have a cool weekend we will go look at model homes, another form of free entertainment. After we finished doing what we wanted to do we then made a quick trip to Walmart and Sams club before heading home. I didn't get the floors clean or all the laundry done, but I had a good day.

2 Weeks of Happy Happenings

Week One

8/2-8/09
Sunday
I love Sunday’s. Sunday’s are one of my favorite days of the week. It would be my favorite except for the fact that it is followed by Monday. I love going to church and renewing myself for the upcoming week. I love that it is a day of “rest”. Sometime I take that quite literally, perhaps more so than I should. I love Sunday dinners, not that I make them, just fond memories from childhood. I really love Sunday naps, esp. when the weather is just right and I can lay on the hammock. In future posts I probably won’t say much about Sundays because nothing really stands out on a Sunday because the whole day is happy for me.
96 hours of no accidents. I’m so proud of Lillee for going 4 whole days without any mistakes.
Monday
Today I took my new pants over to Jennie’s to have her hem them. I’m her first costumer. (I’m special). It took no time at all for her to figure out how much to take of each pant. Somehow, despite the quick measuring I spent three hours at her house. We just stood there talking and talking and talking, it was great. I got to know her better, she is awesome. She smiles a lot and is fun to be around. I do feel bad though for taking up so much of her time. I didn’t have anything pressing to do, but I know she had things to get accomplished so I really appreciate her giving of her time. I guess I’m a bit starved for human adult contact.
Netflix is awesome! I love movies and what is better than having them delivered to your “front door”? I got two discs in the mail today. They are not anything special but it made me happy to know that I get to be lazy for a while and watch the DVD’s. I actually only got through one tonight, so I have another one for tomorrow and another disc should be in the mail. This make me smile :-)
Tuesday
My next door neighbor, Elio, has a pool, I’m envious. The summers here are so stinking hot and I often regret not getting a house with a pool. Or a hot tub at least, we could keep in cold in the summer. However, Elio offered us the use of his pool. He is going to leave the gate unlocked tomorrow for me to go swimming.
I weighed in at weight watchers tonight. I ate very poorly this past weekend and was not optimistic. I worked hard all week then blew it on Saturday. Sometime, heck all the time, I’m my worst enemy. However, despite my poor food choices I was pleased to find out that I had lost. The loose was not big, but it was in the right direction, so I will take it with a smile.
Wednesday
I got to go swimming today. I thought Neal was going to get off work early so I waited around for him to come home. Okay honestly I took a nap (loved it) while I waited. At ten he still wasn’t’ home so I went by myself. I was only in the pool for an hour, but it was a nice treat.
Lillee makes me laugh. I was outside with the dogs during the evening and I discovered one of the many things she barks at. Lillee barks at all unknown objects but this was too funny. Lillee was barking at the airplane flying overhead. Isn’t that just the craziest thing? I’m not talking a small 2 engine plane I’m talking about a major airline plane. She wouldn’t have even known it was up there (it didn’t make any noise) if it didn’t have its headlight on. Silly girl.
Thursday
The boys got their annual shots. KC usually gets sick from his shots but I gave him children’s Benadryl for a couple of days before and he did really well this time. JJ also had a urine analysis done to make sure all the infection and stuff was gone. I got a call from the vet this evening and he is good. That is a relief. My Angle is healthy and well!
Friday
I tackled my to do list, and I won. Not everything is done (never is) but most of it got accomplished. The biggest feat was getting my bathroom cleaned. I hate cleaning the bathroom! It is probably my least favorite thing to do so I put it off as long as I can. Turns out today was “as long as I could”. The best part is now that it is done I don’t have to do it again for…as long as I can put it off again.
Saturday
Wahoo! I finally did it. It only took me all summer, but I finally did it. At the start of my summer break I made a calendar that went through to the end of the summer. On my calendar I scheduled my workouts. On Monday, Wednesday & Friday I planned to do my 30 minute walk aerobics. On Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday I planned to do Yoga. That’s right I was going to go from not working out to working out six days a week. I didn’t start out strong. But I was working out and that was a step in the right direction. I missed a couple of weeks, due to travel. Although to be completely honest I could have worked out a couple times during those weeks instead of not doing it at all. Oh well that is water under the bridge. I was quite pleased with myself when I worked out five times in one week. I accomplished this a few times. However, it wasn’t until my very last week of summer that I achieved the goal I set at the beginning of the summer. Today marks the sixth day this week I worked out! I am very happy and proud of myself. Also a few days ago I made a new calendar that follows the same pattern. It starts where I left off and continues until the end of October. I would have gone further but I ran out of room on the paper. I will keep working toward exercising six times a week but I will not beat myself up over missing a few days.

