I lost 3.5 lbs in February.

Yay me!

While I did not make my goal of 5 lbs a month, I am happy to say the crack down in the last week made this month at least respectable and not abysmal.

This makes a grand total of 18.5 lbs. I’ve also updated my project skinny chart (link on the side).

Now to keep up the momentum into March

I’m having computer issues that are really truly going to drive me around the bend.

At work, firefox has decided to freeze up whenever I try to load up a page on my localhost (basically, a webserver on my computer).

This means that I have to use IE to work on anything.

I HATE IE.

At home, my internal wireless card in my laptop is not working properly. It will be connected to our wireless network and then disconnect for no reason, and not be able to reconnect. I click “repair” and wait for it to do it’s thing and cross my fingers that it will be able to reconnect. It does this about 15 times in the span of a half hour.

I AM SO FRUSTRATED I WANT TO SCREAM.

IN OTHER NEWS:

So, February has not been a good month for Project Skinny. I have only lost 1 pound so far. Is it silly to try to go for a 4 lb loss in the last week of February so that I can keep my 5 lbs a month goal?

I don’t think it is, especially considering a few things:

I have a lot of weight to lose, which makes big numbers a big easier than for someone who only has 10-15 lbs to lose,

The first week of a weight loss program can often throw up big numbers. (for me in fact, it was over 6 lbs, back in November.)

I think with me hovering up and down half a pound most of the month, if I really get back to basics, quit dinking around and GET ON IT! a 4 pound loss is feasible.

So I’m aiming for that. Wish me luck!

That’s right, today is my birthday. And I’m having a dilemma.

I haven’t lost much this month, but today I am finally lower.

But it’s my birthday! I wanted to go to a japanese steakhouse tonight, but you know those places are pretty bad on the healthy food scale.

The real sticker is I have an appt with my doctor to check up on the whole weight loss thing one week from today.

ARGH.

We will probably still go to the steakhouse. I just need to eat LESS of it!

Now… I’m off to make myself a cake Carrot, with cream cheese frosting.

(scary ice today has caused the kids’ school to close so i’m home with them today.)

(i really hope to get back to posting soon, and ahem, i’ve totally fallen off the photo a day wagon and am still debating whether to try to get a bunch of photos up or just can the whole thing. I guess we’ll see.)

OK, first off, since I haven’t been going to the actual meetings, just zipping in to the WW office, weighing in, and then zipping out, I have switched back to online only, which is only $40/3 months, instead of $40/month. If I start to get all slacky slacky again, then I’ll know it’s time to cough up the dough and head back to meetings. I feel pretty good with how I’m going though.

That means I’ll be weighing myself on my own scale and not the super picky down to 1/10 of a pound WW scale. My scale is not-so-picky rounds to the 1/2 pound scale. So being the anal retentive weirdo that I am, I’ve gone back and rounded all my past weights to the half pound as well.

And in so doing, I realized that I screwed up the January numbers in the last post. So just for full disclosure, 7.8 was *not* an accurate number, I screwed up the math - it should have been 6.8, not 7.8. And ALSO, I went by the total from last week’s weigh in instead of waiting until today’s weigh in. Since technically, today’s weigh in is weight I lost in January, I should include that. I think I was leaving it off to give me some padding for February, but tsk tsk to me. Just incase you don’t realize, I AM still weighing in every week, but I am only reporting monthly numbers to the blog

So, including THIS week’s weigh in, and switching all the numbers to rounded .5 numbers, the new total for January is 9.5 pounds, for a total of 15 pounds.

So yeah! Once again, huzzah to me!

A couple of other things that I meant to write yesterday but didn’t really have the time. (I’m home today, with a sick Ethan. thus all the typey typey!)

When I went to the doctor for my brick of snot sinus infection, she was (as she always is) concerned about my weight. It makes me feel so bad, because EVERY time I go in for something, she talks me up on the whole weight loss, and it seems like EVERY TIME I’m always, “Yes, well, I’m working on it, it’s been hard, I can’t seem to stick with it,” etc etc. This time, I felt kind of bad, because I had had a gain over the holidays, but still semi decent because my overall weight loss since november was still a loss, not much, but still a LOSS! Still though, in the past, I get around the 10-15 lb mark and then lose steam. I start making excuses, I start eating too much on one day and then trying to “make it up” the rest of the week and then the whole house of cards falls apart. I just can’t stick with it. I was feeling somewhat good to report a loss, but it was very apprehensive, and I told her so.

