Through the Looking Glass

Last night was quite the pleasant surprise. I went to my Aunt's house for our weigh in / exercise night. I lost 3.5 pounds. I did a fancy "Wendie" plan this last week which consisited of eating a half of Schwanns pizza late Saturday night whilst watching "Young Frankenstien" with Steve. Just the super high day mid week and then low and high days scattered about. It really did shake my metabolism up, and gave me great motivation.

We walked for a good half hour (If not more...I really don't know.) but I kept up with my Aunt Mary who was walking at a faster clip. It really got my heart pumping and my legs going. I really need to watch it with the walking/wearing crappy shoes. I got a blister on the bottom of my foot. It is feeling better this morning, but was pretty painful. We all went for SubWay after, and that is always good. Mmmmmm SubWay.

I've got my mother in law hooked on Dotti's web site. I had shown her the print out I had made of Panera last week and she was so impressed that she had hit the site and was using the restaraunt to guide her in her food choices. Very cool.

Well, I'm off back to bed. Just wanted to blog a bit since I had 20 minutes until I had to get Steve up for work. Keep on losing!

// posted by Kari @  4:55 AM

I've pretty much decided that I need to "earn" my lunch by getting in at least a half hour of exercise each and every morning. I have walked at least 4 times this week, which is better than I have done in the past couple of months. Whew! I am bound and determined to see a loss tomorow at my Aunt's house. I WILL see a loss. (I'm a firm believer in positive thinking.)

I went over the bachelorette/wedding plans with Steve yesterday. No children are invited, so I have to find a sitter for Jamie from fron noon to preferably overnight. Steve's Mom was willing to come here and then leave at Midnight, but that is too late for her to be driving 45 minutes home. My neighbor does owe me two overnights, but Jamie is such a squirrel in the mornings, I really wouldn't wish him upon them, but we'll see.

I'm off, I must make my morning coffee.

I have this on my fridge door at eye level. (scroll down the page to see.) I have noticed a definate change in my food choices since I have to look at the photo to open my fridge door. Cool.

Yesterday I picked up my industrial strength bra/merry widdow type thingie to wear under the dress for my cousins wedding. Steve's cousin Kelly came with me when I ran over to Marshall Fields. She is 14 and just recently "has become a woman" so all of a sudden she is much more mature and does more grown up things. She is such a nice girl and I'm really glad I am getting a chance to do things with her and her sister. She volunteered to come with me when I said I had to hit ladies intimates for the bra. I think she thought I was getting a sleek, Victoria Secret's bra, but au contraire!

I think that all 14 year olds think that everyone wears the really cute, little strapped bras that come in a rainbow of colors. She was slack jawed when she saw my "contraption" as I laughingly called it. She said to me in complete amazement "You are going to wear that?" I said "Honey, this is what you have to wear when you are fat and you don't want to look as fat in a dress." She was completely floored and I just laughed.

I did walk 1.5 + miles before eating at the mall. The girls were so helpful. They adore Jamie and love to take him for walks in the mall to see the different things, and also to ride the elevator. I also ate Panera's "Ginger Tomato Florentine" soup and OMG - it was THE best soup that I have ever had. I'm not big on ginger, but truthfully, I couldn't even taste it. It was 1.5 points for a 8 oz cup! It was truly the most delicious soup in the whole world.

Well, today is a new day and I am going to go for a walk with Jamie soon! Take care and keep on losing!

I had a nice night last night at my Aunt Mary's house. We walked for a half hour at a decent clip with Jamie in tow. Just getting out and walking did me a world of good. I really enjoy doing things with my Aunt and Uncle. (This is my Auntie that is doing Weight Watchers too.)

I am going to be joining their very own weight loss group that both my Aunt's and their friend Ellen do on Tuesday evenings. I forsee not being able to pay for weigh watchers for probably the rest of the summer. They weigh in and then do some sort of exercise. I am pretty excited about it.

So I weighed in and just about had a crying jag on my Aunt's bathroom floor. Her scale, which is pretty accurate to WW'ers scales, says I weigh 190.5. OMG! I have been using Pam's scale and it reads 6 lbs lighter. So, that obviously got my buns in gear yesterday. I plan on walking at the mall today before I eat with my In-Laws. (Every other Wed. I join my MIL, Steve's Aunt Kathy, and Grandma at Mayfair mall, which kicks butt over the other mall that we usually have lunch at. ) I get quite the kick out of Kathy and it is nice seeing her more than two times a year.) So I definately have my wind back with WW'ers.

