Lots of Math and Numbers.... Here comes skinny Lady Fromage!

I was hesitant to say anything because I didn’t want to look like a failure if I didn’t make my goal, but since I did (plus some!) I’ll share now:

I lost 11.5 pounds! I dropped a pant size!

My goal was to drop 10 before hubby came home (This morning!). This was a rather lofty goal, because realistically, one should only loose 1-2 pounds per week. I only had 3 weeks, so I should have been aiming for something like 6 pounds at most. But I made it! Perhaps not the best way, but desperate times call for desperate measures. (I’m the heaviest I’ve ever been, and frankly, I feel terrible about it)

In the last 14 days, I’ve only eaten more than 1,000 calories twice. And even then, I stayed under the 1,200 mark. Most days I finish somewhere between 800-950, and I’m drinking water like a camel! I’m also taking a supplement called Hydroxycut (oooh, I know that’s so bad, but it’s working miracles for me).

My long term plan? 33.5 more pounds to go (To put me at the lowest possible suggested weight for my body type and height) for a total loss of 45 pounds.

Now that hubby’s home again for the month of June I’m only expecting to lose only 1.5 pounds per week. Just being realistic, I’m fully aware that I cannot spend the rest of my life eating like this, but as long as I stay under 1,800 calories I’ll maintain my current weight. It takes 3,500 calories to lose a pound, which means I can still enjoy 1,300 or so every day while he’s home, and with a little exercise, still see a pound and a half drop every week. I also expect to be more…. active.... while he’s around ;-) Reasonable goal: 1.5 pounds per week for the month of June. This means I by the time he leaves again, I’ll be 6.5 pounds lighter than I am now (I hope to knock off that extra .5 while I’m at it), leaving me with merely 27 pounds to go!

I figure I can get aggressive about my diet again in July while hubby’s away at NTC (National Training Center in CA, preparing for the upcoming deployment). My goal for July is 4 pounds per week, which is still more than I should expect, but doable (It's what I'm doing now). If I can pull it off, when he finishes up in August, and we fly to Vegas, I’ll have lost a total of 32 pounds, with only 11 left to go!

I know the last 10 pounds (or 11, in my case) always seems like the hardest to shed, but once I’ve made it that far, I hope I’ll have the determination to finish! My 1-year anniversary will be about 7 weeks away, if I can keep on track with 1-2 pounds per week, I’ll reach my goal by September 19th! (Not to be pessimistic, but, if my anniversary is too ambitious of a date, my back up plan is by the end of the year. THAT I can do for sure).

Wish me luck! I’ll be posting updates with my progress!

Cecil and my Movie Marathon

I really will post about the tea party, I promise.

Last week I was sick. Normally I tough it out, but this stomach bug kicked my fat A$$. I spent most of last week/end on the sofa. On the plus side, I did get to watch a ton of Netflix. I got hubby a blu ray player for his birthday last month and we can now stream movies to our TV instantly. I’m not tech-savvy, but this is pretty neat. Since I didn’t have to concern myself with what anyone else might want to watch, I was able to indulge myself in a few of the quirky indie films I enjoy so much:

-Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

-Manhattan, Kansas

-2 episodes of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (Did I just admit that? Yikes… It was the fever that made me do it… I’m sure that’s what it was.)

-Cashback

-Brief Interviews With Hideous Men

-The Office: Seasons 1 and 2 of (Not really a feature film, but enjoyed none the less)
-Women In Trouble
-The Lovely Bones
-Bride Wars
-Caveman (Only because I am in love with Ringo Starr...)
-Knocked Up
-Mini-marathon of MTV’s True Life (Not a movie, but I watched it for a few hours…)

-The Princess Bride

So there you have it. All that time and I watched a ton of movies and crappy television instead of blogging about the tea party. Hang in there; check back, you’ll see it before too long! It’s worth the wait!

On a quick side note, a man named Cecil just made my day. You see, Cecil was one of my dearly-missed Satchel’s middle names. Satchel was a very regal dog, or at least I pretended that he was. He had a very fancy name; his official title was as follows: Satchél, Roy Wilkins, Cecil, Surname. (All this for a dog, who, before I got him was called simply “Puffy”). I like to think Satch was looking down on me and wanted to make me smile after a long, rough week/end. Thanks for the smile, Satchel, I miss you buddy!

No Keys, No More Superhero Status

I’ve got quite the story to share with you tomorrow, so be sure to come back and read about my Tea Party! I promise it’s a doozie….!

In the mean time:

Friday I locked myself out of our house. Twice.