Two years ago, when she gave me the talking to, and I was on weight watchers, she gave me an appetite suppresant to help me out. I think it worked physically, but the mental game was too much, I petered out and I basically went back to eating too much.

Well, she gave me a prescription for it again. The first week was tough, because it basically beats up your heart and makes you feel like you’ve had too much caffeine. The first couple nights, I couldn’t fall asleep until 1 or 2 in the morning. It got better after the first week, and now I don’t feel jittery, pretty normal actually. I think it’s working pretty well.

Again, every time she’s given me the talking-to, she has wanted to see me back in her office in 6 weeks to check up on the weight loss. I never usually make check-up appointments when I’m there in the office, I wait until it’s closer and make them, so I would head home, the weight loss and my will power would peter out, and I would just never make the check up appointment.

Well people, my check appointment is made (MARCH 3RD!) and I am not going to peter out! I keep thinking to myself, “If I can lose 5 lbs each month (which should be EASY, that’s not even 2 lbs a week!) I will have lost 60 lbs by the end of the year. You can do this.”

I hate to be so happy go lucky optimistic, because I just know the shoe is going to drop and I will throw in the towel and start swimming around in doughnuts and ice cream with no will power whatsoever… But then at the same time I really do feel like I’m doing good. I have stopped going to mcdonald’s every morning, I’m bringing my (healthy) lunch in every day and thus am not tempted by eating at the cafe (omg, their chicken marsala is so good) - these little things means I have got a good leg up on sticking with this.

I must say, I feel pretty good. You now how I said up there that 10-15 lbs has been my petering out point? I’m at 15 lbs total. And no petering going on!

Tentatively… Apprehensively… I feel good I can do this.

(Now I need to come back and read this post every week!)

-amy

It is the last day of the month! And you know what that means! OK, maybe you don’t, but I do, it means I am 1/12 of the way done with one of my 2008 Resolutions. I resolved to lose 5 pounds each month.

And for the month of January, I have lost 7.8 pounds. YA-HOO!

I am totally digging this ‘update once a month’ thing instead of every week. It takes off the pressure, and makes me feel like I have really accomplished something.

-amy

very happy. VERY VERY HAPPY.

And a teeny tiny bit guilty.

Wednesday night, I sat with james on the couch and discussed my strategy for getting my ticket lowered.

“The cop needs to have come down with strep throat and not make it to the hearing tomorrow.”

Good strategy, no?

Actually I had more than that, but no need to get into it, because the officer didn’t show up! The state has the burden of proof, so I denied the charge (equivalent of not guilty in DC traffic hearings) and with no officer to give the goods, my ticket was dismissed.

I can’t even tell you how relieved I am. Our insurance SO DOES NOT NEED TO GO UP. It’s already too up.

I didn’t end up going to a movie. I stayed home to process the photos I took while in DC instead. Project #366 - Post a Photo a Day is on track! I think it’s time to do up a new theme however - I want to kill the side columns for photo posts. Surely there’s a theme for wordpress that will do that for me, right?

OH SO HAPPY! SO SO HAPPY!!

So happy that I am happily ignoring the bad news that I had to enter on my Project Skinny page concerning December’s numbers. HAPPY DAMMIT, I’M GOING TO STAY HAPPY! OK, not really that happy that I gained nearly 2 lbs in December, but seeing as how I tossed all self control out the window, it could have been worse. MOVING ON! Goal for February January: 5 pounds, baby. I have an extra day to accomplish it and everything. (OK, this is JANUARY, Amy, JANUARY. Keep with it!)

- amy enjoys the show “TOP GEAR”. Go figure!

There are 2 worst things about being back at work.

1. I won’t be able to sit at my table and make little fabric things.
2. I can’t wear jeans everyday anymore.

Seriously, I just want to wear jeans.

