Happy Easter

Enjoy your day. Find lots of eggs. Eat too much. Get an enormous sugar high.

Why is it so much work?

Is Easter supposed to be this much work? I'm not even cooking tomorrow and I've still got tons to do.

• hardboil eggs for dying
• dye eggs
• fill plastic eggs for hunt tomorrow
• fill the kid's easter baskets
• do a load of socks and chonies
• cook dinner
• write a paper for class

Actually, that's not that much. Not bad. Have a happy Easter everybody.

I did it!

I did my weekly weigh in this morning and to my great surprise I lost another 3 pounds. I have lost a total of 57 pounds. This puts me past the half way point. I only have 53 pounds to lose. I can say "only" because I've already come this far. I never even thought I'd make it. I've rounded the corner and can see a pair of skinny jeans at the end of the tunnel. I haven't been at my current weight since before Katie was born. In case you don't know, Katie turned 6 in October. Over 6 years. I'm now two pounds away from a weight I haven't seen in almost 8 years. It's wonderful. I could go out right now and buy a pair of size 14 jeans. A size that I haven't worn since just after Mikel was born. Mikel just turned 8.

It feels incredible. All the hard work is paying off. Each time the scale drops is just more motivation to keep going. My cousin is getting married next month. I need to go shopping for a dress and for the first time, in a loooooooong time, I'm excited about going shopping for clothes for myself. I might actually have fun.

Next I'll be running with scissors

Now that I've blown it and missed a couple of days I'm going to throw caution to the wind. I'll run with scissors while eating a lollipop. That's just how I roll.

My parents, my brother, and his kiddos left for the desert today. The whole house to ourselves for three days. Now that's a happy Easter.

My kids get two weeks off for "spring break". They had three weeks off for Christmas. It's anarchy in the Central Unified district. We know how to par-tay here in the central valley folks. That's not a crime spree, those are my relatives.

I just finished reading Rhett Butler's People. It was really interesting to read the story from Rhett's point of view. Being a HUGE, lifelong, Gone With the Wind fan I was skeptical, but pleasantly surprised. As with the other sequel/whatever you want to call it (Scarlett), it was like a continuation of the original. Margaret Mitchell would be proud. Although as I understand it, her estate must approve of the books/writing/authors. I can't say that I'd want a remake of Gone With the Wind, but movies of the two newer books would be interesting. I don't know if they could ever top Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh. It just doesn't get any better than those two.

Well there goes my shot at a prize

I can't believe I missed another day! Oh well. Happy late St. Patrick's day. I wish I could say that I was off drinking lots of green beer, but I wasn't. I was glued to my couch watching Dancing with the Stars. I think Adam Corolla is going to go home first. He looked so uncomfortable. Steve Guttenberg looked like he was having such a good time that I totally overlooked his mistakes. Priscilla Presley scares me. She looks like a plastic surgery nightmare. Does her face even move any more? Cheek implants and botox have not been kind to her. Yikes. Unfortunately American Idol wins out tonight, so I'll be missing the ladies, or at least most of them. I hope they do better than the guys. Go girls!!!!!!!!!!

Don't send the cheesecake just yet

I think I may have turned the corner. I can successfully breathe out of one of my nostrils today. I hate breathing through my mouth. It just bugs me. I'm weird like that.

Today is Mikel's birthday. He's 8 years old. Ok, maybe the cheesecake wouldn't be such a bad idea. I'm the mother on an 8 year old. Frankly I'm amazed we made it this far. He's still alive and healthy. How 'bout that huh? I will say in the last few weeks things have started to turn around. He's been seeing his therapist for about 6 weeks now and while he hasn't been willing to talk to her much, the things she's been able to help me with have made a difference. He's been diagnosed as having ADHD. Which would certainly explain why he bounces off the walls. She hasn't recommended any medication and thinks that there are things we can do for him without resorting to that just yet. I'm relieved. I'm not sure H would go for medicating our son. Of course he needs to be medicated himself, but that's a whole other post. Any hoo, we had Mikel's party last week and it was great. Lots of friends and family. I made an awesome army cake. Mikel helped with the decorating. He was quite proud of himself, I was too.

Happy birthday Mikel, many happy returns.

That's it

I've caught the plague. If you don't hear from me tomorrow, send cheesecake.

It's about dang time!

Finally! I weighed myself yesterday and it said the same damn weight it's said for the past three weeks. So when I went in this morning for the official weigh in, imagine my surprise when it said I weighed two pounds less!!!! I don't know what made the difference. I decided to just not care and I knew that I would eventually start to lose weight again. I tried to eat a little more and just barely made it over 1600 calories. Who would have thought that you would have to work to eat more than 1600 calories? Isn't that just the craziest thing you've ever heard? I even ate fast food. Crazy huh? Taco Bell, Subway, and Panda Express. Of course I can't just go in and order whatever I want, but I still get to eat at some of my favorite places. I feel so much better now. I was really beginning to get pissed off.

Happy Friday everyone!!

I wish I could eat

and

and

My body part?

The other day I grabbed Mikel for a hug and held his head to my chest. The upper part of my chest to be exact. He told me not to hug him like that because his chin was touching my "body part", meaning my breast. I just thought it was so funny that he didn't use a different word.

