Day 68 - Tears, Rain, and Super Cute Pictures

Well, we missed the rain for the most part today.  We were able to reschedule the hair appointments and then made our way to Bardstown for the photo session.  It was cloudy and looked fairly ominous for most of the day, but it didn't start to pour until we had already finished and were enjoying a nice lunch with the photography team.

I was afraid that she might be in a bad mood today and I was right.  The whole time they were snapping photos we tried everything in our power to make her laugh (or at least  smirk) and we had absolutely no luck at all.  

Of course as soon as it was over she was back to her playful, happy self...

Typical baby espionage.  >.<

I still think the pictures that they've posted so far are absolutely adorable.  I can't wait to see the rest of them.

Today was also my "no calorie counting" meal and I must say that it was quite delicious.   We went to Hometown Pizza in Bardstown and my Mom and I split a Bacon Cheeseburger Pizza.  You would think, with as many Totino's as I eat, pizza would be the last thing I would want.  The thing is...I never get tired of pizza.  I could probably eat it every single day for the rest of my life and never get tired of it.  

Pizza rocks.

Tomorrow I plan on finishing up my homework and work on migrating the blog over to HouseBailey.net.  Wish me luck. 

Check out this cutie pie!  Huge shout out to My Studio 310 for all their patience and hard work today.  These pictures turned out so great!

"Remember that children, marriages, and flower gardens reflect the kind of care they get."

~H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Day 67 - Long weekends FTW!

Today has been a terrific day!  Not only has it been relaxing but I've also managed to be rather productive as well.  I love it when that happens.  I woke up (quasi) early and finished most of my homework.  Then I did all of my laundry for the week while I exercised for an hour.  

Speaking of that...

Glee is going to give me a freaking heart attack by the time it's over.  I'm just sayin'.

Back to my productive, yet relaxing day.  I haven't even gotten to the best news yet.  My mom is here for the weekend!  She got here around lunch time and we've spent the afternoon meandering through random stores.  Tomorrow we'll be taking the munchkin (by buddy's little munchkin, I certainly don't have one) to get her first haircut and then it's time for surprise pictures for Mommy and Daddy!  I can't wait!

Another reason why today was awesome was today was the day that I realized that I actually don't really care for deep fried anything anymore.  My Mom and I stopped at McDonald's for just a small lunch and I had 6 chicken nuggets and a small fry (510 calories, so respectable in one sense at least).  My stomach has been upset with me ever since.  I feel bloated and nauseated and just all around blah.  I would have much rather had my little sliced chicken sandwich, Funyuns, and a yogurt.  I was just amazed when it hit me, "I could never eat at McDonald's again and I would be OK with that."

Talk about a revelation.  

It seems like things are continuing to improve in other areas of our life since we made our choice to live a (mostly) healthy lifestyle.  Our entertainment budget has decreased significantly.  Our house stays a bit cleaner.  Our energy levels are 10 times what they were 3 months ago.  Personally, I've even noticed that my skin is much clearer and my hair is shinier.  My overall mood has changed dramatically.  It never ceases to amaze me at how crazy I am to ever fall off the wagon in the first place.  Eating right and exercise really is the best anti-depressant on the market.  I know better than anyone, I've probably been on 10 different pills since I was 12.  Now I take nothing.  Aside from the occasional Aleve for the aches and pains of someone my size exercising 4-5 days a week for 45 minutes to an hour, I don't need any kind of medication to keep my sanity.  

Does it help that I cohabitate with someone that might be the most patient person in the world?  Probably.  But he'll be the first to tell you that even he wasn't safe before I started changing my lifestyle choices.  The past 3 months has really been an eye opener for me.  I can't wait to see what the next 3 months brings!

Right now I'm more excited about tomorrow than anything.  This is going to be so much fun!

"Yesterday's the past, tomorrow's the future, but today is a gift. That's why it's called the present."

~Bil Keane

Day 66 - Pre Friday Woes

The ups and downs continue...

Today has kind of sucked, with brief moments of awesome.

Work, class, homework.  5:10AM - Present (10:37PM).