So I would have to say that this holiday vacation was a sewing holiday for me. So much fun to be had sitting and piecing and contemplating and making.

I made some random hotpads that are kind of bright and loud and I love them,
I made Jocelyn a Big Footed Bunny* for Christmas,
I made Ethan and Jocelyn Robots* after christmas (they still need faces and robot panels though)
I got my work area situated (shelves on wall, cork boards on wall, ikea drawer cupboard thingee put together) - it still needs some situating, but it’s about 80% there,
I bought fabric, fabric and more fabric (I like to think it’s OK, because I don’t buy MUCH of it, just 1/3 of a yard for whatever I choose)
I started working on little Peanut* elephants from my new sewing book, “Last Minute Patchwork + Quilted Gifts” which I LOVE (both the elephant and the book)

So the “hey, I’m at work, and not finishing up a Peanut elephant is kind of a bummer.

*all of these are weewonderful.com patterns - even Peanut, which she contributed to the book. I guess you could say I would stalk Hillary Lang if she were in my area!

The kids did amazingly well when I dropped them off to school. I thought Ethan would be a little complainey pants (that boy would never EVER leave home, if it were up to him), but he did great. It’s amazing how the little things make the morning good or bad. Bananas for breakfast - “AWESOME MOMMY!” Letting them get dressed while they watch Go Diego Go! “WAHOO!!”

I am on I guess what you could call a mini resolution - having been home for the last week and a half, I have effectively cold-turkeyed my diet coke in the morning habit. Now that I’m back to work, I am going to do my darnedest to break my usual work routine of egg mcmuffin + large diet coke on the way to work, have breakfast at home, and drink water at work. While I’m at it, I’m going to try to bring my lunch in to work. When my group goes out for lunch (every other friday), that’s ok, but the rest of the time I’m going to try to bring in lunch. I should be able to do that for a month, right?

Right!

The other resolution I got from Anna - she is going to try to take a picture a day this year. I love it. I want to do it, with a little tweak - I’m going to try to POST a picture a day this year. I know that realistically, I won’t take a picture every day, but I can take *some* pictures every week, and them post them each day, so that is what I am going to shoot for! So, count me in Anna!

Yesterday and today’s pictures are cheating, because I didn’t take them. James did the christmas morning photos while I handled the camcorder - but since mine is tweaked, “POST a picture a day,” I think I’m in the clear! I like my tweak already!

And of course the usual third resolution - I don’t know if anyone has noticed, but I have put my Project Skinny page back up, since I started getting (somewhat) serious about it in November. Weekly progress is too much for me to post, but I think a monthly tally is a good way to go. I completely expect to be the same for December (weigh in tomorrow!), but it’s time to get back on it for January.

That’s it for now - I will try to post some pictures of all the fabric + cuteness this week!

Jenny Craig visit this morning.

I have officially hit my -10 lbs mark.

WHOOT! WHOOT!

Counseler-lady said I should do something to celebrate.

I must admit that chocolate cake popped into my head. Mmmm chocolate cake, how I would love to take you home and lick you all over…. mmmm… mmmmm..

Then she said it should be non-food related.

DAMN! She’s ON TO ME! The food-porn thoughts fled. Damnit.

What do you do to reward yourself? And if it’s with food, just keep it to yourself, would ya? She suggested a trashy gossip magazine. And I must admit that when I was recently standing in a checkout line, I was curious about those Brad and Angelina headlines, as well as the Tom and Katie headlines. Has Katie finally come to her senses? I have no idea. This trashy mag idea may have some merit. I usually could care less, but I must admit, the thought that Katie and Tom are separated is a pleasant one.

In other news, the cafe in the main level of my office building, the cafe I stop in sometimes 3 times a day to fill up on diet coke, the cafe in which I am on first name basis with the owners… THEIR SODA MACHINE IS DOWN! As I walked in (to fill up the Wendy’s super-big cup that I got after my JC visit), one of the owners spotted me and came over to break the sad news, quick to give me the updates on when exactly Coke is supposed to come out and fix it. So we’ll see.

A little tip from me to you. Diet coke with just a bit of root beer on top - deliciouso!

How will I live?

-amy is fueled by caffeine.

