Bullet Point Wednesday

I don't have a lot to say about any given thing so I'm taking a hint from Meg and doing some bullet points.

• If you don't watch The Biggest Loser, you missed a good cryfest last night.  Dear, sweet Abby volunteered to go home.  This girl lost everything important in her life (husband, young child and infant) in a car accident and she asked to be the one to go home so others could stay.  She said she had learned to overcome her fear of loving people.  She looks amazing.


• My weekend is filling up with Halloween festivities.  The Brit is handling Trick or Treat at the house on Friday and I am off to the church for Trunk or Treat.  Saturday, we have a Halloween party and Tod did our costumes; they are amazing.


• I am thinning out the Christmas giving this year.  Money is tight for lots of folks and with some people I can't see exchanging gifts just because it is Christmas when I don't see them any other time of the year.  The holiday has always stressed me out and I am still searching for some alternative means to celebrate that bring some meaning back into it for me.


• I am looking for one of these used or cheap:

 

 

    Not sure I will find one.  They have them at the Y and I am dying to play with it but have visions of me falling on my ass in front of all the people working out.  I would much rather bust my ass in the privacy of my own home.

• I started Week 3 of C25K today and made it.  You can follow my progress here.  So far this is proving to be a totally doable program for would-be runners...but again, I am only on week three.


• I decided today that what the world needs is more people who leave their shopping carts parked diagonally in the middle of the aisle in Walmart.  We so don't have enough of those people.

5 Mile Walk? Check!

So the Breast cancer 5K was actually a five mile walk.  We walked most of it out of doors but got caught in the rain twice and moved it inside to the track.  I have pictures but I let the tee shirt lady talk me into a large and for me, judging by the photos, huge mistake...and they were white, so ya'll know where I'm coming from, right?  Yeah, way not posting them.

But huge sense of accomplishment for having done it and our county raised somewhere along the lines of $173,000 breaking all previous records.  Thank you to all of you who donated.  You are the amazing ones.

Saturday night was Ron White at the Maryland Theater and it was a blast.  Funny-ish story.  We went to dinner before and I had a glass of wine.  Then when we got there, they had not yet opened the doors to the theater so everyone was all lined up waiting to get in and we went into the theater's bar next door instead, which was pretty empty and I ordered another glass of wine, which I took into the theater with me.  I was buzzing along quite happily and decided I needed one more glass before Ron took the stage, so I headed back to the bar, which was now insanely crowded!  But I worked my way to the bar and while waiting to be waited on, a guy next to me starts chatting with me and we are joking around for a few minutes and then he asks me what time it is.  Checking my watch I tell him we have six minutes so I really need waited on because I did not want to miss a second of Ron White, to which he says "We'll there will be a warm up."

My mind is immediately filled with images of Ron coming out on stage to tell a few jokes like why did the chicken cross the road, but I asked it anyway..."How do they warm up a comedian?"  Had the guy said "opening act" or anything like that, I'd have gotten it.  Instead the dude now knew I was a live comedian virgin.  Ah well.  Live and learn...and drink wine.

Wednesday I move onto week three of my C25K.  Haven't looked yet at what that entails.  I like to be surprised and not so much overwhelmed.  I have enough overwhelmed in my regular life with two boys.  But so far, I am enjoying my little 90 second runs.  I'll get back to you after Wedneday and let you know how much I like week three!

Second Journal and First 5K

First off, thank you everyone for your supportive words given my family issues.  I'm sure there are two sides to every story and maybe my brother and his wife have some kind of issues with me; I have no idea.  I only know how things look from this side and I get tired of dealing with it.  But enough about that.

I started a progress journal on the C25K site for the running program, which is going fairly well.  So if anyone is interested you can follow that part of all this there.  The program is challenging but not impossible and sometimes I have to realize that it is a marathon and not a sprint in the way of speed.  My knees are not bothering me much at all though my shins are but that should pass.

Tomorrow is the breast cancer 5K and I'm very excited.  Tod is going with me to walk along with me as we generally walk together anyway.  It is supposed to rain, which sadly means the walk will be inside and I prefer walking out of doors, but it's still all good.  After all, I'm walking a 5K! 

Tomorrow night is Ron White at the downtown theater which I am also excited about.  Busy weekend full of great stuff.  Hope you all have one planned to!