I've gone four weeks at the same weight and I'm passed frustration and moving full speed ahead to pissed off. The only thing I can think of is that I'm not eating enough. The problem is, I'm not hungry. I don't want to force myself to eat, but I want to lose the rest of this weight. I'm about half way through and some sort of progress would be nice. I don't think I need to excercise any more. I walk for an hour every day and three times a week I do a half hour of strength training. My measurements haven't changed so I don't think I'm losing fat but gaining muscle. I lost, unfortunately my fat is not.

I wish I was

• on a beach
• enjoying the sun
• with a frosty beverage in my hand
• reading a good book
• chowing down on some awesome food
• listening to good music

If anyone is going to Jamaica any time soon, I fit in a suitcase.

I'm tired a lot

I wonder why that is. I've gone to the doctor and had all kinds of blood work and tests done and believe it or not, I'm exceptionally healthy. My liver enzymes are back to normal, cholesterol is good, blood pressure is perfect, and my blood sugar is good. My thyroid is normal. I take all my vitamins and excercise 5-6 days a week. So I'm still not sure why I'm so dang tired all the time. Last night I tossed and turned all night long, until about 4am and then Katie woke me up at 4:45am because she wanted goldfish. Somewhere around here on the page, the bottom I think is my weight loss ticker. I've lost 52 pounds. So, I should be feeling better right? My doctor thinks it's stress. I think if I get any more stressed one day I'll fall asleep and wake up ten years later.

Oops!

I missed a day. Birthday parties and a dozen hyper children will do that to ya. The party was great. If we are unfortunate enough to still be living with my parents when Katie's birthday comes around again we'll be going to Chuck E. Cheese. My parents are entirely too anal about how their house looks. A gang of 8 years old really doesn't care if the lawn has been mowed or if the shelves were dusted. They spent the whole day cleaning. Personally, I make sure the clutter has been removed and any obvious dirt is cleaned up and save the real cleaning for after the party. You still have to pick up once everyone leaves any way. Why clean twice? I did manage to take pictures this time! Cake and all. Hopefully I can actually manage to get them on this computer and posted at some point before his next birthday.

Partay

We're having Mikel's birthday party tomorrow. His birthday is actually next weekend, but he has three baseball games then, so the party comes first. We have our priorities in order. Party, presents, and cake come before athletics. Maybe I'll actually get to take some pictures. I don't have any pictures of Katie's last birthday party. I was busy running around like a maniac. I don't think I even sat down to talk to any body. It was crazy. For extra fun tomorrow we're having twice as many people over as we did for Katie's party. If you never hear from me again I was tragically killed in a bizarre cake decorating accident.

Things I love about my kids

1. Their soft, squishy cheeks
2. Their ability to sleep through the night
3. When they clean up their room
4. Their necks (except my son's right after baseball practice, STINKY!)
5. My daughter's tiny little ears/hands
6. My son's big hugs
7. Their laughter
8. Their ability to sleep through the night
9. They're darn good kids
10. They're so dang smart (I'm not sure I had anything to do with it either)
11. They way they both snore
12. Katie toots whenever she coughs or sneezes. (it's cute now, but that will change)
13. Mikel can make himself a cheese sandwich

Things I'd rather be doing right now

1. Anything else
2. Moving to Jamaica
3. Hiring a nanny
4. Hiring a tutor
5. Building a dungeon
6. Having my nails pulled out with rusty pliers
7. Setting my hair on fire
8. Drinking gas and pissing out a fire
9. Being run over by a truck hauling bricks
10. Being drug over hot coals
11. Being covered in honey and then covered in fire ants

Things I bought today

1. gas
2. Deadly Deceptions by Linda Lael Miller
3. lunch at Panda Express
4. cake mix for Mikel's birthday party
5. #8 candle for Mikel's birthday cake
6. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett (I got this from the library and then lagged on reading it and couldn't finish it by the time they wanted it back and somebody else requested it, so I had to give it back. So I gave in and bought it which was what I wanted to do in the first place. Darn Oprah and her book club!)

Things I wished I had done today

1. Moved to Jamaica
2. Made margaritas
3. Won the lottery
4. Got a pedicure
5. Lost 58 pounds
6. Slept in until noon
7. Hired a housekeeper

My brain is mush

I drove 6 hours yesterday, moved a storage unit and a half into a truck, drove 6 hours back today and unload a truck. I'm so tired my eyelashes are sleepy. We couldn't fit all of our stuff in the truck, so at some point we'll be making another trip. But at least the bulk of our house is now local and accessible. I'm going to shower now and pass out for at least two days.

Wow! I completely skipped February

I had this big plan to post all about my birthday and other stuff and then, I'm not exactly sure what happened. Any who, I signed up for NaBloPoMo again, cuz' they've done and gone monthly on us. That's right, it's not just for November any more! Maybe this will keep the fire lit under my tush. I have to get moving, literally. I'm moving my house out of storage in Hemet to storage in Fresno. Those of you that live in California may know that there is a six hour trip in between each of those cities. We're leaving today and comin' home tomorrow. I'm just all kinds of excited. Mikel started baseball pratice and we're trying to get LaKatie into a flamenco dance class if the instructor will call us back. I went back to school to get my degree in child development. I'm glad I started with one class. It's harder than I thought it would be. I just took my first test. Coffee's done, gotta go! Everyone enjoy their Saturday!