Well it has been a rough few weeks, and I haven’t really written about it here. Actually, mostly because I just have not had a lot of time to write. But especially because I am have had a very good week, I wanted to check in on the project skinny stuff.

When we last left our heroine (that’s me!), she was sick for the weekend and thus, had a big loss. She was nervous that the whole starvation diet that sickness threw her into would not make that loss a maintainable one for the next week. HOWEVER! She managed to maintain! No loss, just maintain. The NEXT week, however, had a friday lunch at a chinese buffet place, bunko hosted at her house, and a grilling event also hosted at her house. There was gaining. So what did our heroine do?!? First off, she’s going to stop refering to herself in the third person, because while it was fun at first, it’s becoming a pain in her ass.

I buckled down and WORKED, baby. The weigh-in after being a social butterfly was not a good one, at +5 lbs. I am happy to say that this morning, I weighed in at -4.5 lbs. YAY ME! Now, that is a little much to lose in one week, but honestly, I don’t care. I will take it, and I’m going to keep working my butt off. Seriously, I have like a 10 pound threshold that I need to cross. When I was doing this last year this time, I would get up to that 10 lb mark and then it was gain lose gain lose gain lose never getting anywhere until I tossed in the towel. Same thing in the spring. Getting past the 10 lb point is a major milestone for me, and I’m feeling good baby. Next week, I want to see the total loss to be TWELVE! That’s right, I thumb my nose at you, Halloween! I can do it anyway!

- amy misses project runway already.

i feel like there’s so much to catch up on when I don’t post for a while. and i have to have scads and scads of time in order to post “properly”. and then i get into a huge downward cycle because I don’t really have scads of time, and if i don’t detail how i spent each of my days in blissful ignorance of the internet and this website and blah blah blah then i’m a bad blogger person and who needs that kind of pressure?

So i’m taking this few seconds of time, and posting anyway! (the moral of this story is i need to post regularly!)

1. Ethan said on the way home today, “Do you realize that I can …” I don’t remember the rest of the sentence. I was boggling that he used “realize” correctly. The boy is four. Do you realize the boy is four? The mind boggles.

2. Jocelyn says “poop” for both peeing and pooping. She was sitting at the table eating dinner last night and announced that she was going poop. I doubted it, but thought the poop must be on it’s way. I finally convinced her to try sitting on the potty when I realized that she had probably peed while sitting at the table. We obviously need to work on differentiating between #1 and #2. It’s kind of funny because we’ve had no success in peeing on the potty whatsoever, but she’s managed to poop a couple of times. This is the exact opposite of how it worked for Ethan, who was in underwear and peeing in the potty with ease, but would not poop anywhere except in his diaper, at naptime or in the morning before the nighttime diaper came off.

3. Because Jocelyn was sitting on the potty, all of a sudden Ethan realized that HE needed to go, and I told him he’d have to go upstairs. So off he went, and after I gave up on Jocelyn, I went up to check on him (I was feeling pretty frazzled and spoke curtly to him, so I wanted to make sure he was doing all right). He was sitting on the toilet and he asked me to stay with him so I sat on the edge of the tub while he pooped.

“Sometimes the poop comes right out Mommy. Sometimes it doesn’t though. If it doesn’t come out, even after you wait a bit, then you have to poop hard. I can poop REALLY hard, mommy. I’m a great hard pooper.”

Sometimes you just hear yourself say things like, “You sure are, you are a fantastic pooper.” before you even realize it. And then you sort of float up above yourself and look down and laugh.

4. After the non-pooping on the potty last night, when we got Jocelyn up this morning, she was poopy. She had pooped in her diaper sometime during the night. ARGH.

5. I was sick over the weekend. I’m doing much better now, but Friday night I went to bed with that feeling that I was not going to be healthy the next day. And sure enough, I was not. It was just a cold, but it was a cold from hell. I spent the morning on the couch, but then moved back upstairs to bed and dozed off and on the rest of the day with about 50 lbs of blankies on me. Poor James had to entertain the kids, direct the carpet cleaners, entertain the kids some more, and get them all into bed, because I was pretty much out of it. Sunday there was much less fever, but a pounding headache still most of the day along with the sore throat and weird high stuffed up sinuses (the nose was clear, it was higher up. I know that sounds weird. I can’t explain it any better except think behind the eyeballs/cheekbones.)

