First Day of School!!

Today was the first day of school in our area. Yeah! Back to a routine! Although who's going to unload my dishwasher and do my laundry each day? No, seriously, who? Anyone? Hello?

Bailey rides the bus and her bus stop is just a couple of houses down from ours. So, this being the first day of school we never know how on time the school bus will be. I was given strict instructions that I was not allowed to walk her to the bus (I wasn't really going to - I was just teasing her in telling her that I was gonna do it - honest!), nor was I allowed to sit in my car in the driveway and wait for the bus to come get her. So, I completely planned on watching her go out the door and then getting in my car and driving off to work. However, Rominal had other plans. HE was going to stand in the driveway and watch his baby until the bus came along to pick her up - and no one was gonna tell him otherwise. He only does this once a year and he wasn't going to budge anyway, so I gave up on telling him that she wasn't going to be happy. Since he was waiting, I decided to wait with him. We somewhat hid behind my van, so we weren't totally obvious. I don’t think she was upset with us anyway - we could occasionally see her smiling back at us. The bus was about 25 minutes late today - hope she made it to school on time today.

There is supposed to be a break here, but the program is giving me trouble - so pretend the next sentence is a new paragraph.

This post is mainly so that I can share a picture. I took a picture of her this morning, as I have done every morning on her first day of school. However, the picture I took this morning was much more subdued than in previous years, so I won't include today's picture (also I haven't downloaded it off of my camera yet - another reason to not include it). The picture below is by far one of my favorite pictures of her. It was taken on her first day of kindergarten. It shows her excitement and eagerness. Poor thing - she didn't know what she was getting into. I wonder if she knew then what she knows now would she still be that excited. Actually, she was very excited for school to start today - although she'd never let me photograph it.

Final word - or is it . . .

Ok - so I really shouldn't post this, but since I opened it up last week I figured what the heck. This week at Weight Watchers I didn't lose anything. Nadda, zero, zilch. I also didn't gain anything, so I do have that to be pleased about. But my cynical side would say that I didn't lose anything because I went and opened my mouth up last week and talked about my weight loss struggles - and I don't really believe that - - or do I? Mooohaahaahaaa (evil laugh)

I'm not too surprised that I didn't lose this week, since I had a big weight loss last week. My body has had the same pattern for a while now, lose big one week, nothing the next, then 0.4 or 0.2 for a couple of weeks and then start all over again. But when your in the nothing week it's hard to remember the bigger weeks. My leader this week had an appropriate message that hit home with me. She was saying that whenever anyone asked you how much weight you have to lose you should always say 5 pounds. 5 pounds is a whole lot easier to grasp than a much larger number. We've all lost 5 pounds at some point in our lives - sometimes in one day if your not feeling good. 5 pounds seems "do-able." For example, if at the beginning of my weight loss journey I was thinking all along that I had to lose 50 pounds I would have gotten discouraged and quit right away. Instead I have focused on each mini-goal and that seems to have worked for me. And I'm not saying that I am going to stop at 50, I'm just using that as a number for now. After all, I only have to lose 5 more pounds. See how well that works?

Anyway, I just thought that in case my 3 readers were checking my blog daily to see if today would be the day that I had made it to 50 pounds lost - well, today ain't it. I said it might take me 4 months - and it looks like that might be the case - but that's ok. Those months will pass no matter what. So, no more posts about weight for a while (unless I change my mind) - just to be sure that I don't jinx it.

One more thing I will pass along that's good from this week - I met with my doctor on Monday and I am now off of one of my blood pressure medicines. I had been taking Cozar for about the last 3 years (I'm guessing - I can't tell you how long I've been on it - could be 5 years for all I know). I'm testing not taking it now - meaning that I've been monitoring my blood pressure now that I haven't taken any this week. My blood pressure has remained consistent and at good numbers - so things are looking good! And the even better part is that Cozar had recently gone up in price - apparently there isn't a generic equivalent and the insurance companies figured that out. So, if I can stay off of this medicine, I'll be saving $50.00 per month! Yeah! Now, the realist in me must say, well, the savings in Cozar will make up for the expense of weight watchers, but I'm not gonna do that. Instead, my realist self and I are going to enjoy a glass of water while I pretend that it is a chocolate malt. Ummmmm, chocolate.

Mood Sways

Do you ever have some really good news that kinda sets your mood for the next couple of days/weeks? Or does bad news make your outlook completely different as well? Yeah? Me too.

I haven't posted much about my diet because, well, I think it would make me more accountable than I am already. It would be difficult for me if I posted on how I think I'm doing and then have a bad couple of weeks. That's too much pressure for me. But, I guess I'm about to do just that. So here goes.

Since I started my Weight Watchers journey, I've been pretty consistent in my weight loss. I might not have lost as much as I would have liked to each week, but I've at least dropped each week. On the very rare occasions when I did gain, it was 1 pound or less. So, you can imagine how I've felt after having two weeks in a row where I gained. Granted, I was out of town for my brother's wedding and the week before that my friend Jae visited. These are normal activities and I should have learned how to deal with them by now, but I still have the attitude that food consumed while on vacation or with out-of-town guests doesn't count. Well, turns out it does. Ha! Who knew?