I almost, almost almost made a Taco Bell run on the way home, but ended up eating some super yummy raspberrys that we picked at my Auntie's house for dinner instead. I also lost/had my cell phone stolen so I was stressed out to the max last night. I completely lost my appetite right then and there. We are in the process of getting rid of our land line and using the cell phone as our primary phone, (so we don't have two bills) so we are SOL!! Our neighbor offered to lend us her cell, but I felt really funny about doing that. We can survive until we figure out something. I tore the house apart last night looking for the phone but no dice. I have never ever even misplaced the phone, so I am really concerned. We alerted the cell company last night and got a hold put on the account so we are not responsible for charges in case it was stolen, but it can be reversed if and when I find the phone.

Obviously my Mom is freaked out that she can't call me, but I told her that she can call Pam or our other neighbor and gave her their numbers. I also told her that she can have ANTM e-mail me at any time. Ugh, what a mess!

Well, I will keep you posted. Things are interesting to say the least.

So my weight loss has been on a bit of a plateau the past...what....6 months? I am pretty down about it all. I think that my major problem is motivation, and lack of exercise. I haven't been exercising like I should, and boy, it shows. I have been absolutely foaming at the mouth to get a bike. We have been broke for some time and hopefully I can get one soon. (Someday)

I think I am going through an anti-weight watchers phase and it needs to stop! I don't feel good about my self anymore and I'm not happy to be here in my body again. I spent some time this morning (Thank goodness for the disney channel) perusing the various weigh loss sites. And not all the tried and true ones that I have already seen. New ones.

I feel better about the whole thing right now, but I just need to get in gear!!

I weighed my self this morning at Pam's house. (My next door neighbor) and it looks like I lost 1 pound. I really couldn't be 100% sure, since it was so hard to read the little hash marks. Hey, maybe it is more! One can wish...I plan on purchasing a bathroom scale tonight since I want a nice digital beast that measures at least the half pound.

Which Founding Father Are You?

Such a busy weekend. The zoo was fun. The kids had a blast, I got my walking it, all around fun.

Over the weekend, we visited Steve's sister in Chicago and also went to Greek Fest. Walking walking. Cleaned the house. I have also bee eating at the mega low end of my points, in hopes that I can start getting some weight off. I am actually eating in the next bracket lower. I did have two high days, one which blew the points scale completely. I hope I will see a significant loss tomorow morning when I weigh my self on my next-door neighbor scale. Still can't afford the back fees. SOMEDAY. Someday.

We are going to the zoo today. I promised Jamie and the neighbor kids that the next time I would watch them, that we could either A) go to the zoo or B) go swimming at my in-laws. Unfortunately, my in-laws pool isn't open for the season yet due to the pump mechanism thingie is broken.

I've started a new photo blog over on Xanga. You can visit my site at www.xanga.com/eyespy I'm kind of excited.

I hope to walk at least 3 miles at the zoo. I know for a fact that Jamie will refuse to ride in the wagon, so I'm not even bringing it. The last two times we went I dragged the darn thing all over the place just for him to refuse to ride it. We are taking pick-nick lunches to eat by the lake (on zoo grounds) so things should work out great for everyone.

So I weighed in at my neighbor's house tonight since I can't afford the back fees for Weight Watchers. I only put on 4 lbs since June 10th. Much better than I expected. I have been putting it off and putting it off, and today I decided that enough was enough. I knew I gained. I just didn't know how much. So I am sitting at 184 lbs which is no big deal. I can go downward from there. I was actually relieved to see a minor gain, instead of seeing 190 lbs or something, which is exactly what I expected. I'm feeling much better about weight watchers this week. Whew!

1. What were your favorite childhood stories? "The Jungle Book/Rikki Tikki Tavi" by Rudyard Kippling, "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott and "Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass" by Lewis Carroll and any Laura Ingalls Wilder books.

2. What books from your childhood would you like to share with [your] children? There are so many books that both my husband and I have enjoyed as children, and we have been striving to share as many of them with our son as possible. Books are a passion in this household, so I guess the question is kind of moot. We all read. A LOT!

3. Have you re-read any of those childhood stories and been surprised by anything? I have re-read my favorites so many times that I'm not surprised by much of anything. But on the other hand, what does throw me through a loop is when we come across a newer copy of a children’s book and it has been "sensitized" and made "politically correct." We have copies of many books that are from when Steve and I were kids, so they aren't changed much, but the new changed copies just don't get bought by us.

4. How old were you when you first learned to read? Kindergarten/first grade. Normal school age. Although I remember wishing I could read earlier.

5. Do you remember the first 'grown-up' book you read? How old were you? I was in the 6th grade and snuck "The Talisman" by Stephen King. My Mom caught me and from that point on until I was about 16, she attempted to censor my reading material. (Not that she succeeded much...)