Family Drama Again

So many of you may remember the Beach Sister situation of 2008 and if you don't know the story, please review the link. I have seen this sister one other time since then, at my mother's 80th birthday party a year ago.  I have very little desire to see her for the simple fact that if a relationship with me is not important to someone, I have no desire to force myself upon them.  That situation opened my eyes to the way things apparently were and I got hurt and have gotten over it.  But I am also from the school of "sh*t on you once, shame on them, sh*t on you twice, shame on you."  In other words, I am not setting myself up for anything again, thankyouverymuch.

Now, second scenario is my younger brother, who I grew up very close to, who got married and since marriage we barely have a relationship.  We had one for awhile but once we adopted kids, it really pretty much ended other than holidays.  This brother and his wife live in the next town over (like twenty minutes away) and I have not seen them since Easter.  They had an open invitation to our Fire Pit Frenzy Fridays, but have never shown up (sister in law told my mother she sent me an email saying she worked Saturdays, but I have never gotten an email from her...I never get emails from her so I would have remembered if one had showed up.).  And what really takes the cake is that two weeks ago, she had a surprise 40th birthday party for my brother and no one from our family was invited.  Nice.

So why am I talking about this?  Because these are the four people who will be at my mothers for Thanksgiving. I have been dreading this and a few weeks ago, I spoke to my sister, Vicki, about it, who in turn, talked to my mother, who in turn told me she understood if I didn't want to be at Thanksgiving and she would not be angry.  Oh, and these two couples, adore each other.

I was relieved until yesterday.  Yesterday I took mom to lunch for her birthday and her tune started to change a bit.  "So are you coming to Thanksgiving or not?"  I thought we had been over this and I voted no.  So I reaffirmed this with her and she fussed a bit more.   I said that getting together just because it was a holiday when people don't want anything to do with me any other time, was a joke.   Why did I want to be uncomfortable and forcing conversation for the sake of a turkey?  Yeah, there is the fact that my mother is 81 and I don't know how much longer I'll have her, but I would much rather have a nice dinner here either before or after Thanksgiving and invite her.  It's not HER I don't want to spend time with. 

There is also the issue that every time my youngest son sees the two who live so close (I don't think he has seen them since Easter either...if he saw them then, I can't remember as I was flying to England that evening), when we go home, I get the questions.

"Why don't they invite us over?"

"Why don't they send me a birthday card?"

Etc...and I don't have answers!  My youngest child adores them, which is what makes it so horrible for me...and for him.   When he doesn't see them, he doesn't think to ask the questions.  My mother says I should tell him to ask them those questions, but I don't want to put him up to it and they would think it came from me anyway.

So am I wrong to not go and to make other plans for that day?  Vicki, she is talking about trying to get you to come (and I laughed and said, "Yeah, because she is so close to them!") so be warned. 

In all reality, I have six siblings and though I love them all because I have to, four of them I genuinely like as people and adore spending time with.  Those are pretty good stats in my opinion.

It's Official; I am sick of food

So the weekend in Annapolis was very nice and relaxing but way too much really good food was involved.  Yummy things like salad and crab imperial and dinner at The Melting Pot which was cheese fondue (not great but at least protein and I only had one tiny bit of bread in the cheese and instead mostly apple slices).  The dinner part was not bad at all but then dessert....chocolate fondue with strawberries and rice krispie squares and well, you can imagine.  Then a lunch of seafood yesterday.  Then there was snacking of Chex Mix and a croissant and let's just say that by the time I got home, I had zero interest in food and that kind of spilled over to today as well.  Nothing looks good or interests me.

Then The Brit had a nasty abscess that had him in the ER today to have it lanced (he's a diabetic, so he needs to be really careful with any open wound), so I didn't make it to the gym today.  He's doing fine btw and has great drugs.  Tomorrow I am taking my mother out to lunch for her birthday to Olive Garden (her choice) and after the weekend and not hitting the gym today, I am struggling to decide what to order.  Do you know most of their entrées are well over 1000 calories?  Holy hell!  So it might be soup and a salad but not the cedar salad as that dressing is insanely high in calorie.  Do they have a garden salad?

So tomorrow kick boxing definitely.  Wednesday, double penance; running after work, walking with Tod that evening.  He called tonight but The Brit had council so I had kids.  One is searching for a missing NetFlix Hannah Montana movie and the other has been trying to convince me he can do his second book project one the same book on which he did the first one.   Youngest has been told no outside time until he recovers Hannah and I have emailed the older one's teacher to get to the truth.