So, back to my initial thought - I was feeling pretty down - thinking that maybe I had hit a plateau and who was I to think that I could really finish this thing anyways. I'm still often shocked that I've made it this far. But my leader suggested that we try new activities during the week and I tried walking. I only got to walk 3 times during the week - and I'm counting the week now not as Monday through Sunday, but as Wednesday through Wednesday since I weigh in on Wednesdays. Each walk I did was about 45 minutes long and I was walking pretty fast. I'd put in my earphones and walk to the beat of whatever music I was listening to. I came home drenched!

To my surprise and delight, I dropped 2.8 pounds this week which knocked off the weight I gained during the two previous weeks plus a bit extra. I'm now feeling like I'm ready to get back on and ride this thing out. My outlook is so much better - the world is a happy place again. I'm now setting my sights on my next BIG number - 50 pounds lost. And again, I'm hesitant to put this in writing because it might take me 4 months to get there (gad it'd better not take me that long!), but I can see it on the horizon.

So, for my 3 readers and anyone else who might want to (excuse the pun) weigh in on the matter - how should I celebrate 50 pounds lost? Clearly, going out for ice cream is out of the question, although a friend jokingly did suggest that. I'm completely open to suggestions, and of course - money IS an object.

Why I like driving better than flying

We recently returned home from a trip to Boulder to see my brother David get married to his long-time love, Lauren. We make annual trips to Colorado and typically we drive. This trip was to be such a short one that we decided it was best to fly. I'm now re-thinking that decision.

Side note - When did flying become so much like riding on a bus? I remember when I was young that people used to get dressed up to fly. It used to be a big deal. Not anymore. I saw one guy on the plane dressed in jeans and a small tank top - it wasn't appropriate. Then, after he took his seat, and he immediately removed his boots and then his socks! Is this normal?

Anyway, back to flying. Our departing flight was delayed at the gate. We were told that we had to wait on a mechanic to come fix the back door or something along those lines. After about an hour, a mechanic-looking guy walked with purpose through the plane. Once he got to the back of the plane we heard a door slam and then he walked back through the plane to the front. Apparently all the back door needed was a good slam to get it shut. If that's all it was, I could have done that! I can slam doors, honest I can! Unfortunately, no one asked me to help out.

After the door was slammed properly, we taxied over to the runway. Of course, there was a line of planes waiting to depart. Finally it was our turn. We started down the runway, engines roaring and then the engines suddenly slowed down and we made an abrupt turn off of the runway. The pilot announced that a warning light had gone off and they would have to get a mechanic to check it out or possibly get us transferred to another plane. I'm thinking another plane sounds REAL good right about now. I take a look at Rominal and he is in good spirits telling me that you just have to laugh it off. He was trying to keep me from getting panicked. After a while the pilot comes back on and says that we are now cleared for take-off. But what about the warning light? Did the just unplug it? Nothing was mentioned. Ok - laugh it off, Wendy. Take your mind off of the warning light. We take off without a hitch and finally get to Colorado Springs about 2 hours later than we were supposed to. Now granted, if we had driven, it would have taken us about 13 hours and we arrived in around 8 hours. Don't worry - I'll show my math. We left the house at 3:00pm (Texas time) and didn't arrive until around 10:00 (Colorado time) - so that was 8 hours total. So, the plane was 5 hours faster on this trip.

For our return trip, we were scheduled on a Sunday flight out of Colorado Springs. American Airlines has 6 flights out of Colorado Springs to DFW every day. For some reason, our flight was cancelled. By the time we got to the airport and found out, the only other flight that day was booked. I even asked about flights out of Denver. Rominal was so mad that he had to go sit down. He couldn't even hold a conversation. So, my only choice was to get ourselves booked on the next flight out of Colorado Springs for the next day. I rented us another car and we drove back out to my parent's house. I called to confirm our flight arrangements on Sunday night and discovered that they had booked Bailey on the return flight, but not me and Rominal. AGGGGGHHHH!!! Luckily, there were still seats available and we were booked as well. However, they would not let us get seat assignments. They said that this had to be done at the airport.

Monday comes along and we go to check into our flight and the only seats available are in the very last row - the seats that used to be occupied by a closet according to the flight attendant who was joking with us on the flight. So, there's no window. Fine, whatever. However, after this flight I now know though that I MUST look out a window or I start to get car sick. I had the fan thingy on high blowing on me as we were landing.

So, time-wise, our scheduled flight was on Sunday at 3:15 (Colorado time). We left for the airport at 1:00 that Sunday. We didn't get home until around 5:00 the next day (Texas time). That's 27 hours total! We could have driven both ways in this time. And, if we had driven, I could have packed whatever I wanted, I could have looked out the window all that I wanted, I could have made Rominal stop to let me go to the bathroom anytime I wanted (I'm NOT going on a plane) and I wouldn't have had someone in front of me leaning back into my magazine. I'm thinking we are driving this October.