Neal, Lillee and I went to Arizona. Lillee got to meet her grandma Latz for the first time. Neal stayed at his moms to help her out some and I went to into Kingman to visit with friends. Neal joined me with our friends in Kingman when he was finished at his moms. It was nice to get out of town and see people I love and care about.

Lillee with her grandma

Amy & Ella

Ella walking. She just turned one last week.

Alan
Jo & Nicoli

On the way home we decided to go the “dam” way (over the Hoover dam). The bypass bridge is almost done. It is way too high. It freaks me out just to look at it. How am I ever going to drive over it?

Week 2

8/9-15/09
Sunday
Sunday was not a happy day I woke up sick (the reason I didn’t post last week). I did sleep for 14 hours that made me kinda happy. I guess I was also happy to realize that after my 14 hours of sleep, it no longer hurt to swallow.
Monday
I returned to work today after a way too short (fast) summer. Things were not as I expected them to be, not what we planned before we left for summer break. This doesn’t really surprise me Rancho is famous for last minute changes/decisions. That is my opinion anyway. Although having to work is not really a happy thing it was nice to see co-workers and catch up.
Tuesday
Non- stop day. Go Go Go Go Go. That is all I did today. My day started at 4:45am and ended when I got home at 8:45pm. I do have to say though that I am quite proud of myself for doing 40 minutes of yoga before getting ready for work. My plan is to exercise in the morning before going to work. Our school is starting 30 minutes later than it did last year, so instead of sleep in 30 min (which I would love) I’m going to get up at the same time and workout. I didn’t do it yesterday due to the sickness on Sunday. I didn’t want to push myself too hard.
Wednesday
I’m tired! Yesterday wore me out. I don’t think my brain is even capable of forming sentences. I miss my lazy summer days…only 9 more months to go.
It touches a mom’s heart to know that when she is gone from the house her child sleeps by the door waiting for her to come home. Neal took this picture of Lillee waiting for me. What a sweet little girl.

Lillee at the door

Thursday
Ahhh finally a day when there are no errands to run and no obligation, it’s time to veggitate. I came home from work and changed into my PJ’s and spent the rest of the night on the coach watching Netflix DVD’s while I knitted. Now that is what I call a nice night.
Friday
Lillee likes the water. You have no idea how happy this makes me. My oldest, JJ, hates the water. He is basically a perfect dog, until it rains. He will only go outside in the rain by force. He doesn’t even like walking on a wet ground. It doesn’t matter to him if there is no water falling on him the ground is wet and that is bad enough. KC doesn’t care for water, but is no were near as bad as JJ. So it brings me a lot of pleasure to say that Lillee likes the water. When Neal waters the grass with the hose Lillee chases the water. She gets completely soaked, but she loves it. She sure is funny looking when she is wet.

Wet dog

More Wet Dog

Lillee Chasing the Water

Saturday
I dared to take my measurement today. I had planned on talking them once a month, but I couldn’t find my courage last month so none were taken then. I figured with all of this working out there had to be some change. I haven’t lost much weight this summer, only a couple of pounds, (plus the weight seems to be getting harder and harder to lose) so I was scared to take my measurements. Since May (my first measurements) I have lost a total of 10.75 inches. J Now if that doesn’t make you (me) smile I don’t know what will.
Lillee got all prettied up again today. One of these days I will bath her myself, but not yet. She looks so cute with the bow in her hair.

The internet is very helpful and I feel grateful to have it. On Friday I attempted to sync my phone to my computer. I hadn’t done this since June and I knew there was new information that needed to be saved. However, the stupid thing wouldn’t work. I went online to try and troubleshoot. I did all that was suggested and still no luck. However, it was today that I discovered Chat help. I was able to chat with a tech at Palm. With the kind woman’s help I was finally able to get my phone to sync. I never would have figured the problem out on my own. Love the internet (this is only one reason, but it’s a good one)

