Another hot weekend.

It was another hot, nasty weekend. It's a little after 8pm and just now starting to cool down in the house. I think it's around 99 or 100 right now.

Hubs and I spent most of the day running around in the heat. We do our grocery shopping on Sundays and decided that since we were going to be near my in-laws place that we'd drop by and give my Mother in law one of her video games back that we'd borrowed.

That turned in to a four hour jaunt around town and at her house lol. She wanted to go shopping with us and for some reason, when we shop with her, it is near impossible to walk out of the store with just what we bought. Soda and popsicles were on sale and instead of four bottles of soda for Paul, Carmen kicked in more money and had us buy ten so she could store some at her house for him (we tend to go over and he runs out of drinks while we're there) They also had our favorite mango-cherry popsicles on sale for .99 so I was going to grab four bags to store in the large freezer. We walked out with ten bags of popsicles. Who buys that many?! Us apparently...she'd never tried them so she bought a whole bunch and said that if she didn't like them she'd give them to us. Great and all, but woah lol...kinda overkill don'tcha think?

After I'd helped her take some pictures of her tomatoes and uploaded them onto her computer, we finally made it home. Since then it's been a quest to stay cool. It was 95 in the house earlier and I swear I thought I saw Paul panting.

We're seriously thinking about clearing off our back porch and putting one of those little kid wading pools back there. If for nothing else, it should be good for sitting in and laughing at Moxie trying to get in with us. We can't afford a real pool so it's the next best (silly!) thing.

I haven't been sticking to any sort of eating plan. I've been seriously considering just scrapping the weigh in and all that until things get a little more comfortable around here. I'm not really gaining and it's been so hot I haven't been eating much at all (does that cancel out the bad stuff? No? Ahh...I didn't think so) Maybe if I just put my diet blog to sleep for awhile and start back up later I can start with a clear head. I just seriously can't seem to function with this heat. I don't know though...I'm still just pondering.

Hope everyone else had a good weekend and it's cooler where y'all are at!

I can live with that! - Weigh in Tuesday

Looks like I'm up a whoppin' .4 pound today. LOL, I thought it was going to be SO much worse!

What can I say? I'm a worry wart!

My parents are currently on their way over to lend me a few fans. Our big industrial one crapped out on us at about 4:45 this morning. Murphy strikes again! The upside is that it won't sound like a plane engine running in the living room for awhile. Until we replace it, that is.

I'm still here

I feel kind of bad that I haven't been updating much. I just can't help it! I think "I'm going to blog today) and the next thing you know it's 9:00 at night and I'm tired and don't even want to get online and mess with anything. Summer is bad for me for that. Looking back at my craft blog, I blogged SO much more during the colder parts of the year. I just can't seem to get any steam during the summer - I'm too busy trying to avoid the heat and actually doing anything.

But on to weighty stuff. I'm pretty much 100% certain that I'm going to see a gain tomorrow. I've been a piggy the entire weekend, eating fast food and chocolate ice cream. I knew when I was eating it that I shouldn't be, but I didn't care. I still pretty much don't care lol! I've noticed that not only does my craft muse leave me in the summer, but my willpower does too. I usually only eat once a day, late in the evenings and I eat a big meal. I drink cold drinks all day, varying from water to powerade to soda. I do what's comfortable, not necessarily healthy. My shopping cart this weekend consisted of a case and a half of powerade, two cases of water, lunch stuff for Paul and salad and sandwich stuff for dinners. I don't want to even cook on the stovetop, much less in the oven right now. On Saturday it was 106 degrees. Yuck!

I know a lot of my posts about the weather come off as whiny and bitchy and I know it's annoying. I need to remember that when I'm bemoaning how miserable I am. It's not fun to read.

Damnit!

I figured I'd get an early start on dinner so I wouldn't have to cook while it was hot and nasty this evening. I pulled out my crockpot and tossed some chicken and rice in, and I decided to pull out the bread machine that my mother in law found for me. My old bread machine is so old that every loaf comes out dense, no matter what ingredients I use. Carmen found this one through a friend; used.

