We are back from vacation. It was wonderful. My brother is now married. We partied hard with my side of the family. And then we drove from southern Oregon up to Portland, which is right on the border with Washington state. We saw a bit more family, as my aunt is in Vancouver, WA, but mostly, the rest of the trip was our own little family vacation. James and I both got to do our own geeky things – his were comic book shops and beer — LOTS OF BEER. Mine was bead & craft & fabric stores — LOTS OF BEADS AND FABRIC. It’s a good thing we don’t live there or Fabric Depot, The Bead Source, and Umawajirasanakanukiwa alone would bankrupt us.

I REALLY didn’t worry about food while we were there. And so it was no surprise when I was up 5 pounds at weight watchers today. But one thing vacation has done for me, is it has given me lots of MOTIVATION! I am buckling down for an awesome week to get back to where I was. I usually buy breakfast AND lunch, mostly because of lack of preparation, so this week I am going to try to get everything ready to go before hand.

I also am feeling all gung-ho about getting this house clean and decluttered! Our problem is when we clean up we shuttle crap from one surface to another, and so it gets messy again easily. Time to get RID of all the crap, find permanent homes for everything we own, and keep it clean! This will be a long-term project, but as I said, GUNG-HO!

I’ve also kind of been hunting for a new purse for the last few months. I even bought one at JC Penney’s and tried it out at home before I decided it really just wasn’t me. So after buying a big pile of gorgeous fabric in Portland (Fabric Depot is awesome) I think I need to clear off my sewing table in the next month or so and make me a new purse.

I took some rings with me on vacation, but didn’t really do much with them. It was a nice jewelry vacation, really. And I bought a lot of beads while I was there. I tried to envision what I would do with each bead before I bought them, so I am now FULL of ideas.

One reason why I gravitate to chain maille is that there is a pattern to follow and even with no modifications at all, it looks incredible. Sometimes I sit with beads and get the beader’s equivalent of writer’s block. So many different combinations possible! Too stiffling! What if I get it wrong! So being full of ideas is a lovely feeling. On the flip side though, doing ONLY chain maille is stifling too. Some pieces are VERY time consuming, and also it puts all the pieces (except earrings!) in my shop at a fairly high price point.

I want to jump-start all these visions and quell the beader’s block before it begins, so I thought I would do a little challenge for myself. A piece of jewelry a day for a week. This will also help me build up some inventory, which I need, and help build in a better variety of price points on pieces in my shop. I have lots of ideas for earrings, which will make it a fun and easy challenge, not to mention if it will probably get me to actually FINISH a few of the things that are 3/4 of the way to complete! If any jewelry designers out there want to join me, please comment, I’d be just tickled!

I’m also working on another challenge, though this one is not self imposed. I am a member of a wire wrapping group on yahoo, and right now there is a “Big & Gaudy” Earring challenge. The only criteria is that they should be at LEAST 2 inches long. I am having a blast sketching out different possibilities, but the deadline has started to loom, so it’s time to stop sketching and start MAKING! I’ll show those off when the deadline comes as well.

I’m telling you, all this motivation feels AWESOME!

That’s it for now — so nice to be home — so nice to be filled with ENERGY! Hopefully it’ll last!

-amy wonders where the hell ‘gung-ho’ came from. let’s blame canada.

I haven’t been slacking. On the Weight Watchers thing. I HAVE been slacking on posting about it though. Usually, when I slack on posting about it, it’s because I’m slacking on DOING it. But not this time!

Despite my “We Might Be Fucked” cocktail and probably BECAUSE of my subsequent throat soreness, that had me drinking ginger ale+OJ and eating toast for a day or so, I am proud to announce week 7’s weigh in was awesome at -3.8 lbs. This brings me up to a total of -13.4 lbs. Many more to go, but I am pretty happy. I can do this! Knock on wood!

I think it’s about time to start up the 30 day shred again as well. My foot, on hearing that I paid $350 for an orthotic, decided, “Oh, now that’s she’s paid for it, I’ll get better before it arrives!” It’s not totally better, but it’s a LOT better than it was 2 weeks ago, I’ll say that!

We are still waiting to hear how fucked we are by Subaru for the ceased-up engine block. James and I like to spend our quiet intimate moments wondering how exactly that damn thing DID that anyway, and discussing different engine rebuild price quotes. Oh yeah. Pillow talk, baby. We’re so romantic.