This weekend was a lot of fun. We spent Friday through Sunday in Wautoma, Wisconsin with my Mom's family. The trip up was great, Jamie and I hit the road around 10:15 am and we got there sometime around 2pm. No complaining, whining or back-talk out of my kiddo's mouth. I have to say, I was pretty impressed all around by Jamie. He missed his early afternoon nap all three days, but did ok in the evenings regardless.

One thing that did kill me was the food. Food everywhere. Not necessarily the best food, but when your body is screaming for something before you pass out from low sugar, you eat what ever is on hand. Which was usually something that was super high in fat like chips and cheese, or something that should have been cooked longer and you don't want to risk food poisoning like potato salad with half raw bacon and half cooked hard boiled eggs on top that has been sitting on the counter for four hours. Eeeww!

I love my grandma dearly, but she is a terrible cook. You can starve surrounded by food up there. I just think that if she wore her reading glasses things would improve drastically. Since she can't see the expiration date on the food, things are usually half moldy, and then half cooked in the dishes which makes all around bad dishes. Trips into town turn into chances to eat something...anything. Thank goodness for pre-packaged/prepared food. I think I lived on croissants with muenster cheese and blue berry pop-tarts most of the weekend.

I did make grilled veggie sandwiches for Grandma and I on Saturday for lunch, but they had bacon (which I cooked my self) on them. Only two strips each, so it wasn't all that bad. Grandma loved them, and so did I. My Mom and I try to take turns with Grandma to make food, and we bring a lot of food up as well, so things usually aren't all that bad, but this time we didn't bring much since Grandma said she had bought so much.

We did a lot of walking and swimming. It was really great to see my cousins and socialize with them. I usually don't have much a chance to do that, so it was nice. Jamie swam like a big kid in the lake with my cousin Amie, her son and my self a couple of times. He loved it so much. There are 5 great-grandchildren under the age of 8 now, so we did a lot of kiddie activities which was so much fun. It is kind of a trip doing things with my cousins and their kids. We all have kids, so it is really kind of laid back and "anything goes" rules the day.

Anyhow, I'm glad to be home. Jamie has his three year old check-up today, and I have to run and get his immunization records from our old doctors office. Take care and happy summer!

// posted by Kari @  10:21 AM

Fourth of July. Is it just me or did June just blast by with out so much as a fare-thee-well? It seems like summer is half over, and Jamie has been in his kiddie pool two times. TWO TIMES ONLY! I guess I shouldn't complain, it is actually comfortable to be outside, or be inside with the windows open. We've been spending lots of time outside getting things done and playing with Jamie who loves to ride his tricycle.

I got one more wall primed and one coat of color on it. Man, I tell you, painting is hard work. I guess it is hard for me since I spent most of the time on a ladder trying my best to get good coverage without falling off. We need one of those miracle paint roller system. I tried to get my Dad to spring for one as part of my birthday paint accessories, but he pooh-pooh'ed the idea and said that they are a bitch to clean and don't work as well. So, I am doing the correct way and sweating my buns off at the same time. I’m pretty motivated, but today, I don't think I am going to put the second coat on until nap time for Mr. Jamie. This is the third day of painting and it is getting a little old. Did I say that? Since I have 4 more walls to go, I really gotta get cracking. I don't want this to be a summer long ongoing project. I want it done by the latest the end of next week. Not too bad since I am doing it myself.

So we are planning to going to see my Grandmother over the weekend. It is kind of a family get together as well, since my Mom's whole side is going up. My Aunt Lynn and Uncle Randy demo-ed their falling down trailer (50+ years old) last fall and had a very cute Wick Home type pre-fab put up. It is very cool and has three bedrooms, so there is plenty of room for everyone between the two houses. Aunt Lynn's has two bath/shower combos so I may go sometime during the weekend and sit in her huge whirlpool tub thingie and calgon my worries away. That is if I can get my Mom out of it. She is a spa/whirlpool junkie. I’ll have to bring my awesome bath salts from the spa party I had in April. They are so divine smelling. My Mom is going to love them.

Anyhow, my grandma is so very excited that everyone is coming up. It sounds like the only ones staying at her house is my parents, and Steve, Jamie and I. Good deal if you ask me. I look forward to just taking it easy and getting some swimming in. I spoke to my Mom and she is bringing up some Bocca burgers and I am getting turkey brats and some veggies (eggplant, zucchini, red peppers and portabella mushrooms) to grill instead of the mega high fat hamburgers and stuff. It sould be interesting to say the least! :-) I'll be taking lots and lots of pictures, so hopefully one of these days I will upgrade my blogger account and get picture capabilities.

// posted by Kari @  9:09 AM