I decided on a garlic parmesan whole wheat loaf and after reading the paper that was with the machine, I decided to make a 1 1/2 pound loaf. I dumped all my ingredients in and plugged the machine in. I pushed all the little buttons to get it to the right settings, then waited. And waited. Then waited some more.

After about five minutes of seeing no movement while peering in to the glass bubble on the top of the machine, I unplugged it and opened the lid. I double checked to make sure the pan was placed in just so; I'd made sure before I started putting ingredients in the pan that the paddle was where it belonged. Turns out that the digital readout worked just fine, but apparently the motor that turned the paddle was dead.

So; I spent about an hour and a half kneading the dough by hand and letting it rise. I just finished punching down the dough and doing a second kneading. It's on it's second rise now. I'm going to have to turn the oven on for at least 45 minutes. Blah. All my "pre-planning" so I wouldn't have a hotter house kind of back fired on me.

But the bread should be good.

Must have been sweat lol - Weigh In Tuesday

I'm down another 1.8 pounds this morning. I think I'm just sweating it off! More likely, it's the combination of the heat and being turned off food until 10 or 11 at night when it's finally a decent temperature. Either way, I lost, so it's good!

I need to get off my butt and get some pictures. I got my hair cut on Friday and it is SHORT! It was down to almost my waist and now I've got maybe three inches on the top. They were a little surprised when they asked what I wanted and I said, "I want it GONE!" lol! I just woke up so it's currently standing straight up and out. Not a very good look, but it feels so good not to have a huge pile of hair twisted into a clip on the back of my head. I definitely helps with the heat!

I'm here

Hey ladies, I'm still here! It's been hotter than the hubs of hell here and I've been trying not to melt into the carpet. It's 103 degrees right now and our cooler and fans are barely making a dent in the heat. It's 95 in the house :( Waaahhh!

We're going to look in to getting a larger a/c unit in the next few weeks. We have to save up the money since it's going to be over $300 for the one we want. The scariest thing is that it's just STARTING to get hot, we haven't even hit the really hot part of the summer yet!

So I'll try to start blogging in the mornings when it's still cool, but if you don't see me for a few days it's only because I'm in the shower non-stop and don't want to electrocute myself.

Me too

Petula mentioned that there were areas that were hard to read on my blog since I changed the layout. I agree completely. I thought it was a gorgeous layout, but for me, (and those who read this apparently!) it was too difficult to read. This one will work much better, and I can be reminded of my days frolicking on the beach when I lived in California!

This American Life

I was thinking about it. I have my craft blog and I have my weight loss blog. I don't really have a blog where I can blog about random things. So I'm just going to use this one for that kind of stuff.

I found a thread on Ravelry (a knit and crochet community for those who don't know) talking about different podcasts that people liked. I've only ever really listened to knitting podcasts before so I decided to check out one that had been mentioned again and again - This American Life. I.am.hooked. I'm currently on my third episode of the morning. I started with one called Babysitting from their favorite episode list. I followed with one called Act V and am now listening to one called Notes On Camp about summer camps. I just really like the way a story (or several) is told about that subject, with guests and really excellent commentary. I think I've found my new favorite thing to listen to while crafting.

If you're interested in this sort of thing; please check it out. It's very good. I highly suggest the Babysitting episode - it was funny, sad, and enlightening and I can't even describe how much I liked it. Listening online is free, you can download it to your computer for less than a dollar.

Bye-bye water! Weigh in Tuesday

I have absolutely NO idea how I did it, but I managed to lose 6.8 pounds this week. I haven't even been eating particularly healthy, just not eating much I guess. I did notice yesterday that my ankles looked like normal ankles, so I'm guessing that most of last week was water weight and it finally decided to come off.

Pleasant surprise!

Here I sit, pleasantly surprised!

My Mom called me this morning and practically begged me to come visit with her, my Aunt and Uncle, my cousin and my Dad. They arrived on Saturday afternoon and admittedly, I've been sour about the entire thing. I've never particularly liked my Aunt because in the past she's always been very snooty and rude.

So imagine my shock when she laid eyes on me and not only grabbed me for a big hug, but had tears in her eyes when she told me how much she loved me! Woah! Apparently along with the health problems she's had in the past few years, she gained a sense of family and outlook. Who would've thought?!