Oh and when we got home yesterday, it was 53 degrees in here as the boiler had shut off while we were away.  The cats were pissed and assumed we took the heat with us.

Need Something to Stumble Upon

I get really excited when I find cool new things to me, on the internet.  So my find today may not be new to many of you, but I just discovered it and think it is the dog's whatsits (as the British dude would say).  The site is StumbleUpon and if you are like me, there are times you are bored of your frequently looked at websites and you are thinking "Dang, if only I could find something new to view."  Well, wish no more!

You have to sign up and you have to download the StumbleUpon tool bar but then the fun begins. You go into their website and pick the categories that interest you.  For example, picked things like "health and fitness" , "cats", "Travel" etc. Then your handy dandy new tool bar (and it didn't take away my Google tool bar, it just added another tool bar, so don't fear losing Google if you are a Googlelite.) will have a "Stumble" icon and when you click on this, it will take you to a site that falls within your category specifications.  For example, under my cooking category, this popped up . I mean, how fun is this?  You can pop in what ingredients you have and it will tell  you what you can make!  Then when if I am really bored, I can tell it I have really weird stuff and try to have it create me a dinner out of cheese and syrup or something.

If you like a site you find, you can punch your little "I like it!" icon and it will Favorite the site for you.  And I can share it and make friends apparently.  I have only punched my little "Stumble" button like four times and I was so excited I had to blog and tell you all about it.  So go Stumble!  Unless unlike me, you have a life.

Ya Can't Fix Stupid

Sometimes when I'm bored or feeling behind in current events (and generally I don't really care; news is depressing and rarely does any of the good stuff make the paper) I read our local paper...and I should know this is just not a good idea.  I am reminded when I do this of how ridiculous our society has become, how apathetic, how without common sense.  It amazes me.  Maybe I am just getting old.

I read two stories so far today and both had me shaking my head.

The first was about a disabled woman who lived in a Housing Authority Building and she locked herself out of her 7th story apartment and was trying to climb from a common area balcony to her own balcony I suppose to let herself back into her apartment.  She wound up falling to her death.  The first issue I have is this:

Officer Pat Moulton responded to the area of Walnut Towers for an unrelated call when she saw the woman outside in bedroom slippers, Kifer said. Moulton spoke with the woman and returned about 30 minutes later to check on her.

When Moulton returned, she saw the woman hit the ground as she fell, Kifer said.

Um, yeah, our law officers are to be keeping us safe, but just let his lady stay locked out and try to come up with her own device for getting back inside.  Big of Officer Moulton to come back to check on her...too bad she just didn't stay and help out in the first place.

Then there is this comment:

The woman could have called Hagerstown Housing Authority’s emergency number or called a locksmith in an effort to get into her apartment, said Ted Shankle, executive director for Hagerstown Housing Authority.

She did not call the emergency number, Shankle said.

Does common sense tell anyone else that if she was locked out she couldn't get to a phone?  Maybe I'm missing something, but it just doesn't make sense to me.  Hello?

Then I read an article about a First Grader in Delaware who was suspended for 45 days for bringing his favorite camping tool (a combination folding knife, fork and spoon) to school to eat his lunch with.  The Board of Ed there apparently changed their minds about the 45 day suspension of a FREAKING FIRST GRADER, thank GOD!  Okay, I get that we have to be careful and protect our kids but is there no common sense required in doing so?  C'mon!  45 days?  The kid didn't bring a machete for crying out loud.  He brought a camping tool!  Overturn the sentence....YA THINK? 

Please people, help me bring common sense back to our society.  And good manners too while we are at it as few people seem to have those anymore either.

What's the story from your local paper that makes you cringe and say WTH?

Busy Week

Sorry for the absence, but things have been busy.  My brother and sister are here from the West Coast for a few days and my youngest child has been down with the flu since Sunday morning.  So I've been working from home other than two hours this morning when I slipped into the church to copy some work onto my flash drive to bring home.

I get a little weirded out when my weekday routine gets flopped around.  I have trouble with food when I am off my normal schedule, like on the weekends.  Monday through Friday, I am pretty regimented on what I do and when in order to get it all in and even meals are planned and packed or whatever.  When things change for whatever reason where I don't have time to plan, my food thing gets all weird in not a good way.  Today has been better than yesterday but with being home all day yesterday, I nibbled all day.  Today I am more back on task with food but it does help me to realize that WLS doesn't make any part of weight loss less of a struggle. It never becomes second nature to the point that I don't even have to think about reaching for fruit or veggies instead of some kind of empty carb.  Don't I wish?!  I did make it to the gym yesterday long enough to do my C25K thirty minutes but had to forgo Muscle Makeover.  Tonight I am still heading to kickboxing and maybe I will get some stability ball time in tonight during The Biggest Loser.

