My new do!

Today I did something that I haven't done in a very long time. I got a hair cut. This morning, I looked like this:

And now, I look like this.

I'm quite pleased with my new look and I feel like I lost 10 pounds. Actually, I'm really hoping that I did lose 10 pounds since I know I have gained a bit this week due to my trip to the State Fair of Texas.

When Bailey was in 2nd grade, she cut her hair and donated it to Locks of Love. I was (and still am) very proud of her for doing that. I've toyed with the idea of doing it myself for quite some time, but you have to have 10 inches and that always made me scared that my remaining hair would be too short. My hair had finally gotten long enough that I was ok with losing 10 inches.

In case you are not familiar with Locks of Love, here's the link to read more. I'll be mailing them my ponytail tomorrow.

The State Fair of Texas

My mom joined us for a trip to the State Fair of Texas today, so she is helping me write this post. You will notice how grammatically correct the post is – although we are both exhausted so it might not be perfect.

First of all, Charla (my Weight Watchers leader) if you are reading this – look over there! What is that? Why, it’s a shiny blog! Maybe you should go read that one instead.

Ok? Is she gone? All right – and now we can get on with our culinary trip through the State Fair of Texas or is it the State Fair of Junk Food? I should point out that we started the day with chicken fried bacon. Yup – I said that right, chicken fried bacon. I was so overwhelmed by the thought of chicken fried bacon that I didn’t even think to take a picture of that – so you will just have to imagine taking a piece of bacon, dredging it in batter, and then frying it to a crispy golden color. Sounds gross? You are correct! But the honey mustard dipping sauce wasn’t bad. We figured we could get away with this because it was 10:00 in the morning – and bacon is after all a breakfast food.

It was too early to have lunch, so as we walked around a building we nibbled on the free ice cream cone provided by the Borden Company. Again – didn’t take a picture of this, but just imagine me eating a soft serve ice cream cone. That was good. Then we had a sample of beef quesadilla. Again – just a bite, so no picture. Ditto with a jalapeño pickle sample. By this time we had worked up an appetite for some lunch. I was on the hunt for fried grilled cheese sandwiches, with tomato soup dipping sauce that I had read about in the paper. Yummy!

Bailey had a hankering for a funnel cake, so we all nibbled on that as well.

So, now it was Fletcher’s corny dog time. This alone is worth the $10.00 parking fee at the fair. At least Rominal ate the majority of this – although I did manage to get one bite.

As we were walking around the various buildings, a strong smell overcame us. We had no choice but to partake of some chocolate fudge. They knew what they were doing, the evil fudge makers.

After this, it was Rominal’s turn again. Another must for him is Jack’s French fries.

We walked around for a while, lost some money at the Midway games, and then we were really hungry. Rominal had a hotlink and mom and I shared a gyro.

Bailey just had a snow cone which turned her mouth red. I’m sure that color is completely natural.

Unfortunately, Bailey had a birthday party to go to, so we had to leave for the day. If we had more time, we would have been able to find the deep fried s’mores or the fried snickers bars. Gosh darn it! Needless to say, I haven’t logged in my food journal today – but for the record, we walked from 9:30am until 3:15pm – so that should be worth something, right Charla? Yeah, I thought you were still here.

The State Fair of Texas is wonderful – can’t wait to go again. Maybe tomorrow. . . .

My Readers . . .

Don't I just have the best readers? It's rare that I actually get to see one of my readers as they read my blog. How exciting!


Twister (or Cow) didn't know that he had missed Rominal's birthday. He's quite upset now.


He did tell me to wish Rominal a belated happy birthday and to tell him that he likes the goatee also.

Happy Birthday Sweetie!

Today is my dear, sweet man's 44th birthday! Happy Birthday Dear!
I couldn't decide which picture of him to put up. There are so many good ones.

This one is from a while back, but it was taken the same time as mine above. We were at Galveston. He looks so good with the goatee!

This one is also from a while back, and I had just gotten my camera. I was playing with the black and white settings. He looks so good with the goatee!

This one is from his surprise 40th birthday party. We got him good that year, and I remember how happy he was that night. Too bad you can't see his goatee.

And this picture I just love because it shows his genuine smile. Too bad there's no goatee. He's now indulging me and is growing his goatee back. This just goes to show you how great he really is. He doesn't like it, but because he knows how much I LOVE IT, he's doing it for me. So, if you see him today, first tell him Happy Birthday and then be sure to tell him how much you love the goatee.

Happy Birthday Sweetie! I love you!

I DID IT!!!!

NOTE - IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE EARLIER POST FROM TODAY - READ THAT FIRST.

I did it! Yup - today I hit 50 pounds total lost. I actually went over a bit- my total lost is now 51 pounds! I did a quick Google search and 50 pounds is equivalent to 400 gallons (1 pound is 8 gallons), or maybe a kindergartner. It felt pretty good at my weight watchers meeting today - getting a 50lb disk that they give you for losing that much weight. You get one for 25lbs, 50lbs and 75lbs, etc. I've been going to the same meeting for a while now, so a lot of people see me each week and they were quite pleased for me too. We all encourage each other.