I was only over there for a few hours since I didn't want to leave my dogs in a hot house by themselves for too long, but I enjoyed it and was genuinely happy to visit. I expected the worst and got the best; I'm wondering if I should do that more often?

I haven't had much of a chance to talk to my Mom one on one, but my Dad told me on the way over to the house that my Aunt has been like this since they got here and a little family drama occurred when she told my parents that another family member had been talking smack about them and that was why she'd always been so snotty to all of us. That made me really sad because it was someone that I've always looked up to, but since it's out in the open I'm hoping that it'll mend a long time broken fence between my mom and Aunt and they can finally move on from all that.

We're going tomorrow night for dinner and a birthday celebration for my Dad. Paul's never met my Aunt and I'm hoping he'll believe me when I tell him that she's never been this nice before. He's heard me say some pretty mean things about her, but I honestly didn't know about the new leaf she'd turned. It was a happy surprise though...I hope it continues!

Is it over?

Wow. This weekend seemed to drag on forever! Not really in the good way either. It felt like it just kept going and going and it was boring!

Saturday we spent most of the day just lounging around. We finally got up and went grocery shopping in the late afternoon and other than that, I don't think we really *did* anything else. Yesterday we had a friend from Vegas stop by to visit. A friend of hers from the store she used to work at here passed away and she came for his funeral. Poor guy was only 42 years old.

Nothing particularly good or bad about the weekend. Just one of those ones where it seems like it was never going to end. I felt a bit discombobulated the entire time.

Why hello there, pain-free knees!

I'm doing much better this morning! My hips are still a little achy, but my knees feel pretty good and I don't have that all over pain that I did yesterday. Thank goodness!

I'm hoping I continue to feel well because if I do, and the weather isn't too horribly hot this weekend I have plans to work on my yard. It is, in my opinion, the nastiest yard on the block. At least as far as yards that can be seen from the street go.

When we bought the place back in 2001 it was in horrible disrepair. I'm pretty sure the guy who owned it before us was batshit crazy. He'd torn down walls and then built half walls in a few of the rooms. He used some sort of nasty thick foam glue to put up sheets of styrofoam and the garage and yard were absolutely full of junk. Big junk, little trashy things like empty laundry soap bottles and cardboard boxes. I wish I could say that we've since taken care of anything and I have just upkeep to do, but that's not the case. There's still all sorts of junk that was left behind, only now there's our junk that needs to be gotten rid of as well. We had two trees fall a couple of years ago and though I cut them up and stacked them, they're an eyesore and I want to get rid of them.

Anyway, enough rambling. I mainly want to get a few bags of trash bagged up and try to kind of make a few piles for future disposal. I've thought about renting one of those large dumpsters, but they're really expensive! Since that's not really an option at the moment I told my husband that I'm going to start throwing away at least two bags of garbage from the yard every week until it's gone. It'll take awhile, but at least it's proactive instead of letting it just sit there!

I hope everyone has a nice weekend. I'd like to catch some of you in chat one of these days but I keep missing everyone!

Blarg

Today has not been a good day.

I fell asleep at 5:30 last night and slept until 2:30 this morning. I had plans to go over and visit with my best friend since I hadn't seen her for over a month so I decided to just stay up and get things done that I didn't do the night before.

I dropped my hubby off at 5:30 and headed over to Shannon's house. When I woke up I was really achy but passed it off as something that would go away as the day wore on. When I pulled up to her house and got out of the car I gasped from the pain. My hip and knee joints were screaming! I stayed and visited for a couple of hours, but finally decided to head home so I could stretch out on the bed and also to let Shannon get some sleep since she'd worked the night before.

I didn't stretch out when I got home. I curled in to a little ball and sobbed for a half an hour before getting up and raiding every ibuprofen and non-asprin bottle I could find. I finally found a few of each and took them and laid back down. I slept for awhile, but couldn't get comfortable so I got back up.

I'm feeling a little better now, but jeez! What the heck is up with me?! Seems like I'm feeling shitty and sick at least half of every week. It sucks. I feel like a whiny hypochondriac lately.