We are at T-minus 9 days til we leave on our vacation to Oregon. I still need to find a cat sitter. I’m a little worried about our cat, actually. We went up to New York last September for a long weekend, not long enough to get a real sitter, just put out plenty of bowls of food and water, but long enough for her to go a little crazy from lack of human interaction — she’s an old cat, at I think 11 years, and when we got back she changed her sleeping habits entirely. She used to settled down somewhere near our feet on our bed. Now, she prefers to be closer to us. Like, right on top of our heads. Seriously. I have to allot pillow space for her because after she gets it through her head that she can’t sleep ON TOP OF MINE, she sleeps right NEXT to my head. Or face. Also, when it starts to get light out, she decides to try the whole “Hmm, maybe she’ll let me sleep on her head NOW…” She loves us, what can I say? So I’m a little worried that our trip may bring on some more wacky separation anxiety cat-behavior. Note to self: trim claws before leaving so carpets don’t get even MORE shredded.

We’ve been crazy with the wildlife lately. Or at least I have. About a month ago, the neighborhood kids found a turtle near someone’s driveway and “took care of it” nearly to death before parents swooped in and relocated it back to nature. I’m a little stymied on how the little guy got there in the first place.

Then the next week, one of the baby birds nexting near our roofline fell out of the nest and hung out along the side of our house. I did much googling and determined that it was fine – fledglings often do this, and if you can’t return it to the next itself, then under a nearby bush would suffice. It was hanging out under my truck, so I kind of herded it back to our deck, closer to where the nest was. The next morning it was gone, so I’m sure the little guy found his wings quickly. (sidenote: our house is now bird free and will soon be bird-proof. Yay, and KA-CHING! more money gone.)

Last week, I had picked up Jocelyn and was on my way to get Ethan and then home, when I had to swerve quickly to avoid hitting a slow moving little turtle in the road, right in line with the tires. I yelped, explained to Jocelyn, and then quickly tried to flip a bitch to get back there and save him. It was a very busy street, and I had little hope to get to him in time, especially as I watched all the traffic behind me as I desperately tried to flip around.. And sure enough, when I finally got back to him, he hadn’t made it. 🙁 That little guy haunted me the rest of the week, I felt so bad. Jocelyn too.. sometimes, she will say, out of the blue, “Poor little turtle..” to me. All I can do is nod and agree.

The sting of that little guy was taken away somewhat when we were driving along our road to our house and spotted TWO rabbits, just hanging out in someone’s yard. I am pretty sure I’ve seen one of these guys before, bounding away as I have driven by, but I couldn’t be sure and so I was very tickled to stop and watch them a while. They just stood nibbling some of the young weeds, checking us out as much as we were checking them out only about 8 feet away, and didn’t make any sort of fuss when Ethan and Jocelyn nearly threw themselves out their open windows looking and talking and trying to take pictures with my iphone. We finally drove on with them still sitting there eating their dinner.

And then last night as we came home from a lovely pool party at a friend’s house, I thought I saw a bit of brown on the steep hilly exit we were on, and pulled over. We saw a whole handful of deer bound away into the treeline, with a few stopping just shy of the trees to look back at us.

I just love it when we get a chance to see wildlife up close. I think they are probably less than thrilled to see us up close.

Oh right. 4th of July. We decided at the last minute to go to Great Meadows, which we went to last year. We got there around 4pm, saw all the pre-fireworks shows. Helicopter parades, RC airplanes (BIG suckers, with 5-6ft wingspans), rocket launches, ponies, melons shot out of a cannon, face painting, and of course fireworks. Ethan slept through the fireworks last year, but everyone was awake for them this year, and after they were over, Ethan stood up and hollered, “THAT WAS THE BEST FIREWORKS SHOW, EEEVERRRR!” — to the amusement of many people surrounding us.

Sunday, we went to a hawaiian pool party celebrating some friends’ who had recently been married in Hawaii. It’s been a while since we’d seen them, and it was very nice to sit and relax and catch up. The weather was not very cooperative (only about 75degrees) but that didn’t stop the kids from hopping in and slowly turning blue. It’s pretty comical to ask, “Are you cold?” and to get a chattering of teeth back, “No-o-o-o-o-o..”

All in all, a wonderful weekend. Wish it didn’t have to end.

-amy

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.