The first time, I climbed the 6 foot privacy fence, got trampled by 2 muddy dogs, found the spare key and entered the back door. Then I locked my house key inside again, this time I also locked the spare, just to make things interesting. So I had to hop the fence again (As if doing it once wasn’t impressive enough…), got muddied up by the dogs again, and since the spare key was locked safely inside, I then had to climb up and over patio furniture and maneuver myself through a tiny window about the kitchen sink. In the process of breaking in (again), I accidently dropped my favorite tiny cow down the sink where he met his final hour in the garbage disposal (RIP, Tiny Sir Lion)

In other news, I found out I am not in fact, a superhero. On Sunday morning a nurse was able to collect a sample of my blood. While I’m saddened to learn that my superhero status is no more, I’m more than a little glad to finally be done with all of this – I was getting pretty sick and tired of all the fasting and vein pricking.

Hubby sent me this sweet text this morning:

“Good morning baby, i hope you got some sleep! I love and miss you so much! And just so you know, even though they got ur blood, you’re still my super hero!”

Aw. Thanks, hubby!

The Honeymoon Is Over

People say that the beginning of a marriage is the best part, but I disagree.

Starting out is rough! I’m glad the “honeymoon phase” is over. It’s hard learning to share your whole life with someone else. The longer we’re together, the better things get. I’d hate to think that the highlight of our lives was deciding who would pay the bills (hubby) and who would pick up dog poop (me).

I thought I’d be glad when our actual honeymoon was over, but that got better, too.

I’m not a good traveler, and unless you count a quick hop across the border into Mexico more than 10 years ago, I’d never left the country. We decided we would go to Sicily. I’d always wanted to visit Italy, and hubby, who had been before, loved Sicily (where his grandmother was born and raised) and wanted to share it with me. I applied for a passport, he rented us an apartment overlooking the water and we hopped on a plane the day after the wedding.

When we finally reached Italy, we found out our luggage didn’t come with us. We ended up buying 2 toothbrushes, 1 bottle of toothpaste, 1 bar of soap for something like 28 Euro-Dollars (“just Euros,” hubby corrected me; “you don’t have to add 'dollars' to the end”).

After landing sans-luggage, we still had a 2 hour bus ride ahead of us. Sitting at the crowded bus stop, tired, hungry, unable to understand the language being spoken around me, wearing stinky clothes and having no idea where my bag was, I started crying, and I (I can’t believe I said this…) asked hubby to please just take me home. He did no such thing, of course, but gave me a hug and told me it would be ok, we’d have a great time (and we did!)

Our apartment was on the top floor, up 78 stairs, and 78 stairs is a lot for anyone with a bad knee. Once inside it was beautiful with a wonderful view of the water. Speaking of water, we only had running water for 60% of our trip. Thankfully there was torrential rain every night (except the second to last evening), so we got drenched … er, I mean, to rinse off.

FYI, it’s not terribly romantic to spend your honeymoon un-bathed. It wasn’t a huge deal though, since the bed was so uncomfortable that hubby and I ended up sleeping separately on the sofa and loveseat at night.

Despite it all, we really did have a great time. We got our luggage back on day two, and the water typically came on every other day. The food was fantastic and the experience of walking the streets in Sicily and visiting the old churches and the Mediterranean were unsurpassed. I loved the comfortable pattern we fell into, waking up to the sound of the ocean, getting a pastry before heading to the market for fresh fruit, bread and cheese. We’d snack on our purchases during the afternoon with a glass of wine, go for a walk or read and have a delicious supper every night followed by gelato on the beach. Neither of us was ready to leave when the time came.

I’m really glad hubby didn’t just take me home.

There’s a Chicken Truck!

Recently hubby and I were in the car, he had just finished driving us through a scary stretch in the torrential rain when I turned to him and complimented his motor-vehicle operational skills. He looked out the window at the surrounding traffic and asked, “What?”

I repeated myself, “You’re a good driver”

He looked more confused than before.

Alright, you egotistical maniac, how many times do you need to hear me praise you?

For the third time, “You’re a good driver”, this time v – e – r – y c – l – e – a – r – l – y.

Hubby laughed and thanked me. Then he told me what he’d heard.

“There’s a chicken truck,” followed the second time by “Can we drive it?”

If anyone ever asked YOU if they could take a chicken truck for a spin, you’d probably assume you heard them wrong, but hubby knows better than that. Of COURSE I would want to drive a Chicken Truck; he just wondered where I saw one… (And by the way, I totally DID see one this weekend! I about died!)

I love, love, LOVE livestock. One day, when we’re not renting a home in a cul-de-sac, I’m going to have chickens and a Holstein cow. Mostly I’m excited about the cow. His name will be Sir Loin and he will wear a purple sash.

I once dreamt of having 59 cows, all wearing green and orange silk sashes. Hubby and I would walk them, 4 at a time, around the pasture each evening, and the 59th cows, the most important cow, Sir Loin, wore a purple sash and was walked privately in the sunset, after all of the other cows were put away for the night.

I was successful in convincing him to one day make room in our hearts (and our yard) for “The Loin”, but hubby swears he will never walk any cow, Sir or otherwise, on a sashes of any color no matter what the time of the day.

And um, yeah, I do totally dream of cows.