Last month (see post) I asked my 3 readers what I should do to celebrate this accomplishment. I got lots of good responses, and some (well, really just two) not so good ones. It was suggested that I have some "boudoir" pictures taken of myself. Um, no. Won't be happening. And an ice cream celebration clearly wouldn't be appropriate either. What I did decide on was new dishes. I thought that this was very appropriate because each day when I use them, I will be reminded of how far I have come.

I've been wanting new dishes for a while now. One reason is that I have a friend who is quite the pottery snob. He makes fun of my cheap dishes whenever possible - and I guess his opinion is rubbing off on me. (Thankfully, his suggestion about having boudoir pictures taken did not rub off on me. His suggestion for the ice cream party will also be ignored.) My dishes do have one good thing going for them - I LOVE how I can pick up 4 dishes at a time with one hand out of the dishwasher - one between each finger. That should give you an idea of how lightweight and thin my current dishes are. I believe that you could read the newspaper through them - if you were so inclined. One complaint that I have about my dishes are that they roll around every time I open up my dishwasher too "eagerly." I don't know about you, but I am always very eager to do dishes and I tend to yank open my dishwasher door with too much gusto. My dishwasher door has a slight slant to it so that if I open up my door and pull out the bottom drawer too quickly, all of my plates start to roll towards the front of the dishwasher. It drives me crazy! I have to reposition them back into place because I'm that kind of person. So, I noticed that the dishes that Jae gave me (see previous post on that) didn't roll around in my dishwasher and I had a lightbulb go off in my head. What if all of my dishes were square! Then they wouldn't roll around in the dishwasher! Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner! So, a couple of weeks ago I picked out some really cool looking square dishes. Because I was thinking this would be the day I hit 50lbs, I have been telling Rominal all week that he should plan on going shopping tonight, as we have some dishes to buy!

And now for what my husband did to make me cry this morning -

Well, my super-dee-duper sweet hubby surprised me this morning by having a set of these new square dishes all set up on the kitchen table so that I would see them first thing this morning when I came downstairs. What a great guy! Made me cry happy tears. I'm happy to report that I put them in my dishwasher and did the eager dishwasher door test and they stayed put!

As for my weight loss goals - I still haven't set my final goal. After all, as my Weight Watchers leader would say, I only have 5 more pounds to lose. (see previous post on that)

Happy Tears

I have a problem. I cry very easily. TV commercials make me cry. Cute little kittens can make me cry. Well, not really all of the time - but it's an example. My Grandmother would do the same thing - something would "touch" her the right way and she would tear up. I remember we had lunch with my grandparents shortly after we had gotten married and Grandma was so happy for us that she started to cry. Just the thought of her being so happy for us makes me tear up now.

Anyway - Rominal, my dear sweet husband, did something so nice this morning that it made me cry. I'll tell you what he did later today, but it was a very nice thing. I ruined my makeup even - but with happy tears.

Clean house smell!

Don’t you just love the smell of bleach/cleaning stuff in your house? I love how it makes your house smell clean. I mopped my floors today. Honest – I did! I’ll wait while you pick your jaw up off of the floor. Go ahead and take your time. Better? Good. I’ll continue. Now every time I come down the stairs I get a whiff of cleaning stuff. Now granted, if I mopped more often, maybe this would be a smell that I was more familiar with, but that’s not the point. Who wants to mop anyway? Certainly not me.

I was reminded today why I dislike mopping – it’s kind of a pain. And apparently I’m out of practice, since I mopped myself into a corner. Fine – I admit it - it’s been a really long time since I last mopped!

When we built this house, I purposely chose tiles, kitchen counters, and carpets that would hide dirt. And let me tell you – I chose very well. So, my lack of mopping is well, my secret, until now. You won’t tell, right?

Maybe in the future I’ll just spill a bit of cleaning stuff on the floor – maybe I don’t really have to mop to get that “clean house” smell. Hmmmm. . . . something to think about.

My Man!

Well, apparently a hurricane is approaching! The Girl Scouts and I were all set to go camping this weekend, but as the weather reports got gloomier (is that a word? Must be, the spell checker didn’t “ding”me) and gloomier, and parents pulled their kids from the trip, we decided to cancel. So, in it’s place we – and by “we” I’m referring to my better half of the Girl Scout world – my other leader. Couldn’t do it without her – she’s another post in herself at another time. Anyway, we decided to have a pizza night and “semi” sleep-over at my house tomorrow night. We are asking the girls to wear their pajamas and slippers and we will order pizza and probably make cookies. Any excuse to make cookies is a good one in my book. When I called my dear, sweet husband Rominal to tell him that we would have no less than 8 pre-teen girls at our house on Friday night from 6:30 until 11:00pm his first response was, “What?!?” However, today when I met him for lunch he had some wonderful ideas on things we could do with the girls to make the time go smoothly. He’s even going to help clean up the house tonight to get ready – although we will probably need to clean up more afterwards – but my other leader is allergic to cats so we want to make sure to vacuum and clean so that she doesn’t get all sniffily. What a great guy! He’s still refusing to wear his pajamas to the party, but that’s probably for the better.