Sucky points:

• Photo session for Saturday cancelled
• Still don't understand networking
• Co-worker (of boss status in a different department) thoroughly annoyed me
• 5 hours of sleep

Awesome points:

• Woke up next to Cliff
• Rode to work with Cliff
• Worked all day with Cliff
• Rode home with Cliff
• Hung out with Cliff until class
• Got to talk to my mom after class
• Cliff helped me with my homework 
• I wrote my own vacation planning program that actually works!!!

So, luckily the awesome outweighs the bad in the end.  

I'm still looking forward to the weekend even if it isn't going exactly as planned.  I'm slowly, but surely learning how to roll with the punches.  (The royal punches, not the punches that I, literally, want to throw at some people).

I have somehow managed to not eat everything in sight this week.  I did, however, have a bite sized Butterfinger today and it was amazing.  I had almost forgotten just how fantastic chocolate actually is.  Not because I deprive myself or starve myself, but because I don't eat it by the barrel every chance I get anymore.  Now I'm able to actually enjoy the taste of these wonderful little morsels without the worry of biting my tongue off in my frenzied attempt at shoveling them all in my mouth at once.

I also didn't work out today.  I know, I know "But Jodi, exercising releases endorphins and is the best treatment out there for feeling blah."  I just didn't have it in me today.  I'm not going to get myself too worked up about it.  I plan on getting up in the morning and working out for an hour before my parents get here.  Then I'm going to work on some more homework and finish up a few things around the house.  I'm really looking forward to a day off that's still going to be pretty productive, but only in areas that I want to be productive in.

Except homework.

No 30 year old on the planet wants to have homework on the weekend.  It has to rank pretty high on the torture scale for most people.

I just have to endure for a little longer and keep telling myself that the end result is more than worth it.

But right now, it sucks.

"I know of no time in human history where ignorance was better than knowledge."

~Neil deGrasse Tyson

Day 65 - I feel a little crazy coming on...

Ok...so hormones are caaaraaazzzyyy today.  Up and down and up and down.  Stupid Wicked soundtrack and it's stupid awesome songs.  Stupid job paying me money in a low stress environment.  Stupid husband trying to constantly cheer me up and make me feel loved.

Stupid.

Blerg.

Today has been a long, tiring day.  No matter how much I tried to cheer myself up I just couldn't feel myself out of a funk today.  I look in the mirror and feel like I've gained all my weight back.  In my brain my clothes are tighter, my face is completely broken out, and nothing anyone says changes it.  It's so incredibly annoying.

Luckily, I haven't let it get the best of me yet.  I made it through without yelling at anyone (I only barely raised my voice at the hubs and I'm sure he deserved it!).  I didn't quit my job, I didn't eat the 100 Snickers bars that I wanted, and I came home and exercised even though my abs still feel like gremlins are lurking around in there waiting for their chance to rip out of my body.  So all in all I think I'm handling the rollercoaster quite splendidly, thankyouverymuch.

Now I'm just sitting in class (looks like I'm learning a ton, right?) waiting for my turn to watch the instructor make networking wires or some crap.  I know how to do that already.  It's called Amazon.  Duh.

I've started playing around with the template on my blog and I think I'm starting to get the hang of it.  We also purchased a domain today because our old email addresses are going to go away soon and we wanted to keep something that we liked.  So Housebailey.net it is!  Now I just get to figure out how to import all of the information from here to there, if that's even possible.  I suppose that the worst case scenario would be A LOT of copy and paste. 

I'm so incredibly happy that this week is almost over.  It has been entirely too busy.  I really need to learn how to allocate my time better so I'm not left feeling so frazzled. 

Crazy hormones + impossible schedule =

This weekend is going to be pretty busy as well, but I'm looking forward to all of it which means it will really fly by.  Next week is going to feel like a mini vacation after this is all over.

I do (did) get to see two of my good buddies this week and I'm pretty stoked about that.  (I get to see the BFF every week now, so that doesn't count).  I just wish that I could see them more often.

"A friendship can weather most things and thrive in thin soil; but it needs a little mulch of letters and phone calls and small, silly presents every so often - just to save it from drying out completely."