I have spent two days either watching or listening to iCarly and Hannah Montana, the latter I feel is a piece of crap more or less.  The story lines are sillier and the acting is not so good.  iCarly is the better kids show by far...not that any of you care, but it has been a BIG part of my life this week.

Thankfully, I have high hopes for him going back to school tomorrow!

Not quite two weeks left to donate to the 5k Breast Cancer walk!  Thanks to those of you who have donated!  Ya'll rock!  And those of you that can't donate right now, please keep the walker, the survivors and especially my friend, Shiloh in your prayers.  The prayers are worth every bit as much as the sponsorship!

Afterthoughts

I received two great comments to my last post and I first want to say to Jil:  Why do we not live closer?  I think we could be BFFs if only we were within driving distance of each other (well, we are, but it would take a couple of days to get there!).  You are so wise and honest and giving and I love all those things about you.  You're always in my corner, girl, even though we have never met face to face.  I love you for it.



I guess I am a little scared of being judged.  I have run into a LOT of judgmental people in other aspects of my walk of life and I hate it.  I know we all pass judgments from time to time but some do it with such reckless abandon that it is frightening.  I'm not in any way ashamed of the surgery I had; it gave me a whole new life that I'm loving BUT I totally have to WORK to keep that new life.  As Laura said "If all it took to lose weight was the surgery; you wouldn't even be at the Y!"  True.  So very true.  I have to make the conscious decision every day to exercise but it is so worth it for me, because I never want to revert back.



I didn't tell Jerry at first either, the first time he trained me with the stability ball.  I had told him I had lost a lot of weight but didn't tell him about the surgery.  Then I felt guilty (I don't get why, so don't ask.  I can't figure it out) because he was being so nice to me and I had not been upfront with him.  When I told him I even phrased it as if it was a terrible thing I was getting ready to tell him.  I said "I need to tell you something and I don't want you to think less of me..."  WTH?  I don't even make sense to myself sometimes. 



I think women are more difficult to tell.  I think we are more judgmental than our male counterparts.  We are always concerned about how we measure up against other women.  I find myself doing it at times and I hate it.  I prefer not caring what anyone else thinks about my life, but yet on some level, especially with my surgery, I do care.  I don't want people thinking I cheated, even if I don't believe that.  I don't want people thinking it of me.  But yet, I can't control what other people think so maybe that is why I elect to not always tell people.  Sometimes now, I almost forget I had surgery because time has passed and what I am doing now has more to do with just being normal (despite my half hour long dumping session the other night...that's the only time I don't feel normal).  I work , I clean, I exercise, I cook, I parent, I am a spouse.  Exercise is just a part of my day to day routine and I never think anymore "I need to exercise because I had this surgery and I need to be true to it." I exercise because I want to get to a size 14 and more importantly because, damn, it makes me feel better overall when I do work out.  I feel better physically and mentally for doing it. 



I guess it is just one of those things I need to come to terms with and sort out for myself about how to handle it in the future.  Not sure why it is so complicated for me, yet it is.



Happy weekend, kids!  Be safe!

Should I Feel Guilty?

So really quick on The Biggest Loser....is anyone else watching it?  Last night was kind of uneventful except for these observations/facts:

• Shay and Daniel, my orange team, kicked the challenge to win immunity for the week.  I love these two.  They are so real and Dan is such an inspiration and the poster child for never giving up; see what you want and go for it! 


• Anyone else want to kick Tracey's ass?  I love you, Coach Mo, but please, stand up to this hobag and don't allow her to make all the decisions for your team.  You wanted Julio to stay and she got her way one more time.  Ugh, it is becoming sickening.


• Danny seems sweet, but Liz has not yet endeared herself to me, even though she had apparently done that with many members of the cast.  She seems to complain a lot, but again, we are only seeing what is being aired.


• Julio went home and is kicking it on his own.  He looks GREAT!