I swear I'm not fishing for sympathy, I just needed to vent. Hopefully I'll figure out what's going on soon and get the hell over it.

bloat! Weigh In Tuesday

I was most certain that I would see a gain this week, so the extra 1.4 pounds when I glanced at the scale was no surprise. It kind of sounds like some lame excuse, but I'm dead serious when I say that it looks like I've got baby elephants instead of ankles. NO, not their ankles, THE WHOLE BABY ELEPHANT!! Cankles, tankles, whatever you've heard them called...that's what I have right now. I'm retaining THAT much water! Yuck!

I'm not really upset about the gain. I know it'll come off. I have days where all I want to do is stop thinking about weight loss and just BE. You know? But today is a fresh day and I'm feeling a little more optimistic. Most of it's thanks to you wonderful women. I wouldn't even be contemplating trying to stay focused if it weren't for you all. So, big thanks guys ((((hugs))))

Chat room

Okay, my post hasn't been up long, but I already got a comment from Jenn about it, so I decided to set one up. It's through lingr.

Visit the chatroom here: Circle of Friends. The password is water, because we all need to drink more water lol!

You need to sign up, but it's not really invasive and I've never received any spam from them. Hope to see you guys there!

Idea!

I was sitting here thinking...do any of you chat on messenger, chat rooms, etc?

I was thinking I could start a chatroom that's password protected so if we wanted to we could pop in and chat with each other without any spammers/sexbots coming in and disrupting.

What do you guys think? Would you use it or is it too much bother?

Excuses

Now that I'm a little more rested and no longer sick, I guess it's time to write a post that has something to do with what this blog is about - food, diet, exercise etc.

As much as I'd like to present a valid excuse, I don't really have one that'll hold water. I haven't been doing anything "right" the past week. I haven't been drinking enough water, haven't been counting calories or watching what I eat. The only exercise I've had is walking while shopping and moving our a/c unit out of the window and cleaning it yesterday.

I started out thinking "Hey! I was sick most of last week!" but I wasn't sick over the weekend...

Then I thought "Weekends always throw me off, it's no big deal!" but I promised myself that I wouldn't use weekends as an excuse to completely ignore good eating habits.

So, in a nutshell I've been kind of pushing the weight loss thing out of my mind lately and I'm probably going to pay for it by seeing a gain tomorrow when I weigh in. The thing is, lately I haven't really cared if I lost or gained or stayed the same. I want to care, but for some reason it just hasn't seemed all that important (which is stupid considering this is my health at stake!)

I guess I just get tired of thinking about it, you know? I like being lazy and eating whatever I want. I don't necessarily like thinking about what my next meal will be or how many miles I'll have to walk to burn off the soda I just drank or the slice of coconut cake I snarfed. Trying to be proactive though, I know that this kind of thinking isn't good.

I've thought about getting a dieting/exercise buddy locally, but I hate putting myself out there (to the point where I seriously think I've got social anxiety) and the only person I know actively trying to lose weight is my Mother in law. We've made plans to walk together and even made plans to spend a week setting up her pool, but it NEVER. HAPPENS. I get tired and annoyed with setting up plans to have them canceled so I've stopped making plans with her. When she brings it up I tend to give a straight answer.

I'm not upset or even feeling down, just musing. I'm wondering what exactly it's going to take to get me motivated enough to lose a substantial amount of weight. I looked at the chart that Crystal posted and I've got a ridiculous amount to lose. It seems so out of reach, but I've noticed that instead of feeling overwhelmed, I just don't care. Ugh! How to get out of that way of thinking?

Better

Thanks to all of you for the get well wishes and concern...it means a lot to me!

I'm doing a lot better now. I still wasn't feeling all that great by Friday, but my headache was ebbing and my tummy troubles had gone away. My hubby and I went out Friday evening and bought me a new laptop! I'm still getting used to it (like having a really small keyboard...not used to it at all!) but it's fabulous to have a computer that reacts quickly to commands and has a nice amount of space.

I'll write a longer post when I'm not so tired. It's been a really long weekend and I'm exhausted.