5.5 Getting our carpets cleaned was the best $100 bucks we’ve ever spent. We are so doing this every 6 months. I am kicking myself for not doing it sooner. James wanted to. I held back. I have no idea why. Because I am INSANE. James, you were right. So, so right. I was so very very wrong. Hold this over me at your leisure, for years and years to come. OH JOYOUS CLEAN CARPETS!

6. The only good thing about being sick is not worrying about WW points. in fact, on saturday i was afraid from time to time i was going to lose the small bits of food i did eat. Monday’s weigh in showed a loss of 3.5 lbs, for a TOTAL loss of 10.5 lbs. While it is cool to have hit that 10 lb milestone, I know it’s because of the near fast for Saturday and Sunday.. and that means that I probably just lost muscle, which is never good. I’m not sure what this will mean for this week. Does the body try to compensate? Will it go into starvation mode and save every little thing I eat? I guess we’ll see. I will be happy if I merely maintain this week, though of course, having a loss will be nice too. So… I guess I am cautiously enthusiastic. I am out of the 260s! That is cause for celebration! I want to STAY out!

7. work is very busy. I am so behind on blog reading lately. I *think* i’m caught up on people I actually know (have actually met in real life) but the rest of my blogroll is woefully neglected. maybe tomorrow night I can read through it. I love reading blogs, so it will be nice to settle in for some reading.

8. Craftiness has turned to crocheting. I bought the sweetest little crochet dress pattern, and am crocheting it for the little lady expected in this household sometime in February. I thought when I bought it, that it would take a while, but it is going surprisingly fast. I think I’ll be done this next weekend. I would like to learn how to knit. I went to a knitting group tonight, taking my crochet project with me, and I must say, the knitting talk was fairly intimidating. I can’t wrap my head around how knitting actually WORKS. Crocheting is very easy to understand (at least in my mind) but knitting is a complete mystery. Guess we’ll see, after this crochet project. The ladies at the group were great. It’s too bad they meet on days when James is usually in class. Today he had off, I think because of Columbus day. maybe next semester he’ll have Tuesdays off and I can go regularly. I need one closer to home though. Time to look around. Maybe start my own?

9. Monday I had off, and I met James and Kurt for lunch. where I realized, that the dull throbbing headache I had ( and had the day before, and the day before ) was probably NOT a result of the illness invading my body. It was actually caffeine withdrawal. Last week I realized the diet coke situation was getting out of hand (i’m ashamed to say how much I was consuming) and cut down drastically. Monday, I sat in the restaurant looking at James and Kurt’s caffeinated beverages and it struck me like a 24 case of Diet Coke, that gee, maybe this headache was from the no caffeine! When my body is used to getting it! Daily! I mused on whether Day 3 of no caffeine would be near the end of the withdrawal symptoms, or maybe only halfway through, and maybe I should push through the withdrawal symptoms, but after deliberating on it through the rest of the meal, I decided I didn’t care because I don’t actually want to give it up, just cut it down to a normal amount. So, I got a diet coke right as we were finishing up. It had a lot of ice, and it was a normal sized glass, so probably about 8 oz of DC in there.

And by the time I got home, my headache was gone.

10. I’m totally swimming around in the gloriousness of NewsRadio on DVD from Netflix. The cast was so good. the writers were so good. the show was SO FUNNY! I love every character on that show. It’s so rare to find an actual FUNNY ensemble cast. usually it’s got a few stars, and then supporting cast members. I keep thinking of WKRP, which my mother loved when I was little, and as a result, I’ve seen every episode (multiple times!) - that was another great ensemble cast. Another one - Coupling on the BBC. Definitely check that one out. I still hold that it is the funniest thing that is/has been on TV. EVER!! but yeah, love me some NewsRadio. And the commentaries are pretty insightful as well.

OK. I’m done. That was much longer than a few seconds. And I think I even got out all that has been on my mind. It feels so good to just have a good mind vomit!

-amy just lets the wookie win.