Now, everyone knows the stigma that can go with WLS.  Some see it as "the easy way out" *cough, cough* though I don't know what planet those people are from, but whatever.  But anyway, due to that mentality, I don't generally tell strangers about my choices.  Jack McFarland knows as I think I told him at one of my first few kickboxing classes.  Jerry, the very nice older gentleman who works at the Y knows too as I told him.  But at the gym, that is kind of it as far as who knows about my surgery.

Now I have been taking a Muscle Makeover class with this very nice lady named Donna.  Really like her.  She knows a lot about fitness and is actually getting certified to be a personal trainer.  As she is a wealth of information, and I am constantly reading stuff on fitness, health, foods, etc, we chat a lot before class.  During our discussions, I have told her that I have lost over 100 pounds and at one point in one of our conversations, she asked me what made me finally decide to change my body.  I went into the whole having been overweight/obese since I was a kid and I just wanted the second part of my life to be different.  Tonight we were talking again and I was telling her about my crunches on the stability ball and even doing 200 of them, I had no feeling of soreness the next day anymore and she suggested I hold a weight while doing them.  I confessed to her how I wanted to be a size 14 but my body seemed to want to hang onto the 18.  Sherri, another lady in our class who sometimes teaches Spin, said that we all needed to get past the number and just work on health and I agreed but said I still wanted my number.  I have no desire to be a single digit size; I like to have some curves.  At the end of our conversation, Donna said to me "I'm just so proud of you for achieving so much."

Why do I feel guilty for not being up front about my surgery?  Is it because so many people have the "easy way out" mentality that we or at least I, occasionally wonder if I somehow cheated?  Do I need to be upfront with people I am discussing weight loss and fitness with?  What are the right answers?  I'm not ashamed of my surgery, yet at the same time, I don't want people thinking less of what I have done because I had it.  I have worked my ass off to get to where I am and I know that.  But should I feel guilty about not telling the whole truth?

Really Getting Down to Business

So I think exercising has become my new obsession, which is not a bad thing.  The Brit's is golf and exercise is mine and I really want in those size 14s and I really want to be below 200 pounds and I'm getting really close.  It's that time of the month right now so though I am doing all the same working out, I am not currently getting on the scale till probably the weekend.

I am also going to officially begin the C25K program.  I have been doing some treadmill running as I have mentioned and have dropped about 7 pounds with it, but I need to get more serious to get where I want to be.  I would really like to get through the nine weeks of the program if my knees cooperate.  I so far don't like running; I have yet to find any joy in it, but I also haven't given it enough of a chance yet, I don't think.  I may get to the end of the nine weeks and still hate it...or maybe I won't make it to the end of the nine weeks.  I downloaded the podcast for week one, which from what I understand has music and cues on when to begin running and when to stop.  Hopefully the songs are not crap .

I am nearly to goal on the breast cancer walk, so now anything more is a bonus.  Thank you to sister, Vicki on her donation, as well as to two families at church who have given me checks.  You all rock!

I've been a bad blogger

Insanely busy week, so sorry about the lack of posting!  Home is always busy, but the church was busy this week too and I was busy, and let's just stick to the facts, shall we?

My scale is still dropping.  I despise, loathe and detest running sprints, but by george, it has gotten my scale moving for the first time since June, so I will take it and literally run with it.  Jack taught an extra kickboxing class this week so I took that twice and only made one Muscle Makeover class but did run sprints Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  Three times a week is currently my goal and though it pains me to think it, I should next week switch from minute sprints to 90 seconds.  I don't want to, but I will and I have the weekend to groan in my head about it.

I visited Shiloh this week and she is doing incredibly well.  She still doesn't know a lot as far as her treatment goes as she hasn't met with the oncologist yet, but we all continue to pray for the best news.  But she was up and around and gave us a tour of her parents home where they are living and wow, what a beautiful place!  It was a really good visit and it's just sad that the oboxious place we met did not put us in a situation to become friends earlier, but we're there now and I look forward to seeing her again and cheering her on as she fights this disease.  Her children are positively precious and seem to be taking everything in stride for as much as young ones can comprehend what is happening.  They all need your prayers, so please keep them coming.

I have signed up for Washington County Relay for Life, but more on that way later as that is not till summer 2010, but it all has to do with walking and raising money to kick cancer's ass.  I am so grateful for the donations you all have given so far for the walk against breast cancer.  I am still $55 short of my goal, so if you can help, please go here and seach for Kimberly Jones and help me give cancer a big ole boot in it's backside.  Cures to breast cancer and all cancers start one step and one dollar at a time, so even small donations add up to amazing things.