Sometimes shopping sucks

Ugh...
Today I went to Kohls to see if I could find an inexpensive shirt for work. I had a 15% off coupon and I figured if I bought an item on clearance or on sale I could get a shirt for next to nothing. Well I happened upon two very cute shirts that I really like. Both shirts were button up shirts, I'm drawn to button up shirts. I think it has something to do with wanting what you can't have.
You see I'm cursed! I have enough chest for two people. Now you may disagree with my assessment that I'm cursed, but we will just have to agree to disagree. My best friend, Jules, and I have been having this same argument for the last 13 years. What is worse to have too much or non at all? I always argue the too much, since I have too much. But I think having either extreme has got to suck. But shhh don't tell Jules I said that.
Back to the shirts, of course I didn't get them. They were, as I feared, too small in the bust. Fit just right everywhere else. Stupid boobs!
I have lost nearly 50 pound and the stupid things have not shrunk. Okay well maybe a tiny bit but not enough to go down a size. So I have a plan. When I get to my goal weight, I'm over half there, I'm going to get a breast reduction. I'm pretty sure the insurance will cover it with all this back pain I feel, so I'm not worried about the cost. I am worried, however, about finding the right Dr. I know someone who got a reduction and the Dr. messed up, big time. It was so bad that she then had to have implants to fix the problem. I don't want to have to do this. So if you have any knowledge at all about how to look for a plastic surgeon please let me know. I figure I should be at my goal weight by next summer so I have to start looking now so that I am ready. Plus maybe I will get to my goal before then (crossing fingers).
Look out button up shirts here I come!

Happy Happenings 7/26-8/1/09

Sunday
It was nice to come home after three hours of church to find that Lillee had used the outside for all her peeing and pooping. What a good girl.
After a lesson a few weeks ago about keeping the Sabbath day holy, and feeling guilty about not doing better, I was very proud of myself for not turning the TV on at all today.
Monday
I finally finished (for the most part) my list of things to do. The list is never ending, but I did get a lot done.
Tuesday
The inspection was finally done on the water heater (bout time). We can now put everything where we want it. Meaning we will finally put the paint back in the corner a few feet from the water heater.
After hours of working on the Microsoft movie maker I finally finished the slide show of girls camp. I had my struggles along the way (moving files and having to redo the show & music I wanted to use would not import –stupid copyrights, I bought the CD I should get to us it the way I want-)
Wednesday
Ahhhhhh (sigh of relief), the DVD burned. I had trouble burning a DVD the last time I made a movie and I was very worried that after all the work that was done it wouldn’t work. But I worried for nothing, all is well.
It was great to see my mom today. I drove over to Henderson to run errands with her and have lunch. I love having my mom not too far away and that I’m able to see her on a semi regular basis. I don’t care if our time is spent running errands as long as I have time with her.
The activity went really well. The girls seemed to really enjoy the movie slide show that I put together of the pictures from girls camp.
Thursday
24 hours of no accidents. Go Lillee!
Friday
I went shopping for some new work pants. I donated my tan and black pants to the DI at the end of the school year because they were too big. (huge grin) I first headed to Old Navy thank you Cortni for the 30% off discount email. Why is it that when you are looking for pants all you see are tops and vice versa? A sales girl came up to me to see if I needed any help finding anything. It was then that I realized I had an arm full of shirts and no pants. I needed to focus! I left the store with 3 shirts and 1 pair of brown pants. I then headed to Khols with my 15% off coupon for more pants. I did much better at this store. I only bought one pair of pants (tan), no shirts, but still no black pants. Ah shucks guess I will have to do more shopping.
48 hours of no accidents. Lillee your doing awesome!
Saturday
I started me day off with more shopping at Old Navy. The 30% off was still good and I still needed black pants. This time I left the store with two hoodies and one pair of black pants. I had finally completed my task of getting a pair of tan and black pants. The completion of said task only cost me a pair of brown pants, 3 shirts, and two hoodies on top of the pants I planned to buy. Back to school shopping is fun! It would have been more fun, or as I like to say funner, if I could have shopped with Audree and not alone.
I spent the rest of the day being lazy. I had planned to clean the house and be very productive, but shopping wore me out. Neal and I spent the day together doing nothing. It was great.
72 hours of no accidents. Keep it up Lillee I know you can do it. Okay so I have been praying for my little puppy and the Lord has been answering my prayers. It is nice to know the Heavenly Father cares enough about me and the little things that go on in my life that he would bless my little girl to learn. She has grown, changed and learned so much since we got her two months ago. It is a lot of fun watching her learn and grow. I think I was most happy when she learned the word “no”. This word has a lot of power and is very important. Lillee understanding the meaning of no is the key to Neal and me staying sane.