~Pam Brown

Day 64 - Weigh-In

Another 2 pounds down today!  That's a total of 24.4 pounds since Cliff and I started tracking together in July and a 33.8 pound loss from my initial MFP login in June.  Not quite wedding dress territory, but I'm getting there.  

We had dinner with friends tonight and I was only able to squeeze in a quick 30 minutes on the elliptical.  Boy, was I shocked when it felt like a vacation day!  The different between 30 minutes and 45 minutes may not seem like much, but trust me...it really is.  However, my abs (which I didn't even know I had, thankyouverymuch!) feel like they're going to rip themselves from my abdomen and go all Chuck Norris on everyone around me.  It.hurts.so.bad.  

All in all, I'm happy with the rate of loss.  I'm a little over target (2.01 pounds/week) on losing 100 pounds this year, so that's good.  I was hoping to be down to 265 by the time we went on our annual girl's only shopping trip in Cincinnati in November, but at this rate it looks like it will be closer to 270-273.  I'm definitely going to try to hit the 265 mark, but I certainly won't be bummed about 270ish.

I plan on revamping the blog this weekend and making it into something that I can finally start sharing with my friends.  I'm still learning all the ins and outs about blogging, but I would say that it's safe to assume that I can actually keep this one up.  Plus, I would also like to start posting some playlists, recipes, and some other topics that I think my buddies would enjoy.  The real question is where I'm going to find the time to do it...

Here I am, blogging away as my hubby takes this week's weigh-in photo.  I'm both happy and irritated with this one.  Irritated because of my belly, but happy to see that I'm down to only one spare tire and it's deflating quickly.  It will definitely be a nice picture to look back on one day once I have my flat tummy.  

“I don't count my sit-ups. I only start counting when it starts hurting. That is when I start counting, because then it really counts. That’s what makes you a champion.”

~Muhammad Ali

Day 63 - Zumba Part Deux

Tonight was my second Zumba class and, even though I'm not able to do half the moves, I felt like I did better this week than last time.  She threw in some ab workouts tonight and I thought I was going to die or throw up or both.  I couldn't even do the last ones (where we had to lift our legs off the ground while we did a crunch) so I just kept doing regular crunches.  

The important part is that I'm not giving up and I keep moving even if I can't keep up with everything.  That's all that matters right now.

I just keep telling myself, over and over, that there was once a day where I felt like I was going to due after 15 minutes on an elliptical and now a 30 minute jaunt is a super light day.  It's just like everything else, it's going to take practice.  I'm really proud of my friend, Ashley.  She goes in there and kicks @$$, and I'm super jealous of her amazing level of self confidence.  

My back doesn't hurt quite as bad, but I feel an ice pack calling my name for in the morning.  At least it doesn't feel like it's going to last all week this time.  I have way too busy of a week to be slowed down by back pain.

Tomorrow is another weigh in and dinner with our friends, Katie and Troy at Cracker Barrel.  I can't wait to introduce Cliff to the 600 calorie dinner at Cracker Barrel!  It's delicious!

Day 62 - Go Vikes!

I felt like today was both relaxing and productive.  I finished all my laundry, deep cleaned my bedroom (including dusting the fan and cleaning the walls), did all of my User Support homework, and still managed to entertain a house full of people during the Vikings big win today.  

Life is good.

My mother in law came over and made an amazing pot roast.  Now that I like cooked carrots, I was able to fill up on a vegetable that wasn't a potato for a change.  The Vikes played the Steelers at Wembley Stadium in England and was able to pull out a win.  I would say it was a pretty awesome day overall.

The weekend was actually pretty fantastic.  I got a lot of errands done, had dinner with the hubby and a friend if ours last night and even snuck in a Brown Turtle sundae from Dairy Kastle.  

I snuck onto the scale this morning (I really try to only weigh once a week, but sometimes I just can't take it) and was down another 2 pounds, even after ice cream last nigh.  Hope that still shows up on Tuesday.

Looking forward to another busy, but fun filled week!

"Confidence is contagious. So is lack of confidence."

~Vince Lombardi